Rain Cuisine

Rain squall hit one afternoon a few weeks ago and shut everyone down for a few hours. When the sea is bad enough, all you can really do is hang on and you think that’d be enough for Dad but it wasn’t. He insisted we do Pen Patrol in the rain. “What’s the difference? You’re getting wet anyway.”

Thanks, Dad.

Underwater, the sound of boats thumping against each other is endless. Behind that is the dock system creaking and groaning as it gets shoved in weird directions. Underneath all the other sounds is the gentle hiss of rain hitting the water. It would almost peaceful if I wasn’t scared white about being crushed against some pontoons or something – the quality of my work is directly proportional to my fear of being killed while doing so. Dad pretended not to notice how quickly I finished…I think he was cold, too.

Bad weather on the sea is a fact of life and some people are better at coping with it than others. Some forget to tie their equipment down and it either blows overboard or the boat rolls and it goes over the side. Hopefully it doesn’t take your nets out along with it; otherwise you can find yourself missing a catch it took you two or three months to build.
After we were done and into some dry clothes, we headed to B-Ring where the Food Court is. Most of the stalls were closed but Uncle Chong’s Social Aid and Pleasure Club was doing a brisk business. He’d tarped off his outdoor dining area and it looked like half of the Colony showed up for dinner. Uncle Chong's place closed down after the Crash and I posted his Rain Pho recipe because I don't know when I'll be tasting his again. You might find it worth trying (if you can catch enough rain, that is). I'd give anything to be eating with my Dad again right now.

Uncle Chong's Rain Pho Recipe

Come eat at Uncle Chong's Social Aid and Pleasure Club - Located on B-Ring in the Food Court. Vietnamese, French and Creole cuisine a specialty!

Rain Pho

* 6 cups beef broth
* 1 (1/4-inch thick) slice ginger
* 2 whole star anise*
* 1 cinnamon stick**
* 1/2 pound piece boneless beef sirloin, trimmed of any fat
* 3 ounces dried flat rice noodles*
* 1/4 cup Asian fish sauce*
* 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 1 cup fresh bean sprouts, rinsed and drained*
* 1/8 cup minced scallions*
* 1/4 cup fresh cilantro sprigs, washed and finely chopped*
* 1 small thin fresh red or green Asian chilie, sliced very thin*
* 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves*
* Lime wedges for garnish*
* *Available at Uncle Chongs or Gramma Alice - some fees may apply.
* ** See the Spice Lady

Directions

In a 2 quart saucepan bring broth, ginger, star anise, and cinnamon to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

With a very sharp knife cut sirloin across the grain into very thin slices.

In a large bowl soak noodles in hot water to cover 15 minutes, or until softened and pliable.

While noodles are soaking, bring a kettle of salted rain water [DO NOT USE LOCAL SEA WATER - IT IS POLLUTED] to a boil for noodles. Drain noodles in a colander and cook in boiling water, stirring 45 seconds, or until tender. Drain noodles in a colander. Set aside.

Strain broth into saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir in fish sauce, salt and pepper. Add sirloin and sprouts and cook 30 to 45 seconds, or until sirloin changes color. Skim any froth from soup.

To serve, divide noodles into 4 bowls. Ladle soup over noodles. Sprinkle scallion greens, cilantro, chilies and basil over soup and serve with lime wedges

Deleted Scenes - Going Down to the Docks - Part 1

Mom took the morning off to drive me down to the dock. We ate breakfast in a Denny’s off the 110 in San Pedro. The boat would meet us in the LA Harbor. I toyed with my pancakes and OJ. Mom was absorbed in her cottage cheese and eggs. I was desperately hoping we could get this over without having the conversation I knew was waiting. Maybe by the time I got back from Dad’s, I’d have a good excuse.

“Jim…” she began and I looked up at her.

“Yeah?” I said – might as well let her know that I’m not scared. She didn’t say anything for a few minutes. “What?” I asked. She shook her head and took a sip of coffee. The silence lengthened into minutes. I didn’t need to ask what she was going to say – we both knew what had happened.

