Kowabunga

Now that I've spent a good chunk of the last couple of days playing with windows Movie Maker and have figured out how to include it on my website, I thought I should share the fruits of my labor.

During the run of BayCon, I indoctrinated one of the Klingons, Pete, from the IKV Blackdragon into the Clan MacDude. Although I flubbed which hand to raise (it really is the left hand), we did get a video of it.

Drop a comment and let me know what you think.

Pete, dude, welcome to the Clan!

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This is my final recap for BayCon 2006, and has a plethora of photos.

It is hard to believe that it has been six years since my last BayCon. When I moved to Minnesota at the beginning of 2001, it was with the expectations I would return for BayCon on an annual basis to see my friends, at the very least. Little did I know I would miss out on five BayCons, and a lot of changes in the lives of so many friends.

Some of the personal ups: getting caught up with some of my closest friends in the Bay Area: Kate, Mary, Cassandra, Gene, Sara. Running into people I haven't seen in years: Bambi (okay, Tory), Kay, Bridget, Mike W., Kaos the KB, Kutaj, Keith, Dana, Dorothy, and a host of others. Seeing unexpected people: Eric the Cylon. Meeting and making new friends: Pete of the IKV Blackdragon, Tami, Chris (aka Spock, Scotty and Kirk), Todd, Scott, and more.

Although I did not make it to as many panels as I would have liked, whether due to scheduling conflicts, or not getting back in time for those 10AM sessions (kind of hard to get going in time with an eight month old infant), the panels I did see were quite good. This includes Kaos, the KB's, presentation on survival gear. Kaos, or Mike, was a S.E.R.E instructor in the Navy, and stays on top of survival preparedness. A darn good talk that everyone should attend. It's educational.

Bridget's Cassini Update, with a great power point presentation that included lots of images, including video, and quite informative.

Other science panels on interstellar travel and warfare, as well as political discussions on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The masquerade, in spite of technical problems getting it up and running, had some very creative costumes.

Jerry Pournelle on the Economics of Interstellar War panel with David Friedman and Philip Gust. Intersting panel. Friedman seems to be hung up on that everything is coming down to information warfare. Pournelle focused on a couple of aspects: using large asteroids as weapons, traveling just below the speed of light, and colony ships moving in with the intent to conquer.

Mike Wilson (left), Dave Hnasen (right), I Don't Know (third base, er, middle), in Mirror Mirror Starfleet Uniforms in the famed Mara's Bar party room. You know, the place where everyone knows your name.

The first contestant in the Clan MacDude's Bonny Knees Competition. This was the only contestant wearing a kilt this year. I think the unseasonably cold temperatures kept folks in doors. Yet this guy not only wore a kilt, he was bear, er, bare chested.

Crowd scene in Mara's Bar on Friday night.

This is Anna, all dressed up and ready for a big day at BayCon. She was dressed in the convention's chosen theme: purple.

Here is Kay and Bambi at one of the fan tables. Kay and I go way back with a lot of mutual friends. Bambi and I go back even further, all the way to high school. Egads!

This is Jade, in a devilishly nice costume.

This is Lizzy as an Star Trek:TOS Romulan. Cool costume, and very well done.

This is Mary as the new Doctor along with Tillie as K-9. Not sure if she made the K-9 rig for Tillie, or if Sara made it. It made Tillie her usual big hit, as she is regularly BayCon's best dressed dog. Tillie is a service dog who serves as Cassandra's companion. She is also one dynamite doggie.

This is Bridget decked out as Droxanne from the ST:TOS episode "The Cloud Minders." Not only is she a NASA scientist, she is a master costumer with numerous awards. This was during her Cassini presentation. She'll be making this presentation at the upcoming Convergence in Minnesota, so if you are there, be sure to catch it. And her other panels.

Bridget is another old friend, from way back in our days in San Diego and members of S.T.A.R San Diego, which, at the time, was the largest fan club in Southern California, with somewhere around 150 people at a meeting.

