Category Archives: midwest furfest

Just Another Manic…Wednesday?

All work and no play blah blah blah. You know the drill.

Work has definitely picked up over the last few weeks, which is a good thing. There’s several large manufacturing expansions going on that bode well for plenty of work to do through 2010 and beyond, too – always a Good Thing!

Last weekend was quite lovely. takaza and I drove up to Milwaukee and did some shopping at Milwaukee Public Market, Alterra Coffee, and The Spice House. I had thought about stopping by the new brewpub near the Public Market, but that will have to wait for another day. We had a great time refilling our spice cabinet, and picked up some wonderful burgers (including some bacon and provolone burgers) and sausages from Ceriello’s. On the way home we did our weekly shopping at Woodman’s in Kenosha; we got some great deals on pork loin and something labeled “fresh pork” with no further explanation (it turns out it was boneless meat from the ribs).

On Sunday, we did gloriously nothing. Well, we did watch a couple of football games and the finale to The Amazing Race 12 (which ended like I expected it would, though not necessarily how I’d hoped it would). We also took the 8 pounds of “fresh pork” and, after a bit of butchering (and Dan shortening his finger by a sixteenth of an inch – he’s healing nicely, thank you 🙂 we ground it up and put it into one-pound packets and froze them. Now, when we want Italian sausage for pasta, we pull out of the packets, defrost it in a sink full of cold water (which takes all of 20 minutes) and mix it with Italian sausage seasoning. I still have a 9-pound pork loin to break down into pork chops and maybe a pork roast.

While most everyone is planning for other conventions (we’ll make it out there someday…) I’ve been spending a lot of time working on Midwest FurFest stuff, mainly writing content for the website, the new version of which went live earlier this week. I have a package to send off to one of our Guests of Honor this afternoon, as well, and I’m working on a decision for our third Guest of Honor too; I’m still waiting to hear from a few folks on that {poke, poke}.

While I’m out running errands after work today, I’ll need to stop by Garden Fresh Market – they have a sale on boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.49 a pound. Yeah, I’ll be picking up a whole bunch of those, because that’s a fantastic price (hey linnaeus, I see that they have a store coming down your way, too – come to think of it, that’s not far from daveqat and jimcyl‘s new place, either). It looks like this weekend will be a bit more social than the last, which is kind of nice. With luck, we’ll be spending Saturday afternoon with good friends, good food, and good beer.

Oh, and because I missed it twelve days ago: happy birthday to this journal, which turned six years old on January 11th. Man, there’s been a lot of ups and downs documented here, but I’m really glad that I’ve stuck with it.

It’s a Difficult Monday

I started the day feeling completely out of kilter. Long lists of stuff to get done for MFF and for work, weaving in and out of each other, all seemingly insurmountable. After spending the morning across the campus and having gotten a very tasty chicken avocado wrap for lunch, things are looking much better. There’s still a ton of stuff that I have to get done, but it’s no longer quite so scary.

We had a very enjoyable weekend. Friday evening we had a lovely dinner with genet (unfortunately, roho‘s soul was still being consumed by his employer), then got to relax and unwind a bit. Following a lazy Saturday morning, takaza and I did a bit of cooking for daveqat‘s birthday party – Dan made cheezy mashed potatoes with bacon, and I made a warm potato-bacon salad (which was supposed to be a warm salad with bacon and Jerusalem artichoke, but alas, Garden Fresh had no Jerusalem artichokes in stock). For the bacon trifecta, I made pig candy, which was served with brie and sliced pears. Most people who tried it really liked it. The party on Saturday night was quite a lot of fun, and much booze was consumed.

On Sunday we met mirkowuff and perro for lunch at Osteria di Tramonto (yum!) then gave Perro a tour of the new MFF hotel. As he mentioned in his entry today, it’s going to be tricky: we have more space to work with, but the way that the space is divided up makes things rather tricky. I think that Perro will do a great job. By the way, Perro has also been named my Vice-Chair for this year. While traditionally that has been a role for the next chairman, in this case I don’t care about that. I’m more interested in making sure that we have someone who can reliably answer questions and act in the chairman’s role when I am unavailable.

Next up was the first MFF staff meeting of the year. I didn’t quite get it in under an hour, but I was close. We covered a lot of ground, and got a lot accomplished. Staff members, if you didn’t see the minutes on the staff mailing list, they have also been posted to the staff area of the Midwest FurFest forums. Sunday evening I got a bit of unwelcome news that is going to take some time to figure out how to deal with. Part of the fun of being con chair, I guess.

Finally, I just finished registering for Furry Connection North. We’re still working on the accommodations, but we should have that nailed down in the next few days. Woohoo!

I Wanna Know What’s Goin’ On

Wow. I just realized I haven’t really posted much of substance for a couple of weeks. We hosted a kickass New Years Eve party from December 29th through January 2nd; everyone seemed to have a great time and we really enjoyed ourselves as well. Amusingly, the hotel called takaza on the 3rd asking if we wanted to book for next year. I guess this means they like us a lot!

We limped through the rest of last week at a severe sleep deficit, and had a truly lovely weekend of doing pretty much nothing but vegging on the sofa and watching a whole lot of Tivo. On Sunday we did a spot of shopping, stocking up for the week’s groceries as well as attempting to fill our shiny new freezer (hah! That’ll take a while). It was really nice to have a couple of nice, quiet days of enjoying each other’s company and ratcheting down the stress levels.

This week has been relatively unexciting as well, though last night I had a lovely dinner with moryssa, talking over Midwest FurFest-related things. I also took the opportunity to swing by Woodmans and pick up a few things I can’t easily find at our local grocery store, specifically cinnamon chips, as well as caramel chips and peanut butter chips from a regional company, and some Callebaut semisweet chocolate chips, just because 🙂 I see some fun baking in our future!

We don’t have a lot planned for the rest of the week. We hope to get to a birthday party on Saturday, and then Sunday is the first Midwest FurFest staff meeting of the new year. That should be a good meeting; I’m hoping that we can go ahead and assign what functions are going to be where in the new hotel as early as possible this year, and that’ll be a good start for the process.

Time to wrap up before heading home!

Midwest FurFest 2007 Registration Report

And now it’s come to this: After seven years, my final Midwest FurFest Registration Report.

Executive Summary: Proper Prior Planning Prevents P*ss-Poor Performance.

In hindsight, I can see that it is a good thing that this was my last year as Registration Director for Midwest FurFest. A whole lot of the planning that went into this year fell into the category of “let’s do it like we did last year”, which is great for maintaining the status quo but also stifles creativity and innovation. If you don’t change, you don’t improve. So while everything went well this year and there were no complaints, I’m still leaving somewhat dissatisfied, but glad things are being turned over into good hands.

Pre-Convention Planning

Midwest FurFest 2007: Personal Observations

There’s not going to be a lot of order to this, but hey, bear with me.

