And now the dramatic conclusion of my con MFF report. Also known as the part where I actually ARRIVE at the con.

I got the con off to a roaring start by entrenching myself deeply into the convention hall's truly baffling parking garage. Seriously, that complex looks like it lost a game of some sort of civil engineer Russian Roulette. I started off by following Fumei and a few of his friends out of the garage and into the main hotel, since they seemed like they might know what they were doing whereas I most assuredly did not. Since the walk to the con hotel was quite lengthy and complex, the group in front of me eventually did become aware that I was stalking them, so we chatted a bit on the way, and eventually made it to the promised land.

Right then. The first thing on my mind was that I had likely been completely hung out to dry by  kimbaquartez who had said that I could room with him, and with whom I had been unsuccessfully trying to make contact for several days at this point. This left me effectively homeless, with a ticking clock attached to the "not have to freeze to death trying to sleep in your car" challenge. I did the sensible thing for once and declared this joker a total loss, immediately beginning to beg for a room from people that I knew.

It was in this effort that I immediately encountered a distressing lack of people that I knew. At RainFurrest it was understandable, because RF is on the other side of the country and is a bafflingly mismanaged convention that no one sensible goes to. But even at an ostensibly good and well-attended con I was having trouble. I found a few friends from my old furry group in Virginia whom I was happy to see, but as usual for them their rooms were stuffed to the gills. I was beginning to feel just a little uneasy when I ran into  LionKingCMSL who said that I was welcome to sleep on his floor if it came down to it. It very soon came down to it, but knowing that his door was open freed me up to have a little fun as the convention started to get up to speed. I was rather upset at ending up in this imposition, but honestly rooming with someone I'd never met in person really should've struck me as more fishy than it did, and I suppose you can only take so many leaps of faith before you fall.

Now then, if you've been paying attention I do hope you'll soon note that my critique of the con is much less negative than that of its location and the punishing gauntlet needed to arrive there, and if you haven't been paying attention well then WAKE THE HELL UP I'm doing a thing here. In any case, I went to a pub to eat with  bluepawzwolf and catch up with what's been happening in Virginia since my departure. After that I hit the convention floor and managed one Hail Mary pass of a chance encounter. Rahne Kallon is someone who I have been trying to meet for a very long time. Meeting him was not just a convention goal, mind. It was was an important, very personal life goal for me to see him in person someday. And to show why that is I'm going to have to tell the whole story behind it.

Many years ago, when I was just starting out in the Navy,  rahne and I came into contact online and rather hit it off. After awhile, he asked if I could look over one of his stories and let him know my remarks. I did, and in my zeal to help him fix up the piece I was... quite harsh and insensitive with my criticism, unnecessarily so. He was hurt and offended, and was hardly shy about giving me a piece of his mind on the subject. Several pieces, in fact. I probably could've assembled his mind in its entirety from the pieces that I got. I felt awful about having said such insulting things about something he had worked hard on and took such pride in. I tried all I could think of to make up for that, but he just didn't want to hear from me anymore. Soon I saw no alternative but to respect that, even though the silence between us was the most excruciating thing yet.

I'm glad that I had the sense to just back off when he wanted me to, as that's probably all that kept him from simply blocking my FA and never speaking to me again. As it was, he came around after a few months and said that he wasn't mad anymore, and that he'd revised his story, partly because the way I had torn it apart had alerted him to the problems with it. He found a sensible and much less boorish writing mentor and was able to polish up the story very nicely with his help. The walls were down by then, but it was never the same between us. Not like it was before.

It would be years before the possibility of attending a furry convention would even enter my mind, but even as that time my paramount thought about the whole affair was "Someday I'm going to find this guy in person. I'm going to let him know what an angel he was for putting up with me. I am going to make this right." Of course, it being very important to me didn't really make it any easier. Rahne is one of the biggest jack-of-all trades I've ever seen. He's a skilled voice actor, a fursuiter and fursuit dancer, a Disc Jockey, a writer, and a prolific art commissioner. He's very popular and very busy at conventions. While that makes him hard enough to find on its own, in reality you have to add that to the fact that I had never even seen his face before, and he wasn't in any mood to talk to me most of the time. I usually didn't hear back from him if I tried to get in touch, and I was very hesitant to bring up the subject of choosing a place to meet to ensure that we could actually find each other. I guess I was just afraid that he would tell me to stay the hell away from him, as he had every right to do.

