Compare and Contrast

CaleCon:

• Small group of closely related people.
• Inaugural 'large scale' meet.
• A meet of a single sub-set of a fandom in a platform.
• Little regimentation.
  

SLCC:

• Larger group of somewhat related people.
• Fourth such meet.
• A meet of anyone in the platform.
• Some regimentation, but not a great deal.

Dragon*Con:

• Positively massive meet of every imaginable type of geek.
• Been going for decades.
• Anyone welcome.
• I'm surprised they didn't have metal detectors at every doorway.

Random thoughts:

• CaleCon gave me never a feeling I was alone. Very intimate.
• SLCC was lonesome at first, then I gradually met friends of people I knew, or just random meetings.
• It seemed a bit of an oldbie hive, although they were all personable it was still a bit intimidating. I suspect subsequent CaleCons will seem that way to those who missed the first.
• Dragon*Con was far and away one of the most visually dazzling displays I've ever seen. And I put what I'd seen there into my costume for both SLCC and CaleCon. I was a major hit in both with that costume. SLCC had some costuming, but I feel that if I didn't raise the bar, I vaulted it and made it look easy. I might have been merely 'good' in Dragon*Con.
• Caledon has a reputation for being insular and distant.
• Caledon has a reputation for being insular and distant!
• Caledon has a reputation for being insular and distant! OMG!
• This is not a good thing. At SLCC, these people are not blingtards. These people rock. Hard.
• Caledonians rock hard. Steelhead rocks hard. New Babbage rocks hard.
• SLCC needs the Neo-Victorian presence.
• Stroker's Ball was pretty extreme, not my cup of tea. I was having fun, would probably have lasted an hour or two before I'd have had to leave or collapse from heat exhaustion.
• If there had been a classical ball, I'd still have gone to Stroker's because I was with a party who made a point of it. They had to leave because the cramped space was just too overwhelming. Then I'd have made an appearance at the other ball. Heck, I'd have made an appearance ahead of time too.
• CaleCon may have been counterproductive to SLCC and to Caledon. No, that's not it. CaleCon, 2008, was a wonderful, intimate meet. And too close (on the calendar) to SLCC.
• CaleCon might do well to drop the strictly Caledon feel, and openly invite anyone of the Neo-Victorian set.
• CaleCon would do well to either move months away from SLCC, or throw in with SLCC, take part as part of, and contribute to SLCC with panels and attendance.
• And overall well-mannered dress and comportment.
• And rent a ballroom to have a much less extreme ball for the top hat and coat, ballroom gown set with music ranging from the classics through Sinatra.
• SLCC with 20-50 Neo-Victorians and steampunks in the lobby in full dress would rock.
• Really, it would rock.
• SLCC needs more costuming badly.

Summing up:

• Open the CaleCon concept to Caledon's related and friendly communities. Focus on anachronistic civility.
• Either barnacle to, or move far away on the calendar from, SLCC.

Let's See If We Can Save Some Lives

Useful tidbits and the way they fell together.

Day One, SLCC: Attended a library services project information seminar on a new book delivery method using a web server. ALICE Library Project

Day Two, SLCC: Attended an American Cancer Society info seminar and heard they use a menu driven notecard giver.

Connected the dots and sent the contact info and the details I remember of the ALICE project to the ACS contact, with the believe the information delivery from ACS into special readers might beat the stuffing out of menu driven notecard givers for user friendliness and the ability to update info in a central location. No more stale notecards.

Stereo MCs moment: Gotta get yourself connected.