Kíla's members are much more than just players in an Irish band. They're all involved in many other ventures in music, theater and film, and most have recorded solo albums.
I'm really not too sure about that Klingon nose trumpet, however.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
New Squidoo Lens - Celtic Music: Kíla
Kíla's members are much more than just players in an Irish band. They're all involved in many other ventures in music, theater and film, and most have recorded solo albums.
I'm really not too sure about that Klingon nose trumpet, however.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Squidoo Gives Hugo Award Lens a Purple Star
This is my third Purple Star. Not long after the program began I got one for my lens about Mount St. Helens. Late last month I got a second one for Spoonerisms, which had also been named a Lens of the Day in 2008. And speaking of Lens of the Day, I got a second one of those awards in 2009 for Celtic Music: Lenses which lists all of my lenses on that subject.
One thing they ask you to do when you get a Purple Star is look for someone else's lens that you think is worth the honor. I was just looking around and found Shakespearean Insults, which I thought was funny and deserving of recognition, so I nominated it.
Monday, January 17, 2011
My Discworld Lenses on Squidoo
Before I got caught up in the massive project that was the Hugo Award Winners: Novels lens that I published Sunday evening, I had another big project: Discworld.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, which started in 1983 and really got rolling a few years later, is one of those series I was aware of, but I just didn't think I was a big fan of fantasy. On the other hand, I kept reading about him being compared to Douglas Adams, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy guy, and I'm a big fan of Adams.
But I'm not a really big fan of fantasy, or at least I wasn't. To me it just seemed like too much of it was sword and sorcery and all of it was taken much to seriously. It turns out that's pretty much the feeling Terry Pratchett had in mind when he started the Discworld books. He basically looked at the genre and stood it on its head.
Pratchett's got a madcap sense of humour at least as far out as Adams had. His main wizard character, Rincewind, isn't very good at wizarding, although he does have this way of surviving. Unseen University, the place wizards go to learn their trade and often remain, is peopled by a faculty and staff that's gotten very complacent and fat, enjoying six hearty meals a day and not doing much magic at all unless it's something involving plots against wizards higher up in the hierarchy, and the results of the plotting can be fatal to the plottee. The university is in Discworld's largest city, Ankh-Morpork, a sprawling disorganized mess of a place where, Pratchett says, all roads lead from Ankh-Morpork, not to it. It's just that some people, those headed to the city, are going the wrong way.
There are witches, including grim Granny Weatherwax, jolly Nanny Ogg, and young Magrat Garlick, who is pretty much a parody of modern-day New Age influenced practitioners of the occult.
There's Death. Death SPEAKS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and rides a pale white horse. The horse's name is Binky.
Everyone lives on a flat round and highly improbable world that's carried on the backs of four huge elephants who, in turn, stand on the back of The Great A'Tuin, a 10,000-mile long turtle swimming through space. Since the world is flat, if a ship at sea disappears from view like it's falling off the edge (as people on Earth used to think), it's because it's falling off the edge. Water from the ocean cascades off the edge, yet Discworld and it's oceans never run dry.
It all sounds wildly fantastic, and it is, but Pratchett has a way of telling great and very funny stories about the world and the characters in it. There are plenty of references to fairy tales, Shakespeare, movies and other bits of culture from our world to make Discworld seem sort of familiar in its weirdness.
There are currently 38 books in the Discworld series, with several major categories. Someone had previously done a Discworld lens about why they shouldn't be read in order. I decided to make a lens listing them all in order starting with The Colour of Magic, which some say isn't the best place to start. Pratchett has said it wasn't until several books in that he discovered this wonderful thing called "plot." But I started reading that book and, being used to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, didn't have any problems with it. I just continued on with The Light Fantastic and kept going. I'm currently between the 12th and 13th books, taking a break to read other things.
The lenses I made are:
Discworld Novels 1 to 10
Discworld Novels 11 to 20
Discworld Novels 21 to 30
Discworld Novels 31 to 40
31 to 40? Well, yes. While there are only 38 published books, plans are in the works for at least two more. If I'd named the fourth lens Discworld Novels 31 to 38, I'd have a problem when the next books came out. This way no renaming is necessary and if Pratchett goes on past 40 I can put those books in a new lens.
There's a fifth lens for Discworld books related to, but not part of the series:
Discworld: Related Books
This lens links to the mapps, the Science of Discworld books, art, folklore, a companion, and even a children's book that grew out of the City Watch commander's reading to his young son.
Not having read past the 12th book, I had to rely pretty much on plot synopses I could find online. Some were way too brief, others were way too wordy, with some of the latter being the length of short stories. I just wanted something short, but enough to generate interest. Using a graphic online Guide to Discworld, I color coded the borders and backgrounds of each book description to relate to the categories defined by the guide: Rincewind, Witches, Death, The City Watch, etc.
I'm having a lot of fun reading the series. I just wish I hadn't waited so long to start reading it.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, which started in 1983 and really got rolling a few years later, is one of those series I was aware of, but I just didn't think I was a big fan of fantasy. On the other hand, I kept reading about him being compared to Douglas Adams, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy guy, and I'm a big fan of Adams.
