Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

For the past two weekends, the local arts council has been running a haunted house on Friday and Saturday nights. The first night it was running, I was startled by this big booming sound at irregular intervals. Once I realized it was coming from the haunted house, I didn't worry about it, although it was disconcerting to have the windows rattling. Last night was the final night, and I managed to get out and see what was causing the big boom.

( Boom Tonight )

It was not quite as impressive as the flame cannons in front of the casino in Melbourne, but still a sight to see. I'm glad they didn't set the building on fire!

Although they now observe it on a convenient Monday or Friday, October 31 is Nevada Day, commemorating the state's admission to the Union. I still contend that this means that Nevada is the only state where Halloween is a state holiday.

( Celebrating Nevada Day )

Because of the pandemic, we did not go anywhere or do anything special for Halloween, and did not get dressed up in any of our costumes. However, travelswithkuma did wear one of his costumes and took a picture with his Jack-o-Lantern. He has an opinion about people who don't wear their masks.

Speaking of COVID, Lisa and I drove to Reno Airport this morning, where Lisa dropped me off at the terminal and drove over to the cell phone lot so we didn't have to pay for parking while I went it to get my PCR test needed to fly to Canada to attend World Fantasy Con. Fingers crossed that there are no cock-ups in the testing and that I have negative results to share with the authorities in Canada on Wednesday. Lisa picked me up and we ran one more errand that came up for one of Lisa's new projects about which I will write when it's completed.

Nevada's admission day is October 31, and while for the past few years the holiday has been moved to the previous Monday, we still celebrate it (such as it is) on the actual day.

( Flying the Flag )

It was a very low-key Halloween for us.

( Pumpkin Time )

Because it's a work night for me and Lisa isn't particularly energetic, we did nothing in the way of fun in costumes this year. But Kuma complained, so Lisa dressed him in his Pirate Samurai costume and we went over to Raley's for some groceries and for Kuma to show off. Many people in the store liked Kuma in his costume.

There's a huge haunted house this year just a block or so away downtown, but I've never been much of a fan of haunted houses, and so I'm leaving it to the people for whom it's more their thing, and wish them a fun time.

Lisa and I did go for a walk after dinner, and I saw a shooting star in the eastern sky, and one of the neighborhood bunnies trying to pretend to be a rock or a bush so we wouldn't see them (the rabbit ran off when I played my flashlight over them). That's about all of the excitement we have this year. We're saving up for the Thanksgiving-Loscon-Arizona-SMOFCon trip.

As Halloween nears, it was time to carve Kuma Bear's jack-o-lantern.

( You can never have enough cute bear photos )

Kuma Bear likes his pumpkins.

Late this afternoon, Lisa and I and travelswithkuma put on our Chicon 7 WSFS flight suits and headed into Reno for Halloween.

( Halloween Night at the Atlantis )

After gambling up to our limit, we went and had dinner at the buffet. One woman came up to our table while I was at the buffet and was very interested in our outfits and the story behind them.

I'd misread when the judging for the casino's costume contest was, and that's unfortunate, because I wouldn't have minded $500 in slot play, and given the relative paucity of people in costume, we might have had a chance, but that's okay. We had a good time anyway. We did not stay out late, however. Lisa was tired, and we'd burned all of the money we can afford to budget for gambling. We walked around the casino a few more times (good for burning some of that buffet food) admiring what costumes there were, then made our way back for the drive home. We also stopped at Raley's to get some sodas on the way home, where the checkout clerk was impressed with our costumed threesome.

I'm glad the weather was nice. I'm also glad that I'm not heading back to the Bay Area this weekend, as apparently tomorrow is the first serious winter storm of the season, with potential for snow over Donner Summit and rain here in Fernley, so it will be a good day for staying home.

We couldn't find any suitable small bear-sized pumpkins in the local stores this year, so we got a small, but still bigger than travelswithkuma pumpkin.

( A Bear and his Pumpkin )

We'll see how this turned out later.

Yesterday evening, Lisa and I and travelswithkuma got into costume — me in my referee uniform, Lisa in her cheerleader outfit, and Kuma Bear as Dangermouse — and went into Reno, where various Halloween-weekend events were announced. We spent a couple of hours walking around the downtown casinos (and Lisa won $5 playing blackjack) and costume-spotting (and being spotted) before going over to the Nugget in Sparks where there was a "Halloween Hoe-Down" and prizes on offer, and besides, we were hungry and were going to have dinner at John's Oyster Bar.

