Bill Roper's Journal

The new power strip arrived late enough that I didn't mess with it today. It will probably become Saturday's project, because tomorrow it's back to work. Work is going to be happy to see me. :)

The new CD flip racks also arrived. They look good and will, I hope, be durable enough to survive in our environment. They'll ride in the book box with the old flip racks and the three or four remaining copies of Roberta Rogow's Rec-Room Rhymes that make up the last of our songbook inventory. Paper, alas, has fallen out of fashion in our digital age.

In the meantime, I have written the checks for all but one of the CD purchases that came by mail. In the last case, I'm waiting for an amount and an address which I hope to have soon.

Sales at Windycon ended up being ok, largely due to having sold a bunch of the new "Amy & Me" album. Yay! Clearly, I need to do more albums with Amy... :)

Day two of Windycon is in the books. So far, so good, although sales could be better. But we had fun, especially at the art auction.

I will be off to Windycon shortly, right after I get the dogs into boarding for the weekend.

Gretchen will follow when school is out.

See some of you there!

I assembled the racks for the additional bit of grid for our dealer table at Windycon, because I am busily figuring out how to get 18 feet worth of merchandise onto 12 linear feet of table. The answer is to go up! And to bring the CD tower from home too, although that's not a great way to display much of anything.

Meanwhile, I have finished the draft of the Opening Ceremonies script and am off to do Closing Ceremonies now. Happily, Closing Ceremonies is much simpler. :)

Windycon is getting very, very close in the headlights.

Oh, deer.

That said, tomorrow I will finish up the draft scripts for Opening and Closing Ceremonies and we'll see where we're at.

We got back from OVFF at about 1 AM last night, which is causing me to strongly contemplate the wisdom of staying over for the Sunday Dead Dog. But that wasn't really an option once the kids were in school. This will not be true next year.

But this was *this* year and Gretchen and I both had a great time. Gretchen didn't do any singing, because her knees were bothering her greatly, but she had a lot of good conversations as did I. And although I didn't manage to spend a lot of time in the open filking because of schedules and dealer table, I *did* get to sing six different songs from the stage, three with Amy accompanying me, and two by the greatly missed Tom Smith during the Pegasus Concert. That makes a pretty good weekend of singing all by itself. :)

We also sold a goodly number of copies of the new "Amy & Me" album and a good number of "Liftoff to Landing" as well, which bulked up the sales considerably over last year. This is also a good thing. :)

But it was good to see friends. And new people! I am in favor of new people, because they make the whole affair more interesting.

We are still catching up on sleep, so I think I will head in that direction now.

The week before OVFF is really not the time to have meetings downtown on Tuesday and Wednesday. But that's the way that the schedule worked out, so...

To add to the general entertainment, Julie had a root canal today. Calvin had his last lesson of puppy school and has graduated. More training is likely in order, but it's progress.

And the new CDs are tucked into inventory and the van is packed, save for our luggage.

I should really feel better about this, but it's being a bit of a treadmill. It will be better when we hit the road. :)

I guess we have solved the problem of what to do about taking care of the dogs over OVFF, because OVFF has posted their health policy for 2025 and it appears that Gretchen will not be coming.

Meanwhile, in a glorious triumph for *someone* of *some* kind, I now have to decide whether I am going to be vaccinated against RSV or whether I am going to be tested for COVID three times during the course of the convention. Logic here is, of course, completely absent. But last year, my oldest child had to decide between getting a test that was unavailable or getting vaccinated in order to attend the convention, so I suppose this year's policy is a small improvement in that it doesn't mandate an unavailable test.

I checked before posting this, because I couldn't sleep before posting this -- and since I was up until 2:30 AM debugging, I would *really* like to go back to sleep! -- and the latest study from the CDC says that over a five month period, you were 54% less likely to contract COVID if you received the booster in September, 2024. Thus, there *is* a study indicating that it does *something*. (Now, I *agree* that it does *something*. If you have never had or been exposed to COVID before, it is clear to me that getting vaccinated improves your chances of not dying of the disease. At this point, of course, everyone except The Boy in the Bubble has either had COVID at least once or been vaccinated against it at least once or both.)

Having spent still *more* time looking for studies instead of sleeping, I fail to find one that quantifies how much less likely a *vaccinated* person who contracts COVID is to transmit the disease that someone who is *not* recently boosted, although I find one that indicates that the vaccinated person is likely to remain contagious for about 6 days, while the unvaccinated person remains contagious for about 7.5 days. My calculator tells me that's about 80% of the time, because I am not going to try to do math in my head on this little sleep. And when I multiply that by the 54% above, I get a number that's something like 43%.

Let's take that number in the absence of a better one. A vaccinated person who walks through the door would have a 43% chance of giving someone COVID as opposed to an unvaccinated person. The vaccinated person is not required to test at all. The unvaccinated person is required to test on each of the three days of the convention, just in case they develop the disease at the con. The vaccinated person could develop the disease at the con too (54% less likely!), but they don't need to test at all.

Given those sorts of numbers, it feels like the testing policy is simply punitive.

And given that -- as written and posted -- a failure to be vaccinated against RSV means that you need to be tested for COVID, it's not very scientific either.

I'm going to go back to bed now.

And I am going to *hate* going to OVFF without Gretchen.

But the dogs, I suppose, will be happier.

I'm back from Confusion. We left early, since I wasn't dealing at the con, which meant we got back early, which is good, because I am still extremely tired as I recover from this abominable cold.

I had a good enough time at the con, for having no voice. I enjoyed all the panels that I was on and I got a lot of rest. And I *needed* the rest.

Tomorrow, it's back to work!

If I can manage to finish packing things up, I will shortly be on the road to Confusion. (Yes, I know. I *live* on the Road to Confusion.)

See some of you there!