Okay, here’s the deal: I’m one of five Guests of Honor at Linucon October 8th through 10th in Austin, TX. One of the volunteer slots still open is “GoH Liason for Howard Tayler.”

We’re looking for local volunteers. We have a couple of attendees already available for this position, but both of them have lots of other things to do, and neither of them are locals. They’re also both good friends of mine, and won’t be put out one bit if they don’t get picked for this job. In fact, we’ll probably be more likely to REMAIN good friends if they don’t get picked for this job. Especially Chalain, who is twice the genius I am, and secretly despises me for my fame and wealth.

(note: there is no actual wealth, and there’s little enough fame to speak of)

Here are the requirements:
1) You need to be registered for the Con, and sign up as a volunteer with Lisa.
2) I’m going to be really, really, REALLY busy with panels, business meetings for Schlock, business meetings for Novell, drawing stuff for fans, etc. You need to have the kind of administrative skills to get me from place to place without panicking.
3) You need to be an Austin local, preferably with a car, so that if I hand you $20 and send you off in search of sushi, or maybe geisha girls, you’ll stand at least even odds of succeeding in your quest.
4) I’m kidding about the geisha girls
5) You need to be comfortable using a walkie-talkie.
6) You should not suck up to me, brown-nose, or otherwise employ subservient obsequiety. It’s okay if you’re in awe of my work, and it’s okay if you’re not. Just don’t drool, or spit. We’ll both act like professionals, and I’ll treat you like a friend. Honest. That’s the kind of guy I am.

The only compensation I’m aware of is that you’ll get your Con registration fee comped or refunded. You’ll likely need to be staying at the hotel, and I doubt that can be comped. This really is a hard-core VOLUNTEER position. I’m not sure why anybody would want it. I will see to it that you get original, custom artwork in a timely manner (unlike the several people to whom I STILL owe originals.)

If you’ve read this far and are still interested, email me a short resume/bio, and tell me why you think you’d be good at this.

–Howard

Gee, I’ve left comments on down below. I have no idea what you people are going to talk about in regard to this post, but feel free to talk about it.

Sometimes I feel guilty when I schedule stuff like this. And then I remember that as much as I love my family, the salary Novell is paying me is sufficient that they DO deserve some serious claims on my time… especially when something important comes up.

My travel schedule just picked up an extra week of bookings — two trips in one week. That means that between September 10th and September 29th, I’ll be at home for roughly (tapping on calculator while looking at calendar) four days. Give or take a few hours.

Yuck.

THIS is why I hammer on the buffer the way I do. This is also why RIGHT NOW I’m booking two days of vacation immediately following the last trip, and why I’ll be pressing to get an additional three the week following. Sure, the salary means they get to drag me all over the planet, but I also accumulate 9 hours of vacation time every pay period, and that means my family gets to drag me back.

–Howard

p.s. I’ll post details later, but right now it looks like I may have free cycles in NYC on the evening of the 21st of September, and maybe in the afternoon and evening in Montreal on the 22nd.

I’m sure I didn’t INVENT this, but this is definitely the first time I’ve done it.

A caricature is a representation in which the subject’s distinctive features or peculiarities are deliberately exaggerated to produce a comic or grotesque effect.

Typcially you see it as a real person reduced to something more detailed and exaggerated than a comic-strip character, but certainly less realistic than a photo.

A reverse caricature, per my own definition, is when you take a cartoon character, assume you know what the REAL person from which those features were oversimplified looks like, and strike some middle ground.

Like this:

My Grandmother came to town about a week ago, and is headed back to DC first thing tomorrow. She looks a lot better (a LOT better) than she did when I saw her in July, and I’m super-glad she got to come out here. She got to get piled on by great-grandkids, plied with food she can no longer really digest, and kept up late by enthusiastic nieces and nephews of three generations.

She was in town for her sister’s 90th birthday, and and accompanying reunion. It was heartwarming to see everybody (or at least a sizeable fraction of “everybody”) together for the assorted events.

This afternoon Grandma came over to our place, went to church with us (so that she could sleep through my Sunday School lesson), and joined us for dinner before heading up to SLC. I’m a little sad because I know she’s got a very limited amount of time left here on Planet Earth*, and I may not have a chance to get back to see her before she’s gone for good. But this was a good time, and we got lots of pictures, so I’m chalking the melancholy up to “things I can’t change” and just focusing on the happiness we’ve shared in the last few days.

–Howard
*Note: If you don’t believe in an afterlife, feel free to believe that my Grandma is a space alien and the mothership will be coming to take her away, thus preserving the truth in my comment about “Planet Earth.”