Life, Part Two

Yup.
I graduated this past Saturday.
And this past Thursday I applied for the US Army Officer Candidate School.

I guess there isn't that much to say beyond that. I think you can kinda guess what's going to happen next in my life. I'm going to spend as much time as I can this summer with the people I care a lot for, and then ship out lord knows when for training (6 months of hell - what it takes to be an Army Officer), and then lord knows where I'll be based.

Bring it on...!

Just random little updates

Well, I figure I should talk about the random little things that are going on in my life right now, so let's seeeeee....

Everyday is Christmas: Seriously, everytime the mail man comes, or UPS or Fedex or whatever postal delivery system, my roommate Dave and I flip out 'cos it means some cool and awesome thing we've ordered has come. With Dave struggling with depression and our huge Lion Claws Mil Sim coming up, we've been buying a lot of gear and materials.

One of them being a sewing machine. I'm so excited about this. I basically told the guys I've got the skills to make custom tactical gear for everyone, so everyone chipped in and we bought this beautiful beast off of ebay (I know, that's risky...). Here it is, a Singer 66 from the 1920's with a nice little moter on the back:

Like my ghetto stand for it? Hah. The only problem is, the little cog that engages the flywheel is coming undone now, even with light fabrics - so I'm spinning the wheel and the needle isn't going anywhere. It's gotten worse too, I finally had to shut down last night in the middle of a drop leg rig and call it quits. I'm taking it to be serviced today, and NOT looking forward to the bill!

But as you can see, I managed to get a prototype chest rig completed, and a couple of double mag pouches for my G36 - it's exasperating how there are no G36 compatible equipment out on the market today! The pouches are a little ghetto close up, you can definately see differences in execution between the first pouch and the second, but that's why I'm not selling anything yet ;-) Hell, at least it works!

We made sure it worked, and our other gear as well, by field testing it with a CQB game down at an old military base on the coast in Monteray: Fort Ord. The games themselves were nothing real special, and attendence was low (only about 150 people), but our gear held up and our squad tactics keep improving. So I think we're ready for Lion Claws this weekend

Just yesterday our team patches arrived - we are quite excited. With everyone graduating and moving on this year or next year, we wanted something for everyone (not just the roommates) to keep as a token of good times had. We ordered about 200 bucks worth of 'em and gave 'em to our close comrades. The lettering around the top says brothers and sisters eternally in Latin. Pretty cool. And of course down at the bottom is our house number, 1087, where most of the good times have been had.

Other than that, I've got the Lion Claws event this weekend (look it up on the 'net!), and with sewing like a fiend I've slacked off on classes. Not good considering I've only three weeks left before graduation (eeeeek!), and there's this one class I've got to pass which I'm not doing well in... gads... so we'll see.... gads....

Oh yeah, immediately following Fort Ord (as in, the next day) I went to a shoddy little reenactment with the fife and drum band. It was bloody hot, and not well attended by reenactors. One bizzare thing was the accident in the last battle where some lame-sauce cornfed cav guy got his equipment tangled up in a battle with a yanky cav guy, freaked out his horse which proceded to loose it's rider and go dancing around in the crowd. No one hurt, but man how I hate mounted cav in all of their safety issues not to mention sheer farbiness... *sigh*

Ok, my roommates are up, time for us to go running. Byes.

gotta do this survey

For the CW guys.. or I guess any period...

1st) What was your first event?
Uh, a little one down the the Napa Valley, a good ten years ago now.

2nd) What unit do you portray?
I'm a floater. I tend to go out with the people I know, and the most authentic group I can find... when they're around, I tend to go out with the 2nd US Regulars,

3rd) Do you have a First Person Impression?
Not really. Depends on what questions the public asks me.

4th) Are you a Hardcore, Mainstream, or a Farb Reenactor?
Definately hardcore...

5th) What Sutlers do you get your equipment from?
Wambaugh, Skillet Licker, Childes, etc...

6th) What type of tent do you use for events?
What's a tent?

7th) How often do you take hits?
Eh, an authentic number - Usually one, early on, and then I do a screaming wounded impression for the remainder of the battle before finally giving up the ghost, depending on where hit...

8th) If you answered yes to 7 what was the best hit you have taken?
Well I did a great shell shock impression a couple years back that still stands out in my mind - right by the public too. I had a ton of people ask if I was really ok...

9th) Do you carry your good in a cooler, or do you use your haversack?
Who uses a fucking cooler?

10th) Does the weather determine whether you go to an event or not?
Only pansys do that...

11th) Have you ever done an event in rain?
Many...

12th) What type of weapon do you use?
'47 Springfield - it's the only weapon to use ;-)

13th) Have you ever done a Living History?
I very much prefer those, there just aren't very many at all out here in Cali

14th) How many years have you been reenacting?
About 10 now... gads, no wonder I'm burnt out

15th) Did you start out reenacting as a company drummer?
THANKFULLY NO.
I carried a flag.

16th) Have you ever marched in a parade?
Dozens.

17th) Do you go into action wearing a full kit (kapsack/blanket roll, haversack, canteen, etc.)?
All the time. Who leaves kit behind to be raided by runners? The only time I don't wear marching kit is during battalion dress parade.

