The other major adventure of the weekend was going with corvusjoyous  to shop for her wedding dress. Unlike many of my recent dress-shopping experiences, this bride was pretty convinced she wanted a white dress right from the start, so we just grabbed her momma and hit David's Bridal. 

Despite the fact that we had a poster the bride put together with pictures of acceptable and undesirable dress characteristics, we ran through about a half dozen options of varying acceptability. I ended up needing to be a little firm with the saleschick in order to get dresses that conformed more closely to the bride's desired characteristics, but I'm OK with being the pissy bad bridesmaid in order to get results. Happily, but the end of the day, we had found a dress that hit most of corvusjoyous' wants without hitting too many of the do not wants, was within her budget, and was able to be ordered in the correct wedding colors. WIN! She may be doing some additional embellishment when it comes in and we'll be adding the bustle-hooks in between the wedding and the reception, but it's a gorgeous gown as-is and I'm sure she'll be stunning. :)

Now I just need to coordinate with the other bridesmaids and find dresses of the right color and of an acceptable style. At least there are bridesmaid dresses these days that avoid the taffeta-with-ruffles-and-a-giant-butt-bow look! :P I'm sooooo glad I was never a bridesmaid in the 80's! 

Current Mood: indescribable

This weekend was the grand opening of sirzig 's bar, The Knuckle Down Saloon and Eatin' Joint. There have been three weeks of hard work and a last major push to get things done before the opening. It was craziness sometimes, but well worth it in the end.

My major project was the ladies' room, which sounds dumb, but the 40+ hours I put in on it were all sorely needed. It's a smallish place, so the pictures did not turn out great, but it gives you an idea. Instead of being dark green, dirty and ugly, it's now sunshine yellow, blue/purple and *clean*.

  

The skirt on the sink was the last project, and the "garb for a sink" I referenced in my last title, since it was sewn from the latest batch of linen/cotton. Yay for bringing geek into the bar! ;)  It also helps vindicate my packrat tendencies... I make my coronet padding with the fluffy side of sticky-back velcro stuck to the coronet and the grippy side of baby-soft velcro on the padding side. This leaves me with lots of grippy-side sticky-back velcro and fluffy-side baby velcro. Finally, a project that used up the stash of leftover velcro!

I don't have a picture of "painting with bar straws," but here's the explanation. The walls of the bar are covered with planks of wood that were stained before they were nailed up, or at least should have been. Places where the stain was missed or gaps or scratches, etc needed to be touched up. Being the OCD-sufferer on the crew, I got assigned that job. After trying for awhile with foam brushes, I went home for some mini brushes, but found that those were even too large for some of the spaces. The light-colored wood was clearly visible, but inaccessible. Poo. I finally hit on a solution - I got some bar straws, flattened one end, sucked up some stain by capillary action and then blocked the open end with my finger. I put the end of the straw into the offending hole, carefully released the other end of the straw and then gravity, the pull of the stain into the dry wood, and sometimes a little squeeze sent the stain right where I wanted it. Win!

Sadly, none of my pictures of the general bar action turned out well - it was just too dark. However, there was a good crowd and we had some great fun... mightyjesse  brought the bebe by for awhile and we played hot potato for a bit, but they did not stay for long. Later in the night, some Countess (*cough*gwyneth1362*cough*) got out of hand and broke a chair and jinglymushroom  and I got into a punching fight, but otherwise the violence was limited. ;) The crowd was very SCA-heavy, but there were a lot of folks I did not recognize as well. We almost had an invasion by the MadCity Party Bus, but they sent in scouts who apparently decided to move along without disgorging their intoxicated masses. The extra income might have been nice for the bar, but I'm somewhat relieved we were not suddenly eye-balls deep in drunken frat boys.

I put out a pretty table of foods, including some fussy Victorian treats like Victoria sandwiches and cucumber sandwiches as well as standard fare like pretzels, chips, dips, subs, and veggies. There was also a cake, but that was a whole separate adventure. You cannot get a custom-image cake on less than 5 days notice. You cannot get a plain white cake on less than three days notice unless you are willing to pay for a Lane's Bakery cake. (I LOVE Lane's, but they were priced out of this budget.) I picked up this project on Thursday, ergo, I had to work with what was on the shelf. In this case, that was cakes that were already decorated with generic flowery crap. So, before I could decorate, I had to deflower the cake.



