Getting Healthier, One leap at a time (and a bounce, and a leap, and a bounce...)

Please note, I have an online journal at LiveJournal (Netmouse). That's the best place to keep regular tabs on me. But here's some assorted news and plans, most current on top:

• Having gained sole ownership of my car near the end of 2007, in 2008 I proceeded to buy his share of my house from my ex and get that much closer to financial separation (and fiscal panic, but I'm trying to fight that down). I was pleased to attend ConFusion in January as the Guest of Honor liaison for Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier, and also to meet authors Doselle Young and Patrick Rothfuss, who are both beautiful people I hope to get to know more later. At ConFusion I accepted a request for my services at Anticipation, the Worldcon in Montreal in 2009; I will be Neil Gaiman's GoH liaison there. At this year's Worldcon, Denvention, I will be the onstage/backstage assistant to the MC at the Masquerade, as well as taking pictures for the opening photo display at the Hugo Awards, and possibly helping with the Hugo Award ceremony in other ways. Between now and then I am attending Penguicon, Marcon, and Apollocon, at the last of which I will be the Fan Guest of Honor. I am also the ConChair for next year's ConFusion, so let me know if you'd like to get involved.

• In late 2007 I went to the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society's annual meeting the first week of October in Baltimore, and also to Smofcon in Boston in December. The weather was warmer in October but the reception among friends was warmer at Smofcon, on the whole. Plus it was good to see more of Boston. I continued to dance, and to work both as a human factors engineer (say what?) for Soar Technology and as a science fiction proofreader and reviewer for Subterranean Press, and also added on being a part time plasma physicist for ElectroDynamic Applications, up through the end of December when Soar Technology laid me off and I started to spend more time at EDA. I also started taking Ballet in addition to Modern and Jazz/lyrical for the winter term, which has been an exciting challenge.

• I had a good time at Penguicon in April of 2007 despite the fact that my grandmother was in the process of dying that week. Everyone's support has been greatly appreciated. Over the course of the year I saw more of my relatives on dad's side of the family than I had any year previous that I could remember. It was especially nice seeing my aunt and uncle who live in Hawaii and who only make it to the mainland once every three years, normally, but who came twice in 2007, staying at my house the second time for four days. I like hosting visitors.

• 2007 was a year of renewed fitness for me. I joined a Co-ed soccer team, the Red Devils, playing at WideWorld Sports - an indoor league that's went off for the summer and that I failed to join again in in the fall. I also joined the Ann Arbor YMCA and I'm generally working on getting back in shape and improving my general health. Between December and May I lost 20 lbs. I've been watching my diet and also taking daily vitamins and supplements, of which fish oil and chromium picolinate seem to help keep my hypoglycemia symptoms down, and L-Lysine seems to prevent recurrences of the herpes I've had since 1995. I wish I'd started taking all of those a lot earlier in my life, but I'm enjoying the health stability of taking them now. I ran in the Dexter-Ann Arbor 5K Run on June 3rd, and in the Big Heart Big House run in September, and I started taking dance classes at the Dance Gallery Studio here in Ann Arbor. Pilates has also been a great core strengther for me since August of 2006.

• It has been a very busy year. Among other things, I learned how to ride a motorcycle and got licensed to do so. Here is me on a friend's bike in July:
  

  
• I was on the AASFA Board of directors most of 2006 but stepped down in January of 2007. I'm still the President of the SFOHA board of directors and I was elected to serve as the Stilyagi social director for 2007. Proofing Emerald City ended when Cheryl retired the 'zine in September of 2006. I am both proofing and writing book reviews for Bill Schafer at Subterranean Press as a sideline in addition to my job as a Human Factors Engineer at Soar Technology. I traveled a lot in October, both for work (to the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Meeting and the Augmented Cognition and Army Science Conferences) and as a participant in the SF community (to Mike Ford's memorial and the World Fantasy Convention).

In August and September I had a couple visits with my husband Bill out at the Appalachian Trail, which he re-started hiking southbound (SoBo) in June after a stress fracture in his foot healed. He finished doing the entire trail SoBo (repeating the part of the trail he'd done northbound in March and April) as of December 13. He came home a few days later with an itch to get a cat, so he got a 1-year-old female calico. I enjoyed having her around between then and when Bill and the cat moved to Chicago in March, 2007.
• I was in the comedy troupe Monkey Rampant from April through September, but that group went on hiatus while the director adjusted to having a baby in his life (his son was born in January, 2007). We are starting up again: our revival performance will be at the Dreamland Theater in Ypsilant, MI on August 31, 2007.
• I attended Balticon 40 over Memorial Day weekend as an at-con assistant for Neil Gaiman and truly enjoyed the opportunity to meet Peter S. Beagle and Lisa Snellings. In June I attended a couple conventions for work in Traverse City and San Diego, and the Locus Awards weekend in Seattle where I again assisted Neil at the Locus Awards and the Science Fiction Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Science Fiction Museum. I got to meet David Marusek and hang out with Adam and Betsy Stemple and David G. Hartwell, which was nice, as was seeing Liza Trombi and Charles M Brown of Locus and laughing along with Connie Willis and Gardner Dozois. The other point of being in Seattle was that I got to see Caro and Eric and their new baby Samantha, and see Blade and Eleri and Miri. That was wonderful. Caro is one of my bestest friends and I wish we lived closer though we never have.

