Desert Words

LepreCon 31 was held in Carefree, AZ this weekend, and it was a fun time for the most part. I don’t know why they scheduled panels to start at 11:30pm Saturday night, when it was obvious a lot of folks were fading, and would much rather have been sleeping or drinking.

Most of the Dragon Pagers headed the panel on Podcasting Saturday afternoon, and that turned out to be a fun, highly interactive and informative 90 minute session. Unfortunately the Sunday morning “Dragon Page Update” session was devoid of the same size crowd, but we did talk to an older gentleman who seemed to be enjoying all the panels on the hard science track, so Evo had a kindred soul to chat with for a while.

Do yourselves a favor, head over to Dragon Page and download every episode of “Wingin’ It” you can find. Each and every “Different Point of View” segment, Stormtrooper TD-0013’s field reports about the war between the Empire and the Rebellion, from the Empire’s point of view, is worth listening to. They’re hilarious, and actually seeing some of those performed live, in character and in costume: priceless [pffft].

I also participated in my first art auction. One piece I wanted went up for bid because there were two of us who kept bidding on an impressive artist’s proof of a dragon by Ruth Thompson. Funny thing is, the other artist’s proof of her’s that I bought is the black dragon image on her main webpage. The other piece I bought was an impressively colorful Yin/Yang styled circle, done with a Chinese dragon and a tiger.

The most fun time of the weekend, however, turned out to be when I played the role of chauffeur for authors Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta. Kevin was the Guest of Honor at the con, and Michael and Evo wanted to get him on the show again, this time live in the studio. So when we were done at the convention, I got to pack them into my Xterra and drive them from Carefree to Phoenix to do the interview, actually do the interview, stop off for dinner at a cool Greek restaurant, then drive them to the airport (since going past the airport was on my way home anyway).

3 hours of talking books and movies with nice people who not only know some of the people behind the stuff I like, but are also fans of most of the same types of books and movies, was a special treat for me. That the show with this interview will be one of the first ones going out on XM in June is a bonus.

Now if I can only start getting tv and film related publicists and such to start returning my phone calls and emails, I’ll be all good.