Giza aka Douglas Muth's LiveJournal

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.

I know this is a bit last minute, but I've currently got a room to myself at FCN.

It's a double room (two beds), and I arrive Thursday and leave Monday.

If anyone is interested in a piece of that room, please follow up with me either here, or privately.

Thanks!

[Edit: Uh, nevermind. :-P ]

Myself holding film2edit:



...which incidentally, is about the closest I will come to picking up women at furry conventions. :-)

I'm still writing my con report and tagging my pictures. I'll post 'em here when I'm all done.

Other than recovering from the con, I've been busy catching up with other things, like writing some more unit and function tests for the Anthrocon Reg system. Earlier today, I got a nice "critical mass" of tests written, so that I can start adding features and fixing bugs, yet be fairly confident that I haven't broken anything. We'll see how that works out!

I can't believe I forgot to write more details about my trip to Furry Connection North!

For the impatient, my full archive of pictures can be found on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157604580955859/

I flew in on Wednesday night, so I could help out with setup on Thursday. For those of you reading this who have never been to a furry convention before, people tend to arrive early and stay late. So we did setup on Thursday morning to prepare for folks arriving as early as Thursday evening:



As the con started to fill up on Thursday and into Friday, we got the con suite and the "Pimp Suite" up and running. There were plenty of things to munch on, with beer for those over the age of 21:



The layout of the hotel consisted of an atrium with a large central area where attendees could congregate, similar to The Zoo at Anthrocon:



Registration was at the set of long tables that were off to the side of the area. And for those of you were who in that area and saw a wireless network with the SSID of Cheetahs Are Chewtoys? That was my doing. You're welcome.

Let's talk about the dances for a minute. The dances absolutely rocked. With laser lights and fog, they were lots of fun:



I was working on security at this convention, so I didn't get to drop in on as many panels or performances as I would have liked, but I made a few, including Branwyn's performance, and the "Science and Pseudoscience" panel. I didn't get to make all of Uncle Kage's Story Hour, but I did get to "buzz" the Story Hour halfway through with some of the other Dorsai Irregulars. 5 of us just walked in the back, single file, and stood there. This was enough to derail his train of thought and cause him to blurt out, "OMG it's the Dorsai Irregulars!"

On Sunday afternoon, there were fursuit games, held in the open area in the atrium. There was a turnout of 20 or so fursuiters:



One of the things that I liked about working this convention was that the folks running it had the attitude of, "Get the hard work done, THEN party". So when Sunday evening came around, partying was something we did:




Overall, the con went great! The hotel staff were awesome, as were the convention staff. Everyone had a job to do, and they went about doing it. No attitudes, no infighting, just hard work all around. And that's how a successful con happens.

The final attendance of the convention was 372 attendees. This is a record for a first year furry convention held in a new city, and is something that we can all be proud of.

If there's one thing that could be improved on, it would be the temperature of some of the hotel rooms. That was pretty much the only significant complaint we had. And it will be addressed for next year's Furry Connection North. :-)

Our Guest of Honor (Latin Vixen) seemed to enjoy the convention too:

Since Furry Connection North is a first year con, they've been relying on the generosity of staff to loan the convention money. They'd like to repay them ASAP, but furs generally don't register until the month before a convention actually happens. They're getting some registrations, but to encourage more, they've organized a promotion.

The first 25 people to register will be put into a raffle to be given a free upgrade to Pimp status! (If the winner registered as a Pimp, they'll get a $25 refund.) This includes cash, check and credit card registrations, so however you register you can participate. So go to http://furryconnect.com/registration.php and register with your credit card, get the form to mail in a check, or give nikvulper or girtygrin cash and a printed out form at a furmeet.

Good luck, and I'll see you at the con!