P_Pardus

Quick update on things

2009-09-21T19:04:16Z

Been a bit since I last posted, so here's a brief update:

- Still need to get some pics of the new house up that I’ll be moving into at the beginning of next month. It was a demo model so my parents were able to get in and get pics.

- Did some major maintenance on my Bandit 1250 bike; valve check, throttle body sync, coolant change, brake fluid change, clutch fluid change, and before the trip to Chicago and Manchester, an oil and tire change. Some pics of the valve check to come. Need to check out the 250 Ninja too.

- Working on suits for FurFright, one of them was done but done later than promised so I feel bad about that, two commissions to work on yet.

- I was thinking of going to WPAFW but everything is working against me; moving into the new house, need to finish suits for FurFright, no room or registration yet, and work wants me to head to Atlanta on the Sunday. Probably will have to skip this.

- I will be going to FurFright and MFF. Still potentially have 5 vacation days left. I plan on using 3 of those for the winter break, and the last 2 I’m not sure where I’ll use yet.

- I’ll be in Atlanta again next month, more specifically Rockmart where our US manufacturing plant is. Doubt I’ll be able to meet anyone there.

- I really need to hunt around for some friends locally and try to stop taking commissions. It’s killing time for any socializing I would be doing.

That’s it for now, hopefully the pics will be posted soon of the bike and house.

Been lots busy since the last post

2009-08-12T15:11:31Z

Since starting this new position in April I was suppose to travel monthly for work, but May and June saw my travel plans cut due to the swine flu so the past couple of months since I’ve been busy catching up; going to L.A. and Atlanta a bunch.

I’ll try to keep this as short as I can, but here’s an update on things:

Anthrocon was fun. As always I didn’t expect for anything to happen or plan anything so I had a good time because of that. Seeing friends is always a good thing and I enjoyed everyone I got to meet there at the con. Interestingly did more fursuiting at this con then the past few cons I’ve been to. Maybe it’s because I haven’t done much fursuit building as of late.

Next big news is I’m buying a home! It’s a town house – condo thingy that was a good deal to pass up. Brand new too; the property around it is still under construction and they have yet to lay the grass down, although it was one of the demo homes that they showed potential customers. I knew buying a place was something that was coming because of all the incentives right now, relatively lower housing prices (which didn’t really last long here) and also because of Ontario’s new Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) which will see housing get taxed an extra 5% or 7% (forgot which one) next year. It’s a nice place with a garage so should be fine for my needs. More on that in another post.

Also, as I said before I’ve been travelling a bunch and the past month it’s been to L.A. and Atlanta. I hope to find a few Atlanta furs that I can hang out with when I’m there next time. Turns out one of them was just 5 minutes from the hotel I stayed at… doh. As for L.A. furs seem to not live in this area for some reason.

On the bike front, been riding to work on the bikes, but I’ve not taken a major trip with it. Hoping to at least do one long distance ride this year, so I hope the weather co-operates. Also I hope I’m able to sell off the FZ6.

Fursuit building stuff, I’m working on a few things for FurFright, but doing the business trips make it much more difficult to get any progress with them. I’ll just have to limit the flow of commissions I take or just lay off on them altogether.

Well, that’s it for now. Hopefully that wasn’t too long.

Quiet...

2009-07-01T16:52:21Z

Except for the music filtering through the walls from the other building unit to our office.

I'm the only one here today because it's Canada Day holiday, and I requested taking Friday off instead of today. I hate having a day off in the middle of the week.

Well, I also managed to get tomorrow off and that means I will be at AC. Managed to secure a room too! I seem to be doing the con planning last minute these days, although this time was a bit different.

I think I remembered why I started planning cons last minute; within the last couple of weeks I've heard people talking about changing around their plans, some people canceling going, other who weren't going to go now going, and of course rooms opening up in the main hotel. All within a month of the con.

It's interesting to see how dynamic that always is, but on my side I'll be going to AC now, so see you all there!

PS. Going by bike isn't looking good with the rain in the forecast.

AnthroCon

2009-06-17T05:25:57Z

Still not sure if I'm going to this. I thought I had a room, but through a misunderstanding by myself and the other party I actually don't.

