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Midwest FurFest 2024 - Debrief
Posted 10 months agoMFF 2024 came and went last week. It certainly was an... interesting one. This year I roomed with Page and Soul at the Renaissance, which isn't one of the MFF block hotels.
--- Tuesday ---
Tuesday was just a day of finalising everything that I needed to do. I wasn't really under time crunch this year; I'd packed 95% of what I needed to pack early so it was just a day of waiting out the clock. Shops were first, to get last minute supplies; after that, I made notes to go along with the soldering iron doodles that I made for the folks I'd hoped to see and deliver 'em to. (Yes, I sometimes doodle on thermal paper with a soldering iron.)
I tried to go to bed immediately after dinner so I could wake up in time to catch the redeye out, but despite me slightly sleep-depriving myself the night prior, my body decided that 4 hours of sleep was all I needed.
Alas.
--- Wednesday ---
Wednesday was the travel day. Woke up just after midnight to leave at 05:15, so it was just a case of burning out the clock. Played games on my computer until around 04:00, then did final preparations. Shower, shave, shine, and double-check packing. I wound up shedding a lot of weight from the suitcase (hey, a scale tail and gauntlets are heavy, yo).
The drive itself was relatively uneventful - though trying to do the speed limit on roads with no drainage on a car needing new front tyres was a bit of a fun one. Nonetheless, I made it to the airport - if slightly later than I wanted to. I wanted to arrive around 07:00 and ended up getting there closer to 07:20. Of course, catching the start of rush-hour Houston traffic wasn't much help there, but it wasn't a huge loss since my flight left around 09:45.
...and on my way out the car, I forgot my rain slicker. Which is also a windbreaker.
Getting into Chicago, and getting off the el, was hell - and not because of traffic or transit scheduling or anything. It was hell because it was -9 Celsius there, coming from somewhere that it was positive 17 Celsius. And that wasn't helped by the fact that winds were 35 kph sustained, with gusts of 50 kph.
Page and Soul would arrive later that day, and of course, the obvious choice then was to stop by the food court for lunch.
We mostly just hung around the Hyatt and convention centre that day before heading back to the stateroom that night.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Travel's exhausting, yo.
--- Thursday ---
Thursday was even worse than Wednesda , clocking at -14 Celsius and gusts up to 70 kph. My electronic cigarette, which was fully charged when I went for morning smoko, fired four times before going into low-battery alarm. I literally got into stage-2 hypothermia that day because my trusty denim jacket + liner + base layer combo, which had served me well for the past five years, didn't cut it. I got so cold I literally stopped shivering.
So, when we headed down to food court for brekky, we stopped at a place called Mountain Warehouse for a better jacket. I didn't want to lose the distinctive look of the denim jacket, so I wound up wearing that as a jacket liner.
Again, that day, we mostly hung around the Hyatt and convention centre that day just to stay warm. Registration opened, and I went about an hour late to let the lines die down... that was defnitely a mistake. Even though I'd waited, the lines were still 40 minutes for main registration, and - since I was sponsor - it took even longer to navigate through the swag line.
But regular attendee reg was even worse. I went back with Page and Soul after dinner (to be the emotional support reptile), arriving closer to around 8. That line took us an hour and 20 to navigate. To the organisers' credit, it mostly stayed moving!
But immediately after that, we retired to the stateroom for the night. We were all on edge.
--- Friday ---
Friday was mostly uneventful. The weather had warmed up a bit, tickling the freezing mark, and at 15:00 I went over to the panel inkblitz hosts every year, Healthy Fursuiting. The panel was alright - learned a few things about how to be safe in fursuiting that I hadn't considered before, and even learned a couple of things about myself along the way.
From there, I hung around and took photos, until it was time to go to the top of the HRO for the sponsor reception.
It was... interesting. Like last year, I had my fill of dinner, and hit the open bar afterwards. Like always, my limit was two. This year, however, it was different: I am usually a seasonal drinker, and I have a fairly rigid calendar as to when I consume alcohol. I hadn't drank since at least August, so my alcohol tolerance was lower than I thought it was.
I got drunker than I thought I would, even after stopping at one-and-a-half.
Thankfully, Ink was close enough to be able to respond to my call that I'd need a handler, and while waiting for him, Page came 'round in search of food. So, while Page ate, Ink kept an eye on me.
Ink is still an absolute fucking legend and a saint, and Spots, if you're reading this, that's a hill I'll die on.
It took me the better part of 45 minutes to sober up, but after that, it was back at it for another round of photography. I went out in search for a meetup I was going to photograph, and found it relatively quickly - though I did pass it a few times. Took my photos, delivered a couple of things I intended to.
Not much notable happened after that - just the usual photography, and heading back to the stateroom to turn in for the night.
--- Saturday ---
Saturday is a blur.
Saturday was the first day it was warm enough not to use that windbreaker I'd bought and instead use the ol' reliable, and so it was. Went out to the sponsor brunch that morning (as usual, they didn't have hash browns...) and afterwards, met up with Page and Soul for a trip into the DD. I had some stuff I needed to get (a balaclava for racing, among other things) and Page wanted to visit the Adults Only section. I also needed to pick up my con shirt and polo (sponsor swag, yo) but forgot the rainchecks for them in the stateroom.
I remember going with Page (since they were too nervous to go solo) and then getting accosted by some dude who thought I looked like Lynyrd Skynyrd. I deflected, and they didn't clock that - which was the single point of stress for the con. It was so bad we had to retire to the stateroom pretty much immediately. I don't remember anything after that, though apparently I did go down and take photos later that night.
...Saturday was a blur.
--- Sunday ---
Sunday was a bit of a rushed day. I choked down brekky without even having time to sit and wait for Page and Soul to find a seat; the board meeting was at noon and we'd slept in slightly.
After the board meeting, I hung around the convention area trying to get photos, and ran into Dinghy on the way to VolOps. I'd needed to ask them about their socials anyway, so after taking the usual photos (and even letting someone who'd wanted a photo with Dinghy learn how to use a DSLR camera), I got the info I needed.
Up until that point, I had signed up to volunteer but hadn't yet. I couldn't do line wrangling, so I asked the person at the desk if they had anything where I could get my hands dirty. They knew just the thing, but it wouldn't be available for another half hour.
So, I smoked a bit to get my nicotine levels up (as I'd anticipated not being able to smoke for a few hours), I was off in the brown vest to help take down the Art Show. In three hours, we'd managed to transform the room from an art gallery into an empty room with a desk set up in the middle. Even I was impressed.
(I also got carded because I was needed in the adult section and the private security contractor was under orders to card everyone. Been a while since I've been carded.)
Afterwards, it was time for dinner, the last photos of the night, then Soul and I linked back up for the final walk from the HRO/DESCC back to the stateroom.
We wound up having a movie night that night, watching the sequel to Twister. It was a good film, definitely an inversion of the original. I liked it.
We did most of our packing afterwards, and hit the bed early.
--- Monday ---
Monday came, and it was time to inventory the stateroom and ensure everything was present and accounted for. At some point, the lens cap of my macro lens and an entire flash unit became unaccounted for, but thankfully the former is easily replaceable, and the latter was the one I don't really use all that often.
I was first to depart - my flight was scheduled for pushback at 14:25, so I wanted to get there by noon. The metro was a bit of a pain to navigate, but eventually I made it to the airport, got through security, and got back to Houston during rush hour traffic.
Made it home closer to 20:15, and just... checked out of everything.
--- Overview ---
This year's FurFest was... well, it was a thing that had happened. Between not even getting a room in the room lottery (and thus having to pick one a metro ride away) and trying to coordinate stuff with friends, it was stressful as hell. The con itself, felt mid at best.
I love FurFest, really, I do, but 17000 people (and that's just a ballpark from the board meeting about pre-reg only) in that little tiny area of the HRO? Yeah no that's way too many. My comfort zone is ballpark 9000-12000, and this exceeded that by a fair margin. Plus, everything keeps getting done later and later in the year, closer and closer to the convention. Room lottery was in late bloody October! That was less than two months to get all that sorted!
