Happy Birthday Kevin

Pretty much every artist has a muse, or an inspiration and I'm sure that it can be said that every business person has something or someone that inspires them in shape or form..

Today I wish Kevin Workman a very Happy Birthday, for he was my inspiration to take that first step into growing my business, to getting it out of my home and into my own location. Let me tell you, it was a hell of a step too.

Nervousness couldn't even begin to explain the feeling I had upon looking at rental space and signing a lease for a 300 square foot space. After I signed that lease, I really felt like I was going to throw up, it put things into some serious perspective. It was time to sink or swim and there was no way I was going to sink, at least I hoped not.

And so far, in the words of Dori from Finding Nemo - "Just keep swimming", I have.

It hasn't been easy, by any means, but it's been an adventure and on that road, I've met many wonderful and amazing people and I've expanded.

I've moved from a space that was just over 300 square feet to almost twice that. I've added inventory ranging from items I make myself, to hosting the work of other great craftsmen and artisans and thing just keep growing. I've gone from a handful of one days shows, to a large list of 2 & 3 day conventions all over the West Coast and not only has the business grown, but so have I.

It's been an amazing ride and I thank Kevin for his inspiration in getting me to take that first step. The only thing missing, is him see it in person.

I love & miss you Kevin, but I know that you're always with me in my heart and my memories, and that you would be proud to see where that first step that you inspired me to take has taken me.

Happy Birthday my dear friend and thank you for all your inspiration! I hope that some day I can inspire at least one person the way you have inspired many.

HRM Steampunk Symposium (Recap - Part III)

Here are Part I and Part II  for those of you who are just joining us.

The second day of conventions always tend to be the least stressful, mostly because everything is set up already and all we have to do when we get to the vendor room is uncover the booth and reset a few items that we laid down so they don't get knocked over and broken, like our Absinthe glasses.

That and by then my body has decided that I get to sleep in, or maybe it's because I've whacked out my sleep schedule because we'd stay up until 1 or 2 am the night before laughing and giggling about whatever our sleep deprived brains decide is funny. Of course, the biggest problem with this is we end up being loud and not know it until the adjoining wall gets pounded on by the occupants we've woken up or by getting a phone call from the front desk. Thankfully none of that happened this year.

Again, my brain decided that I needed to be the first one awake as soon as the sun came up, though I did actually get to sleep in until 7:30 am, trust me this is a milestone, just ask any parent with kids under the age of 7. Grabbing my phone, I read email and checked Facebook while I waited for the rest of the crew to wake up, or in this case, I ended up waking them up as everyone was enjoying their slumber, this was of course after walking the obstacle course of bodies on the floor to and from the bathroom.

On to making coffee and ironing the yards of red fabric for my dress, which had been balled up in a pile since the last time it was worn, which I think was back in July 2013, all the while the 5 of us were doing the hotel room dance around each other, trying to get in and out of the bathroom and around the room to get dressed and our make up on. Despite no real choreography, no one tripped, died or fried themselves on the hot iron.

Once we were all corseted up, we grabbed our things and headed upstairs to uncover the booth and get ready for the days customers. Cindy and Andee ventured off to the coffee cart to obtain some more caffeine and some much needed food and we were ready for the day! Bring on the sales!

Saturday was as busy as Friday and we could tell when then panels and other events let out as we were graced by a wave of customers each time. Cindy was cranking out the commission sketches between customers and friends stopping by and Andee was working on some creative quilled items, while I sat and finished sewing the string ties and ascots that I hadn't finished before leaving San Diego, if you can't tell, this is a reoccurring thing for me, of course it also gives me something to do during the slow times in the booth.

Come the end of the vending day we were more than ready to go change, grab dinner and then come back to get ready for the ball.

Dinner was once again at The Auld Dubliner, though it was just the three of us this round and we lacked the fun bus ride of Thursday night, but we did remember to get off the bus at the stop closer to the Pub! (See we can be taught!) After a round of Irish Coffees, a lovely glass of Oban Scotch and some really good food, we made our way back to the Queen Mary and donned our finery for the Saturday night ball.

