Home At Last

[cassy_g]

Wow.

I am a serious cacophony of emotions at the moment. I am (really) hurt by some things that have been said regarding the Convention. I am happy that all things considered the Convention went off well and without many problems and even fewer serious issues. I am glad I got more sleep than last year. I am relieved I am home. I am sad the Convention is over. I am excited that I can start moving forward with my life now that the Convention is over.

Because this is really long, I am putting the Dragon*Con Experience behind several cut-tags with day labels.

It all started last Wednesday, August 27. I got up around 7 am and spent the morning helping astralfire pack up the massive amounts of equipment that have to get moved to the Convention every year. Two large (4 feet high, 3 and a half feet long and about a foot and a half wide, 175 lbs each!) plotter printers, boxes and boxes and boxes of paper, piles of foam core, computers, smaller printers, cables, and all the office supplies you could hope for. I had started packing earlier in the week, but it never ceases to amaze me just how much there really is.

My father-in-law (life saver!) brought up his cargo van that is affectionately known as "The Box", took us a few hours to efficiently pack all that we could into the van, and believe me, there were a few times I was convinced that it wasn't going to work and they would have to make a second trip!

Once everything was packed into the van, astralfire and his dad headed off to the Hyatt to unpack the van. I stayed home to wait for my favorite teenager in the world to get home from school. Plus, I had many signs to type set (this is another, later story).

When Blake got home, he and I packed up the last little things and my laptop and headed down to the Hyatt to help set up and network the extra computers we had ordered for Daily Dragon and Signage.

Of course, we sit in a couple of hours of traffic, only to get there and find out that the computers we ordered wouldn't be there until Thursday morning sometime, ack!

Even without the computers there, we had a ton to do, so we stayed until around 2am, trying to coax the plotter printers into playing our reindeer games and printing. A wonderful friend and staff member of the Daily Dragon, Dean, was wonderful and at least got the network between his computer and our computers working while I bounced between typing and kicking, err, I mean gently coaxing the plotters into spitting out the signs I had made.

Did I mention that no one from Signage ever showed up Wednesday, they didn't even call and check in? And yes, they DID know we were there.

We didn't have reservations until Thursday, so because we were running behind without the Signage people, David got up early and headed down to the Hyatt, hoping the computers would be there to set up and to set the printers back into motion. This left me and Blake home packing our clothes which had been neglected in lieu of packing and moving equipment. And yes, I was still working on signage between packing and sorting laundry.

Oh, on a funny side note, Thursday, I was suppose to be doing laundry (ok, anyone that knows me knows that me doing laundry is laughable in the first place). All was going well, if not running behind, got the jeans washed and threw some dark clothes into the laundry machine, left them while the jeans went threw two cycles of drying. David called to tell me he was heading home to pick me up, so we could try to make it down there before rush hour traffic. Perfect, I think, everything running on schedule for once. I go to move the jeans from the dryer and toss the darks in. As I am pulling out the darks, I keep thinking they really aren't looking so clean, wtf? As I dig more and more out I am noticing there are what appear to be dryer sheets here and there. As I get deeper I realize there aren't just a few, but an ENTIRE BOX of them that got washed with the laundry!! The stuff that was making everything look dirty was the cardboard box's itty bitty pieces all over everything. On the up note, there were some very very clean dryer sheets.

Well, hell's bells, now I am not going to be done with the laundry in time, so that means I am going to have to go back to the house Thursday evening. I don't really care too much because otherwise, all is going well and I figure I will just head home after I go to dinner with feygirl, drcat, rae_la_fai, chalice66 and her husband.

We head down to the Hyatt, sit in traffic, despite it not being rush hour. When we finally get there, I get checked in and all is not too bad. In fact, it seems to be ticking right along, yay! So, I don't feel bad about the fact that I am planning to go to dinner with my friends.

eugie and her husband are already there, the copier was set up, and even though the network was being persnickity, it seemed good, until we realized that a couple of the computers that had been delievered to us had a virus on them. Not only did they have viruses, they had spread them to the other computers. So we spent a lot of time running virus scans on these things that were only slightly better than a chisle and rock. 32 megs of RAM and a 300 mHz machine trying to run Windows 98, Front Page 2002, and Word 2002. It was very ugly.

Eventually that gets fixed, the Thursday edition of the Daily Dragon gets out and I realize that it's getting really late, and wonder where my friends are.

