Day 4, Sunday:

Add another 5 hours to the sleep track.

After a quiet start in the morning, I went over the bridge with a random person to get some grub. Arriving back at the hotel, I had the dreadful realization that I must've dropped my badge somewhere. I retraced my steps across the bridge, only to realize that I dropped my badge inside con-ops of all places. Yep, jackal derp is real derp. The sleeplessness also encroached into my ability to play games, suffering some rather silly losses. But losses or not, it didn't matter: I got to learn many new games and fun was had all around. Did you know there's a board game of Portal? It involves the pursuit of cake, and the defense of said cake pieces while trying to keep your test subjects alive! Complete with companion cube, turret, and GlaDOS!

I finally found Keiko after missing her throughout the con - she lives in my neighbourhood, yet this was the first time this year that I got to see her after Furnal Solstice. No I don't even get to see her out of fursuit - and I thought I was evasive and difficult to catch! I also got to see  Dieselcub fursuiting as the adorable  grayfoxgree in her pink dress! So bloody adorable, and then I end up bumping into  mrfoxboy as well, and reminded him of how we accidentally met many years ago - I accidentally sat at his table at Tuckers and struck up a conversation with a bunch of Maritime furs! Glad to have caught up with him again and I'm keeping my promise of talking to him more often!

Nothing unique to report until Closing Ceremonies was over and I had my fill of foods - I start out by helping to tear down the Headless Lounge while Foxx was playing Nuns on the Run. I was planning on helping out with more teardown, only to be diverted to hold down the Board Games room past midnight, so I couldn't help out with teardown in any other capacity. But I was completely surprised to learn that  Zets was part of Programming staff - and even more surprising to see him out of suit and in the flesh! Maaaaaan, you totally blow my mind, you 'coon!

The hotel staff really dove in before midnight hit: they quickly cleared the zoo of almost all of the chairs and tables! Vultures, I say! Fun fact for everyone who left early: there were too many cases of pop that they purchased, and we tried giving tons of cases away to everyone able to grab em. In the end I'm not sure what happened to some of the cases sitting around the zoo, I hope people salvaged everything.

T'was sad to see everything disappear around us, but Insane Foxx and several others stuck around to play some more games, namely Shadow Hunters and a very challenging co-op game that involved numbers. Against my better judgment and lack of sleep, I stayed on for two of these games as a final hurrah. It's pretty simple, yet challenging: The deck has cards numbered 2 to 99, plus four piles: two that are ascending from 1 to 100, and two descending from 100 to 1. The objective is to take turns playing numbers to count up or down without screwing over your teammates from playing their numbers, complicated by the fact that no one is allowed to say numbers. We nearly made it the first time, I got stuck with the last card, but we totally aced it the second time. Considering we were newbies, we did phenomenal, and it was a pleasure to play with everyone.

Day 5, Monday:

Many kudos to Brad for letting me sleep over for the night, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to stay for the move out. 4 hours of sleep and with the con over, I found myself the first person at the staging area of the last room of Muskoka. Another derp moment reminded me that I left my coat in con-ops, but otherwise we steadily cleared our stuff out. It was challenging this time because of a lack of volunteers, and it's a sign that we desperately need the help if we want to pull off an even tighter teardown next year at the Westin.

If anyone remembers the hexagonal platform that we used during the Circus theme (FE 2014), I have some bad news: we didn't have room to take it with us. It was originally supposed to be auctioned off, but it ended up being used as a platform itself during the charity auction! So it lay lonely in the huge dump outside the loading docks. The move was complicated by a couple of minor injuries, the sudden shutdown of Highway 27 southbound causing traffic to spill all over our way, and construction that blocked two lanes before suddenly freeing up the middle lane after Grey had taken the leftmost lane. Moving everything back in was messier, since some of our big equipment (aka wood) became warped due to temperature changes and stress. It took longer, finishing at 3:30 and returned to the Sheraton for the very last time.

Everyone was too tired to give tons of goodbyes, so I took my leave quietly. It's sad, but not necessarily a bad thing - I do intend on seeing everyone again on happier and energetic terms, so no one should consider it the end. In the past couple of nights I heard about the discontinuation of Rainfurrest, Oklacon, and Abando (Brazil), and it made me worry about the future of Furnal Equinox moving downtown to the Westin. The biggest worry was the cost of hotel rooms downtown, for those who have used a hotel booking site to check prices. (FYI  Scani has provided his assurance in the OntarioFurs forum that the room block will be very competitive to the prices of the Sheraton.) Then again, Furnal Equinox has undergone many miraculous changes, some of which are not so obvious or those I can't name for confidentiality purposes. And I've changed along with it.

I started out in Registration, then Hospitality, then Fursuiting, did a little bit of IT related setup, did some surveying for Programming, and now a part of Board Gaming (and technically the volunteers department, or the Department of "Everything"). I've seen various facets of the con, and got lost as as well due to my state of "no fixed department". It doesn't surprise me that I still have much to learn of the inner workings of the con and to meet every fur that helps make the con succeed. But I intend to keep learning, just as the con keeps growing and evolving towards better things, even if some sacrifices have to be made as we go along.

Post-con depression hasn't hit me that much yet. Okay, maybe a little as I write this and try to remember the number of people who I had the greatest times with. I can probably count the number of new people who I've gotten to know with one paw. Guys, don't let me be a hermit until the next con. I may look serious and unapproachable, but I don't bite... much... rawr. I still hold some good cheer from the con, and I'll be sure to spread that around while we're counting the days to the next con.

Until next time,
~Spysat