RunningRed

Did a little trimming of my Watch list. Removed a few people who just hadn't updated in many years.

Everything seemed like it would go smoothly for attending Anthrocon this year. I booked a hotel room. I found some roomies to share the hotel room and costs. I got time off for the convention weekend with enough buffer for me to prepare beforehand and decompress afterwards before returning to work. The only snag was a rideshare. I prefer riding with others because I dislike driving distances alone. Maybe it’s undiagnosed ADHD or something but my mind gets bored and stressed and fidgety. Music doesn’t help, audiobooks don’t help. I don’t mind taking a turn doing the driving, as long as there’s a passenger to talk to and help pass the time. This year, Crafty offered me a spot in his car. He and Lukon were ridesharing and had a spot for one more.

Monday was my only day of work. I wanted Tuesday to clear my head of mundane stress and worries from my human life and get into the furry mindset. Pack, prep, buy some soda and snacks for the trip. An easy relaxing day. So I stayed up late and woke up on Tuesday around 1p. I yawned, grabbed a coke and checked Telegram. Oh, a message from Crafty. He’s at Lukon’s place, about an hour out and wanted to confirm my address. Silly dog, I send him holiday cards, he should have my address…wait. They’re where?

I thought we were leaving Wednesday! He said he wanted two days for travel. I thought he meant Wednesday and Thursday! I rush to get my duffel bags packed with clothes, toiletries, my tail, hat with ears and other furry accessories. No time to pick up sodas or snacks, but I am ready by the time Crafty pulls up in his car and U-Haul trailer filled with fursuit items he’s hoping to sell in the Dealer’s Den. I admit this was my fault. I should have confirmed our departure plans much sooner. When I had a moment I checked the rideshare chat he created on Telegram, backscrolled and saw an earlier mention of leaving Tuesday. No one to blame but myself for this.

The ride was for the most part uneventful, which is a good thing. No breakdowns or emergencies. Crafty drove and I tried to pass the time by taking pictures to post with bad puns to Twitter or Telegram. Wednesday we stopped at a gas station to refuel and buy snacks. I see a guy walk in that I swear looks like fellow Mainefur Eclipse. And it was! He was also en route to Anthrocon and happened to stop at the same station. And he had a gift for me. He saw my comments online about not having a chance to grab some Moxie before leaving Maine and gifted me a can from his supply.

Thursday we arrive in Pittsburgh around early afternoon. I’m dropped off at the Westin and check-in. I’d packed in a hurry and rather sloppily and I finally had a chance to sort through everything and organize it for the weekend. As I’m getting ready Kimmerz arrives. She’s a fellow New England fur I’d known for a long time but hadn’t seen in years. Her being a roommate was rather fortuitous. By chance I happened upon a Twitter post she made looking for roomshare and had a spare space for her. After getting myself ready with ears and tail I headed over to the convention.

After getting my badge I check in with my department, let them know I’d arrived and can help if needed.

This would be my second year working as ConStaff, curiously enough in the ConStore/Artist Alley department. Registration would seem to be an obvious place to put me, but I was sent to the ConStore in 2018 to help hand out shirts and the department head ShadowWolf snagged me. I do enjoy the department and my colleagues are pretty cool.

Anthrocon has a t-shirt with that year’s theme for sale in the ConStore and one of the perks of Sponsor levels is to get a free one. ShadowWolf had a great idea to expedite things and set up a t-shirt pickup right outside the Registration Room exit for Thursday and had me help out there for a bit. So I spent some hours trading vouchers for shirts, and in some cases the hat we added as a perk. After we closed I went to PizzaParma. I didn’t want to risk missing out on the dogfoodbowl special again. I got some pizza, this year’s bowl and went back to the hotel. I ran into Fiddle, a lemur I’d met at Furcationland and was also working Security for AC. We chatted for a little bit and I went back to my room to drop off the bowl and wash the pizza grease from my hands. I got to re-meet Acratin, the other roommate, who’d I’d briefly met at prior ACs.

The rest of the night was wandering the DLCC and checking the views from the roof. There was some haze from the smoke of the Canadian wildfires across the border. Enough to obscure the sky but not enough to fully block the moon. After midnight the roof was closed and I wandered to the Security department to say hi to Fiddle and ended up hanging there for a few hours, meeting members of that team and chatting until the DLCC was closed around 2:30. I run into Fiddle again in the Westin and we chat until about 6a.

