On the ground at LibertyCon

Miss D. and I are having an exhausting, but interesting time at LibertyCon in Chattanooga, TN.  We arrived on Wednesday evening, in the middle of an extremely enervating wave of heat and humidity, and suffered through it until a thunderstorm dropped the temperature nicely yesterday afternoon.  The relief is very welcome indeed!

Thursday evening saw the wedding of Sanford Begley and Cedar Sanderson, and the renewal of their wedding vows by Dan and Sarah Hoyt on the occasion of their 30th wedding anniversary.  I was privileged to be a part of both celebrations.  I'm sure many of my readers have already seen photographs and descriptions of the occasions on other web sites, so I'll simply say that it's great to be able to be part of friends' lives at times like these.

For the first time in its history, LibertyCon is completely sold out.  What's more, this year Eric Flint has brought his 1632 Mini-Con to join us, so that there are 700 people here.  The hotel's sold out (with a large number of its rooms and parking spaces unavailable due to remodeling), and with all the extra bodies the crowding is much worse than it's been in previous years.  On the other hand, everyone's having a good time and being very good-natured about it all.  The cooler weather has arrived just in time to make us all more comfortable, too . . . so much the better!

My health hasn't been good.  I picked up an infection of some kind that made Thursday and Friday pretty miserable.  For a time I feared that I might have to cut short my attendance at the convention to head to the ER - or even back home - to get medical attention.  Fortunately, things have become a little easier, so I'm going to try to keep going.  I'll see the doctor on Monday after this is all over.  It hasn't stopped me participating in panels or presenting my workshops so far.  I'll hope for the best.

Peter