Convention Preparation

I'm only working a half-day tomorrow, so that we can drive to Mace. It's only about an hour away so we'll have time to get there before the 1st round of games. I'll be playing Witch Hunter all weekend; specifically my French scholar Solange-Marie, aka almost useless in a fight. Nice thing about Witch Hunter, despite her nigh-onto-total lack of combat effectiveness, she's a very useful character. That's because she's very good at what she does, and what she does is know stuff; like what the group is hunting & how to kill it; usually.

I've created a 2nd character, a tier 1 character. That's another word for a beginning character, in this case. Solange-Marie is tier 2 as I have played her that much, although not recently.

My tier 1 character is an Irish guard who, unlike most Witch Hunters, was raised to be one. Chris, Rosemary & Diana are playing relatives. Their characters became aware of 'the Invisible World' on the same night and Rosemary's character hasn't forgiven mine for not telling her about it. Rosemary's Emmaline is bitter because her husband was killed by the unnatural that night.

Other Stuff
The lawn guys blew all the leaves off the grass and sidewalks. Great. Except. They left the leaves in the lot; to the extent that I was reluctant to park my car, with its hot engine, on the leaves. They were that high. And they were obscuring the parking space.

Other than packing, I have no idea what I'm going to do tonight. Knit on the scarf that I'm making (Operation Gratitude)? Fix the cross that I was tatting (I started to close a ring too early, now I have to open it)? Watch a movie on the new DVD player? Watch something that we taped? Play computer games? I won't know until I get home.

Been Very Busy
Animazement (manga & anime convention), ConCarolinas (sci fi/fantasy/speculative fiction/media/gaming convention), weekend with mom, and everything in between.

Animazement went pretty well. I ran three games of Jadeclaw, played one and played Qin. Chris bought me a skirt as a slightly early birthday present. It's a great skirt; floor length, double ruffle, fully lined, high-waisted, zipper closure on the side, cinch lacing in the back & double drawstring in the back for a faux-bustle. I now have the right skirt to make my Susan Sto Helit costume. I just need blouse, vest, lock of black hair & to make an omega cameo pin.

Memorial Day we went to see the Star Trek movie and then to Red Lobster for my birthday. It was a nice time.

It was a short week as I took Friday off to go to ConCarolinas. I played Witch Hunter & Living Forgotten Realms all weekend. I started a variegated purple scruncy, perfect for sleep-deprived tatters. I got to see Nina & Gwen again (saw them at Animazement). Mitra made it to the convention, too and we got a little time to talk.

It was a beautiful hotel and while it was expensive, they treated us like we were paying a lot of money, too. Rosemary needed foam pillow and mentioned it as we were checking in. When we reached the room, there was someone arriving with the pillow at the same time. That's good service.

I was so tired when we came home that I went directly to sleep. Alas, that means that I missed a phone call that I was expecting.

I spent the evenings looking at laptops online. Thursday I checked the options locally and Friday I bought a new laptop. It was more expensive that I expected, but I bought the insurance and a couple software programs. Alas, I caved, I bought MS Office. *weep*

Saturday I drove down to see Mom but she decided to put off doing the laptop thing. She wouldn't even go with me to look at ISP options. I left her with the assignment to look up her options and get one before I go back in July.

Last night was our Mutants & Masterminds game. We continued with the 2 new players. They will be an interesting addition to the game.

I have been tatting the brown edging that I started at the Harmony Hall Heritage Day. I'm almost out of thread. What I have left is on a thread winder. So I need to unwind it and add more to the shuttle. I decided to put that off and returned to the scrunchy.

I've had three meetings this week at work. Now here's the scary part. All three have been productive &/or useful. Frightening, huh?

Yesterday, we had a celebratory lunch for Angela. She turned 50 on Sunday. I gave her some coffee from Boca Java and Tommy baked her a black icing cake. It was nummy.

Weekend at Mace:
Friday’s schedule: Do reports that usually take 8 hours in 4 hours so that I can leave at noon. Wait about 5 minutes too late & miss the bus. Catch the next one about half an hour later. As a result, I was too worried about being late to stop to get a drink or gas. I arrived, about dead of thirst and running the car on fumes, but right before registration opened.

I played Nature’s Wrath, Living Forgotten Realms game, in the 1st slot. If Rosemary’s voice doesn’t recover by this weekend, then I’ll see about running that adventure on Sunday instead of her game. Chris & Rosemary arrived while I was playing.

We all played Graven Images, a Witch Hunter game that we had heard good things about, in the 2nd slot. It was a fun game. One player was brand new to the game and we all had a blast. Solange-Marie, my character, learned a new spell, sort of alarm spell. She immediately used it on the cursed book that she’s been carrying around. It’s already sealed with twine & wax, to keep out the unwary. But she was glad to add the additional security.

