Hi everyone

[Kat]

You may remember me for posting in orangered, running an exclusionary signature club, or being inordinately proud of my absurdly high post count. I had a bunch of usernames before I managed to get the original owner of Kat deleted, but I can't remember the vast majority of them. One I still use elsewhere is Lunakki, so if you've seen that anywhere, that's me.

GW meant a lot to me as a teenager because I was homeschooled through middle and high school, so it was my entire social life. I probably would've gone literally insane if it weren't for that opportunity to connect to other people with similar ages and interests as me. Despite now having that thing they call "a life", I still manage to get some gaming in several times a week, and hope to get some time in on here too.

Professionally, I'm managing a team of software developers who build web applications used internally by Intel, mostly related to construction. It's a team I've mostly built myself over the past 18 months or so for a startup, and it currently involves managing half a dozen people along with their half dozen projects, so that's been exciting and scary and frustrating. It's not an industry I ever planned to be in, but it's a surprisingly rewarding and lucrative niche that allows me to work from home in my PJs, so it's worked out well.

One of the hobbies I've picked up in the last few years is going to Renaissance Faires. (Well, I picked it up in 2018, then you know what happened, but we'll just ignore those years when no events existed.) Here's a picture of me and a friend from last year (believe it or not, this is the one with the least terrible lighting):

 

[Olga]

That’s really cool, Kat! The way you describe your life and work right now is oddly lovely to read - I’m glad you’re able to strike a balance between complexity and fulfilment. And it’s amazing how digital socialising filled such a big niche when isolated from other kids.

I gotta ask: what does one do at Ren fairs? There’s food and… activities?

 

[Crystal]

It's great to have you back, @Kat, you were always a big part of GW before and seeing you, and everyone else, back on a GW-based forum is amazing

 

[Kat]

Some have more to do than others. Generally they all have multiple stages with entertainment throughout the day (everything from comedy to singing to plays to juggling to falconry, most with lots of audience participation). They also have multiple pubs, so there's the usual drinking and socializing in those. An obligatory event at all ren fairs is the joust. You can often pay to put someone in "jail" and then they have to escape (they get let out after a bit if they can't, of course). There's always vendors selling clothing, weapons, jewelry, and other random things.

Some events like this one have camping, so there's a lot of drinking and socializing between campsites, and people often bring games and whatnot to play. One guy brought an ENTIRE BAR with walls and chairs and tables and everything, and set that up in his campsite, and served drinks and charcuterie boards.

That particular event is a really big one, so they also have after hours entertainment like fire dancers, a concert (that year it opened with a metal band playing a cover of Barbie World), and karaoke.

My personal favorite thing to do though is people watch. I managed to get this shot of a lady getting spanked by Santa (Why is someone dressed as Santa at a ren fair? Who knows? That's the fun of them.):

 

[Kat]

Here's a picture of my awesome sword necklace. One of the swords is removable, so they'll never be able to disarm me. (I wanted to post this one originally but it said it was too big, trying it again mostly as a test). (Lighting on this one is also terrible because I was under a red canopy, I swear I'm not secretly a lobster.)

 

[Crystal]

That's an amazing necklace!!

Spoiler

...so we've found a crab people!

 

[Boots]

Ren fest is fun. I went to the Michigan one last year. Some workers split up our group of 5 into 2 and had us bid on the price to put the other 2/3 in jail. All 5 of us wound up in jail. We had to get on stage and do a dance to earn our freedom. And they gave us certificates with our crimes. They gave me the crime of being high maintenance.

There's jugglers, candle wax dipping, knife and axe throwing. You can pay to throwing tomatoes at a friend. Jewelry, artwork, clothing, leather and wood work crafts for sale. Turkey legs, candied nuts, full sized pickles, tarot readings. Lots of beer and mead. It's a fun way to hang out and socialize with friends. You can even get married at them.

