Trips and Such

Here's another good-faith effort to get myself using this blog again. Maybe, just maybe, I'll even get myself to updating regularly. Anywho, the past few months have all ended with some sort of road trip, so here's a recap on the major trips I've been on in the last few months.

August

For those of you unfamiliar with it, WorldCon is the World Science Fiction Convention; it convenes in a different city every year, and can be most anywhere. I'm really hoping New Zealand wins there 2020 bid—it'll give me a reason to go to New Zealand, for one, and boy howdy did they get started early. Go Kiwis! WorldCon is a fan convention, so there are a lot of people who come purely because they love science fiction and fantasy. This means you get Jedis bouncing balloons with lightsabers and Klingons playing the piano in the hall. It's kind of awesome. For a lot of the people there, fandom and its community are a big deal. I can understand that as a teenager I didn't really have anyone who shared my love of reading. Even so, I found it difficult to really identify with the fandom folk. For me, it was a place for networking. Honestly, I didn't get much done in that respect. Next year in Chicago should be more fruitful, though I ran into a lot of the same people more recently at World Fantasy. There was many a late night hanging out at the parties.

One of the major highlights was a demonstration of medieval weaponry. The guy was your classic huge bald guy, the tough one that appears in the movies as the main bad guy of the scene, except he knew what he was doing. He pointed out a lot of Hollywoodesque fighting mistakes, and had plenty of stories from Renaissance festivals (which are apparently scarily violent in real life). Really, the only thing I didn't like was the lost puppy dog that followed me and Cavan around everywhere. (Once, we ran out of our way just so he wouldn't try to join us, swinging his glowsticks everywhere he went.)

Since the convention was in Reno, this trip doubled as a family visit. I got to stay with my sister, Carey; finally meet her husband, Brandon; and meet my oldest nephew, Candon! I didn't get to see much of them during the days of the convention, so I stayed a few days extra afterward. Candon was a little shy, but he was playing with me by the end. We went to Pyramid Lake on Brandon's day off and I drove a boat and a jetski for the first time. I also got to visit with my grandma a couple of times, which was nice.

September

At the end of September, one of my best friends in Arizona, Tyler Christensen, got married! I wish I could say I know Michelle better than I do, but she's a lucky girl because Tyler is one of the coolest cats on the planet. Considering that she came up here to go fishing with him last winter, I'm going to say they're probably a good match. I got to see a lot of my old friends (whom I truly wish I saw much more often) and I had plenty of time to play with my nephew, Moroni! He's gotten a lot bigger in the last year, and he responds to his name, which is awesome.

October
At the end of October, I went down to San Diego for the World Fantasy Convention. The actual drive was a lot more fun as this time I didn't even do any driving, and more importantly Cav and Rosz were in the car. Road trips with people are infinitely more entertaining than road trips without; listening to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy also helps.

World Fantasy is a lot like WorldCon, except that it's for business types and thus a lot smaller and much more professional. In some ways, I like it more than WorldCon (minus the fact that they always put it on or around Halloween). This was my second time at World Fantasy. It was more enjoyable in that I am far more confident than I was two years ago, but the panels were not nearly so good for the most part. Most were boring (which is typical), but the real problem was the poorly executed attempt to push the nautical theme. The panel on pirates at WorldCon was amazing and incredibly helpful, while I walked out of the one at World Fantasy because the panelists clearly knew nothing but stereotypes.

The real fun was hanging out with people. In San Jose I met a fellow author, Lenny Molina, and we've kept in contact with each other since then. He and his wife, Rodin, got married the week before, and they now rank as some of the coolest people I know. They are modern Orthodox Jews, which is important the way it's important that I'm Mormon. It definitely made for some good religious discussion with a strong feeling of mutual respect and understanding as faithful members of two minority religions. (And we've all lived in places where ours is not the minority, as they spent the last few months studying in Israel.) And beyond that, they are just rad. We spent most of Saturday night hanging out after Shabbat ended, going to a vegan fast food place and then hanging out at the parties, including one that involved Hungry Hungry Hippos. I ran into a lot of people I had met at WorldCon. I'm sure at the next major con I'll run into a lot of people from these, and the networking will continue! The most important thing I've learned has been to give up the purposeful networking—I have a lot more fun just being myself and making real friends.

I also got to meet a number of authors. Neil Gaiman is just classy. Pat Rothfuss is somebody I would hang out with any day. The surprising one was Emma Bull; if I'd known she was going to be there, I'd have brought my copy of Territory for her to sign. We talked awhile at the book signing, mostly about how much we both love Doc Holliday (she got his character down spot on in Territory). Cons are awesome.


If this were three separate posts—as they should be—I'd include a lot more detail. Each of these trips was awesome, and I'd love to share more (especially as I'd get more detail recorded so I wouldn't eventually forget it). This will have to do for now!