My Blog! My Blog!

After reading through the post-convention flood of e-mails on the penguicon-general list, I've realized that I will get no rest until I have posted my comments on Penguicon 5.0. So here it finally is.

I may as well start by talking about what I did during Penguicon, though I suspect my experiences are not only atypical of most fen but would bore most fen silly. Accordingly, I shall put that part of this post under an lj-cut.

Since esrblog was a Nifty this year, we got to start our con on Thursday with the GOH dinner. I ended up sitting between esrblog and landley and across the table from web cartoonist Randy Milholland, creator of “Something Positive”. While we feasted on lamb and other [insert preferred adjective for the region of the world where Iran and Iraq are located here] dainties courtesy of La Shish, Randy regaled us with tales of his father, a true Texas original.

After dinner, most people repaired to what would be the Con Suite, where cake and tarts were served for dessert. I passed on the desert, but managed to lure esrblog, metalfatigue0, and matt_arnold into a game of Puerto Rico, one of my favorite “Euro” strategy board games. I came in a close second to metalfatigue0. After matt_arnold crashed, we found another fourth and played again, until nearly 3:00 a.m.

In the morning, esrblog headed off to join what I was told was a very successful “Geeks with Guns” outing, while I had a leisurely breakfast at a nearby Kerbey Coney Island. I returned to find people genuinely beginning to engage in con set-up activities, so I wandered around for a while, helping with the set up of the Con Suites and, a bit later, with the set up of the Chaos Machine. The first three panels I was on (“Intro to Penguicon,” “Costuming 101”, and “How to Blog Your Life Without Losing Your Mind”) went well, though all of them wandered pretty far from what I'd expected from the topic descriptions. Somewhere in the middle of all this was a dinner expedition to a nearby Thai restaurant with esrblog, landley, etain, and several others. The restaurant was good, and we had it to ourselves, as our slightly off-beat conversation quickly drove away the lone mundanes in the place.

This time, I got a good night's sleep, but when Saturday morning came I was still exhausted. After dragging myself to a fashionably late breakfast, I barely roused myself in time to meet the collective relatives of landley and fadethecat, who had just arrived for the wedding and were attempting to arrange a lunch expedition. Unfortunately, by then it was 1:40 p.m. and the Fine Chocolate Tasting was to start in less than an hour. Undaunted, I bravely set out for the nearest Red Robin with the combined family group, stayed long enough to grab a Diet Coke and head back to the hotel (courtesy of fadethecat and her mother, who also had to leave early and sportingly offered me a ride), and ran for my room to grab the $80 stash of high-quality dark chocolate for the event.

As I was cruising through the hall toward my room, I passed the Con Suite—and overheard phecda and another con comm member discussing the fact that a film crew was currently occupying the room where we were supposed to be holding the Fine Chocolate Tasting and where on earth were they going to put the tasters? They decided to take the room where the Open Cola taps were and haul in a table temporarily for the tasting. Relieved, I sprinted the rest of the way to my room, grabbed the chocolate, and arrived at the designated space just in time to see my co-hostess, Lady Sarah, arrive with plates and the crowd of fen who had signed up for the event. Forty minutes later, all but a few fragments of three of the original 12 bars I had purchased for the event were gone, as were most of the tasters, but everyone professed to have enjoyed the event a lot, and I learned quite a bit about fine dark chocolate in the process.

I donated the last remnants of the chocolate to the Con Suite, which was packed with fen because the Brazilian steak cookout was underway. Since I had signed up for the 3:00 p.m shift, esrblog and I got in line for steak. It was heavenly—and the quantity of cooked meat I received was large enough that I was glad, for the first time that day, that I had not had time to eat lunch.

By then, it was time for the wedding of landley and fadethecat. At the last minute, landley's friend, mirell showed up from Austin and fadethecat's friend Michele showed up from Seattle, and were welcomed to the brief, fannish festivities that, surprisingly, did not involve pirates even though Steve Jackson officiated. It was a very thoughtful, if brief ceremony. Afterward, everyone stood around and talked, and had wedding cake (frosted in cheerful, primary colors!) before adjourning ad libitum to the Con Suite, where chupaquesos and steak were in full swing.

Despite the wedding cake and the retreat to the food-packed Con Suite, in about an hour the members of the wedding party wanted to head out to dinner. By then it was about 6:15 p.m. I had to report by 7 to the Masquerade muster room, because I was helping to judge the Masquerade. So I trooped out to the Red Robin with the collective relatives, again, grabbed another Diet Coke and headed back to the con, this time courtesy of landley's brother, Jim. I spent the next two hours chatting with GOH matociquala, who was one of the Masquerade judges, reviewing and judging this year's dozen or so impressive costume entries, and generally taking part in the Masquerade madness.