This is Anna with a guy named Chris who was being done up as Darth Maul. Every time I walked by him, I had to say, "hey look, it's Spock!" I did this several times, and when I ran into him later, did the same thing. What makes this story go from ludicrous to funny is that the guy applying the makeup didn't realize it was the same person calling Chris "Spock." So, when I did it the forth time, he was completely perplexed by this and was going, "you're like the forth person to do this." I had to tell him, and Chris, the guy in the makeup, confirmed it, that each time he heard "hey look, it's Spock!" it was me. The joke was on him!

On the right is Dorothy in one of her many costumes. I'm not sure what this one is, but it certainly looks nice. With her is Pete of the IKV Blackdragon, whom I just met during the run of con. Dorothy is also known as Catnip MacDude. We are currently plotting a web coup for furthering the Clan's reach.

Dave Hansen of the IKV Bloodlust decked out in full Klingon garb.

Gene Paxton, a good and close friend for many years. With him are Richard (left) and Mike Wilson (right). Mike is Captain of the Bloodlust.

This is a shot of Anna with J.D. both are done up as Klingons, and were without a doubt the littlest Klingons in attendance. J.D. was born a few weeks before Anna. With J.D. is friend Tami, and with Anna is Mommy Dearest, Sue.

ere is Lizzy dressed up as a Klingon. Okay, we were having a Klingon party, so, what would you expect?

This is Johny decked out as the dreaded and powerful Darth Sidius. Darn good shot of Johny at that. I'll have to see about getting a print to him sometime.

Johny is joined by Chris done p as Darth Maul and the guy who did Maul's makeup as an Imperial Officer.

Never clown around with Klingons…it might get you in deep trouble. Not sure who this is, but thought it was a really cool costume.

Sue and Anna surrounded by TOS Klingons.

And the Klingons continue to gather on the starboard bow. Where is Captain Kirk when you need him? Oh, yeah, he's out surfing with the Kahuna.

Here is Mette and her husband as Qui-Gon and Darth Maul, Leogized.

Here is Sqotty MacKlingon with Mary, up by the Tiki Lounge.

Here's the group of us just before Pete was indoctrinated into the Clan MacDude.

Sailor Balloon…the costume was made of a number of balloons. Very imaginative and well executed.

BayCon's Match Game SF, where every blank might be a euphemism. Actually, that was one of two running gags, the other being WorldCon de Fruta. It was Casa de Fruta merchandise that I won for winning my round of the game.

Mike, Mitchell, Dianne and a fourth for bridge in Planet of the Apes costumes.

Mike, Sqotty, and Gene for a last photo op before the end of the BayCon. Gene had Stephen Furst autograph his Fan Boy shirt.

Super Sue with Klingon Diane.

Larry Niven with other participants discussing the probability of interstellar flight before the end of the 21st century.

I think this is a wrap for Baycon 2006. It was a blast, and I now wish I hadn't missed so many BayCons since moving to Minnesota.

Additional reports:

Update 1
Update 2
Update 3
Update 4

Tags:
Baycon
Klingon
KAG
Larry Niven
Clan MacDude
Jerry Pournelle
Star Wars
Star Trek

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This is the last report I will file before I sit down to put together the photo galley of the event.

We managed to get up a little early this time, which is a bit of a shock. This meant we were able to go out for breakfast and have something nice, instead of a bowl of cereal and still make it back to the con before 11 AM.

On Monday, they had several panels that I was interested in, scheduled in opposing pairs. As usual. This means I had to pick and choose.

With this in mind, I went to the panel on the Probability of Interstellar Flight in the 21st Century. This was an entertaining panel as it had Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven, as well as Jeff Freeman, Michaek Flynn and John McGowan.

The conversation revolved around getting a probe to Alpha Centauri for a flyby in time to return information to Earth before the end of this century. Various technologies for space travel and energy propulsion were discussed, including anti-matter and fusion rockets, as well as solar sails.

Pournelle also brought up the point that for manned flight we will be looking at multi-generation colony ships to get there, wherever "there" is.

Interesting panel, and definitely the more interesting of that pair of choices.

Next panel up that I attended was on the intent of the Founding Fathers and the Bill of Rights. Pournelle was also on this panel, as well as Ed Green, David Friedman and Andrew Clark. The discussion probed various aspects of the Constitution and the disintegration of State's Rights, the packing of the Supreme Court, encryption, and firearms.

