I really, REALLY wish FA would just...totally hide all content from users when they block you. Nothing sucks a fat one more than spending time writing a nice comment to an artist you liked, only to lose everything you've typed out AND be told you're blocked in one go. I'd rather not deal with that anguish, especially considering you're allowed to continue watching people who've blocked you and keep seeing their work in your submissions, journals, etc.! How many times have folks followed someone and admired their work without knowing they're blocked/hated by said artist, never knowing until the moment they decide to compliment the person?

This is wrong and should be rectified.

Is there a way to turn off or hide the gratuitiously explicit ads while I'm logged in, without otherwise affecting my site experience? I realize I'm on a furry porn site, but I'd rather not have a different obnoxious dildo or massive booba ad pop up every other time I load a page...it's just annoying and something I am 100% disinterested in seeing. (The site did NOT always have explicit ads!)

I took advantage of the read-only period to go through all of my 8,000+ submissions. Took me about a week of casual browsing but I'm finally back to an empty inbox, yay :D

I will be there! How could I possibly miss a furry convention whose theme is TRAINS?! I'm staying in the con hotel (Seaport Hotel Boston) for the duration of the convention. I'll have my inflatable Mactoy prototype with me, as well as my giant inflatable Houndoom, and of course, Fenris! They are all likely to be in ANE's inflatable panel on Friday evening, starting at 5 PM. I won't be hard to find if you wanna hang out, owing to my little blow up wolf, Lucky, always being under my arm. This will be my second ANE (I was there in 2020 at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel), and I hope this one will be just as fun, if not more so!

Who thought this was a good idea? No real reason was given, and to claim the replacement is a Discord server is just a spit in our faces, to be bluntly honest. Not everyone uses Discord (I definitely don't) and really, an IM service is hardly a replacement for a forum.

This website has sure been making some ridiculous decisions lately, just add this to the pile. You cannot even comment on news and updates anymore. Where are you supposed to air your grievances, criticisms, and suggestions? Or is that on purpose?

Here's a topic I haven't spoken about for quite some time: my real life inflatable Mac project! He will he known as Mactoy, and I have some great news to share: Inflatable World in Germany have just informed me that they are now working on the first blank white prototype inflatable Mactoy, and I should be able to show him to you all by the end of this year! This has been a long time coming, and I am so excited to see the project moving forward. Keep your eyes peeled for further updates!

When did this start happening here? I'm now getting ads between clicks, usually when navigating between submissions in my list and browsing artwork. Is this a new feature? Have to say it's rather irritating and I wish it would go away...

EDIT: Anyone else getting a weird 'snap' effect when scrolling some pages, especially while scrolling through your submission list? Halfway down your scroll, the page instantly snaps further down, or further up while scrolling back up. This is extremely annoying and often causes me to tap on the wrong links. This is occurring on my Samsung Galaxy S9+, using Chrome.

It has been a very long time since I was active here, so I figured I'd say a bit about what's been going on with me in the years since.

- I'm in a happy, open, polyamorous relationship with three other guys - one lives across the city, one lives across the country, and one lives across the world

- I had a former longtime best friend very suddenly cut me entirely out of his life for no reason whatsoever and with no warning. I'm still recovering from this

- I am now a paid weekday curator at the Central Florida Railroad Museum, where I get to teach visitors about railroad history and talk trains all day

- I have also become quite the aviation enthusiast, or AvGeek, with a primary interest in civil airliners. My favorite aircraft include the MD-80 and 747

- I had a root canal performed last month. It wasn't half as bad as people tend to think they are

- I am fully vaccinated, and fortunately have not lost anyone to COVID-19. I myself caught the virus in October 2020 but only had mild symptoms before it left my system...the worst thing was not being able to taste my Halloween candy

- I am still tinkering with and repairing electronics; my local news station interviewed me last month and broadcast the story on TV in several markets. I'm now getting several repair inquiries per week

- I have run two successful custom inflatable toy projects using my own factory in China (a 'fun size' version of Fenris, and a similarly sized Houndoom from Pokémon), with more projects planned for the future. I have also commissioned a one-off prototype with said factory of my own fursona, Mac, to show potential buyers what they will ultimately receive if they order a Mactoy from Inflatable World in Germany

- Animal Crossing New Horizons has become a part of my daily routine

- Fenris, my big patchy inflatable wolf, is still happy and healthy, and has made many new friends

- My fursuit, Mac, is also still with me and in good shape for being nearly 9 years old

My friends and family are healthy and doing well. Dad just had his hip replaced but is recovering quickly. For the most part, life has been good, though there have been setbacks. Nothing is ever perfectly rosy and happy! Hopefully, 2022 will treat all of us better than the last couple years did.