I ask around and hear there's a several hour wait in Pre-Registration. Wow! I wonder if people realize the Convention doesn't actually start until Friday afternoon? Still, I think it probably means that things will slow down later, and of course, I know my friends are all probably stuck in the horrid lines.

Meanwhile, Signage's people have still not shown up, or called or anything (sensing a theme?).

Though I kept insisting that I was going to be going to dinner, I was force fed a rather yucky PB&J sandwich while I tried to help get the problems with Signage fixed. I think around 10:30 pm or so, my friends show up and I literally ran away with them. I asked astralfire to join us, but he said he was busy, so I left him there, and Blake went up to the room to sleep.

I was getting really frustrated with doing other people's work, so I was really glad to have a chance to get away. We headed out, but because of the late hour, the only thing open was the Hard Rock Cafe. I have never been to one before. It was kind of expensive, or so it seemed to me, and I wasn't really hungry, but the decor was nice, the music entertaining, the chocolate sundae I had was delish, and the company was as always, outstanding! It did a lot for my emotional stability to just get away from the con stuff for a little while.

Eventually we head back to the hotel, everyone splits up and I remember I have to drive home, ack! Before I left for home, we decided because it was so late, it would be better if I just stayed home that night instead of trying to do everything and drive back by myself. Fortunately, chalice66 hung out with me and eventually drove home with me around 2:00 am. I was really wiped out and was very thankful for the company and just to have someone to talk to. I dropped her off (four houses away from me, heh) and got home, fixed the laundry issue and crawled into bed around 3:00 am.

I usually have a hard time sleeping when I am home by myself, but I guess I was tired enough that it didn't seem to be much of an issue. I woke up a couple of times coughing and feverish, which really bugged me because I didn't want to get sick! I didn't get up until around 8:00 am, and when I did, it was just to switch the laundry between the washer and the dryer. I had a bit of a sore throat and felt a little light headed, so I went back to bed until around 9:30 am. Then I got up, finished packing everything, checked one last time on the kitty cats, then headed off to the grocery store and Wal-Mart to do the things I didn't get to do without the car on Thursday.

I was suppose to be down at the Hyatt by 12:00 pm Friday for the daily director's meeting, but when I realized I was running really late (everyone and their brother was conspiring against me!) I called the hotel and asked astralfire to just let them know I wouldn't be there and gave him a list of things to cover for me.

I got groceries because during the Convention, the hotels and food court aren't usually open that much, and when they are they charge an arm and a leg. This was when the beginning of my frustration began. I called the hotel to see if astralfire could come down and help me with all the groceries and stuff, because for those of you who have never been to D*Con, the hotel is a mad house on Friday and waiting on bell hops and elevators is a nightmare. It was around 2:30 pm or 3:00 pm by then, and I was informed in very short order, that he didn't have time, that he had signs to work on. Wtf? No. Signage still wasn't there.

So, I get to the hotel, get everything moved thanks to a very nice bell hop that took me up a back way so I didn't have to deal with the crowds, then I head down to Ops. As it turns out, astralfire not only is running around like a mad man with only one guy (one of our signage guys from the year before), but he also had never gone to bed the night before. I asked him where the reest of the signage guys were and he said they had been there, but were on a "break". WTF?? I ordered him to bed and took over for him. They never came back from their "break" at least not while I was there. I was sitting trying to collect everything, figure out what was and wasn't done when Security came in, around 8:30 pm or 9:00 pm and said that they had a wrestler that was injured badly and needed to go to the hospital but was afraid of ambulances.

I can't really talk about it, it's confidential, everything that happened, but sufficive to say, I took him to the hospital, got back to the hotel around 2:00 am and was in meetings about it all until around 4:30 am. While I was writing up the incident reports, the guy from the night before that I had left in charge of signage said that he had all the signs for Saturday ready to go, and said someone should be there shortly to print the signs and mount them for the 9:00 am meeting. No problem, I have to stay up a while longer anyway to finish my incident report, so I tell him I will start the printing and watch it until the rest of signage shows up.

It quickly became 8:00 am, and I wasn't about to wake up astralfire, I can't reach the signage guys, so I called some friends in Volunteer Services and they crawled out of bed and came to help me get everything ready by the 9:00 am meeting. One of the other track directors even showed up early for the meeting and helped me out. Massive thank you's to the three of them!

Not being one to spread gossip or to rumor monger, I will just say, it was noon before I got to bed, and I wasn't a happy kitty.

