figmo | Baycon came and went... (Reply)

...and I came and went at Baycon. Given that the hotel was outgassing, I'm glad I not only commuted to the con but wound up sleeping through large parts of it. I missed some programming I really wanted to catch, but I figured the 17+ hours of sleep I got between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon were much-needed. I'd have posted this sooner, but my Internet access has been sporadic due to flakiness on Comcast's part.

I ran into lots of friends. It'd been years since I'd seen

cat_herder. She,

howeird, and several other folks whose names I'm blanking on chatted for a while. Saturday night I had dinner with the Starship Ada folks and special guests Keith Henson and Arel Lucas, both of whom I also hadn't seen in years. Keith was in amazingly good spirits, especially after all he's been through.

The Monday afternoon surprise party for

capplor and kids came off well. I was relieved when it was all over. While I'm perfectly capable of keeping a secret, trying to execute a "double-jeopardy" surprise has its ups and downs. On one hand, Fred expected there to be a party, so going around and conspiring looked perfectly natural to him. On the other hand, trying to keep him in the dark about what was really going on without making him panic was tricky.

I was also grateful to get lots of help with putting the party together. Folks came out of the woodwork. In addition to

dimakoi,

lisa_marli and her Harolds helped, as did Lucy Stern, the Saidaks, and other folks who I'm blanking on because I was busy trying to decorate the going-away cake. After the big SURPRISE I could finally relax.

The last couple of days I've had a sore throat and a minor headache. I feel physically like I spent ten minutes in the office of a certain previous employer....