Theme: Going Places!
Location: San Jose McEnery Convention Center
Before heading to the convention center Henrieke, Shorty and I still drove around a bit in San Jose. Most importantly we went to Weird Stuff at 13:00. This was a store I heard so much about and it was even better than I hoped!
It was essentially a museum where you could buy everything. They had hardware I've never even heard of, the only downside being that due to limited luggage space I could only buy small things. I ended up buying loads of PCMCIA cards for 1$ a piece, but also saw some SGI 1600SWs, weird magneto-optical disk drives and other cool things.
Shorty went to Ikea in the meanwhile. After WeirdStuff we went to Panda Express to have lunch, then we packed our stuff and headed to the convention center.
Shorty returned the car at the airport in the meanwhile. We checked in at the Hilton, unpacked a bit and went to registration, where we met Jill. Srice also arrived and I went back to see him, Shorty also arrived back at the hotel by now.
We went to check out the Dealers Den and met Omi and a Dutch artist! We looked for the Artist Lounge and met Aatheus in the lobby and Vinci and Artie in the upstairs area. I went to pick up a coffee but instead ran into Latte and Thornwolf. Latte joined me upstairs so I could give her a Polaroid I made of a drawing of her character. After this I finally went to get my coffee and met Mary on the way, also the cute bunny suit that Jill built.
I went back and started drawing a badge for myself. ZenFetcher also came to hang out a bit. We wandered around in the lobby a bit and saw Deezlberries, then asked for some extra blankets at the reception of the Hilton.
We hung out with Shannon, Clawed, Jill and Louve on their room for a while, gave them some European candy we brought and chatted about Ducks, Europe and other things until 1:30. Went to bed at 2:00.
We Got up at around 10:00 and had cozy breakfast in bed.
Shorty was already up at that time. Then we met Deezlberries at the Creators Lounge, where he had his Oculus set up. I got to try around in Medium a bit, which was really fun! Eligecos, Kipper and Drex also joined.
I inked my badge and we stayed in the lounge until 13:00. After that we went to the Dealers Den and hung out there for a while. We met Keovi, Sapphire, Louve, Mary and I also chatted with Redwulf. I bought a lanyard from Sapphire since I didn't have one.
We met up with C_Eagle later and also met up with Eligecos, Kipper and Drex to go to Baja Fresh for dinner.
Back at the hotel I colored my badge with markers I borrowed from Matrices. I laminated my badge in the Dealers Den shortly before it closed.
I sat a bit outside and met Dezz, a really nice guy who caught my attention by doing some sick freestyle acrobatics in the lobby. We chatted a bit, then suddenly an art jam formed at the table. First it was me, Henrieke, Eligecos, Kipper and Drex, later Ringo and CatOnTheCouch also joined. I did a trade with Kipper.
We left at 20:00 to meet with Sapphire and her friends but they didn't show up, so I went to our room for a bit and fell asleep. After a short nap I ate a bit and went to the art show where I met Louve, Jill and Tabernak. Henrieke went to pick up a donut from Psycho Donuts, I went to a panel where Deezlberries was also present, but it wasn't too interesting so I didn't stick around too long.
I met Henrieke, Shorty, Croc and Louve in the hallway, then we went to hang out in Croc's room a bit before his set. When Croc had to leave, I went to get Baseball. Baseball dropped by Louve and Henrieke to ask them to tape his room-key to his badge, then he headed to the dance at 23:55. The dance was great, Baseball also met Artie with one of his kids there.
Henrieke came later and took lots of photos! Drek was showing off his amazing bat kigu on the stage. Mausie also appeared at the dance, HiLite appeared on the stage with Croc and Baseball also got to meet Dezz. After the set, Baseball headed back to the Hilton. Near registration Baseball met Dezz again as well as Jill's bat.
Baseball also dropped by Matrices and Synchra in the Creators Lounge. I got out of suit, chatted a bit with Shorty and took a well-needed shower. I packed Pepernoten and Schokobananen that we brought and went down to the Creators Lounge. After that I went around the hotel a bit with Shorty. I also checked out the party floor for a bit, but the smell and the sticky floor weren't very inviting to I left again and went to bed at 3:00.
We got up at around 10:00, but sadly I had an allergy headache. Henrieke went to the live animal panel and I joined after some steaming and a painkiller. We saw a cute genet, a sloth, a gator and best of all, a little wallaby! I even got to pet the wallaby!
We went to the Dealers Den after. I commissioned ServalGirl and said hi to KikiDoodle. Henrieke sat at the SofaWolf table where they sold the "The art of Henrieke" book.
Lance also dropped by. I went to the room to make us some cheese sandwiches and ate in the Dealers Den with Henrieke. Duncan dropped by.
Later I went to the room to get ready for the fursuit group photo. Baseball took Kiki along with him and went downstairs at 15:00.
There were loads of fursuiters and it took about an hour until the last one left for the parade after the group photo. The parade was massive and lots of people were there to watch it and take photos and videos.
Baseball stuck around downstairs a bit longer, then headed back to our room. I got out of suit, relaxed a bit and chatted with Shorty.
After that I went down to the Dealers Den to meet Henrieke before it closed for the day. Sadly Henrieke had a headache at that time. We dat at the tables downstairs for a but and I did an art trade with Eligecos.
I met Tachi and his girlfriend as well as TeddyFoxCoon. I went to the room with Henrieke and the went to pick up a cheese pizza together with Lance, which we ate back on our room.
At 22:00 we went to the Fursuit Maker Mingle, which was just a room full of fursuit builders exchanging ideas and experiences. I also met RunRunnerRabbit who had a really cool realistic spectacled flying fox fursuit. She said she got inspired to build it after seeing Baseball, so cool!
We also chatted a bit with Java and Lance. Later Astro and Procyon dropped by. Astro gave me an old Windows CE handheld he found and thought I'd like! I sure did!
After the mingle we went downstairs to art-jam a bit more. I did a trade with Redwulf. We went to bed at 1:30
We had breakfast in our room again, then went downstairs to art-jam. Later I was able to suit a bit as Mausie! It was really exhausting but also really fun! After suiting I was a bit wrecked since suiting as Mausie takes way more energy than suiting as Baseball.
We got lunch at the Japanese burger place that had a stand set up on the upper floor, then we continued our artjam. Gene Catlow dropped by and Henrieke chatted with him a bit. Then we said bye to him and C_Eagle.
I went to see Ruby and got some cute badges from her. Then, of course more art jam. At 19:30 we went to Tandoori oven for dinner with Tachi, Procy and Eli.
Back at the Mariott, we met Lance and chatted with him a bit to make plans for after the con.
After some more art-jamming, I checked out the inflatable panel at 22:00. I got Baseball downstairs, who roamed around in the lobby and got some nice reactions. Baseball also ran into Yippee.
Back downstairs, I gave out the last candy we brought to people and traded with Ruby and KikiDoodle. I checked out the dance for a bit.
People were doing drawing games where everyone tried to draw things like Pokémon and shrimps from memory.
We got up at 9:00, packed up our things and went downstairs to check out with Srice and Shorty. I took a lyft to the airport to pick up our rental car and had to endure the usual bullshitting by the sales rep that tried to push me to pay several 100$ more on upgrades. I got back to the Hilton shortly before 13:00, packed our Ford Focus which just about fit all the stuff we had and left to Croc's place.