The Nijiya Market at 6th and Jackson in San Jose has a much better selection (particularly for sake) than the Nijiya Market at Grant & El Camino in Mountain View.

..."The Doctor's Daughter" listen carefully to the music during the shuttle launch.

It can't be coincidence.

...or truth?

Saturday morning's PenWAG Fashion Show wasn't a walk in the park, but in the end ran smooth as glass. Started on time, ran on time, the show itself was beautiful, and finished on time.

Saturday afternoon's visit to The Computer History Museum for the Babbage Difference Engine reception was a blast, even if it started with "I don't remember where the museum is, do you?" johnnyeponymous gave us a quick personal highlights tour of the "Visible Storage." It was too cool.

Saturday night's Imagecraft product release party was great, with a bunch of the usual suspects and some folks from the CC26 staff who have never been to one of these before. If you were there, get on over to didjiman's LJ and let him know who you are.

Sunday was spent sleeping, mostly.

We did a run to see Iron Man. This is what a comic book movie is supposed to be. I loved the Stan Lee cameo.

We did dinner at E&O Trading Company. I have to remember that I'm not thrilled by their Pad Thai, but everything else was good and the soy mushroom rice was breathtaking.

We may skip BASFA tonight, K is feeling a smidge off.

Doing dull admin work, listening to the lunch set for the PenWAG fashion show (Telemann's Tafelmusik at the moment, if you're wondering).

I'm bouncing back from the con. Yesterday was the first day I didn't crash part-way through, and it was a busy day. I also didn't hurt this morning when I got up (although I'm not without hurt, as I found turning back to look into a parking space I was waiting to get into; more of a stretch than I expected).

As for yesterday...

We did a bit of shopping, picking up stuff for our raffle Chinese Auction basket for the PenWAG fashion show. It all started with a set of 8 vintage molded glass faux-cut-crystal champagne flutes my parents sent me, and the idea of doing a '70s inspired hat box. We found a powder-blue white polka-dot tall cylindrical box at The Container Store. We found a floral-pattern Joseph Schmidt truffle assortment and a Scharffen Berger dark bar assortment at the Jos. Schmidt outlet. There's a new paper store at Santana Row, and we got some avocado green tissue paper and this great red poppies on green ground decorative paper. We're going to add a bottle of Thomas Coyne Chardonnay and a bottle of Cedar Mountain Rosé of Pinot Noir (chardonnay and rosé just scream '70s).

Then we hopped up to Berkeley to have coffee with lferion before dropping her at the Oakland airport. We discovered that our GPS maps didn't yet have the new entrance on it, so we were routed on the old detour routes, but that wasn't actually bad.

We got back home in time to load the car for the PenWAG fashion show rehearsal. There was a smidge of hotel drama at the beginning, but we got running and everybody did very well. It was a little work getting the sound up, and we're going to a different solution for the show itself on Saturday, but it was sufficient proof-of-concept and I'm not worried about it now.

There's not much to write about Tuesday.

We got up.

We had lunch.

We packed out hospitality and our room. It sucked.

We hauled crap home (with the help of yotefoxwolf). It sucked.

K had the first "post-con" meeting with hotel management. It went well.

We slept.

I overslept my Monday panel.

Once I had confirmed the last 'zine had been printed, I shut down the Xerox for cool-down so it could be moved. I also pulled and packed most of the accessories attached to the computer.

I called the wineries to let them know that we weren't coming. This was good. The two who would have been open on weekdays had just changed their schedules to Sat-Sun only.

I spent some time in the consuite, and helped tear down the decor after the official 4:00 closing time. What really happened was "It's 4:00, do y'all want to help pack? We're not kicking you out.".

K ran a bunch of stuff back to the storage locker, and on the way stopped with aramintamd at Michaels to get craft supplies. When they got back we went down to the bar to get some sushi while they worked on their Mouskerade entries. I remembered the bag of plushies in the consuite (left from Scott Evil's Evil Petting Zoo) and brought those down. Pretty soon we had a quarter of the bar making Mouskerade entries. Mine was a little bear with an aloha shirt, matching headband and sharpie-marker beard: Chaz Boston Bear-Den.

iamradar did a great job upholding the traditions of the first Mouskerade (10 years ago at CC16 in St. Louis) and we had a great Dead Dog party. Dead Dog officially closed at 1:00am, and I think we got out of there around 5:30am.

Sleep: 3 hours
Alcohol: Lots; everybody's left-overs

Sunday started rough. I should have been out of bed at 9:00, but instead woke up 5 minutes before my 10:00am panel.

