I've never been the kind to get together with other furs and do furry stuff. I can't say I know what that stuff would actually be to be honest ^^, maybe like the stuff I usually do just... with furs? I'd imagine we're all pretty nerdy, though generally more artistic, but since I've yet to attend a fur meet or a big con (All fur fun is the only one I've been to, years back, and it had like 150 attending) I'm not sure what to expect. I've... ducked out of many chances to go to cons, but next week I think I'll be going to FC with just one friend. I won't know anyone else there, I won't know what to do with myself, and I'll probably find a lot of excuses to hide. Still, in the unlikely event that -you- read this and end up going to FC on Saturday, well, I'll be around and I'll make a point to check my FA page. If you should care to share a drink or a game of magic, send me a note or something.

I don't up a journal for years and then two in the same week?! What madness is this? It's not madness, it's a raffle promotion and -you- can be a part of it. Just go check out  ajna for more info about their watcher landmark raffle thingy. An auspicious day for them indeed, having watchers reach a level of... let me see, seems to be... OVER 9000! Well, ah, that works out well heh.

So what are you waiting for, go put your eyeballs on http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3574796/ and enter! Now! Or at least by the 4th of July, that way we get more prizes :3

but when I do, it's not to tell you how I've been.

No, today I tell you about an artist --> Neko-Maya who is doing an art raffle. The more people who enter her little contest, the more she'll throw into the prize pool. Even if you don't win, she is a great artist and deserves your attention.

I'm doing fine by the way, now that I'm out of the Navy :D But that isn't important.  Neko-Maya is what's important. So go check out her journal detailing this raffle http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3509010/

A very nice thing indeed. I'm only sad that I haven't gone for commissions from awesome artists sooner in life! Well, there's plenty of time to catch up :3

Life's pretty good when it doesn't totally suck.

Seriously, I'm gone for a month and look at what I come back to. War in Lybia, Japan is 13 feet to the left and there's an "OH SHI-" meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant. WTF guys, I can't even go underwater for a month without you all breaking the planet. Well I'm not cleaning this one up, nope, you're gonna have to fix this one yourselves.

Being underway has its perks though; I have some money to buy commissions! And I want sooo many now :3 Got lots of ideas and one in particular that needs getting done. I gotta get this character out of my head and onto paper, she's eating at my brain. Avallon, a bit of a rework of her, and I'm pretty sure she'll be a great character to have designed. Witchy and cute, she'll be a coyote-skunk (which I'm not sure if I've heard before; good thing?). Into spells and summons... yeah, my problem is now finding artists to get it done! Too many awesome artists to choose from, so many with their commissions closed though. Any suggestions?

Gotta get a new phone too, but I have no idea which one to look at. I'd like a smartphone but don't really know the difference between iPhones and Androids or whatever. You guys know of anything to look for or ones to stay away from?

Thanks guys. It's good to be back :3

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I tell you of my next and most stupendous trick, for you see I shall vanish! Who knows where I go but it won't be here or there or anywhere from sea to sky. Do I walk the land of the dead, silently tracing down the river Styx? Shall I step along the sands of dreams and dreamers, daring to delight the minds of the sleeping? Will I will myself away where "when" or "where" cease to be, to become a being boundless and beautiful? I cannot tell, truly, or else the magic of my mysterious disappearances will vanish as quickly as I soon will.

But fear not! After all, the best part about the going is the coming back they say, so in some time or maybe more or less time, I'll take the time tell you that I've returned. Maybe I'll return with tales from a place beyond the scope of your imagining, or maybe I'll just come back with a little less time than I had before I left, who knows ^^.

Woo! Moved up to Washington state after a wonderful holiday leave from November to just before Christmas. Hit a bit of a bump in the road getting to the boat but ah well, it'll be fixed soon enough I think, then in two or so weeks I'll be headed to my boat. Roll Tide. So just remember, when the zombie apocalypse occurs there's a 50/50 chance I'll be out to sea and safe from the ankle bitters heh. On the down side, if ever North Korea launches nukes at the Western Seaboard, well, I'm pretty much hosed :\

Work's changing, now I'm done with training and have orders up to Bangor, WA. Will be a place I've never been other than once as a kid, so it'll be quite exciting to explore the place. If you are in the area and wouldn't mind showing a sailor around, feel free to let me know ^^.

