Making plans: 2013Q4, 2014Q1, 2014Q3
My attempts to get a room for DragonCon 2014 were a bust thanks to Passkey. Passkey is a group hotel booking tool used by a number of hotels & events. Unfortunately, it suffers much the same scaling issues as healthcare.gov. After getting all the way to the confirmation page, it throws a DB error and I'm left with no reservation. $%&#! Repeat that about five times and that was the experience of trying to book rooms at the Marriott and Hyatt. We'll see if I manage to find a place to stay, after all, I still have about 10 months to do so!
I'm still thinking about FC... Logistics would be be tricky, but the pieces are there. I'm budgeting about $1200 for such a trip, which is pretty much ready-to-go. The tricky bit is that FurCon immediately follows the company's annual all-hands meeting in Chicago. According to the boss, the company will pay for a flight to and from the meeting... which might be exploited to create a one-way to Bay Area by way of Chi-town. That then creates the awkward arrangement of me packing both a business suit and a fursuit for the trip. There are still some con rooms available to book, but they require a deposit. I'll likely have to hold off until "maybe" turns to "definitely".
Meanwhile, my Dad is planning a trip to see his Dad between Christmas and New Year's. I'm tagging along as it doubles as a convenient excuse to burn gobs of expiring PTO. (I really should take more days off during the year) I'll probably spend a chunk of that trip fixing my grandfather's computer.
With the family visit, company meeting, and Further Confusion, I'd effectively have three trips back-to-back-to-back. When it rains, it pours!
And I haven't forgotten about Megaplex either! They just haven't opened for registration or hotel bookings yet. :)
I'm still thinking about FC... Logistics would be be tricky, but the pieces are there. I'm budgeting about $1200 for such a trip, which is pretty much ready-to-go. The tricky bit is that FurCon immediately follows the company's annual all-hands meeting in Chicago. According to the boss, the company will pay for a flight to and from the meeting... which might be exploited to create a one-way to Bay Area by way of Chi-town. That then creates the awkward arrangement of me packing both a business suit and a fursuit for the trip. There are still some con rooms available to book, but they require a deposit. I'll likely have to hold off until "maybe" turns to "definitely".
Meanwhile, my Dad is planning a trip to see his Dad between Christmas and New Year's. I'm tagging along as it doubles as a convenient excuse to burn gobs of expiring PTO. (I really should take more days off during the year) I'll probably spend a chunk of that trip fixing my grandfather's computer.
With the family visit, company meeting, and Further Confusion, I'd effectively have three trips back-to-back-to-back. When it rains, it pours!
And I haven't forgotten about Megaplex either! They just haven't opened for registration or hotel bookings yet. :)