Well, it’s been almost a week since Midwest FurFest, and I’m finally able to sum it all up: DAMN. And I mean that in a good way 🙂

Let’s see if I can condense this down to something readable. I do want to preface this by saying that if I don’t mention your name it’s because it was all a blur – please don’t think any slight is intended.

Wednesday

I had to work on Wednesday, but I was able to skate out of work by 3 PM. Following a quick stop by my doctor for a blood draw (cholesterol check), it was off to the Hyatt Regency Woodfield. takaza had already gotten down there earlier in the afternoon and offloaded all of our the various Registration and Publications gear and secured our room. We unpacked our personal stuff from my car and puttered around a bit, getting things in order. At around 5:30 PM or so we started moving all of the Registration materials down to Regency Ballroom in preparations for the bag stuffing which was supposed to start at 7:30 PM. Folks started wandering in at 6:30 PM (including Mintaka, who was kind enough to lend a hand stuffing sponsor envelopes) and by 7:45 we had a good 20-25 people in there in an extremely efficient assembly line putting 2,000 con books, restaurant guides, and pocket programs into bags. We wrapped everything up just before 8:30 PM – amazing! rustitobuck was kind enough to come by early to help get the Registration server whipped into shape and had run into some bugs, so he and I stayed behind while the rest of the crew went to Portillo’s for dinner. Eventually we got everything wrapped up, stowed, and I stumbled off to bed.

Thursday

Let the mayhem begin! Following a day of set-up and preparations and a brief meeting with the hotel (the annual meet ‘n’ greet sort of thing where we all forget each others’ names and they pretend like they’re ready for the coming maelstrom), I went to work setting up Registration. We got everything open by 6:15 PM or so and things stayed steady for about three hours. We had some hiccups with the printers (eventually traced to a faulty USB cable) that necessitated rebooting the server three times. That had me a bit worried, but otherwise everything seemed to go pretty well. I’ll have numbers and details in my Registration report in a few weeks. I do want to say here and now though that I was extremely fortunate to have a crack Registration staff – every single one of them went above and beyond my expectations, and MFF’s Registration wouldn’t be the smoothly-running machine without the work of those fine folks. We wrapped up Registration at 11 PM and it was off to bed for me.

Friday

Another Friday of con, another relocation to the basement. We set up Registration in the Mayoral foyer and opened a little early again to a huge crush of people. We drained the line pretty quickly, though, and after that things ran pretty smoothly. Most of the day is a blur, but I can say that everything ran smoothly. takaza informed me of a new convention tradition for us to have dinner together each night, since we really don’t see much of each other during the day. This was lovely and I really enjoyed it, although we had to eat quickly so I could be back at Registration to help them close up. neowolf2, my second in command, let me know that he was feeling under the weather, which necessitated a little schedule-juggling, though. As always, my staff had my back, though. ramalion stepped up to help fill in the schedule, as did kellicjtiger and…aw, crap, I’ve completely forgotten now. I’m sorry! Anyway, we stopped by snowwolf42‘s Scotch and Cigar party briefly before I went upstairs and collapsed into bed, exhausted.

Saturday

And here’s where things really start to get hazy. The day is a blur of Registration shifts and walking around the con, ducking my head into various departments and seeing how everything was going in preparation for 2008. The Sponsor Brunch was fabulous as usual, and I’m just sad that we couldn’t reach more staff to fill the empty seats that we had paid for. We need to improve on that next year, and find a more equitable way to fill seats if they come available. Dan and I had dinner again in Tre Cena, though I was so full from brunch I ate pretty lightly. At 9 PM it was time for our Fine Potables party which…um, wow – I didn’t realize just how many invitations we had handed out! The only downer of the night was the realization that I hadn’t been watching the door closely enough and some unfamiliar faces had wandered in to what was an invitation-only party. This was quickly fixed though (“Hi, I’m Duncan. I don’t know you. Get out.”). The party was a huge success, and I had a lot of fun (and only got slightly tipsy). We closed out the evening with a long chat with girtygrin about starting conventions and some of the plans he has for the upcoming Furry Connection North in Ann Arbor, MI.

Sunday

Another blur of a day, much like Saturday, but everything was going pretty well. We had some printer issues at Registration which points to the fact that we could probably use a revamp on the server programming, but I’m overjoyed to say that’s up to Neowolf now. Have fun with that, man! 😉 During the Board Meeting, my cell phone completely and utterly crashed, leaving my phone-less for the rest of the convention. Closing Ceremonies was…amazing. The highlight had to be presenting out charity, Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation, with $15,000, enough to help them cover their bills for the coming year. After Closing Ceremonies, there was one of the smoothest teardowns I’ve ever seen at MFF. Nicely done, folks! Following a quiet dinner of pizza, we had a smaller crowd back to our room to help dispose of the excess alcohol and taste some wonderful chocolates that linnaeus brought. I was feeling a bit antsy and wound up prowling around the lobby and hallways for a few hours while the party was going on, trying to help keep a lid on some of the craziness. I did make it back though and we wound up with a circle of seven or eight past, present, or future furry convention chairmen, which led to some entertaining conversation.

Monday

Time to wind down! I worked on getting our room wrapped up while Dan, mirkowuff, and Linnaeus met with the hotel to wrap up the event. Unfortunately, as I was helping to put stuff into the truck to go to the storage unit, I slipped from the bumper as I was trying to close the rear door and gashed my leg right below the knee and bruised it badly as well. In the process I slightly twisted my ankle and wrenched my back. I spent an hour or so sitting and icing my leg down (thanks to everyone who expressed concern – I really did appreciate it even if I was rather grumpy at the moment). Quasiskunk showed just what an amazing friend he is by helping us load all of our stuff out of our room and into my car. Quasi, I would have been lost without you, man, and I can’t thank you enough! We headed home and spent the rest of the evening quietly relaxing.

I’ll have some personal observations about the con in my next post.