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Well, Egil's is over again... Like many, I had fun and, this time, learned a lot. The woodworking end of things went better than I could have possibly imagined. I spent most of the weekend cutting and chiseling the body of a block plane while talking about woodworking and its history with people who stopped in to watch. I had a significant audience, as well, with several people staying for an hour or more to watch what I was doing. I even had a lady stop by with a folding chair that had broken on her. The frame was fir, using hardwood dowels for the pivoting joints and the dowels had begun enlarging the holes and working loose over time. I simply used a chiesel to split off a chunk of beech from some of the pieces I brought, then took it to the shaving horse and knocked off the corners, then fed it through a rounding plane, 1/16" larger than the diameter of the original dowel. That produced about 6 inches of usable dowel with which I repaired the chair, all in about 15-20 minutes. It's that kind of thing that, for me, really made the demo worthwhile.
The other thing I learned a lot about were my limits in what I can commit to in service to the Barony and to the event itself. Egil's has been compared to having a baby in that it's a ton of work that takes over your life for 9 months beforehand. This year, my projects for Egil's was to make a new pavilion for Gold Key (finished the Thursday before the event), make a BC for my parents-in-law, as well as finish their pavilion (finished Tuesday before the event), Build a workbench so that I'd have something to work on at Egil's (Finished Tuesday before the event), Make two folding chairs for the overall prize (assembly was done long before, but I finished gluing them together at Egil's), A stand for thrown weapons, as well as painting rounds for them (all done at Egil's this year), I also took on the Chamberlain position, as the Autocrat didn't have anyone else to turn to, which took a significant portion of Wednesday to get stuff out as well as All of Monday and part of Tuesday to get everything back from site. All this on top of coordinating the Artisan's village and demoing woodworking as well as my responsibilities within my own camp. Oh yeah, I was also acting as advisor for the Autocrat as I ran the event the last two years. The end result is that, though I wasn't autocrat, I did as much the week of Egil's this year as I have the past two and came back as tired, if not more than when I was in charge of the whole thing.
All this is leading to my first feelings of burn-out that I've had in the SCA. I'm certainly not going away but I feel I need to start stepping back a bit and start focusing on getting things that I need to do for myself taken care of. I haven't had any time to work on non-event critical projects for quite a while and I'd like to get a few things done for myself. Also, I'd like to see if we can look at how we handle things within the Barony to perhaps spread the load somewhat... I've observed that, over several years, It's been largely the same people doing the majority of the setup and teardown work for the event. The last people to leave the site were the same people that were the first to get there and also the ones that spent the most time working at the event. If we continue to dump all of the loading and unloading, the setup and teardown, etc. of all the Baronial gear on a very small handful of people, we're going to continue to burn out and lose people who, otherwise, are some of the hardest workers the Barony has.
I, for one, am going to have to step back next year, so that I, myself don't get churned into the dust under the wheels of Egil's as it rolls out for its 36th year. |
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Well, just in time for doing woodworking at Egil's, I've just about finished a periodoid workbench! The design is my own, more or less, borrowing heavily from an range of sources including the earliest workbench I can find with images of screw vises (early 16th century German). but also drawing from Diederot's Encyclopedie and Roubo's L'arte du le Menuisier (both early 18th century French texts).
The bench is entirely made of European Beech, with a twin screw vise on the front with wooden screws. I still need to plane the top smooth and do some cleanup of surfaces. There are no metal fasteners at all, relying instead on mortise and tenons, dovetails, and wooden pegs to hold it all together. I still need to drill holes for holdfasts and plane the top flat, plane off sawmarks, etc. I'm also debating putting a wagon vise on the bench as there was one on the 16h century workbench. It's very doable as an afterthought, though so I won't do that by Egil's.
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OK... I've just about finished the gauntlets that I posted about earlier and have been figuring out alternate armouring projects. I've started a new gorget as my second project (I don't have any pictures of that yet.. ) of which I've finished the front half. As a third project and the first helm I've built, I've started a 16th century Burgeonet, being built as a rapier helm. I've roughed out all the pieces and assembled it, for now, as an open faced helm. I still need to devise the face protection for this but the hard part is done at this point. The odd metal post-like things sticking out of the helm are Clico fasteners, which are taking the place of rivets, as I still need to do some finalization and cleanup before I actually rivet it together.
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I've had several projects going lately so I figure I'd post pictures and updates as I'm trying to do that more often...
