radconbob

There are few things in the world that are as valuable as our memories. Some linger under the surface, constantly there to remind us of the good, or bad times that make us who and what we are.

Others lie deeper, hidden, waiting for the chance encounter,   These memories wait, until the chance encounter with that trip wire that pulls them from the depths with raw jagged power. These are not the memories worn smooth from constant use, these memories instead tear us out of our rut, they carry us back in time to feel the raw pain of loss , regret, or simply smack us with the hard reality that we were once that person. We caused that pain, that hurt.   

Others wash over us with warmth and joy. They make laugh out loud, smile with the knowledge that life is worth living and we have lived it with a vigor that is deserving of the blessing of life. These memories will give us a bittersweet joy that is best savored before we let them fade.

As for me, I find that few of the paths not taken call to me from the deep, instead they give me a warm sense of satisfaction, they let me revel in the paths taken, the friends known and loved, the goals achieved and the love of those who have surrounded me. The greatest blessing I would bestow on any fellow traveler in this world is that they can find the same comfort in in the paths taken as they look on the memories as a solid path leading forward to the future when they become our lessons, and our guideposts. They give the contrast for us to measure and define the good and the bad within us,   Who we were and who we are. The most fortunate bit of all of this is that these guideposts can serve to guide us in who we become, what are the paths we will take.

To all my friends that have led to me to today and held my hand from beside me or from a thousand miles away, I love you and thank you.

There are few things in the world that are as valuable as our memories. Some linger under the surface, constantly there to remind us of the good, or bad times that make us who and what we are.

Others lie deeper, hidden, waiting for the chance encounter,   These memories wait, until the chance encounter with that trip wire that pulls them from the depths with raw jagged power. These are not the memories worn smooth from constant use, these memories instead tear us out of our rut, they carry us back in time to feel the raw pain of loss , regret, or simply smack us with the hard reality that we were once that person. We caused that pain, that hurt.   

Others wash over us with warmth and joy. They make laugh out loud, smile with the knowledge that life is worth living and we have lived it with a vigor that is deserving of the blessing of life. These memories will give us a bittersweet joy that is best savored before we let them fade.

As for me, I find that few of the paths not taken call to me from the deep, instead they give me a warm sense of satisfaction, they let me revel in the paths taken, the friends known and loved, the goals achieved and the love of those who have surrounded me. The greatest blessing I would bestow on any fellow traveler in this world is that they can find the same comfort in in the paths taken as they look on the memories as a solid path leading forward to the future when they become our lessons, and our guideposts. They give the contrast for us to measure and define the good and the bad within us,   Who we were and who we are. The most fortunate bit of all of this is that these guideposts can serve to guide us in who we become, what are the paths we will take.

To all my friends that have led to me to today and held my hand from beside me or from a thousand miles away, I love you and thank you.

And it comes to a blissful end.

The week started badly.  I'm an auditer for a company and was auditing an organization not liking to be audited.  They provided a 28 page rebuttal to the audit report even in draft form and all but one stalked out of the meeting.  This was a day I had anticipated being on vacation.

This forces work on Tuesday.  I finish up about 10 AM and all is well.  I leave work for my delayed and now truncated vacation.

I'm prepared.  I have books on tape, most notably Sara Paretsky's Bleeding Kansas, an interesting but unfulfilling book that left me curious if she had ever been to Kansas, a Spencer Novel, again intersting, but unfullfilling, and so I am off.

My first stop is Bellingham.  The Duchess, Her Grace, Alma Alexander and Deck Deckert have allowed me to live in their basement for two weeks.  The food was so good I felt guilty and consumated my guilt by buying a box of peaches and treating them to home made Peach Cobbler.  I wanted to make a crust, but making pie crust in a loaner kitchen is like rebuilding an engine on the back porch.  It just makes a mess and I wanted to be invited back.  

Deck is a master of the food processor and made an apple chutney that was too cool for words. It went well with the chicken he roasted one night.  They let me carve the chicken.  Not understanding that in the south carving the chicken means ripping off the wings and legs, popping off the breast and slapping the bits on plates.

