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Consonance Report
Briefly: I had a wonderful time.
In somewhat more detail:
There is exactly one non-stop flight on Southwest from Chicago to San Jose and vice versa. Accordingly, I found myself on the early flight out on Friday morning. This made clearing security pretty easy, but by the time I managed to scarf down a bagel and get to the gate, they were about a minute away from boarding. But I ended up with an aisle seat and a comfortable flight, arriving in San Jose, collecting my car, and heading over to the office.
I spent the afternoon working through things with one of my co-workers. Then it was off to the hotel and Consonance. I got dinner with Kathleen and Harold Groot at the hotel restaurant; then I caught Steve Savitsky and Amy McNally's concerts, followed by Seanan's Toastmistress concert, all of which were great fun. Then it was off for the theme circle being hosted by the Three (or Four) Weird Sisters on songs about fear, followed by open filking. By the time I went to bed, I'd been up for 22 hours on about four hours of sleep.
Sleep is for the weak and sickly, right? :)
I slept in, grabbed lunch, then went to the workshop that the Three Weird Sisters were running. Afterwards, I joined them for dessert at the gyros place across the street, as they hadn't yet eaten. Then it was back in time for Brooke's International Guest concert. Brooke is, of course, very much like Brooke, so the concert was a hoot.
After the 2 x 10s, I spent some time talking about WindyCon business with Seanan (who is our Author Guest of Honor this year), then back to catch the latter half of Randy and Kira's concert (plus assorted guest artists) where they made it obvious why Interfilk had sent them.
The Interfilk auction followed and raised a good bit of money for both Interfilk and Consonance, capped off by Seanan's last tuckerization for at least a year that went for $1000. To my surprise, the CD of the concert that I was giving with Amy on Sunday (did I mention that Amy is our Filk Guest of Honor for WindyCon this year?) went for well over $400. This led to an interesting discussion of filk futures...
I hooked up with a dinner party in the hotel restaurant that included Vixy & Tony, the Bohnhoffs, Sandy Tyra, Kristoph, Margaret, the O'Hallorans, and others at the far end of the table and out of the reach of conversation. A good time was had by all. The food even arrived on a reasonably timely basis given the size of the mob.
A local group, Tell Your Ma, was next on the concert schedule. They were greatly amused later to inform me that two of the members of the group know Bill Roper -- in this case, the Bill Roper who is famous for writing video games such as World of Warcraft. He and I have never met, but we've swapped e-mail from time to time.
Then the Three (Four, wait, Five, counting Amy) Weird Sisters kicked butt and took names in their concert. And there was much rejoicing. And applause. And useful things like that. :)
Things were running extremely late by this time. I ended up in a pair of theme circles that eventually degenerated into open filk, before crawling off to bed, because my concert was the next day and being awake would be a good idea.
I'd checked the con schedule earlier in the week, noted that Amy was coming, and asked her if she wanted to join me for my concert. She said, "Sure!" And so I put together an Amy-compatible set list and we had a fine time. Reports are that we did good. :) (Thanks, Amy!)
The set list (for those scoring at home):
Lunatic Moon
Run, Cassie, Run
Jump In
Darkness
Crystal Dance
Counting to Infinity
It's All Right
The End of the Line
Beyond the Sky
Cruising
Running Down the Stars
Basically, we had the magic arc and the space arc, bridged by "Counting to Infinity".
After that, I took advantage of having a car and took Brenda and Teresa out for food at a restaurant at McCarthy Ranch, which I know of because it's just north of the old Consonance hotel and not far from my office in the area. I managed to dodge sulfites in the tortillas (they eventually brought me the label to read), the food was good, the conversation better. Then back to the hotel, more chatting, some time working with Teresa on my website redesign, and across the street for a quick meal at Carl's Jr.
It was a reasonably dense dead dog, despite some folks needing to leave early. There was a lot of good music flying around.
Vixy & Tony surprised Seanan by having worked up the title song for Phineas and Ferb. I then pulled another P&F song, "Evil Love", out of my book. Gretchen and I had worked it up a while back; Seanan was familiar enough with it to be able to help me cover it, as we vigorously plugged Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension as a candidate for the short-form dramatic presentation Hugo for 2012. (Nominate soon!)
Eventually, it was time to crawl off to bed, as I needed to duck back into the office on Monday morning ahead of my flight. This I did, although I was too wired to sleep for a long time after "going to bed", so there was a lot of tired on Monday.
But the meeting at work went well and I caught my flight home without incident.
Gretchen, Katie, and Julie picked me up at the airport and we went home and -- before too long! -- off to bed.
It was a really good con. And I really needed it.
In somewhat more detail:
There is exactly one non-stop flight on Southwest from Chicago to San Jose and vice versa. Accordingly, I found myself on the early flight out on Friday morning. This made clearing security pretty easy, but by the time I managed to scarf down a bagel and get to the gate, they were about a minute away from boarding. But I ended up with an aisle seat and a comfortable flight, arriving in San Jose, collecting my car, and heading over to the office.
