A note to readers: This journal isn't all con report. It details the entirety of a long trip that included RainFurrest. If you want the TL;DR version that just talks about the con, skip down to the first dividing line and read through to the second.

Okay so, the stuff that happened. I'm still not entirely sure what all went down because I spent so long having no idea what was going on that I just kind of accepted it as the new norm and I'm just now catching up on all that sleep I'm told I need to survive. Alright firstly, BLAUHWAHHAAAGH! If you think it's difficult to get packed and prepared for a con, try doing it in a hurry, for a con on the side of the country you've never been to after having just moved so you have only a vague idea where all your stuff is or if you even still possess said stuff since said move was an entirely different messy and unplanned event. Oh and also you're making a $650 circumnavigation of the country by plane to try and catch up with a bunch of people some of whom you've never met before and thus have nothing to catch up with about.

That was certainly entertaining, especially to do on the clock. I'd let this con sneak up on me due to other priorities. I wanted to carve out some time to spend with my family now that I was back home with them. I had a lot of Navy paperwork to do in addition to the business of getting properly moved in at home, and getting my coverage and benefits from the VA. That stuff was rendered moot recently anyway. It's all stalled out because someone pushed the hard-reset button on the federal government. I really hope this isn't going to hamstring my ability to go to college on time. I'm doing plenty to do that on my own. Of course the day before I left there was a college fair that I'd have to go to. I mean, I didn't have to go, really. I could've just put it off the way I did with all the other college stuff I was supposed to be doing during this time. I have found amazing new depths of my procrastination ability since moving home, being free to do as I please for the first time in my life, and being informed that I'd best get started on getting rid of all this money I have lying around in the most expeditious way possible and also divest myself of this pesky new freedom with that same impetus both in one fell swoop by starting college.

In any case, the college fair was all the way up in Rochester, a little over an hour's drive under ideal conditions, which in this state actually do happen on occasion unlike other previous locales of mine. When I told my Mom about it she said that she'd like to come. Of course I wasn't going to say no, but that did add a little extra encumbrance to the trip. She had a few things to do before we could leave, so I waited around for those. I made a point of asking her if she remembered the way or if I should use GPS. She said she did, and as it turns out she was incorrect, so that cost us a little more time. We made out okay though. I had budgeted in enough time to go to Gamestop and try to pawn off an old, burnt-out X-Box 360, so I just had to cut that out of the schedule to even things up.

I got to talk to about all the schools I was interested in that were there that day. I was disappointed that there was no showing for Cornell, but there were enough schools there to make it worth the trip. I had restricted my interests to New York schools only, which my Mom disapproved of, so I shopped around a bit more than I'd intended without really having done the research necessary to do so. I really doubted that any other college would come forward with anything that could pull me away from the extra $5200 a semester I get from New York, but Penn State actually came close. I may call them back. I've been to their main campus before and it seemed like a nice place, and their representative there had a lot of right answers to the questions I was asking.

With the New York universities I had picked out beforehand, I was astonished at how many of them gave me blank/terrified looks when I asked about nuclear engineering. RIT was the biggest surprise, really only having mechanical engineering as something close to what I wanted. Rensselaer, the old favorite, came to my rescue though. Not only was the answer to every one of my questions about them "Yes", it was a very enthusiastic and confident one. No one else really knew what to do with my Navy experience, but the Rensselaer guy said that I could just have the Navy send them my transcript directly and they'd be able to squeeze 30ish credits out of it.

He was the school's transfer admissions counselor, and said that if I could challenge Precalc and some humanities requirement successfully, I'd be able to apply as a sophomore transfer instead of a freshman. Everyone else acknowledged that there was a potential for funding conflicts. Rensselaer? Nope, apparently they do this kind of thing all the time. I'll be able to draw Federal Montgomery GI bill, State Veteran Aid, and Yellow Ribbon aid all at the same time. That would leave me with a tuition shortfall of only about $8,000 a year, which I would call manageable.

What really got me was when he said "I see no reason why you wouldn't be able to attend Rensselaer without paying tuition at all." Well that makes a difference, now doesn't it? My SAT qualified me for a number of financial aid options from the school, though I may have to take it again. The results that I have are old, and he said that there could be problems relating to the fact that though my cumulative score is good, I got a substantially higher score (760! EEEHEHEHEE! I had forgotten about that.) on the critical reading section than I did in math. My math score was actually sort of average and could present a potential problem, but what he had to say was very encouraging. I have no doubt that I'll be applying to and touring Rensselaer when I get the chance.

So anyway, Mom and I had dinner at PF Chang's after I was done talking to all the college recruiters. It was a delicious and very finely-crafted meal. I thought it odd that my ginger beer was taking so long to arrive, and then the waitress said that they were out of one of the ingredients and had to get more from the stockroom. I could hardly be upset after I found out that they were making my drink back there. The finished product was certainly worth the wait. Not nearly as sweet as most soft drinks, but it's a helpful reminder that there are flavors other than "enough sugar to make a dozen hummingbirds drop from the sky in diabetic shock".

Once home I went about the arduous, confusing and somewhat rushed process of packing. I tried not to stress too much about it. Never has forgetting just one thing completely ruined a trip for me. My Mom warned me that there would be fees if I checked a bag. Now, I tend to travel quite light, but I'm going on a 12-day trip to two states I've never been to before, a trip which also includes a furry convention. I'm going to bring at least ONE checked bag. I'll accept the cost. ($25 on Delta and United, $0 on Southwest) Packing took late into the night, and I had to take a little while to decompress before I could get to sleep. I managed to rest from around midnight to four in the morning, an excellent way to start a long journey and very sleepless weekend.

The flight out on Thursday went well, barring a cabin electrical failure. Everyone seemed pretty freaked out by it, but I knew that nothing in the cabin keeps the plane in the air so I was like 'Whatevs, darkness and not falling to our fiery deaths is cool with me.' I think they just put too much powerload on the system. It was one of Boeing's fancy twin-jet 757-200s. The kind that seats seven abreast and has a little TV in every seat. The Detroit airport stands in stark contrast to the largely empty city. It's still quite a nice airport and it has a freaking train inside running across the terminal overhead.

