Holidays and absences

{{More of a merkin}}}

Wear it proudly.

I'll be away for the computer for a few days. The annual gathering of Northwest tribal canoes is passing through our waters, and I'll be paddling with them. Tomorrow is a 5am start to catch the morning tide for a 15 mile stretch of open ocean. Two of these canoes have already paddled for close to 200 miles. I'll be in the front canoe in this picture:

That sounds like a pretty amazing experience, David. (Although, 5 am... ) I hope you stay safe and that the bears haven't learned to swim in the open ocean yet.

Looks like great fun Dave (except the 5am bit-but then thats probably lunchtime to a farmer!)

I see you have previous experience? have fun. If its hot wear a hat, and take plenty of water.

can I come please.

That looks fantastic, David, have fun

Mrs Figg wrote:I see you have previous experience? have fun. If its hot wear a hat, and take plenty of water.

asdfghjkl, you should cosplay as Aragorn David

Viggo Mortensen should cosplay as Aragorn. then he could come to your house, Ally.

Norc wrote:Viggo Mortensen should cosplay as Aragorn. then he could come to your house, Ally.

I can imagine how that would end.

Spoiler:

yeah, probably.

I would be the equilivent of these guys acually:

Spoiler:

It doesn't really count as a holiday since it's practically in my backyard, but I'm going to be in downtown Baltimore for much of the next few days at Otakon, which is a major anime and manga fan convention held annually at the Baltimore Convention Center. I'm going with my brother (and yes, we are cosplaying) and will hopefully meet up with a few friends who I know are going as well. I'm not sure if I'll have the time or the energy to post here when I'm at home but I'll look forward to catching up with you all once it's over. I might post a few cosplay pictures too if anyone cares.

Eldorion wrote:It doesn't really count as a holiday since it's practically in my backyard, but I'm going to be in downtown Baltimore for much of the next few days at Otakon, which is a major anime and manga fan convention held annually at the Baltimore Convention Center. I'm going with my brother (and yes, we are cosplaying) and will hopefully meet up with a few friends who I know are going as well. I'm not sure if I'll have the time or the energy to post here when I'm at home but I'll look forward to catching up with you all once it's over. I might post a few cosplay pictures too if anyone cares.

Have a wonderful time. Your little outfit reminds me of how I used to tag along with my brother when he went to cub scouts. The other boys would of course freak . I just kept coming and waiting out of the room for him. i was totally fascinated by the names Bagheera and Balu and I still remember the motto. i loved the mystery of what they did as much as i love going to ballet and being yelled at with the others by the equally mysterious Russian teacher, a man that we had. He screamed at us constantly, but he did it in Russian, we all thought it so romantic and danced our best for him. Won't your little knees get rather sunburned King Eldo? And shouldn't you use your cool anime or whatever it is avy that i first met you using over at the gentle planet? please, pretty please.

That's not the sort of outfit I'll be wearing, though it does include shorts, so I'll have to be careful about my knees. And just for you I switched back to a larger version of the anime avatar I have on Planet Tolkien.

Just a quick check in. The big gathering will be this weekend. Here's some pictures taken from the support boat. Nobody was taking pictures during the biggest seas.

Eldo in cosplay


That looks like some serious paddling there Dave! But not cosplaying in your boat? How dull

A DRUNKEN BEAR STORY
We get a lot of rain here. Between 7 and 10 feet a year, mostly in winter. Once harvest is over and the crops are in, torrential rains and flooded land are the most ordinary things in the world to us.

One day a few years ago my brother and I were out pulling weeds in a field that had recently resurfaced from flooding after an extended rain, when we heard a sort of a sneezing/coughing noise, an looked up to find we weren’t alone.

There was a large black bear on the other side of the field from us behaving very strangely. There is a game trail that crosses this field in more or less a straight line, trampled by thousands of little animal feet in the night. This bear whom we knew well seemed to be trying to follow the trail with the slow lumbering walk of a bear in no hurry, but she was clearly having troubles staying on the path. Every so often her left shoulder would droop, she would make a lurching turn to the left and then look around in confusion to see what had happened to the path.

As we watched her confusion, she suddenly perked up and started following her nose in a completely different direction with great interest, nose down and snuffling along like a hound on a scent, only to stumble and fall completely over on her side.

She made a couple efforts to get up, then rolled over on her back, legs sticking up in the air and waiving lazily. Then she’d roll over, bury her face in the ground, wallow about, get awkwardly up, stagger a few steps, fall down and repeat the performance. It was the strangest thing to watch.


Then it dawned on us what was happening. When the field had flooded, all the fruit that had been missed during harvest had floated up and been deposited in a raft at the high water line, and in the 3 months since harvest it had become quite thoroughly fermented. This bear, whom we knew to be a good mother and an upstanding citizen in the local bear community had been gorging herself on the free booze and was drunk off her furry black ass!

We watched her revel for about half an hour until she’d had enough and managed to stagger back into the woods to sleep it off.

I’m more convinced than ever that bears and humans are kindred creatures.

thats a very cute story, and the saying, dont go near him he is like a 'bear with a sore head' probably originated from such an encounter many ages ago in the depths of time.

A love of buckie is cross-species. (As are hangovers )

Although she wasn't in the least bit interested in disturbing us, I suspect if we'd tried to crash the party she'd have become very possessive of her "buckie" and things could have gotten unpleasant. (Not unlike a certain Queen I've noticed...)

David H wrote:Although she wasn't in the least bit interested in disturbing us, I suspect if we'd tried to crash the party she'd have become very possessive of her "buckie" and things could have gotten unpleasant. (Not unlike a certain Queen I've noticed...)

Hey! In fairness, it's MY Buckie that I let all of you drink! And it is very precious to me, especially when Beren starts lecturing me about the dangers of alcohol

I beg your pardon, your Majesty![bowing respectfully]

By implying that I would no sooner take your buckie without authorization {{...unlike some...}} than I would steal buckie from a drunken bear, I was in no way implying that the analogy should be taken any further!!!

{{though now that you mention Beren, perhaps the situations are more similar than I'd first thought }}

Eldorion wrote:That's not the sort of outfit I'll be wearing, though it does include shorts, so I'll have to be careful about my knees. And just for you I switched back to a larger version of the anime avatar I have on Planet Tolkien.

My hero. Hasia actually has a crush on this avy. I need to get her out more.

If you ever attend a trekkie convention I would so love to have a picture. Just a second, you really ARE wearing shorts, to that sort of do? And wild hair and eyemakeup to make your lovely eyes even more so, and rice powder on your skin so it will be flawless?