Knights, households and longswords, oh my

Knights:
I was asked to join the chivalry in the SCA, and on Easter Sunday I was dubbed a knight with my grandfather's sword. Since then I have prioritized my medieval efforts slightly differently, and made sure my broad attention was on the whole of the Politarchopolis fighting community, and that my narrow focus was on building up the knowledge and combat capacity of my household, and my personal fighting goal was to develop a greater understanding of medeival combat techniques.

Politarchopolis has had a training revolution brought to it by appreciating and appropriating methods from two main sources: Sir Gemini's combat school, and ANU Kendo.  Duke Cornelius (Corny) has been in contact, and has studied the Gemini method. ANU Kendo has a 10 week beginners course, where you wander in clueless, and at the end you are able to throw the basic shots, put on armour, and see if Kendo if for you. These two were melded, and Corny has run beginners course three (?) times now, and one of my aims is to pick up this method well enough to be able to teach it independently next course. We have lots of new blood who have come through the course, and the mid-rankers are all improving in technique and teaching capacity.

Households:
My household has grown since my knighting, and at the fields of gold event later this month, I intend to take squires, and present belts to those who will stay as man-at-arms. Each is equally important to me, for different reasons. Aedwyn had faith in me way back when, and I have faith that she will sort out that getting cash in, and having free time thing enough to find time and fight more. Angus is an accomplished combatant, quite skilled, and needs to work on his temperament, calibration and training. Angus will be key in making sure the next two get authorized and have a good foundation of armoured combat. Urbana and Krieg are both sixteen, and are both learning the Gemini method. They are both high school students, and we are working on getting them armoured and ready to fight, as they have gotten their 'perfect circle' drills down pat, and need armour time to see where they go next. Urbana is academically gifted and a deep thinker, Krieg is charismatic and warm, both are figuring out that teenage thing pretty well. Gunter has a hard path, away from a major fighting community. He will need to find local combatants to train with, and I will be here to answer his questions as best I can. My mystery man-at-arms is suffering most deeply from work-life imbalance: I hope he can find a way through that issue.

Longswords:
I love co-incidences: I love that I can go to an ABS work function, find this guy who works in the ABS, and is an incredible teacher of the study of longsword. I love that we met just as I was knighted and bringing my head up to look around at the broader re-enactment world. I love that we had free alcohol as we figured all this out.

Lucas/ Matt is doing some super cool stuff. HEFT & The Company of Saint Christopher are going great guns. HEFT is a school of medieval combat methodologies studying existing manuals and other modern teachings. The Company is more of a living history group, with a focus being a tournament company around 1450-1500.

I recently had just over two weeks in Tasmania, and I made it to three HEFT lessons. They have a great crew, about 20 participants divided into beginners and advance, all learning and doing drills developed from the medieval manuals. Saint Christopher's had their first outing just after I left: My contribution was in the calligraphy field, and my gain was in finding sources to prepare an improved 15C persona.

A traditional proposal

Friday night I asked Adelle to marry me, and she said yes!

Parents:
My parents knew I would be asking her in time, it was discussed when I visited them in Winter. Last week I formally asked her Father, John. We had just finished dinner, and Adelle had just left. I called him to the room where Sue was napping in front of the Television. "John, I would like to ask your permission to marry Adelle." "Well, I'm a bit taken aback, it's the first time I've been asked that, well um, yes, ahh... Isn't this where I say that I'll think about it for a few days?" "Respectfully, I'll be proceeding either way." " Very good, as it should be" And then I swore them both to secrecy for a while.

Friday night:
Adelle told me that she had leave on Friday night, so I drove up to Canberra from Wodonga, and we met at Koko Black  which was the site of our first proper date. We had chili hot chocolates each and shared a brownie. I waited for a natural break in the conversation, but one was not forthcoming, so I palmed the ring. I then took the spoon from her hands. In one motion I went to one knee, slipped the ring on her finger and asked "Will you marry me". She said yes.

Ring:
The ring is gold with an Australian dark blue sapphire and two flanking smaller Australian blue sapphires to either side. Between the sapphires are a sprinkling of diamonds. A photo will be forthcoming.

Wedding?:
Yes :)
 I would like a full suit style wedding, so it will likely be in a colder part of the year. We do not have a date, or even a city yet. Canberra for Adelle's family? Brisbane for mine and the boys? Wodonga to make everyone else have to travel? Prague just because?

Any more questions and I'll answer them in the comments.

It's brilliant having brilliant friends

Dirk's Blog has some great points about State Run enterprises, Corporate enterprises, where profits go,  and where you would rather wish to live.

General reminder to everyone- please pull your heads out of the complete rubbish that is in most newspapers and think.

