Look who's back, back again! Lakota is back, tell your friends!
Yes my fuzzy friends and follows I am indeed back in the cold and winter rains of Seattle after having what feels like a whirlwind of a weekend in Chicago with the snow, the fur, and the deep dish pizza! I apologize for the delay in posting this but I have been as always trying to play catch up into getting back into the routine of work, and life, and well...it blows. But enough of that let me tell you all about the trip and the time I had, my very first MFF and certain to not be my last.
I arrived Thursday shortly after my roommates Mike and Fraddas and from there we went via bus shuttle to our hotel to unpack, unwind, and take a moment to "plan" what all we had in store for our weekend. We had a brief scare when we were almost denied our room, but luckily that was all cleared up and we were given cookies and on our way. Fraddas and another mutual friend with myself in tag went to grab some noms at the mall a few blocks away since we were all starving before heading back to get our badges from registration. Three separate lines I had to wait in, firstly my last name had the longest wait, then since I was a shiny sponsor I decided to wait again for my t-shirts and sponsor gifts before leaving to go briefly look around and head back to the room for games for the night.
The following and first official day of the con began as usual with opening ceremonies, and then a mad rush to the dealers den/art show, which sadly given the amount of growth this convention has had was horribly planned out. It was a sea of people packed into one hallway that had several smaller rooms branching off of it for artists, and at the end of the hall was the a slightly larger room for other dealers. Needless to say none of us were able to get any time in the crowded mess of this layout and had to try again the next day. I did however stop by the art show where I did end up coming home with a furry pride mug, and two art pieces (both of course lion related).
One of the few panels I attended was purely out of curiosity, and well it was cat related. "If I fits, I sits" and it was exactly what you would think it to be, a room filled with cats of all sizes and species trying to seat themselves into boxes of various kinds. I didn't stay long but it was adorable to watch for a bit. Dinner for the night was provided by the shiny sponsor reception, where we were ushered to the top of the hotel, which rotated around and gave us a 360 view of downtown. This perk for me was one of the best, a buffet of various and well prepared Horderves and an open bar. I grabbed myself a plate and a glass of wine and found a table were I got to officially meet taztiger74 a friend of mine who I had several encounters with via telegram and here but had yet to meet in person. We were joined by a few staff members who came and went throughout our conversations, but we had fun talking about what it meant to be a furry and how we got ourselves involved in the fandom. I ended up running into Taz a few other times throughout the weekend and hope to see him again at a future con. That was the best part of this convention for me, while I didn't get as much done as I had imagined due to time constraints and the size of the convention I was able to meet several furs I have known from social media in person, including a handful of lions!
After leaving the reception I again met up with my roommates and we got a ride over to the local target and picked up supplies for a party we hosted that evening. It wasn't too wild, it was a smaller group of Mike's friends and we drank, had snacks and played Furry cards against Humanity, and jack box I also got to meet back up with my long time feline buddy LeopardJacks who was already a bit tipsy and sadly had to leave early. And after everyone had left we were all worn out from the day and called it a night.
Saturday, and surprisingly without hangover, Mike and I started the day going to the sponsor brunch. What a feast that turned out to be, all different kinds of meats, seafood, breads, and even an omelette station which of course I had to try. We sat with another group of his friends and chatted for a bit over brunch before going our separate ways. I went back down to try and see if I could get into the dealers den again, and with luck it had hadn't quite filled up yet. I started off by picking up two badges and a couple of things I had preordered prior to the con before entering in. With this being my fifth convention for the year there were lots of dealers in there I had seen before so not much popped out to me this time. I did however end up purchasing a few books, a defaced vinyl that has me on it, some caffeinated soap from the local soap company in Seattle Contact*Soap, three whole bars since they brought back my favorite one, the beer scented soap, and of course said hello and spent some time talking with my friend and an all around great guy and artist stigmata.
To finish off the day I attended the Furry Price is Right panel where I was actually called up to play. Two games in I actually won my bid and got to play Plinko, unfortunately because it was played via a laptop setup it was not physics based and I only ended up with a score of $300, but hey not bad for imaginary money right? I did however get knocked out by another player during the spinning of the big wheel, but boy did I come close and it was super fun anyways. The day ended with me stopping by several other bigger events, like the floor wars and variety show, until the long awaited deep dish pizza was finally delivered to our room for dinner. I still wouldn't call that a pizza, but it sure was tasty and one hell of a challenge to eat.
The final day ended with more browsing and throwing money at dealers in the den also finally meeting my long time tiger buddy and "rival" Nekomon before closing ceremonies. It was truly amazing to see the generosity of this group of furs as closing ceremonies continued to be drug on in the best possible way as people continued to pour money into the arms of the charity for the year, raising over 70,000 for them, it goes without saying unless you haven't attended MFF but the atmosphere of this convention is unlike any other, welcoming, energetic and as I just said very generous.
As most of these conventions end for me and my roommates, we packed, played games, and I tried to finish off the plethora of booze left over in our room from the party since everyone other than me had an early flight. Was worth it though since I got to fly home on a flight full of lions including fellow local lion kijani. While it still may be too early to call I do think that we will be back for 2017 MFF and if I am able to attend I do look forward to it, doing more, seeing more, meeting more furs I didn't get the chance to this time around like Axl Kelly (you sneaky fox). But until next time this is me closing out another con report, and it wont be long until I am off to my next one, just a couple of short weeks till Further Confusion 2017!
Take care everyone, thanks for reading, and happy holidays!