It's safe to say that I won't be back at MFF for the forseeable future, for both that and finances. This year - between travelling for a wedding in August and making the convention come December - really pushed my credit line to its limits, and it's going to take me at least a year to pay it down to a point where I'm comfortable enough conventioning again.
As far as other miscellany, this year Page, Soul and I tried Zello in lieu of Discord for on-site coordination, and that seemed to work a lot better than trying to push everything through Discord and hoping everything held up. Using Zello meant that our ability to communicate wasn't hampered by the regional Discord server being overloaded (as has happened) and comms were near-instant. We didn't need to waste time typing, it was all done by voice.
--- The Future ---
So what's next?
Really, I don't know. I am looking at Anthrocon, but I'm going to have to go through a career change before I can do that - you'd never get a 4th of July weekend off in the gaming/hospitality industry. MCFC is also a potential convention, as is FWA.
Time will tell...
--- Tuesday ---
Tuesday was just a day of finalising everything that I needed to do. I wasn't really under time crunch this year; I'd packed 95% of what I needed to pack early so it was just a day of waiting out the clock. Shops were first, to get last minute supplies; after that, I made notes to go along with the soldering iron doodles that I made for the folks I'd hoped to see and deliver 'em to. (Yes, I sometimes doodle on thermal paper with a soldering iron.)
I tried to go to bed immediately after dinner so I could wake up in time to catch the redeye out, but despite me slightly sleep-depriving myself the night prior, my body decided that 4 hours of sleep was all I needed.
Alas.
--- Wednesday ---
Wednesday was the travel day. Woke up just after midnight to leave at 05:15, so it was just a case of burning out the clock. Played games on my computer until around 04:00, then did final preparations. Shower, shave, shine, and double-check packing. I wound up shedding a lot of weight from the suitcase (hey, a scale tail and gauntlets are heavy, yo).
The drive itself was relatively uneventful - though trying to do the speed limit on roads with no drainage on a car needing new front tyres was a bit of a fun one. Nonetheless, I made it to the airport - if slightly later than I wanted to. I wanted to arrive around 07:00 and ended up getting there closer to 07:20. Of course, catching the start of rush-hour Houston traffic wasn't much help there, but it wasn't a huge loss since my flight left around 09:45.
...and on my way out the car, I forgot my rain slicker. Which is also a windbreaker.
Getting into Chicago, and getting off the el, was hell - and not because of traffic or transit scheduling or anything. It was hell because it was -9 Celsius there, coming from somewhere that it was positive 17 Celsius. And that wasn't helped by the fact that winds were 35 kph sustained, with gusts of 50 kph.
Page and Soul would arrive later that day, and of course, the obvious choice then was to stop by the food court for lunch.
We mostly just hung around the Hyatt and convention centre that day before heading back to the stateroom that night.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Travel's exhausting, yo.
--- Thursday ---
Thursday was even worse than Wednesda , clocking at -14 Celsius and gusts up to 70 kph. My electronic cigarette, which was fully charged when I went for morning smoko, fired four times before going into low-battery alarm. I literally got into stage-2 hypothermia that day because my trusty denim jacket + liner + base layer combo, which had served me well for the past five years, didn't cut it. I got so cold I literally stopped shivering.
So, when we headed down to food court for brekky, we stopped at a place called Mountain Warehouse for a better jacket. I didn't want to lose the distinctive look of the denim jacket, so I wound up wearing that as a jacket liner.
Again, that day, we mostly hung around the Hyatt and convention centre that day just to stay warm. Registration opened, and I went about an hour late to let the lines die down... that was defnitely a mistake. Even though I'd waited, the lines were still 40 minutes for main registration, and - since I was sponsor - it took even longer to navigate through the swag line.
But regular attendee reg was even worse. I went back with Page and Soul after dinner (to be the emotional support reptile), arriving closer to around 8. That line took us an hour and 20 to navigate. To the organisers' credit, it mostly stayed moving!
But immediately after that, we retired to the stateroom for the night. We were all on edge.
--- Friday ---
Friday was mostly uneventful. The weather had warmed up a bit, tickling the freezing mark, and at 15:00 I went over to the panel inkblitz hosts every year, Healthy Fursuiting. The panel was alright - learned a few things about how to be safe in fursuiting that I hadn't considered before, and even learned a couple of things about myself along the way.
From there, I hung around and took photos, until it was time to go to the top of the HRO for the sponsor reception.
It was... interesting. Like last year, I had my fill of dinner, and hit the open bar afterwards. Like always, my limit was two. This year, however, it was different: I am usually a seasonal drinker, and I have a fairly rigid calendar as to when I consume alcohol. I hadn't drank since at least August, so my alcohol tolerance was lower than I thought it was.
I got drunker than I thought I would, even after stopping at one-and-a-half.
Thankfully, Ink was close enough to be able to respond to my call that I'd need a handler, and while waiting for him, Page came 'round in search of food. So, while Page ate, Ink kept an eye on me.
Ink is still an absolute fucking legend and a saint, and Spots, if you're reading this, that's a hill I'll die on.
It took me the better part of 45 minutes to sober up, but after that, it was back at it for another round of photography. I went out in search for a meetup I was going to photograph, and found it relatively quickly - though I did pass it a few times. Took my photos, delivered a couple of things I intended to.
Not much notable happened after that - just the usual photography, and heading back to the stateroom to turn in for the night.
--- Saturday ---
Saturday is a blur.
Saturday was the first day it was warm enough not to use that windbreaker I'd bought and instead use the ol' reliable, and so it was. Went out to the sponsor brunch that morning (as usual, they didn't have hash browns...) and afterwards, met up with Page and Soul for a trip into the DD. I had some stuff I needed to get (a balaclava for racing, among other things) and Page wanted to visit the Adults Only section. I also needed to pick up my con shirt and polo (sponsor swag, yo) but forgot the rainchecks for them in the stateroom.
I remember going with Page (since they were too nervous to go solo) and then getting accosted by some dude who thought I looked like Lynyrd Skynyrd. I deflected, and they didn't clock that - which was the single point of stress for the con. It was so bad we had to retire to the stateroom pretty much immediately. I don't remember anything after that, though apparently I did go down and take photos later that night.
...Saturday was a blur.
--- Sunday ---
Sunday was a bit of a rushed day. I choked down brekky without even having time to sit and wait for Page and Soul to find a seat; the board meeting was at noon and we'd slept in slightly.
After the board meeting, I hung around the convention area trying to get photos, and ran into Dinghy on the way to VolOps. I'd needed to ask them about their socials anyway, so after taking the usual photos (and even letting someone who'd wanted a photo with Dinghy learn how to use a DSLR camera), I got the info I needed.
Up until that point, I had signed up to volunteer but hadn't yet. I couldn't do line wrangling, so I asked the person at the desk if they had anything where I could get my hands dirty. They knew just the thing, but it wouldn't be available for another half hour.
So, I smoked a bit to get my nicotine levels up (as I'd anticipated not being able to smoke for a few hours), I was off in the brown vest to help take down the Art Show. In three hours, we'd managed to transform the room from an art gallery into an empty room with a desk set up in the middle. Even I was impressed.
(I also got carded because I was needed in the adult section and the private security contractor was under orders to card everyone. Been a while since I've been carded.)
Afterwards, it was time for dinner, the last photos of the night, then Soul and I linked back up for the final walk from the HRO/DESCC back to the stateroom.
We wound up having a movie night that night, watching the sequel to Twister. It was a good film, definitely an inversion of the original. I liked it.
We did most of our packing afterwards, and hit the bed early.
--- Monday ---
Monday came, and it was time to inventory the stateroom and ensure everything was present and accounted for. At some point, the lens cap of my macro lens and an entire flash unit became unaccounted for, but thankfully the former is easily replaceable, and the latter was the one I don't really use all that often.
