It's interesting how, in this day and age, I forget how much I take for granted. Like, I just took about five minutes to Google Image search something. I've had cable internet at my fingertips ever since I graduated high school, and Google has been a big thing for a while now (yeah I know, understatement).

And yet, there's been things I've fancied since my youth that I could have found very easily in the past years with the accessibility the internet provides. But I never did, and it struck me as odd.

When I was a young teen, one of the first novels I ever read was Dale Brown's "Flight of the Old Dog". I had always been an aviation enthusiast, and my mother bought me the novel because I was playing the hell out of the tie-in video game (back when video games fit on a 3.11 floppy I kid you not). And yes, I read it and loved it. I found the imagination of it inspiring, and there's something just infinitely badass about the titular plane. That all said, it is a work of fiction and something that cool doesn't exist.

At that time in my life (late 90's), I had some friends who were heavy into model building. While over at their house one day, they showed me a photo album of some model building convention sort of stuff their dad used to attend. And there, one photo, was a model someone built of the Old Dog! I totally geeked out over it. My friends didn't even know what it was, I had to explain it to them. I begged them to make a copy of the photo for me, but we lived in a small town with no business having a photo processing center, so I never got a copy of the photo. And that had always bummed me out.

So now, here I sit, 30 years old, in the new world the internet has created. People take and share photos over their cell phones, having printed photos is quaint and an ever-more-diminishing way of possessing and showing off photos, and everything is available at my fingertips. Not ten minutes prior to writing this, I saw something on twitter that reminded me about this aircraft. And on a whim, I google imaged searched and found a few dozen computer model renderings, several versions of model kits (probably custom modded) people have built, photo manips, and my inner teen is just squealing with delight.

I could have done that at any point in the past ten years, but never did. Guess when everything is just there, there's no urgency to seek it out. Young me would have been disappointed it took this long to do. Back then, I would have been ecstatic to have one such picture available to gawk at. Nowadays, if I really put effort into it, I can probably get a high-res image and take it somewhere to be made into a poster. Yet my walls are barren.

There's also this odd inner feeling I can't quite describe. Maybe nostalgia? But I see these pictures, especially the real physical models, and I'm taken back again to my first reading of the novel. Back then, reading the novel felt so engrossing and call me a nerd/geek all you want, but I really did get swept up into a story and I enjoyed every minute of it. I eventually went on to read many more of Dale Brown's novels, most of them involving the Megafortress. I admit, I completely fanboy over the aircraft.

I don't think it's healthy to live in the past, but I think it is perfectly healthy to revisit it. I should probably dig up the novel (I have at least two copies in my closet that I'm aware of), and experience it again. It'd be great to feel that sense of awe and excitement again that I felt when I was so much younger.


And oddly, yes, I still have the original box of the Megafortress game. Keeping in mind the time in which it was made; the game is smaller in size than the images of the box art I've downloaded.

You ever see people do "fursuit maker" photoshoots and refer to the participants as extended family? What if we handled fursuit names like that - the first name is whatever you give it, but the surname is the fursuit maker.

Hello, I'm Chipperwolf Onefurall

Oh nice to meet you Chipper! I'm Shockwave Sokitwopaw.

A recent comment by one of my watchers got me to thinking about vocational schooling, so I wanted to talk about that.

Back in high school, during my senior year, I was convinced to take a course in phlebotomy on the weekends at a trade school. It was definitely an interesting experience, and even though nothing came of it, I have to say I did enjoy taking the class itself and it's something I'd like to briefly discuss with everyone in the style of a self-interview!


Phle-what?

Phlebotomy, for those who don't know the proper term for it, is basically sticking a needle into someone for the purposes of drawing blood. Yes, that unpleasant experience which happens to all of us for dozens of reasons as we grow up and grow old. But, different facilities handle the procedure differently. It's entirely possible that every blood draw you've had done was performed by a nurse, nurse's assistant, or someone else from a different field, that was trained in phlebotomy on the side, rather than a technician whose one and only trade skill was that. And that's what I was - a trained technician.


So this is something you can just go and learn in a vocational school?

For me it was, but that's also handled differently by different states (which factors into the latter part of this story). I had to go to this school to attend class every Saturday for the Spring semester of my senior year in high school. So, all-in-all it was a short course considering it's part of the medical field.


You said nothing came of it, though? What happened?

That's correct, I was never employed as a phlebotomist, and nothing I've done in my life has drawn upon those skills. I don't regret taking that class, either. I enjoyed the experience. But life circumstances got in the way.

My mother and her daughter were having intense financial and domestic problems. I was young and stupid (as opposed to now, where I'm older and...well...older), and I thought I could help. In my eagerness to try to save my mother from bankruptcy, I planned to move out there with them and get a job to stabilize the household.

The problem was, as my high school graduation neared, my plane ticket was booked, I was packed and ready to fly. My flight was three days after my high school graduation. After I graduated my phlebotomy class, I was quite happy with myself. But, there's a catch. I was only certified to perform phlebotomy in the state of New York. There's a national licensing test that's given out that allows you to be employed as a phlebotomist in all 50 states...but it was scheduled for weeks after I had to depart for Las Vegas. So that meant that I would be arriving in Vegas with nothing of vocational value.


Okay, so why not take the test in Las Vegas?

Because as I alluded to earlier, different states do things differently. If I had landed in Vegas with that license, instead of that certificate, I could have sought employment as such. But Vegas had a different set of rules for administering the test itself. The only people who administered the test was a local community college that refused to simply administer it ad hoc. To qualify to take it, you had to take their phlebtomoy course. Which sounds almost reasonable...except for them, it's an elective that you take on the side of select two-year degree programs. In other words, they wouldn't give me the test unless I attended their school for two years in the pursuit of a more expensive degree, with phlebotomy licensing being secondary to that.

I barely passed high school. I excelled in the sciences and math, but I absolutely bombed in history and foreign language. In retrospect I probably shouldn't have even gotten my diploma, and I wouldn't have if my teachers in those subjects hadn't seen me struggle so hard so they gave me a passing "D" just to get me out of there and on with my life.

Unlike vocational schools who are happy to train individuals to master a particular set of skills, colleges have this stick up their ass about making everybody a "well-rounded" individual who knows a great deal about every field of study but specializing in one or two. That wasn't going to happen with me. My high school didn't even offer chemistry class, because it was cut from the curriculum to save money. Even if I thought I could get through college somehow, I'd have to tack on a bunch of remedial courses to get myself up to basic proficiency in a multitude of subjects. There was no time or money for anything like that; the very reason I was moving out there was because my mother was on the verge of bankruptcy to begin with.


What ended up happening with all this?

Well, despite my best efforts, the situation with my mother collapsed because no teenager can save their parents from making irrational and ignorant decisions. Those decisions added up until the stuff hit the fan, and everybody was scattered to the four winds. My mother lost the house, which was in terrible shape and she was lucky to sell it off before she had to declare bankruptcy. She was temporarily homeless and ended up living with a friend of hers until she got back on her feet. I ended up in Pennsylvania, where I still reside.


Did you pursue this in Pennsylvania?

I looked into it, briefly. By the time that my life stabilized to the point where I could look into things like that again, I found out that phlebotomists (in this area anyway) made less than my current job, so I never pursued it again past that. In retrospect it does make sense; if any schmuck can take a semester at a vocational school, it's probably a market that's easily saturated. Even if such a job sounds a lot more prestigious than whatever blue-collar work I currently do, prestige and pride don't pay the bills. Cash does. And the cash wasn't there. Maybe there are career opportunities and advancement that would make such pursuits more viable long-term, but gambling on the future is a rich man's luxury. I, a member of the working poor, don't get the luxury of gambling that things will get better. I cannot afford to live in the future; I have to worry about the here and now.

Okay, short little story from Anthrocon 2015. But first, a bit of backstory.

I don't do fashion. I have shirts. All of the shirts I have ever bought for myself are one-color, fit a little loose so they're comfortable, and that's it. No logos, no patterns, nothing. Why yes I am single, how did you know? I have other shirts that, over the years of my life, my family has given me for either my birthday or Christmas. Whatever they get me, they get me, I don't usually care what it says on it, what picture is displayed, as long as it fits. If it fits, I still wear it. Of course that means I don't always know the significance of what's imprinted on my chest.

