Tablet Headaches

I've compiled a table of dimensions for various tablet computers and e-book readers. Below is an excerpt of what I think are the top contenders in the market. Have I left any important devices out or included any defunct ones? Please note that I don't care about technical superiority, I'm asking about plain ol' market share. If so, please let me know. You don't need to supply dimensions, just the names.

• Device, long dimension in inches
• ASUS EEE Transformer, 10.6
• ASUS Transformer Infinity, 10.35
• iPad 2 & 3, 9.5
• Nook Tablet, 8.1
• Google Nexus 7, 7.81
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, 7.63
• Kindle Fire, 7.5
• Nook Simple Touch, 6.5

I'm contemplating making a hard/molded front bag, possibly in a couple sizes, for tablets. Part of the trick is figuring out size categories. Any suggestions?

Lots of Natter for a Slow Weekend

I didn't get as much done this weekend as I could/should have. I blame yesterday's weather, it wasn't encouraging.

I did look at pictures of masonic sword cases - I have one to repair - to figure out what type of handle had broken off of it. I suspect that the original handle was sewn into the seam (which seem to have been prone to breakage). Other examples had dee rings attached, and the handles had spiffy finial/hooks which held onto the dee rings. I don't think I can get anything like the finials, but even a plain handle attached to the dee ring is going to look good, and be more durable. Customer willing, of course.

Also threw myself at working on the books yesterday (with the usual ranting at the computer). Purchases still are not done, but I did sales, so I'd have a clue on where we are for belts.

Belt stock is not actually too bad, but my supply of harness leather to make more brown belts is pretty dire. I have some london tan (golden brown) and havana-ish (chocolate brown) pieces that won't work for belts, but will do other things, so I decided to get a half-cow of chestnut (red-brown). And, of course, black. I'm not certain we need black right now, but we will soon enough.

Also ordered some hardware and a couple tool-ish things - a strop board for my edgers (I have one, but Ghu knows where it's hiding - and it'll show up any day now), and a tool to make installing chicago screws/conchos simpler.

Gleeble!

Fortunately, I asked for a projected subtotal for my order, and survived the panic attack that it caused. The customer service rep had accidentally put me down for 30 of one style of buckle, instead of 3.

Possible New Product Alert!

Last week we got several issues of "The Leather Workers and Saddlers' Journal" that we'd re-subscribed to, and gotten some back issues of. One had an article about a firm molded geologist's sample case. It's a nice bag, but I think the guy could have done a better job of molding it (I think after 15+ years of molding pouches I'm entitled to my opinion).

It got me thinking.

• (A): That we could make one that looked better - because of the way he molded it the corners were kinda . . . blobby. Poofy. But not really poofy-poofy. I dunno, it's hard to describe.
• (B): That a case like that might be just right for . . . um . . . a tablet!

Yes, I know, Ron has an iPad bag and I'm working on building one for myself.

But a hard tablet case might, y'know, sell. But before I send Ron down to the woodworking equipment to make a mold, I need to exercise my Google-fu and find out the dimensions of the popular tablets (and e-book readers).

A Doggy Digression

Although Pippin is clearly my dog, and followed me out to the dining room last night to check on hardware supplies, he wouldn't come into the dining room with me. Silly dog.

End Doggy Digression

Tonight I need to pull out the braided belts and belt blanks that went to the last couple events, get them into inventory, and see how many we have that need to be finished. And I should keep plugging away at the books.

We're not going to WorldCon this coming weekend, but we are probably extracting honey, which will wipe out at least one day. So I need to cut down a bit on ukulele practice and also get back to work on pouches and things.

Plans and More Plans

Just realized that the Northshield Fall Coronation is almost here, dropped the merchant coordinator a note to ask if parking is trailer-friendly (at a college in Milwaukee). Barring unhappy answers about that or merchant space, the plan is to be there.

I think we're good for selling at Fox Hunt, later in September.

Mailed my application for Military History Fest off last week. Don't see us on the list of vendors yet, but haven't heard that they're full, either, so I'll put it down as tentative for now. Three 8' tables/spaces. I'm a bit eep-y about that, but at the same time I know I can fill that much space. Especially if I get to work.

For one thing, we need belts. Badly. Fortunately, I think I have enough black leather to do something about that, and we had a budgetary infusion that will assist. Must check and see what I really really need to order (vs. could use to get), and make.