I was first to depart - my flight was scheduled for pushback at 14:25, so I wanted to get there by noon. The metro was a bit of a pain to navigate, but eventually I made it to the airport, got through security, and got back to Houston during rush hour traffic.
Made it home closer to 20:15, and just... checked out of everything.
--- Overview ---
This year's FurFest was... well, it was a thing that had happened. Between not even getting a room in the room lottery (and thus having to pick one a metro ride away) and trying to coordinate stuff with friends, it was stressful as hell. The con itself, felt mid at best.
I love FurFest, really, I do, but 17000 people (and that's just a ballpark from the board meeting about pre-reg only) in that little tiny area of the HRO? Yeah no that's way too many. My comfort zone is ballpark 9000-12000, and this exceeded that by a fair margin. Plus, everything keeps getting done later and later in the year, closer and closer to the convention. Room lottery was in late bloody October! That was less than two months to get all that sorted!
It's safe to say that I won't be back at MFF for the forseeable future, for both that and finances. This year - between travelling for a wedding in August and making the convention come December - really pushed my credit line to its limits, and it's going to take me at least a year to pay it down to a point where I'm comfortable enough conventioning again.
As far as other miscellany, this year Page, Soul and I tried Zello in lieu of Discord for on-site coordination, and that seemed to work a lot better than trying to push everything through Discord and hoping everything held up. Using Zello meant that our ability to communicate wasn't hampered by the regional Discord server being overloaded (as has happened) and comms were near-instant. We didn't need to waste time typing, it was all done by voice.
--- The Future ---
So what's next?
Really, I don't know. I am looking at Anthrocon, but I'm going to have to go through a career change before I can do that - you'd never get a 4th of July weekend off in the gaming/hospitality industry. MCFC is also a potential convention, as is FWA.
Time will tell...
Midwest FurFest 2023 - Debrief
Posted 2 years agoWell, now that MFF 2023 is over and me riding the high from the con is done, I might as well type this out. I was delaying on doing this for as long as I could, as I didn't exactly want to suddenly remember the convention and risk PCD, but that ship's pretty much sailed.
This year I roomed with ringgar, Page and Soul in the Hyatt Regency O'Hare. Note that a lot of the timeline was pieced together from the room chat I'd set up with everyone.
--- Tuesday ---
Tuesday was a mess. I knew I had to hit the bed early because I had to leave no later than 06:15 the next day in order to get there in the time window I wanted to. The problem was, work had literally just switched to 12-hour shifts the day prior, so it was 05:15 when I got home from work. After eating and shower, I was asleep right at 06:00... and slept in a wee bit. (Did I mention that work had just switched me to 12-hour shifts?)
That left me with little time to pack and prepare after I woke up. Hit the shops, got the last stuff I needed (mostly medical supplies - paracetamol, vitamin D, glucose tabs, the like) and went straight into laundry. The problem with the laundry came when I didn't use enough borax in the wash, so I had to re-do one of the big parts of it (specifically, shirts) while also trying to get everything else packed as I could, while at the same time trying to coordinate things.
In the end, however, I did manage to get to bed on time (with 15 minutes to spare), and slept pretty decently with the help of some melatonin.
--- Wednesday ---
Wednesday came around and before I knew it, I was off to the convention without even having enough time to wash my tumbler mug. Traffic to the airport was lighter than I'd expected - TXDoT had finished off a bunch of roadworks that were there for the 2021 convention - and after check-in and the security gates, I was there... well, around about when I expected to be. A touch later, if anything, but well within acceptable parameters.
When it came time to board the flight, it turned out that my seat (which I'd specifically paid for) had gotten changed. Normally, I prefer to fly in the very back row, window seat, port side - on a 737 flown by United, that's usually row 39, seat A. Turns out, they changed aircraft types to a 737 with 36 rows. That's not what fussed me, though - they changed my seat to 25F, which is on the starboard side, right behind the wing flaps. While it meant a smoother landing (due to me being more-or-less directly above the main gear), it also meant that the sun was reflecting off the wing for much of the journey.
However, that was really the low point of the day - everything after that went much more smoothly. I got the shuttle to the Hyatt, went to the check-in desk, and managed to wrangle a room change to accomodations for four instead of three (even if the sofa-bed was designed by Satan himself). Got settled in, grabbed some grub at some point (as I had been running entirely off of a bag of pretzels served aboard the airplane) and met ringgar and inkblitz. Took a few photos, went to dinner with Ringgar, and pretty much called it a night.
Travel's exhausting, yo.
--- Thursday ---
Thursday was the day my plus-two would arrive, so bright and early, Ringgar and I went out for brekky at the Macca's up the road. Turns out, they don't do lunch stuff until after 10:30 (and it was still around 09:40 when we got there), so Ringgar and I decided to do an impromptu photo shoot.
Page and Soul arrived not too long after that (and Page turned my spine non-Newtonian). I showed them around (and gave them a crash course on why the Skybridge of Death was so aptly-nicknamed), and afterwards we decided to catch lunch at the food court in the Fashion District.
Immediately after, I decided to brave the lines and get my badge taken care of, done and dusted. The line for pre-reg + super sponsor totalled me about 80 minutes, and about midway through the second line, they started letting the pre-registered attendees go in early.
The food truck was there again this year, so after dinner, we retired to the stateroom, afurryjinx popped 'round and it... kinda devolved into another impromptu photoshoot. And, well, I wanted to figure out the new flash units for my camera a bit better, so I wasn't about to complain!
--- Friday ---
Friday, hoo boy, Friday. Woke up with a smidge of back pain from my spine turning back into a Newtonian object, and out for brekky I ventured! Somewhere. I don't remember where I got brekky from. Knowing me, I probably got a bag of Gardetto's and a drink.
After brekky, though, I went up to Volunteer Ops and donned the brown vest. Walked down to the rego line and helped sort the lines into slightly smaller lines - the bull-pen system they had this year really worked wonders. According to some attendees, the line at the time I'd been working them was only about a half-hour.
Unfortunately for me, I wound up staying and helping longer than I'd planned to, so I had to quickly get the vest turned in, get my hours logged, and figure out where Ink was hosting his panel this year. I managed to catch the tail end of it. (It was about fursuiter health, which is something I need to learn more of, especially if I plan to have a full 'suit of Piper at some point.) And, something I'd been looking forward to for months, I got to experience the "Non-Newtonian Sports Drink", Gatorlyte. It was a bit thicker than I was expecting, and I could definitely taste the salt in there - but I did finish it, in about a minute, much to Ink's bewilderment.
"Andreas, you are... weird."
"Ayop."
After that, I decided to try my luck at the Artist's Alley. Despite the line going around the corner, then down the hall, almost all the way to the next corner, it only took maybe fifteen minutes - surprisingly. I scoped out a couple of artists to commission a badge from, and got payment on one made, but the other artist had too much of a queue for the day. A quick trip to the Dealer's Den followed, but I didn't get a chance to do much there, because the Dutch Angel Dragon meet-up was about to start.
The DAD meetup is one I absolutely, positively wanted to go to, come Hell or high water, and I was able to make it (if only a couple of minutes late). I was ready to get a lot of photos, and give my new flash units a proper shakedown. The latter half of that plan didn't come to fruition, however, as a few photos in, I noticed one of the fursuiters had a tag on their chest that stated they were epileptic. I tried my best to be extremely conservative with the flash after that.
Once the photos were taken and the meetup was done, I went to the Ventanas via one of the two working lifts. If you haven't been to the HRO, the Ventanas is the sky bar - except it rotates. And if you haven't been to Midwest FurFest, one of the perks of being a Shiny Sponsor is you get a free buffet-style dinner up there, with an open bar. I ate - enough to satisfy me, at least - and then went up to the bar for a couple of Cuba Libres.
