Metal Pirates!

And now for your listening pleasure: Alestorm.

I'm not sure if these guys are god awful or awfully good. Post your opinion.



Listen to more here at Last.fm

More clever monkeys

Ok, I'm gonna need someone to take my wallet for a few weeks so I cannot order this thing. I mean, a working tricorder media player? For $350? Dammit! This is the kind of thing I would have given my left nut for a back in my more fervent fanboy days. And now that I'm a "responsible" adult I'm supposed to 'just say no'? Fuck that!

Okay... deep breath. As long as I don't ever actually touch one in person I should be safe.

Maybe.

Jesus Christ it's a Lion! Get in the car!

There was no greater genius than DaVinci. And this shit right here proves it.

Get up that hill

There's no way around it. This season, most recently this Pennsic War event was pretty brutal. I feel like I have been stumbling around, unable to get a solid footing. And when I thought I was on solid ground, something would rush up and smack me. Car problems, friends and acquaintances telling me of rough times, health problems, divorce, job loss.

And business? It was down almost 45 percent. That's a huge fucking drop. Then there were the rains and the inevitable mud. What else, oh yeah; my goddamned nemesis Beverle parked her ass right across the street from us. The single worst vendor I have ever known. A liar and a cheat. Kicked out of six different Ren-Faire's. Yet she somehow suckered some poor merchant to give her some space to set up her crap. Swell.

My chief minion Lindsey, who I love like my own kid has been a bit of a fuck up recently. I won't go into details. She's hit a hard patch like the rest of us.

We left Pennsic after the usual dark-thirty loadout. Rossana in a grim mood because Pennsic doesn't feel like Pennsic to her anymore (and that hurts to hear) only to have a full day of rain the next day at Great Lakes with accompanying shitty sales. The vendors at the show are now being cited by the local town for not having a 'local transient vendors license', something we don't fucking need under Ohio law but still threatens the livelihood of everyone working the show. Everyone is on pins and needles. Rumors run rampant.

Then we got the cherry. Russ shows up. He's an on site EMT. He tells us that his brother Hoss died at Pennsic that morning.

I've known Hoss for something like 7 years now. He was overweight, crude, politically incorrect, a know-it-all and an overall great guy. He took shitty care of himself but once threatened to kill a guy who accidentally cut the power to his camper where he kept his dogs diabetes medicine in the fridge. I talked with him Friday morning as we rushed around getting ready to pack up. Russ claimed he wasn't broken up about it, that he and his brother were just on polite terms. But he was seething. Hoss was told by EMT's on site at Pennsic three times that he was having a heart attack and he refused to go to the hospital. You just couldn't tell Hoss what to do.

At this point I just wanted to go home. But we couldn't. Sunday was the hottest day of the summer so far as I could tell. And the longest. We rolled in at about 11pm last night but we head out Wednesday morning for GenCon, which I pray isn't bad.

At Pennsic our camp it at the bottom of a hill. And every day you have to climb that hill. I've been doing it at Pennsic for something like 24 years. This year it took more, much more to get up that hill. It's not that I'm in bad shape. It was just the weight of all the things around me, pressing down. It would be easy just to stay in camp. A lot of my friends do. They seem content with that. But I can't. And this year once again showed me that stopping is not an option. Gotta keep moving. I've gotta get up that hill.

I never thought I'd be happy to see Winter and the end of a season.

Midnight madness

This is the day that all the merchants stay open late and offer
incentives to lure people I to their shops. The streets are lit with
lanterns and torches. How did we do? Meh. Way below last year But it
doesn't matter. Because there's an almost full moon whose rays stream
through the trees and a thick mist on the lake. It's beautiful beyond
words and that is truly the more important thing.

Sent from my iPhone

Blurry

More light rain again this morning. No need to get up. Sleep... I am
awakened by someone in out camp pounding on an anvil, literally. No
more sleep. It's late. I stumble to the shower but the water Is
lukewarm at best. Grim and Kayra waylay me with banana bread, juice
and eggs. We chat. I should be up on merchants row trying to sell. But
my energy level has been so low. Some of the time I just don't hive a
crap. I don't want to deal with people. I think to myself "I'm done".
I think that working Pennsic, an event that has always been a
vacation, was a bad idea. But more than that is the fact that my own
camp has changed so much. People I don't know whom I dont have much of
a shared history with. Mundane conversations at the campfire. I feel
slightly out of place.

