Now that Oregon has finally released the ban on same-sex marriage, my domestic partner Snowycub and I are finally tying the official knot! :D Just a week now until the ceremony, I'm so excited I had to post a journal. Plus I never post journals and this is a great excuse to do so :D

Had a good time at FC, mainly by doing all the things I like to do. That includes spending too much on commissions at the dealer's den, visiting with some furs I never get to see otherwise, and eating too much delicious noms :D

However, might skip next year. Although I love the size of the dealer's den and all the choices for arts, I'm not a dancer or a drinker, and at times the con seemed geared towards that. Also, I haven't really found much of interest in the panels and sessions, although I do want to get into fursuit making some day! Quite a few of the furs I've met in the past weren't here this year, due to lots of things. Maybe it's just too big for me. I really enjoy RainFurrest up in Seattle, but I just get a bit lost in the crowds at FC. And at times it sort of felt like a frat party. Guess I'm just a grey muzzle :D

So, I think later this year in May we're going to the Biggest Little Fur Con in Reno, for a change of pace. Maybe that will be our second con along with RainFurrest in September. Snowy and I really love a casino atmosphere, and I just tend to like smaller cons, I guess.

Anyway, still had a blast at FC, glad I got to meet a lot of you again!

Wow, I can't believe Frogg and I have finally got two songs finished. And I really mean finished, not just recorded! Frogg wanted to wait until we had three before releasing them on the world xD But I'm encouraged to finally see some fruits of our labors in the studio!

Frogg and I have finally been going to the studio, and hopefully in the next few weeks will wrap up our first three songs. We found two studios we liked, in town. One very established one that had lots of experience, and one just getting off the ground staffed by recent college grads. Since we were just learning how the whole recording thing works, we decided to try our first three songs at the newer place (partially because they were so eager, and partially because they charged $30 rather than $60 per hour).

Well, after a nice month or two (we don't get in very often, because we don't want to give up any paying SL shows) we've got about 90% done on two of the songs, and are revamping the third tonight (hopefully by the end of the evening we'll be back up to 70% on that one too).

Then, it'll be off to the more established studio to do the next three songs. After that, it depends on which experience we liked better, and we'll use that studio to wrap up the rest. All in all we're hoping for about 10-13 songs.

I think we'll be trying to sell them in groups of 3 at first, though, partially because a lot of people want them digital anyway, and also because we don't want to wait months for everything to be complete, including CD art and such. Sometimes it feels like our audience is slowly.... drifting... away... And we'll be like "Hey guyze here's our songs!" and the ominous sound of crickets will be heard.

Anyway, just felt I hadn't given an update in a while. When we get a song or two that's more final I may even post it here. We are trying to be a bit more polished on the ones we do eventually publish: adding bass, drums, harmony, and an extra instrument if we can (i.e. melodica or harmonica).

Hey there folks, thought I'd drop a line for those of you wondering about me :D

I'm still playing, but mainly it's been just with Frogg on Second Life for live shows. Haven't really felt like just noodling around and haven't got anything polished to record, so it's just been business as usual playing duets a few times a week online. There's a chance Frogg and I may record later this year, but it's a little up in the air :D I sure want to put out an album with him, though. If anything just to document that we have played a lot together and that period of our lives, you know? Oh, I know, we have a lot of direct recorded live stuff, almost a terabyte of it :D, but it's not studio quality so it would only be released in an emergency, hehe...

Anyway, that's all I've got, I keep lurking around FA watching and listening to stuff though, that's always fun :D

A while back we were asked to be part of a study called "Life Is Art", to help a friend out with her doctorate. In her words, the study was:

"My research looks at the interplay between the physical and virtual identities of virtually performing musicians in Second Life. My research is as an educator (PhD in Education) but my own journey into creating Flameheart in Second Life was so profound that I shifted my research focus to the study of virtual identity. I study musicians because I was one, was married to one, have a daughter who is one, and founded the House of Flames. Music is what I know, and if I have to have a subset of all avatars to study, musicians just makes sense.

My research looks at the process of normal psychosocial development in the physical world. We all had to grow up and go through rites of passage: family dynamics, teen years, etc. As we mature as people we finally (if we had something akin to a normal development) become comfortable with our place in the world, given the hand we are dealt."

So! As part of this, Frogg and I were filmed in both SL and RL, and interviewed in both as well.

This video is the result! It's about 20 minutes long, and goes into our history and how SL impacts our music. Hope ya enjoy it :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SENZ6cFTr8k

Hey there folks!

Sorry for the lack of activity on my part. I haven't posted anything in quite a while. Mainly, it's because when I play, I play alongside my friend Frogg Marlowe, in the form of duets. I rarely play any solo stuff these days.

