That is right, today is my birthday. I am 40 years old now *throws small handful of confetti*

Many people are scared of these milestones but I actually don't mind them at all.

Updates:

My mom is not much better than she was at the end of last year. While she is out of the hospital she is still not doing well. Her mobility has been greatly reduced and my brother and I are now pretty much full time caretakers of her. This on top of trying to maintain my regular job, the house here and also act as my moms power of attorney for her as well. This means that my life is pretty hectic right now juggling it all but I am somehow managing it all.

Work is going well. They are going to be building me a studio to work in to do video stuff there so that is a big plus. I am moving away from IT and computer support to media work which is where my passion lies.

I am also going to be going to Eurofurence with Bt, Soulwolf, and Tabber. We are going to have a pretty big Canadian contingent going as well which is pretty awesome. We may try to annex part of the hotel and turn it into a Canadian embassy we are not sure yet. Playing it by ear.

That is all to report right now. I am still making videos for my Vlog if you want to check them out. They are not coming out at an alarming rate but I am on my way.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj.....LbcZctcBlq3ERA

So that is about it. I hope you guys have a great day, I know that I will be doing my best to.

I started a vlog a while ago and I had to put it on hold because of family issues and such. I recorded a new episode and posted it today. I thought I would give some traffic through here just because.

I know that I need to cool down the lighting, that will happen next video.. and I know that I am looking away from the lens that will be fixed as I get a new teleprompter for it but this is just the second episode. Tell me what you think. And I do know that it is not furry but please indulge me a bit.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5yy4pFU8t0&t=4s

I don't do meme's. So here are the details for FE this year. I will be there, you can hug me, I will be working in a new position for the convention, no longer on security.

Go check out  Xzion's paracord bracelets he made. He is selling them for a good price.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/19952724/

Yes I will be there, but no I am not doing any meme to tell you about it. I will be working security again this year, and I will also be the stage director for the Masquerade this year as well. Please come out and support all the acts that we have this year, it promises to be a good show.

We will be arriving Thursday and leaving Monday morning. I look forward to seeing a lot of you there! I demand many hugs

Some of you may or may not know that on Saturday the 24th of October, at 4:40pm EDT my dad passed away. He had been battling NASH Non-Alcoholic SeatoHepatitis. It is a form of cirrhosis of the liver that does not stem from alcohol abuse. It is a very serious illness and one that is still not completely understood. Since mid-September my dad has been hospitalized due to an infection in his belly. This is caused by the drainage tube that was inserted into his belly to allow them to drain off excess ascites fluid that builds up as the failed liver is unable to process things properly.

Maybe I should start at the beginning. My dad was an amazing man. We have never encountered a person ever who has said anything bad about him. His coworkers loved him, his family loved him, friends loved him, and he was just one of those people who made you feel like you were the most important person in the room when you were talking to him. Dad was always quick with a quirky joke and he was a fountain of knowledge. Seriously, ask any fur that has met him and they will tell you that there was not a subject he didn’t know about. He could do it all.

My dad was born on a small farm in the town of Killam Alberta in 1948. He grew up working hard, and learned an incredible amount of discipline and work ethic there on that small farm. When he was 18 my dad told his father that he no longer wanted to go to school so his father told him if he was not in school he had to join the military. My dad signed up the next day.

In the military he learned the trade of carpentry, getting his red seal through the military. He worked all over Canada and even had a 6 month station in Bermuda rebuilding a base there. While in the military he met my mom and well they got married, had my brother then me and shortly after I was born he left the Air Force to work in civilian life.

He did everything from construction, to teaching shop class, to working at a golf course before he finally landed a job at a nylon facility.

My dad did it all. I think of him as a Renaissance man. He could build you a house from scratch, weld your car, bake you a hell of a cake, and then speak effortlessly on writers like Asimov, Tolken, and Chaucer.
He is now gone. I just hope that I can live to be even HALF the man that he was. These will be quite big shoes to fill… I just hope I am ready.

I entered a contest on Facebook and I actually won! Anyone who knows me know that I love watches. There is a company out there that builds manual wind watches just for you. You work with them to design it and in 3-4 weeks they send your completed watch to you. It is an interesting concept, to get a bespoke watch just for you.

Anyway they held a contest for Father's Day to get a custom watch for your Dad and I entered. And I won! I am now working with them to create the perfect watch for my dad.

We may not have him much longer due to his health failing so I hope that I can get this to him very soon so that he can enjoy it.

Now I need to come up with something that represents "Strength" in some way that I can put on the watch just for him.

If people are interested in the company they are EONIQ Watches. http://www.eoniq.co/

So the house is looking more like a house which is a good thing. We are amassing a large collection of things to sell which will help offset some costs on things like a bed for the guest room and such. The flowers are blooming all over the property and the pear tree has so many pears starting on it, that it is not funny.

Work is odd right now. I got cut out at the knees on a huge project I was working on. They have decided to give it to someone else even though I laid all the groundwork for it.. Was really pissed at that but what can I do, this is the way of business. My coworker will be laid off for 2 months starting at the end of the week so I will be lone support for the entire school. This is not a good thing at all and I anticipate many problems. Oh well I am only one person.

