TeslaCon II: Convention Report

Last year's first TeslaCon was great but I hesitated to sign up because of the 10 hour drive. That hesitation didn't last long however because as soon as the tickets became available, I purchased them. As the con weekend approached, I had a large stack of things I wanted to get done. Refurbishing a stereoscope I found at a flea market (I'll detail that in a later post), modifying a Volcanic replica into an air gun prop (also to be be detailed in another post) and casting duplicates of my airship cavalry pin (yes, another post of its own). I was two for three in completing those projects.

Thursday

I took Thursday off so that I could pack. I woke up at my normal time of 5am and first checked my email and assortment of web comics. I did some preparations but didn't get the clothing together untilEuphorbia had risen for work. Later in the morning I drove out to the Tandy Leather to get a piece of leather for a belt as the belt I had intended to dismantle and re-buckle was unsuitably wide. I also stopped at Kinko's to make copies of my business cards.

While I was out I stopped at the hardware store to pick up a piece for my socket wrench so that I could remove my bike rack for the trip. On returning to the parking lot I realized that I had the wrong tool and returned it immediately. I then had to go to another hardware store to find the tool I needed.

I returned home, stained the leather and mounted the Union belt buckle. Yet another project successfully completed. Then, it was time for my afternoon nap so that I would be as rested as I could be for the overnight drive to Madison that was to come. I probably got two or three hours of rest. Not enough but it would have to do.

I went to pull the bike rack off and realized that I did not, in fact, have the correct tool. I had purchased a socket but didn't have the correct adapter to connect it to the wrench. As Euphorbia was on her way home I asked that she stop by the hardware store to pick up the adapter I needed. When she arrived home she had the wrong tool. In fact, it was the exact same tool that I had purchased initially to discover in the parking lot that it was the wrong tool. It may even have been the exact same tool returned to the shelf.

When Ryan came by, he brought a proper socket wrench, the bike rack was removed, the car was packed and we left on our thankfully uneventful 10 hour drive to Madison.

Friday

After driving all night, we arrived at about 8am local time. I didn't expect the room to be ready that early but I asked and it turned out I was right. They said that check in wasn't until 3pm and I thought that was fairly absurd. Sure, we were early but I can't imagine any reason for us to wait until that late. Even so, I was prepared to change in a rest room if necessary when things got under way. We sat in the upper lobby. I may have dozed in the chair.

After an hour we went back and checked at the front desk and still no room was available.

As part of TeslaCon's transformation of the hotel into a grand cruise submersible, all the typical hotel artwork in the lobbies had been replaced. Portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were prominent. Other portraits of other late 19th Century notables were about as were photographs from the ongoing conflict against the villainous Doctor Proctocus and his army of tic-toc automatons.

I hadn't realized that the Eiffel Tower had been destroyed. The bastard!

More loafing. Some conversations with other guests and another hour. This time we talked to someone else at the front desk and a room was found to be available.

To say that Matt and I had a bit of a falling out would be a bit of an understatement. So I considered it an awkward coincidence that his presentation on the Meiji Restoration was scheduled in the same room but the previous time slot as my Mystery Airship presentation. I was hoping there would be no drama.

When I arrived to set up my presentation it looked like his never even happened. I had seen him in the hallway earlier so I knew he was at the con in plenty of time to do the presentation.

Too bad. I have no doubt that his presentation would have been a good one. I would have liked to have seen it but, again, I was hoping to avoid drama.

As to my presentation, there was a projector set up and it worked right away so bringing my own projector was an unnecessary precaution. My laptop worked. The remote worked. The only technical issue was that the acoustics of the room and the ship's announcements over the PA system made it sometimes difficult for those in the back to hear me. Had I known, I could have certainly cranked up the volume to myself heard.

I received any number of compliments throughout the weekend concerning my presentation. I in no way want to gloat but I had put quite a bit of preparation into it and refined it somewhat to it's present form. And even though I made a CD of myself reading the script so I could play and replay it in the car on my way to and from work, I had not been able to memorize it. I was able to fake it by wearing my dark goggles, holding my head up but reading the script with downturned eyes. I would occasionally pick up the script to read a quoted passage and maintain the illusion that I really knew what I was talking about.

Well, I did know what I was talking about but there were a lot of names and dates that I simply can't keep in my head.

