A doctor friend was recently opining that "some guy" is responsible for about 80% of ER visits from violent crimes, and if we can just find him we'll all be better off. "For instance", he said, "you get reports like 'there I was, sitting on my front porch at 3AM reading my bible and minding my own business, when Some Guy shot me!'". Err, this might be more challenging than he thinks.

I caused a telemarketer to violate the script this weekend. I was lured in by him pronouncing my name correctly, so I didn't immediately detect his true nature. Then he said "I'm calling from the PA Pro-Life Commission" (or some such) and I interrupted and said "you really have a wrong number". He stopped mid-shpiel and apologized. Negative points for calling in the first place but positive points for not persisting. And maybe this one will actually put me on their do-not-call list.

A random thought: in this age of global communication, when giving an email correspondent your phone number it is polite to mention your time zone. On the internet nobody knows you're a dog, and also, nobody knows you're in Bangladesh. Or wherever. Fortunately, Google can answer these sorts of questions pretty easily given the phone number, unless it's a cell phone.

Saturday is a local SCA event, Dance and Romance. It's a free event (pot-luck food) at Pitt, and as the name implies, there will be a lot of dancing. Ensemble Rigodon (that's On the Mark's SCA identity) will be doing a short concert, and lots of us will undoubtedly be playing dance music all day. Should be fun!

(Translation for non-SCA people: autocrat = convention chair = organizer.)

I used to; I've run about a dozen events, give or take, some small and some large. It's been several years since I did so. I haven't posted a reply to the mailing list (the silence has been deafening, actually), but I've been thinking about my reasons (which I wouldn't post there in these words, but this is my journal).

First there's the Shabbat problem; almost all SCA events are held on Saturdays (or, less-commonly here, over weekends). There's no reason an event can't be held on a Sunday, but people don't seem to like the idea when I bring it up. But I'm going to set this issue aside for the moment, because if this were the only barrier I'd push the officers for permission and I'd run a successful Sunday event and that would prove the point.

I would not be willing to autocrat an event that collects the corporate tax, because I find it offensive, deceitful, and actively harmful to the long-term health of the SCA. Free events (which don't collect this tax) are certainly possible (we've had them recently), but they do limit the options a bit. It would take some work to convince the officers to go along with one that isn't held on a university campus, but that's what I'd want to do. We've got some officers who are staunchly pro-tax, so this could end up politicizing the event before it gets off the ground, which would be unfortunate. I'm not afraid of the fight at officers' meeting; I'm mildly afraid of the consequences. But that's a relatively minor point, I think.

A big reason that I don't autocrat any more is stamina. The autocrat is expected to be first on site and last to leave. Yes, you recruit people to help with setup and cleanup, but the autocrat is expected to be an active participant in those activities too. It looks bad if the autocrat goes home early, or sits there while cleanup happens. I do not hold such things against an autocrat, because I've been there, but I've heard enough to conclude that most people haven't been and do. I'm just not up for the extra-long day like I used to be. And that would be harder on a Sunday because of the need to be at work Monday morning. (Tangent: running an event is not attractive enough for me to be willing to spend a vacation day.)

For a while we've had some vocal members who expect every event to cater to the needs of every sub-group. I've seen autocrats get publicly chewed out for not having organized children's activities, for instance -- and I have not seen the populace rise to the autocrats' defense. There's been a bit of a trend in the other direction recently; yesterday's event had fighting and fencing and schmoozing but no feast and no other organized activities, and I didn't hear any complaints about that. If this keeps up I'll re-evaluate this point. And while I'm perfectly willing to tell someone he's being unreasonable (especially if he's doing the entitlement thing rather than the volunteer thing), the existence of the mindset does make me ask myself "do you want to invite hassle?".

Writing that helped me realize something important. Autocratting used to be fun -- just my way of pitching in. Now it seems like a job, with more demands and less personal pleasure, and it's a job I don't need to take on -- so I'm not inclined to take it on. Am I getting old and cranky? Maybe. Am I less invested in a group that has done some annoying things over the last decade or so, and thus less inclined to help out in ways I don't enjoy? Yeah, I think so.

