Mostly I never update because I am to busy to say much

I have been playing Amtgard like a fiend.  October was like this so far:

Thor’s Refuge in Sacramento, then a weekend off to hang with my sister and her family, then Saturday in LaCrosse, WI for the Principality of Olympus event, then Sunday in my park for our mini event, then Knoblander near St.Louis, IL with a stop in Cursed Prairie (Peoria) on Sunday.  This weekend is Salt Lake City, with a possible quick stop in my park on Sunday when I get back.  I have mixed that with Bel every Thursday.  I still need to play more or to find an activity that similarly keeps my speed up.

I am trying to get healthier too.  I want to be decent at Amtgard again.  I think it will take losing 75 pounds and particing at least 3 times a week.  Do I want it enough to make that sacrifice?  Hard to tell really.  I hope so.

I have been spending the after work time on projects.  Arts and Sciences stuff for Amt, mostly.  I am seriously considering National Novel Writing Month too.  I have about three days to decide.

I have big plans for more Amtgard too.   Our kingdom event is in two weeks.  After that I have a weekend where I plan only to play in my park.  One week after that I think I will go to MN to play in Starmount.  First weekend in December, I am thinking of playing in Rochester, NY for their Yule.  January I am thinking of NW coronation and Feb is SKBC.  So I am not making the winter into a down time even here in the Midwest.

So I inspired this latest dialog about knighthood and it has remained remarkably civil.  In among the many comments were a few people who felt like knighthood wasn’t needed at all.  Good contributors will be good with or without knighthood and for those it motivates, it stops motivating them when they get it.  Casca put it relatively well when she said:

“Whereas, the people that see knighthood as a carrot to be chased also tend to see knighthood as winning. This means they often slacken their pre-knighting contributions or even leave Amtgard altogether upon becoming a knight. Getting a knight's belt was the goal, not becoming of better character or giving back to the social network that they partake of.”

I don’t totally disagree with her but I thought it valuable to illustrate my view that it doesn’t necessarily work like that with an example.  The example I will talk about is the only one I truly know.  That is, myself.

            I was belted very early in my Amtgard career and way too early according to all reasonable modern standards.  There were good reasons that it happened.  I was the first king of the CK and I stepped down and was awarded a knighthood of the crown.  I actually have an award certificate that grants me, an order of the rose, the office of champion and knighthood of the crown all on one sheet of eight and a half by eleven.  It was important to the CK to show it was a real kingdom by awarding a knighthood.  We were the rebels back then and there wasn’t a lot of good feelings between us and either the BL or the EH. 

            Theo stepped up as the second king of the CK and I immediately saw how much better he did as a king than I had done.  I don’t take all the blame on myself since I didn’t know shit about being king (after all we hadn’t ever seen one in the CK).  Even the fact that I was elected as the first king rather than Theo, just reflected the fact that the San Antonio park had more voters than the Kerrville park.  While I didn’t take all the blame, I was cognizant very very early that I was wearing the visible symbol of excellence as an Amtgard leader and administrator and that by any reasonable standard, Theo was better at it than I was.  That didn’t sit well with me at all. 

            That feeling having something I hadn’t earned stuck with me as I served in local and kingdom offices and did all I could to be a better Amtgarder, just like all the other two and three year veterans that filled the CK back then.  It was already in my mind, though to prove to myself that I deserved the belt.  Maybe a better way to handle it would have been to have turned it down.  I didn’t do that but I did use it to motivate myself to reach higher at every turn.  I went to events (we didn’t have the internet back then) and I looked at what the BL and EH were doing.  I copied the things they did well.  And when I ran for king the second time it was with the stated goal of being the best king the CK had ever had.  Whether I succeeded or not, is a matter of opinion but for me proving my crown belt was as good a motivator as earning it.

            I had a substantially similar experience with my sword belt.  I got it using the same criteria as everyone else but every time I got owned, and any honest fighter gets owned some days, I wondered if I really deserved it.  This lead me to call up a friend or two and to work on my fighting.  It lead me to practice more and to make a real commitment to proving that belt wasn’t a fluke or favoritism for a ‘mover and shaker’ in the new kingdom.  Did I prove that to others?  Hell, I don’t even know if I needed to.  Did I prove it to myself?  Some days I felt like it.  Others I just felt motivated to prove it again.