  • I said it before but I want to say it again: I had the support of the most amazing group of people at Registration this year. They worked hard, and every single one of them deserves high praise: Neowolf2, rustitobuck, Rolliebear, CobaltFox, Little_Wolf, DaveQat, Ramalion, chsck83, Shy_Matsi, mutantur, Moiracoon, Woodychitwn, Bullethc, Chanur2000, Drew2u, Fordshepherd, Kellicjtiger, Street22, and Tozier_wah. Great job, folks!
  • I will freely admit I had some concerns about sabotlours and carol_kitty running Con Suite, mainly due to the complexities of running something as logistically complicated as Con Suite from Albuquerque. I am delighted to say that not only were my concerns completely unjustified, but also that they totally rocked the place, bringing foods heretofore unseen in MFF’s Con Suite (sushi! stir fry!). And I am very, very glad that they are returning to staff next year in the same role.
  • It is with mixed emotions that I leave Registration behind and move into the Chairman role. I’ve been running Registration for seven years (the first MFF, damnbear did a great job at it) and it’s time for a change. I’m a logistics guy, not a programmer, and it always bothered me that the Registration system was pretty much a black box to me (of necessity – I wasn’t expecting anyone to teach me to program, after all!). I’m glad that Neowolf will be taking it over; he will hopefully bring new life and new ideas to the department. As for being chairman: Wow. Daunting doesn’t begin to cover it. I have some ideas for the coming year, and I still need to talk to many of the convention staff to see what their plans are for 2008. We’ve got a terrific group of people on staff and my job will be to stay out of their way and let them do what they do best.
  • I get to sleep in next year! Well, at least until 8 AM. Sometimes it sucks to be a morning person.
  • Speaking of waking up early, props to crim_ferret and the other Security folks for having fresh coffee each morning. Thanks!
  • There will be another Fine Potables Party at Anthrocon, and at Midwest FurFest 2008 (“Chairman’s Reception”? 🙂 Those are far too entertaining to let fall by the wayside.
  • So we had three elevators in a four-story hotel and we managed to kill one of them. The Westin has four elevators for 16 floors. Well – this will be fun to manage.

The Midwest FurFest Website has been updated, and has not only the video that we showed at Closing Ceremonies to introduce the Westin but also links to reserve your hotel room and register for MFF 2008! Yay!

So, now there’s nothing to worry about until next year. Oh, except for Wuffmeet. And Anthrocon (and creating an entirely new point of sale system for that). Yeah, no worries whatsoever…

Coming Up For Air

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

Home. Ow.

Takaza and I are home.

My cell phone is out of commission; it crashed and had to be mailed to Sprint for service. If I’m lucky I’ll have it back my Wednesday; if not, I assume it’ll be sometime next July or something.

I slipped off the truck as we were loading it and not only seriously whacked my knee but twisted my back and my ankle. Consequently I haven’t been much use in moving the massive amounts of stuff that require both Dan and my cars to get home. Oh, and Dan’s sciatica flared up again last night.

Whining aside, the con went well. No major problems, and a lot of very pleasant surprises. I’ll have a Registration Report sometime in the next few weeks and perhaps a personal report when I can. Now, I’m going to go collapse.

It’s That Time of Year!

Here’s a way to get that festive Midwest FurFest spirit before Midwest FurFest is even here!

We will holding the 8th Annual Midwest FurFest Bag Stuffing on Wednesday, November 14, at 7:30 PM in the Rolling Meadows/Arlington Heights rooms of the Hyatt Regency Woodfield. There is sure to be much laughing and merriment as well as bag stuffage and, if we can wrap up early enough, dinner with friends! Everyone is welcome because we’ve got 2,000 bags to stuff – many hands make light work, and all that.

Hope to see you there!

The Things We Do For Fun

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?

The Downward Spiral

And so we enter the last few weeks before Midwest FurFest. Saturday was spent doing a good bit of preparation for Midwest FurFest 2008, the fruits of which I hope will be evident at this year’s Closing Ceremonies. After takaza and I met mirkowuff for lunch, Dan headed home to work on Publications stuff (yes, still). Mirko and I worked on The Super Secret Project, then drove into Chicago. We had some time to kill so we tried a couple of nicer restaurants around Lincoln Square, but either their menus were unexciting or they were completely booked for the evening. Man, I hate trying to eat out on Saturday nights. We wound up settling for a small taqueria at Lincoln and Montrose that was actually amazingly good, and cost about a fifth of what dinner at any of the other places would have run. Great horchata, too! Afterwards, we headed over to an impromptu party that woodychitwn was hosting. I’m sure descriptions of who was there and that accompanying embarrassing pictures will show up in his journal soon, but suffice to say that I had a good time and it was fun to meet his other friends. Alas, Mirko and I had to head home on the early side (i.e. before midnight), so we missed the various eating-of-cake-off-body-parts, etc. Ah well.

Sunday brought he final planning meeting for Midwest FurFest 2007. It was pretty much the shortest meeting we’ve had all year (36 minutes!) because really, if you don’t have your act together this late in the game, you’re pretty much screwed anyway. Fortunately, every appears to be on their game and we’re in for an excellent convention, I think. For my part, pretty much everything that needs to ordered is in, with the exception of badge blanks and at the door registration forms, which will hopefully be sent to dexcat tonight. Our numbers are looking good, with not only our total attendance following past normal growth patterns, but our sponsorship numbers are matching last year’s as well. The latter is a nice confirmation that we’re doing something right.

After the meeting broke up, roho, genet, and linnaeus joined us back at our place, and we were shortly joined by steviemaxwell and magicpaw. Pizza was ordered, tasty cheese and crackers (and wine) was enjoyed, and we had a good time watching the season premiere of The Amazing Race 12. I was quite pleased with the outcome of the first leg, and I see several teams in there that I will really be cheering for this time around.

The rest of this week will be helping Dan with the last bits of Publications, including a really nice innovation he came up with last week: a small pamphlet for staffers that has all of the information they’ll need, from telephone extensions to emergency procedures to quick schedules, and a lot more. With luck, that will be wrapped up tonight or tomorrow and we’ll get a night or two to relax. On Friday we’re going to Windycon in Rosemont, where we will be working on Operations staff and in our spare time maybe helping out the Dorsai. It should be a fun weekend, and it’s a nice change of pace since neither of us is actually in charge or anything 🙂

Riding Shotgun Down the Avalanche

Another year, another frantic scramble to get everything required for Registration set up. It stuns me to realize that this is the seventh year I’ve been doing this, but I’m also realizing that it’s really a good thing that I’ll be handing off the reins for this next year. A certain sense of “just do it the same way we did last year” sets in, and that’s not good when we’re pushing for innovation and excitement about the convention. I’m sure neowolf2 will bring some great new perspective to the position and go great places with it.

So, what has consumed all my time over the last few weeks? Well, let me tell you…

A Semi-Lazy Weekend

Well, as lazy as weekends can be, given the proximity to Midwest FurFest.

On Friday, takaza and I had talked about possibly going out for a quick and simple dinner. Dan lay down to relax a bit at 7 PM, and long about 9 PM I went up and tucked him in for the night ’cause we weren’t going anywhere. Eh, I’d had a big lunch, so I had a little cheese and crackers and called it dinner. At least I got caught up on South Park and Drawn Together.

Saturday, I helped Dan with the MFF pocket program and con book, then ran out to do a little shopping. Dinner was tasty homemade buttermilk fried chicken with mashed potatoes. Dan worked hard on the con book into the evening until I suggested he take a break; we relaxed a bit in front of the Tivo then went to bed.

