Cometary Tales Blog Lessons of a BayCon Gofer: Ribbons & Tags

Lessons of a BayCon Gofer: Ribbons & Tags

Sunday was the last full day of BayCon 2014, and it was full indeed. (BayCon 2015‘s will be even more crammed, with no Monday to work with.)

At this particular con, if you put in a certain number of Gofering hours, you’re awarded free membership for the following year. It hadn’t been my original goal, but when I checked in Sunday noonish after Quidditch,

The Quidditch Field

The Quidditch Field, Courtesy of the Silicon Valley Skyfighters

I could see my stats were high enough that the free-membership category was within reach. But it would take some decent planning now, as there were a few Important Items for myself on the program for Sunday.  And not so many demands for Gofers.

But then, late in the afternoon, there was a call for help on badge checking. This is the extremely arduous task of sitting in a folding chair at the entry to the Convention Center hall leading to the art show, vendors, and the big room for boffers & sword-fighting & large-audience programs, and making sure all the people going by have BayCon badges. No worries. These are not teensy “Hello” stickers. It’s not often you have to actually make someone stop so you can see their badge. They’re big enough, color-coded, with an easily-recognized logo-du-con. But wait—there’s more— most folks have badges that you would be hard-pressed to miss. Eh, what? Well, here’s my badge after Friday.

One Day's Worth of Badge Ribbons

One Day’s Worth of Badge Ribbons

And there’s my badge at the end of Saturday.

Two Days Worth of Badge Ribbons

Two Days’ Worth of Badge Ribbons

 

And did I hear “Sunday”?

Three Days Worth of Badge Ribbons

Three Days’ Worth of Badge Ribbons

Yep, it’s the ribbon thing. Collecting badge ribbons is a project of pride for many convention denizens, so even if you have to stop someone to check their badge, you can sideline a prickly reaction with an appeal to check out their ribbons. Or an offer to share one of your own ribbons. You do have ribbons, don’t you? Find me at BayCon 2015 & you can have one of mine. They’re rainbow, and purple, and shiny.

Another bonus to the badge checking job, at least at the convention center hallway spot, is that it’s a super-fine spot to view cosplayers on the move. I had a partner on the job, so I was also able to talk to a few cosplayers and ask for photos. A few were even up for a ribbon swap as well.   My own costuming skills go no further than fun & funky outfits for Halloween, so I’m a huge fan of the skilled costume artists who turn out for these conventions. Here are just a few of the folks I met while badge-checking. (Reminder, ask permission for photos!)

Thank you for your service, Redshirt

Thank you for your service, Redshirt, but where’s your BayCon Badge?

 

Star Trek Steampunk

Star Trek Steampunk

 

 

Madame Vastra

Madame Vastra

 

 

 

 

 

Cool, huh?

At the next shift change, I swapped with a Gofer who was working the Art Show.  And that’s when I became a Dedicated Gofer.  Sounds impressive, but it’s an unofficial label indicating that a department head wanted dibs on my time.  Think of it as a mezzanine-level status just below Staff Member.

How does such a thing happen? Five easy steps:

A. Begin with a gap in programs & activities that the Gofer is interested in over a several-hour period.  Check. (I arrived late afternoon with a snack in my bag and nothing on my wish-list but a determination to get to Regency Dancing around 9pm. I made it there at 9:20.)

Star Wars! (Carrender Robotics)

Star Wars at the Art Show! (Carrender Robotics)

B. Stir in an attraction within the venue that the Gofer is interested in. Check. (Bidding was due to close & I had a bid on one item and a friend with a wish for someone to “guard” her bid on another.)

Disco LEGO (Zonker Harris)

Disco LEGO (Zonker Harris)

C. Add a liberal quantity of responsibility for real stuff.  Check. (A key job was organizing the sold works into neat collections, by bidder number, ready for pick-up on Monday.  The staff gave us Gofers instructions, but pretty much let us take care of the job.)

