Walk Softly and Carry a Big Schtick

Speakeasy Party at Baycon 2013-05-26

2013-05-10T16:20:14Z

My friends and I are hosting a room party Sunday night at Baycon this Memorial Day weekend, with a "Speakeasy" theme. It's to support the KC in 2016 Worldcon Bid.

Are you going to be at this convention? Why not put on your '20s or '30s outfits and join us! If you're looking for inspiration, anything from Boardwalk Empire, Downton Abbey or The Great Gatsby will do fine.

We'll have food on sticks, and "tea" & "lemonade" drinks in teacups. Enjoy a gin and tonic, or a whisky and soda in a teacup. (We'll even serve you actual tea, or lemonade lemonade if you're not imbibing.)

The password is GOATS.

The year is 1926. The name of the place: Pendergast Cafe.

Cajun Pork Tacos (Experimental Recipe)

2013-05-01T05:08:11Z

I pulled out one of my 3 1/2 quart slow cookers, and bought 3 lbs. of boneless pork shoulder country strip to put in it along with half a cup of water and 2 TB of Tony Chachere's Creole* Seasoning Mix. Put it on high, we'll see if it's tasty tomorrow!

*(Tony C. was a Cajun but when he started marketing his seasoning mix, Cajun was still considered an insult so he labeled it Creole instead.)

EDIT: On my Foobcake post, Sandy Cohen suggests using the spices as a dry rub, and that on a low heat it probably won't burn even if I leave out the water, and maybe add some lime juice. I also think that I'll try 3 TB next time. 12 hours was plenty of time (about half of the time was low, half on high) to get it just about completely shredded.

March and April photos uploaded

2013-04-29T02:46:34Z

Photos visible on my website now include:

Taco Party at Anime Conji 2013, part 2

2013-04-18T20:40:39Z

Detailed notes and recipe links.

Small round 1.5 qt (Black), Soyrizo, 3 packages, divided. Need to use a larger size next time.
Small round 1.5 qt (Black), Cuban Black Beans, 2 cans. Need to use a larger size and fill it.
Small round 2 qt (White), Velveeta (2 lb.) and jar of salsa. If we ever do it again we need to stir it several times during the prep time. Better would be larger crock with nacho cheese sauce.
Medium oval 4.5 qt (Geoff's), Velveeta (2 lb.) and a can of chili. See above.
XL Oval 6 qt (silver), Carnitas, 9 lbs. of meat. Need more next time!
XL Oval 5.5 qt (black), Tex Mex Shredded Beef, 8 lbs.
XL Oblong 5 qt (white), Chicken, 8 lbs. This was too much meat, and the large amount of garlic powder and cumin actually caused it to cement together. Need to re-tool this recipe for large crockpots.
Large round 4.5 qt (blue), Ground Beef, 6 lb., using 3 packets of the Trader Joe's taco seasonings and 3 cans of diced tomatos.
Large round 4.5 qt (old blue), Chicken Mole, 7 lbs. of meat, 3 boxes of Rogelio Bueno brand Mole Poblano sauce. Probably should have used 2 boxes, and no more than 6 lbs. of cut-up chicken breasts. (Got a good price at "Sprouts" on the chicken.)
Large round 4.5 qt (green), Spicy Pork with Peanut Sauce, 3 lbs. of meat. Should have made a bigger batch, or just have lots of Carnitas on hand.
Medium round 3.5 qt (brown), BBQ Pork, 3 lbs. Used a bottle of barbecue sauce. It got too hot and melted through the slow cooker liner. I don't plan to repeat this next year.
Medium round 3.5 qt (orange), Teriyaki Chicken, 6 lbs. This was pushing the capacity of the pot, should have kept it to 5 lbs. Used the Kikkoman Teriyaki Sauce/Marinade. Might use a different sauce if I repeat this one.
Shredded lettuce/salad -- got two bags at Sprouts of mostly-lettuce.
Also got a bag of shredded carrots.
Sour cream, 2 pints. Could have used another.
Green onions (Scallions), chopped.
Onion, chopped.
Tortilla shells, corn, 12.
Tortillas, 6-inch flour "fajita size," 192. I was using a rough guide of 4 tacos per lb. of meat. Next time I want to try a ratio of 6 to 1.
Tortilla chips, big bag from Costco. When we ran out of tortillas, these were handy. We had three serving dishes, so generally only one ended up empty at a time.
Cheese, shredded, 3 lbs. Used one serving dish, should have had two.
Rice, one batch from a 2-lb. bag. Should have bought more rice, should have had two rice cookers going.
Salsa, jar from Trader Joe's. Perhaps have more than one bottle.
Tapatio hot sauce. Actually went through half a bottle!
Guacamole. About 4 or 5 packages of prepared guacamole. We served it in a dish, but perhaps we should have just served it directly from the package it came in. And we needed more.
Freeze-Dried Jalapeños. I saw a jar of these at Sprouts, and was surprised how popular they were.
Moon Pies, box of assorted mini. Could easily have gone through two boxes.
Limes, 4, cut in wedges. Probably could have gone through twice as many.
Oranges, cut in wedges. Not popular.

