Making it up as I go

Staying home today

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:35:18 GMT

I have been considering going to the practice in Ballaclaghan today but have elected not to. My left elbow has been inflamed all week and I know that if I go out there I will have a really good time and over do it. The problem is significant enough that picking up a gallon of milk or a saucepan will cause pain. Sooo, I am going to be good and not go today.

I think that the time may have come to see a doctor about this little problem. It has been a minor factor for a few years now but has steadily gotten worse. This may be my first real manifestation becoming old and broken.

13 pounds of lovey cat

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:42:15 GMT

Tybalt knows that the Girl does not feel well and wants to comfort her. Unfortunately, that means that he wants to be picked up. How does one explain to a big, sweet-hearted cat that she can't hold him because she is too injured to do so? We are attempting to work out a compromise.

Also, whoever sent the flower arrangement, thank you!

Home safe and mostly sound

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:06:54 GMT

We got home about 2:00 pm but this is the first chance that I have had to get on the computer after going for meds. The surgery went well with no complications. The Girl is in a lot of pain, but no more than expected and the medications are doing what they should. The only really annoying part so far was waiting an hour and a half to get the prescriptions filled. Everything else is going the way that it is supposed to.

Our thanks to everyone for all of the support.

Dinner

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:25:37 GMT

Tonight was crepes again. This time the filling was a spinach and crab puree, flavored with salt, pepper, garlic and a little cream. I cooked it down and added some more crab. The crepes were filled, dotted with butter and sprinkled with parmesan for a trip through the oven. While that warmed, a basic mornay sauce was put together. The whole thing turned out wonderfully. We will definitely be doing this again.

I really wish that I had some chardonnay to go with it. That probably would have balanced perfectly.

Putting the garden to bed

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:13:30 GMT

This afternoon we turned and mulched the planter beds, weeding in the course of it. It went very well and I was pleased at the quality of the soil even before putting down the mulch. It is no wonder that most of the plants grew like crazy this year.

Also, the Girl took a bunch of daffodil and tulip bulb and did some 'flower graffiti' outside of our yard. There is a little patch in between an oak tree and a power pole that received soil and bulbs and she planted them all along the side of the house facing the apartments next door. Hopefully, they will show a little extra beauty next year.

While planting the bulbs, she found a little Northern Brown Snake hibernating under a rock out there. We promptly took him and his rock to a safe corner of our yard and resettled him for the winter. With any luck, he will eat many bugs in the spring.
fwie.fw.vt.edu/VHS/reptiles/snakes/northern-brownsnake/Northern%20Brown%20Snake-Ron-Machmer.jpg

One of our idiot neighbors (the creepy guy who annoys us regularly) walked by while we were checking it out. He made noise about it being a copperhead. The Girl told him not to be ridiculous. See for yourself. www.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/images/deciduous/copperheads_5968.jpg
This fool's presence is the real reason why the snake is wintering in our garden.

It was a nice three hours of work, all told. Time to get cleaned up now.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:34:39 GMT

Tonight was lemon-caper chicken with herbed cous-cous and a garnish of fresh basil. It went extraordinarily well.

Pamela's for breakfast. Maybe Lulu's for lunch.

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:31:52 GMT

Some beloved small businesses in Oakland got their windows smashed by assholes last night. We are definitely going down to Pamela's for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Lulu's is a maybe later on.

You smash it with your ill-behaved hooliganism. We'll help fix it with our pro-social capitalism.

Scratched to death by a cat: Murderer of poultry

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:09:37 GMT

No, I am not talking about 16th century insults toward rapier fighters. Rather, the cats have been cutting a swath through the bird population this weekend. Since yesterday, they have caught and killed three sparrows, which is pretty good for being confined to a cat penitentiary. I don't know if the birds are getting dumber or the cats are more skilled but the ferocious monsters in the back yard are paving the path to glory in blood and feathers.

