Hi there,

I know it's been a long time since I posted a journal, and I'm going to post an update on things soon I promise! Right now though I want to share a really cool project that a friend is trying to get support for.  Tanraak is an incredibly good photographer, and is looking for support for a timelapse photography project in the northwestern US, and it looks absolutely awesome. If you love the mountains, exploring and hiking as much as I do, please give his kickstarter a look here https://www.kickstarter.com/project.....t-a-short-film and support him if you can!

Promise I'll update soon, there's a lot to talk about!

Shad

Thank you for reading this, I know everyone's journal feed is exploding with new years journals right now, and I appreciate you picking mine out to read through.

First a short request for some help, I'm now in a position where I have some extra money and can purchase commissions, but unfortunately I'm having a really hard time finding artists to commission. I would like artists that can draw both feral and anthro dragons, so if anyone knows artists that are taking commissions that can do that, please let me know, I'd really appreciate it.

Life has been very good, Bemmy came over for a month from November into December and we had a wonderful time, both here and in the mountains, which has become our getaway from eveyrthing. Well, other than the drive back from the mountains, in the middle of a blizzard, on a small, busy highway, that left 14 cars in the ditch and 4 of those were rollovers. That was the first time I've ever done true white knuckle driving, and let me tell you, when all that adrenaline wore off, the crash was... interesting (bodily crash, not vehicle). We're laying plans for more time together soon once things have settled out with finances, and may even be going to a con, we'll have to see!

I'm now contracting with a company that is working on hiring me, so financially things are starting to settle, and I'm making a lot of plans for the next while. It feels like I'm getting the last pieces of the foundation ready to begin building the rest of my life, as odd as that sounds given how good a position I've been in for the last while. It's just that not having that stable source of income has left me feeling like things were a little too in flux.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and has a wonderful new year!

Well, seeing as it's been six months, and some are probably wondering if I'm still alive, I should probably update on how life has been going haha.

On the job front I am finally starting to move into a permanent fulltime position in my field at last, something I have to admit I was wondering if I ever would the way things were going. I feel a lot more at home at this place than I have anywhere else, I chatter with my boss and coworker about DND, various games, computer hardware and software, all kinds of things. On top of that because of the small size of the team, I had a realization tonight that with the other guy moving to another team, and my manager moving up in rank I'll end up the head of the team, course there's only me left at that point which is going to be ugly. Well, at least until they hire another person.

My relationship with Bemmy is going very well, and we celebrated our one year anniversary back on May 29th. Balancing our schedules with a 7 hour offset is hard, but he gives so much so that we can make it work, staying up to insane hours of the morning for me. I love you Bemmy, thank you, so much. We're also going to have a visit in November and December which I'm very much looking forward to, especially getting to show Bemmy the winters here, and seeing the mountains in winter, which... I'm not even sure I've done before... interesting.

Otherwise I've gone pretty hermit to be honest, I'd blame it on drama and things, which has definitely played a role, but it's also that I'm quiet, and don't know what to say or talk about a lot of the time, and don't have a lot to talk about either, and I know it, and people drift. That's okay though, I miss a lot of old friends sometimes, but I'm glad when I see that their lives are going well.

We are what the past has made us, forging us in the fires of pain and sorrow, tempering us in the waters of joy and friendship, and we will never forget those that have left their marks upon us, for good, or ill.

If anyone has anything they'd want to ask about life that I might have forgotten, pm me or leave a response and I'll answer when I can.

Alright, short review before I head off for the night, I'll do a longer one if requested.

First to address the concerns people had:

Unified ammo - This is needed, the insane variety of weapons that you can get means either you unify ammo or make ammo a non-inventory item with unlimited carry capacity, or the player will be bogged down in ammo shuffling.

Co-op - I'm annoyed that I couldn't do some of the optional missions because they were co-op only, but there weren't too many, and it really has no impact on the single player experience at all.

Purchasable resources - I almost never ran out of resources, except near the end when I had to use scrap metal to make a lot of ammo since I was burning through it so fast. Honestly though, once you gain the ability to scavenge for resources (I'm not spoiling the mechanics of it) you pretty much never run dry, so I'm not sure why they put it in.

So overall thoughts: awesome game, well paced and thought out, some plot holes near the end, but not enough to derail the experience, and a very good length unlike some others (I'm looking at you Crysis 3 and your six hour campaign).

