FC con report
Behold! The con report for FC. So much to say I gave up! :) Anyway, for those who want to read the play by play for me,
I had a 4:00PM meeting Wednesday that generated 3 hours of things I had to finish before I could leave. All said and dine it was a late night overall with trip prep and gnawing feelings that I was forgetting something. I did not luckily.
Thursday I get up at 3:30AM and get to the airport by 4:30AM. The airport is a breeze and in no time I’m sitting at the gate waiting and feeling like death warmed over from lack of sleep (Work has been stressing me so I’ve been sleeping like crap for weeks now).
While at the gate a couple with an unattached female friend, sit near me. They are all older than I but very obviously wound up for their trip and joking and very awake. I was reading a magazine and just pleasantly listening to them and anything else to keep me awake. Well, at one point the unattached woman says a little too loudly, ‘I cannot believe I didn’t bring any mechanical toys on this trip!” At that point I knew this was going to be a great start to a great weekend. I buried my face in my magazine and cracked up, very obviously laughing, as were a few others in the area. The lady was blushing and saying, “Nono! I meant laptop and cell phone and pagers!” Like I said, good start! Woke me right up!
The trip to Houston (3 hours) from Cleveland was pleasant. I had a whole row and laid down trying to sleep. Rare occasion, I couldn’t. I did relax a lot and daydream though.
I love the Houston airport. Maybe because I’ve been through it maybe 100 times and I know it real well. Houston is very modern with a lot of choices if you get hungry. I get a Subway sub, diet coke and park at my gate for my next flight.
As I wait, knowing some others form the Midwest / east will be on this flight, I get a text from Loriana telling me that she and Aerofox are not even on their first leg! Weather or something caused them a delay! Gah! Oh well, what can be done? We text a few times and I sit back and people watch.
I’d been ‘speaking’ with Flamey from Second Life (SL hereafter) the night before and knew he was going to be on this flight so I was half looking for him. His description is basically a college dude traveling alone. Not too much to go on so I told him to look for me: a Big bald white guy in my M&Ms NASCAR jacket. Really hard to miss! I expect he will find me.
Time passes and people gather, no one has approached me. Then I spot him, I’m sure. He has that look of ‘OMG I’m ALONE and I’m going to a con!’ look about him. Then the plane starts to load and I decide not to start meeting him in person at this time. We board.
OMFG!! Damn the people in front of me and their F-ing baby! It cried, screamed, yelled the whole time! They had the whole row and when the kid was quiet, grandma got him wound up again. I am convinced I have no telekinesis because no one’s heart exploded despite my insistent wishes and concentration. Yes, I sat there broiling angry with a screaming baby 2 feet away wishing I could make heads explode. I’m like that sometimes. :)
I had to take a call from work as I got off the plane and as I spoke, Flamey fell in with me to baggage claim. We started our in person meeting with Flamey saying something about loud babies needing to be thrown out aircraft windows or some such comment I fully agreed with. He was in front of the family.
We get our bags and I take the lead, Flamey following to get us to where the shuttle stops for the hotel. We get to the hotel about noon.
I’m excited because I have a suite reserved. Guess what? Not ready. I grab an ass-pad in the lobby and kick back for an hour talking to friends who pass by as I wait for 1:00 to ask again. Flamey hangs out with me some, too. In that time I got to meet SEAL (Farallon) who is toting all kinds of things in to put in room with Jasper, Flamey and Tarka so he has a local place to costume from 9Seal was in the overflow hotel).
Time passes and eventually after a few questions, it’s 3:00 and the room is not ready yet. So I’m miffed. Yes, I’m old enough to be ‘miffed’ and not irritated as people seem to be these days. But I digress. I am asked by the new lady at the counter if I asked for it to be expedited. I tell her no one said I could ask that and how much more obvious should I be than sitting in the chairs in front of the front desk for 3 hours!! She makes some calls and AMAZING! The room is ready! 1066, nice!
The suite is ‘Caligula pimping!’ Lots of room, a kitchenette, lots of coolness the enjoy. Having exchanged cell numbers with Samara, Gog (Goy as his name badge first read and needed to be fixed) and others, we start to find each other and hang out together.
