Current mood:	grateful
Current music:	Mythbusters on TV

GaFilk Report
GaFilk report

Well, it has been a long time since I posted anything. Maya and I just got home from GaFilk. We had an absolute blast. I can’t thank the concom enough for inviting us, and for their warmth and kindness while we were there.

We decided not to bring the girls with us, because we’re taking them to the UK in a couple of weeks, and we didn’t want Kris to miss any more school than she’s already going to. My Mom and Dad came down to San Jose ton Wednesday to stay with them. Our house has no guest room, and my folks stayed in our bedroom, so we decided to book a room at a hotel near the airport Wednesday night. Our flight was scheduled to leave before 7 AM, so we figured it would be easiest all around. It also meant we could leave our car at the hotel, which saved the cost of five days of airport parking.

We got up bright and early (as in 4 AM) on Thursday, and took the shuttle to the airport. At the ticket counter, we hit our first snag. I gave the agent our names, and after a few minutes of furious typing and frowning on his part, I began to suspect that something was wrong. Finally he looked up and asked what our connecting city was supposed to be. My itinerary said we had a non-stop to Atlanta. He told me there was no non-stop – hmmm. A few more minutes of typing revealed we were scheduled for an 11:50 flight with one stop. Apparently all the schedules had changed at the beginning of the year, and we didn’t get the memo. We weren’t too keen on hanging out at the airport for 5 hours waiting, but yet another round of keyboard bashing got us onto a 6 AM flight to Salt Lake City, with a connection to Atlanta. By now it was after 5:30, so we made a mad dash through security (well, okay, more of a mad crawl, but we got through). Once we got to Salt Lake, we had a bit of a layover. I went to the special room for guys, and on my way back to our gate, I saw a tall woman with long curly dark hair who was holding a guitar case. I was pretty sure it was Char McKay, whom I had met at Consonance this past year. She had her back to me, so I wasn’t completely sure. I stepped in front or her, but she was wearing wrap-around dark glasses, so I still had some doubts. Throwing my natural reticence to the wind I said “Hi Char?” She peered down at me (I’m not very tall), took off her glasses and looked extremely puzzled. “Um, I’m Jeff, we met at Consonance…” At this point, I figured either she wasn’t Char at all, or was but had no recollection of ever having met me. “Oh, hi! I can barely see, I just had laser surgery on my eyes, and my vision is pretty blurry right now.” As you’ve probably guessed, she was also on her way to Atlanta. We chatted for a few minutes and then boarded the plane. We arrived in Atlanta about an hour later than our original itinerary indicated. I wasn’t too concerned, because our plan was to take a shuttle from the airport to the hotel. Once we got to the baggage collection area (after a looong train ride – Hartsfield is huge), we camped out at the carousel to play the luggage lottery. I’m pretty relaxed about flying with our guitars, but I do get a little nervous waiting for them to appear at the end of a flight. One variable from airport to airport is whether they’ll show up with the rest of the luggage, or in the oversize area, so you have to keep an eye on both. While Char and Maya and I waited, Bill Sutton showed up looking really relieved. Like us, he had not been notified of our flight change, and had been waiting for over an hour for a non-existent flight. He told us that the guitars would show up in the oversize area, so he and Maya went over there, while I waited for the suitcases. Once everything was safely collected, we hopped onto the shuttle and headed for the hotel. I love arriving at a con hotel, and meeting dear friends I hardly get to see. Brenda was there, and so were ohiblather and autographedcat. I also met Mark Bernstein. The requisite hugs were exchanged, and after we dropped our stuff off in our room, we went to dinner with Bill, Brenda, Char, Debbie, Rob and Mark. We had a great time catching up, and getting to know bedlamhouse, Brenda, Mark and Char better. They’re all delightful people.

