I apologize in advance for not having links to anyone's accounts--most people I don't even know if they have FA accounts or what they are.

Confuzzled 2014

Thursday AND Friday

So okay, I arrived to Confuzzled 24 hours later than I’d intended.

I was originally slated to arrive Thursday afternoon, but there was a problem with the weather over here that ended up cancelling original flight out to DC. So, instead of leaving at 6 PM, I left at 6 AM the following morning. That gave a me a LITTLE more time—and was SLIGHTLY fortuitous because in my rush (I did EVERYTHING room-related at the last minute) I’d forgotten to pack my laptop. While it was not strictly necessary, having the laptop did make things easier …

Also instead of going to DC, I was going to Houston. Which is in the opposite direction. And it had a four hour layover.

Now this wouldn’t be a significant problem save for the fact that the storms over the week ended up meaning that the NEXT connecting flight, to Newark, was delayed coming in and I’d just BARELY missed the connecting flight to Birmingham UK. Even though it was sitting on the runway for another hour and a half because the storm was preventing takeoff, AND YET the flight itself was not delayed.

So after fretting about getting there AT ALL that night for about an hour as I stood in line (Seriously, United only ever seems to staff customer service desks minimally even during problem times) I was placed on a flight to Edinburgh in about an hour that would THEN connect to Birmingham with another 3+ hour layover.

It was slightly better than the other plan of making a flight to London and having someone pick me up, as that would have been more effort and probably not saved any time especially since I needed to get through customs and all that.

ESPECIALLY since once I arrived in Edinburgh (Explaining Confuzzled to the customs agent was fun, I got to sit while she made some calls) I learned that my luggage did not arrive with me.

Now this was confusing ESPECIALLY since I presumed that for incoming international flights I was to claim luggage and then re-check it once I arrived in the country. This did not happen, and so I had to call Washu, the GOH liaison for the con. I had already been calling him and texting him basically nonstop through the whole getting-there ordeal but the luggage thing was a huge HUGE HUGE problem and United still steadfastly refused to give any sort of compensation for the major delays.

So, Edinburgh. (EH-din-bur-ro, in Scotland, so you don’t have to look it up). Despite not having originally planned to arrive there (original Itinerary was Huntsville>DC>Dublin>Birmingham) that ended up being my first impression of the UK. And … it was actually pretty nice. I had window seats all the way over so seeing UK land from the air it’s instantly recognizable as not being America—farm plots make NO attempt at being square. They’re only sometimes square outside of the midwest in the US, but you’d instantly notice farm plots are tangent by way of straight lines … in the UK, that is the case only by accident. Also, and I was aware of this but it’s still new to see it up close, that houses are built really close together in the UK—again new after living in the US and being among ranch-style homes with acre lots even in crowded suburbs.

UK airports seem to be arranged a bit more like shopping malls than do US airports. A lot of shops congregate upfront just after the security check, and at Edinburgh they seemed to crowd around the gates in the front section of the building. (In the US, shops are more staggered throughout, clustering at near-random points into food courts) I’d see about the same thing when I left again through Birmingham—more on that later.

I changed out most of my on-hand cash and drank a bottle of orange juice that cost £2.50. I was exhausted, and the connecting flight I made with Flybe attempted to locate my luggage without success. The flight over was actually pretty good too, my first time in a prop engine plane. I think I prefer small prop engines to small jets—it just sounds better despite it being louder inside the cabin.

So I arrived in Birmingham almost exactly 24 hours later than intended. After futilely waiting for my luggage again, I met up with Silver (he was holding the conbook so I could recognize him) and we walked over to the trains to meet with Washu who’d just arrived at the airport.

Washu went out of his way for basically EVERYTHING. I was exhausted and tired and disappointed and looked it, and he told me to go on ahead to the hotel. I handed him my baggage tags, he went to go make lots of an followed Silver to the hotel (It was raining! British weather!). He helped me check into my room, which was SUPER fancy with a dining table and everything, and I dragged myself into my bed and fell asleep.

When I woke up, my luggage was in my room.

