This is a report of both Anthrocon, and what I'd call WanCon as it starts a few weeks before the actual convention, when Wanny: came to visit. He had some vacation time and wanted to spend a few weeks in the U.S., partly cause he likes meeting friends from online, and partly cause Chile is fucking cold at this time of year. Prior WanCons were held in New York ( Dangerfox/ TyrianFox) and the U.K. ( DeeJaydragon). At first I thought this was going to be one of those Student Exchange deals. We take Wan and send Ben to Chile to live with Wan's family, learn their culture and language, maybe do light housekeeping. But no, we had to keep Ben here.

I learned a lot about the life of a modern world traveler. After picking him up at the airport, our first stop was at AT&T store at the Maine Mall so he could get a U.S.-based Sim card for his phone. Boy's got priorities. Then we had a light dinner and returned to the Mall so he could browse game consoles before we rushed to my home so Wan could hack my computer and stream a sports match called the America Cup (Copa América). Not, as I found out, the America's Cup, that's boats. That night's game was Chile vs Peru and was hosted by his hometown of Santiago. I didn't get much out of it, but not cause American's don't "get" soccer, but because I don't find professional sports matches interesting. That and I don't understand Spanish. But Wan had fun, which was the important thing, and his country won.

Over the next few weeks I tried to show Wan some of the fun things to do in Southern Maine. Mostly cause we slept in too late to drive to New Hampshire and do cool shit there.

We met up with Moses to see the animals at York's Wild Kingdom, including two different colors of tigers ("albino" white and "George Hamilton tan" orange).
We hiked Agamenticus, a small mountain nearby cause when a Chilean visits you want to show him a unique vista of mountains on one side and the ocean on the other (#sarcasm). Well, technically it's the Gulf of Maine.
We wandered Portland's Old Port where Wan got into a lively discussion with one of the owners of a craft beer store over the differences in imports between Portland and Chile. Much like with the soccer match, I didn't speak the language, so I stood off to the side taking photos of amusing names and labels.
We went to the Wildlife Park in Gray, which is home to critters indigenous to Maine such as coyotes, moose, hawks, deer. Unfortunately, it was a very hot sunny day so some of the cooler animals were hidden in the shade. Wan did promise to come back some year in the autumn when they have a night-time tour. During our visit we had a small interlude contacting an online retailer about shipping a laptop to Wan before it was too late. After that we took a quick hike up Mt Douglas.

Ben joined us in showing Wan around Freeport. he saw the (no kidding) Desert of Maine, L.L. Bean, Wicked Whoopie (and their delicious whoopie pies) and we saw Jurassic World, a good movie IMNSHO.

On the Fourth of July, a Saturday, Wan, Ben and myself went to Wolf Hollow, a wolf sanctuary in northeast Massachusetts to show him soooo many wolves (some of the wolves were shedding their outer coats, one of the staff gave me a handful of fur to take home. Squee!). We continued south to Boston for dinner at Fire+Ice to show him soooo much food. We hung around Boston till nighttime for an awesome fireworks show.

Ben also joined us for a great hike up Pleasant Mountain and a trip to Old Orchard Beach, a tourist trap of a town. We played mini golf and had delicious fry bread.

I also got out my telescope and showed Wan the surface of the Moon, the crescent of Venus, Jupiter and his moons. I also introduced him to the awesomeness of Buffalo Wild Wings's assortment of hot wings (You may notice a lot of these trips involved food in some way. Well, what better way to show off your culture).

There was a lot I still wish I could have showed him. The Polar Caves, the Flume, a real lobster (he had a lobster roll, but it isn't the same), Saturn and Mars. Maybe during a future visit.

Wan was a very nice guest. He didn't leave messes, he cleaned up after himself. He brought me little hot sauces from home and a Christmas ornament that I asked for (I have a sibling who loves getting ornaments from different places).

During this time I got sick of my old GoPhone (it didn't handle social media well and the phone had some design flaws)so Ben sold me his old iPhone. With some help by Wan and several AT&T reps I was able to move my GoPhone plan over and get the data plan working. Just in time for the convention.

So WanCon was coming to an end, and would segue right into Anthrocon.

Even though we knew staggard would be arriving early, Wan and I stayed up a bit too late. So we hadn't gotten much sleep when there was a knock at the door.

You can know someone online for a long time but find they're somewhat different in person, so I tried not to have any preconceptions about Tag before meeting her. And I'm awkward enough myself to wonder what she thought of me. It'd be a looong drive there and back if we didn't get along. As we got to spend time together, I got to like the RL Tag a lot. She's very friendly and has an evil sense of humor.

We discussed whether to take her car or mine, and decided on mine mostly by virtue of not having dog hair over everything (I am a well-groomed wolf). We loaded up our luggage, and headed off on our journey to the Maine Mall. You can't start a road trip without donuts and coffee, and Tag needed to buy some art supplies because she lives in the part of Maine which is a barren cultural wasteland, by which I mean "anything outside a ten-mile radius of Portland."