Final recommendation: Buy (on sale would be nice, but you'll get your monies worth even if it's not)

Alrighty, so it's been another year gone, and I've been blessed by the muse of insomnia tonight, so I thought I'd post a little journal of thoughts and things (though it's probably going to turn into a not so little journal). Summing up a year into a few lines isn't easy, but writing a book would be a little much.

This has been an amazing year overall, with dreams coming true for me as a result of hard work, and /very/ long nights put in. My contract position allowed me to build up a large sum in the bank account, and in the process it did horrible things to my ability to socialize and I'm sure made many think I'd turned into a hermit (well.. I suppose I have, but not as much as it probably seemed when I was working). As a result of all that work I was able to bring Bemmy over here to Canada, and take him to the Rocky Mountains for a long vacation, which we both enjoyed and treasured, and at the end of that vacation, on May 29th, we decided we worked together in person and online, and to become officially mates. For the rest of the year I've not been working due to tax reasons, and we've been able to spend a lot of time together thanks to Skype, growing and building our relationship, and then in October I went over to Britain to be with him, and to explore Europe. The trip was amazing, and I got to see more than I'd ever expected, and it's only fired my desire to explore the world to even greater heights.

This has, however, not been a year without loss; in late October, a week or so before I left on my vacation to see Bemmy and Europe, our dog Scamp passed away from a tumor that had reached her brain. The solace I can take from this is that I was home to be with her, and to get help to get her to the emergency vets, and if it had been a few weeks later, I wouldn't have been.

I've been asked a few times if I've got any new years resolutions, so here goes:
1. Get fit, seriously, stop slacking and being lazy already.
2. Bring Bemmy over again as soon as possible.
3. Start being more proactive and social.
4. Get a job ASAP or the tax man will get me.

And lastly some miscellanea:

Bemmy pointed out to me some time ago that most of my journals or posts online are very incongruous to my personality, coming across as brusque or even hostile. This is sadly the result of a long period of time where anything I posted, anywhere, would be used as ammunition against me. This part of my life was a long time ago, and I've long since forgiven those involved, but the result has been that when I do post, it's either aggressive because I've been pissed off to the point of posting something, or it's hostile as a subconscious preemptive strike. Doesn't make it right, but now you know some of the background at least.

And my pearl of wisdom for the new year:

We all make things in our lives complicated, much more complicated than they need to be, or should be. Try and simplify your life in the coming year, worry less about everyone else and what they might think, worry less about things that might happen, and focus on yourself and the ones that mean the most to you.

Hey everyone, just a heads up that I'm heading off to Europe with Bemmy as of Friday, a trip that's been almost a year in the planning. I'm very excited to be heading over there and I'll toss up journals when I can about how things are going, though given the spotty nature of my ability to get on the internet I can't make promises regarding timeframes. I'll be getting back late November, hope you all have fun while I'm off :)

Alrighty, Bemmy and myself have been trying to play MVM in Team Fortress 2 and have grown increasingly frustrated with the pathetic pugs we keep getting, so, who out there is good at TF2 and wants in? (please bear in mind the caveat that we will not be buying your MVM tickets for you)

Why do I need a vacation when I'm currently not working for tax reasons? Oh right, people.

Your character is most likely being stolen, check out the following link:

http://sites.adult-empire.com/7407/?rs=1

Yep, I'm back and I have to say I had an absolutely wonderful time with Bemmy during the time he was here.

Our time in Jasper was simply amazing, we stayed in a resort that was frankly stunning as hell, and got to watch as a lake thawed out to completely water. The sound of the breaking ice washing against the rocky shore is really incredible, like a thousand small crystal glasses shattering on rock over and over. We also went to this overlook point above Jasper that one of the waitresses in Smitty's recommended for us, and even though we went the wrong way and wound up hiking for four hours (and got to see a ton of other amazing sights in the process) when we got up there the view was completely worth it (I have pictures, and so does Bemmy ^^). I also have to say that our favourite restaurants in Jasper had to be Smitty's, Earl's, and Evil Dave's (which is kinda expensive, but the food was amazing). We also went west into B.C. to see what was out that way and there was a lot of very nice looking parks, as well as a monument to the Japanese who were placed in internment camps during WW2 and helped to build the Yellowhead highway, which I never knew before. We also got to see the Avengers in the theatre in Jasper, which while it was pretty small was actually quite nice, only two screens and a snug little place, one showing a day, but it was great, a really fun movie, in a beautiful town, with a beautiful person *nudges Bemmy and smiles*. I'm certain I'm forgetting some things we saw and did, but I was focussed more on him, and on enjoying our time together, I'll sit down and talk with him and see what I missed mentioning later on :)

