Wanderings and Wonderings

For me, August 23, 2003 will always hold a special place in my heart. On that day, I got in my car and drove from my home in Auburn an hour and a half to Atlanta. I was lured by a chance email I just happened to see on a mailing list and knowing only one person who would be at the meeting, and him - Flain - I had only met a month before in a chance meeting on a flight to Philadelphia.

On that day, in Tiger Paw’s living room, we laid down the plans for the first Furry Weekend Atlanta. In the intervening months, we worked like crazy. And, at the end of it, a staff of about 12 people, in seven months pulled a convention out of nowhere.

Ever since that day, FWA has been a part of my life. In the time between then and how, I’ve held three jobs, moved three times, and had three cars. I’ve graduated college, bought a house and gotten married. To put it another way, FWA has been the one constant in a period of unbelievable chance in my life.

But to all good things must come an end.

With increasing responsibilities in other areas of my life, I can no longer dedicate to the con the attention that that a great convention like this deserves. Therefore, I announce that I am retiring from my positions with Furry Weekend Atlanta. It’s something that I have given a lot of thought - perhaps one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make. But I feel the time is right.

The reasons for my departure are personal and solely due to changes in my life; it is in no way a reflection of the convention. I would strongly encourage everyone to continue to attend the con - as I intend to! I just feel that, at this time, I need to go in a different direction in my life.

Growing FWA has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I have had the chance to learn things I never would have been exposed to and met many, many wonderful people.

I want to thank the board - all its members over the years - and especially Tiger Paw. You guys are like family to me, and, Tiger, you’ve been like a brother to me. Just because I’m not actively involved in the con anymore, don’t think you’re gonna see me any less. In fact, there’s a fair chance you may see me more.

I want to thank my staff - not just this year, but all the people I’ve worked with over the years. I hope you know how much working with you has meant to me. You are all wonderful, amazing people.

Most of all, I want to thank you - our attendees. Without you, FWA would never have gotten out of Tiger Paw’s living room back in 2003 and wouldn’t be where we are today. You are, without a doubt, the heart and soul of the fandom and the reason we do this. From the very beginning, FWA has been about you, and my sincere hope is that it will continue to be a con focused on the attendees.

I firmly believe that life is full of chances, and the only regret you can have is the chance you didn’t take. I was so worried that day when I set off from Auburn to drive to Atlanta. But I took a chance. When I took a chance on driving to Atlanta in 2003, I had no clue what the outcome would be. Without a doubt I can say, eight years later, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Thank you for making the last eight years one amazing ride for this collie.

- Kiran Lightpaw
Director of Operations, 2003-2011
Furry Weekend Atlanta

I was telling koakako on the drive back from Atlanta how odd it is. You go into your insular little bubble that is a furry con, and come out five days later. And ... what? The world is still here. It has kept moving while you were gallivanting around in your own little world for a few days, and it's odd that you now have to catch up with everything that happened in those five days.

You half expect to see a fursuiter bouncing down the hallway and not think anything of it, but when you don't see it, you're kinda disappointed.

FWA went off well this year. In fact, I think this might have been one of our best so far. A big shout out to all my staff, who worked so hard this weekend to make all the magic happen. And a big shout out to the 1,564 furries who took over a block of downtown Atlanta and turned it into a giant furry castle.

We had a few problems (we always do), but those will be dealt with over the course of the next year.

Now, time to do the normal post-con wrap up stuff in putting 2010 to bed. But stay tuned for Furry Weekend Atlanta 2011: Furries in Wonderland.

"Twitter me gently, twitter me sweet.
I’ll follow you anywhere you tweet.
The system is fragile, the birds are weak.
So twitter me gently and I’ll be complete."
-Matthew Ebel, Twitter Me Gently

It's that time of year again. Time for me to start ordering all the things that will break be used at Furry Weekend Atlanta this year.

One of the things we're doing this year is retiring our thin-client based registration and sales system in favor of more modern, small form factor computers. The thin clients have worked well for 5 years now, but they're getting increasingly hard to find and expensive to use. So the new system will be based on used Dell GX-270 SFF machines running Ubuntu Linux to avoid any licensing issues.

So I soured the web for a merchant that would cut us a deal on 20 of these machines, and finally found one. 20 machines for $1300 including shipping, or $65 a machine, is about what we were paying for the thin clients, and these will have a lot better lifespan and be eminently more usable. They also support wireless, so less running cable!

So I placed the order Friday two weeks ago. And within hours I had shipping information. And then I found out about Sarah's grandfather and that we'd be going out of town precisely when FedEx was supposed to deliver the computers. Crap. So I call FedEx and arrange to have them delivered the following Monday when I will be home.

So fast forward to Thursday. Just after the funeral. We're eating lunch at the post-funeral meal, and my phone buzzes. I check. Emails from FedEx saying they've delivered all 20 boxes to my house in Alabama. Where its raining. Great. Wonderful. 20 boxes are probably sitting in the rain in front of my house. So I call FedEx. The agent on the phone was singularly unhelpful, too. He just said, yeah, they've been delivered, nothing he could do about it or knew why it happened.

I called koakako and asked him to run by my house and rescue them when he got a change. Then, in frustration, I sent out a tweet: "So Fedex just really fucked me. And not in the good way either."

About 20 minutes later, my phone buzzed again. Someone had replied to my tweet ... from FedEx, asking me what the problem was. I replied back with a few tweets about how $1300 in computer equipment was sitting in front of my house when I was 1,000 miles away, and sent her a tracking number.

Didn't hear anything for about an hour and a half.

Then, I got a tweet back. "The terminal sent a driver to pick up your packages. They are now on hold."

Yay Twitter. And sure enough, Monday afternoon, my packages were delivered. So while I still don't know why my message to hold the packages was never received here, I nonetheless applaud FedEx for using a very Web 2.0 way to solve the problem.

So I'm idly toying with the idea of going to Further Confusion this year.

I have a free ticket on Delta, but even if I don't use it, the airfare from HSV is only $316 including tax, which isn't very bad at all. I'd leave after work on Thursday (the flight departs HSV at 5:45), and land in SFO at 12:11am. I'd have to leave the con early on Sunday (2:20 flight to HSV) and get back around 10:45.

I'd have to rent a car, probably, to get from SFO to the new hotel in San Jose.

Who else is going? Anybody I could room with?