Now, if anyone doesn't know what a Cuba Libre is, it's a cocktail, served in a highball glass, that's 5 parts rum to 12 parts cola, with a lime wedge or lime juice to cut out a bit of the bite of the alcohol. Well, they had the "five parts rum" part... but they were using a whisky glass and reduced the amount of cola to fit the drink to the glassware. I had two (my limit is two), and then got some water after I cut myself off. Waiting for the lift back down, I found out just how strong they'd mixed it, so I shot a message to the group chat that I needed a handler and went down for a smoke.
And while I was sobering up, Page was getting themselves plastered on the Bacardí and mixer I'd brought. It was certainly interesting, the two of us being plastered at the same time (briefly).
--- Saturday ---
Saturday is the blurriest day for me. I remember getting the Sponsor brunch (and them not having hash browns [!!!]), and after then I went to the Artist's Alley and got a badge started from the artist I was trying to the previous day. After that, I went to the Dealer's Den, where Page and I perused for a bit. After that, we went back to the food court.
At some point after that, I went to the Artist's Alley with Page to pick up the badge I had done...
...I've always said that every year, there seems to always be one big stressful event that happens at the convention, and... for some reason, standing in the line a second time triggered an anxiety attack. (It probably didn't help that I'd had a headache from what I know now is caffeine withdrawal.) I had bought a small sergal plushie from the Dealer's Den earlier that day, and I remember holding it tight to my chest while waiting in the line to get in. I got the badge, Page got a sticker by giving the artist one of their badges, and we returned to the stateroom. I refilled my e-cigarette, I remember getting a shower and coming back to the room after a smoke, and then I crashed and crashed hard.
One good thing did come that day - while I was returning to the stateroom after having had my anxiety attack, I got a message from firestoem, asking if I'd be willing to do a photoshoot. My first gig as an amateur photographer!
I don't remember much after that, but I did hang out near the escalators for a bit and photographed some fursuiters as they came up, and then I went to the rave. The rave was nice, but I had to leave after about half an hour - the DJ was playing sustained bass, and that doesn't play well with my brain.
--- Sunday ---
Oh, boy, Sunday Sunday. Woke up a smidge late, took a smoke, and then decided on a whim to treat Page and Soul to a continental breakfast. That was the first real caffeine I'd had all con, and as soon as I had some of the scalding-hot Earl Grey that they'd had, it immediately started to go away. Or maybe that was because I scalded the tar out of myself because I didn't put cold water in to offset the heat. Either or.
I hung around for a bit and then went to the MFF board meeting. I'll refrain from saying much about it (as the secretary specifically asked folks not to), but I did have a couple of points I was able to offer from the perspective of an attendee, and they were appreciative that I was able to give them that.
Page wanted to go to the Dealer's Den again, so up we went again. I got myself a bunch of Certified [x] badges, and Page got a bunch of stuff for themself, too.
A bit of an intermission followed, and after that I decided to break out the camera and attend the spiritpanda meetup. I got a good few photos, and then I got the news that the person behind SpiritPanda had to go home due to medical issues. Still, it was absolutely nice what the fursuiters were doing for her (which I'm intentionally leaving vague), and I got to get a good few photos out of it, as well. After that, Soul met up with me while I was handling for firestoem, and eventually Stoem and I parted so I could get some food and she could get ready for the meetup I was the photographer for later.
I got to the place about 45 minutes early - not because I wanted to survey the area and find good angles, but because I wanted to get a LOT of nicotine in my system. Boy HOWDY I was both excited and nervous about this. Regardless, the shoot went off without a hitch - even better than the Dutch Angel Dragon meetup, since I was able to use the flash - and between test shots and actual proofs, my camera went off 173 times.
--- Monday ---
The bittersweet day. Ringgar had left before I was awake, and Page and Soul left about an hour before I did. I cleaned up the room as best as I could, inventoried everything (everything present and accounted for, though I did find a bottle of shampoo that got left behind by someone), and... went out to the airport. Got in early, got accosted by some wannabe pickpocket right after I had gone through security. (Somewhere between checking out and getting home, my badge and some stickers became unaccounted for. Still can't find 'em, but I don't think that was their doing. I had my eyes on the bins the entire time.)
Nonetheless, the flight back had another seating change, but this one wasn't so bad. I got seat 32A, which is close enough for me. Finally ticked a film off The List (been meaning to watch Anchorman for a long time), and right after the film ended, we were on final for Houston.
...Which, I could have planned better. If you've ever driven in a large metropolis during rush hour, you know what I mean. We de-planed around 17:10, and I got to my car around 17:45, 17:50.
--- Overview ---
Initially, MFF this year was a continuous source of stress before the convention. We initially got a king-size bed (rather than two doubles, like I'd hoped), and it was just stress on top of stress trying to get it sorted out before the date. Everything this year was pretty much down to the wire. There were a couple of exasperated phone calls made to the Hyatt to try and book a double instead of a king, which turned into run-around.
But at the end of it? I'm glad I went. I'm glad I finally got to meet Page, Soul, Ringgar, Bladewolf, and Napier for the first time. I'm glad I got to see Ink, Stoem, and Tango again after two years. I'm glad Stoem found me trustworthy enough to ask me to do a photography gig for them, and I'm glad I got to meet the person behind SpiritPanda and introduce myself. It was a good convention, all things considered.
Will I be back? I'm not sure. The stress down to the wire didn't help a lot of the planning. Midwest FurFest is the largest in the world, and it shattered attendance records this year... which definitely showed. But, they seem to be learning from it all, and they're definitely making an effort to reduce the problems that a con of that size has. At this stage, I couldn't say one way or the other with certainty.
But, whenever or wherever I end up for my next convention, I'll definitely remember the faces and names of those who made this con what it was for me.
This year I roomed with ringgar, Page and Soul in the Hyatt Regency O'Hare. Note that a lot of the timeline was pieced together from the room chat I'd set up with everyone.
--- Tuesday ---
Tuesday was a mess. I knew I had to hit the bed early because I had to leave no later than 06:15 the next day in order to get there in the time window I wanted to. The problem was, work had literally just switched to 12-hour shifts the day prior, so it was 05:15 when I got home from work. After eating and shower, I was asleep right at 06:00... and slept in a wee bit. (Did I mention that work had just switched me to 12-hour shifts?)
That left me with little time to pack and prepare after I woke up. Hit the shops, got the last stuff I needed (mostly medical supplies - paracetamol, vitamin D, glucose tabs, the like) and went straight into laundry. The problem with the laundry came when I didn't use enough borax in the wash, so I had to re-do one of the big parts of it (specifically, shirts) while also trying to get everything else packed as I could, while at the same time trying to coordinate things.
In the end, however, I did manage to get to bed on time (with 15 minutes to spare), and slept pretty decently with the help of some melatonin.
--- Wednesday ---
Wednesday came around and before I knew it, I was off to the convention without even having enough time to wash my tumbler mug. Traffic to the airport was lighter than I'd expected - TXDoT had finished off a bunch of roadworks that were there for the 2021 convention - and after check-in and the security gates, I was there... well, around about when I expected to be. A touch later, if anything, but well within acceptable parameters.
When it came time to board the flight, it turned out that my seat (which I'd specifically paid for) had gotten changed. Normally, I prefer to fly in the very back row, window seat, port side - on a 737 flown by United, that's usually row 39, seat A. Turns out, they changed aircraft types to a 737 with 36 rows. That's not what fussed me, though - they changed my seat to 25F, which is on the starboard side, right behind the wing flaps. While it meant a smoother landing (due to me being more-or-less directly above the main gear), it also meant that the sun was reflecting off the wing for much of the journey.
However, that was really the low point of the day - everything after that went much more smoothly. I got the shuttle to the Hyatt, went to the check-in desk, and managed to wrangle a room change to accomodations for four instead of three (even if the sofa-bed was designed by Satan himself). Got settled in, grabbed some grub at some point (as I had been running entirely off of a bag of pretzels served aboard the airplane) and met ringgar and inkblitz. Took a few photos, went to dinner with Ringgar, and pretty much called it a night.
