Mission

Uh...Silas...I think you forgot to specify the name of the alternate universe in which this was true.

Yes, I saw that and thought of you, wondering if you and this person had ever met. Even the caption... I think I may have another personality. I believe his name is Mark. He probably drew that; it looks like his handwriting.

Oho! You pulled a punch?! (Should I have said 'faux" rotting corpses or should I shoot for a guest spot on Bones?)

What makes a pirate are his mommy and daddy.

Who drew a picture of me? (QJ's 'scary' pictures don't bother me near as much as his naughty one. Of course, I make rotting corpses for fun...)

Michael & Kate called me asking about hotels (for those of you who want to go that route) and my suggestion is to use Priceline for downtown Columbus. I usually bid $50 a night for 3.5 star and above and get the Hyatt, which is about 2 or 3 blocks from the ship. Others have gotten the Doubletree which I believe is a bit closer. The Hyatt is a very nice hotel IMO. The total with taxes for the weekend ends up being about $125.

Gatwick appears to be an option for some cities - the airport code is LGW. Unfortunately, Detroit isn't one of them - Travelocity threw it out. However it worked from JFK, so those of you searching may want to try it departing from your local airport. Stansted (STN) doesn't appear to have flights coming in from the US - I couldn't get there starting in New York's JFK airport.

One note - I think airline prices are running a bit high just now. I've seen tickets to London at $600 - $700 from here. I'm going to keep an eye out and if they go down I'll post that fact here for those who are interested in doing this.

Oh, that reminds me...I really like the Sharpe's TV movies. Sean Bean is great in those.

I am going over to London and attending the Pirate Island event which takes place July 30-31 this year. I will be bringing garb and hoping I fit in with my funny accent. It is on the Isle of Wight. As Ed Foxe put it, "The advantage with that is that the Isle of Wight is a short ferry ride from Portsmouth, home of such lovely goodies as HMS Victory and the Mary Rose." Portsmouth is about 2 hours from London. I think it would be really cool to go with a group of pub re-enactors. My tentative plan is to spend about 4-6 days in London and a day or two in Portsmouth. With the Tube (a splendid subway from my experience), you go just about anywhere you like in the city. I plan to visit some of the little dental and medical museums. I am also figuring to do a pub tour if we have a group; when I was there last I did one and had a splendid time. Other than that, I am open to suggestions of what to do. (I usually don't make very rigid plans when it comes to stuff like this, to be honest. It takes all the fun out of it. However I find generating a list of options is better than just showing up without having done any research.) Ok, that's the jazzy part. I checked on a flight out of Detroit and the cost of that alone at this time is $1000. (If you want to check airfare prices from your city, London Heathrow airport code is LHR.) I should note that airline prices are running high just now. I will be keeping an eye out for better prices and will be sure to post something here if they come down in the future. On top of that will be hotel and food expenses and so forth - I am personally figuring this trip will run me around $2 - 4K, depending on the cost of the flight. My (very tentative) plan is to arrive a week early and leave on the Tuesday after the event (which is August 2nd). (There will most definitely be a Surgeon's Journal for this. In fact, the stupid plane trip is long enough that I may get a page or two done on the way back.) So having heard all that, is anyone interested?

If you're looking for a definition (as opposed to a description), I think the best response I've ever seen is here in this post, where I got my Patrick Hand original hat handed to me in no uncertain terms.

I so wanted to say "Bore-y Lyndon" after I saw Cascabel's response because that is exactly what it made me think of, but it seemed inappropriate. I should really see that movie instead of just relying on the satire to inform me.

Favorite? Probably the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which appears to take place in some early 18th c. alternate movie universe.

What was your favorite toy as a kid? What happened to it? Mine was the 1978 Death Star and I still have the bits and pieces of it. (Actually, it's not in that bad of shape - I always put it back in the box when I was done playing with it.)

Hey Cross, Thanks for the comments! The original goal of the Surgeon's Journal at PiP '07 was to show much fun it was so that other people would come to it. Your comments attest that I did manage to achieve my initial goal. :) (Now if I can just get Duchess to bring her entourage out to an event all of the original SJ goals will be reached. Then, at last I could stop suffering and finally write that symphony.)

Two (in the same ear). And yes. Man, I have GOT to get over there and meet you - preferably at an event where you have some time to chat. You, dt and PoD are definitely on my list of UK folks to meet... There's Red Jessi, although she's been absent lately. OTOH, I wouldn't put her in either the Ginger or Mary Anne category. Say, what's with all this OT banter?

Wait...in normal life, Professor Foxe has an earring?! A momento from your mis-spent youth?

It sure would make a nice story to tie to the release of the 3rd sequel to a certain movie, though... I like this story because it led me to this story. That sure would make a nice story to tie to the release of the 3rd sequel to a certain movie, too.

Ok, I'll admit that my hat brim has gotten a little wobbly since Patrick Hand sold it to me, but it isn't quite that bad.

There's something wrong with tennis shoes and garb? (There are those of us diabetics who have to mind our feet carefully and after awhile those period shoes begin to do damage to the plantar faschia. So after-hours and when carousing in the streets, I wear tennies, myself.) Is it already time to start this discussion? I thought we waited at least 6 months between re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-hashing this.

From what I've read, Bennett Cerf was really cool.

Thanks for all the compliments and comments. My thought is that IF I do a third, I will do it for an event I've not done before, if I find one that I can and want to go to. (If I get burnt out on these like I nearly did in 2010, I'll stop doing them entirely and probably abandon this hobby for something different. I know how I function by observing my past behaviors.) Yeah, that was pretty bad, but I couldn't resist it.

Editors. Bennett and Donald. (Anyone know what that is a reference to? It's a trifle obscure. And it's not the two judges sitting in the balcony during the Muppet Show. Their names are Statler and Waldorf. I thought about using them, but they have nothing to do with writing or editing.)

Actually I like most of the feedback. You'll notice I went way out of my way to incorporate it and even built entire gags around it. For those who don't recognize it, I am not really the person writing. Like everything in the Journals I, as writer, am actually an exaggeration of myself (with the exception of the first one or two - and even then it's still true to a degree). That's what much humor is - reality exaggerated to absurd dimensions. I recognize the issue of their length as being such (having been told by no less than five people, three of them completely unsolicited) and this idea is an attempt to remedy that. I don't know why it never occurred to me before; I sort of stumbled aCross it when I was trying to do the PiP Journal as the event unfolded. (I am not yet fully convinced I am unable to do that, incidentally. I learned several things during this attempt.) Although I really do need to cut back on the sheer number of them so that I can finish some other projects of mine. I am figuring to do two this year - PiP and Put-in-Bay. These were my two favorite events last year and they really lend themselves to my conception of the Journals at this point. Plus they are six months apart. I may do a third, but I don't know. But if I try to do seven again this year I know I'm going to burn myself out on them. The problem is that they take most of a month to finish, especially when I start incorporating other people's photos (which I really love to do). I could make them shorter (and thus faster to write), but then they would lack quality. And, as much as I love hearing feedback (and I really, really do), I write them to make me laugh first. This is why Lob always gets the most ink of any character - he is completely fictional, can be totally exaggerated beyond reality and is thus hilarious to me. Anyhow, thanks for the comments thus far. Anyone else? Bueller? Bueller?