Well, I wanted to start uploading pictures I took at DenFur, but the site is automatically rotating anything that was taken in vertical mode. Seeing as that is the orientation of most of the pictures I took, I guess I just can't upload anything.

Well, it's been a couple of days since DenFur. I'm still kind of exhausted, but if I don't try to get my thoughts in order, I might not ever get around to it. So here's my recounting of my DenFur experience this year:

THURSDAY

For this year, I wanted a room at the convention, but didn't want to pay for it myself. I reached out to the local furry community and had some responses. I decided to room with a pair who would be staying from Thursday evening to Monday morning. They were even willing to let me carpool with them to and from the event. It was a little tight, but we were able to fit my suitcase, backpack, and laptop bag in their vehicle. We made it up to Denver in good time and got checked in, then went down to registration. There was no real line, so that got completed quickly. Supposedly, there were con books on the table with the pronoun ribbons, but I don't remember seeing any. After that, they had to go back for a bag they left behind, leaving me to find dinner. I ended up at Kyoto Scratch Kitchen and had vegetable ramen with a Ramune. It was fine, but I'm not sure my stomach agreed with it. I went back to the hotel and checked out the kickoff dance. I don't really have the energy for dancing, so I just took in the experience. I eventually went back up to the room in time for my roommates to return. We were waiting on the hotel staff to bring up a box fan, which I think my roommates needed for their fursuits. That meant I didn't get to sleep until after midnight.

FRIDAY

Slept poorly. I woke up around 2:30 AM and couldn't fall back asleep for at least 2 hours. Woke up again around 6:30 AM. Got out around 7 and got dressed. Went out and caught the free shuttle running by the 16th Street Mall to get to Sam's #3 Diner. Ended up having 2 cups of coffee with 2 pancakes, 2 eggs, and 4 sausages. Came back to the hotel and hung out for a while. Took the opportunity to place some of my YouTube channel business cards on the stand that had been set up before going to Opening Ceremonies. It was fine, just introducing the guests of honor and the charity, along with the staff for Last Caw and Foxtrot. Headed over to the Rare & Uncommon Fursona Meetup, seeing as rats still aren't very common in the fandom. It was fine. Tried talking a bit with people. Still not great at that. Went to A Brief History of Colorado's Amusement Parks next. It was interesting. The presentation mostly covered Elitch Gardens and Lakeside. I'm not sure if more would have been covered as the panel went to the time limit. I did ask the presenter if they had seen the documentaries Rocky Mountain PBS had done covering early Elitch Gardens and the other amusement parks in the area. I believe they said they had. Decided to head out for lunch at that time. I think I went to Pita Fresh and ended up having a beef shawarma entree with mango juice. I believe it was a little more greasy than I would have liked, as my stomach wasn't really happy with it. Came back and did some looking around the Dealer's Den and Artists Alley. Dropped off a pendant with Curiously Colored Glass, which is sort of a story in and of itself in the difficulties I'd been having with that. Picked up volumes 1 through 4 of the American Journal of Anthropomorphics from Michele Light. Bought a rat themed omamori from Degu Arts. Got a bunch of stickers and a small matted print from various vendors in the Artists Alley. Went back down for the Trials & Tribulations of a New Self-Published Author panel. It was interesting to hear about the entire process of self-publishing a book, from actually writing the story to doing setting for publishing. Although, I'm not looking forward to developing a cover by myself if I try to self-publish something. Went to Taebyn Sings Weird Al after that, although got slightly lost along the way. The panel was plagues with technical issues at the start. The audio from the laptop wasn't getting routed to the speakers, so Taebyn had to sign the first couple of songs without us being able to hear the music. It eventually got fixed near the end. He's not a bad singer, I guess. He gave away some stuff, so I ended up taking a poker chip with his sona on either side. After that, there was an informal get together for Colorado Springs furries. We met by one of the fire pits in front of the hotel and chatted a bit before taking a group picture. I went to dinner after that. Ended up walking to Obento, and had a chicken teriyaki bento box with sparkling peach juice. It was tasty, although it may have caused some problems later. I had a few hours free, so I went around, checking out the game room and the open space. I think that the Animal Art Crimes popup was also open at this point, so I looked in on that as well. This year, they actually got space within the convention. I also took a look in on the dance around 8 PM. Still wasn't feeling up to dancing.

