Another quiet week rolls past. Still, I've gotten a lot done, particularly with Anthrocon stuff.

The new registers for Artists Alley are mostly programmed; we just need to replicate the changes out across all three registers. I've revamped my spreadsheets to incorporate changes we're going to need to upload each day's artist names into the registers, which shouldn't take more than a few minutes each morning. I've also started to document some of the processes required in the off chance that I'm pulled away or hit by a bus or something. And I've firmed up my staff, as well. Last year I had seven people on Artists Alley/Con Store staff; this year I've got nine people with two others available part-time. That's going to make scheduling a lot easier.

There's still a lot to do, though. takaza and I need to revise the receipt forms and get those to uncle_kage by the end of the weekend. I need to figure out how to put together a map of the Alley on a whiteboard so we can write who's sitting where (legibly!) each morning to help people find artists, and I need to make up a similar template that we can print out so it can be easily and quickly filled in once artists are seated and then transfer the information to the whiteboard. I need to pick up supplies for the Alley as well, and print and laminate the barcodes for the Con Store once I get them from Kage, and...and...

Man, it's amazing the stuff we do for fun, isn't it?

Meanwhile, we've been having a blast playing with our new Wii. The only game I'm really playing a lot of so far is Wii Sports, but I'm sure in the near future we'll be thinking about buying another game. Whether that's Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., Boom Blox, or something else, we'll see...

This is a reminder that today is the day that the Westin Pittsburgh Convention Center charges the first night on all reservations that have been booked for Anthrocon (presumably, those who have reserved have gotten e-mails about this already). The Omni will be doing something similar on May 2. All of this is well-documented on Anthrocon's hotel page.

A by-product of these facts is that all the people who booked rooms when they were unsure of whether they would attend or not are being forced to decide, and those that aren't going are cancelling their reservations. This is good news for people who didn't get a room, though! Right now rooms are available at both the Westin and the Omni! Make your reservation now! (though be prepared to pay for your first night when you reserve, at least at the Westin.)

I'm late with my weekend recap, but there's not too much to say. Saturday we spent over at takaza's mom's house with his family, playing various games and enjoying the mountain of food she cooked up for the occasion. On Sunday we didn't do too much, mainly just relaxed around the house. I had gotten a very specific pain on Saturday night that was causing a bit of concern (on my back, just over the right kidney) that left me feeling rather blah and playing havoc with sleeping that night; that has since dwindled to nothing, so I'm hoping it was just a passing thing. Other than that, a rather unremarkable weekend.

This week finds me in statistics class (yes, again), this time learning about Design of Experiments and Variation Transmission Analysis (not Variable Transmission Analysis, which makes a lot more sense to my mind, but probably a bit too automotive). The glorious thing is that I don't have to be in at work until 8:15 AM or so, compared to the usual 7 AM, though I'm still waking up at 5:30 AM with Dan. I'm able to enjoy my mornings a bit more, so that's nice.

It's still two months away, but Anthrocon is weighing heavily on our minds right now. Part of that is the fact that we have three large cash registers sitting on our dining room table. Both Dan and I are teaching ourselves how to program these for the Artists Alley; we're hoping that these will help streamline the process a bit and make things easier for everyone involved. I'm still waiting to hear back from a few potential staff recruits; I need at least two or three more folks before I can stem the rising panic I'm feeling.

Which brings me to this: I am taking volunteers for Anthrocon Artists Alley/Con Store. In exchange for at least fifteen hours of your time, you will get free entry into Anthrocon, a free T-shirt, dinner on Sunday night (a nice dinner, too!), and the luxury of bypassing the registration lines and picking up your registration materials in Operations! If you're interested, leave a comment here or e-mail me at alley-2008 [at] anthrocon.org.

Not much else going on this week. We may have a wah crashing at our place for a day or two during his transition to life behind the Cheddar Curtain, but other than that there's not too much is going on.

