Oh my goodness fucking gracious, AFC. What can I say about this weekend except holy gawd. What an awesome time. It was my first furry con so I pulled out all the stops, I went all four days, stayed for the entire thing.

Thursday was of course the slow day, only because a lot of people weren't showing up until the next few days. It was also however, what made the rest of the con doable for me, because as I was wandering around, wondering what to do with myself (because I went to the con alone, I did a lot of that, since I knew no one), I happened to walk by a fellow furry sitting at a table who said hello and invited me to sit down. The said furry is  dracorey who I conversed with until his friends  Lexi_Foxxx and  Star_Feralwolfe showed up and introduced themselves and we had a grand old time. They just happened to be one of the vendors in the dealer's den, so I always knew where they were lol. Anytime I felt bored I'd go say hi and they made me glad to be where I was. So thank you to you three so much for starting off my con the right way!

Friday was the beginning of all the fun stuff. Opening ceremonies to start things off and then I went to a couple panels about fursuits and stuff. I wasted all the money in the dealer's den that I possibly could throughout the day, and then it got to nighttime. My favorite part of this day was the panel called "Whose Lion is it Anyway," Led by the wonderful  semjay in which the audience played a whole bunch of improve games coming up to the front and acting out scenes and just having fun. I haven't laughed that much in quite a long while. "If you know what I mean" (inside joke). I haven't even started to mention all the fursuits, the wonderful fursuits that were around. Telephone and Radio were there as guests, and there were so many awesome suits I got pictures of, to be put up later.

Saturday is the winner though for my most memorable day. Two big things went on that made my weekend. The night before, my footpaw had been brutally torn apart by the menace known as the floor. Thanks to the help of my newfound friends in the dealer's den (THANK YOU) I was able to temporarily repair my footpaw so that I could wear my legs during the fursuit parade! What an experience that was. So many people...so many cameras...they were all smiling at me and waving and just...omg my eyes are watering as I type. It made me the happiest wolf. There were 114 fursuiters total in the parade. The line that we had was so long, that the last person out of the main ballroom where we all gathered could see fursuiters already starting to file back in from the other side before they were even out the door. We had a continuous loop of furry throughout the entire hotel. I'm so glad I was a part of it.

And then there was the rave that night. There were raves the other two nights too, but I only mention this one because of my excitement during. There was one guy at the side doing poi, where you have glowsticks attached to strings and you spin them around and do tricks and stuff. I was watching for the longest time, and I had to ask, "how do you do that.." He ended up having an extra pair he brought along. He lent them to me, and for the next hour he gave me lessons on how to poi. God damn, I was so happy. I felt so cool with those things and apparently I was somewhat of a quick learner. We were doing it side by side and there were people coming up and taking pictures of us together, and when the music picked up, we would speed up together and I could do certain formations with the lights that made me feel like I was really good at it. Sir, I wish I knew your name so I could thank you ten times over because that was the time of my life. I'm going to buy myself a pair of glowsticks and cases so I can practice again and again so that next year I'll be as good as you and we can rock that rave into the future together. The only downfall is that it blistered my fingers really bad because I was doing it for so long. My fingers are still all bandaged up from the damage, but it was totally worth every second.

Sunday was basically the cleanup day, everything was winding down, I spent most of the time watching the gaming tournament that was going on, went out to lunch, came back and took even more pictures of fursuits, groveled over the pain in my fingers, had a few laughs with my friends, wasted a little more money, and then it was time for closing ceremonies.

The con has already outgrown the hotel that was chosen to host it. I'm thankful, because the hotel wasn't a very gracious host. They had planned a wedding reception and a high school reunion on the same weekend, and apparently the signs directing people to panels and such were being torn down by the staff because they were "distracting" to the other guests, even though the con had permission to put them up. Although, the reunion and reception took well to sharing space with us, in fact, some of the guests of the other events were standing around taking pictures and the like during the parade and afterward too. One of the reunion girls was even found at the dealers den trying to get a picture of some fursuiters because she "wanted to post on facebook that this is what her high school reunion was about." I mean, that just goes to show what kind of people furries are. The fact that these people who probably have never even heard of furry before, were enjoying it almost as much as we were, it says something about the personalities that show up here. The guests of the con were describing it as "walking into someone's living room saying 'hey what's up' like you've known the guy for years, even though you've never met him in your life." I love this fandom even more now.

The fact is that the con will continue to grow. Even after next year, more and more people will come. I'm sure after time this con will grow to the size of some of the biggest conventions that are out there now. And when that happens, I'll be proud to say that I was one of its first attendees. Thanks AFC for giving me the most fun I've had in a very long time.

P.S. Sorry for the very long journal. It's my first con and as you can see I was very pleased with the outcome.