But I'm not a really big fan of fantasy, or at least I wasn't. To me it just seemed like too much of it was sword and sorcery and all of it was taken much to seriously. It turns out that's pretty much the feeling Terry Pratchett had in mind when he started the Discworld books. He basically looked at the genre and stood it on its head.
Pratchett's got a madcap sense of humour at least as far out as Adams had. His main wizard character, Rincewind, isn't very good at wizarding, although he does have this way of surviving. Unseen University, the place wizards go to learn their trade and often remain, is peopled by a faculty and staff that's gotten very complacent and fat, enjoying six hearty meals a day and not doing much magic at all unless it's something involving plots against wizards higher up in the hierarchy, and the results of the plotting can be fatal to the plottee. The university is in Discworld's largest city, Ankh-Morpork, a sprawling disorganized mess of a place where, Pratchett says, all roads lead from Ankh-Morpork, not to it. It's just that some people, those headed to the city, are going the wrong way.
There are witches, including grim Granny Weatherwax, jolly Nanny Ogg, and young Magrat Garlick, who is pretty much a parody of modern-day New Age influenced practitioners of the occult.
There's Death. Death SPEAKS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and rides a pale white horse. The horse's name is Binky.
Everyone lives on a flat round and highly improbable world that's carried on the backs of four huge elephants who, in turn, stand on the back of The Great A'Tuin, a 10,000-mile long turtle swimming through space. Since the world is flat, if a ship at sea disappears from view like it's falling off the edge (as people on Earth used to think), it's because it's falling off the edge. Water from the ocean cascades off the edge, yet Discworld and it's oceans never run dry.
It all sounds wildly fantastic, and it is, but Pratchett has a way of telling great and very funny stories about the world and the characters in it. There are plenty of references to fairy tales, Shakespeare, movies and other bits of culture from our world to make Discworld seem sort of familiar in its weirdness.
There are currently 38 books in the Discworld series, with several major categories. Someone had previously done a Discworld lens about why they shouldn't be read in order. I decided to make a lens listing them all in order starting with The Colour of Magic, which some say isn't the best place to start. Pratchett has said it wasn't until several books in that he discovered this wonderful thing called "plot." But I started reading that book and, being used to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, didn't have any problems with it. I just continued on with The Light Fantastic and kept going. I'm currently between the 12th and 13th books, taking a break to read other things.
Discworld Novels 1 to 10
Discworld Novels 11 to 20
Discworld Novels 21 to 30
Discworld Novels 31 to 40
31 to 40? Well, yes. While there are only 38 published books, plans are in the works for at least two more. If I'd named the fourth lens Discworld Novels 31 to 38, I'd have a problem when the next books came out. This way no renaming is necessary and if Pratchett goes on past 40 I can put those books in a new lens.
There's a fifth lens for Discworld books related to, but not part of the series:
Discworld: Related Books
Not having read past the 12th book, I had to rely pretty much on plot synopses I could find online. Some were way too brief, others were way too wordy, with some of the latter being the length of short stories. I just wanted something short, but enough to generate interest. Using a graphic online Guide to Discworld, I color coded the borders and backgrounds of each book description to relate to the categories defined by the guide: Rincewind, Witches, Death, The City Watch, etc.
I'm having a lot of fun reading the series. I just wish I hadn't waited so long to start reading it.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
A New Squidoo Lens - Hugo Award Winners - Novels
I just published my newest Squidoo lens Hugo Award Winners: Novels. It's a rather large project in that it combines the six lenses I'd previously made about Hugos. I decided to use the Page Break module to get it all on one lens, which I think will help with lensrank on Squidoo and page rank on Google.
The lens not only links each title to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, it also includes other awards won by each title. It's the other awards that took probably half the time in creating the lens. I think including those awards is important because I don't think there's many other places on the web where you can get a list of all the Hugo winning and nominated novels plus reference to other awards.
If you decide to take a look at the lens, let me know if you find any errors. In a project this size, even though I spent a good couple of hours looking over the whole thing (and finding missing links, misspellings and other cleanup stuff) there's probably stuff I just didn't see.
Thanks for looking and if you leave comments or hit the like button, thanks for those too.
All the book title and book cover links are through my Amazon Associates ID, so anyone clicking on a link and ordering something earns me a small commission which doesn't cost the person ordering anything extra. I'm using my own Associates links more and more on Squidoo, hoping to get enough orders in a month to kick the commission rate to the next level and also start making enough money to actually help pay some expenses.
I'll be doing more and more blogging about my efforts to make some income online. I really need to do a whole lot more promoting of the Squidoo lenses I've already made and will be making in the future. I might even change the name of this blog or perhaps start another to focus on that.
The lens not only links each title to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, it also includes other awards won by each title. It's the other awards that took probably half the time in creating the lens. I think including those awards is important because I don't think there's many other places on the web where you can get a list of all the Hugo winning and nominated novels plus reference to other awards.
If you decide to take a look at the lens, let me know if you find any errors. In a project this size, even though I spent a good couple of hours looking over the whole thing (and finding missing links, misspellings and other cleanup stuff) there's probably stuff I just didn't see.
Thanks for looking and if you leave comments or hit the like button, thanks for those too.