So back during Anthrocon 2015, one of the days I was walking around doing my photo thing. As I walked through the lobby of the Westin, a guy (an uber driver handing out business cards) looked at me and made a noise that...how should I put this? I can't replicate the noise myself and I can only describe it as something like Tim Allen from the show "Home Improvement", crossed with an Orc's grunt. I raised an eyebrow but walked on by. A little bit later, perhaps an hour or two, I was walking through the lobby again. That guy was still there. He saw me again, made direct eye contact, and made that odd noise again. Again, I gave him a confused look. So then he speaks up.

"Hey man, I made the grunt! You're supposed to grunt back!"

"Um...hello? I don't know what you're talking about and you're starting to freak me out."

He points to my chest and says, "Your shirt man! Insane Clown Posse! *Grunt grunt grunt*"

All I can do at this point is give him a blank stare. "Oh..is that what this demonic clown thing is? I didn't know"

"You don't know who Insane Clown Posse is?"

"No. Should I?"

"You're wearing their shirt!"

"Oh. Well it was an xmas gift. Sorry."

Then I made a hasty exit. Since then I've paid a bit more attention to my clothing choices. I was just reminded of this story because I just did a cycle of laundry, said shirt being among the cleansed wardrobe pieces, and I came to the realization that I must have worn that shirt again at some point (obviously, since it was in the dirty linens pile), and had no idea. Apparently I'm still not paying enough attention to what I'm wearing.

Anyway. Insane Clown Posse. So that's a thing! Who knew?

Hello everyone! Today I thought I'd talk a little bit about my photos. Specifically, I wanted to talk about the process of editing photos for my Flickr gallery, and while doing so explain what makes this process take so long. Before I go on, I should say that nobody has ever directly asked me this question, or even implied it. But, I'm also not completely oblivious either. I know I've seen people happily announce that they have their entire photo galleries up mere days after the convention. That's a stark contrast to myself, where today I had to tell someone on Twitter that it might be a while before I get to their photos.

That made me stop and think about it, and I don't think I've ever really described what I do with a photo. Before I write any further, I already know that this is going to be long. Read strictly if you're curious.

Note: I don't do these in this precise order. I do each edit in the order that I feel it necessary for each photo

Step 1: typically, choose one photo out of a series.
I will take anywhere between 3-5 photos of a suiter in rapid succession if I have the chance. It's for good reason; sometimes the light balancing sensor will pick up on the wrong part of the image, often the focus isn't exactly where it needs to be, and there's constantly people moving in and out of frame in the background. All that, plus subtle differences in fursuiter pose, mean that I have to weigh the merits of each photo in a quick series to decide which one of the bunch I'll push up for editing. No lie, this step alone can take some time.

Sometimes it's a tough decision between "well the lighting is perfect in this one, but someone is directly behind the suit and gesturing - the suit looks like it has a human arm growing out of the side", and the other, "well, there's no distracting background elements in this one, but the focus is a just a tad off...will it be noticeable when I downsize it? And the lighting is off, which means heavier editing, but I think I can make it work".

Step 2: dark levels.
Okay, so either there's only one photo to use, or I've chosen the one out of the set. There's a good chance the particular photo is from indoors with inadequate lighting, meaning I'll have to mess with a lot of dark light levels. This is, without a doubt, the most time-consuming step in the process (and the reason I can pump out more "outside" photos, verses "indoor" photos in a given time frame). There's a few tools I have to work with that help with dark areas, and all of them have different consequences on the photo at large when I employ them.

Some of those consequences I can dial down with further edits, some are unavoidable. Sometimes I can get away with using just one tool, sometimes I have to use all of them and deal with the fallout of all of the combined problems that brings about. These edits can have complications on sharpness, grain, other light levels, color, saturation, etc. And I have to manage and balance the basic visibility of the subjects in the photo, against all these problems which detract from the photo.

Step 3: mid levels
Now I have my photo, and I bounced the lighting in the darkest areas of the photo so that the subject is entirely visible, instead of partially obscured by shadow. Now, the photo might still have general lighting problems where the overall image may be visible, but still a little dark. Luckily, this is easier to deal with than strict shadows, but still requires some finesse. Again, I have a couple tools at my disposal, but the consequences are easier to deal with. They're mostly the same problems, just less severe. However the one new problem that comes about is...

Step 4: highlight levels
After getting a photo selected, bumping the dark levels, and bringing the mid levels up, I've created a new problem. The uppermost light levels are now too strong in some segments of the photo. I have one specific tool, and one tool alone, that deals with this. "Highlights" levels slider bar (and it's cousin, but that doesn't really count). This takes down those ultra-bright segments of the photo, but can sometimes not be enough if I've had to boost too much light. That means I have to decide whether or not to just leave it as-is, or make the picture darker until the highlights are acceptable even when max damped. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's decided on a case-by-case basis which direction the picture looks better in.

Step 5: white balancing.
Once I get the light levels where I need them, it's time to start thinking color! And of course, the cornerstone of color is white balancing. Outdoor midday shots are typically perfectly balanced or need minimal work. Afternoon shots can be way too yellowed or orange. Indoor shots are vulnerable to the lighting of the immediate vicinity. This may or may not get overpowered by my white flash, depending on distance between target and camera, flash potency, etc.

This usually isn't too hard, but there can be some nuance to it. True white balance often looks the best, but not always. Sometimes the yellowing of the late afternoon sun really brings out the best colors of a fursuit, and true-ing up the white balance just doesn't look as good, so the yellowing stays in (to an extent). Sometimes it's a hard decision. Yellow and a blue noodle dragon in the lobby? True white balance pales the yellow one, leaving the yellow in puts a tinge of yellow highlight on the blue one in the bright spots. Choices, choices.

Step 6: basic color balancing.
With the white balance where I need it, all of the rest of the colors in the photo fall in line to their respective states. Usually it's a gentle shift. My typical rule of thumb is to start with a 10% bump to general saturation, since my camera tends to rob a bit of color out of each shot. So 10% gets it around where it is equal to what was seen through the naked eye. Sometimes the photo doesn't need it. Sometimes it needs more.

Step 7: individual color balancing (optional).
At this point, I'll make a decision. "Does this one go further?" I don't think it's a secret that I find fursuits to be magnificent and beautiful, and I feel that my job isn't just to show you the suits- but to show you suits as beautifully as I see them. Often, but not always, this translates into "more vibrant colors". If I have the opportunity to really make the fursuit pop out of the picture via colors, I tend to take it. I can get away with this if the suit has colors distinct from the background, otherwise bumping colors on both accomplishes nothing. Typically I only boost between 10-15% if I go that route.

This involves both individual color saturation, and color luminosity. You'd be surprised at the effects you can get from boosting the luminance of a color.

Step 8: clarity, contrast, noise reduction.
Those are three different tools that effect different parts of the image all towards one goal - making the image look sharp and clear by enhancing details. But again, each tool can have some consequences that I have to manage. I may use none of them, or all of them in any given image. Some of those consequences though, push me back a few steps...

Step 9: go back to step 2 and re-tweak as necessary:
This is especially true if I have to mess with contrast, but even aside from it, sometimes I've edited myself to a point where there's now too much or too little of something I balanced back in an earlier step. That's the nature of consequences, sometimes earlier edits get pushed too far or negated as a side-effect from a later step. That means going back and rebalancing everything again. At this stage, it doesn't usually need much tweaking to get it back to where it was, but I might have to re-address every other step at least once more.

Step 10: crop
Easiest step to take, really needs no explanation. Sometimes I have to do it due to distracting background elements, mostly I do it to center a subject in the photo (unless artistically off-centered).

Step 11: imperfections.
Use of tools at disposal to mask or cover up problems from dust particles hovering in the air or on the lens itself. Sometimes slight marks on the suit too. This is rarely done, I'll admit, but it does come up from time to time.

Step???: do everything tens of times
Each edit in this process isn't a given. Nothing is easy. Each part has levels, percentages, problems that crop up and have to be closely examined, or simply results that need to be closely examined and tweaked until they're at desired levels. This means something (for example: bumping light levels), say 10%, then going back and forth with "undo/redo" dozens of times. Is that 10% enough? Do I need more? Okay, now I've bumped up to 15%...is 10% or 15% better? Undo/redo, undo/redo, undo/redo. Is 15% too much? What distortions/artifacts/problems come up when I boost this much? Can I overcome those problems?

