Kumoricon 2009

So on Friday I was reading the latest installment of Girl Genius, and saw a note that the Foglio's were going to be at Kumoricon that weekend, and also the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, and said to myself, I did, "Hey, the Nikkei thingy is in Portland!" and proceeded to type a quick search on Kumoricon and found that it was an Anime Convention, seventh iteration, held at the Portland Hilton. Labor Day Weekend. $45.00 at the door. And I thought about it. It would be crowded. I wouldn't know anyone. The video list was all stuff I wasn't familiar with [not having watched Cartoon Network][or anime in general for far too close to 20 years]. I'd also need to buy food. And if I went to the Dealer's Room, I'd spend money, probably. And I thought about it. It was a 15-20 minute ride by bus from my front door. I wouldn't need to worry about where I was staying. Given my lack of current anime/manga knowledge, I wouldn't spend that much money at the Dealer's Room. And I hadn't gone to any kind of con in at least ten years. I wouldn't need to explain to anyone who knew me why I'd been a hermit and vanished off the face of the Earth for seven+ years. If I didn't enjoy it, I could always go home. So I went. Got there Saturday morning, stood in line [in the rain] to get into registration. Noticed that anime fandom has bigtime costuming going on, and that this was a young crowd, teens through twenties on the whole, some of us older folks but not that many proportionately, which ties in with my discovery that many of them got introduced to anime via the Cartoon Network, so it's a Cable Generation thing, I got introduced in an earlier period, back in a much more word-of-mouth period, where the anime was available in Japan and what we saw was multi-generation copied... kinda like Blake's 7 fandom was. Anyway, back when I was watching in college it was a dedicated core and only starting to get to where some of the stuff was being imported to the states. So I'm waiting in line, in the rain, listening to the folks in front and behind me, and it felt good, it felt like a con, full of media fans. And I just know it's going to be bursting at the seams crowded, as I can remember what it was like when Orycon used the Portland Hilton, and I can already tell this will have far more than Orycon had when last we used this venue. Get registered, look at the pocket program guide, and start thinking about what I'm going to do. Some stuff on the third floor looks interesting. Now how do I get to the third floor... Much latter, after searching unsuccessfully for stairs [they did exist, I found them later on, but not this first time], and then standing in line for an elevator, I reached the third floor. Which is where I spent most of my time while at the con. Seems there was a programing track on writing fan and original fiction, which I found interesting, and the presenters amusing, so I just hung out there. Did make it to the Exhibitor's Hall, spent not that much money, and didn't stay very late either day as I found myself getting tired and went home, but for a first foray back into the world of fandom, and just back into being around other folks, felt pretty good about it. Fandom is a separate and distinct culture, homogeneous even in it's diversity, and I really am comfortable in it; my kind of people. I did, a couple of weeks ago, buy an Orycon membership, so I'll be attending Orycon in a couple of months, the first time in over ten years, and there will be folks I know there; that'll be a different situation, re-establishing contact.

Memories from Camp

The summer camp I worked at for two summers, 1977 & 1978, has changed it's operational methodology over the years, but is still in the same family and finding a way to survive; I just discovered their website, so I know they're still around. Sherwood Forest or as it was known in my time, Camp Sherwood Forest or Greiner's Camp, at the time was run by Alan & Barbie Greiner, who were the Theatre Arts faculty at The Catlin Gabel School for many years, and during the summer ran their camp on the Long Beach Peninsula of Washington, near Nahcotta on Willipa Bay. It is currently spearheaded by their daughter, Susie Andrews, and her husband, Gordie, who are attempting to maintain it as a gathering place for like minded individuals, friends, family, and somehow make it relevant in the modern world. Not entirely sure how they are doing, the website hasn't been updated in a year and the email is invalid, but the yahoo group appears funct, I've submitted an app to be added to it. I have some fond memories of my two summers there, one of the highlights being a canoe trip where we left camp, circumnavigated Long Island, and returned in four tides, a little under two days. I was a bow paddler on that trip, and that's when we learned I paddled twice as fast as anyone else, and had to throttle back to keep from exhausting everyone else. By the end of that trip Gordon Leeds, my stern paddler, and I had gotten to where we could go from a semi-broken down camp to in the water paddling in around five minutes, including loading a passenger in the canoe; we were organized, in the zone, and didn't waste any motion. It was a wonderful trip, and also the last time I was in a canoe; haven't had the opportunity since. Thinking about it, I think that's the last time I've been on the water, which says not good things about the last 30 years! Haven't even been to the coast that many times since, and, well, I think I'll leave this be before I start getting depressed, yes? And on other fronts, the painters finished up yesterday, so the major maintenance projects are done for the moment, although the next ones are already under consideration, the plumbing needs upgrading as previously mentioned. And Bill has started building the new outbuilding/shed, which will clear out a bunch of the basement, which will hopefully enable a lot of re-organizing of things. I guess that's it for now, next Wednesday is part two of tooth extraction.