Things we forgot to serve: chopped tomato, cilantro.

Should have had signs outside the room explaining what they would find inside the room. You can come back in line for seconds. Due to limited space, we ask you to move outside with your tacos and coffee. Yes it's all free, sponsored by Animé Los Angeles and Costume Camp; tips are gratefully accepted. If we've run out of something let us know, we have more taco fillings to bring out later. We'll be closed from time to time for cleaning and re-stocking, please bear with us...

Taco Party at Anime Conji 2013 - Rough notes

2013-04-15T07:42:31Z

Preliminary notes: We gave away 264 stickers to people coming through the door. Typically the line outside the door was about 22 people deep, it didn't extend all the way to the end of the hall.

9 o'clock meats were: Carnitas* (shredded pork), "Shredded" chicken (a recipe that needs to go in for re-tooling), and Tex Mex Shredded beef*. (*= recipe available.) We ran out of those a little before 10 o'clock, and because we didn't have any rice you couldn't even enjoy some sauce-soaked rice.

10 o'clock we put out: BBQ Pulled Pork (which was just a jar of sauce and a crockpot of meat), Chicken Mole (which was a Mole Poblano sauce and the cut-up chicken breast meat), and Ground Beef (using the Trader Joe's Taco Seasoning mix).

11 o'clock, we brought out the Spicy Pork with Peanut Sauce*, and the Teriyaki Chicken (which was meat with the Kikkoman Teriyaki Sauce & Merinade). We ended at midnight with half a spoonful of chicken left.

We had tortillas and taco shells for 208 tacos but I know we had some losses due to breakage, we ran out of them between 10 and 11 I think; rice ran out by about 10 o'clock because we only had one batch. We had can-opener failure so we didn't re-stock the beans which ran out quickly, should have had a larger crockpot. We also should have had a larger crockpot for the Soyrizo so we could have started with all 36 oz. (In general, re-filling a crockpot is problematical.)

Cheese/nacho dips didn't work out well, next time we should just get a #10 can of nacho cheese sauce and try that.

The freeze-dried jalapeños were a surprise hit. We should have cut up 8 limes, not 4, and the oranges should have been just cut into quarters to make them obviously a side snack and not a garnish. I forgot to unpack the tomato and the cilantro, perhaps I should provide a checklist for the prep crew? We had other garnishes and toppings; the guacamole was quite a hit.

Simplified menu for next time: Instead of three kinds of pork, we'll just have plenty of Carnitas. The ground beef and the shredded beef are both tasty, so I might keep both of those; the Chicken Mole is a really big hit and dead easy. So for prep, I can pre-mix the two batches of spices, bring the commercial spice mix and the cans and boxes of pre-made sauces, tomatos and so forth. Forget the two kinds of cheese sauce, one thing of nacho cheese is fine (and it makes a huge amount).

