Wednesday, November 03, 2010

A small slip of paper...

A few years ago I brought a dollar and a piece of paper folded into an envelope to Denny's for my annual get together with old friends. (I haven'r missed this in 26 years). I set out a challenge. Each of us would write down a list of five things we would try to do in the next year simply for the joy of it.  The first person to do all five wins the dollar.

So far none of us have won. We tend to forget the list you see. Ed and Cat came close with three things. Anyways last year Rossana filled out a slip and I got to read it this year in her absence. It said "Be more spontaneous" as her No 1. thing to bring joy to her life. The other four items were arrows pointing to the first item.

I thought that rather odd, since I think of ourselves as somewhat spontaneous. But in fact we aren't. We don't have a boring 9 to 5 existence, but the last few years has involved a lot of responsibilities, planning and fretting. Taking care of her father has been difficult for Rossana in many ways. She's strong, but it takes a lot out of her. I do what I can, but she is doing the lions share of the work and its stressing her. Being truly spontaneous can be kinda hard when you take care of a family member as well as run your own business. You never seem to be truly away from work.

So today I decided to take the advice she wrote down on the slip of paper on her behalf. We drove to the local AAA office and decided then and there to go "somewhere". Going to Europe was something I knew she wanted to do, but getting a flight wasn't easy or in any way cheap. So we opted to go to Florida for a few days. We've been dying to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter as well as the Animal Kingdom hotel at Disney. So that's what we opted for. Just a short trip to celebrate her birthday and get away from her responsibilities for a little while.

Of course, we'll need to call the pet sitter, send out those pending orders, answer emails about custom orders, rack the stock, find our if we owe any state sales tax, update the website with new stock items, make sure the nursing home knows how to reach us, check the brakes of the Honda, get cat food, pay a few bills and pack.

But after we do all that...yeah...totally spontaneous trip.

Monday, October 25, 2010

The return of the ancient one...

With our season over I found myself with an actual weekend free. And thanks to Facebook I was made aware of a Medieval Feast held by my old friends in Dagorhir.

Dagorhir is a kind of LARP (Live Action Role Playing) but with less magic and more hitting with foam weapons. I joined when I was about 16 and through it met some of my longest held and best friends. At one point I even held the title of King. It was great fun but also taught me a lot of things. Politics, negotiation, how to work the system, tactics and a lot more. It was a huge part of my teenage years.

I don't know when I last attended an event but its been quite a few years. None of my old friends participates any more, what with jobs and kids and life, except for the current "King" of the local group. If I went, at least 1 person would know me. So I rooted around in the garage until I found two weapons, covered in dust and cobwebs. I picked out some garb and grabbed some feast gear and was off to Hinckley. When I arrived I had my weapons inspected by a stout young kid.

"How old are these weapons?" he asked.

"How old are you?" I asked. He eyed me up and down, a living fossil.

"These are ancient swords from the before time, in the long-long ago. They were made by master weapons smiths. They'll pass."

And pass they did. I was told the bulk of the people were in the woods fighting. I am in no shape to be running around in the woods. I was hoping to do some one on one sparring. Show the younglings some veteran moves. No such luck. I heaved my bulk through the woods to the  center of the battle, which had a kind of Halloween monster theme which was waaaaaay too complex for me. I had no idea exactly who I was supposed to kill. Also, these guys had armor and pretty large shields while I had 2 small swords, one of which was grasped in my slightly damaged right arm. I got into it with a Ware-wolf I believe. We killed each other in a flurry of blows. As I went to lie on the ground (where I had to count to 60 in order to be 'resurrected') I felt my right knee twinge.

I fought one or two more short battles before the battle mercifully ended. I actually enjoyed being in the woods again. I was fairly light on my feet when I was 12 years younger and 20 pounds lighter. These days? Not so much. At the cabin where the feast was to take place I relaxed and listened to the young fighters. There were a lot of them. Attendance was good and that made me quite happy. They had there own units and households. Some came from different 'kingdoms' as far away as New York and Indiana. I was disappointed that so few had any kind of persona. There was a lot of talk about the battle, or battles past. But it sounded more like jocks talking about a football game. Did we talk that way back when I was a kid? Probably. Dagorhir is a sport. Those in better shape tend to do well.

I helped out in the Kitchen (it's the Butler in me) helping to get the food out to the serving area, getting the mulled cider ready. The meat portion was from a caterer. I have to problem with that call. I remember some feasts where the food was just awful. After gorging ourselves I got to talking with another veteran and a few young people. I talked about where I'd traveled. Here the ipad came in handy since I sensed my younger audience suspected I was just BS'ing. Someone built a fire outside and when I joined it I was surprised to hear people actually singing. It wasn't great singing, but that didn't matter. These were songs of gypsies and warriors. Battles and lost loves. Good stuff. Less modern talk. We didn't have much singing at fires when I was younger. I decided to introduce myself and tell a few tales. Share some jokes. They went over quite well.  I stayed late into the evening swapping battle stories.  I left at about 1am.