Saturday morning, Rosemary & I were both in the same LFR game, Elder Wisdom. It was
entertaining. My half-elf Warlock, with the fey pact, is finally 3rd level. She’s my highest level character. For the 2nd slot on Saturday, all three of us played another LFR game, Rotting Ruins of Galain.

For the evening game, I played a Witch Hunter adventure, Red Tide, that Chris & Rosemary played at Wicked Harvest and Solange-Marie is finally Tier 2. It was nice to see a connection to an earlier adventure.

Sunday was the double rounder (2 slots) of the last Living Greyhawk adventure. What a meatgrinder. It was almost the shortest LG adventure ever because the way the plot hook is presented at least 3 of the characters were of the ‘this plan sucks & screw you’ mindset. meant that we almost walked away without actually playing the adventure, just credited for it (& thus unable to ever really play it).

Frankly, surviving to the final encounter was a bit of a victory. My character, Nadia, my first LG character, died in the first round of attacks in the final fight. I wouldn’t have been upset about it,
well not very much, but she exploded which hurt the other characters. One of the others would probably have survived if it hadn’t been for that. As it was, three of the six characters died but the goal was achieved. Our characters were so outclassed in the final fight, that just surviving a round was a victory. Surviving 3 rounds and achieving our goal was a massive victory.

I drove home after the game to do laundry. I had to. I wore my last clean pants at the con.

I did get some bad news. Animazement & ConCarolinas are the same weekend. That really sucks. I was going to run Jadeclaw at Animazement but I told Chris last year that I’d go to ConCarolinas and I told John B (Animazement game coordinator) that I’d run games for him. Now I have to cancel with John. At least it’s not at the last minute; considering that they conventions are not until late May.

On the bright side, I ran into someone unexpected, a fellow tatter. She spotted me
Saturday and spent the rest of the day trying to remember my name. Then she found out
which game I was playing on Sunday & came looking for me. Wasn’t that neat?

It’s another NC autumn day. There’s frost this morning & it’s supposed to hit 60F this
afternoon. I accidentally dressed in Christmas colors this morning, at least from the waist
up. I’m wearing a red & white striped top but then I thought it might a little cool for
that this morning, so I added a forest green corduroy vest. I realized that it’s a little
Christmas-y but hoped that no one would really put it together. It’s not even
Thanksgiving yet, after all. Alas, my hopes were in vain. I won’t be wearing this
ensemble again until after December 1st. It’s a quirk of mine. I like for one holiday to
be over before I start celebrating the next one. Although I do admit that I start buying
Christmas presents as early as September.

Just finishing Witch Hunter game. I am soo tired. But it was fun. I'm at Roundcon in Columbia, SC.

Reading Witch Hunter book. Gaming all weekend, no time to read. Working on April challenge, and almost figured out how to do ends for a hen & chicks bookmark. Almost. I did finish one of Kersti's on Thursday.

clothes: Tricon 2006 t-shirt & black jeans & tatted jewelry (that I made) yesterday. Today it was black jeans, Celtic knot jewelry, Lost Colony t-shirt & two new Celtic knot rings, one with a red stone.

Tired me. I slept about 10 hours & staggered around when I got up this morning. We dawdled around a bit but still got out by the time Chris had wanted to. He had a massage appointment at 1 pm and I would not enjoy idling around waiting for him. He dropped me off and I did a little cleaning this afternoon and read, etc.

I still napped for an hour in the car. I started a 4th snowflake. I have started the 3rd point when we got home.

I re-read the 2nd book of the Sharing Knife. I also read a little bit of the Witch Hunter rule book.

I watched a few of the Falcon movies on TCM. They are pretty entertaining.

clothes: black tennis shoes & jeans, black belt, same watch, dragon pendant & rings, chain mail earring with grey roses, ponytail & black t-shirt with "stained glass" knight & dragon fight.

We finally finished playing about midnight or so last night. My character almost died but it was a great game. And frankly, my character is so ineffective in combat that it's much better for someone else to be awake and her to be down.

We got to bed about 2 am and got to the con again this morning in time for our game of Order of Underworld Travellers. It's a painful adventure. It really, really is. Reed is going to be in a pissy mood for some time to come.

The second adventure of Sunday & the last one of the con, we're playing the 7th Witch Hunter adventure. Rosemary & I ended up at one table & Chris is at another.

I've been too busy gaming, taking notes, etc to read or to tat.

clothes: black tennis shoes, blue jeans, black belt, grey Siege of Yorktown t-shirt, Celtic knot earrings, flower band, hematite earrings, ~rope band, knot pendant & ponytail held by bronze jewelry clip.

Today it's Mace. We played an intro LG game this morning. I played my Greyhawk Ruins character for the 2nd time. Her name is a little complex so I use the nickname Kash. The GM & the other players appreciate that. It's her last non-Ruins game.

