How do you type when a cat lays on the copy?

You don't. *Sigh*

Anyways, I was getting through the pile creative writing class comments made on Blue Man, so I could through away the six or seven copies of the story (draft 2 version I think). Mustard refuses to let me have them back. Yeah, I could force the issue, but he looks so cute.

I've been told it's safe to go back to the paying job tomorrow and I might as well. I don't think I accomplished anything today between appointments and trying to see MawMaw in the hospital. She's moved to the rehab center now.

So I'm off to bed early and hopefully tomorrow will make sense.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Repeated on Tuesday

Only they evacuated us with the first email threat this time. I really don't know if it is worth wasting the gas to go in tomorrow.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

So what has to happen before we make the local news?

700 people blow up? The building gets destroyed? I saw the news van, but it is too much to ask for a notice on the websites I can link to. Or at least see if I need to go to work.

It's Monday, but I get to work with no problems. The morning routine goes according to schedule. Typing lawsuits while waiting for the mail and making notes on website changes. Then two DPS (a section of the state troopers that handle security for the state government buildings) officers head to the mailroom's supervisor's office. (The reason it is in our space is a long and boring.) I hear "mail" before they shut the door.

There's only two problems you can have with mail that would involve the cops: anthrax and a bomb.

No email notices are sent out yet. Scarlet (my immediate supervisor)went down for breakfast and came back with the news that the first floor is swarming with cops. "Have you shit ready to grab when we have to hit the doors. And I'm ready to evacuate now."

We get an email telling us to turn off our cell phones. People are starting to get really jittery now. Then Cathy (mailroom supervisor) comes out of her office. "Just a drill, but you have to evacuate." Followed with the fire warden for our section coming through. "GET OUT THIS IS NOT A DRILL! GET OUT OR BLOW UP!"

Down the stairs, across the parking lot, where we wait. Three emailed bomb threats, and the cops are now searching everything. Fine by me: "Can I move my car so concrete won't hit it? I just bought it." The answer was no.

Neighboring Livingston building let us in, but the entire building didn't fit. Down the road but within walking distance, Claiborne Building opened up for us too. It's now sometime after 10am. 2 people have to leave by EMS.

By 11:40 am, I convinced some of my coworkers we needed to get food at Claiborne. The only words we were getting was sign a legal pad and don't go home. We just got our food and sat down, when we're told to move to another room, the Commissioner has news.

Early dismissal, the cops are checking cars to rule out another Oklahoma City, so you may have to wait until yours is inspected. It is a credible threat "but if Homeland Security can't catch this nut, we got other things to worry about." Yeah, that didn't bring up any bad flashbacks of "Good job, Brownie" *shudder*. "Come back tomorrow and if it isn't safe, they won't let you in."

It was a good thing I was sitting in the back, so my boss of bosses didn't hear me mutter: "You live here. I'd like to know before I drive a fucking hour at 6am."

Went home, got my Hammond errands wrapped up early, was getting everything all caught up with Mom, and the electricity goes out so I can't see the 5pm news. My uncle got it on his battery powered TV and says I have to go in.

But I'd feel a whole lot better about it knowing the arrested the kook.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Reading Diary

After a year's break, I've rebooted my Reading Diary blog. Basically, I'm just offering reviews of books I have read and Amazon links to buy them. It also encouragement to me to read stuff I have on my shelves that I haven't yet.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Why yesterday was a bad day

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/7454366.html

I spent 4 hours in the car yesterday between going to my coworker's mother's viewing and trying to get to work.

Another coworker tells me I shouldn't send a driver's manual to the hospital as a get well present because the commuters there are probably doing a much better job tormenting her.

Read Free!
The BookWorm


Progress Bar from Writertopia

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Monday Assessments, Tuesday Tweaks, and Wednesday I Actually Get To Type It In

Sometimes I wonder why I bother. And I'm afraid I'm going to have to stop visiting Mom. It's 7pm before we eat and by that point, whatever I had planned to try to do that night is shot.

• My bedroom - clean


• Living room - clean, but get rid of the getting rid of stuff


• Bathroom - clean


• Backroom - clean, but look in the patterns for "Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince" book


• Kitchen - clean


• Office - paperwork piles

*Sigh* Most of what is now on the To Do List is writing and odds & ends. Like dealing with paperwork. I work in an office for crying out loud. I know how fast paperwork piles up. Why don't I deal with it on a weekly basis?

