FAA FITA State Championship

I set some records up in the women's longbow division. In fact, the two of us also set a record for the most women wielding longbows at a single event. My scores are as follows: 108 @ 70m, 105 @ 60m, 100 @ 50m, and 202 @ 30m, all out of 360, with a grand total of 515/1440 for the entire shoot. It was a real blast just knowing that I *can* hit the target 3-4/6 times pretty consistently at 60 and 70 meters, although I know the sound of thunder can really throw off my shooting. Just ask my fellow longbow archer about what a storm in the vicinity will do to me :) It was also awesome getting to chat with an Olympic hopeful and her coach and learning some of the things they do, even if a lot of what they do for their shooting goes against everything I've learned as a hunter. We also had awesome moral support in the form of my other half and my fellow IKAC shooters. It was definitely worth getting up early and being lightly cooked this weekend after a week of hell!

Now I just need to break my own state records eventually and make sure my ego doesn't get over-inflated!

Another Bad Idea (tm)

I really like jalapeno peppers although I haven't been eating them (along with beans) as much as I used to, mostly because of the people around me being excessively prudish. I really wanted some so I got a few from the store and made miniature chile rellenos, complete with some really good cheddar cheese, and they came out to be a lot like those little popper things I really, really like, but a bit healthier. At the time, they sounded like a good idea. Now though I'm sitting at my computer and realizing that they're more of a Bad Idea (tm). Let's just say it'll be a while before I can get to sleep so here I am.

For an extra measure of entertainment, either click here or on the title. This was mostly from the 40 yard line in my friend's yard while we attempted to do an IKAC round before we got rained out.

Spider at Work

Would've preferred the prey to have been a big mosquito or something a lot less appealing than a dragonfly, but cool nonetheless.

TBoF Fall Shoot 2009

As always, click on the title or here for the entire set of pictures. Not attaching pictures directly tonight because for some reason my internet is spazzing but might do it later when I have a better connection.

Something urged me to shoot in all three classes (longbow, primitive, and recurve). I knew I was going to shoot longbow and recurve (well, they call it traditional but it's anything that involves any inclusive subset of the following: recurve or non-natural material arrows) but after shooting what felt like a really embarrassing longbow round with my Chek-Mate Crusader (190/300), I figured I was going to amuse myself by shooting the other divisions. My recurve round was a lot better, although the first half was a bit rough because I had a few misses that were worth the damage to my score, including a wimpy little vine that intercepted my arrow on its way to the kill on a standing bear. I pulled a 235/300 with the Chek-Mate Hunter I. Then I returned to the base station and started chatting with the people running the shoot and one of them offered to loan me her self-bow and cane arrows. I have no qualms about borrowing her bow but I do have serious qualms about borrowing cane arrows because they're hard to come by, build, and cost a fortune. So I look around for some subset of arrows or bow. Luckily, there's some guys selling some nice self-bows who not only let me test-shoot it and loan me arrows, but also help me convert a few of my "junker" wood arrows into self-nocked arrows and let me compete with the bow. This morning I shot a 165/300 with the cedar-hickory self-bow, which was surprisingly good for a bow I had gotten my hands on last night after test-shooting, calibrated at 15 and 20 yards only, and then shot without any real experimentation.

I honestly wasn't expecting to place in any of the divisions after glancing and/or overhearing the kind of scores people were shooting... but somehow, I was able to take 3rd in primitive and longbow and 2nd in recurve. All in all though it was a great shoot and I finally got to shoot what my friends call the trifecta of TBoF. It was the first time (in the time I've been around at least) that TBoF allowed people to shoot shorter courses in multiple divisions and I took advantage of that opportunity. The self-bow I got my hands on certainly had a whole different feel and provided a breath of fresh air from its more technologically advanced kindred. It drew smoothly, shot quietly, and didn't shake me up like some other bows do. But when all's been said and done, my favorite is still my fairly high-tech two-part stick with a nice string on it.

Rejected Sequel Material

This was something I dug up recently. Originally it was supposed to be material for a sequel to Telcontar Restored (Children of the Tuatha in the compilation) but rejected in favor of The Lay of Imladrien and Tinuvion and Swan-Song. Killer Parakeet's eating habits do make it into Swan-Song though.

