This is Halloween

A suprisingly crazy day for a slow one. Work at school went pretty normal, as the school as decided not to officially recognize the holiday. I was a little disappointed not to see the kids all dressed up, but Halloween seems to be an awfully controversial holiday in Kerman. I left for there to home, only to find out I was late to a church neighborhood event. I turned around and showed up at my friends the martin's house, where the event was already underway. Donning my new 17th century great coat, I waded into the hordes of small children and took up position at the milk bottle toss. Where our church got steel milkbottles, I 'll never know, but we got 'em. I encouraged the kids and kept the line going longer than any of the other events, allowing some of the other booths to close down quietly. I also handed out so many marbles that the whole neighborhood will probably be swarming with them. It was a really fun time and I got to meet some good Friends from the church, who didn't mind my choice of dress at all. That really meant a lot to me.

Crazy Hair day

That's right, Kerman Christian School had a Crazy Hair day. In deference of the parent's who are already think I'm a little too odd, I kept my hair normal :( . The kids had a blast though, utlizing all kind of gels and hair spray.

There's a link to the school photos here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/kcschool2001/slideshow?.dir=/d2d5&.src=ph

One of those days

I fell like griping so you'll all will have to bear with me.

Today I:

* woke up with my neck and both shoulders in pain. (bed's too small)
*Had to toss out an entire class assignment because the students wouldn't do the work
* Busted an oven by accidentally hitting it with a light cloth
* got informed that the house demolition has been moved up to occur in a couple months...During our busy season...and we still don't know where we are going to live.
*Spent two hours(cumulative) fixing a machine only to have it mysteriouly work for no reason
*got my computer tutoring cancelled in favor of having the students attend a sporting event.
*Found a toothbrush in my mailbox
*Had to cancel my Halloween plans (Damn drunks)


I know that I'm just looking at the rough side of things because of my neck pain. I know that I should be a bit less grumpy, but I've had to be cheery for the past week and I just couldn't cut it today.

Some good thing I keep trying to remind myself of:

* My coat came it. It's the wrong color but since when have I cared about color?
* Kearney park is listed as Nov 10-12!
* Crazy hair day is tomorrow and in the tradition of doing the unexpected...I'm not doing a thing to my hair (long story)
* I have a huge horde of little kindergarters who think my lab is the coolest thing ever
* I'm a teacher and I'm only 22. woot.
* I can afford my plane ticket. woot. woot.

So I'm Grumpy..But I've had worse days.....

WebCam!

Ok so I got my Webcam and Microphone working in time to meet some of Maureen's freind. She was holding some okind of poker night and they all wanted to see me. (I guess they wanted to see if I had beach-blonde hair and a bronze tan.) I learned two things about Moe's friends:

*THey are as active as she is

* There are a lot of them

We were only able to have a couple of 5 minutes coversations, but had a lot of fun. Moe seems to be meeting my challange in wearing the oddest things when on the webcam:

THings I have worn while talking to Moe(so far):

* VIking Hat

* Union Civil War hat

* A scottish Bonnet

I have threatned to be shirtless several times, but am a wuss as heart :P

Civil War reenactment

The 16th Annual Civil Ware reenactment was this weekend, so I packed my camera and laptop and ambled on down to Kearney park to check it out. I haven't been to a civil war reenactment since 6th grade(about 10 years ago) and was surprised to see how much things had grown. When I originally showed up, there had been maybe 20-50 soldiers per side, with half the union force being the 1st Army Sharpshooters. Now there are almost 2000 reenactors, with hundreds of soldiers, civilians, and calvarymen all working together to show this great part of history. There's even a unit reenacting the 1st Massachutus regiment, which was the only(that I know of) civil war unit composed entirely of Californian Volunteers. (We were in danger of attack from Russia during the war, so we were unable to donate federal troops. But Massachtus and a few other states allowed west coast volunteers to flesh out their conscript quotas.) There is also a signal corps now, using actual telegraphs and signal flags to denote battle orders. Even better was the 6-horse artillery teams, which are coordinated warhorse teams that can limber and unlimber cannon at amazing speeds. They actually managed to move the whole atrillary line piecemeal to match the movements of the front line.

Some other Great memories:

* One of the cannons was reeled close to the crowd so the annoucer had to warn us every time those things fired. The primer failed on them three times, leaving people cupping their ears for an explosion that didn't happen

* Watching the Calvary commit wheel maneuvers

*Laughing at some of the crappiest Calvary swordfighting I've seen. Ever.

* Watching the union and Confeds interact at the food court

* Seeing and absolutely beautiful dirk made by everyone's favorite group of blacksmiths

* Hearing that good-old timey music floating from the tents

* Chuckling that there was a bigger cheer when they managed to untangle and switch out an artillery horse than when the Union won.

* The fact that the union won the first battle of mannassas twice that weekend

* Realizing that half the artillery team was Female. This is a huge advantage the Civil war renactors have in that there are so many (at least 500) documented accounts of women serving the armed forces as men. (only certain medieval countries allowed female service or had female service documented)

I also managed to meet several people from the guild who was there. It seems the guild has several friendships with some of the gray units and was especially cheering for the Texas Calvary. I managed to spark a pretty good sized argument over which side had more native Irishmen on it. (The Irish enlisted in the war in droves for the free training and guns..Which they hoped to use to free Ireland).