After Jasper we went down along the glacier park highway, which is quite simply the most scenic drive I've ever done, every corner had another spot with a wonderful view. Along the way we stayed at the glacier view inn for a night, and then the chateau lake louise, which was simply astounding. I have to say it's the highest class hotel I've ever stayed in, and I'm still astounded with the quality of service we got there. Bemmy and I have already agreed we're going to be staying there again someday, and for longer ^^. The view to the lake was simply amazing, and it even had a whole bunch of shops and things inside for you to buy things at, very nice restaurants, the works, and the architecture of the entire building was astounding. Hehe, I annoyed some of the staff there because I was trying to help too much with luggage and things.

After that we got into Banff, which was... not what I'd expected or hoped. Banff I'm sure is a very nice town, but it's ridiculously overcommercialized, shops on top of shops on top of shops, and busy as all hell, to be honest driving in the town was frigging terrifying due to the huge numbers of pedestrians who apparently fail to understand basic road safety, and the insane amount of cars, combined with the small streets. Also, the whole place was utterly overrun with tourists, nothing against the asian community, but I swear I felt like I was in China at a few points. Also, oddly, all the staff and employees there seemed to be Australian... which makes no sense to me. Ah well, we had a great time relaxing and taking it easy, we didn't go to see much, but we enjoyed the pool and had a hell of an adventure looking all over town for swim goggles for the pool and wound up going to their local recreation center up in the depths of the town to find them. We spent a lot of time in the pool, but we also went up the gondola to sulphur mountain. Going up was pretty good, though I was a bit unsettled because I don't like heights, but once we got to the top, the views were simply awe inspiring, and yes, we have /lots/ of pictures. We got to look around up there and walk the path to the very peak of the mountain where there was a research station for a while, which is now a preserved historic site. We got to have a snack up in the cafeteria thing there since we were a bit early for dinner, and neither of us were hungry enough for it anyway haha. Now, the gondola ride down was honestly borderline terrifying, the wind started picking up and swaying the gondola around and that combined with my fear of heights (and Bemmies too) made for a very tense trip, I remember one point we both broke out laughing in sheer terror XD. When we got to the bottom the attendant told us they shut it down right after us because of the winds, so good timing on our parts!

After that we wound up heading through Calgary for a day where it was just pouring the whole time, and we didn't end up seeing much, then we headed back into Edmonton to relax and enjoy the rest of our trip together.

On the last day, on the way out to the airport, I took Bemmy to a high end restaurant for a farewell meal together, and we agreed there that we worked well together in person, which is something we wanted to test and see if it worked, and since it did, and because of how much we love and care for each other, we've decided to become officially mates ^^

I love you Bemmy! <4

Alright, I've decided to post the part I pulled from the life update post after all, and now that the journal about me being away for a month has been up long enough for people to see it I think now is the time.

When I get back from being out in the mountains with Bemmy I'm cleaning my contact lists. While I've said I'd do it before, and have removed a few here and there, I've decided it's time to do a full purge. This means that I'll be removing all those that don't bother to talk to me, those from portions of my past I'd rather close a chapter on (that don't talk to me), those that told me to my face I wasn't important enough to talk to, and those that have more than taken me for granted.

Basically this has come down to my wanting a fresh start, and to remove a lot of past history that I'd rather not have hanging around.

Yes, you read that right, Bemmy is coming over from Britain from the 2nd of May to the 29th of May, so I'm going to be offline for pretty much that entire time.

If you /absolutely/ have to reach me, please text my cell as we'll be in the mountains for a lot of that time and reception is spotty at best. I'll get back to you when I can, but that's about the best I can promise.

Alright, might as well just dive in I suppose. My contract work is coming to a close, with three days of work next week, and then I'm finished. I've applied for another position there that's full time permanent, but I'm not holding my breath on getting it given past experience. While it will be nice to be done with the evening shifts and be able to be online at normal times, and nice that poor Bemmy won't have to have a sleeping schedule that doesn't agree with him so we can have time together, which he accepted and did so wonderfully thoughtfully for me, I'm still torn about it, its been my life for the last eight months, and now... I dunno... I thrive on stability, and get squirmy when things get uncertain like this.