I have friends who go to the Colorado ren fest several weekends every summer. They wear cosplay/dress up in costume. The circuit moves around the country. The Colorado ren fest only runs for 7-8 weeks in the summer, and each weekend has a different theme. Michigan Ren fest is late summer well into fall. My sister actually had her first job working at that one, when she was 14. She wore a corset and everything. Ren fests feel like the natural progression for us theater nerds.

 

[Boots]

Sword necklace is cool af. That's a better pic of your face. I recognize it! Probably from the GWPS days when I went by Sarah.

 

[Mark]

Hey Kat, welcome back. I remember all of your usernames and the font color, but your presence was everywhere thanks to the high post count, you were easy to remember. Glad to see you here and it’s good to hear that you’ve done well over the years.

 

[Holly]

There's a lot that I could say, but this, most of all:

I missed you, my friend.

 

[Fire Queen]

ren faires!!! i’ve only been to a few but they’re a lot of fun. it’s like an anime con but outside and you can get a turkey leg to go see the joust. or falconry


last time i went in 2021 i dressed up as cdi zelda lol

 

[A Punched Face]

Hey @Kat - glad to see you around and hear that things are going well.

And yeah, Ren faires can be fun. The local one near me actually had a performer start here who is now getting more national attention these days:

Jacques Ze Whipper

www.jackthewhipper.com

He was also on America's Got Talent recently I think. Don't actually watch the show, but I do watch some of his performances here and there. He was a weatherman on a local news station and did this for fun during the season. Now I think this is his full time thing.

 

[Boots]

And yeah, Ren faires can be fun. The local one near me actually had a performer start here who is now getting more national attention these days:

Jacques Ze Whipper

www.jackthewhipper.com

He was also on America's Got Talent recently I think. Don't actually watch the show, but I do watch some of his performances here and there. He was a weatherman on a local news station and did this for fun during the season. Now I think this is his full time thing.

Small world. My friends took their gaggle of kids to ren fest for the first time in 10 years Saturday and surprised them with a Jacques Ze Whipper show.

 

[A Punched Face]

Small world. My friends took their gaggle of kids to ren fest for the first time in 10 years Saturday and surprised them with a Jacques Ze Whipper show.

It's a great show. I always made sure to catch that one when I went.

 

[Kat]

There's a lot that I could say, but this, most of all:

I missed you, my friend.

I missed you too!!! I almost said something when I first saw a post by you but didn't want to derail whatever the thread was.

Hey @Kat - glad to see you around and hear that things are going well.

And yeah, Ren faires can be fun. The local one near me actually had a performer start here who is now getting more national attention these days:

Jacques Ze Whipper

www.jackthewhipper.com

He was also on America's Got Talent recently I think. Don't actually watch the show, but I do watch some of his performances here and there. He was a weatherman on a local news station and did this for fun during the season. Now I think this is his full time thing.

Aww man, he's going to be at Washington Midsummer's (which is what all those pics are from), but I'm not going to be there this year because the tickets were already sold out when I tried to buy them back in February. Ren Fair season has gotten ridiculous this year. I used to buy tickets at the door and now they're sold out several months in advance. I can't even find them on any resale site.

Hey Kat, welcome back. I remember all of your usernames and the font color, but your presence was everywhere thanks to the high post count, you were easy to remember. Glad to see you here and it’s good to hear that you’ve done well over the years.

Do you remember any specific ones or just that I had a bunch? It's starting to bother me that I literally can't remember them at all. I can't even remember for sure if I ever used Lunakki here.

Ohh, I just remembered I did have "Luna Goddess" for a while... Because I remembered a group of people calling me Anul Goddess, hahaha.

I'm not going to quote everyone else because my cat just laid on my face and it's difficult to type like this, but thank you all for the welcomes back and for sharing your own Ren Fair pics.

 

[Mark]

Do you remember any specific ones or just that I had a bunch? It's starting to bother me that I literally can't remember them at all. I can't even remember for sure if I ever used Lunakki here.