I am working on another presentation for next year (and for other cons in the spring) about Victorian space ships. It will be an analysis of such things as Jules Verne's space gun, H. G. Wells' Cavorite sphere, Edward Everett Hale's brick moon and Space 1889's aether propellers. How they work. How they don't. Because of the nature of the topic it will not lend itself to the kind of formalized script that the history and analysis-intensive Mystery Airship presentation had. I think that one will end up working better with a white board.

I had wanted to stop in on the VSF miniatures game but had a bunch of other programming I wanted to go to. I have recently become interested in a miniatures game called Dystopian Wars, and while the miniatures are really nice they are also quite large and expensive. Because of that, I have also been looking at Aeronef, another Victorian flying navy game. The miniatures for that are significantly smaller than the Dystopian Wars ships and thus significantly cheaper. Both of those things make it more likely to find a space in my house.

“Airship Combat: Theory and Practice” was a chance to look at how ship to ship combat would work. The conclusion is that it would be “nasty, brutish and short.” While zeppelins were able to take a lot of punishment early in World War I, some zeppelins returning to base with literally a million holes in them, once incendiary ammunition came along they were pretty well driven from the skies. Even if the airships used non-flammable helium, they still seem quite delicate and a properly designed weapon can knock them out of the sky.

Or could they?

It struck me that the presenters hadn't done the math, especially when it comes to accuracy of weapons. What are the chances of a barrage of rockets actually hitting the target at range? Would a single hit by a phosphorus warhead be able to make a large enough hole in the envelope to allow enough of the gas to escape to bring it down? How much recoil would a traditional gun have? Would it affect the airship in the same way that a naval gun causes a ship to roll? Would a gun with sufficient range and effectiveness be too heavy to lift? How big a recoilless rifle could you carry in the gondola?

Lots of math.

I have a number of airship books. What I need to do is put all the airship data into a spread sheet and produce some charts and graphs that one could simply pull information quickly from.

The other thing they realized they could benefit from would be some airship models to describe what was going on during the combat scenario. I have downloaded a number of cardstock models that I have been intending to put together. Most are 1:700 scale but I've been thinking of shrinking them to the 1:1200 scale to match the Dystopian Wars miniatures. They would loose so much details at that size I would probably only be doing them to get a sense of scale for the Dystopian Wars miniatures.

By the time the opening ceremonies got under way, I had already been going to and from numerous panels for nine hours. Things had only just started!

The IAPS had a Temperance Binge and Sewing Circle. Non-alcoholic beverages, sewing projects and “Road to Wellsville” on the screen. Attendees enjoyed that I brought a copy of John Harvey Kellogg's book, the 1895 edition of “Plain Facts for Old and Young.” There was much humor found in reading passages about the evils of “self abuse.”

Saturday

The first program I attended on Saturday morning was “From Ferns to Faeries” which featured an introduction to amateur natural history and a number of artifacts, both historical and fantastical. One object was a bezoar, a smooth felt ball about the size of a grapefruit. In actuality, a hairball from the stomach of a cow. Fairly repulsive when you think about it but now I need to find one because I know someone who would actually appreciate one as a gift.

Following that was a presentation on practical airship skills. I still remember how to tie a zeppelin bend from the presentation at the World Steam Expo.

The naval warfare presentation had a table full of rifles and swords including a Colt Navy 51. The 51, or rather a modern replica, will probably be my next firearm purchase. That is, after I repair my Francotte patent Martini-Henry M1878.

I hadn't eaten all day so I decided that 2:30 was about time to eat something. In the hotel bar I got involved in a conversation with someone who was talking about the “Neutrinos go faster than light” experiment. He didn't seem to understand that the results were probably false because if neutrinos did travel faster than light and the difference was detectable over the small distance of one side of the Earth to the other, then we should be able to detect supernovae by their neutrino emissions before we see them. Since neutrinos have been detected from supernovae concurrently with their visible light observations then neutrinos don't travel faster than light.

It really is as simple as that. But he started talking about “probability waves” in a way inconsistent with the actual definition of probability waves and instead of ordering a burger I ordered some fried cheese in the hopes that my food would arrive more quickly and I could escape the woo sooner.

My hopes were dashed.

I spent a significant amount of money in the dealers' room. I purchased a gearhead trilobite t-shirt from 19 Moons. A TeslaCon 3 t-shirt. A book on Victorian and Edwardian transportation from Crimson Books. I purchased a nice black tie that goes well with my red vest and a very nice red tie that goes with my black vest.