I’m referring to the ‘last straw’, of course. Mom had held out on having me stay with Dad for at least two years. The problem was, a single mom in LA had a battle on several fronts as the nice house she worked to provide was the same reason she couldn’t be there to be my mom. I’m not saying she was a bad mom – it’s a bad situation; it is what it is.

Few Other Colony pics

Some assorted pics of the colony - this is the living room of Gramma Alice's place. She even has her own fireplace although she rarely lights it - wood is hard to come by out here. She's an artsy type who grows a lot of hydroponic plants.

As you can see here - we had to be creative after the drier broke down.

The News is Floating In...

What is Pen Patrol like?

I was talking about Pen Patrol earlier and then had someone ask me what it was like. I thought I'd show some people at the job and hopefully that would explain things better than me rehashing some dreck about building hours toward a commercial divers' card or our hookah rig. Every boat has their own method - fish farming is a pretty new business. Some guys go full-on SCUBA, like this joker to the left [by the way, this guy's an idiot...you can tell just by the smile]. But other people will do snorkeling, hookah and even free-diving.


A lot of it depends on the kind of fish you're growing, too - if you're on D-ring with us, you're growing larger fish like tuna. Inside the rings, you're growing smaller stuff that you might be able to take care of without getting into the water if your arms are long enough. Dad farms tuna fish - big suckers that could grow six or seven feet if we tried to keep them long enough. In that case you're out in the ocean and you're dealing with the fish, any trash that might make them sick and predator fish that might try to attack your nets to get at them.
My first summer out - Dad signed me up for some SCUBA safety course that they held in the shadow of our tender ship, the Phoenix. They snapped a picture of all of us - I'm all the way in the back with my hands in the air like a dork. We don't use SCUBA tanks, we use a hookah rig instead. It's pretty simple and a lot cheaper - otherwise we'd be refilling our air tanks every day or two and that gets cost-prohibitive.

Since Pen Patrol is different for every boat - my only recommendation is 'try it yourself' when you're out here. Take the safety courses and go with a pro the first few times. If it's cold out there in the water the first few times, just do what I do - pee in your suit.

The Steeplechase Flyer

Deleted Scenes - Pictures from the 9th Annual Steeplechase

I'll try to describe the Steeplechase and Regatta that comes to the Colony from time to time in 10 words: Jetski race, sailboats, gambling, personal risk, Dad and his scams. There...that's 10 words. The annual race brings tourists in from the mainland for gambling and a chance to gawk at us. We get a chance to rub shoulders with people rich enough to get out here and make a few bucks on the side. What can go wrong?

A lot as it turns out - the races themselves are pretty dangerous. Old, poorly-maintained personal watercraft doing 60 miles an hour around tightly-drawn boat lanes, for one thing. Another is, no insurance and no help - you get hurt, you're on your own. Officially - the company doesn't endorse the races even though they're silent partners on everything going on. Scumbags...

So - assuming nobody gets hurt, the races themselves are awesome and the whole Colony shuts down for the day to watch. You can hitch a ride on different boats that have better views than you might - the races themselves take you in, out and around the Colony several times.







And then they have an ugly boat contest and a sailing regatta. Not really exciting, in my opinion but we clean up on beer and wine sales so it's all good. I found these on Dad's laptop and am posting them for everyone to see - I'm looking forward to my first time watching it.

What does the Colony look like?

I snagged some pictures from somebody who flew over the Colony a while back. As I've said elsewhere, to the untrained eye it looks a little disorganized - maybe like the wreckage leftover after a boat accident.

I wasn't here when they took the pictures so I don't vouch for their quality. Of course, I don't own a plane either so I guess I have to take what I can get.

Lots of people live shoulder-to-shoulder...not very comfortable. It takes a lot of patience and peacemaking to live here.

Deleted Scenes - Doing Pen Patrol

I start my day by checking all of our above-water equipment. Damage or theft are the biggest problems – we don’t see too much theft because of Dad’s street cred. All of our fish are monitored by a counting system and I look at those numbers to see if anything is off. Usually, I catch the first part of this while heating up the first pot of coffee of the day. I wasn’t a coffee person before I came out here but having something hot to drink makes a big difference.

