weekend in Montreal
At Lea Farr's request, I went to Montreal to attend the Anticipation committee meetings.
My plan had been to go to Eeriecon. Actually I had a lot of plans. Part of me wanted to visit Chicago and be supportive with some of the stuff going on there. I also would have liked to attend Alyssa's birthday party today. And I wanted to go to my father's house and sort out some of the stuff there, which could have been done in conjunction with going to Eeriecon. But there was good in going to Montreal.
marahsk was kind enough to drive; she also wanted to get in the loop with Bruce Farr regarding Facilities issues. mvt also came along to visit her sister. We left after work on Friday. I actually needed to finish my laundry, so we didn't hit the road until 8 PM, so we didn't get into Montreal until after 2 AM.
I sat in on the afternoon meeting. I got a sense of what people were working on. There weren't as many people around as there were for the Noreascon or LACon meetings. There were a few moments of interpersonal dynamics that were interesting but that I don't want to put in writing. The t-shirt discussion was typical, i.e. too long and too detailed, but it did collect some useful input from the group. Cynthia Dudley talked about the con suite with a lot of authority; I'm sure that she and dlacey will work well together. Bruce had budget and facilities issues under control. Eugene had stuff under control to begin with, but acquired a kind of deer-in-the-headlights look as item after item got added to his to-do list. This was, IMO, a very positive development; he'll need to scale up, but finding this much out in April should allow him to get all his new issues under control as well.
After the meeting, I went to Bruce and hung out with the facilities people at the Embassy Suites near the Palais de Congres. In hindsight, I probably should have gone with Lea and listened to the discussion about prereg stuff, as I will be in their area. I was able to sit with Lea for a little while around 11 PM, when she was talking to Rene about all the permutations of at-con memberships. After that, she gave me a quick tutorial on the registration database system, which is sufficiently battle-hardened that it should survive another Worldcon. I was able to make a couple of useful suggestions. Lea said she wanted to increase membership by considering group discounts. I suggested that the sorts of deals offered to Otakuthon and Boreal also be offered to Polaris and Anime North. It might be hard to coordinate anything with Anime North in such a short time, but it could be possible. She also mentioned something about volunteers; it might be helpful to put Lea into contact with Lynda Ciaschini. I was also able to explain that debit cars in Canada are not the same as in the US, that many Canadians will expect to pay with a debit card. I'm going to look into the cost of a debit card terminal for registration. After that, I let them go to sleep, though Merle, Marah, and I went to Schwartz's for sandwiches afterwards.
We went to Maison Kam Fung for dim sum in the morning (early, 8 AM). There were a dozen of us, and there was only one other table occupied at that hour. The food was okay; unexceptional by Toronto standards, but not bad. (I'm pretty much spoiled for Chinese food outside Toronto.) There was discussion about train travel, which to me seemed a bizarre way of getting places, given the multi-day travel times under discussion. We walked back through the ground level of the Palais. I haven't seen the convention space, but the ground level has several restaurants, one of which seems to have wifi. Relative to surrounding restaurants and services, it's similar to Toronto, i.e. much closer to everything than convention centres in San Jose, Glasgow, or Los Angeles.
There was a short meeting in the morning after breakfast. People discussed art show, dealers, brokers, shipping, etc. I kept my opinions to myself. I may have a dozen years experience as an importer, but this convention's organizational model is more hierarchical than collegial and this wasn't my responsibility. As for anything else, Lea wasn't at the meeting. She wasn't feeling well. I had nothing to discuss at that meeting; the few items I talked to her about the night before probably weren't significant for the meeting and I'm not sufficiently in the loop yet to represent registration generally in her absence.
If any of this post sounds negative, please factor in my tendency to focus on the negative, not so as to just complain but that I constantly look for opportunities for improvement in any organization I'm involved in. One of the main purposes of my journal is to document things for my own later reference.
After the meeting, I helped Eugene and Cynthia use the wiki interface. I was also able to ask kevin_standlee a question about the worldcon.org domains. I got the information I needed, though I don't think Kevin understood what I was asking; he said "the other domains are under control" and "you don't have to worry about DNS". Kevin doesn't realize that I'm the one who will be helping thirdworld with DNS issues. Kevin said something about converting to a WordPress site, like the Hugo Award site. I happen to think WordPress is not really appropriate in this usage, but that's not really my problem; content and administration are what Grant is organizing, with agrathea's help.
Then Cynthia, Marah, and I went for lunch. We went to Mazurka in the St.-Laurent neighborhood. It was kind of average. I'm sorry to admit I've become slightly snobby about restaurants; Mazurka was authentic but not original, IMO. But it was very nice to catch up with Cynthia, who I have not seen enough of in the past, um, quarter-century. The good news is she's on Facebook so I'll be able to keep casual tabs on her. LiveJournal remains my primary social networking application, though I seem to have more "friends" on Facebook than on LJ. (My public LJ posts appear as a feed on my Facebook page, so folks there can see this.)
Merle had been able to visit her sister and nephews on Saturday and another long-time friend of hers on Sunday. We said good-bye to a few people at the Delta and then drove back to Toronto. Didn't get back until around 11 PM on Sunday. When we were passing Belleville, we called to say happy birthday to Alyssa, and I spoke briefly to worfiesmom, porterweyr, and sposter, who are all doing well, as are the kids. Sue had bought another car seat for the boys; apparently the box the car seat came in was what the kids played with.
I would have enjoyed going to Eeriecon, visiting my Duckon friends, or going to Alyssa's birthday more than I did going to Montreal. The main benefit to me was talking to Lea, even if we didn't spend a lot of time together; also just being seen as part of the Anticipation staff will be useful in August when I'll be in a main traffic area at the convention. Bringing Merle to Montreal was also a very good thing.
