I managed to get to the camp not too late and even got a bottom bunk!  I took Heidi to the store and came back with snacks for myself too.  Since we didn't have a cave until Saturday, there was no rush for putting up a cave and game-on was almost on time!

I gotta admit, my "duty" at Winter Haven is pretty minimal at the best.  I am at the event, but I'm not involved in the game in any way... I'm sort of a fire marshal, transport, gopher, and general lazy-body who occupies space at NPC camp.  But as long as I'm wanted, I'm glad to be there.

Things seem to have gone very well over-all.  We had Melissa from Final Haven helping out on Friday and early Saturday (I think she had fun) and a total players in the high 30s.

Saturday was the "Beer Fest" and then the "Waxies" show.  A few folks mentioned maybe starting a fire, so I got a large fire going in no time and I tended it for the next several hours.  The Waxies came in-character as "Ire Rememberance Army" members who fought against the Springhold occupation... so when they played "Go On Home British Soldiers", they changed the lyrics to "Go on home Springhold soldiers."  They said it was their first dry show in 3 years.  Afterwards, it was off to Big T's for the game break, and to give the band food and drink.  They were about to order "what was on tap", when I mentioned to them that they had a beer list with hundreds of beers... they seemed glad I enlightened them to that and I don't think a single one of them ordered off the drink board. *laughs*  While I was there, they had a "Philly Steak Burger" on the menu.  It was supposed to come with "Green peppers, onions, Swiss cheese and A1 Thick and Rich", but I was like, "What the hell is this?" So I had them take off the A1 and replace the Swiss with American  and WOW!!! I will order this burger again!

Then, it was back to the game and putting up the cave for the battle and such.  Again, I didn't do much... just mostly chilled out near the cave at times, or down at NPC camp for the couple of "Starfish" calls.  Otherwise, things seemed to have gone quite well with the rest of the night.

Sunday came early and the cave and most of the packing up was done early... we were almost ready to leave by 12:30pm... except that the PCs took their time.. and we didn't get out of the camp until almost 3pm.

At about 6pm, several of us met up at Golden Corral in Muskegon, then later to Phil's for chat and decompress a bit.

However, after I got home, I was getting ready for sleep, but I had this energetic boost and couldn't get to sleep until almost 3:30am.  When I woke up this morning, I was feeling uneasy and had a headache.  I wasn't feeling well at all, and so I called into work and stayed in bed until about 4pm.  I have little more than just a little firmness in the brain, but I'll likely be hitting the hay anyways just in case I'm fighting something off.
It seems that someone at the LARP had the H1N1.   Now, it's going to be another 6 months before we have another Winter Haven, but I think we will need to implement some sort of rule of "if you think you have the flu, please leave the game" policy.  I mean, not even H1N1... if you have any sort of easily transmittable virus.

Well, Winter Haven went better than expected.  The two big issues that could have dragged it down didn't materialize, and so things were pleasent for me.

Friday, after work, I drove down to Kalamazoo and I met up with Taki at the Alma Fricanos at around 5pm and found it to be an excellent pizza place.  Their pizzas had a few more toppings (pepperoni, sausage, green pepper, mushroom and anchovies as well as onion, ham, green and black olives to boot.)  I originally asked for an "EBA" and made the comment. "Sweet, they know what an EBA is here too.." but then Taki pointed out that they had more toppings... an EBA was the same thing we knew, but had more on it.  The pizzas were a bit more like Muskegon than Grand Haven's, and the cheese was a better mix, for my tastes... more mozzarella, I think.  The added ham to the toppings also made this more perfect union and I think helped "butter up" the taste that I"m used to as well.  The crust was fairly crisp and solid, but not so much so that I hurt my throat swallowing it (like I did the first time eating at the Muskegon Fricano's after a lifetime of soggy pizza--I was not expecting a cracker crust.)

