So I've been elected to continue running Furlandia in to 2015, and will start working my tail off for real on that soon. I expect it to be even better this next time around. I want to see more furs that can, join staff and help us out. There is a huge need, and a ton of opportunity and room for growth.

Other than that, I've just been continuing my education. Right now, I'm half way through the two courses required to become an EMT, doing a double accelerated term (accelerated course in summer which is already accelerated). That's 6 months worth of classes in 10 weeks, wee. I expect to take the state and national exams in early September, and then join an ambulance company to work part time while I continue on with school in my radiology goals.

I'll be at CFT this weekend, and Rainfurrest in September, so would love to meet and hang out with folks!

- Triss

Hey y'all, just a reminder that I'm chairing Portland furry convention Furlandia this year, and that I would love it if you watch the FA account, or like on Facebook, or follow on twitter... etc.

Things are progressing! We could really use some artists interested in exposure not just the online, but also real world. We need concept art for our theme, and conbook submissions down the line as well.

Anyways check it out at;

https://www.furaffinity.net/user/furlandia/
https://twitter.com/Furlandia
https://www.facebook.com/Furlandia

and WIP site

http://furlandia.org/

-Triss

I just assumed control of our FA account, so I expect that to become a more utilized communication tool.

If you're interested in Portland's furcon Furlandia, feel free to watch http://www.furaffinity.net/user/furlandia/

I've posted a journal also detailing some things we are looking for art-wise there.

~Triss
Furlandia co-Chairman.

We'll be having a meeting on October 26th for Furlandia. The first portion will be for the public community and will be informational as well as an open Q&A. Then there will be an opportunity for those who are interested in becoming staff to stick around as we shuffle the public out and switch to conducting staff business.

This will be at the Portland Central Library on 10th starting about 3:15 in the US Bank Room. I have the room at 3, but another group has it until then, so we don't want anyone showing up early. Read more details here:

https://www.facebook.com/Furlandia/.....18124278361203

Ugh after going to RF and seeing more and more people I know acquiring fursuits, I really want one again. Some people I know getting them... They have to be in a worse financial situation than I am and manage somehow! I know for me to spend a couple thousand on something like that is still years off, once I'm done with school and am working in my chosen field... Sucks to think about. It makes it even worse since I just got my school disbursement, and of course credit cards, so I think to myself "I have the means!" However I don't realistically have -that- much disposable income.

Going through a bit of a hard time, and some personal rejections, which is always harsh. I really hate when I end up reflecting on the past and what I wish was different, and everything has passed me by. It's hard to really put this in to words. Just down lately.

So I really need to expand my social circle, especially northward up in to the greater Seattle area.

I make frequent trips up to Seattle, and I would love to have options of things to do moreso than I do now. Normally I just go to a Rainfurrest staff meeting and then end up going home without much happening before or after. So if you live up there, feel free to contact me to chat it up! I'm a pretty laid back fellow.

So that aside. I found out what my actual Rainfurrest staff title is and will be listed as in the conbook, "Special Assistant to the Convention Chair". There is one other person with that title, and he is the current Chairman of Furry Fiesta, Path. I'm hoping this is a good opportunity to network if we will be working closely together at all. It will be interesting to say the least.

And THAT aside, Furlandia planning is moving along... Sluggishly still, but better than the non existent pace of before. We have a teaser ad coming out in Rainfurrest's conbook, barely got that finished and submitted in time. I still need to get a piece done for a full flyer/insert in to their conbook. I will need aboooout 2500 prints of it made to take up there.

(Not that I reach very many people on FA because... I'm not an artist, but it's appropriate to post info to it still!)

There were some hiccups to getting started on planning for next year, and we are now 3 months post Furlandia 1. Some of the locals know there was a bit of a kerfuffle recently within management of the con, but that's all been worked out and hopefully the followthrough will see the best outcome for all. Thankfully we've reached a point where things can get rolling. It's almost like a new start, though we are going on to our second year. There will be a ton of changes, all of them working to present a smoother experience for our attendees.

The first change is that, at least as it stands right now, I will be Chairman going forward to 2014. This could possibly change pending some things, and will be announced if it does, but it would be a voluntary change on my part and only if I felt it would help us more. Honestly, I don't -want- to be Chair so much as I am stepping up to get the ball rolling.

