An Announcement of Service to the Public

auntiemisha and I will be throwing a party at Arisia for b00jum, as a hail-and-farewell before he goes to foreign and exotic lands & meets strange and interesting people. Probably Saturday night, though Sunday is an option if there's a sense that most People of Interest will be staying on.

(It will not be one of those parties. Je regrette.)

Now presenting: Crayon drawings on posterboard.

So, I have to give this orientation, as I said. By which I mean, the mail from the First Year Orientation People with the "here's when everyone's talking at the poor kids" had gone to The Boss, who forwarded it to me with a one-line of "You should be involved in this", followed by a two-minute of "Last year I showed them the video then chatted with them a bit". Um, okay. So I'll show them the video and then I busted my ass making a Keynote presentation (I, who have never used a powerpointy thing in my entire life); it is simple and has no audio, but it looks tolerably good. And the slides just have various points which I can either cover tersely or bloviate on, depending on how much time it should take. (Our department has a half hour, but I had not yet been told whether I would actually give this, or The Boss would, or I'd give it and then he'd speechify, or what.)

1. I finally asked him, after getting no answer to my mail. He'd forgotten about it, would try and make it, "but you should just go ahead and give it if I'm not there." WHAT

2. Guided by the serpentine wisdom of older hands, I proactively checked with A/V Guy to see if I could use the smart classroom this fandango is in, or one with the same equipage, so I don't look like a complete schmuck as the representative of IT using IT's OWN EQUIPMENT. Finally, about 2:30, I heard back. "Oh, THAT smart classroom isn't done yet. It only has a PC in it. No, it's all wired together so you can't hook in a Mac, or any laptop at all, even if you have all the right dongles." WHAT

So I've exported from Keynote to Quicktime, which they tell me there is a shiny newest version of on said PC, and God bless Apple for it can export in "wait for manual advance" so it should, I emphasize SHOULD, work the same way. A/V Guy's minion said to phone him 10 min. before and he'd come along with to make sure all the parts are in working order or fix them if they aren't. It's not as good as actually being able to do a test run, but it's the best I can do. (Unless I can sneak in right at 9 and screw with it before the program starts, but I don't put money on it.)