Anyways, after that I drove down to the camp and tried to help a bit with the set-up.  The rest of that night and Saturday were a bit of a blur as I basically drove people around the camp when I could, or sat at NPC camp chatting with folks.  Other than a somewhat rocky start, the rest of the event seemed to go pretty smoothly from what I could tell. 
Friday night I slept in the top bunk of one of the girlscout beds... not designed for a 250# man to climb up into, let alone sleep in.  So on Saturday night (is 6:30am really still "night?") I followed Taki to his place and crashed out there.
Sunday I woke up, played some Rock Band Beatles and went out to Olive Garden with Taki, Phil, Kooky, Shana and Michelle.  After that it was back to Taki's for a little music-sharing via YouTube and then I drove back home.

In all, it was a pretty decent weekend.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get more than a few hours of sleep since Saturday and I think part of it was internet withdrawl. *Laughs*
There's no Werewolf this Wednesday as Matt is working 2nd shift and thus I can't play after 10pm or so.  Oh, well. 

This weekend is the Michigan Irish Music Festival in Muskegon, Michigan.  I will be attending. 


PAX EAST (aka, Penny Arcade Expo East)
By the way, did anyone know that Penny Arcade Expo is going to be in Boston this coming March?
http://www.paxsite.com/paxeast/index.php
March 26th - 28th.  $45 for 3-day pass.  Hotels seem to be about $120-$200 per night through their reservation system. 

Movies I want to see:
The Informant
The Invention of Lying

.. no real artwork to speak of.   I'm getting to a point where I think that if I don't force myself to somehow get my mojo back, I might as well just give up on it, at least in any way that makes me think I could/should use it for more than a doodle here or there... at least in any way that makes me rely on it for any reason.  So I want to try to figure out how to force myself to do one full character drawing each day.  I expect it to go as well as my attempts to get into shape, or eat better.

It's been a long time since I actually posted anything decent here. 
I've come close a few times... to give my comments about Wolverine (Meh.  It was alright, but the CG failed on so many levels and Deadpool failed without his plucky banter that would make sense of the comical things like giant claws and 1984 computer-typed mind-control that wound up looking like we were supposed to take it seriously instead.  We got the Deadpool ending which may have broken the fourth wall slightly?), Star Trek (Yeah! Awesome movie! Fun to watch and entertaining.  Effects and nods to the fans were great) and Angels and Demons (never saw The Da Vinci Code (pre-sequal?), but I guess it could only be a reference for cinematic commentary.  It was alright but it almost needed a pop-up screen to give you all of the information you were missing about each little historical fact that I'm sure made the book more convincing... but instead wound up feeling like you were missing out on some great flavor and instead just on some sort of action movie with a shallow story.)  Tonight I may go see the new Night at the Museum movie.  I never saw the original, sooo.. we'll see how that goes.  I don't think it'll be that important to know who's what.

Work has been... getting better on an interpersonal level, but the economy and whatnot are hyper-emphesizing every mistake we make (business cards coming back from suppliers with the wrong stock, running a job and cutting it wrong, using the wrong plate, missing an email, etc.)  We'll get through all of this... it's just stressful and it's not really anything we can contain... we just have to keep cool heads.  Andrea will be going on maternity leave in August (though it could happen sooner) and we have to begin training a replacement/filler, but we're not sure if she's going to stay home or return.  So that's kinda got us all a bit perplexed.

Artwork-wise... I don't know what's going on.  A few sketches here and there, but for the most part... nothing.  One day I want to get back to doing real drawing/finished works again.  I don't know how I can force myself to do that, but I gotta.  Even if that means going to digital/vector/design... I just want to be able to COMPLETE something again and feel happy that I accomplished something.  900 sketches and maybe 20 finished pieces over the last 8 years is not a good record.  I got sloppy and I need to push myself to finish things.  Last week I bought a $8 water-color bush/pen.  I bought a gray one just to try it out... the idea of being able to do water-color/ink on the fly sounded too good to be true.  I like the liquid properties, but it does dry damn fast, but I like the softer edges more than using gray markers.  I'll keep experimenting with it.