On the tattoo front, I have been itching to get the sleeve finished. I started it years ago and it is still in a half done state which really bothers me. I have about 20-22 hours to go on it and every time I look at my arm I get discouraged. So I decided to visit a shop to talk to someone there about it and it turns out that the person who would do it for me is the person who used to work at the old shop where the work was started! He remembers the tattoo and was trained by the artist to do the techniques that were used in my existing work so it will be a seamless finish. The reason I am not using the original artist is that he has moved to a whole new city, and unfortunately due to untreated manic depression he has taken to self medicating.. Using hard drugs. I just don't feel comfortable with him doing the rest of the work. Luckily I happened to run into the artist who he trained in his own words he is super excited to finish it off because he knows the exact direction that the original artist was going in.

Now to come up with the $120/hr that it costs. He wants to do a 5h sitting as the first go around. Maybe I will get started in a month or so...

That's it for me for now.

Have a good one

So we are in the new place and I have internets now so YAY!

I have been pretty overwhelmed personally and I am sure that both BT and Familliar are as well but I thought I would pop in to say hi to everyone and let you guys know we are all okay and things went really well.

Well with the physical move at least. Lets break down the timeline of things that happened leading up to right now.

At the beginning of last month when we signed the lease for this place we booked a truck for the move with UHaul. They took our deposit on the truck and agreed to a 24 hour rental of the truck with a late pickup the day before so that we could pre-pack some things out at my parents and such. 10 days before we are due to move, they contact us and tell us that they have the truck for us and they confirmed that we were picking it up at 4pm on the 30th. So far so good. This is when it turned sour. They informed BT that the truck was due back at 7am the next morning. So now our 24 hour rental we agreed to is cut to 15 hours most of them when we are supposed to be asleep.

To say this is not good would be an understatement. We wrestled over the phone with them for a good long time. The person at the local UHaul place told us that they had the truck already booked out for the 1st so it had to be back at 7am or else we will suffer penalties that amount to double paying for the truck and other things. When we informed her that she was violating their own agreement contact that we entered into when we rented the vehicle, she told BT "Well you should have booked this a year ago" and that was all she wanted to hear.

We live in an education city. We have a major university, and 2 major colleges here, and everyone is moving. So rental places are usually busy. This is why we booked it a full month before the students were even into exams. To avoid crap like not being able to find a truck. Telling someone they have to book a year in advance is just ludicrous to say the least.

BT and I took to Twitter to voice our displeasure at this and they promised to have the CEO and the marketing director call us but of course that never happened.

I am in a panic now because we have 10 days to find a rental in a city with no rental trucks available when we need them. I called every company that was local and nothing. Finally I was able to talk to Penske and they found one in Ottawa for me. The price they offered was cheaper then the price of the UHaul and they discounted it further due to the long trip to get it and the garbage we had to deal with at UHaul. They comped us 150km and lowered the mileage costs after that from 20 cents a km to 15. I was in a great mood. I praised them and the person who helped me in Ottawa over Twitter and it must have got back to her because when we picked it up she informed me that because of her actions and helping out so fast she got employee of the month. :D

So the 30th hits and BT and I head off to Ottawa to pick up our rental truck. Turns out we got everything even cheaper because I am a CAA member so our costs went down even more. This was getting better and better.

It was my first time driving a 26' truck and I have to say that it is quite the experience. I never felt so manly in my life ;)

We get the truck to Kingston and park it at my parents house so we can get a bunch of our stuff from there. We then take it over to Familliar's parents house to pick up tables and chairs that they were giving us to use here and we headed off home.

BT and I didn't really pack anything more into the truck that night as we were pretty wiped out and we went to fairly early so we could get a good start on the day. Well that was the plan anyway. Turns out that our upstairs neighbours decided to have a party, and usually when they party there are fights and this was no exception. after only a couple hours sleep there was an incredible amount of yelling and throwing of things upstairs and we were unable to get any sleep. We had to call the police to try to do something about them because we had a huge day ahead of us moving all our stuff.

We finally get to sleep again just hours before we are supposed to get up for the day so it got the morning off to a slow start. I started moving things around in the truck and BT and I started loading it up. After a bit  Familliar came up and we continued to move things.  NikoDestato was the next on the scene followed shortly afterwards by  kalidascope,  Xzion, and  Jack_The_Tiger

We were cooking with gas now. We finished of our apartment and headed over to Familliar's. We were able to get most of his stuff out and we rushed off to the new house.

What followed was a blitz of moving where we were joined by  GrayFoxGree,  babydrake and Ralcus to round out the moving crew. We were loaded into the house by 6:15pm and everyone partook of pizza and beer. Well, everyone but BT and me.

We couldn't drink because we had to get the truck back to the Ottawa yard by 7am the next day but we decided to do it that night just to get it all over with.

At 9pm we left home bound for Ottawa. Everything was going great with the trip. BT and I had our radios so we could communicate between the truck and his car and the roads were pretty bare of traffic. We got about 30km out of Kingston just near the Casino in Gananoque when the big rental truck I was driving went from 100km/h to 65km/h to dead. It just lost power and started shaking pretty violently. It was quite scary. I hit the hazards when I got too slow and pulled over to the side of the highway as far as I could.

