elanya

I met the Lawlors today. Very nice people, and very helpful. They gave me some more old maps and promised more images and information should I need it. I must get a copy of their book when it becomes available (pre-ordered on Amazon, woot)! It seems like it will have all kinds of exceedingly useful things. There is even a chapter on shipbuilding! Of course, most of that focuses on the later period, but should still be helpful. They also have a house on the island, which will probably give me another place to dig. They were extremely excited that someone wanted to do archaeology there. It is all very encouraging!

I really didn't get much else accomplished today. I did pick up a map from Lands and Surveys, but it is of horrible quality, and practically useless for my purposes. There's 15$ down the drain! I don't think it is possible to get a better one, either. *sigh*

I didn't make it to the archives, and I didn't get a chance to call the methodist minister at HI. There is always tomorrow though! I'm not even sure there is anything else I *need* at the archives that i can think of. One of the maps I got today was Thomas Walker's 1702 map of Harbour Island. And we all know how much I love Thomas Walker don't we? If I knew for sure he was a native Bahamian, he's be my favourite native Bahamian historical figure. But I don't think he was. for someone who loves pirates as much as I do, I seem to like a lot of pirate hunters, don't I? But walker is also The Apple Guy. And the chief justice hat refused to go! He was a bit fantastic. This wasn't quite as exciting as seeing the Cockram map, because they only had a copy, but still exciting!

Speaking of pirate hunters and my favourite historical figures, I finally had my dinner at the British Colonial Hilton (where Fort Nassau used to stand) that I've been promising myself since last year. I wrote a letter to <3WR. They had a dessert buffet, and it was very quiet. An enjoyable dinner, and not at terrifyingly expensive as I'd feared.

I hve a few things on my mind right now, however.

The first is that i'm not sure if i should apply to give a paper on Harbour Island and the maritime cultural landscape stuff that I have been working on at SHA this year (in Toronto), or if I should give some kind of paper at the SAA (which I'd like to do, and I know there will be a Bahama session), or both? That's a big money commitment though. SHA is in Toronto. I don't remember where the SAAs are next year. Oh, Atlanta. So, I dunno! but the regualr abstract submission for SHA ends on the... err, yesterday. Hrm. So an extra 25$ fee if i get something in by July 1st. I kind of feel like I have to go to SHA - I haven't missed one in forever, and it is in Toronto. But really. Really? I dunno :x I guess if I don't go home for Christmas it would be pretty easy to swing! And Dad and Jennifer are thinking about Texas themselves...

Spent this mornign doing some clean up over in my writing journal, posting an old short segment for Pieces, a summary of what has happened in the pevious 24 sections (since, you know, it has been a year since I last did anything with the story :p), and after a nap and a few chapters of a new library book on pirates (which is really quite good even if the end note format is exceedingly bizarre, stupd Harcourt), The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard. I reccommend to any of the pirate history liking people on my f-list, as it is interesting, relative accurate so far as I can tell, and easy to read. yay for more pirate historians! And I'm not just syaing that because one of the 4 people he chose to focus on is Woodes Rogers <3 (also Blackbeard, Charles Vane, and Henry Avery), or because he opens his book wth Nicholas trott, who is one of my favourite proprietary scoundrels.

And just now I posted *another* section (all new!) of Pieces, that I started last week. I'm pretty happy with it, though I'm not entirely sue I've got back into the swing of things. Daniel is hard to write for, and first person limited omniciences (I think that is right) is a tricksy PoV to start with! Anyway, writing = good. Pirates also = good! And I think Claire is coming over shortly-ish, whee! Later there will be baking, or at least baking prep!

Also, Doctor Who = good, and here is a torrent to the final ep of this series (thanks Buck and mininova!)

( I do a lot of things :o )

Now I'm going to go lie down, maybe, and read, maybe, and eventually go out and investigate that Greek place I keep walking by...

Rogers done. Now researching rigging so I can start drawing my hull. The I'm going to the library to get books on the battle of jutland and HMS dreadnought. Woot. I mightg go to a talk at 6 - we'll see.... Still need to read the last 50 pages of stuff for tomorrow too. :p

It is not even quarter after eleven, and i am wrecked! I went swimming and did weights today, and that is the likely culprit. That and impending bees. To give you all an idea of how pathetic a swimmer I am, I did about 18 laps in about 40 minutes :p And half of that was backstroke. Nothing kills my lungs like swimming.... and people wonder why I am so wary of diving :p

I finished Rogers, though I didn't get to typing up that bit. But that's because I found *more*! After he swallows his own jaw, they have to remove bits of it from his throat like weeks later, and then *six months* later, a doctor at Batavia finally gets the ball out of the jaw. He says upper and lower were quite broken. He also gets bits (yes, bits!) removed from his heel and is confident that he will probably be able to walk again ;p He spends half the voyage home in an exceedingly poor state of health - there are all kinds of references to him not being well enough to leave the ship, and being generally sick and unwell. I'm not surprised, with the being shot in the face and not having that sorted out for six months D: There is something of a dropoff in the number of meetings on the way home too, hmmm ;) Another bit that I thought interesting was where he talks about his poor health and the ship being leaky in the same short sentence. An interesting conjunction for a captain to make, I think!

