Once more into the blogging breach

So, it’s been roughly three months or so since my last blog post.  This is not good. I don’t even have the excuse of being caught up in some type of game or anything like that to justify not posting anything in so long.
Now, I am, in some ways a fairly creative person, and I’m sure that if I spent some time and a little effort I could come up with a good excuse for not updating more regularly, but it’s just not worth the effort. What is important is that I am once again going to try and make a go of being a good blogger.
It’s a funny thing, but I know a lot of people that have blogs, and over the last few months several of them have not been updating as much as they used to.  I was pondering that fact earlier while trying to think of a subject for this post. I’m fairly sure that there are several good reasons.
I know several of the bloggers I read have cut back simply because of changes in their lives. Summer is a busy season, and at least a couple of them have gone through some fairly serious changes in their lives: changing jobs, changing homes, starting school, etc. etc.  Also, some are very busy with activities with their families – kid’s activities and the like.
I think the rise of Facebook and to a lesser extent Twitter has led a few people away from regular blogging. I know that I spend way to much time on Facebook. I don’t personally Twitter, probably because I can’t help but thinking that those that do are, in fact, twits.
As for myself, I’ve simply developed some other interests. I got interested in returning to my pre-computer, pre-SCA hobby of building models. Now, I did look for a way to incorporate my SCA hobby with a return to modeling. I found hirstarts.com and ordered a few molds. Over the last couple of months I’ve spent a lot of time casting blocks and constructing some buildings. I’ve not yet started my intended goal, which is to build a scale model of an existing castle that dates from medieval times, but I’ve been re-learning some old skills, learning new ones, and doing a lot of research.
I’ve also been spending a lot of time working on the Gulf Wars chains. I’ve got 23 done- only 77 left to go. It’s a slow process; The first step is opening a bunch of rings in each of the three colors. Then you assemble the various components in each color. I tend to make enough components for to assemble complete chains at a time. In a funny way, when I’ve got my pliers in my hands, and big pile of rings to work with, I find that I can get almost into a trance like state. The steps are so repetitive that after about ten minutes or so I can do them without thinking about it. This leaves my mind free to think about other things.

Ok, that’s all for tonight.

Cormac

Long, rambling, and not real coherent.

I promised in last night’s post to write more about what’s been going on with me since my last post in March. Right now I kind of wish I hadn’t, because frankly I don’t like what’s been going on, I don’t like thinking about it, and I don’t particularly want to write about it. But despite what I want, I made a promise, and despite what our politicians seem to think,  one should try and keep their promises.

And with that kind of lead in, you would think that there was a lot to talk about, but fact is the biggest thing that has been happening is that I have been fighting a low grade depression. March wasn’t particularly interesting. Missing Gulf Wars affected me more than I thought it would. Every day of that week I was constantly thinking of what would be going on in Lumberton that day. Opening day…..Opening ceremonies….the BOB party….Gleann Abhann Social, Known World Party…all of that was going on and I was not there. My decision to not attend was the right one, I know that, but it still hurt my soul.

Not really much more to talk about for March. The month is not particularly memorable. The first week in April my Grandmother died. She was 89, and had quite frankly her death was a ….well, it was not a good thing, but it was not unexpected. The fact is that without the benefits of modern medicine it would have occured several years ago. If it had occurred several years ago my aunt’s would have been spared seeing their mother’s descent in to senile dementia, and Grandma would have been spared several years of depression, senile dementia and the other joys of outliving literally everybody she had ever known with the exception of her children and grand children.

Hmm..that sounded kind of bitter didn’t it?

I had not been particularly close to my grandmother in decades. When I was a kid, say before the age of 12, she was a great grandmother. But as I got older and somewhat more observent, I realized that she was, in a lot of ways, not a very nice person. I know that will  probably shock some people, there seems to be a myth that all grandmother’s are nice, saintly people, but it’s not true. She was mean to her daughters, mean to her husband (who died last August and probably experienced the firt peace he had felt in seven decades), a hypocrite, and ….. and a lot of other things I don’t really feel a need to relate. Just trust me, she was not a nice lady.

