DragonCon was extremely fun as always this year, despite a number of annoying glitches. It’s definitely well worth the (relatively high) cost of attending, and we have already purchased our badges for next year.

High points

• Denise Crosby storming off the Star Trek: TNG panel after being repeatedly teased by Jonathan Frakes and the other cast members on the panel. From the sound of things, she does not appear to get along with the other cast members. Brent Spiner was hilarious as always, and all the actors (except Denise) were enjoyable to listen to.
• Despite having to watch Mai half the time, I made it to a number of panels in person, and was able to watch others on DCTV. Among my favorites:
  • The aforementioned TNG panel.
  • The Eureka panels were a blast. The actors love working together and it showed.
  • The “I Dream of Jeannie” reunion panel was interesting. The actors are old! (Not surprising for a show that aired about 40 years ago.) Barbara Eden still sounds exactly like she did on the show.
  • “Tips on Running an Anime Convention” was great as always. That panel had an amazing amount of experience  from conventions around the country.
  • Voice Actor panels are always fun to watch, but after a while they get a bit repetitive because (for the most part) the same set of voice actors come to the California conventions. The panel at DragonCon was interesting to me because it had mainly Atlanta-based voice actors who don’t come out to California for conventions very often, so I got to hear new stories and new voices.
• The many excellent costumes. No convention I’ve ever attended has come close to DragonCon for sheer variety, and many costumes were very clever (like Elfvish, the Elf Elvis). Although it seemed there were fewer people in costume this year, there were still a lot of great costumes to see and photograph.
• DragonCon Security and crowd control. They kept traffic moving without being too heavy-handed.
  • There were fewer photography restrictions than in previous years, and the ones that existed were very reasonable.
  • There were various restrictions issued (like shutting down the Hyatt/Marriott tunnel Sunday night), but they were understandable given the crowds. When you have 60,000 people in attendance, it is inevitable that there will be some idiots and jerks, but security appears to have done a good job at keeping a lid on things almost all of the time.
• The Georgia Aquarium private event itself was great. Mai loved looking at all the sea animals, and I got some good photos. Their cafeteria food was also very yummy, if a bit expensive.
• I don’t normally schedule shoots at DragonCon, but this year I had shoots with two different people, one of which I shot in three different outfits. They were great to shoot with, and we were even able to find some spots to shoot despite the crowds. I’ll be posting those photos soon.

Low points

• DragonCon always has crowds, and in the evenings, a lot of drunk people. This year, it seemed like the evening crowds were more drunk, and were carrying around more open cups of beer, than in previous years. Crowds and open containers of alcohol always make me nervous when I’m carrying my camera.
• The lack of Con security on the walkways. The Marriott/Hyatt walkway, especially, is long, and could have used a few security people to prevent traffic blockages, enforce the photo restrictions, and generally keep an eye out for people trying to start trouble.
• The convention was very spread out this year. Events were held in five hotels. The Hyatt, Marriott, and Hilton are within a block of each other, and are connected via tunnels, but the Westin and Sheraton were harder to reach. Given the sheer volume of events and attendees, I suppose this was inevitable, but I still miss the days when you could walk past every track room during the 30 minute between-panel break to see if anything looked interesting. The long distances also made me more reluctant to gamble on a panel if it was in a far-away hotel; if the panel turned out to be boring, I would have walked that far for nothing.
• Three years ago, the Marriot was under construction during Con; this year it was the Hyatt. With half the lobby gone or taken up by the relocated registration desk, moving around the lobby was a challenge. Fortunately, the core late-night photography / socialization area has shifted to the Marriott over the past two years, so it was less of an issue than it could have been. Still, the location of the entrance of the walkway to the Marriott relative to the escalators and bar made the Hyatt lobby very challenging to navigate.
• Some years, the DragonCon masquerade is the highlight of the convention; this was not one of those years. We watched it from our room on DCTV as we usually do to avoid the crowds, and were very glad we did. Among the issues:
  • The MCs were awful, especially Peter David. They made fun of the costumes, the contestants, and generally acted like jerks. Peter even let his daughter (who was on stage with him and looking very bored) take some swings at one of the contestants with a prop sword. We ended up muting the TV whenever the MCs were speaking. Next year, please bring back Anthony Daniels!
  • There were a few excellent costumes and two or three great skits, but on average the costumes and skits were nothing to write home about.
  • Many of the judges were apparently picked because they were famous, not because they were qualified to judge. This led to a second issue, where a previous winner entered a slightly modified version of a winning costume. The judges, being new, didn’t know that, and awarded a top prize to this repeat costume.
  • The stage lighting was a bit off, so a lot of contestants ended up with only their lower bodies illuminated during their skit. On top of that, DCTV’s camera was apparently set to auto-expose, causing most of the masquerade to appear very dark. (Hint: unless your backdrop is 18% gray, your camera or video camera will not correctly auto-expose things on a stage.