Teeth Extraction, primus

Right now I have cotton gauze pads crammed in my mouth, helping to control bleeding as an aftereffect of having nine teeth pulled; the first of four Adventures in Tooth Extraction. They pulled mu upper molars and bicuspids [I think they're bicuspids, I might be wrong, they're the not quite molars just forward of the molars].

Was a bit of a trick doing it, with the level of decay and the fact that I've got good and solid roots, that really didn't want to let go. There wasn't much to grab onto, what there was to grab onto wasn't the solidest, and they really didn't want to come out. In other words, a good set of teeth for a dental school, they got to learn something dealing with my mouth.

In other news, it's over a hundred, my a/c is busted, and the painters have started work so my windows are shut; only way it could be worse would be if I had a south exposure. I don't, I'm on the north side of the building.

Oh, and my bathroom sink drain is clogged back in the wall, and a major nut on the pipe that I need to remove to get at it doesn't want to move. The next major project we need to save money towards is replacing a lot of the iron pipe in this building, the plumbing is anywhere between 70 and a 100 years old and is demonstrating that rust causes iron pipes to shrink internally.

So I'm not in the best of moods just now, and mom wants to talk, not catching on that right after oral surgery might not be a good time. Parents!

And I just demonstrated that the local anesthetic is still doing a good job, can't use my lips properly for drinking, nice spill all down my front.

*sigh*

It's a good thing I'm innately cheerful, otherwise I might really be down in the dumps!

Think I'll go read something silly.

The Roof, Heights, and Me

I don't deal well with heights, at least not when I have any sense that I could fall. When I helped some friends when they were shingling their roof, I was the ground crew; was on the roof a little bit, but just couldn't handle it.

So the fact that I actually did get up on the roof of our building to look at the job being done says something. Mind, I never stood up, stayed firmly knees to the roof, but I still got up onto the roof, which is how I know it has slope and all. And the roof covering, this reinforced 60mil PVC sheet stuff, is smooth and slick; Wade [the boss] made it clear that if anything went wonky, call them [hey, 15 year guarantee], and don't even consider going onto the roof in the rain, and really don't consider it with ice, you'd be on the ground way too fast in an uncontrolled fashion.

But I actually got onto the roof. I'm not sure if it was courage, or insanity, or if there is a difference.

Roofing done!

Yay! Friday they finished up the work on the roof, installing the new cap flashing on the facade; see, the roof actually has a decent slope to it, but on the front and sides it has fake walls running up to form a square profile, just like the false fronts on the buildings in frontier town in the American west. These fake walls have to be capped with flashing to prevent water from getting in and creeping all over the place inside the building, and to finish up the roofing, as the roofing material actually goes up the back side of these wall thingies and needs to be capped to prevent water entry.

So the roof is done. Yay! And there was much rejoicing.

Next up will be painting. Actually, siding repair and then painting.

Roof work now going on

OK, to understand all this a bit of background on the building is needed.

It's a big square flat topped box. There is interior roof access, if one calls a hatchway accessed by leaning a ladder precariously from the stairs access. Earlier this year we had Bill install a slightly lowered ceiling area at the top of the stairs, with a pulldown attic ladder, making access to the roof quite easy, unless you just have a thing about heights, like myself. The pulldown ladder made it real easy for contractors to get to the roof to make bids, and the workers are finding it super handy, they still have some exterior ladders for hauling up materials but other than that they use the interior ladder 'cause it makes it so much easier. The reason I'd pushed for the ladder install was that otherwise we'd not be able to see what the roof was like, and it had been decades since anything had been done up there.