It's been pretty quiet over the last few days, which might explain the lack of updates - not a lot of exciting stuff going on.

takaza and I had a pleasant weekend together at home. On Friday Dan was feeling like a bit of retail therapy and between gift cards and Reward Zone credits we had $75 of credit for Best Buy, so we headed down to the BB in Mundelein. We stopped by the Gamestop there to look at their used PS2 games and I picked up a couple of games I hadn't played before: God of War and Destroy All Humans! (I'm about five hours into God of War and it's a whole lot of fun. A little more gory than a lot of games I've played, but the puzzles are fun and the action keeps things interesting.) As for Best Buy...well, we never did find anything that looked interesting. On the bright side, the next item that comes up on sale, we've got a $75 discount waiting to be used.

On Saturday, we bummed around the house most of the day, except for a run to the grocery store. Sunday I made Dan the chicken and dumplings I promised him for Valentine's Day (a few days late), as well as the delicious semolina bread from Cookwise. Mostly we just sat around the house and enjoyed doing gloriously nothing.

This week has been pretty interesting. Dan will be transitioning from his old job to his new job until the end of the month (gotta love those internal transfers) so he was at the old location in Mount Prospect Monday, Tuesday, and this morning, then he'll be at the new location in Buffalo Grove this afternoon and for the rest of the week. As for me, I got a couple of important reports turned in and I'm at a momentary lull until everything gets signed off and we're working against the clock to finish a couple of projects. In the meantime I'm catching up on accumulated Midwest FurFest correspondence, and trying to resolve an annoying lingering issue with the house rental out in California (they're trying to charge us for damage that we're not responsible for).

Looking ahead to this weekend, we'll be going by the MFF storage locker on Saturday to try to track down some convention assets and answer a couple of questions. Since we'll be out and about, we'll probably make a couple of stops (I want to swing by Ikea) and maybe even be social. No plans yet, but we'll see what happens. Sunday evening is the online MFF staff meeting, and we also need to put together all the numbers for the Point of Sale hardware and software for Anthrocon's Artists Alley. Oh, and speaking of conventions, congratulations to tozier_wah for signing on to run the Information Desk at Midwest FurFest. We own your soul I'm sure you'll have a great time!

As of this morning, you can reserve at the Westin Pittsburgh Convention Center for Anthrocon 2008 (Omni William Penn reservations to come).

Read the instructions carefully! Note that a non-refundable deposit for your first room night will be charged to your credit card approximately 62 days before the convention (typically around April 25).

If you want to know why these measures were necessary, read the background here.

Edit to Add: It has been noted that the Anthrocon pages are experiencing high traffic (funny thing, that) and therefore might be running a bit slow. Also, I found that the Westin's reservation page barfed when I tried to reserve with FireFox, but it worked OK with IE.

So, how to summarize Anthrocon 2007?

It was a big year for me. We put a lot of plans into place and I think they came off rather well, a few technical glitches notwithstanding. I didn't have enough time to socialize, which isn't too surprising given how I was tethered to the Alley, but I don't really regret that too much. Standing in the empty Artists Alley at 4:45 PM on Sunday, after everyone had been paid and left, I was left with a feeling of accomplishment.

One thing that I think is worth mentioning, and something that very few people know, unless they were involved with staff in Hall C. I wouldn't be able to do my job if it weren't for the efforts of my husband, takaza. Yes, I know - he's my husband and it's expected that I would give him credit. But were it not for him and his staff (daveqat, jimcyl, and tango) we wouldn't have had the cash for our cash registers or to pay the artists at the end of the day, and Anthrocon's finances would be a mess. Dan put in a lot of time preparing for the con, and during the con put in even longer hours than I did. Unfortunately, the nature of his job keeps him out of the public eye, and it's often rather thankless. So I want to publicly thank him for all of his hard work, and remind him that I love him very much!

Looking ahead to 2008, I see a lot of challenges ahead of us. If we expand the Alley by 50%, our registers and our payout system are going to be stretched to the breaking point. We need to investigate how to improve the artist tracking system (possibly with a Point-of-Sale system, and making the Con Store register able to take Artists Alley purchases during busy periods) and how to speed up payout. I need at least two or three more staff members, as well. We've got some other innovative ideas that we need to pitch to the Anthrocon board that could help dealers as well. In short, we have some exciting opportunities ahead of us, and amazingly enough I'm looking forward to next year already.

