So ends week 11

Actually, it’s day 1 of week 12, but who’s counting?

A little more than a fifth of the way through the year and I’m still struggling with my new year’s resolution.  I’ve been to 3 practices and 1 event, but only put on armor twice. Not sure if that makes me 4/11 or 2/11, but I’ll give myself the benefit of the doubt. I’m very excited to see a large(ish) group of people at local practices interested in learning Liechtenauer style longsword fighting, and I’ve been participating in those drills (out of armor) whenever possible. A handful of people are practicing what we drill in armor, too. I’m dreaming of a unit of longswords on the battlefield. That would be full of WIN.

Also getting ready for Penguicon, which is simultaneously too far away and too close. I need to get active in bug triage again, and update my “intro to bug triage” presentation before the con gets here.

Decided today to start learning the C programming language. It’s a highly marketable skill (I’ve had 3 potential jobs ask me if I have any experience in C) and something I’ve really been meaning to do for some time now.

Last weekend

Sometimes I don’t even think last weekend existed. Weekends are supposed to have some “sit down and relax” time in them. Last weekend seemed to be almost constantly in motion. I don’t even remember Friday night or Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon was when the Ubuntu Michigan LoCo got together to participate in the Global Bug Jam. While the stats page was pretty buggy and giving out ridiculous numbers, I still feel justified in saying we rocked it. Five of us in person in the metro Detroit area and an unknown quantity of other online or on the West side of the state manhandled (at latest count) 90 bugs. Plus, we had a good time! Sure, we hang out and talk on IRC, mailing list, and Identi.ca all the time, but there’s something about a face-to-face meeting that just can’t be equalled online.

Sunday, I cleared Saturday’s snow off my driveway and sidewalk. Afterwards I took a short but much-needed nap, and then I went to SCA fight practice, bringing my numbers on the New Year’s resolution to 2/8. So while 25% is a low grade on a test, and not even a great batting average in pro baseball, it does put me on a pace for 13 fights this year, which is quite a bit shy of my goal, but far in excess of any year in recent memory. I would have to go back to before I started travelling to Germany for Chrysler (about 6 years ago) to even come close to that. Also, I intend to improve on that pace, not keep it.

One thing that will make it easier for me to improve on my record is the Liechtenauer training group that has formed at the local fight practice. I’ve talked about this swordfighting style here before, and it really lights a fire in me. In fact it’s the only reason I went this weekend, since my knee was still hurting from the previous weekend and I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of putting armor on. I was hugely impressed with the number of people who turned out for this group. I had no idea so many others were interested. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many people with a longsword (“bastard sword” or “great sword” in SCA or D&D terms) in their hands at one time before. Now if we can just get all these folks into armor and fighting with this style…

To round out my Sunday, I went to The Fridge directly after fight practice. The Fridge is a refrigerated track toboggan run. It felt more like a roller coaster, except without any turns (and you walk back up the hill rather than being carried up it). It was a lot of fun until my knee decided it wanted no part of climbing back up that hill again. Unfortunately, it decided this at the bottom of the hill… But at least I only had to go half way to get back to parking-lot level.

This weekend I expect/hope to get more rest in, though I’m aiming for practice again on Sunday, even if it’s only for the Liechtenauer training.

Quoting W

In the immortal words of George W. Bush:
“Mission accomplished!“
Which is to say I actually fought a handful of bouts this weekend, and am now 1/7 on my resolution. Because, as we all know, “mission accomplished” is Bush-ese for “…the easy part is over and now the hard part begins”, or “we ain’t even got started yet”.

Lessons learned:
My footwork sucks. I need to practice, practice, practice moving my feet. Because I don’t. I’ll never be very good until I learn to do this instinctively.
When I do move, I have to move correctly. My fighting was cut short because I overextended and wrenched my knee.
Took a class on speed, strength, and stamina training, and picked up some good tips on conditioning.

Mind over matter

It occurs to me, as I reflect on my 0/6 record with this year’s lone new year resolution, that I may be a hypochondriac of sorts. Whenever I decide ahead of time that I am going to fight on a particular day, I inevitably begin to feel unwell as that day draws near. Sometimes it’s a headache. Sometimes an upset stomach. Or my wrist hurts (that might be for real). As this weekend approaches, and I’m planning to fight in the tourney on Saturday, my knee is starting to bug me today. I can’t help but feel that this is my mind playing tricks on me. I’m still packing my armor.

Weekly resolution update

Yeah, I know… how boring. Who wants to read this crap? But it seems to me that the best way to keep a resolution is to keep it on your mind, and make your results public so that people can hassle you about it. Likely nobody really cares if I go to SCA fight practice or not, but I know multiple people who would like to hassle me over something they don’t really care about. Face it: it’s fun to hassle your friends.