Good day in the Midrealm

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:18:17 GMT

The Girl, the bad cadet, Donnan and I went to a small Midrealm melee event today. It was well worth the four hour round trip even though their turnout was small. We (Aethelmearc) actually had them outnumbered in the woods so we ended up rotating players and getting creative with some scenarios. A couple more of their folks suited up for the field melees, but it was still small. A good time was had by all and, I think it is fair to say, we rocked the locals pretty hard. They were simply out of their league. That is OK, though. They were game and fought clean and hard and we all had a really fun day on the field. I do have to say that we broke their scenario through a combination of superior tactics and a qualitative difference in the fighters.

Special mention goes to their Sir Cellach mac Cormaic and his lady, (whose name escapes me). They greeted us warmly as we unpacked, fought together all day on the armored field and Sir Cellach joined us for pickups late in the afternoon. He was the soul of courtesy, fought fiercely against his visitors and was a fine example of a knight upon the field.

I would heartily encourage more visits to our neighbors across the border. Tired is now the word of the evening and it is time to call it a day.

Pesto

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:43:25 GMT

A friend at work gifted me with herbs from his garden, including a great bag of basil. Much of this became pesto tonight.

*sigh* This is one of the foods that they eat in heav'n.

(Before anyone asks, the food processor does too count as a power tool!)

A thing of beauty

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:16:41 GMT

Today, Master Michael delivered a book that I purchased from him. It is his reprinting of Vincentio Saviolo's 1595 rapier and dagger manual, HIs Practice, along with Saviolo's Of Honor and Honorable Quarrels. The redone typeset, the original plates and hand done leather binding make this a treasure in my library.

Holding this volume in my hands and reading aloud from the message to the reader gave me such pleasure in the feel and scent of the book and the nigh unto lyrical passages of words that I can scarce credit it.

The other kids are doing it...

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:37:16 GMT

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

At least it wasn't my sword hand...

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:05:23 GMT

For the first time in a looong while, we went to an event today. (Spring Thing) We drove the bit over an hour to get there, get out of the car and the very first thing that I do is slam the car door on my right thumb.

!@#!$%!!!!

It hurt so badly at first I was not sure what happened. I then, very carefully open the door again, extricate my thumb, and start hopping up and down while cursing.

At this point, I am convinced that I have broken my thumb and completely messed up my day thirty seconds into the event. After a few more minutes of cursing and hopping around I screw up the courage to look at the thumb. The nail is rapidly turning black and hurts like the dickens but everything is straight and still attached so I go in search of ice.

Several people are very nice to me for the next little while, helping supply me with a bag of ice, a kitchen towel and some aspirin. Having determined that it is -not- an emergency and that a health care practitioner cannot do anything for me that I cannot do for myself, I wrap the injured digit in electrical tape and fight buckler for the next five hours.

We get back home about eight o'clock and I peel the tape off. There is a lot of blood pooling under the nail and it has to be lanced. There is -no- way the Girl is willing to help me with this one and I can't blame her at all. After some trial and error, I settle on using a 1/16" drill bit by hand to go through the nail and relieve the pressure.
I will spare you all the really icky details.

There is now a neat, little hole in my right thumbnail. Things hurt considerably less but are still not in the least bit happy. The thumb may heal before the pride. Don Iago has promised to tell the story at some point while I am in middle of doing something graceful on the field, just to highlight the irony. He has my blessing.

I really feel like an idiot for doing this but will survive. The most funny part was that throughout the day, many people said 'at least it wasn't your sword hand'. Weird though it is, I am pleased that statement actually has meaning in my life.

The damned patio is done

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:26:41 GMT

OK, mostly.

We still have to build some stairs but we can do that at our leisure. The pavers are all installed and the polymeric sand is hardening over night. Tomorrow, the gate is going back up and then the cats can have unrestricted access to the yard again. I feel really bad for making them stay inside so much because they just don't understand the good and valid reasons that are keeping them from their favorite place.

