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I’m back in Albuquerque after spending the whole week in the Bay Area. As usual, my last day at the office left me feeling that I somehow didn’t take full advantage of my time there. Looking back, I know that I did pretty much everything that I could do, and that most of my teammates were busy with another project that had them on meetings most of the time. Also, I was unable to go see Milk at the Castro Theater. On the other hand, I met with Doug Faunt and David Goldfarb. I had dinner twice with my friend Yoko. (Come to think of it, we first met almost exactly 20 years ago.) And I spent the last 2 evenings at my middle sister-in-law, whose 2-year-old son Theo was extremely excited to see his Unk’ Serj’. He especially liked my holding him up close to the ceiling. I’m not sure that his mom felt too keen about that, but I reminded her that he’s actually less heavy than some weights I lift at the gym. There were times when he did not want to drink his milk, but we took care of that by having his parents pop in a DVD of a Mozart chamber orchestra, or some cartoon about musical instruments (which he was able to identify), and I’d lie down on the bean bag, waiting for him to join me. I’m sure he’ll grow out of thinking of me as a great uncle, but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. It was funny, earlier in the week, when I stayed at my parents-in-law, who were quite apologetic about watching American Idol, but I told them not to worry about it, that I had a wonderful device to tune it out, and I showed them Lindsey Davis’s Saturnalia, the latest Marcus Didius Falco mystery.
It turns out that Rome’s vicious enemy has disappeared somewhere in the City, and Falco has been charged with finding her. That would be the usual crappy assignment from Emperor Vespasian, but it’s made worse by the woman having saved Falco years before and his knowing that, when she is recaptured, her public execution will be part of the Ovation.
I bought many books while I was in the Bay Area. First I walked from the office to Stacey’s Bookstore, which is closing after decades on Market Street. There was little left on the shelves, but I decided to go for Allen Steele’s Coyote Raising. When I later went to Dark Carnival, an F/SF/mystery bookstore in Berkeley, I bought the rest of the Coyote series, plus Steele’s Spindrift and Galaxy Blues. Finally, Blish’s Cities in Flight, and Silverberg's Lord Valentine's Castle.
I started coming down with what I thought was a cold on Wednesday, but it turned out to be a full blown flu, with frequent and quite loud sneezing, and clogged nostrils too, but luckily, that all started to impede me after I got my yearly review. It certainly made it difficult to get restful sleep. When I flew back yesterday, my ears started hurting like hell when we began the descent to our Phoenix stop. After a lengthy hesitation, I couldn’t stand the pain anymore and blew my nose, even if it was going to damage my ear drums. I’m quite happy that it had the opposite effect. Still, that left me drained for the rest of the day, that and the flu.
I may have been exhausted, but I was determined to take advantage of yesterday being the last day of the Hugo Preliminaries’s voting period to add Warren Ellis’s Aetheric Mechanics to the graphic story’s category. I also voted in the fan writer’s category for the first time ever. Why? I never followed fandom’s printed medium enough to feel qualified to vote. Until last week, that is. That’s when I found out that fan writing can include non-deadtree publication. I’ve been going around the blogosphere for barely 4 years, but that’s time enough to form an opinion and I put in two names. One of those two people was quite amused that it’s only recently that I found out that electronic publication was eligible, and said something about my being “…way behind the curve…” while she/he, who is not a computer professional, has been around the internet for pleasure since 1986, starting with a 300-baud modem. Yeah, just hearing the words “300-baud modem” is enough to turn my blood to ice. The horror. The horror! Actually, it makes sense. Back in those days of yore, I was a mainframe programmer and had to use telecommunication to take care of system failures at all hours of the evening and night. There was no high-speed internet. What we had were phone lines, which in the pre-DSL days were incredibly slow and the last thing I felt like doing was to spend my free time on what would remind me too much of work.
Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be unduly surprised to find that people in my situation were among the last to go on the internet for fun.
Mind you, I’ve never regretted joining the blogosphere. Among the many things it has given are friendships that’d never have happened otherwise.
”Let’s not haggle, Falco. Gallicus made a brave foray into Germania Liberia and legitimately removed a vicious enemy of Rome –“
I finished the story. “Now he’s hoping for a Triumph?”
“Only emperors have Triumphs. As a general, Gallicus will be entitled to an Ovation.” Same deal as a Triumph, but a shorter procession: done on the cheap.
It turns out that Rome’s vicious enemy has disappeared somewhere in the City, and Falco has been charged with finding her. That would be the usual crappy assignment from Emperor Vespasian, but it’s made worse by the woman having saved Falco years before and his knowing that, when she is recaptured, her public execution will be part of the Ovation.
I bought many books while I was in the Bay Area. First I walked from the office to Stacey’s Bookstore, which is closing after decades on Market Street. There was little left on the shelves, but I decided to go for Allen Steele’s Coyote Raising. When I later went to Dark Carnival, an F/SF/mystery bookstore in Berkeley, I bought the rest of the Coyote series, plus Steele’s Spindrift and Galaxy Blues. Finally, Blish’s Cities in Flight, and Silverberg's Lord Valentine's Castle.
I started coming down with what I thought was a cold on Wednesday, but it turned out to be a full blown flu, with frequent and quite loud sneezing, and clogged nostrils too, but luckily, that all started to impede me after I got my yearly review. It certainly made it difficult to get restful sleep. When I flew back yesterday, my ears started hurting like hell when we began the descent to our Phoenix stop. After a lengthy hesitation, I couldn’t stand the pain anymore and blew my nose, even if it was going to damage my ear drums. I’m quite happy that it had the opposite effect. Still, that left me drained for the rest of the day, that and the flu.
I may have been exhausted, but I was determined to take advantage of yesterday being the last day of the Hugo Preliminaries’s voting period to add Warren Ellis’s Aetheric Mechanics to the graphic story’s category. I also voted in the fan writer’s category for the first time ever. Why? I never followed fandom’s printed medium enough to feel qualified to vote. Until last week, that is. That’s when I found out that fan writing can include non-deadtree publication. I’ve been going around the blogosphere for barely 4 years, but that’s time enough to form an opinion and I put in two names. One of those two people was quite amused that it’s only recently that I found out that electronic publication was eligible, and said something about my being “…way behind the curve…” while she/he, who is not a computer professional, has been around the internet for pleasure since 1986, starting with a 300-baud modem. Yeah, just hearing the words “300-baud modem” is enough to turn my blood to ice. The horror. The horror! Actually, it makes sense. Back in those days of yore, I was a mainframe programmer and had to use telecommunication to take care of system failures at all hours of the evening and night. There was no high-speed internet. What we had were phone lines, which in the pre-DSL days were incredibly slow and the last thing I felt like doing was to spend my free time on what would remind me too much of work.
Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be unduly surprised to find that people in my situation were among the last to go on the internet for fun.
Mind you, I’ve never regretted joining the blogosphere. Among the many things it has given are friendships that’d never have happened otherwise.