It was that stupid fear that led me to miss him entirely at RainFurrest. The one time I saw him he was on his way to the fursuit dance competition, and by checking the time, I knew that I would make him late for it if I held him up at all. I would've been just sick with disappointment if I let him slip by me again at this con. Someday I'd run out of chances and I couldn't let that happen. So when I recognized his fursuit in the hotel lobby I went straight up to him immediately. This was my shot. Once the dances started and the convention got into full swing he would be as good as gone. I had resolved to at least let him know who I was, tell him that I'm very sorry, and if necessary, take my much-deserved slug in the face. I even thought about taking my glasses off to be ready for that. At least fursuit paws would limit the damage he could do.

I went up to him, got his attention and introduced myself. He lifted my con badge up so that he could read it and he looked at it for much longer than I would've thought necessary. It had been a long time since all that unpleasant business had gone down online. Five years by my reckoning. There was a chance he didn't even remember me at all, not really all that bad of an outcome, all things considered. I couldn't even look at him as I silently hoped that this was the case and I could be on my way. As such I was quite unprepared for what happened in the instant after my badge fell back down to my chest. The ancient, drunken flying tackle-hug jutsu he then employed in that moment sent me straight to the floor, muffled adulations coming from the orange dingo sprawled out over top of me as he squeezed my chest enthusiastically. I'd swear that I saw his tail wag.

He was glad that I was there and that I had come to find him. He was sorry that he had missed me at RainFurrest and most of all he was sorry that he'd blown up at me all those years ago. I told him that I was sorry too, stubbornly insisting that I was in the wrong. I told him that he was a wonderful person and that I've never been more happy to meet someone. There was another fursuiter with him; I would've given anything to see the expression on his face while he was watching all this. I'm glad this was at a furry con, otherwise the two of us rolling around on the floor in the middle of a crowded hotel lobby shouting excitedly and laughing like idiots would've looked rather out of place. As it was it probably didn't even make the top ten for most unusual things going on at that moment. It was a wonderful and very cathartic experience, better than I ever dared to hope.

Naturally, he was still Rahne, so he had not another moment to spare. I'd already gotten more from him than I ever would've thought to ask for, so I said a quick farewell and let him on his way. If that was all I did at this con, the trip would've been worth it. Of course, that wasn't all I did that con, so I had reasons to dash off just as Rahne did. I got to go to a socializing panel in which  Doryuu talked about overcoming his crippling shyness. I pretty much laughed in his face. If he ever overcame crippling shyness then he must've wound up a roundhouse and totally overcame its face off because these days he's probably the biggest attention whore I know. Him calling himself shy means either Doryuu is a dirty liar, or perhaps that there's hope for us all. I'm still kinda leaning towards option one.

Next up was Uncle Kage's Science, Pseudoscience, and Outright Crap. I had seen that one before, so I was going to skip it in favor of ponies, but I'd heard that it had been lengthened and updated with new content and a powerpoint. At FurThe'More where I had seen it, had been the first time he had given the panel, so I was pretty keen to see the improvements. I'd like to repeat that for emphasis. Kage made me choose a PowerPoint Presentation on material I had already seen, over magical ponies. He is truly a powerful figure. That, and I was pretty sure that he wouldn't burn up the whole 90 minutes he was blocked off for, so I could still sneak off for ponies at the end.

The presentation was interesting, and it was indeed much better structured and with a great deal more content. As a man of science, Kage had a lot to say on the subject of fake science. He also has an excellent stage presence that makes just about anything he says interesting. Some of his more remarkable points were attacking the idea that pseudoscientific ideas and stake oil peddlers weren't really hurting anyone. Sure, people were losing money, but let's face it. If you're dumb enough to think that wearing a little bar magnet on your wrist is going to cure diseases then someone was going to take your money eventually anyway. It's far from harmless though. Not all bullshit remedies are sugar pills. The most dangerous ones actually DO contain what they purport to.

