Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Right, so here we go...

Can it really be that I've let this go since June? The short answer? Yes, it's been since June.
A lot has gone on since then. There was an entire Pennsic War that has come and gone, and now seems like a distant memory. There was another Crown Tournament this past weekend. My daughter has started Daycare (and has been there almost two months). And....I still haven't truly started my thesis (some things never change).
First, let's talk a little bit about Pennsic. Once again, I was given the honor of serving on my Kingdom's unbelted champions team. This year I was only an alternate due to the fact that instead of the regular 15 man teams that we fielded in the past, this year they decided to only have 10 man teams. As it turns out, I was an alternate, but our team captain made it a point to rotate the alternates through so I did get a chance to fight in one of the seven bouts. The big news is that this year, we were victorious. Our Kingdom's unbelt team won the tournament and I was a small part of that. It felt good.
As part of a reward for how we did in the unbelt tourney, every member of the team (including the alternates) were given a "slot" on one of the other big tournies of the War. There is a battle known as the "Allied Champions" battle. There are basically two sides in the War (the East vs. the Middle), and each side gathers up a collection of fighters from all of their allies and puts together a rather large team (in this case it was either 60 or 75 per side, I forget). We then play a rather large, hard fought game of capture the flag (for the geeks among you, think about Unreal Tournament). For 45 minutes, we try to beat the living heck out of each other, and capture the other teams flag and get it back to our "home point". It's a completely modern construct, but it is a whole lot of fun. It is, however, the hardest and most brutal fighting that I have ever been a part of. The chin strap on my helm broke halfway through the fight, but I kept fighting anyway (that was a stupid risk I shouldn't have taken, but it was an honor to be asked to be part of that team and I'll be damned if I was going to leave the field because of one damned strap).
The other big news from War is that after nearly two full years, my blog title is once again absolutely accurate. I have once again entered into the role of squire to one of the local Knights. I have actually been working with this Knight for a few years now, and I wanted to get "back on the path" and truly start trying to improve my fighting again. He is a Knight that I respect greatly and I also happen to like the members of his household. It has been good for me, but at the same time, it has taken a lot of time away from other things. I have been working out on "pell work" (think of a heavy bag for boxing, it's that type of exercise for sword and shield) three times a week since I got back from Pennsic. It has helped tremendously. There was an event in early September that I normally attend (it's the same event that I hurt my elbow at last year if you've been reading for awhile). I went into that tourney with the idea that I had something new to show. Well, I won't go into the gory details (it was a round robin fight, with two separate pools of fighters, eight fighters to a pool which meant 7 fights). I had only two loses in my pool (which meant I actually defeated a Knight or two). That was good enough to get me into the semi-finals. Out of 16 fighters, I was in the top four. I lost my semi-final bout, but I was really happy with my performance.
Last weekend was the Fall Crown Tournament. It was 5 and a half hours away. I drove there and once again, I wanted to show people that I have been working on my fighting. Well, the list had 14 fighters on it. 10 of those were Knights. Because the list was relatively small (you need at least 16 for a decent double elimination tourney, think March Madness), Their Majesties decided that the format for the tournament would be a full round robin. That meant 13 fights. I had to fight everyone (that includes the 10 Knights). I came out of the day 6 wins and 7 loses. I defeated 5 Knights in a Crown Tournament level fight. One of my victories was against one of my favorite Dukes (twice King). He was the Duke that I typed about almost two years ago that told me to be aggressive in my fighting and to not let my opponent control the fight. He was actually really proud of me for defeating him. I am really proud of my performance last weekend, and I've been told that several people noticed.
This upcoming weekend, I have my Challenge against the World. My friend and I have asked anyone and everyone to come fight us at an event. We'll see how it goes. If I survive, I'll report back later.
As I stated, my daughter has been in Daycare now for almost two months. It means her mother gets to sleep during the day, but at the same time, it means that I have to basically figure out how to pay the equivalent of another mortgage each month. It's expensive, but it has been worth it. She is talking more, and she has been building a really impressive vocabulary. That is both good and bad. She has also taken to repeating the words that she hears mommie and daddie use. Tonight I was speaking to my wife about something frustrating and I said "dammit". Well, my lovely little daughter then repeated in perfect English "dammit!" My wife got a huge giggle out of this. Between the two of us, she swears much more often than I do. She was certain that our daughter's first swear word would be based around something my wife said. Nope. I get that honor. My daughter's first swear word went straight from my mouth to hers. Kids say the darnedest things!
Well, if anyone is reading this, I'm sure that I've bored you more than enough. There's more going on in regards to work, home, life, school you name it, but when you take nearly 4 months between blog posts, well a lot is bound to happen. I'll type more later, but who knows when that will be...