C James

I think they lost their church building a while ago... They're basically just one family of nasty lunatics. And BTW, their activities aren't just anti-gay... they've protested against holocaust memorials too. One group I am very fond of is a bunch of bikers, the Patriot Guard Riders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Guard_Riders Westboro baptist has stayed away from funerals, lately. My favorite was the group chanting "What do we want? Gay Sex! When do we want it? NOW!". I heard from someone who was there that quite a few of the chanters were actually straight... Ridicule is a very effective weapon, and Westboro Baptist is a group eminently in need of ridicule.

http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/149785 Send in the goats!

This has got to be the funniest thing I've seen in a long time... http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/07/22/super-heroes-vs-the-westboro-baptist-church/ It's great to see Westbro Baptist zinged like this. I'll bet they won't darken that particular doorway anytime soon!

I dunno.... Look at the vid; the whale was clearly approachi9ng the yacht, and was certainly far faster. IMHO, it's the whale who should be charged with breaking the law. Trevor and a.... whale?

I thought this video was very interesting... http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6704191n Whale attacks on yachts do happen. There have been several sunk, though it's more common for the whale to ram the keel and sink the boat. For reasons unknown, the two areas where this is most common are the Indian Ocean (such as in this case off South Africa) and in the Pacific near the Galapagos. Here's the URL for the video, in case my embed didn't work. (I can't see videos on this system, so I can't check) http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6704191n

Understate? Me? And don't let the frog corrupt you! You know I'd never have anything to do with a cliff, right?

Jake would have trouble if he came out... Brett is fine with Jake and Corey being friends, but that's because he thinks Jake is straight. That could be a recipe for disaster. And yep, Jake has squirreled away a lot of his loot. A prime motive for his criminal enterprise was to build up enough cash so that he could survive his parents tossing him out on his 18th birthday. Jake's home life is not good, and has played a role in making him who he is. We do find out more about Jake's homelife and background shortly. Jake is lucky the mouse didn't eat the money, too. LoL. Jake seems to be settling down nicely now he's out of his old "business", doesn't he? He settling into the law abiding life very well, so smooth sailing ahead... it's not like we'll be having any chapters named "Hell on Wheels" or anything... BTW, chapter ten is entitled "Hell on Wheels."

LoL! And a few photos, too. I took all but one of those myself. Good point on the haggling... My thinking was that they are inexperienced at it, so they did okay but not awesome. I thought it would be unrealistic if they'd done overly well. Still, that's a great price for that kind of ring. The logs and debris in the Indian Ocean are an issue. Even at just four knots, hitting a massive log could do some damage. I don't see why everyone is so against Bridget.... all she's trying to do, at considerable effort and expense, is send Trevor a going-away present.

Gonzalez was warning Jim that he'd "outed" Jim and Dirk. Gonzales had been putting out what he thought was false info to trap the leak in his department, and had discovered, via Jim's cases on behalf of gay clients, that Jim is gay. (Jim is indeed gay: he was careful to tell only the truth, just as he was when he said that Dirk is not gay.). Gonzalez was also digging regarding whether Dirk is gay, due to it playing to motive for murder. Gonzalez has eased off the investigation into Dirk, focusing instead on Bridget. However, as we see with Jim, that poses grave danger for Dirk. We'll be finding out more soon. Jim is a lawyer, and (especially when lawyering, as we see him here) tends to talk like a lawyer. Jim argued Gonzalez around quite a bit before admitting that he was gay (A fact he's never made any secret of). Jim's comeback of "I'm a lawyer, since when do I need a reason to argue?" sums it up rather well. Good call! Jim, as a courtroom lawyer, is very adept at verbal fencing. Gonzalez, like most in his job, has little direct dealings with lawyers (they leave that up to their department's own lawyers in the prosecutor's office). So, Gonzalez is the one a bit out of his depth here. Truth and honesty (that's why the chapter has that title) are not necessarily the same thing; one can lie with the truth, by using truth to mislead and deceive. As for Dirk, we did learn something. We know he's not gay. We also know that Jim is gay, and Dirk knows. Dirk has certainly shown no signs of having issues with that, so Dirk is not the homophobe that Trevor, Joel, and Lisa think.

:blink: Graeme! I've never even written horror! Er, okay, one short story, but other than that, nothing! Isn't it a known fact that my stores are regarded as being all sweetness and light, where nothing bad ever happens? :blink: Indeed he was... He was also the one who popularized Cuthulu, the essence of evil, as I recall. He was known for cliffhangers and also tension. And that, of course, proves that I cannot have anything in common with H.P. Lovecraft. BTW, chapter 35 of Circumnavigation, "The Art of the Deal", gives a result of David Foster Wallace. The analyzer we're talking about is here.