It was more of the same on Sunday, except that while Dan put the finishing touches on the con book and the room setups (since he’s Hotel Liaison, too), I worked on dinner. perro and wolphy came over and Perro and Dan hammered out the last of the Programming details while I was all domestic in the kitchen and Wolphy noodled on his laptop. For dinner we had baked polenta (imagine lasagna made with strips of polenta instead of noodles, layered with a Bolognese meat sauce and béchamel sauce, with a sprinkle of freshly-grated Parmesan. For dessert, we had hot fudge pudding cake with vanilla ice cream. Yum! Once the programming shop talk was done, there was a lot of good conversation about MFF ’08, and general chatting. It was a lot of fun, and it was a real pleasure to hang out with those two!

Then came this morning. I slept poorly, and Dan had to wake me up when the alarm went off at 5:30 AM (he usually sleeps until 6 AM). In spite of dragging a bit this morning I’m doing a lot better now. After work I’ll be heading down to our usual staff badge engraver (the shop right around the corner from our house quoted me a price twice what we usually pay, so back to the old reliable). We should be getting a ton of packages this week, from sponsor goodies to A/V equipment to credit card terminals. Somehow our house became Midwest FurFest Package Central! We’re going to need to figure out where to stick everything around the house for a few weeks, but we’ll make it work.

OK, back to work with me!

It’s That Time of Year

Crunch time is upon us for Midwest FurFest. This past weekend was spent preparing several different orders for sponsor and Registration items, gathering information, etc. I won’t bore you with the details, but that pretty much ate up most of my Sunday. Saturday was a lot more fun, though! While takaza slaved away on the Con Book and hotel issues, I made a savory sweet potato casserole which was simply divine. I figure anything that’s made with half a pound of bacon and three-quarters of a pound of cheddar cheese can’t be bad! I’m not a huge fan of sweet potatoes, but this was just delicious! I was fascinated by the way the sweet potatoes added a complex, almost curry-like flavor to the dish. The dish was my contribution to unclevlad‘s birthday party; once it was done I packed it into a cooler with layers of towels to keep it warm and drove on down. The casserole was a hit (yay!) and the party was a blast. I was able to chat with perro, darkwolph, and linnaeus about con stuff (sorry if the smoffage put everyone else off!) and had a great time chatting with all of the other folks there.

On top of all of this we have the preparations for Midwest FurFest 2008. I was vastly relieved to get confirmation of our second (of three) guests of honor yesterday. The third slot will probably remain open until early next year. A theme has also been chosen, so we can go ahead and add those to the promotional materials for next year. (What’s the theme and who are the Guests of Honor? Come to Closing Ceremonies and find out!) This is a nice weight off my mind, though.

Unfortunately, Dan’s health issues continue, with good days and bad days. I worry about him a lot, and it’s frustrating that there’s really not a lot I can do to help. We’ll muddle through this somehow, but I do hope it passes sooner than later.

In happier news, a couple of nice things from yesterday: 1. My Aeropress came in the mail. I may make my first cup of coffee with it tonight (early in the evening, though!). 2. With CBS canceling the apparently-execrable “Viva Laughlin”, the gap in the schedule opens the door for the premiere of the new season of The Amazing Race on Sunday, November 4 at 7 PM CT. Yaaaaay! Anyone interested in making a social event of the premiere?

Cheeseland, Indian Food, and Lots of Driving

Goodness, I guess I’ve been a bit quiet of late. We’re dealing with some health issues reasonably well, which makes me feel a lot better. So. The weekend…

Saturday morning I woke up on the early side and was feeling…spontaneous. Yeah, this is surprisingly rare for me, sadly enough. Anyway, I decided to make a quick run up to Milwaukee to check out the Milwaukee Public Market, since I’ve heard good things about it. Plus, Milwaukee is all of an hour from our house yet we never go up there.

Well, I discovered one good reason not to go up there: I-94 is under some serious construction by the IL/WI state line, then again in downtown Milwaukee. I navigated around that, though, and found my way down to the market. Wow, that place is pretty darned nifty! I picked up a number of interesting cheeses (including litteria, a Romano-like cheese native to Wisconsin, as well as Juusto, which I’ve been curious about. I also got some fabulous homemade pasta, a tasty loaf of asiago-garlic bread, and a couple of other goodies. When I finished at the market, I ventured further north into downtown to The Spice House, where I picked up some spice blends we had run out of (apparently my timing was off; if I’d been around earlier I might have run into the Furconsin crew!). I finished off the visit with a trip by the lakefront location of my drug dealer coffee purveyor, Alterra Coffee. I found that 1.) their parking lot is wholly inadequate, 2.) the only thing worse then stupid people is stupid people in groups, and 3.) I want to have Alterra’s triple latte’s babies. I had fun getting lost as I left town (I’m sure I went right by rolliebear‘s place, though!) and avoided the worst of the construction on the way home with some judiciously-timed detours. Dinner for takaza and I was an alfredo-esque sauce made with the litteria cheese over fresh pappardelle. Delicious!

Sunday found me driving allover Schaumburg and Rolling Meadows finishing off gathering data for the Midwest FurFest Restaurant Guide. We dropped about 10-15 places (closed, have closer locations to the hotel, etc.), but we picked up a couple too, including Pierogi Place, my new favorite place for a quick bite anywhere near Schaumburg. When I was done, I met up with steviemaxwell and midwestcougar for a truly delicious lunch buffet at Gaylord India Restaurant. I’m pleased to say that the restaurant is everything that the effusive Restaurant Guide review that I inherited promised that it is. The northern Indian cuisine was a wonderful contrast to the southern Indian of Bombay City in Gurnee both were good in their own way, but very different flavors. I’d love to go back and order off the menu!

And here we are well into the week already. The great news is that it looks like the River Trip coming up this weekend is still on, and the weather is going to be fabulous. takaza and I will be joined by linnaeus and daveqat. Our itinerary is (loosely) going to include spending Friday night in Moline, IL, then Saturday night in Decorah, IA. Sunday, we’ll probably skim southeastern Minnesota (sorry, foxfeather! We just won’t have time to visit this time around) and either head up to La Crosse, WI and then down on I-94 (boring!) or head due east from Prairie du Chien, WI (and with a name like that, how could I not go there?). The latter route would take us through little towns like New Glarus, WI. Now whatever could we find there, I wonder?

And now, back to watching Heroes!

Thai, Moving, Meeting, Moving Again

After work on Friday, we got a call from colliedoc: he was on his way up from his new job (yay!) until his car died and he was stuck in North Chicago, near Abbott Park. We drove down and picked him up, then proceeded over to Wine Knows where we browsed a bit and tasted some of the wines they had available. Straif picked out a Riesling, and I got a bottle of the 2005 Woop Woop Shiraz. We were then joined by roho, genet, feren, and lady_curmudgeon and we went over to Lovely Thai for dinner. They happily served our wine with no corkage fee (!) and the seven of us had an excellent dinner with appetizers that came to $90. What a great deal! the wines were quite tasty as well, I might add. After dinner takaza and I took our leave from the rest of the group and went home to head to bed.

On Saturday, after a follow-up visit with my podiatrist (everything is healing nice, thank you!), Dan and I drove down to Naperville to help the folks at Ohana House move. We got in three trips between Oldhana and Newhana (heh) before it got too late to deal with things. their new place is quite fabulous, though I think the real winner is emrldgrrl, who got a snazzy studio apartment out of the deal 🙂 For dinner we went to a Chinese restaurant near Newhana that featured amusing patrons and a hostess/waitress who didn’t speak much English but was certainly very fast! Dinner was quite tasty as well.

