BaRonan

April event thoughts

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:58:26 GMT

I'm on a roll this morning for some reason. Perhaps I just don't want to be here today. :)

Anyone interested in invading Atlantia April 15th? Night on the Town VIII, Crownsville, MD. Pascual went last year and had a blast. If you aren't familiar with Crownsville, it's the town that the MD Renfair is located in. I'm also thinking about day tripping Balfar's Challenge April 29th.

Fencing thoughts

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:32:58 GMT

I went to Iron Bog last week and enjoyed having a change in scenery for practice. As long as they still have the practice I want to try to may hit that practice a little more often.

I also haven't been able to give Rowan the same detailed training at Piscataway for some reason. It seems to be a challenge to get footwork and drills done in Piscataway for some reason. The practice lends itself to just playing for some reason. Blood Guard still has the school in Toms River, and Rowan has asked if I would consider coming back down on Wednesdays to work specifically on teaching her without the distractions.

At the same time I really want to try to hit the Bhakail practice a little more. There are a number of the tadcasters who I want to fence a little more regularly at the moment.

I'm just not sure how to balance all of this in my schedule. Thoughts?

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 14:54:59 GMT

Got this from one of the guys in Creative Services this morning. It is what the Ipod packaging would look like if it were redesigned by Microsoft. Pretty amusing, and at the same time earily accurate I think.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4313772690011721857&q=iPod

I also came across the following on /. from yesterday, but thought it was just to cool. Since I've already created two other journal entries for today, I'm just going to add it to this one. It is a comparison via screenshots of games from 20 years ago to their counterparts today. WOW!

http://gadgets.fosfor.se/gaming-now-and-then/

Oracle Sucks

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 21:51:38 GMT

I normally would hide the following behind a cut, but I am just so angry at Oracle at the moment that I need to make it as public as possible. Sorry for those of you who aren't interested in it.

Had my phone interview with Oracle yesterday. At the end of the interview the license consultant informed me of how helpful I was and how detailed my server worksheet was, and that now he needed to schedule a date to conduct an on site review to confirm that my numbers were accurate. I told him my staff and I are busy, swamped even for the next month or two because of Sarbanes auditing, scheduled projects and preparing to move everyone from Lawrenceville and Langhorne to Bristol, but the sooner the better as I really wanted to get this over with. Well I'm off the phone, after being polite to him and I am livid. I informed my Director and VP of what happened, and decided I should move a couple of tables I have sitting on one database to express edition since they are small and I'm not sure if the users hitting them would exceed my license, so better safe then sorry. Express edition is free with unlimited use, limited to only use one cpu, one gig of memory and 4 gig of tablespace. All perfectly fine for the data I'm moving. I reviewed our licensing, and we are definitely in compliance. I even hired an outside Oracle consultant/reseller to come in and review everything. It was questionable last year this time, but since the purchase of the company people have quit, others were fired, few if any have been hired, and I've consolidated a couple of servers. So I know we are in compliance. So whats the big deal? Oracle and my employer have LONG have had a bad relationship. They more or less bullied us last year because we were out of compliance by 1 cpu, that if we didn't purchase it by a given time frame we would be handed over for full audit. When we realized we were out of compliance we agreed to pay to fix the problem, it took a while to get the money approved because we were being sold. That is just one of the more recent issues. So the fact that they were now auditing us now was injury on a still fresh wound. The insult came when after preparing all the documentation, having an external consultant verify we were in compliance no only by the standards we bought the licenses, but by today's even stricter standards. That we got a letter saying we had to provide them with server and database documentation in 10 days, and upon completing such on time they waited a month to conduct the phone interview to without hesitation at the end of the interview inform me they wanted to come on site. Why bother putting me thru the work, effort and stress of the documentation and phone interview if you were going to come out anyway. I spent nearly an hour this afternoon screaming at my Account Manager about Oracle's conduct as a company. I couldn't argue a single of my issues, but said his hands were tied and asked me what I wanted him to do. I told him I want him on the phone with his boss, a regional VP for Oracle and someone in charge of the license management. One of the letters that went out to Oracle this morning wrote

"We have been Oracle customers for nearly 10 years. [We] pay over $120,000 a year in maintenance...which is basically nothing but an annuity for Oracle since you provide us basically zero support and new business solutions. We are in the process of making strategic ERP decisions. AND NOW YOU WANT TO WASTE MORE OF OUR TIME AUDITING US? Like I said...incredulous, a waste of time, AND BAD BUSINESS!