Friday I wake up around noon. I don’t have any scheduled shifts so I wander a bit, take some photos and start browsing the Dealer’s Den. The ConStore needed some help, and I was close so I go over to lend a hand for a bit before leaving to attend some panels on my list.

I sat in on The Importance of Plush, which covered some history and uses of plush as comfort and support. I checked out the Historical Furry comic room, which was a showcase of assorted anthro comics that people could read. I attended All About Audio Books, which covered different aspects of narrating books or for writers how to solicit someone to read one’s books. I like to think I have a good “professional” voice and had considered doing readings or narration as a side gig. NightEyes did selected readings from his new anthology, Gnoll Tales, that was pretty good. Afterwards I chatted with him and another member of the Furry Writer’s Guild (whose name escapes me).

Saturday was my first official shift and I worked the ConStore from 9 to noon, handing out t-shirts and selling official merchandise. I return to the Dealer’s Den for a few hours, decide I should get a snack and head out, only to see someone with a flag that has the therian theta-delta symbol. Totally cool and I must buy one. I don’t want to risk waiting and having it sell out so I go back in and find the booth. Pretty easy to spot as they had a ton of flags (which many attendees were wearing like a cape). The dealer, ChocolatePony, had a ton of therian swag I bought including a Shapeshifter passport, werewolf coins, lanyards, etc. I’m chatting with the guy, who I remembered as the person who sold Shapeshifter pills a while back, and invited him to join Crossroads. I make another attempt to leave and get snacks but run into Spangler and chat for a bit. I do eventually sate my hunger and figure while I’m in the area I’ll check out the Westin’s recreation department. Before the pandemic, an attendee who was staying at the Westin showed me the sauna, steam room and pool and I was eager to check them out this year. Except, the locker rooms were locked. I go to the lobby and find an employee who tells me they closed the pool and the sauna and steam room were only accessible when there was an attendant on duty. For liability reasons (translation: someone did something stupid and ruined it for the rest of us). Okay, I understand. Well, when is there an attendant on duty? The response was vague and non-committal. I got the impression the real answer was “sometime after the convention ends.” I’m a bit disappointed.

That night I hosted a room party and got to chill with some cool people.

Sunday morning started with another shift in the ConStore then I went to find one of the therian focus group panels. I wondered if it was one of the survey types, but was a group forum for people to discuss their species and gender dysphorias. On the way I came across a table from CentralOutreach offering STI testing. I was really glad to see them as I’d long thought furry conventions should have more testing to keep people safe and informed. Even though it has been a while, I got tested, just to be sure (and the results came back negative).

I returned to the ConStore for my second shift which lasted until the end of the convention at 4p and we packed everything up. I had some time to kill before evening plans and thought I’d check out Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop. I’d seen their billboard near the convention and was curious what kind of selection they’d have. It was only a mile away and I enjoyed a nice stroll over in the afternoon sun. It wasn’t a bad shop, had a decent selection of assorted and unusual candies and a wall of glass bottle sodas, mostly root beer. There just wasn’t anything I couldn’t get in similar shops in Maine. I picked up some chips imported from Japan, including two cans of seaweed-flavored Pringles. Nothing else struck me as worth the effort to lug on the long trip back to Maine. Not that it’s a bad shop, again it wasn’t too different from what I had at home. To be fair, I didn’t try any of the chocolate. I had a bad experience transporting chocolate once. Ask me about Niagara Falls sometime.

The rest of the evening was mostly hanging out with other Staff in post-con chilling. I wish I’d volunteered long before now cause these are some cool people.

I got to bed late and woke up Monday to check out of the room and wait for Crafty and Lukon to pick me up.

On our way home we stopped at the Boyer outlet store where I bought a ton of Mallo Cups and other treats. We had dinner at a Denny’s where I finally got to use my AARP card for a decent discount. After another motel stay they got me home to Biddeford around noon on Tuesday. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday unpacking and decompressing and dealing with a tiny bit of con crud before going back to work on Thursday where I had 300+ emails to deal with.

