| June Faire approaches! |
[19 May 2009|06:49pm] |
Please spread the word! Medieval Faire 2009 (a.k.a. June Faire for those in the Kingdom of An Tir) is fast approaching, and will be held June 6-7, and open to the public Saturday, June 6 from 10:00 am - 5 pm and Sunday June 7 from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm.
The Medieval Faire 2009 is public demonstration dedicated to the study and re-creation of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Enjoy armored and rapier combat, archery, dancing, bards, arts & crafts, merchants and more! Come witness acts of chivalry, become a part of past, and watch history come alive!
To help spread the word, please send anyone that you think may be interested in attending to http://www.kitsapmedievalfaire.org/
We have also set up a Facebook Calendar Event for the Medieval Faire 2009 at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=97650934991&ref=nf
We also have a Twitter account, located at http://twitter.com/medievalfaire. If you have a Twitter account, please consider Following our account.
But most importantly.... Come! Join us! You'll have a marvelous time learning about the history of the Medieval Ages and the Renaissance by witnessing the pageantry, combat, arts and sciences, bardic performances, games, equestrian events and more at this exciting, family friendly event.
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| On Criminal Minds and other watchable TV |
[14 Jan 2009|09:12am] |
So, over the past month or so, Morte and I have spent evenings watching the first um... 70+ episodes of Criminal Minds. Excellent show, from start to finish. Some real life casting issues are worked into the plot, and it makes the team of FBI agents feel more real as a result. Also, their research tech Garcia is a hoot!
Now that we're caught up on Criminal Minds, and have to wait until *gasp* episodes actually air, we started to look for something new.
So we tried the Merlin show from the BBC from last year. We got about 20 minutes into it before we couldn't stand it anymore. WHY can't show creators respect ANY of the rich body of hundreds of stories that comprise the Arthurian legend source material? WHY do they have to make up a completely new take, where the only thing that is at all common with ANY tale preceding it is the names of the characters? And WHY can't they clothes people from the myriad of historical examples known to exist? Ok, fine, dress them in 15th century peasant garb... but to ALSO dress them in VICTORIAN gowns? With Velvet?! And then have knights in pre-dark age armor?
Morte won't watch it now. I might force myself out of morbid fascination.
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| 3 things meme |
[25 Jun 2008|02:16pm] |
Rules: Post 3 things you've done that you believe nobody else on your F-list has done. Indulge in remorse if someone calls you out on a listed item.
1) Proposed to my wife at a turnpike rest stop (The Moilly Pitcher Rest Stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, between exits 8A and 8)
2) Owned (for a while) a baseball autographed by the entire 1964 Dodgers team. (Returned it to my uncle who originally gave it to me, because he needed cash)
3) Played a networked multiplayer first-person shooter PRIOR to Doom, Wolfensten 3D. (It was called the Chamber of Muon, in 1990, which let 2 teams of 3 players in exoskeletons battle in a maze. It ran on an Amiga 500, connected to six custom enclosed pods, each with their own monitor and dual joysticks.)
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| Another successful June Faire |
[02 Jun 2008|09:25pm] |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) hrmortcia and I had a fun, albeit exhausting weekend.at June Faire.
Dragon's Laire had to make do with what a new site that no one wanted, with far too little space, with not enough info about how things would work before the event was upon us. One oddity was that the biffys all had to be clustered around the main gravel road into the site, because the pumping trucks were not willing to drive on soft, potentially muddy ground during the weekend. I don't blame them at all, but it meant long hikes to the bathroom for some people.
All in all though, logistical challenges aside, it was an extremely fun event! On Saturday, I ran my usual Period Games demo, with the 4th annual Human Chess game. This year's game was fun as a number of participants brought boffer weapons or foam swords with them, which were used to dispatch each other when a piece was captured.
I also got to set up, learn, and teach people how to play Kubb (roughly the equivalent of viking bocce ball meets thrown weapons).
Sunday though, I ditched out on my Games demo in order to fight some rapier. The first scenario of the day was a blast! It was a buy-a-life to save-a-life benefit for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer fund. I put in $10, got 10 "lives" on the rapier field. Participants then wagered lives, in the form of pink ribbons, against each other. I lasted almost until the end of the allotted time before I lost my last ribbon, but had a great time in the process. I hope this becomes an annual tradition, as it was for a great cause, and was a great warmup.
