So, I wanted to describe everything that happened on the last two days of RMFC initially, but that may not be practical or particularly prudent given the events. I will admit that it involved copious amounts of pot (legally obtained, of course), and more than I'd like to remember of a particular guy who was banned from the hotel on Friday. I'll talk about what I can, though...

I saw 2's rant, which was entertaining but not in my opinion as good as other years that I've seen him. It seemed to have far less direction or planning than previous years, but that might just be me.

After 2's rant they had casino night! For charity, of course. I spent the whole night at the blackjack table and had far better luck than I ever would in an actual casino, then turned in my chips for an obscene number of raffle tickets which managed to win me a cocktail party level attendance to RMFC next year! The evening involved alcohol and room parties, which I can't really remember(or rather, probably shouldn't say) too much about.

All of Sunday morning and the first part of the afternoon was spent trying to pick up Red from his house and take him to the con. It should have been simple, but it seems, for that weekend *only*, that Denver decided to close I-25 smack in the middle of downtown for construction. Needless to say, going about 10 miles to the north was a bit of a chore.

I'm glad I got the chance to see Red again, or Razer as he now calls himself. We caught up with each other on the car ride, and then I spent a bit of time in the game room chatting with the staff there, since there wasn't much going on at the con. After that there was the closing ceremonies and the dead dog dance, where I had the good fortune to catch Alpha ( Boltfan25) doing some amazing DJing while I got a bit of poi practice in.

The night was enjoyable, but there's not a whole lot in particular that bares mentioning. I can't list all the old friends I met at the con without this post being ridiculously long, but I had a great time seeing them all again and I can't wait 'till next year. No offense to Megaplex, but RMFC is and probably always will be my home con.

Lots to say about RMFC, in fact a LOT to say about what happened afterward, but for now I'm going to be a lazy shit, because of numerous emotionally exhausting things that happened today, and post only a link to some words of wisdom that have probably already been viewed by everyone on this site, but they can't be viewed enough:

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5442195/

...my last post was about how I needed to get active in FA again and it was nearly a year ago.

I am at RMFC now, and there is a kind of reason why I wasn't on FA much, or at all really, in the past year. Now that I've moved in with my mate hopefully that will all change and I'll really be able to be a fur again. In the mean time I'm going to be posting updates about my time at RMFC.

First off, I have been seeing so many people I know! I attended the usual poi panel with Shade  shadowcheetah and came to realize two things-- 1) I should practice poi much more often than I do, and 2) My left wrist is horribly out of shape and uncoordinated.

That being said, Shade started the panel by going into some of the theory of poi movement, which was really interesting because it provided a framework to find and develop moves on my own without just copying what I see from others. Putting them into practice is another matter, as per my previous paragraph, but I always feel much more capable when I know and understand theory.

I then went to the scaly meet and greet hosted by Ian  ianthegecko which was mostly dragons, and an aquatic meet and greet hosted by Jake (whose icon will be here as soon as I find it) which was mostly otters.

Why an aquatic meet? Well, mostly out of curiosity, but also because my sharkish side has been coming out much more often recently. I think I'll be doing much more with that part of me in the near future.

That's what's been going on so far, but the day isn't over yet. I'm off to find a party!

OK, I really need to start posting here again. There has been plenty going on in my life recently, but my online presence has been more or less non-existent, and this makes me sad.

I have been to both Anthrocon and RMFC this year, and I notice two posts ago I mentioned coming back from RMFC LAST year, which means I'm averaging two posts a year. This is simply flat-out wrong.

I'm in Tallahassee, and I've been quite busy with a number of things(both business and pleasure), but I have yet to actually meet up with any of the furs around town. A big part of this probably has to do with the general presence of my family here and the potential consequences of their incidentally discovering this side of me, but I have no reason to have taken this long to meet the locals.

I did meet two of them at FWA, but they said the best way to keep in touch was via an app, and I do not have a smartphone so that's just not going to work for me. I'm sure there are plenty of other methods that I might use to contact them, but I haven't really tried yet and it's a crime.

