wombat_socho

 To be honest, I never planned to do much at the convention; as I have written elsewhere, "The convention was dying when I got there, and it wasn't my fault." Despite my stated disinterest in the convention (and Anime Detour, for that matter) , all sorts of people wanted to bend my ear as to why Fusion was folding and the shitstorm that is currently ATC/Detour. I swear, people must be seeing a clerical collar around my neck that I'm not actually wearing. Or, more likely, I'm from out of town and they feel they can gossip to me without any repercussions. I did manage to see John from Fast Food Anime and bought a couple of manga from him, but I missed Tiffany Grant. On the other hand, I did get to sit and talk with Dave & Pandora from Wasaubi Con, Kale, Lauren, and Admiral Q'ob. I went out to Anoka to hang out with Dwayne Olson and talk about Arcana and the people who used to hang out there (mostly dead or close to it), which killed a lot of Saturday, and Sunday Kale was kind enough to pop back up and do lunch with me at Red Robin; I commented to him that if Dwayne had come down to Fusion, we would have had enough former chairs to open a used furniture store. I also managed to pop into Artists' Alley and proselytize among the artists for the N3F. I did see Damarra briefly Sunday afternoon, but we weren't able to get together, and Heather had made it very clear she didn't want to be social at all, but nonetheless she was minimally polite to me the couple of times we crossed paths. James and I went to Perkins for dinner Sunday night, and it was all right. 

Monday my luck ran out with respect to hotels; I had reserved a room at the Baymont in Brooklyn Center for a couple of days, and calling it shabby would be generous. I wasn't there for long; James and I motored down to Red Wing to see the ex*; the three of us went to dinner and in general it was a good visit. I promised to return on my way home Thursday and pick up the boxes of stuff she had for me. Tuesday I ate Denny's for breakfast, did laundry, and met John Stanley & Jeanne Mealy for dinner at  Culver's. Wednesday I checked out of the Baymont and checked into a slightly less shabby La Quinta in Bloomington off Nicollet. I hit Ted Cook's on the way through, had a brisket sandwich for lunch along with half the rack of ribs I ordered,  and got a very good back massage on short notice which helped my lower back and right glutes a lot. I took Anne Waltz out to the Cardinal Club for burgers (actually I had a chef's salad) and we went to her place to watch a couple of episodes of Harley Quinn on HBO. As an offshoot of the Batman part of the DC Universe, I like Harley  and Poison Ivy (especially as a couple) and the art style was very much like the animated adventures of Batman. It was good. 

Thursday I left the La Quinta after finishing the other half of that rack of ribs; flailed around south of St. Paul trying to find cheap gas after the Sam's Club in Eagan's pumps turned out to be closed, and finally wound up in Prescott, Wisconsin, which seemed like a nice place, but I was in a bit of a hurry, so I tanked up at the Circle K and got rolling. I arrived in Red Wing, called Louie, and shortly thereafter met up with her to have an only slightly awkward conversation before she took the boxes out to the Kia with her cart. Then it was west to Mazeppa, where I made the mistake of ordering a breakfast pizza with all the meats from Casey's. They do these weirdly at Casey's** and I nearly wound up with a lapful of hot toppings before I got disciplined and left the rest of the pizza in the box until I got onto I-90 at Rochester. From there it was a straight shot to Sioux Falls and the Super 8 just a few blocks from I-29. 

*We spent about half an hour moving things from the back seat to the trunk and throwing out a couple bags' worth of garbage. Oh, did my back hurt after that. 
**Instead of red or white sauce (or no sauce) the bottom layer of the pizza was cheese sauce, which formed a frictionless surface between the crust and the cheese & meat toppings. 

Barely made it to Hometown Pizza to scarf up a few slices and slam a glass of Diet Coke before heading to the post office just a couple minutes before the window closed. My haste proved to be unnecessary since the PO had crammed one of my scrub shirts and StippleAPA into my box along with some more N3F mail. From there it was off to Raley's for some salad, tea, and a tomato since I am fixing to make some BST sammiches next week (bacon sprouts and tomato) to use up some of the stuff in the freezer. 

Circling back to Thursday, there was a huge wad of N3F mail in the box, not all of it returned to sender; between Thursday and Saturday we got three new electronic memberships and an extension, which is a lot more than we usually get. Also, my new pill carrier showed up, so now I have six spares in case I lose one of the daily capsules. Also, also, the atlas showed up and I promptly dived into it to see what the roads through Wyoming look like, since Bing has me doing some kind of hinky shortcut instead of just following I-80 to I-25 to South Dakota. I may play it safe and just stick to the Interstate. 