The other thing keeping me from working on recordings is my offline life. At work, I'm on the PC all day, so when I get home, the thought of watching a movie or cooking dinner and snuggling hold a much higher appeal :D

I'll try to put something up here, though, before too long. It might be me just goofing off with Frogg, but it'll be something! We've been working on a version of Imagine (sort of a cliche to play that one, but ah well) and it sounds pretty good. Sure wish I could sing!

I have a friend who is interested in doing a commission. He's not sure of the style or anything like that. As far as I can tell, the only way to find out who is doing commissions is to paw through the submissions, see if a style looks nice, then check out their profile page and hope they say something about commissions. If they don't, then you email them and ask if they do them.

Does anyone know of another way to find out who is doing commissions? Maybe even another website? I sure wish FA would fix it's commissions tab.

Thanks in advance for any help or thoughts you have!

Feeling sick yesterday and today... I swear, this season, every time I get to a gathering of more than 10 people, I catch another fricking cold! I don't think I've ever had this kind of trouble in pervious years :P

Anyway, being under the weather has never felt so good, as I'm looking forward to a four day weekend, yay! Thursday is a holiday here, and I managed to get Friday off too! Add to that a limited number of shows (just Friday and Saturday 7pm ones) and I get a nice relaxing mini-vacation. Going to finally wrap up Fallout: New Vegas, heh, and maybe even get some household chores done, pick up a book from the library and start it, that sort of thing. Sounds fantastic to me, and totally takes my mind off this sore throat and stuffed sinuses :D

Just going to ramble about my father and the extra work it all causes, don't mind me, hehe...

A few years ago, my father was diagnosed with either Alzheimer's or dementia (they aren't really sure which). He's happy enough, and seems to take care of himself just fine, it's just like there's a disconnect between his brain and his mouth. He can't properly express himself vocally. You always feel like you're coming in on a conversation in the middle, and he uses the wrong pronouns all the time. Anyway, my sister is a hospice nurse, so she takes care of the medical side of things, and I'm an analyst so with power of attorney I take care of the financial side of things. He's pretty well covered!

Problem is, he's got 5 cats, and they are pretty much his world. Other problem is, he lives on a fairly remote hill in town, and we're always afraid he'll leave a stove on some day or have some other accident. Just this year, he didn't understand that the smoke detector was going off because he burned some toast. He called me, and was barely able to explain what was going on, just mentioned something was beeping. I finally got over to see, and it wasn't a clock or anything like I had thought, but the detector (which he removed from the ceiling in order to shut it up). Imagine if that had been a real fire! Anyway, us kids are a bit worried about it all...

SO, since an assisted living facility would most likely not let him keep 5 cats, and it's horrendously expensive to have someone move in with him as a caregiver, we decided to use some of his funds to upgrade a large addition to my sister's house, and eventually have him move in with her so she and another caregiver friend of hers can be close by. My sister says eventually he'll need help doing everything, from bathroom to dressing and such. He's not to that stage yet, but having the apartment available and sitting there waiting will let us move him on a moment's notice. I'm really glad she's in the line of work she is, it makes it a lot easier to cope with his future! The apartment will be a full-sized one, complete with a small kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room, and almost as big as the house he's in now, so that will be nice, and a good investment once he passes away and my sister sells the house.

Being in charge of the financial side of a construction project the size of this one (over $100K) has been insane, though. Mainly working with my father's bank and financial adviser trying to work out where the money will come from. We have an excellent general contractor handling all the individual contractors, and that's made things much easier (my sister and I still get to have lives of our own). Ugh, but now we're cashing part of IRAs, and worried about his tax bracket, and finally I'm having to try and process a short term loan for the last payment (the place is about 1 week out from being finished) and trying to collect information on his assets when he doesn't know where the papers are and doesn't even understand what we're trying to do for him.

Our big remaining question is this: when to move him? It will be all finished and sitting vacant, just waiting, in a week or two's time. One of the things he holds on to is his regular routine, and that will be thrown into a tizzy having to leave the house he's known for the last 10 years. He still even drives, at this point, and very well (he was a book salesman for over 20 years and traveled everywhere by car) as long as he sticks to the routes he knows. But, in his mind, nothing's happened to warrant him moving, and I really don't think he'll "get" the reason he has to move. We almost wish something minor *would* happen, to make it obvious he should move. But it really seems silly to wait until that actually happens, and not very responsible either. Anyway, I've found some local Alzheimer's family support groups that I may drop by, fairly soon, because this can't be an uncommon thing: uprooting someone who is too old to live alone so isolated. I'm sure people have tricks for explaining and handling it, right? We shall see. Any advice from people out there who have gone through something similar would be appreciated though ^^

Anyway, that's what's going on in my life lately, can't wait until the financial side of all this is all done and I can go back to just watching his bank account for shysters who might try to take advantage of him over the phone (and believe me, they're tried, with "offers" and "oh just give me your credit card number"). Poor guy answers almost all the charity mail with some cash in an envelope for them, and so he's on almost every list out there for every cause.