18th) Have you ever gone Polyester Hunting?
There's way more farb out there than just polyester...

19th) Can you sew your own garments?
Yeah, I'm pretty good with a needle and thread, and a hand crank...

1930's/Maffia Night at 1087

We had our 3rd Maffia/1930's night here at 1087. Yes, it's mostly people wearing suits and waving guns, but it's fun

Here's the guys collectively.

Kelly had a brilliant hat that went with the theme quite well. Don't ask about the wall art in the back, it's a 1087 tradition ;-)

Dave as the leader of the San Francisco Chinese maffia, sporting an original pseudo-tattoo by yours truely.

The next party is due to take place at the brand new residence of 1087 and will be of massive proportions with plenty of themed activities and food stuffs... be there!

Of Mice and Mangos

Alright, there's really nothing here about mice. I could try and think of something - like the fact that there's a mouse that occassionally visits our kitchen and runs accross the floor in the morning. But he doesn't really do anything damaging so we don't mind him or actively try and destroy him.

But there is a great deal to do with mangos. Yes. Mangos. And food in general. I should provide context...

My roomie, Dave (yes, same name as me), is a brilliant cook. As in, if the lad decided to actually attend cullinary school, he'd make it HUGE in the business.

I'm not a bad cook myself either ;-)

Well, there's this other friend ours, Kelly - she is also a good cook, loves cooking, and likes to make dinner for our group whenever Dave isn't. Well, our friends decided to put it to rest once and for all who was the best, and threw together an Iron Chef competition. They took up donations and we had a hundred dollar budget for a four course meal. Dave picked me as his sous chef.

We found out a few hours before cooking that the "main ingredient" was to be mangos. I'm like, mangos? Ok... So we went down to the supermarket and made up some recipies.

Our menu consisted of: flakey pastry with mango chillie pepper mousse (sweet, yet with a kick!); a "salad" of mango, strawberries, mellon, grilled asparagus and red pepper in a honeydew half; Salmon with a glaze of reduced mango puree and fresh juiced oranges with a side of shishkabobbed potatoes, onions, and garlic, and organic chips with a special mango salsa; and for desert, after all the sweetness of the mango bits, we went light with just a grilled mango half with a plain white cake.

Failures and New Starts

Well - I was due yesterday to have recieved my data from the ICP-MS lab on the samples I submitted. Dispite the assurence of Joel, the head researcher of the lab, that they would run the samples night and day and weekends, there's not a single data set for me to use, not to mention the fact that I still have another needed 100 samples waiting to turn in to them...


So I missed the AAA meeting deadline for presenting my paper, and it looks like I'll have to cancle the URC meeting presentation too. Oh well. Less stress, right? I'll still hopefully have a paper by the end of the quarter to submit for publishing, I just miss out on the whole dog and pony show of presenting the paper to all the you-ha's of archaeology.





Sad. Ah well.





Better news? ANZA is coming up! That's right, I have exactly TWO WEEKS to gear up for it! I'm going up to Chico tomorrow to pick up my musket and leathers, as well as my trousers, pack, and sundry items. The most exciting part is this: I ordered some wool from Burnley and Trowbridge (http://www.burnleyandtrowbridge.com/) almost a month ago, and it FINALLY arrived at the beginning of this week. Since then I whipped out a prototype of an 1806 pattern French Grenadier's habit, cut into my looooovely new broadcloth and am madly sewing to get this beast done.

That's the idea - we'll see how close I get. It's really a lovely coat, and I'm growing more and more fond of it as I work on it. Having nice materials always helps to.

I ordered a large portion of madder red broadcloth not only for the trim you see there but also to whip out a British line infantry jacket (which are much easier to construct, at least theoretically) if this habit doesn't work out. For a base pattern, I'm useing my ripped pattern from my custom Steve Able 1840's NY jacket. The sleaves especially are the correct tight style that is usually overlooked by generic patterns. I haven't had a lot of trouble with the theoretical modeling of the jacket, but you never know until it's all put together... here's crossing fingers!

It's Bring you French Press to Work Day

It really isn't, I just didn't have time to make coffee at home this morning.
I really like coffee. Sometimes I drink too much of it. Then I go back to tea, which I really like as well. I'm currently working on a bag of coffee made by the Jack Daniels company... so you know it's gonna have a kick to it ;)

It's funny when I think about the fact that no one is really going to read this blog. I don't know why anyone should - I don't really advertise it. And there's only one other blog I read and comment on, so no one is bound to come accross it...

Maybe that's a good thing ;-) I can relax on here!

I'm currently in my lab, eating breakfast in the "clean" room, the front public part where we have our beer and meetings and don't have to worry about contamination unlike the back lab. Later on I'll be running over to our FWARG lab allies to get some obsidian samples, then back to campus to drop them off at the mass spectrometer lab (yay for LA-ICP-MS! Yay for jargon!). Do you like jargon? I do... it makes complicated words and phrases much easier to say. It's linguistic evolution, streamlining for efficiency in this modern world. It's a lovely thing. hahaha...

I twisted my ankle bad going over the jumps yesterday. And continued to jog the quarter mile back home anyway... there's currently an ACU camo tool wrap around it 'cos I don't have an ace bandage... haha, funny me!