A Post! A Post! :-)

[arontius]

.....Things have been really busy for a while now, which is a contributor as to why I haven't been posting much lately. The other being a sensitivity towards the things I say these days. I have been surprized on a number of ocassions lately with something I've said being taken in a way that was not intended in the slightest. Even to the point of my going back and re-reading the things I wrote trying to figure out just how they were interpreted they way they were. :-)

.....But that's whining I suppose. So I'll stop. The main reason I AM posting this morning is that the Shipyard Intranet is down at the moment and I can't get into a lot of my usual programs and am at a standstill for about a half hour. So what do I do when I have a few free moments? I go and Live Journal. :-) Which I actually miss, to be honest. I wish people posted more to Live Journal. I wish *I* posted more to Live Journal. But that time thing, you know. I'm going to have to figure out a way to clone myself. :-)

.....The Baron and Baroness gig are still a very full time job. I am in constant awe of Cedric and Brighid these days. I don't know how in the world they were able to do all the things they did. I can barely keep up with the priority items on the Baronial 'to-do' list. I am learning the fine art of 'priority surfing', which means you do what you can with a project as quickly as possible before moving on to the next issue, crisis or Project. The nice thing about this method is that you can 'touch' a lot of things. The bad thing about this method is that you never actually FINISH anything. Which means that satisfaction is fleeting at times.

.....But progress still happens. Serjeantry is finally starting to move forward again. We had originally wanted to accept letters of intent at Candlemas. We had to push that out to June Faire as our vision wasn't lining up with any sort of written process. It still isn't in concrete yet, but we have enough on paper to start the process. We have an organizational kick-off later in March and will accept letters at June Faire. We have at least a couple of people with solid intentions of participating and being our test subjects. So let the party roll!

.....Her Excellency Inga of Avacal sent me a copy of their Serjeantry Program. There is a lot of good stuff in there! If she let's us we're going to steal sections of it for inclusion in our program. I liked the way it was worded as well. It follows my own philosophy to a large degree. I grokked it immediately. I've got an introductory broad sheet ready to pass out to potential candidates now. I've got our kick-off meeting of March 23rd as my deadline to have the in-depth pamphlet of Serjeantry ready to pass out to candidates. After that the next deadline will be June Faire, with the letters. The following step will be the Trials themselves, which will be scheduled according to how many candidates we have and what their intent is. Yes, this year will be the year of learning for Serjeantry. :-)

.....This weekend is Candlemas. Still on the learning curve with regard to running Courts. We learned much from Yule, mainly dealing with processionals. So we now have a written processional (thanks Tsuruko!) that will be easy to follow. Our Court is scheduled and written and relatively short (less than an hour). So we're good to go there. The learning curve for this Court was our own preparation. Her Excellency and I kept making our own internal assumptions on having all the 'stuff' ready to go and realized yesterday we were missing a few key elements. One more lesson learned for the NEXT Court. But THAT Court is June Faire, so we'll take the extra time we need to prepare for that one.

.....June Faire is looking good. There is the usual chaos of course. But I don't think that you can ever escape chaos completely when planning something on the scale of June Faire. What you do is manage the chaos to the best of your ability and be ready to punt as necessary when something unexpected happens. My favorite phrase from 'Shakespeare In Love', 'It's a Mystery.' :-)

.....I'm liking where things are going with June Faire though. The Marketplace moved to the top of the hill. This reduced the number of merchants by a few because of the amount of territory availble. But we are still going to get a decent variety. Plus the fact that Poppa Thorir's camper is better hidden this year on top of the hill behind the barn, instead of sticking out in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill. Improvement already! I'm also liking how all the 'demo' aspects of the Faire are being concentrated around the Modern Gate, to make them as visible to the modern attendance as possible. We still need to work out the bleachers and their dressing around the Erics as that has the potential to be an eye-sore if not covered properly, but at least we're thinking of it now.

.....And Sir Raoukinn's Tourney Circuit is coming through June Faire this year! FANTASTIC! We need to do more to advertise this, and make it something special for the fighters who will be in attendance. TBT and I are musing over different ideas on this, but need to come to a decision soon. Wow! Only three months left! Ouch!

.....Something else we need to work out are our 'progresses' through site. I know it is very Rennaissance Fair-ish, but when 'Queen Elizabeth' walks through the Faire with Her Court and banner bearers and trumpeters and pomp & circumstance, people really go gaga for that scene. We think that something along this line would work well for June Faire. Now, can TBT pull it off in style? Well, it'll be a challenge. But we'll do our best. :-) Sigh! We may even want to ask Trumpet Man to take a tour with us. Although TBT has a line on a good piper as well, so maybe a 'progress' with bagpipes would be fun. :-)

.....Then it is off to July Coronation. Dragon's Laire is taking care of the Marketplace for the event that is officially being hosted by Aquaterra and Midhaven. I put together a Marketplace Application and am about to launch. But I need to do more to see if I can get someone else to work with me on the Marketplace. Someone who has a little more spare time than I do. I can still do a lot of the heavy lifting, but if someone else can become 'the face' for the work, it would be nice. The people I've approached so far are all super busy with five hundred things of their own already, so I'm still looking.

.....Still have to make it thorugh KAS / KBC though. Dragon's Laire is hosting again, for the third time at the Silverdale Beach Hotel. The Autocrat is having life issue, which made me a little nervous at first. But after taking a step back and looking critically I relaxed a little:

* It IS our third time at the same venue, with virtually the same staff at the venue.
* The current Kingdom Minister of Arts and Sciences lives in Dragon's Laire AND is the Deputy Autocrat (Go Ellen! :-)).
* No Marketplace to worry about this year.
* No series of classes or lots of extra meetings to worry about this year.
* The competition schedule is already pretty much set and the Competition Staff looks all ready to go.
* The hotel already looks great. We could ditch decorations all together and the place would still look fantastic.

.....The more I thought about things, the less I worried. KAS / KBC will happen and it will be great. So let's roll with it! :-)

.....Sigh! Time to go and do battle with the IT Deities again! Wish me luck!

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Comments

Here's a parade

[brandywilliams.livejournal.com]

This was my favorite parade ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_0dMhzoWnU

Re: Here's a parade

[arontius]

Hahahahaha. :-) Not exactly what I had in mind. But point well taken. :-) Sometimes life can be a little too serious and we need to be reminded that a 'parade' doesn't need to be serious in any way, shape or form.

Although, I will point out to YOU, Brandy, that you should follow your own advice too. :-)

A.