27 July 2007

Day Twenty-four at Bristol

With apologies to the Shake and Bake commercials of the 1970s.

This is a photo of the ten tumblers that I was fortunate enough to have helped to make this week!   Within this batch of beautiful handmade art glass, is represented, my very first punte work!  I simply cannot get over just how proud I am.  Thanks for bearing with me.

In the background can be seen, Shannon and her Monday/Friday apprentice Tony, working on goblets.  The goblets I watched them make today, are in the new category, Bengal Tiger! An experiment from earlier in the week, these art pieces come out striped and striated, in the colours of the animal for which they are named!  Absolutely amazing!  I fell in love at first sight, but there was only one.  Now, there are more!   Later today, Shannon told me she made quite a few, so I will be sure to go over early in the morning and choose my favourite! 

And, on into another weekend . . .

~MB

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26 July 2007
Recently I read somewhere that there are two types of people in the world. There are “Rounders” and there are “Aggregators.” I don’t recall where I read the article, so I can’t give proper credit, sadly; but the concept is so very simple. Everyone has problems, it’s how you deal with those problems that define what type of person you are. If you look at a small problem and say, “nah, that’s a tiny problem, no worries mate,” then you are a “Rounder.” If however, you look at that same problem and say to yourself, “great, just what I need another problem to screw up my life,” then you are definitely an “Aggregator.” I’ve always been an “Aggregator.” My wife is a “Rounder.” I, too, will be a “Rounder” someday, for it seems to me a much happier, healthier way to live. I laid all this out, because she and I had a row (what the hell’s a row?) on the 26th about calories. She mentioned something about caloric intake and I, in typical “Aggregator” fashion, turned it into a much bigger problem than it was. Much bigger. It bothered me all day long that I had reacted to such a simple issue in such an irrational manner. So as I was sitting in a fast-food line on my way home, I took this photo:

…and I thought, “wow, that was a tiny problem and I turned it into something huge. I shouldn’t do that. And I really should watch my caloric intake.” I left the fast-food line and went home where I had a practically tasteless, but low in calories, Healthy Choice meal. Not quite sure why “healthy food” has to equate to “yucky food” but I suppose it does. And since I’d rather be here to celebrate my 50th anniversary with my wife (our 12th is a week from this upcoming Sunday), I suppose “yucky food” is it.
Cheers.

~KR (26 July 2007)

Listening to:
Was it Worth It? by Pet Shop Boys
on Discography: The Complete Singles Collection

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26 July 2007

Day Twenty-three at Bristol

Thunderstorms last night (wonderful sleeping weather!) made for a later than planned start to the work in the glass studio this morning.  But, once we got going, we rocked!  I began my day by learning to use the grinder on the marver table.  The marver table is a large, very heavy steel table (in Renaissance times it would have been a marble slab) used as a work surface for picking up colour, and shaping the molten glass into the tubular shape needed before a bubble of air can be blown into it.  In a rainstorm, in a renfaire setting, the studio gets wet around the edges, and the marver table rusts!  So, as the apprentice today, I got to bring the table up to snuff, as it were.  My arms vibrated for nearly an hour after I was done! 

Shannon made tumblers today—and I helped on the first two or three just like always—preparing pipes, setting out colour, paddling, and torching the piece just before it gets put away.  But, then, I got a great surprise—the gaffer decided it was time for me to learn to punte!  I was honoured and delighted, because she is fully capable of  doing her own punte work on smaller pieces like tumblers.  That’s what we’d been doing on the first few items.  So, I was very excited, and a little nervous.

The punte (pun-tee) is the little knob of glass that is used to transfer the piece from one pipe to another.  It is a huge responsibility, really, because here is a mostly finished, beautiful piece of art glass, being made by a master, and then, in the punte-ing process, that piece—at least temporarily—is in the hands of the apprentice!  First, I practiced the process of gathering and marvering the punte itself, and presenting it to her, and got that “hands on” perspective that merely watching it be done dozens of times doesn’t do for you.  After I’d done that a few times, she decided I was ready, and I punte-ed every piece we did after that!  No issues; no problems; only one needed a reheat;  everything ended up in the box and beautiful!  Okay . . . yes . . . I’m a little bit proud.

Some time in the workshop, but of course not enough, this afternoon, and then off to Racine for dinner at Kelly and Joseph’s house.  They had prepared a marvelous dinner for seven—the six in the photo, and me!  We were all set to dine al fresco, when the rain began again, so we quickly and easily moved everything into the dining room. The dinner and the company couldn’t have been better!  The same cannot be said for my photo, but I wanted to use this photo as my photo of the day, darnit.   So, here it is—grainy and dark, but six of my favourite smiling faces in the world.  Kyle at least got to talk to the group by phone, and give Joseph one last birthday song—he was sorely missed by all—especially me!

And incidentally—-I found my cell phone, safe and sound when I got home this evening!

~MB

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25 July 2007
This is one of the saddest sights I’ve seen in some time. Which, in a retrospective look at the previous sentence is probably a good thing.