So, getting close to 9 PM, I went over to attend the Transformation panel. Turns out there was a massive line for that. On top of that, the convention staff warned us that there were more people waiting than would be permitted due to fire code, so some people would be unable to enter. Fortunately, I was able to get in. Oddly, there seemed to be a number of empty chairs, even after the orders were given to move down to fill them. Anyway, the panel was intriguing. Started off as a sort of lecture on early media dealing with transformation, such as Ovid's Metamorphoses, going up to more modern works. Then it became more of a free form discussion, with people listing off properties that included transformation. And I think I should have spoken up at this point, because I had recently been playing the visual novel Mice Tea. Mice Tea prominently features furry transformations, but down one of the branching paths, the protagonist and their love interest end up attending a furry convention that is going on at the time and they sit in on a panel on transformation, which went in a similar fashion to what was happening. So there was an unusual case of life imitating art imitating life.

Anyways, after that, I went over to the Furry Visual Novel Fans & Creator Meetup. I was hoping to get some recommendations on furry visual novels to read, which I did, but it felt like I wasn't contributing much to the discussion, so I cut out early. I had heard from friends that a room party was going on that evening, so I went up and checked it out. It was okay, but it exemplified my problems with room parties: drinking, dancing, and trying to have a conversation where you can't hear each other over the music. I eventually gave up and left. I think I checked out the Night Market, which was pretty much just an after hours version of the Artists Alley. There were only a handful of vendors, though. I ended up going back to the room and tried to get some sleep. Unfortunately, something I ate was not agreeing with me. Took a while to fall asleep, not helped by feeling feverish and sweating a lot.

SATURDAY

I don't think I got more than 4 hours of sleep again. I know I was up around 6:30 AM and got dressed around 7. Went out and had breakfast at the Trompeau Bakery and Cafe. Had a quiche and a banana along with some orange juice. The quiche was pretty tasty. Came back and hung around the convention for a while. At 11 AM, I went to the Meet and Greet with Kacey panel. Not a lot of people showed up for that, and partway through, Kacey had to step out for a while, so for a bit it was her partner showing off various works Kacey had done. Still, it was interesting. After that, I intended to go to the Twitch/VTuber Meetup and Hangout to try connecting with other streamers or content creators, but I felt I was having difficulty connecting with them, so I went to lunch early. I ended up going to Poke Bowl and had a salmon bowl with various ingredients and toppings, along with unsweetened ice tea. It was fine. Came back for the How to be a Fursuit Handler Extraordinaire panel, which was mostly general advice on handling people in fursuit. I ducked out a little early because I was planning on going to the Content Creator Meetup, but when I got there, it had been replaced with another meet and greet panel. I suppose this was partly my fault, because the schedule had been updated to have the change in it, but my phone kept showing me a cached version of the page, so as far as I knew everything was fine. The convention had also posted the change on their BlueSky account, but I missed that as well. I think I went back to the Dealer's Den to finish off my shopping for the weekend. I picked up a folder and a couple of prints from Kacey Miyagami, a microfiber towel and some prints from Mao's Menagerie, several books from Fenris Publishing, another book from Donryu, and some tea from the convention store. The tea came with a keychain, which I already had from DenFur 2023, so at first I was going to turn it down, but then I realized I could use it for trade, so I took it anyway. Went back down around 3:30 PM for the Greymuzzle/Silvermuzzle Meet and Greet. This one kind of went better, as I was able to chat a bit with the people at the table and handed out some more of my business cards. I think I kind of wandered around for an hour after that and came back for the Livestreamer Meet and Greet panel. I don't really remember much of that, which means I may have ducked out early. I ended up going to Lazo Empanadas across from the hotel for dinner, because Kacey had mentioned how Freckles would make empanadas and I am somewhat easily influences. Had a couple of empanadas and a soda. The empanadas were really good. Had about an hour to go before the next panel, so I think I wandered around for a bit. I headed to the Silly Drawing Games with Kacey panel at 8 PM, but realized I wanted to get my laptop bag for later, so I went back up. It took 15 minutes to retrieve it and come back down. When I made it back, the room was closed. So I think I went to check out the Foxtrot Invasion Rave. It was interesting in that they had set up a projector in a corner with a VRChat portal, but I still wasn't up for dancing. After that, I had planned on going to a panel on Gnoll Knights, which had sounded interesting, but it seems it was canceled. So I went back up to the room party I knew about. Strangely, there was a line to get in and the party didn't open until around 9:15 PM. And once I had gotten in, I felt like I wanted to be elsewhere, so I went back down to the Foxtrot Rave.

