Slushy Arrow
Apr. 22nd, 2007 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqSilver Arrow, the big archery event in Bitter End (mka Red Deer Alberta), was this weekend.
Let me get the important stuff out of the way right now for my SCA peeps - Silver Arrow was a great time. The shoot was fun (if soggy). The weather was mostly cooperative (if a bit late). It was great to see so many of the other Avacalian archers. The feast had a great variety and was filling and tasty. I've been reliably informed that this typical for the folks from Bitter End. Everyone I met there seemed to be competent, talented and enthusiastic about the game. That might be self-selecting though: I didn't have much opportunity to meet the people who weren't into organizing Silver Arrow!
Personally, I had a great time. Got up early to meet with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
conejita_diabla who was joining me for the trip (and also pitching in for the hotel room). We met (with her beau sagaciouslu) Saturday morning at the Galaxy Diner for breakfast, which was greasy and tasty. We loaded the car up and took off for the wilds of central Alberta. A little while later we pulled into the event site.
The site is nice. It has a decent sized hall (good for about 100 people). It's outside of Red Deer, so we're not likely to upset the mundanes. The lot is sizable so you could have set up a tent if it wasn't covered in snow/water. We had plenty of room for the archery range (though people trudged through a lot of snow) and it would have been difficult to hit the cows in the field behind the butts.
How did I do in the shoot? Well there were nine archers in the masters category and I came in fifth. So I was right in the middle. Am I upset? Not really. I was hoping to do better, but the level of talent was awesome and the camaraderie that I love about local archery community was there in full strength. When playing in that kind of atmosphere, how can you not have a good time?
I did fuck up once though. I told PS that she had come in first in the intermediate category. Turns out she came in second. I felt like a total ass when she did not get called up in court. Of course I apologized (I was forgiven easily as PS didn't think the faux pas was nearly so bad as I did).
A couple of us went into Red Deer to fetch supplies (the bar didn't have any diet soda, and I wasn't planning on getting liquored up). Three of us walking through the Red Deer Liquor Barn in garb made quite a site. One of the cashier's asked us what was going on and Beothuk was kind enough to direct her to numerous online resources. Wearing my kilt, I grabbed the attention of a group of cougars who wanted to know what a Scotsman wears under their kilt. Allegedly I was being checked out by the cashiers at the grocery store too.
There was much hanging out and socializing. Towards the wee hours of the night I was getting pretty tired. One one hand I wanted to go home, but on the other, the conversation thathislittlekitty, conejita_diabla and I were having was just too fascinating to want to end.
Mostly we talked about sex, so you can understand why I was reluctant to leave. Given that all three of us have voices that carry and there were a number of people trying to sleep in the next room, I may have inadvertently gained an odder reputation in Avacal. I haven't quite decided if I secretly dig that or not. The question for the day was "what's the weirdest place you've had sex". Surprisingly, everyone who was asked was quite open about answering. Strangely, the weirdest place was playground slide and it was described by two different people. No, they didn't have sex with each other.
The conversation led to numerous great quotes. Sadly, i can't remember most of them (I groused that I wanted a pad and paper to remember them. There was about six that would have been great for a context-free post. I do remember one though, just to give you an idea of how odd the night was:
We ended up staying until 3:30 in the morning. A lady I met urged us to stay in the hall instead of leaving to the find our hotel. We did not take her up on it (though we probably should have). Instead we went outside and drove back into Red Deer. I froze my ass outside scraping the frost from the car even though it was only about -2 outside because the moisture level was high. It was foggy like I've never seen except a few times as a pedestrian in Vancouver. Visibility had reached Newfoundland levels. I know this becausestephtopia described driving through pea-soup fog in her home province. You roll down the window and follow the lines in the road. I thought she was just BS-ing me, but now I have proof that it occurs because I had to do it for the first quarter of the drive back. My great fear was some yahoo farm kid in a pickup obliterating us in a head-on collision. I was literally driving below 20 KpH so I wouldn't overdrive my lights.
I figured out what was causing it all though. It's because all the snow melted and all the ground, as well as the dirt road, had an inch of water on it. When the air temperature dropped below zero (and the ground temperature stayed slightly above zero) it all turned to fog. It improved greatly when we reached the paved roads.
We checked into the hotel, retired to our rooms and immediately passed out. The alarm went off at 8:30, at which point I materialized a giant mallet and left it a smoking, spring-yielding, wreck. I woke up again at 11:50 to the sound of the shower running. We packed up and after a short detour to Donut Mill (home of the Rolo Donut), we went home.
There was a short but entertaining epilogue at bunny and badger's apartment, where we socialized withhislittlekitty for a short time (discovering a shared passion for RPGs that I plan to exploit). I'm liking these young folks - they make me feel like a kid again.
