I got to go to my first furmeet. It was enjoyable enough that I stayed until almost 1 in the morning. That was over 6 hours, and that's with me showing up late. I call it a success. Its nice to have a regular furry event my area I can attend. Its about an hour drive away, but that's not too bad.

When I got home after the meet, I was closing the door to my room, and it ripped off of the top hinge. Now that it doesn't have that support, the door is disintegrating around the bottom hinge. I'm going to need a new door, and possibly new hinges.

Still, I have some upcoming concerts I will be attending, so I have that to look forward to. I will be seeing Judas Priest and Black Sabbath (who are touring under the name Heaven & Hell for legal reasons). Those are two different shows. Also, Down and Black Label Society are coming, and I may attend those shows if I get the money.

This will be quick because I don't want to and don't really have the time to type out a longer reflection, and you guys are probably tired of reading them anyway.

I know this is late, but I have not been home since Anthrocon (and still will not be for a little while). The convention was quite literally the greatest time I have had in my whole life. I roomed with  trpdwarf,  zekeshadowfyre,  naynay and  banditwolf and I'm glad I did. I was the only non-fursuiter in the room. It was great to have this wonderful group to hand out with. Thank you guys!

I met a bunch of new people and left with memories of great times.

I got six commissions in a sketchbook and and AMAZING badge from LikeShine. I will use the badge as my new avatar, and will upload the commissions when I get home.

I met TrpDwarf because she made me my tail and ears and I recommend her and Zeke, collectively "Around The Fur Studios". After hearing her explaining some of her work I started calling her the "Master Furgeon", but after seeing her at work I upgraded her to "Furgeon General". I have never seen Zeke at work, but I am sure she is also extremely good at what she does.

After the convention I met my family in Philadelphia, and we flew to Italy, where we are now. Before going home, we will be stopping in New York to celebrate my grandmother's birthday, and then after over a month with only about a day and a half at home in the middle I finally get to rest.

EDIT: I found out today that due to resurfacing health problems, my grandmother cannot make it to New York, so we will not be able to have a birthday celebration for her.

I think that is all, I really need to go to sleep now.

July 2nd, 2009. Control of the city of Pittsburgh has slipped from the hands of the local government...

...and right into out paws.

Well, I am now in Pittsburgh, and Anthrocon is right around the corner! WOOOOOOOOOOOO!

So here is how the music program went.

There were a few mandatory classes, and a lot of optional seminars. You also got placed in a band, and rehearsed a song that was performed at the end of the week.

It was a ton of fun, and there were a lot of cool, like-minded people to hang out with. Some of the teachers were awesome to hang out with, not to mention they new their stuff and taught well. There was a large population of fellow metalheads there. However, it was disheartening to meet more than one 15-year-old who was not only a better player than me and had better guitars than I do, but was taller than me to boot.

There were a handful of students in my classes that could play stuff that was above my level, but when the class actually started they were totally lost. They thought they were all that, but they certainly got knocked down a peg.

The band system, however, is somewhat flawed. First, there were way more guitarists than any other instrument (which is to be expected). That means that there were two or three guitarists in each band, whereas each other member (bassist, drummer, singer and in some bands, keyboardist) was in at least one other band (our bassist had four bands to deal with). This made finding rehearsal time, which was not pre-scheduled, very difficult.

Our band did pull it together toward the end though, so it all worked out. Our final performance was marred a couple of issues, but it wasn't too bad.

Also, I got to hang out with  CharliWolf for a day while I was in his area. That was pretty fun.

Finally, tomorrow morning, I will be leaving for Anthrocon!

EDIT: By the way, between tomorrow (June 30th) and July 23rd I will be travelling constantly, and my headphones stopped working. I had to make an emergency run to Best Buy for some new ones.

I am about to leave to go to the music program for the final day and play the final show. Since there are so many groups, each group only gets to do one song, and I am not thrilled about the song we are doing. On the other hand, it could be worse.

I will post more about how the whole week, including the show went later.

So some of you saw that I uploaded pictures of my guitars (and I even got one of them favorited), as well as a picture of my Pod (which is not as dirty as it sounds, I promise). I also recorded a little solo (which was not written by me) and put that up here.

If you are wondering why my wall is purple, here is the story. A few years ago, we painted parts of the inside of our house, and I wanted black for my room. All black. My parents didn't want me living in a dungeon, so this was the darkest they would allow. It isn't so bad actually, but I don't really remember why I agreed to it.

Some of you know that I am going to Anthrocon. I just found a group to room with, which saves me a ton of money, and they seem like cool people. That's going to be an absolute blast.

I did a couple of drawings because I needed the practice. I just tried to copy some pictures of foxes I found online as well as I could. They are vaery basic, but I may upload one or more of them.

Next week I am going to be taking part in a one week music program. I did it last year and it was awesome. I take classes, meet other musicians with whom I will be able to jam, and I get placed in a band and all of the bands play at a show at the end. Plus, there are tons of cool things in the surrounding area.

Someone mentioned a YouTube video to me, and I found it. It is a video of Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones smacking a fan who ran onstage in the face with his guitar, and then continuing the song. Just search something like "Keith Richards hits fan guitar", or some combination of those words. Check it out.

I also just got back into playing Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition, which I have played a lot over the years. I have a Mac now, so I had to run it on other computers in the house. I am however planning on installing Windows on my Mac shortly.

Many of you know that I was at Califur, and my friend  charliwolf has uploaded a ton of pictures from the con, some of which I took on his camera, so you can check him out to see them.

Finally, I got my final grades from the semester that ended recently. I kicked ass.

I finally made a Fur Affinity account because I went to Califur and left with contact information for at least 15 people, most of them through this site.

Califur was amazing, and it felt like the experience I should have had at Further Confusion. I only went to FC for one day, and I felt very timid. I had never met another furry in person, let alone the number that were all gathered at that hotel. I still had fun, but I was held back. But at Califur, I was more outgoing, so I made many friends and had a ton of fun. I wanted to squeeze everything I could out of the convention, so I set the rule "If there is something left to do, I'm going to do it." This led to me hanging out with a group in the lobby all night, and I bet the late night staff got a kick out of people wearing tails, as well as other convention attire, talk about quantum physics. I was sad to see it end, but as I was leaving the hotel, I got to hang out with 2, The Ranting Gryphon and he checked out my guitar that I brought to the hotel. I believe he liked it.

Speaking of my guitars, I have decided that I will post pictures of my guitars, and possibly my other gear in lieu of any actual art. I had planned to start that earlier today, but I needed to recharge the battery in the camera I was using.

Also, today I bought tickets to see Judas Priest and Black Sabbath (touring under the name Heaven and Hell for legal reasons) later this summer. Those are two different shows by the way. I have seen both before, but I love both so I am excited for that.

HOLY MOLY! My first pageview!

What did I win?