Sunday brought the Midwest FurFest staff meeting, which was rather productive. As we were eating lunch after the meeting we got a call from datahawk that there was a problem with the landlords of Oldhana and they might need to get everything out before the night was over. We hustled down to Naperville again to lend a hand, but the crisis was averted just before we arrived and they have another week to move stuff. As long as we were there, though, we packed a load of stuff and hauled it up to Newhana. From there we drove home (with a stop at Oberweiss Dairy, ’cause we had a hankering for tasty ice cream) then went off to bed.

Not too much going on this week except for maybe a trip down to Elk Grove Village on Wednesday for some factory testing of new equipment for my employer. And hey, we don’t seem to have much in the way of plans next weekend. I’m sure that will change between now and then, though…

Episode #14,422 of Duncan’s Exciting Life

Midweek updates are always so boring, but hey, what the heck.

I’ve been updating the Midwest FurFest registration database over the last few days, and I should be sending out the next batch of confirmation postcards in the next day or so. The dribs and drabs of online registrations have become a steady trickle, one that will steadily increase until the end-of-September cheap preregistration deadline, then it’ll stay steady for the next month and a half until only registration ends. Our numbers are looking good still; a healthy amount of growth, but nothing to cause me to freak out. Yet. We’ll see 🙂

Takaza is off in Indiana this week, crunching numbers in the heart of Da Region until at least tomorrow. Last night was pretty quiet. I watched some TV while making a quick dinner, then ran some errands before coming home and heading to bed early. After work today, I figure I’m going to change into some more comfy clothes (and get these damn shoes off) and wander around the Grayslake Farmer’s Market. My goal is to see if I can find enough interesting fresh stuff to put together a meal from. We’ll see how successful I am.

As for my toe, it’s healing up as fast as I’d hoped. After gimping around badly yesterday (enough that the limp was causing muscle pain in that leg), I’m able to walk a bit more normally today, albeit somewhat slower than usual. Walking in my Birkenstock sandals is MUCH easier and less painful, but since I work in a manufacturing environment that’s not really an option during the day.

As for other hot-button topics flying around LiveJournal these days, I’ve been thinking of a valuable piece of advice I received many years ago: “A closed mouth gathers no foot.” I suspect I’ll be heeding that for the foreseeable future.

So. Looking ahead to the next few weekends, we have Indian food on Friday, LAFF softball on Saturday (no idea what’s up afterwards, but I suppose I’ll think of something), then…something on Sunday. I don’t think we have any plans right now, but that can change. And next weekend: for the first time in years, I’m actually going to skipping Irishfest in favor of the Chicago Air and Water Show. Should be fun!

A Full Weekend

Right, so how did we spend the weekend?

On Friday, we went to bed early. Wasn’t that exciting?

On Saturday, we bummed around the house in the morning, then headed down to Schaumburg to stay at the Amerisuites Schaumburg. You see, back at Midwest FurFest 2006, r_bear won a certificate good for one night at the Amerisuites at the charity auction, which he then presented to takaza. We were finally able to take advantage of his wonderful gesture this weekend, and had a nice, relaxing time there. We met up with linnaeus, datahawk, aureth, and mirkowuff at Big Bowl for dinner. The food was just delicious, and the two pitchers of sangria were pretty darned good too! It was a very enjoyable meal and I’m glad we could all get together. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and took advantage of the lovely swimming pool and hot tub before stumbling up to bed.

We took advantage of the tasty free breakfast at the Amerisuites before checking out on Sunday, heading right across the parking lot to the Hyatt for the Midwest FurFest board and staff meetings. Everyone has already seen the results of the board meeting. The staff meeting passed uneventfully, and there was some good discussion afterwards as well. The group got a late lunch/early dinner at Potbelly before heading out separate ways. Dan and I were exhausted and pretty limp Sunday evening, and we wound up heading off to bed a little before 9. This lingering cough is kicking my butt, and the cough syrup, while extremely effective, makes me quite fuzzy in the head, so early bedtimes are good to prevent any lingering morning fuzziness.

And here we are with a new week! We have a game night coming up later in the week, and on Wednesday I have an appointment with my doctor to discuss the results of my latest blood test (standard stuff), and what to do about the fact that I probably have enough cholesterol in my blood stream to make some butter. Not too much planned for this coming weekend (for all that I tried to talk Dan into driving to Pittsburgh on a whim), though I believe there is also a birthday get-together or two in the works. Big fun!

Well. Now What?

In a wholly-not-unexpected turn of events, it appears that the chairman for Midwest FurFest 2008 will be…um, me.

I feel excited about the prospect, yet vaguely queasy. If the pattern of growth continues as it has, 2008 will be the year that Midwest FurFest crosses the 2,000-attendee milestone.

Oh boy.

But What Happened After That?

So I suppose the last substantive post I made kind of left things off around the middle of last week. The rest of the week was pretty quiet; honestly, I was so darned tired all week long that actually doing anything would have been difficult. Also, it didn’t help that the cough that lingered through Anthrocon continued to haunt me, waking me up a couple of times each night and making catching up on sleep difficult.

Saturday we finally got around to being social again, catching Harry Potter and the Moneymaking Juggernaut on Saturday afternoon with roho and genet. Order of the Phoenix was my least favorite book, between Harry’s pubescent whining and interminable scenes at the Order headquarters filled with talking, talking, talking. The movie cured a lot of that by cutting out great chunks of the story (which was needed, I think, if only to make the run time manageable). For that alone I would have liked the movie, but the casting was fabulous as well. I always adore Emma Thompson, and her depiction of Professor Trelawney is always great. Evanna Lynch wasn’t quite the way I was picturing Luna Lovegood but I thought she was a good choice. And Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge was just delicious – how she gives you the willies with a girlish giggle. All in all, a good movie, and one I enjoyed a lot.

After the movie, we retired back to our place where we were joined by colliedoc, who was crashing with us between weekend shifts at Bristol Renaissance Faire. Fajitas were consumed, as well as yummy artichoke dip and a caramel apple pie that was just divine. We watched some Flip This House and World Series of Pop Culture, and everyone had a great time.

Both takaza and I woke up before 8 AM on Sunday (!), so we saw Straif off for the day. After relaxing a bit and catching up on some Tivo, we headed out to meet up with justincheetah for a Top Secret Project. Not much I can say except that it was a pleasure to Mike (Calla), Cheetah’s boyfriend. Afterwards we headed home and had a quiet evening in.

On Monday, I finally got tired of the wretched cough and went to see the doctor. I explained that I had tried taking Tussin AC (guaifenesin + codeine, left over from a prescription from last year) but it didn’t really seem to help. She prescribed another cough syrup and told me to call if that didn’t help. I left a bit disgusted, hoping to have a bit more help than that, but oh well. I got out of the doctor’s in time to catch Dan on the way home on the train, so I picked him up at the Mundelein station (yay for Google Maps on my Motorola Q!) and we went shopping for the week’s groceries at Target using the $100 in gift cards we had gotten as thanks for helping out at Dan’s company picnic. While we were there, I had the cough syrup prescription filled, to the tune of $0.69. The groceries were a lot more, though we went a little nuts and bought some stuff we probably wouldn’t have otherwise, just to try out new brands and such.

