My second time at Megaplex, my very first time at IFC and in Indianapolis, Indiana state in general. Let's see how USA treats this panda during this month.

MEGAPLEX
August 9-11. Orlando, FL.

Megaplex will be more relaxing for me this year. Last year was my first time (and probably only time) being Guest of Honor of a convention, so the activities for me during the 2018's was too much (but it was incredibly fun!). So I'm repeating Megaplex for second year, excited for the new venue and seeing some friends there.

I'll be on the Artist alley, only FRIDAY and SATURDAY, at least on mornings, because on afternoons it will depend if I have luck on the lottery (yup, it's kind of strange how it is managed Artist Alley there, last year I had no that problem because they had given me a dealers den table, but not anymore!)
I'll accept commissions this time! Only to do during the con (I haven't finished the commissions I took for home from BLFC, oops!), remember to be fast and arrive early, since I only have 4 slots each day.

This time I'm not running any panel nor I'm invited to any event. So out of the artist alley, I'll be free, I can't wait for beinf fursuiting, to be on the parade, to attend the pool party. I'll try to take this as vacations, I've been very stressed lately and I think it will be good for me.

IndyFurCon
August 23-25. Indianapolis, IN

I also decided to attend IndyFurCon, after the insistence of friends to go, so here we go, my first time there! I sealed my decision when I got a table for the dealers den.

So yup, I'll be at least Friday and Sunday on the dealer's den, sorry if I always skip Saturdays of being on dealers den or artists alley, but I also want to be at the convention, not only working.

So yup, it seems I'll participate again on the Cutthroat Artist. Right now while I'm writting this journal, I don't know who are the other 3 artists I'll be playing along. But surely when I know, Bcbreakaway will post it on Twitter and I'll retweet it. This game will be on Friday, Aug 23 at 8pm, Salon 4.

If you see me wandering in fursuit, feel free to stop me to say hi, take a picture, or asking for a hug, you know I'm always happy for that!!

---

I'm very excited for both conventions.
All this time I won't be submitting many drawings as I usually do. But if you see me posting them, are some that I have ready, because I'm gonna try to take all this time as vacations.

Who am I gonna be seeing at Megaplex or IFC? Rise your paw!!

The furthest north I’ve ever traveled in my own continent (America), but not in the world.

Las Vegas

But the odyssey didn’t start in Edmonton, it started in Las Vegas, NV. USA.
I was traveling with  koidelcoyote, our stopover to get to Alberta was in the Sin City. And we have plenty of time to spend there, 7 hours to our next flight. But we couldn’t make plans as we would have wanted, since our next flight was with an airline that was closed until 2 hours before our flight, so we had to carry with us our bags (and being fursuiters, we didn’t have few or light bags). We tried to hang out with friends, but the problem was the time (it was a business day) or the space on the car. And other problem it was we couldn’t take an Uber or Lyft, they didn’t allow us to take all our luggage in their cars, for “safety” (it is the first city in the world that they don’t allow us that), and they were pushing us to order an Uber XL (3 times their cost). We only wanted to take a fancy dinner at the MGM buffet (ah, and we couldn’t use the shuttle bus of the MGM because… it costed, and we didn’t have a booking with them). So we had to wait those 7 hours at the Vegas airport. A bummer.

That was not our only bad experience at Las Vegas airport. We decided to travel with Swoop Airlines (Had you ever heard about this airline?), a very cheap flight from Las Vegas to Edmonton, but the problem of traveling with cheap airlines, is that they always try to charge you for anything. And that was our case, even if we had paid for our checked bags and our carry on (oh yeah, they charged for the carry on!), she noticed our personal items were wider than allowed, so she went out her desk to check better our items, and she noticed Koidel was carrying an extra bag with him (it was not even big, most of airlines don’t mind, I also always carry with me an extra waist bag), she told him that was not possible, and that he couldn’t take that inside any other bag anymore, so she made him pay for an extra checked bag. Then she forgot about how wide were our personal items and she just let us go, it was like she didn’t really mind about the policies, she just wanted to charge us extra for anything.

Fur-Eh starts.

I can say our experience in Las Vegas was the only bad experience we had during our trip.

We arrived to Edmonton, Alberta. Canada. But it was just to sleep, we had arrived too late. During our first day (in Thursday) we went to the West Edmonton Mall (the biggest mall in America) with Munchkin,  Orwin Raqoon,  gustyfox and FlurryPaws. It is so big!! It is a mall with an inside waterpark, an inside amusement park, a hockey rink, a pirate ship, show of sea lions, and a two floor record store. Koidel and I planned to go again on Monday to the waterpark and the amusement park.

After opening ceremonies, I had some few extra time to check around before the first panel I had a participation: The Fur-Eh Tonight Show. I wanted to check a Tim Hortons that, according Google Maps, it was very close to the hotel, despite that on the satellite view, it was a wasteland, I thought “Maybe this is not an updated satellite picture! It must be a new building”. Nop, it was indeed a wasteland. The Tim Hortons was a lie.
https://twitter.com/panda_paco/stat.....51264607666176

Good is that later, I discovered that the hotel offered free coffee, and even better than Tim Horton’s.

The Fur-Eh Tonight Show started, hosted by  Bcbreakaway, but almost nobody was there, I could see around 5-10 persons in the audience, good thing about it is that I was less nervous to talk in the microphone. But I wished more people could have attended there. Then I realized it was for the game where the Raptors were playing (and they won). So all the convention was on the bar, watching the game.

It is strange how different is the community from North-America to the Latin-American. Here in Mexico, if you ask to most of furries, they hate sports or anything related to watch games on TV, it is something they relate to “normies”, it is another different world. But in North-America I know that there are lots of furries who are very fanatic of sports, teams, stats, mascoting (I’m personally fan of mascots, I think is the only thing I like from sports).

Barley, Poutine and Creating Crazy Creatures

The second day started and it was first Artist Alley day. The place assigned for Artist Alley was a little hidden, only people who were really looking for us, or those we were attending events on the main stage during those hours, could find us. But I could hear that last year was worse, that it was a really hidden small room. Some memories from Furrnion came back to my mind. Fortunately I could fill the slots and I have work to do during those hours. Almost nobody showed up to buy merch but at least I was busy with some drawings. The best of that day was when I could finally meet  Barley, it had been years since I wanted to meet that silly dog, who is part of my top of favorite fursuits ever. He has been very nice with me online, I enjoy chatting and he even has mailed me some gifts, which I appreciate a lot. But this time, finally having him in person, it was something amazing. He gave me a big cookie and a new badge, which was absolutely lovely.

Just like with  nfcMausie, I had no idea how I was going to react when the time came to meet Barley, it was true that I almost cried, it was a very great moment.

I had paid for the Supersponsor level, since it was not that expensive as other conventions, and it was good because I received a film clapper, the t-shirt (that the washing machine already ruined it), other cool goodies, but two dinners were included: the poutine social and the guest of honor dinner, and since breakfast was included on the hotel, practically I had free food during the weekend. After Artist Alley, I went to the poutine social, that it was a buffet of poutine, with many kind of gravies to put over the fries. I ate a lot!! And just after the food, I decided to put in my fursuit to play at the inflatable panel, I had no so many energies like I usually have in fursuit, since my tummy was completely full, but I had fun anyways, I played with some furs there, despite it was a very small room for that panel.

It was the time to host my panel “Crazy Drawing Adventure Hour”. I was preparing it 30 minutes before it started, accommodating the tables, chairs, and with the help of the Fur-Eh staff to get some paper sheets and pencils for the attendees. I thought that maybe 8 or 10 people playing with us on the panel were going to be too much, so I only settled 10 chairs. At the time it started the panel, we had more than 25 people playing with us, which was a very decent number, a lot more than I expected, and people were really having fun during the activity.
The activity was about creating some characters in three parts, by three different people, but without knowing what exactly the other person had drawn. So one only drew the head, the other the torso, and the last one the feet and tail. The results were so crazy, people were really having fun and laughing for watching the results. The last activity was creating a comic strip with 4 panels, but the stories were unplanned, and the story was going to be created by 4 different people. On the 1st panel, they had to start a story; for the second panel, you give your comic to the person to your right hand, and you were receiving another comic from the person on your left, and you have to continue that story, same with the third; for the 4th panel, you had to conclude a story with 3 previous panels. That way, you could see 4 different stories: the one you started, the one you concluded, and other two that you just made in-betweens. It was so absurd and funny, people seemed to have a blast during it.

It was my first time running that activity, and it is for sure I’ll repeat it on future conventions. At least, it is for sure that I’ll host that activity during Anthro Northwest.

Fursuit Parade

Something I loved from Fur-Eh, is something that also NordicFuzzCon does: to give a break to artist alley and dealers den, so that way the can enjoy the fursuit parade, or be part of it. That was very cool for me because I was planning to interrupt my second working day for an hour to be part of the parade, but it was already scheduled that way.

It was a great fursuit parade, it is an outdoors parade (my 4th fursuit parade outdoors: Anthrocon, Confuror, NordicFuzzCon, and now Fur-Eh), we could see a hare running on the fields, it was my first time seeing a hare, they are really big bunnies! Best of the parade was that Barley was very close to us all the time. I was loving seeing his energy in front of me. That was making me have same energies. Problem with my excess of energies, is that I was losing the fursuit badge that they had given me in the beginning of the parade, some volunteers of the parade had to stop me to tell me I was dropping my badge. And when I was back to my room, I realized I had lost my fursuit badge. Before going back to the Artist Alley, I had to ask to the volunteers of the parade if they had seen a dropped badge, and indeed they did. So I got it back!

Fursuit Games

One of the most fun fursuit games I’ve ever lived happened at Fur-Eh.  Huscoon is a great host for the fursuit games. They were simple games, and sometimes improvised, but it was how we made us play them, his funny comments, how he made everyone to participate, including the audience. It was so great. I really loved them. I lost at most of the games, including a very simple game as Simon says (It is not to excuse myself, but it is very hard for me when games involve something with audio related, I’m part deaf so those are very challenging for me). The last game was THAT game that I hate that fursuit games include on their acts: the musical chairs. But very like at BLFC, these musical chairs were very different. But in my opinion, even better than at BLFC, because Huscoon decided to combine the game of the musical chairs with the Hot Potato Game. The potatoes were two inflatable gators. Sadly, I lost the game for the hot potato game, I was having a gator when the music stopped. But I had a lot of fun during those games. And wow, the prices were Disney watches. Honestly I’ve loved when they give special badges to the winners and participants of the games, but wow, giving real prices to the actual winners was awesome. Oh yeah, and points were weird, we had to be making maths in our mind because Huscoon were giving us not exact points on every game, if I had won or I was close to win in a game, I could receive 63 points, 78 points… or even in a game that my team was second place, all of us received 342 points. I was really adding all those numbers in my mind, so I can say I ended up with 531 points.

Cutthroat Artist

And then, my 3rd time playing on the Cutthroat artist. I think I’ve explained many times during my journals what a Cutthroat artist is about, but if it is your first time reading my journal, here is very quickly: 4 artists are gonna compete, drawing something that the host of the game requests us in 10 minutes, but we can be buying some sabotages that we can throw to other artist, those sabotages are sold by bidding, with fake money (Nbowa money). The judge, who didn’t see the game and didn’t know which were the sabotages (and don’t care about it) will decide who will be disqualified for the next round, and that way until two artists are left and the judge decides the winner.
This particular edition was very interesting because for first time I was competing with my friend Koidel, so we were two Canadians ( eerieeden and  catmonkshiro) and two Mexicans. Also something interesting is that I’d had experience playing with Shiro on a previous Cutthroat Artist, throwing him a sabotage and making him to be disqualified on his first round. What had held a grudge against me (a fake one, of course we know this is a game, I admire Shiro’s work, we only joke about how enemies we are for that past experience during that game), so this could have been his revenge.

The game started, and sabotages were not so mean, first sabotage were against me, only being able to work with two random items from a box, which were not too bad, and the other one was against Eerie, she had to complete her drawing with the sheet upside down. Sadly it was Shiro who was chosen to not continue in the game, and this time was not my fault.
The second round was drawing a superhero, it was cool that the character who was chosen it was a very cute fox cub, so it was so perfect for my style. Koidel knew it fitted so well for me, so he threw me the first sabotage, that was answering a trivia about Canada, I had to answer 3 correct questions before I could continue drawing. It was awesome that I was chosen for that trivia, because I’m such a nerd of Geography, and most of the questions were about Canadian geography. The first question was what is the province furthest west in Canada, my bad was answering Yukon. Huscoon, who was the one who was asking me those questions, told me that he was feeling so bad to take that answer as wrong, he wanted to take it as good, because indeed, Yukon is the furthest west in Canada, but Yukon is not a province, but a territory, and he was very surprised I knew about Yukon. Second question was what is the province between Alberta and Manitoba, my answer was Saskatchewan, which was funny because I didn’t know how to pronounce it, I said something very weird, but they took it the answer as good, and again, they were surprised that I knew the answer, since they were supposed to be the “hard questions”. Then it was the question what is the animal that is on the 2-dollar coin, that was so easy for me because I love that they have a polar bear (sometimes two polar bears) on their coins. And final question was the easiest, what is the capital of Canada. Maybe they were expecting me to say Toronto, since they know many foreign people think Toronto is the capital of the country, but that was an extremely easy question for me since I know the capital cities of most of the countries in the world, and Canada is not a strange country so is very easy to know that Ottawa is the capital. After the game, they told me that those were the “hard” questions and after those, they were coming the easy questions only to make me keep drawing. Oh wait, I didn’t know the name of the prime minister of Canada, now I know, it is Justin Timberlake (jk).
Koidel was the one who was out during that round, so the last round was Mexico vs Canada, and it was going to be challenging since it was against the Guest of Honor. We had to make a hybrid between a tiger and an owl. Well, I was not chosen and it was Eerie who won the game. It was my first time playing this game and not winning, but honestly I had a lot of fun on it.

Dead Dog Party

What? Paco… are you gonna tell us about a dead dog party? Those are usually empty! It is when most of people left the convention and only those who has no room parties or who are not tired yet attend. Honestly I thought it was going to be the case with this one, I have experience with dead dogs on small and medium size furry conventions, like Confuror, Furrnion and ANW, where their dead dog parties were completely empty, only a room with music but nobody in there. Even I remember trying to go to the Anthrocon’s, and it was almost empty, the interesting there was Fox Amoore playing the piano out of that room (one of my good memories of my very first convention).

I was telling Koidel that I wanted to be surprised on this dead dog party, that I wanted to check it out and see many people on there, and it ended up to be the best party of our lives, but we were laughing about that idea because we knew we were going to find an empty room with music. Oh boy, we were really surprised. We found out a room with really good music, some few fursuiters dancing (I can’t say they were too many), and free pizza and wings for anyone. Little by little, people were arriving to the place, the music was getting better, so we decided to suit up, and when we came back to the party, there were too many fursuiters dancing on the dance floor, 90s Eurodance music was sounding (and now the song Saturday night by Whigfield has another meaning for me). I can’t say it has been the best party in my life, as we were joking about, but definitely it has been the best Dead Dog Party I’ve been in. A really good way to end my first convention in Alberta, Canada.

I can say about Fur-Eh, it was an excellent convention, smaller and less crowded than the average of conventions I’m used to attend but definitely numbers are not translated into fun. Fur-Eh was like a big contest TV show, many of the panels and even the charity auctions were treated like the TV contest format, which was really funny. Also it was the convention of the cookies, everyone was giving cookies: Huscoon gave me cookies, Barley gave me a big cookie, people were giving random cookies to all the artists during the alley time, and even fursuiters were giving timbits. I could even see a tray with cookies on a table on the lobby, so people could grab some. It was a very fun time.

After the convention: Edmonton, Banff and Calgary.

I spent 4 days more in Alberta before getting back home, I had the company of Koidel, who was going to remain in Canada after I was gone. We stayed at the convention’s hotel 2 nights more, which was my very first time staying on the same hotel of the convention when there is no convention anymore, it is very depressing to see those places without furries and now with regular people walking around. But we had a great time going to the waterpark and the amusement park that are in the big Edmonton’s mall. Going to the Royal Alberta Museum with bcbreakaway. And going to the Banff national park and then to the Calgary’s zoo with  seylyn, Koidel and Barley (We saw a grizzly bear next to the road!!). It was a very amazing time. Really good company, incredible landscapes, yummy food and feeling lucky for ending up on this amazing community. The furry fandom is the best has happened to me.

Thanks again for reading my journal, I appreciate that I have many readers of my silly adventures. Probably I would have stopped writing all these recaps from long time ago if nobody read them.
If you want to see the pictures during this trip (this time I didn’t take too many):

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6ptdal3k.....ziaqhAYfa?dl=0

I'm very excited to be to Alberta for first time.
I've been on Canada before, but only on Onatrio and Quebec, so east coast. It is gonna be my first time on the other side of that huge country.

From long time ago I wanted to go to Edmonton for Fur-Eh, and finally I got the chance to attend.

It is not the farthest north I've ever been in the world, that has been Stockholm, Sweden. (Or Reikiavik's airport, if being at an airport counts, for me it doesn't count, since I didn't get to see the place, and only was there for an hour). But definitely Edmonton will be the farthest north I'll be in my continent (by now, it is... Quebec City, or Seattle, not sure which one of those two is more to the north).

At first, I thought this was going to be a very relaxing con for me, but sudenly I checked that I have many things to do there!!

Artists Alley.

Of course I'll be on Artists Alley, but ONLY Friday and Saturday. Friday will be my only complete day there. Saturday I'll be only part of it, because I want to be in the Fursuit Parade, so it is probably that I'll pause my artists alley day for the hour that lasts the parade.

There I will have my premiere of my enamel pins. So if you want to be the very first who will buy them ever, and you are attending Fur-Eh, don't miss this chance n__n

I'll be carrying books (the greatest hits and the NSFW (but clean) ones) and stickers. Of course I can take some few commissions, only to do at the con, since I haven't finished those that I took to make at hom during BLFC (oops!)

Fur-Eh Tonight Show, with Bcbreakaway

A parody from the show The Tonight Show, and I'll be one of the guests. Other guests will be Eerie Eden, Tarrin Otter, Frostee Fox & Kazul.
Once again, fighting against my shyness, I'll have a microphone, speaking English in front of many people.

This is gonna be next Thursday June 13, Main stage at 8pm

Crazy Drawing Adventure Hour

Another premiere. First time doing this panel.
Have you ever played Exquisite Corps?
This is kind of that game, but drawing.
First of all, we're gonna create new characters, everyone will have a sheet on their hands, and will bend them in three, then will start drawing a head of a character on the top, any character they imagine, and they will draw the over of the neck on the other side, so the next person will start drawing the torso of the character, but without seeing how is the head, and the same with the third person that will draw the bottom of the character, without seeing how is the torso or the head, and the result will be very funny hybrid creatures, completely original, that even you can adopt it as your OC.

Next activity is a comic strip, dividing the sheet on 4, you will start a panel of a story, any story you imagine, any character, keeping it SFW of course, we'll have people from every age on the event. But it is the next person in your right who is gonna continue that story, you are not gonna tell them anything about what you had in your head, and at the same time you're gonna continue the second panel of a story. And that way until they finish many comic strips, the result will be crazy nonsensical stories that will be funny to watch and read.

And if there is still time, the final activity will be draw blind, but as good furries, we are always having our handlers, who are gonna tell us what to draw. The interesting point of this is the handler will ask you to draw separated elements which will interact with each other. For example "Draw a fox, then draw a house next to it, then draw a hat over the fox, in the house there is a girl who is watching the fox", let's see how you're gonna manage to remember where you drew the house, where you drew the fox, if you are gonna make fit the hat on the fox, or if you are doing a big mess with your drawing. Don't worry, there will be a revange, when you're done, you'll be the handler of the other person who is gonna be blind this time.

Crazy drawing activities for a fun time. This will be on Friday June 14, Wild Rose 3 Ballroom at 9pm

Cutthroat Artist

Oh no, once again this!! And this time, for the very first time ever, I'll be competing with a friend: Koidel Coyote.
I've explained many times what is this game about, but here we go again:

It is a parody of the show Cutthroat Kitchen.
They are 3 rounds, each round lasts 10 minutes and in each there is a challenge (for example, draw a badge for someone in the audience). At the end of each round, a judge eliminates a competitor. The interesting thing is that during each round, there are 1 or 2 sabotages that are up for auctions. Each artist starts with a certain amount of money (fake money, only for the contest) and this money can be used to bid in the auction and to buy sabotage for one or more of the competitors (sabotages can be such as drawing with the left hand (or the right hand if the artist is left handed), draw with the canvas upside down, and so on). The final only remains between two artists.

This edition, we are Eerie Eden, Cat-Monk Shiro, Paco Panda and Koidel Coyote. This will be on Sunday June 16, Main Stage at 1:30pm

I'll be in fursuit, I'm planning to be on the fursuit parade, don't hesitate to say hi, give hugs and take pictures if you see me. This panda doesn't bite.

I'm terribly excited for this convention!! If you are attending, see you there!!

4th year I attend this convention, and it was weird that were many people this year who asked me if this was my first year in Reno, if I was liking my first BLFC, or that they were glad to finally see me at BLFC for first time.

First year I attended BLFC was on 2016, I remember that year, it was one of my most favorite cons ever, meeting too many online friends for first time, making many new friends than nowadays they are still very special for me, meeting those artists in person I admire. Too many good memories from that first year, reason I’ve been repeating this convention year by year. It always brings unforgettable moments.

This year was not the exception.

Arrival

I took a direct flight from Guadalajara to Reno, many attendees are jealous of that because there are not many direct flights to Reno from other parts of USA. And they get even more jealous when they know that I spent $35 usd for that flight, and that was its regular price, taxes included. I still don’t know why that flight exists and why is that cheap.

I arrived on Wednesday, not because I wanted to arrive so early to start the convention before anyone, it is because that’s the only day that flight flies. So, in the end it was not that cheap, counting I had to pay an extra hotel night.

It was funny that when I arrived and I was taking down all my luggage from the shuttle bus, the first one I saw was Soggymaster with a t-shirt of the Paco Panda Fan Club, and he was with many of his friends, it was like if my FanClub were waiting to receive me from the airport. Of course it was a coincidence, but it was too funny for me.

That first day of no-convention-yet, it was already full with furries and fursuiters, not surprised, I’ve seen how much this event has increased so fast, and this usually happens at big cons. But this first day was the only day I didn’t suit up. I spent time with  TKCoyote, met my friend  Birty for first time, and he was whom I roomed with (despite he never showed up on the room during all the con, I only saw him sleeping in the morning, no idea what time he was arriving), and hanged out with  lightfox905, an awesome person I had met at NordicFuzzCon.

Thursday of mini-golf and opening ceremonies.

On the second day I played mini-golf once again, it was the first time that I played there and the field was not full with people, we were the only group on the place, so we didn’t have to wait that the group upfront finish their turn, or we didn’t have another group behind us waiting we finish. It was very pleasant, and I won!! (Also for first time). It was with  koidelcoyote and Axel Tiger.

I attended the opening ceremonies just because we didn’t have anything else to do, usually I don’t go there. I did it in fursuit, and I found  Taebyn Pup there, in front of the stage, before the event started, dancing, I followed him, and suddenly all the audience were following us waving their arms at the rhythm of the music. It was cool.

That evening, a guy I met for supporting me on Patreon who turned in a friend (as many of my Patreoners) invited me to have dinner with many of his friends, Rocky, who most of them were fans of my work. That always makes me nervous and I usually act awkward, I’m still not very used to feel admired, I feel like I’m just like anyone else, I’m not that special. But that evening was very nice, talking with many of his friends and food was delicious.

Best Friday

Another great moment was attending the Kona coffee’s hut, a room party in the morning with really good coffee, I found more known people there than I expected, and it was funny that many people I knew, were going to that morning room party even in other days, I only could go on Friday morning. Of course they had to kicked us out at 11am, because they wanted to get housekeeping service, but it was good because at that time there were already things to do out the convention.

It's gonna be hard to tell everyone I saw and met during the con, so I’m very sorry if I don’t mention everyone. I thought that coffee party was enough for breakfast, but I was invited to have lunch just after, it was with  dj-rodney Bear (a friend and an artist I admire so much),  kazan.k and their friend  standish. We went to Johnny Rockets, restaurant that I always hallucinate after BLFC, I like it and I always look forward to going there when I’m in Reno, but in the end everyone wants to go there, hehe.

Croc O’Dile FanClub

If you saw me wandering around with a certain gator at the convention, and me, wearing a t-shirt of Croc O’Dile FanClub, here’s the background story:
 Croc O’Dile is one of my best friends in the fandom. Once I was chatting with him, he told me he thought it was so cool to have a shirt of your character but that having “fan club” on it was too self-promotional, and I told him that if it were a fan club t-shirt of him, definitely I would wear it.
So I decided to make a FanClub t-shirt with his face and invite him to fursuit with him at the con. BTW, it was the very first time I fursuited with him at a convention, and it was a blast. Many people wanted a picture with us, some of them were asking about the t-shirt, and it was very funny how Croc was denying to be him who was in the shirt, and me, trying to show off everyone “hey, I’m his #1 fan!”, and him, covering my shirt with his paws.
One of the greatest highlights of the convention.

By the way, if you are interested in one of the shirts, you can purchase them now at Artwork Tee:
https://artworktee.com/shop/croc-odile-fan-club/
All profits will go to charities: Half to the Trevor Project (https://twitter.com/TrevorProject ) and the other half of the profits will go to UnidosUS (https://twitter.com/WeAreUnidosUS).

Fursuits, Dances and Videogames.

Fursuit Festival was okay, many fursuiters around, many pictures, but I was missing  nfcmausie, remember that time, a year ago, when the fursuit festival was starting, and Mausie found me, that’s one of the moments I won’t definitely forget in my life. This year we had no Mausie at BLFC :’C
But it was great to spend time with Yaps Fox, an awesome friend from Australia, who I had met for first time during my first BLFC. And he’s also a great Mausie’s fan, he understands me very well with that.

To conclude that amazing Friday, was dancing with no stop on the night dance, with Audiodile, which is the Croc’s DJ set, and of course, I was wearing, once again, proudly, my Croc O’Dile FanClub shirt. Probably it has been the longest time I’ve danced in fursuit with no stop, it was more than an hour, my body could feel it a day after, I was feeling so weak and tired. Despite I was dancing for a while during that evening, I stopped for first time at BLFC to the Arcade room, just to check it, and I found Xusho Wolf, I played a shooter game on the first Xbox with him and Orion the badger, I have no idea which game it was but I have lots of fun, on that silent game where no matter if we were so quiet while we were playing. I love Xusho, he’s so happy and very energetic.

The Artists Alley Queue

Many people were against how BLFC this time wanted to improve the long queues that people needs to do to enter to the Dealers Den, that they had to pick up a ticket to enter. But this only applied on Friday, I was feeling lucky that my only day being on the Bazaar (that is how BLFC calls to the artists alley) was on Saturday, so people didn’t have to pick a ticket to enter on the day I had my table.

But when I was arriving to the room to set up my table, I could see a long line of people waiting to enter out of the room. When they opened the doors, it was like if they had opened the doors of a Black Friday, and suddenly I saw the place was completely full of people from a moment to another, I really thought it was very packed, but suddenly I realized all that people were around my table, were waiting for their turn to ME o__o so they organized themselves to be lining up. It took me around two hours to finish with the very last person who was waiting on the queue, it was crazy.
Also there were many personalities who stopped by my table, like Sherbert, Tucker,  Panda named Panda,  biogodz,  renegadekangaroo, Kyell Gold, and of course Croc O’Dile, it was the very first time on my history of conventions that he visits me at my table!! I had to take a picture of that moment.

And talking about Panda named Panda, who maybe is not a big personality for many, but for me it is, because he’s my favorite panda and an awesome friend. He was telling me that while he’s in fursuit, he’s being confused by me. People was thinking that happy panda (because he’s really happy and fun in fursuit) was me. Oh no, haha, and I remember when I was just attending my first furry conventions, there were people who were asking me if I was Panda named Panda.

Fursuiting All Day

Since Saturday I barely could be in fursuit, I made a balance and used my fursuit almost all the day during Sunday, the last day of the convention. Starting with the Fursuit Games, which were fun, and then I went to the dealers den to play with all the props for fursuits, where I was playing with  kakalausiRezumaru, BrainFreeze Pup, Rocky,  accophox and Flurrabell.

During Closing ceremonies, I went in fursuit once again. I arrived too early, so I was one of the first persons who were accommodated, but I was in fursuit, I didn’t want to be sit down and waiting until the event started, so once again, I was fooling around the place, dancing in a corner in front of the stage. Suddenly, many fursuiters were dancing around with the music of the place, I layed on the stage and most of the fursuiters started doing the same, and when I saw around, we were like a crown of a concert, with only fursuits, making a wall around the stage. I could feel that some people who were sit down in the first lines were kind of upset, because they had arrived so early to be in the front, but instead they were seeing many fursuit butts. That was my fault. Sorry.
And while we were waiting for the ceremony to start, and we were there stand up next to the stage, behind me were Flurrabell, an owl, I asked what does an owl say and he was making that owl sound Hoo Hoo Hooo, I imitated him, so I was making those Hoo Hoo sounds, some people around us thought we were howling, and they follow our sound with some Awoos, and some seconds later, all the big room, almost full, was howling, a very noisy and long howl. Again, it was my fault, sorry, I started, unintentionally, a howl. Good I was not fined.

Oh, someone I also love is Andy, the mascot of Anthro NorthWest, it was very funny how he went up to the stage while they were collecting money for the charity, and he threw lots of coins in change that he had in two treasure chests into the Alkali’s hat. A very funny moment.

After the closing, I was thinking on putting down my fursuit, since I had used almost all the day, but I found Mokie Mutt, who wondered who exactly are my group of friends that I usually hang out at cons with, because he always sees me alone. And, he made me ponder about it, I had never been with a specific group of people, if I hang out with someone, is for short times, I have too many friends that I want to be spending time with, but I’ve never liked to be all the time with a specific someone, I always think that we can have many different plans, and sometimes we drag our friends to activities they didn’t want to do or places they didn’t want to go, and I’ve always been kind of independent with that, if I want to go to a certain activity or a certain event or a certain place during a convention, I don’t like to depend if the other person is liking to do the same, I just do it. I told Mokie that I don’t have a specific group of friends, and I don’t know if he felt sorry for me, but he wanted me to join his group. I had no idea where we were going, but we were going out the hotel, to the parking lot, my friend Kazan found me and he also joined us, and he was asking me where we were going, and I just told him I had no idea, I think Mokie had no idea either, he was just following his friends. But it was incredibly cold outside, I could feel cold even if I was in suit, so I couldn’t imagine how cold it was to the people who was out of suit. And, I love Mokie, I like him so much, but that’s kind the reasons I usually don’t follow groups of people and be attached to them, sometimes I have no idea what we are doing while I would love to be spending my time somewhere else at the convention. So I told him I was going back to the hotel. And I did.

While I was coming back to the hotel, I found Skye and her friends, who were recording a video clip, I thought I had ruined their shot because I crossed their path while they were recording it, but instead, they invited me to record with them. It was fun. We ended up in the pool party, which was my very first time on the pool area of the Grand Sierra, even if I had been 4 times before at BLFC, and I discovered it was too much fun, there I met Truce Wolf, in front of the DJ of the pool, and I danced with him and with Kazan for around an hour. It was very relaxing, especially because it was so cold outside, that I didn’t get tired being in fursuit.

Last activities of the convention before the evening was officially finished, was watching the adult fursuit games (which the first game was the only fun to watch), and dancing even more and more, until I got very tired, realized that I had been in fursuit for more than 13 hours (of course I took some breaks, especially the longest break for lunch). But then, when I was back to my room, and started packing to be ready in the morning, I could tell myself it was a really good convention.

If you want to check my folder of picture of BLFC:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m9c9cgdx.....RVObXxMua?dl=0

Lake Tahoe

Some friends and I planned going to Lake Tahoe after BLFC, I booked a cabin for two nights. It was a really good decision.
We were Birty, Koidel,  drewotter,  gabshiba,  ettevy and I. We realized we were too many for only one car, considering almost everyone was carrying with fursuit luggage. So our plan B was that three of us would take a bus to Lake Tahoe, and the guys with the car would pick us up.
The bus from Reno to Lake Taho were supposed to depart from the Reno’s airport, according the webpage, so we took the shuttle bus back to the airport, but the problem is that we never found where exactly was the departure of those buses, and while we were trying to find it, Koidel checked, as a joke, how much it would be to take an Uber instead. And we were surprised that taking an Uber was cheaper than 3 bus tickets. So what started as a joke, we made it real, and we ordered an Uber, and we arrived even before than the guys who were by their own car.

Lake Tahoe was very cold, and we went unprepared for that weather, all of us were wearing just hoodies, no scarfs, hats nor gloves, and even the first morning it was snowing. But that didn’t stop the fun times, we drove to the mountains, stopping in some beautiful stops to take pictures in fursuit, and we reached a point where there was nothing but snow, we stopped the car and started playing in fursuit with snow, what a relaxing and fun time.

Back to the cabin, it had an outdoors warm pool, we made the crazy experience of going out to swim, while outside was -2C (28F) and suddenly it started to snow, so we were just relaxing outside, wearing nothing but swim suit, while it was snowing. Oh, right now while I write this I’m missing so much that moment.

If you want to check out our fursuit pictures we took during Lake Tahoe:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3fss9l3x.....T1jQ_7YYa?dl=0

And that was my adventure of BLFC, it was really great.
I’m sorry if I saw you, spent time with you and didn’t mention you, you know this panda loves you anyway, there were many people and I hanged out with too many also. But don’t hesitate to say hi and even hug me when you see me around at other event or convention.

Next adventure will be to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I’ll be attending Fur-Eh. I have never been there before, so it will be something completely new for me. Rise your paw if I’ll see you there.

*panda hugs to everyone* Thank you very much for reading my silly adventures. I’m very surprised how many people tell me that always read my journals, I feel so honored.

Oh yeah, panda is striking back to Reno, NV this weekend.
A year ago, I met Mausie at BLFC, that marked a before and after in my life (just exagerating, but I really was very excited for that). Just check this video from last year's fursuit festival: https://youtu.be/XdjS40Txr9A (first 30 seconds are the important)

Sad news... this year won't be Mausie, but I was very honored to see him again during NordicFuzzCon and Furnal Equinox.

