Thursday Notes.
Feb. 23rd, 2012 04:47 pm.....It's Thursday night and I have nowhere outside of the home I have to be. What sounds incredibly wonderful at the moment? A nap, followed by dinner, and then bed. :-) I think I'm a little tired.
.....This morning on the Estrella War Feed on Live Journal, this year's Marketplace Map was published. I was surprised by the relatively small number of merchants attending this year. I immediately thought of the first year I attended Estrella, as a booth monkey for Inga at her booth. There were literally several hundred merchants there in the Marketplace. It took up nearly a quarter of the entire site in and of itself.
.....I've heard from a number of people now about the decline in popularity of Estrella War. There are many reasons why, of course. The truth is probably a combination of all of them. I just hope Atendveldt is thinking of the future though. Great Western War has definitely taken off in popularity and is something of direct competition for Estrella. It may be scheduled for another time of the year. But it takes a lot of funding to attend an event like a inter-Kingdom War. If you have to make a choice as to which one you are going to attend....
.....I, myself, miss Estrella Mountain Park a great deal. It was such a beautiful place. Although I recognize the fact that I miss it much like I miss June Faire at Frank Raab Park. It is nostalgia that fuels that emotion. If events are to grow and evolve, things have to change. It is a natural law.
.....Things are slowing down a little at work. We're in a short window between Projects, wrapping up the last one and starting the wind-up towards the next one. Several of the Team are on leave. I find myself with time to actually catch up on the at work 'to-do' list. I have a check list in Outlook I use to tick mark the 'inbasket' and 'outbasket'. But I actually rely on a stack of 3x5 cards with itemized and prioritized notes on them that I can shuffle as needed. Four weeks ago, this stack of cards numbered eight, with at least four to six tasks to a card. This week I'm down to three cards and a Grand Total of Fifteen item them, some of which aren't even due for months. I revel in these moment. Although I wish this time period were more appropriately placed around June Faire. :-)
.....Lot of people on edge this morning due the the shooting of the officer in Gorst. Kitsap County seems to be turning into the West Seattle Ghetto. Between this shooting, and the one at the Bremerton Public School, and the one in Poulsbo just a few days ago. Hope that it is not a sign of things to come.
.....The news caught me by surprise this morning. I don't watch a lot of Television really any more. But there are a few things I still watch regularly, one of them being the news. I'm still an information junkie, both live T.V. and internet. I feel the necessity to 'know' everything possible about everything around me. Whether I need to know it or not. That need to know has actually gotten me into trouble on occasion. But having ready to access to arcane information has helped at times as well, so I'll take the lumps when they show up.
.....But it was eerie watching the news this morning concerning the police officer shot. There were no names and no suspects at 5AM. Although realistically I knew that I wasn't going to actually see anything between home and the Shipyard, I kept 'looking' around me, expecting something to happen at any moment. Somewhat surreal.
.....The February mail brought the next not-so-good bit of financial news today. The retirement account took another hit again last year. Not big as the total contributions for the year exceeded the loss on investment. But that doesn't make it look much better. My retirement is pretty diversified too. Blech! Need to increase the contributions to that account. We haven't reached the maximum amount yet, which is something like $17,000 a year. Need to check on that.
.....I need to get moving on some clean up. If we're getting out of here at a somewhat early hour on Saturday, there are clothes to be cleaned, some rooms to be straightened up, and at least a few things to pull together for a day in Madrone. I may not have the opportunity tomorrow. There is yet another retirement gathering after work. This time though someone I worked with for a number of years. I'll be sorry to see him go. He and I were a lot alike, to the point where we could both be hear laughing a half a building away when we worked together. :-) He himself was a large guy who had a gastric bypass operation here about three years ago. He's done even better with it than I have! And weighs less than 200 pounds now. Although, I do have to say in my defense that he actually took the time to devote to it and certainly is not involved in anything like the SCA. :-) In fact, I get teased constantly about not having my own life and having sold my body for SCA research. :-) There could be some truth in that statement. :-)
.....I also need to clean up the pile of books next to the bed. The book monster is starting to take over the space again.
.....I picked up a Stephen King story over the Christmas Break, and read through it this week. It was a prelude to his fantasy series of The Dark Tower. For some reason, about once every five years or so, I feel this impulse to read one of his stories. Mainly because the premise sounds interesting, I think maybe my perspective has changed, and I've forgotten what those stories are really like. Once again I was introduced to why it is exactly I really dislike his writing style. He seems to have little to no love for his main characters at all. I can understand characters having flaws and being basically human, but to be almost anti-heroes? Blech. I don't mind tragedy at all. Sometimes a noble tragedy is good for the soul. But inhuman tragedy? Isn't the genocide that actually happens in the world enough without having to make more of it up? I finished the book and felt very unsatisfied with it. Although, I suppose in retrospect I should be grateful. It was a relatively SHORT prelude to a larger book. I didn't get sucked into some awful 500-page description of a character that is killed off unceremoniously on the 501st page. I think this book goes on to the recycle pile. Time to find something else a little more satisfying.