That night, I took the cough syrup before going to bed and…I take back everything I said before. The doctor had prescribed Hydromet, which I thought was more of the same but is actually hydrocodone and homatropine. I knew hydrocodone affects me a lot more than codeine (following some fun in college with an abscessed tooth and Lorcet Plus; “Whoa, I think I’ll sit down now.”), but the homatropine is some serious stuff as well. Since I took that first dose I haven’t coughed. At all. Holy cats. And this after I was wracked a couple of times each day and night with a nasty, rasping cough. I took it again last night (earlier than I had Monday night, which was good since I didn’t feel quite as dopey this morning), but I’m thinking that should be all that’s necessary.

As for the rest of the week, there’s not too much going on. I have the Midwest FurFest registration database up to date now, and while we’re ahead of last year’s registrations I’m not seeing any insane explosions of growth. The fact that we’re selling out the Hyatt in July (as opposed to in October last year) is more a reflection of the fact that it costs nothing to reserve a hotel room, but actually costs money to register 🙂 Anyway, now that everything is caught up, I have about 70 or so confirmation postcards to send out, which I hope to do tonight. I don’t think we’re doing anything Friday night, but Saturday night we’re going to stay at the Amerisuites Schaumburg (thanks again, r_bear!), then on Sunday is the Midwest FurFest board meeting at 1 PM then the staff meeting at 2 PM. Lots to do before those meetings, so off I go!

A Public Service Announcement

If you have not reserved your room for Midwest FurFest at the Hyatt, you will want to do that TODAY. Like, RIGHT NOW. Seriously.

EDIT @ 14:51 CDT: Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Unless takaza can shake any rooms loose, it’s looking like the Hyatt is sold out for the night of Saturday, November 17. Watch for his posts on on when the room block at our overflow hotel, the Amerisuites Schaumburg, will be opening up.

Games, Family, and Cons

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. 🙂

Mercy Me, What a Weekend!

What a fantastic weekend! And yes, sumatrae, this is another post all about food 🙂

On Friday, we met up with roho, genet, linnaeus, feren, lady_curmudgeon, and a host of other folks from R&G’s gaming group for dinner at Bombay City Indian Restaurant in Gurnee. takaza was pushing his boundaries a bit, but I was really happy that 1.) he was willing to try it, and 2.) he really liked it! The restaurant manager(?) approached our group of 14 and suggested we try ordering family style, and since there were a number of neophytes he suggested a set of entrees, including chicken tikka masala, rogan josh (lamb in a tomato and onion sauce), lamb badam pasanda (lamb cooked in cream and nuts), chicken biryani, and saag paneer and mutter paneer (cubes of cheese cooked with spinach and peas, respectively). The nan (bread) was yummy, and I loved my mango lassi. It was a fantastic meal, and both Dan and I look forward to visiting Bombay City again soon. To answer your question from Friday, posicat, I definitely recommend this place! Apparently it’s only been there for about a year.

The weather on Saturday was perfect. I had to fire up our new grill to season the inside of it. I figured that once we had it hot we might as well use it, so we invited Roho and Genet out to help us inaugurate the grill. They were kind enough to stop by Antioch Packing House and pick up some amazing 1.5″ thick strip steaks. I picked up some yellow and red bell peppers, onions, and corn, all of which got grilled up with the steaks. I still need to work on my charcoal grilling technique (I’m sure the hair on the back of my hand will grow back eventually), but the nice thing is that the grill has enough surface area that if I keep the coals to one side, I can position the food at various distances from them to control the cooking. The steaks came out perfectly, and the entire dinner was delicious! Dan and Roho baked up some tasty puff pastry/peanut butter/chocolate thingies for dessert to cap off a great evening.

Sunday was the very-lightly-attended Midwest FurFest staff meeting. Before the meeting, though, we had to indulge in a bit of home shopping. You see, our pantry is nice, but I hated the way that our “liquor cabinet” looked – it was really just a collection of bottles that sat precariously on the wire rack. The bottles were prone to tip over, and it was difficult to see and access what we had. We also wanted to free up the space in the pantry, so we decided to go to Ikea to find a proper liquor cabinet. I’m pleased to say that we found the perfect thing. Dan did the assembly work and I helped secure it in place, and here’s the finished product:

Here’s the new cabinet. I wanted doors because I thought having all the bottles in plain view might suggest that we’re complete lushes. I love all the shelf space on the bottom.

And here it is open, showing all the boozy goodness! And hey, it’s not even completely full 🙂

I like it because it is shallower than the cart we had there before and it provides a lot more storage space – I now can have all my cookbooks in the kitchen!

So now we’re back to the work-week. We’re in a frenzy of listmaking in preparations for our Memorial Day weekend gathering (post on that to follow). That should be a blast too!

TGIF-ness

And the week has thus wound down. Hooray! It’s looking like we’ve got a lovely weekend coming up (well, Saturday, anyway – Sunday’s supposed to be colder and stormy). I’m up in the air about going to LAFF Softball on Saturday; both cars need a thorough washing inside and out, and I still need to fire up the new grill and “season” the interior before we do any grilling or smoking. So, we’ll see how things go.

Sunday will be the May Midwest FurFest staff meeting. Things are perking along there, and I feel better now that I’ve gotten the first of the confirmation postcards out. I need to sit down with neowolf2 and work out who’s going to do what this year as well. Maybe we’ll get some food afterwards, or not – we’re playing it by ear.

I’m looking forward to dinner tonight. We’re going to an Indian restaurant in Gurnee. It’s been ages since I’ve been to a good restaurant, and roho and genet tell us that this is a really tasty place. I can’t wait!

That’s it for now. It’s ice cream time!

Hump Day (My Lovely, um, Weekly Hump?)

The Midwest FurFest confirmation postcards arrived yesterday from Vistaprint. In the past, I printed up all the postcards myself, front and back, then cut them up, the put labels and stamps on them, then mailed them. That was fine when it was just a couple hundred. Last year, I mailed out close to 800 postcards. It was very clear that it was time to choose a different route. takaza did a fantastic job sourcing a vendor for who would pre-print the postcards, then he worked with film2edit to come up with a beautiful design for the postcard front. When I got a look at the finished product yesterday, I was thrilled! It’s a quality print job, and the cost was a quarter of the quotes that we got locally, and they sent the cards to us four days earlier than we expected them. I’d really recommend Vistaprint!

So, my task tonight is to stop by the post office and buy a whole bunch of (new, improved, more expensive) postcard stamps to stock up for the year, finish stamping the hundred-odd cards I have in hand, and drop those into the mail (I’ve got one in the for you, Chilly, so you can see the finished product!). I need to stop a couple of other places as well, but that’s fine – the weather should be nice, and it’ll be good to cruise a bit with the windows down and some good music playing. Once I get home, it’ll eithe rbe pork chops of pierogis for dinner, depending on how motivated we are (and what the sell-by date on the pork chops is!).

Speaking of music, thanks to everyone for their music recommendations yesterday! I hope to sit down tonight and sample a little of each artist. I promise I’ll let you know what I think (and if anyone else has suggestions, feel free to add them). Now that I have our MP3 library in order, I’m steadily adding to it. We’ve also found a neat new way to use it: Orb. This is a nifty utility that lets you stream your MP3 library to the web painlessly – no IP spoofing, no client software needed. You load up their Flash-based site and it handles everything for you. The biggest downside for us: one connection per username, so if Dan’s listening and I log in, I knock him offline. The site offers some sharing functionality that I need to investigate further, though.

Aaaaand back to work!

Things Don’t Always Go As Planned

Well, takaza and I were supposed to go away last weekend for a relaxing mini-vacation together, but after evaluating our finances we decided that it would be better to postpone that trip until April. So what did we do instead?

