AAMAPD

Ok, before I get to the rest of my post, I’d like to just take a minute and salute all of you that read this that will be getting up and going to work tomorrow and Friday. I promise I’ll think about all of you as I roll over and go back to sleep. Yes, I’m taking the next two days as vacation time.
Moving on now to the rest of the post….

I think I’ve got a case of AAMAPD. That would be Angry Almost Middle Aged Protege Disease. Not angry as in “mad at the SCA”, far from it. I came back from the week of sleep deprivation that is Gulf Wars more in love with all the things the SCA is, and the people of the SCA (even the dolts) than I ever have been. I guess I should also add that I’m not angry any perceived progress or lack of progress toward the pelican medallian. Quite frankly, if I never get the medallian I’ll be happy because my peer saw something in me. She will never know what that kind of validation meant to me, still means to me. I know associates that get concerned when they don’t seem to be making progress, but I’m not one of them.

No, what I meant by “Angry” in naming the disease is that there are so many projects that I think people should be working on and nothing seems to be working on them. Angry in the fact that my barony doesn’t yet have permanent land at Gulf Wars. That the Grey Niche Camp doesn’t have a gate, or a wall, etc. So, going to have to check into getting a crew together to change that.

One of the other projects I plan to be working on soon include submitting a bid to host Candlemass next spring. I’ve never autocratted an A&S intensive event, so that will be an interesting challenge. The theme I’m thinking about is “A Day In The Life”. I want to focus more on the day to day sciences of the period, not necessarily the high art. Paper making, or vellum making instead of classes on illumination or caligraphy. Classes on leather working and tanning, agriculture and gardening, etc. Basically classes on creating the materials for the arts. I hope that makes sense.

Of course I lump some purely personal projects under the AAMAPD heading. Number one of those is a weight loss program. I’ve been fat for far to long, and I’m not going to do it any more. I’m not going to spend another year of events with constantly sore ankles and knees from being on my feet all day. Just not going to do it. I started my diet plan on Monday, and so far have stuck with it. I’m going to focus more on eating healthy and exercising than I am on losing a specific amount of weight. Long term goal is to lose 150 pounds, but I’m focussing more day to day on not eating a lot of snack type foods, eating at restaurants less, avoiding buffet restaurants . I’m also forcing myself to drink at least 8 glasses of water a day. That, the water, has been the hardest part so far; I prefer my water brown and caffienated. Even better is brown, caffienated and carbonated.

Personal project number 2 is to get my house cleaned up and organized. I’m not an organic slob, there’s not anything growing in our house, etc., but my roommate and I are not exactly great housekeepers. Fact is we are two batchelors that have better things to do than clean house. Unfortunately we are also pack rats, a condition common to SCA people I think, and we’ve kind of lost control of our house. That is going to change.

Finally I’m going to be devoting a lot more time working on increasing my jewelery making skills. That has been something I’ve enjoyed working on the last year, but like a of things I’ve kind of gotten away from it for the last few months. However a friend, Luca, loaned me a book on Chainmaile Jewelry recently that has inspired me. I finished a new piece just the last night. I’m going to spend some time this weekend working on another piece. I guess I should also admit another reason for wanting to take up that particular goal again, and it’s going to sound really petty. You have been warned. There is a merchant at Gulf Wars that is a really vile, toad of a man. I was in his merchant pavilion with a friend this year and was looking at several pieces of his chainmail jewelry and commented to my friend that I could probably figure out how to do that (how to duplicate one particular piece we are looking at. Unfortunately toadman heard me and proceeded to give me hell for about the next ten minutes about how people always say that kind of thing but never actually do it. So, I’d truly love to march into Toad Pavillion next year and dump a Crown Royal bag full of jewelry on his counter and tell him, “Told you I could do it”. As I said, a petty goal, but a goal none the less.

Ok, that’s all for tonight. I hope I haven’t bored you to much. I’m going to go open and close some rings.

Cormac