There's other change too but I think I'm too much of a coward at the moment to talk about it. I messed up. Damn.

Off crew phase complete, commencing shift work! Starting swing shift work (1130-0000) seven days starting Tuesday! This Tuesday! Exclamation marks! !. That one get's it's own friggin period! Period.!. ... Okay, enough of that ^^,

Yeah, so prototype is going fairly well, and I'm quickly adapting to the Navy's way of doing things, maybe life's way of doing things actually. That is, break everything up into a beginning, a middle and an end. I finished the beginning of prototype and am off to the middle of it, though prototype is technically the -end- of my training but only the beginning of my naval career and hopefully also the beginning of a marvelous life :D

That and the constant, rolling high school feeling. You're the new guy, nervous, trying not to screw up... then you're the sophomore and junior, smart enough not to make too many mistakes but still have a ways to go... then finally the senior, king of the mountain who knows all there is to know... Until you get orders to the next place and guess what? Bam, freshman again! Hah, it's quite funny actually, I'm getting skilled at this meta game of learning how to learn. It's fun in a stressful way ^^.

I've been working on Warhammer modeling lately, but I'm hesitant to put pictures here on FA; is this an acceptable forum for that sort of thing? It's not exactly furry related, you know?

I've also been saving up quite a bit and feel like I could safely splurge on a truckload of commissions if I found a set of artists and the proper content to get drawn for me. Maybe I'll have time tomorrow, but more likely in a week as my head will be too stuffed with nuke stuff to even dream about anything else. Ah well, soon enough eh?

The only thing I should be surprised about is that I'm surprised at all about the level of work required to pass my last phase of training. It's a nuclear reactor, what did I expect? With a library full of tech manuals, a 5 lb qualification card binder and only 19 weeks until I'm allowed to work on the world's finest Navy's air craft carriers or submarines, it's only natural that my training intensifies. Just bummed cause I can't talk to my girlfriends, or other friends for that matter, since every night I get home around 1930 to 2000 (7:30 to 8 PM) I just want to eat and sleep, and no one is ever awake to call when I wake up at 0330.

Completely off topic, I'm thinking of buying $200 worth of character development commissions soon. Not sure how much I want to balance it with Stiletto and how much I want to work on new characters like Avallon, Schism, or others. Just hard to plan out without the time to research artists and the like since my free time on the weekends is also taken up with seeing sights up here in New York.

I am go for prototype, set to report in 13 days. What an exhilarating feeling, to be leaving Charleston after 12 months of rigorous schooling. It is lamentable that I haven't posted more of my experiences here, or anywhere, but I shall seek to remedy that in the future. To sum it up, take 1 and a half tests every week for 48 weeks without being able to skip class, be late or show up without a shave, 5 days a week. While I was lucky enough to be on voluntary hours, many were not, being required to put in up to 35 hours extra every week, up to 5 hours made mandatory after school each day. In the first six months, "A" school for electronics technicians, I was the top of my class (1st of only 8, but of all rates graduating, I was 1st of about 40). In power school, I was 9th (I think) Of about 330, meaning I graduated with honors (above 3.7 GPA). I graduated yesterday. Holy friggin hell, I just graduated from nuke school @.@

Still a little bit in shock. A lot... of bits... in shock.

But I gotta stay on top of it, cause it isn't over. 6 months of prototype in New York left, and it's harder still than what I've been through. So here's to a nuclear winter in upstate New York; let's hope I'm not going to be the cause of the next 3 mile island hah!