The only real affect her death had on me was a desire to get in touch with some people I had not spoken to in a very long time. When my family moved to Jackson Mississippi from Omaha Nebraska in 1983 I had just finished my sophamore year in highschool; in fact we moved the day after school let out for the summer. Kris, my sister, had just finished sixth grade. The cultue shock was  rather more than any of us had expected, not just for Kris and I, but in different ways for our parents as well.

One of the people my Dad worked with at the bank in Jackson was a man named Bob Murphy. Bob was an older man, just a few years from retirement when he and Dad started working together. He and his wife, Dawn, were originally from New Orleans, and for the first couple of years the Murphy’s kind of adopted us. Bob helped Dad deal with and understand the business culture of the bank. Dawn helped Mom understand the different social cultures, and both of them helped Kris and I in more ways than I could ever explain. They are truly wonderful people, and to this day I see them as the living embodiement of the definition of “Southern Nobility”.

Of course after I left Jackson, I lost contact with Bob and Dawn, and hadn’t talked to them in literally years. I saw them at Dad’s funeral, but didn’t really get a chance to talk to them that day. In the two weeks after Grandma passed, I found myself thinking more about Bob and Dawn Murphy than I was about Grandma. So, one day I turned on my awesome skip tracing skills and manged to find their phone number. Surprisingly they were still living in the same house in Jackson. I didn’t call them immediately, but after thinking about it a couple of days, I did call, and I’m very glad I did. I was able to tell them how much they had meant to me during a rather rough time in my life, and how much they had influenced me. We talked for about an hour, catching up, digging up memories.  It was a very pleasant conversation.

In fact, it was so pleasant that two days later I tracked down the phone number from my best friend from highschool. Another person I hadn’t spoken to in years. We had been very close friends in school, and for the first six or seven years after highschool, but as people do we kind of lost contact. First he moved, then I moved, and somewhere along the way we lost contact. Finding his current location and phone number took a bit more digging than it had with Bob and Dawn, but I was able to do find it, and that conversation was just as pleasant as the one with Bob and Dawn had been.

I’m not sure who I’ve lost contact with that I’ll try to look up next, but I’m sure there will be someone. Those two phone calls were relatively cheap ways to find myself feeling good for days. Fact is, I’ve been needing that.

For the last several months I’ve been …..not exactly suffering, but dealing with a type of low grade depression and burnout. I’m sure there are several reasons, and it is not really that serious. I’m not suicidal, or anything like that. It’s just felt …..like nothing was much fun any more.It’s felt that way for several months, and that feeling has manifested itself in many ways. I’m not going to go int them here because no one really wants to hear about them. But the fact is I know what’s happening, and I know how it’s affecting me. What I don’t know, or haven’t figured out yet, is how to stop it all from happening. I’ll figure it out. I’m not giving up. Doing so is not in my nature.

I wish I could bottle this feeling….

I wish I could bottle this feeling. Or maybe make a condense this feeling into a pill. Find a way to save this feeling so that when  I needed to feel this good again, when I needed to remember why I put up with all the things that drive me absolutely bug-shit crazy about the Society, when I need help to recover the “Dream”, when I needed any of that I could reach for a pill, or take a swig of a slightly medicinal flavored liquid and feel this good again.

I’ll probably post more tomorrow about all the things that have been happening since the last post, but tonight I feel to to good to think about that. I just want to tell everybody that was not at beltaine today that they missed  a truly great day. Sir James the Holy’s elevation was a beautiful ceremony, and great way to start the day. The perfect end to the day was Genevote’s elevation to the Order of the Pelican. Truly a great day for the history of Gleann Abhann.

C.

