Hold on for your shorts people it's time for the weekend update. Except for you, yes you, stop holding your shorts like that....you know that's not what I meant so stop it. Ahem! Anyway. This weekend was Assessment and it turned out to be a great weekend all told. I guess I'll start at the beginning and just hope I don't leave anything out.

Friday
Friday evening I met Kate and we loaded the car up with stuff. Went to Wal-Mart where Kate got some sandals to wear, I'm not sure if she wore them much at all though. We also dropped Kate's Mom's computer off at her house. I didn't have time to hook the thing up and look at it though. I really wanted to get to the site in time for the torchlight tourney because I knew it would be against mostly Black Diamond fighters and I wanted that interaction with them. We got to the hotel about 9 and checked in. The Lady at the counter probably hadn't been out of the county in her life, but it gave the motel a certain charm that was kinda cool. We headed out to the event and found it with no problem at all. I was wearing my armor and the yellow pants with a fencing shirt. It was just past dusk when I got to the field, just dark enough that the yellow pants stood out wonderfully. Everyone knew it was me before they could see my face. The reception I got was everything I hoped it would be, everyone seemed happy to see me and I was happy to feel at home. We had the torchlight tourney under the picnic shelter where the band was playing. It was sooooooo humid it wasn't even funny. While we were driving in I could see the humidity hanging in the air above the trees, at first I thought it was a forrest fire but no. Anyway when we were fighting we were literally dripping with sweat. We ran a bearpit tourney with Dante getting two more kills than me right as time ran out. Then we talked for a bit, walked around, walked down to the vigil party where Alejandro told me to go put a shirt on(I was wearing my underarmor shirt because I didn't think anyone would be able to tell in the DARK. Oh well, we wandered back up the hill where Kate had found Vyvyan who I didn't even know would be there. We talked for a while, he's getting shipped out in a couple of weeks. It was cool to talk to him. After a while Kate and I went back to the motel to wait for Melchior. He was supposed to get in to Dulles at 7:30. But his flight was delayed so he didn't get in til 10:30 which put him at the Motel a little after 2. It was ok we got some sleep before then and had no trouble going back to sleep.