I got a last-minute call for help from wyldekyttin on Friday afternoon to lend a hand with moving on Saturday morning. I got up far too early and headed down to the Chicago to help out. I learned how to remove the seats from the Element (man, that’s easy!) and I was impressed just how much extra space that buys you. Because of the huge turnout of folks, I didn’t have to do too much heavy lifting (many hands, light work, etc.) , so it wasn’t an unpleasant experience at all. After dropping everything off, I headed back home and spent some quality time with my wonderful husband. Sorry, woodychitwn – I wish we could have made it to the party, but it sounds like you had more than enough fun without us. mirkowuff wound up crashing at our place for the night after he left Woody’s party.

Sunday was all about Midwest FurFest – first the Board meeting, then the staff meting immediately after. Both meetings went quickly, and there’s lots of good stuff on tap for 2007 and 2008 (yeah, we plan that far ahead!). We had a pleasant late lunch/early dinner with friends afterwards, then headed home. Dan napped a bit while I played some Okami (I’m just starting the final part of the game – maybe someday soon I’ll break this addiction!). We were mildly annoyed when the basketball games pushed the start of The Amazing Race back by 40 minutes, causing us to miss about 15 minutes in the middle of the show. Fortunately, we didn’t miss too much, it seems (mainly everyone attempting to get out of Johannesburg Airport), and I was more than satisfied with the results. I note that next week’s episode is two hours long. Yay!

I’m working long hours this week, coming in each day at 7 AM so I’ll be able to leave at 11:30 AM on Friday. We’ll be heading over to Ann Arbor, MI for the Dorsai Thing, which should be a new and different experience. Other than that, though, it should be a boring week.

Midweek Already?

I guess I haven’t been real talkative this week, but there hasn’t been a whole lot to talk about, either.

Last weekend was busy: After doing some work around the house and some shopping, takaza and I headed down to Naperville for emrldgirrl‘s birthday party. Much fun was had by all! I made a couple of roasted chickens with potatoes (arr num num num!), which were quickly demolished, along with the ton of other food that was there (see what happens when you suggest a potluck to this lot?). Sunday was the Midwest FurFest kickoff meeting, with a little bit of recap from the past year thrown in (I just cheated and summarized my Registration report). Afterwards, we had some nice pizza-and-socializing, and ideas for guests of honor and themes were kicked around.

Since the weekend we’ve been working a bit on the house. Of the four blinds that I ordered from JC Penney’s, I mismeasured/misordered two of them. One was easy to take back to the Penney’s at Gurnee Mills, the other we’re not quite sure about. It annoys the heck out of me that the window openings are 70.5 inches wide but the only off-the-shelf blinds you can get are 72″ wide. If I can locate our Dremel set, I intend to try to cut down the one for the guest bedroom. We hung the blind in the stairwell and it looks really nice – I’m happy with the faux-wood horizontal blinds. I have re-ordered the shoji panels for the kitchen (at the proper length this time), and the blind in Dan’s office is going to have to wait until the window is repaired. We still need to figure out what to do with the living room window, though.

Tonight I need to hit the grocery store, and I’ll probably stop by Homo Depot and see what blinds they have in stock that can be cut down. Projects for tonight include clearing away the boxes in the master bedroom, and possibly getting the bookcases up in the guest bedroom. We’re having a few folks over this weekend, and I’m really hoping we can get the place 100% into shape by then. We’ll see what happens, I guess.

Home.

We’re home.

I’m exhausted.

I start a new job tomorrow – probably it will be a few days until I make a coherent update. In the meantime, it’s time to relax.

Thanks to everyone – attendees and staff – for making this such a great weekend.

Recovery Mode, and Here We Go Again

So now that the Registration system has been repaired and the last few items for Midwest FurFest are being delivered today, I’m in a state of relatively little stress. So what to do? Why, go work another convention, of course! Which is why this afternoon I’ll be heading over to Windycon at the Wyndham in Rosemont to assist in their Operations office for the weekend. Yeah, it’s silly to work a con the weekend before working a con, but this one should be considerably lower stress for me since I’m not technically in charge of anything, and from what I saw last year, quite manageable.

In the meantime, I need to drive up to Wauconda and pick up the staff badges, and then down to Arlington Heights and rent a storage unit for MFF for the coming year. If all goes well, I’ll be able to meet takaza for lunch, then head down to the Wyndham, check in and maybe grab a quick nap, if needed. Expect more updates as the weekend goes on!

Apply The Brakes?

For the past few months, I’ve had two driving forces: get a job, and prepare for Midwest FurFest. These two things have been pretty much what I built every day around, and kept my mind occupied. So now I have a job in hand, and I’ve completed all of my preparations (well, save one or two, but those are not time-consuming). So I have before me a rarity: a day unclaimed. Now, because I’m the way I am, that doesn’t mean I’ll be lolling about; I have to get a haircut, stop by Sam’s Wine to stock up for the Fine Potables party at MFF, do laundry…but I do those things today or tomorrow or even on Monday, were I so inclined. The pressure to get stuff done is off, and it’s a very strange feeling. It’s certainly not one that I’ve felt in literally years, and while a relief, it’s unfortunate that it’s a little disquieting too.

Ah well. Off to start the day!

Can’t Sleep, Con Will Eat Me

My life, reduced to bullet points:

  • On Tuesday I had an interview with large nameless healthcare company that happens to be in Round Lake, IL. Promising position, and would be very exciting. Contract-to-hire, three or six month contract (to be determined), then hire full time at 15% less pay (but with benefits and vacation). If hired, it’d be a bitch of a commute for the short term, but we’ve been wanting to get a place in the Northwest Burbs, and this would be the catalyst to do so. I might know something by the end of next week. Maybe. The good news is that my recruiter is going to see about submitting me to another position at the same company.
  • Not much action on any other fronts. Still putting out lots of resumes, but not a lot of nibbles. It’s a bad time of the year to be unemployed, unfortunately. The good news is that between Dan’s income and unemployment, we’re covered for the short term, at least.
  • So this leaves me lots of time to sit around and play video games all day? Not likely. This is the peak time for preparations for Midwest FurFest. In addition to being an engineer, I suddenly get to become a graphic designer, making layouts for all of the items we’re having imprinted, plus designing the staff and attendee badges. We’re trying some new stuff (thus all of the nifty new equipment) that will hopefully make our lives easier and make Registration run even faster. So in addition to being an engineer and a graphic designer, I also get to be a software designer/network engineer, as we tweak the Registration system to accommodate the new equipment. I also get to flex my management skills, since once the programming schedule is posted I need to figure out how to schedule the seventeen (!) people we have on Registration staff to maximize volunteer hours for those that want them and to make sure no one has to miss any event they wanted to see. You understand why I get a bit flustered at the convention approaches.
  • It’s been a chilly day here, inside and out. I didn’t notice it earlier when I absorbed in computer work, but now I’m realizing my fingers are getting a bit numb. I’ve set foot outside only to get the paper this morning, but the chill is quite penetrating. I’ll have to brave the cold later to go out and forage for dinner – I’m not really looking forward to that.
  • Tomorrow looks a lot more interesting, though. The present plan is that I will drop takaza off at work, stop for some breakfast, stop by the printer to drop off the files for the attendee badges, then strike out westward to take pictures of…something. Things that evoke “County Fair”. Yeah, it would have been nicer to do this earlier in the year, but we didn’t realize just what nice signs we were going to be having. It should be a nice, clear, chilly day, and I expect I’ll be driving around Huntley, Marengo, and Woodstock, which is very pretty country anyway. Later in the day I’ll pick Dan up at work and we’ll do, um, something.
  • This bullet point intentionally left blank

Oh yeah, I’m still around

Yeah, no posts of note last week. I was feeling kind of down and much feel like posting.