As far as the Shadowhawk/Morgenstern story goes, I'm pretty much standing alongside a graduate student taking her qualifiers and learns more about her fey roots while another graduate student is trying to finish his dissertation but is haunted by not only his fey roots but also an oath he had sworn years ago and a mysterious creature with suspicious motives.

Taste of Long Hammock

Here's a sample of the various denizens that attend the Long Hammock shoots. I'm hoping the other photographer has some better, more representative pictures!









Oh and here's a few gratuitous pictures I took to cheer myself up after realizing that my gut looks a lot like an ameboid beer keg.

Insomnia and Inspiration for the Swan-Song Sequel

What can I say? I sometimes get oddly fascinated with certain songs and they color my writing for a bit...

Song for interval t: Stripped by Depeche Mode, both the original and the Rammstein cover.

In other news, I have a nice grove of regression trees growing and pretty soon they'll form a nice random forest and maybe some committees. I might have to prune a few of them though because they're starting to look like ents.

Trimarian Olympics

There's some scattered pictures from the Trimarian Olympics.
From Aesa: http://pics.livejournal.com/jasminedragon/gallery/0001zb6k
From Wurmund: http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=424483532&albumId=1302253

From me (Guenhwyvar): http://s375.photobucket.com/albums/oo194/cylithera137/Trimarian%20Olympics%202009-June-20/

It was a hot, humid day so we all braised very nicely (or miserably). Under normal circumstances, I would've participated in other activities like the foot-races and tug-of-war. (Un)fortunately, I made my Will save and decided to stay in the comfort of the shade. Still though, the merciless FL sun combined with FL summer humidity buggered the life out of me. It was a real blast and something I'd happily do again. Next time, I'll hopefully have my own garb that's a wee bit more breathable than the nice Roman tunic that a friend of mine loaned me!

Why the Heck Not...

The latest build of all of the stories in the Dunheasa series, including Swan-Song. I've also added two short stories: Idiocy and Innocence, a story I had written back in 1997 about Killer Parakeet and an almost disastrous journey and cleaned up after years of gathering cobwebs, and The Sundering of the Tuatha, which is a bit of a legend which may or may not be true. I also have a bit of a revised bunch of fragments for the sequel to Swan-Song. The tentative title has gone from Shadowhawk to Morgenstern as things have unfolded bit by bit. As always, no telling which way this one's going to go although I can honestly say the (mis)adventures of T. Morgenstern, his companions, and the Shadowhawk may span a handful of stories.

900 Round

No pictures this time -- camera seems to have gone on strike on me. I shot a 526/900, which according to everyone else, is a pretty strong score for me shooting a longbow with hunting arrows. The Olympic barebow shooters were in the mid 600s and the highest score in the whole shoot was 870-something. My best round was at the 40 yards, where nearly all of my arrows were in the gold except for one flyer (the 1st arrow out of 6 of that round). That round, I had 55/60 and the arrows scored as follows: X, X, 10, 9, 9, and 7, where X is a 10 in the X. That's better than some of my compound (with full field setup) rounds at 40 yards! I think I also made some compound and Olympic shooters rethink their opinions about longbows in these types of shoots, at least one compound shooter in my group couldn't believe that I pulled that off. I had some trouble re-calibrating myself at 60 and 50 yards, leading me to a total of 5 non-scoring shots (out of 90), but once I figured out what my gap was, it was (usually) smooth sailing. All in all, it was a real blast!

Now if I can only convince my fellow traditional shooters to come to some of these shoots with me! At least I've got some friends shooting their Olympic recurves with nothing on them to keep me company!

Another Pic Rolls In

Still waiting for pictures from one of my fellow shooters but I received this pic earlier from the K family.

In other news, I finally was able to get some useful output from PnET-Day after wondering why the frequency MatLab kept giving me strange errors like undefined variables and boiler processes. And now to use my own data instead of the Harvard Experimental Forest site, which is predominantly hardwoods. Which model has the greatest predictive power? Tune in and find out if PnET, regression tree, or artificial neural network is the Most Powerful Predictor of NEE and evapotranspiration!

