Had a great time at Capricon yesterday. Arrived at the Wheeling Westin around 10am, just as flakes started falling. By the time I gave my reading (an excerpt from Continuing Education, my entry in MODERN FAE’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING HUMANITY which is out 6 March hinthint) and sat in on my 1130 Classic Dr Who panel, the snow was coming down fairly hard. Had a really nice lunch at the hotel’s Italian restaurant, then sat in the causeway with Michael D Thomas and talked for, well, a few hours. Light dinner with him, Lynne Thomas, and John O’Neill, followed by my last panel, Why Are SF Writers So Bad At Predicting The Future, with Cory Doctorow, Bill Higgins, and Gene Wolfe. A good, thinky panel where we discussed possible reasons why SF writers predicted the rocket car but not the stubby little roadcar/minivan, the great central supercomputer but not the PC. Conclusions included the feeling that predicting the future isn’t the point of SF, and that the sorts of discoveries that had the biggest impact on our day to day lives may not have been the ones that lent themselves to dramatic storytelling.
After more hallcons and final farewells, I hit the road around 1130pm or so. The snow had started letting up around midafternoon, and by the time I left the hotel, the tollway was perfectly clear and dry. A few sideroads had some snow, but not very much. Made it home around 1230am or so, and listened to music/decompressed for a couple of hours before going to bed.
I will say that this developing pattern of Snow Events Every Time Kristine Decides To Drive To A Convention does not bode well for a drive to Toronto/Richmond Hill for WFC in early November.
It’s *freezing* outside, the first weekend with high temps under 30F. A few inches of powder fell, then blew around enough that I don’t really need to shovel. Grocery shopping still to do. Then I am getting my hair colored, a darker brown with highlights. I want something different-but-not-too. Want to cover the gray. ‘Tis the winter of our discontent, I guess.
A worky afternoon/evening is planned. The excitement, let me show you it.
Hey Kristine,
It was great to meet you at Capricon! You were a delightful dinner companion, and I only wish we could have talked longer afterwards.
And I know what you mean about the weather… the temperature had plummeted by the time I made it to my car. I forgot to bring gloves, and in the time it took to scrape clear a tiny window on my windshield (using a credit card) my hands were in agony. I shivered for 20 minutes until the tiny heater in my rental car discovered a way to deliver some heat. Hope your trip home was less of a trial!
John
It was great to meet you too, John. I do wish I had been able to stay for the whole con.
I think it took a good 15-20 minutes for me to scrape the ice from my windows. I had a scraper, but the ice was thick and since it had partially melted, then refroze, it was like a second layer of glass. My Forester is older, but it does have all the window defrost attachments. Even so, it was so cold that they took a while to get going.