FINALLY, January Weather

When We Lived In The U.P. We Called This Monday

As I write this at 5pm on Monday, MLK Day (Observed) and Inauguration Day (Observed), it's 9°F outside. News reports the roads as slick -- it's been snowing all night. But the lake effect here outside Allendale is nowhere close to the 6-14" predicted.

I won't mock the weather, though. Even if we had much tougher Januaries in New York, Chicago, the U.P. and here in previous years, the mild winters of late mean that the local drivers aren't used to the skating rinks. And they forget the basic Physics which suggests that road salt doesn't do much at 9°F. I'd thought of going to the P.O. Box today, but with being off at WMU for MLK Day, there was no reason to go out and test the roads in the middle of the day. So I caught up on sleep, and watched the TV coverage from D.C. And edited lots of photos from the weekend.


Backyard at 4pm. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


View out the garage -- you can still see Mrs. Dr. Phil's tire tracks from this morning, not fully filled in. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

On The Way To ConFusion

With an Alberta Clipper bearing down on the Great Lakes, I kept a "weather eye" on the weather, so to speak. But Friday dawned as a cold but partly sunny day -- actually warmed up to the upper 20s or so by the afternoon. By the time I got to ConFusion, the weather was still clear, but the wind picked up. Biting wind. While I hid in the hotel on Saturday, the winds roared through, gusting up to 60mph and Sunday morning there was a report of some 96,000 homes without power.


Looking west to go south to go east... at the edge of campus, on the way to Dearborn/Detroit by 3pm. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

Dr. Phil

NASFiC in Detroit at ConFusion

Duel in Dearborn

Back in October I wrote about a NASFiC bid for Detroit in 2014 (DW). No way were the NASFiC in Detroit people NOT going to be at ConFusion. But the Kansas City in 2014 people were also there -- each group had an endpaper ad in the program and their tables were next to each other. The KC crew had hats. I'm very fond of hats, but could not in good conscious fund the enemy campaign. (grin)

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UPDATE: 1-22-2013 Tue -- I am reminded that "The Kansas City bid is for the 2016 Worldcon / Detroit is bidding against Phoenix for the 2014 NASFIC". Dammit, and I knew that! I cheated myself out of a hat because I wasn't paying attention. (In my defense the KC table was at one of the chokepoints in the hotel layout and whenever I was passing the table I was trying to slip between hordes of people --- and I don't "slip between hordes of people" easily.) (grin)
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Meanwhile, Al Bogdan was busy taking pictures of people holding up a NASFiC in Detroit license plate. I stole a few from the NASFiC in Detroit Facebook post:


Steve Buccheit, Jim Hines and Dave Klecha. (Click on photos for larger.)


Mary Robinette Kowal, John Scalzi and Patrick Rothfuss. (Click on photos for larger.)


Some Imperial intervention, Dr. Phil and the Dalek delegation. (Click on photos for larger.)

To vote FOR a NASFiC in Detroit, you will need to be a supporting or attending member of Lonestar 3, the 2014 WorldCon in San Antonio TX. Join us in making this a reality!

Dr. Phil

Clarion 2004 Represents at ConFusion

Al Bogdan

Al and I keep doing dueling photographs at various places. As we sat in the corridor outside the ConSuite -- I was heading back to the room and the corridor, ConSuite and bank of three elevators all form a sort of chokepoint in the Doubletree -- I squeezed off a couple of shots. Though Vibration Reduction has greatly increased the odds of me getting pictures in all these low-light, available-light situations, autofocus efficiency is low and besides, with slow lenses and dim light you can't always keep track of whether you've got a nice facial expression.

Al was griping about the latter. Something about it being too easy to turn such multiple shots into animation. So I assured him, that if that was the case, I'd create an animated GIF for him. And the rest of the world.


Al Animated -- just because I can...
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

But here's a little reunion of the 2004 Clarion gang -- me behind the camera, Al and Sarah Gibbons.

Sarah and Al sitting in corridor chokepoint outside the ConSuite. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

Sarah Gibbons

Sarah was our "copy girl". A grad student who slaved over the Clarion copier at MSU and turning our 115 stories and 385,562 words of deathless SF/F prose into reams of copies for the 18 writers, staff, archives and all the instructors. A very thankless and necessary task.


I kept running into, and running by, Sarah Gibbons -- so I finally stopped to get a picture, so I could mention that I saw her here at ConFusion. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


After Sunday's "SF Radio" performance, Patrick Rothfuss signs one of Sarah's books. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

Dr. Phil