Figures my next update would come after a convention. RECCACon 2003 was probably the most enjoyable con to work, despite its minor hiccups. I went from Stage Manager to lead tech, a move which I will probably get to a bit later. Many thanks to Jason, Christie, Ashley, Rachel, and the four Monterey people (Chris, Michelle, Kryn, Lisa) for helping bust some ass and making things so cool. There were 500 attendee badges, and by the end of the day, every last one of them was gone. I don't think I could better label a successful con.
I got on site with everyone about 12:30, delayed by a mix of rain, sleep, breakfast, and a stop by the bank. I briefly checked in with Jason, sought out Ashley, and took care of the one thing I wanted two weeks ago. "Ashley, show me exactly what you want." And she did, and I took notes, and we set times, and all was right and all was good. We put up some signs and then set the stage up in a mater of minutes. Logistics was amazing, my heart goes out to Jake (Duo) for being on top of just about everything. Somehow, ConOps got mangled, and he was also providing me personnel too, so a double massive thanks to him.
Lacking the time for a rehearsal or even a cue to cue just for the tech, all I could do was write down 4-5 pages of notes about the cosplay show. Microphone volumes up and down, act entrances, and music cues were all I had to go off of. I also didn't get much time to memorize the script, something I fault myself for because I missed a cue. Well, I didn't miss it so much as I was going as fast as the DVD player would let me, which wasn't nearly fast enough. I opted instead to scrap that skit and let them redo it (due to audio) and that was okay. The simple fact nobody was looking ahead to tell Ashley and I we had back to back to back audio skits was the one thing that made me miss having a stage manager. There was someone backstage, which was okay, though for the same lack-of-stage-manager reason, I couldn't get many messages back to her. Sixteen acts, 45 minutes, one miscue, zero practice runs, zero tech sessions, and Michelle says I did okay. I really wish I had a second tech though, as the mixer, CD player, and cue sheet were just too many things to do at once. Despite the missed cue, everything else went smoothly, and we managed to get through the worst part of the Masquerade without too much incident. The judges took about 20-30 minutes, the time lengthened because they needed to write in the winners onto the certificates. Knowing we needed time, I decided to pull a page from one of my many con mentors. It was time for some stupid Rob Tricks (tm) and pointless advertisement! Between a human pyramid, the wave, chants, polls, dances, and both Jason and Ashley talking, we managed to pull through okay. Unfortunately, nobody was back with the judges to really force their decisions to hurry up. Once again, the longing for a SM becomes apparent. Next year though, there will be one. There needs to be. Perhaps RECCACon isn't huge, but despite this, there is no reason not to have it as the best teched convention of them all.
After the masquerade and the stage were broken down, it was time to just enjoy the con. I got to spend a bit of time talking with Jason and Jake, and also got to just help with some non-thinking manual labor things like moving tables and chairs. We left about 9, and after stopping for some dinner, put us home about midnight. The next event is in March, so we shall see how that goes. I also need to e-mail Brian to see what is going on with Fanime. He asked me if I would be helping out with the Masquerade. Personally, I'd love to.
My capstone has been progressing nicely, and also been adapting quite a bit too. As opposed to writing something that is stand-alone groupware, I instead am building the application as a module for Xoops, a portal based software application. Because of the way Xoops is designed, I will still be doing many of the same things in PHP, plus a much more cognitive application: the understanding of someone else's code. I think it will prove to be a good adaptation, although now this means I also need to rewrite part of my proposal to include the new changes. I can do that either when I wake up or Monday before my meeting with Thomas. Speaking of Thomas, while he is my capstone advisor this semester, he won't be next semester. I'm not sure how official the word is, or who he has told, but he informed me Friday of the decision. I begged him to stay on as a SME (Subject Matter Expert) and he agreed. I don't think I could really tackle this capstone without his help. He's one of the faculty I was really found of, and it makes me very sad to see him leaving. At every school I've been to, there have always been a few faculty that stood out in my mind and I kept in contact with for various reasons. Here at CSUMB, I have undoubtedly felt the closest to Rosalie and Thomas. I need a new capstone advisor now for the Spring Semester, and the idea of it is moderately daunting. I am debating if I should talk to Terence, since he is the other faculty who works with databases, or if I should opt for Rosalie who could help me with proposal writing, interface design, and be more of a instructional design perspective. Thankfully I still have a month to figure that out.
Moving right through the list of things I am overdo for catching up on, One Piece 68 came out a few nights ago and deep breath OMGIAMLISTEDINTHECREDITSOMGOMGOMGTHATISSOFUCKINGCOOL! In case you might not be able to translate that, I am in the credits for episode 68 under QC. I kinda replayed that part seven or eight times to make sure I read it right. I squealed to Shiru and H about it, ran around while still hyper, and paused to let it all sink in. This was immediately followed by more squealing and running around crazy. Ever since I found out about fansubbing, I have had a small part of my heart set on trying to help out so others could enjoy anime too. It's like being a part of something really cool, something really important. I've always wanted to bust my tail off for a group, and now I am, and it rocks. I'm gonna stop blabbering about that though before I go all hyper again.
I've cracked open Diablo 2 and Neopets again, old addictions I just can't say no to. While my copious free time isn't terribly copious, there is always time for the hacking and killing of demons.
Or sleep. Always time for sleep too.
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