Waaaay back in July, I was interviewed while at Azkatraz. Aziza managed to track down the clip that was aired in San Francisco just today!

Late in reviewing, since we had to transition into a very busy weekend right after K and I got home from Azkatraz. To sum up: OMGSOFUN!

Thursday morning, we got up at an ungodly hour to catch our flight to SFO. We met up with keytothecage andparadisetome at the BART station before heading to the Parc55. Once there, we stowed our bags in the staff room and got to work. K and I spent most of the day volunteering in registration. It was a great place to be, as we saw loads of happy, excited faces coming into the room. Later on that evening, we helped to pass out swag at the line party and got into a really heated tug-a-war over my Hufflepuff scarf. It ended with her deciding to buy her own the next day. The movie was fun, although I ended up having to walk another staff member back to the hotel (wasn't going to let her walk by herself that late at night!), so I missed all of Lavender's shenanigans. After the movie, we stumbled back to the hotel with the rest of the crowd and fell into bed about 2AM.

Fortunately, Friday morning we didn't have to be up too early - K, Sarah, and ZZ all slept in, while I was up early (about 8). We had grabbed some muffins and fruit at Bristol farms the afternoon before to eat for breakfast, so I wandered off downstairs while everyone else snoozed. After dropping off my quilt in the gallery, assembling the stand, and checking in on K, who was finally awake, we spent the rest of the day volunteering in various capacities. I ended up making an unexpected trip down to Golden Gate park to make a delivery for the Quidditch games, K worked registration and security, and I helped at the merchandise table before it was time to head down for the Wrock around the Rock cruise. We both had a fantastic time just hanging out on the 3rd deck, and I managed to take some pretty-decent looking pictures of the fog rolling in over the Bay Area. By the last hour of the cruise, K was dozing off at her seat, and since I needed to help with clearing the boat after docking, she headed back to the hotel with pinkfinity, Aaron, gwendolyngrace and etakyma. Thanks guys, for keeping an eye out for her!

Saturday, Az officially kicked off - the food at the Welcoming Feast was fantastic, especially the Tofu/Egglant/Brown Rice vegetarian dish. I only got to try 3 different types of cheesecakes. We only managed to make it to one programming session - "Shut up and Rewrite" this day, since we were both volunteering in various places, but we did have the Merlin's Circle reception and Dessert with Chris Rankin that evening. We failed at the mingling thing, but K successfully downed 3 butterbeers in less than an hour and was super-hyper thanks to all of the sugar. I do think our table managed to be the loudest group of cackling fans, so that was a win. Dessert was fun as well, although our table was a bit on the quiet side once Chris joined us. I think we were all just plain tired.

After the Convict Theater breakfast Sunday morning, I dragged K off to see Henry Jenkin's presentation on "Learning From and Through Fandom". I found it to be fascinating, especially given my career and my attempts at sneaking in fanfic-like assignments to my students who take creative writing, but K was not really impressed. She was tired, and ended up retreating to our room to watch POA for a good chunk of the day. Eddie Newquist's keynote luncheon was terrific, and we're hoping that the museum exhibit ends up in LA at some point - I can't really see us taking a trip to go see it all the way in Boston. We played Jail and Bail a couple times through the evening, with K being arrested for "Being a Helpful Hufflepuff" and me being arrested for "Being a Mom" and "Using t-shirts as blankets without a license" (I was watching the Merch table during some downtime and was freezing my ass off). I drabbled my way out of one of those by writing Snape/Trelawney (eww), and paid the other time. K, sadly, did not want to participate. The Fashion Show was amazing, and the ball was enjoyable. But we were tired, and went to bed before midnight. The fatigue was creeping up on us both!

Monday morning, we stumbled out of bed to go see Susan Gunelius' keynote breakfast, which was fascinating. K went back to our room after this for a while, before going to one of the writing panels (can't remember which one it was). We grabbed some lunch later on while I prepped for my roundtable on parenting in fandom. The roundtable went very well - there were only about 15 people in, all but two of them were parents, but we had a very enjoyable discussion. Because it was such a small crowd, I got over my aversion to mikes, so hopefully the recording of the discussion came out well. We'll see when it comes out on the CD-Rom. Right after my session, I headed over to "Teaching and Learning through HP". The workshop opened up with a very fun activity that can be used in the classroom - The Sorting House refuses to Sort and you as the Heads of Houses and Headmaster have to come up with an alternative. 1) What would the criteria for sorting be and 2) How would you inform the public. I talked with Cathy and Becky (the presenters) afterwards, saying that I'd be interested in talking more with them about how I use HP in alternative ed. Unfortunately, because of the timing of my roundtable and the Teaching and Learning panel, I never made it over to Zeum for the MPA, something I really regret. I stuck to my word and only bought one thing at the auction - the "Leaving Gringotts" watercolor, and watch the fun of other people bidding on stuff I really wanted. I was thrilled to discover that Gwen won my quilt, and I hope she enjoys it. :)