I texted Washu to get up there IMMEDIATELY as I started gleefully unloading everything as though the last 36 hours were just a minor annoyance. He’d found out that, through a series of phone calls to departments that were completely unaware of what had gone on, the bags had actually arrived in Birmingham before I did—they were on the original plane out even though I never rechecked them on the way out. And nobody had told anyone who was IN Birmingham, and no attempt was made to contact me, but once Washu found them he had the hotel deliver them up straight away.

All my stuff was in perfect condition. Washu was basically my savior.

So ANYWAY, after that I bothered some more people about the hotel WiFi (we eventually got the password), I took a much-needed bath AND shower, ate some desserts that the hotel provided to me by way of their apology for my ridiculously terrible flight, I poked around in the internet to try and restore my anchor with back home, then I went to sleep because I’d been running on only 8 hours over the past 48 or so.

Saturday

(Time slept besides naps: ~7 hours)

Okay so there was something else I did the night before: I had a lot of preorders I’d made for badges before the con began. The original plan was I was going to get there and them do these badges so they’d be available right when the con began. I didn’t have any of them ready, and the fact that I arrived 24 hours late was kind of a problem. Noetheless, I did a dry run on a badge for myself so I’d know if I was making a terrible mistake or not. That was the only thing I’d had ready when the Dealer’s Den was open.

Oh also I didn’t actually get to prepare for the Dealer’s Den opening the night before, as I was too tired to do it then.

So I woke up at about 7:30 and ate breakfast in the Executive Lounge, which was really nice because it meant I only had to walk about fifty meters from my room door to get breakfast and could walk right back. I took my time in there because there were only a few people each day who ate breakfast in the same lounge I did who also wore the Confuzzled name badges and that always makes me feel conspicuous.

On the other hand, English Full Breakfast is basically always filling and has a lot of variety. No beans on the table though, but there was smoked salmon. I eat that and I’m like “Why am I not having this every day”

Also I learned that the British definition of a cappuccino is closer to the actual Italian one—all milk with only a shot of coffee. I drank my coffee black after that.

So there was a lot of other preparation after breakfast, trying to get the preorders done, and also sitting and staring at the notes I’d written for my panel on Cartooning and wondering how in the world I was going to do that. Then it was almost 10, and I texted Washu about the dealer’s den stuff, so I was down there about 20 minutes to opening trying to set everything up so my table didn’t look like a mess like it always does. (My table looks like a mess).

In the meantime, I’d also managed somehow to bring three pieces of art for the art show—the original for Hunter’s Lodge, plus the two originals that went to making this year’s Confuzzled t-shirt. (All three of them would end up at auction—more on that later)

Den opens, I’m immediately swamped. I’d brought down about 10 copies of each book since I couldn’t fit EVERYTHING in my duffel bag and was sold out by noon. I also realized I’d forgotten to bring the forms for commissions down, so I just wrote down everyone’s details on the back of the Dealer’s Den TOS papers.

I also got to meet the other GOH the, Lex, a puppet-maker. We didn’t have a lot of time to chat UNTIL it was almost 1 o’clock and we went to do the GOH panel.

Save for passion for our respective fields of art I think Lex is basically the opposite of me—Washu would later describe how different managing each of us was as I’m rather quiet and reserved and Lex is get-out-there-do-everything. I work independently, Lex has a long career working with TV, especially with Jim Henson’s Television Workshop productions. Her stuff is REALLY good.

After that, I ran up to my room, grabbed more books and ran back down, nearly sold out of those. I told a lot of people I might be opening for commissions again on Sunday but the way things were going I was mostly “just saying” that; I wasn’t this busy with multiple things at MFF and presumed I could at least make a dent into a backlog of 14 items.

Washu made me go get something to eat, so I had the British approximation of curry for late lunch, grabbed more books and dragged them downstairs, then fretted over my cartooning panel notes until I basically had to go do that thing. By then I had brought down all my books and hand nearly sold out of everything.

Then the Cartooning panel. That was soooo intimidating.

Originally I had planned to have a powerpoint so I didn’t have to go through the trouble of doodling crappy stick figures on a whiteboard, but the powerpoint never coalesced. Instead I ended up doing a lot of reading of notes from my screen, drawing some demonstrations of the whiteboard, moving clumsily from one topic to the next without having practiced, and in general being a total nervous wreck. I was really glad the dealer’s den was closed after I was done because I felt really super terrible about it afterwards and just needed to lay down.