We made it to the ball just in time for Abney Park to start their second set for the evening. Being a big fan of their music I was very excited to see them live, though I wished that the kids could have been there, because they would have had a blast as well. Once the set was over the came out and did a couple more songs as an encore and then threw out the sets lists from the second set. I was standing there talking to Cindy when I felt something bounce off my chest, lo and behold, it was one of the set lists.

After the crowd dispersed a bit we went over to get in line and get autographs. I also picked up a copy of Abney Park's book Wrath of Fate and had that and the set lists autographed by the band. I even managed to get photos with the guitarist and the lead singer, Robert. I told him how my kids love to sit in the back seat of the truck and sing along with Airship Pirates. He also noticed Cindy's stuffed ferret, Senor Squeaky Pants and asked if it was a weasel, when she said no, he asked if it could be a weasel (if only for a moment). Seems  the guitarist has a thing for weasels. She laughed and said he could be a weasel if they wanted him to be. Robert then pointed our Senor Squeaky Pants to the guitarist and he dug out his phone and asked Robert to take a photo with the comment "I think this the first time I've ever asked to have a photo with a fan."

We chatted for a few more minutes and then made our way to the midnight buffet line and since we were not only full from dinner a few hours earlier, we lived by the ideal that "Life is uncertain, eat dessert first" mantra and went straight for the tasty dessert morsels.

After our fill of sugary goodness we made our way back to the hotel room, chatted for a bit and then passed out.

The 4th and final part is here

HRM Steampunk Symposium (Recap - Part II)

For those of you who missed Part I

Now events are a bit a of a vacation for me, not that I don't love my kids or husband, but there are just times that you need to get away for a few days to recharge and regain any semblance of sanity you might be able to pull kicking and screaming back from the void, they're also a time for me to sleep in. Well, you would think that would at least be the case, so you imagine my irritation when my body decided that I needed to be wide awake at 6:30 am on Friday morning.


Since we unplugged the alarm clock that was in the room, because it was the only outlet that the phone charger wouldn't fall out of. Upon waking I grabbed my phone thinking it was arounf 7:30 or 8 in the morning to see the bright numbers telling me it was 6:30 am. Grumbling I put my phone back on the headboard and slunk back down into the bed trying to get myself to fall back asleep. After tossing and turning for about 45 minutes, I gave up, grabbed my phone and began to peruse Facebook and check my email, all the while glaring and grumbling at Cindy and Andee who were still fast asleep.

Around 8, I detected movement from the other two and we started getting ready for the days events. First order of business, coffee. Learning from the first year on the Queen Mary, where we discovered no coffee pots in the room, we have since been bringing an electric tea kettle, a french press, coffee and tea, so getting started in the morning is much easier, as opposed to getting dressed and then wandering around in a haze trying to find coffee and not growl at anyone in the process.

New poster going up.

After correcting the blood to caffeine levels in our bodies, we headed up to the vendor hall to finish set up of the booth, where like parking is always something that ends up being re-engineered by yours truly. The awesome guys at the booth behind us (Crimson Chain Leather) told us that we could push our grid wall so it butted up against their storage containers, which gave us another 4 feet of booth space! After some shuffling and sliding of grid wall and tables, we had the booth layout completed. I ended up pulling the two pieces of grid wall off the left side of the booth and lending it to Lyssa from LastWear Clothing as they really didn't have much to set things up on since they flew down from Seattle.

From there we starting putting out merchandise and while I tinkered around Cindy and Andee went off in search of coffee and something to eat for breakfast. Low blood sugar is bad, mkay?, so are low caffeine levels too.

Come 11:45 we're still putting out merchandise, when Kat, our lovely and awesome vendor coordinator comes by to tell us there was a scheduling mix-up on the website with the vending time,  it seems they posted that the hall didn't open until 1pm, which gave us an extra hour of set up time. Rock on, though we were mostly set up, it was nice to have the extra time to rearrange and refine the set up.

We took turns running down to the room to change from our jeans and t-shirts to our Steampunk attire and were then ready to take over the worl....ahem I mean, ready to vend!