There are no pictures yet, we did not finish working until after full dark. It will be a day or two before the Girl puts any on line.

After this, we start leveling the yard so that we can have a real lawn. Going to bed now. I have to be at work in six and a half hours.

Yard progress

Fri, 22 May 2009 03:14:08 GMT

The yard is mostly at the pitch we need. The depth is finally good with some minor adjustments still needed. Many, many thanks to
errant_tempest and youngmrp for the considerable help with leveling, breaking up concrete and mortaring brick.

We are getting closer to the end of this project every day.

Vandal in the 'hood

Tue, 19 May 2009 01:43:48 GMT

Mondays are my early day at work. This morning I climb into the car at 5am and notice the right side mirror is broken off. That is very odd since it is toward the sidewalk and I parked next to a big tree.

Fussing and cussing, I go to work because it is too dark and I am too hurried to actually do anything about it. Later in the day I go to check it out. The way the plastic is broken, it looks like something hit it from above. Just terrific, some asshat vandalized the car last night.
Greater inspection shows a bunch of hairs on the outside of the mirror and stuck to the car body and windshield. They are uniformly about two inches long, a little kinky and... striped. WTF?! The best I can figure, the neighborhood raccoon fell out of the tree last night and bounced off of my car, breaking the mirror off in the process. I know that they get described as 'ring-tailed bandits' but 'clumsy vandal' is decidedly new. I am definitely not reporting this to the insurance company. Having that conversation with my agent is just not someplace that I want to go.

The passing of Pontiac

Sat, 02 May 2009 21:51:27 GMT

With GM's decision to close down Pontiac, I have to admit to feeling some nostalgia and sadness. My very first car was a 1966 Pontiac Bonneville. It was a big, aggressive car that was a blast to drive. She was over two tons of Detroit iron and had a 389 cubic inch engine breathing through a four barrel carb. Quad headlights up front and an aggressive grill let you know who was coming and there were vestigial fins in back. There was nothing subtle about this car, and I loved it.

I found an image of one here-
http://www.thefreewheelers.net/images/Marque/0602/large/1966_Pontiac_Bonneville.jpg

Seeing it brought back tons of memories of messing around, doing all the fun, dumb things that young men do in their cars. It was kind of funny, all of the cops in my city knew that car and they knew who it belonged to. I can only guess that it was because it was so distinctive- I didn't ever do anything -that- bad in it. A few speeding tickets and there was this one time that I almost picked up a prostitute by accident but mostly the thing just threw style right in your face.

The cops knowing about the car actually got my stepfather out of trouble one time. He had it for a couple of days while doing some work and got clocked going a little fast. OK, a lot fast.
He was doing 135.
When they pulled him over, he was asked 'Isn't this the car that belongs to the kid that works down at Safeway?' Ray said 'Yeah, that's my stepson, I was doing some work on it for him and had to test it out.'
The cops and Ray have a good laugh and they let him go, all because the car was so damned cool.

Regretfully, Pontiac lost a lot of their coolness over the years and never quite got it back, despite the swing they took with re-releasing the GTO and the decent little Solstice. Nothing else that they have had for years ever came close to the sweet spot they had in the 60s and 70s. It really is time for Pontiac to close their doors, but that old Bonneville and all of her sisters from those days will hold a place in my heart.

mush

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 23:40:42 GMT

Love my cats. Love my wife.

Not much more that needs to be said about that right now. :-)

Hammer time - update

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 23:29:04 GMT

The bricks and smaller concrete pieces are now out and stacked against the house. Tomorrow evening, I hope to remove some of the large stepping stones and start experimenting on sidewalk slab removal. My biggest concern right now is the cats. Paris will take off when things start getting loud and messy but Tybalt is so laid back that he might stay in range of flying rock chips. He is the most loving and trusting cat that I have ever known and I don't want anything to damage that in him. It would just break my heart to have anything bad happen to either of them.

Hammer time!

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:50:26 GMT

This afternoon after practice I started taking apart the patio.