BT tucked his car in behind me and hit his hazards too and I got on the phone with Penske. They said that they will have to send a tow truck to get the truck back to the yard and I exited the cab of the truck (through the passenger side don't worry). On my way out I noticed something on the floor that was wet. I thought that maybe it was the energy drink can in the garbage bag but that turned out to not be the case. When I called the yard back they said that it was most likely the urea system backing into the cab as the hoses for it run through there. This was signs of a serious problem.

We now had to wait for the tow truck because if we left the truck at the side of the road it would be thought of as abandoned by the OPP and they would tow it to impound.

I settled down in the cab of the truck and BT in the car and we farted around on twitter and talked and such just passing the time. They thought that they would have someone there shortly to get the truck and we would be on our way.

We had stopped the truck at about 9:40pm and Penske dispached someone shortly after that. After 2.5 hours of waiting for rescue and no one showing up BT's battery in his car died because he was listening to the radio and running his lights (whoops) and things were getting more serious now. I had phoned a few times and there was little they could do to update us, we were still in a holding pattern. By hour 3 a local tow truck operator pulled in behind us to see what is going on. He informed us that he was the local tow company that has the contract with Penske and that he had not been called on this, there was no information on it.

Turns out that instead of calling the local crew like they were supposed to do they dispached a crew out of Ottawa to get the truck 2 hours away from us. Plus when that yard issued the order to get us there was another huge delay in getting the guy on the road so we still had to wait for him. The local tow truck driver was super nice and boosted BT's car for him and waited with us.

Finally at 2am the tow truck shows up and we are on our way. BT had to work in the morning at 8am so I let him sleep a bit in the car and drove home.

It was a super long day and this was a super long post. I want to that everyone who helped us with this move. We could never have done it all without you.

TL;DR version: We moved, it is an awesome house, truck broke down when we were returning it, stranded on the road for 4 hours, friends are awesome.

Well tomorrow is the big day. Today we head off to get the rental truck and start the loading of it.

It is the end of an era. Since 2001 I have lived in this apartment that I am in now, which is next door to the house I lived in from age 4. I have only ever known living on this street. I know everything about it and just about everyone on it. I have walked the same routes day in and day out and know ever nook and cranny of the area. But it is time for a change.

A change that will work out better for us. We are moving from the 2 bedroom that everyone knows us from to a nice big house with 3 bedrooms, an entire rec room, 2 studio spaces in the basement and finally, the best thing in the world for me a garage so the BMW can finally come home to me.  BT-Armistice  Familliar and I get the keys today at 8pm from the landlord who lives just across the street from the new house and on Friday our stuff goes in.

Of course I will end up taking lots and lots of pictures of the place as it is set up and things get moved in.

It is making me very nervous and excited. To have more space.. and no more storage locker full of cool stuff that will never fit in the apartment.. Or friends garage to store my car in, having it close by so I can fix it and tend to it and maybe just maybe get it back on the road...

It is scary... but I need this.. We need this.

I will be offline for the next few days till we get unpacked and internet gets connected.

Today I signed away the 2011 Ford Flex. That truck was amazing and it was almost a part of me after a while. I drove it up to 84,000KM and loved every minute. It has been to FE, WTF, MWFF, FF... Not to mention countless trips to Toronto for surgery, and doctors appointments.. Every fur who has ever visited or lived in Kingston has had a ride in it, sometimes to over capacity... It has been a constant friend.

Why did I get rid of something I clearly loved you ask?

Well the deal I was offered was just too good.

I was frankly in negative equity on the Flex but I have been following the trucks for quite a while now, getting to know their current market value and such and I have noticed that demand for them has increased and prices were pretty much levelling out for the most part. A week ago I get my standard letter from the dealership reminding me that interest rates are low, never been a better time to trade in, blah blah blah.. Usually get one letter like this a year and it is pretty standard.

Cut to Monday last week and I am sitting at work and I get a phone call from my friends at the dealership. They were seriously interested in my truck and I should bring it in for an evaluation.

I figured why not, I mean it never hurts to look, plus I figured that there must be a reason they want it. So I go down and they give me a decent evaluation on it and I said I would think about it because we have the trip to FE to think about next month and I have a lot of stuff to carry. I shake hands with the dealer and head home.

The next day I get a call asking if that was really the only thing holding me back was the trip we were taking and needing the big vehicle and I said it was a big part of it but it was not all. We talked a bit more and he hit me with this offer.. What if they loan me for free a comparable sized vehicle for the con for free would that bring me in..

I know now that there is at least 1 person who wants my truck maybe more, why would they be willing to do more for me.. So I hatch my plan.

Saturday I go in and test drive the car I am looking at and frankly I like it but I really need to make the numbers work on it too.. Needless to say we were able to hammer out a deal, and here it is...

0% financing
$1500 dealer cash back
$1000 Ford cash back
$3000 off the list price of the car (dealer demo)
Free set of winter tires
Free storage of tires
Free rust protection
plus they paid out my existing loan, and no cash down at all.

