TechSquire

Over a year, surprised the account still exists

2009-11-21T23:13:00.002-05:00

Depression is a funny thing (funny weird, not funny haha).

It's been a truly crappy week. One of my good friend's (and Knight's) father passed away. He ran down to Florida to take care of his mother, and although it was mostly expected, it doesn't make the loss any easier. He's back home now, and looking for distractions to occupy his time until next weekend's memorial service at which point he fully expects to lose it completely.

In addition, and on a much smaller scale in the grand scheme of things, my wife and I made the decision to put our cat to sleep yesterday. This has been a long time coming. Earlier this year, the cat started having bowel problems. She couldn't control when or where she had a movement. We took her to the vet and we were told that she had an infestation of fleas and a tape worm. My wife gave our cat the necessary medicine and started bathing her weekly. This went on for several months. Then, after seemingly no improvement, we took her back to the vet the day before Pennsic. We weren't sure during this visit if we were going to put her down, or if there was something else we could do (although we were leaning towards putting her down). The vet told us, that the flea medication that we had used the first time wasn't the best for the job, and because the fleas weren't dealt with, there was still a tapeworm(s). This made us feel like we hadn't truly tried our best to fix the problem. So, we then bought several doses of Advantage flea control, and we were given another dose of medicine for the tapeworm. Well, it's been three more months. The cat (Mia was her name) continued to get worse. She lost more weight, and continued to have problems making messes all over the house. She wasn't able to keep herself clean and because of this, she smelled horrible. We couldn't trust her not to make a mess wherever she was, and frankly, it wasn't like we wanted to get close to her because of the smell. She ceased to be a pet about a month ago (if not longer). So, when I got paid this week, we decided that we could afford to properly put her down. We took her to the vet yesterday, and at about 2:00 pm she went to sleep one last time.

I wept like a little girl.

Mia was one of the first things we did when we moved into our house together. Less than two months after we moved in, I decided I wanted a pet. So, the week of thanksgiving in 1998, my wife and I went to the Humane Society and started looking at cats (I wanted a dog, but my wife had never had a pet, and cats are generally easier to care for), we found Mia. Actually, she found me. As we were looking through all the cages of cats, when I looked at Mia's cage, she threw herself at the front of the cage just wanting me to pet her and love her. My wife knew at that moment that it was over, the choice had been made, and there wasn't much she was going to do to change my mind.

It's funny because over the years, Mia became more her pet than mine. Mia had a little bell on her collar, and it was the constant noise of that bell and her movements that told us we were never alone in the house. I know it's corny, but it's how I felt. She had always been a part of our home, and now she's not, and that's taking some getting used to. As I walk, when I hear my keys jingle in my pocket, there's a part of my brain that wonders if it's Mia coming around the corner. Of course she's not, but that doesn't stop my brain from trying to figure out if she is.

In the exam room yesterday, I was "mostly" okay, right up until my wife told Mia that she should rest now, and then she told Mia to go find Brick, and play with him the way she used to. For those that don't know, Brick was my Rottweiler who we lost to bone cancer 7 years ago. Mia and Brick used to "play". We would throw a ball for Brick, and he would run across the living room to get it. On the return trip, Mia would reach her paw out from the stairway door and trip Brick as ran back to us. It was hysterical watching a 10 pound cat trip up a 135 pound dog. Well, when my wife conjured up that image, I truly lost it. My wife then explained that in her mind, both pets were still part of our family, and on some level, the family would all be together again someday. That's more spiritual than either of us normally gets, but it was a nice thought.

There are other things going on in my life right now, some good, some bad. I have a thesis topic. I don't know that I'll finish it. The SCA is neither good nor bad right now. Work is work. However, tonight, I really wanted to type up some memories of Mia. It's been over a year since I typed up one of these "sign posts", but I thought this deserved one.

Right, so here we go...

2008-10-08T21:48:00.002-05:00

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...

And now for something completely different...

2008-06-26T22:53:00.003-05:00

...Actually, it will probably be more of the same.

This is usually where I say it's been way too long.

"It's been way too long!"

Now that that is out of the way I can move on.

So, what's been going on? Good question. I wish I had a good answer. I've been putting off doing my thesis because I have no earthly idea how to do a thesis. I have a rough idea of what the topic will be, now I need to do some honest to god research. You know, that means documenting what you read and where you read it. I've never been all that good at that kind of research. I've always been more of a read everything at once while trying to learn everything I can. I've never really worried about where I read what, or who said what where. I just read it all and let the ideas simmer in my head for awhile as I try to come to some form of understanding. This whole bit about having to write stuff down goes completely against my learning style. As one of my professors (the one who I'd like to be my thesis advisor), "Get over it!"

My daughter (I can't really call her my "baby" girl anymore, she's almost two and well into toddler mode, but she'll always be my "baby" girl on some level) is running around all over the place. She's climbing stairs upright now, and doing her best to overcome gravity at every turn. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes there are some scraps and bruises. We signed her up for daycare this week, but she won't start until we get back from Pennsic. This is both exciting and terrifying all at the same time. I want my wife to be able to get some sleep. I want us to have access to the gym (we're putting her into the "YMCA" daycare, and it's cheaper if you're a member), but at the same time, I'm a little concerned about turning over my daughter to someone else to raise. The Y does this all the time and they have a really good reputation in town for being an excellent daycare. That doesn't change the fact that I'm concerned.

As for the SCA...I'm doing the best I can to find some joy. There's another gentleman who happens to be a foster squire to the Knight I primarily train with. He and I try to keep each other motivated when the chips are down. Two years ago, he hatched a plan. It was a cunning plan, it was a subtle plan (Baldric, you wouldn't know a subtle plan if it stripped naked, painted itself purple and....sorry tangent). It was his idea that he and I would challenge the world. We would setup a list field and a couple pavilions at an event, and challenge anyone to come fight us for the sheer joy of it. Well, two years ago, my wife was weeks away from giving birth. That meant the plan got shelved. This past week, I took it out, dusted it off, considered it, wrote out a formal challenge to everyone, saved it as a draft and emailed it to him for his review. He read it. Then he called me a bastard for remembering it. Then he said he was in. So, sometime this Fall, at an event that takes place right about equi-distant between the two of us, we will set our camp, and hold the field against all comers for about 6 hours straight. It's going to kill both of us, but it'll be a heck of a lot of fun.

I'll type more later. Take care world.

Checking In

2008-04-28T22:23:00.002-05:00

Hey Gang!

Once again, it's been too long so I suppose I should probably write something. Things are hectic as always, but I won't say busy because that annoys one of my readers (you know who you are!). I'm finishing up my web "class" which has really just been me reading various books and abusing old friends into coming over and showing me how to do this whole web development thing. It has been a fascinating journey, and I've actually learned quite a bit, but what I've learned most of all is that I don't want to be a web developer. I have always respected them, but now, even more so. What these guys and gals are able to do with the digital medium is nothing short of amazing.

My last major task for the web project I'm working on is securing an administrative directory within the website. I've read about a hundred online tutorials about how to use .htaccess and .htpasswd and I really do understand how they are supposed to work. The problem is that the website I'm working on is hosted on GoDaddy and while they have an amazingly inexpensive service, they don't necessarily do things the way everyone else does. I tried configuring the security the way all the online tutorials told me to, and that didn't work. Then I find out that GoDaddy has recently (as in within the last three months) published a new utility on their "hosting manager" website that supposedly configures everything for you. So I delete all the files I've tried to create manually, and I use their GUI to secure it. Well, that didn't work either. So I remove all the settings, start from scratch and try again. Guess what? Still no good. Finally, I decide to call tech support. I find out that they don't have an 800 number, but they do have a long distance number you can call. I called it and waited on hold for half an hour (using their long distance number). I got a perfectly pleasant, non-accent, English speaking person on the phone. I explain my situation, and he and I test a few links and he determines that it's not working correctly (thanks genius). He tells me that since they don't support custom .htaccess files that it's not truly covered by support. I stop him right there and tell him that I didn't use a custom file. I used THEIR interface to create THEIR file from THEIR admin pages. He asks me to wait on hold while he checks this out (long distance). After about 10 minutes, he comes back and says that he spoke with some other techs and they said that I should remove the settings I created and try creating them again. I stop him right there and ask him if it would help to know that I have tried removing and creating these settings using THEIR interface two or three times already and it still isn't working as advertised. He asks me to wait while he talks to people again (long distance). After about 10 minutes, he comes back and tells me that he is going to have to escalate this call and open a ticket and if I could just patiently wait (long distance) while he typed in the information, he would get my ticket processed. After another 10 minute wait, he came back on and informed me that it will take 24 to 48 hours before someone will even look at the problem and that they will contact me via email when they have something to tell me. We part company with pleasantries. He was a very nice individual, and we were both calm and polite during the entire call. I just wish that their online utility did what it advertised, and I wish I wasn't put on hold so often for so long, but I've been on the flip side of that call, and I know what he was going through, so I can't really blame him (much). I just can't believe they don't have an 800 number. Hopefully, I will have a solution soon so that I can put this whole web development thing behind me.

In other news, there was a really large SCA event this past weekend, and this upcoming weekend is the next Crown Tourney (yes, I'm fighting in it), but this post is now way beyond long enough, and I'll type more about the SCA stuff later (probably after Crown, so everybody wish me luck).

I have returned...

2008-03-17T23:21:00.002-05:00

Okay...so Dag is wondering where I've been, I guess I can give somewhat of an answer.

