As I’d mentioned previously, we spent the weekend at Balticon doing the geek thing. Generally, I believe a good time was had by all, though I will freely admit that a long-weekend convention is probably about twelve to eighteen hours longer than I’m used to or (more likely) capable of handling without a little bit of practice.

This was the first time I’d been to this particular con, although it’s been going on, right there, a totally reasonable driving distance from where I spent my teen years, for forty-five years. I wish I knew about it then…I really could have used the jolt of positive reinforcement from interacting with all kinds of people who truly enjoyed…nay, reveled in, these kind of pursuits, rather than spending all that time convincing myself (and being convinced by others) that I really ought to keep trying to be something I wasn’t instead.

While I spent some time relaxing in the con suite talking to fellow attendees and recharging on snacks and beverages, I found myself watching the raucous pack of roughly teenage LARPers (they were, you know, right there, and one of them was my kid, so I had an interest) doing their thing, and I was more than a bit jealous. Most of those kids reminded me a lot of myself at that delicate age: kind of awkward, a little too clever for my own good, and not socially saavy enough to translate that cleverness into much of anything redeemable just yet. However, unlike me at that age, they’d all managed to find each other in large numbers. As such, they all got to be companionably awkward together, enjoying each other’s like-minded company in a safe environment and learning to be a little more socially confident through the surprisingly useful vehicle of pretending to be heroes and villans solving a mystery on a space station.

For a couple of days, at least, they got to feel like they weren’t alone in the universe, and got to spend time time with peers who share their interests instead of judging them for having them. I know how good that feels as an adult; I can only imagine how much more glorious it must feel when you’re nerdy and fourteen.

…anyway. ahem.

Beyond a couple of panels on things like home-brewing (a surprisingly nerdy pursuit), the challenges of being a geek parent (both the “official” geek parenting panel and unofficially with other parents shepherding things on the kid stuff programming track), and taking in Mark Van Name’s spoken word comedy piece, “Mr. Poor Choices”, I spent most of the weekend immersed in the con’s music programming, and probably saw more live music over the course of a couple of days than I’d seen in the previous two or three years.

In addition to the “geek music” panel, which largely involved discussing the definition of geek music and went twenty minutes before playing the Coulton card, I saw performances from the following artists:

• Ditched By Kate – alternative rock by podcasters with violins and stuff
• Jonah Knight – singer-songwriter steampunk paranormal folk. Often gorgeous
• John Anealio – sci-fi/geek folk supported by guitar playing that makes me feel totally inadequate. Also, a stand-up guy with whom I regularly converse with via twitter on all manner of topics. It was great finally meeting him in meatspace.
• Worm Quartet – comedy electro punk coming from some very strange places. It’s amazing, glorious, and little bit scary.
• Insane Ian – video game hip hop and some clever parody tunes; as heard on the Doctor Demento show.
• Devo Spice – who aptly bills himself as the redheaded step child of “Weird” Al Yankovic and Eminem; hip hop comedy with a nerdy edge. Lots of fun.
• Bill and Brenda Sutton – the filk/music guests of honor at the con; I caught their music for kids performance, which the pre-schooler enjoyed immensely.

Additionally, we spent some time poking around the dealers’ room, admiring costumes (the Dalek kid kicked ass), and talking to people. The spouse picked up a couple of signed books by author Gail Z. Martin, the middle child spent a great deal of time playing “Wings of War” in the game room (which sadly, wasn’t as extensive as the Mars or Raven rooms – gaming at this one was a bit lacking) and I finally got my hands on a copy of Browncoats: Redemption, the fan-made, blessed by the creators charity film set post-Serenity in the Firefly universe.

Finally (on this list, though it was actually the first con-thing I did) I attended a screening of the indie film Ninjas vs Vampires, which is a hell of a lot of fun if you can manage to track it down. It’s a good-looking and hugely entertaining comedy-horror film with a profane Buffy vibe, most enjoyable for the fact that the cast and crew are obviously having so much fun making the thing and sharing it with people. Almost the entire cast was present for the screening, and they moved a bunch of DVDs solely on the sense of infectious enthusiasm they had for the project.

In any case, that’s the con rundown; fun and successful as usual. Also, it pretty much wraps convention season for us for the year, or at least until October should we hit Capclave in DC (which we likely will, given Carrie Vaughn’s attendance). In the short term, the challenge is to transition successfully back into the world of the mundane.