Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
Day 335: I always take the Monday after con off so that I can rest and recover. I got a full normal night’s sleep plus an extra couple hours after my wife left for work, unpacked my suitcase and did laundry, made some con website and social media updates, and processed and posted the audio from the Thursday night dance. A nice low-key day to transition from the con world back into my normal routines.
Just for fun, here’s a little peek at going to (and being rather heavily involved in the production of) Norwescon as recorded by my Apple Watch.
For each graph, I’ve set it to display a month’s worth of data to make the variations nice and visible.
My standard goal for a day is 400 calories burned through movement. Most days I at least get close, many I go slightly over. I more than doubled that goal for each of the four days of con.
My exercise goal is 30 minutes, which, admittedly, I haven’t been regularly reaching for quite some time (though that’s something I intend to work on now that the weather is improving again). Hit that easily all weekend without even trying, and more than doubled it on one day.
My stand goal of 12 hours is one I usually hit pretty easily, but though not as visible, there is an increase here as well.
I live in a three-story condo, so I do get a few flights of stairs climbed every day, and walking around the college campus where I work, which is on a hill and where I do intentionally take stairs fairly often, helps. But at Norwescon, I get a room on the third floor of the tower, and as the elevators are often quite busy and I’m still fairly able-bodied, it’s usually faster and easier to take the stairs. Looks like I hit about 37 flights climbed on Friday this year!
Most of the time, my wife and I are on a pretty set schedule. Since we both work a pretty regular 8-5 schedule, we get up between 4:30 and 5 a.m., go to bed at 8 p.m., and turn out the lights at 9 p.m. (I joke sometimes at how disappointed 20-something me would be at 50-year-old me…but 20-something me was working swing shifts during the week and DJing dance clubs on the weekend, so it’s not really a fair comparison). At con, though? Somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m. to bed, and though my body tried to keep my 5 a.m. schedule in the mornings, I’d stubbornly doze as long as I could. Most days I hit my goal of a minimum of 5 hours of sleep, supplemented by one or two naps during the day (without which I would not be able to function).
I’m not particularly sedentary (most days), usually getting around 5,000 steps per day. Could certainly be more, but it’s okay. And then suddenly I’m getting a minimum of more than 10,000 steps, peaking at somewhere above 17,000 steps (and that was on Wednesday, as I was packing, arriving, moving in, and then helping with setup). Norwescon weekend is a pretty constant “go” weekend, and I’m always on the move.
So there’s a bit of a data-driven look at the past four days. I’m definitely ready to rest now, but I’m also looking forward to doing it all over again next year. :)
Day 334: Norwescon day four is done! A fair chunk of the day was taken up by either packing or end-of-con web duties (awards posts, site updates for when the con is over, etc.), but there was also enough time for chats, goodbyes, and hugs from friends (and plenty of compliments on the Easter-themed shirt that my wife found for me). Another good year in the books! Next year, Norwescon 47…and Seattle Worldcon 2025!
Day 333: Day three of Norwescon is done! While I had much less on my schedule today, it was still a very full day, with a mix of socializing, helping out here and there where I could, and some very well-deserved mid-day napping. Both of today’s shirts got a lot of laughs, and though I certainly wasn’t costumed, I got hauled into having my photo taken in the evening photography area, which seemed an obvious opportunity for a good selfie. Then a night of floating between the dance and the parties until it was time to fall over.
Day 332: Norwescon day two is done! (Yes, once again, posting this the next morning and backdating.) Today was all about the Philip K. Dick Award. I wore my now-traditional Friday morning/day “electric sheep” t-shirt, and attended the readings for each of the three attending nominated authors. The afternoon was a bit more hectic than expected due to tech demands requiring us to move the location of the ceremony from one ballroom to the next on four hours’ notice (physically, not much of a move, but arranging logistics and getting set for the needs of the new location kept me very busy), but in the end, the ceremony went off quite well, and it was kind of fun to have it on the main stage this year. The rest of the evening was dancing and then watching a Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow cast from the back of the room (because I didn’t have enough energy to be very participatory). All in all, another good day!
Day 331: Norwescon day one is done! (So done, in fact, that I’m actually posting this on Friday morning, though I’ll backdate the post so it shows up on the right day on my blog.) Most of the day was running around, socializing, and helping out where I could, and then the evening was me DJing for the Thursday night dance. The dance went well for a Thursday night (since it’s the first night and still in the work week, it’s always a little more sparsely attended), and as always, I’ve recorded the full thing and in a few days will have it posted for anyone who wants to listen to four hours of music (with only a few fumbles).
Day 330: It’s day zero of Norwescon! Wednesday is when a bunch of us show up to do all the setup…and it takes a lot of setup to run a con like this. Lots of running around and Doing Things, with breaks to say hello to people, some of whom I see at the con meetings, and some of whom I haven’t seen since last year. Lots to do, but a good time is being had by all.
Day 329: My last day of work before heading off for Norwescon! It looked pretty, though there was a chilly wind blowing off the water all day.
22/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The colonization and terraforming of Mars continues, as does the high quality of Red Mars. Managing to balance the hard sci-fi of the terraforming processes and effects and the associated technological advances with political maneuvering among multiple parties across two planets and the interpersonal conflicts and relationships of multiple generations of Martian residents is no mean feat, and Robinson pulls it off well. Easily as good as the first book, and I’m looking forward to when I get to the next and final book in the trilogy.
Day 328: We checked before heading out for our morning walk, and our phones told us it wouldn’t rain until sometime in the afternoon. Our phones lied. (But it wasn’t raining hard enough to prevent the walk.)