  DragonCon has been doing masquerades for a very long time; you’d think by now they’d know enough to avoid these amateur mistakes.

• Registration was a disaster again this year. In previous years, pre-reg badge pickup opened around 4pm on Day 0. This year, in an attempt to improve the wait, badge pickup opened around noon. This did help somewhat — when Caroline went to pick up our badges at 1pm, it only took her 3 hours to get her badge, and an additional hour to get mine. We heard that the wait got much worse later in the day. The good news is that DragonCon has announced they are moving to a bar code system for next year, which should help a lot. Simply eliminating the last-name-letter lines will make things go smoother. Still, this is only moving them from a mid-80s registration system to a late 90s registration system, though I suppose expecting them to move to a modern system similar to what’s used by other large conventions was too much to ask for.
• While the Georgia Aquarium event itself was a lot of fun, the logistics around it were not. The pickup location for the shuttle bus was confusing, causing people to line up in the wrong spot. There was only one shuttle bus in operation; coupled with the long and confusing lines, it was faster to walk the four blocks than to wait for a bus. The event also ended half an hour early, for no apparent reason. Mai was getting really tired at that point anyway, but other people might have wanted to stay for the full time listed on the ticket.
• AirTran was the worst airline Caroline and I have flown in a long time. Some of the many issues we had with them are:
  • At SFO, they had the wrong departure gate posted on the monitors the entire time, including while we were boarding.
  • At ATL, they had the wrong luggage carousel posted the entire time, even as the luggage arrived elsewhere.
  • The flight attendants would skip you during beverage service if you weren’t paying attention (e.g. talking to your neighbor), and would look annoyed when you asked for your drink.
  • The ATL check-in agents gave contradictory instructions, measured the luggage with a tape measure, and weighed it twice.

Overall, we had an excellent time, though, and are looking forward to next year, especially since Mai should be old enough for DragonCon Daycare.

I’m posting my videos from DragonCon to Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/ocwajbaum. Given the size of 1080p video files (and therefore the time it takes to upload them), it will likely be another week or two before they are all up.

I’m a bit behind on photo processing, so I probably won’t have many hallway photos posted from DragonCon for a few weeks.

I attended Anime Los Angeles (ALA) for the first time this year, and had an extremely fun time. It was by far the best small/medium convention I’ve attended in a long time, and I look forward to attending again next year.

Travel

Because the convention hotel is less than a mile from LAX, early on I made the decision to fly down instead of driving. I’ve always hated the long, boring drive down I-5, followed by fighting through LA traffic while navigating a maze of freeways, so flying seemed like a much better option. As the date got closer, though, I began to worry. The attempted Christmas-day attack and the sheer amount of camera/lighting gear I wanted to bring down started to worry me. Could I make it all fit? Would I spent hours trying to get through security?

When it came time to pack, I dragged out our biggest suitcase, and found that the lighting gear exactly fit in there, while leaving just enough extra space for clothes for me for four days. I also managed to (barely) fit all the camera gear I wanted into my rolling camera bag, including my brand-new Canon 70-200 f/4L IS USM lens that I had received a few days prior as a birthday present. After the issues flying to Dragon*Con, I remembered to pack items that security may flag (wrench, flash bracket, etc) into my checked suitcase.

