Model Contest at Farpoint

Once again, our friends at Plastic Galaxy Models will be hosting their annual model contest at Farpoint, along with talks on model making.  Make sure to stop by their table in the Dealers Room for information or to submit your entry.  You can get more information on this year’s contest at the Farpoint website, www.farpointcon.com, or  www.plasticgalaxymodels.com

News from our Hotel

We received an update today from Marriott’s Hunt Valley Inn that they asked us to share with our members:

“Stricter fire code regulations now require us to not allow more than 4 persons in a hotel room.  Requests for cots from persons reserving a double/double room will not be accepted.  No more than 4 keys will be issued for a room.”

Please make your room arrangements with this information in mind.  From what the hotel has told us, this is an issue the Baltimore County Fire Marshal’s office is watching closely

New Podcaster Guests!

The Farpoint podcasting track is pleased to welcome the Galactica Quorum to our lineup!  In their own words: “The Galactica Quorum podcast discusses all aspects of the Sci-Fi channel series Battlestar Galactica in a casual roundtable format. Light-hearted and at times irreverent, the Quorum, hosted by Brian, Dimitry, Michele and Jason, dishes out analysis and speculation about each episode and the current season. Along with Battlestar Galactica they also discuss a multitude of scifi genre shows, conventions and costuming during the off season.”

Michele and Brian will be joining us, and we look forward to what they’ll add to an already exciting mix.  Stay tuned for further updates on the podcasting track.

New Comics/Anime Program Track

Yes, Farpoint does comics and anime!

For the first time, we will be including a series of panels discussing topics of interest to comics and anime fans.  The topics are currently being scheduled, but will be featuring our guests Peter David, Bob and Robbie Greenberger, Daniel Warner and Richard Pini among others.

Daniel and Richard are newly added guests to our Farpoint roster.  Links to their webpages will be available on the Guests page of the Farpoint website, www.Farpointcon.com

Tai Chi Workshop with Erin Gray

A new event for Farpoint 2008!

A Tai Chi Workshop will be taught by our guest Erin Gray on Saturday morning in Salon A from 8:30 am to 9:30 am.  The workshop cost is $20 and is an extra activity beyond  your convention membership.

The workshop will consist of traditional Tai Chi breathing and imaging exercises with an introduction to Tai Chi movements.  Participants of all ages are welcome.

Membership will be limited to 25 participants.  If  you are pre-registered, you can add on the workshop by contacting us at FarpointEnt@comcast.net for instructions to make the payment.  If you are still in the registration process, please note on your paper or online form that you wish to participate in the workshop and include the workshop fee with your payment.  Memberships MAY be available at the door on a first-come basis.

Banquet Announcement

The pleasure of your company is requested at the Yule Ball, where students, Professors, Witches, Wizards, and friends of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry will dine and socialize with guests from Beauxbatons, Durmstrang, and the Muggle regions to celebrate Farpoint!

 The Yule Ball will be held on Friday, February 15, 2008 at 7:30 PM in the Main Ballroom. Menu choices include chicken, beef, seafood, and vegetarian entrees.  Special dietary entrees can also be arranged.  Tickets are still available at a cost of $40.00 for adults and $20.00 for children.  Please send check or money order to Farpoint Enterprises Inc., 11708 Troy Court, Waldorf, MD 20601) by .  You may also send PayPal payments to FarpointEnt@comcast.net.  Tickets will only be available through January 31, 2008.

Muggles, Magical Creatures, and Wizards will unite for a truly enchanted evening.  Dress robes are recommended, as this is a Yule Ball, after all!  Please note that wands must be checked at the Wand Check station.

Guest Announcement

Saying hello and saying “see you later”….

Erin Gray, one of the stars of the fondly remembered Buck Rogers television show, will be joining us at Farpoint this year!  She will be attending all 3 days, and along with on-stage talks will be a signing guest.  Her table will be located in the Hunt/Valley hallway.  She has also agreed to judge Masquerade and will be attending the Friday evening Opening Banquet and the Helper’s Continental Breakfast.

The “see you later” is our dear friend Harve Bennett.  A conflict in arrangements has made it impossible for him to join us for Farpoint 2008.  However, he has already agreed to join us at Farpoint 2009, so we can look forward to a future visit with him.

As always, the entire Farpoint committee thanks our members for supporting our convention.  We couldn’t put on a fan-run convention without all of you - THE FANS!

Farpoint Reminders

Hotel Registration cutoff date is JANUARY 15, 2008!  Please use our convention code FPTFPTA when making your room reservation to ensure the convention receives credit for your reservation.  Reservations made after January 15th will be at a higher per night rate.  The hotel has informed us that they will be enforcing this cutoff date rigidly - make sure your room is secure at the best rate available for the weekend.

Convention pre-registration cutoff date is JANUARY 31, 2008!  At the door registration costs for 2008 will be $65/weekend; $25/child weekend (ages 6-12; ages 5 and under are free with paying adult).  Daily registration at the door will be $5/Friday only; $45/Saturday only; $10/Saturday evening after 7pm; $35/Sunday only.

Please note that Banquet tickets MUST be pre-ordered!  There will be no banquet tickets available for purchase at the door.  Cost is $40/adult and $20/child.  The banquet meal will be 3 courses with non-alcoholic drink and the cost includes tax and tip.