I also picked up the “Stars of Empire” role playing game from the author.

I was approached at one point by Captain Krieger who said that he had heard a rumor that I was the spy of Doctor Proctocus . He said he laughed at the absurdity of such a claim but I told him that I had seen someone walking about the ship pretending to me. He had the same red vest, shirt, walking cane. He was shocked and concerned.

In actuality, it was merely Ryan who had borrowed some of my clothes because we have approximately the same build. He bought his own vest and jacket later but what he could not obtain for himself is my beard. Nor could he grow a beard of his own. To truly cosplay me (which is fairly recursive as I am cosplaying a hero of late 19th Century dime novels) Ryan would need a prosthetic beard.

That would be intriguing.

Euphorbia made sure I took all my copies of Gail Carriger's and George Mann's books to be signed. She got me a copy of “The Immortality Engine” and a second, softcover of “The Osiris Ritual”, not realizing that I already had a copy. Well, they are both signed now.

I completely missed the “Battle of the Levaithans.” because I misread the program. I will need to ask for a link to download it somewhere.

For the IAPS Ribaldry and Recollections party I brought a pony keg of 1919 root beer. It went over very well and I will need to bring two or perhaps even three next year. At $20 a pop, I hope you appreciate it.

My beard was invoked as a plot point of one of the stories being told. I fear my beard may be more famous than I am.

I was sitting in the lobby, partially taking a break but otherwise waiting for anyone I knew to come by to talk to when a gentleman, clearly not from the con, sat down nearby. He had gotten a beer from the hotel bar and, as I expected, asked me what was going on.

Teacher mode on.

I explained steampunk, Victorian science fiction and conventions. He seemed genuinely interested beyond just gawking at the corsetry (though he did his share of that).

He then asked if we smoked marijuana.

I completely missed his pitch and explained that, no, we weren't that type of crowd but, if he was talking about the Victorians, then marijuana was a much later 20th Century drug. Smoking opium was popular in the 19th Century.

A little later, I was in the upper lobby sitting and conversing comfortably with some crew of the Airship Archon when a small group of inebriates came over and sat amongst us as if we knew them. After the obligatory “what is all this” and explanations of steampunk, the guy asked, completely without preamble, if any of us wanted to buy some LSD .It turns out they were the scattered remains of a Grateful Dead concert across the street. (Well, not really the Dead but a band composed of two of the surviving members.)

I got up and distanced myself. I won't go into the full details but there was hotel and con security, bluster, lies out their asses, confrontations in the parking lot and a report to hotel security. To my knowledge there were no arrests.

Sunday

I was up late the night before so I got up late on Sunday, threw on shorts and a t-shirt and rushed to the military uniforms panel. I really should have spent the extra time to put on my aeroship cavalry uniform.

The closing ceremony, the kidnapping of Lady Bobbins by Doctor Proctocus and the announcement that next year we will be traveling to the moon closed out the formalized part of the convention. Then, Lord Bobbins came back out to ask about what we all thought of his convention.

As the audience made commentary and suggestions, I stepped out to have a picture taken. I think it came out very well but the background I chose was too dark and the combination doesn't look very good at all. The electronic version looks a little brighter than the print but it's still pretty dark. There were lighter backgrounds but nothing I thought appropriate. But, in addition to the prints, I will also be able to download a digital copy from the website. This will include the raw image of me in front of a green screen so that I could splice myself onto any background I choose. My intention is to try to find a Civil War studio photograph into which I can place myself.

After getting my picture taken, I returned to the ongoing Q&A session and learned that, as of that time, there were nearly 300 pre-reg for the next year. I have never heard of any convention, anywhere, ever, that sold a third of the next year's tickets before the con was even over. That is absolutely incredible support and I'm glad that I had already signed up the previous day

It was announced that they are working on a smart phone app that will have the program available. Users can select events and have the phone remind them 10 minutes beforehand. A lot of cons would welcome such a thing and, if designed right, will be happily purchased by any convention.

As Lord Bobbins talked about next year's programming, he called me out to be already preparing something for him (the Victorian space ship program I mentioned above). As he talked about the lunar theme and having received his inspiration from “A Trip to the Moon” by George Méliès, I remembered that someone had presented on Méliès at a local SF club meeting. I could get his notes and easily build a presentation on him and his films. And given that Edison had essentially stolen “A Trip to the Moon”, released it in the US and kept Méliès from earning a dime off of it, it would be a perfect opportunity to do some Edison bashing at TeslaCon.