Checking in

A good friend let me know recently that it had been about a month since I made the post that my hibernation was over, but I hadn’t made any posts since that one. I’d like to argue the point, because I like to argue, but the fact is that she is right.
I’m not sure why, but I just haven’t been in the mood to write. It’s not the lethargy and act of interest I had during my period of hibernation, just lack of interest in this particular blog. I use this place when I’m feeling good, feeling inspired, feeling creative, and for the last month I’ve been rather scared about my situation at work, and I’ve not felt the urge to write about that. In this economy just about everyone I know is worried about their work situation, so why spend time thinking about it even more?
Since I have mentioned the subject though,I guess I should give some details. As most of you that read this know, I work in the collections industry. Specifically, I collect defaulted student loans. Now, I like the job, as I mentioned earlier, I like to debate with people, and this job allows me to do so.
Now the people I’m trying to collect from were not paying their student loan debt before the economy started to tank. Once it did start to go bad late last summer the amount of money we were collecting went down dramatically. This is primarily because the Guaranteed Student Loan Agencies my division collects for stopped paying off on the rehabilitation programs they had been directing us to guide debtors into for the last six years. This has not been good. Our company has not been bringing in anything near the amount of money our management wants us too, and the management has not been happy.
To make a long story short, I’ve not made a monthly bonus check in about the last six months. This has, obviously, rather severely affected my personal income, and that has been stressful. Late in February there was a round of layoffs, and about 10% of our workforce was laid off. I survived that; I’m not collecting enough to make a bonus check (nor, for that matter, is over half of my department), but I’m collecting the minimum necessary to keep my job. This is good.
This past week, the management announced that they were cutting our hours. We are now required to work a minimum of 34 hours and may work up to 35 hours a week. That doesn’t really bother me, but they did announce that at least four of those hours must be worked on either Saturday or Sunday. So, instead of having to work only one weekend a month, we now have to work every weekend. I doubt seriously that part of the new plan will last very long, but it is going to be annoying as hell while it does last.
Oh, and the same week they told us that they were cutting our hours, the management also informed us that the cost of our insurance was basically doubling. Oh joy.
Because of the reduction in my income, and due to another obligation that I can’t reschedule, I will not be able to attend Gulf Wars this year, and that bugs me more than I can possibly describe. I’ve not missed Gulf Wars in six years, but I will be missing it this year. I blame George Bush for that; just another item on the long list of things he has to answer for.
Now, having said all that, I have to admit there is some good news.Candlemas was February 14, and it was a truly pleasant, if somewhat rushed event. It was well attended, and we have started developing a relationship with a new site. The event also made a profit.
There is more good news, when I make myself remember it. The fact is, unlike a lot of folks, I do still have my job,my health, home, and family. Yes, the economy is bad, and will get worse before it gets better, but it will get better. Oh, and George Bush is no longer president.

Hibernation is over

….first, a musical interlude from my youth…..
“Look around
They’re moving in
Hold your ground
When they begin

We can do it
We can do it and if they wanna they can try
But they’ll never get near
Then they can get out of here

Gonna keep on driving
Never stop

United, united, united we stand
United we never shall fall
United, united, united we stand
United we stand one and all”

/interlude over

According to the history of posts on this blog, my last post was October 23,2008. Long time.
I’d really like to claim I’ve not been posting because I’ve been incredibly busy for the last thee and half months, but the fact is, I’ve not really been busy at all. I’ve been hibernating.

I guess that requires some explanation. For myself, if not for anyone else.

By late last fall I’d reached the point that I was not really enjoying much of anything. Don’t get me wrong, I was not depressed, or suicidal, or anything like that. I was just….tired, and not enjoying much of anything any more.

I wasn’t enjoying working on any of the various projects and goals I had set for myself. I wasn’t enjoying the challenges and opportunities of my various SCA offices. I wasn’t enjoying working on the various jewelry and knotwork projects I’d been playing with. I really was not enjoying my mundane job (when you are a bill collector, and the ecnonomy begins to tank, the job does not get easier, believe me on this).

Of course, the knowledge that the “holiday season” was fast approaching didn’t help either. I do, truly love the actual holidays; I love spending time with my family and friends at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, but I intensely dislike all the associated nonsense of the holiday season. I like the days and don’t like the season. Does that make sense to anyone but me? I hope so.

