Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Yesterday was an SFSFC Board of Directors meeting, of which I am currently the corporate Secretary. Among the various items of business was the need to elect directors for three year terms commencing January 1, 2025. SFSFC currently has thirteen directors elected for three-year terms in groups of 5/5/4. This year was the group of 4, and my own seat was one of those up for election.

Because one member was absent, we have to a very short meeting sometime between now and the end of this year to elect officers for next year. Although directors serve three-year terms, officers are elected annually for one-year terms, and the elections for officers have to be of the directors who will be in office as of the start of the year when the officers' terms commence. Whenever possible, we do the officer elections at a separate meeting of the directors who will be in office as of the start of the next year to elect officers that we usually hold immediately after the meeting where we elected directors who take office on January 1 of the following year; however, technically, we must give notice of that extra meeting to everyone who would be eligible to attend it, and I forgot to include that bit in the regular meeting notice. Despite this failing on my part (caused by using a copy of the previous meeting's notice and forgetting to put in the part about electing officers), I was re-elected as a director for another three-year term.

I would have worked on the SFSFC minutes after the meeting, but we needed to get the rather substantial amount of Reno-based errands done, and by the time we got home, I was much too tired to do anything except eat dinner and fall into bed. As I've said before, we try to group our tasks for trips to Reno together for efficiency, but while Reno may not be Los Angeles, is still sprawls a bit, an it can take a while to get to everything.

Today, I attended a Montreal in 2027 Worldcon bid committee meeting. I'm responsible for keeping track of all of our WSFS-related responsibilities as a bid (big surprise there, I'm sure), and we dealt with those as well as lots of other things, including our preparations for SMOFCon, which is only a few weeks away.

Edit, November 18: Revised to clarify the distinction between SFSFC director elections and officer elections, which are separate things and operate under different rules.

My alarm went off just before midnight so I could get ready for Lisa and me to go to WinCo in South Reno for a major shopping expedition. The store was, as usual at that hour, mostly empty except for the throngs of staff restocking shelves. Unlike when we go there mid-afternoon, there's rarely a wait for check out. We got home around 4 AM, unloaded the groceries, and Lisa and I both went to get some sleep.

A few hours later, I woke up with enough time to get breakfast from the Wigwam Restaurant, after when I got ready for an SFSFC board of directors meeting. I'm still Secretary of SFSFC. We got a lot of things accomplished in a short period of time, and I'll be making announcements about some of those things in the near future.

In the early evening, Lisa and I shot more video for a future episode of Railway Legends, Myths, and Stories. I have one completely-edited episode "in the can" and two others that need editing. We want to get a stack of episodes completed so we don't keep falling behind our intended release schedule.

What I need now, however, is sleep.

I have lots of things that need to get done, much of which need to happen before we leave for Loscon/Westercon (we'll leave the day before Thanksgiving), and yet I can't seem to pull myself together to do much of anything. This darn congestion in my head means I'm having trouble thinking straight. Between SFSFC, Westercon, and preparation for SMOFCon, I'm wondering how I'll manage.

At least I did finally remember to make our hotel reservations for staying in Bishop on the way to/from Loscon. It was this morning that I finally remembered that I hadn't made the bookings for Bishop. Ordinarily, I'd use some of those IHG points earned earlier this year; unfortunately, from our one time staying there, we've concluded that the Holiday Inn Express Bishop is not a hotel in which we'd prefer to stay, and instead I've booked nights at the Vagabond Inn. We've had mixed luck with the Vagabond, but we'll give it another chance; at least it has rooms with bathtubs instead of only shower stalls like the HIX.

This morning and early afternoon, I put together the SFSFC board meeting minutes, which is complicated because the corporation has four standing committee, each of which has reports that need to be incorporated into the minutes. I sent them out to the directors for comments, and if there are no objections by the time I get back from Montreal, I will publish them on the SFSFC website.

This afternoon, Lisa, Kuma, and I shot the talk-to-camera parts of the next two episodes of Railway Legends, Myths, and Stories. Now I just need to find the time to edit them. I hope to have an episode out by the end of the month, so that means it has to be done by next weekend.

Before recording, I had to let to fireplace die down (if you've watched, you can probably figure out why). This also let me dig ashes, which were starting to get annoyingly deep. Now I need to get the fire stoked up sufficiently to warm the living room backup.

On the brighter side, we were able to turn the living room into the shooting studio and back again quicker than we have before. Practice makes perfect.

Today started very promisingly and ended badly. It could have been worse, though.

( Collecting the Astro )

After getting the van back to the hotel, I took a nap before heading for San Jose, where I handed over a bunch of SFSFC supplies to CostumeCon 39's use. This includes things people brought to Tonopah and also some things that Westercon 74 bought for the convention and thus they now belong to SFSFC.