I haven't logged in for over 5 years...I have updated all my account info, cleared submissions, journals, etc., read comments and notes, and otherwise cleaned things up. I am not sure yet whether I will start posting submissions of my own again. :P

Sorry this is so late! I've been busy running around like a headless chicken, unpacking, repairing inflatables, and getting back to boring everyday life. Megaplex 16: The Wrath of Con was a total blast!



Thursday: I got to the hotel with my roommates  kaiser001,  morokai,  hunter_foxclaw,  lylatsystem, and  xenonnobel. We were all in and settled by evening, and explored for the rest of the night.



Friday: We all attended the Pool Party and Dessert Social at the hotel's main swimming pool. It was packed! Fenris was a huge hit in the pool as usual. He only had one minor seam split on his tail, but that was quickly repaired and he was back in the pool in no time. There was vanilla ice cream with gummi bears, brownies, lemonade and more...it was a great time!



Saturday: My Inflatable Animal Toys Meet-and-Greet panel started at 5:30 PM, and ran until about 8PM. We had a great turnout, and tons of toys!! This year's new arrivals included my massive inflatable winged wolf Zephyr (based on  kwisa, with permission), whom all the fursuiters had a blast trying to ride, as well as my Hongyi Arcanine toy, who got his photo taken with two fuzzy Arcanines! Everyone pitched in to help with inflation and deflation, and the panel went off without a hitch. Immediately following my panel, I got into fursuit for the fursuit photo, and hung out in the improvised fursuit mingle for a bit. (The proper fursuit parade had been canceled due to rain.) I was also one of four fursuiters chosen to interact with a surprise guest: 8-year-old Giovanni, a Make-A-Wish recipient who had originally wished to go to SeaWorld, but chose instead to attend Megaplex after seeing the fursuiters. After I got out of suit, I ate dinner at Laguna, the DoubleTree Hotel's on-site restaurant, with Hunter and  xavieralexander. We had some delicious pizza, and I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup with fries. The food was all great, and our waitress was amazing!



Sunday: This was a mostly chill day. I took the Power Wagon for a spin around the conspace, and was even invited into the headless lounge in the Main Tower, so the suiters had something to do while cooling off and relaxing. We also swam in the pool some more, and Fenris got to laze around and float. ^^ Closing Ceremonies were at 6PM. Following the official end of the con, I suited back up and walked in the rescheduled late night fursuit parade, which had us walking outside between buildings. Boy, was that HOT! I was so glad to get out of Mac and take a nice cool shower afterward. Once I'd relaxed for a bit, I went with  hunter_foxclaw,  lylatsystem,  xenonnobel, and  xavieralexander to the nearby Delmonico's Italian Steakhouse for a late dinner. It was quite expensive, but very good, and I had a wonderful time just chatting with my friends over a nice dinner. ^^



We were checked out of the hotel by 1PM on Monday, and we went our separate ways.  kaiser001 stayed at home with me until the following Friday; we explored the local railyard, sniffed out some old abandoned airplanes behind the airport, and played with our inflatable pooltoys together. ^^ On that Friday, we made a day out of exploring the Orlando International Airport (KMCO). I got a gate pass and walked around with him after going through TSA security. We rode the new APM (people mover), took lots of great airplane photos, and ate together, before he had to board his plane home at about 7PM. Im gonna miss him so much!

Anyway, that's about it, as far as my explanation of my time surrounding Megaplex 2017. I had a GREAT time. Thank you so much to everyone who helped to make my con experience the best it could be! (You know who you are; I can't possibly name all of you!) Check my FA for photos from the event and related excursions!

This evening, I decided to finally reset my password, check my notes, nuke my submissions and journals, reply to my comments, update my profile, and in general sweep away the dust and cobwebs from my FA account. I am considering bringing it back online in a limited capacity, and may post a few new art submissions over the coming weeks. I've reorganized my gallery and moved several things to and from my Scraps folder. To those of you still watching me, thanks for sticking around. I make no promises, but I'm hoping to start using this account a bit more regularly moving forward. Stay tuned!

Hey all, I am hoping to plan a photo shoot during Megaplex for all of the  sparkycando fursuiters planning to attend! I have not yet set up a day and time, so feel free to comment with your ideas and suggestions. (Obviously we will be doing this indoors!) If you want, you can text me at 321-663-6244 (TEXT ONLY PLEASE) or email me at yamahafreak (at) cfl.rr.com, subject line 'SparkyCanDo Photo Shoot'.