But well, getting back to the BLFC 2019 topic:

This year I'm not hosting any panel or event, I want to enjoy the convention more than being busy running from a place to another. I have many plans with many friends, tho. But please, if you see me, don't hesitate to poke me and say hi or even giving a hug. I've had many messages that said things like "I saw you at the con, but I was too shy to talk to you". It is supposed that the shy one is me, so please, I appreciate any greeting, hug, picture request.

Artists Alley (or Bazaar)

Again I'll be at the Bazaar (or Artist's alley), this year at table B2, only on Saturday, from 11am to 6pm.

I'm bringing this year some books: my artbook, or as I called it, the "Greatest Hits"; and the "Inktober's NSFW (but clean) G rated". Also I'll bring vinyl stickers, and not 100% confirmed but introducing in my artist alley table: enamel pins (trades are allowed).

Ah, yeah, and of course, commissions!!
I will only have 4 slots to do during the con, plus another 9 to take-home, which, from now on I announce, take-home commissions taken at BLFC will take a little longer than normal, probably until June when I start working on those 9 drawings, because I still have to do some that I took at TFF, and I hadn't had time to work on them.

I have prepared some points for you if you are interested in a commission from me at BLFC, to consider this:

► Be one of the first to arrive when they just open doors, they always make a queue about 30 minutes before they open. The commission slots fly, sometimes even before 20 minutes of doors opening (find out on my telegram channel t.me/panda_paco , there I announce if there are still slots available or if they have already been filled)
► The commissions are only during the convention, and only during the artists alley, not before or after. Remember that there will be only 4 people that will take their drawings home that day, and another 9 that will wait a few weeks for their drawings to be ready.
► Be thinking about a good idea that I can work for you, if you don't have one, you can leave it up to me n__n I don't have a problem suggesting ideas (TBH I like that)
► Have prepared your reference sheet (any reference of your character works for me, no matter if it's not properly a ref sheet), PREFERABLY PRINTED !! If you can't print it, you can have it ready saved on your phone and I'll take a picture to your screen. Don't trust the internet of the convention center, so do not try to find your reference on FA at the moment. That almost never works.

Activities I'll do

It's for sure that at some point of the convention I'll play bowling. I'm not sure if I'll go to the go-karts and mini-golf, since they don't allow fursuits anymore (or hopefully this year they changed back that).
I planned many dinners with friends.
But also, checking the program, I can tell that for sure I'll be at the fursuit festival, dancing with Audiodile (Friday at 11pm, main stage), also I want to go to the pool party, I need to be less shy with my own body and just have fun. And probably Fursuit games on Sunday at noon.

And of course, after the con, expect my journal telling all my adventures.

See you there!!!

*panda hugs*

This is gonna be a very long journal. Probably I’ll spend hours writing this, but let’s start.

Between February 6th to April 1st (almost 2 months), I was away home. I was very nervous to make this trip, because I was very unsure if my economy was ready for this. I’m not rich, I don’t earn crazy amounts for doing art, but if I’m looking forward to do something, I work very hard to make it real. I’m very stubborn and, those who knows me very well can agree with this, incredibly workaholic.

Since I was younger, my goal in life was traveling the world, but funny thing is that I thought my excuse to know many different countries and towns, was going for exploring their theme parks and rollercoasters, I was a huge fan; I could be proud of myself if I told the Paco from 15 years ago that I’m really knowing many places, but for seeking other emotions that roller coasters can’t provide, that are the friendship and belonging to a great community as the furry fandom is. Yes, main excuse to travel the world: Furry Conventions and Furry Friends.

Here's the index of the topics in the journal, if you want to read them all or skip some, you’re more than welcome:

1. Disney World with my family

2. Tour guide in Mexico City.

3. NordicFuzzCon.

4. Adventures in Stockholm, Sweden.

5. Furnal Equinox

6. Fursuiting in Niagara Falls

7. Going to Dallas

8. Texas Furry Fiesta

----Disney World with my family----

Since we were kids, my sisters and I dreamed to one day my parents told us that we were going to Disney. It’s their fault, we grew up with Disney movies that they purchased and they had three little critters singing Disney songs all day (in their Latin-American Spanish versions). My family never was of having lots of money, that’s something we could even notice, but of course we never stopped dreaming to go one day to the happiest place in the world.

We grew up and all of us are working and living in different places not only in the country, but the world. It was going to be a coincidence that in February we were going to be all together, that’s something that not even in Christmas happen. Knowing this, we planned it would be a great idea if we saved a lot of money with a bunch of time, and even paying my parents a trip to Disney. Also it matched perfectly with one of my sister’s birthday, so we could celebrate her there.

The only issue we had during our trip, it was how divided my family were, about how they wanted to spend their time on the parks. My parents wanted to walk and enjoy everything around, taking pictures, and my sisters wanted to see as much as possible of every park, so they wanted to be walking fast, and not spending too much time on each spot, I was in the middle of the two parts, I also wanted to enjoy the moment, but I didn’t want to miss cool things.

Many people told us that we were doing right, deciding going to Disney in February, because it was a low season. Lies! There were tons of people and we took lot of time in lines for the rides. On the Avatar’s ride, we spent 3 hours in the queue.

The most enjoyable part for me at Disney, was the characters. I did drawings for some of them, it was a friend who works in Disney who recommended me to do that, I appreciate he did, because that highlighted my experience with them too much more. Scrooge McDuck, Tigger and Pooh were very happy for the drawings, me and my family received special attention by them for that simple detail, that I think for them means a lot. Also I did a drawing for Ariel, since is my sister’s favorite princess, and at the time she gave her the drawing, Ariel almost cried of happiness, and yes, she also received special attention by her. She even dedicated something nice to her on the autograph.

We were saying that all the crew member of Disney World lives like every day is the best day of their life, they are always happy, kind, helpful, and make a good experience with them. Just when we were talking about this, it happened all the opposite with a worker, the one who was in charge of the line of the Meet & Greet of Stitch. I also had a drawing for him, and I saw in the distance that they were about to close the tie because his time was over. And I saw the person in charge allowed to pass a last group of family to see Stitch, and he saw me running, but when I reached the point, he closed it and said “sorry, this was everything for today, Stitch won’t receive anyone else”, the door was still open and I could see Stitch taking pictures with more people. I tried to convince this person that I was coming from other country, and I had a gift for Stitch, and his argument was “Can you imagine how many people from other countries are coming daily to Disney world? That’s not an excuse”. Not even showing him the drawing I had for Stitch he let me in.
Something similar almost happened in the Meet & Greet with Tigger and Pooh, for being taking pictures with other things, we were missing the time of closing, when we arrived, it was already closed for 2 minutes (if they closed at 4:30pm, it was 4:32pm), I told the lady who was in charge that I had something for them, and showed him the drawing, and she smiled and told us “Okay, you are the last ones! Enjoy!”. But the one who was in charge of the Stitch’s was not the same, so mean.

We went to Epcot on a rainy day, it was not a problem since almost all the rides on Epcot are indoors, only all the world pavilions are outdoors but we could walk them when it stopped raining. The problem of the rain was that every ride had a technical problem, they were stopping every minute, the Spaceship Earth didn’t allow us to choose our language, even if in the screen were the options, well, my cart had the narration in French, my parents’ in German, so we didn’t understand anything. That didn’t ruin us the day, they were fun anyway.

A very cute thing I realized about my parent, how much he loves some Disney characters. He loves Goofy (even if he calls him Tribilín), and every time he saw Goofy in the park, he took a picture. He was kind of shy to buy a plush of Goofy, in one of the souvenir stores, he was “joking” with my mom he wanted it, but he left the plushie back. So I decided to buy it to him, and asked to deliver it to the hotel. When we went back to the hotel that evening, and I picked the plush, he almost cried, he said he really wanted it.

It was a really nice experience, very expensive, I don’t know how some families manage to pay for all their kids, and they even buy them balloons (which the kids decide to set free in the air), glowing useless toys, and princess outfits (that I got to see the prices of how much it cost to make your girl a princess. whoa!).

----Tour guide in Mexico City----

We went back to Mexico City, and I knew that a good friend of me,  mmm-dumpling, who has hosted me in his house in Toronto, was going to come to Mexico, just for the adventure and to explore around, not having any specific plan yet. I asked my family if we could host him at least for some days, and they accepted gladly, even they offered to pick him up at the airport.

When I’m in Mexico City, I stay in my parents’ house, it’s very different than when I’m in Guadalajara. In Mexico I don’t have a car, so I’m moving all time by transit, so I’m glad they offered to pick him up.

I had already been tour guide of many friends in Mexico City before, it’s always fun, and now I know all the touristic sites very well. But this time was a little different, since he had a lot of time to explore, he was going to spend a month more after I leave the country, I preferred to start with the least known places, and being a tourist in my home town: Texcoco.

While we were walking Los baños de Nezahualcoyotl, Molino de Flores and Texcoco downtown, I was realizing that I had more than 10 years ago that I hadn’t been in those places, so it was like re-discovering all those sites. Also I enjoyed a lot how much he was enjoying his time even with simple things, like seeing a horse rider in front of the church, seeing lots of cactus and different trees, or taking those mini vas as part of the transit.

When he shared the pictures on Twitter of the sites he had visited that day, a furry artist on Twitter,  cuddlehooves, commented that all those places were very close to his house. I was very surprised; I didn’t know any furry in Texcoco. Talking with him, we discovered we had been in same schools, probably we would have seen each other many times and we had no idea. Some days after, I got this very nice surprise that put some tears in my face, it was like a punch of memories in one single picture. That's what art is about:

https://twitter.com/TheBubblepup/st.....88008333094912

I showed him many parts of Mexico City; my friend Apolo also took us to the dam where the furry camp “Camping Paws” was going to be held, and we tried many authentic Mexican food: Quesadillas, Pozole, Enchiladas, Aguas de sabores, Cochinita Pibil, Tlacoyos, Tamales, Mixiote, and even Pulque (something that I don’t like, and Dumpling even disliked, hehe, I think that was the only thing he didn’t like). In my house, the last evening I was spending in Mexico before continuing my big trip, my dad opened a bottle of tequila and another one of mescal.

Dumpling continued his trip to Mexico, I’m very sure he can tell many amazing things of his adventure in this beautiful country. And I took a flight to NYC, my first stop before heading to Stockholm, Sweden. A country I had never been before.

----NordicFuzzCon----

It was 2016, I knew about the existence of NordicFuzzCon, SilverFox as guest of honor, and looking all the cute art he was doing for that convention; it was the year of Zootopia, and they were having the premiere on their convention, and a video of  NFCMausie was released about the premiere gala, and immediately I fell in love with that fursuit, just to know that it was the mascot of such convention. Then I started watching videos of the furry con in Sweden, and thought “One day I should go there!”. Every year they released a new cool musical video, and I started turning a fan boy of the convention, wanting each time more to attend, and wanting to meet Mausie, he’s a really cool and cute mascot, I’ve love his personality and his energy. Secret not so secret: he’s one of my main fursuit crushes.
It was in 2018 when I decided seriously that 2019 was going to be my first NordicFuzzCon, even if it was very far away from me, and it was not going to be a cheap trip. I started planning everything, I got my flight tickets, my registration, and suddenly my family said that we were going to Disney World in that same month, in February. I was worried about my finances, because a double expensive trip meant double work on the year, so I had to step on the accelerator thoroughly with extra work to make it happen, I didn’t want to cancel my first NFC.

First experience coming down the flight, as if it were a Hollywood movie, there was my friend waiting for me at the airport with a printed picture of my fursona. It is the first time that I’m received that way.

Arriving to the Scandic, the main hotel of the convention, and just some few hours after my arrival, I get to see my first fursuiter: Mausie!! What an amazing welcome to the convention, he was also the first one I got to hug.
It was not my first time I saw Mausie, tho. I got to meet him a year before, at BLFC, and that’s when I couldn’t help but hugging him very tight, and I have some kind of luck, because someone recorded that moment, I didn’t notice that until some months after that happened, that I saw the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XdjS40Txr9A (First 30 seconds). I think it was meeting Mausie in person at BLFC that convinced me at 100% to go to NFC this year. So yeah, Mausie was one of my main reasons I wanted to go to Sweden for this convention, and I’m so glad it happened, because it was my best furry convention ever.

Talking back about the Scandic Infra City, that’s an amazing hotel, it has a fountain with an artificial lake in the middle of the lobby, with lots of Koi fishes, which the staff and the hotel encourage the attendees to not touch, it turned into a local meme among the attendees: “No touchy fishy”. Next year they will held the convention in another hotel, I’m gonna miss that one, but I’m so glad I got to be in it. I’m very sure the convention will keep being great no matter the hotel.

The theme of this year was “A Winter Howliday, Youle love it”. Which meant we had Christmas in March, yaay! I love Christmas!! All the hotel and the area around had Christmas decorations, many trees, lights, Christmas posters, gift boxes, and outside was freezing (in the perspective of a very lost Mexican who is used to temperatures of +30ºC and that cold is +15ºC), so I could feel it was really Christmas.
Decorations had Mausie everywhere, so I couldn’t complain, I took many pictures of every decoration. Talking about Mausie, they had a big inflatable Mausie, it was amazing!! Alma Lilia, a mexican artist, made me a cute gift of me hugging that big inflatable Mausie: https://twitter.com/almiuxfloc/stat.....74376095395840
And talking about inflatable big things, the convention had a very cool bouncy castle, a big dinosaur or whatever animal it was, who closed their mouth and eat everyone who was playing on it, just look this video: https://twitter.com/SlyCat/status/1.....32525809778688 . That thing ate me! D:

Another cool thing they had on the lobby, was a big welcoming poster with all the flags of the nations of the attendees, and I could spot the Mexican flag there. They told me it is the first year they included the Mexican flag in it, and also in the system for the spoken languages for the badges.

First day, we went to have dinner to a medieval place in the historic downtown of Stockholm, but it was not one of those medieval times restaurants that are in America, that was more like an authentic small medieval restaurant in the underground, with accurate dishes from those times, even the cutlery seemed accurate. There I could meet for first time their Guest of Honor, Kéké Flipnote, who was not furry so then he was in his first furry convention, but he was very excited to be there. He’s very cool and nice.

Oh yeah, I need to mention that the staff and crew (who was called “Stew”) reminded me the crew of Disney World, not the mean guy from the Stitch’s M&G, but the rest of the Disney crew: every time happy even if they are working hard, very kind with every attendee, and especially very helpful. Any doubt I had, they always worked on me to help me, there was a guy who didn’t let me go until he solved me my doubt, even if he didn’t know it, talking on his radio with the right people, and walking to them so he could get me answers. So, congratulations to all the NFC Stew! You’re doing an excellent job on making a great convention.

Talking about staff, I helped one to go to the supermarket, for groceries needed during the con for the rest of the Stew team. I accepted to go mainly because for me, is always interesting to see supermarkets in other countries, and that was the perfect chance to experience it, and yes, it was a new experience, in how they have those devices to be charging yourself while you are putting items in your cart, and how in Sweden they have lot of food in tubes: caviar, cheese, cheese with shrimp, cheese with bacon, cheese with ham… and thanks to help with the supermarket thing, he invited me a Semla, a delicious Swedish bun, they are very yummy. Thank you,  lightfox905!!

One of the coolest fact about NordicFuzzCon, is that most of their attendees are not from Sweden, so you have a huge cultural meeting in a single place, it was awesome to meet people from Norway, Finland, Denmark, Israel, Japan, Spain, Canada, USA, Germany, Italy, France, Austria, Netherlands, of course Sweden, and many other countries. Most of people had another first language that is not English, but since it has turned in the universal language, the convention was completely in English, not a single panel or a single event was in Sweden, which was very cool, that was a real “English-friendly convention”, and made it very inclusive for all the world. But of course it was interesting to know some words in other languages, to share our cultures, our different point of views of the world, and respect every ideal, being open for anything.

The What The Fuzz newspapers, that was something really cool!! They were daily publications that you can pick next to the entrance of the breakfast room (oh yes, breakfast was included for everyone!!), this was apart from the Conbook, which also was very nice. But this newspaper told you what was going on the current day, what interesting activity was going to happen, or what interesting thing happened a day before, some curious facts about Holidays in Sweden, and the best Tweet of the previous day. I collected all the 5 papers.

Opening ceremonies happened in Wednesday, because yes, it is a 5 days’ convention!! Another thing to love NFC even more. It was a very creative opening ceremonies, with theatrical plays and cool videos with an amazing production, just look at this: https://youtu.be/U0RB7XGtp5w
During the opening, they introduced a new mascot for NFC, it was Iris, the Mausie’s cousin, who is really adorable (but not as cute as Mausie, he’s still my favorite).

Even if you looked their itinerary and seemed that there were not many panels and events, Oh, you never got bored at NFC, they had lots of activities, like those curious blip stations, which with the help of your convention badge, you could blip on them to get some random achievements, that you could see on your NFC app (the app was very useful!); also you could be catching fursuiters with the app like if they were pokemons (unfortunately I didn’t get to play that too much, and I only caught two fursutiers:  Boltee and… of course, Mausie). In the convention they were some random drawings by Flacko Weasyl, all those characters were playing a snow war, those were real attendees of the convention, I was included, I found my own picture. Those pictures had codes, and you could put those codes on your app to get more achievements.
Another cool activity was collecting stickers on a card, there were many ways to collect stickers and fill your card, if you fill it, you could enter a draw to win a free illustration by  Johis. I collected them all, but I didn’t win the raffle.

They had very strict rules about fursuiters, it is not allowed at NFC to ruin the magic. Maybe some people can complain about these strict rules, but I agree with them, I don’t like to put out my fursuit head when I’m not in the fursuit lounge or in my room, that would be like if the person who is performing Mickey Mouse decides to show their face in public, everyone knows that there is a person inside, but it is cool to keep the magic and being The Character while you are in it. So I really appreciate they are that strict with that. Wish more conventions could do the same but I know there would be some drama around that.
Also they shouldn’t complain, fursuiters have lots of special preferences, their fursuit lounge is amazing, the best fursuit lounge I’ve ever been, plus the basic rules that every convention has: the fursuiter is first, especially in elevators.

Another strict rule they have (and now I have the knowledge that’s in general in Europe), you cannot share room with more or less than 2 people, so every room must have 3 people. I was very lucky to be rooming with two amazing guys:  Yamavu and  shortythedragon. I met Shorty a year before and immediately he turned in a very good friend, one of the things that excited me the most to be at NFC was rooming with him, and I didn’t know Yamavu but now he’s a great friend too.

Talking about Yamavu, he’s also an artist, and I spent lot of time with him and other artists on the artist lounge, probably the best artist lounge in a furry convention that I’ve ever experienced. It is a big table with lots of art materials that anyone can take for using them. There were times we were at 2 or 3 am, and that room was still packed with artists who were doing art jams and art trades. I could get many awesome art trades, from the same Yamavu, from  Flacko,  felixcani, Kéké Flipnote, and two of my heroes I got to meet for first time at NordicFuzzCon:  Henrieke and  Karpour, two artists I’ve been following and admiring from many years ago, and now that I know them in person, I can say they are really great people, and for some reason they were also happy to meet me. I spent a lot of time with them and all the group of toony artists, all of them really nice people, I miss them a lot.

NFC also has one of the best Arcade rooms in a furry con, as great as the BLFC’s, with a huge collection of consoles from every generation, from the oldest to the newest. I rarely stop to the Arcade room at a furry con, but this stop was needed. I got to play Metal Slug and Bomberman with Karpour, it was a big pleasure since I admire him a lot, just imagine playing videogames with one of your biggest heroes, that’s what I was living. I’m a terrible player, but that’s a moment I’ll never forget. Uff, if I know Karpour read this journal, I’m gonna blush so hard.

Even if my main goal of attending furry cons is having fun, meeting friends, and being a fluffy panda; as I said in the beginning of this journal, I’m not someone of too many resources, so for me is more than needing to work during conventions to help the expenses of the trip, that’s why I always join to the dealer’s den or artist’s alley. But I don’t complain about this, I really enjoy being in the table, drawing, talking with people, meeting fans, or people who have never seen my work before and tell them a little about what I do, also meeting other artists around… I really enjoy it, I don’t see that like a job, but of course, is very needed for me to do it.
Well, another big compliment to NordicFuzzCon (if you have read my journals about my experiences about furry cons, you know that I try to be the most honest possible, and sometimes I complain about things I didn’t like about the events, but I can’t find anything bad about NFC, this chapter of the journal is only about compliments to NFC, I promise they are not paying me to write this, it’s completely honest), it has been the best Dealer’s Den I’ve ever been in a furry con, or even in a convention in general. The dealers are treated like VIP, they offered us tablecloths if we didn’t bring one (and they don’t charge for it), the tables are personalized with our names, the opening time of the dealer’s den is not all the day, so we have time to even enjoy the convention when it’s over, and I think the best part was: we have a break time for lunch. TwT

For the weather, I caught a cold, it is the very first time in my furry life that I get sick during a convention, I was feeling terrible on Saturday morning, and I was with a horrible face in the dealer’s den, a friend noticed it, and he called a medic. Oh yes, NFC has medics!! First time I get sick during a con, and first convention I know they have doctors. He was very helpful, he gave me some pills and recommended me to drink sparkling water, I got absolutely better in some hours later, so I could enjoy the rest of the convention as always. I gave him one of my art books as thanks.

NFC was full of cool events, like powerpoint karaoke (a very creative event, you should check a little bit of it on this video and see what is it about: https://youtu.be/jkLzgQwYXDc ), fursuit charades, where I was in it and was terribly fun: https://youtu.be/nPZM9Bf-_-M
Participating on the fursuit charades I could notice why NordicFuzzCon events are that awesome, we had to be 1 hour before the event, so they could check who exactly was going to participate (I feel so bad that they had to choose someone random to not play because we were too many, and seeing his reaction of disappointment when he was chosen, broke my heart and I tried to volunteer to be the one who was not gonna play, but this guy insisted me to not do that and play anyways, that he was not that really sad), also they checked if all of us had a good level of English, if we could act in fursuit very well, and they explained us how exactly the games were going to work, so having everything planned before the show started, we just showed up to have fun and entertain the audience.

Someone randomly gave me an inflatable candy cane, so I was playing and goofing around with my new plastic giant candy cane. But for some reason, people tended to lick it, leaving their saliva on the cane, but there was not only one, there were many who was doing that, haha, that was disgusting, but there was no time enough to tell them they shouldn’t do that because other people had done it before, they just came closer and licked the caramel. When I was back to my room, Shorty saw my new toy, and his first instinct was licking it, I told him “You have no idea how many people did exactly that downstairs”.

Wow, I’ve written a lot, probably until this point it has been my longest journal I’ve ever written, and I’m just halfway of the things I need to say about NordicFuzzCon.
Next event I participated was the international candy exchange. Mexico is also very well known for their candies, so I wanted to share my most favorite candies from my country, and I didn’t want to be mean, I brought non-spicy candies, so people really could have a good impression of the candies we have in Mexico, I brought: alegrias, jamoncillos, guava candy, tamarindo and borrachitos. But well, I didn’t want to be mean, but I think that was the idea of this exchange, to be very mean with the other attendees, there were exotic and horrible candies, I suffered a lot trying those black liquorice candies in many presentations, that some of them were more like a prank than anything, especially those that looked like innocent chocolates but they had liquorice inside; or Japanese candies that were caramelized fishes. There were many good ones too, of course, I loved the Belgium and Norwegian chocolates.
We had a candy shop just in front of the hotel, I wanted that my friends tried those horrible liquorice candies too, haha, so I bought some few so they can taste them and record them trying them.

Fursuit parade!! I was missing fursuit parades, many furry conventions are trying to get rid of them, which makes me sad because I enjoy them. I’m so glad there is still a fursuit parade in NFC, even if it was very confusing. The conbook explained something very different as how it happened, I was heading to the spot where it was supposed to start, but the staff was re-directing all fursuiters to outdoors. Even if it was confused, I just followed everyone and suddenly we were in the middle of the parade, when I thought we were just randomly walking. The best part of the parade was ending up in the Fursuit Zoo, a place where we could be playing with lots of props and lots of fursuiters, a good place to be the perfect goof.

Talking about goofing in fursuit, I couldn’t suit up next to Mausie during NFC because that raus is incredibly busy, of course, he’s in his con, it is his event. But I could suit up next to Baseball the Bat, a very fun critter to be goofing with, I enjoy a lot when other suiters are good performers and we can play together, being cartoon characters, and that’s something I could be with Baseball. We ended up in the artist’s lounge making a doodle collab in a paper board. Hours later, I could take that paper (with the permission of Baseball) and saved it as one of my precious memories from this con.

I also got excited to see the concert for charity, because they played the song “A winter with you”, a song by Baxxter & Burrs composed for the convention, and me, as a good fan boy, I knew the lyrics and I could sing along.

I was part of the Doodles for Charity event, it was not my first time participating on that event at a furry con, I’ve done that before and I know it is fun and I’m glad that it is always for a good cause. Well, before me, there was Baseball the bat doodling, and I got a drawing by him, which is absolutely adorable. And then it was my turn, I took with me a big sketchbook, many crayons, and I was ready to draw like a 5 years old kid in fursuit (as I’ve learned from the great master: Barley Mutt), but then I noticed that around me, on the table of the event, I was the only one in fursuit, and the other artists were doing the doodles for real, they were not being silly as I was, and also the event was not like in the previous Doodles for Charity that I had been on, where the doodles are for free, encouraging the people to tip, and those tips were for the charity. Nop, here was not like that, here, if you wanted a doodle by any of the artists in the table, you had to pay 100 SEK (which is around 10 USD). So I was kind of embarrassed at that moment to have decided to be in fursuit, definitely the doodles I was planning to do, were not worth 100 SEK. But when we started, people loved the idea of having a silly doodle by a fursuiter, that the result looked like a little kid drawing, and I was busy all the time. There even were people who didn’t get a slot because the time was over. Also it is very tiring to be drawing in fursuit, especially on that event, that we barely had light so I couldn’t see the colors of the crayons very well, so was not even drawing in fursuit, it was like drawing blinded.

Closing ceremonies were as spectacular as the opening, they gave rewards for many things: the one who captured more fursuiters in the catch them all game in the app, also who got the most quantity of achievements, the best photography, the best decoration in a room door in the main hotel, and even the winner of the raffle from the stickers. They showed a video of the next year’s theme and venue, which was a very good quality video, you should check it: https://youtu.be/dV3m5U4mtDc

I was telling my friend SkippyFox that it was a really bad idea to open a Surströmming can, but he really wanted to do it, it was good that he received the correct advice about how to open one of those cans so it can’t be an odor bomb. I decided to accept and going to his alternative event of opening the Surströming and try it. I had seen and listened horrible stories about this stupid challenge, so I was kind of afraid to try it, but...what’s the point of this life if we don’t try new things, and also, when will be another chance that I could try this.
If you want to see the result of this challenge, there is a video, and I’m in it: https://youtu.be/ehCfeD0NyS8
Of course it smells so bad, it is a horrible smell. But when I tried it, at first it doesn’t taste too bad, it is like sardine but a little stronger, that’s only the flavor that your tongue is detecting, but when you swallow it, is when it tastes like how it smells: horrible. I’m so glad I only tried it a bite, that was enough to have the smell on me all the day. I had to wash my hands for many minutes, same brushing my teeth, and I took a shower. I wanted to suit up later and I didn’t want to be a fishy panda. That’s what I get for touching the fishy.

Last moments of NordicFuzzCon were getting closer, I could see many people leaving the place, which was very sad, there was a time the lobby was almost completely empty, and the Dead Dog Party was some minutes away to start, so I thought it was going to be like in Furrnion, that Dead Dog was literally dead, nobody was there, so for a moment I thought it was not worthy to suit up again, but it was a big mistake, the dead dog party started an many remaining fursuiters showed up, so yes, I was a panda again, and they were great last hours of this amazing convention. I got to see the real  traxswe and hug him.

Probably I’m missing to tell many great things about this convention, I did a lot during that week, and I’ve also written a lot, and I still need to tell you about the other two conventions I attended on this trip. As a quick summary of the things I missed to tell about this, were the print bot machine, where you could print anything you wanted by a telegram bot; people leaving Christmas cards on the Christmas trees, so people could pick them, of course I left some cards too; the last free breakfast of the con was until 9:30am, too earlier than the rest of the days, it was funny that at 9:25am everyone was running from their rooms to the breakfast room to get something (includes me); Max Burger was always full of furries, it was cheap and fast food, and very close to the hotel.

I remember the last time I cried because the furry convention was getting over was MFF 2016.And now in NFC 2019 I couldn’t help my weak feelings when someone I had met was saying goodbye. Definitely the best furry convention ever. I recommended it highly.

If you want to see my pictures from NFC (and also I collected some pictures from other people, credited on the names of the files):

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gluof151.....QaY6Gv3ma?dl=0

----Adventures in Stockholm, Sweden.----

I can’t imagine traveling so far away home (the farthest away I’ve ever been from home) and only going for the convention, and then back. Nop, I really wanted to stay and explore around, I’m so glad that Trax offered me to spend more time after the con, and the best was that Shorty and Miles were doing the same, so I was staying with really great people. First days after the con were very relaxing, we just explored not very far away, there was one day that we walked a lot for going to a coffee shop, with really good pastries, so it was worthy, and heading back it was colder and I had to wrap myself as a burrito. I couldn’t complain, I enjoy that kind of weather that I never get to experience when I’m home. Something else that I enjoyed a lot was using the local transit, that’s something I enjoy a lot of traveling, to figure out how to move around the town, how all the transit system works, and especially in Sweden, that the train stations are beautiful. Something interesting for me was using ferries as part of the regular transit, we could pay it with the same card that we paid for the buses, street cars or subway.

We ate Semlas again, those delicious buns that with a coffee are the best, especially with that weather. And we visited the Vasa Museum, an impressive museum with an original ship from the XVI century, a ship that belonged to the royalty, that sank in the river when it was scarcely resting, and recovered it almost in its totality around 50 years ago. I bought a rat plushie, as the same as Trax, so we had our own rats for the rest of that day. That rat traveled with me for the rest of the trip.

We visited a childrens museum, which was very cool, but the only problem is that everything in there was in Swedish, with the exception of the story train, where you could pick your own language to hear and see a story while you were advancing, like one of those Disney rides, even with the same high quality of any of the rides from Disney Parks, I enjoyed it a lot.

Here starts an odyssey we lived:

Have you ever traveled with a bunch of friends with fursuits? If the answer is yes, you know how much luggage each one is always carrying. If the answer is no, well, let me tell you how is that. Every person space counts at least for 2, one for their person itself, other for the fursuit, sometimes even more, it depends how big is their fursuit.
Have you ever traveled by transit with a bunch of friends with fursuit? I really hope your answer is no, but if it was yes, you know how an adventure that is.

We were 7 people, most of us were carrying a fursuit, and we were traveling by transit in Stockholm to arrive to the port, we were about to take a cruise. Yes, furries in the sea!! It was a really good idea!! But of course we were carrying with all our luggage, which was a lot, those who didn’t have a fursuit, were carrying some groceries we bought for that trip. We were very packed. Using escalators, using a lot of space in trains, carrying with them in the streets with lot of people walking around us, but finally we made it, and were in the cruise to start a new adventure.

It was my very first time in a cruise, or in a ship, I was always used ferries for short distances but never a big ship, and it was like a floating hotel. I discovered that if I were not with very cool people with me, cruises wouldn’t be my thing, it is like being on a big hotel but not being able to go out of it, and it is moving very constantly, a movement that at least I never got used to it. Good thing I was with the right people, and it was too much fun.
People were not walking outside because it was terribly cold, everyone preferred to be indoors and seeing the rivers and the ocean from the circular windows. But Trax and I are crazy, and we went out, at evening, to run all around the ship. When we entered back, we were popsicles.
One of the great things of the ship itself was the buffet, it was delicious, I could eat caviar for first time in my life, just to discover is not my big thing, but the rest of the food was yummy.
For most people in the ship, the big thing seemed to be the Duty Free. Well, I bought there three pairs of socks that were cute, especially a pair which have some cats, and there were very inexpensive, and now I can say I bought some socks in a cruise in the middle of the Baltic ocean, not many people can say that.

It was evening, and all around the cruise was noisy, with loud music, normie people drinking and dancing, some drunk people trying to talk with us, and as shy as I am, I preferred to avoid them, and we couldn’t find a quiet place just to chill and talk, so we went back to one of our cabins to play cards vs furmanity, because we’re very furry trash. It was funny.

Next day was the best day in the cruise, because we went out in fursuit, we were Mausie,  hiyougami, Trax and me. It was during a family hour, so all the kids were joyly crazy with us. It was too much fun, despite we didn’t understand what the kids were telling us, they were speaking Swedish or even other languages like Finnish and Norwegian.

I made a drawing about this: http://fav.me/dd207s8

And you can see some pictures from the cruise here: https://twitter.com/milestfbaxxter/.....15153682661377

And then, when we got back to Stockholm, we had to live the same odyssey back with the fursuits.

I was lucky to be in Stockholm during their monthly Furry Fika, a furry meeting in a coffee shop, some of them are in fursuit, others are drawing, and everyone is talking. I got to meet new people, and listening adventures from other guys who were also coming from far away out of Sweden. They have a notebook where the attendees always sign, it can be only with their names, and some of them doodle something. Of course I doodled my fursona with a Mexican flag, and people drew a wall around me. I couldn’t stop laughing for that.
I drew some people around the place, I was kind of inspired that day to be drawing.
After the Fika, we went to the supermarket to buy ingredients for tacos. It was the last day of many of us in Sweden and they wanted to make a taco party, I’m not sure if they decided to make it as that in my honor, or just because they really wanted to make tacos, but of course I can’t complain, I love tacos (as good Mexican) and I’m always curious how are tacos in other countries. This was in the Lightfox’s house, and it was funny that I was told that I was making my taco very wrong, and they taught me how to make a taco, but….I’m Mexican, I’m supposed to be a taco expert, haha. Of course they were really different as a taco would be in Mexico but they were incredibly good. I enjoyed a lot that evening, surrounded by cool furries who a day after I was going to start missing a lot. Lots of good memories of Sweden.

My very last day in Sweden was in a butterfly garden and aquarium, I can’t remember was the name of that place because I barely can remember some words in Swedish, even if I tried. But it was very relaxing.