If I can find a room I'll try to get the days off on Friday and Monday to go, otherwise I may skip AC this year. At this point I neither have a room or time off, but I think I can get the time off.

So... anyone got space? :>

Selling HTC TyTN II Smart Phone

2009-06-17T05:18:29Z

Please skip this if you're not interested.

I figured I'd post here first and see if anyone wanted a GSM smart phone. If I don't hear anything in a few days I'll post to the local kajiji and craig's list.

Basically I bought this cell phone used to use with my data only plan that I have that was originally for the mobile USB modem that I got. Unfortunately it did not do what I wanted (like staying connected to IRC, IMs and Mucks) so I got a a Blackberry bold instead (based on my experience with the Blackberry 8900) and am now quite happy with that.

I've kept this basically unused for that past half a year, just got a new battery for it and a few days ago used it again to see if it would suit my needs. Unfortunately it still doesn't so I'm selling it off.

It comes with the following:

- Everything it originally came with, as shown in the picture below, which includes:

- HTC TyTN II smart phone (not from AT&T)
- belt clipped case for the phone
- installation CDs
- International charger with plug adapter
- Manuals
- Spare pen thingy
- USB computer connector
- Earphones
- Other bits of documentation
- The box

- The new battery I bought, which has only one cycle of use on it
- A plastic shell casing for it to protect it (unused)

This is an International use GSM phone, so is unlocked and can be used anywhere GSM is used. Asking about $300US. More details on the phone can be found in the link below:

http://www.htc.com/www/product/tytnii/overview.html

All items included that I am selling.

Phone with the keyboard tucked in.

Phone showing keyboard and screen tilted.

Some accessories and extra items, like the shell case and extra new battery.

The unit in it's box, with everything but the shell casing, extra battery, and plug adapter in the box.

Been a while since I posted here...

2009-06-09T04:05:08Z

Been busy with a bunch of things, so I haven't been able to post. Just mostly read. This is mostly a motorcycle related post, and so feel free to pass it if you're not interested. Cross-posted on furry_bikers.

Anyhow, two things that are somewhat photo intensive, so I'll put it under the cut...

Made this GPS holder out of good Tupperware, a security camera mount, a bicycle reflector holder, a thick transparent plastic sheet, double-sided tape and Epoxy Putty.

The thick plastic sheet is so that I can actually touch the touch screen. It works. I used the type you would see on table covers.

It's definitely not waterproof if dunked in water, but I don't think with the setup the way it is that water will readily be able to get inside the unit. It's one of they ways I figured out how to get power to the GPS unit.

The bicycle reflector holder is not as stiff as I'd like, but it's strong and flexible so I doubt it'll break off. The Epoxy Putty thing is surprisingly good stuff.

Unfortunately it is difficult to see it with light shinning directly onto it, but it works and it's pretty visible.

I ended up doing this in part to save money and just to see if I could. Seems to have worked out well enough, although I may in the future get a RAM mount for it and ditch the bicycle reflector holder.

Secondly I'm selling my old Yamaha 2004 FZ6...

...If I can find a buyer for the right price. :P

This will probably mostly interest Canadians more than you guys down in the US. I'm thinking of selling if for around $4,000 CND which seems reasonable seeing the ads in my neck of the woods. Anyhow here are some pics:

Comes with FS6 frame sliders, the original and Corbin seat...

Has a slightly extended clutch lever arm to increase the friction zone by 20% and soften the pull 20%.

Givi sides and top case rack for the Monokey series of hard cases...

Laminar Lip on the windscreen to deflect most of the wind off your entire body including the head.

And she's got about 47,500 miles on it, the odometer is in km by the way.

It's been laid down on both sides slowly due to some stupidness on my part, but for the amount of miles she's got, she's still good for a lot more miles. We'll see if I can find anyone interested in the bike. Need to post on Craig's List or something soon. Anyone up in Ontario interested? :P

Otherwise, looking to get more add-on to my Bandit. I think I'm going to get the Laminar Lip for it, since it seems to do much better than the tall windscreen I got (based on what I know from riding the FZ6).

New email addy

2009-03-24T17:13:55Z

So, combined with not having a publicly know email address and wanting to use my Blackberry for sending and receiving emails, I decided to get myself a gmail account.