Travel's exhausting, yo.
--- Thursday ---
Thursday was the day my plus-two would arrive, so bright and early, Ringgar and I went out for brekky at the Macca's up the road. Turns out, they don't do lunch stuff until after 10:30 (and it was still around 09:40 when we got there), so Ringgar and I decided to do an impromptu photo shoot.
Page and Soul arrived not too long after that (and Page turned my spine non-Newtonian). I showed them around (and gave them a crash course on why the Skybridge of Death was so aptly-nicknamed), and afterwards we decided to catch lunch at the food court in the Fashion District.
Immediately after, I decided to brave the lines and get my badge taken care of, done and dusted. The line for pre-reg + super sponsor totalled me about 80 minutes, and about midway through the second line, they started letting the pre-registered attendees go in early.
The food truck was there again this year, so after dinner, we retired to the stateroom, afurryjinx popped 'round and it... kinda devolved into another impromptu photoshoot. And, well, I wanted to figure out the new flash units for my camera a bit better, so I wasn't about to complain!
--- Friday ---
Friday, hoo boy, Friday. Woke up with a smidge of back pain from my spine turning back into a Newtonian object, and out for brekky I ventured! Somewhere. I don't remember where I got brekky from. Knowing me, I probably got a bag of Gardetto's and a drink.
After brekky, though, I went up to Volunteer Ops and donned the brown vest. Walked down to the rego line and helped sort the lines into slightly smaller lines - the bull-pen system they had this year really worked wonders. According to some attendees, the line at the time I'd been working them was only about a half-hour.
Unfortunately for me, I wound up staying and helping longer than I'd planned to, so I had to quickly get the vest turned in, get my hours logged, and figure out where Ink was hosting his panel this year. I managed to catch the tail end of it. (It was about fursuiter health, which is something I need to learn more of, especially if I plan to have a full 'suit of Piper at some point.) And, something I'd been looking forward to for months, I got to experience the "Non-Newtonian Sports Drink", Gatorlyte. It was a bit thicker than I was expecting, and I could definitely taste the salt in there - but I did finish it, in about a minute, much to Ink's bewilderment.
"Andreas, you are... weird."
"Ayop."
After that, I decided to try my luck at the Artist's Alley. Despite the line going around the corner, then down the hall, almost all the way to the next corner, it only took maybe fifteen minutes - surprisingly. I scoped out a couple of artists to commission a badge from, and got payment on one made, but the other artist had too much of a queue for the day. A quick trip to the Dealer's Den followed, but I didn't get a chance to do much there, because the Dutch Angel Dragon meet-up was about to start.
The DAD meetup is one I absolutely, positively wanted to go to, come Hell or high water, and I was able to make it (if only a couple of minutes late). I was ready to get a lot of photos, and give my new flash units a proper shakedown. The latter half of that plan didn't come to fruition, however, as a few photos in, I noticed one of the fursuiters had a tag on their chest that stated they were epileptic. I tried my best to be extremely conservative with the flash after that.
Once the photos were taken and the meetup was done, I went to the Ventanas via one of the two working lifts. If you haven't been to the HRO, the Ventanas is the sky bar - except it rotates. And if you haven't been to Midwest FurFest, one of the perks of being a Shiny Sponsor is you get a free buffet-style dinner up there, with an open bar. I ate - enough to satisfy me, at least - and then went up to the bar for a couple of Cuba Libres.
Now, if anyone doesn't know what a Cuba Libre is, it's a cocktail, served in a highball glass, that's 5 parts rum to 12 parts cola, with a lime wedge or lime juice to cut out a bit of the bite of the alcohol. Well, they had the "five parts rum" part... but they were using a whisky glass and reduced the amount of cola to fit the drink to the glassware. I had two (my limit is two), and then got some water after I cut myself off. Waiting for the lift back down, I found out just how strong they'd mixed it, so I shot a message to the group chat that I needed a handler and went down for a smoke.
And while I was sobering up, Page was getting themselves plastered on the Bacardí and mixer I'd brought. It was certainly interesting, the two of us being plastered at the same time (briefly).
--- Saturday ---
Saturday is the blurriest day for me. I remember getting the Sponsor brunch (and them not having hash browns [!!!]), and after then I went to the Artist's Alley and got a badge started from the artist I was trying to the previous day. After that, I went to the Dealer's Den, where Page and I perused for a bit. After that, we went back to the food court.
At some point after that, I went to the Artist's Alley with Page to pick up the badge I had done...
...I've always said that every year, there seems to always be one big stressful event that happens at the convention, and... for some reason, standing in the line a second time triggered an anxiety attack. (It probably didn't help that I'd had a headache from what I know now is caffeine withdrawal.) I had bought a small sergal plushie from the Dealer's Den earlier that day, and I remember holding it tight to my chest while waiting in the line to get in. I got the badge, Page got a sticker by giving the artist one of their badges, and we returned to the stateroom. I refilled my e-cigarette, I remember getting a shower and coming back to the room after a smoke, and then I crashed and crashed hard.
One good thing did come that day - while I was returning to the stateroom after having had my anxiety attack, I got a message from firestoem, asking if I'd be willing to do a photoshoot. My first gig as an amateur photographer!
I don't remember much after that, but I did hang out near the escalators for a bit and photographed some fursuiters as they came up, and then I went to the rave. The rave was nice, but I had to leave after about half an hour - the DJ was playing sustained bass, and that doesn't play well with my brain.
--- Sunday ---
Oh, boy, Sunday Sunday. Woke up a smidge late, took a smoke, and then decided on a whim to treat Page and Soul to a continental breakfast. That was the first real caffeine I'd had all con, and as soon as I had some of the scalding-hot Earl Grey that they'd had, it immediately started to go away. Or maybe that was because I scalded the tar out of myself because I didn't put cold water in to offset the heat. Either or.
I hung around for a bit and then went to the MFF board meeting. I'll refrain from saying much about it (as the secretary specifically asked folks not to), but I did have a couple of points I was able to offer from the perspective of an attendee, and they were appreciative that I was able to give them that.
Page wanted to go to the Dealer's Den again, so up we went again. I got myself a bunch of Certified [x] badges, and Page got a bunch of stuff for themself, too.
A bit of an intermission followed, and after that I decided to break out the camera and attend the spiritpanda meetup. I got a good few photos, and then I got the news that the person behind SpiritPanda had to go home due to medical issues. Still, it was absolutely nice what the fursuiters were doing for her (which I'm intentionally leaving vague), and I got to get a good few photos out of it, as well. After that, Soul met up with me while I was handling for firestoem, and eventually Stoem and I parted so I could get some food and she could get ready for the meetup I was the photographer for later.
I got to the place about 45 minutes early - not because I wanted to survey the area and find good angles, but because I wanted to get a LOT of nicotine in my system. Boy HOWDY I was both excited and nervous about this. Regardless, the shoot went off without a hitch - even better than the Dutch Angel Dragon meetup, since I was able to use the flash - and between test shots and actual proofs, my camera went off 173 times.
--- Monday ---
The bittersweet day. Ringgar had left before I was awake, and Page and Soul left about an hour before I did. I cleaned up the room as best as I could, inventoried everything (everything present and accounted for, though I did find a bottle of shampoo that got left behind by someone), and... went out to the airport. Got in early, got accosted by some wannabe pickpocket right after I had gone through security. (Somewhere between checking out and getting home, my badge and some stickers became unaccounted for. Still can't find 'em, but I don't think that was their doing. I had my eyes on the bins the entire time.)
Nonetheless, the flight back had another seating change, but this one wasn't so bad. I got seat 32A, which is close enough for me. Finally ticked a film off The List (been meaning to watch Anchorman for a long time), and right after the film ended, we were on final for Houston.
...Which, I could have planned better. If you've ever driven in a large metropolis during rush hour, you know what I mean. We de-planed around 17:10, and I got to my car around 17:45, 17:50.
