Okay so, time again to talk about the times I had whilst I was doing all the things. Strap in kids, cuz it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!

My first impression of the Charlotte airport was "Are these real trees? Indoors? These are actual fucking trees." I walked past several rows of them on my trek between concourses. Or should I say my two treks between concourses, which leads me to my second impression of the Charlotte airport. When I got to the gate that was on my ticket and found a very-much-not-mine flight there I asked the attendant at the counter what was up with that, in so many words, and she told me "Oh, the flight to Denver is boarding now in concourse C." Ah concourse C, I remember it well. Almost as if I were there 20 minutes ago when I started walking here. So yeah, I asked her to let them know I was on my way and weaved through the domesticated flora back from whence I came. They actually did hold the plane for me a little bit, which was kind of cool because I barely had to wait for takeoff at all.

Once I got on, I found that the seat number on my boarding pass was also wrong, because someone was already in that seat. Way to drop the fucking ball, US Air. That was remedied quickly enough though, with the inspired suggestion of a nearby flight attendant. "How about you sit in the only unoccupied seat on the plane?" Clever, I like it! Now, just when I thought I was done with my boarding pass being wrong at things, the 1:39 arrival time came and went, with no signs of Denver. I managed to get my geriatric flip-phone to hoarsely bellow a few text messages at the ground in order to express my confusion to Ryoken, who was trying to pick me up. Apparently crazy-old phones are actually better at doing that than fancy new ones somehow. Ryo was confused by the fact that I was communicating at him via text while airborne and not utilizing satellites or quantum entanglement or some nationwide data network with a varying number of Gs.

The message I sent him at 2:00 sums it up pretty well. "No updates from capt. yet, can't help but notice how very much still in the air this plane is though." Anyways, I got to the ground somehow at around 2:15 and met up with him. Naturally, Ryo had to just drop me off at his house and get back to work immediately. I misunderestimated the significance of the fact that each of the many denizens of the humble mountain abode that I was seeking shelter at are all such job-having mofos, for this meant that I often ended up alone there for several hours a day until everybody starts to punch out and let the next coyote and roadrunner take over the shift. (I’m surprised there isn’t actually a coyote there. It's a very canine household.) That sort of runs counter to the intended nature of a "visit" as I understand the concept, but whatevs. There was food on the wireless and internet in the fridge, so I was content with the accommodations.

So in review, a list of my impressions in descending order of first-ness:
Indoor trees? Wat.
Concourse C? Bitch I will choke you until your eyes fall out.
Yeah, they held this plane just for me. I'm kind of a big deal.
Not a big enough deal that I get my own seat though.
The arrival board says 1:39 too? Oh good, so they didn't lie to just me.

Also this conversation:
"Woah, 3:00 already?"
"Woah, 3:00 again?"

It's size is the most striking thing about the Denver airport. It's not everywhere that needs a train to get between concourses. Of course some places that really should have one don't. It struck me as quite well-designed in terms of functionality at least. A lot of airports (Cincinnati, Charlotte, Cleveland) are just a big long cavalcade of ohsweetmotherofgodgetthefuckoutofmyway. Here the course was pretty clear most of the way. In the subway terminal stop, disembarking and embarking happen on opposite sides of the train, so you don't have people going in opposite directions through the same door. There are double-escalators where needed to keep people moving. I was very impressed with how quickly they can put through such a crowd. In fact I breezed through the place so quickly that I never really took much notice of the aesthetic of the place. I had a lot of other things on my mind by then, though, what with pretty much everything having gone wrong with the Charlotte-Denver leg. Also the pilot told us that Denver is on Central time which confused the hell out of me because I made the foolish assumption that he knows what he's talking about. The bird that was in the terminal seemed to like the place though.

So, turns out that my timing was quite fortuitous in this adventure into the mile-high city. This weekend was host to not one, but two furry get-togethers. The first was a sketch night that Nevir and Ryoken were hosting. For obvious reasons I feel at least a little left out at such events. They form a rather stark reminder of how strangely antisocial writing is as a means of self-expression. There’s a reason that a lot of history’s best writing has been done in isolation, cabins at Walden Pond and whatnot. It’s not really something that you can do with a crowd. Still, I’ve never let that stop me before. I guess I can consider these a convention warmup, as it’s a very similar scenario. “Hey, here’s 30 furries you’ve never met. Have at thee!”

