Giza aka Douglas Muth's LiveJournal

FurFright went well for me this year.

I don't have much specifically to say, because other than working security, socializing with old friends (and making a few new ones), and catching up on my sleep, I didn't do much else. But that's the kind of convention experience that I'm okay with.







Wanna see the rest of my pictures? They're over here.

Next con for me is Midwest FurFest, which is just around the corner. I'll be working in Operations there (huge surprise, I know). See ya soon!

Having missed last year's FCN due to injury, I had to use this con to make up for 2 years' worth of FCN and well, it worked! Here's how I felt:



I had an enormous amount of fun at this year's FCN. Highlights include:

- Making lots of sushi (sushi-grade fish was ordered for this)

- Watching the "Will It Blend" panel, wherein the presenters proceeded to both blend and freeze various items

- Making sushi for the second day in a row

- Getting to see/socialize with people I don't normally get to talk to because we're both busy at other cons

- Working security again, and doing badge check in higher traffic areas, so I got to chat with people who came by




What else was there to like? Ah yes, the bartenders! They absolutely loved us this year, and one of them even remembered me from 2 years ago. (and gave me grief about not making it last year, haha)




I have many more pictures that I can't post here, so instead I'll give the link, as usual: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157626479309537/

Next con for me is Anthrocon! I'll see you all there. Stay safe.

FurFright was a fun convention this year! It started off with a bang in my first security shift on Friday afternoon. I got a call for "first aid in the parking lot", which cliff_husky and I responded to. Turned out that "first aid" was an understatement. We arrived on the scene of an MVA (Motor Vehicle Accident) at the entrance of the parking lot, with one person injured pretty badly. We attended to him, with Cliff taking his vitals and history and me holding his neck in the c-spine position for a good 10 minutes until an ambulance arrived and EMTs relieved us.

That was the first ever auto accident that I worked. Was a little nervous afterward, but not nearly as shaken up as I thought I'd be. And what did I learn from this? Get first aid training. You never know when you'll need it.

The rest of the shift was uneventful, other than trying to figure out the hotel's weird layout. Apparently it was added onto twice, and had been rebuilt after a fire at least once, so the layout was very... unplanned. Hallways that had multiple ramps on them, stairways that only went up 1 floor or even skipped a floor, and ramps that went in circles. It was like M.C. Escher himself designed the hotel!



Saturday afternoon had me killing time with P-Kitty and other folks, and somewhere along the line it was suggested that I borrow a fur named Manik's fursuit. He was cool with this, so I put on the head, paws, and my overcoat, and walked around the con for about half an hour. I went up to several folks I knew in personal and said hi. Poor protocollie... I think I broke his brain!

That's right: it was the first time I ever fursuited. And in a cheetah fursuit, at that. Draw your own conclusions.

On a related note, I went and registered the domain cheopard.com. Be afraid.



On Saturday night, I dropped by the Gun Furs panel, hosted by cliff_husky. It was pretty informative, and I learned quite a bit about all the different details that surround guns, and the legal aspects of them.

On Friday and Saturday nights, I went to the dances, and played around with the ISO and shutter speed settings on my camera. I got some pretty interesting pictures:





The whole set of dance photos can be found here.

My birthday was also on Halloween, and the first time I celebrated it. shortwave81, ferian, and others bought me drinks at the bar, an acceptable birthday present! chefmongoose also got me a bottle of cider called "Lucky Lion", that I hope to enjoy with some friends soon.

As the con came to a close, I realized what an awesome time I had. Between the health issues I've had the last several months, and some other personal issues I had to deal with over the summer (which I now call "the lost summer"), I'd say that FurFright was a high point over the last 6 months or so. And I hope that this uphill trend in my mood and life in general continues.

Extra special thanks to athauglas for the repeated doses of coffee. The stuff I had at 2:30 on Saturday morning was a huge help. It kept me up through 8 AM when my shift ended.





For the rest of my pictures, they can be found here.