After the first round of checks is done, I take a coffee and get suited up. My suit is always cold first thing in the morning, for some reason. At first, the neoprene feels cold and clammy like I crawled into a tub of raw meat. After it warms up, it’ll still pull at my shoulders – it still keeps me warm when I’m out there under water. By this time, Dad’s up and ready for hookah tending. He reads some battered old novel while sitting there next to the compressor. A chair, something to read and something to drink and he’ll sit there until the end of time.

I know not to jump in the water next to him, he hates getting wet. I pull my fins and mask on while he makes himself comfortable. Then I step off the dock and into the water. The world goes green-blue and the water pushes all the air away.

It makes you realize why people have been writing about the sea as long as they’ve had things to write with. The dark, secret, ancient world underneath the water and we’re all just very small ants floating on the garbage that doesn’t sink. I fix a small leak in my face mask and look around. The clouds of fish we have in this pen are moving around like they always do – a shimmering mass of floating silver. Breaking the surface, I stroke over to Dad and he hands me my regulator. “Be careful,” he says, just like he always does. I nod and slip back below the surface, starting the process of pen patrol that will take hopefully not more than an hour to complete.

Deleted Scenes - A Rude Awakening III

“See, Jubal here is kind of the station pet,” the first guard I talked to explained. “He was about to do his third fall when his lawyer did a change-of-venue. Got him released on bail, of all things.” He tsked-tsked dramatically. “I guess the system doesn’t always work. Anyhoo, Jubal’s done some pretty bad stuff in his time. We picked him up just before he did it again.” He looked up over my shoulder. “What do you say, Jubal? Does the system work?”

Jubal was a white guy, slightly built but taller and stronger than me at 14. He had a lazy eye and thick glasses. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck, he was standing that close. “Jubal likes kids like you,” the gorilla said. I was nauseated with fear, my bladder was close to letting go. These guys were taking my blood without my consent and now I was about to be thrown into a locked cell with a pederast. My blood was thrumming past my ears and I was breathing like I had just run a 10K uphill.

A small sob came out of me, unbidden. I heard Jubal behind me draw kind of a surprised, excited breath. “Don’t cry, son,” the med said. “That just makes him excited.”

We stood like that for maybe 10 seconds, when the gorilla locked eyes with me. “Are we done?” he asked.

I couldn’t speak – I just nodded. Two of the guards stepped away and two others led me obediently back to the drunk tank. Jubal eyes followed me like a cat watching a mouse; he never said a word. In the interim, someone had taken my bed and I dropped to the floor with my back to the wall. I was shaking, wanting to cry but so shocked and frightened that I didn’t want them to take that from me as well.

Snapshots from the Bad Side #3

I pushed a small dolly-cart full of food along the dock. The boats that were previously full of life were lifeless. Some were locked up, others had maybe one person left behind as caretaker.

These were the dog days of August – the winds that were so prevalent during the spring and summer were gone. The sun beat down on the top of my head. The colony was almost a ghost town. I had this nauseating feeling…it made me want to cut the bowlines and gun for the horizon.

We made the decision at the end of the second day. After Dad left, the panic set in. We went from boat to boat trading stories. Did we know what was happening? Did we know anyone in the ‘Danger Zone’, as we were starting to call it? We weren’t referring to cities, there were too many places where things were going wrong. An Indian couple – a guy who went by “Ray” (who knew how many syllables his real name was) and his wife Mala, they were from San Jose. As we passed their boat, I heard frantic Punjabi as he spoke with someone – she was sitting on their top deck crying and using a dishtowel to wipe her eyes.

If it weren’t for the fear in everyone’s eyes, you’d think it was a big party. Plasma screens with their sound turned way, way up chattered the news in several languages. People were standing around and discussing things. I took a sip off of a cup of beer, my first in almost a year. Then someone reached in and slapped it out of my hand – I guess everything else in the world was going crazy, but the ‘no alcohol to minors’ rule hadn’t been rescinded. Nancy tugged at my hand and pointed back the way we came. It was too loud for me to hear her but she wanted to go back to home base.

The noise dampened as I slid the cabin door shut. You could still hear it, like you were hiding in the back of the coat closet at a cocktail party. We continued to watch the news hoping to hear something, anything, about our parents. As the hours passed, she fell asleep in a nest of blankets on the floor and I did the same, lying on the couch.

