Contemplations of a Closet Curmudgeon

Don't get me wrong, I am a person who Makes Stuff. I applaud, support and encourage people who Make Stuff, but I have come to the conclusion that I no longer enjoy Maker Faire

An advance "discount" ticket for one day cost $24 and change. At the gate it's $30. ($20 for students, $15 for kids.) Admission to the county fair at the SAME venue costs $6 and what is Maker Fair but 4-H for stuff-makers and geeks?  Parking in a paid lot that you probably still have to walk a fair distance from costs $20 and the free lots are minimum of a mile walk from the venue (not bad for me, but Sylvia was definitely hurting on the return trek). At least one of them is in some corporation's lot in another TOWN, necessitating shuttles that can't get to the event site because of all the car traffic. So what does your ticket get you? In the door. That's it.  I can go to the antiques flea market in town and look at cool stuff for hours with a million dollar view of San Francisco Bay and better food trucks for $5!. Someone is making a packet on this, because you know they're collecting fees from any "maker" who's selling what they make ($325 for the weekend) and food concessions. (I don't know about non-selling makers simply because the website's closed that part for this year, but I suspect not as the SCA demos there). But really, the majority of exhibitors are selling (or trying to sell) what they make. Oh, and let us not forget tee shirt sales.

It's outgrown its venue. The Fair now spills out of the San Mateo County fairgrounds into one of the fairgrounds parking lots due to lack of space. (Yet another reason for the ludicrous parking situation.) The exhibition halls make me want to throw elbow strikes because they're so hideously crowded and outdoors you have to weave through the lines for food concessions, cringe your way past giant flame-throwing sculptures and cover your ears as you pass the highly amplified performance stage powered by bicycles. Walk around for an hour and it all starts to blur together into an incoherent jumble of Too Much Input. (Funny, does anyone even remember Johnny Five from "Short Circuit?" Nah, he doesn't have the cachet of R2 or Wall-E.)

What was my favorite part? Getting to spend time with James and Sylvia - who were so wiped out by the time we got back to their place we did Chinese take-out and Sylvia went to bed at 8 PM. The rest of it? I've seen the muffin cars, I've seen the giant dinosaur festooned with LEDs. I've seen the coke-and-mentos trick. I've seen R2D2 and Wall-E and the Yamato recreated in Legos. I've even done the SCA demo.

Oh and the part while we were stuck in traffic next to a bus stop and I had a conversation with a young man with a bicycle while we were sitting there not moving. That was fun.

Photos from my visit in 2009. http://www.flickr.com/photos/70104978@N00/sets/72157619035546687/

So I put some cookies in the oven and I'm going to go to the Clan Makita practice in the park with a bed sheet, a stencil, paint and paint brushes and working on a comforter cover for my camp bedding.

...but it won't be the way you remember it.

Got up stupid-early to make a 7:05 AM flight out of SFO. I periodically get email coupons from an off-site parking garage over there and had one for two free days, which was considerably cheaper than trying to go by cab or shuttle, so I used it.

Sat next wedged between two men, one of whom was plugged into a too loud iPod (if I can hear the leak from the headphones over engine noise, it's too loud) and another one who was snorting and snoring the entire time. I buried my face in the omnibus edition of the Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox. However, it's pretty hard to read when the book is bouncing up and down. Battled turbulence all the way to my 1 hour layover in Dallas-Fort Worth and of course, landed in terminal D and had to shlep to terminal A for my connection. D is shiny and new and has places to eat that don't look like they might give you food poisoning. I got off the tram, surveyed the dingy 50 year old A terminal and its fast food options and decided lunch was going to be a bag of Chex Mix and some bottled water.

More turbulence en route to Newark, but my seat mate kept his elbows to himself and was polite. I connected easily with the rental agency and figured out all the modern electronic bits of the Ford Focus they gave me before pulling out on Highway 1&9 to get to the turnpike. (Seriously, my truck is manual everything from 1999 and solving how to set the mirrors and get the seat where I needed it took me a couple minutes of squinting at likely buttons and seeing what happened.)  Zippy handling, quite comfortable and more than adequate for what I needed it for.

Dad had to teach until 8, so I stopped at the house, loaded half a dozen boxes of books I knew I didn't want into the trunk of the Focus and found my way to the local shire meeting. I knew all of three whole people there, but there were lots of new, young faces dancing, fighting or fencing in the downstairs room, and the energy seemed good. The books were well received and it was good to get some bone crushing hugs from Tanaka, Willie and Arienna.

