I is back!

Hey ya everybody :D I just got back from Pasadena, and boy are my arms something-or-other. Had a great time visiting with Hunter, and a very lovable German Shepherd named Sgt. Shultz, whose namesake was in Hogan's Heroes :D We had a great time just talking about stuff and hanging out. Worked out very well because I always have a lot of questions, and Hunter knows a lot of trivia! It was a lot of fun, we each had quite a few anecdotes :D

On Saturday we went to the mall and saw Evan Almighty, which wasn't the same as Bruce Almighty, but still a pretty good story that only rarely was predictable. :D Then we had a great steak (grilled in creamery butter) and mashed potato dinner, and a bit earlier some really good 3 year old cheese with some garlic olives... Homer say "mmmmm" :) Oh, and Amaretto, I found out I really like Amaretto...

Also got to see Dracula Dead and Loving It again (Leslie is such a great actor, and it's always cool to see Harvey and Mel together), and a disc of Enterprise episodes... That show is better than I had remembered, so now I need to go out and rent them myself :D

Today we didn't do too much, but ended up having breakfast at a place called the Gaffey Street Diner. Both us of had an amazing tasting eggs benedict. I haven't had it much before, but it was really good, and huge portions. I took a pic for fun. Already got a bite out of it though :D

What's Up?

So what's up with me? A couple of things are coming up! This next weekend, I get to visit a friend who loves to cook, named Hunter. He loves to have company over for visits, and I enjoy traveling and meeting people (as long as it doesn't eat up my vacation time too badly hehe). So, this Friday after work I will hop a plane down to California for a couple of nights to visit and get to know each other. :) I think it'll be a nice mini-vacation, and a chance to meet someone I have been chatting with for a few months now! I haven't talked much with Hunter aside from chatting online, but I love talking food and just hanging out visiting, so I expect it will be fun!

The other big thing coming up is a visit from Rosa in early July, which should also be a lot of fun. Rosa and I have known each other two years now, and talk every day... She's like a sister to me, and a best friend besides, so I've been excited to get to show her around my hometown and let her see "the Eugene experience", heh. She's also been eager to get to see me play piano in person, which I'll be more than happy to do. Frogg's friend Megg is also visiting close to the same time, and I'm eager to meet her as well. We've talked a little before, and played some WoW together, so it will be nice to see her in person.

That's all I have for now.. Thought my cold was coming back, but it looks like it is slowly fading once again (hurrah!)

Bleehhhh

I'm sick! :( Yesterday about 4:45PM, right in the middle of our show, I got a tickle in my throat, which by night turned into a full blown massive sore throat I couldn't sleep through. I'm at work today, but just barely (because I can't take any vacation time). I hope it goes away soon, I hate head colds, especially in summer.

/me has a little soup and lies down

Happy Friday!

Yep, it's Friday once again! Last Friday, I wasn't in town, but tonight I get to be part of our two hour show again, woo hoo! I remember last Friday, when I was still at the convention, I logged into Secondlife and we were able to broadcast the show to the few of us hanging around the internet lounge Luskwood had set up. It's a little like torture to hear songs you usually play along with being played in a solo format, hehe. I just wanted to jump in and play my part so bad! Sort of like having your hands tied behind your back :)

Tonight I get my chance again though. I always enjoy Fridays, like I've said before in this blog... Since Frogg and I have been playing Friday shows for almost two years now, I sort of equate playing with the start of the weekend. Once the show is finished, the weekend really starts for me. I tend to stay up later on Friday nights too, as if I just got home from work at 9PM when the show ended.

In other news, I'm really finding it hard not to think about companionship. I think I mentioned it earlier, but I had the opportunity to meet a really good friend last Sunday and Monday, and learned what how wonderful something as simple as snuggling can be. Now, it almost feels like my priorities for life have changed, and the portion of life I wanted for closeness before (like 5%) has grown incredibly (up to like 60%). It's been difficult thinking of much else, and I find myself making plans that bring closeness more into my life. It's a very strange prospect for me: a guy who for over 30 years has felt he had a touch phobia. But, I like it, and you know... all those romantic movies finally make sense! I can see how it would be something people would do anything for (and in the movies, to hilarious consequences lol). Anyway, it's a major change in my life, and I hope to get more in touch with it as time goes on. :)

Home again!

Howdy do! I'm back in town now :D That's okay, but unfortunately that also means I'm back at work, which is completely different from my last five days on vacation.

I made it to Ft. Collins just great, with the help of a friend of Kain's. Not a long drive really, but pretty uneventful for the most part. Nice to have some scenery other than the hotel in Denver though, hehe. We picked up Kain and another friend and headed out to the mountains to do a little hamburger grilling. :D I got to listen to a comedic singer named Steven Lynch, who was hilarious... Unfortunately, things were pretty crowded tourist-wise, so to find a spot we ended up hiking more than 2 miles in on a trail, looking for a picnic spot. We didn't really find one, so we ended up just setting up the grill on the path, where there was a clearing with lots of rocks :D Still, food cooked outdoors is special, so in retrospect it was fun. Even though we barely made it back to the car by nightfall. Lots of hiking, so I was so tired! Kain too, and I think we both fell asleep in the backseat for a while. I tried to play a card game with them, but it required too much creative thought on my part so I kind of spoiled it, hehe... We watched a movie, and then off to bed!

Monday I was also pretty tired, so I didn't end up doing too much really, but I played a bit with the melodica, working on a song with Kain, and we both watched a documentary on Ayn Rand, who is quite a fascinating woman! I didn't get to finish the documentary, but Kain might get to visit in July, so we can do that then too! Anyway, I had a wonderful time visiting, and miss Kain terribly :)

But, I'm back at work now, so oh well... I have all my memories though, and that's what counts!