I wasn't sure what I'd find when I went back to the game that played such an important part of my life growing up. It was different, and it was the same. So many new faces, young faces full of energy. So earnest, so dedicated. I talked with a young man who ended up telling me about his life. His girlfriend was pregnant and he was working as an apprentice tattoo artist. Money was so tight. He was trying to give up smoking "for the kid, y'know?" and I remembered all the tragedies and heartbreaks that my friends and I went through when we were his age. All the stupid choices and the grand schemes. You'd think that faced with these real life issues we would have stopped wasting our time with a dumb game. But this game was our whole circle of friends. We helped each other, counseled each other. We learned, we loved and we lost together.It was a game, but it wasn't just an amusement.It was important.

The next day I paid for my frolic in the woods with stiff joints and a weariness I wore like a cloak. I doubt I will get another chance to attend an event for quite a while, but I'm very glad I went. Part of me would be overjoyed to get back into the game. To be Erik the Bard instead of Erik the Salesman. Since its Winter, maybe I can make it out to a Battle or Two. I still have a few moves to teach these young punks.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Not this again...

While never actually stop working we do have a busy season and a not-busy season. We're just about to wrap up the busy part. And it's been pretty good I think. It could have been better, sure. But we're still afloat. We ended in the black. Good. We could use a few more weeks of Ren Fair, but at this point I'm glad we are winding down. Every year we have to deal with some problem or other. Right now its our supplier.

He's basically a one man operation. He has minions but he's the one who is in charge and quite simply he's so busy he's fucking up our orders and the orders of our customers. Earlier this season one of him minions fucked up and didn;t fill in some paperwork and we missed being able to do Pennsic. Admittedly Pennsic would have been slow for sales due to the heat but that isn't the freakin point.

I honestly don't know what to do because we talk and talk and he assures me that he's working to get his shit straightened out. But it doesn't. And now I'm fielding calls and emails from customers who haven't gotten their orders in MONTHS. This is one of the reasons I stopped working for another guy, his inability to deliver what he promised.

I know I'm not his only customer but I am his biggest customer. Maybe it's time to start working on a backup plan.

Thursday, October 07, 2010

Chores

The past two weeks I have been engaged in trying to "get shit done". Not the normal, every day run-of-the-mill shit, but  shit that has been neglected or that has been in my head but never started. These tasks have been hampered not by my laziness. No! I am help back by the Laws of fucking Thermodynamics! (i.e. Objects at rest stay at rest).

Getting these things started has been tough. Mostly because they aren't fun projects, or cool. But they need to get done. I finally broke down and hired an old friend of mine, Tony to come help me out. Being around people doing work makes me work to work too. So, thanks to Tony being present I've totally cleaned up the garage, installing new lights as well. Tony painted to barely used shelves and now crap is stored MUCH better. Today we started on painting the barn, which badly needs it.

The shop is also getting some attention. It's still a bit of a mess but it's in use almost constantly for one messy project or another. Hard to keep shit organized when you're using tools and building things.  There are still 2,483 projects that NEED to get done, but I feel like I'm at least trying to make a dent.

Friday, October 01, 2010

Fail

I've been screwing around with a very simple electronics project for about a week now. Literally, its just a switch. But the damn thing has to fit into such a small space its driving me crazy. I need to step back from the project and come at it with fresh eyes.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

We have become a nation of liars

Remember how Donald Rumsfeld said we would pay victims of Abu Graib? Well, we didn't. Not that we can find at least

I swear that clusterfuck just keeps on giving. Not long ago it was reported that there were some fairly horrific pics of detainee abuse that were so bad, they were just never going to be released. Period. Our government cannot actually be sued for some of this, but we used a crapload of civilian contractors and they CAN be sued if the Supreme Court says so. And thats what it might take to get some movement on this.

Actions have consequences. It's impossible to put a dollar amount on how badly our reputation was damaged by this BS. After all, we're supposed to be the good guys. And in case you thought this shit was over, Bagram airbase in Afghanistan is pretty much the same thing as Abu Graib, only we aren't closing it.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Science!

If for some reason, you like to do things the hard way. You can now convert your iPod touch into a fully functional phone. I am not sure why one would do this, but it can be be done, and that's good enough for me!

www.Peel520.net

Monday, September 20, 2010

Someone comes to town, someone leaves town...

On the same day that an acquaintance finally had her baby, another friends father passed away. That right there is life in a nutshell. I don't have any pithy statement to make. It is what it is. The day started with the good news that mother and baby were both fine and on my way back from the Ren Faire I read about the death.

The sad fact is I'm going to be attending more funerals. When I left the corporate world I burned all my ties. I had to buy one for Jack Ellis' funeral because he taught be how to tie a Half Windsor and he sure as hell deserved me wearing a tie. I grabbed a belt out of the closet the other day and saw it hanging there. I stared a moment. I need some other reason to wear a tie. I don't want ties to mean only one thing.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Tired

Feelin very tired. Might be the weather, might be the fact that Fall is rushing up on us very quickly. It might be that I've been workin in the shop all week on goggles and other leather projects. Muscles are sore and back is killing me.

