March 19, 2003 - 3:39 p.m.
What does it say about me really ... definitely not well rounded. Think of me more as a pacman .. mostly rounded and then just missing a piece. I mean REALLY lacking. So after reading Nicholai's diary I decide to spend some time taking these quizzes, cause unlike the which hobbit or duke are you tests, these seem to really test _something_). The math test, tedious but not hard !00% go ahead say it - geek. the SAT verbal, I am a bookworm go figure 100%. The citizenship test this required more effort and luck on at least one question ... you guessed it 100%. But the flags test ... a lowly 4 of 11 or 36.3% right. Does this mean I am never cut out to be a herald???
So many people have posted about Gulf Wars (the SCA one, not the nameless one that we are starting) so many of you know lots of the tales already. I figured I would take a moment to thank god that I live in Atlantia. Yes I have the benefits of splendid monarchs, and good heraldry that has lots of blue by being Atlantian, but I have only now begun to appreciate something more that I have living here... sensible A&S. Recently there has been a good deal of discussion about to enter or not to enter A&S competitions and the merits of competitions vs displays and the merits of competing as requirement for <insert and award name here>. These discussions seem to come in cycles and invariably one will start on the Pearls and spread to the Merry Rose or to the Laurels list and it all just flows together. Watching them go past I have discovered that if you ask 6 Atlantians an A&S opinion you will get 10 answers - all in direct conflict. But like so many things in the SCA the pendulum is always moving and ever swinging to one side or the other. Net someone is thrilled with the status quo and someone is pissed. Such as it is.
Then I judged a competition hosted by Trimaris.
These people are deeply troubled. Deeply troubled.
They have judging forms in triplicate. Carbonless, three colored, press firmly here triplicate. I nearly ran. Had it not ben for the fact that I had promised to help, I would have been out of that building so fast ... Did I mention carbonless copies??? *shiver*
There were 46 entries and about 20 judges. That means that every judge looked at 2-3 pieces. Each piece was judged by exactly 2 persons and they had to be from separate kingdoms. Only laurels and those that they recommended, like an accomplished apprentice could be judges. Apprentices must have supervision to judge. What a crock! They seemed rather disturbed at Atlantia showing up with the random Pelican that was previously an apprentice to judge, but he was deemed competent so it was okay. *whatever* The net is that since everyone has different standards and since different pieces got different judges it was entirely possible for an "inferior piece" to get higher marks than a "superior piece" cause of the lack of ability to compare and standardize. But wait - the forms help you with that ... every category (craftsmanship, materials, documentation and presentation) had 1-5 points you could award. Each point had a detailed description associated with it defining the exact specification of workmanship, materials, etc that correlates to that point value. So why do I have a requirement for a subject matter expert to look at this thing?
Peeves of the judging ... lets suppose someone was asked at the last minute to enter her work. Her beautiful work. Her splendid work. She WHILE ON SITE, put together documentation for the piece, remembered sources and wrote up processes used and decisions made. I am impressed at the memory recall it takes and note that a master of an art can recall and explain on the fly, a copyist can not. The workmanship and materials ... very high marks and good comments. The documentation ... they knocked for lack of typewritten format and no report cover (*whatever* good info is good info folks). She also lost presentation points cause the damn thing was not elevated and shown with science fair charts and well ... made to look tacky. She wound up getting a crappy overall score for reasons that have NOTHING to do with her talent, her medieval aesthetic, her workmanship or her knowledge of the media ... how screwed up is THAT - in triplicate.
Thank god I am an Atlantian.
And yeah after that ... I went out and shot some more things. Shooting was good for me this year. The town battle ... shouldn't have bothered putting on a hat for that. Bad plan very bad plan. The ravine made up for it and I personally shot about 180 bolts ... and 150 of those I would guess found a person to say hello to. Tee hee. The field battles were decent and the Fort battle was fine indeed. I got to shoot with Countess Erica and company from Trimaris. She was very accommodating and took me all over and beyond teaching me strategy over tactics in the last battle, so much to learn so little time. Ah the mayhem I could cause with a few more archers in Atlantia.
I enjoyed my vacation but now I am back at the office doing things like trying to explain an architecture with powerpoint. What have I done to deserve this hell? Powerpoint? I feel brain cells dying just to get away from it. Earlier today I escaped powerpoint to go to a status meeting and someone said "What have you done to address the Armageddon scenario?" Do you know how much effort it took to NOT look at that person (manager) and reply .. "Nothing, we have not developed a contingency plan for Bruce Willis crashing into the planet on a meteor, that falls into the category of BIGGER PROBLEMS (like a crappy script)." Mmm, perhaps they meant something else?
Looks like I will be going from Coronation to Florida for a week to
be trapped in a windowless conference room there (this is not unlike the
windowless conference room downtown that seems to have become my home away
from home). Wonder if I can convince someone to let me fly out from
there rather than coming all the way back north to go (further) south again.
Seems kind of silly.
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