I've been trying to realign my priorities lately, and the furs are DEFINITELY one of them. Just gonna take some discipline, but I should be much more active over the next few months than I have been for the past year. Hopefully I can catch up on some of the folks I've been watching as well. For now I've probably said enough for one post, though.

I have not posted in months, it seems. I have been quite... distracted. I attended Elliot's Fall Festival in October and I met someone who has been occupying pretty much all my spare time since. His name is Vale  theuncannyvale, and he is-- amazing beyond belief. I have never come close to having a relationship this strong before. Everything, everything, from the moment we met has just been amazing. OK, so circumstances haven't always been the best, but I've always enjoyed whatever comes when he's around. It's incredible. I know this is probably just typical of falling in love, but it's certainly not typical for me. I feel so lucky to have found him...

Anyway, yes I'm still alive making my way for myself in Florida now. I should go through and revamp everything on my page, most of it's rather outdated at this point. I'm planning on attending all of Elliot's future gatherings, as well as RMFC which will likely be my big trip for the year. Aside from that, life's been mostly work I guess. But it has been so much more enjoyable with Vale.

(8 =)--<

So I decided, just now, that I would play the Furaffinity front page drinking game, despite the warning. I have attempted this in the past, usually late at night, and never had to take much in the way of shots. (for a single refresh, that is) I started playing it using "Browse", which gives you the last 36 results instead of the last 14, and I don't think I ever needed to take more than 3. Tonight, I decided I might have a shot or two and played it with "browse" again. 7 shots later, I'm feeling pretty good. Also, I have stopped playing the game for a while.

So, what about RMFC? It was all kinds of fun, that's what! Unfortunately I was unable to repeat my previous success at the poker tournament, despite having the good fortune to have a seat in 3 of the 4 qualifiers, thanks to one of the worst run of hands I've ever been dealt. I did make some mistakes, however, and in retrospect I wasn't really playing as well as I should have been. I blame sobriety.

As far as the panels went, I attended a wonderful panel hosted by  SteelJaw on studying animal behavior and replicating it.(ideally in suit) She even had a segment on lizards for me in particular but unfortunately I missed it because I had to be at the scaly panel, which started 30 minutes into hers. :(

And speaking of the scaly panel-- for the second year in a row, we had impromptu hosts! Thankfully someone remembered to reserve a slot for it this year,(as opposed to last year when there WAS no scaly panel and we had to hand-draw notices to post around the con for a last-minute event on Sunday) but the "host" was listed as "To be determined". Apparently that referred to the start of the event, because for about 5 minutes everybody sat there not knowing what to do. Eventually  omegawolfie,  ScorchGD and I wound up getting on stage and starting it off, and it turned out pretty well for having had nothing prepared. Aside from Megan and one Utahraptor, everyone else there was a dragon. Eh, I suppose it figures.

 trotterbuckskin hosted a party in his room pretty much every night of the con, and I very much appreciated it. Met a lot of good people there, including a gecko named Char from Washington who wasn't at the scaly panel. Another lizard, yay! I enjoyed talking with him quite a bit. I'll have to see if I can track down his FA... [EDIT: Here he is!  Chargecko]

Saturday's highlight was probably the therian panel, hosted once again by Laken  SteelJaw. I liked her approach this year-- after a brief description of therian and otherkin she said, "OK, everybody talk to each other!" and it turned into a social event. I wound up talking mostly with a dragon by the name of D.O.P.R.( dopr5), who was also a good scaly I didn't know previously.

The highlight of Sunday was most definitely Shade  ShadowCheetah's Parkour class, which was hosted at a nearby park. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm looking for groups to join now. Afterwards I met up with  Xirex and we reminisced over dinner. It was really a great con and a wonderful farewell to all the furs I know and love in Colorado. I hope I can keep coming to RMFC, even if I can't move back out there anytime soon.

...Just thought I'd let everyone know.

The Mars Curiosity lander is about 30 minutes away from touchdown! It's the largest and most complex instrument package to get sent to Mars yet, and I am watching it live at:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html

It's exciting! At least, for a space geek...

[Edit: and if you don't agree, just watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki_Af_o9Q9s]

These last few months I have been pushing myself harder and harder, running closer and closer to my limits. I suppose it was bound to end the way it did.

