arontius | Entries tagged with pacific beach

.....We're at the Annual Family Outing at Pacific Beach. TBT, the Rhys Monster and I are camped out in Lobelia in the RV campground of the MWR site. The weather has been a little off this year, but not bad. The beach is as beautiful as ever. I could watch the ocean continuously for hours. The companionship has been good. Three of us in the confined space of Lobelia has been mostly fine. I've mainly been worried about TBT, who came down with a bad cold / cough last week and has been slowly recovering. Today has been the first day that she has been reasonably 'herself'. The Rhys Monster is his own creature on his very own planet. Which makes it a challenge to live in a confined space with him for an extended time period (I'm told the same attitude applies to all teenagers), but we've managed to remain on good terms, which I'll call a win. I've only felt like biting his head off once or twice when I've found his dirty clothes or food scattered about. But I've been a little on edge myself between worrying about TBT and de-stressing from the hectic pace of work.

.....I've managed to avoid plugging into my e-mail more than twice this year. That is rather unusual for me. I usually go into withdrawal if I haven't checked into my e-mail three or four times a day. But I really did need the break and time away from the computer, which is good for me. But I knew that I would have to plug back in at some point. :-)

.....Just saw the word from Countess Melissa that Her Excellency Amanda was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. Which makes me all kinds of sad on many levels. But I'll do my best to maintain a positive attitude as that is what it takes to live after such a diagnosis. And Amanda is certainly tackling it upfront with a positive and challenging attitude. If anyone can beat it through sheer will, determination, and positive attitude, it would be her.

.....I'll never forget working around her at 3YC when Countess Melissa managed The Daily Progress. Baroness Amanda just has this, air, about her that is not of this planet. It is a serene regalness that she carries with her whether she is in an SCA persona or in her 'real life'. If she wanted to she could be a Saint without having to even be a member of the Catholic Faith.

.....I fervently wish her the very best, and all my hopes!!!

.....The kite weather was not good yesterday. I could get none of my box type kites to stay in the air to save my life. I finally gave up after an hour or so and watched those who had Delta type kites, or stunt kites, fly them in the limited air movement. The wind picked up later in teh day, and the Rhys Monster demonstrated some really nice moves on his kite. But we didn't try again yesterday.

.....This morning though we trooped on down to the ocean and pulled out the kites and success was had! I launched by Dragon Box Kite right up into the air. It was flying fine, so I tied it to the Gwen Mobile, and pulled out the Box Star Kite. It was beautiful! I had a little bit of a rocky start, but finally got it into the air. I let the string out to its four hundred and twenty five foot limit and let it fly there for a while. Then I started having a problem in that it started to spin and do loop-de-loops. I started pulling it in before it did something crazy, and was glad I did so when it did a huge loop and dove to the ground. I did get it up in the air again, but kept it on a shorter tether.

.....Traced it down to the probability that it was the rather cheap string I was using. It wasn't a nylon kite string with a high tensile strength. It was a plumbing string line we found at Lowes. I could not pull it apart, or tear it without a knife. But what was happening was that it was starting to unravel, or untwist, which was causing it to spin. I need to get a better line for it. I also need to get a good reel for it as well. The reel I was using was not working well. Would also like to try a swivel on it, and put some stringers on it as well.

.....Found out why the $10 kite from Harbour Freight is the $10 kite from Harbour Freight. :-) The bottom line, as always, is 'you get what you pay for'. :-) It is beautiful, but is not balanced well and is made from a cheaper material. We might be able to get it to fly at some point on its own, but it will take some work. Although I'm liking the idea of attaching it as 'line laundry' onto the line with the Star Box. :-)

.....Went to Galway Bay in Ocean Shores for dinner last night. The Irish food was good. The music was TERRIBLE. But was good for a laugh. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time, to the point where I was starting to feel sorry for the poor guy. It takes a little guts to put yourself in that position. But still, if you are going to be a professional musician, you need to change your tempo from time to time, change your range, sing music that you can actually sing, and play something besides a synthesizer from time to time. Think the Lounge act from 'The Blues Brothers', but completely devoid of talent. I think I was more disappointed because I was really expecting, hmmm, IRISH MUSIC. :-)

.....Back home tomorrow. Time to get psyched up for the second certification at work this week. This will be the big one. After that one, it really will be downhill from there. Wish I knew what I will be doing at work next month. With the new 'Product Line Management' no one really knows how things are going to play out.

