Mein Kampf

This weekend was a struggle from start to finish. Rossana departed Thursday for Ohio Ren to start clean up of her and my booths. Lindsey and Jesse had to detour to Bag End to pick up aone crucial piece of equipment I had forgotten to pack for Rossana. Had to make a sign for Michigan Ren (It came out great) in addition to fixing mannequins, mirrors etc etc.

Everyone was trapped by traffic. I spend the better part of an hour roaring down unnamed Detroit streets in a mad heard of Michigan drivers who view the speed limit as a personal affront. I arrived late to site and unloaded. I get a call from Lindsey down at Ohio Ren, the phone line isn't working. Despite sending in the required bribe and battling the forces of Sprints' customer service department, we have no dial tone. Lindsey will have to call in all credit card orders.

Saturday opens with rain, both at Ohio and at Michigan. It eventually subsides but the crowds are meager. Ohio opens with 50 people at the gate. Jesus, the rennies outnumber patrons by something like 3 to 1. Every sale is a struggle, a triumph of the will. A victory of salemanship over reasoned thought. This should be easy, but everyone is tight with their money because the economy just fine according to our glorious King George.

There comes a point where you have to do whatever it takes to make sales. At one point I spent 30 minutes, an unheard of amount of time, setting up a snipe. If you've never heard the term I shall explain. A snipe is where you get a sale for yourself by getting the customer to return a competitors product. This is not easy. Not only do you have to convince them that your product is better, but you must seem like you aren't badmouthing the competitor. You have to point out the many advantages your product has and let them make their own choice. Above all, you must not lie.

I never lie when I sell. I know that seems like an obvious falsehood. After all, Steve/Erik the Bard/Dante the Daring is a master con-man, a flim-flam artist, a hustler. I'm not sure how this perception came to be but I hear it a lot from acquaintances. The fact is I never lie to customers. Ever. A lie is a nasty little vermin that, once escaped from the lips, can do untold damage. Yes, I could lie and say that our products have such and such amazing properties and my competition is a drunken wife abuser etc, etc. And although it might gain me a sale in the short term, it would surely come back to haunt me. Lies have to be kept track of, an increasingly difficult thing to do as my mental capacity shrinks with age. I have made it a point to never lie when dealing with a customer. I actually left an employer when he wanted me to make promises about delivery dates that I knew he could not keep.

So I had to use the truth and my wits to steal this sale. I spent 30 minutes giving an impromptu lesson on Elizabethan fashion, bodice construction, female anatomy and high finance in the form of our layaway program. Most customers won't stay still for 30 minutes of sales pitch but I made her an offer she couldn't refuse. I told her that if, after trying on my corset, she thought the outfit she had just purchased from a competitor looked better, I would GIVE her the $375 corset.

And I meant it.

I came up with the idea right on the spot and I must admit that it spurned me to do my best to gain her confidence and trust. She didn't believe my offer at first so I repeated it for the shop at large. They would act as impartial judges. The end result was that 10 people were captivated enough to stay through the entire pitch and in the end she returned the other outfit and put her more expensive corset on layaway with a deposit. Snipe achieved. Snipe isn't the best term but I can't think of another name. Poaching is a nice term, but poaching refers to the cardinal sin of taking a potential customer out of a fellow vendors shop. An unpardonable sin.

If you have any ideas for replacing the term 'snipe', let me know.

Everyone worked hard. Everyone had my sincere thanks. Tired now...must sleep.

Fun

Fun
Originally uploaded by stevepack.

The view from my booth in Michigan. Joy

Job resignation form.

I SO would have used this letter, if it weren't for the fact that I was downsized first.

Dear *Boss's name*

After an appropriate period of deliberation, I have come to the decision to tender my resignation from *Company name*, effective *enter date*.

Please know that I still maintain a high level of respect for you as a manager and colleague, and I thank you sincerely for the support and assistance you have offered me in each of those roles. I have been proud to work for *Company name* over the past *enter amount* years; it has been a journey that has provided me an unparalleled foundation to move forward to new and exciting opportunities.

