So I went to FWA 2008. My first con since I dropped what little presence I had in the fandom in 2005. I wanted to do a few things at the con, but the idea wasn't to do the con, but to relax, hang out and just chill. It was a vacation I was looking forward to.

Fast forward through the weekend to tonight when I finally made it back home and all I can say is 'This was the worst vacation I have ever had!"

It started with the ride up to Atlanta in the furry caravan. The drive itself was alot of fun, always is as I love to drive. But the absolute shit conditions of I 75 between Ocala and Lake City left our cars sand blasted and me with about a dozen chips in my windshield; of my just days over a year old Yaris. I was pissed!

But it gets better. While I did have fun Thursday, the first night, I awoke on Friday morning with the worst pain I have ever felt in my left ankle and a severely swollen foot. I couldn't walk on it, and I could barely hobble around the hotel room. So I spent the vast majority of the con in intense pain in the hotel room, missing everything but the fursuit parade.

Sometime during the con, someone backed into my car and left a huge dent in the bumper and scratched the paint all to hell. They left no note, there was no surveillance of the lot and nothing the hotel or the con could do. Oh yes thank you whoever you are. I hope you die slowly of ass cancer, so that way while your suffering in pain, you'll never have to chance to get laid again. Serves ya right I say. You could have left a fucking note! It would have been the polite thing to do, never mind that it was required by law...

So with all that shit going on, Its finally leaving day and I get wheel-chaired out to my car (hence how I found out about the damage in the first place) and get on the road. I'm stiff and sore and in a lot of pain, but I'm on my way home dammit! But instead I get pulled over for speeding after the cop picks out of a line of cars n the caravan (because I was the last car of the group, dontcha know?) and get a $202.50 that probably will be $405.00 due to the construction zone we were in.

Fuck!!

Im alittle too pissed and way too tired to go into more detail, but I do want to thank the guys in the caravan for the commiseration and aide they gave me on the ride back. Its was generally decided I think that I must have been cursed.

I know I got a strong vibe that I should never, ever do this shit again, but the could just be anger coloring the experience....

Fuck!!

Got a new badge from jannali just in time for FWA!

My fellow furs, lend me your cute, fuzzy ears =^.^=

In all seriousness, I just felt like posting a goings on. Been up for roughly 15 hours, and of that, 12 have been doing laundry. I mean WTF? It took me 12 hours to do my laundry? I had no idea I had this many clothes o_O

I mean I was planning to clean my room the rest of the way after the laundry was done and put away. I just didn't count on the laundry taking all freaking day!

But while I was doing that laundry, or more to the point feeding the washer and dryer, I got to play a lot of xbox today. Played undertow and got to like mission 10 which is cool and all, but despite the single player narrative and the cool cut scenes in such a small game, its still the same game play each and every time; capture point game play just isn't as much fun without vehicles I guess.

Also went 3 or 4 sets in rockband singing, and nobody died! All the mirrors in the house are still intact, so I must not have sounded that bad :) Had a lot of fun singing those songs, but it just reinforces the point that not only do I not know half the words, but I have got to be tone deaf to boot!

In furry news, I only have Monday night, and Tuesday night before I am off from work for 6 glorious days for FWA! Yay me!

Haven't posted in a while, so I guess I will post something as filler for now.

Still on track for FWA, the time off has been approved, and I am looking forward to the break from the monotony. I'm really not going for the 'con' per se, even though I originally planned it as my reentry into the fandom. I had planned to have my down payment into Latin by now for my suit, but that just didn't happen; money was a tad tight all last year with the car and all.

Instead I'm still here wondering if the furry fandom is my safe haven or not. Still seems like all the mundane BS I put with in life is ever present in the fandom, and some bits of it are actually worse. But then again, I feel like I should give it more off a try; give them a better chance than I have so far. Maybe, I just don't know.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to the break from work and home. Doing something I don't often do; Travel and relax. Really looking forward to the relaxing part :)

As for life, looks like my bank really likes me since they upped my credit limit. My credit record is looking good, and I am on track for buying a house soonish, I think. Not so sure where Anthony sits with it. I think the prospect of 30 or more years of debt scares him. I know it scares me shit-less.

We'll just have to see where the endless days take us.

Okay, so there wasn't much interest in gaming so for now, that idea is on the back burner. While I did get 2 furs interested, one was perfect and the other may have had scheduling issues, it just isn't enough in my opinion to get a good group dynamic going. Maybe I'll try again after me and antimon move from our too-close-to-pine-hills-for-comfort town home to something a little closer to the Orlando furs.

In other news, it seems like the supervisor/lead shift bid has been pushed back to Dec. 1st. I guess thats good news, as we will be keeping our current leadership in place till after the end-of-year reviews are done, but in the end, I am still loosing my friends and most of the joy from my job. Its sad that I wont be able to see them since I work graveyard.

In furry news, I got my Michael Reference sheet from mehndix, and I am just waiting for latinvixen02 to open up the 2009 suit list so I can get my first fursuit! yay for me! You can see the Michael ref sheet in my LJ gallery here.