Probably for the same reason I don't do anything else I'm supposed to do. Say it with me, Procrastination.

Anyways it's time I got serious about it. So if I get a good chunk of the To Do list out of the way (mostly the stuff I have to leave the house to do and the bulletproof corset. I want to finish it before PotC3) this week, it should be a weekend of writing and filing.

Unless I go kidnap Chad. Damnit I want to see Spider-Man NOW! I could see it without him, but this dating thing... I've heard it's nice. I got him to agree to Sunday. So it looks like one day of mostly writing and filing. Which is okay. After three weekends in a row cleaning house, I'm ready to leave.

I have two good barrets that hold up my hair. The one I'm wearing now is not one of them. Okay, it's gone now. Time for a haircut; I can do the Brooke Shields Blue Lagoon hide the boobies manuever. I think I got at least ten inches of length to donate to Locks of Love. That will probably have to be added to Saturday too.

A coworker's mother died; it's employee appreciation week, and mail is in like it's a deadline: paying job catch-up complete.

Moday I had a bad headaches due to muscles spasm and me not packing the painkillers for it. Tuesday my head was clear and I had planned to sit down with the calender and everything I need to do. The three-hour visit with Mom ruined that. Then I stayed up too late comparing the movie version of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" to the print version I'm rereading again. I had considered sewing on the corset, but the book wasn't clear on how to handstitch. For the record, all my sewing has been done and taught for the machine, so I have no clue what I'm doing on hand work beyond sewing on a button. And now I just remembered that's why I bought Sewing for Dummies, which I forgot I owned last night.

Tonight is the final, so I probably won't get anything done at the house tonight either. But I should be cleared out to do some planning Thursday and Friday. I need to set up some deadlines so school work and other writing gigs don't interfere with each other.

I'm very tired of having a brain that is bouncing all over the place, and I think I've allowed it to do that for much too long. I think it developed as a defense mechanism to my submission fear, because I never had a problem with focusing until I told myself "I have to get serious about being published. I have to make that extra step."

I need to take the time to delve into this fear and drag it kicking and screaming into the light. It's no good talking sternly to myself, making deadlines to submit, because I will just cave when it comes to meeting them. I ALWAYS cave. I have to deal with this or hire somebody to do submissions for me. And there's no money for a secretary, unfortunately.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

I don't believe it, even though I should

Remember the most aggravating thing in the world?

I just found the sheet. After I gave it up as a lost cause and started to recreate it.

*Shoving the papers in the proper binder* I swear it is laughing at me!

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Done in by technology

*Sigh* Recent events--namely getting stuck in Denham Springs with no way of knowing how to get around the traffic mess and no atlas or maps in car--made me realize I need to put some of that stuff on my phone. Unrelated email from a friend made me go look at the other things Google offers. Mobile maps! Yeah!

Now, I have added "going to cell phone store so they can show me how to use my browser properly" to the To Do list.

Also Google Calender is present a learning curve. Apparently my calender and the link with Gmail aren't connecting. *Sigh*

And I'm hoping that upgrading to the next version of BookCAT clears up those problems.

In other news, housecleaning is still going but I think I will finish today. Actually, I'm not giving myself much of a choice. I want to do full on writing next weekend or go get my tent from Lafayette (long story).

"The Harder They Come: Writing Woes" by J.A. Konrath is spot on BRILLIANT! I used to be much better at shutting that question voice up, back when I didn't put so much on the line with the story. I'm working on that.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Project Updates

Let's see: housecleaning and writing are going as well as can be expected. I have a lot of both, but I think this weekend--if plans don't change--will wipe out housework and dent the writing. School work is practically over; just the final left. So now it's time to consider what else needs updating: the websites.

I started listing things here and realized it was getting too long and moved it to Backpack instead. 12 items so far for Alt. Biker Mice Site, and 5 for the Library.

The biggest issue for Alt BM Site after getting the Drupal upgrade is the Tortures. Okay, I can accept that they don't understand which numbers have been used. To a certain degree I was willing to work around that--namely finding out if there was a way to get them auto-titled with the next number whenever someone clicked on it. BUT when a user creates a torture which is a plot bunny to share with the rest of the fandom to advertize a Geocities site with new series Rimfire pics on it for the sole purpose of complaining about the look, I want to borrow Miss Snarks' clue cannon and let them have until they are vaporizied.

