Strange on many levels...

I kid you not. Here is a link to a flickr photo set of the annual Furries vs. Trekkers bowling match.

Better than Disneyland

I've been camped out as it were at ORF (Ohio Ren Fair) this week as we have two mandatory kids days. These are about as fun as a root canal. Add to this that is ALWAYS rains these two days and that my booth leaks... Well what can I say?
Last weekend here was tolerable, but pretty freakin hot. I hoped to put the two off days to good use but building a new sales desk but the temp shot into the 90's and I had to get into some AC. We did get some shoping done and had movie night at the booth.(more about that later).
Meanwhile in Michigan my understaffed crew pulled in two FAT sales days. They even managed to sell the $1200 leather Demonatrix outfit for CASH. I drive back up there tomorrow to finish up the show.
It's been odd being back at ORF. While the site is not as well laid out as other shows (and the food is the worst of any show) the place has got some charm. We have a nice chapel, a pond, the coolest pirate ship stage, a great glass blower and some of the trees planted years ago are now looking like real trees instead of shrubs. ORF also has the feel of an actual town in that we can stay in our booths. There's thursday night music jams and Monday morning breakfasts over at Parkers shop. I'll often just walk the grounds at night for the pleasure of it. Ohio has its charms I guess.

No fatties or ugly chicks...

I present to you a story from across the pond where a woman was denied access to a club because her crutches (which she needs to walk) could be used as "Offensive Weapons". She seems a bit miffed and has contacted several disability advocates. She can't understand why the club didn't use some common sense. After all, as the article points out, any unfixed object can be used as a weapon. Purses don't seem to be searched there so you could bring in a whacking big knife or a tactical nuke if you were so inclined.

So how could this have happened? I'll tell you how. Go read the article. Or, if you're in a hurry just take a peek at the woman in question. Still not sure why she wasn't given access? I suspect that the doorman was simply weeding out fatties and ugly chicks and she didn't make the cut. I suspect if she had looked like this, she'd have walked right in. But we can't have imperfect people at our pleasuredomes. Go check out any TV show that shows a club scene. CSI Miami, Burn notice, anything. Ever see a normal looking person? Hell no. Ugly people should go to dark, seedy bars (unless that bar is Coyote Ugly, in which case you can just stay at home).

On the up side, if she gets a good lawyer, she could buy a nice new car with the settlement from the lawsuit. Awesome.

Love....exciting and new.....

I had the very good fortune to meet and fall madly in love with Rossana when I was a younger man. But there was a time when I was single (a period we call "The dark times"). I can't claim that I had any special skill at "picking up chicks". I was devastatingly charming (lucky) and somehow managed to meet several nice people who I dated for a while through the theater or the medieval groups I belonged to. But I understand full well how hard it can be to meet people. And it can be even harder if you're looking for that special someone who not only thought Lord of the Rings was the best. film. evar. but who can speak a smattering of Elven and can order G'ack in Klingoneese.

In short, it can be hard to meet a fellow geek.

Geeks are becoming much more mainstreak these days. Being a gamer or a Treker no longer means you will remain a virgin. Far from it. But weeding through dense jungle of online dating strikes me as a daunting task. That why I think that Soulgeek.com is such a neat idea. An online dating site for geeks, fan-boys and fan-girls. If you're single, or know a geek that is, you might want to check them out. I'm not getting any kickback or anything. I just saw the site being pimped over at PvPonline and thought I'd pass it on.

Super cool tool system

If anyone happens to win the lottery in the next few months, I would be quite happy to receive one of these as a present. The Mobile-Shop looks pretty damn sweet (even if the website looks like poo). All modular with tons of storage and wheels. It even comes complete with tools, screws, nuts bolts, tape, everything. The weird thing is that it doesn't seem to have storage for many power tools. A storage unit for a cordless drill and circular saw would be nice, as they are what you use 90% of the time during construction projects.

About Me...

A lot of people want to know "Who is Steve Pack?" Well I'll tell you.

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

A Gentleman's Duel

I have been looking for this ever since I heard about it several months ago. Check it out quickly, at it likely won't be up for long:

Fracking whiner...

That would be me of course. I've barely moved in two days. I flip between cold and short bursts of fever where I sweat profusely. All the while generating huge amounts of lung butter and snot. The drugs seem to do nothing. I am getting very little done.

And then I remember my friend Patrick, who is undergoing Chemo and another friend who suffered a fucking stroke a week or so ago.

So at this point I will shut my damn pie hole about how bad I have it. I don't have it bad at all. I have a frackin cold.

My only worry now is getting stock and whether I'll be well enough to work this weekend. In my eighteen or so years doing this I haven't missed many work days. We can't afford to. The last time was food poisoning at the SCA event Gulf Wars. That took me out for two whole days and had me at half capacity the rest of the time. On the other hand I don't want to make my minions (or customers) sick. I have to go to Michigan, there's no avoiding that. But if I'm not better I might just hand the show off to them and keep resting.

Really Freakin tired...

The labor day weekend was, from a business perspective, ass-kickingly good. I think we broke our record up in Michigan. Ohio was slower, but was hampered by limited stock. Every one of my minions worked their asses off and it showed. I simply could not have done this by myself. Period.