Back when I used my old computer, I used to do even more editing. That computer came with software that was very newbie-friendly for editing photos, and I often took the liberty of cleaning up things like dirty footpaws. With a decent paintbrush and transparency settings, I was able to really polish up suits. But I have a different computer now and I don't have access to that program. I could probably get this to work with Gimp, but I honestly have a lot of trouble figuring out how to do anything in Gimp.

I won't lie, I agonize over these details. I agonize over every dark patch in the photo I can't get reasonably brightened, I agonize over every color distortion I fight to fix, I agonize over poses and angles and all that. Even when I get a great photo to look absolutely fantastic, I still fret over things I could have done differently when taking the shot.

That's why posting photos takes so long for me. On a good day where I can sit down and dedicate a few hours after work, I can pump out 5-10 that day. For reference, I have a total of 2,604 photos to process. But as explained in step 1, I'm only posting roughly 1 out of every 5. So I'm estimating around 520 photos that will end up posted, that's roughly 50-100 working days. And I do have other obligations, so I can't do this every day. When I say it might be months before I get to your photo, that's why.

I've come a long way in taking better pictures from the get-go, but it's an art not a science. Having to work quickly and rapidly switch dozens of settings for each new shot with sometimes-impatient suiters can leave some photos lacking. And sometimes there's a huge disparity/disconnect between what my "image preview" shows me on my camera when I'm taking shots (and adjusting settings as necessary), and what my PC shows me when I get home. That makes improvising the shots a lot more difficult, since I can't rely on my instant feedback to be honest. In the future, I want to upgrade my camera to one with better low-light capabilities (my biggest issue right now). A friend of mine pointed me in a direction of a better Nikon camera which I might be able to afford if I skip MFF this year. Since MFF isn't looking likely anyway, that might be what I do.

Okay, so on Thursday at Anthrocon, I had a request from  jbjaguar to do a photoshoot on the DLCC roof. He gave me a memory card to put the photos onto, and the agreement was that I would return the card to him as soon as possible.

So, I did.

But there was nothing in that agreement that said I had to let him know I gave him the card back. At least not in that precise moment.

Later on the next day, I spotted him walking around in the dealer's den, his attention focused on a conversation with a dealer there. He was wearing shorts with somewhat loose-fitting pockets, and I saw an opportunity. I very casually walked up behind him, dropped the card in his pocket, and walked off. I thought he might have seen me walking away, but luckily he didn't notice.

I walked out of the dealer's den, whipped out my phone, and sent him a simple text message. "Want to see a magic trick? Check the pocket your cell phone is in."

Now if I recall the rest of the story correctly, it goes like this. He didn't check his phone for a while. He sat down for the "Hashtag" concert, and while waiting for the show to start. It was then that he checked his phone. He sees the message, checks the pocket and finds the card. He said he got a pretty good kick out of it.

So I think this has been my favorite Anthrocon so far. I met a lot of fantastic people, learned new things, took lots of great photos, participated in multiple organized photoshoots, and the weather was perfect.

Coming back home wasn't as great. Because I work graveyard shift, switching back into the appropriate sleep schedule for work has been patchy, but I think I finally have it under control now. PCD hit me pretty hard precisely because I had so much fun at AC. Coming home to an empty, dreary apartment after such an exciting weekend really hits you in the juxtaposition.

While I see others have already posted their galleries for their Anthrocon photos, I'm just getting underway. Because all of my photos need some measure of editing, this is going to be an extended process still. I'll post some of my favorites to FA, and of course, I'll be posting all of them to Flickr in the order they were taken, organized by day.

Some of you might have noticed that, in the weeks leading up to Anthrocon, I drastically picked up the pace of posting photos from 2014. That's because the excitement about the upcoming con helped lift my spirits and allowed me to focus on my work. I've touched upon this a little bit but I don't think I've ever really come out and said it - but I suffer from depression. And it keeps me from really focusing on constructive endeavors. That includes editing and posting photos. More than anything, that's been the reason behind my lack of contributions. And no, it isn't a coincidence that this started around the time that Banshee got adopted from the animal shelter.

It still hurts. It hurts a hell of a lot.


Moving on, I think I've come to the conclusion that I will need business cards in the future. While I'm taking pictures of fursuiters, I am getting asked for contact info way too often to stay on the fence about this idea. I floated it once before in an FA journal, but now I'm certain of it. I don't know what I really should have on there besides FA/Twitter/Flickr, but I would like to make the cards look somewhat nice. Anybody have ideas or suggestions about how to pretty-up a business card?

Anyway, I want to wrap this up by shouting out some big "thank-you!"s to some of the people I met at AC this year. This isn't a complete list, and I really don't want anyone to feel left out if I didn't name you, but I want to recognize some of the people that made this year's AC so amazing for me. In no particular order...

 leokitsune who graciously hosted the room I stayed in this year, is a swell guy, and offered to be my regular roomie if I so choose.
-One of the roomates, who was a witty and awesome young woman whom I can't remember the name of, sorry! But chatting with her and making jokes at the expense of "My neighbor Totoru" made for a memorable night.
 nexusfolf Who invited me to be the photographer for her photoshoot just before the parade. She's all sorts of miniature awesome and knowing that I'm trusted to be a set photographer really lifts my spirits and motivates me to get better.
 jbjaguar Who also invited me for a photoshoot, and was involved with a funny story*
 zarafa Who invited me to be the photographer for a post-parade purple-fursuiter shoot.
 senkolke Who took time out of his busy weekend to have breakfast with me, and is an overall cool cat 8D
 skyryd3r Who is just amazing in his portrayal of his Tien Long character, always making me giddy with excitement like a kid going to Disneyland. A big hug from him and Qing is always the highlight of my day <3

*Funny story will be told in the next journal, this one is getting long.

Okay, long long time ago, I didn't play MMOs. Well, I used to peruse a bunch of forums of ill repute, where MMOs would occasionally come up in the normal discourse. Those discussions are what led me to EvE online. Among other things discussed, is that in EvE, you do NOT try to drag "furry" into it. Don't talk about it. Just play the game, nobody wants to hear about your hobbies.

No problem! I don't tend to discuss furry outside of the appropriate forums and people. I'm very, very discreet.

So just now I find out I'm in corp comms with a furry...a discreet furry, he didn't say anything directly about it, but he made an off-the-cuff comment (something like, "Ugh, got to go deal with some furries now...") that led to me doing some FA searches. Not only is this guy a furry, the damn corp I'm in is named after his personal band.

Even when I actively avoid doing furry things, I somehow get dragged in without knowing it.

Said furry disabled access to his FA page, and no I'm not going to link it.

Life is like flying a plane.

You can detour; veer left or right. You can do barrel rolls and loops, or you can fly straight. You can fly with or against the wind. How you get to your destination is up to you. The only thing you can't control is that you're going forward; there is no reverse.

...is meta-tricking some of my casual friends. I have this guy I play Team Fortress 2 with, and he gets into a minor tizzy anytime he sees a furry or brony in the server we're playing on, and ESPECIALLY if they use their microphone and sound like a little kid. He's fairly good-natured about it all, but it's still funny to hear him go off on a tangent.

So, for April Fool's, I told him I was a furry. Which, lasted all for about five seconds before I burst out laughing and told him "happy April Fool's".

Which, of course produced the predictable reaction of his, "Oh, that was just a joke...".

No my friend, the April Fool's joke was the part where I used that fact to have you trick yourself. It's kind of like that short exchange in the first Star Trek reboot movie.

Young Spock "You lied?"
Leonard Nimoy "I implied".

Stuff the truth into a lie; it's the last place anyone will look for it..

Have a devious and fun April Fool's everyone, and make sure you don't mess with people over anything important!

Little blog I was linked to this morning from another journal. http://healthynotnuts.com/2015/12/0.....e-rosemont-il/

I thought the first photo looked familiar...turns out I had just finished photographing  Vitaislade, so the pose was almost exactly the same. Then I saw the caption on that pic ("professionally shot...") and did a little dance in my chair. Someone mistook me for a professional! Then I looked at the shot I got just at that same time...and her cell phone camera picture came out better than mine did. That was a shot I had botched due to bad settings. So that deflated whatever ego I almost got from it.

The good news is that other photos from the set came out a little better, so it wasn't a complete loss. But being outdone by a quick cell phone snap just really takes the piss.