So what did I do? Well, on Wednesday I struck out northwestwards to get some pictures for use by Midwest FurFest. This put me conveniently near the engravers who handle our staff badges every year, so I was able to stop by, chat a bit, and kick around ideas for this year’s designs. I’m pretty happy with what we decided on, and now all I have to do is e-mail him the template and the list of names and titles and we’ll be good to go (and this year I won’t forget the Guests of Honor like I did last year, with that lovely “Oh sh#t!” moment on Wednesday night). Afterwards, I drove down and picked up takaza after work. Last week was month-end for him, and between doing the work of multiple people and the stress of more and more tasks being piled on him, it was not a good week. I hope I was able to help a little bit, anyway.

On Thursday, after I took Dan in to work, I stopped by the MFF storage locker and picked up a few things, and dropped off a few things that had been sitting in linnaeus‘s garage since Anthrocon, as well. I stopped by a printer and got a quote for the attendee badges for this year – we’re going to a new, faster system, but wow, the price of badge blanks just got a lot more expensive! I need to call a couple more places for quotations and see if I can get the price down at all. That was also an especially tough day for Dan at work, so I drove back out and picked up dinner for him (and a tasty milkshake as a special treat), and after we ate I sat at the desk across from him and read the paper while he finished up; he finished up and we left $employer a little after 9 PM.

Dan got out of work surprisingly close to on time on Friday, and in much better spirits too. After I picked him up, we took back roads up to Antioch and had a lovely evening with roho, genet, and the visiting-from-Maryland ottr. We had a delightful evening filled with tasty burgers at Charcoal Grill, a hysterical shopping trip in the liquor department of Woodman’s, drunken Apples to Apples, and the alarmingly rapid consumption of a bottle of Pucker (“How does it taste?” “Blue.”). The next morning, following a typically delicious breakfast at Las Vegas Restaurant (mmm, chocolate chip pancakes…), we all went our separate ways.

The rest of the weekend was spent working on MFF-related stuff: preparing last-minute orders for promotional materials, Dan working on the con book, me helping Dan work on the con book, and other fun stuff. I’ve got a stack of confirmation postcards to go out (and I need to print more of them and buy more postage – great googly moogly, that’s a lot of registrations!) We also took some amusing pictures to accompany the Chairman’s Welcome (I’ll be keeping those for future blackmail material, Paul 😉 Dinner Sunday night was some tasty steaks, and catching up with “The Amazing Race.”

Lots to do this week – hopefully some good stuff going on tomorrow, but in the meantime there’s a ton of orders I need to place and phone calls I need to make. Never a dull moment…

Last-Minute Plans?

FYI: If you’re attending Midwest FurFest and haven’t reserved a room yet, check out this post in for what options are available right now. The Hyatt and the Amerisuites are sold out, though rooms should be coming available at the Amerisuites in a couple of weeks when some other groups’ underperforming room blocks are released.

A Random Weekend of Stuff

Well, I’ve been productive enough today, so I guess that means I have time to look back over the last few days and see what’s been going on.

After a small series of scheduling snafus, I picked up lisagems on Friday and we met up with foxish to ostensibly start the moving process early in the afternoon. Well, that didn’t happen, but we did get two loads of stuff moved over to the new place by evening. emrldgirrl was nice enough to pick up gyros for everyone and a very entertaining dinner at the new house was had. Still a lot of work to go on that, but they’re getting there.

On Saturday takaza slept in until quite late, but he had had a rough week and was certainly due the extra rest! He and I ventured out into the burbs and ran some errands, in particular picking up a PCI wireless card for the spare desktop we keep in the bedroom for extra storage and emergencies – emergencies like Dan’s laptop dying. Just because he was using it to make the MFF conbook, that’s no cause for alarm, right? Ack! Fortunately, the card worked great and he is now on his way to getting stuff together for the book.

Sunday, I joined Linnaeus, siriuswolfstar and simbalion for lunch at the Lucky Platter in Evanston. I had the “Omelet #1” (artichoke hearts, goat cheese, avocado, and roasted tomato sauce), and it was just amazing! I loved the food there, and I’d love to go back! Afterwards, I gave Sirius and Simba a life to Beast Buy where we wandered among the slack-jawed and they picks up some needed items. On the way back to their place we stopped by Evil Squirrel Comics to say hi to woodychitwn, then had an interesting conversation about who can and cannot be considered a “hack” furry artist. The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing around the house and getting in some quality snuggle time with my sweetie 🙂

Yesterday…not a whole lot to say. The usual job applications, grocery store runs, etc. Dinner was excellent, and I’ll be posting that recipe shortly since I want to make it again. I did call in Dan’s laptop to Circuit City’s warranty program, since we paid for it after all, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the problems seem to be covered and they’ll be sending a box to ship the laptop back to them for repair.

Today has been quite productive. Laundry has been running all day, and I have put in the orders for our sponsor gifts, Registration bags, and cloisonné pins. In a little while I’ll hit the road out to the burbs to help out with the moving once again; I figure if I can’t be useful here I might as well be useful somewhere. There’s some other MFF-related stuff I need to do later this week. I’ll probably talk about that more later.

Apple-y Goodness!

It was such a great weekend, it took me a day to recover from it before I could write this! (Or I’m lazy. One of the two…)

We had a fabulous weekend, though! On Friday I picked takaza up after work and we headed north to Antioch to hang out with roho and genet. Traffic being what it is, our 6 PM arrival became 7:15 PM, but that’s OK – we weren’t in too much of a hurry and I always enjoy the time spent with Dan. We chatted a bit once we got there and then headed out to a Mexican joint that was…well, a wee bit underwhelming. We need to take R&G to the taquiera around the corner from our place for something a little more authentic. Following a stop by Armanetti’s Liquors, we chatted for a while back at the house and tested some of the Tasty Beverages we had purchased. After a bit, I was shocked by the arrival of datahawk! Yeah, she lives there, but it’s not like they ever actually see her 🙂

The next morning was the usual slow start, but pleasantly so. Eventually we motivated enough to head down to BD’s in Vernon Hills to meet up with linnaeus, feren, and lady_curmudgeon. Tasty stir-fried food was consumed and we had a great time chatting. Afterwards, we returned to Antioch for a quick stop by Antioch Packing House for dinner grillables, then a stop by the house for pit stops. As we were leaving there, I unfortunately managed to step approximately in the same place that Feren did and twisted my left ankle. I imagine I looked pretty impressive staggering around a bit before collapsing to the grass. Ack! I was still able to walk, though, so we pressed on, though somewhat slowly.

And press on we did, to Brightonwood Orchards! This fabulous place is just north of Richard Bong State Recreation Area and only about a 20-minute drive from Antioch. When we pulled in, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the orchard also had a winery! The winery made apple wines and hard ciders, and they had a tour – well, not so much a tour as one of the guys who makes the wines and ciders who just loves talking about it and showing off their shop. I took several pictures, some of which should amuse you homebrewers out there. After the tour, we had a great time tasting their wares and picking up a few bottles of the drinkable apple-y goodness. We were joined by grabstein_69, silverwind, and their daughter Chayla right around then, too.