In Gaming we've been running a Werewolf: the Apocalypse game and along with our Uktana (Kim), our Get of Fenris (Tim), and myself (Black Fury?), we  have acquired a new player who's a Fianna (Nate), who a great match into our pack... and by that, he's an odd-duck and how we're going to manage as a pack is really up in the air, but the roleplaying is great so far.  I think Nate's joining our gaming group is fantastic and he seems to like the story and the mechanics so far.  
We are also looking at a Shadowrun 4th edition game that takes place in Austraila... but think Mad Max, Judge Dredd, The Matrix (real world, not in the computer) and the likes... where the continent is a bit of a wasteland, technology is scarece and society is rebuilding itself.  It's a "wild west" of sorts.  We (Matt and I) are still sort of hammering through the concept, even though I think we're both going in different directions.  He'll be running it, so he gets his say, of course. :)
I've disconnected myself in most ways from the LARPs I was involved in.  So even though I'm still there and join in on the conversations about mechanics, drama and whatnot, there is nothing to connect me to it.  I've failed on another level though: Work has been so busy and I've been so burned out that I haven't been able to fulfill my printing duties that I've promised so far.  I will get it done, I just need to re-anchor myself and just do it.  It's just that if I stick around the shop after my "working hours" I wind up getting sucked into doing work because I'm there, and not paid for it, plus there's tension because they like to gripe at me for little things, or I expect them to and that just makes bad energy. But, still, I should do what I'm suposed to do.

I'm sad that my web host is going kaput, but I'll survive.  I'll either live with some other "free" service that has banners for some time, or find a way to budget $6 or so bucks a month to cover a site that maybe only a handfull of folks see a month.  It may inspire me to get off my rump and re-invent my site, figure out what I really want to do with it, and how I want to present myself.

Well, I guess that's about it for now.    But I'll leave you with this.
Ravage as a working 2GB USB Thumbdrive for about $45 (ships in September, preorders being taken now sold out)

Happy Earth Day, folks.

This week has been about finishing up the costuming for Winter Haven.  Last fall I suggested a method for making some of the costumes and when it came down to actually producing them, the energy in the group had pretty much waned.  Between folks wanting out and losing the mojo, along with other family/personal issues the energy in general was pretty lack-luster.  So, over the last few weeks Matt and I have been putting them together.  There are two methods that I think will work well... one I think is more durrable, but will be less easy to repair (without some creative thinking) and the other may wear a bit worse, but may be easier to repair.  The cost was a bit more than I was expecting because we bought larger quantities of things, but I'm going to foot most of that myself as my good-bye to the game.

I've decided to completely step down from Winter Haven for a couple of reasons, ranging from my general dis-interest in LARPing, the costs of going to events, and particular individuals that I just don't want to associate myself with anymore and as long as I was involved in the group I had to put up with it.  There's also the stress of hearing conversations about LARP as if I was sitting in a CIA meeting hearing briefings about enemies of the state.  I don't dare think that I won't be surrounded by it after I leave, but I'm hoping that without any sort of vested interest I can not be so stressed about it.  I'll still do printing that's requested and maybe updates the web site as they're asked, or whatnot, but I won't be on the "inside" as I was.

This weekend is their first event of the season for Winter Haven.  There's a couple of interesting points that could make the event memorable for a few reasons. 1) They're sharing the camp with another LARP and with a Native American spiritual group.  2) Some of the game staff won't be there, and others will be coming and going due to jobs and the likes.  3) There's potential for 20+ NEW players arriving.  4) Some players/characters may not be attending due to past events happenings. (add 3 and 4 together and it's hard to tell who's gonna be there and what sorts of plots to inticipate) So, good luck to the Winter Haven staff and have yourselves one heck of a time.  :D  I hope you enjoy the costumes.

This weekend is FCN for me.  I'll be leaving work at Noon on Thursday and hopefully arriving before 4pm. 
The folks I normally hang out with won't nessecarily be there, and I really don't know much of anyone either, so hopefully I find some people I feel comfortable around.  Otherwise I'll just be hiding away most of the convention, feeling sorry for myself or some crap.

Oh, well.  Happy Earth Day anyways.

Hmmm... the next step beyond LARP? 
Real Life Superheroes.


http://worldsuperheroregistry.com

or check out this lovely gem:

http://www.superheroeslives.com/indexreallife.htm

Today was the cream of an increasingly good week for me (let's hope this is payback for bad karma rather than the beginning of a balance with upcoming bad karma.)

