This label contains incorrect information. Do not trust it.
--label posted in hotel elevator, beside information about evening parties
I packed my car the night before. After work, I headed to the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, which presented the most direct route to the hotel. Penguicon, that MI convergence of SF, Fantasy, Open Source Coders, Makers, and More. After two years online, the fen and nerds and techies and coders would be assembling in the real world.
The panel on spacefaring TV series was set for later that evening. Larry Nemecek and Eric Choi and I had done this twice before, virtually (the second time with Derwin Mak). This would be our first time giving a version of the panel discussion before a live audience. I wore a red shirt. Sitting as I was between the man known as "Dr. Trek" and another who has worked for NASA, I figured, if anyone was going to take a hit, it would be me. Larry and I worried, initially. Minutes before the panel, Choi had not arrived. I texted him, but he's never been the sort to text back if he's en route. I took his silence as a good sign He arrived at the last moment, without time to head to his room or pick up his badge at the reg desk.
Great panel! It proved an auspicious start to my first con as a "Feature Guest." Afterwards, Eric produced his copy of The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion and asked Larry, in a faux-fanboy voice, if he would sign it. At the first incarnation of the panel, two years ago, Eric had cycled images from it behind him as his Zoom background.
I donated two items. The collectible Stan Lee action figure which I picked up last year at Free Comic Book Day went to the fund-raising Silent Auction. I had also accumulated and acquired a number of lanyards from a weird range of places and times, so I gave them to the struggling convention. They proved quite popular. Who wouldn't want, instead of plain lanyard, a Medieval Times VIP lanyard or, say, one from a conference at a Canadian educational institution?
I was rooming with my longtime friend "Detroit." We hit a few of the evening functions, caught up, turned in. Saturday was going to be a busy day.
A mundane couple somehow ended up on a room on the convention's party floor. That is never supposed to happen, but, you know, a lot of conventions fell by the wayside in the chaos of trying to make this happen again. We spoke briefly in the hall. He was pretty cool about things, and even said he'd consider joining the event just to attend the room parties happening around him. She looked a little freaked out by it all, and I cannot entirely blame her. They'd signed up for a hotel room and not Nerds Gone Wild.
I had about eight hours of programming, most of which went well. Since Eric had a reading Saturday morning, I was able to find the reading room ahead of my own. They were in a remote area, quite removed from the rest of the convention. You practically needed a GPS to find them. Someone passed me in the hall. "What's a Penguin Convention?" he asked.
The panel on alt-history and my solo presentation on Sub/Urban Folklore went very well. I have given the Sub/Urban Folklore one in variations before, will give it again, and such a panel receives mention in The Con. Thanks to the Alt-History one I met an IT guy from Milwaukee and his friends, and we would hang out a few times over the weekend.
I liked the first half of my reading; my second choice led to me rushing like a n00b, because of the time constraints. And I had one panel where each of us thought someone else had pitched it. The result was too much rambling, since nobody had prepared questions.
The evening played like something in the Games Room. I hung out with people at parties and at the dance and around the convention. Every time I tried to head to my room, I'd run into someone else who wanted to strike up a conversation and, the attendees being who they are, these were interesting conversations.
I spend most of Sunday in the lobby. People stopped by to discuss panels I'd been on or to ask me to sign a book, so I felt like a Featured GuestTM. If the Wisconsin group hadn't been so congenial I might have left sooner, but they were and I didn't. I finally headed out, found myself rerouted by a detour-- do not get me started on detours through Detroit, MI (nothing like getting lost to deflate a person's ego)-- and finally arrived home behind on anything in my life not con-related.
More immediate matters loom, but I'm also developing the official pitch for the book I'm doing with the Live Nude Aliens cover artist, DS Barrick, and looking at writing a flash piece for a new online magazine that's offering payment for space-faring fic.
You like SF? Fantasy? Horror? Tech stuff? Find a good convention.
In MI in April?
Penguicon Lives!