Weekend Visit

This weekend I went to my grandparents house on Friday, the Texas Heritage Syrup Festival on Saturday, and came home today. The syrup festival was pretty cool, they had a mule, err, squishing, to put it bluntly, sugar cane to make cane syrup, a sawmill, storytelling, etc. etc.

Err, bye now.

Halloween!

Halloween is/was/has been here! I was a wizard though most people thought I was a witch since my hair was not silver/white like I had wanted, just gray :-(


I don't have time to write much today so I will post a story that I wrote a while back.

Note- If you don't play Dungeons & Dragons-Forgotten Realms you can just ignore the names of the places in this story.

Dane: an Autobiography

I will not go through my childhood, as that would be 94 years of frolicking in trees and playing with my friends. So I will start off on my 95^th birthday.

My parents had been feeling the calling for a while now. So for my 95th birthday they decided to take me to Evermeet. It was the worst birthday present I had ever gotten. We had a month to gather our items and leave, it’s amazing how many memories I left in that place, the High Forest. We boarded a ship, the Clenran. She was a beautiful ship, Elven make, with Correllon as the figurehead. I personally never found any calling to Correllon, my faith lies with Eilistraee, his daughter. She was a hunter, a warrior of the night. I personally was never afraid of the night. Some nights I would go speak to the Fey of the forest. Enough of my memories though, we need to go on to the present.

We sailed out of Waterdeep, but for some reason we had to make a stop through the Moonshae Isles. A stupid idea in my opinion, seeing as there was royalty on board. As it turned out it was even stupider than I had thought. As we sailed out of Caer Corwell we came upon a band of Nelanther pirates. They looted our ship and took my family for slaves. When we finally reached the Nelanther Isles, our captors forcibly escorted us to the slave house. My father, Lord Ceyrlon, who was a diviner, figured out the location of our weapons and armor. And so that night with his magic and my strength, we, along with my mother, broke out of there, broke into our crates, and donned our armor, mine of which was beautifully crafted Elven chainmail given to me as a gift for my 80^th birthday. So far no one had noticed us. We found a rowboat that had been pulled up to the shore near the slave house and climbed in. Now mother, the evoker, cast control water and we were off. It seems the alarms went off when we were only 20 feet off the shore. Now this, being Nelanther, was quite an armored port. They started firing their ballistae at us. My mother cast magic missile at the giant arrows and they exploded one by one. But there was one she missed. It struck her in the chest and she was killed upon impact. I felt such a gut wrenching loss, as I had never felt before. Father let out a loud cry and fell sobbing over his love, Lady Vrentalica. I too let out a cry of anguish, but I realized the only way we were going to get out of this alive was to start swimming before the boat was hit again and sank. I grabbed his arm and told him that we must start swimming now. He looked at me, his tear-stained face brought out the sorrow in me and I started crying. I told him desperately now, “Father, we must swim for shore, otherwise we will be killed as well.”

He said, “Go my son, but I must stay here with your mother.”

I was crying desperately, “Father you must go with me.”

“No son, my place is here.”

“Father please, “

”No son!”

At this point he pushed me overboard. I had no choice but to swim for shore. That swim was the longest of my life. As I reached shore on a deserted island, I turned back to see if I could find the rowboat only to find that I could not see it. I yelled into oblivion, “No! Why have you forsaken me Eilistraee?”

All of a sudden, I felt two black arms reached around me in a comforting hug. Somehow I knew this was Eilistraee. “Oh my lady!” I cried, “Why have you forsaken me? Why has your father forsaken mine?”

“My father cannot do everything, “she says, “It was your father’s choice to stay.

Suddenly I noticed search boats coming out and searching for me and my family. I could hear rough voices in the distance, however I could not understand them.

“Come, my lord,” she says. “we must go from here.” And then she teleported me into the blackness.

The next morning I awoke high in a beech tree wondering where I was. All of a sudden, the memories came flowing back, Mother dying, Father drowning, for I believe that must be what happened to him. And suddenly I remember Eilistraee coming to me in the night. At this point the memories became too much for me to bear and I fell out of the tree. Fortunately, I had only been about 10 feet up. And there I lived, eating beechnuts, and whatever other foods I could find on my island.

One day, about a week after my arrival I was climbing up to my driftwood hut in that first beech tree I saw something off in the distance, it was a rowboat, a thought ran though my mind, could it be? As I approached the rowboat I saw what I dreaded, it was my parent’s dead bodies, an arrow though my fathers heart with a layer of dried blood coating the bottom of the boat, carrion flies buzzing around the boat. I screamed and tried to swat the flies. I solemnly buried there bodies there on the beach that day, I kept my fathers sword, it would serve as my last connection to him, it was a magnificent sword, he had won it at a forest games for best sword work. Life lived on in this fashion for another four and a half years. One day, I realized something. As I looked at the marks I had made on the tree, one each day, I realized this was my 100^th birthday. And of course as all elves know, the 100^th birthday is when they choose their name. And for me it was the day I set off. I built a raft out of driftwood, wove a sail out of palm leaves, and sailed off. After a week and a day, when my water was running low, I saw land off in the distance. At last! A forest! I realized from the maps that I had studied as a child, this was the Wealdath Forest, and I begin to take stock of what I had. I knew little about the Wealdath, but I was finally in a forest, that’s what mattered.

