A whole lot of . . . Nothing

It's been a quiet week, in which we've accomplished . . . not very much. I laid out the patterns for a new pouch for the Steampunk Project (based on this one - why re-engineer the wheel?), and I've downloaded some tax forms and exchanged a little e-mail with event organizers. Ron got a Gameboy DS last week, and has become one with it.

Tomorrow is the Ayreton Carnivale, an SCA event. "Ayreton" is the name for a proposed Barony over most of the NE Illinois groups, and the event is put on by the various branches as a group effort. This is the third or fourth year for it, IIRC. It has the advantage of being close, at Glenbrook North HS in Northbrook. I think last year's Carnivale was the last local-ish SCA event we did, come to think of it.

Next weekend is the SCA Kingdom of Northshield's spring coronation, which is 2.5-3 hours north. It's odd, we go north into Wisconsin fairly regularly, but don't go south or west in Illinois much at all. It may be a time/distance thing, either events are in the greater suburban area, DeKalb to Rockford-ish, all of which are within a couple hours; the next ring of events gets you get around Champaign/Urbana, Springfield, Peoria, and the Quad Cities, which gets into overnight drive times.

We used to be more willing to haul to overnight events, but there's several issues that have started limiting those:

1. Beds, electricity, and running water. Beds and electricity are comfort issues. Electricity for Ron's BiPap. We need to come up with a good portable power supply, most SCA sites don't have power.

2. Dogs. We liked doing Warriors and Warlords, but the sites for the last few years have prohibited dogs.

3. Money. Hotels and dog boarding cost it.

4. Gas prices (see also #3.)

5. Victims of our own success. Once upon a time, we could squish the three of us, camping gear, merchandise, etc. in/on one vehicle. Now we have to haul the trailer if we're camping. See #5.

I sometimes wonder if we should actually cut down on our merchandise, but I can't think of anything substantial that would be sensible to cut out. More stuff = more choices = better sales.

Hmm. For a week of not much accomplished, I found a bunch to natter on about, eh?