The hotel, as we've made it well known, will definitely be different in 2014. We are still working out details on that, so no spoilers here.

The date will still be in May, however that has not been solidified either. The good news is that BLFC moved the date of their event back a ways that we will not be encroaching on each other (which is good because I want to go to BLFC too).

Any other changes will be announced when they become a thing, and I expect more.

We will be working on updating the site, and getting rid of the eyesore that was dealt with this year. A new site, from an experienced convention site designer will most likely be making it's way up in the near future, though it may be missing some art assets at first while we work to catch up. The site is absolutely integral. A lot of activity on all social media fronts should be seen soon as well, and we'll be opening dialog up. Staff meetings have started up, some public meetings locally will likely be taking place soon as well.

We will be needing art for our conbook, our site, and a potential charity auction or art show at con. If any artists are interested feel free to message me.

Once the site is up, I expect a lot of big announcements to start rolling in. Basically expect to see progress and more news in the near future, and I hope to see everyone here in Portland next May for Furlandia 2014.

~Triss

I am still exhausted since I only came home from the hotel this morning. A write-up is something I have to do though! It's going to be long and fairly detailed.

I'm Triss, and officially I was the Volunteer and Staff Coordinator. Probably the closest thing to Operations Director that wasn't Chairman or Vice-Chairman in reality. Atso was our Chair, Stephen what I would call vice-chair despite what he wants to say. This write-up will be unbiased as much as possible, and from an operational standpoint with insight in to all aspects of the convention and what did or did not go on.

1. The convention was a major success to us. Our numbers were 270 officially. I have no doubt that there is a little error and they were a bit higher. We had more vinyls than that and ran out Saturday evening soooo. 270 officially all the same. This was on par with some second year conventions. Rainfurrest's first year was about 330, and that was about 7 years ago with no regional conventions in the PacNW as a long standing thing really.

I always expected between 200 to 300, though decided we would be happy if we even broke 200 as it got closer. Financially the convention was more of a success than we expected and will lend to much better assets for next year's start. We made some decent profit for reinvestment. Half of the Rainfurrest board was down at one point or another, and all of them thought we did good for ourselves with hiccups that were expected.

2. We know there were problems. Very few problems can be so unnoticeable that we wouldn't be more aware than most of the attendees. Almost all of the problems can be attributed to the following things:

First year convention (find one that didn't have some snafus), bad hotel, inexperienced convention staff doing this for their first time, 4 months of planning. I will expand on some of these.

3. That 4 months of planning part. There was such little time to plan that even people that run other conventions really doubted we would be able to pull this off at all. Yes everything was rushed. The website was horrible, our publicity and promotion via social media sucked. We didn't have the infrastructure and staff structure we needed to make things easier on us. Everything happened extremely last second. I absolutely HATE how little communication we had with the community. This is NOT all the time we figured we needed, this was all the time we were given by our chair and vice-chair to make it work. Originally we jumped on to try and minimize the damage and to make sure our friend didn't bankrupt himself. It just turned in to more of a labor of passion to actually make it more than "break even" and to become a success as time went on. If you want to criticize about our lack of planning then trust me you are preaching to the choir.

4. This was our first year, year 0. Most of us have no experience running conventions, and none of us had experience running furry conventions. I probably had more furry convention attending experience than any 3 staff members put together. Even the long time "pros" of the furry convention world will tell you that most of our mistakes were the common ones made by all first year cons.

5. Not only was it first year, but we started with no money. We didn't beg the OSFCI for a financial handout, we didn't sell ourselves to some non furry entity to compromise the experience, we didn't take out loans...etc. We are all a bunch of poor-ass Portland area furs. We didn't even really have much in the way of equipment or gear to give. We had ZERO starting capital for expenses. We had to work to fund raise, or spend our own money, etc. The game room ran entirely on stuff our staff donated for use for instance.

6. The hotel was just problematic from the start, but once it really became obvious just how terrible they were, we were backed in to a corner. We had two choices; Make the best of things, or cancel the convention. If you are familiar with the history of the Portland community then I don't need to tell you how canceling the convention would have played out in dooming attempts for the future. It also raises legal questions after a point. There is -nothing- we could do about facility and hotel problems, and we suffered right along with you. My opinion, not Furlandia's, is that the hotel was complete shit. AC sucked in rooms and event spaces, the elevators sucked, the ice machines sucked, the amenities sucked, the staff screwed all sorts of things up, rooms weren't ready on time, hotel staff was not on the right page with us. Most of the discrepancies between schedule and event start times (like GoH breakfast) were due to hotel or catering staff error.