Then, the remaining color was carefully removed, the face of the cake carefully smoothed and re-shined, and the desired image sketched on. 



I always forget how hard it is to control the stupid "writing gel" - I need to figure out a better solution for cake decorating, since this is not the first time I have been frustrated.

As part of the festivities, belmikey  came down and stayed at my place, but my brother and his girlfriend were not able to make it, so I had fewer houseguests than I'd anticipated, which is OK, since I have been neglecting my place the last three weeks, between time spent at the bar and time spent on my A&S entry for Gulf Wars.

Anyway, here are some gratuitous cute pics of the new family and of the bebe (at the next morning's Samba brunch meat-and waffle-fest). Check it out - she has her daddy's haircut... ;)

  

Today, I failed at the productivity - I woke up from my post-brunch nap with a headache that quickly spiraled out of control into a migraine, meaning I lost the rest of the evening. I finally felt OK-ish in time to order dinner with Mr Scott and to search for the suspicious smell in the fridge, which eventually meant cleaning the whole damn thing since I could not actually find the source. The rest of the house will need to be addressed this week before mightyjesse's daddy and sister arrive for the week, but for now I'm thinking I'm done for the night, despite my six hours of nap today. :P *sigh* 

Current Mood: tired

As a general FYI.,

Due to my word count not being where I would like it to be, I am restricting my e-mail and social networking site use (FB, LJ, etc.) to one session per day for the foreseeable future. So, if I'm not terribly quick in getting back to you (not that I always am anyhow), it's because of this. I'm not sure when I will be checking, but my suspicion is that it is going to be later in the day, rather than earlier.

In unrelated news, I am going to be un-subscribing from the NS list for a while. If anyone pings me there, or if there is something terribly interesting/vital you think I need to see (NOT involving freakin' bacon!), please forward it to my e-mail.

Current Mood: working

About two years ago, I first ran into these really lovely silver wire braids that were apparently sometimes used as hem and fabric decorations on Viking clothing. They are not the same as the trichinopoly wire weaving technique, but  can use some of the same stitches. I was fascinated, but had not yet had time to investigate further.

Today, relativelylucid  sent me a link to Silberknoten, the webpage of a lady in Denmark who is recreating these braids and has posted close up pictures of originals. Mmmm.... So tasty! Go look! Really!

Current Mood: excited

Could someone please explain to me how 30 Rock is at all funny? I don't get it. And Park and Rec too. Oh, and The Office. And Jerry Seinfeld. I'm still waiting for an ansewer on that one.

Thanx

Current Mood: confused

One of my favorite words, perhaps because the feeling is so familiar...

wanderlust   \WAHN-der-lust\   noun
: strong longing for or impulse towards wandering

Current Mood: geeky

It's been an odd day... but productive! Lots of projects for Mr. Zig's bar - if you come to the opening tomorrow, I can show you. If not, the rest of you LJers will have to wait till Sunday or Monday for pics and an explanation! :p

Current Mood: accomplished

For the three of you out there who don't know, I'm 6' 7" (almost exactly 2 meters) tall. And I don't play basketball. Hate it, actually (this may have something to do with the fact that people have been asking me since the age of about 10 if I play basketball, which, really, gets almost as old as the "Hey, you're tall!" line because, clearly, I didn't know that. Thanks for the update. Anyhow...).

So what am I doing right now? Yeah, I'm recording the Minnesota-Xavier game for Cameron. Because, you see, it is a Minnesota team, and we must therefore be excited.

I get this. Really. The other kids in class are excited, and he's all pumped because it's the Gophers, and we live close enough to campus to see the G-wear a lot, and...and.... So, yes, I get it. But basketball? Really? I find it more pointless that golf, to be honest, and less interesting to watch. Hell, I'd rather watch pro-bowling than any random game of hoops.

But I am recording it, and I will likely watch it. And maybe even clap or root or some such along the way. Because anything that can help Cameron relate to other kids in his class is worth doing. And while, for his sake, I hope the Gophers win, I have to admit that it wouldn't break my heart if they lost. One game a year is more than enough for me.

