It's been a while...

So I'm still here after all. Yay me!

Life continues as usual. I'm still bulldozing through school, and the graduation-shaped light at the end of the tunnel grows ever closer. In the very near future I'll be sending out resumes and beginning the serious job hunt...

This summer has been a whole lot of nothing, generally. It's been too wretchedly hot to go to SCA events, and the spare cash for fencing gear has been terribly elusive. Next month should clear that up, though, and as it turns out the Thorngill fighter practice isn't prohibitively far away. In the meantime, unless the weather sucks I'll be doing a daytrip to Red Tower next Saturday; I lost track of time and didn't manage to get a full weekend reservation in, but it's the 20th anniversary of my first event and I'm certainly not missing out on that!

Planning for the vardo project has really picked up over the last week or so. Right now I'm planning on assembling the materials in November and spending the first couple of weekends in December doing all the assembly other than putting the roof layers on, and setting up the wiring for the RV park hookup and internal lighting and outlet.. A few weekends after that should let me deal with the basic painting and decoration, and sanding and varnishing the interior bows and runners. Then the roof can go on and by late February (freezy freezy cold!) everything should be ready for a pre-Gulf War shakedown cruise.

Miscellaneous Meanderings

Two weeks and a bit since my last post, all with nothing interesting going on. The new work schedule is turning out to be very nice since I got my sleep schedule beaten into submission - more hours equals more money, and the morning shift has turned out to be much more to my liking. Of course, the rest of my life isn't much to brag about at the moment. School is going well - this term is going by VERY quickly - but I'm really ready to graduate and get on with life. Work is boring - hopefully this will change after graduation as well. And my love life is confusing and complicated and possibly driving me insane, but that is something that this blog is definitely not about.

Planning continues for the vardo project; construction should begin this fall after DragonCon and hopefully after the weather starts to cool down a bit. I've located a source for the trailer, and am planning to find someone local with the wood-related tools and skills that I don't have to cut the large, complicated bits. I'll definitely be attempting to order the template set; the assistance from that in dealing with the cutting and especially in the drilling of pilot holes will be well worth the money. Hopefully I'll be able to get in contact with the designer regarding this; otherwise I'll have to start searching for someone who built their own and still has the templates. I'm still pondering some ideas about the interior that I won't be sure about until I see some better pictures than I've found so far; I really want to set the side benches up with storage compartments, and do the same for the bed platform. Should be possible, but I'm still trying to work out the details.

Off to visit the family this weekend and celebrate America in proper style by grilling ot and setting of fireworks. Next weekend is probably a one-day visit to the July Feast SCA event (it's just too wretchedly hot for me to want to mess with state park cabins right now), and later this month is the annual Royal University event. I'll probably hit that for the whole weekend - air conditioned dorms FTW! Cool classes, too.

Anyways, back to the graph paper I go...

Scheming and Daydreaming

Much to my surprise, my Amazon order was waiting for me when I got home last night - two days ahead of the projected delivery time. I'm certainly not going to complain about that. The tin whistle book is pretty much a collection of most of the stuff that I want to learn to play that isn't in any of the books I have already (other, of course, than "March of Cambreadth" - I need to break down and shell out the small fortune for the complete Heather Alexander songbook), and I finally have "The New Gypsy Caravan". The obsessive planning can now commence at full throttle...

Looking over the diagrams and assembly instructions, it looks like the basic construction isn't going to be terribly difficult. I'll have to be very, very careful with measurements but that's a good idea with any sort of project. It occurred to me that, especially with the lack of response to my email to Mr. Lemke a couple of weeks ago, that I should look into local options for having the complicated bits (the end panels and bed frame parts, mostly)fabricated; that could work out to less than buying the kit, and would avoid the no doubt very high cost of having the kit shipped. I'll start looking into that Monday.

On another happy note, my search for a trailer may be finished. Tractor Supply sells exactly the kind of bare-bones 4x8 that I need for $350 - a nice bit lower than I'd been expecting. It doesn't have side rails, which are apparently more useful for the vardo than I'd expected, but I'd imagine I can more than compensate for that with the help of a local welding shop. I'm starting to think that I may be able to do this (exclusive of the decadent interior and the battery system I'm considering for interior mock-period lanterns and a fan) for under $1000. Can you tell that I'm getting even more excited about this??

Whoohoo! I win!

The latest round of the Battle of the Schedule has been fought and won, with a resounding victory going to me. More hours, morning / early afternoon shifts only, and no Saturday or Sunday nonsense. I can actually start going to SCA Shire meetings, and cook dinner every night, and count on being able to get to events....happy happy joy joy!

My "New Gypsy Caravan" book will allegedly be arriving Monday. I'm looking forward to really getting down to business with that.

Changes, perhaps for the better...

Alas, I have no new adventures to report on since the 5th unless my Tau army's valiant but losing struggle in a three-way battle against Chris's Orks and Josh's Imperial Guard counts. They lost this time, but the Glorious Peoples' Revolutionary Space Militia won't be down for long!

I'm still waiting for my New Gypsy Caravan book; I hadn't realized that the free shipping from Amazon involved a three day wait for the stuff to ship in the first place and then a long, long wait for the Postal Service to get it from Kentucky to Auburn. On the other hand, though, it's not exactly time sensitive - and thanks to the free shipping for orders over $25 I got the wagon book and a cool looking tin whistle tune book for about $2 more than the wagon book and better shipping would've cost. Hopefully the book will have suggestions about finding the trailer component...everything I've found so far is only 5'x8' or has so much junk welded to it that it would be very difficult to use.

It's a bit odd to say that half the people at my part time job getting fired is a good thing, but they did (there seems to have been much providing of free beer and cigarettes to friends and family members, and drinking of beer in the cooler during the work day) and it looks like it may turn into a very lucky break for me. It'll be a day or two before I know, but it looks like I may get morning shift hours in the future rather than afternoon / evening. This would be really great - I'd much rather be home in the afternoons for school stuff (go go distance learning!) and in the evenings for proper dinners and hobby time and, yes, the occasional World of Warcraft raid. And, most importantly, I apparently may get to keep my weekend time off. That's the part I'll get sticky about if I have to; I just got the SCA part of my life back and I am NOT giving that up without a fight. July is definitely fencing gear time... Anyway, fingers are crossed on this one.

And so it begins...

Finally, a small but real step into the vardo project. I was poking around on Amazon.com last night waiting to be sleepy enough to go to bed, and I noticed that they were down to one copy of "The New Gypsy Caravan", so I went ahead and ordered it. I know I still have better than 11 months to my self-imposed final deadline on it, but it'll be great to finally have the construction details on hand and be able to start really planning. I still haven't made it out to look at that trailer, though...the stupid weather has not been cooperative this week and my work schedule has been chaotic.

Blah

I am not having a fun week. I'll probably miss "All Things Middle Eastern" next weekend thanks to a cash crunch and there isn't another event in reasonable driving distance until the second week in July. I'm stuck working Friday night this week, so I'll miss the D&D game restarting after a month off. And I got hit with a larger than expected power bill that ate the cash I was saving for fencing gear.

Like I said, blah.

On the bright side, if it's not pouring rain tomorrow I should be viewing a possible trailer for the vardo project. Yay!