On Meeting the Irredeemable Shagg in Person

It's the summer. People who do diary-type blogs are probably talking about their vacations. I don't unless it's geek-related, but this one definitely counts. See, Shagg and I have known each other, at least vaguely, since the early 2000s when he took a kind interest in my old unofficial Doctor Who CCG, then when we started blogging around the same time (his was Once Upon a Geek, then Firestorm Fan). Our fandoms had a lot of crossover, so we would chat online on occasion. When he started podcasting, he reached out to me to be a guest or co-host on certain topics. That led me to start my own podcast(s), and my joining the founding team of the Fire and Water Podcast Network. But though we chatted podcastically regularly, and he was on the road constantly meeting the Network's extended family of hosts, guests and fans, I was never one for conventions. And though there was discussion, I never actually made it out to a con for a meet-up.

But Shagg is a persistent fellow and on a recent trip to Maine, he decided he could cross the border, check a country off his bucket list, and maybe we could meet somewhere in New Brunswick that wasn't too far from either his hotel or my home. A plan was hatched. Myself, Bass (The Invasion Podcast) and Shotgun (oHOTmu or NOT?) would drive down to St. Andrews-by-the-Sea, a quaint resort type of town in Southwestern NB (we had never been there either), about 2h30's drive for both parties. To quote Bass: "This is surreal." It's really a quirk of the modern world that people from half a continent away can get to know one another, and at some point, meet and act like they basically see each other all the time. We had some plans for the day - it's a vacation, after all - some definite (because bookings), some vague, and when Shagg's lovely wife asked what we HAD planned, Shagg sort of had the perfect answer: "Just meet up and tell nerdy jokes." That was it in a nutshell, really.

So food, discussion, nerdy jokes, a three-hour tour to do some whale-watching (we got lucky and came upon a feeding frenzy, AND didn't get shipwrecked with the Skipper and Gilligan), more nerdy jokes, insouciant deer by the side of the road, walking around town... and did I mention nerdy jokes? But you're here for the geek stuff. I guess there were two principal geek activities. One was crashing the Algonquin (photo above), one of the hotels that inspired Stephen King's The Shining. (We basically walked in like we were guests and played at "Who's the ghost?" watching employees and guests walk by as SOME gave us the side-eye until we left.) Later, we went to their golf course restaurant and they had the Shining carpet! Here's Shotgun sitting there chanting REDRUM to herself.

We had a wonderful waitress, Stacy, who had all these ghost stories about the hotel and the area.

The second geeky thing we did was immortalize the visit in a brief outdoors podcast which will be on the site tomorrow. Nothing major, but it's also got some ghost stories. Atlantic Canada is basically haunted, guys.

A great day was had by all and we parted ways better friends for having spent it together. We had a lot of fun just making restaurant and boat tour staff laugh, got a little sunburned, and taught Shagg a few local phrases. Then we went home, and didn't go to sleep until we got the all-clear on their end that they didn't hit a moose on the way back (except Bass, I can't speak for him). A tiny slice of Canada that felt right (because of the tourists, St. Andrews is amazing diverse, with lots of francophones walking around - not just us - and a vibrant indigenous population as well), friendly and colorful, but unassuming. I hope they enjoyed their look, we certainly liked having them over.

P.S. If your question is "So, is he really irredeemable?", the answer is no, his significant other won't let him. ;-)