.....Next weekend is the SCA BoD Meeting in SeaTac. I'm actually looking forward to it in the hopes that I'll get some sort of indication of the current mindset and direction of the SCA Corporate. It might go some ways to figuring out how things are going to look for the next couple of years.

.....Plus, I'm looking forward to seeing Countess 'E'. She's always fun to be around. :-)

.....Almost 5:30. I think it is almost dinner time. I should get back to Lobelia before I miss out on grilled steak!!!

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Current Location: Lobby of Pacific Beach Resort.
Current Music: Mindlessness On The Tele.

.....It was a pleasant weekend at Pacific Beach. The weather was rather cooperative really. The RV Park had only a handful of other campers in it. There was really little to no weekend foo. My only regret is that we couldn't stay out there a few more days. :-)

.....On Friday we made it out of town close to noon. We probably could have made it out earlier, but I was taking a leisurely approach to the day and wasn't really anxious to make it anywhere by any particular time. TBT was excited though, and wanted to get out to the beach as soon as possible. So I finally picked up the pace and finished the laundrey and packing.

.....Lots of road foo was to be had though. We came up to the shooting outside of Allyn (although we didn't know any of the details at the time). Ended up having to turn Lobelia around on a two lane road and taking a detour. Lobelia is much more nimble than she looks though and made it around in fairly short order by taking the Grapeview Loop around all the road happenings.

.....In Hoquiam we were stuck in all of the construction mess there. By the time we made it on to site, we'd been on the road for almost four hours. Almost twice as long as it should have taken. But the destination was worth it. The ocean was beautiful and the weather was awesome. We set up Lobelia in her spot in nothing flat and I took a quick walk on the beach. I love watching the ocean. Could do it for hours on end if allowed. :-)

.....Everyone else made it in within an hour or so after our arrival. Ralph and Ellen had started much earlier than us and had secured our location. We arrived next. Then Bernie & Tsuruko and Richard and Gwen a short time later. Then still later Tom & Guiseppe and finally Loric & Eileen.

.....I sat and yakked for a while, but ended up going to bed fairly early. I call it all camping. But can it really be called camping when you have full power for a microwave, cable television to two TV's in the RV, central heating and running hot water? It was very comfortable camping, that's for sure. :-)

.....Saturday was beautiful. There were some clouds overhead during communal breakfast, but it burned off fairly quickly. We went down to the beach before noon and started flying kites. At one point we had ten flying at one time. I just had my old dragon box kite, by Loric and Richard each had some really colorful and cool looking kites. TBT and Rhys flew his stunt kite and did a really great job with acrobatics. They each had it in the air far longer than ever in the past.

.....After a couple of hours of kite flying we all gathered in the park for lunch and then after an excursion to the local kite shop, we each went our separate ways for the afternoon. Some took naps. I went and soaked in the hot tub for a little while.

.....Dinner was the only real disappointment for the weekend. The Pacific Beach resort is an old government site converted to a DOD resort. There is a restaurant on site and nothing available in town. So we usually eat there at night. This was my third or fourth year at the restaurant and as ususl the food was not good. I'm still trying to recover somewhat. I think that next year I'll be part of the crew that makes the run down to Ocean Shores. Sure, it is a half hour or so drive. But Galways and authentic Irish (and good) food is located there. It'll be worth the drive. :-)

.....Everyone slept in today, with a leisurely breakfast some time after 9AM. Then a leisurely pack up and move out. The drive home went fast. But I was sure tired by the time I made it home. I did some readying for the work week, checked and answered e-mail, worked on the June Faire Board stuff, and then basically collapsed. I think that the minute I hit send on this thing I'll be asleep. :-)

.....For being over a decade old, Lobelia is still running great. She was a good by. Need to get her cleaned out moved back to storage. We have a trip with destiny and Mickey Mouse next weekend. :-)

.....And a whole laundry list of things that must be done this week. Including my last Business Meeting as Seneschal on Thursday. I've been trying not to think on it too much as it will make me sad. But I need to get and stay organized so I turn over something worthy to Oliver.