By Tuesday, we were all feeling tired and emotional, and thinking about cleanup. It's hard saying goodbye, even though I know we'll see everyone again next year. Once a year is simply not enough. At this point, my memory has failed me, as the last two days went in a blur. But I leave you with my pictures:


( Slideshow )

I miss everyone terribly, and I'm suffering a bit from post-con depression now. The best solution? Throw myself into working on HPEF and Infinitus.

Finally all done! Piecing, quilting, binding, everything. Since it's going into the Azkatraz Art Gallery and also into the auction, I thought I'd show a better picture and share a little bit about how it was made.

The Hogwarts House Crest Fabric came from a couple of different places. I received some of the fabric from here_be_dragons a few years back - they were originally curtains in her guest room. Since the whole idea of quilting came from the idea of using every single scrap of fabric available, I didn't think it a bad thing to recycle/reuse. Don't worry, they've been washed! ;) The rest of the Crest fabric I purchased off of eBay in small batches. Everything else came from my own personal stash of fabric. I bought about 1 yard of various blues to use, since I was lacking the correct shades, but the rest of the colors I had various sized pieces.

The blocks are a variation of the traditional Log Cabin pattern, except with a half-square triangle of the Crest fabric. The blocks were paper-pieced, and the sashing cut from a solid blue fabric that also serves as the binding. The quilt's backing is the Crest fabric, and I used 100% cotton Warm and Natural batting. It's quilted in a "stitch-in-the-ditch" pattern, simple squares. The quilt is sofa-sized, 64 inches by 48 inches.

( Clicky for pictures of finished product )I'm making a quilt stand out of PVC pipe using these directions, something that's new to me. I've already smashed my thumb while buying the supplies, so hopefully I'll have better luck when I bring out the hacksaw tomorrow to cut the pieces to length, heh.

This year Azkatraz will be hosting the Convict Theater Vid Show, a special event featuring vidders in the Harry Potter fandom. The show will be presented twice during the convention: once Sunday during breakfast and again Monday afternoon at ZEUM in the theater. Submissions for the show are due July 1, 2009 and must comply with the rules set forth below.

Rules for the Convict Theater
1. Vids must be Harry Potter themed
2. Vids must be 1-6 minutes in length
3. Encoded using a codec in the Combined Community Codec Pack
4. Resolution must be 720 X 480
5. Encoded at 5500-6500 kpbs bitrate
6. Vids shown on Monday must be R-rated or under, but the vids with ratings above PG-15 will not be shown during breakfast on Sunday

How to Submit a Vid
Please email submissions to vids@hp2009.org including...
1. Your vidder name
2. Vid title
3. Vid rating
4. A link to your vid using MegaUpload, SendSpace or another similar service
5. Any other comments or clarifications about your vid

Please note that you do not have to attend the conference to submit a vid. Your vid does also not have to be "new" or specially made for the conference. As long as it's Harry Potter, we wanna see it!

1. I've been freezing all day long. I know I'm a weather wimp and y'all in the midwest or northeast are just shaking your heads, but to me, 50 degrees is COLD.

2. I am in love with this little pan. It's perfect for cooking my breakfast, and it doesn't take up much room in the dishwasher. Best $7 I spent all week.

3. Azkatraz announces WROCK AROUND THE ROCK. This is going to be great fun and I'll be buying my ticket as soon as I get paid at the end of the month.

Text zoinked from azkatraz

Are you planning to buy a copy or twelve of The Tales of Beedle the Bard this holiday season? Wait! Be sure you get your Beedle from a Barnes & Noble store between Thursday, December 4th (the release day for the new book by JK Rowling!) and Wednesday, December 10th using the HPEF Bookfair voucher. In fact, make all your holiday book, CD, and DVD purchases during the Bookfair dates! Every B&N purchase made then and using the voucher or the HPEF number of 352096 will have a portion of the proceeds donated back to HPEF to continue our literacy endeavors.

