While I enjoy giving the VA natives a hard time about the snow paranoia, there is one custom I have  yet to understand.  For some reason people extend the windshield wipers on their cars whenever snow is predicted.  It’s quite humorous to see commuter lots full of cars with their windshield wipers sticking straight up in the air.

I’m assuming the thought is that it will keep the wipers from being frozen to the windshield.  However, the windshield still gets frozen over and allows the wipers to become coated with snow and/or freezing rain on all sides.  Surely there’s a logical explanation.  Perhaps one day all of us MI transplants here will get to the bottom of the waving wiper strategy.

We suspected this group of people was here for a convention of some sort, and that theory was soon confirmed. But seeing a sign about “Open Filking” didn’t exactly answer all our questions. After a weekend of research and observation, I think we’ve learned the basics.

The convention in question is the Consonance 2008 Convention. As the site describes, it is “the San Francisco Bay Area filk convention.” Filk is generally considered folk music, usually with a science fiction or fantasy theme … or about computers or cats. Filkers, then, are the people participating in this musical movement. Furthermore, if our hotel parking lot is any indication, bumper stickers appear to be an important trademark of filker vehicles. Here are some additional resources, if needed.  After seeing some names and pictures in my research, I realize I rode the elevator with some famous and influential filkers this weekend.

Now that I’ve laid the foundation, I trust you’ll enjoy some example filking.

At first I assumed this must have something to do with the person who had the number before me. But this weekend one of the callers offered a very helpful explanation. After calling for the third time, he said (in English) that he was trying to call Columbia. I looked up the international dialing code for Columbia, and sure enough, the first 2 numbers of my area code are the international dialing code for Columbia.

If only I knew Spanish, surely there’s some fun to be had here …