We have a freezer now. It's in the living room. Where else do you put a freezer? I'm scared when they talk about getting a washer/dryer and bashing holes through the walls to hook it up in the closet.

Well, I got some work done tonight. Webmail is fixed thanks to a package update, LVM is going as an experiment, and I found a nice substring replace() function in C. Firewalls, normally my bitch, were the bane of my existance tonight as I tried desparately to get things going on them. I guess when something is designed to "not work with a firwall or NAT system in between the client and the server", it means it, even if I wrote it :) Oh well, hopefully things will work properly when I get to work tomorrow... I've been having some weird problems with server messages and replies not working properly, but I'm pretty sure that's the SSL connection not passing data through the firewall, not random pointer related problems (fingers crossed).

I was looking forward to updating UFies.org tonight to the latest version of phpnuke, and maybe even re-theming it in something less ugly, but life wouldn't have it. Instead I had a nice relaxing dinner, a nice relaxing bath, some good coding (it's nice to see complexity go away sometimes), and an apt-get install imp fixing wacky webmail probs.

Still in the middle of Linus Torvalds' book Just For Fun. It's quite good, though I find the history of the OS more interesting than the political stuff he gets into towards the end (though seeing him tactfully say that RMS can be a weenie was kinda neat). The latest batch of MP3s need to be organized, and all my other tunes still need to be checked for dupes, bad tags (things like spaces, spelling, capitalizatiON) and so on. I'm slowly starting to suck them all across the VPN to the office where I can listen to them 8 hours a day to find ones with errors, the wrong filename/info, or virtual scratches.

Hmm... arcterex.net could use a facelift one of these days too....

08/13/2001    -{ Never Stop Breathing }-

Well, back and alive again today (yesturday), and I'm a fully certified PADI diver (yay). Sunday was spent on some (IMHO) minor skills such as navigation, some major but probably (hopefully) never used ones such as the out of air emergency swimming ascent, and using old ones (descend, ascend, etc). We had another few dives in the pool and then headed to Camp Hope for lunch, followed by 2 more dives at Lake of the Woods.

Diving at the lake was better this time, I was a lot more comfortable doing things and a lot less muck was kicked up off the bottom. After the last required skills (taking your mask off underwater and underwater navigation (go somewhere and head back, hopefully arriving at the place where you started (using a compass))) we got a tour of the lake. I have to say it wasn't that interesting. Oh it was very cool to move around underwater, to be able to not shoot to the surface or drop like a rock while skimming over the bottom, but seeing alge, rocks, and a few trees (and a beer bottle or two) just didn't crank my chain too much. I'm looking forward to going someplace interesting (even Whytecliff Park or Porteau Cove) and being able to enjoy seeing things instead of worrying about the actual diving part of it.

Minor Bitch for the Day: People who have the attitude of "I tried and no one did anything so I'm not going to bother" coupled with "I can't do this because I'm not known enough/close enough to important people/whatever, but since you (Arc) are, you can" and drop it on my shoulders that I'm the only one to make important changes that they want. Why the hell can't they do it themselves? If whoever it was that said the earth was not the center of the solar system had said, "shit man, no one likes this idea, oh well, fuck it" we'd still be living on a square earth. Changing things is not easy, and sometimes, impossible. Just because I have what I think is a good idea doesn't mean it is, however, it also doesn't I should give up if a couple of people turn their noses up at it (on that note, I'd like to bring up the subject of the "give Arc money for no reason campaign"... donations are not a tax writeoff, and are non-refundable, however, if you'd like to consider donating, please contact me immediately :)

08/11/2001    -{ Cat5 Being Thrown Out of McDonalds for Not Wearing a Shirt Made My Day }-

Well, survival was attained today in the first day of the actual pool/open water PADI tests. We all finished off the written part of the certification on friday, with myself scoring a whopping 98% (highest in the class if I may say so) tied only by Cat5 (who had to suck up to the teach to get his almost-answer approved as "OK". He's just jelous though.

So today we headed out to Hope (tooooooooo eeeeeeeeaaaaaaarrrrly!) to the pool and spend the next 3 hours jumping in and out of the pool, doing excersises like recovering a lost regulator, buddy breathing, breathing from an free flowing regulator, and emergency ascents. Everyone did great in this, with a couple of people who were a little shakey with doing things like taking their mask off at the bottom of the pool (and rightly so I might add). Everyone did awsome though, and at noon we headed to Lake Of The Woods on the north side of Hope. It's a little lake that is very popular, has a tiny little crappy beach, and a nice muddy bottom for all us rookies to stir up while trying to control our boyancy.

