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weekending
For a weekend that I spent running around Arisia for the majority of my time, I actually accomplished a great deal. It's pretty amazing when I actually have energy, the stuff I can get done.
Well, mostly I finally got around to fixing up the front windows in the living room. They've been slightly leaky, which normally isn't that big a deal, but in the past week of amazingly low temperatures, it's been more noticeable. So I studied carefully the physical setup of the window -- pleased to discover that around the plastic rim of the window there was sufficient space that I could apply the two-sided stickum -- found one of those plastic weather-stripping kits that I'd put away down in the cellar last year, and set to.
Most importantly, when I opened the windows briefly to clean them -- these are high tech double-paned windows, the kind that tip inward so that you can wash the outside -- when I snapped them back in place, they went in better than they'd been, so that there was less "breeze" between the halves than there'd been. So much so that the plastic seemed redundant, but since I had it out, I did it anyway, and much to my surprise it went up laughably easily.
And new blinds, too, ones that haven't been partially broken by the insistent head-butting of Chumley, who uses the blunt force of his noggin to force his way into a better view.
This actually took me something like under an hour. You would not believe how efficient I was. And this had followed up a long session where I'd gathered up all the mail that's accumulated over the past two months and organized it all, paid bills, entered it all in Quicken, went out to the supermarket, put away all my food, organized a bunch of clothes for the next week, and so on. I was a white tornado, I tell you.
Also got in a little time on the Body Swap story. The hand-revision is now up to page 178 -- not quite halfway through Quarter Three, but getting close. I'm past The Chapter I Had To Rewrite now, so this should pick up speed. Too much in the past few weeks I've tried to work on it, but I look at the page and can't think of how to make the prose better.
(No, it's not that the prose is good... it's just that I'm too brain-dead to have a grasp on how to fix it any.)
As for Arisia...
I think I'm going to just make this bullet-type points, because the whole is far too overwhelming....
-- Got there by 6 PM Friday, courtesy of working a block away! Not coincidentally, the Park Plaza hotel is a block from a subway station, so I used an infrequent dodge of mine: parked by the Davis Square T, and thus was able to handle the cold weather pretty well. Although I had to leave the con 'early' both Fri and Sat, but then I've given up on visiting parties anyway.
-- Spent Friday night people- and panel-watching -- on such topics as Angel, and fanfic, and epic fantasy, and discussing Return of the King, and running into people I know to say hi, such as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
malkingrey and farwing and met mamadeb! Forgot to have dinner. Came home so het up that I took until 2 AM to fall asleep. And woke up early, too.
-- So I didn't get to the con before 11:30 the next day. Plunged into more panel-watching, but this time I took off time to visit the dealer's room (and scored a bunch of used Joe Haldeman novels, including a paperback of War Year which I've never actually run across before -- I'm wondering if it's actually a collectable) and I'd brought both cookies and a water bottle which I kept filled up, so I didn't end up headachey from hunger and/or dehydration.
-- Probably the panel I liked most this day was the one on the fifth Harry Potter book. Unlike the rest of the civilized world, I held off reading it until I had a long trip where I could give it some uninterrupted attention... which was just this month, to and from San Francisco, so a panel to discuss it was right up my alley.
-- I discoveredveehemently watching a Farscape panel, so we hooked up long enough to have dinner, and then went off to the Masquerade, which to my disappointment was kind of blah... unfortunate when it was Vee's first viewing of this fannish activity, though she was as fascinated by the hall costumes as by the presentations.
-- While the judges did their judging offsides, we had a half-time show of around 15 or 16 movie trailers for upcoming 2004 films, some of which were enthusiasm-making, like The Incredibles or The Ladykillers -- yes, I know it's a remake, but it's the Coen Brothers running the show. And I still really like the Harry Potter trailer, which is one beautifully-edited production of iconic -- and scarey! -- images. I have a list here of all the trailers I can remember, and if I have time tomorrow, I'll see how much I have to say about each of them....
-- I left after the trailers, and went home! Smartest move of the weekend, because I was good and tired, and it did manage to salvage Sunday for me!
-- Sunday I went to a couple fun panels, like the one discussing the difference between cats and dogs in fantasy, and I managed to hook up withfarwing (and ran across helvirago and vwbug in the lobby, which was smile-making!) for a bit -- always fun.
-- But the neatest thing? A guy with an 18-foot Burmese Python scheduled some time to demo his well-handled pet. He's been a staff herpetologist at a zoo, so he knew his stuff, and was happy to talk about the difficulties of maintaining a really big reptile -- "Doc" weighs 180 pounds! -- while small children were watchfully allowed to pet the big snake. I love seeing kids get amazed that way. I also got to watch as the guy and his helper (he knew what he was doing -- had a spotter who is also an experienced herpetologist standing by, as well as what I learned was emergency equipment) put Doc back in his carrying case -- inside a big "pillow case" inside a zippered duffle bag, then inside a heavy-duty cooler box as big as they make them, all of which was on a hand-truck. Kids, don't try to keep an 18-foot python at home on your own, okay?
