Liberty Con AAR

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

So, let me start by saying this was my fault, and what fault falls on someone else is because I apparently assume people know what my life has been like.

What I mean is, I didn’t check my con schedule before leaving home or in fact until I got my badge:surgery, massive auto-immune attack, preparations for renewal of vows and preparations for trip.  Also, trying to get other house ready for market (and someone stole our mailbox — no really — the only night in ages we didn’t have anyone sleeping over and JUST before the trip.  That was nifty too.  We still haven’t checked this morning, and I’m afraid of vandalism.

Anyway, through all this, I forgot to check the schedule.  I was booked …  I was massively overbooked.

To those of you who aren’t panelists, trust me when I say three panels are a full load, three panels in a row are an overload, and five panels are a killing load.

If you count signings and the baen road show, which usually DO count, I was booked for 10 to 12 hours straight.  Which might have been okay (not wonderful, but okay) if I hadn’t been post-op.  I’ve done that load before when college kids book me, who don’t realize I’m human.  But three months post op… no.  It just didn’t happen.  I was somewhere between half asleep and hallucinatory at the end of Saturday, which would have been okay, except I had two (I think) commitments on Sunday.

Anyway, that was the origin of yesterday’s post.

The only thing that upsets me about all this is that LC is the place I meet my friends and get to touch base in the flesh and not much of that happened, not even with Kate even though we slept together on Sunday afternoon (we took naps in my room.  She was on the sofa bed.  But the other way sounds much more risque.) And I wanted to talk to the inimitable Sabrina Chase about some publicity ideas, but I had no time/energy.

I have some pictures (thank you Doctor Mauser, who is a lovely man in person) and I didn’t realize I was that heavy.  No, seriously.  Part of it is the steroids that were used to combat the auto-immune, and where I gained three pounds a day (I swear.)

I’m sure LC didn’t help, since I was having sugar to keep awake.  (Paying for it.  Eczema on my KNEES!)

Anyway, other than massively overbooked Sarah, it was lots of fun, and next year Kate has to have two more books out so she can be on panels.

This is the double wedding! Well, we renewed vows, but you get it, right?
This is the double wedding! Well, we renewed vows, but you get it, right?

Okay, then the evil legion of evil had a mini-meeting:

You know how the camera adds ten pounds? There are ten cameras on me.
You know how the camera adds ten pounds? There are ten cameras on me.
Kate and I the evil too great to be contained into one body. Since both of us are resolved to lose weight, we warn you it might infect other people.
Kate and I the evil too great to be contained into one body. Since both of us are resolved to lose weight, we warn you it might infect other people.
Larry couldn't be there, but someone sent a proxy (via acme.) Puppy-Larry attended several panels and was incisive. Then he found a kitten to cuddle. Cats and dogs sleeping together... you know the drill.
Larry couldn’t be there, but someone sent a proxy (via acme.) Puppy-Larry attended several panels and was incisive. Then he found a kitten to cuddle. Cats and dogs sleeping together… you know the drill.

283 thoughts on “Liberty Con AAR”

  1. not even with Kate even though we slept together on Sunday afternoon (we took naps in my room. She was on the sofa bed. But the other way sounds much more risque.)

    It is never what happened but how you tell the story. The trick is knowing when to employ that fact (here is a good example) and when not to employ it (when writing news).

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    1. The trick is knowing when to employ that fact (here is a good example) and when not to employ it (when writing news).

      Somebody ought to remind the press of this.

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      1. Oh, they know it. The secret is the press has decided they are not in the news business. They are in the changing the world business.

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        1. In fairness, the world needs changing — that nappie is generating an awful stench. But I doubt the J-School grads running the “news business” have thought through all (hmmph! – any) of the implications of the changes they advocate.

          They are like the guy grateful his mugger left him carfare “because this is a bad neighborhood for you) when they should be outraged at the mugging.

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          1. People who go to J-School to “change the world” are the epitome of lazy and useless as far as I’m concerned.

            You want to change the world you should go out and change it instead of telling lies to convince other people to change it for you. You want to feed the hunger? I’ll have more respect for you if you buy a loaf of bread, a case of tuna, condiments, and a case of bottled water then make 48 tuna sandwiches and give 24 homeless people in the neighborhood around my office two sandwiches and a bottle of water than if you write 100 award winning stories in the AJC.

            The former feed 24 people. The latter feed your ego.

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            1. Liberals are enamored of the idea that words control reality. It’s why they keep changing the labels on things, because they think it will alter things. Then they get exasperated when it doesn’t work, and throw fits.

              Unfortunately, sometimes it DOES change the way people think of something, and it only encourages them.

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            2. Sorry, Herb. Occurs to nice people all the time in Colorado Springs (you may have read Sarah’s accounts of the homeless sit here.) You find bread and sandwiches and donated meals thrown down on the sidewalk all the time.

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              1. I know it occurs to people all the time. I’m saying I respect the people it occurs to much more than the J-School “I’m going to change the world types”.

                Yes, maybe 1 or 100 sandwiches you give get eaten because when they asked for money for food they meant money for drugs or booze. But that is on the 99 (or whatever the fraction is) and if just one person did eat the sandwich you changed the world. I suspect even with the non-eaters it will eventually for some.

                Plus, there are people who ask for food not money. We have a lot of homeless around my office and I’ve had them ask for part of my lunch or to go in to somewhere to buy them food (often because security will run them out if they try when you give them money).

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                1. The Journ-o-lists are particularly egregious because reliable reporting is essential to developing effective public policy and building public support for it. Agenda journalism misreports policy effects and misdirects public resources.

                  Pick any example you like — Head Start, AGW, Homelessness, Fill-In-the-Blanks — and “world-changing” journalism largely leads to changing the world for the worse.