Thursday night ended early Friday morning. At least the foxes (Loriana and Aerofox) and Japanese Manga guys (Trump and Yama-Neko) showed up. That night we had 10 people snoozing in the suite since 2 needed to crash for a night. No problem, lots of room! All together we had Loriana, Aerofox, Lobo Wolf, Kodian Damn Bear (DAMN BEAR!! :) ), Khyle, Jack (from texas), Trump, Yama-Neko, Gog, Me ( Shogun Xzadfor ). The next day Jack and Khyle were off to other rooms.
Friday I needed to shop for the party that night. Promises of cars left me with that ‘I’ll get screwed’ feeling so I did what I usually do- I took charge and got a rental thanks to Zot Coon. It’s only a Hyundai Excel but it’s a car!! Jack and I go shopping.
We stop at ‘In and Out Burger’ for a cool California Chain lunch. Mmmm! Navi-Guessing pays off and we find everything we need in an hour or so! We get back to the hotel and lug it all up to the suite (thanks for the help Sam! - Others tried but I didn’t return their calls, my bad).
People started arriving for the SL party around 7:00PM and I order wings and 4 pizzas (18 inch each) from a local place. GREAT PIZZA! Pizza My Heart was the place.
By 8pm I was ordering more pizza, too! Ok so this was a word of mouth party for those of us who hang together in SL and anyone they wanted to bring along. Let me list who I remember, please excuse me if I miss you, there were so many I’m sure I missed someone: Stahi, Bob, Xzadfor (me), Ian (Bunnah), Samara (Bunk!), Drax (Mr. Bunk!), Cube Linden, Tobias, Gog (Gogzilla!), Satch, Buttercup, Arito, Evangeline (PINE!), Eltee, Khyle, Jack (Texas), Jack (Bunnah), Custer, Tarka, Flamey, Farallon (SEAL), Jasper (Bunnah - Lynx) - And so many others!! It was a great night! Everyone had a good time and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to do it more!
Saturday was the SL panel. I normally don’t go to panels because they get dominated by pretentious asses and I would rather take a cheese grater to my face than sit through them. This one was different. It was of course a load of SL people and had Cube Linden, Hydra, Eltee and the guy from Ginko Bank whos name I forget (I’m shit for name remembering). It was a good fun panel and even had Stahi come in and grief’ the panel. Funny stuff! In The Q and A I had no answers but as people shouted out answers I followed directions and raised my hand and shouted the same thing everyone else was. This technique won me a shirt and a glowing Linden Labs cube!
Saturday Night Dr. Meteor showed up with a carefully crafted disguise aimed at infiltrating the fursuiters and learning their secrets. He had tiger ears taped to his head and a tiger tail taped to his backside. He fit right in! (Riiiight)
As it would happen, Dr. Meteor resembles some sort of ‘furry god’ because upon beholding his presence, people would shout ‘Oh, my god!’ and double over (was that laughing? I’m sure they were simply gasping in excitement for their god!).
So far no umbrage was laid at his feet so he’s going to explore this further at AC likely. It seems he almost caused suffocation by laughter when Evangeline and Arito (Goat and fox costumes MY god nice costumes!) saw Dr. Meteor bounding up to them to blend in. As usual Satch had a great costume and even though Dr. Meteor didn’t see him, I did and let me say Farallon’s seal costume is right on great and a really good model of his SL character. Only pinniped at the con as far as I could tell.
Saturday night was hilarious and tiring. I found myself crashed at 11:30 waking up to hear Findra talking and leaving in the other room. I jumped up but too late. Oops! He had the con chair with him to meet me. And I missed them! Damn!
Sunday saw a fair amount of us ‘schooling’ around together and generally being silly and hanging out. We wanted Todai (Sushi) for lunch and it was 15 min away. Car that holds 5 divided by 9 people equals 2 trips for me. At least I got Khyle and Loriana back in time to catch the tail of the parade. I *cough* Dr. Meteor missed it totally. Just as well, best not to push it lest they figure out his clever disguise!
Sunday night found a lot of us in the suite drawing and hanging out relaxing. Sadly Flamey had to leave earlier due to a school schedule. Tarka came by though! Jasper was sick, Seal had left, Satch and Buttercup were gone earlier. Cube Linden stopped by with an entourage of women and we joked some more. He threatens to ban you a lot. I like someone who wields power! That’s what power is for! :)
Too bad Monday I had to go home but it has to end sometime. Overall it was a grand time. I think we all hit it off and I feel I came away with some really great new friends. I can only hope future cons such as FC will be half as fun. This one will be difficult to live up to!