The ones that exploit the fact that "natural" is seen as a synonym for "healthy and safe" are troublesome. He brought up cases of "natural" pregnancy supplements causing crippling birth defects, or even miscarriages. Many of the substances used in herbal products are blood-thinners, and have been linked to dozens of deaths during surgery via exsanguination because their clotting mechanism in compromised. The misinformation can even hamper the efforts of the real health professionals trying to undo this damage. Because the herbal and homeopathic "medicine" peddlers have so skillfully disassociated themselves from the evil pharmaceutical companies, real doctors can't get critical information that they need to save lives. When asked "What drugs are you taking?" people will leave out all the "natural" bullshit they've been sold on because they don't believe it's a drug and thus couldn't possibly have any negative consequences like say... death, when combined with actual medicine that a legitimate professional was trying to use to treat them.

He was good at getting everyone riled up, but also very sensible about where to have everyone direct their ire. We can't be mad at the people who fall for this. The swindlers they were duped by are experts in the art of sounding legitimate and selling useless, potentially dangerous crap for a premium. The fool does damage, but there is no malice on the part of the fool. He doesn't know any better. The malice, the evil, and the true potential for devastation is on the part of the fraud. He knows that what he is selling is crap. If he were dumb enough to believe his own claims he'd never have the cunning needed to get rich selling fake treatments. You can't blame the unknowing for hurting himself, but you sure as hell can blame someone who knows better and is using that knowledge to defraud, sicken, and kill people.

Kage offered us an out during the Q n A, so I beat feet out to catch the latter half of Rondie and Roffie's Pony Hour. This was the only pony event that I really wanted to go to, mainly because of the panelists. One of them is  ArofaTamahn, the author of The Night the Magic Died, a pony fan comic that I've very much enjoyed. The other was his sister,  AgentElrond, a real horse artist and enthusiast. Meaning that she is an artist and has an affinity for horses, not that she herself is a real horse. I'm really at a loss for a clearer way to phrase that though. The combination of real and cartoo was a really interesting premise, and thanks to growing up in a family of horse enthusiasts, I had plenty to offer to both sides of the discussion.

I got a chance to talk with the two of them for a little while as they packed up and headed out. We walked and talked because we were all on our way to Uncle Kage's Story Hour. It was a pleasant surprise that they could both correctly pronounce and identify the origin of my badge name. Gotta love equine enthusiasts for that. Of course, "ArofaTamahn" would've gotten an earful if he'd tried to tell me I had a difficult username. Formalities aside, I had to establish how our paths had crossed before. Not too hard, actually.

"Remember that guy that left like a three-page comment defending Celestia's nature on page 78?"

"Yeah, I remember that guy."

"I'm that guy."

"Oh! You're that guy!"

So we got along pretty well and watched the story hour together. Since I always come to see it, a lot of the stories I had heard already, but it's still fun to watch Kage do pretty much anything, and again it was kind of a way to watch his creative process at work as he refined the stories he was telling. I caught up with the pair again at the Con Suite, a place that I went to just to figure out what it was all about. I was quite pleasantly surprised by what I saw there. It was pretty much a general purpose lounge like the Zoo at Anthrocon, but with some charming additions. They had food there, a fact which surprised me. I've never been to a con where they offered free food and I was overjoyed to find it there. It was nothing stellar, really. There were chili dogs one day and tacos the next, lots of snacks and a soda fountain too. Hardly hauté cuisine, but the price was right and it certainly fit the bill for "Oh shit I have to do ALL THE THINGS but I haven't eaten all day I need to shove something in my mouth really quick before the next thing what do I do?!"

