SKBC Adventures in Las Vegas

This SKBC blog is a long one folks, I’ve tried to title the headlines so you can easily read this blog in segments, skipping the parts that might be of no interest for you, or allowing you to easily pick up where you left off if you want to read it over multiple sessions.

Within you’ll read about my history going to the Sword Knight Boot Camps over the years, touching on a few memories from each one. Then I get into my trip to SKBC 2024 in Las Vegas. I talk not only about the content I’ve gathered over the event, but also about what I took away on a personal level. I also touch on aspects of my goals in my content creation and my hopes for the future, sprinkled in with a little bit of my hardships that I constantly find myself battling.

I realize you may not read the whole, thing, and that’s okay, I found personal value in writing this blog, it helped me analyze my time in Vegas and reflect on my experiences at SKBC throughout the years. I hope that shines through and you decide join me on the journey and enjoy reading this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it.

What is SKBC?

SKBC is a foam fighting focused conference of sorts. The best foam fighters in North America gather to fight and teach those who are willing to travel to the event. They use the combat rules from Amtgard but there are no battle games (other than the time honored ditch), no classes, no magic, no role play, just foam fighting.

The event moves all over the USA. Each year it’s held at a different location in an effort to allow a chance for those throughout the country to more easily attend. It started in 2003 and has ran every year since, other than during the dark times of the COVID shutdown.

My History With SKBC

I have been lucky enough to have gone to four SKBC events in my 25 years in the game (my god I’m getting old, lol). If you don’t mind me doing a little bit of exposition I’d like to talk about my history at SKBC before getting into the events of my 2024 journey.

My First SKBC

The first time I attended SKBC was in 2006 at the fourth SKBC. It was held outside of Seattle, WA. I don’t remember much of that event, although I do remember that I took a beginner class in short sword fighting. Derek Roth was the teacher. It turned out that when they say beginner, they mean beginner and it covered all the basic things I already knew.

That event was also infamous for the fact that there was a small group of people who vandalized one of cabins. They used condiments and wrote, among other things, Corruption, across a wall with ketchup. For what It’s worth, it was in the cabin with mostly Annihilus members. They seemed to have been there to disrupt the event more than to do any learning or enjoying any of the fighting. It was fairly embarrassing for the other northwest fighters to have something like that happen at this event. I remember this distinctly because my friends were the one’s who cleaned up the mess left behind.

My Second SKBC

SKBC didn’t come back to the Pacific Northwest again till 2015, which is the next one I was able to attend. I remember this one a little better, but still not that well. I took Kicking Ass for Decades, and a class by Brennan about analyzing fights. I was actually not allowed to participate in that class.

The class was full and he made the choice to kick me out, despite having actually been one of the people who had signed up. However, I was allowed to audit the class, so I still listened to the lecture and took notes. Funny thing is, when he asked questions to the class, no one could answer them, but I often knew the answer. Maybe that meant it was the right choice to have been denied participation, but it still seemed rather amusing at the time. It was a good class and I took back some lessons to my fighting company, which at the time was The Harbingers.

I also spent some time doing political stuff. I was the BOD President of Blackspire at the time and there were some issues with Viridian Outlands and the Canadian lands. all of which were still under Blackspire as a principality. I don’t remember the details but we were talking about NPO laws and how to managed a group across international borders.

This was the last SKBC I attended as just a student. It was the last one I spent most of my time fighting. I distinctly remember that I was one of the last two people fighting on Saturday night, closing out the event. It was a fun time.

My Third SKBC

The third time I attended SKBC was, again, when it came to the PNW in Washington. This time in 2022. By this time I had already started my YouTube Channel and I was there to get content. I was eagerly looking forward to adding quality recordings of SKBC classes to the internet, specifically with good audio, which was very rare, if not non existent, at the time.

Sadly, I had technical issues at the event. I bought a new fancy microphone to make sure I got good audio, but due to the wires I was using there was static noise throughout a lot of the audio. It ruined more video than I would have liked, but I was able to publish three out of four full classes I had recorded, Two Stick with Petter the Quick, Polearm with Devry and Zander and Two Man Fighting with Michael Hammer (who’s name I misspelled in the video, much to my embarrassment).

Those three videos continue to be some of the most watched videos in my collection to this day, with Peter’s class being the most watched video of the whole channel. I also recorded the fundamentals class, broken up into two videos, but they are of lower quality, in my opinion.