I've finally gotten the 8 shaft table loom that I got as an anniversary present warped up correctly! Last night I started weaving and this is the pattern I've got going. The overall project is a table runnerand is about 13" wide. Unfortunately, with the loom on the dining room table, it's too high for me to weave at comfortably and I can only do one repeat at a time without taking a break, so I'll need to find a better solution.
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I've been working on finishing the mitten gauntlets that I started. At this point, they're nearly done, with the left one being essentially finished, except for stitching in a leather pocket and riveting in a glove. The right one still needs the thumb attached and to be cleaned up. For a first armouring project, I think it's going pretty well and now that I'm almost done with them, I'm trying to think of what I should start next.
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| » What's Your Personality Type? |
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| You Are An ISTP |  The Mechanic
You are calm and collected, even in the most difficult of situations.
A person of action and self-direction, you love being independent.
You seem impulsive, surprising, and unpredictable to outsiders.
You are good at understanding how all things work, except for people.
In love, you tend to be very easy going and flexible.
The only thing you can't stand for is someone trying to change you or your life.
At work, you can stay completely calm under pressure. You handle stress well.
You would make an excellent pilot, forensic pathologist, or athlete.
How you see yourself: Logical, flexible, and unconventional
When other people don't get you, they see you as: Indecisive, flippant, and disrespectful |
I'd agree that there are possibly some flaws with this test. Having done the official Meyers Briggs Personality Type Indicator test and seeing how the scoring works, there can definitely be borderline traits and one set of questions leans more towards one way or the other for different individuals. I usually test as INTP,but the N to S are is usually pretty borderline for me (1-3 points towards N) while, for example, I end up solidly 18 points or more towards T, which never seems to waiver.
Mar. 15th, 2009 @ 08:30 am
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| » Armouring! |
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So, I recently started doing something new that I've been interested in doing since I first discovered the SCA, namely Armouring. As some may know I recently started fighting in the SCA (authorized at the end of January) and had my first war experience at Estrella War, which was a blast (even though my primary job at the war was to attempt to defend the pikemen and otherwise draw fire, a task which I feel I did admirably, at least as illustrated by the dents that were on my helm).
Also as a direct result I've picked up an interest in learning the pike, which requires me to use different hand protection and hence the first armouring project of a pair of Milanese-style mitten gauntlets.
I must say I'm enjoying it immensely and things seem to be going together pretty well so far. I've roughed out almost all of the shapes (save one finger piece, as you can see) and will hopefully be finishing them up this week or so. The pattern that I'm using isn't mine, being designed by Sir Alail Horsefriend (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) horsefriend2) and I've had a large amount of help and guidance from him as well.
Also, it seems to be a rule far more than the exception that the moment you lay things out on the floor to take a photo of them, that every cat in the house converges upon you to investigate what you're doing. After deisplacing Loki, Freya came to discover what Loki was so interested in, condemning me to give up getting a cat-free photo.
I'll make sure to post a photo once I've finished them as well.
Mar. 9th, 2009 @ 10:03 am
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| » Vigilant Bear |
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Here's the artwork for the new Baronial Charter that I've been working on. I still have to do the text, but otherwise it's pretty much done. The award is for martial recognition, which historically has been called the Vigilant Bear, but as that name is unregisterable, it will likely be changing...
I hope everyone has fun at Kingdom A&S this weekend. Angharad and would like to go, but after being gone for pretty much all of February,we don't have the energy to go.
Mar. 3rd, 2009 @ 10:09 pm
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| » Time for a resolution |
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OK... It's well after new year's but it is time to make a resolution to start using livejournal more regularly. At this point I've not updated for over a year and there are definitely things that I should have posted about (such as Italy and Germany, The Janet Arnold Conference, 12th night, Estrella, etc. So Rather than try to go back and fix wrongs of the past I'm going to try to do better going forward.
Right now, Angharad and I are on an enforced vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where we are required to sit by the pool drinking margharitas, eat lots of guacamole, and read, while getting sunburned. My mother bought a week at a villa here at a charity auction and decided we needed a family vaction. She picked the date, immediately after getting home from Estrella, which isn't great but it's working out otherwise. The weather is great and it's been pretty good so far (aside from me feeling like I've got far too much to do and being unable to do most of it). I've read a lot (mostly classics) and to keep from going completely stir-creazy, I have managed to largely complete a new charter for Adiantum's Vigilant Bear (or whatever it will end up being called, as "Vigilant Bear" is unregisterable). It's based on the Maciejowski (sp?) bible, at the request of their excellencies as well as out of personal taste. When I get home I'll ink it and scan it, then I can probably post a picture of it. At least I've managed to get one thing nearly off my list of projects while here.