The two packages of cut-up lettuce/salad mix were enough, likewise one bag of shredded carrots. 4 cans of Trader Joe's Cuban Black Beans may not be enough, suggest bumping up the crockpot size to at least Medium Round 3.5 qt and filling it with 6 cans. 3 Soyrizo may be enough, we should bring something to clean up spilled soy chorizo from the floor (and maybe a hand vac too).

Rice cooker+crockpot is more work than deploying two rice cookers, so we should just borrow a second rice cooker.

We had four or five guacamole packages and probably could have used more; either use a bigger serving bowl, or just put out the plastic containers and let people serve themselves directly from them.â€¨

There are probably never going to be enough Moon Pies, but we could have had two or three boxes. If we do something like this 9-12 thing, perhaps announce that we'll be closed for five minutes at 9:55 and 10:55 to do a little refreshing? And buy triple of certain items.

Label the donation jar "TIPS."

Crockpot tortillas

2013-04-07T06:00:10Z

Will this work?

I want to warm up some tortillas, but I don't want to dry them out.

I'm thinking, take a bag of tortillas, and some aluminum foil. Wrap foil around four or six tortillas at a time, and put them in the crockpot. Put it on "warm." Maybe put a little water in the bottom? Come back in an hour, will I have what I want?

Crockpot inventory

2013-04-07T04:15:44Z

It's just about time to inventory my crockpots.

I've got the new 3x1.5qt triple model. I know I have at least 2 of the small round gallon slow cookers, and at least 2 of the standard medium round 5-qt units. I have the large black oval with the lock-down lid, the white oval, and I recently bought a large white oblong; I think they're all 6-qt. And I bought a little 2-qt slow cooker. I also have a rice cooker.

I might have more than that. I need to figure it out and plan out the meats I'll be buying to cook in them. (1.5 lb/qt is the multiplier I'll be using.)

I've said before that I have too many to remember how many. It's time for me to find out.

Taco Party plans

2013-04-06T00:22:39Z

Pork (Carnitas)
Beef (Taco-seasoned ground beef)
Chicken (Garlic/cumin)
Soyrizo (veg. chorizo)
Rice
Cuban black beans
Cheese dip (Cheese/salsa)
Fixings: tortillas, taco shells, tortilla chips, onions, scallions, cilantro, lettuce, tomato, shredded cheese, sour cream, guacamole, hot sauces, salsas, orange slices, lime wedges.
Thai Pork with Peanut sauce
Pot Roast (beef)
Teriyaki Chicken
BBQ Pulled Pork
Chicken Mole
Tex Mex Shredded Beef
Queso dip (Cheese/chili)

Allergy warnings: peanut, gluten, corn, soy, dairy, tyramines.

So what am I forgetting?

Convention registration form

2013-04-05T00:01:58Z

A while back, I created an All-purpose convention registration form. I can print this out and use it when promoting Anime Los Angeles, Costume Camp, Loscon, or anything else.

Small Cooker Adventures

2013-04-04T18:00:19Z

I have a 1.5-quart slow cooker (actually, I have three of them, but I'm only using one in this post) and I put in 2.2 lbs. cut-up chicken, about half a cup of water, 1 TB garlic powder and 1 TB ground comin.

My hope is that tonight I can serve it over pasta. I'll let you know how it goes.

The three-crock unit is a bit cumbersome. I wish I had three small individual crockpots. The convenience of only having one plug to plug into the wall is outweighed by the extra space it takes up!

Slow Cooker Pot Roast

2013-03-29T21:06:43Z

Recipe: Slow Cooker Pot Roast

Prep Time: 15 minutes. Cook Time: 8 hours. Makes: 6 to 8 (3 oz.) servings.

1 Reynolds Slow Cooker Liner
1/4 cup water
4 medium red potatoes, cut in quarters.
1 medium onion, cut in quarters
1 package (16 oz.) peeled baby carrots
1 envelope (1 oz.) onion soup mix, divided
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 dried thyme leaves
2.5 to 3 lbs. boneless beef chuck pot roats

OPEN slow cooker liner; place inside a 5 - 6 1/2 qt. slow cooker bowl. Fill liner snugly against bottom and sides of bowl; pull top of liner over rim of bowl.

