Monday, April 28, 2014

Constellation Report 2014

This past weekend, John and I attended Constellation in Lincoln NE. I had a blast, more fun than I’ve had at a con in years, probably because I was feeling better than I have in years. Still, when we got home Sunday evening, I was too tired to write a blog. And today, I tried to catch up with some things, which took way longer than I thought it would. So I decided this week’s blog would be an edited version of my daily journal entries from the weekend:
4/25/14, Friday - got up around 8. John had said he wanted to leave around 1 pm, then at some point in the morning, he said that in order to get on the road by 1, we should probably leave the house around 11:30, to give us time to go the Credit Union and have lunch. That gave me time to print some things for panels. My first panel was 6 that evening, Exoplanets, and although the group was small, and my notes only produced a half hour panel, I think it went pretty well. I took my blue wig off before the end of the hour, it was sliding around on my head so much. If I’m going to do any costuming, I’ve got to figure out how to put on a wig properly.
4/26/14, Saturday - got up around 7 feeling good. After breakfast in the hotel restaurant, went back to the room and watched tv for a time while John was on the computer. Made John into a Klingon for the day, then went downstairs for my reading. An audience of about 6 (numbers are growing!) and at least one of them took notes on where to find my work! Again, about half an hour of reading, but I stretched it out a bit by talking to the audience about the types of books they like to read, favorite authors and so forth. Then down to the basement for my panel on alien archeologists digging up Lincoln NE and needing help figuring out what some of the items they had found were. Not a big audience, but once they understood the concept of ‘audience participation’, I think they had some fun. Again, need to find more items, as I ran out of pre-thought items, and was drawing random items on the white board, in order to get past the 1/2 hour mark.
4/27/14, Sunday - had a harder time getting up this morning. John got me up at 8, and I told him I needed another hour. That extra hour did help. When I got up, I finished packing up, then went to the con suite in search of breakfast so I could take my pills. By then, the elevators were overflowing with people trying to check out, so I walked up to our room, thinking I heard John below me in the stairwell. John had given up on elevators, and started taking suitcases to the car without a cart. Smaller items were all that was left, so I started taking them out into the hall. Couldn’t carry them all at one time, but thought I could move them down the hall towards the stairs little by little. Then John showed up and took most of it to the car, while I took my stuff down to the basement to wait for my next panel time. Bought 3 books from Tyree, and it sounds hopeful that he’s going to publish Cali. ‘First Americans’ was, again, a smallish audience, but I managed to get some comments out of them. Again, need more material, only lasted half an hour. The next panel in that room never showed up, so people wandered in and out, and everybody farbled their way through the hour. Then my last panel - Dissecting Dragons. HUGE audience! Filled up all the chairs in the room, and then some. Lots of audience participation, lasted 52 minutes (thanks to the audience participation), and many people told me they had enjoyed it.

A great weekend, for me.

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