I've also been building medieval chairs, based on german Faldstools, except with backs, similar to the Italian folding chairs like the savanarola style, for those who know them, just with straight lines. We went to Estrella this year and I've been fighting for just over three weeks now, which has been a lot of fun I have a few dents in my helm to prove it. I can at least say that I make a good target which can distract opponents from more qualified fighters. I did get two or three kills in the war, though, so I guess I'm not completely worthless. Practice will help.
Well, more later. Internet isn't as readily available as I'd like here, but I'll try to keep up with what's going on.
Feb. 25th, 2009 @ 09:50 am
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| » On Baronesses, Barons, and Baronies... |
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As many on my friends list here probably know, my lady Angarad (![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) elfie_chan ) and I have put our names out for consideration for the next Baron and Baroness of Adiantum. We've been mulling over the idea for about a year now and, now that the changeover is officially happening are feeling that it is the ideal time in our lives to step up and put our names forward.
On that end of things, I've got a few questions. I've been living in the Barony for quite some time and have seen a lot of good times and bad as well as 4 barons and 5 baronesses. All of them had a different approach and style to how they viewed their role within the barony and society, as well as the role of this barony. What I would like to ask for is the opinions and input of everyone whether local or not to help me better plan and approach this process and perhaps my term as Baron, should I be chosen.
To kick things off, here's some specific questions (though I'm also open to your pet goals/annoyances/projects/ideas/suggestions):
- What do you see as the role of the Baron and Baroness within the Barony?
- If you've ever served as a baron or baroness, What was one of the best things you did for your barony during your tenure?
- If you've ever served as a baron or baroness, What's one thing, in retrospective, would you have done differently or not done at all?
- How important in your opinion is it to have a Baron or Baroness who fights?
- What, to you, is the Baron and Baroness's role in the day-to-day operations of the Barony and its events?
- How important is the Baron and Baroness's role when playin outside of their barony i.e. at principality and kingdom events?
- How important is it to have a Baron and Baroness who play outside of their Barony?
- How can a Baron or Baroness best advance the Arts and Sciences? Service? Martial arts?
- If you could tell a new Baron and Baroness (i.e. Angahrad and Myself) one thing that they should never do, what would it be?
- What is one thing that you would advise that every Baron and Baroness should do?
- Is there any particular advice you'd give us while in the campaigning stage that we are in now?
- Anything else you'd like to give us input on?
- What are your opinions on the role, in terms of the Barony, of retinue? Sergeants? Courtiers?
Feel free to comment on anything else that you think would be helpful to us, whether it is a problem your own branch has been facing, to things that you've seen in the past that you'd love to see again, or anything else.
Thank you all
Feb. 8th, 2008 @ 04:40 pm
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| » Thoughts on peerages, apprentices, squires, and protoges |
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I've been seeing some of the conversation that's going on on the steps about the peerages and squires, apprentices and protoges. Though I've avoided much of the conversation, I read the original message that started it off as well as a few others. Thinking about this, I feel that the original author and many of the other people chiming in on the steps have the wrong end of the stick as to what the point of becoming and apprentice, squire. or protoge is.
In summary, the author of the message states that one becomes a squire to train to become a knight, an apprentice to train to become a laurel, and a protoge to train to become a pelican. It was her opinion that squires are encouraged to declare their intent to become knights, while apprentices and protoges are discouraged to declare their intent to become laurels or pelicans.
Where I think that the author, and several others go wrong is with the intent of why someone should become a squire, protoge, or apprentice. The essence of this also comes out of what it means to be a peer itself. For me, I am very active within two of the pillars of our society: the arts and sciences and service. I choose to work within these areas not for the titles or recognition but because they interest me and I feel that they're areas that help me to be a better member of our society. My interests in the arts and sciences fit within the artifacts and construction techniques of material culture: I.e. all of the things that were part of everyday life for those who lived in medieval and renaissance Europe. I'm just as interested in clothing as I am in pottery, or woodwork. I can be equally fascinated examining embroidered gloves as I can from the wide range of forms of medieval buckles. In essence, my love of the arts and sciences if for the knowledge and experience gained through studying and recreating artifacts. For me, someone would choose to be an apprentice, not for the desire to become a laurel, but because he or she wants to develop a close working relationship with someone who has the experience and knowledge capable of helping the apprentice advance in their own interests.
