My last few days
Nov. 29th, 2009 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaWednesday: Dance practice wasn't happening since our hosts were doing some pre-Thanksgiving food prep, and didn't want to bother with moving the living room furniture to make room to dance, but they encouraged people to come be sociable, anyway. So the core group of us who want to get an active SCA shire going in Milan hung out and talked, and made sketches of what we might like to submit as a device for the branch. Now we need to wait till we get a reply from the seneschal (deputy in charge of this part of Europe) and see what else we need to do to get an official branch going here (it has been a number of years (6?) since last there was an official branch in the Milan area, and it never succeeded in registering a name/device).
Thursday: Had been scheduled to be on the microprobe generating more data, but the filament broke, so it wasn't an option. My boss did comment in the morning that there would be a chance that it would be functional enough in the afternoon to at least look at my latest experiment and see what minerals are present, even if there wouldn't be time to actually do the serious quantitative analysis stuff. I recall replying something like "ok, let me know", and then got absorbed in trying to make sense of the data I've already got, and the next thing I knew it was 9pm, and my eyes were sore from too much time at the computer, so I went home and did a bit more unpacking.
Friday: My boss commented in the morning that he'd heard that I'd never gone down to the probe in the afternoon, and told me that I need to remember to check if it is functioning yet on days like that. Oops. Then an hour window opened up in the probe schedule, so I did get a chance to go look. Remember my posting that I was very excited the first time I got a capsule to weld properly shut, and that I was *certain* I'd done it correctly? It turns out that I was correct--this is the very best sample yet, the minerals that grew are actually large enough to analyze. Now we just need a day when no one else is scheduled to use the probe so I can do the analysis. Alas, this isn't going to happen before I need to leave for AGU. (the other capsule from that run, however, was one of the worst yet in terms of the size of the minerals, and so when I wondered if it sealed properly, the answer is "no".) In the evening we had a D&D character roll-up session. Our gaming group consists of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clovis_t as the DM, me, and the SCA family who moved here from Calontir. Two parents and two children. The kids are very enthusiastic. It will be a very interesting party--we wound up with two Elven druids, two Elven rangers, a human sorcerer, and three purchased dogs and one wolf animal-companion (to one of the druids). My druid opted for the no-animal companion track, but instead will be able to do shape-shifting as often as I feel the need to do so.
Saturday: Woke up energetic and enthused and managed to get all of the non-sewing craft stuff unpacked and organized onto shelves (had to go purchase one more shelf to add to the wall mounted shelves to accomplish this). It is now possible to walk right up to my balcony doors, open them, and walk outside! (for the first time in the 2.5 weeks since my boxes arrived) All that remains to do in terms of unpacking is to bring the bags of scrap fabric and sewing supplies here to my office at uni and organize them onto the empty shelves here. It is taking longer than I normally do to get everything unpacked and organized, but given how much else I've had going on in my life, I can forgive myself the delay. Managed to finish those tasks on time to pack up the armour into a wheeled suitcase and head out for fighter practice. I am very pleased that while their house is on the other side of the city center from my place, the bus which stops right outside my door happens to also stop on their street. It is faster to take the train, but when carrying a heavy load like armour it is convenient to just take the bus.
This was the first time I've been in armour at all since March, and the time before that was July 07, and before that it has been only at rare, random, intervals since I moved away from An Tir in 1994 (I did practice regularly when I was in An Tir). There were just the three of us this time, me, our host, andclovis_t Our host has enough loaner gear that while clovis_t left his armour in Tasmania when he set out for his six-month backpacking adventure, we were still able to get him suited up. I have determined that while my daily push-ups have been keeping my arms in reasonable shape, it isn't quite enough for the sort of movements required to wield a sword and shield--my arms did get a bit tired. Even so I enjoyed it. Perhaps because we mostly only did 3/4 speed at first, and then "fast and light", rather than worrying about full power, so there was no fear that my inability to block would lead to bruises. After just playing for a bit, to remind our bodies that it is possible to move in armour, we actually did a bit of training--pointing out adjustments to where I hold my shied, to make it easier to actually block shots. I think that since our host is really keen to get his fighting back up to (and then surpass) the levels he had been at in Calontir before heading off on foreign service postings to places without SCA) I will actually have an opportunity to get the training I need to feel like I really can fight. I think it would be nice to get to the point where I can start to actually apply some of the theory I've been absorbing from years and years of talking fighting with the high-end fighters.
After fighter practice they fed us Thanksgiving leftovers, and we had our first actual D&D session. The game was much fun--we had time to do some actual role-playing and trying to find out information, and we had a very small combat encounter to give us a taste of how it all works. The kids were great. The younger one is *really* enthusiastic, which is great to see, and his older sister has some great ideas--she was the one who thought of asking one of the town Elves for a map of the ruined castle in which we suspect the bad guys are hiding.
