Markerless Quest: Samurai in the White House

I have returned from Zenkaikon and am, however reluctantly, taking up my real-world activities once again. (But I have no reluctance about returning to the blog! On our way home, Kevin and I took a detour to the city of West Chester to collect some markers, so I've got plenty of Chester County content for a while.) Our anniversary was very pleasant and the convention was a lot of fun - the entire week's vacation was a great time in so many ways.

If you're visiting this blog after meeting me at Zenkaikon, hi! Thank you so much for coming to see what I do here! And if you aren't familiar with Zenkaikon and are wondering what exactly it is, here's a video explanation. This documentary was created for the con's 20th anniversary, but I wasn't involved; my contributions to being on the anniversary committee involved the museum and the trivia game we held on Friday night. I was there for the documentary debut on Saturday evening, though, and it's beautifully made.

My presentations all went extremely well, and the one on which I got the most feedback was the one which had a tenuous connection to Lancaster. As you probably know, President James Buchanan was a native of Lancaster. But what you probably don't know is that during his presidency, the White House welcomed a delegation of visitors from Japan, including three actual samurai warriors. Several of the people who attended this presentation mentioned wanting to share it with others, so I thought I'd make it the final blog post of March. This one didn't get filmed; instead, I'm sharing the write-up I used to narrate the slide show, as well as the pictures which appeared in the slides. At least this way I don't have to worry that I'm mangling the pronunciation of Japanese names or words, as I did when presenting.

Also, to make a blog-ish version of my perennial con presentation joke, if you're not completely satisfied with this post, please return the unused portion for a full refund.

James Joseph "Jim" Croce, Lyndell, Chester County

 St. Patrick's Day is my wedding anniversary; Kevin and I are hitting a big milestone this year, 25 years of married nonsense, so we're taking the day for ourselves. Two days later, we leave for Zenkaikon. My annual panic is in full swing. I have my own three presentations to give, plus it's the convention's 20th anniversary and I'm part of the group running events related to that (we have our own museum!) and I'm just a busy, busy girl. To that end, therefore, there will be no blog post next week.

Yesterday, meanwhile, was my best friend Andrea's birthday. We both had the day off, and when I asked how she wanted to spend it, she surprised me by outright requesting that we take a road trip to collect some markers for the blog. I wasn't about to say no, of course, so off we went. This was a marker for which I had wanted to attend the dedication ceremony when it was placed a couple years ago, but I wasn't able to make it for whatever reason.

Harold "Red" Grange, Forksville, Sullivan County

March came in rainy and chilly, which I don't especially like. It's going to be an extremely busy month for me, for multiple reasons, although the panic has not quite set in. Not yet. Probably next week, when it hits me that Zenkaikon is coming up fast and I need to be ready to present. Did you ever hear that advice about how, if you get nervous when public speaking, you should picture audience members in weird costumes? At Zenkaikon I don't have to picture anyone, because half the audience is in costume. I don't get very nervous anyway, but the costumes make it a little easier to relax.

But before I head to Lancaster and prattle about historic buildings and Japanese cherry blossoms and samurai visiting the White House (yes, those are my topics this year), we'll take a run up to lovely Sullivan County and talk about a guy who played football. That is, of course, putting it mildly.