And the Winners are....

The Hugo's were tonight.  They just finished.the 2014 winners at Loncon 3 are

John C. Campbell Award (Not a Hugo) -- Sofia Samatar

Best Fan Artist -- Sarah Webb

Best Fan Writer -- Kameron Hurley

Best Fancast -- "SF Signal Podcast"  Patrick Hester

Best Fanzine -- "A Dribble of Ink" edited by Aidan Moher

Best Semi-Prozine -- Lightspeed Magazine  edited by John Joseph Adams, Rich Horton, and Stefan Rudnicki

Best Professional Artist -- Julie Dillon

Best Editor-Long Form -- Ginjer Buchanan

Best Editor-Short Form -- Ellen Datlow

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) -- Game of Thrones: "The Rains of Castamere"  written by David Benioff and D. H. Weiss, directed by David Nutter (HBO Entertainment in asssociation with Bighead, Littlehead; Television 360; Startling Television and Generator Productions)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) -- Gravity  written by Alfonso Cuaron Jonas Cuaron; directed by Alfonso Cuaron (Esparanto Filmoj; Heyday Films; Warner Bros.)

Best Graphic Story -- "Time" by Randall Munroe (XKCD)

Best Related Work -- "We Have Always Fought: Challenging the Women, Cattle, and Slaves Narrative" by Kameron Hurley (A Dribble of Ink)

Best Short Story -- "The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere"  by John Chu  (Tor.com, 02-2013)

Best Novelette -- "The Lady Astronaut of Mars"  by Mary Robinette Kowal (maryrobinettekowal.com / Tor.com, 09-2013)

Best Novella -- "Equoid" by Charles Stross (Tor.com, 09-2013)

Best Novel -- Ancillary Justice  by Ann Leckie  (Orbit US / Orbit UK)

Congratulations to Everyone!!!!!

We Have Passport!!!!

Airport here we come.

London and Worldcon-- here we come!!!!

Packing Phase 3 --The Wait

We finished packing and made it all the way down to San Diego last night, well, early this morning.  I slept most in the car most of the way down.

The emergency passport replacement appointment was at 8:30am.  After a bit of confusion finding parking, we finally made it into the passport agency with only a short wait.  The agent put the roomie's passport application on urgent, since we have a flight leaving LAX at 4:45pm.  We were told to go have breakfast and come back in an hour.  So we did.

10:15am--we are back at the passport agency.  The passport is still not ready  They are not certain when it will be ready.  They will call our number when it is.  The problem--normally the passports are not ready to give out to the recipients until after 3pm.  The agency closes at 4pm.  The flight is at 4:45pm.  We havre approximately a 2 hour or more drive to LAX, where we need to drive the car.  We need to be at the airport 2 hours aheand of time.  But at least we are already checked into our flight.

Hopefully, we will get to the airport early enough to recharge the iPads.  We weren't expecting to be sitting in a room with no outlets for several hours.  Batteries are slowly draining.  We definitely want a full charge before we get on the plane.

Packing Phase 2--I know I just saw it somewhere

That missing passport, that is.  Not my passport, but another member of the traveling team.  We've looked everywhere and still no sign of it.

We've missed our flight.

Another flight has been scheduled.

An appointment to acquire an emergency replacement passport is in the process of being made.  A few hours ago we were told we would have to go down to the passport office in San Diego tomorrow and wait on standby.  There was a good chance we would get in.  Otherwise the first appointment was on Wednesday.  Waiting to see what the current status is.

Looks like we may, depending on appointment status, be renting a car and heading down to San Diego to visit roomie's Mom and our birds (she's pet sitting) tonight.  Just so we can be at the passport office bright and early tomorrow morning.

Basically, we will toss all of the roomie's potential packing items into the car, along with my packed bags and run.  Roomie will pack tonight, and car will be ready to rush to LAX.

Still haven't found lace top.  Substituted another.  May have over packed.  But I should be able to remove a couple days of items from luggage if we are heading out a day later.

Opened up guitar case to find that 2 of the bases had unraveled.  The strings are very difficult to replace on this guitar.  Packed extra sets, just in case.  Will replace strings later.  Why is it always the bases that unravel mysteriously in the darkness of the case on classical guitars??

Packing Phase has begun

And it is beginning a bit more slowly than I would like.

Step 1--checked my suitcase to see if the items I think I am missing might just be there.  And "it's a miracle".  I've traveled so much in the last few years that I've started leaving many items in the suitcase.  It's just easier to find them that way.  Including clothing that I use only for trips.  It was all still there, so I will only have to sort through a few items to remove and add a few more, and then figure out what will go in my carry-on.

Step 2-- where the heck is that blouse that I wear with my formal?  Can't find it anywhere.  It should have been in the suitcase.  Wait, I remember seeing it recently.  Now where was that?

Step 3--  toiletries, toiletries everywhere.  Which to take in carry on, and which to put in luggage.  Remember luggage limit is 50 pounds....

Step 4-- MacBook, iPad, Blackberry (yes, I still use a Blackberry)--where are all the chargers????  Oh, there they are.  All neccessary brain extenders charging.  Movies downloading to lap top because iPad is over stuffed.  Remember to set up external hard drive.  Where are the international outlet adapters??  They should be here somewhere.

Step 5-- Fresh Duct tape to patch huge hole in luggage from 4 trips ago, and newer small hole from last trip.

Step 6--where is my travel guitar?  Where is the music I promised I would try to memorize.  Where is my Optics textbook?  Did I remember to download the midterm and next assignment??

Step 7--drown the potted pants and set up the automatic waterers.  Did we remember to get enough plastic water bottles?

Step 8--Stop mail.  Set phones and iPads to international operation.

Step 9-- what am I forgetting????

Is it Monday yet??  I don't think I scheduled time to sleep....  What time does the driver arrive?

4 Days to WorldCon in London and Counting

Or is it 5.  I suppose it is all in the matter of how you decide to count the time.  Since Sunday is just barely begun, we should count today.  And LonCon begins on Thursday.  So that makes Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and half of Thursday.  That's 4.5 days.  But then again, we fly out tomorrow afternoon and we arrive Tuesday morning, and in the process we loose a day.  So does that make 3.5 days? In either case, it's not 5.  And we do gain a day on the flight back.

Time travel can be very confusing.