And by the way, rearrange the numbers in this entry and receive a secret code pertaining to our launch codes >:3

18 months of intense math and electrical engineering baby! Woo, not a lot of free time or I would have written this sooner heh. So I'm here in Charleston, South Carolina in my ... 4th week of training? Man, time is going by at a strange speed. It's slow and fast at the same time; I never seem to have any time to myself but it just drags on when I'm studying over in the school house. Oh, yeah, I have to study and do homework in the school house because it's all classified and can't be removed. Which means on bad days, I end up going in before dawn and leaving after dusk. I've joined 'the darkside' lol.

Not too bad though, I think I'll make it through it without too many scratches. I mean, fuck, some people get in trouble every week and barely scrape by academically, so I don't think I have much to worry about. Still, unlikely that I'll be the honor student by any means, and I can always work on my military bearing and that sort of thing, improve my physical fitness, etc.

I just hope to get stationed in Yokosuka or at the very least on the West Coast. If not, er... will be a harder 6 years. Although, if I do get stationed on the East Coast, I could spend more time in Scotland.... Whatever, waaay too far away from now to be thinking about it. I should focus on getting above the average and learning as much as I can. Unfortunately learning Japanese and drawing will have to wait till after this place :\


See, I'm all about excuses, "No time to draw, the reactor is at critical! ... Which is a good thing."

I haven't posted a journal about this sooner since the Navy kept telling me two different things. One was that I was to leave my home at noon on Sunday the 5th of April and be gone for 6 years. The other was that if I don't get one signed piece of paper from some arbitrarily high ranking official in the Army that I would never be able to enter the Navy after said Sunday, period.

Well after a very frantic Friday, we got the paper and now I'm packing my things away all neat and tidy like so I can return 6 years from now to find them ransacked. Hehe, well at least that's what I think will happen with my little brother near my stuff unsupervised.

So it's official, I leave to become a nuclear engineer in the US Navy tomorrow. Exciting stuff huh?

Oh and ah, I won't have my laptop for about a month, so that will explain my absence here and everywhere online.

I've never worked a proper job. The first was so bad it would make me vomit to speak of it. The second, if it can be called a 'job', is the military, and while I will be getting onto active duty some day down the road, I haven't done more than basic training and reserve work, which is not a nine to five day job.

But now I work for a company. I need to wear something with a collar, unless it's a 'dress down day'. They have cute slogans to remind the employees of what to do and what not to do. My management structure seems to change monthly, I have health care (which sucks), I can earn bonuses, and finally for the first time in over a year I actually have responsibilities (besides the reserves).

I... don't know if I should be proud of myself to work for a company with decent pay, a professional look, and one where serving food, lifting things, or dealing with customers in person is not a part of the job description, or if I should feel like I'm another college drop out who's dreams are being sacrificed on the alter of adulthood.

... Okay that's way too melodramatic. Instead of feeling proud or disappointed, I should use all the new cash I'll be making to buy hookers, cocaine, and lots and lots of furry art! If by hookers I mean a tablet and photo-shop and by cocaine I mean pot. I mean, er, clothes. Yes, gotta buy nice clothes to impress my fellow cubicle... cubiclians... cuberculosi... dudes...

When they say, "We'll get you zipped through this process in no time!" they really mean, "So yeah, it'll be about a year before you -actually- go..." Which is a good thing and a bad thing. And a lot of other things involving profanity...

Essentially it means I'm stuck living here until I turn 22, which isn't so bad, but it also means I'll need to pick up a full time job that pays better than what I do now, in addition to still going to my reserve unit once a month. It'll be a drag and my first -real- crack at a normal job, but on the plus side I'll have money to pay off my car loan and also to blow it on random stuff. Like a wacom tablet. Or a suit. Or plane tickets to FCN, a con badge, and other assorted furry art things.

Or hookers. No one -ever- went wrong blowing a months pay on a cocaine filled hooker party... Right?

But not for much longer! I just passed my Army Physical Fitness Test and passed, then went straight over to talk with some Navy recruiters to start the transfer paperwork. Hopefully in a month or so I'll get to drive over to Great Lakes, Illinois to start my navy training in some kind of electrical field. Haven't decided exactly what the field would be, but it'd be a hell of a lot better than driving trucks and pushing buttons >_<.