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Post by papaof2 on Aug 14, 2019 13:18:47 GMT -6
Wasn't my sister who died. It was her husbands best friend wife. Sorry for confusion and loss of your sister. This is why you can never take enough photos. Have some 100,000+ digital images (digital photos, scanned prints - some from before 1900, legal documents: birth & death certificates, marriage licenses, deeds, etc) on the desktop PC I built to be able to process many images quickly. At the time, it wasn't an Alienware equivalent but was close - quad core 3GHz+ processor, etc. 2TB drive for images, 500GB SSD for the OS and programs. Over time, I've cataloged about 10,000 of those images. Might have been further along if the previous "image machine" (and a laptop and a digital camera) hadn't left the house in the hands of uninvited visitors some years ago (no damage, no harm done, just lost a lot of work). There are multiple reasons to have backups - in this case, three 2TB drives with almost everything from the lost computers. Why didn't those drives go missing? They were on the floor in the corner behind a recliner. I guess that's not where people look for electronics...
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Post by 9idrr on Aug 14, 2019 20:11:11 GMT -6
Just curious, Will, if you ever got to take pix of a Habu or any of the other Blackbirds? When I was on Okinawa, anybody with a camera anywhere near one of those babies was askin' for trouble. Any of the pilots and crew with those planes thought they were pretty hot stuff but the guys wearin' a Habu patch seemed to have the braggin' rights.
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Post by willc453 on Aug 14, 2019 22:28:47 GMT -6
Strange that you asked me about the SR-71. My last 2 years in the A.F. had me stationed at Beale AFB where they were stationed. But never did shoot any of them because no one seemed to want slides of 'em. As to the Habu patch, only the pilot and systems operator were allowed to wear them on their flight suits. And they only got to wear them after their first mission. At the time I was there, the U-2's were being phased out with TR-1's replacing them. And the SR-71 drones (D-21's) weren't being used at all. One drone was lost over North Vietnam when we were doing business there. Now if you want to see a SR-71, there's 2 places. Best one is the Merced, Calif. Castle AFB museum. Knight had a yard not far from there, so I bob tailed to see what there was and they not only have a sh*t load of aircraft, but a wide variety of them. Took a lot of photos of everything that day. What makes it REALLY outstanding is once a year they have what's called open cockpit day. Yeah, that's where they have stands next to the cockpits, with the canopied open so you can take all the photos you want. They've added a lot of aircraft since my visit, but one of the things I liked was able to see the cockpit interior of a B-52. The cockpit is complete, though sealed with a sheet of plexiglass to keep grubby hands off everything....and anything "disappearing". Link for it: www.castleairmuseum.org/The other is the March AFB museum at Riverside, Calif. They've got a bunch of aircraft, many of them on outside display. Again, happened to hit them many years ago while with Knight. They too have an SR-71, but it's inside. I also think they have one of the D-21 drones on display. Link: www.marchfield.org/As to asking for trouble...yeah, had to deal with that sh*t one time because of one of my troops. Moron thought since he was in the A.F., why, he could just walk out on the tarmac to take photos of the birds in their hangers?! I was NOT a happy camper getting that call from the S.P.'s I got to handle it because the switchboard supervisor said he's your man, YOU deal with it. I did, by giving him sh*t details for the next month. So instead of having 2 days off a week, he was out helping another squadron emptying dumpsters, scrapping road killed animals off the asphalt or dead animals found on someone's housing property. No article 15, no reprimand. Nice kid, but a bit bizarre in the way he thought. Like taking some photos of our switching equipment for the base phones. He wanted to show his family some of the stuff he worked with in a round about fashion or a photo of him (that I took for him) at the 2 man base switchboard. Then on his 2 days off, he ran off to St. Helens after it blew, bringing back about 50 pounds of volcanic ash with the idea of selling 1 once baggies to everyone as a souvenir. As for me and my photo endeavors, I only had trouble once....well, almost three times, but since nothing came of those other 2, I count it as a one time thing only. At Elmendorf, taking leave to visit family in Florida. Close credit union at my last base, which was March AFB. Which by the way, I managed to p*ss off a 2 star general, who was also the head of the 15th AF there. Thing was, there was NOTHING he could do about it, but that's another story to tell some time later. But the credit failed to SIGN my check and the credit union at Elmendorf wouldn't cash it naturally. So catch a flight to L.A., Calif. airport via Oregon where I shot a lot of their F-101B's and T-33's and the same type of helicopters used in the opening scenes of the MASH tv series. From L.A., get a feeder flight to Ontario where I met a couple of other A.F. guys and 1 woman with us kicking in for a cab to March. Night at NCO transient quarters, next morning I called up this rescue squadron which flew C-130's and get passed to squadron commander. Who has NO idea why I'd want to take photos of his birds. I explained about trading slides and all of that, with him telling me he'd get back to me to see if he could give permission for me to do this?! WTF?! Thought I was dealing with a butter bar (2nd lt.) instead of a Lt. Col. Anyway, get to bs'ing with this WAF who was also passing thru March. And yeah, was trying to score even though I didn't think I had much of a chance. Anyway, she tells me SAC in Omaha was sending out another security team to test March's reaction as the base had failed it the last time. Now I was working communications center at the time and one of these security yahoo's tried giving us a paper wrapped box. This door was in 2 parts with metal bars on the top half so we could give/receive paperwork. Our man said no thanks and closed the door in the guys face. Command post failed BIG time, with the security team calling this 2 star general around 03:00. He wanted to know who the caller was and where he was at. Caller explained, adding he was calling from the generals office, on his phone! So there I am bs'ing with a pretty girl when a captain and MSgt. (E-7) come in to the transient quarter open area, asking for me! Yeah, they were the S.P.'s sent to check me out by that Lt. Col. You know, I gotta be a commie spy or something wanting to take photos of a top secret airplane like their C-103's. Now after telling my story, the MSgt. figured I was telling the truth and not a commie spy. But to be through, the Capt. has him call my NCOIC at Elmendorf. Well, the girl got up and left when I started telling this Capt. about Sac sending another team down here, etc., etc., etc. Of course, he wanted not only to know all about this, but WHERE and who I had heard it from. Told him from some people that were passing thru. MSgt. comes back and says his NCOIC says he's okay. Well, never did shoot the C-130's, with me only getting a couple of KC-135's. And got the same Capt. & MSgt. as my escorts while doing this. Captain tells me I can't take any photos that would show the B-52's in the shark pin. These are the B-52's that are loaded and ready to go on the alert pad. I didn't say anything, because you can't fix stupid. How about a 4 lane (now 6) highway is only a mile or so away from this area. Pull your car over, get you super duper telephoto out and take all the photos you want. See family in Florida and to shorten this story, get back to Elmendorf. And of course, the NCOIC wants to see me...as in as soon as I report back on base. He looks at me, shakes his head and then says: You have NO idea how on seriously I was considering telling that MSgt. not only did I NOT know you, but to make sure your cell key gets broken while you're in the slammer.
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Post by papaof2 on Aug 14, 2019 23:14:11 GMT -6
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Post by willc453 on Aug 15, 2019 7:10:43 GMT -6
Yep...number 7 is for an SR-71.
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Post by texican on Aug 15, 2019 16:27:08 GMT -6
get back to Elmendorf. And of course, the NCOIC wants to see me...as in as soon as I report back on base. He looks at me, shakes his head and then says: You have NO idea how on seriously I was considering telling that MSgt. not only did I NOT know you, but to make sure your cell key gets broken while you're in the slammer.