I couldn't resist it at all.. So I signed on the dotted line and today I bought my car. A 2014 Ford Focus SE with the option group 201A meaning disk brakes all around and upgraded interior, plus fog lamps, spoiler and other little treats.

I am so happy with my deal. If you want to see pics of it check out my Twitter here

https://twitter.com/prplhaze/status.....61219804049408

Next come the upgrades in Summer.. Cold air intake and exhaust, maybe get a custom tune on it too and RS wheels probably in the near future too. Already spending more on it ;)

Oh and my dealer let me know that he had at least 2 people already fighting for the truck, it will not even hit their website LOL

So this is going to be a jumble... but here goes nothing.

Wednesday at around 4pm  bt-armistice and I headed out on the first leg of the journey to Chicago. Our first stop was an overnight stay at  ~SoulWolf~ and  Gryphan's house. This was the third time in 2 weeks that we were there, which is quite surreal given they live around 3 hours from here.

We arrived in rush hour traffic which is always fun and had a quick dinner before bed. We had to get up super early so that we could make the 9 hour drive and arrive at a livable time. At 3:30am we were up and by 4:30 we were on the road.

BT took the first little part of the trip from Toronto to Sarnia. We stopped for gas there and I took the rest of the journey. The border crossing was really quick and smooth with a very short delay. It was the first time I have gone across the border at that crossing so it was quite nice. The rest of the road was a bit of a blur though to be honest. The only real things I remember was that a lot of deer still don't understand the concept of a highway and that in America, alcohol and food are cheap and plenty. Seriously we bought a bottle of Fireball whiskey for $17.99 which would have cost us $45 in Canada. You guys don't know how well you have it there.

I also noticed that the Canadian and American idea of a "Small" french fry or "Small" anything really is very different from ours. DAMN

We arrived at the convention at around 1pm local time and we hit the ground running. We got registered in pretty quick time and BT, SoulWolf and Gryphan spent no time getting into suit to romp around the con.

To be honest Thursday was a blur for me because the con was not on proper but we did meet a lot of people and do a lot of things. It was kinda surreal to be at the space before the con began and yet still seeing everything almost in full swing.

This is where things start to go off the rails in terms of what I can recall simply because there was so much going on. From opening ceremonies, to browsing the dealers room it just became a jumble.

Now to the elephant in the room. Sunday morning.

Souly Gryph and I were relaxing in the room actually heading off to bed when I decided to check Twitter. I see reports of the hotel being evacuated and thought it was some kind of prank. After all most of the time when you see emergency vehicles at a con it is usually ambulances or the occasional fire truck but we had not heard any alarms. I was telling them about it and started to head to the bathroom when I heard distant alarms start.. Then shortly afterwords the alarm went off in our room.

We grabbed shoes and coats and headed out to the stairs. When we hit the main lobby you could smell the chlorine in the air and we saw a lot of emergency personnel with gas masks on ushering us quickly through the hotel. We got across the street and stayed there for a bit when we were told by some members of con security to head into the main convention hall. After a hundred or so of us were in there we got notice that they were incorrect they meant the convention centre across the street so we all filed out of the hotel again and into the convention centre.

We kept getting pushed further back into the space to allow them to set up an emergency centre in the front half of the building for those who needed any additional medical assistance. We located BT and others and eventually all flopped onto the floor, hoping that it would be over soon.

At 4:20 we were given the all clear to get back into the hotel and we were finally in the room at around 5:20 or so. We crashed hard for only a few hours before we were all awake again.

The rest of the con seemed to be in a different head-space to begin with. People were unsure of things and there was a lot tired people trying their best to be as upbeat and bouncy as possible. We did the same as we wandered around. The thing that struck me was how many people asked if we were okay and how things were for us last night. We had all bonded around this and I think we became even tighter as a group.

We tried out best to get to bed early on Sunday because we knew we had a monster of a drive. It was not hard given how sleep deprived we were at that point. We were up at around 4:30 am and on the road by 6 which made for a pretty smooth start to the journey. Not a hell of a lot of traffic and it seemed to flow well which was really nice.

We decided to go back via Detroit just because it is Detroit and we all wanted to see it. BT grew up in Windsor so he had been to Detroit a lot so it was almost like coming back home. I got to see the GM building, Woodward Ave, the old Grand Central Station and more burned out houses then I can count. It was a surreal experience. I wish I could have stopped for a while and taken some pictures but we were pressed for time and had to head on over the border.

The crossing at Windsor was another breeze, we even reported that we had the half full alcohol bottles that were from the room and they didn't bat an eye. I think that he was just happy that we decided to be honest with them and let them know.

BT took us on a journey through Windsor as it is where he grew up. He showed us the waterfront where there were just an amazing array of stunning mansions, and we saw the distillery there too where they make a LOT of Walker's products. He then took us over to his parents house and showed us the block he grew up on. Sadly his mom had to work that night so she didn't answer the door due to being asleep for the shift work but it was still nice to go see his old house.

We left Windsor and started the long drive back to Toronto. It was pretty uneventful and we arrived at their place around 7pm local time. We dilly dallied a lot on the way back just taking in sights and enjoying the trip.

