• Tag Archives Thieves Guilde
  • Faire is over!

    So, the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire is over for another year! Thank god! Really, I enjoy the faire, but the hours are killer for the job that I do. Next year I plan on doing one of two things… Either cooking for the guilde again, or not cooking for them and just cooking for the encampment. Whichever it happens to be, I am NOT going to be the quartermaster during the year. That can be someone else.The menu was basically the same as last year:

    • Sausages with grilled onions and peppers
    • Macaroni and cheese
    • Grilled chicken with onions and peppers
    • Baked Beans
    • Vegetable platter
    • Scrambled eggs and biscuits and gravy for breakfast
    • Assorted danishes for breakfast

    Some other things that were added to the menu this year:

    • Kabobs for kids day
    • baked Potatoes

    Of course, I also had to do some special stuff, and I did the following this year:

    • Curried venison for the second Saturday. This was a particularly strong hit, because it was simply incredible.
    • Some elk roast. This wasn’t quite as good as I had hoped, but it wasn’t bad. I was glad to share it out to people because it was something special, and something that most people have probably never had before.
    • Another lamb roast. This was a lot better than the elk roast, and because it was so big I was able to save half of it to take home. I later threw it into a crock pot and make a lamb stew out of it.

    For that matter, I plan on dropping my role as the Director’s Committee Chairman. I’ll stay on the Director’s Committee, but not as the chair. That can go to someone else as well. I have enough meetings to deal with these days as it is.

    Faire was good, though. I enjoyed myself, despite now being sick because of it. I should be clear of the sickness that I caught tomorrow morning, though.

    In other news, I think I managed to fall head-over-heels for someone very special this past fortnight. I am not going to mention any names, because quite frankly I have had really bad experiences with that sort of thing in the past, and in this case I am going to keep it to myself. Needless to say if she reads this, she will probably know it is her. I don’t know how she will handle it, but this is my position on it (at least at this point in time…): I am not going to do anything about it. I just feel that there might be too much drama, and quite frankly I would prefer not to be with her and have her as a friend than to lose her completely, because she really is a special person to me.I made that mistake once… I’ll never make it again.

    This is a long collection of thoughts, and it is very likely that some of these thoughts are truly messed up in the process. Suck it up… I am a bit under the weather right now, and thinking clearly is not at the top of the stack right now. It’s just a good thing I didn’t post this yesterday, because I was really loopy then.


  • Medieval Faire in the news

    Looks like the acting troupe I work with got into the paper recently:

    Orlando Sentinal

    Sun Sentinal

    I have been working with this group for eight years now. I started out as a fighter, moved on with the group to become a trainer, and have now hung up my fighting boots in order to cook for them instead. Next year, I’m just going to run around and do stupid stuff, because cooking is bloody tiring. Yeah, I have become a bit burned out from it all, so I need a rest from it. There are others in the group that are becoming the same way, so hopefully this coming year we will get a number of new people to step up to the plate and take the reigns for a while.


  • Riding and Interviewing

    So I have been riding a lot lately. It has been good, and I think I am getting better with the bike. Some things I have learned:

    • Boots are a must. You can get away with a little riding in tennis shoes, but the top of your left shoe will wear out quickly.
    • Make sure everything is battened down prior to moving off. It sucks to have something flapping in the wind at sixty miles an hour, particularly if it is something like a collar and it flaps into your clavicle.

    In other news, this past weekend I sat on the board to receive presentations for the next Hoggetowne Medieval Faire chessboard. Now, let me get this out right now: THIS IS A JOB INTERVIEW! When most people go in for a job interview, they dress up in order to impress… at least, they do this if they are going for a job of any sort of importance higher than that of a short-order cook. So why is it that year after year I have seen these presentations, and the same people keep turning up not dressed for the role?

    Anyway, the presentations went… well, the first two went poorly. Let’s just say that showing up with only one of your staff members for the production is not conducive towards getting the job. The third presentation group was incredible, however. They were organized, almost all of them were there, and all of the higher level members were there. The only one missing was the costumer, which was not a big deal because they had posters of what they were planning on doing with costume colors and designs. They ran the show for the most part, and we basically had to just sit there and watch instead of ask many questions to figure out what they were going to do. Instead, they simply told us. At the end, after they walked out, the five members sitting on the panel to make this decision simply looked at each other and said “is there really any doubt here?” It was a unanimous decision.

    Anyway, after that, I have some tips for people who are going to propose a show for our group:

    • Dress appropriately. This is a job interview, not a bunch of friends getting together to have some fun. The Guilde is giving you a good amount of money in order to make this thing happen, and we want to be sure that you are not going to be wasting that money.
    • Don’t bring your child along with you to the interview. You wouldn’t do this at any other job interview, even at a fast food restaurant, so why would you think it is appropriate to do it here? Your child will be a distraction to both yourself and to the members of the panel, and that is going to lower your chances in a couple of different ways. First, it detracts from your presentation. Second, the panel is going to look at the situation and wonder how that child is going to affect your production down the road.
    • Have as many members of your production team there that you can. The more the merrier, and it shows the panel members that you are all serious about what you are trying to do. If only one or two of you are there for the interview, what is going to happen come time for rehearsals? Are only one or two of you going to be showing up then as well?
    • Ensure that all of your members know their jobs and what they are going to be doing for the next year. Again, this is a job interview, and if you know the job you are that much more competitive.
    • Ensure that all of your members know the script that is being presented. One of our favorite exercises is to have the production team quickly act out their production in about five minutes.

    Obviously a bunch has to be left out, but the idea is to see whether or not everyone knows the general idea of the show from beginning to end.
    Finally, don’t tell the panel that you are going to be directing other shows during this time. We are going to take that into consideration for your capability to run this particular show.