Day 2 / Saturday
I was woken up early by someone who misdialed and got my cell phone. (He did that 4 times before I woke up.) So I took a taxi out to Fitler Square (about 3/4 of a mile from the hotel) to get a geocache. Then I walked to a second geocache, and then a third. The third one was at the 30th Street Station. There was a small food court inside so I had breakfast there. Then I took a taxi back to the hotel.
The caches:
Mayor Square (Pennsylvania)
Fitler Square
City Park (Pennsylvania )
Schuylkill River Park
30th Street Comfort Station (Pennsylvania)
30th Street Station. (Multi-stage cache. One part was inside the station and the other part was outside.)
Took a peek in the Art Show. No bids yet. In fact, there were very few bids in total in the whole gallery. I guess people take their time placing their bids.
In the afternoon, I went to the Animatronics Hands-on Workshop. Talked to
rorydedog for a bit there, and then it was time to get to work. This session was to build a pair of movable ears controlled by wires. It went into overtime and I had a bit of trouble making the wires work but eventually those did work after Grumble Lion tweaked the end of the wires a bit.Had dinner at a nearby tavern. (Mace's Crossing) After that, I went to the ballroom to see the Masquerade (variety show) and 2's Comedy Show. Then I went to the dance, but left when they switched from 80s music to
Day 3 / Sunday
No geocaching today. I just took a short walk out to the Franklintown Diner for breakfast.
After that, I put on my fursuit and joined in the fursuit parade. It started at the ballroom. Then it went downstairs and wound through the Dealer's Room and Artist Alley. Then it went down again, across the lobby, out the side entrance, and around to the front of the hotel, ending there for a group photo shoot. The initial count for the parade was 150 fursuiters, but I got word later on that it was actually 152. (They watched the video footage and did a recount.)
Met up with
spats_bear, then we went to Subway for lunch with mister_f and punktiger. hopperroo happened to be at Subway too.After lunch, I went up to the Horizons Ballroom at the roof level to participate in the Fursuit Games. There were a bunch of relay races (hurdles, running while holding a baseball with salad tongs, running around the orange cones) and also a weird game where the whole team has to pass through a hoop while holding hands. My team won, but we happened to have a number of players who were pretty athletic.
After the games, we assembled in the lobby for the most unusual photo shoot ever. We all lay down on the floor, while people took pictures from the balcony. As someone said, it was like Tetris with fur.
Just before the photo shoot, some guy (perhaps a hotel guest or someone who came to the hotel for some reason) came up to me while I was in fursuit, and asked what this was all about. I think I finally got the 'splaining down to a soundbite because all I told him was that it was about cartoons, art, and costuming, and he understood. Not the whole story, but it was enough of an explanation.
Then I hurried up to the Art Show to do the artist check-out. All six pieces I put in the Art Show sold! After the check-out, I went to the closing ceremony. Ran into
danruk there. As I remarked to him, it's funny how there are some friends I only see after the con is over. I said the same thing to ceruleanst later at the Dead Dog Party.For dinner, I took a taxi out to Penang restaurant in Chinatown. This one happens to have some dishes that the Penang restaurants in East Hanover, Edison, and Princeton don't, so I try to go at least once whenever I'm in Philly. Amazingly, the waitstaff remembered me from my last visit in December.
After dinner, I went back to the hotel to the Fursuit Dead Dog Party, which was held at the Artist Alley room. Hung around for a bit and then got a call from
spats_bear. He needed a little help jumpstarting his car. So we went down to the parking garage. I had a portable jumpstart device in the trunk of my car, so I brought it over to his car, which by coincidence was only a few spaces away. Hooked it up to his battery. Then spats_bear started the engine and it worked like a charm. After leaving the engine running for a bit, we went back up to the hotel.I went back to the party, and got more into the swing of things. Remained there until around 2am when the party ended.
Photo collection:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mortonfox/sets/559479/
Since the last update, I added some photos from the masquerade and the dead dog party. I think that's all I have.