Jack of Many Trades, Master None

Loscon Photos

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:47:52 GMT

Here are some pictures I took at this years Loscon.

Small Pun

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:21:28 GMT

The current droid assigned to the swine flue outbreak is H1N1....

Sums up Science Fiction

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:20:00 GMT

This painting by Rob Gonsalves is a good representation of reading science fiction, or just reading in general.

Carl Sagan Singing

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:11:51 GMT

On Slashdot I found this YouTube video.

ConChord 22 Photos`

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:18:56 GMT

I have posted the photos I took at ConChord 22 on Flickr. Hope everyone enjoys them.

ConChord Saturday

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:12:32 GMT

Started Saturday with a ice run for the con suite. Also assisted in removing water from the ice chests and adding ice back in. Went to the dealer room to spend money with the only dealer, Random Factors. Checked out the Interfilk items and then went to the Ventura room to fire up the sound system.

We started off with the Totally Tasteless and Tacky Revue, the best act being Lynn Gold doing Micheal Jackson!! Following that was Keith Kelly, then Lynn Gold doing Lynn Gold. One shots and then our Interfilk Guest Gary McGath's Concert.

Then evening started with our Toastmaster, Barry Gold's concert, followed by Joe Giacoio and then Carla Ulbrich. Joe guitaring was impressive, managed to get a photo or two of his handiwork. (Will be posted to Flickr later this week.) Carla also did a great performance.

We did the Interfilk auction between the sets, the highlights was Joe jumping into Nick Smith's arms, and Rod stating to Rebecca, "I would pay $200 to see you wench yourself." (She proceeded to do just that!!)

ConChord on Friday

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:57:24 GMT

Friday lapislaz and I headed north for ConChord 22. It was a bit less attended this year, but still an enjoyable con. Lapis set up the con suite and I set up the sound, then we went to the Friday night pool reception. Nice evening except when Lady Colleen went over sideways in her electric scooter. She was fine, but it gave the rest of us a bit of a scare.

Later that evening we had a memorial circle for the Southern California filkers who are no longer with us. The Lee and Barry had a lot of materiel from filkers from the 60s and 70s. This was followed with the Paleo-Filk Cricle, songs before Westerfilk.

How Many Cons Has This Happened?

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 14:23:51 GMT

Kenvin and Kell for Sunday August 16, 2009.

Another 40th Anniversary

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:19:22 GMT

Our newspaper had an article about the Bridge that spans the San Diego Harbor reaching its 40th birthday. Before the bridge there were only two ways to get to the city of Coronado, take a ferry or drive around the bay and up a sliver of sand that connected the "island" to the mainland.

What was cool about the ferry boats was you could as a passenger with no car, buy a ticket for 10 cents. Once aboard you could stay aboard as long as you wanted. Our family would ride the ferry back and forth for several hours and watch them load and unload cars, and see how well they docked the ferry at the dock. The old ferrys were sold off to and I don't know if any exist today.

3 Anniversaries Today

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:52:31 GMT

Today marks 3 anniversaries. In 1969 was Neal and Buzz's excursion on the moon, 1976 was our first soft Martian landing with Viking 1, and in 1991 lapislaz and I got married.

We chose the date because Lee Gold had written a filk about remembering that Viking 1 had landed on the 20th of July to the tune of "Wearing of the Green". When we told her we had chosen the date because of the song, she wrote two verses for us. We had Barry Gold sing the complete song at our wedding reception.

Anyone Remember "Sounds of the Space Age"?

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:49:13 GMT

The December 1969 issue of National Geographic came with a plastic record called "Sounds of the Space Age". It was a short history of man's journey into space up to the first moon landing. I still have that issue and the record, but not in the same place. I must have played it 500 times.

Here is a link the the National Geographic Archive of that record. (Complete with a working turn table.)

Westercon Pictures

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:07:47 GMT

Here are some pictures I took at Westercon 62. On Flickr

Westercon

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:51:37 GMT

Flew into Phoenix last night on Southwest. Saw some cool lighting displays during ascent. Took the hotel shuttle over to the hotel and met up with my wonderful wife. Looking forward to a nice conventional weekend.

Obama the Nerd

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:10:17 GMT

I thought this was cool.

When John said "I have been and always shall be your friend." I immedently thought of Larry Warner and replied "Jim your name is Jim" "Yes I know my name is Jim!"