---

I got into Seattle and contacted  torakiyoshi. The terminal was sketchy on maps of the airport's surroundings, so I didn't really have a good sense of how to get to the nearby con hotel. We settled on having TK come to retrieve me since I could just hang out at the USO for a bit while he got his affairs in order. We got in and I got moved into my room with TK, and then things happened so then got moved into a different room with  mursa. There had always been a certain amount of uncertainty in these plans, which I'm used to. I had a place to sleep every night, in the con hotel no less, so I was totally okay with it. We made it to the con space without incident and got a start on a surely record-breaking line. It wound around through the hotel passageways, creating a significant disruption to other operations. This was an omen of things to come, as it was a congoer's first sign that there were administrative problems behind the scenes.

You see, this hour-plus wait wasn't for on-site registration, which is an understandably laborious process. This was the line for Pre-registered attendees, the people who committed early and got all the necessary paperwork out of the way specifically to streamline this process. At most cons, pre-registration doesn't even have a line, as the process is nearly instantaneous. The line here was an unruly beast, several times longer than the on-site line. It was shepherded by the energetic and aptly-named Line Monkey,  linemonkey who made the experience nearly bearable with her whimsical attitude. Mursa was especially frustrated with the process, as he had been repeatedly reassured that he was supposed to wait in that interminable pre-registration line and only when he got to the front was he told about the special dealer registration process. He was in an understandably bad mood, so I elected to keep my peace and right-shift our introduction a bit.

After running the gauntlet and getting a badge, I kicked the con off with a few writing panels. At one of these, the subject of intellectual uplift came up, and I was surprised to find how many people read or were at least familiar with Freefall. It made the examples I was using from it much more useful. One memorable moment came from a discussion of uplifted super-soldiers.
"And so you can run into situations where the Russians are breeding their warbears and then the Americans will come up with… I don't know, like-"
"Laser eagles."
"Hell yeah, laser eagles!"

And then that became a whole big thing. It was great because it was a fun idea to run with and also because 'Muricuh! The concern of what to do with your genetically engineered fighting creatures when the war is over was also a popular topic. I couldn't help sharing.

"Okay I just have this image in my mind of this towering, biotically modified laser eagle that's working as like… a cashier at Costco or something."
"What's with you and bringing up the laser eagles all the time?"
"Hey, if you don't like laser eagles then you need to get out right now."
"MURRICA!"
It was a good time, and I think we've established that laser eagles would be by far the best use of genetic modification technology. Get on that, science!

Next up were the opening ceremonies, which kept alive the Rainfurrest tradition of rather disappointing first impressions. The ceremony was campy, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it also seemed rather disjointed and poorly organized. There was no real theme or central message, and certainly no strong figure to stand up and be the face of the con. Everyone just kind of showed up and said hi, cracked a few jokes and then they said to have a nice time. It would've been okay had they not taken nearly an entire hour just to do that.

As I headed back to my room to ready-up for my next panel, something truly unprecedented happened in the elevator. Someone who happened to be riding up to the fourth floor with me recognized me by the FurAffinity username on my badge and said that he was a big fan of my writing and was very excited to meet me. I had not the vaguest concept of how to handle that situation, but I think I made a decent first impression after shaking off the initial shock. I mean, that's the whole reason I use my FA tag on my badge instead of the forum name all you guys know me by, because on the astronomically small chance that I run into someone who knows me from the internets, that's the name they're most likely to know me by. Having to deal with the frustration of my somewhat injudiciously chosen FA name all the time for four conventions was instantly made absolutely worth it with that one meeting. I am so proud of past-me for sticking to his guns; even more than I am frustrated with further-past-me for picking such an unpronounceable lummox of an FA name.

In any case,  Archai and I spoke for a minute and exchanged cell phone numbers. I was of course excited at the prospect of spending more time with him, but he and his girlfriend had just arrived and were still dragging around fursuits in boxes, so I let them on their way. Later when we spoke about dinner plans, he seemed concerned about keeping me from the writing panels later in the day. That was very considerate, but unnecessary, really. One thing I'll give this con is that it was absolutely stuffed to the gills with content in the writing track. There were four writing events before the con even started and a writing panel that ran right up to the start of the closing ceremonies. There were a total of 37 writing panels, so I made it as clear as I could that I could miss a few without worry, despite my obvious enthusiasm for them. To allay his fears, I relayed to Archai the wisdom that I had gained at AC'13. "Don't ever let that concern enter your mind. People trump panels every time. Panels are what I do to burn up time when my friends aren't doing anything cool. Now, events are a little different, but there are none of those tonight." And so the three of us went out for dinner.

The locale they chose was a quiet 50s style diner. A bit of a walk away, but fortunately it hadn't started raining yet. That night the rain started and kept on in various strengths throughout the rest of the con. So we sat and chatted and were served unreasonably large portions of food. And of course I got to enjoy the rare and always quite novel experience of being in the presence of one of my fans. Naturally I bore the praise with all the grace and humility for which I am so well known.

*short lull in the conversation*
Faileas: Are we out of things to talk about already?
Me: Well weren't you going to tell me about how awesome I am? I was really looking forward to hearing greater detail about what a skilled and prolific master of literature I am.
Archai: Oh yeah, I did promise I was going to do that.
Faileas: You're so humble about it too. It's amazing.
Me: Yeah, I am pretty amazing. Do go on.

Yeah, my ego may exceed my celebrity by just a little bit. I'm proud of my skill and achievements though, and I don't understand why that's such a rare thing, especially on the pictogram side of the spectrum. I count among my friends a great many skilled and prolific artists, most of whom seem to hate their work and ceaselessly whine about how terrible everything they've ever done is and how no one likes them. It's kind of frustrating for me to hear since I'm actually someone that nobody has ever heard of. I want to (and sometimes do) just grab them and yell "Dammit! You're amazing! Admit that you're amazing right now or I will straight-up punch you in the face!" People pay money, honest to God, capitalist, government-certified legal tender for what you make. Do you have any idea how amazing that is? I'm happy enough when someone attaches an internet smiley face to something I've written that it'll keep me toiling away in the dark for another few years at it. You know what my sales and publishing credits are? I once sold an article to the pilot issue of AnthroView Magazine for $7.22. And you know what happened? The magazine fell on its face, never went to print, and I never got paid. That is the entirety of my illustrious resume. So excuse me for failing to be sympathetic to the plight of the person who literally has people running up to them and waving money in their face all convention when all I want you to do is admit that you're really fucking good at something.