I had a 4:00PM meeting Wednesday that generated 3 hours of things I had to finish before I could leave. All said and dine it was a late night overall with trip prep and gnawing feelings that I was forgetting something. I did not luckily.
Thursday I get up at 3:30AM and get to the airport by 4:30AM. The airport is a breeze and in no time I’m sitting at the gate waiting and feeling like death warmed over from lack of sleep (Work has been stressing me so I’ve been sleeping like crap for weeks now).
While at the gate a couple with an unattached female friend, sit near me. They are all older than I but very obviously wound up for their trip and joking and very awake. I was reading a magazine and just pleasantly listening to them and anything else to keep me awake. Well, at one point the unattached woman says a little too loudly, ‘I cannot believe I didn’t bring any mechanical toys on this trip!” At that point I knew this was going to be a great start to a great weekend. I buried my face in my magazine and cracked up, very obviously laughing, as were a few others in the area. The lady was blushing and saying, “Nono! I meant laptop and cell phone and pagers!” Like I said, good start! Woke me right up!
The trip to Houston (3 hours) from Cleveland was pleasant. I had a whole row and laid down trying to sleep. Rare occasion, I couldn’t. I did relax a lot and daydream though.
I love the Houston airport. Maybe because I’ve been through it maybe 100 times and I know it real well. Houston is very modern with a lot of choices if you get hungry. I get a Subway sub, diet coke and park at my gate for my next flight.
As I wait, knowing some others form the Midwest / east will be on this flight, I get a text from Loriana telling me that she and Aerofox are not even on their first leg! Weather or something caused them a delay! Gah! Oh well, what can be done? We text a few times and I sit back and people watch.
I’d been ‘speaking’ with Flamey from Second Life (SL hereafter) the night before and knew he was going to be on this flight so I was half looking for him. His description is basically a college dude traveling alone. Not too much to go on so I told him to look for me: a Big bald white guy in my M&Ms NASCAR jacket. Really hard to miss! I expect he will find me.
Time passes and people gather, no one has approached me. Then I spot him, I’m sure. He has that look of ‘OMG I’m ALONE and I’m going to a con!’ look about him. Then the plane starts to load and I decide not to start meeting him in person at this time. We board.
OMFG!! Damn the people in front of me and their F-ing baby! It cried, screamed, yelled the whole time! They had the whole row and when the kid was quiet, grandma got him wound up again. I am convinced I have no telekinesis because no one’s heart exploded despite my insistent wishes and concentration. Yes, I sat there broiling angry with a screaming baby 2 feet away wishing I could make heads explode. I’m like that sometimes. :)
I had to take a call from work as I got off the plane and as I spoke, Flamey fell in with me to baggage claim. We started our in person meeting with Flamey saying something about loud babies needing to be thrown out aircraft windows or some such comment I fully agreed with. He was in front of the family.
We get our bags and I take the lead, Flamey following to get us to where the shuttle stops for the hotel. We get to the hotel about noon.
I’m excited because I have a suite reserved. Guess what? Not ready. I grab an ass-pad in the lobby and kick back for an hour talking to friends who pass by as I wait for 1:00 to ask again. Flamey hangs out with me some, too. In that time I got to meet SEAL (Farallon) who is toting all kinds of things in to put in room with Jasper, Flamey and Tarka so he has a local place to costume from 9Seal was in the overflow hotel).
Time passes and eventually after a few questions, it’s 3:00 and the room is not ready yet. So I’m miffed. Yes, I’m old enough to be ‘miffed’ and not irritated as people seem to be these days. But I digress. I am asked by the new lady at the counter if I asked for it to be expedited. I tell her no one said I could ask that and how much more obvious should I be than sitting in the chairs in front of the front desk for 3 hours!! She makes some calls and AMAZING! The room is ready! 1066, nice!
The suite is ‘Caligula pimping!’ Lots of room, a kitchenette, lots of coolness the enjoy. Having exchanged cell numbers with Samara, Gog (Goy as his name badge first read and needed to be fixed) and others, we start to find each other and hang out together.