I was hoping the furry fandom attracted nice people. For the most part it does, and I know several of them in Colorado. Unfortunately, it also attracts some freeriders and some downright scary crazies, and I had the misfortune to room with both types since November. Not everyone living in that house fell into those categories, and I'm not going to name any names, but I will say that most of them were one or the other and it was hard to live with. The household has been falling apart slowly but surely as one roommate after another either stopped paying rent or created serious problems. Some of them lost their jobs, which was understandable in this economy, but some just plain didn't pay. I'd rather not go into details. Suffice to say I am now living out of my mother's house in Florida and no longer hold either of the part-time jobs I was working to stay afloat and make up for the extra rent.

In May I invited a furry couple and their family in to replace those who had been unable to pay their share of the rent. Perhaps it was best that the new roommates treated me so foully, or who knows how long I would have stayed in that hellhole. Getting out was ugly, but I have absolutely no regrets about doing so. It's a pity I'm not going to see the furs in Colorado anymore, since most of them are good people, but I'll try to make it out when I can. I only hope that I can meet up with some of the furs around here (surreptitiously, since I am living with my mother), and that they are nicer sorts than the ones I had to share that house with.

An interesting thing happened to me today that I thought I would relate. While working at Blackjack Pizza, a man came in and said that he was looking to hire, and did I know anyone who would like a career in the debt-relief industry. I told him I didn't want to be at Blackjack the rest of my life, so he asked me to come in on Saturday to discuss a potential job with flexible hours with the company Primerica. It was an odd encounter that left me a bit suspicious afterward, though still a bit hopeful.

Still, it was too easy... So I decided to look for more information. I took a look at their website and found that they were a "Financial Services Marketing Firm", with lots of vague pleasant-sounding claims about helping middle-income families get out of debt, but nothing too specific. So I go to Wikipedia, where I find right at the top of the article that they are a "referral marketer" of financial products and describe their jobs as "multi-level marketing opportunities". Sounds impressive, right? But what does that mean?

"Referral marketing" means they advertise their product primarily by word-of-mouth, and "multi-level marketing" means that their business is set up like a pyramid scheme. No, really, that's what it means. The only reason pyramid schemes are illegal while "multi-level marketing" schemes are not is because the latter actually has a valid product to sell. HOWEVER, they still resemble a true pyramid scheme because their commissions are tiered-- meaning agents get a commission for each sale as well as a portion of the commission from all sales by agents they bring into the company. In short, the farther down the commission line you are, the less you make per-sale, while those higher up the commission line reap in the rewards of your effort. This means that, in order to maximize personal income in one of these businesses, an agent does best by aggressively recruiting other agents to make sales that he can then profit from.

That being said, consider this: there is a certain market out there for any given product. If the company's financial incentives are set up to make recruiting new agents more profitable than actual sales, as in this case, the number of agents will grow exponentially until all parties who might be convinced to join are brought in. This will flood the market with sales agents ensuring maximum product distribution, but it also ensures that the number of agents will far exceed the product market. The tiered compensation system ensures that the vast majority of the sales money will go to those who got in first, while everyone else will have trouble making ends meet or will simply fold. Such systems amount to scams on the end-sellers, giving them a pittance for their efforts while ensuring the vast majority of profit goes to a small few, who will no doubt be held up by the company as examples of the success that is possible for agents to achieve, even though such success is effectively no longer possible for new agents.

One final interesting fact I found on Wikipedia-- According to the agency, the average annual compensation of each of its agents was $5,296-- that does not pay the rent. I turned the guy down, but wished him best of luck as he is clearly going to need it.

Why am I sharing this experience? Because I don't want furs falling for this scam. This sort of business practice encourages misrepresentation and outright lies on the part of agents in order for them to make a profit, and effectively preys on the desperate with false promises of a respectable job. If a Primerica agent approaches you with an employment offer, turn them down. For that matter, if anyone approaches you with a job opportunity that seems too good to be true, be very skeptical and do your research before agreeing to anything. In desperate times when people have trouble affording basic necessities, they are still willing to pay a premium to anyone who offers them false hope.