Lisa got some nice comments, and there were other questions to which we'd worked out an answer. When one half-witty fellow said to me, "Why a referee? Why not the quarterback?" Lisa simpered at him and said, "How do you think our team won the game?" He didn't have an answer to that. BTW, to save explanation time, we said that Kuma was the Team Mascot.

Unfortunately, the music was Much Too Loud and full of Too Much Bass, so shortly after signing up, we actually fled that area of the casino and, having had our fill of gambling (Lisa was unhappy about having lost all of the money she'd won earlier and then some), we instead went up to the arcade to play pinball. Unfortunately, they're not keeping their pinball machines in good order, which seriously spoiled the fun.

Just before 11 PM, we went back to the area where the costume festivities were happening. We hadn't quite figured out how the costume judging would happen; had we known what they were actually doing, we might have done a better job of working the system. What happened was that the people hosting the event picked out what they considered the best three costumes and then the crowd picked among them for the prize-paying positions (1/2/3). Because we hadn't "worked the judges" because we'd been driven away by the noise music, we hadn't a chance.

I was pleased that the judges ignored the army of Sexy Nurses and picked three decent costumes, one of which (a very expertly-made gargoyle costume that would have been right at home at any SF/F-genre event) had already caught Lisa's eye. From among the crowd in the area where we were standing we picked up on the fact that the other two finalists (a Headless Bride and Old Lady carrying a Baby) were simple store-bought outfits, while the woman wearing the Gargoyle had built hers from scratch). We were among those cheering the Gargoyle, and she won the $500 first prize.

We stuck around for a little longer, chatting with some folks in lovely outfits that would go quite well with the steampunk crowd (and the woman we spoke to said she was going to some steampunk events). They knew enough about SF/F genre events to have heard of Worldcon and CostumeCon, but hadn't heard that Worldcon was right in Reno this year (aww, too bad!). But then things started getting loud again, and it was getting on toward midnight, so we headed on home. It was only after we got home that we remembered that we'd intended to go shopping at Winco (open 24 hours) while we were in Reno. It's not every day that you have an excuse to go showing off costumes in public like that.

I'm glad we stuck around, and am trying not to be disappointed that we didn't attract enough attention to make the final. Our outfits are a lot better-looking than the typically-cheap store-bought costumes, but OTOH both my referee uniform and Lisa's cheerleader uniform are basically just buying the uniforms from the appropriate companies. Only Kuma's Dangermouse costume is completely hand-made. The Gargoyle deserved her win, and good for her!

As I mentioned last night, the only "new" costume I could throw together on short notice was the Giants Fan-atic. Turns out I wasn't the only person at my office thinking that way.

( Company )

There were prizes for those of us who dressed up, and I took my bag back to my desk without looking at it. Checking it out later, it seemed to consist mostly of candy, which makes it harder on me. (Not impossible; I just have to be careful how much I eat.) But then I spotted the real prize, which was a $15 gift card from Red Lobster. That's actually useful.

I'm glad I got to do something for Halloween other than hang around airports, which is what I'll be doing this Sunday. Maybe I should wear the orange-and-black stuff to SFO on Sunday morning. If I wear the cap rather than the fright wig, I shouldn't be much more than just an enthusiastic local baseball fan, which appears to be a socially acceptable condition in the mundane world.

It's repeating a costume used before, but I have it on hand and it still fits, so I'm in my WSFS uniform and will be heading to the office in a few minutes. Happy Halloween!

One advantage to a costume such as my WSFS uniform is that it is sturdy and wearable; it's pretty much as comfortable as my day-to-day work wear, aside from the hat, which is a bit warm. So I can wear it all day without discomfort, as I am doing today as I wore it to work. A few of my co-workers are in the spirit as well, including one of the administrative assistants upstairs who has a wonderfully cute cat outfit and who wanted her picture taken with me when I stopped by to show off.

I even got out for my customary post-lunch stroll to the shopping center up the road and back. (I made an excuse to go into the store -- I was looking for a brand of crackers I can't find at stores near my home, and indeed did find them there.) I have worn costumes with shoes that are so hard on the feet that I could barely get back and forth from my car to my desk, let alone go for a 3 km walk.