This year's ACFI came and went... way too fast. But fun nevertheless. This journal is going to be long so I'll start off with links to videos and Photos by others on the net of me in my dragonsuit.

Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F5lEljiqeQ

I showed up twice in Sherbert's ACFI video (a third time if count one of my horns briefly popping up in the background. see if you can spot it - hint: it happened before the others). The first time I was full visible though in the background occured at the 57 sec mark. The second was time was when I had my picture taken with Sherbert at 2:19. That photo is in my gallery by the way.

I felt like being silly (more than usual) at the time and not only wore my extra long tongue, but tied it in a knot. Yeah, I was tongue tied, what can I say (no pun intended, heh).

I was originally hoping to at least catch a glimpse of myself somewhere in the video but it certainly made my day when I saw I was shown so prominently in there.

I also got shown in some fursuit parade videos too though those went by quick do to the nature of such events. I almost missed the parade but more about that later. Here are the links at the time of my appearances that I could find;

https://youtu.be/98vLs6vtGqc?t=825 Inside the Dealer's Den
https://youtu.be/GxiHXtBO1Rc?t=728 Right outside the Dealer's Den.
https://youtu.be/P_rLoV4tcTM?t=733 The side corridor.

This is my second time participating in a fursuit parade (1st was at TFF with version 0.8) and first time with my horns, tongue, fangs, and with those big hindpaws of mine. Not used to walking in those things as you can see. '..' I consider this my version 1.0 as it is technically complete but I am planning to change the eyes, horns and fangs to better ones as I rushed these.

Photos:

These are some nice ones that are so much better than what little I manage to take with my crappy phone camera

https://i.imgur.com/uUf3MvQ.jpg taken in the main ballroom on Friday with my bone (not telling who that was) and with the "normal" size tongue.
https://i.imgur.com/o7eTgvp.jpg side view showing my viciousness... ok ok, maybe not but you can't call me cute.
https://i.imgur.com/rDbnwfC.jpg during the fursuit parade while leaving the main area with my attempt at a cyber solder costume. I wanted to add a lot more to it especially a bunch of LEDs but you know me, I ran out of time. Still I got a few good comments on it. One guy called me the combat derg.

If anyone knows of more videos or photos of me on the interwebs, let me know in the comments... that is if anyone actually read my stuff. -..-

Swag:

I didn't buy too many items this year. I did manage an at-con mini-badge (again, see my gallery). I also commissioned a take-home badge that looks awesome from the pics the artist sent. I plan on wearing it at TFF 2020. Other stuff includes some stickers, lanyard, and a couple of pins. Oh, I bought the scrolling teal color LED badge thing too.

Story mode:

I got there Thursday evening after work and it was an adventure for sure. Not only I had to fight rush hour traffic to get to downtown, parking was a pain. I tried the lot closest to the hotel but it a way too small sign was on the pay machine that stated that only monthly parking was available at the moment. I only saw that after I parked. What a waste of time. I couldn't find anything else that was not blocks away. I didn't want to park too far as I had my luggage that included my fursuit and cyber solder costume. I finally bit the bullet and parked in the Hotel's parking garage, resigning myself to pay the $27 a day fee. It turned out to be a good thing though in the end. As I found out later, The furcon made a deal to have an discount of $15 off for con goers . Not as good as TFF as the $25 a day fee was reduced to just $5. But the ACFI deal got even better as the arm guard broke and the hotel just waive all fee all together. So the parking turned out to be free. Probably won't get the same deal next year but I take what I can get.

So I arrived a little later than I planned. I wasn't aware that there is a tunnel that goes between the parking garage to the hotel itself, I strapped most of my luggage to the two rolling ones and pushed/pulled them toward the front door. I had to cross the street twice with the boxes falling off a couple of times. I should have used more straps. The I had to go over a curb. No fun in that. Then through the front door. It wasn't automatic nor one of those revolving ones so I wasn't looking forward to wrestle that while trying to keep my luggage from falling off again. luckily some people was leaving and held the door open for me. But it was still a little bit of a struggle as I had go over the doorsteps. Next time I know to take the parking garage elevator all the way down instead of getting off at street level and take the long but much more smooth tunnel.

After all that, I entered the lobby and spied my roommates eating dinner and talking at the hotel's restaurant, which is located toward the back to the left. That is when I took that pic of Quillcy in my gallery. He did several posed for me as well as a table near us that had people attending a fighter ace convention. ACFI had to share some of the space with them along with some Air Force event later on. I sure those attendees never thought they would mingle among the likes of furries, heh. But I did overhear a conversation the next day where a person stated that they never met such a friendly group of people as furs. Felt a little proud about our fandom in general.