To their credit, my hosts had a nice venue for the gathering and provided well for us. They’ve got a really nice place here and I’m always glad for their hospitality. Sure it was a little awkward getting past that outsider vibe, but I managed alright and I got to talk to a lot of really cool folks. As usual there were far too many to retain any names, but I enjoyed it a great deal nonetheless. I actually had a number of things in common with a good handful of the guests. It’s kind of startling how Denver attracts prior navy people. Perhaps they’re seeking to get as far away from the ocean as is physically possible. I understand the feeling. I staked out a spot on the couch, which of course made me a target for the fursuiters in attendance. I sat with or underneath all of them at one time or another, and all of them at once that one time. Good stuff.

The second party was about the same number of people, just in a smaller venue. How fortunate that this crowd seems to have very few qualms about personal space, as that gathering was pretty much a matter of ARMUGHOREDEVERYONEISINEVERYONESWAYALLTHETIMEHALP. Still, plenty of drinks and good talk so I certainly can’t complain. There was lots of hard cider at both venues too, which I was excited about beyond compare. I must’ve tried half a dozen different ones and there were still some I missed. It’s a small thing, but it was a really nice to not feel like I’m weird for not liking beer once in a while. Honestly furries are really good at making me feel like I’m the most average, responsible and well-adjusted person in the room in all sorts of ways. There actually were a couple familiar faces at this one, and not just the people I’d met the night before. I got to chat with Vincent and a couple others from the improv outfit that I’d had so much fun with at RMFC, so that was cool. Quite an assortment there on the dining table too. Sketchbooks? Yep. Boxes of doughnuts? Hell yes. Hookah? Check. Complex and sinister device that’s probably also drug-related? Totally. DC motor-generator rig of indeterminate purpose? Yeah, got one of those too.

Just as I was starting to wind down a bit, Ryoken asked if I’d like to try out his suit for a little while. He got the same response that I give to everyone when they ask me that question. Outwardly, a sheepish admission that might be nice. Inwardly, incoherent girlish screeching of excitement. Soon enough, I was dressed up like such and ready to take on the world. The really fun part was actually the same thing that had made these events so difficult up until that point, the fact that most everyone knew Ryoken but had never met me. That presented me with the chance to freak out a lot of people, however briefly. The slightly taller and entirely lacking in impulse control version of Ryoken was a big hit, I think. Nevir was included in the group of people that were stymied by our cunning subterfuge, though he was more excited than freaked out. He spent a fair amount of time in suit too, so that meant that excited was his only setting. That’s kind of how suiting is.

I knew that actually talking would give me away, even though Ryoken does it all the time when he’s at the helm. Still, that’s what caused a lot of people to figure out my clever ruse. Apparently I use a very distinct “language” when I’m making adorable doggy noises as compared to the native host of this particular blue spottypup. Still, it made for a lot of fun candid-camera sort of moments when people saw Ryoken (player) and Ryoken (character) in the same room. Come to think of it I’ve never actually seen him and Batman in the same room. Conspiracy! Half Life Three confirmed! Anyways, I think Ryoken (player) enjoyed that part just as much as I did. He said that he’d give me a quick turn with the suit, but he never asked for it back, probably because I was acting like he’d have to pry it from my clammy, still slightly twitching hands. Either he knew that he couldn’t possibly stop the fluffy blue streak that I had turned into the entire time, or he noted that I was pretty much soaking it through with sweat and he didn’t want any part of that. That was more fun than I can even enumerate, but Ryoken has a pretty heavy pile to his fur. Must be his winter coat.

I don’t necessarily blame him for not wanting Ryoken (character) back right away. Jumping into someone else’s sweat isn’t a chance that I’d be chomping at the bit for. Actually scratch that, I’ve jumped into sweaty suits before but that’s just because I’ve literally never turned down an opportunity to suit. It’s different on Ryo’s end when he has the option of just airing the thing out and having a suit that doesn’t feel like a soggy sponge. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to go outside. That might’ve staved off the crash that I went through at the end. When viewed more objectively, that result would’ve been obvious. Seeing as my MO there was “Hey, I’m just barely getting used to this new altitude and timezone, I should definitely get drunk, wrap myself in carpet and wrestle with people!”