WillC,
Military love knows no bounds....
Did make it out to the airplane boneyard outside of Phoenix.... What a place.... Would take days to see it all....
WillC you have lived a interesting life....
Texican....
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Post by willc453 on Aug 15, 2019 17:28:27 GMT -6
Never did hit the boneyard (Davis-Monthan AFB), but did most of a day at Pima County air museum which is almost literally across the street from DM. What surprised me was seeing a F-102A in the markings of the 525 TFS.....the same squadron Dad was in when we were stationed at Bitburg AFB, Germany. The 525th got deactivated, then re-activated to fly F-22's out of Elmendorf a few years ago. And update on the next The Shadow chapter: it's 7-8 pages long, thought of something else to add to it, so now have 3 different things I'm writing up. The boys are at the girls ranches and they're going to learn how to ride horses. Of course, it doesn't turn out as expected. The boys are in prison and dealing with 8 convicts. I'd tell you more, but you'd probably be bored.
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Post by 9idrr on Aug 15, 2019 17:49:38 GMT -6
Got stuck spendin' the rest of my tour on Okinawa, about 14 months. No 11Bravos there so they stuck me with an arty battery. Arty meant Hawk missiles in this case. All they could figure out for me to do was run switchboard and radios. Great shifts, too, as in 0700 to 1900 with 12 off and repeat. Then 24 hours off and 1900 to 0700 for 2 shifts, followed by 48 off. It worked out that I wasn't scheduled for the day of Bob Hope's show but took the shift for a guy who really wanted to go, but I still got to hear it on the radio. Anyway, got plenty of chances to see Blackbirds take off. Seemed as though they went from zero to vertical pretty damned quick! Don't know if it was just braggin' on their part but the USAF guys told us that even if we knew when a SR71 was gonna take off, our missiles wouldn't've been able to take 'em out. The 'pellerheads never could say in advance when they'd be flyin' but I'm sure the bar girls down on BC Street in Koza knew it even before the pilots did. Ol' 2 Dollar Annie probably knew more military secrets than the CID, unless those guys were hangin' out in BJ Alley, too. That little island was quite a place. USMC, USNavy, USAF and Army all based there, and to top it off there were some Snake Eaters. Payday in the bars could get pretty interestin'. Squids would fight with Jarheads, 'til the Army got into it with the Navy, then they and Marines would take on all comers. Don't remember 'pellerheads gettin' in too much trouble, but that might've been 'cause then the APs, SPs and MPs would've had to argue over who busted whom, and the APs didn't wanna mess up their uniforms. ;^)
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Post by willc453 on Aug 17, 2019 7:56:35 GMT -6
The Affected: The Shadow Chapter 44
We're sure some of you may wonder what happened to our life long dream of becoming D&D module designers. This ended up with us going in a direction we never saw coming or expected. This all started near the beginning of our seventh year or three years after we graduated from college. We were still playing at the girls place on the weekends when we could, but then they also knew we were pretty busy between helping those in the south American countries, helping the FBI and Interpol from time to time, those girls and women from being prostitutes, Mars, etc. Thing is, the girls were the ones who brought the subject of us applying for a job with Gold Coast. Now, it's not like they have a job application online to fill out, which was something we hadn't thought of until they brought it up about us wanting to work there. The other thing we had to think about was what if the job required us to actually live in Washington state...you know, working some Monday thru Friday job and either using a time card or being paid a weekly salary? We had A LOT of irons in the fire so to speak, with those girls and ladies calling us from time to time about some of the problems they were having, though the girls took most of the calls, which more than once, us giving the girls and ladies a hand from time to time. Some of those we had to deal with that were giving trouble to the girls and women didn't survive the encounter.
As to the government representatives in California, Oregon and Washington D.C., they started acting on the homeless problem with more than words. China had a lot of tariffs put on it, so jobs and factories that were there, had a choice: either move back to the United States or face MAJOR import fees on good produced in China. Suddenly the goods produced there were now either equal in price here in the U.S. and in some cases, even higher. The President was making good on his America First promise when he first ran for President. The only problem we had with him was his lying when he sent stuff out via Twitter. We (as Metronomes and our voice changers) paid him a visit about this and now, when he does this, EVERYTHING is a known and provable fact. If not, he puts it down as his own personal opinion. He only made this mistake once. He was NOT happy finding himself and his wife covered in fifty pounds fresh cow poo. That's when we reminded him of what we wanted from him. Now if you're thinking we were picking on him, that's not true. We also got on other politicians, especially those that got “political contributions” from various corporations when it came to government contracts. Which meant we the taxpayer would always seem to be paying more for something than we should of. Of course, some people in the government don't believe the law should apply to them when it comes to conflict of interest. Hacker helped us more than once uncovering their “fact finding missions” to Paris, Bonn, etc., with these corporations paying for everything. And sometimes we just got kind of mad. Nothing like a member of the House or Senate sitting at their desk while either one was in session and suddenly, they get eight hundred degree plus heat coming from under their desks with their desks and seats catching fire! We bought a bullhorn and from another seat or desk, we told that individual this was their ONLY warning. Of course, we used our voice changers. So now elected officials had not only those changed, but the Metronomes to deal with. Suddenly our countries deficit started going down, with many unnecessary and wasteful programs suddenly being canceled. Yes, we know, we know....the country is still in debt and may be decades before much of it gets a lot lower, but we figured it was a start. And let's not forget Hacker....with the dirt he found and started putting online, suddenly many politicians decided to retire. This is when we figured since the President can only serve two terms, it should be applied to politicians, though after talking this over with the girls, we made the limit being ten years as we now understood how it could take some time to learn how things were done politically. I mean after all, Aaron and I didn't become DM's like we are overnight. And NO MORE retirement benefits for any politician unless they had serious health problems. Some of them tried this dodge when they retired, getting their doctor to sign the paperwork. Both politician and doctor found out what it was like to be in the nothingness and meeting our baseball bats, tasers and bear spray. If they were women, we used those big belts on them instead. We never had to pay them a second visit. So between us, Hacker, Ben doing his thing all of them, Dancing Wind and her Aunts lawsuits, suddenly the government actually started working in the interests of citizens instead of themselves and big corporations. Boy, talk about a big turn around.
As to California and all its freebies to illegal aliens, that got stopped real quick, quickly followed by “sanctuary cities” in other states. This was because the Department of Justice not only investigated the people giving aid to these illegals, but prosecuted them to the full extent of the law. Which is why more than one mayor of a city found themselves in federal prison, along with their liberal supporters. Yeah, we felt bad that some families got broken up because their father and mother were sent to prison, but once prison sentences started getting handed out..... Not only that, the House and Senate passed a federal law REQUIRING state issued I.D.'s when voting, no matter what election it might be for. National, state, county, etc., it didn't matter. Oh boy, did the liberals howl about this saying it was racist, etc. The Department of Justice became just that, with it investigating anyone who was suspected of voter fraud, i.e., the dead voting, with a MANDATORY one year in jail for ANYONE letting someone vote who hadn't provided a photo i.d. Max sentencing was ten years, with NO time off for good behavior. A lot of Democrats and some Republicans suddenly didn't get re-elected. And if you think all this was brought about by us changed, no. The American people simply got tired of the government and started howling for blood, so to speak. When the people get mad, politicians quickly changed and in more than one case, a recall was made and they were voted out of office.
