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I Went to a Con and Batted 1000. 118th Journal
7 years ago
This is my head.
Yikes! I haven't made a journal in almost a year. Tons of stuff happened during that duration, some good, some bad. It'll be too long to get into all of that (plus being boring as hell I'm sure). But I'll hit on some highlights.
Well, I finally hit that magical 1000 FA watchers (yay, Go me!) while attending Alamo City Furry Invasion convention. I was on my way of hitting that ten years ago but, um, things happen. Damn RL and all that. How long it stays there I don't know as my watch count tends to go up and down as it oh so slowly creeps upward. If it wasn't for people being scared away, I would have done it ages ago. Oh well, at least I managed that count at least once.
Speaking of a thousand, ACFI went over that in attendance this year. Not bad an increase from the low 700s of their inaugural event last year, which is also my first furry con.
They held it at the same hotel on the upper part of the Riverwalk in San Antonio, just some extra space this year due to opening the ballroom next door. A lot more artists too in the larger dealer room. The overall area of the artist alley out in the lobby area actually
shrunk this year but the tables were half sized so a little bit more vendors ended up being squeezed in that space.
Unlike last year, I didn't end up buying a lot especially all those badges. I spent almost 10 hours of volunteering at the con so I only purchased just two art commissions, a leather badge and an portrait from an artist that I got a badge last year. I'll post pics... eventually.
As for the volunteering, I mostly did door guard duty checking to see if people had their con badges before entering various panels through out the day. I also did double duty a couple of times making sure no more than 4 people enter the elevators as issues with them cropped up. Originally the count was set to 6 due to same kind of issues last year but even that limit was too much at times with riders getting stuck and whatnot. Not fun when the registration area was moved to the 3rd floor to make room in the expanded dealer room. The hotel was built in 1962 though I hope the elevators got replaced or upgraded sometime since then. Still quite old regardless.
I did get some swag for the volunteer work, a couple of badges for the earned hours plus a box of random goodies that we took turns selecting items. Too bad there wasn't any dragon related items as I would have snagged that up even if I had to bite someone. Got a couple plushies and a Space Invader coin bank though.
The rest of the con went well enough I guess. Despite the volunteering, I was able to attend more panels than the previous year. Omnoms Crazy Story Hour was so packed that people were turned away. It was a blast. The stories were... well... asked not to be recorded. Ok, they was not that bad but still +18, quite hilarious indeed.
No dragon nor local furs meet and greet panels this year. They had those last year but I either missed it due to the times being changed or the schedule being wrong resulting from a mixup. First con jitters I guess. Even though those panels were missing, things ran a bit smoother this year after getting that year under their belt.
One of the panels I managed to visit is the grey muzzle meetup for those over 30 (Yeah, I'm an ancient dragon). Got to talked to several furries that been in the fandom for a long time as well as somewhat joined in their later on in life. Met an interesting fursuiter there. Ok, story time (as if this isn't long enough). I was out in the hallway earlier when a fursuit in an awesome wolf suit was having problems with his sound player. I would howl and growl repeatedly and the his handler could not shut it off. It was a bit comically as it kept going off (well, I found it funny anyway). They finally just turned the volume all the way down.
The guy running the panel was that actual fursuiter. Toward the end, I went up to him and offer to help him with the issue since I am an eletrical engineer with a degree and all that. So I took a look and sure enough, it was a broken wire on the board with the switches. I find that a lot when I investigated issues at work. The wires are soldered directly onto the circuit board, something I don't like doing myself especially if the application has a lot of movement where that wires gets flexed... like in a fursuit.
Thankfully he had a repair kit with various tools including a soldering iron. I did a quick repair though it wasn't my best work since I didn't have the time nor the parts I needed to do something a bit more permanent. I do plan on making a better circuit board with connectors so that it not only last longer, but easily replaced if a problem do arise. I also got pretty good at designing circuits at work over the centuries that I offered to make a new board. Another issue he had is the switches themselves where on the small size and hard to press though the fur on his wrist. I am going to use bigger ones that a button cap can be installed is need be to make an even bigger area to press down upon.
He offered to pay but I love designing stuff so I refused any compensation though he did bought me lunch after I did that "quick" repair. We even talked about adding more features like giving it the ability to be remotely activation. I went through several ideas but I won't bore you with the details. Plus I'll just on and on and type up a thousand lines of stuff or something (this journal is long enough as it is).
Anyway, back to the con proper. It was overall quite successful. A decent amount of growth this year with the future looking up. The charity action wasn't canceled this year and we raised a lot more money than last time, which is nice. Next year theme will be cyberpunk. Since I am into electronics and technology if you can't tell, I am looking forward to bring back my old cyborgish suit I make from scrapped parts from work many years ago. Of course I am going to improve upon it. I feel excited to do that as I get to flex the skills I learned since way back then. Going to be interesting for sure.
I could blabber on further but I probably lost everyone long ago. If anyone made it all the way here, let me know with a comment or two. I feel like no one ever reads this stuff. Well. maybe one or two people anyway.
At any rate, I hope to write more journals than just once a year. 0.0 Oh by the way, I plan on doing something for hitting that 1k watchers. Probably going to take awhile knowing me.
Well, I finally hit that magical 1000 FA watchers (yay, Go me!) while attending Alamo City Furry Invasion convention. I was on my way of hitting that ten years ago but, um, things happen. Damn RL and all that. How long it stays there I don't know as my watch count tends to go up and down as it oh so slowly creeps upward. If it wasn't for people being scared away, I would have done it ages ago. Oh well, at least I managed that count at least once.