I only got to sleep about two hours before my pager went off. Dealt with that, then the cell phone, then the regular phone, and then I was awake. I was still exhausted, so when a friend came by to change for the night I chatted with her until she left around 3:30 pm, then I finally fell asleep again. I got woke up around 6:30 pm by Blake coming back to the room (though it wasn't his fault, I am just a light sleeper, even when I am exhausted). It turned out to be a good thing, because I wanted to go to The Tribe VIP party I had been invited to at 8:30 pm.

I was slow getting out of bed, showering and getting dressed, but I got to the party by around 9:00 pm.

I am really shy, and even though I had a complete blast being there, I realized afterwards, I had a tendency to stick close to the people I already knew. I felt a little bad too because I hadn't gotten to go to a single panel, so I couldn't really comment or ask about anything they'd done yet.

I did have a short little chat with Tom Hern who plays Ram on the show, The Tribe. He spoke about how different it was here in the United States and how different being at a full blown convention was. He said that the little "tours" they do in Europe were nothing like that, and he said he was surprised that the fans of the show knew and remembered so much about it. I laughed and told him if he thought The Tribe fans knew a lot about it, he should go hang out with the fans from Star Trek and Star Wars. He laughed and then told me about having given a speech earlier that night for the Awards Banquet for Raymond Thompson, the creator of the show, who had received an award even though he couldn't be there. Seems the typed speech got lost somewhere in all the traveling and he was trying to read from a hand written note! I felt much sympathy for him, though it seems from all I heard about the speech he delivered it well in spite of everything.

All of the cast was very charming, and it was a wonderful, relaxing two hours.

After that, back to the room to deal with Signage, and hang out for a little while with feygirl, drcat, and chalice66. Then we all went to dinner down in the hotel restaurant, along with astralfire and rae_la_fai. It really took a long time to get our late night dinner even though there weren't many people there. The good news was we had a really great view of everyone in the lobby in their costumes!

We went back upstairs around 2:00 am, and got everything started and rolling with Signage, then astralfire and I both headed to bed. I had a hard time sleeping at first because of all the noise, but eventually got to sleep around 3:30 am.

I was utterly determined to go to a panel, so I got up around 8:00 am, took a shower and headed down for the 9:00 am meeting, but I was running late. Things seemed mostly well, just a few scheduling problems to sort out along the way, then I was off to see the third annual Iron Artist panel!

Our wonderful MCs with thier (in their own words) "incredibly racist and horribly bad japanese accents" were Peter David and James Leary. Our artists for the event were none other than defending champion, Don Maitz, and William Stout. The theme ingredient was unveiled, the artists themselves! Then for the pièce de résistance, the theme style was ANIME! Of course, my very own favorite. Unfortunate however for Mr. Stout and Mr. Maitz who had no idea what that was.

I may write up more about that whole event at a later date, but it was very funny and many laughs were had by all involved. The art work was incredible, even if it wasn't very anime-esque. I know it was put in the Charity Auction later that day, but I never heard how much either made.

I really wanted to take a nap at that point, but there were some minor fires to put out with guests not wanting to do their panels. The next thing I knew it was 4:00 pm, and I still had to get ready for Gods & Goddesses night!

I ran upstairs and pulled out some dried flowers, leaves, feathers, ribbons, floral tape and my favorite hot glue! I spent about 30 minutes getting all the supplies laid out, and another 30-45 minutes actually making a head dress to go with my Demeter costume. By the time I got it done and got my costume on, I was seriously questioning if I would make it to the van rendevous, but fortunately all was well. The only bad thing was, I really wanted to put my hair in ringlet curls, but it would have taken three or four hours with all my hair! In any case, I made it to the van and myself and all the other deities were whisked off to the Masquerade at the Civic Center to have our pictures made.

While we were there, we got to watch backstage as all the contestants of the Masquerade had their pictures made. Some of the costumes were absolutely stunning, but nothing floored me more than the group that recreated "Where the Wild Things Are"! Their costumes were so phenominal and beautiful that I quite literally burst into tears.

After our pictures were made, I went ahead and headed back to the hotel because I realized I had neglected to eat that day and I was getting really hungry.

feygirl, drcat, chalice66 and her husband stopped by while I was upstairs wolfing down my sandwich and I spent the next couple of hours just hanging out with them and basically not doing anything. astralfire got back from the Masquerade and hung out with us as well. We spent a lot of time hanging along the wall of the second floor just watching all the people below in their fantastic costumes.

I was getting tired by 12:30 am and decided to head up to bed, but a friend of ours that was storing her stuff in our room dropped by and she, Blake and I stayed up watching the tape of the Masquerade until 3:30 am!

