A Rolling Kayak Gathers Momentum

Was out working in the back yard when I heard a commotion from on top of the hill. New neighbors had moved in, taken down the fence, and filled the drainage easement with two to three pound river stones (as they didn't want to water the grass that was there previously.) Unfortunately they had a couple of younger children who liked to roll the stones down my hill, smashing up the ivy and the celery and bean plants at the bottom of the retaining wall. This time one of the stones hopped the wall and grazed me in the calf. I was dodging, but just not fast enough to get missed. I shouted the Ouch, ouch! ow! song. They looked panicked a moment, and then ran off. I decided I needed to put all of the stones in a basket and make a trip around the block for a visit. As I was gathering up the stones I looked up to see an orange and white plastic kayak sliding down the hill towards me, but not in time to get out of the way. As I turned to run, the kayak bounced off the ivy swinging into my legs, knocking me down and leaving me with a huge cramp in my right calf. (Which was still there when I woke.)

Dream In a Dream In a...

I was dreaming of an alien creature, radially symmetrical, very intelligent, and covered with spikes. Instead of clothing, the aliens wore paint, and would keep it on for long periods of time, as they had an exoskeleton. They liked the idea of bracelets and rings, however, and I was bartering with them for various bangles.

I woke up, in the dream, and told my partner that I needed to write down this dream, as it might be useful.

She asked if I meant the dream I just had or the one I was now having....

"I don't know," I answered and then woke up again. There was something bumping up against the hull of the boat, I reminded myself that I needed to write down my dream and hoped whatever was bumping the boat was just something boring or I would be sure to forget.

Then I woke up again, this time with Giles and Ember in my face asking for breakfast.

I just don't get my brain.

Sailing Ships and Wooden Cabins

I was, with a team of about 12, stationed on a wooden sailing ship that was searching for the Northwest Passage. We had been thwarted in our attempt and had retreated to the North Atlantic. Winter had been harsh, and the ship's stores were getting low. The captain wanted to make another attempt in the spring, so devised a plan to drop off the carpenters, masons and myself (apparently a structural engineer,) leaving us with about two weeks of rations (if tightly rationed) and the materials for a pair of cabins, which had been meant for way point storage to be set up. I was not particularly in favor of this plan, but the ship's crew made the decision for us one cold, wet night.

We found ourselves on a green shoreline, fumaroles sputtered and fumed in the distance. A wide fresh water river coming had a hot tributary. I looked at the sand on the beach and decided that if we could gather up enough viable seed we could set up our cabins, and then make a greenhouse, heated by the hot water, and we should be able to overwinter here if the captain wasn't good to his word of sending help from the Canadians on his first stop. (Since putting us off was in order to keep him from having to purchase more supplies, I suspect he had no intentions of telling anyone where we were.)

One of the carpenters opined, "It's too bad none of us are shipwrights." I had to agree. We decided that we would only set up one cabin, and look to making a boat of the other so that we might explore our coast and river valley better. There were only a sparse scattering of short woody plants around, so I figured we wouldn't be building much out of the local lumber. Perhaps the hot water was near boiling further inland, we could heat and cook all winter if that were the case.

Lunar Rebellion, Cruise Ship Encounter.

Multiple long dreams the last couple of nights, including a dream in two parts! It's been awhile since I had one of those.

Two nights ago, I found myself embroiled in a Rebellion in a Lunar Colony. The colonial citizens were fed up with the lack of work, and thus the absurdly low pay they were getting. They wanted to riot to convince the government to provide more work for them. I was in a position that allowed me a significant amount of mobility throughout the colony, driving one of the transport trains, as well as maintaining the software system it ran on. A lot of us who were keeping things running wore two hats like that. It was, therefore, obvious to me that I was essentially taking up two jobs, even though my life and my cargo pretty much relied on the software systems to make our schedule and avoid traffic jams and the like. I wanted to know what the AI was doing that was in control of my safety. On my way to deliver food to an outlying mining community, all radio communications were suddenly cut off. I found myself using the lunar version of Facebook to make an ad-hoc connection back to my dispatchers, once they figured out that was how they could still talk to us. I got the warning that there were rioters waiting for my food train just as I was locking into the station's air locks. Too late to lock myself into the control cabin, or eject, I found myself captured. They almost killed me, but someone a little bit saner prevailed upon them to spare me, so they wouldn't have to wreck the train to get into the locked refrigerator cars. I knew that once I'd let them into the cars, I wouldn't have much leverage. I started trying to find out what their issues were, and how they thought wrecking their connection to the Central Authority was going to make things any better. They weren't entirely self sufficient now, and blocking their reception terminal with a wrecked train wasn't going to encourage the Central Authority to send any more. This train needed to clear the station and go back if there was ever to be another one.

