Captain's Log, Day 125: Easter Incidents

          And now, it's time to recount some amusing Easter anecdotes.
          Well, okay, one in particular. I had to wait on this one for a few years, because a) I got teased enough for this one as it was, and b) it took me a few years to be able to bring this one to mind this one without wincing.
          As anyone who has read my quick introduction of myself knows, I'm a solid Catholic. Part of what that meant for me and my brother Nemesis was that we would occasionally assist, or "serve," for Masses. We both enjoyed it, and eventually got enough experience to get asked to serve for the big occasions, like Christmas, Easter, or for the bishop. This particular Easter, we were asked to both serve the big Vigil Mass on Saturday night (the two-and-a-half-hour-long one) and the bishop was going to be there. Needless to say, it was a big event.
          It got even bigger for me during the practice. Normally, alter servers are classified into groups; these guys get candles, this guy get the cross, and this guy acts as a bookstand. Good stuff. I was instructed to be what we called the "incense guy" because we couldn't remember what the correct term actually was. (Still can't.) My job involved hot coals and copious amounts of smoke. I hid my delight at being allowed to feed my pyromania and resisted the temptation to perform experiments with fire like a miniature saint. I did managed to burn myself slightly, but I was used to such occurrences and continued serving with no more than a passing thought to my singed digits.
          Near the end of Mass, all servers (except for myself with the incense thingy and Nemesis, who was operating the bells) were given tall candles and requested to stand for about twenty minutes with them. The candles looked rather heavy, making me rather glad I only had a solid metal incenser to deal with, even if the air currents were blowing the smoke straight into my face. I kept an eye on some of the other kids; we were all pretty young, but some of the newer guys were pretty small and I didn't know how they'd hold up.
          We all performed admirably. Once we were done, we servers processed from the main church into the sacristy, where we could put the candles away and get ready for the next part of Mass. We quietly reminded each other of jobs we had to perform before slipping back out, one by one, to the church proper. Nemesis and I, as the senior servers, would be the last ones to leave. One of the youngest and smallest kids set his tall candle down on the floor and attempted to blow it out, which limited success; it was taller than he was.
          "Here, I'll get that," I offered, closing my hand around the candle and blowing down on it. "I can put it back in its stand, too--I'll meet you out there."
          He nodded and vanished out the door. I grinned; he must have been tired. I closed both hands around the heavy candle and gave a mighty heave to pick it up.
          Apparently, the candle was nowhere near as heavy as I'd been led to believe. It flew off the ground. I almost yelped, reflexes stopping the candle before it smashed into my face. I didn't even have time to register gratefulness before the liquid wax left the candle and splattered all over the left side of my face.
          Fortunately, long years of childhood incidents had given me the reflexes of a cat; I was able to get my eye shut before the wax hit. I thought briefly about clawing it off my face pronto--the stuff was pretty hot--but decided to wait for it to solidify a little before peeling it off. It probably wouldn't burn me, I decided with the air of one who has encountered many types of hot substances (including this one, when I'd stuck half my hand into a just-extinguished candle out of pure curiosity). I scrambled around to try to find my handkerchief before discovering that I couldn't find the pocket in my robe.
          "Nemesis, I need your hankie," I staged-whispered at my brother's back, moments before he would step out of the sacristy.
          "Use your own," he returned over his shoulder, hardly pausing.
          "NEMESIS, give me your hankie or so help me, I'll murder you in front of the entire church!" I hissed at him.
          The death threat worked where persuasion hadn't. He turned around. "Why--oh, goodness," he interrupted himself when he saw my face. "Here you go."
          "Thanks. Can you get it wet for me?" I asked, already beginning to try to work the stuff off my face, and losing a few eyelashes in the process.
          Nemesis, the ever-protective of his possessions, gave me a look like I'd just asked him to murder the family dog, but obediently dampened the handkerchief and gave it to me. "Need anything else?" he asked with the air of a martyr.
          I ignored his expression. "Nah, get out there. I'll be out in a second."
          He shrugged--at least, I think he did--and vanished. It took me a few minutes to get the wax off and ensure that my eye was undamaged before joining the other servers.
          The rest of Mass passed without incident, although I forgot to steady the giant hanging candle when I lit it later and left it swinging slowly (an effect Dad claimed was vaguely mesmerizing and jokingly accused me of trying to hypnotize the congregation). It turned out later that the left side of my nose, hit hard by the hot wax, now looked sunburned, but it was dark enough in the church to pass unnoticed by all except the keen eyes of the parental unit. The priests and bishop, used to mishaps of one sort or another, graciously accepted my explanation with no more than token jesting. Fortunately, nothing like that ever happened at any of my future Masses...
          ...but needless to say, I've never heard the end of this one.

Captain's Log, Day 124: A Battle for the Honor and Glory of the Realm!

          My stupid alarm went off, way earlier than I thought justified. On the other hand, it was eight o'clock, and I was pushing it if I wanted to get dressed and get to class on time. I sighed, rolled over, and reached over the bed to snag my phone and shut the alarm off.
          The "text received" light was flashing. Strange. I never got a text before 10am. I also usually didn't get texted until I messaged someone. Frowning, I unlocked my phone and checked my messages.

          Ben: Kings pawn to E4.

          This was going to be a good day.
          Ben and I had started playing mental chess during one of our classes together in undergrad--specifically, drawing. Two straight hours of sketching was usually more boring than either of us had liked, so we tried to play chess by telling each other what our moves were and then remembering what the board looked like. A difficulty arose in that some of the letters and numbers sounded the same, and since we were talking in low voices, we sometimes lost track of where pieces were going.
          But I digress. This was how my day went, at least on a mental level.

          Me: King's pawn to E5.
          Ben: Queens knight toA3
          Me: Queen's knight's pawn to B6
          Ben: Queen's knight to C4
          Me: King's bishop's pawn to F6
          Ben: King's bishop's pawn to F3
          Me: Queen's pawn to D5
          Ben: Queen's bishops pawn to C3
          Ben: Careful. This is the point where blood soaks the streets.
          Me: Right...but it's not mine! Queen's bishop's pawn to C4, takes knight
          Ben: Kings bishop to C4, takes pawn
          Ben: And i think you meant queen's pawn.
          Me: Whoops, yeah...king's bishop to C5
          Ben: Queen to A4. Check.
          Me: Queen's bishop's pawn (the real one this time) to C6. Uncheck.
          Ben: Queen's pawn to D4.
          Me: King's pawn to D4, takes pawn
          Ben: Queen's bishop's to D4, takes pawn
          Me: King's bishop to D4, takes pawn
          Ben: Queen's bishop to F4
          Me: King's bishop to B2, takes pawn
          Ben: Queen's bishop to B8. Takes knight.
          Me: King's bishop to A1. Takes rook.
          Ben: Queen tp c6, takes pawn, pins rook. Check.
          Ben: I think I just heard you scream "Son of a gun" all the way from Iowa.
          Me: Actually, I yelled "DANGIT WHY DIDN'T I SEE THAT????" but yeahhhh....
          Me: Queen's bishop to D7, uncheck, much cussing
          Ben: Gah. Traffic. Queen takes rook.
          Me: Ughh...queen's knight's pawn to B5
          Ben: Kings bishop to F7.
          Ben: Check.
          Me: Uhh, king to F7. Uncheck. Why?
          Ben: Because queen to D5. Check
          Me: King to G6. Uncheck.
          Ben: Rooks pawn to H4.
          Me: King's knight to E7.
          Ben: Rooks pawn to h5. Check.
          Me: Yeahhh, king to H6, followed by cussing
          Ben: Bishop checkmates king. Good game. :)
          Me: HA! Not quite. KING'S KNIGHT'S PAWN TO H5. BLOCKED.
          Me: ....did I just hear a "son of a gun" emanating from Iowa? ;)
          Ben: Well, crap....
          Ben: CHIN DAO SI SI MO TAE GORAM. I may need time to consider this move.
          Me: What the heck does that mean?
          Ben: Dunno. Heard it from Mal. I assume its cussin'

          So, anyway, that was Day 1. Day 2 started out with....

