Talk Like a Pirate Day 2026

 

Arrr!  Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day, and check out this game of Strands we were playing tonight - it's got a pirate theme to it for sure.  I had my pirate t-shirt on, and we were playing some ambient pirate music in the background today as we were enjoying some of this delicious pirate coffee!

Bones has all kinds of themes and so on, and we were saving the last of this flavor for today.  Later on tonight we were watching "Curse of the Black Pearl."  Still a great movie!

This morning Maddie was helping out at the first Edge Tournament in quite some time.  It was an inter-school competition with medals and judging and all the things you see at the other tournaments - this one was just for the school here.

As you can see, Maddie was on hand, helping tabulate scores and doing a bit of judging.  She had a great day there, and a long day too.  Afterwards, she came home to get some rest, and some homework done too.  Meanwhile, I'm about to start a new virtual marathon - this one at Niagara Falls!

Yep, this is my new profile picture for the race here, and below is the racing bib you get before every race.  I think the first post card comes tomorrow!

So our Divine Conference is going on at the church, and so I was there for a little bit.  Also setting up for a fun service tomorrow about Amos, including all kinds of cookies.

We watched the Braves win again tonight, and wow, what a grand slam!  Acuña got a grand slam, and the magic number is one more win and they'll get the National League East Division title.  It was an exciting moment, and we'll all be tuning in tomorrow hoping for a big win.

But first, a great service in the morning.  We got a few seasonal items packed away and we packed some other seasonal items up too.  Then it was time to do some reading - and get some rest early.  Goodnight!

Constance Hatchaway Ornament

Constance Hatchaway says "I do!"

We picked up this and another Haunted Mansion themed ornament earlier this year, super discounted too.  Constance Hatchaway is a fantastic ornament, although maybe not for a Christmas tree - unless it's one that's black with pumpkin ornaments, I suppose.  But still, it's fun to put out on the Haunted Mansion board game - along with the nervous guy with the lantern.  Both have some great audio when you press the buttons.  I didn't necessarily need to get Haunted Mansion ornaments, but the price was like $2 or something like that... and it was Constance Hatchaway... so yeah, they came home with us!

Anyway, a good day today.  The Braves won tonight and clinched a postseason appearance, which is pretty awesome.  It's been a great year.  We've been watching them since Spring Training, and we were watching a lot of Spring Training this year, back when Yaz was huge with each at bat.  Anyway, we're running out of regular season games, and it's been fun to watch for the most part.  Sometimes frustrating, but we love the Braves this year.

So today is a big holiday, and yeah, we were ready to celebrate.  What holiday?  RICE KRISPY DAY!  Mom and I did some driving about today, doing some chores - bank, library... and the grocery store where we could get some rice crispy snacks!  We got the "homemade" ones, which were really good.  We got a lot of stuff from Target today with a few gift cards - and then we were off to use another gift card at Texas Roadhouse.  Mom enjoyed her steak, and I am never going to order their steak salad again.  Two times in a row at two different locations, this was awful.  But usually the food is good there, and I'll probably just stick with the steak.  Anyway, we had a meal there, and then it was time to head home.

Maddie had college this morning, but no taekwondo tonight.  I finished up my Venom 5K on the treadmill, watching some "Venom" movies while walking along, and will be starting a virtual conqueror medal tomorrow - still thinking about which one.  And we read tonight, briefly.  Maddie has an early morning tomorrow, off to help out at Edge with a school tournament.

We said our prayers, and after that... time for some sleep.

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Chicken Little, more steampunk stuff, Route 66, Lu-tze... updates coming soon...!

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Venom 5K

I finished that Yellowstone virtual marathon, and while I march along on the treadmill, I'm usually watching something related to the medal I'm going for.  That being said, I realized I haven't seen the "Venom" trilogy yet and was wanting to catch that.  So I had fun last night and made up a "Venom 5K" run through Central Park at night!

And when it's all said and done, here's the virtual medal for finishing the race - which is of course when I finish that last movie.

And of course when finished with the daily exercise, you have to wash up with some Venom soap, right?  Of course right!  Anything to keep me motivated to keep moving is a good thing!

Anyway, good day.  Maddie was at college this morning and over at taekwondo and Nate's place.  Braves got clobbered again tonight, but that was deceptive in a way because we've been trying out our other pitchers while giving the more reliable ones some rest.  

Big news today:  no Christmas production.  That'll be a huge development moving forward.  Also big news:  we're back at the KidPak Auditorium this weekend, so things should be ready to go then.  

Tonight we read some more - I forgot how much I liked this book from Discworld.  And after that, it was time for prayers and some sleep.

