The Color of my Home

[tfabris]

As I write this, I'm sitting in the middle of the Interfilk auction at OVFF, surrounded by friends and chosen family, and I couldn't be happier. The weekend isn't even half over and it's already been an intense time filled with fantastic musical experiences. But let me back up a bit, since I need to catch up with other news first... One week ago, Vixy and I spent a fantastic weekend as guests of honor at Vcon, in Vancouver, BC. They took incredibly good care of us and made sure we had a wonderful time. We wanted for nothing, everything was taken care of for us. We met wonderful people, and were on panels and shared a concert with Martin Springett and Peter Beagle. Martin's music was especially inspiring, and he also gave us the gift of turning us on to the musical comedy of Bill Bailey. Thank you so very much to the Vcon concom, and to Cindy Turner specifically, for having us there as their guests. Day before yesterday, I bid adieu (for now, at least), to Microsoft, as my one-year contract is up. (Side note: Does anyone have a link to a clear and concise explanation of the Volt 100-day break?) Now, I'm in the position of needing to find IT work again; preferably a permanent place I can settle into, but a 100-day contract would suffice, too. I'm interviewing at places, and had a really good interview on Thursday (at a company I really want to work for), so I've got my fingers crossed. That brings us to tonight at OVFF. I'm now in posession of my first Pegasus award, for co-writing Emerald Green with Vixy. Thank you so much to everyone who voted, and congratulations to the other category winners, some of whom are our good friends. I would like to extend a particular thank you to Mary Crowell, who played an amazing piano part on the song last night, after only one lightning-fast rehearsal. I'm certain that her great performance on the song was a factor in the voting, since many of the ballots are cast right there at the Pegasus concert. For those who were there, just wait until you hear Alisa Garcia's equally wonderful (but completely different) piano part on the final studio recording, you will be blown away. That's all for now. Back to the auction. Vixy and Tony will be at the following places in the near future: Orycon, Weekend of November 16th, 2007, Portland, OR. ConFlikt, Weekend of Jan 25th, 2008, Seattle, WA. Consonance, Weekend of March 7th, 2008, Milpitas, CA. Norwescon, Weekend of March 21st, 2008, Seattle, WA. FilKONtario, Weekend of April 4th, 2008, Toronto. We are the Guests of Honor! GeekHackFilk.com

Comments

[persis.livejournal.com]

*hugsyoutight* and more congratulations.

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

Hey. Pay attention, you're supposed to be doing auction-accounting-duty-type-things.

I see you back there. :-)

*HUGS* thank you!

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

>>[To Persis] Hey. Pay attention, you're supposed to be doing auction-accounting-duty-type-things.

I see you back there. :-)<<

BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!! Shoulda known this would happen one day, sooner or later... Soon there'll be a critical mass of laptops at Interfilk auctions and it'll all go silent; everyone will just post bids on the LJ pages.

Seriously, though, dude, congratulations to both you and Vixy. Now you know how I felt three years ago. :-)

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

The best part is that although LJ has wonky timestamps so you can't tell, she commented literally within a few minutes of the post being made. And was sitting about five feet behind us. :D

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

You Winz! You Winz all of the Internets, and Pie too!

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Soon there'll be a critical mass of laptops at Interfilk auctions and it'll all go silent; everyone will just post bids on the LJ pages.

BWAHAHAHAH!!!!

And the wenches will just listen for silent keyboards. If you're not going tickytickyticky, you get wenched. :)

Congrats to the winners, y'all all kick ass.

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

Oh good, because I've heard that the cake is a lie.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

First, the good stuff: belated congrats to you and Vixy on the GOH spot at VCon.

Second, congrats to you and Vixy on the Pegasus award!

Re: the Volt 100 day break isn't just a "Volt" thing. There are laws that say if you are employed as a contractor at a site more than a specific number of days, they have to treat you as an "employee" and not as a "contractor." Suffice it to say the IRS doesn't like it when companies mostly use contractors because it's a way for companies to get out of paying benefits and such. The same thing happens with contractors at Apple and other tech companies. When I was at San Jose State back in 1990 we learned from some industrial video folks that the same handful of people would bounce between two or three companies, depending upon when their contract end dates came up..

I soooo wish you luck in finding something, preferably a staff position where you won't have to worry about things like benefits or looking for a job anytime soon.

[kat-merle.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the Pegasus. I can't wait to hear you and Vixy perform again.

[allisona.livejournal.com]

Yay for you both on the Pegasus award! That's so great! :)

(Can't wait to see you both at FKO! Yay!)

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! And echoes of allisona for FKO.

[mdlbear]

Conga rats!!

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

I understand why the 100 day thing happens, but everything I've heard around the area is that Volt is the only Microsoft contractor required to do it. All their other contractors don't get affected by it. Other people on my team from different contractors (Infosys in this case) are surprised by it and were asking me why I had to take the break, since they didn't have to take a similar break.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

It could be that Infosys has never been told by a company it had to do that. Infosys has only a slight presence in Silicon Valley.

[hsifyppah.livejournal.com]

But it's so delicious and moist! Oh god, I stayed up until midnight on Thursday watching my husband play through Portal on the xbox 360, then got up at 2:30am to drive down to seatac to catch the plane to ohio. I had all kinds of disturbing daydreams about greeny red toxic goo on the drive down.

Good luck job hunting! My psychic manta ray (Frederica; she's never wrong) informs me that there's totally a permanent job with an interesting company with a generous vacation plan for pegasus-award-winning-songwriters out there with your name on it.

[mgucciard.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you've heard this over and over by now - BUT

Bravo - Well deserved!

[quadrivium.livejournal.com]

Aw thanks, Tony! And thank you for inviting me to play with you guys on "Emerald Green." It is such a beautiful song! Congratulations to you and Vixy on your Pegasus Award for it!

*hugs*

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much, Mary. You are wonderful.

Thanks also, to everyone else in this thread. I'm very happy! :-)

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

>>And the wenches will just listen for silent keyboards. If you're not going tickytickyticky, you get wenched. :) <<

You say that like it would be a BAD thing... (hee, hee!) :-)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Noooooo comment.. :)