Arontius of Bygelswade

.....You know, I was cautiously optimistic on the prospects for Peter Jackson's interpretation of 'The Hobbit'. The scope is much narrower than 'The Lord of the Rings'. The amount of emotional territory it covers is much less than LotR. The prospects for creative imagery greater in scope (think Smaug or Beorn). Morgan Freeman makes an excellent Bilbo. The Dwarves look great in their roles.

.....Then...I read this article tonight on a report someone wrote after watching the latest trailer for 'The Hobbit'. All of a sudden all the anxieties returned. There is potential for another travesty in the making.

.....Here is an excerpt:

....."So when it comes to the Hobbit trailer, I don’t mind Galadriel showing up. We knew they were going to make The Hobbit into two movies, which meant we were likely to see Gandalf be Gandalf and take on the Necromancer. Nice! I like epic wizard battles, and I like the idea of the white counsel placed on film. But …

.....I can imagine no reason the Galadriel I know from the books would ever touch Gandalf like that. More than that, I can imagine no reason the maia (demi-god) Gandalf would ever, ever look at any elf with the kind of need you can see in that clip. Uh-oh!

.....My friends, Peter, Fran, Phillipa, I beg you, please don’t make Gandalf needy! Please do not wreck his nobility. You have already done so with two other of my favorite characters. I just ask you, don’t mess with Gandalf’s motivations. Don’t make him unsure of himself, and don’t let Galadriel be his guide or his girlfriend: partner, yes; girlfriend or guide, no. Just don’t do it! If you already have done it, you can still save it. You have a year. A quick one day re-shoot, and I bet it will be all better — OK, now I am begging, I will stop. But after the flaws in the LotR adaptations, I am concerned. Trust is easily broken and difficult to repair. Getting this right would go a long way — I hope you do."

.....Read the entire article and prepare to be frightened. It is located here: <http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/hobbit-trailer/>.

.....Already making arrangements to see one of the first showings on December 14th, but now I'm a little worried. Oh, well, I'm sure the pendulum will swing the other way, at least for a while. :-)

.....It was rather a long week, coming off of Twelfth Night like it was, with its own long drive. But the traveling was not so bad. The hours on the road went by fairly quickly with TBT, myself, Madrun, Gwen and Tsuruko all sharing the drive. The only time the drive started seeming long was when we were almost home and we were all just DONE with the weekend. :-)

.....Lots of good things at Twelfth Night itself. And even managed to get some work done. Made progress on September Crown site location there. Supported an event for a member of the Dragon's Laire Populace who has a good idea on running a Kingdom Level Feast. Looks like it is almost in the bag as the Kingdom was willing to actually sponsor after reviewing the numbers. I'm looking forward to seeing the concept come into fruition. It's one of those events that is almost as fun to plan as it is to execute. Interesting without being huge and overbloatedly complex. He should have a good time with it I am thinking.

.....The work week was all about getting the Team ready and out the door to go back to Norfolk the Tuesday after the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. Which it looks like is going to happen fairly easily. Looks like my travel to site will happen sometime in February. If I can time it just right I should be able to avoid traveling over Candlemas, Madrone A&S, and Kingdom KAS / KBC, or at least I'm hoping so.

.....Government keeps getting leaner and meaner. I wrote up an award for the crew who performed an installation this last summer, way under cost and ahead of schedule. Which is saying a lot considering the size and complexity of the work done. When my award write-up went upstairs, we were given the bitter truth. All awards budgets were stripped almost dry before the Fiscal Year had even started. The Mid-Level Boss and I had to reduce the group award down to an award for just a few of the very best performances. Who'll receive only a few hundred dollars for all their efforts. It was rather agonizing trying to pare down that list.

.....But I continue to count myself as relatively lucky. News reached me this week of someone I knew at work who had been stripped of his security clearance. Told to report to security where he was asked for his badge, and then escorted to the gate. He's in the process of hiring a lawyer now, but DoD does not mess around with these things. Unless and until he can prove his absolute innocence, he is out of a job.

.....Tuesday was the first June Faire Board meeting of this year. It was rather pleasant actually. Everyone on the Board was engaged and had good ideas to present. They all worked well together. There was still the Dragon's Laire tendency to talk over each other in their excitement. But it was a pleasant excitement versus the frenetic type of excitement we sometimes see. This bodes well for what we'll see in June.

.....Wednesday was Fight Practice at the OSSC. Brighid and I argued over Pelican notes. :-) But it was still a good conversation.