Okay, so at 10:00 PM, I went to the Macro/Micro panel. I was kind of looking forward to this, seeing as I had pushed a macro story to my writing account a few weeks ago, and I was still trying to figure out what ideas I was trying to explore. It kind of ended up as a group discussion on what people enjoy with regards to macro/micro. It seems some people see it as wish fulfillment, which I can kind of see in my own writing, although the wish fulfillment I think I was going for is probably different from what other people are into macro/micro for. Some people seem to be into it in order to work with impossibilities, which I can also see that in my own writing. And some people use macro/micro as a way to explore other kinks and fetishes, which I definitely tapped into with my own story. I will admit that macro/micro is not the primary thing I'm into, but it does seem to work for exploring ideas. I also enjoyed having the forum to discuss macro/micro, as I frequently feel like I can't discuss fetish or kink stuff openly with other furries.

So after that, I was pretty much done for the day. Went back up to the room and tried to get some sleep. Once again, I don't think I got to sleep until after midnight.

SUNDAY

Slept poorly again. I woke up around 4:30 AM and couldn't fall back asleep. Got up around 7 AM, got dressed, and went to the Delectable Egg for breakfast. Had 2 cups of coffee along with a Green Egg and Ham Benedict, which was pretty tasty. Was still pretty tired, so went back to the room and just laid down for a while. I had wanted to go to a panel at 9 AM on Flying Furs: The Aviation Industry and the Furs, but I just didn't feel up to it. Came back down around 10 AM for the Sponsor brunch. I had registered as a Sponsor this year, which let me snag some snacks from the Sponsor lounge over the course of the convention. I figured the brunch would also help cut down on food costs. It kind of worked, as I ended up not feeling like I needed to get lunch. Anyway, after that was the Rodent Meet and Greet. Ended up chatting with a bunch of other rodent furs, along with a couple of cats who sneaked in. Afterwards, I went back up to the room and laid down for a while. I had wanted to go to the Social Hour meet and greet at 1 PM, but I was still too exhausted. I came back down around 2 PM for a series of panels. I dropped into NO! The Raspberry Pi(e) Doe NOT Go In the Oven, which sounded interesting. It did have some information about setting up a Raspberry Pi device, including a bit on breadboarding, which I had done some work with a long time ago as part of a science fair project. I had to duck out early due to the Content Creator Meet and Greet happening. Somehow, that had been moved into Panel 2, which was not conducive to the format. It ended up as more of a Q & A session with the hosts. I left that one early too in order to get to the Digimon Expert Trivia panel at 3 PM. I was excited for that, as the host was part of the local Digimon Card Game community. I figured I wouldn't do great, as most of my Digimon knowledge is from Adventure, Adventure 02, Tamers, Liberator, and some of the games. I did get a lot of questions wrong, but some lucky guesses got me into 3rd place. I got a pair of Gabumon socks as a prize.

After that it was time for Closing Ceremonies, which was preempted slightly by the Charity Auction overrunning its time frame. Still, it did get started fairly quickly. They raffled off a fursuit of Blucifer, the horse statue from DIA. Then they announced the numbers for the year. About 4400 people in attendance, which was more than either of the previous 2 years. They also managed to raise over $22000 for their charity, with about $13000 coming from the Blucifer raffle and $800 coming from the charity poker game. They also announced that the theme for next year would be the planned 2017 RMFC convention theme, Carnival Nocturne. Somehow, I had thought it was spelled Carnivale, which would have meant Mardi Gras, but I guess I was misremembering. Anyway, once that was done, I went to the Hiss N Purr Convention Feedback panel, because I had wanted to raise the issue of panels being rescheduled and moved without clear instructions. Turns out a couple of other people also had issues with panels being shifted around. There were also issues with crowds in the registration line and the Dealer's Den, along with lack of internet or phone signal in the convention space, issues with panels not having buffer time, which resulted in panels running into each other, issues with the sensory room being next to the games room, which meant noise from the arcade cabinets made it into the sensory room, and issues with the 18+ sections. The staff present took the feedback well, and they seem to be working hard to overcome the damage done over the last couple of years.

So yeah, after that, I headed out for dinner. I ended up going to Modern Market Eatery and had a Buddha Bowl with a kombucha. It was pretty tasty. I went back to the convention space and checked out Animal Art Crimes again. I purchased a copy of the book Wild Pokemon from them, having just enough cash on hand for it. I then threw them my last dollar along with a business card to pick up a sticker from them. I headed back up to the room for the evening. My roommates went out, because apparently there was a party happening at the hotel pool. I had considered bringing a swimsuit this year, but I'm not sure any of them fit me. So maybe next year. I spent the time playing with my Switch and reading through my purchases. I ended up falling asleep some time after 11 PM.