Current Mood: bitchy

Happy Birthday to the most AMAZING WOMAN IN THE WORLD!!!!!! And who is this woman you might ask...

why... haraamis!!!!!! Of course. ~_^


LOVE YOU LADY!!!!! Hope you had a great B-Day!!!!

Current Mood: chipper

I have 14 days vacation to burn by mid July, so I'm taking tomorrow and Monday off.
Highlights so far -
Friday - Como Conservatory to see the Winter Flower Show (last day is this Sunday BTW).
Saturday - Socializing with friends.
Sunday - Going to church...a Peace Pole will be dedicated in memory of Ma and will be put in the church's garden once the ground is thawed.
Sunday or maybe Monday - Catching Mother Nature on the river and checking out the ice damns and flooding of some areas.
Big Highlight - 3 out of the 4 mornings....no alarm clock!! :-)

Practice last night was fantastic! Why is that, you ask? Well, because we worked on footwork, of course. For two hours straight!

/glee!/

What?, you say. Two hours of walking back and forth? That had to suck!

Au contraire, sez I. 'Twas just what the doctor ordered.

See, footwork is one of the most important things you can learn and practice in rapier, and, really, in just about any martial art, IMO. Along with consitency in stance (which I will reserve discussion of for another time), the ability to move in a fluid and consistent manner is vital if you want to be able to control the measure and, as a result, better control the fight.

How you move determines where you are in space. It determines your location relative to your opponent (measure), as well as what your options are in terms of attack and defense. If you are too far away, you can't attack properly; if you are too close, your options for attack may be severely limited, or even altered. The better you can control your movement, the better you can control your fight.

To many, this simply translates into taking more (or less) steps:

Opponent: (internal) Doug is taller than me and has gorilla arms: I need to take two steps to his one to keep the measure the same.
Doug: (internal) Sweet!
Opponent: "Um, good touch."
Doug. "Sweet!"

The problem with this is, even if you have a consistent pace (meaning, you cover the same distance with every advance or retreat), you're working twice as hard and performing twice as many actions as I am just to keep the game even. This is not wise. Worse, if you have an inconsistent pace (or you just, you know, mix in long strides to try and match me), your 2:1 step ratio may end up putting you either closer to or further from me than you planned, which can result in more work, dropped tempos, mis-judged measure, or worse. Assuming I know the length of my pace and can adjust my footwork smoothly, I can either be in your shorts or out of your measure almost at will.

So, the first thing you want to do is develop a consistent pace.# Why? Think of your standard pace as your base-line: once you know and internalize how far you are going to go (forward and back) when you take a step, you have a reference point. It then becomes easier to adjust that base metric while still knowing where you are in space. In other words, it becomes easier to manipulate your distance from the other fighter on the fly, since you already know how far a normal pace will carry you. This translates into less surprises, and one less thing to worry about. (And rapier is all about reducing the number of things you have to think about during the fight.)

But how do I do this? you ask. Did I mention two hours of footwork drills? Yeah, you have to muscle through it. You learn it by doing. A simple beginning drill is to start by placing something against your back foot (block of wood, stone, whatever). You then advance out several paces, then back the same number (without looking at the marker, smart guy...). Did you end where you started? If so, do it again; if not, pay more attention to your pace. After you get that down, advance out, then mix up your advances and retreats, always making sure you end up retreating the same number of paces you advanced in the end. Again, check where you end up.

Having established that, you can then begin to look at other ways to move. Things like cross-paces* and gathering steps/half-paces** are nice alternatives to be able to throw into the mix. Again, learn the mechanics of these so you 1) don't trip over yourself going forward and back, and 2) don't bob your body up and down (I emphasize this because so many people do it, and because it is such a dead give away). Practice these, then work on mixing them in with your normal paces during footwork drills. I recommend starting with the cross-pace, and with a simple 2-1-2-1-2-1 pattern, where you take two normal paces, one cross-pace, two normal, and so on. The goal is to transition from one to the other smoothly, without having to stop and think about where your feet go.***

Why do all this? Why not just, you know, advance and retreat? Well, by adding more paces to your repetoire, you give yourself more ways to adjut your measure. Want to draw someone in? Try retreating a pace at a time, to establish a pattern; once your opponent is used to taking one step forward for every step you take back, finish with a gathering step back. Your final step will be about half your normal pace, which means when your opponent comes forward a normal pace, they are that much closer to your sword. Woo-hoo! Need to close in smoothly? Mix in some cross-paces with your normal advance, and you'll creep in to where you want to be smoother than if you simply take more/faster advances.