I convinced the rabble-rousers that they wouldn't get anywhere in my transport without me to unlock the software. Mostly by making it clear that I wasn't going to tell them how to get to the central core of the colonial administration dome, and I wouldn't be there to authenticate the transport at the various junctions on the grid to get back. If they killed me, they would have to figure out how to get there by walking. Not really possible during the long Lunar night.

On the long trip I tried to explain to them the actual "how things work" of air, water and food production and distribution. Trying to convince them that if they caused so much trouble that it wasn't financially worth it to maintain their habitats, mines and factories, the central authority could simply cut them off, forcing everyone to relocate, or die. Their standard of living would be far worse than it was now if they had to live on the air, water and food they produced locally. If they could even make it work with the population they had. By the time I'd managed to make it back to my dispatch station, the group had calmed down, more thoughtful and less angry leadership had appeared among the crowd, and we were given clearance to bring a group to the Central Authority. As we made our way across the surface, I pointed out a collapsing dome in the distance. Emergency evacuation pods were shooting out across the surface of the moon, and transports like my own were hurtling off the tracks, deploying their emergency service vehicles. The central system caused us to stop, and I began to deploy my half dozen emergency service vehicles, each programmed to pick up two of the emergency pods before returning to the transport. Our first rescuers told a rather harrowing tale of how some nearby minors had rioted, and then someone had blown out their central dome. Hundreds of people had been gathered in the central dome to hear a connected mining colony protest their working conditions and the rationing that was going on. Rioters from that colony had shown up. Only a few dozen had made it to evacuation pods. The mood was much more somber on the way to the Central Authority. I was surprised we'd been granted permission to travel that far. I was not surprised when there was about a hundred people with tasers waiting for us when we arrived. They were very surprised when the injured evacuees were carried off first by my passengers, and that none of my group were armed or unruly. I explained that the envoys needed to talk to the CA about preventing the same sort of disaster we'd just helped rescue people from.

Later, I dreamed that I was on a cruise ship, my four person room had been paid for, but I was the only one who could make the trip. I bumped into a very unhappy woman and her two children at some sort of lecture event. She had just been dismissed from her position on the cruise, and they were threatening to put her off at the next port, where she would have to try to find a way home for herself and her two girls. I shared my box lunch veggies and dessert with the kids, and made napkin rabbits and other puppets for them. She left to go get her luggage packed up. After the kids had left, I noticed that they had left their shoes behind. An elderly (more than me) man indicated that she was quite fetching, and he might just have the thing to cheer her up. He wanted the kids shoes so he could introduce himself to her. I thought he was way creepier than I am, so decided that I would return the shoes instead.

This morning, I dreamed of music without any sort of plot, I kept trying to understand the words, but they didn't make any sense. I woke up to Giles purring in my ear, and Ember meowing her creaky little meow. Their food bowls were empty.

I went back to bed and dreamed I was back on the cruise ship. I had asked where she had worked, and went to the lounge where she was checking out to leave the ship. She was glad to see her children's shoes. There was some kerfuffle with her paper work, so I agreed to sit with the kids while she went to take care of the issue. (She was just a few feet away at a big desk.) One of her supervisors came over and started telling me things I didn't need to know, and that were private. I told her I'm just the baby sitter, and it wasn't proper for her to share private financial information with me. I asked to see her supervisor. A ships officer was going by and intervened. I asked him to switch the family to my cabin, as I had three empty beds. He seemed to dislike the supervisor enough to ask me to wait there a moment while he checked to see if there was a way to do that. A porter stepped away from his station and brought the family's luggage, three small bags and one larger one to us, then asked what room I was in. I told him and he wheeled the luggage away. I started to stop him, as it wasn't resolved yet. But he just smiled a huge grin at me and indicated that I should just wait. The woman returned, obviously trying to be brave in front of her children. She asked where the luggage was going, but the porter just waved in my general direction.

I confessed that I might have done something rash. She started to refuse, but the kids jumped in with the "Please, please, pleeeeas! chorus." By the time she'd gotten them settled in, the officer was back, and had three extra room keys for me, and wrist bands to replace the ones the kids were wearing. The former supervisor just sputtered incoherently and walked away. I found myself hoping that I hadn't gotten myself in too much trouble. But the ship's officer assured me that we would all be treated just like regular passengers.

Mobile Home (Wet)

J and I couldn't decide where to live. So, we bought a boat.

At the end of a trip from Monterrey to San Diego we ended up docked outside a amphitheater like venue, where I was repairing the rails. A rock and roll concert started. It was a group of older rock-n-rollers, covering a lot of sixties and seventies songs we both liked. Grandkids N and M were visiting along with Dad, and had never been to a concert before, at least, not on a boat.  They were having a great time. Our boat rode pretty high out of the water, and the two electric masts were gleaming pink in the setting sun. The raked main mast had the booms tied in tight and we were anchored both fore and aft. (The boat was all electric and wind/solar powered. It had two re-conditioned torpedo motors in addition to the sails.) I loved the dark oak color of the decking and sides.)

