Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
My grandmother died last night. This wasn't a shock or a surprise. Her health has been on the decline, and she's been in hospice for the last month. She lived a long life, and in her final days she was surrounded by her three adult children.
My grandma was a kind woman. She wasn't perfect, but I always felt loved in her presence. She was a retired kindergarten teacher, and was still working when I was a kid. I have so many happy memories sitting at her kitchen table, and I'm going to carry those with me for the rest of my life. She was also proof that anyone who claims that you get more conservative as you get older is full of shit, because she certainly didn't.
I think it's interesting how the body processes grief sometimes. I don't know that I'll cry, but over the past month, knowing this was coming, I've felt a tension in my gut. Now that she's passed, instead of relief that tension is replaced by a sense of emptiness. That something is missing that should still be there. Something has been taken away, and I feel it.
Of course, as I wrote that, I immediately started crying... so I guess my body processes grief in pretty ordinary ways too.
I wanted to come up with something profound linking this to Beltane, which we sit in the middle of right now, but it just seemed hackneyed. Like I was trying to dig out some greater significance when the truth is death comes whenever it wants. The only predictable thing about it is that it's the end of all of our journeys. I hope that when I pass I'm so lucky to have lived such a long life with people that I love around me in my final days.
For the record, I will be fine. I just needed to get these words out while they were still in my head. I don't have some rousing conclusion or deep insight to tack on here at the end, just that gut feeling that something is missing.
Because it is.
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Ah Old Garner, we really didn’t miss you. I am mildy surprised Garner doesn’t know who the head of Wakame Con is by sight since cons share equipment and apparently volunteer at each other’s cons.
OTOH, then this is Garner.
No, really. We don’t want volunteers speaking to the hotel on behalf of the convention. That’s why you bump that shit up the chain of command.
Also my experience, most con chairs have no fucking clue how their staff and volunteers make the magic happen. Your volunteer coordinator has a better idea how to make it work. It’s the old officer vs NCO trope.
There does become a grey area in most things, and is troubles with situations in theory, and situations in practice.
‘I think that guy has a gun. Crap, gun! Gun! Gun! Gun!’ …and now they’re panicked and can look directly at the floor manager without recognizing them.
Explain WHY you’d prefer no interaction with hotel staff, and understand that if it becomes an issue, the situation is crap anyway, let it slide.
What is stopping a con goer, not staffed with the con, from pulling out their handy dandy smart phone and dailing 911 to get the police officers to show up? Just curious.
Absolutely nothing would stop them
However,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_John_Crawford_III
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Tamir_Rice
Sometimes you’re Bar-B-Que Becky and sometimes you get someone killed
Nothing. Which on some levels side-steps the problem, and on other levels makes whole new problems.
And I’m not sure about BorkCon, but know at least some cons have officers walking around, so there’s that.
Yep, in some cases they’ve just gone with “big group of people, often carrying at least repro weapons, not the best combination better send a person to be a presence.” I’m not saying they’re wrong, either. Sure, you try to make sure repros are actually going to hurt anyone, but if you have a determined jackhole it’s amazing what you can do some damage with. I feel like I should make a ‘Batty’s Last Speech” out of this crap – “I’ve seen foam swords embedded south of the belt, I’ve seen glittering fairies driven to madness and despair tearing at their foes…”
I can tell you, the last year that No Brand Con, the convention that the creator is apart of as staff, in its last year in Eau Claire, WI, had police officers patrolling quite regularly during the busy hours. This was because the 2 previous years saw some bad behavior from the con such as a con goer chasing people around with a knife and some drunken con goer broke glass bottles in and around the pool this causing the pool to be drained and cleaned up. Finally in the last year at the venue, which would be demolished shortly after, the con got the city police to make regular runs through the hotel to at least intimidate the con goers into behaving.
That’s not exactly how things happened. The police only showed up when the con called them over specific incidents, and we never used them to “intimidate” congoers. Frankly, the con has an integrated security policy to PREVENT congoers from feeling intimidated.
Also: The guy with a knife was NOT a congoer, but tried to hide in the con, and was quickly identified by No Brand staff and the police.