Pulled out some pouches that just need to be laced up the other day, but haven't started actually working on them. I've been distracted with practicing ukulele in the evenings, and boring stuff like housework. And sleeping.

Between the usual Saturday morning running about and the MuseCon wrap-up meeting/party Saturday afternoon/evening the day was pretty much a loss. And then we slept in Sunday morning, rather later than normal. We did get out to a store we'd found out about in Volo. Not much leather, but Ron succumbed to the lure of tools he didn't have.

And I got a pattern, which I've just remembered was missing instructions. Must call and see about that.

I did get the tools that went to MuseCon sorted and put away on Sunday morning. Now I've got a toolbox of duplicate tools for teaching sewing, and a bin of project parts. Still need to get or find a binder to put the instructions in, but getting more organized.

Catching Up, Otter Necessities Version

Why that post title? Because I just did a catching-up post on my personal blog.

Saturday we made another trip over to Tandy/Leather Factory. Ron got a bunch of new tools for tooling, I got some more of the snake any ladybug kits from the clearance rack, and two pieces of leather - bright purple/magenta, and a pebbled dark burgundy. Expensive trip.

Remember the beer gut bag that I made earlier this year for a customer in New Zealand? Earlier this month  somebody stole it! I sent her some documentation on how much she paid for it, to submit to her insurance, sounds like they were satisfied, and I'll be making a replacement.

Over the weekend we dug out all the leatherworking (and related) books, and I made a list of them. We'd cataloged a bunch of them in book-cataloging software in the past, and I was able to export the data, which significantly simplified the job.

Monday I stayed home (general feeling of "meh"), and worked on updating the books, which I hadn't done since, um, before the last two events, in June. Got through all the purchases, still need to do sales.

Having serious second thoughts about the Known World Costume Symposium, after being up past my bedtime at MuseCon, and remembering how well I don't cope with that any more. As I may have mentioned, the room is open until something like 11 pm Saturday night, <i>and</i> merchants have to be out Saturday night. Even if I close shop and start packing at 8-9-ish that's not going to be fun.

Small grubles for the folks running Military History Fest (formerly Reenactor Fest), they never sent me the dealer information I requested. Lots of dealers already confirmed, but the website doesn't say the room is full. Ron thinks we can do MHF and Capricon (the next weekend) back-to-back, so tonight we'll decide how many tables, etc. and get the application sent off.

No, not planning on being a dealer at Cap, but Ron is Cafe second, and MuseCon may be sponsoring the Cafe.

Ooh, carp, I need to get on seeing about space for the Northshield Coronation at the beginning of September, and Fox Hunt a little later in the month.

Not sure how much further effort I'm going to invest in chasing down the gaming convention supposedly to be held at College of DuPage in October.

Having slacked off on leatherworking for a good chunk of the summer, I need to get back at it. But first, I need to put away all the tools I took to MuseCon. On Sunday we went to Menard's and got a couple more toolboxes - to put tools for teaching classes in. One for sewing tools for classes for me, and one for Ron, since he plans on teaching a class on tooling leather.

MuseCon Report, Otter-Ish

We survived MuseCon. We are tired. It was fun.

I considered emptying the big yellow road case and just packing everything into that, but didn’t. Between personal stuff, with a few extra clothes for changes for Ron and I, even more clothes for Robin, our head of Logistics, dog paraphernalia, tools and materials for leather classes, camera bags and tripods for Ron’s photography class, it felt like moving an army. Add to that all the blinkie stuff, both the trailer and car were not exactly empty.

I got compliments on signage, and IIRC the book. A major bug was found in the book, in the form of one page being lost and another repeated in its place. I didn’t find out about it until Sunday morning, because I’d been mostly looking at my PDF copy. OTOH, since the PDF was generated from the file I sent to the printer, it was a bug on their end, not my fault. And we did not run out of books (a real fear), but IIRC fewer than 20 came home with me. I’d given Registration, who had a big printer, the PDF to make more not-quite-so-pretty copies in case of running out, so we had that covered if it had happened.

After I sent the room schedule signs to the printer, I realized I should have put “MuseCon” on all of them, and on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning (too late to do it, since the dogs and I joined Ron and Robin at the hotel in the early afternoon Thursday) I thought ofmaking “MuseCon” signs for the top of the gridwall sign kiosks. Friday and part of Saturday we shared the second floor with “Lutherans for Life”. Several of the LfL people asked what MuseCon was all about, so for next year the plan is, besides making the tweaks to signage that I thought of too late this year, to make a poster/banner about “What is MuseCon?”.