My near-embarrassing level of giddiness at this encounter really reminded me of something that  IanusjWolf said at one of the first writing panels I ever went to back at AC'12. "Writing is not a business proposition. It's extremely unlikely you'll find money in it. Only the top top-tier writers ever even make enough to support themselves on it such that they can truly call writing their job. Money and even notoriety are terrible reasons to get into writing. You have to write because you love it. And that's because writing sucks- there are times when writing sucks, let me say it like that. There are times when nothing you write works or you can't write anything at all and it. is. miserable. The only way you'll get through those times is if you truly love what you do. Writing is a ton of work, often for little or no recognition. And that's why when you finally get someone who comes up to you and tells you that they love your work and that they think you're the most wonderful writer ever it is just the sweetest crack that you will ever taste."

Wheeee, that was fun! I had a point up there somewhere but whatever, I'll get back to talking about the convention. I had figured on making a few late-night panels, but I was out so late with my adoring public that I managed to miss them all, so I figured I'd turn in (relatively) early to stock up on sleep for what was sure to be a long drought to follow. That's a bit of a tough proposition when you have two roommates who disagree with your assertion that sleep is a necessity and regard it as either a momentary inconvenience (MountainBlueFox) or as completely optional (Mursa). I still slept pretty well if for no other reason than the flight and time change had had me up for about 22 hours by that time.

Friday morning started as every good morning does, breakfast with TK and a writing panel. Not at the same time of course, but if we could combine the two that would be pretty cool. There was a My Little Pony Picnic that I ducked out of the start of because it was cold and rainy out and I wanted to get something waterproof. I got back just in time to hear that everyone decided that being out here where it was cold and rainy really sucked and that they wanted to go inside. One of our valiant leaders had been finagling an empty panel room in the meantime and so we holed up in there. Once safely inside we took a minute to decide who was in charge and what exactly we were all about in there, and then sang songs, played games and were just generally immature for awhile. Someone knew his way around a guitar and we managed to get through 'Smile, smile, smile!' the crowd favorite, in something resembling a coordinated effort. We played 20 questions with a box of blind-bag figurines of ignominious background ponies. A lot of them can be quite tough to nail down unless you've got some really buff fan cred. I correctly guessed Berry Punch in one round and won a cookie. It is inexplicably satisfying to win a cookie in a way that's truly impossible to even describe.

I ducked out midway through my next writing event to have lunch with TK, and after that we both went to a panel that had piqued my interest before the convention even started, "Partner Dancing 101" by Mia Lutra. If I had to pick just one panel to hang my laurel on for the con, it would have to be this one, if for no reason other than I had never attended, seen or even heard of anything like it before, and of course it was loads of fun. There's lots of stuff in the dancing track. Open dancing running all night, lots of dance competitions and performances, but none of those are really accessible unless you already at least have some idea of what you're doing and are comfortable dancing. There were two dance panels at this con that actually advertised teaching and used phrases like "all levels of experience welcome". That was a totally new thing to me. I was pretty excited by the prospect and I couldn't be happier that I went and tried something new.

It was a little tough to get into, since partner dancing is something of an intimate thing and you're being asked to pair off with a bunch of total strangers. And since this is a furry con, like 80% of those strangers are male. I got over that though, and pretty soon I was falling in step with everyone else, so to speak. I was definitely a noteworthy margin behind everyone else all the way. My progress was slow in the context of the group, but much, much faster than I'd expected. I like to think that I have a sense for rhythm, it's just that dancing has never really been my thing. And of course no one has ever offered to teach me to dance, particularly in a much lower-pressure setting than an actual dance. Despite the hardship, I managed to have a fair deal of fun there. I ended up dancing with TK more than a few times, but that was fine. It was a little more comfortable and he had at least a vague idea of what he was doing. Big disappointment on this end that his camera has fallen from the edge of the known universe. He got a few good shots of me during my instruction in the art of the dance, to include taking a fursuiter to task on it when he decided to crash the panel. I don't know how much of those lessons are actually going to stick, but I'm very glad that I went.

The next writing panel was another one that I was anticipating before the fact. It was titled "You had me at…" and it went over the ins and outs of an "elevator pitch". The phrase comes from the idea that an inventor, designer, or writer, some kind of content creator, would happen upon an investor or publisher in an elevator, and have that one short, once-in-a-lifetime chance to capture the interest of that potential backer with a super-condensed, really fast pitch of their work. That was basically the frame of the discussion. You have somehow secured like… 45 seconds of a publisher's time. You have to hook them in, if not completely sell them on your idea before they walk away. That sounds like the sort of absolutely terrifying and yet totally awesome scenario that I'm going to need to be ready for.

The panelists all confirmed that this is absolutely one of the ways for a new author to get their big break. As  Kyell once observed, "The easiest way to get through writing a novel, is to already have written one so that you know you can do it. The easiest way to get published, is to already be a famous author, because name recognition will sell books." It's extremely difficult for a brand new author to get over that hump. Publishers see such tremendous volume of these brand new, no-name authors that many of them just get lost in the shuffle when they try to go the traditional submission route. Sometimes connections, or a tour-de-force of speed-salesmanship are the only way to break that barrier. Very interesting stuff.

Next up was the second dance instruction panel. Different instructors and a very different kind of dancing. This one was the sort of stage or performance dancing that's always so popular with fursuiters and at cons in general. The kind that can just spontaneously break out in the middle of an open area when nothing else is going on. That sort of dance-circle thing that you sometimes see where people step up into the circle one at a time and perform in the middle in sequence. It took a minute, but I learned that such a circle is called a "cypher" and felt a little less out of the loop on that.

It was an interesting experience, because as clueless as I was about partner dancing, I was orders-of-magnitude more clueless about this kind of dancing. I'm still not even sure what you call it, really. Street dancing? That sounds stodgy and vaguely racist. I'm going to go with "rhythm dancing" until someone tells me I'm wrong. It's inoffensive and slightly less ignorant than my other options, and is at least tangentially informative as to the nature of the art. In any case, we stretched out and got through some fundamentals, and I got to hear from some of the experts exactly how the logic behind rhythm dancing works. That was really one of the best parts.