Likewise someone who chooses to be a protoge should be someone who already feels that their place within our society is working to make our society happen. I choose to volunteer for a variety of reasons, from the idea that someone needs to do the job, to choosing to do something because I feel that what I am doing will help myself and others to enjoy themselves and the event as a whole more. My reason for volunteering isn't to become a Pelican or let alone to receive awards and recognition for having done the job. The greatest reward for feastocratting Midwinter's was people telling me that they really liked the feast. Likewise, the best reward for autocratting Egil's was the number of people who told me that they had fun. It is for these reasons that I do what I do by volunteering. and it should be for these reasons that people become protoges. For me the goal of a pelican interacting with their protoge is to help their protoge to do what they love to do, but at the same time temper their enthusiasm to keep them from burning out too quickly. Again, it is not to represent their protoge at peerage meetings.
Finally, a squire should be someone who enjoys the martial arts of our society and through being a squire, is working with a knight to advance their martial abilities as well as learn to balance the martial aspects of our society with the chivalric ideals that all members of our society should strive to engender. Should a squire prove him or herself worthy of knighthood, great, but to me, that shouldn't be the point of being a squire.
I have yet to meet a peer who doesn't want to share what they love with people who express interest. The qualifier here, however, is that the person must express willingness to learn to the peer. There is is big difference between asking a peer to tell you how to do something and asking a peer to help you learn how to do something. An active learner is often a much more interesting person to teach and is also much more willing to absorb and adapt information and ideas beyond what they are told. Also an active learner is much more likely to share and pass on that knowledge to others, furthering our society as a whole.
The best description I've heard of peerage is that it is a job description. A peer is expected to continue to do what lead them to their peerage. They are expected to continue to learn and grow and they are expected to encourage others to do the same. They are expected to show a wide range of abilities as well as demonstrate chivalric behavior. In all they are expected to be role models for everyone within our society. There are a lot of responsibilities that come with the peerage as well as downsides caused by peer fear and the conspiracy theories that abound around the peerage selection process and the "exclusivity" of the peerages.
To be a laurel, one must be more than a great artist. To be a knight one must be more than a good fighter. To be a Pelican, one must do more than volunteer. Because there is more to being a peer than being good at something, a candidate for a peerage needs to develop not only in their field, but as a person and active member of our society first. A candidate for a peerage needs to already be living the life of a peer in order to be elevated. Becoming a peer doesn't magically change a person from an amateur to an expert or suddenly grant them the infinite knowledge of those that came before. For myself, I would be willing to become a peer someday, perhaps a laurel or a pelican or maybe eventually both, though I know that I'm not there yet. If this statement condemns me to wait longer by some secret rules of the peerage councils, then good. It gives me more time to live up to the expectations that I have of myself before I feel that I'm ready.
Jan. 31st, 2008 @ 11:57 pm
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| » FedEx delivers rain sleet or snow, but that doesn't mean they should... |
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I spent a good part of today helping FedEx get off of my driveway. Although the temperature finally went significantly above freezing at my house, there still was 4 inches or so of snow over most of the driveway. Yesterday I managed to get the truck stuck partway down the driveway as we tried to go out to run an Egil's meeting. I have chains for the truck but the directions I have for putting them on are exceedingly useless, and I don't know how to put them on correctly, as evidenced by the fact that they kept falling off. Today, I was going to go down and see if I could get the truck out, when I got a call from the FedEx driver who was stuck on my driveway, right in front of my truck. Fortunately I got the truck moving and out of the way, then I used the tractor to clear the driveway in front of the FedEX truck completely, After clearing the driveway, I had to pull the FedEx truck up the last bit of the driveway, as they kept slipping in points. Once we made it to the top they got stuck again and the tractor couldn't gain enough traction on the gravel to pull them out. I ended up using the winch on the Jeep to pull the back end of the truck around 90 degrees so that they could go back down the driveway facing forward, then went ahead of them with the tractor to clear the rest of the driveway and make sure they could get out. In all I spent about 2 1/2 hours getting the FedEx truck off my driveway so that Amy and I could finally get out of the house. At this point the driveway is clear and hopefully it will stay that way through the weekend.