The hands-on sewing class went well. 3 people did the belt pouch, 2 of which bought the tool kit. I had under-estimated how long it would take them to put the belt loop on, but one got her gusset glued in (and I think holes made) before she left for the evening, and the person who had not bought a tool kit finished hers Saturday or Sunday, using the set of tools (and binder clips!) I left in the workshop room. One of the people who did the keychain bought the extra tool kit I had, and a belt pouch kit. I’m mildly annoyed with FedEx/Kinko’s, they shrunk the belt pouch pattern. I had tested to make sure my printer could print it without having to shrink it to fit on the paper, then uploaded to the on-line order system. If I’d known I’d have printed them myself. Grumble.

Attendance at the class was not high, but we were up against the Tesla Coils. Also, although I got through the class cheerfully, I should not start a class at/past my bedtime (it started at 9:00 pm. No, I am no longer a night person). Also, I should not have the hands-on class before the discussion of tools and materials session. I’d wanted my class Friday or early Saturday in order to give people time to find us for help/finish if they didn’t buy their own tools, which did make sense. Anyway, it would have been better for the yakky-yakky session to be Friday, and run the hands-on Saturday morning.

I think my tools and materials discussion, which Ron joined me for, but mostly let me do, on Saturday went well. I’m waffling if I actually want to do it again next year.

We got some good suggestions at the feedback session. There was also a certain percentage that made me roll my eyes, but that’s normal.

Yesterday afternoon (Ron and I took Robin and the dogs home Sunday evening, but stayed Sunday night at the hotel, although we never did get to the pool), mostly to stay awake, we went out to the Tandy/Leather Factory store. I’d been thinking of something to do for smaller kids, as I’ve said the sewing class is for 10+, due to awl use; and Ron has been for a couple/few weeks thinking about doing a tooling class next year.

I found a couple kits on clearance: a ladybug coin purse, that just has to be sewn together, and a mystery braid snake bracelet. I think we’ll do the ladybug in my sewing class, and the snakes as mobile programming, or maybe as scheduled in the youth area. More to come later related to the snakes. I think I’ll also prep some key fobs, so kids that want to do those can go straight to the sewing part. I forgot the dye I actually needed to get.

Ron got some more tooling stamps, a second wooden block to keep them in, and another big slab of granite (12” x 24+”), which he didn’t exactly need, but I found looking like it was a good price and might need a new home.

After we got home Ron went through all his tooling tools, sorted them, and I made up a list in a spreadsheet as he read me information. I know we did that years ago, but have no idea where the file is now. We also pulled out most of the leatherworking books we have, and have asked Robin to straighten out the shelves we think the rest should be on, and keep an eye open for them. We’re pretty sure we already have the books in a book-cataloging database, so we’ll check to see if we can pull the data out before attacking and re-cataloging the pile.

I’d taken my iPad/knitting bag (the one I started ages ago) to MuseCon with me, so Saturday morning I took my handcart-o-tools-and-materials down to the workshop room and worked on it. I got the buckles on the front, which had kind of been a sticking point. I also got the front mostly sewn on. I had problems splitting down the strip for a rolled binding for the flap, I think in part the splitter blade needs sharpening, so it’s going to have a splice. Fortunately, the strips for the binding both feather out to nothing, so I’ll use those areas for the overlap/splice. But first I need to do the last couple inches on the front, attach the body to the back, and do any necessary trimming to the flap. But I’m back making progress!

More natter on my personal blog:
http://www.dracos-otter.com/otter_blog/?p=1119

Careening Closer to MuseCon

Today is Wednesday. Also Virtual Friday for me and Ron. And Virtual Saturday is tonight. AAARGH! Too much confusion!

Rewind, try again...

Today is August 1st. The MuseCon registration desk opens at 1:00 pm and the first programming sessions begin at 1:30 pm on August 3rd.

More baking for the Hospitality Suite last night. Monkey bread, with a piece of sharp cheddar cheese stuck into each piece of (non-sweet) dough. Today Robin is making a big batch of brownies, and tonight I'll make cookies, and some plain or brown sugar-cinnamon bread. I don't remember if I mentioned that we're using frozen balls of pizza dough from GFS for the bread. It seems to be working out fine, and lets me skip pretty much to shaping the dough for the final rise, then baking.