Bemmy is coming over in May for a while which I'm really looking forward to, getting to spend time with him where I haven't seen him in person for almost two years... good god has it been that long... and we're going to be planning tomorrow (Damned insomnia keeping me up). While he's here we're going to plan my trip over there with him to see Europe which is going to be awesome! Any suggestions on places to see would be very appreciated. Actually on that topic... is it bad that I get really annoyed and grouchy when people complain about their mates being sooooo faaaar awaaaaayyy when they're like... what.. a three hour drive away, or a short plane trip, while Bemmy is on the other side of the frigging planet?

I'm really looking forward to starting a new experiment with my chainmaille which I'm thinking could turn out very well, but I'm stuck waiting on some materials to show up (they still haven't cleared customs yet *grumble*). I'm going to be shouting about it if it does work ;)

I'm thinking I'm going to get a membership at the gym down the street now that they're back open again after their long renovations on Monday, then start going for an hour or so every day... I'm going to have time once my contracts up, that's for sure, and I'd like to be happier with what I see in the mirror, would do good things for my self confidence too, which is something I'm slowly improving. First thing I need though, as odd as it sounds, is to find a source for audio books that is as inexpensive as possible.

I still want to learn Russian, so I should be looking into courses for that after this contract is up and I'm back from my trip with Bemmy. I've got a stack of books from the STALKER world here that are sitting there taunting me, and it's driving me batty, but I just don't have the focus to teach myself sadly. I might also look into the bartending course that NAIT offers, purely for self interest and improvement since I don't know a lot about liquors and I'd like to find more nice ones. That said I'm going to be picking up a bottle of MacAllan 12 year old to celebrate the end of my contract.

There was another part here, but I've removed it for now while I do some thinking on if I should post it.

I'll get to that larger journal eventually, for now, does anyone know where I can get my claws on some glow in the dark blue and purple paint?

Just a note to let people know I'm still alive, 6 day weeks of evening shift are wreaking havoc on me though.

I'll post a larger journal later when I have more time.

Alright... time for something I've been putting off, I'm going to be cleaning out my contacts in messengers. If you don't want to get caught by it, send me a message or a note.

Longer journal later after I've had some time to gather my thoughts on some things.

So, that's that then, GSC gameworld is shut down, which means no STALKER 2. I have to say I'm stunned by this as they seemed to be doing very well, hell they had a book series, line of clothing, a movie in the works, STALKER 2 coming down the pipe... but alas, some things are not meant to be. I was really looking forward to STALKER 2, so hopefully it will be bought out promptly and by someone that isn't incompetent and would turn it into a call of duty/modern warfare style BLASPHEMY. Just please lord, don't turn into duke nukem and that whole gongshow...

Anyway, I'm looking for an artist that I could commission for a tribute piece for it, any ideas?

Okay, backwards order to the title.

Life as a whole, I've been keeping to myself a lot of late, for very good reason, I've been going through some extreme emotional upheaval and dealing with a lot of... well.. old scars, and old things I'm not particularly proud of in hindsight. Long story short I'm starting to get myself back together, properly this time, and dealing with some of the deepest scarring I carry. That said, I'm still gonna be kinda hermitish for a while.

The local fur community... well... I've started avoiding for the most part, I'm just not a party hardy drink myself onto the floor type person. That said, FC I got pretty good and blitzed, it's all about time, place and reason I suppose, instead of just any excuse to break out the booze. Also, I get the feeling a lot of the local furs just don't know how to relate to me, for that matter I don't think many do at all, and I'm debating about updating my FA homepage with a list of interests and random info, would this be helpful to people to get to know me better?

I also start night shift today, which means my time online is going to be early in the day before going to the gym before work, or late at night after getting home from work. That said, a good portion of the time I'll probably be appearing offline to spend time with Bemmy, so I can't guarantee when I'll be online at all as he comes first, if you see me online, message me quick, that's about the best suggestion I can make.

And at last... Skyrim... devourer of souls...

This game is astounding, that's about the only way to describe it. The biggest flaw I've found with it has to be the interface, it's clunky and has some issues with accurately knowing what you're clicking on. That said it's still workable.

Now, on to an overview of the game:

The graphics are jaw droppingly, earth shakingly, amazing, we're talking "when the hell did FMV video's become a fully controllable game?" level here, and apparently optimized so even if you're not running a monolithian rig like I am it still looks great. Dynamic shadows have never looked so good, and texture maps, textures, everything flows together seamlessly to creature a world of unbelievable beauty. I'm uploading screenshots to my steam profile almost continuously of things that have made me go wow... actually I think I may well run out of room soon.