Thursday night ended early Friday morning. At least the foxes (Loriana and Aerofox) and Japanese Manga guys (Trump and Yama-Neko) showed up. That night we had 10 people snoozing in the suite since 2 needed to crash for a night. No problem, lots of room! All together we had Loriana, Aerofox, Lobo Wolf, Kodian Damn Bear (DAMN BEAR!! :) ), Khyle, Jack (from texas), Trump, Yama-Neko, Gog, Me ( Shogun Xzadfor ). The next day Jack and Khyle were off to other rooms.
Friday I needed to shop for the party that night. Promises of cars left me with that ‘I’ll get screwed’ feeling so I did what I usually do- I took charge and got a rental thanks to Zot Coon. It’s only a Hyundai Excel but it’s a car!! Jack and I go shopping.
We stop at ‘In and Out Burger’ for a cool California Chain lunch. Mmmm! Navi-Guessing pays off and we find everything we need in an hour or so! We get back to the hotel and lug it all up to the suite (thanks for the help Sam! - Others tried but I didn’t return their calls, my bad).
People started arriving for the SL party around 7:00PM and I order wings and 4 pizzas (18 inch each) from a local place. GREAT PIZZA! Pizza My Heart was the place.
By 8pm I was ordering more pizza, too! Ok so this was a word of mouth party for those of us who hang together in SL and anyone they wanted to bring along. Let me list who I remember, please excuse me if I miss you, there were so many I’m sure I missed someone: Stahi, Bob, Xzadfor (me), Ian (Bunnah), Samara (Bunk!), Drax (Mr. Bunk!), Cube Linden, Tobias, Gog (Gogzilla!), Satch, Buttercup, Arito, Evangeline (PINE!), Eltee, Khyle, Jack (Texas), Jack (Bunnah), Custer, Tarka, Flamey, Farallon (SEAL), Jasper (Bunnah - Lynx) - And so many others!! It was a great night! Everyone had a good time and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to do it more!
Saturday was the SL panel. I normally don’t go to panels because they get dominated by pretentious asses and I would rather take a cheese grater to my face than sit through them. This one was different. It was of course a load of SL people and had Cube Linden, Hydra, Eltee and the guy from Ginko Bank whos name I forget (I’m shit for name remembering). It was a good fun panel and even had Stahi come in and grief’ the panel. Funny stuff! In The Q and A I had no answers but as people shouted out answers I followed directions and raised my hand and shouted the same thing everyone else was. This technique won me a shirt and a glowing Linden Labs cube!
Saturday Night Dr. Meteor showed up with a carefully crafted disguise aimed at infiltrating the fursuiters and learning their secrets. He had tiger ears taped to his head and a tiger tail taped to his backside. He fit right in! (Riiiight)
As it would happen, Dr. Meteor resembles some sort of ‘furry god’ because upon beholding his presence, people would shout ‘Oh, my god!’ and double over (was that laughing? I’m sure they were simply gasping in excitement for their god!).
So far no umbrage was laid at his feet so he’s going to explore this further at AC likely. It seems he almost caused suffocation by laughter when Evangeline and Arito (Goat and fox costumes MY god nice costumes!) saw Dr. Meteor bounding up to them to blend in. As usual Satch had a great costume and even though Dr. Meteor didn’t see him, I did and let me say Farallon’s seal costume is right on great and a really good model of his SL character. Only pinniped at the con as far as I could tell.
Saturday night was hilarious and tiring. I found myself crashed at 11:30 waking up to hear Findra talking and leaving in the other room. I jumped up but too late. Oops! He had the con chair with him to meet me. And I missed them! Damn!
Sunday saw a fair amount of us ‘schooling’ around together and generally being silly and hanging out. We wanted Todai (Sushi) for lunch and it was 15 min away. Car that holds 5 divided by 9 people equals 2 trips for me. At least I got Khyle and Loriana back in time to catch the tail of the parade. I *cough* Dr. Meteor missed it totally. Just as well, best not to push it lest they figure out his clever disguise!
Sunday night found a lot of us in the suite drawing and hanging out relaxing. Sadly Flamey had to leave earlier due to a school schedule. Tarka came by though! Jasper was sick, Seal had left, Satch and Buttercup were gone earlier. Cube Linden stopped by with an entourage of women and we joked some more. He threatens to ban you a lot. I like someone who wields power! That’s what power is for! :)
Too bad Monday I had to go home but it has to end sometime. Overall it was a grand time. I think we all hit it off and I feel I came away with some really great new friends. I can only hope future cons such as FC will be half as fun. This one will be difficult to live up to!