Last night I sent another batch of printing to FedEx/Kinko's. This morning, on the way to pick things up, I realized I'd forgotten signage for one important thing. Ron suggests that it can be in black-and-white, which would mean I could print it at home. I think he's probably correct there.

Also forgot the pickles for the Hospitality Suite when I was at the grocery store last night. D'oh! (the Hospitality Suite is partly stocked by donations at this point in MuseCon's life/size/budget).

The only thing left to do on the book cover and belt pouch parts is to buff the excess dye off the parts I dyed black last night. One of the print jobs I had done was the pattern sheet for the belt pouch (legal-size, which is why I didn't include it in the file for the directions).

Still need to cut key fob parts. And pack tools. And some extra leather would probably be wise.

Tomorrow morning Elrond goes to the vet for another bath. He's still faintly skunky if you get your face up near his. Evicting the carpet chunk that was at the foot of Ron's bed, having Ron wash the floor and the inside of Elrond's crate, and washing our bedding, including bedspreads, has helped the smell in our room. My main suspect was the carpet, which was pretty grungy before the skunk.

Not sure if there will be time for me to take the truck to DesPlaines to pick up one more piece of gridwall, or if one of the sign kiosks will be created using the quarter-round hanging bars. It'll work either way. Must remember to bring the zip-ties and zip-tie gun. And blue tape. And and and...

Ok, I think I'd better be done now. Can't brain, no think today. No, brain all MuseCon-ish. Whatever...

Instructions & Signage

Spent much of yesterday running around doing MuseCon-related errands. Much much running around. I also finished the instruction sets last night, exported to PDFs, and uploaded to FedEx/Kinko's for printing.

With both Ron and I missing the fact that the belt pouch instructions were entitled "Basic Hand-Stitched Book Cover". D'oh! I decided I'm not getting them re-printed, but I have corrected the InDesign and PDF files.

This morning started out with the excitement of a skunked dog, as nattered about on G+. I'm not sure if the house is finally aired out, or if I've only become inured to the smell. Anyway, the skunk smell did not exactly make for a pleasant working environment. And I'm getting pretty tired of the fan noise.

Got most of the signage done - although there may be some changes once Programming gets me any last updates in the next day or two. But I don't expect anything major. Also still need to do signage for the private music sessions.

Besides doing signage today I made bread for Con Suite, quiche for us, and lamb roast on top of spuds and onions for dinner, and did dishes. Several times.

The bread was actually easy - we bought balls of frozen pizza dough at GFS yesterday. Thawed three in the 'fridge, and today I flattened it out, spread it with cheese, rolled it up, let it rise, and baked. Then we ate one of the loaves for lunch. Oops. We had to test it, yeah, that's our excuse! It was good.

The quiche was also fairly easy - I used frozen pie crusts (annoyingly sweet, but easy), and pre-scrambled eggs, also from GFS. And shredding three kinds of cheese for the bread and quiche (why three kinds? Using up stuff in the 'fridge, of course) is easy with a food processor. So now we have breakfast/lunch food for this week.

Ron and Robin took the EZ-Ups and road cases out of the trailer, and built (and loaded into the trailer) a pseudo-dance-floor for the flamenco class - instead of one thick sheet of plywood it's two thinner sheets strategically cut for ease of transport, ready to be screwed back together.

And to finish up this rambling babbling natter, here's a picture of Pippin, in an appropriate pose:

(yes, that's Elrond butt in the lower right corner)

More MuseCon Madness

Yes, MuseCon is eating my life at the moment, why do you ask?

Finished formatting the belt pouch directions last night, including conversion of the pictures to black and white and dropping in the B&W versions. The pouch directions ended up being 5 pages, which vaguely offends me, as it leaves the whole back of one sheet of paper free. This, I realize, is a somewhat silly thing to be hung up about.

Later today I need to proofread the pouch directions, then tonight export all the directions, etc. to PDF, upload to FedEx/Kinko's, and get them printed. Yes, there are cheaper printers out there, but FedEx will do.

Not sure if I'll start work on the update insert sheet tonight, or not.

At some point tonight or early tomorrow morning the ability to order the sewing tool kit gets turned off, and probably tomorrow morning I'll run over to the Leather Factory store and pick up any additional sewing kits I need, +1 to be safe. Unless they don't have any in stock, in which case I have a backup ordering plan.