Deleted Scenes - A Rude Awakening II

I was face up on the jail hallway floor, scared out of my wits – did the cops rape you in jail, too? I started screaming and the big gorilla holding my right arm reached out with a free hand and pinched my ear lob, hard. “Pipe down, sweetmeat,” he said. “We’re just making sure you’re nice and healthy.” They rolled up my left sleeve and jabbed a needle into the artery. I saw my blood almost instantly fill a capsule. He expertly removed it and taped a cotton ball to the hole.

“You can’t do this,” I screamed.

“Buddy,” the guy with the gloves said. “We just did. Try not to step on your lip too much or you’ll be a whole lot more miserable than you already are.”

I opened my mouth and told him what he could do. They were momentarily surprised by my wit but quickly recovered. “Man, you don’t quit, do you?” he sounded amused. “Tell you what we’ll do.” In unison, they hauled me to my feet and marched me down the corridor. A guy was sitting by in himself in a cell, his knees drawn to his nose and his arms wrapped around. He was wearing paper slippers and green prison scrubs.

“Jubal,” one of the guards said as we approached. “Want some company?” They turned me around and forced me back against the bars. I heard the rustle of cloth against plastic as Jubal came to the door.

Deleted Scenes - Messages from the Boss

Notice – The Pacific Fisheries is due to receive some important visitors tomorrow!

As part of our continuing mission to show the world how we contribute toward sustainable resources, our complex will be receiving visitors around 0900 tomorrow.

Some folks will be persons you recognize, such as Hollywood actors and members of the state and federal congresses. Please respect their privacy and space as we want to project a level of professionalism at all times.

If anyone should ask about how you enjoy being part of this exciting project, feel free to show them your personal fish operations. I’m sure your feedback will contribute to a memorable occasion for all.

Thanks!

- Fisheries B Complex Admin


“The colony gets visits like this from time to time,” Dad sighed patiently. “The company gets all bent out of shape and wants us to show what a marvelous job we’re all doing out here floating on top of this aquarium.” He opened another beer and continued. “So – all of our non-colony business, like the groceries for example, gets buried and we all get to stand around for people to gawk and snap pictures.” He snorted and sneered “tourists…” at the gathering dark outside.

Deleted Scenes - A Rude Awakening

My mom didn’t want to let me go out on the boat right away. It took a lot for her to realize that I just wasn’t doing that good where we were. She grounded me the first time she picked me up from the police station. It happened in the middle of July and I was grounded until October – that should give you some idea as to how bad it was.

I showed up to the party on Friday night – some rager that a kid from Laguna Hills threw. I avoided the pot, the speed, the coke, the pills and the horse. That left booze – lots and lots of it. I woke up the next morning lying on a cheap mattress covered in thick green plastic. My mouth tasted sour from the puke. I was in the Malibu Beach drunk tank; one of a dozen others that were bused in from the overflow after the cops raided the party.

I lay there on the mattress, unable to believe that I’d blacked out. Sure, I’d been drinking with my friends for almost a year, but this was entirely different. It was like a light switch had been thrown around two in the morning and now it was around noon – the lights went out, the film changed over and the audience had no idea it happened. I rinsed my mouth out with water from the sink, careful not to swallow. Other than four other guys my age, we had a white homeless guy who was about a week behind on his meds. He talked endlessly to an ancient coin of dried gum on the floor.

Getting drunk and ending up in the drunk tank was bad enough. As my head was pounding from the hangover, a deputy informed me that I was going to submit my blood to rule me out as a suspect in the sexual assault that had taken place at the same party.

The exchange that next took place would probably have gotten any civil rights lawyer salivating at such an easy case. I refused, asking for my phone call. The deputy shrugged and went away. He returned a few minutes later with four others. One had exam gloves on and a med-pack. The deputy opened the door and motioned me out to the hall. I walked out and was bodily forced to the floor.

Deleted Scenes - Gun Range Scores

This is an old blog post from last summer that I never got around to publishing. I publish posts like these with the tag 'Deleted Scenes' [don't ask me why...I don't know]. Point is that it helps you understand what my home is like and why it is so hard to be where we are right now.

