Mead update

Last night we check the Mead. She's still fermenting. A bubble in the fermenter lock about every 25-30 seconds. We took a reading with the hydrometer. We got a reading of 1.032. So to figure the Alcohol, we subtract the O.G. (1.104) with the gravity, (1.032), and multiply that by 105.

1.104 - 1.032 = 0.072
0.072 x 105 = 7.56 percent alcohol.

According to The Complete Joy of Home Brewing Book by Charlie Papazian and the recipe we (mostly) used falls close to the 8.95%-11.25% range.

Orienteering

For those that don't know what Orienteering is, it's the skill and sport of Navigating the Land with a map and Compass.

Last weekend I decided not to stay at home and rest like I said I would but instead, decided to go and help out the Greater Phoenix Orienteering Club with their land navigation class. Twice a year, usually in the end of March/first of April and End of October, they have a Land Nav Class. So if you are ever lost in the wilderness, (which I have been) and you have a map and compass (which I didn't have when I was lost, so it really wouldn't have helped me out) you get find your way back to civilization. At any rate, if you love the outdoors and don't like sticking to trails like me, I highly recommend learning Map and compass skills.

Here are some pretty pictures I took while out Orienteering.

Desert Thistle
First is lovely picture of a Desert Thistle. I know thistles are weeds but it's still pretty plant.



Field of Wild flowers and cactus.



Tomatio (sp)
I'm not sure how you spell it, but this plant was shown to us by one of the students. She had tons of knowledge on plants said this plant's fruit is eatable. I did eat some of the berries and I'm still alive, yeah! The berries are the size of small jelly beans and if cut open have small seeds like tomatoes and has a taste very similar to tomatoes. Although I don't like tomatoes, and I could detect a hint of tomato flavoring, but it had more appealing taste.



Birds Nest in Cactus





Roblas Butte



Picketpost Mountain



And now for a little learning lesson on Orienteering.

Boxed Y
A Boxed Y is is term for a reentrant junctions. First a reentrant is the valleys of hills. Look at the picture below, and try to visualize where water would travel if it were raining hard enough to cause flash flooding.



Rivers and creeks are also examples of reentrant, but they are usually referred to as rivers and creeks. But if there was no water in the rivers and creeks then you have a reentrant. A reentrant junction is where two reentrants meet.

I've drawn where the reentrant junction are at.



On a Topographical Map all land features looks something like this. Land features are drawn in brown. Keep in mind this is not the same hill in the previous photos.



Can you see all the valleys? They are the represented by all the V's. The hills are more U shaped lines.



Now if you were to draw the reentrant junctions you have Y's like the the previous photo showed. The name Boxed Y comes from the way the contour lines box in the reentrant junctions.



Hope this helps a little and you found it entertaining.

ARF Recap

2008 marked the fifth year I worked the Arizona Renaissance Festival. This year was the 20th Anniversary of the Arizona Renaissance Festival. As always it was fun, and probably the best weather we had for an entire run. At least since I started working there. We had no rainy day, a couple overcast and cold days. No snowy days like last year. No days canceled like the last two years. A couple days were on the rather warm side but no hot days.

I was out there with the Lion Share, an improve troupe of Pirates Honest Merchant Sailors. We were up to our normal shenanigans like Robbing the taxes, Invading the Royal Pavilion, Blowing up bridges, Kidnapping the Lord Mayor and the Lady Lord Mayor. Swag Stacking, and getting patrons to walk the plank.

Swag staking is a game we play with a bunch of swag, or booty, (pause so you can giggle at the word booty).... Ok it's a bunch of junk; cups, candle sticks, plates, other various pieces of metal that we stack on top of one another in an effort to see how tall we can get it. The record was 24 pieces of swag. The record was set by 2 kids, 7-8ish, up in Flagstaff during Ren in the Pines. This year we set the record to 29 pieces of swag after 2 other kids set a new record of 27. We were determine to beat the record after the kids set to 27 with dumb luck using no reason to pieces they selected to place on top of the previous piece.

This year we were part of the open gate show. We started the show. It starts with us stumbling drunk towards the gate singing what do you do with a drunken sailor as loud as we can and then demand to be let in. Then we remember we have the keys to the village that we won from the Lord Mayor in a game cards the previous night. But none of the keys work. Then Dittle runs us off. We return with a bigger key. Two kegs of gunpowder. Then as boy is trying to lit the fuse Dittle comes back and calls for the Lord Mayor and we run off. We then dress boy up as a princess and sneak in with the Royal procession only to kicked out as opening canon goes off.

Toll Free Troll Bridge
Another bit we did, not a new idea mind you, but still it's fun. We sit on a bridge and wait for patron to cross the bridge, then you stop them and get them to pay a toll. The toll was One Pirate joke. If they don't know one help them with it. We start off by saying, "What's a Pirate's favorite..." Then wait for them or ask them to fill in the blank with a noun. After they say something, we say "We don't know, what is a Pirate's favorite (insert patrons noun)" Then they usually laugh because we just caught them not knowing the punchline. But it doesn't matter whatever they say, whether in makes sense or not We laugh like its the funniest thing we ever heard and tell them they may pass. If I had a dime for every time I heard the one about the pirate walking into the bar with a ships wheel hanging around pelvic area. Well I'd be a rich man. For those that don't know the punch line, it's driving me nuts.

