Sharan Volin

Since there's only so much I can say in 140 characters I decided to post about the weekend here (even though I'm still way behind on reading my friends page). But I had a really great time this weekend at the Nebula awards.

Friday night after work I headed to the opening night cocktail party. I got there an hour late because for some reason I was thinking it started later than it did, and traffic from work in Van Nuys was nasty. I got there in time to see Adam-Troy Castro, who I hadn't seen in a long time, about to head to dinner. He invited me to come but they didn't have room in the car and the valet was about to take mine so I decided to go in and try to get registered and see him later. I didn't find the hospitality suite but I hung out at the cocktail party, and later went to dinner with Alan Rodgers, Amy Sterling Casil, Ian McDonald, John Moore, and Michael Capobianco. We went to an all-you-can-eat seafood place in Woodland Hills and had a great time.

Saturday morning I had a dentist appt., and that afternoon I headed to the hotel, FOUND the hospitality suite this time and got registered. I took the shuttle from the hotel over to the L.A. Times Festival of Books, and spent a couple of hours there wandering around and hung out at the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society booth for a while. Then I walked over to where the Nebula banquet was taking place and got changed.

The banquet was great and the awards ceremony was fun. Ian McDonald was at our table but unfortunately didn't win. I did get to see 2 other friends - Catherine Asaro and Nina Kiriki Hoffman - win, but unfortunately neither one of them was actually there. I congratulated them both on Facebook after I got home! I got to talk to other people before the ceremony too. Afterward I headed back to the hotel and hung out in the hospitality suite. I was talking to Adam and Judi Castro, Scott Edelman, Alan Rodgers, and Amy Sterling Casil, and we got into some REALLY interesting conversations and Scott even wound up looking up an apparently REALLY bad silent version of the Wizard of Oz that Adam mentioned on YouTube through his iPhone. Later I also got to talk to Mike Resnick for a while, which was nice. I haven't been able to talk to him much in a long time. Maybe after graduation I can get my e-mail under control so I can actually read his mailing list and keep up with things better!

I might just have to go to next year's Nebulas next year in Florida now. I haven't been back there since I left Florida State, and Adam and Judi seem to be involved in running it. I'm also looking forward to the Stokers in June. And I'm really glad I'm finally going to have time to write again in a few weeks! I've been neglecting my writing for way too long, so I'm finally going to fix that!

It was really great to see some old friends I hadn't seen in a long time (and meet some new ones).

Today I'm just going to have to stay home, unfortunately. I have one last comparative literature paper due this week, plus my final project for Intro to 3D Computer Animation due Tuesday night. And I have to do those at some point:).

Well, I wasn't planning on posting here, but I finally broke down and joined Facebook a week ago tonight, and just figured out how to get these posts to appear there too, so I thought I'd make another post just to test things out.

I'm pretty impressed with Facebook. I've found a lot of people over there I couldn't find anywhere else, and tonight I even got to have a conversation with a friend I hadn't spoken to in around 10 years! (His old e-mail address had stopped working and I couldn't track him down until now.) And I've found other people I haven't spoken to in even longer!

Not that I really needed another timesink when I have to focus on graduating in May, but I'm glad I finally joined.

I spent more time working on Rockers Online last night, and added another band, Wolfstone. They're a GREAT celtic rock band from Scotland, and I happened to notice that they were playing up in Santa Cruz and was hoping they'd play down here too. Unfortunately, although they have a few dates in the Bay Area they aren't playing here:(. I also seem to have run into a couple of bugs in my Tour Dates code, at least one of which I already fixed.

I first got into them when I bought a cd of theirs from an old friend of mine, Morgan (from GEnie, aka Marilyn Morey) when she used to sell cds and jewelry at cons. I really wish I had any way of getting in touch with her since I really regret losing contact with her, so if anyone happens to know how to contact her tell her to get in touch with me:). I think she might still be involved in the SCA in Florida. I have a really annoying habit of losing touch with friends because I get so busy and overwhelmed with life that I don't get in touch with them, but it's NEVER deliberate and I always feel bad afterward.