Overall I had a great time. I didn’t get to attend all the panels I wanted. I didn’t buy a copy of NightEyes’s new book. Heck, I think I barely made it halfway through the Dealer’s Den despite how many times I tried to get over there. I didn’t get to use the hotel sauna. So many times I’d be trying to get somewhere and be waylaid by people I knew, or random attendees who saw the Staff badge and asked for help getting directions to a panel or event. Which, I’d do even if I weren’t Staff. I’m one of those people who, if I’m shopping and another customer needs help finding something, I’ll help them.

I did get to attend some pretty good panels. I did get to hit up some cool Dealer’s tables and buy some stuff (see my Swag pictures). I did get to hang out with some friends I only ever see at Anthrocon. I got a sketch by someone looking to practice their art skills. I explored more of the area around the convention that I’d never seen on prior visits.

And I’m thinking of what I’d like to do before next year. I want to redo the ears on my hat again. I want to add to my furry costume beyond the ears and hat. I want to see more of the city. I may see if I can work a second department. I might host a therian panel. I want to actually record some narration and see if I’m any good at it. And as always, I’d like to lose 40 pounds of bodyfat.

On Wednesday, April 12th I drove up to Portland, Maine for :iconFurcationland:. I stopped by the Hannafords supermarket on Forest Ave, near Back Cove and bought a couple of cases of Coke and Sprite, a package of Oreos. They were out of Moxie so I drove to the Shaw's supermarket further down Congress St. After many years living in Maine I'd finally tried the official state soft drink and found it not bad. I went to the Holiday Inn by the Bay, checked in, parked my car, walked a few blocks to the public library to return some books and check out new ones. Then over to Casablanca Comics in the Old Port to pick up my pull list before returning to the hotel.

I didn't feel like I was in town for a furry convention. I felt like I was running errands. Usually, for me, furry convention means a trip to Pittsburgh for Anthrocon. An opportunity to see new places and try different restaurants, both in the city and the road trip there and back. Going to a furry convention is an adventure to someplace different. Not somewhere I routinely visit for comics and groceries.

I knew I was still trying to shake off the mindset of the mundane world. And a bit nervous of what the weekend would bring. I was the Head of the entire Registration Department, and a fraud. I'd never run a convention department before. Hell, I'd only spent a little time volunteering in Registration for PineFurCon and Anthrocon. I was totally going to mess this up. The Imposter Syndrome was strong. Some days it would tell me I should never have accepted. Some days it suggested I quit before it was too late, let the Board find someone more qualified to do the job. Except, there was another voice, one that said I'd regret it if I quit. Sometimes you have to risk failure, no...the fear of failure. So I stayed on. Attended the meetings, brought on Staff, assembled plans and workflows. And soon enough, the day arrived.

Late Wednesday and early Thursday were set-up. Getting the equipment out and waiting for IT to set up the networks. We’d done preparation on the laptops to make sure they were ready, but as anyone who works in the field knows, there’s always some last minute pain. And sure enough, on all the laptops, Chrome wanted to update. And not merely update and restart, no. It insisted we download the update and run it. Small challenges, easily overcome.

There were souvenir bags to label and stow, forms to print and minor office supplies to distribute and by late afternoon we were ready to open our doors and print badges so attendees could officially be a part of the convention. And any feelings of imposter syndrome were washed away; not from the overwhelming success, but from being too busy dealing with the small issues that came up. Technical problems with the laptops and badge printers, people not being prepared for vaccine checks or ID checks, emails and other general inquiries. All of which I handled with my experience in IT, customer service, periodic supervisor roles, and willingness to make a judgment call and accept the consequences. As Nero Wolfe put it, “Use your intelligence, guided by experience.”

Most of the weekend followed a routine of waking up way too early to attend the Department Head meeting, opening the Registration room, getting and losing volunteers, dealing with problems, making sure my Staff took breaks, then closing up at night and wandering the con space before going to bed way too late. And trying to take my own breaks to see the rest of the con. During which I’d often get side-tracked by friends wanting to chat, helping other Staff with issues, or being summoned back to Registration to deal with a problem. Notice I didn’t mention eating or sleeping. Apart from a meal the first day and last day, I didn’t eat much. Mostly subsiding on Coke, Moxie and adrenaline. And a few Oreos. But that’s par for the course for me. And it’s hard to sleep when you’ve had a busy day and your mind won’t quiet enough to let you rest.