Dad bought me a bagel for breakfast Friday and we split it. It was - disappointing. It's from the same Jewish bagel joint up the street we always got them from, but for some reason, it just didn't seem the same. I boxed up a pile of old photo albums, my antique books and the stack of newspapers and magazines from Glenn's orbit, the moon landing, Kennedy assassination and other stuff Mom had saved them from, stuck labels on them and loaded those out to go to the PO. The rest got ferried to the living room to join Dad's huge collection. A couple fellows with a van from Strand Books turned up to take them and we filled the van. I figure if I haven't missed it in ten years, someone else can enjoy it.

The curmudgeon at the PO didn't like my plain white wine boxes and attempts to Sharpie out the writing on them, so I glowered right back at the cranky old bastard, made Dad watch the boxes and went around the corner to look for a store where I could get a thicker marker. I ended up with opaque tape from the drug store up the street (and became even more pissed when I later discovered the Dollah Stowah he'd suggested I go get a marker at was not within walking distance). With everything going parcel post, my boxes of books came to about $70 or so.  

We had lunch at Matthews' Diner (mostly because Dad wanted to find out if the Goodwill across the street would take LPs). Massive diner salad, lobster bisque you could stand a spoon in, and I was done in. Kinda weird to see new businesses where old ones were, and I could feel the humidity, even though it was an otherwise lovely day. The park across the street from the house is in full spring lushness of a kind just not seen in Northern California.

Helped pack some more Dad stuff, then we did dinner at the Taipei Noodle House and saw "Five Year Engagement" which I didn't care for and he thought was funny. I like Jason Segal and Emily Blunt, but there was too much dumb guy humor for my taste.

I had messaged Sofia to see if she wanted my old riding boots and helmet - I seemed to recall she and Hana were taking lessons - and ended up making a date to drive up to Tanaka and Sofia's place in West Milford on Saturday. I'm glad I was smart enough to run it through Google Maps. It's been a LONG time and enough things have changed in the past few years that I didn't always recognize where things were when I took the car out. Still, it's a pretty drive up past the Wanaque reservoir and up to their cabin on a lake. Hana doesn't remember me at all - she was maybe two when I moved away. The new dog fell in like with me immediately. We caught up on all manner of SCA and life news and ended up watching the American release version of "Red Cliff" over plates of okonomiyaki. (I'm gonna have to pick up a copy of the Asian release on DVD at some point, I think. It was really, really good, as were the okonomiyaki.)

By the time I got back to Teaneck, Mom and Elaine had made it up from Annapolis. We had dinner at a local steakhouse which did know what medium rare was, but was insanely overpriced (everything was a la carte) for what it was, and painfully noisy. Mom and Elaine hotelled it for the night, then came by for Sunday breakfast and some more whirlwind packing of treasures, many of which somehow kept getting shoved in my carry-on duffel. Elaine headed off with Mom for a Mother's Day visit to Atlantic City, and I dragged my 40 pound carry-on (with no wheels on it, I must add) down to the Focus and said good bye to everyone.

Aside from struggling with my damn bags (which fit despite the weight so I carried 'em on), the return was uneventful. I had ice cream for dinner on my two hour layover in Dallas and managed to sleep a bit on the final leg into SFO. Was home a little after midnight and made it into work in good order this morning. However, I am sore from marching boxes up and down stairs and lugging that duffel and I think a nap is in order when I get home. Not to mention sucking it up and investing in a decent carry-on with wheels at some point....

I like the site where we have Beltane, I just loathe trying to get there on a Friday after work. I-80 was a parking lot from the maze to beyond where I got onto 580 due to an accident all the way up in Pinole. Then 101 was a parking lot in Novato where the freeway narrows near Olompali State Park. And below Petaluma. And Santa Rosa....

I did divert to the futon shop in San Rafael, acquired a traditional Japanese futon (3" thick with cotton fill) with minimum fuss or muss, then stopped again in Windsor, having previously ascertained that the northernmost Raley's/Nob Hill/BelAir was there. They can be counted upon to have block ice and the frozen fish filets that are cooler friendly, so I picked up some ahi, a ginger sesame dressing to marinate it in, a pre-packaged salad and some fruit.

I stopped again in Cloverdale to pick up a sandwich from the Subway and a roll of masking tape at the CVS, then drove the last winding bit of 128 with the moon rising and the sun starting to set at the same time. It was a bit after 8 when I made it to site. layla_lilah turned up at almost the same time, despite having left Oakland more than an hour later than I did, which should speak to traffic foo and my stops on the way.

