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[Strife26]

It doesn't need full blown planning, but it does, unfortunately, need a car. At least with the amount of stuff I need to at least get back to North Dakota.

And probably some planning to hit a convention or two and visit all the relatives I haven't seen in five years. So not a lot, but a bit.

[Strife26]

Hello everyone, I'm Strife26 of Bay 12, your favorite mercenary, unwilling Texan, somewhat sociopathic, generally decent, wandering, whiny, wrong-subforum using Bay12 blogger, here to report from A-Kon 27! It's an Anime convention in Dallas, TX and I recall going to one some number of years ago (I definitely couldn't figure out which year, of course, unless I went archive diving here in the hope that I mentioned it). The decision to head up for the weekend was only made last night, some I'm riding seat of my pants. First scout-through of the convention is positive, plenty of stuff, people, and it seems decently run 

Anyway, the drive up here went better than expected and my hotel room is quite nice. After all the time in Colorado living in a Homewood Suites, this place seems more like home than my apartment. Really reasonable cost to my rewards point total and right across the street from the convention hotel to boot. Negative side: I'm on the second floor and ten meters from the elevators, so there's plenty of noisy groups stomping around.

In addition to enjoying the con, my secondary goal is tracking how social I'm being. Conventions are definitely more fun with friends and I'm rolling stag. If I'm going to end up a civilian again, I definitely need to add some more points to my Charisma score. There's no problem at all with people I know, but interacting informally with those I don't ain't my thing. Heading to college and the civilian world in general (my contracting job with 100% veteran employees is a start, but not really civilian, I think) , it's definitely going to be an important thing to get better at.

Unfortunately, it seems that crowds of people are faceless and annoying to me, except for especially cool cosplayers, which are just interesting to appreciate. I'm going to try to
strike up at least one conversation. Maybe more? Even writing this is bolstering my mood, which is gratifying. In addition, there's going to be a bit of alcohol to weather my mood, but definitely not enough for my normal shitty, shitty, shitty drunk side to come out. Total allocation is three drinks, which seems just right for one full day and two half ones.

Also, groups of people walking slowly line abreast are probably deserving of a specific circle in hell.


Current plan is catch a quick nap, then check out the dance tonight. Probably edm and probably much better on something other than alcohol. I'm not ahead enough on sleep, so going for caffeine isn't an option; just going to go with the best of hopes, but I haven't been impressed at the last convention dance I went to. There's a steampunk ball too, but all my cosplay equipment that I can switch over to steampunk is currently unavailable in North Dakota.

Tomorrow, there's a fair number of panels I'm going to try to catch, especially if I can catch the author Eric Flint to thank him for the Baen Free Library and try to get him to sign my cruddy copy of In the Heart of Darkness. I've never actually read this particular copy, preferring my eReader edition from my phone, but it'd still be damn cool to have. S. M. Stirling will be here too, and I have a copy of his Under the Yoke that I've never read as well (and wonder why I ever bought it, judging from the back cover). He's a well regarded SF writer, so it'd be cool to exchange some words as well. John Ringo will be around too. Maybe I'll call him a hack.

Plus a few Undertale panels, some miscellany, wasting money on cool stuff, and a visit to the "Goblin Market" which seems like something sort of minigame area full of adventure, it'll be a fun, filled day tomorrow.

So yeah, I'm going to my damnedest to have a fun time. Fake it until you make it and all that.

[TheBiggerFish]

Wellp, it is my sworn duty to PTW everything, so here I am.

Hi!

[Strife26]

Welcome to the thread, enjoy the spotty writing, regularly broken promises, and general ambience of the area.


I'll totally finish my write up about A-kon in the near future, combined with a report about Comicpalooza, where I'm currently waiting for an Aliens panel to begin.

Long story short, I'm still not getting into the social thing, but listening to good authors talk is always very enlightening.

[Sheb]

He, I though I had PTW this. Have you chosen a major yet?

[Strife26]

He, I though I had PTW this. Have you chosen a major yet?

Not as of yet. Choosing a major still seems to be awfully close to finding an answer to the "what do you want to be when you grow up" question, which I think is beyond me still.

Right now, my plan is to head to start on a general first year engineering track and work my way from there. If I had to guess, maybe something in aerospace or materials, and end up in the space industry or the tank industry, because those are both pretty cool, pretty up my alley, fairly positive towards society, and decently paying.

On the side, I'm going to work in writing classes as I can; writing's always been something of a goal. Of course, it's been a goal for years and the amount of words that I've produced is very low and the amount of words I've produced that are good enough to see the light of day is pretty close to zero. Reading what I wrote in here in years past always makes me cringe.