Oh, did I forget to mention how the prison system was changed? No more “Club Fed” type prisons for the rich or powerful. These people were now incarcerated just like everyone else in regular prison and they ALL got rude awakenings when it came to having reality hit them in the face. Yeah,they had money they could spend in the prisons store for soda pop, chips, etc. But very quickly gangs would take control of them and soon the former rich and famous found they maxed out the amount they were permitted in prison each month.....with them getting none of the “goodies” so to speak. As to the former Club Feds, they got renovated under the VA hospital system so our veterans would have a place to live in their old age or get rehabilitation help when injured while in the military. No more would a vet be denied a more expensive and better artificial leg or arm instead of getting a cheaper one which wouldn't do the job as well.
Anyway, back to trying to get a job at Gold Coast and that's where the girls helped us. I mean, a big problem was we didn't have any real jobs to put down for our work history. But they solved that, by having their dads putting us down as their employees, so we showed we had worked at temps at a couple of places before going to work for their Dad's. Dishonest? Yes, but we didn't know what else to do. Now the girls and everyone liked the modules they had played, but once again they showed us there were different ways to REALLY stand out. We had always put our modules on our computer, so no problem downloading one onto a thumb drive, then we went to a printer who not only printed it, but spiral bound it. Of course, we had to come up with a front and back cover for it, along with not only who had made the module, but they made sure we put down on the printout that it was copyrighted and all rights reserved. We put it in a box and sent it so it had to be signed for because we were paranoid about the postal system losing it. Then we were really high in our thoughts of us working for Gold Coast. Three weeks later.......we were in the dumps. Gold Coast said thanks, but no thanks. We don't buy modules from people no matter how good it may be, like yours, but we also have several teams of in house people who generate our modules and we are not currently hiring at this time. Thank you for your time and interest in Gold Coast.
Crushed? That wasn't the word for it. We didn't take the girls calls because we just wanted to be left alone. I mean, who'd want their girl to know we were a failure? So Aaron wrote a note saying we wanted to be alone for awhile, not to call us unless it was a life or death emergency. We left the note and rejection letter on their kitchen table when they weren't home. We spent the next week fishing in Alaska and New Zealand and if wondering, we didn't even talk to each other. The next week, we decided to take it out on those wicked and evil people on the FBI's and Interpol's most wanted list, which only took us a few days. And as soon as both agencies posted more people, they too were taken and found in jail cells. A hundred and twenty-seven people got turned in, with the money being delivered to abandoned aircraft hangers around the world. And we ate...a lot. Like somehow food gave us comfort. Thing is, during this time, we didn't talk much to each other and when we went fishing, we did it alone. Meaning I'd fish a part of some river or stream, while Aaron worked another section. And I know Aaron did some crying like I did, but we didn't say anything about it when we saw each other with puffy, red eyes.
At the end of the second week, I told Aaron we gotta face the truth: we're just not good enough to be module writers. Aaron said yeah, it's just the way things are. But then maybe we weren't fated to be fantasy module writers, but dealing with those people, meaning those on the FBI's and Interpol's wanted lists and helping others. We went home with the intention of packing up all our modules and now with the intent of doing something different in our lives. We were both shocked when we found the girls were not only there, but had been waiting for us to return since we had left them the note and rejection letter from Gold Coast. They got there the day after we had left them our note and rejection letter.
Well, we were kind of surprised to say the least in finding them there. Thing is, while they felt really bad about what had happened, they said maybe we were looking at this the wrong way, something we didn't understand. They understood how our life long dream was to work at Gold Coast, but had we considered working at some other fantasy company? Truth is, we hadn't, but then Gold Coast was our life long ambition. The other thing was, the other companies didn't have the following Gold Coast had. That's when Kathleen asked if we had ever considered publishing our modules and selling them? Well, we hadn't and besides, we had NO idea how to do this. But the girls had come up with some ideas on how to do this. We rented a P.O. box and set up an email address, then went to a printer who printed fifty copies of the same module that Gold Coast had rejected. All were spiral bound as we wanted a quality product but also one that could be used for years. We were also the first ones to come out with a fifty page module that started with the characters being first level and going to fifth. This was one our college friends and Tammy's group had played with ten characters and it took them almost a year to complete it. Now there's not many fantasy module companies in existence and we thought fifty copies was over kill and said so. They said once the orders start coming in, you DON'T want to keep the customer waiting for it to be printed because you didn't print enough. We thought they were crazy, but..... Mailed our modules to the different companies and asking them to review it. It took a month, but then the orders started coming in via email, so we started mailing them out. Then had to print more. This was when the girls suggested we also start selling them thru Amazon and Ebay. That took a little longer in selling that module thru them, but we got nothing but five star reviews, with people commenting on how they'd like to see a continuation of this series. Yeah, that module and a dozen others we had could be played separately, with varying levels of difficulty or one module leading to another adventure. It took about six month when sales REALLY began taking off.
The couple that owned the printing shop was quite happy when we gave them an order of five thousand to re-print our first module, which sold out within four months. The girls had us print up ten thousand of our second module and that's been our standard since then. And we've NEVER had any of our modules sitting on the racks, gathering dust. Yeah, we ended up buying a small warehouse, installing racks to hold our printed modules, new computers to process orders and that's when Hacker helped us in not only choosing what computers and printers to buy, but also the programs and website for all of this. We “paid” him off with a copy of each module when it was printed. Our modules were a little different than others in ours having perforated baseball card color drawings of some of the monsters we had created, along with standard monsters. So the DM could be holding something instead of having to flip thru our module to find the stats on them. Then our customers started sending us messages wondering when we'd come out with miniatures of our monsters?! 3D printing something is a SLOW, time consuming process and the girls nudged us into thinking about producing our own series of monsters. One thing we hadn't thought of was making sure everything was copyrighted, but the girls had. Not only that, they had submitted our first module to the patent office, which was approved. Their Dads gave us the name and number of a patent lawyer to use. Then it was getting our monsters manufactured which was a lot of work in the beginning. But we ended up hiring people who knew how to do this. We had already designed and printed our monsters on our 3D printers. The monster would be scanned and milling machines would make the molds we wanted. After that, the monsters could be printed by the thousands if need be. We usually sold five thousand of each monster within a month of it being available via Amazon and Ebay. All this was done in the warehouse we had bought and of course, NO idea on how to get permits for any of this, but that's when the girls and their Dad's stepped in taking care of all of this for us.
As to our companies name, it was known as Short Round's Double Ugly publishing company. When those first orders came in, we signed the inside cover of each of them with us writing our pseudo names there and thanking them for their purchase. Something we continue today, though we limit ourselves to the first fifty people making the latest module purchase and we'd have to check not only the date the order came in, but also the time. Two years later, we got a letter from Gold Coast, but this time they were asking us if we'd be interested in joining one of their module writing teams?! Yeah, we had REALLY put a dent in their sales of modules. We politely declined. Then in the third year of our publishing endeavors, we were asked to DM one of modules at DunDragCon which is a really big show mainly for D&D gamers. They also have a lot of people dressing up as different characters, then there were also demonstrations by the SCA, which stands for the Society of Creative Anachronism's. These people dressed up and acted like they were in midevil times, many having REAL swords, bows, etc. Oh yeah, we're going and of course, the girls too. We told the organizers that we'd be quite happy accepting their invitation and that we'd be using a module we haven't published yet. Now this event ran for three days and we limited everyone's playing to four hours, twice a day, with us taking a hour lunch. Everyone had a lot of fun and we were surprised at the number of gamers who wanted a photo of us with them. They also commented on how we didn't even look like they thought we would. ESPECIALLY when the girls were with us. In the evenings, we had a three tables set up to sell not only our modules, but monsters. We sold everything by the second day. Afterwards, we'd go to our rooms and take off some where to get something to eat. And it wasn't a local place either.
