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Post Con RCFM Report
Jun. 3rd, 2008 11:15 pmOkay, yeah, it's late..
Anyways.. RCFM Con Report ---
con pics graciously provided by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wildbilltx from
http://s56.photobucket.com/albums/g170/jangleradio/RCFM%206%202008%20Huntsville/
Despite some last minute changes in vehicle planning (samiitiger and I drove my car instead of driving with tybis,) I drove out to posicat's place and got there around 11pm or so on Thursday night. I tried to catch a few zz's on the couch until we were to leave at 3am, but heartburn prevented that, so I was pretty trashed when we left.
So we leave around 3am, got to Merrillville around 5am and stopped off at McDonald's for breakfast (okay, it was technically 6am locally.) Continued on down I-65.. I drove all 11 hours all the way to Huntsville. Stopped off for gas at a Flying J.. had an interesting incident about an hour after McDonald's with looking for a restroom and picking an exit that advertised a Truck Stop that was, in reality, a "ghost exit," where I earned "Honorary Female Membership Card," by experiencing that fun that all real women have at some point or another, "squatting in the bushes(tm)."
Shortly after crossing the state line into Alabama, we were passing a truck that suddenly started spewing very thick smoke from underneath; not good! I got around him, and while watching in my rearview mirror, I then noticed as a spurt of flames erupted from underneath the truck! The guy got it pulled over, and as far as I know, the guy was okay. First time I've seen a vehicle literally blow up on the road!
Finally, despite being tired off my ass, we got to Huntsville around 11:30 am or so Thursday, got checked in, got our rooms, and so on. Got unpacked. Other than that, for some reason, I can't seem to remember much of what happened Thursday night. Oh! I helped carry stuff in for the con, and then later talked with Heros the A/V DJ Guru when he pulled in. I think I ended up going to the local Kroger for food because I missed out on Dinner with folks --- my Highlander rewards card worked so it was fairly cheap.
Woke up and got dressed in my Steampunk outfit and headed to get registered. Made an impression on folks who saw my "Abney Park" patch, others who were impressed by my steampunk outfit, and got registered. I wandered down to the main convention room, where Heros was setting up the A/V system, and decided to volunteer to help. I went and changed out of the steampunk outfit and back to my grubbies and spent the next 4 hours creating a work of audio/visual genius. We weren't quite ready by the time opening ceremonies rolled around, and we ran a little late, but all in all it still worked out well.
Opening Ceremonies: My main introduction to all the staff and what to expect from the convention.. and then.. RCFM's "MYSTERY GUEST OF HONOR." Three names were selected at random, and the first two were not present. The third named person was... me! And so, for my first ever RCFM, and my second Furry convention, I became the Mystery "Attendee Guest of Honor!" All of a sudden my convention plans got a LOT busier! That put the kibosh on almost all of my volunteering for the rest of the con, but it also made my name and face known to basically everybody there! For the rest of the con, I had to appear at certain panels and functions, and wandering the halls everyone knew me or said hi or congratulated me! It was a total blast, especially as I was also "DJ Guest of Honor" since coincidentally, I was DJing for Sunday night. Checked out the dance friday night, too. Oh, and being GoH bumped my registration to "Booster" level as well, so I got a whole bunch of nifty swag, including a t-shirt, a patch, a tail holder bag and a duffel bag, and I also got to go to all the nifty Booster/GoH specific parties/functions, and so on!
Okay, after this point, some events are fuzzy as to -when- exactly they occurred, so I'm gonna drop the play-by-play-by-day and just go a bit more general..
Saturday, I do know, is when I metglowsheep, in Artists' Alley -- she was totally awesome and totally cute, and ended up being someone who'd noticed my steampunk outfit the day before; I was gothed out on Saturday and we got to talking about steampunk and fashion and other stuff, and she apparently got inspired and had to draw me! So I got free gift fanarts that totally rock! I scanned it in and posted it to my FA. I'll have to link pics and scans later.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1337708/
Somewhere in there were two panels on fursuit head construction bykiwihunter8 and AnimeCat. I think they were Saturday and Sunday, but don't quote me. They rocked, and I finally got to -see- a balaclava style fursuit head construction to where my brain could put it together! I'm going to be doing my own now! tybis filmed it, and I took a bunch of pictures, so hopefully between the two of those, I've got a good idea on what to do with mine. The panels were really informative, and both Kiwi and AnimeCat are totally awesome!
