Holiday Ups and Downs

Things that suck:

I'm just now recovering from what is probably the worst cold/sinus infection I've had in a very long time. Still feeling rotten, but at least able to function now.

My daughter has been with her mother in North Carolina for the past week and a half and I sorta miss her.

It's been cold, wet and disgusting outside for days.

We ended up dropping $200 on fixing a couple of cracked window panes and I had to pay a cable bill that I thought we'd covered already.


Things that don't suck:

My daughter is coming home today!

We aren't completely broke.

I finished the rough draft of the prologue for my novel.

I got some writing done on a short story project.

I got some seriously cool swag for Xmas/Yule, including Fallout: New Vegas, Assassin's Creed 2, the last season of Avatar: the Last Airbender, the latest season of Doctor Who (on Blu-Ray), the entire Cowboy Bebop series and the feature length movie! I'm going to be busy on the tv for awhile. :)

I also got a pair of steel finger gauntlets for when we fight German Longsword.

My wife really liked everything I got for her. (Yay!)

Overall, the good outweighed the bad, I think. I hope y'all can say the same! Joyous Yule and Happy New Year!

Solstice Eclipsed

There was a spectacular lunar eclipse that occurred last night. It just happens that today is the Winter Solstice, as well. But, I didn't wake up at 2:30am to look at the celestial show. It was overcast in my area, so there was no point. Also, I have a nasty cold and woke up this morning with the worst sore throat I've had in a while. Even without being sick, I had no plans to celebrate the Solstice in any proper fashion. Instead, I dragged my sick butt out of bed and went to work today. Oh, yeah, the magic of life has definitely ebbed. I feel almost completely bereft of the spark that used to drive me to seek beauty and wonder. The grim, cold, ugly world has won. How sad.

The Monday After

There's nothing quite like going back to work after a four day weekend. My body always gets used to sleeping late and when it comes time to get up at 6am again, well, lets just say that I'm paying my dues right now. It doesn't help that I spent most of the weekend sitting on my butt watching tv or playing Fallout 3. Damned, bloody, addictive game. So, lack of physical activity plus my natural proclivity to sleeping through the morning equals a screaming headache, stabbing pain in my back, nausea and a deep desire to crawl under my desk to hide. Glorious. Oh, and I didn't even manage to work on my novel like I told myself I would. I'm such a slacker. On a brighter note, I did almost reach level 20 in Fallout. Go me.

Unabundant Profundity

I feel like I should have something profound to say right now. In an age of Facebook and Twitter, there is pressure to always have something witty to post. Sadly, most days it simply requires too much effort to come up with something original and clever to amuse my hordes of fans. I don't want to post things that are inane or boring, so I end up not posting. Of course, this post is inane and boring, which is a paradox that may very well cause a logical infarction in the fabric of the Internet. Um... nevermind.

Regrets

"Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things. This was not among them. But at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well. For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done; I pray thee God for forgiveness." - Ahmed Ibn Fadhlan, The 13th Warrior

An Outrage!

Just wanted to share this in as many places as I could. It should go viral so that everyone can properly express their outrage.

Rich Vail Fund Manager Hits Cyclist and Runs, Gets Off Because Charges Might "Jeopardize His Job"

This Week

This week has been pretty slow. Ysabel has caught a sniffle, so we haven't been as active. Plus, our weekly DnD game got cancelled for the first time in a long time. I've been home in the evenings every day this week! Catching up on my rest, watching tv, messing around with stuff that I've been putting off at the house. It's been kind of a nice change of pace. I hate when my wife is sick, but the rest is doing us both a lot of good, I think. Of course, she still has grad work to do, which is a bit stressful and there are some other things I could be doing that are "productive", too. But I'm not going to worry about that right now. The pace is sure to pick up again, but in the meantime, I'll take the break.

The Struggle Continues

I find myself disgusted with the world more often than not. I have trouble finding calm these days, it seems. My mind rages and gnashes its teeth when I allow myself to think of all the unpleasantness that surrounds us. Focus on the positive, I tell myself. It doesn't help. Pessimism is hard to escape. Everything seems covered in a lackluster patina, grey and faded, a pale shadow of the bright colors of youth. There are some moments of clarity, though. Here and there, the sun breaks through and light returns. A woman's smile, the laughter of children, a good meal, an exciting book or movie, a well-fought victory on the fighting field. These are all good things. But the power of good things seems to be growing weaker as the seasons change and the long bitter nights slowly seep into my soul. I know we will endure, possibly even thrive, but sometimes the struggle is all-consuming and hope is hard to come by. Sometimes I feel cold and hollow, eaten up with dread and devoid of comfort. It's good that I'm not alone when such a pall falls over me. I have people willing to pull me back from the edge of the void. I'm very grateful for that.