Well, mostly I finally got around to fixing up the front windows in the living room. They've been slightly leaky, which normally isn't that big a deal, but in the past week of amazingly low temperatures, it's been more noticeable. So I studied carefully the physical setup of the window -- pleased to discover that around the plastic rim of the window there was sufficient space that I could apply the two-sided stickum -- found one of those plastic weather-stripping kits that I'd put away down in the cellar last year, and set to.
Most importantly, when I opened the windows briefly to clean them -- these are high tech double-paned windows, the kind that tip inward so that you can wash the outside -- when I snapped them back in place, they went in better than they'd been, so that there was less "breeze" between the halves than there'd been. So much so that the plastic seemed redundant, but since I had it out, I did it anyway, and much to my surprise it went up laughably easily.
And new blinds, too, ones that haven't been partially broken by the insistent head-butting of Chumley, who uses the blunt force of his noggin to force his way into a better view.
This actually took me something like under an hour. You would not believe how efficient I was. And this had followed up a long session where I'd gathered up all the mail that's accumulated over the past two months and organized it all, paid bills, entered it all in Quicken, went out to the supermarket, put away all my food, organized a bunch of clothes for the next week, and so on. I was a white tornado, I tell you.
Also got in a little time on the Body Swap story. The hand-revision is now up to page 178 -- not quite halfway through Quarter Three, but getting close. I'm past The Chapter I Had To Rewrite now, so this should pick up speed. Too much in the past few weeks I've tried to work on it, but I look at the page and can't think of how to make the prose better.
(No, it's not that the prose is good... it's just that I'm too brain-dead to have a grasp on how to fix it any.)
As for Arisia...
I think I'm going to just make this bullet-type points, because the whole is far too overwhelming....
-- Got there by 6 PM Friday, courtesy of working a block away! Not coincidentally, the Park Plaza hotel is a block from a subway station, so I used an infrequent dodge of mine: parked by the Davis Square T, and thus was able to handle the cold weather pretty well. Although I had to leave the con 'early' both Fri and Sat, but then I've given up on visiting parties anyway.
-- Spent Friday night people- and panel-watching -- on such topics as Angel, and fanfic, and epic fantasy, and discussing Return of the King, and running into people I know to say hi, such as
malkingrey and farwing and met mamadeb! Forgot to have dinner. Came home so het up that I took until 2 AM to fall asleep. And woke up early, too.-- So I didn't get to the con before 11:30 the next day. Plunged into more panel-watching, but this time I took off time to visit the dealer's room (and scored a bunch of used Joe Haldeman novels, including a paperback of War Year which I've never actually run across before -- I'm wondering if it's actually a collectable) and I'd brought both cookies and a water bottle which I kept filled up, so I didn't end up headachey from hunger and/or dehydration.
-- Probably the panel I liked most this day was the one on the fifth Harry Potter book. Unlike the rest of the civilized world, I held off reading it until I had a long trip where I could give it some uninterrupted attention... which was just this month, to and from San Francisco, so a panel to discuss it was right up my alley.
-- I discovered
veehemently watching a Farscape panel, so we hooked up long enough to have dinner, and then went off to the Masquerade, which to my disappointment was kind of blah... unfortunate when it was Vee's first viewing of this fannish activity, though she was as fascinated by the hall costumes as by the presentations. -- While the judges did their judging offsides, we had a half-time show of around 15 or 16 movie trailers for upcoming 2004 films, some of which were enthusiasm-making, like The Incredibles or The Ladykillers -- yes, I know it's a remake, but it's the Coen Brothers running the show. And I still really like the Harry Potter trailer, which is one beautifully-edited production of iconic -- and scarey! -- images. I have a list here of all the trailers I can remember, and if I have time tomorrow, I'll see how much I have to say about each of them....
-- I left after the trailers, and went home! Smartest move of the weekend, because I was good and tired, and it did manage to salvage Sunday for me!
-- Sunday I went to a couple fun panels, like the one discussing the difference between cats and dogs in fantasy, and I managed to hook up with
farwing (and ran across helvirago and vwbug in the lobby, which was smile-making!) for a bit -- always fun.-- But the neatest thing? A guy with an 18-foot Burmese Python scheduled some time to demo his well-handled pet. He's been a staff herpetologist at a zoo, so he knew his stuff, and was happy to talk about the difficulties of maintaining a really big reptile -- "Doc" weighs 180 pounds! -- while small children were watchfully allowed to pet the big snake. I love seeing kids get amazed that way. I also got to watch as the guy and his helper (he knew what he was doing -- had a spotter who is also an experienced herpetologist standing by, as well as what I learned was emergency equipment) put Doc back in his carrying case -- inside a big "pillow case" inside a zippered duffle bag, then inside a heavy-duty cooler box as big as they make them, all of which was on a hand-truck. Kids, don't try to keep an 18-foot python at home on your own, okay?
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