Washington's climate makes it a pretty unpleasant place to be in high summer. St. Louis and many cities on the banks of the Mississippi are equally unpleasant. Try New Orleans in August.
]]>I don't think anything said upthread is wrong, I just thought the context needed clarifying.
]]>Wonderful to learn, Aloha!
]]>I grew up in such a place. Look at Paducah KY on a map. It is surrounded on three side by the Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, and Clarks rivers. Plus the Cumberland and Tennessee are damed just to add more water surface area to the region. :)
Those night in August when it would be 95F/95% at 3AM were just plan awful.
]]>I actually got into fandom through a Tv show (Blake's 7, if anyone cares that much), then discovered that there was a local to me general SF convention, so decided to find out what that was like. I enjoyed it, and keep going back for more. Several other people that I know would have similar stories, or ones involving a local SF bookshop having a poster saying "$SFgroup meets at $location at $daytime" and going along.
As to how useful it is for authors to go to cons as a marketting tool, I'd suggest variable. I'd probably never have started reading Charlie's work or blog if I'd not met him in the dealers' room at a BSFA Eastercon, and decided to buy one of his books on the strength of that meeting, then buying more on the strength of that one.
]]>Determine which areas the military issues both tropical and arctic/subarctic clothing to enlisted personnel. (That's "issues as part of the basic uniform set," not "makes available for personal selection.") Fifteen years ago — the last time it really mattered to me! — that meant St. Louis and DC. Everybody else had only "standard weather" gear plus either topical or arctic/subarctic (and for many areas, neither). Of course, as an officer I wasn't being issued any of it (I was expected to purchase it)... but it was always amusing seeing jungle boots being issued along with fur-lined mukluks.
]]>Maybe we should just as citizns insist that all the Air Conditioners in the House/Senate and their offices be discoonected? Such a cost saving.
]]>Thank you, Steven! I know we've got SF readers around. Making the connection though, can be a challenge.
]]>Mighty tempting...
]]>I was born in the North East of England in 1949 and so came to Television just as the long trail of TV westerns... one a night every night Bonanza/ Laramie/ Have Gun Will Travel and on and on .. Began to fade into what might be termed Police Procedural/Detective and though I can’t remember much of the plot lines I DO remember that marvellously constructed into music /title sequence. And to this day most of my generation’s knowledge of Hawaii will be based upon that ancient TV series and its powerful sequence of images...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=674XcPC33pI
Now that is, I will submit, an example of the Sheer Power of Mythology and Myth Making.
]]>Chicago? I haven't experienced DC much, or NYC in a while, but my ranking would be
NYC Chicago Boston+near suburbs/San Francisco
Boston has a better metro system that ties into the near suburbs well, but the bus network is mostly a low-frequency joke; SF was better on that front. The T is cheaper and more frequent though also creakier access to the suburbs than BART. It's still a hub and spoke system, with poor interconnectivity not through downtown.
Boston can look better than Chicago because it's a lot smaller; Cambridge to downtown is nice and fast. Chicago has 5x the population of Boston, maybe 2x the population of the Boston area... mostly reachable by trains or buses of decent frequency, I think.
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