Friday morning we hooked up with Sandy and Gerry Tyra for breakfast. They broke the big news that they’ll be coming back to California from Texas in a few weeks. Yay!! After breakfast, I sat down for a visit with ohiblather, Jodi Krangle and runnerwolf. Debbie pulled out a piece of paper and begged me to draw a picture. I have the drawing ability of the average three year old, so I was a little reluctant (and suspicious). I tried to get out of it but she kept wheedling “But it’s for Interfilk!” She drew a 2” x 2” square in one corner of the paper, and a I drew a pathetic little cat face. I assumed that the rest of the paper would be filled with drawings from other guests, and then auctioned off. Sadly, I was mistaken, but more on that later. Maya and I then ran out with the Tyras to pick up some things that Maya and Sandy had forgotten to bring. Gerry also decided to get an LCD display for the computer on his sound system. What should have been a 45 minute errand turned into a 3 hour detour as we vainly searched for a Costco, Best Buy, or any other electronics retailer that might have what he needed. We finally found joy at a Staples and got back to the hotel in plenty of time for Opening Ceremonies. We grabbed a quick dinner with Rand and erinwrites. It was nice to meet and get to know her a little bit. Rand is incredibly bright and articulate, and Erin is a perfect match for him. We chatted about music and song writing for a while and then headed back for the opening ceremonies. The concom really did a nice job decorating the main performance room – it looked like a New Year’s Eve party. I had a quick chat with Teresa Powell and her daughter Carly. Brenda had arranged for me to borrow Carly’s Les Paul guitar for our set, and I think Carly wanted to check out the guy who was going to borrow her baby. We had a nice chat about the bands we like (surprisingly very much the same), and agreed to meet Saturday morning so I could get used to the guitar and amp. After the ceremony, Tom Smith did a set to his customary rousing response. On my way out of the main room, I had a look at the auction table for Interfilk. One item from ohiblather in particular caught my eye. She had created an “Unauthorized Biography of Jeff Bohnhoff”, complete with pictures from our infamous Photoshop war of a few years back and a refrigerator magnet. The text was, um interesting, to say the least. It included a certificate of authenticity signed by Debbie, and another certificate authenticating the first certificate, signed by Maya, the traitor ☺. Our intent was to get to bed at a fairly reasonable hour, so we’d be fresh for our concert the next evening, but of course the filking was so good that fun overrode reason, and we stayed up until about 2 AM.

Saturday morning we decided that a trip to the South would not be complete unless we had breakfast at the Waffle House at least once. The only problem was deciding which one to go to. There were two Waffle House restaurants, each about 3 blocks from the hotel on either side. I think there’s a state law mandating Waffle House density. We randomly decided to turn right, and walked over to the restaurant. Just after we seated ourselves at a cozy table for two, Char and Dave Rood showed up. There were no larger tables available, so we did what good fen do, we squeezed in. We had a nice visit, and firmed up our arteries – who could ask for more? When we got back to the hotel, we hit the dealer room. I picked up some CDs I’ve been meaning to get for a while, including Ookla’s Less Than Art 10th Anniversary reissue, and Carla Ulbrich’s Sick Humor. I also bought Mary Crowell’s Courting My Muse. After that I hooked up with Carly and got the guitar and amp. I ran up to our room with them, and did a quick check, so I could back downstairs for the afternoon concerts. Brian Richardson, our Toastmaster, gave a presentation on the Dragon Con video projects he’s involved with. He showed a bunch of short films and clips. Most of them were absolutely hilarious, and his commentary was incredibly witty. After Brian the Interfilk guests, Brobdingnagian Bards did their set. They were a lot of fun, lots of fun Celtic stuff with a large dollop of schtick. Particular highlights included two different Jedi drinking songs. After the Bards, there were a series of 2 x 10 (2 songs by 10 minutes) concerts. There was tons of really good stuff, including the likes of filkerdave, nimuejohn, markbernstein and many others. After the concerts, we did a thorough sound check with Gerry. With everything tweaked and set, we got dressed for the GaFilk banquet. The banquet was fantastic. The food was really good, everyone got dressed up, and the house band was awesome. They could easily have played a top jazz club. Jody Krangle, Mary Crowell and Teresa Powell shared the vocals. Their three part harmonies were astonishing. Their blend was perfect and the delivery was smooth as silk. The rest of the band was just as good, with Mary on keyboards, Dave Rood on trumpet, two sax players, Carly on guitar, and Brian Richardson playing solid drums. Maya and I were the first ones on the dance floor, and I also danced with ohiblather, Char and Brenda. Fortunately, I didn’t step on anyone’s toes, and Debbie even managed the hard to land quadruple spin. About a half hour before the end of the banquet, we slipped back to our room to change into something a little less formal for our concert. We opened with Baba McDonalds. It’s the song where I needed Carly’s electric rig. Normally, Maya and I try to recreate the songs we parody with just acoustic guitar and percussion, but Baba O”Riley just didn’t work. I pre-recorded a backing track with the synthesizer, piano, bass and drums, and it’s the one song where I play electric on stage. After that, we stuck with our usual acoustic setup. I do a couple of songs in open G tuning, and Brenda loaned me a very nice Martin so I could avoid retuning in the middle of our set. At dinner Thursday night, Bill and I talked about the Martin vs. Taylor debate among some players. Maya and I both play Taylor’s, but I like Martins just fine too. Bill called me a “guitar Unitarian” ☺. At any rate, the universe didn’t turn itself inside out when I used both on stage. Our concert went pretty well- no decaying vegetation was hurled in our direction. After our set, the Interfilk auction got started. It was the usual Interfilk madness, with wenching, triumph, defeat, laughter, tears and lots of money raised for Interfilk. Maya and I contributed a CD with a recording of Wil’s Song, my parody of vixyish’s Mal’s Song. I actually used the backing tracks for Vixy and tfabris’s upcoming recording of the song, with Maya’s vocals. Taunya Huff ended up with the winning bid, which was cool. After that, lots more great filking with Rand, Erin, Bill and Brenda, and lots of others. Maya got Rand to sing Hollywood Ending from Ookla’s o ok la album. We got to bed about 3:30.

