…Or just crazy.
[People not interested in HEMA can skip down to web links of late. Be forewarned that this entry reads like a Joseph Conrad story printed on cheap, splintery Soviet TP.]
Gawd, CAS Iberia put out some awful thing on sword and shield combat. I won’t link it, b/c it doesn’t deserve any more viewings. It’s already ranked 1/5 on YouTube, thankfully.
OTOH, www.achillemarozzo.it has a number of YouTube clips posted on sword and buckler, round shield, and single.
User Tossetoke has some very cool vids extrapolating Viking shield combat from German fechtmanual techniques. I’ve seen articles before (by e.g. Paul Wagner), but this is the first accurate set of clips I’ve seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXPujfwQJUg
Or you can do a search for HEMAC 2008 vids. Three guys have posted a fair number of bouts from the longsword tournament. Some terrible footwork, some decent demonstrations of skill (timing, distance, etc.)… Maybe I’ll go next year and show ‘em how an Asian fences. I’ll be the Cuong Le of HEMA!
Other web links perused of late:
http://members.aol.com/illinewek/faqs/casting.htm
http://www.theodoregray.com/periodicTable/Stories/030.1/index.html
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99519.htm
http://www.rc-soar.com/tech/casting.htm
How the hell can you consume 2900 calories in a single drink?! Most days, I struggle to reach 2200 (assuming crude estimates of 1200 for my main meal, 300 in nuts and dried fruit, and 800 in milk / OJ / assorted no-sugar-added fruit juices).
http://www.menshealth.com/eatthis/20-Worst-Foods/index.php
http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/5027/americas-unhealthiest-drinks-exposed/
http://health.yahoo.com/weightloss-motivation/how-to-lose-weight-like-a-guy/prevention–23299.html
Go, market corrections.
http://promo.realestate.yahoo.com/five-cities-with-biggest-decline-in-home-values.html
This was happy good webtrawling for combating depression. Started off innocently enough, with searches for ballistic ceramic.
http://www.armorusa.com/Ballistic%20Ceramic%20Composite.htm
This led to a thirst for greater understanding of what NATO peacekeepers can do to misbehaving targets.
http://www.dec.fct.unl.pt/projectos/impacto/Public_Papers/Report%20on%20Ceramic.pdf
The average insurgent often experiences difficulty in procuring B4C ceramic / aramidic-weave polyethylene fiber plates. Morbid curiosity prompted the search for ways to evaluate bullet performance on flesh.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/gelatin.html
In the name of science, the expression denoting unfeasibility “…like nailing Jell-O to a wall,” had to be assessed for veracity.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/j-wall.html
A side jaunt into enzymatic interactions and effect on proteins was called for here.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/units/activities/proteins/advice.cfm
Busting adages with the liberal application of science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%28season_2%29#Needle_in_a_Haystack
Then a resumption of the descent into madness and the merely insipid.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/beer.html
By random link association.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/viagra-flowers.html
The very heart of darkness.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/condoms.html
If you read this far, you need to get a life. If you followed every link, someone should take you out to the pasture and put you out of your misery.
That said, I leave you with a cliffhanger:
The past two months have seen WW I-era Gallic quantities of angst, resignation, fear, sweat, tears, and blood (*mostly* internal lacerations). The blood was from HEMA practices. Everything else was not. Within another month, I should either have stupid-good news, or I’ll be evicted from the poorhouse and put in a Frigidaire box.
It could be worse — I could still be doing door-to-door sales.
Or maybe not so much.
I’ve known the security guard at one of the places I frequent for probably 2 years now. Every week, regular as clockwork.
So her older daughter is getting married in March, and they can’t find a photographer to suit. So she asked me if I could suggest anyone in the $500-$1000 range, me being a student and connected with other students and all. I said well, I could mention it to a couple people. She asked, wait, don’t you take pictures too? And I replied, well, yes, a little — I enjoy candid photography. I’ve never officially done a wedding, and I said so. Family and friend type things often enough, as one of the familial paparazzi.