Along with the hotel, some people complain about the date. Did you notice almost every state has a furcon now? We don't have much of a window of time to keep from competing. Even at the time we chose we came 1 week after BLFC, the same weekend as ESG, and a couple or few weeks before Califur. It's hard to get a good date. We will work on it.

7. There were tons of mistakes in programming, and some sections of our volunteer stuff could have been better. We addressed a lot of this stuff before and during closing ceremonies. We didn't have a programming lead, and we didn't have the staff structure we needed to be efficient. A lot of the local community here is just hands off until something is already up and running. We acknowledge the limitations we faced, and we don't anticipate an issue for next year. Some things were not so easily avoidable, and they were not planned out well. You can chalk that up to a lack of experience from everyone, a lack of convention experience in general for many, and a lack of time to sort of figure out along the way what we might be missing. The person leading the momentum in the planning is used to a very different sort of event as he isn't furry.

Also sorry for any hurt feelings when it came to things like the talent show or fursuit dance. These things we put on for fun, not as serious competition. We underestimated just how serious some take it. Even offering prizes was last second as we hadn't intended to.

8. Friday night - We were supposed to have the room at 3 or 4pm with stage and room set up to our specifications. There was to be no other events that week in there. We arrive between 3 and 4 to find the hotel double-booked us and an event had the room until after 6pm. Our event was supposed to start between 6 and 7. Suddenly we didn't have 3 or 4 hours to set up lights and equipment. The stage wasn't even moved in until after 6. This caused a big delay. Add to that some training issues for registration, and most importantly a lack of computers and equipment (see #5), and good process, and that made the registration line crawl like a snail. We are so sorry for that, and we've learned from it.

9. Sibe - So what? Yeah we let him come to the convention. We let him have a panel. WHO CARES?! Most Furries act like he personally kicked their dog. This isn't 2008 anymore. We wanted him to come. He's a PDX area local, he's talked about often one way or another. So what if he's controversial, we didn't force anyone to interact with him. You define your con experience just as much as anything else can, and him being present didn't change anything for a single person. This is a point of irritation to me honestly. I've heard all the stories going back years. I've always been aware of him. I've met him prior, we had dinner in a group of people and had a great time, despite me having heard it all about him before.

We are a new and unbiased convention and his money is as welcome for attending as anyone else. We let him have a Q&A panel for a reason, so the curious or the critical could attend and find out what was real or not. What you hear isn't always the truth, and in fact most of the stuff about him is made up or overblown. When he came to the panel, you don't think he didn't expect questions about it? He openly, unabashedly answered and said some brave, honest, and blunt things and tried to clear up those rumors stewing since 2007.

To be honest? Everyone there had a great time at his panel and it was probably the most attended panel, even clearing out the Saturday night dance briefly, and ended with thunderous applause and proud handshakes. Furries just love to drama.

10. Viacom - This is the big one everyone is having a knee-jerk reaction to. The TV crew. I absolutely understand the concern, but I find the mob mentality to be silly. It's a game of telephone in the end, with one furry mentioning something offhand which concerns someone else who adds more urgency as they pass the info along. I'm surprised we didn't have 10 foot tall monsters with camera hands rampaging and eating those who didn't agree to sign a release. lol.

Seriously though. Take some time, ask the actual people putting things on for details, keep a cool head, be logical and not reactionary. Sounds like a good suggestion doesn't it? That's not the fandom we work with. In fact most of those people are more a danger to making the fandom look bad than anyone now just by reacting. Luckily the cameras weren't allowed to roam freely, so who was allowed to be on was limited.

Let me try to explain the situation with the TV crews again (We did at opening and closing ceremonies)

First I'm going to say this, and I know it's hard to believe, but... THE TV CREW DIDN'T CARE ABOUT YOU. They weren't there to film the attendees and make a freak show out of them. Amazing, right? No, they were there following at most TWO people who were also high level organizers for the event, Saphy primarily, and myself secondarily. They are interested in Saphy's life as a furry and more importantly our nonprofit PDXFurs and the events we host and how the fandom meshes with our normal "non unemployed-sitting-around-playing-videogames-all-day" lives.