            I didn’t feel as self conscious about my Flame belt.  This was partially because I received it after about seven years in the game and I did feel like I might have earned it.  Also there were several other flame knights made in the CK first so I had a bar to measure against.  However, by that time I had made an important realization.  A realization that we are discussing here on E-Sam now, which is that while you are judged more harshly when you fuck up wearing a white belt, you also get decent credit for any good thing you do while wearing it.  This made me wonder if I got too much ‘cool guy’ credit for the service I did to Amtgard.  So while I was more confident I had earned it, I wasn’t satisfied.

            Changing kingdoms had the same effect.  I came into a new kingdom and one that I immediately loved, carrying three belts.  Proving that I deserved them was my first priority.  I sought to make the IM a better place using all the skills I had learned in the CK.  Certainly, I loved the IM and wanted to make it a better place because I loved it.  I also wanted to make damn sure that IMers I respected, both knights like Wolfram and populace like Kilraven, believed that my CK belts were as good as IM belts.  So once again the belts I already had were providing motivation.

            I just returned from a year or two of reduced activity to relatively full membership in Amtgard.  Reduced activity meant running only one event a year, and attending 4-5 events and 5-10 park days a year.  In a new kingdom, with a new set of challenges to overcome, I am very cognizant that I am a knight in an area (the upper Midwest) with few of them.  Some who see me will build their future impression of Amtgard knighthood on me.  It’s a heavy burden but it motivates me still.

OK.  Story time is over.  Given that I love Amtgard and that I was reared to feel a sense of responsibility to things I love, would I have achieved the same excellence and provided the same value to Amtgard, without out system of Knighthood?  Casca would say yes, and I can’t disprove her opinion.  I might easily have found some other motivation.  Or would I have put in this much effort if even while doing so I had never reach the level of excellence needed for knighthood?  I like to believe that if the bar had been set higher, I would have jumped harder.  Again that’s just an opinion that can’t be proven.

I do think my story is educational since it tells why I support knighthood and believe it works.

Well the GF and I broke up a little more than a week ago.  I don’t know whose fault it was but I do know I am way less stressed now than I was.  I can walk by a high ledge and not think about leaping off, for one thing.  Anyway, it’s only natural to wonder if there was anything I could have done better.  The good parts were awful good but they didn’t out-weigh the other parts.  She suggested that I was incapable of allowing myself to be loved and incapable of being happy.  I don’t know if that is so or not.  I used to have the knack of being happy pretty well down.  I am going to make it my mission to be happy again no matter what I might dislike about Wisconsin or prefer about Colorado.

As for being incapable of allowing myself to be loved, who the heck knows.  I sure felt like this time it came with way to many duties and responsibilities.  I still think I could have done better if allowed to ease into it but, who knows?  Really, right now I feel relieved from the stress enough that I am not gripping about my issues.  I suspect later, I will feel more doubt about it and wonder if the habit of being single is just too ingrained. 

Anyway, I thought it worth a general update since I know some of yall wonder about me now and then.

Introductory comments:
A squire of mine now knighted had an interesting view of knighthood that I have come to agree with.  Knighthood is both an award and an office.  It’s more than just an award because no other award is worn every day you play Amtgard.  More importantly no other award carries with it any behavioral expectation.  Offices on the other hand definitely include behavioral expectations.  This isn’t a bad thing.  In fact, when handled correctly it’s a great thing.
 
Proposal (written in general terms for discussion rather than in specifics for voting):
The office of Amtgard knighthood should expire.  Obviously once you earn an award, I am not proposing to take it away but I would like the office part of the award to expire if you don’t continue to strive in the area you were awarded for.  I propose rules like this, if a knight goes for 18 months without doing something that would earn an award toward his existing knighthood then the office expires.  Some examples of doing something:
 
Flame Knight: Earn a Rose, Lion or Smith. The top challenge remaining is to decouple this from awards in a way that doesn’t end up being even more subjective. The other three are not tied solely to awards. Any of you with a good idea or even an idea stub, toss it out there.
Crown Knight: Serve in a Baronial or higher office
Serpent Knight: Earn a Dragon, Owl, or Garber or place in the top 5 in a kingdom level A&S event
Sword Knight: Earn a Warrior; place in the top 5 in a kingdom level fighting event; or serve as Champion of a barony, Duchy or Kingdom.
 