So yeah, when Ryoken said that it was time to go, once again it was outside: “Aww, do we have to?” Inside: “Oh thank God I can barely move or breathe”. I managed to swap back to my human suit, which now felt no less difficult to operate than the husky one was. I got some water and repeatedly cursed the fact that there was only diet air available as I tried to gather my wits for the upcoming stumble to the car. The shaking and numbness in my fingers concerned me a fair bit, but I’m pretty sure that was just an altitude/exertion/dehydration thing and not severe brain damage. It let me know that I really brought my A game though, and that’s a good feeling. Nevir said that I “definitely had the right energy level” for the character, which is a pretty high bar, as I believe “husky” ranks slightly above “on fire” on the energy level spectrum. In any case, I survived intact and was actually rather glad that Sunday was a quiet day. I don’t think I’ve run myself into the ground like that in a long time. It’s a good thing once in awhile.

Ryoken (player) and his crew are actually quite skilled in suitcraft, and he asked me if I’d like one of my own, as so many have before him. That has become a steadily more tempting prospect as time goes on. My enjoyment of the suiting experiences that I’ve had is undeniable. My excuse has always been that I don’t know what I’d do with it. I don’t have a local furry group anymore now that I’ve moved back to New York. The much more forgiving schedule of college life has made me able to attend a whole lot more cons though. Further Confusion will be my tenth one. That makes it kind of a wash I guess. Still, there’s a lot of uncertainty there. This needs to be something that I’m very certain about. I’m sure they’ll still be there whenever I make up my mind. Although, if free fursuiting opportunities keep falling from the sky like this I may never have to. This is the fourth such opportunity that I’ve had, and each one was equally mind blowing. I have a great passion for words and I work with them often, but I still find it difficult to express how meaningful that is to me. Fursuits are a considerable capital investment, and obviously have a great deal of personal attachment associated with them. That someone would trust me with such a thing is a truly awesome responsibility, one that I am quite proud of having lived up to each time. Granted, I was about as insane and rambunctious as I’ve ever been when I was in Ryoken’s suit, but neither of us (character nor pilot) was damaged beyond repair, so I’ll still call it a win.

After the events of the weekend, I started to realize that I had fallen into the trap that I often do, of spending all my time and effort on travel plans, and none on event plans. At RMFC, 2Gryphon offered to have me over for dinner one night, which I agreed would be a nice idea, not realizing that I’d be back in Denver again so soon. I took him up on it, but when I finally did hear back from him I found that had fallen through. He was attending Confurgence in Australia that weekend, so he was literally as far away from Denver as it’s possible for someone to be. That was about the only thing I legitimately tried to plan and that tanked about as hard as such a simple request like that can, aside from 2 being killed by meteors or something. Aside from that strikeout and some casual Googling I didn’t really put a whole lot of thought into what I’d be doing in Denver, and I sort of paid for that. I often forget that even normal-people jobs can burn up a lot of time, so I ended up just kind of hanging around for much of the intervening days. Which granted I sometimes need if I’m recovering from some insane heavily-insulated gauntlet that I just put myself through, so that’s not so bad.

In any case, I was in such a doldrum when Sidian mentioned an errand for someone near Boulder who was headed to FC. I fit that strikingly specific set of characteristics and had some time on my hands, so I went for it. She wanted a particular candy from an import shop there that was hard to find anywhere else. Sounded like a worthy cause to me. It proved to be remarkably difficult to schedule, but Ryoken still managed to brave the biting cold and choking fog to drag me out there. It was a very diverse little shop that had a wealth of interesting things, many of which I hadn’t seen since my days abroad. I’ll probably stop in there again whenever I’m in the neighborhood next. Which apparently happens far more frequently than I usually anticipate.

Later on, Ryoken showed me around his workplace, which was an interesting little jaunt. His habit of frequently producing inventive and high-quality prints to commemorate various occasions of note would clue-in the average observer to the fact that Ryoken works with Nevir at a pretty capable print shop, with some noteworthy furry presence in the staff, no less. Critters comprise a majority of the workers there from what I saw. I suppose it’s not that unreasonable of a prospect, it was just something that had never occurred to me before. Little did I know that it was about to occur to me again, but more on that later.

