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MFM 2003 Con Report

 
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hikaru
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Joined: 20 Nov 2000
Posts: 1581
Location: Kansas City, KS, USA

PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 12:41 am    Post subject: MFM 2003 Con Report Reply with quote

Wed, Aug 27. C-Day – 2: Talk about a hot day. Got up to 100+ again and was threatening to cause things to spontaneously ignite. I’d originally planned on driving out to St Louis early so I could do dinner with Spiked Punch, however I knew I’d never survive the heat. Instead I loaded up the car at around 9PM and headed out. After making some last minute copies of stuff for Style Wager I was on my way to ST Louis.

Thur, Aug 28, C-Day – 1: Arrived at the Big Blue House in St Louis around 3:30 AM. Tried to sneak in, but the dogs heard me and raised a bit of a ruckus. Fortunately, they didn’t wake Tyger, Spike or anyone else at the house. After a few minutes of sniffing, petting and saying hello in a doggy sort of way, they left me alone to crash out on one of the futon’s in the living room. I lay down and managed to get semi comfortable, but couldn’t quite pass out. Around 5 or so Tyger came down and woke everyone up so we could get rolling. Plan was to hit the road promptly at six so we could get to the hotel and get things rocking. Over the next hour, lots of furs came out of the woodwork with one of the last being Innerwolf, my ride down to MFM. We also had a new fur show up on his bicycle. Seems he sent a letter to Tyger at his MFM coordinator’s E-mail asking about the possibility of getting a ride from the bus stop in Memphis to the hotel and mentioned he was from St Louis. Tyger found out he was from Washington University just a couple of miles away and told him to save his cash as he could ride with us.

Caravan took off around 6:30 and we booked our way down to Memphis arriving around 11AM. After spending some time in the line at the front desk, I got up there to discover that Fish hadn’t put my name on the room I would be staying in. Fortunately it wasn’t a big deal as he was standing near by and rescued me, getting me a key to the room. Only problem was, it was the wrong room. He had three rooms and had gotten them mixed up. No big deal, though. Just got a new key made and everything was fine….. NOT.

Here’s one of my very few gripes about the hotel. Fish had reserved 2, double room sweets with two double beds in each room, giving us eight beds plus two couches between them, which was plenty of room for our group. Sometime during the year after he made the reservations, the hotel converted the rooms to office space and hadn’t modified the reservation. As such, we were stuffed in 3 REGULAR SIZED rooms with 2 double beds in them. The room I was in had 6 men sleeping in it. Two on regular beds, two on roll-away beds, one on the floor by the AC and the last, Fish, in the chair with the ottoman. Needless to say, as much as I love to spend time with my friends, being in a room that cramped was not enjoyable at all. Next year, they’re going to put us up in the executive wing of the hotel, which is pretty much all larger rooms and sweets. It’s a good deal for Fish, however my only concern is that it’s a LONG walk from that building over to the main hotel where the con is being held, however I’ll face that demon when the time comes.

After getting checked in and dropping my stuff off we had the initial staff meeting, which went fairly well. I hit the lunch buffet which could be described as being adequate at best and then was reminded why I usually only ate one meal a day at the con. A breakfast buffet and a glass of Tea ran me almost $15. Bit pricy but what do you expect in a hotel.

After that I cleaned up, took a shower and changed my clothes so as to be presentable. Mostly I hung out with the Planet Furry crew as I knew there wasn’t much I could do to help with the major unloading and setup as well as the fact that I was going to be chained to the auction table all weekend. Of course the fact that I was a complete IDIOT and forgot my pain meds at home didn’t help either. All weekend I was paying for that lapse of memory.

Around 5PM the call went out for staff to come and get their badges and shirts. I wandered by and picked up my set, paying for the staff jersey that I kept forgetting to wear all weekend. Oh well, I’ll have it for next year.

I wound up crashing early though I didn’t sleep well. Having been up since 7AM the previous day and not getting much of a rest at all since, I was in dire need. Unfortunately, a lack of pharmaceuticals combined with pain from the long drive and much walking didn’t let that happen.

Friday, Aug 29. MFM Day 1: Woke up around 7:30 and lounged around for a bit, trying to milk what little rest I could get before getting up. Finally, around 8:30 I got dressed and headed down to the restaurant for breakfast forgetting the price again. There was plenty of food and I made it a point to fill up so I’d not be hungry for lunch. They had a guy making omelets, but I decided to go for just regular scrambled eggs. He didn’t look like he knew what he was doing and seeing people come back with over cooked eggs and un-melted cheese confirmed my initial hunch. Scrambled eggs, sausage patties, biscuits and gravy were the meal of the morning and, as intended kept me from getting hungry later.

Around 10AM I rolled into the Tiger Haven auction room with my box of goodies from last year and the laptop only to discover that I’d not installed MS Access on the laptop so I couldn’t access the database. I got my friend Chuck to dump the database into Excel format so I’d have the user info but unfortunately it was a linked database so the item descriptions didn’t come through. I wound up identifying all the items that had been donated with only one or two exceptions.

