A rough and stressful year

While 2004 had been difficult, 2005 was stressful for me personally. I was still involved in faires. The Maine Renaissance Faire, after a particularly bad year, did not open in 2005. Later in the year, the site would go up for sale. The Vermont Renaissance Festival had a successful year, despite days of extreme heat and heavy rain. The latter caused parking problems and resulted in the faire needing to find a new home for 2006. The Connecticut Renaissance Faire had two wonderful weekends, one weekend of rain, and a catastophe in the final weekend. A dur to heavy rains, the entire site was flooded forcing the cancellation of the faire's final weekend.

Conversely, Paragon Jousting had a STELLAR year. Adding their own farm to keep their horses as well as an additional horse named "Diablo" did wonders for Paragon's business. If not for Diablo, Paragon may not have had the success which they enjoyed. However, before the year was over, Diablo would be gone from our lives.

GBU was difficult. At Vermont, "Devon" was recovering from shoulder surgery so we had a stand in. At Connecticut, we were trying to get a new show off the ground and things didn't go so well. Eventually we got things on track but it would have been nice to not have had the embarassments of opening weekend. Going into 2006, it's not even clear if there will be a GBU as we've all become so busy with so many things.

Faire added additional stress to my relationship. Between my schedule, personal problems and clashes between me and Michelle, we broke up by fall of 2005. We remain very good friends and we both continue to remain involved in faires.

2005 was also the first year I travelled outside of New England to perform as I performed with GBU and Paragon in Cairo, NY and with Paragon in Stanhope, NJ. 2006 holds more travel for me.

2005 also denotes my final year as Fight Captain for the Connecticut Renaissance Faire. The fight director has stepped down and has recommended me as his replacement. There is some negotiating to be done but I would like to take the job.

As I look back on 2005, I see more low points than high. But it wasn't all bad. I'm looking forward to starting over in 2006 and seeing what the future holds.

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