Our New Couch, and The Onset of Fall

There it is. Our new couch, all comfy and inviting. Teresa likes to the lamp side of the couch most I think. At least that's where she always sits. We've been using if for the last week and a half and I think it's working out pretty well. And yes, Mom, we are gradually getting our Homer Simpson butt prints settled in.

Our house is looking pretty good. We've got pictures on the wall, furniture in the living room, and just recently we finished setting up my keyboard, stereo, and the large book shelf in the small bed room. We threw the Papasan chair in there and it makes a passable reading and music room!

Just one bedroom is unfinished. We need a desk/keyboard chair, and a futon mattress so we can make it a true guest bedroom. Then all that's left is the mess of old boxes and paraphernalia that's in the attic, but it's okay to take some time on that.

Fall is here. I LOVE the fall. Favorite season by far. I can tell when I go outside and the air is cold with a slight breeze, but the sun is up, and leaves are everywhere that my favorite season has arrived. Here is a shot of the hillside from our front porch.
I've got some other shots from this week where it's a lot more pronounced. This was when they first started to turn. The picture doesn't do it justice, but you can start to see it.

Today, I went to a golf tournament with my company. We did Captain's Choice, or Best Ball, where we played in teams of four and hit from where whoever hit the best. I actually got put in a team of three and we just rotated a 4th hitter. I was worried at first. I haven't golfed since before Teresa and I got married. I never managed to find a time to go golfing in Boston. But I am so glad I went today. My first shot off the tee was beautiful, and I continued to do well throughout the day. On the second hole, I think we played from my ball for every shot and parred the hole. On hole 17, I birdied the putt for our group, (That's one less than par for the golfing uninitiated, par being the amount of shots it's supposed to take you.)

We ended 18 holes at 72, just 2 over par and won second place in the tournament which equals fifty bucks for me. After the green fees, the longest drive pot, and lunch, I came out a little ahead for the day. Nothing better than free golf! And even if it had been bad golf, the weather was absofreakinglutely beautiful. This was the view from the tee on hole 18.


Teresa's parents are visiting this weekend. They took off to chimney rock while I was golfing. Hopefully Teresa took some pictures and I'll post those later on today or this week. I'll have to post again just to show off the fall colors before they disappear!

Renn Fair Recap

I've posted pictures of last weekend's Maryland Renaissance Fair to Facebook already, but if you haven't seen them, take a look here.

It was a lot of fun. Would do again. Will do again. In fact, I may even do it soon since I found out there is a fair only a couple hours away from here near Charlotte, NC. Teresa had fun too, at least she tells me she had fun. Our hostess made us outfits, so Teresa got a medieval style dress, and I wore a black tunic. Teresa said it reminded her of dressing up for dance performances. She even had an awesome tiara to go with her outfit. I wore my Red Sox hat. Go 16th century Sox!

We stayed with friends in Arlington, Virginia. Friends who we had never met before. Wait.. what? Yeah, let me expand on that. Teresa and I spend a lot of our entertainment and free time playing an online video game. You may have heard of it. It's called World of Warcraft. I'm pretty sure that's not a secret, so I have no problems talking about it, but I won't bore all of you, my friends and family, with the details because I'm smart enough to know that you don't want me to ramble on about the game, and why I play it. Besides, I have another blog for that.

Well as you might imagine, a lot of people that we play this game with are into the whole Fantasy, Sci-fi, comics sub culture and would enjoy things like Renn fairs. Over the last couple of years of playing, we've gotten to know some of the people pretty well in the game. We're part of a guild, which is just a collection of players in an official group. The guild's name is Veritas. So the people we met up with in VA, are people from our guild. After more than a year of talking and playing together online, we finally met face to face. And it was great. Everyone was just as nice as they are online and very gracious hosts. We even had a guy come all the way from Puerto Rico with his wife just to visit and go to Renn Fair. Whoa!

Okay, so we all got matching tabards, again made by our hostess. The tabards mirror similar tabards that our characters in game wear, so it's a nice little homage to the game. That's the red thing with the flame on it that you see in all the pictures.