It is for the show True Life, which does at times feature positive stories. The convention is literally for a small segment of it, like 5 or 10 minutes, and the footage they wanted specifically features behind the scenes operations of the convention. They wanted to know what it took to put on a furry convention, and logistics. They only got a few shots of actual events just to show the payoff of our work and get some events in. It was mostly just interviews between Saphy and other people, Saphy and myself, or myself and other people. The rest of the show will take place outside of anything to do with the convention.

HOW IT WORKS! We limited them extensively in what they could do, to the point that tensions between them and us flared several times in frustration. Point being we kept them restricted. Negotiations privately took place for two months between PDXFurs and Viacom reps to make sure they understood our position, our needs, the fandom, the fandom's perception of the media...etc. Then we debated for a couple or few weeks among con staff, though only reached agreement a few days beforehand. They fully understand the fears and other things. We laid out in contract several stipulations. They were always attended by a staff member, there was no free roaming random shots. Signs were always posted in event rooms when possible, or someone went ahead and informed everyone that filming was about to take place so they could leave if they wished. Random hallway shots were usually following Saphy around and took care to try and keep them close to avoid others.

If you had face time you had to sign a release. If you didn't sign a release guess what? They can't use you. They have been sued and have lost before for it, so they aren't foolish. Most of our attendees ended up actually being cool with it, signing if something happened they could take part in. Most furs that appear were recruited willingly to take part. This is a reality show, they only get what we give them. Saph and I are not "typical furs", nor are we naive or unskilled or inexperienced with business. We did not give them anything they could use against us. We even consulted with a lawyer at certain points before the con. Yes there is a small chance you could be in a background or crowd shot but again we made sure to notify people beforehand as much as possible. If someone didn't wish to appear they generally let us know, and in some cases were allowed to sign something or make a recorded statement for the editors to the effect of not giving their permission.

Again, we truly understand the concern. The Viacom crew bent over backwards for us to do this and were amazingly courteous and professional. The producer had an amazing time and really loved the furries and the fursuits. Her facebook profile pic is even her posing with suiters (she asked my permission before even setting it to that), and she took personal pics during opening ceremonies.

We are extremely confident that the fandom will get a positive light on it. Yes Viacom is known for some trashy stuff, but every cable network has it's share. Many news outlets have made positive features. Furry is becoming mainstream and part of pop culture. You can buy a hat with ears at 7-11 at this point. The negative furry show has been done, it's old news, there is no point to it when they've already covered that.

Anybody who claims Furlandia got paid or sold out is being silly. We couldn't be paid for doing reality. Saphy and I have agreed on the basis that we wish to portray a positive image of furry. Furlandia was aware, with no real time (after the decision was made) to inform the attendees beforehand and was rewarded by a $1000 donation made to our chosen charity for the year, Portland Animal Welfare Team, who was thrilled to get it. Besides the Gelato Social do you know what furries donated? $6 over the course of the weekend. And to the people who did donate a big THANK YOU, but as you can see, not many did. That would have been disappointing for the charity.

In the end, I think this will go fine, and a lot of thought went in to it. As a long time, well known fur said this weekend. Furry is going mainstream, and if we don't control our message through the media, then someone else will decide what that message is for us, but it will be made either way. What if it does go fine, will the reactionists eat their words? Of course not.

There is a strong chance they won't even use footage of the convention at all, or that the concept of the episode will be scrapped entirely and nothing about furries is done.

Not that I have many watchers on FA in the first place, but I'll say some things anyways!

Who am I? Triss, one of the few main organizers in Furlandia's founding year. My role is primarily Volunteer Coordinator, but I am also one of the few Con Ops people. After our convention chair and vice-chair, you could say I am the next go-to guy.

If you have questions or need any help at the convention, you can feel free to come to me. If you'd also like to meet someone, I'm always down to make some new friends. Feel free to add me on twitter: TrissWinter as I follow that more easily than FA.

It's only a matter of days until Furlandia begins, and I feel like putting down some words to arrange my thoughts on it. What I say is not representative of the ideas or stances of the convention itself.


First, to get it out of the way, I do feel that Furlandia is going to be a lot of fun. For those who can make it, it will absolutely be worth going to. In the end not even I know what to expect or can fathom how it is going to go down. One thing's for sure, if it's easy for you to come, do it!

