My husband, son and I were invited by a friend of ours do to the Otherworld Adventure weekend.  It’s…  Okay descriptions get a bit weird.

You could call it a LARP[1], but a hard-core LARPer would have her expectations kinda messed with attending it.

I’m a minor Rennie and it does have a bit of a Faire feel to it, but it’s not based on a real historical period.  It’s fantasy.  And it doesn’t have vendors. And you’re really part of the shows.

Probably the best way to describe it is being a character in a fantasy novel.  The idea is that instead of playing a character, though, you’re supposed to play a heroic version of yourself.

The weekend generates dozens of “No shit, there I was” stories.  Yes, I have a bunch of them, and they were all kinds of fun.  I can’t tell ‘em.   Why?  Well, mostly because putting them out on the Internet would screw up the story for the next batch of participants.  Suffice to say, the weekend generated a lot of those stories.

So, on to what I can talk about:

Otherworld creates a weekend-long adventure to be played by eight parties of six participants and several dozen staff playing characters within the event.  Participants can bring their own costumes or dress up in costume items provided by Otherworld, or even some combination thereof.  I do recommend that if you do bring your own costume, make sure it has a good belt to hang things on – just saying.

Each party has a set of six character classes and each one is pretty necessary to solving the puzzles assigned to the parties.  It really discourages any one participant from taking over the party, but instead encourages some pretty serious teamwork.  I was really lucky, as my party was amazing.  Well, I knew my husband and son are fun companions, but the other three people in the party were also awesome.  Anyone who reads this knows I’m hardly the world’s biggest people fan, and I don’t necessarily automatically like everyone, but I can say with all honesty that I thoroughly enjoyed adventuring with the people in my party very much.  Like many a fantasy adventure, yes, it starts in a tavern.

There was a lot that was impressive about the weekend.  The setting is wonderful.  It’s in a 4-H camp in Connecticut and the grounds are just gorgeous.  The cabins are small for seven people[2] but it doesn’t matter.  The only thing you do there is sleep.

Part of what impressed me was the level of organization that went into creating it.  The bones didn’t show.  It is incredibly easy to dive into the fantasy and forget you’re not really living there.  I think the most complimentary think I can say about the organization is that it’s so smooth that you don’t notice it.  Having organized a minor event or two, I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that Otherworld is good at what it does.

I’m a bit sorry you can only do this once as a participant[3].  I’d do it again in a red-hot minute.

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. – US Federal Service Oath of Office

I was briefly a civil servant in 1990 and I took this oath, as did my husband when he entered Federal service.

In honor of today, I’d like any Americans who has taken this oath (and I know many of you have) to go re-read the Constitution of the United States of America, then ask yourself, “How well am I fulfilling this oath?”

I don’t think anything else really needs to be said after that.

Okay, some follow up. I had to go question by question to tabulate the responses as Survey Monkey doesn’t let you filter responses on a free account.

Out of 100 people, 18 people self-identified as a Christian.  11 of them had read the Bible in its entirety, giving us an approximate “Yes” percentage of 61%.

Now here’s the funny part:

A slightly larger percentage of non-Christians who took this survey had read the Bible in its entirety.  However, if you take a look at the bar chart from yesterday’s post, you’ll notice a lot more people claimed to be non-Christian than Christian.  I am not a statistician, and the survey population was only 100 people, but I am wondering how statistically significant that 5% would be considered.   I am genuinely surprised at how close the responses are.

First off, this is an almost textbook example of a poorly-written survey that does not actually answer the question asked, even though it does give some interesting data.   Kiddiewinks, spend more time in the design phase!  (I’m always telling my students this in various classes, and here I am not doing it.  I hang my head in shame).

Some friends of mine and I were discussing religion when one of them mentioned that he had never met a single self-identified Christian who had read the entire Bible.  I found that such an odd thing to say, since we were both reared in the same denomination and the practice was encouraged in the church I attended as a youngster, that I started asking around.  The answers I got became a little complex, so I designed this rather simplistic survey.  Unfortunately, as designed, it cannot answer the question originally discussed:  Is it really unusual for Christians to read the Bible cover to cover?

Even though it doesn’t fulfill the original intent, the answers are interesting nonetheless.  It does seem a lot of non-Christians have indeed read the entire Bible.

Curious, that…

Michigan is proposing a law that says that foster children can only have clothing bought from second hand stores.

I get that the intent is to save money during budget cuts. I totally get that one needs to save money. I bought second-hand clothing for my children on a pretty frequent basis, and it’s an order of magnitude cheaper to do so.

Here’s the thing:

Buying clothes from second hand stores, while something I’m utterly in favor of on principle make a lousy mandate. You cannot count on getting something the right size in good enough condition when you’re shopping there. You have to have time and be patient. Oh, and shoes that fit properly and are in good enough condition? Forget it. Outwear? When you’re lucky, and you plan ahead to get the coat in June, it can work out great. I got my son a great down jacket for less than ten bucks that way once. In October? Fuggetaboutit.

Foster care situations are urgent situations. The child might need clothing right away. The child might be of a size that one can rarely find second hand clothes for. There might not be the necessary outerwear available.¹

The individual proposing the bill comments that he wore lots of hand-me-downs, so what’s the beef?

Well, Sen. Caswell, I wore hand-me-downs from time to time, too. I was even pretty fond of some of them and excited to get them because it they were kinda cool. That doesn’t change the fact that mandating used clothing, while cheaper, has way too many gaps in the system where kids who are already falling through the cracks are going to fall harder.

I’m all for encouraging it as a principle, don’t get me wrong. But if I have a child in my care that needs a warm coat, that kid gets a warm coat no matter where I had to buy it. Just sayin’.

¹ Being expensive and long-lasting, really good outerwear often goes first at second hand stores in cold climates like Michigan.