• 2006 started out well. Bill decided to hike the appalachian trail and I supported his decision to do so. Our friend Laura moved in with us just before Bill headed out onto the trail, so the place had more of a boarding house/college dorm feel for a while (she moved out again in July). I went down to Aggiecon in March and had a nice time with friends Steven Brust and Reesa Brown. ConFusion and Penguicon both seemed like successful cons.
• Well, last summer after we decided not to go to Interaction (worldcon) I briefly enjoyed not being on any convention committees. That lasted a fair while, but I was eventually recruited for two. I built a new web site for Synthetic ConFusion and MC-ed the roast of ConFusion's fan GoH, Chuck Firment, and I was the Guest Liaison Wrangler and the Liaison to Chris DiBona for Penguicon 4.0, where I also performed again onstage as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I also attended Windycon in November of 2005 and had a great time, though I came home with a coughing laryngitis that stayed with me for months. I'm a huge Bill Holbrook fan, and he was their artist GoH, so I was geeked about meeting him. If you've never read it, you should check out his comic strip Kevin & Kell.

• In summer of 2005 I also took a bunch of non-convention-related trips. I went to Vegas for HCII and visited with my friend Steven Brust. Later in the fall I caught up with Steven again in Minneapolis, where I enjoyed the ren fest, and then went on to Chicago to see Neil Gaiman at his reading and signing. I also got a chance to visit with our friend Laura Hewitt, which was really overdue. In between those two trips, Bill and I took a much-needed long weekend trip to Bar Harbor, Maine. I haven't got all the pictures up yet, but here are a few in Acadia National Park. My favorite one of me and Bill is this one:

  

• I attended Minicon in March 2005 and had a great time. It was good to go back. I was Cory Doctorow's guest liaison at Penguicon 3.0 in April, where I also performed as Buffy in a live shadowbox performance of "Once More With Feeling", the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That was also a terrific weekend. The weekend after that I went to Chicago to be Neil Gaiman's guest liaison for the Nebulas. I'm sure you can imagine what a dreadful chore that was (not). Then at the end of May I went to Wiscon, following a trip to Arizona to attend a workshop (Human Factors of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, if you were curious). I extended that trip to a week so I could visit my brother David and his family and other relatives and friends. I feel like I've had my fill of travel for a while.

• I got a new job! I am now working as a Human Factors Engineer at Soar Technology. Not only am I doing work directly related to my master's degree (Systems Design Engineering), I'm also working at a place where a fairly large contingent of the employees are fannish. I started January 31, 2005 and I'm still very optimistic that this is a good fit for me.

• January 20-23, 2005 I was the Chair of 31 Flavors of ConFusion. It went really well! I was pleased. I have been Chair two years in a row and am now stepping down to avoid burnout. Thank you to everyone who helped make this year a wonderful convention. If you haven't seen it yet, check out our one-hour one-shot fanzine, 59 Minutes of ConFusion.
  

• I bought a new car! It's a spice red 2004 Volkswagon Jetta GL 4-door. I've had it since late December and am so far very pleased.

• In November of 2004 we went to Chicago and I assisted Neil Gaiman at the Chicago Humanities Festival. Lucy Litteral took a nice picture of us, so I thought I'd share:
  

• Bill and I went to Noreascon Four in Boston for Labor Day weekend. It was terrific fun. (I was again acting as Neil Gaiman's assistant. We also helped run lots of SFOHA activities. And Emerald City, which I proofread, won the Hugo award for best Fanzine!)

  After the convention I wrote up some Notes on Neil-Handling as a reference for other people who take on that task.

• July 31 to August 2nd, I was Neil Gaiman's liaison at Mythcon 35, here in Ann Arbor. I had the privilege of introducing Neil at the Banquet on Sunday.

• Bill and I traveled south to Jacksonville, Florida at the end of June 2004 to visit my sister Sarah. Here's us in Savannah, GA:
  And here are more pictures (site still under construction).

Contacting Me

The email address I most commonly use is a gmail account with the username of akgmurphy.