With the recent success of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean there are too many pirates. Everyone wants to be a pirate, and well we kind of are redundant. So next year, the Lions Share Pirates maybe a dance troupe. Assuming we get enough musicians and dancers.

Why I'm a libertarian with a small-l

The core belief of libertarianism is Liberty and Freedom, the non-initiation of force. The belief that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want, as long as you do not harm anyone. For the most part the Libertarian Party believes this as well. There is even a pledge you must take before you become an official party member. The Pledge is,

"I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT I DO NOT BELIEVE IN OR ADVOCATE THE INITIATION OF FORCE AS A MEANS OF ACHIEVING POLITICAL OR SOCIAL GOALS."

Sounds good so far, then why am I not a party member. Well first of all I don't like collectivist terms like; Democrat, Republican, Caucasian, Black or African-American, American, Islamic, Christian, etc. I don't like labels, and I don't what to be group in with them. I don't even like to call myself a small-l libertarian. But our culture is fixated with labels, collecting and classify people. To me this dehumanizes all of us. When I go to vote, I want to vote for a person not a party. So I read all I can on the people running and then I vote for the person I think is best suited to keep my freedoms free (which few we have left now). Granted I tend to vote for more Libertarians then not when they're running for a position, but I'm not voting for the party. I'd like to see the party system be done away with, or at least the R, D, L, I, next to peoples names be done away with. Even if all it does is make the Republicans and Democrat Party-line voters do at least some research as to who's in the party they support.

Second I see the Libertarian Party as somewhat of contradiction. Here you have a party that doesn't believe in the initiation of force, working within the government system. Government by it's very nature is initiation of force. If you don't believe me quit paying your taxes, it's your money isn't it? Quit registering your vehicle, you bought it, it's yours, right? Quit obeying laws that don't harm others, where's the crime, who was hurt? See how long it takes before the government sends men after you, men with guns I might add, to take away your freedom by throwing you in jail or prison. Government is force. If I might paraphrase Mao Zedong

Government extends from the barrel of the gun.

Lastly, but it sort of ties into the previous reason. Last week, Mike Gravel announced that he was joining the Libertarian party. So I went over to the Libertarian party website to see what they had to say about this and they seem to be in support of this. There is even a quote from the Libertarian Party Executive Director, Shane Cory.

"We're honored to have a former member of the United States Senate join our ranks,"

Now I agree with Mike on the War on Irag, War on Drugs, Same-sex Marriage, and some of his other issues. But Mike Gravel is not a Libertarian. IMO, he is a socialist. He believes in Taxes (a different form a taxation, but a tax is a tax), Universal Healthcare, Social Security, Government Education. If he was a Libertarian he would not believe in use of force to steal your money (taxes) so he could give it to a failing government Education, a socialist government run Healthcare System, a bankrupt government Social Security program. Let me keep my money, all of it and let me decide how to spend it on; Education, Healthcare and my own Retirement. And let me do it in a FREE Market, free of government control and regulation. Thats what a Libertarian would advocate. Since the Libertarian Party is endorsing him, this tells me, the Libertarian Party is no better then the Democratic or Republican Party. And their non-initiation of force pledge is meaningless.

Gaming recap

Last week I had 2 games, first the Eberron game, and then the second mini-session of my 7th Sea game.

Eberron
The Eberron game was fun, we talked about our place in the world, each given a reason to be on the same road together all traveling to King-Crossing. But other then that no reason to work together. The weather turns bad and we all took shelter in a near by ruin that just happen to be revealed by a resent lightning strike. Another lighting strike shakes the earth and causes a door to blast open. We were attacked by panicked rats. After the rats were gone we still had no reason to work together nor given an incentive to investigate the ruins. But knowing that our GM probably had nothing for us unless we investigate the ruins, Matt and I start to poke around. We enter a room and attacked by some lesser outside. After it was killed we discover a ring and continued to investigate the ruins. This is were we ended for the night.

The adventure was a module, so it is very generic, which is fine. I guess I was hoping for more intrigue then just a dungeon crawl. We will see what happens next.

7th Sea
The 2nd-session of my new 7th Sea game picked up with our characters on the run from the Musketeers. I felt the session went really good, and I'm just about ready to introduce the B-Story as they work through the A-Story. Basically How I want to run the game is like this,

A-Story Starts < - > A-Story Middle < - > A-Story Climax
. . . . . . . B-Story Starts < - > B-Story Middle < - > B-Story Climax
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-Story Starts < - > C-Story Middle < - > C-Story Climax

So at any time 3 separate story arcs are going on at the same time. With the touch of Soap-Opera drama thrown into the mix.