Awesome thing is that to my flight to Toronto I was not alone, I was traveling with good company, and since we were only fursuiters, once again, and we were moving by transit to the airport, we lived another odyssey of moving all our luggage by train and bus. But we got it.

In the flight, we had some screens in front of our seat, and I was very millennial trying to touch the screen to select the language, but it was not working, until I noticed we had some controls next to our seats. Derp.

----Furnal Equinox----

This is my 3rd year attending Furnal Equinox, and funny fact is that I just discover the hotel has a sauna. Advantages of arriving days before the convention, before everything started, so I could explore the hotel, I could use for very first time the swimming pool, and yes, I found the sauna and used it. I know that NordicFuzzCon’s hotel also had a sauna, but I never got to use it because there were tons of things to do during the convention.

I met Dumpling back, he was just arriving from his trip from Mexico, and we were sharing our adventures while we were buying stuff in the supermarket for the convention, and then he took me to a beach of the Ontario lake. Part of the lake was frozen and I could see some blocks of ice floating, that looked very cool.

I suit up next to Dumpling, he was performing Clowy, his blue bunny, and I decided to take with me my Christmas outfit from NFC, and including the inflatable candy cane. Guess what? People started licking the candy cane. So that cane had an international collection of saliva and germs.

It was very curious how the line for regular attendees was very short comparing the sponsor and supersponsors, it is usually the opposite way. And when I received my goodies for being a sponsor I was very disappointed, it was a cheap mini flag that said Furnal Equinox and a plastic red cup, I kind of regret to have paid for the sponsor level. At least the T-shirt was very cool, probably the best design of shirt that I’ve seen in a furry convention, but I could have paid for it appart.

It was Thursday evening, and there were not any fursuiter around the lobby, I had nothing to do, and started missing to draw next to Yamavu, Henrieke and Karpour. So I took my art materials and went to the artist lounge, but it was completely empty and clean, I felt very bad and I just went early to bed.

My time at Dealer’s Den was kind of quiet, my queue was filled, tho. And I received some nice visiting during my time there, I could see  mosfetbah, Vinh Panda, Pancake & Syrup, Dogcula, Kurtt, and Paco Panda. Wait, what? Paco panda visited you, but… you are Paco Panda!! Yes, that same confusion had many people, and it was very funny. People saying hi to Paco, and some minutes after seeing me in my table drawing, or even when he visited me, and people seeing a double panda, one cute and fluffy, and other ugly XP hehe. The confusion of the people was priceless.

Fursuit games at Furnal Equinox 2019 has been the most tiring fursuit games I’ve ever participated on. Fursuit games at FE were usually excellent and super fun, probably the word was spread because many furries were interested in participate this time. Too many that some of them couldn’t get in. Fortunately, I arrived early, Mausie was in Furnal Equinox too, and I got to be in his same team. So for me it was the best team ever.
But this time fursuit games were kind of different than previous years, the audience were not cheering the teams anymore, this time they didn’t allow us to cheat, which was always funny because we were more like little critters having fun, but this time they were very strict that we couldn’t be cheating.
First game was interesting, we needed to score to the opposite team’s goal, but we couldn’t grab the ball with any part of our bodies but with a pool spaghetti tube that each one had. The game turned very aggressive, furries tackling each other, running, falling, crawling, it was very fun but I had never been on a very aggressive environment with furries before. We were the blue team vs the yellow team, as soon as we knew the rules of the game we started that match, at the end we won by many points of difference, but we were terribly exhausted. Oh but guess what? There was no time to rest, only the yellow team was lucky to have some time to rest but we, the blue team, were playing immediately after versus the red team. On the read team, there was Gale, if you know her, she’s a very energetic girl, and she started organizing a plan for beating us with her team, choosing who was going to be defenders, midfielders and forwards. While that team was making a war plan, the blue team, my team, were all on the floor, dead, defeated without even beginning the next round. Of course they beat us for too many points, they were fresh and active. Very unfair for our team, haha. But I don’t know how we managed to win the general games, and the blue team was first place. So I keep saying, my team was the best, mainly for Mausie.

That was a great highlight during the con, but suddenly I was kind of down again, many plans were not resulting, I know that we shouldn’t make plans during a furry con, or better said, we shouldn’t depend of plans to make it a good con, but I couldn’t help it, I was having a hard PCD during a furry con, something completely unusual, I was at a furry con but at the same time I was missing so much NordicFuzzCon, I couldn’t help but being comparing all time a convention with the other, especially because that previous con had happened some few days before.
I attended a weird panel about bananas, were they were telling very seriously facts about bananas, was kind of interesting but I never expected to be on a conference about bananas.

Other thing I liked was the masquerade, Furnal Equinox always host a really good one, with most of their participants that are very talented, so it is always great to see the show that now it lasts more than 2 hours.

During closing ceremonies, they showed the video of what FE means to us, I had sent my submission and of course it was shown.

That Sunday after closing ceremonies, were everyone wants to stay awake because they don’t want to let the night be over, I went to sleep at 9pm.

If you want to see some pics I took from Furnal Equinox, here’s the link (some pictures were not taken by me, on the name of the file are the credits):
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m1v8cqla.....aqpocsRMa?dl=0

----Fursuiting in Niagara Falls----

There were many furs from outside who wanted to spend more time in Toronto after FE, so I booked an Airbnb apartment, with a great view to the CN Tower.

Cornwall was riding us to the places around, I appreciated that a lot, and on Tuesday after the convention, we went to Niagara Falls, carrying with our fursuits, but gladly this time by car. I had done that trajectory from Toronto to Niagara Falls by train, so I knew how that worked, but I’m glad we could make it by cars this time.

The falls were especially beautiful this time, the color was cyan with blue, part of the river was frozen, the falls were clear, weather was cold (good for fursuiting), I’ve seen 3 times the falls and this has been the most beautiful one.

When we started our walk in fursuit, just starting a police patrol stopped next to us, of course all of us thought we were in troubles, that maybe they didn’t allow to be in suit on the falls, but he asked us if he could take a picture with us. We accepted.

We were Mausie,  sparkyd,  koidelcoyote,  yugodosei and me. We got very cool pictures of us in the falls.

If you want to see the pictures, here’s the link, the photographers are credited on the name of the files:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jzxcy21y.....jeWJm4hga?dl=0

After this, we went to some museums in Toronto, my most favorite this time was Casa Loma, it was the second time that I visited that place but seeing how much my friends were enjoying the place made me feel great, and enjoyed the place even more.
After that we had to say goodbye to some friends, again that feeling of having a knot in my throat and I almost cried. I think this trip made me very sensitive.

----Dallas----

I spent some few days in Dallas before Texas Furry Fiesta in  tigerthemeerkat’s house (thanks a lot for all your hospitality), most of my time there was to advance work, because I had to do lots of things that I hadn’t done for being traveling. We went to a brewery, where  dariomouse, Tiger and  rabidrabbit56 were inviting me everything, I was kind of embarrassed, and I didn’t bring any kind of art material to make them some drawings as thanks, at least I doodle them with a sharpie and a crayon. In that place I tried cream soda for first time, something that Shorty had told me that I should try in USA, and it is really good.

I was invited to participate on the podcast Suitable Conversations, I don’t know when it will be shared but for sure I will let you know, at least in my telegram channel: https://t.me/panda_paco

Another great experience before TFF was going to Carrolton, TX, to eat fried chicken in Babe’s, it was a really good fried chicken, something that I usually don’t eat because I consider it is too greasy, but that one was incredibly good.

And maybe something meh that I can tell of this mini trip, that it is for sure it is not interesting, but I want to tell it anyways, I had a haircut. Being almost 2 months away home, my hair had grown a lot, which makes the fursuit experience kind of uncomfortable. And as a curious shitty fact, it is the first time I have a haircut out of my country. I had no idea we needed to tip the haircutter in USA, but well, I did.

----Texas Furry Fiesta----

Yay!! Also my 3rd time attending TFF, and it was as great as it always has been, probably this was my most favorite TFF of the 3. It is not as impressive as NFC about activities and high quality production, but it is more about friends, meeting new friends, old friends, and those friends who I had never met in person.

It’s a huge convention, with almost 5,000 attendees, but it doesn’t feel as such, I can hang out with friends, spending enough time with each one of them.

Oh, once again, in my first fursuit show up, I went down with the candy cane, but I was very disappointed with that, because nobody licked it :C I already had European and Canadian saliva, I needed American saliva to complete my collection, but nobody did it.
But something I enjoy a lot of TFF is that I usually spend lot of time fursuiting there, more than the average, I don’t know why, if not even the temperature is cool for that, all the opposite, it is warm.

I have a very nice experience, that I was coming back from outside, in fursuit, and I saw  loomy and  kenothehusky, they seemed especially happy to see me, it was a very nice moment. The best thing of that moment, it was recorded, I still don’t get what exactly this person was recording, or if he knew that this moment was going to happen just seconds after he started recording with his phone, but well, just check the video and make your own conclusions: https://twitter.com/Arrow_Fox1/stat.....25545458184192

I’m also glad that TFF is still doing fursuit parades, despite having more than 4K attendees, almost 5K, because is always fun to be waving to people with a lot of joy, I don’t know how exactly to explain why I enjoy fursuit parades a lot, because any kind of description could sound not so interesting, but for me it is. But it is the very first time that I’m one of the last fursuiters who is in the parade, and it’s the first time that I experienced to be waiting for around 40 minutes standing up until it’s my time to show up, and I could see how all the fursuiters were coming back from the parade, drinking water, chilling, taking pictures, and I was still in the line to go out. Maybe that was not fun, but when I was walking in the parade, my positive perspective about parades came back.

Again, I wanted to participate on the fursuit games, I had never been on the TFF’s, this was my first time. And I was incredibly disappointed, probably the worst fursuit games ever. The games were confusing, all the instructions were explained by a megaphone, which makes very hard for us, as fursuiters, to listen. My complaining was not about that, maybe those were technical issues with the microphone, but the games by themselves were confusing and not very fun, and the worst part is that they allowed some young humans, without fursuit, to participate. The victories on the games were individual, and guess what? There were always the guys without fursuit who were winning all of them. What’s the point of FURSUIT games, then? Of course they have all the possible advantages, they have a perfect view, there is not any kind of challenge for them, they can move with all freedom. Fursuit games are challenging for having a full suit and being playing performing as a character, and usually are not really serious games, if we look more silly and dumb, the best; and it is not about who is winning, but having fun. Probably the most fun fursuit games I’ve ever participated was at Furnal Equinox 2018, and my team got the last place, so winning is not the point of this event.
I was kind of annoyed of these games, the humans were winning all games and they never stopped them, so I preferred to abandon the games, for sure there were more interesting things to do out the con.

After the games, in that same room started the inflatable furs panel, which is a big meeting of inflatable toys, a perfect playground for fursuiters, where we can be playing as little kids. This time the room was incredibly full, more than average inflatable panels. My thought is that everyone is spreading the word that inflatable fur panels are not about any kind of fetish, but about having fun, and more people is attending it. It was fun, despite the one who was in charge was desperate because people were throwing some beach balls to the air very close to the chandeliers, where the balls could pop, until the point he prohibited to throw the balls to the air.

I participated, for second year, in the Cutthroat artist, first time I participated was at Furnal Equinox 2018, I was in the first place. This was the first time of this event at TFF.
They are 3 rounds, each round lasts 10 minutes and in each there is a challenge, first round was drawing someone from the audience, a fursuiter, in this case was a Griphon, with a theme of a famous movie. At the end of each round, a judge eliminates a competitor. The interesting thing is that during each round, there are 1 or 2 sabotages that are up for auctions. Each artist starts with a certain amount of money (fake money, only for the contest, called “Nbowa dollars”) and this money can be used to bid in the auction and to buy sabotage for one or more of the competitors. I received three sabotages during the game: to waste time throwing some dice until getting three pairs, before continuing my drawing, another one of drawing with my left hand (I’m right handed), and the last one was changing my drawing with the other participant, and completing that drawing as mine. The final round only remains between two artists.
When we were warming up, I could see that all the other artists were really good, a very high level, so I thought I was going to be disqualified at the first round, but I got to be on the second round, and there is when they threw me two sabotages: drawing with left hand and changing the drawing to the other participant. It was funny that the best drawing, in my opinion, was the one that the judge decided to disqualify. So I got to be on the final round, where we had to draw a hybrid between coyote and cougar, I don’t know what happened to the artist who was versus me on that last round, but she did a not very good job on that one, of course I threw her a sabotage, which was not very serious, she had to draw with a marker instead any other kind of art material, but she even accepted it was not a good one, and the judge decided I was the winner. So yep, for second time I’m winning the Cutthroat artist, it was a surprise for me, since all the artists around me were really good.

At the con, I planned an activity of hiding a picture of my fursona, and behind it, it said that whoever found that picture, they had a free drawing by me.
I think that was a cool idea, and of course I’m going to give the prize to the guy who found it ( tye1294), but I failed at the time of my first clue, my idea was showing some few clues of where the picture is, but in my first clue, stupidly I revealed exactly where it was.
Next time I do this game; I’ll plan it better. I think it can be a fun secret activity.

Night dances are always fun, this time was not the exception, this time I got to dance with that cute mystery bunny who never wants hugs or photos, but I gained his confidence and he’s a very interesting person. And with Drake  quackburd, who is crazy, him and his dances, but it was very fun to dance with him, I ended up very exhausted after dancing with him. Also I like his performance, he’s always quacking.

Another highlight of the convention was that random person who approached to me and told me he was great admired of my work, that he was following me and he liked how I draw, I’m always shy with compliments and never know what to say but thank you, blushing and some stupid giggles, and suddenly I read his badge, it was  kyell Gold. Author of amazing books like Waterways or Out of Position. If I try to remember what I told him after realizing who he was, probably I’m going to embarrass myself, so I prefer to think that I told him how much I also admire his literature.

I also did art jams with more artists, something I missed so much at Furnal Equinox, because as an artist, it’s something I always enjoy a lot to do during furry conventions, to be drawing next to other cool artists, chatting with them, and have the chance of doing art trades. I got some cool art trades from  beaglebae,  Kipper,  RedWulf and  dogzdrawz, who I got to meet him for first time in person.

I participated once again in Doodles for Charity, this time at TFF. It was too much fun, I drew many critters, we raised $459.67 for charity. I had bought in Carrolton a big pencil, I thought it was going to be cool to use it during the charities in fursuit, and it was a great idea. I was in fursuit with my big pencil, everyone thought it was so cool, and once again, I had a full queue of people who wants me to draw them as if I were a 5 years old kid.

Remember the black liquorice candies I bought in Sweden? Well, it was the chance that people could try them, muahaha. I gave some to Koidel and briansander, and of course for being solidary, I also ate one at the same time than them. It was as horrible as always, Koidel almost threw up, but we managed he ate it as the same we did. Then we took the remaining of the candies to give to their friends around the con.

Talking about gross candies, that was not the only bad one I tried during the con. Some guys gave me warhead, a very sour candy. To be honest, it was not as bad as the liquorice, it is only a weird feeling starting the candy and then it is just caramel; with liquorice, the bad flavor is all the time.

If you want to see the pictures from TFF: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u1x89bsb.....ObOWGRR-a?dl=0
Once again, you can see the credits of the photographers on the name of the files.

Many great memories of this trip, probably it has been the longest journal I’ve ever written. I really hope that you, one of the minority of inhabitants of this world who read this journal, enjoyed reading all my silly adventures. If you did, what was your favorite part? I would love to read your comments.

TFF was my 23rd furry convention. Looking forward to my 24th, that it is going to be BLFC. If you are attending there in Reno, NV, I’ll see you there.

I’m finally back home, even if I was enjoying this trip a lot, I was missing terribly my bed and my boy. So I’m glad I’m finally back. When I was back home, I found lots of Christmas cards in my mailbox, so Christmas is like continuing for me, even in April.

Hope to see you in my next adventure.

Hi everyone!!!!
I’m not back from my trip yet, right now I’m in Dallas, TX. Getting ready for my 3rd convention in the year.

I still need to write a journal about my experiences at NordicFuzzCon and Furnal Equinox, that I have too much to say about those both conventions, but I’ll save that journal to the future, to add Texas Furry Fiesta to the same journal; also I want to write that journal when I’m finally at home.

But for now I want to announce the activities I’ll be doing during Texas Furry Fiesta, that is happening this weekend.

Artist Alley

As every year at TFF, I’m up for the artist alley but it is hard to say when I’ll have a table, since there is by lottery, if I have luck, I’ll be there on Friday or Saturday, I have an event scheduled for Sunday so if I couldn’t make it on those first two days, sadly I won’t be selling this year.

I’d be selling the book “Greatest hits” and the new publication “Inktober’s NSFW (but clean)”, and of course taking commissions (to make during the con and to take home).

I really hope to make it on Friday, because on Saturday I want to be on the fursuit parade. But let’s see if the luck is in my side.

If you want to be sure when I’m having a table at the artists alley, I’ll post it on my Telegram Channel:

https://t.me/panda_paco

Viernes Furry LiveStream.

It is tiring to do, and we usually have many technical difficulties, but we always try to make it because is fun. As part of our weekly podcast, we’ll have a special edition for TFF, if you want to be shown on the camera and be seen by thousand of Latin American furs, look for us on Friday March 29 from 11pm to 1am, around all the convention center.

If you want to watch it (even if all the chat in live will be in Spanish, and probably we will talking in Spanish to the camera), subscribe our Telegram channel, that’s where we post the link for the stream: https://t.me/viernesfurry


Cutthroat artist

Oh no, once again this event. I’m very easy to be stressed and BCbreakaway keeps insisting it is fun to participate on this contest XP
Haha, well, it’s a fact the game is fun, and of course it was me who accepted to be part of this for second time.

What is it about?
They arde 4 rounds, each round lasts 10 minutes and in each there is a challenge (for example, draw a badge for someone in the audience). At the end of each round, a judge eliminates a competitor. The interesting thing is that during each round, there are 1 or 2 sabotages that are up for auctions. Each artist starts with a certain amount of money (fake money, only for the contest) and this money can be used to bid in the auction and to buy sabotage for one or more of the competitors (sabotages can be such as drawing with the left hand (or the right hand if the artist is left handed), draw with the canvas upside down, and so on). The final only remains between two artists.

For this edition, we will be BeastSoul, Cute Deer, Leo and Paco Panda (me).
This event will be in Saturday March 30 at 8pm, Gaston Room.

Doodles for Charity.

For 3rd time, You’ll get the chance to have an original Paco Panda (the fursuiter) original doodle for free!! And also you would receive an amazing sticker.
I won’t be the only fursuiter doodling, we will have the participation of Bagel, Bolt, Clawy, Costa, Dr. Wildlife and Hubcap.
All doodles are free, but we encourage to give some dollars to the tip jar. 100% of the money raised during this event will be for the charity CARE rescue Texas.

This event is on Sunday, it starts at 2:30pm at the Landmark Circle, but I’ll be there from 4:00pm to 4:30pm, no more, no less.

Fursuiting

And of course I’ll want to be fursuiting and goofing around as a fluffy panda, because is the most enjoyable at conventions. If you see me around, don’t hesitate to say hi, ask for hugs and pictures.

See you at TFF!!!

Hi everyone!!!

First journal of the year.
I'm so glad that many people read my journals, if this were not like this, long time ago I would have stopped writting journals, because usually are very long.

So thanks again for reading me and my adventures. And check out, because this first adventure of the year will be very long.

I just came back from a concert, also the first concert of the year. Not to play, many people think that I play in concerts when I tell them I'm going to concerts very often, hehe. I'm big fan of many artists and bands, and before furry conventions, my main addiction was going to concerts, now... I take more priority to furry events, because I turned super furry trash.

This is the index of my upcoming adventure, so if you want to skip something, or you want to read directly to a point of this journal, you can do it:

-Family trip
-Nordic FuzzCon
-NSFW Inktobers magazine
-Furnal Equinox
-Texas Furry Fiesta

--Family trip.--

This adventure will start with vacations. That, believe it or not, I haven't had a vacation since... past year when I went to Cancun with Majira, Fox Amoore and Kurtt.

But...Paco, you live in vacations. Many could think that, but nop, that's wrong, and who knows me better could agree this with me: I'm working all the time, I'm a terrible workaholic bear. If I'm at home, I'm working, day and night, Monday to Sunday, if I'm traveling, I'm working in the plane during the flight, if I'm at a furry convention, I'm working (you'll always see me at a booth or a table in the artists alley, at least one day). I can't stop, and if I'm stopping, I got anxious because I know I can be working more.

I'm happy, tho. I'm living on what I wanted to do in my life, creating my own art, giving a message to the world, my own message, and there is people who is appreciating what I do. There is a famous quote that says "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Well, I need to disappoint you but I think that's fake. Of course I do what I love, but I'm very consious I need to work everyday in my life to get the rewards of this life. I can't be rich living from this, so if I want to be traveling, I need to extra work.
Now you know why you see almost a daily post on my galleries and social networks.

So no, I'm not rich, not even millionaire, I live in a very humble rented shared department, I try to save as much as possible, sometimes expenses hurt. But in the end, we don't need to have a lot of money to do what we want, because the money is not the meaning of the happiness.

So yeah... maybe I travel a lot, but non of them are considered real vacations. This time.. vacations mean to be with my family. Yeees, family vacations!! We are going out together :D
A really long time that we hadn't been out together, not sure how many years, probably more than 10. So I'm very sure I'll enjoy it. I promised myself to not work a single bit during this trip.

So I will completely disconnected from the world, won't submit anything, won't reply on Telegram / Facebook / Twitter. I want one week to feel completely free.

--Nordic FuzzCon--

But just after the vacations are done, it starts a new trip, this time, to a place I've never been, and it will be the farthest away from home: Stockholm, Sweden.

It was a dream from many years to be able to attend this convention, my problem was that I didn't know anyone who also were attending, but this year that situation changed.

I knew about NFC many years ago for watching their ads, which are always very creative and cool, and that's how I knew about Mausie.
Because yeah, my main reason to attend NFC was Mausie, probably many people know that. But now that I met Mausie at BLFC, and he's as adorable as I could imagine, I'm going because I made many friends who are staff from NFC or just attendees, and I want to meet them in person.

This year is gonna be great!! Because their theme is Christmas!! So it is like living another Christmas celebration, only two months later.

If you are attending, I'll be in the Dealers Den, only on Thursday and Saturday. And there, I'm planning to release my new publication:

---NSFW Inktobers magazine---

31 NSFW pictures (but clean. PG rated) that I did in October, for first time printed, with a very special price, won't be expensive.

If you want to check which pictures I'm talking about, take a look back to my gallery, and you'll understand why if... it says those are Not Safe For Work, are completely clean:
http://www.furaffinity.net/scraps/pacopanda/

---Furnal Equinox---

My third year in this Canadian convention, because... I really love it. I love how cold it is, I love going to Tim Hortons, I love to see once again all my friends I've done there.
I applied for the Artists Alley, but they haven't shown results, so... if I'll be in the Artists Alley it is still a mystery.
But if I am, be sure that I'll sell the NSFW Inktober magazine there too.

And I submitted a video for the FE2ME contest, hopefully they will choose the one I made to show it at the closing ceremonies, so don't miss this last event.

---Texas Furry Fiesta---

The first year I attended TFF, it was kind an accident, more than an accident, it was spontaneous. And now, I can't stop attending. It is a fun convention.
As the same as FE, my presence in the artists alley is not sure yet, this year I wanted to apply for the Dealer's Den but I was not accepted *cries*, so I'm gonna try to be at the Artists Alley, but there is by lottery, so I don't know if I'm having a place, and if I do, I don't know when.

---

Raise your paw if you are seeing me at any of those 3 conventions.

At NFC, it is for sure that I'll have a place at Dealers Den, you can get from me, besides the NSFW magazine, my artbook, stickers, prints, and a commission if you are one of the first to arrive to my table.
Same at FE and TFF... if I get a slot on their respective artists alley.

If you are interested to see me there and you want to be updated about if I'm having a table or not, and if I do, where and when... I'll be updating this information in my Telegram Channel: https://t.me/panda_paco

And please, if you see me anywhere during the convention, out or in fursuit, don't hesitate to say hi, if I'm in fursuit, you'll get a fluffy bear hug.

Panda loves you a lot!!
*bear hugs to everyone*

This is going to be crazy, that I really don't know where to start.

From the beginning, of course!

Anthro NorthWest

November 8th, 2018. That's the date I decided to leave home to the American adventure. Arriving to Seattle, the first surprise was a big dinosaur (those classic inflatable disguises that internet has been selling and making videos of them), he was waiting for someone and wanted to give them a funny surprise, I wanted to see the moment the surprise was released but I couldn't, I waited forever nearby, but the dinosaur waited even more than forever, hopefully his plan was a success, all people taking him pictures at the airport and asking him questions, surely it could be odd for him, he didn't seem very energetic to surprise other people, he only wants to surprise somebody else and it was not arriving. I tried to take an Uber or a Lyft but the price from the airport to the ANW hotel was very pricey, but I had a guardian angel named  blaze-collie who asked me, at the very right time, if I wanted a ride to the hotel. He asked me one second before clicking "confirm" and spending +$45 on a Lyft.

It was my very first time in the Washington state, thus it was my first time at ANW (and I never could go to Rainfurrest). And that same evening is when I met my friend  polarisbeaver, who is the one I shared room at that convention with.

If I'd write a review for Anthro NorthWest, would be only good things. Everyone was calling it a "small con", but honestly it was bigger than I expected. Around 1,300 attendees is something, I knew many friends who couldn't attend because they were sold out of registration.
They really take care of their attendees, and do the possible to make them live a different but enjoyable experience.

I love when conventions have their own mascot, it is not a surprise that I'm in love with Mausie, from NFC, and I loved that Pounce, from Megaplex, was very important as the one who represents the event. Andy was not the exception, when, being honest, I was not completely in love of the fursuit, I really think it could have looked better, but it is not a big issue, Andy has his charm; but what I loved from Andy is the personality and the energy of the performer, he's a character, and he does a really good job at the time painting you a smile. Andy is something important at ANW, you see him everywhere, and acting like the host from the event, so you feel important when he waves at you or gives you a hug.

People could see art by me everywhere on the event, I was invited to participate on the art of the event and I easily got in love with Andy the mascot, so suddenly I ended up doing a lot of art for the convention (to my surprise, that made me earn a shiny sponsor entrance (thanks, ANW!), honestly that was never my goal of making too much art for it, I was just doing it for the love of the fandom). And that was funny because many people during the event thought I was the Guest of Honor, including one of the staff, when I saw Andy once, and I asked him for a hug, his handler (who was someone from the staff) said "eh, it is Paco Panda, the Guest of Honor, let me take you a picture with Andy!" .... I'm not the Guest of Honor...but...okay!! I can't complain having a picture with Andy. But I could met the real ANW's Guest of Honor,  leiliaspaniel . She's a sweet heart, also a very interesting panel she run about fursuiting in charities, very inspiring.

The artist alley at ANW was at evening, from 7pm to 10pm, something unusual at cons, and when I knew that, I was worrying a little. I pictured myself the situation like this: only few artists on their tables, empty room, looking at each other, while everyone is going to the dances. But no, that was another good surprise, people really went to the nocturnal artist alley and artists were busy. I enjoyed that especially because I was only working at evenings, and I could really attend panels and events during the day, something that I'm barely able to do at any con, I'm always missing panels and events for being at the artist alley, and this time was the exception, that's why I could go to the Leilia's panel, a panel about drawing human body, the furry film festival (which was awesome, and also was a surprise for me watching a music video displayed on that festival where I appear), a panel about speaking in fursuit, I finally could make the Fuzzy Logic Escape Room for first time (and we failed, we were only 2 guys trying to solve the puzzles), the dance competition and the talent show.

Participating on the "Doodles for Charity" was a great and fun experience for me. I think more attendees should know about this event, it seemed that only the people who were passing by and saw a bunch of fursuiters (and  kagemushi) drawing in fursuit with crayons knew about this event. And not all the people were awared they could get a free doodle by any of us, maybe they thought we were drawing just because, just to look cute, hehe. So I started offering to the people who was walking by "Hey, I can draw your fursona!!" and I made a quick silly doodle of a panda saying "I can draw your fursona!". I saw a lady with her furry little daughter (I'm very sure it was a girl who appeared on the CNN documentary, on the parents and kids panel), and I told them "do you want me to draw your fursona", and the lady said "No thank you, my daughter can draw!" :'C
I also can draw T_T and I've paid looooot of money for commissions to other artists because I'm so addicted to art.
But the event was fun, some cute fursuiters arrived and wanted me to draw them (like  njdevils or Tucker, I also drew Hubcap, the one who organized that event), and when the event was over someone that I didn't know took the drawing I did of my panda offering drawings. We collected $260.95 in tips for charity. Woo hoo!!!

We also were, after the closing ceremonies and receiving a medal for contruibuiting on the event (thanks again, ANW!), on a furry wedding, of Allison Wier and John Hartney, the same guys from the marriage proposal at the end of the CNN documentary. They got married in fursuit. It was very nice. Another good experience.

I met many new people at ANW, I enjoyed a lot the convention because I could have lot of free time to actually be at the con, spending time with people, making new friends, hanging out with old friends who were surprised I was there (probably the only mexican dude at the convention, oh no wait, there was someone who said hi in spanish!!), and I got many free things: a free Andy plushie, free shirts, free bubble gums, free chocolates (on the wedding), free breakfast (at MFF, thanks once again, ANW!), free hugs, free good time on a ball pit (I didn't have to pay extra for it, can you imagine that? :D ), and an extremely good time. I'm considering hardly to come back next year to ANW 2019, especially since it will be at a new and bigger venue.

If you want to see pictures of the convention:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jedfcn3k.....VLupmZ_ja?dl=0

Seattle

Did I say that it was my first time in Washington state? I couldn't miss the chance to explore around, and accepting many invitations from friends to visit them. Thanks to  kipFox, Blaze Collie,  hexhusky, and  makati. I really had an amazing time with each one of them. I'm sorry if I'm a little quiet, I'm not a very talkative person, but always try to not be very awkward, even if I understand perfectly English and I speak it (not perfectly, but I always try, at least communication is possible). I really had a good time with each one of you, thanks for spending your time on being a good host for this derpy monochromatic bear.

With Kip Fox and his roomie Eunos went to the Snoqualmie Falls, a waterfall near by Seattle, very impressive. I really want to go to natural places, and Washington is surrounded by many forests that make me feel like in the Twilight movie. (A personal stupid guilty desire is going, once, to Forks, WA).
Going to those falls was an unexpected plan, Kip wanted to take me to the mountain (that people in Seattle call them "mountnt"), but for the California's fire, it was very foggy and smokey, it would have been impossible to see a thing up there. But I'm so glad we could make it to those falls, were beautiful.

Oh but a day before, we went to the Starbucks reserve, with Kip, his roomie DS and Polaris Beaver, and at that evening, celebrated the  doryuu's birthday, a surprise for him that I was there, a surprise for me to see many known faces at that dinner, even faces that I couldn't see at the convention.

Kip was so mean and gave me to taste a super spicy hot sauce, daring me to try it just for being mexican. Haha, it was very delicious!! But he didn't lie saying it was very hot, because it was super hot, I had to drink a lot of milk.

Next day I spent it with Blaze Collie, who took me to a Mexican restaurant (because of course, if you have an authentic mexican, you want them to try the mexican food in America, haha but that place got my approval, it was good, the only thing was not completely authentic were the tortillas), and a burger place with a very unfortunate name "Dick's". It was a more educational day with him, going to the museum of flight, seeing the first Starbucks but going to another local coffee shop which actually was good, knowing about apps and all the business behind them, ending up at a curiosity shop that was more like a museum, and seeing gross wall gums.

My time with Hex Husky was more chilling, when I thought with him was going to be more party mode. But I enjoyed it a lot, he took me to many beautiful parks around Seattle, to the Japanese garden, Gas Works park, and Green lake park. It was the perfect time to stop using the Auto mode on the camera and trying interesting shots, Hex was also very into taking good shots, trying compositions and also balancing colors on the enviroment to get good results on pictures. I enjoyed that nerd mode we had at the time taking photographies. I'm more into finding compositions and shapes, I'm so bad understanding technical aspects with cameras *shame on me*

Bad thing and I'm still feeling guilty is that we wanted to go to the presentation of the new album of Avian invasion, we got tickets even before traveling to Seattle. I knew it was an event for +21, but when I'm going out, especially late night, and that I was carrying with fursuit (it was a fursuit friendly event), I don't want to be carrying with my passport (it's the only thing I can't lose when I'm in another country), so I asked Hex if I was fine with only my mexican ID, he researched about Washington laws with clubs and alcohol, and he said it was fine even if it was a foreign ID, as long as it was governmental. But at the time we were on the entrance, they didn't allow me to enter with that ID, because they required obligatorily to see my passport if I was foreign, I tried to show them a picture of my passport on my phone, but that didn't work either. The NO was an absolute No :(
And we didn't have time enough for going back to the Hex's house and then returning to the club with my passport, at that time, the event would have been ended. I'm still feeling it was my fault that he missed the event.

My time with Makiati was also really nice, he drives a Tesla, so I felt super fancy being on the front seat of that car which can drive by itself (It is the one which at Megaplex I drew on its touch screen), and also his house is BIG, I remember the first morning, after waking up, being very confused where he told me the bathroom was, there were many doors and all of them looked the same, and I was shy to open a door and that it was the room of one of his room mates, and yeah, the first door I opened... was a room, oops!

Many fun activities happened on my days with Makiati, we suited on his house (did you see the pictures of me with the box? hanging out with a cat was making me act like one), tried bacon soda (which...was not bad as I thought, but not excellent, I couldn't finish it), we went to the Seattle underground tour (I didn't know Seattle was build over an old town, wow!), we went to the Columbia's observatory, played crappy mexican rock on his car, watched the CNN documentary on his house, and went to the Space Needle to be rejected because they don't like furries.

Oh yeah, that's another story, he organized a fursuit meeting to go to the Space Needle, we were Gabriel, Hex,  nullreff,  bedtimebear, him and me. And when we tried to go up to the space needle, they didn't allow us to enter, not even showing our real face. It was not a sad night, we keep our path, took the monorail, ended up in downtown, while we were walking and goofind around, I remember a lady being very excited to see us, she took us pictures and yelled "This is why I love Seattle!!". When we returned to the car, we decided to go to the movies to watch the new Wreck it Ralph movie; Makiati and me didn't bring anything else with us but the fursuits, we didn't have regular clothes, so we went to the movies in fursuit (they accepted us, because theaters love fluffy animals). At the next day, there was a tweet of someone who recognized me in the theater "Last night I went to the movies to see the new Ralph movie and I think it was Paco Panda in front of me".

