[SCA] Coronation
We went to Coronation yesterday. It was a pleasant event. The site
was very nice for indoor activities; I didn't pay much attention to the
outdoor space. (There was a tourney. It was raining. I stayed inside.)
It was nice to be in a place that had some character -- exposed wood
beams and the like, as opposed to a school gym. I hope they use that
site again for other events; heck, it's close enough that maybe we should
ask to use it for some baronial events, if it's affordable. (No idea
what the price was.)
I spent a couple hours in the afternoon in an order meeting, but there wasn't a lot going on at the event that I was specifically interested in, so that was fine. And the meeting was in a wine cellar -- how nifty is that! Alas, the wine cellar did not contain accessible wine, or the meeting might have gone differently. :-)
We heard a fun story from friends who are building a replica of a 14th-century castle to live in. They were recently at the science center with their kids, and their five-year-old daughter was making something out of the specialized building blocks they have. ("Specialized" meaning things like arches and stuff, to demonstrate building principles.) An engineering student from CMU, who was helping with the project, complimented their daughter on what she was building, and she said "my parents are building us a castle". The student said something equivalent to "yeah, right". The two parents watching this had different responses; the mother wanted to say to the daughter (in a louder-than-necessary voice) that she'll have to get used to people not believing her when she tells the truth about their castle. The father, on the other hand, taught his daughter to say "bite me, gear-head". I suggested to the father (who was telling this story) that in the long term he would probably regret the short-term satisfaction he got from that.
The feast was very good, and well-balanced. Everything I ate (which was everything but the meat) was tasty, and I heard good things about the meat. We ended up at a table where we didn't know anyone else, so we got to meet some new-to-us people from Rhydderich Hael and Thescorre.
During dinner the three finalists in the kingdom bardic competition performed. (I didn't hear the earlier rounds of the competition.) All of them sang songs they had composed, which surprised me. None of the songs were period in style, but that didn't surprise me terribly. I suspect it's fairly common for performers to work first on performance technique and only later on choosing more appropriate material; I certainly cringe now at the memories of what I sang at my first few SCA performances. I particularly enjoyed listening to one of the finalists (who ended up as either king's or queen's bard, but I didn't catch which); she has a good strong voice that could be heard throughout the hall.
The last time I went to a major event in this group, they oversold lunch by a factor of four or five (!) and all I got was a crust of bread. This time they again advertised lunch, but I packed some food just in case. They learned from the last time; there was enough food. To Dani's amusement, everything I brought was represented in the lunch they offered. ("I see bowls of fruit." "I brought a pear. I also brought a hard-boiled agg and some carrots." "Here come the hard-boiled eggs and carrots. Oh look, and cheese." "I guess I didn't need my cheese either.")
We've never been to an event in this group where the published travel directions were accurate and helpful, so we've learned to get a second opinion from a mapping site. Maybe the problem is more widespread; the Mapquest directions didn't quite work either, in large part due to the complete absence of street signs (or SCA signs) in critical places and some ambiguities about what counts as a turn. (Mapquest has given us trouble in the past, but Google Maps didn't recognize the address we gave it and we forgot about Yahoo.) Lots of people apparently had trouble finding the place. When we finally stopped to ask for help and I walked into the gas station with the Mapquest print-out, the clerk said "Laube Hall?" right off. We were not her first that morning. :-) (No, I was not wearing garb.) But we made it and didn't even miss anything by being late.
I spent a couple hours in the afternoon in an order meeting, but there wasn't a lot going on at the event that I was specifically interested in, so that was fine. And the meeting was in a wine cellar -- how nifty is that! Alas, the wine cellar did not contain accessible wine, or the meeting might have gone differently. :-)
We heard a fun story from friends who are building a replica of a 14th-century castle to live in. They were recently at the science center with their kids, and their five-year-old daughter was making something out of the specialized building blocks they have. ("Specialized" meaning things like arches and stuff, to demonstrate building principles.) An engineering student from CMU, who was helping with the project, complimented their daughter on what she was building, and she said "my parents are building us a castle". The student said something equivalent to "yeah, right". The two parents watching this had different responses; the mother wanted to say to the daughter (in a louder-than-necessary voice) that she'll have to get used to people not believing her when she tells the truth about their castle. The father, on the other hand, taught his daughter to say "bite me, gear-head". I suggested to the father (who was telling this story) that in the long term he would probably regret the short-term satisfaction he got from that.
The feast was very good, and well-balanced. Everything I ate (which was everything but the meat) was tasty, and I heard good things about the meat. We ended up at a table where we didn't know anyone else, so we got to meet some new-to-us people from Rhydderich Hael and Thescorre.
During dinner the three finalists in the kingdom bardic competition performed. (I didn't hear the earlier rounds of the competition.) All of them sang songs they had composed, which surprised me. None of the songs were period in style, but that didn't surprise me terribly. I suspect it's fairly common for performers to work first on performance technique and only later on choosing more appropriate material; I certainly cringe now at the memories of what I sang at my first few SCA performances. I particularly enjoyed listening to one of the finalists (who ended up as either king's or queen's bard, but I didn't catch which); she has a good strong voice that could be heard throughout the hall.
The last time I went to a major event in this group, they oversold lunch by a factor of four or five (!) and all I got was a crust of bread. This time they again advertised lunch, but I packed some food just in case. They learned from the last time; there was enough food. To Dani's amusement, everything I brought was represented in the lunch they offered. ("I see bowls of fruit." "I brought a pear. I also brought a hard-boiled agg and some carrots." "Here come the hard-boiled eggs and carrots. Oh look, and cheese." "I guess I didn't need my cheese either.")
We've never been to an event in this group where the published travel directions were accurate and helpful, so we've learned to get a second opinion from a mapping site. Maybe the problem is more widespread; the Mapquest directions didn't quite work either, in large part due to the complete absence of street signs (or SCA signs) in critical places and some ambiguities about what counts as a turn. (Mapquest has given us trouble in the past, but Google Maps didn't recognize the address we gave it and we forgot about Yahoo.) Lots of people apparently had trouble finding the place. When we finally stopped to ask for help and I walked into the gas station with the Mapquest print-out, the clerk said "Laube Hall?" right off. We were not her first that morning. :-) (No, I was not wearing garb.) But we made it and didn't even miss anything by being late.