Stopped off for a panel on SL Business, where I met Lacy, Eltee from Luskwood, and even more importantly, a good friend from Second Life, Leeran! Leeran's officially the "first" person from SL or Firefly's that I've met in RL now, and it was really cool! He was also at the second fursuit head construction panel as well.
Saturday night was the Booster appreciation party, and I got to hang out with Eltee, and a gal who I can't remember but is part of a film crew doing a positive furry documentary.. KO had made this fantastic rum punch, which, if memory serves, was like 4 different kinds of rum, something called 99 bananas, and different fruit juices. I had about 4-5 solo cups of that, and spent most of the party hanging out and getting to know KO, Pita, Alex, Fox, and some other staffers and folks.. had a really great time, and as I joked there, what a great con where the first time you attend, you get to be GoH and shmooze with all the top brass!
Somewhere in there was the Fursuit Parade, and the Pool party. I put on a one-piece and had a blast swimming! I took pictures of the fursuit parade with my new camera, but on "Auto," the poor thing couldn't keep up. I'm sure it's not the camera's problem, and if I'd had more time to learn the camera better, probably could've increased shutter speed to handle the motion instead of letting "Auto" do it. Also, somewhere in there was dinner at Red Robin for Samii's friend Lira, who was having her birthday. Got to hang out with a real cool bunch of folks at Red Robin, and found out that Lira is totally awesome and has really great taste in music!
Sunday was much slower.. I went to the 2nd fursuit head construction panel, and then went back to the hotel room and spent most of the day on the laptops finishing the DJ playlists; Turns out that I was DJing all 4 hours instead of just the 2 originally planned for. Good thing I brought both laptops -- Windows vista cripples sound drivers horribly and I couldn't make Winamp recognize my microphone for DJ announcements, so I had to use my backup HP laptop with XP. Unfortunately, this caused it's own problems, as apparently HP has some wierd grounding issue where after a while, HD activity causes this really nasty static grounding interference noise in the sound output. But we survived.
Somewhere in that mix was also a party for the Art Show to meet the GoH's and Artists, which I attended. Also got to peruse the art, and placed a bid on an original adult piece called "Goth Cat" by *Morningstar. I ended up winning the bid on it, and so, in a long line of "firsts," I also won my first original art piece! It's a gorgeous piece, and it's not all that "adult." considering, it's actually somewhat tame for adult -- no hardcore, no full frontal, just some boob-age is all. No biggie.
There was also an FWA party, a Toga Party, and lots of random socializing.
(Look close and you can see the DJ Sabrina card!)
Sunday morning was the booster brunch, so I got a free breakfast of some really good quiche.
Being GoH, going to the parties, the con suite, the hospitality suite, and so on, meant that technically, I wouldn't have needed to buy food nearly all weekend. There was a "Taco Feed" and a "pizza feed" where pizzas were brought in, and taco fixins were brought in, and sodas and hot dogs and other munchies in the hospitality sweet all weekend.
Picked up some art CD's by Bonk in the dealer's room, last minute as the dealer's room was closing, and then it was time for closing ceremonies.
Closing Ceremonies:
KO had strep throat and could barely talk, awards were given, the wheel of blame was spun again, GoH's got to speak if they wanted to, (I got to give a mini thank-you speech!) and then there was the announcements of the proceeds -- we had over 350 attendees this year (up from around 300 last year) and at first count, about $2400 in proceeds for the con's charity, PCDS (Parenting Children of a Different Species, I believe), and then came the voice auction for the Artists' Exile Tablecloth -- earlier in the con, a plain white tablecloth/sheet had been laid out in a prominent spot in the stairwell for artists to draw/doodle on, to be auctioned for charity. Some of the prominent folks (Lionel, the Fursuiter GoH, some artists) added things to the auction, such as fursuit ears and tails, art commissions and the like, and the tablecloth eventually auctioned off for around $900, I believe. Total donations to PCDS were over $3400 I believe.
(Hey look, there's my big head in the front row!) 
After Closing Ceremonies was the pizza feed, and I barely had time to snag a couple pieces of pizza, pack up my gear, and head back down to the main room for the Sunday dances. Because of the timing, I missed out on dinner with Samii and Lira and other folks, which made Brina a sad bear, but hey, DJing is important! Here's a picture of the rig I was plugged into:
So at 8, I started the first half, which was techno/goth/industrial like my typical Wednesday shows (if you're not in SL, you can listen at http://sabrinageek.is-a-geek.org:8008 Wednesdays from 7pm-11pm central time). Unfortunately, being -right- after closing ceremonies, almost everyone was at dinner, or in the pool, or just generally doing one last party circuit and so things were really dead until about 10pm when the Dead Dog Party started in earnest.
