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I'm back from GAFilk, where I had an excellent time, even with so many folks who couldn't make it there because of the weather or other factors. Traveling companion My Good Buddy Clif and I had good fortune with clear and dry weather on Thursday for the trip down and Monday for the trip back. But it is a *very* long drive. :)

Thanks to the Midkiffs (mostly Phil, who had to deal with it :) ) for keeping Clif's car so that we could meet up in Indianapolis on the drive down. And to Sutton and the concom who had found a speaker system that *worked* well this year, so that I could hear the concerts and such in the Dealers' Room -- which was very nearly the singular Dealer Room, as Sally Kobee couldn't make it for a variety of reasons, I'm told. And neither could the Blibbering Humdingers or Marc Gunn. But Leslie Hudson ended up with a table and we had a nice conversation or two.

I had nice conversations with a lot of people, which is mostly why I go to conventions. That and the singing, which was also fun. And I got to perform in the 2x10s with Amy, which I always enjoy. And the dinner dance with Play It With Moxie where I tended the board for a few songs so that James Mahaffey could get on stage and play. And the Interfilk Auction, which was quite brief, and where Gretchen won the Interfilk Quilt raffle in absentia, Brenda having been good enough to write her name on the tickets I'd bought for her while I was auctioning things. At one point, I was auctioning an OVFF thumb drive that claimed to have the Pegasus Nominees for 2024 and 2025 (!) on it. I would have been greatly interested to hear the latter... :)

And I got Sutton to sing "Stray Dog Man" before heading off to bed on Sunday, because I had been requested to sing it on Friday in his absence and it seemed like he should sing it at least as many times as I did, he being the author and all that. I suspect that was the only time he led a song all weekend, because he stays very, very busy at GAFilk.

Oh, and we released "Liftoff to Landing" (which I should now go turn loose on Bandcamp) and sold a few copies of that as well, which is good, because I have a *lot* of copies of that album. :)

I have tables for next year, so I should be back, weather permitting. :)
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The van is mostly loaded for an early departure tomorrow. In a little bit, I'm going to go pack my suitcase with everything except my toiletries. And that will be it until the morning, which is going to arrive *way* too early.

See some of you at GAFilk!

Catching Up

Jan. 6th, 2025 10:25 pm
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It was back to work today for what is going to be an short week, as I'm scheduled to head off for GAFilk on Thursday, assuming that the weather doesn't go completely to crap. So far, the forecast is good. I have way too many things to do and the month of January is going to be a complete mess. But I'm making progress.

In the meantime, I have too many things to finish up at home. This includes tomorrow's ultrasound to check on how things are after last summer's lithotripsy.

And packing. And updating software. And inventory. And...

Whee!
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A few minutes ago, we finally took all of the table stock out of the minivan following GAFilk.

And there was much rejoicing!
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I had a good time.

Oh, more? Ok...

I got out on the road by 6 AM, partly due to having slept badly the night before, which seems to be par for the course on nights when I'm expecting short sleep due to having to get up early. I start out expecting that I'll be tired in the morning and then my brain decides to reinforce the message. Ah, well.

Anyway, the weather was good, the roads were clear, and I managed to pick up Jen by 10:30, losing an hour as I changed time zones. I'd get the hour back later, which would make me very happy on the way home. It was a nice drive with pleasant conversation as Google Maps suggested that we would make better time on the eastern route down I-75, so I saw a bunch of highway that I don't recall seeing before. We got in at some reasonable hour, unloaded our luggage, and after a bit of conversation, I wandered off to bed, where I slept until I was good and ready to wake up.

I walked over to the Barbecue Kitchen down the street for lunch and ate way too much food, to the point where I ended up taking the biscuits back with me. Then it was time to pull the stock out of the van and set up the Dodeka tables, which didn't take too long, because the new packing system has improved that process a lot. I was ready for business by our official opening time, made some sales, then dropped off things in the room, grabbed my guitar, and headed down to Opening Ceremonies.

