Awana Night

It would seem that my ability to dress up and make a fool of myself is becoming an unexpected spiritual gift. I donned Liene, trews and Chainmaill today and marched right into an Awana meeting today. The kids were reconfigures a lesson in 2 Corthinthians 10 verse 4:

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.

Of course, I was the visual aid. I described how I had defensive (helmet, chainmaille) as well as offensive (my Sqiuen and my Longsword). The main point Chester (who was the speaker) made was in how much training and work I had to put in to be a swordfighter. This weekly training, covering both basic techniques and advanced techniques (what if oppenet has X...What if X happens etc. ) Chester than made a great connection between my training for battle and the Children's parent's training for spiritual warfare. He also linked my swordfights to the eternal conflict with evil that Christians face every day.

I don't think I've ever been prouder to wear that armor. To top it off was al the questions I got from the kids:

* Were you in the movie I saw last night? (The child was watching The Grudge)

* I saw you in Lord of the Rings!

* If I shot you, would it hurt?

* If I shot an armor and it went trough your chainmaille and hit you, would it hurt?

* I came at you in your sleep and you weren't wearing your armor..Would you die? (That was just viscous)

* Are you a real soldier? Cause my Dad is! (I would have loved to been that kid's father. That's pride right there)

I also got to teach about 30 kids the word Abu, (it is good). My work is done :)I still wonder which spiritual gift playing dress up qualifies for though :p

Roadtrip 2006: Thursday

Back on track once again, I drove up to see the govermental head of California today. After a moderately-lengthed drive, I found myself in the big town of Sacrmeneto, wine capital of America.

My first stop was back in Old Town Sacremento. While not haas 'period' as Columbia, is nevertheless a fun experiance. I foudn some excellent stores I missed last time, like the Hat shop(these had scottish bonnets too, butnot in my size :p ) and the always-excellent Toy Knights store (complete with meusem!). The nice thing about old town is that you can find almost anything there if you look hard enough.

Eventually 10 o'clock rolled around and I was able to visit the California Militiary muesem. Containing military artifacts all the way back to the 1700s, the museum covered everything form our Civil War contributations to world war II. It really amazes me just how much captured enemy material our GIs have managed to bring back to Califronia. In this week I've seen eveything from Japanese NCO katanas to Russisan heavy machine guns. There is even a collection of WWII 'hate belts' consisting of various NCO and officer insignia of the enemy woven into combat attire.

(Side note: for those who are'nt hsitory buffs, Califronia was 'offically' prevented from sending federal troops to the war due to russia and mexico, but was allowed to creat volunteer companies to be assigned to other state regiements to help them fufill recruitments qoutas. That means somwhere around 17,000 Californians fought under the flags of other union states. Three of the generals at gettysburg were also californian, altough they were mostly recent immigrants to the state)

I had a lot of fun at the museum, but I had still not found me goal for the day..to find the flag of the Massachutus 100, Califronia's most decorated civil war unit. I heard that the flag was at the captiol building, so I hopped up my feet and walked over to the capitol. Now California's capitol is the only one I've every visited, but it strikes as a little overdone. Almost every tree in the park surronding the building is dedicated to something.It gets really funny when you consider just how many duplicates of trees/monuments/parks/rocks/benches we have deicated to these things. No disrespect to our minority police officers, but it's kind of wierd to see a police officer memorial, a hispanic police officer memorial, a latin amercian police officer memorial and a mexican american police officer memorial. All that aside, the inside of the capitol building is very nice. After confiming that my compass was't a bomb, security waved me trough and I was able to view the entire first floor of the building. THe first floor contians the orginal offices from 1906, whcih can be viewed in their orignal setups. The governator's office is also on the first floor, which tempted me. All I needed was a sign stating 'WHERE"S THE PRO-FERRET LEGESLATION YOU PROMISED!?!' and I so would've camped out. All that aisde, it was a nice tour, but I could'nt find the flag for the life of me.

Since I could'nt achieve my main goal of the day, I moved on to me second one: To see Ft. Sutter. Fort Sutter is the location of what was once the biggest and busiest outpost in Claifornia prior to the GOld Rush. Founded by Sacrmento hero John Sutter, the fort has been rebuilt and is staffed by Renactors to teach about 1800s living and trade. I had an absolute blast checking out all the pople at work and showing students/tourists about thier Era. I was like a pernament renfaire for hte 1800s. My only disapointment was the fact that we were not allowed to walk along the walls. I really feel that you don't get a sense for a fortification at all until you've stood on the walls and looked out.

