Perkusi here.

It's been an incredibly shocking two days so far. I can't say much more than what has already been said in the media. I'm shocked, and I'm outraged at the attacks on New York and Washington.

I spent a little time on CL yesterday just trying to check up on some folks I hadn't heard from. I didn't do much else. An exile whose clicker is French spoke to me at length abut his concerns. He is worried that America's armed forces and president will act rashly and violently. He thinks peaceful solutions are best. I understand his worries, but I respectfully disagree that peaceful action will do anything to stop these kinds of attacks from happening again in the future. It hasn't worked so far. Certain countries have harbored known terrorists for years without regard for justice, and our requests to turn over indicted perpetrators of terrorist acts have not been honored by the governments of these countries.

I wish peaceful talks would work. I really do. I do not wish to witness the tragic loss of life through warfare, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. But unless terrorists are turned over by their host governments, military action is sure to come. I hope it doesn't come to that, but I'm prepared to support action taken against countries who support, defend, or hide known terrorists.

All we can do is hope that these terrorists will be uprooted by their host countries and handed over to be judged for their horrific acts.
posted 11:29 AM | link | 3 comments

Tuesday, September 04, 2001

Well, let's see, it's Bav again.

Great to hear you are on the mend Rich! Kudos to you for taking care of him Terri!

Xan, I do believe you are right. Our paths have not often, if ever crossed in the lands, something we will have to try to remedy!

Ok, I promised to blither about my basement and home follies. BTW, I live in MD, about 45 minutes north of Washington DC. Anyway, Thursday, our county had severe thunderstorms. I mean flash flood stuff. So, I thought little of it, drove home, got soaked, came inside and prepared to go to a friend's small gathering of girlfriends for a night of female bonding. I called her to make sure it was still on. Smart move on my part. Yes, she was having the party, but it caused me to look out my side door at the driveway to see that it was submerged in water. Now, this had only ever happened once before, and that was when a hose burst and the force of the water caused it to seep into the basement and into the sump pump. The pump drains out into the edge of the driveway. Seeing this made me want to check and see if indeed there was water coming in from that same window. Well, I went downstairs to the basement, which is unfinished, and saw water. And not near the sump pump. Now, just to let you know, at the bottom of the basement stairs is a door leading outside. To the right of the stairs is the laundry/water heater/furnace/shelving area/room. There was NO water on the floor there. Bad sign since there was quite an ugly puddle of it in the larger box filled room of the basement and it had no intention of going anywhere near the sump pump. Incidentally, there was in fact water streaming down the wall from that pesky window, but it flowed into the sump pump with no trouble.

I've of course discovered all of this while on the phone with my friend Cheryl, who was quite the cheerleader/morale booster. She has experienced such things before and gave me some hints. She was a huge help. We would have had a lot more damage if it weren't for her. It should be noted here that this is the first house I have ever lived in that has a basement. Kirk was of course at work. He works in McLean Virginia, over 40 miles one way from our house through some of the nastiest traffic in the country. He was in a meeting, and I told him about the basement. He gave me some more suggestions, and I told him in no uncertain terms that our basement being flooded was more important than a meeting. He actually agreed with me, (good move on his part cause I was in no mood for opposition) and started home. It still took him 2 and a half hours to get home, but at least he came home earlier than he otherwise would have. I "drew" a line of water to the sump pump with a broom and in theory it started to trickle in. This was not super effective though...

Back to the puddle. I found out that the water was streaming in from the door to the outside. No big surprise there since we knew the drain outside that door is what Kirk calls a "ha ha" drain. the drain pipe is about 3 inches long and drains into dirt around the foundation. Nice... So, I see that this situation is not going to get better unless I bail out some of the water in the stairwell. So, I got a really great stairmaster workout without ever having to go to the gym! I should have home crises more often, it would make me more fit and trim then the gym ever could... I did this twice. The reason I did it twice is because the rain let up for a little bit, so once I got it below the door sill, I stopped bailing. I then got the wet/dry vacuum and proceeded to suck up the standing water in the basement while casually evaluating the damage.

The torrential downpour started again so I was back outside bailing. In between all that my friend Linda's husband called and offered to come over to help since he had to pick Linda up at the airport that evening and our house is 5 minutes from there. As it turns out, BWI had a lightning strike and radar was out for over 5 hours, so she did not get in until 3am or so.

