1. Work/Programming
My pet project has sucessfuly exited formal QA.. but I’m still waiting on RichMedia QA to complete. This means it may launch either tomorrow (doubtful) or maybe Thursday (or later).
Today the Project Manager contacted me to get an estimate of how long it will take to do the next feature.. the feature I started, finished and tested last week because we’ve been waffling about so long in QA-land. I guess it’s good to be ahead of the game.
2. Home
House is in an uproar. Things are everywhere. We’re just back from West An Tir War and there’s too much to do to prep for Pennsic. Pennsic is coming.
There are things pulled out and unsettled in the house.. but I’m making good progress on projects.. so it’s not too-too bad.
3. Health
Meh. Camping and dieting don’t go together.
I’ve been off CrazyStupidDiet for a week and I still haven’t had the breakfast I want. Need to go grocery shopping.
4. SCA/Projects
The only things I forgot to pack for West An Tir war was my boots and a rake. I really missed both of them while I was tromping through the fields to set up lure coursing.
I ran lure coursing on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On Thursday and Friday we were off in the designated Lure Coursing field. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you view it) people started setting up camps and parking on our Lure Coursing field. This made it a little bit crowded.. so on Friday night I got permission for Their Majesties of the West and the Autocrat to move Lure Coursing to be on the field in front of West Royal.
I’m pleased that we were giving a dedicated field for Lure Coursing.. but it was a bit hilly.. and actually had quite a bit of mowed blackberry bushes.. which made clearing the grass from the course very difficult (I’m still pulling blackberry thorns out of my hands).
The field in front of West Royal was flat.. Free of blackberry bushes.. and had the added bonus of being front and center. I was very please with the amount of people standing around the course to watch the dogs run.
I volunteered to teach my fingerloop braiding class.. so I decided to wait until Saturday to wear my new Crimson Kirtle (it has a fingerlooped lace on it). I like the fit of it.. but I think I need to fidget with the neck facing. If I have time I’ll do that before Pennsic. I also want to make some new lower sleeves.
It’s July.. but in the evenings I caught myself thinking about how nice it would be if the Kirtle was made of wool instead of Linen. So I guess I know what I’ll be doing after Pennsic.
5.
West An-Tir recap.
Adding a cut.. it turns out I had a lot to say 🙂
Tuesday morning we left for War. For some reason I thought that drive was 12+ hours. It turns out it’s only (!!) a 7 hour drive. I did a naughty thing and forced everyone to wait on me while I finished up a sewing project. I made a pair of aprons for Flidais and myself and I really wanted to finish them before we left.. so although we could have left at 9:30am we instead got out the door at 10:30. BUT Flidais cried when I gifted her with her new apron.. and at the end of the event she said she wore the heck out of it (I never saw.. I was busy busy busy and never made it over to the cook’s play date). We arrived in Brookings and stayed in a hotel overnight. The Harbor Inn hotel was reasonable with rooms in the $70 range.
Wednesday morning we got up, showered(!!!), and headed out for breakfast on the way to site. I think we were on-site and started setting up camp by 12:30. While we were setting up o.0ur Regent we tore out a stake loop so I spent a while repairing that (replacing all of the canvas loops with metal rings is at the top of my pre-Pennsic project list). Regardless we quickly had our tent and the Wedge we were lending to my parents up.. probably by 3. My parents arrived at about 6:30. They brought the sunshade we used for the week. It worked out very well and I’ll be buying sunshades like theirs to add to our encampment. Dinner on Wednesday was smoked ribs (which came out beautifully).
Thursday we were up nice and early. Fearghus is the captain of the Queen’s Guard and wanted to be up and ready to go by no later than 8:30. We donated to the Pennsic Party fund and had pancakes and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then it was off. At about 9 I loaded all of the lure coursing equipment into our wagon and hauled it across the site to the designated lure coursing field. Fearghus was busy being captain of the queen’s guard.. so it fell on me to take care of the lure coursing. Happily my parents volunteered to help me with this. This was the first time I’ve ever set it up or run it. I learned a lot.. and I think it went pretty well. The field we’d been given was a little bit more hilly than I’d like.. it also had newly mown grass in it.. the mown grass tended to obscure the lure making it more difficult for the hounds to keep track of it.
Later, when I started trying to clear the grass out by hand I realized that the field also had blackberry brambles which had been mown down with the grass. I ended up with a lot of thorns in my hands and ankles. Sadly I’d forgotten to pack my boots.. so I got a lot of prickles in my wool socks. Boots are at the top of my packing list for next time.
Regardless. I got the course set up and dogs showed up to run it. We had a lot of fun and the dogs were a joy to watch.
The rest of Thursday is kind of a blur. I know we had hot dogs for lunch.. and then we shopped the merchants (it was small.. and I spent a lot of it thinking to myself “meh, I don’t need to buy that now.. I’ll be at Pennsic in a month and have a much better selection to choose from” So I only spent $5 at merchants). Then we had English Onion soup for dinner. One of our campmates is originally from Scotland and we found it immensely amusing that he referred to “Fourth of July” as “Ungrateful Day”.
