Back from Winkies!

I'm back!

Well, I got back yesterday.

Got a lot of books, Bugles, and stuff... And PLENTY more blog ideas!

Only regrets I have is that somehow my wardrobe shrinks. I could've sworn I'd packed more clothes before I left but only found a very small amount. Another I have is that I wasn't able to shave over the weekend due to some really bad razors I'd bought that broke on me while I was trying to shave. Decided extra face scruff would be easier to explain than "why is half your face missing?"

Other regret is waiting outside after midnight for a bus in Salinas with Sam. Salinas has a lot of crime and a high homicide rate, so when a creepy, possibly drunk, man approached us... well, we got creeped out. We both came through okay, but next year, I hope I can devise a travel plan to completely bypass Salinas. However, just now it's too early to attempt to book a flight. (Excited? No, not at all...)

For return next year I shall! I returned to work today and my manager and I briefly discussed expanding my available hours so I can have more, which I was VERY open to! Also, I might be depleting my supply of styrofoam balls making more Tik-Tok action figures for sale. I'm looking into coating them with resin to strengthen them.

Actually, Laura Gjovaag (who isn't an Oz fan, but her husband Eric is, and she writes an excellent blog and runs the Winkie newsletter) suggested I make a Tik-Tok for a prize for next year's standard quiz. Because I won this year's standard quiz, and quiz winners are inflicted with the curse of writing next year's quiz! But I already started on that (thanks to missing a reboard call in Tulsa, OK, and spending ten hours there).

I brought a lot of Outsiders from Oz flyers but came back with most of them because... they were conversation killers! Only a couple times was I able to hand them out with it flowing in a conversation. (How to get rid of these? If I put one in each piece of my outgoing mail, I'd be leaving them in my will.)

Sam and I recorded audio of ourselves talking about the convention. We wanted to get a guest star or two, but we explain why in the recording. (Twice. So I'll have to see which is better.) This will be edited into a podcast which I hope to release shortly. Hopefully with this one, people will be okay with it next year.

And anyway, that's why I'm not saying much about the convention. Listen to the podcast when it's done. I think we missed mentioning a couple things and with Sam still in the US, I'll have to fill in any gaps on my own. (Isn't it wild that with Sam closer than ever, I can't contact him, while when he's in Australia, I just send him an e-mail and wait a few hours?)

So, blogs, podcasts, so much to catch up on!