Update and short bits as the holiday season begins

[damont]

nancylebov points out the following Xmas-related links, which I now feel are appropriate to share since it's *after* T-giving:
"A little biology, unnervingly plausible";
"LOTR and more" and "a footnote to the above".

Welcome to draftwitch! And thereby hangs a tale... alphaggek was coming down the weekend before Thanksgiving, in order to go to Holiday Faire on Saturday and Jaelle's holiday party on Sunday. He contacted some friends of his in the area to see if they wanted to meet us all for dinner after the event, and they agreed. jacylrin was too ill to go to the event, but was feeling better by dinnertime and agreed to join us too. So we go to the place where we agreed to meet up. amykb and her apprentege's (I forget which is the prot and which the apprentice -- already! gah) got there first, our car got there second. We waited for a bit after being seated... eventually alphaggek's friends found us, montuos and I turned to them... and basically said "OMG *Hi*!!!!! It's been *years* since we've seen you!!" (I then immediately turned to shoot the Disney band which had somehow popped up off to the side, playing That Most Annoying Song.) draftwitch had been active in our SCA group a number of years back, and we'd met her husband through her, including having get-togethers at their house. She'd become mostly inactive for mundane reasons, and I thought they might have moved away; happy to see that I was wrong on that count.

As for the event itself, it was much of the usual; got there just in time for montuos's Troll shift to begin, helped merchants get things straightened out, helped folks in the Troll line, saw immense numbers of friends -- including giselle0002 (it was a nice surprise when I heard she was coming up, earlier in the week). I helped set up the tent for spanish_peacock's Laurel vigil (including How To Keep Your Pavilion Together When You Cannot Put Its Roof Up 101). Ended up not buying too much. I didn't actually get to talk to spanish_peacock during the vigil; nor did about a dozen others, as the queue was a bit long and moved *very* slowly. While I was over near the vigilboard, a nice young lady (a newcomer, given her questions) asked me if the food was available to anyone; I said it was, and she asked me what was going on, so I explained it to her as best I could, including the basic intro to what the peerages are about. I hope I managed to explain it well. The Silent Auction was a little smaller than last year, but then again we didn't have Mika and Ursula trying to clean out their house this year. Once the S.A. was mostly done, Alle Psallite gathered to sing our holiday pieces; as melaniesuzanne pointed out, we did a good job. Somehow we actually managed to pay attention to carthew's direction too! Evening Court followed, and then it was time to clean up the site and head for the aforementioned dinner.

The next day (Sunday) was Jaelle's party at The House Of Babes & Arms, where we saw more friends we hadn't seen in a while, though due to various circumstances only about 1/2 to 2/3 of the usual gang were able to attend. The usual present-exchange game was held, and I was lucky enough to come away with the "bunnyjadwiga In A Basket" assortment.

For Thanksgiving itself, killernurd went to eat with asaia and her parents. montuos and I drove to scenic Brunswick MD; the temperature was a record-high 76 when we left home, but we drove through the cold front and it was at least 20 degrees cooler when we arrived at Chez kmusser/zammis. We were pleasantly surprised to find certain friends there, including byronczimmer and principia_coh. Gaming occurred before and after dinner. Dinner, in fact, caused an intermission in the 5-person game of Power Grid I was involved in; after dinner I managed to win the game in only 2 or 3 turns, jumping to 15 cities (thus ending the game) before "Step 3" could start. This is unusual. I won handily, since nobody else got closer than 12 cities (and I could power 13). After that we played Settlers Die Siedler von Catan on a very old German set, and used up all of our good brick karma for the next 6 months.

We decamped around 10 and headed for Timonium, checked into the hotel and crashed in fairly short order. Friday was spent mostly helping set things up; we helped set up the Con Suite (including making grocery runs) and the Art Show. Once that was done, we spent too much time trying to gather everyone for the trip to dinner at the Happy Good Indian Place. The food was good though, as expected. Spent time schmoozing when we got back, but retreated to our rooms after not too long. I think a lot of us had been tired when the con *started*, and being at the con was unlikely to help much with that. I didn't try to hit the filk circle Friday night.

On Saturday, some of us didn't emerge from the hotel room until late morning; sister_devora made sandwiches for lunch and I delivered one to maziemaus who was spinning near the indoor pool, surrounded by kids and fluff. After lunch I went to hear maugorn sing; he did a good set. (I still can't place his Mystery Song though, which really irks me because I *remember* it from when I was a kid!) From there I went to a panel on online relationships, which made some interesting points. I checked out the Art Show and the Dealers Rooms, went to Jaelle's room for conversation, back up to our rooms for dinner, and then down to the Clam Chowder concert followed by the Poolside Hallelujah Chorus (thanks blackpaladin for the video!). I hung around for a while afterwards downstairs, talking to friends and such; I looked for the filk circle but somehow completely missed it. Eventually wandered up to our rooms where people had gathered for a party, which was good once I had settled down.