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                  1. In part, it’s a hammer/nail problem. I.e. in order to give a man a fish, you have to take the time to catch or buy it, prepare it, find the person who needs it, think about utensils, and actually take it to them; conversely, in order to teach a man to fish, you must first learn to fish well AND learn to teach well, then find out where the fish are biting and find the person who wants to learn, and get them together.
                    But if your only skills and level of motivation are with words, maybe it’s easier to just tell other people to go, provide fish – and feel that you’ve done something.
                    (Obviously, in this crowd, NOT putting down wordsmithery – just the essential laziness of thinking it’s always enough, because Good Intentionz! and Feelz! )

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            3. “And I’d like to change the world.
              It’s easier than changing me ”

              “Shine” by Carbon Leaf.

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            4. But if you actually change the world, it might not need changing again next time you want your moral egoboo.

              Also, you do want your egoboo as cheap in terms of money and effort as possible.

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              1. So it really just comes down to being a form of moral masturbation, like that SocialistJournolistWho… who blatantly misrepresented Dr. Tim Hunt’s joke.

                According to a third-party EU official, and Sir Tim Hunt himself, she took words out the context, and concealed the fact that Hunt’s remarks were jokes at his own expense.
                http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/209740/ After all, what value is finding cures for cancer compared to an SJW getting her egoboo?

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                1. You really wonder if these . . . creatures . . . have a sort of mental trophy room, where they can go smoke something and admire the scalps, heads, whatever of the people they’ve ruined.

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          2. But I doubt the J-School grads running the “news business” have thought…

            When I was matriculating in the school of engineering back in the Early Bronze Age (“Engineering Seminar 307B: Copper: Fad or Miracle Metal?”) we had a handy reference cascade for this – and as everyone knows, college students are infallible, so it must be truthious:

            Those who can’t hack a math major drop to one of the hard sciences; those who can’t hack the hard sciences drop to engineering; those who can’t hack engineering school drop to business school; those who can’t hack the school of business (“Accounting? I was told There Would Be No Math!”) drop to journalism school; and those who can’t hack the rigors of J-school (!) drop into one of the fuzzy humanities thingees, or (sadly, since this one should be a lot higher) teaching.

            We didn’t have as much of the *-studies stuff way back then, but I assume those would go in the fuzzy humanities group.

            Obviously there are really bright kids that only ever wanted to go to business school or J-school, there are people with the drive and determination to make things work that punch their card in college then blast off no matter what their major was, and I personally know really smart people whose passion for it left teaching as all they ever wanted to study and do. But for the general 19 year old college pinball student, bouncing from major to major as they “find themselves” amid the alcohol fueled noise and flashing lights, this seemed reasonably apt, and in my subsequent career adventures I’ve continued to derive a lot of predictive value from this, especially when I’ve needed to gauge how low I need to pitch technical presentations to executives.

            Bottom line: As a baseline the general population of J-school grads are not going to be crowding out at the right end of the bell curve, and so predicting they likely didn’t think things through is not really a bad bet at all.

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            1. As a teaching historian and writer (they told me there’s be no math in grad school. They LIED!!!), I resemble this statement.

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            2. I remember, back in the Clinton Administration, reading some news anchor or other “praising” Billy Jeff by declaring “He would have been a really good journalist.”

              Upon reflection as to just what attributes that required I came up with “the ability to quickly get a superficial grasp of any issue and speak authoritatively on the topic for a couple of minutes.” Journalism nowadays mostly entails fitting 60% or more of a given set of facts into an already established narrative.

              It is possible these are not the best talents to qualify for the presidency.

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              1. One of the most aggravating and yet truthful things in the book The Four Hour Work Week was Tim Ferris’ system to become an expert on a topic:

                1. Read the top three books on a topic.
                2. Give three presentations on it: at a business, a college, and for the general public.

                Bingo, instant expert. The sad thing is that pretty much will get you quoted in local or regional news as an expert which you can bootstrap to CNN, etc.

                I used to be mad about Ferris promoting but I realized the problem was we buy it.

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            3. Actually, elsewhere the cascade can be a bit different. In France or Belgium, for example, civil engineering is considered the top, then a pure math degree just after that, then a STEM degree, then continuing pretty much as you describe.
              In Germany or Israel, throttling of admissions based on supply/demand effectively makes medicine the hardest major to get admitted to. In Israel, one can start a math degree with a “psychometri” (=local equivalent of the SAT) that would not get you admitted to psychology (2nd hardest major to get admitted to, after medicine). And yes, while I will admit to sharing some of the same jaundiced views that STEM types have of psychology, I’ve met some pretty sharp Israeli practitioners as a result of such “entrance filtering”.

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              1. Yes, I did leave out Medicine (i.e. pre-Med or one of the biosciences) and Law (i.e. …umm… I dunno, maybe polisci? Do L-schools look at anything other than LSAT scores?) and joining the professoriate with a PhD as they are all postgrad-required thingees, and I was so done with school when I finally made it to my BS degree I never really looked into them.

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              2. I can see that. My classes (not 100 level) in psych, I slept through, shared a book and notes with my ex who also took the class for naptime, still passed in the top 25% of the class… and I actually *wanted* to learn practical things.

                What was *taught,* and to the best of my knowledge continues to be taught, is pop-psychology. You could learn as much from magazines.

                Frankly, it was more of a mallet to the head than an aid to learning. Taking a class, then having to *un*learn things that are inaccurate, useless, or just plain wrong, that is foolishness.

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                1. > Frankly, it was more of a mallet to the head than an aid to learning.

                  Oh. Retrophrenology. Quite useful.

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            4. When I went to Virginia Tech in the early ’80s, the pecking order academically was engineering > hard science > math > business > everything else. There was an internal engineering pecking order, too. Chemical engineering > aerospace engineering > all other branches.

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              1. At UT Austin (back in the stone knives and bearskins era) it was Chemical engineering>petroleum engineering>mechanical engineering>electrical engineering>civil engineering.

                Aerospace and nuclear engineering were sub departments of the Mechanical engineering department.

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            5. Someone once pointed out that among congresscritters, 50% of Repubs and 90% of Dems are by original profession either lawyers or journalists.

              ….all is explained.