Needless to say, this "annuity" and our use of Oracle products is now under review. We're looking at alternatives for your products."

I wrote the following to the account manager a little later this afternoon after talking to him

"Did I mention how irate I am with Oracle's behavior as a company and how I am personally insulted and offended that after making me go thru the paperwork and phone interview, that oracle feels it necessary to now come on site to 'verify my numbers.' This implies they feel I am either dishonest, or not capable of doing my job. The former highly offends me personally, the latter, well why don't you pull the records from Oracle Education on the thousands of dollars spent the last couple of years to train myself, and my department at Oracle's own training facilities. One is due to be in Berwyn for training not even two weeks from now."

I am just so ANGRY! I like the product, but I am just not willing to deal with them as a company any longer. My account manager should have been the first to get people on the phone with me, not me telling him I wanted it. He has physically been to our facilities and seen the documentation of hardware and databases as we tried to consolidate a year ago.

So I will get to hopefully vent to a couple of VP's. I doubt it will stop them from showing up on site, and at this point I invite it, they are going down in flames and if they insist on it, I am all the more willing to help them trully go down in flames. The servers are in compliance, and once they have certified it, the license consultant will be given a letter on the way out the door informing Oracle we will no longer do business with them and notifying them of the cancellation of the first of many support contracts as we migrate to other platforms.

Destreza

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 17:18:21 GMT

So I've been exploring Spanish Circle with Pascual for the past year. He and I had talked about choreographing a demonstration for 12th night that we just never had the time to prepare. With the whole Marshalled A&S category now, I think it would be great to demonstrate more historical combat both to the populace but also to the general public.

I've always found that the demo's we do at West Windsor and Lakewood, especially on the marshal side were more of our playtime with little to show them that we really are a historical re-enactment group. I'm hoping that by documenting some of the research on Destreza perhaps I can come up with a hand out about spanish rapier, and put on a choreographed demonstration, perhaps followed by some free bouting. Knowing the audience, and knowing they want to be entertained I want to entertain and yet also educate them, that this really is how things happened.

Anyway, I've started looking for translations of Carranza and Narvaez. I've already found some material on William Wilson's site. I am wondering though if I should just relearn spanish and try translating the original treatise. Master Keyard and Master Albert have both given me some great advice so far, I still have a couple more people to talk to.

I also think once I finish working on Rowan's dagger qual, I'm going to start teaching her spanish circle. She is a little more available at practice for me to work with then Pascual lately, and once I have taught her some of the basics I can start looking at choreographing with her, and practicing the choreographed fight.

D&D character quiz

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 15:32:22 GMT

So I never really thought about what D&D character I am, and I always tend to play a certain character, but decided to take the What D&D character are you quiz that was filtering it's way thru the Sharc list. Surprise!

I'm a :

Chaotic Evil Human Barbarian

Alignment:
Chaotic Evil characters are the most 'evil' people out there. They are willing to do anything to get ahead, and will kill anyone who stands in their way. A chaotic evil person sees no value in order and governments, and believes to the utmost in the tenant that 'Might Makes Right'.

Race:
Humans are the 'average' race. They have the shortest life spans, and because of this, they tend to avoid the racial prejudices that other races are known for. They are also very curious and tend to live 'for the moment'.

Primary Class:
Barbarians live outside the 'civilized' They have tribal goverments, and are often nomads. What they may lack in refinement is balanced by there strength of individual character and ability to survive.