So how can you help? Go to any Barnes & Noble from December 4-10, 2008. Shop in the store for anything, that's right, ANYTHING.* Take all your items to the cashier, and give them the voucher or Bookfair number before you pay. After you've made your purchase, take your items home, and know that you just helped HPEF. And if your B&N has a Café, use the voucher for those lattes and scones you get. Every penny helps.

You can double your giving. Every B&N has a Holiday Book Drive. When you come into your store, select a book to purchase and donate to their Book Drive recipient and use the Bookfair voucher. One purchase helps HPEF and a child in your community. See a bookseller in your local store for details.

It's really that easy. Every single purchase you make during our Bookfair helps. It's your gift to us without having to worry about what's on our wish list. Make the gift even better by forwarding this email and information on to everyone you know…family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, other HP fans, and anyone else you can think of. You don't have to be a part of HPEF to make a beneficial Bookfair purchase, and you don't have to buy just HP titles. Anyone can buy anything to help. It's such an easy way to help in these tough economic times.

Want to know more? Need a voucher? Visit our page here for further details and a full FAQ. In advance, thank you for your support, and a very safe and happy holiday season to you and yours.

*****

I bought my reading copy of Beedle this afternoon, as well as Paul of Dune and I ordered Victory of Eagles since they were out of stock - all count towards the HPEF bookfair, and I get a few books out of it. :D

Gacked from azkatraz:

HPEF is celebrating Black Friday and CyberMonday for the first time!

You can save ten dollars on your new AZKATRAZ registration (full registration, MPA or Merlin's Circle only), *or* on an upgrade from any lower-level registration (single-day or full registration) to a higher-level registration. This discount will last from a minute after midnight on Friday, November 28, 2008 (Eastern Standard Time) until 11:59 PM on Monday, December 1, 2008 (Eastern Standard Time).

To qualify for the savings, register or modify your registration this weekend and use the coupon code CYBRWKND when you check out. This offer can only be used for registrations paid by a credit card or PayPal. Payment must be recieved by 11:59 PM on Monday, December 1, 2008 (Eastern Standard Time).

Purchase a new registration for yourself or a friend, add the Masters of Potter Administration (MPA) session, or upgrade to a Merlin's Circle registration and save.

Also, anyone who registers during the CYBRWKND sale period will receive a shiny AZKATRAZ keychain, which can also be used as an inventive Christmas tree ornament.


Click here to register, and happy shopping!

edited to fix my sucky html

The price for a Portus registration is going up on Friday, so don't forget to register before midnight EST on Thursday to get the current price of $200!

For Immediate Release


While millions of readers worldwide are about to read the final chapters of Harry Potter’s epic story, HP Education Fanon, Inc. (HPEF) is looking to his—and our—next adventure.

The end of the Harry Potter series is only the beginning of an infinite number of possibilities for the fandom.

Therefore, HPEF is proud to announce “Infinitus 2010,” a Harry Potter conference to take place July 15-18 2010 in Orlando, Florida – home to the all-new “World of Harry Potter” attraction at Universal Orlando Resort.

Hotel, Registration rates, and additional event information are forthcoming. As always, registrants can expect our high commitment to strong and diverse formal and informal programming on topics from Alchemy to Zoology and every subject in between. The conference agenda will also include at least one event at the “World of Harry Potter” theme park, allowing our attendees to explore and immerse themselves in the Wizarding World as never before.

HPEF is also pleased to endorse a team of organizers with a firm background in our conferences and event philosophy. Infinitus’ Minister of Magic, Kari Phillips, is the Head of Wizard Talent for Prophecy 2007, and is serving as Chair of Informal Programming for Portus 2008 as well. Her department heads include Jennifer Clack, who worked diligently on Informal Programming for Lumos, is part of the amazing Prophecy team, and is also part of the Portus team; Kristin Coleman, Meet-&-Greet veteran from Lumos, Prophecy, and Portus; and experienced Security Chief Aziza Aba Butain. These ladies and many other experienced volunteers, along with talented new blood, will continue our record of high-quality, magical events for scholars and fans.

The Board of Directors of HPEF looks forward to seeing what the next three years of fandom will bring. We look forward to the myriad activities, studies, communities, and projects that fandom has to offer. We look forward to Infinitus.

Two quick bits of Portus news:

1. The Call for Proposals is now up on the website! Go on and take a look. You know you want to submit a proposal. ;)

2. For those of you who will be in the Dallas area for the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, come join Portus staff at the Barnes & Noble in Arlington, TX for the Midnight Magic party. For more information, please click here.

Aaaand, one bit of Prophecy news: Stuff that Prophecy Attendees need to know.