All by my lonesome

July 29, 2007 at 8:25 pm (Family, Reflections, The Belles of Bedlam)

I have spent the past few days on my own. My wife is visiting family in North Carolina to celebrate her Grandmother’s 90th birthday. She left on Tuesday, and will be back on Tuesday. So I have been left to fend for myself. So what have I done with my time?

Watched a whole bunch of Marvel Comic movies that she would never want to watch.
Cleaned up the house a bit, because it needed to be done.
Did a little writing.
Helped build a Recording Studio for the Bells of Bedlam.

All in all it was a very full week. I’m still itching form the fiberglass insulation and acoustic paneling that we installed this weekend, but feel very proud of what I have accomplished. And I did it all by myself.

That having been said, I can’t wait till my wife comes back home. It will be nice to have the one I love back here with me.

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Look MA, I’m on TV!!!!

June 21, 2007 at 9:26 pm (Entertainment, Renaissance Faire, The Belles of Bedlam)

If I can just take a second to be completely self-indulgent and say I’M GOING TO BE ON TV THIS WEEKEND!!!!!!

For those of you who have Dish Network (Like my parents) here are the times that you can catch Split Ends on the Style network. The same episode will be re-aired a few times if you can’t catch any then you must not have cable (like me).

June 23: 3:00AM, 3:00PM

June 24: 11:00AM, 7:00PM, 10:00PM

Come see me play guitar, and my wife sing, with the Belles of Bedlam. The girl we met was Heather Mills, and she was really cool. She worked at a place called Curl Up and Die, a salon in Las Vegas that mainly has a biker chick clientele. She swapped places with a stylist from Beverly Hills. Reality TV at it’s finest.

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The Dust Settels

May 22, 2007 at 9:40 pm (The Belles of Bedlam, Work)

Literally, the dust is settling. For the last three months I have been doing this thing called The Southern California Ren Faire. Four weekends of training workshop and rehearsals. Followed by seven weekends of Faire and weekly rehearsal. To give you a picture in tangable terms, I have not slept in past 6:00am a single day for the last 4 months.

Was it worth it? Hell yeah. I got to get up on stage, 5 times a day, Saturday and Sunday, and preform with some really great people. We made people laugh, and cheer, and smile. We sang pretty music for our song sets and the people smiled and swayed in their seats. We did a great family show for Children of all ages, and made families laugh a smile. We told dirty jokes and sang bawdy songs for our NC-17 shows and had people rolling with laughter. That alone was worth the sweat, the tears, and even the blood shed over the course of the run.

The highlight of this fair had to be the day we had a lot of fun with the queen. The Head of Household for the Queen’s Guard set it up as if she had baked a cherry pie for the Queen. So as the Queen is sitting down for lunch, we walk by the table as if we did not realize she were sitting there with the guard having lunch. Oh, and we had cherry pie filling smeared all over our faces! So the Head of House Hold grabs a couple of us by our ears and drags us in front of the Queen to tell her we had eaten her cherry pie. Lots of laughs had by all. She made us apologize and sing a song for her to make up for it.

There were a lot of really great little moments during the run as well. The people that I preform with are such giver. A really supportive bunch of people, even if we do get on each other’s nerves from time to time, everyone really is looking out for each other. The new people who just joined a few weeks before faire madness started had a lot thrown at them, and they jumped right in with both feet to pick it all up.

So what am I going to do now that faire is done? Get ready for the next one! Actually I’m going to spend Memorial day weekend getting my car to pass smog, then the next weekend I have another faire in Big Bear. Then I’m off till August as far as Bells stuff is concerned.

That’s all for now, I’ll try to keep more updated as things go on. Work is really busy right now because we released a new version of our software and the support desk is flooded with calls. But work is fun, and I love my job. So untill next time, I’ll see you next time.

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Time to Hibernate?