Since I've started taking fursuit photos for the community, I've had a lot of struggles. I'm still struggling to understand the mechanics of photography better so I take better photos. I still struggle to come up with creative ideas for poses and environments for those suiters to keep my photos interesting. I still struggle to try to keep a keen eye on the photos on my computer to understand the levels and contrasts of what I'm seeing. I still struggle with mastering the photo editing tools at my disposal to make the most of every shot. I'm even still struggling with file formats, which is what brings up this little rant today.

A few months ago, I finally came to realize precisely how bad .jpg files can look. They get artifacts sprinkled throughout, plus the image gets noticeably darker. When every pixel counts, and the competition for attention with fursuit photos gets more heated every year, having .jpg disparage an image becomes frustrating. So, I looked into what other formats I could use. Turns out I don't have many options for displaying my work. While .jpg is terrible, it is universal. Everyone and everything accepts and displays .jpg. However, better quality formats don't have widespread support at hosting sites. I had to dig up information on formats here and at Flickr, and I found just one format they would both accept other than .jpg. And that was .PNG.

Go figure, my primary editing software, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, doesn't support .PNG as an export option. For some odd reason, my secondary editing software, GIMP, does. So then I had to go back into Lightroom, find an export format that GIMP recognizes, and set up folders in my computer so I can export a photo to a folder, pick it up in GIMP, and export it again to a different folder. Viola! I finally have a method of using higher-quality images so I don't lose anything after spending all that time editing my photos.

And I hit a series of snags. First, the conversion process strips the image of native exif data. So when I upload the image to Flickr as a PNG, there's no automatic update for imprinting when the photo was taken. Well it's a royal pain in the butt, but I can go back into each photo and manually set it after conversion...except that PNG has this weird glitch where you can set the photo date, but not the time. So, when I update the photo taken date, it just puts in the photo taken time as whenever I'm currently editing the photo that day. And that's going to cause issues with photo arrangement and Flickr, since I used to organize sets of photos by when they were taken. I can't do that anymore.

Okay, that's frustrating. Next snag - PNG files don't support tags. For whatever reason, they don't. When I used .jpg, I would embed tags into each photo, so it automatically updated the tag information whenever I uploaded them to Flickr. Can't do that anymore either. So now I have to wait until I upload them, then edit tags. This means general tags, like "Anthrocon" "2015" and "Fursuit", which I applied to all photos as a group, I'll have to manually plug in each time. Okay, fine, pain in the butt, but moving on...

Next snag, discovered just last night. Well more accurately, I discovered it last month, but I only really caught onto what was going on last night. See, when I upload that crisp PNG photo to FA, it creates two differently-sized thumbnails of the image as .jpg. Well, for some strange reason, these PNG files, when converted to .jpg, are stripped of any edits I made to light levels and color saturation. The result is drab, washed out, and bland. The full-size image still seems to be okay, but these thumbnails look pretty much like the original image as shot by my camera.

Now that I know why there's such a disparity between the thumbail and image for my last six submissions, I need to figure out what I'm going to do about it. Having figured all this out today, I tried to update my last image "Dragon Trio", with a thumbnail directly converted from original to .jpg format. That worked...halfway. The smallest thumbnail updated to be vibrant like it's supposed to. However, there's still one version of the thumbnail that doesn't update because it is derived directly from the submission and not from a separate thumbnail upload.

The half-size image of each submission is still washed out and de-saturated. I never noticed this earlier because by default, I view all submissions immediately at full-size. The thumbnail for the gallery seems to be okay now, since it is probably derived from the custom thumbnail upload, but the image preview above the recent gallery submissions is still showing the de-saturated version of the image.

The only way for this to be fully fixed, it seems, is to continue my PNG process for Flickr, but upload a .jpg version to FA so this doesn't happen anymore. I can't let the first impression of my photos be that terrible, washed-out, and dark version. I can only imagine how many people just passed over those images in their inbox here at FA because they looked so bad.

So the jpg format which supports tags and keeps the imprinted exif data on time/date the photo was taken, I'll be posting here where both features are largely irrelevant. The PNG format which doesn't support tags or exif I'll be posting on Flickr.

Got papers in my mailbox today from my landlord company. Apparently they're upping my rent again for the fourth straight year in a row. Usually it's something like $15 a month, nothing groundbreaking, but this year they're upping it by $50 and having the nerve to tell me (they use polite words, call it a "concession") that I'm lucky they're not raising it by $70 a month.

As if everything else in the world wasn't also increasing in price, my annual raises don't cover the rate of inflation, and my rent is going up by this much too? This is just frustrating.

Oh and I've been quiet here because I visited my mother last week, with mixed results, then immediately afterwards got sick. I'm feeling marginally better now, though I'm still a bit congested and coughing stuff up.

Just checked my local movie showtimes via Fandango. Apparently Mad Max: Fury Road is still playing in 3D IMAX. You know what that means? I'll get to witness a third time.

For those of you who like to take pictures at furry cons, I've got a few questions about business cards. This past AC, several fursuiters I photographed asked me if I had a business card so they could find me later. Of course I don't; I hadn't ever considered a need. I thought about it, but it feels so self-indulgent to consider myself important enough to have them. I can't imagine taking a picture of a suiter, then leaning in with a smug smile and handing over a business card, saying, "Here, you'll need this to find me."

So, does anybody out there do it? Do the people you photograph appreciate it? What information do you put on it; twitter handle, FA handle, Weasyl handle? How many do you make? What is the etiquette for distributing them? Do you simply offer it up after a shot, or do you wait for them to ask?

Edit...Ironically, FA really screws up the uploaded image, so the illustration I used for this submission I instead uploaded to Flickr. To see what I'm referencing, see --->>>THIS LINK<<<--- .

Okay, a while ago, I made some noise about having acquired really good photo editing software - Adobe Lightroom. However, using it, I found I had a rather big problem in that photos opened with that program were of a much higher contrast than they should be.

Let me explain, briefly. Many cameras, including my own, have features that take photos under a number of preset options so you can optimize the shot. I've always shot "neutral", but there is a "standard" setting that gives photos very high contrast to start and it really hampers photos.

So, while I always took photos that looked beautiful on my camera preview, by the time I got them home and opened them for processing, Lightroom always showed them with high contrast akin to the "standard" setting on the camera. And I hate it. It causes shots to be much darker and causes problems because I have to do heavy editing just to bring the picture back to normal. And there's no such thing as a perfect edit, each edit has consequences and heavy editing means a lousy final product.

Anyway, I fought with Lightroom's settings constantly, trying to find a way to fix the error. I thought it was an import error, so I was clawing through the settings menus looking for a solution there. But it turns out there's a setting I can change on an individual basis with each photo that brings the photo back from the high-contrast "standard" setting, to very close to the "neutral" setting I actually shot with.

To demonstrate...I have before you what I've been fighting with. This example uses the first photo I took at AC. To make this example easy, I want you to more or less focus on that absolutely beautiful caribou in the center of the photo, whose name is "Loki" if I recall correctly. More specifically, look at his muzzle. The blackness of his muzzle really highlights (photography irony-pun?) the problem.

First photo, upper-left. The photo as shown basically through my camera when I took the photo, and as shown by "View NX2", the software that came bundled with my camera that allows you to preview .RAW images. it is crisp, it is clean, it is everything I want. But it's only preview software, I can't edit with it (which I need to do at least some minimal work with re-sizing, stamping my signature on, etc). So...

Second photo, upper-right. Same photo, as opened by Adobe Lightroom. Notice how much darker the blacks in that photo are. A lot of detail, especially on Loki's muzzle, is lost. This was my problem. The photo starts off from there normally. Until I found this setting to change, that is how pretty much all of my photos started from the past two years. I would have to fight various lighting and contrast settings to try to bring it back to looking close to version 1.

Third photo, lower-left. Once I found the proper setting to switch the photo from "standard" to "neutral" again, this is the direct result. No other editing done, and notice how close it is to the first photo. This is what I've been wanting to start with. But it's not quite there, as it is a bit darker than the first photo, and really the first photo needs almost no editing because it's damn near perfect. So...

Fourth photo, lower-right. I took the "blacks" setting, which alters the darkest quarter on the histogram, and brightened it up by 43%. While not identical to the first photo, it's close enough, and finally where I want my photos to start.