Let me get the important stuff out of the way right now for my SCA peeps - Silver Arrow was a great time. The shoot was fun (if soggy). The weather was mostly cooperative (if a bit late). It was great to see so many of the other Avacalian archers. The feast had a great variety and was filling and tasty. I've been reliably informed that this typical for the folks from Bitter End. Everyone I met there seemed to be competent, talented and enthusiastic about the game. That might be self-selecting though: I didn't have much opportunity to meet the people who weren't into organizing Silver Arrow!
Personally, I had a great time. Got up early to meet with
conejita_diabla who was joining me for the trip (and also pitching in for the hotel room). We met (with her beau sagaciouslu) Saturday morning at the Galaxy Diner for breakfast, which was greasy and tasty. We loaded the car up and took off for the wilds of central Alberta. A little while later we pulled into the event site.The site is nice. It has a decent sized hall (good for about 100 people). It's outside of Red Deer, so we're not likely to upset the mundanes. The lot is sizable so you could have set up a tent if it wasn't covered in snow/water. We had plenty of room for the archery range (though people trudged through a lot of snow) and it would have been difficult to hit the cows in the field behind the butts.
How did I do in the shoot? Well there were nine archers in the masters category and I came in fifth. So I was right in the middle. Am I upset? Not really. I was hoping to do better, but the level of talent was awesome and the camaraderie that I love about local archery community was there in full strength. When playing in that kind of atmosphere, how can you not have a good time?
I did fuck up once though. I told PS that she had come in first in the intermediate category. Turns out she came in second. I felt like a total ass when she did not get called up in court. Of course I apologized (I was forgiven easily as PS didn't think the faux pas was nearly so bad as I did).
A couple of us went into Red Deer to fetch supplies (the bar didn't have any diet soda, and I wasn't planning on getting liquored up). Three of us walking through the Red Deer Liquor Barn in garb made quite a site. One of the cashier's asked us what was going on and Beothuk was kind enough to direct her to numerous online resources. Wearing my kilt, I grabbed the attention of a group of cougars who wanted to know what a Scotsman wears under their kilt. Allegedly I was being checked out by the cashiers at the grocery store too.
There was much hanging out and socializing. Towards the wee hours of the night I was getting pretty tired. One one hand I wanted to go home, but on the other, the conversation that
hislittlekitty, conejita_diabla and I were having was just too fascinating to want to end.Mostly we talked about sex, so you can understand why I was reluctant to leave. Given that all three of us have voices that carry and there were a number of people trying to sleep in the next room, I may have inadvertently gained an odder reputation in Avacal. I haven't quite decided if I secretly dig that or not. The question for the day was "what's the weirdest place you've had sex". Surprisingly, everyone who was asked was quite open about answering. Strangely, the weirdest place was playground slide and it was described by two different people. No, they didn't have sex with each other.
The conversation led to numerous great quotes. Sadly, i can't remember most of them (I groused that I wanted a pad and paper to remember them. There was about six that would have been great for a context-free post. I do remember one though, just to give you an idea of how odd the night was:
Yo-yo Ma didn't become a virtuoso cellist by having a miniature cello in his pants.I really wish I could remember the rest of it, but sleep-deprivation robbed me of the ha ha.
We ended up staying until 3:30 in the morning. A lady I met urged us to stay in the hall instead of leaving to the find our hotel. We did not take her up on it (though we probably should have). Instead we went outside and drove back into Red Deer. I froze my ass outside scraping the frost from the car even though it was only about -2 outside because the moisture level was high. It was foggy like I've never seen except a few times as a pedestrian in Vancouver. Visibility had reached Newfoundland levels. I know this because
stephtopia described driving through pea-soup fog in her home province. You roll down the window and follow the lines in the road. I thought she was just BS-ing me, but now I have proof that it occurs because I had to do it for the first quarter of the drive back. My great fear was some yahoo farm kid in a pickup obliterating us in a head-on collision. I was literally driving below 20 KpH so I wouldn't overdrive my lights.I figured out what was causing it all though. It's because all the snow melted and all the ground, as well as the dirt road, had an inch of water on it. When the air temperature dropped below zero (and the ground temperature stayed slightly above zero) it all turned to fog. It improved greatly when we reached the paved roads.
We checked into the hotel, retired to our rooms and immediately passed out. The alarm went off at 8:30, at which point I materialized a giant mallet and left it a smoking, spring-yielding, wreck. I woke up again at 11:50 to the sound of the shower running. We packed up and after a short detour to Donut Mill (home of the Rolo Donut), we went home.
There was a short but entertaining epilogue at bunny and badger's apartment, where we socialized with
hislittlekitty for a short time (discovering a shared passion for RPGs that I plan to exploit). I'm liking these young folks - they make me feel like a kid again.