There were a few highlights that will stand out for me.

Thursday while setting up, the Safety department wanted to go to a local store to get some food and soda. I had a car and some free time waiting for IT to finish networking so offered them a lift to the Hannafords. They wanted to pick up some Moxie but Hannafords still hadn’t restocked so I drove them to the Shaw’s. Bit of deja vu from Wednesday.

A young woman who came to Registration who was mute (possibly short term, I didn’t inquire on details) and using her phone’s text to voice to communicate. I asked if she knew ASL and that I knew the sign (badly) for “Dammit, Red.” She laughed.

That phrase started getting more common. It started as NovarLynx’s reaction to my bad puns. Then he made a Telegram sticker for it. Curiously enough, CoyoteOsborne independently came up with the same phrase, and a sticker as well. It started being used so often, though, to the point Kaeda_Wolf, the Director above me, wrote it on a blank pronouns ribbon and attached it to my badge.

A teenage daughter and her mother come through the line. The girl is wearing animal ears and cannot wait to get her badge and surround herself with furries and acceptance. Her mother is having trouble finding her ID and the girl is stressing out, worried that she might not get in. She’s bapping her fists against the side of her head gently, I assume she’s on the spectrum and this is a coping mechanism. Her mother gives off the vibe of not believing autism is real and tells her to “calm down” and “stop doing that.” She did find the necessary paperwork and we got both of them badged and on their way. I swear to the Goddess I wanted to tell the mother to shut up and saying stuff like that Does Not Help. I wanted to reassure the girl everything would be okay. I couldn’t. There are some lines you cannot cross, some battles you cannot fight. I hope she had fun and had the time of her life. I’d love to have noted her badge name in case I saw her again, to follow up, but I got pulled to help another person in need.

There were a lot of teenagers there, with parents who could not give a shit about furry. Same as the parents who chaperone their kids to a tween movie, or boy band concert, or Chuck E Cheese. It’s part of being a parent.

There were some parents who did have fun. Who got in on the spirit of having a badge with a cool name and species.

We had a few locals come in, “wanting to party,” people more interested in a club scene and seeing an opportunity to buy or perhaps sell stuff we wouldn’t permit. They balked at the entrance fee and, I suspect, having their information tracked. No loss.

We had some people come by who were visiting the area as tourists, curious about what was going on and totally wanted in. Got registered, got badges, and presumably had a fun time.

I held a panel on therianthropy. As with PineFurCon, someone should and if no one else would, I would. Just getting to the panel was hectic. It was scheduled right after the Masquerade and Fursuit Parade so volunteers were scarce. At almost the last minute a family came through who made some mistakes with their registration and I rushed to get everything straightened out and headed to the panel room. My therian panels were intended to be an open forum but end up with me answering questions from the crowd. I had a decent turnout this year and tried my best to engage the audience. I even learned some new things, like quadrobics, which is what the kids these days are calling “going on all fours.” My friend WolvenTerror recorded the panel, and I got it uploaded to YouTube.

I was able to sneak away and visit the Dealer’s Den a few times. Bought some items, chatted with dealers I knew and touched base with Nashida at the ConStore.

Sunday afternoon we close up and start packing everything up. Pro-tip: If you’re unpacking a tote filled with unusually shaped items, take photos so you know how to pack it back up later.

We had a small break in the evening and I used it to get a quick swim in the hotel pool. The rest of the night and into the next morning was finishing the remaining pack up for storage. Monday morning we were all mostly exhausted from our busman’s holiday but eager to return next year.

It turns out we had over 800 people attend, way more than we were anticipating. Well hell, no wonder I was exhausted. I need more Staff. 🙂

I must acknowledge my team who did the bulk of the work processing those 800+ attendees: WolvenTerror, Winter Warburton, TechBurr, Spangler. And Cyber,Aldin Busheytail, It's Booshie and other volunteers who provided invaluable support.

Overall it was a great convention and I loved all of it. Yes, problems came up and I wish I’d taken more time to take photos and see other parts of the con, but I’m framing them not as “we should have” but “we know what to do if this happens again in the future.” I didn’t attend any room parties. I might have gone to the ones with open invites but I’m still a shy guy with self esteem issues. And when they were happening I was usually already deep in conversation with the folks doing badge checks or Safety, occasionally offering them a soda. And I honestly really enjoyed those opportunities to just hang out.

