TalesOfTheSevenSeas

Sometimes they want locking, sometimes not, other times even tie wraps. It depends on the airline. Sometimes with locking you give them the key, sometimes you meet them in a holding area or wait for your name to be called to come unlock it. It varies airline to airline and even with whose on the shift. What I do is call ahead and ask what the proceedure is. Soutwest Air told me that they like it when you present a business card showing that you are a reenactor. A week before the flight I bring in my suitcase empty and have it OK'd to transport my weaponry. When you arrive at the airport, you need to tell them verbally what you have and let them tell you to take it out for inspection. Do it nice and slow, be pleasant and cooperative, some inspections are very cursory, others need detailed info, particularly when it comes to transporting flintlocks as they are not familiar with how they work. If you're traveling with blackpowder, it has to be shipped separately from the firearms. And definitely go hardshell... the swordtips go right through the fabric luggag!

Boulder Creek CA... a tiny little town in the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains. This is the mountain range which separates the coast from Silicon Valley. Once upon a time, my little town was quite the hell-raising wild west town for loggers at the turn of the century. The whole of main street consisted of saloons and brothels for the most part. Arrrrrrrrr!! Now they've got me!!!!!!!!!

No, we got it as you see it, without the scabbard. Aye, it is a beautiful sword. I'll miss having it, but the funds are being redirected into a good thing, the purchase of an antique violin that I've got my eye on.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO JOHNNY D.!!!!

I didn't know there was that option in Photoshop! I've got that. Can you elaborate a bit DP? Thanks!!

Does the Land Shark still count as a boat?!!! I put myself down as sailing on someone elses boat (Royaliste) and figured that the Land Shark is too far removed from water to count in the poll. It might be interesting to add an option to the poll of who has crewed aboard a ship. I know we've got quite a few that have done that, but don't own their own boats. I think it would be interesting to see how many contribute to the sailing of a ship vs go out for rides.

Well, I don't want to have pirates charged for the photos, so that's definitely out. If there is a free shareware program that can make the thumbnails, that would be great and that I could do, but I'm just too strapped for time to do it manually. I already resize everything once to get it down to a viewable size. If I was a stay-home pirate with time on my hands I would, but as it is, most of everything I do on-line is managed between a full time job, night classes M-Th, violin lesson Friday night and pyracy or working on the Land Shark on the weekends. The last two photo pages that went up, one of my pirates volunteered to make the thumbnails for me. So if someone can direct me to a thumbnail program... ~OR~ I will gladly upload any thumbnails if one of you would like to volunteer to make them?!! If not... quit yer whinin' ye' scurvy sea-scabs an' let 'em download in the background or I'll keelhaul th' lot o' yez!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Nah, seriously I do appreciate the constructive criticism, I just don't have the time to make thumbnails)

I'm afraid I just don't have the time to do that for each photo. Sadly I haven't made enough dubloons plundering to quit my day job just yet! But I just uploaded about 5 more photos from the Crew of the Dirty Rotten Oar...

I had to share this story with all of you. My violin teacher also teaches a children's orchestra in one of the local schools. After I showed her a copy of the POTC sheet music for violin, she asked if the entire score could be purchased. I found it for her and she asked the kids if they'd like to do Pirates of the Caribbean. The kids were very enthusiastic about the idea, and so she purchased the score. Tonight, she told me that she couldn't believe the difference in the kids since they started POTC. "They are all practicing!!" she said "I can't believe it!!" These kids are so psyched about playing the music, from what she tells me it is just amazing the difference that POTC has made. They love it!! Is that cool or what?!! Harry Potter got kids to love reading, and POTC made at least one little school full of kids learn to love to play. There are times when it is really great to be a pirate when you hear a story like that! Which gets me to thinking.... maybe when they perform it we could arrange a pirate sword fight to take place while they play!!!

Hmmmmm.... you can right click and open the photo in a separate window, but in order to enable you to move photo to photo in a linear manner, I'd have to create a separate web page for each photo or... *sudden brainstorm* Hey! I could set them up in a revolving javascript program like the portrait on the front page, that might be kinda cool... What do you pirates think? You'd have a harder time making your own copies, but would that be preferable to the current system? I'd have to use much smaller photos also so that they loaded faster. Let me know what you think.