Among other things for next year, I hope to finally set foot in the Steel City Diner. I hope to host another Fine Potables Tasting (and actually get invitations to everyone I want to invite!). I hope to make it back to the Dorsai debriefing on Sunday night. And finally, I hope that, when Anthrocon 2008 is over, I'm looking forward to 2009 with the excitement I feel now for 2008.

I'll start out by saying that this is going to be a long, multi-part report. The main reason I write these (and so many of my other "went-here, did-this" entries) is because I find that it's nice to be able to come back months or years later and revisit these entries and be reminded of what went wrong, what went right, who I spent time with, and what exactly happened. I invite everyone to come along for the ride, but if it's not your thing, I understand completely.

That having been said, ( Read more... )

The short version: We need to be prepared for sudden surges in the number of artists wishing to sit in the Alley. We need to improve communications between customers and artists who may not have a seat in the Alley that day. I need more staff!

( Click for the long version )

We're home safe. Apparently we just dodged the thunderstorms that delayed flights into O'Hare for up to three hours, and caught the northbound Metra train with seconds to spare. I'm almost done catching up on 300+ LJ posts. takaza went to bed at about 6:30, and I don't see myself staying up too late tonight, either

In summary: It was completely exhausting. It was fun. We'll be back.

P.S. - I'd like copies of any pictures taken at the Fine Potables party, please :-)

Still fighting this summer cold. The good news is, all indications are that no infection is present so it's just your garden-variety Upper Respiratory Ick; hopefully it'll pass within the next day or so.

Saturday was a crazy day. We met up with datahawk then met justincheetah at the MFF storage locker and unearthed the cable protectors and power distribution panel he needed for Anthrocon. A very pleasant lunch at Chipotle followed (mmm, burritos). We don't get to see enough of that kitty, something we'll need to work on after Anthrocon. From there we headed into Chicago to drop off a few things with linnaeus which he will be graciously ferrying to Anthrocon for us. Then we fought our way through downtown traffic to Merrillville, Indiana where we saw Weird Al Yankovic in concert. It was a fun show (and eventually I'll download the pictures off my cell phone, including a close-up of Al crooning to Data :-), though I admit that it hit my pet peeve of concerts, where the show sounds exactly like the songs on the albums. Sure, something is added in the performance (and Al is nothing if not expressive!). That was a minor complaint, though; overall the concert was a blast. The drive home was long, and we didn't get to bed until 2 AM.

Sunday morning I woke up at 6 AM, of course, and couldn't get back to sleep. Bless his heart, takaza put up with my barely-functioning, grumpy self. A midday nap helped a good bit, but the migration of the sinus stuffiness to my chest with some mild coughing didn't help much. We did accomplish a good bit of the laundry and packing the we needed to do, though in the course we figured out that Dan needs a new dress shirt and I need a new pair of khaki pants. We closed out the evening with some Flip This House and Dirty Jobs, then stumbled off to bed.

And here we are today. I'm feeling a good bit better. My sinuses still hate me, but at least the headache I woke up has receded. I've got the cough-syrup-with-codeine in my bag if I need it, but hopefully I won't. I'm off to Gurnee Mills after work to pick up the pants I need, then we'll put the finishing touches on the packing tonight. I'll be taking off from work tomorrow at 2:30 PM, then parking at the Grayslake train station and catching the train down to O'Hare, where I'll meet up with Dan. Our flight out is at 7:05 PM. I've hit the long downhill slide before the con where I just want it to start - months of planning has gone into this, so now it's time to see how well those plans work.

I know I've been quiet here this week, but I have excuses! You see, much of our week has been consumed with preparations for Anthrocon; even when we weren't actively working on convention planning, we were thinking about it and that kind of wears on you. Add to that the fact that I'm fighting off a mild summer cold. Yuck.

