Thursday evening I: Can a week be short and long at the same time?

1. I’ve been a little out of touch lately, especially in my personal correspondence. I am sorry about that. Life’s been really busy, as has work, and things are spooling up again in the SCA.

If I owe you a response, please remind me. I will also get notes out to those I owe them to. If we haven’t chatted lately, drop me a line.

2. As I may have mentioned, we made $345 for the Royal Travel Fund at 12th Night.

I have about a dozen items for the “By Our Own Hands” auction at Birka. The plan is to have everything out and open for bidding by 11 a.m. (You should drop off earlier), and we will close bidding at 2:30 p.m. We expect you to stop by and check bids and get your items by 3 p.m.

I’d love to know what donations I have by Monday, Jan. 25. Please e-mail to liamstliam@gmail.com

3. Their Highnesses have sent out a note regarding award recommendations. They will be having Order meetings at Birka and will have a poll going out on Feb. 1.

From where I sit, that means that if you want someone on the poll, you oughta be writing the recommendation now and send it in by Jan. 25. That’s me, not official, but you can trust me. I am a peer.

4. Latest book finished is “Nightwalkers” by P.T. Deutermann, part of the “Cam Richter” cop-turned-detective series. It’s the fourth in the series, but readable without having read the other three. “Cat Dancers” is the best in the series. Good stuff.

5. I have been watching a lot of NCIS on DVD from the library. I have seen chunks of Season 1 and Season 2. I have not watched TV series in a long time, but I have been enjoying it. There are, as always, good shows and bad shows. I do enjoy the series’ arc as well. But the only thing I think when I see the FBI agent is “It’s Henry from Hill Street Blues.”

Abby. * sigh *

6. Here’s something I don’t understand:

I don’t understand people who say, “No, I don’t give out the recipe,” or “I will give it to you, but you cannot give it to anyone else.”

To me, cooking is about friendship and love, and sharing the recipe is part of sharing with friends. I love to cook, and I love it when people tell me, “Hey, I made that Portagee Stew Beef.”

People are going to change a recipe anyway.

(Yes, I see the difference for professional chefs).

7. Speaking of cooking. I tweaked the Portagee Stew Beef recipe yesterday. I had an almost empty jar of minced garlic. I cut the stew beef, put it in and poured a half-bottle of day-old beer over it, then shook it and marinated. I used that as the base and used the Portuguese sausage Linguica instead of Italian sausage. I also sliced the potatoes instead of chunking them up. And I used a leek instead of onions. It was great!

I also did oven-roasted pork chops (from a mix) and a lamb loaf as well this week.

Thursday Evening II: But wait, there's more . . .

1. Talk about coincidences.

Last night, alethea_eastrid replaced all the lights in the house with energy-efficient bulbs.

Today, my office at work got the same treatment.

Hmmmm.

2. Sometimes you need wikipedia to give you an epiphany.

This one’s about NCIS:

Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard (David McCallum from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ) . . .

I never realized that.

3. One day this week I woke up with the opening of the song “Undefeated” in my head.

“Yes we may die, but we’ll die with our teeth in they throats!”

Nice note to go to work on.

4. So I wasn’t going to use “Men of Harlech” in my SCA songs/Songs of Chivalry class, because I didn’t think it was about a period event. Of course, the Siege of Harlech Castle pre-dates the events in the song “Hotspur” and Agincourt, as well.

It was originally written in the 1700s, but received new words for its appearance in the 1964 movie, “Zulu.”

5. Slightly related. We’re naming our electronic devices after historical figures from the time of King Henry V. My desktop is “Harry The King.” Portable devices get named after non-English figures. The new laptop is “Boucicault.”

Oh, and my new password at work is a play off of a historical figure of a slightly earlier time.

6. I think this is utterly cool!

RPG Geeks helping Haiti.

7. I hate when this happens:

Associated Press

MORRIS, N.Y. -- The first female trooper to die while on duty was driving a cruiser back to the Oneonta barracks from her assignment at a local school when she was killed in a collision, state police said Thursday.

Police said 31-year-old Trooper Jill Mattice was traveling east on State Route 23 when she collided with the westbound tractor-trailer around 2:50 p.m. Wednesday in the Otsego County town of Morris, 57 miles southeast of Syracuse.