First off, I'm finally over that horrible throat problem. Went to the doctor on Monday, found out that yep, I had strep throat. Since then I've been on antibiotics and today was the first day I've gone through without being in constant pain, so hopefully that's all over and done with.

In the mean time, I've been pondering something. I've always been rather frustrated with my inability to draw myself the way I want, but looking deeper, I realize at least part of it has been because I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to look like. I've considered myself a monitor lizard for some time now, but in fact I have seen very few monitor species, and that just seemed... wrong.

On a semi-related note, I had an interesting conversation at RMFC with a staff member guarding the art auction who told me that I reminded him of a perentie, just from how I came across. [Now I want to know how he had enough experience with perenties to have made that judgement!] Well, I went home and looked at a few of them, and just based on their form it seems like they're much closer to how I imagined myself initially... Behaviorally, I'm still looking for information, but I think I've got a species now! It's going to take a bit of character redesign, but I need to make it happen. How can you not love a face like this? -- http://eastofozroadtrips.com/critte.....Z20043wtmk.jpg

(Also, I think I might alter the markings a bit. Nothing wrong with the one they've got, but I'd like something more distinctive.)

I live in a world of constant, unending pain. It is with me throughout the day. It troubles my sleep. It depletes me within a few hours of waking, such that I must sleep again or let reality slip from my grasp. I eat very little, when at all, for every swallow is a test of my endurance.

Unfortunately I'm not just being emo, that's pretty much been my life for the past three days. Worst part about it all is that I don't have a fever or vomitting, so I can't get off of work, but my financial situation is such that I wouldn't want to anyway. Still, I start to get really cranky after about 3 hours on the job, and I'm never as productive as I usually am.

Something wierd's going on with my nervous system on the left side of my mouth, too, such that every tooth is hyper-sensitive and my cheek seems to throb with every heartbeat. For the record, though-- it's still not as bad as whatever it was I caught at FC 2010. I'm about to down 3 tabs of expired Ibuprofen in the hope that it will still have some effect. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[EDIT: Wow, that worked surprisingly well, actually. Do these things gain strength after they expire? Pity I can't go to work like this.]

It's over now, and I'm getting depressed... I spent most of it as I usually do, running back and forth between panels and trying to maintain a decent blood alcohol level. In fact, the level intensified in the evenings to not-strictly-healthy levels, so I've been going dry to detox. Not. Helping. My. Mood.

I met so many people there! Many I remembered, many I should have remembered, and many who I was meeting for the first time. I could barely manage names when my social circle involved 6 or 7; this is completely overwhelming my fragile social memory system! Sorry if I couldn't recognize you, don't take it personally. The alcohol certainly didn't help in this regard.

It did help my poker skills, though. I managed first place in the qualifying round and second place overall, which I'm really happy about since I wasn't exactly at my best the morning of the qualifier. I knew I played better inebriated; apparently it also helps to play early in the morning with a hangover and sleep deprivation, who knew? In the end, I lost to an otter with an inside straight-- who sadly I do not recall the name of. I want to say it was Skip, but I might be confusing him for another otter. There were lots of them in attendance this year, which is lovely. Hopefully it means the fandom is getting more species-diverse.

At any rate, I won a free commission from  syber, who is a great artist and the first one I've met in some time who actually gets excited about drawing reptiles! She made me an awesome con badge, which promptly got eaten by the laminator. She agreed to make me a new one, which I can't wait to see! In the mean time, I'm going to attempt to piece the old one together and scan it, but I'm not certain how well that will work.

I also put together a scalie panel at the last minute thanks largely to  omegawolfie's help--  ianthegecko usually puts these on but from what I understand he had to move at the last minute. So I got to spend a full hour in front of an audience wearing a vague smile as my brain screamed for help. I am not a very social animal by nature... I should be a bit more prepared next year.

Now it seems that I am in the initial stages of some sort of con crud. I've got a headache, chills, and a sore throat. I prefer to blame it on Country Buffet, since it was filled with screaming kids throwing food everywhere when I went there, but who knows? I just hope I didn't give it to anyone else.

