Mid-Week, Around the Far Pole.

.....The day started off on a very different note. I opened up my e-mail to find out that one of the Supervisors who works on my equipment had died at home yesterday. He was Ron Reier, an Electrical Supervisor who primarily worked on Aircraft Carrier Catapults. I first met him back in 2001 and had worked with him off-and-on since then. I remember talking to him just a number of days ago as we were trying to find and order parts for him.

.....Ron was about my age as well. A really nice guy who was well respected by the people on his crew. He will be missed.

.....Getting older is not so much fun as you start watching those around you depart.

.....Definitely set the mood for the day at work. The Big Boss was back. He and the Mid-Level Boss tracked me down and did a Seagull Run on me, piling on a couple of Impossible Tasks (tm). I'm still scratching my head at how I'm going to be able to get what they want done. But I'll do my best.

.....Returned home to a bunch of e-mail that made me walk away and think a while. Being Seneschal means really trying to balance the needs of the branch with the needs of the volunteers who make up the group. It's always a lesson in patience and understanding. I'm always learning new things about the people who volunteer their time. And it's a good lesson. If you learn how to understand someone better, especially someone whom you generally don't relate well normally, it is amazing the things you can facilitate. Plus you get to make more friends with people who do not generally inhabit your normal friend circles. :-)

.....Sandra O'Dell was at Fight Practice last night. She is a member of the Barony who has been accepted at this summer's session of Clarion West. This is an intense six week writing 'experience' in this area. I went to a panel of past participants at NORWESCON. It sounds like an incredible opportunity. I'm quite jealous. Sandra has promised to blog continuously about the experience. Maybe some day. :-) But the 'experience' costs over $3,000 and Sandra was having a bake sale at Fight Practice. Adrienne was helping her out. I was gratified to see a number of people make donations to her fund. I even cleaned out TBT's car to put about three dollars in the fund. I'll try to put in more later if I can.

.....It was a rather productive evening! I'm actually pretty happy.

.....I finished my first quarter Doomsday Report for The Crier. I think that I'll have one more to do before I turn it all over to Elonda. Wow! I can't believe I'm almost completely out of the Chronicler's Office. In some ways I will not miss the deadlines for filiing the financial reports. But in other ways I will miss the connection I have with the internal clockwork of the Kingdom. The Doomsday has been getting easier and easier to complete as well. My understanding of how it works has been getting better. For that alone I'm grateful for having done it.

.....I finally got my first post on the Baronial Customary out! Huzzah! I posted the 'rules' of how we were going to do the review and then the first two articles. They are the shortest and easiest articles in the Customary. But it makes a good jumping off point in setting the 'method' on how we are going to get this review done. I'm not going to push really hard either. We have time to get this done.

.....Took the plunge on getting a Western Regional Pelican Meeting set up as well. We have such varied schedules that it is next to impossible to set up a good day and time where you can even get half of the available people together to discuss the agenda. So I just took the initiative to set something up locally and crossed my fingers that I could get even a few people outside of the Barony itself to attend. The initial feed-back has been promising. Crossing my fingers. :-)

.....Waited too long before making my travel arrangements to Crane, IN, for the Battery Conference at the end of the month. I had a choice between a red-eye on Sunday night, or a flight that left Seattle at about noon, with a final arrival time in Indianapolis at approximately 10:30 PM on Monday night. Neither was very appealing, but I decided I would rather be on site early than dog tired to start the conference on Tuesday morning. Sigh!

.....MUST remember to e-mail Donnan and Callista tomorrow. I have to at least stop by and say 'Hi' while I'm in the Indianapolis area.

.....Tonight was Sophia's first meeting as the Seneschale of Druim Doineann. I hope that it went well for her. She is a good person and I think that Druim Doineann will benefit from her as Seneschale.

.....The pillow is calling me seductively. :-) Good Night.

.....Aaron / Arontius.