I knew from the maps that I had studied as a child I was probably on the peninsula and therefore there should be a port, Velen, nearby. So I began trekking along the shoreline following it northwards, taking with me only my sail for bedding. Once I arrived at Velen, two days later, I found an Elven ship sailing to Candlekeep. The captain, who was one of my father’s good friends, recognized me. Upon hearing about my parent’s death, he gave me his regards and agreed to take me on for free. So then we sailed off into the sunset. All I had was my father’s sword, my armor, and my new name, Lord Dane.

Maker Faire pics

It was a lot of fun, here are some pics.Some ridey thingy.

Art bike!

Me and Cedar Man.

My mom and the "Yarn Car"Diet Coke and Mentos.

Kids going to get showered in Diet Coke (No, I am not with them).

Fog rings.

More fog rings.

My parents "The Maker" and "The Crafter"

All in all, it was a lot of fun.

To the Maker Faire! (At six fourty-five in the morning)

Today I go to the Maker Faire in austin. Yay! I am very busy so I can't type much but I do think it will be a lot of fun, I'll blog (with pictures!) about it when I get back on Sunday.

Brief Recap

I have not blogged in (1...2...3) three days because not much has happened in the past four days.

Oct. 10
I went to agility with Koolaid on Wednesday, I used sliced up hot-dogs for treats, needless to say, me being a veggie, that I am not crazy about the idea, but I realize that dogs are carnivores and therefore they naturally eat meat (duh). She did very well that night and I think it was the treats that did it.

Oct. 11
On Thursday I went to the audiologist at, like, nine in the morning (which in my opinion is wake-up time) to see about getting me new hearing aids (yet another one of my surprises) since my current ones are 8 years old and about to break down in the middle of the road. After that I went to book club where we discussed Shock Point, and then we (the book club) went to a park across the street and ate lunch, then I went to a Phys. Ed. "class" we came home for a couple of hours, and then went to the library where I play D&D for two hours.
The end.

Oct. 12
Monday is heavy trash pick-up day, so by now there are some piles of junk by peoples driveways. Woo! I found a keyboard (scrap), a typewriter (works), a slide projector (works), a fire poker (ha), a VCR (scrap), a flatbed scanner (scrap), and some faux velvet (yay!). Otherwise an uneventful day.
Me hauling junk.


Today
Not much.

Blood, sweat and a free dog obedience class

What a day *sigh* what a day... First it's a busy day, then car troubles, then this... What is "this" you ask? I go to a dog obedience on Tues nights at Petsmart and we train our dogs to sit, down, stay, etc. (Duh.) Tonight my instructor (not named here as to preserve his/her reputation) was showing us how to walk (ride) our dogs on a bike. We went out back behind the store through their storage area, and then through a garage-like door (the windy-uppy kind) to the road behind the strip-center, as the garage door came down with a mighty *THWUMP!* the dog (a pit-bull) my instructor was riding with lashed out and bit Koolaid's (my dog) nose and held on for a couple of seconds, Koolaid started screaming (and yes, I would call it a scream), and there was blood, yes! BLOOD! on the ground. He/She (my instructor) ran and got some sort of powder and put it on her nose to stop the bleeding, everything was fine, but the problem is, had I not been the kind of person I am, that is the kind of behavior can get a dog put down (killed). I do NOT wish this dog any harm and think it was a combination of 1. The loud bang. 2. Their noses were about three inches apart. And 3. This dog was a pit bull, who are bred to be guard dogs. Anyways after the class was over my instructor pulled me aside and gave me a free intermediate obedience (8 week) course (worth $125.000 US), for FREE! All in all this has been a VERY bloggable day (and I just started it yesterday!)

Busier day than I thought

My mom got back from her early (8:30) doctor's appointment, came in the house, and said that we might not be going anywhere today. Why? I ask. as it turns out all the alarm lights in her car had gone off about 5 minutes from the house, she called the car dealer and left a message, then she did all she knew how to, ie: checking the oil level and coolant. The oil was an 1/8th quart too high so when the dealer called back she told them that and he said it was fine to drive, but, only to the dealership. We had to leave for the car place 10 minutes after that. We got to the dealership and the guy said (ten minutes later) that indeed the oil had been to high and they had drained some, so, we were ready to go. We started driving to MFAH and, of course, all the warning lights came on 1/2 mile down the road, back to the dealership! We ended up getting a rental car for free so we could make it to lunch on time. it's a nice '07 Toyota Camry and the cool thing is you can turn off the airbag so I can sit up front, this is nice because I have to take my dog to obedeience training tonight, and it's not a hatch-back like the Prius, haaaahaaaa if you can't fix a car then you get a hairy rental car.

Busy day

For some reason I am up at 8:30 blogging, why? You ask, I don't know, plain and simple, I don't know. Today I leave at 10:00 to go eat lunch in houston (45 minutes away), get to a class at MFAH, leave around 2:00, get home at three, and the leave for dog obedience at 5:30. Have a nice day.

Oct. 8th-Camping

Today we drove home from Double Lake, I have the privilege of sitting in the back seat with two black labs (Koolaid and Lucinda) so I get all hairy. On the 2-hour drive I decided to start a blog, so, here it is.