I spent the afternoon working through things with one of my co-workers. Then it was off to the hotel and Consonance. I got dinner with Kathleen and Harold Groot at the hotel restaurant; then I caught Steve Savitsky and Amy McNally's concerts, followed by Seanan's Toastmistress concert, all of which were great fun. Then it was off for the theme circle being hosted by the Three (or Four) Weird Sisters on songs about fear, followed by open filking. By the time I went to bed, I'd been up for 22 hours on about four hours of sleep.
Sleep is for the weak and sickly, right? :)
I slept in, grabbed lunch, then went to the workshop that the Three Weird Sisters were running. Afterwards, I joined them for dessert at the gyros place across the street, as they hadn't yet eaten. Then it was back in time for Brooke's International Guest concert. Brooke is, of course, very much like Brooke, so the concert was a hoot.
After the 2 x 10s, I spent some time talking about WindyCon business with Seanan (who is our Author Guest of Honor this year), then back to catch the latter half of Randy and Kira's concert (plus assorted guest artists) where they made it obvious why Interfilk had sent them.
The Interfilk auction followed and raised a good bit of money for both Interfilk and Consonance, capped off by Seanan's last tuckerization for at least a year that went for $1000. To my surprise, the CD of the concert that I was giving with Amy on Sunday (did I mention that Amy is our Filk Guest of Honor for WindyCon this year?) went for well over $400. This led to an interesting discussion of filk futures...
I hooked up with a dinner party in the hotel restaurant that included Vixy & Tony, the Bohnhoffs, Sandy Tyra, Kristoph, Margaret, the O'Hallorans, and others at the far end of the table and out of the reach of conversation. A good time was had by all. The food even arrived on a reasonably timely basis given the size of the mob.
A local group, Tell Your Ma, was next on the concert schedule. They were greatly amused later to inform me that two of the members of the group know Bill Roper -- in this case, the Bill Roper who is famous for writing video games such as World of Warcraft. He and I have never met, but we've swapped e-mail from time to time.
Then the Three (Four, wait, Five, counting Amy) Weird Sisters kicked butt and took names in their concert. And there was much rejoicing. And applause. And useful things like that. :)
Things were running extremely late by this time. I ended up in a pair of theme circles that eventually degenerated into open filk, before crawling off to bed, because my concert was the next day and being awake would be a good idea.
I'd checked the con schedule earlier in the week, noted that Amy was coming, and asked her if she wanted to join me for my concert. She said, "Sure!" And so I put together an Amy-compatible set list and we had a fine time. Reports are that we did good. :) (Thanks, Amy!)
The set list (for those scoring at home):
Lunatic Moon
Run, Cassie, Run
Jump In
Darkness
Crystal Dance
Counting to Infinity
It's All Right
The End of the Line
Beyond the Sky
Cruising
Running Down the Stars
Basically, we had the magic arc and the space arc, bridged by "Counting to Infinity".
After that, I took advantage of having a car and took Brenda and Teresa out for food at a restaurant at McCarthy Ranch, which I know of because it's just north of the old Consonance hotel and not far from my office in the area. I managed to dodge sulfites in the tortillas (they eventually brought me the label to read), the food was good, the conversation better. Then back to the hotel, more chatting, some time working with Teresa on my website redesign, and across the street for a quick meal at Carl's Jr.
It was a reasonably dense dead dog, despite some folks needing to leave early. There was a lot of good music flying around.
Vixy & Tony surprised Seanan by having worked up the title song for Phineas and Ferb. I then pulled another P&F song, "Evil Love", out of my book. Gretchen and I had worked it up a while back; Seanan was familiar enough with it to be able to help me cover it, as we vigorously plugged Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension as a candidate for the short-form dramatic presentation Hugo for 2012. (Nominate soon!)
Eventually, it was time to crawl off to bed, as I needed to duck back into the office on Monday morning ahead of my flight. This I did, although I was too wired to sleep for a long time after "going to bed", so there was a lot of tired on Monday.
But the meeting at work went well and I caught my flight home without incident.
Gretchen, Katie, and Julie picked me up at the airport and we went home and -- before too long! -- off to bed.
It was a really good con. And I really needed it.
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You guys did better than good, dang, that was a delicious concert!
I'm so sad I missed the phineas and ferb covers! I am going to demand a recount at the next con we're both at. I was about to ask "So, are you coming to worldcon?" but on reflection, that would be a stupid question, now wouldn't it. :)
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And thanks again on the concert!
Gretchen and I haven't been to Worldcon since 2006 in L.A., just before Katie was born, but with the con being in Chicago, we'll be there (and dealing).
Depending on how that goes, we'll see what we do in 2013. :)
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Oh yeah, in December 2010 for Smofcon and then again in July for Westercon.
At least for me, Southwest has plenty of non-stops from San Diego to San Jose. However, this summer I may be looking to see if they have any direct or non-stops from San Diego to Chicago.
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I'm looking forward to when Katie and Julie are old enough to enjoy an actual vacation trip to England and can meet all of our friends over there.