Total attendance for the con was 1,284 attendees, as announced at closing ceremonies. The count for fursuiters in the parade was 287 coming out the ballroom, though the official count of fursuiters who actually made it to the end of the parade was about 40 lower. (don't have that number handy)

Finally, there were a few folks I was hoping to get contact info for:

- P-Kitty (Nevermind, he's pkitty1)
- The guy I did first aid on (anyone know if he was okay?)
- Manik (the gentleman who let me borrow his fursuit)
- Clementine (Nevermind, she's mixed_kitten)

If anyone knows of online contact info for these people, please let me know in the comments!

Next con for me will be Midwest FurFest. See you all then.

I'll be driving up to FurFright tonight with desteredra and departing on Monday.

It looks like I'll be working security with the Dorsai Irregulars again this con, so here's my schedule:

Friday: 1 PM to 7 PM
Saturday: 7 PM to 1 AM
Sunday: 1 PM to 7 PM

Been pretty busy with work and life lately. Tweaking the registration system for Anthrocon (adding multi-year support) and getting ready to deploy it for Furry Connection North as well.

The other weekend I was up in Detroit, and visited girtygrin and nikvulper. We stopped by a Middle Eastern restaurant, and I tried Turkish Coffee for the first time:



Strong stuff, I'll tell ya. I must have it again.

[Edit: Forgot to talk about the waiter, too. The restaurant actually swapped out our waiter in the middle of the meal and offered us free desserts. The poor fellow seemed a bit out of it, and kept spilling various liquids. It was scary and awesome all at the same time.]

This year's Furry Connection North was another heck of a convention! With 727 attendees, the convention's attendance nearly doubled over last year! Clearly, the current state of the economy did not hurt this year's event.

I did something a little different this convention. A few months back, I made it a point to start saving all of my $5 bills when getting change. By the time FCN rolled around, I have a few hundred dollars in $5s. Aside from the strange looks I got from my bank teller when turning all of those $5s into larger bills, this provided me with a convenient way to set aside some spending money for the convention. Even though my total amount of money did not change, being able to set aside cash meant that I actually spent more on artwork and books at this convention. That's a win-win for everybody!

The one downside about this convention for me was that I didn't get to see as much of the convention as I would have liked to, due to some of the shifts I worked on security (provided by the Dorsai Irregulars this time around). I worked 2 shifts that were from midnight to 6 AM, and 1 shift from 6 AM to Noon. This left me sleeping during the mornings and early afternoons so I didn't get to see as much of the con or my friends as I would have liked (sorry cliff_husky!). I did get to make up for this on Sunday though, by attending closing ceremonies, the live Method 1 show, and Gir's dance, which totally rocked.

This new hotel was also full of win. The staff loved us. One of the bartenders decided on Saturday afternoon that she just had to have a tail to wear, so I ended up loaning her one of mine. I am told that this boosted the amount she received in tips. :-)


Other things that made FCN cool:

- All the food places within walking distance.

- The "I'm on a boat" song.

- Everytime someone said the word "asshole" and film2edit was in hearing distance, she would pipe up with "100% asshole?"

- The few noise complaints I handled, the occupants of the rooms were very nice and very apologetic. That made the con that much more enjoyable to work.

- The bar having $8 Long Island Iced Teas.

- A reasonably priced lunch/dinner menu at the hotel's restaurant.

- Cardboard cutouts of Obama and George Bush. They made for nice party items.

- Getting to chat with duncan_the_dog, who swung by Con Ops in the middle of an otherwise boring late night security shift.


Oh, you wanted to see some pictures? Sure!







The full set, as always, can be found on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157617572706694/

My next non-furry con will be Anime Central, which I will be working security at. And I leave for that, uh... tomorrow morning! My next actual furry con after that will be Anthrocon.

I've just made the decision to attend FurCoNZ in 2011.

It'll be a good excuse to visit New Zealand, as well convince some of my Australian friends to make the trip as well. (Are you listening, atpaw? :-) )

I have a half day of work today, and then it's off to MidWest FurFest!