And if you're wondering, we tried one of those fancy, five star restaurants ONCE. First, was their prices. They had to be crazy charging one hundred dollars PER CUSTOMER. And while the food was good it wasn't worth that much, especially considering how little you actually got. That restaurant wasn't too happy with us when we asked when the rest of the meal was going to be served. But we still ate at Scoopers and of course, Hooters in Amarillo. But mainly that was when they were having their all you can eat special. One time we were really bad off with The Hunger and we EACH at five platters of wings, with each platter having twenty wings. No idea now how many ranch cups we also devoured and gallons of tea drank. The girls made sure we had another platter before us before we had almost finished the first platter. The next time we came, we'd play for everyone to kind of make up for their financial loss which made the manager happy.
After the tornado thing, we were with the girls at Kathleen's ranch and while I don't know about everyone out there, Aaron and I had NO experiences with horses other than seeing them in the movies. This was when Reggie saw us watching some of the ranch hands saddling some horses which we found interesting. He asks us if we'd be interested in doing some riding with them for maybe a few hours so we'd learn how much work was needing to be done in running a cow ranch. The three of them looked at us like we had grown a third eyeball in the center of our heads when we informed them we'd never done this. That's when Aaron said they needed to remember we're from New York City and while there were LOTS of cabs, city buses and subways, but NO horses. Well, they all laughed though the girls knew about us, Reggie didn't. We got invited to ride some horses and for a little bit, go with Reggie and the other ranch hands. Oh boy......
Now there's a lot of work needing to be done in getting a horse saddled and those saddles are heavy and awkward in getting them up and on the horses back. I ended up helping Aaron get his on after we placed the blanket the saddles sit (ride?) on. Then there was putting the bits into the horses mouth. We never realized it, but horses have BIG teeth! But with the girls showing how it was done on theirs, and with our masculinity and pride at stake, we got ours done too. Altogether, it was twenty minutes or so because we were newbies. Then the riding lessons began. We didn't know how to steer the darn things and the three of them laughed at us, but it was a good laugh, not mean ones if you know what I mean. The girls were willing to take our reins and haul us behind them, but once again, masculinity and pride said no. More than once, we went in the wrong direction, with the girls coming back to help us. Reggie said he'd love to see more of our comedy routine, but he had work to do, so he and the other ranch hands took off for where ever they had to go. It took us maybe up to an hour before we actually were able to get our horses to go where WE wanted them to go, then the girls said let's go for a slow trot?! OW! OW! OW....and lot more OW's because we weren't riding the horses right. I mean, it's not like they come with some sort on instruction manual, do they? More laughter from the girls, but we learned how to ride properly, though all we wanted to do was a normal horse walk. Well, the girls said they knew of a small creek and gave us one of THOSE looks and of course we were all for it, so we headed for it. But before we got there, Tammy got a phone call from her Mom. An Amber alert had been put out on a missing six year old girl and her five year old brother from some town about one hundred miles from us. The police had no idea where the kids could be with their kidnapper. What made it worse was the only description was it was a white van of unknown make and year, along with them having been missing for several hours.
Aaron said we'll find 'em, but we need to know what the kids look like. With her phone, Tammy showed us the photos via the internet. Then showed us how to do the same on ours. You know, the newer ones we had bought a few years ago, but had never really used for internet browsing. We then went into the nothingness via the shadows cast by the horses. We found them pretty quick in a regular van. They had been bound and gagged, with a tarp thrown over them. We gently lowered them into the nothingness and made it so they could hear, but not see us. We told them we were the Metronomes, beings from another planet and dimension. The reason we didn't want them to see us was because their species consider us very, very scary looking. Kind of like those Halloween skeletons. Pulled their gags off and of course, they started crying and hugged us. We said we're taking you to a safe place, but you need to hold onto each other until we return. They said they would. Back to the girls and out of the nothingness and the four of us took off for this creek they had mentioned. When we saw the bushes, but not the creek, I said stop, this is where we get off and you girls go for the bushes. The kids will be coming out from one of them real quick. Get off the horses and back into the nothing-ness, but this time find the driver of the van who was just pulling over to take some dirt road. Once he stopped the van, into the nothingness he went, but this time he got a bit squished like I had done with those Arab guys. Then back to the kids who were understandably scared, thinking maybe we had abandoned them. We told them we were back and hugged them, with them hugging us back. Told them we had help coming for them and that they were to hold hands and just walk forward until we said stop. They did without question and once they came out of one of the bushes, the girls saw and went to them. We told the girls we were the Metronomes, that we had found these children and please take care of them. Our business HERE is done and the kids actually thanked us, saying thank you Mr. Metronomes! We said you're welcome and went back to the wanna be kidnapper.
So we're looking at him and after talking it over, decided what to do. Texas has a lot of prisons and more than one convict in them has kids. You can see where we're going with this I hope? We also figured maybe we needed a hook so to speak to get one of the convicts attention, so we took off for Scoopers, getting a double cheeseburger meal with plain tea to go. And yes, I made sure I handled the bag with paper napkins so there would be no fingerprints. From a shadow on a wall, Aaron told the convict not to turn around and he didn't. Guess he wasn't used to a voice coming out of a shadow right behind him even though no one was within twenty feet of him. Aaron explained we were the Metronomes and perhaps he'd heard of us? The man had. Aaron told him to put his hands behind his back and when he did, I put his meal in one, the cup of ice tea in the other. Kind of surprised he didn't drop either or simply run away. When he saw what he had and then opened the bag, he didn't hesitate in chomping away at everything, which was gone in maybe three minutes? Aaron then told him to face the wall and toss everything at his shadow, which of course landed in the nothingness with us. Yeah, we REALLY had his attention now. We explained about the wanna be kidnapper and the two children and that we were looking for seven convicts who also had children. This man knew more than one convict and said he'd be back in a couple of minutes. This is when we took off for a 7-11, buying thirty dollars of snacks. We waited a few more minutes before “our” convict showed up with seven others who didn't believe him, but with nothing to do in prison.... From a shadow cast by them on the wall, we tossed out our snacks before “our” man, telling him there is eight of everything, times three. The man we had go get you will now be known as one of eight. He will pass these things out to each of you and he will give you a number and from now on you will be known as two of eight, three of eight, etc. One of eight gets more because he is your leader. Suddenly these guys believed one of eights story and quite happy to get these snacks. But didn't go to eating them, wanting to know why they were getting them. We explained about the wanna be kidnapper, the two children and how they could have him for three minutes, but could not kill him or give him compound bone fractures. They'd of been happy to do this without the snacks, but we told them we thought with these snacks, there would be no doubt in your minds that we do exist. We tossed the wanna be kidnapper out of the nothingness via the walls shadow and those guys went to work on him while I kept track of time via my cellphone. Thing is, they'd only had two minutes to work on him, when one of the convicts said guards headed our way! So the kidnapper got tossed back into the nothingness and of course, the guards didn't find anyone that shouldn't be in prison. They were thinking these eight were ganging up on someone which was true, but not in the way they thought. After the guards left, they got another minute with this guy. And when I asked if they'd like to do more public service like this, they enthusiastically agreed. Thing is, NONE asked if they'd be getting more snacks. We suggested they they become roommates to make it easier for everyones future endeavors. They agreed and we'd check on them until they were all roomies.
