This was a really long day. It is also the day that I have the least amount of notes for. We got up at our normal time but we didn’t leave Spokane until 5pm. That, a different route home and dinner meant we got home at midnight.

My first panel of the day was on historical accuracy in fiction. While they talked about some of the problems of more interest was how to be sensitive to different cultures and their beliefs, stories and history.

One of the panellist was a Native American with many hats but one was being on the board that decides the material for history in California schools. In discussing sources one panelist who was a librarian talked about what made a book a primary source. For him a primary source was talking to someone that was there. He also talked about the problem of who wrote the books. He spoke about the Indian wars and that almost all of what is written is by the people fighting them. In some cases whole tribes are gone with no one left to tell the tale from their side.

We picked up the art that we had bought and helped clean up the kids area. It was a huge mess. A big thanks to Fred and Persis who ran the kids area. They made my kids week. I can not thank them enough. Also a thanks to all the other volunteers that helped out.

I came across an area that was signed as ‘Costume First Aid’ they had all the tools need to fix a costume that had gotten bumped, torn or otherwise damaged. A volunteer there ask if I need help with something and we got talking. She told me about a number of other Cons that we might be interested in. I had had that conversation a few times but each had added more and some repeated others adding weight to those being good. One that I heard a few times was NorWescon in Seattle. It is cheaper and we are planning on attending. Two of my wife’s favorite authors are going to be there.

She also talked about a webcomic called “Girl Genius”. I had heard of it but had tried to start at a bad, confusing spot. She set me right and I read 10+ years of comics in 4 days. You have to start at the beginning and while it is a little hard to follow in the beginning it is well worth it. I want to go back and read it again from the beginning to catch things that I am sure that I missed.

I asked what a pile of fur cut in circles was for. They had made tribbles for Guinan’s Place, an eating area. She got me one that my wife loved. It meant that we had to find ‘Trouble with Tribbles’ when we got home. The kids laughed their heads off.

We went back over to Uncle’s Games as my wife wanted to pick up puzzles for her father. He tends to get puzzles for his birthday and Christmas. Then it was time for our drive home.

We had to go a different route as the one we came down via was closed due to fire. Our best choice has a border crossing that is only open until 5pm so we went with a third route. The drive was very smoky, with a blood red sun adding to the post apocalyptic feeling. To complete that feeling we drove past a temporary air base for fire fighting helicopters and watched a military Chinook come in low out of the smoke for a landing.

For those worried about our drive the main worry was delay, detour or being forced back. We were in more danger from other drivers than anything else. It would have had to have been windy to make it risky and most likely that would have closed more roads. It was windy the following day and more roads did close.

We also came across a camp for the fire fighters. In the smoke I spotted a blue port-a-potty with a white roof. With the week we had just had my brain processed it as a Tardis. I told this story to a friend who without pausing hit me with the best and worst pun I have heard in a long while. She said ‘Oh a Turdis’.

We got cheaper gas on the US side of the border and dinner in a town on the Canadian side that I mostly know by where the fast food joints are. We got home at midnight, unloaded the car and thus ended our journey. For those of you that are finding the idea of WorldCon appealing the next one is in Kansas City, MO. MidAmeriCon II

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Today I ended up in two science talks that were very interesting and I wish I had gone to more of them. There were too many wonderful things and not enough time to do them all. Next one I want to read about all the presenters and make some plans based on who is talking.

The first talk was about Vesta and Ceres. Some of it was why Ceres is a dwarf planet and Vesta isn’t. Basically Vesta has the size and probably was round at one point but had a large impact. The most interesting part of the talk was the bright white spots on Ceres. If they were ice they should have sublimed away quickly. If they were salts they should be purple. Purple, I learned is what color salt is when it has been irradiated as it would be in space. On top of that they look different in various wavelength. One bright spot is dark in infrared indicating that it is cold but another doesn’t even show in infrared. I will be following the Dawn mission for better images and answers.

My next talk was on costumes in stories. It was very interesting as they commented on some common mistakes and things that were done right. They talked about using clothing to represent wealth, status, occupation, rank, clan, cultural and moral values. The example they gave for moral values was in the 18th century indigo came from plantations in South Carolina and thus was tainted by slavery. Some people would not wear the color for that reason. So wearing that color could be seen negatively by others.

One of the common mistakes was that of supply chain. Small villages having many types of fabric and colors when there isn’t a bigger city nearby. So where did the variety come from. Some could come from caravans traveling and trading but in some of their examples the village had way more clothing than they could reasonably trade for.

I went back to the dealer area with Philip to look for his souvenir. He found a game that looked interesting. We went to the game room later in the evening and played a round. Philip decided that the game would be his souvenir for the Con. I will post more on it when we get time to play it here and I have pictures.

Philip and I then walked to a nearby book store with a companion game store called Auntie’s Books and Uncle’s Games. Both were wonderful. I was looking for a particular book that I had heard about at the Con. They didn’t have it but after talking to me they ordered in some even though I told them I would be unable to return. If you are in Spokane it is definitely worth a visit.

We went to a sort of open area where there were different groups and I guy who was driving one robot with his phone while a second tried to follow it. The human controlled robot had a red ball on it. The programmed robot was chasing anything red. We talked about the robot we were building and the grade level that he was teaching. He was a college prof. I tried to break their programming. First I charged the following robot. It was programmed for that possibility and backed off. Second I ran the human controlled robot through my legs and made a hard right. The following robot tried to cut the corner and ran into my foot. This it wasn’t programmed for as it spun its tracks trying to push through. I guess that will be his students next assignment.

I found a table that had some ribbons that I had seen others wearing. Ribbons were available everywhere and the kids wanted them all. The one that I liked was at a table that had ones to identify what pronouns you wished to be called by. I picked ‘he – Him’ but I could have made other choices including ‘undetermined’.

The next thing was a 3d printer that was different than anything I had seen. In talking to the guy it was a ‘Delta’ printer. It is faster that x,y printers. Basically it had three pillars and arm that could slide up and down thus moving the head in any direction. It took me a while to figure out how it worked. I guess the closest analog is Cartesian vs polar coordinates.

We also found a display of costumes while they were beautiful it was nothing like watching the Masquerade but it was fun to get a closer look and see how they were made.

The next talk that I went to was another science talk. This one was one gravitational waves. Gravity is the force that we understand the least about. Gravitational waves would be the result of the interaction / collision of super-massive object like two black holes. We may have finally directly detected these wave last year but that needs confirmation and peer review. We do have some indirect evidence that they exist.

After I went back to the kids area to get Ian and ended up going over to the park with another parent. Ian and her son had become friends. We let them play on the giant red wagon. Ian’s friend was a little younger and smaller. Ian was trying to get him do things that he was having trouble with. Part of it was also that he was the oldest whereas Ian has been trying to keep up with his older siblings for years.

With our testing of the game that we ended up buying we didn’t get to dinner until 9:30. We had planned on eating at Chili’s. One of the things about living in Canada is we get US stations and therefore US ads and some are for restaurants that we don’t’ have. It was good for the price and resulted in leftovers. Now it was well past bedtime for such a fun filled, long day.

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