Having now ran late into the day, I then retired to my Uncle and Aunt's home in Citrus Hieghts. My little cousin Sophie was intrqiued, but shy to see me again and I had soem good times catching up with them. I also got a sense for just how much tea one houshold can contain :)

RoadTrip 2006: Wednesday

Woke up at home today. With snows blocking almost all of east California from access, (it's so rare, that we only have roughly 3-4 passes trough the mountains, all of which were snowed in.) I am unable to access the ghost town, Bodie. TO make matters worse, all the camping spots are either snowed in or require snow tires. Despite a valiant effort to access Yosimite's campgrounds, I was eventually forced to retire to Fresno. My spirit was undiminished, however, and I set off for San Luis Jaun Baptista at the first opportunity.

Mission San Luis Jaun Baptista is the fifth of the 21 missions founded in California and was founded by Father Sierra(the first founding father of the missions) himself. I visited it once as a child and I have fond memories of wandering it's halls. Since the previous missions were missing a lot of the outlying buildings, I decided it would be nice to head to a mission that I knew still had most of it's original infrastructure.

I arrived in good time, and started my tour with the various buildings and offices contained in the outlying building. Since the natives didn't have any cannon, the priests would build them right into the outlying walls, facing the inside. I was able to view an Earth-walled kitchen, some meeting halls and a few storerooms filled with old artifacts from the 17-1800s. There was also a magnificent statue of the mission's namesake, John the Baptist, in the courtyard.

Some cool memories:

* Being able to look directly at the San Adreas Faultline. The line is only a few hundred feet from the mission and moves at a rate of 4 inches every year.

* Visiting the state historic park around the mission. While the mission is devoted to the 1750s and is owned by the Catholic church, the surrounding park is devoted to what was once a major production center of Horse Carriages in California.

* Walking trough the Plaza hotel, one of the last bastions of wild West gambling and shootin'

* Watching the chickens. San Juan has chickens like some towns have cats. They're everywhere, just minding their own business.

All in all I had a very good time. I even managed to swing by Casa de Fruta again on the way back.

Side note: My MRE this time contains instant milkshake mix. No ice required. There;s definitely been some changes in the MRE food supply in the past few months.

Roadtrip 2006: Tuesday

After some minor difficulty, I was able to find my way out of San Jose and drive my little car over to Sonora. Sonora resides deep in the mountianside and is the center of California's pride, having only just missed being the capital of California. Sonora was the place where California's first flag (as an independant state) and it's acceptance into the union (as a American state). Was done. This morning I actually passed right trough it though, determined to reach the fabled town of Columbia, CA.

Columbia is one of the many gold towns in the Sonora area and probably the most famous. The original mainstreet has been painstalkingly reconstructed, and shopkeepers, saloon owners and trappers all wander the streets in period attire. Some of the shops have been transformed into museums or displays, (I especially got a kick out of their 1840s dentist tools) or are actively running shops. The trappers even have a gold sluice running so that people can pan for real gold and keep what they find.

I toured several exciting locations, including the blacksmith[no kilt pins :( ] and his giant forge. I also found the distellery and secured some Sasprialla syrup for the manufacture of my own saspiralla (heeheehee). I also found a ROCKING costume shop, with a complete set of 1840 clothes for men and women. Those who know me well, know I have a total weakness for costumes. I also had an adventure talking to the locals and admiring some of the arresters of the town itself. Things were a little subdued, though, as it seems to have decided to rain the entire day. Nevertheless I had a great time and learned some great pieces of history.

Still having a good number of hours in the day, I headed down to Sonora for some antiquing and to check out the historical sites there. I immediately ran into a paradox: although Sonora has set itself up as a tourist town and has some very friendly museum folk, the rest of the town(including some shopkeeps) are not tourist friendly. Period. I spent over an hour trying to find the visitor's bureau (who kept giving me conflicting directions). That one hour, many questions and 1 parking ticket later(parked too far from curb..Doh!)I gave up and proceeded to my overnight camping site.

Fate intervened here too, seems the massive snows this season have closed all major passes to the national parks. Even the smaller campground to the west was requiring snow chains. Worse news, came that I will unable to reach bodie (the ghost town) tomorrow. With some resignation, I've had to head home to sleep and replan. Still, overall, this was a very successfully day. I managed to learn a lot about the 49'ers and have a good time.