LEGO Collection at the Art Show (Carrender Robotics, Zonker Harris)

LEGO Collection at the Art Show (Carrender Robotics, Zonker Harris)

D. Allow the gofer to see that dedication is actually helping out somebody.  Check. (My fellow Gofer left for dinner shortly after the 7pm closing time and never returned;  I bought a soda & enjoyed a granola bar in between jobs. But the staffers were so on task they were ignoring food they’d brought and having to nag each other to take restroom breaks.  There was clearly too much work for the main staffers to do on their own & they were struggling with a computer issue as well.  By the time my partner Gofer went off-shift, the staff members were trusting me to just take care of other ancillary jobs like running through checklists and sorting out unsold items and items going to the auction.)

 

LEGO at the Art Show (Bricks By the Bay)

LEGO at the Art Show (Bricks By the Bay)

 

E.  Tell ’em.  Check.  (As I was leaving to get my fix of Regency Dancing, the Art Show director directly thanked me for helping and staying late and told me she’d request my help the next day.)

Regency Dancers Take the Floor

Regency Dancers Take the Floor

 

Gofer Lesson of the Day:  Find yourself a good spot to collect ribbons–having some to trade makes it easier–and if you are nice to the folks who put in the effort to turn up in those excellent costumes you may get to take photos or even selfies with them!

Bonus Lesson, this one for Staffers Who Rely on Gofers:  Give your Gofers real jobs, let them take ownership of tasks, and remember to tell them you appreciate their help.  And that will keep them coming back for more.

You might also like to read:

Gravity & EnergyGravity & Energy

This category of the blog is dedicated to science & technology topics that I think may interest my fellow nerds.

(Note: Original post: 2012. A few updates were made during site reorganization in January, 2021.)

Tracking Movement In the Solar System

For starters, I’ll be posting in the blog regularly under Astronomy & Astrophysics. (In some of these older posts the category is tagged Pixel Gravity.)  To jump straight to those posts, visit the PG Archive–readily accessible in the menu.  For some time now, I’ve been running the social-media support for the program that made the picture you see here.  I’ve been posting about robots, space exploration, astronomy, big steps in physics, and so on.  Sometimes, the space available for a posting on Facebook is too restrictive.   So those kinds of discussions will move here.

What qualifies me to write about this stuff?  Well, I’ve admitted elsewhere that we are a family of hypernerds.  That’s not my term.  It was invented and applied by one of our charming (adult) offspring.  It’s not a misnomer As a family, we are 40% engineers and 60% scientists.

I’m a power systems engineer, which in my case means I’ve made a career out of simulating how power plants and electric and gas networks operate.

My husband is a computational physicist, specializing in solar physics.  Want to know what’s going on inside the sun?  He’s your guy.

Our youngest son is too busy for now, building catapults and robots on his way to a mechanical-engineering degree at UC Santa Barbara. (Update: graduated, with honors. Currently open to job offers.)

After two summer internships in NASA’s astrobiology group, our middle son is working on an honors thesis project on metabolic processes of microbes in deep serpentine wells, attracted by the prospect of doing biology fieldwork in extreme ecosystems right here on planet Earth. (Update: he’s now nearly done with his Ph.D.)

And the oldest escaped from UC Berkeley’s astrophysics program with a degree and a desire to never return to academia.  He built Pixel Gravity instead.

What’s “Pixel Gravity“?  It’s a detailed, graphical astrophysics simulator with real-time controls.  It looks sort of like a game, and it’s fun to play with, but it’s also a serious science tool  As an “n‑body” simulator, it lets users model complex groups of many objects, from the solar system to galaxies.  Most of the other easy-to-use programs available online limit the number of objects or lack physical accuracy, so (for example) relativistic effects on motion near a black hole are not handled properly, if at all.  University researchers have access to extremely-detailed models, but those require supercomputers.  Pixel Gravity provides accurate modeling on personal computers and is priced low so that even students can explore gravity in action.  In addition to Newtonian gravity, Pixel Gravity models the additional effects of atmospheric drag, general relativity, and dark-matter, as well as user-defined forces.  Plus, the software package includes helpful tools for curriculum development such as a tutorial-builder and video-production capability. (Update: Pixel Gravity is at present a retired product–contact us if you’d like a copy to play with.)

So, in short, the topics under this heading are just the kind of things we talk about at our house.  So if you come to dinner, you don’t need to bring a foodie specialty.  But you might scan the latest issue of Scientific American.