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              1. Similar to here in Canada. Forget where I read it but the main reason is that being a lawyer or journalist doesn’t require the same level of maintaining field knowledge like engineering or other trades. Say you are an electrical engineer and go into politics and serve for 6 years and then try to return to your former career. That’s six years of catching up on before you can start working again. Where as a lawyer only has to keep their license active and can pick up right back where they left off.

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                1. And for the last six years they have been practicing regularly, lying in front of a room full of people with a straight face.

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          1. Nope. Yesterday, as part of our “Day One Launch” (Company split into two different companies to get around some of the regulations which being in two difference market spaces caused to apply to them, and yesterday was first day of split), they pretty much affirmed that changing the world was part of their business vision.

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    2. And the Puppy kickers finally have proof that Sarah is in bed with the Sad Puppy organizers. ;-)

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  2. Good grief! Anyone with a lick of experience ought to have known better than to so seriously over schedule anyone as you were. Heck, a body has to have a full secession break each for lunch and one for dinner every day, don’t they?

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    2. I realize it is in Chattanooga and has Liberty in its name, but a full secession break strikes me as excessive. Wouldn’t it be enough to just threaten a temporary cutoff of diplomatic relations?

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  4. It was great meeting you too. Sorry my camera refused to cooperate during your leap into the future. I do have a shot of you sticking the landing….

    You were definitely overbooked. I know we didn’t get to spend too much time socializing, but it was a great time, and I need to work up my Con Report too.

    (ps. Mauser. I’m not Gray. :-)

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      1. Happens all the time.

        Didn’t help that in one circle I was in, there was a little old man who DID go by Mouser – as in a cat. But folks there were not very conversant in firearms either.

        I was gonna chalk it up to the accent. :-)

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        2. A neighbor growing up was a widow who was born a Houser and married a Howizer… or the other way around. I’m still not sure.

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  5. “Cats and dogs sleeping together… you know the drill.”

    This …

    … is why Sad Puppies cannot be allowed.

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  7. Gee, what a marvelous way to organise a con: bring in guests from across the country, then massively over-schedule them so attendees can enjoy their hallucinating.

    I can imagine SJW cons deliberately doing this to dissident authors in hope of grabbing some out of context ramblings with which to discredit their ideological enemies. But then, I’m a SF/F reader: I can imagine lots of things, up to and including people turning into pillars of salt*.

    *Just what type of salt is more challenging: kosher, iodized, sea salt or rock salt or even Himalayan Pink — these are the kinds of issues with which I wrestle at night. Some folks wrestle with angels, I get twisted into pretzels over salt.

    (Sigh — is that an example of trying too hard just to make sure I get on the comments mailings without having to C4C?)

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        1. “Some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you” applies to HTML as well, except the HTML’s victories are more survivable if also more embarrassing.

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      1. As someone who has run a state-sized organization with annual meeting, I submit that signing up to run anything of that nature requires an absolute lack of common sense.

        Though I did insist on issuing bibs at the formal pizza banquet, I suspect at least a dozen folks from the organizing committee would point out that hardly makes up for having a formal pizza banquet in the first place!

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        1. At the last academic conference I attended, I looked at the banquet choices, opted to skip, and ended up at a great Thai place instead. You are on the seacoast, during shrimp season, and you offer $65 rubber chicken and a cash bar? A pox upon your department. OTOH, the folks who said, “Eh, let’s go with meatloaf and/or simmered chicken and a buffet line for $10” get extra points.

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            1. I occasionally go when I need to be seen by certain Important People in my field (a form of paying homage to the guild masters). OTOH, since I may be about to lock myself out of the guildhall, I may just find out where the IDGAD* tenured faculty are going and follow along next time.

              *I Don’t Give A D–n

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      2. I am not about to disagree with your statement. Experience has proven it to be, sadly, all too true.

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    3. bring in guests from across the country, then massively over-schedule them so attendees can enjoy their hallucinating.

      See, it’s not in what happened, it’s how you tell it.

      Exhausted and on death’s door step Evil Space Princess – no fun.

      Tripping and hallucinating Evil Space Princess – I’m going to that con next year (actually, given where it is and size and the kind of folks it attracts I may give it a shot).

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    4. You know, most people who get inadvertently overscheduled will complain at the reg desk, and then the committee people usually gasp, blame the computer, and ask you to pick three panels of your choice. The other panels usually get staffed on the fly, or the other panelists just have a few more empty chairs and an apology to read from Concom.

      I’m starting to think we need somebody to be Sarah and the Hoyts’ pushy gofer, so they get somebody to complain for them instead of taking it stoically.

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      2. As a con organizer who is truly, madly, deeply grateful for my panelists and presenters, I do list up front all the things I’d like them to do, as opposed to the 1 – 2 things I need them to do. It’s a one day con, after all. And so when they volunteer for above and beyond, I don’t stop to ask: are you sure you’re up for this? I make sure they get a good lunch, and that’s it.

        I’m going to be adding that query to the 3 page single-spaced color-coded Stuff to Do List. Thanks.

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          1. While Wiki claims that the short-time movement started in England during the Industrial Revolution it also mentions the following:

            In the United States, Philadelphia carpenters went on strike in 1791 for the ten-hour day. By the 1830s, this had become a general demand. In 1835, workers in Philadelphia organized the first general strike in North America, led by Irish coal heavers. Their banners read, From 6 to 6, ten hours work and two hours for meals.

            A movement to legislate the eight-hour day didn’t begin to gain traction until after the late great unpleasantness.

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          2. Assuming you’re talking about antebellum slaveowners here: Of course they didn’t believe in the eight-hour workday, that’s a factory concept that has no meaning even on the modern farm. When it’s time to get the crops in, you work as long as you have light (I wonder if anyone’s done an analysis on the effects of portable electric lighting on food costs). They also cared if the slaves ate or slept. Slaves were a very valuable asset, it wouldn’t do to have them breaking down due to exhaustion or hunger. When Sherman marched through Georgia, his army was followed by hundreds of “contraband” for hundreds of miles. People don’t keep up with an army when they’re malnourished and exhausted. Slaves didn’t get paid, but the did receive room and board; which would be fine if the workers agreed to that compensation.

