hazelchaz | Entries tagged with mikomicon

Photos online:
Old storage, part 7: More books, many of them surplus (16/17-Sep-2009)
Remodeling Monster 2009 part 3: Spare room, new floor (16-21/Sep-2009)
Melissa's Birthday Dinner (17-Sep-2009)
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 371: Coral Cafe (17-Sep-2009)
MikomiCon 2009 part 1: Friday (18-Sep-2009) et seq.
MikomiCon 2009 part 6: Saturday (19-Sep-2009) et seq.
MikomiCon 2009 part 10: Sunday (20-Sep-2009) et seq.
Sarah and the couch (21-Sep-2009)
ASIS 2009 Exhibits part 1: Monday (21-Sep-2009) et seq.
ASIS 2009 Exhibits part 3: President's Reception at Disneyland (21-Sep-2009)
ASIS 2009 Exhibits part 4: Tuesday (22-Sep-2009)
ASIS 2009 Exhibits part 5: Wednesday (23-Sep-2009) et seq.
Dinner at The Hat with Kate and Melissa (23-Sep-2009)
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 372: Coral Cafe (24-Sep-2009)
The picture of summoner_lenne9 is from last Monday when she went home after spending the night on our couch.

We went to that anime convention at CSU Northridge and took all the fabric that we're trying to give away. (left)

The box of patterns was about half full, and there were 26 boxes of fabric -- and when I went home, there were half a dozen patterns left and half a dozen boxes of fabric.

We've been taking "Help Wanted" job descriptions to conventions, and this time out someone volunteered to be one of my minions. I've actually met Emerald (right) before, as early as five years ago at FanimeCon and as recently as earlier this year at magi_sammy's "Clue" party.

The work in my mom's storage unit has continued. My elder older sister Dorothy and I have moved all of the books out, and this week we're going to work on the non-books. I have more fabric to give away, so I'll probably bring it to Coral Cafe Thursday night. I'll also take what's right after that to the San Diego Costume Guild swap meet (2009-10-10).

I went to the ASIS trade show in Anaheim (left).

My employer had a booth, but I signed up for a free trade show floor-only badge under the name of animelosangeles so it wouldn't be obvious that I was in the business when I went browsing the other booths.

The show used Halls A-B-C-D, open all the way, and Hall E just for Registration. (right)

Monday night, as anyone with ASIS badge could have done, I got in free to Disneyland for a private party. About 1000-2000 people, in Adventureland/Frontierland/New Orleans Square, from 7pm to 10pm. The rest of the park was closed up tight -- the shops on Main Street were all closed up, the first time I've ever seen them that way. (Lights on, music up, but no doors open. Strange.)

All of the concessions were closed, but there were about 125 caterings stations throughout the three lands. Roast turkey carving stations, prime rib carving stations, salad and appetizer selections, desserts and coffee -- and I estimate at least a quarter of the stations were free open bars. (left)

I couldn't get a Disneyland Non-alcoholic Mint Julep, but I could get a real one if I wanted one. I have never seen so much liquor in one place outside of a liquor store!

For example there was a bar set up a little ways in front of the Cafe del Zocalo (between Big Thunder and the shooting gallery); another one in the middle of the restaurant; and a third one at the very back of the place. Every bar in the park except that one tucked in the corner had a big crowd of people getting their free drinks.

I ordered a Mai Tai at one of the bars set up in front of the Haunted Mansion (closed for redecoration). I wandered the streets of New Orleans Square remembering the last time I wandered the streets of New Orleans (La.) with a drink in my hand. (right)

Rides that were open included Tarzan's Treehouse, Pirates, Indiana Jones, Tiki Room, Big Thunder, and Disneyland Railroad. (left)

On Wednesday, library_lynn came to the show with me (right).

Lynn and I had fun wandering around the floor, looking for companies in my employer's field, and accumulating free pens, notepads, pens, shopping bags, pens, squeeze stress balls, pens, and screwdrivers.

We also met my elder older sister Dorothy, who was working at a booth in the show. In fact, she'd met Maureen and Bernice (salespeople from my company) at lunch, and our two companies' products were in each other's booths.

One of the inexplicable freebies we ran across was two cold cases full of ice creams. I had an ice cream sandwich, and Lynn had something, and when we got to Dorothy's booth again she asked where hers was. I pulled her ice cream sandwich out of my bag and got a chuckle and a thank-you from her.

I've recruited a helper to make things go more smoothly with the postcard mailings. Kate Capps (right) lives locally and wants to help with the convention, so I met up with her and we got started with the new postcards. Thursday I took her with me to Coral Cafe, where I turned over a quarter of the labels and stamps to the regular crew (Bessie and company), and we got several hundred ready to go that night.