*Calming down from Klingon battle rage* So it's obvious Tortures is not working as intended. And I really don't want to go back to vetting and adding the content. Lord and Lady, all that typing sucked. But I am at a lost of what to do with it.

Idea 1: Make it a forum under Red Planet. Users can post, they can discuss, they can vote on what gets added to the list at Alt. BM Site.
Idea 2: Make the Tortures a forum on Alt. BM Site for the same reasons. I don't really want to add a forum to Alt. BM Site because the fandom already has places to talk.
Idea 3: Keep the set up as is only figuring out how to make it number automatically, but new ones are moderated and aren't added until the moderator approves the post.
Idea 4: Make it a static page that no one can add too. I don't really want to do this either because the new series needs Tortures too.
Idea 5: Some solution I haven't thought of yet.

And that's where I am tonight. And finding notes. I didn't want a right-hand column on the content pages. I wonder if I can fix that with Views. Anyway, bounce some ideas to me while I go find Krug and see if he is any help. And get some sleep.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Quick catchup

Started physical therapy. Muscle spasms, no bone damage.

And I'm now the proud owner of a 2006 Dodge Stratus, which I will post a picture of as soon as I figure out why the picture transfer from my camera to harddrive isn't working.

Off to work on the to do list and try to go to bed early.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

The most aggravating thing in the world

To remember what the damn notes looked like. To remember whiting-out things that didn't fit and rearranging them.

What so aggravating about that?

TO NOT FIND THE DAMN NOTE SO YOU CAN GET THE DATES IN YOUR NOVEL STRAIGHT BEFORE TURNING IN THIS CHAPTER FOR THE CLASS PROJECT!

And knowing that it is hiding somewhere laughing at you.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Shopping for a new car hell

I try to keep an open mind. I don't care about color as long as the price is right, it has cargo room, and the gas mileage is good. Used is still new to me. So it ought to be easy to find me a damn car, right?

Course it doesn't help when I start getting cranky and ill because my neck and back hurt. And my pecs but that usually doesn't happen unless I use those muscles.

I didn't get to pick out the Hyundai Accent. And the plan was to drive it till it dropped after I had it paid off and had saved up a down payment. So I would actually enjoy car shopping the second time around.

It's the oh-god-I'm-spending-too-much and the it-costs-how-fucking-much all rolled into one. And I have to call the bank and the insurance guys tomorrow. So looks like I'm going back to work Tuesday.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

How Do You Really Do It? Project

Okay, time for the project I kept say I would explain later: "How Do You Really Do It? Living the Writing Life" over at Discipline Under Fire.

Basically, I want an autobiographical how-to that's more concerned with the living part rather than the writing part. Comments are turned on for those entries, and I'm looking forward to see what develops.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Pain is bearable

So what happened yesterday. I was running late, but was not tailgating. In fact, I had just congratualted myself on leaving lots of room in front of me. Had already called work and said I was running late. Car to the left in the median between interstate lanes, corner damaged, must have clipped the light pole. Brake lights. Me slam on brakes. Airbag in face.

Airbag defaltes and I get the car to the shoulder. Get out to get away from gritty airbag dust. Five or six people all asking if I was okay. Arms felt scraped, chest hurt, back and neck don't hurt yet but they will. Other car has only bumper damage and that mostly looks like my white paint. A Motorists Assisstance Patrol guy sees us from the Eastbound side and soon joins us. It's about 7:40 am.

Call work, call home. Mom calls Dad. Wait for cops. Wait for on-duty cops (yes, off-duty ones stopped and got our hopes up). Two sets of firefighters and a set of paramedics stop to see if we needed to go to the hospital. Later we find out that the radio traffic people say ours is an accident with injuries. A state trooper finally shows up. Oops you are ten feet too close to O'Neal Lane, you need city police. He forgets to call them in. M.A.P. guy has to do it.

Dad shows up. I call insurance, city police show up about 9:30 am. No ticket for me. Finally eat breakfast, and finished talking to insurance, have to go to the wrecked yards and sign a release so the body shop can get car. Arrange for the rental, get a doctor's appointment, starting to hurt.

Call Chad. At noon, Dad's gassing up at Denham Springs and we run into M.A.P. guy at the same gas station. Get rental car. Go to doctor. Muscle relaxers and ibroprfen and x-rays and appointment for next week.

Muscle relaxers make me loopy but I'm going back to work tomorrow. Go to bed at 7 pm, don't hear the phone next to the bed when Chad calls. Still going to work until I wake up at 2 am and can't move my neck without pain. Call in sick.

