Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

An interruption of my ability to get any Day Jobbe stuff done today (I'd already logged more than eight hours anyway) allowed me to run into Reno/Sparks and do my first heavy grocery shopping in about two weeks. Lisa did not feel like coming to dodge idiots (I can't blame her) but gave me a list of things for me to pick up. I also was able to stop by Work World, where some shirts I'd ordered quite a while ago had come in. Round trip time from when I left Fernley until I got home: about 4 1/2 hours, which isn't bad considering I had four different stores on my list and that there is construction on US-395/I-580 that slowed me down coming home.

The amount I spent felt eye-watering, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'm shopping less often but buying more stuff on each trip in order to reduce the number of times I have to expose myself to crowds, and also that we're spending next-to-nothing on restaurant dining, so it's not surprising that grocery spending has skyrocketed. Fortunately, we have a big house with lots of space to store stuff. It's probably just as well I don't have a Costco membership, or I'd be tempted to buy pallets of stuff just because I could.

The blower fan came back to life on the Astro's air conditioning as I drove into Reno, which was a relief. (One reason I wanted to make a shopping run as soon as I could is because we've had a break in the heat lately, but it's supposed to start warming up again.) It's not fixed; it's just an intermittent failure that we need to try and diagnose. My guess is that it's the fan switch, which has failed in the past, but it could also be the fan motor, or any of the wiring in between. When you drive a thirty-year-old minivan with >400K miles on it, you get to deal with things like wiring that just wears out.

Today was the first day since we got home that we felt well enough to drive into Reno and deliver the Astro to the shop that has worked on it in the past, in order to get the leak in the cooling system repaired. I drove the Rolling Stone, with Lisa following in the minivan, and we dropped it off at American Auto Air & Repair and told them we weren't pressed for time.

After that, we did a few errands, mostly grocery shopping, but not going out to eat. We're still not really recovered, and once we'd made the last shopping stop, we made for home and were happy to get there.

This morning, I packed my overnight bag and set off for Sacramento.

( The Hat Man )

The (mostly) clear skies at Fernley were not to last.

( Should Have Brought my Face Mask )

It got worse as I drove into the mountains.

( Lost in the Smoke )

Heading down the other side didn't get much better.

( Noxious at Nyack )

For most of the trip, my eyes burned and I could taste the smoke, even with the RV air conditioning going full blast. Of course it's vastly harder for those people fighting the fires. I have plenty of respect for them. My mild asthma was more noticeable with all this smoke in the air.

I got to Sacramento and went to the nursing home and spent several hours with my sister, who celebrated her 50th birthday today. I gave her a card from me, Kelli, and Kuma Bear, and also four boxes of the chocolates she likes. We also got some business done that really needed to be done today. I would have stayed longer, but there was Worldcon business to do.

My hotel for this trip is the Crowne Plaza, which (despite being nominally higher in the chain than a Holiday Inn Express) cost less than an Express room, is closer to the skilled nursing facility, and besides, the Express was sold out, even for a Platinum member like me. My status did get me upgraded from one of their "economy" rooms (undersized rooms with small beds) to a king room. I wish I'd remembered my swimsuit, though, because this hotel, unlike the nearby Express, has a hot tub, and I could use something to deal with some muscle aches.

This afternoon was the final pre-con meeting of the San Jose Worldcon 76 division managers. We're only a few days away from the convention. My current plans have us leaving Fernley a week from Monday after work and getting to San Jose on Tuesday. I just hope that I'll have the Astro, because it has the best cargo-carrying capacity. Fingers crossed that the shop gets the repairs done in time.

The meeting went pretty well. In the scheduled two hours, we went through the remaining issues to discuss at the divisional level. Now we go in to the final turn before the convention itself. Although we've had some rough spots, it does seem like the plan is coming together.

I'm happy to be spending the night in a heavily air-conditioned hotel room and that I don't have to be up too early tomorrow morning for the drive home.

I was prepared to sleep in this morning, but the bed wasn't very good and I did wake up in time to watch the very end of yesterday's Australian Open coverage. That, however was as much due to the last match ending quite late down in Melbourne.

( Leaving the Coach and 4 )

I had time to look around this morning after I checked out and before I had breakfast, so I sought out one of the last remaining bits of railroad history in Grass Valley.

( A Little Late for the Train )

I had breakfast at Lumberjack's Restaurant (which is okay, but not as good as the Wigwam or Black Bear Diner). Rather than getting on the freeway, I ambled around surface roads (mostly old CA-20) the short distance to Nevada City. Lisa and I have meant to come spend a few days here exploring the area, probably sometime when we can stay at the hotel that is connected to the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum by rail.

Along the way my phone buzzed at me. I pulled over to look at it. It was a text that purported to be an alert telling me my bank account was locked and providing a phone number to call. This sounded phishy to me, so I called Bank of America at their contact number (not the number in the text). Not to my surprise, they confirmed that there was nothing wrong with my account and this was a fraud attempt that I could safely ignore. With that, I got on CA-20 and headed west.

While I hate driving this road at night or in bad weather, it's not bad at all when the pavement is dry and the weather good. I still can't keep up the pace that other vehicles want to set on this twisting mountain highway, but I use pullouts and get out of the way when I can. As I climbed into the mountains, snow appeared on the trees.

( Pretty When You Don't Have to Drive in It )

I had a couple of errands to run in Reno, and as I completed the last one, the clear sunny skies that I had at Cisco Grove and over Donner Summit had given way to gloomy gray. I was glad to get home. The forecast tonight is for snow, and while the roads are still open with no restrictions as I write this, should the predicted snow arrive, that won't last.

This was my second time across the mountains in two weeks. I'm scheduled to do it again next weekend, weather permitting. At the moment, the long-range forecast looks good. We'll see what it's like in a few days.

I worked out this morning that the set of tires we just replaced lasted about five years and we rolled about 63,000 miles on them over that time. That's not too bad. What's also a bit surprising to me is that even with several very long road trips (San Diego, Portland, Spokane twice, Kansas City), we still managed less than 15K miles/year.

I confirmed with my mechanic in Fremont the arrangements for me reclaiming the Astro this weekend. It's a good thing I didn't try to go on Saturday when he had gone away on a trip; it was parked trapped behind other vehicles in his yard. I have therefore purchased a one-way ticket Reno-Emeryville-Fremont for this Saturday. I'll collect the minivan and stay in a hotel somewhere between Fremont and Sacramento, visit my sister on Sunday, and drive home. Theoretically I could just drive home on Saturday, but I don't want to risk it. Unlike the RV, I can't just easily pull over and take a nap. (I did once stop for the night at the Gold Run rest area on I-80 when driving home in the Rolling Stone because I'd gotten away from work so late that day.)

I'm looking forward to the train ride through the Sierra with all of the snow they've had up there. The drive home is less fun, of course. I'm glad that I don't have to make the trips as often as I used to do.