Sunny Sunday Morning.

.....Feels cold, but it is bright and sunny outside. Perhaps Spring really is around the corner? Or is this the lull between storms? I seem to remember something on NOAA about a possible chance of snow tonight. I'm O.K. with that as long is it gets it out of its system before the long drive to KAS / KBC next weekend. :-)

.....Friday night was a retirement gathering at a Mexican Restaurant in downtown Bremerton. Felt a little more surreal than other retirement in that Fred is someone I had been working with for well over ten years. I always thought of him as part of my generation, and here he is retiring. Made me feel old, up until I realized I still had another eighteen to twenty years left until I was the one having the retirement party.

.....With everything said and done, Fred's going to be receiving retirement checks of approximately $4,500 a month. His bills come in at around $4,300 a month. He didn't seem overly concerned as his wife was going to continue working for a while. But more importantly, he was actually going to be looking for a job doing something he really liked doing. As young as Fred is, he might still retire from a second job. He's under CSRS though, so there is some latitude for doing that. I think that FERS is going to make us wait until our mid-sixties to retire.

.....Many people from our old Code 361 days showed up to wish Fred well. It was interesting to witness as, to a person, retiring and de-stressing from working at the Navy Yard seems to have taken years off of their faces. Never underestimate what stress does to a body. It's amazing.

.....Saturday was a trip to Madrone's Arts and Sciences Championship. I piled into Florence, the Wonder Van, along with Laurellen, Madrun, Ellen and Tsuruko. The event was in a church in the Magnolia area. Beautiful houses with incredible views.

.....We made it before Court, so TBT and I sat alongside Cire and Elizabeth and they witnessed four competitors. Lots of good stuff on display. All the ladies were asked to judge some items during the day. I was not, but there wasn't anything that I would have lent much strength on as a judge in any case. So I wasn't incredibly disappointed. I was feeling a little sluggish anyway.

.....Ismenia performed her skaldic rendition of 'Baby Shark' for Court. It was FANTASTIC! Very well written. She has promised to do it again at June Faire.

.....Worked on the largesse bag that TBT gave me to do about four or five years ago. It's finally finished! :-) I need to remember to give it to her so it doesn't get lost in my pile of stuff. :-) Took me long enough, but I never gave up on it. The rest of the day was spent in some interesting conversations. I pulled out the knitting piece that TBT started me on doing. I kept making the mistake of keeping the stitches way too tight, which led to the dropping of stitches. But it is still a good learning process and I'll keep going on it until I run out of yarn from this skein. Kind of a nice way to keep the hands busy on something that doesn't require a concentrated effort to achieve. Although I say that after dropping stitches here, there and everywhere. :-)

.....By 2PM the hall was starting to get full of people. Not uncomfortably so, but a really nice turnout. Mistress Khalja traveled up from Three Mountains to attend the event. She has a deal where her proteges and apprentices pick a particularly favorite event of theirs for her to attend. Khalja's protege Aleksandra picked Madrone's A&S Championship to be that event. I thought the concept was actually a rather nice idea, and a great way for Khalja to see her peeps in a 'natural' setting.

.....Khalja has six apprentices and protege though. I would feel a little uncomfortable with that many to worry about, but Khalja keeps up with them. Kudos to her. I have one inactive and one concentrating on more important things at the moment. Another has asked to become part of the group and I'm on the edge of saying yes. I just have to make sure the other two don't have any issues with this happening.

.....We all left before evening Court as TBT and I both were feeling rather tired. The hall was packed by then. During the day I had seen Tomyris, Countes E and Cire (of course), Anne-Marie, Kerij-E, Sean, Fiach, and a whole host of people. The people of Madrone were very nice, friendly and inviting. I really enjoyed the day there.

.....Mateusz and Rycheza appeared later in the day as well. It was good to sit and chat with them for a while as well. Some good conversation with Mateusz concerning A&S geekery. His mind works a little differently than most. :-) But very inspiring. He was contemplating the inadvertent use of lanolin as a preservative on tooling and wood because of the extensive use of wool in clothing and storage. It was a different way of looking at a supposition, but all his postulations made sense.

.....Other good inspiration in the hall. I was looking at a really nicely done 'X' style chair done by one of the competitors. It started a conversation between Madrun and I about how to build a really nice looking encampment. After TBT and I step down of course. :-) I've complained a number of times about the hodge-podge collection of stuff TBT and I bring to an encampment. Comes from many years of collecting stuff without an end goal in mind. I think that the year we step down we need to take some time and clear out our camping gear and come up with a plan and timeline of what we want our encampment to look like and how we are going to get there. I love camping in Lobelia and all, and am certainly not going to give her up. But it certainly feels a lot more 'medieval' in a pavilion. We'll get there. There is plenty of time.

.....We took the Seattle ferry home and had dinner at Family Pancake House, then home. TBT was done at that point and went to bed. I was feeling restless and took some clothes over to Brighid's that she had purchased from Tomyris. Bernadette had arranged to have a Birthday Party for Sexy Matt over at J.R.'s house. Although that kind of fell through as Matt's employers called him on short notice to go to work down in Arizona / California. By the time I showed up, most everyone had gone for the evening. I stayed though and chatted with J.R., Cedric, Brighid, Madrun and Radmund, Conchobar and Eilidh, and Thangbrand and his lady. Lots of hilarity. A nice way to end the evening, and I was still in bed by 11PM. :-)

.....The Ladies are coming over today to prepare for Kingdom Bags. That happens at 1PM. If we are going to get our Starbuck's in, and our shopping done for the day, I think I'd better see if TBT is going to get up soonish.

.....Aaron / Arontius.

The Mighty New Userpic! :-)

.....TBT and I saw this in the cheap bin at Albertsons as part of a box set. TBT had to have the box of Valentines, which are all hilarious. I think I like this one as a Userpic. :-)

.....I feel Mightier already!!!!

.....Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!! :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Happy Valentine's Day, TBT!!! :-)

.....This?! Is funny. :-)

.....Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!

.....Aaron.