--------------------------
I should say, I tied between Ranger and Barbarian, it took me a minute to figure out why it assigned me to Barbarian, it was that I was Evil. I tend to play Ranger's a lot, I guess I've missed the subtle slip from good to evil. :)

"I'm really not that evil, I just neeeeded to kill them."

In related news, I got Battle for Middle Earth 2 last night. It's really incredible. Being a sequal to EA's smash hit that was only released last year, it includes a ton of great new features. It's not broken up by nation as much as by race. Men, Elves, Dwarves, Isengard, Mordor, and Goblins (all the critters that didn't make it into any of the other factions). The graphics seem to have been improved as well, significantly! One of the neat new additions though has been the addition of creating your own hero's. You can custom build the appearance and abilities to create your own avatar in the game. I would have liked to have seen more options for altering the appearance more, which I don't think should have taken to much effort on their part, but overall I am really impressed. If K&Q Rapier weren't this weekend I think I would have spent the entire weekend playing! So Star Wars: Empire at War, after 2 and a half weeks goes back on the shelf for a couple of months until I get bored with BFME2 and need a break. Really I don't see that happening much, as I've still been playing BFME regularly for pretty much the entire year since it was released.

conterfeits

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 16:10:45 GMT

Found the following article on /. this morning and thought I would share with people.

"According to PC World, more and more counterfeit hardware is coming to market each year. From the article: '...batteries aren't the only tech item that counterfeiters love. In October 2004, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials in Anchorage, Alaska, seized 20,000 suspected fake Memorex USB memory key thumb drives from Asia. And last year, Miami officials seized 900 allegedly phony laptops valued at $700,000. "Maybe it's a laptop, an MP3 player, or a component like a DVD drive--anything in the digital world can be counterfeited," says Therese Randazzo, a U.S. Customs Service counterfeiting expert."

Ever wonder how some of those stores were able to give such great prices on name brand items?

techno/dance tchaikovsky/classical

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 17:39:39 GMT

Okay, so I was in Hoagie Haven a week or two ago and they had some kind of techno/dance music on that was Tchaikovsky with a dance mix beat to it. It might have even been the 1812 overture. I really am dying to listen to it now, and have no idea where to look. Does anyone have any information on classical music that has been remixed to be techno/dance?

Deleted Revenge scenes

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 14:15:55 GMT

Found mention of the deleted scenes on the upcoming release of Revenge of the Sith on DVD.

"several deleted scenes finished with complete visual effects and audio mixing (including Anakin and Obi-Wan infiltrating Grievous's battle cruiser, multiple scenes of the formation of the Rebel Alliance with Padme, Bail Organa and Mon Mothma, Grievous killing Shaak Ti and Yoda's arrival on Dagobah),"

color

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 04:06:22 GMT

you are darkturquoise
#00CED1

Your dominant hues are green and blue. You're smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people's conflicts well.

Your saturation level is very high - you are all about getting things done. The world may think you work too hard but you have a lot to show for it, and it keeps you going. You shouldn't be afraid to lead people, because if you're doing it, it'll be done right.

Your outlook on life is brighter than most people's. You like the idea of influencing things for the better and find hope in situations where others might give up. You're not exactly a bouncy sunshine but things in your world generally look up.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Coronets

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 16:17:09 GMT

WHEE!

I got to help make two baronial coronets last night. It was so cool! I got to cut them out of stainless and then sand them to clean the edges. Kelson then did the fluting and put the brass rivets in. But it's a start and I had a LOT of fun doing it. I got to see him working on his Ducal coronet. So I've decided after waiting over a year now for my coronet from Drachenstein, I think I'm going to cancel my order and make my metal coronet myself with some help from Kelson. I'm thinking of mocking it up in stainless, which will give me a travel coronet that is relatively durable and inexpensive that I can wear regardless of rain, and take with me to places like Estrella without as much worry to it being damaged or lost. Then I will make one out of silver for the experience, that I can use as my court piece. YAY! Maybe I can then make metal coronets for friends in the future.

What?

