Bill Roper's Journal

The Bristol Renaissance Faire was closed today (and will be closed tomorrow) due to wildfire smoke, so this scotched our planned trip there today. This *did* mean that we didn't have to get an early start on things, so instead of arriving at Charcoal Delights with the kids in Faire garb around 9 AM, it was close to 11:45 AM when we rolled in, which was just in time for everyone who wanted breakfast food to get theirs.

When we came home, the delegation eventually decided to walk over to the park with foam weapons and have a brief to-do there. It looks like a good time was had.

The adults rested around the house. In the meantime, Jen and I went upstairs and worked over the cover for an album that she's planning to release soon.

We ordered Chinese takeout for dinner and then sent everyone on their way, which meant that I freed up in time to make it to the Windycon meeting that I had expected to miss. That went well too, as I got answers to a number of questions that I needed to get sorted out.

We will now all go recover. :)

(I'm sure that Jen and company will be recovering on their end of the world too, but I can't see that from here.)

I am fabulously behind, but let's get closer to caught up with this song.

This was the result of another three word prompt that I'd left in my Keep Notes: "It Takes Two". Unlike the previous prompt, there were no lyrics hanging around it (although I used none of the older lyrics as it turned out), so this was going to be a scratch job.

Gretchen has occasionally given me the look because of the number of songs I have written about solo space pilots who would like to be home with the woman they love. It's a thing. You *say* you want to spend time with me, but you keep going on these multi-month flights without me.

And then I thought about whether flying solo ships really makes sense. Maybe not so much...

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the song! I'm off to the next prompt. :)

( Lyrics inside... )

I heard about the FAWM sprint (5 songs in 9 days) from Jen when she passed through here around Filkconbobulated and figured that I could probably handle this (maybe) being retired now (pretty definitely). Of course, it started on July 4th and I was busy then and yesterday, so it is now 5 songs in *7* days which is moving up the challenging list and which meant that I should get started.

Happily, I have a lot of song cues lying around here...

I haven't figured out how to upload stuff to FAWM yet (and have cleverly asked for help), but I *have* now finished one song. Four to go!

I hope you like it.
( Lyrics inside... )

And we're home!

We had a fine time at the con, although Gretchen's mobility was causing her problems. We are now officially very tired.

We need to pack the last few items into the van, but then we will be on our way to Filkconbobulated.

Wish us luck! And see some of you there!

The normal order of things for the upcoming weekend is being shuffled around in all directions due to a convergence of:

Fathers' Day
The Cubs Game I Am Going To On Saturday
K's SO and Their Mother Coming to Dinner on Sunday

We will be celebrating Fathers' Day on Saturday when I get home from the baseball game. I do not know exactly what we will be doing. I know that I am not planning to grill, because I will be too tired for that when I get home from the game. :) (I expect that I will be climbing multiple flights of stairs again in the remote parking garage, which will not help.)

The load of shirts that I would normally have done on Saturday was done today, because that was not going to happen on either Saturday or Sunday. I also filed my application for the Windycon Vendors' Room (not Dealers' Room; apparently "dealer" has joined "huckster" as a potentially offensive term) and am hoping that the required upload of photographs of setup, logo, and merchandise were acceptable, because the system for uploading them does not allow you to rename them to the requested specification during the upload process.

The dining room table needs to be cleaned off so that it is usable for Sunday dinner. Happily, I will be at the baseball game while this should be happening, so we can add this to my list of Fathers' Day presents. :)

I still need to pick up a few things to make dinner on Sunday with, but I can do that on Sunday morning.

Piece of cake.

The bench has departed for a new home. The recliner chair is still here, but I have hopes.

Clif will be departing for his home tomorrow as the Nebula Awards convention will be over, but we had a good time hanging here when he wasn't there.

And laundry was laundered, despite our best efforts. :)

This is best characterized as being Debbie Gates' fault.

First, she *also* has a new puppy. Second, she put "Find Your People" into her FilkONtario concert set, a song that Gretchen was already familiar with and likes a lot.