I was on crusade. A friend of mine and I drove down to Lumberton, Mississippi to attend the 17th annual Gulf Wars. I was down there for a week. The trip down was absolutely awful. We drove through Columbus, Ohio right as they were getting 27" of snow. We planned on doing the drive in two days. It was our hope to drive for about 12 hours the first day and about 5 hours the second day. Well, it took us all 12 hours the first day to make it through the first 7 hours of the trip so the second day wound up being much longer than we had originally anticipated. We arrived safe and sound and setup camp on Sunday evening. By the end of the day we were both ready to just rack out and call it a day.

On the second day (Monday) there was a Ravine battle. Basically, it was a fight in a small wooded depression about 100 ft wide by 300 ft long. This battle was taking place before the formal war had started so there were only about 60 to 70 people there. Turns out that me and my friend were the only ones representing our Kingdom during this fight so we attached ourselves to the Kingdom of Trimaris (Florida area folks) and had a wonderful day of fighting and fun. When we got back to camp, other people from our Kingdom were just arriving. In all there were maybe 12-16 of us down there.

On Tuesday, there was a friendship fort battle. They have a wooden "castle" at the event site that we are able to fight around and through. This day was also a smaller fight with about 100 on a side. Again, I had fun, but I felt a little alone. The people who showed up from our Kingdom were people that I knew, but they were mostly their own little clique' so my friend and I were mostly left to our own devices.

The rest of the week there were several battles (another ravine, a "town" battle, a bridge battle, open field battles and finally another fort battle (but we didn't stay for that). This war is about half the size of Pennsic. In total, somewhere around 6000 people usually show up for this one, and if rumors are to be believed, this year, it was only about 4000. I'd say we never had more than 1000 on the field, but that is a really rough estimate. I fought sword and shield for almost the entire time (although I did fight spear for one battle, and that showed me why I normally fight sword and shield). Due to the heat and the fact that I am totally out of shape, I never fought any pick up fights (which is a shame because that was one of my goals going down there).

The trip was ultimately worth it. I had a good time, and being away from work was a good thing. However, I found that I was more homesick this time than the past two times that I've attended this war (might have something to do with the baby). I'm also questioning how much I enjoy fighting anymore. I have found that recently, I haven't been getting any better. If I made it a priority, and dedicated all of my time to it, than maybe, just maybe, I might get better. However, with my daughter and several other things going on, I need to remember why it's fun and try to figure out how important it is. At this rate, I'm not sure that I'll ever be Knighted. I will have to work A LOT harder if I ever really expect it. In order for that to happen, I need to finish off my academic program and re-dedicate the time to fighting. Also, in order to focus, I may need to think about becoming a squire again formally. I'm not sure when that will be, but if I am to continue down the "knightly" path, I think it's a step I may need to take. This time last year, I was winning tournaments and enjoying the fight. I haven't felt that joy the past several times in armour. Where is that joy? What is it that made me joyful? How do I regain that spark?

While I was away, there was a major fighting event in my home Kingdom. A friend of mine attended it. I emailed him and asked him how it went. He responded and I could feel the joy from just reading his email response. I miss having that enthusiasm in myself. He had a wonderful day fighting. He didn't win every bout, but he had some really good runs and he was very excited that he had back to back victories against two knights (sounds familiar, I'm sure if I read all my back posts I'd find some similar stories from myself. Possibly from the same event last year. Matter of fact, I'm sure of it). I'm going to see him tomorrow night. Hopefully, I'll get all the details from him then.

On a good note (sort of), I have now lost about 40 pounds from where I was. Around Thanksgiving and Christmas I was 320 pounds or so. I weighed myself when I got back from the war last night, and I weighed 278. I'm fairly proud of that. I'm sure that won't be my consistent weight. That was coming off of a week of extensive activity and a fairly consistent diet that had a breakfast and dinner (I usually don't eat breakfast so my system was probably confused). I'd love it if I could continue to lose the weight. If I could consistently get down to 265 I'd be thrilled. I'd be even happier if I could see myself below 250, but I think that may be a dream at this point. I will continue to try to be aware of what I'm eating and I need to continue to strenuously exercise. If I could do that alone, it would probably help my fighting (not to mention my actual health).

Well, I think that's enough of an update for now. I'll try to write more later.

What to say.....?

2008-01-29T23:07:00.000-05:00

I don't know exactly what to say, but I figure it's been long enough, that if anyone even still bothers to check, I should write something. So let's cover the basics: work, school, SCA and home life.

Work has picked up. They are finally starting to utilize me, and that feels good. I still have an amazing amount of do nothing time, but that's more my choice than theirs as there are projects I could be working on, but I'm avoiding them. We've been building up to a major server redo (bringing a server up from Windows 2000 to Windows 2003 and SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005). That started today and will take most of this week (and most of Saturday) to get worked out and cut back over. So far it's going well (knock on wood), but I'm still waiting for the other shoe to fall. I've read several articles that have suggested waiting until the next full release of SQL before upgrading, but the powers that be are worried about Microsoft discontinuing support of SQL 2000 sometime this year so we are going ahead with the upgrade. It's only one of our servers, but it's a major one, and we're using this time to also test our Disaster Recovery methods (databases being passed to a virtualized server from backups and changing ODBC drivers on client machines, it's a relatively painless solution).

School. Well, what can I say about school? I'm down to two requirements. I need to work my way through an individualized instruction of a web development class, and I need to do my thesis. The web class is killing me. It's something I've never done. It was the one thing that I was looking forward to learning in the whole program, and now I have to take it as an independent study! I think I really would have preferred a classroom environment on this one. I suck at the web! I always really appreciated the talent that the guys at my old job had for putting together websites. They had an artistic eye, and they knew how to make the tags do what they wanted them to. I, decidedly, do NOT have an artistic eye, and I can't make the damn tags do anything I want them to. To top it off, I'm basically trying to learn all this stuff on my own. Thanks to one friend, he pointed me to www.w3schools.com which has been a wonderful resource. If I've learned anything, it's thanks to that site. As for my thesis, well, I've had some preliminary discussions via email with the professor who I would like to be my thesis advisor, and I'm going to try and have a literary review completed prior to the end of February. I'm not sure whether or not I can get the thesis done by the end of the semester, but I'm going to try.

SCA. Yeah, more of the same. Last Sunday was a practice. Now, I've been riding the exercise bike in the basement three to four times a week since the begining of the year. I was hoping that my stamina would have increased, but it didn't. I got the chance to honestly teach for a little while at the begining of practice. I showed someone the basics of the "wrap" shot. Imagine throwing a sword blow at someone's leg, then at the last moment, you turn your wrist and rotate the sword so that you hit them with the back blade instead of the front of the blade. What you wind up doing is hitting the person in the back of the leg with the sword instead of the front or side. That's the basic of a "wrap". There are several variations, and I showed someone most of what I knew about them. There were three Knights standing there, watching me teach this person, and they didn't interupt to say that I was wrong on anything, and one of them actually said that I was a good teacher. I was pretty happy about that.

The first half of practice I faced some of the same people I always face. I wasn't happy with my performance at all. Halfway through practice though, something interesting happened. A group of 5 or 6 fighters from a neighboring barony showed up. I actually got a chance to fight some people who I don't fight all the time. I did fairly well against them. One thing I did wrong though. I faced their toughest competitor last. I was completely out of gas when I was fighting him, and he tore me up hard. They said that they were planning on coming out again sometime. I'll have to make sure I fight that guy first. They were all very friendly, and seemed like great people to have around. I look forward to crossing swords again.

On a completely different topic related to the SCA, I've had another example of how me saying "I suck" (which I do) can effect other people. On one of the online forums I read, someone asked the question "What are your goals". One of the Knights responded that he wanted to

"Each day I ask that I can keep
fooling my squires and everyone else
for just one more day. "

Now, this is a Knight who I respect greatly. His presentation on the field is perfect. He is humble. He is witty. He is soft spoken. He is honorable. This Knight is the example in our Kingdom for what it is to be Knightly. When I read that he thought he needed to fool people, I nearly screamed. I typed a response to the forum, but I thought that would be too public. I began to type an email response to him personally, but I shouldn't question his own opinion of himself, but I was honestly mad at him for not seeing in himself, what everyone else sees every time he takes the field or talks to you (then another light bulb went off....hmmmm....maybe I might be a wee bit too hard on myself as well). I'm not sure if he drinks, but I owe him a beer. I want to sit by a campfire and tell him all the wonderful images and stories I know of him. I want to reassure him of what I and many others feel. That he is truly a Knight.

I know this is getting long, but bear with me. One or two more stories to tell about the SCA. Twice within the last month, I have been complimented by people in a way that touched me deeply. I was riding in a car with one of our "newer" fighters (he's been fighting a year and a half, and he is far from a newbie). I stated that I would like to get Knighted someday. He said that he would like to see that. I asked him what it mattered to him. He told me that I was one of the people who represented the best of what a knight should be (I'm paraphrasing here). He said that I was kind with everyone. I was generous with everyone. I was willing to train anyone. He said that I had impressed him and that he was trying to follow MY example in how to deal with people. He has no idea how much that touched me.

The other story, was completely unexpected. On that same online forum I mentioned earlier, a user from my Kingdom posted a question. He asked, in each Kingdom, who are the unbelts that best represent Knighthood without considering prowess. In other words, who are the guys that if they could get their prowess up to snuff would make excellent Knights. Several names, from several kingdoms were mentioned and discussed, and no one from our Kingdom responded. The gentleman who originally posted the question responded that he was surprised that no one from our Kingdom responded, so he would let people know who he was thinking of when he asked the question. He said that the one person that came to mind for him from our Kingdom was me. I was literally blown away! This is a guy who I spent some time with maybe 15 years ago back when I was in college. He lives on the other side of the Kingdom from me, and I haven't had any consistent contact with him since then. I've seen him on the side of the field, and I've always been pleasant, but I can't for the life of me figure out how I made that impression on him. I stood a little taller that day. I owe him some scotch (I'm pretty sure he prefers it to beer). I guess, in one way or another, I've made an impression on some people. The lesson to take away from all of this is that maybe, just maybe I could be a Knight if I could get my stuff together on the fighting side of life.