We got to their place and sadly we encountered just a bit of tragedy. It appears that sometime after we left their cat Grey Malkin passed. He was one of the sweetest and most unique cats I have ever met. Ask anyone who met Malkin.. They all wanted to steal him away he was just so special. Souly and Gryph joked that they were going to start a "Rent-A-Malkin" service for their friends so that everyone could enjoy a day with him.

I took responsibility of removing him from his resting spot and taking his collar off of him before placing him in a box. Gryphan will be taking him someplace special to bury him today. We will miss that cute little ball of floof.

BT and I crashed the night at their house because after that much driving I was not up for another 3 hours in the car by any stretch of the imagination. We got up around 7am and by 9 we were on the road again bound for home. We rolled in around noon and were greeted by a notice on the door that the landlord was going to be replacing windows over the next 3 days. Luckily I wrangled getting ours done first so I don't have to worry about them trying to do things while we are not here.

And that sums up everything about Midwest FurFest for this year. Stay tuned for a GAGGLE of pictures to get posted from me I just have to process them and get them ready for upload.

To everyone I saw, I am sorry that I didn't shout you out in this post but I want you to know that I really loved seeing each and every one of you. I didn't want to forget a name and feel bad about it so just know that every single one of you made this con one of the best.

I love you all

So  bt-armistice and I will be at MWFF again this year. Though this time we are driving down. In the car and the room with us with be 2 of our besties  ~SoulWolf~ and  Gryphan

So who all is going? I am giving out free hugs to everyone so be sure to collect them all!

I can't believe he is gone. Nizzi Is no longer with us. While I didn't know him as well as some people, I do think of him as a friend. He was a mentor to many and a role model to the leather community in Ottawa.

 bt-armistice and I enjoyed the times he had stopped in to say hi when he was in town and now to hear that he is gone it has left us in a state of disbelief and shock.

I want everyone to know that I am here for them if they need to talk, note me here or on twitter.

Please. If anyone is feeling alone, or in despair, remember that there are people out there ready to listen to do you and to help. You are not alone. If you are still feeling lost, please visit http://depressionhurts.ca or contact your physician for help.

I love you all

So my birthday was on June 29th and for everyone who messaged me here on FA, and on Twitter I want to send you my love from the bottom of my heart. I read every one and if I didn't reply please remember that they all were seen and I appreciated each one.

There was a fur meet kinda dealy for my birthday at the waterfront and it was a lot of fun. There are pictures for it but those will pop up from time to time. I want to thank everyone who came out it was great to see you all.

There were a few things that happened on my birthday that were not very cool but I can't help those and though they hurt a lot I will let them slide and continue on and be happy for what did make me feel at least partly decent. I will not mention what they are here but they involve people close to me and that is all I will say.

Work is going well I guess. Many who know me know that the university is notorious for not giving out continuing positions they prefer to do contracts, either yearly or every 3 years. This means that once a year or every three years things get a bit hectic for people like me who are on contracts as you have to make sure that everything is in order because you are not sure if you will have a job soon.

I am on a 3 year term with the school now and I found out from my boss today that there is a very high chance that the position I am in will be converted into a continuing appointment. This would mean that I would not have to worry about contracts and all that. I would have some additional protections with that but mostly I will not have to bite my finger nails every 3 years around September.

Finally, probably the worst news of the last little while. As I posted before my dad is on the transplant list and when he got called for a new liver they aborted the transplant after a few hours due to his pulmonary hypertension that they found. Well the news got worse, because due to this condition my dad has been removed from the transplant list. This means that the last year of work to get him ready for this is for naught. Basically my dad could live for 6 weeks, 6 months or 6 years. There is no way of knowing when his liver will fail but it will fail. This was pretty heartwrenching for the whole family. Now we just have to deal with things moving forward.

My parents are going to rely more and more on my brother and me and I fear that this will strain things here badly. I will just have to deal with things as they come though.

The heart doctor here in town and the liver doctor that my dad has are going to try to get him better and see if they can get him re-listed but that is a longshot at this moment.

So that is the state of things right now..

Highs and lows... not much I can say really. A few really disappointing moments to say the least.

But I am wearing a brave face, though cracked and worn.

On Wednesday the 17th at 5:40am I was taking off from the Kingston airport enroute to Toronto. Why was I flying at such a crazy time? I was on my way to Las Vegas for InfoCOMM 2014 at the LVCC. The following is my account of the days spent in Sin city.

The flight to Toronto was problem free and we landed on time. I managed to get through the security line and US customs in decent time.. Well as decent as you can when the airport is backed up because ALL of Air Canada's computer systems went down the night before in a heavy storm/local tornado scenario.

I boarded the plane in good time and we were off for the 4 hour trip to Las Vegas. As the plane came in for its landing I was looking out the window and you could already see the strip. The first thing that went by my window as the wheels touched down was the Luxor hotel. This is a sight I have wanted to see for years now and I was finally here.

Upon landing I hopped onto the shuttle bus and over to my hotel, The Monte Carlo hotel. I checked in and had a wonderful view of the pool which was full all the time and had some pretty amazing music. The reason for the amazing music? EDC was also going on over the weekend. This meant my hotel was also full of rave bound kids. Their costumes were pretty awesome overall an it kinda gave me the vibe of a fur con. Hell I was even wearing a lanyard badge with my InfoCOMM credentials on it so it felt even more like a fur con in the hotel.