The tables were also covered with table-length reams of paper, so that creative types could do arts to the tables they were eating and/or socializing upon. Agent Elrond sketched out a large and finely detailed rendition of a Pegasus. I had Roffie ink it in cerulean blue sharpie and there were crayons available, so I colored it like Rainbow Dash when she wasn't paying attention. She got back, looked at the blue flying pony, sighed, and penned in a cutie mark. I'm glad that she was a good sport about it. I was glad for the chance to chat with Roffie some more. He was interested to hear more about my... unique perspectives on pony canon, and it was nice to have a chance to hear about the line of thinking that had motivated him to take his comic in the direction he did. It was difficult for him to talk about without dumping a bunch of spoilers on me, but it was a fun conversation nonetheless.

From there I proceeded to creepily stalk those two for the rest of the con. Not on purpose, but seriously though, I ran into them a disproportionate number of times. I had a couple good friends there that I only managed to run into once. I'm thinking it was the tophat that just made Roffie easier to spot. I noticed a few others being worn, and also the correlation that no one ever wore a tophat without muttonchops, but it was still quite distinctive of him. Anyway, there were a few interesting events in the late night, but LK had called by then, so securing shelter for the night became the priority. Staying up stupid late the first night is a bad move anyway. Some people say they can power through a con without any sleep just fine. They're either lying or their brain chemistry differs vastly from mine. When I got to the Westin I was simply staggered by the parking fees there. $35 a night, and losing your stub will cost you $200. Damn, I could illegally park on the sidewalk for less than that. Fortunately LK is a super-platinum crystal dragon Jesus rewards club member, so my parking was validated for free since he didn't have a car there. In any case, I had established that sleep is good. As such I flopped onto the floor without further comment.

Despite resting well, I still managed to miss the Military/Graymuzzle/Chakat breakfast. I do usually try quite hard to make it to those, but missing one was not a huge surprise. When you get together a big group of military, veterans, old people and also chakats for whatever reason, the combination is a recipe for quite an early event. I wasn't too broken up about it, as this turned out to be quite a busy day. I still got to talk to the Milfurs' host,  cmdrkitsune, regardless, because I went to his panel next. He had some interesting things to say about the interplay between one's furry and regular lives. It was of great interest to me as I'm still in the "and ne'er the twain shall meet" school of thought on that issue.

I managed to drop in for the fursuit parade for a very interesting showing. Robot mechs, a furry zombie, lots of pirates to suit the con's theme, all sorts of interesting stuff there. Sometimes I think that there are hundreds of people who only suit in the parade, because there are tons of suits that I see there and nowhere else. I also dropped in at the charity auction for awhile to watch Telephone, i/e  ino89777 being unbearably cute. He has the only squeaker that truly adds something to the performance rather than just being annoying. Whatever he uses, he has an astonishing versatility with it. He dropped in on a conversation I was having before the auction started and it was just the most darling thing ever.

"I've just been so busy. I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to visit the Artists' Alley or Dealers' Den."

"Chirp! Chirrrup-kip?"

"I know, right? You see? This guy understands."

"Ki-chip, purrur. Churrip!"

"You know, that's a good idea. I'll try that out."

"Churrup, chup!"

"Yeah, see ya later, Telephone."

The best part was that everyone with me thought I knew and could understand Telephone. In reality, we'd never met before and I had no idea what he was saying, if anything. I was at the auction long enough to watch LK buy way more than he could handle like he usually does, and then I was off to the Quitting the Fandom panel. It was a satirical presentation about online drama that was framed as an instructional presentation about how to quit the fandom. Apparently I was not the only one amused by the idea, as the room was stuffed to the rafters with people. The panel's organization was on par with an average bus crash, but it remained a delightful romp.

Next up was Uncle Kage's Becoming the Storyteller panel. An event that I was excited about, even if Dr. Conway himself was rather not. Apparently he had been goaded into doing this panel and had absolutely no material prepared. Though he was quick to establish this fact, he came up with a good amount of very informative material on how he does what he does. His closer was: "Well I've run out of things to talk about that I can come up with off the top of my head. I'm sorry if I've managed to burn up only... oh! 52 minutes, well that's not bad at all actually. Any questions?"