I think that wraps everything up, at least for this week anyways as I have furloween and my birthday comming up in the next 21 days or so. *Excited*

So me and antimon went to the Mixed Candy dance event last night. And while it was out in the middle of nowhere, and much too short, I had a blast! But I'm not sure how much fun antimon actually had *shrugs*

I filmed the suiters dancing for maybe 20-30 minutes and bobbed a bit to some of the better pieces of the mix being played (fucking love Botten Anna by Bass Hunter!) but didn't dance myself. Still too hard to get past the social lockouts I have going on in my head. I wanted to dance and have more fun than I was having, but I just couldn't get myself out there and make a spectacle of myself.

But I had loads of fun filming the cute suiters and watching them cavort with each other and it just reaffirmed my desire for a suit of my own, though I think I wont be going with the established characterization of Michael, jeans and leather trench coat look, I will start with a standard partial and see how things go from there.

Anyways had a lot of fun, and unlike previous furry outings, I didnt sweat my ass off, and thats a huge plus =^..^=

We did get lost on the way to Perkins for the after party feeding orgy, but based on how far in the middle of nowhere we were, I can easily see why we didn't find it. oh wellz :|

So like, my current gaming group is just not working out. I mean, they are a great bunch of people to talk with, hang out with to a point (their obsessive no 'vulgar language' rule is a bit rough on my dichotomy and absolutely ruins any chance of watching a decent movie, or playing a good game) despite their extremely loud 11 year niece who lives their and plays (if you can call it that) D&D with us.

Bottom line, while they are good people, the gaming is just sucking copious amounts of donkey balls, and isn't worth my time or money in gas and food to keep on going. Its sad, I was quite happy to be accepted into a group again, seeing as the last group I had died in 2000 when Carissa, my ex, broke up with her boyfriend at the time (who was the DM) to come live with me. As you might expect, that kinda put a strain on the player/DM relationship ;)

Anyways, I'm hopping that maybe me and antimon can rope a few furs into a once a week, or maybe every other week gaming session at our place. We have ample room for 5-6 players, plenty or entertainment options for before, mid, and after game breaks in the form of tons of DVD's, an xbox, 360, and PS2 as well as wireless internet.

***Update 9/14/07***
The specifics of the plan are this:

Game type would begin with AD&D 3.5 edition as I have access to many books, materials, and adventures for that system. In the future I would like to get back into great games like Rifts and Marvel Superheros.

Games would initially take place at my home in Rosemount, Florida which is at the intersection of Orange Blossom Trail and All American Blvd, which is between downtown and Altamonte/Apopka. There have been cats living in the apartment, but they have been gone at least a full year, some dander/odor may remain; be aware. I am open to moving venues, but the place would need to be of adequate size and temperature within reasonable driving distance, say 20 mi Radius.

Game times would have to be either Saturday Night, or Sunday Night as I work graveyard shift and sleep during the daytime.

If anyone is interested, give me a holler via email listed in my profile page.

So I went with antimon to King Elliott's Summer Celebration along with another fur from Somewhere waaaayyyyy up north. Its a loooonnngg drive out to the middle of nowhere, but when your entertaining 200 some furs with a PA system belting out dance stuff for hours, a complete light show, not to mention quite a few bottles of spirits, well then distance to your neighbors is actually a good thing.

I can't say that I had fun, but neither did I have a bad time. Despite the kiln like temperatures , and the general over crowdedness of the smallish home, there were plenty of things to do, like gaming, both on consoles like the Wii, PS3, and a PS2 which had no TV, (sucks seeing as how we brought GH2 and wireless guitars to rock out with) there were movies, anime, card games, and dancing all going on.

The main thing was I knew next no one there, except for eb, antimon, and seven. So I spent the majority of my time moving from place to place watching people and keeping to myself. Seems its what I always do in a party situation. Go me, party animal I R!!!1

So I have made the final decision on suiting. Thought about it long and hard, factoring in all kinds of things from the "will I like it?" to the "Will I die of heat stroke?" to the "I cant afford it!!" and I truly think I sorted what I needed to sort, and have decided to go for it.

So hopefully Michael will be in the making soon. I just need to commission a reference drawing, not to mention some portraits, from Mehndix, suit measurements, and finally get all that to Latin vixen, so I can get onto her suit list ASAP in the hopes of getting the suit in 2008.

Wish me luck :)

... of the role I am going to end taking in the fandom anymore. I never aspired to be famous, or have loads of furs talking to me or hanging out at my place; I'm just too much of a solitary kat for that kind of thing.

But I want a fur suit, and I'm not really sure why...

I know it wont make me a fur, literally or figuratively. It wont change who I am, though it may provide the mask I need to be something other than my predictable, solitary self once in a while, but who knows? I don't know myself well enough to know how it will go. Will owning a suit see me attending more cons or even just being slightly more social than I am now? Awful lot of money to to waste if it doesn't get me out there with the rest of you furs.

I keep thinking about why I want a suit, and I can only come up with 2 answers: Either I think it will allow me to be someone else while I wear it, someone who can have fun for once in his life, or I think it'll bring my a bit of fame, or at least recognition in a part of the fandom. What it all comes down to is, do I want to be known and liked in the Fandom, or continue being myself, hidden away in a prison of my own making?

Though choice....