War Practice...

Anyone planning on attending War Practice this year? Or have you heard of anyone cool that was going to be there?

-Haqim

al-halfa

Wahoo!

We had a great time, details below the cut!

We kinda got started friday night. Farouk wasn't looking forward to the event much, he's an old bear and was much more interested in hibernating than partying, but we worked it out. He gathered up the stuff we wanted to take, and I ground coffee all night. I also ground up some for myself, just in case I could get kitchen space to make turkish coffee, and did up some regular grind in case I could get up a coffee maker.

We put together 10 turkish coffee kits. Just a small 4 cup ibrik, 10 servings of coffee and 10 servings of sugar. Hopefully folks will find some use out of it. They were not expensive to put together, maybe I'll do the same and use them as materials to teach a class? We'll see what the future will bring!

We got up early saturday morning, I only had about 5 hours of sleep. We got things around and loaded up in the truck and drove down to Philly. I kept making turns too early, and we kept having to turn around and go back, but we eventually made it to the hotel just before noon. I grabbed a quick shower, and we changed into garb before heading over to the site. I got us lost a couple times, and then spotted a street with no obvious name, so I said, "That must be our street!" Sure enough, it was, haha!

We got to the site and set up a rug next to Donnallain and his crew. Farouk immediately went to speak to aelfwynn, and I caught up with Donnallain about his news. The day was mostly low key, lots of chatting and good things like that. I introduced myself to Uncle Rashid and spent a small amount of time chatting with him.

Everyone was kind enough to say they liked the coffee kits, I hope they get good use out of them.

Around 5pm, Farouk and I headed back to the hotel and got supper and short naps before returning to the site around 7pm and enjoying the jam. The kitchen staff was in the middle of clean up, and I asked Dietrich, the head cook, if I could make turkish coffee. He said it would be ok, and I flew back to our stuff and got everything out. I made around 20 cups of coffee (two pots) and shared them around the crowd with honey cookies and almonds. Folks were so kind and appreciative!

After the hafla, we returned to the hotel, where they were inflicting errrrr, I mean, PERFORMING karaoke in the lounge. Farouk and I hung out in the lobby until everyone showed up. Our people (Melissa, Woody, Achbar, Bambi, and a woman who's name I can't remember, but who did a very good rendition of a song) performed so well that I just SCREAMED! Achbar was especially impressive! I danced and moved around and yelled and sang along and clapped. Boy howdy did I have a blast. What a great group to hang out with!

Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the slow diner -- they have great food, but really slow service, it was almost like they only have a tiny grill or something. But it was awesome to hang out with everyone. Someone made a comment about Achbar having to sit down with four strangers at the feast the night before and I popped up with, "No, 4 strangers sat down with Achbar." Its cool when the good ones come right to mind like that. Achbar is especially a cool dude, I was happy I had gotten some chance to get to know him!

Lessons learned: Bring a coffee pot. It wouldn't take much room, and there were plenty of outlets. That way, I could do American coffee, if nothing else. Start on thursday nights. I would have been better if I had gotten more sleep I think. Other than that, it was just a plain old good awesome party weekend!!!

xposted to my livejournal

Massive Confusion

Pennsic was awesome, and it led to me writing the following web page. Please look at it, and then drop comments. If you make coffee from my instructions, give me credit just to grow my ego a bit :) I would especially like to hear from Roth, my coffee slave in training. Next year, I want to make bigger batches at a time. We'll see how it works.

www.ratshaven.com/sca/coffee.html

My brother Ty had a bit of good luck. It led to him being able to rent out his old house. Now, its probably about as perfect a living environment for me as possible. Way out into the woods, quiet, no neighbors, hard wood everything in the house, etc etc.

No internet. Best I could do would be dial up, and I just don't think I could work like that. So, I'm checking into a T1. Unfortunately, Satellite, DSL, cable modem, and cell modems don't look like viable options :( The people from Verizon are being a bit snooty. But, if I get a T1, I might be able to do a nice wireless router and broadcast to the neighborhood... I'd like that. I don't like that I would be moving away from my friends. Especially since they just moved in next door. Hmm...

Weight loss goes well since Pennsic, I go to be weighed tomorrow, but things have been going so well it should be cool. I'm 6 pounds from my goal weight. I've discovered evil at the super market though -- Premarinaded pork tender loins. Oh my are they good, and so easy to cook! Low fat and stuff, but hard to only eat one serving.

Ok, that's enough for a first post -- tell me what I need to know about tribes!

-Haqim