I think the final reason for my hibernation is just that I don’t do winter. Despite the fact I was born in, and lived the first sixteen years of my life in the Great Plains (not, I hasten to point out, the midwest, the Great Plains), I don’t like winter. I despise being cold. I hate the fact that it is dark by 5:30 PM. During the winter, all I want to do is sleep. Sleep until the spring comes, or I start to feel better. Feel human. Feel excited about things again.

So, the first week or so of November, I sort of went into hibernation. I didn’t do it deliberately. I didn’t know I was going to do it, I just sort of ….. let it happen. I would go to work, and I’d come home and get lost in a computer game, and then I’d go to bed. Once a week  I would go to our local SCA meeting. I kept doing my various mundane and SCA jobs, but just the bare basics. I didn’t work on any real projects to improve, or change anything. I just kind of existed. Existed, but not really lived.

There were a few bright spots. Thanksgiving with the 3 Dragons at Gresch and Chierie’s house was fun, as it always is.  The two days I spent with my family the weekend after Christmas (I couldn’t spend the actual two days of Christmas with my family because they all live some distance away, and my Corporate Overlords required that I work til 7:00 PM Christmas Eve, and be back at work at 7:00 AM the day after Christmas) were wonderful. I didn’t do much but watch television on New Years Eve, or New Years day, but I did thoroughly enjoy the 3 Dragons New Years party the weekend of January 7. And, of course, I can’t begin to describe how much I enjoyed watching Marine 2 fly the Shrub (I won’t speak his true name) and family away from the Whitehouse on January 20th. Hell, I requested January 20 as  my last vacation day on January 20, 2008, just so I could stay home and see that bit of history as it happened. DIdn’t want to watch tape of it hours later. I wanted to watch him leave, and I did. I cheered.

As I said, I wasn’t depressed, at least not that I was aware of. I wasn’t mad, particularly. Well, not more than I normally am. I think I was just tired. I think I just needed a break for a while. A break from everything, and to a large extent from everyone. Other than the people I’d talk to at work, and at the SCA meetings I did go to, I pretty much quit talking to everyone. I stopped chatting with friends on line. I more or less stopped reading the various email lists I subscribe to. I haven’t read any books in months.

Then last week, things started to change. Last Sunday I actually  felt my urge to get my pliers out and make some jewelry. I twisted rings for a couple of hours, and it felt good. Hell, it felt great, and I while I was working on the piece I had in my hands, I started thinking about other pieces I wanted to make. That hadn’t happened in a long time.
After last Tuesday’s Baronial Business meeting,  I didn’t go out for dinner with my friends as I usually do, but I did come home and spent a couple of hours working on my plans for Samhain. That felt good. If I have a passion in the SCA, it is planning and running events, and I am going to have a LOT of fun with Samhain.

I had to work the second shift at work yesterday, so I didn’t get off work until 9:00 PM last night, and had to be back at work at 7:00 AM this morning, but instead of going straight to bed when I got home last night I actually got on the phone and reconnnected with a few people I hadn’t talked to in months.
I got home from work today at about 1:30, and instead of firing up the computer game I had been dulling mys senses with for the last several weeks I got out my jewelry stuff again and worked on that for a couple of hours. Then I spent a couple of hours reorganizing my desk, optimizing it to be able to work on projects again.
Then, since I seemed to be feeling truly productive for the first time in a very long time, I spent another hour or so working on some cleaning projects in the house. You would not believe, or perhaps you would, how many cleaning projects two bachelors can create in their home. I’ve got plenty of those to keep me going for a while.

So, at the end of all this productiveness today I decied to take a shower and clean up. I find it amazing how dirty you can get while cleaning, and it was right after the shower, that I knew it was time to stop thinking about making a blog post, and actually sit down and write one. After a long look in the mirror, I knew the hibernation period was over, and it was time to get busy living again.

If there is still anyone checking this blog after such a long period of no posts,  I imagine you asking, “how did you know?”

I knew the hibernation was over, when I looked in the mirror and realized, really realized that I hadn’t shaved my head in over two months. That just wouldn’t do any more. That had to change, right NOW.