PLACE water and three-fourths of the vegetables in the lined-slow cooker. Reserve 1 TB onion soup mix. Sprinkle remaining onion soup mix over vegetables; stir gently to coat evenly. Sprinkle and rub salt, pepper and thyme over the pot roast. Place pot roster on top of vegetables. Place remaining vegetables around pot roast; sprinkle vegetables with remaining onion soup mix. Place lid on cooker.

COOK on LOW for 8 to 9 hours OR on HIGH for 5 to 6 hours, until pot roast is tender.

CAREFULLY remove lid to allow steam to escape. Serve food directly from lined-slow cooker. Do not lift or transport liner with food inside. Cool slow cooker completely; remove liner and toss.

March 2013 - Reynolds Slow Cooker Liner insert

(I'm pondering whether I can simplify and adapt this for Pot Roast Tacos.)

Trying the tri-pot cooker

2013-03-28T05:23:50Z

We recently bought a three-crock slow cooker unit. The crocks are rated for 1.5 qt each, which is small. I can put 2 lb. of meat in each one, or I can use them for some kind of sauce.

Tonight I bought a big chunk of pork, and put about 2 lb. in each one. I've added half a cup of barbecue sauce (Kraft Original), half a cup of sweet and sour sauce (Minors), and half a cup of teriyaki sauce (Kikkoman Sauce/Marinade, which is runny, not thick like the other two).

In about 10 or 11 hours, I'll take it into work and share it. Maybe buy a bunch of fajita-size flour tortillas to serve it. Oh, and I should bring my paper "boats" as I know we're short on them...

(The Reynolds Slow Cooker Liners are awfully big for this project. Do they make any smaller versions? For that matter, I want to know when they go on sale. Do they ever turn up at the 99-cent stores?)

The dude abides.

2013-03-07T18:06:58Z

Finished watching "The Big Lebowski" for the first time. Thank you, Alec Orrock for the loan of the DVD.

Not my circus

2013-03-06T00:54:24Z

Ribbon idea, based on something Caitlin Doolittle said:

Turbo Margaritas

2013-02-28T23:22:20Z

I've been using Maria's recipe for margaritas. We prepare the correctly-proportioned liquor ahead of time, and then mix the booze with the base. For the base mixer, we've tried limeade, the French sparkling limeade they have at Trader Joe's, and lime-flavor Jarritos Mexican soda. But what we haven't tried yet is using "Mike's Hard Limeade."

It will either be horrific, or a huge hit, or both. Find out next week at ConDor!

Pictures from Gallifrey and other places

2013-02-24T05:37:21Z

Photos I just posted:
SoCal AMCC Cosplay Picnic at Mile Square Park (20-Jan-2013) Part 3
Anime Los Angeles 9 part 31: Dinner with Shyloh and Cherika (23-Jan-2013)
Gallifrey 2013 part 4: Committee Meeting (03-Feb-2013)
Anime Los Angeles 9 part 32: Con Suite Sushi Dinner (26-Jan-2013) et seq.
Gallifrey 2013 part 5: Day Zero, Thursday Night (14/15-Feb-2013)
Gallifrey 2013 part 6: Friday Morning (15-Feb-2013) et seq.
Gallifrey 2013 part 10: Saturday (16-Feb-2013)
Gallifrey 2013 part 11: Sunday (16/17-Feb-2013)
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 500: Coral Cafe (24-Jan-2013)
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 501: Coral Cafe (31-Jan-2013)
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 502: Coral Cafe (07/08-Feb-2013)

Idea for a ribbon: I have the right to set and enforce my own boundaries.

Job at my office

2013-01-26T00:52:43Z

A current job posting here includes the following. If anyone's interested in learning more about this opening, let me know...