WORK
This week started with some hic-ups, but at work, things have been going more moothly.  I've been making a daily schedule each morning so that our Production Coordinator can see what my daily schedule looks like. At Noon I go back through it and see where I am, shifting unfinished jobs down and adding new ones.  At the end of the day I mark what stuff goes onto the next day's schedule.  There are often some shifting around of things, but over-all, it's helped not only educate her on how long things take and give me a plan for the day to keep on schedule of, but it's made our relationship better and that's important for surviving without breaking out knives and broken bottles for open combat.  Over the last few weeks guestimating the time things take have gotten more on-target and it's been going very well.

In additon to that, we've had a lot of folks coming in lately!  We've had people who are visiting Grand Haven stop by and get business cards, or whatnot done.  The more artwork-time we get, the more hours I get! (I'm still at 30 hour-weeks, but when we get people paying for artwork hours, I get to work extra hours closer to 40!)
Today had two particularly great events.
... I had worked an extra hour earlier in the week and had planned on leaving at 2pm.  But Andrea (Project Coordinator) had to leave at 3:30.  So Mike (my Manager) asked me to stay until 4.
... A lady came in at 3:30 and was visiting Grand Haven.  2 days ago she came in and needed business cards designed and drop-shipped to a convention that she is going to in two weeks.  Well, she came in and looked at one set of proofs and she had some particular changes.  Now, I've delt with some clients before who like to see things like "can you move this over one line?" and after printing another proof they ask to make one more minor change.  I kinda got that inkling from her, so I let her look over my shoulder as I modified her card.  In 30 minutes she had her final proof signed off and it was headed off to the printers shortly after she left.  Because of the artwork time that that project gave us, Mike let me stay until 5pm.
... at 5pm two people from Muskegon Athletic Club came in.  They heard that 5/3 Ballpark had recently offered a 3 pound burger and was being pressured to put a warning label on it because it was "unhealthy to eat".  Well, these folks wanted to play up on that and make WARNING labels for their burgers... big flags to stick on the burgers, along with inserts for the "Dietary Disaster".  So, over the next hour, Mike and I worked on the warning labels and an insert for their menu.  They were blown away by it and Mike and I were very happy with the final product (for what we could make with what they gave us, at least.)    As a side note, the "Dietary Disaster" is a 3 pound burger with all sorts of toppings and a pound of french fries (Made for 1, enough to feed 4) for $20.  They're hoping to make some press about it, making a big deal about their monstrosity.  We smashed out the 2 designs in an hour (the flag was pretty easy) and I'm sure we'll be getting some changes and hopefully more projects from them soon.  They were easy to work with and it was a blast to work with Mike on it.  Because it was ANOTHER 1-hour artwork charge (and because it wouldn't have been done otherwise) I stayed until 6.  My 5-hour day became a 9-hour day!  For some folks, that might sound like a pain, but it was an exciting time and I was extremely pumped when I left.  It was an awesome day!

HEALTH
The only drag to the day was that I started to get a cold.  It's not the MONSTER or the norovirus that's going around, so I'm thankful for that.  I'm hoping I can blast it away with hours and hours of sleep.

GAMING
Many of my friends are off to the Serenity LARP this weekend.  I wish them much luck with that and hope they have fun.
I worked on some of the props for Winter Haven this week.  Got some good results and hope that the next 3 weeks can result in the finished products we're hoping for.  This will be my last "inside" project for Winter Haven though.  After this I will be doing the printing and such, and maybe some of the web site stuff too as I still want to help my friends out, but I need to let go of the bad stress it brings.

INTERNET
There's a meeting coming up this coming week for the area-wide wireless internet through iPCS (Sprint), providing unlimited data for $60/month, free AirCard and discounts on equipment (including signal enhancers and routers which we'll need.)  I borrowed a Sprint AirCard from a local Sprint dealer last week and got "Very Low" signal.  It basically doubled our speed (110k/sec from 56k/sec), so if that's it, I don't think it'd be worth the 4X cost.  But if we can get the signal enhancers and get the 2.4Mb/sec, I'll be happy to pay the $30/month (my share) for the service.  

ARTWORK
Not much on the artwork side of things.  Most of my energy goes into work, so I feel burned out a bit, but who knows. FCN is in a few weeks, and I'm hoping that my muse will be inspired and be active while I'm there.

