Well my ship went underway right as I got back so I never got a chance to say anything, but in case you were wondering I did indeed have a great time at the con. Okay, all of this is going to take a really big effort to get down in writing, but I’ll see if I can begin at the beginning and get to everything. Super-long post-con debrief go!

It was really cool to meet some people in person at long last. Even just the chance to say hi and shake someone’s hand makes a big difference. There’s always a certain level of detachment to conversing with people when you’ve only seen their written words.

Hardly anyone that wasn't from the Cross-Time Café forum knew who I was, but that’s to be expected. It’s not like I’m a big name or anything. Furs from Virginia that I’ve met in person on multiple occasions often don’t remember me. I'm looking at you  osee_desantis ^_^ It’s become kind of a running gag in the local group. We’re thinking of changing my furname to “That guy” because no one remembers me when they hear my name, but when I show up they always say “Oh yeah, that guy!” It was so strange to be hanging out and doing things with people I’d known for 45 minutes like that. We were talking about what to order for dinner and as we went around the room for a vote it went: “Skova? Juju? …new guy?”

I got a big surprise at the Graymuzzle/Milfurs breakfast though. I met Dasher Cheetah there. He’s been a fan of my work on SoFurry since… before it was SoFurry, and I never dared to hope that I’d actually see him. He didn’t even mention that he was attending. After breakfast, GeneseePaws heard that it was my birthday, so he made me a little index card sketch of my fursona. It was too bad the laminating place in the Den was closed by then. I’d like some better way to take care of this…

I was as excited about the writing panels as I was astonished by their existence. I’m not an artist or a fursuiter, so I tend to get left out of some big parts of the fandom. Yet the con had a dozen panels all about creative writing. I went to as many as I could and I learned a great deal. The panelists seemed intrigued by some of the things that I came up with during the writing exercises and I contributed to some very lively discussion. I also probably contributed more than I should have to some intractable fanboy/nerd arguments, but those were fun too.

I missed the one on publishing, which is the one I was most excited about since that’s a big gap in my knowledge. That’s okay though, I’ll figure it out when I get there. As one of the panelists said: “Just write. Write the damn book! Editing, formatting, revising, publishing, marketing… all that takes place after the book is finished and if you worry about it now it’s just going to bog you down.” I gleaned that and many other pieces of useful advice and I plan to hit the ground running when I next get the chance to work on my book.

Not having a room was rather stressful, but I got through that okay. I don’t know many people, but apparently I know some key players.  wolfboy1 has been con staff since forever, and  AceFox27 is a huge poppyfur that’s friends with even huger furs, he even introduced me to Lav 'n Der Shep and Uncle Kage. So through them I got friend-of-a-friended into a different room each night. It was a logistical nightmare, but I was overwhelmed by their hospitality. I couldn’t believe the shear number of people that were willing to share their room with someone that they’d never met just because they’d heard I was a good guy. I suppose it certainly helped with meeting new people. Though in the future I’d prefer not to learn someone’s name and then sleep in their bed in the same night….

Friday was an insanity marathon. For most of the day every hour had two things I wanted to be at. I only made it to the Dealer’s Den for a half-hour before they closed because I was so busy. Jenner’s panel got stabbed with the timeslot opposite the opening ceremonies somehow. That was a difficult decision to make, but I’m very happy with my choice. It was poorly attended of course, but it was great to hear Jenner talk about his creative process and what was going on in his head while he was writing Doc Rat. There’s always so much going on that doesn’t make it to the page.

I may start reading Endtown now because they made it sound so interesting. And of course I got to meet Level Head there too and we chatted for awhile. During the introduction panel for people that have never been to AC before, Dr. Conway was talking about etiquette around performers and he mentioned that “We have certain… luminaries, from within the fandom that tend to generate a fervor which we must be careful to control. Sarduyon has a very large following, Jenner, the creator of Doc Rat made a very long journey to be here with us today…” Heh, so how about that? I know a luminary.

I watched the Sarduyon performance just because that timeslot was open, and boy was I glad I did. This guy is some kind of savant alien wizard. Sarduyon is a famous Japanese fursuit acrobat that came to the con as guest of honor. Yes, you heard me right. Fursuit. Acrobat. At the same time. Most people have trouble navigating stairs in a fursuit and he was up there juggling, doing contortionist tricks, and balancing in places you should not be able to balance a regular person, let alone one that can barely see and is wrapped in a quilt. I believe in his spare time he knits while wearing boxing gloves and a gasmask. He was a fantastic showman and the crowd really loved him. It was interesting to hear Uncle Kage talk about the scramble that happened when they realized he doesn’t speak any English. Naturally he doesn’t talk as part of the show, but of course there was information that needed to be exchanged. There were some last-minute drafts in to the con staff to patch up that problem.

