   Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
My grandmother died last night. This wasn't a shock or a surprise. Her health has been on the decline, and she's been in hospice for the last month. She lived a long life, and in her final days she was surrounded by her three adult children.
My grandma was a kind woman. She wasn't perfect, but I always felt loved in her presence. She was a retired kindergarten teacher, and was still working when I was a kid. I have so many happy memories sitting at her kitchen table, and I'm going to carry those with me for the rest of my life. She was also proof that anyone who claims that you get more conservative as you get older is full of shit, because she certainly didn't.
I think it's interesting how the body processes grief sometimes. I don't know that I'll cry, but over the past month, knowing this was coming, I've felt a tension in my gut. Now that she's passed, instead of relief that tension is replaced by a sense of emptiness. That something is missing that should still be there. Something has been taken away, and I feel it.
Of course, as I wrote that, I immediately started crying... so I guess my body processes grief in pretty ordinary ways too.
I wanted to come up with something profound linking this to Beltane, which we sit in the middle of right now, but it just seemed hackneyed. Like I was trying to dig out some greater significance when the truth is death comes whenever it wants. The only predictable thing about it is that it's the end of all of our journeys. I hope that when I pass I'm so lucky to have lived such a long life with people that I love around me in my final days.
For the record, I will be fine. I just needed to get these words out while they were still in my head. I don't have some rousing conclusion or deep insight to tack on here at the end, just that gut feeling that something is missing.
Because it is.
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Smooth move exlax!
This sounds like it’s a fun Bork Con lol.
So, funny story regarding Nan Desu Kan here in Denver… We had some jacks spray painting styrofoam in their hotel room. Bad news: it tripped the chem sensor on the fire alarm. Good news: We can apparently evacuate the convention floor in about 5 minutes.
Thankfully, we got the clear to go back in and got everyone back inside about 10 minutes before the tornado sirens started going off. So, once again, I can, as a convention staffer, read your comic and say, “Yep, that’s happened to me.”
I have Bad Weather Stories. I have Convention Stories. I do not have any Bad Weather Convention stories, though have heard quite a few.
Keep doing cons long enough, and the odds say you’ll end up with your own eventually 😛
I hope you see this, Trae. I finally made it to your website(s). You gave me your cards at the geek.kon in Madison and I said I’d leave you a note so you knew I actually visited your site.
Anyway, keep up the good work.
Most likely, though as a country boy form Nebraska I confess I’m less worried by bad weather than I might be. So long as the tornado doesn’t hit the house, it’s not worth worrying about.
Not a story about a convention i was involved in, just one i attend every year.
3 days before the convention is due to start there is heavy rain, which follows several months of rain. That night a local river backs up, and all the drainage in the area of the convention hotel goes wrong.
The basement and ground floor of hotel get covered in Sewage. Hotel is closed. Suddenly convention which has been running smoothly, despite having added a massive once off event that would bring in an extra 200 people (normally 500 person con), is now in all sorts of trouble.
They managed to get space in another venue, which had issues but was at least open. They managed to have con booklets with maps for the right venue, and they communicated issues well.
But i can only imagine how bad it was for those poor convention runners.
Yeah! Tornado Con! 😀
Two years (three?) ago I recall the crazy snowfall we had at NBC. It wasn’t “inclement weather” proportions, but my poor friends did run out into said snowstorm to get me medicine. Con plague hit me hard on day one.