I don’t recall doing any actual fighting at this event. I was deep into my not-fighting phase of Amtgard (mostly due to depression), which is kind of sad given how much I’ve loved foam fighting throughout my life. If you’re going to fight at an event, SKBC is the event to fight at. I may have done some sparring with Gustav, who had had carpooled with me to the event, but that was the limit of my fighting.

Despite not fighting I still think of this as the most important SKBC that I’ve attended. It was the most important one to my YouTube journey at the very least. It really helped boost the channel like no other single event I’ve attended, which is why I was excited to learn that in 2024 it was going to be in Las Vegas, close enough that I might be able to attend it once again.

Funding My Trip to SKBC 2024

I realize to most people who follow my content they may think I do this work for fun, just a side project for my hobby, but that’s not how I view it. It’s true, I find it fun, most times, but doing the content is also a lot of work. I would love to get to the point that my content creation endeavors provide a majority of my income and to do that, I need to treat it as a job, which I try my best to do.

There are times I don’t want to record for one reason or another, anxiety and depression often being at the heart of the issue, but I do my best to push through it. It’s not just time and effort that are required. There are also monetary costs associated with getting good content. Namely recording equipment and travel costs. I live on a disability income, so my options for paying for such things are fairly limited.

Normally travel is regulated to the PNW and is limited to gas and event fees, stuff I can usually cover with some planning, but Las Vegas was different. It was close enough for me to go but I didn’t have the money to really do it, it was my first big trip I wanted to do just for content so I set up a GoFundMe Campaign to try and cover travel costs.

I put effort into making it as professional as I could, I even made a campaign video. I wasn’t sure if I’d get any contributions but I had to try. It was slow at first, but I did get a few donations and I was ecstatic, I can be fairly pessimistic and I had assumed I’d get none. Then, after a month or so, I got one big donation that made the campaign go over it’s goal, even if only slightly. This covered my transpiration costs and event fee, which was all I was hoping for.

My first attempt to really fund my content creation in a big way was a success, even if it came from fewer people than I would have expected was needed to reach the goal. Believe me, I’m happy to take the win!

Trouble’s in Vegas

Ticket’s bought and bags packed, I was ready to fly out of Salem. I was traveling with Critias, Louie, Kalzar and Ceian. We all flew out together, although Ceian was staying at a hotel by himself. The rest of us were staying at an Airbnb that Minerva had booked for us.

The flight was smooth enough, about two hours and only a little turbulence but things were about to turn bumpy very quickly. When we were just about to order an Uber to take us to the rental, we got a message from Minerva that there was a problem, the rental canceled on us. They claimed the property had been vandalized. We were in Las Vegas, luggage in hand and had no where to stay.

Louie went with Ceian to his hotel while the rest of us went and got some food from in the airport while we waited for Minerva to work her magic figure out what we were going to do. About an hour passed and Minerva had contacted an Airbnb representative and it turned out it there was no vandalism, we had been scammed. Minerva was still working on finding us another place to stay and we decided to go ahead and wait at Sunset Park, the place where SKBC was being held this year.

While on the way to the park Minerva messaged Critias and informed him she had secured another place for us to stay. In the same apartment complex even, which was pretty close to the park. We still had to wait a few hours till we could check in so we ended up staying at the park once the Uber dropped us off.

The First Fight of SKBC 2024

It turns out we were the first people at the park. I joked at the time that people would come to us and we’d be the ones to start SKBC. As much as it was a joke, it turned out to be the truth.

We hung around for a little while, not seeing any other foam fighters, until eventually, we saw three people walking near by. One of them we noticed was Devry. It took a few shouts, but eventually he noticed us and they walked over.

With Devry was Nip and Morpheus. Introductions were made, and much to my surprise, due to my channel, both Nip and Morpheus knew who I was (I should probably stop being surprised when I learn stuff like this but I don’t know if I’ll ever really get used to it).

We talked for a little bit and eventually the topic of fighting came up, but they hadn’t brought their gear with them, but we did have ours. We offered up our equipment. It took a little convincing for garbless Devry to agree to fight the garbed Nip, but agree he did. Nip was, thankfully, very insistent that I record the fight. It didn’t take much to convince me to be honest.

So there I was, recording them fighting each other with short swords and then it occurred to me what I was actually recording. It wasn’t just a fight. I was quite literally recording the very first fight of SKBC 2024. That’s wild to me. It was a lucky start to my content creation weekend. Rather shocking after the bad luck of the situation we had found ourselves in when we landed in Las Vegas. That fight by the way will be released on my YouTube Channel on Monday April 15th (subscribe to the channel please, it really helps :).