I took the first shift driving. Tag had driven five hours just to get to Portland and we didn't think Wan had the experience or knowledge to drive U.S. highways (especially in New England which makes Death Race look like Driving Miss Daisy). Heck, I'm not even sure he could legally drive in the U.S. I normally dislike driving long distances, but it's because I get bored easily. Having company helps. So we set ourselves south to New York City and of course Wan and Tag soon conked out and napped much of the way down. Can't blame them, I could have used a nap myself, especially when my eyes started to droop. But a steady supply of cola and excitement at the weekend before us helped keep me awake and alert.

By early afternoon we arrived at JFK airport to pick up the fourth of our quartet, DeeJayDragon. Another online friend I was finally meeting in person. As he was a guest in our country, we performed the "drive to AT&T and get him a Simcard" ritual. And we hit some snags. Seems the only AT&T stores near the airport were franchise types and they didn't have the ability or parts to change out his card. No problem, surely there'd be a corporate store en route. We made our way through New Jersey, briefly pondered dognapping moot and entered Pennsylvania.

It was getting late and we knew it was time to find a motel to crash. We took a brief look at one location but decided against it because the front desk clerk gave off such a creepy vibe, like the real clerk was tied up in a backroom and this guy would murder us in our sleep, kinda vibe. We choose a less-skeevy looking Motel 6 and enjoyed a nice murder-free evening.

Thursday morning we found an AT&T store that was able to set DeeJay up, got some snacks and pushed on towards Anthrocon, arriving that evening and ready to hang out with fellow furs.

I had a fun time at Anthrocon and seeing faces old and new.
New people I met this year include: Awkwray-Ven, Bucktown Tiger, Chux, Deejay, Dentosorno, Flea, Koda Squirrel, Kota, Lars deSouza, LynxSullivan, Strill, Zarudius, Zhwazi, and likely some others I forgot. Some of these people I'd known online for months, some for years, and finally met in person. And none of them said "You're handsome and sexy, I must take you back to my hotel room for sweet passionate luvin'." Ah well, maybe Anthrocon2016.

Instead of a chronology of each day, I'll just list some highlights that stuck out for me, in no particular order of importance:

Finally seeing Estobhan's fursuit in person. It is an impressive marvel of engineering, Huskypaws did excellent work on it. And very adorable.

Getting confirmation of how to pronounce Pamiiruq's name. I'll include the audio clip in my video compilation.

I saw a gentleman sitting in the lobby with multi-colored hair that looked like Rainbow Dash exploded over his head.
He looked vaguely familiar so I snuck a look at his badge.
"Lars"
Holy shit it is, the artist for Least I Could Do. Gee, I wonder if Anthrocon will show up in a ConTales (Woo-Hoo) strip?
Later I see he has a Dealer's Den table. And he remembered meeting me earlier.
Well hell, now I have to buy something. I picked up a half-dozen very funny postcards.

I passed by Bucktown Tiger's table. He recognized my name, said he liked my Tweets.
Well hell, now I have to buy something. I don't like rap/hip-hop so I snagged a few piano instrumentals. On the last evening, Bucktown gave me some leftover pizza. How can you not love someone who gives you free pizza?
Listening to the music later I really enjoyed them. The CDs were covers and it was fun to try and guess the tune. I think I'll overcome my prejudice and give some of his rap music a chance.

I also bought more CDs from MatthewEbel. At a prior AC, Gizmo convinced me to pick up one of his albums and I rather liked it. I'm looking over the discs he had at his table, trying to decide which of the five to purchase. Matt talked me into buying all of them by throwing in a Tshirt for the High Orbit Saves the Panda. He even signed them all for me. Heck, Runtt, who collaborated on HOStP signed it as well (squee).
I dunno, am I an easy mark, or is it just that I didn't plan a budget, but a lot of Dealers were able to upsell me like a newb. See me interested in three prints? Offer a deal if I buy five. You like this comic? Buy a second one and I'll throw in a decal.

I can't really complain, it's all for a good cause (helping fellow furries pay rent) and these guys are really good musicians. Matt's stuff has geek appeal, and some is just oddball fun that it's a good anodyne to a crappy day at work.

Of course I went to Fernando's and got their Dog Bowl special to add another bowl to my collection.

I had to attend the Bad Reading panel. It started as a general scifi con thing of having participants read as much of the awful Eye of Argon story before they crack up. Nighteyes and friends changed things up by having people read a furry novel they found on Amazon and the audience doing reactions when certain over-used words/phrases were used. The whole point was to ham it up and have fun and we all had a blast. DeeJay went with me, but declined to read. A shame. The story was set in England and, coming from there, his natural accent would have been awesome. Maybe another year.