I knew I was in trouble when, looking off the back deck, I commented on how healthly and fat the deer looked.  Alma does not think of her back porch as a deer blind.

And then, as quickly as it started it was over.  I was packed and headed to Camp Con. 

Camp Con is in year three.  A camping trip for writers and fans.  I draw some ammusement from those who would dress in the manner of the 12th century and bemoan the modern world and then gasp at the thought of sleeping under the stars.

In my world, camping is a couple of blankets, one of which you use to pad the rock that is your pillow

I woke up around three AM and lay until a falling star hit the atmosphere, and then went back to sleep.  I got up a few hours latter and cooked breakfast. 

Then I came home.

Camp Con IV will be next year.

They let me trim a couple of branches, defeat Alma soundly in a game of scrabble, and help mount a for wild life viewing.  I got the better of the deal. 
 

Renovation Wins the 2011 Worldcon

Renovation
The 69th World Science Fiction Convention
RCFI
PO Box 13278
Portland, OR 97213-0278

press@renovationsf.org
www.renovationsf.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Montreal - The Reno in 2011 bid won the right to run the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention in voting conducted by Anticipation, the 2009 World Science Fiction Convention. Renovation will run from August 17-21, 2011 at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. The Atlantis Hotel will be the main/party hotel, with additional rooms supplied by the Peppermill and Courtyard by Marriott.

Renovation has a stellar line-up of guests of honor: Tim Powers, Ellen Asher, Boris Vallejo and the late Charles N. Brown.

Tim Powers is a leading speculative novelist, whose books include The Drawing of the Dark (Del Rey, 1979), The Anubis Gates (Ace, 1983, winner of the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award and the Prix Apollo), Dinner at Deviant's Palace (Ace, 1985, winner of the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award), On Stranger Tides (Ace, 1987), The Stress of Her Regard (Ace, 1989, winner of the Mythopoeic Award), Last Call (Morrow, 1992, winner of the World Fantasy Award), and Declare (Morrow, 2001, winner of the World Fantasy Award). Tim has frequently taught at the Clarion science fiction writer's workshop.

Ellen Asher was the editor of the Science Fiction Book Club for thirty-four years and three months, thereby fulfilling her life's ambition of beating John W. Campbell's record as the person with the longest tenure in the same science fiction job. Ellen is a winner of the New England Science Fiction Association's Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction (the Skylark) and in 2007 received a World Fantasy Award in the category Special Award: Professional.

A native of Peru, Boris Vallejo has created a great volume of work for the Fantasy field, having worked for virtually every major publishing house with a science fiction/fantasy line. Boris has also illustrated for album covers, video box art and motion picture advertising. His mastery of oil painting is immediately and abundantly clear to anyone who looks at his work, and his classic sense is as much an homage to the old masters as it is to anyone contemporaneously working in the Fantasy genre.

Charles N. Brown was Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of 29-time Hugo winner Locus magazine which he founded in 1968 and had been involved in the science fiction field since the late 1940s. He was the original book reviewer for Asimov's, edited several SF anthologies, and wrote for numerous magazines and newspapers. Charles died unexpectedly on July 12, 2009, while flying home from Readercon. To acknowledge Charles' lasting impact on our field, he remains a Renovation Guest of Honor.

ENDS

Memberships for Renovation may be purchased at www.renovationsf.org. In addition to individual memberships, Renovation will also offer a family rate.

For more details on the convention, visit www.renovationsf.org. We encourage your input to help us create a memorable Worldcon.

For complete voting results, see the Anticipation website: www.anticipationsf.ca/English/Home.

Direct press questions, or requests to be removed from the Renovation press release mailing list, to press@renovationsf.org. General queries to info@renovationsf.org.

"World Science Fiction Society", "WSFS", "World Science Fiction Convention", "Worldcon", "NASFiC", "Hugo Award", and the distinctive design of the Hugo Award Rocket are service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society.