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 14:22:52 GMT

In an interesting article this morning on slashdot about Ipod and other personal music players possible leading to people going deaf at earlier ages. Is there nothing safe? This as I have been thinking over the last six months that I really would like a new MP3 player or portable XM radio. The new Ipod nano is cool. I happen to work in one of those noisy environments. The Customer Service and Telemarketing Departments are just have a row behind me, so I can hear them all day. When I'm not being bombarded with noise from them, it is because I am in a noising server room, or equally noisy conference/meeting. Is peace, quiet, and sanity a thing of the past? Perhaps I should get new batteries for my noise cancelling headphones. I find I don't have to turn up the volume as much when I turn them on. Of course I'm sure in another 5 years they will say something bad about them as well.

from www.slashdot.org:
"Ars Technica and Wired News are both running interesting articles on how personal music players are a major contributor [ArsTechnica] to early hearing loss [Wired]. According the ArsTechnica article, an increasing number of people are now living in "noisy" environments that is only made worse by blocking it out with even louder music. The article also suggests that listening to music for one hour a day is considered safe. So now you have a choice... go deaf early or go insane listening to your coworkers chatter."

So I've been in doing consulting the last couple of nights. My client has a couple of PC's that sit by themselves in offices that are sattelite to their main one. The main office is pretty secure, Anti-Spyware on all the machines, Hardware Firewall on the network, software firewalls on the PC's, regularly updated antivirus software and PC Updates. Many of the same precautions were taken with the Satellite PC's, but they have all managed to suddenly be infected by Spyware. One of them had over 200 signatures present. So I update Spybot, Adaware, and download the Microsoft AntiSpyware tool. Run all three until they all claim the machine is clean. I turn on the computer last night, and immediately a popup tries to display. WTF! So tonight I wipe the machine, format the drive and reinstall Win2k, Adaware/Spybot/MSASW, Anti-virus, and Zonealarm. I informed them that when it comes time to replace their file server I am recomending a Sun E450 with Solaris 9, just as a safety option. It will handle all their file serving needs, and be immune to any virus' or spyware their office might ever contract. Not to mention I've had good luck at picking them up relatively inexpensively refurbished. Then it's just a matter of using Samba to share the file system out to their PC's.

Oh and now I get a call from the plant analyst in Pomona saying he is being let go in December, because they are ceasing China production in Pomona in November. They are keeping Gorham sterling production, but that is really a drop in the bucket of what is produced at the plant. I feel bad for all the people who will be out of a job because of this. :(

So I am off to visit Bhakail this week for practice. Saturday and Sunday will be Lakewood. I expect I will get at least one challenge this weekend for the Iron Ring. Ian is running the Baronial Rapier Champions Tourney Saturday, I think I'm going to play Sunday's fencing by ear.

Fencing

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 14:03:00 GMT

Okay, so I likely deserve to be beaten for this, but I was planning on going to Bhakail tonight, and it is looking less and less likely that I can make it tonight. My fencing gear is up with Edmund, so for me to make Bhakail I would have to drive up to Piscataway and then all the way back down to Bhakail. The way my week has been, that likely isn't happening tonight. I meant to pick up my gear earlier this week but work has pretty much made that almost impossible. So I will plan instead to hit Bhakail next week. Sorry to everyone I meant to fence tonight that I won't get a chance too.

bite me?

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 00:23:21 GMT

You scored as Louie. You are the passive oh whoe is me type look at it this way you"ll live forever!

</td>

Louie

83%

Dracula

75%

Deacon Frost

75%

Armand

67%

Akasha

67%

Lestat

50%

Marius

50%

Spike

42%

Angel

25%

Blade

Whose your Vampire personality? (images)
created with QuizFarm.com

Zombie's just shouldn't smile

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 16:29:23 GMT

You know they really aren't as impressive when they smile. Speaking of zombies and smiling, I saw Shawn of the Dead on DVD at target the other day for $10.

http://flickr.com/groups/vancouver_zombiewalk_2005/pool/

Other amusements include the Angry Alien 30 second movie re-enactments as protrayed by bunnies. Niki sent me the Rocky Horror one last night, and they are just to funny.

http://www.angryalien.com/

tic toc

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 15:31:45 GMT

So today is our company picnic, and it is looking more and more like I am stuck here in the office. Being able to come in wearing shorts was nice though. But it is making today feel like it should be friday and I just can't wait to go home.