I am sadly in no position to help at the moment, but I feel compelled to call attention to a fellow scaly who appears to be in extremely dire need:

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2589565/

(He lives in Pennsylvania. If only he were in Colorado I might be able to do something for him. )

I love the furs. I love you all. I cannot express it enough.

I have been incredibly busy and the workload is not likely to let up any time soon. Before it would have driven me neurotic. Now, all I have to do is think of the meets, and the furs, and I can relax even in the middle of the most stressful days. I hate to think of what my life would be like without you.

I want to give back to this community, for all it's done for me. I am not currently in a position to do so, but I know several of the furs around here and some of us have been conspiring to one day buy an apartment building in Denver and turn it into a furry community. Rent would probably range from $500 per month for small singles to $1000 per month for larger three-bedroom units. I'd want to make a proper community out of it. We've got all sorts of plans to host events and meets, and involve people in community service. Ideally, I'd like to get a service going where furs help other furs find jobs if any become unemployed. Also, we could host charity events and recruit volunteers to help provide the furry community with a little positive press for once. Of course, the primary focus would be simply on providing a place where furs can be furs.

We're just throwing the idea around right now, but I have to wonder how much interest there would be in it. Realistically speaking, would any of you be interested in moving to such a place? Does anyone know if similar plans are in the works elsewhere in the fandom? Any input is appreciated!

I am currently visiting my family. All furry activities must occur in absolute secrecy, preferably late at night. It's a bit jarring coming into this right after AC, but it is the situation I find myself in.

One note I'd like to make about AC-- While I had a good time, I think I took the wrong approach this time around. For most of the con I was rushing from event to event. I missed half the events I wanted to see and didn't have time to sit in for the full presentation on most of the others. I spent most of the events sitting alone because I didn't know anyone at the panels, thus I felt rushed throughout most of the con. The one situation where I actually took time out to do something genuinely fun was Saturday morning-- quite by accident, as it turned out, but it really was the best part of the con for me because it was the only time I wasn't rushing to be somewhere. There was SO MUCH to see and do at this convention, but I'm definitely going to have to change my approach in the future. Friends and fun need to take preference over planning.

That being said, the schedule planners with AC 2011 did atrocious things to the reptile panel. I'm so outraged, I'm going to draw a short comic about it! So THERE!

Just arrived at AC from a grueling 36 hour train ride, during which I learned a few things about train travel. For instance, I originally thought that trains didn't get delayed all that often, at least not as often as planes. I was wrong.

Total, the ride was about 5 hours longer than it should have been, due to numerous issues including higher-than-usual traffic on the route due to the floods, mechanical issues with the engine, and an earth-mover that broke down on the tracks. What's more, I was supposed to have a 4-hour wait in Chicago that didn't exist because the first train was about 4.5 hours late, so in total there were about 9 hours of delays. In fact, the only reason I didn't miss the connecting train out of Chicago was because it had been delayed as well.

So the first thing I did after arriving at AC is try to get in contact with the owner of the room I'm sharing with. I log into my e-mail to find a message from him saying to contact him within the hour to make sure I'm still coming or he'll find someone else to fill my spot-- this was sent 2 days ago, shortly after I had boarded the train which, of course, had no internet services. After a few moments of panic, I managed to get in touch with him and verify that yes, the room was still available.

Check-in isn't until 3:00, and I haven't really slept since Monday. Think I'll go collapse in a corner for now...

So, a LOT has happened in the past few weeks that has kept me quite busy; including:

- I got in a car accident
- My hard drive crashed
- I had to find another apartment and move there
- A major project was proposed by one of the local furs that I'd really like to be a part of
- And last, but certainly not least, a glut of business including the single biggest repair job I've ever had the chance to do.

Lots of ups and downs, but the most important thing is that, thanks in a large part to the one job, I WILL be able to afford AC this year!!! I had my doubts after the expense of the crashes.(The hard-drive not being backed up, I'm probably going to have to pay more for data recovery than I will to repair my vehicle) It was a struggle to manage, but through a combination of steady business and eating like a hobo I have finally managed to scrape together enough spending money. This can actually work!

Now I just need to find a room...

