Do you remember when we fell in love, we were young and innocent then...

Photos now online:
Melissa helps out (13-May-2009)
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 344: Coral Cafe (14-May-2009) et seq.
Secura Coin Locker (16-May-2009)
California Strawberry Festival, Oxnard (16-May-2009)
Mother's Day (Observed) at Faire (17-May-2009)
The picture of missmea is from the Faire.

Things I've done recently: Went to the Strawberry Festival. On the way there, we stopped off at Secura Coin Locker in Chatsworth and looked at their products. We're probably going to buy a dozen coin-operated lockers, to use in the animelosangeles game room.

On the next day, went to the Renaissance Faire. This was our traditional Mother's Day trip, delayed a week because of missmea's work schedule.

The following week, ala_mokita and I met up with Joyce Hooper and Evan James, to talk about the job of "Creative Director." Evan's going to be approving the designs for all of our convention publications. In the past, he's done all of the design. Going forward, the Publications Division and other divisions with other publications to design will work out the preliminary designs, then forward them to Evan for tweaking or approval.

To aid in this, Publications Division now has a copy of everything that's passed through Evan's hands for the convention, including all of the signs and publications produced -- so there's a thick file of sample designs.

Our Publications Division head, Arianna, joined us as well, and we talked briefly about what her team is going to do. Some of those are graphic designers yet to be recruited. We're going to post "Help Wanted" notices for her division on the website, and she's going to join us at Anime Expo to talk to potential volunteers (mostly, artists) for her division.

Then it came time to go to FanimeCon. We had our "Peanut Butter and Jelly Party" (or Frenzy) on the ConCourse each night. Staff aren't allowed to bring in food to the concourse; we're not allowed to prepare food; we're not allowed to sell anything, or take donations or deal with money in any way, out on the concourse. Fortunately, we weren't in violation of any of those rules: we just put bread, peanut butter, and jelly on the table and let people make their own sandwiches. Over the course of the weekend we went through 28 two-lb. loaves of bread -- which is the equivalent of about 37 ordinary one-and-a-half-pound loaves. Lots of sandwiches.

This past weekend we sponsored a picnic at Lake Balboa Park, where 82 fans signed the sign-in sheet. Recruited a few people to help with the convention in a number of divisions. We now have a Gaming Department head. I am pleased by how many departments and divisions showed up -- we had representatives from departments in all of our divisions.

And Sunday, yesterday, I collapsed with dehydration sickness. Too much sun[burn] and not enough water on Saturday resulted in a daylong headache and much sleeping on Sunday. I've got to watch out for that in two weeks, when I'm going to attempt back-to-back picnics in Fresno and Bakersfield!