The two improv panels were both amazing and slightly disturbing, but in either case it was the hardest I’ve laughed in a long time. It’s a very interesting look at a slice of the very… diverse, demographic that furry cons attract. I spent my fair share of time on stage and got a few good laughs, all-around an amazing experience.

Saturday’s schedule was a lot less populated, so I actually got a chance to go down to the Dealer’s Den and the Art Show. I said hi to some of my favorite artists, visited Jenner again and browsed around some. It was an interesting spread, but not much really caught my eye. I did track down an Applejack cutiemark pin though. That was the only thing I saw that I was like “OMG I have to have one of those.” I saw someone wearing a Rarity one and actually stopped him to ask where he got it. Fennec said that I was his favorite fan ever, largely due to the fact that I actually shut up and got out of the way if someone was trying to buy something.

I met a few artists that I liked and let them know that they were awesome. I chatted up for awhile at his booth,  chibi-marrow showed up to ask about my uniform and I akwardly interjected about how much I love her art like the true smooth operator I am. My favorite reaction by far was  tsumezyzco:
"Oh yeah, I watch you on FA! You do some amazing work."
"Oh... so you look at my porn. I really did not need to know that. At all."
:P

He was a really good sport about it and he had a killer Metal Gear Solid cosplay. He gave me a neat shell casing keychain too. Be sure to ask him about them if you see him anywhere. He's got a whole bag.

AceFox and I went to the Milfur breakfast in uniform, and neither of us saw the need to change right away. I discovered something interesting as we walked about the con ‘in costume.’ I had forgotten what it was like to be in uniform in a place without any military presence. The uniform was a magnet! I had gone through the con wholly overlooked up until that point, but now I couldn’t get a hundred yards without getting noticed. Everyone had something to say. A lot of people wear military jackets or accessories as part of their fursonas or as cosplays, so the first question everyone had was if our uniforms were genuine. From there it was all manner of things. Where were we based, what were our jobs, had we ever met this one guy, could I boss Ace around? (I’m a Second-Class Petty Officer and he’s a Deck Seamen, so yes.) A crowd gathered at one point. 2 Gryphon’s boyfriend even showed up and we got to have a similar conversation with him. I was somebody all of a sudden.

There was kind of a lull after lunch since everyone was getting ready for the fursuit parade, and I ran into Ace again. I hadn’t seen him all day. We caught up on what was going on and such. He asked if I had any plans for the fursuit parade. And other than “Watching the fursuit parade,” I didn’t. He talked about how one of his other, other friends had just arrived, and brought with him a set of Terrence and Philip suits from South Park. And that he was going to be Terrence instead of his fursona. And then…
“Hey, you’re about my size…”
“…Wut.”
“Aww what the hell, it’s your birthday and I have another suit to be in. Would you like to be AceFox during the fursuit parade?”
“O.O *Squeak* Yay?”

Of course I said yes, eventually. Now if you’re keeping score, which I couldn’t since I didn’t have enough fingers at the time, you’ll note that on my birthday, I went to AC, my first furry con ever, and then, the first time I ever wore a fursuit was in the AC fursuit parade. That’s like kicking off your pro wrestling career by getting hit in the face by a trash can filled with cement. I’m surprised I didn’t explode.

At first it was like… exactly what everyone says it’s like. It’s crazy hot and you can’t see a damn thing. I couldn’t wear my glasses in it, so I was trying to gain all my navigational information from a small patch of blurry dots. I walked the parade route later and kept getting flashbacks of my vision being surrounded by darkness. It was rather unnerving and it took me a minute to push past it. I mean, I’m not claustrophobic… yet. It’s not a pleasant feeling, but be damned if I was going to let this thing beat me. I might never suit again after this parade, but I was going to do the damn parade.