Roadtrip 2006: monday

(Transcribed)

As previously mentioned, there was a change in my vacation plans. No need for details, but Gettysburg became way too expensive. (There is'nt a hostel around for like 30 miles!) Having gone trough so much trouble to get the days off. I instead plaaned a last-minute roadtrip around California. Todays adventure takes me to San Jose, famous for beach, sun, and the Real El Comino Road. After some minor adventures with the traffic (I get lost easily), I managed to find the mission San Jose. FOr those unfamiliar which California heritage, this state was ruled by the spanish government for almost half a century. While few settlers ever came so far north, a determined band of soldiers and friars made their way to Calfifornia's coast to build Missions. These missons were both church and defensive fort, the center of all trade and buiseness and really an entire town packed into walls made of Adobe bricks. Concerened with conversion of the Native Americians to Christ, the faithful priests and nuns of the catholic orders maintanined these buildings trough war, change of goverments, disease and famine. Roughly 21 of these mission were built, all along a trade route called the El Camino road.

Mission San Jose was'nt as big as I hoped, almost all of the orginal property was lost during Mexico's de-secularzation. During that time a succession of goveners had given away most of the mission's lands to thier friends and all the orginal walls are gone. The church itself still stands though, as well as some of the buildings. I managed to wander trough the mesuem, which was full of neat mission and indian artifacts. My Definte favorite was an inqueinious water purifier made from Pumice rock. As water trickled down trhrough the minute holes in the pumice, it would clean the water and let it drip into a smaller bowl below it. There was also some pretty neat indian and spanish settler artifacts.

The Mission was smaller than I had hoped, so I ambled 13 miles south the Mission Santa CLara. The misson here had been convereted into university campus and had lost everything but the main church and the facade. I snapped a few picutres and toured the church, but also took a peek at the local telescopes, which were huge.

All in all today has been rather successfull, altough I did run trough things a bit quicker than expected. I look foward eagerly to tuesday, where I'll be ambling over to gold country and California's proudest town of SOnora.

Side note: My MRE tonight contain a bag of M&Ms, complete with offical logo and everything. Seriously.

FCC RenFaire 2006, part 2

Ahh..sunlight. How I missed they sweet carraess upon my armor. A lot of sunshine most of today, letting us be a little more mobile. Most of today was spent playing hide and seek with the English as well as engaging in some light swordplay. (mainly keeping Tim entertained with the sacrifice of our brusied bodies.)

We also got in our share of kidnappings, managing to swipe two sperate sets of nobles and "gaurd' them within the confines of our camp. We thought we were so clever, being sly with our words and seeming to get away scott free. Ah, what fools we were....

Our first sign of trouble came at our court presentation. Tigre's daughter msut have gotten lost along the way, because she was sitting there in court to greet us.The queen, it seems, had graciously 'discovered' the girl and was providing her with room and board as well a 'lessons in english manners'. In other words, Queen elizbeth had a hostage. After some bravado and chest thumping..we were forced to march off without our lord, as he was forced to sit and stay with the Queen.

The Lord of the Fews was forced to entertain at court for some time, including learning how to dance. It was at this some-what humilating point that the queen asked Tigre Ui Niall a question:

"Tell me Surrah, do you wish to leave?"

"Yes, My queen"

"Why?"

"To look after my men and make certain they are'nt misbehaving."

"Then perhaps, surrah, next time you will remeber this when you decide to hold someone for thier own protection"

We got owned. Ouch.

Fresno CIty College Renfaire

Well lads, it's a wondeful day in the shire and we alll intend to do a little mischief hereabouts...

It's march again, and time for every loyal son of england, scotland and ireland to march out and celebrate the begining of a new Renafire season. Today was a lot of fun, but was slowed down by rain and hail that proceeded to freeze actors and chase off potiential audiences. I did get my first chance to parade around in my new chanmail though :) as well as trying out my new trews and leather Ionar. I'm starting to look like a real Galloglas!

SOme fond memories:

* Learning for to 'shimmy' out of chainmail

* Trying to find a catholic priest for buying indulgances

* Conversing with the Templars..that right, Templars

* Watching Queen Elizbeth actually perform like the real queen Elibeth. Woot.

* Playing 'bop the galloglas' with Ochuam

* Marching trough Hail and watching the ice chunks fly off our armor

* Sitting around the fire swapping stories about our first Cattle Raids.

DUe to my change in vacation plans, I will be perfroming tommroww as well. I'll be certain to post a report on what happens on a hopefully sunnier day. :)