All the book title and book cover links are through my Amazon Associates ID, so anyone clicking on a link and ordering something earns me a small commission which doesn't cost the person ordering anything extra. I'm using my own Associates links more and more on Squidoo, hoping to get enough orders in a month to kick the commission rate to the next level and also start making enough money to actually help pay some expenses.
I'll be doing more and more blogging about my efforts to make some income online. I really need to do a whole lot more promoting of the Squidoo lenses I've already made and will be making in the future. I might even change the name of this blog or perhaps start another to focus on that.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Computer Brain Transplant with Linux
Last April I became a volunteer at Free Geek in Portland, Oregon by signing up for their Build program. In a series of four-hour shifts, volunteers go through several stages: Hardware Identification (which is only 2 1/2 hours), System Evaluation, and Build.
Hardware ID is pretty simple and teaches volunteers to recognize various computer parts, especially memory. In System Evaluation, volunteers pick newly-donated computers from a stack, then, following a series of flow charts, check out whether the computer will be sent to recycling or whether it will be saved to be refurbished. The refurbished computers then are either donated to schools and/or non-profits, sold in the Free Geek Thrift Store, or given to volunteers in either the Adoption or Build programs.
In the Build program, volunteers assemble five computers and get to build a sixth computer which they can keep. Building isn't all that complicated. It's not like starting from scratch because one starts with a computer that has no hard drive or memory and which may not have the right CD/DVD drive. Builders just follow a series of steps to add memory, add a drive, swap the CD/DVD if necessary, and test things along the way. The work gets checked out at the end by one of the staff assistants. Later, another volunteer does a quality control check on computers built by another volunteer. Quality control actually a volunteers first task in the Build area, and after QC'ing a few systems, the volunteer then moves on to build machines.
Soon after I started volunteering, I took advantage of the volunteer discount in the Thrift Store to get a system. Of course, it's several years old, so it's hardly cutting edge, but I was getting concerned that my refurbished HP machine I'd bought from Frys about five years ago could start having problems. The one I bought from the Thrift Store was about on the same level as the HP although it had a bigger drive - 300 GB instead of 160 GB - and more memory - 2 GB instead of the 1.5 GB (about the only thing I'd done with the HP was to upgrade memory from 512 MB).
Last Thursday was the day I built my take-home computer. I went into the warehouse part of Free Geek and looked around for a computer in the Freek Box area. I found an HP Pavilion a1473w Mediacenter machine, which was introduced by HP about 16 months after the one I'd gotten from Frys. Specifications only allowed me to install 512 MB of memory and the hard drive was limited to 80 GB, but it was a SATA drive. I should've gone to the Thrift Store to get 2 GB of memory and test it, but it was late in the shift and I had an errand to run afterward. But I did get signed off on the machine and took it home.
I got more memory the next day, but they didn't have two maching 1 GB sticks. When I put them in, the new-to-me machine would only recognize one of them no matter what combination I tried. Both sticks worked, just not together.
The next thing I tried was installing an ATI video card with outputs for DVI and HDMI that I'd gotten for the older machine but which hadn't worked. But it did work in the new machine and I hooked it up to my monitor using DVI. It was very nice to finally get use out of the video card.
All the hard drives installed in the Build program already have Linux installed on them. Free Geek is now using Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, a distribution that will be supported for three years from April 2010. Nothing special has to be done when a hard drive with Linux already on it is put in a machine. Just install it, plug it in, turn on the machine and it'll boot into Linux. It's very simple. If it were Windows, it would be another matter. Windows checks hardware and if it's not the original motherboard that particular copy of the Windows OS was installed on, it won't work without going through some complicated software fixes and even then it could still fail.
I got to thinking it would be better if my already set up Linux Mint 9 Isadora I'd put in the machine I'd bought in April was in the newer machine I'd built. I also thought it would be worth a try to see if the memory sticks from the older one would work in the newer one. If that were the case, I'd have the best components combined into one machine.
First I swapped the memory. The two matched sticks from the older machine worked just fine in the newer machine. When I put the sticks I'd bought last week into the older machine, I was pleasantly surprised to see that machine recognized both sticks, so I have 2 GB in each machine, the maximum I can put in them.
Next I swapped the hard drives. Fortunately both machines have SATA hard drives. The switch was simple. The newer machine booted up off the 300 GB drive and the only difference I noticed was the Linux Mint boot screen only shows the five dots that change from white to green as the system loads. The dots are bigger than they were before and I don't see the Linux Mint logo. That concerned me the first time, but the boot was successful and everything else looks and works fine.
One thing I haven't done yet is swap the CD/DVD drives. The machine I bought in April has a drive that will write both CDs and DVDs. The one I built could only have one that will read and write CDs and only read DVDs. I expect zero problems with the swap.
I've really gotten to like Linux since first putting it on the older HP machine last October. That machine can be booted into either Linux or Windows XP. Everything else is Linux. Linux is not only free, it's a lot easier to deal with when moving components around.
Hardware ID is pretty simple and teaches volunteers to recognize various computer parts, especially memory. In System Evaluation, volunteers pick newly-donated computers from a stack, then, following a series of flow charts, check out whether the computer will be sent to recycling or whether it will be saved to be refurbished. The refurbished computers then are either donated to schools and/or non-profits, sold in the Free Geek Thrift Store, or given to volunteers in either the Adoption or Build programs.