We have an old brick and concrete patio out back that is in truly appalling shape. We are going to replace it with a new, larger patio and landscaping (all done by us).

So, I was sweaty and dirty after practice but not completely worn out so I decided to get some work done. A lot of the bricks I could just pull out with a little leverage, so we now have a lot of usable old (ca. 1908) bricks. The concrete was a little more problematic but also came up fairly easily. So far, I have not had to do substantial whanging with the sledge hammer but the times that I needed it, I was shocked at how effective it was. Partway through, I accidentally shattered a brick while breaking up a larger piece of concrete. Let me tell you, eye protection is not optional. Most of what I had to do with the hammer was targeted taps.

So, I got about 2/3 of the way done with the patio before I had to come bathe before dinner. The rest of it should be done before next weekend and then I will have to start leveling the section of yard that we are expanding into, removing sections of sidewalk and eliminating a planter box.

After that, we have to get that section leveled for real, put in the substrate and start laying pavers. This is going to be a really big, awful job but we are going to learn a lot. If I don't hurt myself, I should be in great shape for Pennsic. :-)

I'll let you know how the sidewalk demolition goes. That is going to be extremely difficult. The Girl has some pictures of today's efforts. I will see if she will post them to her LJ.

Very, very tired now. Going to bed.

Practice

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:12:54 GMT

I went to practice for a couple of hours today. Man, oh man, I am not over this cold yet. Nothing particularly went wrong but everything was lacking. It's OK, I am not upset about it. This is just the concrete evidence that the virus is still ahead on points.

Today's highlight was working with hearne on linking power generation and fluid movement.

Writer's Block: Taxmen and Poetry

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:13:04 GMT

It's Tax Day in the U.S., a day when the mind might be too occupied with deductions and long lines at the post office to think about poetry. But let's try: what's your favorite line of poetry? Song lyrics count.

View 500 Answers

And thou must ride at his left side, as shield on shoulder rides.
'Til death or I cut loose the tie, at camp and board and bed,
Thy life is his--thy fate it is to guard him with thy head.

From The Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling

Eventually, we will replace our wedding rings and I hope to excerpt and edit for inscriptions.

For me:
And thou must ride at Her left side, as shield on shoulder rides.

For The Girl:
Thy life is his, thy fate it is to guard Him with thy head.

Update from the weekend

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:49:11 GMT

Here is the promised update. I will throw it behind a cut to save your friends page.

The passage out started on Friday and everything went smoothly. My only complaint about the trip is that the McDonnell-Douglas Super 80 is not my favorite airliner. The seats are too tight to be truly comfortable, even for my skinny butt.
The arrival in Salt Lake was fine. Lady_catwings picked me up and we spent the evening hanging out with couchbar and Gillian. It was really good to reestablish an old friendship that evening.
The following morning, we were up and out and dressed to kill. Well, two of us were, anyway. :-) When we got there, I was a little disappointed to find that my teaching space was in the middle of county fairgrounds building. Basically, a big, echo filled space with nothing but air separating me from seven other classes. One of these was the children's track, about twenty feet from where I put my materials. Needless to say, noise was an issue. It ended up being OK for the most part but my voice was shot by the end of the day.

All of the classes got a late start due to general disorganization at the event. I have been playing in the SCA so little recently that it bothered me at first. After remembering that I was -not- at a business function I reset my expectations, settled down and got to business. To start off, let me say that things went great. I was scheduled to teach for four hours and we ended up going for seven because folks were so excited that ideas and explorations just kept getting tossed out there. I think that the only reason we stopped when we did is because closing court was called.

The first two classes were pretty bread and butter for me. I have been teaching The Nature of Defense on and off for a few years but it comprises some fundamental ideas of fighting and it set the base work of where I wanted to go for the day. I have to remind myself occasionally that even though I and the people near me have been thinking in those terms for years that it is still a different conceptual model for most folks. The numbers were lower than I had been told but pretty typical for an SCA collegium class, so it was not a problem. The participants were engaged, asked good questions and shared their own perspectives after I made it clear that I wanted it to be an interactive experience. It set a good social energy level throughout the day.