We then went back to the girls and kids who were still waiting for us to return. LAST thing we wanted was the girls to be involved in “finding” these kids in any way, shape or form. It took us a minute or so to realize what the girls were doing with the kids: they were giving them horse rides, something they'd never done before. So Aaron and I talked to them via the horses shadows and they stopped. This is why I told the kids that we were taking them home, but they could NEVER tell anyone about the ladies finding and helping them. Of course, they didn't understand until Aaron said some people hate us because we're different. Because they can't harm us, they just might decide to hurt someone that helped us keeping you safe. And if you're wondering, the girls had taken their AR-15's with them, while we were unarmed. I mean, we're just not used to carrying guns with us. Our weapons are baseball bats, tasers, cattle prods and bear spray. And making human jerky needed or feeding those crocodiles when needed. So the girls found a tree, with the kids closing their eyes again and walking into the nothingness. With our internet access via our phones, we saw videos of the parents, cops and even more important, what their place looked like, including the backyard. We let them out via a shadow from a tree in the backyard and they took off for the house. We then dumped the wanna be kidnapper from a upper tree limb, onto the grass below. Believe me, the Dad came out running, followed by a bunch of police who quickly put the man in handcuffs. As to the kids, they told their parents what we had told them: that the Metronomes had helped them get away from the bad man and couldn't say anything more because if they did, they wouldn't help any more kids like them. Which wasn't true of course, but still.... Thing is, there's ALWAYS someone who is a special kind of stupid and TRIED to get the kids to talk. That is, until we said from a shadow, you must be a special kind of stupid example of your species and that's when they saw part of our Metronome arm and hand coming from a shadow in one of the livingroom corners. NOBODY doubted what they had seen and of course, no further questioning of the kids.
Amber alerts dropped like a rock within a couple of months with us looking for missing kids. Some of the wanna be kidnappers we'd hold until it was night at that prison and everyone was in their cell. Two guys who are REALLY in shape NEVER had any trouble dealing with that guy for three minutes. And each “team” if you will, got to deal with a wicked and evil kidnapper. From there, things kind of expanded. Like it did with Al and his buddies. Now we knew these convicts were NOT nice people, otherwise they wouldn't be in prison. Two of the convicts....well, their ex-wives were NOT shining examples of being a good mother. We could understand she didn't want to write to her ex, but not even tell him how THEIR kids were doing or sending photos of them? Not only that, we heard these two “mothers” tell their kids that Daddy didn't love them, that's why he never wrote back in reply to their letters. Actually, the mother would rip them up and toss them in the garbage. NOT nice. So these guys had nothing to really live for until we started talking to them about why they got sent to prison, what their life was behind bars, but also what it was like before they went to prison.
Three of “our” convicts were going to be released about four months after we had met and this was when we started learning what happens when one is released from prison. You're given one hundred dollars, a ride to the nearest bus depot where a ticket was waiting for you which would take you back home. After that, you might live in a halfway house or more likely, on your own with no place to stay unless it was with family. Now all these guys had lead a life of crime and on their second strike. Get a third strike (conviction), you go back to prison FOR LIFE! Again, we talked it over on what to do. You know, give these guys some motivation NOT to return to crime. So we took them by two's out of their cells at night and gave them a tour of the world, though each set got shown different places. Like watching the sun rise while viewing it from a mountain top and seeing a Hawaiian beach below us, along with actually feeling and smelling the island air. We told them they had no useful skills, but we would help them on the outside. However if they screwed up, we'd inform the others that our association with all of them would end, so that should they return to prison....... When those three got out (different dates), they knew from us what to expect when they got to the bus depot. They'd hit the bathroom and from under one of the sinks, one thousand dollars cash would fall, along with a plane ticket home.
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Post by texican on Aug 17, 2019 13:10:30 GMT -6
WillC,
Thanks for the short novelette chapter....
The boys are good guys doing good deeds and that occasional use nefarious actions to bring justice....
I would ask when the next chapter would be posted, but it has only been seconds since reading Chapter 44 so will wait a little while, maybe several days or maybe several hours, but more than several minutes....
Great chapter....
Texican....
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Post by willc453 on Aug 17, 2019 15:17:33 GMT -6
Already started on 46, but it's only 1/2 page, so probably in a week, maybe more, before posting it. Did you know NASA spacesuits cost AT LEAST $1,000,000? And no, Walmart doesn't sell 'em either. Trying to keep chapters at 9 pages (this one ended on the beginning of page 10) so everyone felt like they get their money's worth time wise. And remember my Nikon P900? A short video on it's macro ability: www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1aYT4c9QkgWhich I'll use to shoot my zombie/apocalypse dioramas. And no, haven't started them yet as I've found myself busy on a lot of other things. However, I've ordered about $500 worth of kits, tools and zombie figures More info coming about the boys and "their" convicts. What I'd like to read is at least one story on what Hercules (aka Superman) and The Flash (aka The Speedster) have been doing with their abilities. HINT! HINT! HINT! And what's Dancing Wind been doing? Haven't read anything from her in DECADES it seems. I mean, she can't be doin' the nasty with Coyote ALL the time, right? And no, haven't even started on Coyotes story.
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Post by texican on Aug 17, 2019 19:05:05 GMT -6
WillC,
The first piece of the video was interesting, but the presenter was pretty droll....
New characters coming out -- Dancing Wind, Coyote, Hercules and Speedster....
Later,
Texican....
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Post by willc453 on Aug 17, 2019 19:44:08 GMT -6
Yeah, the video was a bit dull, but it showed/told me everything I needed to know. Remember, Coyote's my character while the others belong to other writers. And I'm on page 4 now, with a lot more writing to do. What has surprised me is NO ONE'S come out with an evil character. Got one in the back of mind since I started The Affected series and he's REALLY nasty. Ben and Brainiac were the ones who had to deal with him. To change an expression from the Nam: if you ain't white, you ain't right. This guy hates EVERYONE who isn't white and his version of Christianity. And because of his ability, he thinks God has graced him with his ability to cleanse the earth of those people. He's about the evilest character I've thought of. Others are like Ben as far as "acquiring" money from banks, etc. Some of them too have had problems with the government coming after them via their families. Oh, there's a few more stories about Dancing Wind at Kaijafon's Chatter. Because she helped me out on The Layover, been posting my stories there too. Link: kaijafons.proboards.com/board/3/stories Also working on my Pinocchio and Sleeping Beauty stories from time to time.
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Post by texican on Aug 31, 2019 0:54:47 GMT -6
WillC,
The Boys are hibernating or is it spending time with the girls so the Shadow is on hold while you work on other stories....
Well you win some, some you lose and sometimes it rains....
Guess it is raining....
Texican....