Then it was over to Santa Clara to collect Doug and Kirsten Berry to take to the San Jose Giants game. This is when things started going pear-shaped. First, I realized that I'd left my tickets in the hotel, so we were going to need to head back to Fremont, but as I was running early, that didn't seem to be a problem. Then, as I merged onto the freeway, I felt something go wrong with the power steering. Looking down at the dashboard, I saw the alternator light go on. Combined with the engine heat starting to spike, that meant that something had gone wrong with the serpentine belt. I changed plans to try and see if we could somehow make it to San Jose Municipal Stadium, but we ran out of power part-way there. Fortunately for me, there was a curbside space where I could stop without blocking traffic. I opened the hood and discovered the problem.

( Belted )

As I wasn't going anywhere for a while, I asked Kirsten to contact Ken Patterson, organizer of tonight's fun and games. He and Jerry Majors Patterson drove over to where we were sitting and rescued Doug and Kirsten, and I think they'd previously offered to collect them and take them home anyway, so that wasn't a problem. Just in case I could figure out a way to get rolling again, Ken gave me a spare ticket to tonight's game so I wouldn't have to drive back to Fremont. (In retrospect, I probably would have needed to do that anyway, because I would have needed to drive long enough to get some charge back into the battery; however, it turned out to be moot.)

Meanwhile, I put in a call to AAA, including asking if the tow company happened to have a tensioning tool, which they did not. I waved goodbye to everyone else and wished them a good time at the ball game while I settled in to wait. Fortunately, the Asian grocery store next to which I had broken down had restrooms (for customers, so I bought a bottle of water). I called Lisa to fill her in on the problem, while figuring out the next step, which I decided was to get the Astro back to Pep Boys, since they had just worked on it, even though they wouldn't be open again until Monday morning.

After about an hour, the tow truck driver arrived. The corner of 10th and Alma isn't a great place for this, and he did have to block a lane while he first pushed my vehicle backwards far enough for him to get in front of me, but it could have been worse. He then hooked me up and we headed for Newark and the Pep Boys. After he dropped the van, I filled out a "night drop" slip for the van and dropped it and the keys in the slot at the shop. The driver was nice enough to drive me back to the hotel, so I didn't have to do the walk (or pay for a Lyft) again.

So now I'm stuck until Monday morning at the earliest. The Holiday Inn Express was able to extend my stay (and didn't even require me to change rooms, which is nice because it means I keep my upgraded suite), so I'll be here through Sunday night at least. I did not bring my work computers with me, not thinking I would need them. This actually made the next steps a bit challenging, as it took me a bit of digging to find the email addresses of my manager and of my co-worker who was subbing for me on Friday and who expected me to be back on the job at 4 AM Monday morning. I eventually found their emails and sent them messages from my personal account explaining the issue and letting them know that I'll be out at least Monday and possibly longer depending on what the shop says.

I'll be on the phone to Pep Boys when they open at 8 AM Monday. If, as I hope, this is just a simple task (including putting a charge on the battery so it will start the van again, that's all well and good. Unfortunately, it could be a sign of a bigger problem. We had a similar problem on our way to SpikeCon in 2019, and it required replacing the tensioner. I haven't really driven a whole lot in those past three years (COVID, after all), but it does seem to be a possibility. If that's the case, we could need several days to get this done. That's expensive, but at least feasible.

In the meantime, I spoke to Lisa, and she told me to not worry about things about which I can do nothing. I have a nice hotel room, I'm safe (heck, I'm getting extra bonus IHG points for the stays), I have enough PTO to cover the unexpected time off, so she told me to take tomorrow off and relax. That seemed like good advice to me. A plate of microwaved lasagna from the hotel's mini-store (helpful, that) is not a great substitute for the Baseball and Barbecue I was anticipating tonight, but things could be far, far worse, and I have to keep reminding myself of that, and how this is just an annoyance, not a catastrophe.

I had a short errand today for Westercon 74 about which I'll have more to say on Saturday. I also turned in my report to the SFSFC Board of Directors for the meeting on Saturday, and it's probably the longest committee report the Board has ever received. Fortunately, I won't have to retype it to incorporate it into the corporate minutes.

Last weekend I was at a series of in-person meetings and related events for Westercon 74. This weekend, I have four separate (online) meetings: two board meetings today back-to-back for CanSMOF followed by SFSFC, and tomorrow a meeting for one aspect of Westercon 74, followed later in the day with a Costume-Con 39 staff meeting. CC 39 will happen in 2023, one year after CC 40, as Costume-Con engaged in their own version of "Operation Leapfrog," with the additional matter that there will be no Costume-Con 41, and the 2024 convention will be styled as CC 42. Both Westercon 74 and Costume-Con 39 are conventions run under SFSFC. I'm rather grateful that CC39 moved to 2023, because now SFSFC won't be running two conventions only a few months apart from each other.

It's just as well that I'm spending most of this weekend indoors, because the local air quality is getting bad due to fires in the Sierra Nevada. The AQI here in Fernley is up to about 93 (moderate), but just west of us in Fallon earlier today it was in the 100-150 range. It was cool enough this evening to sit out on the porch, but there was light ash falling from the sky, and I soaked one of my cloth masks in water and wore outside not against COVID, but to make breathing easier. Also, I can feel the smoke in my eyes and will use some of my saline solution eye drops before going to bed.

