Yes! Free art! Enter the raffle for your chance at getting it. I certainly will be.

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/49068023/

Tail high!

I would like to announce that there has been a price reduction on all of my books as of 12 September. All paperback novels have been reduced by several dollars, and e-books have been almost halved in price. Check them out!

http://www.chakatsden.com/chakat/St.....es.html#novels

And if you happen to like MLP stories too, they have also been reduced!

I have just got access to my account back again. YAY! Now to do a bit of catching up....

I have HOW MANY submissions to check?!!!

Gonna be a while, folks. :-/

At last I managed to get a MLP-FiM fanfic featured on Equestria Daily! I know it's not the be all and end all to get a feature, but it's made me happy anyway. It's nice to have my stories appreciated.

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2016/.....-landings.html

I've completely forgotten to shill for the Ursa Major Awards this year until now. Only a few days to go before voting closes, so if you wish to vote for your favorite whatever, go to https://www.ursamajorawards.org and fill in a ballot! Please!!

Until I get a problem resolved, to access the Chakat's Den website, please either use https://www.furry.org.au/chakat/ or my backup site https://www.chakat.com

Please only use the latter if the other doesn't work because it costs me in data fees.

I've got it back at last! My PC is purring away quietly and flawlessly. A good quality new power supply unit was put in and Windows is properly activated. As a bonus, JB HiFi had a special on Wacom Pen & Touch Small tablets, discounting them from $158 down to $118, and since my really old tablet won't work under Win 7 64-bit, this will make a nice replacement for my long-neglected art when I finally get around to it again. Anyway, I can let my laptop rest now. It did a fantastic job in place of the desktop, but I'm glad to be able to get at the rest of my files again.

And if you haven't already, go read my pony stories. One more chapter to go for "A Different Perspective!
http://www.chakatsden.com/chakat/Stories.html

The verdict is in - it was the power supply! Don't you just love intermittent faults? That's why my PC managed to boot the one time, and failed the rest of the time. At least it doesn't seem to have harmed the new motherboard. Anyway, I'll be getting a good new power supply, and the shop will make sure that everything is working properly before I get the PC back in a couple of days.

I finally got my desktop PC back on Monday after work. I paid for the repairs, took it home, plugged everything in, turned it on....... and nothing. After several tries, I finally got a message screen saying that boot-up had failed, and would I like to do a boot repair, so I did. That finally got it going, only when it did boot up, it told me that Windows wasn't activated. So I tried activating it again. It didn't like my key and declared that my copy wasn't genuine. To fix it, go pay $lotsamoney for a genuine copy. It IS genuine, you great idiot! I still have the licence key stuck to the side of the case!

Anyway, aside from constantly complaining that it wasn't genuine and urging me to buy another copy, the PC seemed to be working okay, except that the desktop image kept going away. At the end of the evening, I shut it down properly, but I was suspicious, and I tried starting it again. Short version - no matter how many times I tried, it would not reboot. I disconnected everything but the keyboard, mouse and monitor, but that made no difference. Back to the shop on Tuesday.

It's Saturday, and I still don't have my PC or answers.

I'm told that the processor is okay. A replacement motherboard to match has been procured, and I hope to have it back by Friday or Saturday at the latest. Then I'll check out other aspects that have been suggested.

A mere thirteen months after my PC was rebuilt after it crashed and burned just after getting back from Anthrocon, my PC is dead again. On Saturday while reading something on the net, the screen suddenly blanked. After a pause, I hear the sound of it attempting to reboot... but it doesn't. After several attempts to get it going, including trying to get into the BIOS, I met with utter failure. I took it down to the local computer shop just before it closed and was told they'd test it on Monday and let me know. Well, the motherboard has failed. That's the second bloody motherboard to fail on me, and even faster than the previous one. I don't know if there has been any secondary damage done as yet. The guy reckons that the processor is running hot, but that might only be because of the motherboard trying to make it work 100% flat out. We'll see. I sure hope that's all. I just paid for my car registration and insurance, and I'm tight for money for the moment. The one and only good thing was that I had saved a backup of the story chapter that I had only finished the previous night (or should I say morning because it was getting light!), so I was able to post the chapter that weekend. Right now my laptop is keeping me online, and not doing a bad job of everything else too.

