The first day...
Well, I survived!
I wound up getting out the door pretty early, filled up the gas tank, grabbed some drinks and hit BK for some breakfast, then went to Matt's to grab him and Tim and then grabbed Pat at a midway point and made our way up to Reeths-Puffer.
We got there a half-hour early, which gave the others time to suck on some cancer sticks and give their greetings to the mosquitoes and then began investigating the job site...
Our boss showed up at 8am and after some brief greetings, we were shown how to install the two systems (drop-down screen with projector and the speaker system along with the smart-board projector.) Matt and Pat formed a team installing the sound and smartboard projector, and Tim and I took care of the screen and its projector. By the end of the day, we'd completed 2 rooms on our own and the half-room (the sound was already done) that we'd been trained in. If this was all of the work we'd have to worry about, I think we could probably do 4 or 5 rooms as a team of 4... However, there is an entire wiring harness that has to be installed in the ceilings as well, and there is a control cart that has to be installed/set-up as well. We should get the cables in tomorrow, and hopefully we'll be able to work it into our methods and still get the finished 3-4 rooms per day so that we can get things done in time.
The sad part for me was that even though the rooms were very hot and we were sweating like crazy... I didn't feel like I was stressing my body at all until we were cleaning up at the end of the day, where I started to feel a strain in my back and legs, even though I'd spent a lot of time balancing on ladders and holding-up awkward objects while they were installed.
So, yeah, I survived the first day. Tomorrow we may have new items (smart boards and wiring) to learn to install, but my hope is that we can find a good way of doing that and move quickly and do the 4-5 rooms! (hey, I can dream, right?) For now, I sit and hope my feet will stop swelling and hurting soon.
2 more weeks until Gen Con (at least for me.) I'll be arriving Monday night/Tuesday morning and I begin training on Tuesday/Wednesday. I look forward to helping Gen Con to be the best convention it can be, as well as getting that exhilarating sensation I get when I arrive and that more tremendous groove I get when I'm working. I love to watch the show go from empty hallways and virtually empty exhibit hall and grow into a busy, hot, crazy, living, breathing convention working for the exhibitors and the 30,000 attendees. There are hundreds of volunteers and staff members that work their butts off, and I enjoy being a part of that team. And then... there's the let-down as Sunday wraps up after 6pm and by 8pm, everything is packed up, the convention is over, the exhibitors are bustling around breaking down their booths and all that's really left is what's left behind for the Union guys to take care of in the morning... and there's this sort of feeling of a cleansing, but anticipation as I'm ready to head back to my normal life while wondering "where in the hell did those 7 days go?"
I wound up getting out the door pretty early, filled up the gas tank, grabbed some drinks and hit BK for some breakfast, then went to Matt's to grab him and Tim and then grabbed Pat at a midway point and made our way up to Reeths-Puffer.
We got there a half-hour early, which gave the others time to suck on some cancer sticks and give their greetings to the mosquitoes and then began investigating the job site...
Our boss showed up at 8am and after some brief greetings, we were shown how to install the two systems (drop-down screen with projector and the speaker system along with the smart-board projector.) Matt and Pat formed a team installing the sound and smartboard projector, and Tim and I took care of the screen and its projector. By the end of the day, we'd completed 2 rooms on our own and the half-room (the sound was already done) that we'd been trained in. If this was all of the work we'd have to worry about, I think we could probably do 4 or 5 rooms as a team of 4... However, there is an entire wiring harness that has to be installed in the ceilings as well, and there is a control cart that has to be installed/set-up as well. We should get the cables in tomorrow, and hopefully we'll be able to work it into our methods and still get the finished 3-4 rooms per day so that we can get things done in time.
The sad part for me was that even though the rooms were very hot and we were sweating like crazy... I didn't feel like I was stressing my body at all until we were cleaning up at the end of the day, where I started to feel a strain in my back and legs, even though I'd spent a lot of time balancing on ladders and holding-up awkward objects while they were installed.
So, yeah, I survived the first day. Tomorrow we may have new items (smart boards and wiring) to learn to install, but my hope is that we can find a good way of doing that and move quickly and do the 4-5 rooms! (hey, I can dream, right?) For now, I sit and hope my feet will stop swelling and hurting soon.
2 more weeks until Gen Con (at least for me.) I'll be arriving Monday night/Tuesday morning and I begin training on Tuesday/Wednesday. I look forward to helping Gen Con to be the best convention it can be, as well as getting that exhilarating sensation I get when I arrive and that more tremendous groove I get when I'm working. I love to watch the show go from empty hallways and virtually empty exhibit hall and grow into a busy, hot, crazy, living, breathing convention working for the exhibitors and the 30,000 attendees. There are hundreds of volunteers and staff members that work their butts off, and I enjoy being a part of that team. And then... there's the let-down as Sunday wraps up after 6pm and by 8pm, everything is packed up, the convention is over, the exhibitors are bustling around breaking down their booths and all that's really left is what's left behind for the Union guys to take care of in the morning... and there's this sort of feeling of a cleansing, but anticipation as I'm ready to head back to my normal life while wondering "where in the hell did those 7 days go?"