The very first science fiction convention I every volunteered for was RustyCon 1, in Seattle. I had a blast and went on to volunteer at the next one and a few other local area conventions. Well, time moves on, life moves on, and I moved on to a new job down in Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately, the nature of the job prevented me from attending any more RustyCons. Time moved on a bit more, and I decided to retire on December 31st, 2019. Yay! I was now free to go back to RustyCon after all those years!
Boo! Covid!
The good news! All members of our household have now received all three shots, and, while we couldn’t go to 38 this year, we were looking forward to going to RustyCon 39 next year!
Now, the final bad news: It was revealed today by the Chair that RustyCon 38 was, due to sparse attendance and incredible cost, the last RustyCon. Between the low turnout(needed 400 to break even, got under 250), the entire IT department not allowed across the border from Canada, and various other problems, they say they have to finally throw in the towel.
Get a passport and travel internationally
Date and fall in love again
Go back to school for an advanced degree beyond my BS
Tell my first love that I wished I hadn’t ‘saved myself for marriage’ [and this one is a real damn it!]
One of my bucket list items involved sailing, at least coastal and maybe longer voyages. Doing this requires long stretches of time without going to work. By the time I actually retired, medical issues (and financial) have tied me to land with the need for reliable electrical power and various supply chain items.
Not sure if I should blame myself for waiting too long, or choosing parents who weren’t rich. Either way, it was not to be. So I enjoy myself exploring a large lake from my smaller boat. At least I’m out there, just not at the level I’d hoped.
Not a popular activity for obvious reasons, it is simply riding long distances on a horse. Like across a continent.
My body wouldn’t hold up any more, even 20 miles stoves me up for some days afterward. And the logistics of it are completely daunting anyway. The time to have tried it out is decades in the past. Oh well.
I think I’ve waited too long to address problems with my marriage, or end it. At this point inertia and lack of confidence are likely to keep things as they are for the duration.
I fell in love with Seattle’s BUMBERSHOOT (music! comedy! and theater, spoken word, marketplace and wonderful ethnic foods!), and was planning on going every fall … until I got a job teaching, which meant I had to be back in Wisconsin just before Bumbershoot every year.
And I missed thirty or so Bumbershoots.
So two years ago I retired (partly to go to festivals) and… sigh, no Bumbershoot. Well, there’s always 2021… more sigh. And now the city of Seattle is reaching out for ideas/sponsors to keep it going. So there’s no guarantee it’ll be back.
I’ve been using my own IRA for retirement plans. But I should have been contributing to a 401(k) because my employer matches contributions, creating an instant 100% return on investment. I’m doing fine in y investments, but really wish i’d started doing my retirement stuff when I started at this job 22 years ago.
I was always interested in attending one of these, when I lived in Seattle for almost 20 years. It was named for umbrella, right? As in, it frequently rains during September? Well, during my 20 year time in Seattle, September was simply August II, the revenge. Hot, dry and bright out. I moved to Seattle to escape the sun and heat, and prefer the rain. I always noticed when it was sunny during Bumbershoot, and that was…most of the time in recent years.
Getting back on topic: Generally, when I want to do something, I try to do it as soon as I can, in case…you know, it goes away or my physical readiness to do it diminishes. I’ve been fortunate in that I can’t think of too many regrets I have along these lines. I am actually looking forward to the next 20 years, assuming our world is still alive and kicking (which I am starting to worry about).
We visited Seattle relatives every summer (when the kids had vacation), and they’ve never seen it rain there. Ask them about Seattle and they’ll talk about cloudless skies … and the brown, burnt grass.
Seattle doesn’t get any more rain than the midwest, it just drizzles from October to May. One relative made that move, and couldn’t believe it…the first rain outside of the PNW and it was a gully-washer, with loud thunder and big cracks of lightning. “What the HELL is this? It’ll flood, should we evacuate?”
“Naah, not till it starts coming down hard…”
For the longest time, I had wanted to visit the summer camp where I spent a season as a volunteer counselor. The county stopped holding that particular camp about a decade after I was there.
I’ll probably never know if they adopted the rocked-up camp song which I contributed that season. If I had known when they were having the final season, I’d have arranged to sneak in the back door and head toward the cafeteria singing, “Patahontas was here to stay and now it will surely die…”
I was getting out of my car on a busy street, and a van’s side mirror hit my door and fell off. I later got a call from my insurance guy that the other driver was suing to pay for his mirror. But unsuccessfully, as it was his fault that he was so close to parked cars.
But I felt bad. He’d had a wife and a baby in the car, and appeared to be a Korean grad student. So a while ago I did some searching and found out a possible address for him, in hopes of leaving an envelope of cash in his mailbox.
But I’d procrastinated and it didn’t look like anyone lived there. So I ended up finding out what he’d studied, and called up the department of nuclear medicine at our University. “Sorry, you just missed him, he went back home last month…” Then she added proudly “…with a couple of doctorates, to head up a department at Seoul National University Cancer Hospital.”
I still feel bad about him paying for his mirror, but I guess he doesn’t need (and wouldn’t even notice) a hundred bucks from me now…
I had an Oppo Blu-ray player on my wish list for the longest time but I procrastinated too long. They stopped manufacturing them and what would’ve cost $450 new is way out of my price range now at $1,400 for a used one.