I doubt I'm at all ready to bust a move in any meaningful way, but it was fascinating to get a look at the pieces from which the larger performance is composed. One of the things that was so captivating about watching the dance competition at AC was that some of the things that they were doing looked just impossible, and even if they weren't it was impossible to try and think of what they'd do next, or where they got the idea from to do what they were doing. Really though, knowing where all that comes from doesn't really ruin the magic the way you might think it would. It actually makes the performances more interesting to watch, since you have that element of understanding. You know what they're trying to accomplish with their moves and something of the message they're trying to send with their dance. It's a very enriching experience.

The instructor that I had was  Flinch, a very skilled dancer that I had seen perform before. He has a style as unforgettable as his fursuit, so I was excited to see him there, and it was a privilege to learn from him. I was getting dangerously close to experiencing what could be called fun when the hammer came down. The room was double-booked and there was a wedding in there soon. So the staff's entirely equitable solution was "Sorry, but GTFO." Our solution was to have a cypher outside, which was cool for a little while, but of course it wasn't all that long before hotel security told us to knock it off. We managed to get back inside once the room was free and wrap things up in something of a haphazard fashion, but it still felt like kind of a bust towards the end.

Next up was "Banned Cartoons", a two-parter where the name said it all. It was basically a screening of cartoons that had been censured extensively or outright pulled from broadcast and distribution for myriad reasons. It was an astonishingly and quite unexpectedly popular screening, particularly for this being its first year. The hosts went from wondering what they'd do with such a large room to having the panel interrupted by the staff with the announcement: "Okay, fire code says that eight of you have to leave." When they came in to tell us that, I saw that they were also outside chasing away more people that wanted to come in. It was just that popular that they had to station people to stop more people from going to have fun at it. I know that the fire codes need to be respected, but really? There was no alternative to that at all? I thought that sarcastically, but that may have indeed been the case. Most con spaces were booked solid at that time, so we just had to deal with it.

The first half was cartoons before 1980, and was very far from what I had expected because of it. This wasn't the over-protective nanny-state bullcrap that we see today. These cartoons were banned for obvious, and good, extremely good reasons. As sampling of what I saw in the time that I was there includes: Nazi Donald duck, an early Popeye featuring a Philipino Betty Boop, Goldilox and the Three Jive Bears, Coal Black and the Seben Dwarbes, and Bugs Bunny in the Pacific killing Japanese fighter pilots. I laughed hysterically and hated myself for it.

During intermission they played a banned episode of The PowerPuff Girls. That had content more like what I expected. It was banned for having "communist themes" which, yeah it did, but the villain had those themes. It was a surprisingly smart and well-presented indictment against communism. It was more to the speed of just someone being too sensitive like I thought I would see there. By then they were asking for volunteers to leave so that some of the people waiting outside could see part II. Didn't necessarily want to leave, but I figured the next part would be something of a let-down after Fascist Looney Toons, and that actually did sound fair. So I gave my spot up and headed out.

Next appointment was dinner with TK and like three dozen of his closest friends at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Mursa was part of that troupe, and was the only other face at the table I had seen before. It was nice to talk to him a little bit. Despite being at the con for two days together by then we had spent scarcely a few minutes in each others' presence while conscious. We got along pretty well. I was in the middle of the table so I had the privilege/imposition of bouncing around between the different conversations that were happening at either end. Never a dull moment, to be sure.

Having never been to or heard of this place before I was a bit bewildered by the menu. I probably should've guessed the business model a little quicker by the name. Everything on the menu is just a description of what they're going to put on the big-ass plate of spaghetti they're about to bring you. Fortunately the assembling of our entourage took a little while so I had some time to nail down the protocol. Ordinarily I would've chaffed at the wait, but I really wasn't all that hungry, despite having gone from noon to 9:00 without any food. It was odd. I never felt hungry at any point from Thursday until Sunday. I kept eating somewhat regularly because I have it on good authority that "nothing" is an unwise dietary choice, particularly under stressful conditions, but I never felt the slightest bit hungry for days. My only guess was that the time change was making all the meals happen at the wrong time. If I was at home and I was trying to eat a pound of spaghetti at midnight then I bet my stomach would balk at it just the same way. My chosen topping probably did little to help. I should've gone with an alfredo sauce or something, having just the cheese was good, but very dry and didn't do anything to appease my crabby stomach. In any case we finished our meal only a little bit after they closed and turned in for the night.

I think that point was my first actual interaction with  crazyjoe1952, even if it was just introducing myself and shaking his hand. MBF is in his mid-sixties and I'm quite convinced that he got more out of that con than I did. He has something like five fursuits that he made himself and spent very little time out of them through the whole con. His workmanship is a true marvel though. His suits are quite seamless at first blush, with some very interesting innovations like a truly articulated tail and functional ears that actually work to direct sound into the suit. The real shocker though is that every suit contains not just LED effects, but an advanced array of animatronics. The head is more cyborg than costume; blinking eyes, articulated tongue, motorized jaws, jowls that pull back to expose teeth, I'd never seen anything like it. And quite rightly so I'm told. Suits with actuated movements of any kind are rare, and ones with that extent of mechanization are exclusive to him as far as anyone I've talked to is aware. He wears them right into the ground, too. His paws are always falling apart, not from poor craftsmanship but because he just never stops. I get the creeping suspicion that MountainBlueFox may actually be a cyborg… Even if he's not, I still feel like I'm not exaggerating by calling him practically superhuman. I can only aspire to still have that kind of spirit when I'm his age, or to ever be as good at anything as he is at suitcraft. With as little time as I spent with him because of how busy we both stayed, I don't know as I ever got a chance to tell him what an astonishing masterwork every one of his suits is. And what a prodigious talent and truly singular personality he himself possesses.

