Hippoi Athanatoi

Linda and I had only a few hours of sleep before we had to go to Säve airport to catch our RyanAir flight to Glasgow. We waited in line to get our tickets, and occasionally looked around for Zollo and Cerys the Patryn, who were taking the same flight. At one point I thought I spotted them far behind us (short blonde Swedish woman - check - tallest man in the room next to her - check), but we decided to wait until we were at the departure lounge to approach ‘em. We were right, and were informed that they had been playing the identification game. Fun. The flight itself was quite uneventful, and we took the same quite-effecient train from Prestwick to Glasgow Central, where we parted company. A bus took us to near-about Cairncross House, where we got a room (on the fourth floor, alas) and settled in briefly before trying to make our way to the SECC.

We’re back, we’re exhausted, and we had a great time. Actually, we got back yesterday, but what little energy we had left then was used to start processing the hundreds of photos (we still have quite a few left to upload and caption) we took. Proper day-by-day reports will appear soon, but in the meantime, check out the pictorial evidence that has been posted so far.

Preparing for a trip always makes me exceedingly ineffective. I go into wait mode, and even though there are hundreds of little things to do, I spend a lot of time idly browsing on the net. As a result, I haven’t added much anything at all to the site these last days, even though I still have lots of Expression Engine templates to finish. There’s also lots of work left to do on the new section at Westeros, work that definitely needs to be done before the new semester starts. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? And I haven’t even mentioned working on two MUSHes at the same time.

For now, however, I’ll probably just have to give in partially to my distracted self, and combine a little bit of website work with WorldCon preparations. I picked up a gorgeous green dress (and a nice black coat, too) when we went shopping on Friday, and I am thinking I might pick up a necklace to go with it on Monday. Or another dress. ;) Spending the whole budget before even the plane takes off is very clever, is it not? Especially since I have big plans for Lush shopping in Glasgow. Which, btw, threatens to be rainy, but apparently this is the norm, as its wet even by Scottish standards. Must pack wisely ... hah.

Well ... I guess that’s it for delaying. Hippoi Athanatoi is not fully finished, but the design is (mostly) done and slowly but surely content is being added to all of the sections.  So, the time has definitely come to abandon the old journal and unveil the new home of our idle musings about ... well, just about anything that doesn’t fit in under the other sections. Hopefully, updating will occur more often than with the old journal, although once again it is likely that I (that’d be Linda) will do most of the posting, with Elio providing the occasional contribution when prodded enough to do so. To start with, however, I’ll mainly be on his case to contribute to the Reviews and Quickies.

Oh, and why Hippoi Athanatoi? Not because its such a short, easy-to-spell domain, that’s for sure. Chalk this one up to me being a total horse nut as well as a total Greek mythology nut too. Eventually, I’ll add something about the name to the main page, but for now, here it is. The Hippoi Athanatoi were the immortal horses (that’s the literal meaning of the name, btw) of Greek mythology, such as Xanthos and Balios, or Pegasus. Xanthos and Balios, in particular, have always been favourites of mine (together with Achilles and the rest of the Iliad—now that’s a good book), and it seemed appropriate that my personal website should express my love for horses and Classics both through its name and its appearance. And since Elio didn’t have a better idea, he got to tag along for the ride, so to speak.

And that’s it for now, I think. Back to more webdesign work, not to mention preparations for our trip to the WorldCon in Scotland next week.