Enough about the guild, more about the fair! The first thing I wanted to do when we got there was watch them joust, but that wasn't happening for another hour, so we made our way to where they were selling turkey legs and got ourselves lunch. Teresa wasn't so much into the turkey legs so she had baked potato. The turkey was good. We looked around for a bit more before making our way to the joust. The knights wore actual plate armor and were assisted by squires as they performed feats of skill such as hooking a ring off a post on their swords without touching the post. Then they had some mock battles where they beat on each other with wooden swords. Finally, at the end, they did full on jousting. They didn't knock anyone off their horse, but they broke a lot of lances. Very cool to see up close.

From there we saw the sights. Lots of artisans selling hand made clothing and weapons and cups and pouches and trinkets. I wanted to buy a handcrafted wooden cup but they were pretty expensive. Maybe next year. There were quite a few people very elaborately dressed from different time periods. There were pirates, and wenches, and Robin Hoods, and faeries, and all manor of different medieval style dress. There was also a fair number of pot bellied men walking around in kilts with no shirts, and women with really tight corsets. I'll leave it at that.

We tried Meade, which is a honey wine. It was okay to try, but I don't like wine all that much, so I don't think it's something I would have regularly. Still, I can say I've had mead, and that's worth it. We visited with our friends, saw some more booths and watched part of a stage show where they were calling people up on stage to act out the story of the three little pigs. It was pretty humorous. I think it was mostly improv by the stage actors, so that's always fun.

Several people asked us about the matching tabards, and a lot of them were familiar with the game if the didn't outright play it. We met an older couple right before we left the fair who had all sorts of stories to tell of the game and what they play in it once they found out we were in a guild. They were a riot. We think the man may have had a bit too much mead...

Towards the end of the day when everyone was getting tired, we congregated around a table and just visited. I tried ye olde milk and cookies. They were good. They sell just about everything you can imagine on a stick. Chocolate cheesecake on a stick. Fried Macaroni and Cheese on a stick. Steak on a stake. Lots more I can't remember right now, and a lot I wanted to try but didn't have the stomach to. It was all fairly pricey, but that comes with the territory.

I think I could easily go to these things often if I had the time and the money. It would be fun to build a nice outfit piece by piece until you had something really cool. I think I'd go for a more rustic, robin hood type thing than a royal Renaissance look, with leather pouches and a sword and bow. Oh, weapons weren't allowed in the fair, not even play weapons, unless they were bought there, so I didn't bother bringing the sword I actually owned, but it would be cool to include that somehow.

The fair I mentioned that's in Charlotte runs through November. I'm thinking we might be able to get out for a day and go with Teresa's family or friends in the area. We'll see. Oh yes, we'll see.

The Joust

Prepare thyself for merriment.

Teresa Stencils

Teresa is painting the guild symbol on a tabard to be worn at the Renn Fair. The name of the guild is Veritas, and the guild symbol is a gold flame.

Off to Rennfest!

Teresa and I are (soon to be) on our way to the Maryland Renaissance Festival! We're going to stay with some friends who live near Washington D.C. and enjoy a weekend of eating Turkey Legs and seeing people dressed up in fancy medieval gear and stuff. I'm pretty excited. Our hosts may even be putting together some costumes for us, since they do this more often and have extra stuff on hand. That sounds silly at first, but where we're going, it won't be silly. At least I hope so.

I've always enjoyed fantasy. From books to video games to the fascination with swords and knights. But I've never actually made it to a Renaissance Fair. There was one called King Richard's Fair that was held near Boston, but we never went because we didn't have anyone to go with, and it was more my kind of thing than Teresa's. Well now we have someone to go with, friends of both of ours, and even Teresa is a little excited about it which makes me happier about it all too.

The trip is about 7 or 8 hours up, but I'm taking the day off from work tomorrow so we can spend two whole days there. We'll spend tonight in Greensboro and then drive the rest of the way in the morning. It's been a long time since we made a trip just for fun and not just to see family, or to move. Some of our best memories are of traveling places during college, and seeing new things. We've been cooped up too long. Time to get out.

Speaking of getting out, the weather turned all Autumn like this week. After the rain cleared up on Sunday it's been nothing but chill breezes and lazy sunny days. I love it. It's my favorite season. And my hope is that soon it will frost, and then the grass will stop growing. And then I can have two to three hours of my life back on weekends. Wait, I mean, darn, I won't get to be outside with that awesome lawn mower of mine I talked about. Shucks.