The crappy weather and poor sales haven't helped things, but it really
isn't about money. Am I still having fun? Is there still magic here?
We have six days left. I'll let you know what I find.

Sent from my iPhone

Pennsic night

Late. Very late. I wander into camp just as the women folk are getting ready for a night out.
I sit with the men folk and have a cider. A pipe is
passed and I find myself wandering over to Vlads for the slave auction. I finally get to say hi to Ariana who got to attend Pennsic thanks to her father (whom she hates) dying, thus getting her out of Qatar. The butler in me takes over and I help serve some great pomegranite mead and canapé. It's hot, a light rain Patters on against the roof of be tent. I stumble back to camp where Wine and Alchemy are playing. I visit Darter who is busy cooking up sausages at one am. We eat. Tasty. It feels more like Pennsic now. Eyes are heavy. Feet so tied. Only a so-so day. Another long solo day tomorrow. The heat saps my energy. I need sleep.

I am not a number.. I am a free man!

It was many years ago that I first heard the original BBC show 'The Prisoner'. I say heard, not saw. My brother recorded them and played them for me when he visited. (No VCR, No tivo in those ancient times) It was a trippy show. Even more so when I actually got to see it. And the ending? Pure madness.

Now it's being redone. But from what I can see, it looks and FEELS just as whacked out (if not more so) than the original. Behold.

Joy

This upcoming Pennsic will mark my 10 year anniversary. I enjoyed my own wedding. I enjoyed having my family come and play with us a little while. I enjoyed creating my own service, not going into debt or having to rent a church/hall/limo, I loved having chicken wings and having Pennsic as our reception.

Weddings can be a source of joy, and I am all for anything that brings joy into the world. So with that in mind here is a great wedding procession/dance number.

Preparing to sprint

The lineup: Great Lakes, then Pennsic, then Gen-Con and then opening Michigan. It's gonna be fun, especially since our van has decided it needs yet another expensive repair. Sweet!

Right now I am working on a new system to get swiped credit card transactions to work out at Great Lakes. It involves a laptop, a usb card reader, a printer, and Lindseys' new Verizon phone used as a modem by tethering it. All I have to do is get all of these items to work seamlessly together and I'm in business. Piece of cake.

Rossana got the results of her tests back and she seems to be doing okay. Apparently she had an ulcer at one point, but it healed up. She's taking some previcid and trying to keep her stress levels down. Thanks the Gods she got the go ahead to eat some of her favorite foods again. if this woman doesn't get some chocolate soon she will flip out.

I try to respect other beliefs, but sometimes I think its important to listen to some of the faithfuls actual words. So here they are:

Playing hookey

I looked out at the deck. It sat there, mocking me in its ugliness.

"You'll never get rid of me" it said. "There will always be more pressing projects."

"But I hate you." I said to the wood and brick monstrosity.

"I know, but it's too late to do anything this summer anyway. You open Great Lakes in a weeeeeeeek" it hissed at me.

And then I got the crowbar and screw gun.

In a couple of hours the railing was gone and I was working on the flooring. But the weather kept threatening rain. Also, tearing out the deck turned out to be...you know...work.

"We need to get out of here!" I said.

"Are you talking to me or the deck this time?" my wife asked.

"What? You, of course. Pack a bag. We're leaving."

And so we did. We grabbed our passports, some money and a change of clothes and took off for Niagara Falls. It's been many years since my last visit and I've never done a lot of the touristy things there. That was about to change. We took the more western Peace bridge and sailed through customs. Then we drove along the lovely Niagara Parkway. Once we hit the town we parked and set off for adventure. We rode the Maid of the Mist, which was awesome. In the morning we drove North into wine country. We visited a butterfly conservatory, a printing museum, bought some fresh cherries and indulged a dream of mine, a helicopter trip.

You know how I've blabbed that I wouldn't have a problem sitting next to a 'brown person' on an airplane because fear mongering in stupid? Well, I got the chance to put my money where my mouth was.

It seems a nice Muslim family wanted to take a helicopter ride. Ok. Cool. But then the men didn't want to go along. Just the wives (wearing burkas) and kids. Ooookay. Then the fuss started. You see, any time you go to an attraction at Niagara Falls, someone will snap your picture for the inevitable souvenir photo at the end. I knew this wasn't going to go well. The dutifull young woman tried to take shots of all of us and the women kept trying to tell her that they DID NOT want their picture taken. It was, in a word, awkward. Once the copter arrived we piled in. Strangely, they put one of the mothers in the front next to the pilot, and me, Rossana, the other mom and the two kids in the back. Why not keep that group together? Why not put the one male adult in the front? I don't know and there was no chance to debate when there are whiling blades of death above you.

