Winter has reached Ann Arbor, one week the weather was in the balmy 60's the next it plummeted to the 20's where it has remained ever since. Last weekend my brother came up to accompany me to a football game in which it rained, snowed, then sleeted and needless to say we left at halftime along with 90,000 other fans.

However this did not put a damper on our weekend and we had a great time. On Friday night we went out for dinner in downtown A2 and while we were waiting for our table we walked around looking at all the interesting sites. Across the street there were men and women dressed up as pirates and medieval villagers who were brandishing long swords and fighting one anther, intrigued J and I decided to get a closer look. It turns out that a theatrical sword fighting company was showing off their wears and were letting people pick up anything they liked so that we could get a "feel" of what the weapon was like. They had everything from a double handed broad sword to a mace and for a history geek this was a great way to start out the evening.

J struck up a conversation with one of the people who said that one of the most popular events they run is a "kidnap and fight for the bride event". A group of the actors sits in the back row of the church, objects to the wedding while waving their swords, and steals the bride. J then wondered allowed if the groom has to fight off the kidnappers before the wedding can proceed, I certainly think that would be an event to remember.

Another priceless exchange of dialog took place between J and I as we were looking at the swords:
J- "Hey why don't you pick up that lightsaber?"
Me- " Oh you mean Anakin Skywalkers/Luke Skywalkers from episode 3 and 4 or do you mean Darth Vaders"
J- "Uh I don't know"
Me- "I didn't try it out because I've played with them before in Borders while everyone was staring at me"
J-"I thought for sure you would have bought one of them by now"
Me-"Yeah but I don't want to be seen as a geek and I think that displaying a lightsaber on the mantle might be a bit much"
J- "Huh, that's interesting" said while looking down on the jacket he borrowed from me with a patch from a fictitious corporation in the movie Aliens.