Finally, the home life. My daughter is now almost 17 months old (I can't believe that). She's walking all over the place. She's climbing stairs. She's exerting her independence (this is a bad sign, she's not even two and she wants to be independent). She's also clumsy as all get out. She is constantly falling face first into our hardwood floors. She currently has two nice sized goose eggs on her forehead. I know this is a phase, and that she will eventually find her balance and grace (God I hope so, I really don't want people thinking I beat my kid!). I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I don't care how bad a day I've had, if I come home and see her smile, and hear her giggle, the rest of the world just doesn't matter. Two weekends ago, we were at a baby shower for some friends of ours who are adopting a child. It was more of a big party than a baby shower. They held it in a fire hall. Anyway, at one point, my daughter was overly tired. I sat Indian style on the floor, wrapped her in a blanket, put her in my lap and gently rocked her. It was a cold concrete floor, and my legs soon fell asleep. The pins and needles were killing me, but if my daughter was going to let me hold her there, I wasn't moving for anything. I wouldn't give that moment up. Those moments make me smile and warm my heart.

Sorry it's such a long post. I should really write more often (and more focused). If you've read this far, then you're crazy. I've come to realize that this blog is as much for me as it is for anyone else. It puts some sign posts in my mind that can direct me back to fond memories when I go back and read. Thanks for taking an interest in my memories.

Happy Holidays

2007-12-22T00:37:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile since my last post. I have some things to update.

First, I finished off the semester. I hated doing the final projects, but they got done. I finished with my 4.0 average in tact. That's primarily due to a professor who gave me a gift. I'm not sure why he did it, but he did and so I still have my 4.0. I'm actually very happy about that. This leaves me with one web development independent study and my thesis. I really have to figure out what I'm going to do for my thesis. I've asked at work if there are any projects that would qualify and there are one or two promising ones so I guess we'll just have to see. For right now, I'm going to try and concentrate on some other things for awhile.

As for the SCA and my fighting....that gets a little more complex. There are no grades to tell you how you are doing so it's difficult at best to figure out how to judge how you are doing. At the beginning of 2007, I was at the best I had ever been. I even won a few tournaments and apparently I somehow manged to inspire a few people at the same time. It was a wonderful feeling. I haven't felt good about my fighting in three or more months. I have slipped. I know my fighting is nowhere near where it was a year ago. That's a tough pill to swallow. There are reasons for this, of course. I was in the toughest semester yet in school. I had started a new job. I didn't have the time to work on it. Use it or lose it, and I have now almost completely lost it. The problem is, I now have to figure out whether or not that actually bothers me. The winter in our Kingdom is usually pretty slow event wise. There aren't a whole lot of tournies and there are less practices than in the warmer months (people generally have trouble finding indoor fighting sites). Because of this, my SCA life has been severely limited. I'm now trying to figure out how much I've missed it (or indeed if I've missed it at all). Hopefully, now that school isn't taking all my time, after the holidays I'll be able to get back to a more regular fighting and practice schedule. It's my hope that then I can find some motivation somewhere to get myself back to where I was last spring and summer.

As added motivation, Her Royal Highness (the current Crown Princess of our Kingdom) asked me last weekend to be a member of her guard. This is a honor for up and coming fighters. It will be the third time that I've been on a Royal Guard (one time as the Captain of the Guard). Each time was fairly motivational, so I'm hoping it helps again. In addition to that, a good friend of mine and I are planning on making the trip to Gulf Wars in Mississippi this year. It's a War that happens in March that is about half the size of the Pennsic War. It's a lot of fun and has a completely different atmosphere from Pennsic. It's much more relaxed. Because we are so far from home, there aren't any expectations when you're down there. We're also trying to motivate a few additional fighters to come down with us. It makes for a great road trip. I really hope we can pull it off.

My wife and I are desperately trying to get ready for the Holidays. The problem is, her work is asking her to come in both days this weekend. On top of that, I'm not feeling well. It is going to make it very difficult for us to get our shopping done for our daughter. We want to make Christmas special for our little girl, but as I've stated in previous posts, we aren't really big on holidays in general so it's kinda foreign for us. We actually got a tree up this year, and my princess is doing really well with it. She hasn't been pulling things off the tree or misbehaving in any way. We had an easier time with her than we did with the cat (although once we brought the water spray bottle back out, the cat came in line pretty quickly).

Anyway, with as often as I don't post, I'm sure this will be my last post before the holidays. So for all two of you who read this thing, have a safe and happy holiday. Enjoy the time with family and friends, and remember to laugh and love and remember. For those of you with blogs, remember to give us some updates. In some cases it's the only contact I have with you.

An Update....

2007-11-26T00:26:00.000-05:00

Today was a good day. I know that's not very descriptive, but there you have it.

Today my wife and I stood at the same alter where we stood 5 and a half years ago to profess our love and be married, and we baptised our little girl. The service this time was considerably smaller. We only had about 4 couples show up other than us, but they were all close friends and family. The Deacon who performed the ceremony was exceptionally cool (as it turns out, he was a student of my father's from way back). He invited everyone up on the alter to stand around, and participate in, the baptism. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shinning perfectly through several large stained glass windows, and there was enough clear glass to provide natural sunlight as well. The effect was quite simply, stunning. My wife said that she enjoyed holding my daughter and being able to watch my little girl's face in the reflecting waters of the baptismal basin. It was truly a joyous feeling to be standing up there with "my girls".

I still haven't done the end of semester projects. The car has been returned to me after only a single repair (a bad oxygen sensor is what they told me, and as a weird note, my electrical problems were on a 2000 Jeep Cherokee, so maybe it's a problem with the brand). It seems to be running fine now (knock on wood). I've accepted that my house is my home, and although I will want to move, I shouldn't be in a hurry to do it. I will have better results if I work towards it as a goal than if I jump at it without thinking. My fighting, well, what can I say. Sometimes I should listen to my own advice. I have to stop and ask why I play this game. It's not about being knighted (although that would be nice). It's about being the best I can be, while at the same time (and this is the important part) having fun while doing it. There's a great group of people that I fight with. I have fun when I get to play with them. I need to work on getting better, but I shouldn't sacrifice my joy of the fight in order to try and get better (that usually never works out well).

In short (if it's possible for me to be brief), my mood is better. It's not where I want it to be, but it's much better. A day on an alter in colorful and beautiful light with family and friends and love...that will help any bad mood.

You ever get in one of THOSE moods....

2007-11-15T00:52:00.000-05:00

Yeah, there's not good reason for it, I'm just in a bad mood. The problem is that I'm not coming out of it. It has been about a week now, and I am firmly lodged in a slump.

I'm several weeks away from the end of my last true semester of classes for my Masters (one independent study and one thesis to go after this). There are two major projects that I need to finish in that time, and I just can't bring myself to get motivated to do them. As usual, I will pull them outta my rear end in the last minute and turn in a sub standard project. Given the quality (or lack thereof) of my program, I'll probably still get a decent grade, but I'm not sure that should be the point of a graduate program. I would like to do more than "just get by".

One of my vehicles just went into the shop tonight for an electrical problem (Hey Don, how's that banner coming). I've had a check engine light on for a few months and occasionally, the gauges just die (the car continues to run fine). Sometimes, the car won't start if you turn the key, but if you wait long enough, the aux. power eventually kicks in and then the car starts just fine. I'm afraid this is going to be one of those "Well let's try replacing THIS and see if it fixes it. Oh, that didn't work, well bring it back in and we'll try fixing THAT and see if it fixes it". I really don't want it to become one of those progressively more and more expensive repairs. The car just really isn't worth that much.

On another front, I now have proof (soft of) that I suck at fighting. There's an online forum that I occasionally read. One of the topics of this forum recently was "who are the best unbelts in your kingdom". I didn't get mentioned once. I have no problem with any of the people who were mentioned. I respect each and every one of them. On the flip side, I have beaten most of them in tournaments (or at least in bear pits). They beat me too, but that means I should be at least in the same general skill level as them, and apparently I'm not. Or at least nobody who posts to that forum from my Kingdom seems to think so. This wouldn't have effected me so much if I wasn't in this mood, but I am, and so, it does. Once school is done, I really need to start fighting again regularly. Not just fighting to fight, but fighting to improve. There's a HUGE difference between the two, and I have gotten lazy in the second half of this year.

Finally, I'm just not happy with my house. I haven't had the time to put into keeping it clean much less working on improving it. Last weekend I started looking at house ads in the weekend paper because I'm not happy in my current home. That's just an excuse really. I'm looking to replace my general depression with something "new". Hell, I've considered new cars, new houses, new computers anything to just give me something new to focus on, but that's just a diversionary tactic. I have to find a way to get out of the funk that I've fallen into.

The one bright spot is my daughter. She had a bad rash last weekend, and she dealt with it like a real tropper. Sure, she was a little more cranky than usual, but she was still a laughing little baby girl. She's crawling all over the place now, and she takes stairs like a champ. She clearly says "Ma Ma" (at least I can understand it clearly) and she may even say "Da Da", but that sounds more like she's just making noise. The happiness I do find these days is holding my little girl. It sounds corny, but it just happens to be true. I'll have to work on letting that happiness grow before the next time I post.

