December already?
Dec. 2nd, 2004 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mikeknNovember snuck out the back door without paying, leaving me only a month to figure out how this year will end.
Most of last month was filled with business trips. One visit to Long Island, two to New York City, and one out to Longmont, CO. The NY trips were fairly uneventful - no car crashes or train derailments and we got all the work that we wanted done finished. One of these days I'll take some extra time in the city and visit the main Strand location or one of the big wine and spirit stores before coming home. I could also try and catch up with my friend Layla, assuming she still works somewhere in the city.
The Colorado trip was nice. Again, travel and work went well. I got to visit Redstone Meadery and taste all their meads. Their stuff is good, but expensive. Still, I did pick up a few bottles to take home (and my boss wondered why I had such a large suitcase for only two nights :) ) Also stopped at a liqueur store and picked up a bottle of mead from a different Colorado meadery.
I went to 100 Minutes War with Mistress Dorigen. We had a fun ride up to the event - didn't get lost although we did question our directions from time to time. :) The even itself was very chilly, both outside where the fighting was and inside where everything else was. I was glad from my wool tunic, but wished I'd brought a cloak. My main goal there was to pick up old newsletters from the Kingdom Chronicler, hoping to fill in some of the holes in the EK History collection. I also picked up a bunch of files for Shannon (Pikestaff editor). Due to some unfortunate events the feast and the evening activities were canceled. I hope that next year they find a new site. We left the site and had dinner at a nearby dinner with some friends. When we got there the dinner had been mostly taken over by Scadians.
My sister's art show was on the 20th. It was held in the basement of a gallery in West Chester - and this really was a basement: unfinished, dark, and musty. Kim had three walls of her voodoo dolls, many of which I've not seen before (should have brought a camera). The rest of the show was equally bizarre. I didn't get to see any of the films, as they were in a small and very crowded corner. There was a giant Buddha that would from time to time shoot a stream of water out of it's mouth. There was a dark room about the size of a large phone booth - when you shut the door a strobe light would come on revealing that that walls were covered with ads from grocery stores and porn. Nearby were a few near life size statues made from old electronic and mechanical bits. The whole event was very well attended, so that was cool.
Thanksgiving was very small this year. Only![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
violet_amy, our mothers, Amy's oldest brother, his wife and I were there. My sister stopped by briefly after dinner, but her husband was home with the flu. It's been a stressful time for the families recently, but there isn't much I can do to improve things, so I just try and be there when needed.
We had some folks over for gaming on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It got a late start, but got going as more people finished up work. We played one game of Munchkin Bites for most of the evening. I spent the first part of the game being mercilessly beat upon, and the last part of the game winning it. This only insures that I will be mercilessly beat upon for longer in the next game. (Sadly, at the end of the game, they didn't fall for it when I tried to get help defeating a pair of big critters - I was offering 5 treasures, but would have gotten 4 levels out of it - enough to win at the time). Anyway, need to do that more often.
On Saturday we drove down to Darkover (a small SF convention), stopping for breakfast at one of the many Waffle Houses along the way. Got to say hi toxpioti, who I hadn't seen since the last Darkover. Spent some time chatting with bunnyjadwiga and Chris, kyleri and Istvan plus a few others here and there. Picked up more books in the dealers room - found out Lynn Abbey has restarted Thieves World. violet_amy and I went out to dinner at a local Irish pub, An Poitin Stil, where I learned a little more about Poitin (or Potcheen). Now if only distilling were legal... Anyway, went back to the con for the Clam Chowder concert (which was a lot of fun), then out to the pool to hear folks sing the Hallelujah Chorus, which sounded great. I recorded it on my Clie - not too bad a recording. We came back home Sunday afternoon, but not before going back to An Poitin Stil for brunch.
I'm finally making it back to the gym again. Need to work my way back up to where I was when I stopped going (or rather got too busy to get there). We've got the usual shire, newcomers and brewers meetings coming up in the next week, plus fencing will continue through December. We'll be at a family party this Saturday. We're also planning on attending Bhakail's Yule, and the EK Brewer event later in the month. Add to that a wedding, a holiday party and christmas and we've filled every weekend. Again.