The combination gave Gretchen the idea for this song. And now we have all the parts for it.

I hope you like it!
( Lyrics inside... )

Let's start by disclosing something: I've been working on a Filk Hall of Fame nomination for Amy McNally for several years now. I keep sending in more data to add to the pile, including a copy of the article she wrote about letting kids touch the fiddle (one of them was my kid), and a full discography which I got from Amy by shyly asking "How many albums *have* you played on?" I'd been considering going to FKO this year for a while, because it just felt like that nomination ought to be ripe.

And then I got an email from Amy asking if I was planning on going to FKO this year and if she could catch a ride with me. Sounded good to me!

Debbie Gates had asked me earlier if I might be going and if I could play some rhythm guitar for her Interfilk Guest concert. This also sounded good to me and now I was committed to going, so...

And then I got laid off, which gave me more time to study rhythm guitar parts. :)

Anyway, I had made plans and booked hotel rooms based on "I'm working on part of Thursday before heading out", so that was what we did, ending up in Jackson, Michigan on Thursday night and driving the rest of the way in on Friday. This meant that we only made it to one of the two rehearsals for Debbie's concert, but that worked out ok.

I wasn't up for the theme filks on Friday, so I ended up in the small end of the big room upstairs and sang a few songs. Then there were the concerts on Saturday and the Filk Hall of Fame induction speeches, which I was greatly looking forward to. :) And then the Interfilk auction, where I suggested drafting Interfilk Guest Debbie as an Interfilk auctioneer. Despite her being worried about it, she did just fine, which was *exactly* what I had expected.

I did not have the right sort of spoons available to go to the memorial filking on Saturday night -- I got a chance to briefly say hi to Sue Jeffers and I wish I'd had a chance to chat with her more, but time was failing at its basic mission of preventing everything from happening at the same moment. I ended up in a tiny filk back upstairs that including John McDaid and we swapped some songwriting stuff back and forth which was fun.

Sunday, there was the Filk Hall of Fame concert which was absolutely lovely. And Gretchen was very thankful for the streaming that let her watch all of the concerts from home so that she could see what we were up to.

The Dead Penguin filk was unsurprisingly large, so it took a long time for our organized chaos to make its way around the room. I sang three songs: "Zeta", because Rand was there and he would actually get all of the references :); "Third Planet From the Sun", because I'd chatted with Tim Griffin about the song earlier as one that could be classified as educational; and then "Shining", because that was the first song that I wrote after COVID and I had wanted to write something positive. And I got a big hug from Judith afterwards, which was a fine thing.

Amy and I got up and managed to get on the road by 7 AM local time, which was really good. We made great time (and found Coffee Crisp on sale at the Onroute, because K wanted Coffee Crisp) right up until we got to Sarnia. There was only one booth open to handle cars at American customs, so we were backed up for an hour. They managed to find someone to open a second booth as we got close to the front of the line and we were the second vehicle through that booth. This was shortly followed (as shortly as possible!) by a trip to the nearby Speedway, because it had become *very* necessary for reasons not at all related to gasoline consumption.

The rest of the trip was simple and included the same good conversation that we'd had on the way to the con. Amy realized that we were going to get in early enough to catch a bus back to Madison and the option of sleeping in her own bed sounded really good, so I dropped her off to catch the bus and headed home.

Then I turned around and went back to the airport when Amy texted me to let me know that I had forgotten to ask for Gretchen's key to my car. Oops...

But I made it home, unloaded the car, and then Gretchen joined me for a happy trip over to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, because a nice little sirloin was in order. :)

This was the first time I'd been to FKO since (I think) 2018. Something went wrong in 2019 to prevent us from going, although I don't remember what at this remove. Then COVID hit, our passports expired, and things were very, very busy.

But things were less busy this year, so that was good. I had a good time.

I'm having a great time here at FKO. I really enjoyed the Hall of Fame inductions last night. Of course, everyone did. :)

And now I'm looking forward to the afternoon concerts. Which will be live streamed...