So I've decided to finally return to FA, at least to post, hopefully to update as well. My account has basically been dead. For the past several months my life has been disorganized, and now that I'm starting to make progress cleaning through my old messes I figure it's a good time to restart my furry web activities(what little there were). Odds are I won't be able to post too much, but I won't have a multiple-month absence like that in the foreseeable future.

I have been going to the local meets,(terrific ones around here!) but I really do miss FA. It just seems like a chore when I try to get through all the submissions and posts that I receive. Got to stop looking at it like that and just have fun with it.
(I will make it a point to keep up with private messages, though.)

RMFC was a lot of fun, but it was over WAY too quickly. They need more events! I had a great (only partially drunk) conversation with 2 the Ranting Griffon, Veridian, and others (whose names sadly escape me) on Friday night, which was probably the highlight of the con for me. The rest of the con was fun but filled with missed opportunities. I drunk a bit too much on Saturday night to have fun. From now on, I don't think I'll play Arkham Horror at a con because it overran a few of the events I'd wanted to make it to. Sunday night was just depressingly inactive, which I suppose was to be expected since the con was officially over, but there were several people including myself who were lamenting the lack of after-con parties.

That being said, I got some great commissions done! I have had mixed results with commissioning my character in the past since very few artists draw monitor lizards and I don't really have a reference sheet to give them. (I mean, I have the one I drew, but I'm not exactly satisfied with it) This con, I approached it with the attitude that I'd just commission several different artists to do sketches and use my favorite as a reference for future badges/commissions. I got some great results, but I'm not going to post them on FA just yet because I want to ask permission first. Ideally, I'd like graphical links to show up on my FA to the artists' entries so they are visible on my page but favs go to the artists responsible; sadly that feature does not exist.

I'm still waiting on a couple of them, but my favorite so far is a piece by  vantid, who managed to get my face almost perfect. The face is always the most important part to me, and I have no idea how to describe what I want it to look like and no good references to give artists before now, so I was overjoyed to see her take on it.

I think of such interesting things to post about during the day... then I get home late, shower, spend some time browsing the web, and when I finally get on FA I'm too tired to remember any of them.

*sigh*

It's all over now, and boy am I beat. Reflecting on AC, I am left with many questions:

What kind of idiot designs an escalator to stop operating whenever anybody walks up it?

Why were most of the species meetup panels on the final day of the conference?

How much did Uncle Kage drink before the closing ceremonies?

Where was I last night?


Ahh, good times. I have to say, this furcon involved a lot of walking, since the dealer's room was a good football field or two away from the main hotel.

I finally got myself a tail-- the only lizard tail available on the main floor of the largest fur con in the world. I'm starting to think it's the only one in existence. Of course it's fuzzier than it should be, but it's got a nice scaled pattern on it and a leathery base that lets it withstand dragging on the ground a little better. I think it's the sexiest piece of clothing I've ever had, and in its own way the most revealing.

So, what else went on? I drank an unhealthy amount of coffee and met some wonderful furs whose names I shall probably never remember. As is becoming typical for cons halfway across the country, I for some reason got to know the furs from Colorado much better than I have previously. I attended some neat panels on genetics and got to watch the Pawpet Show live. I got my picture taken with Uncle Kage, who was entertaining as always. 2 was there as well, and he seemed to have an army of clones on the convention and hotel staff. The food I had was... unremarkable, to be charitable. I will definitely go to nicer restaurants the next time around.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time wandering around-- not aimlessly but uncertain as to where I should be going and what I wanted to do next. I resolved not to spend the entire convention with a bottle of whiskey like I did with FC and as a result I didn't enjoy it nearly as much. It's not that it wasn't as good, it's just that I have this neurotic mental response to being around other people and only the mild soothing effect of alcohol seems to chase it away. I simply do not feel comfortable around others without it, and I don't like that fact at all. Friends, family, it doesn't matter. I've learned to manage it, but I want to find some way to fix this damn social problem for good.

I finally broke down on Sunday evening, went to a party, and drunk myself silly. It was by far the most enjoyable part of the con for me, even though I paid for it the next morning.

...And by this point the tone of the journal entry is not where it started, but I suppose I want to leave some impression of just how enjoyable, frustrating, manic, depressing, and crazy the entire experience has been. I treasure these experiences like nothing else.