Kirk finally gets home. Now, I have been working non stop since around 5:30pm, and it's now about 8:30pm. Now that Kirk is home, we shop vac up the water in the stair well, and start the box and damage inventory in earnest. He praised my efforts, and after about an hour we realized we had very little that was destroyed. In fact, it was just a few books and actual boxes. because I moved things soon after finding them, it saved a lot of things from being destroyed.

Our friend Andrew showed up as we finished inventory on the last box and we found that he had brought us a pizza for dinner. What a nice thing to do. He said since we were working so hard he figured we had not eaten, so he picked it up for us. He was of course 100% correct. We hadn't eaten and were REALLY famished. Kirk started talking about sweet & sour meow meow, so Andrew had perfect timing! Calvin and Hobbes were relieved to say the least.

I took Friday off since we got to bed after midnight and I had worked my tail off. Not to mention the fact that I had my first wedding dress fitting in Alexandria VA at 3:00pm on Friday and I wanted to be fresh for it. Since I was leaving work early anyway, I saw no point in draggin' my butt out of bed and called my boss' assistant (who is one of my bridesmaids) and told her I wasn't coming in.

So, all in all it was a positive experience. Kirk & I were very lucky that we did not lose more than we did, and I got to learn about the fun of having a basement! A true character builing experience. And wow are shop vac's awesome! Well, I've rambled enough for one post, even though there is so much more to talk about in this weekend. So, more next time...

Cheers!

Bav/Liz
posted 6:17 PM | link | 5 comments

Saturday, September 01, 2001

One sign of severe illness in someone who likes to play on the computer is a sudden urge to lay on the couch and watch really bad TV all day.....

On Tuesday, Rich (Kodo's clicker) had come home early from work and said he didn't feel too good. By Thursday things had gotten fairly bad, and he had a nasty fever going. On Friday we shuffled off to the doctor, which turned out to be a good thing since the infection was bacterial and was causing a good deal of trouble. The doctor said Rich was very dehydrated and needed to drink 2 GALLONS of water and Gatorade per day. The doc said we could opt for a hospital stay to have IV fluids and meds. Ha! No way in hell that Rich would choose hospital over home, given a choice.

So, home we go, antibiotics in hand. (Yay for doctor's sample supplies.) I run off to grab different flavors of Gatorade. For varieties sake, we've found that it's fun to mix flavors of Gatorade. Not only are the flavors more interesting, the colors are astounding! I highly recommend this for entertainment value. (We are easily amused, I must say.)

Today is Saturday, and there is much improvement. The most marked sign of this improvement is that he's being a wise-ass again. He better enjoy my taking the teasing for now, because he knows that as soon as he's really well, I'm gonna clobber him. :-D

Rich now dreads hearing me ask for the umpteenth time, "need me to fill your glass?" He's drinking grass-green Gatorade and water mixture at the moment. Next color will be electric blue, I think.
posted 3:49 PM | link | 8 comments

Friday, August 31, 2001

Greetings all! I am new to the journal, but not new to Clan Lord. I am SWC Bavmorda. I'm one of those players that suffers from what Shepherd calls "Single Personality Syndrome." And Yes, Sleipnir, I am really a female.

A little bit about me for those who don't know me.

I'm getting married to HWC Eijo on October 20, 2001 and since that is less than 2 months away, I am a certified basket case. Hopefully this condition will subside shortly. I'll keep you all posted. (I think it's called bridal psychosis, or maybe that's just what I call it.)

Eijo & I have 2 cats, Calvin & Hobbes who may or may not be the subject of future posts. We also have a house. It's a fixer-upper and may be the subject of future posts as well. In fact, our basement flooded yesterday and we are having more storm activity as I type. I'll probably devote a post to that little 'character building' event in the next few days...

And, I am a founding member of the Rat Bastard Clan, so keep that in mind when reading my posts or comments as the tongue should be firmly inserted in cheek when reading anything I type. Sarcasm is a way of life, not just an attitude...

Anyway, I think that's about it for intro stuff.

I just got finished having a great time DC Diving with many of my favorite exiles. Perkusi, Worf, Peet, Luther, Eijo, Thirteenth Rat and many others were charging into the DC. We even managed to kill a Liche with only 2 members of the party falling! Perkusi & I found out we make a great healer team! Anyway, thanks to all who were part of that adventure, it was a great deal of fun for me.

