Here is the time log off the top of my head regarding the Bay Area Animation Society X-Mas party.
6:30a Alarm went off, and was quickly silenced. The original plan was this would get me out of the house around 7 so I could be at Mrs. Brown's by 9 to help with setup. This didn't quite work as expected.
7:00a Secondary alarm went off, and was also quickly silenced. This time I actually crawled out of bed, and got ready at a snail's pace. When it is early in the morning, I need a really damn good reason to move. This usually involves money, free vacations, or other "goodies". Driving in the car for two hours does not fall into the "goodies" category.
7:44a Left the house (finally) and stopped to get gas on the way out. I figured I would get to El Sobrante about 10:00a. The drive itself was actually pretty peaceful. There was no hammering rain, no gusts of wind, and the traffic was low on top of it all. I sailed through San Jose, took 880 to 80, and the rest was history.
10:15a Unless, of course, you go the wrong way from the offramp. I managed to go left instead of right, and got very turned around courtesy of Hilltop Mall. I would have been at the house at 10, but well, I am inept sometimes when it comes to that.
10:30a I was at Mrs. Brown's for 15 minutes or so helping prep a room when chaos broke loose in the backyard. Mrs. Brown's neighbor's dog was loose, and the fence had blown down. Putting up the fence wouldn't normally be an issue, if it wasn't for the dog. This dog was big, mean, and it knew it was big. Aggressive to the point that it was dangerous to go out there. Eventually, it wandered into the front yard, and we sprung into action. Fighting the rain and using twine, a hammer, and a healthy fear of "Kujo" returning, we lashed the boards back together, fixed a few of the nails, and hammered out a fence board and used it to prop the fence. All this time, the rain was dousing us. And where was the owner of the dog? Nowhere to be found of course. When we did finally get a hold of the owner, he told us the dog didn't like people touching him (that included the owner too!). So, we left the dog to wander back into his proper backyard, and slammed the gate. This whole ordeal took almost 45 minutes. I came back inside to find another event had transpired.
10:40a The power went out. For most of the peninsula. It never came back.
11:30a I began the process of organizing the room for gaming, changing it from a gaming room to a lounge space. With the weather outside getting worse by the minute, we were going to need every inch of floor space we could get. I met Stephanie and a few others of the BAAS Ops group, so it was nice to have faces for the names of people I have been working with.
12:30p Joined Jason Ebner (RECCA), Brain (Fanime), and a few others on the back porch in the wind and rain to supervise the grilling of good food. We were supposed to be sheltered, but the wind was moving rain along a horizontal pane up to 30+ feet, so even the patio wasn't really sheltered. We got a little wet, but talked about everything from ADV to new computers, to con gripes, to just random stories. The amount of Fanime stuff I am hearing makes me thankful not to be working for that con. ^^ The X-Mas party was slated to begin at 1. People had already started showing up, but I never really noticed that.
--:--p I really lost track of time at this point, as I continued to man the "pit" and deal with the cooking of the meat. At some point, it became dark, and Tracy (BAAS) and Phil (BAAS) went and got lanterns for the house that were battery powered. Remember how I said the lights never came back on? Well, we cooked everything over fire. And I do very much mean everything, including things you wouldn't think of cooking over fire. I may as well list the food here... 4 Full Tri-Tip Roasts 2 Pork Shoulder Roasts 1 13 lb Turkey 1 8qt thing of homemade Macaroni and Cheese 2 bowls of salad Full desert bar Almost bottomless coolers of soda
And this doesn't even include all the snack foods that were out during the day. If it is one thing that is always consistent at BAAS, it is large amounts of food. Anyway, I did most of the grilling with the help of a few people to provide relief when I needed to duck in out of the cold. Dinner was promptly served late. (We lacked the oven to hold things warm, so we improvised with the BBQ. I also saw Derrick (SAMO) and Dave (Fanime) and got to catch up with the both of them during this large block of time. When it wasn't turning the meat time, it was networking time. I met so many new people, I am still trying to sort through all the names. I did meet a few more of the upper RECCA staff, which is good, since that is the group CSUMB Anime Club is working with for hosting a video room.
8:30p Dinner was served. Oh how it was served. So much food, the meat melted in your mouth, and the Turkey was destroyed. We are talking basically vaporized. Everything else also followed very quickly. By the time the crew was done, there wasn't much as far as leftovers. During dinner, Tracy found out I was going back to Monterey, and insisted (told me) that I should stay at the house and leave in the morning. Since I had prior plans, and really didn't want to do major hours on the road Sunday, I opted not to stay. Now, I didn't tell her I wasn't staying, but more on that later.
10:00p The BAAS raffle. Power was finally restored and there was mad celebration. The raffle went great! It was done really quickly, especially since it was getting late and people needed to get home. Prizes ranged from Dragonball Z action figures to free passes to Nan Desu Kan and Fanime X (2003).
10:48p With the raffle over, I gave Rob a huge hug, thanked him and told him not to tell Tracy I had left until I was good and gone. He nodded understandably, and I was in my car and on the road. The drive back was much longer than the drive there (it felt). I popped in the SD3 soundtrack and tried to place how far I was in the game to the soundtrack I had. I hit Hwy 1 as "Fear of Angels" came on, and made it home in really good time.
1:00a Arrived home, wrote this, talked to people.
And so ended an amazing party. We pulled it off, even with the power out. That's right, an Anime Club having fun without power. It was really cool to see how it went, and we had a large turnout, despite the weather. I would do it all again, rain, no power, and all. People are going to have stories to tell about this one!
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