I'm beginning to think this is psudo random (it repeats its results for a given piece of text but the actual product seems thematically inconsistent. Going through the prologue for my current story section by section, I get, in order; Robert Louis Stevenson H.P. Lovecraft Dan Brown H.P Lovecraft Stephen King James Joyce H.G. Wells H.P. Lovecraft The first chapter gives me P. G. Wodehouse, though the next few give me Dan Brown. The prologue for another of my stories came back with Isac Asimov, and the first chapter Raymond Chandler In fairness, I do vary style to suit the situation, but I think these results are rather inaccurate, but good for a smile. Thanks Viv. .

In the interest of being able to make fun of your timekeeping ability, I have just ensured that you are very wrong! (how? By uploading the chapter a bit early!) Some things will be revealed in full in the near term, others a bit later. BTW, isn't Bridget a thoughtful, considerate person? She wants to send Trevor a little going-away present. (isn't that sweet of her?). Poor, misunderstood Bridget.

Totally agreed! All I meant when I said Graeme was right was that Trevor being Rachel and Dirk's son does not preclude adoption. But yes, things do seem to point to Australia, and not only is Graeme in Australia, but he admits it!!!! Yep, I think he may very well be our prime suspect!! There's nothing in the narration that addresses Dirk's sexuality, not until chapter 34.

Graeme is absolutely right.

Thank you very much for this! As long as it's possible, I'm happy. I've always found alarms interesting. I much prefer hardwired systems (I hate anything with batteries) but I can see how a retrofit installation could be a real pain. I wonder how many people realize that their alarm system records every set and entry, along with the date and time, and often makes that info available to others? Probably not too many, which makes this very much akin to the "black box" issue with some cars; their computers record a great deal about your driving. Or, a GPS car navigation system, which automatically logs your ground track, making a nice map of everywhere you've been, and you can't disable it. You can delete the log, but you can't stop it from logging. (this is true for Garmin units, I don't know for sure on others). Thanks again!! That doesn't always work. I remember over ten years ago one computer manufacturer whose office security system used a touch pad where the numbers were displayed when it was activated. That is, it didn't have a permanent set of 0-9 digits, but had blank buttons that would only show the digits when the keypad was activated... and the digits would appear in random locations. That way, the actual keys used would vary each time the keypad was used. I believe the idea was to stop someone from observing the buttons pushed, and the coming along later and trying those same buttons. Of course, that's getting exotic and over-the-top for most applications, but it shows how there is a lot of variations possible. Security companies are always on the look out for how people can bypass/fool/break their systems, and then come up with ways to plug those holes. That's a great idea! My own variation was definitely low-tech... I dirtied up a button that wasn't in my code. That wouldn't have prevented someone from seeing which keys I pressed, though.

I've put the alarm comments and my replies in a separate thread "Alarms"{because I'm out of my depth on this one and I really need any help or comments anyone can make. Thanks!! That poor trimaran has seen better days.