The booth setup essentially remains the same, though we do move things around periodically to make things more aesthetic looking and so it flows better. I think having 2-3 artisans in the booth really helps things comes together in a cohesive look. We're gotten many compliments of the setup and layout of our booth, which are very much appreciated and makes us feel all warm and squishy.



Vending started off slow, but picked up at some point in the afternoon and before we knew it, it was 6pm and the vendor hall was closing for the evening and once things were locked down, we met up with Phineas from League of Supremely Evil Revolutionaries (LOSER) and his lovely girlfriend Bre (who were also crashing in the room), made a quick stop at the room to change and then headed off to dinner at The Auld Dubliner (can you tell we like this place?).

Sadly we didn't have the party shuttle driver for either trip on the shuttle, but we did realize on the last trip that if we waited two most stops, the shuttle would drop us right across the street from the Pub.

Dinner ended up being one of their delicious boxty plates with a Guinness and a lovely glass of Laphroigh scotch along with a side of their crisps (potato chips for you not in the know) with truffle oil and goat cheese. Good stuff right there.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening in with a bottle of wine and some great company.


Part III coming soon.

Calico Ghost Town:Wild West Fest Recap

To say "Let the busy season begin!" would be an understatement.

Cindy & I

7 Cons/Shows in a 2 month period along with volunteering at a major SCA event over Memorial Day weekend shows that Wyng'd Lyon has hit the busy season. 

We kicked the round of shows off with Wild West Fest (not to be confused with Wild Wild West Con in Tucson) on April 27th up in Calico Ghost Town in Yermo, California.

Friday the 26th, Tom and I went out to the shop to load everything up into the rental van. Normally I would have done this myself but on the 18th I was in a car accident and I was told not to lift anything over 1- pounds. Now those of you that know me, know how much of a feat this was for me not to do. My business is one of my babies and  I tent to do pretty much everything myself (most of the time). Seriously you should have seen how long I wrestled with turning the Social Media stuff over to someone.(Though I do have to say that Tawmis is an awesome pretty good choice for the job.)

I loaded the lighter stuff while my husband loaded the grid wall, boxes & tubs, the new popup, etc. Then I headed over to get my partner in crime, Cindy. Initially I was at a loss for who was going to go help me out for the event. Most everyone already had plans for that weekend. Cindy ended up deciding that she needed some R&R away from work and took the day off to join me. Have I mentioned how awesome she is? If not lately, she's pretty damn awesome to say the least.

Once we got Cindy's stuff situated into the rental (a soccer mom mobile aka mini-van) we headed to my house to pack up my clothes and other items for the weekend. Then it was off to Target for sunscreen and chairs, while Tom went to get the kids. After meeting up at Target, we stopped for gas and we then caravan-ed out to Yermo.

The drive was pretty uneventful, aside from the carpool lane up 15 North from San Diego, wigging out the navigation app on my phone and my hands free speaker. We made a quick stop for food by North County Fair Shopping Center and then started heading North again.

We had a moment where we pulled over to the side of the freeway in a turnout so my son could water a bush, except that wasn't what he had to do, so back into the cars we pile and in search of a real bathroom we went. We ended up getting off the freeway near the March Air Force Air Museum, taking care of business and then got on the road again.

I think we finally made it to the hotel and we checked into our room by 9:30 pm. My son was passed out by 10:15, my daughter however was awake until after 11pm. Once she finally passed out, I nodded off to sleep only to be woken around 2 in the morning by my husband who was tossing and turning, and while doing all this in his sleep he told me to stop moving around. All I could do was shake my head, roll over and try to go back to sleep. If I had been coherent enough, I would have gone over and crawled into the other bed with Cindy. Hindsight is 20/20 ya know? ;)

Saturday morning rolled around and we found ourselves up at 7 am in the morning getting everything together and out the door to the site which was a mere 5 miles away.

I really wasn't quite sure what to expect for the event since I had never been out at Calico Ghost Town and it was a first time event, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that we got to set our booth up in the actual "town" (something I think would be awesome if they did out at Old Tucson, but I digress).