Flying turned out to be pretty painless. All my bags went through x-ray once, I did not get pulled aside for a secondary screening, and nothing got stolen. My flight out to LAX was delayed, but so was the previous flight, so Southwest rebooked me without even being asked, and I ended up arriving earlier than my original flight. On the flight back, things went so smoothly I ended up waiting at the gate for two hours for my flight. This was my first time flying Southwest, and I was very happy with the experience.

Hotel

I took the free shuttle from LAX to the hotel. When I arrived at the hotel, check-in was painless, and then I took a look around. All the indoor areas had low, white-color ceilings, perfect for ceiling bounce flash. Ceiling bounce is my favorite way to soften my on-camera flash, and works great for hallway cosplay photography, but it’s frequently not an option. Fanime, for example, has 20+ foot high ceilings, making ceiling bounce impractical.

In addition to the lobby & convention areas, the hotel had a pool deck with lots of trees, a bridge, and a stream, and a separate patio area. This was great for shoots in the evenings after the photo room had closed.

Overall, the hotel was not too bad. It was a Marriott, which in my book ranks below Hyatt and Hilton, but I’ve seen so much worse. The staff were generally friendly and helpful (even though Hotel Security looked very nervous when surrounded by cosplayers). I did get pulled aside once the first night and asked by Security whether the convention had permission to be taking photos (I, of course, said yes), but that was very minor. The food in the hotel restaurants ranged from pretty good to excellent, but the service was awful. From getting orders wrong, to slow refills, to generally poor service, it was what I would expect at Denny’s, not at a business-class hotel. It was overpriced, too, but that’s expected for hotel restaurants.

Convention

I was extremely impressed with how well the convention was organized and run. I skipped the masquerade due to the long line & general exhaustion, so I can’t speak to that, but everything I did attend or participate in went well. There were some glitches, of course, but they were dealt with efficiently and with a minimum of fuss. Even registration, which is normally the bane of any convention, was very painless, and was immediately followed by ice cream for everyone who arrived Thursday evening, making for a great first impression.

It seems that other people were fairly happy too. At the end-of-convention “gripes”/how-can-we-do-better panel, a lot of valid suggestions were raised; however, they were, for the most part, relatively minor. I do not recall any complaints about major issues or disasters, and, somewhat unusually for this type of panel, there were a number of compliments.

Due to my photography schedule, I only attended one panel, on how not to run an Anime Convention. I was struck by how much running an Anime Convention is like running a small business/start-up. From the financial discipline, to the people management, to project management, the skills required are very similar. I think I ended up learning a bit on how to better run my business at that panel. The end of the panel also featured a hilarious story about cups, which I really regret not recording. Hopefully someone else who was recording will post the video soon.

Photography

Of course, what would a convention be without photography? I had several photography goals for ALA.

First, I wanted to exercise my new 70-200 lens as much as possible, to see if it works well for both hallway photography and shoots. I brought my 24-105, just in case it didn’t work out, but I never used it. In fact, since I didn’t go to the masquerade (and thus didn’t need my 100-300), the 70-200 was the only lens I used the entire convention. That did make some hallway large-group shot a bit awkward, but other than that I was incredibly happy with it. Wide-angle hallway shots generally do not look that great, and using this lens prevented me from making that mistake, forcibly improving my hallway photography.

Second, I wanted to test out my second PocketWizard receiver by doing two-flash shoots. With some help from Bekalou, Hellangel, and Blueskad00, I was able to accomplish this. I put the first flash in my softbox and put it on a light stand. I put the BigBounce on the second flash, and had one of my lighting assistants hold it in position. This worked out well because Bekalou was cosplaying different series from everyone else, so there was always someone not in the shot who could hold the second flash. The dual flash photos turned out beautifully; so much so it’s hard for me to look at the photos from my single-flash photoshoots. I look forward to more two-flash shoots in the future!

Finally, I wanted to get better at posing cosplayers. I think I did better than in the past — I provided more posing feedback and suggestions than at previous convention shoots — but I think I still have a lot of room to improve in this area.

ALA was also the first time I requested model releases from cosplayers in photoshoots. (I didn’t ask for model releases for hallway photos.) I chose a short, half-page model release, designed to be easy to read and not scary. I was pleasantly surprised that only one person expressed any serious concerns about it, and everyone signed it.