So I was quick enough on the uptake to recognize an opportunity. I said, why don’t I show you some of my past pics, and if you like what you see, I could do it for her / you. So I got her daughter’s e-mail address, and I’ll be sending along some pics by Monday.
Having hung around enough weddings, I have a vague inkling of offerings and pricing. These folks are pretty working class, and I got the understanding that what they really want is just the goods — a set of nice keepsake photos to trot out every few years for friends and family.
Report on Monday.
Couple nights ago I was hungry after a workout, and the peanut butter crackers I cribbed from work didn’t cut it by 1 a.m. So I stopped by the usual Kroger Signature for some ingredients. Now, they say that one should never go grocery shopping when hungry. That was definitely true, as I browsed for ideas. In the end, I spent just into the teens, b/c I splurged on a jar of olives steeped in olive oil with herbs.
[Random synapse firings remind me that I’ll likely never buy anything but the cheapest dark rum when cooking. Recent taste tests suggest it just doesn’t flippin’ matter. At least to me. Gif, who I once observed finishing a bottle of Mount Gay — on the rocks and without help — in an evening of casual chatting, may have a different opinion. Which will never manifest here, since he doesn’t read this.]
So as I wended my way to and fro amongst the aisles, I crossed through a group of folks hanging out in one of the aisles. I figured 1+ worked there and had just gotten off-shift. One of them asked if sir needed help finding anything. Sir replied that he didn’t merit a “sir” and was just browsing for late-night munchies. We exchanged some light banter, then I moved on.
Halfway across the store, at the olives, it hit me — caprese! Mark and I had just talked about them a few weeks ago. That required passing back by the earlier group, and I was so excited I shook my olives at them and said I had gotten it — caprese!
When I came back that way again, the girl in the group asked me what I’d told them b/c she’d missed it. I repeated myself, and she asked what it was. So I laid it out briefly, and 5 minutes later was talking about parkour with one of the guys. 5 minutes after that, the girl grabbed another guy who wasn’t paying attention, and said, “Honey, he makes swords!”
“Well, a falchion and some knives so far,” I demurred. Close enough, for their purposes. They were gaming geeks, and could identify falchions well enough.
Another of the guys wants to get into kung fu so hard, he’s like Seann William Scott in Bulletproof Monk, even though we both aren’t fond of that movie. And he has a friend who is ex-HACA/ARMA. There seem to be a lot of those around.
An hour and a half later, after a conversation spanning AD&D 2nd through 4th ed, the pope and the Hitlerjugend, art school, leatherworking, yoga, bodyweight conditioning, environmentalism, and spiritual centering (none of which I brought up first), we exchanged e-mail addresses.
Tonight, one of the guys came out to the shop, and proved to be a very able and enthusiastic assistant in the shop. He used to be a Boy Scout, and seems like a do-it-yourselfer, so score one for the shop. We’ll see how Pat turns out in the long run. Initial impressions of long-term qualities are favorable.
In a productive 12 heats or so, we forged the beginnings of some prototype scentstopper pommels out of a 50-lb bar of steel. Pat’s stout forearms were trembling, but he declared our choice of work to be the shit. 15 minutes after he left, I got a call from him asking me if it’d be OK to bring a very interested friend out with him the next time. I said we could meet someplace (for me to vet the guy), and go from there.
OK, so 1st checkpoint passed with honors. Next are the 2nd-visit, 1-month, and 3-month checkpoints. If he passes those, we’re probably set for the 6- and 12-month marks.
And while we were monkeying with the fullering tool (at Mark’s pointed suggestion), Mark was doing round 2 on his first raised copper work. He took the slightly complex four-lobed bowl from last time, and peend out the larger imperfections with his new raising hammers. It looked awesome, though he was less than pleased. I said something less elegant than but along the lines of: You’re seeing it as the sum of 9 hours and probably at least 15,000 imperfect hammer strokes; I’m seeing an intentionally hammer-rough (we’d have used the English wheel in the later stages if a rough texture hadn’t been intended), hand-crafted bowl with some nice curves and lines. He liked the discoloration induced by the annealing heats and quenches, but ended up scrubbing them off.