--- Overview ---
Initially, MFF this year was a continuous source of stress before the convention. We initially got a king-size bed (rather than two doubles, like I'd hoped), and it was just stress on top of stress trying to get it sorted out before the date. Everything this year was pretty much down to the wire. There were a couple of exasperated phone calls made to the Hyatt to try and book a double instead of a king, which turned into run-around.
But at the end of it? I'm glad I went. I'm glad I finally got to meet Page, Soul, Ringgar, Bladewolf, and Napier for the first time. I'm glad I got to see Ink, Stoem, and Tango again after two years. I'm glad Stoem found me trustworthy enough to ask me to do a photography gig for them, and I'm glad I got to meet the person behind SpiritPanda and introduce myself. It was a good convention, all things considered.
Will I be back? I'm not sure. The stress down to the wire didn't help a lot of the planning. Midwest FurFest is the largest in the world, and it shattered attendance records this year... which definitely showed. But, they seem to be learning from it all, and they're definitely making an effort to reduce the problems that a con of that size has. At this stage, I couldn't say one way or the other with certainty.
But, whenever or wherever I end up for my next convention, I'll definitely remember the faces and names of those who made this con what it was for me.
Hurricane Laura
Posted 5 years agoAs an update to this, we lucked out big-time.
An hour or so before it made landfall, Laura shifted its course slightly eastward, away from us. This was enough of a shift that we were able to get away with just scraping the edge of the heavy winds and rain. The highest recorded local windspeed was 78 KPH sustained, gusting to 107 KPH. Our damages were limited to small and medium (< 3 cm ⌀) limbs falling, shingles being loosened, and vinyl siding coming off the wood trim on our house.
Our power was out for a few hours; not the "4 weeks or so" we were expecting. Our central aircon was out for a couple of days, however, due to overload while we were waiting for the storm to blow through.
All-in-all, we got damned lucky that it shifted at the last second. Everything's back open to how it was before the storm.
HOWEVER.
Since the area I work at was ground zero for the eyewall, I'm fully expecting that the area local to my workplace is going to be down and out for quite some time. I'm not worried about my workplace as much as I am about my coworkers; they're mostly locals (I'm not) and got hit way harder than we did. I haven't heard any bad news outside of the usual post-incident stuff, so that's always a good sign.
The original text of this journal follows:
____________________
____________________
I'm most likely going to be off the grid for a short while.
As I'm sure a lot of you know, Tropical Storm (upgraded to Hurricane as of 07:15 this morning) is coming right for the TexLa border. NWS is expecting sustained winds to be in excess of 110 MPH (175 KPH) when it makes landfall. It looks like it's going to be another Rita in terms of damage.
When Rita hit us in '05, we were on the "wind damage" side of it (it made landfall right on the border with winds at 115 MPH [185 KPH] as a Category 3 after being downgraded from Cat 5). The charts I'm looking at are putting Laura on a similar path with roughly the same landfall area at roughly the same landfall strength.
I'm hoping for the best, but if Rita was any indication, I expect to be without power for a few weeks. Which means I'm going to be completely unavailable for any reason, as the cell towers are also probably going to be down.
There's a slim chance we'll evacuate. I don't know yet. We rode out Rita as well, and we were also on the "wind damage" side of Rita.
We'll see what happens. If I go unresponsive, well... I'll see you folks on the other side of this.
An hour or so before it made landfall, Laura shifted its course slightly eastward, away from us. This was enough of a shift that we were able to get away with just scraping the edge of the heavy winds and rain. The highest recorded local windspeed was 78 KPH sustained, gusting to 107 KPH. Our damages were limited to small and medium (< 3 cm ⌀) limbs falling, shingles being loosened, and vinyl siding coming off the wood trim on our house.
Our power was out for a few hours; not the "4 weeks or so" we were expecting. Our central aircon was out for a couple of days, however, due to overload while we were waiting for the storm to blow through.
All-in-all, we got damned lucky that it shifted at the last second. Everything's back open to how it was before the storm.
HOWEVER.
Since the area I work at was ground zero for the eyewall, I'm fully expecting that the area local to my workplace is going to be down and out for quite some time. I'm not worried about my workplace as much as I am about my coworkers; they're mostly locals (I'm not) and got hit way harder than we did. I haven't heard any bad news outside of the usual post-incident stuff, so that's always a good sign.
The original text of this journal follows:
____________________
____________________
I'm most likely going to be off the grid for a short while.
As I'm sure a lot of you know, Tropical Storm (upgraded to Hurricane as of 07:15 this morning) is coming right for the TexLa border. NWS is expecting sustained winds to be in excess of 110 MPH (175 KPH) when it makes landfall. It looks like it's going to be another Rita in terms of damage.
When Rita hit us in '05, we were on the "wind damage" side of it (it made landfall right on the border with winds at 115 MPH [185 KPH] as a Category 3 after being downgraded from Cat 5). The charts I'm looking at are putting Laura on a similar path with roughly the same landfall area at roughly the same landfall strength.
I'm hoping for the best, but if Rita was any indication, I expect to be without power for a few weeks. Which means I'm going to be completely unavailable for any reason, as the cell towers are also probably going to be down.
There's a slim chance we'll evacuate. I don't know yet. We rode out Rita as well, and we were also on the "wind damage" side of Rita.
We'll see what happens. If I go unresponsive, well... I'll see you folks on the other side of this.
MFF 2019 - Debriefing
Posted 6 years agoIt was my first convention. I was expecting it to be pretty good. Just... 'pretty good'. Nothing spectacular, just a chance to meet old friends and unwind from work.
Calling it 'pretty good' would be doing it a great injustice.
Midwest FurFest 2019 was my first furry convention, period. I had no idea what to expect, so I was basing what I figured would happen, off of my personal experiences with the Texas Renaissance Festival. I had booked everything well in advance, paid down the credit card bill, and was ready to go. I packed too many clothes (at my mother's insistence...) into one suitcase, threw some locks on my backpack, and went through combinations on a briefcase one-by-one until I figured out what it was set to, so I could lock that too.
--- Wednesday ---
I was pretty nervous when I walked into the airport at almost 3 in the morning. Lines were short, and the TSA booths hadn't even opened up yet. They were testing the fire alarms, for christ sake! Before I knew it, it was time to board, and I was sitting in the back row by the lavatories. (Always go for the back row; if you cram your personal item under your seat in the back row you can put your feet under the seat in front of you for more legroom.) I landed in Chicago at half past eight, got booked into my room (with an upgrade to balcony, woo!) and... promptly crashed. Woke up about 8 hours after that.
The first night was more or less hanging out with largoes, asurium, and mah00ty. I was real nervous, as it was my first time alone, in a large city, and I really didn't know them all too well after I kinda sorta disappeared off of Twitter in late 2016. I was testing the waters, and pretty soon I found that they didn't give two shits about who I was back home - they knew me as a friend, not some burned-out blue-collar underpaid technician working out of Lake Charles. After I made it back to the stateroom, I downed a melatonin and tried (and succeeded!) in repairing my sleep schedule, with the knowledge that this was going to be more than just 'pretty good'.
--- Thursday ---
Thursday rolled around, and was hectic. I was looking for people, people who I didn't know how they looked, or how they sounded. People I had fallen out of contact with since 2016 at the latest, 2014 in Kayde's case. I didn't even notice some of them walk in, because again, I didn't know what they looked like; imagine my surprise when I realised that Kayde was right behind me for a while. My roommate's transportation was... a series of unfortunate events, and Jackson didn't arrive until two hours or so after he said he was expecting to.
I ran through registration but accidentally got in the wrong line (I got in the line for at-the-door reg when I'd pre-registered, whoops. They let me scan my code there anyway) and wound up getting through it in record time. I also met paritybit and he showed me how his monkey's fist balloons squeaked when you squeezed one. They SQUEAKED. He referred to it as 'balloonomancy'... I wouldn't refer to it as anything else. Still trying to wrap my head around how.
