derekl_1963

Went to Kingdom A&S on Saturday, and by the end of the day my brain hurt badly... soooo much good information. Plus plenty of time hanging out and chatting with friends.

Two funny anecdotes...

• We stopped by Starbucks on the way out of town, and the lady at the drive up window asked if we were "going to Seattle". The looks of confusion on our faces prompted her to add "to that comic thing". "No", we explained, "we're off to a medieval event in Tacoma". I guess to the mundanes, one form of geek looks much like another.
• While watching a presentation, the presenter apologized for going off in too much details and being "too nerdy". One of the judges leaned in and said "don't apologize, you can't swing a dead cat in here without hitting ten nerds".

Less fun was court... Sometimes I couldn't see what was going on for all the cell phones people were holding up to take pictures... and let's not get started on how all the bigger camera's flashes looked like paparazzi at a Hollywood opening. Self control people, self control. This is theoretically a medieval event, and all of your electronics are very jarring during a solemn ceremony.

We'd planned to go to dinner with a friend, but since court ran long we were all *starved* when all was said and done. (And we were in Tacoma, which none of us know well.) We ended up going to a Panda Express (fast food pseudo Asian) - the food sucked, but it was calories and filling and the companionship was excellent.

In other news, we got our passes and hotel reservations for Sakura-Con, so that's the next Big Event on the horizon.

Busy weekend, busy Monday, so I forgot to post my weekend update. After the relative quiet of October, November starts with a bang and we're busy practically every weekend from now until after the New Year...

Saturday

• Not one, but *two* parties/gatherings. First off, a geocaching gathering down in Port Orchard to welcome Donna, Todd, and the quads back from Charleston. Then a BBQ/gaming day up in Silverdale to celebrate Rich's graduation from college (with a degree in game design, hence the gaming sessions).

Sunday

• A site walk through for Yule, followed by a working lunch to discuss some details. (Pizza! Yum!) Afterwards, Laurie came by the house to work on a new dress for Brenda for Yule.

Sorry I haven't posted in a bit... as I said a couple of weeks back, August is crazy busy.

Last week was all about getting my prints ready for the County Fair, and I'll have a post on that in a day or two.

Saturday was actually a free day, so Brenda and I ran off to Seattle and hit Pike Place. Haven't done that in way, way, too long. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to wander and shop the Market. Spent Saturday night napping off-and-on while trying (with little sucess) to catch the meteor shower. Sunday, tired as heck, spent pretty much all afternoon out at the Fairgrounds helping to accept entries into the photography competition.

This evening was the last full-scale meeting of the Sept Crown staff. Even though Crown is three weeks away, everything increasingly runs on momentum from here and depends more direct interaction between the staff as pretty much everyone understands the broad strokes. As I left, the core Staff was meeting - and I'm kinda glad I'm not involved in that. They've got some real headscratchers to deal with getting everything to fit on site. I've got my own corner (parking) to deal with, and only one person (the RV coordinator) whose space I'll bump up against, so a lot fewer headaches between now and the event. My problems really all start the Thursday before when layout/setup starts and kick into high gear Friday AM when people start arriving.

Tomorrow, another long day. Out to the fairgrounds to help wrangle for judging the photo competition, back to the house for some workmen to come by, back to the fairgrounds, and the rounding out the evening with fighter practice. (And a meeting with the steward for Searjeantry trials.)

June Faire is Officially Ovah! I just pulled the last checklist from my clipboard a little bit ago.

Yeah, there's some tasks left, but they're now part of ongoing work like "laundry" and "clean up the workshop".

And now, June Faire by the bullet points...

• June Faire was as usual, pretty awesome. Seeing and hanging with friends old and new. Seeing some deserving folks get elevated or recognized by the Crowns and Coronets. Etc... etc...


• It had a few sucky bits too... The drummers at all hours Friday night and the noisy encampments Saturday night. And the dumpster fire during teardown that has caused the RV to smell like burning garbage.


• I finally got to meet the lovely rectangularcat and hang out a bit.


• This whole business of photo documenting the Faire turned out to be much harder than I anticipated. It was tiring not only because I was on my feet all day, both days, but also because of the mental effort of walking the site with my head on a swivel and constantly thinking about what I was seeing, After downloading the pictures, I'm anguishing over the ones I missed or forgot to take. Such is life, lessons learned and carried forward.


• It wasn't until yesterday that I figured out why I felt so crappy all weekend - I'd become massively dehydrated. Working in the demo as I usually do, my tankard is near to hand for a few sips of water whenever I want or need them. Walking about the site, I suppressed the distraction and never made up the lack.


• Photo-geeking with andras120 and Marcus was, as usual, awesome. (And thank you again Marcus for the gift if the ball head. I'm looking forward to using it when I can get over to Seattle and get a base that it fits.)


