Bear Droppings

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My Little "Chill Window"
Sabot! You're at a con! WTF are you doing posting?!? I like to call this my little chill window. I just got back from the fursuit parade....
640 FURSUITERS!!!
and I thought I would chill out for an hour or so with a beer and some LJ.

So far the con has been very nice. I did a little guerrilla fursuiting last night with Fox Cub and Scritchwuff. There was a tightrope walker walking across the Allegheny River a few blocks away so we thought we would hit that. The folks loved us! I got pulled into an art gallery since it was named "The Rabbit Hole" and I was wearing Honey Bunny. They loved me as I danced to David Bowie's "Let's Dance." THAT'S what fursuiting is all about, boys and girls!

I should also mention that I DID bring out Pedobear on Thursday night. OMG! People went nuts! I passed out lots of free candy and posed for LOTS of pics. I'm thinking of bringing him out again tonight after the fireworks show.

Quewe hasn't been out yet. I'm thinking about taking him out tomorrow. I'd love to suit at the Convention Center, but it would be a bitch to carry him all the way over there. I'll probably just stroll around the hotel tomorow.

So....it has been a good convention up to this point. I'm glad I came. I've hung out with some very cool people and have just enjoyed myself. I'll have to come back next year.

Dandy Warhol
After my last post Kitty and I made our way over to the Warhol Museum. It was very much worth the price of admission! Whereas I was sorely disappointed by the O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, the Warhol Museum delivered. It was 9 floors of galleries featuring various aspects of his life. It was very much a multimedia museum with each gallery playing some sort of music either something that he had a hand in, i.e. The Velvet Underground, or music of the time where he did album cover art, i.e. The Rolling Stones' "Sticky Fingers" and "Some Girls." He had very eclectic tastes. It was stated that he would have opera playing in one room with rock in another. He loved the New York punk scene as well as the Studio 54 disco scene. I was amazed at the celebrities he painted over the years from Elvis to Michael Jackson. The museum was as much about the times as it was about the man. It was truly fascinating. One "exhibit" was a performance piece called "Clouds" which was a room filled with inflated mylar pillows being blown around by fans. We thought that

bjbuttons would absolutely love that room! They also had a chill-out room like he had at his studio with random images being played on the walls and ambient music in the background. I wish I had dropped a mushroom before going in there.

After we saw the museum we hung out at the hotel meeting folks as they arrived. We then had our "big dinner" at Buca. We ended up with 24 furs. After dinner we took the inclined railway up to the top of the bluffs for a nice overview of the city. After that it was a nice walk back to the hotel. Kitty and I stayed up a little later with

alexanderkatz and

thefelinaferal chatting. When midnight rolled around and I realized that I had been up for 18 hours, it was time to crash.

Late this morning we hit up the Primanti Brothers for tasty sammiches. Now I'm just chilling before hitting the con.

AC Info
Just got checked in. Room 1825 is where the fun is. We're waaaaaaaay at the end of the friggin hallway. Oh well. We can have a loud room party I guess.

Already went to Point State Park, had a nice walk along the Allegheny River, and breakfast at the Steel City Diner. There was already a "fursuiter" in the lobby, so I can't be first (although it was basically just a partial with a mask). So now a brief rest before hitting the Warhol Museum and doing a booze run.

All Aboard The Capitol Limited
Kitty and I are aboard the Capitol Limited ready to head off to Pittsburgh. Normally being delayed on Amtrak is a bitch, but right now, it's a blessing. We have a sleeper for this leg of the trip which is a good thing! We are supposed to arrive in Pittsburgh at 5 a.m. That's a bad thing. Now we're delayed at least an hour as we wait for a very delayed California Zephyr. That's a good thing! That means we might get to Pittsburgh at a little more reasonable hour. I doubt that our room will be ready at the Westin, but if not, we'll just drop off our bags and hit the Steel City Diner for breakfast. Then it will be off to Point State Park to walk off said breakfast. We do have reservations tomorrow night at Buca di Bepo at 7. I think we're up to about 20 people right now, but if you're interested, we might be able to squeeze you in. I think Kitty will be taking a group via the subway while I'll be hoofing it the mile or so.

