Teri vs Amy's Ceiling Fan - Round 1

I was visiting my friend Amy Kerr on Saturday afternoon, and noticed that her new ceiling fan/light fixture was still in the box. Her tall guy-friend that was going to install it had to go out of town for work for an extended period of time, and wasn't able to install the fan before he left.

No problem, says I. I've installed a few ceiling fans in my time, and it's not that big a deal. We have a couple of hours to kill, want to do it now?

Step One: Remove the old broken ceiling fan. Amy looks for the small step ladder, which can't be found. No problem, the ceiling is "normal" height, and I can reach just fine standing on the kitchen chairs, and the removal of the old fan goes just fine. The old celing mounting bracket for the old fan is still in good shape, and I should be able to use it. Hurray! One less thing to have to remove and replace.

Step Two: Assemble the new fan. This, too, goes relatively well. This fan has a few more pieces than the last couple I put together, but the directions are pretty good. I put the motor housings together while Amy attaches all of the fan blades where they need to go (this one has to have them added prior to the final step, where many fans have that as the last step instead). It feels weird having help! The last few ceiling lights and fans I installed I did all alone. Help is much better!

While I'm looking at all of the parts, I realize that the construction of this fan requires use of the ceiling mounting bracket that it came with, due to the two small screws on the bottom where the cover for the ceiling part is supposed to attach. Okay, no problem. I'll just climb back up and remove the old mounting bracket, and install the new one.

Problem Number One: Amy lacks a Nut Driver. That would be the tool you need to add or remove a nut from a screw (No, there was no way in the world you could get at that nut with a wrench. I tried that, too.). Since I hadn't been planning this Fannish Adventure, I did not bring my toolbox. So, off we go to Home Depot to purchase tools.

Back at Amy's again. By the way, it's getting dark now, and we have to break out flashlights since it was easier to turn off ALL the power to the condo. Amy is repriesing her role as Follow-Spot operator, and shining the flashlight onto the ceiling so I can remove the nuts from the screws, and take down the old mounting brackets. No sweat once you have the right tool.

Next, I go to install the new mounting bracket... only the screws protruding from the ceiling are too short!!! (It is useful to note at this point that the addition of a ceiling fan in the living room was not part of, nor planned for in, the original construction. I would love to know how those bolts came to be sticking out of the ceiling.) Well, bummer. Now what? Ah, I know, there's just some foam rubber glued to the back (ceiling side) of the mounting brackets, so I removed it. Problem solved. Now the screws are long enough to get the nuts back on.

Problem Number Two: The slots for the ceiling-mount screws on the old bracket are ever so slightly larger than the ones on the new bracket. Once you have the nut on the screw on one side, the screw on the other side just fits into the slot on the other side. There is ZERO room for the nut.

After much cursing, several attempts to just get it to go on anyway, and several rounds of drop-then-pick-up the nut, I admit defeat. It's just not going to go. And you can't hang a heavy ceiling fan with only one side of the mounting bracket attached. That is just a disaster in the making.

Fine, we say. We will just screw it into the ceiling from the underneath side, and round up a 1.5 inch screw. However, my attempts to force said screw into the ceiling, over my head, with just a regular screw driver, were all for naught. I could make it do no more than put a big dimple into the popcorn plaster.

I have an electric drill at home, and I'll just bring that tomorrow. Shouldn't be any problem at all with a drill. I can make the traditional starter hole, and then use the drill to put the screw in as well (yes, I own tools, and I know how to use them!). We'll have that fan up in no time tomorrow.

I secured the black and white wires that were now dangling from the ceiling (didn't want any chance of them touching each other), Amy turned the power back on, and we went to go sing Christmas Carols with some friends, followed by a party at some other friends' house. A great evening was had by all.

Loki vs The Gift Bag

Last night as I was finishing up some Christmas presents and putting them into a pretty paper gift bag, well… Loki happened!

He insists on examining every bag, jumping in and rooting around. Sometimes I pick up the bag he's climbed into and carry him around.

