Done and Done
Jul. 12th, 2009 11:30 pmMy long international nightmare has finished. The Anticipation Souvenir Book was uploaded* to the ftp site this morning, and with a couple of final, minor tweaks** is now on its way to the printer. The cover was sent along earlier this evening.
I have to say I had no fucking clue whatsoever just how big a kidneystone this was going to be. Of course, the fact that I couldn't read half of it didn't help any (my French is limited to oui, non, sacre merde et quel fromage, and the occasional, wistful, "voulez vous couchez avec moi?"). I was certainly aware of the, shall we say, malleability of deadlines in producing such items, having done almost half of ConQuesT's 40 program books, but damn, people! Despite all the chaos, the book was delivered to the printer on time, and should be waiting for the lucky attendees when they arrive.
Is it perfect? Oh hellz no. But I do think it will match up well with recent souvenir books. I do have to say I am eternally grateful that the program participant bios were moved to the Convention Guide. The Souvenir Book wound up at 168 pages, and even with taking chainsaws to the submitted bios (and, of course, the people with the least to recommend themselves have the longest, most turgid bios), they would have easily added another 100 pages to the finished product.
In other duties finished news, today was the memorial service for long-time KaCSFFS member Julie Hise, who died of a rare form of cancer on June 27th. When I saw her at ConQuesT, her first words to me were "I want you to do the eulogy." So I was up until 2a this morning working on that once the final corrections to the Souvenir book were made. After re-writing the same sentence three times, I decided that some sleep would be a good thing, and got back up at 8.30 to finish it.
There was a very large and diverse crowd, including present and former club members, along with co-workers of Julie's from UMKC. I got through it without breaking down, though it was close a couple of times, and her father, aunt and brothers all thanked me for a job well done, as did her husband, my friend Bob Hise. I am glad people think I do this well, but it's not something I'd want to make a habit of.
( Here's the text )
Following the part when people came up to share their stories of Julie, we played "When I Go," by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer. Here's a live performance of this powerful song.
Don't know what I'm going to do toomorrow, with no pressing items on the agenda for the first time since May. I'mm sure I'll think of something.
*Sadly, not uplifed, otherwise it could have bee multilingual without human intercession
**René was kind enough to call me this evening to let me know he had made changes to the book, and as I imagined some horrible error I had made, he told me the printer had asked us to add four pages to finish out the last signature, so he'd put four pages headed "Autographs" at the end. Very sweet of him to let me know, but I nearly had heart failure
I have to say I had no fucking clue whatsoever just how big a kidneystone this was going to be. Of course, the fact that I couldn't read half of it didn't help any (my French is limited to oui, non, sacre merde et quel fromage, and the occasional, wistful, "voulez vous couchez avec moi?"). I was certainly aware of the, shall we say, malleability of deadlines in producing such items, having done almost half of ConQuesT's 40 program books, but damn, people! Despite all the chaos, the book was delivered to the printer on time, and should be waiting for the lucky attendees when they arrive.
Is it perfect? Oh hellz no. But I do think it will match up well with recent souvenir books. I do have to say I am eternally grateful that the program participant bios were moved to the Convention Guide. The Souvenir Book wound up at 168 pages, and even with taking chainsaws to the submitted bios (and, of course, the people with the least to recommend themselves have the longest, most turgid bios), they would have easily added another 100 pages to the finished product.
In other duties finished news, today was the memorial service for long-time KaCSFFS member Julie Hise, who died of a rare form of cancer on June 27th. When I saw her at ConQuesT, her first words to me were "I want you to do the eulogy." So I was up until 2a this morning working on that once the final corrections to the Souvenir book were made. After re-writing the same sentence three times, I decided that some sleep would be a good thing, and got back up at 8.30 to finish it.
There was a very large and diverse crowd, including present and former club members, along with co-workers of Julie's from UMKC. I got through it without breaking down, though it was close a couple of times, and her father, aunt and brothers all thanked me for a job well done, as did her husband, my friend Bob Hise. I am glad people think I do this well, but it's not something I'd want to make a habit of.
( Here's the text )
Following the part when people came up to share their stories of Julie, we played "When I Go," by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer. Here's a live performance of this powerful song.
Don't know what I'm going to do toomorrow, with no pressing items on the agenda for the first time since May. I'mm sure I'll think of something.
*Sadly, not uplifed, otherwise it could have bee multilingual without human intercession
**René was kind enough to call me this evening to let me know he had made changes to the book, and as I imagined some horrible error I had made, he told me the printer had asked us to add four pages to finish out the last signature, so he'd put four pages headed "Autographs" at the end. Very sweet of him to let me know, but I nearly had heart failure