Many good experiences in Seattle, the convention and my time there was amazing.

Pics of this part of the trip:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8i7ezbxa.....bJDYLLtUa?dl=0

San Jose, CA.

The day I took my flight for going from Seattle to San Francisco (my next stop), was a day spent at the airport, because it was delayed for 6 hours. A shame because my friends in San Jose, were waiting for me to go for dinner, they had a reservation at 8pm, good because originally I was arriving at 3pm. And yes, I was arriving to the San Francisco airport, to take the train and going to San Jose (for some reason, the flight Seattle - San Jose was very expensive, and the Seattle - San Francisco flight was free for me, because a previous United bad experience that made me have a free flight, with all the restrictions of the world, but at least I could change it for THAT flight, which was also delayed, and this time I received nothing). The dinner was postponed to the next saturday and I was kind of embarrased because I felt it was my fault.
When I took the train, every station was on time, so I was supposed to arrive at 10:11pm with my friends, but a station before the one I had to arrive, the train stopped for more than 30 minutes, and in the end, Croc and  baconstrip went to that station I was stucked, to pick me up. On the train's speakers they only announced we had a delay, but never explained what was going on, but when I was picked by them, I could see a fire truck, an ambulance and cops arriving to the place, so definitely something serious happened. But well, I was there with them, finally. I love being with Croc and company, they always make me feel like I'm home.

I celebrated for very first time in my life a Thanksgiving, with Bacon, Croc, Badger and his boyfriend. Lot of food and all of it was super good!! I got fat!
I enjoyed on a very particular way my days there, only chilling at his house, watching movies, playing videogames, talking, watching weird videos, watching videos from old furry conventions. I needed a time like that before the big rush time of MFF.

Two days later, we made that plan of the dinner with Chance and Furahi, which originally was planned on Wednesday, and they moved it to Saturday because me *blushes*. It was a really awesome evening, full of yummy expensive food, bouncing balls that bounce down a hill, unexpected closed streets by cops, and watching how Croc played a videogame till late hours.

Ah, and we went to the movies to watch the Wreck it Ralph movie, second time for me. Maybe that's something I never told Croc and Bacon, that I had already seen it, it's because I really wanted to watch it again, I liked it, and I was afraid that if I said that I had already watched it, they wanted to change the plans.

Also I'm very glad to have spent time with them before MFF, because during the con, I saw Croc only twice in fursuit, less than a minute each, and I never got to see Bacon there, not even Badger. I saw Jimmy more times there, good because he was not at home when I visited them.

Chicago pt. 1

My airport curse, my flight was delayed, once again, but this time for 7 hours, it was very annoying, because the delayed flight was in Minneapolis (my flight had a stopover), if I knew the delay was for 7 hours, I could have hanged out with a friend from Minneapolis, he was asking me if I was able to see us, but at first I told him my stop there was only 30 minutes, and when it said the flight was delayed, it said only for 1 hour, but when it was about to be that hour, it increased the time, and that action was consecutive for 7 hours, if it had said "delayed for 7 hours" from the beginning, I could have called my friend. I know it was not the airline or the airport faults, in Chicago was a snowstorm.

But it was beautiful to arrive to Chicago and see everything covered by snow, I always enjoy that. Also I could see a snowfall again. You know that I love that, so the delayed flight was worth it only because that. Ha, but when I arrived to the Chicago's airport, I could see that at O'Hare everything was even worse, for the people wanted to depart from Chicago to somewhere else, I saw a flight scheduled for 6 in the morning and the status was 11:30pm
No people, don't leave Chicago on the MFF's weekend!!

I stayed a couple of days with  arcturusthechusky before the convention, we had a pizza and "drawn together" evening with  cosmicwuffy. I stayed one night at the Comfort Inn (3 miles away MFF) with  moofoo,  horoburr, Koby and  koidelcoyote. We had a crappy dinner at IHOP, which I'm also feel guilty, because I recommended them IHOP (I had only tried it in Mexico, and it is good, the best pancakes from a food chain, but it seems that in America that's all the opposite, the pancakes were terrible), and since we were 2 British and 2 Mexicans, we didn't know at all, we should have had to follow Koby, who prefered to skip ihop and he went to a burger place. He said it was good.

MFF

Finally MFF!! The penultimate stop of the trip.
What can I say about MFF? It's my favorite convention of the year, even if it's too big, that I barely can hang out with friends for a long time, that it is very easy to miss seeing somebody you wanted to see, and that are many things to do and there is no time enough for everything... there is something magical at that convention that makes me love it so much, maybe is because it feels like Christmas with furries, that good vibe that thousand of peoples are having fun at the same time at a same place.

I can't complain of the 2 hours and a half waiting for the registration, even if I was pre-reg, I could have a good talk with many people on the line, like  mightychopper,  TaichiHaruki,  moosefet, Koidel,  ruakuu,  Gecko and AirBud. I had arrived to the long line by myself and the first hour I was alone, but I was finding all those guys while the line was advancing and the curves made those meetings something possible. Also...what did we expect attending an event of +10K of attendees?

I saw people I hadn't seen during the year, or those who I was repeating seeing them at every American con I attended, or even that I saw at international cons, I had my creepers who I had to be running away from (thanks,  buckleythedeer,  rabidrabbit56 and Koidel, for saving me), the group of panda bears had our elitist meetings (that's how another bear called us. "You, pandas, are super elitist, all time hanging out together and invading the bear photoshoot", well, we are very few in this world, we need to be united).

Not surprise for anyone, I filled the commission list at con in 10 minutes at the artist alley, I sold many books, received many gifts, I also gave some gifts, drew nerdly with another artists, attended the inflatable panel because is like a fun playgound for fursuiters, it is always fun to be there; also attended the Adler the eagle 's panel, which was very funny, I could take a picture with him, yay! It was unfortunate that his panel was at exactly the same time than the Cutthroat artist, I wanted to see that event too!! They were  redwulf, Koidel and  jibbinkodiyak on a funny drawing contest, I didn't want to miss it, but... I also wanted to see Adler. It was a hard decision. Koidel told me he was going to record the cutthroat artist, not sure if he did it.

It was funny that I didn't go too much at the night dances. I was carrying with a messenger bag with me in fursuit, because I wanted to be giving gifts and also I was receiving gifts that I needed a place where to storage them while I was in fursuit, and every time I wanted to go in the dance, they had to check my bag; the music was strange, very hard to dance with that, and they didn't allow more than 5 fursuiters on the stage (that's something I always enjoyed, to be on the stage dancing), and there were always a line of fursuiters waiting for their turn. I prefered to be out on the halls and the Hyatt just goofing with more fursuiters, skipping, playing, it was more enjoyable for me.

Pics from MFF:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bgwy6t2a.....ztS8jmYra?dl=0

Chicago pt. 2

After MFF, I have a tradition to go to Chicago downtown to spend a couple of days more with friends, this year was not the exception, it was my 5th time in Chicago, and for a moment, I was thinking that may be a little repetitive, since we already know all the sightseenable of Chicago. This time we were going Moof, Horo, Koidel and me, but Nyt and Cajun joined the plan at the last minute, and they got to be on the same hotel than us, so it was like stretching MFF, including room parties (yeah, we played Mario Party and Mario Kart), and spend more time with all of them out of a convention, which was golden time for me.

Finally I got to go to one of those German Christmas markets, I remember doing some years ago a commission related to those markets, and I was always curious to be in one of those, this time I finally made it, and tried the hot apple cider (finding out that it is very similar to the mexican "ponche")

After Chicago, and spending the last evening on a Nutella coffee shop (a little disappointing, I think even Starbucks has better coffee), we finally took a flight back home; with overweight on our luggage which was no charged because frequent customer on the airline, we finally made it back home.

I would love to mention ALL the people I met or I hanged out with during this trip, it would be impossible, they are more than 150 names, and I'm sure I would forget somebody. But you know who you are, and I appreciate your friendship, I love a lot each one of you!! And thanks for reading my journal, I know there is many people who read it, and that pushes me to keep writting these trip by trip. If you read ALL the journal, let me know..what is your favorite holiday on the year?

Bye!! *panda loves*

Hi everyone! I hope you are good.

In this journal, I want to share the news that I'm attending Anthro NorthWest 2018, in Seattle, WA. (November 8 to 11). And Midwest Furfest, in Chicago, IL. (November 29 to December 2)

In both conventions I will have panels, events, artists alley and art show.

Art Show

I'm displaying in both art shows 6 art pieces: 4 of them are original, 2 are prints:

"The Whole Earth"
Original. Inks.

"Fly the Furry Skies"
Original. Acrylics.

"The furnesian islands"
Print.

"Pythagoras"
Original. Color markers.

"Golfing with Nbowa"
Original. Colored pencils.
(Only displayed at ANW)

"Cute Monster Attacks"
Print.

At ANW they will be only for exhibition (no sale), and at MFF they will be exhibition and sale. You can take any of these pictures to live with you at home, bidding on them (Except Nbowa's, that will only be exhibited at ANW, for no sale).

Artists Alley

You can buy my art-book "Greatest hits", the same one I was selling at Megaplex. And if you arrive early, I can make a commission for you at the moment. Be quick, that space will be very limited.

The Artists Alley at ANW will be very particular and different from all the ones I knew before. It will be after the Vendor's room has closed, but it won't be in the same room, but in the same place where the FuzzyLogic Escape Room will take place. Artists Alley's schedule will be on Friday, November 9 from 7 to 10pm (Yes, at night), and on Sunday, November 11 from 5 to 8 at night, so go visit us, we do not want the artists to stay watching people go to the night dances while we are just there, sitting.
Both days I will only have a limited space of 2 slots per evening in terms of commissions.

I will be sending a reminder to visit us on my Telegram channel, so I highly recommend you to follow me: https://t.me/panda_paco

At MFF I will be in the "Marketplace", which still is not very clear to me what will be the difference between Artists alley and Marketplace, but at least I already have a place there for sure.
In the Marketeplace, I will only be Friday and part of Sunday.
On Friday, November 30, you can find me at the full Marketplace time, from 12pm to 7pm (with 4 commission slots available). And on Sunday, December 2 from 10 in the morning to 12:30 pm (only 2 and a half hours, that day I will only receive commissions to do at home, limited to 9 slots).

On Saturdays I won't be in either of the two conventions at artists alley or marketplace. Saturdays you'll be seeing me fursuiting and fooling around.

Panel: "Switch-on to the drawing mode"

Probably the last two times I run this panel, before planning a completely new one.

For artists who want to draw, without having to depend on inspiration. No matter what level of drawing you consider yourself, whether beginner, intermediate or advanced, I'm sure that this panel will be very helpful. (Please be patient with me and my weird accent)

I will give it at both conventions, at ANW on Friday, November 9 at 3:30 pm. In the Compass North 3 room
At MFF on Sunday, December 2 at 1pm. In the Sky Harbor lounge.

Doodles for Charity

I will have an extra activity only at ANW: Doodles for Charity

Have you always wanted to have a doodle completely free by me? This is your chance, but ... I'll be doing it with crayons, and in fursuit.
Come get a free doodle drawn by folks in costume. These doodles are 100% free. Tips are encouraged and all money collected goes directly to the convention Charity: Sarvey Wildlife.

The event starts at 4:30, but I will be there from 5:00 to 5:30 pm. Next to Hubcap, Telephone, Obscura and Nacho.

It's going to be very fun!!

----

You can see that I will be very busy during the conventions, even so I go to these events to have fun, be with friends, meet people, and play fool while I am in fursuit.
They will be very funny times.

If you go to ANW and / or to MFF, and you see me, please don't hesitate to say hello. And if you see me in fursuit, I'm a free hugs provider.

Remember that we all go to these events to have fun. Always use common sense, to respect the fun of those around you, and to return home with an unforgettable moment.

See you there!!!

ESPAÑOL
(English below)

Después de haber ido previamente a 17 convenciones en varias partes del mundo, nunca había estad tan nervioso días antes de que comenzara esta convención.
Confuror es la primera convención en Guadalajara, y ahora la más grande de latinoamérica y de habla hispana, algo que me llena de mucho orgullo que además sea nuestra convención local, y que haya sido un gran éxito.

Tuvimos gente de Estados Unidos, Canadá, Costa Rica y otros países, pero un gran porcentaje fue gente de México. No solo de Jalisco (el estado donde Guadalajara pertenece), venían de todos los estados, probablemente había al menos una persona de cada uno de los 31 estados de México. En total hubo 541 asistentes. Un gran número para una primera edición.

Sin embargo ese número no sería importante si la gente no se hubiera divertido, y vaya que podía ver cómo la gente disfrutaba del evento, veía muchas sonrisas por todas partes, gente encantada por cómo el evento iba de excelente a mejor. Para muchos, esta fue su primera convención furry, probablemente más del 50% de los asistentes nunca antes habían ido a una convención furry antes.

¿Hubo algún problema o algún inconveniente en el evento? Si, pero muy pocos y bastante naturales, creo que los problemas típicos de cualquier otra convención, que incluso convenciones gigantes como Anthrocon o MFF las tienen: elevadores llenos y filas grandes para usarlos, problemas con el sistema de registro, problemas técnicos con el audio a la hora de empezar un panel (pero que siempre se dedicaban entre varios a arreglarlos para que no quitaran mucho tiempo)... pero en realidad nada grave, y menos para una nueva convención, creo que salió todo el evento bastante bien.

Durante el evento yo tuve el pendiente con los asistentes extranjeros que no hablaban español, ya que la convención había prometido ser "English friendly", pero muy pocos eventos realmente estuvieron en inglés. Sin embargo he sabido de opiniones muy positivas por aquellos que nos visitaron de países anglosajones, pues había mucha gente que en verdad quería ayudarles con el idioma, se hicieron nuevas amistades, e hicieron que se sintieran muy cómodos en el país. Incluso hubo varios de ellos quienes participaban en las actividades con muchas energías y ánimos.
El siguiente año es algo que definitivamente se tiene que mejorar, que en verdad se haga la convención completamente English-Friendly para aquellos asistentes de Estados Unidos, Canadá e incluso de otros continentes que quieran visitar la convención.

El Dealers Den y Artist Alley fue todo un éxito, todos los artistas tuvieron muchas ventas, a pesar de que el salón donde las ventas de productos se efectuaron era muy pequeño, la gente iba y apoyaba a los artistas. Todos muy talentosos, en verdad había muchas cosas bastante bonitas y arte increíble, también yo gasté mucho dinero en arte, prints y stickers.
Los paneles los que di y a los que asistí, siempre estuvieron llenos de gente y todos los asistentes muy participativos. Además de que eran muy interesantes y bastante divertidos.

También me encantó que la gente donara con mucho gusto a la caridad, nosotros tuvimos un evento de caridad el viernes en la noche, el cual fue todo un éxito y la gente realmente aportaba dinero para salvar a los tlacuaches y demás animales. Si quieren ver el stream de dicho evento, aquí está el link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir2HLqPf0pQ

Debo confezar que estaba también muy nervioso porque era la primera vez que estaba en un evento masivo en mi país, donde por alguna razón hay gente a la que no le caigo muy bien, y ese simple hecho hacía que tuviera un ligero temor irracional por mi persona. Es que en convenciones en otros países, o les gusta lo que hago, o no tienen idea de quién soy yo. Lo bueno es que toda la gente reaccionó muy bien ante mi presencia, había quienes se emocionaban y siempre intenté ser lo mas sincero y amable ante ellos, pues realmente no soy nadie superior, solo soy un furry más que al igual que todos, es un gran fanático del arte antropomorfo, también me encantan los fursuits, me encanta toda la comunidad, hacer amigos y conocer nueva gente. Me alegró mucho poder haber hecho nuevos amigos en esta convención, saber que hay mucha gente muy cool en mi país. Y que todos ellos tienen muchas ganas que nuestra comunidad crezca para bien.
Tuve una experiencia chusca, donde un chico me vio mientras yo iba en fursuit, él iba con sus amigos, y se emocionó mucho al verme, corrió a abrazarme diciendo "eres Paco Panda! un gusto en conocerte!" y después se tomó una foto conmigo. Cuando se despidió de mi, pude escuchar como sus amigos le hicieron burla y uno de ellos le dijo "¿No que te caía mal?" Jeje XD

Seguro muchos se enteraron del meme de la papaya de Confuror. Es impredecible realmente lo que se va a hacer meme. Pero también recuerdo haber tenido contacto con esa famosa fruta el último día de la convención. Era el concurso de baile, y depronto vi que en la alberca de pelotas había una papaya, se me hizo que era algo muy peligroso, pues si alguien se hechaba un clavado, se iba a topar con la dureza de la fruta y probablemente podrían lastimarse, por lo que la recogí y la puse en la mesa mas cercana. Entonces alguien más tomó la fruta y la empezó a pasear por toda la convención, pude ver que muchos se tomaron fotografías con ella, y de ahí que se empezó a volver viral. Oh gran papaya, qué felicidad le diste a los furries!

En general fue una convención excelente, de las mejores que he vivido, me cansé mucho, gasté todas mis energías, recibí a mi amigo Kazan de San Diego, CA. el cual también parecía disfrutar de la convención, aún cuando la mayoría a su alrededor solo hablaba español y él no lo entendía, pero muchos fueron bastante serviciales y amables con él al platicarle en inglés. Al igual que todos hacían con los invitados de Estados Unidos.

Es seguro que el próximo año mejorará mucho el nivel "English-friendly" de la convención, pues se anunció que Majira Strawberry sería el próximo Invitado de Honor de Confuror 2019, y todavía queda por anunciar al segundo invitado de honor, que también será alguien de otro país.
Otro anuncio muy importante en la ceremonia de clausura fue el cambio de sede. Confuror 2019 se llevará a cabo en Octubre 11, 12 y 13 del 2019 en Hilton de Expo Guadalajara. Un hotel bastante grande con un gran centro de convenciones, lo cual significará más espacio, más cantidad de asistentes, y un gran potencial de crecimiento. Si este año fueron 541, no dudo que el próximo se pueda incluso duplicar esa cantidad.

En verdad me llena de felicidad todo esto, me siento muy honrado de pertenecer a este fandom, de ser parte de la comunidad latina y de ser mexicano.
Cada vez vamos creciendo más y más.

No tomé muchas fotos, pero si quieres ver las pocas que tomé: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cjbnayxo.....3Bxo0bRla?dl=0

---

ENGLISH

I've been previously to 17 conventions before in many parts of the world, and I had never been so nervous days before a convention as I was for Confuror.
Confuror is the first convention in Guadalajara, and now the largest in Latin America, something that makes me so pride that is also our local convention, and also that it was a big success.

We had people from United States, Canada, Costa Rica and other countries, but the largest amount were people from Mexico. Not only from Jalisco (the state where Guadalajara is), they came from all states, there was probably at least one person from each of the 31 states of Mexico. In total there were 541 attendees. A large number for a first edition.

However, that number wouldn't be important if people had not had fun, and I could see how all furs enjoyed the event, I saw many smiles everywhere, people delighted by how the event went from excellent to better. For many guys, this was their first furry convention, probably more than 50% of attendees had never before been to a furry convention before.

Were there problems or inconveniences in the event? Yes, but very few and quite natural, I think the typical problems of any other convention, that even giant conventions like Anthrocon or MFF have them: full elevators and large rows to use them, problems with the registration system, technical problems with the audio at the time of starting a panel (but they were always many people working to fix them so they didn't take much time out) ... but really nothing serious, and for being a new convention, I think the whole event went pretty well.

During the event I was worrying with foreign attendees who didn't speak Spanish, since the convention had promised to be "English friendly", but very few events were really in English. However, I have read very positive opinions from those who visited us from English-speaking countries, because there were many people who really wanted to help them with the language, they made new friendships, and people really made them feel very comfortable in our country. There were even several of them who participated in the activities with great energy and encouragement.
Next year is something that definitely the event needs to improve, that the convention will be really completely English-Friendly for those attendees from United States, Canada and even from other continents who want to visit the convention.

The Dealers Den and Artist Alley was a success, all the artists had a lot of sales, despite the fact that room was very small, people went and supported the artists. All very talented, there were really many pretty nice things and amazing art, I also spent a lot of money on art, prints and stickers.
The panels that I run and those I attended were always full of people and all the public was very participative. Also the panels were very interesting and quite fun.

I also loved that people would gladly donate to charity, we run a charity event on Friday night, which was a success and people really contributed money to save the opossums and other animals. If you want to see the stream of this event, here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir2HLqPf0pQ

I must confess that I was also very nervous because it was the first time I was in a massive event in my country, where for some reason there are people that they don't like me very much, and that simple fact made me have a slight irrational fear for myself. Because at conventions in other countries, people may like (or love) my work, or they have no idea who I am. The good thing is that all the people reacted very well to my presence at Confuror, there were those who were excited to see me, and I always tried to be very affective and kind to them, because I really don't feel like someone superior, I'm just one furry more, I'm a great fan of anthropomorphic art, I also love fursuits, I love the whole community, make friends and meet new people. I was very happy to have made new friends at this convention, to know that there are many cool people in my country. And that all of them are eager for our community to grow for the better.
I had a funny experience, where a guy saw me while I was in fursuit, he was with his friends, and he was very excited to see me, ran to hug me saying "You are Paco Panda! Nice to meet you!", he asked me for a picture with me. When he said goodbye, I could hear his friends making fun of him and one of them said "I remember you told me you didn't like him" Hehe XD

It is really unpredictable what is going to be a meme. There was an issue with a papaya, I also had contact with that famous fruit on the last day of the convention. It was the dance contest, I saw a papaya in the ball pit, I considered that was something very dangerous, because if someone dived on the pit, they would run into the hardness of the fruit and could probably hurt themselves , so I picked it up and put it on the nearest table. Then someone else took the fruit and began to walk around the convention, I could see that many took pictures with it, and that's when it started to go viral. Oh great papaya, you painted too much happiness to the furries!

In general it was an excellent convention, one of the best I've ever had, I got really tired, I spent all my energies, I received my friend Kazan from San Diego, CA. He also seemed to enjoy the convention, even though the majority around him spoke only Spanish and he didn't understand it, but many were quite helpful and kind to him when talking to him in English. As they all did with the guests from the United States.

It is certain that next year will greatly improve the level of "English-friendly" at the convention, it was announced that Majira Strawberry would be the next Guest of Honor of Confumer 2019, and there is still to announce the second guest of honor, which will also be someone from another country.
Another very important announcement at the closing ceremony was the change of venue. Confuror 2019 will be held on October 11, 12 and 13 of 2019 at the Hilton of Expo Guadalajara. A fairly big hotel with a large convention center, which means more space, more attendees, and great growth potential. If this year were 541, I wouldn't be surprised that the next one can even double it.

I feel very honored to belong to this fandom, to be part of the Latin community and to be Mexican.
Each time we grow more and more.

I didn't take too many pictures but if you want to take them a look: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cjbnayxo.....3Bxo0bRla?dl=0

I'm about to open for 31 slots of commissions!!

Because October is already here!!!

No, Paco, we're in August, and tomorrow we'll be on September.

OH yeah, I know! But I'm getting prepared for the annual Inktober challenge!!!
It consists in doing a DAILY drawing during all the month of October, all of them in traditional inks.
Have you seen the three past year's challenges I did?
Here are the links if you want to see them.
I'm so glad many people have liked them.

http://www.furaffinity.net/scraps/pacopanda/

Do you know how was the way I took these commissions last year? It was first come first serve, the first 31 e-mails I received. Which was crazy, because I received around 90 e-mails on the first 5 minutes. And many people who had prepared their e-mails pretty early, didn't get a slot.

So this time will be very different, this time you don't need to be fast, I'll give 5 days (From today to September 5th. 23:59 hrs CST) so you can write me an e-mail if you are interested on one of the 31 slots. But then how will I choose the 31 slots??

You don't need to be fast, but creative. (Or having a great character for cool ideas). And I'll choose the best 31.

This is gonna be a themed Inktober. The title of the Paco Panda's Inktober 2018 will be:

--NSFW: Not Safe For Work--

What? Paco!! Are you serious??
Yes! But keep reading carefully, this IS NOT a really NSFW pics as you usually know them. They are gonna be completely CLEAN. This is gonna be, literally Not Safe For Work ideas: For example, making a fire to heat yourself on the office (That's definitely not safe for your office, therefore neither for your work), or tap dancing on the iron grids from a building (Don't do that, that's not safe for work).

I have some good ideas for this challenge, but I'd also need some other good ideas from you.
So if you want to participate. Write me an e-mail at panda.parinton[at]gmail.com with this info:

-Your nickname
-Your username on Deviantart, Furaffinity, Inkbunny, Twitter, Instagram and/or Facebook (only which applies)
-Your reference(s)
-If you have a good idea RELATED to this theme (*), include it. I'll take priority to those who give me ideas.

(*) The descriptions MUST be CLEAN ideas (no lewd, no porn, no fetishes). The theme is "Not Safe For Work" but only applies literally to the ideas of activites or situations that are not very smart or safe to do during you're working, it could be any kind of job, not only offices.

If you have an idea related to this theme, and at the same time to Halloween, there will be a big chance I'll choose you for a slot, for October 31st.

I'll only choose 31 ideas, according my consideration.
If I don't choose your idea, be sure I won't use your idea with any other character or on any other drawing. Your idea will be completely yours. I'll respect that.
If I choose your idea, you will be credited as the author of that.

I'll choose the 31 slots on September 6th.

When I choose your idea, I'll reply you with the Paypal invoice (the cost will be $60 (USD) (it includes taxes), I promise the result will be awesome), and you'll have 5 days to pay (Until September 11th), otherwise I'll pick another e-mail (That's why I'm organizing this so long in advance).

Now some possible FAQs:

What if I have an idea with many characters?
1 or 2 characters will be the same price, from a third character I'll charge $10 extra for each one.

What if my idea includes a crowd of characters?
Then just consider adding $20 extra (only if the crowd of characters are generic and main characters on the scene are from 1 to 2)

What if I don't have an idea but I really want to be in your Inktober?
Just send me your reference on the e-mail, as I said, I have lots of ideas for this challenge and I can use them including your character.

I want a commission from you but not for Inktober, I want a full digital commission or telegam stickers.
Sorry, I'll only take Inktober commissions from now. Those may not have color, but look my examples, the result is beautiful.

I want this picture for my birthday / my friend's birthday. May you post it on that special day?
Of course, only if the date is in October. Please specify on the e-mail the date you want me to post the picture. This is not a guarantee that I'll include you on a slot. But if I choose you, I'll put you on your desired date.

May I have the original?
Of course. If you are chosen, when I send you the invoice, before paying, you can tell me you are interested on shipping, and I can add the amount of the shipping on the total price.
Consider I'm attending ANW (in Seattle) and MFF (in Chicago) and I can give originals there with no extra charge. Just let me know you're attending. (All this only if you are chosen in one of the 31 slots)

Any other question, write me on the same e-mail panda.parinton[at]gmail.com and I'll try to reply ASAP.

Megaplex.

Maybe it was not a trip as adventurous as the previous ones that I have told on my journals, but I'm pretty sure it contains many great experiences, something that I will never forget and that I will always keep with a lot of love on me.

It was, for me, a real honor to have been invited with such a title for this convention. In truth I never thought it would have happened, I always felt like a "nobody", I just drew because I liked to do it, and I never even thought I would end up dedicating my life to this, I always thought that it would only do this like a hobby. But it was until the first moment that I stepped on a furry convention that I realized that there were many people who knows me, and who even claimed to admire me. What a surprise! From being nobody to suddenly be someone admired in another country. So far I still don't believe it, and I still faithfully think that I'm just another furry in this community that is open to make many friends with common interests, I'm nobody higher than anyone else here. Maybe busier than before, with more responsibilities within the fandom, and more dependent on what happens in the community, because this has become my world now.

Being an event where they announced my attendance, along with the talented singer and musician  NIIC (which is a great person, very charismatic and with whom it is very easy to talk), I felt very committed, and also with much desire, to contribute with many things to the event, that's why I many pictures for them as possible (The better I can do). The badges of the convention, the telegram stickers, the cover of the conbook, the design of the shirt, and the drawing for the anniversary poster.

It was the first time I was to Orlando, even to Florida. My big surprise is knowing how much heat is there. It is a very humid place, with a very tropical climate. It reminds me a lot of the Yucatan or Cancun's weather.
The first thing I thought was: How are we going to fursuite here?

Upon arriving at the hotel I was impressed, what a nice hotel! It was like a very vacation feeling, with pools, bungalows, palm trees. And I could already see some fursuiters walking around the hotel. It was all perfect, like a vacation with furries.

Never before had I had so many things to do in a single convention. Not only the events that they had programmed with my participation, but also the activities that I put myself for the event. Almost all the time I had something to do, or I wanted to attend many other panels and activities. So the table at the dealer's den was filled with my absence most of the time since the dealer's den was open.
I knew a lot of people who didn't want to buy my art book until I was present at the table so they could have their book signed, and apparently that never happened. Maybe I was one hour at my table each of the 3 days that lasted the convention, and I tried to announce it each time that happened, but I know that not many people are awared of their cell phone and notifications during the event. At least I'm not, it's difficult to locate me during cons because I'm almost never checking my phone, a big apology for it.
And a big thank you to  koidelcoyote,  vinyldarkscratch and Soren, for being there every day at the table, selling my silly stuff.

But then, how much did it happen at the con, if I was not at the dealer's den table?

The first was the opening ceremony. An apology in advance for all existing furry conventions that I have attended before for confesing this: At Megaplex was the first time I have ever attended an opening ceremony. So I didn't really know what happened during these, I thought that it was only the chairmans saying "officially we start the convention, enjoy it!" and that was all. For the same reason I had never before had the interest to put a paw on them. And I didn't know if they were gonna request us, to the Guests of Honor, to say some words to the public. The good thing is that we had agreed, NIIC and me, to go in fursuit. For me that was better, it always gives me much more confidence to speak and act in fursuit.
Before starting the ceremony, when people were just arriving to the place and taking their respective seats, I started interacting in fursuit with all the audience, which I have always found very fun, reminds me of those yesterdays when I had to cheer the people as a sports mascot.

They didn't make us talk, it was just a presentation of "here are the guests of honor", we said hi with our paws, and we sat down again. So that after a small show with some fursuit dances, tikis, and some jokes. It was great.

The second event in which I participated was The box of lies. Along with Hino,  kuddlepup,  alkalibismuth and  wolfangblitz. It was quite fun.
The game is about one of the participants takes a box, the other participant doesn't have to see the content, but the audience does. The content of the boxes can be strange and / or crazy objects, something that was not very credible. And then that player, who saw the box, have to describe the other player, who didn't see the object, what was contained in the box, they can tell a lie, anyway a truth was going to seem unbelievable. And the player has to guess if what was told as a description is true or is a lie.

Among makeup mirrors, toilet paper with gift wrapping, sandals with nails, and guitars with eyes, it was a pretty funny panel, many told me later than they wanted to see me telling some few lies, but all what I described were truths. TBH, I had prepared a good lie, but seeing a Lego juice inside a pineapple, it was impossible to lie, it was going to be so quiet incredible that I was sure he was going to believe that I was lying. So it was.

If you want to see the full show, it is fortunately on youtube:
https://youtu.be/RtyO7jKC3ds

The next thing on the day was "Meet the Guests of Honor". A series of questions that Hino asked us to NIIC and me, and that afterwards the public had the opportunity to ask us more questions.
It was fun to know more about NIIC, I didn't get as nervous as I thought I was going to be speaking in public. It was all very well. Some funny questions (such as What is our favorite pony, which both NIIC and I said Spike), some fun to answer (As What was our favorite character, I remember very well when I said that one of my characters, in addition to Kit Cloudkicker, it was Buster bunny, I could see among the audience a bunny fursuit jumping of joy and saying very loud: "YEEES!!"). And there was a little girl on the audience who, very shamelessly, I couldn't understand what she was asking me, her tone of speech was very dragged and I could barely understand some words, I turned all blushy to not knowing what to answer for the fact that I hadn't understood the question. But in the end it was NIIC who helped me repeat what she had said. These are the little disadvantages of not having English as a mother tongue, and that some accents and ways of speaking are not so obvious to decode for me.

We are still on Friday and interesting things continue to happen at the convention. I remember a moment in the night, two hours before we started the Viernes Furry broadcast, I still felt very energized. The ideal was to rest a bit before a long live broadcast, but I wanted to continue at the event, not I wanted to spend a lot of time in the room doing nothing until the time came. So I went down in fursuit to see if something interesting happened.

And go that something interesting was about to happen and I had no idea of ​​that event. It was the pool party.
At that moment I thought it would have been a better idea, if I had known that there would be that, to go down in a bathing suit, and not in a panda suit. They gave us ice cream and cake (I had to break the magic for a few moments to enjoy those delicious snacks), I talked to a lot of people, I met new guys, and when I put my suit back on, I realized that I was not the only fursuiter around the party, and there were lots of inflatable toys around the pool, so several of us started to play around and goofing around the place, it was a very fun time, I enjoyed it to the fullest, and in the end I didn't regret having worn fursuit there, because it was really very enjoyable.

It was then that the transmission of Viernes Furry began, along with Koidel, on the other side with Roni and Apolo. Many people donating money, a lot of time to speak in Spanish. And to have them tell all the guys around to tell us words in Spanish. It was two hours in a row of being in a fursuit, asking for money for the charity of the C.A.R.E. foundation, we even went to interrupt a panel, and there were also many who decided to donate.
Many thanks to Triton, Lava, Doctor Woofs and all those who were following us during the broadcast, which despite the technical problems, was very fun.

Many thanks to those who watched the live broadcast, and if you want to see it again or missed it, you can watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1S8Z9fZqRs

I thought Saturday would be a more relaxing day, and I really wanted to participate in the fursuit games, but it turned out to be at the same time as the Luncheon, where the Guests of Honor had to be there (I just wrote that as complaining, hehe, but... delicious and free food? What else do I want? It was perfect!).