Most of last month was filled with business trips. One visit to Long Island, two to New York City, and one out to Longmont, CO. The NY trips were fairly uneventful - no car crashes or train derailments and we got all the work that we wanted done finished. One of these days I'll take some extra time in the city and visit the main Strand location or one of the big wine and spirit stores before coming home. I could also try and catch up with my friend Layla, assuming she still works somewhere in the city.
The Colorado trip was nice. Again, travel and work went well. I got to visit Redstone Meadery and taste all their meads. Their stuff is good, but expensive. Still, I did pick up a few bottles to take home (and my boss wondered why I had such a large suitcase for only two nights :) ) Also stopped at a liqueur store and picked up a bottle of mead from a different Colorado meadery.
I went to 100 Minutes War with Mistress Dorigen. We had a fun ride up to the event - didn't get lost although we did question our directions from time to time. :) The even itself was very chilly, both outside where the fighting was and inside where everything else was. I was glad from my wool tunic, but wished I'd brought a cloak. My main goal there was to pick up old newsletters from the Kingdom Chronicler, hoping to fill in some of the holes in the EK History collection. I also picked up a bunch of files for Shannon (Pikestaff editor). Due to some unfortunate events the feast and the evening activities were canceled. I hope that next year they find a new site. We left the site and had dinner at a nearby dinner with some friends. When we got there the dinner had been mostly taken over by Scadians.
My sister's art show was on the 20th. It was held in the basement of a gallery in West Chester - and this really was a basement: unfinished, dark, and musty. Kim had three walls of her voodoo dolls, many of which I've not seen before (should have brought a camera). The rest of the show was equally bizarre. I didn't get to see any of the films, as they were in a small and very crowded corner. There was a giant Buddha that would from time to time shoot a stream of water out of it's mouth. There was a dark room about the size of a large phone booth - when you shut the door a strobe light would come on revealing that that walls were covered with ads from grocery stores and porn. Nearby were a few near life size statues made from old electronic and mechanical bits. The whole event was very well attended, so that was cool.
Thanksgiving was very small this year. Only
violet_amy, our mothers, Amy's oldest brother, his wife and I were there. My sister stopped by briefly after dinner, but her husband was home with the flu. It's been a stressful time for the families recently, but there isn't much I can do to improve things, so I just try and be there when needed.We had some folks over for gaming on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It got a late start, but got going as more people finished up work. We played one game of Munchkin Bites for most of the evening. I spent the first part of the game being mercilessly beat upon, and the last part of the game winning it. This only insures that I will be mercilessly beat upon for longer in the next game. (Sadly, at the end of the game, they didn't fall for it when I tried to get help defeating a pair of big critters - I was offering 5 treasures, but would have gotten 4 levels out of it - enough to win at the time). Anyway, need to do that more often.
On Saturday we drove down to Darkover (a small SF convention), stopping for breakfast at one of the many Waffle Houses along the way. Got to say hi to
xpioti, who I hadn't seen since the last Darkover. Spent some time chatting with bunnyjadwiga and Chris, kyleri and Istvan plus a few others here and there. Picked up more books in the dealers room - found out Lynn Abbey has restarted Thieves World. violet_amy and I went out to dinner at a local Irish pub, An Poitin Stil, where I learned a little more about Poitin (or Potcheen). Now if only distilling were legal... Anyway, went back to the con for the Clam Chowder concert (which was a lot of fun), then out to the pool to hear folks sing the Hallelujah Chorus, which sounded great. I recorded it on my Clie - not too bad a recording. We came back home Sunday afternoon, but not before going back to An Poitin Stil for brunch.I'm finally making it back to the gym again. Need to work my way back up to where I was when I stopped going (or rather got too busy to get there). We've got the usual shire, newcomers and brewers meetings coming up in the next week, plus fencing will continue through December. We'll be at a family party this Saturday. We're also planning on attending Bhakail's Yule, and the EK Brewer event later in the month. Add to that a wedding, a holiday party and christmas and we've filled every weekend. Again.