Ace, being a thoughtful mentor, walked me to the elevators and then promptly wished me luck and went to put on his other suit. I guess he’s a ‘Learn to swim via pushing in the water’ kind of instructor. So I just went for it. I tried to stay conscious of everything and be very careful. Nothing ruins your day like getting your tail caught in an escalator after all. I mean, if I hurt myself I’d just be like “Whatevs I’m young and I have TriCare,” but I could hurt the suit. I’d never forgive myself for that. Ace did something very kind and demonstrated a tremendous amount of faith in me, so I was feeling a little pressure from that. And yet, nothing terrible happened. Nothing even particularly inconvenient happened. I walked around just… doing my thing and saying hi to everyone. Giving high-fours and free hugs all around. I could do this! It wasn’t that hard, at least in the technical sense. It took some getting used to though.

It’s hard to overstate how awkward it is to be a straight guy in a fox suit. The reputation of both foxes in general and this fox in particular led to a lot of… a certain kind of attention that I wasn’t necessarily in favor of. I got over that though. It’s not like I had a choice. You can’t say no to people when you’re in a fursuit. The enthusiasm that people have when they see you is very infectious. And of course trying to explain this to everyone would be a huge drag, and break the magic. Ace talks in suit all the time, so it wasn’t like I felt I shouldn’t, but I kind of preferred not to. I think I understand the people that never talk in suit a little better now. It’s fun to express yourself in other ways, and it really suits the character. So to speak…

I made it to the assembly point for the fursuit photo comfortably early, since I didn’t want anything to go wrong. I had the chance to get some more water and mingle with the other suiters. Kage was there giving helpful advice that pretty much amounted to a countdown and saying “Don’t die of heatstroke.” I found someone that I had met at the improv panel that went by the name of ‘SuperJew’.  knifesharpener had an absolutely stunning fursuit, and I let him know it. He asked if I would sit with him and his friends for a minute and just like that I had a new group of people I just met to hang out with. We sat and talked, trying to follow Kage’s advice about our continued survival. Then when the assembly call came out, we got each other suited up and shuffled to our places.

The parade itself was amazing. My amateurism amongst all the other suiters showed through quite clearly, but I was having far too much fun to care. Everyone probably thinks that Ace is completely retarded now. For 20 minutes I was a giant, fluffy orange ball of cracked-out insanity. One would think that the idea of pacing yourself while under a severe heat-stress threat would be rather obvious. Not to me! After a whole parade of running and jumping around and being a complete jackass, I got to the home stretch where my legs decided that they were no longer on speaking terms with me. It took maybe 10 or 15 minutes of rest in the Grand Ballroom to get myself back together to the point where I could walk straight again so that I could find Ace and hopefully get out of this thing alive.

Naturally there was a giant elevator line, so Ace asked if we could take the stairs. I was feeling confident and I wasn’t too Pinkie Keen on staying in the suit any longer than I had to, so I went for it. Not my greatest idea ever. I misjudged two steps as one and hit the floor pretty hard. The soles of my paws were pretty thin, so that was not fun. Everyone looked up to ask what the loud thump was. Oh nothing, it was just my bones hitting concrete at high speed. I got lucky and my foot hit squarely, so I managed to get my paws underneath me and not eat a bunch of stairs. My ankle stopped hurting after awhile and I learned a little bit about overconfidence.

I met  willowrabbit on the way back that liked ‘my’ suit and I ended up hanging out with him after I escaped it. We went to Space and saw the concert, and then chatted in his room for a little while. He gave me some free porn. So thoughtful! How did he know?

In any case, by now you can probably find like 50 youtube videos that each have about three seconds of me in them if you’re inclined to look. I’m the orange fox. No, not that one. Not that one either, the other one. No, not the fourth or fifth ones either. Okay, that really doesn’t narrow it down at all… here we go. I am, in fact, the very last bright orange fox in the parade. You can get a glimpse of me at about 17:50 in this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCBCWOq-2qc
It was recorded close to the end of the parade route, so I wasn’t bouncing off the ceiling anymore. I’m sure some of the other ones have me being ridiculous.

Anyway, I got cleaned up and went back to the con. I made it in time for Uncle Kage’s story hour and soon found out why everyone in the universe wanted to go see it. The line ran all the way across the convention center. Kage has some very unique perspectives and a lot of age-won wisdom to share, and it was a privilege to partake in it. He had a very interesting and provocative opinion as to how the furry fandom came to be and I felt like I came a little closer to understanding it myself by listening to him. And of course his stories and stage presence are both hilarious. As I listened to him talk I started to realize how much he looks and speaks like our Commanding Officer. This is horrible because the next time I see him in person I’m probably going to start giggling and have no way to explain myself.

