chrystalline

I’ve forgotten which book it was, but I remember one character exclaiming over all that had happened and not knowing where to start, and the other said, “Don’t be stuffy, start in the middle and work outwards!” So I will. Sort of.

Short version:

After being busy all month trying to fix my computer, and then trying to reinstall stuff, I went to DragonCon and came back to start a new job and work my notice at my old job at the same time and, oh look, I got sick again because that tends to happen when I work from 9 am to 11:15 pm on seven hours of sleep. Good thing that was only one day, or I’d've lost my voice again, most likely. Slept all weekend and am now mostly (but not all) better.

More details:

I’ve collected a LOT of programs over the years, and I’m not even going to TOUCH my Poser files until I’ve had some time to get settled, because YEOWCH - there are at least five CDs full of files I’ve burned to disc, and several GBs more I never got around to burning! I have gotten most stuff reinstalled now, though I’m still reconfiguring settings, and one of these days I’ll print out the instructions on how to disable that blasted Windows Messenger, because I have to reset it every time I reinstall the opsys, and I forget how and have to look it up again.

OTOH, not having my system available made me look at more open-source options than I’d seen before, so I’m playing with Firefox and Seamonkey somewhat now, in addition to Opera. My blog looks fine in any of those, and Netscape, too, but IE is a problem. Older versions won’t handle the PNG header image, and the newest version sticks extra spaces in my sidebars. I used to be very complacent about IE, even when my brother kept telling me how bad it was, and I brushed him off, because it was working fine for me. Yeah, now I feel dumb. IE stinks.

I have discovered a new toy. I was looking for an open-source/freeware program to do vector graphics, because while Photoshop Elements handles most of the web graphics and photo-editing that I do, I was looking at expanding my T-shirt lines by working with more providers than just CafePress, and one of the ones I was considering requires vector graphics for anything fancier than what CafePress will already do for me. Since I wanted them because they will do that fancier stuff, that meant I needed to find a way to do vector graphics, so I went from Google to Wikipedia and found a whole page of vector graphics programs, and discovered Inkscape. It’s shiny, I likes it! Don’t know when I’ll have vector graphic tees available, yet, though.

The run-up to DragonCon was very busy, because I waited too long to decide that yes, I was definitely going to go. I had emailed one of the directors last year, just a couple weeks after the con had ended, and got a rather condescending reaction. He’d said that yes, he needed staff, but if I hadn’t attended before, why was I wanting to be staff? I emailed back with a maybe-too-detailed reply, and never heard anything back. Ever. So, I guess it was July-ish when my mom recommended emailing him again to remind him, and I just really didn’t want to try to reconnect with him after the way he’d reacted to me initially. I had, however, joined the DCStaff Yahoogroup back when I’d contacted him in the first place, so I got the message when the director for the SFLit track posted looking for more help.

I didn’t think about it, I just volunteered. Suddenly, I’d committed myself to go to Atlanta without a hotel reservation or friends to meet or anything. One of my brother’s roommates had offered several months prior to let me join them when they went, but he decided not to go this year, so that was out. I tried posting in one or two of my Yahoogroups to see if any of my listsibs had room, but it was too late, there, too - their rooms were all full already. On a listsib’s recommendation, I tried posting at the DragonCon LJ community, but got nothing there either. Mom decided I needed to have a hotel room first and then call for roomies, so she headed for Travelocity. The cheapest thing in a reasonable distance from the convention hotels was…

The Ritz-Carlton. At $175/night. I never did find any roomies, so yeah, I still have to reimburse my mom. One thing, though - the parking garage attached to the building for the Ritz was closed on Labor Day, so I ended up not having to pay for parking. I felt guilty, but it’s not like I planned it that way. The Ritz was an experience; the chocolates on the pillow every night were nice, even if they did freak me out by turning on the TV every night as part of the “turn-down” service. (”I didn’t leave that on, who’s in here?”)

It was an interesting mix of “that’s nice” and “that’s stupid,” with a nifty little makeup mirror in the bathroom (which they lit at turndown so I’d have a nightlight or something) and a mini-fridge stocked with snacks and little bottles of liquor and cola for ridiculous prices. I shoved everything around so I could fit my own stuff in there and left their expensive bottles for the next person. I never figured out how to set the alarm on the clock, despite the fancy printed instruction card. I followed the instructions and it just didn’t work, so it was a good thing my cell phone works as an alarm, too. The desk and recliner and table full of magazines were probably relevant to someone who spent an evening in, but since I pretty much came back to eat and sleep, I didn’t care. The showerhead was one of those sunflower-huge-with-wimpy-pressure deals, which make me crazy, but since it was only three nights, I could manage. It was nice to have a real soapdish by the sink, though.

There was a different set of doors locked every day, though, so I had to figure out how to get to and from the convention all over again every day, which was really annoying. I was so busy with staffing SFLit, though, that I didn’t get to explore very much of the rest of the convention. I was in fangirl squeals every time I saw a costume I liked, but I was able to contain myself reasonably well, and I got to meet a lot of nifty new people…most of whom have my card but didn’t necessarily give me their email/LJ/URL, which may mean I was coming off too much like a stalker or something, but I don’t know.

There’s more, but I need to go to bed, so I’ll try to continue this later.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.