PiQNic Headquarters

PiQNic 2010 has been put into motion and is currently scheduled for May 22, 2010.  That's a bit shorter than two months away.

Now, granted, more and more of the organization of this PiQNic is being done through Facebook, so feel free to RSVP there.  Anyone who hasn't RSVP'd on either this website (http://piqnic.quentinbaker.com) or the Facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=112844878729771) should call either Nichole or Quentin.

Just a reminder to you all the PiQNic 2009 is two weeks away. It takes place at Mills Road Park (Shelter #2) on May 31 and starts around 9am-ish. At least, I'll be there with the Todd's that early. People show up throughout the day and we're generally there until sundown. Bring food, bring drink, bring your family and any other outdoor festivities you can come up with. I'll send out one more (just one cause I hate spam more than you do) reminder next week.

The ball has begun rolling on the plans for PiQNic 2009.

Reservations have been made for Shelter #2 at Mills Road Park for May 31, 2009.  This is the weekend after Memorial Day weekend, give you about three months to schedule for the event.

Yeah, there's snow on the ground and everyone's having a tough time to drive.

Never a better reason than to think about warm Spring and fun in the sun at the next PiQNic.  We've got a Facebook and a MySpace group, and more pictures are on their way.  My life has given me a lot of spare time now, so I'm going to be able to focus more on the site and get this one going.  Park Shelter reservations open up in a few weeks (if not already!) so expect a firm date soon!

There's just one week left before the big event, and that would be PiQNic VII.

Yup. PiQNic 7 looms large. What happened to PiQNic 6? Oh, yeah, that was a clerical error, sorry. (Seriously, I can't believe that since PiQNic four we've been misnumbering these things!)

Okay, found out the hard way that a component of the site is somewhat screwy.

If you signed up for the site but didn't reply to the first email confirmation it sends out, then I have been (unintentionally) sending you "reminders" to complete the registration.  Unfortunately, although the reminders are configured to go out every two days up to six (and then stop), they've been going out on a nearly nonstop four hour basis!  And adding insult to injury is that the reminder emails are not going out with any useful text, saying things like "you still need to complete your registration with !sitename as user !username with a temporary password of !password".

Ugh.

So, for the six or seven of you caught in that loop, I sincerely apologize, and plan to have this fixed sometime this weekend.

For anyone signing up for the site for the first time, please take care to respond to the first email that goes out to you to confirm your account and you won't have to worry about this.  I personally plan to track down the person who wrote the "reminder" code and flog them viciously.  With a shoe.

And in other news, although I'd planned on buying piqnic.com, it turns out that some company is squatting on that domain and has yet to respond to my emails.  Bummer.

Figured I'd spend a bit of time to explain a bit more about this site and address some questions that people have.

Do I really need to sign up?

Yes!  Well, no.  I'd really like you to, cause it makes life easy for us organizers.  See, we've got a list of names that we need to get in touch with.  If we can get everyone  on that list to sign up here, then that'd be only one list to deal with.  As it stands we've got two lists to go through for contacting everyone... and by the way, the phone calls start on the 25th, one month prior to the event - sign up now so I'm not bugging you, cause I don't respect the Do-Not-Call registry...  *ahem*

But no, you don't have to sign up.  If you could do us the favor of at least subscribing to the newsletter (there's a sign-up box on the left, just requires an email address) you'll be sent news via email.  I plan to keep Newsletter issues as infrequent as possible, cause I hate spam and my inbox is an unwieldy beast that requires a priest and a virgin sacrifice to manage.

WTF?! I need my address to sign up?

Yeah, well, kinda, sorta.  Those of you who've been to PiQNics past know that we usually have a sign up sheet that asks for your name and address and other contact info so that we can get ahold of you for the next one - this is just an extension of that.  My goal is to have it set up so that before each PiQNic we can send out postcard invites along with emails - and in this way decrease the rediculous amount of phone calls needed to pull these off!  So, is filling out your address required for signing up to the site?  Yes.  Can you lie?  Yeah, sure, I'm not the IRS.  You can tell me that you live in the white house if it makes you feel better.

WhAt'S WiTh ThE CaPs In PiQNic?

I'm not trying to be 733t.  The first PiQNic was just a Picnic.  When I the second one was a big event and since I was organizing it I decided to call it the PiQnic, cause I'm vain like that.  But ever since PiQNic III, Nichole (Russell) Todd has been instrumental in organizing them so I made a further modification to capitalize the N.  I put the Q in PiQNic, she brings the "N".  Since then, so many people have helped out that if I were to keep doing the letter-for-reward thing the title would be PiRQNiVAJMc, and that's a bitch to pronounce.

You posted a list of Lost Contacts...

Yeah, I know, that was kind of a goof up on my part - I'd been working on this site for six hours straight, sent out the emails and ten of them bounced back undeliverable.  I quickly threw together the list and posted it without really examining it - for example, I've been chatting with John Napier for the past couple weeks, so I know where to find him - and just about everyone else on the list can be found through MySpace.  Still, my official policy so far is that if they haven't signed up on the site, they haven't been contacted.