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July 10th, 2009
10:22 pm - Must...control...fist...of...death...
Pennsic land negotiations are not going a smoothly as I had hoped - I'm not real keen on the idea of a land-locked camp, and the self-appointed spokescritter for the rest of the block is determined to see that we get the worst possible real estate.
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08:17 am - Whaddya mean, there's TWO seven o'clocks...?!?
Actually, I'm the early riser. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) smeip would like to see the hours between 4:00 am and noon made illegal.
smeip took Captian Chaos to school tday, so I'm at home with considerably more time on my hands than I'm used to. I'm waiting for coffee to finish brewing, then I'll make breakfast and get to actual work. Early, even.
I'll post more disucssion about new peices later - suffice it to say that the new books I picked up at Kzoo have been a treasure trove of information, and I will have lots of new stuff, particularly French and German.
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July 5th, 2009
10:32 pm - Fruity, tropical drinks.
I had too many of them yesterday. I am offically a hurting unit.
This is only the second time I've ever been hung over. Old age must be catching up with me.
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June 23rd, 2009
11:27 am - Pre-Penssic Productivity Panic
This will be three days in a row I've managed to fill all the drying space...hopefully, I can fire tomorrow. As it is, I need to rearrange the garage to accomodate some more shelving. It may be that I can reach my production foals for Pennsic. At least for tableware.
I still need to do covered cookpots, chafers, alembics, mortars, lanterns, candlesticks, cisterns, costrels, and other stuff. Maybe I WONT reach those goals after all.
Also got the framing done on the chicken coop yesterday. I hope to keep total investment under $50; so far, it's less than $20, and $10 of that is a box of weatherproof decking screws.
OTOH, it looks like the water pump in the van needs to be replaced. The guys from OnSite are come coming out this afternoon to look at it, and hopefully again this weekend for the transmission service for the PT Cruiser.
Enough break time. I need to head back out the studio while it' still fairly comfortable.
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June 19th, 2009
09:23 pm - The Terminix guy thinks I'm running a farm...
Because I have a productive garden, lots of fruit trees (mostly mulberry, and a couple of apple), and I have some notion of cultivating enough vegetables to make a dent in the food bill.
I guess that the fact I'm getting chickens validates this claim...
A freind is parting with a small flock of layers, which I can have after Pennsic. It will be...interesting.
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June 3rd, 2009
08:31 am - Word to my peeps
dona_violante's raspberry bars are made of awesome and win, filled with awesome and with awesome sauce on top. Especially with coffee. Especially after a few days for the raspberry to soak into the rest of the bars.
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May 28th, 2009
10:51 pm - Pre-reg reminder
If you are bringing your kids, please remember to preregister them. It significantly increases our land allotment.
That will be all. I now return you to your regularly scheduled panic.
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May 19th, 2009
10:16 am - Sapphire Just-A-Minute!
How did it get bt be Sapphire already? Wait a minute, how'd that happen? Jeez Louise, how time flies.
I'd like to have more inventory, but I'll be OK. Being sick the last week or so has seriously crmped by ability to get stuff done.
I'll have a fiar selection of pottery, including several new peices. One of my finds from Kzoo was a great book on French late medeival pottery, so expect to see some new forms and new decorative techniques on 14th and 15th C French stuff.
Several new paternosters, including one mondo wooden one based on some of the 15th C Burgundian ones that are meant to be worn like a baldric.
I'll have some assorted rummage as well, helping an acquantiance get rid of old reenactment gear. Stop by and paw through the bargain table.
attack_laurel I'm out of everything but hats and some patterns. Any hope for more swete bags and lacing cords? Very popular, those.
Anybody wear a size 15 men's shoe? I'm getting rid of a pair of Armlann boots I never wear; they've been worn to 4 or 5 events, and there's nothing wrong with them, I just don't ever actually wear them. Stop by and take a look.
Good lord, Sapphire means our 11th Anniversary, and also my B'day a week later. Love you, sweetie. How time does fly.
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April 30th, 2009
09:22 pm - More stupidity on the Merry Rose
Remember folks, "Viking" isn't an ethnicity, it's a JOB DESCRIPTION. Like "brigand". Or "Crusader". Or "sheep rustler".
"So, Sven, would you call yourself a "Viking"?"
"No, I would call myself a Dane. But I'm going "a-Viking" next week. I understand there's a nice monastery at Lindisfarne, and the monks don't have weapons. If you're going to take valuable thigs from people, better it be unarmed clergy, I says. And if the thane happens to be waiting on the beach with his armed bully-boys, well, even peaceful traders like us need weapons for protection from those Irish pirates..."