I picked gmail since my ISP right now, who uses Yahoo, doesn't have a good interface for people with Blackberries but without Blackberry data plans. I have a regular data plan so I can only use Yahoo's mobile web mail interface which sucks.

Google or gmail tends to have their own application for view emails on a lot of popular smart phones which I've found is easier to use and read emails from.

It's:

pardus DOT on DOT bb AT gmail DOT com

Again, this email will go directly to my blackberry which I keep on me most of the times.

Anyone in L.A.? Re: virus issue

2009-03-20T07:05:11Z

So it looks like for the new job I'll be having a meeting in person with my direct boss, who happens to be based out of Los Angeles, CA, so I'll be there from April 1st to 5th. Anyone around that area want to meet up?

Otherwise I'm back online again with my ISP for more than 24 hours and neither I nor the ISP's security server has seen any virus activity coming from out IP address. I'll be calling them again Friday evening to see if they still haven't detected anything. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one as it took long enough to figure out how to detect the virus and get ride of it for sure by doing a full re-install of the operating system.

A real update

2009-03-16T17:19:26Z

Been a while since I last posted an update on myself, so here we go...

I've been busy as of late, although work is slowing down and as some of you know I'm not to happy with my job right now, I did manage to get transfered to our sister company doing work that is closer to what I uses to do. I'm hoping that this will be a something more interesting for me to do and less annoying and frustrating than my current job is. I start at the beginning of April so we'll see how that goes.

On a related note since our sister company is considered a U.S. company (even though I'll still be working in the Toronto area) it means that I will be following U.S. holidays rather than Canadian ones. I'm not sure what days I have off, but when I find out I'll be planning trips around them to where ever I decide to go. Most likely I'll be taking a bunch of road trips, but we'll see what happens.

My ISP is being somewhat annoying to me right now although I do know why they're doing what they are doing. Apparently their security server found virus activity from our IP address to the net and they've disconnected it till we resolve the issue. They first noticed this near the end of February. I thought I got ride of the issue but was disconnected a second time this past Friday. Now I have to make sure that I've gotten ride of the virus for sure this next time around when we reconnect or else their security server will disconnect us for 7 days without being able to manual reconnect before then, I'm told. Anyone know an IRCBot virus called "mebroot"? I've used a few things to sweep the computers but I haven't really found any evidence of it's existence yet. Unfortunately there's 7 computers using the internet that I need to consider.

In the good news department, looks like springs come early for us this year and so I've de-winterized my bikes in the past couple of weekends. Hopefully I'll get more riding time this year than last, but with the new job we'll see. The new job will be a lot closer to home than the old one so I'll probably rack up less mileage this year than the last.

Otherwise a passing of a friend recently has made me want to meet up with more people and see who's out there. So I've been re-acquainting myself with a bunch of TorFurs and seeing who's around. It's been a while since I've socialized with the general TorFurs so I'm seeing a lot of new faces. I haven't actually met any in person yet. Just talking to them online for now. Guess one of the reasons I'm doing this is because my actual social life has gone on the decline lately and it's become somewhat lonely.

Nothing new or interesting in the relationship department either. :P

To a friend, and to all friends

2009-03-03T07:32:32Z

As I mentioned to some of you, at the very last minute at the start of this past weekend I did decide to go to Furp's funeral. It was good to see all my friends again who went, but I wish it was for less unfortunate reasons.

It was good to see the sheer number of furs who wished to show their respects to Furp, whether it be by showing your memories of him online, donating to the family, and of course being at the service. I'm sure that anyone would be happy to know that they touched the lives of so many people, even after passing.

And it gives me hope.

The furry community might be emo and argue like we're siblings to each other at times, but when it does come down to important things we are an extended family; watching out for each other, worrying about each other and caring for each other like family. The amount of people who attended the service, some from a long ways away, shows me that this is the case. Also, after the service, being with all of you who where there helped show how cohesive we actually are.

So to Furp; thank you for being my friend. Your time here was too short, but you've touched the lives of so many people and lived a good full life that would make anyone proud. May you rest in peace knowing you will not be forgotten.

And to everyone else; thanks for being my friends and involving me into your lives. I wish I could be with and talk to all of you more. And please, don't wait till it's too late to show your friends how much you do care for them and think of them. Now is a good time.