Miscellaneous Stuff To Do

Adelle - adore :)
Scout hall - finish shields to make them display ready
Hospit gear - sort and label the pile Maxx donated
Photos - sort the photo's and get the best ones to Bat & Macca
Shelves - make better shed shelves so I can slip cricket/ armour/ fencing bags in and out more easily
Cushion Box - make Rachel and Alex's cushion box.
Marina - keep promise to trim hedges - timing proving complex!
Corinbank/ Work/ SCA  - get first aid certificate up to date
Study - sign up to the DPM
Kendo - sign up - 15th Feb sign up starts - have set calendar alarm
CM - paint Talisman figures - undercoated white - done. Base colours - done.

Icky Medical Procedures

Inspired by Umanda's (much better) post, I thought I would chime in with some more modern medical jibbering.

In my youth I played a lot of sport very well, and that means injuries. And that means medical attention, and that means some okay procedures, and some where the procedure is worse than the injury. This is such a tale.

I played indoor cricket in my youth. How does you explain indoor cricket to someone who doesn't even follow cricket? Ummm, okay. Imagine you are playing baseball. With two batsmen. And eight fielders. You are allowed to bounce the ball every pitch, and there is only one base. With me? Here is the tricky/ extreme part - you are doing this IN A BATTING CAGE, in an area just longer than the distance from pitcher to batsman, and the whole thing is netted in, and rebound catches count.

Okay, so cricket balls kill people, so they made it safer by making the ball a tennis ball wrapped in leather. So it goes much faster off the bat, but doesn't hurt people as much when it hits them.

I was fielding in close when there was a good strike that came of someone else's hand and hit me in the eye. It hurt a bit, and I was taken off the field. I got driven home, and dutifully went to the doctors the next day. He said the orbit (skull bone around the eye) was okay, but the flexibility of the ball and the fact that it might have 'sucked back' the eye meant I had to go to the hospital to have it checked by one of the special machines. The doctor advised I would have to go with someone else, as I would be unable to get back home by myself. Hrmmm.

I rocked up to the doctors with my SO, and they got me and put drops in my eye. "This will relax your eye muscles, and your pupils will dilate heavily to allow us a good view of the eye. It takes half an hour to work. tell us when the light begins to hurt."

One other thing is that I'm one of those people for whom most drugs work ten times better than everyone else. It's a skill in the "Fallout" series, and I like the inexpensiveness of drinking. Apparently its manly to need $200 to get drunk, I like my $20 benders as I am a cheap bastard.

So the SO looks at me and says "Good grief, I can see your pupils peeling back. So I wrap a jumper around my head and wait the half hour. Once the doc comes I peel off my improvised light block, and the doctor manages to stay vaguely professional. The assistant has the giggles "That looks so weird." great. They take me into a fairly dark room, and adjust a machine with funky opticals so my face fits into it. "There may be a sting as I turn on the blue light" Urggh! "And now I need to do some adjustments... Oh my God that is beautiful. I usually use this machine on the elderly, and I have to say, the inside of your eyes are simply stunning."

So I could be an inside of eye model. Interesting to note, not much of a pickup line.

"Here comes the unpleasant part, in order to check I need to put this puff of air into your eye."

Urkk! The puff hits and it's like a finger in the eye. Your hold body does that desperate tense and release, and you realise you are bending the steel in the chair arm.

"Oh my GOD, I need to find a colleague." I hoped this was a continuation on the beautiful theme, and not a new 'we will have to have that out presently' theme.

So I'm sitting in this dark room, and the doctor has skipped off to find someone else. The doctor comes back in with the mention colleague, and a bevy of ten obvious med students. The senior sits, prepares me for the puff of air, and addresses me along with everyone else. "This patient has no sign of injury, but has an interesting phenomenon, an extreme high propensity for cone versus rod receptors. It causes a distinctive sheen to the eye when viewed as compared to the base eyes you have seen before. I bet you can't find a thing in the fridge, but can catch exceptionally well" - Why yes, except for the one that put me in this chair. He laughs politely.

"Now, if you could all shuffle through and have a look at the eye in question" ten more med students, ten more blasts of air to the eyeball, and ten more quivering jerk jumps as I get poked. In that very Brisbane way, one of the med students was in my Senior year. Confident and extroverted tho I am, I could not pull off the 'pick up an old mate while strapped to the chair and being mildly tortured' maneuver.

I wonder what MM is doing now...

Anyway, I was allowed to leave, I was advised that the medicine in my eyes would wear off in six hours, and that I should avoid bright light for that time. Six hours later, people would still laugh out loud at my trippy super- pupil eyes, and a day later, my eyes had returned to normal. i was off all contact sports for 3 months.

I think i would have been annoyed, except that I had just purchased a new computer. Happy co-incidence then...