In general update terms, though, things have been going well. If I didn't mention it earlier, I haven't been hired on full-time at my employer yet since they were still working out which positions were open and which they were going to fill with whom. I have been assured, multiple times, that it is a matter of "when" and not "if" I get hired, though. My contract was extended to the end of July, and that's OK by me. While that means my three days off for Anthrocon will be unpaid, the good news is that I still come out ahead in net salary. I had a good talk with my boss this week and he is satisfied with my performance and seems willing to put a bit more on my plate, which makes me happy.

Work for takaza continues to be stressful; I worry about him and I know that all of this stress takes its toll on his health. Things got a little more difficult this week (I won't go into it here, but my heart does go out to those involved), but he's been assured that it won't affect his vacation time. He is justifiably skeptical and unfortunately probably will have to log in from Pittsburgh to do some work for some part of the time that we're there.

We did find time to relax a bit last night. We had a pleasant dinner with roho and genet at a frozen custard place in Antioch (good sandwiches, not so good frozen custard), then we caught the late showing of Ratatouille at the Antioch Theater. GO SEE THIS MOVIE! It was so much fun! Great character design, a nifty score, and a really great expression of the love of food and cooking. I adored it, and wouldn't mind seeing it again. As an aside, I also love the Antioch Theater - $4 admission, popcorn for a couple of bucks (and free refills on popcorn and sodas, provided by roving ushers), a trivia quiz by a real live employee before the show. When we went to see Waitress a few weeks ago we went to the Regal theater in Round Lake; tickets, plus popcorn and soda came to over $30 (and that's at matinee prices!). That's just plain offensive.

Ahem. Movie theater ranting aside, it looks like the next few days are going to be pretty nuts for us. I can't even guarantee that I'll be posting between now and Anthrocon, so here's a quick rundown:

Today, once datahawk gets up here, we'll all head down to Arlington Heights to meet justincheetah at the MFF storage locker to get a power distribution panel for him (I hope it's not buried too far under everything!). Then it's over to linnaeus's place in the city to drop off some stuff that he is kindly carrying to Anthrocon for us. After that, it's down to Merrillville, Indiana where we have tickets to see "Weird Al" Yankovic in concert!

Tomorrow will be con packing and (more) planning, and staging everything as best we can. Oh, and relaxing somewhat, since that'll be our last chance before the con. Monday will be work as usual.

Tuesday, we fly out from O'Hare at 7:05 PM, arriving in Pittsburgh at 9:32 PM (supposedly). Give that it's an evening flight in the summer out of O'Hare, I figure if we get to PIT before 11:30 PM we'll be doing good. We'll spend the night at the La Quinta Pittsburgh Airport, then on Wednesday morning catch the 28X bus downtown to the Westin Pittsburgh Convention Center. We hope to be at the Westin by 11 AM or 12 noon.

And after that? Madness and chaos. With any luck I'll be able to document some of that...at some point.

Let's get up to speed, shall we?

After work on Friday takaza and I stopped by Gurnee Mills to pick up a few things. We were just looking for a new belt for me but wandered into the game store only to find that they were having a buy-one-get-half-off-another sale on games. We walked out with two games that look like they're going to be a lot of fun at our next party: Malarkey and Wits and Wagers. When we finished shopping we drove up to Antioch to our favorite liquor store to stock up on a few things for Anthrocon (a couple of new Scotches and a bottle of Grey Goose, 'cause I likes me some good sipping vodka). We met up with genet (roho was under the weather) and had a pleasant dinner at Las Vegas Restaurant.

Saturday was craziness, but in a fun way. For the second year in a row we ran the bingo games for Dan's company picnic. It's a good thing that Dan thought to bring our bingo set (purchased for use last year, but not used) because we found that the provided bingo set was missing four bingo balls. That would have sucked. We ran two sessions, each 90 minutes long, and gave away a little over $2,000 in gift cards to Target, Wal Mart, and various restaurants. People seemed to enjoy it. Dan had bought a huge chunk for tickets for the charity raffle (to benefit Gilda's Club) and for the second year in a row he won an iPod, this time a 4 Gb iPod Nano. Which would be nice except that we both have 30 Gb Video iPods. Ah well, we had fun, at least, and the day's surreal moment was provided by the CEO of Dan's company inquiring if we're brothers. I guess it's true that the longer a couple stays together, the more they start to look alike :-)

