Brain Dump

So, the Great Summer Road Trip. It’s mostly dependent upon three things:

1. Having a serious summer break at some point. One with 10+ weeks in it during which I have no responsibilities. This may be rough since it means I might not be able to do it during the break between under-grad and graduate studies, since I’ll likely have to move somewhere in there.

2. Having a car that is not the Charade. Don’t get me wrong, I like the Charade. It’s a dang good car, and it’s been worth way more than I paid for it. I mean, $900 in cash, and I haven’t taken it into the shop in the three years I’ve been driving it? Totally sweet. The fuel economy is also great.

3. A network of people to stay with. I’m poor, and no way I can afford to spend ten weeks in even the seediest of hotels. All my money is likely going to be going to gas and food.

Someone, maybe , suggested that since it’s unlikely that I’ll find someone willing to commit their entire summer wandering around aimlessly with me, that I could draft people for limited periods of time. I pointed out that this would require me to go everywhere twice, once to pick up companions and once to return them. It was then suggested to me that I take advantage of natural travel hubs. And in the world of geeks I live in, that means conventions!

So, here’s the general plan: find seven to ten cons, no more than two weeks separating any of them. Then find people going to said cons. Work out a deal to meet people at the con, hang with them for the duration, then drive them home and hang there while I recuperate. Drive either to the next con, or to another house with intent to take that person to some con. And so on for the summer.

At the moment I’m running into some problems. First of all, I don’t know of seven to ten major cons over the summer that I want to attend. Second, even if I find cons running, I need to make sure they’re near people I want to visit. I mean, where’s the fun in going to a bunch of cons on the east coast when I want to visit people in Canada, or in California? No fun at all.

So, if you’d be up for a visit from me some summer, and you know of a local con (or really, even if you don’t), let me know. I suppose I could always just show up at your place. It’s pretty difficult to turn down someone who’s going to sleep in their car if you don’t let them in, but then I’d feel manipulative.

Anyway, I figure if I start planning now, I might actually have a workable plan in place in the event that this coming summer is open for this thing…

Thomas

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 5th, 2006 at 08:51 and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.