Saturday
Saturday morning I woke up pretty early but rolled over and went back to sleep. We got up around 9:30 and made it to the site around 10ish or maybe a little afterwords. It was really humid right off the bat. They held morning court and made a Pyr out of someone I've never heard of. But I stayed and clapped anyway because I thought it was polite. I spent the rest of the morning greeting people I hadn't seen in a while. Chris was there, Amy of course, Ros, Percy, Vyv, Alejandro, as well as the usual suspects from BD. The fighting field was down closer to the river so it was a tad cooler. It was hot out but I was doing ok, it was bearable. The fighting was awesome! I enjoyed myself incredibly despite my team loosing more than it won. They set it up as practice for the broken field battles at Pennsic and divided us in to North vs. South. But there were a lot of Northerners so we had to give some to the South. I don't think that was handled very well, they made us pick two Dragoons to send to the south. It would have been better if they had said "you and you go fight for the south", that would have made it much easier but oh well. The first time we ran the battle the Dragoons lined up in the middle against Duncan and his guys. We advanced and engaged them. I took one guy's leg, Duncan's hand and then killed another guy. So basically the line in front of us was gone. I went and flankend the people on the left side because they were pushing us pretty hard over there. I got a couple more kills and a couple DFB's. I think we won that one but I'm not sure. The second battle was a lot of fun for me, I broke through their line between their middle and right flank squauds and nobody noticed. I ran around as a distraction, and then went over to where Vyvyan was lined up with Jean Claude and two others keeping our right flank from pushing. I DFB'd Vyvyan first(of course), then JC, then the guy next to him(Raphael maybe?). After that it was kind of acedemic, we just mopped up pretty good. It was exciting for me. The rest of the broken field battles are kind of a blur, I remember running around a ton, getting lots of DFB's. One time two people were attacking our Geoffery our commander and I charged from all the way across the field, Geoffery saw me coming and managed to turn them so I would be flanking them. They were so intent on him that they didn't see me coming and I killed both of them before they knew what happend. Geoffery and I laughed about it later. It was Vyvyan's last event before he gets deployed so everyone made a point of fighting him for a few bouts and we all took a group picture which was cool. After the main battles were done we did some pick up melees, the Dragoons challenged anyone to come against the five of us....six Provosts answered our challenge(ok it was Celric's challenge, I just wanted to fight). The first time we did it the Provosts split in to three groups of two. I distracted Percy and Chris long enough that Celric ALyna and Briana all came over to help me after dispatching their opponents. I died however but it ended up being Cel Bri and Alyna against Percy and a legged Connor. We lost unfortunately, I'm still not sure how that happend. The next battle they did a "Provost Burst" and we beat them pretty good. More melees ensued after that, I think we fought three more battles against different teams before yielding the field. I felt great, I wasn't winded and I wasn't overheated, staying active during the week is starting to show some benefits. After fighting was done(I was sad, I wanted more), I changed in to the yellow garb that Leslie made for me. Well I put on the pants and shirt that is, I carried the doublet up to where they were having court, it was too hot to put on right away. When I got there I was sitting near the fans trying to cool Down when Alejandro came up and chastised me for not having a doublet on. "Only a thug wouldn't have a doublet and you're a better man than that" is what he said. I showed him the doublet that I was getting ready to put on and he seemed impressed with it. But I was confused, why has he all of the sudden picked me out to make sure I have quality garb? Dante never wears a doublet and Alejandro has never said anything to him as far as I know, weird. Anyway I put the doublet on and the outfit looked great, everyone was impressed. Alyna didn't even recognize me, Celric asked me where I had gotten it and if more were available. Dante gave me the most hilarious compliment I have ever heard: "Dude if I was a girl I'd be all over you. And if I was a gay guy you wouldn't even have a choice". Court was short and we couldn't hear very much. No Baronial awards were given out, Ludwig is now the baronial champ which is very awesome, a Kracken was made, and Thomas's father was made a Pelican. And then court was over, Kate stayed to help serve dinner while a bunch of us went to a barbecue place down the road. I had a steak that was wonderful, nice and spicy. Sarah was really sick from something she had eaten before court I think so after dinner Troy took her back to the hotel. I went back to the site and wandered around a little bit. Managed to find Kate who had some funny stories about serving high table and serving Ackbar jerky as a course. We ended up in the Dragoon encampment sitting around talking about different things and basically shooting the shit. Kate and I were both tired so we went back to the motel fairly early. We actually got in before midnight. I took my shirt over to Thomas and Leslie's room so that she could fix the shoulder in my shirt. I watched her do it and I'm going to get Joe or Ox to do the same thing to my other two shirts that are ripped there and probably reinforce the one that isn't. She also showed me the hat that she made for my red outfit. It is totally pimped out, it's red, soft and fuzzy, and it has feathers in it! I can't wait to wear it. When I got back to the room Mel and Kate were already asleep. Kate didn't even move when I got in to the bed.

Sunday
We slept in Sunday morning, well kind of, I was laying in bed awake. I'm not sure why I couldn't get back to sleep, it was kinda annoying. We didn't get up until Troy showed up at the door wanting to pick up Mel and get to the field. We got up, packed up, and checked out. Checking out consisted of dropping the keys in a box in the lobby, heh. We got to the field and it was really hot, some people(like the Dragoons) didn't even put on their armor. I was tempted not too as well until Dante told me to suit up and do an authorization. I had good fights with Ros, Percy, Melchior, Ludwig, and Connor. Ludwig is improving with each event that he goes too. Melchior is in a word awesome, he's very vast with his 40in. Several times he was fast enough to get completely around my stick, I was very impressed. Connor and I had a good fight as well, I was kind of goofing off and not trying very hard. But He didn't seem to be enjoying himself as much as usual. Sarah thankfully was feeling better and she did some fighting as well. But they had to leave early to get Mel to the airport. After fighting broke up Kate and I decided to leave as well. We said goodbye to everyone, I still miss all the BD people. We stopped at the German resturant on the way back to Richmond. I had Jaegerschnitzel which was delicious. However the music in that place was painful. First some guy in there was playing a really loud accordion. Then when he was done they put yodeling music on the stereo....ouch! We got back to Richmond about 6:30 and decided to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory again. I'm happy to report it was funny on second viewing as well. I slept really well that night, I was pretty wiped from being in the heat so long. For Pennsic I am going to have to make sure that I have comfortable bedding because that was three days of fighting and heat. Pennsic is a whole week and if I don't keep myself rested it could be very bad.

Well that's all for now. I have to get to work, lots to do this week, I might even end up working on Saturday....yuck.
Ciao.