Day Four

We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and checked out of our room, then headed to the ballroom area to wait in line for the Sign-Out (autographs) event. The line was much longer this year, but thankfully dispersed once we got into the signing area. I got most of the books signed that I'd brought along and picked up from the dealer's room, including books by Samuel R. Delany (The Einstein Intersection), Barth Anderson (The Patron Saint of Plagues), Jay Lake (American Sorrows, Dogs in the Moonlight, and Rocket Science), Tim Pratt (The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl), and F.J. Bergmann (short story Pale Horse in Rosebud). There was also the copy of TEL: Stories that Forrest Aguirre signed in the dealer's room earlier in the con.

On the way home we ran into rain and thunderstorms, which we found out later raised havoc with the travel plans of many attendees. The rest of the weekend was perfect weather-wise. In previous years it'd mostly been cold and wet, so I guess we were due for a storm to blow through and cool everything off. When we got home the lawn looked overgrown and the vegetable garden was growing pretty well. After mowing and doing some gardening, we went out to dinner and did our grocery shopping. Carrie had a message from someone interested in her old car (we finally got around to putting the For Sale signs in the windows the previous week), so we met up with them later on and they checked the car out. They seemed to like it, although we haven't heard from them since. We've got our fingers crossed that we sell it soon!

Now for the book haul, in no particular order:

The Patron Saint of Plagues by Barth Anderson (book launch party)
Foreigners and Other Familiar Faces by Mark Rich (dealer's room)
Farthing Issue #1, (freebie)
Rosebud, Issue#35 (Sign-Out event)
Flytrap, Issue#5 (dealer's room)
Rabid Transit: Long Voyages, Great Lies (dealer's room)
Scribe Revolution Volume 2: Virology (freebie)
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Issue#18 (dealer's room)
Sybil's Garage, Volume#3 (dealer's room)
The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger (A Room of One's Own)
The Jane Austen Book Club, by Karen Joy Fowler (dealer's room)
The Fifth Galaxy Reader, Edited by H.L. Gold (Shakespeare's Used Books)
A Science Fiction Argosy, Edited by Damon Knight (Shakespeare's Used Books)
Magic for Beginners, by Kelly Link (dealer's room)
Microworlds, by Stanislaw Lem (Shakespeare's Used Books)
A Princess of Roumania, by Paul Park (freebie)
TEL: Stories, Edited by Jay Lake (dealer's room)
Polyphony 5, Edited by Jay Lake and Deborah Layne (dealer's room)

We had a great time this year, and hopefully we'll be able to make it to Wiscon next year. We'll have to see how the baby handles travel before we make any plans, though. It'll also depend on whether there are any rooms available at the hotel by the time we make bookings. Last I heard, the Governor's Club rooms at the Concourse (the con venue) are nearly booked-out. At this rate, next year's convention might be sold out well before next May!