I threw on Japanese and went to find my panel, only 5 minutes late. Only one problem. I didn't know where it was. I found a display screen that told me it was in an empty room. After a few minutes I went to gurdymonkey's panel on pre-Edo Japanese costume (where I joked I was 50 years late in my Edo-style kataginu kamishimo). I helped her and Tara get one of their laptops up and running for her slide show, and sat in for most of the panel.

It turns out my panel was in another room, but the rest of the folks handled it well without me.

I was a smidge late for PDID (the Future Fashion Show), and missed wearable art, hats (single pattern) and the Polish coat (single pattern 2) but I saw the clown costume (single pattern 3) and the fashion show entries. It went off flawlessly (on the surface at least). All of the entries were fabu.

Around (late) lunch we had our real emergency of the weekend. One of the attendees slipped in the green room and slashed her leg. It was messy, but the folks who were there did the right thing before our staff medics could get to her, and by the time the EMTs got to her she was stable enough she didn't have to be hauled out on a stretcher. The last I heard she got stitches and was able to drive herself home. If you were wondering about the fire truck, that was it.

K and I actually got a nap. HTH?

He decided to dress in his St. George uniform, so I followed suit. We went down for Historical Masq. All the errors of Saturday were accounted for. The room opened on time. The show started on time. There were only one or two tech glitches. The Screen did not return.

Oh, and all the entries were just amazing. Judging ran a smidge long, but with that panel I'm surprised that we didn't see blood pouring from under the door. They're all very thorough and opinionated. Awards were printed and distributed.

Around midnight we went up to the party floor where things were, again, in full swing.

Well, that was the theory. I stopped at ops to drop off stuff from the masquerade, and found the Xerox printer was crashing. I spent some time with Spike and Tom futzing with it, and did get it to reboot, at which point we put it to sleep and put off more printing until morning.

"Daleks in Manhattan" returned. They had done a large enough supply buy for two nights, and they had the room for Sunday, so they decided to re-open. On Saturday we had our Dr. Who SF party, "Daleks in Manhattan." On Sunday we had our Dr. Who Historical party, "Daleks in Manhattan." Lisa & Chris also re-opened, and consuite ran a bit later than Saturday.

Eventually we helped rescue Merv & Judith from their party guests so they could close, and went up to the Seattle party, where one of the crew was celebrating her win in Historical masq. There were enough members of Beyond Reality Costumers Guild to have a quorum, and they called a meeting to discuss perhaps running a Costume-Con in Seattle again in the future.

We then hauled down to our own room for a few more drinks, and stayed up until 6:00am.

Sleep: 5 hours
Alcohol: Lots

So if I could skip writing about one day, this would be it. Saturday was rough.

I got up in time for breakfast to make it to my 10:00 am panel. Yep, 10:00 am panel, after getting to sleep at 6:00 am.

Fortunately it was the masquerade judging panel, a panel I could moderate in my sleep. I wasn't scheduled to moderate, but things got shuffled around and I found myself moderator with Pierre, Sandy and Janet W-A. It went very well.

I looked around the dealers room again and chatted with folks.

I called the bus company to cancel the Tuesday winery tour. We only had 5 people, including me, and noon was my cancellation deadline.

I also changed into my St. Mungo's Hospital scrubs. I also got K changed into his before the masquerade started. That was an effort.

The rest of the day got eaten by working on F&SF masq glitches.

K spent much of the afternoon fighting with a F&SF masq registration database issue, and finally got it sorted out. F&SF masq tech rehearsals ran long. There were issues with transcription of tech notes and MC scripts. Snack order/delivery to the green room was flubbed, and only the kosher snacks were handled (yes, it was still Passover). House opened 15 minutes late (no big deal). Scripts for tech, MC and stage crew were still printing. Show started 45 minutes late (a big deal). There were many tech glitches. Judges reference photos took longer to process than anticipated.

Many of these problems could be laid to process errors and automation errors. It was the first show of the weekend. It was the first time we had ever used the masq database with pre-reg data from another source. It was the first time we used the masq database at a con with full tech rehearsals. There are other contributing factors but you're going to have to buy me a drink to get them.

Then there was The Screen. What was in reality an ugly tech error was seen as a hilarious piece of guerilla theater (that the participants didn't realize). It started out as a WTF? moment and quickly turned into mad laughter among the audience. One day The Screen will return.

johnnyeponymous and Tadao did a most excellent job of keeping the audience entertained. Awards were finished, printed and handed out.

