I got a photo in the mail yesterday. It was a picture of Jay Maynard (Tron guy) in his Tron outfit. There’s a picture of it over here.

I requested he send me one. He and I met at Penguicon, which was where his costume debuted. When I saw it I thought “Wow. Cool.” Jay and I got a few chances to talk, he sat in on some of my panels, and I remember thinking he was one of the neater people I met at the show.

Imagine my thrill when I found out that his appearance at Penguicon, and his initial LJ entries about it, had rendered him famous. Then I found out he was actually INFAMOUS because there were those who thought the costume was less than flattering on someone of his admittedly middle-aged build.

This bugged me. Hell, he was a NICE GUY who did something very creative to have a GOOD TIME, and he got loads and loads of crap for it. (Granted, he also got to be on TV, so I guess the whole “making lemonade” thing holds up.)

When I was in high-school, kids would occasionally give me crap at parties for not drinking. One belligerently intoxicated 18-year-old went so far as to tell me I was ruining his party, when all I’d been doing was laughing and joking with others while NOT having beers myself. At that party, one of my friends, who ALSO happened to be drunk, strolled up to this plastered troll and explained in no uncertain terms that if he saw ANYBODY giving Howard crap about not drinking, they’d have him to answer to.

It’s one thing to stand by your principles and be persecuted for it. It’s another thing entirely to endure persucution knowing that friends of yours will interpose themselves, even if they don’t share your beliefs.

Jay, thanks for the picture. I’m going to sit down and ink a “cartoon” version of it, and pop that in the mail to you. You’re a great guy, and all the trolltards in the world can’t change that.

–Howard

Last night I met with the Fandemonium guys at the TA Truckstop restaurant in Boise. Borneo, Ogredude, Eldon, and Bizzybody all joined me for a nice 1am dinner/breakfast. We talked about the ‘con, I exchanged some artwork for dinner, and we basically had a good time. I was pretty punchy after 6 hours on the road (I left Provo at 5pm, and arrived in Boise at 11:15) so there were lots of laughs.

I didn’t get enough sleep, though. I got to the house at 2:15, and the sneezy, snorky, allergic-to-the-cousins’-cat kids in the room with me kept me up until almost 4am. Then at 7am I popped awake. Bleah.

I made a couple of phone calls, and then at 10am joined Preston and Daniel, a couple of Boise-area Schlockers for 9 holes of disc golf at Ann Morrison park. The park is gorgeous, the course is great, and my game was atrocious. Sandra and Link joined us, and we had fun, but it was pretty frustrating for me. I watched a few of the locals play, and realized their drives looked a lot like what mine USED to look like before I had to switch hands. Then I just got frustrated because the course was too challenging for my limited ability.

After the game we went to Panda Express for lunch. Preston treated, and got a schlock-ish caricature of himself in return. I drew one for Daniel, too. We had a good time talking about stuff, and they enjoyed watching me draw. (At least I THINK they did. They were attentive, anyway.) I dropped a few hints about upcoming story stuff, but I’m not dropping those here because you guys didn’t come disc golfing with me or take me to lunch. Sorry.

And now, it’s nap time.

Turboschlock does at least 120mph.

I arrived safely in Boise.

There is a God who watches over damfools.

Sandra and the kids are headed up to Boise for a “cousins party.” They left around noon, and in the nice, quiet house I reviewed a few hundred pages of Product Requirements, and drilled into 60 of them.

I’m ready for them to come home now. This place is too quiet.

I had planned to spend the weekend on the Buffer-Fu, but the more I think about it, the more I’d rather throw me and a change of clothes into Turboschlock and drive to Boise. Sadly, I can’t do that until Friday afternoon, because I’m reviewing a few hundred pages of Product Requirements with my team in an all-day meeting tomorrow.

The way I figure it, without the family around it’ll be a non-productive weekend ANYWAY. I might as well spend 10 hours in my car so I can spend a day or so with them. And while I’m at it, there’s a really cool Disc Golf course in Boise…

–Howard