Assuming my flight doesn't get delayed, I'll arrive at the hotel sometime between 8 and 9 PM tonight.

I'll be working at the Art Show (hours to be determined). Other than that, I expect to be out and about in con space. I shave my head and usually wear a yellow(ish) leopard tail, so I shouldn't be too hard to spot. If I'm at the dances, expect to see me with some glowsticks.

I also got a new ringtone for my phone: http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~rahsan/cornholio/mybung.wav

I hope I'll see you all there!

Allow me to sum up my weekend with this picture:



I flew up to Detroit for the weekend to briefly stop by ConClave 33 as well as hang out with the Michigan furries at girtygrin and nikvulper's place.

The lasers above were courtesy of gryph0n, who brought by his laser equipment and smoke machine.

I flew into Detroit on Thursday night and was pleased to learn that the sh*tty Smith Terminal there (complete with torn seats and ratty carpeting) has since been closed down. Having been around since the 1940s, it definitely outlived its usefulness, and needs to be destroyed. :-P

I stopped by ConClave briefly on Friday evening to visit some folks and then briefly on Saturday morning for the Big Argument Dorsai Irregulars business meeting. Somehow I wound up becoming responsible for the DI website during that meeting. Did I hear someone whisper, "Yet another Drupal installation"? That's what it sounded like to me!

Then it was off to Gir and Nik's place for cooking meat with fire, beer, and games. samurai_bastard, gen_talon, edhyena, and andrew7782 were all present, as were some local furs not all of who I know on LiveJournal. :-P





Later in the evening (read: after 1 AM), I played a little Dead Rising and had fun killing zombies. I hear the game is coming out for the Wii and can't wait for it.

Also, I need to never sing in Rockband 2 again. I completely failed at that.

As always, my full dump of pics can be found online at http://flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157607775873467/

Thanks for having me over, guys.

I haven't written here lately because I've been very busy at work, and taking care of some real life stuff that came up. As they say, "stuff happens".

I did however get to travel out to Pittsburgh last weekend to work Confluence with the Dorsai Irregulars. It was a smallish science fiction con, with about 300 people in attendance. The shifts I work consisted of an occasional rove through the hotel and badge checking at the door to the Dealers Room.

The DI working the contract were Rene, Steve Simmons, Mark Bernstein, and a few other folks whose names I can't remember right now. :-P Also in attendance from the furry community were tchall, swift_fox, mrianti, boomeroo, and unclekage. At any rate, it was great to see all of those folks again!

I didn't take many pictures at this convention, since I spent most of the time either working of socializing with folks. The full archive is at http://flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157606428079650/ for those who are interested. What follows are a few choice shots.



I had to work a shift with these guys.




One of these things is not like the others... anyone who got caught drinking the "odd one out" was cut off from drinking the rest of the evening.




The highlight of the con was a play that is put on no Saturday evening. A different script is written every year, usually involving parody of current events. This year's play was called "The Doctor's Sarcophagus". I did not get to watch it, as I had roving duty at the time. :-)




After finishing off the scotch that was in this glass, I pretty much called it a night. My room was right next door to the Dorsai Room, so I could hear them singing through the wall. It didn't keep me awake, but it was kinda funny drifting off to sleep hearing filk music being sung.

Oh, and thanks for singing The Dorsai Cadet Song, guys. Can we just induct somebody newer already? :-P

If you said "Magic" Tom Hughsted, you're right!

"Magic" Tom, for those of you who weren't at Anthrocon 2004 or earlier, was the Convention Services Director at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Philadelphia, Anthrocon's venue from 2001 and 2004. His communication skills were excellent, his commitment to getting the job done superior, and his teleportation skills unmatched! Tom was instrumental in helping make Anthrocon a success during the 4 years it was held at the Adam's Mark.

If you see him wandering the halls at Anthrocon this year, please take the time to say hi!

[Edit: He's on LiveJournal now! magic_tom]