So I’m modifying my resolution slightly to be more flexible. Instead of fighting at least once a week, I resolve to fight an average of once per week. So even though I’m currently 0/1, I could still wind up at 52/52 on the year, and call it good. For that matter, I could exceed 52/52… and I like the idea that I can see how well I did, rather than just saying “crap, I already blew my entire resolution on the first week of the year.”

Happy New Year

Just one resolution this year:
I will, if I am physically well enough to fight, go to one practice or event per week.

I know I’m probably going to fail at this, but I’m going to keep things simple and just focus on this one goal, knowing that I may well miss the first week because of the pains I’ve been having across my body the past few days. I really wish I knew what that was about.

Something’s wrong with me…

Wizard of Oz came on TV tonight. My first thought was “where’s the Dark Side of the Moon CD?”. My second thought wasn’t so much an actual thought… I just had a song start running through my head over and over again:

<font><font size="3" face="arial">The French Jesuit's Song<br /><br />                 By James Qui Connait<br />                    mka James Bristol<br /><br />                 Tune: If I Only Had a Brain (Wizard of Oz)<br /><br /><br />         I could while away the hours<br />         In dungeons and in towers<br />         Inflicting horrid pain.<br />         I would work the inquisition<br />         And enhance my own position<br />         If I only lived in Spain.<br /><br />         I'd have hot irons and thumbscrews<br />         For heretics and the Jews;<br />         Confessions I'd obtain!<br />         Hear the sounds of chains a clinkin'<br />         At the stake a body's stinkin'<br />         If I only lived in Spain.<br /><br />         I..could tell you why<br />         Torquemada's a fun guy<br />         I could make you cry to God on high,<br />         I've got a rack, on which you'd fry.<br /><br />         I could help you see the reason<br />         The True Faith is so pleasin'<br />         And Heaven you could gain.<br />         I'd no longer chat "Vobiscum"<br />         I'd yank guts out, then I'd twist 'em<br />         If I only lived in Spain....<br /><br /><br /></font></font>

State of the body

edit: Bummer. Posted this with Scribefire this morning, and the post is blank. FAIL. Will investigate and repost later.

Photo Friday: The Good Life

I’m usually to busy living the good life to photograph it, but I have a picture here of a tent full of happy, wet, drunk SCAdians from about 12 years ago that will always be remembered as one of the best weeks of my life. Sorry the pic is so small and low-quality.

Recap: Season of the Wolf

I took a nice drive through the Canadian wilderness countryside Saturday morning. It was a nice day for a drive, thankfully, since I had to deal with one detour and two wrong turns (which is what I get for not having a decent map in unfamiliar territory). I also drove through an area infested with suicidal birds. There were dozens of them, and the flew in a swarm more than a flock, low to the ground. They kept flying back and forth across the road. None hit me, but I think I counted about a dozen bird carcasses on the road in a 1/4 mile stretch.

I still got to the event on time, and actually was waiting around for a bit in armor for the tourney to start. I should have fought some warm-up bouts… foolish me, I wanted to be “fresh” for the tourney. If I’d done some warm-ups, I might’ve fought a bit better. At the very least, I’d have known how slippery the floor was, and switched from my period(ish) footwear to something with a bit more traction.

So I went through a 9-person round robin without any real problems, but also without any wins. In fact, the best fight I had was against a knight who came in second overall in the tourney, but I consistently made mistakes… mostly judging range incorrectly. There’s not much worse than getting hit in the head with your guard down because you thought your opponent wouldn’t be able to reach you. Need to work on that.

Got my first kills of the day fighting post-tourney warm-ups against Her Majesty of Ealdormere (who didn’t participate in the round robin), but once she got warmed up, I lost the ability to win again. Then the meat grinder started… 4 bearpits (winner stays in, loser goes to the back of the line) were running, keeping people fighting as much as they wanted. I didn’t do much better in the pits, with only 1 kill on the day, against a knight who took my left arm and then did me the courtesy of fighting one-handed against me. With the longer sword, I was able to get a good thrust to the face as he came thrusting in at my chest.

A nice drive home with a detour I was expecting… detained at the border by U.S. officials, who were unfortunately looking for somebody with the same name as me. It wasn’t too bad, though. They were polite and professional, and I had a different middle name and a lot bigger body than the suspect, so after they took care of the necessary procedures and paperwork I was free to go. No body cavity searches, or anything. Doesn’t really make me want to cross the border again any time soon, though.