Moving Up the Ranks

As of last night, the average of my top 3 Royal Round scores is now above 80 -- shot an 86, 85, and 80 (all three being my top scores) so now I've moved up from Bowman (60-80 average if I recall correctly) to Master Bowman. I'm going to see if I can reach the coveted Grand Master Bowman, which is a 100 or above. Given the way a Royal Round is structured, that's a pretty tall order. There's 3 untimed rounds with 6 arrows and a maximum possible score of 30. The fourth round is a timed round and the most arrows I can shoot in 30 seconds is 9, which would make my theoretical maximum 45 points if I could even fit all those arrows in the bull's-eye. I'd have to average 25 points per round, which is a pretty tough goal with wood arrows but it's not out of the question. Who knows, maybe one day Trimaris will produce five or six Grand Master Bowmen!

I also got a personal high on my IKAC score -- 215. I've yet to beat Sir Erika's record high (250-something I think) but I think I might have a shot at it and maybe put a bit more of a dent on those guys from An Tir and Aethelmaerc. I also suspect that there's a core group of five or six of us from the An Croisaire barony will bump things up nicely for Trimaris...

More FAA State Championship Pictures

These are courtesy of one of my fellow shooters, there should be another few posts coming as pictures roll on in.

FAA State / NFAA Sectional Championship

As always, click on the title for the entire collection of photographs.
I shot at the FAA/NFAA State/Sectional Championship at Gator Bowmen this weekend and went uncontested in the adult female traditional division. My score was by far the lowest score out of anyone on the range and I had the slowest setup out of all the people there, but heck, that 571/1400 (224/560 field, 161/280 animal, 186/560 hunter) is going to be my tournament baseline. According to other shooters, it was a pretty strong score given that I (in their eyes) shot with every possible handicap: longbow, heavy hunting arrows, feathers in the rain, and shooting directly off the shelf. A lot of people did comment on me having a lot of courage for shooting what I shot and staying with the entire shoot. Overall it was a real blast and I'd happily shoot another field round with my longbow! Now if I can only get my other half to also appreciate these shoots...

Swan-Song FAQ 1/n et al

I really don't appreciate being woken up by the local yahoos making insane amounts of noise, not too different from what I sometimes hear the nights of football victories. I don't know what it is but some noises really, really, really make me wish I either could cast disintegration or lightning bolt or even magic missile, with disintegration being my first choice because of its more permanent effects. Heck, a sphere of annihilation wouldn't be too bad either, provided I have full control of the blasted thing. In any event, I'm up and am having trouble going back to sleep so time to do a few things.

First, click on the title or here for a really funny video that improved my mood a bit and reassured me that there's still some tasteful music out there. Don't know what it is, but rap, hip-hop, and a lot of jazz and lite rock make me think about the effects of Vogon potery on non-Vogons. Just to give you an idea of the video, it's a live performance of "Mein Teil" by Rammstein, which translates to "My Part" or "My Male Thingy".

On to the Swan-Song FAQ...

Q: Which stories should I have read before-hand, if any?
A: Definitely Family Secrets (in the Palindor section), but the other Dunheasa stories are also helpful, particularly The Lay of Imladrien and Tinuvion

Q: What the heck inspired this story?
A: Lots of things. The main sources though were D&D campaigns while I was still in SoCal and South Park. I also gave a bit of a nod to the Knights of Solamnia in the Dragonlance series as well as to a lot of hero-story stereotypes.

Q: Why so much flatulence in the story?
A: Because it's funny and amusing to write about.

Q: Will there be more Rusvalki and/or S'vartalf in future stories?
A: Nearly certain. They're too interesting for a one story appearance.

Q: When will the Crossroad get cleaned up?
A: I have no clue. It'll reveal itself when the time comes and no sooner.

I'll post a second one later on when I get more feedback and/or questions :) Hopefully now I can curl up happily and actually get some rest.

Draft 2 of Swan-Song

Click on the title of the post to see the second draft of Swan-Song. If that doesn't work, click here.

Basically I re-added a few parts I had omitted earlier to give a better sense of a couple of the characters as well as cleaning up some details. As always, the story will continue to evolve.

Gratuitous IKAC Pictures

These pictures are courtesy of Wurmund.
Wurmund and Sir Erika Bjornstottir on the line.

Aesa, Guenhwyvar (me), Jochi, and someone being obscured by Jochi (can't tell who) on the line. Aesa is the one closest to the photographer, Jochi is the furthest whole person visible, I'm in the middle.

Another shot of Aesa, Guenhwyvar, and Jochi.