Memnison Journal

…both courtesy of Lisa Ragsdale:

Meredith in my lap at Windycon, being vivacious - courtesy of Lisa Ragsdale:

Notice the lack of beard, of course.

The pancreatitis has died down enough to bring Dot home from the vet’s office / animal hospital, and while she’s still shaky, she’s obviously a whole heck of a lot better.  And there’s a ferocious vet bill, over a grand, and I really DON’T want or need that with Christmas coming up.
Susan’s knee is better, [...]

It was wonderful to see people at the con; the best part, to me, was wandering around and chatting with con friends I hadn’t seen in a while and catching up with them.   Long chats with Kerri Ellen Kelly, Christa (Linda Sugar’s sister), Deb Kosiba (who was minding her store, so to speak, and I [...]

Yes, I will be at Windycon over the weekend.  I’ll be not-very-mobile. I’ll probably locate a prime lurking post and hang there a lot.  Mere will be with me.
The docs took out the last of the foot stitches, and the wound has come open again, about an inch worth.  The docs and Susan are [...]

I mentioned that Mere came down with Strep Throat on Thursday night; Friday day, Susan was getting sicker and sicker.  Both got last-minute-end-of-the-day runs to the doctors, and are now heavily medicated.  Mere is starting to perk up, and is feeling much better as of last night, and wants to go to roller-skating practive this [...]

Recently, Susan and I have been up to her Aunt’s house in Elgin or out to talk to her about her computer problems.  Auntie (Susan’s mom’s sister) operates a doctors’ organization that has a couple of big yearly meetings (for training updates, and other conference stuff) and some smaller ones, and it’s sometimes amusing to [...]

Still tired from the con; the entire family went minus Grandma Connie but including my visiting niece Kelbi, who decided to volunteer for the childcare room, and worked her butt off there! ( I think she racked up 15 hours…very dedicated.) She didn’t want the con, she wanted the kids!
Well, chacun a [...]

A Flickr set of pictures of Susan and me, from the 1990s (part of the recent scans).
One example, from the San Antonio Worldcon:

Article from the local Chicago papers in mid-1986 quoting from interviews with me, my ex, Gretchen Roper, Neil Rest and others about fannish activities, with mentions of Thursdays, the old floating weekly party.
jar_lernerpapers_081486 (PDF, .7M)

CONGENIAL, the con I started up in the late 1980s, has tried to maintain a standard of uniqueness over the years.  Here’s a few of the badges from our collection from the earlier years….

The Hogwarts duo
Originally uploaded by jrittenhouse

There’s a Flickr set on the Lego Tower building, a set on Mere and Caitlin at play, and another of Mere at the Windycon masquerade as Cho Chang.  Enjoy!

I’d planned to be out to the con early on on Friday, but I got a fast-blowing-in skin infection that seriously (1) was painful and (2) was knocking me for a loop in general, starting Thursday morning.
With me and my health, I know that the only thing to do on stuff like this is to [...]

Got back from Windycon, on which more later…but I gotta say that I am incredibly glad to see the last of the Wyndham O’Hare.   Susan had enough of it years ago, but the crappy maintenance, the iffy amenities and food, the howlingly bad layout and parking - all just hit me square and solidthis year.  [...]

This is all stuff that I’m on:
Saturday, 11-12 am Are there any more Dangerous Visions? (Narita B)
When Harlan Ellison published Dangerous Visions in 1967, his goal was to publish fiction that couldn’t be published anywhere else. When William Sanders began publishing the on-line ‘zine Helix SF in 2006, he had a similar goal. But [...]