Internet back, time low, Twitter query

The internet is back at my house, so I'll be able to post from home again. Telstra got it right on the third attempt.

Time is low due to preparation for crown and a new young lass. Both GREAT reasons.

I'm getting half a moment to post tweets (Twitter messages) here and there - is there a way to have your tweets show up on your blogger blog? I couldn't find anything in the help files on a quick look, and have not yet investigated RSS but from what I hear I assume there is a way to get them to talk.

The runaround

Friday night was come home and ready things for the runaround, and the Friday night movies.
Next morning I ran Clare into work and then headed into GW to talk geek with the lads. Thousand Sons army idea from Matt C was to use Flamers off Tzeentch as Obliterators. That idea was spun from golden win, I bought three flamers on the spot. I'll base them on 'back to base-ix" bases and make them extra cool. After that I picked up Nick, and then went on to the wedding picnic.
Some friends were married in Melbourne, and then held a picnic for friends in Canberra to mark the occasion. After that I took Dr Nick to the airport, then went home for more packing. Then I got dressed up (only a little) and got Clare from work and took her home to get ready for dinner. Dinner was at Iori, and I did the $55 feast. The sushi was outstanding, the sake warm and company excellent. Then we went off to Womble's new apartment, 200 degree views and on the eigth floor. Very nice. Clare i I went home, and made a drink or two. We were half in the mood for a late movie, but when there was a random episode of "Angel" on, that worked out fine. Clare crashed in Dr Nicks bed.

We went to a little bakery for breakfast the next morning. After I ran Clare home, I went off to my knights place, and spent the next few hours in the workshop, making the two round shields for the Merovingian War unit, one for me and one for Eadwyn. After that I went to Fighter Practice. After Fighter Practice we went to Debacle for a pint and nacho's. then off to Sui's, and gaming club. Sui and I had a close mission, one where you had to take buildings. I took 5 buildings to his 4. In my next game, I played an Orc player, where we had to take the enemies base. Neither of us managed to take the objective for a hard fought draw.

I always stay busy, but that was quite a bit even for me :)

Scamming for fun and naughtiness

Jen is one of my favourite bloggers, personal, lively, and fun. One of the crew. She recently did a really great post on an unfortunate incident that involved vinyl gloves, handkerchiefs, Vaseline and things in your eye that really shouldn't be there.

Then I thought about the power of the internet, and running a bit of a scam. I thought about how she uses a laptop, and how, being a I.T. Girl, she might even leave her laptop open. And she might even have her laptop pointing at her bed. And some naughty hacker might even be into her built-in notebook webcam. And how said hacker might even be vulnerable to a counter hack, and how I might even have been able to scam the scammer, and get a shot of Jen in her nightwear.

If you want the full scam, the picture is here

Weird Bug that I'm fighting

I've been a little off my game, with a bit of busy, and a little bit of unwell. No harsh symptoms, just ' a bit off ', a random 12 hour sleep, and exercise became impossible due to 'sick person sweats'.

Now my metal faculties have cleared up, but sinuses are emptying goo and I can barely talk for goo.

I mean, I appreciated the mental clarity, but I am over the 'one tissue to every five words' ratio.

I wonder what the next step will be?

I'm in Sydney for the weekend doing website stuff, hoping I don't go through too many damn tissues. There are two parts - the data entry, and the design. I think it will be a data entry weekend due to my goo head. Talking to Pauly and LAJ about design while gooman seems foolish.

Secrets over.

The complicated secret stuff is over. Back to open book mode. For those of you who guessed, yes, it was a girl. As Sui would say, "Chicks."

Still can't really say what was going on, but I'm single as can be, and ready to get working on festival, then crown, and being fit and ready.

Other news - it looks pretty certain that I'll be swapping out my Yaris hatch for a Hilux ute. Single cab, Silver with a covered tray. I needed more cubic area of storage, and I wasn't carrying more than two people very often. I had so nearly paid off the Yaris that payments will remain the same per fortnight. Gee people bend over backwards to get the sale when we are in a global slowdown :)

FPS Foodies: Dim Sims and Veggies

"Food you can cook in a map change"

When your map finishes, run to the kitchen and set up your steamer. (2 minutes)

Next map change, throw four dim sims and a large serve of mixed frozen veggies into the steamer and start it. (2 mins)

On the third map change, dump the dim sims in a bowl and pour on soy sauce and Tuscan seasoning over the top. Chop the dimmies, and ready them in stabable pieces. (3 minutes)

Eat and enjoy while not even missing a map. Yeah Yeah.

New piece of equipment: A Steamer. A steamer is a great piece of equipment for the gamer cook. You can let it do it's thing and there is nothing to watch, and will not 'burn over' or anything of that nature. Cost of a steamer is approximately one third the cost of a new game, which means real value for money.