I made the Dead Dog Party a mix of 80's/classic rock/goofy stuff, and let it be known that I was also accepting all requests as well. Unfortunately, WiFi in the hotel had been wonky all weekend (as was the A/C.. gah!) and there was absolutely NO signal in the main con room, so I couldn't do my usual and pull p2p like normal for requests I didn't have. Despite that, I still managed to fill about 85-90% of the requests made! Not bad, indeed.
We ended the night with about 20 furs in a circle dancing to "Thriller" while another amazing fursuiter danced all the actual "Thriller Music Video" Choreography in the center. What a way to end the night! Other highlights were the entire room of people (except me) dancing to the Cha Cha Slide! There are pictures of that up on the net.
Somewhere in the mix, I also got an ACME Special Delivery from Orvan Ox. Apparently, from what I gather, Orvan makes deliveries to con Staffers, Guests of Honor and the like. My GoH package was filled with all kinds of goodies including some pool toys, glow sticks, a couple of plushies, caffienated Penguin Mints, and lots of awesome southern candy! (Woot for BUNs! Haven't had them in years! Also Bulls Eyes!) There's also pictures of me getting my special delivery out there as well.
After the Dead Dog Dance, things wound down, we went to sleep, and then Monday, packed up, and Tybis and I caravanned home. We left around 1pm, and I got home around 1:20 am. Went to sleep, got about 6 hours or so, and then went to work.
RCFM is definitely the best con experience I've ever had. Everyone says it's like a family reunion, and that's definitely true. I made so many new friends and family there, I can't even begin to name them all. Also plenty of eyecandy as well, and a few that I'd love to get to know better. I will most definitely be going again next year, and already cannot wait! Fortunately, RCFM is "The Con that Never Ends(tm)" by having a Second Life presence, and I plan to try to make it to the RCFM sim more often as well.
I used to worry about anonymity at MFF, and the fact that you could easily get lost in the crowd, and unless you were part of cliques or hung around people that introduced you to other people, with RCFM, -everybody- knows me now.. In fact, it looks like I'm gonna have to get a WikiFur entry because they've got a category for Guests of Honor.. eventually, I'm supposed to be added to RCFM's webpage as well. Well, looks like I get a little more fame to spread around.. *laughing*
Anyways.. RCFM Con Report ---
con pics graciously provided by
wildbilltx from http://s56.photobucket.com/albums/g170/jangleradio/RCFM%206%202008%20Huntsville/
Wednesday Night/Thursday Morning
Despite some last minute changes in vehicle planning (
samiitiger and I drove my car instead of driving with tybis,) I drove out to posicat's place and got there around 11pm or so on Thursday night. I tried to catch a few zz's on the couch until we were to leave at 3am, but heartburn prevented that, so I was pretty trashed when we left.So we leave around 3am, got to Merrillville around 5am and stopped off at McDonald's for breakfast (okay, it was technically 6am locally.) Continued on down I-65.. I drove all 11 hours all the way to Huntsville. Stopped off for gas at a Flying J.. had an interesting incident about an hour after McDonald's with looking for a restroom and picking an exit that advertised a Truck Stop that was, in reality, a "ghost exit," where I earned "Honorary Female Membership Card," by experiencing that fun that all real women have at some point or another, "squatting in the bushes(tm)."
Shortly after crossing the state line into Alabama, we were passing a truck that suddenly started spewing very thick smoke from underneath; not good! I got around him, and while watching in my rearview mirror, I then noticed as a spurt of flames erupted from underneath the truck! The guy got it pulled over, and as far as I know, the guy was okay. First time I've seen a vehicle literally blow up on the road!
Finally, despite being tired off my ass, we got to Huntsville around 11:30 am or so Thursday, got checked in, got our rooms, and so on. Got unpacked. Other than that, for some reason, I can't seem to remember much of what happened Thursday night. Oh! I helped carry stuff in for the con, and then later talked with Heros the A/V DJ Guru when he pulled in. I think I ended up going to the local Kroger for food because I missed out on Dinner with folks --- my Highlander rewards card worked so it was fairly cheap.
Friday
Woke up and got dressed in my Steampunk outfit and headed to get registered. Made an impression on folks who saw my "Abney Park" patch, others who were impressed by my steampunk outfit, and got registered. I wandered down to the main convention room, where Heros was setting up the A/V system, and decided to volunteer to help. I went and changed out of the steampunk outfit and back to my grubbies and spent the next 4 hours creating a work of audio/visual genius. We weren't quite ready by the time opening ceremonies rolled around, and we ran a little late, but all in all it still worked out well.
