This Saturday at Bristol we had a rain day. Most people tend to hate the rain days, or at least dislike them strongly. Me I kind of like them. I realize they are bad for business, and really cut into the profits, so yeah that’s bad. I still have a lot of fun with them though. As of last year during rain I have taking to rowing myself around the site. It’s pretty funny on its own, and I get tons of people that laugh at the sight of it. Comments are always plentiful, such as “Where’s your boat”, or “Rowing with both oars in the water?”, etc… I tend to make some sort of remark back and we laugh and I row on. As I said this in itself it a lot of fun. However, my FAVORITE thing to do with it is to get other people involved. For example, I happened upon a family walking across the site. There were 3 kids, a mom a dad, and a grandma. They had the obvious look of a group on a mission. So I rowed up along side them and they started laughing, dad began taking pictures.
The mother asked, “Where’s your boat?”
“What are ye blind? `Tis right here…”
“Oh, Oh… ooooffff course… I see…” , the kids laughed… (I’m pretty sure they could see it just fine)
“Well, since we are headed in the same direction, why don’t you climb on board”
more laughs, “oh.. ok.. sure…”
So we started walking again mostly in a line, dad to the side getting more pictures….
“So, now that yer on board… tis time to be giving ye yer duities”
the kids looked at me like I had just assigned a book report on War and Peace over spring break…
“You m’lady, since you are in front, you shall be the figurehead”, she chuckled again and with a smile we continued to walk.
“Oh, these are treacherous waters, we are going to need a gunner, you there lad…”, I pointed to the youngest of the children, a boy about 5 years old, “When I say so you fire the cannons, with a big loud BOOM, can you do that?” he nodded. “Alright, lets hear ya!” “BOOOM!!!”, he shouted at the top of his lungs. Mom dad and grandma laughed. We continued “sailing”
“Oh dear, it’s hard to see… we need us a lookout! You lass, you are now our lookout!”, she looked at me quizically. “You look out for rocks and thing, so put your hands up to yer eyes and look like this…”, I put my hand up flat as if i were blocking the bright sun. She followed suit. “Good lass you got it” We took a few more steps…
“FIRE CANNONS!!!”, “BOOOOM!” came the reply followed by laughter from my gunner, and his family
“ARE THERE ROCKS AHEAD LOOKOUT???” “YES!!!” came the reply, for in fact were walking right towards a flowerbed, thank you mom for playing along so well…
“Oh blast, well now what are we to do… AH HA I KNOW!, You lad”, I pointed to the 3rd and oldest child, You’re the helmsman, stear us away form the rocks”, without prompting he reached forward and grabbed the ships wheel and began to navigate us away from the flower bed.
“Good on it lad, fine sailor ya are”
“FIRE CANNONS”, “BOOM”
“ARE THERE ROCKS AHEAD?”, “NOPE!”
“STEADY AS SHE GOES, LAD”
“Now for you m’lady”, I approached the grandmother, all the while still rowing…
“Oh no… just leave me be…” she responded while holding her umbrella up to stay dry, “I’m enjoying this just as it is”, “Well that’s perfect then, because holding your parasol like that, you make the perfect mast for the ship…” , She chuckled, and dad snapped a photo.
“FIRE CANNONS!!!” , “BOOM!!!”, followed by more laughter
“Are we headed towards the restroom?”, the mother asked…
“AYE MAM, the privys be just ahead on yer left, in the white building with blue trim”
“Thank you!”
“Well, with that I think I shall leave you, you have a fine ship here, and have safe travels, do enjoy the rest of your day”
“FIRE CANNON!!!”, “BOOOM!!!!!”

I love it when something just works…

Thank you A-E, I kinda owe this bit to her, and the one day of rehearsals I attended last year… this is sort of my take on the great machine bit… I just focused it a bit more to suit my needs…

Today at work I am scheduled to be involved in a video shoot. One of the departments on campus is putting together a video blog and wants to cover my Google Gadgets in an episode. This should be entertaining.