While waiting for Opening Ceremonies, Bill Sutton tapped me for the My Filk game show. Normally, you try to get folks who haven't done it before, but it's been a *very* long time since I've been up there, so I was delighted to get the chance at this again. We ended up losing the match, but the guitar came in handy for the songwriting portion of the contest and we had folks singing along with us, so I'm going to count that as a success. :)

I ended up in a filk room just down the hall which turned out to be a lot of fun, as it had a great many people in it that I enjoy listening to. And it was still a filk of a comfortable size, which is nice. I got a chance to debut "It's Very Dark" there. Sunnie Larsen pulled out her fiddle to play along and I was able to pass it to her for the fiddle break that goes after the second verse, which made me very happy. I crashed out before it got to be too late, as I needed to make sure that I was awake to open the dealer table at the very civilized hour of 11 AM.

Not too long after I opened up, Amy McNally dropped by to say hi. We chatted for a bit and I asked if she might have time to swing by and join me for a 2x10 if slots were available late in the process. She liked the idea, so we ran over to the registration table, found that the final slot was still open, and dropped our names in there. Then it was back to the dealer table where I sold more CDs and had a lot of nice conversations as folks wandered in and out.

I closed up a few minutes early, as I wanted to get over to the 2x10s on a timely basis. Rand and Erin were on deck at the time and Rand kindly let me know that they were #10 when I asked him. Amy and I were supposed to be #14, so I texted her the info, and she arrived not long after. And I got to see the last several of the 2x10s, which was nice, as being in the dealer room means missing all of the concerts. In past years, they've used a wireless speaker to try to boost the signal to the dealer room, but the connection really hasn't been up to the task and it wasn't set up this year. I found out after OVFF that all of the concerts had been streamed live and that if I had used my phone, I could have heard better what was going on. Maybe that is something I should mention to the GAFilk folks so they can ask the OVFF folks what they needed to do it and if streaming the feed from the board is feasible.

But I digress. Our turn came, Amy and I got up on stage and performed "Everything Ends" and "Shining", which had been the last two songs in my Chambanacon guest concert. This went over well and I had several people tell me that "Shining" was a great song to end the 2x10s on, which was nice to hear.

Off to the banquet! Play It With Moxie sounded great, the food was above average for banquet fare, and I even got to dance some. Unlike a lot of folks, I didn't change for the banquet, largely because I would like my tuxedo to be less tight. Maybe next year. :)

My good buddy, Clif Flynt, was the Super-Secret Guest for GAFilk this year and he decided to scrap plans to give a presentation on writing filk songs and do a concert instead, deciding that most of the people would be benefited more by the latter than the former. This meant that the concert was a bit more impromptu than it might have been otherwise, including Kathleen Sloan and I joining him on stage for "Dreams". But Clif put on a good show and I was in the audience playing auxiliary memory, because if it is an old song of Clif's, I probably have a pretty good chance of remembering the lyrics. :)

(ETA: And I forgot to mention the Interfilk Auction and Quilt Raffle, which was a lot of fun. Sutton, Mark, and I were the auctioneers, there was an *enormous* amount of silliness, including the return of Mike Browne, armed with delicious chocolate truffles for those of you who had not yet had dessert, and a lot of money was raised. Larry Kirby won the Quilt Raffle after some 20 years and was quite pleased.)

Then it was time for the open filk. I went to a room, unpacked my guitar, and just as I got it out of the case, someone walked into the room and took the last three seats where I had been planning to sit. Oops. So I grabbed everything and went to another room. That room never really achieved critical mass and I eventually migrated back to the room that I had tried to start out in, which now had a *great* many people in it. But there was a chair outside the main circle and that would be fine.

Except by the time I grabbed my stuff and got back to the other room, someone had taken that chair. (Do you see a pattern developing here?) I asked Gooch to please hold my guitar for a moment, went back to the room I'd been in, grabbed a chair, and dragged it into the room, because clearly I was having a BYOC night. (That would be "Bring Your Own Chair".)

