So, where have you been, Mike?

[fleetfootmike]

I flew out on Thursday to Toronto for FilKONtario, the annual Toronto Filk convention. (For those reading via Facebook, I'll point you to a definition or two of filk courtesy of FilKONntario and madfilkentist respectively).

For reasons which will become apparent later, I didn't mention I was going to anyone bar the con committee, Anne and bardling (the latter because I had to explain why I wasn't going to be able to help with the last of her house move :D). Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we couldn't juggle frequent flyer miles to get both Anne and I flights, and her work has been crazy-busy, so I went on my own.

Thursday

Got to Heathrow at around 3pm, way early - empty queue for checking, very empty flight, and a nice Air Canada checkin lady who bumped me to exit row for free. Got to watch (finally) Avatar, and the absolutely excellent The Blind Side (which has just slid in under Apollo 13 and Princess Bride into my top 3 movies), as well as a couple of short baseball documentaries on Yogi Berra and Roberto Clemente. Air Canada's 767s have really sweet touchscreen seat-back entertainment systems.

Landed on time, breezed through immigration (Canada seem somewhat less paranoid!) and spent 10 mins waiting for jhayman at opposite ends of the same area of concourse before we finally met up. Dropped into the con suite for a brief visit before bed, successfully surprising a few people.

Friday

Woke up far too early, pottered on laptop a bit. Met up with the Haymans (IIRC) for breakfast, then ambled up to the consuite to help them set up. Spent a long time chatting with Mark Simmons (the Interfilk guest) about anything and everything from vampires to Apollo - lovely guy, great fun to talk to and was a wonderful guest. Made it downstairs for registration, helped out with mysticfig and kaath9's soundcheck, picked up my loaner guitar from smoooom. Met my roommate for the weekend (Trace from the OVFF concom/Interfilk).

The con proper opened back at the con suite, where I got myself gratifying 'what are YOU doing here' reactions from many people including gorgeousgary, ccrazy, filkerdave, maverick_weirdo, tigertoy, mrgoodwraith, ohiblather, allisona, jodimuse, decadentdave, catalana, markbernstein and others. Most, I suspect, quickly figured out the why from the fact that I was there at all. Some.. apparently... didn't :D Got to play with ohiblather's iPad. Want :D

Ambled downstairs a bit later - was going to go to the 'From the Earth to the Moon' song/presentation event, but ran into gundo and anach instead, which was fatal, as we spent the rest of the evening jamming in an unused programme room on various classic rock tracks, with visits from peteralway, allisona, ohiblather and jodimuse among others. Great fun. Bed reasonably early.

Saturday

Took laptop down to hotel lobby (brain still on UK time a bit) and started writing speech. Breakfast out with sexybass, sposter, gundo, born_to_me and gabrielg. Back for the end of mysticfig's guitar workshop, and thence to the consuite for a natter, followed by back to the room briefly to finish the speech and find an app for the iPhone to do autocue. (Success - i-Prompt works very well, and also allowed me to tweak the autoscroll speed so I spoke slower!). Caught the end of phillip2637's set (a last minute replacement for hsifyppah), which was superb - he's really grown in confidence and ability since I saw him at Duckon in '08.

Next was mysticfig and kaath9's GoH set, aided by their daughter Kris. I got to run sound for this, and (once we'd tracked down the missing sound from Jeff's guitar) this was fantastic - Kris' voice and Maya's blend perfectly. For Manhattan Sleeps I had things balanced so you pretty much couldn't tell who was singing which part.

After that, it was on with the suit and tie for the Filk Hall Of Fame banquet, which was the reason I was there. I was surprised and humbled (I know everyone probably says that, but it was true) to be called by Dave Hayman back at the end of January to tell me I'd been named as a FHOF inductee for 2010. Cue much frantic planning, and (as is expected) much not-telling-people. The "class of '10" inductees other than me were janmagic and k_stoph, both of whom richly deserved it - UK filkers will remember k_stoph from when he and his other half guested at a con, and janmagic is basically Chicago filk's gythanorth, only without the big axe and with a serious knack for massage :D Anyway - I am now the very proud possessor of a plaque and citation (which I need to find a frame for), and apparently my acceptance speech made jhayman cry.

Changed out of the suit for the Interfilk auction (at which point the bow tie I'd packed but couldn't find dropped out of my bag!), and then heatherdale's hosted filk circle on the them of "Survival and Glory". I did "Waiting in the Deep", which is at least in part her and Ben's fault, as well as accompanying several folks (usually at no notice). Great fun. Moved to a different circle after a bit (the a/c in that room was LOUD) and played till about 3am.

Sunday

Skipped the planned music store trip with gundo, anach and sexybass - wisely, as it turned out, as Tom and Jason both came back significantly poorer. Not sure if sposter has forgiven sexybass yet! Breakfast with janmagic, andpuff and pwl1. First real chance I've had to meet and talk to andpuff, who is a lovely lady. Promised her a blues guitar lesson, which materialised sooner than expected: Tanya, I owe you some tablature for a few things. Watch this space.

Drifted by the con suite, typeset the last two songs for the FHOF concert (I'm using my MacBook and a rather neat USB footswitch that sends Page Up/Page Down as an autocue). The concert went well - I did Before The Dawn, Leviathan's Farewell, Desolation, The Miller's Tale and Three Days Away. With hindsight, though, picking four out of five songs that have the potential to choke me up was perhaps unwise :D After this was the jam circle, hosted by mysticfig, of which the giggle-worthy highspot was us both launching into Stairway to Heaven, even if kaath9 was having serious trouble deciding which of three sets of lyrics was going to win out in her head.

Dinner was out at a superb Indian restaurant with mysticfig, kaath9 and family, phillip2637, janeg, gorgeousgary and wife, tigertoy and mum, Gerry T and wife. After that, we all joined the Sunday-night filk circle, and much fun was had - I especially enjoyed noodling along to various of billroper's songs and finally getting to hear catalana sing at this con. Bed around 2.

Monday

Woke briefly when Trace got up for his long drive home, woke properly at 8 or so. Breakfast with pwl1 and husband, packed, chatted. Lunch with jhayman, hofdave and kbeader, then Dave and I headed downtown to raid the local SF bookstore before heading to the Blue Jays game. Success in part, as I got seanan_mcguire's new book, several of Mark Simmons', and three of andpuff's Blood Ties series. Scored the rest of the Blood Ties books at Chapters, and also got a signed copy of Blue Jay's pitcher Dirk Hayhurst's "Bullpen Gospels" - very funny and articulate guy.

The ball game was fun - we were way up in the gods - last row, in fact. White Sox won 8-7 in extra innings, but it was still a very good game. Back to Hotel Hayman, bed at 1.20am or so....

Tuesday

...up at 5:45am....
Full flight, no exit row :( Read "Bullpen Gospels", watched a couple of documentaries, dozed). Late landing meant I missed the 22:22 out of Kings Cross, stupidly long immigration queue meant I nearly missed the 23:30, eventually made it home after 1am.

And that was my trip to Canada. Many many thanks to the Haymans for organising me, to everyone involved with FKO for a great con, and hugs to everyone I met, new friends and old.

[Mostly typed on the plane home]

Comments

[katyhh.livejournal.com]

I was SO SUPER PLEASED when I learned that you were among the inductees :))))

When you "learned"

[maverick-weirdo.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming you "learned" it a couple of months ago since you were a member of the Jury that selected him.

Re: When you "learned"

[katyhh.livejournal.com]

Correct. But we're (obviously) not allowed to talk about it ...