Pages

5.15.2013

Unplugged Thrifting: My thrifing obsession

It's been a long time coming, but I finally started a blog dedicated to my thrift shopping adventures. I'm not sure if thrifting is the excuse for the blog, or if the blog is an excuse for the shopping. Either way, they're a match made in heaven.

I recommend you check it out: Hilary's Awesome Thrift Shopping Blog.


Thrifting is awesome and has been before Macklemore made it mainstream.




Does that make me a hipster?

5.13.2013

My Mama

While Facebook on Mother's Day turns into a My Mom is the Best Mom in the Whole World War, which can be pretty annoying, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing pictures of all my friends' mothers! I've always liked meeting people's parents because it highlights the inherited personalities and can explain so much about someone's background. And the pictures of mothers did that for me.

So here's my mom: Shari.



Mom and I are a lot alike. I got her introspective, German personality and blue eyes. She's a lot stronger than I am in many ways; she really is an emotional rock and she's highly intelligent and she's patient. Holy hell, the woman has the nerves of a saint.

She's the best. I love you, Mom!

5.10.2013

Quidditch World Cup VI: Day Two




The final match for the championship title was between UCLA and University of Texas. Obviously I was disappointed to see UCLA struggle, but I was able to watch the game with our Event Director, who I adore, which was a great way to end the tournament.

 How could you not love this reaction to a win?

Sunday was a little less hectic, when it came to my responsibilities, but I'd had 7 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, so I was feeling a little less than on my A-game.


Our biggest entertainment act, and my biggest responsibility on Saturday, was StarKid who does sketch comedy of sorts. That meant I had to do more celebrity-balancing stuff throughout the day instead of just power-housing around the event. It's fascinating to me what an encounter with a little bit of celebrity-status does to people. StarKid is pretty well known, thanks to their Harry Potter themed YouTube videos, which caused quidkids to act like starry-eyed teens. There were no real issues and as with everything else, things ran smoothly as a whole, but there were a couple times I had to direct people away from StarKid, staff included.




Closing ceremonies were the thing I feel I performed weakest on. I forget how very few people actually care about the closing ceremonies, so when we gave away the sportsmanship awards after the final game, we were missing people and there wasn't as much excitement as I would have liked. If I were to do it again I'd give as many trophies away at the start of the championship match as possible. It didn't really matter, but I wish I could have done that differently.



One thing I think we all forget is how lucky we were with weather. While things were really hot on Saturday and most of Sunday, a huge thunder storm was coming our way and started an hour after the closing ceremonies. Because teams were flying out Sunday night, if there were any more delays to games, or if the rain had come any earlier, we would have been forced to post-pone the championship game. But in postponing it, I don't know when we would have finished: The storm lasted long enough and teams had to leave so who knows what we would have done!


The IQA and Kissimmee put together an after-party at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for anyone who wanted to buy tickets at the world cup. A small group of WCOT had some things to finalize some things before driving ourselves over to Universal Studios, including taking care of one of our team members who was dealing with heat exhaustion, so by the time the seven of us got to the park we walked in by ourselves. The after-party was perfect. It was dark, rainy but warm and everyone at the event was associated with the IQA so it felt like we were Hogwarts Students going to Hogsmead for the evening.

At one point it started pouring so everyone scattered to find shelter, which caused me to lose the group of friends I was with. As I stood under an overhang I saw a group of people dancing down the middle of the street. It didn't take me long to realize it was the marketing team. I'm obsessed with the entire marketing team so I bolted out and joined the madness.

I'm obsessed with the IQA, quidkids and the madness that was Quidditch World Cup VI.

#OBSESSED

5.08.2013

Quidditch World Cup VI: Day One


The WCOT staff spent Friday doing prep work and finalizing plans, so that when we got to the field at 5:30 Saturday morning we were ready for the onslaught. Despite our planning, Saturday morning kind of turned into mayhem.



I tried really hard to be organized and ready but as soon as we got to the park everything went down at once and I felt completely scatter-brained. Teams arrived way earlier than anticipated; we were low on volunteers that early; last-minute changes to the opening ceremony (which included a surprise inclusion of the Harlem Shake); set-up and coordinating people. I didn't expect to have so many reasons to be running around the event all day, which is silly considering I was overseeing teams, guests and entertainment, but I was all over the place. I prefer it that way but it was nuts.


I was oblivious to this picture. This is Katie. She rocks.

Despite the fact my walkie-talkie was constantly buzzing I was able to watch a quidditch match. It's very easy to see why people love the sport. Quidditch is fast-paced, physical and unexpected. The game has very specific rules and structure, which makes it easy to follow, but the Snitch, who is a third-party person with zero rules, can do anything he/she wants so everyone is on their toes. At one point in the weekend I was driving a golf cart around the event when a Snitch ran away from his game and jumped in my cart, safely eluding the Seekers.

It was so freaking hot. This is Kedzie. He's fab.

Our entertainment for the day was Nathan Nickerson, a magician, and Harry and the Potters, a wizard rock band. Yes, you read that right. They play rock music from the perspective of Harry Potter, and they sell golden snitchwiches, which are peanut butter sandwiches with Golden Grahams cereal. If you're extra lucky they'll add honey. I was one of those people. Yes, I bounced in my golf cart seat as I ate it. Delish. And very Harry Potter.

If you aren't already a quidkid I recommend taking a few minutes to listen to this amazing TED talk from the founder of the Harry Potter Alliance about the influence of Harry Potter throughout our society.