Additional signature tickets for James Callis MAY be available at the door.  The number we are authorized to sell is limited, and the demand has been brisk.  The cost is $20 per extra signature, with a limit of 2 additional signatures per registered convention member.

If you have pre-registered already and wish to add either the banquet or Callis signatures onto your membership, please contact us at FarpointEnt@comcast.net for information on how to make the additions.

Fan club meetings…

Any fan clubs looking to hold a meeting at Farpoint should send in their requests as soon as possible so that we can get on the schedule.

Please send your group name,  preferred date and time for meeting,  and the number of attendees that you expect.  We’ll get you on the schedule as soon as possible and let you know when and where so that you can let you members know as well.

Send requests to strehlen_senter@yahoo.com with ‘Fan Club meetings’ in the title.  That is also the right email to use if your fan club wants to moderate a panel as well.

Science programming…

We’ve been working hard to get good Science programming up and running for Farpoint 2008. To that end it is my pleasure to announce a number of confirmed science guests.

Yoji Kondo will be returning again this year. According to his Wikipedia entry “Dr. Yoji Kondo is an astrophysicist who also writes science fiction under the pseudonym Eric Kotani. He edited Requiem: New Collected Works by Robert A. Heinlein and Tributes to the Grand Master (1992), and contributed to New Destinies, Vol. VI/Winter 1988 — Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Issue (1988), after his friend, writer Robert A. Heinlein, died in 1988.

Kondo also edited the non-fiction book Interstellar Travel & Multi-Generational Space Ships, part of the Apogee Books Space Series.

Yoji Kondo is also an accomplished teacher of Aikido and Judo.”

M.T. Reiten holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and his research was in optoelectronics, focusing on terahertz radiation. He credits Larry Niven for tricking him into pursuing physics as a career. He has been a fan since watching Space:1999 at a formative age and has fond Sunday afternoon memories of ice cream sandwiches and Star Trek:TOS reruns on Canadian television. When not confined to a laser lab, he writes science fiction and fantasy and is a member of SFWA. M.T. Reiten’s fiction has appeared in Baen’s Universe, The Writers of the Future XXI, and All the Rage This Year, the Phobos Award anthology. He has stories in International House of Bubbas and Houston, We Got Bubbas, two of the acclaimed Bubbas of the Apocalypse series from Yard Dog Press. M.T. recently moved to Maryland from Oklahoma to pursue a research career. He finds it ironic that a former Army soldier now works within rock throwing distance of the US Naval Academy. He’s also upset they took away all his rocks. http://www.mtreiten.com/

John Ashmead at one time worked as an assistant editor for Isaac Asimov’s SF Magazine and has been involved with Philadelphia SF for
many, many moons, but has an otherwise blameless character. He makes is living as a computer consultant, making sure you get your bills & commercials on time (no thanks necessary: the work is its own reward). He is currently working on getting his doctorate in physics,
extending quantum mechanics to include the time dimension on an equal footing with space. His life’s ambition: create a really practical
time machine (his current model has reliability “issues”).

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. is a dinosaur detective currently teaching at UM, College Park. According to the Bone Zone “Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. was born in Los Angeles, California, but lived outside of Houston, Texas until he was ten. After being convinced by his parents that he could not, under any circumstances, grow up to be a dinosaur, he decided to do the next best thing — study them! His first encounter with real dinosaur skeltons was a trip to Dinosaur National Monument and other Western museums when he was seven (and already convinced that a life dedicated to vertebrate paleontology was his goal).

Holtz attended the Johns Hopkins University. His studies with Steve Stanley made him appreciate that there was more to paleontology than dinosaurs. Nonetheless, he was never convinced that there were more interesting things in paleontology than dinosaurs, and so, after graduation, he entered the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale University, right next to the Peabody Museum of Natural History, O.C. Marsh’s old haunt. At Yale, he studied under Professor John Ostrom, who discovered the “raptor” Deinonychus and who was the the key figure in discovering the dinosaurian origin of birds. Holtz earned his Ph.D. in 1992 by studying the functional adaptations of tyrannosaur feet and revising the evolutionary history of theropods.

After earning his doctorate, Holtz worked in a laboratory of the climate change program of the U.S. Geological Survey at Reston, Virginia. At that time, the Department of Geology at the University of Maryland,College Park, was searching for someone to teach a course on dinosaurs. He joined the department full-time in 1995, and he continues to teach two dinosaur courses, as wellas courses on invertebrate paleontology and historical and environmental geology. He currently lives in Maryland with his wife and two cats.”
http://www.dinosaur.org/bzholtz.htm http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/

Beatrice Kondo is a Farpoint native. A biologist and geneticist currently teaching at Hopkins, she is also a member of Prometheus Radio Theatre, one of our Usual Suspects, and dangerous with her hands. According to her site at UMBC her research interests include the Evolution of Plumage Sexual Dichrmoatism and the Evolution of migration. One recent work was entitled “RECENT DIVERGENCE BETWEEN BALTIMORE ORIOLE (Icterus galbula) AND BLACK-BACKED ORIOLE (Icterus abeillei).”   In fact, she’s written a few articles about Oriole birds, leaving no doubt where she’s from. 

If you have any panel suggestions for the science track send them along to eli.civilunrest@gmail.com