Spent some time updating the membership roster, dashing off a letter to a N3F member who is greatly exercised over the Zoom meetings and worried that his information will somehow be exposed. I think he needs to check the seals on his tinfoil hat, but I wrote a soothing note reassuring him that none of his info is being exposed to the All-Seeing Eye of the NSA. 

Still waiting for my reimbursements from the VA to come through; fortunately, the USAA Amex arrived, though I am greatly tempted to just save it for the Anime Detour trip. I reckon I can buy a lot of gas, food, and hotel rooms with $4000. 

StippleAPA is full of deranged political ravings by people who think we're living in the Fourth Reich. LOL. LMAO, even. 

 I didn't do anything special for the 4th, just cooked a whole package of beer brats on the grill and ate half a bowl of baked beans. Got wiped out by the O's at RFK, which meant the Senators were 1-5 on the week. Just two games out of the cellar with three games to play.

Saturday I went to the post office and retrieved the mail, which had my Rollerball DVD, a copy of John Thiel's zine Pablo Lennis, the badge holders for the con, and the flyers I sent to Jolie at Libertycon. Also got a check from the treasury refunding me $26 in insurance premiums. I need to look around to find some alternative life insurance so the kids won't have to dig into their pockets to have me cremated and interred at the Family Plot. 
After the post office I went home, screwed around with the Iroquois on the Planet of the Aztecs and Mongols, went out to Raley's for avocados, corn chips, tea, dairy stuff, and fig bars, made guacamole for dinner, did the FMJRA, and went to bed.

Today I spent most of the afternoon working on my zine for N'APA since it's due on the 15th along with sundry N3F reports. Went out, did laundry, had dinner, came back, and did Rule 5 Sunday. Unlike some previous weeks, there hasn't been a lot of Substackery this weekend, so no need for an extra linkagery post.

This week is going to be somewhat busy since I have to drive down to Pahrump on the 8th and from there to the NNSS for the expedition to Pahute Mesa on the short bus. (It's actually a minibus but I couldn't resist the joke.) I'm thinking of stopping by the Walmart in Pahrump on the way back, but I probably won't since I expect to be pretty tired after the trip to and from the mesa. 

I have some thoughts regarding Elon Musk launching the America Party but I think I'll save that for the Substack. 

I suppose I could also describe this as a report on the state of my fandoms, and it will probably wind up on the Substack in somewhat altered form... 

"In the beginning, there was the Word." So it is with me; I have always been an avid reader, preferring SF, historical fiction, military & naval history, and biographies to other genres, though I did go through a stretch where I was reading a lot of mainstream fiction. Gave up on it because most of it was depressing and/or tales of awful people doing awful things or living awful lives. (See Bright Lights, Big City or The First Deadly Sin.) I still do a lot of reading and have the Kindle and physical libraries to prove it.

Reading SF eventually (inevitably?) drew me into science fiction fandom. I attended conventions in the Baltimore/DC area and elsewhere from 1974 (Discon II, the Worldcon in DC) until 1983 when I got married and moved to Minnesota. There I became more active in traditional fanac: I pubbed a perszine, joined and dropped out and rejoined Stipple-APA, became involved in media fandom thanks to Space: Above & Beyond and the 59th Ready Reserve Squadron, went to a few Minicons, more Convergences and Diversicons and Arcanas, volunteered and served on staff for some of those, and eventually became heavily involved with anime fandom at Anime Iowa, so much so that I was one of the founders and chairmen of Anime Detour, which I remained on staff with until I left Minnesota for Virginia in 2007. I returned to Anime Detour (and continued to volunteer there) after moving to Virginia and Las Vegas, but eventually the staff there did my son dirty, and I severed all connections with them. I'll be going to Anime Fusion in Minnesota this year for my son's 40th birthday, but purely as a spectator. I dropped out of Stipple-APA after descending into abject poverty in Virginia, but after moving to Las Vegas in 2015 I became involved with the National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F), sporadically contributed to N'APA, and eventually became treasurer along with wearing a few other fezzes. I am currently the chairman of Son of Silvercon, a small relaxicon in Las Vegas that aspires to become a mid-sized regional convention. 