Stuffed toys represent, for me, that childhood innocence that is so quickly and easily lost as we grow “more mature.” Who among us has not at some point in their life gone to sleep with that precious plush animal tucked gently underneath an arm? To see this bear, lonely & abandoned on a bench makes me weep for that innocence, for that hope, for that child.

On a brighter note, it’s Fantasy Football time (that’s Associated Football, not NFL or College or Arena Football, but instead that beautiful sport that Americans, and a growing number of Brits, call “Soccer”). My initial first go-through line-up looks like (from top to bottom):
Robin Van Persie
Dimitar Berbatov
Dietmar Hamann
Ryan Giggs
Scott Parker
Cristiano Ronaldo
Matthew Taylor
Stanislav Varga
Kolo Toure
Olof Mellberg
Marcus Hahnemann

I’ve been doing this with Yahoo!Sports for some years now. If you have the slightest desire to join, send me an email and I’ll give you an invite for the private league I’ve created.

Cheers.

~KR (25 July 2007)

Listening to:
The Irish Rover by The Dubliners
on Spirit of the Irish

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25 July 2007

Day Twenty-two at Bristol

Happy Birthday, Joseph!

I am always amazed at how many photos I have to take of one subject when I’m shooting at night, to get anything even halfway decent out of my efforts.  I guess it must simply be a shortcoming of my wonderful little camera, that the pics come out so grainy.  But, I do love the fact that it seems to have a built-in “star filter!”  At any rate, this photo is of the stairs leading up to my living space at our Bristol booth—at night.  I have potted plants lining the stairs, now, one of my summertime pleasures!  And my strings of lights make the journey up and down safe even in a new moon.  Near the top of the picture, you can make out the starry field of my American flag which flies just low enough as not to be visible from the “stage” that is the Renaissance Festival. 

I had a very successful choreography session and rehearsal of the Hooverville number from Annie, this evening.  We worked through the whole thing, and I think with very little change, and just a bunch of practice, it’ll fly! 

Today, there were adventures of many flavours for various folks in our group, here:  car problems, crazy injuries, challenging kids—I even fell off the stage, tonight!  Grace won out, though!  I managed to somehow turn my tumble into a backwards leap and a roll, rather than a crash, bang, bonk.  I’m pretty sure the dance teachers in my past would all have been proud.  My wrist is a little sore, but I’m unbroken!  Tomorrow, I’m in the glass studio in the morning, and at the sewing machine all afternoon—until dinner time when we’re celebrating Joseph’s birthday.  We’re hoping for a boring day, with no mishaps! 

~MB

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24 July 2007
Construction. That bane of every driver has come, in aces, to my neighbourhood. You see, a Wal-Mart is opening just over 2 miles from my house at the intersection of a busy FM highway and one of the primary arteries between Mansfield and Arlington. Despite much opposition and votes against the construction of this Wal-Mart, which necessitated the destruction of a beautiful section (one of the last in our area) of woodland, it is progressing. There does not seem to exist a direct correlation between surrounding property values and the existence of a Wal-Mart so certainly I can’t use that as any sort of defensive stance. Although independent studies done by Thomas Muller on the effects of Wal-Marts in Iowa suggests that property values could decline by 16-20% in the years immediately following the erection of the sprawl. However, since each Wal-Mart also contributed about $2 million to the local tax base, the detrimental effect was overlooked at the micro level as the macro level tended to benefit. As a small business owner (Bannockburn Bridge & East Wind Games), I am petrified by the construction. Not only does the on-going construction have an immediate negative impact on traffic flow and pattern, the long-term shuttering of long-established retail outlets is, sadly, a foregone conclusion. Wal-Mart will force a number of smaller businesses in the area to finally make the difficult decision to nail shut their doors for good. Does Wal-Mart really need a fourth megaplex in a 5 mile radius? I would hazard that they do not; but what am I? Just a little guy in a really friggin’ big world.
I took this photo for two reasons:

First, I took it to get the above diatribe out of me. It’s cathartic, I feel better.
Second, my friend Terrill challenged me to take mono-or dual-chromatic photographs in order to better myself. It’s easy, he says, to take a photo of highly-contrasting colours and make it work. It’s much more difficult to take a photo consisting of only familial colours. So, that’s what I’ve tried here. I espied the pattern on my way home, so at a friendly stop light, I leaned out the window and took the photo. The rusting rebar, the brown dirt, the dark shadows were all so very brown(ish), I thought “that’s it – monochromatic!” It’s not quite. But, close enough.
Cheers.

~KR (24 July 2007)

Listening to:
A Day Without Me by U2
on Boy

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24 July 2007

Day Twenty-one at Bristol

Very little about today has or is going the way I had planned it.  I guess that’ll teach me to try to actually plan a day at Bristol.  Somehow, moss growing on my roof seemed appropriate for today.  It’s pretty.  It may not be very good for the roof, but, oh well.

I officially have a cold.  I’ve been congested and coughing since Saturday, but I was blaming it on the dusty faire site at first.  But, now, three days later, I can no longer ignore the fact that I simply have a cold.  Yuck. 

So, I didn’t go dancing tonight with my friends.  Instead I think I’ll run to the laundromat and the grocery store—unless the purring cat and the pillows on the bed get to me first.