After that, the day, and the con, was done for us. Time to collect up the wife and baby, and head to her parent's house for quality time between them and their granddaughter, then take the redeye flight home.

Overall, a good con, with opportunities to see many friends I haven't seen in a while, especially since I moved to Minnesota.

Baycon
Klingon
KAG
Larry Niven
Clan MacDude
Jerry Pournelle

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Baycon 2006 day 3 is complete, and a long day it was.

We got a bit of a late start, so I missed the 10 AM panel I was interested in. Oh well. Come to think of it, I missed most of the panels I was interested in.

Sue and I did manage to get there in time to watch, and play, The Match Game SF. This was modeled after the ‘70s game show of the same name, where a panel of judges and a player are given a line, like, "Captain Kirk beams down to the planet of Amazon Women and says, 'Men set phasers on blank.'" And the player has to match what the judges write down for filling in the blank. Since it was a PG rated show (closer to G rated), "euphemism" very quickly became a running gag.

I did manage to win a bunch of stuff for "Casa de Fruita", a World Con bid in Hollistor for 2008. Sue and Anna also got to play a round of match Game, but didn’t do as well as me.

We then went to lunch at the coffee garden, were we the center of the universe as fans going from point A to point B generally passed by our table. Gina, an old friend joined us, and we ended up spending two hours there. Fortunately, the staff wasn’t busy, and we weren’t tying up a table.

After that, I headed of to play Munchkin Massacre, which involved playing the game Munchkin with every game and supplement release. We ended up calling the game at about 6:20, with me in the lead, and the "organizer" ending in a close second. Much fun was had by all.

Next up was dinner, off site, with some friends, and we managed to get caught up with things there and learned that in Bay Area Fandom, everyone knows Larry Colin. Go figure!

We made it back for party time. While Sue went up to Dorothy’s secret Bachelorette Party, I headed down to the main party zone to hang out with various friends at Mara’s Bar (AKA, Klingon Central).

All in all, it’s been a good con. One (short) day left. I’ll report on it, as well as post pictures, sometime tomorrow, after we get home from CA.

Baycon
Klingon
KAG
Munchkin
Clan MacDude
World Con

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The second day of BayCon 2006 has ended and it is now time to prepare for day 3.

Some of the action on Saturday.

Trivia for Chocolate was a moderately attended game event where the trivia master awarded chocolate to the first person to get the correct answer. The questions ranged from print, comics, movies and TV, and included questions on pen names, matching planets to authors or books, Hugo winners, characters as well as books/authors who inspired films. It was a lot of fun, and I managed to score a nice pile of chocolates that Sue confiscated. Okay, I did manage to get to eat SOME of my rewards.

Next on the list of panels was the Cassini Update, presented by Bridget Landry, who is part of the JPL’s Cassini Project team. The presentation included images and video, as well as a sound clip of Cassini-Huygens passing through the outer rings of Saturn.

Cassini has provided huge amounts of data to the scientific community on Saturn planetary neighborhood. This included some details on Titan’s dense atmosphere, and Iapetus’ strange “belly band,” a ridge that runs along the equator just as if it were a rubber ball stamped “Made in China.” Cool images.

Bridget will be making this presentation at Convergence in Minnesota this summer, where she will be the Science Guest of Honor.

After Cassini, it was time to head over to the bar where we were having a gathering of Klingons and the new babies (both sets of Hansens). This evolved into a fairly large party and central gathering place for a dinner run. I met the Klingons of the IKV Blackdragon, a relatively new ship in the Ring of Fire Fleet, led by a fairly hoopy frood.

After dinner, I wen out to the truck and changed into my leine and Klingon headpiece, then rendezvoused with Sue and Anna to line up for the Masquerade.

The Masquerade is a bit of a disappointment for me. It was supposed to begin at 8PM, however, they didn’t even begin to let people in until after 8:30. Although there was a false emergency alarm, even that took place AFTER 8 PM. Not sure what the problem was, however, it was not making people very happy. It was after 9 before they started the Masquerade, but first, we got a dull speech from the MC on toastmastering, with some inappropriate political jokes. Hint: not everyone thinks the same as you politically, unless you are at a MoveOn rally.

