Mission

April might be sort of cold in St. Louis. Ask Silas, he lives there.

Now I have to make sure and get that shot at some event. I want to be all crouched over while I'm running like I'm trying to dodge bullets. "I'm coming to get...wait, no. I'm coming to SAVE you!"

Can I use your photos on my web page, Matty?

The red eyes totally make this shot!

You don't know Mary very well, do you? Personally, I think Mark is extraordinarily cool. The fact that he does all this is a wonderful testament to his love for Mary. We should all be so lucky to have a relationship like that. (I hope I'm not embarrassing them by running off at the keyboard here.) They're two of my favorite people I see at PiP and I love having the opportunity to talk with them. (We need that little clinking beers emoticon back, so I can say "Here's to Mark and Mary!") Although you can get a pic of Mark if you really work at it. (Man I pulled some silly faces this year. It's like I'm competing with Morgan Drake... (As if I could compete with Morgan Drake. ))

48117 I'd do my best to get to our first official event, although I may have to skip another event to make it work.

A photo shoot and a dressing up of Mark, huh? You don't really know him very well, do you?

And I'm spent. (I'm throwing my computer nonchalantly over my shoulder even now.) 166 photos to go, they'll have to wait for the morrow. Brig, twin sister, first I have to finish wading through and editing my own photos. And I can't truly start the Surgeon's Journal webpage until I see what of other people's photos I want to pirate. (With permission and credit given, 'natch.)

You're really not helping here... We're in the Twill forum, not the PiP forum. We need to have some propriety.

I think you two need to quit smoking that stuff. It was all Mary could do to get Mark into the finery he wore at the Commodore's table! I think Mark is first rate doing as much as he does. If he wants to do more, he's the sort that will do that of his own accord.

I helped get it around. It was a hard sell at first, but...well read the journal.

Poor Mark... Send her off to the couch!

The problems with the saw were that 1) it was too big for my Lily Alexander original satchel, 2)the blade was likely to tear my satchel and 3) not very funny. I considered the dismembering knife, but it is really sharp and probably too small to see from the fort wall. And so... I do need to break down and splatter my apron with gore. It's still clean because it was sort of expensive. Yeah, I know... I actually got it out at PiP to put on and then forgot about it because I saw Michael leaving for the battle. So it's my fault. In truth, I don't think many instruments would be useful on the field. Mostly bandages and tourniquets. And it might be a bad idea to go about put tourniquets on people. A stretcher of sorts could have been good as well. So there seems to be no universally recognized symbol. In truth, the surgeon probably would not have been on the battlefield at all, but back away from the front lines treating those brought to him.

M.A. d'Dogge came up with the FB thing in '07. If you go back to the threads from that year, you'll find it. (Have fun doing that. I think we have as many threads related to '09 as we have to all the previous years combined.)

I don't even look at Black Fox's pics because he has told me I can't use them. There are usually some really good ones and seeing them just makes me want to put those that relate to the Surgeon's Journal on my web page. Speaking of which, if you want to see what happens during the event with added silly narration, check out the previous PiP SJs. You'll find links to them in the PiP Index Thread. Admittedly, this year I focused less on the regular stuff and more on various people and unique events than I have in the past, but I did that because all the standard events are in the 2007 & 2008 versions. So you can get a pretty good idea of the overall event in them. That's part of the reason I do it...to show what it's all about in what I hope is an amusing way. (Well, I also create it to entertain Brig who pesters me until it is finished. One of my third twins is demanding.)

While it is indeed the highest complement from PiP 2007, I have a feeling he may delight in the pun he can make of it. (You'd really have to meet Cross before that will make complete sense.)

Oh, you're gonna love that one. Ask M.A. d'Dogge off-line - it's sort of unprintable.