Set up on the slope facing east just below the fence-line by a search-light moon, gave layla_lilah a hand raising the ridge poles on her bell wedge and loaned her one of my wool blankets. I also managed to give Artos a pre-vigil hug while he was getting squared away in his vigil tent before the line started to form.

It got bloody cold pretty fast, though I stopped by Toad Hall on my way back from parking my car to cop a few minutes by their firepit and say hello. Bed being the warmest place for me, I zipped into my bag on my brand new futon - and spent the next several hours not sleeping because something (either a Jack-in-the-Box sandwich I'd had for lunch or the tuna sub from Subway) had decided to make me miserable. Antacids didn't help. I ended up propping myself up with my garb bag and one of my seating cushions and finally got a couple hours' sleep.

Oatmeal for breakfast seemed to help, as did a bowl of tea. It being "Boy's Day," I wore my tattsukebakama, a short kosode with the sleeves tied back and my rather beat up "small" Japanese hat. Went to court, watched two knightings (don't really know Bjarnheddin other than by sight, but was happy to be there for Artos'), swore fealty to Their New Majesties, petted Baron Joel's "Battle of the Nations" surcote for good luck, built a kite (despite the problematic geography and uncooperative wind conditions), shmoozed with the Chateau Rose gang, murdered that poor pre-packaged salad at lunch, checked on a lady who was struggling with a sun-shade pole as I was coming back from the privy only to be told she had always wanted to meet me (so I accepted some water and sat with her for a little while), pounded down an Advil (not sure if it was lack of hydration or the peach champagne), made more rice than we were going to get through and seared ahi while layla_lilah roasted some asparagus and bell peppers for us to feast upon (OMG, tasty!) , then took several bottles of red wine that kept collecting in my kitchen and donated them to the Grasshopper tavern, as well as a tray with the rest of the Wandering Poet and some cups to ply folks with, got kissed by Sir Obadiah who was on some mad, kiss-all-the-girls tear, laughed at Fergus whipping one of his friends at a dice game, made fried rice with the dinner leftovers for breakfast, went to my first Laurel meeting and sat in the back row working on my "to be silent" skills while I get the lie of the land, sugared up a portion of the kingdom with kasutera, received a bag of coins from Master Emmerich for my donations to the Grasshopper, tore down my gear, had a break for cosmically groovy strawberry rhubarb pie with layla_lilah, finished tearing down, found a burger stand in Cloverdale and had a milkshake with layla_lilah and came home.

The new bedding is just what I want. I need to make a cover for it, though I'm debating whether or not to build in a plastic barrier layer on the bottom or simply make a separate ground sheet and Scotchguard the snot out of it.I also need to get a couple of those ratcheting cargo straps, which will make packing it for transport a lot easier.

If it's the end of April, that means it's time for the Scottish Games up in Woodland.
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Getting this in before I head up to Woodland for the weekend....

Another Friday
Waiting for the clock's release
Into the weekend.
What emergency will rise
To bite me at the last minute?

Would you believe a call from the uniform company about finding someone's wallet in his pants?

Fickle winds buffet
The branches by my window
Menacing the house.
Will they die after sunset
Or will they rattle all night?


(ICK. Not happy with this one.....)

The sunset peeps through
Chinks in a towering wall
Of glowering clouds.
It doesn't take a seer
To predict a coming storm.

Hey, Charlie One-Note!
Do you really need to greet
The world before dawn?
I might not mind as much if
You were more melodious.

There's some sort of bird in the tree on the side of the house that started a monotonous, almost mechanical chirping while it was still dark out. It's on the side I can't see from the third floor, but I can hear him through the open skylight. While we're at it, the kamikaze branch leaper slammed into the bedroom window right above my head yesterday morning at 6:40 AM.

Happy Earth Day.

EDIT:

Restive as a horse
My kite pulls against my hands
Into the bright sky.
I lean backward, squinting, and
Ride the impossible breeze.

Threw the nylon diamond kite in the back of the truck when I went out this morning to replace the bike pump. After a jaunt up to Target, I picked up some lunch and headed over to the patch between the Hornet and the soccer field, figuring it would be less crowded than the beach on a day like this. It was. This little kite is pretty simple and perfect to get one's kite flying chops back with. She bounced right up into the air from a standing start and demanded more line immediately.

Dust off the cobwebs,
Wobble down the driveway
Then pedal away.
I had not realized how
Many months I'd been off my bike.