Set up took us a couple hours before we were ready and while Cindy and I were arranging things, Tom took the kids off to the self guided mine tour and the train ride to keep them entertained.

By 10:30 the kids were ready to pumpkin out even though they wanted to watch the shootout they were more interested it going back to the hotel and watching a movie with daddy. Just as they were about half was down the center of town the organizers announced that they were a mere 15 minutes away from having the shootout, so they returned to see the cowboys "gun fight" in the streets.

Cindy scrounged up a menu from the local onsite restaurant and we decided on lunch. Of course not remembering that I was wearing an off white shirt, I ended up ordering the pulled pork sandwich. Amazingly enough I survived eating that and later eating ice cream without a drop of anything end up on said shirt.

While she was out walking around checking things out, Cindy was asked if she was a member of League of Steam, which she was extremely flattered about. We had quite a few visitors stop by the booth and Cindy even got 3 commission sketches for the day, something she'd had yet to do at a Steampunk type event.


I actually made it out of the booth for a bit and wandered around the little shops and merchant booths and per tradition, I spotted something for Tawmis as a thank you for all the help he gives me at events. (Though he chastises me every time I bring something back for him).

We saw quite a few friendly faces from HRM Steampunk Symposium as well as a few faces from Wild Wild West Con and we were also visited by friends of friends and other great people through out the event.


We finally wrapped up selling around 5:30 ish, and began to break down the booth and pack things up, an hour later were we done and loaded and headed back to the hotel to change into something a bit more comfy and then head next door to Penny's cafe for dinner.

After dinner we adjourned back to our room and cracked open a bottle of wine, sent random text messages to friends and then ended up passing out for the night.

Now anyone who has kids, especially young ones, knows how difficult it is to get any time sleeping in on the weekends, so those parents know how excited I was to be able to sleep in Sunday morning with no kids or husband to wake me up right? Such was not the case my body or my brain, not sure who I'm blaming first, decided that I needed to be wide awake at 6:30 am.

Hello Body! Did you not get the meme? No kids == me sleeping in as long as I want! Please remember that for next time.

I was able to go back to sleep off and on for the next two hours, but it still wasn't the same.

Once Cindy and I were up and mobile we headed back over to Penny's Cafe and enjoyed breakfast before getting on the road to head home.

Three hours and a brief stop later we dropped things off at the shop, I took Cindy home and then I made it back to my house where I was greeted by my two wonderful kids who acted like they hadn't seen me in days and a husband who had a look on his face like I abandoned him for weeks with them. Needless to say  as tired as I was, I was happy to be home and take a breather (even if it was only for a few minutes) before thinking about Gaslight Gathering coming up the following weekend.

Cindy and I had a blast and have to say that Wild West Fest was such a great event and so well run by the staff that we are looking forward to going back next year.

We hope to see some of you out there as well!

~Colleen

Wild Wild West Con Recap - Part IV (and final part)

Continued from Part III

I always dread the last day of conventions. Partially due to having to pack up, drive home and unload, but also because it means the end of a fun weekend with great people and having to go back to my real job. Not that I dislike my job, it and the people are great, but there is just something magical about cons and the people there.

We got up about 7:30 am, dressed, packed the suitcases, grabbed the other miscellaneous items (the beer!) and then fought for a spot on the only elevator down from the second floor of the wing of out hotel, tossed the stuff haphazardly into the van and headed off back to Old Tucson. We skipped the stop at Circle K as I had a can of Irish Coffee Monster and everyone else also had their own beverages of caffienation.

Once on site we uncovered the tables and waited for vending to open for the day. We made some changes to the way the table was laid out and moved somethings around for better display.

 I always try to wear something on the last day of the Con that I can break down the booth in. I'm still piecing together my Airship Captain's costume and the photo below is one of the incarnations that I put together when I was tossing things into the suitcase.