Well, I'm departing early for AC tomorrow, and I'm going to have a great time there! In the mean time, I found this video from last year that every fur attending AC-- or any convention --should watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2DSc8GHl5g

There are six parts. They all have good information. Know them, love them, share them with your fellow furs.

See you at AC!

I don't know why I'm writing this. Perhaps it is because I feel the need to record the thoughts that plague me throughout the day.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not depressed. Not at all. I've got a good job, a great community, and in general nothing to complain about, but I can't help but feel like I should be doing something more-- something greater with my life. It's not that I want greater personal accomplishment,(I do, but it's not something that greatly bothers me at the moment) it's more that I feel I need to work much harder to prepare myself and my friends for what's about to happen in society.

I am not referencing any 2012 apocalyptic prophecy bullshit here. What I'm referring to is a global economic collapse(and the ensuing social chaos left in its wake) that will be caused by a credit collapse that looks to be larger than the one that triggered the Great Depression. I started writing what I thought was a brief explanation of my views and how I reached them, but it rapidly turned into a novel and I realized there was no way I was going to get all my ideas out tonight.

For now, suffice to say that debt extension creates bubbles, and bubbles pop. Since debt extension causes the entire global economy to boom, a debt bubble collapse causes the entire global economy to crash. Furthermore, the ratio of U.S. debt to GDP has remained constant throughout most of the 20th century. There are only two time periods since the year 1900 where this ratio has bubbled(and this is made strikingly clear in the data) : 1921-1932, and 1982-present. This bubble has lasted over twice as long as the one that caused the Great Depression, and gone 3 times as high. What's more, while it's stopped growing over the past few years, it hasn't even really started to collapse yet. Based on this alone, I predict one thing for the economy in the coming years: PAIN.

Don't let politicians fool you-- there's not really anything that can be done about this now. The bubble should never have been allowed to get that big in the first place. In the mean time, I'm trying to figure out how best to approach what I fully expect to be a far worse economic period than the great depression. I don't really have enough money to make myself safe, so I'll try to stay mobile and keep up with the latest news. Hopefully I can avoid the worst of it.

But that's not good enough. I want to do more. Just because the financial system is grinding to a halt doesn't mean the economic activity supported by it has to. It just needs a new source of support. And yes, I'm well aware of how difficult it's going to be to develop and implement a completely new approach to the economic system, but as near as I can tell, right now nobody's even trying. Very few people even seem to realize what the economy is in the process of doing, and most of the people who do realize blame the wrong causes(usually in support of some political ideal or other).

This isn't really the venue for this type of discussion, I suppose, but I had to get my ideas out somewhere. I don't miss college, but I do miss having informed people from different fields around me to bounce ideas off of. I'll be back to regular posts later, I've just been thinking way too much about this NOT to post about it.

(Believe it or not, that was the radically shortened version of what I had originally wanted to post. Maybe I'll touch on the details in the future. Or maybe I should just never mention this again.)

That was more of a tweet than a proper journal. Unfortunately it is difficult for me to maintain coherency across more than a few sentences at the moment due to an unfortunate mix of at least 3 stimulants and 2 depressants that I never really anticipated having within the same 3 hour period, but I somehow ran across just the combination of circumstances to make it happen tonight.

I've been working on a new approach to life recently. It's tough to be too specific about it since it involves mostly qualitative mental states and environmental triggers, but I hope that it will help me feel a bit more comfortable around other people. It would be nice not to have to drink to be social.

I took my snake outside a few days ago. He spent most of the time crawling through the weeds along the side of the house, until he found a hole underneath the siding that we had to dig him out of. Not doing that again unless I make good and sure there's no place he can get away from us.

He seems to have adjusted well, which is good. His last shed was a bit rough, so I'll work on providing him with a moister environment next time. In the mean time, he doesn't seem comfortable unless there's some tight, dark place that he can crawl into, and he doesn't seem to like it when people can reach him. Any time I hold him he looks around for a nook or cranny and tries to head for it. I suppose it's only natural given that I got him from a rescue that took him from an abusive and/or neglectful home. I imagine he doesn't have fond memories of people. I hope he eventually gets used to me.