Day Zero: Get Thee To FlagstaffDay Zero: Get Thee To Flagstaff

There is no simple way to orchestrate the travel here.  Yes, planes fly to Flagstaff, not the same airlines as fly to the big airports but their small-scale partners.  There’s a shuttle bus from Phoenix, and if you were facing a long layover the van could even be faster.

A view of the Grand Canyon we did not see on our flights (courtesy of Google Earth)

But we arrive in Phoenix with plane tickets in hand and actually welcome a half-hour flight delay, because it allows us a chance to buy lunch.  I even have time for a stroll through the overpriced-souvenir shop, where I hand over $2 for a pair of elastic bands someone in the shop has put out to support a fundraiser for improving water supplies in Haiti.  Seems appropriate. And the chance to put up our feet for a half-hour is welcome, as we’re already tired.  We actually began yesterday, on Day “-1”, with a five-hour drive to rendezvous with Clark’s friend, who lives near Reno, so we could all travel together the whole way.  Our Day Zero expedition consisted of a drive from the pine forests of Plumas County to the desert flats of Reno’s outskirts, a freeway jaunt to the airport (chauffered by another friend), a big plane to Phoenix, a little plane to Flagstaff, then a search for the airport shuttle.  We will have a powerful case of deja vu on Day Fourteen.   You’ll see.

Flagstaff’s airport is a fabulous, small airport.  My favorite kind.  One baggage claim zone.  No trouble meeting a shuttle bus right outside.  As it happens, the other folks sharing the van are another couple going on our trip.  And they have obtained an intelligence report from the rafting company, OARS, that we five will be the only “guests” staying on the raft trip for the full fourteen days.   The rest of the group will leave halfway (and hike out), to be replaced by a new batch of folks for the second week.  So we will actually get to spend a full fifteen days with Todd and Eliza.  Oh, yeah, and until such time as the members of our trip group authorize me to use their names, I will be using fake names, just in case I goof up and say something upsetting or someone turns out to be in Witness Protection.  I won’t do the same for the crew, since I want to actually give them the props they deserve.  In fact, I’d hope this whole piece could be considered a humungous letter of reference for each and every person on the crew.  I’d initially given myself permission to use my own and my husband’s names, but he protested, so here goes.  He is herewith dubbed “Clark”.  And what to call Childhood Friend?  How about Lana?  And surely that makes me “Lois”.  The only funny thing about this, is that I actually have a friend called Lois–so, hey, Lois, you can tell people this is you.  (Fair warning, though, I’m not the heroine of this story!)

The key element of Day Zero is the evening briefing from the Trip Leader.  We gather in one of the Radisson Hotel’s conference rooms.   (The Midway guests also will have a briefing, but not by the Trip Leader , as she will be a mile downhill at the time.)  So we meet our first authentic River Guide.  This is Billie Prosser, who’s been whitewater rafting since she was a teenager, over fifteen years now, much of that time in the Grand Canyon.  These days, she chooses to do only a few of these Grand Canyon trips a year, giving herself the chance to work on other rivers and also to have time for a private trip, as time permits, to enjoy the Canyon without having to take care of people like us.

At the meeting, we also get our first glimpse of our fellow travelers all together.  We are heavily loaded with Californians and Canadians.   There are three women from Canada—their menfolk didn’t want to come.  There’s two father-son duos: one a dad and his athletic teenager, the other a Bechtel project technician taking a voluntary layoff to make the trip with his dad, a (putatively) retired actor and writer.  The Fab Five (Todd & Eliza and the three of us–Lois, Clark, and Lana) are all from California.   The actor, who takes care during the meeting to firmly establish that he’s the most-senior member of the troupe, has also brought along a childhood friend—a woman he hadn’t seen since high school.  While he keeps us entertained, I get the vague feeling he sort of expects someone to recognize him.  Then there’s another triad…a husband and wife and one of their friends.  Is that sixteen?