5.06.2013

Quidditch World Cup VI: The Lead-up

I've struggled getting to this post (which has subsequently turned into four posts) because I was too busy to take pictures, there is so much to tell (because I've completely failed to even mention quidditch on my blog yet) and I hate having long posts with limited images. But, the 2013 Quidditch World Cup was too epic to leave out, so here we go.


Over Christmas Taylor and I met up with some of my high school friends at La Vics and Nadia mentioned she was volunteering with the International Quidditch Association's world cup. Let me stop here: Yes, the magical sport from the Harry Potter books. Read my breakdown of the non-magical quidditch sport if you missed it.


Because the event was happening close to where I live (Kissimmee, just next to Orlando), she said I should volunteer. Assuming I would be a day-of volunteer, I got online and started poking around the site, only to stumble on the position of Hospitality Director. Apparently the original director's team qualified for the event so he had to back out of the position. I applied, had a Skype interview, received a "You're Hired!" email that evening and the next night I was back on Skype for my first meeting.



When you're thrown into an upper-level management position half-way through the planning process of a major event, with an organization you know nothing about, you tend to feel like you're drinking from the world's largest fire hydrant. Luckily, the entire World Cup Organizing Team (WCOT) was amazing. When I say "amazing" I mean I go through withdrawals every Thursday night because we no longer have our weekly meetings.


The Responsibilities

My team was split into three sections: Teams, Guests, Entertainment. Let me just take a second and say I could not have asked for a better team. They were hard working, easy to communicate with, and they made the entire process fun. Seriously, I got so lucky.

Teams – Registering teams and organizing player rosters; check teams in to the event; communicate with teams; coordinate travel and accommodations.

Guests – Ticket sales; plan and coordinate VIP everything; guest experiences.

Entertainment – Plan, book and support our non-sport entertainment.

Kidditch – Kid-sized quidditch for attendees.


The Arrival
 
I drove down to Kissimmee (just outside of Orlando) on the morning of Thursday 4/11. Let me just say, I understand why toll roads exist, but I hate them with a passion. I would much rather pay taxes than pay tolls. I was so pissed off after my third toll stop in ten miles I swore them off for the rest of the weekend.


Anyway, the whole shebang took place at Austin Tindale park, which was great, apart from the 30 minute drive from our hotels. We spent the day getting all the general set-up and organizing done.

Pretty much everyone already knew each other, so it was kind of like being the +1 to the popular kid's high school reunion. Only one person knew me beforehand, but I was immediately accepted.

There's something unique and very distinct about quidkids. They are quidditch and Harry Potter nerds and that passion drives them to volunteer hundreds of hours in developing the sport and the league. It pays off. The event was wildly successful behind the scenes and we heard lots of positive feedback from players and guests alike.


5.04.2013

Quidditch: The Non-Magical Version


The alchemy of the Harry Potter generation: Play quidditch despite lacking magic. 


Quidditch


The Game as Played in Harry Potter

Players fly on brooms around the field. Points are earned by throwing balls through hoops. The game ends when the snitch is caught.

The Game as Played by the International Quidditch Association

Players run on brooms around the field. Points are earned by throwing balls through hoops. The game ends when the snitch is caught.


The Players 

 

Beater (Two per team)

Novel: Players responsible for using bats to beat bludgers away from their team members and toward the opposing team members with the goal of knocking them off their brooms.
IQA: Players throw bludgers at other players. When a player is hit by a bludger they are out of play. In order to become an active player they must tag the hoops on their side of the field.

 

Keeper (One per team)

Novel: Player responsible for protecting the hoops on their side of the field.
IQA: Player responsible for protecting the hoops on their side of the field.

Chaser (Two per team)

Novel: Players responsible for throwing the quaffle through the opposing team's hoops to score points.
IQA: Players responsible for throwing the quaffle through the opposing team's hoops to score points.

 

Seeker (One per team)

Novel: Player responsible for finding and catching the snitch.
IQA: Player responsible for finding and catching the snitch.


The Balls 

 

Quaffle (One in a game)

Novel: Points are scored when Chasers throw the quaffle through one of the three hoops positioned on the opposing team's side.
IQA: Slightly deflated volleyball used by Chaser. Points are scored when Chasers throw the quaffle through one of the three hoops positioned on the opposing team's side.

 

Bludgers (Two in a game)

Novel: Magic balls that fly around the field with the sole purpose of knocking players off their brooms.
IQA: Dodge-balls. Beaters throw them at players on the opposing team, temporarily knocking players out of play. When a player is hit with a bludger he/she must get off his/her broom, run back and touch his/her team's hoops before becoming an active player again.

Snitch (One in a game)

Novel: A small, magic ball that that flies around avoiding capture. Once the snitch is caught the game is over.
IQA: A person. This person is not associated with either team and has no rules about where he/she can go or what he/she does. The snitch has a flag-football styled tennis ball in a sock hanging from the back of his/her shorts. When a Seeker pulls this off the snitch's shorts the game is over.



The biggest challenge of adapting the game is the golden snitch. Without magic, what do you chase? I remember playing a version of quidditch in elementary school, right after the third book came out, that was superbly lame because a tennis ball was used as the snitch. Not difficult to catch, nor interesting. The IQA nailed this one. The rules of general play are very structured, but the snitch's freedom brings a level of spontaneity and unknown that adds a unique level of interest to the game.

You can read more about the International Quidditch Association and its origins here.