Still need to put holes in pouch parts and install the studs. Maybe we can do that tonight, since it's shouldn't be too hot. And dye the few things I need to dye black.

Signage this weekend.

For a while this morning there were questions and flurrying around about how to prevent a class being cancelled. Upon further investigation the issue turned out to be technical, and the Blinkie Overlords have been invoked to intercede with recalcitrant electronics.

Must keep writing, must keep writing...

Book cover directions done.

Keychain directions done.

Belt pouch directions

Hoo, boy. Yeah, these are much harder. I took the other directions, annotated the heck out of them, and drafted a bunch more verbiage. This evening I've been working on formatting (and some re-writing) them.

The directions for the book cover and the keychains each are two pages, with the whole thing pretty much running from beginning to end. For the belt pouch I've broken the general directions out - things like marking stitching lines, marking stitch locations, and how to sew. It turns out that I'm not going to be happy just referring to the Ron Ross tutorial for sewing instructions, I'm putting in my own, too.

I've gotten all the general instructions/discussion formatted, and the specific instructions for the belt loop. I've also done the discussion about cutting out if you're not working from the kit with pre-cut pieces.

Left to go is getting the gusset ready and sewn in. Which would be the end, but...

Yeah, I can't leave well enough alone. I've got alternate instructions for another way to do the gusset.

And currently I've dropped in the color pictures, so I need to go back and convert them to greyscale, so I can just print the instructions black and white. It isn't a hard task, it's just another thing to do. before I can stick a fork in it and call it done.

Hopefully I can finish the instructions tomorrow and Friday nights, leaving me Saturday and Sunday to do signage, update the grid for printing, and make the update sheet to hand out with the program book.

Tangible Accomplishments! And Some Intangible

I have actual accomplishments to report! Yay!

The MuseCon program book did get to the printer before my drop-dead deadline, and then a revised copy went off the next day when I realized I'd forgotten something important, but still before the drop-dead deadline. This is why the plan is not to wait until the drop-dead deadline to get things to the printer!

Will have to do an insert/update sheet. There's been some changes/additions to Programming, new staff, and a vendor added.

Ron and I cleaned up some more vintage travel posters/labels for use as room schedule signs. I have to go through and decide which ones I'm going to re-use, and which new ones I'm going to use.

Saturday I cut out a bunch of the pouches for our leatherworking class. I've decided I'm going to lay out the piles of parts and tell the people to pick the colors they like, they can mix and match. I have several times as many pouches as we have pre-registrations for, but Ron pointed out that I can sew them up and sell them. I do still need to put the studs on the fronts and punch the slotted holes in the flaps, but that's only an evening's work.

Yesterday I cut out book covers. I need to dye a couple black, and then those are ready to go. Nobody has pre-registered to do a book cover, but see above on finishing/selling.

Yesterday I also cleaned up the dining room a bit, mostly gathering up all the junk/scraps that had piled up on the floor. It made a difference, though.

Saturday and yesterday I worked on formatting for print a hand-sewing tutorial another leatherworker, Ron Ross, has on his website, and has made available for others to use.

I've gotten a first draft of the instructions for the book covers done, and added all the I can think of that someone might need to the pouch pattern. Writing instructions is hard - I don't have instructions for any of my own stuff, just a pile of patterns, which have various cryptic markings that probably wouldn't make sense to most people. I started with the book cover instructions because I figured it would be easier to write than the pouch.

Ron asked if I was going to do written instructions for the keychains. I hadn't planned to (didn't have any when I did the class last year), but he has a point that it would mostly be just edits to the book cover instructions. So I might as well.

Supposed to be disgustingly hot again today, so I'll probably retreat to the bedroom tonight and work on instructions - coming up with words is more amenable to my smaller laptop screen than working on signage, which I really like the two big monitors for.

That reminds me, a week-ish ago Robin got Ron's slightly smaller LCD monitor, to replace his almost-dead monitor, and Ron got a new monitor, which is the same size as the iMac display, and which also has better color capacity (the old one isn't awful, but it did not match the iMac). Wow, lots of screen real estate!

I let Pippin into the dining room this weekend while working out there. At first he was very interested in the dog-food bins, but he's apparently decided he won't be able to get into them. He's mostly ignored the leather on the floor, but approves of the dog beds I had evicted in the kitchen. I still don't entirely trust him (and need to put the gate back up in the doorway), but am cautiously optimistic that he won't be worse than any of the other dogs.

