It all came together. Holy chrome.
Feb. 1st, 2010 09:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburgI am up, vertical and functional this morning - kid is at preschool, Jim is at work and we're not falling over exhausted.
But we just finished doing a con in San Francisco that required a little over six hours of driving each way to attend. (Three hundred dollars is three hundred dollars, and I packed pocketknives, toothpaste, shampoo and didn't have to show my ID neither. Pthwwpt!)
Taking advantage of the company's rental junket club, I rented a hybrid to do the drive. Getting to the lot, we were shown all of the choices available - which included a Ford Escape.
It was bigger than the Prius. We were doing a con. We scratched our heads and said 'why not?'
Oh baby. I can see why Ford is still in business. Let's just say - it worked. Worked WELL. It was one thing we didn't have to worry about.
Something you don't expect to find in a car, but the hybrids probably take for granted - electric ports of all kinds. Like - a 110 plug. Baby, I plugged in a power strip and the kid and I both had tech all the way up and back. I played Sims on my laptop, and he watched all the DVDs we could play. Effortless.
One reason we're not exhausted.
Animation On Display (AOD) moved its digs from the old Cathedral Hill Hotel to the Kabuki Hotel in J-Town, due to imminent demise of the Cat Hill - it's going to see a wrecking ball Real Soon Now and I still think someone ought to dart in there and steal random objects. We really loved that old place - but.
Let's get one thing straight. The Kabuki is POSH. After spending many happy, happy years at the Cat Hill, with its bare (but dressed) cement walls, institutional-style flush toliets, leaky ceilings, elevators that refused to work with more than eight people in them (but had the cheery 'Help Is On The Way' buttons in them) and beds that resembled blocks of stone - stepping into the Kabuki must have seemed like a sweet, sweet reward.
(For instance - Con Ops had been held on the third floor of the Cat Hill in a little room with no windows and little change in color from floor to ceiling - not even pictures on the walls. We checked into our room, decided the Con Chair loved me because our room? OH BABY. And then word reached us in reverent tones. "Con Ops - has a sauna!")
No shit.
Our room? Soft, welcoming beds with feather duvets so thick the kid almost disappeared into them at naptime. On the 9th floor, well out of range of any loud attendees or other possible noise issues. At the end of the hall. The short end. The bathroom had a furo tub in it that must have been 3 - 4' deep - Jim and the kid took a bath together in it, that big. (It took a while to fill up. Oh well. There was a place to shower off first anyway.) And the hotel tolietries were wonderful and plentiful.
The mini-bar was expensive, but had Pocky.
Reason number two we're not exhausted.
First day of the con, Jim is drafted to a Costco run - so he takes kid, hybrid and con staffer and is gone most of the morning. Me, I get to help out at Registration - and quickly find out I can bellow 'NEEEEXT' to pitch. Two hours into the con, and the lines are CLEARED.
But now it's time for me to take kid, feed him lunch and put down for nap for I have a panel at two. Cupcakes are arriving at 1:30, and I've got![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
joseph_palmer coming in to help me out with the panel.
One, two, three, four. We eat, the kid goes down to sleep, cupcakes arrive, so does Joe - and the panel goes off beautifully.
Celebrations are had after, and much sake is consumed by both me and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
silverkun - who steps in to be me/Jim at need when kid stuff takes over the schedule. This works amazingly well. The fact I have three of Xander's 'committee' on site during this con makes me a very happy panda - the fact that they are all getting to know each other better makes me ecstatic. The fact that I'm having to do NOTHING for this to happen organically is beyond words.
Reason three I'm not exhausted.
I spend very little time in Ops, when last year I lived there. I found I was doing one of four things - sleeping (which having kid onboard made mandatory), eating something with him prior to putting to bed (either a nap or sleep), doing a panel or something related to con, but not in Ops. And Ops had a sauna! *pouts* Well, not very much. I got two of the best hot soaks in years, and I didn't even have to leave my room!