And then there was the "Evening with Honor"... I'll let everyone know when a film of that is available. It's worth the viewing if you weren't on line for it. A classic Rat Bastards Prank...

Cheers - Bav
posted 10:38 PM | link | 14 comments

Tuesday, August 28, 2001

(Look, an IC post! Really!)

Zenna (Perkusi and Chrono's daughter) joined Rising Claw recently. Yay! Now, if only Perkusi could get Zenna to work on her speech. Poor thing never can quite get all those grammar rules down. And her pronunciation. Sigh... what's a mother to do? I have her working with a tutor in the library. Zenna wants to improve though, so she's really focusing on herself. She's getting older, almost into Zo puberty, and she's starting to notice boys. That is scary. But she still loves to run around bashing things. She is such a true Zo!

Barding has taken a back seat to parenting and rescue healing. But I still write an occasional new song. My instrument box is getting a bit full. I actually got one instrument by accident. Hee! Koric didn't realize what it takes to find out if a part was good or not. He handed me an old metal pot and asked me if it was any good. I took it to Hendrux, thinking Koric meant for me to have it. OOPS! Well, I felt really badly about it, but it was too late. So, I got a casserole, and now I have to write songs for it or I'll feel even worse!

I still try to collect instrument parts for bard questers. But it seems the need is much less now, so I'm not working as avidly as I did once before. I've heard that people are selling instrument parts again for pretty high prices, though. Grrrr. Well, I understand to some degree, but it irks me. It's especially annoying when the seller doesn't care if the part is useful or not. I mean, come on! Who would pay 2K for some special weapon or healer item only to have it fall apart in their hands before they even use it? But there are those who have racked up the coins over time who will pay 2K for antlers without stipulating that they'll pay only if they work.

One person chided me for handing out parts because they see that as "instant gratification." I disagree. I rarely hand a part to someone who is a new quester. I usually let people try on their own for a good while. This person has a set of antlers that they want to sell for over 1K. Well, buying parts for exorbitant prices is just another form of instant gratification. So that whole argument against instant gratification is hogwash, in my opinion. They are just out for profit, and they are using a flimsy argument to mask their own greed. The sad thing is, I really respect this exile, and never before had I seen this attitude from them. Hell, he came by and handed me a bunch of coins out of the blue one day, just because I was there. So this whole argument is baffling me.

So, which is worse? Instant gratification because Quester X has a ton of coins at their disposal, or instant gratification because I happened to wander by Quester X and hand them a part that might or might not work? Of course, I'm leaving out a bunch of other questers. There are the ones who search on their own over and over, but who usually never find anything because all these other folks with more time or better luck stumble upon the parts randomly. These questers are the ones who suffer the most from this kind of situation. And, frankly, they complain the least. I admire them, and hope that someday more citizens of Puddleby might just see the value of handing a part to a long-term quester without thought for any monetary compensation.
posted 10:32 AM | link | 4 comments

Thursday, August 23, 2001

Greetings! I can't believe that fall is closing in on us. School begins next week for my boys. Since the end of the school year last spring, my time has been passing quickly. Too many things to do, too little time.

It has been a great summer, however. I have seen my husband Jeff regain his lost zeal. I have seen my kids be able to be kids again. I have found a part of myself that I feared was lost forever.

Jeff has been busy as usual this summer. (He is a pastor, for those that don't know.) Summers consist of groups ranging in size from 130 to 5, coming from all over the nation to help out on the reservation. He serves as Missionary to the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska. This is an unusual mission in that the tribe approached the church asking for them to send a man to work among them. Jeff is that man. I think there have been 7 or so groups in for one week events this summer.

In between the groups we have been able to have some fun. As has been well documented, there was the Red Quill gathering in June. Much fun was had by all! The only disappointment was that Syndir did not show up as he had hoped.

More recently we were able to get away and head back to Chicago to meet the man behind Sleipnir. We stayed with Shepherd and Txara (Jon-Richard and Laura). It is amazing how because of this silly game, true friendships can form. I had always been very intimidated by The Knight, so this weekend I was a little nervous.

The four of us made our way through the concrete and smog to the airport to meet the famous rock-star/co-founder of the Red Quill. We watched as everyone exited the plane, annalyzing each one for a glimmer of recognition. As soon as we saw the red, tussled locks, we knew it had to be him. Hugs and handshakes all around.