Unlike previous years, the con had placed Tiger Haven in it’s own room rather than in the dealers room. Unfortunately, this killed us. We had maybe 30 people come into the charity room all day and it was a major disappointment. Spike’s dad grabbed a big piece of paper and drew up a BIG sign for us that he hung on the wall outside. It helped some, but nothing like the traffic we’d have gotten in the dealers room.

After we closed down the charity room for the day I headed back up to see what was going on. Fish was gathering up the group to go to Burger King for a surprise birthday party for Kerdalyn. Unfortunately I’d made dinner plans with someone else and couldn’t go. Of course, my luck being what it’s been, those dinner plans didn’t pan out either so I wound up looking around for someone to eat with. Fortunately Maus Merryjest was there with his new beau’s so I got to dine with them. Again with the over priced dinner buffet, but since I had no vehicle, I was rather limited on my options.

Afterwards I mostly just hung out with folks chatting until around Midnight when I headed to bed. Being dead tired improved my ability to sleep, but unfortunately not enough for me to be truly rested.

Saturday, Aug 30. MFM Day 2. Woke up at 8:30 and rolled over and went back to sleep. Around 10:15AM I got a call asking if I was on my way down to the charity room after which I bounced out of bed, threw on my clothes and booked down to my table only to see Tyger handing a big wad of cash to the gals at the Tiger Haven table. As it turns out, someone had gained access to the room over night and had cleaned out their till of about $200. Fortunately they’d donated most all of their cash with Tyger in to the hotel’s safety deposit box so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Whoever it was also stole about $60+ out of Jugular Jaguar’s “Dunk they Jaguar” pitcher too. Unfortunately they never figured out who was responsible for the thefts, though precautions will be made next year to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Donations for the auction rolled in most of the day giving us a total count of about 150 items. At about 3:15 we packed up everything from the charity room for the auction and transported it over where I setup shop. The auction started off at 4PM just fine with everything going well until about 4:45 when I stood to track down and destroy a FRS radio that was blaring over on one of the con tables only to have my foot hook on the power cord to my laptop. Yep, you guessed it. Snapped the thing in half. Last year the battery for the laptop died a permanent death between the dealer’s den and the auction, this year it’s the power supply. I’m just hoping this isn’t a tradition. After sending out a plea for some blank floppies to folks at the auction and borrowing Fish’s laptop (that man IS a life saver for me at this con!!!) I transferred over the auction data and resumed putting in all my information. Unfortunately we hit 7PM (end of the auction) and still had items left. Rather than run long, Tyger stopped the auction and we declared the total just under $9,000 dollars. This value would rise over the next couple of days to bring the total money raised for Tiger Haven from the Auction and sales of merchandise (minus the theft) to be a grand total of just under $10,000. Not bad at all for a con with only 425 people in attendance.

I then was forced to abandon the auction crew to transport the remaining items back to the auction room for me since the TV Dave memorial dinner was supposed to start in the restaurant at 7PM. I got there about 20 min late with most folks already eating. The dinner was supposed to be Cheese Burgers, Onion Rings and Milk Shakes. We got cheeseburgers, but with waffle fries and no shakes, all for the wonderful price of $15. This really pissed me off. Here we were, supposed to be doing a memorial dinner for a friend we’d lost early in they year only to have the hotel screw it up. I can understand that they didn’t normally make milkshakes, but they had the ability to do it. They stocked ice cream and had blenders so it could have been done. Next year, we’re going to find a restaurant near by that can actually make the meal properly and eat there. Hopefully I’ll have a decent vehicle by then and will be able to help transporting the PF crew. It was a good dinner, and I enjoyed being with the folks from PF and all, but I just can’t let the hotel off the hook for screwing up the dinner.

Later that night I sat around chewing the fat with folks and killing time until around 1AM when I finally headed to bed.

Sunday, Aug 31. MFM day 3: Woke up a couple of times but didn’t actually get out of bed until 7:45 and then headed straight down to the charity auction room. They’d dragged over all the remaining auction items that didn’t get sold for a silent auction. Not many folks bought much. I wound up giving most of it away for practically nothing since there was such little interest, mostly because I didn’t want to take it home. At one point I thought I was going to be dragging back a big container and trash bag, both full of plushies, but Tiger Haven took them as toys for the kits saving me that agony. We shut down the auction room around 4PM and packed everything up. I got some help dragging all my crap back up to Fish’s room while the Tiger Haven ladies had their stuff moved to the registration room.

Closing ceremonies, as always, was a mixture of excitement and depression. It showed that the con was coming to a close but at the same time gave us a chance to see the people we’d worked so hard to make the con good for outside of our job. We announced the total for Tiger Haven (Just under $10K with all the T-Shirt sales and other donations factored in) and had fun auctioning off the rights to throw Jugular Jaguar into the pool. Jim Groat came in some time after the auction was done and I berated him for missing his chance. The staff had collected $150 to win the impromptu auction for tossing Jugular in and Groat offered another $50 to be the actual person doing it, which worked out well. After closing ceremonies Groat lead him (hands tied with a rope/leash) around the hotel yelling “Dead cat walking!” until they got out to the swimming pool. I didn’t follow along so don’t know the ultimate end for our furry friend, but I’m sure it was spectacular. I hear that someone videotaped it and am hoping to see the recording.