MONDAY

My roommates came back around 1:20 PM, waking me up, but I was able to get back to sleep quickly. Had my first night of decent sleep in a while, waking up around 6:30 PM. Around 7, I got dressed and went down the the hotel cafe for an expensive latte and bottle of orange juice. I just hung out in the room for the morning until my roommates got up and started packing. We got out of the hotel a bit after 11 AM and made really good time back to Colorado Springs.


So yeah, that's what I can remember from the convention this year. It felt pretty decent this year, with room for improvement. I guess I'm looking forward to next year. And, thanks to masking up for most of the time, I seem to have avoided con crud and Covid this time.

I want to give thanks to all the people who knew me that I ran into over the course of the convention:  ianthegecko,  jcollie719,  gearsypoodrox, Zina (not sure if they have an FA,) G0AT (not sure if they have an FA,) Kybz (not sure if they have an FA.)

I'd also like to give special thanks to Blake and Spazz for letting me share their room. It was quite the experience.

Okay, guess that's my thoughts in order for the time being. I may start putting up pictures I took while at the convention. We'll see if I feel like it.

Well, I've got room space secured for DenFur this year, so hopefully I won't completely miss a day like I did last year.

I've also plotted out which panels I want to attend. Although, there's that saying about how if you want to make God laugh, tell them your plans, so we'll see what happens.

I've been dealing with a headache for most of today. I hope I'm not coming down with something.

Yep, it's my birthday again.

Please send hugs, as I'm pretty touch starved.

Also, maybe check out my writing account  ericpackrat

Okay, I'm in a better state of mind than I was last week, but we'll see how long it lasts.

I guess it's interesting how my mind is working. It occasionally causes me to vocal stim certain phrases. For instance, I'm sometimes made to say, "She placed a paw against my face," under my breath. I'm curious if using the phrase in a story would remove the vocal stim, because it's less fun when my brain forces a negative vocal stim. I'm trying to train myself away from those, with some mixed success. If writing out the phrase could remove it, though, then that would be helpful in removing the negative stims.

We'll see what happens in the future.

Depression and general hopelessness seem to be interfering with my desire to write. I've been looking through my older, unpublished works and polishing them up a bit, but I'm not sure if I should bother. It doesn't help that people don't respond as well to a story on this site that's posted as a story and not as an image with the story in the description. The story ought to be judged on its own merits, but it isn't. I feel like I'm screaming into the void.

I've gone ahead and made an account specifically for writing. I'm not sure if I'll be moving all of my writing to it or just some of it. But, fair warning, it may end up being primarily spicy fan fiction.

Anyways, here's the link  ericpackrat

I haven't really been diligent about linking these here, but in this part, I give a surface level analysis on gender in Digimon.

I've been trying to get my YouTube channel back up off the ground after 4 years. Last December, I commissioned an artist for a set of images as the basis for an animated avatar. As such, I've been making more recent videos as a PNGtuber. Anyways, I'm now starting a series on Digimon World: Next Order. Here's the link if you'd like to see it:

I guess it was bound to happen, but once again, one of the few things that squicks me showed up on the front page of FA when loading in. This is despite the exact word I have tag blocked being in the title of the submission. There's just nothing that the system can do if people can't be bothered to properly tag their uploads.

I'm contemplating starting a secondary account specifically for writing. To start, it would probably be mostly spicy fanfiction, but I might put other stories there as well if I come up with anything. I could just upload to this account, but I kind of want to keep it separate. At the same time, I kind of want to put links between this account and that account, which kind of defeats the purpose of separating it.

I don't know. I know there are artists who separate out more extreme content, but would it make any sense for me to separate some content? Most of what I've used this account for is photography and art I had commissioned, but I have uploaded some writing here.

Or maybe I just skip FA entirely and just upload to my SoFurry or Weasyl accounts. But FA is the largest platform and would probably get me the most feedback.

I don't know. I hate going back and forth on this and not doing anything.

Oh, hey, I still exist, I guess.

So after almost 16 years on this site, filtering out content by tags has been added. I tested it about a week ago by adding a tag that squicks me and running a search I knew had that content in it. It did blur the thumbnail of the offending content, so I'm glad to see it works. Extra confirmation in that something on the main page today was blurred, which is great, because now I hopefully won't get squicked randomly at least once a month, which was happening before this feature was available. Unless people don't properly tag their content, which is still a possibility.