In the Build program, volunteers assemble five computers and get to build a sixth computer which they can keep. Building isn't all that complicated. It's not like starting from scratch because one starts with a computer that has no hard drive or memory and which may not have the right CD/DVD drive. Builders just follow a series of steps to add memory, add a drive, swap the CD/DVD if necessary, and test things along the way. The work gets checked out at the end by one of the staff assistants. Later, another volunteer does a quality control check on computers built by another volunteer. Quality control actually a volunteers first task in the Build area, and after QC'ing a few systems, the volunteer then moves on to build machines.
Soon after I started volunteering, I took advantage of the volunteer discount in the Thrift Store to get a system. Of course, it's several years old, so it's hardly cutting edge, but I was getting concerned that my refurbished HP machine I'd bought from Frys about five years ago could start having problems. The one I bought from the Thrift Store was about on the same level as the HP although it had a bigger drive - 300 GB instead of 160 GB - and more memory - 2 GB instead of the 1.5 GB (about the only thing I'd done with the HP was to upgrade memory from 512 MB).
Last Thursday was the day I built my take-home computer. I went into the warehouse part of Free Geek and looked around for a computer in the Freek Box area. I found an HP Pavilion a1473w Mediacenter machine, which was introduced by HP about 16 months after the one I'd gotten from Frys. Specifications only allowed me to install 512 MB of memory and the hard drive was limited to 80 GB, but it was a SATA drive. I should've gone to the Thrift Store to get 2 GB of memory and test it, but it was late in the shift and I had an errand to run afterward. But I did get signed off on the machine and took it home.
I got more memory the next day, but they didn't have two maching 1 GB sticks. When I put them in, the new-to-me machine would only recognize one of them no matter what combination I tried. Both sticks worked, just not together.
The next thing I tried was installing an ATI video card with outputs for DVI and HDMI that I'd gotten for the older machine but which hadn't worked. But it did work in the new machine and I hooked it up to my monitor using DVI. It was very nice to finally get use out of the video card.
All the hard drives installed in the Build program already have Linux installed on them. Free Geek is now using Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, a distribution that will be supported for three years from April 2010. Nothing special has to be done when a hard drive with Linux already on it is put in a machine. Just install it, plug it in, turn on the machine and it'll boot into Linux. It's very simple. If it were Windows, it would be another matter. Windows checks hardware and if it's not the original motherboard that particular copy of the Windows OS was installed on, it won't work without going through some complicated software fixes and even then it could still fail.
I got to thinking it would be better if my already set up Linux Mint 9 Isadora I'd put in the machine I'd bought in April was in the newer machine I'd built. I also thought it would be worth a try to see if the memory sticks from the older one would work in the newer one. If that were the case, I'd have the best components combined into one machine.
First I swapped the memory. The two matched sticks from the older machine worked just fine in the newer machine. When I put the sticks I'd bought last week into the older machine, I was pleasantly surprised to see that machine recognized both sticks, so I have 2 GB in each machine, the maximum I can put in them.
Next I swapped the hard drives. Fortunately both machines have SATA hard drives. The switch was simple. The newer machine booted up off the 300 GB drive and the only difference I noticed was the Linux Mint boot screen only shows the five dots that change from white to green as the system loads. The dots are bigger than they were before and I don't see the Linux Mint logo. That concerned me the first time, but the boot was successful and everything else looks and works fine.
One thing I haven't done yet is swap the CD/DVD drives. The machine I bought in April has a drive that will write both CDs and DVDs. The one I built could only have one that will read and write CDs and only read DVDs. I expect zero problems with the swap.
I've really gotten to like Linux since first putting it on the older HP machine last October. That machine can be booted into either Linux or Windows XP. Everything else is Linux. Linux is not only free, it's a lot easier to deal with when moving components around.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Faerieworlds: 5 Days, 0 Drama
One thing that's struck me about Faerieworlds is how nice it can be to be in the presence of a large number of people gathered together to share the experience of an event like Faerieworlds. From late Thursday morning until Monday afternoon, my main focus was Faerieworlds and having a good time there.
I traveled to and from Faerieworlds with Jason, a friend from Tribe.net's Circle of Merry Folk. He lives in LA but wants to move to Portland, so he flew up a week early. We got together a couple of times, one of which was for the purpose of checking out a few apartment possibilities. I picked him up in the city at noon on Thursday and we headed down to Eugene where I'd booked a room at the Motel 6 just a few miles from Faerieworlds. We went to the screening of Mythic Journeys on Thursday evening at the Red Lion Inn where Brian and Wendy Froud were there along with Steven and Whitney Boe, the directors, writers and producers of the film.
Jason and I pretty much agree on the idea of making plans and trying to stick to them. We agreed to be at the Faerieworlds gate at 7 a.m. Friday morning. We left the motel right at 6:45 for the 10-minute drive. Along the way I thanked him for getting up so early so we could get there and I noted that it was the last thing we had to schedule together. His flight back to LA on Monday wasn't until late in the day, so we had plenty of time as all we had to really be aware of was being out of the festival site by noon.