To Furp!

To Friends!

*drinks some "Slurm"*

Rest In Peace Furp... you will be missed

2009-02-19T16:22:21Z

Words can not explain the shock and sadness of hearing that Furp passed away last night, as I'm sure you all heard already.

Thank you for all the memories Furp, however brief the moments... your time here was too short. You will be missed.

FC; there and back

2009-01-28T07:30:05Z

As always these things are too short, but maybe I'm thinking that because the weather is more favorable in San Jose than it is in the Toronto area and work is... work.

The flight there and back was as smooth as always so no complaints there.

As always I'm thankful for all the friends I have to meet and socialize with at the cons and I'd like to thank all of you for make this one another fun, memorable one.

One thing new I did this time around was rent a motorcycle and ride around the area, mostly south of the con. Many thanks to nitropup for setting that up and aldebron for leading the group. It was wet, but a lot of fun. Next time we'll need to ride when it's actually nice out!

Sorry for those who it seemed like I blew off, I didn't mean to if it came across that way; there just isn't enough time at these cons most of the times.

Also was nice meeting a bunch of new people and as always it was just nice to be in the atmosphere of a furry convention.

Thanks to all again and I hope to see you at future cons.

For now back to the cold hard grind of the everyday boring life.

Update since May

2008-12-25T08:44:22Z

Wow, it's been more than a half a year since I've posted. Mainly the reasons for me being away from LJ land is because of work. I changed positions in the company to something a lot more busy and a lot less enjoyable. Anyhow, I think I'll go point form with what's happened in the past half a year and put it under the cut to save you from scrolling too much.

- The new job is in quality control and I've become mostly a quality inspector for boilers shipping out of the plant... to me this is a boring and annoying job since I'm basically looking to see if the parts are correct, not put in backwards and the paint looks good. As an engineer the most difficult calculations I do right now is to determine how much time I have till break/lunch/quitting time. The job is also annoying because I get called down often and am expected to just drop everything for production. This is even more annoying since we've had a record number of boilers made in a year this year, so I don't get much time to do the other work I have to do.

- I did have plans to get out by the end of this year, but then the economy happened. I'm sure it's screwed around with many other people's lives too, but it means I'm going to have to stay where it's stable until the economy gets better or if I can manage to find a stable job that I like... unlikely right now.

- I've told my boss that I am uninterested in my work and I don't intend to make a career of it. He was understanding and in my year end review urged that I go find a job that I would make a career of, especially since I'm at the age where I should be thinking that. Since the job outlook right now sucks, he is looking into seeing whether I can work in maintenance support for our sister company... in Chicago. Maybe I might end up there, and if the job is good it'll be better than where I am now.

- Since my job is at full tilt almost every day I haven't been online as much. Due to the same reasons, when I go home I just want to be lazy when I get home, so I haven't been as productive with making fursuits as I was before.

- Speaking of fursuits, I did make a few this year, but I haven't really posted them up. This gets back to being unmotivated when I get home, but also to see if requests for commissions would die down if I didn't post anything. Certainly interest for commission work is at it's highest just after I post a suit I just made.

- One major problem with doing fursuit commissions while having a busy full time job is you have no time to really socialize. I look back since FurFright now and the only time I actually went out to socialize, even with local furs was during the actual con. So FurFright then every weekend till MFF stay home and worked. MFF then every weekend after MFF stay home and worked. Maybe that's driving me batty too?

- Kind of almost got into a relationship, but it didn't work out in the end. Well, I tried I guess. Then again I am a leopard so maybe relationships aren't suppose to be my thing anyways. I'm too into my lonesome ways that changing would be a challenge for me. Hopefully I'll find someone someday, but for now I stay single.

- Motorcycle wise, I ended up snagging a 2001 EX/ZZR-250 Kawasaki Ninja in the fall. It definitely is a nice bike that is very user friendly and great for beginners. Also, if you didn't read the past posts, last fall I managed to score a 2007 Bandit 1250S for much less than US MSRP which is amazing since I live in Ontario and prices here are typically a few thousand dollars more expensive than US MSRP. Need to sell the FZ6!