Next was the Dragon Claw tournament, designed for rapier fighters who have never won a tournament before. There were only 6 of us... but I did manage a 4-1 record, and made it to the finals! I ultimately lost to Lord Carlos (Lord Squared actually, as he received his first AoA in 1982 in the Mid Realm, but received an AoA this weekend.) but again, I had a great time. It's been a long time, nearly a year, since I've had a chance to be in a rapier tournament, and I'm going to try to get to more practices and make it to more fencing events this summer,
Another highlight was serving breakfast to Their Majesties and Royal Highnesses -- HE Brighid had asked Margret to prepare breakfast for their Majesties, and while she was happy to do so, she didn't want to be the one to present it to them! So I was happy to serve the King his breakfast. I had not met King Cedric before, but I could tell within two minutes of talking with him how wonderful of a father he is to his children. He just had such a strong and caring way of interacting with them, it really impressed me. But an amusing moment happened when the King's son sat down the breakfast, and saw a bowl of fruit we prepared with raspberries, strawberries, and some melons -- the young Prince (I think he's about 4-5 years old) took every single strawberry from the bowl and put it on his plate before his sister sat down!
So for Sunday, we prepared an entire dish of just strawberries for the two of them. They were delighted! Also, we made bacon, egg and cheese croissants for Sunday. While we prepared normal ones for the Queen and their children... for the King, we prepared a special croissant. You see, on the King's web site, it says he likes meat. A lot. So we made a lot of extra bacon. and piled as much as possible onto the King's sandwich.
I presented it to him, saying that "For Your Majesty, we have a special sandwich. It has bread, bacon, cheese, bacon, egg, and bacon." He was very pleased. And finally, a lolSCAt: Sorry Caius, but I couldn't resist:
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[20 Feb 2008|01:17pm] |
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Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem - Molly Malone |
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I have to share an office email from a half hour ago:
"Someone accidentally used dish washing soap in the upstairs dishwasher, which caused a soapy 6 inch deep flood in the kitchen. FYI, the correct soap to use is located above the microwave."
I thought that only ever happened in Brady Bunch episodes!
Of all people to discover the mess though, was Tom -- well, more specifically Tom's seeing eye dog Matt. And even more specifically, Matt's now sopping wet paws. Poor puppy!
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[15 Feb 2008|10:29am] |
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So the best pun just materialized here at work:
One of my coworkers, Nick, is having a rough day working with one of our partner companies. They are really aggravating him. Another coworker Dave said that Nick should grow a bunch of heads like a hydra and that can bite them to death. Nick said he'd already done that, but he turned against all of his other heads and ate them all, and now his head was the strongest.
So I looked at dave, I looked at Nick and I said "So, I guess that makes you Nearly Headless Nick"
We have a running joke here about my puns at work: We're gonna get a whiteboard that says:
Eric has been
Pun-Free for:
Days
Only in the spot where the number should be, a big zero would be written in in permanent ink. I think it's apropos.
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| Musical Cubicles |
[14 Feb 2008|09:14am] |
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Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes |
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Welcome to Musical Cubicles, a fun game you play in your office with your coworkers!
Today's contestants include: almost every single person in the office!
You see, our company has employees on two floors. My knowledge of how it came to be this way is a bit fuzzy, as I've only been here for just under a year, but my floor, which can accomodate 20 people, has had employees from several teams: Engineering (programmers), Quality Assurance, Sales/Marketing, and Tech Services (a team of people who go onto naval vessels and do logistics and inventory). Downstairs we have more programmers and quality assurance team members (about a dozen people).
The Tech Services/Logistics team came onboard within the past year as an entire new unit, so they moved in to the only spaces available. Now, it's time to move them to their own space, where they can be rowdy and talk like sailors freely. (they felt self-conscious about cutting loose with the rest of us computer-type people around. No idea why, really)
So everyone downstairs is moving upstairs, and everyone on the Logistics team is moving downstairs.
It's a grand parade of technology, a weird sort of domino dance. As when one person clears his cube and moves to his new home, the person who is working in that spot is tapped on the shoulder, and moves their stuff up to their new spot, and so on.
I'll be moving within the hour. The bonus: Window View! Woo hoo!!
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| I am mighty! |
[25 Jan 2008|11:44am] |
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Snow Patrol - Shut Your Eyes |
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From time to time I plan to post about my dealings with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. This is the first such post.
I'll try to keep them from being too tech heavy, so even if you've never touched SharePoint before, you might enjoy reading about my struggles with it.
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Ok, so, a couple months ago I set up a WSS 3.0 SharePoint site for a project. They wanted a quick-and-dirty setup within 2 days, for light use with the project, just to share a couple files back and forth easily. No time to do a full MOSS rollout, so I set up a virtual server with the free WSS 3.0 using the free SQL Server Express.
My coworker Dave warned me that this quick-and-dirty implementation wouldn't stay just "light use," but rather would become a crutch that the project would use extensively, much more than they intended when they asked me to set it up.