Baron Engel has started a Patreon, and I have subscribed to it. See his journal for details - http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6657799/

So why am I spruiking it? Because I am selfish! I really want to see more of his work, and if throwing money at him does the trick, then so be it. If you like his work also and can spare some money, I suggest throwing it at him also. This kind of selfishness can really make a difference to him. And if you can't spare the money, how about spreading the word instead? Pretty please? =^_^=

Yep, the Ursa Major Awards have started their nominations, and this year I have a short story that qualifies. So if you read and enjoyed "Piece of Mind", please consider giving it a nomination.

And aside from my own stuff, please support the UMA's. http://www.ursamajorawards.org/nominations.htm

I commissioned a new banner for my website a while back, and I wanted it to portray a wider range of what I actually do besides just chakats. Obviously Goldfur had to be part of it to represent the main point of the website, and Cogs represents my forays into the MLP Universe, but I was a bit undecided on who would be the third character. I wanted a non-taur to go with the taur and quadruped, so that pretty much just left a standard biped morph. I had a male and a herm, so I wanted a female. I considered putting Jazmyn there as she had no relationship to either of the others, but her story was basically a one-shot, even though I did add a bit more after the original story. Therefore I chose a strong character from one of my most successful stories, and that's how Bethany got the place.

I spent a couple of days during my Christmas holidays freshening up the website's main page and stories page. I realized that they did not work very well when displayed on smart phones, and besides there was a lot of old and obsolete stuff there. I pared out the unessential stuff and rearranged things to look better. I also took all the multi-episode stories that had been collected into books, and concatenated them into online novels. That alone saved me a lot of page space. You will notice that the link to the stories now points to Stories.html instead of FT-index.html – "FT" of course stood for Forest Tales, but the page has grown to encompass much more than just that. I wanted to preserve the old page for posterity, so it still exists, but if you want to keep up with new additions to the page, I suggest that you update any bookmarks that you may have.

By the way, I had a notification service for when I post new stories to the page. Because of the major failure of my computer a few months back which corrupted my hard drive, I lost my entire mailing list. I don't intend to try rebuilding it, which is why I removed that advice from the stories page.

Speaking of computer failure, repairing that and replacing the smart phone that I accidentally destroyed with a nail gun were major hits to my finances in 2014. In fact that year can be marked down as the year of the financial disasters for me because those were only two of the major hits that I took. Admittedly I made a couple of foolish financial decisions of my own that I can't blame on fate, but the upshot is that I am now quite broke. There won't be any more art commissioned that somebody else doesn't sponsor. In fact the last few illustrations for my Canterlot Café story were only possible due to said sponsorship. I couldn't even afford to print books to sell at the ConFurgence convention that was just held this weekend. Fortunately my only expense for a local convention is the train fare to Melbourne city. I will be scraping to pay my bills for the next few weeks.

It's back to work for me tomorrow. I could do with another week off, but that's just more wishful thinking on my part. Hopefully I'll get some more creativity flowing anyway, and we'll get to discuss that soon. Tail high!

I wanted this to be a recount of the fun that I had on my recent trip to America. Right now though, I'm just tired and struggling. I had to start packing for the house move as soon as I got back to Australia, and the past couple of weekends have been spent moving and packing some more and then moving some more. Well, the moving is basically completed, but I've still got a hell of a lot more to do in unpacking and sorting out everything again. Unfortunately my computer decided to die on me in the meantime. People who follow my Google+ or Facebook page will know already that my motherboard failed, and completely corrupted my SSD which had my OS on it. I have not only had to get a new motherboard, but also a new CPU because the failed board is one generation behind, and the old CPU won't fit the new socket. I did get a trade-in rebate though. I also had to get a new power source because the new motherboard needed more power (of course! Sheesh!) Now I have to re-install all my programs, and try to recover lost files. I did a back-up not long before my trip, so hopefully not too much has been lost. At least the SSD did not have to be replaced because reformatting it fixed it up completely, and in fact my OS is once again on it. The one bright light is that my system is much faster now, but it cost me dearly when I could least afford it.

