OK, so I’m mowing my lawn tonight. The mower is sputtering off and on, threatening to die. I stop and rinse the air filter out in gasoline, and while I’m letting it dry I come in and check my e-mail. There’s a message from a Viking friend, the guy I drove out to Annandale with on Saturday (more on that below). The subject line says, “What Wrong With Your Lawnmower?”

I swear we didn’t discuss lawnmowers during our drive on Saturday. We did talk about Sea Foam gas treatment, which I had just put in the mower, but we hadn’t discussed mowers. I’m sure.

Pretty sure.

Anyway, it’s weird.

Our Viking group was asked to set up a display for a big Boy Scout event at a Scout camp in Annandale, Minnesota on Saturday. It’s about an hour away, so we got up early and drove out. The weather forecast called for a bright, hot day.

And it was. After the thunderstorm.

The pounding rain drove us under cover for most of the morning. When the skies finally cleared, we got heavy winds for a while. This is a perfect scenario for loosening the pegs that secure my sun shade, which you can see in the picture above. I kept pounding them back in with the poll of my Viking axe. I also had to do my second field repair on the canvas, with artificial sinew and a needle. Finally the winds died down, and I was able to sell a few books and try to ride herd on all the little boys who wanted to handle my swords. Also to have a different friend take the picture above, which I wanted so I could record my new Viking outfit. I made both the tunic and the trousers all by myself, and I’m relatively proud of them. The pants were the second pair I made. The first pair taught me what not to do on the second pair.

The tunic is about 50% better than the one I made last year, from the same light blue cloth. My only big complaint with it is that the facing is crooked. You’ll notice how it (the dark blue around the neck) is hanging crooked? That’s not a bug, it’s a feature. I don’t mean it’s how I intended it. I mean it’s how I sewed it. It’s not just hanging crooked. It’s always like that. (Last year’s shirt has the same problem.)

Still, I’m learning. And that’s about all you can ask for in these things.

Or so I’ve learned.

John Cleese is touring England soon to pay off his third wife–or something like that.

John Cleese is to embark on his first-ever UK tour next year at the age of 71. The comedian, who recently agreed a divorce settlement believed to be in the region of £12m, has dubbed it the “Alimony Tour”.

Cleese, who rose to fame with Monty Python, promised the show would be “an evening of well-honed anecdotes, psychoanalytical titbits, details of recent surgical procedures, and unprovoked attacks on former colleagues, especially Michael Palin”.