I caught the tail end of Too Much Light Makes the Baby go Blind, a cryptically named sketch show that was... interesting. I won't really pass judgment since I only saw part of the show, but I will say that the performers were wonderfully eccentric, enthusiastic and quite into it, much like their audience. Next I went to one of the con's quite rare writing panels, finding that I was actually rather bored by it. Maybe I'm just used to the usual crew of Ianus Wolf and Alfor Alto, or perhaps I've just finally reached saturation on such things. The latter case would free up a great deal of time, so that wouldn't really be such a bad thing. In any case, I ducked out of it to go to the Furry Variety Show.

The open mic that they had was actually quite interesting. Everyone that went up on stage got at least a few laughs, and some of them were actually quite good. The surprise was that 2 Gryphon and FoxAmoore were both on hand to give advice to all the aspiring performers. The atmosphere bolstered my confidence enough that I came up with a quick set and a story to tell and hopped in line to take the stage myself. Unfortunately there was just too much enthusiasm from the crowd and too little time. We had to clear out before my number came up. Next time I'll be quicker to volunteer.

And of course the night ended with Whose Lion is it Anyway? the improv comedy show whose popularity knows no bounds. Every year they've outgrown their room until this year they got the main presentation hall and managed to fill it just past halfway with over 230 people. Great, dirty-minded fun was had by all long into the night. ... and the next morning. I started the long walk over to the Westin at around 2 in the morning. It was just bitter cold. I brought my gore-tex Navy jacket, which has always been enough any place I've been, but I was still cold. It actually started to be painful in spots after awhile. I was worried that I had gone soft until I met some Canadian furs the next day who also remarked on it being rather cold, so I felt better about that.

The last day was a quiet one. I slept in a lot for some reason, and made it down to the Den, Alley, and Art Show to poke around a bit. I found  hbruton there and finally got my Anubis bookmark. She'd been sold out of them the last two times I've visited her shop at other cons. She said that she can't keep them on the shelf. Obviously Anubis' followers are a savvy and well-read bunch. The fursuit dance competition was up next. It had the same problem as RF did with the temporary dancefloor set up in the middle of the room with the crowd huddled around it on the floor. They handled it well though. The room was actually big enough for the event and there was the astonishing revelation of a safety radius around the dancefloor. They had the really brilliant idea to have novice and veteran categories, so that they could skim down the number of finalists while still having it be accessible to new talent.

I'm glad I budgeted in a little time before the closing ceremonies to wander about a bit more, because the decrease in activity made it a lot easier to find some of the people I was looking for and hang out with them for awhile. Among those I visited and was quite happy I was able to run into: and I made sure to go to the closing ceremonies and step up at the end to let the staff know what a fantastic job they had done. The con had its pitfalls, programming was a bit sparse and the panel rooms often didn't communicate with hotel staff well, but it was extraordinarily well run overall. I was never waiting in line or waiting for logistical delays of any sort. MFF is absolutely smooth as butter from a management standpoint.

In any case, the next day began my sojourn home. After ferrying LK to the train station, I took a route that went over a bridge to leave Illinois because for one it took me out of Illinois with the least possible driving in Illinois, and also because I knew the bridge would have a real toll payment system. One that gave me back six ones and eight quarters as change because fuckyouthat'swhy, but at least that prepared me for any potential outdated change-munching robots I had failed to evade. At my stop to visit with a friend in Canton I had to struggle through the Illinois online toll pay system to settle the matter of the backlog in excess of a hundred cents worth of tolls that I owed them. And lo and behold I discovered the true motive behind the crippling inefficiencies I encountered on my way in.

The site is jam-packed with fees and is deliberately impossible to use in order to suck more money out of you. Apparently I needed the exact location, date and time, and six-digit serial number of the exact toll station machine, of the missed tolls. And if you just so happened to be missing any of those pieces of information, like say you just so happened to be trying to navigate alone to some place you've never heard of in a state you've never been before, or you had no idea that you were going to need this information because absolutely nowhere does it say that you were going to need it, or because you were struggling to maintain your self control because the very existence of such a system in the middle of an ostensibly developed nation made explosive vandalism and chain-homicide seem like the only reasonable options, WELL then... I guess we'll just go ahead and charge you for the maximum that we are legally allowed to charge you. Which I was bizarrely okay with, really, as paying them five times what I rightfully owed was the quickest way to just get on with my life and not have to worry about their horseshit anymore. It all makes an excellent case for changing the state motto of Illinois to: "Fine! Here's your goddamn money just let me leave!"

