My 'Peeps'

Well, I had *planned* to take the Dealer Table to Capricon this year now that they have moved back to the suburbs. Then I got this email today:

"Sorry for this late request but all dealers are to have the following
requirements to be a Dealer at the Marriott.

Certificate of Insurance (COI) that shows:
1.1 Comprehensive general liability insurance, including contractual
liability and liability for personal injury, bodily injury, property damage
and $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 general aggregate.
1.2 Marriott Chicago O’Hare, Hotel Owner (Columbia Sussex Corp.), ENCORE,
and Hotel management, employees and agents named as Additional Insured.
1.3 Marriott Chicago O’Hare, Hotel Owner (Columbia Sussex Corp), ENCORE,
and Hotel management, employees and agents named as an Additional Loss
Payee.
1.4 The certificate must provide General Liability coverage.
1.5 Automobile liability insurance including all owned, non-owned, and
hired vehicles used in conjunction with the Vendor’s services for bodily
injury or property damage with a combined single limit of not less than
$1,000,000 each occurrence."

This was accompanied by two recommendations for event insurance. The first one won't sell me a general liability policy because I don't make any money. The second one will sell me a policy (maybe) for $99 for the weekend, which is simply one more expense than I can manage given the level of sales that I expect to make. The policy would be half that amount if Capricon were a three-day convention, but -- of course! -- it is not.

I am ticked off beyond belief.

Now I have to figure out what the family is going to be doing about the convention as a whole. At least I haven't reserved a hotel room yet.

ETA: Helen Montgomery has responded on Facebook to note that they are having a discussion with the hotel about this now. Thank you all for your feedback!

Julie has officially finished high school. I am impressed.

Today was my last day of work before Christmas break. This made it a bad day to break anything, so I wrote a little utility method that should be useful for several projects that we're working on. Since nothing is using it yet, it could be checked in harmlessly. :) I'm not traveling, so I have promised to show up if anything that I changed recently *does* decide to die horribly in the lead up to Christmas.

Now, I just need to finish my Christmas shopping...

Gretchen and I watched the season finale of "The Floor" today. This is a fun little game show, because it combines knowledge and luck in interesting ways. Some of the categories I'm ok with and are places where I can do a lot of damage like, say, "Beatles Songs". Others, not so much... :)

And that's good. If it were too easy, it wouldn't be fun to watch.

I moved a bunch of money around over the weekend. This meant that I could pay the property tax and K's latest tuition bill today.

The happy news is that the money was there. :)

The outside temperature is in single digits and falling. Happily, the central heating is working nicely.

Today's major accomplishments were three loads of laundry and moving cash around so that I can pay my ginormous property tax bill on Monday. The Cook County property tax bills were *very* late this year. The good news is that the bill was ginormous, but it was not a lot larger than last year, which puts me in a happier position than a lot of people around here.

Today was the big Dimensions concert over at Maine West with the combined band, orchestra, and choirs putting together a complex musical performance. With Julie graduating at the semester, this was the last music event at the school that she'll be participating in, so I wanted to make sure to see it. (Gretchen's bad knees kept her at home.)

It was fun. The kids did a great job and it was a good way to go out.

And listening to live music is good for me. :)

I am gradually catching up on things, both at home and at work.

The problem is that as I catch up on one thing, another thing comes careening down the track.

The good news is that we went out to dinner with friends tonight and had some good conversation. And the chance to talk to someone who is not one of my coworkers is a fine thing!