despair_bear

I don't even know where to start......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlmSfvm59TY

Running a nothing, non-critical 911 at a trailer park and I over hear a bystander who is probably around 96 crying and wailing about how depressed she is. The comment that stuck with me, as she is crying "I did not want my life to be like this".

96 years old with probably less than a year left to live and so distraught  that she spends her last days crying over a life wasted, a life full of regret.

Do not let that happen to us. My life may not be perfect but I have endeavored to life my life as I wanted and I could not hope to have any better life than I have now.  Never let a year pass that would leave you with regrets in your latter days. I have watched friends an co-workers killed at ages younger and older than my own, tomorrow it could be me....Hell, I am at work it could be in the next hour. Don't let your life slip by, next time you turn around you could be 96 years old living in a trailer park crying over a life wasted.

Live without regret

So I am heading down to Isles (Caid) to teach a class on blacksmithing, they really enjoyed my last class and asked me to do another. Looking forward to it, and one of my students is going to make it down with me to help teach. I have also been asked again to do some work for a SCA gift basket, I have done a few of these and kinda like it.

So other than blowing my own horn what is my point?

A few years ago I was asked where I would like to be with my SCA endeavors. After quite a bit of thought I felt that the best place a person could ever be in the SCA (or any where) was in the position of someone who people point to for a given skill. I would be thrilled if some one was asked where they could learn "skill X" and their responce was "You should get a hold of Godric, from down in Tarnmist". I can think of no higher praise than to have your work so respected that others think you are able to teach.

Today, I felt that way.

So the martillodores had their yearly women's prize tourney and again this year I worked on a prize for the overall winner. This year my donation was a copper/steel/brass rapier buckler.

I was rather happy with it, other than I wished I had time to add a steel edge to it. I think it will work fine for many years but I think the steel edge would have offset the rose nicely and helped it keep its shape if it was crushed in the back of some fighters trunk.

Now I just need to think about what to make next year.............

Not too long ago we filled up our war wagon Olga (chevy minivan) with people, a forge and a few anvils and headed down to Isles in Caid. I was teaching a class on basic blacksmthing at their Filthy Dirty Collegium. Over all it went well but with out the help of one of my students Rulov I would have been overwhelmed with people, I was expecting about 5 and I had more like 15. So a little chaos latter and with a quick change of plans the class forged on (bah dum ba.....ching). Any way it went rather well, I thought and I got a lot of positive feedback but I can not say I got a lot of "good" feedback. People where very happy with the class and every one who attended got to take a knife home with them but I could ahve used some feedback on how to make things better. I think next time I will limit the class size to 5, just so that every one has a chance to really work at the forge under individual instruction.

Now I am thinking about teaching a class at kingdom A&S, probably not a hands on class but more of a theory class. Still thinking about it.

Rosie and I are about to head down to Isles so I can teach a blacksmithing class. I probably need to do a little write up of what I am going to teach but right now I just fee like winging it. Should be fun in either case.

I am pretty glad I can go down there and teach, Rosie and I have been talking about strengthening our ties to our southern neighbors. After all they are closer to us than most of our own kingdom. I hope it all goes well.

I am thinking I will do a quick down and dirty feast gear class with each student working on a piece of feast gear. I hope that will be simple enough for first time smiths.

I am still enjoying my "time to step up" philosophy teaching what I can when I can to who ever I can, and so far I have not had a lack of venues. I just hope my students are having as much fun as I am.

I have had a very nice response from a number of people offering to help by donating items to the benefit auction at 12th night.

I was out in the shop for almost 11 hours the other day trying to finish the last few items I am going to have available. Nothing was going right, first the pommel would not work so modified the tang then the tang was too short. Modified the hilt (after spending hours making the first one) then the new pommel would not fit, went back to the original pommel then the handle was the wrong shape, fixed the handle. Then had to re-polish the hilt and pommel. Then the handle cracked, re-cut and sanded the handle trying to to make it too short. After 11 hours finished the damn thing....... I hope to have some images posted in the near future to kinda advertise the items.

I just hope people will see some stuff they would like to bid on.

Well along with my work I am doing for the 12th night auction I have also been asked to work on some kingdom gifts for estrella. I did this once before and was kinda bla about my donation, just a simple set of feast wear. I am thinking this year about doing some nifty pattern welding, at least for the blades. Since my lovely wife was nice enough to buy me a new liner for my forge I can do some serious work again, all be it not at my own workshop. It just seems like there are not a lot of options for a set of feast gear. Their probably are but not being an artist I have trouble in the conceptual area. I will see about posting some images once I get under way.

Greetings to all,

As many of you have heard two SCA members in Caid where badly injured
during the Tea Fire in southern California. There will be a benefit
silent auction at 12th night with all the proceeds donated to help
cover medical expenses and to help them rebuild their lives after this
tragedy.

I am asking for item donations to be auctioned off, I will be
providing what items I can but all item donations are welcome. If you
would like to donate or assist in this endeavor please contact me:

Despairbear@ yahoo com

Godric Of Castlemont

Well I went out to teach my class.

