Happy Belated Birthday to my bestest stripey furiend in the whole wide world, TAKALA!

His birthday was on the 4th of July, but I didn't have time to post this as I was too busy at a certain convention hehe :D. Picture of Mr. Stripeybutt taken on top of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. I'll have much more about our trip to AnthroCon 2009 soon! :)

Current Location: Orlando International Airport
Current Mood: Indescribable! :)

You work hard you play hard, right? Hehe :) This past Thursday (6/25/09) me, rieshal, Han, and DarkWolf went to go see Stomp live. An incredible show to say the least! It was very funny as well, which was a surprise to me. If this show is touring in your area, I highly recommend going to see it :).



On Saturday Rieshal and I went up to Orlando for a Video Arcade Auction, mostly to look for any rare and reasonably priced pinball machines for his and Han’s growing collection. He didn’t find anything he liked. Later on that day we hung out with kuddlepup,simbamco, and stanleydlion who was visiting for the week. Was good seeing KP and Simba again, and getting to meet Stanley *hugs you all* :).



Sunday Rieshal and I went to Downtown Disney for much of the day. Again, the Characters In Flight balloon ride was tied down to weather conditions (grrrrrrrrr! :P). Afterwards him and I attended the Funday PawPet Show. Had a great time on the show celebrating yappy’s birthday, doing some puppeteering with Rieshal, getting to see Herbie again, and meeting sawblade5 *hugs you all too* :). Thank you Yappy for having Rieshal and I on the show. And again, a big thank you to my sweet furiend Rieshal for making this past weekend possible *snugs tightly* :).

 

And now I am sitting here finishing up my packing for what I know will be a wonderful trip with li_tak to AnthroCon. This will be my first AC, a con experience like no other from what I’ve been told. For Takala, it’s been almost two years since he’s been to a con, and with AC being his first con 3 years back I really can’t say how happy I am to be there right along side of him for this upcoming experience for the both of us :). Will be seeing you very soon my stripey friend *snugs tightly* :).

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: excited

Last Thursday (6/11/09) brace_bear came down to visit rieshal and Han for a few days. We hung out, went bowling and sweltered threw the 90+ degree heat that suddenly hit us down in South Florida hehe :P. Was great having him visit *hugs the bear*, and I’m sure Rieshal and I will be seeing him again at MegaPlex in a little over a month :).

Work has been going pretty good overall. Working less and less late nights due to finishing up a bunch of untouched projects that were piling up well before I started working there. I also got a new toy from them. With them seeing the need for me to have constant access, they gave me a slightly used Dell Latitude laptop (Windows Vista Business, Core Duo, 14’’ screen, two running batteries, etc) with a Verizon Broadband Access card built in. So no matter where I go now, I have a nice little laptop with dedicated access to the internet for both work and play hehe ;D.

The only slightly bad thing to report is that I’m starting to have trouble with my three and a half year old Motorola cell phone. Over the past few days I’ve not been getting notifications of some text messages when they come in, and at least one call where it came in but my phone never rang. But it doesn’t really matter because in a month I’m getting the new Blackberry Tour for work related reasons (and because it’s a cool looking phone :D). After my first three months at work, they’ll start paying two thirds of my cell phone bill as I use my current one for work so much. It’ll be sweet to finally have a phone with unlimited everything, full internet and a simple GPS feature (but it’s no replacement for my TomTom).

Well, that’s it for now. Looking forward to going to AC with li_tak in a few weeks :).

Current Location: Rieshal and Han's House
Current Mood: geeky

Last Friday (5/5/09) I made my usual trip up to visit li_tak :). On Saturday we saw Pixar’s Up in 3D. Up was a great movie, far more of an emotional movie than I was expecting. The 3D was well done and in a way that immersed you into the story without trying to be flashy or gimmicky. On Sunday we went to ride the Character In Flight at Downtown Disney before Takala had to go into work. Unfortunately the ride was closed at that particular time due to storms coming in from the distance. Oh well, him and I will see about going on it the next time I visit. A helium balloon ride in Florida is going to have this kind of issue, and may make this ride notorious for being closed a good deal of the time during the Spring and Summer months.

 

After many long hours at my new job these past two months, it was great to spend some time with him again. Again, thank you for wonderful weekend my stripey furiend *snugs tightly* :). And we will be spending much more time within the next month as we both are almost set to attend AnthroCon (woohoo!) :).