Fencing tonight. YAY! I'm heading up to Piscataway this week, and Philly next week. This will be the first time I've gotten to fence since Champions, so I am completely ready and looking forward to it.

The shop sewing the canvas for my Yurt called with questions the other day. I think I've done the math and consulted with Pat to verify my information, so I think I can probably call them back today with the correct answers. Hopefully this means I will soon have a finished yurt. Not sure if I want to take the Yurt to Crusades now or not. If I cabin it, I can probably manage to hit crusades with my sebring rather then the new jeep. Gas prices being as they are, this would be a good thing, as my sebring is at least 23mpg, where I think the jeep is going to be something like 15-16.

Animality

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 21:54:56 GMT

Stolen from so many it seems, it's the muppet meme. I really should just go home and bang on da drum, err doumbek.

You are Animal.
You are completely nuts, but fun to be around.

SPECIAL TALENTS:
Drums, Women, Food.
HOBBIES:
Drums, Women, Food.

FAVORITE EXPRESSIONS:
"Louder!", "Food now!" and
"Want Woman!"

LAST BOOK EATEN:
"The Musicians' Guide to Drums, Women &
Food"

NEVER LEAVES HOME WITHOUT:
An appetite.

What Muppet are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 14:15:46 GMT

stolen from several people.....

You scored as Aquarius. You seem to have many of the qualities of an aquarian, even though you probably are not one.

Aquarians are known to like: Dreaming, Fun and Good Companions

Aquarians are known to dislike: Imitations, The Ordinary and Loneliness

See All Results/Comment

</td>

Pisces

79%

Aquarius

79%

Cancer

79%

Taurus

71%

Scorpio

63%

Libra

54%

Virgo

50%

Gemini

46%

Capricorn

46%

Aries

46%

Leo

34%

Sagittarius

33%

Which Sign of the Zodiac Would've Suited You Most
created with QuizFarm.com

:)

Thu, 04 Aug 2005 22:29:31 GMT

stolen from Pascual.

Your Mood Ring is Orange

Stimulating ideas
Daring
Full of desires

Mood Ring Generator

the sky is falling

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 14:41:57 GMT

So I've been having a series of things break lately. :(

Last weekend it was the railing down the stairs to my den. It was damaged last year when the previous owners were moving out, the metal was bent and it had ripped a small part of the wall away at the top of the railing. I didn't stop to think that it was still under tension, until Sunday morning I woke up to find it had pulled even further, completely off the wall at the top of the stairs, and left a nice size hole in the wall. Okay something I really need to fix now. Then last night I had an electronics failure. I went down stairs after a long day at work to sit and watch tv, and I turned on my replay, and just got a series of green vertical bars. Fortunately it isn't the tv, because I was able to tune the cable box and the dvd player fine, but it looks like either the component video in my replay, or the entire replay is shot. :( Glad I have seen all the new scifi friday season so far.

Hmm, I get my annual review this afternoon, maybe the raise will help pay for a new replay/tivo if in fact my unit is dead.

Really all of these things are just trivial, everything ultimately is still good in the grand scheme of things.

so very tired

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 04:46:45 GMT

Okay, I got home about 15 minutes ago.

I learned a valuable lesson this evening. I can't fight heavy and fence in the same day. I just don't have the energy level yet. I give so much into what I do, that it leaves me zombified when I do the other. I actually had to tell someone this evening after doing both that my brain had shut down. Really what was happening was it was a scene from Charlie Brown. They were talking, and all I really heard was 'Wa Waa, Wa Waa, wa wa wa waaa'.

On the good side I got my spear qual. Do to an accident of the marshals and I not doing paperwork on Saturday, and some luck and good friends in the right places, the spear auth will go in with my sword and shield auth, and I will be able to fight spear at Pennsic. YAY!