And every time I see him, he has a new knife or two or three to show, it seems. Plus he’s managing to be a real trooper with work — shut up and soldier, as it is said. Mark is a huge inspiration.
In work news, my Kaplan hours are steadily increasing as things come up — more than I’d thought I’d get. First classes went alright. I think I’ll get into the groove by 2 or 3 or so.
And in further work news, I’m starting to hit the PPAs in hopes that maybe they can get me an in where I’ve been unable under my own sails. :/ Rather not talk about it until I have something to show for it. Grr.
Longsword practices have been really satisfying, though we still have about 5 folks (split between the two practices) missing in action post-holidays. Not too worried about most of them, though have to check on 2.
So I have a little dish of raisins sitting in some dark rum. Not sure what I’ll do with them, since I’m not a baker type. Maybe I’ll wedge them up my nose, get completely arseholed, and make omelettes at 3 a.m. completely naked.
In actual news, I did up a leg of lamb roast in 20 mins inc. prep time. Due to the constraints imposed by my mother’s control of the kitchen, I was forced to shoehorn the roast in between rounds of oven-roasted rock cornish hens. So, when a certain amount of energy input is required, limited by time, what do we do?
We violate every meat-grilling cook’s rule about sealing the juices in!
I diced the roast into large cubes. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle kosher salt, cracked pepper, basil, and fresh orange zest. Knead with chopped garlic bits. 4 mins, turn, and 4 mins again under the broiler.
I can’t help but feel a little smug when my mother always goes nuts on me about, “How come you bought groceries!” “How are we going to fit all this in?” “I don’t have enough time / space in this kitchen to fit you in!” when most weekdays, it’s, “How come you never go grocery shopping with me?” “Why won’t you help more?”
And every time I’ve comandeered a corner of the kitchen, it’s worked out OK ranging from “passable” to “aw, you didn’t make enough for 3rds?”
(Previous efforts aren’t many, but include most of my signature mid-brow entrees — salmon in white wine, poached pears, chicken marsala, caprese, and the current incarnation of that crazy pasta thing that started in 2001 with Doug and me and some oregano and olive oil. I apologize to anyone who’s had to endure these dishes in their beta-testing phase, and offer to make them now that I know which side of the skillet holds in the green beans.)
And three of my sisters went for more, two of them going for 3rds.
To be fair, my mother and sisters made a lot of good food too — the orange zest was left over from a really good rum cake thing Linh Dan made and served with ice cream and caramel-drizzled pecans.
But this ain’t their blog, so nyah.
Thu invited over a friend of hers, Rouslan (sp?), for dinner. His brother was supposed to come too, but was working that evening. She kind of demanded that my parents let her bring him, on the pretext that she wanted to have a holiday family dinner for all her friends w/o family in town. I thought it was either A) rather presumptuous of her to impose that on my parents, and / or B) a flimsy pretext to introduce a guy she likes.
Whatever the case, he turned out to be pretty nice. Reserved, Russian, pretty old-fashioned. Passed the bar exam with her. Used to be on the national Belarus wrestling team. He brought a dish of cabbage stuffed with ground beef (served with sour cream) and another of vegetable-stuffed eggplant wraps. Both were pretty good, the cabbage more so.
Finally, what post of mine of late would be complete if I didn’t mention a workout? My wrists and shoulders are pretty sore from a boxing / kung fu workout. Basic stuff, but intense: jab, jab-jab; cross; uppercut; pass, deflect, hook, knee strike; moving footwork; foot sweep. Music? The Cars and Pulp, with a little Ofra Haza.
[Read on at your own peril.] (more…)
Saturday night, I went to Chris’s house to celebrate his 30th birthday. Chris and Lisa and their get-togethers are always pretty fun. Kind of comforting, never threateningly social. I enjoy hanging out with him a lot. Still, I was surprised by how much fun I unexpectedly had this time.
Chris gave me the dime tour of his house, since I’d missed the housewarming two years back. The dining room is fantabulous — the whole house looked a little like pages out of Southern Living. Lisa and her friends and family had been busy for two days prepping food. It was mostly Italian-themed, with some great chicken alfredo and awesome homemade meatballs. I was a little disappointed Chris hadn’t made one of his trademark cheesecakes with the chocolate-dipped mint leaves (you refrigerate them, then peel off the leaf to leave an imprinted mint chocolate leaf), but that’s not a complaint at all.