          Ben: Queen to G5. Takes pawn, check. Possibly mate.
          Me: King's bishop's pawn to G5. Takes queen. Uncheck.
          Me: ...was that cussing I heard?
          Ben: Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap
          Ben: Queen's bishop to E5
          Me: King's bishop to E5, takes bishop
          Me: I haven't moved that guy since I took your rook haha
          Ben: Nooooooooooooo
          Ben: King's knight to H3
          Me: Bishop to C3, check
          Ben: Queen's knight to C3. Takes bishop.
          Me: Uhh, queen's knight died a while ago
          Me: Right after your "blood soaks the street" comment, I pulled a "Queen's bishop's pawn to C4, takes knight." He's dead, Jim.
          Me: ...I did send flowers to his funeral, though.
          Ben: Drat you're right. Hold on, I need to set up a chess board. Sleep does bad things to the memory.
          Me: I need to go BUY a chess board haha
          Ben: King to G1, rook to F1.
          Me: Uh, you can't castle out of a check. My bishop's still covering your king.
          Ben: ??? Googling.
          Me: I've tried that on my computer chess program repeatedly before--it doesn't work, unfortunately
          Ben: Dag frabbit.
          Ben: I had you on the ropes too...
          Me: Thank goodness for the reserve troops
          Ben: I move my king you take my last knight with your bishop, pawn takes bishop, queen moves to 1st row, checkmate.
          Me: Clever of me, right? ;)
          Ben: Well played, my friend. A very good game.
          It was, at that. It was a very good game. As my old Humans versus Zombies team would say...FOR HONOR!! FOR GLORY!!! FOR VICTORYYYY!!!!!

Captain's Log, Day 123: A New Short Story

          This is my latest short story. I decided to see if I could write a short story without any action whatsoever. I cracked up the whole time I was writing it.

Interview with an Immortal

          “So you say you’re over two thousand years old?”

          “Actually, I said I was somewhere in the neighborhood of four thousand, so you’re technically correct.”

          “And you’re immortal?”

          “Never claimed to be immortal. I just haven’t died. Yet. But sure, for the sake of argument, let’s say I’m immortal.”

          “Interesting. So, were you able to see the pyramids being built?”

          “No.”

          “No?”

          “No, they were built before I was born.”

          “Wow. When were you born?”

          “About four thousand years ago. Sorry I can’t narrow it down any further than that—they weren’t very good at the whole dates thing, and besides—y’all keep changing the calendar. Plus, I can’t actually remember.”

          “So what were some notable historical events you’ve witnessed?”

          “I’m an unlucky immortal.”

          “How so?”

          “I missed pretty much all of them. Big world. Inopportune timing. Personal stupidity.”

          “Were you around for the sack of Troy?”

          “Sort of.”

          “Sort of?”

          “I was in Troy for a while, but I got bored and snuck out before the Greeks sacked it. I was checking out the Greek ships when they got back. Well, I say checking out…I was going to steal one, but I got caught.”

          “The Greek ships?”

          “Yes. I sailed back with them. By the way…the Odyssey?”

           “Yes…?”

          “Bunch of baloney. Odysseus just had no idea how to navigate. It was physically painful to watch.”

          “Why didn’t you help?”

          “I was TIED TO THE BOW as a FIGUREHEAD. It was humiliating.”

          “So what was the Renaissance like?”

          “Missed it. Sailed with some Vikings over to America in the early thousands and the idiots left me there.”

          “Did you ever go back to Europe?”

          “Yes, I did—just before the Revolutionary War.”

          “What was the Revolutionary War really like?”

          “I dunno. I sailed to Europe right before that, remember? Missed that too!”

          “Maybe you can settle some historical conflict. Was King Arthur a real person?”

          “I’m pretty sure he was. I mean, I remember overhearing some things—“

          “Overhearing?”

          “Yeah, I fell down a well in Britain. Got stuck there for about a hundred years. Locals thought I was an enchanted well. The cussing really should have tipped them off.”

          “Before the Viking trip?”

          “Yeah—by the time I got out, I wanted to get off that stupid island.”

          “I can imagine. Well, did you meet Jesus, at least?”

          “NO. I MISSED THAT TOO. I was in Rome at the time, pretending to be Zeus.”

          “Uh—“

          “It seemed like a good idea at the time, okay?”

          “Um…okay. How long were you in Rome?

          “Until they got the Colosseum up and running. I left after they kept forcing me to get stabbed by various gladiators.”

          “Ouch. Then what?”

          “I don’t remember much for the next few hundred years. I think it was because I got stuck on the outskirts of Pompeii. I remember getting dug out…then I tried to travel to China.”

          “Did you make it?”

          “No. I’m still not sure where I made a wrong turn, but that’s how I wound up in Britain.”

          “Then America, then back to Europe…what did you do then?”

          “Went to France. Worked in a mine for a while before it collapsed on me.”

          “When was this?”

          “Right before the French Revolution.”

          “When did you get out?”

          “Right AFTER the French Revolution. Missed that too.”

          “Well, at least you saw the moon landing, right?”

          “NO, I was in jail.”

          “For what?”

          “Trying to sneak in to the launch site to get a good seat for the liftoff. Do we have to relive all of this?”

          “I guess not. So why are you applying for this program?”

          “I want to get off the planet. See the sights. Explore the universe.”

          “That—“

          “And maybe change my luck a little.”

          “Well…I have some bad news.”

          “What, didn’t pass my physical?”

          “No, you passed with flying colors. It’s just…well, the government took an interest. Since you can’t die, they’d like to run some tests.”

          “I’d rather they not—“

          “You don’t have a choice. Look on the bright side—you could be the cure of all of humanity’s physical ailments!”

          “You have GOT to be kidding me.”

          “Also, there’s another good thing.”

          “What?”

          “It’s the 21^st century. We can play the TV footage of the first interstellar launch to your lab so you won’t miss another historic moment!”

          “…I hate you.”

Captain's Log, Day 122: Airbags Needed. Desperately.