The organization of the fursuit photoshoot before the parade was a funny thing, both NIIC and I arrived very early, there were almost no people in the room, and they accommodated us in a very front, near the stage, because we were supposed to be on the center of the photo, for being the GoHs. So we didn't worry so much, and we had fun goofing and dancing in fursuit meanwhile all the other people arrived.
Until someone from the staff found us, while we are still dancing, and said "What are you doing here? You should be in front of the picture!"
Oh man, what was not us in the front of the photo? Apparently not, we were right up behind. They had accommodated us wrongly.
But when I tried to get to the front, already were too many people there, and they didn't intend to move for anything or make a little space for this panda.
I really didn't want to be arguing a lot about that, I didn't care if I was going to go to the front of the photo or to the side, so I went to a sideway, even when they said that probably there I would not appear in the photo.
I also noticed that NIIC didn't follow me, he stayed back near the stage.

If you want to see the photo, here it is:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mmmc9fp6f.....29CAB.jpg?dl=0

After that, the fursuit parade began. Very short in my opinion, I think the walk was no longer than 3 minutes.

That afternoon I went with many friends to Disney Springs, my first contact with something related to Disney World, that I was very excited to be there. It was a very nice afternoon, and a getaway away from the convention to meet a little more of Florida besides the hotel.

Returning to the hotel, I turned in a panda again, and I went to play to the inflatable panel. That is always one of the most fun things to do during a convention. It is to have many game items with which to be able to interact with other fursuiters, and to be goofing with them in their maximum splendor. And so it happened, many people were following my stupid games. It's always like being a kid again, being together with other kids, and having a great playground where to play. But it's even better because all the other kids you play with, are terribly adorable anthro animals.

That evening, during the dance, it was possibly one of the best dances I've been to. Maybe I exaggerate because I remember many good dances during other conventions, like that one at BLFC where my friend Croc was DJing and there were only friends of mine dancing on the stage; or that unforgettable first time that my soul, along with my fursuit, put a step on the dance floor, with more animal costumes, that very first furry dance. My heart is full of emotions reminding those moments.

To dance is really something that I enjoy a lot during furry cons, it makes me forget everything, I feel very free, I can be myself.
This time in Megaplex dance on Saturday, they played very good songs, remixes from the 80s and 90s, while dancing with  Tycoon and with a rabbit whom I had already seen back in several conventions, and who finally had the pleasure of knowing better.
It has been one of the moments in which, no matter how tired I was, I was already losing the energy to keep dancing, but I didn't want to rest, I wanted to continue there. While I was thinking "Finishing this song and I'm off to the fursuit lounge", and then... Barbie Girl starts. AAAAAAAH. "Nope, I must dance this, no way!"
When I decided it was time to go for some air and water, I was on my way to the fursuit lounge, when suddenly, they closed the lounge in front of my face. "Sorry, the fursuit lounge has already closed." NOOOO! I'm sorry, I hate to break the magic, it's really one of the things I hate the most, but I had to take off my fursuit head in public,I was very tired, I needed to breathe, and my room was very far enough to run there.
However, after some resting and putting my head back on, I met several friends and stayed awake for a while, while we just talked and waited for the guards to kick our asses from the convention center, then we went to one side of the elevators of the main tower to continue the conversation and to look how the clock was running through the high night hours.

Sunday came, much faster than I expected, the weekend was running out, but there was still a good day to enjoy.
That day in the morning was the Charity auction, where three of my original paintings were going to be auctioned, and the money collected would be for the C.A.R.E. foundation.
There were many offers, many disappointments of people who wanted to bid on my drawings and that their budget was overcome in the biddings. I was surprised how high biddings my paintings had. I'm sorry for those who really wanted to have those paintings and you couldn't get them, but be happy for all the animals who will be saved :D

Almost immediately began the panel that I run: "Switch-on to the mode: drawing". With many more people interested in listening to me than I thought. And although I still have problems with fluency at the time of speaking English (as you can maybe also notice reading this journal, sorry if my English is not perfect), I think people came out very satisfied with the panel, and they asked many interesting questions at the Q&A time.

Out of the panel something interesting happened:  Makati, a guy from Seattle, asked me to make a drawing on the touchscreen of his car, a Tesla. I had previously accepted that request but I didn't know when it was going to happen during the convention. That was the moment.
Obviously I had never been into a Tesla before, they are very nice inside, and I also had the opportunity to sit in the driver's seat (Even when the car can be driven by itself).
It was very difficult to draw a picture on that screen, since it had no pressure sensibility, only touch, and I had to draw it with my finger. But in the end I managed to do something decent.
The funny thing is that Makati decided to make a live stream with my phone, on my Twitter account. If you want to see that transmission, it was divided into two:
https://twitter.com/panda_paco/stat.....87546659717120
https://twitter.com/panda_paco/stat.....90351969579008

The closing ceremony was there. I almost always go to those (not like the openings, hehe). Again I went in fursuit like NIIC. And again, before the closing officially began, I started to play with people in the audience. And again, they only called us to stand on stage to introduce ourselves and thank our presence, but none of us spoke.
But it was in that event where they publicly showed the anniversary poster, to complement all the posters that have had convention after convention (a very nice tradition, in my opinion, and that I haven't seen in any other convention), and this year they used one of my drawings to commemorate this year's convention. Another great honor!

After the grand closing and a nice (and yummy) dinner with the staff, they began to organize a night impsovised fursuit parade, organized mainly by SkippyFox, something I had not heard before. We were summoned by telegram and twitter messages to the people, and also by word of mouth, to go with their fursuits to the fursuit lounge. And soon the fursuit lounge was already full of fursuiters waiting for the night march to the last dance of the convention.

Another great fun memory, to reach the dance room, which at that time was almost empty, and that of the few people who were dancing was that rabbit from the other night. And from one moment to the next, the whole night parade fursuit arrives, to fill the dance of fursuiters.
It was another evening of much dancing, of farewells and hugs, of some tears to think how much I was going to miss those good times, this great convention, this excellent weekend.

Before everything was over, I decided it was a good idea to swim in the pool for the first time. I ran to the room for my bathing suit and went down to the pool, which was full of unknown people, but being all furries, I didn't worry about not knowing anyone, and I joined a circle where they were playing with a ball, which was adopted with the name of Derrick, even if it already have a twitter account, yes, that ball has a twitter account, you can follow it on: https://twitter.com/DerrickTheBall

It is nice that, even if you don't know the people around you, being furries, you feel them as belonging to the same family and you can have that confidence to suddenly add you to a circle of more furries. That's the beauty of this fandom.

In truth, thank you very much to all those who organize this great event, it is a very good convention, it is quite fun. The heat of the place is in the background and the important thing is how much we have fun.
Also, thank you very much to all those who congratulated me for my 10 years in the fandom, I know that many of those who congratulated me. I know many of that people who gave me a hug and congratulated me for that, have been more than 10, or even more than 20 years on this fandom.
And also to all those who were giving me gifts, that however small, medium or big they were, I keep them with a lot of love.
And to  cloud1516 and Koidel, for being such good roomies during this, which has been one of my favorite conventions.

I saw too many friends, and I also met a lot of new people. Impossible to mention them all, I'm sure I would always miss someone, but you should know that I really appreciate very much having seen you there, and expect many more hugs from this panda for the next time I see you.

If you want to see the rest of the pictures, you can watch them on this Dropbox link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cxbr0ll0.....sQigajxJa?dl=0

The trip in Florida didn't end there. I always had a dream since when I was a little cub, and was to be to any Disney park. I blame my parents for making me such a Disney fan, and I blame Disney for making me such a fan of animals.
My family never was of having too much money, not even to think to have a Disney vacation. So I took advantage of being in Orlando for the first time, and I wanted to go to Disney World, it doesn't matter if it costed all my savings.

I won't tell here in detail what I did in the parks, because it is something very separated to the furry fandom and maybe you wouldn't find it interesting to read, because it would be more like telling about my vacations. What I can tell you is that I am very grateful to the people who could make this dream come true that I had to meet Mickey Mouse and all his friends. To Koidel, Star Raccoon and Tony Ringtail.

And I greatly admire those who perform the Disney characters in the parks. You makes everything magical, that even a skeptical adult believes that the one in front of us is the real character we saw in the movies. They can also interact so beautifully with people, that makes them feel everyone so special. I enjoyed very much being able to interact with the characters and that they respond to me in a very charismatic way, without losing the touch of the personality of the role. I had the opportunity to take pictures, to say hi and to interact with Donald, Scrooge McDuck, Chip & Dale in his dinosaur outfits, Russel & Dug, Winnie the Pooh & Tigger, Stitch, Minnie and Mickey Mouse. And of course I could see Nick Wilde and Juddy Hopes at the parade.

Something funny, I don't know if any of the characters were excited to see me because they recognized who I am, I know this sounds like an exageration or maybe that I'm thinking myself as someone very important, but I'm kind of sure of this. And it's more than obvious that they couldn't tell me right there, and that they can't write it to me or say it on the internet "hey, I saw you on Disney, I was performing this character". NOUP!!

There was more of 2 characters that pointed to my shirt (I was wearing shirts of my own designs during all the days I visited the parks) and they seemed excited, one of them pointed to my shirt and then pointed my face, as if saying "You did this design!", that's what I understood, it was the shirt of the skunk with the umbrella. I can't think in something else I would have liked to say with pointing my shirt and then to me, and then clapping and hugging me.
Another character was watching us while posing for our camera, but paying close attention to us among the crowd of the parade, and suddenly, that characters started doing that formerly famous in the furry fandom "Caramel dance". Was that a signal that the character wanted to give us to say "Yes, I'm furry like you"? I wouldn't doubt it. But if someone of you is reading this and knows that you saw us at Disney: You Rock! Your performance of Disney characters is the ultimate!. I love it!
And of course you never have to tell me, don't break that magic!

Thank you to everyone for reading my entire journal bible. Just to check who read it to the end, random question: What is your favorite Disney character?

Mine is Koda, from Brother bear. It is a pity that we never saw him in the parks, I doubt very much that he comes out lately.

Panda loves you!

(ENGLISH / ESPAÑOL)

ENGLISH

In this journal I will tell about many things. Here is an index of the topics:

- Furcan 2018, Puebla. FurCon in Mexico.
- 20 years in the furry fandom
- Megaplex 2018, Orlando
- Dealer's Den
- Panels and events in which I will be at Megaplex:
-Box of Lies
-Meet the Guests of Honor
-Viernes Furry: Charity edition
-Charity auction
-Panel of drawing.

---

FurCan 2018

After being 10 years in the fandom, here in Mexico there had never been convention-like events since just last year began to emerge. If I wanted to go to conventions, I had to travel out, travel to North America.

Even though I have always been very active in the community, attending furmeets, making good friends both local, as well as inside and outside of my country, I really dreamed that we could have events like Anthrocon or FurCon at some time.

Last weekend (July 20-22, 2018) I attended a first edition of a convention in Mexico: FurCan. In the beautiful city of Puebla.

With a very short quantity of attendees of barely 80 people, it completely exceeded my expectations. The attendees were very excited, many of them were attending at their first furry convention in their lives, and most of them were very excited to see fursuiters, who maybe we were only 8.

Being so few, I had the opportunity to talk with many people, to know much better talented artists such as Tigerlion, Cross from Gab Shiba, Lobbo, Arty & Chikle, among others.

The event included very Mexican things, such as closing the event with piñatas, and a very dangerous rain of pins that launched from a third floor.

I look forward to FurCan in 2019, and I wish the event grows even more and more.

We had a little adventure before arriving at the event. Supposedly we would arrive on Friday afternoon in Puebla, and that same day we would do the podcast that Koidel, Apolo and I do every Friday. But when we were in Mexico City, Apolo's car (with which we would arrive in Puebla) broke down, and we had to go to his house to change it. So we caught the traffic of the city, and we couldn't stop for dinner (we were still hoping to arrive before 10pm to Puebla to be able to reach the radio program.) We better resign ourselves not to arrive at time, and we prefer to stop and buy pizza and having dinner on the way, we arrived in Puebla until midnight.

By canceling the Friday show, we decided to move it to Saturday. It was titled "Viernes Furry pero en Sábado" (Furry Friday but in Saturday).
You can listen to it at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMXB9QPSI9Y
(It is in Spanish)

On Monday we returned from Puebla to Mexico City, not without first visiting the cathedral, trying some "cemitas" (a very yummy thing from Puebla), and letting Alf give us an express tour around his beautiful town.

---

20 years in the furry fandom

That's right, on August 3 of this year I will be exactly 10 years as an official member of the furry fandom, even if I've been a panda for 20 years (or at least that's how old my panda character has been). I have a post prepared that I will publish exactly on August 3th.

Will there be a celebration? Oh, yes! And a very VERY BIG ONE. Called: MEGAPLEX !!

It is a great coincidence, I was invited as Guest of Honor for this convention, located in Orlando, Florida. And this convention will begin just on August 3, the same day I met the furry fandom (which I did through a meeting of artists, I didn't find it online).

And here I will describe some of the activities that will occur on that day:

---

Megaplex 2018

I have never had so many events planned in a single weekend as it is from August 3 to 5.
Not only I'm excited, I'm also very nervous, because I and the stages where a lot of people can see me, are not get along quite well.

The first thing that will happen on the day will be to be present at the opening ceremony. I still don't know if I'll just be there, or they'll make me talk (surely they'll make me talk), but I agreed with NIIC, the other Guest of Honor of the convention (a very talented musician, I highly recommend listening to him), to attend this ceremony in fursuit. So you will see the derpy panda bear on stage to start the event.

---

Dealer's Den

Another great event will happen on that first day, during the dealer's den, table number 30, new merchandise will be on sale with my art, like t-shirts, stickers and prints. But it will also be the premiere of my first art book. There will be very few copies, so I recommend acquiring it from the first day.

NOTE: I will almost not be at the table, and I won't be taking commissions during the convention. If you plan to buy the art book and want it signed, I recommend buying it from the first moment (even if I'm not at the table), follow me on my Telegram channel (https://t.me/panda_paco) and there I'll let you know what time I will be at my table, only to sign books and sell merchandise, but not to make commissions (I'm so sorry)

---

Box of lies

It will happen the same first day: Friday, at 2pm. Moderated by Blitzen and K.P.
It will be a very funny game where the participants (in which I am included) will determine if their opponent is telling them the truth or a big lie about the contents of a mysterious box, which can contain anything crazy.
This will happen at the Main Ballroom.

---

Meet the Guests of Honor

Meet the guests of Honor, at 5:30 pm on the same day, in the same room as Box of Lies. We will be NIIC and myself, in an event moderated by K.P., where we will answer several questions, we will talk a little about our career and some probably funny experiences (I need to think on a funny experience). And the public will have the opportunity to ask us any question. There we will not be in Fursuit, we're attending this panel on our human disguises.

---

Viernes Furry: Charity edition.

And to top off the big anniversary day with a flourish, we will have a special show on our weekly podcast, where instead of podcast, we will stream with video.
During the stream, we will be handling donations boxes for the charity of the event, the C.A.R.E. foundation, dedicated to rescue wild animals and educate people to take care of them.

All those who give donations during the stream, will be given a special Viernes Furry item, exclusive from Megaplex.

Don't miss it! Friday August 3, 11pm (Eastern time) in the lobby (or you will have to find us, hehe).
If you want to watch the broadcast from your home, this event will happen at 10pm (center time) on: www.youtube.com/user/FlovingChannelV/

In that same link you can listen to all our podcast transmissions, if you speak Spanish, I'm sure you'll love them!

Follow us in our networks. Facebook, Twitter and Telegram channel as: ViernesFurry.

---

Charity auction

If you want to buy an original Paco Panda, which will also have a lot of meaning, and certainly much more value in the future (hehe, let me dream!), You can do it at the charity auction, which will take place on Sunday, August 5, at 11 am, at the Megaplex Main Ballroom.

Three original drawings of mine will be auctioned, plus a small exclusive item of my 10th anniversary in the furry fandom. (Which won't be for sale on a regular basis, only to be purchased in this auction).

---

Panel about drawing

And finally, at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday August 5, I will run an educational panel of drawing, entitled "Switch-On to the mode: Drawing", where I will try to teach about how to draw with the right hemisphere of your brain. This small lesson will be useful for all those drawing or aspiring to the drawing, it doesn't matter if you consider yourself as a beginner, intermediate or advanced.

---

There will be many very exciting events, the truth is that I am quite nervous about what will happen next weekend. I hope you can accompany me, those who will attend Megaplex, in Orlando, Florida. Those who don't, I hope can give us a view on our stream on Friday, and there will surely be many videos of the aforementioned events.

This panda loves you very much *bear hugs*

And excuse me for once again saturating you with lots of words on this journal.

---

ESPAÑOL

En este post hablaré de muchas cosas. Aquí les dejo un índice de los temas que hablaré:

- Furcan 2018, Puebla
- 20 años en el furry fandom
- Megaplex 2018, Orlando
- Dealer's Den
- Paneles y eventos en los que estaré en Megaplex:
-Box of Lies
-Meet the Guest of Honor
-Viernes Furry: Charity edition
-Subasta de caridad
-Panel de dibujo

---

FurCan 2018

Después de estar 10 años en el fandom, aquí en México nunca habían existido eventos tipo convención como apenas desde el año pasado empezaron a surgir. Si quería ir a convenciones, tenía necesariamente que viajar fuera del país, viajar a Norteamérica.

Aún así siempre he estado muy activo en la comunidad, asistiendo a furmeets, haciendo buenos amigos tanto locales, como de dentro y fuera de mi país. Pero en verdad soñaba conque en algún moemnto pudieramos tener eventos al estilo Anthrocon o FurCon.

El fin de semana pasado (del 20 al 22 de Julio, 2018) asistí a una primera edición de una convención en México: FurCan. En la bellísima ciudad de Puebla.

Con una asistencia muy corta de apenas 80 personas, superó completamente mis expectativas. Los asistentes muy emocionados, muchos de ellos apenas estaban atendiendo su primera convención furry en su vida, y emocionados por ver fursuiters, que a lo mucho eramos únicamente 8.

Al ser tan pocos, tuve la oportunidad de platicar con mucha gente, de conocer mucho mejor a artistas talentosos, como Tigerlion, Cross de Gab Shiba, Lobbo, Arty y Chikle, entre otros.

No pudieron faltar cosas muy a la mexicana, como cerrar el evento con piñatas, y una lluvia muy peligrosa de pins que lanzaron desde un tercer piso.

Espero con muchas ansias que se haga FurCan en el 2019, y que el evento crezca cada vez más.

Vivimos una pequeña aventura antes de llegar al evento, pero muy corta. Supuestamente llegaríamos el viernes en la tarde a Puebla, y ese mismo día haríamos el podcast que entre los tres hacemos cada viernes. Pero cuando estabamos en la ciudad de México, el coche de Apolo (con el que llegaríamos a Puebla) se descompuso, y tuvimos que ir a su casa a cambiarlo. Por lo que nos agarró el tráfico, y ya no pudimos detenernos a cenar (todavía ibamos con la esperanza de llegar antes de las 10pm a Puebla para poder alcanzar a hacer el programa de radio. Mejor nos resignamos a no llegar, y preferimos detenernos a comprar pizza e ir cenando en el camino. Llegamos a Puebla hasta las 12 de la noche.

Al cancelar el programa del viernes, decidimos moverlo para el sábado. Fue titulado "Viernes furry pero en sábado".
Pueden escucharlo en:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMXB9QPSI9Y

El lunes volvimos de Puebla a la Ciudad de México, no sin antes visitar la catedral, probar unas cemitas, y dejar que Alf nos diera un tour express por su hermosa ciudad.

---

20 años en el furry fandom

Así es, justo el día 3 de Agosto del presente año estaré cumpliendo exactamente 10 años como miembro oficial del furry fandom, aún si llevo siendo un oso panda 20 años (o al menos esa es la edad que mi personaje panda lleva existiendo). Tengo un post preparado (el cual solo escribí en inglés, disculpen, es que traducir tan largos escritos, como lo haré con este journal, es muy pesado, se duplica el tiempo de estar escribiendo) que publicaré exactamente el 3 de Agosto.

¿Habrá celebración? Oh vaya que sí!! Y una muy MUY grande celebración. Llamada: MEGAPLEX!!

Para gran coincidencia, me invitaron como Invitado de Honor para esta convención, ubicada en Orlando, Florida. Y dicha convención empezará justamente el 3 de Agosto, el mismo día que encontré al furry fandom (El cual lo hice por medio de una reunión de dibujantes, no lo encontré online).

Y aquí les describiré algunas de las actividades que ocurrirán en ese día, en el cual muchos de ustedes me podrán acompañar:

---

Megaplex 2018

Nunca antes había tenido tantos eventos planeados en un solo fin de semana como lo es el del 3 al 5 de agosto.
No solo estoy emocionado, también estoy muy nervioso, pues yo y los escenarios donde una gran cantidad de público me puede ver, no nos llevamos del todo bien.

De lo primero que pasará en el día será estar presente en la ceremonia de apertura. Aún no se si solo estaré ahí presente, me harán hablar (seguramente sí), pero acordé con NIIC, el otro Invitado de Honor de la convención (un músico muy talentoso, les recomiendo ampliamente escucharlo), en asistir a esta ceremonia en fursuit. Así que verán al derpy pandita en el escenario para comenzar el evento.

---

Dealer's Den

Otro gran acontecimiento ocurrirá desde ese primer día, durante el dealer's den, mesa número 30, pues saldrá nueva mercancía a la venta con arte mío, como playeras, stickers y prints. Pero además será la premiere de mi primer libro de arte. Habrá muy pocas copias, así que les recomiendo adquirirlo desde el primer día.

OJO: Casi no estaré en la mesa, y no estaré tomando comisiones para hacer durante la convención. Si planean adquirir el libro de arte y quieren que se los firme, les recomiendo comprarlo desde el primero momento (aún si yo no estoy), seguirme en mi canal de Telegram (https://t.me/panda_paco) y ahí avisaré en qué momento sí estaré en mi mesa, únicamente para firmar libros y vender mercancía, mas no para hacer comisiones (Una disculpa)

---

Box of lies

Ocurrirá el mismo primer día viernes, a las 2pm. Moderado por Blitzen y K.P.
Será un juego muy divertido donde los participantes (en los que yo estoy incluído) determinarán si su oponente les está diciendo la verdad o una gran mentira acerca del contenido de una caja misteriosa, la cual puede contener cualquier cosa disparatada.
Esto ocurrirá en el Main Ballroom.

---

Meet the Guests of Honor

Conoce a los invitados de Honor, a las 5:30pm del mismo día, en el mismo salón que Box of lies. Estaremos NIIC y yo, en un evento moderado por K.P., donde responderemos varias preguntas, hablaremos un poco sobre nuestra carrera y algunas experiencias probablemente graciosas (Tendré que preparar alguna). Y el público tendrá oportunidad de preguntarnos. Ahí no estaremos en Fursuit, si iremos con nuestro atuendo humano.

---

Viernes Furry: Charity edition.

Y para rematar el gran día de aniversario con un broche de oro, tendremos un programa especial, donde en vez de podcast, transmitiremos en stream con video.
Durante el stream, estaremos pidiendo donaciones para la caridad del evento, la fundación C.A.R.E., dedicada a rescatar animales salvajes y educar a las personas a cuidarlos.

A todos los que den donaciones durante el stream, se les dará una insignia de Viernes Furry, exclusiva de Megaplex.

No se lo vayan a perder!! Viernes 3 de agosto, 11pm (horario del este) en el lobby (o nos tendrán que encontrar).
Si quieren ver la transmisión desde sus casas, este evento ocurrirá a las 10pm (hora del centro) por: www.youtube.com/user/FlovingChannelV/

En ese mismo link podrán escuchar todas nuestras transmisiones del podcast, estoy seguro que les encantarán!!

Síganos en nuestras redes. Facebook, Twitter y Telegram channel como: ViernesFurry.

---

Subasta de caridad

Si quieren adquirir un Paco Panda original, que además tendrán mucho significado, y seguramente mucho más valor en un futuro (jeje, dejenme soñar!), lo podrán hacer en la subasta de caridad, que sucederá el domingo, 5 de agosto, a las 11 am, en el Main Ballroom de Megaplex.

Se subastarán 3 dibujos originales míos, mas una pequeña insignia exclusiva de mi 10º aniversario en el furry fandom. (La cual no estará en venta de forma regular, únicamente para adquirirse en esta subasta).

---

Panel de dibujo.

Y por último, a la 1:30 pm del domigno 5 de agosto, haré un panel educativo sobre dibujo, titulado "Switch-On to the mode: Drawing", donde enseñaré (en inglés) sobre cómo dibujar con el hemisferio derecho de tu cerebro. Esta pequeña lección será útil para todos aquellos dibujantes o aspirantes al dibujo, no importa si te consideras principiante, intermedio o avanzado.

---

Serán muchos eventos muy emocionantes, la verdad es que estoy bastante nervioso por lo que ocurrirá este siguiente fin de semana. Espero me puedan acompañar, los que vayan a asistir a Megaplex, en Orlando, Florida. Los que no, espero puedan darle una visita a nuestro stream del viernes, y seguramente habrá muchos videos de los eventos antes mencionados.

Este panda los quiere muchísimo *abrazote de oso a todos*

Y disculpen por nuevamente saturarlos de palabras con este journal.

Megaplex 2018 will be held in Orlando, Florida, this August 3rd to 5th. There are many reasons to attend this edition:

-Because Megaplex is gonna be very cool!!!

-Official T-shirts, conbook cover, and con badges are gonna be very awesome!!

-I'm gonna celebrate my 10th anniversary on the fandom (I joined on August 3rd, 2008), and the 20th anniversary of my fursona.

-Koidel and I are gonna stream on live for "Viernes Furry podcast" on friday August 3rd during the convention, it will be a charity event. If you donate during the stream, you'll get an awesome and exclusive souvenir from Viernes Furry.

-You'll get the chance to see KP and Paco Panda playing Box of lies

-You can meet and ask questions to NIIC the singing dog and me during the Meet the Guests of Honor, hopefully will be funny.

-NIIC the singing dog, that's another good reasong to attend, you'll have the chance to see him in live!!

-I'll run a panel about drawing: "Switch-On to the Mode: Drawing", for those who want to draw but they don't know where to start, it is a panel for begginners, intermediate, or advanced. It explains how to open your mind, without having to depend on inspriation!

-Don't miss the Charity auction, will be very cool original Paco Panda's art there.

-Anyone was expecting an artbook by Paco Panda, the release for it will be at Megaplex on the dealers den!!

-New Paco Panda's T-shirts will be released for sale on Megaplex, thanks to Artwork Tee, also on the dealers den!!

-Pounce (the Megaplex mascot) is a very great panther!! :D

YOU MUST ATTEND!!

More info on: https://megaplexcon.org/ and https://twitter.com/MegaplexCon

And to follow my schedule during the convention, don't forget to subscribe my Telegram Channel: https://t.me/panda_paco

See you in Orlando!!

This has been one of the best trips I've ever made in my life, and I've had the fortune to make many trips, but this exceeded the number of spontaneous adventures and experiences that any other of my trips have done before. Maybe I'm exaggerating, maybe there was more spontaneity in the trip last summer where instead of going directly to Mexico from Pittsburgh, we went to New York City, and from there we went north to Quebec City, where we drive from there until Mexico city, and not of a direct form, going through several cities. That trip lasted 3 weeks.
That was another great adventure, the one of 2017, surely if you haven't read that one, after reading this one, already knowing if you like or not how I tell my adventures, you'll want to read that other one, which was great.

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8666900/

We are still in the first half of 2018, several trips ahead and new adventures to live for the rest of this year, which excite me. But I can't believe how much happened in these 36 days away from home, the trip you are about to start reading about.

If you could notice, I didn't upload many things to my social networks, or drawings, or many pics. I'm not used to be one of those persons who are sharing their online diary at the moment (I'd love to, but I've never gotten used to it). I prefer to start sharing everything, once the adventure is over. Here I'll leave a summary, if you want to skip a part, know what comes next:

1-NYC
2-Furrnion
3-Madrid
4-Switzerland
5-Museums and strange food in Madrid
6-The great adventure heading to BLFC
7-BLFC
8-Another great adventure heading to Las Vegas (with a stop in San Jose)
9-Las Vegas

So here we start!

1. NYC

Why did I decide to go to NYC?
When I decided to go to the Madrid's convention, I started looking for flights and couldn't find any cheap flights directly from Mexico, and while I was searching from other cities, I found that from New York it was quite cheap to get to Madrid.

It was not my first time in Manhattan, in fact it was my third time, but in my two previous trips I was exploring the most basic tourist. 1st time the classic, and 2nd time I repeated because I was with guys who had never been there before.
And something I had always wanted of going to New York, was going completely alone, with the sole purpose of visiting museums, going to Broadway plays, and exploring corners of Manhattan that are interesting. So in my plan I contemplated a few days before, to be able to get to Manhattan and explore it on my own.

It's not that I was regretful of the upcoming I'm going to say or it was a bad thing, but my plan to be completely alone in Manhattan was not entirely successful. Well, I told about my plans to the two friends I know from New York: Yoshi Azul and Kuma (I love you, guys); knowing I was going to visit town, both wanted to be with me almost throughout my stay. I appreciated their company a lot, I spent a lot of time with them, exploring the Guggenheim, the museum of the city of new york, and eating in places that they recommended me.
But my idea of ​​being alone in Manhattan was to be able to do things that I knew not many appreciated the same way as me, or that I wouldn't depend on anyone else's decision about where to go and what to do. And more than I already know how to move in the city perfectly, being my third time there.

I didn't achieve the goal of exploring corners or going to any Broadway play; that desire will remain paused until I get to go, again on my own or go with someone who has that same concern to explore Manhattan as I do want to.
That for more than New York is a city very crowded, full of movement, traffic, angry people, homeless, colorful characters that sometimes provke fear, thick and unkind people who ask tip for anything, rats on the train tracks, peculiar smells and high costs for anything; It is a city that I love to visit, it is very exciting, there is always something to do.

Those were rainy days, where people's umbrellas turned upside down, everyone ran to keep from getting wet, the drops of rain were so heavy that they hurt. I appreciate that it was not my first impression of the big apple.

The museum that I was able to explore on my own was the MET, so huge that not even walking it from morning to the museum's closing time, I was able to explore it completely, I'm sure I only covered 20% of the museum. There were many pieces that I loved and that filled me with emotion. I love going to art museums because I never know what I can find, whether desepción, bad or good emotions, new paintings that I had never seen, or known paintings that for the first time I can see their original versions. Oh, and when passing through central park, I could finally try one of those classic hot dogs that everyone warns you never try because they can be made of rat. Well, those warnings were right, the worst hot dog I have ever eaten in my life (and expensive).

Something very touristy that I had never done until now, was going up to an observatory deck on top of a skyscraper, and see Manhattan from on high. I did it from the Top of the Rock, at the Rockefeller building. Very expensive in my opinion, but that the view was so spectacular that it was worth it. I saw the day, the sunset and the dusk of all central park, middle and lower manhattan; how they were turning the lights on, little by little, of the empire state, the one world trade center, and how they illuminated the statue of liberty. A magical moment that I kept for myself.

A quick anecdote to tell, maybe not interesting. I bought the transit ticket to be able to use it a whole week, so it was completely filled of credit for all my trip. It was very common when passing through the turnstiles, it popped the sign "error, swap again", so when I tried again, it worked, showing me the days that the card left (more than my stay in town).
But there was a time when I got the classic "error, swap again", and when I tried to pass for the second time, it showed me "just used", and it didn't let me in. The tourniquet was not letting me in and even though I was sweeping the card again for the reader, it kept me telling me the same thing "just used". So I had to apply the Mexican one, to jump the turnstile, because the train was just arriving. >:3
Bad Panda!

On my last day in New York, before making my way to the airport, I decided to go to the 11/S museum, something I had never wanted to do before because I thought I could only be a little sensaniolist, but before traveling, I read that it was one of the more complete museums that exist and that was unmissable, so I was hooked to that marketing and attended. In truth, it was a good museum, but it doesn't stop creating a lump in the throat about that attack, which I remember with perfection the moment it happened, and see how it affected not only a city, but an entire nation. It gives a lot of impotence to know what some people can do only for their own interests no matter what cost.

Returning to the adventure ... I thought that the 9/11 museum could be covered in 2 or 3 hours, to my surprise, I had been there for 4 hours, and it was getting late to go to the airport, so I had to use a faster alternative to the subway: the train.
When I arrived at the train station, I didn't understand where or how the train had to be paid to use it (still don't know), the train was just there to board it, and if I didn't take that one, definitely my flight would be missed (or the alternative to take a taxi, which could be more expensive, and not a guaranteed for the traffic). I tried to ask any of the people who were boarding the train, but nobody wanted to answer me, everyone was very busy or late; then I asked one of the workers of the station, and in a very rude tone, shouting at me, he simply said "ABOARD THE TRAIN RIGHT NOW, IS ABOUT TO DEPART!" No, no, wait, but I haven't paid and I want to know how to pay. "YOU CAN PAY IT ON THE TRAIN, SO GO UP RIGHT NOW!"
I trusted him and went up, behind me the doors were closed and the train started moving, I thought maybe there would be a payment machine as there were on the trains in Toronto, but I coudln't find anyone. And I was really scared when I saw a sign in the ad area that said "Do not you have a train ticket? Fee $ 250". I was not going to pay 250 dollars! I was very scared and started sending messages to my friend Yoshi, he reassured me a bit showing me that there was an alternative, paying the ticket with cash, exact change, to the person who checked the tickets, but at a cost a little higher than the regular, I was not going to care, if that was a solution, as long as I didn't pay the 250 fee.
Fortunately, nobody appeared to check the tickets, so the train actually came out completely free for me, hehe. >:3 Once again, bad panda!
But I was sweating cold throughout the way, I couldn't even appreciate those views outside the city in Brooklyn from the train window how the skyscrapers were getting farther and farther away.

2. FURRNION

My first time crossing the Atlantic, I had never been to another continent before, and I had never been on such a long flight before.

The bad thing is that when I arrived in Madrid, instead of enjoying that I was finally in unexplored lands, and being able to see European culture ... instead of all that, I arrived at the hotel of the Spanish convention, where I was immediately put to work, because I signed up as Staff (to be able to have a free room, hehe).