            There’s plenty of evil inherent in slavery, there’s no need to make crap up.

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              1. I’ve spent the last week fighting stupid on Facebook in the wake of the SCOTUS decisions. It’s possible I’m a little shell-shocked.

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        2. Old Man Panel, dat Old Man Panel,
          I must keep talkin’
          I can’t be walkin’
          Cuz Old Man Panel, he just keeps dronin’ along…

          Convention bookin’ panels fail,
          Twelve hours too much if you’re fit and hale,
          Sign, that book, and tell that tale.
          You get a little drunk,
          You’re in Facebook jail…

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  9. I wanna talk publicity too! And the Hunday breakfast was terrific, although I have profound doubts about being introduced to the City Cafe. Someone should set up a webcam that watches the dessert display. I haven’t seen so many delicious calories in so many condensed variations in my life.

    And you neglected to mention that Dr. Mauser caught your bouquet at the wedding :-D

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    1. “I haven’t seen so many delicious calories in so many condensed variations in my life.”

      You never saw desert case the Philadelphia’s Bookbinder’s restaurant, then. Mein Gott!!!!! The first time I walked into there I nearly went into diabetic shock just looking at that display of icings and berries, cakes and tarts, all calling my name, promising to fulfill my most secret desires.

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      1. Robert talking about his weight problems talked DIRECTLY to the South. “Everytime I go to the South, they have found something new and awesome to do with sugar and are like ‘look what I made with sugar.’ And I’m like ‘you aren’t helping, south.'”

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              1. Amazingly, I got up this morning and I didn’t put on any weight at the con. Although that could be because I only had breakfast before spending all day on airplanes, and I don’t recall eating much of anything before retiring for the night in exhaustion.

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                1. I think I actually lost weight during the con. That’s because I mostly ate veggies and dip that I made at home and brought in a cooler, plus a big genoa salami, some Triscuits, and a loaf of French Bread (in order to save money by not spending a lot eating out). I only ate out once, at this Mexican restaurant on Main Street that I accidentally found last year. It’s a great little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and stuffs you full for a reasonable price.

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                1. I’m in – well, I was working on it before the wedding, and then I got sidetracked… and I’ll warn you, if I get my meds fixed then I’ll lose fast for a while.

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              1. Well of course. It adds a certain extra layer of intensity and violence to our raiding, especially if we scent chocolate.

                Liked by 1 person

        2. He needs to go to Louisiana and see what they can do with crawfish and rice. Gain 10 pounds? No Problem! Gain 60 pounds, that’s easy, too. And then there are the things available in the French Quarter. The only things that would tempt me to move south again are the food and a new Ice Age — but those are hard to resist.

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        3. Not only that, we also have deep fried… pretty much everything, barbecue, make a tradition of bringing food to every occasion (up to and including gastric bypass surgery, I kid thee nix), many wonderful variations on what to do with potatoes (starch! makes sugar inside you, so you don’t have to eat it)…

          Now, if anyone needs some *help* working off those (lovely, tasty, delicious, wonderful) calories, we point them to an empty field that needs rocking, a house that needs painting, a garden that needs planting, hogs that need butchering… *grin*

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          1. Well, I was going to sell ’em a Lab mix myself, FOB (freight on balance). I’m having trouble getting my kids hired out; well, okay, I haven’t tried this year much. (I was working, a little, by the oldest’s age.)

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        4. So those of us who are blithely immune to the charms of the -oses, and get our temptation from savories: cheeses, charcuteries, and red wine are good to go?

          Works for me. Though I seem to recall this diner not far from Jamestown where you could get crab cakes and real German ‘slaw with bacon. Mmmmmm…

          Though for some reason when I was pregnant, I craved sweets so badly, it wasn’t safe to let me near a donut aisle.

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          1. I have a massive sweet tooth, especially for sweet coffee. It’s getting to the point where sugar is really not good for me. :o(
            Black coffee is the hardest.

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            1. I have the same problem with the massive sweet tooth. What I do is use mostly sucralose (Splenda), then add a little sugar to cover the slightly weird taste.

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              1. Took a little getting used to, helps that we have good coffee, but I just drink it black.
                Unless I get all sjw weepy, “but I WANTMYSWEETCOFFEE.” Then I fall off the wagon and pay for it. Fortunately the price is not too high… yet.

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              2. Not recommending, mind, just mentioning, but check out Agave nectar. It’s as sweet as advertised. A touch pricey.

                M

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                2. The agave nectar that comes with a dead worm in the bottom of the bottle is highly recommended.

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      2. The display case at Demels (or the Cafe Schwarzenberg. I stay away from Sacher.) Where all my good resolutions die, collapsing into a whimpery little heap beside the door.

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        1. There was a restaurant in Wiesbaden that only served desserts. Sixty different types of cheesecake. Torts of every flavor. I’d gain five pounds just walking by the place.

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            2. Defamation if you didn’t partake, personal injury if you did, infliction of emotional distress in either case. No need to be a lawyer to figure THAT out…

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          1. Reddish-purplish hair dye or not, for one, at least when comparing David and Wayne.

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    3. I wanted to talk publicity too! I mean, you and I had a nice, what, 45 seconds to discuss it at one point?

      Next year, MUST remember that John Ringo may need no sleep, but I do… otherwise I’ll not make it to the Hunday breakfast again!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Was it that long? Fortunately we both have the West Coast high-speed burst conversation mode :-) We will just have to find another way. Maybe a googlechat or skype or something. There’s plotting and conniving to be done!

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        1. Ask three or four hard core raiders what voice chat they use for their raids, and use that while you’re typing.

          They’ll be able to point you at which version has the lowest demands on your computer system. I’d just suggest Teamspeak. (Without a headset. I hate those things!)

