Anaheim, Day #7, 7/1/06

The highlight of our day was largely mostly club photos: kent4str and I had photos with the DC Lambda Squares at 10:30 AM, with the Chesapeake Squares at 10:35 AM and then again with the GCA at 3:30 PM, with costume changes for each. Whee. I've ordered copies of all three, and the whole-convention photo as well.

I attended the A2 workshop conducted by Saundra Bryant. As expected, we went through two of the usual workshop suspects: motivate and box/split transfer. These two always cause issues. We also did the switch family of calls which I thought were too obvious for a workshop but I was in the minority. And as it turned out, there were definitely people in my square who needed help with "switch the wave" and "switch to a diamond/hourglass."

In the afternoon, we queued up for the grand march: everyone collects under their club's banner and marches out into the hall to begin the ceremonies to officially open the convention. I'm not a fan of the grand march: who precisely is our audience for this? Ourselves? We already know who we are. And it doubles the amount of convention floor space required, driving up our convention expenses. I'd jettison it if I could but that's not likely to happen.

This year, the parade marshalls herded us into the dance hall in pairs, then looped us around to form quads, then looped us again to form squares of eight. This didn't sit well with a lot of convention-goers I talked to later: they would have preferred to have danced this part of the convention with their own club rather than be forcibly intermixed with other clubs. Noted for future.

Following the ceremonies, we were then herded outside to the parking lot for our whole-convention photo. Not a bad thing, but it was one of the hotter days and we were all standing in direct sunlight for 20+ minutes without shade while the photographer on the 12th floor had his minions via radio or cell phone arrange the bodies below. We'll see the results soon, I hope. In the interim, I got a few good photos of the hotel face and of the photographer via my own zoom lens. :-)

We met up with nanocub following the photos, then went to Bakers Square for dinner. I was in desperate need of protein and their double cheeseburger did the trick; since everyone else tdjohnsn seemed keen on having pie too, I indulged in a very good hot fudge brownie a la mode. Two thumbs up!

Ross Lopton is a good friend of rlegters & tdjohnsn and the current reigning honky-tonk queen so we were somewhat obliged to attend the latest honky-tonk queen contest, traditionally hosted by the current queen. I've never attended previously but have heard about the disorganization, lousy acts and overly long shows which have happened in the past. Ross AKA Cow Patty did a pretty good job of keeping things tight and the entire experience was over in a modest 90 minutes, close to midnight. I got some decent photos which I'll send along to Ross when I can.

After lounging in the hotel lobby for a while, the four of us headed for bed and crashed.

Anaheim, Day #7, 7/1/06

The highlight of our day was largely mostly club photos: kent4str and I had photos with the DC Lambda Squares at 10:30 AM, with the Chesapeake Squares at 10:35 AM and then again with the GCA at 3:30 PM, with costume changes for each. Whee. I've ordered copies of all three, and the whole-convention photo as well.

I attended the A2 workshop conducted by Saundra Bryant. As expected, we went through two of the usual workshop suspects: motivate and box/split transfer. These two always cause issues. We also did the switch family of calls which I thought were too obvious for a workshop but I was in the minority. And as it turned out, there were definitely people in my square who needed help with "switch the wave" and "switch to a diamond/hourglass."

In the afternoon, we queued up for the grand march: everyone collects under their club's banner and marches out into the hall to begin the ceremonies to officially open the convention. I'm not a fan of the grand march: who precisely is our audience for this? Ourselves? We already know who we are. And it doubles the amount of convention floor space required, driving up our convention expenses. I'd jettison it if I could but that's not likely to happen.

This year, the parade marshalls herded us into the dance hall in pairs, then looped us around to form quads, then looped us again to form squares of eight. This didn't sit well with a lot of convention-goers I talked to later: they would have preferred to have danced this part of the convention with their own club rather than be forcibly intermixed with other clubs. Noted for future.

Following the ceremonies, we were then herded outside to the parking lot for our whole-convention photo. Not a bad thing, but it was one of the hotter days and we were all standing in direct sunlight for 20+ minutes without shade while the photographer on the 12th floor had his minions via radio or cell phone arrange the bodies below. We'll see the results soon, I hope. In the interim, I got a few good photos of the hotel face and of the photographer via my own zoom lens. :-)

We met up with nanocub following the photos, then went to Bakers Square for dinner. I was in desperate need of protein and their double cheeseburger did the trick; since everyone else tdjohnsn seemed keen on having pie too, I indulged in a very good hot fudge brownie a la mode. Two thumbs up!

Ross Lopton is a good friend of rlegters & tdjohnsn and the current reigning honky-tonk queen so we were somewhat obliged to attend the latest honky-tonk queen contest, traditionally hosted by the current queen. I've never attended previously but have heard about the disorganization, lousy acts and overly long shows which have happened in the past. Ross AKA Cow Patty did a pretty good job of keeping things tight and the entire experience was over in a modest 90 minutes, close to midnight. I got some decent photos which I'll send along to Ross when I can.

After lounging in the hotel lobby for a while, the four of us headed for bed and crashed.