Hard to believe it's that time of year already. I've had my head in other things for almost a year now, and it shows. From reading the boards, I'm one of the last people to get into "con mode." Everyone else on tech seems to be frothing at the bit to get back to work, and me, I'm a bit hesitant.

Last year's work paid off. We documented a lot of our processes last year, and it's making things easier. The personnel check-in system will run, for the most part, identically to what we used last year. I'm working on completing my promised rewrite of the radio check-in program. I made major breakthroughs tonight that make me feel much, much more confident about completing the code on-time. I want this section done early, so I can work on tidying up a few loose ends. There are a few external changes that need making to last year's code. There are more internally, but only a few of us can see those. Thankfully. I have a reputation to uphold!

This year's dragon*con is going to be a major change for me. I attended in 2006 knowing that my life would be very different in 2007, though I knew I'd have no way of predicting the changed. A year later, here I am, tired, preoccupied, ready.

I love where I work. I love what we do, and what it stands for. But at the same time, I'm still not entirely them. My heart has just as much in common with the blue-haired freaks. I fight with them, drink with them, work harder with them than just about anyone I've ever known in my life, and I miss them intensely when they're gone.

Lately, the phone calls have started ratcheting up. There are plans to make and work to do. The voices on the phone make me miss them, make me mentally fast-forward to that first, magic moment at Brian and Suzan's when I'll look around the living room and see them all there -- my chicks, home to roost.

I miss my radio, and I miss my Ops chair. I'm ready to plop down, headphone up, look over at Patrick and nod readiness. At that moment, the doubts fall away. I know this job, I know these needs; I know the rhythm of ballroom changes and last-minute reschedulings.

I belong there. My hair may not be blue, but my heart is. All I have to do is show up, strap on the radio, and I'll remember.

Load-in begins in twenty-one days.