Halloween Thoughts

2007-10-29T23:12:00.000-05:00

Okay, I know it's not the "Holiday Season" yet, but it is Halloween or Samhain or All Saint's Day Eve or any number of other holidays that are celebrated by people far and wide. I actually really like these holidays. The thinning of the walls between worlds and what not is a concept that has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. I have a problem though. It seems I'm just not that creative. Every year I hear one or two stories about people who really go all out. They have some idea that they just "Have to do!" as a costume in order to celebrate. They usually have a clear creative idea, and some way to make it real. I wish I had that creativity and drive.

Given my hobby, there's always the cop out of wearing medieval garb or armour. After all, I think the image of a 6'2" gentleman wearing full plate and carrying a big honking sword might get some peoples' attention. However, I really do consider that a cop out. I do that 30 to 40 weekends a year. Doing it for Halloween just seems to diminish the holiday and on the flip side it diminishes what I do for the rest of the year by making it simply "a costume".

The only two ideas I have ever had are a gargoyle from the cartoon (I always wanted to be Goliath. Build some kinda really cool wing set and somehow build lifts for my feet to make me even taller) or alternately a fully armoured Cyclone Motorcycle Soldier in mechanized mode from the third generation Robotech Cartoon series (if you know what I'm talking about, then you are truly a geek and I salute you). I've never had the nerve to attempt either of them, but I think they would both be really cool (even if I was the only one who knew what I was going for).

In a way, I feel sorry for my daughter. My wife and I have always been very practical about holidays. We've never really dressed up or gone all out for any holiday. We particularly don't tend to do much for Halloween. As I stated earlier, the idea of the holiday is really interesting to me, but with my lack of creativity and with my hatred of the over-commercialization of all holidays, I worry that somehow my daughter will miss out on some of the more "fun" aspects of this and all the holidays (although my wife did buy my daughter a giraffe costume this year, and it should be really cute).

Personally, I'll be in class for this year's festivities so there aren't any conflicted feelings about the holiday this year. I'll spend it how I see fit. Later in the evening I'll probably turn off the TV, turn off the computers, turn down the lights and just listen to the world around me. I'll try to center my mind, relax my soul and try to remember the spirits of those who have passed before me. Will I be able to talk with the dead? I'm guessing probably not. However, if I take the time to remember them and remember my times with them, maybe the holiday won't be so bad afterall...

I wish I could tell you...

2007-10-07T22:12:00.000-05:00

...I did well at Crown. I wish I could tell you that I'm the new Crown Prince and that I was able to crown my Lady the new Princess. That would be a great feeling. However, I can't. The list was deep. There were 16 fighters and over half of them were Knights. In keeping with my tradition, the person who defeated me in the first round went all the way to the finals so I can't feel too bad about that loss. In the case of both of my bouts, I made the fighters work for their first win against me (it was best two out of three each round). That first fight seemed to scare them, and then they killed me quickly in our second bouts.

I have a ton of excuses. I've had a horrible case of tennis elbow in my sword arm since an event in early September. I've had a cold for about a week now. The school work schedule and work schedule really don't allow me to practice. Yeah, I've got a million of them (and some are even valid). The problem is, for the past two years, it's always come down to the same problem. I just can't seem to generate enough power on my off side shots. I had no less than 5 Knights talk to me yesterday and tell me that my targeting, shot selection and even my movement against my opponents were all flawless, BUT I'm swinging too much with my arm and not putting enough of my body behind the shots. I really appreciate the advice from the Knights. I appreciate that they all took the time to stop in their days and talk to me. It means they think I can get better. I really wish I thought I could. It's rough when you hear it that many times from that many different people.

I went to a local fight practice today (with a couple of close friends and one of the Knights). I felt like crap. The guys were literally taking me apart. The one guy has been fighting for just over a year. At the end of practice, I told him how much I thought he had improved. I told him that he was definitely no longer an easy fight for me, I had to work in every fight. I also told him that I envied him for where he was in his fighting. When you are that new, you are learning new things all the time. You are constantly improving, and you are noticing real gains at every fight practice. I miss that feeling. I miss learning that one new thing that makes your head explode because you never noticed it before. And I am sick and tired of hearing that I'm doing everything right BUT....

Don't get me wrong gang. I still love to fight when it's going right. I had some of the best fighting times of my life in the past year. I just want to improve a little more (okay, a lot more). and the more you learn, the more it takes to improve. The gains go from these huge leaps and bounds, to these tiny little increments. Somehow, I just have to learn how to generate that off side power.

After all, someday I really want to place a Crown on my Lady's head. With everything she has put up with over the years, I think she's earned it.

There aren't enough hours in the day...

2007-09-22T23:08:00.000-05:00

It's been too long.

A lot has changed.

I'm not sure I know where to begin.

So, I've gotten a new job at a social services organization that tends to MH/MR children (and adults, but they focus on the kids). I'm a DBA working on their SQL Server databases. It is worlds different from what I was doing as a network admin / troubleshooter at the old place. There's a lot more expected of me, and I'm not entirely sure I have all the skills they are looking for, but I'm trying and it's been good to get back to thinking in SQL. I've actually done several things so far that have been really interesting (to me anyway) and there's a whole lot more to learn. It's definitely better for my resume', but it doesn't seem like it's as friendly a place as I was working. That could be because I've been there less than a month, but I just don't feel that I've "connected" with anyone. There's 3 onsite eateries for the staff to choose from and everyday at lunch, I find myself eating alone. It's very strange.

In addition to changing jobs, schooling has gotten "interesting" as well. It seems that due to lack of enrollment, the college is cancelling my major. They are committed to letting existing students finish, but that means that I have to try and take all of my remaining classes NOW! This semester, I have three classes. The workload has been very daunting. I'm 4 weeks into the semester and I haven't died yet, but I'm really starting to burn out. It is getting harder and harder to motivate myself to do the homework. I keep telling myself that I'm a quarter of the way through the semester, and it's only 11 weeks left. I can do anything for 11 weeks, right? I'm afraid that the 4.0 that I've been carrying until this point may be in jeopardy. Wish me luck.

Two weeks ago, there was a fighting event that is one of my standard events for the year. Before the tournament started, there was nobody in the lists (the fighting ring). So I armoured up and went out and stood the list basically challenging anyone there if they wanted to come and fight me before the tournament started. The Knights of our Kingdom have been complaining that the unbelts just don't show a fire to fight anymore. No one seems to be fighting pickup bouts outside of the posted tournaments, and they were really lamenting the fact that it seemed nobody cared. Well, I take this as a personal challenge. At every event I go to now, I am going to armour up early and take the field whether there's a tournament or not.

Well, I stepped out into the list to see who would come out and fight me. I looked around and three of the Knights were standing and talking on the sidelines. When one of them finally saw me standing in the list, he slapped the other two on the shoulder, pointed at me and all three of them started racing to see who could get into armour to beat me the fastest. It was a great feeling that I had motivated some Knights into action. I had three warm up bouts in all. In two of the fights I thought I was doing fine. In the third, well, not so much. The Knight I was facing was a younger Knight. He's also training for Crown Tourney in two weeks. I couldn't hit him to save my life. Worse yet, I couldn't even make him break a sweat. He could beat me at will. Effortlessly! He seemed bored fighting me. This pretty much set the tone for me for the rest of the day. Suffice to say, the day didn't get any better. I made my point by stepping into the list before anyone else, but my fighting was uninspired and I did not show well (or at least I didn't think so). To top it off, my elbows have hurt ever since that day. I'm pretty sure that it's just a case of "Tennis Elbow", but it means I haven't fought since that day. It hurts to even pick up my sword. This is bad as Crown Tourney is in two weeks, and if I can't get in the practice time, I run the risk of embarrassing myself and more importantly embarrassing my lady wife and my child. I can't stand for that. I might have to think about withdrawing from Crown, but I'm not sure I really like that idea either. I guess we'll have to see.

My wife surprised me today and painted my fighting shield with my heraldry. It's basically a graphical device that represents who you are in the Society. I've been fighting with just a basic white shield for the past year and a half. I didn't know how much I had missed having my colors displayed on my shield until I saw my shield painted again this evening. She truly does support me in all that I do (fighting, school, etc.). I'm not sure what I would do without her. We're still on completely opposite schedules and we almost never see each other. She's still working third shift so she can watch the baby during the day and we don't have to pay daycare fees. If we are lucky, we see each other for maybe an hour a day during the week. That will get better when school is done. That's another reason why this semester is killing me, and I can't wait for it to be over.

My daughter just turned one year old. She's crawling all over the place. She's feeding herself now, and she's standing on her own. I can't believe it's been a year. She has moved from being a helpless little baby, into being a little person. She amazes me every day. Somehow or another, I have to figure out how to give her a good life. She deserves to be happy, and I need to find a way to give that to her. I guess only time will tell on that one.

Well, I think I've rambled on for long enough at this point. There's a lot going on right now. New job, more classes, problems with fighting. All in all it's a good life, there's just ways that it could be better. There aren't enough hours in the day....

I'm Back

2007-08-13T10:10:00.000-05:00

So, I'm back from War with stories to tell and victories to report.

The unbelted tourney went very well. There were 7 or 8 teams (I don't really remember), and our team beat all but one of them during the tournament. We represented our Kingdom with prowess and other than that one other Kingdom, we were victorious. As to that one other Kingdom, well, they went undefeated. This didn't sit well with us so we hatched a plan. We politely asked them for a rematch. Something along the lines of:

"We know you won the tourney. We are not debating that, nor would we try to take that glory from you. However, we want another chance at you. We believe in our heart of hearts that we can do better!"