Spent some time spotting for Julian on the top deck of the Gun Range this afternoon. Spotting is kinda dull - you're there for what seems like hours looking through a scope at some target far off on the horizon. He'll nail floating pieces of trash at 400 yards - normally snipers do this from a stationary position but he does it from on top of a rolling boat. He says it takes a special technique to time the roll with the shot, along with everything else you do to control your shooting. Anyway - after it was all said and done, he let me take a few shots with this heavy rifle he brought. It was a Weatherby 300, he said. I took a picture of the shell casing and I wanted to show you - it's the left-most one. The middle one is a .308 and the one on the right is a .223. But here's the weird part:

Working at the Gun Range gives you a lot of contact with guns (surprise, surprise) and you absorb a lot of knowledge just hanging around watching guys plink cans all day. So, I figured that the .308 round was the same as the 7.62mm rounds I've seen guys fire out of semi-auto AK-47s and other stuff (Miguel owns a PKM but he keeps that under lock and key - another long story). I told Julian that it was an AK round and got a very pointed lecture about the subtle differences between a .308 and a 7.62mm round. He even made me go look it up!

I complained to Miguel but all he said was: "Next time, keep your mouth shut." Not my best day at the Gun Range.

This Arrived...

From: ColonyNet
To: All-ColonyD
Re: MANDATORY EVACUATION TOMORROW MORNING @ 9:30AM

BY ORDER OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
All persons must be evacuated from this facility - NO EXCEPTIONS.

The following instructions must be observed:

1. A responsible member of each family, preferably the head of the family, or the person in whose name most of the property is held, and each individual living alone, will report to the Civil Control Station (Pacific Fisheries Tender Ship - Phoenix) to receive further instructions. This must be done before midnight tonight.

2. Evacuees must carry with them on departure for the Assembly Center, the following property:
a) Bedding and linens (no mattress) for each member of the family;

b) Toilet articles for each member of the family;
c) Extra clothing for each member of the family;
d) Sufficient knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls and cups for each member of the family;
e) Essential personal effects for each member of the family.
All items carried will be securely packaged, tied and plainly marked with the name of the owner and numbered in accordance with instructions obtained at the Civil Control Station. The size and number of packages is limited to that which can be carried by the individual or family group.

3. No pets of any kind will be permitted.

4. No personal items and no household goods will be shipped to the Assembly Center.

5. The Government through its agencies will provide for the storage, at the sole risk of the owner, of the more substantial household items, such as iceboxes, washing machines, pianos and other heavy furniture. Cooking utensils and other small items will be accepted for storage if crated, packed and plainly marked with the name and address of the owner. Only one name and address will be allowed per family.

6. All instructions pertaining to the movement will be obtained at the Civil Control Station.

Go to the Civil Control Station between the hours of 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM.

THIS IS A MANDATORY EVACUATION OF PACIFIC FISHERIES - COMPLEX D

Snapshots from the Bad Side #2

PLEASE HELP US FIND OUR DAD - LA AREA EVACUEES PLEASE KEEP AN EYE OUT

This is my Dad. It's his booking photo from when he went to prison for a drug arrest. It's a long story. He was part of a boatlift that landed onshore in the Los Angeles area and we have no way to contact him. He told us to evacuate on our own if we had to but we're still trying to get word to him or our Mom - both of them are still on the mainland.

I don't have a way to age the picture - picture this guy but 30 pounds heavier and maybe 15-20 years old. Now that I think about it, this picture is 17 years old - hopefully that helps.

IF YOU'RE IN THE LA AREA AND YOU'RE BEING EVACUATED - YOU MIGHT SEE HIM - TELL HIM TO CALL US! WE ARE JIM AND NANCY WESTFIELD LOCATED ON THE HORNER C AND WE ARE PART OF PACIFIC FISHERIES COLONY - D COMPLEX

Deleted Scenes - The Colony is Pirate Free!

This is an old blog post from last summer that I never got around to publishing. I publish posts like these with the tag 'Deleted Scenes' [don't ask me why...I don't know]. Point is that it helps you understand what my home is like and why it is so hard to be where we are right now.