I Got to Play With A Real Electric Train!!

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:09:43 GMT

Well it was really a diesel-electric engine, and no cars were attached.

For my birthday last year, lapislaz gave me the Engineer for a 1/2 hour at the Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum in Campo. (South east San Diego county.) They run historic trains every weekend along the San Diego and Arizona Railway.

We left home and headed out east on I-8 to the town of Boulevard to visit the Wisteria Candy Cottage for some sugar free chocolates. They have been making chocolates since 1921. The cottage did close recently due to financial reasons, but reopened again a few months ago.

We then headed down the 94 west to the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum's train station in Campo. We did not get there in time to ride the train to the Mexican Border, so we walked over the the carbarn and hung out there till the train returned.

Then we got to climb in and after the crew decoupled the two passenger cars, I was trained how to operate the locomotive by Don Getz. First was to learn the singles from the brakemen. Two cars, one cars, 1/2 car, stop and going too fast. (The two cars and one cars are distance measurements.)

Then I was shown how to operate the engine and did so for 30 minutes. The crew said I did a great job and asked if I wanted to be a volunteer engineer and crew for the museum. After my time was up, Don let us stay in the cab we got to watched as they pulled this locomotive out of the barn and park it on one of the side tracks. Then we got off and headed back to our car.

I have to say this was one of the best birthday gifts I have ever had.

TV and Computers

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 06:20:23 GMT

I wondered away from watching TV a while ago. Mostly low quality superficial stuff. I watch stuff on the internet or DVDs. (often on my computer.) My computer monitor is a 19" LCD, which is larger than the TVs we had when I was growing up. My parents had B&W portable at about 12" screen. In 1966 we got a 17" color set!! (And a tall antenna on the roof so we could get the LA stations. San Diego only had three stations in 1966.) They had that color set for at least 15 years.

The house TV is a 32" LCD that we use mostly for DVD watching. The last broadcast program we watched, as far as I can remember, was the rose parade in HD. lapislaz and I often will watch on movie on Sunday night.

Astronaught Memorial Week

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:27:46 GMT

Yesterday the 27th was the anniversary of the Apollo One capsule fire, today is the anniversary of the Challenger failure , and Sunday the 1st of Feb is the anniversary of the break up of Columbia.

First Verse from "The Phoenix" by Julia Ecklar

In a tower of flame on Test Pad Two, I was there.
I know not where they laid my bones: it could be anywhere.
But when fire and smoke had faded, the darkness left my sight...
And I found my soul in a spaceship's soul, riding home on a trail of light.

Forrest J Ackerman

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:06:47 GMT

It seems that Yahoo is reporting that Forrest J Ackerman has passed on. It was heart failure at 11:58pm on December 4th. I checked with several LA area fans to make sure it was true, as the last time I posted about this it turned out to be incorrect. It is also on the LASFS site.

My Loscon Report

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:37:25 GMT

My Loscon Report is behind the

It began early Friday morning with us leaving San Diego at 7:16 or so for the two hour drive north to the LAX Marriott. We arrive and proceed to the dealers room to assist Amycat with the set up of Book Universe. Amy had gotten all the book shelves and most of the books out on the boxes the day before, so all we had to do was alphabetize them. I checked us in to the room and friend hauled all our sound gear and other stuff up to our room on the 18th floor. (I am on Workman's Comp and can't lift more than 12 lbs or so.)

Later in the evening I went to the filk room and set up my H2 digital recorder so I could record Karen Anderson's History of filk. Afterwards there was the usual filk circle, I left my recorder going and went over to see the Lux crew do the The XXXVth Annval Togie Awards! show. I spent the rest of the night in the filk room.

Saturday Greg and I took the sound gear down to the filk room for later setup. (Greg doing 95% of the work due to my lifting restrictions.) I went over and donated a pint of blood, then back to the filk room for setup. In concert was Steve Savitzky, Moira Stern, Lynn Maudlin and Karen Roders. The show ran a little long, but that was not a problem. For the evening show was Marilyn Miller and Kathy Mar. The rest of the night was open filking. Greg and I hauled some of the gear back to our room, a fun task with the elevators not being fully operational. (Scotty we need more elevators!! Sorry Captain, the engines are overheating, we've got to shut down the main drive now, she's going to blow!!)