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          1. Skype, Ventrilio, Mumble, Teamspeak, RaidCall, Razer Coms…

            TS is probably the easiest on less powerful pcs. Vent is pretty easy to use, skype is everywhere, most of those you can use on mobile phones, too (with data plan, I assume).

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          3. Can we please have something without sound, or where the sound can be muted and still get the message across? I can type fast enough to keep up with most conversations. My tinnitus is getting bad enough I can’t even stand to listen to music for five minutes. I LIKE music. Grrrrrrrrr. I HATE how my body keeps attacking me — and winning!

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      2. Amazing. This comment was posted by Dorothy at 2:12 pm and the email of it from WP arrived in my email at 10:10 pm. I received responses to it well before I received the comment!

        I’ve no idea whether to blame Hotmail of WP and so shall take the middle path and accuse the two of conspiracy!

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        1. What would I be doing with Dancing boys?

          (There’s a scene in one Dr. M short where someone calls him on all the naked female test subjects in the lab. He replied that if he surrounded himself with naked men, what would the mad scientific community think?)

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  11. Not to put too fine a point on it, but…
    Thursday:
    Marriage/renewal ceremony followed by much celebration and one would hope at least a bit of canoodling.
    Friday:
    5:00 opening ceremony
    6:00 Keeping track of your money
    7:00 Short stories or novels
    8-10 Room party reception for Thursday’s event
    Saturday:
    10:00 Alien minds
    11:00 readings
    12-2 How to write workshop
    2-4 Baen traveling slideshow (where Sarah had a speaking part on stage)
    4:00 Indie, is your book ready for prime time
    5:00 autograph session
    6:00 from here you’re not on the schedule. Part of it I expect was Toni taking her authors out to dinner. Which is nice, but still and all a working meal.
    Sunday:
    11:00 Family feud Hoyt vs Williamson
    1:00 How to serve mythical creatures
    2:00 Cover design
    This is what you get for representing as a force of nature. I know Dan and Robert were bringing you food and caffeinated beverages that you had to eat while on a panel as there were no breaks other than ten minutes between sessions. As spread out as things were that ten minutes was barely enough time to get to the next event. You did step out of a couple panels briefly, one must assume to answer the call of nature.
    By Sunday morning your zombie impression was first rate. Dan and Robert were leading you by the hand.
    And might I add that through all of this you were polite, gracious, and ever helpful with your willingness to answer any and every question posed to you either during panels or in the hallways.

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    2. Next time… complain at the reg desk or at Ops! Complain until it gets fixed! If you don’t have time to complain, delegate a complainer!!!

      Seriously, it’s a convention program book, not the stone tablets from Sinai. The convention committee is well aware that it makes mistakes. Do not abet them in mistakes! Help them fix it by complaining!

      And yes, it looks like all facets of programming weren’t all being handled by the same person; this has that “subcommittees smashing their stuff together” look.

      Like

    3. Sorry that’s too much of a schedule just for someone attending, much less someone up front…

      Like

      1. And that was just Sarah’s piece of it. At most times there were at least six separate events going on simultaneously. I appreciate that the con wanted to offer something for everyone, but it quickly became a case of “what am I willing to not do to attend something else.”
        Did I mention the 1632 minicon that was held on top of Libertycon?
        Sarah is a sweetie and didn’t want to disappoint her fans, and I respect that, but she also stubbornly refuses to recognize her limits until she is well past them. I plan to do what I can to make sure that the PTB at Libertycon know that their scheduling overstressed a valued member of the LC community. Thinking at a minimum an ombudsman type to review the proposed schedule and verify the health status of all panel attendees a few weeks out. Burning out the main attractions of your con just does not seem a wise or prudent model to follow.

        Like

        1. Em and I were blown away by panels starting at 10 and 11 pm.

          Speaking of Em, we finally got home about 4pm. The Atlanta airport was a treat with Em essentially unable to carry anything including herself, and me wrestling with a carry-on suitcase (had Em’s meds, all 30 something, so we couldn’t check it), my laptop case, and Nemo. I also forgot that Em probably shouldn’t have been in her usual window seat; getting her out was a treat.

          We didn’t get to meet nearly enough of the Huns, but we’ll have to see about 2016. I suspect that it depends on health issues. We’ll see what the orthopod has to say on Thursday.

          Like

        2. Maybe someone ought to remind Sarah that she is The Evil Space Princess and not Harpo Marx:

          … as you grow older you’ll find …

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          1. She kept reaching over and trying to turn it off. :-)

            Incidentally, Sarah, while you said I looked a lot more tired this year (I can’t hide ANYTHING from people who are more observant than a rock), the difference in how you look compared to last year, healthwise, was striking. Even though you have had the complications since the surgery, the overall change in your face is considerable on the plus side. I hadn’t realized it when I saw you last year, but looking back, the pain that you were ignoring was showing up in your face, and a whole lot of that has washed away now.

            Like

            1. “She kept reaching over and trying to turn it off. :-)”
              That was meant to be a crack about expertise in alien minds.
              It suffered from poor delivery.

              Like

  13. I was nice running into you Sunday night and Monday morning.

    I think Persian Winged Bull smoked over Hickory Dryad would be very good.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. My favorite suggestion was Unicorn-kebabs on its own horn.

        Followed by Robert’s contentions that the human half of half-human creatures would change the flavor in interesting ways.

        Like

  14. I thought the Internet was largely powered by cute cat pictures (or is that filled?) so I that yesterday’s post was completely acceptable.

    Like

    1. Cat pictures are *so* 20th century… the modern internet runs on video clips of cute baby bats.

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      1. I’m not sure how they do it, but about once a year a bat makes it into my house. Yesterday evening was that night. I cornered the bat on a binder, then carried the binder outside and shook the bat off.

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          1. Wellll, no wonder the Democrats were outraged; last I heard, most of their supporters were bats.