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Post by willc453 on Aug 31, 2019 6:34:47 GMT -6
You ever thought about buying a REAL NASA spacesuit? They AIN'T cheap, as in something like 1.5 MILLION dollars EACH and CUSTOM made. It's not like ordering one thru Walmart, Ebay, etc. Did you ever wonder who makes these spacesuits? It's not like you can email Spacesuits 4 U, place an order, then pay for them with a debit card. Then there's the learning process of how to assemble and use these suits. Remember, Ben and his people have colonies on the moon AND Mars. And let us not forget that Mother and some of her people are on the dark side of the moon. Remember how the boys put a bunch of rockets & jet fighters on the moon? Maybe when they did this, they set off some moonquake detectors? Imagine Ben's/Mothers surprise finding this stuff there....and now the atom bomb rockets are gone, along with 1 N. Korean fighter?! And you know the girls are doing their best watching the boys now that they know those 2 have been to the moon and growing stuff on Mars.
The story about Ben's brother Dwayne is now 9 pages with a lot of stuff to add to it as he has an entirely different perspective of Ben and his actions, along with Dancing Wind and her husband, Coyote. He also believes Obummer will go down as THE greatest POTUS and how Hildabeast was cheated from becoming the first woman POTUS. And boy, does he dislike that orange haired buffoon currently in that office.
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Post by texican on Aug 31, 2019 15:19:01 GMT -6
You ever thought about buying a REAL NASA spacesuit? They AIN'T cheap, as in something like 1.5 MILLION dollars EACH and CUSTOM made. It's not like ordering one thru Walmart, Ebay, etc. Did you ever wonder who makes these spacesuits? It's not like you can email Spacesuits 4 U, place an order, then pay for them with a debit card. Then there's the learning process of how to assemble and use these suits. Remember, Ben and his people have colonies on the moon AND Mars. And let us not forget that Mother and some of her people are on the dark side of the moon. Remember how the boys put a bunch of rockets & jet fighters on the moon? Maybe when they did this, they set off some moonquake detectors? Imagine Ben's/Mothers surprise finding this stuff there....and now the atom bomb rockets are gone, along with 1 N. Korean fighter?! And you know the girls are doing their best watching the boys now that they know those 2 have been to the moon and growing stuff on Mars. The story about Ben's brother Dwayne is now 9 pages with a lot of stuff to add to it as he has an entirely different perspective of Ben and his actions, along with Dancing Wind and her husband, Coyote. He also believes Obummer will go down as THE greatest POTUS and how Hildabeast was cheated from becoming the first woman POTUS. And boy, does he dislike that orange haired buffoon currently in that office. Along with the rest of the leftist socialist liberal democraps.... It is heating up in real life with nothing being done for the violence by the antifa scum.... Texican....
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Post by millwright on Sept 23, 2019 21:27:09 GMT -6
I read an article about our space suits, recently.
We have a problem with getting the next generation of them built.
The details escape me ATM, will try to find something on it.
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Post by willc453 on Sept 26, 2019 0:19:14 GMT -6
Been doing research not only on NASA type space suits, but also there's a company which won a contract (prize?) for coming up with a new design concerning the gloves. They offer (for a fee of course) the opportunity to try their 2 versions of their spacesuits. One for walking on the moon, the other while in space. Wrote to the company...bad mistake. I told them why I was looking for information on their suits and what would they charge to make one for moon usage. That was 2 weeks or so ago and no answer back. And I told them I've give them credit in that chapter and provide a link to their company. The Youtube video was maybe 2 years old about all of this>
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Post by texican on Sept 26, 2019 21:55:25 GMT -6
WillC, Have the boys gone into hiding? Texican....
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Post by willc453 on Sept 27, 2019 2:56:42 GMT -6
Nope. See previous entry. Need to check Mars gravity and of course, the girls are NOT going to be happy when they find out they've actually gone to and been on Mars, along with bringing some of the veggies they've been growing there. And they've been watering their gardens with water from Earth. And remember, Ben and his people (Brainiac & Dancing Wind) have been helping to establish colonies on Mars & the Moon. Then Mother is QUITE curious about the seismic activity that's occurred when the boys put those North Korean rockets & aircraft on the dark side of the moon...and now said rockets are gone, but have left traces of radioactivity? And who knows...the boys will be curious to check out the Martian colonies as Ben's already written about them during his first seven years. No doubt when he wrote about it in his blog, the news went world wide. Also, The Shadow's suppose of have kidnapped Dancing Wind and stuck her in the nothingness, something that Ben would NOT be happy about. Not that The Shadow did this as the boys are still off the govt. radar as being Affected.
Been working on Dwayne's story...he's Ben's younger brother mentioned in Tale of Two Brothers and it's 22 pages long. Remember, front/back of a piece of paper are 2 pages to me, so it looks like it's going to be a 3 parter. He's busy evading the FBI who wants him back, but seems NSA, CIA and other alphabet govt. agencies want him too....including drawing blood from him in hopes that by injecting others with it, they'll have his ability. Then there's foreign governments who are looking for him as he's busted a couple of spy rings in the U.S. among other things. This is the SECOND time he's taken off with him in Nevada, California, Idaho, Colorado and now, Nebraska. He can't call Ben as his phone was burned up in the trailer fires...this was when Ben thought he'd died in that fire, along with his dogs. Think about it...how many phone numbers do you have on your phone and have memorized?
On a personal note, got some new toys the past week or so and waiting for Ebay to send me more. A PSE compound bow for $55 total, 11 Easton arrows for $44. Bought from a guy here who sells guns and all sorts of other stuff. He's gotten into archery hunting and says the arrows are good ones. In the mean time, got 36 more arrows via Ebay, along with 24 of those broad type heads used for hunting Wooly Mammoths/Cave Bears. Looking at going to Scheel's for a quiver, trigger release, glove and arrow rest, though Jay (gun guy) says he has this stuff, but has to find it. And yeah, have gotten some good buys from him thru the past few years, like that really big knife he sold to me for $20...but Ebay was listing them at the time for $100+ as the company (Colt?) doesn't make it any more. Told/sent a photo of it to brother in Florida who wanted it...he got a Chinese copy of it from me. And right after that, found another knife for $50(?) on Ebay, which he did NOT get. I love him, but NOT that much. Waiting for a genuine Kbar (with sheath for $20) to come in this week and have bought 2 hatchets that I showed some where here. And remember, Andy still has his 2 bayonets on him. Haven't played with my Polish Lavvu since coming back from Florida, but been looking at military tents like the Diamond Brand used by the Marines. But they were really expensive or missing things like the poles. Then there's Snugpak, a company in Britain which produces tents for their military. Was looking at the Scorpion 3 as I wanted some extra room, but only $30 difference between it and The Bunker, which weighs just under 8 pounds. It's a 4 season tent for 4 people, which means 3. That and a ground sheet came in yesterday along with a dozen arrows and waiting for the other 36 to arrive by some time early next week. Once I've got the tent set up in the backyard and slept in it, want to use it along the Truckee River and then, hopefully, hello Oregon/Idaho in the dead of winter. Or see about hiking to some of the lakes in the Sierra's and do some fishing. So now need some bays of hay to set up in the backyard, along with a target, to practice on. Yeah, it's going to be in Andy's (The Layover) story and still want to buy a crossbow via Ebay. Still waiting for Dad's estate to be settled and think it's going to be October, more probably November before it is. Also been checking Youtube for instant meals in the bush. Like Ramin noodles and instant potatoes cooked in a ziplock FREEZER bag. The guy who did the video couldn't eat all of it, but when I asked him, he said he ate the leftovers the next day cold. It was....okay. Which tells me a lot. And I have packages of food sealed mac n cheese and rice a roni. Got a small barbeque and a bunch of old, splintered fence boards for it. That's it...going back to bed.