March 10, 2007 at 12:04 am (Renaissance Faire, The Belles of Bedlam)

Figure that now that I have a real job that I am not on my blog as much as I was. I have survived two full weeks at my new job and I love it. I’m answering phone calls now, I’m help people install stuff, and I’m even learning SQL query. Next on my list of things to do once I get settled in and good with the query stuff, is to figure out how to set up a secure mail server that will also block spam coming in form the outside! I’m back in the world of geek, and I’m loving it. Bring on the pain! I can take it!!!

And speaking of pain, my life as I know it will be put on hold for twelve weeks starting tomorrow. Why, you may ask. The Southern California Renaissance Faire start’s it workshops for performers this weekend. I will be taking required workshops on everything form language usage, to vocal projection, to improve. Oh, and don’t forget that I’m also going to be in rehearsal because the Belles of Bedlam are the reason I’m able to perform at this faire. The sick thing about all this is…I’m so looking forward to it, and I don’t mean that in a sarcastic way.

So If I do not update my blog for about, lets say three months, that is way. No I did not die. No I did not give up on my wordpress blog. I just have a life that is going to end for a while, but I will get it back in the end. Just in time to sacrifice it to the next faire in September. If you’re lucky I’ll post some pictures.

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Hazards of the Masonary Feild

March 2, 2007 at 8:24 pm (Entertainment, Funny, Ha Ha!, The Belles of Bedlam)

I heard this song for the first time this last October at the Northern California Ren Faire, and could not stop laughing. I found it on a website today while I was looking for some new songs. I thought I would share.

The Exuse Note

Dear Sir I write this note to inform you of my plight
And at the time of writing I am not a pretty sight
My body is all black and blue, my face a deathly gray
I write this note to tell why Paddy’s not at work today

While working on the fourteenth floor, some bricks I had to clear
And to throw them down from off the top seemed quite a good idea
But the gaffer wasn’t very pleased, he was an awful sod
He said I had to cart them down the ladder in me hod.

Well clearing all those bricks by hand, it seemed so very slow
So I hoisted up a barrel and secured the rope below
But in my haste to do the job, I was too blind to see
That a barrel full of building bricks is heavier than me.

So when I had untied the rope, the barrel fell like lead
And clinging tightly to the rope I started up instead
I took off like a rocket and to my dismay I found
That half way up I met the bloody barrel coming down.

Well the barrel broke my shoulder as on to the ground it sped
And when I reached the top I banged the pulley with me head
I held on tight, though numb with shock from this almighty blow
And the barrel spilled out half its load fourteen floors below

Now when those building bricks fell from the barrel to the floor
I then outweighed the barrel so I started down once more
I held on tightly to the rope as I flew to the ground
And I landed on those building bricks that were scattered all
around.

Now as I lay there on the deck I thought I’d passed the worst
But when the barrel reached the top, that’s when the bottom burst
A shower of bricks came down on me, I knew I had no hope
In all of this confusion, I let go the bloody rope.

The barrel being heavier, it started down once more
And landed right on top of me as I lay on the floor
It broke three ribs and my left arm, and I can only say
That I hope you’ll understand why Paddy’s not at work today.

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Where have I been these last few weeks?

February 12, 2007 at 10:59 am (Stuff About Me, The Belles of Bedlam)

OK, I know that I have not posted much at all to my blog these last few weeks, but life has a strange way of getting in the way of my hobbies. Take a look at these:

dickensHardy

dickensMaeryn

This is what has consumed my life of the last few weeks. I am a guitar player for the Belles of Bedlam, and my wife sings as one of the sisters in the group. The group decided that we were going to branch out form our typical Renaissance genre of show, and try our hand at another time period. There are many reasons for this, but the big ones are that it allows us to do a wider variety of shows, and allows us to be more available for corporate entities to pay us to perform for their employees. Why does this mean I spent the last few weeks holed up in my apartment? Take a look at the costumes again.

You see how Hardy is wearing pants, and a waistcoat (vest for those who don’t know the difference)? Yeah, my loving wife made those for me. She made them with no real patter to work off for the pants (she did her best guess), and a patter for the Vest that took both of us to figure out how the hell to put together. And that was the easy part. Now take a look at her costume.