I look forward to meeting many Sparky friends! ^.^

So apparently I have been blocked by  dibbun both here and on Twitter. I discovered the latter first, and assumed it was a Twitter error, and so tried here, and apparently it's NOT an error. Does anyone here know him? He's local to the area and we had always gotten along just fine in the past. I am shocked and disappointed that he would suddenly block me out without telling me why. Since I obviously can no longer communicate with him, can someone here that knows him please ask him what I may have done to incite this? I am completely taken aback... :'C

Am I the only one that is more than a bit put off by the presence of non-furry banner ads on FA, that have nothing at all to do with the site? This is surely a result of the recent IMVU acquisition. While I understand that I could always use AdBlockPlus (please don't bother me about this), I prefer not to. What gets me is the fact that IMVU seems to be, in some small way, betraying our site by homogenizing it with the rest of the 'normal' Internet. Just my thoughts.

I am still alive, just not using FA nearly as much as I used to. I'm much more active over on Twitter (@DDA40X6936) but I do plan to still upload artwork and photos to this site, though less frequently than in the past. Feel free to send me a note if you need, as I do still read and reply to all of those. Twitter is the best way to get ahold of me immediately, though! And yes, I WILL be at Megaplex. ^^

I've made it into another iteration of TRAINS Magazine's 'Trackside with TRAINS' Photo Contest! :D This time, the theme is 'GE Locomotives'. My photo is of CSX number 7728, a GE C40-8W diesel. In fact, my photo can be seen on FA as well, right here: http://www.furaffinity.net/full/10286133/

Here is the URL: http://trn.trains.com/photos-videos.....comotive-shots

My photo appears last in the lineup under my name, Patrick Smith. If enough people vote for me, I'll be published in TRAINS Magazine! ^.^

Yes, I will be there, all four days! I should also be at Three Points for the bowling outing. I will have several things going on this year:

- Fenris, and maybe some other inflatable toys, will once again be in the hotel pool for the Pool Party on Friday evening!
- The Power Wagon will return this year, with Mario Kart Wii, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, MarioParty 8, Wii Play, and more games! You can also exchange Nintendo 3DS StreetPass tags at the wagon. Get those last few Puzzle Swap pieces or clear some more rooms in the Find Mii games!
- I will be hosting my own panel this year: the Inflatable Animal Toys Meet-and-Greet! Come see several large, squeaky, huggable inflatable toys on Friday night between 9:30 and 11:30 PM in the 'Maple' panel room, right across from the Game Room!

I'll be fursuiting and will be in the parade. Come get ALLL the hugs!

I hope to see many of you there. Oh, and GIMMEE YOUR CANDYYY OMNOMNOM

My fursuit, Mac, is one of eight finalists in TRAINS Magazine's 'Trackside with TRAINS' photography contest! The theme this time is 'Trackside Fun'. You can vote here:

http://trn.trains.com/en/Trackside/.....ide%20fun.aspx

No registration or sign-in is required to vote. Every vote counts! Spread the word to your friends, and on Facebook and Twitter! If Mac wins, he will be published in a future issue of TRAINS Magazine! ^.^

Wanna see?

http://m.wesh.com/news/railroad-cro.....-year/25180044

I was on WESH 2, a local news station, for a story about malfunctioning railroad crossing gates. My YouTube video 'Amtrak and the Broken Gates' was also featured!

The report itself was okay, though the message that I was really hoping to convey to the public was toned way down. The biggest thing is to ALWAYS be aware, look both ways when crossing tracks, and ALWAYS expect a train from any direction, on any track, at any time. Look, Listen, Live!

EDIT: In the video, the reporter claims I dialed 911 and was the first to report this crossing system as malfunctioning. The reality is that I called the CFRC (Central Florida Rail Corridor, the owners of the track) Emergency number, NOT 911, and I was not the first to report the malfunction, according to the woman on the other end. Amtrak PO92 was well aware the crossing had issues, hence why he slowed and stopped. Had the crossing not yet been reported as failed, the train would have gone through at track speed (60+ MPH) and severe or fatal consequences could easily have resulted!

Gotta keep this short so I'm not late, but I will be there! Look for Mac and come get some hugs <3

All six nearly new SD70M-2s are going off the roster. Additionally, FEC 2000, the first heritage-painted unit, a GP40, is being returned to EMD.

*assumes the fetal position*

As a faithful fan of the Florida East Coast Railway and an EMD lover, I died a little inside when I read my email this morning.

The FEC is about to purchase GE locomotives. Yes, GE.