          They were solid. Really solid. Weighed probably ten or fifteen pounds apiece. Made out of some kind of heavy wood. Could level full-grown trees if it was going fast enough.
          And yet, it still couldn't protect us from hurting ourselves. Probably because, as twelve, ten, eight and six years old respectively, we were stupid.
          "Dibs on the front!" I yelled quickly, to forestall any quarrels. However, I forgot that I was dealing with my siblings here--we could start an argument over literally anything.
          "I wanted the front!" Quill protested.
          "Too bad--I called it," I told her firmly. "You can have second."
          "I call back!" Nemesis volunteered.
          "Squirrel gets the back," Quill told him. "It's okay--she usually falls off anyway."
          This was true. Squirrel usually opted to bail out at the first sign of trouble which, for her, translated into "the first bump on the hill." Usually, we don't ride together, preferring to take turns; but now, since we got a new sled and we all wanted to try it out, we set aside animosity in favor of fun.
          It went about as well as expected; Squirrel bailed out almost instantly, while the rest of us screamed down the hill to slam full-tilt into the tree planted squarely in our path. Well, the sled slammed into the tree; Nemesis and Quill bailed out before impact, while I tried to steer for just a moment too long, clipping the tree on my frantic dive off the stubborn sled and spinning into a bush.
          "This hill rocks," Nemesis grinned, watching me extricate myself from the shrubbery.
          "How's the sled?" I asked.
          Quill was already checking it out for signs of damage. "Looks good. Definitely sturdier than our other one!"
          I grinned, shaking off the final, particularly persistent branch. "Wanna go again?"
          "Yeah!" Quill yelled, but a sense of loyalty to the older model caused her to add, "But on the other toboggan, though."
          "Are you alive?" Squirrel called down.
          "Yeah!" I yelled back, muttering "Wuss," under my breath. Quill hit me with a snowball, so I tackled her into the nearest drift. Nemesis emitted a long-suffering sigh and trudged up the hill with the sled. Quill and I raced after him, eager to race to the bottom.
          Well, if we could.
          See, this hill was one of the most treacherous pieces of terrain ever known to the intrepid sledder. It started with a nice, almost vertical drop before slanting towards the tree we had just crashed into. If we could avoid the tree, then the hill sloped towards a stump/tree combination, which guarded the pass to a fifteen-foot cliff, below which ran the creek. Usually, we slammed full-tilt into that, but I held the honor of having steered too far to the left and missing it entirely. It was only thanks to reflexes and guardian angels that I had managed to leap clear of the sled and snag an overhanging branch as the sled took a nosedive into the ice below. I'd hung there like a limp piece of laundry, looking down at the sled and wishing I didn't have to take the long way around to retrieve it. But I digress.
          If you steered to the right of the stump, as opposed to slamming straight into it, you could run parallel to the cliff and towards another, shorter, jump. Survive that, and the hill sloped away from the cliff (good) and straight into pricker bushes (bad). If you managed to keep your head low and shoot between the bushes (not unlike spitting from the top of the Empire State Building and trying to hit a penny on the sidewalk), you would shoot out the other side and into the creek, skidding across it and straight into the sheer bank on the other side, where your ride would stop. I held the honor of being the first person to actually make it all the way down; a dubious honor at best, because the ice broke moments after I crashed into the bank. Needless to say, I got very cold and very wet.
          Nemesis, of course, coined the name of this awesome obstacle course: "Terror Hill."
          Quill and Nemesis took off down the hill; I decided to watch. It was a good thing I did, because they missed the first tree but couldn't avoid the stump. Quill wound up wedged between the trunks of two trees, while Nemesis was thrown way off to the right and lay spread-eagled on his back. I laughed my head off, applauding at the same time.
          "Nice one!" I yelled. I took a running start and hurled myself onto the sled, shooting down the hill. I missed the tree, the stump (almost hit Nemesis, though) and preformed an amazing skid straight into the middle of the briar patch, getting stuck and scratched. I muttered a few words that I'd heard Dad use in the shop once. Quill, midway through prying herself loose, gave me a disapproving glare.
          "Wow," Nemesis grunted. "Did you see that?"
          Quill came loose with a plop. "I had my eyes shut. Look where I ended up!"
          "I think that was the best crash yet," Nemesis decided.
          "No argument from me. But I went the farthest," I pointed out, dragging my sled up to meet them. The goal here, of course, was to have increasingly worse crashes, the more spectacular the better.
          I trudged up the hill with my toboggan, Quill and Nemesis following me and chattering about their crash. I preferred to carry my sled myself, while the other two shared their load. Squirrel met us at the top; she'd been populating the hill with snowmen. I tied my sled to our golden retriever's collar and climbed on. "Geddyap, Max!"
          Maxie sprang on me and started licking my face. So much for having a sled dog.
          This time, I opted to go first with Squirrel. She bailed during the first jump, shoving my sled over far enough to slam me straight into the tree. I went over the top, winding up sprawled upside-down at the base with my legs over my head. The snow was just deep enough to make righting myself difficult.
          "A little help here?" I called. Quill and Nemesis, sense of compassion long since frozen by the cold, laughed at me and took off down the hill instead. They missed the wreckage of my sled by over-steering and flipping end over end past the tree.
          I dug myself out while the intrepid duo compared notes on how far away they had landed from each other. Scooping up a choice bit of snow, I hurled it at Nemesis. Suddenly, we had a full-blown snowball fight on our hands.
          I was managing to hold my own against both Quill and Nemesis when a golden-coated avenger shot into no-man's-land and picked off two perfectly aimed snowballs.
          "Aww, come on, Maxie!" I yelled in frustration, a moment before he snagged a salvo of the allies' shots from out of the air in front of my face. Maxie did love a good snowball fight, preferring to snatch and eat our snowballs rather than, you know, help out with distractions or staying out of the way. It was kind of a mixed blessing.
          With the now-ready Max patrolling the contested ground, we were forced to give up the rather pointless fight and hurl challenges, insults, and boasts at each other as we returned to the top of the hill. Once we reached the peak, we collapsed, exhausted, to make snow angels.
          Until I remembered the hot chocolate inside, racing to beat the other kids inside. I lost to Quill and Nemesis.
          BUT.
          I got the most marshmallows.

Captain's Log, Day 121: Spies of the Scaffold

          Uh oh, MOM ALERT.
          I hurled myself out of the window with a speed generally associated with converting most carbon-based life forms into some type of liquid upon impact with Mother Earth. However, I was ten and was possessed of the two most powerful and inexplicable pieces of wisdom to ever be conceived in the mind of a child: a firm belief in my own invincibility that carried me through childhood relatively unscathed, and the knowledge that Mother Earth would mete out a much kinder fate than Mom would, if the latter caught me playing on the scaffolding again.
          Throwing my shoulder towards the ground, I turned my headlong dive into a beautiful tuck-and-roll, landing on one of the scaffold platforms and rolling off the edge. I fell briefly before I snagged one of the cross braces with the ease of long practice and hung, dangling, out of sight of the window.
          My siblings were huddled on the platform below me, suppressing snickers. "Was Mom up there?" Nemesis (6 at the time) stage-whispered.
          I swung myself back and forth to get the necessary momentum to direct my fall to their platform. "Yeah," I snickered, landing with a heavy thud next to the 8-year-old Quill. "I think she and Dad were going to check out the living room."
          Quill's eyes lit up. "We could try to get past them into our room by climbing over there--" she pointed to the kitchen, "--and then going straight up!"
          "What about Squirrel?" I asked. The youngest of our group at 4 years old, Squirrel possessed all the daring of her namesake but lacked the climbing ability; the scaffold between ground and first floor was all the higher she could go, and that was with some generous boosting.
          "She can stay and guard," Quill suggested. She turned to Squirrel. "If you hear Mom going upstairs, hit the post here."
          "Like this?" Squirrel inquired, whanging on the member with a discarded stick she had found.
          "SHHHH!!!" I hissed. "Only if Mom goes upstairs!"
          "Oh, okay," Squirrel replied cheerfully, ceasing her infernal racket.
          Staying low, I led the way to the edge of the platform. Swinging around the leg, I snagged the ladder, climbed halfway up to the next level, and jumped across the gap to the other ladder, shinnying through it to get to the platform across from the one we had just left. Like monkeys, Nemesis and Quill followed my lead. We quickly traversed the next section similarly, crossing underneath the gaping windows of our unfinished house and out of sight for the parental unit.
          Once we reached the edge of the scaffolding that was over by the kitchen, I grasped the ladder and crept up it slowly, taking great care to scan the inside of the house. It was buzzing with the pleasant noise of construction, workers playing radios and banging on things. Dad sometimes gave us jobs to do to help out, like drilling holes for electrical cords and suchlike; but since he was discussing boring stuff with Mom (like "Where should we put the piano?"), it was more fun now to sneak around on the scaffold like miniature spies. Dad didn't really care if we hung out on the scaffold (as long as there were no workers on it for us to annoy), but Mom had the certainty that no doubt comes with watching us fall out of everything that could potentially support our weight that we would end up paralytics. I'm not sure it crossed her mind that the metal scaffold was considerably sturdier than most of the trees we climbed, and a lot easier to hold on to as well.
          No sign of Mom. I shot up the ladder, passing the first floor in a dirty flash. (I'd recently held a dirt war with my siblings, and the results of my hard-earned victory were evident.) I was concentrating so hard on listening for any shouts of discovery that I forgot to pay attention to where I was climbing, with the result that I brained myself on the underside of the second-story platform.
          Rubbing my head ruefully, I pulled myself up on top of the plank I had brilliantly climbed straight into and sat down to wait for my siblings. Quill showed up first, of course, choking with suppressed laughter. I gave her the evil eye as Nemesis followed suit. Forestalling any teasing, I pointed to the open window of what would soon be Squirrel's and Quill's bedroom.
          "What should we do in there?" I asked.
          Nemesis gave me a wide grin, itching the band-aid on his leg (slight accident over at the barn foundations; was NOT my fault). "Let's spy on Mom and Dad from the landing!" he proposed.
          Imaginations fired, we raced across the platform and leapt through the window, pausing to pick up discarded pieces of wood for a quick duel. Then, holding our makeshift swords, we crept out the door and to the edge of the landing. I peeked over.
          Seeing the floor that far away always made my feet feel funny. Ignoring the tingling, I listened to Mom and Dad discussing furniture placement and snickered with my siblings over the supposed obliviousness of the parental unit. Then--
          WHANGWHANGWHANG!!!!!
          I wasn't sure if Squirrel was bored and giving us a false alarm, but Nemesis and Quill were clearly not interested in taking chances. They bolted towards the bedroom and the scaffold retreat. I gave it a moment--almost a moment too long, as Mom and Dad crossed into the entryway and started to glance up. I leapt back like a scalded frog and tied my siblings to the window. There was a brief traffic jam before we sorted out the exit order and departed to get Squirrel to stop beating on that post already seriously ONCE WAS ENOUGH...
          Panting, breathless, and flushed with victory, we sat on the platform for a few moments...well, my siblings sat on the platform; I perched on the cross-brace above them like a bird on a power line.
          "Now what?" Nemesis asked.
          I shrugged. "Another clod war?"
          "No!" they all chorused.
          "You're boring!" I flicked a piece of dirt at my brother.
          "We could get our swords and go knock down corn stalks in the front yard!" Quill suggested eagerly.
          The plan met with assent all around, and our wooden swords were soon shoved through belts or shorts as we set out for some "sword practice."
          Yeah, pretty much the best summer ever.