- AnthroCon: I was there if you missed me, but a good 80% of the time I was room hopping since a lot of my friends seemed to be socializing in the rooms. Based on what happened this year I may at most take one vacation day for AnthroCon next year, and maybe I might bike it down there for a change.

- FurFright: this was most awesome, especially with all the right friends there (the inside jokes were flying!) next year we'll (you know who you are) have to make sure to coax one more person to come to FurFright and all things will be right again. Otherwise I just generally had a good time hanging around with friends at FurFright, which is what I do when I go to cons, and this one happens to be the one where I get together with my east coast friends.

- Midwest FurFest: MFF saw itself in a new hotel this year, and although the building is brand new and very nice I missed the lobby of the old hotel very much. The old MFF hotel lobby was the best lobby a con could have; perfect for getting together to go eat out somewhere, hanging out and bumping into people, it had a relaxing atmosphere and food was a few steps away. The new MFF hotel lobby was definitely more cramped especially with the increase in attendance this year. MFF this year felt closer to being like AC more than MFF. I say this from a socializing and getting-together-with-friends perspective. I'm thinking I like the smaller atmosphere conventions (i.e. around 1000, not 2000 and up) better now that I've been to a bunch of big ones.

- Rogers Communications here in Ontario finally lowered their wireless data plans to something that looks sensible. With that I jumped on the opportunity to get a USB WWAN modem stick. Unfortunately, as I expected, I didn't use it much at all and thought I was putting the plan to waste so I started playing around with smartphones. I first got an old used BlackBerry 8700c to which I found the benefits of having a smartphone, especially being connected to the communication programs I'm usually on, so after a while I wanted to upgrade. Got a TyTN II at first, but had connection issues so now I'm on the BlackBerry Bold. I'm happy with that purchase, so now I need to sell off the TyTN II. :P

- Right now I need to get a suit fixed that kind of debuted at MFF. It's Kiteless Dragon's half-dragon half-husky fursuit to which I started the body suit using a new method to me on the Monday of the week of the con. It was rushed, basically, so there are errors that need to be fixed on it. I hope to get that done before I to the US for New Years.

- Going to get together with some local furs Christmas night for a dinner. Since my family doesn't traditionally celebrate Christmas we go off and do our own things for Christmas day.

- Rented a place in MI to spend the days leading up to New Years with a bunch of furry friends. Mmmmm, going in a hot tub while there's a blizzard going on is tripy.

- When I head back to work I'll have to hear what the job situation is. If there really isn't a job for me out midwest then I'm going to have to stay where I am for a while.

And finally, I've been in furry for more than a decade now. I've often wondered why I've stuck around with this group for so long. I found a song that summed it up nicely from this old yet popular sitcom intro theme on YouTube. Guess at this point furry feels like family.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

2008-12-25T07:29:13Z

Wow, I haven't posted in more than half a year, so I figure now is as good a time as any to post. Real post after this one but for this one I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy and safe holidays.

I myself will be off till January 4th and I'm looking forward to relaxing and getting together with friends for my holidays. Yay! Big break from work!

It's been a long while....

2008-05-07T05:53:21Z

I don't think I've neglected LJ for this long before, but I've had good reason. A lot has changed, but most of it from a work perspective; things have gotten busy.

Less than a week before FCN I was told that I would be changing jobs internally to the company that I work at and that my current job would be dissolved, although taken over by someone else (who will later return to Japan which is why he's taking it). I didn't know what to expect from the new job they were giving me so I told them honestly that I wouldn't know whether I'd like it until I tried it. Well, FCN came and a bunch of you saw me there which was cool and I'm glad I had a chance to go down. More on that later.

The Monday back from FCN I started my new job, and unfortunately for me it was in Quality Control. I say unfortunate because the company I work for seems to have great issues with being consistent. I've been busy doing QC work which involves paper work that's not interesting and judging the quality of our products in a not so very quantify-able method, i.e. if I think the workmanship sucks then it doesn't pass, if someone else thinks it's OK then it's a different story and arguments can come from there. I kind of ended up arguing with the president too when he asked my opinion about a poorly made door; the only thing I could really tell him was, "What am I going to do, stop the shipment? I can't do that."

