dr_phil_physics (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dr_phil_physics) wrote2014-04-23 12:27 pm
dr_phil_physics) wrote2014-04-23 12:27 pm
A Penguicon Adventure?
As the Spring 2014 semester runs down -- Final was given yesterday, Final handed off to grader today, the last quiz I had to grade myself just entered into the spreadsheet, the Check-Out form data entered this morning, just down to grading the Topic 1 papers at home and the Topic 2 worksheets at the office on Friday and Monday -- and the weather being pretty outside, I am impatiently champing at the bit for summer to arrive.
While I can't do everything, and I won't overdo it, I do intend to make up for the Year Without A Summer and do some driving and take some photographs, clean up some piles around the house and Do Some Writing! And along the way, something popped up on the radar.
Way back in 2012, I was invited to be a Nifty Guest by the Science Track at Penguicon -- what has to be the only SF and Open Source con in the world (grin) -- as well as invited to do panels on the Literary Track. Alas, Penguicon that year was over Grading Weekend, when all hell breaks loose at my house. So, couldn't do it.
I've been around since Penguicon began. It was at my first or second ConFusion, way back at the old-old hotel, that people were putting Penguicon 1 together. Must have been 2003, unless there was a gap in their run. But it was scheduled for February and ConFusion was in January and I couldn't see chancing driving across the state twice in one winter. A shame really.
John Scalzi wrote about the Forever (War) Tea Party panel as a Nifty Guest at Penguicon 4 back in April 2006, where they managed to move the con from darkest, coldest, dangerous February to Grading Weekend. Again, I couldn't go.
But I did make it to Penguicon 7 in May 2009, when like this year, it came the first weekend in May and not the last weekend in April. I did a couple of panels, took some pictures -- and apparently never got around to blogging about it. Hmmm... I shall have to rectify that. This was the con where I famously arranged NOT to be on a panel with Wil Wheaton. (double-edged-grin)
So Penguicon 2014, which would be Penguicon 12 by my accounting, falls on 2-4 May 2014. And while I cannot yet reliably wrestle a shoe onto my AFO by myself, and I don't quite think Mrs. Dr. Phil is up for another con so early in the "summer" which means no wild hotel weekend for me, it IS possible to do a daytrip to the Westin in Southfield MI. I have been doing up to three hours of driving a day all semester, but will have to do longer trips to Madison, Indianapolis and Detroit this summer, so consider this a prelab experience. In the "old days" I did daytrips to MIAAPT conferences on the east side of the state twice a year, so it is doable. And given my early rise-to-road Saturday just the other week for this year's MIAAPT meeting at WMU, it is even more doable, methinks.
In other words -- I am planning to make it to the Saturday 3 May 2014 day of Penguicon 2014. I first hatched this plan a while ago, but decided not to push things and try to get on panels. That can come another year. There's a reading by Cory Doctorow at noon, no doubt it will be swamped, but maybe they'll let in a poor feeble old man with a walker and a four-footed cane... (grin)
Anyone else planning to go to Penguicon? Al? Ferrett? Beuhler?
Love to meet up with anybody.
I am back in the world, after all.
Dr. Phil
While I can't do everything, and I won't overdo it, I do intend to make up for the Year Without A Summer and do some driving and take some photographs, clean up some piles around the house and Do Some Writing! And along the way, something popped up on the radar.
Way back in 2012, I was invited to be a Nifty Guest by the Science Track at Penguicon -- what has to be the only SF and Open Source con in the world (grin) -- as well as invited to do panels on the Literary Track. Alas, Penguicon that year was over Grading Weekend, when all hell breaks loose at my house. So, couldn't do it.
I've been around since Penguicon began. It was at my first or second ConFusion, way back at the old-old hotel, that people were putting Penguicon 1 together. Must have been 2003, unless there was a gap in their run. But it was scheduled for February and ConFusion was in January and I couldn't see chancing driving across the state twice in one winter. A shame really.
John Scalzi wrote about the Forever (War) Tea Party panel as a Nifty Guest at Penguicon 4 back in April 2006, where they managed to move the con from darkest, coldest, dangerous February to Grading Weekend. Again, I couldn't go.
But I did make it to Penguicon 7 in May 2009, when like this year, it came the first weekend in May and not the last weekend in April. I did a couple of panels, took some pictures -- and apparently never got around to blogging about it. Hmmm... I shall have to rectify that. This was the con where I famously arranged NOT to be on a panel with Wil Wheaton. (double-edged-grin)
So Penguicon 2014, which would be Penguicon 12 by my accounting, falls on 2-4 May 2014. And while I cannot yet reliably wrestle a shoe onto my AFO by myself, and I don't quite think Mrs. Dr. Phil is up for another con so early in the "summer" which means no wild hotel weekend for me, it IS possible to do a daytrip to the Westin in Southfield MI. I have been doing up to three hours of driving a day all semester, but will have to do longer trips to Madison, Indianapolis and Detroit this summer, so consider this a prelab experience. In the "old days" I did daytrips to MIAAPT conferences on the east side of the state twice a year, so it is doable. And given my early rise-to-road Saturday just the other week for this year's MIAAPT meeting at WMU, it is even more doable, methinks.
In other words -- I am planning to make it to the Saturday 3 May 2014 day of Penguicon 2014. I first hatched this plan a while ago, but decided not to push things and try to get on panels. That can come another year. There's a reading by Cory Doctorow at noon, no doubt it will be swamped, but maybe they'll let in a poor feeble old man with a walker and a four-footed cane... (grin)
Anyone else planning to go to Penguicon? Al? Ferrett? Beuhler?
Love to meet up with anybody.
I am back in the world, after all.
Dr. Phil
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