From both adults and kids during the whole time I saw very little unhappy behavior aside from the occasional flash. I'm not a kid person, but I thought the kids were much better behaved at Faerieworlds than I'm used to seeing in the more mundane world. Everyone wanted to have a great time and I'd say the folks I saw succeeded. I sure did.
I'm starting to upload photos to my Flickr Faerieworlds 2010 set. As I write this, there's a few pictures of my steampunk hat I wore on Saturday, Bad Faeries Day, a few from the Frouds' book signing at Powell's on Wednesday, the film screening on Thursday, and a couple of photos another photographer took using my camera early on Friday. Unfortunately I didn't get similar pictures on Saturday but I've been looking for other photos showing me on Saturday both on Flickr and elsewhere. I'm sure the faeries will eventually lead me to some since during the festival I was stopped often by other folks who asked to take my picture and I know of others who just snapped as I went by or was posing for others. While it was nice of those who asked for pictures, I didn't mind a bit if others just got candid shots of me. One reason I didn't get a picture or two on my own camera of me on Saturday was that I was reluctant to ask anyone because getting the hat off then getting the camera off without dropping the hat was a bit involving. Since nobody offered, I didn't want to put anyone out.
One thing I did discover during camping at Faerieworlds: my days of using a tent I can't stand up in along with an air mattress on the ground are over. Next year I'll either try to scrape up money for a motel (the Motel 6 only 10 minutes away is a good possibility) or some sort of screen house or canopy with sidewalls, either being big enough to accommodate a cot for the air mattress. All the bending and stooping was uncomfortable, but it was a temporary inconvenience and didn't diminish my overall enjoyment.
I was extremely glad I remembered to pack earplugs. I expected things in the inner circle camping area to be a little noisier than I'd experienced last year in the outer grove area and it was, but inner circle meant far less walking. Jason and I were probably 100 feet from one of the gates between camping and the Realm itself and that gate was very close to the main stage. The earplugs bore the very appropriate brand name of Hearos.
So there's a few impressions of my best weekend of the year. I really haven't said a whole lot about the music, food and vendors, but as I get the photos up, I'll probably have more to say about that.
As I get back into the more mundane everyday existence, I'm finding I'm not so eager to get back to the political forums I visit on Delphi. I guess I'm just not ready yet to deal with what is often a lot of negative energy. Also, while I've usually watched Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on weeknights, I didn't tune in last night or tonight.
I traveled to and from Faerieworlds with Jason, a friend from Tribe.net's Circle of Merry Folk. He lives in LA but wants to move to Portland, so he flew up a week early. We got together a couple of times, one of which was for the purpose of checking out a few apartment possibilities. I picked him up in the city at noon on Thursday and we headed down to Eugene where I'd booked a room at the Motel 6 just a few miles from Faerieworlds. We went to the screening of Mythic Journeys on Thursday evening at the Red Lion Inn where Brian and Wendy Froud were there along with Steven and Whitney Boe, the directors, writers and producers of the film.
Jason and I pretty much agree on the idea of making plans and trying to stick to them. We agreed to be at the Faerieworlds gate at 7 a.m. Friday morning. We left the motel right at 6:45 for the 10-minute drive. Along the way I thanked him for getting up so early so we could get there and I noted that it was the last thing we had to schedule together. His flight back to LA on Monday wasn't until late in the day, so we had plenty of time as all we had to really be aware of was being out of the festival site by noon.
From both adults and kids during the whole time I saw very little unhappy behavior aside from the occasional flash. I'm not a kid person, but I thought the kids were much better behaved at Faerieworlds than I'm used to seeing in the more mundane world. Everyone wanted to have a great time and I'd say the folks I saw succeeded. I sure did.
One thing I did discover during camping at Faerieworlds: my days of using a tent I can't stand up in along with an air mattress on the ground are over. Next year I'll either try to scrape up money for a motel (the Motel 6 only 10 minutes away is a good possibility) or some sort of screen house or canopy with sidewalls, either being big enough to accommodate a cot for the air mattress. All the bending and stooping was uncomfortable, but it was a temporary inconvenience and didn't diminish my overall enjoyment.
I was extremely glad I remembered to pack earplugs. I expected things in the inner circle camping area to be a little noisier than I'd experienced last year in the outer grove area and it was, but inner circle meant far less walking. Jason and I were probably 100 feet from one of the gates between camping and the Realm itself and that gate was very close to the main stage. The earplugs bore the very appropriate brand name of Hearos.
So there's a few impressions of my best weekend of the year. I really haven't said a whole lot about the music, food and vendors, but as I get the photos up, I'll probably have more to say about that.
As I get back into the more mundane everyday existence, I'm finding I'm not so eager to get back to the political forums I visit on Delphi. I guess I'm just not ready yet to deal with what is often a lot of negative energy. Also, while I've usually watched Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on weeknights, I didn't tune in last night or tonight.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Faerieworlds 2010 Summer Celebration
I'm back from Faerieworlds and the weekend exceeded my expectations, if that's possible. I gave a ride to the festival to Jason, who attended his first Faerieworlds, and first festival of any kind last year. He's disabled with a bad leg so it's a little tough for him to get around, but he said he did more walking during the festival and the week before checking out Portland - he hopes to move here from LA - than he'd done in the previous six months. We went down on Thursday to see the film Mythic Journeys and met a few new folks there that we saw at the festival, including a couple from Hawaii.