Oh hey, I exist, don't I? I keep forgetting that.

So I went to DenFur last weekend. It wasn't spectacular, but I guess it wasn't horrible either.

FRIDAY:
I brought some friends up to Denver with me. They paid for my parking that day, which was nice. I was able to get through registration quickly thanks to pre-registering at Sponsor level. Still, the delay resulted in me catching the very tail end of Opening Ceremonies. I had lunch after that and then went to the Introduction to Warrior Cats panel. I guess it was interesting, but I'm not sure if I'll get into that fandom much. Maybe I can find some of the books at the library. After that, I went to the Chocolate 101 panel. That started 15 minutes late because the staff was unable to connect the presenter's laptop to the projection system, and then they gave up on that. The panel was interesting, but probably would have been better with the presentation. I didn't really have anything planned for several hours, so I checked out the Dealer's Den and Artist's Alley for a while. I ended up buying a bunch of books from Fenris Publishing. I spent some time chatting with some friends before heading to the TaskmastFur panel. I caught most of it before having to go back to the car to help my friends get their luggage out of it. Ended up getting back to the TaskmastFur panel for the tail end. I decided to head home at that point to save money on dinner.

SATURDAY:
So I had pretty big plans for Saturday, but I ended up losing the whole day. I don't think I got more than 4 hours of sleep that night and I didn't want to risk driving up to Denver being exhausted and having a headache. I just stayed home and tried to rest. I had wanted to attend the Rare & Uncommon Fur Meet, the Bonbon Demo and Q&A, and The Good, The Bad, The RMFC Years panel, but it doesn't really matter now.

SUNDAY:
Got a bit of a late start. Ended up missing the Improv Workshop panel, but still arrived in time to help my friends transfer their luggage to my car to meet their checkout time. Had lunch after that and then caught the Star Fox: The Rise and Fall of a Furry Icon panel. It really just consisted of talking about the games and didn't touch much on what caused the series to fail. Still, it was interesting learning about the games I didn't play. I went back to the Dealer's Den and Artist's Alley and ended up buying some coffee from Sacred Beans and Dragon Roast Coffee, along with some bars of soap from Soap Pony, some prints, an art book, and some stickers. I went to the Chikies Trading Post panel for a bit, and while there were some interesting objects available, I ended up not trading for anything, since I didn't think I had brought anything worthwhile. I headed for the Closing Ceremonies, got a decent seat, and managed to catch the whole thing. I was able to catch some of the Furoke panel before my friends texted me that they were ready to go.

So that's it for this year's DenFur. There were some improvements, such as using the second floor of the tower instead of the basements (which were being renovated,) but I'm worried I'm becoming jaded. I feel my main problem is that they are continuing to partner with the Sheraton hotel, despite all of the stories about hotel staff treating convention goers badly. I had hoped that this would be the last year at the Sheraton, but they confirmed that next year will also be at the Sheraton. It feels like the hotel is maybe trying to force the convention to break contract, but I don't know for sure. I guess I can spend the year deciding whether or not I want to go back.

Is there some reason why we can't have a feature to block art we don't want to see? I mean, we can clearly choose not to view mature or adult art if we don't want to, so why can't there be an option to block specific tags or keywords?

It's just, I know that I don't get shown something that squicks me out every time I load the front page, and that it's just my brain seems to be wired to accentuate the negative, but it would be nice to not have to worry about something horrible coming up whenever I navigate to the site.

I'm still sorting through my thoughts and feelings about the convention, but I'll go ahead and try making more sense of them at this time.

THURSDAY

Got off of work at 5 PM and started packing up. Had to bring clothes, Covid 19 vaccination card, liability waiver, backpack, water bottle, toothbrush, toothpaste, laptop, Nintendo Switch with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, dice, Magic the Gathering Commander decks, Magic the Gathering Standard and Modern decks, and the Magic the Gathering Draft Booster packs for the two draft events I was running. Had dinner at home, then grabbed some masks, made sure everything was in the car, and then headed out. Took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half to get to downtown Denver, then lost at least 20 more minutes by overshooting the turn to the hotel. Got checked in, took everything up to my room, and went down to pick up my badge. Fortunately that took only about an hour and a half, because I had purchased a Patron level badge last year (the convention was going to fall on the weekend with my birthday, so it was going to be my present to myself before the pandemic occurred,) so I was able to get into the Sponsor/Patron line. However, they didn't have my badge ready because I had transferred my badge from last year, so they had to print one. This would be a problem because they ended up printing it on an Attendee level badge.