We saw them installing these last summer on the tender ship, the Phoenix. They're designed to keep nosy neighbors to a minimum. They call them "CIWS" systems and we are definitely NOT allowed anywhere near them.

Dad says it's a product of paranoid thinking. I asked what that meant but he was distracted and he never answered. I looked it up later - this is what a CIWS is.

Found This Somewhere

Dug this up out of a drawer - it's an old drawing I made last summer one afternoon while waiting for Dad to finish up on Pen Patrol. Not great - I got straight Cs in Fine Arts. Anyway...it's a quick sketch of the Horner at dock.

Sorry about the coffee stain.

Deleted Scenes - Colony Economics

This is an old blog post from last summer that I never got around to publishing. I publish posts like these with the tag 'Deleted Scenes' [don't ask me why...I don't know]. Point is that it helps you understand what my home is like and why it is so hard to be where we are right now.

Bad jobs can be fun jobs. A good job has you focused on what you’re doing. A bad job makes you focus on what you can get away with. There weren’t many ‘good’ jobs on the colony. The jobs we did were boring, weird and sometimes dangerous. A class system began to emerge on the colony as those who were there to fish, fished and those who were there to scam, scammed. Depending on your scam, depending on who you were close to and what they were doing, you either had it really, really good or really, really bad.

We had it pretty good, I think. We didn’t go hungry and leave for shore like so many did. Some people were so broke that they just cut their moorings in the middle of the night and drifted free. At least I think that’s what happened. We came out at sunrise and there was a big hole in the dock where the boat was. I really hope it wasn’t because they sank in the middle of the night.

“It’s like this, Jim,” he said, picking up a couple of pickle chips from the counter where we were making burgers one night. He flipped both pickles straight out where they smacked against the window. Slowly, they began to slide downward and Dad continued. “You take an idea and throw it against the wall. If it sticks or it slides down, that tells you how good it is. If it’s a good idea – you go with it. If it isn’t, you let it go and pick something else.” Grabbing the pickles before they hit the sill, he popped them into his mouth and then cleaned the window with the front of his t-shirt.

“That’s disgusting,” I said.

“That’s economics,” he replied.

Deleted Scenes - I acted like an idiot....

This is an old blog post from last summer that I never got around to publishing. I publish posts like these with the tag 'Deleted Scenes' [don't ask me why...I don't know]. Point is that it helps you understand what my home is like and why it is so hard to be where we are right now.

Frigging Riley. He IM’s me late in March while I’m discussing plans to get back out on the Colony and asks “Has Stacy told you about Mitch?” That was all he needed to get me completely paranoid about Stacy breaking up with me and hooking up with buddy Mitch. Like I didn’t have enough reasons for doing him in. I fantasized about the perfect method: tied to the flukes of that antique anchor on the Gun Range and dropped off the side – no muss, no fuss. I don’t think anyone would miss Mitch much, but I think Miguel would miss that anchor.

But then this happened! She’s going on about something over on one window and Riley’s telling me she’s secretly cheating on me in another. What I did next was very ill-advised:

ME: ARE YOU CHEATING!
STACY: What?
ME: Are
ME: You
ME: CHEATING ON ME!???
ME: ?????!!!! :( :( :(

A few seconds rolled by…

S: No, Jim, I am not cheating on you. Who told you that?
M: It doesn’t matter. When was the last time you saw Mitch?
S: Riley told you I was seeing Mitch, didn’t he?
M: When did you see him!?
M: That jerk – I will kill him – you better kiss him good-bye because he’s dead
tonight, DO YOU HEAR ME!?
M: I WILL HAVE HIM GONE – ONE PHONE CALL.
S: Jim, calm down.
M: ONE PHONE CALL – I’M DIALING RIGHT NOW

Blah, blah, blah. Can you imagine a 14-year-old talking like this? I think I got it from a movie. I might have sounded really tough except my voice was cracking and I sounded like Mickey Mouse.

So the rest of the story is, I go on like this for a few hours with Stacy. We start arguing back and forth, we suddenly bring up all kinds of relationship crap and we almost break up over this. Riley disappears on me in IM after ‘promising to keep an eye on Stacy’ – idiot. Now I have all kinds of questions and the fool drops out on me! I wasn’t sure who I was more pissed off at, him or Stacy. Either way, the entire thing makes me absolutely crazy and I lose it. She reacts by getting pissed herself (and I can’t blame her, I was a real ass) and our relationship almost ends right there.