Current Location: Rieshal and Han's House
Current Mood: excited

This past Friday (5/29/09) I got out of work early, picked up rieshal and headed up to Kissimmee for Elliot’s Spring Gathering :). I haven’t been to an Elliot’s event since the Fall Event back in October of 2007. I can thank my new job and a very persuasive kitty for making this trip possible hehe :). Rieshal and I made it in time that night to catch the surprise live showing of Avenue Q. Holy crap was it an incredible show! Honestly that alone was worth the trip up, but of course it was only the beginning ;). Afterwards we met up with rascal so we can get settled into our room for the night (the coon had the hotel reservation).

  


The next day we all got up to see the two servals brought in from a wildlife sanctuary. Later on that day they brought in two little wolf pups that were so adorable they melted my heart *giggles* :) Durring that day they had someone set up taking professional pictures of fursuiters and anyone else wanting a picture taken, with the option to purchase giant sized prints of their pictures. In the evening we headed out to the pool for a relaxing swim with many other party-goers.

 
 

On our last morning we got in the very long line for Simba’s famous pancake breakfast (yum!). For the last event of the trip we gathered up our stuff and headed to Wet n Wild. Sadly I was feeling really dizzy and was unable to go on most of the slides there, but I still had fun hanging out with my furiends in the wave pool and lazy river. I’d like to take everyone that made this event possible! It was very cool seeing and hanging out with many of my furiends again (sorry, too many to list but you know who you are). And a special thank you snuggle goes to my good furiend Rieshal for sharing this wonderful event with me *snugs his cheetah furiend tightly* :). He like all my furiends that were this Elliot’s Gathering are the reason I will never forget this event :).

 
 

And the fun doesn’t end there. Later on today I’ll be going up to visit li_tak for the weekend. Yay! :)

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: happy

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: bouncy

This past Friday (4/17/09) I went with a couple of friends to see Fast & Furious. I do have to day, this was by far the most realistic, story driven one of the series. And because of this it flopped in the theaters as it doesn’t look (based on ticket sales) to have attracted the same kind of audience the other movies in the series did. The next day I went with rieshal to see Monsters Vs Aliens in IMAX 3D. Overall the movie was okay. The storyline was really cliché, even for a children’s movie. And there wasn’t much humor either. The only things that interested me  about this movie was it being in 3D and Dr. Cockroach Ph. D because of how much he reminds me of unclekage hehe :P.

 

Yesterday marked the end of my first three weeks at my new job :). Even though these past three weeks have been filled with sometimes hectic days and long nights finishing up side projects, I’ve really enjoyed it so far :). Working alongside my friend is awesome. He really keeps the day entertaining, even when things sometimes get stressful hehe :P. What I’ve learned in three weeks was truly crammed into my skull. Never have I needed to learn so much so quickly and apply it in a real world environment where one slipup can temporarily shut down major points of operation within the company heh.

My friend and I flew up to Jacksonville for two days this past Wednesday to take a complete inventory of all computers, printers, network phones, and servers. Not only was it tiring, but I found out a lot of people really need to vacuum under their desks O_o. We still have to go through all the Dell service tags to find out what’s still in warranty (99% of our computers, printers and servers are from Dell). Our next trip up (whenever that is) will be more enjoyable as we did most of the work we needed to on this trip.

After these three weeks, things should be slowing down a bit for me at work. My friend and I got our classes held back till sometime in June so that both of us can focus on our jobs. It’ll also help us get a chance to study for and take a certification or two. And I should have a bit more free time now for furiends (both online and off) during this time too. For those furiends I haven’t heard from in a while, I hope you’re doing well and I’m really looking forward to catching up with you soon *snugs tightly*.

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: happy

This past Friday (4/3/09) was my last day at Walgreens. After eight and a half years of working there, it was a strange feeling for sure. Even now it doesn’t feel like it’s quite hit me that I don’t work there anymore. Oddly enough, it has to be one of the slowest Friday night’s I’ve worked in a long time. What sucked is that I didn’t get one of those customers that just piss you off to no end, so I had no customers to mess with on my last night. And the only other thing that I didn’t like was saying farewell to all my co-workers. None of them may have had any friendship with me outside of work, but they sure as heck a great bunch of people and I’m going to miss them.