Washu delivered my cash box back to my room after that and even though I felt really cruddy about the whole thing, Washu said, to my utter surprise, that everyone LIKED the panel even if it didn’t seem so at the time.

I had a little bit of time after that—everyone and especially Washu INSISTED I go see the Pawpets show that evening (It had been delayed an hour) I thought okay, I’d never seen one of these things before, I have a reserved seat up front, and I really want to try to make more events after feeling like I was a bit disappointing at MFF in 2011, so I went thinking it was going to be about an hour and a half.

It was closer to two and a half hours.

And it was AMAZING.

Besides a bunch of technical glitches that couldn’t be helped, I utterly, thoroughly enjoyed the production (despite not even having touched a drop of alcohol, to boot!) One of the writers (Nidonocu, VERY awesome guy) is a huge fan of mine and they managed to get in TWO REFERENCES TO ME in the show—once in the opening animation, once during an interstitial where a character was resisting brainwashing and was babbling nonsense. Even without the embarrassing references to me, the writing was top-notch, the interstitial gave it a good pace so they could do setup between scenes, and it was hilarious.

I will be posting that everywhere once they have it online. (I presume they’ll be doing some redubbing since the mics cut out for a moment at one point)

AFTER THAT … I absolutely had to get the rest of my preorders done, which I did that night and the following morning JUST SO I’d be where I was supposed to be when I arrived.

Sunday

(Time slept not counting naps: ~6 hours)

Breakfast in the Executive Lounge again. Learned a bit about current UK politics from TV, namely that the UK Independence Party (UKIP) gained far more seats than is comfortable in the EU Parliamentary elections. They’re a single issue party—anti-EU. My take on it is, even if there are problems with the EU (and there are always problems with political bodies), why is being obstinate and burning bridges a preferable choice to better communication? But that doesn’t have anything to do with the convention.

I had a lot more time in the Dealer’s Den. I DID finish all the preorder badges and eventually got those handed out and was starting on the commissions I took on Saturday. I also sold out of the rest of my Housepets books very quickly, which was good because I didn’t have display space for the Housepets posters I’d brought, so those could get sold!

On the other hand, I had another panel right after lunch (I did not eat lunch—though I think I grabbed a muffin from the executive lounge) called Finding Ideas which I was COMPLETELY unprepared for. I’d originally conceived of the idea for the panel during a time when I had this AMAZING insight that I’d completely forgotten about by the time the con rolled around, so I basically pieces something together from my own experience and a lecture given by John Cleese. After that it turned into a Q&A which went pretty well as there was talking and not a lot of dead air.

I had a LITTLE bit of time after that until the Flash Fiction contest, which I was slated to judge. I was the ONLY judge in fact, so I ended up asking Kandrel to help because sometimes my brain skips out on what I’m listening to and I have to yank it back to pay attention. He was very helpful here (And in the Building Worlds panel the next morning) because he can actually talk with confidence without being prompted like I have to sometimes. I think it was more engaging with the both of us. In any case, I have to draw a picture for the winner, who said that he wrote the thing while he was drunk in a pub. I’m a sucker for verse, and robots. (I wish I had the thing so I could post it for you, I really loved its flow)

The Dealer’s Den closed for good pretty much after that, though I suddenly had the revelation I had not gone around to meet anyone and that made me sad. I hope I can go again sometime because I was just so busy.

I ate at the food court on Sunday which was cheap and kinda disappointing—hamburger and chips (fries for Americans, remember). I usually do eat alone, I just felt kinda conspicuous about it there because the tables were so large.

Later that evening, I decided to sit in on the live auction because all three of my pieces had made it in—two automatically since I set their charity percent to 100, and the other because it’d received the maximum number of bids at the silent auction. I sat in the back corner on the far side because I just had everything out so I could do sketches for owed badges.

Sometimes I really wonder what someone accidentally walking in on that sort of thing would think.

I did more work that night on badges, thank goodness the internet was back up or I might have gone crazy … okay I should have gone to the Artist’s Alley but I needed some unwind time too.