We did make it out though and made it to the A&S night, which was fun.
Jan. 31st, 2008 @ 11:45 pm
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| » Midwinter's Debrief |
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Yesterday, (as a majority of the people on my Friends List already know), I feastocratted midwinters. Though it was my first time doeing so, I did enjoy the process and am glad that everything came out as well as it did, and Iearned a lot about the process should I ever be insane enough to do it again. Everything came out more or less as intended, though I did set the meat on fire, leading to a more crispy carbonized exterior (fortunately in the controlled space of my grill).
And now for the moment that everyone has been waiting for: Recipes!
The bulk of the feast came out of the book "Dining With William Shakespeare" by Madge Lorwin (copyright 1976, ISBN 0-689-10731-5) This unfortunately exceedingly difficult-to-find book is wonderful and grab a copy if you see one for a reasonable price.
Potato Pie
The Potato Pie can be found on page 40, originating in Joseph Cooper's The Art of Cookery Refin'd and Augmented printed in 1654. The original text reads:
Boyle your potatoes tender and blanch them; slice them but not very thin, and mix them with some apple pared and sliced: season them with cynamon, Ginger, Sugar, and Salt. Your pie being made, put in these meats with a good store of marrow on hte top, bing cut into lumps as big as a walnut: Por a little verjuyce on the pye and close it; bing baked put to it verjuyce, sugar, butter, cynamon, and ginger, beat up thick together, cut up the lid, and fill it with leare [this sauce], reaising it up with the knife to let in the liquor. You must put in Butter when you close up the pie to bake it, otherwise it will burn in the oven, they being of very dry substance. Less than two houres will bake it. Scrape sugar on it, and serve it up hot.
The redaction that Madge Lorwin came up with is: (for one pie)
Filling
1 pound sweet potatoes
1 pound tart cooking apples
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
4 tbsp butter, diced
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 ounce beef marrow (omitted in my version for vegetarian friendliness)
The Pastry
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup cold butter
1 egg yolk and enough cold water to make 1/2 cup liquid
The sweet potatoes are baked at 400F for 40 minutes, then peeled and sliced 1/2" thick. The apples are peeled, cored and sliced to 1/4" thick (I put the slices directly in the vinegar to keep them from turning brown). I used a Cuisinart with a plastic dough blade for assembling the pie crusts, which speeds up the process a lot. The pastry is made by mixing the salt and flour, then working 1/2 cup of the butter into the flour until it's mostly incorporated (20 seconds of continuous operation of the cuisinart), then th remaining 1/4 cup of butter is diced up and added and folded in (3 1-second pulses of the cuisinart). Finally the egg yolk and water are added and the pastry is worked just until it barely holds together. The goal is to break up the butter as little as possible in order to help the crust stay flakey. Refrigerate the crust for at least 1/2 hour before rolling it out. To assemble, mix up the sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and butter, then roll out 2/3 of the pastry for the bottom crust. put a layer of sweet potatoes, dust with some of the sugar and spice mix, then put a layer of apples, dust that layer, then repeat until you run out of filling, topping it with the last of the sugar mixture. roll out the top crust, crimp the edges, and cut vent holes in the top of the pie. Bake at 425F for 20 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350F and bake for an additional 25 minutes.
For an even flakier crust, increase the amount of butter to 1 cup, with 1/2 cup blended in completely, followed by 1/2 cup of diced butter instead of 1/4 cup.
The same crust recipe was also used for the pasties, with the water replaced with beef broth for the meat pasties, and with vegetable broth for the veggie pasties. Madge Lorwin also uses the same crust recipe with beer instead of water on some dishes.
Bread Pudding
The bread pudding is a modern recipe found in The New Best Recipe published by America's Test Kitchen (the Cook's Illustrated people). (Copyright 2004, ISBN 0-936184-74-4). It can be found on page 970, under the title Rich Bread Pudding with Crisp Cinnamon-Sugar Topping.
Cinnamon-Sugar Topping
2 tbsp Sugar
1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
Bread Pudding
4 large eggs + 1 egg yolk
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups whole milk
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
(we used 5 cups of half-and-half instead of the milk and cream)
3 tbsp bourbon
1 tbsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
8 cups sliced white bread cut into cubes (We used Challah left over from 11th night)
1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus more for greasing the pan.
