Hey everyone,

I haven't been as active lately, but now I can finally find some time to check in on furrydom.

It's been incredibly busy this last year or so. I started the year working as a veterinary assistant, lost my job, and decided that was a sign to return to school and get the credentials for a proper job.

So I've been working hard at college this past year, and as of last week I've finally graduated! I got a BA in English, with minors in philosophy and economics.

On top of all the classwork, I've been spending the last few months at an internship, and upon graduation it finally paid off! I'm now working a professional, white-collar job making a comfortably middle-class salary with a nonprofit philanthropic group.

So now I get up early, put on nice clothes, and go to the office from 9 to 5. Could be worse, really.

Sorry to everyone I've been out of touch with; drop me a line if you like.

It occurs to me that I haven't updated my FA page in over a year, and there have been some interesting developments of late, so brace yourselves for a rare journal entry from yours truly.

I'm spending the summer working in an internship to learn grant-writing and fundraising for nonprofits- it seems like a good place to make use of my writing abilities. I'm also house-sitting and taking care of the family dogs while everyone else is on vacation. Having the place to myself for 2 months is a welcome change of pace.

Since I have plenty of free time for the summer, I'm working on a few other personal projects to keep myself busy. I'm boxing and running more often to try and get from "okay, i guess" shape to something more outright athletic. I'm also practicing and learning on the bass more, and working my way through a backlog of unread books.

Previous journal-readers will recall that I won a free trip to a weekend Las Vegas last year. I don't think I ever updated after the trip, but it was at least as much fun as you might expect. (shout-out to  Zeruketsuka too, for hanging out with me in Vegas!)

Well, it wasn't easy, but I've outdone myself. I've only gone and won another free vacation for this summer. On July 5th, I'll be leaving for 3 days at the Marlboro Ranch in Montana, to go ziplining, horse riding, offroading, shooting, and archery...ing, amongst other suitably manly activities, at their ranch/resort. I'll be accompanied by  zrazorrozenstrauch, and we will no doubt have many pictures and stories to share. We've come to refer to it as our Brokeback Mountain trip. It's all-expenses paid, and some research suggest that I'm truly in for a treat. And will likely return with a variety of silly/awesome cowboy garb. Oh, and a free carton of cigarettes, natch.

I take a certain pride in the fact that I've never smoked a cigarette in my life, and nevertheless have a huge pile of cool goodies from Marlboro. I've won a frankly implausible number of contests in my time, but this is by far the biggest prize yet. It's going to be a good summer.

-Calph

P.S. - You should hang out with me if you're in the New Orleans area. Yeah, you, in front of the screen! You're cool, you should swing by.

So two weeks from today, I will be in Las Vegas! I wasn't planning on another vacation so soon after Furry Fiesta (still a bit hungover two weeks later), but fate clearly had other plans.

"But Calph," I hear you cry, "How can you afford such an extravagance?" The answer being, in short, that I can't. But I don't have to, since the vacation is FREE.

I won the trip to Las Vegas in a contest promoting a video game (although I can't even remember which one now. Some b-list racing game.) A round-trip ticket to Vegas, two nights in a hotel, and tickets to see a monster truck rally. Sounds like a good time to me, and I basically only have to pay for meals and ground transportation.

So I'm pretty excited. I've always had good luck with contests for some reason, but this is the biggest prize I've ever won.

Any thoughts or suggestions for what else to do there?

Life's been interesting for me lately, and I haven't collected all the recent events in one place yet, so how about a journal reviewing my recent activities? "Yes, excellent idea Calph." "Why thank you, Calph, I thought it was rather good too." Anyways...

Due to money problems, I'll be taking next semester off from school. It's happened before, I should be fine, just kind of annoying to have to delay graduation further.

The vet I was working at only had part-time work for me, and I need a full-time job while I'm off of school, so I quit there and I'm now working at a dog boarding and grooming place here in New Orleans, so I'll probably be a wage slave there for the next few months.

I've been staying busy in furrydom, and will probably be more active now that I don't have school to worry about. Cool furries that I have met in the last few weeks include  blackwolf12tails,  doompuppy,  TheTokyoFox,  saril,  roxas-kitax, and  DragonFoxStar. (sorry if i missed anyone!)

I also just got back from a very enjoyable weekend in Lake Charles with  Tir_Skullcraft, where I also got to meet with  krazinik,  maxis,  jeuri, and  urn. With a little luck I'll be back there just after new years and will get to see some of you again.

So, yah. Been keeping busy. Fortunately my new job is pretty flexible with scheduling, so I should be able to take some more road trips like that. It's too quiet here in New Orleans though, so I need you furbutts out there to keep me busy, okay? Okay! <3

Bad news: They cut my hours at the vet clinic, so now I will be even more broke.

Good news: Now I have more free time to spend with you fuzzbrains.

So does anyone want to chat? Or hang out if you're near New Orleans?