NERDcon 2023

 So, Saturday I went into downtown Kent to attend NERDcon (or NerdFest, or more formally the Meeker Street Nerd Party). This is my second time there, and I was impressed how many more people showed up than last time. Here's the official description:

https://www.downtownkentwa.com/event/meeker-street-nerd-party/

Don't know details, but I do know turnout was good enough that they're already planning the next one, which I gather will start up an every-six-months schedule.

I had intended to take a small stack of the little booklet version of Dunsany's CHU-BU & SHEEMISH but cdn't find where in the box room I'd put them. So I took a set of the two-volume trade paperback HISTORY OF THE HOBBIT instead, more to feel less self-conscious for taking up one of their chairs. Pity my author's copies of the new one-volume edition, due to arrive in a few days, didn't make it in time.

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-history-of-the-hobbit-j-r-r-tolkien?variant=40991777587234

Still, it made a good discussion point for folks wandering by. Maybe I'll get a shirt made up (Talk to me about Tolkien) for next time.

In addition to hanging out with some of my fellow Alliterates (Jeff, Steve M, Stan, Will) I also got to see Tim Beach, an old friend from TSR days* I hadn't run into for several years.** 

--John R.

*Tim started at TSR just a few months after I did: April 1992 I think (whereas I was October 1991, along with Rich Baker, Thomas Reid, and Wolf Baur)

**due no doubt to the odd phenomenon of my thinking Tacoma is much further away than Seattle or Bellevue.