Redwolf's Journal (continued)

A recent WoW developer blog is, to me, worth noting. While it is primarily a reaction to outcry about "favoritism" for the Horde (or Alliance) in the game, the point that strikes home for me most is the necessity of adversity for heroism. While the whole "home village destroyed by evil warlord" thing is cliche, heroes need something to overcome. If they never suffer loss, they can't overcome it to shine. Whether related or not, I'm finding myself increasingly dismayed everytime I watch the Star Wars prequels (or even Return of the Jedi, to a lesser extent). Ugh. This entertains me, especially with the mention of WoW losing a million subscribers and the assessment of existing subscription MMO status. Sparked by Thanksgiving dinner conversation, I found myself recently thinking and re-overanalyzing my experiences with the SCA. The road not travelled, I suppose. How might things have been different? If the people I'd gotten into it with hadn't m...

So... Estrella War itself. Hmm. Definite good points: - Seeing friends from afar. - Awesome merchants' row. I'm not sure, but it seemed bigger than previous Estrellas. - Learned a little about how some things fit together, such as how siege weapons play a factor in one of the battles (performance determines breaches in a later scenerio). - Quality of company. Josh was great to have around, though it was only his first time and he's not real SCA-active. Sir Asad simply rocks - always full of sound advice and willing to offer what he has to help others readily. - The satisfaction of volunteering and helping out. - New boots that proved reasonably mud-resistant. - Managing to catch Sunday night's bardic (or at least some of it) at the grand pavilion. Bad points: - Not enough time with friends from afar. Maybe 15 minutes around Max and 5 with Cathe. April was around for a bit, though ill (get better!). - The cluelessness of being drafted into volunteering for s...

Whoever said getting there was half the fun should be dragged out into the street and shot. - Garfield (?) Leaving late at night with the intent to arrive at a reasonably hour in the morning is a fine plan. Getting stranded along the way is not. In fact, it's generally not a plan at all. Yet, this was just what happened. I took over driving from Holbrook and was cruising right along for a while before, in the dark of pre-dawn morning, the engine started losing power. I downshifted, and that didn't help. The next thing I know, I'm drifting over to the side of the road and gabefinder 's waking up asking me if something's wrong. Her nephew Josh (traveling along with) pulls up behind in his Jeep and we're trying things and looking all over, but the transmission won't seem to engage though the engine itself seems fine. There's something that may be water leaking underneath and a horrid, acrid smell in the air. It's unusually fortuitous, but a police...

Weather's reasonably good, so it looks like we're cleared for Estrella War. I look forward to being there and getting something of a vacation, even if it is away from computers. As usual, I'm not so much looking forward to *getting* there. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of a 9-hour drive on a new route, as the current site is on the other side of Phoenix from what we're accustomed to, and we're planning to start that run at about 10pm tonight. There's planning and packing and worrying and fretting. We were going to be caravanning down with several others, but due to mechanical problems and illness, that's been pared down to a total of three people in two vehicles. I'm still tweaked and torqued from shoveling (and now chiseling) snow and ice - I've stretched and strained things that make cranking a steering wheel uncomfortable and I even picked up a nice new bruise on the inside of one arm, presumably from hauling off large chunks of ice tha...