In a matter of speaking, I just want to say that I could never forget the way you told me everything

Photos online. And most of them have captions. Help me fill in the gaps!
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 354: Coral Cafe (18-Jun-2009) et seq.
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 356: Coral Cafe (25-Jun-2009) et seq.
Irvine Cosplay Picnic at Mason Park (20-Jun-2009)
Anaheim Gardenwalk and the Anaheim Marriott (21-Jun-2009)
Napmobile and a fenderbender (21-Jun-2009)
Anime Los Angeles 6 meetings part 2: Exec Dinner/Meeting (26-Jun-2009) et seq.
Anime Los Angeles 6 meetings part 6: General Meeting (27-Jun-2009) et seq.
Moving Melissa (28-Jun-2009)
Victoria's Picture Gallery: Anime Expo 2009: Saturday (04-Jul-2009)
Melissa and the Fan Gallery cases (11-Jul-2009)
Anaheim Marriott Tour (16-Jul-2009)
La Verne Cosplay Picnic at Las Flores Park (18-Jul-2009)
The picture of neo_serenity is from the exec dinner.

( Losing my camera at Anime Expo really rocked me back... )

Oh, there's more going on than just my emotional state, of course. I've taken more photos since Anime Expo, but the photos in the queue have been on hold because of other non-photo, non-blog reasons. Family health issues and household management issues, and if I can be discarding and shredding old papers any of that comes before puttering around on my website.

I've just spent a few nights (in my copious free time) captioning some of the backlog. I think I've got to stop taking so many group photos -- they slow me down so much in the captioning phase!

I've been putting a few inconsequential updates on my facebook. Nothing major, but I wanted to repeat here the bigger items that I've mentioned there.

( The Potluck Party Room at Costume College was a big success, so we'll do it again at PMX... )

Between now and PMX: I'll be at Tiki Oasis this weekend (just for fun), Anime Vegas (in a convention center), and a small anime convention at CSU Northridge. So PMX is the next opportunity to do any kind of hospitality beyond giving away granola bars and candy at our table.

For loscon, I'm hosting a Confirmation: Westercon 63 party. "Poofy dresses (especially white ones), shirt and tie, or school uniform" will be the dress code. We're toying with the idea of using a "Confirmitzvah" theme, stay tuned for that.

( Some small convention news... )

I mentioned last month that I've purchased a new camera. I haven't found the "sports" setting yet, but I've started playing with the High ISO option for available light shots. You can see I've started posting the first crop of photos from the new camera.

A little man walked up and down. He found an eating place in town. He read the menu through

Photos now online:
Julia's Clue Party (18-Jul-2009)

As you can see, divine_sage, little_serenity, daoutlaw, chiyo_no_hikari, simmaria, hyper_sam, magi_sammy, legally_scarlet, ivyf15, and summoner_lenne9 were all at the party...

This was an interesting party. The announcement invited us all to pick a character from Clue -- the board game, the movie, the DVD game, or some other incarnation (Cluedo anyone?). After watching the movie, a bunch of the party guests played the DVD-enhanced version of the board game.

Because I knew library_lynn and I would arrive late -- I had a cosplay picnic to go to, and Lynn had to work -- I stopped by in the morning before the picnic to drop off of a crockpot of cocktail meatballs. The recipe calls for grape jelly, which fit the whole "purple" theme that Lynn (Lady Lavender) and I (Professor Plum) were going for. I had a 4-lb. bag of chicken/beef meatballs, and a couple jars of chili sauce and grape jelly.

I wish I'd brought an extra crockpot or two. We could have heated up some of the meatballs separately and had them with the spaghetti that was being served. Oh well!

I've offered Julia my full support the next time she wants help with party logistics. (Of course, she's headed out of state for college, so probably she won't need my assistance any time soon.)

The party included chocolate birthday cake -- it was a late celebration of Julia's 18th -- and there was ice cream to go with it. I brought pink lemonade, but mixed up too much. I think I need to start packing my airpot so I can mix up a gallon or two of ice cold lemonade and serve it, rather than using the 10-gallon barrel cooler or regular plastic pitchers!

Just about everyone at the party had some kind of closet costume. For me, it was a purple dress shirt and my M.C.Escher purple gecko tie. With the possible exception of Miss Scarlett draping herself across Col. Mustard's lap (right), nobody made much of an attempt to stay in character, which was a relief -- I hadn't seen the movie, and had decided that my interpretation of Prof. Plum would be a gentleman who would never use a short simple word when two or three multisyllabic synonyms would suffice. With possibly a touch of Mrs. Malaprop thrown in. I remember that it required considerable forethought and some practice in the form of a silent recitation to one's self within the quiet confines of one's own cranium to present that particular persona. Not easily done without at least some training and experience in improvisational theater.