I went to the Whose Lion Is It panel but chickened out and didn't participate. Though it was a large crowd and no shortage of volunteers. Alkali did one hell of a job as host.

I got to do new things this year I hadn't really done at prior cons. Tag let me watch her table while she took care of some errands. It was kinda fun sitting on the other side of things. I've been in customer service for decades so it was a cake walk. I talked to several people, didn't sell anything though but wouldn't mind doing it again. I was talking to someone else who was watching a table, he was in engineering and not an artist but helped keep her print supply organized. I suggested that artists should have a left-brain person as an assistant, to keep their work organized, handle the money, etc. and leave the artist free to follow their muse.

I also bid on some pieces in the art show. Before I never cared much for original work. For me, a cheaper print version would work just as well. A friend who could not attend asked me to bid on something for him, so I signed up and thought, what the hell, I'll take a look for something to catch my eye. Maybe I was influenced from watching so much Cutthroat Kitchen. I put bids on a few items and checked back throughout the weekend.

And totally messed up. I cut short a Thai dinner with Scriber, EC Major and Trianine to get back to the show for the end of the show and final minutes of bidding. I checked the piece my friend wanted, mine was the last bid, all looked great. I stood nearby as the staff closed the Show, section by section. And found out someone got in at the last minute to bid after me. I should have stuck to the piece like glue until the staff shoved me out of the way, but I didn't. My friend understood, but I still feel bad that I didn't get it for him.

SwiftFox has been bringing telescopes to Anthrocon in the hope that something can be seen despite light pollution and cloud cover. This year he brought a telescope made for safely looking at the sun. Unfortunately, the cloud cover was sporadic and I didn't get a chance to look through it. I was able to attend his after dark panels (no, not THAT kind of after dark) and saw Venus, Jupiter and some moons. Yes, I'd seen them the week before through my own telescope, but you can never get tired of seeing cool stuff like that. And it's nice to be there when someone else looks through a telescope for the first time and "Ooohs" at the marvels.

On Sunday night, we had what may be the first Therian Room Party. And by we, I mean the four occupants of my room, Tag, Wan, DeeJay and myself. Unfortunately, most of the other therians we knew couldn't come or had already left, except one, Awkray-ven. We invited him up, chatted, hung out and played Quarto. And he kicked our butts on that. I totally want a rematch.

All great things must come to an end, so Monday morning we packed up our stuff, settled the room, left Wan in the lobby to make his way on his next adventure, and headed to JFK to return DeeJay home. Tag had this idea that DeeJay's last meal in the U.S. should be something representative of America, Cracker Barrel. I'd never eaten there before. I may be caucasian, but I'm not THAT white. I'll admit the food wasn't too bad, and I grabbed a jar of candy to snack on. After dropping DeeJay off, Tag and I pointed towards home.

But that isn't the end of the story. We're on the Massachusetts Turnpike. It's now 2am on Tuesday morning. I'm getting hungry so we pull into a truckstop to get a quick bite at Burger King. I get out of the car and see someone walking in our direction across the parking lot.

He looks real familiar, no, it couldn't be, but no one else wears a headband like that. "Neko!" I call out. Yes, it was him. He and his group were also on their way back from Anthrocon. What are the odds that both of us would visit the same truck stop at the same time of night? And even weirder, one of his friends was Kitsune Cavalier, who I met and took a photo of at FurFright. And, she told me, the person at Anthrocon who was dressed as Mail Carrier Derpy was in the same FF photo, cosplaying as Octavia.

But that isn't the end of the story. Our parties part ways, Tag and I go in to order some food and hit the head. Tag goes to powder her nose and I'm loitering near the condiments when the cashier calls to me. "Sir," he said, holding up a to-go bag, "Your wife's." I thank him, take the bag, and hand it to "my wife" when she comes out. I didn't mention anything at the time because I didn't know if she'd laugh or scream, and with a few more hours of driving, didn't want to take the risk. We eventually made it back to Portland, Tag couch crashed for a few hours before heading home.

And that's the end of the story.

There was a lot I wish I could have done, but couldn't due to time or conflicts. I wish I got to stay longer at the Thai restaurant with Scriber, EC Major and Trianine cause Anthrocon is the only place I get to spend time with these cool dudes. I wish I won the bid for my friend, wish I'd gotten to attend more panels (esp the ones that looked interesting, but were scheduled far too early). I wish I'd been able to attend the offsite fashion show for Fursace (they make fursuit undies). And to be honest, wish I'd gotten laid. Maybe next year.

Despite what I missed, there was a lot I got to see and do, and a lot of great people I got to hang with, or meet, or say hi to.

I will do my best to sort and upload the many photos and videos I took and apologize for my procrastination.

[x-posted to LJ & FA & dA