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Post by texican on Sept 27, 2019 16:33:53 GMT -6
WillC,
You have been a busy beaver....
Thanks for the up date....
Texican....
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Post by willc453 on Oct 12, 2019 19:50:39 GMT -6
The Affected: The Shadow Chapter 45 Now as to “our” convicts, you may wonder why we gave them snacks and other things, along with helping them once they were out of prison. We started calling our assistance to these guys as God calls. That's when a player is in really deep dodo and needs celestial assistance. Of course, there's always a price to pay and in the case of D&D, having to do a quest or maybe several, depending on the amount of help that deity needed to do in helping their follower. We gave these guys a lot of incentives NOT to return to their way of breaking the law, whether it was grand theft auto, burglary, etc. We NEVER helped rapists, murderers or drug dealers. However, we did take one murderer out of prison and with new I.D., some money, he's living a more or less normal life with his wife and their son. Why did we take him? His son as a child, had been raped by another man, with the man finally being caught and flown back to town and be tried. The man was waiting for the rapist to appear and even with two policemen escorting the man (in handcuffs), this man had no trouble killing him with the pistol he had brought with him inside the airport. He was given twenty years to life. Frankly, we were sick and tired of the wicked and evil doing horrendous crimes and living for DECADES afterwards and more than once, dying of health problem or old age. Think of the MILLIONS spent housing, feeding, etc. these people....all which had to be paid by the taxpayers. As to “our” convicts, along with the threat of what would happen to everyone if one of them returned to a life of crime, there were incentives. No, I'm not talking about snacks either. We had the two men write short letters to their kids telling them how they loved them, etc. But also the Metronomes were making it possible for them to get these letters, but they could never tell their mothers and to keep them hidden. And once a month we became mailmen for them. We'd enclose photos of their dads and the men got photos of their kids, not just at home, but school, the playground, etc. We'd of done it more often, but we found ourselves getting really stretched time wise for a lot of reasons. We also took the time to check on not just those guys out of prison, but those still inside whenever possible. And yes, they were shocked when we told them what we had seen them either doing or talking about. We knew more of what they were doing than their parole officers. And it's not easy changing your life around, especially when there's basically only family support there....and NO government help of any kind. They'd find low paying jobs, which many times exploited these guys money wise. Such as paying them lower wages than someone off the street. So we took care of them like we did with the former girls and ladies who were prostitutes: got them training as plumbers, electricians, car mechanics, etc. thru various unions. Even starting as an apprentice, it paid very well. Those that had no place to stay, found addresses of apartments, with the rent paid for one year and a bunch of food, plates, etc. waiting for them. They also were given money to find a cheap car, with us again, paying their insurance for a year. Driver licenses were gotten so they could open checking and savings accounts and being able to cash their checks there. Now when “our” convicts got released, before they left, the eight got together to discuss who should replace the pardoned ones. And believe me, they REALLY talked it over because we told them that if the chosen one(s) ever talked or bragged about us, our commitment to them was over. There's a hierarchy if you will, in prison, with gangs formed and our guys, well, they were from three different gangs and those in those those gangs couldn't understand why their former members would no longer associate with them. As in, once you're part of a gang in prison, you're in it until you're released. And more than once, a guy trying to go straight would have gang members making contact with him and bringing him back into the fold so to speak. Also adding to this, a couple of our guys were from opposite prison gangs. Then two of our guys got beat up. Poor judgment call by those involved. When we heard what had happened, we hit Walmart for aspirin and gum paste which is used to deaden ones gums from a bad, cracked or missing tooth. The next night we had those two identify those involved in their beating AND the gang's leaders. We returned them to their cells and we went to work. Eighteen of those people got the snot beat out of them, tased and bear sprayed to begin with. Then made human jerky out of the two leaders which we left in their cells. This took about five-six hours. Boy, talk about the pandemonium by the prison guards and warden alone when they found the human jerky. We gave our guys every porn magazine and dirty photo from those cells. And yes, this included tv's and other electronics. Of course, our guys didn't get all that stuff because how are you going to explain how you now have at least five tv's? Stuff like that has to be accounted for, including serial numbers written down by the prison. But then there was Hacker....he made a few changes which showed the electronics they did have was authorized and in the prisons computer records. Once our guys were ready, we had them go to the leaders of the three gangs, telling them they were The Gang of Eight, identified themselves by their numbers and THEY (the gangs) were now going to pay THEM protection money. And of course, were laughed off. Until six gang members got beaten, tased, etc. along with taking all their stuff which we kept in storage in the nothingness. Once word got around, there was a MAJOR power shift, with other convicts wanting to join The Gang Of Eight, which they refused to accept anyone. Now our guys had been given phones and would call us when they got out and their former gang people would expect them to re-join with the gang. Now some gangs are HUGE, like three hundred plus. We made “house calls” if you will on those our man identified. When HALF of your gang suddenly appears as human jerky on various lawns of the other gang members with a note saying leave so an so alone, that REALLY dims their enthusiasm for bringing that former member back into the fold. So we did it again when they started recruiting others to join their gang. There was no doubt in everyones minds that the Metronomes were doing all of this. Those gangs NEVER got large like they had been which was the best we could hope for. Remember our efforts on Mars? It was actually paying off air wise and with the generators and lights, we started growing crops like strawberries, watermelons, etc. The problem was all this stuff was growing and while there was air inside the caverns, we were worried about any possible Martian germs being brought back to Earth by us. We had samples of air from our sealed caverns tested by a lab at the cost of fifty thousand dollars and all came back with showing regular air in the samples. NO germs or microbes other than those produced by our mushrooms, etc. Of course, we didn't tell the girls about us doing this. From time to time, we actually had some spare time on our hands. The girls were busy running our D&D company, with them not only doing the hiring of people to work there, but eventually, hiring some girls to take their place with them checking everything out once a week. Then of course, there were the books to be taken care of as far as the homes and apartment complexes we had bought and eventually started having their Dads build, at least in Texas. Along with our efforts in those central and south American countries, the money was rolling in. Of course that girl Dancing Wind was having trouble with the feds during all of this, not that we got directly involved with her for quite awhile. But we wondered what she could do with our stuff from Mars. Apparently quite a bit as our mushrooms were about six inches tall, but she did her thing, making them just over 2 feet tall. We felt since we had helped her, she wouldn't mind if we got some of her stuff that she had worked on while altering our stuff and of course, took some of our stuff back we'd lent to her after she'd altered it. That stuff went into a couple more caverns. As to the caverns that led to the surface of Mars, bit by bit, air was being produced for it. As for watering, we took it from the bottoms of lakes like Lake Superior. I'd open a bunch of TINY holes and the water would drizzle onto our crops for maybe five minutes and we were done with that for about a week. Eventually we found other sealed caves which we filled with water. That came in handy for Ben and everyone else's colonization effort there as there is water there, but a pain in extracting it. And let's not forget the moons colonies having to recycle their air and water. About the same time, this was when we first saw Ben appear and he about scared the poo out of both of us. We had just pushed out some potted veggies from Mars from under one of Dancing Winds stands and right after closing off the nothingness to it, there he was! I mean, all we could see was his feet, but it was enough for us. We shifted to another bit of nothingness to see who it was. Of course we recognized him....had to, considering the number of videos that had been shown on Youtube and