Portland is a hard place to make anything worthwhile happen. Our community isn't ideal. Most seem to either wants no part in the work, or wants to be a diva. I was at BLFC just this last weekend, and serious props to those people for having so many working together professionally, even if some seemed a little clueless sometimes, they still came together for the cause and seemed happy to be working with each other. I really would have liked to sit down and kind of interview Tyco a bit on things to gain some insight that would be helpful for us.

We did not have enough time leading up to Furlandia, so everything feels so last second and uninformed. We also do not have experienced voices among the staff who've run or even staffed Furry cons before. I wish we had more time to run publicity and gain more hype. Even so, we have a lot of content for our size, and should have plenty for people to do. That and the weather should be favorable for us, we're in a rare sunny streak for the time of year!

The hotel function space is actually very nice for what I was expecting, but the hotel staff itself leaves something to be desired in our dealing with them. This shouldn't affect the convention in any way, but we'll probably be going with a different hotel next year hopefully.

I would have loved more time to plan just so we could have made a few other things happen, like charity events and more of an actual art show. It was also a matter of not having enough actual planning staff. I expect next year that we'll have plenty of qualified people coming out of the woodwork wanting to be part of things from the start, so that can only help us.

I wish more people were actually staying at the hotel. With how public transit accessible the city is, most of the locals are just going to attend on the fly and go home or with friends at some point. This might hurt the party atmosphere a bit. My associate and I however are going to bring the party to the con, and have stocked up with plenty of liquor.

I wish the site had been more comprehensive, and updated more frequently. Next year this issue is going to be fixed one way or another. There is not enough going on with it.

We don't have the connections to equipment that other conventions have, though we've mitigated this by MAKING plenty of connections and deals. I still wish we had things a bit more covered. Where it concerns attendees and events to enjoy we are good, anything missing is more for the back end of things.

I wish we could have had a longer event.

In the end, for those familiar with Portland, it's just an amazing feat that this is finally happening at all, despite any potential shortcomings. Next year will be much much better, even if this year is tons of fun. We have things in the works that could bring Furlandia to a level far above what it is now, so expect interesting developments next year, and remember that most of us were given only 4 months to work on things for this year.

Also, people are going to get to see me in a bit of a different light when it comes to conventions. When I am working on something or in professional mode, I'm very different and more openly interactive. This will be in contrast to me tagging along with a particular associate quietly.

As the subject says, I'm off to Reno for BLFC. Going through a full day of school and then leaving after to drive 10+ hours. This will be interesting. We, the PDXFurs, will be down there to promote for Furlandia, even though it happens in just a week. Pointless? Yeah probably, but it's something that will take no effort to do while we are there.

It will at least get the word out so more people know about it for next year.

Yep, another one of those nights where I'm missing online friends from years past that meant a lot to me that I know I'll never quite have the same thing with again.

I am happy for those who change and improve themselves of course. Sometimes when you feel obsolete to who they become though it's rough.

We are working out the logistics of organizing a potential ART SHOW at Portland's Furlandia convention. Traditionally this goes along with an auction of the art shown at most conventions, and the proceeds being given to the charity.

We are still working out whether we logistically have the ability to handle something like this right now, but the interest is there. So what I'm asking you in FA land, is there anyone who would like to donate art to Furlandia for it's show if there is one?

Normally this is the original piece if it's traditional, or the rights of the digital piece if not, though I'm sure we could accept just a print as well. At this point I'm willing to entertain any donation.

If you are interested in having your art shown and potentially auctioned most likely for our charity this year, Portland Animal Welfare (PAW) Team, comment or send me a note so I can keep in touch with you through this.

(Please feel free to repost and spread this request for me if you can so that it reaches a larger audience than my meager follow count.)

Triss
Volunteer Coordinator
Furlandia

And finally, the last journal for tonight.

I really miss having an online presence as a furry. I miss having people online to talk to. My social life exploded for the longest time, but nowadays I'm tired of it, I can't stand the RL interactions anymore, I can't stand a lot of the people, the backstabbing, and the general feel of my local community.

For the longest time it was super enriching while I was naive, and I wanted everyone to like me, and wanted to pal around with everyone. Now there is no part of things that isn't just petty somehow. Every experience has been cheapened, so on.