And I look forward to 2024.

Haven't uploaded much here lately. I just haven't taken any real good photos or made any interesting buckyball creations lately.

Some day my job just saps my creative energy.

I do want to reconnect with my muse. Add something new to the universe.

Well, beside bad puns

I haven't posted any art, photos or journal in quite some time. Well, part of it was lack of photographic opportunities. The other part was feeling too stressed and drained to do anything creative. I'm trying to change that.

I hope to be able to allocate some time to work on something, anything, and have some new stuff in my folders.

The last couple of months have been up and down. I'm still at the same job, though with a revamped title to reflect a lot of the additional tasks they dumped on me, and a $1/hr raise (which HR forgot to apply).

I'm still living with Ben. We've actually been (platonic) roommates for twenty years now, as of March. And I still never know what to get him for his birthday. Well, I have an idea of what to buy him for his birthday next month.

The past few weeks have been hella stressful and draining so I kinda unplugged from social media like Twitter and Telegram. I resolved a lot of the issues causing me stress and hope to jump back on in a few days.

Sometimes when I'm stressed my mind will try to deal with it by wanting to impose order on something. Like revamping the spreadsheet I use to track comics, or reorganize my bedroom or sort lists. Well, a few weeks ago I felt I had to reorganize my digital art collection. Downloaded pictures, both naughty and mundane.

Like a lot of graymuzzles, my collection reaches back decades, to stuff I downloaded from the fur.artwork.* newsgroups, to irc, Furnation, VCL, etc. Sub-folders for specific artists, and a miscellaneous folder for the rest.

Most of them had bad file names, as a result of whatever platform I got it from, or was an old pic whose name got truncated as a result of recovery from hard drives (like WOLF~1). So I was determined to identify the artist and rename the files. All several thousand of them. My formatting would be artist_filename, so stuff by the same artist would be listed together and easy to see if I had enough of them to move to a subfolder.

So I went through the pictures one by one to try and find online and see who the artist was and what the piece was called.

Some had the artist name cleared printer in the pic or as part of the filename. Some had signatures with illegible handwriting. Some old furs put just their initials and the year. Some new furs used an icon/watermark as a signature, something impossible to search for.

I spent a lot of time searching through VCL, 3621 and derpibooru, searching on, or filtering out keywords looking for a picture or an art style that matched.

There were some roadblocks. I might actually have an artist name, but they deleted their furaffinity or deviantart accounts, or changed username and purged their old galleries.

I was amazed at how many artists from the old days are still around and drawing. I was amazed at how many have improved their art, and how many look like they got worse.

I was a little disappointed at derpibooru's casual acceptance of racism and fascism. Now, both the furry and brony communities have their share of alt-right, freedom-hating racists who vote Republican so they can maintain their soldier fetish with assault rifles, and pretend to be tough Nazis, cause they're weak and insecure inside.

Well, I came across an artpack called Marenheit 451 that prominently features a MLP OC that's a white pony with a Nazi swastika cutie mark. The members and fans claim it's FOR PROTECTING FREE SPEECH, but as with all conservative rhetoric, that is a lie. See, people started posting pro-BLM material to derpibooru and that triggered the Naziboys who commented with vile hate speech. The moderators tried to contain it, so the racists claim they were being censored. Censored against trying to bully and silence others. So if you hear about Marenheit 451, it's an offensive collection by people who want the freedom to deny freedom and life to others.

Well, if I'm looking through art by a certain artist and came across tags for that OC or that art pack, or any other piece featuring Nazi symbolism, I'd say "Fuck it," put them on my shitlist and delete the art. Which is sad, cause some of them had really good art.

But, Ziemniax, jay156, cradeelcin, pshyzomancer, fiarel, among others, decided that being douches who get off to the murder of POC was more important, so their shit is purged from my computer.

The further along I got, the more obsessed I was with getting it done and this past weekend I finally got through the last pics. Everything identified and sorted. There's about 100 pictures I wasn't able to identify but they were definitely worth keeping. Someday I might take another stab at trying to source them.