While I was in the middle recording the fight, a few more people from the Pacific Northwest showed up to the park, as well as Louie, A bearpit quickly started up, but rather than record it, I actually joined in!. I only got in a few fights before I needed to stop to go with Critias to help check in at the rental.

Checking in was an ordeal in and of itself. We took an Uber to the wrong spot and had to take a second Uber to the right spot. Then we had to wait for the owners to arrive and clean up the apartment, which was reasonable. It was a last minute reservation after all. When we were finally able to settle in Critias and I were exhausted. We both decided that instead of going back to the park we would take a much needed nap.

Later we learned that several other people had turned up at the park and they had ditching going until after dark. The first official day of SKBC was a success and I can say with some pride I was one of first people to start the fighting at this year’s event.

A Trip To The Strip

It wouldn’t be a trip to Vegas if you didn’t go to the strip. While it was not the reason for this trip, I wanted to go there at least once. Kalzar was the only one to join me on Thursday night. We went to Momofuku for dinner and had some very good ramen. We also had our first drink of the trip with our meal, a Toki Highball. After dinner we walked from the Cosmopolitan to the Excalibur. Along the way we stopped at Fat Tuesdays for booze slushies. Kalzar got a comically large drink, while I stayed with a, much to large for me, regular “large” sized cherry slushy.

I wasn’t even able to finish my drink, but by the end did I get a little tipsy. Kalzar ended up pretty buzzed but not really drunk. On our walk had stopped at the tables outside of New York New York, next to a colorful water feature, to drink and just vibe. In the background was a person on a loud speaker spouting insane conspiracy theories about portals opening up on April 8th during the solar eclipse and warning us that Earth was going to be attacked by aliens. We talked and laughed about it and then continued our walk.

We met up with another pair of fellow Oregonians, Opi and Burbarry, while we were in the Excalibur. We said our hellos, chatted for a little bit, and they went off to a late dinner and we went back to our rental to get a good night’s rest before the first full day of SKBC.

First Full Day of SKBC

We were up and ready to go to the park by 8am, well everyone but Critias. Our goal was to get to site before breakfast ended at 9. It took four attempts to get Critias out of bed. I don’t blame him for sleeping so much though. He’s a dad to a young child and he’s had a rough month when it comes to sleep. This was the first time in a while he’d managed to get a full night of uninterrupted sleep. Something he really must have needed. It was close, but we did get to the park before breakfast ended.

The meal was an egg, bacon and cheese croissant sandwich by the way. it was a pleasant and filling breakfast. I will be mentioning food throughout the blog but I’ve set aside a special section to really critique that aspect of the event as I do have some constructive feedback to give. I am known as the feast guy after all, wouldn’t be right not to touch on it.

Foundations With Peter

After food was the foundations class. I did record it, but I wasn’t able to get close enough to really catch any good audio. It’s pretty hard to manage to get close enough for audio and get a good angle when a class contains all of the students at the event. I also didn’t want to get in the way of them learning so I didn’t force my way to the front or stand so close as to block the student’s view of the instructor.

Besides, I had gotten the foundations class from SKBC 2022 and it covered the same material, although it was a different teacher this time. It was Peter the Quick. Granted If I was positioned better I could have gotten a better recording than I did from 2022 but I was really there more for the core classes.

Style Pod Time

After lunch, there were three more classes, Style Pods, a more traditional class and then evening lectures. Style Pods, didn’t have any lectures associated with then, no real structure to speak of. They were designed to basically have the teachers observe us fighting and give individual feed back.

I didn’t get any recorded content from the Pod Classes. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how I could reasonably record, edit and present the Style Pods in a way that would be useful, so instead, I joined one as a participant; the Short Sword Style Pod.

I’ve only been actively fighting again for a few weeks (I lived a pure sedentary lifestyle for well over 5 years, caused by continual bouts of moderate to severe depression). In fact, when I say a few weeks, it has literally only been two practices with in 3 weeks.

I fought for about half an hour before my arm went noodily and I could no longer properly control my sword arm when fighting. Given that the class was an hour and a half long It was a sadly short amount of time,. I have vowed to get some dumbbells to help build my arm strength and endurance back up.

However in that half an hour I did get some good feedback. I was given two actionable things that I could work on going forward. Plus a sprinkling of positive comments.