FRIDAY
I'm not sure I got more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep that night, between noisy neighbors and waking up every few hours. Had some not very good Starbucks coffee in the room. Went down to have breakfast in the Sponsor lounge. Had some bread, some potatoes, some sort of egg dish I can't seem to remember, and a doughnut. I went back to my room and played some Animal Crossing for a while before going back down for Opening Ceremonies. That ended up being delayed. Plus, there was a line to get in. They did create a new line for Sponsors and Patrons, so that got me in sooner, but they still didn't open the event until noon. I tried getting some pictures with my new GoPro, but it clearly is not really meant to be a picture camera, so I don't think that turned out well. Still, I was able to record the Opening Ceremonies on my camcorder, so I'll have to upload that later.

I think I looked around the Artist's Alley for a bit and then went back to the Main Events room for Furry Themed Game Shows. That was fairly fun to watch. I then went back to the Sponsor's Lounge, where I ended up catching flack for having an Attendee level badge. I had to pull out my phone and show my receipt for my ticket to get in, only to find out that lunch had already ended. The convention website had listed lunch in the Sponsor's Lounge as lasting from 1 PM to 3 PM, but the schedule posted and in the con book only had it from 1 PM to 2 PM, so there was little food left. I was able to grab a soft pretzel with mustard and a green apple.

I think I went to the Dealer's Den mostly just to check things out. Wasn't sure what I was going to be buying yet, but there were a lot of interesting looking things. I also took a look around the Artist's Alley. Ended up chatting with Yudy and Lockjaw for a bit. I was planning on checking out the Corgi Events Meme Hour, but that got delayed as well, so I went back to the Dealer's Den instead and ordered a badge from Bitters and bought some prints and book 1 of Slightly Damned from Raizap. I was able to speak with Newlyn, one of the directors, who told me I should go back to Registration to get my badge sorted out. I did that, and this time they did print a Patron level badge for me, although they got my name wrong this time. I then went to Cassidy Civet's concert, which was pretty good. I ended up buying their CD.

I had planned on going to the showing of The Fandom, but considering I already had it on Blue Ray from the Kickstarter, I went to the panel on Pickup Gaming instead. That was fairly interesting, although I don't know if I would ever really have time at conventions to get into tabletop roleplaying games. I was pretty hungry when that wrapped up, so I went across the street from the hotel to a place selling empanadas and got two spinach and cheese empanadas. I went back and sat in on Foxene's Tattoo 101 panel. After that, I chatted with Mikey, who introduced me to his roommate Skye, and ended up playing some Magic the Gathering with him. Afterwards, he went to meet with a friend of his. I was thinking of checking out one of the later panels, but there didn't seem to be anyone there, so I decided to call it a night.

SATURDAY
I don't think I got more than 6 hours of sleep that night either. Had some more bad Starbucks coffee in my room. I went down the street to a diner called The Delectable Egg for breakfast. I ended up ordering a Denver Omelette, which turned out to be an omelette with ham, cheese, and peppers. Afterwards, I decided to check out something I had seen fliers for around the convention. The people in Room 302 were hosting Saturday Morning Cartoons in their room, which seemed like fun. They had cereal, Pop-Tarts, milk, and coffee available, although I didn't feel like having anything. It was fairly chill. Ended up watching an episode of SWAT Cats, which I had never seen before, an episode of TaleSpin, which I may have seen on ABC in the 90s, an episode of The Adventures of the Gummi Bears, which I had seen some of when our family moved to Colorado Springs and we were staying in a hotel, and an episode of Jungle Cubs, which I also had never seen before.

After that, I went back down to the convention for the Animal Crossing Furs panel, which ended up being a bunch of people just playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I tried to find any open islands on local play, but it didn't look like anyone had their island open, so I opened my island up. I ended up getting two visitors, which was neat. I went for lunch in the Sponsor's Lounge. I think I ended up having some salad, a hummus wrap, and some soup. After that, I think I went back to the Artist's Alley, and ended up purchasing a pendant from Lockjaw, then went back up to my room to get ready for the Magic the Gathering Strixhaven draft I was going to be running.