Israel, I asked for scared in that shot and you gave me kewpie doll! I didn't do so badly... (Well, except for Cross. ) Some people have told me I sorta' kinda' look like Bill Murray when he was young. I can almost see it there. Almost. (What a ham. Me, not Bill Murray. Necessarily.) I am sifting through 400+ pics and I found the ones from when Stynky bought breakfast. I can only imagine what this must have looked like to the normal people. This first one is truly priceless. Then there was the whole "Are You Being Served" Routine: The Shoes really make this shot.

Shay rocks. If you missed her playing and wonderful singing of the songs (which she wrote this weekend!) on Sunday night, you missed a treat. She's not one to shy away from learning and doing new things.

I read this over the PiP weekend, what with all the flying and stuff and talked about it in the What are you reading right now? thread in Beyond. What I said there was, "I was actually a bit disappointed with Pirate Latitudes. It read like a pretty standard fictional pirate story until the end when a little bit of the old Crichton page turning magic appeared. I believe I see why he didn't publish it right away when he finished it. He did a pretty nice job eschewing the movie conventions...well, for the most part. Could someone explain the factual construct behind the Kraken to me? Usually Crichton is pretty meticulous in the science part of his science fiction." It wasn't bad, I was just expecting something a little less typical. Maybe it will seem less typical to folks used to the movie pirates and POTC. I'm so used to the period details that I may be a bit innured to them. But even the style was a bit pedestrian IMO. I think what I was really hoping for was the kind of inter-cutting stories, taut situations and explanations of details and ideas that you find in other Crichton works like JP, Rising Sun, Timeline, State of Fear and other such books. Part of the problem is that he didn't have a modern character to comment on the historical aspects in the way he does in those other books, so the history really was being 'lived' rather than explained. But that stuff is so easy to skim and ignore without an explanation of why it is the way it is when you're searching for the storyline that I think it will be lost on most people.

Thanks Diosa! Personally, I think that should become a staple of the event, with a serious commentary and a color commentator as you describe. I doubt most of the public really understands what's going on during a battle. Movies and TV are so precise in the way they cut between actions and reactions that folks probably need some form of explanation to keep up with everything that's going on during our sort of big, harem scarem action. Most probably don't even know what they're looking at and are just taking photos of cannons and individuals. (And humor is always good to help coax the education along.)

William and I were talking about my role in the battle at PiP from the audience's POV and it occurred to me that it might be nice to have some mark identifying me as a surgeon on my Haunting Lily Alexander original satchel in which I carry my tools onto the battlefield so that they know why I'm just standing there in the background while everyone else fires their guns. A quick search of the symbol indicates that the red cross and red crescent symbols didn't come into use until 1859. So I was wondering if anyone had any insight on this. Was there a medical symbol that was used on the battlefield during period? In all my reading, I haven't come across any such symbol, other than the barber's pole, with it's blood and bandages symbolism. (Which would be a difficult think to carry into battle.)

I asked for that, didn't? It's a journal, not a blog. Surgeons were required to keep journals during the period and I am nothing if not period correct. Or not. (Doesn't really work in your riff on the song, though, does it?) I just thought of a funny pun for that last comment of mine: "Be HEALED! The Power of the Mercury compels you!" You know, because my ship is the Mercury and I am the surgeon, who is empowered with dealing with the sick and...oh, forget it. I don't think my brain has shifted back down into normal gear yet...PiP does that to me. It builds and builds until Sunday gives way to completely antic behavior. (Jessi, next year you have to take Monday off. Have to!) I dread trying to edit the not-blog for clarity (not to mention grammar and spelling.) Oh Brig, lovely editoress...I have a request. (J/k - don't bother looking at it for that. I have to re-org it based on the construction of the page.)

I can't find my blue bandana, although it may be in the pockets of my blue coat, which is in the box with the surgical stuff. If I can't find it, I'll have to wear the dread Surgeon Mission bandana at the next Santa Maria event.

You're a Bagley, aren't you? @Jack - Be HEALED! The power of Mercury compels you. Oh, and based on a comment from someone, let me be straight: I think some pretty weird things are funny. (Feel free not to think so, although I personally won't care either way.)