Fandom led me into historical boardgaming/wargaming, which was a big thing in the 1970s and 1980s before TSR bought SPI at bankruptcy and gutted the hobby. I was a D&D dungeonmaster and a Traveller referee; I was also interested in several other RPG (Twilight:2000, Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green) but never actually played them. Wargames are still around, but it's a lot harder to find opponents, and games, like everything else, have become a lot more expensive thanks to inflation and the fact that it's a niche hobby now. Mostly I play video games like Civilization and Hearts of Iron IV, which have some of the flavor of the old monstergames. I used to be involved with EVE-Online as part of Goonfleet, and was there when we broke Band of Brothers, lost Delve and fled to a new home, reorganized under Commissar Mittens and grew to be a great power in the game again, but I don't remember clearly when I stopped playing. Probably in 2018, when I got horribly sick and was homeless for a couple of months. Everyone I used to know in GF is out of the game now, and I don't feel any strong urge to go back. Aside from the aforementioned strategic video games, I also play Fate/Grand Order and Azur Lane on my phone, the former more than the latter because Azur Lane's story is confusing and silly by turns. Played Cookie Run for a while but it wound up being more grindy than cute, and Girls Frontline just didn't hold my interest. I should probably get out and play more Ingress because the walking would be good for me. 

I came very late to baseball. As a kid, I was a fan of the Washington Senators, who moved to Texas in 1972 and took my interest in baseball with it. My now ex-wife was a Twins fan, though, and between her interest and Rotisserie baseball, I got back into it. For a few years I scored games at home for STATS, Inc. and published a newsletter on the independent minor leagues (which caused some road trips to towns like Aberdeen, Austin, Duluth, Fargo, and Madison) but that fell victim to Anime Detour, which pretty much ate my life from 2003-2007. I played fantasy baseball on Yahoo for a few years but dropped out of that; I was also involved in a Pursue the Pennant league until it fell apart in 1992. Nowadays, I casually follow the Nationals, Twins, and Red Sox, and am managing the Senators in a Dynasty League Baseball league run by fellow blogger Pete (Da Tech Guy), but Major League Baseball's current commissioner has alienated me with his woke stupidity, and I'm not much interested in seeing the A's when they move from Oakland to Las Vegas in a couple of years. 

I don't watch a lot of TV or movies. Used to watch a lot when I was married, but that went by the wayside in favor of watching anime, and these days I watch very little because Hollywood isn't making a lot of stuff that interests me, and I find video games more rewarding. Someday I'll probably finish watching Fallout, because it's on Amazon Prime and the first five episodes, which I saw while visiting Stacy McCain this spring, seemed pretty decent. People tell me I should watch The Expanse, and maybe one of these days I will. Webcomics fall under this heading; I was really really interested in Girl Genius, Megatokyo, Erfworld, and a couple of other webcomics, but I fell out of the habit of following them (probably around the same time I stopped playing EVE-Online, for some of the same reasons) and I can't think of any webcomics I follow at all, with the exception of Terminal Lance, Clinic of Horrors, and occasional postings by Merryweather Media. 

Not sure where this really fits in, but thanks to my Dad's final assignment with the JCS, I acquired an interest in nuclear weapons and power, which has led me to a seat on the board of the Nevada Security Site Advisory Board, a group of citizens who provide oversight to the Department of Energy's ongoing cleanup and monitoring work at the former Nevada Test Site. I don't get paid for it, but they do reimburse me for my travel expenses, which is nice, and the work is interesting, with a lot of callbacks to some weird history. For example, they're currently demolishing & cleaning up Test Cell C, which is where testing of NERVA rockets and Project Pluto went on during the early 1960s. Coincidentally, there's some discussion of nuclear rockets again in connection with Elon Musk's ambition of going to Mars. 

All the stuff on my to-do list for yesterday got checked off. I ate a bunch of pizza for brunch, mailed the Frontier payment, picked up my test strips and other mail, and spent about $30 on groceries at Raley's; also, I got a roll of quarters in the change. Got home, unpacked and scanned everything, updated the N3F roster and sent it along with an updated treasury report to George. Finished up the night by bashing out a blog post on the fission-chan.org site. 

Today I started the day by frying up sausage, a potato, and a couple of eggs, which I washed down with a mug of coffee along with a couple of bagels. It's been getting warm enough lately that spreading the butter is merely difficult instead of impossible. Posted the link to the new convention blog post on various social media, played a lot of Civicrack, and realized that I had somehow managed to miss the deadline for N'APA 268, which means now I have to catch up on two disties worth of comments. 

For now, though, I'm going to go do laundry and get dinner. 

First series against KC is in the books, and I lost two games out of three. Coleman and Kaat got hammered, but Marichal won game 2 with a 3-0 complete game shutout. Just as well, because my bullpen isn't as crushing as I thought. 

Went to Raley's and did big shopping on Sunday, got sausage and dairy products and tea & stuff but managed to forget the coffee filters, Went back for those on Monday and also picked up a book of stamps to mail my Frontier bill out. I am thinking of investing $100 in a Raley's gift card as a means of controlling my food budget so I can work harder on paying down the credit card bills.