In any case, my time in Denver soon drew to a close. Nevir kindly ferried me to the airport and I took to the skies again for the next leg of my adventure. That one went by pretty quickly, both because I’d done the bulk of the travel just getting to Denver, and because flying into Las Vegas is quite a scenic approach, making the time go by a bit faster. Lots of interesting country out there, and of course Lake Meade is quite a sight from above. The Vegas airport is bristling with slot machines because of-course-it-is, but is no more difficult to navigate as a result. I breezed into San Jose without further trouble and got in contact with Archai. He said that he’d be picking me up in a Subaru sport coupe, which were three words I’d never heard assembled like that before. I was dubious about the existence of a vehicle matching that description, but such a creature soon presented itself and I got in.

I never would’ve guessed that Arc would be a car guy, but that Subaru BRZ is most assuredly a car guy’s car, and not just because it has a meaningless code for a model name. The first thing he wanted to do was show it (and California) off. I certainly wasn’t about to stop him. Fortunately the displaying of those two crowning achievements dovetail nicely into each other, and we ended up making a lengthy, scenic circuit around the bay, during which Archai was keen to show off the car’s handling on the winding mountain roads. It’s an impressive beast, really. Never once did it seem to at all lose touch with the road, something that really ought to have happened on some of those tight inside turns. Even at highway speed it maintains its death-grip on the pavement, making slowing down to take an exit ramp a mere formality. It was a pretty cool experience that is in some ways more straightforward than the operation of a normal car. You stop wondering “how are we ever going to make that turn?” because the answer is always “you turn the steering wheel and then the car goes that way.”

There was a lot of beautiful country to take in while we were out and about. I’m from a somewhat mountainous area, but the Appalachians kind of trail off out my way, and they’ve had all of the interesting features ground off by glaciers. California’s surreal perpetual warmth apparently has its roots in the Pleistocene age, because this landscape clearly has not seen that particular exfoliating treatment anytime recently. Having such rough-and-tumble mountainous turf run straight into the ocean is also an interesting effect. A lot of the bay area is like that, and it can make the clouds do some crazy things. Even the gentlest ocean breeze will hit the mountains hard and ramp up off them, doing death-defying kick-flips in the air over the city as it disgorges its moisture quite dramatically. That’s probably a big part of why the rest of the state is so dry. It’s also really cool to see the lights coming on at sunset. It looks like the people all just flowed downhill like water and settled in the lowlands, with all the jagged mountain faces remaining strikingly undisturbed but for the winding little roads constructed more with “not falling off the mountain” in mind than driveability.

In any case, the sunlight soon waned and we headed out to that night’s furry gathering. I say “that night’s” because nearly every day on the calendar has a furry gathering of some sort happening in that place. Through whatever obscure machinations of fate, the bay area has obtained a baffling preponderance of furries. Just ALL the furries, all up in your business, and dozens of other businesses besides. Hell, they’ve gotta work somewhere. You can’t even swing a cat without realizing that the cat is actually a person dressed up as a cat and swinging them about by the tail would go extremely poorly for you. I’m pretty sure that this convention debuted with the tagline “Further Confusion: There’s so goddamn many of us that we kind of have to start our own convention”. Yeah, furry gathering then. So once again, huge influx of people I’ve never met, talk all night and have tons of fun getting to know them, rinse and repeat.

From there it was on to Arc’s pad, wherein I promptly tripped over a voluminous hoard of fursuits worthy of an extremely adorable Croesus. Arc’s persistent desire to pick up a new suit recently went critical mass all over his face, resulting in a sudden population explosion in his closet. He’s got five outfits/characters at present, which I knew would bring on untold logistical complications, but also untold amounts of awesome. And really that sums up a whole lot of furry experiences. Expensive and extremely complicated but also the most fun you’ll ever have. Arc had some errands to run the next day, which he seemed to feel guilty about, being that I was guest-starring in the movie of his life for a while. I told him to forge ahead with them. It wasn’t too long ago that I was in a position wherein work came first, second, third and pretty much every other spot in the top ten, so I’d hardly criticize people for having a similar mindset. As a handy bonus, these errands let me follow my gracious host into the secret caves where they keep the internet.