Needless to say, Dave was absolutely right. As demonstrated below:
So, the scenario goes like this. A user wanted to upload a 140MB file to the site. This is a normal occurrance, the user has the latest build of a piece of software and needs to send it to other team members to test it out. Others have uploaded similar files before without a problem. But today, this user couldn't.
So I grabbed my System Administrator cap, and got to work.
I checked his permissions. He had the wrong access level. Fixed that.
But he still couldn't upload the file. After going through the upload screen, it said the file uploaded properly. Only, when looking at the list of files in the directory, it simply wasn't there. Vanished! *POOF*
The file was a .tar.gz file. So, I checked whether it was a blocked filetype. That checked out ok, there was no restriction on it.
I checked his user file quota: No Quota. So that's fine.
I checked the max size a file can be in this sharepoint site: bumped it from 200 MB to 400 MB. Still no luck.
Ok, next, I thoguht the filename was too long (it was about 40 characters.
So I changed the name to foo.tar.gz, and uploaded it. Again, no luck.
So, I uploaded a 50MB file... and... it worked! Strange
So I did some investigating, and found out pretty quickly that SQL Express has a 4GB total data file size limit.
Ok. 4GB, there's no way the site's users could have used 4GB of data file space... could there be?
So I totaled the amount of data, it was under 3GB.
So... checked the recycle bin. It had a few things, soI emptied it, tried uploading the file again. No luck...
...Until I found out that sharepoint has a SECONDARY Recycle Bin
...which had well over a GB of stuff in it!
Clearing the secondary bin worked, and the 140MB file now uploads properly.
One of the most frustrating things about SharePoint is that when a problem occurs, there are dozens of potential causes for the problem, and it's often a long chain of trial and error to diagnose and fix the issue.
But you know what, when you DO get it to work, you feel All-Powerful!
I am Mighty!
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| TV Viewing meme |
[17 Jan 2008|02:24pm] |
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Lana Lane - White Room |
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Meme grabbed from sarahendipity
Bold the shows you've seen at least 3 episodes of:
An interesting list, but in no way inclusive of everything I've watched and enjoyed, but a good cross-section of pop tv culture.
24
30 Rock
7th Heaven
Adam-12
Aeon Flux
ALF
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alias
American Idol/Pop Idol/Canadian Idol/Australian Idol/etc.
America’s Next Top Model/Germany’s Next Top Model
Angel
Arrested Development
Babylon 5
Babylon 5: Crusade
Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
Baywatch
Beavis & Butthead
Beverly Hills 90210
Bewitched
Bionic Woman (old)
Bionic Woman (new)
Bonanza
Bones
Bosom Buddies
Boston Common
Boston Legal
Boston Public
Boy Meets World
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bug Juice
Chappelle’s Show
Charles in Charge
Charlie’s Angels
Charmed
Cheers
Chicago Hope
Clarissa Explains it All
Cold Case
Columbo
Commander in Chief
Coupling
Cowboy Bebop
Criminal Minds
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Dancing with the Stars
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Skies
Davinci’s Inquest
Dawson’s Creek
Dead Like Me
Deadliest Catch
Deadwood
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dharma & Greg
Different Strokes
Doctor Who (new)
Dragnet
Due South
Early Edition
Earth 2
Ed
Emergency!
Entourage
ER
Even Stevens
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond
Facts of Life
Family Guy
Family Ties
Farscape
Fawlty Towers
Felicity
Firefly
Frasier
Friday Night Lights
Friends
Futurama
Get Smart
Ghost Hunters
Gilligan’s Island
Gilmore Girls
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Green Wing
Grey’s Anatomy
Growing Pains
Gunsmoke
Hannah Montana
Happy Days
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Heroes
Highlander
Hogan’s Heroes
Home Improvement
Homicide: Life on the Street
House
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy
Invader Zim
Invasion
Hell’s Kitchen
JAG
Jackass
Jericho
Joan of Arcadia
Joey
John Doe
LA Law
Las Vegas
Laverne and Shirley
Law & Order
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Life on Mars
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lost
Lost in Space
Love, American Style
M*A*S*H
MacGyver
Malcolm in the Middle
Married With Children
Martial Law
Melrose Place
Miami Vice
Mickey Mouse Club
Mission: Impossible
Monk
Moonlight
Moonlighting
Mork & Mindy
Murphy Brown
My Life as a Dog
My So-Called Life
My Three Sons
My Two Dads
NCIS
Nip/Tuck
Northern Exposure
Numb3rs
One Tree Hill
Oz
Perry Mason
Picket Fences
Pokemon
Power Rangers
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Psych
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (British)
Real World
ReGenesis
Remington Steele
Reno 911!