So, my hibernation is over. I know I’ve got to recover some ground on some projects, and with some people. I’m looking forward to doing just that, and I’m looking forward to living again, instead of just existing. I’m looking forward to moving forward again, moving with direction, instead of just drifting.

In other words: I’m awake, I’m freshly bald again, and I’m looking forward.  Gotta love it.

Cormac

Confession Time

Confession Time.

No, I’m not going to confess that I’ve been ignoring this blog for almost a month because I’ve been gaming (although I’ve been thinking about doing so), or anything like that.
Nor am I going to confess that I’ve been ignoring this blog because I’ve spent the time being wildly productive in other areas of my life. I haven’t. True, I did some traveling at the beginning of the month. Coronation was a lot of fun, even if the event site was a bit challenging. Gellis and his crew did a great job with a complicated event. The highlight of that event was seeing my friend Ceridwn (I’m fairly sure I misspelled that) get elevated to the Laurel.

No, what I am going toconfess this evening is that I am bloody sick and tired of the whole election process. I find this kind of hard to believe because at one time I was not only a card carrying member of the Republican party (ah, the stupidities of youth), but I was also a political science major, and fully intended to spend my life working in the government. In short, I was a political  junky.

I used to follow all the news. I used to spend hours debating with people about politics. I used to care. I don’t any more. In fact, I am disgusted by the whole process.

I won’t say that I think it’s pointless, and will, and do, tell everybody how important it is to vote. That is a right that better men than I’ll ever be have literally fought and died for, and I will not dishonor their sacrifice by not taking  part.

However, I do wish I wasn’t so disgusted by the whole process. I no longer honestly believe that either party is all that different from the other. Nor do I believe that any candidate will seriously try to deliver on any of the promises they make during the campaign. Ever notice how those promises are always kind of vague? The reason for that is that once they get elected politicians can then say, “well, I really didn’t promise …whatever, it just sounded like it. What I really meant was…..”.

I’ve gotten to the point that I think anyone that does what a modern presidential candidate has to do in order to win an election is a person that shouldn’t be allowed to have the job. Any person that wants to be president so bad that they sell out everything they have ever believed in is a person that shouldn’t be allowed to have the job. Bob Dole is  a prime example. I used to have a great deal of respect for that man; for decades whe was quite literally the voice of comprimise in the Sennate. He was also known as one of the people with the b est sense of humor in the Sennate. But when he  became his party’s candidate he became a a person that couldn’t crack a smile if his life depended on it, and vowed to NEVER comprimise with the opposition. Excuse me, but isn’t politics all about the art of comprimise?

Any person that would subject their children to the invasive study of what passes as “press” in the modern world is a person that cares more about themselves than their children, and that is not a person I would vote for. I mean think about what Chelsea Clinton had to hear about her father while she was a teenager. Think about what Sarah Palin’s children are going through right now.

So, we come to the real confession. I am going to vote, but I am not going to vote for either party’s candidate. No, I’m going to vote for my mom’s poodle, Millie. She’s even tempered, no children, and is promising a tax cut to anyone that gives her a piece of bacon.

Just not Feeling it today.

Sorry, this is going to be short, but I’m just not feeling it today. I’ll have more to say later.

C.

Finally Friday

Well, it appears that I survived until Friday, which is a good thing.

It’s not been much a week.Hasn’t been much of a month, really; Kingdom A&S was the hightlight of the month. I truly enjoyed that event.  The  art work on display was, literally, inspiring, the feast was wonderful, seeing the announcment that two friends of mine were going to be elevated to Laurels was wonderful, but the best part was simply hanging out with friends. Catching up with people I’ve not seen in a long time. Making new friends. Planning new projects. Yeah, A&S was the highlight of my month.

Of course, next month is going to be quite busy from an SCA point of view: the month is bookended by SCA events. The first weekend, of course, is Coronation, held way down south in Lousianna. It’s at an all camping site, and I only camp at Gulf Wars, so I’ll be staying at a hotel. I am pretty sure I’ll be traveling to that event with my peer and her husband.

