Friday afternoon TJ, Ian and I were attempting to make our way to our second cruise of the day. We have found that no matter where we travel as a group we are constantly stopped for photos. As long as we are not late for a scheduled task we are more than happy to mill about and let people take our pictures, and talk to us, that’s what we are there for after all. As it was, we were quickly running short on time to make the ship before it departed, but a family approached us, their son bubbling over with excitement about meeting Captain Jack. The son, afflicted with some form of development disability darted back and forth from his parents to jack, the excitement so great that he could not contain himself! The parents decided this would be a wonderful photo opportunity, and rustled through their bag to retrieve their camera. Once it was retrieved, they setup the shot and the father pressed the power button on his camera to turn it on.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, same result.
Dissapointed, they called their son back and prepared to leave without their photo. I couldn’t let that happen, “Sir! one moment!”, I called. I then reached into my pouch, removed my camera, extracted the batteries, handed them to him, “will these help?” Overwhelmed he looked me in the eye with a deep gratitude that I lack the words to fully describe, “Thank you!”, he mustered. His wife’s face lit up as she realized what was going on. The flustered man then fumbled to hurriedly exchange the batteries with his own and after two tries got them properly placed, pressed the power button and the camera sprung to life.
They posed, got their shot, and after an exchange of heartfelt thank you’s he returned my batteries and they walked away with their photographic treasure.
For the future, I plan to keep at least one set of brand new AA batteries on my person at all times in case this ever occurs again. I will insist they keep them too…
Imagining the construction work taking place over @shapp ‘s head is actually a bowling alley.
On Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Port Washington Pirate festival you can have Breakfast With the Pirates. During breakfast we pirates wander around entertaining the diners, pose for pictures, and of course, steal food from peoples plates. During the course of the breakfast I often start out an interaction with a table by asking what their favorite breakfast foods are. I get a lot of different answers but almost always one answers “pancakes”. If Captain Jack Sparrow happens to be near by or at least in hearing distance of me repeating it, that end up being a cue.
Upon Captain Jack Sparrows arrival he declares that the breakfast item in question is to be renamed “flapjacks” in his honor. A typical interaction continues, “Jack! You can’t go renaimin’ breakfast items just because you are famous” “why not mate?” “Because it’s just not right! What do you say kids, PANCAKES or flapjacks?”. Inevetably most kids agree with Jack… Some times we opt to resolve the dispute in a duel using forks. During the duel Jack always calls out, “look isn’t that the governers daughter?”, and points behind me. I of course fall for it fully and turn allowing him to stab me. “Fine Jack, you can all call them flapjacks if you want but I still in sist they are pancakes.” At that conclusion I usually leave them to Jack to let him do his thing. The bit always gets a lot of laughs and builds excitement for the kids.
Sunday afternoon TJ, Ian and I were all working the festival photo booth when a small boy in full pirate regalia approached to have his picture taken. As he grew closer he glanced back to his mother who coaxed him with, “go on, don’t you have something to say to Captain Jack?” The boy then glanced towards me and a smirk of defiance grew across his face, he looked up at jack towering above him and, with all the conviction a six year old can muster let out a fierce “THEY’RE PANCAKES!!!”. We all three broke… I roared with laughter, Jack, quick on his feet, turned and walked away refusing to have pictures with someone so difficult. The photographer used this moment to start composing the shot. “Grand on it lad!”, I said and put my arm around his shoulder.
When the shot was finally composed we had Jack and the boy standing back to back in a defiant pose, me sitting along side the kid, grinning and I think giving the boy a thumbs up.
Afterwards we autographed the picture frame continuing the fight in wrighting.
This was hands down the most memorable moment of the weekend, and will live in infamomy for years to come.
First of all, the weekend was a blast. I really do LOVE this festival. The crowd is always great, and I couldn’t ask for a more talented group of people to work with.
Worsts:
- Bruising my heel Friday, making for all sorts of foot pain all weekend
- Cold rainy weather Saturday thinning out the crowds
- Weather cutting the number of cruises again
Bests:
Ok, there are far far to many to list them all… I will make additional posts about the best of the bests and link to them as I do.
Loved the LA river skit. #Conan
Home from work and am now going to nap
On one hand I’m flattered but I’m also disturbed that someone I posed with last year has my pic hanging in her bedroom…
http://twitpic.com/6q5e4 – Peace, Tranquility, and pure contentment
Heading home after a fun night with karl, gabi, yondorf, and dinner with Dave D.
A chicago radio station just said Yorkville is 25 minutes from downtown! HaHaHaHa! Yeah right at 120 MPH with no traffic perhaps.
RT: @neilarsenty: Why hasn’t news of David Carradine’s death hit the American mainstream yet? http://tinyurl.com/r54m6c
Loving the “In the Year 3000″ sketch. I missed Andy Richter!!! #conan
Is it friday yet? I’d settle for Thursday @ 4:30. Plz! I just want to start the weekend. Pirate Fest is beckoning & Hawser wants to play!
What the heck, gas is up to $2.89… Give me a break!
I’m off to #openmic night at the stonefire pub in Yorkville, IL. Join me if you are free.
I have now gotten my Drupal Unicorn module handling user authentication against the server using only unicorn HAT API communications. WOOT!
Gaaah, skeleton store you got me again… I blame you #shaneanigans
http://tinyurl.com/lblcte Can you imagine Milo as a library search interface? Brings a whole new meaning to virtual reference.
Silly PHP surely you should know what I mean when I used the var $default_attribs everywhere except for one line when I was distracted. 
I just sang at open mic night for the 2nd week in a row. Afterwards I explained bristol to a table who is now excited & insists they will go