This afternoon we played the core special. It's basically a 2-rounder game that we played in one round. We played out Cattails & there was another one at the table. It was an APL 14 table and we pretty much took the table. The other CatTail went negative but I had Delay Death prepped & saved "her". I got to use one of my Blessed Relief cards. We finished up about an hour after the round was supposed to finish, but then again we started late.

We sat around while Chris & Rosemary updated their characters; they both leveled. We sat around and socialized while we did so and finally headed for supper & to walk Duncan almost about the same time that the evening round started. As we were leaving, someone commented that a second table of Witch Hunter had been formed. We were three of the players. So we had to hurry to our hotel, Rosemary walked Duncan while Chris got food from McD's and I changed character stuff.

We got to the game about half an hour after the game was scheduled to start. But that's okay. They knew that we were coming & were waiting for us. Again, Witch Hunter is lots of fun.

We are starting to have some running gags. M'sieur Rumor is guilty of much and Louis really likes his clothes. Katherine is charming and Richard is, well, English.

tatting: I have made a couple snowflakes & given one away.

books: I've read a couple tatting patterns & that's pretty much it. Other than some game stuff.

clothes: black suede shoes, blue jeans, grey Gran March t-shirt over long-sleeved burgundy t-shirt, same watch, Celtic triangle pendant, Celtic earrings & ring, flower band, ~rope ring, braided hair with Celtic hair elastic at top.

It's chilly & windy, getting cold. The games have been fun. The grilled chicken sandwich at Bojangles was dry.

I'm playing my second game of Witch Hunter and it's lots of fun. It's the second adventure and we have had some great lines. Louis mourns the death of the only tailor in town. And that she did not leave him a set of clothes. Or at least a recommendation of another tailor.

We pulled a good one on Paige. She was originally going to be running tonight's game. After we played our 1st game, we got the idea of asking her, 'what happened after the 1st fight. She looked a little puzzled, 'oh there's the whole half of the mod.' We led her to believe that our entire party died, aka a TPK. She was utterly horrified and started half-sputtering, does the campaign coordinator know? Has anyone told the author? etc. We finally admitted that we were yanking her chain. She took it in good part, we got her good.

Okdokay. Friday: I finished Ain't Myth-Behaving and then a couple of the Lt Leary books by David Drake. I mailed a couple pictures to Rosemary & one to Anitra.

It rained all day, which is a good thing. I was just so dead. And needing to do laundry, I wore a skirt & my tall boots (vs the rain).

We played the first Witch Hunter adventure today. Now I have to look and see if I want to change anything about my character. She was mildly helpful and did get one really good shot in to finish the bad guy. I had fun with my character's name; she's Solange-Marie Lannae Cecile Brichler.

Chris got the oil changed in his car and I need to do the same. I did finally fill the gas tank and boy, gas is just getting more & more ridiculous.

I'm taping the 1^st season of Heroes. G4 is showing 12 hours of it so I've pulled out a couple tapes to get it all.

Books: I've re-read a couple old Jayne Anne Krentz books (like Twist of Fate, Flash & Perfect Partners) and that sort of thing.

Tatting: I didn't get much farther on my necklace, just a few more rings. It was just too damp.

Clothes: Friday was khaki skirt (very straight), tall black boots, black tank top & black silk shirt printed with bamboo in taupe, grey & tan (with occasional slices of blue). I wore my tatted necklace but somehow the jump ring of the toggle came off the tatting. Luckily, I caught it before it disappeared. I also wore the matching rings.

Today it's blue jeans (my last clean pair), orange Celtic knot Ren Festival shirt, knotwork pendant & ring, ~rope ring, & knotwork earrings.

site of the day: Twenty-sider, for the gamers. It's a limited run comic that takes still from Lord of the Rings movies & overlays dialogue, etc as if a bunch of hack-n-slashers were playing the adventure (with never having heard the story before or any of its elements). Man, it is sooo funny.

got my flu shot today. Now my arm hurts. Wow, big shock.

random notes: made earrings to go with my necklace. I'm contemplating a bracelet & maybe a ring to match.

Reading Into the Looking Glass by John Ringo. Need to create a Witch Hunter & Blackmoor character by Saturday.

Cirque Eloize: Rain was incredible. And it rained during the performance. Yay!

clothes: ~slippers, black jeans, black tank top, ochre blouse, tatted necklace & earrings (I made 'em, I'm gonna wear 'em), a couple silver rings & hair worn loose.