It will be a busy event, as Kindom Events always are. In addition to the two courts, there will be a Diamond Chalice meeting to attend. I’ll also have to be there for the change over of kindom property.

The final weekend of the month will be Samhain, our local group’s event. Standard weekend event. I’m handling reservations for it, but so far there have been none. I should probably be worried about that, but I’m not. Worrying doesn’t do anyone any good. People will come, there will be classes, there will be fighting, and there will be food. Can’t ask for much more than that.

That’s all for tonight. Drawing a blank when looking for a subject to write about, and the only thing that is coming to the front of my mind is not something I’m ready to write about in this format yet.

C

What I haven’t learned

I started working at my current job on March 3, 2005; five years, six months and 21 days ago. Or, put another way, I’ve worked at that job for 2,030 days.

Over the course of those 2,030 days I’ve learned to be a pretty good collector. I’ve learned how do deal with spending all day talking with people that are really not happy to be talking with me. I’ve learned to ignore the hostility, lies, and general rudeness of most of the debtors I’m to convince to pay their student loans. I’ve learned the requirements of my company’s various clients; what they will and will not accept as part of an acceptable repayment arrangement. I’ve learned that despite what most debtors seem to think, most Guaranteed Student Loan Companies are willing to bend over backwards to negotiate a repayment arrangement (thank all gods that are, or ever were, that I don’t collect credit card debt, that’s a whole different ball of wax), and I’ve learned how to deal with the constantly changing office dynamics.

I worked the second shift tonight, and tonight I was reminded of what I have not learned in 2,030 days of working in that office: I’ve not learned to keep my mouth shut when one of my coworkers is out to save my soul.

I very rarely discuss politics – mundane politics – on this blog. To my knowledge I’ve never discussed relegion, here, and I don’t really plan to start. I have my beliefs, and I take them very seriously. I also take the beliefs of my friends that read this blog seriously. I respect all people’s right to their religious beliefs, and I will not try preach to, or change anyone’s beliefs. I don’t expect others to believe as I do, nor do I feel a need to “convert” anyone. I am more than willing to discuss my beliefs, and the beliefs of others with respect and with genuine interest. What I am not willing to do is put up with people that are trying to convert me.

Now, several of the people that work in my office are members of COGIC, The Church of God In Christ.  Apparently it is a basic teaching of this church that they should try to convert other’s to their  belief, and today one of them tried to convert me. It didn’t go well.

Think about it, I am a guy that simply loves a good debate. I enjoy the skill of debate. I am also a guy that knows a great deal of the teachings of various church denominations, and of the scriptures of the bible. In other words, when it comes to a religious debate, I’m (and yes, I know this sounds arrogant, but it’s true) better armed and ready to go.

So, today one of my coworkers -let’s call her Sister Nitwit- begins a conversations with me by asking, “Cormac, do you believe in God?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you believe Christ died for your sins?”

“Um, Sister Nitwit, I really don’t think we should have this kind of conversation in the work place. “

“Just answer the question, do you believe Christ died for your sins?”

And here is where it begins to go wrong for her, and kind of funny for me…

“Well SIster, you were warned. To answer your question, no, I don’t believe that. I mean, come on, he lived roughly 1,966 years before I was even born. Kind of hard to sin before you were born, isn’t it?”

“What? Don’t you know that only true believers are going to get into heaven? It says so in the bible!” I could see at this point that she was just getting wound up, and ….to be honest, I was kind of enjoying this. I wasn’t angry or anything, but I’ve been through this kind of thing before. I knew what was about to happen. Don’t forget, I had warned her.

“Sister Nitwit, do you believe that everything written in that book,the bible,  a book that I will just mention was written quite along time after Christs death, is the word of God? Do you believe that it is all completely true?”

“Oh Lord Yes. It’s all true”

“Doesn’t it say somewhere that the only being truly capable of judging anyone is God? Doesn’t it say that one should “judge not lest ye be judged?”