Sometime after that astralfire came to bed and said he had to get up at 7:00 am to go and check on Signage. As much as I wanted to just bitch about that, I didn't have the energy to do so. I told him to please handle the morning meeting for me and only call me if it was urgent, or needed. I guess he was too tired to comprehend what I said because he called and got me up at 8:30 am and said he needed me.

I crawled out of bed and headed down to the meeting, then vegetated a little while trying to work out a few guest problems. Then I took care of some stuff like turning in our time sheets, etc. in registration. Eventually, I made it to an 11:30 am panel about The Tribe with all five cast members on it. I was more than a little late, but I still got to listen to a lot.

After that I met up with the friend I had stayed up with all night watching the Masquerade tape, Blake, and astralfire and we headed over to the Marriott Marquis for some shopping! It was my first trip over there in the whole weekend! On route the MIA Signage person stopped astralfire much to all our annoyances.

Eventually we made our way to the Dealer's Room. We perused the wares and I found a beautiful pendant. The odd thing is, I haven't wanted any jewelry, other than to replace my earring in a really long time. In any case, this one piece just really caught my eye. It's a circular piece of light green jade with a silver chinese kanji for "long life" hanging in the center and silver bamboo circling the jade.I absolutely love it!

I got wiped out pretty quickly and headed back to the Hyatt. When I got there people were starting to break down all the computers and such, thank heavens!

I helped some, but to tell the truth I was just feeling like hell. For the most part I did a lot of hugging and saying good-bye to people who dropped by to see me. I even got to sign a few backstage passes and also Dead Dog party tickets. One person even told me that she's planning on coplaying as the Dead Dog girl next year! Talk about the ultimate compliment!

When we heard the Dead Dog was going to be at the Hyatt a group of us decided we were going to head to Mick's and just deconstruct for a while instead. Decent food, excellent company! We talked about things that went wrong and right, tried to figure out some solutions, mostly we just hung out together.

After that we all headed to the Dead Dog just to say good bye to people and hang out with them for a little while. I had a couple of people hand me some problems that I am still sorting out, but for the most part it was a nice time.

Then it was back to the room to finish packing. It felt like it was 2:00 in the morning by the time we got back up to our own hotel room after packing up the last of the equipment, but it was only 11:30 pm. Fortunately, I had stuck to the "not bringing much" personal stuff rule, so we were done packing our room by 1:30 am. Although I couldn't find my glasses, which was pretty upsetting.

I had a hard time sleeping and was honestly already feeling blue, but eventually I was able to drift off. We got up at 7:00 am, called my father-in-law and went to check out and load up his van once he got there. Even though it took an hour and a half, it was by far the shortest load out we have ever had. We got home right around 10:00 am, unloaded the van and thanked my father-in-law about a million more times.

Then Blake and I headed to bed, and astralfire headed to work to get some stuff done.

Of course, like what always happens when I really want to sleep, the phone rang non-stop! Still I got some rest, and I am feeling ok. I finally just got up and started doing a few things around 5:00 pm.

Even though I haven't mentioned them much, I spent a good deal of time with eugie, her husband, and their friend. They went to dinner with us, or rather, I went with them Monday evening to dinner. Most of the time, I was trying really hard to stay out of their way, let them get the Daily Dragon done and me not tell them what to do or how to do it. This worked out very well because they did an utterly fantastic job! Definately better than I ever managed to do. I can't even begin to say what a relief it was to have such competent and creative people handling the Daily Dragon. It completely freed me to handle all the stress of other things.

Now that it's all over, I am having the typical post-con depression. Plus I have had some things come up tonight that are hard to deal with (but also confidential). I did something pretty dumb too. I opened my email, read it, and the Dragon*Con LJ. I got to a point that all the negative stuff flowing my way was really hurting my feelings, so I stopped looking at it for a while.

I am trying to focus now on what I want to do next, and that is start work on my manga!

That will have to be saved for tomorrow though, because I am now exhausted and going back to bed.

Comments

[jollyroger13.livejournal.com]

Man, I got exhausted just from reading about your whirlwind weekend! With a con that size, that is impressive as hell that you can deal with all the snafus and problems without totally losing it. : P

I know you put in a TON of hard work for this, and I'm glad you're home safely so you can catch up on your sleep and sanity!

[dire-epiphany.livejournal.com]

lol sorry, it was just easier to write it all down while I could sort of think.

