For those of you who knew Scamper, I am sorry to report that we put him down today at approximately 2:45 p.m. PDT. It was harder than I thought it would be.

Just a quick note to wish everyone a happy holiday season, whatever that season may be. Me, I have no real plans and just hope to enjoy a few quiet days off from work. See you next year!

To those who are celebrating, have a fun day. To the rest of the world, just move along. Nothing to see here.

I've never done one of these meme things before but I'm bored and ran across this one in  cronoliganthah's journal. So, here goes:

1. How old will you be in five years?
55 *snickers* 55 in 5. How poetic.

2. Who did you spend at least two hours with today?
Pepper, my cat. It's Monday so I'm working from home and haven't been out of the house yet today.

3. How tall are you?
5' 9" or 69 inches :) or 175 centimeters.

4. What do you look forward to most in the next six weeks?
Eurofurence

5. What's the last movie you saw?
At home or in the theater? At home was Alien Uprising (yea for cheesy sci-fi). In the theater was Transformers II (yea for things that explode).

6. Who was the last person you called?
Pepper's vet.

7. Who was the last person to call you?
My riding instructor.

8. What was the last text message you received?
"3?" I'll let you guess what it was about. :)

9. Who was the last person to leave you a voicemail?
See number 7.

10. Do you prefer to call or text?
Depends.

11. What were you doing at 12am last night?
You mean 12:00 a.m. this morning? Climbing into bed.

12. Are your parents married/divorced?
Deceased.

13. When did you last see your mom?
A week before she died which would have been a few years ago.

14. What color are your eyes?
Green? Hazel? There is some debate.

15. What time did you wake up today?
8:30 a.m. local time.

16. What are you wearing right now?
An old pair of shorts.

17. What is your favorite Christmas song?
Don't care much for Christmas. Too commercial. But, of late, I have found Rusty Chevrolet amuses me during the season.

18. Where is your favorite place to be?
Stable where my horse is boarded.

19. Where is your least favorite place to be?
Work. Used to like it.

20. Where would you go if you could go anywhere?
Lots of places but Australia is at the top of the list right now.

29. What color are your sheets?
Sort of a cream color.

30. How many pillows do you sleep with?
One.

31. What is your favorite season?
Don't really have one.

33. What do you like about winter?
No yard work except picking up things the wind blew in like parts of the roof.

34. What do you like about the summer?
No wind storms.

35. What do you like about spring?
I'll get back to you on this.

36. How many states/provinces have you lived in?
Four.

37. What cities/towns have you lived in?
Huntsville
Anniston
Chattanooga
Ringgold
Atlanta
Renton
Kent
Ravensdale

38. Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare paws?
Depends. At home, bare. Otherwise, socks and my Nikes.

39. Are you a social person?
Not really.

40. What was the last thing you ate?
Thing of blueberry yogart.

41. What is your favorite restaurant?
Depends on the mood I'm in.

42. What is your favorite ice cream?
Butter pecan.

43. What is your favorite dessert?
Black Forest cake.

44. What is your favorite kind of soup?
Not a big soup fan. Really only eat it when I'm too sick to eat anything else.

45. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich?
Blackberry, the seedless kind.

46. Do you like Chinese food?
Yes.

47. Do you like coffee?
Sometimes. But, it doesn't like me so I don't drink it.

48. How many glasses of water, a day, do you drink on average?
Two. Not nearly enough.

49. What do you drink in the morning?
Nothing.

51. Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed?
Yes.

52. Do you know how to play poker?
No.

53. Do you like to cuddle?
Insufficient data.

54. Have you ever been to Canada?
Yes.

55. Do you have an addictive personality?
Not really.

56. Do you eat out or at home more often?
I eat out way to much. Too expensive so I'm trying to change that.

58. Do you know anyone with the same birthday as you?
Yes.

59. Do you want kids?
Hell no!

60. Do you speak any foreign languages?
I speak enough German to get into trouble.

62. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance?
No.

63. Do you prefer an ocean or a pool?
Neither. Not that keen on large bodies of water. But, pools are better because you cannot see what's in the ocean.

64. Do you prefer a window seat or aisle seats?
Window.

65. Do you know how to drive stick?
Sort of. But, I'm not good enough to actually drive one anywhere but on the freeway.

66. What is your favorite thing to spend money on?
Food.

67. Do you wear any jewelry?
No.

68. What is your favorite TV show?
Don't watch TV. Now that the old analog channels are off the air, I'm not even sure I could if I wanted to.

69. Can you roll your tongue?
Yes.

70. Who is (are) the funniest person (people) you know?
Several, in their own unique ways.

71. Do you sleep with stuffed animals?
No.

72. What is the main ring tone on your phone?
The default that came with the phone.

Guess I should get back to work.

It has been three days of craziness but, as with all good things, it must come to an end. Not quite sure where to begin and, if I miss anyone, please forgive me. I'm an old man who has not had any booze in a few hours. The short version is that Uncle Kage and his staff have done it again. Let's see. I believe the final numbers were 450 fursuiters in the parade and a total attendance of three thousand, seven hundred and something. Still the largest fur con in the world! OMG! Guess where I will be this time next year. :)

Pittsburgh has been a wonderful host city. The businesses around the area went out of there way to provide us with whatever we needed, especially food. They hired extra staff and made up specials and t-shirts and extended their normal hours all for us. Kind of the opposite of the places in Philadelphia which seemed to do their best to make us un-welcome.

Thanks to a good friend, I had a beautiful room in which to spend a few hours, okay, several hours, a day sleeping. As always, there were some awesome fursuits. Dakota Wolf and Dreamsong (Dreamsinger? I cannot remember. She's going to hurt me!), who is a beautiful cheetha, both spring to mind. The faces were just beautiful. And, I met many people I have only talked to online. Muscle Wolf and Dineegla, you guys rock! But, the best part is seeing old friends, some of whom I only get to see at Anthrocon. Lionus, Amadhi, 2, Jibba, The German Furs, and so many others. You made this a great weekend. Thanks!