Captain's Log, Day 120: Documenting Some Changes

          So, does anyone remember (or even notice) that I have a small tab down the side of my blog--underneath "Stories of my Childhood" and above "Comics"--that's just labeled "Stories"? And are you familiar enough with that tab to notice that I haven't updated it in two years and it just contains the short story HvZ?
         *EDIT: The tab is now at the top of my page. Changes. You get the idea.*
          Trick question. I know you don't read that.
          Well, I finally got around to updating it! I've got five new links in the "Stories" tab, and they actually contain...well...stories. Or parts of them, anyway. I have linked some short, random excerpts from my books there now, along with brief descriptions about them so you don't have to get halfway through them before realizing that I can't write. I suppose you could just read my main blog to determine that, but hey--whatever floats your boat.
          I'm also considering updating my blog look again. Given that I really like the theme I have going, the redesign will go in two directions; one, I'm going to shorten the top picture (the one of the spaceship) because it takes a while to load and I have to scroll down before I can even see anything I've written. I call that SEVERELY ANNOYING.
          Also, despite the whole "star ship captain" thing I have going on, I should probably stop using James T. Kirk as my profile picture. There's probably a copyright infringement or something going on there. Probably not a good idea. Additionally, I came up with a my own personal logo, which I think looks really cool and I need an excuse to use it.
          Anyway, these changes will take place over the next few days (although the stories are already loaded and in place). If anyone else has any suggestions, please let me know!

          In other news, this is what has been keeping me busy the last couple weeks:

And this, kids, is what it looks like when markers throw up. This is probably whiteboard abuse.

          For those who know how to do heat transfer problems, I ALREADY KNOW THIS IS WRONG. (Unit conversion issues, mainly.) I have since corrected said issues and checked with my professor, who verified my answer. I just put this picture up because MY NEW WHITEBOARD ROCKS.

          --Radar Midway, signing off to go program (which sounded way more awesome in my head, but just looks geeky in text. Oh well.)

Captain's Log, Day 119: Moving In!

          "Well, here we are!"
          Three hours on the road and one almost-ended-up-wearing-a-couch-as-a-hood-ornament incident into the day, my family and I had finally arrived at the apartment. I was here because this is where I was going to be living for the foreseeable future. My family was here because they didn't think I could move myself in properly. (Spoiler--they were probably right.)
          "Check out the kitchen!" Mom pointed happily--I guess she wanted me to practice the culinary arts more than I had at college. (Hello, Papa Murphy's.) I was more interested in the large living room, casting my eyes around it with the practiced gaze of a hopeful martial artist. "I bet I could do five tornado round-kicks in here without running out of room," I mused.
          My family, predictably, ignored me, the siblings scattering to explore the nooks and crannies. Mom and Dad dragged me out of the living room into the kitchen to point out all the amenities of cooking. A few moments later, Quill's voice floated out of the hall leading to the bedrooms. "Hey, I found the linen closet!"
          I snickered. "Soon to be relabeled the beer closet."
          "Radar," Mom scolded me.
          "I was kidding," I pointed out, rolling my eyes. "You know I hate beer. Well, except root beer, anyway."
          "Hey, that's what we used that closet for--beer," Dad told me with a straight face.
          "Don't encourage him," Mom grumbled.
          "I'm thinking that's where I'll put my extra computer equipment," I decided, referencing the massive collection of computer paraphernalia that I never traveled anywhere without.
          "Hey, Nemesis, let's get the furniture off the truck!" Dad yelled down the hall at my brother.
          "Got it." Nemesis replaced his fedora on his head and vanished out the door after Dad.
          "Which room are you going to use?" Squirrel inquired a moment later.
          I correctly assumed she meant the bedrooms. "Both," I informed her.
          "Both?" Mom inquired, frowning.
          "Yeah," I laughed. "The small one is going to be my bedroom, and the big one's going to be my office."
          "A little help here?" Dad yelled from the doorway.
          We boys wrestled the couch through the doorway with no more difficulty than we normally faced. Mom and the girls began telling me where to push the couch and chair to try to figure out where it would go, doing their normal approach of putting it in each possible location five or six times before deciding that it was just fine where it had been at the beginning. (It must be a girl thing.) Mom then decided that she wanted to sanitize every inch of the apartment and ordered me out to my car to retrieve the cleaning supplies. As I recalled, I'd conveniently buried them underneath literally everything, so I stomped out to the car to begin unpacking. I yanked the door open and was buried by an avalanche of clothes, sneakers, and boxes.
          Apparently, I'd forgotten that I'd packed everything the the brim, and then had to get help to try to get the car door shut. Whoops.
          Thirty minutes later, I finally managed to retrieve the cleaning supplies. The girls went to town (figuratively) on the apartment while Dad and Nemesis went to town (literally) to grab a few things, like door mats and blinds. I set up my bedroom and began untangling the computer cords to begin construction of my office/evil lair.
          Quill popped her head in. "Hey, Radar, do you want us to dust the blinds out in the living room and bathroom, or do you want us to do that?"
          I looked at her blankly. "Dust the blinds?"
          Quill sighed. "You were right, Mom!" she yelled. "I'll get it!"
          "Why do I feel like I was just the source of a bet?" I muttered under my breath.
          By the time Dad and Nemesis got back, the girls had scrubbed basically everything and organized the kitchen, and I was about half done with my evil lair. We were able to wrap things up by about 1:30, at which point the siblings were threatening to eat ME, at which point we adjourned to a fast-food joint for some shrimp.
          Let grad school commence!!!!

Captain's Log, Day 118: Detailing Decoration Dilemmas

          "Grab the end of the lights!"
          "I got them...now what?"
          "Now you get in the bucket, I lift you up to the roof, and you put them on!"
          "Wait...I gotta be in a bucket with him??"
          "Ohh, just do it..."
          With some slight pushing and shoving, Nemesis and I climbed into the bucket of the tractor. Dad throttled up and raised the bucket towards the roof. I maintained a death grip on Nemesis and the bucket edge. Nemesis gave me a quizzical look. "Why--?"
          "If he tips us out and I die, you're coming with me," I told him.
          "You really think that's a good idea? If I'm there, I'll tell St Peter the truth, you know," Nemesis pointed out logically.
          "Good point." I laughed and let go of my brother.
          We lurched to a stop in front of the roof. Nemesis held up the lights and I started strapping them into place. After a couple minutes, Dad re-positioned the tractor so we could continue down the edge of the roof, a move prompted by me almost falling out of the bucket trying to reach the next section.
          Fortunately, it didn't take too much longer to hang the lights, which was good because it was COLD out. When we were done, Dad lowered Nemesis and myself down towards the ground. When we were halfway there, he tipped the bucket. Nemesis and I were wise to his ways, however, and opted to bail out. We took off for the house before he could start chasing us with the tractor.
          Inside the house was crazy. Girls were running back and forth with lights, greenery, stuffed Santas, and cookies. Nemesis and I helped them put away a few cookies. We made quite a dent in the supply before we were discovered and forcibly ordered out of the kitchen. Pragmatically, we departed to untangle more lights and steal a few strings for our room.
          "Hey, guys, we need to set up the Christmas village!" Quill yelled at us a few minutes later.
          Nemesis and I returned from our now-glowing room (glowing because of lights, not nuclear waste, although the second guess would have been just as likely) carrying half of the Christmas village in one go because we were competing to see who could carry the most boxes the longest. Mom intercepted Nemesis just before his stack would have collapsed. "I won!" I yelled gleefully.
          "No fair!" Nemesis complained. "Mom interfered!"
          "You should have avoided the obstacle," I pointed out.
          "New rule: you're limited to three or four boxes each," Mom informed us, graciously ignoring the fact that I'd just referred to her as an obstacle. "You need to be able to see coming up the stairs."
          "Vision is overrated," I muttered, accidentally knocking my glasses off my face and then stepping on them when I tried to find them. Being used to such occurrences, I bent them back into shape and stuck them back on my face. "I'll set up the table!"
          As always, it was my duty to set up the Christmas village, a duty I defended fiercely. The final results usually looked pretty good, so I was never ousted. Everyone helped, but worked under my direction. Squirrel tried a hostile takeover once; the rebellion was promptly quashed when I hurled a box at her.
          Then, after dinner, it was time for decorating the Christmas tree. Everyone had their own box of ornaments that they put up, with only the traditional squabbles occurring.
          "Radar, that's my bird!"
          "Squirrel, you do this every year. This is my bird. Paws off!"
          "Quill, tell him it's my bird!"
          Quill looked up from where she was meticulously organizing her ornaments by size, unlike the rest of us who were just throwing ours on the tree without thought to order. "Actually, Squirrel, it is his. We do go through this every year."
          "Mom!" Squirrel appealed to the higher authorities. The higher authorities held up her hands in the universal signal for "Don't look at me; I'm staying out of this one." Squirrel huffed. "Fine, you can hang it up this year."
          "And next year, too," I pointed out, laughing before I faceplanted the tree trying to reach a high branch.
          "Mom?" Nemesis peered around the tree. "Radar's hanging all of his ornaments on this side of the tree again."
          Mom peered over her glasses at me. "Could you spread them around the tree, please?"
          "Nope," I replied cheerfully. "This way, I don't have to hunt for them when we have to take them down!"
          Mom sighed, giving up on a lost cause. "He's his father's son," she announced to the world in general, with a pointed look at Dad, who was doing the same thing with their ornaments. Dad thought for a second before moving one of their ornaments to the other side of the tree, commenting, "I don't do that! See?"
          Everyone laughed. "I'm done!" I announced.
          "You're kidding." Nemesis stared at me in disbelief.
          "Does anyone need help?" I asked.
          "Sure, I do," Quill told me. "Can you hang this up high?"
          "No problem," I told her. "Which side is yours?"
          Quill rolled her eyes. "I'm a sane person. I don't have a side. Just put it up high, please." She picked up four or five ornaments and began walking around the tree, looking for good branches.
          A few minutes later, we were done. We all paced around it for a few moments, admiring our work.
          "You know what we have to do now?" Quill finally asked at length.
          "Way ahead of you," I announced proudly, running to the closet to pull out my presents for everyone else. I placed them under the tree proudly. "There, now it's a Christmas Tree!"
          "SQUIRREL, DON'T SHAKE THE PRESENTS!!!!!"