.....I started seriously playing in the SCA in 1991. I received my Pelican in 2005. A span of fourteen years. Which I'm told is just a little longer than average. I'm not entirely sure on that and probably should do some research. But where I was headed was that someone told me at one time that I might have been delayed for a little because of my weight, that I was maybe viewed negatively in an unconscious way because of my being grossly overweight. I don't know whether that was true or not, and there is certainly no way of ever proving it (nor would I want to do so), but I read an interesting article today on how being overweight affects your chances of landing jobs or job promotions. I have a feeling there is some truth to the article as I noticed that my promotions at work came more quickly after my gastric bypass surgery. I was also wondering about that connection in the SCA as well.

.....Take a look if you are interested: <http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/money-motives-to-lose-weight.aspx?ec_id=cmct_03_comm_pf_image_headline>

.....Thursday was cleaning up and catching up at home. With a run at the new episode of 'Project Runway'. I'm not sure just why I'm a fan. I don't sew. I am certainly not a fashion snob by any means. But for some reason the show has struck a chord with me as it is the only regularly scheduled show (other than the news) that I actually watch on the Tele these days. Last night's episode was all about clothing for the Opera. With only one or two exceptions, everything created actually looked interesting.

.....Next week's episode could either be interesting and funny, or rather weird, as it looks like the challenge is to create fashion for Miss Piggy of the Muppets. Hmm.....

.....A whole three days of a weekend upcoming. With nowhere we have to be! Huzzah. I need to finish the Doomsday Report for The Crier. Need to finish my overhaul of the Western Region Pelican Notes. Have some e-mails to send out and some September Crown stuff to organize. So, it'll be a fairly busy weekend. But not frenetic, which is good. I'm sooooo looking forward to sleeping in for a while tomorrow morning. :-)

.....I think I'll go and read something for a while before bed. :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.

.....Good Morning All,

.....Just catching up on LJ before the day starts.

.....It is a pretty typical Thursday morning here at work, the inbox of EMERGENCY go-dos is approximately seven inches in height. Which, in reality, is pretty good. The folder stack was doubled at about six inches in height each last Friday. So we're making some progress. Only 4,518 days to go until retirement. Woo! Hoo! Seems like tomorrow! :-)

.....But only 189 days until the beloved Tamm and I are married! Eek! Gads! Now THAT seems like forever!

.....I'm almost afraid to stick my head out on LJ at the moment. Dame Fearga's post on An Tir - West really stirred some internal angst. But it is a good thing to get the situation out in a more public forum. We in Dragon's Laire could learn a thing or two from the outcome. Especially true if we push for Principality status in the future. With June Faire being as massive as it is and probably hosting at least one, if not more, Principality events every year, Dragon's Laire could really burn itself out completely in a hurry if we're not careful. To all those who roll their eyes at me whenever I bring up the Principality question, believe me when I say that I'm taking careful notes on the ongoing conversation. :-)

.....It's been a year and a half since the surgery and that was the final big milestone about which the doctor warned me. And just like clockwork the body switched gears on me. It is retaining far more in the way of everything than it did just six months ago, which means that I can gain weight again. I actually have gone up into the 240's again. Time to get serious on the dieting machine again. Sigh! I was enjoying myself there for a while. :-) Oh, well, dieting will be difficult, but if I can get down to below 220 I'll be happy and can add a little bit of interest back into the diet again.

.....Pretty productive week actually. Submitted my state sales tax return for Ingasbo. Completed my roundup of bills. Did all my preps for IRS submittal. Found out that the Turbotax version that I need to use (which includes the small business paperwork) costs only about $30 less than taking everything to the local tax prep. service and having them do it for me. I think that I'll spend the extra $30. Finished my Financial Reports for 'The Crier' for 2006. YEAH! It almost kicked my butt. There were two entry errors on the Spread Sheet, which of course affected all the resulting numbers. Took me several hours to figure it out. Ouch! I will not be unhappy to unload this on to my successor. :-)

.....Orders have picked up slightly from Ingasbo. Averaging about 3-4 circlet orders a month now. Which is definitely nice for pocket change. Keep thinking that I'd like to offer enameling and staining for the circlets again, as well as the raft of new designs. But know that at this time I couldn't handle any real increase in that workload. Maybe next year. I'd also like to be able to put up the pendants and serving wear as well. But that'll take a little work as well. Some nice designs there. Sigh! Only I get to see the finished results for a while. :-)

.....Stuff is starting to leave the basement. Gotta get it cleared to make room for Tamm. :-) Gave notice to THL Angharad that I need to move the copier out of there. Also let her know that it was my intention to give up the Baronial Library here soon. It takes up more space than I realized. Also need to start dumping furniture big time. Some of my bachelor chic has been a part of my life for well over two decades now and it is definitely showing its age. :-) I was making the bed this morning and realized that the threadbare bedspread was purchased by my parents in 1977 and here I am still using it. :-) Time to upgrade.