This time he stuck his head into the bag by way of the handle, and got his head stuck! This, of course, freaked him out, and he started speed-lapping the apartment, with the bag still attached! I had to chase him down through 3 rooms, while he was still doing time trials. After I caught him in the dining room and determined that he wasn't in actual peril (he, of course, did not agree), I took his photo before removing his new fashion accessory.

Next I retraced his route to find the gifts that had been strewn about, and the rest of the now-destroyed bag. All items were located, and none of the gifts had been damaged. Whew!

Not 10 minutes later Loki climbed into another tote bag.

Like I said before, he needs a brain.

Hosting Convention Panels 101

I think they need to make convention panelists take a course on "How To Be A Convention Panelist," because this weekend at Worldcon has made it clear to me that far too many of them don't know how to do it.

I attended more than one panel where the "moderator" did more talking than anyone else. On one panel the moderator would barely let the panelists make a comment, then would tell each of them why she thought they were wrong.

At another panel, one of the panelists got very far off topic in the first five minutes, and just rambled inanely on and on. The moderator did nothing to reel the guy back in, or make him shut up. I actually left that panel after about ten minutes of the crazy off-topic monologue. I could no longer stand it, and it wasn't the discussion I showed up to listen to.

One panelist sat sideways the entire time, talking to the guy next to him, and would never speak into the microphone. That, combined with his 90MPH speech pattern, made it impossible to either hear or understand him.

One guy kept sitting really far back, not speaking into the microphone. The audience had to yell "Mike!" at him every single time he spoke. And he always looked so put-out that he had to sit up straight and repeat the beginning of whatever comment he had started to make.

I'm sure you couldn't actually get the panel participants to show up for a taining session. You'd never be be able to get them all to show up at the same time and place. So, I think all conventions should give every panelist an instruction sheet when they arrive, and be made to read it before they are allowed to participate in a panel.

Here are my suggestions of what the instruction sheet should say. Feel free to copy and use this in its entirety, but kindly give me credit for having written it.

1. Use the microphones and use them properly.

• The ones used in convention centers and hotels are NOT omni-directional. You have to face them, and speak directly into them in order to be heard by your audience.
• Do not sit leaning back in your chair with your face four feet from the microphone, because it won't pick up your voice. The audience is going to get very tired of having to shout "Mike!" at you for the entire panel.
• Speak at a normal level. Do not shout and break everyone's eardrums, or whisper and give everyone a stress headache from trying to hear you.
• If there aren't enough microphones for for each person to have their own, then be polite and share. Nobody likes a microphone hog.

2. This is not a TV chat show. It is a panel discussion.

• Don't turn sideways during the whole panel, speaking only to your fellow panelists and ignoring the audience. This will produce some bad results.
• A: If the microphone is in a stand on the table, you won't be speaking into it properly (see point 1 above), and the audience won't be able to hear you.
• B: it gives the audience the impression that you don't care about them, or care if they hear what you have to say, making you seem like an arrogant prick.

3. If you are too shy to speak in front of an audience, then politely decline when asked to be on a panel. The fans will understand. In general, it is better to have a reputation as a shy person than as an arrogant one.

4. If you happen to be one of those people who really do hate your fans (yes, there are such people), then please decline all convention invitations and stay home. The fans don't appreciate being insulted, and can tell when you don't like them.

5. If you are the moderator, then please moderate.

• Moderator doesn't mean "star of the panel," so in most cases you should Shut The Frak Up! Yes, sometimes the moderator can, and should, participate. But note that is participate, not dominate.
• Your job is to keep the panel on track for the Topic, since that's what the audience showed up for.
• Politely reel in or axe conversations that have gone astray.
• Keep the panel-hogs from usurping all of the talk time.
• Seek out comments from panelists who aren't talking enough. Someone in the audience showed up to hear them speak, too.
• And since this seems to need repeating to many moderators, remember that you are the moderator, not the star. Do not be the one who is the Panel Hog.

6. If you desire to be invited as any sort of guest to a future convention, then think of every panel you are on as a type of audition. You never know who is in the audience. If you seem arrogant, or uncontrollable, or difficult to deal with, you could be passed over as a future guest simply based on your actions on a panel.