So, today is basically Halloween day at work (I work at a public utility, office style environment but not cubicles). Every year I think I'll come dressed as a "furry" but I never get the nerve to! My idea is to just wear what I'd normally wear at a con: badges, con shirt, tail, and drag out the hairband ears :D Wish I had an actual suit for the holiday, that would be better. :) Does anyone else out there wear their fur stuff for Halloween where they work? Do people get a bit freaked out by it? :D

Okay, ever since RF I've had a cold. I get a little reprieve of about three days to a week and bam, back comes the sore throat and the cough. I think this latest one was due to a visit to the library. Half the building was sneezing and coughing. It was like Typhoid Hobo in there, I swear. I guess the library is THE place to be if you're sick. Just when I thought I found a spot to be away from the ill, the new guy next to me hacks up a lung. Gaah! Well, at least I have a book to read as I recover, this time :P

Other than that, been doing pretty well. Going to play one of my first performances with Frogg outside of the house on Nov 6th, for a friend's private birthday party (lol)

Also thrilled Fallout: New Vegas is coming out tomorrow, as I totally ate up F3 and all the DLC for it :D Only wish I wasn't working from 8-5pm, and then with a show at 7-8pm with Frogg. But don't worry, I'll find some time to at least sneak in the introduction and a little gameplay! :D

Duck fans drive me crazy.

Feeling 95% better today, thankfully! Work seems to go faster when you're feeling well versus just wanting a lie down. Glad I'm better, too, as Frogg and I have our Friday show tonight and I'd rather not miss it (could use the practice and the money).

Going to finally see Scott Pilgrim this Sunday, now that it's at the $1.50 theater :D At least I hope we will! Maybe will head over to the farmer's market on Saturday, as well, now that it's harvest time. Might be some great deals on some veggies.

Three day con, three day con-crud, ugh. Monday was the start, with a bad Monday night (no sleep and the joys of of sinus & throat stuffs). Tuesday at work was an absolute chore, what with wanting to lie down every 10 minutes and not being able to. And of course all the stuff needing doing required lots of physical activity, not the normal desk job work I tend to do. So, Tuesday night was also stuck with this annoying cold, although Nyquil is a godsend and helped me sleep :D

So, today I took the day off work because I had the sick time available and nothing was really pressing. Just didn't want to face another day feeling like whimpering and wanting to lie down. However, then the guilt settles in and so this morning I cleaned the den, finished up my laundry, and cleaned up the kitchen dishes and counters a bit. Probably should have waited, but it does look much nicer :P I expect another night's rest will beat this thing, and I'll be left with the inevitable cough that makes people go "omg are you okay?" I am fine by that point, but never sound like it :D

Just got back from RF, had a pretty good time (aside from the inevitable con crud I believe I now have). Did all the wonderful things I enjoy at cons: eating good food, meeting interesting new folks and old friends, poking my head into the various panels here and there, and getting a cool badge or two. Also got a really cool full color commission from Balto, who was one of the guests of honor there. First met him at FC earlier this year, and was thrilled to see he was picked for RF.

When I wasn't able to find folks I knew or wanted to say hi to, I ended up in the video room watching whatever movie was playing. Nice way to relax when you get bored of sitting around the lobby fursuit-watching :D

Visited the 7-11 nearby the con hotel and on the way back had to laugh at the guy in the white truck with the loudspeaker, who belted out: "When's the last time you got laid!?" Maybe this guy should do a little more research on the fandom, it's not like we're trekkies wishing we could impress girls :P At least I'm not (no offense to anyone else hehe) :D

Anyway, really hoping the attendance was up this year, and it grew even more than the last. They do an excellent job on the con, and although this was just my second year, there were definite improvements over the last one. Better signage, a nice theme, and plenty of events around the clock. Never a dull moment :D I hear it's being moved to a different hotel next year, which would be just fine. The Marriot was apparently against room parties, and room-party-hopping was such a fun thing to do at FC, that I wished I could have done something similar at RF :) I'm still fairly new to cons, though, as this was only my fourth, so perhaps that gets tiring after a while, hehe...

Really though, what I enjoy most about the cons are being surrounded by like-minded furs. Tails everywhere, fantastic suits, fun and interesting people having a great time. Going to eat with friends was a blast this trip; I always like to save up a little to make sure the meals are special ^^

Wish we could make FC next year, but it's just going to be too expensive, and Hunter won't be able to really get the time off to travel what with school and all. Looks like RainFurrest will be our regular con for the time being (even signed up early for next year).