After the picnic we headed into the city, where we met up with datahawk and emrldgrrl to see the GLBT Pride edition of Too Much Light makes the Baby Go Blind ("30 queer plays in 60 straight minutes"). As always, the show was amazing - funny, poignant, and thought-provoking. I admit, it's the silly stuff that I remember most, including "Two Minute Strip Rock Paper Scissors" and "All The Boys in the Frat House Say Ho(mosexual)!" Because it was a benefit show, even though they ran out of time on play #25 everyone agreed that we should see the last five plays, so we did! After the show, we drove down to linnaeus's place and got dinner from our favorite taquiera. It was great ending to a great day.

And on Sunday? We rested. Well, we did a little work on Anthrocon stuff, but mostly we just rested. And it was good.

Hmm, I'm getting slack about updating again. That's not so good.

Last week we had to get both of our Honda Elements serviced, mine to have the upholstery repaired before the warranty expired and takaza's for its 60,000 mile service. Rosen Honda in Gurnee proved a mixed bag in terms of getting this accomplished. Just setting up the service was difficult, as it took no less than four calls just to get through to the service department, including getting hung up on twice. I dropped my car off on Wednesday night, and got a call on Thursday that they had completely disassembled the driver's seat and opened the box with the new seat cover only to find that it was the wrong color. We therefore had to leave the care there Thursday night as well. I picked it up on Friday afternoon after work, dropping off Dan's car in the process with the request that the service be completed by noon on Saturday.

I stopped to get gas before heading down to pick up Dan and it's a good thing I did, because while filling up I saw that in the process of putting the car through the car wash just before giving it back to me, they had torn off the rear windshield wiper and it was hanging by a wire. I high-tailed it back to the dealership and arrived just as the parts department closed. The service guy was very apologetic and fixed things up enough that the car wouldn't be damaged until I could bring it back the next day to get the wiper assembly replaced.

From there I headed south to meet Dan at the Buffalo Grove Metra station (gods, I hate Lake-Cook Road on Friday afternoons). We killed some time playing minigolf at my favorite place in the area, Par King, then met up with daveqat and synicism for dinner at Osteria di Tramonto. Dinner was fabulous, as always; I had the cavatelli with roasted escarole and chicken; Dan had chicken Parmesan, Dave went with the hanger steak, and Jim had rack of lamb. All were excellent, and my chocolate torte after dinner was superb.

On Saturday, Dan and I went to pick up his car. $520 later - ouch! - the car is in excellent shape, though I'm told the front brake pads need replacing soon. Somehow I'm certain that I can get it done cheaper than the $289 they're offering; heck, from what I understand, if I had the service manual and a couple more tools I could do it myself. It's something to consider after Anthrocon, perhaps; in the meantime, since he's putting all of maybe four miles a day on the car going to and from the train station, it's not hugely urgent.

We stopped by Lovin' Over Cakery for some tasty dessert stuff, then headed over to Dan's mom's place for an afternoon of games and lots and lots of food. She had roasted a 20+ pound turkey (!) and had made all of the trappings. This just for me, Dan, Dan's brother and sister, and her. We had a great time playing Scene It! Squabble (truly annoying, with offensive gender stereotypes for all!), Apples to Apples, and Balderdash. I enjoyed Balderdash the most, though I'm thinking that we need to pick up a copy of Malarky, which encourages a little more elaborate tale-spinning. We capped off the evening with a family portrait, which Dan posted in his journal.

On Sunday, Dan and I worked on various Anthrocon and Midwest FurFest tasks, taking a break to hit the grocery store. Dan made a tasty turkey and rice dish with kielbasa using the huge amount of leftover turkey his mom gave us before we left the night before. We "attended" the MFF online staff meeting, then I edited the log and sent the notes out shortly afterwards. The rest of the evening, we watched a bit of TiVo and the Robot Chicken Star Wars Special, then headed off to bed.

