Hi there folks - just wondering something. There has been temptations on my part to expand on the story snippets I have already uploaded. The problem is...unless I post a notice in my journal, you wouldn't know about it without me deleting it and re-uploading the entire thing, which would wipe out the comments (not something I want to do). So, would people be interested if I add to the snippets and put in an update journal notice - or shall I just keep my updates under wraps and just submit items when I feel that I am 'done with them' in a matter of speaking?

Inquiry minds want to know.

This has been a long time coming, I think, and in a way - its scary, but I know I feel like its a new day.

'The FUCK YOU SAY?!' I can hear you asking out there in user land, so let me break it down to you.

Many of you out there are familiar with Kyle Waltman, and the work of John Thornbush. Simply put, John....is me. I am him, he's my pen name.... and apparently my name I should use in porn. I created him back when I worked in a very conservative office environment who would NOT understand some of the things I write or my connection with the fandom. I have since then....gotten fired, moved half way across the country, and have gotten a whole new set of friends and a workplace that frankly doesn't give a shit (they are thrilled that I am literate enough to READ a book, let alone WRITE a book for publishing).

So, I am in the midst of re-branding all of the John Thornbush credited material to R.J. Dobbs, my own initials. The stories will be the same, the characters and the novel will come along - in a way, it will make things a lot more simple.

I held off for the longest time, partly out of preventing confusion - but then I figured that this would make things ->LESS CONFUSING<- over the long run.

If anyone has questions about this, let me know. I will likely keep the John Thornbush e-mail and things running for the time being in case there is any legal reasons I am not sure of right now.

Depending on how things go... there might be more artwork.... at least one, maybe two... before too long. :)

I really miss RPing with people... seems like everyone has moved on from it, or the ones I find who want to are into some really brutal stuff.

Well, I am still alive - either rejoice or curse your bad luck now. Work has been work-like with many work-like properties, getting to know more of my coworkers and the like. One of them is helping me help John Thornbush with the novel, she likes it so far.

In other news, I wish I could find people who wanted to RP with me that were into the same things I was. It would really help keep the spirits up, though in the past - I keep running into people who want to use dirty talk or they are not quite into the same things as I am.

Anyway, still alive and kicking (sort of). Figured I might as well give an update to those out there who are following me.

I am starting to think that there is no point to dream about something I will never see...love I will never experience with people I will never meet. There comes a time in life when you have to let go of silly things, and perhaps that time is here.

Families require money - large amounts of money... women want men with tons of money and power. I...have neither... and the looks of things tell me that I will never have either. In some comfort, I would have been a lousy father anyway - and given how the world is turning out to be, I'm doing a solid to any kid I would have had by not seeking to have them at all.

I don't suppose any of my watchers or fans know about MIDI (Musical Instrument Device Interface), would they? I am trying to learn how the control surfaces work on my keyboards and other equipment to set up studio automation. Most of the online sources for it read like rocket science instructions, sadly. :<

Since I am a Colorado furry now (a polar bear in Colorado Springs... I am melting!), I am going to be going to Rocky Mountain Fur Con this August. I am pondering if I want to start getting people signed up for voice auditions for the furry dating sim that I've had on the back burner for the last thousand or so years (it only seems...). Not really sure who is going, who I know, who know me, or who would even be remotely interested.

I've got some gear that is somewhat portable, though I don't want to drag it around if I really don't have to - especially if no one really cares.

Anyway, drop me a line if you are interested, let me know. If I can't organize something at the convention, then perhaps I will work out some sort of sign-up for later.

Personally, if I had money... or knew what it looked like... there would be some pregnant furries from Zootopia up in this house.... but that's why I am a furry... we can't have nice things.

Sadly, it seems that the stories for money idea went over like a lead balloon. Besides one person, there was like -zero- interest - even with the mention that the cost was a very rough guideline and that the rate was flexible. Is the written word that devalued that I basically wasted Mr. Thornbush's time with the idea? I don't have any friends that can draw awesome adult furry artwork for money that would donate their time for me - so that won't work out.

