Category: Journal

Convention schedule 2008

I’m off to [Ad Astra](http://www.ad-astra.org/) tonight. I’m mostly going to hang out with people. I like Ad Astra, though. I’ll probably drop in on a few readings and things. Also, it’s nice they have [a webcomic guest](http://www.ad-astra.org/gohHowardTayler.php), although I’ve never really read [Schlock Mercenary](http://www.schlockmercenary.com/).

I’ve been meaning to write down my con schedule for ’08, for my benefit as well as anyone else who might be reading…

* Mar 28-30: [Ad Astra](http://www.ad-astra.org/)
* May 23-25: [Anime North](http://www.animenorth.com/)
* Jul 12: [Polaris](http://www.tcon.ca/polaris/modules/tconguests/) (The con formerly known as Toronto Trek) (Saturday only, probably).
* October?: [Ontario Linux Fest](http://onlinux.ca/)

Polaris is a bit iffy. I can’t honestly see myself bothering with CNAnime/whatever the hell they’re calling it this year.

I want to do the Ontario Linux Fest because I only heard about it this year after it was over, and it sounds like it would’ve been cool. I don’t even know if they’re going to do another one. Apparently the first one lost money.

That’s pretty much it. No exciting US cons this year. I think we’re all a bit busy.

Next year, though, I’m definitely planning on going to [Worldcon in Montreal](http://www.anticipationsf.ca/English/Home) with Ellen.

Making music

Disclaimer: I’m breaking my “don’t talk about other people rule” somewhat here. Thing is, though, the more I think about this story, the more it makes me smile, so I’m going to tell it. I want to stumble across it again many years from now and I hope it’ll make me smile then too.

I picked Ellen up at the university the other night and we ended up just driving around. On a complete whim, we decided to stop at the [KW Art Gallery](http://www.kwag.on.ca/section/view/). We didn’t seriously expect it would be open.

But it was. There was some sort of CD release party or something going on. Music and booze and desserts and stuff. An attractive young woman came up to take our coats. We were probably a bit underdressed for the occasion, but I’ve stopped being intimidated by these sorts of things. I don’t know if Ellen ever was. Nobody came and told us that we shouldn’t be there, so we stayed.

While I was checking out the dessert table a woman came up to talk to Ellen. Apparently she recognized her, so they struck up a conversation. I listened in, but didn’t have much to add myself. One thing I really like about being in a couple is I can let her do the talking. This suits me very well, and I can do what I really like to do, which is sit back and listen and watch people.

A man came up who seemed familiar with the woman and joined the conversation. We all made brief small talk about the art or the music or what have you. The woman decided to take her leave, which left us with the man.

“Do you know [her]?” Ellen asked.

“Oh yes, I’ve known her for years,” he said wistfully. “We go way back. There was a time we made music together.”

Ellen’s ears pricked up. “Music? Do you play an instrument?” She doesn’t get nearly as many chances to talk about music as she’d like.

The man hesitated. “Um… Oh! Yeah! I play the saxophone…”

Eventually we wandered off to look at [one of the exhibitions](http://www.akimbo.biz/akimblog/index.php?id=178). When I was pretty sure we were alone, I mentioned “You know, I’m pretty sure when he said they made music together, he was speaking euphemistically.”

Toronto stop-over

I’m heading home to Belleville for the weekend. I’m taking the train. Since my last train trip in December ran late, I was able to use that ticket stub to get a discount.

If I was thinking about it, I probably would’ve gotten the train next week. Since it’s Easter and all. But my parents aren’t really doing anything for Easter and my sister is staying in Ottawa. So I suppose I could use a nice, quiet long weekend at home.

I took the bus into Toronto. I’d love to take the train, but connections through Toronto on the train are pretty abysmal. I would have had to leave at 6:30 in the morning to make it work. I’ve done that before, and it’s never fun. This is supposed to be a nice, relaxing trip. I don’t want to spend half my time recovering from getting up that early.

I took today (Thursday) off, as well as Friday, giving myself an extra long weekend. It just happened that today was the first day we’ve had above freezing in a while and I really wanted to try to melt some channels for run-off off my roof. I really have to figure out ths roof thing for next year. It’s getting a bit silly. So far, though, I haven’t had a leak.

Taking the day off also meant I got to spend some time with Ellen before I left. Which was also nice.

I had an hour and a half to wander around the train station. For no good reason, I decided to walk along the Skywalk to the convention centre. It turns out that Canada Blooms was on. They were closing up when I got there, but I got to walk by the displays without any crowds around. I got to smell lots of blooming flowers, and read pamplets on green roofs and living walls. It’s a neat thing to see.

I’m on the train writing this. Not connected this time. I’m saving it in an offline editor. I’ll upload it when I get home.

What I’d like to know is…

Who’s in charge of the [Canadian Holiday calendar](http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=canadian%40holiday.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York) in [Google Calendar](http://calendar.google.com/)? Someone really ought to tell them that Easter [is](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holidays_in_Canada) a public holiday in Canada. St. Patrick’s Day is not.

It’s more useful (to me, anyway) to know when I have days off than when I’m supposed to put green food colouring in beer.