Ohh, I just remembered I did have "Luna Goddess" for a while... Because I remembered a group of people calling me Anul Goddess, hahaha.

Oh, I can’t even remember one of my old ones, so I’m no good to you there, but I did provide some of your earlier name changes when I was still on the staff and did remember the ones you listed. I do remember the Luna Goddess one, too. You had quite a few, which is why I was glad you were one of the few people that used a font color to distinguish yourself.

 

[shortkut]

@Kat weren’t you mandyfan4ever?

 

[Mark]

@Kat weren’t you mandyfan4ever?

I think that MAY have been her original…

 

[shortkut]

Without the proper color to her text, I’m still not convinced this isn’t shiven pretending to be her

 

[A Punched Face]

@Mark please hardcode her text to always be the correct orange.

 

[Crystal]

@Mark please hardcode her text to always be the correct orange.

Ah, a chance to work with conditionals!! Have to give that a go later!

 

[shortkut]

Ah, a chance to work with conditionals!! Have to give that a go later!

@American Alliteration Ally you just made her so happy

 

[Mark]

@Mark please hardcode her text to always be the correct orange.

@Crystal , please advise. This is above my pay grade, and I do not have access to the XenForo modification site.

Edit - Oops… forgot to close this tab earlier and ended up posting it way late.

 

[Crystal]

@Crystal , please advise. This is above my pay grade, and I do not have access to the XenForo modification site.

It's just a custom field and a conditional, unless there's an add-on out there for it.

Let's say you setup custom field 26 (whatever the id would be) to be a hex code box, someone enters the hex code of their text choice, you then take that field ID and...well...that's the part I'm a bit unsure of off the top of my head, as XF conditionals are quite different from the vB counterparts. but that's something I'll look up in a little bit

 

[Mark]

It's just a custom field and a conditional, unless there's an add-on out there for it.

Let's say you setup custom field 26 (whatever the id would be) to be a hex code box, someone enters the hex code of their text choice, you then take that field ID and...well...that's the part I'm a bit unsure of off the top of my head, as XF conditionals are quite different from the vB counterparts. but that's something I'll look up in a little bit

It was rigged up before in-house on old forums, similar to how you describe. We didn’t have a mod for it then, so one of the admins rigged something up. I didn’t really do too much of the coding on the last couple forums… mostly everything we wanted to do was plug and play with the newly integrated mod support, and the rest were projects that different admins took interest in… specifically Maj and Cole, those two were notorious for tinkering with stuff.

 

[Crystal]

It was rigged up before in-house on old forums, similar to how you describe. We didn’t have a mod for it then, so one of the admins rigged something up. I didn’t really do too much of the coding on the last couple forums… mostly everything we wanted to do was plug and play with the newly integrated mod support, and the rest were projects that different admins took interest in… specifically Maj and Cole, those two were notorious for tinkering with stuff.

It's still somewhat similar, but there are a LOT of add-ons for things now, so custom coding just isn't as necessary. Some things still require it, which is fun, but not everything.

 

[Kat]

@Kat weren’t you mandyfan4ever?

Ohhhh yes, that was the username I registered with!!

I was actually going to make the original post in this thread orange, but I have a blue light filter on my phone at night, so I couldn't figure out if I had the color right because everything looks orange.

 

[shortkut]

Ohhhh yes, that was the username I registered with!!

I was actually going to make the original post in this thread orange, but I have a blue light filter on my phone at night, so I couldn't figure out if I had the color right because everything looks orange.

I find it hard to believe you don’t have the color memorized

 

[Kat]

I find it hard to believe you don’t have the color memorized

I used a color name instead of a hex code and just assumed it wouldn't work on here, but actually it does!

 

[Nebulous]

Welcome to GW Forums!

 

[Crystal]

I used a color name instead of a hex code and just assumed it wouldn't work on here, but actually it does!

Orangered Kat is back