Los Angeles or Louisiana?  Because I second Los Angeles.

Sorry, I've been a Cali Girl too long.  Los Angeles. 

Keep in mind that Jim LIKES doing cons; remember, he's a fan as well. It's just that going to so many of them together wear on him, as it would on anyone. But he's also savvy in regards to PR—authors benefit greatly from having a physical public presence, especially one as amiable, entertaining and interesting as his. It's what really hooked me into his books; I saw him at a con in '07, and between him and Shannon, I moved from simply liking his books a lot to thinking they're extremely good people who deserve our support. It's always a good thing when you can help reinforce people doing right.

It's a balance, in the end: between his own fan-ness and keeping a public image, there's got to be a happy medium.

I totally agree too.  I've been to many book signings in my life from Stephanie Meyer to Clive Barker, and I've had a wide variety of experiences.  Some neat, some disappointing and even some mortifying, but none of them even compare to the one I went to to see Jim.   I had just been sent home from Argentina with a back injury, and you could say that I was pretty down.   Well, my best friend in an effort to cheer me up told me that Changes had come out and that the author would be signing books at a B&N in LA.  Now, at this point, I had only read the first two of the series and that had been about a year before.  I would have read more but circumstances prevented me.  So I just didn't really know what to expect, but it sure wasn't what I got.  We didn't really even talk about the book all that much or at least not that I remember.  Someone got him to tell the story of being cursed by a witch doctor in Brazil, which is an absolutely roll-on-the-floor hilarious story.  It was all such an emotionally uplifting experience that has never been repeated by any signing before or since.  I remember walking out of the store not only with my first real smile since I couldn't remember when, but as a fan for life.  It really made a big different at that time in my life.  And that's not even mentioning the staggering amount of books he signed that night.  Very few people asked him to sign only one book, many had a box, and he never turned them away.  Now that's generosity.  A man like that deserves all the respect his fans can give him including time off.