SlyCat's Journal

The con's over. My roomie jouva has already left as he had an early flight. It feels like there's no longer anything to look forward to now. So yeah, this is Post Con Depression. I so wish I had a flight out today now, I really do, but instead we got another day in Pittsburgh, flying out at 6.40pm tomorrow. WhiteWolf is staying for a bit so I think she plans to take Tim, Kei and I to the mall. I need to get to the Robinson mall again anyway as the shoes I got there gave me blisters and I'd like to exchange them if possible.

I so need to do another con. I had a fantastic time here despite knowing a very small number of people who attended. I want to get back to FC next year. I just need to be careful with my money again. Unfortunately, that may mean putting off the HDTV I had planned to get but I think holidays are better than posessions :).

Those damn pesky media-types took a snap of me as I was giving Timmypup (Wearing Brek) a piggyback yesterday - http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_515974.html

A little behind on this one, I must do better! Anyway, as to what we did yesterday, we went to the Steel City Diner for breakfast. I had a 5 egg omelette while Kei has 3 gigantic pancakes and Tim had the special. Was quite tasty, might have to go there again, although I hear they ran out of some food last year :P. After that, we took a stroll around Pittsburgh going down Penn Avenue then up 6th Avenue, across the bridge and then followed the river up to the Heinz building before crossing back to the other side of the river. Was quite a peaceful walk up to this point. The other side of the river was apparantly what is called the Strip District where they have lots of random shops and restaurants. We picked up some sweets from what appeared to be a wholesale sweet shop as they only sold stuff in bulk before taking a wonder round on to Smallman Street, following it back to the hotel passing a costume shop on the way (which had hideous Simpsons suits amongst others).

Once we got back to the hotel, we found the bathroom floor was covered in water because the toilet was continuously flushing. I touched the handle where the water seemed to be coming from which stopped the flushing but we had already called for an engineer to look at it so when he came he just mopped up the water and cleaned up the bathroom. Following that excitement, we decided to go to the Showcase Cinemas in Robinson to see Ratatouille as the lady in the Disney store had recommended the day before. Had to get a taxi out there again which was another $25 each way but was much more convenient than getting the bus. It's a real shame the whole Robinson shopping area isnt more pedestrian friendly. They almost expect you to drive from one building to the neighbouring one. Anyway, the movie was great, another hit for Pixar. On a geeky side, the graphics get better and better, the food really did look real in some places :P

After the film, we walked down to TGI Friday's. Ordered some "Buffalo" chicken wings for starter which were too spicy and the sauce was too thick so we didn't eat much of those. My main was a serving of chicken and steak fajitas which were pretty nice if not spicy like Old El Paso fajitas, and salsa was sadly missing. Also only got 3 smallish tortillas which made it difficult to fit everything in. Had a fantastic drink to make up for the disappointments in the food department. It was a red bull shlushie. It really made me go "zing!" sugar sugar sugar from the syrup of the slushie mixed with the caffiene of the Red Bull. Lovely :)

After getting the taxi back, didn't do much for the rest of the evening. Possibly spotted a few furry arrivals in the lobby but that was about it.

Got to Heathrow at about 7:15am, having woken up at 5:30am. Went straight for the ticket desk queue which appeared pretty short but it still took me 45mins to get through it. I needed to go to this queue first to get my ticket for the second leg of the outgoing journey amended as they changed my flight number. After the long wait, they took about 20 seconds to look up the details and put a sticky label on the ticket... after that was the checkin queue which took another hour or so. By now, the time was 9:20am and the flight was boarding at 10:00am (despite leaving at 11:15am) so we made our way to the next queue, security. It was really really long but moved quite quickly so wasn't too long before we were through it. I didn't get pulled to one side for anything so was all good. In the other side of security, we wanted to get something to eat but didn't really have much time so we just got some sandwiches from Boots. I thought there might have been more shops at the departure lounge area but I was wrong. The vending machine wasn't even working. It wasn't long before we were bording the plane so it wasn't too bad. Once on the plane, it did seem like forever before we departed, which was more like 12 rather than the scheduled departure time of 11:15. However the flight managed to get ahead of schedule and we arrived pretty much before we were supposed to get there. The flight itself was OK, the inflight entertainment system was just the old videotape system so I just used it for the skymap and the occaisonal game of battleships which you could play against other seats.

At Chicago, we went through the Immigration booths and I always prepare for the worst. However the guy I got took my passport, asked why I was in Chicago (I said because I was transferring to Pittsburgh) and then went away for about 3 minutes with the passport, apparantly to ask someone a question or something. When he came back to his booth I asked what was wrong. He said nothing was wrong, he just had a joke he had to tell his colleague apparantly... I dunno, maybe he was making fun of the photo on my passport but when he returned, he was laughing which I've never seen an Immigration officer do before. He again asked why I was here and I again said I was just going on to Pittsburgh. He took my fingerprints and photo and sent me on my way without asking any further questions. I guess I got lucky with that :).