That feeling went away when I hit the LVCC for InfoCOMM itself. It was all business.

The tradeshow floor was amazing. Lots of manufactures had all their latest gear out on display in amazing booths. I saw more 4k TV's then I ever thought I would, and even got to play with some 4K 10,000+ lumen theatre/venue projectors. There were LED digital sign walls everywhere and all the gear from Monoprice to everything that Black Magic Designs makes all under one MASSIVE roof. I was in heaven. I also picked up my pass to a private party held by Crestron at the Palms hotel.

I spent the day roaming from booth to booth checking out whatever I could until around 4:30 when I decided I had enough and headed back to the hotel. I went to my room and relaxed for an hour or so and then decided to get some food as I had not had much to eat at the convention centre. The Monte Carlo has some great places to eat and I bypassed them all. I just wanted something quick and "cheap" (cheap is a relative word in Las Vegas) so I went over to the fast food area of the hotel and grabbed a chicken sandwich and some fries.

Because the travel and time zone changes as well as being up super early in the morning I crashed pretty early and had a pretty deep sleep.

I was up Thursday morning bright and early and off to a breakfast at the LVCC sponsored by a vendor that we use heavily here. They were going through some of the new trends in education and systems control so I was all over that, seeing as it is my field of work. After breakfast and the meeting I wandered the booths more, getting to the places that I missed and revisiting some of the other spaces. It was a lot to take in but I had some really productive meetings and made some great connections.

At 5pm it was time to roll out to the vendor party at the Palms so I boarded a bus and went to the most amazing poolside party. There was free food, free drinks, live music, dancing people.. it was pretty amazing. The best part was at 7pm when we were sent into the Pearl Theatre at the Palms and got to see a concert. It was Brian Setzer doing an amazing set. He started with a swing set, and then part way through he did some Stray Cats stuff. After that it was more swing music. I was right against the stage and was in heaven. I loved every moment of it. I even got High 5's from every member of the band and Brian twice. I took some amazing pictures during that performance. I am just running them through PhotoShop to balance the colour and everything and I promise to post them soon.

After the concert we were bussed back to our hotel. I decided that I had not had enough and started to walk the strip. I went to New York New York, Excalibur, Ballys, Luxor and a few other hotels just to check them out. I also collect casino chips so I was sure to get a 1$ chip from every one I visited.

Finally at about 2am I rolled in to bed. It was a pretty amazing night.

Friday I had no meeting scheduled and I also has met with everyone I wanted to on Thursday so I decided to roam the strip. I dressed up in a nice shirt with long sleeves (a must in the desert sun) and took a cab over to the Fashion Show Mall about 2 miles from my hotel. There I did some shopping and picked up something at Hot Topic for Xzion. After drooling on new shoes and other shiny expensive things at the mall I started along the strip. I hit every casino I could. At the Wynn hotel I visited the Ferrari dealership and took a walk around the showroom (you have to pay a cover charge to get in there). I also got a souvenir picture of myself in an F430 convertible as well. When they post those images online I will link everyone to them.

After Wynn it was a blur. Hotel after hotel, each one more opulent and crazy then the next. At one I got to try on a Christophe Claret Poker wristwatch worth $195,000 and the sales person at the boutique tried to convince me that I needed to treat myself and buy it. Trust me if I had the money to burn it would be on my wrist as we speak but unless I hit it big at the tables it will forever remain a dream.

I also walked the Venetian hotel and Caesar's Palace. These places are so over the top it is not funny. Indoor markets and canals that look like you are outdoors, complete with day/night cycles. It is mind-bending.

After many hours I finally got back to my room. It took me probably 8 hours to walk just the 2 miles back to my hotel.

When I checked into the hotel I got a coupon for 40% off a ticket to see Blue Man Group who have their own permanent show in the theatre at the hotel. So I decided to go and got a great seat. The show was amazing! It was my second time seeing BMG live, the first was their live touring show, and it was completely different from the theatre show. I was entertained completely and quite happy I went.

After the show I decided to have a really nice dinner at the Brand steakhouse in the hotel. I had a Kobe beef meatball pizza with fresh buffalo mozzarella and it was amazing. For desert I had donut holes filled with Nutella and it had strawberry and peanut butter dipping sauces with it. SOOOO good.

I finally crashed after that and got up early to catch my flight home.

When I was checking out I was expecting a bit of an outlay with the resort fee of $20 a day and internet at $14.99 a day as well as that last dinner on the bill. Turns out the hotel comp'ed the internet access and the meal so I was only in the hole for $60 for the resort fees. SCORE.

This was the last bit of good news that day. As I checked in and got through security at the airport I found out that my flight was delayed by 2 hours in Toronto. This meant that by they time they landed and got the plane ready for the next flight and we got in the air, I was going to miss my connection to Kingston. When we landed in Toronto the flight I should have been on to Kingston had just landed in Kingston without me on it of course.