The effects of the office of knighthood expiring would be as follows:
- The wearing of the white belt and the title of Sir or Dame are deemed part of the award and do not expire.
- The taking of Squires or Pages is a personal relationship and is unaffected by the expiration of the office of knight.
- The ability to play the class of Paladin or Anti-Paladin is deemed part of the office of knighthood and expires if that office expires.
- Participation on the Circle of Knights is deemed a part of the office of knighthood and expires if the office expires.  Specifically if a multi-belted knight has one of his knighthoods expire then he can no longer vote on candidates for that knighthood. This includes the change that knights only get to vote on candidates for belts they possess.  If a single belted knight has his knighthood expire or a multi-belted knight has all his knighthoods expire, then he is no longer invited to the meetings of the CoK (real or virtual). Knights who are invited to the CoK are assumed to be there to take part in discussion of any candidate discussed whether they can vote on that candidate or not.

Randall challenged me to list the problems with knighthood and look for a comprehensive solution. Well I am willing to consider that route although I am not willing to get bogged down in it and end up not doing anything. On that basis I will split this post between Randall’s challenge and revisions to my proposal of two days ago.

Please respond to this or the other as you see fit.

The main issues with knighthood that I see come under two headings:

1. Unrealized expectations of knighthood that lead to feelings of entitlement and burnout. Good people feeling un-appreciated and leaving the game over it. This issue is best solved by a consistent and high level of contribution being expected from candidates. Sponge brought that up in the previous thread.
2. Existing Knights not properly fulfilling the office of knighthood. As Cedric pointed out this comes in three or so flavors:
   1. Those knights that are inactive and want to stay that way. They may come out to the park to fight every so often, but they don't want to be looked up to as a knight because they know they aren't active.
   2. Those knights who come out to the park but just sit around talking about the gold old days but when a newbie looks at them, they can't see why they were ever knighted in the first place. An example of that is a sword knight who can no longer win tourneys and rarely fights.
   3. Those knights with a bad attitude at the park. They are mean to newbies and those newbies wonder why anyone would ever want to be a knight.

Clearly the problems under heading two are contributing factors to heading one. Keeping knights who don’t fully meet the standard has the same negatives as making those knights in the first place.

As I explained in some of the comments to my last post, my thoughts about the office of knighthood expiring look only to help fix bullets 2.a and 2.b above. Clearly bullet 2.c is the most damaging but also the most difficult to fix. Bullet 1 is also damaging but some of its negatives are inherent in the system and can not be fixed without scrapping the system.

So my challenge to yall as my LJ friends is this:

Come up with ideas that can help fix these damaging negatives. The perfect solution has the following characteristics: It is holistic and fixes all the issues. It doesn’t break existing positives of our awards system and knighthood. It is something that would be supported by the populace of Amtgard (including but not limited to existing knights). As a democratic institution the third characteristic is pretty much required.

Obviously real ideas like my proposal of two days ago will fall short of perfection. Nothing real is perfect. So ideas that only solve some of the issues or those which might somehow damage small parts of the existing value are still worth discussing.

Tigers

Tar’get (at his best)

Toys

Tacos

Tourist Traps

Tiny Towns

Tall Tales

Terry Pratchet

Tide pools

Turkey Bacon

Well I promised to post when I had happy news rather than being depressed about the Wisconsin curse all the time.  Last night my neighbor and ex-co-worker asked me out.  We are going out tonight.  She is smarter than me (3 degrees including JD) and very pretty so it’s really exiting.  More importantly, I always liked working with her.  It really ant go too far long term because she is moving for her new job one way or another but its still exiting to be asked.

I knocked off early and headed south into Illinois.  The site was easy to find (with a GPS) and the gate (Troll) was clearly marked.  My 25$ prepay covered me for the whole weekend so all I had to do was sign my name, show my ID, collect my event favor, and desecrate the window of my poor car with some red junk.  It was a nice easy gate process.

