Journeyman

Yep, a beautiful day in the neighborhood and I have to run to the office .... sigh.

Day lily count is three.

My Starbucks card is low. This is not a good way to start of a 2200 mile round-trip driving tour.

And oh ... korval.com/twincoffee22b.jpg

Last night we worked on story stuff, so this was how we get started in the morning ....

The day lily count for today is 4 -- this is our first of the season from one of Maine's latest breaking day lily pods, I guess. There look to be a lot on the way -- the pods are red for tomorrow and into the weekend, I'm thinking.

If you're going to NASFIC -- more on this in a moment -- watch for the special edition Carousel Tides sampler chapbook. Free while they last, at NASFIC -- I'll try to have some at any Baen function I get to -- and watch for me at the SFWA table ( I should have at least one autograph session there) and probably I'll be at the ASFA party as well. My schedule beyond that is on the knees of the ghods; and since it is our call, we're trying to judge how many of these chapbooks to print.... so see below.  About the only part of the schedule I'm reasonably sure of is the newly announced and likely soon to be filled Reconstruction GoH dinner -- and that I need to be on the road out of Raleigh sometime on Monday, August 9th.  

Now, the more on NASFIC: I did a quick run through of the most recent NASFIC attending member list and it looks like this NASFIC will be the size of many medium to medium-large regional conventions -- assuming a reasonable small last minute (which now means At The Door!) attendance kick since big summer cons usually get such a kick. If you haven't joined but want to, the bet is to make sure you get your hotel reservations in velly velly soon -- and plan to get to the convention  center early when you get to the con so you can get all your paperwork, including that all important pocket program! 

Meanwhile, the glance at the list shows around 20 or 25 people I can pick out as FoL -- that is, folk who have shown up at FoL events before, helped with or come to parties,come to breakfast,  read the chapbooks, comment on the Liad list or blogs, and such.  I do hope to have an FoL breakfast, so we'll be watching for location for that -- given the recent heat in the south it may well be in the Marriott or next door at the Sheraton to keep travel down.  I expect to have connectivity, so this blog or Facebook may be the bet for keeping up ... maybe one of the Liaden facebook pages, too ...

If you haven't made plans to come to Reconstruction, the 10th NASFIC, now is the time. Besides a couple dozen FoL, (and me, of course!), the con will have lots of good programming, a good dealers room, an art show with art auction, a masquerade, and will be an excellent chance to get to see and talk with some of the 100 plus program participants, guest, and panelists.  If you're within a few hours drive or easy travel, this could also be a good first convention for you -- and could convince you to come on out to next year's WorldCon in Reno.

Hope to see you at the NASFIC a half month from now!

...in any case, for my birthday there was a day lily, the first of the season. Since then several days with one or two, and today without. Tomorrow bodes to be a monster day by the looks of the buds ...and as I conjectured some weeks ago, most of the blooming this year seems likely to occur while we're in Montreal. I hope the birds, the bees, and the drive-bys enjoy the show!

Today a whirl of work, starting with printing of fliers and then the mailing of books, thne packing supplies from the office to travel with us (some book covers, some badge-ribbons, some signing pens.... stuff). It didn't help that Sharon's laser printer wanted to act up.... and did, meaning I ended up with a sub-par coupon hand-out for the con, but hey, coupons need to be interesting enough to be looked at, not beautiful.

I also cleaned out Argent the Subaru for the trip, added windshield wash, and etc ... in the morning we'll fill-up at the Circle K which is directly on the route to Anticipation. This should be quicker than driving to Albany, ayuh.

As time permits I'll try to blog from the con. 

Things move on. Yesterday there were 5 day lilies. Today there are 4.

Horsepeople rejoice! Champagne is real! http://bangornews.com/news/t/lifestyle.aspx?articleid=168474&zoneid=14

Last night managed about 10 hours sleep, and woke up tired, more coughs than seneezes. Boo.


I forgot to share the neat personal piece of art I got at Denvention from Mr. Howard Tayler, who sat not 5 feet from me in the front row of my first panel (I was moderating, but the crew was bold so that was good) of the con, scribbling away the while. We first met Howard at PenguiCon, or maybe it was at Trin*o*con ... some time back... and it was good to have him at the panel...



and this is not a good day to send us an urgent email since we'll likely nap through it.

Not everything is coming up roses --

got up this morning to discover the intermittent problem with Sharon's monitor is permanent and we need to replace it starting right now... so we're off to the city.

5 (five) flowers this morning ... whee!

Off we go.

Hot morning in July. The temperature's over 70 and the humidity is somewhere between 88% and 94%. I took a quick walk and...I'm advised to expect lower than optimum air quality today, so it may be an air conditioning kind of day.

So, there's grass growing where the DEP clear-out work was done on one side of the house, and there may be wildflowers growing on the other site -- something green is poking up between the straw, and we'll hope the genuine Martha Stewart brand flowers will thrive.

On the day lily front: I've been bad about updates. This morning we have five, yesterday we had six, the day before five, the day before that, seven. With the old DEP shed out of the way we can see the flowers much easier and they seem to be doing well without the extra shadowing the shed provided.

The air is very, very still. Took time out yesterday to mount the flag pole we got while in Old Orchard Beach; on it is the sort of Halloween black cat with moon rising behind him. So what if this is July? Yesterday the cat was flying in a very nice breeze. Today... still, still, still...so it may be an air conditioning kind of day.

On work front...went to Augusta yesterday and came back from the printers with a half-dozen advance reading copies of Gunshy, which will all go out, I guess, with several now obvious problems. The old PDF/windows font bug hit and so we had a mismatch on one font; in several sections of the ARC the type's a but funky. I'm working on fixing that for the final...and that's one reason we drive the extra miles. My desk copy of the Gunshy ARC sports twenty three purple stickies...each one showing a section that needs fixing... in some cases that's one word, in some cases that's multiple paragraphs. This is how errors get introduced into books after they've been copy edited, so please don't blame the copy editor.

So today's work-order will be Gunshy, Buffalogenesis, and some modest web page fixes. Also, if the trimmer is actually charged up now, I may get a chance to neaten up around the old-style rose bush that survived the shed-moving.

And feels like that vague between the eyes allergy headache wants to act up...so it may be an air conditioning kind of day.