Oh, you mechanical symphony
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Ian's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Friday, July 17th, 2009 | | 2:06 pm |
A couple years ago I poked some fun at some of my younger friends with language games. One of them was a rant about why the word "ruth" wasn't obviously understandable in meaning as a root of the word ruthlessness. Yeah, it was about the time I was writing encoded Lj entries. I was feeling difficult. This last weekend I read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sir Nigel". Imagine my grand amusement upon finding "ruth" liberally sprinkled through the last third of the book. | | 1:47 pm |
My new shield blank showed up from Windrose today. After receiving a bunch of advice from Havec and Uther about changing my shield to match the way I use my sword, I decided to give an oval or kite a shot. I got this one with the idea that it will show me how to alter it or get another to get the shape and size that I want to go forward with. Happy fighter. | | Thursday, July 16th, 2009 | | 12:18 am |
| | Monday, July 13th, 2009 | | 11:40 am |
I'd experimented with five hour energy drinks on single days before last week and had been reasonably impressed. Last week I did a test of no caffeineated soda (and almost no soda at all), in return for 1 5 hour a day. Unfortunately, its a 15-16 hour energy drink for me. I was up and unable to sleep until 2 am or later every night last week. Back to the drawing board. | | Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | | 4:58 pm |
When web ordering fails
When your site refers to a color as "mallard", you've just made it that much less likely that I'll trust the picture of the piece of clothing in question and buy it. | | Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | | 1:51 am |
A memory
There was a night when I was maybe twenty four, in Sacramento, that haunts me on nights like this. I was loading trucks in the summertime, gone nocturnal for all the right reasons. I was making more money, I was out among the bright and the pretty on the weekends, and I wasn’t putting up with the amusement that is being a big guy in hundred and ten degree days. I’d awakened as the sun was setting, huddling in a one bedroom apartment I was sharing with five other people. We all chipped in a bit to rent and there was a daily communal ramen pot to augment a steady stream of dollar Whoppers from the Burger King across the street. I’d driven to work in the cooling evening, still sweating. There was that tight pinch at the base of my neck, that tension across the shoulders that you hope will be unlocked by sex. That’s about when daydreams started their struggle for attention with the stark physical joy of loading trucks full of returned computer monitors. Against all hope, I came out of the truck, my second or third packed tight, maybe two am. I look up the long warehouse, and feel the shift in the air. It was a good thing it was time for a break, because I simply had to walk two hundred feet or so down to the center of L shaped warehouse, where the massive rollup door lead out into the truck yard. Against any reason or hope, it was raining. I stood there disbelieving, face up in it, feeling more alive that I had in a long time. I sang, I think. My mind went back into hiding, and something else poured out poetry that I had no chance of writing down before I forgot. I stood out there, innocent, until they called the next wave of freight being unloaded. Going in felt like a little blasphemy, but I was close enough to the power of it, close enough to lightning, close enough to pure, close enough to enough. I can’t tell you anything else about the rest of that night, but, what I have of it is more than a night like this can contain. | | Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 | | 5:05 pm |
| | 2:31 pm |
Paint splatter on the wall
The fever dream that hit monday night was, to date, the most intense. I dont think the fever was any higher... I just finally got out of the dreams about recoding my immune system, into a nice apocalyptic dream. I spent about five hours waking up over and over, not sure what was sleeping and what was awake, sure I was feeling groups of people around the world being lifted up to be preserved from whatever massive event was occuring. Distantly, I was aware of a massive presence guiding the whole thing, full of sorrow and intent, severe purpose and a desire for mercy. Last night, I had a dream about being thin, looking over my undressed body, noting every change as something I'd worked for. I've been reading "Our Lady of Largest Heart" by Betty De Shong Meador, about Sumerian life, worship, and the first recorded poetry, works done by a priestess named Enheduanna for Inanna. Its doing odd, but pleasant things to my daydreaming. I've been daydreaming of two potential, novel length stories. I havent been able to put together an outline for them any more than I've been able to lay down a coherent short. Still, on the edge of creativity only lasts so long... sooner or later the dam will break. I've been daydreaming with my hands, to fill this void of no fighting. Its shieldwork and returns, blows and returns, shieldwork and hip motion, variation, repetition, fragments so close to knitting, so far from integration. Tonight we should get another session in the back yard, another test to see if this process is yielding real results. | | Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 | | 2:30 pm |
My roommate came back from June Crown with a swollen hand. He had taken one of those one in a hundred thousand shots that went past him and got turned to strike with the back edge on the palm of his weapon hand. He reported some soreness, and when the swelling didn't go down the next morning, he dutifully went to the doc to get an xray. The xray revealed several breaks in the bones of the hand. Three of them were old enough to be partially healed, while another batch were clearly from the previous weekend. Like several other SCA fighter jokes, he honestly had no idea when he took the earlier damage. The thing that surprises me is that he's been hammering out components for gauntlets this last week with a broken hand and didn't notice. | | Friday, June 19th, 2009 | | 9:00 pm |
| | Sunday, June 14th, 2009 | | 11:37 pm |
Poem
Went down to the crossroads Lost the blues in freeweights, In the endless dayjob churn, In stability, sanity and thought In typical tiny unshakable focus Went on down to find madness Somehow, the devil wasn’t there Wherever roads meet, beginnings Spool out to all the hopeful places I can only guess at on my map Went on down to the crossroads And what I found was a smile | | Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | | 11:33 am |
Meme
“The problem with Livejournal is that we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. Hence, I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don’t know about you.” | | Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | | 5:07 pm |