One was foot work. My movements were noted as solid, but limited, I had the idea down, but they suggested incorporating a larger range of movements so I had more entry points and shot options.

One instructor, who I don’t remember who they were because I wasn’t wearing my glass. I never do when I’m fighting. I couldn’t really make out distinctive features due to this. I think it might have been Gus? There was another instructor of similar height and build, it could have been them.

Anyways, whoever it was said I had solid blocks and I said I should work on my shots. He noted that I favor going sword side hip and while I was getting the shot, it wasn’t doing so with much precision. I would get leg as much as I would hip.

The main suggestion he had to improve this was in how I throw my shot. He suggested using a different body mechanic than I’ve ever used before. It was by tucking in my arm when I throw the shot. I’ve always thought that the power of my shot was in turning over my forearm, which after being showed the correct way to throw it, I now realize that is only one part of the motion.

I attribute this to me never fighting with my glasses on. I can’t see the difference without them. In fact, even when he was showing me how to do it I couldn’t see it, he had to literally guide my arm with his hands for me to get it.

The change was slight, but the power difference was very noticeable. It felt awkward and I’m going to have to drill it hard to get my shot to change so that it’s a natural movement. I hope when I get a chance to practice I’m able to remember exactly how my body is supposed to move. I worry I may not.

After I put down my sword I continued to watch the class to see what else I could learn. They had switched from a winner losers fighting format to a bearpit format, which I think was better for the group learning environment. It still allowed the instructors to view the fights and give feedback, but allowed for the students to also watch the fights and learn from advice given to other students.

One of the instructors stayed in the pit for quite a while and one thing everyone was noting was that he wasn’t just blocking shots or moving his feet, to move his body out of the way, he was also “dodging” shots by moving his shoulders. Being able to do so showed a good judge of his opponent’s range.

I note this for two reasons, one, it’s unusual to see, especially in such a proficient and exaggerated fashion, and two, it’s also something I do. It was very validating to see someone else take this tactic in Amtgard. They were much better at it than I am, but I still manage to pull it off from time to time. The more weight I lose the more I think it will come back to me, as my body size begins to reflect the size it was when I was more actively fighting.

First Real Class, Short Sword

The first class I wanted to record was the Short Sword Class. It was taught by Paolo, Gus and Critias, although Paolo took lead through most of it.

Speaking of Paolo, had actually made a point to say hello to me earlier in the day. Unknown to me he had been following my channel since SKBC 2022 and wanted to thank me for all the hard work I’ve put in to the channel. He was one of the first people, not in my friend to, to acknowledge exactly how much work really goes on behind the scenes. That was probably the single best moment I had that whole day. It really made me feel like I had been seen.

Anyways, the class went well. It covered the basic guards and how to protect the inner and outer lanes. They actually explained it in such a way that the inside and outside lines finally clicked in my brain. As much as I understand about fighting, I’m embarrassed to say that that simple terminology, about inside and outside guard, never really clicked with me till this class.

I was worried that I wasn’t able to catch the audio all that well, I was competing with the wind, airplanes landing from the nearby airport and some obnoxiously loud wildlife. Luckily my worry was unfounded. I’ve since listed to clips of the video and it sounded pretty good, all things considered.

Unlike with the class I recorded the next day, I’m not really sure how I will edit this class. The lecture parts were shorter than I expected and the instructors spent a lot of time going between pairs of fighters helping them better understand the material that was presented. Great for the students, less so for for developing a cohesive instructional video.

I got some good content outside of the lecture aspects and I’m unsure of how to incorporate it. I may just edit the lecture sections into one video and then release the more in-depth instructions as bonus content that delves further into the subject of single sword fighting.

No matter how I end up doing it I got some good single sword content that I’m excited to share with everyone. Personally, I enjoyed having a refresher course in my favorite fighting style. I wouldn’t say I learned anything new exactly, but I was given a different perspective of the information I already knew. This will help me broadened my own fighting and I as I was to find out the next day, it would work really well with the class I was to record, Computer Computer.

It Was A Terrible Day, Actually

Did I mention it was cold? Well it was! I didn’t realize how cold it was going to be till after we’d arrived at the park and my coat was left on the bed in my room. the cold really set the tone for the day.

It was in the 50s, which would have been fine, but the wind chill nocked it down to the 40s and by the end of the day, when the sun was going down, the wind chill was cutting right through me, but I’m getting a head of myself. The day had turned sour well before the evening, at least for me.