Air Canada put me up in a hotel for the night which happened to be the International Plaza hotel in Toronto. This hotel was formerly known as the Double Tree by the airport.. or the hotel that Furnal Equinox used to be at. It turns out that even with a name change, the hotel still has terrible service and rude people. So the more things change the more they stay the same.

I finally got on my plane at 8:50am on Sunday and landed 45 minutes later in Kingston. I was quite happy to get home to be honest. It was a long LONG trip.

So I am back, and in my office here at work catching up on everything that I need to, and I am back on the road on Wednesday to take my dad to a liver clinic appointment in Toronto early in the morning.

It never rains but it pours.

At least I have my birthday to look forward to on Sunday.... When I am doing my laundry

That was my week, I am sure it was a lot of TL;DR but I promise to have a few pictures up online soon.

In a few short hours I will be flying out to Las Vegas.

I am of to sin city for InfoCOMM 2014. Think of it as a fur con with no furs and only AV geeks drooling over impossibly unobtainable cameras and AV equipment.

The flight out of here leaves at 5:40am and I should be in vegas by 10:30am. I will be there until Saturday. If there are any locals in the area who may want to meet up for dinner at some point let me know. I doubt that will happen but gotta put it out there right?

I am nervous and conflicted about this trip as there is a lot going on in my family life right now but this is for work and has been planned out for while so I really do need to go.

Everyone have a good week, I will be checking FA every once and a while as I decompress in my room I am sure.

Catch you all later.

The feeling you will get is pretty awesome.

Yesterday there was a man in the parking garage at work, balancing his very young child and trying to pay for his parking. He was just finishing up with his child at the hospital and I am sure that he just wanted to get home with his son but his cards were not working at the pay terminal. I could sense his frustration at the situation as I was waiting in line behind him.

When his card was unreadable for the 5th time even after cleaning it I just reached around him and stuck my credit card in the slot. He protested a bit saying "But it is $16" and I just waved him off. The look of gratefulness and mild confusion was great. He smiled after a moment and thanked me and I just told him to "Pay it forward". He insisted he would and shook my hand.

We parted ways and I paid for my parking and left.

To see someone who is having what appeared to be a bad day struggling just to get home hit me hard. I know what it is like to be juggling many things at once like that and any extra headache is not fun at all.

When you see something you can do for someone that you know will make even a small difference in their life seize the day and do it. The rewards you get are worth more then all the money in the world.

Remember, do 1 good thing a day, and if someone does something nice for you remember to pay it forward. We are all just travelling on a spinning rock through space together, going through this life. Time we acted like we gave a damn about our fellow travellers.

So I got the call last night at 9:45 that my dad had a new liver waiting for him in Toronto. So I bugged out of the apartment and booked it over to my parents to pick up dad. Then took off for Toronto. Made great time, got here quicker then I thought I would and had a horrible night with no sleep at all waiting.

At 11:30am they came and took him to the OR prep area and about an hour or so later they took him off to the OR.

At 2:45 the surgeon appeared here in the waiting room and told me they called off the surgery.

There was a health concern that cropped up as they were in there and they felt it was far too risky to continue so that is that.

No new liver.

Now we try to fix this underlying problem and he goes back on the list and this whole thing starts all over again.

FUCK does not cover it.... I am so crushed for my dad. He was looking so forward to everything he would be able to do again.........



FUCK!!!

Honestly I'm not. I know that I have been a bit silent lately but I assure you I have a good reason. Where to start... I guess at the beginning really.

Many know, but not a lot of the newer people know it, my dad was diagnosed with non alcohol related chirrosis of the liver quite a whole ago. It has gotten worse over the last little while. So bad that as of Friday he was officially placed on the organ transplant list. The last few months have been endless appointments in Toronto with the clinics there getting him tested and retested. I am the only one in the family who can make these trips as my brother and sister-in-law are unable to do the trips due to their own illnesses and my mother is housebound at this time. A lot has fallen on my brothers shoulders taking care of the 2 kids and our parents as he is living with them. I am having to juggle work as well as my home life and filling in all the gaps that my brother can't cover. This has left me pretty stretched thin. I barely have really any time for myself. People just tell me where to be and when and I follow.

To top it all off my workload has increased quite a lot as I am basically sorta filling in for my boss while he is recovering from cancer surgery. Over the last year my duties at work have steadily increased while my pay has not. I am now operating well above my pay grade, doing twice the workload of my coworker for no difference in pay. Really kinda sucks to be honest we were both hired to do the same job but I have taken on the responsibility of 2 major systems at work, going to training classes to get certified in these systems and I have little to show for the extra effort. Now in June I am off to Las Vegas for more training and courses while my coworker doesn't do anything to further assist. Hell after those courses I will probably be going to some programming courses to get yet another certification.

The one fun thing I guess I can take from all this is that my boss made a joke before a meeting just days before his surgery that he was putting me in charge in his absence. It is not really the case, as everyone is still in touch with him and he is still being consulted on all matters. The thing is that all the high level people in this meeting accepted that i was "in charge" and seemed to be welcoming of that. I guess they have some faith in my abilities even if I don't. It was just an off the cuff remark and not to be taken seriously but so far it is all that is motivating me right now. He also said yesterday in a Skype message that he found it comforting for him in his recovery (which can be about a month) to know that things were "In good hands".

