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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Having once lost a venue two weeks out and being on staff of a con that we moved to an open working airport. This seems so much easier.
When your con is broke, ‘Almost nothing” is the right cost.
In this situation I’d perhaps have the “Mini-Bork One Day Con” at the Expo Center with the goal of fundraising, and then plan the real con at a real hotel.
At the least go do a walkthrough. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think it is. (Granted, maybe it’s worse). At this point, they shouldn’t ignore any options.
I have a feeling that I know where the con will end up…
Having seen what emerges when you move the shelves of a grocery store that’ve been there a while… it could be nasty.
I’m trying to imagine a converted grocery store into convention center and I just can’t, it always ends up way too small. If Bork Con is expecting less than 250 people it might work, but Bork Con seemed to be pretty successful before so I can’t see that.
Seriously though, how would there be more than 2 or 3 rooms in a converted grocery store?
There was a con that did this a year or two ago. You don’t really get rooms, you’d have to put up pole & drape.
poorly converted store? {flashes back to early X-Cons in Oconomowoc} Now that I think about it, X-Con landed there as a result of the Astor Disaster. “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”