Captain's Log, Day 117: Christmas Morning Tradition!

          Traditions are fun. Christmas traditions are always the best. Goofy Christmas traditions win hands-down.
          I'm not sure when this started, but it was a fact that by the time I was twelve, we Midway siblings had created our own tradition regarding Christmas morning and how it should be spent. A typical Christmas for me went something like this...
          IT'S CHRISTMAS!!! my brain screeched at me, jolting me awake at 6:30 in the morning. I snapped my eyes open to gaze around the room, noting the distinct lack of light, and gave a happy wiggle. Rolling over, I braved the Kracken under my bed to reach an arm down and fumble around on the floor for my glasses. I snatched them up an instant before a tentacle curled around my arm. An active imagination was a fine thing.
          My younger brother, Nemesis, must have already been up. He poked his head over the side of his bed, looking down at me. He occupied the top bunk, due to the facts that 1) I was lazy and didn't want to climb up there, and 2) I'd fallen off the top more times than I could count due to inherent clumsiness. "Merry Christmas, Radar!" he stage-whispered.
          "Merry Christmas!" I replied, grinning broadly and high-fiving him quietly. Nemesis' hair, like mine, was an absolute rat's nest in the morning, and his glasses were making him look like a rumpled owl. "What time is it now?"
          "6:32 and 14...15...16..." Nemesis told me, glancing at the wristwatch he had strapped to the rail on his bunk.
          I sighed. "I suppose we should let Mom and Dad sleep in."
          Nemesis looked about as happy with the path of patience and virtue as I felt, but nodded dutifully. "I wonder if the girls are up yet?"
          I gaze up at the slats on the underside of Nemesis' bed. "Probably," I mused, raising a foot and pushing up on his mattress. Nemesis made a small squeaking sound and rolled away from the sudden lump that appeared in his mattress. For some reason, that struck me as immensely funny, so I buried my face in my pillow to suppress the laughter that was dying wake the household. When I had caught my breath, I sat up. "Hey, Nemesis, I have an idea for a game!"
          The next thirty minutes passed pleasantly enough, with a quiet yet rousing game of "Avoid the Mattress Moles." Nemesis and I both had our faces buried in our pillow to suppress our maniacal laughter when the door creaked open. I poked my head around the side of the bed to peer at the door.
          "Oh, good, you're awake," Quill whispered, Squirrel squeezing under her arm and entering the room. "Merry Christmas!"
          Both girls had the same hair problem we did, multiplied exponentially by the amount. They looked a bit like angels who had gotten caught in a wind tunnel, the frilly nightgowns that were currently their favorite sleeping apparel probably restricting their walking more than they would appreciate for a pillow fight. I threw a pillow at them to test that theory. "Merry Christmas!"
          Quill caught the projectile with all the deftness of girl stuck with two brothers. Nemesis and I leapt eagerly out of bed. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I asked everyone. There was much nodding and grinning, so I led the way out of the room and to the stairs.
          This is where the tradition really starts. There is a hard and fast rule that you DO NOT PEEK AT THE TREE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, with the rest of your siblings ready to quash the slightest temptation. We don't even go downstairs where the tree is, but instead wait on the stairs for Mom and Dad to wake up. Sometimes, we facilitate the waking up without ever actually admitting that we do so. There's a lot of whispering about what we think might be under the tree, and what our presents to each other might be. Nemesis tried to sneak down the stairs, but I put him in a headlock. Despite the muted thud that was created when we hit the banister, there was no sign of movement from the parents' room.
          I was getting hungry. Quill didn't help. "Dinner's gonna rock."
          "Lasagna!" I grinned.
          "Lasagna!" Nemesis repeated, finally shaking my headlock and heading back up to take his place at the top of the stairs.
          This, of course, sets off a chanting session, whereby we try (albeit in a lowered voice) to wake the parental unit by singing "Lasagna" in as many different styles as we can think of, but even our off-key whisper-yodeling isn't enough. I fell down the stairs to see if that would help. Nothing.
          "Nice," Squirrel congratulated me. I made a face, rubbing my shoulder. "Ow."
          "That didn't work?" Nemesis complained.
          "I think I should go now," I suggested, with a nod towards the bedroom.
          "No, not yet," Quill protested. Everyone else groaned. Nemesis' groan was louder than everyone else's, so I shoved him. He shoved me back, and we started wrestling on the stairs. Quill suddenly capitulated. "Okay, Radar, go ahead," she announced. "Make us proud."
          I leapt off my brother, saluted, and ran for the bathroom, which was right next to Mom and Dad's bedroom. I flushed the toilet several times before washing my hands with both the hot water and cold water turned up all the way. I walked back out with a huge grin on my face. "That oughta get their attention."
          We waited for a while, but nothing happened. It was almost 8:00 by this point, so we decided to send in Squirrel, as the youngest but second noisiest. She beat my record, though, when she accidentally (or so she claimed) sideswiped an open drawer with a resounding crash. We all high-fived her.
          "That was awesome!" I announced.
          "Shh! I think I heard something!" Nemesis hissed.
          We all froze. Nothing. I belched.
          "RADAR!" everyone hissed at me.
          "Sorry," I snickered, trying to figure out how I was able to pull that one off since I hadn't eaten anything yet.
          "Nemesis, do you want to try now?" Quill suggested.
          "How about if I just peek to see if they're up?" Nemesis returned, obviously not wanting to follow a performance as awesome as Squirrel's.
          "I guess so," Quill decided.
          "Maybe they've wised up to us," I suggested.
          Nemesis snuck towards the closed door. The second his hand touched it, we all heard Dad announce, "Come on in. I know you're out there."
          The three of us still by the stairs almost flattened poor Nemesis on our way into the room, yelling "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!" at the top of our lungs.
          Like I said....traditions are fun.