The issue of alarms came up in chapter 33 of Circumnavigation (the quoted text is from that thread), and I may have it depicted wrongly in the story. Any advice or input would be very welcome! Thank you for raising this issue. I'll be honest, I was operating on assumptions, which is never a good idea. This story is part mystery, and as such things HAVE to work in the story as they would in the real world, otherwise it is very unfair to the readers who are trying to figure out what is going on. My only experience with alarms is very limited, and as a user, not a pro. Therefor, I may be wrong, and please let me know if I am. All I can say for sure is that some alarms don't work that way. This may, however, be rare, and thus inappropriate to use in the story. There are different types of alarms, such as monitored (when an alarm is transmitted to a monitoring company) or a system that just sets of the audio alarms. It doesn't say that Dirk's store is on a monitored system, though it could be, and IMHO would likely be. Also, not all monitored systems do time windowing. My home one (At a home I had at the time) didn't, nor did the the one at a business (a small storefront) that I used to have. I dimly recall there was a way to set the one at my business to do that, though. I assumed that Dirk, as the owner, would often go there outside of business hours (I did for mine) so wouldn't bother with a time-limited setting. I went in many times at weird hours, and that never triggered a call. What did trigger a call was power failures (this was true for my home system as well) even though it has battery backup. My current system is unmonitored, and just triggers internal and external flashing lights and alarms. The disarm codes are a bit more complex than I portrayed, and I might have bungled it. There is not just one code that works for ever model of a specific alarm. I think you'd need to know the serial number, or at least a date of manufacture, and the master code would differ, probably by production batches. The way the police do it, or so I've been told, is they check with the installation company to get the specs and serial number. What you mention, a "precinct code", makes far more sense than what I was assuming. I honestly don't know if the use of a master code (Or a precinct code) would trigger a call if it was on a monitored system. I've only had very limited experience with that; seeing an alarm installer disarm my system that way, without knowing my security code. In other words, he had a code other than mine that disarmed my system. I was standing behind him when he did it, and offered my code, be he said he'd just use his. Was this a master code from the manufacturer? Or one programed in by the original installer that this guy had access to? I don't know. This would have been in 2005 0r 2006, so it fits in with the story (currently August, 2006) but I have no clue if this is a normal occurrence or not. (and that's something that I need to know). Are code entry times and the code recorded somewhere? I'm sure it varies from system to system, but I think (as you mention) in most cases they would be recorded. They were in both of mine, sort of. The alarm system would log them, and then, once a week, it did a systems check call to the alarm company, and transmitted status data and also a log. I do know that the alarm monitoring company knew when, and which codes, were used, at least on a few occasions. (In both cases, I could set up multiple codes so I can assign them to different people, such as employees, plus Duress Codes, which would turn off the alarm but notify the monitoring company) Would it trigger a call to the monitoring company if the master bypass code was used? I wish I knew definitively, but I don't (other than that it didn't when the installer used one, though I'm not sure if his company was the original installer or not). My best guess is that it might for some systems, but not for others. (when the installer used such a code on mine, it didn't call anyone, because he was on my line at the time, and had the system wanted to report it would have grabbed the line and cut him off. As an aside, I don't know if his company was the original installer or not, but I am certain that his company set me up with that monitoring service). One thing I have been told by an alarm installer (a different one, quite a few years ago), though, is that the most common use police have for master bypass codes is to turn off a ringing alarm (the overwhelming majority of alarms calls are false alarms). If it's a monitored system, the monitoring station can do it for them, but on a non monitored system, they have to do it themselves. I did see them do this once (around the year 2000) in person, while visiting a friend whose neighbor's alarm went off. The neighbor was away on vacation, according to my friend. The police asked around for someone with access, and upon finding no one entered and shut off the alarm (which was apparently not monitored). I assume they picked the door lock, but couldn't see from where I was. This was in a small city (population around 10k) in a rural area, so maybe in an urban area they operate differently. I don't know. I also don't know if the police would normally have access to ways to disarm alarms. I assumed they must do, for legal searches, shutting off false alarms, etc, but I'm not sure. Here's the scene from 33 that mentions the alarm;

Good point; there is most often little to no info sharing between the locals and the feds. There can be, but it takes a lot to make it happen. It almost never does in a preliminary investigation. BTW, did you notice that Bridget showed remorse and regret regarding Trevor's little going away present? See, she's got a good heart. The debris from Ares that Bridget found are interesting, eh? She was telling the truth (the narration said so) so that was all true. Yep, a great many things point at Australia... And what is in Australia? Graeme is in Australia! Is he the antagonist in the story? Yep, a long engagement. He kind of has to; Lisa's father would object otherwise. Speaking of typos... The words "dock" and "docking" appear a lot in this story. Now, combine that with my unrivaled penchant for typos, and you'll understand why I scan the chapters for a specific typo before sending them into beta. The specific typo? typing an i instead of an o. Yep, on more than one occasion, Atlantis has been tied up at the dick. :wacko: :wacko: Another type of goof I'm noted for is anatomical. For example, in the pre beta version of the charter in Florida (early in the story) the three sisters had four suitcases in total, and Trevor carried then aboard Atlantis, one in each hand. Too much information, eh? (and yes, you're contagious: I'm using "eh" now!) Fear not; now that we know Bridget's backstory, plus a few little additional facts like the debris from Ares, things calm down a bit. I don't have an adoptive brother, but as an only child, I was often jealous of close sets of siblings, so I knew how attractive that kind of closeness would be to Trevor. Sanchez... He's a riddle, isn't he? He kind of gave the game away regarding his actual position; he said his superiors had concerns that needed addressing before they could decide, and then he went and approved it all himself. So, we can safely surmise that he's one of the top people. He just prefers (for obvious reasons) not to be too open about that fact. He's not a hitman, though. CJ

Wildone is teasing me over a typo! It's gone now (thanks to Wildone alerting me to it) but originally, one particular island was referred to as the Geek island of Samos. :wacko: And typos are anything but rare for me. My team finds several in every chapter. That is why I call myself the King of Typos. :king: Typos are kind of like cliffhangers... I don';t like either one, and do my level best to avoid them, but typos, unlike cliffhangers, slip through on occasion. Speaking of cliffhangerlessness... Paging MikeL: Would you please amphibiously certify this chapter as cliffhanger-free? We know what Joel wants in Turkey now, so there are no questions left hanging.

