Galloglaich Abu!

There's nothing like swordfighting in the rain..unless it spear-throwing in the rain of course. Desperate to get some combat in before Fresno CIty's Rennasaince faire, The MacKay brothers(Aghie, Ochiuan, and Duncan McKay) and myself (thier ever-zealous nephew)agreed to meet Renee(forgot her faire name) and Tigre Ui'Niall on the hill of sport. After some excellent rounds of one-handed swordfighting, (in which I seem to be learning agression at the cost of flexbility :p) we settled in for a few game. Some games we play on the hill of sport.

* Standing in the center of a circle while multiple oppenets toss spears at us. We are given a small walking stick to fend the spears of with and told our rear foot cannot move.

* 'Hold the line' combat, where we fought in a corridor. THe goal was to push past the other fighter or strike him down to 'break the line'. The tricky part was that you could'nt stumble, touch or strike the wall or you were conisdered to have struck, fallen on a comrade 'in the battle line' and lost. I put myself out by trying a leg sweep that evidently felled my fellow and not the enemy (whoops..at least lawyers don't exist in Ireland yet!)

* Spear Duels with ghillies. THIS GAME ROCKS. The two combatants face off at maybe 10-15 paces and stand with thier GHillies(assitants) roughly 1 pace from them. The ghillies carry three spears and a sghian (knife) and toss the weapons to thier respective master who hurl them at each other in an atempt to strike the other down. This really gets fun as our fighters are trained to catch spears as well as toss them. THe amtch against Aghi and Tigre was simply fantasic. Altough the ghillies barely escaped with their lives.

All in all a very relaxing day. I took a good half dozen blows to my swordarm though, looks like Long sleeve shirts are in fashion again :p

Confession

Alright since it's all come to a head, I feel I can confess to what has been stressing me out these past few weeks. Me and Maureen have decided to call it quits on our short-lived dating experience. We simply did not see eye-to-eye on much and have decided to continue the friendship and let the relationship die. This has not been an angry or hurtful event and there will be no need to choose sides etc.

All that drama aside, I want to thank everyone who's been praying for me without a clue as to what they are supposed to be praying about. It's mean a lot.

Panic Attack

It has been a long, long time since I've had a day where so much as gone wrong. Some of the highlights:

* couldn't find wrapping paper for my grandmother's present...it seems we don't have any

* barely avoided running my car of an embankment on the freeway. Managed to burn my tires pretty good.

* Got to church early to find out class had been canceled, moved to Terry's class to find out that some minor volunteer work of mine was being used as an example of good work sin the church. For those who don't know me, I hate having my work recognized and insist that all my volunteer work go without recgonicitation. I felt very shamed.

* Made a mistake and attended church late service -> and ended up late for my Grandma and Grandpa's birthday.

* couldn't find a networker who was here only for the weekend.

* Got lost trying to get to the birthday party. Got so lost that I was unable to attend the event.

* Got into a public fight with a payphone that ate my change

all this before 1:00 p.m. I'm stressed and I'm getting sloppy. Most of my stress is due to the extra work I've been pulling for KCS and about the delays in my college admission. Some stress is personal. All-in-all I'm faced with a seemingly insurmountable horde of challenges and part of my mind tells me about how easy it would be for me to simply run away from all of it, to shut everything/everyone like I used to. I no longer have that option, though. If I truly wish to be the man God wants me to be, I will have to face these challenges head-on. I will face these challenges and God-willing, remember these days with pride. No matter what things are being said about me in corners while I am not there, I will not turn from this part of my life and if I fall, it will be without regrets.

DUES JUVAT
God assists

Guild Monthly meeting

Tofay was our guild's monthly Tuath Meeting. In addition to wokring on accents, galiec and our history, we also had the privlege of being filmed. Seems someone wants to do a documentry on what goes on behind the scenes at a typical rennesanice guild. We also managed to sharpen our acting skills a little bit by plaing a few rounds of Who's Line is it anyway?(tm) and by rehearsing our speeches to mundanes(normal folk). All-in-all we had a great time hanging out and being irish

some fond memmories:

*Wearing my NEW FULL suit of chainmail. It just needs some minor adjustments, but will defintly be ready for FCC in march.

*The announcement that the Vahalla RenFaire will be coming back. This was a renfaire done in june in the Deep Woods. The guild used to conisder it thier 'home faire'

* the 20-male raid on Jo-anns fabrics, where rough and tumble men discussed the difference between 45-50 and pure 100 Linen....and celberated the finding of Faux Wolf Fur at 9.99 a yard!