We walked (well, I hobbled) over to the apple barn where they had a respectable variety of heirloom apples. I grabbed a variety of different apples, though of course now I have no idea which are which but hey – it should be an unusual eating experience. As we were leaving I remembered that neowolf2 had mentioned how good Northern Spy apples were. I hadn’t seen any on display, so I asked the cashier and she said they had some in the cooler. I bought four of them and tore into one as we were hanging around while Giles fed Chayla. OH MY GOD that apple was so good! Slightly tart, slightly sweet, and nice and firm. Just excellent, and very flavorful. I’m glad I bought them!

After the orchard, we had a nice evening relaxing back at R&G’s place, enjoying grilled meat, mojitos, and good company. We capped off the night by surprising Roho with a birthday cake I had made the day before. Yay for surprises! The cake was tasty, too, though a bit dry due to a little overbaking. The dark chocolate frosting made up for that though. Yum!

On Sunday Genet made a tasty breakfast for us, then we said our goodbyes. Dan and I headed south, all the way down to Glen Ellyn, where we helped crim_ferret and wyldekyttin move some of their possessions to their new place in Naperville (if anyone wants to know where it is: Conveniently located just south of The Big N). Unfortunately, between the fact that my ankle was shot and we had an online Midwest FurFest staff meeting that night. we weren’t as helpful as I would have hoped. We got some of their bookcases over, at least. We returned to The City by about 5 PM, which gave us time to grab dinner from the taquieria before the meeting. The meeting was moderately useful and mercifully short, and we spent the rest of the evening working on con-related stuff.

And Monday? The usual – apply to a bunch of jobs, go to the grocery store, run some errands, that sort of thing. Today was more of the same. You see why I don’t write much about my weekdays? They’re boring as heck!

How Did I Get This Busy?

Even when I’m unemployed, I seem to have a lot to do. Yesterday morning I drove takaza to work, then killed the morning at Panera, then at Mount Prospect Public Library, working mainly on the Restaurant Guide. We met for a quick lunch, then headed over to the Hyatt Regency Woodfield where Dan had a meeting with the hotel representatives. I sat in, took notes, and mentioned a few things where I could, but mostly stayed in the background. It was a long meeting – three hours! – but a lot got discussed and I think everyone came away feeling pretty confident about the stuff that was discussed. Afterwards, we stopped by the overflow hotel (the Amerisuites Schaumburg) just across the parking lot, and Dan made sure everything was in order there. That’s a really nice hotel, and maybe a possibility for a future Wuffmeet. Hmmm…

After that we fought our way home through rush hour traffic, and had leftovers for dinner – Dan had the last of the chicken and dumplings from the night before, and I had some of the pork roast from Monday. Mm,, that made some tasty sandwiches! Then it was out to the previously-announced Ice Cream Night where the attendance was a bit light: only lisagems and woodychitwn were there, besides us. It was fun, though. Woody thoroughly schooled Dan in Connect Four, and Lisa and I commiserated about the lives of the unemployed. The pumpkin and cinnamon ice creams that Bobtail has for fall are divine, and I had an ice cream latte with a scoop of the cinnamon ice cream in it. Delicious!

Today has been somewhat less busy, but still I’ve gotten a lot done – mostly laundry and shopping. We’re going to try some mini-meatloaf from Cook’s Country tonight. We’re making plans for the weekend, and it looks like we’re going to take advantage of what may be the last warm weekend to visit a local apple orchard, and generally spend time with friends. Sounds like a great plan to me!

Holy Cow!

The Hotel Liaison for Midwest FurFest (aka my sexy and wonderful husband, takaza) tells me that our room block for this year is dwindling fast. How fast? Like double rooms selling out within the next week or so fast. Once those are gone, there won’t be any more! There’s still king rooms available (for now) but I expect those will be going fast as well.

If you haven’t reserved your hotel room for MFF, DO IT NOW! Remember that you can’t reserve online – you’lll need to call in; the info is on the hotel page of the MFF website.

Edited at 12:38 PM: edit for clarity – sorry for the confusion.

Your Weekend Recap {tm}

…only a day late.

So Friday afternoon I picked up takaza from work; because it was a Friday afternoon and it was raining slightly, traffic was of course a complete wreck. We opted to take our time heading back into the city, stopping by the Mount Prospect post office and checking out a cute little ice cream parlor nearby. The rest of the evening was a quiet affair, watching some Tivo and laptop-geeking.

On Saturday, mirkowuff came by, and we debated whether or not we would try to attend Irishfest. While it no doubt would have been fun, there was no one on the schedule who I just had to see, plus I wasn’t looking forward to the three-hour round trip. In the end, we bagged Irishfest and instead had lunch at Juicy-O’s (again) with crim_ferret, wyldekyttin, and Linnaeus. The place was as fabulous as it had been the week before, and I again ate way too much. Oog. The chicken and mushroom skillet was quite tasty, though.

After lunch Mirko and I headed over to LAFF Softball, where we wound up just hanging out and chatting with folks. Quite fun. And because we hadn’t had enough punishment, we went to LAFF Bowling, though I mainly just hung out with some friends and chatted (and enjoyed some Tasty Beverages). It’s not quite how I had envisioned spending the day but it was enjoyable nonetheless. I had fun chatting with ramalion, quasiskunk, rcfoot, bullethc, perro and darkwolph.

Sunday brought the Midwest FurFest Board Meeting, followed by the staff meeting. Useful meetings, and we got a good bit of stuff taken care of. Afterwards Dan and I had lunch with roho and genet, making plans for their upcoming wedding, where Dan will be acting as their photographer and I will be providing the music. When we got home, Dan laid down for a nap that became a very long night’s sleep instead; I noodled on my laptop and got some con-related stuff taken care of then it was off to bed.

Yesterday? Eh. Work. Last night we did watch the season finale of Treasure Hunters, the bastard child of Amazing Race and National Treasure, with some Survivor thrown in. All in all, the show was just dreadful, and we watched more out of obligation than anything else, since we had watched it up until then. The idea that the final three teams ended up in a small room that looked like an Egyptian tomb, but was actually in an abandoned factory on Baltimore Harbor was perfectly ludicrous, and the key to the final puzzle was…underwhelming. This is the kind of show where they don’t hint at any production interference, yet it’s patently obvious in places and leaves you deeply suspicious of the whole thing. The “reunion” segments were poorly paced, and their milquetoast of a host (who finally stopped [literally] phoning in his performance) had no control over the contestants; it was quite entertaining to watch him try to maintain order as everyone ignored him completely. Yeah, I suspect this show won’t be back, and if it is I recommend that everyone avoid it. But here’s something to look forward to: The Amazing Race 10 starts September 17! Yay!

And now, back to work…

2005 Midwest FurFest Registration Report

This is the Registration Report for Midwest FurFest 2005. This marked the sixth Midwest FurFest and my fifth year running registration. You’d think I’d have things down pat by now, but I am always working on improving and making things run smoother. This is the third year that I’ve tried to put together a comprehensive Registration report (see reports for 2003 and 2004), and while it helps me sum up the year and make notes for next year, I also welcome any questions or comments anyone reading this might have as well.
Click to read the report