They agreed. Both teams lined up again to do battle. Guess what. We beat them! Then once we had beat them, we turned around, and there was another team waiting to face us. It seems that they weren't too happy at loosing to us, and they believed that they could do better against us. Well, it would be rude of us to ask for that opportunity from one Kingdom and then not grant it to another, so we agreed. Without any rest between the two bouts, we lined up and went after the second Kingdom. We beat them too. Although another Kingdom was the winner of the day in the tourney, we held our heads up high. I was and am proud of the fact that I was a member of that team.

Later on in the week, my Kingdom held its court. This is where the current King and Queen recognize people from the Kingdom for their service and skill. About halfway through the court, I was called in to receive a fairly high service award. I do not believe that I have earned the rite to carry this award, but I will not question the wisdom of The Crown. They felt that I deserve it, so I have to suck it up and take it. I have a small admission to make however. When they called my name, I was really hoping for the next level fighting award. There is a small part of me that was a little disappointed that I didn't receive that award, but I am still overjoyed at being recognized for my contributions to my local SCA group and the Kingdom at large. There are other potential problems with me receiving this service award, but they fall in the realm of society politics, and I won't go into the details with you now. I'll just have to let the chips fall where they may.

My daughter was a champ during the whole War experience. She became overheated a few times and was a little cranky at others (weren't we all), but for the most part, she was exceptional. I can not say enough about the love and support I received from my wife and child. They are truly my inspiration. Anything I am, I owe solely to them.

I also have to acknowledge my camp mates from this War. Over the past few years, we've been building a nice little group that camps together during the War. They are from wildly different backgrounds, and their only common bond is me. They all are friends of mine that I invited to camp with me. Not all of them have always liked each other so that can sometimes lead to problems in camp. They came together as a group and were as polite and friendly as long time friends. In times of difficulty (there were several weather related issues), they came together and served each other in times of need. When War was finally over, we all parted as more than just friends, but as a family. Most of us live in the same town, but we won't come together like that again until probably next year.

This post is getting rather long, so I'll just say that, once again, War was the cornerstone of my year. There are great changes on the horizon (both in the SCA and in my mundane life). I might post about those changes in the future, but for now I have to somehow re-acclimate to mundane life. It won't be easy.

It's that time again

2007-07-27T07:33:00.000-05:00

So I haven't written for awhile (does this need an tag?)

We've come to that time of year again, and I am preparing to head off to The Great Pennsic War. This means some of the usual things are going on. My wife is stressed out beyond belief, I have way too many things to get done in way too short a time and I have to somehow survive through setup in order to get to that peaceful moment sitting on the hill.

I'm the "land agent" for my camping group, which means that I'm responsible for registering and negotiating for our land. It's one of those "Somebody has to do it" tasks. The past few years have been pleasant and generally non stressful. This year, however, it was a pain in the butt. I've never had to argue over moving boundary lines one inch this way and one inch that way before. At one point, all the "negotiations" actually had me questioning whether or not the whole SCA thing was worth it. I got past that little bout of depression, and now, tomorrow I have to leave at way too early in the morning to get to camp in time to start the whole process of "marking my territory" (take that however you'd like).

One interesting thing this year for War is that I was selected to be part of a rather important fighting team. One Kingdom hosts a tournament for a 15 man melee team. Each Kingdom of the known world puts together a team to compete in the round robin tournament. The unique thing about this team is that it is supposed to be composed of the best non-Knight fighters from each kindgom (we refer to them as "un-belts" or "unbelted" fighters because one of the symbols of Knighthood is a white belt). So, somehow or another, I was selected as one of the members of the team for our Kingdom. That seems to indicate, that someone considers me one of the best un-belts in our little Kingdom. I guess this means that some of the work is paying off (even though I still suck). I'm actually pretty nervous about it. People watch this tourney pretty closely to see how people are doing. It's a great chance to shine. It's also a great chance to screw up. I'm really hoping I don't trip and fall down on the way into the fight.

I'll try to remember to let people know how it goes. Right now, I have to focus on actually getting ready for War and attempting to pack because although we don't go down permanently to camp until next Friday, I have to go down tomorrow to setup. Everyone wish me patience and luck. I'll type more later....(probably much later)

It's like a coin toss...With three sides

2007-05-15T08:42:00.000-05:00

Okay...It's been awhile (tm).

There's plenty to talk about. About a week and a half ago, the Kingdom that I live in held its Crown Tournament. For those of you not familiar with the SCA, this is the big time. It is the most important tournament of the year (although it happens twice a year, one each 6 months). It is what a lot of people train for, and it is where you will see the best individual fighting in the Kingdom. The purpose of the tournament is to select the next Prince and Princess of the Kingdom (they then go on to be the next King and Queen). I fought in it. In some fairy tale world, I would be able to tell you that I won, but this isn't that place. I didn't win. I went three rounds.

I want all of you to guess who I had to fight in the first round. Go ahead and guess! If you will look a few posts down the page you will see me refer to someone who is my ghost. Guess what? That's who I got in the first round. Now, I can say that each round was a best two out of three. I had to face this guy that always beats me. I'm happy to say that I didn't freeze up. I gave him a good fight, and I took the fight to him. He won two straight fights and defeated me in the round, but I didn't just wait to die. That's important to me. I tried to control the fight, and I did my best. I can't feel too badly about the first round. My ghost went on to win the tournament and is now the next Crown Prince of our Kingdom.

In the second round, I drew a knight I respect and admire. He has a flawless presentation both on the field and off. I actually won the first of our fights. He won the second. And then, I won the third. That means that I beat him in the round. In his defense, he had a really long drawn out fight in the first round and was really tired coming into the second round, but I still beat him. My goal for the day was to win one of the rounds, and I had successfully won this round, so I was happy.

In the third round, I drew another knight. He considers himself a very technical fighter. I have fought him several times. I have beaten him in the past, but not in a Crown Tournament. We took the field and the fight began. I managed to "One-Shot" him. I through what is commonly called a "Scorpion Wrap" or a "Sky Wrap" where you basically throw an overhand shot above the opponents shield and sword and wind up bringing your blade down into the back of their head. He had under estimated my height and range and he didn't see the shot coming. He then proceeded to beat me in the next two fights and he took the round. However, both of the remaining fights were long and well fought. I was certainly not a push over for him, and I believe he will remember the fights (I'm pretty sure I got one of his legs in both fights, of course, he got my leg in one of the fights and killed me in both of them).

I was happy with how I did in the Tournament. I went three rounds deep and had good fights in all three rounds. I fought the eventual winner and two knights of the Kingdom. That's nothing to sneeze at. At the end of the day, several Ladies in the gallery selected me as the most Chivalrous of the day. It was an honor that I don't believe I've earned, but that I am thrilled to have.

Now we move on to "What's Next?". This is where I'm running into problems. This weekend there's a major "War Practice". We will go and fight melee bouts all day long and it will be good. The problem comes from the events that are available after that. On June 2nd there are three events that I want to go to. Each one of the events has a different draw for me.

One of them is another out of Kingdom war practice. It's about 2.5 hours away and it would be good to work with some of my friends on our Melee Unit (a group of guys who consistently fight together so that they are more effective in war).

A second event that's about 1.5 Hours away is a demo for a local museum. That doesn't sound all that exciting, however, there are going to be equestrian activities at this demo and my friend is basically running the equestrian activities and he could use my help (plus I would probably get to ride which is something I haven't had enough of recently).

Finally, there's an event that's about 5.5 hours away. Normally I wouldn't even consider it, however, some of the knights have decided to make this event important. They are hosting a tourney to evaluate "Who wants to be a knight?". The existing Chivalry want to evaluate the up and comers to see how they are doing. Being that I would like to be a knight someday, this would be a good event to be at. I could work with the knights and try to better my fighting, and also maybe show them a thing or two about what I've learned in the past year.

So there you have it. I have one weekend and three potential events. I have no idea which one to go to. Any input would be appreciated, although I'm not positive if I've summarized the events appropriately. I hope everyone is doing well. I'll try to let you know what I finally decide.

People's Compassion is Boundless.

2007-04-12T08:48:00.000-05:00

So it's been a long morning.

It started much like any other. I had to install a new PC under someone's desk. In the process of trying to get the Machine moved into place a plugged in, I managed to bounce my head off of one of the cubicle desk supports and into the edge of the computer I was trying to install. At this point, I'm pretty sure that I've given myself a concussion. As I'm rolling on the floor swearing and cursing in pain, there are 4 guys sitting at their desks not 3 feet away, and not one of them asks what's wrong or how I'm doing. I put my hand to my forehead and feel the familiar warm liquid that tells me I've split myself open. I stand up, walk across the hall and inform HR that I have injured myself (proudly wearing my crimson mask) before I go to the restroom to get a wet paper towel and assess the damage. Turns out I've opened up a 3 to 4 inch cut on my forehead. It's not a gash, just a cut, but it is bleeding profusely. I apply pressure with the wet paper towel and go back to HR's office to now give her the full details. After a brief discussion and an accident report, I go back to trying to plug in a PC while holding a wet paper towel to my head (mind you the 4 guys still haven't even asked if I'm okay). As I finish setting up the PC, my cell rings.

"Help Desk", I say

"Can you reset my email session, I'm locked out"

"Sure," I respond "but it may be a few minutes as I'm bleeding from my forehead."

"Well, how long will it be? It's kind of an emergency for me to get into my email."

"I'm not kidding, I'm bleeding from my forehead. I'll get to it as soon as the bleeding stops"

"How long do you think that will take? I really need to get into my email."

At no point did the person on the other end of the line ask what happened or how I was doing. They simply wanted their email account reset and didn't really care what was going on in my life. I hung up and went back to my desk to reset the aforementioned email. As I was resetting the email, someone comes into my cube. At this point I should mention that the bleeding has still not stopped and I'm still sitting with my hand holding a blood red piece of paper towel to my head to apply pressure. Without commenting on the blood, this guy starts telling me a horrible story about how his PC is locking up and he can't log into our database. He doesn't ask how I'm doing or what happened, he simply wants his PC fixed and fixed NOW!