Today I picked up the living room mess Mustard had made by knocking over the table filled with board games and books. I have never seen anything scatter in a circular pattern before. And I finished shelving and correcting the BookCat database of obvious errors. I think I need to send them an email to find out how I can break my fiction into genres and create a printed report from that.

I also discovered I have two projects I want to do: How do you really do it? (which I will explain later) and resurrecting the Reader's Diary. I just reshelved 1247 books and found plenty that I haven't read yet. Also I need to be honest, if I don't reread them, do I need to keep them? And some of the nonfiction is just bizarre. Will I ever do anything on the Biodome project?

And the insurance called and my car is a total loss. So now I have to go buy a new one. Luckily, the settlement will pay off my car loan, so I'm not in the hole. But I don't have much of a down payment.

So tomorrow: call insurance, double check their figures. Call bank and get pre-approved for car loan. Then maybe go car shopping.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Not what I had in mind for when I got back here

But I had another wreck, me at fault. Front-end smooshed. Hopefully repairable. Sore and also on muscle relaxers.

Mustard made living room mess worse. Not a good day at all.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Getting back to normal

Things are returning to what passes for normal at my house. Saturday saw me get a great word count (4101) while crossing other things off the to-do list until I hit upon "clean office." That gave me the brainwave of moving the black metal shelves so I could move the tall filing cabinet so I could put a set of tall shelves where the filing cabinet once was. So now I need a new set of shelves for the living room.

Second point to moving shelves is moving books and putting the piles of unshelved books back in order. That ate up the time on Sunday, once I figured out how to get a report sorted by Dewey Decimal numbers out of BookCAT. Actually, shuffling the books around is the easy part, correcting the BookCAT database when I founf errors took time. I still have the 000s and fiction to do. The clean the living room and kitchen messes. At least the kitchen mess is unrelated to the rest of the mess.

Course it didn't help I found a new website to distract myself with: Cat-Tales. It's Batman universe fanfiction that takes the stance that the comics are tabloid versions of the characters. Selina and Bruce are together and know each other is Catwoman and Batman. Hysterica ensue, but they are good for each other. Some of the male Rogues Gallery descending to tell Bruce Wayne how to deal with Catwoman is still my favorite scene. COurse they all think she's toyinh with Bruce and Batman, and it's not really fair. Gaslighting the Joker so bad he checks into Arkham was a good story too.

Back to the word count, apparantly the contract is finally showing some effect. I finished a scene in Zy's Novel and then breezed through a scene in Strix, even typed up background notes and worked out what the vampires were doing and who they pretended to be timeline. I have to go back to Zy's Novel, but it doesn't seem too bad.

I also have a third project semi-started but I'll go into that later.

Read Free!
The BookWorm


Progress Bar from Writertopia

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Son of Indy?

I've long said that would be a good idea for the fourth movie, unless they did something with the "Young Indiana Jones Adventures." And now they've cast a 20-year-old. http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/13/people.shialabeouf.ap/index.html

Not that I try to second guess movie choices. I'm just happy that Speilburg and Ford are involved so the dialogue won't suck like it did in three recent Lucas films.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

How Much Is Slander Worth?

Or does email fall under libel laws? Not that I'm planning to sue; it's more satisfying to watch things explode from a distance. And I don't know how entertaining this will be with how much background info I have to put in.

May 17, 2005: Vacation From RenFaire My posting on quitting Louisiana Renaissance Festival. Notice I never said anything bad about anyone, choosing to say it was my burnout. Burnout caused by becoming increasing demoralized by working for LRF and most of it I put on not being supported as management by the owners because I'm female. There was bickering and clicks and high turnover among the cast that never seemed to stop. It had stopped being fun long before I quit, but I stayed out a sense of obligation and I enjoy reenacting. Though by May, that joy wasn't enough to keep me going.

Chad's final straw was when there was a masturbation/flashing incident on one of the School Days, and at least one of the owners refused to have any of the rennies ("rennies" are people who travel from festival to festival to be hired on for whatever jobs are available) checked out by the witnesses or the police. And tried to put the blame on the chaperone because she didn't find a cop and it had to be someone from the outside. General public isn't allowed in on school days.