About 9 o’clock that night I’m in my bedroom, still fuming, when the phone rings. It’s Riley and he’s laughing his butt off. “Hey baby,” he says laughing.

“Where have you been all day? I’ve been trying to get more info out of you and she’s denying everything!” I was ready to reach through the phone and throttle him.

“Of course she’s denying everything, what do you expect?” He was still laughing.

“What’dyou mean?”

“I made it up.”

His laughing and my current state of mind made me a little slow. The sentence took a few seconds to register. “What?”

“I made it up. I made the whole thing up to yank your chain.”

I went mad, I did. Completely bonkers. He hung up on me, still laughing, as I screamed at him almost like I did at Emil at the good ol’ Mugu Rock. I went on in this vain until Marty and Mom broke into the room, convinced I caught my balls in a light socket or something. I tried to get Stacy back on chat but she was offline and Mom wouldn’t spring for a phone call. “It’s too expensive…emergencies only,” she said. Relationship emergencies didn’t count, I found out. Either way, I was frantic and sent an email to Dad late that night. He hit the rack for an early start but he received it the following morning. I waited on pins and needles until that afternoon.

Deleted Scenes - More Strangeness

This is an old blog post from last summer that I never got around to publishing. I publish posts like these with the tag 'Deleted Scenes' [don't ask me why...I don't know]. Point is that it helps you understand what my home is like and why it is so hard to be where we are right now.

Telling the truth about the Colony proved difficult for me in the past. I saw it painted on the side of someone’s boat and it stuck with me – “What should I care if they single me out for sneers and laughter? I never truckled, I never lied. I told the truth”. I stared at it for a while, trying to figure out what ‘truckled’ meant and said without realizing it, “I wonder where it’s from.” Not loud, really – just under my breath.

Out of nowhere, a voice shouted “Frank Norris”. I turned in surprise but the nearby docks were deserted and I never did figure out who was close enough to hear me and cared enough to shout an answer back. Thinking about it now, it gives me the creeps…who was that guy?

Deleted Scenes - Snapshots from the Bad Side #1

This is an old blog post from last summer that I never got around to publishing. I publish posts like these with the tag 'Deleted Scenes' [don't ask me why...I don't know]. Point is that it helps you understand what my home is like and why it is so hard to be where we are right now.

He scored a tight 180 on the water and we were heading south again in seconds. Within a minute, the boat for home was a small dot in the distance. I had not moved in all this time, holding onto the railing and staring at the going-home boat. I was hoping that somehow, everybody would come back and laugh at the elaborate prank being pulled on me. With every passing whitecap, that dream looked less and less likely to happen.

After a few minutes alone inside, Greg called to me. “Want some dinner?”

“I guess.”

“They sent us a care package to tide us over,” he explained. Hoisting a plastic grocery bag filled with paper take-out boxes, he handed it to me. “Warm these up in the galley and I’ll join you in a few minutes – we don’t have to change course for at least an hour.” I opened the bag to find that, when you were making an illegal run into Mexico for prescription pills or whatever, they fed you good. Viet Pho, noodles, chicken and vegetables were neatly organized in different packages. They even included some egg rolls and mustard.

Greg walked in as I pulled steaming plates from the microwave. “Ah, the simple pleasures,” he commented. In an under-the-counter cooler, he pulled out a beer for himself and a soda for me. “Help yourself,” he added. We sat and ate, Greg used old lacquer chopsticks while I stabbed pieces of meat with a kiddie-size plastic fork.

“Know what we’re doing?” he asked, chewing a broccoli spear.

“…no”, I cautiously replied. This whole deal was twitchy and, frankly, I was too scared to ask.

“It’s no big deal,” he reassured me. “Last minute deal for some extra meds…Viagra or something. Anyway…they asked us to come back for it and I said okay.” He took a sip of his Pho, looking out to the vast horizon beyond the galley windows. “I’d just go back myself, but the cops know me. I can’t just motor back into the harbor without a good reason.”

“And so you need me to lose my wallet?” I asked.

