hurricane

I dare say it's going to be a banner year all around for these events. Anxious to see what's going on at the fort this year, too.

Since it's been getting more difficult to post everywhere as things rapidly change, you may want to join the Pirates in Paradise group over on Facebook. I know some of you area already there, but that's where the committee is posting all the latest information and answering questions.

Here's the URL: http://www.facebook.com/groups/piratesinparadise?ap=1

Note, this is only about Pirates in Paradise, not the Fort Taylor event. I don't want to confuse anyone as to what's being updated on this Facebook group. It only has to do with events in town, accommodations, the contests and what's going on at the Truman Annex site during the 11 days of the festival.

See ya there!

It's on iTunes. You just can pull the chords off of it by playing along. It shouldn't take more than three run throughs to figure out the progression.

The festival schedule has been completely updated. For those of you who come to town early or want to attend all the other events, some of the key events have been shifted to accommodate the 11 day festival.

The El Meson Caribbean Pirate's Buffett will be Tuesday, Nov. 29. The Buxom Wench and Bad Ass Pirate contest will be Wednesday, following the End of Hurricane season flag burning. It will be held at the Pirate Pub at the Truman Waterfront, not Schooner Bar (this is new). The Shoot & Sail has been moved to Thursday for everyone who wants to compete on open water with life rounds and period weapons. A good chance to check your accuracy aboard a heaving deck.

The Walk the Plank Championship will be on Saturday again, Dec. 3 with the Tall Tales Competition directly after.

New to the Sea Chantey Festival this year will be Best Original Song. We're looking for chantymen and musicians who will pen and original song for the festival. This should capture the essence of the Pirates in Paradise Maritime Heritage Festival & Music Festival. Draw your inspiration from any and all events. We will be having the competition for best song at 11 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 4. Email me for more information - hurricane@piratesofthecoast.com

For the complete schedule: http://www.piratesinparadise.com

The PhotoShop of its time.

The problem with a map as opposed to a calendar is that multiple events take place in the same city in some instances. For example, St. Augustine has Searles, Drake's Raid and Pirate Gathering. Which does the pin point to? This could be very confusing and even frustrating from a user perspective.

For planning purposes (i.e., limited vacation time), it's far more effective to scroll through a calendar function and see events in chronological order and be able to readily see which events fall on the same date, or different dates that still may be in proximity geographically, so you could, in essence, plan a weekend at one event and the second weekend at another that you never knew were happening at the same time.

This also allows someone to pull up their calendar and easily cross reference planned events with their own activities. Plus, we even planners can put in the dates for years going forward, since the dates of Pirates in Paradise are set from year to year, only the actual dates on a calendar change.

I know the guys overseas on elance could whip this up pretty easily and cheaply. It would certainly make the event section here "the" place to go. Right now I'm having to rely on Jamaica Rose's calendar, as it's the only one in roughly chronological order right now.

The ideal would probably be a clickable graphic calendar widget that has the events listed. Click through the months with arrow navigation, click on the event and you can access the information for it. This way they are automatically in order, there are no repeats and old events simply become a date on a previous calendar. This would allow people to view dates for events a year or two ahead as well. Pretty simple stuff these days to do and from a user standpoint, very familiar.

So true, so true. With my shooting skills even the side of a barn should feel completely safe.

ACK!!! NOT THAT THING!

I think you're just jealous of the attention Amelia gets.

Attention? or "paws on"... I mean.. ahem... free rein...with yer ... um.. person... oh never mind...

HA! Nearly snorted on that! Well, Capt, you will be pleased to know she will not be joining me on the trip. So, that means you best not stand me up again!

Well lads, there goes target practice. Guess we have to use clay pigeons again.

We're confirmed for the event. We have 6 to 10 of us in tow this year. Looking forward to seeing you there.

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Stuart is a good event. We will be there as well Commodore. We'll have to continue to make mischief again like we did in John's Pass.

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You wouldn't believe the difference in how the gun shoots after the Commodore gets ahold of it. It will have superb action and extremely dependable fire. Mine was misfiring after 10 or so shots. Not anymore. I can shoot all day now.

I have ghostwritten perhaps a dozen books for clients, including the genre you describe. They all went on to be published. I disagree, of course, with John's suggestion. In the book world there are two key people - the writer and the editor. An editor does not write. They only edit manuscripts once they are in relatively finished form. They aren't much help if you aren't already a writer.