.....Hmmm, must get a good 'to-do' list done. :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Bedroom.
Current Music: Mindlessness On The Tele.

.....The alarm went off this morning at 4AM as usual and I woke up, and then remembered that I had the day off. But when I tried to go back to sleep, I found that the brain would not shut back off and was already running in five different directions. :-)

.....What I think I long for at the moment to some degree is something I did almost ten years ago now. I spent a week out in the desert, camping. I started out with a small group of others, and then spent three days on my own. It was a rather amazing experience. No cell phone, no radio, no computers. Not even a book. The object was to have no distractions and basically find yourself.

.....That first day was interesting in that I couldn't shut my mind down at all. I was running, running, running. Thinking about things I needed to do at work and at home. Thinking about the SCA. Thinking about friends and people I had met. Just thousands and thousands of thoughts, many of them at the same time.

.....By the second day I was bored, incredibly bored. But something was definitely happening. The jumble of thoughts was subsiding. Instead of thousands I was starting to find myself concentrating on a handful or so of them and actually thinking them through more than usual. I found myself concentrating to a deeper level than the normal surface level awareness that one usually gives to life.

.....On the third day it was very interesting. The buzz of background 'conversation' in my head was almost gone. I found myself staring at things and thinking about them to a great depth. With nothing else to think about I thought about how the wind moved and how different it felt when it came out of the canyon versus when it came off of the valley floor. It had a different sound to it as well. I spent several hours just contemplating the difference.

.....It was a rather amazing experience actually. I haven't practiced re-attaining that level of awareness, which is something of a pity as I could really use it about now. There is so much to think about and organize in the next month or so. I would really like to take things one at a time and concentrate on it a while to that level of awareness I had in the desert and write the path forward.

.....But I don't think that is going to happen. :-) We have jumped off that platform and will have to trust in that bungee to bring us up before we hit the ground. :-)

.....The biggest thing right now is to get texts written in time for Crown Council. The framework has started, just need to flesh it out. I think people are surprised when they find out that Anglo-Saxon and Norse are really almost one-in-the-same in much of their look and feel. :-) The words of the ceremony are going to look very similar to what has been seen in Their Excellencies Courts for a while now. :-) I think the only real difference will be in the garb. But that will make things easier in the transition, at least I think. It would be incredibly jarring to go from a 'Norse' theme to an 'Elizabethan' theme in the same setting. In fact, so jarring that it would be hard for anyone to 'suspend their disbelief'.

.....But the ideas are finally starting to percolate in my mind. I now just have to get them on paper. I'm hoping to get a little time to do that this weekend. We'll be at Pacific Beach, at the park their in Lobelia. It's a great setting for inspiration. I'm hoping that after a walk on the beach, and a communion with the ocean, will produce something memorable. We'll see.

.....Then next weekend comes Disneyland. :-) My last visit there was in 1976. They hadn't even broken ground yet on Space Mountain. I'm looking forward to seeing what has changed there in the past thirty plus years.

.....The succession is a process of step - step - step. It really is a dance where rules are followed. But the surprises have been interesting. I thought that being as closely tied as I had been to Their Excellencies Cedric and Brighid I would have been a lot better prepared to deal with politics and the agendas of those around us. I'm finding it interesting that when a curve is thrown at me my first instinct is to go and 'fix it' when in reality I need to take a step back and look at what I'm trying to fix and whether I should or not. There are problems and agendas owned by others that shouldn't even be touched by me, much less 'fixed'. Even if asked. I can tell that may be the hardest lesson to learn.

.....Some things I just take way too personally. There are too many things to get done, and too many fun things to do, to go in that direction. Must learn to take the correct path now. :-)

.....Time to go and get laundry going.

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Computer Room.
Current Music: Computer Fan.