William Brand

Awesome.

thanks, Pearl and John. Great stuff.

Yes, next year in Barce...wait what!? I'm not getting hanged on my birthday! Thank you. I've got enough love already by email and phone that I've moved some love to my spleen and part of my appendix. Thanks, Mark. Hmm...people keep wishing me wind. And to you, sah. Happiness I got. I'll take wealth next.

Thank you, love. Having the kids pile into the room was a great way to start the day.

Great stuff. I passed Matt on one of my many trips running to catch up on something I had to do and never found him again long enough to talk shop, so this profile was particularly fitting for me.

Ok, I happen to know it - it's somewhere on Little Rabbit Key. (Rabbit Key! Camping! Docking! Secret buried fictional pirate histories!) Um...nuh-uh. Actually it's true about Sterling and Brand. You really have to understand the history to understand the relationship.

Yeah, it was a great idea. I've seen but one small image of it as he went into the brink.

I only saw it in passing at PIP. I want pictures!

Good heavens... (slap hand over eyes in exasperation) The Auction House of Brand & Chrispy does not NOW or has it EVER accepted stolen goods of any kind! THAT'S POLICY! I should have been a clergyman...

Those are very nice pieces. What do you think of the French cutlass? How's the weight and balance if it?

Is it possible that you are oh so wrong while being ever so right?

I look forward to that. It's nice to see that with all of the kit improving across the board, flags, jacks, pendants and the like are all improving right along with it. There were some very nice pirate flags and privateer jacks at the events this year. We're getting more and more colors on each side of the line and they look great in pictures and as presentation pieces for the public.

My apologies to everyone. I'm too often zealous in matters of my friends and too proud to shut up when I should. The three of us have replied privately to one another and the matter is being resolved and removed amiably.

Captain Sterling is correct. It did reside in at least two other places. I wrapped myself up in the flag to keep warm the first night on the ramparts, and several night after. It was also safely and graciously sheltered by the crew of the Archangel for a time.

Three days on the flagpole at Fort Taylor. http://picasaweb.goo...064637707FLAGS#

The blanket is mine. It was a last ditch effort to get my luggage under weight.

A very happy birthday to you.

I said it before, but it bears repeating...Awesome traveling exhibit of the common sailor. A classroom in a snapsack.

He doesn't look a day over 13. Happy birthday you ole journal keeping, syringe flashing, saw toting, hat wearing, panda bones waving, son of a surgeon.

I held a moment of silence.

Ahh, my fellow December Club Member, a very happy birthday.

I came along in 2005, when I began inquiring about period/pirate style camping in the fort. Everyone that I asked said that the fort would never allow such a thing, and I was about to let the matter go when I decided to call the fort directly. I got Harry on the phone, and 1 and a half hours and six year later we're pitching a lot of tents. I think that 2005 was one of the few recent years when Hurricane and his crew were not in attendance (having made plans to visit one of the islands of the Caribbean if memory serves), so I didn't have the pleasure then. I met Braze and Cascabel that year and even rode in the back of their truck to the wharf, where I sailed aboard the Wolf for the first time. That year was the first time that anyone yelled the named 'Red Wake' at me across a great distance, when Captain Jim called out to me from the fort top while I was crossing the battlefield. It was also the first year that I met the Viceroy, back in the day when his cannons were smaller and his pension for things that go 'BOOM! was still growing. As a consequence, it was the first year that I ever fired a cannon. The first flag I unfurled at PIP was the Wetlanders flag (The Boar bones), a sign of my bacon obsession. Their was no auction before the mast then, but the trial was lively and the parade was a hoot. It was a year of firsts. My first time to Florida. My first period camping. My first cannon crew. My first pirate event. My first flag. My first tall ship sail. My first all night rooster call experience. My first time gutting a British soldier in battle (sorry Kip). We ate well, talked a lot, and slept just enough to get through the days.

Another fantastic source along the same lines. http://www.meteohistory.org/2005historyofmeteorology2/10wheeler.pdf

Many studies regarding weather changes from past to present utilize old log books to get information. This pdf is one good example and it contains many examples of log books. It doesn't have dimensions, but it's a good source. http://www.springerlink.com/content/7613686554245j72/fulltext.pdf

You left us to our assumptions by your inaction.