Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Although I'm nominally the person coordinating Westercon 77's two official functions, I won't be around the convention that much. I'm doing the driving to Santa Clara on Thursday morning, but Kayla is in charge of Site Selection and at the moment, the plan is for her to drive us home on Monday. Martin Pyne is chairing the Westercon Business Meeting. Anyway, today I did my part by doing the printing of the site selection ballots and Westercon Business Meeting papers. It's appropriate that I was using the large printer that we bought for Westercon 74 because we had to be totally self-sufficient for our on-site printing, and that we also used to print the Program Book.

Lisa and I printed all of the program books, including collating and stapling them. It's hard to say whether that was cheaper than having it printed, but it did mean that we didn't have any wasted copies. Had we run out of program books on site, we could have printed more of them, and then post-con we printed what we needed to send publications to our non-attending members. We ran a huge part of that printer's service life off of it in a very short time, and, after consulting with the Westercon 77 treasurer, I personally bought the printer off of the convention at half what the convention paid for it, which seemed pretty reasonable to me.

Our printing needs for Westercon 77 in Santa Clara next weekend are much less than Tonopah's were, and the papers are now packed up with the stuff like the ballot box, cash box, and the Gavel of Westercon to take to BayCon/Westercon.

I was mostly a spectator this long holiday weekend (except during the grocery shopping trip), but I have had Words with Kayla, who was changing earrings multiple times per day, for good and sufficient reasons. Unfortunately, both earring holes ended up bleeding a little bit. We applied witch hazel and I've suggested that we leave the simple pearl studs in place for a few days and apply the Claire's Pierced solution 2-3x/day to help them heal a bit.

In the meantime, I need to get some sleep so I can get back on my normal work schedule tomorrow.

Hey, look: Kayla made a public entry, in her role as Westercon 77 (2027) Site Selection Administrator. I'm still the lead maintainer of Westercon.org, so I posted the announcement after she worked out the wording with her deputy and got sign-off from the Santa Clara in 2027 bid. I guess eventually I should have her sign up for an account on the website so I can hand that job over to her as well.

Kayla had a big day today, and went to breakfast at the Wigwam this morning instead of her normal Thursday, for reasons she explains on her journal. While she was right with me here all day, it was a a long work day, with some pretty intense work keeping us busy. It's a good think she went to breakfast today, because there won't be time for it on Thursday, on account of I have to do some work early in the morning to take the place of our person in India who normally sets up our daily workload because he has the day off. In the meantime, I'm running short of sleep, so I'm going to see if I can stop Kayla from bouncing off the walls (understandably so) and get some rest tonight.

One of the tasks that Lisa and I had yesterday (and a contributing factor to why we got home relatively late) was that I decided that I'd better buy a new computer. While the one I have here is working okay, the vendor won't renew the hardware service plan. Some of you may recall that I used that plan last year. Also, it still is on Windows 10, which is also nearing end of service, and while I could and will update the machine, it did seem like it was time to do something. So we went to Best Buy to look at computers. We also were hoping to get a machine before The Regime's tariffs double the cost of the computers for the benefit of His Orange Highness enriching himself at the expense of everyone else.

There's no obvious direct replacement for my current machine. I want what is often placed as a "gaming laptop," not for gaming, but for video editing. That ups the cost because I want a powerful graphics card and a fair bit of memory. However, when I bought the current machine, the difference was like night and day when doing video work.

The machine we settled on buying wasn't in stock, but they said that they could have it by Friday. They offered free delivery, but given that package-delivery services have done things like just toss packages over the fence, that didn't seem like a good idea. Lisa reminded me that Kayla was coming into Reno on Friday. The sales person confirmed that as long as she brings the documentation for the sale, Kayla can pick it up for me, so she'll come over after her doctor's appointment on Friday afternoon.

After buying the computer, I bought several computer accessories. Among these was a USB-to-USB-C cable, which I need for my new iPhone and the external auxiliary battery, both of which only have double-ended USB-C cables. Also, I got an external hub with an Ethernet port in it, because the new machine doesn't have a built-in Ethernet jack. The older computer does, and we connect our computers to the wired network that Lisa installed.

I'm not looking forward the the hassle of setting up a new computer. That is one of the reasons I tend to stick with my computers as long as I possibly can. But with luck, this one will work for several years. I'd have to go back and look, but I thought this one lasted four years.

Update: About 4 1/2 years.

Kayla is going to Carson City to a protest march on Saturday, so I need to get as much rest as I can tonight and tomorrow night. At least the scheduled time for the protest is not until Noon, so I don't have to be up too early on Saturday to make the drive over to Carson City.

When Kayla was getting ready to leave today, she found where the strap on her purse that attached to the cell phone pouch had broken. That won't get the old phone back (and it's too late anyway), but at least it's clear what happened.

The rest of today's antics are in kayla_allen's journal, for which you will need to ask permission if you don't have access yet.

The alarm went off at 2:00 AM, much too early for my liking. I dragged myself out of bed, went and set a cup of coffee to brew, and got dressed with minimal prep. While I was answering messages, Lisa came in at 2:30 as we'd discussed last night. I finished the food bar (which she had brought home with her all the way from her train from Munich to Hamburg), took the coffee, and we headed for Reno.

As usual when you shop at WinCo at this hour, there are more shelf-stockers than shoppers, and we spent our shopping dodging forklifts and piles of goods being put on the shelves. However, we had no wait to check out, and we did a very large refill of our pantry.

We got home around 5:30 AM, unloaded everything, and Lisa said goodnight. I had drank enough coffee that I would not be able to go back to sleep, so shortly after 6 PM I walked to the Wigwam and had breakfast. I also retrieved my players club card from the casino, where kayla_allen had left it after she used it yesterday.

Much of my day today was taken up by a Montreal in 2027 Worldcon Bid Committee meeting. As part of my contribution, I sent a message to BayCon/Westercon asking for a bid table for Montreal. I won't necessarily be around for much of BayCon, but Kayla is probably going to be doing stuff there, and the Montreal committee didn't seem to have a problem with her doing the bid table work.

Besides giving me (and Lisa) the SMOFCon quilt, Scott Sanford had another gift for me (and Kayla).

( An Appropriate Beverage for Both of Us )

Of course, you could say that I've already drank the gender fluid. And FYI, this is not a new development, just not one about which I've said much in public until recently.

I mentioned that I ran completely out of wood in the indoor wood box yesterday. That is primarily because Kayla did not feel like going outside in her office clothes, and I knew that there was more wood close at hand if we really needed it. Here is how we stage the firewood.

( Small, Medium, and Large Wood Boxes )

Kayla could have stepped outside and got a few logs if necessary. It was not as if she was unwilling to go outside at all; she walked down to the other end of the property a couple of times on Friday. She just was being a little lazy and leaving the work to me.