Cricalix.Net

Been putting time in over the past week to migrate UberCon’s web services from our current host to Slicehost.  Half the cost, at least double the performance – well worth it.  Pretty much everything has migrated smoothly, once I added in all the SQL permissions.  I’ll have to do one more walk-through to make sure the site works, at which point we can do a DNS cut-over.

Along the way, we’ll get a forum software upgrade, and an upgrade to our CONGO installation (CONGO is the back-end software that runs our registration pre-con and at-con).  More resources on the hosting server mean we can start working on our long-wanted CMS overhaul and registration overhaul too.  Not sure about the CMS side yet – it’ll probably be a toss-up between PHP Fusion and Drupal.  What would be nice is integrating the forum, the website and the registration for the con into one cohesive community/system.

It’s been a pleasant two week vacation.  Caught a train and a bus down to Heathrow on the 22nd, and crossed the Atlantic courtesy of British Airways after staring at an Asus EEE 700 series in Dixons (though I’ll wait for the 900 series with the bigger screen and 20 GB SSD).  Did my usual trick of pushing how late I stayed up, with the intent of resetting my body clock and avoiding jet-lag (which worked).  Spent the next few days imaging all of the LAN PCs for UberCon, and catching up on a bit of sleep.  UberCon ran from the 25th to the 27th, where I had the pleasure of being an attendee for once, instead of a staff member – though I still did staff-like stuff since I knew the answers.  Note to self, never go behind the desks at registration or help-desk unless I want to work.

Didn’t shoot too many photos, but got something like 30 of Mr. T. Zahn, so I’ll be checking those in Lightroom when I get home.  Hopefully there’s at least one good one we can use on the UberCon site.  I also need to get his contact details to see if he minds if I use them in my personal (online) portfolio.  Missed the tear-down of the convention by being a lazy sod and sitting in my room reading.  However, I helped pack the truck for the trip to the con, so I think I’m excused. continue reading…

I didn’t see much of day 3 of UberCon, as I spent from about 5 PM on Saturday until 2 AM Sunday morning, and then from about 10 AM Sunday morning until 4 PM Sunday afternoon talking to my best friend. Around 4 I helped with the LAN teardown – full LAN to fully-boxed LAN in 50 minutes. Then there was the post-con meeting to attend (even though I was technically an attendee) – one of the first we’ve ever had I think. Proved to be very useful, and we started addressing a few of the things that need to be sorted out by the next con.

We fell a bit short of the expected number I think, but the feedback, in general, was that VIII was a great con.

06:00
Awake. I think.

09:00
Regi is open, people are trickling in. Normal for a Saturday morning, it takes a few hours for everything to get into motion. Loony Labs Rabbit is running a game across the way. Some folks are playing UT2004. Been discussing with Dave what might be giving us trouble with CONGO on the virtual server that runs ubercon.com.

…

and here ends the majority of the con reporting. A friend of mine who I haven’t seen for ages has shown up, so I’ll be spending the rest of the con talking to her.

07:00
Slept for 9 hours last night, and the cold is a bit better. Once I’ve had breakfast, I’ll probably swig a bit more of the Vicks 44D to clear my head. The day before I left for the con, I purchased a nice little flash-based MP3 player, a Samsung YP-U2 2 GB model (link is to the US spec, the foreign spec is a bit different). Tossed about 350 songs on it (and some non-songs like some of Rowan Atkinson’s stories) and put it to one side for the journey. Wednesday morning, while standing in the train station, I patted my pockets, looked in the top compartment of my camera bag, and couldn’t find the blasted thing anywhere. No surprise, I probably left it behind. About 5 hours into my flight, I looked in my shirt pocket (having previously checked the trousers and jacket) and behold, an MP3 player! Now I can’t find it again. I think I may have left it on the sofa downstairs in the hotel lounge, which probably means it’s been nicked. Bugger.

We started the LAN setup last night, which is unheard of for UberCon – we’re normally still setting up the LAN as the doors are opening! So, I give you a pretty picture of the shiny Dell PCs and flatscreens that power our LAN this year. I’ll find out in a short while if the imaging was finished last night after the hockey game or not. If it wasn’t, I’ll have time to slip the EVE client on!
continue reading…

Woke up bright and early, having spent the night on a medieval torture device that the hotel refers to as a sofa-bed (and the mess the hotel made of the reservation was quite impressive). Not the best sleep of my life, and I’ve slept in some odd places. Meandered downstairs with Chris to find that Kevin, Andrea and a few other folks had rolled in around 5 a.m., so we had company until they went to bed. Andrea managed to sort out the mess with the hotel room, so we now have a room with two doubles and a torture device instead of a king and a torture device.

Went for a walk around 9 to see which shops in the local mall were still around. Looks like the mall is closing down, as a good half of the stores were shuttered and empty. Took a few photos of a butterfly and some seagulls that were infesting the parking lot. Got back to find Dave (who runs the ‘con registration) and girl-friend up and about, so joined them for (a second) breakfast. Quite amusing to see three people sitting at a table, eating breakfast, with laptops out and reading e-mail – a bit like how the movies always portray businessmen with their breakfast and a newspaper. We then retired to the lounge of the hotel to chat, lounge and generally be useless.

Somewhere around noon (no watch, and can’t be bothered to pay attention to the time), we meandered back over to the mall to acquire something referred to as ‘lunch’. It’s apparently good for you if you’re hungry. Watched Scott eat two footlong subs from Subway – he reminds me of my maternal grandfather, slim build and tall. Haven’t got a clue where he puts all the food. Popped into the local grocery store to acquire some Vicks 44D (unavailable in the UK for whatever reason, perhaps the fact that the primary ingredient is alcohol), hot chocolate and granola bars. Due to IBS, I’m avoiding oranges for the moment, which is a pity.

Got back to the hotel and crashed – I’ve somehow acquired what feels like a cold, so a 1 hour nap seemed like a good thing. That 1 hour nap became a 3 hour one, but if that’s what my body wanted, that’s what it wanted. Just finished off a hot chocolate while typing this, and I’ll probably be wandering downstairs to see how the unpacking of the truck went, and how far along the imaging of the gaming systems is. Then I’ll probably collapse back into bed and try for a good 8 or 9 hours of sleep. Con goes live tomorrow at 4 pm, whee!