I find it funny how VR headsets basically are the best thing to explain how the eyes of my dragon-raptor-y self works.

Smaller pair are essentially the pass-through camera eyes.

Larger pair are the tracking/positioning camera eyes.

So! It is done, the last bit has been booked!

On Tuesday after NFC, flying to Oslo, Norway!

Spending a week there, then flying back to Paris, then flying back to Montréal the following day.

So!

Travel plans to NFC have kinda fallen together!

The best thing that works for making it there turns out to be landing in Paris, train to Amsterdam, then flying from Amsterdam to Copenhagen.

So! The obvious question! Anyone in Amsterdam with some free time?

I've booked a hotel room 'n all, so no need for crash space, but i'll have from Sunday to Wednesday there with free time!

AAaand i still need to figure out the plan for after NFC.

So, now I know not to fly directly into Malmo!

But so far, the plan is, i got a flight to Paris on the 13th, landing early morning on the 14th. Went with that because i know the area, and it was about 350$ CAD for the flight.

After that, trains during the week to make my way there. But there's multiple potential paths, and i haven't booked things yet, so if there's creatures traveling together by train or else, joining could still be a thing!

And after the con i've got no plans whatsoever, but i have two weeks off, possibly more, and haven't booked a flight home yet.

So i could invade creatures, if anyone is available.

I might consider flying home from the UK, i've not been there yet...

But yeah! Plans! Things! I'm trying to pick options!

Worst case it'll just be a bit of tourist-y time.

NFC!

I have a room and am registered, but apparently flying there directly is not really an option.

So, is anyone traveling there from somewhere more sane to fly to from Canada open to having an extra creature join for the trip to NFC?

I do have an international driver’s license, if needed!

I have the week before and after off, so i wouldn’t mind doing the tourist thing for a bit too.

Yeah,

I'm still alive, but it seems that the time off i was supposed to get has turned into a steady stream of "One day jobs" where i find out some major issue, and that keeps turning into weeks of work.

And i'm being sent back to the middle east this coming weekend, again.

Hopefully will be back for the holidays...

I'm tempted to see if anyone would have space for me during the holidays so that i can be "unavailable" more officially.

And also avoid a bit more of the Canadian Winter, maybe...

So! During a trade show, i found out that a coworker is the (co)creator of Swat Kats!

He's trying to get the thing moving again, as a comic for now, so if anyone is interested...

https://www.kickstarter.com/project.....ats-comic-book

I figured some creatures here might be interested!

Finally!

... haven't made it properly home yet, but yeah! Around Montréal right now!

Yeah.

That's why i still don't get to exist much.

Still in the middle east, still trying to get this project completed and handed over to the client.

I've seen enough sand and dust for a long time.

Against all expectations, i will be there!

Managed to escape Saudi Arabia just in time, and was able to strangely make things fall together for this to work!

Will be there from Wednesday to Monday, ping me on Telegram or Discord to find me!

Figured i'd post something to bump off the last journal.

So yeah! Work is very much a thing, when it's happening, but i've had some break time lately. Projects are in a weird state where i don't know when i'll suddently happen, but it will happen.

Been spending a lot of it playing and building stuff in VRChat in the mean time!

I'm (unsurprisingly) Pyxaron on there too, or if links work... https://vrchat.com/home/user/usr_6f.....e-2ca377406609

Feel free to bother me on there!

Rawr!

So, made it! Am at the Marriott, on the first floor!

Feel free to ping me on Telegram/Discord/etc if you want to meet/hang out/etc!

Conventions!

So, apparently, things will happen after all!

I got my flight booked for FWA, should be there for the whole con!

I also am at this point 97% sure i am getting the time off for AC too!

I still don't have a set plan for AC, but... Soon!

Also, i'm back in Canada for a bit. Not entirely sure how long, but yeah! Conventions aside, work is supposed to let me have some off time for real, since i've ended up with nearly 550h of PTO that i need to take before the next big project.

So whee!

And i'm back in Canada...

... for about a week.

Then likely back to Salt Lake City.

Whee!

Yep. I did get that.

Zean is a friend, and i do trust 'em with that kind of stuff, so yeah. It happened.

So yeap. First time in Europe, due to work!

I'm just outside Paris, likely for the next month and some, so...

If anyone is out there and wants to hang out or anything, let me know!

Rar!

First thing first, happy new year!

So yeah, no resolutions, no special plan, just a whole lot of "Let's see where this goes."

2023 has been such a weird year for me. In fact, 2023 has probably been 3-4 years at least for me.

It's been so strange, after coming from the blob-y void that 2019 to 2023 was.

I want to do a proper end-year review thing, but honestly, at this point, the beginning of 2023 feels like it was forever ago, and honestly... I can't really remember much about it, aside from Furnal Equinox, which was the first con i went back to as a functional creature, after conventions and such started existing again. But that was a nice break from things. But it really does feel like it was many years ago. I was still somewhat happy with the job at Rona, it was dumb, but inflation hadn't kicked in so much yet, and i could still make it work. Looking back at it tho, it felt a bit like i was stuck in a loop there, where there wasn't any real moving up, but i wasn't falling behind either, so it was... acceptable.