On Friday, Good Faeries Day, we got there early to set up camp, then hung out until the festival opened at 2. With the new setup, we were very close to one of the two gates from the inner circle camping to the Realm, which cut down on walking a lot. The main stage was close to that gate as well. The costumes on other people were fantastic. My wizard hat got a lot of compliments and I kept getting stopped by people wanting a picture. Good thing I was in no hurry to go anywhere. The music was great and the set by Tricky Pixie was the best I've ever seen them do. Alec, a member of that band who I'm acquainted with, later told me things really came together to make for a powerful, high energy set. The audience was certainly enthusiastic, but then, they usually are at Faerieworlds.
Saturday was Bad Faeries Day. Instead of Friday's grey robe, I wore a black robe with silver leaf trim that I'd gotten last year. Instead of the wizard hat with all the good little faeries (six of them) and about 15 butterflies (faeries in disguise), I wore the top hat with the four clocks, Slinky Jr., miscellaneous gears, sundial and sextant. Again I was stopped frequently whenever I walked around. Folks were amazed to discover the clocks all worked and were set to four different time zones. It was a heavy hat, so when I wasn't walking around I usually held it or set it in Jason's chair if he was off somewhere. Each day we had good seats right next to the sound booth. I did my best to see at least some of all the main stage acts. There was another stage, newly christened the Neverworlds Stage, at the far end of the Realm by the food vendors, but I didn't make it down there very much, which is kind of too bad since one of my Circle of Merry Folk friends was stage manager.
Early in the day on Saturday I changed back to the wizard hat to go to a workshop called Connecting with Your Faerie Guides. It seemed only appropriate to have my little faerie friends along. Then I changed back to the clocked hat but kept the wizard hat with me because there was a costume contest soon after. I held the wizard hat up by grabbing the styrofoam cone that sits on my head and keeps the hat from flopping over. At the costume contest they had a kids' division and an adults' division. There were three categories for each with rather silly names. The one I remember is "Most Mythological." One reason I remember that is because I won in that category. I think having both hats helped, and my rather crooked and decorated staff added to the overall look. My prize was a poster of Brian Froud's "The Magician," which is one of the cards in one of his two oracle decks. It can be seen on this page - scroll down to the sixth print. The music was the best of the festival since Saturday is the biggest day. Faun from Germany and Woodland, the band featuring Emilio and Kelly Miller-Lopez, two of the Faerieworlds producers, did powerful sets. On both nights there were very nice lighting effects adding to the magic.
Sunday was Family Day. I wore the wizard hat and grey robe again. The faeries on the hat were glad to be back in the Realm. They weren't too happy initially about staying in the tent most of Saturday, but they overheard when someone on the stage said, "Bad faeries kick good faeries butts!" Since my little friends, both faeries pretending to be figurines and the butterflies are all good faeries, they didn't mind being in a safe place. Sunday is the short day, but there's still lots of great music, lots of activity, and of course the vendors, of which Faerieworlds has about 200. I was wearing a very nice T shirt with butterflies all over the front and back which I'd gotten from Alec of Tricky Pixie. His wife Kore (pronounced like Corey) had brought a few things along from an estate and wanted to get them sold instead of carting them back home. I asked her how much it cost, expecting to hear as much as $20, which I would have paid because it's so nice and goes with the wizard hat so well. Needless to say, I was flabbergasted when she said, "A buck." Also needless to say, I couldn't get my wallet out fast enough.
Performances ended at around 8:30 Sunday night with a wonderful group, Stellamara, doing the last set of the day. A lot of their music is based on Middle Eastern and Eastern European traditions, although they closed with the American tune "The Cuckoo," which is an old song that came across the Atlantic with early settlers who moved to the Appalachians. It was all over too soon, it seemed, after so much anticipation starting with the end of Faerieworlds 2009.
One interesting thing that happened was when I was approached by Robert Gould, the third member of the producer team early on Saturday. I'd been posting a lot of answers to questions people had been posting of the Faerieworlds pages on Facebook and Tribe.net. Many of them were related to camping, which I'd done last year, plus some general questions. I only answered, based on my prior experience, when I was sure of my information. I figured, quite correctly, the Faerieworlds staff had their hands full with last minute preparations, especially since Woodland had done a short tour in England a little over a month before Faerieworlds. Robert thanked me for the help I'd given folks and asked if I'd be interested in making it a more formal arrangement where I'd get more behind the scenes information so I could post more informatively and authoritatively. (Several times in my posts I'd included disclaimers that I was not on staff but just an interested participant sharing my experience.) Robert also shared some of the vision for future Faerieworlds events and other events, some of which might take place at the Mount Pisgah Arboretum. One idea was for a Harvest Festival in October. Emilio later mentioned that from the stage, but there were almost no specifics, so I'm not sure if it'll happen this year. But with the installation of a Stone Circle between the main gate and the main stage, it appears that the folks at Lane County Parks & Recreation, which run the area the festival is held in, are liking what they're seeing with Faerieworlds. Robert also mentioned seeing if vendors might go for the idea of having double-decker booths so people could use the upper level to watch performances on the main stage.