            Like

        2. As they carry rabies, I’m chary of getting too close to the lovely beasties, so when one got in the house last week (long story) I used the Dyson hand vac (the one with the five foot tube) to grab the critter and hustle it out the back door. I cut power, it flapped free, and all was, as they sat, rug.

          Who knew? The device really does have “the proper amount of suction”

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      2. You really need to keep up. It’s sloths now. Baby sloths being given baths and then hung up to dry, like laundry. I will admit the bats are cute, though.

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            1. *envy*
              My dad got to go rob a raccoon nest when he was a kid… they weren’t in the area by the time I was big enough to consider it. I know the males get big and mean, but aaaaawwww!

              Like

              1. If you haven’t already, acquire and read Sterling North’s Rascal to you children.


                Like the Little House books, it is a delight they will eventually share with their children.

                It is impossible to believe such a boy wouldn’t be under the iron hand of Child Protective Services today, but the intelligence, maturity and responsibility he demonstrates throughout the book is a severe condemnation of modern child-rearing philosophies.

                Wiki says an anime production, Araiguma Rasukaru, of 52 episodes was produced, but no edition of it seems available in the US.

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                2. The Rascal anime was a little too successful, as it started a fad for importing raccoons into Japan as pets and then of releasing the un-neutered, long-living raccoons into the wild. This has been pretty bad for wooden Japanese temples and bridges made out of certain kinds of Japanese wood (raccoons like to gnaw on ’em) and for tanukis and certain other species of Japanese wildlife (raccoons are a little bit better at reproducing in big numbers than their distant tanuki relatives).

                  Like

                  1. You would have thought, after the Australian experience with rabbits, that someone would learn. This is one of those places where I do find it hard to stick to libertarian principles.

                    Like

    2. Porn. We built it for porn, and that was largely what funded it’s expansion.

      Like

        1. I didn’t know that one would post it, but I knew at least a few would think of it.

          Like

  15. ” I apparently assume people know what my life has been like.” – Perhaps they do – and assume from the evidence that you can regularly do the impossible!

    Like

  16. You both look happy – and lovely. Congratulations!

    If you want to lose weight for health reasons, fine. I’m with you.

    Sometimes it’s not worth the effort.

    Someone said on a blog post the other day that women over forty have the metabolism of a turtle. I can attest to that. And turtles don’t move very fast (that’s me).

    Like

      1. The metabolism maybe… but I still have the hunger of an elephant. You looked lovely anyway, and when I’m not sitting in a laundromat, I will be doing more internet on the treadmill desk.

        Like

        2. I’m getting back into walking every morning. I did make it to the gym today, although after about half an hour I hit a wall. Something about four hours of sleep last night (woke up fretting about lesson plans.)

          Oh, yeah, totally off topic but the book cover reminded me: apparently there’s a play based on _The Little World of Don Camillo_ that’s making the rounds in Austria. Seems to be popular.

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          2. Yeah, I got into the gym last night after skipping for a few weeks because of an ankle injury.

            I had my form break on some not-very-heavy deadlifts and now my back is *not* happy.

            Like

      2. “Lechuga y pechuga” is all my niece, the fashion designer is allowed to eat. She has my body type, but has to be fashion-skinny in her chosen profession – to be believable.

        Her models are much taller, and half her weight as it is, and look like dressed bones – dressed SKINNY bones.

        My bones are twice the size of theirs – and I have no idea what my mother did differently – I have four younger sisters with an inch less measured around their wrist bones than what I measure. And lest you think it was growing up in Mexico, one was born in the States (same nutrition as me), and the other almost.

        It’s not fair! I want skinny bones.

        Like

        1. My problem seems to be the hormonal mess of the last 20 years. When the house sells and we have money for copays, I’m going to get a hormonal profile done and see what can be done.

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                  1. If you ever run out, I’ll have one of my nephews in Louisiana ship you a few . . . thousand. Apparently they’re taking over one of the lakes he likes to fish in. Mostly mud carp and weed carp, up to ten pounds each.

                    Like

                2. I don’t believe you. How did it get full? Surely thrown carp occur frequently enough that it takes some time to regenerate.

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                  1. Her bag has a “warp link” to a warehouse full of carp. Her bag is always “full” as long as there is carp in the warehouse. [Very Big Grin]

                    Liked by 1 person

                    2. Her bag “knows” of other warehouses with crap in them. Of course, if somebody really annoys Sarah, there are warehouses with more “interesting” content. [Very Big Evil Grin]

                      Like

                    4. Now you’re bringing the meercats into this? With all their underground storage? The carp will never stop.

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                    5. And the warehouse has a piping system to the enormous carp-lakes in the southern Czech Republic. It’s part of the Evil League of Evil’s economic uplift program (and swamp drainage/relocation plan, thus making EU bureaucrats and wetlands preservationists cry).

                      Like

            2. Well RES you see, when a hypothalamus and a pituitary gland love each other very much…

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          2. Hope the stress levels are reduced soon – but it is going to be a while for some of those parts.

            Do try to take reasonable care of yourself in between – whatever that means for you. Time to pull out all the stops and be selfish (where possible).

            Like

          1. I’m not in the major danger group – small thin white women who smoked. No one has ever called me small. I tried cigarettes as a teen for a short while (it was cool at camp), didn’t like the way my hair smelled. People in my family often control their weight by smoking as soon as they’ve had their allowed caloreis. Ugh.

            Liked by 1 person

        3. It’s not fair! I want skinny bones.

          No you don’t. I’ve been thin-boned all my life, and with the big M started edging into dangerous territory. If you start out with more, you last longer.

          Like

            1. We have two Maine Coons of identical height. The third dimension…differs slightly, as one of them weighs 12 pound and one weighed 30 in his prime. They are known as Fat Cat and Flat Cat.

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            2. The most nearly spherical of professional movie actors was Ernest Borgnine, who lived to the age of ninety-five.

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            1. (Looks at the knee currently wrapped in an ace bandage and stabilized with a brace. Fights off yet another attempt by the heavy cat to walk on it)

              Maybe someday.