Then things started being dumb, because interest rates and such. And the whole sale of Rona... well, Lowe's Canada to Sycamore, new management and all the "fun" it involves. Pay went down, interest rates went up, prices went up... Wasn't really keeping up with expenses at that point.

Luckily, FWA and Anthrocon happened, which were great breaks from the loop of trying to keep up.

It's also why the "smart" thing to do isn't always so smart. Because i could have skipped both of those to save money and such, which would have been the "smart" thing to do. But if i had done that, i'd have been stuck in that same loop as during the covid lockdowns, and probably would have ended up damaging myself, on the hardware or software side.

But throwing myself into something different made it easy to take a look back at what was going on, talk to people, and come to accept that yeah, my current situation was broken and needed to change. And that was very necessary.

Also, FWA was a weirdly good convention. Very different dynamic from other cons, but it was easy to just drift around and float into people, instead of keeping up with a group. Which was... comfortable. It was both massive and small at the same time. I'd like to do that one again. Was my first time in 2023!

And after all that, job search happened. Annoyingly, trying to move laterally was not really an option, because i apparently was overpaid and overqualified for my position, which i kinda knew already, but the answer i got from most places was that they'd love to have someone like me onboard, but couldn't afford to pay me fairly. Which, i can understand. But that meant i had to aim for something else.

So i tried to go more toward industrial than retail level stuff, because yeah, money exists on a different scale there. But industrial is a bit annoying. But doable.

That turned into a weird mix of things, because trying to still work nightshift in the warehouse and do interviews and such during the day was a bit rough!

And i eventually expanded to try the "weird" options. And one of those weird options worked. Which bugs me a bit, because if there's a lesson i should have learned by now is that the dumb, ridiculous and weird ideas are usually the best.

So yeah, one of the jobs i applied for with absolutely no real expectations of being called back got in touch with me almost immediately, and after many interviews and much paperwork, i got the job!

So i switched being forklift driver/restocking/maintenance in a warehouse-type store, to installing arcade games, dark rides, multisensory theaters and interactive coasters internationally, for a small(ish) Québec-based company.

Turns out, that job is like a blob of all the jobs and hobbies i've ever had put together, which is pretty amazing.

Got the job just in time for Anthrocon, which meant i went to that one absolutely exhausted from the start, and having to drive there and "rescue" some other creatures from failed flights didn't help! But it was still great!

Then i ended up in Salt Lake City for what was supposed to be 2-3 weeks, but then turned into 3 months, and then being sent back there again for another month or so later.

That whole thing, considering that it was a new job, new location, different country and all... It felt like being parachuted into a new life entirely, and it was an absolute hard break from anything that went on before. But then, i knew some creatures out there, got to go to AWU on my first week there, then BLFC and PAWcon. The furry side of life remained, the dragon-raptor-y me remained, but the rest got replaced, in a way. Which was such a weird thing to mentally process. But apparently i adapted well!

Work was very hardcore there too, so much new stuff to learn, so much stuff i knew that i had to apply, and that while doing many weeks of over 100h. And new coworkers, new place, and the place was an absolute maze of concrete, steel and systems. But i strangely felt excessively at home in there, and the end purpose of the whole thing was to be enjoyable, so... It was good!

There's something just amazing with the idea that you're building an interactive rollercoaster, and that every time you get something more working, you get to ride it again and see just how good it's getting!

... and yeah, we're hiring, shoot me a message if you're interested ...

But yeah! That was absolutely exhausting and insane, but apparently i managed to pull through and impress a fair amount of people, so definitely things on the work sides have been going pretty well.

Then, after that, had a short(ish) break in the USA to travel and visit creatures 'n places, which strangely was only a few weeks, but felt like months too, because so many people, so many places!

And after that, more work, except at a smaller scale. No massive projects, just a lot of smaller installations, the kind that take between a few days to around a week. But again, that was so different from what i've done before, that it felt like everything else was months ago, and this was now. It was also funny because with how i got launched up into a whole lot more than i was supposed to in the new job, there's a lot of people who assumed i have been working there for years, or that i had a position much higher than i actually have.

Which did lead my boss to agreeing that i needed to be paid more, and should have a different position. But it had barely even been 6 months, so delaying any position changes is probably the better idea, even if it's dumb to say no to that. But i know what i know, but i don't know what i don't know, and until i find out what i don't know but should is, i can't learn it, except accidentally. Still, it shows i'm not stuck in a dead end anymore!

And to add an extra layer of weird to everything, i got very heavily into VR. Found that, as much as i don't trust Facebook, the Quest 3 is pretty amazing, and with the right setup, means PC-based VRChat can work just about anywhere! Which has made the whole "Living out of hotel rooms" thing be a whole lot less of a thing.

I'm apparently highly VR-compatible, and can apparently spend hours in there without ending up with weird malfunctions. But it's been another whole blob of weird, going from barely being able to chat with a few creatures online between segments of work to meeting creatures almost on a daily basis both in the offline and virtual world. Social-type things have been forced to expand! Which is likely for the better, but it's... intense. Again.