(If you're one of the people who have agreed to help me track of our mailings, please look for a number in parentheses on your mailing label and e-mail it to me at the postcardart.info address.)

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Santa Ana CA, USA
Current Music: Taj Mahal - "Fishin' Blues"

Photos online:
Old storage, part 4: Surplus fabric and notebooks (01/03-Sep-2009)
Old storage, part 5: Surplus fabric (14-Sep-2009)
Old storage, part 6: Many books, some of them surplus (15/16-Sep-2009)
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 368: Free fabric and books at Coral Cafe (03-Sep-2009) et seq.
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 370: Free books at Coral Cafe (10-Sep-2009)
Anime Vegas 2009 part 1: Saturday (05-Sep-2009)
Anime Vegas 2009 part 2: Sunday (06-Sep-2009) et seq.
Anime Vegas 2009 part 4: Monday (07-Sep-2009) et seq.
Anime Vegas 2009 part 5: Monday Night (07-Sep-2009)
Anime Vegas 2009 part 7: Going home Tuesday (08-Sep-2009)
Freeway Service Patrol, and Dinner with Maria (11/13-Sep-2009)
Remodeling Monster 2009 part 1: Spare room, remade (14-Sep-2009)
Remodeling Monster 2009 part 2: Spare room, repainted (15/16-Sep-2009)
The fabric pictures were taken at Coral Cafe.

So, since you saw me last? I hauled all the fabric to Coral Cafe. I went to Anime Vegas. I've been working on packing up my parents' books and fabric from the storage unit -- in rough terms, a week dealing with the fabric, two or three weeks with the books, and a week with everything else should be enough to empty the unit -- and giving away a lot of fabric and books wherever I can. I'll be at Coral Cafe again tonight, with a dozen boxes containing fabric that I didn't bring two weeks ago. Come on by! About 10:00 pm, I think. Call my cell or text me if you want to know if I'm en route yet.

Then on Friday and Saturday, I'll be at CSU Northridge for an anime convention and I'll bring all of the fabric. The patterns, too -- at this point what we have is mostly vintage patterns from the 1960s, so if you're into the tv show Mad Men and want to fit in with those styles (and are a lady with a 28" waist or smaller, or know what to do with tiny patterns) check it out. Again, 10 o'clock is when we'll be doing the give-away.

Oh, and my old spare room/store room/office is being remodeled. I'm taking pictures every day I'm there, to show the progress -- here you can see the second day. The carpet has been pulled up, the tile is being removed, the closet shelves cut in half and a curtain rod installed, and the whole room will be repainted light purple with a bamboo wood floor put down. (left)

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Santa Ana CA, USA
Current Music: Louisiana Red - "Going Train Blues"

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.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Santa Ana CA, USA
Current Music: Nouvelle Vague - "In A Matter Of Speaking"

For animelosangeles, I went to a small convention at Cal State Northridge. I wanted our postcards stuffed in the reg bags, so I drove up on Thursday night to bring them and help stuff the bags (right). They gave me a table in Artists' Alley, which was outdoors on the concrete patio in the sun and immediately to the west of the building with the Dealers Room. I looked at the lay of the land, and decided it made sense to set up after noon, when the shade would start coming our way.

( I've mentioned that at our last convention, I had a few Minions... )

The convention, in its third year, was reasonably well run. As it's on campus, they give free badges to any CSUN students who want to attend. Not counting dealers and artists and others of us with particular reasons to promote or publicize or sell at conventions, most of the non-student attendees come from the surrounding area. Their attendance seems to be stable, around the thousand mark. Their published attendance figure this year was 904.

( We had a table, as I mentioned, where we gave away bottled water and granola bars and sold badge ribbons (to raise money for the ones we give away at our convention)... )

We collected a little money from registrations. But at this point, we are going to the conventions to "wave the flag" -- to talk to people who haven't heard about us, to tell people who have that we have a membership cap of 2700 on Saturday and they should pre-reg and the deadline is mid-December, to tell members that the hotel room block closes mid-December too -- but mostly our agenda now is to see what members want to volunteer. Why is this important? It's not just important, it's vital. Suppose you take everyone that volunteers at a convention in any capacity, including gophers, staff, department heads, division heads, random volunteers and everyone else. Expressed as a percentage of the total membership, what's a good number to have?

I've heard that a good goal to aim for is 10%. One in ten people at the convention are helping to make the convention happen. One in 12 or 13 -- 8% -- is still pretty good. Well, right now 20% of our pre-reg membership are tagged in the database as "STAFF" but we expect to quadruple our membership before the end of the convention. That means that unless we recruit another hundred staff and volunteers, we're looking at a figure of 5%.

