Red-Handed Jill

Home made soft tacos.

I've been all sorts of places in pirate garb. The group I belong to, Tales of the Seven Seas, does several events a year. This means that we've had to be several "mundane" places to run errands. Also, Iron Jack and I have a piratical musical group, so that means even more days that I'm in garb. In fact, I spend so much time in piratical garb that it's more like working clothes than a costume. The local grocery store has gotten so used to us as pirates and we get many cries of "arrr" even when we aren't in garb. On one occasion, Iron Jack and I went to Beverages and More to pick up supplies (RUM) for some gig or another and everyone near the front door took one look at us pointed left and said, "the rum's that way!"

I'm with ya on that one, Doc!

eQuilter is a good site for finding unusual fabrics. I think we got some of that Don Maitz red with white polka dot fabric there a couple of years ago.

I got to meet a few folks. Odorless Eye, thanks so much for stopping by specially to visit me in the Bang and Boom shack! By the way, if you ever see me and Tales of the Seven Seas at an overnight event, stop by for some of my famous rum cake!

Here are some pics from the Tales of the Seven Seas site: Pics of Ojai '06

We had a heck of a lot of fun making things go bang and boom! (I was with the crew on the dock shooting cannons back at ya on shore.) And I'm sorry I couldn't stop by for the Pyracy pub photo - I couldn't get away right then. And no, they didn't evacuate the camp - there was a possiblity of a bug-out on Saturday, but that wasn't necessary. I'm so sorry that the smoke made you sick Rumba - I saw you walk by the camp when I was in Iron Jack's House of Bang and Boom but you moved away before I could say hello. I had to stay put at the time or I would have followed you to give you your personal flogger. I was making floggers for the ladies all weekend - I'll be doing that again so if you didn't get one from me this weekend, come see me in Ojai next year (or in Fresno if you're planning on going to the Kearny Faire.) By the way, I talked with some of the powers that be at Ojai and they said they had the biggest turnout ever - they ran out of room in the parking lot and folks were buying tickets at 5:00.

I think I mentioned awhile back that I was working on four British gunner's coats (circa 1740) - here's the first coat (one of four - I'm working on coat number two right now, which will be a red and black fusillier's coat.)

I did the IT thing for nineteen years; getting asked to fix stuff for free or give free diagnostic advice did get awfully old, but I discovered it was a useful skill to parlay into discounts on furniture, free chiropractic treatment, etc. I did it all: hardware tech, network engineer, applications developer, sys admin... I have a semi-technical job, kinda sorta. I am a financial planning software support specialist, but the job mainly involves teaching, tech writing and giving advice to financial advisors.

Dazed and Confused it is!

The hint is that it isn't about jail and the person who says it is a parent.

You are 81% strange. You are pretty darn strange. You're quirky and odd, and definitely not normal. But that's great--it makes you an interesting person. You aren't exactly as strange as they come, but congratulations on being quite unique! Just what I figured - I'm UBER strange.

^I have a two-reale silver coin minted in 1653. It was part of the treasure on the Santa Maria de la Consolacion, which was chased by pirates. The crew sank the boat rather than let the pirates get the treasure. The pirates killed the crew and tried to get at the treasure but one was killed by a shark so they gave up. Three hundred years later, the treasure was salvaged and one of the coins as made into a necklace and given to me at Christmas by Iron Jack. < Have a musical gig tomorrow at the Prince of Wales Pub in San Mateo. v Black powder pistol, boarding axe or cutlass?

Yeah - she certainly was unusual. I wish I could have gotten away with taking a picture; still can't figure out how she did that. Plates, maybe?

Damn - did this woman have surgery to have her nipples removed??? Alien boobs!!!

I woke up to the news (had a clock radio at the time) and was stunned. I managed to get myself showered and dressed and got to work, but wasn't much good to anyone because at the time I was worried about my brother. He had recently started working in Manhattan, but didn't tell me where, so I spent most of the day wondering if my brother was alive or dead. I was one of the fortunate ones in that my brother worked nearby, but not at the WTC. He called me once he got home to tell me he was okay and that he had watched both towers collapse. Another friend of mine was on his way to a meeting in one of the towers and in a spate of extremely good fortune, was running late. He watched as the first plane collided with the tower.

^ I wish! I am UBER creaky in the mornings. < Almost finished with the first of two British fusilier coats V Who is your favorite historic figure?

I did a pizza medley. Instead of one pizza, I made four different types of small ones. - Caramelized onions and garlic (mmm...garlic!) - Spinach - Sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil - Broccoli And oddly enough, before reading this thread, I decided to make my own version of shepherd's pie for tomorrow (vegetarian - and it's so good even dyed-in-the-wool carnivores rave about it.)

Crikey! I just heard about it as well. At least he lived his life to the fullest; it's a shame he died so young, though.

^ Tropical - Tiki bar, drinks with umbrellas in them, torches, etc. < Got to witness a nasty person get his just desserts today. MWAHAHAHAH! V Do you have any feathers on your tricorn?

Something happened on my way home which vindicated my belief in karma. Now I'm not one to constantly toe the line and follow every rule, but there are some rules that exist for a reason, like traffic rules. Safety, ya know?... Going a few miles over the speed limit is one thing, but deliberately running a stop sign and causing accidents is just not on. And when I see one person deliberately putting other people in danger for no reason and enjoying it, I can't help smiling when I am fortunate enough to see this person get their just desserts. Who doesn't? This happens all the time in movies and there are lots of cheers when it does, so I know that I am not the only person on the planet who feels this way. At any rate, I was stopped on a corner, looking to turn right to go northbound on the local freeway. The right hand turn lane next to mine went to the southbound freeway entrance. For safety reasons, there is a NO TURN ON RED sign at this particular corner. In fact, there were a number of signs, positioned so that you couldn't avoid seeing them if you tried. So this guy beside me in the southbound turn lane looked right at one of the signs, paused and then started moving forward to turn right against the red light. He didn't appear to be in a hurry; in fact, he had this smug little smirk on his face as he leisurely put his SUV in the way of the moving traffic. And his smirk grew as he got more and more in the way of this traffic. I wondered how he could possibly be enjoying this situation, but if there's one thing I've learned over the years it's that not everyone is the same. Eventually, he moved so far forward that the traffic that had the right-of-way had to swerve around him, causing some really close calls. He moved forward even more and then turned onto the road going to the freeway. For good measure, he cut off a car in the left lane, trying to get onto the northbound freeway entrance. I thought, "what an asshat - well, if the traffic gods are watching, this guy will eventually get what he deserves." The light turned green and the rest of us turned and drove to our northbound and southbound freeway entrances. From behind me came a police car that very quickly got onto the freeway going northbound. I thought that there must be some sort of incident somewhere, but about half a mile north, I saw the police car stopped - right behind asshat and his SUV. I couldn't help smiling as I saw karma in action. On behalf of all those folks who were put in danger just so this jerk could amuse himself, I hope it's a really, REALLY expensive ticket... MWAHAHAHAHAH!

Yay for me! Here's an easy one: "This is your one get out of jail free card. So I hope you enjoyed it."

^A house is not a home without skeletons in the closet (or the attic, or the cellar...) < Have two wooden sea turtles carved on Pitcairn Island perched on my monitor V Favorite vacation spot of all time?

Billy Budd?