Withdrawn

I've been having a hard time feeling any desire to connect with the rest of the world lately. My soul yearns for alien landscapes far removed from the mundane reality of my day-to-day existence. I crave the exotic, the esoteric. I am a wild spirit confined, a dreamer forced to wake up from a dream of golden possibility. I want to experience something fey and beautiful. I want to be lost in an enchanted wood. I want to soar on the wings of a dragon. I want to stand on top of a wizard's tower and command the raging tempest. But, no. Such is not my lot in life. It's hard to accept, sometimes, but what else can I do?

Geek Fail

A serious error has occurred. Give-a-damn application has shut down. System is attempting a reboot. Please stand by.

No Idea

It's interesting that with everything that has happened lately, I can't seem to think of anything to blog about. Maybe it's a mental block, a deep-seated reluctance to share my thoughts and feelings with others. Maybe I'm just so overwhelmed that choosing a topic is beyond my frazzled brain's ability. Well, since there is so much, let me sum up. We finally closed on refinancing our mortgage! Yay! What a hellish experience that turned out to be. But, it's done, our monthly payment is lower and we did fix some things on the house that needed fixing.

In other news, we've been going to SCA events practically every weekend for the past month. We have one more this weekend that our group is hosting (which means a lot of work, rather than play) and then we are done for a few weeks, I think. As much as I like the SCA, it will be nice to take a break and do some mundane things that we have been putting off. The event we went to last weekend, Tavern Brawl, was a blast. I ran the rapier fighting there, even though it wasn't our group's event. It went fairly smoothly and there were some hilarious antics that we will remember for quite some time.

Yesterday was Mabon, the Autumnal Equinox. It's a harvest festival in many Pagan traditions. Though I don't observe such holidays with rituals or anything, it still has an impact on me deep down where I keep my limited spiritual awareness. Autumn is here and the weather is about to turn. Cooler weather is forecast for this weekend and it's not likely to hit the mid-80's again for quite some time. This makes me sad, for I am a heat-loving creature. But, the Fall Season has it's own charms, I suppose. I'll just have to make the best of it.

There, I guess I did have some things to talk about, after all. I feel strangely better now. How odd.

International Literacy Day!

Today is International Literacy Day! Books have been my life long friends ever since I read the Hobbit at the tender age of nine. They have taught me valuable lessons about life, kept me company when I felt utterly alone and taken me on grand adventures of the imagination. The ability to read is a precious gift that I'll never cease to treasure.

Late Summer Blues

I can feel it coming. The weather is still warm, but my bones can sense the chill that will soon take over. Already, it feels a little strange to be wearing shorts outside. I know it's purely a mental thing, but in my head I'm already shivering. Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of things that I like about Fall. The trees changing colors, bedecking themselves in fiery hues of red, orange and gold. The harvest themes that spring up in peoples' yards and in the stores. The foods associated with the season. And let's not forget Halloween/Samhain, which is honestly my favorite holiday. But, despite all that, Fall is a season of death and decline, by its very nature. Life hunkers down and prepares to endure the unforgiving Winter. The nights grow darker and less friendly, like a jilted lover turning her back on the Sun. It is a season of endings, filled with reminders that all good things eventually turn to dust. As we pass from the lanquid, golden days of Summer, I feel betrayed by fickle Nature. Cast out from the warmth and light to endure once again the fell twilight of Autumn.

Captains Courageous

Another Tourney of the Foxes has come and gone. For those who aren't familiar with it, Foxes is an event that is put on by the folks down in the Shire of Vulpine Reach (Chattanooga, TN) every year about this time. What makes it noteworthy (at least to me) is the team rapier tourney. In the past, this has consisted of three person teams, but this year, they changed it to five person. So, myself and my old teammates, Captains Ysabel and Feador, recruited two new members, Captains Thomas O'Toole and Mikolaj Pilypas (I hope I spelled that right). We dubbed the new team "Captains Courageous". Now, I'm happy to say that we chose very, very well. Everyone fought with great spirit and skill and we landed another victory in the melee tourney. After the official tourney, we got all the Captains together (except for Cap'n Grimm who was marshalling) and did a "Captains against the world" melee. Ended up being 9 of us vs. 15 of them. I died to a very sneaky shot from Jack Marvell (I may be instructing him a little too well), but in the end, we still had two Captains standing. The rest of the day was devoted to pick up fights and socializing (and chocolate fudge cheesecake!). It was a great day! They are few and far between, lately, but so, so awesome when they happen.

Oh, and special thanks to Ursus and Svana for putting us up Friday night. Y'all are the best!