Autocratting isn't fun any more, but cooking still is. If we had a Sunday event (that does not collect the tax) I would be delighted to cook the feast, if someone else were to be the autocrat. But I think we've got more interested cooks than interested autocrats, and the others can cook on Saturdays and don't mind the tax, so I doubt I'll ever get the opportunity to cook another feast.

Saturday Dani and I went to AEthelmearc War Practice at Cooper's Lake. ( Read more... )

There are only two classes at the upcoming Academy (SCA event) that specifically interest me. (Thanks, dagonell, for the list.) Naturally, they are scheduled against each other. Sigh. (They weren't on the previous draft.) There are some classes that I wouldn't mind taking so it's probably worth going, mind; I'm just a little frustrated. (The advance information doesn't include names of teachers [update: just added, yay], which could make a difference for classes I wouldn't attend just based on title. A good teacher can make all the difference, and we have some of those in this kingdom.) Still, it looks like a weaker slate than I'm used to.

A news story reported that someone was convicted of "attempted first-degree intentional homicide". I thought the difference between homicide and manslaughter was intent, meaning there's no such thing as unintentional homicide. So I'm assuming sloppy writing here, though I'll admit to being a little confused at times about the degree thing, which might be relevant. My impression is that "first degree homicide" means "I specifically meant to kill you, in cold blood if necessary, you scum", that "third degree manslaughter" means "I was doing something I should have known could kill someone, but I sure didn't mean to kill or hurt anyone, let alone you specifically", and that everything else falls in between.

To the writers on West Wing: we want our characters back; could you repeat the ransom demand?

The relevant network [1] moved Jack and Bobby into the same time slot as West Wing. That's a smart move, as the show seems to be aimed at the same viewers (though the shows are very different) and WW is floundering. But I also wonder how much scheduling actually matters these days; doesn't just about every TV-viewing household have at least one recording device? Competing shows aren't the problem they once were.

[1] Yeah, branding is real effective on me... I notice the intrusive logo on the screen but just don't retain the data, and the VCR takes care of remembering what channel it's on.

I missed the morning service, alas, because Dani and I went to the kingdom academy event in Erie. (Why do the good things all have to pile onto the same weekends?) The event was being held in a synagogue's school, and part of the agreement was that members of the congregation could attend the classes, so the folks in charge asked me to organize a track of classes on Jewish topics. That went pretty well overall, though the number of congregants wasn't high and dwindled over the day. We had an overview class taught by Eleazar ha-Levi (the person who wrote the Complete Anachronist issue a couple years back), a class on the Khazars which was very good, a class on Salamone Rossi and his music taught by lefkowitzga which was also very good, a class on Hebrew poetry, and a class on Hebrew manuscripts. The organizers had asked for some sort of round-table discussion, so I finished with an item called "being Jewish in the SCA". I left it fairly open so that we could talk about whatever people wanted to discuss -- choosing a persona, coping with feasts, tricks for attending events on Shabbat, and so on. None of the congregants showed up, though; it ended up being me, Eleazar, and Remus, who isn't Jewish but was just curious.

There was no formal feast but they had a buffet out all day (starting with the first break in classes). The food was varied and mostly low-key; I wonder if they did it as a quasi-pot-luck, with members of the host group each bringing something. Either they did not use the synagogue kitchen or the kitchen isn't kosher; that much I'm sure of. :-) So maybe the former; that would be consistent with the dishes that were there, all of which could stand up to being driven in from elsewhere. We've had events at sites where either there was no kitchen or we weren't allowed to use it; it's a challenge, but it can be done.

The event ended early and there was a dinner expedition forming, but Shabbat still had two hours to run so we had to decline. Pity the event didn't run later (and that it was held so close to the summer solstice :-) ). Oh well.

Since people were spread out I didn't get a feel for how many were there, but it seemed like a good turnout. I sometimes wonder if the academy events plan too many tracks of simultaneous classes for the number of people who come, but it seemed to have worked. I wonder if lyev got enough people for each class in his dance track.

This Wednesday Dani is heading off to a gaming convention (Origins). He has signed up mostly for games he's never played before, which is a good way to survey what's out there. I wonder how many he'll come home with this year. :-)

The choir had a discussion about Pennsic and beyond at the most recent practice. I'm not sure what will come of it. We will have a Pennsic performance, though the group is small and someone will be filling in as director. We won't have some of the material we were planning to have for it, but we'll have enough. Eh. It's not the performance we wanted to have, but it will do.