Sunday comes off like clockwork, as I take kid shopping in the morning (scoring FIVE Pokemon bath fizzies, hooray!), feeding him lunch and getting him back to the room for his nap before I grab laptop, DVDs and my ass as I find myself doing a 'the 60's were a great time to be a kid' panel. I'm certain I'm going to be facing an empty room twenty minutes into the panel and fold. I am surprised to find a similar result to the fan fic panel - people came in to the room and stayed to the end. I played a bunch of DVD clips, nattered and gromished my way through an hour and decided this is actually a pretty good idea, but needs better prep. (I thought they'd cancelled it when I asked for a schedule change for the fan fic panel. Uh, no. They flipped them.)
I come to my senses after the panel - we really should pack up and start driving to get home anytime at a reasonable hour for all of us. So we say our goodbyes, hit the road and get home before 9:30 PM.
I really wanted another hour for shopping. That's my only regret. I can get the california roll bento anytime.
AOD 2010 - assignment complete. And I can't wait for next year.
But we just finished doing a con in San Francisco that required a little over six hours of driving each way to attend. (Three hundred dollars is three hundred dollars, and I packed pocketknives, toothpaste, shampoo and didn't have to show my ID neither. Pthwwpt!)
Taking advantage of the company's rental junket club, I rented a hybrid to do the drive. Getting to the lot, we were shown all of the choices available - which included a Ford Escape.
It was bigger than the Prius. We were doing a con. We scratched our heads and said 'why not?'
Oh baby. I can see why Ford is still in business. Let's just say - it worked. Worked WELL. It was one thing we didn't have to worry about.
Something you don't expect to find in a car, but the hybrids probably take for granted - electric ports of all kinds. Like - a 110 plug. Baby, I plugged in a power strip and the kid and I both had tech all the way up and back. I played Sims on my laptop, and he watched all the DVDs we could play. Effortless.
One reason we're not exhausted.
Animation On Display (AOD) moved its digs from the old Cathedral Hill Hotel to the Kabuki Hotel in J-Town, due to imminent demise of the Cat Hill - it's going to see a wrecking ball Real Soon Now and I still think someone ought to dart in there and steal random objects. We really loved that old place - but.
Let's get one thing straight. The Kabuki is POSH. After spending many happy, happy years at the Cat Hill, with its bare (but dressed) cement walls, institutional-style flush toliets, leaky ceilings, elevators that refused to work with more than eight people in them (but had the cheery 'Help Is On The Way' buttons in them) and beds that resembled blocks of stone - stepping into the Kabuki must have seemed like a sweet, sweet reward.
(For instance - Con Ops had been held on the third floor of the Cat Hill in a little room with no windows and little change in color from floor to ceiling - not even pictures on the walls. We checked into our room, decided the Con Chair loved me because our room? OH BABY. And then word reached us in reverent tones. "Con Ops - has a sauna!")
No shit.
Our room? Soft, welcoming beds with feather duvets so thick the kid almost disappeared into them at naptime. On the 9th floor, well out of range of any loud attendees or other possible noise issues. At the end of the hall. The short end. The bathroom had a furo tub in it that must have been 3 - 4' deep - Jim and the kid took a bath together in it, that big. (It took a while to fill up. Oh well. There was a place to shower off first anyway.) And the hotel tolietries were wonderful and plentiful.
The mini-bar was expensive, but had Pocky.
Reason number two we're not exhausted.
First day of the con, Jim is drafted to a Costco run - so he takes kid, hybrid and con staffer and is gone most of the morning. Me, I get to help out at Registration - and quickly find out I can bellow 'NEEEEXT' to pitch. Two hours into the con, and the lines are CLEARED.
But now it's time for me to take kid, feed him lunch and put down for nap for I have a panel at two. Cupcakes are arriving at 1:30, and I've got
joseph_palmer coming in to help me out with the panel.One, two, three, four. We eat, the kid goes down to sleep, cupcakes arrive, so does Joe - and the panel goes off beautifully.