Ever since I stopped playing SecondLife after a couple years on it, and then finally dropped out of Furcadia after 10 years of that, and just stopped interacting online with non locals to the point that I never even log into my messengers anymore, I've of course gradually lost contact with many of the people that I used to consider friends. My follower list here on FA is missing plenty of people that I considered important once upon a time, or even my facebook.

I miss thinking about the fact that I had long distance friends I could visit for a vacation if I chose, and several to choose from at that. I miss thinking about all the people I could meet at a far away convention, or even that someone could see me or my badges and recognize me without ever having met me. Since 2010 I've just dropped out of it all, went from being somewhat known after years of building that up to now being nothing.

It's weird because you'd think that exchanging an online presence for a real life presence would be the goal.

I blame dropping out of the online scene partially to my confidence awhile back to start dating more aggressively, going out socially, and then now having a long term relationship that is basically about 2 years running now, for better or worse. I don't have time to roleplay or talk to people a lot. It definitely couldn't be the same, and I always sucked at small talk anyways. That doesn't mean I don't get sentimental. *sighs*. It's not like even that "online life" was all roses anyways, not even close.

I have a girlfriend, a house of my own, a dog, a car that isn't ancient, I'm going to school full time and getting stellar grades and am on track to a potentially amazing career, one could argue some sort of social life available when I want it.... I should have all the happy feels right? Then why does it suck so much sometimes.

It feels utterly ridiculous to even express nostalgia for online activities too.

Not that anything I post will reach many people, but I'll post anyways.

A new con in my home metro area is starting up this year. A lot can be said about this, I'm both happy and unhappy with it. I'd certainly do some things different, but it is what it is!

I've jumped on board with organizing it, whether it will succeed or fail. I am currently the Volunteer Coordinator, and who knows what else when it comes closer to it. I'm also arranging some fundraisers through the nonprofit furry organization we run from my home.

Furlandia will run May 10 - 12 here in Portland, centrally located and easily accessible. I'm hoping for the best! If anyone is on the fence about attending, just go! It's $30 for the whole weekend to attend, if you live locally you don't have to use the hotel, but the rooms aren't over expensive or anything. We need your support for there to be any hope of a second year, and whatever the first year turns out to be, the second one will be much much better, so let's make sure we have one.

The site has limited info right now, but keep an eye on it:

www.furlandia.org

You may contact me if you wish to get involved as staff or volunteer or whatever else.

Time for a few status updates one after the other because I want to keep them relevant and not cram 3 topics into one.

My con schedule this year!

BLFC in May in Reno is up next as the first of the year for me.

Furlandia in Portland a week later (more on that next journal).

Anthrocon will be attended in July in Pittsburgh.

Campfire Tails in August in Oregon.

Rainfurrest in September near Seattle.

Hopefully I'll see some people around.

Got back yesterday afternoon, took care of some things, and crashed out for awhile.

Overall I was a bit disappointed this year. This was not the fault of the convention and staff really, it was more about the people there. Conventions are really just kind of where you realize how stuck up people you think you know are. Also how shallow. I'm pretty sick of the Portland locals more than not, and if I was 10 years younger I probably would consider moving for a "fresh start", but those sort of days are behind me.

In the end I just need some new circles of friends to hang out with when it comes to conventions, some new experiences to come across. I also wished that I could be naive and just innately happy all the time, so that those furs who are not so "down to earth" or with it mentally didn't annoy me so much. Wanting to choke out such a large portion of the fandom for their lack of mental/cognitive faculties doesn't help.

Just put some Jello shots in the fridge and can't wait to nom down on them this weekend.

Well I was back Sunday night technically. Much like a year ago, just posting to say it was great to see people again that I only get to see at special events like this and whatnot. While I was there for only a short time, it was during the meat of things, and I had a lot of fun. Partied a little too hard but eh whatevs. Anyways I'm looking forward to RF now, and of course CFT next year hopefully where I can have things planned out a bit better!

Back from my first CFT, and man I was definitely enjoying myself you could say.

I will keep it short and just say it was great meeting a ton of people I hadn't had the privilege of knowing before.

Hope to see some people at Rainfurrest!

So I don't do journals on FA, just don't want to blog about stupid furry drama crap. But I do use my facebook! Which is the point to this journal. I have friends here that I don't communicate with really, and just wanted to put out there that if you want to keep in touch or talk with me, feel free to send me a note to possibly get my facebook info, or give me yours.

Thought I'd try advertising it a bit here in case something interesting came of it.