We get a quick summary of what to expect in the morning.  The crucial item is to have our gear packed and in the lobby by quarter to seven and be ready to leave by seven.  There’s a little last-minute advice on what to be sure to bring.  In case something’s been forgotten, there’s a WalMart in walking distance.  We’re advised to bring lots and lots of moisturizer.  I ask for a definition of “lots”, which it seems is a 16 oz bottle per person per week.  Oh, my goodness, I didn’t bring that much, so we have a trip to WalMart in the plans already.  We’re issued our “drybags”, each labeled with our own personal real names.  (Amazingly, they don’t know to use the fake names I will make up in the future for this blog.)  And Billie gives us a five-minute seminar on how to seal the drybags.  This is important, as all of our clothing and personal items go in this bag, which will then be tied onto a raft and frequently doused with water.  We’re each also issued a small drybag.  The big bag is inaccessible except in camp.  The day bag serves to keep dry what we need to keep dry but have access to during the day.  And we’re allowed to bring whatever we like in our daypacks as well, provided we understand that these will get drenched in larger rapids or if it rains.  The drybags don’t have our personal names on them.  Instead, they each have an identifying name written in Sharpie,  to individualize them.  We just each have to remember our bag’s name.  Mine is “Turpentine Broom”.  Lana’s is “Grease Bush”.  And Clark selects the distinctly memorable “#73”.  Mine is the best.  Here is all about Turpentine Broom  and Grease Bush.  I expect we’ll encounter these plants on our journey.  In the meantime, the names help, as the bags come in only a few colors.

I’m relieved to hear there will be a bag for boots, as this will make room in my kit for all that moisturizer.  Others are relieved to hear that their beer and wine orders have been filled.  Some are anxious to double-check on that after the meeting.  Billie has the checklist.  Evidently, this is a common anxiety.

Then we are off to WalMart.  Yes, our first act upon crossing the moment into our trip environment is to walk down a suburban city street, past a dark and quiet Home Depot, an active supermarket, and a Bank of America with lights glowing invitingly above its ATM, to shop in the megabehemoth of a store that was launched just a few miles from Clark and Lana’s home town.   But oh, they do indeed have It All.  More sunblock.  I must have more sunblock.  Moisturizer, per Billie’s recommendations.  Handy dry facewash cloths to get all that sunblock off.  And a tripod.  What was I thinking, leaving home without a tripod?  And a little mini flex-tripod for Clark.  Sweet.  Now all we have to do is haul this all back to the hotel and get everything crammed into our bags.

And, well, the bag-cramming takes a little while.  Maybe more than a little while.   Part of it is deciding which things are OK in the backpack (maybe in a Ziploc bag, maybe not), which need to go in the daybag, and which can be done without and stuffed in the main drybag.  I have the extra variant that I really have 2 daypacks. One is a one-shoulder sling pack that keeps my cameras and other hiking essentials from bearing down on my healing shoulder and when not in use tucks into the main pocket of my large daypack.  The main daypack takes my raingear, a dry set of fleece sealed in ziplocs, my tripod, and other handy items.  It’s big, it’s bulky, I will make Clark carry it as much as possible.  But it all fits.  And while I fancy myself adept at this sort of thing, it is Clark who is already proving to be better at sealing the big drybag.  He says it is just that he can squish it down better, being a bit heavier, but I think there is more to it than that.  I will keep insisting on doing my bag myself for about four more days.  Then I will give up and let him do it for me.

One last shower and a thorough hair washing.  It will be 2 weeks without a shampooing, at least for me.  I do not want to look at the setting on the alarm clock.  It is just too awful to contemplate.

 

A cylindrical spacecraft with long solar panels spreading out on both sides.

The names in “All That Was Asked”The names in “All That Was Asked”

In my previous post, I tried to explain how all those odd names ended up in my recently-published book and why I think it’s fun to play around with languages in the middle of a story.

