Back to the Apocryphal Past (& on to Training)

I enjoyed a nice foray with my family this weekend. We were several of many that attended the KC Renaissance Festival. It was supposed to be the Scottish Highlands day, but I really didn’t see all that many folks sporting the manly man-skirts. They did have the usual jousting, with real one-horsepower steeds of great size. I think real, full-on jousting (with accommodations to modern safety standards) could be a really popular “alternative sport”. {X-Games, listen up!}


Watching folks in their various modes of dress/undress was entertaining, as usual. Some costumes showed a great deal of imagination, while others left considerably less to the imagination. A highlight at the end of the day was taking an introductory swordsmanship lesson from the folks that are members of the Medieval Swordsman Guild of Kansas City. We learned some basic footwork, blocks, and strikes. It felt good, like doing Tae Kwon Do again, and I wish they had an instructor-level member coming to Pole this year. It is interesting how western/occidental martial arts are starting to become a little more common, to balance out the proliferation of the oriental varieties.

I depart this weekend for Seattle to get a week’s training on a new-to-me science project. I will return to Denver then for the second half of the winterover emergency response training weeks and Antarctic Program orientation. This means I will not be doing fire school this year, which is a significant letdown. But, I am very glad to be getting some training in Seattle, since I would like to be prepared for taking over the reins of this new project for a year. This will be the first time I visit for Washington State, so it should be interesting. Updates will be, naturally, forthcoming.

"My characters are more like men than these real men are, see. They're rough and rude, they got hands and they got bellies. They hate and they lust; break the skin of civilization and you find the ape, roaring and red-handed."
~Robert E. Howard