As we were walking in from the car, we ran into Prince Rurik and one of his retainers. Rurik is a great guy, and he seemed to be happy to see us. (I didn't really think he knew us from Adam. Pleasant surprise.) He insisted on giving us his retainer long enough to carry our cooler (which I was carrying) to the main area, which I thought was really nice. I tried to decline, on the theory that reigning royalty probably needs the help more than I do, but he insisted. This is the same Rurik who pretty much always helps clean up events, including when he was royalty last time. He's a great example of courtesy and supporting the society.

While we were eating lunch, Degan (one of my apprentices) introduced us to two friends of his at their first event. They're Jewish, and it sounds like one of them is less observant than he wants to be, and we talked a little about Shabbat/SCA stuff, but they all had to run off to a class so we didn't talk for long. I had hoped to run into them again later in the day, but it didn't happen. I hope they enjoyed themselves. They seemed like nice people.

I've finally seen hound-coursing! I keep showing up to events where "that happened this morning" and missing it. It's been growing in AEthelmearc over the last year or so. I saw four greyhounds (heh -- I didn't know they come in non-grey too). They were using a piece of plastic for the lure, with a cord and several pullies to form a "course". I only saw two dogs run it, and both of them got distracted by other things moving through the tall grass and had to be nudged, but they did both tackle the plastic in the end. It makes me wonder how they solved that problem in period, when (I presume) grass was not neatly trimmed the way it tends to be today. The person I spoke with didn't know; I speculated about setting the pullies higher off the ground, and she said that there were some places that were specifically set up for coursing and maybe those lawns were more carefully tended. (I am assuming that at least sometimes, coursing in period involved lures rather than rabbits, and that said lures had to be rigged somehow. I don't know how, though. I hope in time the folks doing it now move away from plastic to some other (non-live) lure.)

I finally connected with dagonell again in person (it's been a long time), and we spent a couple hours chatting. That was fun. I also saw Lia, a fellow music geek (from West Virginia) for the first time in a while. There were several people I missed, but large events are like that.

Court was long. Baronial court had what I thought was a poor balance of schtick to real business; some of that would have worked better at smaller events. Kingdom court ran more smoothly, except that it seemed that a third or so of the people who were receiving awards had to be fetched from their camps. Oops. Several people I know received well-deserved awards. I'm partcularly happy about the Fleur (grant-level arts award) for Leifr for his glass-blowing.

We left not long after court. (Dani wanted to leave sooner and stop for dinner on the way home; I pointed out that we had to wait for the end of Shabbat before hitting a restaurant, so we needn't be in that much of a hurry to leave. It all worked out.) I hope that if a storm did hit last night it didn't do as much damage as Friday's, which knocked down some trees and a bunch of tents.

The SCA event was originally advertised as an event about children, Christmas, and shopping. The first two I don't do and the last I don't do on Shabbat, so I started off inclined against. And, of course, the event charged the corporate tax, which is a point against. A very deserving friend was being elevated to the peerage, which I wanted to see, but ultimately I decided that the combination of event activities, high price ($15+), and Shabbat complications argued against. (I wasn't willing to miss Shabbat services for a third event this fall, and stuff was happening before we would have gotten there.) I regret missing the elevation but I don't regret missing the event.

This afternoon I helped cook latkes for my synagogue's ("first annual") latke sale. That was fun, though I wasn't paying enough attention to repetitive motion early enough so one wrist is a little sore. I noticed it early enough that things should be fine tomorrow, though. And I learned a useful technique: form the patties by taking a slotted spoon, scooping up potato mixture, and squeezing with your other hand to send the excess moisture out through the slots while forming a spoon-shaped patty. That's much easier than pressing 'em between your hands, which is what I've done in the past.

I asked the coordinator if this fund-raiser was effective, and she said she wasn't sure yet. It replaces, in part, the annual "Jewish Food Festival", which I feel was way too much effort for too little money. And some board members fixated on it too much, and hounded other board members for not volunteering tons of time and effort to make it work. I remember one board meeting where I almost said, "Look, you're planning on tons of work to bring in $X. We have Y members. Here's $10, more than my share. You can keep the change but you have to stop pestering me." But I didn't, and we were finally able to kill it.

