Conchord was AWESOME! The traveling, somewhat less so

So as many of you know, I was the Interfilk guest at Conchord which happened about ten days ago, thanks to the sponsorship of Juliana McCorison and Kathleen Sloane and the other board members at Interfilk. Pre-con planning was a bit chaotic but we finally got all the ducks in a row, I got my ticket and off we went.

The trip out was relatively uneventful, except that due to traffic we got to the airport, bags checked, through security and into the boarding area just in time to board the plane. This would not have been so bad except that we hadn't had any breakfast yet, and I was worried my blood sugar would drop. (Not without cause, as we shall see later.) I had counted on getting breakfast at the airport but there wasn't really time to do so, so I ended up having to pay $7 for a cheese and fruit "plate" to share with my wife. It and a Zone bar did the job well enough until we landed in San Diego, where we were met by Kate Evans, Conchord's guest liaison.

Kate helped us schlep bags out of the terminal and into her SUV. One of the guide rods on the smaller suitcase got bent, making it hard to roll the suitcase. It made me glad they didn't give me any grief about taking the banjo on the plane. It fit very nicely into the overhead compartment.

Fifteen minutes later we were at the Town & Country Resort. It's a very nice hotel and the staff was quite friendly, but one of the first things we learned was that it's a captive hotel. They have about half a dozen restaurants on the premises, but the prices are about what you would expect for a hotel restaurant in Southern California. After checking in and resting up a bit we decided to make the trek to a mall across the light rail tracks, where we were told there was a food court. No need not to, it was a nice sunny pleasant San Diego afternoon and we had lots of time to stop and rest along the way. Good thing too, because looking at the map it looks like we walked the better part of a mile to get to the mall's food court. We had fish tacos and a shrimp burrito at a place called Rio's (I think), after which I had a phone screen with a potential employer. They decided not to move ahead, but I couldn't complain much about having a job interview while sitting outside in San Diego, sipping a soda and watching the passers-by pass by.

The con is a bit of a blur. We got to meet Laura Reynolds, the artist GoH, who does primarily soft sculptures. Hers are much more elaborate than my wife's. We ordered pizza because it was easier and cheaper than anything at the hotel. We ran into some old friends, including Bill Laubenheimer, the guy I shared the COnflikt 5 songwriting prize with, and his wife. Blind Lemming Chiffon was there, as was Heather Dale (of course, since she was the music guest). And I got to hear some fine Southern California filk in the Friday Night showcase. One guy in particular who I'd like to arrange for a couple of performances is Tim Griffin. He does songs about science and math, mostly geared toward children, and performs them in schools. Most of his performances are around the Los Angeles area, since that's where he's from, but if I can persuade enough schools to have him in to make it worth his time, he said he'd be happy to come up. (Did I mention he does this for free? He's organizing a non-profit to coordinate his activities, and hopefully pay him a living wage.) Afterward we retired to the open filk room to run through all of the songs nominated for the Kazoo Awards (25 of them, if I remember right). By the time we got to the last one - which was Tom Smith's Seven Drunken Nights In Space, and which was Conchord's first chance to hear me sing - it was pretty late and I ambled off to bed. I don't know if anyone else stayed up for open filking.

Saturday was the big show! I got to open for Heather!!! (Oh. And Ben.) It was a good crowd and since for the most part they hadn't heard my stuff before, I'm glad they laughed in the right places and figured out to clap along with "You're A Hack." The set list went something like:

You're A Hack
Colour
Batman's Really Cool
The Loneliest Pro At The Con
Ghosts
Dark Lullaby
Roll Down The Water
Half The Battle
Crossroads

Afterward Heather and Ben were their usual awesome selves, followed by Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff, who were their usual awesome selves. It was a good show and I was happy to be a part of it.

Sunday I sat in on a songwriting workshop Jeff gave. I always learn when I go to these things, even when I'm on the panel (I wasn't this time), and Jeff broke down how he writes his parodies. It was hugely useful, and I hope to put it to good use. Ben did a guitar technique workshop; a guitar is a guitar and a banjo is a banjo, but some things cross over, and it was cool just to hear Ben talk about how he approaches their music. After the official end of the con a bunch of us got together at the hotel's steak house (the only restaurant open on the premises) and chatted and had a good time over dinner, after which we headed back to the hotel for a dead dog filk. The dog finally stopped kicking about 10:30, plenty of time for us to get up to the room, pack our bags and be ready for the red-eye out of SAN.

This has already gotten pretty long, so I think I'll continue the Ballad Of The Amazingly Annoying Return Flight Home in another post.