Of course, there are a lot of other things you can do with footwork: adjusting your pace length as you move; slowly sloping off while seeming to advance normally; combining a compass with a gathering step at the end, so you are a half pace closer than they expect; and so on. The key is to practice these movements enough so that they are smooth and can be pulled off simply through intent on your part. You shouldn't have to stop and think, "Okay, after this pace, I want to do a cross pace, so I need to remember to lead with the back foot and..."). If it takes that much thought, you're dead.

So, two hours? Yeah, hardly scratching the surface. But time well spent.

# I am assuming you using a more or less traditional fencing step, where the front foot advances first and the back follows the same relative distance, ending with you still in stance. If you use a more "walking" style of advance and retreat, you will need to tweak some of what I describe to make it better fit with your pace.

* A cross-pace is where the back foot advances past the front, and then the front comes forward to put you back in stance, with your feet the same distance apart as when you started. Going backwards involves bringing the front foot back first past the rear, and repeating the above, only in reverse.

** Gathering steps (also sometimes referred to as Half Paces) involve the back foot coming forward to land just short of, or along side of, the front foot. The front foot then moves forward to settle you into stance. Retreating involves the front foot coming back to just before, or along side, the rear, and so on. Do not bring your rear foot fortward so that the heels meet (or so you look like you are ready to click them together, like a German officer in an old WWII movie). This will cause you to fall over yourself at some point, usually when backing up in a hurry. Likewise, I don't advise bringing the rear foot past the front foot's heel, or at the furthest past the beginning of the arch.

*** When doing the 2-1-2-1-2-1 drill, your back foot will come forward directly into the cross-pace after your front foot has made the second normal advance. In other words, your rear foot doesn't complete the second normal advance, but instead flow into the cross-pace. If you don't do this, you will end up "stuttering" the rear foot between the end of the second advance and the first cross-pace.

Current Mood: accomplished

One other fun thing from the last two weeks - I got two articles accepted to the new Knowne World Handbook! Newbies the Knowne World over will soon be unsuspectingly exposed to the goodness that is Eithni's Magic Veil Stitch and the Uberlist Packing List! Bwahahaha! Excellent, excellent... warping new minds...

(They did not accept my research and documentation articles (*sniff*), but I maintain that that is because they knew I would then have the power to take over the WORLD! *mad grin*)

Also:

zarhooie  has codified Eithni's Rules. I approve. 

Current Mood: geeky

I have some nice fern green and deep woad blue fabric in stock. The picture is somewhat brighter than the actual colors of the fabric - more a medium blue with a hint of grey and an olivey fern.  It's 60%-40% linen/cotton or cotton/linen (the vedor was not sure which) and I'd guess 4.5 oz. Generally I avoid cotton-contaminated fabrics, but this stuff is pretty nice and only $2.50 a yard. I'll have it at Jara practice on Wednesday - first come, first served.  

Current Mood: devious

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

*blows dust out of the corners of her LJ*

...The funny thing is, I made updating on a weekly basis one of my New Year's Resolutions. THREE MONTHS LATER... Yeeeeeeah, I need to update more, especially since I have a paid account/extra icons.

Various gaming stuff from the last few months:
- Bought, played, and enjoyed Dissidia. Story was meh, but gameplay is great. I really got into setting up builds for my characters. Characters I play are Firion, Gabranth, and Cecil. Beat Inward Chaos about a month ago. Keys to victory: AP grinding against a level 1 Chaos to learn his moves + realizing that the Edge of Madness is a very small stage and that Reel Axe and Weaponsmaster both have very long range.

