... a thing left to hock. She was peaches, she was honey, and she cost me all my money. 'Cause...

Pictures online: Madison Wisconsin: Touring Thomas's Offices (03-Feb-2008). I took about 450 photos of the art and architecture at my brother's employer's campus. For example, this corridor has seats and a mural on one side to make it look like a subway train. The place was designed by one architectural firm that did a lot of work at Microsoft and another that's done a lot for Walt Disney World, so it's quite a place. I'll have to write it up when I get through with my animelosangeles monologue.

The night before the convention: after everything was unloaded Thursday, the setup that ran late was the Tech setup in LP1 and the Gaming setup. Our "staff/volunteer dinner" turned into "let's have pizza delivered." I'd like to figure out how we can get everything put together earlier -- or should we schedule a dinner break? I'd hate for us to lose our momentum, though, with volunteers eating dinner and then not continuing the work. It's hard enough setting up with a crew of six, if that drops down to three we're not better off. Or should we plan on a pizza feed as our Thursday dinner?

Friday morning, I mentioned Registration. We had our Ala Mascot Costume Look-Alike judging immediately before Opening Ceremonies, then we eventually got the convention officially open. I spent some time sitting at Registration to try to get more people their badges before the Opening Ceremonies, but as I mentioned before we were running way behind. We started late, but got things off to a good start. A highlight was when Vic sang the opening theme song for One Piece (he'd brought the accompaniment). Then he called up Wendy Powell (another VA who works on some of the same shows) and said hello from the ballroom. His iPhone doesn't have speakerphone capability, so if we ever have a GoH that wants to do that sort of thing we'll need to check out what kind of phone he's got and possibly get him use of a different one. But it was a cute moment when he put Wendy, the voice of "Envy," together with a cosplayer dressed as "Envy."

Friday was a lot of back-and-forth. There were things that had been "staged" up in my suite, so my minion (Melissa) and I made a lot of roundtrips. For example the staff t-shirts were up there. Need a better way to distribute them -- something I'll dump in the Administration Division's lap next year, I think. Ribbons that were assigned to specific department heads and other people, we had them upstairs. Eventually we moved them down to the Office. At one point I had all of the "prize packages" in my suite, as well as the rosettes for the hall costume and masquerade awards. Perhaps I should have a little desk in a corner of the Office next year?

At one point I was so exhausted, I spent about half an hour just sitting in my chair in my suite dozing off as messages were brought to me. Could I have made my Friday go smoother if we'd spent some time Thursday sorting out what would need to go where? Perhaps things that are in my suite that are intended for another part of the convention should be distributed Thursday night. So I should figure out who those people are, and ask them to put in an appearance on Thursday even if they're not staying at the hotel that night. And, of course, more of this should be staged in the office, not my own room!