Anyway, A-Kon and Comicpalooza. Interesting places, although I definitely feel like A-Kon was more fun. Comicpalooza had a much more corporate, well-run feel to it. The panels, however, were extremely disappointing. A lot of related topics were running concurrently, and the panels I did make weren't terribly on topic. Post-Apocalyptic and Dystopian fiction panel successfully went through the entire run-time without giving Dystopia or Post-Apocalypse or Apocalypse good definitions while the Military Science-Fiction panel was only cool because one of the speakers was a PMC type, and it was pretty interesting to hear a bit about the gun-based flavor of military contracting instead of my strictly vehicle-based sort. Not much about either science fiction or about military sf, unfortunately.

A-Kon had a particularly cool evening in the Goblin Market, a vaguely creepy steampunk affair. There's something fun and interesting about abandoning the suspension of disbelief for a few hours. I successfully scored a dream in a bottle in return for credit on a memory as well as three bottles of concentrated sins. Pride is my favorite of the bunch; I figure that it's the deadliest of the seven. During my lower periods, it should provide a needed pick-me-up. Sloth and Gluttony were the leftovers. Nothing wrong with them, but apparently not what the crowd wanted. Sloth should be useful when money's tight, because without effort, there's no money spent. Gluttony? Well, nothing wrong with going to buffets and maximizing food, right?

[TheBiggerFish]

Coool.

[Strife26]

I'm working on finishing up the last few things I want to do in Texas before I leave the State for an indeterminate amount of time (again). Tonight is a last night's romp through Austin, probably Sixth Street.

Interestingly, I've blundered into the outskirts of the RTX (Rooster Teeth) convention. However, doesn't seem like there's anyone I'd especially want to see, and I'm mostly conned out, so I don't think that I'll be going.

[Strife26]

I'm in Ft. Wayne, Indiana today, sitting at a coffee shop, wondering about my future plans, and utterly failing at getting any fiction written. On the bright side, I'm reasonably confident that my goal of spending 40 dollars per day for this period is probably attainable.

Considering spending a ridiculous amount of time in the gym tonight, visiting the local zoo tomorrow, then working my way towards Ohio for a bit. Definitely looking forward to visiting DC when I can, but I'm not sure if I should do that before or after I roll through New England.


Lots of decisions to make, lots of words that I'm not typing.

[Strife26]

Posting from a rest area that I'm reasonably sure is in New York somewhere. The signs aren't in French, so I don't think that I wandered into Canada. For some strange reason, this rest area lacks a drinking fountain, but I keep enough H20 that it's no big deal, although I'm a bit iffy about the lack of rest areas and truck stops in this part of the country.

Besides that, I've been remarkably unproductive writing-wise on this trip, but I'm almost always remarkably unproductive. I have made it through two out of three of my required summer reading books, which I'm proud of. Holy shit, but A Paradise Built in Hell was an annoying slog of a read. Occasional bits of interesting things, but combined with terrible ivory tower preaching. More than once, there were fifty page sections where I would have been better served by firing up YouTube and watching the music video for John Lennon's Imagine again. Better logic, more persuasive, and much less of an imposition on my damn time.


Beyond that, all is well, although both my feet have been bitten to heck and back by bugs. Damn mosquitos. I'm going to look into some way of keeping them out of my car without resorting to bug spray or burning a candle all night.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

They're still assigning that? Jesus christ, I thought that was like a one year thing.

[Strife26]

They're still assigning that? Jesus christ, I thought that was like a one year thing.

Apparently not. It might have successfully entered the school study canon at this point. It certainly hits some of the general requirements.

There are two other required books for me to read, one of them was an agreeably short coming of age story (with the required twist at the end, of course) and the other is a coming to America story that I haven't started yet.

[Strife26]

I'm in Upper New York today! Planning to spend a day or two checking out Niagara. There's two close-enough Planet Fitnesses (Fitnessi?)  that are open 24/7, so plenty of places to sleep.

After that, I'd like to hit the Freedom Trail and then DC, but I probably need to do some looking at planning more in detail.

[Helgoland]

Tell me: Where does one shower when living out of a car? Everything else I can imagine, but public showers are hard to come by, no? And I for one would rather not rely purely on sponge baths for extended amounts of time...

[Strife26]

I completely recommend a planet fitness or other gym membership. Mooching off people is a short term option and trying to go with sponge baths six days per week and a hotel on Sundays is doable (no worse than Army life in the field, at least). Truck stops are a bad idea, because, unless you buy enough diesel to get it for free, their showers are ridiculously expensive. I've taken one truck stop shower and it was a very clean, pleasant facility. However, it cost me 12 bucks, compared to the 20/month I pay for my gym membership.

Also, I've found that 24 hour gyms to be a good place to belly up and park to sleep. Good for general wellness too. At the moment, my location is a Boston parking lot, but because I've been walking around Boston all friggin day, I'm skipping my workout today. Maybe tomorrow too. I will however, wake up and mooch my morning shower regardless.