One More Thing....
In addition, my sympathy goes out to a friend of mine who believed/believes that she had until the 5th before she was forcibly evicted from her home, but went back today to find that the bank sent folks out and threw her entire home's contents into a dumpster a week ago. 
Apparently no phone call, no attempts at contacting her: they treated it as an abandoned property.
I hope that no one has any doubts as to why people go on shooting rampages these days.
It makes me appreciate Love INC and what they've done for me even more by helping me keep my budget together and thankful for the job I have.  Every time I start to ponder storming out of my work, or raising a fuss, I remember that I'm very fortunate to have the job that I have and it helps calm me.


Well, I guess that's about it.  The Allergy meds are kicking in, so I'm going to try to sleep again.  Goodnight, folks.

A new show on Discovery called "Wreckreation Nation" has its host (Dave Mordal) going from one recreational event to another, including a LARP even in Pennsylvania.

"Dagorhir (which translates as “battle lords” in author J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sindarin Elven language) is both a sport and a game that combines fast-paced, full-contact combat simulation with elements of live action role-playing. Dagorhir battle games combine elements of both history and fantasy, and participants experience their fantasies on a variety of levels. Its wide-ranging appeal is the reason for Dagorhir’s nationwide success.

The battle of Badon Hill is the premier fall event of Dagorhir Battle Game Association. It takes place in Somerset, Penn., with an average yearly attendance of around 500."


Watch the YouTube Teaser for the series.
The series premiers on Tuesday, January 6th at 10pm.

Well, last weekend was.. meh.  Was somewhat planning on seeing the new Bond movie after work on Friday, but plans fell through.  Made new plans to see it on Saturday, but by the time other folks showed up, the previews (including the new Star Trek trailer I wanted to see) was more than likely already over as it was already 5 or 10 minutes after the "starting" time and we would still have to wait in line.  So instead Matt and I went to BK and chatted about L5R for a while.
Sunday was the Winter Haven meeting.  OMG!  EVERYONE showed up!  Jim, Phil, Brett, Angie, Myself, Heidi, Matt, Travis, Joe... the entire GM/Staff/NPC staff!  We've learned a lot over the last few years, both with Winter Haven and dealing with Final Haven as well. 

Around 7:15 or so, I was doodling and started noticing a blind spot again.  Within about 15 minutes the jagged prismatic edging started to become noticable.  I decided to leave before things got worse.  The meeting was mostly over by then, so I vamoosed.  Fortunately this time, the blind spot didn't take over a LOT of my vision, so driving was safe.  Stupidly I didn't take any Advil Migrane, so even though I laid my head down at 8pm, I kept waking up to the throbbing headache.  By morning it was gone, but I have that left-over "don't move the head around or build up blood pressure in the brain" problem.

But the sight of snow was wonderful!  Not just that hail-stuff, or slush, or whatnot.. but real snow dusting things well enough that only some of the snow could poke out of it.  Whoo-hoo!  Through the day it became heavier and Oooooh.. It was so nice to drive in. :D  When I got out the roads were black-ice everywhere.  FORTUNATELY folks didn't seem to be absolute idiots and I didn't see many instances of accidents or cars running off of the road on my way home.  They're claming "some areas got a foot of snow!" ... and I don't know where that's happened.. they won't even say.  So I don't know the truth of the matter. 

MFF is just a few days away.  I'm working 8 hour days so that I get my full 30 hour week and take Friday off.  I'm pretty sure I'm heading down very early on Friday (as opposed to trying to find a place to crash late on Thursday night on the fly) and staying until Sunday.  However, if something else comes up, I may leave early Monday morning instead.  But since I don't have that set up either, I'm not going to bet on that... plus, I can't take any time off on that week because I need to work 8 hour days if I want to get my full 30 hour week in too (Thanksgiving is a paid holiday, but Friday is not, and we're closed.)  I just need to take extra precautions so that I can try to stay as healthy as possible before I go. 

Of course, on Thursday I have a chat with my financial advisor... so we'll see just how that's going to go.  I have money put aside for my vacations, which should just cover the hotel room.  But I may wind up doing commissions to cover food and stuff.  So if you're interested, catch me there and ask! *L*