At this point the only really good thing the company has going for it is the vacation time I've accumulated, sadly. Luckily I was able to tell my boss I would not be available to work weekends unless given comp. time for it, and he was alright with that. Unfortunately there are more cons for this job which are:

- The work isn't enjoyable
- Pay hasn't changed
- More responsibility in the sense that it's becomes a lot easier to put blame on me (my signatures on too many things)
- As with everyone else gas prices are going up and I drive/ride almost 100 miles a day to this place
- I actual do find the job is boring and compared to my old job it's moving farther away from what I want to do

On top of this and learning my new job, I was told I had to also learn my co-worker's job since he is about to go on a 2 week vacation. What makes his job important is he regularly deals with the provincial inspectors on a daily basis to get things signed off by them, almost all of it on weld and pressure vessel stuff. This worries me because, A) I don't know the code well, and B) I don't know welding well, so the inspectors can grill me at any time, which in turn can stop production if they find something wrong.

Unfortunately because of this I've generally not kept up with LJ stuff so I'm out of the loop for reading up on friends, as well as posting...

Well, enough of the not-so-great-things, some of the better things in life, first FCN.

FCN was a great weekend get-away and I hope to at least be taking off maybe a day for it next year. I wasn't too fond of the hotel's climate control, but otherwise I had a lot of fun seeing all my friends there, even though some probably thought I was only there for the Sunday. I actually got there late Friday and left Sunday. I'm hoping to see a bunch of improvements for next year as I'll probably be going again at the very least for the weekend. Good job to those who ran FCN this year. Good con!

Another new thing in my life is that I finally got my new Suzuki Bandit 1250S about 2.5 weeks ago, and today I just finished the break-in, hitting the 1,000 mile mark on the bike. Sadly it's not as smooth as the demo bike I tried at Suzuki HQ, but it's still a great bike none the less, and really good for highway riding. I hope to do several mods to it before I'll be completely happy with it. Right now my thoughts are getting the Givi racks for some hard cases I used on the old bike to put on the new bike, and a better wind screen so I'm not hit by the 60+ mph winds all the time on the highway. Hopefully when I have time later I'll be able to post pics.

Otherwise, I've progressed with some fursuit work that I have, and hope to stay on track with the commission I have right now. My real work has kept me busy enough to be some what unable to do as much work on fursuits as I use to do when I worked in the other job, but things will get done.

Well that was rather long, but it's been a while. Hopefully the next time I post won't be as long as it was this time.

Coon-ness!

2008-03-06T19:56:21Z

I think this very long winter (compared to the past few years) is kind of killing my motivation to do much. Well hopefully the weather will change soon and spring will come and that'll get my butt moving so I can do more fursuit work.

Speaking of which, this next one below is the one I made in time for FC. A raccoon partial!

So yes, as you can see it definitely was wandering about during FC. The suit name is Lormyr.

This is my first attempt at a coon, and I think it went well.

I think I left too much fabric around the neck, though. Have to keep that in mind for next time.

This is unique it in that it has embedded prescription lenses, and a fan, which I never did put in my heads.

The lens was glued onto the main eye piece and was elevated to try to prevent it from getting condensate on it.

The fan was a small 5V fan which was only really there to help prevent condensate from forming on the lens. The commissioner said it worked out fine, so I'll have to take his word for it since I can't see well out of the head because of the lenses.

Myself and the commissioner still like this pic the best. A really fitting back-drop for a coon.

I need to stop being lazy and work on projects again. :P

LASIK: One year later

2008-03-03T20:28:29Z

March 2, 2007 I had laser eye surgery at Lasik MD. It's been a year now without the need for glasses, and I can say for sure it was worth the money I paid.

I am still at or close to 20/15 vision and I have no issues seeing in the dark (reports of seeing halos around lights is not uncommon if you get the cheaper procedure). There was no pain or discomfort at all, even right after the surgery, and with exception to a slight scare everything went smoothly and I'm very glad I did the operation.

It has been nice not to worry about needing glasses or contacts, especially at cons, making sure I didn't wear my contacts too long (which has caused blood vessels to grow almost over the lens area of my eyes; they don't regress). There's a bunch of things I can think of as being nice, but basically it's been nice so far, and I can't think of a disadvantage of doing the operation with exception to a losing some money.