Anyway, the circle eventually got around to me -- it was about a two-hour bardic circle at that point, which was fine, because bardic is pretty much the only simple way to manage a two-hour circle -- and I announced that I was going to sing something that could be loud, because I was way back here. And Lauren noted that the folks who had been sitting next to her had left and that there was space there, so I grabbed my guitar and music stand, abandoning my hard-fought-for chair, and got to sing from a much better located space. :)

Well, it was better located for a while, but it will be another hour plus until we get to that, so...

And happily, "Third Planet From the Sun" has a chorus that folks find it easy to sing along with and they did, which is another nice thing.

But it was an absolutely lovely filk circle and a lot of good music was being made. I got to hear the PDX Broadsides for the first time (they were slightly downwind of my new position) and was suitably impressed. I am going to need to get some of their CDs for the Dodeka table.

I'm not going to *try* to list everyone who was there, because I will fail dismally and that will make me sad. :) But it was a darned fine time.

By the time things were heading back around in my direction, it was getting late and various people were defecting from the circle in favor of sleep. I figured I could probably play "Falling Toward Orion" next (and last, because "defecting in favor of sleep"), so I had it queued up in the filk book as things were rounding the corner.

And it was about this time that Lauren and I got sprayed by a shower of fruit punch.

I am *still* not sure exactly how this happened, but a cone of a lot of tiny droplets of fruit punch came flying our way. I am not sure of what all of Lauren it hit other than her music journal, but I got some in the side of my head, some on my guitar, some on my filk book...

It was impressive. Not in any *good* way, of course.

I have an emergency tissue in my pocket, which is much less impressive than Will Trent's pocket handkerchief, but a useful thing to have in any case. I dabbed at my head and then at my filk book, and then handed it off to Lauren who was valiantly trying to clean up her hand-lettered music journal, which is gorgeous and not the sort of thing like my filk book where you can replace a page by printing out a new copy. And then I took the tissue back and started cleaning fruit punch off of my guitar.

(I found more fruit punch on the guitar the following night and managed to get it off with a damp paper towel from the washroom. *sigh*)

But the turn came around to Lauren and she was able to sing, and then I was able to sing, and not too long after that, I packed up and headed off to bed.

Where I forgot to set my alarm. Oops. Happily, I woke up in time to get out and down to the Dealers' Room when it opened. Sold some more CDs, had some more nice conversations, and eventually, it was time to pack up and go.

In an interesting coincidence, the sales on each of the three days were all in the same $10 range of each other. I don't think that has *ever* happened before.

Jen came to help me get stuff into the van. Mike Browne was good enough to climb into the rear and position boxes for me, so the load went pretty easily. Then I talked to Jen about dinner plans, she passed around ideas, and we ended up headed back to the Barbecue Kitchen where everyone who had not been there before was greatly impressed by the quantity and quality of food that they had just been served.

Back to the con and the dead dog filk. It was a nice calm filk that broke up fairly early. I headed up to the room, set my alarm, and didn't manage to sleep worth a damn, because I couldn't get the music out of my head.

On the other hand, I got another song idea or two, so we'll see how that goes.

Got up at an absurd hour, met Jen in the lobby, and we headed back north under sunny skies on clear roads, which made me very happy. The conversation was good, we made good time, and I dropped Jen off at home before 5 PM, and then headed back to Chicago, where I made it in by 8:30 PM, stopping only briefly when arriving in town to pick up some dinner for the kids.

I had an absurdly good time. And I had time to talk about some plans for the "Crosstime Bus" album with Jen, which I hope will be useful shortly.

I think I should do this again next year. :)
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The CDs have been shuffled and placed into the van, so all that has to go in before I leave tomorrow is my personal luggage. I've printed out the new song (and a new song list!) for my filk book, so that just needs to be inserted. I'm going to pack up my bag tonight, so that all that has to be added in the morning are my toiletries, along with packing up the CPAP.