Saturday morning started with breakfast with TK again, probably. I know I had breakfast with him every day except one but I forget which day that was. In any case, I'm pretty sure the sun came up that day… metaphorically of course. It was still cloudy and raining. We managed to catch a bit of the Saturday morning cartoon panel, which was a great idea that went over quite well. There was a bit of fluff time that morning in which I visited the Dealers' Den and Artists' Alley. I was struck by the variety of art and wares that they were able to pack into such a small space, but what was even more noteworthy was the extremely small space. I'd heard a lot of people online that were skipping RF because they couldn't get a vendor's spot even more than a month in advance. The Den had filled up incredibly fast, and being in the room I could see why. The Dealers' room was comparable in size to the one I visited at the 400-strong FurThe'More, and it was the less disappointing room of the two.

The Alley didn't even have registration for the room, nor did it have a room for that matter. It was just a first-come first-serve Road Warrior lawless zone. They picked up all the leather gear and unnecessary chains to complete their battle wardrobe in the Den and then just threw down in pitched combat for the few folding tables that were set up in the small foyer outside the Den. Yeah, that's how it worked, someone took the term "Alley" entirely too literally and set the artists up in a hallway. I would've been insulted if I were an artist, having to sit there and watch everyone walk past my table to get to where they're actually going instead of getting to work with just the people who are there to buy art. Fortunately they were advertizing this opportunity to furry artists, people who are quite well used to debasing themselves for cash.

Next up was the ice cream social. It seemed like a good idea at first blush. I like socializing at cons, and also, well duh! Ice cream! I didn't purchase a ticket in advance, because I can barely plan my minute-to-minute schedule at a con as it is. The idea of committing time and money to an event a month in advance when I'm pre-registering is laughable. I thought that I'd give this one a shot, seeing if I could buy into it on-site, but as I walked by it I caught a characteristic whiff of bullshit. For one, there was a line. I don't know what the reason was, but it's pretty much impossible for there to have been a good one. Either they somehow didn't have the room yet, weren't ready, or were forming a line to check tickets or some function that could easily be done without a line. It wasn't like a crowd of people were slowly making their way through the door and they pushed them to form an orderly line, they just stopped everyone from coming in for awhile without any apparent reason. Also, there wasn't just one line. As always there was the large worthless peon line, and also the super-special investors' line for people that are better than you. Now I understand extra donations buying privilege, but this was a ticketed event. Everyone paid money to be there, so it wasn't really fair to put sponsors and uber-sponsors and righteous demigods or whatever cut in front.

You saw it every place there was a line. Apparently the staff's biggest concerns with the giant, traffic-choking lines was not that they were a sign of endemic inefficiency or the fact that they have too many people for the space they're in. Their number one worry appeared to be that some poor real person might unintentionally blunder into the drooling proletariat line and become trapped there interminably, despite their much higher social caste. Every line I stood in had a town crier that raced up and down its imposing serpentine length, telling everyone to plaster ourselves against the walls such that our existence does not inconvenience mobile people and calling out to any inadvertently trapped super-robot-Jesus-wizards that were in line with the common serfs by mistake. I know that cons run on money, but the tiered registration system can, and has been done without subjugating the mere attendees beneath the iron heel of the ruling class. I'll come back to this issue later. It's getting me frustrated and I'm out of fascist metaphors.

In any case, I had the option of ice cream, or yet another writing panel. The ice cream people wanted money and there was a huge-ass line of imposing physical, and indeterminate chronological length. Writing panel it is! It was editing this time, another thing that I really shouldn't be burning time on while trying to make progress on my novel, but still very good to know. I figured the panel's running right up to the fursuit parade lineup wouldn't be a problem. Hah! What a fool I was. I don't know how I could've been such a fool as to leave myself only a half-hour to walk the necessary 500 yards to get in position to watch the parade. The capricious and near-constant rain had forced the parade inside, constricting space and motivating me to seek out a vantage point "early". The convention space is three stories up from the hotel. I gave a cursory glance to the elevators as I passed to get to a functioning means of transport. It's only a few floors, but we promptly destroyed the elevators trying to traverse them in the course of the con, further proof that this building can't handle us.

I got to the top of the stairs to find a complete blockage that extended back into the stairwell. Con staff had roped off the parade routes, severely restricting the mobility of spectators. That, and quite a few people were totally okay with getting off the elevator or stairs and standing right in front of them to watch. I went with my last option, going outside to walk around the building to the main entrance. It was a long walk, but one quite a few people were willing to make, as that entrance was also choked with people. I managed to stand outside of a window I could watch through, and honestly got a better view than the other dozens of people that were mob-blocked from the parade. The parade was in progress by then, but it's not like timeframe made a difference. I was out of routes by then. It was literally impossible to reach for a great many of those who tried. So, I managed to watch about 60% of the parade by standing on my tiptoes on the North face of the building. Fortunately security was lost in the parade scramble, so they didn't have time to yell at me to get down from there until the parade was over. Yay, I guess.

The Furry Variety Show (essentially a talent show) sounded interesting, but I passed it up for more of that human interaction stuff I've been hearing so much about. I managed to blend two crowds by going with Archai, Faileas and TK to Subway. While we were meeting up in the lobby we had a most interesting experience.  silverwolf16 came over to us and started talking to us. I told him he looked great when he was suiting at the dance cypher we had earlier and we had some good conversation there for a few minutes. I was glad I had seen him dance because it gave me a less awkward conversational option than "Oh yeah! I've seen you in all that TF porn by  soty!" Which I said anyway because whatever. It was quite interesting when he walked off and we all looked at each other for a second.
"So, you know him, right?"
"What? No, I was just making conversation. I thought he came over because he knew you guys. I've never seen him out of suit before."
"I don't know him either, I thought one of you guys knew him."
"… what just happened?"

So, fresh from being conversation-trolled in a most interesting and memorable fashion, we proceeded out into the murk in search of food. It was only moderately raining at the time, and the walk entailed some interesting conversation, so all in all it was a worthy trip. On my return, I was just in time to attend the wedding of one of my old friends from Virginia. and were getting hitched during the con. That was a lot of firsts for me. First furry wedding, first con wedding, you could also fill that blank with "Gay" and "Fursuit" if you wanted to cover all the bases. "Presided over by an officiate in a kilt" probably wouldn't fit unless you left a very long blank. It was a simple occasion but one I was happy to witness. The fact that both grooms were Lucarioes was something that I found endlessly amusing.