Basically from my experience I would recommend the procedure to anyone. Looking back at the Lasik MD web site, they seem to have gained more confidence in their procedures and are advertising that your eyes will be "20/20 vision ...or it's free". Looks like they may have improved the technology to be able to do this.

In any case, I look forward to many more years of not having to wear glasses or contacts. :)

Yay Friday!

2008-02-29T19:31:33Z

And it's snowing again outside. It'll be nice when winter finally ends and I can do more outside.

Not too much interesting to post; been fairly lazy this week at home (work is a different matter) caught a cold most likely at work, but luckily it's just a minor sore throat for now.

Lately I've been hunting for a seasoning that tibortiger first introduced me to at FC called Bacon Salt, yes it does actually make things taste like bacon, yet according to their web page there's no meat products and the sodium content is acceptable according to the container, so I figured I'd try to get some. Might be a good substitute for salt.

Unfortunately they appear to only sell in 3 stores in Canada; sheesh, talk about low distribution. Luckily one of them is slight out of my way on work commute so that's good. I think I'll snag some when I go home today.

Otherwise, I should be making plans for FCN and AC, for which AC seems to have all it's hotels already booked and I don't have a room for it yet. Anyone need a roomie? :D On the same note anyone going to Furry Connection North? I'll probably be there for the weekend since it is so close.

Wow, haven't updated in a while

2008-02-21T14:30:10Z

So yeah, it's been almost a month since I've updated this thing. Guess I haven't felt overly compelled to update... :P

FC

FC was fun. I tend to go to convention more so to meet up with friends than anything else. I know this for sure since I went to a local Sci Fi con and realistically I was bored after about 2 hours. This is one of the bigger cons too, with over 5,000 people attending.

That being said thanks to everyone I met, all my friends old and new who where there to make my con time enjoyable. Wish I had more time to spend with everyone. Good times, good times...

Fursuit stuff

Currently have one active commission I'm working on but also a few that could be considered in queue. Haven't really been rushing anything since after FC, and I still need to show what I made for FC, although a bunch of you have probably already seen it.

Again, I'm considering making a dog character for myself just because lions tend to be difficult animals to act out since they have either an image of being majestic or lazy. Maybe I'll make a husky puppy just to pester neouka with. ;P

Work

Work has been busy ever since I came back from FC and so I've not posted because of that.... well that and being lazy.

New long weekend

We got a new long weekend after our last provincial election! This past weekend on the Monday was Family Day so I took full advantage of the 3 day weekend which I don't get too many of, like most who work a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday job. Many thanks to justincheetah and calapurr for having me over and it was good to see perro and darkwolph during the weekend too! Mmmm, German goodness!

Otherwise...

I kind of feel like I'm in stand-by right now waiting for something to happen to my life. It's a strange feeling, but it's also possibly because most of the major events for the short term have happened and we're still in the winter blah period. I'm slowly getting motorcycle stuff ready with the new bike, but obviously I can't do anything with it right now.

My next convention may potentially be Furry Connection North (FCN) since it's just under a 4.5 hour drive for me; I could easily do this without taking any days off work.

Otherwise I'm mostly content with things for the moment, although I think I could use some more in-person socializing with friends. Getting into a relationship maybe something to look into too.

Pre-FC

2008-01-23T19:50:00Z

Less than 2 hours left before I can scoot out of work, and lots of stuff still yet to do when I get home. I haven't even packed yet!

I'll be crashing in the Buffalo area tonight to catch a 6:50AM flight out to San Jose. I should make it to the hotel at about 1PM assuming no delays. I'll probably be bring Fire Leo, maybe another, but I'm going to be bringing a commission too so I won't have too much space to spare. We'll see how that goes.

See everybody going to FC at FC!

Yellow Lab Fursuit

2008-01-18T14:32:58Z

As I said yesterday I was going to show another fursuit that I made last year. This one is special in that it was the first full suit I made as a commission. Unfortunately I don't think anyone of you will be able to see this in person save for wolfushusky, who helped take some of the pictures below. Reason being is the suit is now in Russia and the chances of the person who commissioned the suit coming to North America is slim.

Anyhow, I present to you Tobie's fursuit, the yellow lab puppy:

Here's the full size pic of the one above it, no complex patterns here. Just a regular yellow lab pup.

On the couch just leaning to the camera.