Mix the cinnamon and sugar together for the topping. Butter a 9x13 pan. Whisk eggs, yolk and sugar together, whisk in the half-and-half spices, and burbon. Stir in 6 cups of the bread cubes and let stand 20 minutes. Pour into the pan, topping with remaining bread cubes, pushed down to partially submerge them. Brush the top with butter, sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar, and bake at 325 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Remove and let cool at least 45 minutes.
In order to use the mold forms, we brushed the inside of the mold heavily with butter and dusted the mold liberally with the cinnamon sugar, then baked the bread puddings. Once finished we inverted them, removed the forms, and dusted the top with powdered sugar before serving.
Jan. 20th, 2008 @ 09:32 pm
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| » Egil's is Over! (Almost...) |
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Well, it's finally over and tonight I get to sleep in my own bed. We've pulled the last of the baronial stuff off of the Egil's site today (except for the haybales, but they'll be done tomorrow) and everything has gone better than I could have imagined. The weather was great, for the most part, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. When the even started drawing near, I was feeling that I never, ever want to autocrat anything ever again, but now that it's over, I think I've changed my mind somewhat. Egil's, in its current form is a beast to put on, with a great need for volunteers and staff, while at the same time, we never have enough people. For me, the best thing was my staff for this year. I've been exceedingly happy with the majority of them, as they did an absolutely incredible job. Stephan had parking beautifully laid out and organized, Drake and Missy were amazing with getting people set up for camping, Lord Vin der Vloed did a fantastic job, as usual as mech-o-cron (unfortunately for the last time it sounds like) and Grian saved our collective behinds by stepping in to run the heavy tournaments so I didn't have to worry about them. Finally Johann, whose first event was Egil's, exactly 1 year ago, did a great job as my co-autocrat. There were some rough spots where he didn't know or understand some detail of SCA law or tradition, but for the most part, everything went great.
On my end, I did manage to get my pavilion done (as well as new chirurgeon and pied piper pavilions) in time and it is glorious having a "period" tent. There's a few minor things to finish on it, but but probably not more than a couple of hours work, aside from painting it, that is. I didn't get any new clothes made (at least for me... having a co-autocrat and his spouseocrat borrowing clothes from Gold Key seemed a bit out of place) but I hope to get some done here soon. Now that Egil's is mostly over I can finally start on all my AE (After Egil's) projects, such as laundry, mowing my own lawn and not the site, and cleaning my house.
Tomorrow though, Our Chamberlain, Drake and I will be doing a complete photo inventory of the Baronial storage unit before putting all of the Barony's stuff back into it so that we have a clue as to what's there. It's also about time to have a baronial garage sale or something to get rid of some of the stuff we don't need or even want to store. Well, now I'm off to watch mindless TV and eat popcorn!
May. 29th, 2007 @ 07:22 pm
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| » Meme! |
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Lifted from fearga...
18 out of 50 isn't too bad... my main problem appears to be that I haven't been to New York and am not entirely too fond of amusement parks... (Disney Land, Disney World, and Tivoli Gardens all were when I was under the age of 12). Out of the 29 locations outside of the US, I've been to 15 of them (13 if you count seeing the London Eye and being on a different part of the Great Wall of China). All in all, I need to travel in the states more, having only seen 3 of the ones in my own country of residence.
Here's the top 50 touristy spots, bold the ones you've been to:
1. Times Square, New York City, NY: 35 million visitors every year.
2. National Mall & Memorial Parks, Washington, D.C. (Washington Monument, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials,the war memorials): About 25 million.
3. Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, Lake Buena Vista, Fla.: 16.6 million
4. Trafalgar Square, London, England: 15 million
5. Disneyland Park, Anaheim, Calif.: 14.7 million
6. Niagara Falls, Ontario and New York: 14 million
7. Fisherman’s Wharf/Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, Calif.: 13 million.
8. Tokyo Disneyland/DisneySea, Tokyo, Japan: 12.9 million.
9. Notre Dame de Paris, Paris, France: 12 million.
10. Disneyland Paris, Marne-La-Vallee, France: 10.6 million
11. The Great Wall of China, Badaling area, China: About 10 million (I haven't been to this part of the wall, but I've been on the wall in Western China.)
