T-minus four weeks

[solarbird]

CascadiaCon concom meeting today - one today, one in two weeks, one the week after, and then we're live and on the air. Skeery!

I showed the committee the history I've been writing up for the Republic of Cascadia; I got a few suggestions for things to add (yay), particularly from people in the aerospace industry - detail things like McDonald-Douglas being the merge of McDonald Aircraft and Douglas Aerospace (or something like that) and one of them being in California, and the other in St. Louis, so that can't happen now. We ended up with McDonald-Hughes instead, as a major American defense contractor.

So there's a little glimpse into the world of the Republic of Cascadia.

Here's another one: the official abbreviation is RoCas, pronounced "raucous."

Thursday's miles: 2.0
Friday's miles: 2.0 (Biking)
Saturday's miles: 25 (Biking)
Average speed Saturday: 13.5 mph (estimated)
Miles out of Hobbiton: 338.3
Miles to Rivendell: 120

And here, have a flower picture. This one's FREAKY:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!


A little further back - isn't this weird?

Comments

[starsongky.livejournal.com]

That flower looks like it could be knitted from Muppet skin - slang I picked up from knitting for that bright fuzzy novelty yarn.

Aarrgh, they got Cookie Monster! *giggle*

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

ok... color me ignorant... but... what is Cascadia and CascadiaCon?

[solarbird]

Cascadia, in our reality, is the region of North America outlined largely by the Cascade and Olympic mountain chains, which intersect with but are distinct from the Rocky Mountain chain further east. Climatically and culturally, the region shares various commonalities which make it reasonably distinct. Several of these transcend the national border at Canada; hence the worries up here about the "upgrades" in border security, making it harder to get between Vancouver and Seattle. In this alternate reality I've been writing up, it split off to form its own nation-state in 1973. (There are several other significant variances in American history before this, all of which help make this more reasonable.)

CascadiaCon is the 8th North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC), a convention that happens when the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) is held outside of North America. It's our continental convention, essentially, like Eurocon is for European SF fandom, and Eastercon is the national for the UK. Seattle won the bid to host the 2005 NASFiC (voting held 2003), after Glasgow won the bid to host the 2005 Worldcon (voting held 2002). It's significantly smaller than Worldcon, and doesn't as yet have much of its own character, having only been held eight times since its inception. But as more Worldcon bids are made (and won) by overseas cities, the NASFiC is becoming a more regular event; indeed, this will be the first time that the voting for a NASFiC will be held at a NASFiC; since Yokohama won the 2007 Worldcon bid, there will be a NASFiC in 2007, voting will be held here. If this trend continues, it is likely that the NASFiC will start acquiring a culture of its own. This isn't considered very likely, but you never know.

In Seattle's case - Cascadian SF fandom has long been fairly regional and kind of insular. Not so much by intent, but simply by geographic isolation - after Seattle, in the US, the next large city eastward is Minneapolis, which is very far away, and the next large city to the south is San Francisco, similarly very far away. To the north, you have Vancouver, of course, but it is similarly far from other large cities in Canada. So for many fans, this is kind of an introduction to a semi-isolated chunk of SF fandom that they haven't traditionally heard very much about. There're a lot of people watching to see how well (or badly) Seattle pulls this thing off, and there are a few groups who would support another Seattle bid for the Worldcon if the NASFiC goes well.

I don't know how likely that is, but given that there was a previous attempt at a Worldcon bid for 2002, it certainly wouldn't be out of the question.

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

sounds like fun... :)

[vtslick.livejournal.com]

Oooh! That flower is beautiful. It kind of looks like a sea anemone.