From TRAINS Magazine's News Wire:

"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Florida East Coast Railway will acquire 24 new ES44C4 locomotives from General Electric. The new locomotives will be used in main line freight service on the railroad's route between Jacksonville and Miami.

"These locomotives will provide the fuel efficient power we need to support the current operations and future growth of the railroad," says Fran Chinnici, senior vice president of mechanical, engineering and purchasing at FEC.

"We're excited to have our Evolution Series locomotives join FEC's fleet. This locomotive model is the most fuel-efficient locomotive in the North American heavy-haul market today," says Dave Tucker, vice president of global sales at GE Transportation.

These are the first GE locomotives in the railroad's history."

For those that may not know, the FEC, since their 1939 dieselization, has been a 100 percent EMD railroad. Every single piece of motive power they have ever owned, from their first GP7s to their beautiful E-unit passenger diesels to their 'ugly duckling' BL2s to the venerable GP40-2s and SD40-2s to the big new SD70M-2s, has been made by Electro-Motive. Many railfans have been drawn to the FEC because they can be assured of hearing what they love: the unmistakable chugging and screaming of EMD 645 and 710 diesel engines, and beautiful Leslie RS3L airhorns, uninterrupted by the very commonplace deep guttural chugging of the GE 7FDLs and GEVO-12s now extremely commonplace on every Class I railroad in the USA. Unfortunately, that is all about to change - The FEC is about to take delivery of twenty-four brand-new GE ES44C4 diesels. This seems as out-of-place to me as a bottle of Coke on a shelf stocked with Pepsi cans. To most, 24 is not a large number...but on the FEC, which is a small regional railroad compared to the much bigger Class Is, 24 new diesels is enough to supplant most everything in mainline service. What this means is that those 24 new GEVOs are likely to push every SD40-2 and GP40-2 off the mainline. A few will likely be retained for hauling local trains and switching in the yards, but most will be sold off or worse, scrapped. :'( Even the newer SD70M-2s, which will become orphaned, may not be safe-they could find themselves on lease to other railroads or sold. In essence, an all-EMD railroad will become a mostly GE railroad in a matter of a few short months.

The decision is being made by the recent owners of the FEC, Fortress Investment Group. I fear, in the back of my head, that this company will slowly run the FEC into the ground. The train crews and maintenance workers/mechanics on the FEC have worked on EMD equipment their entire careers at FEC; they will have to re-learn everything to use and work on these new GEs. On top of this, these new locomotives are a $40 million investment that really doesn't need to be made. Any marginal fuel savings the GEVOs may make will take a long time to repay that enormous purchase. From a business standpoint, this all makes absolutely no sense to me...and I can almost guarantee that if the FEC was still under private ownership, they'd be buying more SD70s, or nothing at all.

TL;DR: The Florida East Coast Railway is buying General Electric diesels for the first time EVER, and it's depressing me greatly. ;_; I'm a huge fan of the FEC BECAUSE of their EMD power, and to hear that it will mostly be going away is tragic.

As of New Year's Day 2014, I have officially been a member of Fur Affinity for five whole years, half a decade! There's been loads of good times, a few bad times, I've made so many awesome friends, and only met a few assholes. I'd say it's one of my favorite places to be online. Thank you for all of your watches, faves, and every single comment. Now, onto the next five years!

...apparently I am on  lobitaworks's block list.

How I ended up here is anyone's guess. I have had absolutely NO contact with Growly since I asked her about a fursuit quote almost a year ago - in which I was summarily denied on the basis that apparently I'm no good with money...? I had just now tried to inquire about her recently-advertized fursuit bandanas and was met with the block list notice.

I'm not one to judge...but when you judge me based on a tiny debate that happened years ago and then decide to block me, both from your userpage and your business and products, because you didn't honor your own words, I will call you out on it. Blocking your 'problems' doesn't make them go away.

So I have returned from yet another trip to Folkston, Georgia, to watch trains at the Folkston Funnel. I always bring some of my inflatable toys with me to entertain photographers, kids, and the train crews alike. At this year's WinterWatch event, I brought along three toys--my wolf, Fenris; my fox, Nate; and one of my new Balto toys. This WinterWatch was also my fursuit Mac's first appearance at the Funnel, and the crews LOVED him! I heard the Amtrak Auto Train crew talking about my 'big 'ol ears' on the scanner. XD Several photos were taken, a few of which will be posted here on FA, and videos will later make their way to my YouTube Channel, 'SpeakerPolice'. (The latter may take some time, as Google recently clusterf*cked YouTube's interface, and it will probably take me awhile to re-learn it all!)

I hope you all have been well, and are enjoying your December so far. *hugs you all* ^.^