  Andee wore a cute Kimono that she had made a few years back for another event that she attended. The highlight of the day for me was the little boy that was hanging outside the back door of the vendor tent. As I was headed to the Ladies' room he was standing there in his sheriff's outfit (complete with badge) and told me to draw. So I drew my flint lock pistol and we stood there standing off. As I was walking backwards, a man came out of the tent, snuck up with his fingers drawn as guns and told the little boy to drop his gun. My reply to the little boy, "You always have a henchman in the wings." and made my way to the restroom. On the way back the same little boy was outside and he aimed his gun at me and said that he shot me and there was an alien inside me (he was quite the imaginative kid!). I chuckled and walked back to the booth and told Andee that I had been shot and had an alien inside me, just in case it decided to burst out of my chest or something. Her response was "Well hopefully the corset will keep it in."

 Traffic for the day came in waves and was a bit lighter that Saturday, but there were still a good amount of customers coming through to shop and get last minute items before they headed home.

This gave me some time to get some shopping done and do my usual tradition of buying something for Tawmis as a thank you for the work he does on the Facebook page and on Twitter while I'm at the Cons. (Though he always chastises me for buying things for him.)

This time I got him an iPhone cover that had an old comic book cover of Thor. I also got myself a cute necklace that has a falcon on it in a military style hat. There were a couple other things that I wanted to buy, but I knew that if I brought home any large boxes, my husband would have had a little of kittens since we're not moved into our new place yet.

The downside to the day is that we had got shop lifted for the first time, the even worse part of it was that it was one of out own Steampunk folks. I was rummaging through one of the boxes under the table looking for something and Andee was standing in the middle of the booth. She saw the man walk back and said he made a motion like he picked up a skeleton key and then kept walking. At first she thought it was nothing and then she saw him repeat the action as he passed the jewelry booth and walk out the tent door. She turned to me and mentioned that she thinks we were just shoplifted from and then went to the other vendor to tell them what she saw. They looked at the tray the man passed by and confirmed that there was an item missing. She and the other vendor went out of the tent to see if they could catch the man, but he was already most of the way to the parking lot.

I was more irritated about being shoplifted by one of our own that the shoplifting itself. I guess with spending so many years in the SCA, you get used to those that you call "your own" being honorable and stand up people. I know that not everyone is like that and every group has it's bad apples, I just find it very disappointing when things like this happen because those are the ones that the reports end up focusing on.


All that aside, we finished out the day on  a good note and began breaking down the booth when the time had come. Michelle and Alastar came over once they were done and waited for us to finished packing before we began load out.

Of course like set up, my brain always decides to go out in left field and leave me in a state of "Where the Hell do I start packing up?" After about 10 minutes of standing there confused and Alastar laughing as he says he's going to stay out of the way, thoughts start processing and I started putting things in tubs and such. Once the packing was complete it was time to play Cartris again and load everything up. True to the theme of the Con, I smashed the heck out of my fingers loading up and tying down the grid wall. It was mostly dark when we finished and got on the road to Casa Grande to Andee's house.

We regaled each other with the tales of the day from the Con to keep ourselves from falling asleep. We made it to Andee's without any incident and were welcome by a wonderful spaghetti dinner cooked by Andee's husband, Frankie. After sitting and chatting for a bit and settling up Andee's sales, Michelle, Alastar and I hit the road for Yuma.

One we stopped at Yuma, we gassed up the truck, made a bathroom stop, grabbed something to drink and I switched seats with Alastar and let him drive back to San Diego.

We got to the shop about 3:00 am, unloaded and then headed to North Park to drop off Michelle and Alastar. I finally got home about 4:30 am and passed out for about 4 hours before getting up and taking the van back to the rental place.

The rest of the day was spent at home relaxing doing much of nothing before having to head back to work on Tuesday.


Over all it was a great Con and I'm really looking forward to next year. Cindy has said that she will be there and Andee has committed to going as well. So look out Old Tucson, we're planning on returning in full force!

I want to give out a heartfelt thank you to all the participants that came out making the convention so successful. I also want to thank the staff of Wild Wild West Con for all their work and for making things right as much as they could.

See you all next year!