Well, the convention is officially closed now, but while sales were disappointing, better than average Sunday sales have provided me with enough money to cover the cost of the hotel room and I think the printing costs also. The flip side is that I did not have anywhere near as much money to spare to get sketchbooks out often, nor did I buy much merchandise. Being financially responsible sucks.

Now that I have got the whining out of the way, I'd like to say what a pleasure it is to see my friends again, and enjoy the atmosphere of the con. Regretfully, it is very unlikely that I will be at AC 2015, but maybe we'll see each other again some other time.

Tail high everyone!
~Goldfur

Everything went well right up to the point where I sold books - pity that hasn't happened much. At this rate, I'll be hauling more than half my stock away again.

I have completed the latest pony story arc, and you can find it at http://www.fimfiction.net/story/192.....-canterlot-caf

Hopefully one more picture to add to that soon. Last one though because after having to buy a new phone, my mad money for such things as art has now evaporated. Donations gratefully accepted, but not expected.

I had been wanting to replace my current cell phone for a while, but could not justify the cost of doing so because I am tight for money. Well, today I had my the decision taken out of my hands. My phone was nailed to a pallet. Yes, nailed. I was building a small pallet to ship some goods, and the phone slipped out of my pocket. With a precision that would be utterly impossible to duplicate deliberately, the phone bounced on the pallet directly between it and the nail gun that I was using. Before I could stop myself, the deed was done. My fellow workers got a good laugh out of it. For me though, that pallet cost me several hundred dollars. *sigh*

My annual trip to the States begins Saturday June 14. Very much looking forward to seeing my friends again, and doing a bit of travelling around.

However, the timing has turned out to be bad in other respects. My brother and I have been planning on moving into a new house for quite some time, but the pace at which it has been built has been snail-like, and months overdue. Guess when we get the keys? Friday the 13th. Now we still have to get the concrete people in to do our driveways, porches, and so forth, but the plan is to be moving in within two weeks, right in the middle of my trip. I can't do much more than some basic packing beforehand, and I'm going to be rushed off my feet when I get back, just when I would normally be taking it easy to deal with jetlag before I have to go back to work. I'm not going to be a happy person for a few days.

For those interested in the house building, I have been posting progress photos on my Google+ page since early October last year: http://google.com/+BernardDoove

I kept forgetting to mention this on my journal, but the voting for the 2013 Ursa Major Awards is currently running, but will be closing very soon. At the end of April 30 in fact! So if you haven't as yet placed your votes for your favorite anthropomorphic stuff as yet, head on over to http://www.ursamajorawards.org/voting2013/ and do so now! Please!!

And no, I'm not up for anything this time. Maybe next year?

Planning has already begun for my 2014 trip to the States. Registrations for dealer tables at Anthrocon opened about ten days ago, and I've already snagged me one. In fact there's going to be a whole block of chakats there this time because Chakat Windshear has gotten the table next to me, and Chakat Thriceborn the one after that!

One thing that will make this coming trip better is that I won't be as rushed as I normally am. That is because I will have no less then four weeks holiday. How can I afford that? Long Service Leave! Yep, there are certainly benefits to staying with a good company for many years, and I'm certainly going to reap the benefit this time, unlike this year when I had to take a couple of days unpaid to get a mere couple of weeks off.

Of course getting the time off work is only one part of the equation. Flights to and from America, and of course the interstate flights have to be booked. Timing has to be worked out with friends to coordinate visits with their days off. Hotel has to be booked and one night prepaid when reservations open. Travel insurance at least can be left until the last moment. Lots of little details! It never gets any easier, or cheaper, and I can always do with some help there.