Arc works with IT in ways that I probably couldn’t accurately describe, but fixing whatever widget was giving him trouble that day involved diving into some impressive arrays of server stacks. He seemed concerned that all the security might rattle me. Though it was an impressive display what with biometrics and whatnot, I noted a distinct lack of guns and/or authorization to use them, so “intimidated” would certainly be the wrong word to use to describe my reaction. The computer cave was undoubtedly worth a visit though. Having spent so long in steerage aboard a cold-war-era ship, I’d nearly forgotten that the rest of the world is moving apace rather than struggling to keep up with the march of progress. It’s crazy to have worked on the same gear for a whole tour and then hear “oh yeah, these server drawers are like 18 months old, meaning they’re outdated enough that they’re effectively useless.” That’s pretty nuts. If that’s common practice, we wouldn’t need Cyberdyne to lift a finger to hasten the apocalypse. Skynet could just spontaneously assemble itself in a landfill from all of the pristine hardware that we’re just tossing out left and right, still in perfect working order. Of course then I see the new Star Trek-level computing wizardry that they replaced that junkheap with. The whole stack now no bigger than a breadbox. Crazy stuff. I was so close to the cutting edge that I nearly lost a couple fingers in there.

Naturally the logical follow-up to the future of computer science would be the history of it. Next up was a trip to the Computer History Museum. I felt a lot more at home there, since most of the gear that I know and love most assuredly belongs in a museum. I think that we contract out to that place for spare parts every so often. The server stacks at his work were kind of intimidating, since while Archai most assuredly knows what he’s talking about I mostly wing it and power-cycle things when they’re acting funny. The trip down Random Access Memory Lane (I’ll take ‘Technological Before and After for $1600, Alex!) was nice though, and it let me narrow down exactly when my beloved reactor control instrumentation came from. Turns out it’s mostly from 1978-1983. Wave of the future, everybody! Go fightin’ Versa Module Europa bus architecture! It makes me wonder how useful all that experience working with those systems will actually be when the time comes to start looking for a regular civilian job set in the present day. Being so far behind is pretty crippling in technical and engineering fields. Still, that didn’t make the place any less fun to visit.

I got to see the famous Babbage Difference Engine. I didn’t even know we had one of those in America. We got there just in time to see the demonstration. This monstrosity is undoubtedly the most clockpunk thing ever to exist. The idea of a mechanical system that can perform logarithms and other sophisticated functions certainly sounds like a fantasy. The thing works like gangbusters though. Sure, its responses differ from those in an Excel spreadsheet, but that’s because this bizarre seussian contraption actually operates at a far greater degree of precision than the computer program. It’s actually quite startling how advanced all these old machines can be. Punchcard readers seem hilariously antiquated, but what they actually can do is still pretty impressive. Sorting, alphabetizing, processing and organizing information in many of the ways that we still do is all well within their repertoire. All this even though they’re decades old. I doubt that your iRectangle-of-varying-size will still be chugging along in three years, let alone thirty. All of this stuff seems so distant and ancient, but it still bears mentioning that the depth and breadth of the vast majority of this meteoric advancement just barely exceeds the scope of my lifetime. The acceleration of progress in this field is pretty dramatic. I guess that’s where the now-junk servers come from that barely had the chance to gather a coat of dust before being rendered obsolete.

Though it really didn’t seem like there was a whole lot to it, the museum was apparently quite the distraction. We were in the place until they closed without even noticing the intervening time. It was still relatively early in the evening, but I knew that it would take Arc some time to muster his platoon before we could head out, so I elected for departure with deliberate speed. It did indeed take quite a push to get the whole menagerie presentable, but just as with everything having to do with fursuiting, there’s a certain whimsicality to the process that makes even some very unreasonable amounts of it quite bearable. From there, we loaded up everything into the back of a constellation-class heavy cruiser, also known as a GMC Yukon XL, and headed out into the wilds. Quite a short drive, actually, so we made it to the convention in good time.

Once again the girth of my throbbing, meaty prose has caused FurAffinity to choke. To get the actual con part of this con report, tune in tomorrow. Same bat time, same bat channel.

Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion! Or just click on the words "thrilling conclusion", you know, whatevs.