randy_byers: (shiffman)
randy_byers ([personal profile] randy_byers) wrote2015-07-13 09:44 am
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Conning

Plans are proceeding apace for two conventions in August: Prolog(ue): A Pre-Worldcon Relaxacon, which is being held in the Seattle area August 14-16, and Sasquan: A Post-Relaxacon Worldcon, which is being held in Spokane August 19-23. I am area head for the fan/fanzine lounge at Sasquan, and I'm more or less just a useful idiot for Prolog(ue), which is being chaired by Ulrika O'Brien.

We're just a month away from the beginning of these festivities, and so this would be what they call crunchtime. I fell like I'm working almost non-stop on various organizing efforts, although probably the reality is that I'm mostly thinking about it non-stop. I've got a lot on my mind. Still, it's not all mental activity. On Saturday, for instance, I wrangled two large pieces of artwork to two different shops in an attempt to get them scanned. I'm still not sure that the scans I managed to have made at my second stop will be sufficient for the purpose, which is to have those pieces of artwork (and three others that I already had digital files for) printed as posters to decorate the Lost World Fanzine Lounge. All of the artwork is dinosaur related, because the Lost World Fanzine Lounge is where the dinosaurs of fanzine production still roam.

Also on Saturday I joined Ulrika, Scott, and carl at Gallaghers' Where-U-Brew in Edmonds to bottle the beer we had previously brewed two weeks ago. This beer is an imperial stout that we'll be serving at both Proglog(ue) and Sasquan. My contribution to the effort on Saturday was to put caps on bottles. It's a nice beer, too, although not weak!

These two activities were on top of lots of email correspondence, as well as other non-convention work I had on my agenda, including picking the last of my raspberries and writing a couple of blog posts. But it wasn't all work on Saturday. I also went to Julie McGuff's 50th birthday party at Andy and Carrie's, which was great fun, even though I pooped out around 8:00 and crawled home to unload the cases of beer from my car and into the basement.

On Sunday, more correspondence in the morning, and then in the afternoon I headed up to Andi Shechter's place to consult about the exhibition of Stu Shiffman's art that we'll be doing in the fanzine lounge. Andi has been going through boxes and boxes of fanzines and old notebooks looking for Stu's artwork and having a friend scan it all. These scans will feed into various projects Andi has in mind, and we're taking advantage of it for Sasquan. There will also be a memorial for Stu at Sasquan, but Andi still hasn't made up her mind whether she wants to face the potential emotional turmoil of attending the convention.

After that I was too wiped to see straight, so I went home and did a little bit more program wrangling for Sasquan before plopping myself in front of the TV to watch a movie. The To Do List seems hardly dented, and I'm sure the next few weekends will be just as busy, even if most of the business is in my brain. I'm getting to the point where I'm telling myself that it's okay if I don't get everything on the To Do List done. Everything's going to be fine, even if all the plans and ideas don't come to fruition. Whew!

[identity profile] kevin-standlee.livejournal.com 2015-07-13 05:02 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm in the same boat of constant convention thinking. In my case, I'm trying to pin down the last of the Westercon business (I let it slip last year until someone this spring pointed out that the Westercon web site had not been updated with the 2014 official papers) and getting ready for what might prove to be a very interesting WSFS Business Meeting. And we're doing a show of Match Game SF as well on Thursday night of the convention.

[identity profile] randy-byers.livejournal.com 2015-07-13 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
The business meeting certainly could be ... interesting.

Regarding Match Game SF, one of the things I was wrangling this weekend was a slot for Dave O'Neill to run a trivia quiz, and late night on Thursday was the best we could find. So I hope you weren't planning on using him! Although plans for the trivia quiz are not yet set in stone.
Edited 2015-07-13 17:19 (UTC)

[identity profile] kevin-standlee.livejournal.com 2015-07-13 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Yikes! [livejournal.com profile] daveon was scheduled as our announcer for our Thursday night show! I mean, Lisa can do the announcing if she must in addition to the sound board/tech, but I'd hoped to have Dave, as he announced our show in Reno in 2011.

Mind you, We're from 8 PM as I recall, probably 8-10, so Dave could possibly go from one to the other if necessary.

[identity profile] randy-byers.livejournal.com 2015-07-13 06:33 pm (UTC)(link)
We were looking at 9-10:30. Apparently Dave forgot he had a prior commitment. Maybe you could ping him about that? We might be able to figure out something else for the trivia quiz.
wrdnrd: (Default)

[personal profile] wrdnrd 2015-07-13 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
The last few weeks before the convention were such a fascinating blur of "where did all this email come from??" and "this once-important thing on my To Do list now looks completely unnecessary." A really interesting stretching and contracting of time and tasks.

I am QUITE looking forward to all the tweets from the business meeting this year! :D
wrdnrd: (Default)

[personal profile] wrdnrd 2015-07-14 05:07 am (UTC)(link)