I did partake in something to eat before retiring to the room, which had the same number of a rather famous web site. 0..0 I have to say the room was somewhat smaller that the one at TFF but not bad at all. I was better than the previous ACFI hotel that was built in the '60s. The whole hotel larger too with more con space. Next year ACFI will have the run of the hotel so it should be a bit more open. Some areas felt a little tight here and ther though not as bad as the prior year's hotel. The con started with just over 700 attendees, grown to 1000 but the second. This year it was 1300, so it would have been a nightmare in the old place indeed. I feel like the Wyndham would last a year or two before moving to an even large place at the pace we are growing.

I recall there wasn't a whole lot to do on Thursday night aside pre-reg and the dances. I think a few vendors was setting up in the Artist Alley. I am sure I did some suiting as I was itching to wear it and try out my new accessories I made. I did reserved the cyber solder getup for the fursuit parade as it was a bit cumbersome to wear.

Friday arrived and we planned on breakfast in the VIP lounge. I registered at a sponsor as I did in the years before so I had access to it. But the con wasn't able to set up the hotplates for pancakes, eggs and the like due to some hotel policies. I guess no one checked beforehand. So all they had was cold stuff like cereal. So to the hotel's restaurant we headed off to. They had a buffet going. It wasn't as fancy as TFF's, but then again, it was a large hotel. The food certainly a lot better than the cold stuff.

After we had our fill, we went to the open ceremonies. I have to tell you it was hilarious. I hope someone recorded and posted it on the net somewhere. This year theme was cyber punk and they did a skit featuring a member from "Chymera Corp" sitting among the guests of honor, interviewing them while hinting at some experiments being made. Someone about the some vague stuff in the terms of agreement that they are not liable for any mutations, being subjects of experiments, and the like. By the way, I got most of my photo opportunities with the GoH here.

I did wish the theme was carried out more aside from the openning and closing ceremonies as well as the various signs posted throughout the con space. Could have been so much more. But I an ranting a bit here.

Speaking of missed opportunity on the theme, the dances was a buzzkill... literally. Instead of some kick-ass '80s cyberpunk, it was full of that lets have some decent beats for a moment, completely stop it, and then made a bunch of random buzz sounds. Hard for me to my crazy dance thing to that. It was better than the mess at TFF though. At least I didn't take a nap during the rave like I did up in Dallas. But I digress.

There was a set were the DJ was playing off "old fashion" cassette tape (Gods, I feel old as I remember when these were new). Unfortunately I arrived late there and when I did, someone broke their ankle just prior and it cut a bit short. The people that took over did that buzzing thing. Ugh. I did made the best of it and tried my best to go wild... enough for one of my detachable horns to go flying. And it was affixed with strong magnets too. I plan making a few mods to make it even stronger.

I guess I'll go into the fursuit parade here. I almost missed it as I mentioned earlier as we woke up a little later than usual and ate breakfast. I got into costume before one of my roommates as it took a while to get into his. I noticed the time was getting short and left them to finish up getting dressed and rushed down the stairs (faster than the elevators) and made it into the staging area (main ballroom) after they already got started. I did miss the fursuit photo and that made me sad but made it into the parade toward endish. After looking back at the videos other posted, I noticed there was quite a few gaps in the parade. Plus the route was a bit weird and winding. I was hoping we would go along the San Antonio Riverwalk but it all took place inside. Maybe next year.

Anyhoot, I was still getting used to walking in my dragon hindpaws and did that duckwalk thing. I did got better, especially when I wasn't thinking about it. I do have to tell you that going up and down the stairs in those things took some doing and I did sssslip once and landed on my knee. Wasn't the best feeling in the would but not too bad. I did end up paying for it after the con as I was sore for a few days. At the con I felt fine enough, the soreness was way in the background back then. Oh, one of the 4 elevators went down and an escalator on Saturday night. At least the later was working again by the next day. My usual method was to take the escalator to the 3rd floor and then the stairs to the 6th to get to my room and vise versa to get back down to avoid the dreaded "elevator con". Much quicker when it got really busy.

What am I forgetting? Oh, the panels. Some on Friday and then Saturday with one on Sunday that I attended. The following are the panels I went that I could remember. They might not be in order as I am too lazy to go back and look up the schedules.