Monday was the big day. A blend of nervousness and excitement made it difficult to sleep before having to wake up at 6 AM for my first day. The day started out right away with me taking in issues co-workers were having with various computers and services. My training has been very fast-passed so far and that won’t be slowing from what it seems tomorrow. Working with my friend has been better than expected, what with me knowing how impatient he can get at times :P. My desk sits right next to my friend’s in his office, making training and communications with him much easier than if I had my own office.

We use a program called Pink Notes which pretty much works like a simple email program for sending messages within the company. Most fixes are done remotely threw the network, as the majority of the computers are in Jacksonville. Though I will be going to the rehabilitation facilities in Jacksonville sometime next week to look things over and help my friend redo the computer inventory. To be honest, I haven’t been able to say just how good this job has been thus far because in a way, it doesn’t seem real yet. Almost as if I’m only working here a week then going right back to my old job. All I can say for now is that I finally feel like I’m where I need to be job-wise to help move forward in my life.

Sadly this job’s training (3 weeks at least) along with taking my current class (MCSA/MCSE Extended) is taking up almost all of my time. It’s going to be a very busy time for me for the next month or two as I get settled in. I do apologize in advance to all my furiends for not being able to spend much time online during the next month or two *offers hugs to all his furiends* :(. But I will do my best to stay in touch in whatever way I can during this hectic time. I’ll keep everyone updated as to how things are going. For now, I need to get some rest *wraps up in a blanket and drifts off to sleep*.

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: Mixed

Animal Kingdom and Epcot was only the beginning of this trip (see previous entry) :). Last Thursday night (3/26/09) li_tak and I headed over to Herbie’s place to see both him and twinkie_ottah.  It’s been a year since I last saw my ottah furiend and I just couldn’t help but give him many big hugs hehe :). Before Takala went into work the next day him and I watched Kung Fu Panda, which is a movie I've liked and he now does as well (the zebra likes kung fu too hehe) :). Twinkie and I met at an authentic German restaurant later on that evening along with kuddlepup, kellogg_collie, and Blazer. The food was really good but far heavier than I’m used to (possibly still digesting that food :P). Afterwards we headed back to Herbie’s place to watch TV with him and wildwolf, and eat far too much ice cream :P.

 

Saturday evening I went out to Old Town for their Saturday Night Cruise.  I had no clue just how packed it would be, but by 7 PM there were at least over 100 classic cars and hundreds of people O_o. Many cars were there including a Ford Gran Torino and a car I’ve never heard of before, a 1964 Chevy Cheetah.

  


Monday morning Takala and I went to Blizzard Beach with a couple of his friends from work :). We went on a few slides and swam in the lazy river, but me and two of his friends refused to go on Summit Plummet (the feeling of freefalling is far too much for me O_o). Even though Takala put on suntan lotion, he still burned to a crisp :/. Later that night when he got off work, we went over to a friend’s house for crawfish and drinks.



Tuesday Takala and I went to a Vietnamese restaurant and market in downtown Orlando. We both had the Pho Tai and tried mango bubble tea (both very good). The main reason for this drive was to pick up some durian fruit from the market. Takala had tried it a few weeks so I wanted to try it too hehe :). That, and I’ve seen Bizarre Foods and No Reservations on the Travel Channel and have always wondered just how it tasted. We brought back a small box of frozen durian to the apartment. lilibugg stayed far away from us when she saw what was in the box, so we ate the durian outside after it defrosted :P. The smell is roughly like really sweet rotten onions and tastes like overly sweet fruit pudding of sorts. But it’s the texture that makes your throat close up. Within the mushy pudding of the fruit are fibrous chunks that are almost like pineapple pieces.  It’s not something I’d want to eat ever again (at least not in fruit form) but at least I tried it :D.

  


Good seeing Liesl, Herbie, KP, Kellogg Collie, and WildWolf again :). It was wonderful getting to spend some time with Twinkie during my trip :). I’m going to miss him but I’ll do my best to see him again the next time he visits Florida *snugs his ottah furiend tightly*. Takala and I had an absolutely wonderful time together, and I can’t wait to visit him again! :) Really, I don't think I can thank him enough for all the time we spent together on this trip, but I’m sure going to try! *Pounces and snuggles his best furiend tightly* Hehehe ;)

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: Indescribable :)

Current Location: Takala and Liesl's Savanna
Current Mood: Incredibly Happy :)