Booberry Puppet

We now have a complete set!  I brought in the Booberry box to the office and we were having fun with the puppets in our Zoom meeting. 

Look what we saw on the way home - it's the girls' Ghostbusters hearse!  It's actually not one for a funeral home, but this one shows up in the area around Halloween.  Oh, and speaking of costumes, look who we ran into this morning:

This is Jerome!  Of course, Jerome is a raptor, one I met quite some time ago, who now lives in our prop room down in Braselton.  Mom and I went down there this morning to start scavenging for Christmas production costuming.  I snapped a few pics while there.

We had a good day.  Tonight we saw the Braves win, crushing three two-run home runs over the course of the night to win with a comfortable margin.  They're not far from sealing up a playoff position, and then of course winning the National League East Division.  The game got us worried at the beginning with a costly throwing error, but things got even very quickly with that aerial assault from the Braves.  

One thing we discovered tonight:  the wall behind those famous vines in the outfield at Wrigley Field is not padded.  Which is to say, outfielders cannot - or at least should not - do leaping catches up against that wall.  This happened a few times tonight, and I had no idea how perilous it was after all these years.

We read tonight, more from the History Monks and their interesting adventures - they'e somewhat like the TVA.  It's been good.  Afterwards, it was time for prayers, and sleep.

Coyote vs. Acme

Today we went to the theater to see a movie that has an amazing story just to get it to the theaters in the first place.  The movie itself sort of mirrors the story, a "little man" vs. "big corporations" vibe, but it's so much more than that of course.  It's a nostalgic and sometimes emotional trip to visit some of these wonderful characters, and really it's one of the best movies of this sort we've seen since "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"  It was really, really good.  I'm so glad this movie got released, and I can't imagine why it was made and just put on a shelf just to save the company money.  Weird.  But public outcry got this movie released, even though by a different studio, and I'm so glad it was released, as it's one of my favorites this year, a surprise really.

So I'm getting to work on a steampunk themed series, and here's a great logo for it.  I've got some messages done from 2020, things never really used before, but now I can get them enhanced a bit.  That's been fun working on this.  Also finished:  149 psalms!  I have 149 of these psalms set to music now, different styles and all really cool.  It's been a small passion project over the last year or so - it's taken a while to do each one.  Why only 149 though?  Because Psalm 119 has something like 180 verses!  I'll have to figure something out for that, just because I'm a completist.  In 1998, I discovered a 151st psalm when we visited the Dead Sea Scrolls in Israel.  So maybe that one's next.  Anyway, for now there's a 149 of them, and that's pretty cool.  I might be sharing those soon.

Okay moving on, tonight the Braves lost to the Cubs, mainly because the Braves were trying to one of less reliable pitchers some playing time.  For the second time now, this pitcher didn't quite work out.  We'll try again for a victory tomorrow.

Tonight we had some pumpkin spice tea which was super yummy.  Picked that up from Aldi's!  Really good though, nice and seasonal. 

Maddie had a big day at college today, and then tonight was over at Edge for taekwondo.  She got home to do some homework, of course, and then later tonight we continued with our book "The Thief of Time," which we are really enjoying.

It's been a decent day, but now it's time for prayers - and some sleep.  Goodnight!

One More at the Chapel

Maddie took this photo this morning at the Chapel.  It was where we were this morning for one more service, another morning at the Chapel for the kids.  Here are a few other pictures she took:

We had a great time over there, and it's a unique time that hopefully won't need to happen again, at least because of flooding.  But here we are in the Chapel, and it's such a nice-looking place.  The acoustics are weird, but a change of atmosphere is nice.

When we got home, Mom had made us a really nice meal.  We had a salad that was made from our hydroponics lettuce, and with that was spaghetti and those gluten-free cheese rolls, the kind you can get at Red Lobster.

The Braves got a taste of their own medicine this afternoon with a late-game blow-out, but they certainly trounced the Phillies this year otherwise, and it looks like the Braves are certainly on their way to a division title.  The "magic number" is dwindling, as is the number of season games.  

Tonight we had a Ghostbusters double header, watching a couple of good movies, the one from 2016 and "Afterlife."  It's generally agreed that "Frozen Empire" isn't a great movie and not really necessary for a Ghostbusting marathon.  

I remember in high school how we learned in Language Arts that "busting" wasn't a proper word so much, and the preferred term was "bursting."  This was for general dialogue, but nevertheless, for a week a few of us kept asking, "Who ya' gonna call?  Ghostbursters!"

Okay, we closed out the night with some reading, and then prayers, and then sleep.  Gotta' get up early tomorrow!