Low percentages here are an early warning of potential staff burnout, so I take this very seriously. I think we treat our staff and volunteers well -- in addition to our Con Suite (a novely at anime cons, even though it's a staple at sci-fi cons) we now have a Staff Lounge, we give people breaks, we show them they're appreciated, etc. -- but the trick is to get the word out. More about that in my post about the October picnic, though.

( Anyhow I'm always be on the lookout for steady workers... )

The things that I never knew came with this job... I jest. Chairing a convention isn't a job, it's a hobby. Certainly a very interesting hobby, though!

The Rum Party (right) was here -- they're hitting all the SoCal conventions (perhaps excepting Pacific Media Expo), with Anime Expo in the summer and "Autumn Dream" later in the fall -- and it looks at this point as if Anime Expo is the only one that hasn't figured out the advantages of incorporating them into the con as an official event. Their loss! [Edit: Sarah reminds me that they skipped AX.] I asked Mike, who's recently married Barrie, if they received the cooking wreath safely. I don't think he's twigged to the fact that I'm really saying You haven't sent us a thank-you note yet and of course I can't come left out and chide him for that or remind him that my mailing address is PO Box 17522, Anaheim CA 92817.

( Speaking of other conventions, Revell Walker of Ani-Magic fame (infamy?) showed up to drop off some Autumn Dream flyers (left)... )

We didn't stay for all the closing ceremonies. Miles to go before we sleep -- me to the south, Melissa to the northwest. We did stick around long enough to hear a little of this lady singing (right). I'd bumped into a number of Voice Actors during the weekend, including one or two that had gone the fans-to-pros route (as opposed to a veteran actor who ended up in the anime world, like Kyle Hebert). I need to get better about hanging onto their business cards. (Minions, please take note, for when we're out at pmx. Will they have any VAs there?) Anyhow, this particular lady, whose name I've forgotten, held her own as co-emcee with Kyle on Masquerade night, and was singing the Apeture Science "Still Alive" song. I'd like to see her again, if anyone can tell me her name and where to find her next? Maybe we can lure her out to the LAX Marriott.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Anaheim CA
Current Music: Apeture Science/GlaDos - "Still Alive"

Photos uploaded:
Maria, Lynn and Flamingo Balloon Animal (02-Sep-2008)
"What Ho, Jeeves!" Garden Party (14-Sep-2008)
Afterparty dinner at Dinah's (14-Sep-2008)
Mikomicon 2008 part 1: Thursday, bag-stuffing (18-Sep-2008) et seq.
Mikomicon 2008 part 3: Friday (19-Sep-2008) et seq.
Mikomicon 2008 part 5: Saturday (20-Sep-2008) et seq.
Mikomicon 2008 part 9: Sunday (21-Sep-2008) et seq.
Yaoi-con 2008 part 1: Friday (26-Sep-2008) et seq.
Yaoi-con 2008 part 3: Saturday (27-Sep-2008) et seq.
Yaoi-con 2008 part 7: Sunday (28-Sep-2008)
Looking around Mile Square Park (02-Oct-2008)
The picture of ala_mokita with the "Go Girl" energy drink is from Yaoi-con, which is where I gave him the bear ears he has on his hat.

As you can see, I'm caught up with posting the photos taken so far. (Apart from the missing wiscon photos. I've looked, I haven't found them yet. Don't know where or when they'll turn up, if ever. So much for my comment about digital pictures being harder to misplace...) Anyhow, now I need to go back and caption everything, and perhaps give you gentle readers a bit of play-by-play for what I've done since Costume-Con and Costume College. Thus the ellipses.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Santa Ana CA, USA

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Chaz Boston Baden

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... I'm saving my love for you. Like Jack Horner, in the corner, Don't go nowhere...
...I'm through with flirtin', it's just you I'm thinkin' of. Ain't misbehavin'...
In a matter of speaking, I just want to say that I could never forget the way you told me everything
...The sun was spitting fire, the sky was blue as ice. I felt a little tired...
...With no shoes on their feet. House the people livin' in the street. Oh, oh, there's a solution...

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Walk Softly and Carry a Big Schtick

The continuing misadventures of Chaz Boston Baden

Entries tagged with mikomicon

... I'm saving my love for you. Like Jack Horner, in the corner, Don't go nowhere...

...I'm through with flirtin', it's just you I'm thinkin' of. Ain't misbehavin'...

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

...The sun was spitting fire, the sky was blue as ice. I felt a little tired...

...With no shoes on their feet. House the people livin' in the street. Oh, oh, there's a solution...