The level of stress with family, work and home is really starting to get to me. Hell I am just starting an almost 19 day day stretch of work, but at any time I can get the call to go to Toronto for the transplant.

I guess the TL;DR version is work is ample, stress is much and the bitching continues as usual.

I may MAY get a chance to throw the carburetor on my BMW on my only day off this Saturday, I guess I have that to look forward to. It is about the only thing I have right now.

That is the state of me right now I guess. I apologize for any spelling errors, this was all typed out on my tablet, while in bed trying to fall asleep.

Wow, what can I say.. 910 people got together for a weekend of fun, fur and general craziness. From my usual security standpoint it all went really well. I wish I had ended up having more to spend with friends at the con but I always have to remember the creed of the Fur Con Crew(FCC) We work so you can have fun.

I absolutely loved rooming with  ~SoulWolf~,  Gryphan, and  BT-Armistice yet again. They always know how to cheer me up, I love you all.

We arrived Friday at about 9am and were pretty much instantly put to work. No rest for the wicked as I had 4 hours of security shifts scheduled starting at 10. It then hit 2pm before I knew it and I met with  Xzion and  Jack_the_Tiger to run through the panel we were teaching.

3:00 hit and it was "Lights Camera ACTION" on our Fursuit Photography and Performance panel. We had nearly 50 people attend and it went really REALLY well.  BT-Armistice and  Flowkitty were amazing with helping out and I can't thank them both enough for putting in their vast knowledge to help fursuiters get their best out of their pictures. I had a lot of positive comments about the panel and was given some good direction for maybe another panel next year too!

Saturday was pretty much a blur for me as we had a lot of security shifts as usual. I did however run the StediCam rig for  Olefin for the Fursuit Games, which went so well this year. All credit to  sprocketdhusky and  Mith for running just an amazing games this year. The twist on the scoring system made for such amazing results. It was a treat to run the StediCam for that event and I loved every minute of it.

After the games, I wanted to rest for a bit but knew I had to start my security shift for the fursuit parade. I also ended up doing the StediCam again for that and it was so much fun to play around with the suiters while operating that camera. It appears that they loved it a lot and I think that we got some great footage.

After that I jumped right into helping  BT-Armistice with the first ever Masquerade at Furnal Equinox. The show started a bit late, but that is how things usually go at cons ;) The show went so well too! Everyone was entertained and we filled the entire space. People really got a kick out of the acts too! Once the judging was over and the scores were calculated  Flowkitty and her group were the lucky winners, putting on an amazing skit! Each member won a golden ticket to this years CostumeCon! They are going to have so much fun there!

The Masquerade was a difficult thing to get started, BT having to work for 3 years to get it in place but it was a huge success by all accounts.

Sunday was a pretty slow day, we got to hang out with some friends while still working our regular security duties which was really nice.

I had such a good time and I wanted to thank everyone who helps make this con a success each year, and I really want to thank deeply the 910 people who came party and have fun and make this all worth the effort.

I love you all!

Here it is 4:40am and I am getting ready to head out to Furnal Equinox. I can't wait to see everyone there. I will be on my first security shift at 10am so be sure to look for me in my bright red shirt!

I will also be co-presenting the Fursuit photography and performance panel at 3pm so be sure to come by for some great tips!

Do you own a camera and want to get better pictures at conventions? Are you thinking of getting started in photography? Do you own a fursuit and want to hone your performance for that legendary shot? Are you new to fursuiting and not sure how to deal with photographers?

Well why not stop by the panel I am co-hosting "The Art of Fursuit Photography and Performance"

Myself,  Xzion  Jack_The_Tiger,  BT-Armistice, and  Flowkitty will be showing you some of the do's and don'ts for fursuiters and photographers alike!

Beginner, amateur, or expert you are sure to learn something new here in this panel. It will be friday afternoon in the Macintosh room at Furnal Equinox. Check the con book and schedule for more details and I hope to see you all there!

I have been with  bt-armistice for 11 years now. and I love him as much today as I did the first day we met. He was my first love, and my deepest love.

You mean more to me then anything else. I know that there are times that I am not the greatest person in the world, and I know I am not the perfect person out there, but you make me a better person every day that I am with you. I love you deeply kitten.

Do I have a Weasyl? Yes http://weasyl.com/~prplhaze

Did I get it because of this poo about FA? Nope, got it back when you needed invites for it just to A) Reserve my username so no one takes it, and B) Because I want to make sure as many people as possible see my photography.

Will I stay on FA? Yes, I will. Till something happens to me directly forcing me to leave.

I am going to start cross posting a lot of stuff to Weasyl so it will be on both of them at once. May as well start using it more. After all if more people have a chance to see my photography then that is a plus.

Work is going well, though busy and not really getting a break over it because my co-worker is a dork and leaving me to do all the work.. But that is par for the course I guess. Home life is slow which is not a crazy thing but I can't wait till things thaw out a bit so I can get back to work on the BMW and get it running this year.

Umm... aside from that.. I will be at Furnal Equinox this year again, working security as usual but also doing some film work for Olefin and Co-hosting a panel with Xzion on photography. Should be interesting!

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.