Friday morning I got up and made breakfast burritos (scrambled eggs, shredded cheese, and bacon in tortillas). Feargus again was up very early and marched off to war. After he left we did camp dishes and my parents went into town for supplies while I wandered off to the battlefield to try to volunteer to waterbear. Unfortunately when I got there I was informed that I wasn’t needed. I watched the battle for a while and then wandered back to camp to prep lunch hotdogs. At about 3 my parents and I again packed up the lure coursing equipment and hauled it across site to setup the coursing field. When we arrived we found out that two large camps had been setup on our lure coursing field.. and a bunch of cars were parked in another section.. so we had to set the course up fairly small. We had a nice turn out of dogs.. but sadly most of them were scent hounds (who won’t chase the lure) so we quickly tired out the dogs who would run the course. I packed up the course and made it back to camp just in time to start making dinner (chicken and veggie soup). After dinner I had a brilliant idea and chased across the war site looking for Their Majesties of the West. I told them of our lure coursing woes (campers, parked cars, bumpy field, blackberry brambles) and asked if They would not mind if we set up lure coursing in front of the West Royal. Due to lucky circumstance there was a large flat open field between where royals were camped and the rest of the West. His Majesty agreed so I tromped all the way across site to get permission from the Autocrat. She agreed that as long as Their Majesties didn’t mind, she didn’t mind. She then suggested that I tell the Heralds so that could be announced in morning shout. Before finding the heralds I tromped down to the Lure Coursing field and chatted with the folks camped there (I figured if they were going to camp in -my- field they could at least be helpful about it). I let them know that Lure Coursing was going to be moving to be in front of West Kingdom Royal.. and asked them to please pass that message on to anyone who showed up there in the morning. They agreed (and actually seemed like very nice folks).
Then I started looking for Aesa (the Herald). She wasn’t at Herald Point.. but someone said they’d seen her at Ermine Company. I wandered around to Ermine but she wasn’t there. As I was leaving I ran into Aelf and had a nice chat with him.. and he suggested (again) that she might be in Ermine.. at which point I busted out my herald voice** and shouted for her. Just once.. but she didn’t answer. Francisco wandered up and we chatted for a while.. and then I mentioned I was looking for Aesa and Francisco said he thought she was at Allysia and then gave me “directions”.
His directions were “Cross the foot bridge.. go straight.. you’ll run right into it”. Although Allysia was in -that- general direction.. his directions were flawed. I crossed the bridge.. and kind of wandered aimlessly for a while peering into camps trying to determine if I knew anyone in that camp.. or if that just might magically be Allysia. FINALLY I happend to stumble across Kolskag and another Allysian wandering in the opposite direction and pointed me right at camp.
I wander into Allysian camp and almost immediately found Aesa. The really funny part is that she spotted me first.. and said “Oh! Sylvie! It must have been you who was shouting for me.”. Word that I’d shouted for Aesa at Ermine had traveled to Allysia faster than I had 🙂
I delivered my message to Aesa for the morning shout and then made my way back to camp. When I’d left camp I said I’d be “just a minute”.. and then I think I was gone for the better part of two hours. It’s the first time in YEARS that I’ve just wandered off. It was kind of fun and liberating.
**little known secret.. I can be loud. Don’t tell the Heralds.. they’ll expect me to shout or something.
Saturday morning my parents got up and prepared breakfast burritos. It was -so- -nice- to get up and find that someone else had made breakfast for camp. Just.. oh.. I cannot describe. Just before eating breakfast I skipped off to merchants and bought coffee for myself on Fearghus. It was heavenly. After breakfast I dragged the lure coursing equipment out in front of Royal and setup the course. That was an absolutely lovely field to course in. We ended up with a nice long course which had both a zigzag part of the course and nice long straight-away.
Lesson learned: If you’re going to setup lure coursing.. and you’re going to have greyhounds on the course.. make sure that you’re not running the greyhounds on the straight away straight towards. It’s actually frightening to have a huge greyhound thundering towards you at top speed. Next time I’ll make sure I run them away from me on that part 🙂
We drew a HUGE crowd of people watching the lure coursing. I LIKE being setup in such a nice central area. I think a lot more people got to see it because we changed the location.
We ran the course until all the doggy’s legs fell off 🙂 a lot of people thanked me for tiring out their hounds. I did my best to make sure the dogs were tired but not completely broken or wore out.
After lure coursing I made a quick lunch (which we tried unsucessfully to feed to the fighters) and then had to run off to teach my class. I had 5 students and they all seemed to have fun learning fingerloop braiding.
Saturday night was grand court. Fearghus wore the new Rus Pants I made for him. I was please to see the Queen’s Guard honored and Her majesty present Fearghus with a special token of her appreciation. I was also very pleased to see Mark d’Arundel Honored as a Hero of the West.
Dinner Saturday night was smokde brisket, smoked (baked) potatoes, green salad, tomato and cucmber salad and peasant bread. The potates were DIVINE! I will definitely make those again. Later, after dinner we stopped by Flidais’ vigil and offered her words. She’s vigiling at a few events but will be elevated at October Crown.
Sunday morning we packed up and went home. Luckily Thier Majesties had cancelled the fighting which was scheduled for Sunday. It’s downright silly to schedule fighting until 3PM on Sunday when we’re expected to be off-site by 4pm.. and have a 6+ hour drive ahead of us. Just plain silly.
We had lunch that the Porthole Cafe.. which is hands-down my favorite restaurant in Gold Beach (even thought the “Barnacle Cafe” is fun to say).
We made it home by about 11pm and I was in bed before 1. Tired.. a little bit sunburned.. but happy.
Future:
July 14 Cynaguan Summer Investiture
July 21 FREE WEEKEND!!
July 28 ANOTHER FREE WEEKEND!!! OMG!!!
August 2-August 12 Pennsic
Aug 18 FREE WEEKEND!! Fall down go BOOM!
Aug 24-26 Purgatorio
Aug 31-Sept 2 Ducal Prize.. or Free.. not sure if we’re going
Sept 8 Cyn/Mists War
…
August 31, 2013 My wedding in Billings Montana