*When I originally posted this LJ cut it off for some reason… Read the full story now*
Is there hope for the future of the world, if the little girl I encountered this weekend is any example, I think there is a good chance. I was sitting at a Bounding Main show Sunday, talking with a couple of friends. I noticed that in front of them there were 4 children and their parents waiting for the show to begin. The boy in the group kept sneaking peeks back at me and at my treasure chest. I expected that I would have to make the 1st move, but before the conversation was over the mother apologetically interjected. “Excuse me.. he’s really curious about whats in your box there…” , the resulting conversation went something like this…
(more…)

I was reading a post on a message board and someone pointed out a funny alternative to Rock, Paper Scissors…

Cockroach, Shoe, Nuclear bomb

Shoe beats cockroach, Bomb beats Shoes, roach beats bomb…

Ok, so it turns out there was no permanent physical damage to the keyboard. On closer inspection the dead bug had just shorted out a few circuit traces. I took a pencil eraser to the traces, and cleaned them up. I then re-assembled the keyboard, and it is as good as new.

Geek

Today I had to replace a dead keyboard at work. Now this particular brand of keyboard has always been rock solid, and i have never had any trouble with them. I was curious, so I took the keyboard apart to see if the person had spilled something in the keyboard causing it to die. I turns out, I had a literal computer bug… (check the etymology, not to be confused with entomology) Apparently some little insect decided the keyboard was a nice place to live, and had burrowed into the contact trace that connects the membrane that makes up the key switches, to the controller board. Thus killing the keyboard.
I’m slightly impressed to tell the truth…

Wow! How is it possibly Wednesday already? This past weekend was the opening weekend of the Bristol Renaissance Faire. Overall I thought it was a great weekend. Perfect weather, great music and time spent with many friends. There were a few snafus but nothing that couldn’t be overcome.
Saturdays this year I am puppet spotting for the giant jester Jyncks. Things went pretty well overall despite an couple glitches. I did end up feeling a little guilty for negotiating being done in time to see the revel when I found out the end of the day spotter ran jyncks into a bunch of chimes.
I got to spend Sunday doing whatever I wanted which ended up being mostly catching Michael O’Quinn’s shows. I cannot say enough times how thrilled I am Bristol gave him a contract this year even if it is only 2 weekends. He is a great performer, whom I am proud to be able to count as a friend.
Sunday had a few very special moments as well. A friend, Al, had arranged a whole host of special events for his dear friend who is suffering from a terminal illness. As part of her special day He asked me to present her with on of my magic stones. I found them early in the day and did so. She seemed touched. I’m glad I could be a part of it.
Sunday also included a march by the military to honor those in our family who had passed away this past year. It was very touching and indicative of just how much this family cares about each other.
That’s all for now, I hope to post my best/worst list soon.

Appparently Tmobile service is down. If you try calling sorry…

The road in front of the college is under construction. It has been since last fall… Lately they have been doing the last of the final coat of asphalt. Today I arrived at my intersection and put on my left turn signal as always, so that I could travel north to the entrance of the college. This flagger stood in front of me directing the traffic in the south bound lane of the divided highway. When the light changed, she held her hand up for me to stay put while she continued to allow the south bound traffic to clear. Once they had cleared and more cars had built up along side of me to turn right, she stopped the southbound traffic, and motioned for the right hand lane to proceed with their turns. Once they had completed their turns she pointed at me and shook her finger side to side as if scolding me, then motioned for me to turn right. I looked at her like she was from mars, and pointed to the left. She again scolded me and pointed to the right. Then she threw her hand up for me to stop and changed the traffic flow again allowing the southbound traffic to go. After the south bound traffic cleared out she again scolded me and pointed for my to head south, the opposite direction of where I needed to go. I finally gave in, and headed south where I made an illegal U-Turn so I could head north to go to work.

If they are going to randomly block off a road, or change the flow of traffic, don’t they need to put up some sort detour or road closed signs? I went from having 5 minutes to spare before work started, to being 2 minutes late…