Mark L. Van Name's Blog, page 80

A recent publication of mine that I forgot to mention

Some while ago, SFWA, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, a professional organization of which I'm a member, decided to create a 50th anniversary cookbook.  SFWA had published a cookbook many years earlier, so this update had a precedent.  The notion was to invite all SFWA authors to submit recipes and short prose bits to accompany them, and then to donate all proceeds from the book "to SFWA's Legal Fund, which makes loans to eligible member writers who have writing-related court costs and other related legal expenses."  Editors Cat Rambo and Fran Wilde did the work, which made it easy for the rest of us to participate.  (Thanks, Cat and Fran, for doing that.)

I'm generally for helping writers in trouble, and I have a go-to recipe for certain situations, so I spent a few minutes writing and submitting a short contribution.

The book, Ad Astra: The 50th Anniversary SFWA Cookbook, is now available.  You can order it directly from SFWA here and make sure all the money goes to the Legal Fund, or you can buy it at various online booksellers.

Click the image to see a larger version.  Sorry about the glare.
My recipe is titled, "The Meaty Mess."  I've prepared it many times, always with great success.  It's fairly quick, definitely easy, and something almost any carnivore will enjoy.  It is not at all vegetarian.

You'll have to buy the book to learn just how to cook The Meaty Mess yourself.

Happy cooking!

Want to learn more about Onward, Drake!?

Want to listen to me yak about the book--and about Dave?

Want to hear other authors, including David Afsharirad, Tony Daniel, Hank Davis, and Eric Flint do the same?

I thought you did, and now you can, courtesy of the Baen Free Radio Hour podcast.  A group of us were guests on the show a little while ago, and our episode premiered on October 30.  You can listen to it or even download it here.

Enjoy!

Escaping Austin: The Failure

Friday morning, I awoke before eight a.m. to begin what I thought would be the usual trip home from Austin.  I turned on the TV and selected my usual channel (NBC, because I hate the sound of The Today Show, so having it on encourages me to hurry).

A weatherman was speaking loudly and urgently.  "Repeat, we have a confirmed tornado sighting and flash flooding all around the greater Austin area."

These are not words you want to hear first thing in the morning.

The good news was that the tornado had touched down well south of Austin.  The bad news was that it was moving north.

I considered going right back to bed, but if the storm faded and flights were on time, I would have lost a ticket we'd already purchased.  So, I showered, checked out, and walked into the rain to load the rental car.

Just that short time in the rain left me damp, but the rainfall was still mild, so I was heartened.

Off we went to the airport.

What followed was about 45 minutes of some of the most harrowing rain driving I've ever done.  I took the most direct route--the toll road, which features an 80-mph speed limit--and hoped for the best.  I started out able to sustain 70, but by the end the rain was a thick gray wall so dense I was barely able to hold 35.  Giant trucks going 80 slalomed by me, their drivers apparently willing to risk it all to reach their destinations sooner.  Sections of different lanes proved to be flooded with a foot or more of standing water.  My rental's lights were no match for the falling water, so I couldn't see more than a few car lengths ahead.

We did ultimately reach the airport safely, for which I was very grateful.  After getting soaked walking from the rental car facility into the terminal, we stood in a long line, got our boarding passes, and headed through security.  We'd left early enough that we still were 45 minutes from departure time.

That time, however, no longer mattered, because the flight had slipped from 10:45 a.m. to noon.

No problem.  When stuck in AUS, do the sensible thing:  Have Salt Lick lunch and some ice cream from Amy's.  We did, and both were delicious.

From there, we headed to the Admirals Club, where I learned they had delayed the flight again.  No problem; I can work in an Admirals Club.

I settled into a chair just in time to hear the announcement that American had canceled our flight.

I then commenced a ritual that dominated the next many hours:  Queue up.  Wait in a slow line.  Get a new flight and new boarding passes.  Settle down to work.  Hear the next cancellation announcement.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

At this point, the Admirals Club team delivered the news that prospects for anyone's departure had turned grim.  It seems, as best I could gather, that the tornado's path had changed so that it was headed toward the airport's tower.  They consequently and sensibly evacuated the tower.  The tower then flooded, so that by the time the tornado was no longer a tornado and no longer headed for the tower, no one could get into the tower.

Then the ramps to the runways flooded.

At this point, the Admirals Club folks announced that the airport would be closed for departures until at least three o'clock.

At least I then got some work done.

Sometime after three, they canceled my last flight, I did the queue/wait dance, and I learned that I was not going home that day.  Instead, I was on an eight a.m. flight the next day.

I'd been coordinating with Gina back in the office, so she got us rooms in a great downtown hotel (the Westin) and a rental car.

We collected our luggage, walked to the rental car center, and learned we had no car yet.  No people were on staff to help, because, as we later learned, most of their staff had called to say they would not be able to make it to work.

We found a young man who was in his fourteenth hour of work but who was still running hard and being extraordinarily pleasant.  He got us a car, the confirming email hit my phone, and off to the car--which was, of course, on the far side of the facility--we went.

I had just opened the car's trunk when a wild-eyed man ran at me, waving a contract, screaming, "That's my car!"  I also had an email contract for the car, but he looked crazier than I felt, so I told him by all means to take the car.  He immediately calmed and was polite and grateful.

The same young man who had helped us before happened to witness this exchange, so he pulled a car from a line, drove it over to us, and then arranged for the contract to be waiting by the time we reached the exit.

That dude deserves a bonus.  I wish I'd caught his name, but his badge had blown off.

At the checkout line, the guy helping us said, "I just clean the cars.  I don't know how to use this thing, so this'll take a while.  Me and this other guy are the only ones here."

