…and that’s another one in the books.  This year’s Ravencon ended up being a good experience, largely due to the presence of some very good friends I don’t see often enough and a reasonably relaxed vibe when I wasn’t rushing to sit panels, play shows, running equally-busy offspring to off-site commitments, or working around inconveniently broken elevators.

After a really long day Friday, involving my mundane day job after being out for a later-than-usual-for-me Thursday dinner out with friends who arrived a day early, four back-to-back panel commitments all evening, and a late-night music circle where any sort of skill or competence ran off and hid (likely in the dank underground tunnels connecting the conference center buildings), Saturday went much better; especially the oddly timed morning show where at least I had a captive audience in the hotel restaurant finishing their hangover-cures at the breakfast buffet. I actually kind of nailed it, I guess, after getting every mistake out of my system the night before.  Similarly, my more subdued, unamplified set in the art show room later in the day seemed to contribute the atmosphere they were trying to create; no definitive plan, some less-common quieter songs, and some gentle finger-picking instrumental improvisation hit the desired mark.

I also got the chance to just sit, watch things go by, and catch up with lots of people I really like, which is it’s own special kind of thing, and I really appreciated it. It provided some very necessary mental refreshment, even if the physical sphere took a serious hit and made Monday morning a little more challenging than usual.

That said, I did get to sit down for an hour Sunday evening before retiring with a friend’s book and a glass of my homebrewed English Brown Ale that came out quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

As for the week ahead, I really need to start getting serious about conditioning if I’m going to pull off the Cap2Cap next weekend.  As it is, fifty miles is going to be more of a struggle than it normally is at this point in the year, but I’ll get it done, even if it takes me a bit longer than usual, given, well, everything else going on, because convincing myself I’m in above-average condition for my age and *not* falling apart is oddly important for me.

Also, because of this garbage and my organization finally getting everything sorted after the expected disorganization surrounding implementing these things without warning, I get to start working from the office again later this week, and as of Monday, am still waiting for confirmation of where my desk will be (since they’re in the process or organizing the knocking down the building I used to work in).  I am not really looking forward to this, in large part because my team is scattered around the country, and I’ll be driving fifteen miles on the interstate to sit on the phone all day instead of walking to the other end of the house to sit on the phone all day.  Joy.