Anyway, at the moment the only things nailed down besides my dealer table are my travel dates. I plan to arrive at LAX on Saturday June 14, and depart on Thursday July 10.

Once again Furry.org.au is down, which means chakatsden.com is also down. However, as I have pointed out before, http://www.chakat.com/ is my back-up site and it's working fine.

[EDIT October 22]

Yes, it's now back up again, but please try to remember the alternative site above.

After five years, I have made the final payment on my Holden Commodore, and the car is all mine at last! Hallelujah!

Of course that also meant that the car registration and CTP (compulsory third party insurance) was up for renewal too. Another $661 in the red. And that doesn't even include the comprehensive insurance on top of that. *sigh* Oh well, at least I can start using the car payment money to pay the credit cards now.

Here's my 2013 Anthrocon trip journal to the best of my poor memory...

Friday 28 June:
For the first time, I would be flying into the United States directly into DFW airport instead of LAX. This represents a saving in time and cost for me not having to take a flight from California to Texas. However, it did mean having to fly up to Sydney to make a connection rather than flying direct from Melbourne. Checking in and flying to Sydney was accomplished with no problems, but a huge downpour at Sydney caused water coming off the jetway to spill into our plane, so the flight was delayed about 50 minutes while they got a wet vac to dry out the plane. Other than that, the flight was totally normal, and the delay was not significant anyway because I still had to wait until Matt McCullar finished work to come and pick me up. I was more frustrated by the poor speed made through Immigration. The DFW facility has 60 desks, but of these, less than a third were manned, and the hall was 2/3 full of passengers from a couple of planes. The number of desks open to US citizens was 7 or 8, whereas the non-US only had 5, plus a couple more for flight crew and wheelchair people, and there were roughly twice as many non-US passengers going through the dreadfully slow process. I have nothing against prioritising one’s citizens, but this seemed grossly unbalanced to me. At least they could have put on more staff. Anyway, after I was picked up and a stop for lunch, we went to Matt’s home where we saw Lyn Thomson sitting next to the garage waiting for us. He was surprised by the automatic garage door opening, and it turned out that he had literally just sat arrived and down. Perfect timing! We learned that Gary Akins would not be joining us that day due to being slammed with some work that needed to be completed before the weekend, but Cindy and Dirk Martine joined us later that evening.

Saturday 29 June:
Gary joined us in the morning, along with Allen “Redbear” Fesler. Several other guests arrived during the day for a party. Much socialising and enjoyment was had. Lyn at last remembered to bring the laptop speakers that he had been promising me for a couple of years, and they sound great! I also got a gift of a little travel kettle from Gary, so at last I could properly boil water for tea on my travels. I love it! I’d had a few of my books shipped to Matt’s place for various people who wanted them also.

Sunday 30 June:
Matt, Gary, Lyn, Dirk, and myself went to visit the Fort Worth Science Museum. We saw the movie “Space Junk” at the Imax theatre, and took in a show at the planetarium. Because Matt knew the person running the planetarium, we got to get a look backstage at how everything was set up, including some of the old obsolete equipment that had been replaced by the modern equipment, especially the lasers. We were invited to stay for the laser show that followed. Due to the shorter Sunday hours though, we missed out on throwing our money away in the museum’s gift shop.

Monday 1 July:
Two people who could not make it to Matt’s place this year were Gregg and Melissa Anderson. Melissa’s friend was getting married that weekend, and that took precedence over a visiting Aussie. However, that didn’t mean that I couldn’t visit them instead. Gary, Matt, and myself drove up to Lawton, Oklahoma. That took about 3.5 hours to get there. We all went to a local Comanche museum, and then paid a visit to Fort Sill and saw a display of military hardware, as well as the stockade where Geronimo was imprisoned. Later we visited his gravesite to pay our respects. Back at the house, a great feast was laid on, with guests Ebony Tigress and her boyfriend joining us.