Overall I thought it went well, I enjoy teaching and had fun. I also learned a few things that I need to think about adding if I am to teach this class again (possibly). Among other things I tend to assume that my students have a good grounding in blacksmithing in general and weaponsmithing in particular. Some people had a little trouble understanding the required heat treating process for blades. In the future I need to slow down the explanation or possibly simplify the terminology. I also hit a little resistance when I was debunking some myths about pattern-welding, some students seemed unwilling to accept that these composite blades where inferior to a homogeneous blade.

I would like to find another venue for this class and give it another go, with a few alterations, we will see what I can find.


 

Please consider copying this sentence into your livejournal if you are, have ever been, or will ever be, in a heterosexual marriage and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

If any one is interested I will be teaching a few classes in the near future.

I will be teaching a pattern-welding class at Collegium Occidentalis and a class on making your persona more authentic at the Tarnmist New Comers camp out.

The patter-welding class will cover pattern-welding in the SCA period, whys, hows and who's. It will also cover pattern welding theory as well as touch on wootz steel and modern pattern-welding.

The authentic class will cover small ways to make your persona more "real", small things make a big differance. 

 

Rosie and I where teaching a SCA 101 class and where talking about what a peer is. In that conversation the concept that a peer is some one who should be held up as the shining example, and that we should all be trying to live up to that standard. The more I thought about this the more I found my self dissatisfied with my own actions, and as such resolved to share what I have been doing.

More teaching, more classes, more sharing of skills

I can not suggest a course of action and then do its opposite.

On a related note, I was hoping to do another A&S display for 12th night (In all the free time I will have with Rosie's vigil.....) but came to find that I don't have much of my recent work to show. I keep giving the stuff away...... It seems stingy to me to hold onto some thing that I made just be cause I want to show it off. I enjoy the process of creation not possession. Still having problems with the city and now our landlord as well so my forge time is very hard to come-by. But I am working on a few neat pieces that I hope will be out and about by 12th night. Assuming that I can hold onto any of them that long........

I have been working on in idea for a while now, it is as follows; In the world of re-enactment our artists tend to reproduce the top 10% of what existed in the middle ages. We reproduce the the Alfred jewel, The Maman Axe, items from the Sutton Hoo, some of the finest works from the period. What about the other 90%? What did your average person carry or own? Not the fine items that where buried with the owners but the every day items that where not valued for their appearance but where valued as a tool, and as such where used until destruction and then discarded. We do have a few examples, the Lund stool, a number of midden finds, low carbon or wrought iron knives, and the like. It seems like we do not seen much of this reproduced, and I say that is a shame. If we are truly to recreate the middle ages we should look to how the average man or woman from the middle ages would have really lived. While long strings of flame worked beads are nifty most people would have had no more than one or two. A fine pattern-welded blade would have been the pride of the owner but for eating he would have used is normal wrought iron knife. Some times I think we have gone too far, too fancy, too rich. And in doing so we may have missed the point of re-enactment its self: realism.

Rosie, Sam and I where walking around posting fliers the other night and when we stopped by a local game/music shop to see about posting a few fliers we where asked by the guy behind the counter

 "Oh so you guys are gonna finally start a SCA group here?"

A little taken aback I mentioned that there has been a SCA group here for about 30 years, he this fellow seemed surprised and replied

"Huh, I thought the nearest group was in Santa Barbra"

So we where able to post some fliers in the shop and we went on our way. But I think this illustrates a problem we have in our area, we have been here forever but even people who know about the SCA don't know we exist. Rosie's work on the fliers may help this a lot and I think that our public rapier practice have also helped. It seems like we have an area that holds so many potential members if we can just open the door and let them in.

So for now my shop is shut down, apparently the city of morro bay does not like blacksmiths. Word has come down that I either can not operate a forge or need a permit to have one or both, yes I know that sounds imposable. I need to get in touch with the local fire inspection officer in town, luckily for me I have been working with him for years and I hope we can figure out something. I a not sure the city has the ability to limit what I do in my garage as a hobby. It does not make sense, and I think this may just be an arbitrary pain in my butt handed down by an incompetent civil service flunky.

So again I am behind in my desire to forge some new blades. How does this always happen? I am thinking two rondel, one kidney, one ring side, and two seax along with my desired longseax. Hmmm.......

Rosie and I will be moving on the 1st into a new place, across town, much bigger than what we have now. I am really looking forward to having a workshop to play in rather than hauling all my gear out onto the front yard. Some times I feel my body shake with the need for violence, jeze I need to get to the dojo or to a fighter practice. I hate the point right before you move when you have some stuff packed but not all and you are limited on what you can do as you only have access to some of your tools and it is too much of a hassle to unpack everything. I have walked hand in hand with darkness.


Jed

Well I have been asked to run a regular sci-fi RPG for some friends of mine. I have to admit I really miss running my own game, guess I am in the league of the super geeks. It it my hope that I can lead a group of classic war gamers into the realms of true roleplaying as opposed to their regular "ROLLplaying". My mind spins with old stories of heroes and villains and the players who with desperation try to walk a line of survival. It has been a long time since I have laughed.


Jed

Well a first entry on a day I am sick'er than hell. I'll get back to this when I feel less like death warmed over.