   Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
So I'm just going to come out and say it: My favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is "Conundrum." It's episode fourteen of season five, and I just deeply love it.
I don't know if it's because I literally just assumed Erich Anderson's Commander McDuff was a random Enterprise officer of the week (which we saw quite often during the show) when I watched it as a kid during the original run, so the twist actually worked on eleven year old me. I don't know if it's because I just like a good "everyone has amnesia" story. I don't even know if it's just because it's a good Ro Laren episode. I don't know if it's just because we learn that Starfleet doesn't give a crap about lasers.
I just like it. It's neat.
And I rewatched it last night, and feel that it holds up -- which is why I found it deeply weird that the folks who wrote the episode actually think it's not that good. My favorite episode of the entire seven season run of the show was a failure according to the folks who wrote it.
And maybe, as a writer and creator, I should remember that.
Like the hardest part of releasing creative works to the public is that often, after a while, I'll start to judge those things far more harshly than when I first made them. Or I'll compare it to the potential I thought an idea had in my head. And if I don't reach that potential, I'll think of it as "bad" -- when it might just be slightly different than that idea. I have one hundred percent published stories that I thought were just sort of okay and later had someone tell me how much it meant to them to read it.
*cough*I Hate November*cough*
So I should make sure I remember Conundrum. That one of my favorite things to rewatch is considered one of those failures by its creators. That the things I make might have value, just not in the way I originally thought they should.
It's just sort of how things work out.
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At one point while volunteering, I was pressed on to take a GoH to a dinner event, held at a restaurant a mile offsite.
When I say “At one point”, I mean my first year attending the con, in a city I’d never been in before, in a small no-frills car with no air conditioning, without owning a GPS. Thankfully for all involved I wasn’t an axe murderer or an idiot, and we made it there and back just fine.
All our GoHs now have Limo service from the airport (not that expensive, really) which has a proven track record: It’s surprisingly affordable, makes quite an impression to start the convention, and is always on-time and prompt for pick-ups.
…and only once was the limo driver unable to find the gigantic downtown convention center, which is someone else’s story to tell.
My old con (and my new con) were/are held in a town an hour’s drive from the nearest airport, so limo service was never really an option.
It was always “who has a car that isn’t embarrassing to look at”
An hour away from airports is pretty ouch, yup. Ours is 20 minutes, which means that you may have to rely on ‘fan with a van’.
Still, Limo service is worth considering. One year, our Guest of Honor (Bill Holbrook) and his daughter arrived at the airport ready to be picked up. His daughter spotted the limo driver with a “Holbrook” sign, and said “Daddy, is that for us?”
Bill replied with “No sweetie, that’s for important people.”
And then the limo driver said “Mr. Holbrook, for Anthrocon?”
His daughter didn;t stop bouncing all trip. 😀
I have heard the unable to find convention center story. And must say from con staff point of view it is kind of funny
Actually, there WAS a local airport a few miles away, but we boycotted it due to the airlines treatment of our very first voice actor guest.
It was embarrassing to drive guests the 1.5 hours it took to get to the con site, but there were benefits as well. All my passengers were from the Dallas/Houston area and I pulled over on a lonely country interchange in western WI (with their permission) so they could see what stars looked like away from any city lights.
Actually, it was that AND we were able to beat the plane to the Twin Cities via car…