I found a parking spot, garbed up and headed for the field.  The site is relatively compact so the field was easy to find.  It was a priority for me to make sure my weapons were checked at least a little before I took them on the field.  Fortunately, Peter and Melanen were fighting so I was able to get them to introduce me to one of the official checkers for the event.  He did a casual check of my nice new Warlord Sports stick and my older plank foam center grip and told me I was good to go but would need an official check the next morning.

That’s all it took to get on the field.  Thank goodness, since the field is pretty much why I went to the event.  The casual fighting on Friday evening was about as close to Amtgard ditching as you can get.  There were a couple or three archers and some armor but not too much.  People were also more casual some of the Bel customs, like sitting when dead.  The mud was nasty on one side of the field and like any good Amt player, I gravitated to that flank.  I was trying to swing a little harder just to be sure under the different rules set but more often than not, I went by habit and instinct.  This may have resulted in 5% of my shots being too light for Bel when they would have been hits in Amt.  To me that’s a non-issue.

The pace of the games was also just a touch slower than Amt ditching.  By that I mean the time between fight, reset, and fight.  Chasing down the last guy wasn’t as quick and there was less bitching when it took a little time.  Also since it wasn’t a ditch, the same teams fought many times until some people self designated to rebalance.  As for hand and weapon speed, I left the ‘national’ field especially impressed with Rǔhn.  In 6-8 practice nights at Rǔhn, I didn’t notice that Bel fighters were much slower swinging than Amt fighters.  In on afternoon on the national field I did notice it.  It’s not much.  Same as the difference in hit strength isn’t much but on the national field it was more noticeable.

There were a couple of red weapons on the field Friday night and they were wielded by large men going all out.  From the Axgar school, that was nothing but I did worry a little about my plank foam shields ability to take it.  It was wasted worry.  The shield held up fine and rushing poles is the same wherever you go.  The difference in red hits (2 for Bel vs. 3 for Amt) to break a shield made little difference against these bruisers, but see my comments on small reds when we get to Saturday.

Friday evening on the field I introduced myself to a lot of people. I already knew the SKBC veterans and the Rǔhn people but I collected a lot of new names and faces but far less than all of them stuck in my mind.  Some, like Physic were familiar to me from the Bel boards.  Others like Boric, Agnar, and Orso made strong enough first impressions to stick in my head.  I wasn’t the last guy off the field but I was in the last 10.  After the fighting died I talked martial theory and views of combat with Physic and his people.  It was the first time I heard “Amtgard” used as a dirty word at the event but it wasn’t meant badly.  It was just a guy who didn’t like the magic rules.

Even though I had only fought about 3 hours, I was exhausted so I planned to take a little time to say hello to a few people, notably the Rǔhn people, and then head to my hotel.  I got my experience with Bel security.  I admit it’s my own fault.  I treated my gate favor like more Amt gate favors and dropped it in my car console, thinking the next time anyone would care about it was when I drove in the gate Saturday morning.  Instead the security on patrol collared me and followed me back to my car to make sure I had it.  Probably it’s because the gate favor is also your proof of age to drink.  As much as we tease Amt for the paper wristbands, I think they might be better for this.

I did take some time to go to the Hydra camp and say hello then it was of to the hotel for me.  I am sure the drinking, telling lies and hanging out was great fun but even at Amt where I know a ton of people, its not really for me so I didn’t mind giving it a miss at all.  Rumor has it that Bel does that part better than Amt of today but I can’t give any definite opinion.

Saturday, I woke up early and got a little light breakfast.  I headed back to the site.  My hotel wasn’t the closest but it was the best mix of low price and correct points program.  Anyway, I got back on site and somehow got the same parking space.  Right away I decided to get my equipment formally checked.  My nice new Warlord Sports sword failed for weight.  It was 11.3 ounces.  I wasn’t happy about it.  It was careless on my part but I didn’t have any sword making equipment on me.  One of the Bel guys, TG, saw my disgust and very kindly chased me down and loaned me some tape.  That’s a great example of what kind of people there are in Bel.  Thank you, sir.