Given that I didn't generate nearly enough to offset the costs involved, I have serious doubts how long I will be able to remain online.

My friend, John Thornbush, is trying to drum up money for me until I get a job. Details are here:

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7542486/

After moving, I am having a hard time finding a job here in Colorado Springs so I was talking with John Thornbush, he mentioned that he could offer to do story commissions - though he doesn't really know if anyone would be interested. So I guess I will float the idea out there - who would be interested in such an arrangement?

-- EDIT 4/30/2016 @ 1646 hours MST --

Talked with John about this at length, he mentioned a standard rate of 0.03 to 0.06 cents a word could be used as a very rough guess - though he does mention that longer works would illicit a lower cost per word naturally. Of course, he also stipulated that he would be more interested in seeing what people wanted to pay and how long they were looking for since it would be the first time he would 'work for hire' so to speak versus using those figures as a hard-and-fast rule.

For example, a story snippet like 'Welcoming Waltman' (found here - http://johnthornbush.livejournal.com/36165.html) from the book is 4,241 words - using the professional 'writer for hire' rates above would be about $128.00 but he'd likely be flexible depending on the subject, the specific requirements, timeframe, and the like. Since that's part of his own book with his own characters under no time committment - the figures would be radically different.

Another example would be the Tess-taur story he did for me - I think we agreed upon what amounted to about $50 or so of rendered services (there is a bit that still has to be done on it, but its on the back burner for his novel, which I am cool with) with a word count of 2,519 words. If I had a burning desire for the entire thing like yesterday, I'd imagine I'd be on the hook for a lot more.

So, I guess its the long way of saying, "Shoot me the idea of length, I'll negotiate a price fitting your budget?"

Hey there, just figured I would let you know that I will be taking down my computer for the move to Colorado Springs. Moving truck is here, boxes are getting packed, time to get this show on the road. Hoping to be back up and running next week by the weekend, but I could be out of the game for as long as two weeks if the move hits any significant snags. Mix that with a sister-in-law in pretty serious condition from surgery, and things could be touch-and-go for me online-wise until April. Just giving everyone a heads up - if you need to get a hold of me, leave me a note here and I -think- my tablet will allow me to check my messages here.

Well, I pre-registered for Rocky Mountain Fur Con since I will be a Colorado native and its right around my birthday so I figure that might be a sign. I hope to run into new people to make friends with there and get to know the locals better.

With the cooperation of John Thornbush, I want to offer a Questions and Answers with Joy, Kyle's hippo boss from his novel in progress 'Waltman's Women'. She can be seen in her younger years when she was pregnant with her second daughter, Portia here.

I had an image idea come to me the other night, rather NSFW just because it involves the miracle of life unscripted. In my dream, I saw this women who was giving birth laying on her side slightly, the baby's head born - facing her front (not her posterior, which is the normal position, BTW); the front window to the home open so you can see the sun coming up over the lake - a sunny side up baby for a sunrise landscape, I guess. Her belly was still large, so the image was at an angle where all you saw of her was her belly, her legs, the baby stuck out of her on the bed... It was a human in the dream, but I could imagine it would work for a furry as well.

Any artist followers of mine interested in that kind of scene? Anyone else out there curious to see if I could get that done?

Anyway, enough with the strange imagery. ;D

P.S. I am looking at moving sometime soon to the Denver area, any furs out there know the local furry scene?

Is it just me... or do the dinosaurs that kill you stand over your stuff and call all their nasty friends for a flash mob to hang out until all of your stuff de-rezzes? The SECOND your items are gone forever - so is there interest in that ONE spot... even with all the other prey dancing around them.

Also, Alpha Raptors are invincible assholes - nothing kills these fuckers... totally making me feel like its time for an uninstall of this title before I throw my computer through a wall.