Wrap Up

I had a great time at the convention, in no small part due to the very fun people I sent time with. Many thanks to all the cosplayers who let me take their photos, and an especially big round of thanks to everyone who booked shoots with me ahead of time. Extra super giant thanks to Bekalou, Hellangel, Athena, and Blueskadoo, for holding flashes, helping me move my lighting gear, and generally helping out! I’m already looking forward to next year!

I attended LinuxWorld this year as a full conference attendee, thanks to a professional growth and development opportunity from my employer. Caroline and I took advantage of the fact that the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco was within half a mile of the San Francisco WorldMark resort, and drove up there the weekend before to do some site seeing. During LinuxWorld Caroline and Mai met me for lunch, and then after the day’s sessions were over we did more site seeing and found interesting restaurants for dinner.

I had three goals for this trip. First, have fun with Caroline and Mai in San Francisco. Second, pick up new technical skills and new ideas at LinuxWorld. Third, take lots of great photos around San Francisco, with a enough top-notch photos to put together a 12-month San Francisco-themed calendar. I think I succeeded at all three.

Caroline, Mai, and I walked around many beautiful places in San Francisco, ate at some delicious restaurants, and generally had a great time in the city. I’ll leave the specific restaurant reviews to Caroline (http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=c7j-0cX26jvSu5oa7HwnWw), but overall we loved almost every place we went to. We walked around the San Francisco side of the Golden Gate Bridge / Fort Point, Union Square, Chinatown, Japan Town, much of the waterfront, the Ferry Building, and much more. (Incidentally, I think I need to replace my sneakers after that much hiking in them.) Mai was very well behaved almost all the time, and we didn’t have any significant problems in any of the restaurants. She did get cold a couple of times — the temperature in SF in August hovers in the 50s and 60s, with a chill wind and fog. Caroline even admitted she had a good time.

LinuxWorld had a lot of interesting sessions. I think I chose a good mix of specific technical sessions (DRBD, Heartbeat, etc) and conceptual (virtualization options, system management, etc). Virtualization was definitely a hot topic, for good reason; while it adds a lot of complexity, on balance it can make IT’s job much easier if implemented well. (Of course, it can turn into a giant nightmare if it’s implemented without sufficient planning.) With RedHat and SUSE having separate conferences, a lot of the focus was on Ubuntu. Personally, I prefer RHEL/CentOS as my server OS, but it’s not like there’s that much difference at core between the distributions.

I won an iPod Touch 8GB from Rackspace for placing first place in their sysadmin challenge. My time was 8 minutes, which beat the #2 person by a respectable margin. (I think #2 was 12 or 14 minutes). The challenge seemed simple enough — Rackspace provided you a Linux VM and gave you a list of 4 simple tasks that you had to do in under 20 minutes. Of course, problems on the system prevented you from doing those tasks, so you had to fix the problems in order to complete the tasks. It was a pretty good breadth-of-knowledge test — each problem was simple if you’ve seen it before, and somewhat challenging to near impossible if you had no experience in that area of Linux sysadmin. I’ll have to remember this technique if I’m ever asked to interview sysadmins in the future.

The photography went well too. Right before the convention Palm unexpectedly sent me a bonus check for a patent application filing, which I used to buy the Sigma 50-150/2.8 lens I’ve been eying. In addition to that, I also brought my Sigma 18-50/2.8 and my Sigma 30/1.4. The 50-150 made a great walkabout lens on Saturday and Sunday; it helped me get some great birds-in-flight photos. The 30/1.4 was perfect walking around at night and in restaurants — I was able to get some great photos handheld in low light that wouldn’t have been possible without a tripod. Caroline’s patience with my photography bordered on saint-like, which gave me to the time to get most of the shots I wanted.

On the last night, at about 9pm, I filled my 16GB flash card (talk about good timing!), and ended up with about 1300 photos shot. We’ve started going through them, but it will be a little while till they get posted. I expect about 100-130 photos good enough to post online, and I’m pretty confident at least 12 will be good enough for a calendar.