Wild Wild West Con Recap Part III

For those of you just joining us, here are Part 1 & Part 2 of the recap.

A full night's sleep does wonders for the body,  well at least for Andee and I it did.  Poor Michelle said she felt like she was sleeping in a saw mill due to Alastar's snoring. We told Michelle that  if she had problems sleep again, she should could come crawl into bed with us, since the bed we had would have slept the three of us comfortably.

We all dressed in our respective outfits for the day and hoped that Saturday's weather was going to be better than Friday was and I was hoping that the vendor tent we were in survived the night and that all our stuff was still in a sell-able condition. We got to the site, parked the van and headed to the tent to see what awaited us. Thankfully everything was still in one piece and just needed to be put back into a presentable manner. After about 30 minutes of work the booth was ready for business:

Saturday's outfit is known as my Mina dress, as it's based off the dress that Winona Ryder wore in Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's one of my favorite pieces currently in my closet for events like this. Coupled with the fan that was a gift from someone who professes to be my Number 1 fan the outfit truly comes together. Eventually I plan to make some sort of fascinator or hair piece to wear with it as well. Though I have to say after this event, the dress sorely needs a good dry cleaning as the train was drug through the dust and dirt in the vendor area. 

Colleen in her Mina dress

It was also Andee's day to be in red as well. This being her first Steampunk type event she pulled together some really cute outfits.

Vending on Saturday made up for Friday's nightmare and though the organizers couldn't do much about the lost vending time, they were awesome and bought all the vendors in our area pizza for lunch.

The weather was still a bit cool and there was some rain off and on, but the wind was pretty mellow and the day went so fast that it was 5pm before we knew it.

Once the vendor area was secure and everything was covered we headed over to meet up with Michelle and Alastar and headed off to the parking lot.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Old Tucson, everything is a dirt road except the parking area which is asphalt. So walking in general is a precarious adventure with all the rock and the land minds that the horses leave behind.

What makes the walk even more of an adventure is the addition of high heeled shoes or boots. Just as we passed the guard house to cross the walk bridge to the parking lot, one of the attendants mentioned to Michelle that she was pretty brave wearing her two inch heeled shoes. She laughed said that it was mostly walking slow and watching where you walk. I laughed and responded with "You walk very carefully, especially in shoes like this," and showed him the 6 inch heeled boots that I was walking in. He stood there boggled that anyone would wear shoes like mine in an environment like that and from behind me I hear Alastar say "+20 boots of Gothness" and laugh, (yup we're a bunch of gamer geeks.)

We piled into the car and of course the first thing that came off was the boots and then we headed back to the hotel. Well that was the intent. We were so tired from the long day and so involved in our conversation on what to do for dinner, no one realized that we got on the freeway going the wrong direction. We actually didn't notice it until we got to an area where there was construction happening and I commented that I didn't remember it from the day before. It was then we realized that we were headed back towards Casa Grande and not to the hotel.

Once we got that navigational incident corrected, we headed back towards the hotel, stopped at Wendy's for dinner, where they gave me Sweet Tea (blech) instead of regular tea. Thankfully I got that corrected before I took a swig of it thinking it was plain tea.

Upon returning to the hotel, we discovered that our room key didn't work (again) and I was too fried and hungry to walk down to the lobby, thankfully the guy in the room next to us was getting ice and I asked if I could use his phone to call the front desk. A few minutes later security came up with new keys and said that they had the date set wrong for the checkout date.

Once we were back in our room, dinner was devoured and more refreshing adult beverages aka beer were consumed. I Skyped with the hubby and kids, worked on some more cameos and then passed out for the night.

Part IV in process.

Wild Wild West Con Recap: Part II

If you missed it, Part I can be found here.

Our hotel room

One of the things that you get used to when doing conventions is the high probability that the day you are setting up your booth, you are going to be running on little to no sleep from the night prior. Either you are up until all hours of the night finishing projects (in my case it's either sewing buttons on or sewing ascots closed) or you'll be up before nature itself to drive to your destination to set up.

