I also liked the idea you mentioned to me about pimpers putting together a package that includes a city and the date that works best for that city, instead of going back and forth about whether we should vote on the date or the city first.

Yes, this, though maybe they could propose two possible weekends--same season or different, their preference--within their package which we could narrow down after the initial vote (i.e., in a west coast year, I could propose for Tucson April 3-4 or June 11-12; Cass might propose Portland April 11-12 or June 17-18 [dates totally made up here]; and if Portland won, we would then only have two dates to narrow down to)? And the date proposals themselves would be totally determined by the pimper, so one city might have spring and summer choices while another might be only spring or only summer. That makes so much sense to me.

And ftr, as a teacher I have nothing against a March or up to mid- April date proposal. It gets a lot trickier when we talk about late April through May because so many teachers and parents have commitments every weekend for exam grading, graduations, etc. My personal concern about earlier dates is really weather-related. If we end up in some of the states in the north, those earlier dates are so cold or, more likely, wet/snowy, that March and April is much less appealing and can cause travel nightmares. I know the heat is much less appealing for many Buffistas--I'm not so much talking about comfort level as I am logistical considerations of what we are able to do if it's snowing or miserably wet and cold. *But* that-s why I love the paired city/date[s] idea! Tucson in late spring is gorgeous, for example, but it's unbearable in July.

It just seems like once school gets out that people have all kinds of plans and family trips and weddings and holidays and too many co-workers taking vacations at the same time and, and, and.

I think that many of those summer conflicts arise because we have picked a date so late in the year that people have plans--but this is also true of earlier dates. If we follow Debet's suggestion an decide all of this in October, I think that whatever date we pick is bound to be fine for most people.

I'm excited about our forward momentum! Let's keep it up!

ETA: I hereby volunteer to handle surveys of whatever kind we need. I love Survey Monkey in a possibly unhealthy way.

Yes, this, though maybe they could propose 2-3 possible weekends within their package which we could narrow down after the initial vote (i.e., in a west coast year, I could propose for Tucson April 3-4 or June 11-12; Cass might propose Portland April 11-12 or June 17-18 [dates totally made up here]; and if Portland won, we would then only have two dates to narrow down to)? And the date proposals themselves would be totally determined by the pimper, so one city might have spring and summer choices while another might be only spring or only summer. That makes so much sense to me.

If a site has more than one awesome date this is worth considering to be sure... The awesomeness of Survey Monkey nothwithstanding, however, I fear we loose interest/focus among the cat herd when we have more than a couple of votes. Momentum seemed to be a problem this last round.

That would be much less of an issue if we weren't starting the process a few months before the event. I say we leave it up to the pimpers. They should be able to propose one or two dates for their city. Momentum won't be an issue at that point.

Pimpers Rool!

2. Mall of America

3. Museum of Questionable Medical Devices

These two points are strongly selling Minn. for me.

Pimpers Rool!

Yes!

Another thing to consider for weather is that even though a southernly city might not have weather problems for coming in, those in the semi-frozen north might have problems getting out.

I only had a couple pictures that seem shareworthy, and they're here:

[link]

Am I missing something? I haven't seen prom pictures!

We didn't prom, we went out to dinner & then chilled in the suite/went to waterfire.