- Final Fantasy XI continues to eat my free time: Dynamis on Mondays and Thursdays, Einherjar on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and Limbus on Wednesdays and Sundays. I am having a blast despite being so busy. I plan on doing a more detailed post on this at some point. There will be pictures and music; it will be fun. ^^

- I bought my first PS3 game on Saturday (no prizes for guessing which one it was). Was browsing in a GameStop, saw one of the limited edition hardcover strategy guides and went "DO WANT", and since they give you a discount when you buy the game and the guide together... This is despite not having an actual PS3 to play it on until the other half of my tax return gets here. My understanding is that the gameplay is more or less Gambits for Dummies. True? Y/N

- Speaking of Gambits... I have picked FF12 up again. Had to completely redo all my Gambits for everyone because OMG, so bad. How did I ever beat the game with these? Now they are streamlined and efficient! Stomped all over Pyrolaster, Fafnir (who, disappointingly, does not live in a tree), Behemoth King, and the Shadowseer. Next on my hit list: Ultima and Zodiark. Hell, I may even give Hell Wyrm and Yiazmat a try.

Current Mood: good

It's been a busy several weeks, so I have not been posting much. A quick update on the craziness that is my life follows.

I completed the Thing-a-Day challenge in February. Woot! That's three years running. I got a lot accomplished, but somehow only a few things off the to-do list that were there when February started. I really have to work on the queue... some things have been in there an embarrassingly long time! I considered continuing the challenge into March, but other, bigger projects took over (see below). Perhaps I'll run another personal one in May...

On March 1, sirzig  bought a bar and Mr Svein started spending a lot of time there doing renovations and other work about the place. I went over to help on Monday night, Tuesday night, all day Wednesday, and all day Thursday. My primary task was renovation of the ladies' room - not glorious, but VERY necessary. The stalls had been painted black and dark green (with a sandpaper finish), the walls were dulled with years of cigarrette smoke, and the lighting was abysmal. I painted the stalls and the ceiling supports, Countess A painted the ceiling tiles, doc_jock  replaced the lighting fixtures, and I cleaned the whole place. *shudder* I had to mop the floor twice before I was willing to get close enough to it to scrub it. :P Happily, the floor cleaned up reasonably well and the walls were a sunshine yellow once the gross was scrubbed off. The new lighting ended up being a little much , so I need to go in and trade out some of the 60W bulbs for 40Ws and finish up the mirror, but otherwise the place is looking like some place I'd willingly enter. 

Friday the 5th there was a conference in town, so there were a bunch of pharmageeks about town and I went out to lunch with some of them and then showed my co-worker what I had done on my  "days off" at the bar. She like the bathroom, but didn't believe we would be opening the bar that weekend - everything was still a sawdust-covered jumble...  After work, the pharmageeks were going out, but I was supposed to do something with mightyjesse . Plans kept getting revised and then finally cancelled. I ended up running across town to goldfrog 's place to deal with the loose ends that had been dropped and got to visit a bit, which was good. Then I got some alone-time at home which was very nice... 

Saturday was again mostly spent at the bar and at 6:30PM came the big push to get things ready to open. At 7Pm, things were still in a state of disarray, but  -sure enough - with the crowd of SCAfolk that decended, the place was cleared out, mopped, dusted, and ready for business at 8PM. Hurray for well-trained clean-up crews. I was going to just do some sewing there, and so initiate the crafting-in-a-bar tradition at that location, but once I learned that peanut shells were going to be discarded on the (I just mopped that!) floor, I got out my dried moss and started playing with bits of plant matter too... Why did I have a bag of moss, you ask? Well...

My research on Norse children had been chosen to be the Northshield entry into the Gulf Wars A&S Warpoint and so I wanted to make some physical items to send with my research project. *I* think research is ten kinds of sexy, but many people don't really care unless they see something shiny, so I made some shinies. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I worked on some sewing. Tuesday, I went to class, went to corvusjoyous's to do some woodworking, and to the hospital to inspect mightyjesse's spawn. Wednesday, I hung out with ego_id_non_feci, we did some materials acquisition, and then went to see the bebe again. Thursday was more woodworking, "pottery", and some jewelry making by Mr Svein and the visiting zarhooie. Friday I dropped off most of the physical items and then pulled an all-nighter finishing the "pottery" and the research documents, including a complete reorganization of the presentation. The end result is pretty damn spiffy and I actually sort of dig all-night geekouts, so it was sort of fun in a sick way. In the end, I had rocktastic research, plus a baby chair, balls, toy horses, tunics, jewelry, wooden swords, and more... I'll post details at some point, probably once I convert the files to PDFs and put them up somewhere. Right now the research document alone is over 40 pages and needs to be split into four Word docs in order to make it email-able, not even counting the reports on the projects or the supporting documentation. :P Obsess? Who, me? 