However, there was an incident with one of the people I was hanging out with - while my phone had died and I had to retreat back to my stateroom to get the battery pack and the USB cable, one of my friends had a medical incident at the rego line. I'm not going to go into further details, but as soon as I knew, I literally ran from my stateroom, down the stairs, all the way over the skybridge to con reg - the only times I stopped to rest were where I physically couldn't run (due to oncoming traffic).Shortly after he was in the care of medical, I retired back to the stateroom for a while, then popped over to hang out with metalstorm for an hour or so. Another melatonin, and I was out like a light.
--- Friday ---
We made the opening ceremony, then we hung out in Kayde's stateroom briefly before we all hit the Dealer's Den. I picked up an LED nameplate and a collar; and scouted for what I wanted to pick up later. We reconvened near the snack bar, and eventually scattered again before heading back Kayde's stateroom. Some of the group, I forget exactly who, picked up pizza (honestly, I'm not too big a fan of Chicago-style deep dish... sorry, Chicago!) and a fuckload of groceries while I brought over my Bacardí.
There was another moment of stress, though; one of my friends wound up ill from overeating. They did their thing in worshipping the porcelain throne, and eventually trudged back to one of the beds, and fell asleep. An hour or so later, I trudged back to my stateroom with my roommate in tow, took a shower and some more melatonin, and did the same.
--- Saturday ---
Saturday was the fun day.
I was essentially asurium's handler for the first part of the day; we went to the Artists' Alley briefly, then we realized that the Fursuit Menagerie was starting, so we went there. Took plenty of photos, and we stayed around for a decent hour or so before my only point of contact to the group, Discord, went down and out, so I don't really have too accurate a record as to what happened before it came back up. (As a sidenote, I refuse to use Telegram: any service that requires my phone number to use can honestly fuck right off.) I took quite a few photos, but I'm still sifting through them all. Afterwards, I and Jackson went to the Dealer's Den and bought what we'd been scouting out, I got a couple of prints and a scarf.
One of our group went home later that day, sadly.
And then... hoo boy. After that, there was the rave. Oli wanted to go to the rave in a full suit, but as soon as he got down in rainbolt's suit, he pretty much immediately noped back up to the stateroom with it. I asked Thoril if I could wear it, and he let me. Then I went down to the rave... and let me tell you, that was an experience. I couldn't see too well because my glasses lens was fogging up, and eventually I took them off and gave them to one of our party for safekeeping, but I raved for a full hour, stopping every 20 minutes or so for water. I had SO MUCH FUN! I didn't even notice that the group was in front of the sound booth, which had a camera on it, so I accidentally made it onto the MFF Saturday Dance video.
I wish I could have suited longer, but alas, it was not meant to be: I was hot and sweating in the suit and while Oli's fan fit perfectly in the suit's mouth, giving me much-needed ventilation, I knew the instant I started feeling a headache coming on that I was suffering from heat exhaustion and I needed to get out of the suit and rest. It was a shame, too; largoes was my handler (of sorts) for the event, and he was having so much fun, I could see him whenever I turned my head. Alas, I had to pull him away - he was so understanding about it. I wish more people were like that.
I sadly didn't get any photos of myself dressed as Thoril, but a few people asked for a photo; I'm sure there's one or two floating around somewhere.
--- Sunday ---
I went to the dance competition, my first ever one. I wasn't too big into it - different strokes for different folks, I suppose - but I did accidentally get the MC to do an entire joke routine after she and someone else pulled out a couple of chairs, thanked the guy who did it (and introduced him as next year's MC) and I shouted "YEAH, CHAIRS!" from the back. It's barely audible on the dance comp video, but the audio's so desynched that I don't really remember the leadup or payoff of that.
I wandered around a bit solo, taking photos of a couple of the entrants, then I eventually walked down to the closing ceremonies, saw the line, and... said yeah nah. Walked over to metalstorm's room and hung out for a bit, got food truck and spent some more time with him and xeirla.
Made a tactical retreat back to Kayde's at some point, and... passed out on the floor by the bed. Managed to drag myself back to my stateroom and continue sleeping. Fisk and Liam bunked with me and Jackson that night; they'd checked out of their room and I had a double bed that I wasn't really using.
--- Monday ---
I didn't hear my plus-two leave until the door slammed. I don't remember if they said farewell like they said they would, and I certainly don't remember saying farewell to them myself. But, I never did get back to sleep once Jackson left, so I started inventorying the room, FedExing the stuff that got left behind and making sure that I had everything packed and ready to go. After that, I ate, talked on Discord for a while, and... passed out. Woke up about 17:00, got my bearings together, snapped some long-exposure photographs from the now-empty skybridge, and walked a block or so over to the Macca's for some chicken nuggets.
While I was walking the streets, the post-con depression hit like a truck. I wasn't going to be able to see my friends face-to-face again for another year at the least. It saddened me greatly to know that, and I vented about it to one of my friends that checked up on me, I also realised something: It gave me something to look forward to. I had something I could do again next year! Possibly.
I did a bit more of a Twitter rant about it, here: https://twitter.com/EvilJackCarver/.....11266467876864
--- Tuesday ---
I was reluctant to leave Chicago and go home, but I had to. I had to return to the mundane life of which I am accustomed. I woke up and walked down to the breakfast buffet, only to be told that there would be no buffet that day, sadly. I saw a couple of people with furry stickers on their luggage on the way back down, but the hotel had gone from a furry paradise back to a mundane item on the business expense list.
I left and headed to the airport, had Macca's again for food. Flew back into Houston, and drove home.
--- Overview ---
Honestly, I'm glad I was able to go. I really needed to unwind from work stress. I needed a lot of things, and I was glad that I was able to go to MFF 2019. I've also been bitten by the fursuiting bug, but I sadly won't be able to afford one until my car note is paid off. Hopefully, I can get a better job soon that pays more, and I'll be able to pay down the credit card without much issues.
It was a fun first time, Midwest FurFest. Wir sehen uns nächstes Jahr.
Calling it 'pretty good' would be doing it a great injustice.
Midwest FurFest 2019 was my first furry convention, period. I had no idea what to expect, so I was basing what I figured would happen, off of my personal experiences with the Texas Renaissance Festival. I had booked everything well in advance, paid down the credit card bill, and was ready to go. I packed too many clothes (at my mother's insistence...) into one suitcase, threw some locks on my backpack, and went through combinations on a briefcase one-by-one until I figured out what it was set to, so I could lock that too.
--- Wednesday ---
I was pretty nervous when I walked into the airport at almost 3 in the morning. Lines were short, and the TSA booths hadn't even opened up yet. They were testing the fire alarms, for christ sake! Before I knew it, it was time to board, and I was sitting in the back row by the lavatories. (Always go for the back row; if you cram your personal item under your seat in the back row you can put your feet under the seat in front of you for more legroom.) I landed in Chicago at half past eight, got booked into my room (with an upgrade to balcony, woo!) and... promptly crashed. Woke up about 8 hours after that.
The first night was more or less hanging out with largoes, asurium, and mah00ty. I was real nervous, as it was my first time alone, in a large city, and I really didn't know them all too well after I kinda sorta disappeared off of Twitter in late 2016. I was testing the waters, and pretty soon I found that they didn't give two shits about who I was back home - they knew me as a friend, not some burned-out blue-collar underpaid technician working out of Lake Charles. After I made it back to the stateroom, I downed a melatonin and tried (and succeeded!) in repairing my sleep schedule, with the knowledge that this was going to be more than just 'pretty good'.
--- Thursday ---
Thursday rolled around, and was hectic. I was looking for people, people who I didn't know how they looked, or how they sounded. People I had fallen out of contact with since 2016 at the latest, 2014 in Kayde's case. I didn't even notice some of them walk in, because again, I didn't know what they looked like; imagine my surprise when I realised that Kayde was right behind me for a while. My roommate's transportation was... a series of unfortunate events, and Jackson didn't arrive until two hours or so after he said he was expecting to.