.....Gotta run. See a lot of you at Kingdom A&S this weekend. Tamm, Rhys and I will not be in until late. But if you think you'll be up until midnight or so, drop me a line, I think I'll be in the mood to hang out. :-)

.....Have a good day all, Aaron / Arontius.

.....Whoo! Hooo! I stepped on the scale this morning and it read to me 295 pounds. That will sound like a lot to all of you, but to me, I haven't weighed below 300 in over ten years. I love it! The doctor thinks that I'll eventually level out at about 225 or so, but I want to get down to about 200.

.....But it is time to fulfill one promise to myself and others. Time for some new clothes. I have always said that I was holding out until I was less than 300 and that time has come. Time for the baggy stuff to go away. :-)

.....Started the Tolkien Word Challenge with Marquessa Laurellen last night. I can already tell, despite all the trash talk on the Baronial list, that she is going to be a tough competitor. :-) My first word in her direction, 'mathom,' was easily mastered by her. But she through an easy one back in my direction as well, 'Michel Delving,' meaning basically 'Great Excavations'. I can think of some words though that I'm holding back in reserve that will be TOUGH, especially some of the stuff out of The Silmarillion. If we expand to some of his other works, this could get difficult. His writings on Sir Gawain have some doosies in them. :-)

.....This weekend is going to be busy. Got meetings on both Saturday and Sunday to go over infrastructure on site for July Coronation. Somehow I also have to squeeze out the July issue of The Crier. I've got all the basics all ready to come together, but am still a little nervous as I'm still missing some major reports from a few people.

.....July Coronation is coming together. I despaired a little bit after June Faire, not really sure if I had what it took to pull it off. But I'm feeling more and more confident. It will not be for lack of thought and action if it doesn't come together. I'm also determined that the town be 100% confident in our ability to pull this off with as little impact as possible to the residents. There were a few times during June Faire when the town POCs expressed more than a little frustration at what was happening, but you know, you can't really control the actions of individuals who come to June Faire. You can only set things up to make it more difficult for them to be stupid. I think we just didn't anticipate how stupid some people can be. :-)

.....Sigh. Work is still in transition. Came back on Tuesday after a week off. Half expected to be transferred to another code. Didn't happen though. They are going to drag out this transformation as long as possible. I'm going to miss being in this code, but I'm going to breathe a sigh of relief when I no longer have to do the work of three or four people on a regular basis. Just think, an eight hour day instead of a ten or twelve?! Wow! What a concept! :-)

.....Was hearing rumors of a RIF sometime in a year or so. The politics that kept Portsmouth Naval Shipyard open this last year REALLY screwed the rest of us over in funding. The Navy was counting on Portsmouth to close and was already in the midst of transferring work out of the area. There are some powerful congressmen in that area who made sure that Portsmouth was protected. I will not lose my job, but I can see some of the new hires possibly losing theirs, or at the very least being furloughed for a certain amount of time. We'll see what happens.

.....Been giving more and more thought to a new Principality. I think that we can do it over here on the West side of the Sound. We always seem to be thought of as the 'hick' village of the Western Region, but I think that if we got our collective heads in order, we could pull something off. I think that we would have to take in Glymm Mere and Stromgard, and maybe even Blatha An Oir (along with Druim Doineann, which was always in the plans). But a Principality would be a lot of fun. I'm going to hold off on doing anything with this though until I step down as Kingdom Chronicler. :-)

.....The position of Editor for the Complete Anachronist is open, as well as President of the SCA. Hmmmmm, evil thoughts... :-)

Arontius.

I was going to hold out for as long as possible, but I may have to concede that it is time to buy new clothes. I get out of the shower this morning and dry off and throw on a pair of underwear, which promptly fall off. I pull them on again and they fall off again. So I go into the other room clutching my underwear and grab a pair of sweats to put on for the day. I put them on, let go, and both the sweats and the underwear promptly fall off. So, I'm at a hotel and don't have access to a belt or anything of the like, but in my suitcase I do have some string. I'm now sitting at the desk with my sweatpants and underwear being held up by string. How undignified! :-) I may have to run out later today and either buy smaller clothes or at least a belt.

I'm here for NORWESCON!!! Yeah! Last night as I hit the road at 10PM I was grumbling on why the heck I got a room a day earlier than I ever have before. Extra $$$$, a late night drive, late to bed, etc. But you know, I think that I like it. There were no crowds whatsoever, no waiting at the front desk, no crowds at the elevator. It was the easiest move in to NORWESCON I've ever had. I may have to keep doing this. :-)

I was re-reading the replies I received from my post last Sunday on the Laurel / Pelican controversy. They were wonderful comments and gave me a much better perspective on things. Thank you for giving me good thoughts. :-)

Hope that everyone has a good day.

Arontius / Aaron.