Thing in the Woods

Lessons learned (or reinforced) at Thing in the Woods:

1) Against a highly skilled opponent, even the smallest misstep will cost you the fight.
2) Against a less skilled opponent, in a tourney, do not play around. Kill them quickly and move on.
3) Torrential rain followed by blazing hot sun equals a truly disgusting environment in which to do much of anything.
4) The wanton display of pale, hairy man-belly can be forgiven in the event of #3, but only for short periods.
5) Sometimes, you do get recognized for the good things that you do.
6) When receiving accolades, don't try to be funny. Just keep your mouth shut and accept gracefully.
7) Women are fey and dangerous creatures (no, I will not elaborate).
8) Peach lemonade is among the most vile concoctions dreamed up by Man.
9) Having a screaming headache in the middle of a loud, crowded restaurant tends to make Corbin anti-social.
10) Everything hurts more on the second morning after.

The Mystery of Cuts

As some of you may know, I've been fighting rapier in the SCA for some time now. I've developed a fair amount of skill at it or so I've been told. But now I'm trying something new. You see, SCA rapier very strongly forbids using percussive cuts. We can stab or pull the blade across the target, but never swing in for a "true" cut. Well, now there's this thing called Cut & Thrust, which adds in the element of percussive cuts and I'm having a devil of a time figuring out how to deal with them. According to the fencing masters I study, thrusts are superior to cuts and they go on to explain how that is so, however, something about the dynamics of blocking a series of aggressively thrown cuts eludes me. Painfully so, in fact. Very frustrating. I guess it's back to square one to train myself in this new form. Oh, bother.

Star Stuff

A co-worker mentioned today that we are supposedly all made of dirt. I pointed out that we are technically made of carbon, water and heavy elements cooked up during the process of star formation. This got me thinking. It boggles my mind that the Universe is so wondrous. Think of the billions of years that have passed, all the complex interactions that have occurred, all the incredible physical processes that have led up, slowly, inexorably, to you and me. Our noble pedigree is assured by the very fact that we exist at all. That out of the intricate dance of cosmic chance, the beautiful, dissonant cacophony of Creation, we are the result. It also, then, makes me sad to know how many of us choose to occupy our existence. How we look to the petty, the hateful, the vulgar. I am just as guilty as anyone else, of course. I, too, find myself caught up in the dirty, trivial world we perceive with our limited senses. I admit that it is overwhelming and so very seductive. But, unlike many, I long to rise above it, if only in my mind, and find a sublime elegance, a nobility, that befits our celestial origin. We may be imperfect beings in an imperfect world, but we have the potential, here, now, in this life, to be worthy of our amazing heritage. For we are the stuff of stars...

Father's Day Weekend

I had a pretty interesting Father's Day weekend. Not only was it Father's Day, but my step-son had his 14th birthday, too. Yes, same day. He decided to have some friends over on Friday night to celebrate a little early, though. They mostly played on the Xbox 360 all night. In other news, I finally got the check engine light in my car to go off. Had to replace the EGR valve. Not difficult, really, but the part cost over $100 dollars. Got the vacuum cleaner fixed last week, too. Now we only have a few dozen other issues outstanding. Whoo-hooo! Aside from that, I also got some of my rapier armor adjusted (some old, some new) thanks mostly to my lovely wife. She's awesome! Then I got to wear said armor to fight at a rapier demo on Sunday. There weren't a lot of fighters there, but we made the most of it and got in some great fights. After that it was off to dinner with friends at O'Charley's. I ate too much, but that's what dad's are supposed to do on Father's Day right? Once we got home I had orange creme cheesecake for dessert (NOM!) and got to play a bit on my new video game. It's an Old West themed game for the Xbox with lots of shootin' and 'splosions. Me likey! And now it's Monday (which also happens to be the Summer Solstice) and there's a ton of other stuff to take care of this week. It never ends, but sometimes, just sometimes, life is good!

Life, The Game of

Ok, I understand that life happens and stuff, but does it all have to happen at the same time?? Too many bloody things breaking down around here right now. House issues, car issues, computer issues. Even freakin' vacuum cleaner issues! Enough already!

Family Values?

I was driving to work this morning and wound up behind a pick up truck with a pair of those "truck testicles" hanging from the trailer hitch. Now, normally, I merely shrug at such displays and think "whatever, dude", but in this case, two things stood out. One, this particular set of automotive genitalia were colored a vibrant, eye-catching shade of blue. Two, the vehicle in question eventually turned into an *elemetary school parking lot*! I have to wonder exactly what message this "gentleman" was trying to convey and, perhaps more indicative of our society's screwed up "family values", why nobody seemed to have an issue with their innocent little darlin's being exposed to it. These are probably some of the same conservative "family values" voters who throw hissy fits about gay marriage or flashes of naked boobies on public television. But apparently, simulated scrotums hanging out in public school parking lots are just fine and dandy. Go figure.