Opening Ceremonies: My main introduction to all the staff and what to expect from the convention.. and then.. RCFM's "MYSTERY GUEST OF HONOR." Three names were selected at random, and the first two were not present. The third named person was... me! And so, for my first ever RCFM, and my second Furry convention, I became the Mystery "Attendee Guest of Honor!" All of a sudden my convention plans got a LOT busier! That put the kibosh on almost all of my volunteering for the rest of the con, but it also made my name and face known to basically everybody there! For the rest of the con, I had to appear at certain panels and functions, and wandering the halls everyone knew me or said hi or congratulated me! It was a total blast, especially as I was also "DJ Guest of Honor" since coincidentally, I was DJing for Sunday night. Checked out the dance friday night, too. Oh, and being GoH bumped my registration to "Booster" level as well, so I got a whole bunch of nifty swag, including a t-shirt, a patch, a tail holder bag and a duffel bag, and I also got to go to all the nifty Booster/GoH specific parties/functions, and so on!
Okay, after this point, some events are fuzzy as to -when- exactly they occurred, so I'm gonna drop the play-by-play-by-day and just go a bit more general..
Saturday, I do know, is when I met
glowsheep, in Artists' Alley -- she was totally awesome and totally cute, and ended up being someone who'd noticed my steampunk outfit the day before; I was gothed out on Saturday and we got to talking about steampunk and fashion and other stuff, and she apparently got inspired and had to draw me! So I got free gift fanarts that totally rock! I scanned it in and posted it to my FA. I'll have to link pics and scans later.http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1337708/
Somewhere in there were two panels on fursuit head construction by
kiwihunter8 and AnimeCat. I think they were Saturday and Sunday, but don't quote me. They rocked, and I finally got to -see- a balaclava style fursuit head construction to where my brain could put it together! I'm going to be doing my own now! tybis filmed it, and I took a bunch of pictures, so hopefully between the two of those, I've got a good idea on what to do with mine. The panels were really informative, and both Kiwi and AnimeCat are totally awesome!Stopped off for a panel on SL Business, where I met Lacy, Eltee from Luskwood, and even more importantly, a good friend from Second Life, Leeran! Leeran's officially the "first" person from SL or Firefly's that I've met in RL now, and it was really cool! He was also at the second fursuit head construction panel as well.
Saturday night was the Booster appreciation party, and I got to hang out with Eltee, and a gal who I can't remember but is part of a film crew doing a positive furry documentary.. KO had made this fantastic rum punch, which, if memory serves, was like 4 different kinds of rum, something called 99 bananas, and different fruit juices. I had about 4-5 solo cups of that, and spent most of the party hanging out and getting to know KO, Pita, Alex, Fox, and some other staffers and folks.. had a really great time, and as I joked there, what a great con where the first time you attend, you get to be GoH and shmooze with all the top brass!
Somewhere in there was the Fursuit Parade, and the Pool party. I put on a one-piece and had a blast swimming! I took pictures of the fursuit parade with my new camera, but on "Auto," the poor thing couldn't keep up. I'm sure it's not the camera's problem, and if I'd had more time to learn the camera better, probably could've increased shutter speed to handle the motion instead of letting "Auto" do it. Also, somewhere in there was dinner at Red Robin for Samii's friend Lira, who was having her birthday. Got to hang out with a real cool bunch of folks at Red Robin, and found out that Lira is totally awesome and has really great taste in music!
Sunday was much slower.. I went to the 2nd fursuit head construction panel, and then went back to the hotel room and spent most of the day on the laptops finishing the DJ playlists; Turns out that I was DJing all 4 hours instead of just the 2 originally planned for. Good thing I brought both laptops -- Windows vista cripples sound drivers horribly and I couldn't make Winamp recognize my microphone for DJ announcements, so I had to use my backup HP laptop with XP. Unfortunately, this caused it's own problems, as apparently HP has some wierd grounding issue where after a while, HD activity causes this really nasty static grounding interference noise in the sound output. But we survived.
Somewhere in that mix was also a party for the Art Show to meet the GoH's and Artists, which I attended. Also got to peruse the art, and placed a bid on an original adult piece called "Goth Cat" by *Morningstar. I ended up winning the bid on it, and so, in a long line of "firsts," I also won my first original art piece! It's a gorgeous piece, and it's not all that "adult." considering, it's actually somewhat tame for adult -- no hardcore, no full frontal, just some boob-age is all. No biggie.