Saturday the 13th, I went to A&K's wedding on about 20 minutes of napping snuck in the car and in the pew before the service. There was serious crashing once I got home, then zarhooie  and Svein and I went for dinner before Mr Svein went to work. We went to go pester himathere and meet up with ego_id_non_feci , who was having computer problems. We went back to my place for booze of various fancy sorts - zarhooie  did a lot of swearing at the computer and I did a lot of cleaning while ego_id_non_feci was our external motivation. Eventually Mr Svein came home and he was actually able to fix the computer.

Sunday started late, but with pancakes! Then we saw zarhooie  off on the next leg of her trip, sewed ego_id_non_feci a shirt to test my shirt pattern generation algorithm, did some shopping for mightyjesse , had lunch, then went over to hang out with mightyjesse  and little Miss Em. My house is still a wreck from a week+ of intensive crafting, but progress has been made and I did enough laundry to have clean socks this mornign, at least.

So... yeah... a busy few weeks. The coming ones should be busy as well, but perhaps not quite so intense!

Speaking of future fun plans - For those of you that can make it in to town, the formal Grand Opening of sirzig 's bar is planned to be this Saturday, the 20th! I hope to see many of you there!

Current Mood: tired

1. Wandered to the gas station with the kids.
2. Used coffee brought from home to clean up from son couging up half a lung (and his stomach) on the sidewalk.
3. Bought two slushies at gas station.
4. Bought another slushie after one got spilled.
5. Used blue service station towels to clean up jacket when it was discovered blowing bubbles into second slushie doesn't produce the desired effects.
6. Stopped by the coffee shop.
7. Bribed older son to get me coffee while talked with neighbors hanging out at shop.
8. Went to park.
9. Determined there was still enough coffee in the cup to keep it after it was knocked over.
10. Wandered towards home. Stopped to talk to same neighbors, who were also walking home.
11. Discovered Cameron has a knack for the pogo stick (yikes!)
12. Determined there was still enough coffee in the cup to keep it after it was knocked over again.
13. Wandered home.
14. Still determining if kids' boots will be dry in time for school tomorrow.

Current Mood: cheerful

Saga linkfest

Mostly for my own records, but I thought some of you might want it too...

Current Mood: geeky

I have to be honest…the last few weeks have been pretty rough for me. Ma’s birthday would have been tomorrow, and the 25th marks a year since she died. It hurts...I hurt. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach and then run over by a truck. One minute I am fine...the next I feel like sobbing (or I start to sob and force myself to stop). I know I should just let it out because crying is supposed to be good. Maybe I don’t want to cry alone…maybe I wish I had a companion who would hold and comfort me and not judge me for the whimpering girl that I need to be for awhile.
I haven’t called my dad in weeks…I’m afraid to hear the pain in his voice as he talks about missing her. I feel so guilty for not calling him…I know that I just need to pick up the phone and make that call.
Sleep…of course I’d feel better if I got a lot more rest and sleep. I don’t have a valid reason for staying up...thinking I’m going to miss something in the world or not having someone there to spoon with are not good reasons.
Feeling incredible loss and not enough sleep have opened some of the doors of my brain…letting some of the not-so-positive thoughts of the “would haves” and “what ifs” of my life enter. There are a few things that I strongly desire…they haven’t happened yet and I’m trying not to feel like a failure because of them. Only time will tell if they happen or not, and I must accept that.
Work…I could go on about that, but maybe I’ll create a separate post for that in the near future.

Current Mood: melancholy

I found and apt. and a roommate in Charlotte. ^_^ Her name is Ashley and she seems pretty cool. We'll be moving sometime in May.

Current Mood: excited