General posing, and a better view of the paw pads.

Acting cute with a plushie. :)

The back of the suit for reference.

One slight change made after taking the pictures, the tail now has a white tip.

More pictures linked here too!

I'm glad the suit made it safely to the commissioner in Russia. I've never quite sent anything to Russia before. Hopefully some day some other furs will be able to see it in person, but at least Tobie is happy with it. :)

Ouch...

2008-01-17T16:43:27Z

Last night while mostly asleep I stretched out; I stretched my calf muscles too much and was in a lot of pain for a good 10 minutes after that. Once a lot of the pain was gone I went back to sleep thinking it was a muscle cramp, but unfortunately I still have the pain with me right now... I think I pulled something, maybe a muscle. :/

I hope it'll heal before FC, but for now I have a bit of a limp to my walk. Yay for getting injured while sleeping... go me.

Otherwise I've been getting ready for FC, mainly finishing a partial to be delivered there. You'll possibly see it if you're going to FC. I should also post pics of suits that I made last year. Still haven't edited the photos for those. :P

First Post for the New Year

2008-01-08T21:06:38Z

2008; I'll have to remember that when I write dates, but I'm doing alright so far.

In this somewhat late post, I hope everyone had a good holidays and started off 2008 well. I myself was fortunate to be with friends and family for the holidays and had a good time, although I could stand to use more days away from work.

2007 for me was an alright year with nothing majorly bad happening and a few major changes to my life, but it seemed to be a bad year for a lot of people and I find that unfortunate. May 2008 be a better year for those of you who had a not-so-great 2007 year!

I don't think I'll make any new years resolutions since they typically don't last (so don't go out getting a gym membership if it's because of a new years resolution since the majority will probably not even go 10 times to the gym), if you want something you will go after it no matter what time of the year it is. If you force yourself to go after something because of some tradition you may find you'll quickly lose interest and then quit after a short while.

As of this year mark my 5 years of being working full time and at the same job. One nice thing about that is I get an extra week of vacation, but on the flip side my day-to-day life seems blandly-routine since I've been doing nearly the same thing for 5 years now. I feel like doing something different with my life.

One prominent thought that's been running through my mind as of late is of relationships; which is to say I'm starting more to want to be in one. For me the closest thing to being in a relationship was with someone currently on my friends list who I was mates with a decade ago who still lives very far away from me. It was real and not RP, but I never saw the person until FC 05 and by that time we were obviously not mates anymore (mainly because of the long distance) although our long distance relationship lasted a good 2 years. For those of you in a long distance relationship you probably know not being able to touch your mate can be a difficult thing.

I guess for 2008 I can hope for the best and see what happens in the relationship department. The thought of a relationship may fad off too but I'm thinking it won't. I've been single for a long time.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T16:40:06Z

Just dropping by to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy holidays!

Fursuit Pics and Update

2007-12-14T18:53:18Z

I'll do the update first since it's short.

Went to the Toronto Motorcycle this weekend to see all the new pretty bikes. Took a few pics a couple of new bikes we Canadians get but the US market doesn't. You can see that here posted on the furry_bikers group (a bunch of pictures there).

Took the TTC there (municipal Toronto transit, haven't used the TTC in a long time) and noted how much more time took. Probably lost about 40 minutes altogether, but saved several dollars too.

Fursuit-wise, I made this one quite a while ago and thought to post it after the commissioner got it. It was made in a short period of time (under 3 weeks) so that it would make it on time for the chris_cosmo's birthday. Unfortunately customs in the UK got a hold of it and decided to keep holding it for well over a week and the suit arrived late. He's had it for a while now and I've just been slow to post myself, so I'm sure some of you have already seen him.

The head shot. I'm sure he'll be mixed up with a dog, but that happens with wolves a lot.

Yay for rust-red tipped cream fur.

Me posing for to show the suit. Cosmo is a bigger person then I so the fit isn't perfect for me.

The major drawback with the tip colored fur is that it shows seams very well, like on the tail. This is because of the length difference of the fur. A solid color fur would not have this issue.

I really need a good backdrop for taking these pictures.

You can see more pics of the suit here!

I have two other suits that I haven't posted yet... I'll have to get those pics organized.

For now, yay it's Friday!