Later I mentioned that idea to the folks running Oberon's Three-Penny Tavern, an alehouse much like those at Renaissance Faires. I'd gone for a beer soon after things opened on Saturday, early enough that the Oberon's staff started a short meeting/pep session soon after I sat down at a shady table away from the bar. They said I was welcome to stay, and it was interesting to see a bit "behind the curtain." The guy in charge mentioned the roof over the tavern was strong enough to hold a person, something I'd seen early on Friday as I walked through before the gates opened. They liked Robert's idea, and I suggested maybe they could wangle a location for the tavern that would give a better view of the main stage, since Oberon's was off to the side and a few booths down from the stage.
Campers were allowed to stay over on Sunday night, which I was glad to do because I'm usually kind of wiped out by the end of the event. The inner circle was similar in some ways to last year's party camp. There was a fire pit in the middle of the area. There was no fire Friday night, but there were fires the next two nights. Several drummers gathered around and drummed pretty much nonstop until dawn. Also, I'd learned Thursday night that Jason is a world-class snorer. There's a brand of earplugs named "Hearos" and believe me, they are well-named. They blocked out the snoring from Jason, about ten feet away in the tent I'd used for many years at Old Songs back East. A bit more of the drumming leaked through, however, but I did my best to ignore it. But I still found myself awake with only a few hours of real sleep followed by just lying still for quite a bit.
This morning, Monday, August 2nd, I checked out the tent window at dawn to see if there was any ground fog, since today is Ground Fog Day. I didn't see any, so it looks like there will be six or seven weeks more of Summer. Conditions for ground fog were pretty close, though, with no clouds overnight, unlike Friday and Saturday nights, and very low temperatures. The dew was heavy, though, so I was in no hurry to take the tents down too quickly. We didn't rush and were still out by 10:30. Along with a stop for gas and one for food at Carl's Jr. in Eugene, we were finally on the non-stop leg of the trip up I-5 and then I-205 to the airport, where I dropped Jason off. Strangely enough, although I've lived here for ten years, it's the first time I've done that.
As of now, I still need to empty the car, which includes retrieving the USB cable to connect the camera to the computer. No, scratch that. I have a separate card reader attached to the computer. The last time I tried putting in an SD card it wouldn't read it, but this time it is. Cool. The car can wait until it gets a little cooler outside (while the cooler in the car gets warmer, but that's OK). Yikes! 529 items! I've got some serious sorting to do! I'll share some pictures here and more on Facebook and Tribe. Also, I'll be updating my Squidoo lens, Faerieworlds Summer Celebration.
On Friday, Good Faeries Day, we got there early to set up camp, then hung out until the festival opened at 2. With the new setup, we were very close to one of the two gates from the inner circle camping to the Realm, which cut down on walking a lot. The main stage was close to that gate as well. The costumes on other people were fantastic. My wizard hat got a lot of compliments and I kept getting stopped by people wanting a picture. Good thing I was in no hurry to go anywhere. The music was great and the set by Tricky Pixie was the best I've ever seen them do. Alec, a member of that band who I'm acquainted with, later told me things really came together to make for a powerful, high energy set. The audience was certainly enthusiastic, but then, they usually are at Faerieworlds.
Saturday was Bad Faeries Day. Instead of Friday's grey robe, I wore a black robe with silver leaf trim that I'd gotten last year. Instead of the wizard hat with all the good little faeries (six of them) and about 15 butterflies (faeries in disguise), I wore the top hat with the four clocks, Slinky Jr., miscellaneous gears, sundial and sextant. Again I was stopped frequently whenever I walked around. Folks were amazed to discover the clocks all worked and were set to four different time zones. It was a heavy hat, so when I wasn't walking around I usually held it or set it in Jason's chair if he was off somewhere. Each day we had good seats right next to the sound booth. I did my best to see at least some of all the main stage acts. There was another stage, newly christened the Neverworlds Stage, at the far end of the Realm by the food vendors, but I didn't make it down there very much, which is kind of too bad since one of my Circle of Merry Folk friends was stage manager.
Early in the day on Saturday I changed back to the wizard hat to go to a workshop called Connecting with Your Faerie Guides. It seemed only appropriate to have my little faerie friends along. Then I changed back to the clocked hat but kept the wizard hat with me because there was a costume contest soon after. I held the wizard hat up by grabbing the styrofoam cone that sits on my head and keeps the hat from flopping over. At the costume contest they had a kids' division and an adults' division. There were three categories for each with rather silly names. The one I remember is "Most Mythological." One reason I remember that is because I won in that category. I think having both hats helped, and my rather crooked and decorated staff added to the overall look. My prize was a poster of Brian Froud's "The Magician," which is one of the cards in one of his two oracle decks. It can be seen on this page - scroll down to the sixth print. The music was the best of the festival since Saturday is the biggest day. Faun from Germany and Woodland, the band featuring Emilio and Kelly Miller-Lopez, two of the Faerieworlds producers, did powerful sets. On both nights there were very nice lighting effects adding to the magic.