The weekend has been well documented on other sights, so I will not bore you with details of what we did and where we went. But I must say that James is a true gentleman, polite, kind, quick witted and a pleasure to be around...except when he is sleeping. We all stayed up way too late for such old folks. When we finally did shut off the lights, I shared the living room with Jeff and James. Trying to sleep in the same room with these two is not recommended nor is it restful. I had always heard that most men of a certain age bracket snore, I now have evidence to support that claim.

The next morning Jeff and I had to head home. One of the huge disadvantages to meeting Clan Lord players is that most of the live too far away to visit frequently. ::sigh:: It will be too long until we see dear James again.

The very next weekend (the weekend that has just passed) Jon-Richard came to visit us in Nebraska. Odd that I've seen him more IRL than I have in Puddleby this summer. But that is a good thing. I do wish that Laura had been able to join him on his trip. Jeff and I do so enjoy them both. Ah, youth and idealism...I remember that.

I was a bit nervous to read Jon-Richard's blog after his visit. I was expecting a scathing report. He didn't complain about the food, sleeping on the couch, the kids .... nothing. Odd, I do hope he is well. Laura, please keep an eye on him for me, I'm a bit worried.

See ya in Puddleby,
Xan
posted 9:07 PM | link | 8 comments

Sunday, August 19, 2001

(this began as a nice post, but turned into a rant) from SWC Perkusi....

The school where I teach is private, K-12. The high school starts tomorrow, and I'll have my first chorus rehearsal with them on Tuesday. A lot of teachers dread going back to school, or at least they act like it. I love going back and getting started, so this week will be fun for me! And in a couple more weeks the grade school and middle school get started, and I'll be in full swing.

For those that don't know, I'm a music teacher. Duh! :-D I teach general music in grades 4-5, 4-5th grade chorus, 6-8 grade girls chorus, 6-8th grade band, a high school chorus of about 45 students, and an elective chamber chorus. I also sing with a group called Austin Vocal Arts Ensemble, a chorus of about 30 members that perform a varied and difficult repertoire of choral music.

There's that old addage, "Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach." For obvious reasons, this addage makes me a bit miffed. While there are some very unmotivated, untalented people out there teaching, I personally don't know a single teacher who fits that particular characterization. In the US, Mr. Bush (our "esteemed" president) is just making things worse for teachers. Standardized testing on a national scale forces schools to teach to a test in order to keep their funding. But the purpose of school is to teach kids HOW to learn, along with WHAT to learn. When schools are competing for funds based on standardize testing, you can bet your ass the teachers are under pressure to ditch their own creative, useful curriculum and instead just get those scores up. Yay for homogenized, boring education. Blah.

So many good, qualified teachers leave teaching within the first 3 years. Why? Lack of support from administration, especially in terms of discipline. Kids are getting away with murder, literally. A friend of mine quit teaching middle school English after 23 years of teaching when she started getting death threats and her keys were stolen by a student. Why did they threaten her? She assigned too much homework. And how does our country address this kind of rediculous student behavior? More standardized testing. Metal detectors at doorways. But not a single person in Congress is willing to stand up and say "hey, parents, DO YOUR JOB!" Cowards.

I'll be the first to admit that there are parents out there who try diligently to do all the right things but who have kids who are still major problems. But they are not the norm. There are parents who blatantly display a lack of support for anything the school asks of their child, whether it be homework, self-discipline, artistic work, or respect for teachers and peers. Without the support of parents, a school can't do a damned thing about a problem child. So, the cycle continues. Parenting of children who don't have good parenting at home falls on the institution of education. What a horrible burden to place on those teachers who already do so much for so little reward.

Ok, enough rant. I guess you know where I stand on public education. Not all public schools are bad. I know this. But the trend toward stifling creativity in education frightens me.
posted 12:04 PM | link | 17 comments

Saturday, August 11, 2001

As many of you have heard before, I really enjoy meeting CL clickers. Well, most of them. *grin* I think it's time for another Texas CL Meet-n-Greet in Austin. More details to come. I'm thinking October, sometime. It's not limited to people who live in Texas, of course. Phineas has come all the way from Boston for 2 of these already, plus a Rising Claw gathering in Dallas.

I hope we find a few more Texas CL players while we're at it!

posted 7:59 AM | link | 7 comments