So, this week: Poker Night on Wednesday, and I need to run various errands after work on Wednesday and Thursday. Next weekend is Dan's employer's company picnic, and we're going to be running the bingo games again this year. Should be...um, fun. Yeah, that's it. Fun. :-)

So I was working today and I realized, "Wow, three weeks from today I'll be in Pittsburgh." Gaaah!

The good news is that, once the programming schedule is up (which sounds imminent), I can start making a schedule for the Artists Alley and Con Store. I should have the Con Store price list and bar codes in hand from unclekage tonight (barring unforeseen issues, such as zombie attacks), then it's just a matter of assembling what little equipment we need and figuring out how to get it to Pittsburgh. Hmmm, I foresee a trip to Antioch Liquors in the near future...

So since my car (2005 Honda Element) has 35,850 miles on the odometer (i.e. within a hair of going out of warranty), it's going to the Gurnee Honda dealership tonight to get a tear in the seat upholstery repaired while it's still free. I'll have some time to kill before takaza's train gets in, so I'm going to swing by the Grayslake Farmers Market which opens its season today and see what good stuff I can find there. Dan's car (2003 Honda Element) is due for emissions inspection, which is thankfully just down the street from where I work; unfortunately, its "Check Engine" light is coming on, warning of the impending 60,000 mile service. Since they won't do the emissions testing if any warning lights are present, we need to get Dan's car serviced, so we'll be dropping it off at Gurnee Honda on Friday night. Also on Friday night we're meeting daveqat and jimcyl for dinner at the always-yummy Osteria di Tramonto; I've heard rumors of miniature golf with some of Dan's cow-orkers to take place before that, but we'll see if that comes to pass.

Wow. Looking at my calendar, it looks like every weekend is going to be busy into late July, at least. Ah, the joys of summer socializing...

My, doesn't time fly when you're having fun. Which leaves me no explanation for this week, but that's OK. Not that it's been a bad week, mind you, just...eh.

Monday found takaza and I having fun making dinner. While Dan experimented with slicing and frying techniques to make home fries, I fired up the grill and cooked up a couple of steaks, as well as some fresh pineapple. I learned a couple of things: 1.) Three chunks of hickory is too much. The steaks tasted a little too much of smoke. 2.) When grilling pineapple, add the cinnamon sugar after grilling, otherwise the cinnamon gets bitter. Ah well. It was a learning exercise all around, and in the end we still had steaks and yummy home fries. Yay!

Last night we were feeling minimally motivated. I sautéed up some peppers and onions, then Dan cooked some chicken and diced it up and we had tacos. We both love the whole wheat flour tortillas we've found, and the chihuahua cheese is delicious. A little salsa and some crema...yum. It was a quiet evening, as Dan was working on Anthrocon cash sheets and I engaged in a bit of transit geekery (see below). Afterwards we watched the latest episode of Deadliest Catch.

( Click for boring transit geek stuff )
I've been working on Anthrocon planning as well, revising and updating the artist and staff handouts explaining the Artists Alley and Con Store, and updating the necessary forms. While I'd hoped to maybe open signups a little later this year, I'll be sticking with last year's schedule if only because it allows the artists time to come sign up, then get a leisurely breakfast before they have to be back for seat assignment. Unfortunately, it means that I have to be there at 8 AM on Saturday and Sunday mornings. As long as I can get some coffee somewhere before heading over to the Convention Center, I'll be OK. I need to touch base with linnaeus and see how much space he's going to have in his car to carry stuff to Pittsburgh for us. Don't worry, we're going to cut it down to one box of booze, but there's a few other things I'd like to see if you could take, Paul :-) Hmm, Italian sausage sandwiches for dinner tonight, yum! Oh, and laundry to be done once I get home. Isn't my little world fun and exciting?

Woo! We just bought plane tickets to Anthrocon! Depart from O'Hare on Tuesday night at 7:05 PM, return from Pittsburgh at 2:35 PM on Monday afternoon. The total cost? $93 each, including taxes and fees. Sweet! We need to figure out the logistics of getting to and from the airport, but for that price it was worth it to lock in the tickets now.

Other than that, it's a last-minute push to finish off the cleaning today, then there's the party tomorrow. Happy fun time!