Backyard fight time
I've been dragging Steve out into the backyard about three times a week for short practice sessions. We've been focusing on a just basics approach, with either halfspeed sparring or him working exclusively on effective blocking and me working on clean attacks with defensive (sword tip up or down blocking) returns. I'm slowly benefiting, but Steve has made some noticeable strides, fixing some long term defensive mistakes. Its been helpful to focus on language about moving the heater "on a plane" as opposed to "opening and closing". A huge number of Havec and Leohtulfs comments about dividing defensive zones high and low between shield and sword have been integral to our practice. As Steve gets more comfortable with his defense, he's using more "hand back" high sword guards, which is helping both the variety of his blocks and attacks. I'm still a bit hit or miss whether I return from a blow well, but, I'm more and more often getting my sword hand back into a defensible guard that I can generate real power and speed from. On the suggestion of several knights, I've continued to do left hand sword work during these sessions with Steve. It still feels clumsy and uncontrolled, but my round shield blocking is slowly improving. I need to do some pell time on my own to clean this up some more. Its not tournaments, but it feels good. | | 5:05 pm |
| | Thursday, June 4th, 2009 | | 3:58 pm |
In no particular order
The hide/tanning project finished up yesterday. Four hides that my aunt has taken or helped take through her hunting business got picked up at a tannery in San Bruno. It was actually less expensive than expected. We got a hair on boar hide, a hair on buck hide, a hair-off doe hide, and a small bear hide. The doe hide came out the best, but the bear and buck are great as well. The doe hide will make perfect gloves, and my roommate Steve is already drooling over it with an eye for gauntlet production. Steve has been working on small helmet with nasal as a piece of humor for an upcoming SCA feast. At a previous feast, he has made helmets for the chickens out of tin foil. I got a bit lippy with him while he was working on it earlier this week, and got challenged to make a tiny chainmail drape for the helmet. I took it as an opportunity to try the stainless steel 1/16th inch ID 24gauge rings I got in my last order. They arent nearly as obnoxious to work as I expected. This will end up being a good, small test piece before trying these tiny rings with the ongoing chainmail welding project. Weight loss is proceeding slowly apace. I started to put some of it back on, and then spent the whole last weekend flat on my back sick. Now, weight is back on target. Not the way I want to do things, but I'll take the results. Steve's middle daughter graduated high school tuesday night. The Casa de Slack is now host to grandparents from out of town and other family stopping by to visit. Its a change from the usual zoo, but its still a zoo. Having lots of writing structure and characterization ideas, but not writing much. | | 12:42 pm |
| | Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 | | 11:58 am |
One of the occupational hazards in IT and product support work is the manufactured crisis. These events almost always come from a manager or salesperson outside of the support hierarchy. Support people may get unhappy dealing with one another, but there is a dogged adherence to basic levels of civility and focus on solving problems. This is caused by a proven reality that whatever the current issue is, you will have other calls later with your opposite numbers in that other organization. Its professional courtesy and self-preservation. A manufactured crisis will sometimes be about a valid problem, but the point that the instigator will stand on will often seem a bit ludicrous if considered in a vacuum. The point isnt reason, though. Its some combination of showing your deference in a dominance structure, in demonstrating empathy, or in simply letting someone vent. It is the natural outcome of paying someone without technical skills, and/or holding said person responsible for events they cannot directly control. Without the ability to fix something, sooner or later all they have left is standing on the table and howling. Dealing with these events will sooner or later be a tightrope for most support engineers. If they accept too much stress or emotional investment, they will burn out or quit. Yet, they will have to appear to play along, or be seen as not being invested enough or motivated enough in their job performance. Every support or IT person I've met that has lasted past the 18 month mark has figured out some coping mechanism for this entirely artificial problem. | | Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | | 10:39 am |
Baycon SCA demo
Saturday and Sunday I participated in the SCA armored combat demo at Baycon. Given recent events and projects, I might have declined, but my knight really wanted everyone there. Saturday was the first time in 6+ weeks I'd put on armor. The pell-time had given obvious results. I felt fast and strong, with some of my sword returns generating the defensive/blocking angles like I've been drilling. My perception and timing was just a fraction of a beat off. I ended up losing almost every fight, but feeling good about my technique doing so. Sunday felt much better. I was a bit faster and my perception speed came up to meet most of the fights I had. I had a really clean, technical pass with Sir Bjorn sword and shield. I had a really fun dane axe vs dane axe pass with Sir Leohtulf. The fights had some pommel strikes and grappling worked in, which was fun, but a bit outside our practiced repetoire. In retrospect, I think they should have been left out of a demo fight... its not really part of the SCA 'game'. This morning I am very aware of slipping on my diet and exercise program. I didnt even think about them since last thursday. Getting wrapped up in armor repair, the con demos, and getting all the related costuming, etc together yielded a serious failure in the weight maintenance project. | | Monday, May 18th, 2009 | | 11:03 am |
Admonishments of Kherishdar
Of the fiction I've encountered online, there has been a wide range of volume, consistency, qualify and novelty. I think "the Admonishments of Kherishdar" has been among the best I've seen in the last couple years. The series is a view into the society and culture of an alien people, exploring their intricate mechanisms of civilization. Its a lush setting, with well done characters. I highly recommend it. The author has brought her work to print, with details at http://haikujaguar.livejournal.com/647053.html . The book is available via Amazon. | | 1:31 am |
|
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ianhess's journal