Wow, a week since I last posted. As you might guess, my life is sort of exploding at the moment. Last week was a flurry of last-minute preparations, and everything seems to be falling into place nicely. There’s just a few loose ends to wrap up this week (including printing sponsor coupons and temporary badges for the evenings) and we should be good to go. At this point, we’d better be in place or, well, tough luck!

And in the midst of all of this, we worked Windycon. Now, this may seem like madness, but there is a method to it: the idea was to have a weekend where we didn’t deal with MFF stuff at all, and we could just act as drones and do what we’re told. Yeah, that was the theory anyway.

See, here’s the problem: This was the 34th Windycon. And it showed, badly. They have too many people who are in a rut, who are pretty much down to taking the approach of “let’s just do everything like we did it last year, and the year before, and the year before that.” Please don’t get me wrong – in most cases the folks who run the convention are lovely people, and I wouldn’t mind spending time around them. But even the best of us gets jaded. The other problem is that over the years, turf wars have erupted. His clique hates her clique, and that person doesn’t play well with that other person. The entire thing is grossly dysfunctional, and communications have broken down. A couple of examples: 1. There was an information desk near the Dealers Room. They were serving much the same purpose of Operations (where we were working). There was zero communication between the Information Desk and Operations. 2. Registration didn’t open at all on Sunday, due to too few memberships typically being sold. Instead, attendees were supposed to go to Operations to buy badges. We knew that we were selling badges overnight, but when people started coming in to register at 8:30 AM, we told them that maybe Reg opened at 9 AM. Then 10 AM. Then 11 AM. At 11:30 AM we finally found out that Registration wouldn’t be opening at all that day but never communicated that fact to Operations.

We have helped in Windycon Operations for the last few years as a favor to unclevlad, but he’s moving on to another position next year, and we’re done. The convention holds no interest to us. So we’re done – no more Windycon after this. If nothing else, though, it served as a nice reminder that Midwest FurFest is amazingly well-organized and functional. Also, the Dorsai were helping out with Security Adult Supervision, so we got a chance to talk with Rene a bit, which is always a pleasure. It would be crazy, but we’re giving serious consideration to helping out the Dorsai with Magfest this year. We’ll see what happens after MFF, though…

Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep well at all all weekend, so I’m dragging a bit today even after last night’s sound sleep. That makes life fun, eh?