"So your people are not called "Vikings"?"
"No, and if you don't get it straight, I'm going to hit you with my axe. It would be like me calling you a "blogging" or a "writing" or a "shaking like a leaf in a hurricane"..."
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April 26th, 2009
09:33 pm - General Updatiness
I'm tired and cranky, becase I'm sick, and I can't have ice cream like I want to.
Stomach bug finally seems to be over. The feeling of ick has subsided, but over Friday and Saturday, I was in pretty tough shape. Foolish me, I thought I was over it on Thursday. Ha. Ha. Ha. Now I've just got the recovery time ahead of me - several days of little sleep combined with an inability to keep food in my system has left me exhausted and shaky.
The studio is finally operating. I made a bunch of yarn jars on Friday, and I plan on another batch tomorrow. There's still a lot of fine-tuning of the layout, but I'm WORKING again, and that's nothing to laugh at.
The garden occurred over the weekend as well. An enclosure of chicken wire to keep the rabbits out, several raised beds, and a nice spot in the sun.
Time for a snack and bed. I cna't figure out what I'm more; tired or hungry, so I'll kill two birds with one stone.
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April 20th, 2009
10:43 am - We had an MTT, did someone get pictures?
Marthing Through Time this weekend was fun. Sunshine Ned lived up to his name, and kept the rain off us, except for a light sprinkle as tear-down was occuring. I don't know how damp canvas got, but the kitchen stuff was pretty OK.
Highlights of the weekend included the sausages from Hemps meats, the quail from Hemp's meats, and the pork roast from Hemp's Meats. Do I detect a trend?
The final menu was thus;
Saturday B'fast
Pottage of wheat and oats with dried fruit, cooked in wine and stock. If you do this right, it's more like a pilaf. hubednik ate 5 bowls, by his own account.
Tansy eggs - hard-boiled eggs in vinegar, ginger, parsley (cause I couldn't find tansy), salt, and a little black pepper.
For the gentry: grilled sausages. Hemps meats mixed up a 5-lb batch of sausage according the the instructions in the new translation of _Menagier_ for "andouille for summer", basically an all-pork sweet italian sauage. They were delicious, and the kids ADORED them.
I had planned on almond milk, but it apparently got too cold and seperated nastily. Couldn't get it to re-emlsify, so I skipped it.
Saturday dinner
Grilled Quail (for the gentry). I had planned in stuffing these guys with country bacon, but they were already flattened for grilling, so I brushed the outside with a little bacon fat. Apparently, quite deleicious.
Quail and chicken stew (for the commons). Cooked with leeks, onions, and a couple of handfuls of parsley. Also well-received. The chicken from Hemp's was almost too big - it ahd to be broken down into two stewpots, and even then jljonson found a thigh that wasn't well-cooked. Still, mostly a success.
Pottage of mussels. Basically, mussels steamed with scallions, leeks, a lot of vinegar, a bit of stock, and lots more parsley. In other works, mussels mouliere, but without white wine. By this time, my appetite was totally dead - I ate literally two bites of supper, but they seemed to be popular with sea-food eaters in camp. They were actually ridiculously simple to make, the most difficult part being picking out the bad ones prior to cooking (which is really, really simple). They pot they were cooked in is now dedicated to that purpose.
Rapum Armaturum (armoured turnips). Par-boiled the neeps in stock, then roasted them with cheese to finish. Sunshine Ned, who like neither mussels not turnips, ate large helpings of both.
Salad of Spinach and Watercress. Dressed with olive oil, vinegar, and salt.
Trenchers of cheat for the gentry, scraps of the loaf for the commons.
Sunday nyncheon
Roast Pork sauced with cameline sauce. The gentry got the sauce at full strength, served in a dish for dipping. The commons got it diluted with stock and poured over the platter of roast.
Cherbolace - pottage of onions, chard, and eggs.
Peascoddes - that is to say, sugar-snap peas. _Menagier_ describes young peas as being eaten pods and all, and sold by street vendors in Paris.
Roasted parsnips - total fail. The parsnips were woody and nasty, even after an hour of par-boiling and another 45 minutes of roasting.
All in all, fairly successful. The kitchen still needs some work, mostly in systemizing the pack-down so that it can be done a) using vettable materials, in view of the public, and b) by trained monkeys, so that others can help without needing to be able to read my mind. Long-term, this means purchasing or even making baskets and boxes that contain the kitchen implements, sewing bags that the breakables go into, and things like that. I expect it to take a couple of years.