Boyancy is my main problem. I'm ok in the pool, I can maintain level floating underwater, but put me in real water, and I'll either drop to the bottom like a rock (not descending, that's fine, but once I'm actually at the bottom) and end up on my knees (stirring up the muck). When this happens of course I inflate my BCD (Boyancy Control Device - the vest thingy) and start shooting to the surface. Not good, especially without proper equalization, so I purge air from the BCD and end up, you guessed it, back on the bottom, with muck flying all over, making it impossible to see.

The pool is so much different from the lake. Not just the heat, or extra gear you don't have (wetsuit), but there is just something about it that is less friendly and "easy" then the pool. To be expected I suppose.

Tomorrow we were supposed to head back to the pool, but it's closed or something, so we're going someplace else. A camp or something. I assume that that means we'll do the open water part of the last couple of modules first, and then head to the pool for the final pool component. Not sure how that's going to work with the muck and grim that is so easily picked up from the ground by your boots and gear. Huge kudos to Wayne (and Cuv) for being the ones to wash the gear out tonight for us tomorrow.

08/08/2001    -{ "There is a time when sperm are past their 'sell before' date" }-

Wow, judging from the amount of mail I've gotten over the last few days, I figure a lot of people are interested in hearing how Clinton was. Well, 2 or 3 anyway. I hope that doesn't represent my entire readership for this humble little journal :)

Although Iambe has already posted her thoughts on the trip, and a decent view of what happened, it wouldn't be right not to throw my own thoughts in. The trip up wasn't that long, only about 4 hours. We drove up with fozbaca in his car full of stuff, and I got a lot of reading done (finished Xenocide on the way back actually, now I'm on to Linus' autobiography "Just for Fun"). The weather sucked leaving chilliwack, and I was not in the best of moods, forseeing 3 days of rain and misery (camping in the rain sucks in case you were wondering.... I don't enjoy it nearly as much as camping in the sun). Coming through the Fraser Canyon things improved considerably, which made me feel a lot better. By the time we arrived it was full out sun, which was very nice :)

There were a lot of people there. I never realized the SCA attracted so many people to one place! The parking lot on the side of the huge field that was being used as a campground/battleground was full of cars, and the rest of the area was full of tents. We were given only the instructions on finding our party (Cyranth and CyranthSqueeze) was "House of Juxt" (except we had no clue how to find it). To imagine how we felt, go to a large mall and go in and start looking for Bob. Just Bob, nothing else. After asking a bunch of people we thought to check the message board at the front and found a note with a map (whoho!) on how to get there. After another 20 minutes of finding the area, and then finding the people in the area that actually knew what we were looking for, we found our camp.

Tucked in near the creek showers and washrooms, it was a nice pavillion type structure from Walmart ($500 I'm told) that belonged to the Gypsie party we were camping with. It was very nice, and there was enough room around for our tents, which Scott/Roger/Cyranth had planted the day before when he came up.

My basic impressions of my first Clinton war were "wow". The garb ranged from ok rags (what myself and Engel and Foz were wearing (Iambe says we look good but I still say that's just a way of getting us to look like peasants who have lost their homes to bombing and are wearing poofy pants)) to simply amazing gear. Full armour, chainmale (chainmail?) and musketteer/rapier type garb was common and simply amazing. I'll see if I can find some pics somewhere online and post, because some of these guys (and gals, but I'll get to them in a moment) looked amazing.

The women's garb on the other hand (aside from our own ladies, who looked awsome) was also amazing. Again, they ranged from ho-hum, to, well, wow. Lets just say that cleavage was in back in those days (apparently when a lady bows to you it's an invitation to check the cleavage) and some went as bellydancers (again, wow). The lady dancing in the tavern in the gold chainmale (chainmail?) bikini top was quite impressive (I hope that the metal links weren't cold!).

The camp was as I said before, basically a big field. It had all the amenities of home though, if your home was in the 600AD-1600AD period. Latrines were all around, as well as a Tavern where you could get your beer and conversation at night. Behind it were showers with real hot water and a bread making place called the somethingorotherthaticantremember Bun. There were firepits for the bardic circles and woods all around, as well as a couple of streams, one of which was the Clinton water supply.

Over the next two days I watched the war, rapier fighting, hung out in the evening, browsed the marketplace, and sat in on a bardic circle or two. The venders in the market area were pretty cool. You could get anything from food, tarot reading and a massage, mugs and clothing, weapons (both steel and the competition type that you can actually bash another person with without killing them) and armour etc. A armour helmet can set you back $250-$450. A knife or sword is between $5 for a tiny little knife to $450 for a huge and beautiful double handed sword with some awsome metalwork on the handle and hilt. I accomplished my goal of owning a sword on the last day by picking up a small sword (not a knife, a full length sword (for a short person anyway)) for a cheap $44. Nothing special looking, but a sword nonetheless. The "steel" "sharps" are used for decoration only, but certainly add the the effect when you are in medievil garb wandering around. Some of the venders were just re-sellers of stuff from medievil shops, but a lot sold their own warez and were in their SCA life, venders. Pretty cool. I'll see if I can get a pic of me and the sword (which hacks up a dead airmatress just great by the way).