So, I head over to his PC (still holding the bloody paper towel to my head) and start looking at his PC. The head ache is killing me and I can't say my vision is particularly clear, but I'm doing the best I can. As I'm looking at the PC, my cell rings yet again.

"Hi, remember that problem we were having yesterday?"

"Yes", I respond trying to use short words and keep my cool.

"Well, we're still having it"

"Okay, well right now I'M BLEEDING FROM MY HEAD!!!!! I will try to look at your problem once the bleeding stops."

"It's just that I'm going away on vacation for two weeks starting tomorrow and this needs to be resolved before I leave."

"I understand that, and I will be happy to look into your problem ONCE THE BLEEDING STOPS!"

"Well, it's just really important that I get this resolved"

"I know. I'm sure I'll be able to look at it later this morning, or perhaps early this afternoon."

At no point did this caller even miss a beat when I told him I was bleeding. He didn't ask if I was okay, he didn't ask what had happened. He simply kept telling me how important his problem was. The compassion of people amazes me.

P.S. - The bleeding has now stopped, but the cut is still oozing a little. I have a major headache and don't really feel like dealing with other peoples' problems right now. Thank you for asking!

Yup, I still suck!

2007-03-20T09:53:00.000-05:00

So there was a tournament last weekend. It was a fairly big one. Actually, to be fair, there were two tournies last weekend. One of them was a double elimination tournament (there's a winners bracket and a losers bracket, once you lose in the losers bracket you are out). The other was a "bear-pit" style tournie (basically several rings are setup and you play king of the hill. Winner stays and fights again, the loser goes to the end of the line and tries again). Once again, I was nervous going into the tournies because I've been sick since the last tournament. We think it's either bronchitis or pneumonia. So, I wasn't exactly 100% going into this one. It's also one of our Kingdoms bigger events, so the fighter turn-out was much larger than the last tournament I fought in (and won!). If you'll recall from my last post, I thought that maybe I won the last tourney because it was a "light-list" (meaning that no big name fighters were there). That had to be the reason that I won. If I faced any real talent, I would obviously fold and fall like a house of cards. Remember, I still think I suck.

So we start with the double elimination tourney. In my first round, I draw a knight.

"Oh Great! I guess it's going to be a quick day for me!"

Imagine my surprise when I leg him and then take several shots at his head! He compliments me on a good fight, and tells me that I've won. Obviously, I got lucky.

I go into the second round. It turns out that I now have to face a Duke (someone who has won the Crown Tournament at least twice, in short, he doesn't suck). Once again, I convince myself that this is going to be a quick day. I wish I could say that I somehow won this one. I didn't. I tried to take a shot at his leg (which he left open). I hit him, but not hard enough. After I hit his leg, he literally rang my bell (hit me in the helm to the point that I heard a ringing sound). After the fight though, this Duke took the time to compliment me on going for his open leg. He told me that my targeting was perfect and he wasn't sure if anyone would notice the opening. He was impressed that I made the attempt.

In the third round, I am to face a squire from another Kingdom. He happens to be a squire to that Kingdom's current King. Judging by his kit (what we call someone's armour and fighting equipment), he is not a new fighter. Once again, I tell myself that this will be my second loss and at least then I can look forward to fighting in the bear-pit. The fight starts and I throw two very fast combinations at this guys head. After the second combination lands on this guys head, I hear four or five people shout from the sideline "WOW! Great shot! That was beautiful, man!". Turns out they were talking about me. Man, I really need to learn to take compliments.

The forth round was relatively uneventful. I was facing another squire from our Kingdom. I know him well. He was fighting with a pole arm instead of the fairly standard sword and shield. The advantage of a pole arm is that it gives you range. You can strike your opponent from a further distance meaning that you can kill your opponent before he can reach you. The disadvantage is that if I get inside the range of your weapon, you are fairly screwed. Well, the fight started, I closed the gap quickly, he swung and I blocked. By the time he could try to reset for a second shot, I was standing on top of him and hitting him in the head. So now I'm three up and one down. I'm starting to think it's very odd that I'm not out of this thing yet. I guess I'll have to think about that later.

In the fifth round, I draw another knight. Not just any knight, but a knight who has twice previously served as the field commander for our Kingdom's Pennsic army. He is a great guy, and a very fun fight. He normally cleans my clock inside of 30 seconds flat. So once again, I'm pretty sure that this tourney is over for me. We square off and begin the fight. After several flurries, we both hit each other in the head at the same time! This is known as a double kill. The rules for this tourney state that doubles are to be fought again. I'm thrilled to have landed anything on him, and I can now die happy knowing that I at least held my own once. The fight starts over, and once again, before I know it, this knight is telling me that I've landed a good blow and it was a very good fight. I'm still not sure what hit him, but apparently, I've won again. Something is wrong here! This is not a light list. There's lots of talent here. I shouldn't be 4 up and one down going into the sixth round of this tourney. There is simply no way it's possible.

Now I need to explain some vocabulary. In the fighting circles, you come across fighters that always beat you. No matter what happens, you always seem to lose. It's not that they are necessarily better than you, but for some reason they just have your number. These other fighters are sometimes called your phantoms or your ghosts or if they are very similar to you, they can be your "dark mirror" (very poetic, right?). I have a few that fight in my Kingdom that are my ghosts. Guess who I draw in the sixth round? You guessed it! One of my A number One ghosts. I wish I could tell you that this was a fairy tale and that I had somehow figured out how to beat him that day. I can't. I stood there and let him stab me. I died and this tournament run was over. On this day, making it to the sixth round meant that you were one round short of the semi finals (last four fighters). That means that I was in the final 8. That's nothing to sneeze at. I'm really proud of how I did. But that last fighter didn't beat me. I beat myself. As I stepped from the fighting list, the Duke that beat me in round two came up to me and asked:

"What the Hell happened?"

"What do you mean? I lost.", I replied.

"I know that, but in the last three fights you attacked. You controlled the fight. You took it to your opponent. In this fight, you seemed tentative."

"Yeah, for whatever reason, I'm scared of that guy."

"Well, it was obvious! You don't have any reason to be scared. If you controlled the fight, you would've been much better off. You waited for him to kill you! Don't do that!", and with that, the Duke slapped me on the back and told me I fought well.

I won't continue to bore you with descriptions of the bear-pit. It was relatively uneventful for me. I had one 5 fight run (4 victories and a loss at the end) but other than that there were some victories and some losses, but by that time my breathing was failing me (remember, I was sick). I have no idea how I made it six rounds deep into the double elimination. I can't say it was a light list. I can't really say that anyone I fought was having an off day. We were fighting indoors, so the Sun wasn't in their eyes. I'm very confused. I'm happy with my fighting overall that day, but I still can't convince myself that I don't suck. Maybe everyone will have more luck beating me next weekend. After all...

...I still suck.

Enter witty title here...

2007-02-26T10:28:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I didn't have anything funny to put as a title, so shoot me. Once again, it has been a long time since my last post. Several things have chnaged, and there's a lot to talk about, so this will probably be another long one. First and foremost, my blog title is no longer accurate. Back in December, I ran into my knight at a wedding. He and I talked for awhile. I asked him if he was planning on coming back to the SCA anytime soon. His response was less than optimistic. He said that he was thinking about coming back, but he wanted to go back to school and he wanted to change jobs and he had found a new "project" that he wanted to start working on, but if he could find some time after all that, he would think about coming back and playing.

I walked away, and talked with my wife for awhile about it. She and I both agreed that he probably wouldn't be coming back anytime soon. Later in the evening, I asked if my knight would take a walk with me. When I told him, he almost seemed to know it was coming. He understood that if he wasn't around, that he couldn't be the knight I needed right now. We left each other on good terms. I respect all of the choices that he's made in his life, and I'm pretty sure that he respects mine. We can still call each other friend, and that was important to me. It means, however, that I am no longer a squire. I still have the desire to be a knight. I still want to improve my fighting. I'm just not sure that I have the time to devote to it the way I should if I'm going to be a squire.

It's been over two months of me not being a squire and I have to say, that after 4 and a half years of being one, it is very strange. I used the name "squire" to identify who I was in the society and what my goals were. I don't have that definition anymore and it's strange. I'm still me. I still have the same goals. I'm just not doing it in the same way. If the rumor mill is to be believed, there are several knights in my Kingdom that are considering offering me a squire's belt again. There are at least 3 that I know of. It's very flattering, but I'm not sure I'm ready to get back into that student/teacher relationship. I can't spend the amount of time needed to make me a good squire. Not until I'm done with my Masters program and my daughter gets a little older. Maybe then I can consider once again being a squire. Who knows, maybe it will be sooner. I just know it's not now.

I haven't been fighting much at all. As a matter of fact, since the birth of my daughter (six months ago) I have been in armour exactly three times. One practice, one demo (two weekends ago) and one tourney (this past weekend). I was really nervous about getting back into armour after being out for so long. I just didn't want to suck. I have a real negative opinion of my ability on my best day, and after being out for so long, my opinion was much worse. So when I entered the tourney this past weekend, I had no expectations about what I might do. I just wanted to have fun. As it turns out, this must have been the proper attitude. Somehow or another, I won the tourney. Each round, I would go out for my bout, I would win it, and I would come back wondering how many other people were still undefeated. It was the strangest senesation when they called me for the final bout. I really didn't know how to react. That strangeness was only magnified when I actually won.

