Red-Handed Jill

Ah, it's a pity I'm not nearby to give you your birthday beating. Hope you're having a good one!

I already picked up my gift - someone's going to be laughing so hard...

She said that she did have it and would send it out (if she hasn't already.) Between the move and events she attended she was a bit overwhelmed.

You provide a valuable service to them, as one of the local colourful characters and they call you a squatter? What's wrong with them??? Looking forward to seeing pics of your renovations to the RV, BTW...

If you're ever in Brussels, check out the Musical Instruments Museum. They've got hundreds of musical instruments from all over the world, including ones I've never even heard of and several that have fallen out of use. You walk through it wearing headphones and as you get close to each display, a sample of the music that particular instrument or group of instruments produces will play. Musical Instruments Museum

If memory serves, weren't a lot of pub names meant to be a sly play on words? What about painting a sign with seals peeking around rocks, as if they were hiding?

The Nina was out thisaway late last year and I had a chance to check her out. And all I have to say is... holy crap - that's a small ship! It's hard to believe a complement of twenty-four men sailed on her for the months it took to cross the Atlantic. And it's not as though they spent any time below; nope - that was for the stores. The deck length was 66 feet and everyone had to share space (sleeping, eating, sailing, repairing, etc.) with a fourteen-foot whipstaff and their ship-to-shore boat (which took up quite a bit of deck space; this was no small dinghy.) And her hull design guaranteed that she would have had a horrible time yawing - I expect that the men spent a lot of time hanging over the side and "feeding the fishes" in rough weather; heck, in not so rough weather.

Y2K came to nothing because a bunch of folks (including me) worked for years to make sure it was a non-event. 2012 is a bit out of the pervue of us techno-geeks so I suppose we'll just have to let it happen... My vote is for the Caribbean.

Never! She's Captain Hayden's baby!

Specs

Since some of us have had the pleasure of crewing on this beautiful ship (and firing cannons at landlubbers from her deck), I'm starting a topic so that those of us who have been sailing on her can talk about the experience and share photos. She has been built over the past thirty-five years by Hayden Brown. He built most of her himself (although he admits that he had to buy the lines, sails and engine.) I've had the pleasure of being part of her crew for the past five years, including taking part in multi-day, off-shore sails.

Ran into a time crunch but got Sophia's book out today.

Ransom - the Pan-Kinetic Expo is coming up in April and if memory serves, a couple more steampunk events down thisaway. Could be a good reason for at least one road trip.

I'll mail Sophia's out later this week and it's her book so it will have finished its journey.

I still would like to see what you'd do with fondant, though...

Oooh! Better start saving those pennies...

Vosges does make good chocolate. Glad you like it!

Ummm... it's ultimately up to Rumba, but this is typically limited to folks who have been Pub members for a year or more or can be vouched for by someone who has been here awhile. (Nothing personal, but incidents have happened in past exchanges that led to this decision.)

What the heck - I'm in.

Yep - I'd be definitely interested to see what Patt comes up with... Boggles the mind, it does! And I'm also a big fan of marzipan. I have a bunch of it ready to be made into a pile of skulls.

Yep. I was warned it would be a tad bland, which is why I added the almond extract. It'll be awhile before I do another cake (I want to do one with a pile of skulls on or around it - perhaps for Jack's and my next anniversary.)

Thanks! I think I'll start looking into making the fondant myself - the stuff out of the box tasted kind of odd, even with the almond flavouring added.

Heh - it's vanilla, with lime curd filling. And I flavoured the fondant with almond. I think next time I'll take more time and paint each piece separately before affixing them to the cake. I started this in an evening and let's just say daylight is a lot better than lamplight when trying to paint details.

After seeing that cake, I decided to try my hand at one. I've never worked with fondant before - had no idea how to paint it, what to paint, etc. So I made my best guesses.

Heh - I actually have the smaller sugar skull molds and just picked up some meringue powder. Think I'll do some Dia de los Muertos party favours this year.