I couldn't sleep on the plane, so the jetlag hit me especially hard, but I was still there, sticking posters in the hotel, yawning and blinking. When it was finally time to sleep, I died.
But not for a long time, because the next morning I was supposed to work in the registration, but for some reason I didn't understand, it didn't happen: I arrived at the registration and it was full of workers, there were already people registering, all the chairs were filled and just few people were on the reg line, I asked and they just told me "stand there back , if we need you we'll call you ", obviously I didn't want to do that, standing up behind doing nothing, so I went to breakfast, and to set up my things for artist alley, which was soon to begin.

As you can see, the convention so far was a bit of a mess, and it was even more so.
I'm very used for the artist alley to start my setup at least half an hour before the time indicated in the opening hours. So I arrived half an hour early with all my things, but the rooms were completely empty, and suddenly someone from the staff saw me and shouted in Spanish "YOU CAN'T BE HERE RIGHT NOW! COME BACK WHEN THE ARTISTS' ALLEY STARTS!" Hey, but I'm one of the artists who go to set ... "Yes, yes, everyone knows you, you're Paco Panda, and you're also a staff, but NEITHER YOUR FAME NOR YOUR POSITION ALLOW YOU TO BE HERE UNTIL THE TIME IT IS INDICATED IN THE SCHEDULE! "
I was very angry at the attitude of that person, and maybe it was a little childish that I went to accuse him with the cheerman, anyway my complaint didn't help at all.

I was even more angry than when I arrived at the right time, supposedly when people could go to see what we were selling and ask for commissions, but we still didn't even make the setup ... they were setting up a different activity in that same room, and they had moved all the tables for their convenience. Again I went to complain to the big Furrnion authorities, who resolved the matter a bit and let the artists begin the setup. Although the hurry didn't help, because absolutely nobody was going to see the artists alley. We spent an hour, two hours there, and nobody.

It was not so bad at all, because among the artists we started talking and making friendships, we had fun talks and joked with each other, we even exchanged some stickers that we had to sell. But there came a point when that started to be exasperating, that nobody in the whole convention was really putting one paw in the place, so we started putting up posters with arrows so that people would know where the artist alley was. It worked with 3 people, who only went, they checked our things, they felt intimidated that nobody else was more than them, and they left. It was then that I decided to post on my networks that I was going to leave artists alley, since it was not being successful at all. At that moment people began to arrive and finally began asking for commissions. Some told me they were waiting until later to go see.

Maybe I was already used to the modus operandus of the conventions in America, where it seems that when they open the doors of the artists alley/dealers den, it's as if they live on a Black Friday, where they run to the artists to ask for commissions in the first hour. It was not at all the same in Spain.

Something very curious, is that the events at the convention were very linear, there weren't many options to do, and apparently the Karaoke was a great event, the whole convention was there watching the Karaoke (non other event was at the same time), and it was not like anyone could go and sign up to sing, they had already signed up for weeks before.
For me, seeing people singing on a karaoke, good or bad, I find something very boring, but there was nothing else to do. I couldn't go to fursuit on my own because there were no more fursuiters around (at that point, I hadn't even used my fursuit yet), and the event lasted so long that the dance started much later than scheduled, however it ended at the same time it was scheduled so it lasted very little, and it was my only moment on that day (and my first time in the whole convention) that I was in fursuit.

The next day, Saturday, it was a little more fun, with more activities. Another bad point of the convention was that all the events were late. Sometimes I have seen at conventions that events are delayed 5 or 10 minutes, but in Furrnion they were late for hours. And that produced a chain effect that affected all the following events, especially because almost all the schedules were linear. But the fursuit parade, which although it was very short, was very fun. Tronchy had me disguised as a monk, in fursuit, I was the little priest panda, with a boat I started walking around the convention asking for cooperation for charity. It was like a competition between Tronchy and me to see who collected more money for charity, obviously I won, because pandas are cuter and people give us more money. >:3

I run a panel there, related to art, which now I think I should give more often at conventions.
With delays, again. Well, my panel was supposed to start at 5pm. There I went back to find my "friend", that same guy shouting at me at the artist alley, and when I asked him where they had moved my panel (because according to the program, my panel was in a room that in the end never existed), he simply told me, again shouting " I DON'T KNOW, AND YOU SHOULDN'T READ THE PROGRAM, BECAUSE NOTHING IN THE PROGRAM IS RIGHT, PLEASE IGNORE IT!" There I learned that I shouldn't absolutely ask anything of him, and instead I went directly to the cheerman again, who gave me the solution, that my panel had moved at 6pm, and to a much larger room. The awesome thing is that they posted all over the place, announcements that my panel had changed place and time, so that everyone who were interested could find out.

According to me, I had prepared the panel in Spanish, my logic was "if I'm in Spain, the panel will have to be in Spanish", but what I didn't contemplate is that the convention helds people from many countries in Europe: UK, France, Germany , Italy...; and the universal language is, again, English. I had no problems in deciding to give my panel in English, and also that the room itself was full, there were many people determined to listen to me, which made me a little more nervous. My first question on the panel was in Spanish "Is there someone here who doesn¡t speak English?", What a shame when I saw 8 raised hands, that made me not only give the panel in English, but also in Spanish. It was very long, to be saying everything first in English and then translate it into Spanish, so it didn't last an hour, but two. And also the Q&A part was longer than I expected. Hey but I really liked how it ended my panel, I think it was a success.

Hey wait, there is another thing I have to tell about that. During the panel, someone from the staff arrived (if I remember correctly, it was the same grumpy guy, but maybe my memory failed, because I was not paying attention to him at all) , and without asking me for permission, he snatched the microphone and told me "we need it for the auction panel" and left, leaving me without microphone. Some people was pissed off with the staff to see that I had suddenly been left without a microphone, so they had to close the doors of the room so that no outside noise could fit, and I had to be screaming so that everyone could hear me. Apparently the event had only ONE microphone.

Immediately finishing the panel, I went up to my room to use the fursuit and start the Viernes Furry broadcast, the funny thing is that I just left my room to start the stream and in the hall there were already guys waiting for me, eager to get out on the stream.
The stram was a success, and of course you can see it (as soon as you finish reading all this journal) in this link (sorry they are only in Spanish):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4-uYXxtnd4

By the time the convention was getting good, one of the first events on Sunday morning was the closing ceremony. It was very strange for me they close the event very early. And instead of people still having a party after the closure, in fact everyone started to leave, soon the hotel was empty, there was still daylight on Sunday and it seemed that the convention was a thing of the past.

After returning from a very long and tedious staff meeting, where everyone was shouting each other, and they barely were listening my feedback opinions; I was supposed to be in charge of the artists alley (which, according to the program, would be from 18 to 00 hours, very late for artists alley, isn't it?), but upon arrival, there were no artists interested in signing up, nor was there anyone who wanted to go and see if anyone was selling something else, the dead cheath (the Spanish version of "the dead dog") was indeed more dead than any dog, there were only two people dancing, not even in fursuit, and after a few minutes the room was completely empty. I really didn't wait to see if any artist bothered to arrive, I preferred to leave my booth, because that was depressing me a lot. And Tronchy still told me "the rest of the day is to have fun, enjoy the dead cheetah", if I had listened to him, I would have been there alone. Well, there was not even a DJ, they just left the music in play mode.

3. MADRID

After the convention, I spent a few more days in Madrid in good company with  moofoo,  littleorion,  rose-buster and  Salmy (our host), exploring the tourist areas of Madrid, I also went to the zoo and Parque del Retiro with Rosebuster only. We tried the food of our three countries, first Spanish food, then Mexican food, and the last day Polish food.

When all the other guys went to their respective countries, and only Salmy and I were left; We went, along with other furries, to the premiere of "Los Vengadores", the last movie of The Avengers in its dubbed version with the classic Iberian accent. A whole new experience for me.


4. SWITZERLAND

I had once promised a good friend that, if I ever went to Europe, I would visit him, and that would happen when I finished a very large drawing with all the characters in his comic. And so it happened, promises are promises. This great friend is  Hukley, great cartoonist, author of a funny comic called "Freddy Fox" (http://www.freddyfoxcomic.com/), a great person and an excellent friend. Finally I had the pleasure of meeting him in person.

And besides being a great host, he took me to see landscapes of his country that I couldn't believe they existed. Switzerland is beautiful, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, green fields, waterfalls, forests, lakes. There came a point when my eyes and my mind got used to seeing so many beautiful places. Once we passed a waterfall that was on the edge of a path, the waterfall was beautiful, but it was just another waterfall there, with no importance; and I told him that surely that same place, in any other country, would be a national park, instead of Switzerland is just another waterfall.

In his house we tried real yummy food, such as the fondeau with original Swiss cheese, the sausages, the liqueurs, the lasagna that his mother prepared (a great person, also, very lovely!). And it was also beautiful to meet his two cats, one of whom Hukley presumed was very sullen (the female), and that the other was very loving (the male). And it happened the opposite, it was the female cat who became fond of me and all the time she was following me, and the male cat very rarely was shown around.

It was a long and enjoyable weekend full of long talks, very short trips by car or train (the country is very small, it was very fast to get from one end to another), movie nights and video games (never before had enjoyed playing Mario Kart as that time), riding bikes through those beautiful landscapes, tasting delicious cuisine, full of cheeses and chocolates, trying to swim in a lake but failing in the attempt because the water was frozen.

Oh, talking about swimming, there was a morning when it was raining and completely cloudy (I was grateful that was not my first impression of Switzerland, because all the mountains were covered by fog), and that was when Hukley said "today is a perfect day for go to a water park ", it was very strange for me to say that, I think that in any other place, a rainy day would completely ruin a trip to a water park, but I was very surprised that when we arrived, it was an indoor park , all the slides were covered, as were most of the pools. It was very funny, I had not been to a water park for years and I remembered how much fun they are and how much I like them.

And speaking of water, a few days before, we arrived to a very beautiful city: Lucerne (after having gone to a city also just as beautiful named Berne, which I loved because of the fact that there were many symbols of bears, and even some real bears), in Lucerne we had the unfortunate that exact day was a marathon day, and the city was full of people, it was very difficult to walk, so instead of continuing to explore by paw, we rented a boat, and started pedaling near the lake. In the distance, a romantic saxophone music sounds, I told Hukley that it was a very romantic moment for both of us, and we laughed a lot (bros being bros). On the train back to his house I made a drawing related to that fact. (The boat was not in the shape of a Swan, it was only to give more dramatism):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yg83be9bd.....80%29.JPG?dl=0

For Hukley it was unforgivable if I went to Switzerland and didn't get to see snow, so he took me to Davos, a place that supposedly always has snow, but this time it didn't have it, and we continued on our way up to the mountains until we found a part with snow. Incredibly it was not cold, but the level of snow was very deep, there were times when walking my feet sank and snow got into my boots. It was fun.

We also went to Liechtenstein, a tiny country on the side of Switzerland, only 20 minutes driving from Hukley's house. We were in the capital, Vaduz, which I walked it in 10 minutes, and that because I went at a very slow pace. An extremely small city, whose number of inhabitants is no more than that of BLFC assistants, but it is also a very beautiful place, with its castle and many chinese toursists around.

Driving up a mountain, it was a road of only one lane, but it was a double way road, so in the middle of a curve, you could find another car going down. Huk was telling me that kind of roads are very common in the mountains, and there is where usually people learn how to drive, because that way they learn to be very careful with other cars.
Then we hiked up that mountain, when we couldn't keep driving, until we reached a very high part, where we could see the whole valley, and beyond the mountains that we had opposite. What surprised me a lot was that we could see some isolated houses high up in the mountains, which made me wonder how these people live? In truth they must have a very hermit life.

I spent some beautiful days in Switzerland with Hukley, it was my favorite part, and the most relaxing part of the trip. I have very nostalgic and beautiful memories of all those moments, I really enjoyed it a lot.

5. MUSEUMS AND STRANGE FOOD IN MADRID

When I returned to Madrid, I realized that until that moment I had not been able to say that I had really tasted the typical food of Spain, what until then we had eaten was McDonalds, Burger King, tapas, tortas, Mexican and Polish food.

But once I came back, I started to really try what was the food of Spain, and I sure missed a lot to try. However, I can't say that I am a fan of its gastronomy, some things were hard for me to decide to try them, like octopus, blood sausage, paella (and its giant lobster that I was afraid to see, much more to have on my plate, and worse still try it), the piglet; other very rich things like veal or deer (sorry, Tiny Deer, Buckley, Kinter and more deer friends); and things that I definitely didn't even have the courage to want to try as the ear pigs.

Another very curious thing about Madrid were its "terraces", that every time they mentioned a terrace, I imagined a high part of a building, and not simply chairs with tables directly on the street. Which personally made me very uncomfortable, sitting at a table in the street while pedestrians pass by you and see you eat. For me there is nothing better than sitting inside a restaurant, the farther from a window, better, so I can feel I'm no longer on the street. That is personal preference.
But it seems that Spaniards enjoy much more than people pass by them while they eat, because even the prices of food and drinks on the terrace were higher; and sometimes when you arrived at a place, the waitresses said with great sorrow and with possible client's disappointment, that they had no place available on the terrace, only inside, and that was even better for me. I really didn'tt like to sit in the street to eat.

My favorite food of all the rest of the time that I were in Spain was a buffet of Japanese food, where I could fill my glass, supposedly for wine, with soda. All dishonor to any Spanish, hehe, I'm sorry, it was really very yummy.

Those extra days in Spain we took advantage of very well, visiting museums, such as the Thyssen (my favorite), Reina Sofia and El Prado museum, as well as places around Madrid such as Toledo, the castle of Manzanares, Segovia (visiting its aqueduct and the Alcazar), the monastery of El Escorial, the royal palace of Madrid, the cathedral, and Chueca, the gay area of ​​Spain which took us a long time to find, because Salmy was lost, at the moment of wanting to be my guide.

Something that I didn't like so much about some touristic places in Spain is that they don't allow you to take pictures of anything, and the guards walk in the hunt for tourists who try to take pictures. It seemed more sinful to take a picture of something than to touch with your fingers something historic (which was sometimes allowed, but ironically you couldn't take them a picture). So I saw many tourists doing their best to break their absurd law, taking out their cell phones quickly to take a picture as soon as possible to something before a guard noticed. It was like a game for all tourists, a challenge. I think they should simply let the tourists enjoy, taking picture memories of the places visited, and only not allow the use of flash, as in almost everywhere happens.

Thanks to  balasch for going out with me one day when Salmy was not at home. With that guy I went to a record store, where I bought Mecano's "Aidalai" album, just because I don't have that one in physic, it's my favorite album from Mecano, and I can say that I bought it in the original land of the band. And thanks for that good talk with beer in that bar.

Yes I liked Madrid, it was very interesting to have visited and see where part of the roots of the culture of my country come from, well, the roots from the conquer, which was a very important part of the final culture of my country, combined with the aztec, mayans and other original roots. As well as things that we Mexicans believe are very typical of us, such as rice pudding, churros and marzipan. Something great about Spain is that rice pudding don't have raisins (Thank you, Spain!)

6. THE GREAT ADVENTURE HEADING TO BLFC

Here comes a very interesting part of the journal, but first, to know that you are still reading up to this point, comment "Paco doesn't like peanut butter". (Don't judge)

In this part of the trip several unexpected moments. Starting with the flight back from Madrid to NYC, being a flight to the United States, they only allowed 50 pounds (23 kilos), not 25 kilos (55 pounds) as in the previous flights, and since I already had a little more luggage than when I started the trip, the wright marked that my luggage was 25 kilos. What a problem! I had to take two kilos out, and also I was not allowed to carry the carry-on with me (my suitcase where I put my furhead, to take it with me all the time, so I wouldn't see it again until San José, CA. Around 28 hours later). Not knowing what else to take from my suitcase, I exchanged the paws of my fursuit for my shoes, being that the fursuit paws are heavier, and then I wore my paws all the rest of the journey in airports.
The security guards had different opinions about my panda shoes, some laughed at me, others told me they looked very comfortable, and others said it was super cute, and they asked me why I was wearing that.

In my wait for change of plane, in Munich, Germany, I had an anxiety attack, I had never lived one, now I know what it feels like. At that time I desperately wanted to be at home, however I was barely halfway through my planned trip, but it was so much my despair that I even looked for flights from NYC to Guadalajara, to see if it was possible to just return and make landfall in America, but the prices were very exaggerated, being that they were for that same day. I decided to calm down, to think that nothing was going to go wrong. And I suddenly felt a new fear during the trip already on the plane from Munich to NYC, because I had a very silly dream where they didn't let me back to the United States and they threatened to deport me, and I couldn't sleep the rest of the way, which was very long.

But no, when I arrived in the United States, I went very easy, very few customs questions, everything went well. A funny experience during my waiting on the JFK airport, in NYC, was when I went for a coffee to Starbucks, there was next to me a....person (sorry if I couldn't tell the gender, it was a short person, no boobs, short hair, but their aspect was like a girl, with curves and a girly cute face), it was a pretty person to be honest, they were staring at me, like wanting to start talking to me. I'm so shy that I couldn't tell them anything first, but I knew they really wanted to start a conversation with me, and didn't know how. When the starbucks girl called my name "Paco!", I could see how this mysterious person decided to come with me and told me "Hey, I love your art", then they run away and disappeared. I would have loved to know who were them and said something back. Anyways is the first time someone made me feel famous, out any furry convention.

Another great thing about the plane from NYC to San Jose was that we started our flight during sunset, and since we were flying to the opposite of the world, I could se a beautiful sunset for 3 hours.

Hey, Paco. But the convention is in Reno, NV, not in San Jose, CA.
What happens is that when looking for flights, it was outrageously expensive to get directly to Reno, I couldn't find anything accessible, so I looked instead for San Jose (much cheaper, it was really much the difference in price), and since I have many friends there, surely somebody would leave me ride with them to BLFC.

And so it was, I found that my friends Pepe Mapache and Mirawis would leave on Thursday morning to Reno, with their trailer, and enough space for me and my bags. In addition, there was also his Chihuahua puppy, which was very quiet throughout the trip.

Something unexpected happened: the truck stopped working halfway. It started to show some problems when we started the trip, but it was thought that it wouldn't be a great inconvenience and that it could survive until Reno. But more ahead to Sacramento, in the middle of nowhere, the transmission ended up overheating and leaking large amounts of oil (A lady was shocked because she thought that the oil was blood that we had run over a deer). At that time Pepe and Mira decided that it would be better to return to San Jose, but I had many commitments in BLFC, and I even had to be there the next morning in the event.

I didn't posted my problem publicly, I didn't want to cause a lot of gossip or half the world knew that (However, already at the convention, apparently everyone found out about that problem, because many asked me how we had solved everything), I just told some friends to see if they knew someone who was also heading to BLFC and were at that time near Sacramento, it had to be a great coincidence for that to happen, however there were two coincidences that met those requirements, except one: They didn't have space for me. There were two cars that were just up to Sacramento and were heading to the convention, but they were completely full.

But several friends started giving me solutions: Mira was very tempted to pay me a Lyft to take me to Reno (which would have given me much embarrassment; if that was a solution, I could have paid without problems, but he insisted on covering that expense ), and 3 friends offered to go for me, even if they were already at the convention. A very great gesture on their part, really thank you, guys, for the solutions. However Pepe and Mira decided that we were going to get to Reno in any way with that truck, even if it came to pieces.

Have you seen "Little Miss Sunshine"? Something like that happened to us.
We were on the freeway heading to the Grand Sierra, we were seeing the building, the truck was still overheating, there were 10 minutes left by 12 o'clock at night, the time when the BLFC registration closed (and I needed to have my registration ready for the next morning), so we kept driving until we reached the parking lot of the hotel, they left the van in a random spot, we just went out and ran to the hotel, right where the registration was, and when they arrived, they closed the curtain behind us, and they could give us our badge on time. It was 12 o'clock.

After a long day full of broken trucks, I greeted my roomies (which this time were  thesepantsdontfit,  baronvonboschitt and Sander the black cat), I put on the fursuit and went down to dance.

Now if you are at this point of the journal, write me if you like peanut butter or not.

7. BLFC

Along with MFF, this is my favorite convention, and I was there again, in that place whose strange smell brings me so many good memories, and seeing so many happy furries always puts a big smile on my face. I love BLFC.

On this occasion I made many plans, I had so many things to do during that weekend that I almost had everything planned for what was going to happen those 3 days. But of course there were some things that made many plans go bankrupt: in this year they banned the use of fursuits in go-karts and mini-golf. And several of us had planned to do those activities, and no, not in our human version, but in fursuit. But later I'll tell you what happened.

Friday was of artists' alley, which was one of those that I enjoyed and I'm already very familiar with as they are, it's like my comfort zone. As soon as the doors opened, the commission slots were completely filled. I chatted with a lot of people, I took pictures with several fursuits that came to visit me at my table, I was glad to meet people I had never met before but only online, and I was also happy to see people who are already like a family for me.

In the afternoon I was in the fursuit festival. About that issue shown on internet about the girl who was bullied... I knew absolutely nothing, I found out until I checked the internet and the BLFC published the news, but neither at that time nor during any time of the convention I saw something related to that. But speaking of rodents, something very special for me in that furuit festival, right after they took the group photo, was meeting Mausie, the  nordicfuzzcon's mascot. When I saw him, I was about to mourn with happiness, I couldn't help that big smile on my face, even when nobody could see it and everyone just saw that big smile of my fursuit that, although it is always very sincere, this time fitted more that never with my real smile.

A very good friend asked me what my favorite part of BLFC was, and it may sound very exaggerated but I can't help but answer "Mausie". What a great personality that mouse has. I admire the performance in fursuit of many people, who sometimes ask me why I admire them so much if they are not artists like me, and it is clear that I consider them as great artists, the interpretation of a character is something that not everyone can do well. Mausie is one of those characters that I think are exaggeratedly well interpreted.

I will try not to talk so much about Mausie or if I will not tire you, thank you if you continue reading this during this point, not many have the patience to read such long texts on internet.

Another moment that I enjoyed a lot was the dance set "Audiodile", by my great friend  Croc. Not only because their remixes cause me to dance and they are very fun, but also because many friends in common go to that set, precisely to dance with his music, and I always find very well-known faces. After he finished his set, instead of continuing to dance, I went to see the Foxes and Peppers show, which I always enjoy a lot.

The next day was also a great day, sharing a time with new and old friends like  shortythedragon, Croc,  koidelcoyote and  jibbinkodiyak. That day I went back to see Mausie <3 in the inflatable panel, which was very fun and I could see how Mausie and Croc were running in a big bubble. Although this time at this con there was very little space for them to run inside the bubble, it was fun. I have never been able to get inside the bubble, there is always a long line waiting for other fursuiters, and I always prefer to keep playing with all the inflatables and fursuiters instead of waiting. But when I saw that Mausie was getting into one of those bubbles, I pleaded to be in the other, and so play together with Mausie, both in our respective bubbles; but they didn't allow me, because there was already someone else waiting for their turn u__u
And since they told me it was my turn to get into the bubble, either Jib, Mausie and Croc were gone, so ... with which friend was I going to be able to share my time while I was in the bubble? Only Koidel was there but he was already lying in an inflatable, tired. I rejected the invitation and better I left the panel.
I'm not complaining at all, it was very fun and I have very nice moments from that time we were playing with the inflatables.

One of my definitely favorite moments of the convention, was having a good time with Mausie (eh, once again...Mausie), while he was playing with other fursuiters in the dealer's den with the convention props, like dice, hula hoop rings, the tricycle, and other own props from other fursuiters. That rodent is just beautiful.

Remember that I had told you that they didn't allow fursuits in go karts this year? Well yes, it was, they didn't change their mind, but we had an exception, thanks to Shorty, a friend very close to Mausie and also a new great friend of mine, moved heaven, sea and land to have that great exception. We went Mausie, Jib Kodi, Keepo and I in a Go-Karts race that we were videotaping, and I'm really looking forward to see that video edited because I know it was spectacular.

That evening, with  FoxAmoore,  Dixielioness,  ecofin, Ed Puma, Alf and  summertime, we run a panel about our travel experience in Mexico. There were fewer people than expected (it was logical, at that time all were already at parties or dancing) but that was not wrong, at least we made people laugh, we talked a bit about Mexico, we gave some typical candies. In the middle panel, Majira's fursuit arrived (someone else was using it) and I asked Majira (the real one) ... "then who are you?"
Oh, Majira told an embarrassing anecdote about me driving, that anecdote I hadn't told in the other journal where I spoke about my trip to Mexico because it seemed very shameful. It was about a toll, seeing that other cars were passing by without stopping, I thought it was a free toll (that maybe it was not working), when I was about to pass through, the bar closed in front of me, stopping suddenly. I realized that the cars in front had the automatic payment chip, which of course I didn't have. >////< That was the experience Majira told about "Panda driving".

Another very funny thing during the panel was Majira's curious facts about Mexico, which were not surprising and that made it funnier, such as "Did you know that the main language in Mexico is Spanish?"

The last night I played bowling with  kazan.k,  cosu-raccoon,  TKCoyote,  wuskyblue and Koidel. Before I escaped to go dancing for the last time.

It was a very nice convention, I would have liked to share time with many more people, but I just ended up saying hi to many people I knew and I was very happy to see, and it was practically a hello and a goodbye, but thanks to everyone with whom I was able to share incredible moments during that weekend. As it has always been BLFC, once again it was a very fun convention.

8. ANOTHER GREAT ADVENTURE HEADING TO LAS VEGAS (WITH A STOP IN SAN JOSE)

And here begins another great adventure.

My BLFC plan ended with an adventure to Las Vegas, accepting the invitation of my friend  cloud1516 to visit him. And since I had never been to that city in Nevada before, I planned my flight back home from Las Vegas.

I was determined to buy bus tickets from Reno to Las Vegas, not to be a problem for anyone, however Kurtt told me that there was a caravan of cars that were going to Las Vegas from Reno, and that I could be included in one of those , contacting me with Dreyse, who is the organizer of such caravan.
But everything went wrong when one of the trailers that was going to Las Vegas, left earlier than normal, without telling anyone, and then those who ran out of place from the caravan were Koidel and me. And even though we tried to find a new ride, they were all full. So we had to improvise. (By the way, thanks Shorty, for being there with us during our wait to know what would happen to us).

Our spontaneous plan was to take a ride with Koby and Jib Kodi, who were going to San Francisco, to be able to leave Jib Kodi at the airport. There was enough space for us and our bags.

While we were going to San Jose, and I with the question in my head "why are we going to San Jose and not Las Vegas?", I started moving contacts and figuring out how we were going to get to Las Vegas later.
First I warned Cloud that we were not going to arrive as soon as we thought.
And then to Croc, who lives in San Jose with Bacon and Jimmy:
-Hello, unexpected plans, Koidel and me are going to San Jose
-Oh really? When?
-TODAY!
(Hehe, sorry for being so unexpected and spontaneous)
And then I bought bus tickets from San Jose to Las Vegas a day after.

Thank you very much, Croc,  baconstrip and  yippee for letting us stay one night at your home, and thanks to Blue Badger and Bacon for picking us up at San Jose station, it was very fun to see a car arriving with a big badger fursuit on the front seat.

We spent one night with these guys, it was a nice day, playing Mario Kart (unlike Hukley's house, I was very bad this time, it was a very different version than the one I played in Switzerland), watching movies and videos of conventions from more than 10 years ago. I always have a great time with those guys. Croc is one of my best friends.

And a new adventure began when we left on the bus from San Jose to Las Vegas. It's the first time I use the Greyhound bus service. I missed a lot the bus services in Mexico, which are super comfortable, with internet, pillows, very reclining seats that are like beds, movies, etc.
Oh no, these were hard-seat buses, with giant windows without curtains, seats very close to each other that don't leave room for the knees, and I knew that they would be very long hours.

We made several stops, either for breakfast, stretch our legs, enter the restroom. Those were very short stops of 10 minutes, maximum 30 in some specials stops.
But in one of those that lasted only 10 minutes, I appreciated that stop because I really needed to use the restroom, and really didn't want to use the bus (smelled terrible).
I run to the stop's restroom, it was one of those toilets with doors, which locks need to be closed very hard, you had to apply a lot of force to be able to close it. That was a big problem, I would have preferred to leave it open and live a shame that someone opened the door thinking it was free, comparing with what happened next.

After rushing to go back to the bus, I tried to open, and I realized that I was stuck, even though I applied a lot of force I couldn't open the door. I started to scare because it had been more than 10 minutes and I kept trying to open the cubicle door, of despair, when I realized that I was not going to be able to achieve it, I went out on the bottom floor, dragged myself, leaving the door closed, and ran to reach to the bus, and what a surprise when I realized that the bus was no longer there.
I don't know why I was not scared at that moment, I remember that I just thought "Oh, crap, they left me" but without any worry; I took the phone to call Koidel and tell him to stop the bus, when I thought about "stopping the bus" it was that moment I started to get very worried, of course the driver wouldn't stop if he was already halfway there! But fortunately it stopped, I ran to the highway, and I realized that it had not really go very far, but oh geez, I don¡t know what I would have done if they had definitely left. X_X

Remember guys, if you have time limit to enter a public restroom in the stop of a bus, make sure not to lock the cubicle door so tightly.

And after hours and hours of more freeway and a monotonous view of the desert of California and Nevada, we finally arrived in Las Vegas.

9. LAS VEGAS

What can I tell about Vegas?
Many years ago I thought: I want to explore the world; and go that dream is being achieved. But there was a fact that had in my head "The place I want least to know is Las Vegas", I've never been a party guy or alcohol drinker, much less be gambling and wanting to live in excess, and for me that was the meaning of Las Vegas, I was not very attracted to that. But when I started having friends who are from there, and receiving invitations from them (like RedWulf, E, and now Cloud), I gave this city a chance.

I could describe it as "Spectacular". It really is full of luxuries, elements that encourage vice and sex, is not something that I have to persist, not that I am a saint, hehe. In the end, I really changed my concept of Las Vegas, not only is it the place of perdition and fun that they show in the movies, I could find in Las Vegas that which I admire so much from the Americans, and that is to be able to fulfill any crazy idea that have in their mind, and also make it look impressive. In every city that I visit from United States, I see that, that great creativity and imagination that not only stays in a thought "this would be absurd", but they really make those absurd ideas true. And not only talking about pyramid-shaped buildings, giant coke bottles, roller coasters surrounding a hotel, lakes in the middle of an avenue that dance to the rhythm of music, and Roman temples converted into hotels; I also talk about furry conventions, comic conventions, spectacular concerts, plays that leave people with their mouths open.
Americans dare to dream, and to make their dreams come true.
(A fact that I need they lack them, is a good taste of their food, hehe, they believe that the more quantity, the better)

Cloud Husky was a great host, I had a great time with him and with his friends who introduced me, just as I introduced friends who were local for him and he didn't know. They were Red Wulf and Erwin.
Who was very fun to visit, we were in fursuit at the RedWulf's house, we set up our own "furry convention" in their house, and we titled it "RedCon 2018". We even had our own fursuit parade, artists alley, fursuit lounge and even fursuit games (the challenge was to raise a 10 cent coin from the floor with our fursuit paws, it's more difficult than it seems).

Thank you, Yaps, for insisting that they take us to eat at SkinnyFats, all of us went for the happy side.

We were not only in the city seeing lights and hotels, Cloud and his dad (both his parents are very kind, great people, like his dog Dusty, who looked like Koidel's pop filter) took us to see the Hoover Dam, incredible gigantic dam. Really spectacular. Something I didn¡t expect to see on the trip.

The last night, before leaving home, we went out with several furries to walk the Vegas strip in fursuit, a great way to close this trip, another of my favorite moments that will remain in the prosperity of my memory.

Before going to the airport, we tried to book a room for MFF, but we failed in the attempt, as well as 98% of the people who also tried T_T
But anyway we'll go to MFF, it doesn't matter if it's not at the main hotel.

And this is how this trip ends, we returned to Guadalajara. Roni went through us, I missed that dog very much, I hugged him like never before, and I thank him infinitely for the patience he has in keeping me out so long, he knows I always carry him with me in my heart.

Experiences like this make one learn so much, and they are adventures that nobody can take away from me. It's one of the best investments one can make in their life and for their spirit.

Thank you very much for reading me, see you in Megaplex for more adventures!!

If you want to check ALL my pictures from this adventure:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tl2ean1a.....9cI_i03sa?dl=0

If am I going to BLFC? Many are asking me. Of course I'll be there!

I've been doing an itinerary of all the things I have to do and... ooff, there are many, but I'm very excited about next weekend, SO MUCH!!!! BLFC is one of my favorite furry cons, maybe it is my favorite (but when I go to MFF, then I say the same, so..I don't know, I love both!!) so it's definitive that I can't miss this great event year after year.

First of all, a very big apology if I've been absent these last weeks, I haven't been at home, being everywhere and without much internet access, but after the convention I hope to return to work as normal.

I've been living many adventures, so when I return from BLFC to home, I'll have to do one of my classic super long journals telling everything I lived. Before, I thought that those big journals were only wrote for me and nobody read them, but now I have known that there are many who read them and also enjoy them, thank you!

So here are some of the many activities I'll do during BLFC:

Mexican Panel

This year we'll have a panel, which will be unique, it won't be repeated at any other convention, so you CAN'T miss it.
Majira Strawberry,  FoxAmoore,  DixieLioness, Ed Puma, Kurtt Amarok and I will tell you about our experiences about the roadtrip we made in Mexico.
It will be Saturday, May 12th at 11 pm (PDT)
The panel will be for charity, and will also be broadcast on Internet, for all those who are not going to BLFC, so you won't have an excuse to miss it (I still don't know where it will be broadcast from, but follow the BLFC networks and sure they will publish it, or follow the telegram channels of both Majira and mine:

BLFC channel: https://t.me/biggestlittlefc
Majira Channel: https://t.me/tallfuzzball
My telegram channel: https://t.me/panda_paco

Artists Alley (or Bazaar)

Again I'll be at the Bazaar (or Artist's alley), this year at table B12, only on Friday, from 12pm to 6pm.
I will only have 4 slots to do during the con, plus another 9 for take-home, which, from now on I announce, take-home commissions taken at BLFC will take a little longer than normal, probably until June when I start working on those 9 drawings, because I still have to do some that I took at TFF, and I hadn't had time to work on them (after BLFC I'll be a bit more "free", that is, more time to work on everything I have pending).

So as usual, I have prepared some points for you if you are interested in a commission from me at BLFC, to consider this:

►Be one of the first to arrive when they just open doors, they always make a line about 30 minutes before they open. The commission slots fly, sometimes even before 20 minutes of doors opening (find out on my telegram channel, there I announce if there are still slots available or if they have already been filled)

►The commissions are only during the convention, and only during the artists alley, not before or after. Remember that there will be only 4 people that will take their drawings home that day, and another 9 that will wait a few weeks for their drawings to be ready.

