Arontius of Bygelswade

.....Today was a rather decent day at work. The weather was pleasant and I was not bothered by The Big Boss at all. Still struggling to catch up with a desk piled high with 'stuff' on it, but I'm making progress. There was a chance that I might have had to come in this weekend to cover some work in Georgia. But it is looking more and more like that possibility is going away. Overtime money is nice, but I'd much rather stay home and recharge the batteries.

.....The Planning Manager over in Code 360 is going to Guam for six weeks in late September. They are angling for me to come on over there and take his place for that time period. Which would work great on a number of levels as our workload here will be a little less than it has been. Plus, once they get their proverbial claws into me they will probably not want to let go. I'm not arguing and it's nice to be wanted for a change. I don't think the current Project Manager is going to be all that pleased to share my time, but I don't think he's going to say too much.

.....Means another move though. East this time, over to just inside the Main Gate. Just as I was starting to get used to living in the one hundred year old building. :-)

.....The call from Mr. Gates to reduce the size of the DoD has the Northwest Region with a small list of 'go-dos'. There is actually a call for another reduction or consolidation of bases and commands. Our workload is huge for a large number of years, so I'm not exactly worried. But some of the initial ideas are somewhat bizarre. I think the Everett elimination is a non-starter, no matter how many studies you do on the subject. It'll be interesting to see how Keyport is reflected in the final plans. I keep hearing all kinds of conflicting rumors on its eventual status. Even Bangor's immunity seems to be off the table, although I can't imagine a whole lot there going away anytime soon either.

.....Our Management Association at work recently donated some money to bring a piece of the World Trade Center Towers to Kitsap County for a Memorial. We saw diagrams of the memorial site last Friday and we're supposed to see more tomorrow. They didn't have a location selected as yet, but several ideas were being floated, including at the Fairgrounds and in Silverdale. Bremerton is fighting hard for it as well. There is a call out for volunteer time to support the effort. I'll see what support they really need. The Tower pieces are supposed to be here this weekend I think, and on display in Silverdale.

.....This weekend is going to be rather full. A wedding in Portland on Saturday. Then the Rhys Monster's birthday on Sunday over at Woodland Park Zoo. I need to check in with TBT and find out what we're going to end up getting him for his birthday. Every time I tried to get an answer to that question, he didn't have anything he really wanted. Although, to be honest, ever since Rich and Wendy bought him Starcraft for his birthday early he hasn't been away from the computer for more than a few minutes at a time. :-)

.....Still mulling over designs for the banner. I'm afraid it isn't going to be done in time for September Crown. Which is O.K., I suppose. It's better to produce something that looks good than to go to all the trouble in a rush job that is only going to look half-decent. The basic elements are going to be easy. The Kingdom Badge goes next to the pole. The Baronial Badge next to that. The entire banner will be double-tongued with a black and red checkered border. My device will follow the Baronial Badge. Then the remainder will have elements of my personal badge, the fieldless winged sheep on a money-bag gules. I am not sure if I want to seme that singular portion? Or seme it with other elements of my device? Or seme it with elements of Justin Case's badge (the winged cat). TBT says to forget the winged cat and go with something more masculine. :-) I suppose I could buy into that. :-)

.....Would be nice to through in the double or triple bars for a motto as well. It'd be period (late period), but not very SCA, so I go back and forth on this one as it just means more complication. Maybe I'll ask TBT to draw it all out and then play with the elements. Need to decide on the motto as well. It's not registerable, so the sky really is the limit.

.....TBT and I unrolled five yards of silk last weekend and realized just how big a piece of silk that was. Something THAT big, even cut in half lengthwise (my original idea) would need a very tall pole to fly it. Which is doable, but not very practical. Will have to mull over size as well.

.....I'm still looking for the hand-out Alyna Wolfstan made about silk banners. It was really well put together. Although I went through the Dharma site, and it is pretty extensive itself. Lots of good ideas there.

.....Would be nice to come to a conclusion sometime soon and get started! :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.