Moral of the story: having better equipment can be detrimental to your work if you don't know how to use it properly. I didn't have this problem with earlier programs I've used, so when I upgraded to Lightroom, I paid the price in not knowing precisely how it worked. My work suffered for it. My work going forward should be better now that I have this issue cleared up.

Second moral of the story: Loki is an astoundingly beautiful fursuit.

Second edit: also changing photo formats is making a dramatic difference. Going forward, I have to use PNG to post photos. But Lightroom doesn't save to PNG, so I have to use GIMP to convert the file. Anyway, good changes going forward, better photos, I feel like I'm making real progress finally.

Okay, sorry I haven't done a post-con journal yet. It's been rather chaotic for me trying to slip back into my normal routine after the con. For those who don't know, I work graveyard shift. And the transition into being awake all night and sleeping during the day has not been smooth. Long story short, random bouts of drowsiness (despite what sleep I'm getting), random naps, lack of ability to focus, etc.

I think I'm through the worst of it and back on track, though my sleep schedule is still about 4 hours off. Anyway, now that I seem to have it mostly under control, it's time for me to reach out to you guys and start in on all the photos I've taken!

The main thing I want to bring up for this journal is priority photos! Priority photos are photos I've taken that the subject knows about and wants to be put at the top of the list for processing. Whether it be an organized photoshoot somewhere, or just a good shot that someone caught my name and wants to shout out here, or whatever, if I got your photo and you want it prioritized, let me know here or on Twitter! :)

Thanks, and the first batch of photos will be processed soon.

I've never seen a "Mad Max" movie before, but holy shit!

No really, fucking holy christ this movie was awesome in ways I didn't know was possible.

Go see it. DO IT! What are you waiting for?

I don't even know where to start.

I could point out where the major downturn happened, but that's like pointing out when the economy crashed. Knowing precisely when we were "officially" in an recession doesn't do us much good, compared to knowing what steps were taken to get us there in the first place.

Am I depressed? I think so. I'm not ready to do the internet cliché thing of self-diagnosis, but I have a hunch I might be depressed. I'm just not sure what the next step is. Or maybe I'm sure what the next step is, but maybe I'm not ready to take it?

My mind is racing in circles. Sometimes the thoughts lap the track and circle around behind other thoughts, making it hard to manage and sort them out. Writing helps keep things on track because I can go back and edit. I've never been much of a talker anyway.

So what's wrong? Nothing new. What's changed is that now I want to talk about it. Because I really don't have much else right now.

It's not a coincidence that the time I stopped posting photos reliably is around the time that Banshee left my life. I wrote a journal about it in my photo submission here. That is a trauma that still haunts me to this day.

I still remember it like it was yesterday. It was a hot summer day. That morning I had been considering bringing my camera down for more photos with Banshee. But I decided against it; the camera would have be left in the car most of the day and I was worried about heat damage. It's decisions like that, that haunt you for the rest of your life.

I took Banshee for a walk. I was approaching the front gate of the facility when I heard one of the workers telling my friend about Banshee's imminent departure. It was so cliché that even he said so after he spotted me standing there, speechless, at the news I just heard. He knew I was about to take the news hard by the look on my face.

I remember that night vividly. I cried a lot. My poor dog was so frantic, she had never seen me in a state like that. I took her for a dozen walks, so much so that even she started to get bored of them. I took the only selfies I'd ever taken in my life. The only camera I had with me was on my cell phone, and it only had a resolution of 640x480. But that didn't stop me. I just needed more photos of her. My baby girl was leaving, and it was all I could do.

I remember walking out of the dog den that night. I had just seen Banshee for the last time in my life. I was about to collapse to my knees and wail (much like I'm doing right now). I was about to run back into the room and back into her pen, hold her in my arms again and cry my eyes out and refuse to let her go. I was about ready to declare that I'd walk back (40 some-odd miles) in the morning and try to negotiate with the sanctuary's owner, beg her to keep Banshee there until the end of the year. I only needed her there until January until I could kick out my roommate and make room for her. It's a horrible thing to say, but it's an even worse place to be in. My baby girl. I loved her as much as flesh and blood of my own. She was my daughter in any emotional sense of family. And I was faced with the prospect of never seeing her again. My roommate, my friend, would be homeless. But verses never seeing my baby girl again?

But I was too depressed to even make that sort of call. I walked slowly out of the room that night. My world had collapsed. I couldn't think. Everything was just a whirlwind of emotion. My friend suggested we get our minds off of it by taking out the trash. Yeah. Sure. Distraction. I didn't want to think. I wanted anything but to think at that point.

That night we stopped at the grocery store on the way home. Thank goodness for 24-hour grocery stores nowadays I guess? I remember I went to the bakery section. I just started throwing dozens of sugary delights into my cart. I was half-contemplating suicide by sugar. I had enough desserts in my cart to probably kill every diabetic in this country. I told my friend I intended to destroy my pancreas that night and die in a blissful sugary high. I was only half-joking. I didn't want to live beyond that point in time.

I've had unhealthy habits in my life. And I'd mostly rationalized them or just accepted them as character flaws I would try to improve over time. But with the loss of Banshee I just dove headfirst into some of those bad habits and it's effected my life.

You know people used to come up to me at conventions and ask me to take their picture? Not because I'm professional like the incredible Abrahm, or artistic like Anubisx360, or as personable and fun as Kurst. The only thing I really had was reliability and a knack for organizing things to make it easy for people to find stuff. I miss those days. I miss being productive. I miss being reliable. I miss being able to contribute to the furry community in that small way. Remember this pic? They all formed up in front of me because they knew where to find that photo after the convention. There would be no questions or wondering or scouring various sites of it. Mystery Otter recognized me, dramatically motioned for me to take the picture, and hurriedly herded the dingoes into position for the shot.

I miss those days. I miss that me. I liked that me. I liked being that reliable guy. I took pride in what I did. Even despite that I wasn't the best by any measure, it was something I could put my stamp on and proudly say "I did this!" because people appreciated it, and I appreciated doing it.

Last year, the weekend before MFF, I had a panic attack. Or whatever you might call it. I wasn't able to make MFF last year and it was on my mind. The weekend before it, I was home from work, decided that my apartment needed clutter removed (as well as other things). So, I started going through my closets, tossing a lot of junk I didn't need and really didn't have room for.

I found old pictures of me playing with my aunt's dogs. It put a smile on my face. Was good times...I was only like six years old at the time, but they were happy memories. Outside, playing. I found more pictures like that. Damn I used to be outdoors a lot when I was a kid, what happened?

Something started creeping up on me. I pushed some thoughts to the side, and kept on clearing out stuff. But those thoughts couldn't be pushed away. They kept pushing forward. I started getting this feeling of sadness. Loneliness. Isolation. Hell, I work graveyard shift, so I was clearing out my closets at 2am. So yeah, maybe it made sense to be a bit lonely.

But it started getting very serious, very quickly. Within a few minutes, I couldn't even keep cleaning. I was too distracted. I started pacing around my tiny apartment. Each passing second, I started feeling more and more alone, more isolated. I started getting this overriding feeling that I was alone. Not just alone in the apartment. I mean well and truly alone. I couldn't shake this feeling, this all-consuming terror that outside the four walls of my apartment, was nobody. Logically I knew I had neighbors I happen to share walls with, this being an apartment complex and all. And I knew people were all around me every day and this planet has seven billion people in it. But this was an emotional feeling of isolation that just refused to be pushed aside by logic and reason. My heart started to race. I started to tremble and my chest started to tense up. I was hyperventilating. I backed up against a wall, started to sweat and claw at my hair as I stood there shaking.

I can only explain it like this. Imagine you're reading a book and the main character is going through this. He starts saying, in the book, "I am alone."

"I am alone"

Then, there's a few dozen spaces before the next line. And the font is a bit bigger.

"I am alone".

Nothing else on that page. So you turn to the next page. "I am alone", written in bigger font.

Next page, the same passage, but the font is so big it takes up half the page.

Next page, the phrase is so big it takes up the entire page.

The next page, the font is so big, that "I am" is alone on the page, and the entirety of the next page is "ALONE".

Then the next page, the font is so big now, that only one letter fits on the page. Each page is dedicated to just one letter out of that horrible, horrible phrase.

