....('neath the clock. By the pawnshop on a corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) But I ain't got...

Photos online:
Cleaning the Couch Cushions (26-Jan-2008)
Checking out the Orange Fresh & Easy (30-Dec-2007)
An Errand at Tony's House (30-Dec-2007)
Christmas 2007 part 5: At the Nopper-Plutas (30-Dec-2007) et seq.
Anime Los Angeles Gaming/Con Suite Logistics Meeting (30-Dec-2007)
Benches part 4: Michelle & Ashley's Bench (31-Dec-2007)
Anime Los Angeles Bag-Stuffing Meeting (01-Jan-2008)
Jerry's Picture Gallery: Anime Los Angeles 4 part 233: Saturday Morning (05-Jan-2008) et seq.
San Luis Obispo part 1: Tuesday (08-Jan-2008) et seq.
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 303: Coral Cafe (10-Jan-2008)
Shopping for Beanbag Chairs (12-Jan-2008) Part 1 et seq.
Remodeling Monster part 34: The Old Homestead (12-Jan-2008) et seq.
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 304: Coral Cafe (17-Jan-2008)
Madison Wisconsin part 1: Friday, En Route (01-Feb-2008)
Madison Wisconsin part 2: Saturday, Nicolas's 2nd Birthday (02-Feb-2008) et seq.

The photo of rivetspoon and otaku_jrock is from our Bag-Stuffing Meeting. ( The Anime Los Angeles Bag-Stuffing Meeting was postponed from its original weekend to New Year's Day... )

So that was the 1st. On the 2nd, Jarod rented the Orange County truck, to take to south county to pick up half a dozen televisions for Gaming. On Thursday the 3rd, ala_mokita and Moogle and crew loaded up the L.A. truck with the boxes of reg bags we'd stuffed Tuesday, and the stuff we borrowed from the LASFS clubhouse, while the Orange County truck picked up the Con Suite groceries with Andrew. Everything made it up to Burbank, we did our traditional inspect-the-hotel tour with cameras, and started loading in the convention.

( We had two Guests of Honor this year, plus our Toastmaster... )

In some previous years, we'd had Registration open Thursday night, but we didn't do it this year. We should have. ( On Friday when we opened Reg at about 8:30 am the line was already well-established... )

People reported waiting in line up to two hours: this is unacceptable. We will do better next year. This year we had a small kiosk for Registration and didn't have enough stations open to process people as quickly as we'd like to. We also let people choose lanyards or badge clips, which slowed down each member by five to fifteen seconds. But mostly Registration was strained by our growth, and constrained by our space.

We hope more people pre-register next year, and pick up their badges the day before the convention. We're going to open Reg on Thursday (New Year's Day) next year, and on Friday we'll have at least eight stations open. (We're thinking they'll go on tables in the foyer where Loscon puts their fan tables, but library_lynn is going to survey the lay of the land before making a final decision.) And Lynn's staffing up... she's looking for reliable people to work two- to four-hour shifts next year, including people to wrangle the line as well as operate the Reg computers.

Next year we won't offer members a choice of badge clip or lanyard at the Reg desk. We'll give them one, and if they want something else they can exchange it at Information or at the Freebie Table or something. We're also looking into buying our own belt-type stanchions as seen in many popular banks. When we look at the hotel in two weeks we'll be estimating how many to pick up.

And I want us to be able to take credit cards at the door next year! We haven't offered that in the past, but we really need it. It'll be less of an issue if a greater percentage of the members pre-register, but unless we actually sell out pre-convention there will always be people joining at the door.