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              1. Kali, my wife would agree. She has bone-on-bone osteoarthritis in her knees. She just got an epidural in each, and hope they last another four months before replacement surgery. What’s good for one may not be good for another, and that includes exercise.

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          3. I’m well past M – and have the bones of an ox. I don’t mind that any more – I just don’t want them too well padded, a very difficult thing to achieve when illness keeps you from exercising, and none aerobic.

            And your appetite refuses to recognize your lifestyle.

            I manage, just, but starvation isn’t really a good way to live. And when you can’t look at a carb without putting on a pound, you’re sunk.

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  17. Blame the con committee. There really should have been a speaker for the talent position among other ad hoc positions and extra duty.

    SMOF’s and C cubed and any number of other associations do have tribal knowledge. One of the many reasons the Sad Puppy fuss

    (and most especially Peter Grant is absolutely correct but there is a generational difference in language – and maybe thought – that might have been bridged – likely not now)

    is sad is the loss of the ability to work together for the common good. Fighting over the baton when it comes time to pass it along is inevitable but equally regrettable. There really has been a permanent traveling volunteer community for national level cons that perhaps needed a shaking up but not a discard with no gold watch.

    On the general topic of education and journalism we all know the problems there. We associate the problems with journalism schools which saves us worrying about the fact, and it is a fact, that the general infection of our schools applies as well to every discipline.

    Time was with a few exceptions test scores (and so whatever test scores are a proxy for) were reasonably uniform across a college campus. For what it’s worth this time has passed. Today the education majors as a class have the lowest overall test scores and teachers come from the bottom feeders among accredited colleges – e.g. in Denver teachers go to Metro State or State Normal School of Colorado, never University of Denver or Colorado College or University of Colorado. There was a period when education was a booming field and drew if not the best but as well as any other school. Now a bubble field – like e.g. legal education – with the decline and decay and also desperation among practitioners.

    My point is that today’s practitioners in the hard science fields went to the same schools and are infected by the same habits and mannerisms. I’m not going to give examples that might be traced to refer to specific people and places but the level of science today’s Post Doc’s are producing in terms of exaggerated claims for irreproducible results is appalling.

    And to come full circle the infection is there and it’s made all the worse (see Tim Hunt and Connie St. Louis – pick one to believe in) by the inability of people to work together.

    To the extent that Liberty Con is the property of Barflies and so excludes a lot of tribal knowledge then and to that extent bad things will happen. Good things too.

    Like

    1. That’s kinda why I roped in the bell curve bit in my comment – I’m skipping past (whistling madly) where the whole student population’s curve has shifted, just observing that way back when the different schools tended to gather groupings clustering at different points on that cohort’s curve, and that to my eye you can pretty reliably predict where on the curve the J-school subpop tends to cluster.

      Like

        1. Where I got my degree, Criminal Justice and Education were combined into one school. I always found that a combination best not to comment upon.

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          1. That’s one of the things I missed — I think. I never went to a true “campus” except twice in my school years, and both of those were “abnormal”. The first was the Air Force Academy — men only when I attended. The second was the University of Nebraska at Omaha (also known as “SAC U”), but as a married student with a full-time job. Most of the rest was taken one to three courses at a time, or as military schools, or as correspondence. I really have no idea what “campus life” is like.

            Like

    2. I went to the University of Misery for a few years. The J-students never *impressed* me with their intelligence. Some weren’t stupid, but that’s damning with faint praise.

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      1. Ever notice how many people mistake verbal acuity for intelligence? That’s like mistaking rectangles for squares.

        Like

        1. I would guess that there’s a strong negative correlation. I know every time I get tongue-tied it’s because I’m thinking 20-50 words ahead of what I’m saying and three words try to come out the primary output modulator simultaneously in an attempt to keep up.

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        2. Most of them were poor to middlin’ writers.

          But then that’s what most newspapers want because (at least back then) most people were poor to middlin’ readers.

          Like

  18. It’s all part of some evil plot by Brandy to force the ELoE and myself to meet up at more cons than just this, since we barely got enough time together to say Boo, isn’t it?

    Okay, Laundromat run accomplished, now I just need to strip the bed and wash all the sheets and towels… *sigh*

    Like

  22. About prednisone, it does that to a body (three pounds a day) on the same food you were eating before. It has other side-effects that can cause fatigue, paranoia, and hallucinations. (Yes, I have had them all). When I was finally weaned from prednisone and my body started to reset, I lost 50 pounds in six months. Hugs…

    Like

  23. Bit of a heads up, the Libertycon web site has a page to leave comments. You have to dig a bit, but it’s there.
    Tried to let them know I had a great time, but they really need to appoint a wellness officer on the con committee to check on the health of panel guests and use that information to measure against the work load they are scheduling them for. I was following the Hoyts’ panels because of my interest in indie and as research for an article I’m working on about beta readers, but I would not be surprised to find other featured authors with just as heavy a work load as Sarah had dumped on her.
    Must admit I used phrases such as “bordering on abuse” and “worked like a rented mule” in my comments.
    Be very interested in what sort of feedback results both to me directly and to Sarah.

    Like

    1. Got a very positive e-mail this morning from Derek Spraker representing Libertycon. They are well aware of what happened and promise to make every effort to see that it never happens again. The quickness of his response and the tone of it remind me why so many fen consider the Libertycon folks as family.
      Derek apparently tried to respond directly to this post here and has been consigned to moderation hell for some obscure wordpress reason. I’ll try to cut and paste here and see if that works.
      It’s under the “LibertyCon Info” menu item, listed as “Your Feedback”.

      This is something that was brought up to Brandy at the convention, and believe me we will be discussing panelist workloads at our upcoming meetings.

      Our current method is that our Director of Programming puts together a list of panels (requested as well as assigned), then emails each participant with a copy to get their approval and/or requests/suggestions. Granted this is a couple of months before the convention, so circumstances do change.