The cold weather, while not terrible yet, was still fairly draining. Especially after I managed to wear myself out during the Pod class. The cold was really getting to me and my inability to get more content was really dragging me down, mentally.

In 2022 they were not doing Pods which gave me the chance to record four classes. Now they were doing two Pod blocks one at the start of the event and another at the end, cutting down the classes I could reasonably record from four to two. Don’t get me wrong, I think the style pods are a very good thing to have added and brings to bear a lot of positives attributes but for filming instructive, narrative video, it’s pretty terrible.

On top of that lack of built in content, I wasn’t recording the ditching. I was worried about reserving my camera’s power to record the day’s classes This further reduced the amount of content I thought I was going to be able to capture when I envisioned this work trip.

All of these factors put me in a pretty negative mood. Then the sun began to set and the wind picked up, furthering the chill factor. By six I was ready to go back to the rental and warm up, but I didn’t really want to take an Uber back by myself. Luckily for me, Critias was also super cold and when the wind really started to pick up, he had had enough too.

We missed the lecture classes, but I was okay with that. Kalzar stayed and watched the How to Teach class and Louie took the Mental Approach To Fighting class. They both enjoyed their respective courses.

I would have liked to capture the teaching class, it was taught by Bhakdar, and he is a very good teacher. I had taken the class he taught back in 2022 but to be honest, I was high out of my mind after eating a big edible and I don’t remember it very well. However, with how I was feeling, both mentally and physically, I’m okay with not having recorded this year.

End of Day 2

Back at the rental I took a much needed hot bath. I knew I was cold but I didn’t realize exactly how cold I was till I was getting ready for my bath. I was practically shivering despite the house being warmer than outside. My body was also rather cold to the touch. I spent a good amount of time in the bath warming up. It really helped my mood too, but I was by no means a 100 percent.

I think my body used a lot of energy trying to keep me warm this second day. By the time I was out of the bath I was hungry and exhausted, despite having eaten all three provided meals at the event. So when Louie and Kalzar got back and said they were going to walk to Albertsons to get some dinner, I gladly put on my shoes and joined them.

When we got back to the rental from buying the groceries we fired up the oven to cook the enchiladas and put on a movie, Meg. Louie was out like a light within minutes of the movie starting. I was actually getting into it, despite my apprehension, but I too was tired. I didn’t even wait for the food to finish cooking, I ate some leftover pizza and headed to bed.

I slept for nearly 11 hours that second night.

Last Day of SKBC

The last day of SKBC was much better for me, mentally and physically, than the previous one. I made a point to take my coat this time, even though it was supposed to be warmer, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I ended up not needing it at all, it was pleasantly warm.

On top of being a nice day, it was Saturday and there were traveling ice-cream peoples. I managed to snag two popsicles throughout the day, which was a nice treat.

We ended up sleeping in a little extra and skipping breakfast at the park. I ate some cereal before we left. By the schedule we were actually late for the first class, but luckily for us everything was running late. We even managed to get some breakfast at the park too, but the eggs tasted off to me so I only ate the bacon.

A ditch had started, so I pulled out my gear and tried to record it. After dealing with my gimbal not doing what I wanted it, I managed to record about four minutes of ditching before the first class started.

Dalos’ Last SKBC Class?!

The last class I recorded and the one that was suggested to me by Takara, was Computer Computer by Dalos. She suggested it for two reasons, one it’s a good class and two the rumor was it might be the last time that Dalos taught at SKBC. I don’t know if that can be substantiated or not, but I thought it was a good enough reason to make sure it got recorded for future foam fighting generations.

I probably could have recorded a sword and board class and gotten more views out of it, but I believe it’s important to get a good recording of this class. Dalos has been teaching the Combat Computer course in various forms for years and he has a wealth of knowledge that I think is important to share.

He had done this class over streaming during the pandemic, I took it, but it’s not the same as doing it in person. Plus I thought I could get a better audio recording than the one that was streamed.

There wasn’t much lecture so to speak, but I have a better idea of how I’m going to edit this content than I did for the Short Sword class. There was a lot of class participation in this class. The core goal of the class was to help teach how to develop an adaptable plan when going into a fight. It is of course a bit more nuanced than that, it also involves analyzing fighters.