Listening to the Sword was also decent. Really, that could have been an all day class by itself if we had focused on various techniques of power generation and management and done drill work for all of the pieces. The conversation turned at one point to the differences between the modern lunge and the Renaissance version. We talked about their proper application in regard to the energy transfer of the step (Modern = long, high energy transfer step with the knee behind the toes and Renaissance = short,low energy transfer step with an extended knee and significant body shift.) The only reason that I mention this is that one of the local scarves gave me a hard time about it after the class. It seems that he only heard half of what I had to say and thought that I was advocating only doing the modern technique. After that misperception was corrected, it became obvious that the guy's real purpose was to try and assert his superiority in the social structure over me.
It didn't work.
For starters, I am comfortable enough with myself that I don't feel threatened by how cool other people are. Someone else's excellence generally does not threaten me, so I don't suffer from the amygdala hijack that men so often experience when someone comes along and tries to start his dominance display. (Let us not forget that there was still a class on the schedule that day that included a section on Dominance. Let's just say that I was inoculated at that point.)
There were a few things that we talked about, but probably the best example of how things went was we got to discussing his perception that SCA rapier does not adequately teach people how to handle the realities of energy management in a lunge because of the 'pop' of passing through the skin of a soft target. Unfortunately, he did not really articulate what he thought would be a better way to simulate that without actually putting holes in our friends. Despite that, I did offer him a management tool in creating a set and coil at the end of a lunge or pass. (This puts the weight underside instead of in a semi-ballistic forward motion.) He didn't seem to like me having an instant answer that was martially valid and enabled transitions to the next technique. Another scarf who was listening in -did- seem to like it, though, and was doing a poor job of concealing his amusement. It ended amicably enough but I did give him a couple of pokes later in the day (like asking in front of many people if there was anything in my presentations that he wanted to call bullshit on. He declined.)

After lunch, was the physical and psychological manipulation class. This is the one that people really seemed to get excited about. To my pleasure, everyone was good with the idea that manipulation does not replace martial skills. Not that anyone would likely confronted me about such an obvious statement but they all made the right noises as the class progressed.
As a funny hook, I decided to share one of _Subdivisions_ terms of endearment for me "big fat liar". It accidentally ended up becoming the theme of the class and got tossed around a lot, along with much laughter. The Information Technology folks in the crowd really got the cognitive cycles analogy to a computer processor. The ideas regarding point salience/threat of offence were well received too. During an early demonstration, couchbar's automatic reaction to my picking up a sword was pure gold as a support to my argument that the potential of being hit make a substantial difference in how an opponent can be approached. I know, the idea is obvious. What is not obvious is how to apply it in a useful fashion.
The invitation section was solid and went well, but basic use of invitation is not a revolutionary idea. What really got folks going were the Dominance and Submission pieces of the class were probably the most exciting. Emotional manipulation, volume of fire, when instilling real fear is appropriate, feigning fear, range control through dominant behaviors, and off field dominance plays were all exciting things to talk about in the dominance section and we got a lot of good conversation about how to do it and how to deal with it.
Submission was also great. For starters, -real- submission is useful out in the the world but in a tournament it just gets you beaten. However, using submissive behaviors as a manipulation is just great. In the subsection of 'Sometimes you have to show a little leg' where we talked about submissive cues in humans, was a blast.
As part of these, we spent some time concerning gender based methods of asserting control on the field. This was potentially inflammatory but I think it was handled well. Essentially, it came down to the fact that if men use real world sexually dominant behaviors against women on the field that it was completely inappropriate. The abuse of social position that it constitutes is, simply, an evil act. However, women can use such things with impunity due to being on the lower end of the power scale in society at large. To lighten things up, I also introduced the idea that it was OK for men to do it to each other. couchbar once again helped me out and let me abuse him for the class. The results of me giving off feminine sexual cues and working my way into range were hilarious and effective. Sure, it was a gimmick, but it got people thinking and engaged.