Today I should try to make more progress on my data processing, so that I can get started on that poster for the conference. Wednesday morning earlyclovis_t and I fly off to Stockholm, where we will attend a music/dance SCA event on the weekend. We will get back Sunday, and then on the 11th I fly off to California for the conference, followed by holidays in Alaska.
Thursday: Had been scheduled to be on the microprobe generating more data, but the filament broke, so it wasn't an option. My boss did comment in the morning that there would be a chance that it would be functional enough in the afternoon to at least look at my latest experiment and see what minerals are present, even if there wouldn't be time to actually do the serious quantitative analysis stuff. I recall replying something like "ok, let me know", and then got absorbed in trying to make sense of the data I've already got, and the next thing I knew it was 9pm, and my eyes were sore from too much time at the computer, so I went home and did a bit more unpacking.
Friday: My boss commented in the morning that he'd heard that I'd never gone down to the probe in the afternoon, and told me that I need to remember to check if it is functioning yet on days like that. Oops. Then an hour window opened up in the probe schedule, so I did get a chance to go look. Remember my posting that I was very excited the first time I got a capsule to weld properly shut, and that I was *certain* I'd done it correctly? It turns out that I was correct--this is the very best sample yet, the minerals that grew are actually large enough to analyze. Now we just need a day when no one else is scheduled to use the probe so I can do the analysis. Alas, this isn't going to happen before I need to leave for AGU. (the other capsule from that run, however, was one of the worst yet in terms of the size of the minerals, and so when I wondered if it sealed properly, the answer is "no".) In the evening we had a D&D character roll-up session. Our gaming group consists of
clovis_t as the DM, me, and the SCA family who moved here from Calontir. Two parents and two children. The kids are very enthusiastic. It will be a very interesting party--we wound up with two Elven druids, two Elven rangers, a human sorcerer, and three purchased dogs and one wolf animal-companion (to one of the druids). My druid opted for the no-animal companion track, but instead will be able to do shape-shifting as often as I feel the need to do so. Saturday: Woke up energetic and enthused and managed to get all of the non-sewing craft stuff unpacked and organized onto shelves (had to go purchase one more shelf to add to the wall mounted shelves to accomplish this). It is now possible to walk right up to my balcony doors, open them, and walk outside! (for the first time in the 2.5 weeks since my boxes arrived) All that remains to do in terms of unpacking is to bring the bags of scrap fabric and sewing supplies here to my office at uni and organize them onto the empty shelves here. It is taking longer than I normally do to get everything unpacked and organized, but given how much else I've had going on in my life, I can forgive myself the delay. Managed to finish those tasks on time to pack up the armour into a wheeled suitcase and head out for fighter practice. I am very pleased that while their house is on the other side of the city center from my place, the bus which stops right outside my door happens to also stop on their street. It is faster to take the train, but when carrying a heavy load like armour it is convenient to just take the bus.
This was the first time I've been in armour at all since March, and the time before that was July 07, and before that it has been only at rare, random, intervals since I moved away from An Tir in 1994 (I did practice regularly when I was in An Tir). There were just the three of us this time, me, our host, and
clovis_t Our host has enough loaner gear that while clovis_t left his armour in Tasmania when he set out for his six-month backpacking adventure, we were still able to get him suited up. I have determined that while my daily push-ups have been keeping my arms in reasonable shape, it isn't quite enough for the sort of movements required to wield a sword and shield--my arms did get a bit tired. Even so I enjoyed it. Perhaps because we mostly only did 3/4 speed at first, and then "fast and light", rather than worrying about full power, so there was no fear that my inability to block would lead to bruises. After just playing for a bit, to remind our bodies that it is possible to move in armour, we actually did a bit of training--pointing out adjustments to where I hold my shied, to make it easier to actually block shots. I think that since our host is really keen to get his fighting back up to (and then surpass) the levels he had been at in Calontir before heading off on foreign service postings to places without SCA) I will actually have an opportunity to get the training I need to feel like I really can fight. I think it would be nice to get to the point where I can start to actually apply some of the theory I've been absorbing from years and years of talking fighting with the high-end fighters.After fighter practice they fed us Thanksgiving leftovers, and we had our first actual D&D session. The game was much fun--we had time to do some actual role-playing and trying to find out information, and we had a very small combat encounter to give us a taste of how it all works. The kids were great. The younger one is *really* enthusiastic, which is great to see, and his older sister has some great ideas--she was the one who thought of asking one of the town Elves for a map of the ruined castle in which we suspect the bad guys are hiding.
Today I should try to make more progress on my data processing, so that I can get started on that poster for the conference. Wednesday morning early
clovis_t and I fly off to Stockholm, where we will attend a music/dance SCA event on the weekend. We will get back Sunday, and then on the 11th I fly off to California for the conference, followed by holidays in Alaska.