Tuesday 2 July:
We took off for a day trip that included a wildlife reserve that had buffalo, Texas longhorn cattle, and a prairie dog town. Then it was off on a tour that included a stop at Mt Scott, Oklahoma’s tallest mountain, which afforded great 360° views. I found the geodetic marker that was at the highest point, so for a short time, nobody in Oklahoma was higher than me! Regretfully, we had to make our way back to Texas that evening, but Gregg and Melissa were great hosts for the short time that we could be there.

Wednesday 3 July:
Matt drove me to the airport early in the morning, going past his new workplace. I now know why it didn’t take him long to pick me up after finishing work. For the first time in years, the flight to Pittsburgh was uneventful, and I turned up at the Westin on schedule. However, I was checked into a room that had not been serviced as yet, and despite seeing the housekeeping cart in the corridor, no one came to correct that before Seth Triggs arrived, or even later when Earl McClaw turned up. We pointed this out to the employee who brought up McClaw’s luggage who said he would bring it to Houskeeping’s attention. We went out for a meal, and when we returned, the room had been cleaned.

Thursday 4 July:
Not much happened until I could go through registration for my dealer table. Turned out that this opened hours after everything else. Eventually I did get registered and then I brought my stock from the hotel. I’d had my main shipment of books sent to McClaw’s place, and he brought them with him when he drove down from Michigan, saving me a huge amount in shipping costs. I got a nasty surprise when I opened them up though. They were packed beautifully, but it did mean that there was a lot of empty space in each of the two cartons which were otherwise big enough to hold my entire order. What I discovered was that half my books were missing. Three out of the eight titles that I had ordered simply were not shipped, including my newest book, “Flight of the Star Phoenix” which I had ordered the most quantity. After checking the UPS shipping details, I determined that they weren’t at fault, and I emailed Createspace regarding this. I eventually got a reply apologising for the short-shipment and promising UPS Priority shipment of the missing books… due July 9 or 10… two or three days after the convention. Of course that was useless to me, so I made other arrangements for delivering them. (I still have not heard about that happening at the time of writing this up.) So my table was rather low on stock even after putting out all the remaining books. I suppose I just had to have some sort of disaster on this trip. At least I got to see a great fireworks display that evening.

Friday 5 July:
As usual, I got to the dealer room early so that I could meet old friends and do a little business before the room opened to the public. Then it was down to trying to sell books. I had exactly six copies of the Phoenix book that were left over from the order that I’d had sent to Matt’s place, and those sold within 70 minutes of opening. I mourn the loss of sales of the main order stock. I also froze while sitting there. The air conditioning was not only set too low, but it seems I was located right in one of the draughtiest spots. I was forced to go outside a couple of times to stand in the sun to warm up again! Despite the lack of some titles, I did decent business that day. I closed up half an hour early though due to having to attend the Ursa Major Award presentations that were being held at 6:00pm. There I was proud to win the Best Anthroporphic Novel for 2012 for “Flight of the Star Phoenix”. However, it just made it a bit more frustrating that I had none to sell any more! There was the Art Show Reception later, and I found a few pieces of interest to me. Even later that evening, Boyce Kline at last turned up after 1:00am, having gone directly from his work to the airport to fly to Pittsburgh. It was still better than missing out completely.
Pic of Dealers Den

Saturday 6 July:
Mostly just dealers den today. Wore my sweat shirt today, so I didn’t get so cold. Farmed out my sketch books and did a bit of shopping for myself. After that closed, I went to Uncle Kage’s Story Hour. There was an obscenely long queue stretching the entire length of the convention centre, and with just minutes to go, the doors had yet to be opened to the hall. By the time I got into it, Kage was already on stage. I’m not a particularly critical person, but I consider this to be a gross failure of organisation that a performance can start basically on time, but the audience can’t all be seated before it starts. Straight after that was the Chakat Nom & Yap. A few more people turned up than had been expected, and the venue couldn’t accommodate us all despite assurances that it could, so a few had to be turned away. I personally found this frustrating and annoying, and I am so sorry that it happened. The dinner went quite well though despite the slightly overwhelmed staff.
Pic of long queue

