Tag: London

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.

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 The Gadgets To Go store where I was going to try and get an SD card for the camera had been replaced by a Coffee Beanery, so still no joy on that.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

Is it the weekend? Why, I believe it is.

It has been a horribly unproductive week. Trying to fix that, in the sense of change it rather than in the sense of catch up on it. There is a point at which you really need to just accentuate change going forward or you will spend half your future putting bandages on the past, and another quarter of it grumbling about it when the cats wake you up around six in the morning.

(Just to take a for-example, for example, that is.)

Still working on my cardigan (cardigan is a sort of horrible word, I think, but “zip-front sweater” sounds rather precious and clunky), and still hope to have it done for London, but have started to seriously wonder if it’s going to be at all wearable in London in August. It is going to be a very warm sweater; the seed stitch holds a lot of heat. That said, I expect to do several hours of bussing this weekend, and I’m at the point where it’s perfectly suitable bus knitting, so while I am in the throes of anxiety over wasted effort I can probably get another few rows done.

(Also I should put in a lifeline; I’m definitely far enough along that one is warranted.)

In other news have been once again surprised at how genuinely cheering it is to have a woven knot of ragged, chewed, slightly damp T-shirt strips deposited in your lap, provided they are deposited by a hopeful dog whose tail is wagging because she wants to see you smile and play with her before she finishes reducing said chew toy to its component parts. Some days it’s the little things that keep you going.