Desired Skills/Qualifications:
• B.S. Degree in Computer Science, Information or a related technical discipline or equivalent work experience.
• Previous experience traveling for work is greatly desired.
• Working knowledge of the following systems: Windows Server 2003 and 2008, Windows 7, SQL Server 2005 and 2008, Active Directory, Group Policy, DHCP, DNS, IIS, PKI, and SSL. (Architecture, design, disaster recovery and troubleshooting.)
• Experience with storage arrays including SAN and NAS solutions.
• Experience with virtualization technology including VM Ware or Microsoft Hyper-V.
• Superior problem solving and troubleshooting skills at the System Engineer level.
• Exceptional customer service, overall communication and technical writing skills.
• Ability to communicate and work with other internal departments.
• Ability to work independently with minimal management supervision and as part of team.
• Ability to enhance the technical expertise of peers via the development of system training, mentoring of new hires, and team content development.
• Ability to apply technology to improve existing products and systems at customers and for internal use.
• Ability to actively participate in team support by proposing and implementing solutions.
• Assist in developing strategies to gain additional support accounts by contacting and establishing relationships with Account Managers.
• Experience with government technical publications and implementation desired, but not required. (HSPD-12, FISMA, FIPS-140, DISA, NIST)
• MCSE/MCITP, CCNA, Security+, Network+ preferred. Will consider related field (or equivalent) experience.

Catching up on the photos

2013-01-16T08:12:25Z

Photos online:

LASFS/Aftermeetings

Equestria LA

SoCal Brony Meetup Picnic in Anaheim (22-Sep-2012) Part 1 et seq.
My Little Pony backcard stories part 1: Year Two (16-Oct-2012) et seq.
SCIFI Board Meeting (13-Oct-2012) Part 1 et seq.
Visiting darcee at her school (18-Oct-2012)

Animé Los Angeles 9

Gallifrey 2013 part 3: Committee Meeting (21-Oct-2012)
Conjecture 2012 part 1: Saturday (06-Oct-2012) et seq.
Pacific Media Expo part 1: Friday (09-Nov-2012) et seq.
Loscon 39 part 1: Thursday (22-Nov-2012) et seq.
Omar's Last Day (07-Aug-2012)
Blue house, suit shopping, monitors (17-Nov-2012)
Shopping for Eggs and Soda (19-Nov-2012)
Growing the Beard (01/09-Dec-2012)
Dinner at Dinah's with Colleen and Shawn (04-Dec-2012)
Remodeling the Office (05/12-Dec-2012)
Shyloh and Cherika (29-Dec-2012)
Measuring Wall Space (15-Dec-2012)
Last Day for Lars (19-Dec-2012)
Maria's Birthday at Buca di Beppo (19-Dec-2012)
Mannequins for Costume Exhibit (22-Dec-2012)
Cars, couches, toners and rosettes (Dec-2012)
Christmas 2012 part 1: Foss Potluck Party (24-Dec-2012) et seq.
Christmas 2012 part 4: Dorothy and Bob's House (25-Dec-2012)
Christmas 2012 part 5: Home with Maria and Lynn (26-Dec-2012)
New Year's Day with Sarah (01-Jan-2013)

A yellow stripe down the left hand side...

2012-11-15T08:22:00Z

I went to Pacific Media Expo last weekend. They were doing something opaque with color coding, I think.

The Information Desk had a sign on an easel, and it had a yellow stripe down the left edge. All of the signs had a colored stripe on the side, but that was the only yellow one I noticed.

On a color-coded map that you could print out from their website, one room was yellow -- the Registration room.

On the "Guidebook" app, some of the program items had a yellow stripe down the left side, such as video game programs.

There was a color coded map that was on the back of the staff badges. There didn't seem to be any yellow rooms on that version.

There was another map that they printed out along with the schedule grids, and you could pick that up at Information. It didn't have any color at all, the map and schedules were printed in black and white.

There was an HTML version of the schedule. Almost all of the program items had a yellow background. (A few of them had light blue.)

Shopping for suits

2012-09-30T02:24:39Z

Today, library_lynn, missmea and I went shopping downtown for suits.

She and I now have matching black three-piece suits, so we can both dress in "black tie." I have some snazzy black and white shoes to go with my outfit, too.