Captain's Log, Day 116: DESOLATION OF SMAUG

          THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. You have have been warned.
          And yes, I did go see part two of the Hobbit tonight. Given that my normal venting buddy decided to go to bed (LAME), I decided to use this as an opportunity to brush up on my writing skills. And to vent. All kinds of venting.
          First--and this cannot be understated--the movie was awesome. I pulled a Thor at the end of the movie, standing up and announcing, "I like this movie. ANOTHER!" I thought it stayed pretty true to the spirit of the book, and even the additions that were added *cough*Legolas*cough* were freaking amazing. To tell the truth, I was originally kind of ticked off that Legolas got added, but after seeing his fight scenes, I was sold. They were almost as good as Ironman's fight scenes (and from me, that is high praise indeed). My favorite part about them was that, unlike most fights, he didn't rely on just one weapon, nor did he stay in roughly the same ten feet of space. He was all over the freaking place, using his hands, feet, knives, and bow depending on where he was and what his surroundings were. Given that I try to practice combat like that, I can appreciate the level of difficulty involved in trying to even imagine such a fight, let alone do it or film it. (I don't care if they used CG and photoshopped Legolas' face in, it was brilliant.) The female elf that was introduced with Legolas, Tauriel, was pretty good herself.
          I will say one thing about Tauriel, though--I don't really know what the point of having her there even was. I thought originally that she was going to have something going on with Legolas, but there appear to be hints of some cross-species romance going on between her and one of the dwarves, which I think is unnecessary and kinda stupid. It also eats up WAY more screen time than it should--I mean, come on, we could either have a few more minutes of freaking DRAGON BREATHING FIRE or we could watch two different species try to sort out romantic feelings. Granted, I am a guy, but still. Useless much?
          Back to awesome: words can't justify how amazing Smaug was. Honestly, I can't imagine how he could have possibly gotten any better. Kudos to his designers. He was basically almost exactly as I imagined him, except that in my imagination he had front legs separate from his wings. A minor detail.
          Hmm, let's see...oh, right. I know the producers wanted this to be a big lead-up into the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but they probably could have just left that part of it alone. They introduced Sauron (or at least his eye) and Gandelf got trapped again...seriously, that guy needs to invest in some jailbreaking spells. I seem to recall him being slightly more capable in the books. Also, I spent a considerable portion of my time yelling at Bilbo for being stupid, mostly when dealing with Smaug. I mean, come on dude--you are facing down a fire-breathing dragon that really wants to eat you, step on you, char-broil you, or in some way reduce you down to your component atoms, and the first thing you do is take the ring off for a CHAT?? I mean, maybe you get some courage points for that, but you then spend the rest of the movie pretty much forgetting that you have it with you? IT MAKE YOU INVISIBLE. THAT'S KIND OF AN ASSET THAT YOU NEED, BUDDY. PUT THE RING ON. It's not scheduled to corrupt you until the first Lord of the Rings movie, anyway.
          Also of note: I think the dwarves should NOT have charged out for a death-or-glory confrontation and then retreated AWAY from their exit. Bad tactical decisions, guys. On the other hand, you made up for it in the furnace room (I'm a sucker for mechanics).
          Oh, and interesting tactical decision...by the producers, to end the movie on a cliffhanger like that. It's a good thing I read the book and know what's gonna happen next, or I would have probably hurled something at the screen. Like the chair I was sitting on. I don't care if it's bolted to the floor--I HATE CLIFFHANGERS.
          And the spiders were amazingly scary. I about crapped myself. Well done, animators. That's gonna haunt me in my nightmares.
          Still, overall, it's a great movie. Go watch it. And I don't want to hear ANYTHING about me spoiling the movie for you, because I warned you at the beginning of this article and you're still reading.
          "I like this movie. ANOTHER!"

Captain's Log, Day 115: Current Events and Momentous News

          So today, this is going to be a legit log where I ramble on about what is currently going on in my life, verses stuff that happened eons ago that I had to write down before I forgot them to make room for all the math equations. (I know, I know, I used legit wrong, but I don't care. I'm not an English major, for cryin' out loud.)
          Actually, I have no idea when I last wrote about current events. Probably a few years ago. I'm too lazy to look it up though.
          Let's see...interesting semester, for sure; there were some good times which I will have to write down at some time, there were mediocre times with I already forgot (it's a really shame most of them occured during my classes!...just kidding) and there also happened many horror stories that I refuse to write about because I don't want to remember them, and besides they were all overshadowed by one very exciting event.
          I.
          Am.
          GRADUATING.
          Yepp, you read that right. This kid is only a few days away from getting his Mechanical Engineering degree. Future plans? I'm heading straight to grad school in January with plans to knock that out of the way in a year/year and a half, so for those who are doing the math (and who can still do math without a calculator--Calc 3 fried my brain a few years ago and I've never recovered), that means that I will have a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering before I turn 23 and potentially by THIS TIME NEXT YEAR. Depends on how many classes are offered during the summer and how industrious I am.
          THE END IS IN SIGHT. I shall soon be unleashed onto the unsuspecting world, which I will conquer with my army of robots!! MWAHAHAHA--sorry, pretend to never heard that. Apparently finals are getting to me. It's always a bit stressful. I also am kinda tired--it's 10:30 pm here and my brain was fried by noon this morning.
          I WILL SURVIVE.
          And in other news, I finished my Christmas shopping...okay, most of it anyway...and am packing up to get ready to go home. I may be stuck moving all this stuff myself, since I can't risk inquisitive family members accidentally or on purpose stumbling into their Christmas present. Also, as always, I plan to booby-trap my brother's present, since this is an ongoing tradition and it would be a royal shame to break with tradition...especially with one that could end with a Nerf dart to his face, depending on how I build it this year.
          I wonder if he reads my blog. Probably not.
          Actually, I'll bet not many people read this, which means my ranting will quietly die somewhere in cyberspace while I spontaneously combust from excitement, stress, and root beer.
          But it's probably better that way!
          I declare this log ENDED.
          Live long and prosper.
          And may trolls never steal your socks.
                    --Radar Midway        

Captain's Log, Day 114: Trees of Summer

          I thought it was going to be another ordinary day in the woods. I mean, all the signs were there. I was loaded up with enough gear to set up camp for the foreseeable future (even though we were going to be back by lunch), my siblings were squabbling with me over weaponry rights (the bow was mine) and I'd managed for the upteenth time to smuggle the ax out of the shop and hide it at the edge of the woods (Mom didn't think I was mature enough at twelve to use it, so all operations with it had to be kept secret). I'd even purloined the junk drawer's entire selection of twist-ties, even though there was honestly no practical purpose for them--I just liked twisting them into random shapes and sculptures.

          "I already called dibs on the bow!" I finally yelled at my sister Quill.

          "But I called dibs yesterday!" she shot back.

          I sighed, then, with inspiration born of utter obviousness, whipped my sword out of my belt. "I'll duel you for it!"

          Our swords were our pride and joy. I'd made them out of thin fiberglass fence posts, with duct tape hilts and amazingly-crafted hand guards. (Trade secret.) Despite the fact that she knew she would lose, Quill drew her sword and attacked. Within the space of ten seconds, I was able to poke her in the stomach.Quill reluctantly conceded both the fight and property rights.

          "I'm challenging you next," my brother Nemesis announced.

          This was a bit more of an issue, as he was almost as good at I was and, moreover, was adept at smashing my hand hard enough to make me drop my sword. Today, though, I wanted to try out the new basket hilt that I'd added to protect my fingers.

          It worked well. I was the undisputed master of the bow. I slung it over my back with the arrows, stuck my sword back through my belt, and added a rubber band pistol and a cap gun to the array of weaponry I had strapped to my waist. I picked up my rubber band rifle and announced my intent to depart.

          "Hold on--Squirrel can't find her boots," Quill admonished me, indicating the youngest member of the family whose sole contribution to the party was the massive delays she usually incurred. 

          Nemesis and I shared a look of mutual frustration, threw up our hands, and stormed outside barefoot to vent our feelings with several more duels. Finally, though, the girls joined us outside and we made tracks for the woods, pausing only so I could snag the ax. 

          All four of us firmly believed that we could have survived in the woods for as long as we wanted to, pleasantly ignoring such trivial things as food and shelter. We spent almost every waking moment during the summer in the five acres of forest behind our house. It had everything we could ever want, up to and including a pleasant creek meandering its lazy way through the valleys that we particularly enjoyed pushing each other into.

          Today's itinerary was the same as every other day: explore the woods, pretend that we were lost, play Robin Hood, hunt for treasure, collect a bunch of dead sticks to start building a fort with, get in a fight, and go home for lunch...and that was just the morning's agenda! We loved summer.

          The whole plan came to a screeching halt when we got the grove with the young saplings in it.

          "These are bouncy!" Nemesis announced, snagging a tree and bending it over. Hanging on to the top, he began jumping, the tree's natural springiness giving him an extra couple of feet to each bounce.

          Of course, we all had to try it now. The grove echoed with shrieks, laughter, and a brief bout of crying when Squirrel let go of hers at the apex of her jump. Nemesis and I had to try that as well, but a combination of expectation of the inevitable results, studious callousness towards personal dismemberment, and a resilience that rubber would envy enabled us to survive the experience without waterworks of the sort Squirrel displayed. 

          The next trees that we selected for bouncing were too close together. Quill and I collided, the branches of our trees meshing together. We started to argue about who needed to switch trees, but as I glanced up, I had a brainwave.

          "Wait! Keep holding on!" I yelled, digging frantically into my pocket with one hand while maintaining a death grip on my tree with the other. Pulling out a couple twist ties, I quickly secured two branches from my tree to two from Quill's. 