      Unfortunately we had a perfect storm situation in regards to Sarah in that she was recovering from health issues during the convention, and our Dir of Programming and his First Assistant were both unable to be at the convention (his mother passed away the day before). If they had been there, I’m very confident that Rich would have immediately dropped her from some of her panels when he saw the state that she was in. Rich and his staff are typically _very_ responsive to our guests, this year the staff was scrambling a bit with their absence. They did a phenomenal job, but I’m very sorry that Sarah ended up falling through the cracks over the weekend.

      That being said, and this is primarily to Sarah and other LibertyCon panelists, if you get to the convention and realize “Holy frak! They want what?!” feel free to tell us! It’s not a problem in the slightest to shuffle around a bit, since your health is far more important than you participating in a “Why Buffy is Better than Blade” style of panel. :-)

      But don’t worry, panelist workloads will definitely be a topic for discussion for the Board. We love all of our panelists, and under no circumstances want to burn them out. We’d rather keep them around for many more years.

      Like

      1. As I said, this was mostly my fault. I SHOULD have checked the schedule, but … well… it’s been crazy out here.
        And because it’s LC I didn’t want to just blow off panels. (Which I did at mile hi once, when they left me no time to eat.)

        Like

        1. Shut up you silly Portagee you. No wonder you need a minder, which Dan and the boys do quite well for the most part. As your uncle (totally true, she adopted me at LC) I only put an oar in the water when it became obvious that a series of events conspired to twist everything out of hand. Not your fault, not Derek, Brandy, or any of the con committee’s faults, just chit happening and all at once. Given the excellent response from LC my intent has been satisfied. That kerfuffle won’t happen again. Which means something else is guaranteed to go TU instead. Having achieved relative status I will continue to keep an eye on you and point out when you appear to be over extending. Not that you’ll listen, but if you get too carried away I not only have contact information for Dan and the boys, but I can reach Cedar and Kate. And you know they will set your butt down and bring you to task if necessary.
          And I still maintain that even in zombie mode on Sunday you did a fine job. After all your team totally skunked that of Mad Mike. Means of course he’s gonna red shirt you in one of his next books.

          Like

  24. I don’t have any advice, medical or otherwise, but setting aside the lamentable consequences, Sarah, it sounds like you are so very popular that everyone wants a piece of you – good on you for that level of success! And I’m wishing you a speedy recovery on every level.

    OT
    I just finished my h**o voting. I just don’t have it in me to do the due diligence to complete the TV shows and the graphic stories. But I read and ranked everything else. Time for an adulterated ice tea … :)

    Like

  25. “(and someone stole our mailbox — no really”

    Having recently priced a new mailbox (I decided the snowplow smashed and restraightened one was still useable) I can sympathize… both with you and the thieves.

    Like

    1. Friend had a problem with mailbox bashers. Built a nice brick pillar for it, with the mailbox on drill-stem pipe, and a layer of concrete around the actual mailbox, inside a very large mailbox. They found several broken and dented bats by the side of the road after that, but no one removed the actual box.

      He also had one up on a 20′ pole. It was for airmail. Farmers with too much time on their hands in winter . . .

      Like

            1. The PTB probably don’t want anyone getting injured by an up-armored mailbox when they try to drive over it. Their parents might sue the city/county.

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              1. That’s the way it was explained to me. Well, not the lawsuit part, but the danger part. It’s been the law since before lawfare was as common as it is today.

                Like

            3. When you can’t armor up, next best might be the remote pan-tilt paintball gun with boresighted video on a 12ft pole near the mailbox… more fun, anyway!

              Like

              1. That would be funny.

                Alternately, I just realized you could put “reactive armor” (not really, but I can’t think of a good name for it) by encasing the box with tubes of paint that would spray the car and the perp when hit.

                Like

        2. I’ve heard of folks ending up with the “improved” mailboxes in their laps.

          A work-around is to buy one of those really big mail boxes, and treat it kind of like a hanging flower box– if you put the support up tall enough, it won’t become the target, and it’s not an ice hazard.

          Not illegal where I grew up, but we were in a spot where a lot of people went into the ditch.

          Like

          1. I plan on installing my mailbox hanging, have been planning on doing it for several years. Our normal snowplow driver is good, but whenever we get someone else, most of them are indistinguishable from teenage vandals. They attempt to see how many mail boxes, posts and supports they can break, just instead of a bat they use a high speed wall of snow.

            Liked by 1 person

    1. He might very well become a regular, too. I mean, there will be deliveries… I need something that fits the ACME acronym, though. And it will be in Bowl of Red, which I hope to deliver at the end of this year.

      Like

      1. The usual (erroneous) expansions are ‘A Company Making Everything’ or ‘American Company Manufacturing Everything’ but I suppose if there was a real expansion it would be far less serious. It might poke fun at itself with Absurd Company Making Errors, but more likely it would be either oddly mundane (but overwrought?), such as Asphalt and Concrete Mixing Empire, or utterly absurd, Asbestos Cruise Munching Eclaires.

        (And if the best thing I can do is shut up, please tell me.)

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        1. It depends on what the underlying business might be, don’it?

          Ace Cwigley’s Mercantile Emporium might work for some businesses while Alternate Carma Meted Enterprises sounds like a loan shark’s collection agency.

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            1. I forced you to look that up? Didn’t you ever read any Doc Smith? Wasn’t Kimball Kinnison the acme of a millennium-long breeding program? (Well, as his kids demonstrated, penultimate.)

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              1. I actually didn’t know it was a word, and not an acronym before I looked that up. Despite having read my Doc Smith books an unknown number of times more than 10 each, I don’t remember seeing it used in any of those books.

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                1. I think most of us saw it as Wile E. Coyote inventing Amazon.

                  Wonder if he could sue Bezos?

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            1. Perhaps more a strange saying or ideal of the company:
              And Carry More Expeditiously
              or else it’s all
              A Curious Mental Environment.

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            2. So … Accelerated Commodity Movement Express?
              Absent Complainants Mostly Evident?
              Advanced Cruising Martian Exporters?

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