Sunday was pretty low key. We got up too late for breakfast, so we had lunch at Ruby Tuesday with Char. The closing ceremonies were nice, Bill was given a standing ovation for his 10 years of service chairing GaFilk, and the torch was officially passed to autographedcat. A bunch of us went out to dinner at the Steak & Ale, and then we did the Dead Dog. Some highlights included erinwrites singing a song, filking with Taunya Huff, and just generally soaking in the atmosphere. We also had a nice chat with filker0 out in the hall for awhile.

Monday we pretty much spent the day hanging out with Bill and Brenda. They gave us lots of great tips for our UK visit, and we chatted about music and lots of other stuff. We had lunch at the Barbecue Kitchen (everyone had the barbecue pork platter, (although I was the rebel in the group and had biscuits instead of corn bread). Maya was thrilled to get some good barbecue. We wandered back to the hotel and hung out in the lobby until it was time to catch our flights. After our experience with schedule changes on the way to Atlanta, I checked the schedule online several times to make sure our flight still existed. It was a good thing I did, because it was now almost an hour earlier than my itinerary said. When we got to the airport, I decided to try a self-help kiosk to check in. I put in a credit card, and it came up empty. Not to worry, I had the confirmation number on my phone. I entered that – still no joy. Uh oh. I went to the service desk, where I was told that our return trip to San Jose had been canceled by the travel agent, and we’d have to buy tickets. Major sinking feeling at this point – a one way ticket the day of the flight was bound to be expensive. We schlepped over to the main ticket counter, where a very friendly lady did her typing mojo. She figured out what had happened. When the agent way back in San Jose had changed our flight (you do remember back that far right?), he disconnected our return. She managed to reconnect us. While she was pulling off this feat of customer service magic, Bill and Brenda showed up. They had been dropping off their rental car. We went through security, and spend a last few minutes hanging out over a snack in the terminal. We finally tore ourselves away and went to our gate. There was a really long line of people waiting to speak to an agent – definitely a bad sign. Just as we got into line, they announced that there was a “mechanical” with our scheduled plane. Apparently the word “problem” is off limits. He said they were bringing another plane from the hangar, but it would take a little extra time. The catch was, it was a sold out flight, but the new plane had 10 fewer seats. Because of our cancellation snafu, Maya and I didn’t have seat assignments yet, so I knew we’d be first on the chopping block if they didn’t get 10 volunteers to take a flight the next day. We sweated for about 45 minutes, until they announced that they had enough volunteers. Another bullet dodged ☺.
Anyway, GaFilk was wonderful! Now it’s time to start packing for the UK!