• For the first time in many years, we shared a camp... and despite the confusion (our camp mates forgot their tent poles, resulting in an ad hoc re-arrangement of sleeping quarters - in the dark) it was massively fun.


• It was pleasant to be recognized for my photographic work by the Coronets.

And I must be crazy - because still somewhat tired from last weekend and all the work leading up to it, and still being not entirely caught up from last weekend... I'm already starting to plot and plan and look forward to next year.

Mostly a list for my reference, mostly in priority order...

Current projects:

Refinish scullery table.
Refinish low work table.

The scullery table especially has been subject to years of abuse, and is way overdue.

Overhaul/rework water tank stand.
Build temporary menu/chalkboard stand, probably by overhauling the existing one.
Paint/preserve Gold Key hanging racks.

At a minimum the bottom 6" or so and all end grain needs to be sealed.

Refinish trestle table trestles and legs.

Future projects/wishlist:

New water tank stand.

The existing one was mostly hacked together over one weekend and has some flaws.

Menu/chalkboard V3.0 plus a suitable stand.

Lots of lessons learned to date - and the current version has some significant flaws.

The Brothers seen from near the Bremerton Airport just as the dawn touches the top of the peaks.

For my SCA peeps, this is the view from the proposed September Crown site. (Though of course, there will be no snow on the Olympics in September.) When we were doing the site walk through last Sun, we were joking about all the photographers wanting to camp on the upper road - "Andras here, Talon here, Marcus here, Elizabeth there, Theodoric there..."

I've been a bit reluctant to post these, as my style is radically different from other photographers in the local group... but here goes nothing. (Steels himself for the response on the Baronial list.)

I like to take photographs, I want to learn portrait/candid photography, I know lots of cool artisans... this project (of which these pictures are just the beginning) is a natural intersection of all three.

Friday

Got on site about 4pm, and got the RV more-or-less leveled (the area sloped steeply - in two directions) with Ralg's help. Despite some confusion over pavilion requirements prior to the event, the autocrat came through with the covered space we needed.

Thangbrand could not stay for dinner or to finish helping up as originally planned, so Gabrielle and I ended up eating at the BBQ place in Port Gamble, hitting Wally World for a battery powered lantern, then went back and finished setting up the cooking pavilion.

While at Wally World, I decided that cookies and milk sounded like a hell of a bedtime snack - so I picked up some chocolate chip cookies. I took a stack to the gate, where they were much appreciated, and then had a few myself before hitting the hay. I went to bed pretty early as the alarm was going to go off early - and because a visit from the insomnia fairy Thursday night and a long day of packing and set up made for one tired Theodoric.

Saturday

At some point in the night, I woke up and it sounded like someone was playing a fire hose on the RV... I thought to myself that if it was raining like that when I got up, it would be sorely tempting to just put the key in the ignition and go the heck home. Here in An Tir we're used to the rain... but even we have our limits.

When the alarm did go off, I got up to mostly clear skies and no rain - and the horrid sight of one of the cooking pavilions collapsed under the weight of the rain. Fortunately it collapsed around the stack of bags of charcoal and they remained dry. Mattusez brought a pavilion from home to replace it, and by 9 we had it up and the pork on the grills.

I spent most of the day not too far from the grills as they required constant attention. I did get to see some of the tourney, but the highlight of the day was a a hour or so of photo geekery with Andras and Marcus.

Happily the cooking pavilions were adjacent to the Baronial pavilion so I got to see much of Their Excellencies final court as Baron and Baroness of Dragon's Laire - they'll be much missed when they step down in November. However, I do wish someone had remembered to fetch me so I could have seen all of My Lady being called up and awarded the Bumblebee (our first level A&S award for those not from around here) rather than just the tail end.

The feast was a stunning success, Thangbrand and I were mightily and muchly congratulated on the meat. (For those not from around here, the feast was served 'table potluck' style - the Barony provided the meat, and you and your friends provided your own sides.) The Culinary Guild table rocked because we'd coordinated our sides beforehand. Rhyceza's fruit sauce was the perfect accompaniment to the roast pork.

I loved Her Excellency's comment: "the only reason I didn't try the chicken was because I couldn't stop eating the pork". :) :) At one of the encampments we visited later that night, they were furiously debating whether we'd used a secret ingredient or not in the spices and what it might be. :) :)

After the feast and clean up we ended up wandering with Their Excellencies just a little bit and then hanging out with the Roving Irishmen for a bit before heading to bed.

Sunday

Sunday dawned clear and cool... So the general consensus was to get tear down started before the predicted storm hit. We got site broke down and the RV packed and were home by noon.

All an all, an excellent end to tourney season.

My pictures from this years June Faire, mostly culinary guild activities but with two from the woodworking demo.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31736686@N00/sets/72157619411822883/detail/

It's so much more efficient to post a link to the Flickr set than to mess with posting them here, so please visit and comment here or there.