I’ve never been in Oakland before.
Pretty big.
<3 cities.
Humans are funny creatures.
Anyway; arrived this morning at 11:30ish AM PST 13 hours in from SD.
Oh! Yeah. Btws, I’m back living in SD <3
So—20 min local bus to convention center; or $4 Lyft—I took the Lyft.
Wasn’t shift scheduled until 2 (thought it was 2:30)—almost missed the greyhound on the way here…
Literally hopping on after doors were already closed.
And; I had drinks at dinner and dude called me out—apparently, they could have denied me—plus, I thought departure was 11 something; only saving grace was my innate insistence to be always be early—I don’t like to be rushed.
So—arrive early and meet up with a friend.
The one that actually sent me contact info for staffing director for this event; needing more people last minute.
Well, I’m living in SD and not currently working—might as well make a little money while doing the thing I love most—live to con <3
I love how humans are such social creatures—create entire reasons just to gather.
My whole right arm is hurting.
Fuck.
I hope I’m not dying.
I literally thought I was having a heart attack a few months back after working so much…
Just got off a Greyhound 30 hours little over a week ago—only been in SD 7 days—and I’m already gone for an extended weekend XD
..200 words in and I crash…
It is now Sunday morning, or Day 3, and so much, yet not a lot, has happened.
Friday was a short shift, from 1:30 to 6:30PM at star signing.
Bonnie Wright—aka Ginny Weasly—had limited attendees for the day and left early.
Well—duh.
She’s charging $50/$50 for autograph/selfie—I’m well aware this is now the going rate and has become industry standard—but, I’d say the average con goer has about $300-400 to spend—and; unless a huge fan, certainly not going to drop 1/3 of my money right out the gate on anything.
And—I personally have about $100 left for the whole trip.
And, yeah; she’s cool, but fucking Michael Biehn and Kevin Conroy weren’t even charging that much and they’re the fucking Kyle Reese/Corporal Hicks and Batman, respectively—because, for all intensive purposes, Kevin Conroy IS Batman.
So, I can kind of see the con floor from where I’m stationed and obviously the space taken up for celebrity signings/photo ops—and it’s about 60/40 of the entire space.
So—the con floor is kind of tiny.
A “hero” badge does not include con entry—I think it’s to keep people from wandering off their posts—but, we were slow and staff members start letting people take quick breaks to go explore.
It took me about 10 mins to walk the entire exhibit hall—well, my version of walk; which is generaly much faster than the average human—circling “artist ally” twice.
Sure, the art work was quality but as someone whose favorite thing in the world is books on tables at cons, there wasn’t enough books on tables at con.
I’m just a fan girl of myself anyway, so it’s hard to please me—but, I wasn’t impressed—immediate thought: glad I’m getting paid for this.
Realized I was being a snooty, critical bitch, so put myself in check—and, ran to get a selfie with Michael Biehn : )
I’d done 13 hours on a bus and worked 5 hours of con at this point—sweaty, greasy, gross; and, smell worse than I looked, I assure you—don’t judge.
Whatevs…
So, as I said a friend reached out regarding the position and offered to let me crash in his hotel.
Our shifts end about the same time so we leave to check-in before grabbing much needed sustenance—or; before, I go rawr rawr—started getting close XD
So, this place is a fucking shit hole—compared to today’s standards and the elevator doesn’t work—and, we’re staying on the 5th floor… sigh…
Bathrooms and showers are out in the hall—I’ve done the hostel life, so fuck it.
Dropped gear—food—before I die; and—take the whole fucking world with me.
Luckily for the whole fucking world, there’s a Popeye’s right up the street.
I still really needed a shower at this point so, that was next—again, shared with the whole floor and the drain was clogged… sigh…
And, of course I knew I ‘d only brought 1 pair of pants—haven’t had he money to do laundry this past week—but, with 9 personalities, and all the crazy shit I do, it can be easy to push things to the back of my mind until reality punches me in the face.
After the shower, having to put on still sweat jeans, reality punched me in the face.
Fuck, I’m gross.
Anyway…
Threw on some Aliens in honor of Corporal Hicks, then decided to to descend 5 flights to have a drag.
Now, as much as this place is a shit hole, it’s clearly old—and, the handrails are a marvel of engineering:
Perfectly aligned and juts out exactly where one would need to place a hand on ascension.
The stairs themselves are of high quality craftsmanship—def. don’t make things like they use to.
On my way back in, started chatting with the gentleman behind the front desk.
Find out, this place was built in 1913—and, apparently super hard to find replacement parts for a 100+ year elevator XD
Now the hostels I use to live/work were built around the same time and one has the same style of doors inside room to room, and the wooden stairs look the same.
I had done research on the building; which lead to research on the city—which brought me to information on SD—and, Diego’s Panama-California Exposition; concluding the real possibility that the building I had lived in was built directly in response to the increased amount of population of people in town to attend the faire—which was in direct response and competition to San Fransisco’s International faire—commiserating the completion of the Panama Carnal—as San Diego is a 2 & 1/2 day’s sail closer; and, wanted to cement itself as the official first Port of Call into the United States on the West Coast.
My brain immediately puts shit together—I’m currently staying in a building with the very real possibility, constructed to accommodate the increased population of San Fransisco as people flooded from around the world to attend the shin dig.
Pretty fucking cool if you ask me—you didn’t—but, I told you anyway.
It’s 7AM on Sunday, and, yes I have more to say about yesterday—but, I’m still wearing these pants and I want to grab a new pair before work starts today. XD
Fuck. I’m funny.
Later.
…
It’s now almost 6PM on Sunday…
I honestly almost don’t even remember what happened yesterday XD
How awful is that?
Maybe not that I don’t remember, I was just so caught up in what I was doing that most of yesterday was a blur.
Arrived at 8:30(ish)AM for my shift at 9AM and was stationed weapons check.
SFCC is such a small con, several of us were stationed at entries ways and just caught people as they walked in the door.
Of course we were a bit preemptive by scanning the waiting line for opening; but, honestly, there weren’t a lot of cosplayers with weapons—only about 8K attendees for the entire event.
Also, I was guessing about 12k on Saturday alone—I’m usually pretty good with my estimates, but I think that because I was never really inside the exhibit hall, was guessing it was full and the hallways was always packed—but, was cut in half for a good chuck for will call/box office.
I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong.
I’m just usually not wrong.
Whatevs…
My station ended up morphing into essentially crowd control—making sure people weren’t blocking walkways…
…It’s not 6:40 and I’m almost drunk… XD
Fuck.
…later…
HAPPY NERDING and SUPPORT INDIE <3
jEZ OUt
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