There was no exception to the rule this time around, we rolled in to the hotel by about 4 am, promptly passed out and then woke up to the alarm a mere 3 hours later. It's times like this that I am thankful for coffee (and so are other people).

After taking advantage of the snooze button a few times,I think I finally rolled out of bed at 7:30 or 7:45 am and made myself something akin to coffee, to be honest it was more like coffee flavored water. After the issues on the Queen Mary with no coffee pot in the room, I should know that I should always have my french press and coffee packed for out of town shows. Thankfully there was a Circle K on the way out to the freeway.

Shirt from piratebooty.net

After I got all of what I was wearing for the day together in a bag (I never set up in costume, too much of a hassle) and the rest of the group was ready, we pillaged Circle K for food type stuff and each of our own favorite vehicles for caffeine consumption and headed off to Old Tucson Studios.

The drive was mottled with rain drops here and there among the Arizona desert and the turn off to the event was pretty quiet and uninhabited. Thankfully no one got car sick though Alastar likened the ride to a roller coaster with the sweeping dips in the road.

Once we got to the site, after having to turn around because I passed the driveway to the parking lot, we were pleasantly surprised with being able to practically pull up to the doorway of the vending area, which meant less steps to haul things for set up. Woohoo!

As many times as I have vended at various events, set up always seems to make my mind go blank, or maybe it's just that the coffee hadn't kicked in yet. I'm standing there trying to answer Andee's question of "What do we do first?" and can't seem to process a single thought, it's like my brain blue screened or something. Seeing my dilemma she asks about unloading the grid wall and that was just the kick started I needed to engage the brain cells, that and a few more swigs of coffee (sensing a theme yet?)

Gridwall up

There always seems to be a theme to the Cons, the first year on the Queen Mary at HRM Steampunk Symposium, it was "Pants!", this past year at the same event, it was sliding along the promenade deck floor, and at Wild Wild West Con it was smashed fingers, mainly mine. After the colorful words were expelled from sandwiching my fingers between two pieces of steel grid wall, we started unloading totes from the van to the booth space. Most of the vendors had arrived the day before so they were mostly all set up and ready to vend, though there were a few that had arrived that morning like us.  Once the van was unloaded, Andee went and parked it in the parking lot and I started to figure out the layout of the booth and then grid wall assembly began!

Putting up the banner

Once we got the grid wall up we moved around the tables and discovered that the leg was broken, thankfully it was before we got it in place and I went to stand on it to put the banner atop the grid wall, otherwise there would have been more than smashed fingers at the event.

Banner is up!

Being the pirate preemptive salvage experts that we are, Andee and I switched the tables with an extra that was off to the side, made sure it was functional and then I performed the daring feet of putting up the banner or as Tawmis refers to it, "shaking my money maker to help with sales". (He's lucky I like him so much, else he'd be walking the plank)

After arranging and rearranging we got the booth setup and then dashed off to the restroom to change and await customers. Our booth was the first one when you walked into the tent which was great for traffic, but no so great when the wind blew. Not only was it a cold breeze due to the rainy weather, but every gust of wind brought in a cloud of dust right into our faces.

Colleen of Wyng'd Lyon

Andee of Twylite Creations

Here are Andee and I all dressed up and ready for the day of vending.

Things were pretty dusty as exhibited by the following photo and sadly it wasn't raining enough to keep the dust down. We joked that it would be pretty obvious if someone decided to walk off with something from the table though as there would be a large dust outline of what ever walked off. (That table cloth started out black in color, by the end of the Con it was grey.)

Customers trickled in and out of the tent and we had a few sales while watching the rain come and go through the doorway of the tent. The wind was also blowing off and on and eventually the thunderstorms rolled in. I love thunderstorms, but sadly we don't get any really good ones in San Diego unless I decide to trek out to the desert to see them, so when they started out at Tucson I was as excited as a kid in a candy store with $20 to spend.

Just a little dusty!