After the festivities, I came upon the counterpoint to all the panels that intrigued me the moment that I looked at the schedule, something that pissed me off as soon as I looked at the schedule. Furry karaoke was scheduled opposite the fursuit dance competition and that decision was agonizing. I knew I'd never be happy with the one I picked because I'd be thinking about the other one the whole time. I went with Karaoke because TK liked the idea and because I had never been to such an event before. It was something new and, for a moment, I allowed myself to hope.

Words fail to describe my disappointment. And I'm damn good with words so you know you can take that to the bank. Furry Karaoke's first impression was that of a man with douchey mirrored sunglasses who was covered 70% in body glitter and about 7% by a thin leopard-print loincloth. Okay, I get it, I'm in the furry fandom. I'm going to have to deal with some weird shit once in awhile in order to enjoy this unique brand of insanity we have collected here. I'm okay with that, but not only was this crossing the line, or rather cartwheeling over the line and leaving it in the dust, it wasn't even justified by a good event. The sound system sounded like a scaled-up flip-phone speakerphone, but that's cool, because they compensated for the transistor-amplifier clipping and poor tone balance by it by turning it up debilitatingly loud to the point where I had to retreat to the back of the room to get the volume back below the threshold of pain.

After finally getting my hands on the one copy of the song roster they had and finding that there were big holes in the list, that or their understanding of alphabetization is fragmented in more ways than one, I found they didn't have the song I had signed up for, or any that I was particularly inclined towards singing. I was nowhere near old enough for that song roster, for one. How do you invite furries to sing and not have Disney movie soundtracks? Bullshit! I resolved then to leave and go to the dance competition after TK sang. Of course that was back when TK was number five on the list. A few contestants in, TK went from number "five" to number "FUCK THE RULES I DO WHAT I WANT!" when nekkid leopard douche started just picking whoever he felt like from the list instead of going in order. So I bailed. I'd like to say that I learned something from it, but all I'm really getting at this point is "Man, those must've been some really douchey sunglasses for me to remember them with the same vividness as the fact that DJ Sparklefuck was up on stage wearing less than underwear.

Escaping Karaoke purgatory to get to the dance competition was a bit like catching a life preserver and being just the slightest bit dismayed to find it filled with concrete. Firstly, the performance space was just a cheap sectionalized temporary dancefloor. For one, this made it impossible to see thanks to the ever-present crowd problem. Ah, if only there were a way to elevate the performers above the audience. A raised platform of some sort, such that visibility might be enhanced and there would be no need to occupy half the room with performance space, crowding the spectators against the walls. Ah, but enough of my foolish speculations about inconceivable future space technology, let's get back to what actually happened.

Midway through the first dance I was there for, there were some truly righteous extra strobe effects that really got the crowd going, right before the music cut out unexpectedly. It turned out that everyone had been grooving to the convention hall's fire alarm. Fortunately the con staff handled that one with every ounce of coordination and organization they possessed. That is to say, about a third of an ounce of the two combined. We spent a minute or two deciding if we should all evacuate or if life truly has no intrinsic meaning and that it wouldn't matter at all if we all died anyway. After choosing the former (disappointingly) we all shuffled towards the nearest exit- well in fact it was actually one of the furthest exits from us, but it was the only one that would accommodate a group of our size. Well, theoretically anyway. We never got a chance to test that theory, as con staff came back with the "all clear" call as we were on our way out. And just as we were getting ourselves back into position and I actually got a good vantage point for the dance, hotel staff came back with the "What the fuck are you doing evacuate right now" call. We had almost reached our previous evacuation-distance record when the second "but no seriously everything is fine" came across. Wheee…

So as you might suspect, all this foolishness wasted a considerable chunk of time. There didn't appear to be any change in the programming at first, so I figured that they were just going to push a bit into the dance that had the room next. You know, the unstructured event that just occupies the room until bullshit O'clock in the morning? Well, it turns out that we were so concerned about encroaching on their mere 7.5 hours of open dance time, that the solution was to cut out all the judges' comments at the end of the performances. So, each dancer's set ended with "Yeah good job now get your ass off the stage we have a schedule to keep." Classy.

Flinch pulled off a win in the end, and I was happy for him. And really for their part, I think the performers handled all this in stride as well as can be expected. There were still some impressive displays, but just as many who were struggling with their circumstances. Having people sit right at the edge or in some cases on the dancefloor was a hazard, and while no one got kicked in the face like they easily could have, there was more than one occasion where a dancer had to jump back after finding themselves uncomfortably close to hurling their body into the crowd. The floor itself also proved a challenge, as I saw a few dancers engaged in a valiant struggle for traction on the slick panels. It was quickly obvious that this contest didn't have prelims because of the sheer volume of contestants, which of course made us run even longer and prompted the emcee to shove people off the stage even faster. So in the end, the two events that I was sure would both be so amazing that I'd kill myself trying to decide between them both ended up failing just about as hard as they possibly could. Way to flip a coin and land on bullshit.

One more late-night super sexy awesome writing panel and it was time for a much more dependable event, Whose Lion is it Anyway? TK's friend Gadget went with me and she thought that I was amazing, which is always a nice thing to be reminded of. I did pretty much nail "Questions only", knocking out something like seven people with my quick thinking and masterful command of language. I came up with a bunch more funny lines as the night went on, but the later ones had more to do with "I have a dirty mind and the balls to say this in front of all you people" than any measure of cleverness on my part. It was a laugh riot all the way through and none of us wanted it to end. We kept at it long into the night, half and again past our original timeslot. It was a shame that the original host, Alkali, couldn't be there. So of course we waited until 0dark:30 and called him. With the time difference that put our wakeup at an even more absurd time for him, but he was a good sport about it. By the time we finally broke that party up at about half-past-tomorrow I had worn my throat ragged with all the shouting and laughing, so it's safe to say that was a pretty great way to end the day.

Sunday started with more My Little Pony, this time a more formal panel that was actually supposed to occur inside. It was honestly rather subdued for a pony panel, which wasn't really better or worse, just different. We screened some fanart and works, and compared notes about pony resources. They showed "Children of the Night", a favorite of Line Monkey, one of the panelists. It was interesting to hear that it was drawn frame-by-frame, that's a tremendous amount of work, and it looks credibly like flash or cel animation. I could've done without the frequent advertisements for Everfree Northwest, but it was still a good time. I love the ponies, but I wouldn't go to a con just for them, a panel here and a panel there is plenty.