I arrived in Pittsburgh yesterday afternoon and traffic was insane. Everyone seemed to be trying to flee the area. Today, I know why. The place is crawling with furry and alien beingss! OMG! :) I am about to head out to see if I can find some food without becoming someone else's lunch.

My beloved computer is out of the hospital and back home. The hard drive was failing but they managed to recover most of my data, at least all of the important stuff. The transplant was successful and a new hard drive is humming away. A backup system was grafted on, too. Russ at http://www.compucheap.com rocks! Now, all I have to do is restore all of my programs and settings. And, in the name of all that is unholy, how did I end up back on IE 6? Now, the question is, do I put 7 back on or bite the bullet and go to IE 8? Any advice?

And, FA, why do I keep getting an error that says the movie I'm playing is causing Flash to run slow and will crash my computer if this continues? I'm not watching a damn movie! I realize I probably have an old Flash player along with the old version of IE but you should play nicely with the aged. We have most of the money! :)

I saw my first blue screen of death on Windows XP this morning. This cannot be good. Computer was fine when I went to bed last night. Was having "Delayed write errors" when I got up. Will drop it off at the shop tomorrow and hope for the best. In the mean time, I may be slow to respond to email or anything else since all I have is my work laptop and the corporate firewall is, shall we say, suspicious.

Also, if you sent me an email between about 10:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time last night (Tuesday, 14 April) and some time this morning, you might want to resend it since it could be stuck in Outlook Express on my comatose computer.

That is all.

It is still winter. I have now been stuck in the house for exactly one week. Reports said the roads, if you could get to them, were okay. I looked out the garage and there was no massive snow drift up against the door like the three foot snow drift up against my back door. So, needing to get some bills paid and wanting some food I have not cooked, I got dressed and headed out. The first few feet went fine and then I realized how deep the snow in the driveway was as the car settled in. Up to the doors. With a shovel, and help from a neighbor who suspended his fight with a frozen pipe long enough to assist me, we managed to dig the car out and get it back into the garage. My broken toe is not pleased, even after taking a vicodin. I've had enough deity cursed winter for the next few years. MAKE IT STOP!

It's not bad enough that I have been frozen into the house for a week and that the current temperature is 8 degrees F (which is a lot of negative Cs for you folks not in the U.S. and 28 deg F below the normal low) and that I have almost a foot of snow outside. No, no, no, no. Mother nature is just getting started with her PMS fit. Tomorrow, 50 mile per hour winds with 75 mph gusts are forecast. (And I've never known them to over predict the winds out here.) Oh, and don't forget there will be more snow with the winds and sleet and freezing rain. If I wanted to live in this kind of climate, I'd have gotten a job at one of the arctic research stations. Enough of this shit already! Whatever happened to global warming?
</venting>

I am currently in Suhl, Germany and Eurofurence is in full swing. Wednesday night was the bar-b-que and much drinking. Last night was the bond-fire and much drinking. Tonight is the 2 and Kage show with Jibba opeing for 2. That should be painful. The kind of pain you get from laughing way too much in too short of a time. Ow. :) Tomorrow night is the always amazing puppet show which is a full up stage production with music and lighting effects and you name it. (The Germans do NOTHING half way.)

Now, I must leave and see if I can log out. The connection here is, shall we say, not secure.

Tallyhawk

I am leaving for Eurofurence shortly so Internet access will be questionable for awhile. If you don't hear from me for a few days, worry not. I'm too busy or too drunk or both to respond. ;)

Someone ( lionus) has suggested that I post some of my stories here as well as my FurNation account. I figure why not? To stay true to my OCD self, I'm going to post them in the same order as I origianlly released them. And, for those of you who have read them already, I do have new ones in the works. Stay tuned.

I hope you enjoy.
Tallyhawk

 miyabitacheetah made a picture of me playing pool. Not something I do very often but I have been known to shoot a rack or two. Wonder what the bar maid does on her night off?
http://www.furaffinity.net/full/1305359/

Diagnostics on my computer reveal that it is not dead, merely comatose. The power supply ist kaput. That is the sort of good news in that it could have been far worse. The bad news is that the shop does not have the necessary part in stock. However, a shipment, including a new power supply suitable for my system, will be arriving on Thursday. So, with luck, I should be back up and running again this weekend.

Once again, I apologize to those who are waiting for information about commissions I have requested. As soon as my system is back, I'll respond to your outstanding emails and we can proceed at your convenience.

My computer just died. No warning. Nothing. Just turned itself off. It will be Monday before I can take it into the shop where I bought it and then who knows how long or how much it will take to get it fixed. I'm doing a quick post from my work laptop so anyone wondering why I've gone quiet and cannot be reached will know why. I'll be back as soon as I can. Just hope I didn't loose the hard drive.

This time by the fabulous  faint
http://www.furaffinity.net/full/1203955/

Now we see why I spend so much time at the beach. I get to show of my nice body and, maybe, get lucky.

Well, I finally got around to updating my web site (http://www.furnation.com/tallyhawk/) with all the wonderful pictures of me. I have also updated the links page with the list of cons I plan to attend this year. Holy crap! It's a long list.

Well, one of my resolutions for the year was to actually start posting to this and my Live Journal. I have them. I might as well use them. And, to kick off my first post, I have a commission from the amazing artist  jeddibub. You can see the result in her gallery at http://www.furaffinity.net/view/990522/.

I'll be posting links to some of the other art work Fur Affinity artists have done for me over time. But, right now, I must get back to work.