Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
So right now I'm sitting in my living room, kind of exhausted, looking at a green chair that used to sit in my Grandmother's living room. This weekend was eventful, and I'm tired.
Crysta and I went down to Milwaukee so we could spend father's day with my parents (along with some other family members). We went to the Brewer's game on Sunday, and like any game of baseball, it was a good time. I've never been a huge sports person, but I love watching a good live baseball game.
Honestly it was an amazing day.
Before I left town on Saturday though, I swung by the local No Kings protest here in Eau Claire, and then spent a chunk of time at the local Pride celebration. I tend to be a bit of a shut in these days, so with all the awful stuff in the news it was nice to remind myself that there are good people in the world willing to stand up for what's right and for each other.
My grandmother passed away not that long ago, and one thing I had my parent set aside for me was a chair. I realize that it looks a bit more gold in the photo, but trust me when I say it's green in real life. This morning I loaded it into my pickup and drove it across the state and got it into my living room. I loved this chair as a kid, and importantly... it swivels. And when I was growing up adults would always yell at me not to spin the chair. Well guess what, it's my chair now.
And no one can stop me from spinning.
I dunno -- it was just a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. We also went out to dinner after the baseball game yesterday, but I think I'll give my full opinion on that later this week in a different blog post. Because we went to a restaurant none of us had been to before, and uh... I have thoughts.
That was vague. I'm being vague. You're just going to have to be okay with that.
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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.