There was also an FWA party, a Toga Party, and lots of random socializing.
(Look close and you can see the DJ Sabrina card!)Sunday morning was the booster brunch, so I got a free breakfast of some really good quiche.
Being GoH, going to the parties, the con suite, the hospitality suite, and so on, meant that technically, I wouldn't have needed to buy food nearly all weekend. There was a "Taco Feed" and a "pizza feed" where pizzas were brought in, and taco fixins were brought in, and sodas and hot dogs and other munchies in the hospitality sweet all weekend.
Picked up some art CD's by Bonk in the dealer's room, last minute as the dealer's room was closing, and then it was time for closing ceremonies.
Closing Ceremonies:
KO had strep throat and could barely talk, awards were given, the wheel of blame was spun again, GoH's got to speak if they wanted to, (I got to give a mini thank-you speech!) and then there was the announcements of the proceeds -- we had over 350 attendees this year (up from around 300 last year) and at first count, about $2400 in proceeds for the con's charity, PCDS (Parenting Children of a Different Species, I believe), and then came the voice auction for the Artists' Exile Tablecloth -- earlier in the con, a plain white tablecloth/sheet had been laid out in a prominent spot in the stairwell for artists to draw/doodle on, to be auctioned for charity. Some of the prominent folks (Lionel, the Fursuiter GoH, some artists) added things to the auction, such as fursuit ears and tails, art commissions and the like, and the tablecloth eventually auctioned off for around $900, I believe. Total donations to PCDS were over $3400 I believe.
(Hey look, there's my big head in the front row!) 
After Closing Ceremonies was the pizza feed, and I barely had time to snag a couple pieces of pizza, pack up my gear, and head back down to the main room for the Sunday dances. Because of the timing, I missed out on dinner with Samii and Lira and other folks, which made Brina a sad bear, but hey, DJing is important! Here's a picture of the rig I was plugged into:
So at 8, I started the first half, which was techno/goth/industrial like my typical Wednesday shows (if you're not in SL, you can listen at http://sabrinageek.is-a-geek.org:8008 Wednesdays from 7pm-11pm central time). Unfortunately, being -right- after closing ceremonies, almost everyone was at dinner, or in the pool, or just generally doing one last party circuit and so things were really dead until about 10pm when the Dead Dog Party started in earnest.
I made the Dead Dog Party a mix of 80's/classic rock/goofy stuff, and let it be known that I was also accepting all requests as well. Unfortunately, WiFi in the hotel had been wonky all weekend (as was the A/C.. gah!) and there was absolutely NO signal in the main con room, so I couldn't do my usual and pull p2p like normal for requests I didn't have. Despite that, I still managed to fill about 85-90% of the requests made! Not bad, indeed.
We ended the night with about 20 furs in a circle dancing to "Thriller" while another amazing fursuiter danced all the actual "Thriller Music Video" Choreography in the center. What a way to end the night! Other highlights were the entire room of people (except me) dancing to the Cha Cha Slide! There are pictures of that up on the net.
Somewhere in the mix, I also got an ACME Special Delivery from Orvan Ox. Apparently, from what I gather, Orvan makes deliveries to con Staffers, Guests of Honor and the like. My GoH package was filled with all kinds of goodies including some pool toys, glow sticks, a couple of plushies, caffienated Penguin Mints, and lots of awesome southern candy! (Woot for BUNs! Haven't had them in years! Also Bulls Eyes!) There's also pictures of me getting my special delivery out there as well.
After the Dead Dog Dance, things wound down, we went to sleep, and then Monday, packed up, and Tybis and I caravanned home. We left around 1pm, and I got home around 1:20 am. Went to sleep, got about 6 hours or so, and then went to work.
RCFM is definitely the best con experience I've ever had. Everyone says it's like a family reunion, and that's definitely true. I made so many new friends and family there, I can't even begin to name them all. Also plenty of eyecandy as well, and a few that I'd love to get to know better. I will most definitely be going again next year, and already cannot wait! Fortunately, RCFM is "The Con that Never Ends(tm)" by having a Second Life presence, and I plan to try to make it to the RCFM sim more often as well.
I used to worry about anonymity at MFF, and the fact that you could easily get lost in the crowd, and unless you were part of cliques or hung around people that introduced you to other people, with RCFM, -everybody- knows me now.. In fact, it looks like I'm gonna have to get a WikiFur entry because they've got a category for Guests of Honor.. eventually, I'm supposed to be added to RCFM's webpage as well. Well, looks like I get a little more fame to spread around.. *laughing*
