A quiet afternoon here at work. I’ve caught up with most of the stuff I intended to get done for today, so that gives me a few minutes to update.
The last few nights have been pretty uneventful – come home, geek a bit on the computer, maybe play some Katamari Damacy. Linnaeus bought a new Windows laptop so I’ve been helping him outfit that with the best free applications I know of.
On Tuesday we went over to the Thai place I mentioned earlier. Sadly, the food wasn’t quite as fabulous this time around, but at least the company was good. I guess now that I’ve determined that I actually like Thai food, I need to go to work finding some really good Thai food. I suspect there are an untold number of places to try through the Chicago area, so that goes onto my list of restaurants to find (right next to a good Vietnamese place, a decently-priced fondue restaurant, and a decent tapas bar).
I went ahead and reserved my room for the LAFF New Year’s Party. It would appear that I’ve volunteered to run, um, registration there. Quelle suprise! Fortunately, registration consists pretty much of just making sure that only people who have paid can get into the rooms that we have (and by extension, have access to the food). I also tried to reserve my room for Anthrocon, but the hotel keeps transferring me to national reservations, which has never heard of Anthrocon. I’ll try again tomorrow, I suppose. I’m thinking about pricing out a suite, but that will depend on how many people we’re going to have crashing in the room with us. There’s only 18 suites in the hotel, so I imagine they’ll go fast. If that doesn’t work out, I see that they have oversized rooms as well, and hopefully that would be comparable to a Junior Suite at the Adams Mark.
Speaking of Anthrocon, I touched base with Kage last night to check on the status of Artists Alley. It looks like we’re going to be reasonably well-off, though there are some things going on during the weekend that are going to make life interesting. More on that when I have more information.
By the way – I am looking for volunteers for Artists Alley and Con Store at Anthrocon. This would entail either running a cash register (and a free membership, if you’re willing to work enough hours), or helping out just an hour or so at the end of each day (no freebies there, but I might buy you a beverage of your choice afterwards!). Work scheduling would be rigidly structured (moreso than at MFF Registration), which means you’ll know where to be when and when you’ll be done, as well. Let me know either here or by e-mail if you’d be interested.
Tonight I’m headed back to Café Boost for another LAFF Coffee in the City. It’s always a nice, relaxing night and I’m looking forward to it. Then tomorrow I work half a day, then drive down to Maywood and traffic court. I need to remember to bring the letter from my insurance company that, although it admits no culpability, says that they paid for the damage to the other person’s car. That should help the judge dismiss the ticket, I hope. From there, I’ll pick up Linnaeus and we’ll head southwards, yay! Oh – I need to remember to pack my beer kegs and accoutrements into the car, tomorrow morning, too. Once more we’ll try to put a dent into the Great Stocks of Beer that I amassed before Midwest FurFest.
Now to find something to keep me occupied for the next 19 minutes…
So, Giza isn’t running this anymore? Or did it really just become your baby?
I just don’t know awbout working this con anymore. Scheduling always sucks. 🙂
Well, Artists Alley and Con Store definitely still fall under Operations and thus Giza, but I believe the agreement we came to last year was that it would be easier if I handled AA/Con Store staff recruitment and scheduling.
And I understand completely – in a lot of ways, I feel badly about asking people to work Anthrocon because it pulls them away from all the cool stuff going on and their friends who have come from all over. If you don’t think you’d enjoy it, then I’d urge you not to worry about it. I’ll forgive you, I promise 🙂
In a word: delegation
🙂
Yeah…waiting on them to post information on who to contact about hotel rooms too so I can get one for me and Kbear.
And exactally how can it get more rigidly structured than how you run MFF Reg? They going to put radio collars on us? 🙂
BTW:
“Speaking of Anthrocon, I touched base with Kage last night to check on the status of Artists Alley. It looks like we’re going to be reasonably well-off, though there are some things going on during the weekend that are going to make life interesting. More on that when I have more information.”
Do you mean this weekend or the weekend of AC?
The weekend of Anthrocon.
A wedding perhaps? 🙂
Well, scheduling at MFF, while pretty structured initially, became quite the train wreck once the con started. But that’s solely my fault – I overscheduled, so there were a lot of times that we just didn’t need people there, and also a lot of times when people came wandering by looking for something to do and were able to swap out if someone felt like taking a break.
AA/CS is a bit different because there’s money involved. It’s a bit like the fun retail experiences so many of us have had in the past, only shorter. For a two-hour shift you’ll need to show up at Operations, count money into a cash register drawer, run the register for the shift, then count the money out of the drawer when you’re done. You can see where there’s less flexibility available there.
Which means getting people you trust to be there on time and not to ditch you even more important.
Oh gods, yes!
Which is why I’m counting on you, by the way 😉
Expect to have a Kangaroo bouncing at your right-hand side on Artist Alley and con Store. As a yearly staff member I’m always more than happy to lend a paw, of course!
Assure that with my experience with a few years in the store and alley, I’ll be a very good asset and a double help for you, give you some rest when necessary.
I am also aware of space limitations at this new hotel, and what exactly the board is trying to do to eke as much space as they can to allow for as many tables as they can.
I think we are definitely going to have to institute our ‘lottery policy’ that was developed last-minute, at AC 2004 to make space as fair as possible.
Matt/Danruk
I was really hoping you’d be willing to come back and help! (And Kari too, maybe?) Ooh rest – what a concept 🙂 I’ll definitely be in touch with you as July gets closer.
The good news is that it sounds like we’ll have at least as many tables as we did last year, though that’s still somewhat in flux as Our Esteemed Chairman works out the table layouts. Even so, I suspect we’ll probably need a lottery at least on Friday and Saturday. And if fewer people sign up than we have tables for, then I guess everybody gets a table!
Might we poor folks who don’t have access to your in-person tech skills garner a list of these fabulous free applications? ;X)
Well, I don’t claim to be a l33t tech guy or anything, but these are some of my favorite apps that I’ve figured out over time. I like these a lot, but hey, YMMV. This was my list for “The Apple Guy Who Is Just Learning To Use Windows”:
Eudora – E-mail client
Firefox – THE browser to use
Semagic – The best Windows LJ client I’ve found
Trillian – Great IM client (ICQ, AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, and IRC)
Winamp – The best Windows audio player out there
Ad-Aware – A sine qua non
Spybot S&D – Another sine qua non
SimpleMU – A nifty shareware muck program
Provided that I’m not busy elsewhere, I’ll be glad to help at closing time.
It’s not because I like you or anything, I’m just after a tasty beverage. :p
Oh, yeah, better hold off on the Anthrocon registrations until we give the gohead. The hotel is having some issues preparing for the inrush of furs. 🙂
Help with AC.
Duncan, count me in, It’s time to put my time where my mouth is. Drop me a line as to times and dates you want help at AC
Chanur the hani.