VRChat and such strangely feel like the earlier days of Skype and such, back when seeing someone online on there meant they had very intentionally launched Skype with the goal of using it, instead of being just "A phone, computer or other device is online, the user likely isn't." blargh that happens with just about everything else now.

Also, compared to the other things that were thrown at me in the past (Second Life and such), VRChat with the Quest is something i can process as "I'm doing this" and doing it, instead of "I'm making my character do this", which made it agree with my brain a whole lot more. It's kinda messy, but it works!

But yeah. So many creatures to interact with! So many new places to visit! And, importantly, places to come back to! It's weird how it kinda... works. Being able to just reconnect to the same world from anywhere in the world and just listen to the same music does a lot of good. Especially when i've overloaded myself with trying to figure local specifics with transit and supplies and rules and regulations and...

Made it possible to step back from the offline world into somewhere known, and look at it from an outside perspective, kinda!

And i've also discovered that instead of bouncing around listening to music on my own hidden in my room, it's possible to do that virtually with other creatures. And that doing so as a wyvern makes it so much more fun!

It's strange how the wyvern thing has gone too. I ended up adopting a ZDragon modification, the ZWyvern by Morghus, as my default avatar in there. I had a dumb concern with it that it might attempt to "override" the dragon-raptor-y me in a way, but it turns out that nope, brain absolutely went with it being an alternate world-mode me, and now instead i'm getting the shifty viewpoint between dragon-raptor-y me and wyvern-y me instead of dragon-raptor-y and human-y me. Which is neat, but gets glitchy because i now do dumb stuff like trying to catch dropped screws with non-existing wing'd arms.

It makes me laugh to think that it's like the dragon-raptor-y me adopted the ZWyvern as it's fursona, and is trying to ditch the human form entirely.

But yeah, one extra reality that made another hard break in 2023, and made what was before seem like the distant past.

And the social side of VR-stuff is really nice. Especially since you can kinda just... exist there. Semi-passively. Unlike with text-based media, you have a presence even if you don't actively interact. You don't just fade out because you're not saying things. Which is very good to have, because word failures still happen pretty often.

I absolutely want full body tracking, both because dancing in VR is great, but also because having the option to just... do things if words are broken would be nice. And yeah, it's slightly silly to bring that up when i'm very obviously over-wording here. But bah!

Abstract data object based thinking is very nice sometimes, but there's no functional transmit function for those that currently exists, and trying to export it as words makes language-things crash sometimes.

But yeah!

I've been surprised by how many french-speaking creatures exist in there too, that really caught me offguard!

But it does that thing, which i've complained about before at cons, where my brain just spawns too many language-decode streams and runs out of space to work with them, or too few and keeps flipping language, which brain-stalls me because so much time is spent processing what's being said that i can't word what i want to say.

I guess being exposed to a whole lot of that on a daily or near-daily basis might get me to be more efficient with that tho! And also, i've found out that just a good beat to follow along can un-break my brain if i get stalled like that, so that's good!

So yeah.

Hm.

Yup, it's 2024 now!

Happy new year! Let's see where this one goes!

I'll post this before i start overthinking it.

So!

After repeatedly being told to, and finally trying one, i got a VR headset!

So yup, now it's time to discover how all that stuff works. I've been dragged into VRChat a bit, played with Resonite a bit on my own, but yeah! It seems to work decently! I still need to properly be shown things tho.

So if anyone wants to drag me into things, i'm (unsurprisingly) Pyxaron on both.

Would anyone happen to have some room space available for PAWcon?

Potential plans failed, and i still need a room there!

... or alternatively, if anyone needs a room, i'm open to booking a new one!

So! That happened. I got home, barely got one week off before i got a call asking me to go back to Salt Lake City.

Which was bugging me, 'cause i was trying to make BLFC plans.

But turns out, i can take a week off there, scheduling kinda fell together to make it work.

So, as usual, i need a plan! Right now, i've got a flight + room to BLFC, i have a flight back to SLC.

I still need a way to get from BLFC to PAWcon, i'm assuming there's likely a good number of furs driving, so if anyone has space, i'd be interested!

And i'm also going to need some room space for PAWcon. I know rooms are still available, but they're more expensive than i'd want to pay on my own!

So if anyone has either car space or room space available, i'd be interested!

... and if this work pattern of matching cons with work travel keeps going, that'll be nice! I already ended up at AWU on my first trip to SLC.

I'm back in Canada!

Getting a bit of a break from work, due to too much overtime.

I should try to catch up on posting stuff on here.

Rar!

I'll be in Salt Lake City for the next few weeks, for work-related reasons.

If anyone is out there, feel free to ping me, I'd love to do things with other creatures outside of work!

Anthrocon! Am there!

Feel free to poke if you want to say hi!

So yep, it's happening!

I'll be at FWA this year, first time going to that con, should be getting there on Wednesday!

Who can i hope to catch there?

Also! I have no idea what to expect or how that con works, so it's going to be interesting. Haven't done a new con in years, usually stuck to the same loop of AC/MFF/FC/FE.

But yeah! I'm also already in the states, invading  Rashan and Nikita until then!

Will be there around noon!

Who else is going?