Sunday 7 July:
Sales were very slow, but by the close of the dealer den, I only had nine books left. Defended my bids at the art show – won one, was uncontested for another, and lost a third. Oh well. Boyce had to leave for the airport almost immediately after the dealer den closed, but not before enjoying the complimentary pizza and soda that the head of Housekeeping supplied in compensation for moving us into a dirty room. Two days was not enough with my great mate, but better than nothing. Went to the closing ceremony straight after saying goodbye and again encountered the dreadful queue. Again the event started before the last of the queue had entered. Once was bad enough, but twice (and heaven knows how many other times when I was not there)? I consider that to be incompetence of the highest degree. Someone’s butt needs to be kicked over that.

Monday 8 July:
Farewells were said to Seth, while McClaw and I were able to leisurely pack and load up his car for our drive to Grand Rapids, Michigan. We had a smooth trip and ended up at his apartment late afternoon. First thing that I realised was that as a collector of stuff, he leaves me for dead! That evening was basically just for relaxing after the hectic convention.

Tuesday 9 July:
We went on a day trip over to Lake Michigan and then north to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. Some beautiful and impressive scenery, although I was balked from taking photographs at one stage by low cloud/fog coming off the lake. The big dune was incredible, and some people had actually gone down to the bottom. I saw several struggling to get back up again, and it probably took them at least a half hour to do so. I didn’t stick around long enough to time them. All during the trip, McClaw pointed out features that were either inland dunes or glacier-created. We stopped at an A&W food place and enjoyed a meal there, which I enjoyed with a mug of root beer straight from the tap. Delicious!
Lake Michigan coastal fog

Wednesday 10 July:
I had to get up at 4:30am to go to the airport. I had arranged a much better flight, but American Airlines saw fit to change it to one hours earlier. Ended up on a very small turbo prop plane which barely accommodated my carry-on luggage. Transferred at DFW for the flight to Ontario Airport, California where I was met by Jim and Carole Alves. After a stop to pick up some ginger beer and other items, we went directly to the nearby Rancho Cucamonga baseball stadium where our High Desert Mavericks were playing the Quakes. If it hadn’t been for the unplanned change of flight, I would have totally missed out on the game, so sometimes things do work out for the better. Dinner that evening was at our regular haunt – Ala Al Deen’s – a Turkish style restaurant. Today was also Carole’s birthday, and I had brought her several Billy Connolly “World Tour” DVDs that she really wanted.

Thursday 11 July
Not much of interest to mention except when I went to Best Buy to try to find a good quality 64GB USB stick at a decent price. At first I was daunted by the $90 price tag, but I found another type of the same brand which was only $40. After enquiring, I found out that the cheaper one was from an old sale and the price sticker had not been changed. The sales person gave it to me for less than $38 including tax. Score!! We packed up early and headed for LAX that afternoon, stopping for dinner at a Mongolian barbeque place not far from the airport. I did an early check-in, and we socialised for a long while until it came time to go through security to the gate. Too short a visit again, and not enough time to do much, but it was good to see my friends again. The gate was in a newly opened section of the international terminal, and it isn’t quite finished as yet, but it is looking very nice so far. Boarding the plane was delayed due to them having to cool it down some more, but once we did board, I noticed something was different. It was an A380! I had not been expecting anything but a normal jumbo jet. It turns out that the auxiliary generator on board had failed. It is responsible for running the air conditioning while parked, hence the heat problem, but it also is used to start the engines. Because they had to use the ground crew’s equipment to start the engines, we experienced more delay. In all, we were about an hour and a half late taking off from LAX. My brother was kept waiting for an hour due to that, but otherwise things went smoothly once again. Having crossed the international date line, it was no Saturday, and I looked forward to at least one good night’s sleep before having to go back to work on Monday.

Arrgh! Jetlag!!
Once again, my sincerest thanks to all the people who made my trip possible, and as enjoyable and successful as it was. I hope that we can do it all again next year. But maybe not so rushed, okay?