I hit the bed around midnight, because we had a show at 10:30 on Sunday. On Sunday we got everything out of our room by 9:45 or so so we could beat the rush on the 3 working elevators. We ran the morning show, then we tore down the sound system and stage and get everthing back in the vehicles. (Again Greg did about 95% of the work). There was a dead dog filk in the afternoon, but it did not go past 5pm.

At four when the dealers closed Kate and I did our usual assist of packing Amycat's Book Universe store. This is usually a 5 hour job, but this time it took about 61/2 hours. I could not do my usual job of moving boxes and packing book cases. We are very happy that a gentleman who goes by the name of Chain came over and did a lot of the work I usually do. After Amy's van was loaded we made our two hour trip home. It was foggy all the way except for a few small places here and there. There was no fog at our house though.

I did make some recordings of some of the concerts and the filk circles. Someday I will get a chance to listen to them!! I will post the pictures on Flickr in the next few days.

State of my Visits

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:08:44 GMT

visited 21 states (42%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or try another Douwe Osinga project

The states I have set foot in. I do not count flying over the state as being in the state.

KPBS These Days Star Trek

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:11:43 GMT

Our local public radio station has a locally produced show called These Days. They did a segment on the original Star Trek.

It is hosted by Tom Fudge who kept saying Star Wars. (Klingon!!)

Forrest J. Ackerman

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:24:46 GMT

I saw on Locus.com that Forrest J. Ackerman has passed on. He had an heart attack on Nov 3 and was not expected to recover. He was 91.

Fall Tradition

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 21:57:55 GMT

Our local mountain town of Julian is know for a number of things including apples. When the crop starts to come in the city folk head to the town for apple pie, cider and the like. I have been going to Julian since I was a kid back in the 60s. This year It was Lapis, One of my brothers, his son, another nephew and a niece. We also took our two dogs and my brother took his.

We drove up through the town of Ramona to Santa Ysabel where Dudley's bakery is located. They make a lot of good breads, including two low carb verities. We left there and went into Julian and to the Julian Cider Mill. (In the old days it would have stopped at Manzanita Ranch, but it is no longer around.) There we got some raw apple cider, some other ciders and Lapis and I got us a supply of sugar free dark chocolates. (Like SF DC macadamia nuts.)

Then we headed over to the Laguna Mountains to eat lunch. I made some pimento cheese, a requirement for fall mountain trips. We took the desert view trail, then walked around the Burnt Ranchera camp ground and back over to the picnic area. We stood around and chatted a while with some college age hikers then we all hit the road to home.

Prop the Election!!

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:38:25 GMT

I have been working on my State of California sample ballot and its many propositions. We have:

Prop 1A - High Speed Rail
Prop 2 - Farm Animals
Prop 3 - Children's Hospital
Prop 4 - Minor's Abortion
Prop 5 - Drug Offenses Sentencing
Prop 6 - Police Funding
Prop 7 - Renewable Energy
Prop 8 - Gay Marriage
Prop 9 - Victim's Rights
Prop 10 - Alternative Fuel
Prop 11 - Redistricting
Prop 12 - Veterans Bond Act

Prop A - Fire Protection Tax
Prop L - La Mesa Sales Tax
Prop U - High School Bond
Prop W - Lemon Grove School Bond

So it takes a bit of time to decide to support or oppose them. Some of them are really trojens, others are "should we do this in our current economic condition" type. Thank the Lord in Heaven for the Internet!!

Our ballot also has other things like the POTUS, which in my case will be Obama.

ConChord 21 Friday

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:26:26 GMT

This last weekend I went to ConChord 21 in Woodland Hills. (In the Los Angeles Area.) It was a little smaller than other years, but still was a good convention. I was providing sound and lapislaz setup and ran the con suite.

We went up in two vehicles and had to stop and pick up Rod O'Riley. After several traffic jams, we arrived in the late afternoon. I proceeded to unload and set up the sound gear, while Lapis did the same with the con suite.

In the evening was the traditional Pool party/reception which we attended for a while. I went back to the concert room to ready the evening show. My assistant, Greg Gross, arrived with the soundboard and amp along with other miscellaneous stuff. The only Concert was Lynn Maudlin, then we shut down for the night and attended some circles.

Here are the Photos I took at the Con. ConChord 21 Photos