Off we go, and it was AWESOME. I took some video with the new phone which I'll post soon. It was a trip flying high above the Falls. The helicopter was buffeted a little by the winds which gave it that slight roller coaster feeling. I can't tell of the ladies enjoyed the trip, and the one little boy sitting across from me spent most of the trip eyeballing ME as if I might do something crazy.

We crossed over to the American side and parked on Goat Island. I wanted to visit the cave of the winds (where you walk right up to the bottom of the waterfall and can also go behind it. But the wait was between 2-3 hours. Fail.

We strolled to the Amercian and Horseshoe edges before deciding to head home (with a quick stop to the Anchor Bar in Buffalo for some take out wings, of course).

I'm glad we took the trip, it's our last chance before the season starts and it's all work.

Update! Pics are Here.

Nothing happened today..

I was keen to see what was happening in Iran over the weekend, but I couldn't. Apparently the death of Michael Jackson was the ONLY goddamn thing worth covering for four days straight.

But I don't want to be disrespectful of the dead, so here a small bird moonwalking.

Post-Party.....

Wow.

That was a good party. If you missed it, well...what can I say that will make you feel better? Nothing. That's what. If you missed it I feel very sorry for you. Your life is poorer for it and I hope you can join us next year.


I had a blast. We launched our newest boat onto the pond and not only did my repairs work we had ship to ship water battles. That helped us keep much cooler. Bison Burgers? Tasty. Lots of Frisbee hacking. Some friends dropping by who I haven't seen in literally years.

My friends Joe and Christine from Monolith Graphics put together a VERY cool scavenger hunt over the entire property with a sweet map and prizes. I've wanted to do that for years but never had the time and focus. It was a blast.

Ed brought some amazing ribs and let me take his 911 for a spin at VERY LEGAL AND REASONABLE SPEEDS WHILE OBEYING ALL TRAFFIC LAWS.

So much food and drink...

Showed off some new corsets materials and the scarves from Turkey.

And fireworks? The theme this year was "Hard times". We did a short and fairly lame routine to a polite applause, then brought out round two. More boom, a couple of mini mortars. More applause and the crowd assumed that was it. Tthen we brought out the big stuff. Lots of bangs, big finale. Looked great. And all while sticking to a much smaller budget this year.

Drums were produces and two musicians played guitar and fiddle. I took a few people for candle lit rides in the darkened pond.

Clean up this morning wasn't too bad. Items left behind include some flip flops, a car key,a silver wrist bracelet and two people we found sleeping on a futon in the back of their car.

I can't thank everyone enough who came out to our remote little Hobbit Hole. I hope you had as good a time as I did. If you took pictures please send me a disk or post them to flickr and send me a link.

Father-Son moment

Last week my Dad drove down from Boston, on his motorcycle again, at 72, despite having broken his neck a little over a year ago.

This act of sheer ballsiness shamed me into getting my own bike up and running again. It wasn't a huge project. I needed to actually order the new battery I'd put off and go get an oil filter. I didn't expect much. The bike hasn't run for quite a while. But with an oil change and some elbow grease, she fired right up. I spent a few hours cleaning her up and helping my Dad change the oil on his Honda Pacific Coast.

The experience was very strange for me. My parents were divorced when I was quite young, my brother went to life with my Dad while I was raised by my Mom and her second husband (who had his own son). But they eventually divorced when I entered Jr. High. As such, I never really had any of those father/son moments as I hit my teen years. My Mom, bless her heart, was amazingly cool with my strange hobbies and friends and did a great job as a single parent. And I learned to travel and to appreciate history and many other subjects from Jack Ellis, my Big Brother (Mentoring program). But he was more of a kindly Uncle or Grandfather figure. I just seemed to miss out on that special kind of cool bonding that some kids get with their Dad. And to tell the truth I'm sorry I did now.

I have never looked back at my childhood and regretted much of anything. I had a roof over my head, clothes, an allowance. I wasn't abused. Things were, for me, pretty good. But some of these kinds of moments would have been pretty nice too. I'm glad I had the chance to share one, even if it did take a while to happen.



So when we sat in the shop talking and working on our bikes it took me a while to even recognize we were having one of those special moments.