Smoky times like this make me glad I sleep with a CPAP machine and that I have a third inline filter installed besides the two main ones.

At about 5:30 AM, as I was enjoying a little bit of sleeping in from my normal working hours, I was awakened by the sound of icy "corn" snow being blown against the windows by hard wind. This is unusual, as the house is surprisingly well insulated against sound. (That's probably due to the nearby railroad. Also, it doesn't keep us from hearing the "Thumper" locomotives idling on the House Tracks.)

( Last Shot of Winter? )

After the sun rose and the temperatures climbed up to around 10°C, the ice all melted, as expected. But I was certainly glad that I'd set up the fireplace last night, as I could just light it off, wait a few minutes for the kindling wood to get going sufficiently, drop a couple of logs in the fire, and then go back to bed for an hour or so to let things warm up a bit.

The living room (which is also my home office and has been since we moved here) got warm enough, which is good because I had meetings of both of the fannish non-profit corporations on whose boards I serve, CanSMOF (Montreal Worldcon, World Fantasy Con, and SMOFCon) and SFSFC (multiple Worldcons, WFCs, CostumeCons, SMOFCons, and Westercons including Westercon 74 Tonopah). I'm Secretary of the latter. Once advantage of doing these meetings from home and having nothing scheduled to do immediately after them is that I was able to get the minutes done immediately thereafter while events were still fresh in my mind and then get the draft distributed to the board members and start the review process.

On the other hand, after both meetings were done and I had lunch, I found myself feeling very tired, and I went back to bed at 3:30 PM and slept for several hours. This past week of 10-plus-hour Day Jobbe days was hard on me, apparently. I'm glad I had no further commitments today, so I could get that extra rest.

I attended what I think will be the next-to-last planning meeting for SMOFCon 37¼, which will be on December 5. The various committee members took on various tasks; mine was to send out notices to the SMOFCON and SMOFS e-mail lists and to the JOF Facebook group reminding people how to submit questions for the three sets of Q&A sessions (Worldcon bids, seated Worldcons, and seated SMOFCons and bids). This led to me also including reminders of how to request a breakout room in the virtual con suite, how to register, and that the questionnaires turned in by the various bids/seated conventions can be downloaded from the scheduled items' event pages.

Then it was back to working on the SFSFC minutes and updating the SFSFC web site. Because we elect directors and officers at the November meeting, that means updating the director list. In addition, we adopted a small bylaw change — the first since 2012 — and so the bylaws page had to be updated as well. Also, we tentatively scheduled our meetings for 2021 (subject to change), so that page needed updating as well. It was a bunch of writing and checking pages, making sure I had dates right, and so forth, and it's rather tiring. Hope I didn't miss anything.

I must have been really worn out when I went to bed last night, because I didn't wake up until 9:30 AM, five hours later than usual.

Late in the morning, I did an interview via Zoom with Cheryl for her radio program. She has been interviewing people to ask them how they're handling the pandemic restrictions where they are. We'd done this once a few days ago, but I'd goofed up the audio settings on my computer, so we needed to do it again.

Between the end of that two-person meeting and the start of the SFSFC Board of Directors meeting (also a Zoom conference), we had a police action in the railroad yard across the street.

( All Hands on Deck )

Lisa and I could spend no more time watching the mini-drama with the trains, because there was an SFSFC board meeting to attend, and Lisa wanted to be there as part of the Westercon 74 Tonopah committee report.

Technically, this meeting was held at our corporate office, but all attendees except the director whose home is the corporate office participated by Zoom conference call. For some people (like me), remote meetings are old hat. Others haven't participated in any of them and there were a few bugs to work out. Existing bugs also had to be worked out, such as my lack of upload bandwidth that caused things to get unstable when I shared my screen to show the marked-up map of the Tonopah Convention Center.

Other than the mostly-online part of the meeting, things went smoothly, although of course the COVID-19 pandemic is on everyone's minds and has affected us all. SFSFC is acting as CoNZealand's agent for the US, which meant we discussed impacts on us and what we're doing to assist them. The CostumeCon 39 Committee was hit indirectly, as their Chair was in Montreal at what was about to be CC 38 when the convention was abruptly canceled due to an order from the Quebec premier cancelling all large gatherings. For the Tonopah committee, I reported that I've been staying in contact with my opposite number at Westercon 73, Sally Wohrle, regarding developments affecting their convention currently scheduled for this July 2-5. There's a lot of breath-holding going on. We also dealt with a matter of parliamentary housekeeping, as we revised the resolution creating the Westercon 74 committee to formally call it the Westercon 74 committee. The original resolution adopted last year could be interpreted to mean it was only the bid committee, which was certainly not the intent, so we fixed it.

Other than that and another piece of housekeeping dealing with one of our bank accounts, there wasn't a lot of explicit action at this meeting. It was almost entirely receiving reports and discussing how our four currently operating committees are carrying out their charged functions. Now I have to spend more time than the meeting itself pulling all of those reports into the meeting minutes and creating a draft set of minutes for the directors to review, which I hope to get done tomorrow. It's not like I'm going anywhere.