So, about that flight home . . .

Sunday night was not all that good a night for sleeping. We packed everything up and got to bed about 11:30 and had to be up at 5:30 to meet up with our guest liaison for the ride to the airport. Six hours is usually plenty of sleeping time, especially if I can get a nap later in the day, but that night's sleep was interrupted by a leg cramp, and no sooner had I gotten that worked out and gotten back to sleep than my blood sugar started crashing. We had already packed the apple juice in checked luggage, so we had to go in and dig it out so I could get my blood sugar up. Thankfully after that I was OK until 5:30, but I still felt even less rested than I usually do.

We checked out of the airport, met up with Kate, who was kind enough to run us through a drive-through so we could get some breakfast, and made it to the airport in plenty of time. This was a good thing, because we had overpacked one of our bags and had a bit of a scramble to get the bag down below 50 pounds. Once that was done the wheelchair I had requested arrived. The assistant loaded me into the wheelchair, put my banjo in my lap, hooked the cane to the back, strapped my backpack to the back of the chair, and away we went.

I am not a big fan of the backscatter X-ray where you have to stand still for 10 seconds and make the Sign Of The Elk above your head while you do so. But, I did it anyway, got to the other side of Security Theater, put my shoes back on, loaded up my pockets . . . and then realized that I had not pulled the laptop out of the backpack before they sent the backpack through. This is a Major No-No and will subject you to a Big Time out. So, when the backpack came through, the technician informed me she was going to remove the backpack and wipe it down. No problem, right? I'm sure they are careful about electronics.

The laptop case tested positive for something. I have no idea what; the technician didn't tell me other than a vague "Oh, nitroglycerine or something." I don't take nitroglycerine and neither does anybody I know, so I have no idea how any kind of residue that could test positive for anything remotely interesting could have gotten on the laptop.

Because of this infraction I got to be the next contestant on Who Wants To Be Patted Down At The Airport. I got to stand - with no support, mind you - with legs spread while the TSA guy patted me down, up, sideways, outside and (just a little bit) in. People have said they found this experience humiliating; I wasn't humiliated so much as annoyed, at least partly at myself for forgetting about the backpack, but also for the whole stupid security theater apparatus that required me to go through this and would do absolutely nothing to keep a determined terrorist out of a secure zone.

To his credit, the guy doing the patdown was very professional and explained everything he was doing. He was also assisted by two other TSA agents; as it happens he was a trainee, and kept having to ask them questions like "Should I have him take his shoes off?" (He should, they said.) In fact he seemed like a very nice guy. He asked where I was going. I told him Seattle; he said he would like to come visit up here someday.

Finally the whole thing was over and I got to explain to my wife what had happened. We made it to the gate in plenty of time, checked in for the flight, got on the plane, stowed the banjo in its overhead compartment, and sat down to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Do you remember the news a week ago about how Alaska Airlines' computer systems were down? Not one, but two, cables got severed somehow, cutting Alaska's computers off from the rest of the world. We got in the air in spite of the problem but were about an hour late getting off the ground. That wasn't quite so bad, although I'm glad I hadn't taken my diuretics before the flight started. Airplane restrooms are not my friend.

We landed about an hour late and walked into a scene of chaos. People were trying to catch up with connecting flights that were scheduled to leave about the time we landed. Others were at their assigned gate, waiting to find out whether the flight was still going to take off. About four flights were cancelled while we were in the airport.

And through all of this, somehow or another they lost track of our wheelchairs.

I stood in the customer service line, in part because it seemed like the easiest way to request a wheelchair (there were no attendants at the gate) but also because a simple request like "Can you send two wheelchairs to our gate?" would be a welcome relief for the overworked customer service representatives. About 20 minutes later a fellow with a wheelchair came by, and rather than potentially stick around for another 20 minutes, my wife decided to walk.

We went down to the baggage claim area, passing a huge line of people waiting to get through security. We got our bags, caught the shuttle out to Shoreline and made it home safe and sound. Tired, but safe and sound.

I had debated whether I wanted to fly to San Diego, or whether I should take my daughter up on her offer to drive me down. In the end I went with flying, as much because of the price of gas as anything else. (One convenience store we passed in San Diego on the way to the airport was selling regular unleaded gas at 5.00 fa gallon.) I enjoyed the trip, but the transportation experience left much to be desired. Someday I would love to go to OVFF< FKO or GAFilk, and when that happens, I hope to go by car. Well, actually I hope to go by high-speed rail. But I'm not sure I'll live that long.