From my days camping with family and then with the SCA, you learn really quickly how to keep a tent from blowing away in the wind, or when to worry about the wind being too strong for said tent. So when Andree expressed concern about the canvas of the tent snapping in the wind, I shrugged and told her it really wasn't that bad, and it was true for the most part, until the wind picked up and snapped the roof of the tent so hard it got my attention. I looked at Andee and replied: "Ok, now that's not good." and not more than 5 minutes later another strong gust came through and lifted the tent enough to make a couple of the upright poles fall onto the ground with a clatter. Vendors and staff alike scrambled to put the poles back in. Andee was watching the wind gust through the doorway and bolted to the booth just inside the door as the side of the tent blew their display over. Had she not made that dash, the entire table probably would have fell over. Once we got everyone away from the walls and more towards the center of the tent, the event staff started talking about evacuating the tent and the vendors started packing and covering things. Meanwhile the people that were helping hold down the tent were looking for things to use to wrap around the poles. Lightning and metal are not a good combination, unless you really have the desire to be a lightening rod. Bits of rope were used as were belts and anything else that was long enough to wrap around the poles and help keep it down while we waited for the tent company to come out and re mediate the issue.

Our gallant volunteers holding down the tent 

The issue being that the crew that came out initially didn't stake the tent down properly, as in they didn't stake down all the poles, just the corners and a few select ones along the long sides of it. Not something you do with a tent that is about 40' x 80' in size especially in the desert. Shamella, who was the vendor coordinator was an absolute dream, she took care of the problem as best as she could and checked up on the vendors to make sure they were aware of what was going on. The owner of the company ended up coming out with a crew to fix the problem, but it was still going to be a couple hours before they were done. So most of the vendors closed up shop and headed out for the evening. Andee and I went into the barn area and waited out the last hour of the day with Alastar and Michelle as the Gaslight Gathering table.

Once the main vending area closed for the day, we loaded our tired, dusty selves into the van and headed back to the hotel.

End of day conversations generally need an interpreter  mostly because they're full of moaning and groaning from any injuries or muscle strains inflicted from setup or because  one is so tired, the mouth and brain are not working in unison. The only discussion that made much sense was what we going to have for dinner, that and the awe that came over us when we looked up and saw this giant floating section of rainbow, not a full rainbow, but a chunk of rainbow mid sky. In the photo below you can see it just between the two mountains.

Another shot of the block of rainbow

From the WTF? files

Of course when we return to the hotel we encounter the following: (various holiday and garden figures along with bottle caps and other miscellany glued to the vehicle - and here I though we only saw this weird stuff in California, it's nice to see that other states have weird folk too.)

Colleen & Andee

Settled back in the room we rekindled the arduous discussion of what the heck are we going to have for dinner. Alastar & Michelle were on a fairly tighter budget than I was and I really didn't want fast food. Traveling messing with my body enough so I try to eat on the more healthy side of things. After much deliberation and internet searching we settled on Chopstix for Chinese food, which was reasonably priced and a couple blocks up the road from the hotel.

Got root?

The service was great and the food was pretty tasty. The family with the kid that decided the high ceiling restaurant was a great place to try and communicate with the dolphins or dogs (we weren't sure which) was not so pleasant.

Michelle & Alastar

After stuffing ourselves we stopped by the Circle K for some refreshing adult beverages (read: cider & beer), and a few snacks (chocolate). The guy at checkout was a bit puzzled by my  "got root?" shirt and the easiest way to explain it without his eyes glazing over was to say "It's a computer thing" and be on my merry way.


Dinner: devoured
Adult beverages & snacks:  acquired
Relaxing in the hotel room: achievement unlocked

Next level: The Skype session with my kids so they could go to bed and then a nice hot shower.  It's one thing to be grungy and gross from set up at a Con, it's another to be that and then have a fine layer of dust coating your skin and hair. By the time we got back to the hotel after dinner, I was ready to stand in a hot shower for at least an hour. Let me tell you, that shower was almost as good as the showers when we come back from a 5 day trip out to Potrero County Park for an SCA event over Memorial Day weekend. To say it was heavenly would have been an understatement.

The rest of the evening was spent working on making more cameo pins and ascot pins before crashing out for some much needed rest.

Part III to come soon.