12. The Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee/North Carolina: 9.2 million
13. Universal Studios Japan, Osaka, Japan: 8.5 million
14. Basilique du Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre, Paris, France: 8 million
15. Musée du Louvre, Paris, France: 7.5 million
16. Everland (amusement park), Kyonggi-Do, South Korea: 7.5 million
17. The Forbidden City/Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China: At least 7 million
18. Eiffel Tower, Paris, France: 6.7 million.
19. Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure at Universal Orlando, Fla: 6 million
20. SeaWorld Florida, Orlando, Fla: 5,740,000
21. Pleasure Beach (amusement park), Blackpool, England: 5.7 million
22. Lotte World (amusement park), Seoul, South Korea: 5.5 million
23. Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise, Japan: 5.4 million
24. Hong Kong Disneyland, China: 5.2 million.
25. Centre Pompidou, Paris, France: 5.1 million
26. Tate Modern, London, England: 4.9 million
27. British Museum, London, England: 4.8 million
28. Universal Studios Los Angeles, Calif.: 4.7 million
29. National Gallery, London, England: 4.6 million
30. Metropolitan Museum, New York, NY: 4.5 million
31. Grand Canyon, Ariz.: 4.4 million
32. Tivoli Gardens (amusement park), Copenhagen, Denmark: 4.4 million
33. Ocean Park (amusement park), Hong Kong, China: 4.38 million
34. Busch Gardens (amusement park), Tampa Bay, Fla.: 4.36 million
35. SeaWorld California, San Diego, Calif.: 4.26 million
36. Statue of Liberty, New York, NY: 4.24 million
37. The Vatican and its museums, Rome, Italy: 4.2 million
38. Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia: More than 4 million.
39. The Coliseum, Rome, Italy: 4 million
40. American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY: 4 million.
41. Grauman’s Chinese Theater, Hollywood, Calif.: 4 million.
42. Empire State Building, New York, NY: 4 million
43. Natural History Museum, London, England: 3.7 million
44. The London Eye, London, England: 3.5 million (20 pounds is a bit too expensive to ride a ferris wheel, for me. I've seen it though.)
45. Palace of Versailles, France: 3.45 million
46. Yosemite National Park, Calif.: 3.44 million
47. Pyramids of Giza, Egypt: 3 million
48. Pompeii, Italy: 2.5 million
49. Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia: 2.5 million
50. Taj Mahal, Agra, India: 2.4 million
May. 6th, 2007 @ 10:22 pm
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| » I am a Renaissance Nerd! |
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Well, I figured I'd take this quiz because I'd confuse it... =) My far too many hobbies and interests shows up in the degree that I got in all of the other categories, but at least according to this quiz I'm in the right profession. The only one nerd type I know I'm not is the music nerd as all I'm good at as far as music goes is listening.
| What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Gamer/Computer Nerd You enjoy the visual stimulants of a video game, chatting on AIM, or reading online comics. Most of these types of nerds are considered dirty who lack hygeine, of course they always end up being the ones who make a crapload of money. And don't worry, that's just a stereotype; I'm not calling you dirty. ^_~ | | Literature Nerd | | | Science/Math Nerd | | | Artistic Nerd | | | Social Nerd | | | Anime Nerd | | | Drama Nerd | | | Musician | | What Be Your Nerd Type?
Quizzes for MySpace |
Apr. 25th, 2007 @ 07:27 am
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| » Pavilion! |
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Well, after 17 years in the SCA I'm finally going to have a pavilion! I've been planning this project for years and it's gone through several iterations for one reason or another (getting married had a lot to do with it... suddenly I needed more space!) but finally I'm doing a round pavilion with a single center pole with radiating spokes from a central hub (the tinker-toy), made out of Sunbrella acrylic canvas. At this point all I've finished is the frame and the roof (except for the valance & method for attaching the walls) but this morning angharad and I set the roof up. For as big as it is (about 16 feet from side to side and right now, 17 feet tall, though after I make the walls, I'll cut the center pole to length), it actually went up pretty easily and we were able to get it standing and the roof set up in 15 minutes or less.
I've also been busy on and off with fearga making walls for the baronial pavilions and we'll soon be starting a new Pied Piper pavilion and hopefully a Chirurgeon pavilion by Egil's. That's also my deadline for the pavilion I'm building, but at this point I think I should be able to make it.