Greetings from day 3 of the con!

Hiya folks! I've been having a great time at the convention... :) The picture to the left is of a couple of great fursuiters out doing photo opportunities in lieu of the fursuit parade that was supposed to be taking place. It was just too hot in the sun, and too many pedestrians wandering around the mall for the actual parade to take place. I got a lot of cool pictures though! And, of course, now I want a suit of my own, or at least a tail. Maybe start with the tail, then move to feets! :D

Yesterday was fun! My favorite part of the day was the avatar creation panel held where I'm sitting right now, in the "Luskwood Internet Lounge". Liam basically taught the session, with interjections from the rest of the Luskwood crew. We were taught how furry head attachments are made from prims, and how to texture round objects in photoshop so that they look correct on round objects (which can be tricky). I really enjoyed the session, and didn't realize how easy it can be to turn something two dimensional, especially things drawn as polygons as a lot of artists do, into a 3D object! Liam is also an excellent teacher, and I sure wish they all had time to put together a 2-day seminar on the subject, because I'd attend in a heartbeat. How fun!

The second part of the day I really enjoyed was the cooking demo. A furry chef prepared a miso dressing coleslaw, california roll sushi, and a vegetarian sushi right in front of us, and then also prepared a strawberry sauce with saki over vanilla ice cream for dessert. I was pretty hungry watching, as I'd only had a pancake that day. It all ended about 8PM, so I went searching for food, wasn't feeling well, and crashed early that night after a subway sandwich I got nearby :D

The other big news is that I'm leaving soon to visits a really talented good friend of mine named Kain (blog on the right) up north of here! A friend of his is going to pick me up and bring me over at about 1PM today (it's 11AM now), and then I can leave directly from there on a shuttle to the airport! I was really looking forward to meeting Kain, I've known him for quite a few months now and really would love to visit. :) Originally, his friend had to work, and was going to come get me afterwards, at 10PM tonight. That felt like it could be a little rushed (as I normally go to bed around that time lol), so I'm really happy to get to spend more time with them.

I have to say though, my favorite part of the trip so far has been getting to meet Gog and the Luskwood crew again. Just a great bunch of people, and I've known Gog almost two years now. he's one of my very best friends online, I am extremely glad to get to meet him finally :D

I'll write more later when I can!

At the Rocky Mountain FurCon, Day Two!

Well, it's Saturday now here in Denver, and I thought I'd update you all on my time so far!

Thursday was a really boring day, for the most part. No con activities, so I mostly stayed in the room, and wandered around the hotel. Didn't see anyone I knew all day! Had a small but semi-tasty meal with a couple of drinks in the bar, finished my book, and went to bed.

But Friday was a lot more interesting... Registration opened at 9AM, so I went down about that time, and saw about 10 con-goers in the registration area waiting for them to open. Seemed like they all knew each other, so I felt a little nervous and came back up to hide in my room. Finally went down an hour later and got in line, and got my badge and packet and such... Wandered around a while, and got to see a couple of nice fursuits, and wished I had a fur tail myself after a bit... Most seemed to have them, or fuzzy feets :D Now I am determined to get a siamese tail somewhere :D

I got hungry about noonish, so I hopped over to McD's for a quick bigmac. When I got back to the hotel I had a message on my phone that Gog and the Luskwood crew were unloading equipment, so I scarfed the burger and went down to meet them and see what I could do to help. :D They were pretty busy setting stuff up and trying to get things working so I kind of hung back until it quieted down. But, I got to meet Gog for the first time (YAY, I've always wanted to :D) and the Luskwood crew again (I met most all of them once before at the SLCC in San Francisco). I also got to meet Salkin, who is from Sweden! Salkin didn't fly over to the US just for the con, but to visit other folks as well. They were all setting up an Internet Lounge; 10 PC's with the capability to run SL and Firefox and such, for use by con-goers to check email, and get on Secondlife. Very cool! Not really it's own room, but a partitioned off space near registration. They will also be using the Lounge today to host a panel on creating avatars in SL, which I'm really excited to see today :D

After all was set up, the six of us went to a Mongolian grill in town, which was actually pretty good. Liam had a recipe for the perfect collection of goodies, refined from many trips to the restaurant before. A lot of the LW crew live nearby Denver, so they were all pretty happy to have a con so close! Gog ended up buying my lunch, because Friday was my rez-day, yay! Two years old in Secondlife!

After lunch, we mostly hung around the Internet Lounge, chatting with furs and occasionally logging into SL to see what was up and talk to furs at the Luskwood vendor platform in-world. Very relaxing, and a great time to get to know each other, I thought. At one point, a number of fursuiters were using the PC's, and clustered around for a picture! Sorry for the quality, I had left my camera in my room and had to use my cell phone.

Michi and Arito went to get more equipment for a bit, and we got to listen to a good hour of Frogg's friday show, which I played over speakers for some of the folks in the Lounge.

Gog and the LW crew had an hour's drive to get back home, and had to find food on the way, so I ended up going to dinner with another SL'er, Calicat! Calicat used to live in the Denver area, and knew a great cajun place a block or two away from the hotel. I haven't had much cajun food before, but it was really good I thought :D After that, I just came back to the hotel and crashed. Slept a lot better last night too! Second night in a hotel is always better than the first :)

Only other news about the con is that I commissioned two different dealers in the vendor area to make con badges of my siamese cat :D I should get them today, yay! I'll scan them in later for folks to see, but for now I might just take close up pictures ^^

Anyway, have to get to the bathroom and get ready to start the second day of the con! There's a fursuit parade taking place later this afternoon I hope to get some fun pictures and video of ^^