►Be thinking about a good idea that I can work for you, if you don't have one, you can leave it up to me n__n I don't have a problem suggesting ideas (TBH I like that)

►Have prepared your reference sheet (any reference of your character works for me, no matter if it's not properly a ref sheet), PREFERABLY PRINTED !! If you can't print it, you can have it ready saved on your phone and I'll take a picture to your screen. Don't trust the internet of the convention center, so do not try to find your reference on FA at the moment. That almost never works.

Fursuit Festival

I will be at many moments of the convention in fursuit. But if you want to know of a place, an hour, and a point that you want to find me in fursuit for sure to receive a big hug from a panda, I'll be in the Fursuit Festival.

On Friday from 7pm to 9pm, it will be a long day in fursuit, since before the end of the festival, we will have already started:

Viernes Furry

Yes, for those who speak Spanish and see us from the internet every week, there will be a live broadcast from BLFC by  Koidelcoyote and me. For those who will be at BLFC, it doen't matter if you don't speak Spanish, if you find us recording with some selfie sticks, don't hesitate to come to us and say hello to all the guys from Latin America who see us live. The program is broadcast every week from 10 to 12 at night (CST) on the youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/FlovingChannelV/
But as in Reno, Nevada, we will be at Pacific time, if you are at the convention, you can find us recording from 8 to 10 pm (PDT)

It will also be a special broadcast because it will be the first anniversary of our podcast.

Audiodile

If you're a BLFC assistant, don't miss the Croc O'Dile dance set called Audiodile, Friday at 10 pm at the dance floor, right when we finish our broadcast. For all those who enjoy retro music and cool mixes. I promise you will put your tails to move.

So as you can see, Friday will be the busiest day for this panda, on Saturday I already have everything full of plans for the whole day, but in truth, if you see me wandering around the convention, either in fursuit or without it, Don't hesitate to come to me and give me a very tight hug, I promise I don't bite, and I always try to be friendly. Let's keep that attitude, don't be a creepy and always act with common sense, remember furry cons are friendly events to forget the daily life for a moment and live this utopic little world surrounded by friends and cute characters.

See you there !! I can not wait !!!

* hugs everyone *

Paco

ESPAÑOL

Oh, Paco, vas a BLFC? La respuesta es sí!!

Qué cool!! Entonces seguro que es tu próxima convención!!

Error. Hay una antes.

¡¿Qué?! ¡¿Estás loco?!

Si, un poco. Y además será una aventura en la que no se muy bien qué esperar.

Por primera vez cruzo el charco y voy a Europa. Para ser más específicos a Madrid, España.
Estaré en Furrnion, la segunda edición de este evento, la cual es la primera convención furry de habla hispana.

Creo que será la convención con menos tiempo disponible que tendré, puesto que ahora estaré por primera vez como staff. Pero sí me podrán ver en el artists alley, habrá varias opciones de comisiones durante mis tiempos en las mesas en el callejón del artista, pero únicamente para hacer durante la convención. La verdad desconozco el éxito que pueda yo tener en España, es la primera vez que voy allá, y no se qué tantos me conozcan, pero estoy seguro que será toda una aventura.

Y por supuesto tendré mi fursuit, cuando tenga libre entraré en modo panda. No duden en acercarse, saludarme, abrazarme y tomarse fotos. Me emociona mucho!!

Nos vemos por allá el próximo fin de semana!! :D

---

ENGLISH

Hey, Paco, are you going to BLFC? YES!!

Awesome!! So surely is your next convention!!

That's a mistake. There's one before.

What!?. Are you nuts!?

Yeah, maybe I am. And also it will be a great adventure which I don't know what to expect.

For first time I'm crossing the ocean and going to Europe, to Madrid, Spain.
I will be attending Furrnion, the second edition of this spanish event.

I think it will be the convention with less free time I'll have, because is also the first time ever I'm staffing at a con. But of course you will see me in the artists alley, I'll have some different kind of commissions (something exclusively in Spain; in American cons I'll keep having only 4 or 5 slots), but only to do at the con, not to take home.

To be honest I don't know if I'll success or not there in Spain, it is gonna be the first time, and I don't know how many people really know me there, but I'm pretty sure it will be fun.

Of course I'll bring my fursuit, when I have free time I'll turn in a panda. Please don't hesitate to say hi, to hug and to take pictures with me. I'm really excited!!

See you there next weekend!! :D

Seriously do you want to read all my adventures that happened to me the past two weeks?
It is a lot, so here is an index of events in case you want to skip something that doesn't seem so interesting for you:

CANCUN
- The airport
- The hotel and the Cancun's bar area
- Chichen Itza and Ik Kil
- Beach and Kayaking Day
- Viernes Furry Podcast

ROADTRIP IN MEXICO

- Trip to Chetumal
- Trip to Coatzacoalcos
- Trip to Mexico City
- Mexico City

FURNAL EQUINOX

- Snowy day in Toronto
- Artists Alley
- Fursuit Games, Fursuit Festival and Toronto walking
- Cutthroat Artist
- The end of the adventure.


CANCUN


The airport

All this trip was a plan that came up very unexpectedly, a few weeks before I didn't know that I would go on a trip to Cancun, and even less than it would be with Fox Amoore , Majira , Kurtt , Dixie and Ed Puma. That unexpected is life with me, obviously I can't complain, it has been great. I LOVE IT!
Fortunately the flight went very cheap, I didn't pay more than 1,000 pesos (less than 50 dollars), a direct flight from Guadalajara to Cancun. And it was also fortunate that I arrived at almost the same time as the guys who came from the United States, but at another terminal. I arrived in terminal 1, they in terminal 3, and there was no way to go from one terminal to another, maybe they think "Who wants to travel from terminal to terminal in this airport if people only come for vacations?" so with baggage and backpacks, I had to walk to Terminal 3 to wait for them.

I must say that I was very nervous, not long ago I had started talking to Majira, and had spoken ver few with Fox Amoore, I didn't know Dixie, and suddenly knowing that I was going to spend a whole vacation with all of them, I felt I was not going to have much to contribute and I could feel intimidated since they know each other much more than I knew them. They are already like a family, I am just someone else, who is known in the fandom for drawing cute and such, but in reality I don't feel that I'm someone as interesting as them, I almost don't speak, I am very nervous and quite shy.

When waiting for them for a long time at the exit of terminal 3, there was a lot of confusion, because they thought that they were already outside the terminal and that I should go to where they were, that it was a place full of restaurants and bars, but I didn't have access to that area, it was still a place inside the airport arrivals.
While I was waiting for them, a taxi driver, astutely, made an ephemeral friendship with me so that he could take me to the hotel as soon as my friends arrived; At the end it was good because it really gave me a price much cheaper than the one originally charged to me by other taxis. He told me that it was not as hot those days as it had before, he mentioned that when he saw me that I was sweating a lot, but believe me it was more from nerves than from the heat.

In the end they knew where I was, and they were already escorting by another taxi driver who was willing to charge them much more than even the normal fare. What a pity that in Cancun there is no Uber, because all taxi drivers were charging us dearly. However, we went with that guy who had already talked to me several minutes before. I made them save 180 pesos, which for Mexicans is a lot, I don't know if 9 dollars for them is a lot of difference but for us it's like several days of food XD hehe.

While we were on our way to the hotel, I still felt very nervous, as someone very inferior to them, I was more intimidated than they spoke in English, something that I didn't have a hard time getting used to, my English is not perfect but we can have a very good comunication. What I liked is that they quickly made me feel integrated into the group, with hugs, selfies, and very casual conversations. I realized at that moment that nothing would go wrong.


The hotel and the Cancun's bar area.

When we arrived at the hotel we met Ed Puma, who had already checked in the room several hours before. We went out to walk on the streets. It was evening and we went to the bar area.
This was the fourth time I went to Cancun, I love to go even though it is one of the most expensive places in Mexico, the beach is so beautiful that you never get tired of being there. However many foreigners see Cancun as the place for spring breakers and crazy parties without ceasing; for me that was not Cancun, for me Cancun was a place of relaxation and swimming on a very clean and beautiful beach. So I had never even stepped on that area of ​​bars, which each was more bizarre and stunning than the other. It is a place like anything but Mexico:
All speaking in English, with prices in dollars, they charged tickets for entering any of those bars, the only ones that seemed to be in that area were American people.

I must say in advance that it was the only bad experience I had during the whole adventure, the only one I didn't enjoy even a little, what a pity it was of the first things that happened, because it made me think that it would not be a good start. But all the rest of the adventures on this journal were positive, this is the only one that I'll tell which was negative:

We go to a bar, I must give the name of the place, to recommend avoiding it if possible: "Señor Frogs". Where I paid the most expensive beer I've paid in Mexico. I have paid more expensive beers in other countries, and I haven't complained, but in Mexico, not even in a concert I have been able to pay that amount, they definitely take advantage of the fact that foreigners don't get so stratospheric prices, so these places are thought only for them. And something that made me confirm that fact was a terrible experience I had with one of the local waitresses:
She put in front of me a bottle of ... I do not know what it was, I completely ignore the drink, and she just yelled to me "SHOT", I really didn't know what she meant by that, if it was like a challenge from part of the place , or what was going on. I told her in Spanish, asking questions about that act, that if she was inviting me to challange that I could have a shot of that drink (even didn't know if it has to be directly to the bottle or if she had one of those little glasses) or if there was a price for that challenge to which she wanted to instruct me. Yes, if I had it, it costed me, and it was not cheap, and even though she understood perfectly what I asked her in spanish, she continued speaking to me in English, she asked me where I was from, when I told her my home town, she saw me with the worst possible face , almost like disgusting, and she said "What the heck are you doing in this place?" In short, I was being discriminated in my own country for being in a place that ideally is only for people who are not Mexican. That's horrible!
Actually I didn't mention anything to our guests about this fact because I didn't want to leave them with a bad first impression of my country. I preferred that they didn't know that happened; if any of them for some reason is reading this long journal: yes, it happened, an apology for not telling you, I think the right thing would have been to leave that place immediately. I appreciate that nobody left tips, haha.

On the way back to the hotel, while they wanted to take pictures with each of the funny sculptures that were on the street, a man offered to take the picture for us, he was a tour salesman, and of course he took advantage to offer some tour prices to us. It was where they learned that we had to ignore those people and just go indifferent, saying no. Well, they didn't do it with this man, they listened to him, and he wanted to sell us some tours, very similar to the same plan we were already willing to do on our own, but he wanted to sell that for only 99 dollars, Dixie thought for a moment that in reality It was a good offer for only 6 people to pay that. Oh, but no, the offer was BY PERSON! Dixie couldn't help but laughing in front of her face and leaving at that moment.

Since we were back to the hotel, Kurtt arrived. We went out to buy food at Oxxo, a very popular self-service store in Mexico, very similar to a 7 eleven. Majira bought a gallon of purified water, which lasted him absolutely the rest of the trip to Mexico City.


Chichen Itza and Ik Kil

The next morning we left in a van that we rented to Yucatan. We stopped for breakfast at a cochinita pibil taqueria, which were quite delicious and very cheap.

Upon arriving at the archaeological site of Chichen Itza, I could see how amazed they were to see the main pyramid: the castle of Kukulcán, which is the first to be seen when arriving at the place. There we took several pictures and then we walked to the big ball game, a few moments later it started to rain.
We continue walking until we reach the sacred cenote, where we had to see a very beautiful iguana.

We missed a lot of the site, because unfortunately we arrived a little late, and they also wanted us to spend the same day at the Ik Kil cenote. Those who don't know what a cenote is, are natural formations from underground rivers, which regularly flow into caves. And in some you can swim. I recommend looking in Google images: "Cenote" to give an idea of ​​how they look, they are beautiful.
The sacred cenote of Chichen Itza is not apt for one to swim, however the one of Ik Kil does. And that's what we went to!

The use of life vests was completely optional, and the only one that rented one was Majira.
Warned that swimming in a cenote was a freezing experience (its waters are very cold), they agreed that we should dive in from a very high platform of around 8 meters. The cenote had a depth of 50 meters, so one definitely has to know how to swim to decide to get into one.

We dived several times in the water, and the last time, which incidentally was recorded, my arms lashed with water, and they hurted me all that day. It was a very fun day, tho. I think it was of my favorite parts of the trip.

Back in Cancun, we had the bad luck that two policemen at different points stopped us, one of them sadly asked for a bribe. Bad!

That evening I asked Majira to record an advance video for the podcast "Viernes Furry", and then after that we had pizza.

Kurtt, Dixie, Majira and I went to the beach at night, only to wet our feet while we talked. It was a very pleasant and enjoyable night.


Beach and Kayaking Day

In the morning we had breakfast in Vips, they did a few purchases in souvenir shops (Fox bought some cuban cigars, which really came out very cheap, I feel that they gave him an incorrect price, because they were too cheap; when I asked the price, the lady doubted the amount she had to say), and the rest of the day was more of being on the beach.
We rented some Kayaks, I had never rowed before. My Kayak companion was Majira, it was fun to see how anything frightened him: the waves, other ships around, the water...
It was very tired but fun, ended up hurting my arms and legs.

That day we were in the hotel pool, swimming on the beach, suddenly it started to rain very hard. We ate very "mexican" in a Jhonny Rockets


Viernes Furry

As many of you know, I am one of the 3 hosts of a weekly furry themed podcast called "Viernes Furry" (a correct translation would be Furry Friday), broadcast only in Spanish. Sometimes we have guests in the shows, which had always been people who spoke Spanish (or Portuguese, once), but this time there was an exception, it was the first time we had an English speaker: Majira Strawberry.

That at the beginning of the broadcast was also Fox Amoore, but he went to sleep early and only left us Majira and me in the microphone that we transmitted from Cancun, although much of the program was also Kurtt with us. And of course with Koidel from Guadalajara and Apolo from Mexico city.

It was a particular difficult show, because at the beginning I didn't feel that Majira felt completely comfortable, although he had gladly accepted to participate in the show (thanks, Majira, I appreciate it a lot), the good thing is that the longer the time passed, the better he would let himself talk more (I still think that he was very tired that lasted 2 hours, we are already used to being in a microphone for 2 hours in a row talking). But the most difficult thing was to have been translating everything we said both in English (so Majira understood) and in Spanish (so that our audience could understand what Majira was saying and what we were saying to Majira). I think it could have been better, but we are not professionals in translations in real time.

If you want to see the podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBNli7hxtA4


ROADTRIP IN MEXICO

Trip to Chetumal

We had a great plan, the idea was to go very early from Cancun to Bacalar (from the north of the state of Quintana Roo to the south) and stay the night in Chetumal to continue our journey the next day.

But we never have the great delay we would have with the car rental, because the car we used the previous two days we had to return and rent a new one that we could take to Mexico City and deliver it there, but the time they made us wait for was until 3 o'clock in the afternoon in Cancun. While we waited, I was advancing work from the ipad, and Majira was taking videos.

Already on the way to Chetumal, we stopped to eat in Playa del Carmen, a very express stop where we tried to decide a plan B to stay better there and leave aside the Chetumal plan, because we would not have time to get to Bacalar . The plan B couldn't be made because the Chetumal hotel couldn't be canceled, as the hotel in Playa del Carmen couldn't be reserved. So we went to Chetumal, where I helped in driving, just to spend the night.

It was not bad, because the Chetumal hotel was very nice, it had a pool on the terrace and a bar. I liked that evening a lot, the 6 we played the tag game in the pool, running around like children all over the pool. And then Kurtt, Ed, Majira and I sat at the bar, both to talk with the waiter (who had some flirtations, because he had beautiful eyes and a cute smile) and of course talking among us. According to Majira, that was his favorite dinner in Mexico. It's funny that it's the second time I have a friend from another country in Mexico, I take them to eat all kinds of Mexican food, and in the end they say that their favorite food was nachos, which is not even so Mexican altogether.


Trip to Coatzacoalcos

Much of the next day was driving, and not even for a very fun road. It is nice to know that we are on a road in the middle of the jungle, but the landscape is very repetitive, and it is a very long straight where you don't go through any interesting place, and where there are no gas stations or any place to eat. It was me who drove all that way, from Chetumal, Quintana Roo to Escarcega, Campeche, which was where we stopped to eat at a Burger King. Yeah, Burger King, hehe, there were not many options in that small town either.

During the trip there were many check points, because we were very close to the borders with Guatemala and Belize, and there were many military checking the cars, something funny is that there were always street vendors who took advantage of the small traffic of the check points to sell anything: fruits, giant tortillas, cell phone chargers, windshield wipers, etc. And everyone chased us with their products in hand. Majira took pictures of them, some of them were gold pics.

From there we stopped to Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, where the Ed Puma's family hosted with an incredible kindness, which was much appreciated.
That evening we had dinner in La Parroquia, and we walked by the pier of Coatzacoalcos, funny thing is pier in spanish is "Malecón", I laughed a lot when they said that was the Male-Con, the convention of male.

In the Malecon there were many people, because there were some clowns doing a show, one of those clowns offered us to take a picture in a pyramid that was by the sea, and then we all took a picture with that clown.

We were watching the waves on the seashore in the dark, and we also saw the cargo ships in the distance. As Coatzacoalcos is a port, mainly oil ships. I wet my feet with shoes on, and then I chased Majira threatening that I was going to get him wet too. It was a fun evening.

At Ed's parents' house, we watched the Over the Hedge movie and then we slept.


Trip to Mexico City

We left early from Coatzacoalcos, not before having breakfast at the house of Ed's parents, who very kindly cooked for us.

We made a very express stop in Orizaba to eat, what a pity that we didn't stop there longer, because in January 2017 I went to Orizaba with Roni and it's a really beautiful place.

Before entering the state of Puebla, we passed through the summits of Maltrata, curves on the road that were very scary, and that there was also foggy. However Kurtt was driving at a speed as if the fog didn't exist, so we were very afraid, but at the same time a lot of laughter.

In Puebla it was my turn to drive to Mexico City, but there was an accident on the Puebla highway (don't worry, didn't affect us directly) that made us stay stucked in a traffic jam for more than an hour. But at last we reached Mexico City, and with it our hotel, in the Zona Rosa.


Mexico City

We had many plans in Mexico City in mind to take them, since it's the city that both Kurtt and I know as the back of our hand, we had many places in mind. But the traffic in Puebla, and other extra traffic in the summits of Maltrata made us arrive later than expected to the city, so we couldn't do much.

That night we made a spontaneous furmeet with some furries from the city, Apolo (great friend and fellow host of the podcast Viernes Friday), Alf (whom I had the pleasure to meet for the first time, after chatting with him on the internet for some months) arrived behind, Metalpuppy (whom we would later see in Toronto, for Furnal Equinox), and several others, whom some of them I completely didn't know them.

We went to dinner at "Casa de Toño", a place of pozole and verious Mexican food, quite delicious and excessively cheap. We were about 15 people at a large shared table, and when the bill came, Fox Amoore was very impressed how cheap it was (and we all really ate a lot) who offered to invite us all. (Thank you very much, Fox!)

We went for a walk along Reforma Avenue, one of the main avenues in Mexico, until we reached the Angel of Independence, a symbol of the city. And after we returned to the Zona Rosa, we stopped at a 7 eleven, where we bought many candies that only exist in Mexico. We went back to the hotel, and after an argument with the hotel managers to let everyone into the room, only to record a video, they allowed us to do it.
We recorded a video for the Majira's channel, where we tried Mexican candies, both typical sweets and commercial candies that are only sold on this side.

It was very funny, but also very tired, because we were arriving from a very long roadtrip, it was already late night, and we had to wake up early the next day, as Majira, Fox and Dixie had their flight at 1 pm. So immediately all the guests left, we fell asleep.

The next day we still went to the Mexico City downtown, where we saw the facade of the palace of fine arts, we entered the postal palace, and we walked down the street of Madero to reach the zocalo. Everything was very fast, because in a few hours their flight departed.

We said goodbye to Fox, Majira, Dixie and Ed Puma at the airport, I went to my sister's house to leave my bags, only to have a place to leave them, because in a few hours I was also departing to Toronto. While I was waiting, I went to a mall to see the Winchester movie. A horror movie which I liked and didn't like at the same time, because the story went well until it turned out that the ghosts had super powers, and that they used all the time the screamers resource to make the audience jump from their seats, instead actual situations that really provoke terror.


FURNAL EQUINOX


Snowy day in Toronto

I departed from Mexico City to Toronto from very early in the morning, however I arrived in Toronto as it was getting dark, since the stopover in Dallas lasted longer than it should, the flight was delayed.

In Toronto, it was Dumpling who picked me up to the airport. Dumpling is a great person, a great friend, someone completely adorable and who has done a lot for me, I love him very much.
That night I stayed with him at his house.

The next day he took me to a frozen lake. It was the first time I walked on a lake made completely ice. At first I was very afraid that in some false step it would break, but apparently the ice sheet was thick enough. We saw traces that looked like from a canine, probably from a coyote. And that's where I made a snowman for the first time, which was more like a snow bear. I had a lot of Fun.

After those great little adventures with my mouse friend, we went to the Furnal Equinox hotel, in Toronto downtown.

My roomies this year were Buckley , Gauge and Stage Lion . Great friends, great people, I loved sharing the room with them 3.


Artists Alley

I won't much of my first moments in Furnal Equinox because it did not really happen much, I was tired and I slept early. And the next day I woke up to setting up the artists alley table.

It's funny that in all the times I've put artists alley table, the only time I had not been so successful was in Furnal Equinox last year, because the place of artists alley had been very hidden.

I thought that this time would be repeated that bad luck, because although now we were accommodated in a more visible place than last year, 30 minutes passed after they had opened the doors and no one went through the artists alley. It was not until I posted a post on Twitter and Telegram indicating exactly where artists were, that people started to arrive and, as usual, my commission slots were filled immediately. But it was strange to be more than 30 minutes at the table without doing anything or receiving anyone. Actually, I did something, I made two very quick birthday drawings for Bacon Coyote and Yipee Coyote , who were celebrating their birthday that day and a day later respectively.

Majira came to my table (for the first time in life he stopped in my table!!), and he bought me some merch, paying me in Mexican pesos. Hehe, of course they were welcome, because I need them back home.

Finishing the artists alley, I went to eat something and then to the concert of Fox Amoore, who supposedly would be with Pepper Coyote , but Pepper was not in that concert. Instead of him were the members of the Xephyr band, and personally I didn't like how they sounded with Foxes and Peppers, they are great playing their own songs, very rock/alternative, but Pepper was very missed at that show, fortunately in the AD show, Pepper was there and it was very funny as always.


Fursuit Games, Fursuit Festival and Toronto walking

For the second year in a row, I participated in the Furnal Equinox fursuit games. And for the first time my streak of first places in fursuit games was stained, and not with a decent second place, but in a last place. X_X

But still I must say that it has been the fursuit games that I have enjoyed most of all the times I have participated, the contests were fun, the mood of the audience was very special this time, and I really had a very pleasant time.

Almost immediately afterwards the Fursuit Festival started, something that replaced the fursuit parade, as almost all the conventions are already doing. Personally I like these festivals more than the fursuit parades, they give rise to the fursuiters play more with people, and that not only we pass marching and having very little opportunity to interact with the cameras and with people.
Among the photoshoots, there was one of bears, and curiously we were only 3 bears that we wanted to be in that photoshoot: a grizzly, a polar, and me. So we wanted to take a photo making a pile, to make the reference of the We bare bears show, however the photographer didn't understand that reference and insisted on accommodating that pile that we wanted so much according to our size, and not to the position of: polar, panda and grizzly as it should have been. And when we insisted on accommodating ourselves in that order, the photographer ignored us and didn't take any pictures of us doing the correct pile.

After the fursuit festival, it was organized an alternative walking to the Roundhouse park, where we took many photographs on the railways and trains.

As you can read, I had already been in fursuit for several hours, around 8, so I was already running out, after returning to the hotel and taking off the fursuit, I went to lunch, I was starving.

However, I went back to put on the fursuit to dance, that evening of dancing was very fun, dancing until I got tired, and then watching the show After Dark by Pepper and Fox.


Cutthroat Artist

The next morning, the long-awaited artist Cutthroat was there. And although I had almost no hope of winning, I went with the plan to have fun, not so much to be competitive.

In this edition we participated Anyare , Cat-Monk Shiro , Underbite dragon and me. Three Canadians and one Mexican.

What is the Cutthroat artist about?
They are 4 rounds, each round lasts 10 minutes and in each there is a challenge. The interesting thing is that during each round, there are 1 or 2 sabotages that are up for auctions. Each artist starts with a certain amount of money (fake money, only for the contest) and this money can be used to buy and buy the sabotage for one or more of the competitors.

In the first round, we had to make a badge for a fursuit in the audience, called Barkley , a blue and yellow dog. While we were doing it, the first one to buy a sabotage was me, and I maliciously applied it to CatMonk Shiro. The sabotage was about not to take off the pencil of the paper during the rest of the round.
So he bought the second sabotage to apply to me as revenge, I had to draw holding the pencil with the two closed fists of my hand, it was very difficult.

At the end of each round, a judge eliminates a competitor. The one that had the least beautiful drawing. The first one that was eliminated was Catmonk, who because of me couldn't make a nice drawing in time. U///U Sorry!!

In the second round we had to draw someone's random character in the audience, and represent it with the theme of the convention: livin 'large (BTW were the only drawings we couldn't take them pictures, the owner immediately take them with them and left the place). In that round I didn't worry about the sabotages, between Anyare and Underbite the punishments were thrown, ignoring me completely. Anyare had to draw for the rest of the round with a silver sharpie, and Underbite with his left hand.

The challenge of Underbite was really difficult, it is very complicated to do something decent with the hand that we are not used to draw, however his drawing was very decent, and even so he was the participant that was eliminated. So the final was between Anyare and me.

For the last challenge, we took two random fursonas from the audience, a black dragon and a tiger, and we had to combine them to make a hybrid.

Very difficult, because Anyare is a great artist. In this last round there was only one sabotage, which was very abusive, was to stop drawing and to play blackjack against Huscoon , and beat him 3 times to be able to continue. I bought that sabotage, taking advantage of the fact that I still had a high amount of false money with me. She took 4 minutes to beat Huscoon, so she lost a lot of time. Even so, her drawing was incredible, I was more than sure that she was going to be the winner.

However, I was chosen as the winner, to my surprise. Being that at the beginning I didn't even want to participate, but Bcbreakaway had already insisted on me for two previous cutthroat artists, and I didn't want to tell him no. Also, I was sure it would be fun, and it was, I really wouldn't have minded in the least losing even from the first round, I went to have fun.

Another thing is that I thought the cash prize of up to $ 25 was a joke, but it was not, in the end I won 15 Canadian dollars in cash, haha.

Thank you, Bc, for inviting me, it was really hilarious!!! Sorry for saying no previous times.


The end of the adventure

There was not much else to do the rest of the convention, I saw the end of the fursuit dance competition, someone who I didn't even see his performance because he was one of the first and I got to see the last 6 participants. I saw the closing ceremonies. I was not much in the dead dog party because the truth is that this year was a very boring party, literally dead. I was in the lobby chatting with friends, I packed my stuff and I was in the room talking with my roomies.

My return flight didn't leave until the next day at dawn, so I spent an extra day in Toronto, went shopping in art stores, and bought some plushies in a mall. Then Dumpling invited me to go out for dinner with the Asian group, it was very fun, I met new people, including Arco Shep, who I liked very much.

My flight ended up getting late until 7 o'clock on Tuesday morning, so Dumpling did me the great favor of hosting me one more night in his house, which I thank you infinitely for all the kindness.

And all day Tuesday was of flights and buses, until arriving home, very tired and very sleepy, but full of experiences that became unforgettable. I really feel very grateful to the furry fandom for giving me so many things, so many friends, so many good times, and for letting me be myself.

Thanks to you for reading this until the end, sure were very few who read absolutely everything, I don't blame them, I think I wrote this more for me, and for those who wanted to take a time to know how it was in the latter Two weeks I was a little absent from uploading artistic content to my networks.

This panda loves you!!!

ENGLISH
(Español más abajo)

Hi, guys and girls!

A new journal where I want to tell several things, here is an index of the topics I'm telling you about:

►Texas Furry Fiesta
►Tour in Mexico
►Furnal Equinox
►Artists Alley
►Cutthroat artist
►Telegram Channel

Texas Furry Fiesta

This was a great adventure!!! AMAZING!!
When we wanted to buy the flight tickets, we realized that they were more expensive than we thought, so we made a B plan that worked out great: traveling to Monterrey, NL, visiting a friend, and driving with them to Dallas, TX. In the van we were  ettevy,  aramisthefox,  koidelcoyote, David and me. It's very particular to talk about David, who didn't know what kind of event we were going specifically, he only knew that he would take us to a comic convention, but he had no idea anything about the furry fandom. When he found about this whole world, and also were at the convention in person, he was so excited that on the trip back to Monterrey he was very curious and passionate about the whole furry theme, and even he had already decided what his fursona would be. He's a lion!

TFF was a great convention, very fun, full of friends, lots of fun times, great experiences, unforgettable moments, and many more descriptions that sound very empty but in reality have a lot of meaning.

Again, it would be very difficult to mention absolutely all the people I saw in the event, it would be a very long journal, and probably I can forget someone and I will regret it a lot. What I can say is that I shared a room with two guys whose first furry convention was precisely this one.  frits Rabbit and Sander the black cat. Both great friends, very shy at first, but fortunately they had a great time, and very nice to room with them, they're sweet persons.

We broadcast a live stream instead of our usual podcast called "Viernes Furry". Almost at the end of the broadcast, Majira Strawberry dragged me to a party in a suite, which was where we finished the stream (If you want to watch the video, here's the link, but most of it is in spanish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBjluPaBXrE). And many asked me what happened next. Well, it didn't really happen much later, we were taking a while with them, Majira put us in a shower, and opened it by accident, another friend arrived who was already very drunk and doesn't remember anything about that evening. And then I went down to the dance and started jumping and hoping to the rythm of the music.

I made several new friends, it was nice to see friends from past conventions, friends I made from last year's TFF, and there was , as is usual at every furry con, creepeers, people who are scary and who chase me everywhere.
But it was great!! I love TFF, I want to go back next year!

Tour in Mexico

I just returned from the trip to Dallas and Monterrey, I gave a step at my house, I washed my clothes and that same day I traveled to Mexico City, I didn't even spend a whole day in my house. I was in Mexico City for some few days and in a few weeks I was going to be traveling to different parts of my country.
This will happen next week, a trip with friends in different places, sightseeing and showing them the most beautiful of the culture of Mexico.
On this trip we are going Kyle Summer (better known as Majira Strawberry ), Dixie,  foxamoore, Ed Puma, Kurtt Amarok and me.
Surely it will be very cool, soon there will be more details of exactly what will happen.

Furnal Equinox.

The tour in Mexico will conclude with a flight to Toronto. It will be my third time in Canada, preparing my tummy for putine and Tim Hortons.
My second time at Furnal Equinox, ready to adapt my body from extreme heat to imminent cold.
In this convention I will only have one day of artists alley, one Saturday to fursuite almost all day, and one Sunday with a very particular contest to which a certain zebra enrolled me.

Remember that I always get very excited when someone recognizes me, comes over to say hi, hug me, take pictures, talk with them for a while. I am the same, I also love to see someone I admire, a fursuit that I like, get close to them, say hello, maybe take a picture with them, do a little talk, and let them continue with what they were doing. Do not be shy, it makes me very sad when someone writes to me on the internet that they saw me at a convention but they were very shy to come over and say hello. But remember that you must always be respectful! Avoid being the creeper who follows me everywhere and who looks out for my privacy, there should always be a balance. Let's continue supporting the positive attitude that the furries we must have with other furries!!

Artists Alley

As I mentioned before, I will only have a table on Friday during the convention, March 16th. One of the few opportunities to have a commission by me.
This time there will be no commissions to do at home, since I already have many pending, projects and paid work that I must finish at home, I don't want to inflate me more. So those that I will receive at the convention, will be the only ones. This time I will take 5 commissions to work on during the convention. So if you are interested, come quickly to the table on Friday as soon as the artists alley opens its doors to the public.

Here are some recommendations if you plan to attend Furnal Equinox and are interested in a commission by me:

►It must be simple ideas, no backgrounds or a whole scene. I promise that I will have a great job for you anyway. Extra characters will be extra charged.

►Be thinking of a good idea to work, if you don't have one, you can leave it up to me and I can suggest a good pose for your character.

►Prepare your reference sheet (you can bring regular pictures of your character, it doesn't matter if it's not a profer reference sheet), but preferably it should be printed. You never have to trust the internet of the place, it's not advisable that you give me your gallery of FA so that from there I take the reference of your character. If you couldn't print your references, don't worry, you can have them saved on your cell phone and share them either by bluetooth or I can take a picture on your screen.

►I like very much to draw in sketchbooks, but don't worry if you don't have one. I also have sheets that I can give you. What I don't have is how to protect your drawing when I give it to you later on the separated sheet, so if that is the case, get a folder or something to keep your drawing safe.

►Very strictly I will only accept 5 commissions, no more. They almost always fill up in the first few minutes, so you go to the line as early as possible on Friday to be able to have a high chance of reaching a place on my queue.

Cutthroat artist

 bcbreakaway had insisted me for about a year that he wanted me to see participating in this artist contest.
They arde 4 rounds, each round lasts 10 minutes and in each there is a challenge (for example, draw a badge for someone in the audience). At the end of each round, a judge eliminates a competitor. The interesting thing is that during each round, there are 1 or 2 sabotages that are up for auctions. Each artist starts with a certain amount of money (fake money, only for the contest) and this money can be used to bid in the auction and to buy sabotage for one or more of the competitors (sabotages can be such as drawing with the left hand (or the right hand if the artist is left handed), draw with the canvas upside down, and so on). The final only remains between two artists.

For this edition, the competitors will be Anyare, Cat-Monk Shiro, Underbite dragon and me. If you want to attend, in addition to having fun, you have the chance of having a drawing made by the competing artists (completely free).

If you go to Furnal Equinox, don't miss this panel, it will be Sunday March 18 at 1pm in the Bay Room.

Surely I will lose in the first round, but it will be fun to try.