I got kicked out of the pool today. Lightning. It was about five minutes before I would have gotten out anyway, so I called it good. I might have gotten in as much as 800 yards. Maybe.

It wasn’t a hard-core workout today anyway. I lifted yesterday. Remember how I was in that room of big, beefy men and feeling self-conscious about it? Well, true to Noël form, I lifted far too heavy to compensate. I’m very, very sore this morning.¹

Oh, and it’s chilly and damp, so it’s the joint thing on top of muscle soreness. No, today was not a day I’d be getting my orca on.

Here’s where the whole “gotta improve all the time” would be kicking me in the ass right now. Today was not much of a workout due to several factors. If I were completely focused on constant improvement, this workout would have been discouraging to the point of upsetting. I don’t like being thwarted in my goals. I’d be plotting how to make up for the bad workout, and making myself nuts about it.

The reality is that Life Happens. It is less important that each workout be a linear improvement than it is that I show up consistently. I have other things in my life that deserve more intense focus than lifting heavy stuff sometimes, or getting my heart rate up. I mean, really, it’s on par with evaluating bowel movements! They need to happen, yes, but past that? Unless it’s a serious factor in an illness, you don’t need to give it that much attention.

¹Yes, I broke Rule One.

*Ellie was my maternal grandmother, and paid an odd amount of attention to bodily functions.

When I got back into swimming for fitness, I ran across a marathon swimmer named Martin Strel. Forget swimming to Alcatraz, this guy is really nuts. He swam the Yangtze River. He swam the Danube. He swam the Mississippi.

He swam the Amazon!

I remember his Amazon swim pretty clearly. I was going through some rough stuff, and just the idea that someone was insane enough to attempt this was a real motivator for me to keep getting my butt in the pool for some needed laps as I was rehabbing knee surgery. Following along with his swim meant a lot to me, and was probably at least in part the inspiration for the crazy leap (and it was crazy, I assure you) of opening Figart Consulting.

He’s got a new project in the works. Starting in May, he’ll be swimming the Colorado River. No, he doesn’t have to worry about piranha, but this is a river people like for white water rafting. I’ve no idea how anyone is going to manage to swim it, but Strel intends to try.

I’ll be cheering him on.

I have very long hair about which I am inordinately vain.

I am a swimmer.

I color my hair.

Now common wisdom would say my hair is so fried I’d have to cut it off. Or, that I must spend a million dollars on the special shampoos and conditioners. I don’t. That two dollar a bottle stuff works just fine.

Matter of fact, the one single thing I do to ensure that swimming doesn’t ruin my hair doesn’t really cost much in the way of money at all. You see, I do what they tell you and shower before I get into the pool, completely saturating my (rather porous) hair. This means that the water that has more of a chemical saturation can’t penetrate my hair as easily.

As a side note, I know a lot of people don’t shower before they get in the pool. It’s gross. They’re often the same people who complain about the “chlorine smell” or worse, think a swim can substitute for a bath. Well that smell isn’t actually chlorine. It’s a by-product of the filth the chlorine is breaking down, and it means you’re getting the pool nastier than the chemicals can keep up with. Yes, yes, the pool manager does test the water every hour or two and adjusts the chemicals going into the water to compensate for this. At least, they do in well-maintained pools. Even so, shower before you get in the damn pool. It helps reduce how much needs to be dumped into the water.

I like Shakespeare. Okay, I know. Who doesn’t? That’s on up there with “Pain hurts” for non-controversial statements. I’ll see a performance whenever I get the chance. I do watch the movies, but I like it better when I can actually see a play.

Up until I was in my early twenties, though, I read the plays, and while I enjoyed them okay, it wasn’t that big a thing. Read ‘em in school. Sure, sure, the teachers were competent. They got the students to read them aloud, at least.

I read Romeo and Juliet as a freshman in High School, same as about 90% of people educated in America.¹ But when we read Romeo and Juliet; we read an expurgated version with the (mildly) dirty bits taken out. Nope, I’m serious, we did. Go Stafford School board… I didn’t learn Shakespeare was often rather saucy until much later. Yeah, I thought Romeo and Juliet was kind of a cool story. Wasn’t as cool as The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, which we read after that, but it wasn’t as mind-bogglingly dull a Great
Expectations, either.²

I didn’t wind up touching Shakespeare again until I was a senior. We read Macbeth. I was in love. I even put aside some new Heinlein stuff I was reading to finish it, then re-read it. Loved, loved, loved it.³

But that was the sum total of any Shakespeare I experienced until I was in my early twenties. I got a volume of the Bard’s plays for my 20^th birthday and read a few. But I admit I didn’t get much into them.

Then, when I was twenty-two or so, my in-laws invited my husband and me to a Shakespeare in the Park event in DC at the Folger outdoor theater to see The Merry Wives of Windsor. My husband and I wanted to see it at least in part because an actor who’d appeared in a Star Trek movie was playing Sir John Falstaff.

Now, the connection between Shakespeare and Star Trek has been discussed once or twice⁴, so I’m not going to get too heavily into it other than to speculate that it’s probable that many people my age got into The Bard at least in part due to its influence.

But going to see a live performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor gave me a much better perspective on Shakespeare in general. Reading the plays is okay, and the movies are often good. But to really enjoy it, you need to see a good live performance. Now, a Luddite, I’m not. Technology is awesome and all, but there’s something about Shakespeare plays that just needs a stage, and it’s the way I prefer to experience The Bard’s work.

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¹And like some 90% of them studied it side by side with West Side Story.

² Other than being very fond of A Christmas Carol, I’m just not that into Dickens.

³ Yes, Throne of Blood is my favorite Kurosawa film, too.

⁴After all, you’ve never experienced Shakespeare until you’ve heard it in the original Klingon.