Steam Powered calculated madness

Just back from a visit to the South Bay and the Steam Powered convention. Can I just say...wow. The creativity level at the con was stratospheric. Tinkerers, musicians, costumers, artisans, writers, editors (I finally got to meet Ann and Jeff VanderMeer in person!), contraptors, and many amazing hybrids of such. I attended Ann and Jeff's cool and funny panel on our Steampunk anthology, (I didn't give away any of the quiz questions - boy was that hard!), followed by a book signing hosted by the Gilded Bat bookstore, and Jake von Slatt's unveiling of his miraculous Wimshurst generator (as pictured), a high voltage machine made entirely from parts bought at Home Depot. I also had a fine dinner with Ann, Jeff, Jake, my extremely patient boyfriend Paul, and Gareth from MAKE magazine. Turns out MAKE will have a TV show soon - there are going to be a lot of happy steampunks come 2009. There are certainly a lot of happy steampunks this weekend - three cheers for Richard Bottomes and Ariane Wolfe for putting on a fine con indeed.