Tuesday Catch Up.

.....I rather like these short weeks broken by holidays in the middle. Although I think the majority of those working in the Shipyard took the even more intelligent approach of taking a few days off on either side of the holiday, or the entire week. The Parking Garage was practically empty this morning. I was able to sit at my desk and get caught up with things that have been lingering for a while. I'm on the hook to be back to work for Thursday and Friday, so it is possible that I might actually get ahead a little bit. Which would be nice.

.....I'm being good right now while everyone else takes leave so that when I start eating up the leave for events in August and September that I'm not given much grief. September Crown alone is probably going to eat up at least three or four days of leave. I'm going to try and resist taking leave around the Picnic and Huntsman's Challenge, but we will see what happens.

.....The weekend saw some productivity, but not nearly as much as I would have liked. I managed to do some cleaning of the house on Saturday. The kitchen was washed down, with several severe lectures to The Rhys Monster to not mess it up until at least TBT had seen it! :-) The bedroom and computer were cleaned out and vacuumed, along with the hall. Then the laundry was done.

.....After that I spent the afternoon trying to clean out my e-mail inbox. Did manage to reduce from almost 500 down to below 300, so I called that at least partially successful.

.....Then spent some time working on an FAQ for the Norseland Site. It was a very interesting week in that regard. The Equestrian Community had been doing a little research on the September Crown site and ran across some Internet sites talking about Norseland being a remediation site, with a meticulous cleanup effort after many years as an Army Base, a Landfill and a Trailer Park. The Equestrians were worried, after reading these reports of a HazMat clean-up, whether the site would be hazardous to their horses in any way. They were legitimate questions. We had been told the site was safe for human use, but humans don't generally roll around in the dirt and eat the local vegetation.

.....So Tsuruko, as the Equestrian POC, started asking questions of the State Department of Ecology. It did not take long at all before we started seeing an avalanche of e-mails from the State, the County, and the Port speaking about the site and what plans we had for the site. It was an intense day or two. So intense that the people leasing us the Site, the BMP, told us to take them out of the picture until something was ultimately decided. I had one conversation with the BMP where he was upset enough that he suggested we move the event. This was a non-starter as far as I was concerned. I spoke fast and as persuasively as I could and basically talked him off the ledge and told him that we'd deal with all the legal entities and let the BMP know the results when it was all over. They ultimately agreed to that plan and I breathed a short sigh of relief.

.....In the end we held a Teleconference with representatives from the State Dept. of Ecology, someone from the Kitsap Public Health Office, the Port of Bremerton, and Tsuruko and myself. It was a very friendly conversation. The state gave us formal permission to hold September Crown on Norseland and informed us that, among other things, the site was perfectly safe for the plans we had for it and that the area designated for the Equestrians was never even part of the remediation efforts. We came away with a formal statement to that affect (which I've already received in the mail), direction to the final sampling report online (of which I now have a copy), a POC for people to call if they have more questions of the State POC, and well wishes for a good event. I breathed another sigh of relief after that call.

.....Only thing left to do now is to have the Equestrians actually tour the site to make sure the area in question will work for their Tournament. This is supposed to happen in the next couple of weeks.

.....FAQ was put together and will be part of the September Crown web-site shortly.

.....Sunday was a day of migraine. I did not accomplish much at all. I did push my rear out the door in the afternoon to meet Albrecht and Magdalena so we could give them a day shade and a few other things from storage for use at An Tir / West War. I was barely holding it all together at that point, but made it through. I felt a little badly for taking off when Ralg was still trying to organize things. But I wouldn't have been a whole lot of help at that point. I went home, pulled out stuff for Monday and then went to bed for the remainder of the day.

.....Did some research on the internet last night and caught up on some more e-mail. Spent a little bit of time with TBT. Probably should have spent some more, but I was on a mission and intent on finding a few things out. :-) Yes, I can be stubborn on occasion. :-)

.....TBT was told over the weekend, jokingly from what I understand, that she does not put forth a whole lot of effort as Baroness. I may have to find out what exactly was meant by that as hearing it would have bothered me a great deal. I acknowledge quite frankly that this job of Baron and Baroness is one big assed job. No one person can do it effectively alone. TBT and I bring both brain and brawn to the table to manage this job at all. I'm not even saying we're even being very good at it. I'm just saying to even try to be effective requires a lot of effort, a lot of good ideas, a lot of management skills, a lot of intelligence, and a lot of perseverance. The only things that keeps me from feeling completely overwhelmed on occasion is TBT being right there helping me and managing situations with which she has experience or things of which she is just better at dealing with. There are things that I just take over because there are details that just bore TBT to death and she just doesn't like dealing with. I think we make a pretty good team in that regard. If anyone were to say to me that either one of us works any less than the other, I would say they were utterly and completely wrong, with a few additional remarks just to make sure my meaning was not mistaken.

.....Had to get that one out of my system as it really was bothering me a lot last night. I probably need to just let that one go unless it is mentioned to me directly.

.....And, I get to sleep in a little bit tomorrow. Which is a good thing. Along with a picnic with lots of good food. That Richard can grill a rather fantastic steak! :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.