Hope to see many of you in the next couple of days! SQUEE!

Good News. Bad News
Kitty and I are safely at my mom's in Chicago. We had a bit of "good news/bad news" after we arrived. The bad news was that my mom's brother's brother-in-law passed away a couple of days ago. He was a really neat guy. I met him at many family occasions that were held at my aunt and uncle's place. He also was a good friend to my mom and dad. He had been battling Alzheimer's for the past few years and finally succumbed to a stroke. The good news was that there was going to be a wake for him and that I would get to meet all of my cousins, some of whom I haven't seen in a couple of years. It was a great social event. We all talked for a long time. I got to introduce Kitty to those whom she hadn't yet met. It's sad that it takes a sad event to get all of the relatives together. Today was the "funeral," but since he wanted to be cremated, it was just a service. After that we headed over to a big banquet facility where the immediate family had a nice ethnic polish lunch (complete with Polish beer for me!). It was a nice celebration of life.

Tomorrow it's off to Pittsburgh! Maybe a trip to Brookfield Zoo is in order.

Southwest Chief update
We're flying across Missouri at 90 MPH. So far we've been early at every stop. That's certainly a good thing in that it allows us to get off and stretch our legs/ get some fresh air. We went to bed early last night and woke up early this morning. It was a lovely morning in Kansas City. Yesterday was uneventful although there was a bear sighting as we went over Raton Pass. I missed it. *sad face* I just saw a few mule deer. If we arrive in Naperville early, we can hop on an eastbound Metra and get to Cicero early. If not, we'll have to head into Union Station and wait for an hour. *shrugs*
EDIT: Posting this from Ft Madison, IA station since now I have non-roaming signal.

Southwest Chief
Kitty and I are safely aboard the Southwest Chief waiting for our departure time of 12:55. Believe it or not the train was an hour early into ABQ. So we'll be in Chicago tomorrow afternoon around 4. Then we spend a day with mom. Then we're on the train to Pittsburgh on Tuesday night. Here we go! The great AC adventure of '09!

Defining A Generation
There's LOTS of blogging going on today and yesterday about the death of MJ. To a lesser extent there was a buzz around the death of Farrah Fawcett. Ed McMahon also got a few mentions. It also looks like Walter Cronkite is on his death bed. It got me thinking about who are the people and events that "define a generation."

At what point in our lives do we become aware of people and places and make them a part of our collective psyche. Is it grade school? High school? College? A combination of all of them in some sort of running average?

I look at someone like Farrah Fawcett and think that perhaps she was just a little "before my time." Of course I watched "Charlie's Angels," but it wasn't that big of a deal. Most teenage boys had that famous poster of her hanging in their rooms (which they probably fapped to quite often-remember: you could see NIPPLE!). Not me.

MJ, on the other paw, was in my face all through college. I remember watching the premier of the 20-minute "Thriller" video on MTV in my dorm room. It was an event! OK. I was furry at the time and loved the transformation scene. The truth be told, however, was that I was SICK of MJ. Every song from Thriller would be played and played and played. I couldn't stand it! I was discovering my alt-rock side at about this time so I wanted to see bands like R.E.M., New Order, Depeche Mode, Elvis Costello, etc. Pop was just drivel. I guess I am more nostalgic for the big-hair bands.

I'm sure the generation before me would treat Walter Cronkite's declaration of the Vietnam War being un-winnable after the Tet Offensive to be one of the generation's defining moments. Or was it? Did they care back then? Nixon flying off in his helicopter after his resignation? Once again, before my time, but I did see his resignation letter at the National Archives. I know that meant a lot to my dad. What were my defining moments? Reagan's assassination attempt, Three-Mile Island, the Challenger explosion, Chernobyl, The Berlin Wall coming down.

How about the rest of you? You youngins out there! What defines your generation? The computer? The Internet? Video games (and not the cool ones where you had to go to an arcade. That's MY generation *lol*)?