Then suddenly someone smacks the book out of your hand. You look up, and the main character of the book is manifest in front of you. He shouts at you at the top of his lungs, "I AM ALONE!!!". You get frightened by this and step back...right into another manifestation of the character. You turn around dramatically as he shouts, "I AM ALONE!!!". But now you're surrounded by dozens, nay, hundreds of this character. In a scene straight out of the matrix, countless clones of him surrounded you. You can't push past them, they won't let you out from inside the circle. They're all screaming "I AM ALONE!!!" and you can't shout over them. They're drowning out anything you have to say. They're just too loud. They start to drag you down to the floor and pile on you like a football player, all of them screaming that. You can't get away, there's no way out, just more and more of them piling on top of you screaming that. You can't think, there's so much noise now. You're just drowning under them, you can't reach out because there's nobody to reach for, and your hand just gets buried under more of these clones, all of them screaming I AM ALONE!!!.

It was like that.

I almost literally started climbing the walls. I freaked out so badly that I rushed to put on some outside clothes and I ran to work. There were people at work. People I could interact with. I tried to pass it off as "hey, was just in the neighborhood, thought I'd stop by". At 2:30 in the morning, nobody buys that. They were cool about it, but they rightfully thought it was strange. I just needed to interact with other human beings. I made as much small-talk as I could before they had to get back to work, and I went home, dove into one of my video games, and tried to forget about it. That morning, I texted my friend...the very same friend I had considered evicting just so I could adopt a shelter dog, and I begged him, in the middle of winter, "for the love of god, get me out of this apartment. I don't care what we do, just get me out of here".

We went for a hike in a local county park. It was nice.

Since that day, a lot of things have slowly made more sense, the more I allowed myself to think about them. I've been passed over for promotions at work because while my work is still exemplary, my competition has been doing pre-emptive courses and training modules when they're at home. It's easy for me to be productive at work. I can focus on that. When I'm home, I take to distractions of any kind like an alcoholic takes to booze to forget his troubles. We all have our vices. I abhorred alcohol and drugs because when I was a kid, those things tore apart my family. I saw what they could do to people. But here I am, 25 years later, and I'm locked into my own vices I'm just now realizing are only technically different. The addiction is the same, the abused item is different.

It's no single thing that I do. It's just escapism. I play a lot of video games, moreso now than I used to before Banshee was shipped away. Sometimes I binge watch shows I have on DVD. When the internet is out and I can't play EvE online, or when the power is out, I dive into a stack of novels I have. Just...anything I can do to not think. I can't even do photo editing because it's a reminder of the sorts of good habits and reputation I've lost. That, and photo editing isn't completely distracting like a video game. I have to stop and consider the nuances of the photo and try to make the best out of what are commonly very terrible shots. I have time to stop and consider my life without Banshee. And that just starts the sadness spiral again.

There was one day I was looking up cute youtube videos, and decided to watch a couple of "Miska", the husky that kinda-sorta-talks-if-you-are-already-predisposed-to-believing-it. I started watching a video of her and it was just SO DAMN FUCKING CUTE. I immediately started giggling and smiling, and it immediately swung over into balling my eyes out crying. She just reminded me of Banshee and the turnaround on the emotions was just "on a dime". It was precisely like how they sometimes show it in movies; a person so in shock they start laughing and the laughs turn directly into wailing cries with no transition whatsoever.

I have stories I owe people, stories I promised to write for people. I enjoy writing little stories. And I definitely want to get those done and finished. But I'm such a terrible person. This one guy's been waiting on me to finish his story now for almost three years. It's not a commission, mind you, just a request, but I agreed to it all the same, and I want to deliver a quality product all the same. But I can't just sit down and do it. I stop moving, stop distracting, then I start thinking. And it's not loneliness that haunts me, it's the sadness and depression from not having my baby girl in my arms. It hurts. It just hurts so fucking bad I can't properly explain it to people who haven't had children. Yes, I know, she was a dog, but she brought out every nurturing instinct I had in me. She was my daughter in every way that counts. And I've never felt loss of this magnitude before. When I was a kid, growing up, we had pets, and we had to part ways with them. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But never like this.

So now I'm acknowledging it. I think I'm depressed. Do I go to therapy? Who do I trust? Some states have no requirements for licensing for psychiatrists. Is a psychiatrist even the person I should be looking for? Or someone else? What if they want me to take drugs? I'm not technically opposed to medication under most circumstances, but I feel that anti-depression drugs are like taking a cough suppressant when you've got the flu. Congrats, you're not coughing, but you still have a viral infection that needs to be taken care of. You just covered up a symptom. I want a solution to my problems, not a band-aid to cover them up.

My life wasn't perfect before Banshee. I had my issues, I still do, and always will. But as time marches on I'm finding that unlike previous things I've had to come to terms with and deal with, I'm not successfully dealing with this on my own. There are so many parts of my life that are just getting worse due to neglect. My joke of career aspirations? No progress in years. My apartment? Still cluttered and unfit to have company over. My social life? Nonexistant, barely any friends, barely anything of a sex life, and still no grasp of more complex social interactions like handling long-term relationships and other adult situations due to a lack of experience. My interactions with the furry community at large? Suffering horribly.

I can't keep lying to myself and say that everything is going to be okay in time. I'm 30 years old now and my life hasn't progressed at all in years. I'm not happy with this state of affairs. But I'm lacking the motivation and drive to change anything. I just keep seeking out new distractions because thinking can be too painful.

Sometimes I am almost in awe of how lazy and distracted I am. Years ago...YEARS ago, I wrote a journal about wanting to learn how to play piano. About two years ago a music store opened up across the street from me, two doors down from where I get my groceries. I've yet to set foot in that store, despite a prominent sign in the window saying "we give music lessons!"

There's this thing I wanted to do, even if just once. I wanted to learn how to play piano because of John Lenon's "Imagine". It's such a beautiful song. The world is such a wonderful, majestic, amazing place. But that song managed to convey all the best of humanity in such a very simple way that seemed to be perfect despite, or perhaps, precisely because of how simple it is. Something everyone can understand and appreciate it. I wanted to learn how to play it because that song means so much to me. And one year I wanted to sneak over to the piano in the lobby of the Westin hotel at Anthrocon, and just play it once. It wouldn't matter that I can't sing along with it, or if nobody showed up for the short performance. Or that the staff would storm up there and kick me off rather quickly. As long as a few people heard it. I just wanted to share that beautiful thing with the people of this planet who have given me the most to be thankful for, the ones who have shown me precisely how beautiful everything is.

And every week when I go grocery shopping, I pass by that music store and shrug it off, reminding myself that I can't stop and think.

I just know that this isn't healthy.

I'm lost.


I am alone.

No matter where your furry travels take you...if you find yourself parting the Reddit seas during your exodus to promised lands of Weasyl, or if you're staying here, or even if you have no accounts on any furry site and you're reading this because one of your really boring friends linked you to it, you can always find my photo uploads on Flickr. I also tend to announce uploads on my Twitter. Twitter may not the best solution, but it is still the best way for me to keep in touch with the greater furry community.

I'm flexible. I have no plans to leave, but I have no plans to stay either. I go where the furries are. If this drama, or any of the eventual future dramas, blow over or truly cause a migration, it doesn't effect me because I have been nudging away from any single furry site for years. I'm not anchored on any site that is going to be drowned in furry drama. It's a luxury not many of us have, but have it I do, and I'm fully prepared to utilize that to the fullest extent if I must.

If you ever need to find me, this is my...
Weasyl account
Twitter
Flickr

In my last journal, I promised to post about something that made me incredibly happy at AC. I'm not doing this for it's own sake, but rather, to make clear my position on this matter in regards to furry conventions, fursuting, and where I fit myself into it.

I think what has prompted me to really start thinking about this was a video  kijanilion did for Anthrocon's masquerade. If I recall correctly, it featured a bunch of fursuiters performing for children and various children-related charities. It showed the children's smiles, the laughing, the playing along. All in all, very nice, very sweet. Bringing that sort of cheer and happiness to children is one of those universally-recognized good deeds.

But quite frankly, that's not why I'm here.

At the risk of being ostracized by the community (a term that within the community, sounds more akin to a TF sequence in which you become an ostrich), I just don't like children. In fact, in some cases I can be downright terrified of them. Not in the same way I'm afraid of spiders, mind you, but a fear nonetheless.

For example, this past AC, I was standing idle in the lobby in my panda suit. I was happily observing things, just minding my own business, standing in front of a pillar. Actually I was just happy to be able to see a damn thing, since this was my first con where I was wearing contact lenses. So yay for being able to see!