A bit later, after the ice cream social, Fish held an impromptu auction to raise money for a couple of furs who’d had their car stolen on Friday while checking in. He raised about $1500 and then had Wesha write out a check for $3500 (what they’d paid for the car). I must say that Wesha never fails to amaze me with his generosity. He’s always been a big contributor to the Tiger Haven auction and this just went to show how big his heart truly is. I’m sure that if there’s a heaven, he’s going to have a furry sainthood.

I hung out with the PF/ERF crowd in the lobby chatting about everything from computers to writing until almost 2AM then declared defeat and went to bed. Everyone was getting up at 5AM so that Fish could get the caravan on the road by 6AM. In theory, it sounded good. In practice it didn’t work. I wandered down about 6:15 to find Fish fighting with the hotel staff about extra charges that shouldn’t have been on his bill. Being the resourceful staff member I am, I radioed for Tyger who came out and transferred the charges onto his room bill so that he could deal with the dispute at a later hour.

Fish got a hold of the last copy of the local newspaper and read the article to us. Finally, MFM gets some good coverage. Some time around 7AM they rolled out of the hotel on their way home. I wandered back in and visited a bit with folks before returning to the room to pack. My ride, Innerwolf, informed me we wouldn’t be leaving until 2PM. I went to get my key life extended to 2PM but they wouldn’t do it since my name wasn’t on the room. I wound up camping in the room until around 1PM when Innerwolf managed to snag a cart (the bell-hops didn’t come up after 3 calls) and helped me move the stuff down. I didn’t want to leave the room since my key wouldn’t get me back in and if it were blocked open, it would be easy for someone to snag my laptop out of the room. There were so many people wandering around, I didn’t want to risk it.

Around 3PM or so, the group rolled out of Memphis. We stopped to try and find copies of the newspaper, but they were all sold out. Finally one of the guys found one copy at a Burger King and everyone got to hear the article. After that we boogied for home. There was one delay when Tyger’s van had a flat, but it wasn’t much of one. Innerwolf and I went ahead to the restaurant we’d planned on eating at and got reservations for 10 folk. Turns out they don’t take credit cards so everyone went over to McD’s instead. After eating there we made a B-line for home with a minor detour to drop off a St Louis fur. Once back at TC’s house I transferred my stuff over to the Titanic and then did a quick pit stop inside. Hugs were exchanged and I headed straight out. I was fairly awake and didn’t want to nap. I wanted to get home already.

The trip home was fairly uneventful until around 11:30PM when I started to zone out. I pulled off at a rest stop and caught some Z’s for about an hour or so then continued on. Lasted pretty good until about 2:30 when I started zoning out again (just outside of KC) but decided not to risk it and took another nap. Finally got home around 4:30Am to find the front door unlocked (NIKON!!!!!) Fortunately the apartment complex is in a good neighborhood so nobody had taken advantage of it. Checked 5 days worth of mail (can you say mass-delete?), fixed a couple of problems one ISP had E-mailed me then hit the hay about 5:30AM.Slept pretty well until around 11AM when I got up and spent the next 3 hours going over the actual important mail.


And that’s my trip report. Had a good time. Saw lots of old friends. Made a few new friends and most importantly, survived the trip.

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Fishburne
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Joined: 23 Jul 2002
Posts: 596
Location: Plano, Texas

PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 12:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow!

You have all my gripes in one post! Excellent.

Oh, I am sorry that I forgot to switch the room names. It completely slipped my mind!

And Next Year, My fine Bear, we will have the suites!!!

And I have located the people for the TVDave memorial for next year.
WE SHALL HAVE MILKSHAKES!!!

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hikaru
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Joined: 20 Nov 2000
Posts: 1581
Location: Kansas City, KS, USA

PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 11:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Don't worry about it. It gave me a chance to scower the two rooms and pick up stuff folks left behind. I found some drawing pencils, a blue covered cup (clened out and took with me) some gel pens, and other misc stuff. Hit the snackpot on the 2 cups of pudding that I munched on while waiting to get out of the room.

BTW: Any luck finding a power supply for a IBM Thinpad 600?

Also I need to get that database from your laptop.

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Read my comic: http://www.ImperialGelf.com
Read my stories at http://www.IC-Stories.com
http://katayamma.deviantart.com/

"Coming to you Live and Transcribed..." - TVDave
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webkilla
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Joined: 17 Feb 2003
Posts: 379
Location: Denmark

PostPosted: Tue Sep 09, 2003 2:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well well... I certainly sounded like you had a good time Hikaru...

hope you get those SUITEs next year... You didn't get the spelling right on those...

and as for the milkshakes, well... You have my sympathy!

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Some Guy
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Joined: 05 Sep 2003
Posts: 7
Location: parma ohio

PostPosted: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

oh
sounds like fun
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