Then we went to parties. It was around midnight. The Klingons were still open, and still had Revenge. BASFA had a quiet (and somewhat unanticipated) party. The "Daleks in Manhattan" party was rolling hard. I'm not sure what Chris & Lisa's party was, but they had great sangria. I ended up hanging out in the sewing workroom with flotsomnjetsom and finally got to bed around 6:00am.

Sleep: 3.5 hours
Alcohol: Plenty, but less than Friday

Well, this is where the diaries start getting really lost. Thursday's 4-5 hours of sleep is the largest stretch in the weekend.

Friday started early-ish, as I still had a scanner in Ops to get up and running. It was a bigger fight than the printer. I had forgotten how old and slow that machine is (not having done anything but run videos on it in the last few years). Still, after an hour or so, it was working. I didn't go to the ICG annual meeting, although I was awake for it.

I got to spend some time in the dealers' room, mostly visiting with dealers I know, and not buying anything. Aziza had an excellent purple coat and collar, and if she didn't sell it I will probably buy it at BayCon.

I'm spacing Friday afternoon. I haven't the foggiest. I think I spent a little time in Ops and in the Consuite, and mostly wandered around chatting with people. Before lunch I did spend time in mainstage helping tech hang lights and cables.

At around 7:00 I caught K and pointed out that he didn't have much time to get dressed for the Victorian Underwear party. This was a good thing, for some reason he thought it was 6:00. We got up to the room, changed quickly, and he went backstage to be ready for his set in the entertainment. Cathleen & James did an excellent job mixing the entertainment that K had booked with open and performance dances. We hit the jackpot on the theme. So many people coming already did skin-out historical costume that they had it easy, and quite a few people just went crazy with their ideas. DJ Neshemah spun a fabulous set after the main entertainment ended. We kept running into people who said "we were going to come to the parties, but we just couldn't leave until the next song was over!"

Both consuite and the Pretty Pink Princess party were hopping. I showed trystbat and demode_kvc the secret (well, if the curtains had been open it wouldn't have been secret) patio which allowed their party to expand and grow without reaching critical density. We brought some pink wine, and drank some pink drinks. It was excellent.

As PPP was wrapping up, we hauled a gang up to the room for more drinks and snacks. gurdymonkey brought "100 Poems" sake, and we opened obi_have's bottle of imported ozeki. Both were fabulous. The infamous cheezu-mochi snacks were officially declared "crack" and the frosted seaweed crackers (only slightly less addictive) were declared "heroin." Things lasted until a bit before 6:00 am.

This proved to be a pattern. I saw very little of K in prime-hours, and we stayed up late after the big events.

Sleep: 2 hours
Alcohol: Enough

Thursday started early-ish. I needed to get the printer for ops up and running, get breakfast and meet my tour group between 9:30 and 10:00.

I had downloaded the non-web printer driver set-up, so the load went just peachy.

Breakfast was quick (a pattern for the weekend, but also an exception for each day), and I arrived to find one of my group already waiting. I was down 7 seats from a full bus, and as we were collecting Julie and Greg Sardo showed up to check in. They needed a nap, but their room wasn't ready so they joined us too.

Our bus arrived, the incomparable Al from Mercury Tours, and he got us on the road post-haste. We easily made Scharffen Berger with shopping time to spare. Bill arrived with Sakuta-san (who had flown in from Japan that morning) just in time for the tour.

I've lived in the Bay Area for 9 years and have never gone on the Scharffen Berger tour. Big mistake. It's really cool. It's even better with a big bunch of friends. Terry, tour guide extraodinare, made a bunch of jokes that we all got. It might be the first time a tour got every joke. We also surprised him by wanting to keep our hair nets and beard nets.

The schedule from there was pretty tight, but we had about 50 minutes for lunch at Café Cacao. Oy, was it worth it. The Niman Ranch Jambon (ham) and Gruyere Panini was amazing. I think everybody was thrilled.

From there Al got us promptly to St. George Spirits, which was (not surprisingly for a Thursday afternoon) dead-empty. Our gang of 18 lined up at the bar and proceeded to taste the whole line, including an apple brandy that wasn't on the list and both the old "Lot #6" and the new "Lot #7" single-malt Whisky. We also pulled out the bottle of "Alchemist Series #1" Wasabi Vodka from 2005 that I brought, and that the folks at the distillery hadn't tasted any of in over a year. It had mellowed out a lot, but it still had a strong, rich (and strange) flavor.

Lou (the tasting room manager) and Dave (the junior distiller) took us on a tour of the facilities. People were well impressed by the stills, the aging area and a big vat of orange blossoms macerating in vodka. Much alcohol was purchased.