Even with a good bit of tape borrowed from, TG, I was still only at 11.7 ounces.  I decided more radical surgery was needed.  I pulled some pennies out of my car and went to the Hydra/Rǔhn to beg some materials.  I cut the pommel open and put 6 cents in, reduced the tape a little from the extreme I had been too and then took my sword for round 3.  The darn thing finally passed at exactly 12 ounces.  I want to be clear, other than the weight thing, the Warlord Sports sword I have is excellent in every way.  I strongly recommend them.  People were very interested in the resin cast handle and the foam and I think properly weighted, a WS sword will be a superior tool for Bel.  It should be noted that my sword also didn’t pass Bel for stabs although most fighters I talked too seemed to think it was OK.  I will pass that info on to Warlord Sports and see what they suggest.

It was a challenge getting there but eventually I had a “passed” sticker on my sword and I could get going.  The good news is that fighting too so long to start that even all that running around, still left me with time to wait.  We started with some regular battles.  I don’t remember how teams were divided but the teams were even enough.  Two large units, Hellhammer and Hydra, had their own ceremonies to complete which filled all morning and part of the afternoon.  That meant these first warm up battles were smaller.  They were still pretty fun.

This was where I first saw the effectiveness of the short red.  Given that it only takes two red hits to break a shield in Bel, a short fast red weapon in the hands of a player, with the foot speed to get in and out, becomes much more viable than in Amt.  Again these reds hardly take the place of a pole on the line but they are a much more viable skirmish/flank option than in Amt.  Note Bel does have a sufficient force rule for poles; however, it didn’t seem to make much difference.  That is, hitting a shield one extra time in Amtgard, takes longer than hitting it hard but one less time in Bel.  And the difference is enough to make fast reds a reasonable weapon choice.

I also learned a hard archery lesson.  It was totally one I expected too.  I was closing around a flank against a couple of archers protected by a few line fighters.  We had them out numbered though.  An arrow came toward me.  I had time to process the thought that it wasn’t aimed at my legs so my shield stayed like a rock.  I started to process the next bit of thought but of course, the shot hit me in the nose.  My bad.  With Bel instincts, I could easily have blocked that arrow but my Amt instincts treated it as a miss until it was too late.  That was the only face shot all weekend for me.  I was killed about 2-3 other times by arrows.  My feeling for the reason behind this is that the number of archers per fighter on the field is so low.  Well, that and the facts that unknown shield men are low value archery targets and I do have some missile instincts.

Unit battles were next.  What with me not being in a unit and with me being willing for a water break, I sat out the 30 minutes of unit battles.  I could have asked a marshal what the procedure for those lacking a unit was but the break was worth it.  I watched most of the battles though.  Like most multi team fights, Bel unit battles seemed to encourage a certain amount of vulturing and ganging up.  No surprise there at all.  Still it was fun to watch.  I think if I had known any of the units involved, I would have had a clearer understanding.  All the people I knew best were still in the Hydra meeting.

Then we had some more standard battles.  I met the only clear case of questionable calling of the weekend.  Not that I guarantee no one sluffed me.  I am not yet capable of an accurate gauge of sufficient force.  Any other bad calls against me, I put down to my failure to swing hard enough.  This one was clear though.  I hit him primarily on the back side of the upper arm, which was bare and high crossing.  On the way out it also hit a little chest which was armored.  He called it armor.  Maybe, it’s my failure in understanding Bel hit rules or maybe it’s like any time you think you faced a bad call and he really felt all the impact on the chest, but it certainly looked clear to me.

I also learned that while Bel’s safety checks are likely justified by the slightly more rough and tumble nature of their game, they are hardly infallible.  I got cracked on the elbow.  It felt for all the world like a totally cheesed noodle sword on bone.  I am pretty sure it was instead a totally cheesed Bel sword on bone.  However, the opponent ran off before I could ask him about it and I didn’t think it needed to go to a marshal.  I looked for him later but when he wasn’t easy to find I decided not to bother.