Anyway, apart from that, all i managed to do was.... bake cookies! Surely this means that the ones from gats will get here tomorrow :V But I couldn't wait. I've been waiting on sugar cookies for*ever* now, and I needed some...

I sleep now

Not my most productive day. Didn't get as much reading dome as I should have. But I got to all the *good* parts, and that is what counts. Those being the parts where Woodes Rogers gets shot, and be grateful I only copied out one! Unless you want the other.

Anyway, I also helped Megan with some translation, played Exia, and, um, I was sure there was more :o Well. I did one other productive thing of which I am proud, which is that I indexed all my stories in a forward-dated entry over at measured_words, so now the first thing anyone sees when they load the main page is the index, which should make it easier for anyone who wants to find anything posted there. Only completed stories, so no cursed wreck and no zillion little mini sections of Shadows ;p I hope it is useful to some :)

Now I think I will go to bed. Tomorrow I have real work to do :o

From A Crusing Voyage Round the World Woodes Rogers, 1712.

( Historical Awesomeness Herein )

It has been a busy week!

I had a presentation to give on Tuesday, which apparently went swimmingly. Tuesday night I had a meeting with some classmates to go over the readings for the Theory class we are in, but in the end a lot of the stuff we focused on never came up in class - i just hope people still found it was useful. i thought it was at least interesting. Wednesday was class, then more class. After class, I went to see babel with L'Annie, because movies here are really cheap, and she is a film person, and Oscars are coming up, and she and Claire are hosting an Oscars party, and so forth. What I am trying to do here is justify what I put myself through - that was the most seriously awful film I have sat through. It wasn't even funny bad just "Christ I hate all you people it is over yet!?" bad. I probably could have convince L'Annie to leave before it was over. As it was, she didn't stay for the credits, which is saying a lot because she always stays for the credits. After that we got food and lamented wasting time and money on that steaming pile of dogcrap. Short review: don't waste your time/money, just ask a local hobo to vomit on you and you'll just about get the same experience :p

After *that*, i went to tethys123's place, and watched another installment of Rome, which is fantastic. Only watching one ep a week is kiiiiiling me, as I am a binge tv watcher. And then we went to O'Bannons, because Wednesday is the anth pub night. I shouldn't have gone though - I was too tired to really socialize much, and on top of that we wound up being there stupidly late. Which seems odd as now I'm not sure who among us actually wanted to be there that long o_O. Anyway.

Yesterday and today were gym days, and I'm paying, oh, yes, paying early. in a good way.... I did back hyperextensions yesterday for the first time. Easy, too easy, until i realized that i'm supposed to be using my core muscles to pull myself up, which I wasn't doing. the next set was not so easy D: That was yesterday. Today, I bench pressed... the bar. Oooh, I'm mighty ;) It's a start though. And this with a bunch of other weight machines and such. I can't figure ou where they are hiding the dumbbells... Tomorrow, though, I will have major pains, I am positive. I think that I will leave thursday as a leg day, friday arms, and then use Mondays as a core day, if that's feasible. I need to poke around Stumptuous more.

Apart from that, I've collected and started reading the book for my first Rigging assignment. I'm reading A Cruising Voyage Round the World by Woodes Rogers. I love that man. I would go back I time and have his babies. No one knows anything about his wife - it could be me ;) he was hardcore awesome in a zillion different ways. Let me enumerate a few:

-Privatter durinfg the War of Spanish Succession
-circumnavigated the globe in 1708
-second person ever to capture one of the Spanish Manilla Fleet galleons in the Pacific
-Got shot in the jaw during an engagement - continued to give orders in writing from where he'd fallen on the deck for the rest of the fight
-Shot in the heel in a second engagement shortly after, continued to give orders then too and refused to be carried below
-rescued Alexander Selkirk left behind on the island of Juan Fernandez in 1704 by William Dampier, and who was the basic for Robinson Crusoe.
-was badass enough that William Dampier was willing to serve under him - after Dampier had been famous for years in his own right as a navigator/captain/naturalist/etc
-successfully kept his crew in lone during the course of his circumnavigation, and handily dealt with the few inevitable mutinies that arose
-had a relative;y low death rate for a circumnavigation
-Governor of the Bahamas in 1718 - pretty much singlehandedly responsible for rooting out the pirates there, more or less
-wasn't originally re-employed as governor, but was so awesome that the bahamians petitioned to have him reinstalled
-was deemed incredibly awesome by many contemporary bigshots, including Hans Sloan (none of you will probably know who he was :p) and Joseph Addison (Secretary of State 1711-1718) and such
-had an awesome personal/familial motto - Dum Sipro, Spero - While I Breathe I Hope
-was generally a great navigator, and leader

Eta
-not a bad looking gent neither ;) You can even just about make out the scar on his left cheek where he was shot
-did I mention that he swallowed part of his own jaw after that wounding? Hardcore! D:

Anyway, he was right awesome. I read 100 pages today, and hope to be done the book by Sunday. Tonight i am going to finish and hopefully post my latest section of Shadows, damnit! I can't believe it is taking so long. I blame the fact that I'm getting better at timing when I have to catch the bus, and the fact that it is cold not motivating me to go early to get more writing done :p