Ah, the famous Uncle Kage story hour. That man is full of all kinds of stories and tells them at a lot of cons that he attends. There are plenty of videos on YouTube on them. At ACFI, one of the stories he told was one I happen to see a video of before. It was about the time he took a job at not so great (very bad actually) company before the actual job offer that he wanted became available and how he had to deal with it. Another story he told new to me. It was about that time he worked at a facility that deals with donated human tissue (body parts). Most people don't know this but he is an real scientist. He ended up working in the medical research field and dealt with the sourcing and providing the donated materials to various researchers. I am not going into too much detail but lets say that someone previously had arrange certain body parts by size in one of the walk-in freezers that Kage called the Zylophone and how it had became "limp" due to negligence by an outside monitoring company. He had others but those where the two I caught as I didn't attend the whole hour. I don't recall if I arrived late or had to leave early. I think it was the later but not sure.

Let's see, there was Sherbert's VR chat panel. Due to issues with the computer, it ran very late. Apparently they tried to set up the software on the con chair's personal computer just before the event and it didn't go well. All kinds of driver and software issues ensued if you can imagine. By the time it was sorted out, our group had to leave and thus missed the the actual VR chat stuff. Oh well, that how it goes. Pro-tip: install all the software and test out your computer well in advance is probably a good thing, just a wee bit anyway. >..>

Another panel I went was a furmaking one. It was focus on what materials to use. I did learn a few stuff despite the presenter being his first time doing it and was a bit nervous. I thought it was the one run by Spark Can Do but that was on Sunday, which I did attended.

I went to the dragon panel of course. Unlike TFF, which was adult only, the ACFI dragon panel is open to all ages. I like it better since it was more of a meetup of dragon or friends of dragons without going over the deep end. Don't get me wrong, I "love" adult content. It is just that I wanted to make friends and the like.

I had some free time after than panel and ventured into the main ballroom where I heard some music. I think it was the drag queen dance or something. I then wandered off to the Artist Alley and Dealer's Den before finding something interesting. I decided to check out the real life horror stories panel. Now that one featured the presenter telling a story from his book with the audience telling their stories after he was finished. I had a semi-ok one that I was going to tell if no one else spoke up but there was plenty of true stories with the last one partially spooky. I don't remember the details but it went something like this, the person telling the story heard someone calling for help outside the farmhouse she visited/lived in with the grandparents was away. She looked out the window and saw this hideous creature with a deformed face trying to get inside. She ran into the kitchen to grab a knife and hid all the while the creature clawed at the doors and windows of the house for hours until it finally drifted away. The presenter as well as a few others in the room told her it sounded exactly like, I trying to remember the name, the something face ripper or the like. That was one spooky moment all right. I guess you had to be there... or someone who is better at telling this anyway. *shrugs*

The last panel was on Sunday before the closing ceremonies. That was the one ran by Sparky along with Livewire. One of my roomies also helped out. All three gave good and varied information on their methods on fursuit making. Good to know (hehe, that is Sparky's motto).

Right after that was the closing ceremony. I hope someone posted a fully video of it as it was wild. The charity auction helped bring the total to just over $4000, doubling last year amount. The large banner went for a big chunk of change, something like a $1000 IIRC. Uncle kage even chipped in the final $250 or so to round out the number. The Guests of Honor agreed to get a cream pie thrown to their faces after certain amount was achieved. Uncle Kage and Sherbert were safe as it donations didn't go high enough, but things were difference for Sparky and Livewire. they both agreed to get their pies in fursuit. You can kinda see it in the video Sherbert posted. Sparky's went even further as she was slated to be hit with several pies. She got hit on the side of her face and a few people shouted to turn the other cheek. So she did... but by turning around and showed her other cheek all right, a cheeky moment for sure. Everyone had a good laugh. The whole thing was fun. Too bad it signaled the official end of the con aside the dead dog dance. At least it went out with a blast... of pie.

They announced next year's theme of Fire and Furry. Kinda an extension of the cyberpunk theme, it has a Mad Max vibe to it instead of Blade Runner. I hope they fully utilized it. I plan on reusing a good portion of my costume, amping it up a bit. I like those themes better than TFF, which is going to be Kaiji Attack! Basically Japanese for gaint monsters. I dunno, just not really feeling it but I'll try my best. I have a couple of ideas but I'll go into that at a later time.

I stuck around a little longer after closing but things where winding down. Despite for me never want it to end, all good things come to ends as they say. I would love to smack them for that but it is what it is. Beside I have to go back to work on Monday. I knew I should have taken that day off to, at least to recover a little. Going back to to the real world sucks. I did talked to a few people at the last minute and then I packed up and headed off for home, bringing along some swag and memories. Here's to next year.

I hope I didn't miss anything but probably did. Oh well, it is (too) long enough anyway.

Ok, who actually made it to the end of that monstrous saga? Raise your hand. No one? Awwwwww. Oh well, at least I have something on it for my chronicles for future generations... or at least I like to think so. One can dream, can I? OK ok, I'm done. Peace out.