So this year we're doing a latke sale that probably won't raise that much money, but it's also not as much work. And they were able to graft a raffle onto it for basically no cost, so that might end up making a difference. We'll see.

There seems to be this mentality that working on fund-raising events is inherently fun and good, so even if they don't produce a lot of money you should do it. I take a more businesslike approach: if you aren't going to make a reasonable amount of money from it, you shouldn't abuse your volunteers, whose time is valuable. I would have been happy to pay an extra $10 a year in dues to never hear from the food festival again. This year I was willing to spend a few hours making latkes, but if I learn that it was basically a wash, I might not be willing to do so next year.

No one explained this aspect of the Jewish community to me, and I find it a little peculiar. When I was a kid involved in various organizations that needed to raise money, we did our best to optimize the payoff:effort ratio. I don't see that happening in my synagogue, and I get the impression it doesn't happen in others either.

Sunday dinner was fun. ralphmelton passed around a new game he picked up, My Life With Master, which looks like it could be neat. It's not a genre I'm generally fond of -- Victorian horror -- but it's almost pure role-playing, which has a lot of appeal. I'm looking forward to reading the rules. (He's written about it in his journal.)

Dessert tonight was a yummy concoction involving gingerbread cake, peaches, cranberries, whipped cream, and probably other stuff. Very pretty to look at (it was in layers in a colorless glass dish) and quite tasty.

The schedule for the evening at my synagogue was a program of some sort (mainly discussion), then a bit of a social (cookies and lemonade), and then the S'lichot service. I got there just as the social part of this was starting, so I ended up with about 15 minutes to spare. (In an ideal world I wouldn't have missed any of it, but I knew that wouldn't happen. My goal was to not miss the service.)

Traditionally S'lichot begins at midnight, but that isn't a popular idea at my synagogue. So we started around 10 and finished up around 11 or so. I'm reminded of some very pretty music that I haven't heard since Yom Kippur last year. (Most of the formal music that shows up for the high-holy-day services is too "artistic" and operatic for me, but last night's mostly wasn't like that.)

Today I learned of one glitch in the HHD part assignments, which I'll try to fix tomorrow. We have a rehearsal (more like blocking, so people know who goes where when) on Wednesday. I'm participating in the Yom Kippur morning service (I have the haftarah blessings).

Today was mostly errands and household foo. We watched two more episodes of West Wing tonight, and got a really good laugh during mostly-serious episodes. I'm glad the funny bit came right before the opening credits. :-)

Rosh Hashana is soon. I bought some extra food on spec today (chicken doesn't go bad, after all :-) ), because I ordered guests for dinner Friday and don't know yet if I'm getting them. I should know by Wedenesday. (Well, "ordered" might not be the right word. I let the person who's organizing such things know that I would welcome guests for that meal, and she'll tell me soon if I'm getting any. I have different guests for Saturday lunch already.)

The reason we got home early enough to do this is that the SCA event was enough of a disappointment that we bailed. (And for this I missed morning services? Sigh.) There were a few contributing factors. First, there wasn't much in the way of planned activities other than fighting and fencing, and the site wasn't really conducive to just schmoozing. A lot of folks I expected to see there weren't in evidence; maybe they were off doing stuff behind the scenes or maybe they weren't there, but either way, it meant I didn't get to visit with them. The advertised lunch was very disappointing in both content and quantity; I'm used to much better. Maybe I'm just spoiled because I live in a group that does a good job with food; I don't know. Many of our friends weren't staying for dinner, and I was kind of hungry from the lack of lunch, and it was cold and rainy, so after the choir performance we went home.

The choir performance went fairly well, and we had more of an audience than I thought we would given the event logistics. One member was sick and one was absent for unknown reasons, but we still had reasonable part coverage.

I got email tonight from Amazon UK telling me that the new West Wing DVD has shipped. This came as a pleasant surprise, as the published release date is Monday. With luck, we'll actually be able to watch a couple episodes before leaving town for Pesach. (I am, of course, assuming that they aren't going to close the city of Toronto due to SARS...)