That was 2004. And it was what prompted Chad to start his own faire--an idea he's always had in the back of his mind. School Days was Chad's invention and the public would eventually hold him responsible should something worse happen. Katrina at the end of August 2005 started the ball rolling for what became Acadiana Medieval Faire. Population shifted across the state of Louisiana; Chad moved to Lafayette. Chad finished the 2005 season for them, including two School Days, because it was the professional thing to do. Chad quit very diplomatically, and was upfront about his plans, so we could all work together in the future.

Renaissance Living History Center was a group Chad help found with other LRF cast members who wanted to preserve LRF when it had looked like year 2002 was going to be its last and to promote a more historically accurate reenacting. They didn't want to start a new faire in a medieval period, so Chad resigned from the group, too, so there would be no legal questions over the ownership of Acadiana, hoping they would come play too.

I'm still annoyed they cheated Chad out of his paycheck for 2005. I think I'm supposed to drop it, since Chad is happy with the used desktop computer system and software compensation--but there should have been cash to make up the difference. Yet, I should have remembered this is the same group who said they were not paying me to write LRF's 2005 Educators' Guide because the deal was between Chad and me. That's fine now because Chad put a down payment on it out of his pocket, and they have no legal rights to use it. And I will litigate over that if it ever is used without my permission.

So the six months sped by with the Acadiana posters I and the others on cast put up at SLU torn down, and some complaints from our Yahoo group members of getting spam from LRF. It was rather low on our priority list with everything else we had to do, but odd. Even more odd when everyone in Acadiana was spammed for the independent film shoot at LRF's site April 1st--our opening day. We didn't miss them with 1700 people to worry about.

They showed up in mass Sunday to scope it out. And yes, it was a spying mission because if you are supporting a new Faire, you ask for permission to come play--i.e. work on the street cast--and you show up in garb. Everyone in one travel group, including ones we thought were our friends in RHLC and just didn't like the medieval period showed up in LRF T-shirts. Only five people showed up in either garb or street clothes.

Since the lawyer didn't name names, I guess I won't either. A representative of LRF came back on Monday, our school day and wondered around the parking lot. I think he told the schools we had complaint issues with exactly what to say about our Faire because it was the same stuff that he brought up Sunday to all our merchants--like calling the board of health because we didn't have enough port-a-johns, Chad over booked the space, there was no way we'd have over 2000 kids in this site, there was false advertising claiming rides that we're there. When a stranger from Lake Charles (on the Texas side of the state) starts spouting off the same stuff, you have to wonder. Yes, I know who the representative is. I'm the one who alerted the cops that he was trespassing. Not that they did any good; Hannah (Chad's mother) threw him off that day, and told him to grow up and end it.

Here's the post I made publicly about our first year: April 6, 2006: Acadiana Medieval Faire Year One. I didn't bring any of that up at the time because I figured they showed their colors and there was no point in pointing out depressing human behavior.

After all that in April, Chad caught them trying to impersonate him via email accounts in May. After Isaac's drowning accident, we were informed we could only go to the memorial service on LRF's site as long as we were escorted. We didn't go because a) other plans and b) weirded out by having the service at the site of his death.

There's more I'm forgetting, but I had other things to worry about with Chad's health, my grandmother moving in with my parents, my sister having a baby, school work, the Thanksgiving crisis, and building a new Faire site for year 2. Which brings us to the end of March 2007, AMF's second season. With a lawyer's legal input, we drew up a behavior contract for LRF/RLHC management to sign. All it said was a representative on LRF acted like an ass last year and we wanted a signed promise that the signer wouldn't repeat the behavior and would act like they would at any other Faire but ours (translated from the legal-ese). Yes, there was a scene on Sunday caused by those who refused to sign. But by not signing, you only proved you were there to cause trouble for us.

Then the mudslinging through an email group was brought to our attention. Granted they weren't happy about the behavior contract, but no one asked why we had one for them. The one who called us troublemakers and accused us of having "egos, swollen heads, and hurt feelings" has apologized for that outburst, but it hurt to see what my five years of hard work for them was reduced to. And I worked hard. I stage-managed the joust for four years and kept drunken patrons from getting hurt by draft horses. I organized the crew of squired and helped build a new stable for the joust team when everyone else said, "let the knights do it." I did tear down a fence with good intentions for a better one that did not happen and replaced it. I helped build benches and move them around stages. I suggested using King James I for year three and four because they needed a tie-in with Shakespeare. I helped RLHC build on the Inn, and helped build the gypsy vardo and the pirate camp. I never asked for money or recognition beyond the little bit given out on awards night each year.