“Sure,” he replied. “Actually, you really did lose your wallet because you’re going to go to one of the places you visited today – a cop will be escorting you – and they’ll hand you the wallet you misplaced. Now, the next part’s tricky. The wallet will be empty and you’re going to start a fight with the guy or girl who hands it to you. You need to make enough of a stink so that the cop believes you but not too much so that he feels like taking you into the station for a statement. Got it?”

With a sinking feeling, I was realizing that Dad had buried me in something up to my neck. “I knew I should have held out for three days,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Dad,” I explained. “I told him I wanted three days off of pen patrol and he got me down to one day.”

“Ha!” he laughed. “Rick puts you into this caper and all you get is one day off?”

“Yeah,” I answered bitterly.

“Tell you what,” he said. “You do this favor for me and I’ll make it worth your while.” We were both silent for a while – I was considering what Greg had in mind. I’d watched enough movies to know that the drug dealers would kill the guy who was doing the favor as often as they rewarded them. Would he try to hurt me?

Deleted Scenes - Life on the Colony - Why Are We Doing This?

This is an old blog post from last summer that I never got around to publishing. I publish posts like these with the tag 'Deleted Scenes' [don't ask me why...I don't know]. Point is that it helps you understand what my home is like and why it is so hard to be where we are right now.

Commercial fishing had been in a slow decline over the past 50 years. Over fishing, pollution and other factors contributed to the smaller and smaller catches that your basic fisherman in a yellow rain slicker and boots brought home to the dinner table. Not that this affected people around the world much – they went right on demanding and buying and selling more and more fish every single day.

It was around this point that someone came up with the idea (more like pulled it off of a dusty shelf and looked at it again) of creating fish farms. Not the farms that have existed for decades on land, but large ones, ones that allowed people to harvest larger and larger catches without having to put to sea every two or three weeks. They created large dock and pen areas that could float in the sea and allow the fish to take advantage of just being in their natural habitat without worrying about a random shark coming along. When you get enough fish, a ship comes out and hauls them back to shore, giving you a new net system to replace it and then you start all over again.

Fishing companies outfitted old ferries, big old yachts or even in one or two cases, bought some old Navy boats and created their own company stores. They also started selling old yachts that were outfitted with the docking and fish net rigs. The boats had to be able to be lived on – we weren’t into sharecropping, yet. You also needed enough power to tow your rig system with you – just in case you found yourself in the position of being able to (and wanting) to leave your particular colony.

Colony Sketch #1

I wanted to add this - it's a quick sketch of what the Colony looks like if you view it from overhead. You can see all 4 rings - A through D. I put down where we are "Horner" and where the Gun Range is (bottom left). I also drew a general map to show how boats like Ignacio's get all the way up to the Phoenix. They change this route for big events like the Steeplechase.

The Horner - Pictures on Board

I thought I'd take some pictures of the inside of the Horner to give you an idea as to what life is like here. I've talked about some of it but it takes a lot of boring, hard work to keep things running here. I'll talk as we go...

The foredeck - see the railings? I clean those.


Down in the engine room - the Horner's got some big diesel motors. Hope I never have to work on them.

Another engine room shot. Dad made me sleep down here once.

The laundry room



Pic of our compass and the mess / wardroom - whatever you want to call it. I call it the Lounge.

Deleted Scenes - old diary entry

This is an old blog post from last summer that I never got around to publishing. I publish posts like these with the tag 'Deleted Scenes' [don't ask me why...I don't know]. Point is that it helps you understand what my home is like and why it is so hard to be where we are right now.

I ran across this - I had it saved for a blog post I never got around to last summer. Took a picture of this guy swimming not too far from the Horner over on D Ring. One of the best things about the Colony is getting to see animals you'd have to go catch at Sea World or the aquarium.

Snagged an Access Code ...

There was a guard smoking near the Happy Horsepucky over on C Ring - he dropped a small scrap of paper when he lit his smoke and I snagged it before it fell overboard. A ratty post-it with the following in blue ball-point ink:

0 7 4 3 2 5 9

Looks like an access code - I'll try it later tonight when I'm poking around to hear updates about the crisis onshore.

...Might come in handy.