Garden Update
It's amazing what a little warm weather will do to a garden! I went out to do my nightly watering/weed check last night and was pleasantly surprised to see that the harvest may begin within a week or so. Here's the latest update complete with pics (although I took the pics only a few days ago, the plants are already bigger!)

The jalapeno peppers all bit the dust. I be sad.
The serrano peppers, however, are doing splendidly and have peppers forming all over.

xeltifon may have to harvest some while we're away at AC
The green chile is also doing well. Some peppers might be ready in a week or so.
The green bells are doing o.k. I noticed a lot of buds ready to flower.
The eggplant is really starting to take off. Even the one I gave up for dead over a month ago has recovered. No flowers yet.
The tomatoes are doing well. I put baskets around most of them and have been training them to grow upwards. Most have started to flower.
The zucchini is starting to go bat-shit crazy. I noticed a flower last night. Hopefully they will hold off until I get back to the con. I know they can go from nice-sized to Thor-sized in a couple of days.
The watermelon is also starting to send out vines with potential buds. I should have watermelon Cthulu by the time we return.
The cantaloupe is struggling to get by. It's really not growing well at all. Hopefully with a little love I can get it to grow better.
The cucumbers are pretty much the same story. The first batch of seedlings got nom'd by something so I had to replant. The 2nd batch has just started to sprout.
Green beans were a last minute addition because it looked like I had some room. So far they're doing fine, some better than others.

Here are the pics:

Beans along the left edge, tomatoes in the cages, bell peppers on the right, eggplant and chiles toward the back.

Watermelon on the left and zucchini on the right. As I had mentioned they have probably increased in size by 10-20% in the few days since the pic was taken. The cantaloupe is just above the watermelon so you can see that it's REALLY struggling.

Pre-AC plans
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Kitty and I will be rolling into Pittsburgh on Amtrak early on Wednesday morning. REALLY early, like 5 am early. Our plan for the day was to hit up some of the tourist places during the day like the Warhol Museum, the incline railways, and Point State Park. BTW, local Pittsburgers, is the park open or is it still being renovated? Can one get to the river confluence? We plan on doing touristy things on Thursday as well. Any other suggestions?

Another idea which I floated to Kitty was to go see a Pirates game. They play the Cubs on Wednesday night and have a make-up game with the Mets on Thursday afternoon. Anybody interested in seeing a game?

I hope to do a little trainspotting with

swift_fox and some of the other Rails-n-Tails folks. I think that was scheduled for Friday.

As far as big dinners are concerned, I would like to get a group together at someplace like Buca for Wed or Thur night. Trying to get a group into one of the local restaurants during the con will be a MAJOR hassle. The Outback at the ballpark is another option. Furries hate to walk more than a few blocks, so the place was empty when we did it a few years ago. Of course it would be good to do that on a non-baseball night which is the entire weekend.

Does anyone know when and where the fireworks show will be on Saturday? I would definitely love to be up on the roof for that!

Anyone else have any awesome plans where you wouldn't mind a bear and kitty tagging along? This con is more about the people and doing fun stuff than the con itself. It can just get sooooo overwhelming.

Also, for the foodies on my list, what was the name of the place that was featured on the Food Network where they serve HUGE sandwiches? It was somewhere in the Golden Triangle and I know some furs went there a couple of years ago. I'm looking at you,

linnaeus and

duncandahusky.

Peaceful Easy Feeling
I don't know what's up with me. I feel so mellow this morning. Heck, I even have the Coffeehouse Channel on XM and I'm grooving to all of this acoustic music. I had a nice bike ride to work. I got myself a haircut at lunchtime. I'm just chillin' (or is that jellin')! Perhaps I've finally come down after all of the weekend festivities. *shrugs* It won't last long. Kitty and I will be hopping on Amtrak on Saturday heading for AC (with a brief stop in Chicago.) Nobody better bogart my good vibe, man!

Albu-FUR-que VII - report
It certainly was an off-the-hook weekend! Albu-FUR-que VII was a huge hit! We finally broke the 50 attendee mark (plus 3 dogs). The house was able to contain all of the furry goodness (barely) and I think everyone had a great time. There were also several non-furs in attendance, but I think we had converts by the end of the night. I lost track of how many fursuit virgins I claimed by the end of the festivities. Let's just say that if you wanted to try on a fursuit, you were quickly whisked away to the fursuit room and thrown into some sort of critter.