the news in the early years and then, even more so later on thru the years. And then of course, he started putting his blogs online on his seventh year of being changed or as he calls it, affected. And when we saw what he was doing a Hugh Hefner's place, boy, were we green with envy because at the time, we didn't have girlfriends and I think, we hadn't discovered our abilities or if so, hadn't had time to hone them. He says how about coming out, whoever you are as we'd like to know whoever it is that's been doing the same thing as my friend Dancing Wind has been doing. We didn't say a word. That's when he says don't be shy, besides, eventually I'll find out who you are. Aaron and I looked at each other, talked it over and then I opened the nothingness so he could hear, but not see us. We gave him a LOUD raspberry, closed off the nothingness and got out of there. More about Ben later. We got some spacesuits made...kind of, sort of as we wanted to take no chances in harvesting our crops. From a company called Innovative Technology based in New Jersey of all places, we got our suits made. Now the suits and everything with them were were actually a combination of many parts. First there was the 2 pieces of clothing, one which we nicknamed long johns which would help reduce friction between our bodies and the next set of clothing. Would you believe it, they were made of silk and boy, were they nice! Then came the second set of clothing of tougher material which would help prevent us rubbing against the actual suit which was made of several pieces. Individual shoes, gloves, arms, etc. Then there was the life support which with some modifications, we were able to use scuba tanks. One thing we didn't think about was the temperature outside of our caves on Mars and IT IS cold. We ended up talking with some folks in Japan and they got us a electrical heating system to fit around us and inside our suits with an external thermostat so we could change it as needed. It was powered by ni-cad batteries. Yeah, we were really excited thinking we were the first people on Mars. We were wrong of course, with Ben and his friends not only being there first, but actually colonizing it. With us having checked the air in the caverns, we ended up opening our helmets and air wasn't bad, as far as breathability was concerned. Aaron won the paper, scissors, rocks challenge between us, so he got to open his helmet first and I was ready to drop us both back into the nothingness and home if something bad had happened. But it didn't. As for us, we used my closet to get to and from Mars out of habit, but things got really tight as far as being able to store all our clothes in them as the suits, etc. took up a lot of space. Remember all those 3D printers we'd bought earlier? Those (except for 2) went to our business, where our D&D monsters and figures were produced when we had finished drawing them. Then maybe a year later, we expanded to other endeavors. While at our first DunDragCon, we found out people were into zombie/apocalypse games using miniatures of people, zombies and vehicles. We thought of going for buildings, but the money we'd have to charge for them simply didn't make it worth it vs the demand for them. But then we saw many using cardboard buildings either those they'd made and painted or that some companies were producing. We explained to Carol (Kathleen's cousin) about what we wanted, with her and her husband happy to take the job of designing the buildings, people and zombies in 28mm scale. Then we had to find and buy another building which was next to ours and would house the printing and other equipment for our new line of products, which meant hiring more people. In this case, with aid of a lawyer thru the girls Dads contacts, we hired some of “our” ex-cons. Now the pay wasn't outstanding, but we ended up putting a percentage of our profits aside, which was paid to all employees twice a year. And while the money from both endeavors was good, it wasn't massive. Then the girls got some requests for REALLY BIG figures and monsters. You know, some of them as big as the ones we had done for them and their folks. These were NOT cheap as they were 3D resin printed and we only did one hundred of each. We put on the bottom of each that it was one of, etc. inscribed on the bases of each figure or monster. They were sold within a week once we showed what they'd look like painted. Some people actually wanted us to take their money BEFORE we even came out with new figures. We said no as we simply didn't want money we hadn't earned. Then we found some people in South and Central American countries who could really paint. We ended up hiring mainly women because they had the patience to really paint the small details on them. This cost more money for the figures/monsters of course and never had any trouble selling them all over the world. For that, we started using delivery services like FedEx, etc. As to us going to Mars and bringing back those extra big veggies, boy, were the girls MAD! It wasn't because we brought back the veggies you understand as they and their folks were surprised how big everything was. Their Moms got seeds from those veggies, which they planted in their gardens and yes, they almost grew as big as ours on Mars. In any case, they were a lot larger than the norm like corn with a diameter of ones wrist and about one half again as long. Now the girls knew we were growing veggies on Mars and of course, didn't say a word about where they had come from as they BELIVED we had simply dropped them into the nothingness and from there, back to Earth. And yes, we had told them about us checking for germs. We thought we were covered. Not so. You see, it wasn't the fact that we'd been doing this farming there, it was their finding our spacesuits in our closets with DUST on the lower parts of the suits. How'd they find out? Well, with us using our bedroom closets so much getting in and out of the nothingness, we found two of those stand by itself closet for free via Craigslist....you know, one of those French things. Armoire, that's the word I was trying to think of. Well, the girls had come over to stay with us for a bit and were curious as why we had such things filled with our few clothes as they both knew neither of us guys were clothes horses. We weren't there when this happened because we'd taken off for South Korea for some of their street vendor food that we all liked. Yeah, we hadn't told them about us getting those spacesuits made as we figured they'd worry too much. I think what scared them more than anything else was what if something had gone wrong with our plan in actually gathering those veggies by hand? That we simply disappeared and NEVER returned to them? And that's when they started crying which made us feel like real heels. Thing is, we understood their concerns this time because what if they had been changed, doing the things we had been doing.....and unable to help them in if they had been hurt, stuck in the nothingness. Or worse yet, dead? After crying some more, the girls wanted to go home and our hearts sank when they said they needed time to think over our relationships with them. When a week went by without hearing from them, we called the girls and were told they were still thinking it over. Not only that, we were NOT to call them again, that they'd call us when they were ready to talk. A month later, almost to the day, we're REALLY miserable. Just quit doing everything and with the girls handling our businesses, there was no need to check on that or the places in the South and Central American countries. No catching evil and wicked people, no dealing with gangs in different cities, though we did keep in touch with “our” convicts in and out of prison, as far as keeping them in touch with their families. We didn't even want to do that, but we felt there was no choice in the matter for us. We also pretty much quit eating and started losing weight. Sitting on our couch, told Aaron that I couldn't stand it any longer. Let's just get this over and done with. He looked at me in shock and sadly said okay, unhappy with the thought it was time for us to break up with the girls. Everything had been going great for us, but now? --------------- Dwayne's story is 24 pages long and looking at going for 30, maybe 40. The Hoarders is starting on page 3 and 1-2 pages on Ben's next adventure. Started another American Revolution story, this time in Chicago. Then there's California's new Red Flag law, with me looking at a pi$$ed off woman wanting to get back at her ex. I know the moar hounds have been howling for something about The Shadow, so here ya go. And you should know by now not all my stories end happily ever after.
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Post by 9idrr on Oct 12, 2019 21:01:47 GMT -6
It's a good thing they're tellin' the girls the truth (pretty much anyway) or there'd be too many details to keep straight if the boys started tellin' a bunch of fibs.
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Post by papaof2 on Oct 12, 2019 21:28:53 GMT -6
If'n you tell the truth, you only hafta remember ONE story ;-)
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Post by willc453 on Oct 12, 2019 22:12:20 GMT -6
The boys have been "pretty much" upfront & honest with the girls, not that they're told everything. Not their fault if the girls don't ask the right question(s), right? Other times, they flat tell the girls no when they ask some things. For example, they don't know about the boys are the ones making "human jerky".
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