But I was there at year one for LRF. I signed a contract not to play my character at any other Faire, when the closest competitors were in Texas and Mississippi and nobody had a school day. So that does not match what was said in this email.

Clearing Up the Contract Hoopla Email dated April 6, 2007

Many people have worked years to develop LRF into the quality event it
is today. We spend a lot of time and effort choosing merchants,
entertainers, and training volunteers. We provide professional
training for our cast. We teach many skills such as: character
creation, character development, acting, and how to make garb, etc.
We all volunteer a lot of time, we invest a lot of effort, and we want
to protect our investments.

Since LRF is six weekends long the public can attend any other weekend
event in Louisiana and still attend LRF on a different day. School
fieldtrips are different. Schools can only take one fieldtrip a year
to an event like ours; if a school takes a second fieldtrip it will be
to a different kind of event where students can learn something
"different". In other words schools have to choose between LRF and
AMF. This makes us competitors to each other, and only because of
school days. The Acadiana Medieval Faire is the only event that
prevents students from attending our student days. Therefore, most of
the people we train must refrain from contributing to the competition
for a short period of time. Although we have made quite a few
exceptions for our participants when they have a valid need, or
hardship.

Having the cast play improv at more than one event only improves the improv. Many Faires allowed cast members to play at LRF in 2005 because we lost so many people with Katrina. We are two different eras as well as two different geographical locations.

Course this is only addressing participants here. Vendors and acts come up later.

Clearing Up the Contract Hoopla Email dated April 6, 2007

Apparently this past April AMF made some people entering their faire
sign contracts saying they would not "hurt" their faire. I was not
asked to sign such a contract. I can only speculate as to how or why
they would do this.

IN MY OPINION: it doesn't make sense to make customers sign a contract
limiting their freedom of speech (and yes they can legally do that if
you sign the contract).
I'll break this down:
1. A malicious person doesn't need to visit to say hurtful things.
2. Slander is illegal, a contract doesn't help prevent it.
3. It would only limit one from telling the truth, if "hurtful" to AMF

Of course there could be a completely valid angle I don't see.

"ANY TIME YOU GET ONE SIDE OF THE STORY IT WILL BE ONE-SIDED." (Alvon
Brumfield 2007).
Consider the sources of your information; if a company/politician
makes a Negative claim about a competitor, can you trust it?
Please base your opinions on the evidence you see, not on rumors or
one sided stories.

The only thing we asked participants to sign is paperwork for the insurance company. And nobody asked why the behavior contract was necessary. I suppose they think we should give out comp tickets to those who want to sabotage us, but I think our piece of paper that says "we know what was said last year and we won't stand for it" works better. But I do admire the attempt to try to say, "oh something must be wrong with AMF look at what they are doing. Let's use "A Few Good Men" quote."

I actually agree with the last line, view the evidence.

However, this is where it is no longer agreeable. Someone expressed regret over the state of things in the first part of the following email. It is marked with the standard more-than signs. My responses to the emailed response are highlighted in blue.

Festival Rivalry April 7 and 8, 2007

> I just want to say it's so sad to hear all this dissention between two
> faires that are a good distance away from each other (around 3
> hours?), and in a state still crippled by the devastating effects of
> two hurricanes, almost 2 years ago. Lots of people are still hurting
> and I wish we could all just work together to iron our our
> differences. Many of us trained together at one faire and have become
> friends and are now branching out into other realms. Most of us need
> money, and more of it (who's insurance didn't go up since the
> hurricanes??) Anyway, I wish all faire vendors, entertainers,
> merchants and volunteer (unpaid) cast were free to do ALL faires they
> want to, to contribute to as many or as little as they desire, and not
> be restricted by a 'contract.' I don't understand the whole school
> days problem--how many schools are involved? It can't be more than a
> few as these faires are in different geo. areas.
> Like I said before, this whole situation is SAD.
> :(
>
Before AMF everything we did went into providing more education, more demonstrations,
and better facilities; everyone volunteered.

I wish greed would not have caused a second faire and all this animosity. I wish they
would have talked to us before the split, or after.

GREED? We're greedy bitches? Oh nothing about the fight every year for being more historical and us being told that "you're trying to turn LRF into a museum and nobody likes museums." I pretty sure Chad emailed LRF owner 1 and I was present at the meeting with owner 2 and Chad. We had it at the Green Leaf and Chad hoped we could all work together again.