I would recommend using elance.com which has hundreds of highly qualified ghostwriters. Find one who is experienced in your genre. Look at their previous work. Require a flat fee structure, i.e., X dollars for X book. Ensure that all rights are released to you in your agreement. This is the way it works these days.

All books written by famous people are ghostwritten. You won't be able to engage a top notch ghostwriter for this unless you have a very big piggy bank. You can save money on the project by doing the initial research and cobbling together a fairly rough draft that only needs to be expanded upon and massaged. The more legwork the writer is going to have to do, the more it's going to cost.

As far as publishing. If you're an unknown author it's almost impossible to bend the ears of a publisher. You don't have to fall for the self published (vanity) form of publishing these days. You can self-publish on Amazon through their CreateSpace section. These are listed on Amazon, you can do a Kindle version and publishers watch this space for the hot books. That's when they are stepping in an optioning the book for their publishing house, often for large sums of money. The publishing industry is rapidly morphing to this model as it is less expensive for publishers, since the book already has some traction.

So, in short, go to an elance.com or guru.com, post the project (free), get bids, select a writer, agree to terms (I recommend by milestones - $X up front, $X at delivery of rough draft, $X on completion. This is the way books are being done all the time. As I said, I'm in the business and have been for 17 years.

I have shared it with the committee Commodore and it's on the list.

There's just a few other things on the more immediate plans to handle (grants and such).

Looks like we may be adding a weeklong music festival at night. The Bad Ass Pirate and Buxom Wench will be on-site this year as part of a Pirate's Ball. I personally am looking forward to movie night. We'll be showing Crimson Pirate on the wall of the building there and Reap the Wild Wind before it. I hope to do Crimson in a Rocky Horror format.

I've placed it on my definite possibles. My cabin boy will be in town and perhaps we can head over for an adventure with the likes of ya! It looks like it's going to be pretty good. Suzi, Michael and Kathy are running it. They did John Levique and Stuart. We need to get you to Stuart this year, sir.

Was on the phone with the rest of the planners. Lots of great things on the horizon after getting our feet wet in the new location. Can't wait to share some of the plans once they are firmed up. Right now, I have to finish the marketing plan for the darned thing.

No, you won't be disappointed at all. His work compared to the imports is like comparing a Timex with a Rolex. The work is simply magnificent and the action and timing are prefect, as is the balance. It's a steal at this price, to be sure. Should be twice this after seeing it in person.

That's a good question. After seeing your silky smooth lock and timing, I was aghast. Mine has pretty poor timing and I had no idea that you could fix something like that. I think my guns are going to have to go to Key Largo for a vacation so you can smooth the action out and fix the timing. I think that's the biggest problem I have with misfires. The Indian guns so need a good smoothing out.

I found it terribly disappointing. The seemingly endless fictitious storyline was a bore. It was 15 minutes worth of solid content wrapped around 105 minutes of Port Royal 101 fluff. The visualization of the town was done the same way a previous one was done, albeit with better technology. As one who has been there, you could learn more truth walking the streets yourself. For example, even the experts at the Archives know that the silver pieces at the church are from a much later period and weren't donated by Morgan. And I won't even get started on the tricorns. I expected more from National Geo, frankly.

The easiest thing would be be called the county extension agent in the county you want to transport the chickens to. They would be able to tell you their state's regulations regarding fowl.

Wow, she is just coming together beautifully. Thanks for letting us all follow the progress.

Beautiful work sir. Never would have thought a jet fan blade could come in so handy. Do you need a list of people to try it out on?

I think it would only work on people with "twisted" personalities....... :lol: That describes a LOT of my friends.

You and me both, sir. :)

Beautiful work sir. Never would have thought a jet fan blade could come in so handy. Do you need a list of people to try it out on?

I think it will be a good one. It's about the closest we've come to see what the city was like in its heyday before the earthquakes.

Set your DVRs for May 8 at 8 pm as National Geographic tells the story of the rise and fall of the Wickedest City on Earth, including a 3-D recreation of the city at the time of Henry Morgan. Should be terrific, if the trailers are any indication.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/wicked-pirate-city-5545/Overview

The previews are here: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/wicked-pirate-city-5545/Overview#tab-Videos/10131_00

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