“Yep, it sure does!”

“So, just a minute ago, when you implied I’d never get to Heaven, cause I’m not a true believer, weren’t you judging me? Did that mean that you had taken on the role your bible says is God’s alone?”

“Um…wait a minute…”

By this time I’m really enjoying myself, and while I could continue to describe the ways I tripped her up,  and pointed out the flaws in her logic, it wouldn’t do any good. By the time it was over I think she was probably convinced I was  Satan worshipper (I’m not, by the way). I should have just pretended to be to busy to talk. I should have just kept my mouth shut, because, and this is important, I was out numbered. And  by being better at this type of conversation that she is, I made her mad. That wasn’t really my intention, and at no point did I get angry myself. If anything, I was having fun.

She got mad though, and complained to my superior. That’s right, she got mad and complained to my superior about a conversation she started, and continued when I initially told her it wasn’t an appropriate conversation for a work place.

Now, fortunately my superior is actually pretty cool, and when I got called to his office, he was smiling when he said, “So, I hear you are trying to convert people to your heathen ways????”

Cormac

Kingdom A&S

So, this past weekened was Kingdom A&S, at the Henry S. Jacobs camp in Utica, Mississippi. Since one of my best friends was the Autocrat, and his wife was the feastocrat, and since I am taking over as the local A&S officer in a month or so there was no way I was going to be missing that particular event.

I got off work at 2:00 PM Friday, and since I was already completely packed, we were able to get on the road by 4:00; we only had to make a couple of stops to pick up supplies, gas, and  some sodas to drink on the road. Leaving Memphis for any reason is always a pleasant experience, and doubly so when your destination is an SCA event. During the drive we listened to book four of the Gunslinger Series by Steven King. I’ve read that entire series, and that is my favorite book of the series. Of course, any audiobook is better than trying to listen to what passes for radio between Memphis and Jackson.

I also spent some time on the drive making some jewelry supplies. Specifically, I wound some 20 gage copper and brass wire around a 2.5mm mandrel, and then cut the rings. Good gods, those are small rings. I’m afraid I’ll go blind if I try and make anything with them. Sometimes I hate getting old.

We got to the camp about 8:30, and thats when the magic started. We got trolled in quickly, and just as quickly got our gear unloaded. I spent the rest of the night hanging out and helping at Troll. After Mistress Beaumont went to bed I ran the troll table myself until Jane came back at 7:00 AM. I love working troll, and I specifically love working the late night shifts. There is always someone to talk to most of the time, and even when everyone else goes to bed, when I’m sitting there by myself, I like knowing that I got to see the camp go to bed, and I’ll get to see it wake up in the morning. I also like that no matter what time someone arrives, there will be a person awake to great them, and tell them where they can bed down. There never are many people that late, but there are always a few.

Once people started to wake up Saturday morning, the day actually passed very quickly. The Breakfast Crew came into the hall and quickly had a great breakfast ready. The Scones were particularly excellent. I spent most of the morning doing what I do best (and enjoy most), talking with friends I’d not seen since the last big event.

I did at one point actually go into the room where the various entries in the A&S competition were set up and looked at them. DAMN! They all were amazing, and some of them were  simply…..Hell, I don’t have the words to describe how impressive some of them were. The Collar of State that Sir Loric and Thomas the Smith did was stunning.

Eventually it was time for Court, and as always that was fun. I particuarly enjoyed seeing the look on the face of Baronness Roz (and yes, I know that is not her correct SCA name, but it IS the one I know how to spell) when she heard she was going to be elevated to the Laruel.

The feast was excellent. Ceridwen and her crew put out a feast that was  enjoyed by everyone. I particularly enjoyed the fact that due to some carefull planning I was able to sit with  both my households. House 3 Dragons and House Candlefort all sat together, and we had a blast. During feast, when they brought the Feastcrat out to complement her, Ceridwen also found out that she would soon be elevated to the order of the Laurel.

Sunday was just packing up, helping clean up the site, and then having lunch with about 12 of my closest friends before heading home. A truly excellent event.