Deep is My Unmotivation

Is it a bad thing that I don't want to do anything right now? It seems like all I want to do is sleep. Getting up in the morning is a struggle. Work is a struggle. Practicing swordplay is a struggle. The daily grind is grinding me down to a nub. I should be looking forward to going to Crown List this weekend and fighting in the Queen's Prize tourney, but all I can think is what a royal pain it will be. Sorry about the pun. Even my sense of humor is lazy right now, I guess. Hate being in the doldrums.

There is too much...

So much has happened since my last post. Not sure where to begin. I know I haven't posted in forever. For some reason my motivation just went away. We were all sick for a long time back in February. Almost a whole month. Some stupid viral thing that just wouldn't go away.

I was in a car accident back in the beginning of February, too. It was a four car pile up. Fortunately, I was the fourth car and only got grazed. Cracked the driver side door panel, took a chunk out of it and removed my driver side mirror. I've been driving it like that ever since. The insurance company of the driver that actually hit me finally made good, so hopefully that will get fixed in a week or so. The body shop is booked up for the next several days, sadly, but at least I have the money now.

We had a problem with our heating/cooling unit. Cost an arm and a leg to fix. Turned out to be a hole in a copper tube that caused all the freon to leak out. We went for a couple of weeks without any climate control in the house. Not fun, but fixed now. We also have started looking into getting our bathrooms remodeled. We have a small leak coming from the upstairs one and the downstairs is just... icky. Thought we had a bad mold problem, too, but it turned out to be a lot better than we suspected.

We've done some other remodeling on the house. New curtains, some fresh paint. Still in the process of painting the outside. The nasty browns just had to go. That's what we were dealing with when another bomb dropped (metaphorically speaking). My wife's ex, the father of my two step kids, died unexpectedly. I won't go into details (a lot of you already know about it), but it really tore the kids up. My wife, too. I mean, sure he ended up causing her no end of grief, but she was married to him for a long time before he left her. I totally understand how she feels. So, instead of us finishing the painting last week, we had to deal with the emotional fallout. Then I ended up going to the memorial service. That was awkward, but we didn't get the stink eye from as many people as I expected. At this point, we just have to deal with all the complications that will ensue now that he's gone, which may prove less than pleasant.

So, lots going on, including the SCA event season kicking up into high gear and my step-daughter graduating high school and preparing to go off to college. 2010 seems to be the year of big changes. I'll try a little harder to share them as they happen, but sometimes it gets pretty overwhelming and writing on my blog isn't exactly at the top of the priority list. I'm sure y'all understand.

Going to Hell

Yep, as if there were any doubt before, it's pretty much a done deal now. I'm going to Hell.* Here's the story of my inevitable damnation. We had an SCA event this past weekend that was hosted by our Shire. We typically do a small, relatively laid back event for 12th Night about this time of year. In this instance, my wife was tapped to organize things and we ended up holding the event at her church. Well, it was far to cold outside to do any fighting, so mostly it's a lot of Arts & Sciences classes. For us fightin' types, who have little interest in making fruit men or learning to knit period socks (not that there's anything wrong with any of that), it means a lot of sitting around and talking. Well, I had planned for such a contingency by bringing along some dice and card games. Not necessarily period, but fun. I was actually eager to try out a dice game that Duke Seth had shown us recently at a mundane get-together. It's a type of gambling game, but we could just as easily use tokens rather than actually gambling for money. We ended up using Hershey's Kisses. The dice we were using are simulated "bone" dice and I thought to myself "if only we had a nice wooden dice cup to go with these". You know, to add to the ambiance. Well, it just so happened that the only merchant in attendance had a rather spiffy looking wooden goblet for sale, cheap. So, I buys it and we proceed to have a rollicking good time playing at dice for a couple of hours. Sometime afterward, the merchant comes up to me and informs me that the goblet in question was made of genuine olive wood. That's pretty neat, says I. Yes, he continues, it came all the way from the Holy Land. Hmmm...., thinks me, that's a good shtick ya got there, pal. No really, he continues (apparently seeing the disbelief on my face), someone brought it over from the Middle East. So, in effect, I had us all gambling (for chocolate, no less) in a church, using an item that came from the birthplace of the Abrahamic religions. Wow! Maybe it was the Holy Grail itself! It was certainly, as others pointed out later, grail-shaped. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna burn. But, you know, it's ok. Most of the interesting people are going to end up in Hell anyway.

*this is provided, of course, that I am not already in Hell. A cold, frozen Hell that I just can't seem to escape from.