I also now have an outfit for "Kawarazaki the Turbulent" from Giant Robo. Dark brown pants, yellow shirt, green tie, maroon vest and light brown sportcoat.

Ribbon mockup: BRAAAAIINNNS!

2012-09-28T05:56:47Z

A ribbon Tana's preparing to order.

At-con Registration plans

2012-09-26T05:28:31Z

Ah, much better. We're not going to try to do it down in the basement.

Plan is to have between seven and twelve tables lined up in the prefunction space on the Anaheim Convention Center second floor, right outside the area where the convention Dealers Halls and Programming Room will be. (If you're looking at a diagram of the ACC 2nd Floor with the 201 rooms at the right, we're looking at having them "below" 202A and 201A if we can expand that far. Dealers Rooms are 202AB and 203AB, Programming Room is 204ABC.)

We'd like to have 12 badge pickup stations (probably AB, CD, EF, GH, IJ, KL, M, NO, PQR, S, TUV, WXY or whatever the breakdown works out to when we prepare the badges) during the first few hours. If each station can handle a badge a minute, that's a theoretical throughput of 720 badges per hour overall.

With the prereg pickup being st the top of the escalator, we can have someone downstairs managing the traffic going up the escalator. If we even have to have that at all -- how fast does the escalator deliver people upstairs? If it's no more than about 500-600/hour, then all we have to do is make sure people don't get on the escalator before we're ready.

I've also been given a free hand to recruit the staff people to make sure we have the small army we need. We need to have them all there for the first half of the day, and then once we've given out 80% of our badges I can let 80% of the staff go ramble around.

Madame Chair was protesting that "we've already paid for the Catalina Rooms" and I told her use them for something else, or don't use them at all, but don't fall victim to the Sunk Costs Fallacy.

At-con Registration plans

2012-09-24T06:36:52Z

So I'm trying to organize my thoughts and plans for running at-con reg (mostly pre-reg badge pickup) in about six weeks, at a new convention. (I volunteered for the position and was accepted on Friday.)

I say "mostly pre-reg badge pickup" because the convention has a cap of 1000 and fully expects to hit it. They initially announced a cap of 500 and hit it in ten weeks. Since then they've arranged for more space, expanded from a one-day to a two-day event, and doubled the cap.

There are a couple of questions that remain, even if they do sell 1000 badges before convention time.

For starters, if you bought a Saturday badge in the first 500, you now must upgrade to full weekend -- i.e. pay them again -- if you want to go for both days. But if you do nothing between now and Day Zero, then you just have a Saturday badge.

Will upgrades be available at the door? Will my department be expected to process them? I expect the answer is yes to both questions, and we'll need to find out how to handle that.

There are six or seven different groups of memberships. Probably Saturday, Full, Staff, Guest, and Dealer. Maybe another one or two. Given that complex a situation I expect that, if different badge stock is used for them, we'll want to preprint all of the badges. That way we don't make any mistakes on the day, but does add to the complexity of the Upgrade situation. (Or, for an Upgrade, we just give them the missing One-day badge as well. But I'm not thrilled about that for badge-checking reasons.)

That's not the most challenging part of the exercise, though. Oh no.

Registration will be in "Catalina 1" or 2, in the Lower Level of the Anaheim Hilton. ("Under the food court" if you're familiar with the property.)

Interesting wrinkle number 1: the other room (Catalina #2 or #1) is where they plan to put Autographs. Which won't be in operation all weekend, but when it is, they'll have their own line to wrangle.

Wrinkle #2: the halls down there are a bit cramped, the room only has one door, and it has an occupancy limit of 49.

In my next post, I'll talk about my plan of attack...

Ribbon mockup: friends with Eric Z.

2012-09-22T00:35:26Z

Ribbon mockup: friends with Eric Z. (Reprint.)

Ribbon Mockup: Division Second

2012-09-21T01:42:04Z

Ribbon mockup for "Division Second." Not very exciting, I'm afraid -- I hope to have something more fun to report next time.

In other news I'm expecting to stuff more ribbons in boxes tonight. Whoopee!