I suspect my reopened leg wound has become infected; it hurts a bit, and I've been slightly feverish the last couple of days, also kind of low on energy. I did manage to get out and do laundry last night at Tonopah Station, had the crunchy chicken salad and wings (no fries) for dinner, but was too tired when I got home to do the daily blogging. Thought I might catch up today but I'm feeling iffy about that and may just punt the catch-up post to tomorrow. May just eat my brats for dinner and go to bed early; staying up until 0300 working on N'APA comments was stupid. 

So I got the online bank access for Friends of Fission-chan set up yesterday, set up a PayPal account for it, bought some tea & doughnuts and steak at Raley's, and also did a little Ingress while I was  out and about. 

Today I slept in until after 1300, played a lot of Civicrack, and did the FMJRA more or less on time. Cooked up one of the steaks in the frying pan and it turned out okay. 

I suppose I should work on the APAzine. It'll be a lot easier now that I actually have the Toshiba wired up to the DVI port. 

Weight was flat, but BG was normal and BP was down a little bit. So I ate the remainder of last night's bread loaf with my coffee as breakfast, cleaned under my desk, bagged up some garbage, and restarted the Brazilian run of CivBE on a more jungly planet, since the volcanic wasteland of the previous runthrough was giving me serious cognitive dissonance. Oh, I did win the Emancipation victory with the Koreans on Monday.

Last night I went to bed earlier than I intended because we had a power failure. Despite the lack of nose hose, I slept sort of okay for about half an hour before the power came back on, then woke up again around 0400 ravenously hungry and a little wobbly. Had a slab of bread with honey & chocolate peanut butters, drank a bunch of water, and went back to sleep until he alarm went off at 1000.

Got my head sheared, deposited a couple of checks for the N3F, got a triple whopper and sides from the BK, and then cleared out my PO box which had my Lasix and a couple more checks for the N3F) before going home and messing around with various things before going out to Raley's for tea, milk, cream, and sundry other items. Came home, scanned all the stuff in and put it away, and then made a 12-minute video for YouTube. 

About the only things I didn't get done today were checking my work e-mail and calling the cleaner. So I'll do it tomorrow! That sounds like a pretty good idea to me!

Weight continues to hang a little under 390. BG has mostly been normal, with occasional eruptions into nominal, and BP for the most part has been good.

I stalled out on the CE, but I'll attack them tomorrow directly after breakfast, which today was the usual weekend fryup of taters, eggs, sausage, and bacon. This finished off the bacon, but I have plenty of sausage left. Dinner was a ham sandwich and pork chops, since I finished off the soup yesterday.

Spent most of the day playing Civicrack, going back and forth with George about cancelling PayPal, and starting to put the word out about Son of Silvercon. It remains to be seen whether I will be able to 1) raise enough money to pay the necessary deposit to the hotel and 2) get enough volunteers to properly staff the convention. I am also hoping there are enough early memberships that I won't have to pay for the website and bank account out of my own pocket.

Weight went up a little, but BG was almost normal and BP was normal. Had a flax muffin and yogurt and set about the business of the day...

Called the VA in Colorado to get more filters and a new mask for the CPAP, took the option to have them call me back, and didn't hear from them today. On the other hand, I chatted with someone (might have been a bot) at Image Dental, and they did call back, so I was able to cancel my appointments for next month. Finally, I talked to a rep at CafePress, who thanked me for letting them know that the help number on their acknowledgement letter in fact when to some outfit trying to flog medical alert devices. They walked me through the shop and everything looks cool, so I e-mailed George to give him the good news. 

Looked at Palace Station's website, downloaded a map of their function space, and sent them an RFP via the form on their site. We'll see what happens; I don't really expect their room rates to be that much cheaper than the Plaza's, but one never knows. 

After retaking New Guinea and helping dismantle the Reich, I had the Netherlands annex a couple of German provinces, liberated Austria, Czechia, Kashubia, Laos, Vietnam, and Memel; changed the governments of Germany, Italy, Japan, Slovakia, and Thailand to democracies, by which point it was August 1945 and I quit, having satisfied myself. I am now two games into historical France, and we couldn't hold off the panzers. They plowed through Belgium, dressed their ranks, took Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway (Czechoslovakia & Poland had already been munched) and the Huns forced us to capitulate a little bit before the historical June 1940 date. Did a lot of damage to the Kriegsmarine and Italian navy, though, but now it's time for DeGaulle to rally the Free French and work on liberating the homeland. 

Went over to Raley's to take advantage of my seasoned citizens discount, wound up saving about $6 between that and various sales but it still came to $31. Time to crash and then get up early to play Oakland.