So yesterday they started on the job, first scraping off the old roofing material so they could see what the roof proper was like, which turned out to be not absolutely awful, but there is some rot, and the surface is rather uneven, more so than works with the roofing material we're having installed. So they're fixing the rotten sections, and then installing 1/2" CDX Plywood over the lot, and then back to the regularly scheduled roofing project. Adds $2295.00 to the cost, which is reasonable, at least to me. And these chaps are good steady workers; it's right above my head, I can tell they are working steadily, trust me on this!

Whateley Academy, or, What I've Been Reading Recently

Nestled in the Presidential Mountains of New Hampshire lies the Town of Dunwich, near which is located Whateley Academy, founded in the late 1800s by Noah Whateley as a school for Young Gentlemen. Fallen on hard times in the late 1950s, foreclosed upon by the bank, it was brought forth anew in the mid-1960s as a High School for those who possessed 'odd talents'.

Dunwich, New Hampshire? Where, pray tell, is that? Nowhere in our reality, although mentioned by H.P. Lovecraft. Welcome to the world next door to ours, where the Superheroes, Supervillains, and Mutants of the comic books are reality, and where the writings of H.P. Lovecraft are fact disguised as fiction; this is the setting for the stories of Whateley Academy, a High School founded [and protected] by a consortium of Supers, both Hero and Villain, for the express purpose of educating young Mutants in the usage of their powers, and the development of skills needed to survive in a somewhat hostile world, for there are many who do not love the Mutant as their brother.

Welcome to Whateley Academy, student body circa 600. Scrupulously neutral as to the path their students take upon graduation, directed by one of the foremost Superheros of any generation, staffed by some of the finest educators and researchers in the land, part prep school, part mutant academy, their graduates are accepted into the most prestigious colleges, courted by the CIA, NSA, NASA, and other governmental agencies, as well as the established Superhero & Supervillain teams, The Syndicate, and other shadow organizations both malign and benign.

Written, singly and cooperatively, by a group of approximately 17 writers referred to by their fans as 'The Canon Cabal' to difference them from those writing fan fiction set in their universe, the main sequence of stories follows six members of the Class of 2010 starting with their arrival at the beginning of their freshman year, in September of 2006. Brought together initially by the common thread of a change in gender accompanying their mutation, these six individuals rapidly form bonds which will last their lifetimes, however long those may be...

Five years of writing, with significant weekly updates for the most part, has brought the storyline partway through their second term, Winter 2007, although some Fall 2006 storylines are still in progress. Utilizing 'The Canon Bible' [a Secret Compendium of Established Lore regarding the Whateley Universe], a private forum, and individual emails, the Canon Cabal have maintained an astounding level of character consistency and universe coherency. Originally posting their stories at Sapphire's Place, a GLBT Internet fiction site, Whateley Academy has for several years now maintained their own server, The Crystal Hall, hosting the official Canon of stories, a fan maintained wiki, and an active fan forum, including fan fiction. [Some fan fiction has also been posted to The Big Closet.] Several significant members of The Canon Cabal began as writers of Whateley fan fiction, and were invited into The Cabal, and their work revised and reissued as Canon.

Experience the pathos and bathos of life at a coed mutant boarding school, the comedy, tragedy, seriousity and farce of life in the mutant fast lane with fifteen-year-olds adjusting to new powers and abilities, some eagerly, others reluctantly, all while taking English, Maths, Powers Theory & Lab, Home Ec, Basic Martial Arts, Introduction to Flight, Gadgeteer/Deviser Lab, Costume Theory, Introduction to Mystic Arts, Advanced Topics in Mutant Genetics, and others both academic and vocational.

Cliques and clubs abound! Jockey for social position with The Alphas [Whateley's self-proclaimed elite]. Considering a career as a cape, why not rush the Future Superheros of America? Your parents are Supervillains, that's a sure in with The Bad Seeds, admittance only to those of proper pedigree; desire to emulate your parents not required. Fancy a career as a model, Venus, Inc., is for you! Family from the upper crust, hang with the Golden Kids. Think yourself the next James Bond, the Intelligence Cadets [Spy Kidz] might be for you. Spectre more your style, the Masterminds for those with guile.

Acknowledged influences include the various major [and minor] comic book universes, H.P. Lovecraft, Japanese anime [especialy Ranma ½ & Urusai Yatsura], various role playing games with a superheroes/supervillains or Cthulhu theme, Saturday Morning Cartoons, Adam West's Batman, Vincent Price' laugh, and a familiarity with Prep Boarding Schools [US & Foreign].

And that's what I've been reading lately.