Aftermath

Monday's Power Outage

Continuing to talk about today's power outage, about 3:15pm I drove into Allendale. Was surprised to see the traffic lights dark at 68th and Lake Michigan Drive/M-45. The Family Fare grocery store and the post office had power, but it's a brand new shopping center and I don't know if they have a generator. The Family Fare gas station out front was dark. In the west side of Allendale, only the Mobil gas station had power amongst gas stations. East of there and over by GVSU, the power was on. Haven't heard what caused the problems and I saw no crews working, except for one AT&T telephone truck.

Funny how it makes me feel better, to know the power outage is widespread. I mean, Consumers Energy has always done a good job out in Allendale with restoring power, but you always wonder out in the country if it's "just you" and whether they know about it or when they'll get around to fixing it. Yet another reason why having the automatic generator is a relief.

The power at our house went out at 11:28am and the generator came on in five seconds. The DSL modem, router and Wi-Fi boxes are all on a UPS and never went down. While I was downstairs copying the daily Sudoku puzzle, I heard a thunk and thought maybe the heat pump compressor was starting hard. But when I was back upstairs I heard the generator shut down outside at 6:19pm, so what I heard was the transfer switch slamming over as we switched back to utility power and the start of the generator's cool down. About 6¾ hours.

Some of the neighbors' generators were still running up to an hour later -- but those units aren't automatic.

Mrs. Dr. Phil was able to reach behind the wooden cube with the TV on it and pull the TV plug from one of the bottom 3 outlets on the APC UPS powerstrip and plug it into one of the surge protected only upper 3 outlets. The next time the power goes out the TV should just go out, then come back on -- not ping-pong up and down, what with the bad battery in the UPS. Yeah, yeah, I should replace the UPS. It's hard to get to, okay? (grin)

All in all, this wasn't a great tragedy for us and I'm not trying to complain here -- or gloat. Just talkin'. Meanwhile, I got a lot of editing done today, so I'm happy about that.

Dr. Phil

Of WorldCons and NASFiCs

Anticipation Over

All the cool kids have been reporting from, and getting back from, Anticipation -- the 67th WorldCon held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Alas, I once again did not go to a WorldCon, even though the thought of running off to Montreal for a weekend sounds great. Missed Montreal. Missed Denver. Missed Yokohama. Missed L.A. Missed Edinburgh (dammit).

Hopefully I will eventually fix this problem of WorldCon attendance as I continue advancing my SF writing career. Of course, WorldCon 68 will be in Melbourne, Australia, for 2-6 September 2010. That might stretch the budget quite a bit unless things happen on the novel front in the next six months (grin), though in theory even if I were teaching in Fall 2010, since one is traveling EAST against the International Date Line, I could travel through on Labor Day and still make the first day of class.

In Montreal the 69th WorldCon was awarded to Renovation in Reno, Nevada, for 17-21 August 2011. Frequently there are very competitive air fares from Michigan to Reno, so this one might be a possibility.

Go South Young Man?

Of course, with 2010 in Australia, I realized that there should be a NASFiC in 2010. In years when WorldCon is away from North American, there is a North American Science Fiction Convention. My second publication, "The Pulse of the Sea", was written for Northwest Passages -- an anthology for the 2005 NASFiC in Seattle, the year WorldCon was in Scotland.

I hadn't heard about a NASFiC for 2010, since Melbourne pretty much is NOT located in North America, so I Googled "nasfic" and found there is/was one bid for Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, I could do North Carolina. Hell, I might even drive there, and then spend some time with my folks in Greensboro.

Finding out if the bid was accepted, well, both the official WorldCon and NASFiC websites are woefully out of date. A Tip of the Clue Bat to Y'all -- This is 2009. Get with the program and at least keep your websites up to date within the last month. Having them one or more YEARS out of date is not going to impress people. Or get information out. Or help attendance. Just sayin'. *** I am much more willing to be generous to the Raleigh people, seeing as they updated a week before Montreal -- and whether their bid was accepted or not, I bet they're exhausted and need sleep.

Finally, drilling down through Google I found a report from File 770:

Raleigh Wins 2010 NASFiC

Raleigh won the site selection vote for the 2010 North American Science Fiction Convention, withstanding late-arising opposition from a Southern California based bid for Pasadena.

ReConStruction will take place in Raleigh, North Carolina, August 5-8 2010. GoH: Eric Flint. Artist GoH: Brad Foster. Fan GoH: Juanita Coulson. Toastmaster: Toni Weisskopf. Warren Buff and Michael D. Pederson are Co-Chairs.

[Thanks to Voyageur for the story.]

And they link to the Actual 2010 NASFiC webpage:

August 10, 2009

ReConStruction
The 10th NASFiC
August 5-8, 2010
Raleigh, NC

Welcome! We're pleased to announce that the 10th Occasional North American Science Fiction Convention will be ReConStruction, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Come join us August 5-8, 2010, at the new Raleigh Convention Center. We'd like to bring together Southern hospitality with Fandom from all over for a NASFiC you won't soon forget. We're got a lot of exciting ideas for the convention, and we'll be detailing them here as the months go by, so stop back in and learn what's new. We've got some great deals worked out with our hotels, and we'll be letting you know soon how the booking for those will work. Also check back in for details on getting involved in our programming, art show, and dealers room. In the meantime, you can find information on our facilities, guests, and registration, go ahead and check us out! We hope to see you in August!

- Warren Buff & Michael D. Pederson, Co-Chairs

Well that's a pleasant addition to the day. Now maybe they'll think about doing an anthology for NASFiC. (grin)

Dr. Phil

*** - In the interest of fairness, as I poked around, I should point out that the WorldCon BIDS webpage is somewhat more up to date. But that doesn't address the two organization's homepages mentioned above, both of which are embarrassingly linked to the Bids page.