I ran through registration but accidentally got in the wrong line (I got in the line for at-the-door reg when I'd pre-registered, whoops. They let me scan my code there anyway) and wound up getting through it in record time. I also met paritybit and he showed me how his monkey's fist balloons squeaked when you squeezed one. They SQUEAKED. He referred to it as 'balloonomancy'... I wouldn't refer to it as anything else. Still trying to wrap my head around how.
However, there was an incident with one of the people I was hanging out with - while my phone had died and I had to retreat back to my stateroom to get the battery pack and the USB cable, one of my friends had a medical incident at the rego line. I'm not going to go into further details, but as soon as I knew, I literally ran from my stateroom, down the stairs, all the way over the skybridge to con reg - the only times I stopped to rest were where I physically couldn't run (due to oncoming traffic).Shortly after he was in the care of medical, I retired back to the stateroom for a while, then popped over to hang out with metalstorm for an hour or so. Another melatonin, and I was out like a light.
--- Friday ---
We made the opening ceremony, then we hung out in Kayde's stateroom briefly before we all hit the Dealer's Den. I picked up an LED nameplate and a collar; and scouted for what I wanted to pick up later. We reconvened near the snack bar, and eventually scattered again before heading back Kayde's stateroom. Some of the group, I forget exactly who, picked up pizza (honestly, I'm not too big a fan of Chicago-style deep dish... sorry, Chicago!) and a fuckload of groceries while I brought over my Bacardí.
There was another moment of stress, though; one of my friends wound up ill from overeating. They did their thing in worshipping the porcelain throne, and eventually trudged back to one of the beds, and fell asleep. An hour or so later, I trudged back to my stateroom with my roommate in tow, took a shower and some more melatonin, and did the same.
--- Saturday ---
Saturday was the fun day.
I was essentially asurium's handler for the first part of the day; we went to the Artists' Alley briefly, then we realized that the Fursuit Menagerie was starting, so we went there. Took plenty of photos, and we stayed around for a decent hour or so before my only point of contact to the group, Discord, went down and out, so I don't really have too accurate a record as to what happened before it came back up. (As a sidenote, I refuse to use Telegram: any service that requires my phone number to use can honestly fuck right off.) I took quite a few photos, but I'm still sifting through them all. Afterwards, I and Jackson went to the Dealer's Den and bought what we'd been scouting out, I got a couple of prints and a scarf.
One of our group went home later that day, sadly.
And then... hoo boy. After that, there was the rave. Oli wanted to go to the rave in a full suit, but as soon as he got down in rainbolt's suit, he pretty much immediately noped back up to the stateroom with it. I asked Thoril if I could wear it, and he let me. Then I went down to the rave... and let me tell you, that was an experience. I couldn't see too well because my glasses lens was fogging up, and eventually I took them off and gave them to one of our party for safekeeping, but I raved for a full hour, stopping every 20 minutes or so for water. I had SO MUCH FUN! I didn't even notice that the group was in front of the sound booth, which had a camera on it, so I accidentally made it onto the MFF Saturday Dance video.
I wish I could have suited longer, but alas, it was not meant to be: I was hot and sweating in the suit and while Oli's fan fit perfectly in the suit's mouth, giving me much-needed ventilation, I knew the instant I started feeling a headache coming on that I was suffering from heat exhaustion and I needed to get out of the suit and rest. It was a shame, too; largoes was my handler (of sorts) for the event, and he was having so much fun, I could see him whenever I turned my head. Alas, I had to pull him away - he was so understanding about it. I wish more people were like that.
I sadly didn't get any photos of myself dressed as Thoril, but a few people asked for a photo; I'm sure there's one or two floating around somewhere.
--- Sunday ---
I went to the dance competition, my first ever one. I wasn't too big into it - different strokes for different folks, I suppose - but I did accidentally get the MC to do an entire joke routine after she and someone else pulled out a couple of chairs, thanked the guy who did it (and introduced him as next year's MC) and I shouted "YEAH, CHAIRS!" from the back. It's barely audible on the dance comp video, but the audio's so desynched that I don't really remember the leadup or payoff of that.
I wandered around a bit solo, taking photos of a couple of the entrants, then I eventually walked down to the closing ceremonies, saw the line, and... said yeah nah. Walked over to metalstorm's room and hung out for a bit, got food truck and spent some more time with him and xeirla.
Made a tactical retreat back to Kayde's at some point, and... passed out on the floor by the bed. Managed to drag myself back to my stateroom and continue sleeping. Fisk and Liam bunked with me and Jackson that night; they'd checked out of their room and I had a double bed that I wasn't really using.
--- Monday ---
I didn't hear my plus-two leave until the door slammed. I don't remember if they said farewell like they said they would, and I certainly don't remember saying farewell to them myself. But, I never did get back to sleep once Jackson left, so I started inventorying the room, FedExing the stuff that got left behind and making sure that I had everything packed and ready to go. After that, I ate, talked on Discord for a while, and... passed out. Woke up about 17:00, got my bearings together, snapped some long-exposure photographs from the now-empty skybridge, and walked a block or so over to the Macca's for some chicken nuggets.
While I was walking the streets, the post-con depression hit like a truck. I wasn't going to be able to see my friends face-to-face again for another year at the least. It saddened me greatly to know that, and I vented about it to one of my friends that checked up on me, I also realised something: It gave me something to look forward to. I had something I could do again next year! Possibly.
I did a bit more of a Twitter rant about it, here: https://twitter.com/EvilJackCarver/.....11266467876864
--- Tuesday ---
I was reluctant to leave Chicago and go home, but I had to. I had to return to the mundane life of which I am accustomed. I woke up and walked down to the breakfast buffet, only to be told that there would be no buffet that day, sadly. I saw a couple of people with furry stickers on their luggage on the way back down, but the hotel had gone from a furry paradise back to a mundane item on the business expense list.
I left and headed to the airport, had Macca's again for food. Flew back into Houston, and drove home.
--- Overview ---
Honestly, I'm glad I was able to go. I really needed to unwind from work stress. I needed a lot of things, and I was glad that I was able to go to MFF 2019. I've also been bitten by the fursuiting bug, but I sadly won't be able to afford one until my car note is paid off. Hopefully, I can get a better job soon that pays more, and I'll be able to pay down the credit card without much issues.
It was a fun first time, Midwest FurFest. Wir sehen uns nächstes Jahr.
MFF
Posted 6 years agoI'm at MFF!
This is my first convention, and honestly I'm a bit overwhelmed. I'll probably be a bit more relaxed when my roommate comes in later.
This is my first convention, and honestly I'm a bit overwhelmed. I'll probably be a bit more relaxed when my roommate comes in later.
Finishing the upload of old art, plus future plans
Posted 6 years agoNow that I'm done uploading my older stuff from Weasyl and FN that I'd like to have here. I'm still rather ambivalent on having an FA in the first place, but as they say, "don't knock it 'til you try it".
Moving forward, I'll be posting here, Twitter, and Weasyl regularly (for now); I plan to upload Kei Truck here at some point later today (which was what spurred me actually going through and uploading the older art I'm still proud of).
Moving forward, I'll be posting here, Twitter, and Weasyl regularly (for now); I plan to upload Kei Truck here at some point later today (which was what spurred me actually going through and uploading the older art I'm still proud of).
Plans
Posted 6 years agoSo I think I know what I'm gonna end up doing with this.
I'm probably going to slowly, over the course of a few days, maybe a week, start uploading my old art. I don't know whether or not I'll maintain this like I do my Weasyl yet, but at the very least it won't be empty.
(also, fun fact, FA will actually let you submit a journal entry without body text.)
I'm probably going to slowly, over the course of a few days, maybe a week, start uploading my old art. I don't know whether or not I'll maintain this like I do my Weasyl yet, but at the very least it won't be empty.
(also, fun fact, FA will actually let you submit a journal entry without body text.)