Sunday we pretty much missed the convention activity due to trying to clear out of the room in time, and then going to brunch; plans are in the works to make Sunday less stressful next year, including keeping one room for Sunday night if the budget allows. While we were out at brunch, our friend Richard arrived at the hotel to tell us that his wife had finally had her baby; a few more details about that can be found in this post thanks to herveus and friends. We packed up the last of the stuff into the vehicles, said our good byes to those who were leaving right away, got to nancylebov's booth just in time to makd last minute button purchases, helped the Houghtons pack up the WW&P stuff and load it into the van, and then headed home ourselves.

suba_al_hadid told an interesting story from her high school years that kinda reminded me of my own HS physics class. Our teacher was the coolest teacher in the school (and the assistant band director to boot). One day my friends and I had missed a lab for some midday school activity, so we stayed after school to make it up. In the time we did the lab our teacher managed (with some help from us) to parody the fight song of one of our rivals, whom we were playing soon and who was trying to live down a rather embarrassing scandal. The game was a few days later on our home ground. Before it began, their band struck up their fight song... imagine their shock when we stood up and sung the parody lyrics!

Comments

[stitchwhich.livejournal.com]

"followed by the Poolside Hallelujah Chorus"

Oh golly... one of my favorite parts of the one and only Darkover I ever attended. Thanks for posting the link to the video.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

You're welcome -- and immense thanks to Trevor (Cadell from Pennsic Troll) who put it online.

Unfortunately, the pool next year probably won't have quite the same acoustics... assuming they do get it enclosed in time for Darkover, "which isn't very likely and we don't expect it" (sorry Arlo) as noted in the post the next reply.

Renovations at the Darkover Hotel

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

pedropadrao noted elsewhere: "The post-Clam Chowder singalong had a special feel to it-this was the last time that we'll have those nifty acoustics. :-("

The sign at the front desk said "Coming to you February 14, 2008 -- Crowne Plaza" which is Holiday Inn's upscale variant. I'd heard that this was actually in the works for earlier this fall -- they had signs up *last* year to that effect! -- but projects haven't been getting done on time. Only half the rooms have been renovated; we had a renovated room, which was good for having queen beds (instead of full) but not so good for having no towel racks in the bathroom; what were they *thinking*?

The restaurant area is currently under renovation, and the atrium area is being used for restaurant seating, as is the area behind the bar (next to the pool) where the billiard tables had been. Once the restaurant is reopened, they will be converting most (if not all) of the atrium area to function space. Jaelle says that's where she plans to put the hucksters room next year: the previously-atrium function space should be big enough for *all* the merchants, so we won't have to have two separate dealers' areas.

And I'm told the outdoor pool will be enclosed. Estimated finish date for *that* is November 1st of next year. They've missed every projected completion date so far; we don't think they'll hit that deadline either. So next year we'll probably be singing Händel in the main ballroom, and moving out to the new-indoor pool in 2009, but I don't think the ceiling will be nearly as high as the current indoor pool's.

[draftwitch.livejournal.com]

*FLYINGTACKLEHUGS*!!!!!

Thank you so much for posting the link to the chorus by the pool! I went to one Darkover a few years back and that was one of my favorite parts of the con (yes I sang in it and placed myself between two women who really knew what they were doing). My other favorite part was the Clams concert. Maybe one day I'll get back to it. :-)

Cheers darlin!

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

**snugglehugs!**

You're very welcome re: the video, I'm just glad that Trevor either took it or got his hands on it, and posted it to YouTube. (BTW, if you know what to look for, you can see me in the vid. The basses are on the right hand side of the picture.) I am amused that, every year, no matter how fast Bob tries to start us out, we always end up at about the same slower-than-usual tempo, in order to compensate for the massive echo-chamber effects.

Sadly, I suspect the ceiling won't be quite as high over the new pool. (They're converting the atrium area and the current indoor pool into function space; the current outdoor pool will be enclosed. They say they expect the pool enclosure to be done by 1 November next year, but we're not holding our breath; they've missed every target date so far. See my comment to Hrothny (http://dr-zrfq.livejournal.com/161981.html?thread=471997#t471997) above for more details.)

[suba-al-hadid.livejournal.com]

What a cool story about Physics class.

So... you gonna post the words? If you remember them?