Yar, Me Mateys!

As many of you know, Friday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I truly enjoy this day of the year, probably a lot more than is healthy. The next day, we were invited to a pirate party for a friend of our daughters. Since his parents, Karen and Paul, are good friends of mine and he asked so nicely, Stacy and I dug out our pirate costumes from Halloween a couple of years ago and came dressed for the occasion. We decided to go all out this year and embellished my beard a bit. This is the final result.


We even gave the girls some pirate braids in their hair. Great fun was had by all. I think I enjoyed the treasure hunt and pin the flag on the pirate map the most. The cake was a crazy affair. They managed to get a full pirate ship, about 24" X 12" that reached probably about 10" at its poop deck (I said poop deck.) Delicious cake, but the real entertainment was watching poor Karen try to cut and serve it. The poop deck (I said it again,) pieces toppled as soon as they were cut, so some of the cake may have had an extra fingerprint or two. I don't think anyone minded.

Anyway, it was a very piratey weekend. I hope everyone had a chance to celebrate in their own way.

Unrelated Side Note Dept.
I finally received a response from my facilitator on the plagiarism accusation. She says, considering my contribution to the class, that she's inclined to believe that I'm not plagiarizing, but needs proof. So now I'm inserting date/time stamps in random places in my code in an attempt to prove innocence. We'll see how it pans out.

Halloween Treats, MerlinTWizard Style

Here are the pictures of some of the treats we served at our annual Halloween party. These are what kept me up until 2:00 AM that morning. They were worth it, though.



Here's a shot of me as a pirate, yarr and all that.

Another Great Halloween

We saw quite a few trick or treaters this year. For the second year in a row, we handed out glow bracelets along with our candy. By the end of the night, we figured we had passed out a little over 100. Not a bad turn out.

I was very disappointed in the lack of decoration around our neighborhood. Our old nemesis in the HOA decorating contest had nary a thing. A new neighbor across the way went even farther than us, though. I have to tip my pirate cap at them for their effort. The yard looked great. They went for the spooky scary Halloween compared to our more harmless and fun decorations. One of these days when my daughters don't get nightmares from listening to an animatronic head in a globe, we may go spooky too.

It seems that Halloween decorations and costumes have gone waaaay downhill from my halcyon youth. I remember entire neighborhoods decorated with cobwebs, strobe lights, creepy music, and people hiding all over the place, just waiting to trigger juvenile cardiac arrests. Ah, those were the days. Of course, I also remember rushing from one house to the next in a desperate attempt to get as much candy as possible (how do you think I cultivated my lithe physique?) so the decorations were probably largely lost on me. Maybe it doesn't matter. Is it all about the candy?

My children certainly didn't suffer this year. Consider this, they first went trick-or-treating at the beginning of the month at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party in Disney World. Then, last Friday, they got more candy at Vicki's kindergarten/1st grade school party. The next day, we took them to our church's trunk-or-treat, a miniature version of trick-or-treat out of the back of (mostly) decorated car trunks in the parking lot of our church. Of course, there was the booty from last night's circuit around the neighborhood. Finally, our own yearly Halloween party is this coming Saturday, complete with even more candy.

Dear Pediatric Dentist,

You're welcome.

Scott

I hope you had a happy Halloween yourself. I'll make sure we take plenty of pictures Saturday and get them uploaded. I finally chose a pirate costume this year. It may become my standby. Heck, maybe I'll incorporate it into my everyday wardrobe!

Avast!

Originally posted April 20, 2006

I received an excellent email from my friend Jon that made my day. It seems he is interested in offering fantasy portraits for a reasonable fee and wanted to build a portfolio first. I am honored to be his first subject. You can see the results in my picture gallery as well as my default profile image. Behold the glory that is Cap'n "Scabrous" Scott Hawks, Privateer of the Internet High Seas! Yarrrr!

Now I've just got to convince him to draw Stacy as my wench.