I did actually almost lose it a couple of times, thank heavens there were friends around me that helped me keep it together.

I hope you get to come next year!

[astralfire.livejournal.com]

You better wait untill I can come

[dire-epiphany.livejournal.com]

I do! I do!

Oh, wait... *I* am Cassy.

*smirk*

[peateandrepeat.livejournal.com]

Wow! That is nothing short of phenomenal that you were able to pull all of that off!

I'm glad that you are finally able to catch back up on sleep.

[dire-epiphany.livejournal.com]

Sleep is a very good thing. I am feeling better today, though I need some more sleep I think. :)

I never made it to the Border Pagans last night, and it wasn't even because I was sleeping! Every once and a while I get tired of being "in charge", or even pseudo-"in charge".

Ah well... I am still trying to catch up with all the posts I missed the last couple of weeks.

Hope all is well and that you get to join us for the fun next year!

[eugie.livejournal.com]

We made a start on it this year, but next year we must continue on the Cassy-must-have-fun-at-Dragon*Con quest! It was a great convention, especially considering the sheer crush of people there. You, as you always do, went above and beyond what anyone could sanely expect of anyone.

Sleep, rest, recover.

If there's anything Matthew or I can do to help with post-con stuff, don't hesitate to drop us a line. Even if it's at 4am. Matthew will be awake. Really, he will!

And thanks for the glowing words about how we handled the Daily Dragon. I'm so glad you and astralfire were around in case something went seriously wrong. I needed to know that safety net was there.

[es.livejournal.com]

Ma'am, there's absolutely no reason you should have had to deal with all that between the two/three of you. If I get to help Dayna next year with the Tribe stuff, pretty-pretty please feel more than free to give a call down to wherever we are for an extra hand. If I'm not actually handling a panel or event, I'm more than happy to put my 4-5 odd years of admin assistant experience to work for y'all in general.

- ES

[dire-epiphany.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was really um... special.

I think the most bothersome thing for me personally was I barely got to see the Tribe. You know, the group I insisted we bring?

Still, I have heard that it went "smashingly", and I was so glad to hear that!

I am going to a meeting in October and I will be working very hard on keeping the track around in some capacity. When we started it, it was with a one shot wonder sort of idea, however, the success of the track has proven that we may have been short sighted in that idea. I wish it were just up to me, then I could say, "Sure! We'll bring the whole lot of them next year!" Unfortunately, it's not, and I have to work in the system.

You're such a doll to offer your help. :) Hopefully, we will have corrected the problem we had this year and next year will run smoother for us.

If not, don't worry, I am printing this post and taking it with me, so when I come banging on Dayna's door looking for you I can say, "SEE!!! She said she would help me!" heh

[es.livejournal.com]

If the track doesn't go through next year (for whatever reason,) then I'll prolly volunteer again, I just don't know where. :) While there are panels or two that I enjoy and don't mind attending, I'm not a True Fan of any particular area, so I prefer having specific things (like staffing,) to do while I'm there. :) It soothes my need for public service and my wish to make the Wide World of Geek a more cohesive whole.

- ES

[dire-epiphany.livejournal.com]

Ah, no worries, we can always find a home for you, very close to 219 (as in IN it, if I have my way).

By the way, volunteering at Dragon*Con is a little like potato chips, you can't just do it once. It gets in your blood and it's all over from there. :)

[es.livejournal.com]

Dude. You're all backwards-pushers. "The first one is cheap, only 20 bucks..." And then it's free from then on, but it's too late, we're hooked. :)

I'm not sure if you have your journal set up to email you when someone comments, so I thought I'd mention: my gentleman-friend is interested in helping out with your web-stuff, per one of your posts in August. All that e-commerce stuff is his Thing. :) He asked there where to send his resume.

- ES

[dire-epiphany.livejournal.com]

muhahahaha - you've started your descent into Dragon*Con!

Did I mention, I am a little punchy today?


Oh, and yep, I get them emailed to me. I was just responding to him.

I don't know how e-commercy it is, more like a sad artist in need of help, but honestly, I will take any help I can get. :)

[es.livejournal.com]

I'd have offered myself, but alas, I do not have the m4d n37 ski11z. Or however they type it. :)

Punchy is good! It means you're at least a little recovered from the weekend. Le sigh... I'm going to get back to the work I've been putting off to chat now though. Good luck. :)

[dire-epiphany.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I understand j00!

Don't work too hard by the way, you'll be tired by the time Con gets here. :D

Thanks so much!