So, every time I leave the house, I seem to forget something, usually something important. It turns out I had forgotten to pack the basic lands I was planning on using for the draft. I thought maybe I could pull basic lands out of my decks, and maybe make proxies if I didn't have enough. I took everything down to the event, expecting for it to be a complete disaster. Luckily, it turned out some other attendees were planning on running a Magic the Gathering draft of their own, and they allowed me to use their basic lands, which they had brought a lot of. Still, there were way more people than I had expected. I was able to provide support for 12 players and the other group was running Commander Legends, which meant they could support 8 players, but we still had to turn people away. But it seems everyone who got to play had a good time. Plus, I asked people in my draft to make a $10 donation to the convention charity, Tenacious Unicorn Ranch, if they wanted to keep the cards they drafted. We ended up raising $100 for the charity on that event.

After that, it was time for the Patron dinner, although I had to run everything up to my room first. Of course, once I got there, I learned that I had not been provided a ticket for the dinner at registration. So I had to go back to registration and ask them to give me a ticket, which they did. I went back and was able to get in. I ended up having some salad, couscous, chicken with artichoke, and some sort of chocolate cherry thing for dessert.

I was starting to get tired, but I stuck around for the Adult Improv with the Unmentionables panel. They tend to be funny and they were on point that night. I was planning on attending Foxene's second tattoo panel that night, but I was so exhausted after everything, so I just went back to my room for that night.

SUNDAY
I think I may have gotten 7 hours of sleep that night, because I woke up feeling good. Had more bad Starbucks coffee in the room, then walked about a mile to have breakfast at Sam's No. 3 Downtown. I ended up having two eggs over easy with sausage links, potatoes, whole grain toast, and a glass of orange juice. Went back and purchased a print, a deck of cards, and a grab bag from Foxene's table, along with some soap from Carambella Creations in the Artist's Alley. I then sat in on the Tech Furs panel, which was kind of interesting. I'm currently working in tech support, but I'm not very happy with it, so connecting with other tech furries seems like a good idea.

I went back to the Dealer's Den afterwards to pick up my badge from Bitters. I then went to the Magic the Gathering Commander event RitzBitz was running. I tried out my Slimefoot the Stowaway deck, but got stomped by Bird Wizards and Dinosaurs. I ended up not winning anything in the raffle either, so I left to get lunch. There was a lunch in the Sponsor's Lounge, but it seems I missed it again, so I went down the street to Subway and had a sweet onion chicken teriyaki sandwich with chips and root beer. I went back and made some more purchases in the Dealer's Den. I got some books from Fenris Publishing, who had a selection of materials from SofaWolf, Rabbit Valley, their own stuff, and some volumes of Beastars as well. I also purchased a balaclava from Fursuit Supplies, as I'm wondering if that will work with my mask piece. I also purchased a CD from Avian Invasion, since I'm a sucker for music. And I purchased two pins from Sherbert Jungle, one of a Croconana, and one of a Plancaiman.

After that, I went back up to my room to get everything for the Throne of Eldraine booster draft and started setting up a half hour before the event this time. The people from yesterday were back, because they were also doing a Time Spiral Remastered draft on the side. We ended up having 6 people in the Throne of Eldraine draft and 6 people in the Time Spiral Remastered draft. It was much less stressful, probably because there were not as many people to handle and because we had a plan in place. Plus, it helped that everyone had a good time. We ended up raising $70 for Tenacious Unicorn Ranch that day, as we had a last minute donation added from Saturday.

After that, I took everything back up and came back down for Closing Ceremonies. I was able to record that one as well, so I'll have to upload and edit that. Afterwards, I went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. I ended up having one of their Legendary burgers, which was pretty good. I went back to my room for a bit. It turned out one of my noisy neighbors was hosting a room party, so I checked that out. It wasn't really my thing, though, so I left after half an hour and went back to my room for the night.

MONDAY

I wouldn't normally bother with Monday, since the convention was over at that point, but I felt this deserved notice. I went to have breakfast at a coffee shop, and when I pulled out my wallet to pay for the meal, I found that I had lost one of my credit cards. My best guess is I left it at Hard Rock Cafe, because that was the last time I had used it, but I could have dropped it at the room party. So that massively upset me. I was upset for pretty much the entire drive home. I ended up having to deactivate that card and having my account transferred to a new card number.


So, that was it for DenFur. For the most part, the convention was fine. But I realize my experience is majorly different from most peoples. I saw the massive lines on Thursday night and most of Friday, and I did hear about the person who reported being in line for 7 hours. Fortunately, the convention was apparently able to speed up the line at some point. I'm not sure what they did that was causing it to take so much time, especially since there was no at-con registration this year because of the pandemic. At least they should have a better time next year.