The number of entries were small, however, there were some very imaginative and creative costumes, from Sailor Ballon, which was made up of ballons, to the San Jose Sharks Quidditch team, and Qui-Gon and Darth Maul done Lego style.

While the judges went off to deliberate, Stephne furst held the floor and ran a silm short that he recently made called Game Day. This film is not my cup of tea, not so much because of the violence and profanity, but that the bad guys aren’t caught. One of them wins. Bad message. Furst then answered a number of questions about his career. When someone asked about his favorite role, a muttered whole wheat, a few people heard, snickered, and Sue called out “Whole Wheat.” Furst paused, muttered back whole wheat questioningly, thought about it, then realized it was meant as whole wheat rolls. This did get a lot of laughs. He also auctioned off a script from Animal House which he would autograph. It went for somewhere around $350.

After this, it was party time. We made our way, with Anna sleeping in her stroller up to the party floor, and joined the Klingons for fun and games. There were a number of very good parties, including: Mara’s Bar, the Feddies next door, Bridget’s party serving up samples from the Venus Drug Company (think Mudd’s Women), and the Tiki Room.

As we were heading out, we ran into Pete and Mary, fully “Klin’ed” up, and indoctrinated Pete into the Clan MacDude. After that, it was time to head back to the house, and take care of the “Little One.”

More tomorrow, when I report on day 3.

Baycon
Klingon
KAG
Cassini
Clan MacDude

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BayCon 2006 is running full steam. Here are a few of the highlights for day one.

The Economics of Interstellar War was a science panel/discussion on how feasible galactic warfare is. On the panel were Jerry Pournelle and David Freidman with Philip Gust moderating.

The first question was: Is Interstellar War economically feasible? The discussion focused on the limitations of relativity and a society being able to reach around .9 * the speed of light, rather than considering frequently used SF concepts such as warp speed or hyperspace, or even FTL.

Freidman seemed to believe that such wars be would be information wars, and interstellar economics would be based around information as shipping cargo would be prohibitively expense.

Pournelle pointed out that most naval battles in history took place as there were limited routes that ships could take to get from point A and point B, thus limiting where ships would be, and make it possible to find out where you enemy is. C.S. Forrester understood this when writing the Hornblower novels. Once a ship is out of site, it’s very difficult to find it.

Modern technology has, of course changed the nature of naval warfare with the use of satellites and such. However, in an interstellar setting, such technologies don’t exist, meaning you would look for you enemy’s ships at places they are defending. Like historical naval battles, where nearly all such battles took place in sight of land, interstellar battles would most likely take place in sight of planetary colonies.

Pournelle also pointed out that it is more likely that would sling large asteroids at near light speed at planets, or more likely at the star in order be rid of the whole problem.

Another point made in the discussion is that a space faring society sending out colony ships are sending them out on a one-way ticket, thus they would be going out prepared for doing conquest, thus forming a basis for a type of interstellar war.

Interesting discussion and a darn good panel to start of the weekend.

This was followed up by a presentation by Mike Sarkisian on preparing a survival kit that can get you through the 72-hour period after a disaster, be it an earthquake, hurricane, or tsunami.

The main thrust of the presentation was to make it modular and multi-level. By this, Mike meant that the smallest survival kit should be able to keep you going and fit in one of those oversized cargo-pant pockets. Then you “level” up to a moderately larger kit, with redundancy built in, and progress up through several levels, building up on the base component until you have a backpack sized kit.

An additional point is to try out everything. The worst time to find out you can’t get something to work is when you need it.

A flyer was also provided with the websites of a number of companies that are reliable suppliers of survival gear and several recommended books.

Excellent presentation, full of information that everyone should have.

Later in the evening, after party time began, the Clan MacDude held it’s annual Bonny Knees competition. This year’s judges where Johanna, Radar, and Jade. Catnip MacDude ran the event. As it was a bit chilly, and little Anna was a bit fussy (she is eight months old, so she is allowed to be fussy), we didn’t stay for the whole event. I did learn that contestant number six (whoever that is) won the event.

Parties were good, with the Klingon Bar being one of the most popular.

The BayCon report stated that memberships at 3PM had reached 1507.

It’s now a new day. Look for the next installment tomorrow morning, including a Cassini update.

Baycon
Klingon
Jerry Pournelle
Clan MacDude

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