The End Game was, as I hoped, less a formal class and more an opportunity to start weaving the other sessions together. We readdressed the concept that everything we talked about during the day was a method of establishing control and by cognitively mixing and matching, it is possible to lock down a fight to achieve your goal: winning.

At the end of the event, lady_catwings and I bailed out of court so that we wouldn't fall asleep at the back of the hall. It turned out that a couple of teenagers were throwing rocks and being bored little vandals on some aluminum bleachers. From a distance, I thought they were ~17-18 years old, so we prepared a mid-range threat and went over to tell them to knock it off. (I had lady_catwings carry a sword and follow off of my left shoulder, ready to hand it to me.) It turns out, it was overkill. They were only about 10-12. We had a little talk about proper behavior in public and I told them to go home and not come back.
To quote my beloved wife "We don't do the Bystander Effect."

Dinner was nice and social that night. I had a meaningful interaction with an old friend and her son that was probably the most 'good' thing that came of the weekend.
On a humorous note, wearing my stretchy, black shirt after a full day of moderate exercise was a good choice. Just sayin'.

Sunday's practice ended up going for about six hours. I had a good time and lots of fun fights with a wide array of skill levels. I was not at the top of my game but knew that I wouldn't be going in. That takes some work and focus that just were not going to happen at a practice. I am pretty satisfied with my performance that day. It was competent and I applied many of the elements that I had talked about the day before. There was a lot of quality time spent with some folks and not enough with some others. It wasn't for lack of trying on my part. :-)

The flight home was nothing exciting but the airline did manage to destroy my hardshell fencing bag. They are working on the repair or replace option and it will take them a bloody month to hear back. I am a little unhappy about that but not willing to get bent out of shape about it.
Monday night was a dinner party at home. It was a really good time but by the end of the night I was done. It seems as though this high-output weekend used enough of my body's resources that the virus the Girl was trying to share took hold. My butt is kicked and I will probably take tomorrow off too.

Catted

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:49:46 GMT

I am totally catted.
The intent had been to make a post about this weekend in all of its awesomeness but Paris had other ideas.

My sweet, little tuxedo cat is now purring sleepily in my lap and I am pecking this out at the edge of my reach from a desire not to disturb him.
We missed each other a lot.
The big post will just have to wait.

Travelling to Artemisia

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:50:02 GMT

For those of you who don't know, next weekend, I am flying out to the Barony of Loch Salann in Artemisia (Salt Lake City, UT) They invited me out as a special guest instructor for a collegium.

I have been looking forward to this for several months and anticipate a day of hard work and good times. There will be four+ hours of teaching on Saturday and I will get to put my money where my mouth is on Sunday.

For anyone who is interested, the teasers for the classes are behind the cut.

The Nature of Defense

A presentation of the idea that there are three pillars of defense: Evasion, Interposition and Threat of Offense. Each will be explored, practiced and used in combination.

Listening to the Sword: Managing blade and body dynamics in a fight

A review of sword-handling characteristics and how to manage mass and inertia while transitioning through fighting techniques. Camillo Agrippa’s basic hand positions will be used as a reference point for moving through attacks and guardia. Also addressed will be the connectedness of motion between the sword, hand and body. The goal is to facilitate smooth transitions in movement and energy transfer.

Calling the Tune: Physical and psychological manipulation on the field

An introduction to using physical and psychological techniques to make your opponent take the actions of your choosing in the time and place that you want them to occur. We will discuss the use of range, invitation and point salience along with some dominance and submission scenarios.

The End Game: Using control of the fight to enter range and strike safely

This is the summation and application of the previous three classes where we will apply the pieces of Defense, Dynamics and Manipulation to generate opportunities and capitalize on them to win a fight.