I took the opportunity of that battle to introduce myself to Sir Kenneth.  After all he is a guy we have invited to teach at SKBC twice so it seemed worth meeting him.  He impressed me as a fun guy to fight and relatively friendly.  For the next hour or so he kept after me to spare with him whenever we weren’t fighting.  He beat me round the town.  Actually, I liked his style.  It’s a style you hardly see in Amtgard any more.  He used long sword and board with a block first mentality.  I am sure someone faster than me could have had more luck using his sword length against him but he had the foot speed to make it a challenge.  It wore me out to spare such a good fighter so often but that’s part of the fun.

Next came realm battles.  These had all the features of the unit battles.  At least, for these, I knew my place though.  I lined up with Rǔhn.  We went after the same team two of three times.  We killed them just in time to get run over from behind.  Actually one fight four of us survived the first two clashes and tried to do some damage together.  It was pretty fun.  I suppose it’s good that Bel is less obsessed with winning that Amtgard.  It’s probably why these multi team battles in Amtgard don’t go as long or as hard.

This point was even more clearly proved when we lined up for the next rank of two team battles.  The initial division was Illinois versus the world.  It wasn’t as unbalanced as Texas versus the World at Amt Spring War but it wasn’t close either.  Illinois had at least at 40% manpower advantage.  Still we fought this battle several times in a row.  Results were what you would expect.  I switched on to the more open flank for many of these battles which didn’t keep me from dying horribly but it did give me more of a shot at a couple of fights before being swept down in a tide of foam.  It was definitely different to me than Amt where a game that unbalanced would be very unlikely to be played even twice in a row much less the 4+ times we did it.  Eventually we tried Chicago against the world, which was too big a shift and then drifted into other more arbitrary ways to split up.

While I wasn’t on the field, I took time to talk to several great Bel people about their system of knighthood.  From the start it intrigued me since it emphasizes the knight-squire relationship, which for me has always been one of the best parts of knighthood.  I talked to Killian about it at some length.  It was interesting to hear the trials he was putting his squires through.  I definitely like the idea of unique trials and some of the ones I heard about were quite clever.  I also talked at some lesser length with Kyrian and Peregrine about it.  Peregrine is one of Bo’s Squires.  All three knights I got input from looked for their squires to be well rounded in the same way Amtgarders expect from multi belted knights. 

Surprisingly, these discussions of Bel knighthood didn’t leave me as worried about the Amt variety as I expected.  Not that I don’t really respect what the Bel people are doing and I certainly like the idea of customizing the relationship to fit each individual squire and knight.  Still, after glimpsing the items that their system doesn’t handle as well as ours, I am inclined not to pass harsh judgment either way.  That’s only surprising since I expected to come out wishing I had worked with Isaac, Kerry, Dave, Will, or any of my other squires under their system rather than ours.  That didn’t happen.  Helping to train your squire to excel according to set rules and under the review of a body of your peers is valuable too.  If I had it to do over again, I might set some training tasks like the one I heard about at Bel.  That would be a damn good idea.  I don’t hanker for their whole system though.  Both systems seem equally capable of producing excellent knights and real duds.

I was also thrilled to see some tricks that different Bel people were using to measure their own self improvement.  Amtgarders do this too but since we have regular tourney benchmarking, it’s less of a priority.  I met one you man on the field whose name I didn’t get who had set himself a goal of 200 kills for the weekend.  He intended to up that goal at each event through the summer season.  When I talked to him Saturday mid-afternoon he was under halfway but not too far under.  More impressive was Eldrath, a very cool guy out of Utah.  He was fighting five matches with 20 different people and taking video and notes on all 20.  He was a quick (by Bel standards) and precise lefty and he chose me as one of his 20.  Using pretty standard anti-lefty stuff, I did OK with my 5.  I hypothesized that maybe he doesn’t have enough other good lefties out West training their righties.

The last interesting conversation of the day related to safety.  This theory was presented to me by Chicken but I found it good.  Almost all of the safety rules in a game like this are somewhat arbitrary.  However, since safety is so important, even arbitrary rules gain great force.  An example is the Bel stabbing tip rules, although these are loosening over time.  Amt has no sufficient force rule so it might make sense that we are more lax on stabbing tips but in reality stabs aren’t something where people often pull their force and our tips seem safe based on the very low number of stabbing injuries we see.  Arrows to the face are a similar issue.  Bel arrows are a little more padded because they allow face shots but we have to make our arrows safe for a face shot because they may happen accidentally.  All these differences are very slight and without a lot of data it’s hard to analyze the real world effects of them.  However, invested people on each side will argue more vehemently than on many other topics because it involves something as important as safety.