The down side was that for whatever reason, I simply didn't sleep well at all. And by Monday I was dragging something fierce. I couldn't keep up. My throat was raw and my eyes hurt. Then I started getting call from Lindsey. Corsets were coming in with popped stays, corsets only a year old and gently worn. I had two customers with complaints up in Michigan. The cherry on this crap sandwich was a report that one corset came back because it had NO stays at all on one side. They hadn't popped out, they'd just not been inserted to begin with! Statistically, this is a really small number of corsets compared to what I sell every year, but I like to think I'm selling quality and durability.

I had to call Thomas, who was down at DragonCon (grr) and let him know that quality control needs to be reviewed. Seriously. I know it's not his direct fault, but he's the one I can talk to so he get to hear me bitch.

Oh, and the scratchy throat has now apparently blossomed into a cold. Joy.

Hacked!

I just discovered that one of my clients websites has been hacked. Needless to say, I am most displeased. How did this happen? Pretty simple. The client had a pretty easy to guess user name and password. Do YOU change your passwords regularly? Are they a combination of letters and numbers? Do you use the same user name and password on lots of sites? I bet a lot of you do.

Luckily the damage was minimal. They tried to redirect paypal payments to a disposable email account. A pretty unsophisticated hack. I immediately changed the user name and password to something much harder to guess, then I password protected the admin page itself with a different password. I then changed the FTP password. Then I tracked down the little bastards I.P. range. He's somewhere in Brazil most likely so I can't just drive to his place and mess with him personally.
My clients are my friends. And I don't like people fucking with my friends.

Did I mention the tornado?

When we left for Michigan on Friday we were running late. It always happens. You forget stuff, the phone rings the cats need to be fed. Whatever. We weren't worried because we set up the tent at Camp Jellystone near the Michigan Ren last week and all we were going to do at the site was drop off more stock.

As a result of leaving late we caught the Detroit traffic and by the time we'd gotten past it we ran into the "Thunderstorms" that weather.com had said we would experience. What this turned out to be was a blotting out of the sun and a wall of water that slowed us to a crawl for a half hour. This was actually a good thing. When we arrived at the campground it appeared that a tornado might have strolled right on through. Power was out and trees were knocked down everywhere. Several camping trailers had been hit by falling trees and half the tents in the little rennie camp area had been destroyed or knocked down or flooded. Honestly, it looked a lot like Biloxi again. We rolled in just as people were coming out of hiding to check on things. Luckily, no one was hurt, which is amazing as several people rode out the storm IN their tents. Our tent was hit by several branches which bent one support and tore a small hole in the rain fly. But we were still standing and dry.

People at the camp wasted no time. Chainsaws appeared and limbs were dragged into huge piles. Everyone chipped in. Within an hour our area was relatively tree-free. I was also a filthy mess. I offered our tent to anyone who needed crash space and we spent the night with our friends Monkey and Diane near Detroit. Power was still out at the camp on Saturday night but we stayed there anyway.

I took a few pics with my phone camera but they just don't do the damage justice.

The fair opened despite the weather, having suffered no great damage from what I saw. And we proceeded to have one KICK ASS weekend in sales. The vibe at the shop was great and the team worked very well together, including a new minion named Michele.

God I love the British

Not physically, of course. Their teeth scare me. But their sense of humor is just great and I enjoy fast paced work like this:


And if you like that, head over to fullyramblomatic.com for more of the same.

Pics from GenCon

Sadly, I didn't get to take very many. Too busy working. But I did grab a few and here they are.

The New addition to the family...

And here it is. Our new booth at the Great Lakes Medieval Faire. Obtaining it was an adventure fraught with stress and worry but in the end we got a good deal and a good booth.

Flooding???

We finished the three week marathon that was Great Lakes, Pennsic and GenCon. It was brutal at times but we made it and I am glad we did all three events. So what was my reward when I arrived home? A mysterious water leak in my house.

There is a trench or pipe that runs under the floors of the house. It's basically an air duct for the air conditioner on the roof. When I fired up the AC today to cool down the muggy house I heard a strange gurgling. It seemed to come from everywhere but we quickly narrowed it down to the pipe in the floor. It was completely filled with water. I tried sucking the water out with my shop vac but after thirty trips outside to dump the water I was making no headway. I went to the hardware store and rented a sump pump, but it was the kind you sit in a large flooded area, it didn't fit in the pipe. Back to the hardware store. This time we got a pump used for draining pools. We hooked it up and an hour later we'd emptied more of the water, but not all of it. I stopped and waited a few hours and the pipe has partially refilled. Of course this process made a huge mess in the kitchen where we were working.

I have no freaking clue where the water is coming from. We spent gobs of money to prevent just this sort of thing. There is a fucking rubber sheet covering the ENTIRE roof. The best we can figure is that the huge amount of rainfall has caused water to build up and leak through some small gap in our defenses. And water will just keep moving until it finds a way out. Maybe the water is from the side yard, maybe the roof, maybe a drainage line from the garage is broken. I have no easy way to know or find out. This is the pain in the ass of non-standard home construction. We are constantly trying to figure out how the place was built, why they did things the way they did, and how they fucked it up.

With the rain (hopefully) over I'm hoping the water leak will stop. If it doesn't then there's some kind of water line leak, which would be so bad as to be unimaginable. So far I don't believe this to be the case as running water lines make noise and I don't hear anything yet. What a great treat to come home to.