I spent a good deal of time slaving in front of a hot, smokey grill, but everyone seemed happy stuffing their muzzles with burgers and dogs, so I didn't mind. I did manage to hop into Pedobear for some hilarious photo ops. Soon there were suiters all over the back yard! I think we had at least 10 at one point. Much fun was had!

Since the solstice occurred during the party, I did the Pagan thing and danced naked at exactly 11:34p. *lol* Hopefully no pics were taken.

Now the debate starts as to whether or not we should move the whole party to a hotel. While it would save our home, it might be more work in the long run. We'll have to think about it.

We did attract out-of-state furs which was a wonderful thing. We had representatives from Utah, Colorado, and Texas. Perhaps this thing is turning into a con on its own!

( Pedobear action behind cut )

Hey, Mister. Can You Spare Some Climate Change
I finally arrived home from Denver at 11 last night. I don't know what the hell was up with Southwest, but they were almost 90 minutes late. At least I had a good time at the airport bar as documented in my last post.

The focus of the workshop I attended was conveying uncertainty in the forecasts which we do. This is vital for the job I do since so much of the outcomes I predict are based on things with a high degree of uncertainty, namely the weather. We need to make it clear to our stakeholders that there is a range of possibilities and we are making best guesses, but shit happens. My little episode with the reservoir last month is a good example (and was presented as an example by my boss). Part of the discussion also focused on how this variability might change as climate change (a.k.a. global warming) has greater and greater impact on weather/climate. There is actual policy that says we must consider climate change in our long-term planning. This is where I call, "Bullshit!"

I told my boss that I really don't give a damn about global warming. Whatever is going to happen will happen. If our snow level goes up 1000' then we'll have less snow to deal with. Perhaps we'll have to capture Winter rains instead. Will we have a greater monsoon season? Great! There will be less of a need to irrigate in Summer. Look at this year. We've had a monsoonal pattern for the past few weeks which is 3-4 weeks early. The cooler temperatures and increased moisture have been wonderful in my book. Will we become more desert-like or more temperate or even tropical? No one seems to have a definitive answer. How am I supposed to plan for something that no one can predict?!? I also told my boss that we have pretty much already seen the extremes. Back in 2001 we came about as close as we have to having no snow in the Winter. It was a near disaster! We KNOW that! Back in 1983 the West saw more moisture than ever! I have heard that the eighties were not only the wettest in the century, they might have been the wettest in the millennium based on tree-ring data. So there you have it. We have seen the wettest and the driest. If either one is persistent, of course there will be change. But there's the thing. Nothing has been consistent! What have the patterns been? Obviously we have been getting warmer, but has that been a negative thing? I'd say the jury is still out. Perhaps this is my geology training coming out. The Earth doesn't really care what happens over decades or centuries. It's a very dynamic system which is what makes it so fascinating. I'm actually quite happy to have a front-row seat in watching all of the changes taking place. As I have said before, we have survived this long and we will adapt and keep on surviving.

OMG Furries!
I'm sitting here at the Rock Bottom Brewpub in DIA. My flight is still 2 hours away (and delayed! Grrrr! *poof*) I decided to just sit back and get nicely buzzed on tasty brew while waiting for my plane.

My laptop wallpaper is the group fursuit pic taken at FC '08. My waitress walked by and freaked out! She thought it was the cutest thing EVAR! She was calling all of her co-workers over to take a look. Just a minute ago I was reading

timduru's post which had pics from a French furmeet. Once again the waitress walked by and freaked out. I told her all about Rocky Mountain Furcon, and she was fascinated. Looks like we gained another fan!

Quick Update While on Break
Today's the last day of the workshop. So far it has been pretty good. I have visions of crunching lots of numbers when I get back to the office and putting together a nice comprehensive database.