I also learned a lot trying to run two drafts at the convention. If I want to try another draft event next year, there are some things I will have to take into consideration:

1. I can't realistically do this on my own. It helped that some of the people on Saturday volunteered to act as judges and helped with the draft, which made that day go more smoothly for me, and Sunday was relaxed enough that I was able to handle the event, but I clearly need to find more support if I want to do this again.

2. I may only want to run one draft per convention. That way, I can concentrate resource into the event, which should let me accommodate more people. Plus, with the same amount of resources, I could run up to 3 pods at once, allowing me to manage 24 players at the same time. There were about that many people at the Strixhaven draft, so that might be the ideal amount of resources to invest in the draft.

3. I will probably need to petition the convention for additional time and resources. The Strixhaven draft was scheduled for 2 hours, which was barely enough to get through the draft and the first round. The Throne of Eldraine draft was scheduled for 2 and a half hours, which at least let some people get through 2 rounds. The round tables, while good for drafting, were not great for playing at with 12 people. We ended up having to move one of the panel tables to accommodate everyone. Plus, I probably could have used the projector with my laptop to display a timer, so I could have put time limits on drafting, deck building, and on rounds.

4. I definitely need to have players sign up before hand. Having people sign up for Throne of Eldraine at the Strixhaven event allowed me to prepare a bit better for that, and we may have been able to better anticipate for the Strixhaven draft if players could sign up for that before the event.

It's giving me a lot to think about. I'm just not certain there's any sets that will match with the theme for the convention next year. The theme being Quest for the Holy Grail this year made Throne of Eldraine a practically perfect fit. Next year's theme being Furries in Wonderland doesn't map too well to Magic the Gathering. I'll put some more thought into it as the year progresses.

But yeah, overall the convention was fine. Hopefully the lessons learned from this year will make next year much better.

I'll be spending this weekend at DenFur. Hope to see you there. If not, then maybe afterwards.

Well, it happened again. Somehow I managed to survive another year. Not sure how.

Taken from  coloradofurs page

Where are you staying?

At the hotel this time.

When will you be there?

Thursday night to Monday morning.

How are you traveling?

By my car.

Who will you be rooming with?

Nobody.

What is the best way to find you?

I don't know. I'll probably be wearing my backpack, so that might be the best way to find me.

What do you look like?

Nothing special.

Will you be suiting?

No. I need to get fitted for contacts before I can really give that a shot.

What is your gender?

Male.

How tall are you?

Just shy of 5'8"

Are you taken?

No.

Can I talk to you?

I guess.

Can I touch you?

Ask first.

Can I visit your room?

I'm not sure why you'd want to. I'm not really going to be doing much special.

Can I buy you drinks?

I guess.

Can I give you stuff?

Maybe?

Can I hug or snuggle with you?

Ask first for hugs. Snuggles, probably not.

Are you nice?

I would like to think so.

Will you be going to parties?

Probably not.

Will you be performing?

Not really.

If I see you, how should I get your attention?

Be in front of me, wave, say "Hi".

Where will you be most of the time during the day/s?

Probably on site.

Can I come with you for food/fun/etc?

I guess so.

Can I take your picture?

If you wanted to, but you're probably wasting your time.

Who will you be hanging out with/seeing this year?

I'm not sure yet.

What's your goal(s) for the con this year?

Have a good time and not completely bungle the two events I'm running.

Yep. I somehow survived another year.

I feel like this past year has been exemplary of the saying, "If you want to make God laugh, tell them your plans." Considering at the end of Denfur 2019 they announced the convention would take place on the weekend when my birthday was, I started planning it out at that point. I was even giving serious consideration to booking a room at the hotel, despite all the negative rumors I had heard. But then the pandemic hit, and everything was canceled.

I finally got around to uploading my decent pictures from last year's Denfur. I should have done so sooner, but I never really felt like doing so.

I also have some video footage from last year's Denfur I should get around to editing and uploading. But between having a job and trying to run my gaming YouTube channel, it is difficult to make the time for more work.

Ah well. I'm gonna do my best to enjoy today.

Part 14 of Night in the Woods is online.

I may be working starting next week, so I'm trying uploading these parts in advance. Episodes should be available at 7:00 A.M. MST.

I know I'm yelling into the wind, but here's parts 8 and 9 of Night in the Woods.

Meant to post something yesterday, but I guess I forgot. I ought to work on some artwork for this as well, so I could maybe put something in my gallery and more people would actually see it. Anyway, here's parts 6 and 7.