LOL no worries, they aren't actual human skeletons, but life-size plastic models that look real. So don't pull the sticker off yer license, ye be safe!

I just got word that I'm to be the recipient of our college's old medical skeletons in time for the St. Patrick's Day Parade on March 13th!! The college's new skeletons have arrived and are just awaiting assembly, then I can plunder the collection of old bones!! Woooohoooo!! Jeff (our decomposing pirate in the crows nest) will have some new friends aboard and at Ojai!!! ...or at least some bits and pieces of friends!!! This weekend, I'm replacing the old metalic fringe skirting with blue cut-out "wave" skirting, made of large sheets of blue foam insullation, mounted on metal strapping that is bolted to the trailer. I'm hoping to add some colored wooden fish (available on Ebay) before the parade also. I also have to shorten the mast slightly to make the maximum allowable height of 12' in our next two parades

Much as I'd like to take the credit ye' lads be offerin' me, I can't claim to be a coin expert... just saavy at findin' stuff on the web is all!!

There isn't a connection between the writer/fighter/lighthouse keeper and Teach. Holding a wake for Teach is just an excuse to hold a pirate party. Quinn's Lighthouse was the place we found to hold it after we'd decided on an occasion and it just happened to come with the pirate legend of the writer/fighter/lighthousekeeper and the pirates.

This little bit of an interview was promo'd with "Why Johnny Depp won't live in L.A." but there is a wonderful gem in it where he talks about how much being Captain Jack Sparrow has meant to him because of the way kids react to him. Score 100 points in my book for this guy! At last, a celeb. with his head on straight! Cheers Johnny!!!!!!!!!!

More photos just in!!! These come courtesy of Don and Yolanda. There were several nice shots of Aldebaran, which I've emailed over to her captain. CLICK HERE, then click "photos" then click "Blasting Valentines to Smithereens"

It's gonna be quite a crowd for this one! Our headcount now stands at about 50, give or take a few pirates! We're joinin' forces with both the Crew of the Dirty Rotten Oar and the Highlander Warriors (part time pirates part time Celts) We've even had a suggestion that the local media might be interested in covering the event! ARRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

Good news on the check Cap'n... me be hopin' some o' yer good luck (or tenacity!) rubbed off on me artifacts that I blasted!

Thanks, I'll pass it 'long to me bro.

Just the Muppets or other works by Henson? Me li'l brother, whom ye' knew, managed Jim Henson's L.A. Creature Shop for many years.

Captain, if you'll try emailing it to me (I pay for high-capacity storage at hotmail) I can upload it on the website and post a link here.

Carrie did the screen captures for us, so I'll defer the question to her. If not, I can try to get a Adobe Premiere and see if the screen captures come through clearer. Carrie did say she had larger images, but I'm not sure if they were clearer. Are ye' sending the wench a copy or is this fer ye' own personal collection?!! *evil laughter* Me thinks perhaps ye' ought to own the CD of the video footage!!! Royaliste, can we fire one his way?!! You'll need large capacity email or to send yer snail mail addy to the Cap'n.

Here are all the previous photos combined onto one page at Tales of the Seven Seas. I'll add more photos if I get them Valentines Sail Photos

Here are photos courtesy of the crew of the Aldebaran, whom we battled on the bay Sunday... now ye' know how it looks when the Royaliste is out ta getcha!!! ARRRRRRRRR!! (ps Penny I know longer have a cell phone)

Carrie m'luv, please always feel free to post 'em as soon as you have 'em! After all, you did the work for us, pulling them out of the video. So without further ado, here they are! These blasts were about the largest and loudest I've seen coming from the Royaliste's guns or elsewhere. These were heavily packed with large amounts of powder and given an extra-hard plunging with the ramrod!! They were LOUD and had our ears ringing afterwards!! Contained in the first fireball you see below are Meg the "Pyracy is Pathetic" wench, a photo of the Lady Washington, some letters from the "land sharks" Gary has been battling of late and some rather pathetic work-related momentos of mine. And in this grand fireball is Michael Eisner, flying solo. Perhaps he'd like a copy for his desk, eh Iron Bess?!!