With how the class was organized I will able to show a fight, then have the group analyze the fight. Then for the second half of the video, the group will help one fighter at a time develop a plan to fight another opponent. I will then be able to show how they executed said plan and then show the after conversation the class had about the fight.

I just hope that all the audio comes out well enough to use every fight. I am using a shot gun mic so it’s possible that if I didn’t turn my mic towards a person fast enough when they were talking that I might not have caught the beginning of their comments. That wouldn’t make for a great video.

I Got More Than Just Content!

I came away from the class with more than just some content, I also came away with a good direction for my own fighting journey. Something I’ve noticed the last few times I’ve been fighting is that I have been fighting purely on muscle memory and instinct. While it’s kind of cool that I’m able to do that as well as I have been able to, it also means I have no way to improve what is already ingrained within.

The Combat Computer class gave me a direction for how I can fight mindfully. I need to train myself to once again be able to teach myself how to learn and incorporate that into my fighting. It’s going to be hard and will involve a lot of self-reflection. Honestly, I’m not sure I’m up to it. I really need to get my strength and endurance back too but I think I can try do do both of these things at the same time. We shall see.

One of the first steps is analyzing my own fighting, learning to better understand my own strengths and weaknesses. I then need to work on how to use those to my advantage, while also being mindful of how other fighters fight. I might have to finally get those prescription goggles I’ve been threatening to buy for the past several years. That way I can wear them while fighting and better see how people are fighting so I can learn to be more adaptable while fighting.

A lot of this is about retraining myself how to think about fighting. I’m so out of practice that it’s not something I’m used to thinking about any more. This is another moment in my life long foam fighting journey that will probably cause me to fight worse before get better and I am able to see long term improvement.

A prime example of this is one I go to when talking about the importance of foot work to new players.. When I first started fighting I didn’t realize how important footwork was. I had plateaued and found this was mainly due to my poor footwork. For at least a year I worked very hard on improving my foot work and I had to unlearn a lot of bad behaviors before I build up and develop the proper footwork one needs. I had to get worse before I was able to get better, much like I imagine I will have to do so again.

The year when I was relearning how to fight with proper foot was hard, there were times I was very frustrated with how I was doing, but I stuck with it and eventually I saw improvement. Not only was there improvement, I finally had down a fundamental aspect of fighting that I was able to build upon.

I feel like I’m at another one of those moments and I hope I’m able to keep with it and push through the struggle.

Just Enjoying the Vibe

After recording the class there was more pods, but my arm was still sore from Friday to join any and I just sat at the tables. I wasn’t alone though, people would filter in, stop by and chat and then move on.

At one point Sponge invited me to join him and a few others at a table and I was included in the conversation. I appreciated that. I even managed to hear a little bit of FWAK gossip but I ain’t going to spill the tea, lol.

I mostly just enjoyed the nice weather, my popsicles and the good company, spending the rest of the day just vibing. At one point, during cards, the 1 on 1 instructor time, I took a stroll among the field full of teachers and students and had some fun taking pictures (you can find those HERE).

The card time went on for the rest of the afternoon. People were filtering out of the event as they finished with their cards and there was a bearpit that went on for a little while after cards ended, but it was soon time to go.

We didn’t get to stay for the cookie social with the instructors, but I was okay with that. We had reservations at a restaurant, Mott 32, and we needed to go back and change before dinner.

Last Night In Vegas

Our last night on the town was a pretty short one. We went to the The Palazzo at The Venetian to have dinner with Ceian at Mott 32. It was fancy and the food was very good, however, I think it was a little over hyped and that ruined it a bit for me. It was still a wonderful last night’s meal in Vegas.

After there dinner there was talk of walking on the strip but I wanted none of that, it was late, I was tired and we had to get up at 4am to catch our flight home. I felt bad though, Louie and Kalzar wanted to go walk the strip and Critias was indifferent. I wish Loui and Critias had joined us on Thursday. They really should have walked the strip at least once on the trip. Neither had ever done so before. For that I felt a little selfish for wanting to go back.

In the end Louie settled for making Critias gamble at a casino for the first time and gave him $5 to play craps. He won, doubling the the money and then we went home. I think it was the right thing to do, but certainly not the fun thing to do.

I don’t know how they had the energy to do it, but they stayed up to watch Meg 2 after we got back. I ate two Oreos and went to bed. I must be getting old.

The next morning we flew home with little trouble. Certainly with less issues than we had when we arrived in Las Vegas.