Status Report

As you may have surmised, the weekend wasn't exactly as productive as it could have been, although the MuseCon program book did provide distraction on Friday.

The program book is thiiiis for from being done.

I think I created the 2013 ad on Sunday morning, after finally getting the Dover image book/CD I was waiting for, in Saturday's mail.

Sunday Ron made the artwork for the cover and T-shirts. Last night I put in all the proofreading edits Betsey, Xap, and I had found. I also decided that I'm not afraid of white space, the one or two spots where I maybe could drop in filler art could just stay white.

Tonight I'll export print-quality PDFs from InDesign, and then create the ID packages, which include all the fonts and images used in predictable locations, and upload to the printer.

Did do a little bit of leatherworking on Sunday, making a new collar for Pippin.

Still haven't heard back from the fall gaming convention at CoD. At this point I'm not holding my breath.

I'll probably slack off the rest of this week, but then I need to start working on schedule signage for the MuseCon programming rooms. I plan on doing 11" x 17" color signs, one per day per room, again. I need to look at what posters, etc. we've cleaned up (and removed words from) since last year, and decide what I want to use for each room.

Not a Replacement, but...

This is Pippin. He's about 35 lbs, appears to be a small Siberian Husky, or big Alaskan Klee Kai. He's 4, has one blue eye and one brown. He also is on meds for epilepsy.

 

I think Eowyn would approve, huskies don't like to be only dogs.

On the way home he was going to taste his leash, and he's attempted to help himself to one of the chunks of shearling we use for dusting the TV screen. The gate is up to keep him out of the dining room for now, we'll have to work on teaching him that leather is not for dogs.

 

Goodbye, Eowyn

Eowyn went for one last ride yesterday, with a stop for a McMuffin. Needless to say, much unhappiness.

Program Book Death March

In today's episode of The Program Book Death March:

The Grid. Formatted, squished, squeezed, squashed, and put in the book.

Grid construction interrupted by unexpected Drobo shutdown. Hopefully it was just bitching about the heat, not on a death march itself. Only minor work lost, continued from laptop's local drive.

Note to self: synch machines when venture downstairs again.

Icons put with each programming item description.

Item numbers assigned, put in grid, and scribbled on paper copy of description section.

Butt tired.

Artwork things discussed.

Not done:

Proofreading.

Fix Special Guests page.

Covers/2013 ad/hotel map.

Compared to some books, this death march isn't actually too deathly. Sunday I didn't start until the afternoon,I've quit at reasonable times every day, and I ignored the text Monday and Tuesday (actually necessary for proofreading). And I think I may be done for today.

Progressive Progress

Heard back about the SCA event. Some bad news - have to be packed up and out Saturday night (by, IIRC, 11 pm? Or was that when the room closes?), so I'll have to pack up and pack the trailer solo, since I expect Ron (and Robin) to be busy with concerts, etc. Saturday night at Windy. But I'll manage.

The people/company that are in charge of the gaming convention to be held at the College of DuPage in the fall still have not responded to my e-mail, or the voice mail message I left them on Friday. This is not encouraging.

Spent most of the day Saturday working on the MuseCon program book, getting the Programming descriptions into their final format and into place in the book. Spent about half of yesterday doing the first proofreading pass. The book isn't done, but I declared it ready for proofreading by others.

This week I need to proofread some more, do the grid, decide on and drop in filler art, and put the icons in for each Programming item, and create the cover.

The biggest job is the grid. I always face a question with programming grids - bring the Excel spreadsheet into InDesign and re-format that six ways to Sunday, or start from scratch. Putting the icons with the various class/workshop/panel descriptions is just lots of copy-pasting. Tedious, but simple.

For the covers I'm having issues with art for the front cover and back-cover ad for next year. Today I formulated and took steps toward a backup plan for the art for the 2013 ad. Considering options for the front cover. The inside covers are the hotel map, which is pretty much copied from previous years, and the Capricon ad, which I have.

I may take tonight off, since I figure I'll probably spend most of Wednesday working on the grid. No, not a fun and exciting way to spend Independence Day, but it's also a job I can do in the air-conditioning. May also go see Brave, on Wednesday or one of these evenings, since we didn't get out to see it this weekend.

So, that was the weekend.

Status Report & Design Rantage

First off, thank you ever so much, Google, for "no longer supporting" Opera, so not all features may be operate correctly. "Please try Chrome". Grumble.