So, what if you don’t really care about all that linquistic nonsense, but just want a guide to pronouncing stuff in this particular story?  In what follows, I’m going to share what I’ve prepared for the person doing our audio book.  On the surface, it may look daunting, but, really, it all hangs together with a few key elements:

Sensei, in Kanji
Source: japanesewithanime.com 
(CC BY-SA 4.0)
  • Lots of the names end in a shortened “ay” sound I’ve tagged here as ei. It sounds almost like a long ay, but is cut short like you were going to pronounce a “y” on the end, but stopped yourself just in time, “say” without that teensy “eeya” sound that wraps up that word. Sort of like “sensei” as pronounced in Japan, or at least in anime and Japanese TV shows.
  • In names ending in e, the final e is always sounded–usually as that shortened “ay” sound.
  • The exception is “ere”, which is ayr-ee, wherever it happens to fall, so some names end with ayr-ee, while some have that in the middle or at the beginning.
  • Children (or adults being teased as if they are children) or intimate friends get their names shortened with a bit of a stop in the middle, so Ansegwe becomes An-s-wei, and Kantalare becomes K-a-la-rei
  • As an example of the “translated words” system: the “aunts” are “awnts”, Brit/Northeast/Southern style, rather than Midwestern style “ants”.

Digression: How come I like weird names?  Well, jeepers, I’ve got one of my own, one that often gets pronounced weird, though I don’t care, really, I’ve heard ’em all.  The “correct” way is va-‘ness-uh ma-‘cla-ren-‘ray.  There are other pronunciations in use . . . but those are other Vanessas and other MacLarens. 

OK, here we go.  I’m not using really formal linguistic notation, but sound-shorthand that I think we all can follow. I put a single quote at the front of the stressed syllable in each word. 

  1. Our Main Characters

Varayla Ansegwe, Eskenyan Jemenga, Ensense Kantalare, Varaylas Ansele and Adeleke, and Haillyen.  These all appear frequently, though it takes a while for Kantalare to show up.  See how what we call “last names” (family names) come first, and “first names” (personal names) come second.

Wary, indeed.
Photo of sketch on wall, by Quinn Dombrowski, Berkeley, CA (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Varayla: Va-‘ray-la This one’s pretty phonetic, the tricky thing, from listening to auditions for our audio book, is that some people seem to read the “yla” as “lya”.  This reminds me of how people read the second half of my last name as “Wary” instead of “Wray”.  Don’t let it worry you, but if you prefer mispronouncing Varayla, just don’t go to Korlo. In the bad old days, you could earn a set of cement overshoes for mispronouncing that name to the wrong person.

Ansegwe: ‘ahn-seg-wei Our hero’s name is most likely to be mispronounced as on-‘seg-way, which is hilarious, as it makes me picture this enormous klutz trying to ride a Segway.  The first syllable should be said relatively slowly, so the second two click together fast, so that you almost lose the sound of the “e” in the middle: ahns’gwei. It has a kind of Japanese flavor to it.

Eskenyan: ess-‘ken-yan It sounds sort of like “a person from Kenya” (at least the way Americans say it) plus “Ess” in front of it.

Jemenga: ja-‘meng-uh When Jemenga is particularly pleased with himself, he really hits that middle syllable, so it’s like Ja-MENG-ah!

The Varayla Syndicate’s above-board operations include space-based solar power satellites.
(Not quite like this. This is NASA’s Solar-b satellite)

Ansele: ‘ahn-se-lei Tycoon aunt #1.

Adeleke: a-‘del-e-kei Tycoon aunt #2.

Haillyen: ‘hay-ul-lee-yen This is a “foreign” word to Ansegwe, so he’s basically phonetically “translated” it, the ‘y’ in the last syllable is a  bridge sound you get when putting ee and en together between the ee and the en.  Do ya get it? Yeah?  The reader should get it about 100 pages before Ansegwe catches on.

Ensense: en-‘sens-ei  You know, like, “sensei” with an “en” at the front.

Kantalare: kahn-tah-‘lahr-ei There’s a secondary stress on the first syllable.  Just make it sound pretty in your head.  Ansegwe is totally in love with her, so, whatever, hear her as beautiful

2. The people on the expedition

Some of these folks are only mentioned or quoted during the “expedition” chapters.

