(168k).
This is what I left to go to winter in CA. Okay, so it's not the view from my place,
but it's 10 minutes drive from my parents house, on the coast. Yes, I did take this
picture myself, there is a mountain there, oddly enough. If you come visit me, we can
go for a walk up it, and you can admire the view in person.
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This is where I went, Santa Rosa CA in mid-winter. Doesn't look so bad, does it? I could
live there... Stayed there about a week, sorting the car out.
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This is Keepiru, who I stayed with, and the car he bought to drive us about in
(and other stuff, probably), an '88
Toyota MR2, 1600cc DOHC injected 112bhp mid-engine. Fox Red. Dare I say, Yiff?
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Then where? Well, up to the condo at Soda Springs for a while. I can't ski, btw, but
we made our own fun. I won't comment on that further... ;)
(85k).
But how did we get up there you might ask? You guessed it... MR 2! Are we insane?
Well, we had chains, and a cellphone... What happened to this pic? I dunno...
I think the scanner ate it, it wasn't really that dark.
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Well, the summit of Donner Pass. I never claimed it wasn't pretty up there...
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This was the start of Confurence 8,
at the Buena Park Hotel, in Buena Park, Orange County, right next to Knott's Berry Farm.
This is a pic of my Meeko plushie, and the small A&A phin that I got from
Captain Packrat.
I was also kindly given a small Fiesta phin plushie (not shown) by
Brad Austin.
You can see it with my whole current collection
on my other photos page.
(87k).
Meeting people in the lobby. ThrowsCars is on the left, Keepiru on the right, and I
believe the giraffe is Jey. Wondering what the small black box is, right by Keepiru's
thumb? Why not ask one of us? We might even tell you... *grin*
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So what did I do at this con? Not a lot really, but we won't get in to that. I did
spend a bunch of time here, in the Vendors Hall. You know, where they try to sell you
things? Lotta great stuff there, wish I'd bought more now, and that I'd had more
money to do it with...
(110k).
Vandringar, aka Jim Pigtain, in the Dealers room at CF8, selling lots of his great
art. He's a really nice guy too, and I stayed with him for while, a bit after the
con. More on that later.
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Van again, still selling art! It must be great stuff, why don't you go have a
look? :)
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The costume sig at CF8 was great! here is my humble picture of the winning entries,
The trio of characters from the Don Bluth animated movie
Balto, Balto, Jenna, and
Steele. Anyone with corrections, or the names of the suit wearers/designers please let
me know. I believe Farallon made the Balto suit, tho I'm unsure if he was wearing it
there. The Jenna suit was Oncilla's, Steele is still unknown.
(119k).
This is probably my favourite tho... Bucky-Boy. It's worn, and designed by
Wookie,
and was inspired by the art of Jack Cavenaugh,
Bucky-Boy on
Furymuck. Now... do I have to explain
extremely cute bucks to anyone? ;)
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Whoo! There he is again... was I chasing him around?
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The con's over, and here's a little display of some of the art we bought between us.
Not nearly enough, but we were both feeling quite poor!
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The day after the con, a lot of furs went to Disneyland. Here's Finn
(my favourite!), enthusiastically explaining some feature of dragon
anatomy to a skeptical Terminotaur ;). Sadly, I missed getting pics of
Kedri, and Jericho :(
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Right after that, Keepiru and I drove down to San Diego, to
Seaworld for a
couple of days. We spent most of our time at the "Rocky Point Preserve", the
'petting' area for their Bottlenosed Dolphins. This is one of the pics I took,
many didn't turn out well, because of my simple automatic camera. I have had
this one reprinted, and they got all the phins beak in on the left, so I might
rescan it sometime. *Note* Well, I finally got it rescanned, and at higher res,
Sorry about the filesize. If you wanted to use this pic commercially, you'd better
ask tho, okay? :)
(115k).
Another phin pic. The camera couldn't focus through the glass, and the picture
was too dark (200 speed film, no tripod, and no aperture adjustment). The scan
didn't help (I'm not a pro).
NEW!! My good friend Shadow saw this pic, and enhanced it for me. The thumbnail is the old one, but the picture under it is much much better! Try it! I like this pic now. :) Thanks Shadow.
(162k).
Then we went back up to the Bay area, and stayed at Vandringar's place for a
week (Thanks again Van!). Among other things, we went horse riding. Kinda expensive,
but not unexpected, given the location. It was fun... I kinda like horses too, and
hadn't really ridden one before. The horse being led was Rusty... my mount. ;)
(160k).
We also drove down to Monterey one day, and visited the
Monterey Bay Aquarium. They have some really neat exhibits, and also some big cetatean
models hanging from the roof. This is the Orca mother and (male) calf in the entryway.
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Atlantic White Sided phins... small, cute!
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Common phins. Bigger... ChiRRp! ;) I like the markings on the upper central one...
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And now, by popular request, (I wish ;) Me! Yes, this was at MBA too,
in the kids educational section... So watchya think? Would I make a good phin?