I've made progress on the MuseCon program book, the plan is to not sleep in too late tomorrow and Sunday and work on it in the mornings, hopefully before it gets too hot, on the desktop machine. I'd like to get it done enough for proofreading this weekend.

Still haven't installed InDesign on my laptop, nor worked on the books.

Have made some progress on hand-sewing garb.

Which brings me to the Rant of the Day...

Earlier this week I was looking at reviews of Reconstructing History patterns, trying to decide if I was going to purchase one. One of the reviews said, paraphrasing from memory, that the reviewer would never buy/trust a Reconstructing History pattern because they are drawn on a computer. No supporting arguments, just that, as I understood it, computer-drawn patterns are Bad.

What the ever-loving ****?!?

I fail to comprehend. To me that's as stupid as saying that a pattern is no good because the person who drew it likes rutabagas. Totally irrelevant!

Pencil and paper is not inherently better, or worse, than a computer drawing program. They are tools. You can produce an excellent pattern, or a festering pile uselessness, with either one. I should know, I've produced both types of patterns using both methods.

Now, if the reviewer had said something like "as far as I can tell the pattern was drawn and published without testing" or "sizes other than X appear to be created by just increasing/decreasing all pieces by some percentage", I could have grokeed it. But not the case.

I also suspect that the reviewer was an anti-pattern-use draping-only snob in general. Which leads us to the rest of my rantage:

Anti-pattern snobbery: In looking at the reviews, I read a number that said, it essence, that everybody should learn draping because that's what all Victorian/Edwardian seamstresses did all the time and never ever ever used those nasty awful paper patterns. (most of the reviews were for Victorian- & Edwardian-era patterns).

Excuse me while I hack up a hairball.

I admit I haven't done extensive research, but I read. A lot. And over and over again in fiction I see references to Mother or the town seamstress using her paper patterns. Or borrowing a pattern for a dress from Mrs. So-and-so. Not draping, using patterns.

No, you couldn't go down to the dry goods store and go through the pattern books and pick out a commercial pattern in 3 different sizes in one envelope. Yes, the originals Ma Ingalls was using may have been created by draping. Or her "dressmakers' chart" Or maybe by altering/adapting/tracing an existing garment. Then they took that basic/simple draped-or-whatever pattern, traced it, and adapted the hell out of it to make new dresses and reflect the new styles - they didn't re-drape for every new outfit.

So, pattern snobs, kindly take your snobbery and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine. Yes, knowing how to adapt a basic pattern is a necessary skill for making fitted clothing, but there's nothing wrong with starting from a pattern someone else has drawn.

I did decide to buy the Reconstructing History pattern. It's for Japanese men's clothing, which I think I have figured out how to make already, so if I don't like the pattern, it won't make me crazy, and I'll know for myself if I like RH patterns - reviews seem to be either love them or hate them.

Quiet Weekend

Otter Necessities-wise it was a quiet, lazy weekend. I was feeling a bit guilty about that, but Ron says I needed a break.

I did a bit of work on the MuseCon program book, but mostly I sewed. Which I suppose is related to Otter Necessities, as the sewing was garb for SCA events/costuming for conventions. Full natter over on my personal blog.

I also did some cleanup work in the dining room. I put away the new latches I got last week (re-stocking or adding the same design in antique nickel finish), now I need to get more little red bins to sort hardware the drawers in the workshop. Most of the cleanup was coralling the C-clamps which were trying to take over all the available floor space, and picking up scraps and other junk.

I realized after I last posted that it had actually been a couple of weeks since I'd heard from the person I'd e-mailed about the SCA event the same weekend as WindyCon, so e-mailed a gentle nudge. Debating how much longer to make it a more poky nudge, copying the person that was mentioned as the informational hold-up.

Haven't heard back from the fall gaming convention at CoD, either.

Yes, I know it's only the end of June, but this is really not too early for scheduling fall events. The initial deadline for WindyCon dealer apps was June 1 (everybody in by June 1 got equal consideration for tables. Apps received after get tables or wait-listed first-come/first-served).

Although I hauled paperwork up to the bedroom and sorted it last week, I still haven't done much with it. I'll probably tackle that later this week on my laptop, when it gets hot and we retreat to the air-conditioning.

While the weather is still comfortable I'll work on the MuseCon program book on the desktop machine, with lots of screen real estate. While I'm at it I should install the latest version of InDesign on my laptop, so I can work on the book on it if necessary.