Hanford 2005 Part2

*Chuckle*
This was a really good faire. I woke up in time to help clear the damage from the guild 'cast away' party....Renee got her hands on 100 pirate hats and swords, so we had pirate thing everywhere. I also managed to recover my Airsoft gun and put it away. As usual, I had left the party before anyone got drunk but forgot to retrieve the gun:P After 'pressing and dressing' the encampment we proceed to dress our two new guests and introduce them. Their names escape me at the moment, but they were both very eager and at least one was a fellow Christian, which is nice. (Poor woman was thrown out of another guild for her choice of religion....Ouch). I suppose we could have taken things easy after breakfast, but then we wouldn't but Faire Folk would we?Some more great memories

* The new guy going to his wife and shouting "I got into a sword fight!! It was so awesome!!"

*Ian(know as the eternal ghillie), chewing Bryan out for lack of duty and then challenging him to a duel...and then being on of the few people on the planet to win a wrestling match with Bryan in full chainmaille. (Bryan really should've just sat on him)

* John proving his worthiness as our bard by reciting at least two great legends, while still making duck jokes.

* Playing "where's the Lord Fews?' game as his bodyguard.

* Watching the future heir of England try and find her bodyguard and then realize she's right next to the camp of the barbaric Irish. * The gypsies...

This was great, as part of the test of their acting skill and quick thinking the Ghillies were told to guard the encampment while we were gone. Our favorite Gypsy then came by with a note from lord fews giving him permission to clean and repair our guns. After check the authenticity of the note, the ghillies let him in where he checked the guns and proceeded to work on them. It was in middle of repairing the pistol, that the gypsy decided that the gun was worth more than his paycheck and held the three ghillies up. (how he did this with a one-shot pistol is the source of much speculation :P ) The brigand's fellow gypsies then proceeded to steal all of our silverware and all of the camp women. You can imagine the wrath of our men when we returned to find ourselves without food dishes or women....and then we realized that the woman were supposed to make lunch....and we got really ticked. The guards were cited for failure to throw themselves in front of the gun and for allowing the thefts to occur. Bry was a Galloglas and considered far too valuable to kill, so he was simply beaten and fined two cows (2/3 of his quarterly pay) the two kern, john and Dustin had to beg for mercy, but were granted it sparingly by the Kean Keaseranch (leader of the Kern). The women and items at that point mysteriously appeared.

All in all our new recruits proved themselves well and were accepted into full membership of the guild. While it was a tough day for them, it was a lot of fun and I acutely look forward to the day I can join...Of course, I'll avoid gypsy as much as possible..Especially Tinker. Never trust Tinker...

Hanford 2005 Part1

Went straight from work to the Faire of Kings event in Hanford. This was the place where I joined the guild as a guest for the first time. After once again dressing in the company washroom and ignoring the startled looks of Co-workers as I headed out the door in my yellow linene . It was suprising short ride to Hanford and I came in just a little before noon.

My first action as a Galloglas actually came up as I entered the gate. After nearly being trampled at the gate by half a dozen women, I learned that one of our Ghillies (initiates) had gotten into some trouble in an incident some small woodland creatures that I won't relate here. He had attempted to escape the King's justice (the fool!) and had to be found and caught immediately. We managed to corner him in the middle of a crowd and bring before the Italian court, who declared that only the stocks and the cleansing of local water could suffice as punishment. *

Other Adventures of today:

* Fought Tigre Ui'Niall, my liege lord and employer. Got whomped on the head a few times (Now a legal target area which the new fencing masks), but nailed him a good shot on his hands when he thought he was safe.

* Having gotten the new masks to prevent injuries to ourselves, imagine our surprise when Rob managed to continue his tradition of being injured at every faire with a head wound while wearing the helmet. ArrggghhH!

* John, our nice guy and bard, actually leaped on an Englishman and attacked him rather than 'talk his way out'. Funnies thing that happened all faire.

* Some Scots hired the Lord of the Fews (Tigre) to help kidnap the Italian Ambassador. They got cold feet and ran away when the actual kidnapping took place! Now seeing as we were without an employer the Duchaine (Italian ambassador) made a counter offer. A bounty for each of our former employers brought to court for attempted kidnapping (no mention of our part of course). We caught the first two strolling about faire and the third one accidentally ran right into the court session. The first two repented and were rinsed clean but the third made the mistake of claiming to be a Lutheran. (the Italians and Irish were fightin wars against protestant neighbors in the 16th century). The poor lad made his error worse by claiming to be an O'Donnell...Ancient enemies of the Ui'Niall....

We settled for showing the crowd a forced baptizism. (we laughed about it later, but the crowd was surprised to find out that such things used to happen.) ironically, I am a Lutheran and a Calvinist. Of course at faire, I'm catholic....

* Got into an airsoft fight after faire. 'Nuff said

Today was a real blast and I look forward to tomorrow. There are three Ghillies (new members) becoming full members tomorrow, which mean they will be assigned tasks and challenges to prove their desire to join the guild. We are also discussing fighting the Enlish(wait, when are';nt we always discussing that?)

* (note: Hanford had some kind of contanmiation issue years ago and all their water has very high sulfur content...The Italians of course, prefer to douse people in this water than the water we all bring in from Fresno.....Leaving their victims with a unique "fire and brimstone" scent)