Xavier and Emaline gave me my OGR gift this evening too. Since they were my cadet siblings, they bought me one of the sterling silver OGR pins like I had bought Mercedes for her Birthday.

For those of you who are using me as a small arms dealer, the 30" weapons have arrived. Owynn, Antonio, Xavier, and I have ours already. Emaline got a standard size weapon that looks like it is 2" shorter then requested, so I guess I contact Scott tomorrow about returning the blade and having him send a longer one back.

Anyway, it is time for bed.

Wow

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 15:20:35 GMT

Wow!

So I had an incredible Saturday!

I got all armored up for heavy, and then stood around for a couple of hours waiting for a helm, and then marshals, and then a helm again and finally Kelson looked at me and told me to put on his helm, arm harness and take his own sword and shield. So I went a couple of swings with Seamus, he kept taking my leg. Picked up the first dent in my leg armor, and very small bruise behind it. I was still in fencing mode, I was trying to move to much. Blocked a lot of his shots with my sword rather then my shield. Got knocked backwards at one point while stepping back and got knocked off balance and onto my back. I felt like a giant turtle trying to get back up. I really haven't been practicing for sword and board, I had really be practicing for spear. Hmm, oh well, it seems I passed. The new Earl Marshal was one of my marshals, and he said I moved a lot which was good, but needed to learn to block more with my shield. I think I might actually be wired to fight two sword and spear or even great sword better then sword and shield. Anyway, I think they went easy on me because they know I am not looking to fight in tournament, but be a speed bump in the melee's at Pennsic while experienced fighters kill the people I have slowed.

Court was great! I made it onto the Rapier Champions team. Third year on the team, fourth actually if you count the one year I was an alternate. Then Jean-Paul got sent on Quest for loosing his OGR Medallion. It looked like they were going to give him three quests as punishment, but then they called up Pascual and Caine and gave distributed all of the quests evently among the three. Then they called me up. Kelson started out with, how they should give me a quest for loosing my OGR medallion, but that wait, I didn't have one to loose. So they called up the companions of the Golden Rapier and made me an OGR. I am still really excited. But Not enough time to really expound all my thoughts on this at the moment. Mercedes gave me her hat pin, made by Master Gregory Finche; Ricardo gave me a medallion made by Her Highness Roxane and Mistress Saviya; and then at the restaraunt; Xavier and Emaline gave me a card that said my pin was in the mail and I would have it soon, that they had bought me a pin like I had bought Mercedes recently. Oh, and I have a lovely scroll which was illuminated and calligraphied by Mistress Nataliia, and the wording done by Master Fergus.

So I had a REALLY good Saturday. :) More thoughts on this later when I have more time.

HA Ha ha?

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 21:07:58 GMT

LOL. I think it feared my godlike Nerdiness.

Personally I don't see it, I always figured I was more of a geek. Why weren't there any questions about knowing or having had dinner with Rasmus? Do I not get extra credit for having met and talked with Dr. Sally Ride? Or for knowing the goofball that pranked the JesUx operating system?

Peeved

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 19:05:58 GMT

Wow, I really need to get out of New England more. This was my distraction from being pissed btw.

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

As for my mood well, let's just say someone made a snarky comment at work, thinking that by keeping to a whisper I wouldn't hear it sitting in the cube next to the one they were visiting. They are so lucky I am not their boss, I already consider them a pretty useless part of the IT department, as I think they are a bit of a freeloader who just hasn't been caught yet.

As it is I had a database dead this morning, as disks failed this morning, and took the database with it. :( I've been able to recover the database, and I have spent the past three hours reloading last nights data from the AS/400.

I am so glad tonight is fencing.

pedigreed

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 15:01:18 GMT

So I checked the SCA laural LoAR this morning and saw they had put up a new letter. So if an AoA is the pedigree, I guess this means that now that I have an accepted name and device that my pedigree is legitimate now? Well in SCA terms at least. :)

Name and device. Azure, a lynx rampant argent, a chief rayonny Or.