Post-Event Natter & More

We figured out why I forgot the hole punches Saturday. They were in our bedroom, not the workroom. I didn't see them and apparently wasn't smart enough to remember them all by myself.

We did sell belts on Saturday - the ratio of pouches to belts was 3/2, which isn't bad. Fortunately, the person that bought a buckled belt didn't need holes in it (for someone else).

Stayed home this morning with an unhappy tummy.

Spent much of the morning poking at the Programming descriptions for the MuseCon book. They're not actually in the book yet, I'll do that once I get the last round of updates. But I have the text formatted, and did some proofreading.

Some time afternoon I decided it was time to retreat to the air conditioning, and started gathering Otter paperwork that needed to be sorted and the books caught up. Then I needed to scan some receipts. Then print out some records from Etsy, etc.

By which time it was 3:00, and the magnetic/sleepy field of the bed called to me. Zzzzzzz.

I have gotten paperwork sorted, but I forgot to bring up binder clips when I went downstairs to eat dinner, drat.

Ron, the dogs, and I are back in the comfortable room. Air-conditioning is good. At least I had the sense to go to the grocery store, in the car without AC, this morning while it was still not too hot.

E-mailed a fall gaming convention that's held at College of DuPage to see if they have their vendor information ready yet. Still waiting on a response from the SCA event that's the same weekend as WindyCon; the merchant person was waiting on an answer to a question from someone else last I heard.

A Better Event

What a difference an event site can make! Ragnarok Rampage was much better than Border Skirmish, and I think that's in large part due to the site.

Plowmen's Park is a nice little fairgrounds, so nothing was a long hike away from anything else (including indoor plumbing in relation to merchants). Merchants were, as in past years, on a main runway that went past the feast hall, pavillion where the silent auction and some classes were held, the camping area, the archery field, and the parking lot. Fencing and heavy fighting were over on the other side of the pavillion. The camping/merchant area has lots of big shady trees, which is also nice, both for us and customers.

Plowmen's Park is also only an hour and a few minutes from home. Close is good.

The weather wasn't quite as hot as the previous weekend, or else the shade and temperature effect of lots of trees was making it more comfortable. There was a breeze, but not enough to blow things away, and not nearly as much dust. All in all we were much more comfortable.

We did think it was going to be another flop sales-wise, but things picked up mid-afternoon and it turn out to be a decent day. But even when we were looking at lousy sales, it was less discouraging, just because we were more comfortable.

I think there were fewer people than were at Border Skirmish, which was a consolation when contemplating sales in the early part of the day. But, I felt like almost all of them walked by at some point, which I did not feel like at Border Skirmish, and that's part of why we did do better.

We did go out for more groceries Friday evening, and ended up with extra food, water, and Gatorade. We'd also put lots of ice in the cooler, so perishable leftovers were no big deal.

I did screw up and forget the hole punches when I was packing the tools up. I don't know how I managed that. Fortunately, it didn't turn out to be a big problem. I was going to work on my new bag, but I decided the leather strips I brought for buckles were thicker than I wanted to use. Ron and Xap got some belts braided, which just need to have rings riveted on - since we didn't have hole punches to make the holes for the rivets.

We stopped at a Cracker Barrell for dinner, and ran into the biggest annoyance, for me, of the day - too much black pepper in the roast beef/pot roast. I don't mind pepper, but this was ridiculous. And I was tired enough that I forgot to say something when I paid the bill (not to get the bill reduced, just to let management know).

Got home, Robin brought the cooler in, I bought an EP set of four songs by a group called "Red Hot Chilli Pipers" that a lady had recommended (rock and roll pipes and drums, Robin wants more, thankyouverymuch), unloaded the cooler, showers, and bed.

Yesterday we were almost but not quite slugs. We did go to the MuseCon meeting where other ConCom members helped with ideas for book cover/shirt art for both this year and next. during and after the meeting I worked on finishing a pair of kilt hose for Ron, and then wound the next batch of yarn.

More to Do...

I'm glad I looked at the website again for the event tomorrow. The lunch entrees are roasted chicken legs and mac & cheese.

Ron doesn't like chicken (or any other meat) that involves dealing with bones, and the lactose intolerance thing is not a happy pairing with mac & cheese.

Looks like we'll be going back to the grocery store tonight. And definitely taking the big white cooler . . .