Rescue Me
Road Rules
Rome
Roseanne
Roswell
Saved by the Bell
Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
Scrubs
Seinfeld
Sex and the City
Six Feet Under
Slings and Arrows
Smallville
So Weird
South Park
Spaced
Spongebob Squarepants
Sports Night
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
Superman (both old and 90s versions)
Supernatural
Surface
Survivor
Taxi
Teen Titans
That 70’s Show
That’s So Raven
The 4400
The Addams Family
The Andy Griffith Show
The A-Team
The Avengers
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Brady Bunch
The Colbert Report
The Cosby Show
The Daily Show
The Dead Zone
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Flintstones
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Golden Girls
The Honeymooners
The Jeffersons
The Jetsons
The L Word
The Love Boat
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mighty Boosh
The Monkees
The Munsters
The Mythbusters
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
The Pretender
The Shield
The Simpsons
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Sopranos
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
The Tudors
The Twilight Zone
The Waltons
The West Wing
The Wonder Years
The X-Files
Third Watch
Three’s Company
Torchwood
Top Gear
Tru Calling
Twin Peaks
Twitch City
Ugly Betty
Veronica Mars
Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)
Will and Grace
Wonderfalls
Xena: Warrior Princess
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| Joanna said so! |
[26 Dec 2007|01:01pm] |
Ok, so, I'm going to try to start making regular posts here. Otherwise, Joanna will just keep prodding me, and, well, that can get kinda... stop poking me!
Anyway, yesterday was Christmas, and once again, Morte's family overwhelmed me with all the bounty they sent home with me.
Perhaps the most surprisingly entertaining thing I was given was Klutz "How to Build Pirate Ships" building cards set. Ages 10 and up... ringht.... it took me 4 hours!! (admittedly, like listening to/watching episodes of Firefly) But now it's at my cubicle at work. Muhahahaha...
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| Begin Week 2 |
[05 Feb 2007|09:12pm] |
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Qntal - Non sofre Santa Maria |
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Well, week one has come and gone. So far, no change in my weight, but that's to be expected. If I am losing any fat, I would be gaining it back in muscle. I am still fluctuating at around the 250 mark, but I'm not concerned about that, for now.
What is good though is that I have established a routine (Monday/Wednesday/Friday). I am learning how to properly lift, and getting plenty of positive feedback from Brandi and Talon while we are there.
Tonight however, I got quite dizzy while lifting, and stopped halfway through my 2nd set of exercises. I am pretty sure I was dehydrated, and probably hadn't eaten enough protein earlier in the day.
One stop to Jack in the Box on the way home cured that in short order (as well as watching two episodes of Heroes to keep my mind off of how nauseous I felt, until the nausea went away). Jack in the Box might be counterproductive to losing weight, but my body said FEED ME NOW. So I listened to my body.
At least I had sense to stop, instead of pushing myself when I felt ill. It wasn't the same as pushing myself when I want to get an extra rep out of a set, it was lean-against-a-wall dizzy, and I knew I had to stop.
I also did 12 minutes of cardio before we stretched and did our abdominal sets. That was one difference between how now and last week went. I'd like to do some cardio during the same visit, but if that's making me dizzy while lifting, then I'll switch to doing cardio on Thursdays (I already do Rapier practice on Tuesdays, which gets my heart rate going already).
It's going to be a long road, but now I have a better idea of what it will take. And I'm ready to continue.
I also discovered Qntal - Wow! Imagine Cruxshadows crossed with Enya, sung in Latin. This kicks ass!
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| The Great Get Eric In Shape plan |
[29 Jan 2007|01:15pm] |
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Corvus Corax - In Taberna |
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Ok, so, Jacob's a great friend. He's convinced me to join a gym again, and he's offered to embark with me on a 6-week weight training exercise program, to help get us both in better shape. Along with his wife Brandi, we're starting tonight a 3-time a week weight training program.
In addition to the weight training, I plan to do at least a half hour (if not longer) of cardio exercise (either elliptical machine or treadmill), using a hilly preset program.
I plan on posting information about it here on my livejournal, and will make regular weekly reports to talk about my progress, what problems I'm encountering, and if it's really making a difference.
I have two goals:
1) Lower my weight (currently at 247, up from my Weight Watchers low of last year of 232). My initial goal is 230, my long term goal is 200.
2) Become more fit, so I am not winded when carrying baskets of laundry from the bedroom to the laundry room.
I saw my doctor about 2 weeks ago, and she pointed out to me a lot of warning signs that are typically present in people who develop diabetes. I have my next appointment scheduled in May, and I plan to be in much better shape for it, and from then on.
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