Telegram channel

I almost never check internet in my trips, and sometimes I forget to update anything to my social networks. But there is something that I always use because it is very easy to access, and it is Telegram. I have a telegram channel in which I always update news, new drawings, announcements, spontaneous changes on artists alley, my plans, streams, etc.
I recommend you follow me on my Telegram channel:

https://t.me/panda_paco

That's all, if you read this journal until the end, say "wrargh!"
I love youuu!!

---

ESPAÑOL

Hola chicos y chicas!!

Un nuevo journal donde quiero contar varias cosas, aquí hay un índice de los temas que voy a tratar:

►Texas Furry Fiesta
►Tour por México
►Furnal Equinox
►Artists Alley
►Cutthroat artist
►Canal de Telegram

Texas Furry Fiesta

Toda una gran aventura.
Cuando quisimos comprar los boletos de avión, nos dimos cuenta que eran más caros que lo que creíamos, por lo que hicimos un plan B que nos salió de maravilla: viajar a Monterrey, NL, visitar a una amiga, e irnos con ellos manejando hasta Dallas, TX. Y así ocurrió! En la camioneta íbamos Yvette, Aramis, Koidel, David y yo. Es muy particular hablar sobre David, quien no sabía a qué tipo de evento íbamos específicamente, solo tenía sabido que nos llevaría a una convención de cómics, pero no sabía nada del tema del furry fandom. Al enterarse de todo este mundo, y además vivir la convención en carne propia, se emocionó tanto que en el viaje de regreso se sentía muy curioso y apasionado por todo el tema de los furries, e incluso él mismo ya había decidido qué sería su fursona.

TFF fue una gran convención, muy divertida, llena de amigos, muchos ratos muy divertidos, grandes experiencias, momentos inolvidables, y muchas más descripciones que se escuchan muy vanales pero que en realidad tienen mucho significado.

Nuevamente, sería muy difícil mencionar a absolutamente todas las personas que vi en el evento, se volvería un post muy largo, y probablemente alguien se me pueda olvidar y me lo lamentaré mucho. Lo que sí puedo decir es que compartí cuarto con dos chicos cuya primer convención furry fue precisamente esta. Frits Rabbit y Sander the black cat. Ambos grandes amigos, muy tímidos al principio, pero que afortunadamente se la pasaron en grande.

Transmitimos un stream en vivo en vez de nuestro habitual podcast llamado "Viernes Furry", en el cual muchos pudieron ver la aparición, casi al final de la transmisión, de Majira Strawberry, quien me arrastró a una fiesta en una suite, que fue donde acabó el video. (Si quieren ver el video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBjluPaBXrE ). Y muchos me preguntaron que qué pasó después. No pasó mucho después en realidad, estuvimos tomando un rato con ellos, Majira nos metió en una regadera, y la abrió por accidente, llegó otro amigo el cual ya estaba muy ebrio y no recuerda nada sobre ese día. Y después yo bajé al baile y me puse a saltar al ritmo de la música.

Hice varios nuevos amigos, fue bonito ver amigos de convenciones pasadas, amigos que hice desde TFF del año pasado, y no faltaron los clásicos creepeers, personas que dan miedo y que persiguen a uno por todos lados.
Genial!! Amé TFF, quiero volver a ir el próximo año!

Tour por México

Apenas regresé del viaje a Dallas y Monterrey, toqué mi casa, lavé ropa y ese mismo día viajé a la ciudad de México, ni si quiera estuve un día completo en mi casa. Y apenas llevaba unos cuantos días en la Ciudad de México y en unas semanas más ya iba a estar viajando a diferentes partes de la república mexicana.
Esto ocurrirá la próxima semana, un viaje de amigos por diferentes lugares, turisteando, mostrando lo más bello de la cultura de México.
En este viaje vamos Kyle Summer (mejor conocido como Majira Strawberry), Dixie, Fox Amoore, Ed Puma, Kurtt Amarok y yo.
Seguramente estará muy cool, próximamente habrá más detalles de qué ocurrirá exactamente.

Furnal Equinox.

El viaje del tour por México concluirá con un vuelo rumbo a Toronto. Será mi tercera vez en Canadá, preparando mi estómago nuevamente para el putine y Tim Hortons.
Mi segunda vez en Furnal Equinox, listo para adaptar mi cuerpo del calor extremo al frío inminente.
En esta convención solo tendré un día de artists alley, un sábado para furuitear casi todo el día, y un domingo con un concurso muy particular al que me inscribieron.

Recuerden que siempre me emociona mucho cuando alguien me reconoce, se acerca para saludarme, abrazarme, tomarme fotos, platicar un rato con ellos. Yo soy igual, también me encanta ver a alguien a quien admiro, un fursuit que me gusta, acercarme a ellos, saludarlos, tal vez tomarme una foto con ellos, hacer un poco de charla, y dejar que continúen con lo que estaban haciendo. No sean tímidos, me da mucha tristeza cuando alguien me escribe por internet que me vieron en una convención pero les dio mucha vergüenza acercarse y decirme hola. Pero recuerden que siempre deben de ser respetuosos!! Eviten ser el creeper que me sigue a todos lados y que atenta con mi privacidad, siempre debe de haber un balance. Sigamos apoyando la actitud positiva que los furries debemos tener con otros furries!!

Artists Alley

Como ya mencioné antes, únicamente tendré mesa el día viernes de la convención, 16 de marzo. Una de las pocas oportunidades de tener una comisión por mí.
Esta vez no habrá comisiones para hacer en casa, puesto que ya tengo muchos pendientes, proyectos y trabajos pagados que debo de terminar en casa, no quiero inflarme de más. Así que los que recibiré en la convención, serán los únicos. Esta vez tomaré 5 comisiones, exclusivos para trabajarse en el tiempo de la convención. Así que si están interesados, lleguen rápido a la mesa el día viernes en cuanto el artists alley abra sus puertas al público.

Aquí algunas recomendaciones si planeas atender a Furnal Equinox y estás interesado en un dibujo por mí:

►Deben de ser ideas simples, no tengas en mente un fondo o toda una escena. Prometo que de todos modos tendré para tí un trabajo genial. Personajes extras serán cargados adicionalmente.

►Ve pensando en una buena idea para trabajarte, si no tienes una, puedes dejarlo libre y yo puedo sugerir una buena pose para tu personaje.

►Prepara tu hoja de referencia ( puedes llevar imágenes de tu personaje, no importa si no es apropiadamente una hoja de referencia), pero de preferencia que esté impresa. Nunca hay que confiar en el internet del lugar, no es recomendable que me des tu galería de FA para que de ahí yo saque la referencia de tu personaje. Si no pudiste imprimir referencias, puedes tenerlas guardadas en tu celular y compartirmelas ya sea por bluetooth o que yo le tome una fotografía a tu pantalla.

►Me gusta mucho dibujar en sketchbooks, pero no te preocupes si no tienes uno. Yo también llevo hojas que te puedo entregar. Lo que no tengo es cómo proteger tu dibujo cuando te lo entrego en una hoja, así que si ese es el caso, consigue un folder o algo donde mantener tu dibujo a salvo.

►Muy estrictamente solo aceptaré 5 comisiones, no más. Casi siempre se llenan en los primeros minutos, así que formate lo más temprano posible el día viernes para poder tener una alta posibilidad de alcanzar un lugar en mi lista.

Cutthroat artist

BCBreakaway me había insistido desde hace alrededor de un año que quería verme participar en este concurso de artistas. Un concurso de 4 rounds.
Cada round dura 10 minutos y en cada uno hay un reto (por ejemplo, dibujar un badge para alguien en la audiencia). Al final de cada round, un juez eliminará a un competidor. Lo interesante es que en cada round, hay de 1 a 2 sabotages que se hacen por medio de subastass. Cada artista empieza con una cierta cantidad de dinero (dinero falso, únicamente para el concuros) y este dinero lo pueden usar para ofertar en la subasta y poder comprar un sabotaje para uno o más de los competidores (los sabotajes pueden ser tal como dibujar con la mano izquierda (o la opuesta a la que el artista está acostumbrado a dibujar), dibujar con el lienzo de cabeza, y así). La final solo queda entre dos artistas.

Para esta edición, los competidores seremos Anyare, Cat-Monk Shiro, Underbite dragon y yo. Si quieren asistir, además de divertirse, tienen la posibilidad de llevarse dibujos hechos por los artisas competidores (completamente gratis).

Si van a Furnal Equinox, no se pierdan de este panel, será el domingo 18 de marzo a la 1pm en el Bay Room.

Seguramente perderé en la primer ronda, pero será divertido intentarlo.

Canal de Telegram

Casi nunca checo internet en mis viajes, y a veces se me olvida actualizar mis redes sociales. Pero hay algo que siempre uso por ser de muy fácil acceso, y es Telegram. Tengo un canal de telegram en el cual siempre actualizo noticias, dibujos nuevos, dónde estoy, avisos, cambios espontaneos sobre artists alley, diferentes planes, streams, etc.
Te recomiendo seguirme en mi canal de Telegram:

https://t.me/panda_paco

Es todo, si leyeron este journal hasta el final, digan "wrargh!"
Los quiero!!

Are you attending another convention, Paco??
But you just were at one some weeks ago!!

Oh yes, I said once "I need to choose which will be my annual furry convention", at first I thought it was going to be Anthrocon, but then MFF was full of friends, and then I thought maybe two conventions per year, but each year I've been adding more and more, OMG!! I'm completely a Furry Trash now!!

But well, now this is my life! Furry fandom is my big family, the Paco from 10 years ago couldn't believe how many awesome friends I have now.

10 years on the fandom

Talking about 10 years, yeah, this year is my 10th anniversary on the furry fandom. Sounds few years for all my friends who are veterans, and a lot for my younger friends, but these has been 10 years I'd definitely won't change, my life took a radical turn since I joined this amazing comunity. Even if I've been involved in some few dramas (I think nobody can save from that here), and I've had some bad experience, I love the furry fandom so much, there would have been no other way to have obtained so much happiness and so many good friends, that otherwise I wouldn't have known.

Also is the 20th anniversary of my character Parinton (better known as PACO) the panda, yup, I created him 10 years before I joined the furry fandom. At first as an imaginary friend and now as my own sona and my spiritual guide. The panda I love the most (As same as his little brother Nemorio, who nowadays I've barely drawn, oh gosh, I should draw that little panda more often, he's gonna be very jealous)

So many reasons to celebrate!! So let's do it going to many furry cons!!! X3

Texas Furry Fiesta

Next week is turn for Texas Furry Fiesta, in Dallas. So if you are attending there, surely you'll see walking around a silly dude disguised as panda, don't hesitate to say hi!

As always, be respectful. I have many experiences with weird people and creepers, don't be one of those. I'm always nice and kind with everyone, I love playing silly in fursuit with people and try to fight my shyness when I'm out in fursuit and talk with who is up for a little chat. Let's support this great positive attitude that we should have as furries with other furries.

Artists' Alley

Be ready because at conventions nowadays is one of the few oportunities to get a commission from me, I'll be at the artists alley ONLY on Friday and I'll take 4 commissions during the con, and when I fill them all, I'll take commissions to take home, digital or traditional. (I'll remain closed for the upcoming months for regular commissions online).

Here are some advices I want to give you if you are planning to get a commission from me at TFF:

►Commissions during the con (the 4 slots) will be very simple, no background, but it will look awesome I promise, extra characters this time will be charged.

►Be thinking about a good idea that I can work for you, if you don't have one, you can leave it up to me n__n I don't have problem suggesting poses.

►Have prepared your reference sheet (any reference of your character works for me, no matter if is not properly a ref sheet), PREFERABLY PRINTED!! If you can't print it, you can have it ready saved on your phone and I'll take a picture to your screen. Do not trust the internet of the convention center, so don't try to find your reference on FA at the moment. That almost never works.

►If you want me to draw you on your own sketchbook, try to be one of the firsts to get to me, early times the artists alley is opened. (Lately at lasts conventions (BLFC, AC, MFF, FC) my queue has been filled in around 20 minutes, and this time I'm only taking 4, so really,...be quick!)

►I'll strictly work at the con only for 4 slots, don't make me work during the convention out of time the artists alley T_T So if you are not one of the 4 first slots, I'll take your commission home and mail it to you later (in case it is traditional)

Telegram channel

I almost never check internet during my trips, rarely I use twitter only to update something about the convention. But an easier way to be updating constantly and also it is really easy you can be checking is Telegram. I have a Telegram Channel where you can follow my path, and I'll be updating with news, emergency announcements, spontaneous changes, the day and time I'll be in the artists alley, sometimes pictures, etc etc
You can follow my Telegram channel in:

https://t.me/panda_paco

So, see you in Dallas to those who are attending TFF, be ready because I'm planning also attending Furnal Equinox, Furrnion, BLFC and Megaplex!! @__@ Crazy panda!!

*bamboo for everyone!!*

(English version below)

ESPAÑOL

Gran manera de empezar el año, toda una aventura en mi primera vez visitando el estado de California, en Estados Unidos.

Esta experiencia fue posible gracias a los amigos, por lo que se le agradece al furry fandom, y a internet, por permitirnos encontrar grandes amistades en cualquier parte del mundo, que si no fuera por ello, sería casi un milagro encontrarnos con personas con las que podamos dar un click perfecto en cuanto a aficiones similares. El furry nos ha permitido ser grandes amigos de personas que incluso pueden ser muy opuestas en todo, en raza, profesión, cultura, y hasta en equipo de futbol favorito; pero sin embargo ese gusto por los animales y sus historias nos conectan.

El pretexto inicial del viaje fue la convención Further Confusion, en San José, CA. Pero desde una semana antes llegué a California para estar con amigos y conocer nuevos lugares.
Mi compañía del viaje fue Koidel Coyote, gran compañero, furry local, y quien se ha vuelto de mis mejores amigos. Aún cuando no estuvimos todo el viaje juntos, vaya que en la planeación de ambas aventuras estuvimos involucrados los dos, desde cómo llegar a Tijuana, cruzar la frontera a pie, y llegar hasta el centro de San Diego (todo de forma legal, claro! jaja), y hasta el regreso desde San José.

La razón principal de ir a San Diego fue visitar el zoológico, pues como un gran aficionado de los pandas, y Koidel que me secunda en eso, no podíamos perdernos esa oportunidad. Además que tengo el challenge personal de visitar a todos los pandas de zoológicos en el continente Americano (ya solo me faltan dos).

En San Diego tuvimos a un increíble host, Kazan. Quien se ofreció a llevarnos a lugares muy interesantes por conocer en su ciudad, y nos hospedó por una noche, le quiero agradecer infinitamente, pues todo el tiempo que pasamos en su compañía fue increíble para nosotros. No hubieramis visto ni la mitad de lo que conocimos sin ti.

Tomé un tren que me llevó a San Luis Obispo, y de ahí tomé un autobús que me llevó a San José. En el trayecto del tren pude ver Los Angeles por mi ventana, sigo sin conocer esa ciudad, y me encantaría poder algún día visitarla, pues además tengo a muchos amigos en dicha ciudad, quienes ya me han ofrecido muchas veces que deberíamos ir a Disneyland.

La primer mitad del fin de semana la pasé con Croc, al igual que con sus dos compañeros de casa Jimmy y Bacon, todos son grandes seres, los amo! Y tuve justo lo que necesitaba: tranquilidad. Unos días de relajación, sin planes mas que sentarse a ver películas, pasar charlando con amigos, ver videos juntos. Hace mucho que no ocurría algo así, desde meses antes que vivía en un rush intenso, viajando de un lado para otro, trabajando a mil por hora... no me había dado al menos unos días de descanso para no hacer nada, y qué mejor que con amigos que pocas veces veo como ellos. En verdad fue de mis mejores momentos del viaje.

Pero es dificil decidir qué fue lo mejor del viaje, porque la otra mitad del fin de semana la pasé con Panda, mi gran amigo monocromático con quien desde hace mucho tenía tantas ganas de pasar tiempo con él, pero las pocas veces que lo veía en convenciones siempre estaba ocupado. Y en verdad fueron momentos increíbles a su lado. Me llevó a conocer San Francisco, y allá vimos a Mirawis y Pepe Mapache, otros dos grandes amigos que mi desición de viaje valiera oro.
Panda también me llevó a Santa Clara y a visitar varios paisajes hermosos entre bosques y playas californianas, a pesar de que fue un día el cual estuvo lloviendo todo el tiempo, me encantó tanto los lugares que conocí como la excelente compañía.

Pepe y Mira me hospedaron en su casa rodante, otra grande experiencia, agradezco mucho su amabilidad en todo, todos mis amigos allá me hicieron sentir tan especial. Es por seguro que si todos ellos vienen a visitarme a México recibirán un trato igual de excelente. Me encanta mostrarles mis ciudades a mis amigos que vienen de fuera.

Por propia cuenta fui a la Mansion Winchester, en San José, tras haber visto tantos videos en internet sobre ese lugar, y aunque la entrada no fue barata, y no dejaban tomar fotos en el interior, fue un gran recorrido que siempre vivirá en mi mente.

Y después empezó la convención!! Volví a encontrarme con Koidel, y ahora también a TK Coyote y Wusky, que fueron mis compañeros de cuarto.
La convención estuvo más tranquila de lo que estaba acostumbrado, y me di cuenta que se trataba más de hacer planes con amigos, pues hubo un momento que quería ir con el flujo del evento, y terminé aburriendome, quedandome sin planes, pero una vez que empecé a planear momentos en la convención con amigos, me la volví a pasar bien. Sería imposible mencionar a todos los chicos que vi en la convención, creo que aquí se volvería infinito mi journal, pero momentos que recuerde fueron con Yaps, Red Wulf, Tonya Song, los mismos chicos con los que estuve en el viaje antes del evento (Croc, Panda, Pepe, Mira...), Marci, Pro Husky, Clipey, KevCorgi, Tucker, Flip, Zarafa.... muchos!! Una disculpa si no menciono a todos.

Después de la convención pasé un día más con Koidel y Flip Bunny, el conejo me invitó a su casa y nos llevó a experimentar algo completamente nuevo para mi: un sauna banya, además de llevarnos a pasear cerca de San Francisco junto con varios de sus amigos, todos muy cool y amables.

Este viaje más que conocer nuevos lugares y tener experiencias nuevas, que claro, todo eso se apreció mucho; consistió en pasar un tiempo todavía más especial y de mayor calidad con esos amigos que los veo en ratos muy cortos durante convenciones y que mi mayor tiempo de convivencia había sido tras la pantalla. Y también para darme cuenta, todavía más, lo importante que se ha vuelto el furry fandom para mí, y lo mucho que ha influenciado en mi vida.

Si quieres ver las fotos del viaje y de la convención:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nocmo8un.....AwDqxieqa?dl=0

Ahora el siguiente plan es dentro de unas pocas semanas, un viaje a Dallas, TX para TFF. Este próximo viaje solo será para la convención, no se hará nada más. Si vas a Texas para la convención, ahí nos vemos!!

---

ENGLISH


Oh gosh, the problem when I realize that I wrote so much, is that now I'm kind of lazy to translate all what I said in Spanish but now in English, eeeh but I really want this on the two languages!! Most of my friends speak English and I really want to share all this experience with all of you, too!

Great way to start the year, a big adventure in my first time visiting California, in the United States. Yeah, I hadn't been there before.

This experience was possible because friends. I'm very grateful with the furry fandom and the internet, for allowing us to find great friendships in any part of the world; if it were not for it, it would be almost a miracle to meet people with similar hobbies or whom we can match that perfect click. The furry has allowed us to have great friends with people who are even very opposed to us in everything: race, profession, culture, and even in favorite beer; but nevertheless that like for animals and their stories are what connect us.

The initial excuse for the trip was Further Confusion (the furry con from San jose). But I travel to California a week before to be with friends and meet new places.
My tour company was  koidelcoyote, great companion, local furry, and who has become one of my best friends. Even though we were not together all the trip, we were involved in the planning of both adventures, from how to get to Tijuana's airport, crossing the border by walk, and get to downtown San Diego (all legally, of course! haha), and until our back home from San José, two weeks later.

The main reason to go to San Diego was to visit the zoo, because I'm a great fan of pandas (you're not surprised, right?). Also, I have the personal challenge of visiting all the pandas of zoos in America (continent) (only two more are missing).

In San Diego we had an incredible host,  kazan.k . Who offered to take us to very interesting places to meet in his town, and we stayed with him for one night, I want to thank him infinitely, because all the time we spent in his company was incredible for us. We wouldn't have seen half of what we went without you, and you're such a sweet guy.

I took a train to San Luis Obispo, and from there I took a bus to San Jose. On the train journey I could see Los Angeles through my window, I still don't know that city, and I would love to be able to visit it one day, because I also have many friends there, who have already offered me many times that we should go to Disneyland.

The first half of the weekend was spent with  Croc, as the same his two mates  yippee and  baconstrip, they are all great guys, I love them! And I had just what I needed: tranquility. A few days of relaxation, with no plans but to sit and watch movies, spend time chatting with friends, watch videos together. A long time ago something like this hadn't happened, since months before I lived in an intense rush, traveling from one place to another, working very fast ... I had not given myself at least a few days of rest to do nothing, and it was excelent doing that with friends that I rarely see. It was really my best moments of the trip. Oh also we had a great dinner with Chance and Furahi, another two adorable guys!!

The other half of the weekend was spent with  Panda, my great monochromatic friend with whom I had wanted so long ago to spend time with him, but the few times I saw him during conventions he was always busy. And in truth they were incredible moments at his side. He took me to see San Francisco, and there we saw Mirawis and Pepe Mapache, two other great friends who made my travel decision to be worthy gold.
Panda also took me to Santa Clara another day and also we visited several beautiful landscapes, forests and Californian beaches, although it was a day that was raining all the time, I enjoyed all the places I met and the excellent company.

Pepe and Mira hosted me in their mobile home, another great experience, I appreciate their kindness in everything, all my friends there made me feel so special. It is for sure that if all of them come to visit me in Mexico they will receive an equally excellent treatment. I love showing my cities to my friends who come from outside.

On my own I visited the Winchester Mansion, in San Jose, after having seen so many videos on the internet about that place. And although the entrance was not cheap, and they don't allow to take pictures inside, it was a great!!

The convention started !! I met again with Koidel, and met  TKCoyote and  wuskyblue, who were my roommates. Lovely guys!
The convention was quieter than I was used to, and I realized that it was more about making plans with friends, because there was a moment that I wanted to go with the flow of the event, and I ended up getting bored, running out of plans, but once I started planning moments at the convention with friends, I had fun again.

It would be impossible to mention all the guys I saw at the convention, I think this journal would become infinite here, but moments I remembered were with  Yaps,  redwulf,  tonyasong, the same guys I was with on the trip before the event ( Croc, Panda, Pepe, Mira ...),  marcimcadam,  destructionn,  eclipsewolf, KevCorgi, Tucker,  smileetiger, Zarafa .... many !! An apology if I didn't mention everyone.

After the convention I spent another day with Koidel and Flip Bunny, that cute rabbit invited us to his house and took us to experience something completely new for me: a banya sauna, besides taking us for a walk near San Francisco along with several of his friends, all very cool and kind.

This trip more than knowing new places and having new experiences, of course, all that was appreciated; it consisted in spending an even more special and high quality time with those friends who saw them in very short moments during conventions and that my biggest time with them had been behind the screen. And also to realize, even more, how important the furry fandom has become for me, and how much it has influenced my life.

If you want to see the pictures from the trip and the convention:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nocmo8un.....AwDqxieqa?dl=0

Now the next plan is within a few weeks, a trip to Dallas, TX for TFF. This next trip will only be for the convention, nothing else will be done. If you go to Texas for the furry con, I'll see you there !!

First of all, Happy new year to everyone!!

I really hope you have a great 2018, I'm sure this year will be awesome!! All my best wishes to all of you X3

My first plan for this 2018 is going to California for very first time, I already have many plans with lot of friends around that state, I'll only visit San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco, I would have loved to plan a visit to LA but it will be in another time, to visit a certain raccoon who has to take me to Disneyland >w> One day!!

After my vacation trip, I'll attend Further Confusion, it will be also my first time at that convention. So if you are planing to attend that first con of the year, surely we'll see you there :D

I didn't apply for the art show, only to the artists alley, I'll have a table only on Saturday, 13th.

I'll take 4 commissions during the con (sketches with color pencils), and when I fill them all, I'll take commissions to take home, digital or traditional. This is one of the few oportunities to get a commission from me (because I'll remain closed for the upcoming months for regular commissions, I'm really sorry, this panda is really busy u__u).

But here are some advices I want to give you if you are planning to get a commission from me at FC:

►Commissions during the con (the 4 slots) will be very simple (not even background), but it will look awesome, extra characters this time will be charged a little more.
►Be thinking about a good idea that I can work for you, if you don't have one, you can leave it up to me n__n I don't have problem suggesting poses.
►Have prepared your reference sheet (any reference of your character works for me, no matter if is not properly a ref sheet), PREFERABLY PRINTED!! If you can't print it, you can have it ready saved on your phone and I'll take a picture to your screen. Do not trust the internet of the convention center, so don't try to find your reference on FA at the moment. That almost never works.
►If you want me to draw you on your own sketchbook, try to be one of the firsts to get to me, early times the artists alley is opened. (Last time at MFF my queue of 5 was filled in 20 minutes, and this time I'm only taking 4, so really,...be quick!)
►I'll strictly work at the con only for 4 slots, don't make me work during the convention out of time the artists alley T_T So if you are not one of the 4 first slots, I'll take your commission home and mail it to you later (in case it is traditional)

I'll give all this info in real time on my Telegram channel
I almost never check internet during my trips, rarely I use twitter only to update something about the convention. But an easier way to be updating constantly and also it is really easy you can be checking is Telegram. I have a Telegram Channel where you can follow my path, and I'll be updating with news, emergency announcements, spontaneous changes, updates about the artists alley queue, sometimes pictures, and so.
You can follow my Telegram channel in:

t.me/panda_paco

First time of this panda in California, it has to be a great experience!!!

See you there!! :D

ESPAÑOL
(English below)

Después de asistir a tantas convenciones furry, alguna vez llegué a temer que dejaría de sentirlas como eventos tan especiales, como que ya sería algo de lo que estaría acostumbrado.
Afortunadamente no ha pasado así, y tras ver a tantas personas que han asistido a eventos furry de este tipo por tantos años, y ver que se siguen divirtiendo de la misma manera, es definitivmo que esta adicción por las convenciones furries no se va a detener pronto.

MFF fue un evento genial!! Nunca creí lo espectacular que se pondría este año. Muchísima gente, más de lo normal. Más espacio en el hall, ahora incluyendo el centro de convenciones, wow!

Muchas grandes experiencias, muchos amigos nuevos, amigos que quería conocer, y viejos amigos que siempre da una gran alegría poder volver a ver.
Y aunque este año no nevó, la experiencia fue igual de divertida.
A pesar de los problemas que hubo con el sistema en el registro y en el art show, se comprenden por muchas nuevas cosas nuevas que implementaron en esta edición, y que son cosas que se arreglarán para el siguiente año.

También hubieron unos problemas algo estrezantes con el exceso de seguridad, especialmente en el rave, donde la primer noche no nos dejaban entrar si llevabamos algun tipo de bolsa (yo siempre llevo una mochila conmigo, que es donde guardo cuadernos, celular, llave, cámara, etc), y los días siguientes nos tenían que revisar el bolso. Comprendo perfectamente que es por nuestra seguridad, y que no queremos que nada malo pase, pero vaya que fue un poco molesto, parecía que estaba pasando nuevamente por el filtro del aeropuerto.

Fue la primer convención de varios amigos mios, incluyendo la de Koidel y de Jib Kodi. Que vaya qué buena impresión se llevaron de una convención furry, ahora se que van a querer seguir regresando, han entrado al vicio de asistir a más eventos así, de conocer a más personas, de hacer más amigos. En verdad me alegro de estar en una comunidad tan bella.

Gracias a mis roomies por aguantar mis llegadas tardes al cuarto, siempre me ha pasado que llego a mi cuarto cuando ya todos mis roomies están dormidos. Se les agradece la paciencia, son los mejores!! RC mouse, Ringo y Matt Tiny deer.

Sería imposible mencionar a absolutamente todos los amigos que hicieron de esta convención un evento asombroso, me tardaría todo este journal mencionando a cada uno. Recibí muchísimos regalos y eso se agradece infinitamente, gracias por pensar en este panda tan bobo. Y gracias a Arcturus Chusky, Cosmic y Tiger por alimentar en algún momento de la convención a este panda. Los amo!

Si quieren ver las fotos que entre Koidel, otros chicos y yo tomamos del evento, chequen este link:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mvfv4l3m.....uDSDMQh0a?dl=0

Y nos vemos en Further Confusion y/o Texas Furry Fiesta!!

---

ENGLISH

I've been attending so many furry conventions lately, and suddenly it came to my mind the thought that maybe each time I could be losing the sense of fun, like if I already knew what I could expect of these events and I got very used to them.
Fortunately, it doesn't happen, and I can see there are people who have attended these furry events for so many years, and who continue enjoying them in the same way, it is definitive that this addiction for fur cons is not going to stop soon.

MFF was a great event! I never believed how spectacular it would be this year. We were lot of people, more than usual. We had more space in the hall, now including the convention center, wow!

Many great experiences, many new friends, friends I wanted to meet, and old friends who are great to see again.
And although this year it didn't snow as the past year, the experience was just as fun.
In spite of the problems that there were with the system in the registration and in the art show, I understood these troubles, and I know those are things that will be fixed for the next year.

Also some of us were annoyed with the excessive security, especially during the raves, where the first night they wouldn't let us in if we had some kind of bag (I always carry a messenger bag with me, which is where I keep my sketchbook, cell phone, room key, camera , etc), and the following days they had to check our bags. I understand perfectly that it is for our security, and that we don't want anything bad to happen, but oh boy it was a bit annoying, it seemed like I was going through the airport filter again.

It was the first convention of several friends of mine, including  koidelcoyote and  jibbinkodiyak. What a good impression they had about furry conventions, those troubles I mentioned before were minor comparing all the fun we had, the people seemed very happy and excited for the event. Now I know that they are going to want to continue returning, they have entered the vice to attend more events like this, to know more people, to make more friends. I'm really glad to be in such a beautiful community.

Thanks to my roomies for enduring my late arrivals to the room, it has always happened to me at every convention that I arrive to my room when all my roomies are already asleep. Thank you for your patience, they are the best !!  rcmouse,  aurora-fox and  thesepantsdontfit

It would be impossible to mention absolutely all the friends who made this convention an amazing event, it would take me all this journal mentioning each one. I received many gifts which is infinitely appreciated, thanks for thinking on this dumb panda. And thanks to  arcturusthechusky,  cosmicwuffy and  tigerthemeerkat for feeding at some point of the convention to this panda. I love youuu!

If you want to see the photos that Koidel, other guys and I took from the event, check this link:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mvfv4l3m.....uDSDMQh0a?dl=0

And see you in Further Confusion and / or Texas Furry Fiesta !!

Hey, it's Paco Panda with another journal about Midwest FurFest.

I just caught a cold, I really hope to get better soon because it would be terrible to travel like this X__X It's like a tradition from every year to get sick just some days before MFF!!

Some good news is that now is a fact I'll be participating on the Art show. Take a little of your time during Friday or Saturday to check the original art that some artists have to show to the world, appreciate how much talent we have on this fandom, and if you visualize one of those frames in your home, you can put an offer to get it with you.

I'm bringing 5 pieces for the art show this year, 4 of them are originals, 2 of those originals are inedit (I haven't posted them on internet, yet), and 1 piece is digital (a print).

If I promised to give at MFF your original inktober piece, or a badge, I'll be carrying them all the time with me, even if I'm in fursuit, so if you see me walking in my panda or in my human disguise, you can poke me and I'll give it to you, but to be more sure and don't be trying to find me, I'll announce on my telegram channel when exactly I'll be on the artists alley, and there you can find me.
I'm gonna try hard to get a spot on Friday!!!

What's my telegram channel?
https://t.me/panda_paco
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If I get a table at artists alley, will I take commissions there done at the con and after the con?
Yes!! But as long as you read that on Friday I'll have a table, and you are really interested, run and find me there, because there are few spots. I'll be taking 5 commissions at the con, and 9 to take home (those to take home can be digital or traditional).
If you want me to draw you on your own sketchbook, be sure to be one of those first 5.

Another even I want to invite you all, is to see the Cutthroat Artist!! Organized by BCbreakaway (or strypes, the zebra). I was invited to participate but I'm so shy and uncompetitive artist. So I invited my friend Koidel Coyote instead, whose his very first international furry convention is this one, I'm sure he's gonna have a blast, not only on the contest, but on the whole trip. Also another friend is participating on that contest, that's Zilch Fox
Both of them are very talented toony artists, it will be really fun and interesting to see them matching, that's an event I won't definitely miss.
That's on Saturday december 2, at 3:00pm. Hartsfield Room.
Another reason why I don't want to work at artists alley on Saturday, also I want to be to the Furry youtuber meet that same day at 5pm and to the Fursuit Menagerie

And here are some FAQs:

May I hug you?
Of course! Just be respectful. I prefer hugs when I'm a panda n///n

May I say hi if I see you around?
Please!! Probably I'll be a little busy with many plans during all the weekend, but I appreciate a lot when people recognizes me, I feel bad when I read comments like "I saw you but I was so shy to say hi".

Do you do free art at the con out the artists alley?
Absolutely no, and I don't know how to say no kindly when people ask me for that. Understand that drawing is my job, and the only time I'm working during MFF is at the artists alley, out of there MFF is like vacations for me.

Can we have a meal, dinner or some drinks together?
Thanks, but I already have many plans to meet many people for meals and drinks.

Do you dance?
Yes, a lot!! Probably you'll see me at the rave dancing in fursuit like a crazy panda!! Please be respectful!! >__< Hugs are acceptable but do not touch without permission (bad experiences during raves)

So as a summary, if you see me around there, you can say hi, hug me or take me a picture (if I'm in fursuit, if you take me a picture in my human disguise that'd be weird), but of course respectfully, don't be one of those cringe creepers that decide to follow my path until they consider we can turn best friends D: because that'd make me fear you more than wanting to be your friend.
I really appreciate a lot when people closes to me very happily because they found a certain panda n__n but please be kind, to support this great positive attitude that we should have as furries with other furries.

See you next weekend at MFF!!!!