Congratulations to Ronnie on what seems to be the end of the long, long road of job-hunting!  Woo Hoo!

~MB

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23 July 2007
Typical Monday after work drive, especially this year. Thunderstorms brewing in the distance, occasional drops on the windscreen and I’m just making the drive home. With Marita Beth gone, I have no great desire to head home on any given day, but at least I do have the company of two dogs and a wizard by the name of Potter.

This photo was taken at the corner of Trinity & Mosier Valley and is of the relatively newly erected gazebo near “Our Garden of Angels.” It overlooks the Arlington Bottom (a 50-year flood plain) and onto the city of Ft. Worth. On clear days, you can see the attractive Ft. Worth city skyline; on this day, not so much. I wanted this photo to better than it is, but if you don’t look too closely you can almost pretend that I got the shot I wanted.
Cheers.

~KR (23 July 2007)

Listening to:
What She’s Doing Now by Garth Brooks
on Ropin’ the Wind

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23 July 2007

Day Twenty at Bristol

It was an odd day—quiet and serene, yet busy; low-key and a bit melancholy, yet full of good news. 

Mondays are the “Saturdays” of the rennie world.  Except for the weekend wrap-up that many of us have to do, Mondays are frequently spent in thrift stores and movie theatres.  We sleep a little later, worry a little less, and try really hard to reset our circuits.  Breakfast in the MBistro this morning, led to a  conversation about how Kyle was probably not coming to Bristol for our anniversary—which led to Marita Beth shedding a few tears.  Feeling lonely, I popped an email to Kyle, who called me not long after with news that made my day week month!  It looks like he is going to be able to be with me to celebrate our anniversary after all! 

After I’d finished my work related to Pendragon Costumes this morning, I went to Menards.  I hadn’t been there yet this year, and it’s a place I love to shop.  I so wish we had Menards as an alternative to Home Depot and Lowe’s in Texas, but alas, we do not.  As I was finishing there, I got a call from the Bristol costume director, so I met with him when I got back to site.  It’s nice to have our wares among the working collection of costumes used by the festival to outfit their cast and staff.  Then, I was joined in the MBistro by a wonderful new friend and we visited for quite a while, before I decided I really needed to get my other errand done.  So, out I went to buy some more plants.

One really good aspect to Bristol moving its dates a couple of years ago, is that the end of summer clearance sales are in full swing by the time we get here, now.  The growing season is so short up here, that by the Fourth of July, the locals have all their planting and outdoor decorating totally done!  Great deals can be had on outdoor furniture and summertime tools and such.  And plants, too, go on sale and become more affordable for our booth decorating.  I bought what was absolutely necessary right before opening, but the rest of what I want around me, in order to simply beautify my world, I just bought today.    My photo was taken in the back section of this nursery I like—the sad little leftover geraniums, the signs indicating the plants are practically free, and the rows and rows of empty shelves.   To me, it’s very clearly a statement of the change of the seasons—the spinning of the wheel.  Lammas is nearly here—the first of the harvest festivals, and it won’t be long before places such as this are displaying thousands of pumpkins and then evergreen trees!  Shopping there today was very surreal—I had the place practically to myself, and they were playing music that was very melancholy—old bluesy lounge music that actually started to make me tired!

I got my second wind as I potted my new plants—my staircase is now lined with green red and yellow just like I love it.  I still have a couple of unused pots, so I might go back tomorrow for a few more—at fifty cents, I really can’t go wrong.

Tonight I’ve been straightening up my little house and listening to the Annie soundtrack.  I met with the director tonight, and got my choreography assignments.  At first I was underwhelmed, but now that I’ve been playing the music, I think they will be fun numbers.  And, since I’ll be heading up the search for costume bits, and working to pull that all together, I guess limiting my required rehearsal time is a good thing.  It just feels good to be thinking theatre thoughts!  If ever I stop the travelling and the crazy faire life, I will be back into community theatre before the bodice tan fades!  I miss it muchly.

~MB

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22 July 2007
Sunday.
Sundays are made for football (with apologies to The Beautiful Game ).
We played the Jayhawks on Wednesday (I believe I wrote about it) where we lost 1-nil. Today we got to play them again. Due to all the rain we’ve had, the season has been elongated and they’ve stacked several games on top of each other in order to accommodate the full schedule. I never look forward to playing them. They’re poor winners, they’re poor losers, they’re poor sports in general. At least they always have been. This game was a little different. They were missing several key players, and I guess it’s those players that were the whiners because, with one noteable exception, there wasn’t a whole lot of complaining going on (that I heard). We were, once again, shy on substitutes so I played most of the match, but during one brief spell on the sideline I took some photos. I liked this one best:

It shows just how large a field can be and how empty some pockets on the pitch are when they get abandoned. This is centre-pitch and should be full of players. We won the game 2-nil with yours truly getting the winning goal (it’s a rarity these days, sadly).
Cheers.

~KR (22 July 2007)

Listening to:
Jolly Jolly Jolly Ego by The Dirty Projectors
on The Getty Address

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