I made it to the craft store last night. I spent too much time & a little too much money (yeah, I know, you're shocked). At least, I spent most of it on either 'need it to finish my entry' or stuff that was on sale or only $1. I was too tired to cook & didn't have enough time for a restaurant (& wasn't really in the mood either, not even take out), so I stopped by the grocery store & bought a frozen dinner. They were on sale so I bought 3 of them & I'm having one for lunch today; using my new lunch bag I got from the charity fair on Monday (kick off of the SECC campaign).

It's a fairly big deal; the State government decided a few years ago to consolidate the charity giving of its employees & to reduce/stop solicitations at work. So employees can make payroll deduction contributions to any of about 550 charities. Anybody can contribute, but only state employees can do payroll deduction. The charities range from local, city-based to international, from children, to disabled, to seniors, to health-based, to environmental & everything in-between. About 86 cents of every dollar goes to the charities, with no further overhead. The charities have to guarantee that no more than 25% of their income goes to overhead. If they go over that, after being approved, they go on probation for a year. If they continue, they go off the approved list. Since the money is payroll deducted, the state collects the money in interest-bearing accounts and distributes it on a quarterly basis. The interest also goes to the charities, based on % of the money sent (so if 10% of contributions go to the United Way, then 10% of the interest does, too). Since the money is guaranteed, per quarter, the charities can budget based on that income.

site of the day: find out about the eco-labels on your food, how accurate & truthful are they? Is that milk really organic?

Morning Commute Soundtrack: The Cry of the Wild Goose, Walk Away, Hazy Shade of Winter (Bangles), Losing Grip, In the Jailhouse Now (Gene Autry), Where Do We Go From Here, Rest in Peace, You're A Star, Vacation, & finally, I heard most of Bat Out of Hell before I got into my office.

While the washing machine & dryer did their work, I watched Bones, Cold Case, & Reaper and worked on a mini-memory book and my necklace. I did about 3 pages of the memory book & really hated the 3rd page that I did. So I stopped. I turned to my tatting.

tatting: I found some large beads that might do as the center of the bauble as well as a bag of glass globs & small marbles. The bag included some small black marbles which what I decided to use ($1 for bag versus $2 & $4 for the large bead packages, *sigh*). I loaded the thread with copper & black seed beads (1 copper, 4 black & 3 copper) and did the 1st ring for the bauble. And it's too small. The size 12 perle is quite a bit smaller than the Olympic that I used before. So I started loading the thread again (using my brand new big eye beading needle - boy is it easy to use), without taking the old one apart. I'll wait to do that until I'm completely done.

For my second try, I'm using 2 copper, 5 black & 4 copper beads and 10 ds instead of 6. We'll see if that works. I started loading the beads this morning but I had to get ready for work & did not finish.

letter: I've finished writing to my Mom's sisters now. I've started Aunt Lillian's letter but have not finished it yet. I'm going to try to mail my aunts' letters today. I still have Aunt Evelyn's, my niece's & my namesake's letters to write. I want to have them all done before I leave town.

books: I'm still reading Witch Hunter and I've sent them some errata. I haven't bothered with the typo's or anywhere in which the intent is obvious. I've only included things like the example contradicts the rule or the rule needs some expansion. In one case, I sent in a question that specifically relates to the shared world campaign, Dark Providence. I've also dipped into 1633 though and I brought a Nora Roberts anthology to work with me.

clothes: Since I'll be packing tonight, I'm keeping all my jeans for the trip. I've set out the slacks to wear to work. Today though, I'm wearing a dress. It's the blue one (like I have more than one) with the cream flowers that I wear under the navy, batiste kimono blouse. I rather think that the navy loafers detract but 'oh well.' I was going to wear my 'new' (mom gave them to me, they belonged to her but she never wears them) navy enameled earrings but they just didn't suit. Instead, it's the textured navy metal with the textured, brass cut-out over it earrings, flower fairy pendant, lapis lazuli flower ring, flower band, hematite band & my hair up in a ponytail/bun held by 2 cream curvy hairsticks. No clip watch today, I don't have anything to clip it to.

Morning commute soundtrack: (my "Wake Me Up" playlist) Walk Away, Mr. Brightside, Me & Bobby McGee, You Wanna Get Me High, Too Bad About Your Girl, Roses Grow, I Want To Be Peter Lorre, Just Like a Pill, I've Got a Theory, & started Head Over Heels as I arrived at work.

TV: Watched the new episode of Bones & nothing else of real interest.

books: finished Sex & the Psychic Witch. It was a pretty good story but more sex than I found enjoyable. I really do read romances for the plots. I started Thraxas and the Sorcerers and read one of the ebooks that I bought. Started reading Witch Hunter (gamebook).

clothes: black ~slippers & jeans, Vorkosigan polo, plaited hair, silver pendant (which is upside down I just realized), Celtic knot ring, ~rope band, hematite band, silver chain bracelet, clip watch, & ~filigree earrings.

And I'm fighting off depression. Again.