It was pointed out that Chris has been working at the Rice cashier’s office since he was a freshman (part-time, at the time). Now, he’s VP or something of the department. Finish school, maybe think about an MBA. I’m not clear on the details, but it’s a grand thing to know he’s doing well.
I talked to one of his coworkers, Patricia. Talked about old SF / fantasy, like Orson Scott Card, Niven, Poul Anderson, etc. I tipped her off to The King of Ys — doing my part to pass on Anderson’s increasingly-forgotten legacy. I know someday he’ll be regarded like Sturgeon: a significant contributor to the field, but little-known by current audiences.
Following some usual small-talk topics, she said she’d pray for me to find someone special. Not the conversational trade-off Anderson would have chosen — the remembrance of his work for a supplication to a being in Whom he may or may not have believed.
On which note, I felt a little like Bobby from Company. I won’t be disingenous — I know I’m well into the stage where even complete strangers will feel obliged to ask, “Oh, such a nice young man! Are you seeing anyone? Oh, why not?”
I just wish they’d leave it at, “No. It just hasn’t worked out that way.” Either that, or that I could comfortably lie about it: “Oh, sure. She’s in Bangladesh right now, building housing for impoverished families.”And since Chris and some of the others knew where things stood a few months ago, they asked the inevitable, awkward follow-ups. No, it was wonderful, but it didn’t work out. Thank you for asking. Sigh.
O to suffer anguish writ small that night
Is a draught of bitter dregs to tipple.
Multiplied a hundredfold, by my lights
I would yet partake again, an’ able.
(It’s too early for trochaic pentameter – I couldn’t figure out how to tie “partake” back to the root cause of the bitter drink, which is what I wanted. As it stands, the verse inaccurately describes my willingness to go back to Chris’s party — true though that may be.)
I found it reaffirming that Patricia and her husband had long ago reconciled their own preferences for routine versus change. She blocks out a time slot, around which she can plan. He takes the lead on planning the activity — usually trying out new things. If he were an intelligent fencer, he would propose and discuss choices with her first. And since she enjoys them, he probably does. An’ were I an intelligent fencer, so would I do as well.
Where there are two wills as one, there can be a compromise.
The remainder of the evening resumed its merry pace. We had karaoke, with a near-lethal dose of country tunes. Going through the list in a desperate holding action against the tides of lost pickup trucks, dogs, and women, I only found Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York”. I picked the safer one and plunged into the breach. Not a Grammy-winning performance, but fun.
Some of Lisa’s friends had brought their kids, and the two kids were looking pretty bored midway through the night. We were all out on the back patio, so I took them over to the grass and we did cartwheels etc. I learned how to do a round-off, and they learned shoulder rolls.
Ξ March 7th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Food |
[Currently listening to Verses of Comfort, Assurance & Salvation, by Au Revoir Simone]
Hey, C-man, I hear the melodious strains of John Henry, calling for “Da Foight of da Centurah!”
http://www.sushi-switzerland.ch/frame-robot-e.html
Seriously though, 350 rolls an hour? Even I don’t love sushi that much. ;) Maybe I should just spring for the 200 / hr model. :P
…And I’ll probably have to reinforce the kitchen counter to take it. 70 lbs for the small model? Dang.
Ξ October 2nd, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Food |
I have bananas. And an apple. And cinnamon. Some brown sugar to go with would be great.
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Ξ October 1st, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Food |
Without a functional thumb, I’m just a shaven monkey.
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Ξ September 22nd, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Food, General |
Still in limbo, waiting for the rest of the fam to get their act together and move in.
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Ξ September 10th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Food, Work |
I like bananas. Ripe and spotty.
So does my father.
And therein lies the bitter conflict, which has raged for countless months.
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Ξ August 24th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Food, Philosophy, School |
I’d been trucking along in high gear ever since 2 in the p.m. Knocking out tasks at work, dialing digits, e-mailing teammates on a class project.
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