There's a natural mystic blowing through the air. If you listen carefully now, you will hear.

Photos now online:
A day with Sarah (15/16-Feb-2009)
Old Homestead, New Bookcases (22-Feb-2009)
Barney's Beanery with Tadao (22-Feb-2009)
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 337: Coral Cafe (26-Feb-2009) et seq.
The picture of ala_mokita with the books is from our late night at Coral Cafe.

Interlude: Two weeks between Gallifrey and ConDor.

Picking up where we left off at the end of Galllifrey: summoner_lenne9 slept on our couch. (left) The plan was for her to go home Monday. When we got up it was still raining, and the Grapevine was closed. So we didn't want to send her on her way if she might not be able to make it over the hill.

( Instead we took her to see a few of the sights... )

After our outing, we went to the house to learn whether the Grapevine was still closed. And to decide whether Sarah was going to take a bus, train, or if we'd drive her to Santa Clarita to take it from there, or some other combination of transportation options. An interesting development, though, was when we learned that the snow on the mountain meant that she couldn't get picked up at the Flying J in Lebec (Frazier Park exit). The roads up from there were too slushy and icy to risk.

So we had the option of waiting who-knows-how-many-days for the mountain roads to clear up; or ( figure out how to get her to Bakersfield... )

Three hours of driving, in stages, got me back home by early morning. My boss knew I'd be in late, as I'd texted him the night before. I actually got about seven hours of sleep before going to work, so it all worked out.

For the record, it should be clear that Lynn and I understood when we offered to host Sarah that there was an excellent chance that one or both of us would be getting up early, staying out late, or otherwise sacrificing a few hours of sleep somewhere along the line. It may have come as a surprise to her, but we knew it was a likelihood all the time.

We heard later that a number of people at the school were startled to see Sarah on Tuesday -- with the snow on the Grapevine, they weren't expecting she'd make it in.

( The following weekend we took care of some business at our house and my parents'... )

Having dropped off a carload of boxed books, I now had room in the car to go pick up stuff. Lynn and I drove to lasfs to look for Animé Los Angeles materials that had been borrowed by Gallifrey, or had been delivered to the clubhouse after our convention.

I was expecting to find a bunch of our carts, such as Ala and Alexander. (The yellow one that belongs to the convention, and the beat-up purple one that belongs to me.) Cookie and Nessie (blue, green) are also still missing, as well as the light blue one that was going to be named after one of the Pac-Man ghosts. They weren't at the club. It's believed there aren't a lot of carts in the POD. Where are the other carts? (I still need to contact Pam and ask her what she knows...)

( At my office, I have a four-foot long power strip, with 16 outlets on 2.5'' centers... )

Patrick Beckstead and his girlfriend "Patrick" (Korinne was wearing his sweatshirt with his name on it) were there, adorably sharing a milkshake. (right)

We noticed that Darnell Coleman and Whisky have surprisingly similar builds, facial structure, beards, et cetera. We hypothesized that they might be cousins. We dare not accuse them of being twins, because then they'd squabble over who got to be the Evil Twin. (left)

We should see if we can get them in matching flannel shirts, though...

I brought that big box of books I mentioned. About the equivalent of six bankers boxes. I pulled some books out of the box, spread them on the table and let it be known that they were free for the taking. By the end of the frenzy, there was about one bankers box to take home. Here you see karl_lembke and Christian going through them at the end. (right)

There was even a mundane woman in the restaurant who stopped by on her way to the restrooms and picked a book or two to take.

I brought the few remaining books back home. The next day, I'd be going to ConDor, and there's a free book swap there that caprine oversees -- I'd put out the rest of them there.

Next: Party time at ConDor.