See the problem is, I still think I suck. And even now, looking back at the tourney, I'm trying to figure out how I won. Obviously, there was some trick of luck. It must be that other people were having an off day. Maybe my path through the list was easier then some of the fighters who were there who are obviously better than I am. I'm still trying to figure out how this fluke victory happened. See, if I beleive that I suck and I lose, then I expected it. If I believe that I suck and I win, then I'm pleasantly surprised (actually more than pleasantly surprised, more like giddy as a school girl). This negative attitude has worked for me. It has worked for me for as long as I can remember. There's one problem with it, and that's how it makes other people feel.

About 8 months ago (maybe longer at this point), I was at a fight practice in my local group. Everyone was having a good day of fighting. I was about to head out against another squire in the local group. Before the fight, I offered up my usual fight mantra to him which was ("Don't worry about this fight, after all, I suck"). He looked at me and very sternly said

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?", I asked innocently.

"Put down your fighting."

"Because I beleive I suck.", I answered obviously.

"I know you feel that way, and I respect it. But how do you think it makes me feel, when you say that you suck, and then you go out there and beat me like a baby harp seal?", He said.

That statement hit me between the eyes like a cement brick. I had never considered how my insecurities had made other people feel. It was at that moment, that I promised myself that I would never say "I suck at fighting" again out load. Oh sure, I still feel that way. But there are 5 people that I faced this weekend at that tourney. There are 5 fighters that I beat in a fair fight. If I were to say that I suck out loud, that is going to make those 5 fighters feel worse than they already do. There is no honor in that. There is no joy. If I can try to beleive that I was the best fighter that day (which is very hard for me), then they can each hold their heads high knowing that, on that day, they were beat by the best.

Even when I know, that I still suck.....(yeah, I'm still working on it).

We few, We happy few...

2006-12-15T09:09:00.000-05:00

The title quote comes from this:

http://www.rispin.co.uk/henryv.html

It is one of my favorite passages. If you've never heard it read or recited with passion...well, you're missing something. How does it play in to how I'm feeling today? That's a good question, and it's a little hard to explain, but let me try.

That passage is basically someone talking about the fight they are about to endure and what it will mean to the rest of their lives. As I talk to my friends, I keep hearing about some of the battles they are fighting day to day. I need people to survive these fights. I need them to thrive, and all I can say is that when they survive, they should be proud of their accomplishments.

From a friend's friend who is a mother dealing with a "family" that has no concept of love. No concept of support or how to provide a safe and loving environment. Everyone realizes that a child shouldn't be raised that way, but people should also realize that this woman shouldn't have to live this way either. I don't know her personally, but from what I've heard, she deserves much better (everyone deserves much better than how she's currently living.

To someone who is feeling alone and has felt alone for a long time. She has had some of the most difficult times for two years of anyone I know. I can't be there for her the way I wish I could, but I would give her anything, and I would do anything for her. She is a member of my family, and I love her. I want her to survive...I NEED her to survive (if you're reading this, find your happiness, whatever it might be, however small. Find the happiness and hold on to it, make it grow. I've told you before. I will tell you again. With happiness comes hope. With hope comes motivation. With motivation comes achievment. It can happen. It will happen).

To the friend who has lost his job, and instead of folding into depression and despair, he has turned it into a positive thing. He sees it as an oppurtunity, a new start. He sees it as fresh energy, a positive light. His optimisim is truly inspiring (which is really ironic considering his normal moods and attitudes).

To my wife. I can't say enough about my wife. She has taken on the task of working third shift so that she can spend days with our daughter and then go to work at night. This gives us an extra salary, and saves us the cost of daycare (which is very expensive). I'm not sure when she sleeps. I really don't know how she does it. I am so grateful to her for everything she gives to us. Her sacrifice is truly inspiring, and yet she just doesn't seem to realize how strong of a person she is.

So on this day of battle (as we fight through each day), know that we stand as a few, we happy few, we band of brothers....who will not only survive, but we will thrive.

It's been too long

2006-10-20T08:07:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile. I always thought that if I had a blog, I'd post all the time. I always felt like I would have a lot to say. As it turns out, there's really not all that much to say. I still don't have enough time. There's always more to do, and I just didn't want to come across as negative again. However, I'll start with the positive.

I haven't really posted yet about my daughter. The fact that I am someone's father and that they rely on me to provide for them still floors me. She is absolutely amazing, and yet she really doesn't do all that much yet. She sleeps, she screams she eats. She has grown considerably since she was born. I don't always notice, but the grandparents who only see her once a week keep telling me that "she's getting so big!". I can't believe it's been six weeks now. This six weeks have gone very quickly, but people tell me not to blink because I'll turn around and she'll be six years old. Then I'll blink again and she'll be 18. I've been a bad parent though. My wife and I aren't the type that take photos all that often. We just never think to grab the camera. During the first week of my daughter's life, we had the camera with us all the time, but after that first week, I don't think I've picked up the camera since then. I need to start doing that again. I don't want to blink twice and only have my memories to remember the first 18 years of her life. I need to get better about taking pictures. I've received quite a bit of grief from my brothers (and more specifically their wives) about not sending any pictures to them yet. I really need to get around to doing that. Anyway, this has rambled on long enough. I'll try to post more later.

ttfn

Frag This!

2006-09-20T21:47:00.000-05:00

Okay, this one is firmly in the technical part of my knowledge. So it's 10:42 pm and I'm still at work. I probably will be at work for a while longer. Why you ask? Because sometimes you just have to learn the hard way that not every utility works the way you'd like it to.

Let's see...where best to begin? I think I'll start with about 3:30 pm when I was gathering information on my servers to document my network (yes, Grey, you've gotten to me. I need a network diagram). So there I am, writing down the volume sizes and how much free space is left on them, and low and behold one of my servers has an "interesting" situation. It seems that out of a 70 Gig hard drive (it's actually a series of hard drives in a RAID configuration) there's only 1 Gig available free space. This doesn't seem right to me, so I go through all the network shares and check their sizes, and then I check all the regular directories and their sizes, and it all adds up to only about 35 or 40 Gig. Where in Hades did my other 35 Gig wander off to. The next logical step is to check the fragmentation level of this particular server. This is where it gets interesting. Apparently, this machine is more than 50% fragmented. "No problem!" you say? "Just run the defragmentation utility!" you say? Yeah, I tried that, but unfortunantly, the utility requires at least 15% of total drive space to run efficiently. With only 1 Gig left, I don't have the kind of space. To make matters worse, this server is the storage location for all of the users' profiles and document storage directories. This means that I can't start moving things around until after hours.

So now it's after hours. I move out enough of the directories to clear out the required 15% of the hard drive space, and I run defrag. Much to my surprise, instead of gaining disk space back, I wind up loosing disk space with every run. Every time I hope that it's just a matter of cleaning up some of the fragmented files. So every time, I clear some more files out and try running defrag again (and again, and again).

Finally, I view one of the defrag reports a little more carefully. As it turns out, there are two files that simply won't be defragmented. Those two files are \System Volume Information\36{38008..... basically they are paging files. My lovely, little, harmless 2 Gig paging files have grown to the size of 35 Gig based solely on fragmentation levels. The file itself is only 2 Gig in size, but due to fragmentation, this little gem takes up 35 Gigs of hard drive space. It seems that the built in defragmentation utility isn't capable of defragmenting an active page file. Every time I run defrag it uses memory (so the paging file grows) and because it's the active paging file, it doesn't get defragmented so I loose space instead of gaining it.

How do you get out of this fine mess I've gotten myself into? I'm so glad you asked. You need to delete the paging file by going into virtual memory and setting it to "None". By the way, Windows doesn't like this idea, and it will warn you that this is a "Very Bad Thing (tm)". Once you remove the file, you'll need to reboot. Then, after the reboot, you need to recreate your paging file with a more reasonable size (say 2 Gig). Now you'll need to reboot again. Suddenly, the drive that was was reporting 1 Gig free, now says it has over 55 Gigs free! It's amazing.

So here I sit at 11:00 pm. Putting files back where I found them, and trying to recreate the file structure exactly as it was. I'm sure there are going to be problems tomorrow morning with files missing for someone. They won't know I was here until after midnight, and frankly, they wouldn't care if they did. It just has to work for them. I've learned a valuable lesson out of all this. It's one that I knew before, but it never hurts to be reminded. Always keep an eye on your fragmentation levels. Run defrag regularly, and for Heaven's sake make sure that the source of your fragmentation problems aren't in your paging files (otherwise the built in defragmentation simply won't work). Now you know! And knowing is half the battle!

I'm going to go home tonight (actually early tomorrow morning) and kiss my wife and brand new baby daughter (oh yeah! did I forget to mention that? I'll have to blog it another time).

It's been awhile

2006-09-07T08:46:00.000-05:00

Right, so it's been awhile since I've posted. I know all of you (all two of you) have been waiting for the next update. It's been very busy. With the baby on the way, and getting back into school, there hasn't been a lot of time.

My wife and I have finally finished the nursery. I love it! It's well done without being overly cute. It's not all pink and frills. It has dragons! Don't worry though. They aren't scary dragons. They are cute baby dragons doing cute baby things. It somehow has made it even more real. I'm sure that every step of the way it's going to get "more real".

In addition, I've been trying to step up my fighting again. I was at two fight practices last weekend. Last night I travelled "out of Kingdom" to another group's local practice. I faced several knights and found out that I'm not terrible at this game. I'm not where I need to be, but that's part of the point. Anyone who claims that they have nothing left to learn is lying or they have stagnated. I didn't win every bout, but I had some good shots and I was able to surprise a few people. This was a good thing. Lately, I've been feeling a little down about my fighting. There's several reasons for this (aren't there always), but I had thought about taking a break from fighting for awhile. The problem is, that once you take a break, you usually have a heck of a time getting back into it once you've left. I was feeling like I wasn't getting any better. Last night helped me tremendously. I'm sore today. There are some interesting bruises, but I feel good about what I was able to accomplish.