My friend in Canton is a big gamer, so we did a lot of that while I was staying at his place. We played a very interesting card game called Dominion that I may ask for when Christmas comes around. He also helped me sharpen up my League of Legends skill quite a bit in between my comically unsuccessful attempts to befriend his dog. He said just to ignore her and she would eventually get used to me. Have you ever tried to ignore a dog? That's an extremely difficult thing to do for a dog lover like me. Apparently my friend knew what he was talking about though, because every time I looked at her, made a hand motion that could be interpreted as vaguely in her direction, or in any way acknowledged that she existed she would bark at me for a solid minute. I'm not used to that.

Now that I think of it though, maybe my experience with dogs has been sheltered. Over the years I've lived with and around breeds including boxer, border collie, Labrador, golden retriever, husky, pit bull, Brittany spaniel and beagle. It seems like a huge variety, but all those dogs have an attitude towards new people that's something along the lines of: "ERMEHGOOOREDILOVEYOUINSTANTLYWE'REBESTFRIENDSNAO AH LICK YAH FAAAACE!" so I'm a bit inexperienced with the less trusting breeds. This one was one of those ridiculous mad-lib breeds that I can never remember correctly. The name fit together like [Obscure European nation] [job that dogs have] [synonym for dog/actual breed name], like Welsh Herding Hound or Andorran Hunting Terrier or whatever. The Kennel Club is just out of control these days.

I hated to cut my visit so short, but I had to get moving to stay ahead of a snowstorm that was going to blow in that afternoon. If I got caught in it, I could be delayed a couple days and potentially miss thanksgiving. As I drove, I found out that apparently "afternoon" meant 12:15. It wasn't a ton of snow, but it certainly makes it a lot more stressful when you're running low on fuel and you're going past nothing but bullshit exits where the services are not even remotely near the highway. Ohio seems to like those. I also fell into a much more clever "let's bilk money from the people who are trying to drive through here" trap in Ohio.

Apparently they like to throw random little chunks of 55MPH zones in the middle of their three-lane, completely unobstructed interstate highways where the limit has no business being that low. And of course cops hang out 20 yards past those signs waiting for someone to miss one so that they can make their contribution to the state government budget. And naturally that contribution is inflated notably when they hear that you're headed back to a far-away home that you won't return from to contest a ticket. Whatever. There's a reason that car insurance companies are the only institution that cares if you have speeding tickets, because everyone else knows that speed limits and red light cameras are a source of revenue and not actual laws. And seeing as this is my third lifetime speeding ticket, (the other two fines, both for superior offenses, added up to less than this one) I don't think that they can very well claim that I'm out there trying to turn their roads into a lawless Thunderdome on a regular basis. I can take this hit. My insurance will get stupid cheap when I turn 25 anyway.

This just reaffirms why I love Pennsylvania. It has one bigass toll road that's perfectly convenient to drive on, and if you're not using the turnpike you can just drive willy-nilly all over the state without ever giving them a cent. In all the times I've driven across that state (Usually doing about 85) I don't think I've once even seen a cop with a radar gun. Do the roads immediately descend into a state of anarchic bloodsport? No, because people have places to be and they're happy to quietly make their way there without causing any trouble because the state they're in doesn't see the need to constantly harass them for money. The temperament and safety of a state's roads doesn't come from how well-patrolled they are. That comes from the mentality of the state and the skill of its civil engineers, and when both of those don't include "let's build a money-trap!" the state turns out quite well.

In any case, I got home safe and spent the next week doing holiday stuff and writing another unreasonably long con journal. To reiterate though, Ohio saddled me with a $330 speeding ticket and I still preferred it to Illinois. Fuck Illinois. Fuck it so much.