mellowThursday: After being picked up by
t_h_squirrel we went to a place called Taco Time for a quick lunch before heading towards Irvine. It had to be quick because of the heat that Moreno Valley was getting since Trigger brought his pet rats (I really wished the summer weather wasn't hitting so early at the time). The drive to Irvine was alright, though we did get slowed down a little on a part of the freeway where there was a big influx of cars entering the freeway. Upon arrival, me and Trigger met up with a few furs that were outside and chatted a bit before going into the hotel and up to the 2nd floor where prep for the con was going on and also met another fur who was going to stay in Trigger's room, Mousepaws. I volunteered to help out a bit with not only putting all the fliers into the conbooks, but also putting all the stuff that those that preregistered ordered into manila envelopes so they can be handed out to them at registration. Afterwards, me, Trigger and Mousepaws got come crash space for the night from one of the staff since the room that Trigger got was only for Friday and Saturday night.Friday: Went straight down to where registration was going to be and lined up, where I met Quietfire. After getting my registration done and getting a room key from Trigger, I helped Trigger and Quietfire in getting the fans to the Fursuit Lounge, and later I was pulled away to help with getting the stuff for the Con Suite unloaded from the trunk of a van. Afterwards I was heading back to see if I could help out with anything else in the Fursuit Lounge and I ran into
tabbicus along the way and chatted a little before heading there. When I arrived there I helped out a bit more until the easy stuff was left and headed down to the cafe that was open for some lunch since they had pizza slices there. After that, I pretty much wandered around a bit, checking out the stuff in the dealer's den where I bought a ticket to the Ice Cream social for that night and a con shirt as well, and seeing what was going on in the game room, and in the process running into wolfbrothersong and redstar918 there, which was awesome, before checking out the artist's alley, where I commissioned a cut-out badge from Likeshine. I also met Rubbertex after making the commission, so that was cool to finally meet him. The Ice Cream social that started at 6 pm was alright, but I think it could have been a little better done since the ice cream was pre-packaged stuff like ice cream bars. Still, it was an alright event and chatted it up with a few other furs. Later on was the Friday night dance and that was absolutely awful since most of it was kind of like heavy metal type stuff (which I was later told is known as industrial music) and there were very few songs that I wanted to dance to like "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger". Next year, they better not get that same DJ since most of that set was crap. Anyway, after 10 minutes at the dance I left to look around and I ran into syrus_draco on the way to the gaming room, where I also met keto_galin before playing some Rock Band, taking the singing role. It was around 1 am that I started to head off to the room to crash for the night, and met Tsuyoto and Nekomon along the way and chatted a little.Saturday: Went to the video room for the Saturday Cartoon Breakfast first, which was cool, especially since there was free food like cereal and and a toaster for toasting the english muffins that were brought. An episode of Thunderbirds was on when I arrived and everyone was making some funny comments during the episode. I then went to the Meet Keovi panel and after that, I went back up to the room to grab my disposable camera I bought the weekend before Califur (Yeah, I didn't have my digital camera with me this time. My mother's camera busted and she had to borrow mine for the trip to Ohio.) and took a few pictures of the fursuiters that were around before the fursuit parade line-up would start. Unfortunately, from what I heard, the line-up happened in the kitchen area of the hotel due to a wedding, which was pretty stupid if you ask me, along with some black curtains later that made me go "WTF?!". Anyway, got some pics of the parade, followed by a few of the group-up and then when into the big tented area they had up for the dinner event later on. There I met and chatted with
firewolf66 and domafox before heading back into main area of the hotel. Later on I check with Likeshine about my badge and found out there was a minor problem with one thing I wanted in the design, but it was no problem. Later I met Eagle Beagle near artist's alley and chatted a bit before heading to the game room for the Brawl tournament that was being held. Unfortunately I did get knocked out in the first round (darn Super Sonic), but it was very close and was glad I did put up a good fight. After that I got the things I brought for the Brawl room party and hung out there until it was getting close to the time of the furmeet at Souplantation where I left and headed over there. Met a lot of other furs there like brown_wolf, Growly, Balto Woof, Subby Coon, Reese Tora, Miles A. Matthias and others (unfortunatly I can't remember everyone's names so please don't feel bad) and was able to chat a bit more with Fire Wolf and Domafox too. Afterwards I returned to the Brawl room party and played until it was time to pack up, where I then headed to where the dance was going to be held, but found out that the Cabaret event went into overtime, so I hung out near the entrance and since I had my DS with me at the time, played a bit until the dance was about to start. Saturday's dance was MUCH better than Friday's IMO, had some good stuff like Gigi D'Agostino's "The Riddle" which was awesome getting to dance to that, and some good house music too. Heck, even at one point they played Yatta, along with the video which made me crack up while I was dancing! After the dance, I pretty much wondered around a little and played a little in the game room before heading off to the room for bed.Sunday: Got a quick cereal bar from the cafe before going into the game room for a bit. There I was asked to help with setting up the bowling part of Wii Sports for the fursuit event that was going to happen. I then was able to pick up my new badge from Likeshine and she did an awesome job! I was glad to have gotten the chance to commission something from her. (I'll be putting it up tomorrow for everyone to see.) After that I caught the Furry Improv panel and learned a few things about improv that I keep in mind when FC 09 comes around with their improv panel. After that, I met and helped say goodbye to Far Raptor as he going to be leaving the hotel, and later said goodbye to Domafox too since he had to go catch a flight back home. Most of that day I was either wandering around, or in the game room playing Rock Band and I also played Asteroids on an Atari 2600 as well, which was a throwback for me. I then went to the talk-back for the con and found out about a few things I didn't know, like the rudeness of the people of the wedding group, which ticked me off. I headed out a little after 5 pm and said goodbye to Tabbicus since he was leaving to catch his flight back home. I then saw Fire Wolf and was invited to hang out in the room he was in along with quite a few other furs before leaving with Trigger to head back home.
Overall, I think this con was alright. It was great to see and talk to not just old friends, but new ones as well, and I'm glad for that, but the way the hotel staff and the people for the wedding acted was really, really bad. I personally hope that the staff for Califur find a different hotel because with this along with the way too much space of the hotel and lack of close-by inexpensive places to get something to eat, it just wasn't all that great. Still though, I would definitely come back next year, just to see friends and hang out 'cause that's what I expected the most out of this con.
Now, one other thing that happened during Califur was that my cellphone decided to start breaking down. At first it was just the main screen, which was inconvenient but I still had a second screen on the outside so I could tell who was calling and also the time. However, it got worse on the last day of the con when I lost the second screen and later, the top speaker. Luckily, my mother saved her phone (same model, but has a camera button to make it easier to take pictures with it), so I have a fully working phone again. I just have to re-enter the numbers I had on my old phone onto my new one though.
