Arontius of Bygelswade

.....NOTE to those going to NORWESCON: Room block is currently 90% sold. It'll only be a couple more weeks and if you haven't booked you'll be stuck with the Gnomes across the street in La Quinta. While they are a friendly bunch, I would bet you'd much rather be in the DoubleTree where all the action is located. :-)

.....I made some progress on the house today. The entire kitchen was cleaned. From dishes, to countertops, to cat boxes, to even sweeping and moping the floor. I felt so accomplished that I went ahead and emptied out all the Bins-Of-Doom from SCA events that had started piling up in the Living Room. There were five of them left over from September Crown and Last Chance. They are now all emptied, with their contents either put away, or piled neatly and ready for further sorting.

.....There is a lot of stuff scattered around the house. We're going to have to MAKE a free weekend here sometime in October or November to get everything organized and put together. I can't find anything anymore without a lot of frantic searching. I'm also very much in a mood to reduce the water level detritus in the house and give the local Goodwill a couple of largish donation of stuff. I think I'll dig up my old copy of 'Own 100 things....' and re-read it. I have just too much stuff and need to have more open space. Just sayin'....

.....Went up to Frank Raab Park to picnic with a group of others and welcome back Giovanni Della Rosa, at least temporarily. I guess Dave had an official trip out here and Giovanni tagged along to visit family and friends. He's lost more hair, but is sporting kinda a beard. :-) Nice attendance too. I think that at the busiest there were at least sixteen people. The nice thing is that we have been able to follow Giovanni's life on Facebook to a degree. But that still doesn't totally erase teh awkwardness of meeting after a long absence. Bit it really didn't take long before we were laughing and joking. Reminiscing about old times, as well as making plans for the future.

.....Giovanni might have the opportunity to move to London for a year or two. And it might correspond with mine and TBT's visit to England when we have stepped down from being Baron and Baroness. That is rather exciting. Besides getting the 'insiders' tour of London, we might even be able to spend a night or two at the Giovanni residence. The hotels of London are not cheap! Even paying Giovanni and Dave for a couple of nights on the couch might save us quite a bit of money. But even if this proves not to be a viable option, it'll be a lot of fun to hand out with a couple of friends and explore London. :-)

.....It was probably a good thing we left all the alcohol at home. The conversation kept coming back to parties at the house. The most notable being the last 'White Trash Party' we had here. Epic Memories! We all got dressed up in our best cut offs, trashy T-Shirts, overalls, high heels and wigs and posed in front of a beat up van in the Cul-De-Sac. All the neighbors peeking out their blinds, trying not to be obvious about it. I wish I could find pictures of that party!

.....Ouch! Or the party where Giovanni and Brighid decided to try a little bit of every alcohol I owned at the time. Which was rather considerable. They both ended up totally plastered, with Giovanni sleeping the night away in the closet of the spare room. I don't dare drink like that anymore. The recovery time just takes too long on this aging body. :-)

.....Being at Frank Raab Park sure brought back a lot of memories. I am still amazed that we ever managed June Faire in such a small space! My first ever June Faire was there in 1987. I remember the one row of tents on the field that year. Everyone was excited because some Knight had brought an Arming Pavilion that year. In retrospect it looked a lot like the round one Gwen puts out on the Erics these days. But at the time it was a novelty as everyone had modern type tents that were camoflauged. :-)

.....The season is turning. Time to put away the camping gear and pull out the indoor season gear. All the feast gear is being washed and will be packaged in a manageable way, with a little forethought this year. Currently it is all strewn about the dining room table. But at least we're slowly starting to get a little better organized.

.....Nothing really scheduled for this week. I'll probably start filling up the calendar with meetings and such. Time to get rolling on Serjeantry and Scribal. Must get the Ceremonial polished. Will probably schedule some of the Serjeantry Trial requirements for the A&S DayCamp of October 29th.

.....Conversation was had with Madrun on Saturday about where she currently is on her Serjeantry studies. Must hunt down Caedmon, Jahnkin and Helen and find out where they stand. Then talk to them all about knocking out some of the requirements before the December Trials. Also must work with Ellen on getting the Matrix put together. Not to mention starting the discussion on the Quests we need to square away with the candidates.

.....Already starting to sound like it is going to be a busy Fall as well. But only two more weeks (three at the most) and the current Project at work will be DONE. Then I should have a little more time, and more importantly, energy, to get some of this stuff done.

.....Must track down Inga Calle as well. I'm missing her personally and we keep missing each other in e-mail and locally.

.....Feeling the need to put together a 'to-do' list as well. The 'things-to-do' are starting to stack up again.

.....Aaron / Arontius.