As such, I have decided to become a professional pirate. It has always been a dream of mine to live the life of a swashbuckling corsair, beholden to none and master of all I survey. Once my crew of unabashed rogues is assembled, we shall take to the capacious expanse of the high seas to pursue fortune, fame, and hair-raising adventure.

Our path may not be filled with the porcine comforts and technological marvels that *company name* provides, but we shall nonetheless move forward to carve a name for ourselves in the annals of bold insurgency and death-defying derring-do. Once I have a keen blade at my hip and the Jolly Roger is flapping high above me, I believe I will find my true calling.

Please note that I am currently accepting applications for First Mate, if you are at all interested in applying. I will provide a full medical and dental plan, which will offer immediate coverage of all maladies other than scurvy and the occasional bout of rickets.

Sincerely,

*Your Pirate Name*

Fucked Up

Not too much to report right now. Back from Pennsic and working the Michigan fair. It feels good to be home and to get stuff done around Bag End. The worst of the heat seems to be over and its like a fever has broken. I hope it stays that way. This summer was been seriously cut down by this weather, which makes my brain soft and steals my energy like kryptonite.

In the meantime, take a read of this tale over at Kiro5hin.org It reminds me of some people I've passed by from time to time and makes me glad that I never got fucked around with binge drinking and drugs (or skinheads for that matter). The story isn't realy about this kids life becomming a trainwreck, but rather how it swerved back and forth drunkenly, narrowly avoiding pedestrians and oncomming cars.

All is right with the world

All is right with the world
Originally uploaded by stevepack.

A shot of runestone hill s the sun sinks slowly in the west. The weather

is much improved now. Tonights parties include The Masked Inquisition,

the Corn party, creeping death and others. My wife is at a seminar on

the Kama Sutra and I'm keen to hear what she learned...

King Midgets

King Midgets
Originally uploaded by stevepack.

So we're getting gas in Norwalk Ohio on our way to the Michigan ren when

a funny little car putters by. Its gone so quick I don't have time to

identify it. It was certainly unusual. Small as a golf cart and as boxy

as a jeep.



Then another shows up. And another. Then a pack of them. Its like we

were being stalked by an evil heard of clown cars. I managed to snap a

few pics before flagging one down. It seems like this weekend is the big

jamboree for the King Midget, a car that was produced both as a kit and

as a complete vehicle in Athens ohio from the 40's to the 60's. Do a

google search to find their fan club home page and learn more than you

wanted to know about this funky little car.

Magical

Hello, this is Steve... I'm not at my blog right now. I'm at the Pennsic Wars. But if you leave your name and a comment, I'll get right back to you. BEEEP

In the mean time, go look at this and tell me there aren;t wizards in the world.

Cost of War

No long diatribe here. Just a link showing the costs of this war in dollars. No one can put a monetary value on the over 1800 lives lost in the US and the thousands of civilians lost in Iraq.

Is this me in an alternate timeline?

I watched the trailer for the upcoming film 'Lord of War' starring Nicolas Cage. In the first 10 second of the trailer he says several sobering facts about about arms use in the world, and then says something so wrong that my mouth actually fell open. Then I giggled.

Go watch the trailer, then come back... I'll wait...


Ok. I know that rampant gun proliferation is not solving the worlds problems. I actually support gun control because too many stupid monkeys have access to guns and tend to use them in very bad, stupid ways. Getting a gun should be a very difficult process that involves careful training, psycological examinations and a test before getting a license. Of course, I also feel this way about breeding, but that's another matter.

But this film makes me smile. I worked selling swords and pole arms at the Ohio Ren for five years. And I loved it. There is a great sense of pride in providing a quality product to a customer at a decent price. I loved showing off what the swords could do. In short, I was an arms dealer. I should be shocked that Hollywood would take such a serious subject and trivialize it into a comedy. But I'm not. Because when I see Nick Cage up on that screen, its like looking at myself through a kind of funhouse mirror. The fact is, shooting guns is fun as hell. I love it. It's just the part where people point them at other people that kills my buzz.