....seven and a half years with the same place, doing the same thing for the same people is done. I was shown the door. Not performance related, and certainly not for cause, but because I didn't have the skills to do what the new owners wanted for less. I guess I am in the process of mourning the professional me, while recovering the real me from all the wreckage.

The rumor in white bearess land here is that I might be moving to Denver, CO area... not sure who is there, what the furry scene is like - and sure as hell don't even have a job lined up yet. Anyone out there care to drop me a note?

It took a while, but I have read up on the drama that is the sale of Furaffinity to IMVU. While I don't know the finer details, I am aware of IMVU's less-than-stellar reputation, which makes me believe that we're not gonna have FA for all that long - at least in the form most are gonna accept. The reason? Companies like to make money - FA loses money - and scummy companies are willing to do whatever it will take to wring out the profits from their acquisitions (no matter the cost in good-will).

Does that mean your leaving? Not for the short term, as nothing has changed - at least on the outside. I will still post new commissions, favorite new artwork, and be a general furry. I will still, as popuation allows, seek out new commissions from artists here.

What happens when (not if, when) things change? Well, I imagine I will be in the same boat as a lot of others. I am going to be looking into alternates like Weasly. For those who know, I DO have an Inkbunny account - but I am not a fan of the general artwork that seems to be present on the front page and while I could filter so I don't see it - its not a site I want people not prepared to see as my primary contact point within the fandom.

How could this happen?! Well, I can see it from both perspectives. Running this site without an income to offset the expenses gets to the point that you need to divest yourself of it before it takes you under with it - but when you run a site like this, you have a responsibility to your community to put that community in good hands when you DO sell it, something that sounds like wasn't even considered. IMVU does not have a reputation for respecting the items they acquire, or the people who use their service(s).

So, in short - I am not going anywhere just yet - but unless there is a reversal or sudden change in how IMVU operates their business interests, I believe that we're standing on the twilight of Furaffinity's reign as the king of social furry galleries.

I mean, I am a pretty understanding person. I get that people's lives get in the way and people sometimes aren't in productive moods... but how long is reasonable before you simply need to put someone up on Artist Beware to get anywhere? I mean, I'd rather have the artwork - but if the artwork isn't ever going to happen, then I'd like the money back; you know?

Not mentioning names here, won't do it.

Anyone else find it frustrating that we pregfurs are excluded forever from ever being included in the Furoticon collectible card game? Que up the march of the fetishes, but we are left out in the cold. No sweat - perhaps WE need a card game. :)

So, is anyone going to Furry Migration here in Minnesota? It seems like either no one has heard of it or isn't going. I mean, I do show up at some of the local meets - hope there are more people there; since its likely I won't be making it to this year's Midwest Furfest due to finances and forgetting to reserve a room. :<

I remember seeing something a while back with people posting journals allowing people to ask questions of their characters, and the person would have the character reply. Figured I would give this a shot with Tessiha, allow people to ask her questions and she could give them responses here. Of course, don't be rude - she's a lady, and although she is generally pretty passive - she's not above slapping someone who is really a jerk. :)

Some people might already know this, but I am working on getting Furspectives Media up and running - a company that will develop video games and other media projects. One of their first projects will be Furrily Ever After, a dating sim that I've featured some preliminary work for on my FA gallery pages.

I've purchased two Dell PowerEdge R200 servers from eBay toward this purpose, as well as reloading a new OS on my old Apple Macbook Pro notebook (besides swapping out the old 100GB hard drive for a 120GB SSD). Right now, I am trying to figure out how to get my hands on a decently constructed 4 post rack as well as other equipment to get this project off the ground.

Needless to say, I am aiming to have more details as this develops. Stay tuned!

Well, I made it to Midwest Furfest - checked into the main hotel, and am roaming about with my good writer friend, John Thornbush. I've gotten a chance to run into a bunch of my friends, as well as  tsuhara and  darrencax. You can find me hovering around the hotel - or if you respond to this journal - I can come find you. Hope to see you here!