There's an event this weekend. I really want to go, but mundane issues take precedence. It seems that my wife and I need to attend a birthing class sometime before the baby comes (which is in 2 and a half weeks, yikes!). The only available class is this weekend which means no event for me. I'll still be able to do practice on Sunday, but I can't enter the tournament on Saturday. It's okay though. There will be other tourneys on other days. This is my first daughter. She is more important than this "game I play on the weekends".

Back to the "Real World"

2006-08-28T09:48:00.000-05:00

I'm back from War. I wish I could say that I enjoyed it. I wish I could say that it was relaxing. The best I can say is that "it wasn't work". In the days and weeks leading up to War, several bad things happened. Not to me, mind you, but to those people who are close to me. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am VERY affected by what's going on with my friends. War wasn't nearly as good as it should've been. Here's some background (I don't think I'm over sharing, but I could be):

One of my friends found out two weeks before War that his father had been diagnosed with cancer. Not just cancer, but about three to four different kinds of cancer. It was very aggressive and they gave his father weeks, if not days. This friend and his family was supposed to camp with us at the War. It was his intention to camp for the full two weeks. He showed up the first weekend and setup everything he needed in camp. He was ready to try and get away from the stress of life for awhile. The Tuesday morning of the first week, I received a call from his wife. They needed help moving his father to get him ready for a doctors appointment. I spent several hours that morning helping his father out of bed and getting dressed and generally getting ready for his day. This was not the strong person I had known. This was a shell of his former self. After getting everything ready, my friend's wife came to me in tears and said that she thought she should call my friend home to be with his father because his father may not be around after War. Well, my friend came home and wasn't able to spend any time at the War. His tent was there. All his belongings were there, but it was kind of like a ghost town. He came back for tear down weekend to get all of his stuff, but that was it. He wasn't able to enjoy the War, and he had been looking forward to it more than any of my other friends. To make matters worse, his father passed the Tuesday after the War. His father is no longer in pain, and my friend can now begin the healing process. For that, I am grateful. He can begin to mourn and deal with those feelings, but it won't be easy.

That was one story for why the War wasn't as good as it could have been. There were others, but I'll stop today with just that one. On the up side, I'm awaiting the birth of my daughter. I guess there's a circle to this life thing (cue Elton John and a cheesy Disney movie). My wife and I spent the weekend (more my wife than me) getting the nursery ready. We've put up wallpaper, and built cribs and cleaned carpets and arranged toys. It is definitely a begining. That begining has promise. There will be a new life, with new possibilities. That helps to offset the pain of the past month. I can't help but wonder what my daughter's life will hold. Will she be typing to a nameless blog-o-sphere when she is thirty-something years old? I guess only time will tell.

War is upon us

2006-08-07T08:13:00.000-05:00

So, if you know me, you know that the "medieval organization" that I belong to is the Society for Creative Anachranism (SCA). By far, the largest event in the SCA is the Great Pennsic War that happens in Butler, PA every August (because that seems like the right time to strap on armor and run around in the sun). Well, here we are in August, and The War is here. This past weekend, I went down to the campground, and setup camp. All I can say is that I am exhausted! After setting up several pavillions and digging a sump hole and generally doing all of the things that one needs to do to setup an encampment, I have blisters on my hands, aches in my back and a sunburn. This will be my 13th Pennsic War. It is now a part of my life. Where else can you find 13,000 screaming maniacs converging on one campground in western PA, 3,000 of which strap on armor and try to beat each other everyday, and drink each other under the table every night.

As sad as this is, my year generally revolves around this little event. I save up my money, my vacation time and all my energy for this two weeks every year. It's tough to leave camp to come home for 4 days to work just waiting to get back to War. I was a little leary of going this year. There's a lot going on in my life. With a new baby on the way, and this being the first year at the new job (seems like it's been forever) and several car repairs that need to happen, perhaps I should've spent my money on those things. However, after being at camp and sitting on my hill at my campsite and looking over the battlefield...

Currently, the battlefield is silent. It's empty. There are the temporary roads of matted down grass from all of the people who parked there Friday night just waiting to get into their temporary home for the next two weeks. Right now though, it's peaceful. There is chaos completely surounding that field. An explosion of activity that started at noon on Saturday. Thousands of people setting up their tents creating their stores. That field is now an oasis of tranquility in the middle of bustling city. As I looked down from my hill, and realized that next week, the largest medieval style recreation battles in the world will happen. There will be cannons, and charges and heroic stands and primal screams. Right now, it's silent. I remember 12 previous years of war. I remember my own charges. I remember where I started. I remember the journey I've taken to get where I am, and I contemplate where I sit today. I realize that I'm happy to be "home".

Perhaps it's silly romanticisim, but it is my escape every year. I have to look at everything that has changed from the previous War. Please understand, it's not that the War itself is all that important, but it acts as a cornerstone to every year. This is the time where I can concretely realize that another year has past. I get to look at what went right, what went wrong and what do I want to do with the year to come. I'm sure everyone has these markers in their year. This one just happens to be mine. Hopefully, I'll have some good stories to tell after next week. I'll see you all on the flip side of my vacation.

May the peace and tranquility of that empty battlefield find each of you in your own ways.

Battle of the "Buldge"

2006-07-27T08:42:00.000-05:00

Right, so I'm a thrity something year old man and I'm overweight. Who isn't overweight these days? I'm American. Which means that, by definition, I have to be obese. Well, that's a great excuse, but it doesn't explain it. I'm somewhere between 320 and 340 pounds (I'm really not sure what I weigh because most home scales don't read above 300). I don't consider myself to be morbidly obese or anything. I do have a rather large frame, broad shoulders and I don't believe I look hideous. I'm just overweight.

It's a goal to lose some weight. I'd like to be sub 300 again sometime soon. I have all the motivation I need. My father has suffered 3 heart attacks. I want to be able to fight better for my medieval hobby. A good friend of mine is a 50 something year old male who is overweight, has diabeties and is in very real danger of losing his leg to an infection due in part to him being overweight, and I'd rather if that wasn't me in 2o years. I don't have a real positive image of myself right now. I have a baby girl on the way that I want to set a good example for.

On top of all of that, I have a friend who has almost literally thrown down the gauntlet at me. He and his family take a horse back riding trip every year during the summer. This Summer, they rode through Iceland. Last year, they rode through the countryside of France. Well, he told me that they are going back to Iceland in 2008. He wants me to go with them. There's a problem.
They don't let people over 250 pounds on the trip. He has told me that if I can get sub 250 by June of 2008, he will pay for half of my trip to get me to go with them to Iceland. Now, for this family, these trips are a regular occurance. However, for me, this could be a once in a lifetime chance.

That makes it two years, and very nearly 100 pounds. Is it possible? I don't know, but I'd like to find out. So what does it take? Well, that's a pretty simple answer. It takes eating right and excersise. Very simple answer. Very difficult execusion. It seems that I get a lot of exercise. I have my fighting once or twice a week. I have a lot of walking at work. I occasionally go horse back riding. However, all of these activities are anaerobic activities. They don't help in the way that I need. I need some aerobic activities to truly get my heart rate up and burn the calories. Great! The problem with that is that it takes time. I know this is only my second post, and therefore I haven't described my weekly schedule, but suffice to say, there isn't a whole lot of "free time" in my week. When there is free time, the last thing I'm thinking about is exercise. It's usually sleep! Again, this is just an excuse, and it's time that I stopped relying on excuses and started doing something about my life.

So my father had this exercise bike that he was no longer using (he's not allowed anymore due to a weakening heart, we'll talk about that later). I brought it over to my house with every intention of using it to get the exercise that I need. It's been at my house for about a month. I've been on it twice! Now, in my defense, it's been twice in the same week, this week, and I really want to make this work so I may have started something, but like a lot of things, I may get bored with it. We'll have to see how it goes. Hopefully, the damn bike will give me the exercise that I need in addition to everything else I do in my life.

That leaves the whole "eating right" part. Well, getting past the whole "eating red meat is good for you / bad for you / good for you again" (or eggs, or dairy, or whatever else they are going to change their minds on this week), I know that I have to reduce portions and that I have to eat things that are better for me. I've tried things like this in the past. I don't want to diet. Diets are short term solutions to long term problems. I'd rather change my eating habits so that they were healthier for the long haul. This is tough for me because in my mind food is comfort. When I get stressed, or when I get sad, or when I get scared, or when I get bored....I eat. There's been a lot of stress recently, and everytime I say "today is the day I start eating right" something happens to stress me out and I fall off the wagon (two visits to Dairy Queen later, and I'm back where I started). This is even tougher than the exercise problem. I will try to stay strong, but it's just not easy for me.

All of this is to say that I'm trying to make changes in my life. I want to do it. I NEED to do it. The question is "Can I do it?". I guess we'll find out together. If you've read this long, then I've wasted way too much of your time. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned. I'll hopefully have something a little more upbeat next time.

10 - Print "Hello World!"

2006-07-25T09:30:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm sure that it's not original, but it's the best way I could think of to say "Hi!" to the blog-o-sphere. Who am I? What I am? What are we doing here? These are all great questions, and I'll probably tackle each of them in time, but for now the blog description covers it. I'm an IT tech who also tries to recreate the middle ages through a rather large, international organization for that purpose. There will obviously be more to say later, but I'm at work and they don't pay me to do this (although I wish I could find that job). I'm sure I'll be around soon. Take care.