Meantime, I've been thinking about a minimalist kitchen, for something like the "harbingers" scenario - something that can be done with a single pot, improvised tools, and no cooler. Or, at least, a cooler only for, say, a rabbit (game for the pot), since most sites frown on slaughtering livestock in front of the visitors. Liz suggested an empty chicken cage and a couple of feathers scattered about.
Time to go unpack the car (in the rain, *sigh*) and start on the cleaning. Oh boy.
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10:36 am - Blue Screen of Tired
This morning, the following error message scrolled across the inside of my eyelids...
Warning: Attempt to engage intellect has failed. Exception WIN29948587PHAQ5796--%%&*#&@57493
Attempting restart
Restart failed. Please hard-reboot.
Reboot failed. Run in stoopid mode.
Stoopid mode installed. Do not attempt anything complex until sleep-mode can be re-engaged.
I manged to lose the soap while in the shower. Even though it was right. In front. Of my. Face.
While getting myself the first cup of caffienated bean broth, I poured myself a full cup of half-and-half, and almost topped it off with a dash of coffee, before I noticed the error.
It took me three tries to toast bread for breakfast.
Not having the best of mornings.
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April 15th, 2009
11:42 pm - Apologies must be made
I have done my monarch a disservice. I never expected to make that statement. I was sure of my own righteousness, secure in my anger, and, frankly, inexcusably stupid.
I would never have expected that the target of that anger could make me see that I was wrong in my basic assumptions. He has been the target of pent-up anger for so long, I couldn't see that I was just waiting for a chance to unload it.
I was wrong. I was stupid. I was ignorant. I did all the things I despise others for doing. I am ashamed.
I'm never going to see eye-to-eye with Logan, or even agree with him on much of anything. But he has proven himself a bigger man than me today, and I'm having a lot of trouble with that.
I don't know why he brings out this thoughtless anger in me, but I'm starting to see that the problem is mine, and not his.
Uncomfortable though it is, I owe him a public apology, so here goes.
Your Majesty, I humbly and sincerely apologize. I'm not going to say that I've seen the light, or that I'm saved, or anything like that, but you showed to me that I was wrong, and that you had moral courage where mine was lacking.
Whoever forwarded him my original post did me a favor, though I hardly realized it at first. Please, forward this onto him as well. I've tendered my apologies in private already, but since I was wrong in public, I should make it known publically as well.
Since I was so f***ing glib this morning, I'm not going to polish this one, either. Unvarnished idiocy gets unvarnished apology.
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April 9th, 2009
11:01 pm - To the Programming Director, 94.7 FM
Some slack-jawed drooling half-wit jackass donkey-puncher decided that the classic rock format wasn't to generating enough revenue, so they changed it to "adult contemporary" - some horse hockey called "Today's Fresh Music". I tuned in today expecting to be comfoted and slightly bored by guys with big hair mistreating guitars and faking English falsettos (yeah, I mean you, Getty Lee) while listening to slightly inept DJs talk too much. Instead, my ears were assaulted with the kind of drivel best saved for elevators and the hold button at Comcast. The glurge coming out of my speakers was so bland that I felt for a moment that I was immersed in Cream-of-Wheat.
Now, as a classic rock format station, you weren't exactly all that. There were great big sections of highly repetitve playlist, but the all-request lunch was good, and I liked a lot of the weekend shows like Little Steven's Underground and Sunday featured artist hours. I got pretty tired of the same 50 or so songs being played, but it was the soundtrack of my teenage years, and it was easy to turn to background music. I could ignore the John-Tesh-wannabe's that announced the predetermined playlist and tried to pretend that it wasn't as sterile and lifeless as the other side of Ann Coulter's bed. It wasn't great, but it didn't suck, either, and that was something.
But the DC market ALREADY HAS several stations that play "adult contemporary" music, which is to say that they suck ass. WASH-FM, for instance, has perfected ass-sucking to a degree unapproachable by other radio stations. Frederick even has it's own station of soul-destroyingly bland dreck, but at least it has local traffic and a reasonably accurate weather forecast (always correct down 5 degrees, though, because the mindless drone out at the airport can't calibrate a thermometer). Out here in The Boonies, I can even get Eagle-106, which is a different playlist of 50 classic rock songs, but it also includes a heavy dose of gun-totin' Obama-hatin' right-wing whackjob talk, and I don't need my radio station to induce nausea before I'm done with my morning coffee.