All in all, I would rate my first Bel event as totally worth it.  I fought harder than I have since at least WBW and I met a lot of excellent people.  I got kicked, slammed and run over.  I fought a few people better than I am but I didn’t embarrass myself much.  I tried to be a gracious guest throughout and to really enjoy the ambiance.  I learned a lot about their game and frankly, the differences between Bel and Amt are way smaller than the similarities.  I mean obviously we are closer to each other than to Frisbee golf but we are also closer to each other than either of us is to Nero or SCA.  There were a few minor annoyances just as at any event but it was well worth it.

So here I sit in the Columbus Airport on the way home from SKBC 2009.  It was a great success.  For me and from what I hear for the rest of the FWACK organizing committee, this was SKBC back as it belongs.  Interest in what we could provide was high in Ohio and all of the upper Midwest.  We had a few things I might do differently next time but by and large it was a great success. 

Among the areas, I was most happy with was the inclusion of the Belegarth guest instructors.  I greatly want to thank, Peter the Quick and Bhakdar who both provided a lot of fun insight into your game to enthusiastic crowds of Amtgarders.  The Belegarth ditching we did at SKBC was a lot more rough and tumble than park days in Rhun ever are but I am sure that was all the Amtgarders playing with shiny new concepts like grappling, bashing and kicking.

The total Belegarth attendance wasnt huge but it was very gratifying to see as much interest as there was.  I talked to almost all the Bel people in attendance and most seemed to think what they had learned at out event might help them in your game. 

After a second year of seminars, I think that idea continues to show results as a way to better serve more advanced students.  Some of the seminar instructors told me that one real benefit of that format is that prior e-mail contact with their seminar students really allowed them to tailor the classes very efficiently.  Obviously the majority of classes still need to be availible to all but having a few seminar classes seems like a great way to involve students in eachother's teaching.

This was also the second year we did one-on-one time cards.  This was another area I felt worked.  There were some schedule reading issues on the part of me and my staff, but even so it seemed worth the trouble. 

There were also a few things I might change for next year.  The ditch lights got a fair number of negative comments.  Ironically I am sure that this year we had the same level of lighting that we had in 2005 in Seattle.  Its a testament to our rising standards and something that FWACK obviously needs to work with local autocrats on in the future.

The ten AM start for classes was also too late.  It definitely cut into our daylight ditches.  Thats a bad thing because those ditches are are often the place where all the students can meet the isntructors directly in a combat environment, whether for the challenge or for coaching.

Finally the cold lunches, which I personally thought were a great idea, disappointed some who thought that the quicker digestion of cooked food was important in keeping energy high.

If you read this as a Bel or Dag fighter, I would encourage your comments.  I am very interested in how useful our format and material was to you and how fun our teaching focused event was for you.

Try as I might, I just can’t seem to get happy with life or to rediscover my motivation. It’s been up and down here in Wisconsin all along but today, at least, it seems like its been up and down but never very far up. I mean life is up and down like that everywhere and all the time but it really seems like there has been less up than usual lately and that what silver lining there has been comes with an awfully big cloud.

At work, lay-offs are rampant and while I expect to make it through the next round I still don’t feel great about it. My boss is going towards a new opportunity where there is money and more importantly interesting work. It doesn’t look like he will be taking me, though. He might take a few others from our department but it looks like I am designated to stay on the sinking ship as if goes under.

I suppose someone has to. Still, it definitely looks like the reward for working my ass off here under considerable pressure and despite the fact I didn’t like it a lot of the time is a big fat lack of opportunity.

This spills over into everything else. I have been sleeping a lot because nothing else seems worth doing. That means I have missed a lot of Amt/Bel. I have been opting out of WoW raids as much as I can. Worse I am unmotivated about SKBC. I have my shit ready to go and that’s good at least but I am really not in the mood for it at all. I know that shows a poor mental attitude and that I need to get it right but so far the things I have tried in that direction have not been effective.