Sorry for the short chapter (that is the last short chapter in the story) but I felt it had to stand alone as a chapter. Yep, Jake loves the "competition", he's very aggressive sexually. Jake also likes risk. Brett is indeed a surfer. He's also very competitive by nature. Thanks on the sex scene... I rarely write those and usually find ways to avoid them, but this story demanded them. Could be... but if so, does Corey know? BTW, the title of the next chapter is "Party Time". It's one of my favorites.

Well, okay, I don't think the iPod is even mentioned between chapter 10 and chapter 39, and it's not plot critical, but it is one of those technical goofs that I try to avoid making. But it could have had an impact... what if Trevor had settled into his beanbag to listen to some tumes, and suddenly his waterproof iPod had vanished, due to there being no such thing. Then, in the confusion caused by the impossible vanishing of his impossible iPod, he didn't notice the tanker bearing down on him.... ROFL!!! Good point; it was in the dialog, so it probably could have stood as is... The waterproof cases, BTW, are plastic enclosures for the iPod. I just assumed that they made a model of iPods waterproof, because I know swimmers use them while swimming laps sometimes, but as it turns out, they are just snap-on cases. I found this goof myself... I was reading an account of a solo circumnavigation, and one of the things on the gear list was waterproof cases for iPods. I though hat was weird: why not just use a waterproof iPod? So I googled, and learned that there is no such thing.

I've had to make a change to chapter 10, "Launch", and I feel that it's only fair that I report changes to posted chapters (other than typo and spelling fixes). When posted, one of the paragraphs in chapter 10 read;

Chapter 33 has even more information than this one, plus the answer to the "Turkey question". No one is going to bite at my idea: that Joel is just really, really hungry for gyros? 0:) Goat, I'm shocked! How could there be a kaboom in one of my stories? Isn't everything all sweetness and light? And yep, in just about any business dealing with the public, you have to put up with a lot of BS, and moreso in the tourist biz. Trevor would be far, far better off with a rifle. Rifle rounds have a lot more accuracy and stopping power. If it was me, I'd go with a scoped 30-06 with AP ammo; those will do an engine block even at long range. A .45 handgun is good, but range and accuracy are issues. It would take out an outboard, but hitting a moving target at range would be difficult. Trevor was very, very lucky in his shooting match with Joel; with a handgun, I miss on most shots at a bottle at that range on land. I've never shot anything other than shotguns off a moving deck and the motion does make it harder for that, and I'm assuming the same holds true for handguns. Of course, one strategy, if all you have is a handgun and you've got people trying to board you, is wait for them to get close before opening fire; take them by surprise as they pull alongside. As for a bomb, why worry about it? Trevor isn't. We should all take a cue from my all-time favorite movie, Dr. Strangelove: Learn to stop worrying and love the bomb :nuke:

But but but... I didn't do that, the scar did! And the grenades in glass jars was the general... And how could poor, innocent me be dangerous? Turkey is indeed a great place to buy jewelry. I can't comment on whether you're right or wrong, but I can mention that the title of the next chapter is "From Turkey, with Love." Is no one going to bite at my suggestion that he wants to spend a day eating a thousand euros worth of gyros? Joel does love to eat. Ah, but we don't know that yet. They aren't mutually exclusive propositions. But Mike... that is clearly you! Look at the last chapter, where you're described as looking green... And the name; Mike Grenoulle, which clearly means Mike the Frog. And just how many frogs from Tennessee do you suppose have experience in artillery? Yep, that's you, the hero of the chapter. (and, of course, the source of any perceived cliffhangers). And BTW, could we get a cliffhanger-free certification for this chapter? Joel wanting to go to Turkey surely does not qualify!

The answer will actually be in chapter 33, along with all the backstory on Bridget, including her reasons for fearing that Trevor will find Ares. Blake was a difficult one, wasn't he? And poor Mike, looking a bit green... Welcome, Flyboy! Thanks for joining. Good call on Trevor... he's very resourceful, and he's an excelent seaman who knows his boat very well. Why Turkey? What is one thing Joel loves to do... eat! And in Turkey, they have great gyros! So, maybe Joel is really really hungry and wants to go spend a lot of money on gyros? Okay, a serious answer to part of it; Joel wants to go to Turkey before leaving from Cyprus. The flights out of Paphos airport in Cyprus, where they are heading, don't go to Turkey due to the Cyprus conflict; Paphos is on the Cypriot side of the dividing line (UN buffer zone, called the "Green line"), not the Turkish occupied zone, so there are no flights to Turkey from there. And yes, Mike did lead them to safety, which makes me wonder if he's still denying being there??? I'll second the motion to declare MikeL our hero of the chapter, for keeping calm and knowing what to do regarding those unexploded arty rounds. HOWEVER, please, let's not blame the goat in the chapter for this! Actually, there was no goat, just goat trail (though, one can thus surmise a goat) but the goat was innocent in all this; he wouldn't know about the explosives. CJ