The property has been ignored. It sucks that I have a great piece of land but I haven't been able to enjoy it much this summer. Mostly it was the heat, but it cooler now, I'm just busy trying to make some stuff to sell. Ah yes, and someone dinged our minivan. Nice.

Things could be worse. We're doing okay sales. Our health is still good. Just tired.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Words of Wisdom


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Ouch

I watched Meghan McCain on the Daily Show a short time ago. For a conservative she is rather likable, if a bit young. They plugged her book Dirty, Sexy Politics. which covers the election from her point of view.

Today I found this review of the book. It's pretty brutal. I think the author dwells on the whole grammar thing. This was written, after all, by a 25 year old blogger and a member of the Twitter generation. Even so, he isn't kind.

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Well, this is pretty cool.

I've seen a lot of Storm Trooper crap. Mpst of it involves them wearing Hawiian shirts and thet. THIS is pretty much full of win.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Reaching the Fuck It stage.

It occurs to me that I have been doing....whatever it is I have been doing for quite a while now. I won't say I'm just a Rennie, or just a salesman. I am, I guess some kind of strange hybrid. I'm okay with that. More people than you think fall outside the traditional job definition box. The point being I can look back now on a number of years at working at assorted Ren Faires, Sci-Fi conventions, fetish shows, celtic doo-dah's, SCA shindigs and what have you.

I have done the job because its been a pretty fun job as jobs go. I'd never deny that. But with the passage of time comes the inevitable bullshit that comes to pollute whatever it is that one does for fun and/or profit. They aren't huge things. Well sometimes they are. But mostly they are a thousand paper cuts that slowly bleed away your joy and enthusiasm. Maybe two years ago, while unloading the van after some mediocre show or other in the blistering sun I looked at my wife and asked "Have we reached the 'fuck it" stage yet?".


She looked at me for a moment, thinking. Then she looked around at the tubs of stock, the mannequins, the tents, tables, rolls of fabric and dozens of boxed of heavy crap that  is required for us to do what we do and sighed. "No, not yet.".

And thus was born both a quirky ritual and an honest gauge of things. Time is ever fleeting. Someday I know I'll likely give up what I do for one reason or other. There is no set date for this. It might be thirty years from now, or it might be tomorrow.  Until recently, that second possibility had never even entered my mind. But it has. I'm just being realistic here.

But I didn't think I'd reach an actual "fuck it" stage. Not for a while at least. But I did last weekend.  We arrived at Michigan Ren and set up. As always, people come, people go. It's the nature of the business. But right off the bat I could feel things had changed, and not for the better. For instance, the bakery across from out booth was empty.

It turns out the festival, smelling money, jacked up the rent astronomically and demanded a hefty share of their profits. The bakery pulled out, leaving the space empty, until this weekend when the festival brought in a cooler and started selling about 60% of what bakery used to. The festival has a right to do this. It's their show. But really?  These guys had been there forever. They were friendly and they actually baked things there.

I haven't bought anything from the 'new' bakery. No small feat considering my sweet tooth. But the move seemed just dickish.

Fiona's Fineries moved into a shop not far away. They now carry corsets. Of course. I was told for years that I couldn't expand beyond 1 shirt and 1 skirt  design because the show "had too many clothing shops".  Over the past five years four other clothing shops started carrying corsets of varying quality. I complained. I got blown off.

The festival opened a new area in the back of the festival. It's been given several unflattering nicknames. Here, local "artists" bring in modern pop up tents and with 1 or 2 exceptions sell pretty much whatever crap they want. It looks pretty low rent over there.

I wandered around, getting angrier and angrier. I followed the rules. I did what they asked and played fair.  What did I get for that? Nothing. Last year when I showed the craft coordinator our new feather bras (after carefully submitting written updates to our list of approved sellable items) she nodded and said "they look great, of course next year five or six people will be selling 'em here." What the fuck? The reason you HAVE craft directors is to make sure Ren Faires don't turn into crap filled flea markets or have gluts in one thing or another.  I'm not going to drop multiple thousands of dollars of a booth for my product if there are going to be 5 other people selling the same thing.

But this year, the craft coordinator has retired and I realized the festival seems keen only to fill empty booths. And then I felt a kind of snap in the middle of my chest. And suddenly I felt lighter. Free. I realized that I had ACTUALLY reached the "fuck it" stage. Michigan Ren didn't care about the quality of the food being served to their customers, they just wanted all the bakery's action. No one was looking out to make sure crap wasn't flowing in. No one was trying to keep any kind of balance. And if they didn't give a fuck, why should I?

So last weekend I brought more shirts to the show, more skirts. I pulled out the scarves I personally brought back from Istanbul. I pulled out some dresses I only carry at conventions. Hell I brought out my own steampunk goggles.  We're in the middle on the worse economy since the depression and here I am tying my own arm behind my back. Fuck that.

Maybe someone will come in and start getting a grip on all this. I'd be happy with that. Maybe they won't. It doesn't really matter to me anymore. And that feeling is actually quite liberating. Rather than agonizing over things I cannot change I can focus on just doing my job, which is separating you from large sums of money in exchange for things that give you great joy.

The Fuck It stage feel pretty good at the moment.
.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010