My plan had been to go to Eeriecon. Actually I had a lot of plans. Part of me wanted to visit Chicago and be supportive with some of the stuff going on there. I also would have liked to attend Alyssa's birthday party today. And I wanted to go to my father's house and sort out some of the stuff there, which could have been done in conjunction with going to Eeriecon. But there was good in going to Montreal.
marahsk was kind enough to drive; she also wanted to get in the loop with Bruce Farr regarding Facilities issues. mvt also came along to visit her sister. We left after work on Friday. I actually needed to finish my laundry, so we didn't hit the road until 8 PM, so we didn't get into Montreal until after 2 AM.
I sat in on the afternoon meeting. I got a sense of what people were working on. There weren't as many people around as there were for the Noreascon or LACon meetings. There were a few moments of interpersonal dynamics that were interesting but that I don't want to put in writing. The t-shirt discussion was typical, i.e. too long and too detailed, but it did collect some useful input from the group. Cynthia Dudley talked about the con suite with a lot of authority; I'm sure that she and dlacey will work well together. Bruce had budget and facilities issues under control. Eugene had stuff under control to begin with, but acquired a kind of deer-in-the-headlights look as item after item got added to his to-do list. This was, IMO, a very positive development; he'll need to scale up, but finding this much out in April should allow him to get all his new issues under control as well.
After the meeting, I went to Bruce and hung out with the facilities people at the Embassy Suites near the Palais de Congres. In hindsight, I probably should have gone with Lea and listened to the discussion about prereg stuff, as I will be in their area. I was able to sit with Lea for a little while around 11 PM, when she was talking to Rene about all the permutations of at-con memberships. After that, she gave me a quick tutorial on the registration database system, which is sufficiently battle-hardened that it should survive another Worldcon. I was able to make a couple of useful suggestions. Lea said she wanted to increase membership by considering group discounts. I suggested that the sorts of deals offered to Otakuthon and Boreal also be offered to Polaris and Anime North. It might be hard to coordinate anything with Anime North in such a short time, but it could be possible. She also mentioned something about volunteers; it might be helpful to put Lea into contact with Lynda Ciaschini. I was also able to explain that debit cars in Canada are not the same as in the US, that many Canadians will expect to pay with a debit card. I'm going to look into the cost of a debit card terminal for registration. After that, I let them go to sleep, though Merle, Marah, and I went to Schwartz's for sandwiches afterwards.
We went to Maison Kam Fung for dim sum in the morning (early, 8 AM). There were a dozen of us, and there was only one other table occupied at that hour. The food was okay; unexceptional by Toronto standards, but not bad. (I'm pretty much spoiled for Chinese food outside Toronto.) There was discussion about train travel, which to me seemed a bizarre way of getting places, given the multi-day travel times under discussion. We walked back through the ground level of the Palais. I haven't seen the convention space, but the ground level has several restaurants, one of which seems to have wifi. Relative to surrounding restaurants and services, it's similar to Toronto, i.e. much closer to everything than convention centres in San Jose, Glasgow, or Los Angeles.
There was a short meeting in the morning after breakfast. People discussed art show, dealers, brokers, shipping, etc. I kept my opinions to myself. I may have a dozen years experience as an importer, but this convention's organizational model is more hierarchical than collegial and this wasn't my responsibility. As for anything else, Lea wasn't at the meeting. She wasn't feeling well. I had nothing to discuss at that meeting; the few items I talked to her about the night before probably weren't significant for the meeting and I'm not sufficiently in the loop yet to represent registration generally in her absence.
If any of this post sounds negative, please factor in my tendency to focus on the negative, not so as to just complain but that I constantly look for opportunities for improvement in any organization I'm involved in. One of the main purposes of my journal is to document things for my own later reference.
After the meeting, I helped Eugene and Cynthia use the wiki interface. I was also able to ask kevin_standlee a question about the worldcon.org domains. I got the information I needed, though I don't think Kevin understood what I was asking; he said "the other domains are under control" and "you don't have to worry about DNS". Kevin doesn't realize that I'm the one who will be helping thirdworld with DNS issues. Kevin said something about converting to a WordPress site, like the Hugo Award site. I happen to think WordPress is not really appropriate in this usage, but that's not really my problem; content and administration are what Grant is organizing, with agrathea's help.
Then Cynthia, Marah, and I went for lunch. We went to Mazurka in the St.-Laurent neighborhood. It was kind of average. I'm sorry to admit I've become slightly snobby about restaurants; Mazurka was authentic but not original, IMO. But it was very nice to catch up with Cynthia, who I have not seen enough of in the past, um, quarter-century. The good news is she's on Facebook so I'll be able to keep casual tabs on her. LiveJournal remains my primary social networking application, though I seem to have more "friends" on Facebook than on LJ. (My public LJ posts appear as a feed on my Facebook page, so folks there can see this.)
Merle had been able to visit her sister and nephews on Saturday and another long-time friend of hers on Sunday. We said good-bye to a few people at the Delta and then drove back to Toronto. Didn't get back until around 11 PM on Sunday. When we were passing Belleville, we called to say happy birthday to Alyssa, and I spoke briefly to worfiesmom, porterweyr, and sposter, who are all doing well, as are the kids. Sue had bought another car seat for the boys; apparently the box the car seat came in was what the kids played with.
I would have enjoyed going to Eeriecon, visiting my Duckon friends, or going to Alyssa's birthday more than I did going to Montreal. The main benefit to me was talking to Lea, even if we didn't spend a lot of time together; also just being seen as part of the Anticipation staff will be useful in August when I'll be in a main traffic area at the convention. Bringing Merle to Montreal was also a very good thing.