On the road again: Balticon, day 2

I slept a bit over seven hours last night, and though I didn't awaken feeling a hundred percent healthy and rested, the sleep did help. After some work, we headed out to the Hampden area, which I mentioned in last year's Balticon entries, and lunch at Cafe Hon. The food was, as always, tasty diner-style fare, and the atmosphere was as funky as ever.

We spent a little time walking among the shops and stopping at Atomic Pop and Atomic Books, where I dropped some money on some seriously odd books. As I also said before, I love both shops. I had to leave them early, however, because as a phone call from the concom reminded me, I was due back at the con.

After registering, I walked the dealer's room, signed some books, and was happy to see a stack of One Jump Ahead paperbacks on Larry Smith's table. Go, Larry!

I then headed to a panel on Medicine in SF. The crowd was small, maybe a dozen folks, and only three of the four panelists showed up, but we had a lively and, to the best of my ability to tell, interesting discussion. After a grocery store run and some more work, I changed and returned to the con for opening ceremonies. After they introduced the main guests of honor--Connie Willis and John Jude Palencar were the writer and artist headliners--Naomi Novik, last year's Compton Crook winner, presented me with the award plaque. (I assume the concom will give me the check later; if not, I'm not too bashful to remind them.) The audience treated me nicely, and it was a very touching time for me.

A few minutes later, as the opening ceremonies were winding down, we headed to my favorite Baltimore restaurant, Chef Cindy Wolf's Charleston. Four of us enjoyed an excellent dinner; all of my dishes were, as always there, flavorful and perfectly executed. Because we couldn't start until after 9:00, we were, of course, running late, but that was okay; I'd planned for that.

What I didn't plan for was the over an hour we wasted as the freeway narrowed to one lane and all of the traffic funneled toward an area jammed with police cars whose lights were flashing. We were convinced something terrible had happened.

Nope. Someone in the Maryland government had decided to have the cops stop all cars and perform sobriety checks, then pass out anti-drinking leaflets. Here's how the test worked:

Cop: "Hi. We're the Maryland State Police, and we're performing sobriety tests to catch drunken drivers. Is that you?"

Me: "No. I don't even drink."

Cop: (handing me a leaflet) "Okay then. Have a good night."

Wow, do I feel safer. I understand that the officer might have been able to smell alcohol on my breath, but seriously: if you're going to waste an hour of my time, at least do something that might possibly be useful.

Needless to say, for the rest of our ride our car full of non-drinkers was awash in negative emotions that ranged from annoyance to full anger. I didn't mouth off to the cop, however, because I'm sure he didn't choose to be doing this particular job.

Despite that ending, it was a good day, and I'm grateful for the award and the nice treatment by the con folks.