Of course, a child encounter occurs. While I'm looking around, I see that I've suddenly become the focus of attention of what appeared to be a husband/wife sitting on one of the benches in the lobby. They're waving at me. But something about that just seemed off. I've had plenty of people wanting my attention, hugs, or pictures with me, but I just had this instinct nagging me that there was something more to it than a simple wave. So I start frantically looking around. Trying to scan the entire lobby in the midday chaos with a fursuit head limiting my peripheral vision is really not fun.

By sheer coincidence, I happen to notice there's a full-length mirror on a nearby wall, and I just happen to be standing at a perfectly perpendicular angle, so I'm looking right at my own reflection. That's when I see two little girls standing at my 9 and 3 o'clock positions. They're both real small, probably no older than 6 and 4, respectively. And I didn't initially see them because they're both small enough and close enough to permanently be in my blind zone.

FUCK

There's about a thousand problems when interacting with other furries that have some vague idea about how to interact back with a fursuiter. There's a million problems when trying to interact with the general public. And the general public's children? That's an exponential problem.

It's easy to forget because many or most of us generally only interact with each other in fursuit, as in, within the community. So hand signals, bumping into people, tripping over stuff, there's a lot of leeway given. I can't even count how many times I walk through the convention space and bump into someone who either took a step back and didn't know I was there, was taking a step forward and was occupied with their phone and didn't know I was there, or even other fursuiters who were in my blind peripheral zones and I happened to be in theirs as well, so we end up knocking into each other. Yes I look around a lot, so does everyone else, but some small hallways and six thousand people, collisions happen.

Now this is a question more geared towards the fursuiters but anyone can stop and think about it for a second – when was the last time you bumped into someone while fursuiting and even knew what part of them you bumped into? Think about it. We, as furries that deal with fursuiter collisions frequently, know what to ignore and what to genuinely freak out about. The general public, however, does not know this. Especially kids. And especially kids' parents who are watching their kids interact with a stranger.

For the most part this isn't an issue with small children. But think about this, your hands (or at least mine) are at the perfect height so if you're walking and swinging your arms which is normal for walking, you'll smack a small child right in the face. A child you would not even realize was there until something bumped into your hand.

What if I hadn't noticed the parents waving at me, and took a step forward? I could have easily injured one of those children as I tripped over them, or worse, stepped on their foot.

A billion things can go wrong at any moment, from a parent overreacting to a movement I make, to a child deciding it's funny to punch my crotch, or a child deciding they should climb on me like playground equipment. And those are just the surface-level things that can go wrong. This is, presumably, an important part of this kid's life. They're going to remember the day their parents brought them to Anthrocon just as much as the day they go to Disneyland. So whatever I do, this child is going to remember it for the rest of their lives. And so will the parents. These people's impression of Anthrocon, Furries, and especially fursuiters, is suddenly all on me.

Again at the risk of being turned into an ostrich, I don't want this responsibility. I'm not here for this. What I am here for, I'll get to in the latter part of this journal. For now...

So yes, I see children in my blind spots in the mirror and I'm about freaking out. I don't like kids. I don't hate them, I just prefer not to be around them. Suddenly I've got a pair of them doing a surprise flanking formation on me. I'm not a good fursuiter to begin with. I don't know how to interact with people to begin with. The only place where I don't feel out of place and everything feels natural is a work setting. I'm not all that animated when I'm in suit. I can't come up with creative and crazy little emotes and gestures on the fly. The extent of my abilities is "stand around and look cute". But now I have to suddenly entertain these two kids.

For the record and to get this out of the way now, both kids behaved like perfect angels. They were polite, spoke softly, and never once acted out in an aggressive or temperamental manner. So, they're okay by me. But my initial reaction with children is always trepidation at first. Moving along...

I had no idea what to do about these kids. So my first instinct, I kid you not, was just to walk back to their parents slowly and carefully, making sure the kids were still following. This is the way I generally deal with friendly dogs that get away from their masters. Try to get them back to their place of origin without directly interacting with them. Well mission accomplished, they followed me back to their parents sitting on the bench.

The father was waving at me/his kids and taking pictures. When I finished my approach, he exclaimed, "Oh [child's name here] just LOVES pandas!" I have to admit I immediately did another scan of the lobby, hoping I could find another panda to distract them, no no avail. Also, I didn't think the "I've returned these adolescents to their guardians, good day citizen, I must now be elsewhere" routine would work. Frankly the only thing I could think of to do was crouch down and wave at the kids. And they did the normal kid things you could probably imagine. Squealed with excitement, gave me random hugs, gave me high-fives, et cetera.

Playing it as safe as possible because of the aforementioned fears, all I could do was react to whatever the child starting acting towards. Hug? Sure, open my arms and let them hug me. Put their hand up? Sure, we can do some high-fives and all that. Nothing going on for a few seconds? Put my paws up to my muzzle and tilt my head, try to look cute. Meanwhile, father's taking pictures and having just as much of a good time as his kids are. I wave for the camera Good for him, good for them, whatever. As soon as the children got more or less bored of me, I got out of there. Carefully mind you, so I didn't trip over a child or anything, but I left the lobby and never returned to the lobby in fursuit for the rest of the con. Anytime after that where I suited, I stayed within the convention center.

Like I said, children freak me out. Those girls were perfect little angels, but in my experience children can be chaotic and unpredictable. I can't help but be on edge around kids, wondering if one of them is going to do something antagonistic or destructive without fully realizing the weight of their actions (it's not their fault. They're kids, it's part of the program at that age). And I don't want the pressure or responsibility of being this family's primary impression of fursuiters, Anthrocon, or the furry fandom.

All of this is to put into context the primary point of this journal, which is both why I'm here and what all this has to do with something happy that I promised both in my last journal and at the beginning of this one.

To summarize in two words: dancing dragons.

Huh?

Let me explain. A child's view of the world is already full of magic. There's monsters under the bed, there's a fat man to bring them presents every winter (just ask Virginia or the New York Sun), planes fly, tides go in and out and they can't explain that, and so on. The entire world runs on magic when you're that age. Life-sized plushies or talking animals like they see in cartoons is just another part of it. It may be memorable, yes, but they not going to fully appreciate it as much as the adults who let themselves slip into that sort of openness again.

Let me explain by example. Same Anthrocon. Some people might recall the performance  skyryd3r gave during the masquerade. It was a stunningly beautiful and artistic performance seemingly inspired by Eastern cultures, a perfect fit for his already incredibly-cute character. The discipline, the precision, the passion, I just enjoyed every second of it.

The next day, I was lucky enough to encounter him in the hallways while I had my camera on me. Of course I was rather excitable, but I calmly and politely asked for some photos. And oh my god, when he spoke...I just fucking melted. Have you ever heard  skyryd3r talk in character? Some of you that follow me on twitter caught wind of this immediately after this event, but his voice is just so incredibly dreamy! Like, imagine the most regal, sincere, empathetic voice you could think of for an powerful but loving eastern dragon character you might find in a cartoon. That's what he sounds like. It's just perfect. I almost melted right on the spot. After I took some photos, I asked him for a hug, and he obliged. So I wrapped my arms around him and gave him a good squeeze. Meanwhile my inner child is screaming out like a fanboy "OH MY GOD I'M HUGGING THE DANCING DRAGON THIS IS THE HAPPIEST MOMENT EVER!!!" And I may or may not have squealed and giggled while I did it. I was grinning from ear to ear and walked away with a little skip in my step. It totally made my day and left enough of an impression that I'm here, months later, citing it.

(He even walked away with one paw behind his back, folded neatly, the other rubbing his chin akin to serious contemplation, like a monk focusing on deep, philosophical dilemmas. Just couldn't help but notice that)

This is what I'm here for. Not just for hugging cute characters, but to get some of that magic back. As adults, we go through our lives every day without that magic. We go to work if we're lucky enough to be employed. We pay our taxes, our bills, and try to plan out our daily and monthly lives. There's no magic in what we do anymore. We know how the world works, or enough of it to know there's no monsters under the bed anymore. There's no real mystery or suspense left for us to uncover in our daily lives. We have our imaginations, yes, but in the end we are still mostly rational people living out our rational lives.