.....I think I've probably spent enough time procrastinating on the computer. Time to get something done.
.....Aaron / Arontius.
.....This morning on the Estrella War Feed on Live Journal, this year's Marketplace Map was published. I was surprised by the relatively small number of merchants attending this year. I immediately thought of the first year I attended Estrella, as a booth monkey for Inga at her booth. There were literally several hundred merchants there in the Marketplace. It took up nearly a quarter of the entire site in and of itself.
.....I've heard from a number of people now about the decline in popularity of Estrella War. There are many reasons why, of course. The truth is probably a combination of all of them. I just hope Atendveldt is thinking of the future though. Great Western War has definitely taken off in popularity and is something of direct competition for Estrella. It may be scheduled for another time of the year. But it takes a lot of funding to attend an event like a inter-Kingdom War. If you have to make a choice as to which one you are going to attend....
.....I, myself, miss Estrella Mountain Park a great deal. It was such a beautiful place. Although I recognize the fact that I miss it much like I miss June Faire at Frank Raab Park. It is nostalgia that fuels that emotion. If events are to grow and evolve, things have to change. It is a natural law.
.....Things are slowing down a little at work. We're in a short window between Projects, wrapping up the last one and starting the wind-up towards the next one. Several of the Team are on leave. I find myself with time to actually catch up on the at work 'to-do' list. I have a check list in Outlook I use to tick mark the 'inbasket' and 'outbasket'. But I actually rely on a stack of 3x5 cards with itemized and prioritized notes on them that I can shuffle as needed. Four weeks ago, this stack of cards numbered eight, with at least four to six tasks to a card. This week I'm down to three cards and a Grand Total of Fifteen item them, some of which aren't even due for months. I revel in these moment. Although I wish this time period were more appropriately placed around June Faire. :-)
.....Lot of people on edge this morning due the the shooting of the officer in Gorst. Kitsap County seems to be turning into the West Seattle Ghetto. Between this shooting, and the one at the Bremerton Public School, and the one in Poulsbo just a few days ago. Hope that it is not a sign of things to come.
.....The news caught me by surprise this morning. I don't watch a lot of Television really any more. But there are a few things I still watch regularly, one of them being the news. I'm still an information junkie, both live T.V. and internet. I feel the necessity to 'know' everything possible about everything around me. Whether I need to know it or not. That need to know has actually gotten me into trouble on occasion. But having ready to access to arcane information has helped at times as well, so I'll take the lumps when they show up.
.....But it was eerie watching the news this morning concerning the police officer shot. There were no names and no suspects at 5AM. Although realistically I knew that I wasn't going to actually see anything between home and the Shipyard, I kept 'looking' around me, expecting something to happen at any moment. Somewhat surreal.
.....The February mail brought the next not-so-good bit of financial news today. The retirement account took another hit again last year. Not big as the total contributions for the year exceeded the loss on investment. But that doesn't make it look much better. My retirement is pretty diversified too. Blech! Need to increase the contributions to that account. We haven't reached the maximum amount yet, which is something like $17,000 a year. Need to check on that.
.....I need to get moving on some clean up. If we're getting out of here at a somewhat early hour on Saturday, there are clothes to be cleaned, some rooms to be straightened up, and at least a few things to pull together for a day in Madrone. I may not have the opportunity tomorrow. There is yet another retirement gathering after work. This time though someone I worked with for a number of years. I'll be sorry to see him go. He and I were a lot alike, to the point where we could both be hear laughing a half a building away when we worked together. :-) He himself was a large guy who had a gastric bypass operation here about three years ago. He's done even better with it than I have! And weighs less than 200 pounds now. Although, I do have to say in my defense that he actually took the time to devote to it and certainly is not involved in anything like the SCA. :-) In fact, I get teased constantly about not having my own life and having sold my body for SCA research. :-) There could be some truth in that statement. :-)
.....I also need to clean up the pile of books next to the bed. The book monster is starting to take over the space again.
.....I picked up a Stephen King story over the Christmas Break, and read through it this week. It was a prelude to his fantasy series of The Dark Tower. For some reason, about once every five years or so, I feel this impulse to read one of his stories. Mainly because the premise sounds interesting, I think maybe my perspective has changed, and I've forgotten what those stories are really like. Once again I was introduced to why it is exactly I really dislike his writing style. He seems to have little to no love for his main characters at all. I can understand characters having flaws and being basically human, but to be almost anti-heroes? Blech. I don't mind tragedy at all. Sometimes a noble tragedy is good for the soul. But inhuman tragedy? Isn't the genocide that actually happens in the world enough without having to make more of it up? I finished the book and felt very unsatisfied with it. Although, I suppose in retrospect I should be grateful. It was a relatively SHORT prelude to a larger book. I didn't get sucked into some awful 500-page description of a character that is killed off unceremoniously on the 501st page. I think this book goes on to the recycle pile. Time to find something else a little more satisfying.
.....I think I've probably spent enough time procrastinating on the computer. Time to get something done.
.....Aaron / Arontius.