2001-08-21 - 10:43 a.m.

Pennsic, Pennsic, Pennsic.

For starters, I'm really glad I wasn't there for the whole first week - I think the heat would have killed me. Amazing how adaptable we are - I've completely adapted to life in lovely England where it doesn't get to be 100F out....

Pennsic was overall fun. The fighting was good, I wish I'd done more of it. The schlepping around behind Royalty was a pain, but worthwhile. It was *great* to see all my friends in one place - I've missed y'all more than I can say. There was some camp fu that was irritating but mostly got cleared up (and a big huge thanks to Alan & Gen for bringing up my tents and to Ernie for fixing the ripped one!) There was the usual amount of interpersonal fu, which I'd have liked to have avoided but always seems to happen anyway. Airline travel to Pennsic is a nightmare.

This all makes it sound like I didn�t have a good time, and I did, at least I think I did. It was a lot more work this year (airline travel, camp boss to people I didn�t know well, coordination with lots of people about camp, rides, food, parties, etc., royal duties, Board politics, interpersonal fu). I didn�t get to fight as much as I�d have liked, partly from being tired and hot, partly from taking a whopping shot to the arm during the field battle, partly from being busy, partly from being slack. I didn�t get to see nearly as much of people as I wanted to, which made me sad.

But here are some highlights:

As is often the case, the last night was one of the best. The Drachenwald Civil Engineering Corps was engaged in creating a complicated siphon mechanism to drain Club Med (their family sized inflatable pool � more on that elsewhere), while the Drachenwald Combat Engineering Corps were busy bombarding the Von Halstern camp across the street with S�mores fixins, by means of a catapulty-thing rigged from rope, lathing, a piece of rattan and the uprights from our camp gate. The crew commander sported the stylish sombrero left behind by the Outlandish Invasion Force (more on that elsewhere, and the resulting amazing drunkenness of Ormswyn) and wielded a tacky plastic sword that I believe was given to Her Majesty in one of the royal gift baskets.

All this was being accomplished while avoiding (or trying to catch) flying corks from the VH camp�s collection of �steam cannon�. They eventually came over and fed us their leftover pizza and invited us over to help them finish their keg, which was great as we were out of beer, but it didn�t help much with our ongoing artistic effort � a castle, complete with assaulting forces, defenders, siege weapons, interior fortifications, etc. composed almost entirely of empty bottles. (Okay, the attackers were pretzel bits, but it kept them in scale with the bottle-castle) Lit from within by many votive candles, it was truly a sight to behold!

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