When I got back  titus101 and  wolffit had found out that it was my birthday so they offered me some free drinks. They had a rather disturbingly large collection of liquor with them, but I wasn’t about to turn down an offer like that. So I got drunk and then went to the Brony panel. That’s another one of those things that really should’ve gone horribly wrong, but somehow didn’t. I actually saw Tiger-T again there.

I’ve heard a lot about it, but actually seeing the scope and size of the Brony phenomenon was another experience entirely. The first thing we did was hold open-mic for everyone to share their brony story, because everyone has one. I didn’t get to tell mine because they cut the line off at 25 people. Otherwise we’d be there all night. They had one of the writers there for Q and A. I forget his name, but he was an Applejack fan, so we got along great. I posed the Nightmare Moon/Night Mare Moon question to him and he responded with.
“A little of column ‘A’ and a little of column ‘B’. Possibly a little of column ‘C’. And of course a little of column ‘Pinkie Pie.’ Everything has a little of column ‘Pinkie Pie.’”
Not sure what I expected to hear, but it was still interesting to get to talk to him.

From there we had some videos and more pony talk, then a swag raffle. I got a few compliments on my voice during the sing-along. The Rarity suiter that was there asked me not to stand next to him anymore because I was making him look bad by comparison. I felt a certain sense of accomplishment at beating some professional Bronies at their own games.

Not all the songs went well of course. ‘Art of the Dress’ and ‘Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000’ both went something like “Agh! SomanywordsBRARGLEFRAGLE-sales ponies non parlay!” Though I did turn a few heads by actually keeping up with the spoken parts while everyone else jumped to “Cider, cider, cider, cider…”
But the other ones? “Smile, Smile, Smile”? Nailed it. “Winter Wrap Up”? Nailed it, unfortunately. “Cadence’s Aria”? Nailed it. “Gotta Share”? Not included, mercifully.

It was two in the morning before the panel finally broke up. I crawled into bed hoping for a quiet day tomorrow. Heh, now if that wasn’t tempting fate I don’t know what is. I got a call that woke me up around 7:30. Our departure had been moved up and my leave period suspended. I had to be back aboard by that night. That was… something of a concern seeing as I had to retrieve all my stuff from a bunch of rooms that I don’t have keys to and then drive all day on a few hours of sleep. Whee…

I managed well enough. I would’ve been in big trouble if it weren’t Sunday. The traffic was a lot lighter, especially on the PA turnpike. That and it meant that I could park at a bank to sleep for a little while without any problems. I got back to the ship a little late, but I didn’t miss the pullout, so nothing bad really happened. I’ve been catching up on sleep every chance I’ve gotten since then. I took two naps the following day, bringing me up to about 12 hours and I’m still exhausted. I tried to stay inconspicuous. They had learned to operate without me for awhile, so I was hoping that I could stretch out the period where no one notices that I’m back for a little while longer. There were a few people that mentioned they thought I wasn't coming on this underway, but the grace period didn't last long.

All in all, Anthrocon was an absolutely mind-blowing experience. Entirely worth the cost and all the crap that I had to go through to make it happen. I had wondered how people managed to utterly bankrupt themselves going to cons, or how relatively successful artists could attend and just barely break even. One of my roommates at my house had just paid rent, so I had $380 cash, which I had thought would be insane overkill. I ended the con with about $60 cash and I had put about $290 on my credit card. I didn’t even book any rooms and I only spent $2 in the den. So I can certainly see how someone could end up blowing a great deal of money on this, particularly if they attend on a regular basis.

I suppose this puts another check in the column of reasons for me to leave the service after this tour. It took a very precise alignment of the planets to spare even the 2.7 days that I managed to spend there. Though I glimpsed another, rather startling window of opportunity while I was there. I saw a flyer for the “World’s Last Furcon” in Rochester NY December 20-23 and I thought “That’s 45 minutes from my home, and during my Christmas leave. I could totally go to that!” of course that thought was immediately followed by “Holy crap I just prioritized a furry con over seeing my family at Christmas. When did I become a terrible son?” So… I’ll certainly remember that one, but it remains unlikely that my next con will be anytime soon. Which is good in a way. I’ve had just about all I can take for the immediate future.