The only thing she is wearing that was not made by her own two hands is the white blouse she is wearing, and the socks. She made the hat, the jacket, the skirt, and the belt. How did she do this? I cut out the fabric, ironed the fabric, and fed her various kinds of chocolate and sweets as she spent two solid weeks at the sewing machine. Every ruffle, every gather, every rose, every stitch of that dress was one lesson after another in how to sew a Victorian Period costume. You see, this is only the second costume that my wife has ever made, and only the second thing she has ever used her sewing machine for. In other words, she really has a limited amount of experience when it comes to sewing, so when all was said and done she was ready to kill the person(s) who suggested we do the Dickens faire this year.

All said and done, my wife is the most amazing woman in the world. Yes, we had moments where we were ready to just throw the sewing machine out the window and give up, but she came through in the end and did a fabulous job. She showed a lot more patience and perseverance than I would have in her position, and had a number of faire people complement her on how beautiful her dress is. And, I received a large number of comments on how cutie I looked in my costume. Both are completely her doing, as my experience with a sewing machine is limited to watching my mom use hers when I was kid. I’m learning, but my wife did all the real work.

Now that things are back to something close to normal (if there is such a thing in my life) now we can turn our attention back to other things. Things like bloging, watching new movies with our Netflix, and spending time with friends we have not seen for weeks.

If you would like to see more great pics of one of our shows, and the going on of the faire in general, one of the Fans of the Belles of Bedlam has an awesome website for all kinds of stuff he takes pictures of. Visit Rich Lowe here at http://www.renaissancefaire.net/Dickens-Riverside.htm

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2006 Top Ten

January 5, 2007 at 9:17 am (2007 Resolutions, Friends, Renaissance Faire, Stuff About Me, The Belles of Bedlam, Things I Do, Work)

As stated in a previous post, I do not like New Years resolutions. However I did see something on a friend’s blog that I that would be cool to do. Basically it a wrap of the best of 2006, so here is the top ten for 2006:

10. Went wine tasting in Temecula (Near San Diego)
9. Made some major headway on the fantasy book I’m writing
8. Got assigned to work at an after school program, called HalfTime, for my agency
7. Helped my wife write a story that many people have received very well
6. Intervened in two suicide attempts at my schools that were serious
5. I’ve touched the lives of five kids who I hold dear to my heart
4. My wife and I both (at separate times) joined the Bells of Bedlam
3. Forged new/stronger friendships with people in my life
2. Forgave myself for loosing my job almost 2 years ago
1. Celebrated my one year wedding anniversary to the world’s most wonderful woman

That about wraps up the best of the best. Sometimes it is important to actually force yourself to think of the good things that happened in the past. For me, it took a while to remember all of these things because, honestly, last year was one of the hardest in my life. But, so much good did happen, and I’m looking forward to trudging on with this new year to find what new and exciting things await me.

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The Faire is Over…untill next year

November 9, 2006 at 11:21 am (Renaissance Faire, The Belles of Bedlam)

Posted Thursday, October 19, 2006, 10:17 AM

What a ride!

OK, I’ve finished my run of the Northern California Ren Faire. It was so much fun. I loved performing with the Belles. It was so good to be able to learn music again, to work at it, memorize it, and perform. I really miss it from my days of college and choir. And this time around it was a lot more adult and fun in nature. I loved being dirty, and loved the fact that my wife and I got to do it together.

Notes for next year’s faire, if I get to do it.

1. Air mattress is a must for sleeping on the ground, and other things as well.
2. Bigger tent would be nice
3. Figure out how not to rip inseam of my pants, every week.
4. Do not camp in the middle of Constable camp if you want to sleep
5. Camp in Constable camp if you want to get drunk off your butt.
6. The Guard ROCK!!!!, and have really good after hours BB-Q
10. Must work on accent

There were moments that I wondered if I was going to have a good time or not, but things always worked themselves out in the end. The group is a really great bunch of people. I’ve been asked if I would consider playing for them again, and I’ve said yes. So we will see what happens.

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