Tkonle: t-‘kawn-lei

Kulandere: koo-lahn-‘dayr-ee

Tekere: ta-‘kayr-ee

Tereinse: ‘tayr-ee-in-sei

Alekwa: ah-‘leek-wah

Nara: ‘nah-rah

Ensargen: en-‘sahr-gen It’s a hard g, as in “gun”, not a soft one as in “generation”. They don’t really use hard “g”

Korton: ‘kor-tun

Alawere: ah-la-‘wayr-ee

Tasegion: tah-‘seg-ee-on

Turame: too-‘rah-mei

3. People at home

Kateseo: ka-‘tay-see-oh

Kinshada: kin-‘shah-dah

Tumbal: ‘toom-bal

Erekulu: ayr-ee-‘koo-loo OK, this one isn’t a person, he’s a domesticated animal, so his name is a little goofy, meant to sound cute.

Tokal: toh-‘kahl

Ans’we: ‘ahn-se-wei This is a nickname for Ansegwe, used mostly by Kantalare, but also used by his expedition “friends” when they want to get on his case.

K’alare-: kah-‘lahr-ei This is a nickname for Kantalare, used by Ansegwe.

Az-dyel: ahz-dee-‘ell Note that this is another “foreign” word that Ansegwe has transcribed this way, so it’s pretty phonetic, the three syllables have almost equal stress, I hear just a little more on the last one, but you can feel more free to mess around with this one–it’s the ONLY word in this language that appears at all.

Eskewere: ess-ke-wayr-ee

Ensense Halense: en-‘sen-sei hah-‘len-sei This is a member of Kantalare’s extended family that they happen to run into at some point. 

4. List of authors. 

About two-thirds of the way through, someone gives Ansegwe a reading list, and the authors of the books are a mix of people from his world, one from outside his culture, and one (the last) he’s going to spend a lot of time with. I wouldn’t worry about these too much, but have fun with them.  Yeah, uh-huh, that’s intentional.

Asvelan Kulumbu: ‘ahs-veh-lahn  koo-‘loom-boo

Palawan Vejr: ‘pah-lah-wahn  vee-‘yay-zher

Trjia Qwijlian: ‘trr-zhee-ah  ‘kwizh-lee-ahn

Tsulander Tkonle: ‘Tzoo-lahn-der  T’kawn-lei

5. People in quotes.

Yeah, this is one of those books where each chapter opens with a quote from someone.  I picture these as remarks that people who know Ansegwe have made when interviewed about the events in the story.  Picture them sitting across the desk on their version of The Daily Show, chatting with their Trevor Noah.  Most of the quoted individuals made it into the final.  A few only get mentioned in these quotes.  These ones are mostly government officials.  Make them sound stuffy, self-important, and less-than-competent.

Insake Hailaware: ‘in-sah-kei  hai-uh-la-‘wahr-ei (For fussiness, there’s a secondary stress on first syllable in Hailaware. He will get all huffy if you miss that and maybe will find some minor infraction to write you up for.)

Elesennen Haileski: el-es-‘sen-en  hai-uh-‘les-kee

Kinsala Tkerelon: kin-‘sah-lah  T-‘kayr-ee-lon

6. Other words and place names.

The story takes place in a fairly limited set of “alien” geographic locations.  But I do have some place names included and there are a few other “thing” words that appear more than once.

The Kalinidor is something like this.
Alexander Fleming’s Nobel Prize (1945)
(Jemenga would discover penicillin if someone else hadn’t already.) Source: Science and Society Picture Library, London Museum of Science (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Korlo: ‘kor-low It simply sounds like “core” “low”.  This is Ansegwe’s country. 

Kalinidor: ka-‘lin-ee-dor This is a person’s name that’s become an object name–sort of like the Nobel Prize, well, actually, exactly like the Nobel prize.  Jemenga really really wants one of these.

Quazwallade: kwaz-‘wall-ah-dei  This is a place name, just a foreign country, one with some technological and cultural differences from Korlo.

Cignali: sig-‘nah-lee Let’s say that probably this was originally a person’s name, but now it’s the name of a famous university, think “Stanford”.

Utumwe: oo-‘tum-wei I told you there were academics in this story.  This is another university, a medical school actually, one that Jemenga lectures at, when they can get him.

Terende: ta-‘ren-dei  Another place name.

Tule: ‘too-lei Yep, place name. Doesn’t get much play, but even minor places count, says the writer who lives in a town that isn’t a proper town, just a collection of farms, houses, shops, and a gas station, that gets its own post office.

© 2012-2025 Vanessa MacLaren-Wray All Rights Reserved