Speaking of a thousand, ACFI went over that in attendance this year. Not bad an increase from the low 700s of their inaugural event last year, which is also my first furry con.
They held it at the same hotel on the upper part of the Riverwalk in San Antonio, just some extra space this year due to opening the ballroom next door. A lot more artists too in the larger dealer room. The overall area of the artist alley out in the lobby area actually
shrunk this year but the tables were half sized so a little bit more vendors ended up being squeezed in that space.
Unlike last year, I didn't end up buying a lot especially all those badges. I spent almost 10 hours of volunteering at the con so I only purchased just two art commissions, a leather badge and an portrait from an artist that I got a badge last year. I'll post pics... eventually.
As for the volunteering, I mostly did door guard duty checking to see if people had their con badges before entering various panels through out the day. I also did double duty a couple of times making sure no more than 4 people enter the elevators as issues with them cropped up. Originally the count was set to 6 due to same kind of issues last year but even that limit was too much at times with riders getting stuck and whatnot. Not fun when the registration area was moved to the 3rd floor to make room in the expanded dealer room. The hotel was built in 1962 though I hope the elevators got replaced or upgraded sometime since then. Still quite old regardless.
I did get some swag for the volunteer work, a couple of badges for the earned hours plus a box of random goodies that we took turns selecting items. Too bad there wasn't any dragon related items as I would have snagged that up even if I had to bite someone. Got a couple plushies and a Space Invader coin bank though.
The rest of the con went well enough I guess. Despite the volunteering, I was able to attend more panels than the previous year. Omnoms Crazy Story Hour was so packed that people were turned away. It was a blast. The stories were... well... asked not to be recorded. Ok, they was not that bad but still +18, quite hilarious indeed.
No dragon nor local furs meet and greet panels this year. They had those last year but I either missed it due to the times being changed or the schedule being wrong resulting from a mixup. First con jitters I guess. Even though those panels were missing, things ran a bit smoother this year after getting that year under their belt.
One of the panels I managed to visit is the grey muzzle meetup for those over 30 (Yeah, I'm an ancient dragon). Got to talked to several furries that been in the fandom for a long time as well as somewhat joined in their later on in life. Met an interesting fursuiter there. Ok, story time (as if this isn't long enough). I was out in the hallway earlier when a fursuit in an awesome wolf suit was having problems with his sound player. I would howl and growl repeatedly and the his handler could not shut it off. It was a bit comically as it kept going off (well, I found it funny anyway). They finally just turned the volume all the way down.
The guy running the panel was that actual fursuiter. Toward the end, I went up to him and offer to help him with the issue since I am an eletrical engineer with a degree and all that. So I took a look and sure enough, it was a broken wire on the board with the switches. I find that a lot when I investigated issues at work. The wires are soldered directly onto the circuit board, something I don't like doing myself especially if the application has a lot of movement where that wires gets flexed... like in a fursuit.
Thankfully he had a repair kit with various tools including a soldering iron. I did a quick repair though it wasn't my best work since I didn't have the time nor the parts I needed to do something a bit more permanent. I do plan on making a better circuit board with connectors so that it not only last longer, but easily replaced if a problem do arise. I also got pretty good at designing circuits at work over the centuries that I offered to make a new board. Another issue he had is the switches themselves where on the small size and hard to press though the fur on his wrist. I am going to use bigger ones that a button cap can be installed is need be to make an even bigger area to press down upon.
He offered to pay but I love designing stuff so I refused any compensation though he did bought me lunch after I did that "quick" repair. We even talked about adding more features like giving it the ability to be remotely activation. I went through several ideas but I won't bore you with the details. Plus I'll just on and on and type up a thousand lines of stuff or something (this journal is long enough as it is).
Anyway, back to the con proper. It was overall quite successful. A decent amount of growth this year with the future looking up. The charity action wasn't canceled this year and we raised a lot more money than last time, which is nice. Next year theme will be cyberpunk. Since I am into electronics and technology if you can't tell, I am looking forward to bring back my old cyborgish suit I make from scrapped parts from work many years ago. Of course I am going to improve upon it. I feel excited to do that as I get to flex the skills I learned since way back then. Going to be interesting for sure.
I could blabber on further but I probably lost everyone long ago. If anyone made it all the way here, let me know with a comment or two. I feel like no one ever reads this stuff. Well. maybe one or two people anyway.
At any rate, I hope to write more journals than just once a year. 0.0 Oh by the way, I plan on doing something for hitting that 1k watchers. Probably going to take awhile knowing me.
Also, congrats on 1k! Quite the accomplishment! I look forward to more great art from you!
It took forever to get a local fur con near here. Not easy for me to travel far so I am stuck with anything local. There was one up north in Austin several years ago but that only lasted one year and nothing around these parts since. But I am glad to finally get one.
Even if there isn't any furry cons in your area, there might be some furmeets to attend. I didn't know that the same group that produced ACFI also did meets for a good while. I just might start to go to those. You probably have one nearby too. Who knows, it might grow to a full blown con.
I am defiantly looking forward to next year especially with the cyberpunk theme. I think that is up my alley. I am pondering using my old mongoose fursona from way back and reusing my cyborg costume based on that. My dragon self would be way too complicated to do at this time. If I can pull the mongoose off, then I'll go for the dragon. But everything has to fall in place for that to happen so I am crossing my claws.
Thanks for reading that monstrosity of a journal. I really like the feedback.