Here's photos
( Pavilion! )
Apr. 9th, 2007 @ 07:55 pm
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| » I Like Text Adventures! |
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I died in the Dungeon of FeargaI was killed in an enormous chamber by Demon Pet the nymph, whilst carrying... the Sceptre of Elfie Chan, the Axe of Visceridwen, the Crown of Wyz Azz, a Figurine of Khalja, the Dagger of Arontius, the Amulet of Hinkie, the Sceptre of Otherwind, the Amulet of 15th Century, a Figurine of Moira Ramsay, the Sceptre of Salt, a Figurine of Peteyfrogboy, the Sceptre of Pandorasbox and 31 gold pieces. Score: 203 Explore the Dungeon of Fearga and try to beat this score, or enter your username to generate and explore your own dungeon...
Mar. 26th, 2007 @ 09:34 am
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| » Graduate School Sucks... |
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Although I am not in graduate school, my wife, elfie_chan is. The reason why this sucks, however, has more to do with the fact that today is our 4th wedding anniversary, but, due to graduate school, I had to drop my wife off for classroom observation at 7:30 this morning and she won't be done with school for the day until 9:00 PM tonight. At least I've been getting things done. I've helped my mother replace the upholstery on a couple of her dining room chairs (two down 8 to go) and have finally unloaded all of our camping gear after coronet. I also decided to be a bit masochistic and set up the three Baronial pavilions that were used at Coronet in my front yard to dry and air out. This wouldn't have been so bad if I had help, but it takes a while when doing it by yourself. Hopefully it won't start raining before I have a chance to take them down... This has also given me a chance to see what needs to be done with them before Egil's and hopefully see to it that they go back to the Baronial storage unit cleaner than they came out of it. Now to meet with fearga to plan out how to make walls for them all.
As far as the more creative side of things, I've set up a sewing workbench in the sewing room that works out far better than the bouncy plastic Costco tables I was using before. It's a 3'x8'x1-1/2" maple butcherblock countertop mounted on adjustable height metal legs. I've decided that I like shopping at industrial supply houses for sewing furniture... =)
The second upgrade is that I purchased a 4 foot by 8 foot cutting mat to cover the entire top of my new cutting table.
Finally, I've ordered and should hopefully be receiving a fully programmable embroidery/sewing machine this week... It's a Pfaff Creative 2170. I also cannot speak highly enough for Paramount Sewing and Vacuum in Eugene, where I've ordered it from. They let me come in and play with all the embroidery software they have to decide which program worked best for me and my interests. Although I really like the Pfaff machine, I've opted for Bernina's software, as Pfaff's is very German (i.e. fully capable of doing anything you could want it to do, but not necessarily built around being user-friendly).
At this point I've already installed the software and laid out the blackwork pattern that I did on my shirt, which only took about an hour to do. Now I can knock out some quick, decorative tourney garb.
Well I should head off to pick up my wife...
Mar. 22nd, 2007 @ 08:34 pm
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| » Sewing Room of DOOM! |
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Well, the sewing room upgrade (phase 1) is almost complete! Yesterday, I bought my first serger (a Bernina 1300MDC) and today I finished putting together an ironing table, which measures 24" by 48". That, along with a 4'x8' cutting table should finish getting things set for serious sewing. At some point I still need to finish the plasterwork and painting of the walls and put in a real floor. I've got a huge quantity of bamboo flooring spread throughout the house, courtesy of Costco, and all the texture and paint to do the walls, as well as better lighting (which is pretty badly needed: 8 foot fluorescent fixtures irritate me because they never stop buzzing...) The only thing missing is time. Since I'm autocratting Egil's this year as well as helping with March Coronet, and also trying to get new garb and a pavilion made before Egil's, I don't have time to do the work on the room. It's also doubling as our scribal studio/classroom, so until Egil's, sewing has to share space with that as well... I'm hoping to get it done this summer, though.
Well enough about that... I've been thinking about new projects and things and am planning out new Elizabethan clothing. Kingdom A&S helped me decide how badly I need new clothes. I've definitely put on weight and my wedding outfit barely fits (I had to repair a button loop and re-sew a button at the event.) At this point, I think I have little option but to retire it and get something else made quickly. I'm covered for Coronet with tunics and such, but they don't really fit my current persona. By Egil's however, it would be very nice to have some new clothes, as I'll be representing myself and the barony, at least at court and it would be good to have some new tourney clothing put together by then. I have the fabric and plans, but now I just need to get it done. As I get things put together, I'll try to remember to take photos and post as things come together.
Mar. 7th, 2007 @ 10:15 pm
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