I was going to make a few of these observations at the scritch n' bitch feedback panel towards the end of the day, about how they kept putting big-draw events opposite each other in the schedule, but I ended up not going because they scheduled the scritch n' bitch opposite some writing panels I really wanted to go to. Much as I love complaining and you've no doubt observed I have something of a knack for it, I certainly don't prefer it to talking about writing. And why go through all that effort to change the next RainFurrest when I could spare myself its shortcomings by not being there for them? Yes, I much prefer that solution. Cleaner, simpler, probably going to result in less bloodshed overall.

In any case, I got quite a surprise after I shuffled to my place in the con's last giant-ass line for the closing ceremonies. No, no the surprise wasn't that there was no giant-ass line for this event, don't be ridiculous. Of all the con's giant-ass lines this was surely the giantest, if not also the lineiest and assiest. No, the surprise came from who came to stand next to me at the back of the line. It was none other than Author Guest of Honor Kyell Gold. I was as flummoxed as I was intrigued by the opportunity. He was clearly aware of the special, much shorter and less disease-ridden line for those of noble blood, as the fiefdom's herald came running down the line to inform us of such at regular intervals. Perhaps being a simple guest (of honor) doesn't entitle one to the privileges of nobility.

I would rant and rave about that subject more, but someone pointed out to me later that he probably could have claimed his rightful place if he so chose and may have waited in the back intentionally because he's just that kind of guy. Knowing Kyell as I do, (My assessment of his personality I mean. It's not like we know each other. I doubt he remembers my name even.) I'd say that's a distinct possibility. In any case, I'm not going to complain. I got to chat with Kyell Gold for awhile while I waited instead of just staring at the floor and wishing I had been spawned of highborne ancestry. I let him alone after some idle chat. He didn't seem much in the mood to talk, he'd probably had an exhausting con as well.

The closing ceremonies were smooth and simple. A nice chance to pause and reflect. And this time they didn't pad out the whole hour with not much happening. It was a chance for everyone that worked on the con to stand up and be recognized, in a most literal sense. As much shit as I've given con staff, they all did work very hard to make all this happen, and though I quibble over a number of things, I respect the effort and commitment that they've shown to this event. They did some things wrong, or moreover just some things I disagree with, but it's easy for me to snipe from my position of not having any of the work to do. It was nice to see these guys up on stage and give them the applause they deserved.

That night I met up with Archai's crew, a group of eight or so and not a single remembered name in the bunch. I hope none of them take offense. I was meeting them all for the first time and I had been operating on very little sleep all week. In any case, we all went out to a delectable Thai restaurant and stuffed ourselves to the gills. We were there for hours talking and laughing and just having a good time in general. We waited a bit for a break in the by-then-pouring rain, but realized that one would never come. There was a little sting of regret in that we had gotten so far away from the hotel, but certainly nowhere near enough to make me wish I hadn't came. I got back in after a harrowing journey, said goodbye to my new friends, shook off some of the water and checked out the dead dog events for a bit, trying to make a few last minute connections. Having worn myself down quite thoroughly by then, I turned in for the night.

Okay, final thoughts on RainFurrest. Good con, would not go again. There are just too many endemic problems with how it's run. I was baffled at first to see such a large, well-established con making what looked to be novice mistakes. Or entirely original mistakes in some cases. I thought they might have become overgrown, but no. Anthrocon manages nearly three times their attendance without falling victim to these pitfalls. Nor can I truly call them "Novice" mistakes, as I went to the inaugural year of FurThe'More and I noticed none of the things that bothered me about this con. FurThe'More was started and staffed largely by people who worked the big east-coast cons, FWA, AC, and MFF, many of whom worked extensively with the big kahuna of Anthrocon.

I heard once that Dr. Conway refused to attend RF anymore and so I asked around about it. Apparently after attending, Uncle Kage had a few suggestions for the staff as to how they could improve things. His offer of assistance was rebuffed, and their newbie mistakes became dogma over the years. It got to the point where bad blood arose between them, and now Kage refuses to be associated with RF in any way, beyond buying adspace in the conbook to let attendees know what they're missing on the other side of the country. Spurning the advice that represents many years' experience and comes from someone who is arguably the face of the furry fandom at large is very telling of RF's attitude.

Another big revelation that I came upon was that the staff restructures its responsibilities and leadership structure each and every year. That goes a long way towards explaining why people who have ostensibly been doing this for years were acting like they were bluffing their way through something they were unfamiliar with and learning as they go. They kind of were doing that, really. It's one thing to have upward mobility and the capacity to revise the organization to solve problems as they arise. That's an important aspect of being able to adapt and improve the convention as progress marches on. It's quite another matter entirely to commemorate every year with the Mad Hatter jumping out of his seat and yelling "Change places!" thus nullifying everything everyone learned in their previous positions. Yes, it keeps everything dynamic and in constant motion, but a hurricane could be described as " dynamic and in constant motion". You can't make a workforce out of nothing but trainees. All the learning that everyone is doing in their new positions is not of any use if they never cash in on it and get a second year in their role to put their experience to use.

One of the things I found so striking and amazing when I attended Anthrocon was what a wide representation of locations the convention boasted. Offhand I can remember meeting people there from Ohio, Georgia, Virginia, Hawaii, Texas, Montana, England, Australia, and Japan. And those are just the ones I remember readily now months after attending. What struck me most about RainFurrest is that holy crap bloody freaking everyone is from Seattle! It was a majority no matter what group I was with at the time. A lot of the panels took polls of the audience as icebreakers and they were always "Seattle, Seattle, Vancouver, Seattle, Spokane, Seattle, Bremerton, Walla Walla(I didn't know that place was real.) Seattle, Tacoma" etc. Twice I was the only Non-Washington attendee in a room of a few dozen.