Celebrations are had after, and much sake is consumed by both me and
silverkun - who steps in to be me/Jim at need when kid stuff takes over the schedule. This works amazingly well. The fact I have three of Xander's 'committee' on site during this con makes me a very happy panda - the fact that they are all getting to know each other better makes me ecstatic. The fact that I'm having to do NOTHING for this to happen organically is beyond words.Reason three I'm not exhausted.
I spend very little time in Ops, when last year I lived there. I found I was doing one of four things - sleeping (which having kid onboard made mandatory), eating something with him prior to putting to bed (either a nap or sleep), doing a panel or something related to con, but not in Ops. And Ops had a sauna! *pouts* Well, not very much. I got two of the best hot soaks in years, and I didn't even have to leave my room!
Sunday comes off like clockwork, as I take kid shopping in the morning (scoring FIVE Pokemon bath fizzies, hooray!), feeding him lunch and getting him back to the room for his nap before I grab laptop, DVDs and my ass as I find myself doing a 'the 60's were a great time to be a kid' panel. I'm certain I'm going to be facing an empty room twenty minutes into the panel and fold. I am surprised to find a similar result to the fan fic panel - people came in to the room and stayed to the end. I played a bunch of DVD clips, nattered and gromished my way through an hour and decided this is actually a pretty good idea, but needs better prep. (I thought they'd cancelled it when I asked for a schedule change for the fan fic panel. Uh, no. They flipped them.)
I come to my senses after the panel - we really should pack up and start driving to get home anytime at a reasonable hour for all of us. So we say our goodbyes, hit the road and get home before 9:30 PM.
I really wanted another hour for shopping. That's my only regret. I can get the california roll bento anytime.
AOD 2010 - assignment complete. And I can't wait for next year.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 05:21 pm (UTC)Do they have kids programming there? Or other kids?
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 05:56 pm (UTC)Kids programming, not so much - but tons of animation-related things, and right on site of the J-Town mall, which was full of wonderful things. Other kids? Also not so much.
The hotel had the Disney Channel on its roster of cable channels. Total win.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 08:25 pm (UTC)Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 09:44 pm (UTC)I'm just me.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 09:58 pm (UTC)Kabuki is indeed decadent. Those furo alone made it worth it for me to reserve us one of those for our anniversary or date nights sometimes, back when we lived in shared housing especially.
I wonder what's going up on the Cat Hill site? Must look into that.
The former Best Western now Hotel Tomo just down the street from Kabuki is lower budget but very nice as well, and anime-themed; great for an overflow hotel for a con like this. I'm hoping the cons help Japantown's economy. (The shops were certainly full!)
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 10:04 pm (UTC)I was told JTAF used to use this site to do its convention, back in the day - but that was also before a lot of rennovations were in, and they had the associates issues as well.
You were down in the area on Saturday, that's right - I still saw a lot of empty stores, but the ones left were still busy - that made me happy.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 10:28 pm (UTC)Kabuki, Kabuki Hot Springs, Hotel Tomo, and several other nice places are all now managed by a company called Joie de Vivre. They also provide the hospitality services for my building! (I swear that's not why we chose this one, but it was an incentive.) Tomo is very kid-friendly, anime-themed and has gaming setups in the rooms. Not much if any conference space, but convenient.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 02:07 pm (UTC)We also liked the Mall there too. Got to enjoy Takoyaki on Sunday and delicious coffee as well.
Ah San Francisco! You are a beautiful town, with a healthy dose of crazy. How we love you so!
Congrats on a successful trip!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 08:46 pm (UTC)In other news, I was too busy to hang out much, but Xander is so cute! I'll definitely have to find some time to visit.
Albert
no subject
Date: 2010-02-05 01:57 am (UTC)Too busy to hang out. Ain't that the truth!