Last night was another great time hooking up with friends I normally don't have a chance to just sit and chat with. I had a nice dinner with

nevermint at a local Mexican place near my hotel. Mighty tasty food and margaritas! We then met up with

tigergaiason,

david_tigerific and roommates who arrived a bit later.

Hopefully I'll be back in ABQ before 10 tonight. Rats. Meeting starting up again.

Workshop
It's the lunch break at the workshop I'm attending in Denver. So far so good. Let's see if I can survive the "2 o'clock doldrums," as I call it, where it gets almost impossible to keep my eyes open. I just paid a visit to the USGS map store which is in this building. They have a lot of cool stuff there! It's also a furry's dream in that they have plushies everywhere! If you name the species, they probably have it. Of course I was more interested in the map stuff, but unfortunately it's mainly geared towards Colorado (well, duh!). This building also has a lot of cool historical displays. At least I have something to do/look at during the breaks.

I had a nice dinner with

anya_silverfur and

sphinxbait last night. We hit up Old Chicago near my hotel for tasty food and beer.

Oh well. The presentations are starting again. Later!

Off To Denver
I'll be up in Denver for a couple of days starting tonight. Any CO furs want to get together for dinner or such? I'll be in Denver proper this time, not Boulder. I'll be on the westside, yo, near Union and 6th. Hopefully it will be an interesting workshop.

Another Ornithology Post
I partook in one of my favorite summertime activities this morning. I sat on the patio. A cup of coffee would have made it perfect, but Kitty and I had plans to go out to breakfast a little later. I just sat there and soaked up all of the nature around me. One of the things that I noticed was that most of the birds must have "gotten busy" about a month ago. There were fledgelings EVERYWHERE! First there was the speckled robin. He would hop a few steps and then trip over his own claws. Then there was mama curved-billed thrasher who stole dog food from Mesa's bowl and carried it to the waiting beak of her hungry youngster. I had mentioned Squawky the Gambel's quail in my last post. Well, Squawky now has a family. He brought his mate and 4 chicks into the yard this morning. There was also a couple of uncles and a nephew as well. It looks like the Gambels are REALLY establishing themselves here! I caught a glimpse of a bright yellow bird as well. Perhaps it was a gold finch.

In other nature news I should mention that Mesa took on a couple of coyotes yesterday. The first one was right in back of the house. He went tearing down the mesa after it and eventually pounced it. There was a quick flurry of barks, growls, and snaps before both went their separate ways. A little later he caught sight of another one and went after it. This time the coyote had mad eluding skills. Just as Mesa would close in, the yote would zig and zag on a dime. Mesa got bored and ran back to me when called. And that's the news from the wilds of NM!

Dogs and Cats! Living Together! Mass Hysteria!
Mesa does this thing that I call "bounce/spin." Whenever I say, "Walkies?" he jumps about 3' vertically and twists his body so that he spins in mid-air. He just gets so excited! This can be dangerous as well since I have ended up with 80 pounds of dog flying wildly towards my crotch. I told Kitty that I would have to try to photograph his leaping abilities one day. Yesterday, Kitty was playing ball with him and he was doing some nice jumps. I decided to get out the camera and capture a few shots.
Flying dog!

( 3 really cute pics of Mesa behind cut. Click or the dog gets it! )

Sometime during the game of catch, Skookum wandered into the yard. Mesa decided to play with the cat instead of the tennis ball.

Probably the most hysterical pose I could capture.

( 4 more pics of cats and dogs going at it )

Kitchen Rant
I let loose a string of expletives yesterday in trying to clean the stove. You know how they give you those nice drip pans to protect the stovetop surface? What the hell do they make those things out of?!? I swear to doG! No matter how hard I scrubbed them and even after running them through the dishwasher, they STILL came out looking like shit! Would it be so difficult to make those things out of some sort of non-stick material? Granted, they are probably cheap so that you can buy replacements, but why should I have to?!? I suppose that they are saving my stovetop from that baked-on schmutz, but it seems that the rest of the stovetop cleans up just fine with a little elbow grease and Soft Scrub. So yeah. Life must be pretty boring if this is the best I can come up with for a Monday post. ;oP