Rush Hour

            On my way home from a convention today, I found myself being passed on the highway by every other vehicle. Not just the occasional ones that is normal for me – usually there’s a mix of some passing me, me passing a few, and most going the same speed as me – but all the other vehicles. I wasn’t driving slower than usual, but I did realize this was rush hour. And I started to wonder why it was that everyone was in such a hurry that they would risk speeding tickets (and not small ones, either).

I figure that part of the reason is that most people don’t know how useless speeding actually is. If I look back to times I was in a particular hurry, I found that at the fastest speed I was willing to drive (admittedly not all that much over the speed limit – what can I say? My parents owned a driving school when I was growing up) I managed to shave a whole five minutes off a drive of more than an hour. That’s really not worth the trouble.

But then, I realized, it was unlikely that these people were all on a schedule to get somewhere. Not in the evening. They were most likely going home. So many people, rushing to get home – risking speeding tickets and, judging by the speed, the potential to lose their licences to get home.

            And I realized that what was most important to them was the feeling of getting home as fast as possible – the feeling that they had stolen a few more moments to spend time with their family, work on personal projects, play video games, or do whatever it was they want to do with their lives.

            So many people feel like they don’t have enough time in their lives – and let’s face it: they don’t. There are some extraordinary people out there who can balance professional and personal lives and be perfectly happy, but I don’t think the average person can. Otherwise, why would so many people daily risk the severe consequences of driving dangerously just to scrape a few more moments of time to themselves?

            It seems that I have added yet another reason to my belief that the average work weekshould be cut in half (with the economy adjusted to accommodate it). Not only would it improve mental health, make people happier overall, and increase the number of jobs for the workforce, but it would make people safer drivers because they wouldn’t feel like they had to rush around to have enough time to spend on what they want to do.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

In Praise of Con Organizers

            I'm just back from a fantastic weekend at ConBravo! where there were loads of friendly people. Lots of them liked chainmaille, too, which was a plus for me.

            I could spout about how wonderful the convention experience is, but you've heard it all before – at least if you've read my previous blog posts about them. Instead, today I’ll tell you about the people who run them.

            Fan-run conventions vary in size, but the popular ones inevitably grow. The amount of work that has to go into one is monstrous – panels, guests/celebrities, artists, vendors and volunteers all need to be organized and coordinated. The location has to be secured and paid for, contracts written and signed. Security must be arranged, marketing needs to be done, and far more that I either can’t think of right now or don’t know about.

            All of this is done by a handful of people and they usually don’t even get paid for it – more often than not, they’re spending money to make the convention happen. Whenever something goes wrong, no matter how big or small, these are the people who get harried about it until it’s fixed. They’re on their feet, running around, making sure everything runs smoothly for the entire convention, not even able to enjoy the product of their hard work (I had one of them visit me on the only break they could steal and tell me that if anyone asked, she wasn't there).

            Yet, these same people do this again and again, year after year – sometimes even multiple shows every year! The ones I've talked to say they’d like to eventually make their living at it, but until that’s possible it’s just a lot of hard work for other people to have all the fun.

            So here’s a shout-out to all those con organizers out there. You people are extraordinary and, I must say, more than a little crazy. Keep up the great work – I hope you get all the appreciation you deserve.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.