* Completely ruining Matt's concentration bying singing the "Shug, Shug, Shug" song.

*Finding Mike...and partially kicking his arse for his risque myspace posting

Other than that, things are progressing well over here. I've started packing for my trip to the east coast. I've been looking foward to some kind of vacation all year and will be glad to be on it in just 3 weeks! There is an issue for prayer on the trip, but if you want to pray about it with me, please ask me about it personally. (not that anyone's read this blog in 2 months :p)

Valetines

I jsut want this stupid day to end :(

Shoot 'em if you got 'em

Today was the first semi-official Galloglas and company shootout. We all got together in Fowler( a town just south of here) and proceeded to pack every cheap airsoft gun we had. I myself managed to bring the Uzi(my panic button) and a knock-off AK-47 as well as my beloved desert Eagle and a nice M1A4 'sniper' springer rifle. None of my weapons cost more than $20. Ali brought his now-infamous AK-47, which proceeded to dominate most of the field. Tim, who apparently is a big fan of these things, brought a whole slew of springer and gas weapons. All-in-all, I think we had enough to frighten any police raid, orange tips or no.

I did so-so in the combat, the relative cheap nature of my firearms providing a bit of an issue with so many automatics around. My own automatic suffered serious jamming issues(just like a real AK-47!), so I horse traded it for another Desert Eagle. The new one is nowhere near as nice as my other one, but packs a heftier punch.

Some fun memories:

* Playing border run, where 6 of us had to make a run for the "border" While three 'la migra' opened fire on us. I've never encountered a game so politically incorrect in my life

* Mike2's biohazard marked goggles

* Mike taking picture and getting shot at point-blank range by Bryan, who thought he was an enemy

* Watching Flea hold out against his dad(Ali) with nothing but a small pistol for almost half an hour. He had to actually reload the bullets one by one from cover at one point.

* Discussing Catholicsm and Christian belief with a bunch of non-believers. Boo-Ya

* Kicking Mike's butt for leaving an inapporiate comment on my Myspace page(oh wait, that hasn't happened yet...)

Family Pride

SOlid 4:30 AM to 8:30 PM workshift, three jobs, four locations. Burt Family Pride..Woot....ZZZzzzzz

And so the bookfaire season has begun. I was'nt able to do a whole lot in my month off, but I still feel ready to meet the challanges ahead. I have dedicated once again at least 30-60 minutes a day to do nothing but rest, which is the key survival skill in weeks like this.

Kindergarten Rocks

Ok...Picture this:

I'm standing and watching Yard duty during lunch. The older kids are playing a massive soccer/football/catapult game I call "bombardment". The younger girls are forming a herd of noisy horse to the east and the younger boys are drawing lightsabers to ambush them. A few kids loiter on the basketball court and the kindergarteners are everywhere.

One kindergartener in paticular, is only a few feet from me. She is having a blast of a time trying to stand on her head and looking at the world upside down. This is pretty normal for a child, so I simply maintain my viligance on the Bombardment game as the footballs, soccerball and lone tetherball fly across the field.

My concentration is soon lost as the once nearby kindergartener is now tugging on my leg. She has a very frightened look on her face and I immediately bend down to see what is troubling her.

Her response:

"Mr. Burt! Mr. Burt! I was standing upside down and the whole world turned upside down! The grass was on top and the sky's turned to water and it's going to drowned us!"

The poor thing had thought she had completely bent reality by standing upside down. She was so convinced of this facet, that she did not even realize that she was now rightside up. What simple belief. Kids are really blessed here...If God told me I could change the world by standing on my head, I'd probably laugh at him. No wonder God beats it over our heads to be more childlike all the time. A child is infinity more ready for ministry than we are.

What an interesting irony that we have the bodies for ministry work, but lack the will. Having lived so long in the world we become accustomed to controlling it and releasing that control to God is one of the hardest things we will ever do. How do you place a decision, a relationship, an event, or God forbid, a human life into his hands? We speak of willingness all the time, but how hard it is to put it into practice. God asks me all the time to let things be handled by his hands, but I still snatch away as many things as possible from his reach.

This child, has in her own way, revealed something important in my own life. Just because I do not want something to be possible does not mean God can't or won't do it. It just means I'm being stubborn.

It is amazing what these kids teach me. I really have found a place her in Children's education and have recently made the decision to pursue it has a life goal. Oh I still believe in the art of the binary and the strength of the computer in telling stories...But I have been called here and that makes me happy.

what to do with all these computer manuals though?