Mixed Food Service

I don’t want to get into the specific meals we had. I did eat each one and portions were good and when the food wasn’t raw it tasted decent to serviceable. For one meal I had a chuck of chicken that was both undercooked and overcooked, depending which side I would eat from.

While eating a different chicken based meal a friend had a few chunks of raw chicken. There was also that one breakfast were the eggs tasted off. It was almost like there was salsa in them, but I did not add salsa, nor did they. Likely a contaminated pan. I did not eat those eggs.

I would like to note this was the feast people’s first feast and I don’t want to take away from their hard work. Cooking so many meals for so many people is hard work. Baring raw chicken, and a few pretty late serving times, they did pretty good for a first feast. Especially considering they did not have a kitchen, just a couple gas cooking stations. However, I think their approach was fundamentally flawed and needs to be reevaluated.

From my perspective, they treated working on the feast more like working in a restaurant rather than catering an event. This was reenforced when I was told that the head feast person worked in a professional kitchen. You can be a great restaurant cook and still have no idea how to cater an event. I that is where the fundamental problem laid.

For example, when they were doing teriyaki chicken they were cooking in small batches. They were able to feed about three or four people per batch, and for how much they prepared before they served there was no way that method was fast enough to reasonable serve everyone in a timely manner.

If I were to plan a meal, using what they had available to cook with I wouldn’t have even tried to cook chicken. Their gas cooking tops did not have lids, meaning they couldn’t cook with captured heat. That makes cooking chicken evenly more difficult.

What I would have done was probably cooked something like burgers, which are easier to cook evenly and quickly, with out needing to cover them in the process. You need to cook for what facilities you have and not try to make what you want to cook work with what you have. More often than not, if you do that it will be much harder than it needs to be, or it just won’t work out at all.

They didn’t make mistakes like that on every meal mind you. Brats were a good idea, which I loved. The egg meals were also a good idea but I think the execution could have been done better. They were cooking them in small batches, thinking more like a restaurant and it did cause lines to be backed up at times. In the second breakfast using the same small pans repeatedly may have led to some cross contamination.

I do not know exactly what there situation was concerning prep, but they could have made their lives much easier if more prep was done at someone’s house and brought to the park. For example the teriyaki chicken was all cut up at park, which isn’t ideal considering the facilities, which was just a bench and picnic tables by the away. Not to mention it’s hard to keep such working stations sanitary.

Given that they were new to cooking feasts and the facilities were primitive, I can understand the mistakes that were made, but they were mostly avoidable with proper planning. Hopefully it was a good learning experience and the next time they cook a feast they will have learned from this first experience.

Final Thoughts

Despite how I felt on Friday I think it was a great event. How will it impact the YouTube Channel? I’m not sure. I of course will have some evergreen content (content that continually generates views) but I went in hoping to get more content than I got, so in that way it’s a little bit disappointing. Mostly I wanted to get a lot more ditching and one on one fights. It’s not every day I have so many warlords in one place. I feel like I let myself down a little by not making an effort to arrange some one on one fighting videos.

I can happily say that thanks to those people who donated to my GoFundMe campaign. this event was mostly financially covered, It’s the first time I’ve had so much of my work costs covered for an event. Something I am not going to quickly forget or lose appreciation of.

On a more personal side, I got some good advice and was inspired to continue to fight. I was given a path forward in my foam fighting journey, even if it is a difficult one. The fact that this blog is so long really shows the impact that this event had on me. Writing it has really helped me process my SKBC journey, not just this year’s event but how the event has impacted me throughout my Amtgard journey.

I will continue moving forward in my content creation adventure and hopefully I will get to the point where I’m generating enough revue that I can do bigger and better things as time goes on.

If you’ve read this far and would like to help, I do have a Patreon page for those who would like to support me financially. Given I had to replace some wireless mics recently and this summers schedule of traveling the Pacific Northwest is pretty full, I could use some help in that regard. If you don’t have the funds, even joining the page as a free member will help raise my visibility on the platform.

There are other, non-monetary ways you can help out as well. Just engaging with the content would be a big boon, from sharing content, subscribing to my YouTube Channel and commenting on videos. It all helps feed the algorithm, which in turn helps give me a better chance at attracting advertisers to help financially bolster the content.

I appreciate everyone of you who have consumed my content. It seems at every event now people are letting me know the positive affect I’ve had on the community, something that is easily lost on me during my time working behind the computer. It’s all rather heartwarming to hear. Thank you for making this journey all worth while.