{"id":1554,"date":"2003-09-22T13:33:29","date_gmt":"2003-09-22T18:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/?p=299"},"modified":"2003-09-22T13:33:29","modified_gmt":"2003-09-22T18:33:29","slug":"huzzah-or-words-to-that-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/?p=1554","title":{"rendered":"Huzzah, or words to that effect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"PantsNotFlaming.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/archives\/images\/PantsNotFlaming.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"500\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\nThis man is happy because his pants are not on fire.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s right, we hit the Renaissance Faire this weekend!  There can be no other explanation for why I&#8217;m posting pictures of long haired guys in floppy hats juggling flaming torches&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t worry, it&#8217;s not all juggling pictures&#8230;<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nOne of the things I like to check out is what artisans they&#8217;ve got doing demonstrations&#8230;  Glassblowers and blacksmiths are perennial favorites, although the combination of high temperatures and dry summers sometimes means that their demonstrations get cancelled.  No worries this Saturday.  We had a drenching rain on Friday (tail end of the hurricane) but Saturday was bright and clear.<\/p>\n<p>Kind of like this guy&#8217;s work:<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"GlassSpinner.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/archives\/images\/GlassSpinner.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I like spun glass, and this guy had some amazing stuff, from little two inch crystal spiders to cat-sized dragons.  If I&#8217;d thought it would survive the rest of the fair, I might have bought something&#8230;  I&#8217;m pretty certain that fragility has to be the main reason that people didn&#8217;t buy more of his wares.<\/p>\n<p>We hit the faire in the early afternoon along with a friend of ours who is a chainmail hobbyist.  He&#8217;s got a chain shirt made from square patches&#8230;  Well heck, it&#8217;s easiest to just show you:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ChainTrio.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/archives\/images\/ChainTrio.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\n(He&#8217;s the guy on the far left.)<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a better picture of him in the fancy shirt on his own <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scotthelmke.com\/chainmail.html\">Chainmail Page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It was amazing how often people would come up and start chatting with him, asking about the shirt.  From fellow chainmail enthusiasts, he&#8217;d get technical questions about what kind of wire he used<sup>1<\/sup>, how he got it to shine<sup>2<\/sup>, and what he did with the taper for the arms and the body<sup>3<\/sup>.  Most other people asked if he did it himself<sup>4<\/sup>, how long it took<sup>5<\/sup> and how much it weighed<sup>6<\/sup>&#8230;<\/p>\n<ol>For those of you playing at home, if you&#8217;ve got the same questions, here&#8217;s the answer key:<\/p>\n<li>galvanized electric fence wire\n<li>rolled a bunch of links around together in a sock\n<li>he didn&#8217;t taper them\n<li>yes\n<li>about 100 hours\n<li>about 35 pounds<\/ol>\n<p>Seriously though, if you&#8217;re looking for an all-purpose icebreaker at a Renaissance Faire, nothing beats chainmail&#8230;  Be warned though, even if you&#8217;re wearing padding, after about four hours wearing a thirty five pound wire overshirt your shoulders start to resemble hamburger.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ChainShoulder.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/archives\/images\/ChainShoulder.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This man is happy because his pants are not on fire. That&#8217;s right, we hit the Renaissance Faire this weekend! There can be no other explanation for why I&#8217;m posting pictures of long haired guys in floppy hats juggling flaming &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/?p=1554\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-1554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-personal-blather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quirkspace.com\/quirkblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}