It was bad enough when you became "Globe-FM", with the bizzare mix of classic rock and contemporary alternative, but at least it was fun to laugh at the neo-hippie DJs and make fun of the "living green" tips. Eventually, you realized that the granola kids didn't want to listen to Rush and Triumph with their Coldplay and Vertical Horizon, and that DC 101 was doing it better anyway. When you finally returned to the classic rock format, I was releived.
But now you're gone to the dogs, and I don't think you're ever coming back.
Maybe I need to move to Baltimore, or at least far enough east to get 102.7 JACK-FM.
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April 7th, 2009
10:22 pm - Moving, moving, and more stress
The old house is mostly cleaned out. It shouldn't take more than another 20-30 trips to finish emptying anything of value from the basement. After that, it's probably 100 or so trips to the dump to get all the trash out. I should a) rent a dumpster, and b) buy stock in Waste Management.
The kitchen at the new house is now unpacked - a couple of boxes of odds and ends waiting to be either consolidated or listed for outplacement. The dining room is similarly also mostly complete, as is the living room. The bedrooms are livable. The bathrooms are pretty good. Now we have to tackle the parlor, since in a couple days the outlaws will be sleeping there. Oh, and move the rest of the stuff from the basement, mop and clean the floors, and replace the air filters.
I'm so very tired of moving - I'm at the bottle-of-gasoline-and-a-match stage right now. It's gonna be a week of solid work to get the studio unpacked and working again. I'm finding it harder and harder not to succumb to depression - every night my sleep in interrupted by dreams about moving endless boxed, mopping a studio the size of an aircraft hangar, etc etc.
I know it will all be over soon. It had better be.
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April 6th, 2009
09:42 pm - i haz intatwebs again
Aftger 10 days, I've finally gotten hooked back up. I'm not really going to try and catch up on LJ; it would take to long.
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March 25th, 2009
06:35 pm - And to think I used to do this professionally
The summer before we were married, I worked for an interior designer as, well, a mover. Me and one other guy would transport hugely expensive peices of furniture, set them up, move them to wherever the client wanted, and generally function as dogsbodies.
Rule of thumb: the more a piece of furniture weighs, the more it costs. This relationship is tautological; the more expensive it is, the more it weights. Wanna know how much a $45,000 dollar desk weighs? About as much as a grand piano. That's around 800 lbs. It is, in fact, possible for two very strong men, in good shape and having properly warmed up and stretched out, to move one in one piece up a flight of stairs without stratching the French-rubbed finish or damaging the paneling or paintwork of the staircase.
Anyway, I can't beleive how totally wiped out I am after three van-loads today. The only really tough thing was the china hutch, which isn't so much heavy as hellish awkward. That's why I'm having profesionals come and move the really heavy stuff.
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March 24th, 2009
10:03 pm - Calling All Cars
It's almost time - for those who suggested that they had some modicum of willingness to help with The Big Move, it's in just 4 days.
Friday the movers are coming and will cause the big, heavy furniture to travel to Adamastown.
Saturday, we'd welcome any help with the rest - stuff that fits into cars kinda stuff. Lots of smallish stuff. LOTS of smallish stuff. Boxing, schlepping, and generally transporting. Also, unpacking and stowing at the new house.
Food and liquor will be provided. For the kids, there will be lots of room to run around, and if the weather's bad, there is adequate indoor space for several yard apes to play. Also, those who show up to help get first crack at the "Free To Good Home" stuff that invariably crops up.
Off to bed now - I am dead beat tired.
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March 18th, 2009
09:28 pm - Pipes!
Last year at MTA, someone contacted me about making pipes like the ones from the digs at Jamestown.
I have since lost this man's contact information...*sigh*...so, I'm hoping that he's there to pick up the two pipes he ordered.
I bring this up by way of saying...
I've figured out how to make a 17th handbiult tobacco pipe! It's not as easy as it seems it should be - I hade many, many failures before getting one to succeed.
Anyway, for those of you who do late 16th - early 17th C interpretation, and would like the opportunity to take a smoke break, come on by and take a look at what I've come up with. I'm pretty please with them - they are about as close a reproduction as I can manage. The only thing I'm not sure of is the scale - the photos of those from the dig do not include measurements. I assumed the bowl was about the size of the "tavern pipe" so common in 18th C reenactment, and the stems are to scale.
The stem is noticably thicker than the "tavern" pipes - that's OK, though, because it should improve the survivability by a significant measure.
They're cool, and I'm pretty happy with them. They're EXTREMELY fussy, though.
As usual, I'll have other cool stuff, too.
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March 17th, 2009
05:33 pm - MTA
So, who else on mah Friends List is going? If not, what's your excuse?
edited 'cause I gotz gud spelllinz
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