And then I should be ready to roll.

I'll see some of you at GAFilk!
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As part of the preparations for GAFilk, I needed to count the inventory in the basement and get the list of what I believe is in the traveling inventory. This serves two purposes. First, it let's me look at the list of the traveling inventory and see what I need to get from the basement. Second, it is information I need to be able to file the taxes.

The traveling inventory is now entered into the 2023 tax spreadsheet, which means that I have officially started on the Dodeka taxes.

Whee!
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I got back from GAFilk late enough last night and was tired enough that I didn't manage to post anything then. I'm tired again now after a day back at work, but I should stick my head up and say something.

How about "Wow!"?

Seriously, I had more fun at GAFilk than I've had in a while, capped off by a really fun dead dog filk, which is a thing that I don't get to attend that often lately. But I saw old friends, new friends, had a lot of great conversations, and heard a lot of good music. (I could start doing a lot of name checking here, but I am atrocious at it. It's even more fun when you're trying to post to both Dreamwidth and Facebook.)

We were also blessed with good weather, which was a distinct change from the last GAFilk I was at which got iced in. The trip was long, but relatively easy.

Unless something bad happens, I expect to be back next year.
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There is a certain level of frantic packing going on as I get ready to head out for GAFilk at an annoyingly early hour tomorrow morning. This is not helped by the fact that pretty much as soon as I set out, it will be an hour later than I think due to the time zone change. Happily, I get that hour back on the way home when I will *really* need it.

But the new CDs have been ripped and added to the iPod (which is something I didn't have time to get around to between OVFF and Windycon), the sales tax rate for the convention has been discovered and entered into Square (and I have found out what I need to do to file the sales tax, which is an important part of the process), and Gretchen has set out for the bank to make sure that the bank that is going to the convention with me is sufficient and to make all of the remaining items from last year that still need to be deposited are deposited.

There are a bunch of things that still need to be finished (like moving my laundry to the dryer), but I think I'm closing in on being ready to go. The only thing that is going to be lacking, with any luck, is sleep. :)

Fiat Lux

Jan. 3rd, 2023 10:35 pm
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Gretchen has been complaining about the light from the overhead fixture in the family room, while I've noticed that the light from the three fixtures in the hallway downstairs has become increasingly dim. Today, I pulled out the ladder and (with help from Gretchen and K) did something about it. The three hallway fixtures each contained a very old Phillips LED bulb and a dead compact fluorescent. Those were removed and replaced with a pair of 100 watt equivalent LED bulbs from Amazon. The hallway -- well, it does not *quite* look like a small nuclear device is being detonated when the light switch is flipped on, but it is easily one of the brightest areas in the house. The family room fixture turned out to have one good LED bulb and one burned out compact fluorescent that was replaced with another of the Amazon bulbs.

It's now much brighter downstairs and a lot of dust has been cleaned out of the fixtures.

I have been gradually working my way through the assorted leftovers in the refrigerator and we have now essentially finished the Christmas roast, finished the leftover chili, used up the leftover pizza fixings from last week, and greatly reduced the amount of corned beef. This is good, because actually consuming the food means that it will not go bad and get thrown out while I am at GAFilk. (This is not to imply that Gretchen doesn't eat leftovers -- she may well eat more leftovers than I do, but there are certain leftovers that are going to stay leftover if I'm not here to eat them. :) )

I have a ludicrous number of things to do tomorrow before I depart for GAFilk on Thursday morning, but since I am off from work, there's hope.
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It's now 2023, which means it's time to start thinking about filing taxes for 2022. Accordingly, I have printed out the inventory list from Square and proceeded to the basement to count the CDs that are hiding out down here.

It was also a good time to pull any CDs from stock that need to come to GAFilk with me later in the week. :)

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