          "Don't hurt the trees!" Quill shrieked, letting go. I rolled my eyes at her and let go of mine, too. The trees quivered and rose a little, but stayed locked together. I yelled with triumph. "YES!!!"

          "What was that for?" Quill questioned quizzically. Nemesis wandered over, smelling triumph and wanting to share in the spoils. Squirrel was collecting acorns and ignoring my outburst.

          "Watch!" I ordered, quickly choosing another sapling not too far away. I bent it down towards the first two and twist-tied it to the original pair. I scurried over to the other side and repeated the process. "See?"

          My siblings studied my creation doubtfully. I gave it a couple seconds as I surveyed the tangle of leaves over my head, forming a nice, natural roof...with the four trees forming a dome-like structure...

          Nemesis whooped. "A HOUSE!! NICE!! I WANNA TRY!!!!"

          I distributed the twist ties and helped get them started before returning to my "tree house" and adding some more saplings to it. I quickly discovered that I could weave branches together to hold the trees together, so I gave the rest of the twist ties to my less talented siblings and continued weaving trees together. The area soon began to resemble a village, with houses dotting the hilltop. I had another brainwave and wove another cluster of trees into a second dome, which I then attached to my house by weaving branches together to make a hallway. And then we all decided to make a few guest houses for our imaginary friends. 

          That pretty much set the stage for the summer. Nearly every day, we went out to the village. It stayed together for almost nine years; my house finally split apart in the summer of 2013, the trees having grown enough to pull themselves apart. We practically lived out there for the next three summers, until I discovered a briar patch that I decided to hollow out and convert into an impenetrable fort--

          ...but that's another story.

Captain's Log, Day 113: Song of Silence

          "Havocs, what are your targets?"
          I itched my nose, sorely tempted to just mute the freaking comm. Today, though, I was tired and privately admitted to myself that I wouldn't mind a little backup on my mission. I keyed the comm. "I'm going for the bridge."
          Electro came back almost at the same time. "Bridge."
          Guaran jumped on the bandwagon, but with a slightly different approach. "Pizza."
          I shook my head. "You have got to be kidding me."
          "Finally, someone who has his priorities in order!" Callan joked.
          I snorted, checking my HUD. I had taken off a bit late. "Electro, you can have first crack at the bridge; I'll cover you from the east."
          "Thanks. You're gonna have to blow it if I miss. Why the heck do these things not have freaking bomb sights?"
          "I dunno. That used to be one of my favorite things about the Havoc, but the last round of upgrades removed it for some reason," I replied. "I think the Havoc got reclassified as a fighter."
          My A-20 Havoc, christened the Song of Silence in a rather unnatural and vaguely poetic moment of mine, was a powerful twin-engined weapon of destruction. My three favorite features in no particular order were her speed, her firepower (six 12.7mm machine guns in the nose, two in a dorsal turret and one in a ventral turret), and her resilience. I'd flown the Song missing half a wing, dogfought with a missing engine and (most notably) greased in a crash landing while missing the entire tail section. There was a definite bond with my aircraft; the same bond the probably formed between the other pilots in my squad and their planes.
          Not that I knew any of them. The aircraft scrambled for this mission were chosen randomly, and I didn't think I had flown with any of them. I probably would have remembered Guaran.
          New mission, same parameters as last time. Not that I minded too much; I loved flying in the mountains. It was also easier to shake pursuers than over plains; since I knew my craft so well, I was absolutely fearless at taking the Song between the tightest peaks and sending her hurtling low over ridges, barely 20 meters above the ground.
          Electro coughed. "Coming up, bridge in sight."
          "I'm on your six high," Guaran confirmed.
          "Three low," I called back.
          "MISSED!!" Electro cursed. "Radar, you're up!"
          "Lining up now," I confirmed, positioning myself carefully.
          "Radar, watch your six high--three bandits on your kiester!" Guaran yelled.
          "Three?" I switched to turret view, swearing as I saw the squad closing in for the kill. My Havoc was resilient, but there was no way she would survive a three-fighter attack. Still, there was no way we were going down without a fight. I abandoned my bombing run and lined my turret sights up on the lead plane as he opened fire, hauling back on the joystick as his bullets ripped through the air underneath me. My finger tightened convulsively on the trigger.
          There was no way I could have hit him, pitching and rolling as I was, but hit him I did--squarely in the fuel tank, if the explosion was anything to go by. I couldn't quite believe it, and kept the bullets streaming through the center of the blast. His wingmate, following close on his tail, was ripped apart by my bullets as he flew straight into my line of fire. The third fighter swooped in from five high, but he was now a lone fighter against the might of the Song of Silence. I cut both his wings off and pulverized his engine for good measure. He plummeted towards the ground.
          I checked the intel. Our side had taken off with eight planes; seven were still in the air. The other side had matched us, so, with my victory, I had removed almost half of the opposition. More than half, actually, because the first two fighters shot down were the most advanced the enemy had to offer. The rest would be easy prey for the other hunters of my squad. The Song was unmarked; not even a stray bullet had hit her.
          "I got the bridge!" Guaran cheered.
          "And I'm still alive!" I yelled back, swooping low over enemy tanks and unloading all four bombs over them. Two vanished in the ensuing explosions. Electro, the other Havoc pilot, had joined Callan's four-man squad and were harrying the enemy fighters back towards their own base. They were being bracketed by anti-airgun fire, and as I watched, two enemies fell to Callan's guns just before he was shot out of the sky by AA fire. He bailed out as the remaining four planes of our team's hunters broke formation and began zig-zagging across the sky.
          "Wanna give the AA something to think about?" Guaran suggested.
          "Darn straight," I agreed, lining up for a strafing run.
          Enemy fighters fell from the sky as, with the AA's gunfire concentrated on me and Guaran, the hunters above were free to kill. I made two successful strafing runs and was lining up for my third when a battery got lucky, shearing through my left wing just past the engine and killing my engine for good measure. I made the run anyway, avenging my wing, and fought to keep my A-20 on a course back to the village we were protecting, notifying Guaran that I was out for the duration. The Song twisted madly as I struggled to hold her on course; as low as I was to the ground, any miscalculation would be deadly. Finally, just past the boundaries of the village, the wing gave up the ghost and parted company with my wounded A-20. I slammed down hard on a street in a rather ungraceful belly landing, spinning madly until friction robbed the Song of momentum and she skidded to a halt.
         I pried my shaking hands off the joysticks and sat quietly for a moment before calling in rescue teams. My Havoc would be returned to base within the day, repaired within a few days and out for blood by the end of the week. I grinned suddenly.
          "Three kills at once! I'm an ace again!"