That's really the most telling thing about it. People are going to Anthrocon because they wanted to attend Anthrocon. People at RainFurrest are there because they wanted to attend "The closest furry con to them". Convenience of location is RF's number one selling point. A legitimate advantage, but it has nothing to do with the convention or how it's run. That's a common theme, really. I had fun there and I experienced frustrations there. Most of the fun that happened was coming from the panelists and attendees and was unrelated to the con admin, and most of the frustration was a result of con admin. Bottom line, having a convention close to home is a perfectly fine reason to attend. It just doesn't apply to me. If I were within driving distance, I'd go every year. I am not, and don't soon plan to be. So with the advantage of locale working in the opposite direction, I'll pursue other options for my next con.

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The next morning the decision came up as to whether or not we wanted to stay in Seattle and do Seattle things or hit the road for Spokane. Mursa was debilitatingly ill by then. He had gotten sick from his interactions in the Dealers' Den, and by the end of the con both I and MountainBlueFox had it from sleeping in the same room as him. TK was still on an even keel, but was up pretty late the night before. That made it pretty universal that everyone was tired and in favor of Spokane, and so off we went. As we passed through the expansive and mostly sodden countryside, TK kept telling me that we were moving into the "dry" part of the state as we went east. I was unimpressed as this transition meant only that it rained slightly less.

We met up with one of TK friends in some little Germany-themed villa for lunch. His name was Bosus, near as I can guess at the spelling anyway. He offered to drive one of us so that we were two to a car and I took him up on it since Mursa didn't have much interest in any kind of physical movement by then. Despite his attempts to make his aging Subaru do some Tokyo drift shenanigans that it was clearly never meant for, Bosus made a pretty good impression on me. He was a pretty nice guy and was good for some conversation. He said that he was glad for someone to talk with to make the drive go faster, so much the better that it was a nice, attractive young guy. You'd think that getting called "a cute guy" like that would be something that you would get used to after awhile. You'd be incorrect, but it's still flattering in a certain way.

On arrival, I got to enjoy some of the rain and hail that typified the "dry" portion of the state and met the surprisingly numerous denizens of Casa Kiyoshi. As riveting as the tour was I, like everyone else, was pretty keen on just stumbling into bed and passing out. The next day started slow, and for me at least stayed pretty slow. After "eat pancakes" I didn't really have any priorities, so I thought I'd take a little nap in the afternoon. Just a short five hours or so later I woke up in time to go out for dinner. TK said we'd be eating with a few friends of his, which was cool. What he didn't mention was that they were work friends and not furry friends, and that we'd be representing the fandom to those people.

That was a surprise, but it wasn't like I minded. I actually like doing that sort of thing. During the con a middle-aged Asian woman who was staying at the hotel came up and asked me what all the fuss was about. I gave her the best condensed explanation I could, but she had quite a battery of questions. We were headed in vaguely the same direction, so I pretty much gave her the grand tour of the con on the hotel side as we walked. I realized later that I was wearing my Navy jacket because it was waterproof, and it was covering up my conbadges. I guess "that young sailor" is a bit more of an approachable profile than "the guy with a lime green Mohawk and dinner plates in his ears". I was happy to fulfill that role though, and though I found myself without the mobility and time limit that I had at the con, talking about furry stuff did make for some very lively dinner conversation. I had a lot of fun there and it was a great way to close out the day.

TK had to work Tuesday, but that was all well and good. Despite being asleep there more time than I spent awake there, I still wasn't feeling up to doing a whole lot. I didn't want to risk lazing about the entire trip though. So I took him up on his offer of the grand tour of Spokane. We visited a park and arboretum, very nice nature walks even given the relatively un-florid time of year. It's the sort of thing I haven't had time for until recently, and that was kind of the theme of this trip. 'I want to do this thing, because at long last, I actually can!' Maybe I'll call it my National Freedom Tour.

Anyway we got into town to see some of the cool stuff they had there. We went to the barbeque joint that TK used to work at to get some of that sauce he wanted Lucius to try. The city park was very nice. Spokane is one of those "a river runs through it" towns, so there are lots of interesting landforms in the undeveloped areas. Something interesting downtown was that they had this skywalk where the second or third floors of several of the buildings are networked together with enclosed bridges to span streets and such. All together it forms one massive sprawling commercial complex like nothing I've ever seen. I got an extensive tour of the place. Too bad shopping has never really been my thing. Doubly so when I have to tote anything that I purchase to the other side of the continent.

Next up, TK pointed out the Spokane Steamworks, to which I responded "Wait, that exists? Still? People will still pay a utility bill for steam? Has anyone told them what century it is?" Turns out that these days the Steamworks have been converted into a steampunk restaurant-slash-bar-slash-office-complex-slash-museum-slash-cold-war-bunker-slash-spelunking-cave-slash-James-Bond-chase-scene-backdrop. There's probably an emergency outbreak infirmary or something in the basement that I missed. All in all a great new life for old industry.

The other major stop on the sightseeing tour was the Davenport Hotel, local landmark and dreamworld venue for All Fur Fun. It was a gorgeous place, very ornate and expansive. It really had that Great Gatsby sort of old world charm. It also worked very hard to earn every one of its five stars. It was a lot like the Omni in that it was so nice I felt like I didn't belong there. In this case specifically I didn't have a reservation so I kind of actually didn't belong there. That made that uneasy feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop even stronger. TK managed to give me a pretty thorough tour and history of the place without us ever being asked to leave, so I guess we're just quite skilled at loitering.

Before long, TK had to go to work. Such a drag. Any of you who have jobs, I encourage you to follow in my footsteps; quit them to spend your time going to furry conventions and traveling the country. It's loads of fun. A little time to relax in TK's room while he was gone was fine by me though. I thought that being out and about would help, since I usually feel laziest after being lazy for a really long time, but I stayed pretty tired throughout. That's what started to convince me that I was looking at a real pathogen illness and not just timechange/lack-of-sleep. So I got on my laptop and got caught up on what the internet was doing while I was busy. TK got roped into doing some stuff at work that would take him all night, but I didn't mind as none of that interfered with my plan of: "going to bed". My flight was pretty early, but I had it easy as my path was "go to sleep earlier" and TKs was "not sleep at all".

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Well folks, it appears I've finally done it and exceeded the maximum length that FA allows for a journal submission, so stay turned for the exciting conclusion of whatever it is I'm doing here.