When the Masquerade was over, it was after 9:00, and I was finally ready for dinner, but all of the people I wanted to go and eat with had...already eaten, hours ago. They had also made themselves scarce. esrblog was hanging out with in the Mayhem room with the Aegis Consulting folks and didn't want to move. Eventually I ran into mirell and asked if he'd at least keep me company while I ate. So it was back... to the Red Robin, where I finally had some clam chowder and rather good garlic ciabatta bread.

Back at the hotel, I cruised the room parties, visited the Chaos Machine, and hung out until midnight, when the Aegis crew held a “Viking” style tournament. This type of tournament is based on the “holmgang”, where you mark a circle with approximately an eight-foot radius in which the fighters fight. You lose by getting a “kill” shot scored on you, or by getting at least one foot forced out of the circle. I borrowed one of their practice swords and, after the official part of the tourney was over, mixed it up with the others, and generally hung out there until they closed for the night at 1:30 a.m. At that point, I gathered esrblog, Jordan from Aegis, and we adjourned to the Gaming room to teach mirell how to play Puerto Rico. metalfatigue0 ended up joining us, and what with one thing and another we got to bed around....dawn, more or less. Since mirell couldn't get a room because the entire hotel had been sold out for weeks, esrblog and I invited him to crash with us.

I crawled out of bed before they did, however, because I had an 11:30 a.m. panel. As I headed to the Dealers' Room for a last look, I ran into landley and fadethecat and their relatives, who were heading for ... you guessed it... the nearby Red Robin, this time for brunch. This time, with regret in my heart, I declined; it was clear I wasn't meant to dine with the happy families on this trip. I was to moderate the panel I was racing to make this time, "Women in Technology", because I don't know enough about the topic to play any other role. At least being there gave me a chance to say hello to GOH Christine Peterson, who I had not otherwise run into at the convention.

The panel ended at 1:00 p.m. At that point I had to deal with hotel checkout while esrblog did his last panel with landley. I was able to catch the last half of their panel, which was surprisingly good. It was based on a paper they published on the Web about Linux's last best chance for desktop dominance, which you can find here.

As soon as the Eric-and-Rob show ended, our good friends Craig and Carrie, who had agreed to take us to the airport, hustled us away so we could make our 5:15 p.m. flight (with barely a pause to note the traditional “throw leftover LN2 in the pool” ritual). Thus ended my Penguicon.

We learned, by telephoning landley after we got home, that a lot of the conventioneers (or at least, many of our personal friends) had headed out to Aegis headquarters when the con ended, for one final cookout/party. Wish I could have been there. Darn it.

As the disjointed ramble above should make clear, the only significant complaint I had about Penguicon was that there wasn't time to do everything I wanted to do. That includes spending time with my friends, ridiculous numbers of whom were present (including, but by no means limited to, many readers of this LiveJournal). There were a lot of things I really, really liked, and since some of them may be things nobody else noticed (just as there were many things at the con that I never even heard about until the con reports started coming out on Monday) I'd like to share them here.

--The energy level. This year's Penguicon had about 800-850 attendees. The size of the con meant the energy level rose high, and stayed high throughout the weekend.

--The Con Suite. It was large enough to hold a lot of people before it began to feel crowded, and it held an excellent supply of beverage and a reasonable supply of food throughout, as well as being the focus for our marvelous....

--Food Track. I was fortunate enough to participate in this track by hosting (with Lady Sarah) a Dark Chocolate Tasting, but the other food items were more than enough to make a meal of, with sushi, chupaquesos (think cheese-stuffed tacos with a cheese shell), and fine Brazilian grilled steak represented.

--The Chaos Machine. Back for another appearance, and never the same twice. Next year, maybe with strobe lights?

--The wonderful Masquerade participants. I don't just mean the costumers, though there were some really good entries this year. I also mean my fellow judges, matociquala and xaina. Ladies, it was wonderful working with you.

--Orvan, The Delivery Ox. A wonderful bit of fanac courtesy of vakkotaur and jmaynard. Thank Ghu jmaynard visited Malvern today; otherwise I might still be wondering why the abacuses were different!

--The Food Art Display in the Lobby. Some of it was amazingly clever (I liked the Morton's List logo done in broken pretzel sticks the best).

--The Ribbons. You say every con does ribbons nowadays? Yes, but not nearly as many, or as original, as Penguicon does. I got 18, my record--and I wasn't even trying. People who *were* trying got dozens.

--My Fellow Panelists, and the wonderful panel audiences, who proved that I'm not lying when I say that even the Penguicon panels are interactive.

--The People. I mean everyone, from the GOH and Nifties to the congoers themselves. They were all bright and friendly, and for some reason, every single one of them knew my name--even the ones I'd never met. Wow.

Will I come back? Is the Pope Catholic? I can't imagine not coming back! Though every Penguicon has been a treat, this year's has been the biggest, boldest, most varied one yet. I want to be part of making Penguicon 6.0 even better.