Sunday was Family Day. I wore the wizard hat and grey robe again. The faeries on the hat were glad to be back in the Realm. They weren't too happy initially about staying in the tent most of Saturday, but they overheard when someone on the stage said, "Bad faeries kick good faeries butts!" Since my little friends, both faeries pretending to be figurines and the butterflies are all good faeries, they didn't mind being in a safe place. Sunday is the short day, but there's still lots of great music, lots of activity, and of course the vendors, of which Faerieworlds has about 200. I was wearing a very nice T shirt with butterflies all over the front and back which I'd gotten from Alec of Tricky Pixie. His wife Kore (pronounced like Corey) had brought a few things along from an estate and wanted to get them sold instead of carting them back home. I asked her how much it cost, expecting to hear as much as $20, which I would have paid because it's so nice and goes with the wizard hat so well. Needless to say, I was flabbergasted when she said, "A buck." Also needless to say, I couldn't get my wallet out fast enough.
Performances ended at around 8:30 Sunday night with a wonderful group, Stellamara, doing the last set of the day. A lot of their music is based on Middle Eastern and Eastern European traditions, although they closed with the American tune "The Cuckoo," which is an old song that came across the Atlantic with early settlers who moved to the Appalachians. It was all over too soon, it seemed, after so much anticipation starting with the end of Faerieworlds 2009.
One interesting thing that happened was when I was approached by Robert Gould, the third member of the producer team early on Saturday. I'd been posting a lot of answers to questions people had been posting of the Faerieworlds pages on Facebook and Tribe.net. Many of them were related to camping, which I'd done last year, plus some general questions. I only answered, based on my prior experience, when I was sure of my information. I figured, quite correctly, the Faerieworlds staff had their hands full with last minute preparations, especially since Woodland had done a short tour in England a little over a month before Faerieworlds. Robert thanked me for the help I'd given folks and asked if I'd be interested in making it a more formal arrangement where I'd get more behind the scenes information so I could post more informatively and authoritatively. (Several times in my posts I'd included disclaimers that I was not on staff but just an interested participant sharing my experience.) Robert also shared some of the vision for future Faerieworlds events and other events, some of which might take place at the Mount Pisgah Arboretum. One idea was for a Harvest Festival in October. Emilio later mentioned that from the stage, but there were almost no specifics, so I'm not sure if it'll happen this year. But with the installation of a Stone Circle between the main gate and the main stage, it appears that the folks at Lane County Parks & Recreation, which run the area the festival is held in, are liking what they're seeing with Faerieworlds. Robert also mentioned seeing if vendors might go for the idea of having double-decker booths so people could use the upper level to watch performances on the main stage.
Later I mentioned that idea to the folks running Oberon's Three-Penny Tavern, an alehouse much like those at Renaissance Faires. I'd gone for a beer soon after things opened on Saturday, early enough that the Oberon's staff started a short meeting/pep session soon after I sat down at a shady table away from the bar. They said I was welcome to stay, and it was interesting to see a bit "behind the curtain." The guy in charge mentioned the roof over the tavern was strong enough to hold a person, something I'd seen early on Friday as I walked through before the gates opened. They liked Robert's idea, and I suggested maybe they could wangle a location for the tavern that would give a better view of the main stage, since Oberon's was off to the side and a few booths down from the stage.
Campers were allowed to stay over on Sunday night, which I was glad to do because I'm usually kind of wiped out by the end of the event. The inner circle was similar in some ways to last year's party camp. There was a fire pit in the middle of the area. There was no fire Friday night, but there were fires the next two nights. Several drummers gathered around and drummed pretty much nonstop until dawn. Also, I'd learned Thursday night that Jason is a world-class snorer. There's a brand of earplugs named "Hearos" and believe me, they are well-named. They blocked out the snoring from Jason, about ten feet away in the tent I'd used for many years at Old Songs back East. A bit more of the drumming leaked through, however, but I did my best to ignore it. But I still found myself awake with only a few hours of real sleep followed by just lying still for quite a bit.
This morning, Monday, August 2nd, I checked out the tent window at dawn to see if there was any ground fog, since today is Ground Fog Day. I didn't see any, so it looks like there will be six or seven weeks more of Summer. Conditions for ground fog were pretty close, though, with no clouds overnight, unlike Friday and Saturday nights, and very low temperatures. The dew was heavy, though, so I was in no hurry to take the tents down too quickly. We didn't rush and were still out by 10:30. Along with a stop for gas and one for food at Carl's Jr. in Eugene, we were finally on the non-stop leg of the trip up I-5 and then I-205 to the airport, where I dropped Jason off. Strangely enough, although I've lived here for ten years, it's the first time I've done that.
As of now, I still need to empty the car, which includes retrieving the USB cable to connect the camera to the computer. No, scratch that. I have a separate card reader attached to the computer. The last time I tried putting in an SD card it wouldn't read it, but this time it is. Cool. The car can wait until it gets a little cooler outside (while the cooler in the car gets warmer, but that's OK). Yikes! 529 items! I've got some serious sorting to do! I'll share some pictures here and more on Facebook and Tribe. Also, I'll be updating my Squidoo lens, Faerieworlds Summer Celebration.
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