What's the onomatopoeia for airplane-flying noise?

Today I found out that my boss is supposed to make an "airplane cake". As in, it needs to have an airplane modeled out of fondant (or similar material) on it.

I desperately, desperately want to make that airplane. As soon as I heard the phrase "airplane cake", I started thinking about how I would make it. At the time, I didn't know it would be made out of fondant, and my boss had me color some chocolate recently, so I also made vague plans for molding it out of that, but fondant wins the day. I don't care for the taste of fondant, but damn you can do neat stuff with it.

Unfortunately, I will not be making the airplane. My boss was noticeably stressed out about having to make the airplane and was procrastinating on starting it probably even after I left. Before leaving, I asked if I might be allowed to at least try to make the plane, and even offered to do so on my own time, but my boss turned me down. She thanked me profusely for offering, but said, visibly unhappy, that she would have to do it herself.

My coworkers were very surprised. Teacher-coworker thought for certain my boss would go for it, given how stressed out my boss was about the whole thing and what a huge weight it would take off her mind. I was both baffled and disappointed. Really, I didn't offer for my boss' sake; I just can't stop thinking about how I would make that plane! I could even make it with an actual spinning propeller, I'm pretty sure! Alas, it is not to be. Though I may try with knockoff play-doh and/or Sculpy at some point, or maybe marshmallow fondant or marzipan, because I wanna make that plane, dammit! (I was planning to try this afternoon/evening, but decided that sleep would have to be my priority. I slept horribly the past two nights, which was definitely not helped by having to get up first an hour and then a half-hour earlier than usual for work.)

*sigh* At least my boss is letting me help make the plane's dog pilot tomorrow. I plan to give it a little aviator's helmet, goggles included, and, if I can manage it (I'm pretty sure I can), to have its mouth open with its tongue flapping in the wind. I am sooooo looking forward to that!



(Brief AnimeIowa report forthcoming, I just wanted to get this written down first.)

AnimeIowa 2014 Teaspoon Report, part 1

It's time for my AnimeIowa 2014 report!

* My blue gaffer's tape arrived promptly before AI, which allowed me to mark out wheelchair spaces in the various programming rooms. Sadly, after the rooms were "torn down" for various events (most noticeably the Masquerade), the hotel staff was possibly unaware of the blue tape's significance and didn't bother to lay out the chairs around them when setting the rooms back up. I managed to fix two of the three rooms affected, but Main Programming had far too many chairs for me to even attempt on my own. I will have to see if I can include notes on this next year.

* I did not manage to print out all of the Use The Mic signs I had planned to make before my parents' printer ran out of black ink, but between what we actually had leftover from last year and what I managed to print out this year, we had more than enough signs to go around, yay! The Info Desk people kindly wrote "Please Return [this sign] to the Info Desk" on the back of all the signs, so hopefully we'll have minimal losses this year and will continue to have sufficient signs for at least a few more years in the future.

* ( Hand Sanitizer )

* I managed to remember some key items when making my speech at Opening Ceremonies this year, woo! I included a request for able-bodied attendees to consider using the stairs, especially if they were only going up or down one or two floors (and added a note not to harass people for taking the elevator if it didn't look like they needed to, because you really can't always tell by looking what someone's ability level is); I made a gentle reminder to use the microphone, with general instructions on spacing (I think I said something like "hold it under your chin"?) and mentioned the Use The Mic signs at the Info Desk; and I pointed out that service animals in attendance at AI were there on the job, so please attendees ask their boss if it's okay for them to socialize first.

(This year's MC did "help" a bit with my speech, interjecting twice. The first time was with the microphone bit, where I pointed out that asking "Can everyone hear me?" was kinda pointless, since people who can't hear won't be able to answer; there he was actually helpful and even used my favorite comparison, asking everyone in the audience who wasn't there to put their hand up. I went on to suggest that panelists could ask, "If you can hear me, please raise your hand," and then to watch for people who didn't raise their hands, especially in the back. Not a perfect solution, but definitely better than "can everyone hear me". The second time was a lot more cringe-worthy for me. When I asked attendees to ask a service animal's handler before touching the animal, the MC added, "Just like if you're asking to touch someone's baby. Or their wife." [Emphasis mine.] Just. Wooooooow. Way to imply that people's wives are both their spouse's babysitter and their property. Ick ick ick. Since I wasn't sure how much time I had, I basically continued with my speech, but that bit has been sitting with me ever since.)

* I forgot to make a lot of large-print copies of things this year; I rather hope we saved some from previous years, but don't actually know if we did. That's definitely something I need to do for next year. It's also something I can potentially assign to someone in the event that I try to recruit more people to work for Accessibility. Now that I'm figuring this out, it's something I have to consider.


It's getting late for me, so I'm going to set aside the report for now and pick it up later. G'night!

Edit: Part 2 of this report can now be found here.