A Brief Hiatus

Despite my best efforts to sit down and write, I'm afraid other responsibilities are eating away my time for blogging at the moment. This spring is markedly different from last year: I'm an assistant coach for two baseball teams, my son's rec league team and his travel team, plus running a extra workout each week for three All-Star candidates and scouting all the teams we don't play until late in the season so we can draft out league's All-Star team by the end of April.

On top of that, I'm handling the process for incorporating my son's travel team as a 501(c)3, which includes paperwork for the Secretary of State, the Franchise Tax Board, and the IRS, drafting bylaws and a budget, creating a website, and lining up potential donors. With tournament fees, insurance, uniforms and other equipment, and promotions, it's costing the parents collectively over $10,000.00 a year for the boys to play, and our goal is to defray a significant portion of that through sponsorship.

I certainly haven't run out of things to blog about - in fact, my queue of half-written posts hovers right around fifty at the moment, including two new event tables, non-player character-specific Advantages and Secrets, and a 'village of Hommlet' for swashbucklers drawn from a Kids of Carcasonne game board. I'm really excited to put all of this out to y'all, but right now my personal free time is consumed by America's Pastime.

There may be a few sporadic posts here and there: I still want to get a couple of posts up for The Queen's Cavaliers, and if I finish something in a quiet moment, I won't hold off on posting it, but I also don't want to race to turn out crap just to keep a schedule. It's better to step back for a bit.

So, RBE is going deep and quiet probably until the end of April - hopefully the incorporation paperwork will be complete by then, All-Star selections will be made, and my extra workout each week will be replaced by someone else's actual practice.

Thanks for being patient, and I hope you'll continue to stick around.

I'll conclude with a quick (and true) anecdote from last week.

My son and I were on our way to the batting cages at his field to warm-up for his game that day, and he asked me, "Daddy, what's 'play ball'?"

"The two most beautiful words in the English language, son," I replied.

Thanks again.

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Wednesday Wyeth

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Photobucket Crap-Out? Solved!

Browser compatability.

Good grief.

Blogging about pretending to be a swashbuckler shall resume shortly.

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The Pen and the Sword: Twenty Years After

The Swiss became as purple as a peony. He wore his elegant uniform, D'Artagnan was wrapped in a sort of gray cloak; the Swiss was six feet high, D'Artagnan was hardly more than five; the Swiss considered himself on his own ground and regarded D'Artagnan as an intruder.

"Will you go away from here?" demanded the Swiss, stamping violently, like a man who begins to be seriously angry.

"I? By no means!" said D'Artagnan.

"Some one must go for help," said a lad, who could not comprehend that this little man should make a stand against that other man, who was so large.

D'Artagnan, with a sudden accession of wrath, seized the lad by the ear and led him apart, with the injunction:

"Stay you where you are and don't you stir, or I will pull this ear off. As for you, illustrious descendant of William Tell, you will straightway get together your clothes which are in my room and which annoy me, and go out quickly to another lodging."

The Swiss began to laugh boisterously. "I go out?" he said. "And why?"

"Ah, very well!" said D'Artagnan; "I see that you understand French. Come then, and take a turn with me and I will explain."

The hostess, who knew D'Artagnan's skill with the sword, began to weep and tear her hair. D'Artagnan turned toward her, saying, "Then send him away, madame."

"Pooh!" said the Swiss, who had needed a little time to take in D'Artagnan's proposal, "pooh! who are you, in the first place, to ask me to take a turn with you?"

"I am lieutenant in his majesty's musketeers," said D'Artagnan, "and consequently your superior in everything; only, as the question now is not of rank, but of quarters--you know the custom--come and seek for yours; the first to return will recover his chamber."

D'Artagnan led away the Swiss in spite of lamentations on the part of the hostess, who in reality found her heart inclining toward her former lover, though she would not have been sorry to give a lesson to that haughty musketeer who had affronted her by the refusal of her hand.

It was night when the two adversaries reached the field of battle. D'Artagnan politely begged the Swiss to yield to him the disputed chamber; the Swiss refused by shaking his head, and drew his sword.

"Then you will lie here," said D'Artagnan. "It is a wretched bed, but that is not my fault, and it is you who have chosen it." With these words he drew in his turn and crossed swords with his adversary.

He had to contend against a strong wrist, but his agility was superior to all force. The Swiss received two wounds and was not aware of it, by reason of the cold; but suddenly feebleness, occasioned by loss of blood, obliged him to sit down.

"There!" said: D'Artagnan, "what did I tell you? Fortunately, you won't be laid up more than a fortnight. Remain here and I will send you your clothes by the boy. Good-by! Oh, by the way, you'd better take lodging in the Rue Montorgueil at the Chat Qui Pelote. You will be well fed there, if the hostess remains the same. Adieu."

Thereupon he returned in a lively mood to his room and sent to the Swiss the things that belonged to him. The boy found him sitting where D'Artagnan had left him, still overwhelmed by the coolness of his adversary.

The boy, the hostess, and all the house had the same regard for D'Artagnan that one would have for Hercules should he return to earth to repeat his twelve labors.

But when he was alone with the hostess he said: "Now, pretty Madeleine, you know the difference between a Swiss and a gentleman. . . ."

- Alexandre Dumas, Twenty Years After

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Letters from Isabel, Redux

Jedediah at Book Scorpion's Lair channels a little Ricky Nelson for the latest installment in the continuing adventures of Marcelo and friends.

This whole campaign is awash in swashbucklery goodness, and I'm so glad that Jedediah is posting them as a resource for the rest of us - I have to add that I really enjoy the personal letter format as well; I like Marcelo's voice as a correspondent.

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DVR Alert

For the third time this year - so far! - TCM will show The Mark of Zorro, with Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone, on Saturday, 16 March. J. Edward Bromberg as Don Luis and Gale Sondergaard as his wife are comedic and menacing by turns - they are great templates for non-player characters in a cape-and-sword roleplaying game.

Check you local listings for times.

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No Wednesday Wyeth Today - Thanks, Photobucket!

Photobucket's crapped the sheets.

None of my existing images seem to be affected - so far - but logging into my account gives me an empty library and no way to upload anything. Yesterday, no problem - today, ghost town.

The thing that is most worrisome is the only help I could access was a blog post which suggested sending a whole bunch of personal informaiton to a web address - full name, date of birth, any and all emails under which my account might be affiliated, &c. Sounds like a total phishing scam.

If Photobucket craps out on me altogether, I'm really deep in it - almost all of the images on both RBE and my Obsidian Portal wiki are housed on Photobucket.

This sucks.

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