But yes, for a paycheck. We're greedy because my writing time is precious and Chad is trying to make this his freelance career. We're greedy and we want to eat and have a house together someday.

I have tried dozens of times to communicate with AMF, I have yet to get a single phone
call. I agree its sad: Its sad they broke away to compete. Its sad they refuse to work with
LRF.

I really don't want to cuss, but that is a sad attempt to call it forth. Chad has told me he has talked to you on the phone; maybe not recently but certainly since we started last year. And gee, we're supposed to work together after a representative from your Faire spent his entire Sunday trash talking us to our merchants? Yeah, our time and expertise is really valued and desired by you. Well, it probably is as long as it is free and we don't try anything like financially breaking even.

Its sad their greed got in the way of doing good. Its sad we have no choice but to
protect our school program. Its sad that this even has to be explained. And, It's a tragedy
that our students are being deprived of educational opportunities.

If a faire is providing ADEQUATE entertainment, demonstrations, and facilities to students
there is a very narrow margin to cover expenses. Adding more faires limits the variety of
educational information each one can provide. Example: If students were evenly divided
between fifty faires, it would make each school program very weak. As a merchant you
would have to work fifty faires to reach the same number of customers.

Most companies do not allow you work for their company store and one of their
franchises, at the same time. They don't let you work for the competition either! This is
common practice and common sense.

Oh BULLSHIT! Louisiana is a right-to-work state. NOBODY can tell you who you can and cannot work for. But if you are working full-time, you usually don't have any more time available for a second job for a competitor or not.

As for the students argument, schools have to make field trip choices all the time. Just by providing a school day, you are stealing education time away from the zoo. Many schools pick something different every year to deal with that issue. The problem is I don't believe you have the students' best interest at heart. See the pedophile issue at the beginning of this post.

Now let's talk about the vendors and acts. You refuse to let your vendors or acts work at AMF (despite that I'm pretty sure this is illegal in Louisiana). To quote a letter Chad sent out:

I wasn't sure that I should forward this to you guys, but it is pretty indicative of the problems that we have been having with the faire in Hammond. If you know of any craftsmen who may be interested in joining on us I would appreciate it if you would pass the word on to them and that we would never do something this unsavory to them.

>Chad,

>Some how or another someone told Rick and Alvon we were discussing me coming >over there also, and they sent me a copy of my contract and a nice little letter >about the "other fair clause" that you had mentioned. So until I can find a way >around that, I think I will have to wait. I will discuss it with them, but it will not be >until after the new year.

>Sorry for the trouble.

I'm not entirely positive but I think the "other fair clause" threatens not coming back to LRF and losing any permanent booth a vendor has built with their own money. These vendors travel from faire to faire, pretty much on what they make at each one. I'm glad AMF will not exploit them that way ever.

Performers fall under this too. Not that we can use many of the acts LRF hires--Renaissance theme doesn't work with a medieval theme--but you threatened the one act we did share despite the fact he wrote a completely medieval show for us totally different from what he performs at LRF. But again hurting people's livelihood so you can maintain an exclusive status; this is a good thing how?

We're three hours away from you. So is Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Are these games played with them despite the state line?

Thank you for slogging through all that patiently. I wish I had a funny payoff at the end. I wish I hadn't seeded to write all that out. I was raised with the principle: "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." But I'm also not a victim and I refuse to take abuse any longer. If demanding that children have a safe environment to play in while learning hands-on history and everyone makes a little money and has fun during it makes me a greedy bitch, I'm PROUD to be a greedy bitch. But I'm also not taking any of this personally. The writers of the emails--especially the hurtful ones--have to answer for that just as I must answer for my actions. Karma is slow but fair, and the wheel of fortune acts on us all in turn. Yet the truth shall set you free.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

I'm home again

2000 - 2500 in attendence this year. It rained Saturday and Sunday which hurt us, but everyone that came stayed until the rain drove them away. And the paying public didn't complain.

I'm still debating on how to report the connected but not so good stuff. On one hand, I don't want to participate in mudslinging--or anything that looks like mudslinging. On the other hand, I want the facts to be told and to respond to allegations made.

So let me know what you are in favor of, and I'll see to it.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Literary Meme

Look at the list of books below.
* Bold the ones you’ve read
* Italicize the ones you want to read
* Leave unchanged the ones that you aren’t interested in.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austin)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

What's scary is how many of the want-to-read list I already have. I think I may need to join LibraryThing so I can share my library better.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/