Theatrics

Woke up several times between 6:45 and 7:45, wondering why it felt like my 8 am alarm should have gone off already. Got to breakfast by 9, had a cheese omelet, forgot to bring Lactaid to the con and regretted it the rest of the day.

Finished packing, checked out before 10. Went to the Top 10 real-life Star Trek inventions panel, but it was packed with tall people with hats, the panelists could not be heard very well at the back of the room, and I left after 15 minutes of audience side-tracking the conversation.

Sat in the back of Folsom, where my final panel was being held, and heard some kind words by ex participants for the Clarion writers' workshop.

I was moderator for the last panel of the con for me, Is Theater Dead?. Six panelists, we started with 6 audience members, which grew to about 12 by the end of the time slot. Four of us have actual performance cred, one was more a wanna-be writer/director and for real early childhood education academic. The sixth was an artist with zero theater background, who still made some good points. The panel, including myself, had a lot to say, the audience just kinda absorbed it until about the last 15 minutes and then started participating. I was surprised we were still going 5 minutes after I called time.

No lunch because breakfast was still making its presence known. Caught the last two items of the art auctions, neither of them was the item I'd placed the 4th bid on, so I went to the art showroom, and saw I was still the high bidder. Bought two pieces for $73, after taxes. One will probably be a gift if I can figure out how to ship it to Canada.

I made another round of the Dealer's room, but nothing really caught my eye.

Hugh Daniel memorial was moved from the tiny room to the ballroom, was well attended, there were many boxes of tissues circulated, figmo MCed and left us laughing with Hugh's favorite song. It's one of mine too. After I got a chance to give Hugh's sister another hug.

Closing ceremonies never officially announced closure, but maybe that came after the feedback session I didn't stay for.

I had some feedback items, but they are so basic I know other people would bring them up:
-- The conference rooms' layout was WTF City. They were too small, SRO was blocked from the panelists, door latches were not duct taped so they made big noise when people entered or left. There was no built-in way to prop them open.
-- All the panels needed mikes, not just the ones in the big room. Again, something one would expect any conference room to have.
-- Hilton conference center is set up for each of the rooms to display an itinerary on a screen by the door. Those screens were taped over with a piece of paper which said PROGRAMMING. I'm guessing Hilton couldn't make their system work. At no time did the actual program for each room find its way to that space, even on a piece of dead tree.
-- I've mentioned the art show and Andy explained what happened, "measure twice, build once" apparently didn't get done.
-- Masquerade fan photo shoot was a mob scene. It needed to have been set up beforehand.
--Filk concerts were not in the online program


But regardless of the above, this con was a HUGE success, lots of fun, lots to see & do, and I am proud to have been a part of it.

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Left at 3:45, stopped off to top off the car's gas tank, made a stop at Safeway for munchies and a diet Coke, then next door for Lactaid because the munchies had cheese. Told the GPS to take me home and it decided to go by I-5, and changed exits twice when it detected heavy traffic. I finally turned it off when it took me through downtown Livermore, joined the scrawl to 84, then 680 was clear sailing to 237 and home. Total drive time ~ 3 hours.

Downloaded the photos from Mette and Bryan's demo and from Masq and geotagged them. Later in the week I'll cull out the good ones for Flickr and FB.

Sent a couple of FB Friend requests to panelists, de-friended my Toyota salesgal who has been posting in Chinese that she would rather live in LA, and the 4th of July made her homesick for China. And she lost my license plates.

Both cats have complained about my absence, Kaan has been very demonstrative, jumping onto the top of the recliner and onto the piano keyboard cover.

Plans for tomorrow:

Work
UPS has 2 packages for me
BASFA?