As furries, we let a little bit of that magic back in. And I think the public at large is starting to realize that's what we're about. Some of them get it. Ever go to a Blue Man Group concert? I've been to one several times. At no point during the performance am I sitting there thinking about three random guys in blue makeup and masks. They're The Blue Man Group. And I can put rational thinking on the backburner and enjoy a performance by people who blur the line between guys wearing masks and, well, something else entirely.

When I fursuit, I want to be like  skyryd3r and all the rest of the performers who really bring through characters and bring them to life for us. Someday I want to be able to do that. Until then, I'm content putting rationale aside and being a consumer of beautiful performances and interesting characters. Kuddlepup once put it very succinctly on twitter, but I've since lost the link. I'll try to paraphrase here, "Don't forget, as an adult, those things which brought you joy as a child".

I'm here because Furry brings a special magic back into my life, and I want to share and share alike with those in the community who are open to that concept. That's why I take photos of fursuiters. That's why someday I want to be one of the performers, and not just another mascot walking around. Because it is something special, even a little sacred. For what little magic we can bring back into our adult lives. For each other. For you guys. For me in whatever way I can find to fit into it. This is what makes me happy. This is why I'm here. This is why I'll never leave.

I've been working graveyard shift at my current job for seven years. A lot has happened in that time. Everything about the job has changed, some things changed so often I stopped keeping track. But I still know my job like the back of my hand and nobody does it as well as I do, nor with as much style (if I do say so myself).

In seven years, I've accumulated a lot of extra powers and roles in my job. I do the schedule for myself and my team (within reason). I am the primary trainer for everyone coming into the team. I even have a hand in HR decisions concerning my team. No other person on my level has that sort of authority.

But it's still graveyard shift. And there's hundreds of problems with working night shift, and probably hundreds more that you don't immediately think of. I know I've run into problems that surprised me. Which is why I've been petitioning my boss to get out of night shift for almost five years now.

So I should be happier now that my boss tells me he's finally getting me out of there? He was almost giddy when he told me. He's hired people to take my spot, I'm to train them as best I can within the next three months. Then, he's demoting two people on the day shifts to put me in their spot.

It's what I wanted, more or less, right? Why don't I feel happier about it? Maybe it's because I'll be taken out of my comfort zone and forced to learn an entirely different set of tasks to accomplish. Maybe it's because I'll lose those personal connections I've forged with my team over the past years. Maybe it's because I'm technically losing a bunch of the privileges I've worked so hard to get.

Everything is going to change. Even if it is for the better, I still feel that I'm losing something for this. I tell myself I'll finally be able to have a social life, visit people, take real vacation time, and exist in normal society again. But it doesn't help that much. I'm sure I'll be happier once it is all said and done, and I'm past the "change" phase and into my groove again. But right now I'm not giddy. I'm sitting with quiet contemplation, wondering what is next to come.

But I don't like ending on a downer note. I should have another journal up sometime soon talking about something at AC that made me quite happy.

Some of you might recall a little rant I went on, about 5 months ago. A co-worker of mine couldn't figure out how to operate a certain door (you push it. That's it. No locks or latches or anything, you just push it open), so she called in an emergency work order to a local locksmith to have him remove the fucking doorknob, thus changing absolutely nothing about the functionality of the door but costing the company a few hundred dollars for the emergency call.

Well long story short, it happened again, almost to the exact same circumstances. I went into work yesterday to find that another door, which doesn't lock or have a latch so you need only to push it to have it open, had been ravaged by a locksmith and had the knob removed. I went into the manager's office and found an emergency work order with that employee's signature on it.

(these doors have been in place for years. Nothing about them has changed, ever, so no there was no reason to think they suddenly needed to have their knobs removed).

I...almost broke down and cried for the insanity of it. How do people like this stay employed? How does it even occur to someone to have random door knobs removed from doors which already open with a gentle push?

This is why I'll never be a good writer. Because when I try to think up characters, I give them too much credit. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought up of someone so batshit fucking insane that they'd call in emergency work orders to have door knobs removed from a door for no reason whatsoever. I would not, in my entire life, have conceived of such a thing. I also would not have imagined a workplace so forgiving that said person could keep their job after performing such an act....TWICE. I also wouldn't have imagined a locksmith going along with it once, forget twice.

I just don't know what to do with this. I mean, where do I go from here? I am completely and utterly befuddled. And what a specific insanity this is! She only calls in emergency work orders to have door knobs removed from doors that don't lock. She's been locked out of the manager's office before and instead of calling a locksmith to pick the lock and get her into the room, she instead opted to call a fellow manager to come into work and let her in. So I know she doesn't pull this shit with doors that lock.

I had this incredible urge to slam my head against the wall until this made sense, but then I realized I don't ever want to get to the point where this makes sense. If this ever makes sense to me, you, my collective audience, have permission to shoot me on sight.

With all of the investments that I've put into the hardware side of my photos, I recently noticed that I hadn't really invested in the software side. Whatever programs I had that came with the camera, I've been using, and that seemed to be really illogical for a number of different reasons; not the least of which being that because of my poor photo-taking skills I end up editing any given photo between 10-20 minutes. If I'm investing that much time in front of the computer to edit these photos and make them presentable, why have I not yet invested into the proper sort of program to really help me do that? So, I went and purchased Adobe Lightroom 5. And damn this thing is nice. I love the features, it handles .raw natively (compared to the program that came with my camera, which didn't even support the raw photos that the camera takes), and while I'm still very new at using the program and have only yet used it on pictures that are easy to work with; I feel that my overall edits are going to be better than the old software I was using.

I'm not sure if the interface is more or less intuitive than my old program (Capture NX 2), because I've used that for so long that I'm very well adjusted to it. But so far I do feel that what is at my fingertips now is far and beyond what I had with Capture. There's a bit of a learning curve as with any new software, and I'm still trying to find equivalent functions in Lightroom that I had in Capture, but I"m also thinking I may not need it. Capture had the ability to tweak dynamic lighting, a function and data value both of the software and a setting on the camera itself. Despite my not finding any reference to it in Lightroom yet, I may not even need it. Lightroom presents me with some basic edits in a much more user-friendly fashion and I have the before & after images right next to each other (another awesome feature), so even without D-lighting controls I may be able to tweak various settings for lighting levels in a superior fashion.

But blah blah blah. How does this all relate to you? My first batch of photos using the new software is now up on my Flickr, so take a look and critique  ilovecritique them! Either critique the pictures on their own merits, or compare them to the older pics and tell me what is good or bad for either side. Now again, these were just the first few pics and they were all very well-lit photos, so not a lot of editing had to go into them in the first place. But, tweaks are tweaks, I'd like to know if I'm headed in the right direction, and we can always revisit the topic when a more substantial number of photos are up.

I don't know if I'm genuinely editing these photos better, but it does feel better so far.

So far my only issue is the program not properly sizing my signature .png file when merging it automatically onto an exported photo (another fantastic feature that saves me a bunch of time). But that's something I can fix later, so right now my sig is noticeably larger on the newer photos. Rest assured it is not due to an enlarged ego; just a quirk that I haven't figured out yet.

Okay, so I know most of you are aware of or use Twitter on a regular basis. For me, I begrudgingly got on board the train more for the sake of not being left behind. I did try very hard to make good use of it, to somehow bring it into my life in a meaningful way, but I just fell flat mostly. I used it, I understood it, and there were some things I liked and disliked about it. Basically, I could take it or leave it. I mostly used it to keep up on accounts that post cute pictures of kitties.

Now, however, I've found a use for it that is actually relevant to my life. Those who follow me there have probably noticed. A few weeks ago, I tweeted a link at someone. I had posted a picture to Flickr of a fursuiter that I also happened to follow on Twitter, so I went ahead and tweeted the link to him. But by golly, Twitter is in cahoots with Flickr in some fashion. Because Flickr links take up barely any "character" count, plus, Twitter treats Flickr links as if they were Twitter pics! So I ended up not just posting a link, but the actual image was right there IN Twitter, instead of just a link you'd have to enable through a browser to use. Now see, THIS is what I'm talking about! I can make use of this now.

And you've probably noticed I've been making more use of it as time goes by. I'm not sure precisely how I want to use this in the end. Right now, if I recognize someone on Twitter that I happen to have a photo of, I find one photo of them in my Flickr, and tweet that photo at them. One person, one photo, seems like a good system to me. But, I take pictures of a lot of fursuits. If lots of fursuit pics in my Twitter stream is a good or a bad thing, I guess we'll find out.