I also want to see if I can get in on other programming. Certainly if the IAPS is doing their Airship Combat panel I could sit at the table rather than merely being in the audience.

After that, things start breaking up pretty quick as people scatter to head for their respective homes. I had driven all night to get to Madison, I was not going to do the same thing twice in one weekend and so I had booked an extra room night allowing me to hang out in the lobby to say goodbye to everyone.

Someone had a stereoscopic lens for his camera. I have a stereoscope and the same camera and had been thinking about getting into some stereoscopic photography so I asked him about the lens. He said they were about $130 and with that I told him that I would probably be ordering one as soon as I got internet connectivity. As I thought on it more and investigated it I came to the conclusion that for about the same price I could buy two cameras and mount them in parallel for about the same price. Doing so would allow me the flexibility to change the separation.

As things finally cleared out, I ended up sitting in the lobby with Ay-Leen the Peacemaker, the Airship Ambassador and Veronique Chevalier. Veronique is working on a book of steampunk haiku that looks to be fun.

At some point I realized that I was going to have a two day work week with Monday off to drive home from Wisconsin and Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving.

Win.

After a few hours of discussion ranging about we went to dinner. There was another group planning on going out but as they scattered and reformed, working on a plan, I decided that I didn't want to go traveling over Madison looking for a place to eat. Whatever they decided, I was just going to eat at the hotel. In the end, they went their way and Ay-Leen, the Ambassador and Veronique decided to eat at the hotel as well.

The general consensus was that the hotel restaurant service over the weekend had been almost adequate. Service was slow, even when the restaurant and bar were not packed. They ran out of a lot of things. Mistakes were made and while they typically simply said that they weren't going to charge for the goofed meal, they didn't seem particularly gracious about it.

Personally I'm not picky about what I eat and the service I get at a con. I typically eat about half as many meals as I should because I am busy con going but if there is one thing I care about is waiting. When I can get fast food across the street I do so because it's quick and cheap.

Next year, TeslaCon will be at a different hotel so we'll have to see how that all works out.

After his dinner with the authors (at a much better restaurant than we had at the hotel), Lord Bobbins returned to the hotel and I had a chance to sit with him for a while as he talked about next year with some others

I know something you don't know! Buwahahahahaha!

Yea, I pretty much heard the whole thing. I won't reveal any of the secret details but I think it's going to be fantastic.

I also learned quite a bit about how things had gone this years and other inner workings of the con. I was able to offer some commentary on how it went from where I stood and a suggestion or two about next year.

I was happy.

I am not an actor. When I am in costume I do not affect a persona but I think I should like to do more. Nothing as over the top as Kapitain von Grelle or Lord Bobbins but I think I could have a good time ratcheting it up a notch or two. Being now a little bit on the inside or at least privy to the plot running in the background I think I could play act a little better even if I am not myself part of the storyline.

I regret not signing up for dinner at the Captain's table.

During the after-the-closing-ceremony commentary session someone asked about a novelization of the story. I think I am a decent writer but have a shortcoming with plot. That is, building a story line beginning, middle and to the end. I have always thought that what I needed was to collaborate with someone.

So, all evening I had been thinking about that and as the evening wound down and Lord Bobbins was preparing to call it a day I screwed up my courage ad told him that I would send him samples of my writing and if he thinks I am any good and if he doesn't have anyone better skilled in line, perhaps I could help to produce the novel (or novella) or whatever. Rather than saying much of a yes or no he started talking about some of the particulars of a minor character. I'm not sure how to interpret that but I will assume something positive. I'll give him a week or so to decompress after the con before I send him anything to read.

That's really kind of scary. More scary than doing more play acting as my persona.

Monday

On the drive home I listed to the Librivox audiobook of H. G. Wells' “The First Men in the Moon.”

Aftermath

Before the end of the week I had heard that pre-reg was up over 400 and they were going to extend the special con price to those that attended the con through December. They are looking to extend the popular dinners with the Captain to brunches as well. Ryan has been getting emails with this information but I haven't. I'll have to figure out how he got on the mailing list so I can get those updates as well. I don't went to miss out on room reservations or dinner at the Captain's table.

Euphorbia wants to attend next year. I'll need to order tickets as soon as they become available.