Our bags didn't appear on the carousel which made us think that maybe they had just transerred them to the next flight already. It didn't help when we asked someone there and he said "They'll probably appear tomorrow". Fortunately, we found someone useful who was a Virgin representative and he said our bags were next to another carousel for no apparant reason. Sure enough, there they were which was quite a relief. We went through customs and then to the United desk where they took our bags for the transfer and also issued a boarding pass thingy. Needed to get on the tram to terminal 1, everyting was so clean and shiny compared to the UK we noticed. Picked up a Cinnabon and ate that while waiting for the flight to begin boarding. We only had about an hour to wait so it wasn't so bad. I'm kinda glad we had the extra hour wait from our flight number being changed as it would have been quite close.

The flight to Pittsburgh itself was pretty quick and pain free. No frills but the seats were more comfortable than the Virgin Economy ones. On the other end, after another tram ride, we got to baggage claim and to my amazement, our bags appeared. I was amazed but at this point I thought they would have problems moving our bags about but it all went through without a hitch. As we were all pretty knackered and lazy, we just got the closest taxi. The taxi driver was a bit scary as she apparantly had road rage commenting on how other people can't drive and driving with one hand while using her mobile phone. We got to the Westin hotel in one piece though. I told Tim to tip her even if she was a bit scary. Anyway, we got checked in on the 7th floor, put our bags down and collapsed on the "heavenly beds". I signed up for the "high speed" wi-fi as the free wifi is 128k. Turned out the high speed is only 1mbit but I used it to grab the last episode of Doctor Who which we watched before going to bed.

Just 2 more days of work to go and then I'm off to America. Can't wait! But unfortunately as I'm unable to bend space and time right now, I'll have to wait. Great thing is the dollar rate seems to be getting better and better right now and should be in a great state when I come to buying my dollars tomorrow after I get paid. Elsewhere, I'm a little concerned I seem to be getting a cold at the moment. I do hope it doesn't end up being pre-con con-crud :P

Oh, there seems to have been a few random people add me to their friends list recently, if you can let me know who you are, I'll most likely add you back :)

Well, it's now only 3 and a half weeks until I set off for America and Anthrocon 2007 and amazingly, I still do not have my full fursuit. I've been emailing fairly regularly asking for updates but I've not a peep since the start of April. This is all following the woefully untrue empty promise which I've since become used to as posted in this LJ entry. Needless to say, despite repeated attempts to get an explanation, I've just been faced with a brick wall of silence so I really don't think this will happen.

This is even worse than the way I was treated coming up to EF when I was in a will I / won't I situation with the promised partial, but here, I'm not hearing a thing. I was supposed to get this full fursuit in time for FC2006 and I was completely paid in full as of December 2005. FC came and went and last minute, I got the head and paws for EF. However it has now been 10 months since EF. 10 months to finish the rest of the suit. The suit which should have been completed 17 months ago.

Ah, I'll continue my chasing and see if I get anywhere. Who knows, I might be suprised. I'll finish this post with a picture behind a link.

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Needless to say I am quite jealous of all the prople going off to FC this year. I really enjoyed myself last year, apart from the food poisoning or whatever it was. There seemed to be a lot of reasons why I should go, people I'd want to see there, etc., but I said to myself I'd skip it this year so I can get to AC for a bit of variety. Part of me is regretting this decision, I just hope it's not the wrong one and my trip to Anthrocon will be a good one. Because I'm going to AC, I decided that I wouldn't be able to make EF too due to it's close proximity and subsequent lack of fundage. However the more I think about it, as EF is in September this year and AC is in early July, I think there's enough time between them now. Still umming and aahing if I should go. Literally everyone else seems to be going. If I do decide to go, I've got to work out the hassle of getting myself from Frankfurt to Suhl too. Hmm, decisions decisions.

OK, I need to start thinking about this more seriously now as I need to work out what I'm doing before/after the con so I can sort out flights. The only certain thing at the moment is that I'll be going to the con and am sorting a room (this part is pretty much sorted, I'll be staying with some American furs I know which will help my ability to mingle with new people).

So, my question to anyone reading this is, anyone have any ideas at all? I can't drive (at least not at the moment but who knows by the time the con rolls by) so will be reliant on other people and public transport to take me places. I'm very keen on just meeting up with furs outside the con, and have considered the idea of flying to Florida before/after the con to meet furs there and do the parks but this may prove an expensive option as it'd be peak season. I'm quite open to ideas as I really want to make it a proper holiday rather than just going all that way to see the inside of a hotel.

Looks like Anthrocon isn't going to be quite as expensive as I had though.  I did checks on flights to New York, giving a week in the city before the con and then basically time to get from the con hotel back to the airport on the Monday. So leaving 28th June, getting back 9th July.  The flights cost £338 at present going with my preferred airline, Virgin.  Much better than the £500-£600 I was expecting.  I think I'll be looking to book soon (maybe next month or so) as I know that they often only have x number of cheaper tickets before the prices hike up.  I think the cost of hotels in NYC will make up the saving on the plane tickets however... that is unless I can find some local fur to accomodate us.