Sound is absolutely perfect, now I know most of the people that will read this don't live in a climate where you're likely to get a lot of snow like we do here, but when you're up on the mountain peaks in Skyrim and there's just the sound of the wind and in back of it there's this deep silence like the world is holding it's breath... that's real... that happens... and no game before has EVER managed to make that as perfect as Skyrim, and if they can make /silence/ perfect... should tell you a lot about the game.

Gameplay is polished like a bloody gem, want to be a sword and shield warrior, go for it, want to be a spell slinging mage, go for it, want to be a sword wielding, heavy armor wearing, spell slinging, lockpicking, badass like me? Go for it. The game's difficulty scales beautifully, with the farther you range out from the starting areas the more dangerous the monsters get, while at the same time closer areas get bumped up so they're never a complete cakewalk. Though I do giggle when I one shot skeletons in lower areas with my lightning bolt and watch them literally fly apart into bits. The economy is well done, with the vendors having limited gold on hand to buy things and then running out, and only buying things that they'd actually want, a blacksmith buying armor and weapons, and a mage buying spells and books for example. This makes you think about who to sell what to because they have more money on hand, ie. unload your low value crap onto the person with little gold, and the good stuff onto the person with a lot.

Story... good GOD this game is endless... I've been playing continuously and have only visited the FIRST city so far, and explored a fraction of the world, and every time I turn around more quests are popping up, new storylines, random encounters, and all kinds of things, explore everywhere, you'll find quests, loot, things you can't imagine, and vistas of unbelievable beauty. To give you an idea, I have the option right now, I could become a werewolf if I really wanted to.

Annnd I'm gushing, anyway, the best summation I can give is before I started playing I refused to pay the $150 for the collectors edition... now I'm kicking myself for not buying it and contemplating buying it too... which means I'll have spent $200 on this game in total...

Yeah I'm afraid fc is a no go for me, when I crunch the numbers on lost income (as I'm a contractor and don't get vacation pay) and expenses and include that I haven't heard back from anyone that I was going to go with I've decided its best to just torpedo the whole thing until I know more about employment past February and stuff.

So I'm thinking when my money recovers from the... exceedingly annoying... delay of being paid, I'm going to have to commission someone to draw me in power armor with a heavy bolter since I'm enjoying ripping it up in Space Marine's multiplayer with that monstrosity of a gun.

I created a half persian 3/1 for a commissioner just like normal with a few tweaks to their specifications, and yet the weave is behaving... strangely... yet to the best of my efforts, I can't find anything wrong with the weave itself... interesting.

edit: hmm, on further experimentation it seems that the section I made entirely from metal rings to make it work is the source of the strange behavior as it induces an odd tendency for the weave to twist on itself.

I hate to do this, but thanks to issues with Canada Post I'm being delayed in receiving my latest shipment of rings, until that gets in I'm unable to do anything that needs white rings, which is a healthy portion of my current commission load, in the meantime I'm working on the other commissions I have outstanding and should have more to show soon.

So, normally I don't do this, but I've lost patience completely with a certain artist, I'll let you try and guess who. This artist collaborated on an art folio a while ago which they offered for sale, I was at the time a little more towards the broke end of things, so I put in the money for a digital copy. The deal was the digital copy would be sent out after all the print copies, all fine and good, protect yourself from piracy, I getcha... that is until we get to this point several months down the line where they STILL haven't finished sending out the print copies and I'm wondering if I've thrown my money down a damned hole... if this is supposed to protect you from piracy by taking your sweet time, guess what, I could have pirated it almost a month ago, but I wanted to support you, guess what isn't happening next time. I should mention that I'd be happy if there had at least been a confirmation of payment email from said artist, but I got exactly jack squat to show that I gave them anything other than my paypal receipt.. oh and it's past the point where I can send it to paypal for arbitration.

Hey, if you're looking for chainmaille using glow in the dark stretch rings from me you should probably let me know ASAP as I just heard back from my suppliers that they are discontinuing their production of glow in the dark rings DX

You read that right, I have found a supplier for purple and green rings, I am fully in business and ready to start commissions, let the fun times roll!

Disclaimer: due to postal strike, yadda yadda, buying from two suppliers to keep costs down, etc... My prices do have to go up a touch, I'll be bulk ordering the green and purple rings once I know how many commissions I need them for, and go from there. Most likely we're only looking at about a $5 increase in cost due to shipping issues.