the bouncey zone

Fun toddler trick: Throw dirty underwear into Daddy’s bath water…

The weekend before last we went to SoonerCon. This was a different SoonerCon from the one we knew a decade ago. I wonder if they had permission to use the name.

SoonerCon was at the badly misnamed Bricktown Central Plaza Hotel this year. I like to say that the hotel’s name is three lies and a technicality. It’s not within practical walking distance of Bricktown, it’s not particularly central in location, and it isn’t really a plaza either. It’s a hotel only in the sense that its room doors all face inward. Otherwise it looks suspiciously like an overgrown motel.

There were barely enough conference rooms to run a small sci-fi convention. The dealer room and art show were in the same room, which was so full that several tables had to be set up out in the hall. Two panel tracks were in the same room with a small divider. This proved so impractical for noise reasons that one of them was relocated to the gaming room. They didn’t move all of the gamers out, so it didn’t really solve the noise problem.

Some of the games were in a part of the hotel that looked like it ought to be a restaurant. Apparently the rudimentary hotel food service had moved out into the hall. Luckily there was plenty of hall space. There were no extra rooms big enough for movie projectors, so the video rooms were a pair of ordinary hotel rooms with DVD players hooked up to the TV sets.

There were no elevators to the second floor, which made one of the meeting rooms effectively unavailable. No diaper changing table in the men’s room either, and too few places to sit in the open spaces. Can you tell I wasn’t too thrilled with the hotel? Good thing we drove back home to sleep.

Even with these physical limits, SoonerCon was better than I had expected. It was worth going just for the costume contest. The usual suspects (too many to list) were delighted to see Scott again. A surprising number SCA reenactors were in attendance. Most of them knew me or at least looked familiar.

Puck and Lisa came up from Texas for the convention. They brought a lively three year old grandson along for the ride. His parents were moving that weekend, so he needed to be out of the way for a while. He got along well with Scott.

Another friend named Saxon went with us to SoonerCon too. She was passing through on the way from Alabama to Colorado. We had a full house, but it was a lot of fun.

By the way, the Iron Skillet restaurant across the street had outrageously slow service. I’m not eating there again anytime soon.

Next weekend: Conestoga in Tulsa!

Now that I have the BlackBook, I’d like to sell my 3 year old iBook. Here are the technical details:

– 900 MHz PowerPC G3 processor
– 60 GB hard disk (50% more than the base model)
– 640 MB RAM
– 14 inch screen
– DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive (tray-loading – can handle “business card” CDs)
– 10/100 ethernet
– 802.11b wireless networking
– Built-in modem
– Built-in microphone
– VGA and S-VHS/composite video adapters
– Other ports: 2 USB, 1 FireWire, headphone jack, security lock port
– New power adapter
– Original software CDs plus Mac OS X 10.4

Battery life isn’t that great, maybe half an hour. But at least it still works. New batteries can be bought online for about $100 if needed. The power adapter was replaced with a new MacAlly PS-AC4 in the past few months.

It runs Mac OS X quite well. It can also boot into Mac OS 9, and seems exceptionally fast when doing so. That can be a major feature if you have some irreplaceable “classic” software.

I’m still trying to decide on a price. Please let me know if you’re interested or know someone who might be.

For the Independence Day holiday we visited the small town where Dad lives. The plan was to enter Scott in a cute baby contest, sell soap from a booth in the town park, and then watch the fireworks.

Scott didn’t win the contest. I’m not sure why. Dad said it was political.

We sold two duckies and one bar of soap. That’s all. We also brought some tie dyed shirts (patterned loosely after flags and fireworks) and straw sun hats. None of them sold either. The women all said either “my husband has the money” or “my mom would LOVE this” and then walked away. The men just kept walking, unless they wanted to stop and chat with Dad.

The kids were saving their money for frighteningly realistic toy pistols. Okay, I don’t object to kids having access to toy guns. I mean, pretend weapons are practically mandatory for boys in almost every culture. But whipping one out and waving it around in a crowd is a great way to die… And dozens of boys were tempting fate.

Speaking of suicidal toys, the same booth that sold the toy pistols also sold a laser pointer that looked like a small black revolver. No orange tip — it’s not a toy, it’s a business tool! I bet that’d go over well in a professional presentation.

One of the student groups had a Bessie Bingo contest. They chalked a grid on the ground, took bets from the crowd, and then let a calf out onto the grid. Whichever square got pooped on first was the winner. Way too much fun!

As afternoon turned towards evening, a thunderstorm moved in and scared away everyone who wasn’t obligated to stay in the park. When it was past, people started to return. Unfortunately, they congregated in the opposite corner, near the band stand where live music was playing.

At that point we decided: If we weren’t going to sell anything anyway, we might as well not sell things over supper in a more comfortable setting. So we packed up and went back to Dad’s house.

That’s when we discovered that I had left the windows down a little on the CR-V. Oops. At least the seats dried out within a day or so.

As usual, the fireworks were excellent for such a small town. The private fireworks flying from various yards were almost as entertaining. These people take celebrating freedom very seriously.

Some of them take it too seriously. Last year, one of Dad’s neighbors shot expensive aerial fireworks well into the wee hours. In the year since then their doublewide was repossessed. I think there’s a budgeting lesson in there somewhere.

Okay, so things didn’t go as planned. But I still had fun. Dana and I had a pleasant afternoon of crowd-watching, and Scott got to visit his grandpa and family. I lost $2 on a defecating bovine. And I had nachos for two meals in a row!

In the end, that’s all that really matters.