Month: August 2014

Airport thoughts

I may have overpacked…

I may have overpacked for con. I brought my laptop, and while it was reassuring for chat and the Skype was awesome and I was very happy to be able to play “Put Out the Lights of London City” several times, I just did not have time to use it much. Could have used phone and Bluetooth keyboard to much the same effect.

I may have underpacked for travel (just a backpack for carry-on). That’s a comfortable amount of clothing for four-ish days, but being here longer than that meant either hand-done laundry or hotel laundering. I am fine with hand-done laundry, FTR – something something knitting, after all – but I was very busy and the sink was tiny, so I used the hotel laundering and Jesus bleeding Christ that was expensive. Could have saved by packing just a little more.

(I may do that next time. There was actually no trouble on the flight out at all, which has made me worry about checking things rather less.)

I’m running on eight hours sleep since Saturday morning, though, so I think further articulation will need to wait a bit.

No cape, no tiara

Written eighteen hours ago on the plane, published now.

Moon with orange reflection.
The actual moon, and the reflection. I didn’t have a flash on, so you can’t see the wing.

The moon is reflecting off the wing outside my window. The reflection is harvest-orange, but the actual moon is white as bone. I can see the wing, but my camera cannot.

Back when Usenet (a time marker I actually think is perfectly adequate–distinct from most social media currently in vogue in that it was a real PITA to edit your posts), there was this term I ran into on one of the newsgroups I spent time on, and that term was “Gothic Super Hero”. It referred to someone who worked a well-paying job that could pay for all of their awesome clothes and makeup, and whose workplace was totally fine with them showing up in full regalia, which was convenient because they always had time to put it all on,  and…

(Yes, I spent time on alt.gothic.fashion. Hush.)

Anyway. The point was, you did not need to try to be that person. It was, in fact, quite possible that that person did not even exist. And it was okay to not be that person.[1]

My point is, I am sitting here, with my phone, and I feel that if I had the wherewithal, I could actually write a moderately pithy, incisive, anecdotal post which would entertain. I feel, obscurely, that I should be able to.

But I’m not that person. I’m tired and sick and mostly I’m okay with that. So this is what you get: the moon’s reflection is a harvest moon, and I remember first learning that it was okay to not be as cool as the people online seemed to be, and I’m going to try to sleep.
—
[1] Tangentially, when I first got onto the internet, when I was very young and visiting an aunt’s, I read several short horror stories.[2] One them involved a usually exquisitely dressed goth who was murdering people that saw her in frumpy glasses and pink knock-around clothes. PINK. The horror.
[2] This comes as a surprise to precisely no-one.

In transit!

Currently sitting in Detroit, watching everything go by. The Gadgets To Go store where I was going to try and get an SD card for the camera had been replaced by a Coffee Beanery, so still no joy on that.

I had a bagel. I’m not hungry, but I know I’m not likely to get anything except possibly airplane breakfast for ten hours, by which point it will be lunchtime, and I suspect the not being hungry might be a touch of a headcold. Will probably eat and get a warm drink on the general principle of it being good for me, even if I’m not feeling it.

The windows are a little tinted (actually, it looks like they’re ZipToned, but you know what I mean, right?), so it’s hard to tell exactly, but it looks like there is some serious rain coming in; there are slate-gray clouds overhead, and they’re reaching all the way to the treeline in one corner of the window. I will not be surprised if there is a delay; there is always a delay, and the fact that there hasn’t really been one yet (we got in to Detroit ~half an hour late, but whatever) means I am waiting for the hammer to fall.

If there is a delay, I will cope. I have my laptop, my phone, thirty new magazines plus a Wasteland novella on my ereader, and knitting that I might feel more up to addressing once I get yet more orange juice. I’ve had four glasses of it since lunch. Also a complete willingness to ignore all these and doze if that is what will make me feel better. So, you know.

(I realize this is kind of boring, but typing helps me relax. So.)

London, travel, computer, flail.

…dammit, I wish that title weren’t so apt. Anyway.

I’m leaving for Loncon in ten days, and I am trying to decide whether or not to bring my laptop, and if I bring it whether to keep it in my (non-con-located) hotel room or take it with me to the con.

(Important note, for deciding: I can keep the con schedule on my phone.)

If I leave it at home:

  • pro: it will not get lost.
  • con: my laptop. Life without my laptop for eight days. In airports. (I will note that I have not had an international plane trip not take an extra half-day at least in years.)

If I take it to London and leave it in the hotel:

  • pro: I will have all my writing, my Skype, my bookmarks, my GDrive connection, my everything
  • pro: I can write while in transit. I find I actually really like doing this, and while it is technically possible to do on my phone, the smaller screen makes it much more of a PITA.
  • pro: I will not have to carry it around a con (I have a Lenovo Thinkpad; sturdy as all hell, but kind of bulky)
  • ???: I would need to get a laptop bag. My current laptop bag is actually a backpack. No-one who is at risk of standing behind me or in my blind spot wants me maneuvering in a crowded area with a moderately heavy backpack, even with padded corners.
  • con: I would need to leave it in the hotel, which would probably be perfectly fine but which would, for at least the first two days, distract me.

If I take it to London and to Loncon:

  • pro: will have all my writing, my Skype, my bookmarks, my GDrive connection, my everything.
  • pro: I can write while in transit.
  • pro: can sit in A Spot at the con and get stuff down. (At Anticipation–the Montreal 2009 WorldCon–I ended up posting eight times from the con itself. Admittedly at that point I was in the con hotel, which makes a slight difference… OTOH, judging by FarthingCon, I really do like having my laptop with me. The “back off, breathe, find a place to sit for late-night coffee or dessert, and type” is a nice way of processing events.)
  • con: carrying around a heavy thing, which means that if I pick up anything else (get thee behind me, dealer’s room) or am carrying anything else (such as books to get signed), the total weight will be that much greater.
  • con: will need to lug it along if/when I decide that I should go somewhere/do something else.

Ugh. I don’t know. But at least I have every pro and con I can think of down, so I may revisit this in a bit. Thoughts?