On Not Leaving for GenCon
Aug. 14th, 2008 08:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterWell, here I am, at work. I just deleted a two day time-off reservation from our "time block" system.
In some alternate universe, I'm driving up to the airport right now—or maybe I've already been there and am on I-44 en route to St. Louis, streaming tunes from my laptop through the rental car radio. In a few hours, this alternate me will stop in St. Louis, have lunch at Fitz's restaurant (and enjoy their superior draft root beer and cream soda), and then head on down Indianapolis way, to meet my brother and take in GenCon.
But here in the "real world" I'm at work, a bit behind on what I should be doing, and with no prospect of hitting GenCon in sight.
Partly it's that, after soliciting several hundred dollars in contributions to help take care of my sick cat (who died anyway), I feel like it would be asinine to spend that money on my own amusement. Largely, it's that I really don't have that money to spend anyway. It would all go on my credit card, and in a few months I'd do another BioKinetic study to chop away at the credit card debt again, never quite getting it to zero before I found something else I wanted to blow my money on.
And on the whole, I guess I really don't get all that much out of GenCon anyway. It's fun to wander around the dealer room, to be sure, and to meet up with the Harmony Gold Robotech people. And it's a chance to visit with my brother. But I don't do much of the gaming stuff that is the convention's raison d'être. And what with TalkShoe ceasing to pay its radio show hosts, I haven't even done very many of those lately, and there haven't been very many new Robotech developments. And the City of Heroes people aren't going to be there this year either (or so I've heard). So what would I be blowing the rental car fees and all the money I would be spending while at the convention for? Not a lot.
And sometime this spring, a couple of friends in New Hampshire will be holding a reception to celebrate their marriage this year. I haven't seen one of them in person in over ten years, and I've seen the other in person never, and I expect a whole bunch of my other on-line friends will be there. I'm going to have to fly to that, so I need to start saving up the money (or, rather, getting out of credit card debt) now, so I can afford to spend the money (or, more likely, run up more credit card debt) on airfare and the like then. That means making this kind of tough decision.
In the end, I know I'm making the responsible choice, foregoing a convention I'm really not going to miss all that much in favor of a rare chance to get together and meet up with distant friends a little later. But that doesn't mean I won't still feel a few twinges of melancholy at hearing about people having fun there, where I am not.
In some alternate universe, I'm driving up to the airport right now—or maybe I've already been there and am on I-44 en route to St. Louis, streaming tunes from my laptop through the rental car radio. In a few hours, this alternate me will stop in St. Louis, have lunch at Fitz's restaurant (and enjoy their superior draft root beer and cream soda), and then head on down Indianapolis way, to meet my brother and take in GenCon.
But here in the "real world" I'm at work, a bit behind on what I should be doing, and with no prospect of hitting GenCon in sight.
Partly it's that, after soliciting several hundred dollars in contributions to help take care of my sick cat (who died anyway), I feel like it would be asinine to spend that money on my own amusement. Largely, it's that I really don't have that money to spend anyway. It would all go on my credit card, and in a few months I'd do another BioKinetic study to chop away at the credit card debt again, never quite getting it to zero before I found something else I wanted to blow my money on.
And on the whole, I guess I really don't get all that much out of GenCon anyway. It's fun to wander around the dealer room, to be sure, and to meet up with the Harmony Gold Robotech people. And it's a chance to visit with my brother. But I don't do much of the gaming stuff that is the convention's raison d'être. And what with TalkShoe ceasing to pay its radio show hosts, I haven't even done very many of those lately, and there haven't been very many new Robotech developments. And the City of Heroes people aren't going to be there this year either (or so I've heard). So what would I be blowing the rental car fees and all the money I would be spending while at the convention for? Not a lot.
And sometime this spring, a couple of friends in New Hampshire will be holding a reception to celebrate their marriage this year. I haven't seen one of them in person in over ten years, and I've seen the other in person never, and I expect a whole bunch of my other on-line friends will be there. I'm going to have to fly to that, so I need to start saving up the money (or, rather, getting out of credit card debt) now, so I can afford to spend the money (or, more likely, run up more credit card debt) on airfare and the like then. That means making this kind of tough decision.
In the end, I know I'm making the responsible choice, foregoing a convention I'm really not going to miss all that much in favor of a rare chance to get together and meet up with distant friends a little later. But that doesn't mean I won't still feel a few twinges of melancholy at hearing about people having fun there, where I am not.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-15 04:45 am (UTC)Speaking of the vet bills - were you able to get all the costs incurred paid?