The tablet rebooted.  Our helper ran to the other person on duty--the omnipresent helpful young man--and learned how to log on and to check us out.

We exited the airport, drove through a far milder but still annoying rain, and eventually reached the Westin.  I settled down to work not quite nine hours after I'd left my previous hotel room.

Sometimes, you just don't get to leave town.

On the road again: Austin, day 7

After a bit less than three hours of sleep, I got up, showered, and began the trek home.  Though the rains were falling again on the drive to the airport, this time my flight from AUS took off on time and carried me safely to DFW.  Another flight brought me home.  My luggage arrived.

This travel day went about as well as it could have.

I should write more, but I'm just too tired.

I'm home.

On the road again: Austin, day 6

I was supposed to be home now.  In fact, I was supposed to hit home quite some hours ago.

I am not home.

Instead, I am still in Austin, but now in a new (and quite nice) hotel.  Today has featured more kinds of travel hassles than I've experienced in quite some time, a lot of work, and a fabulous dinner.

I'd tell you more about each of them, but I have to get up at 5:20 a.m., so I am crashing as quickly as I can.

More about today later.

On the road again: Austin, day 5

Yup, you guessed it:  a day full of work stuff I can't discuss.

Another Austin restaurant I had not yet tried, Dai Due, was tonight's dinner destination.  The food was good enough that I would definitely go back again.  Particularly impressive was the giant beef rib with potato and sauerlach dumplings.  They mean the dish to serve two, which is how we ordered it, but after eating too much and still leaving at least a third of the meat, we concluded that it could easily feed most groups of four normal eaters.

Tomorrow morning, I get up early to begin the trek home!

On the road again: Austin, day 4

Today's most unusual event occurred in the bathroom of the restaurant at which I was eating with friends and colleagues.

I was standing at the urinal, doing my business and keeping to myself, as one does in such situations, when from the stall next to me a man shouted--and I do mean shouted,

"I'm sorry!  I didn't mean to do that to you!"

A lightning-quick personal inventory reassured me that I was fine, that he had to be on the phone to someone else, and that he was not addressing me.

He continued, yelling the whole time.

"I didn't mean to hurt you!

"Just tell me what I can do to make it up to you!"

"I'm so sorry!"

I hustled out while he was still screaming.

I know I'm old, and so perhaps some of my attitudes are antiquated, but I nonetheless remain convinced that a stall in the men's room of a Japanese steakhouse is not the ideal location for a screaming apology.

On the road again: Austin, day 3

Another day on the road for work, another long day full of work.  No surprises there.

Dinner, though, provided one delightful taste surprise after another, as the chefs at Counter 3 . Five . VII, an excellent and fairly new Austin restaurant, created seven delicious courses as we watched.  The premise is simple:  24 diners sit at a counter around a kitchen in which a group of chefs cook your food.

Click an image to see a larger version.
You can order three, five, or seven courses, and that's it; they serve whatever menu they're making that night.  We, of course, opted for the full seven.


The chefs provided two amuses and some treats at the end, so it was really more like ten courses.

The first savory course, the divers scallop with potato and a sort of heavy potato foam,


set a high bar--it was amazingly good--that all the other courses managed to clear.  Often at this sort of place, the savories are great but the dessert is a disappointment, but not here.  No, this sweet, was both colorful


and deliciously complicated.  It provided a wonderful end to the meal.

This dinner was easily the best meal I've had in Austin in some time.  I would return here any time the menu changed.  If you live in Austin or will be visiting it soon, don't miss Counter 3 . Five . VII.

On the road again: Austin, day 2

In the midst of a day that started with early morning email and meetings and ended about 21 hours later, I simply had no time for a fancy dinner.  So, I instead opted for something equally satisfying--if not as nutritious: a stress-eating blow-out at a local In-N-Out Burger. This chain doesn't exist in Raleigh, so ever since I realized Austin had one (it now has two), I've wanted to eat at it.

The restaurant was as clean and pretty as it should be.

Click an image to see a larger version.
When you rarely get to visit an In-N-Out, you really have to eat the two things that the menu will not include (actually, my understanding is that there are many options not on the visible menu, but these are the ones you must eat): the double-double animal style, and the animal-style fries.


Oh, yeah, those combinations of cheese, onions, dressing, and fat are exactly as healthy for you as they look--but they are more delicious than you would believe.

A little Amy's made the perfect dessert--and also made me glad my lunch had included salad, so that something green hit my stomach during the day.

Finally, to bed.

On the road again: Austin, day 1

If you're a nervous flier, you would not have enjoyed today's flight from DFW to AUS.  Normally a trip with about 25 minutes of flying time, today this leg of my journey required nearly an hour in the air, as the pilot and air traffic control kept trying to find us a path that avoided the bumpy air.  They failed.  With about half an hour to go, the pilot said over the intercom words no one enjoys hearing:

"There's no way to avoid the rough air, so we're asking the flight attendants to buckle in."

Oh, yeah.

As it turns out, I didn't find the remainder of the flight to be particularly bad, though I am decidedly not a nervous flier.  Many people on the plane, though, clearly disagreed with my assessment.

Once we landed in Austin, everything went well, including my traditional dinner trip to The County Line On the Lake.  As usual, I ordered the three-meat combo with beef rib, and as usual, I ate only half of the meat and none of the sides--but a delicious half of the meat it was.

Click the image to see a larger version.
Afterward, we headed, again as usual, to the Amy's at the Arboretum for a small cup of frozen deliciousness.

The weather here is cool and windy, perfectly fall.  It's lovely.

Tomorrow, the work meetings begin!