I am low-key a fan of lapel pins, so I’m delighted that my HEMA club, Tempered Mettle Historical Fencing, now has some for sale. They’re even cheap!
I’ll put this on my sport coat shortly, but I wanted to get a photo first.
2026-01-11 15:40
Tag: Photography
2026-01-04 19:13
The footpath along First Street between Windsor and Curtis has some extra-fancy lights. They’re usually fairly dim, to minimize light pollution, but they have motion detectors that cause them to brighten if someone approaches.
Selfie spots!
The Champaign County Forest Preserves have started putting up signs declaring certain spots “selfie spots.” Being very suggestible, I immediately started taking selfies at those spots.
2025-12-23 15:03
Just a smidgen longer than my previous long run, but this time I added some intervals along about the midpoint, where I ran hard for one minute, and then spent two minutes recovering, and repeated for a total of 5 times. Probably not the smartest choice (embedding that in a long run), but I enjoyed it anyway.
My fitbit says I did 4.75 miles in 1:13:26.
2025-12-23 14:55
Out on my run today, I happened upon this awesome lawn ornament.
2025-12-20 15:13
Ashley and I had found our place in the sun, and I wanted to document the event with a two-guy selfie, and I was trying to get Ashley to look at the camera (to limited success).
2025-12-14 07:40
I made a shopping trip to Arthur, Illinois (a largely Amish community) last week. Among other things, I bought three pounds of chicken backs, which I roasted for an hour and then put in the Instant Pot with an onion and some celery tops and pressure cooked on the “broth” setting for 2 hours and 45 minutes. Then I strained the broth and put it in the fridge.
Today I spooned out about half a mug of (super gelatinous) broth, added 1/16 tsp of salt, and poured boiling water to top up the mug and behold: a nice mug of warm drinking broth. Delicious, warming, and very healthy!
2025-11-29 15:19
Ashley really wants to go for a long walk. But she doesn’t want to go for a walk in the outside that actually exists. She wants to go for a walk in some other outside—one where it’s not windy and snowing.
Glorious new Thibault book preordered
This summer, while in Chicago for other reasons, we went to the Art Institute. I made a point of tracking down the room with the arms and armor, where I found, among many other things, a copy of Thibault’s Academie de l’Espée.
The picture above gives you and idea of the fabulous (and fabulously detailed) engravings, but look how big the book is! I mean, it’s half the length of a sword!
So, I was delighted to discover that HEMA Bookshelf has a plan to publish a book with these images, “the first time this art has been published at close to full size since 1668.”
Read about the project here: The Thibault Project. While you’re there, go ahead and pre-order a copy yourself. I mean, it’s only money. Oh, and way more bookshelf space than I have available. But I’ll fit it in somewhere.
2025-11-20 10:24
I’m trying to ramp up to two runs a week—a “long” run (currently anything over 4 miles), and a “fast” run (sometimes hill sprints, sometimes an interval session, sometimes—as today—just a shorter run where I press the pace).