There were classes going on in the day on everything from intro to rapier fighting (fencing) to "the art of lechery" and "the art of bedwarming". At one point wandering around I came across either a lesson or a demonstration or just plain fun at the tavern where they were doing knife fighting. 30ish people, 20ish knives. The knives were the shortswords used by rapier fighters (made of rattan, covered with soft stuff as not to hurt of course). Basically the knives went on the middle table, the people stood around the edges in their protective gear, and on a signal, well, last man standing. You are trained to realize the concequences of the location and harndness of a hit, so that if you got hit on the arm you put it behind your back as it's out of commission, or ignore light hits... honor system and chivilry make you (hopefully) honestly take a "killing" blow appropriately. Lets just say that not all rapier fighters are all gentlemanly and chivilrous. People were falling over dead and being stepped on, and there were honest questions before of "can we throw people/hide behind the bar". It was very cool to see the the chaos that ensued when the signal was given.

In the evenings sometimes we sat around the fire, and sometimes wandered. The Tavern of course was "the" place to be. It was very cool to see the assortment of people in their costumes sitting around and playing drinking games, chatting, or flirting with the bellydancers. The second night I sat around on a bardic circle where guys with decent voices were telling stories, singing songs, and in one case, singing medievil version of Arrogant Worms songs ("Me Like Hockey" was "Me Like Battle").

Probably the neatest aspect for me was the ability to get away. No technology, no email, no computers. Hell, even I wasn't there. In the SCA you assume the persona of a person who would have lived in that period. It's done "as it should have been, not as it was" because in those days 99% of the people were poor farmers who were going to die of hunger or illness before they were 30. So you become someone else. You are no longer a pasty faced programmer but now you are a spanish swordfighter banished from his homeland and crossing the country with the gypsies (or whatever). Even with just a new name you can easily drop into a world where you introduce yourself as someone else and that is who you are taken for. And the same with other people. In the SCA "every woman is beautiful and every man is handsome". It basically re-enforces good manners, which only helps with the illusion of this other life. It was great to drop out of my life into someone else's and imagine that I was in fact wandering around a camp and saying "M'Lady, M'Lord" to the lords and ladies that crossed my path. In this modern day saying "hello" to a perfect stranger (or 10) on the street would be viewed as very strange, but in such an environment, it was completely commonplace, and not that hard to do. A shy person such as myself was completely left behind as I assumed my new name and persona.

A lot of the good time and interesting things I learnt there are due to our gracious hosts (many thanks to all of you whose names I don't remember) and the "beginners introduction to the SCA" and "introduction to medievil chivilry in the SCA" booklets. These proclaimed things like "Chivilry is basically another way of drinking lots of someone else's booze and having sex with strangers". Sounds like my kind of party, not that I did much of that of course. It'll be much more fun next year or next event when I have better clothes, training, and maybe will be able to participate in the war.

Speaking of the war, it was fucking awsome. Imagine 200-500 people per side, all in full armour, weilding swords and shields, with the light fighters behind them with bows, crossbows, and as hammer-throwers. They march togeather and amid shouts of "wheel right!" "wheel left!" they collide in a mass of dust and sweat and thrash at each other, the guys with pole lances trying to reach through the wall of shields protecting the knights. Wow. Part of what appealed me is I've never been involved in that sort of mass organized combat. Maybe something like football is like that, but I never played football. I also like the idea of the rapier fighting, with it's gentlemanly attitude and skill with the sword required. However, after seeing the knights go at it, I'm not sure. I guess you can do both eh?

Anyway, to make a long story short.... "had fun, bought a sword".

08/02/2001    -{ Stranger Noises Than I Ever Imagined Coming From My Nose }-

2:38am
Why did I know it was going to be another of those nights.... First, yesturday, then this evening, then now.

Yesturday me and Firefly were talking about the long weekend. Basically three things presented themselves as things that could be done.

1. I suggested we drive up to Clinton for the day to see the SCA war that is going on there.
2. The idea of driving to Edmonton to visit people was presented.
3. The idea of flying to Edmonton to visit people was presented.
4. The idea sitting around all weekend and relaxing, doing nothing, or at least, doing nothing of consequence.
5. The compromise, where she gets a flight to Edmonton and I sit around doing nothing.