Captain's Log, Day 112: Warriors of the Air

          I checked out my A-20 Havoc idling on the runway before entering the cockpit. Both powerful engines were idling, begging for a chance to take off. I scanned the instruments quickly before throttling up and powering down the runway. The Song of Silence was ready for combat.
          My hands settled on A-20's joysticks, fingers resting on the triggers. Mission parameters flashed up on the head's-up display (HUD), followed by the chatter of my squadmates trying to form up and organize our attack. I tuned both distractions out. Normally I flew the Song as a lone wolf, and today would be no exception. My personal mission was to destroy anything in red that showed up on my radar. The gear retracted, and I banked hard, barely a hundred meters off the ground. My speed plummeted, almost putting me into a stall, but I kept the engines red-lined and the Havoc managed the turn, placing it disturbingly low above the river threading its way through the mountain range. Keeping low, I sent the Song hurtling through the valley, building speed as she went. The mission was underway.
          I spared a moment to flick over to my HUD over to intel. There were a few aircraft fielded by the enemy that the Song wasn't a match for, but most of them were easily within my combat capabilities. I grinned tightly, anticipating the dogfights to come, and red-lined the engines again. The Song thundered low over the treetops, leaping eagerly over mountain peaks and easily outpacing my teammates, all climbing to what they deemed the relative safety of the clouds. I grinned again. I would be on my own for the long minutes it would take them to catch up, but I wasn't too worried.
          My A-20 screamed out low over the beleaguered town that our squad had been sent to save. Ground troops, tanks and suchlike, were advancing towards the bridge over the river that led to the town. I beat them there easily, dropping two bombs to take out the bridge and throwing the remaining two down onto the advancing troops. My HUD informed me that the bridge was down and that I had taken out a tank and damaged another, but I didn't care. Enemy airplanes were in the air and out for blood.
          AA fire bracketed my Havoc; I dove for the ground, pulling up sharply just before I crashed. A few of the faster and better fighters took a few potshots at me, but all  of them had been caught off-guard by my unorthodox maneuver and overshot. No one came back for another round, since the main body of my squad was rapidly closing. I pulled a tight loop and prepared to make them pay for their negligence.
          My first target received a shredded wing, courtesy of the Song's six 12.7mm machine guns mounted in the nose of the aircraft. He jinked away, more sharply than I could follow him. My radar tracked him heading back to his base; I debated about finishing him off, but more targets beckoned. I twisted the joysticks and banked after my next target.
          The distance between us closed slowly; as I drew nearer, I saw he was a biplane. Frowning, I throttled up my engines; the biplane was unusually fast. It strafed a line of AA batteries and began rising. My fingers tightened on both triggers before remembering that I had no rockets and let up on my left hand. The plane began disintegrating, the pilot banking hard and sliding out from under my gunsights. I cursed. For all its strengths, the Song of Silence was not exactly a quick turner.
          The Song shuddered, HUD lighting up with the news that I was under fire. I switched to the turret view, using the dorsal turret to find my victim's wingman opening fire on me again. I returned the courtesy, twin machine guns shredding first his engine, then his wings. He veered away and exploded, probably courtesy of an incendiary bullet to the fuel tank. I punched the air before returning to the HUD and assessing the damage.
          The schematic of the Song appeared in the left side of the HUD, left wing and tail pulsing a gentle pink. The damage wasn't terrible; I'd ridden out far worse in the Song. I twisted the Havoc into a tight left turn and reacquired my first target, fleeing for his home base. I throttled up again and followed.
          It took long minutes to close the distance. I held my fire until he was about 250 meters away before I threw my engines into idle, dropped my combat flaps, and opened fire. He jinked desperately, but my speed was now slower than his and I could keep him in my sights as he twisted back and forth across my field of vision. A few bursts later, and his wings crumpled, spiraling away from the plane as it plunged earthward.
          I headed back to the town and was making a few strafing runs over the enemy's ground troops when my A-20 shuddered again. I flipped back to the gunner's turrets in time to see one of the enemy's aircraft line up for the kill. I poured fire from the turrets into his engine, causing him to break off his attack, then one of my squad mates dropped in from above for the kill.
          My HUD noted that all enemy aircraft had been shot down, so I peeled off and headed back to base. Score: 2 kills, 2 assists, 31 hits, and 3 ground units destroyed. I patted the Song of Silence's console and spoke aloud. "Let's get you back to base and patched up. Maybe some new engines; it's the least you deserve after saving my rear." The Song was a tough bird; but even after taking so much punishment in this last fight, she seemed reluctant to leave the battlefield.
          I grinned and looked out at the horizon, relaxing my grip on the joysticks. "Don't worry, girl. There's always more missions to fly."

The Song of Silence

Captain's Log, Day 111: Experiments in Rocketry

          It was an ordinary summer day on the Midway farm--if by "ordinary summer day" you meant "the 4th of July," "night," and "the Midway brothers were loaded with enough explosive ordinance to take Guadalcanal."
          Actually, that last line was fairly ordinary, at least for them.
          Radar, tired of launching his modified bottle rockets by hand, had decided to build a rotating-barrel rocket launcher. Unfortunately, events had conspired to limit his time to design and build said launcher. Fortunately, he was a master of duct tape, and soon had a rig that utilized his dad's good drill and a propane torch to fire off a salvo of 12 rockets before it needed to be reloaded...plus, as Radar pointed out to a skeptical Nemesis, if you were really fast you could conceivably load the new rockets on one side while the other side was firing. Nemesis withheld his objections and graciously offered to let Radar be the first one to test that theory. Radar ignored the sarcasm and informed his brother that darn straight he would be the one to test that theory, because Nemesis was going to be the cameraman. Nemesis inquired whether or not he could upload the video of Radar's demise to YouTube so the paramedics could identify his various body parts. A small debate ensued.
          After the bandages were administered (and ammo for both of their BB guns was exhausted), the brothers took to the driveway to put fresh burn marks on the cement. Radar was sporting a baseball cap, which he had grabbed for no reason on his way out of the house and insisted that he "could totally pull it off." Nemesis inquired when he would pull it off, because he looked stupid. The ensuing debate trampled the hat underfoot when it fell off Radar's head.
          The bandaids were brought outside in case of eventualities, and also because their mom was getting annoyed about all the blood in the house. Radar set up the rocket launcher, Nemesis started the camera, and Radar loaded the rockets. The rocket launcher promptly collapsed.
          Nothing daunted, Radar ignored his brother and, grabbing some nearby branches, duct-taped the sticks to the back of the drill and launch plate to brace the launcher. He reloaded the rockets, ignited the torch, and inserted the flame into the ignition hole.
          The rocket launcher promptly collapsed.
          Radar made up a few cuss words and duct-taped some more sticks to the launcher. He reignited the torch, inserted it into the ignition hole, and switched on the drill. The drill spun at roughly three million revolutions per minute, causing the barrels to extinguish the flame of the torch solely with the wind it was generating.
          The rocket launcher promptly collapsed.
          Radar punched his hysterical brother and set up the launcher again. By this point, most of the launcher was silver, owing to the amount of duct tape used (roughly one full roll). He readjusted the drill speed, loaded the launcher, lit the torch, inserted the flame into the ignition hole, and started the drill.
          The rocket launcher promptly fired.
          Radar danced around jubilantly as rocket after rocket arced into the sky. Nemesis recorded each rocket as it fired and exploded, but missed the one that jammed and blew up in the barrel. Radar was, predictably, annoyed. "That was the cool one!" he yelled.
          Eventually, Dad came out and decided to curtail further launches, mostly because his drill was involved. By this point, the brothers had fired off roughly 25 rockets, so they agreed with no more than the traditional token protest. Besides, there were bigger rockets to fire now!
          And, of course, the Roman candle war to be had.

Captain's Log, Day 110: Excuses, Projects, and Summer Stuff

          It's been a while since I've written anything, but there's actually a reason for that--other projects have been eating up my life to an extent never before seen (except maybe at school). This summer, I've...
          --worked at a processing plant
          --taught Taekwondo
          --reprogrammed my computer and edited various heads-up-displays for it (I've been trying to make my own from scratch, but a lack of any good CGI programs is providing an insurmountable obstacle for the moment)
          --mowed the lawn countless times
          --ran into a bee's hive (literally)
          --built a multi-barrel revolving rocket launcher which eventually backfired and blew itself up (cool while it lasted though)
          --raked the pond for weeds after building a 4-wheeler drag attachment because I was too lazy to do it by hand
          --edited my first book Indestructible and began work (I'm almost a third of the way through it!) on the sequel, Stargazer
          --helped Nemesis with his webcomic
          --held numerous Nerf and Airsoft battles with Nemesis (the girls declined; aka, they were wusses)
          --chased various retarded fowl around the farm, because they won't STAY WHERE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO
          --led two parades
          --got a Stetson (I wear a Stetson now. Stetsons are cool)
          --played some Halo (won) and Mariocart (lost) with siblings
          --designed maps for Halo
          --attempted to organize my room (but as it is also my workshop, I kept giving up in despair, much to my mom's disgust)
          --built a laser obstacle course in the basement
          --navigated the laser obstacle course, with varying degrees of success
          --applied to, and was accepted in, grad school!!! (I graduate college in December and will be starting grad school in January)
          --learned how to cook, with varying degrees of success (some food turned out to be recognizable)
          --survived the dreaded Family Photo Shoot
          --designed a mobile surveillance camera mount for outside my room
          --romped through cornfields (and killed billions of mosquitoes)
          --did NOT kill the little yapping rat-dog that now inhabits the premises over my strenuous objections (although I was tempted to punt him like a football a few times, I never did)
          --wrote a few articles ("Mission Improbable", A New Frontier?, and Never Too Old for Lava Squids were all written during summer vacation)
          --and, somehow, managed to find time for a little sleep here and there.

My dual-monitor computer setup, with the heads-up displays.

          FYI, I packaged my desktop configuration should anyone want to duplicate it. If you want the source files, hit me up! (They're really easy to modify.)
          Also, if anyone wants to read the draft of either Indestructible (completed, needs a little editing) or Stargazer (incompleted, definitely needs editing), let me know. I'd like to get some feedback on either or both of them. My email address is in the "Contact Me" section.
          Peace out!
                    --Radar

          P.S. And I'll try to write a bit more before I go back to college. I can think of one good story about the family doghouse that I haven't written about yet...