Al got us back to the hotel by 4:45 (only a little later than anticipated), a happy gang laden with chocolate and booze.

I don't remember much about dinner, I'm sure it was at the Coffee Garden. Wait, I do remember. Pre-reg pick-up opened while we were at dinner, and we could see the desk from our table. There was a steady rush for badges, but the line moved quickly and they stayed open nearly an hour later than they anticipated.

We went up to hospitality, and found a few people hanging out. That picked up a little after 10:00 pm, and by 10:30 the room was busy. This is a sign the convention has really started.

Around midnight a few of us went up to our room and discussed logistical issues going on at the con over drinks. Or, rather, we went up to the room for drinks, and as non-committee folks trailed out it shifted to discussing behind-the-scenes stuff. Now that the weekend is over, I've changed my opinion on a few of them. A few I still hold the same position on. I think, though, as things played out these issues ended up being relatively minor. We did, though, stay up until almost 4:00am talking these things through.

Sleep: 4-5 hours
Alcohol: Some

K's last day at work before the convention was Friday, 4/18, so he could stay home and get a bunch of stuff done before move-in.

My last day at work was Wednesday, 4/23. I planned to put in a short day, but it got shorter when I received an emergency call (not K) and went home to make sure that we could deal with the possible effects.

K had run a load over to the hotel already, including the computer equipment for ops. I got home, packed, and ran a load over to the hotel while he finished a shirt for the weekend. Finally, we got one more load packed and hauled in. I think I got that count right... there may have been another load after dinner.

The room was gorgeous. We had the same suite as when we were fan guests at BayCon 2005, but it had been remodeled. The whirlpool tub had been replaced by a smaller but deeper soaking tub. The shower was nice. Furniture was an improvement.

There were quite a few folks onsite already, and the ops office was being moved in. I got the computer up and running and plugged in the printer but it wouldn't install the drivers without an internet connection.

I think that's when we decided to go to bed.

Sleep: 7+ hours
Alcohol: none (I think)

The photo workflow office is back in Orange County, and is still working like mad to process the over 20,000 pictures that volunteers shot and turned in. It's going to take a few days for these to get uploaded.

But don't wait! There's hope!

If you're a Flickr member, and you shot photos at Costume-Con 26, please consider adding your convention sets to the Costume-Con 26 group photo pool. We've already got two members who have added their sets, but we would love to see more.

So of course, on the weird side...

...we finish the con and at dinner tonight I get this crazy idea of how to promote the CC28 video masquerade.

It's going to take a lot of people.

I want to do a series of very short videos to put up on youtube: Number Two instructing people to enter in the video masquerade.

The con is over.

Wednesday was a bit rough, though not directly. Something happened to one of my friends, but a full recovery has been made.

Thursday kicked ass. The venues were great. The bus driver was great. The tour group was great.

Friday was very good. We hit the jackpot on the Friday Night Social theme. The Pretty Pink Princess party was too cool.

Saturday was rough. Very rough. Fortunately, the attendees seemed to be pretty forgiving. The parties, however, were amazing.

Sunday was fabu. Saturday's errors were not repeated.

Monday was excellent. Things slowly wound down. The dead dog party was everything a dead dog party should be.

Today was rough. I had canceled the wine tours because of lack of interest, and it was a good thing. Move-out was hell. 4 car-loads. The last one hasn't even been emptied.

A lot of people did a lot of serious work to make this convention a success.

And now I crash. Hard. 6 years, and all that's left is administratrivia and closing the books.

...not the con coming up, although that is too, what with too much packing and move-in for tomorrow, along with a somewhat under-subscribed Thursday tour.

What's nerve-wracking is that, for the first time since November of 2006, we intentionally shut down the Phaser 8550.

It's got a whole process to shut down for moving. The maintenance kit and the waste tray have to be removed. It's got to lock the print head. Then the ink has to set up.

After a cool-down period, it's boxed up and ready to go to the convention and be installed in the office. Then we get to repeat the process Monday afternoon.

BTW, the page count since November 2006? 19,937. Almost 20k pages, most of them for the convention.

so theferrett (who is getting beat up online for a silly convention idea gone somewhat wrong) is co-writing a new webcomic, My Name is Might Have Been.

It's a strange and surreal dystopian rock-fantasy.

( If you want to read the comic, start with the above link; there are 15 pages so far. If not, click through, but you'll regret it if you change your mind and want to read the whole thing )

Yes, this is a smidge tasteless.

It's also pretty funny if you're a motohead.