The band invited us to come backstage during the break between sets.

All the while this was going on I was replacing the old thick wooden railing with lighter, stronger, and more weather resistant composite railings. I was almost finished by the time the concert was done. I was just finishing the composite so it was the same color as the electric masts.

J was concerned about N's first back stage experience, but I pointed out that he would be fine (he was an adult in the dream, with dark curly hair.) Besides, she'd be there. Her son tried to remind her that she was almost seventy and needed to behave like it. I just laughed, figuring that's not going to happen. I did clip  her into a safety line before she climbed down over the side of the boat, better safe than sorry, right?

Stranded

I dreamed R and I were stranded on an island, the boat we were on wrecked on a reef, and we were tossed out and managed to swim ashore. The tide came in and the boat limped away, saying they would let the coast guard know where we were.

We built a small fire and took a tour of our little mountainous island. There was a large lagoon on the other side, and the remains of a few huts. We found a small graveyard out on one arm of the lagoon. The markers were no longer readable and had fallen apart. After a couple of days, I went and repaired the markers with new twine made from palm fibres.

In looking over the huts I realized that this was Gilligan's Island. R thought that was funny, and unlikely. Since the island was a set, I thought so too. But the number of graves (six) and the arrangement of the huts made it seem likely.

We took turns keeping watch on the top of the low hill, keeping our fire going. A boat finally came for us, and sailed into the small lagoon to pick us up. When we got back to the main island we had a neat surprise.

The island was for sale.

We decided to pool our resources and buy it. We named it after R's mom. We brought his kids, his sister and her children back to the island. His daughter was in training for some competition, so we (well, she and R) were running along the beaches around the island. I was taking the inside curve of the beach while they ran in the shallow water. There was a spot on the back side of the island where there was no sand, so we had to swim. The waves were growing larger and larger, though, making swimming dangerous, as we might be dashed against the reef after being pulled out by the undertow.

I recognized that this was merely the influence of my filling bladder and stretched out, falling back to sleep. The dream continued! We managed to swim back around to a part of the island with a beach, lots of new sand having been deposited by the storm surge. When we got out M had a large bruise on her thigh, but felt that it would be healed enough for her to compete when she flew home in a few days.

Boat Tour, Haunted House Game(?) and the Mad Handset of Vision

I was sitting by a dock in the bay, wasting time, when I overheard a skipper (who sounded like Sean Connery) ask a young couple "sure you could fly to India, if you like being loaded into a cannon and shot to your destination. A boat trip, now that's an adventure from start to finish."

It seems I had just come into a lot of money and needed a way to vanish for a few weeks, so when the young couple accepted the skipper's offer I made my way over to the boat and asked if he'd take an old man on as a crewman. He only asked three questions, "Can you operate a computer? Can you mop?" and "Can you shoot?"

I said "yes" and "I can also cook, read a navigation chart, and I'm not a half bad mechanic, either."

"Yer hired!"

I put my bag on board, my room was a tiny cabin in the bow. I could barely stretch out in the bunk, the light didn't work, but it did have two long narrow portholes. When I made my way back up to the top deck, we were already underway, threading our way in and out of the wide river traffic. The plan was to sail down the nile, across the Mediterranean, through the straights and across the gulf around the horn of India.

-----

I was in a haunted house game of some sort. The chat interface was an odd combination of voice recognition and hundreds of small clicky icons (they might have been Chinese or Japanese). You could type to jump to parts of the list or use the scroll wheel to send them flying by the right hand side of the screen. I couldn't figure the chat interface out, so the game master sighed and ported me into the reality version. There was an evil laugh, and I was actually there in the dust filled, creaking and groaning structure that was the haunted house in the game. The first thing I did was call out to any other players, I got a couple of answering calls, and some whimpering. That didn't bode well. I pumped a round into the shotgun's chamber and checked my ammunition, six in the gun, about twelve in a bag on my belt. I headed for the whimpering, wondering what good a shotgun would be against a ghost.

There was a woman inside of a chandelier. It didn't look comfortable. I moved a couple of couches together under the fixture and then climbed up on the back of one. I cut the thin nylon straps holding the woman down and she indicated that she still couldn't move, so grabbed the edge of the chandelier to tip the woman out. She was in mid tumble inches from my arms when she just vanished.

I spotted movement along a wall and the shadow slunk out the far door. I hopped over the couch, catching my foot on the wooden rail of the back and stumble-hopped headlong into the wall. Fortunately I was wearing some sort of helmet and the blow as cushioned. The impact still left my neck hurting, however. I knelt down and poked my head around the door frame. Gunfire from down the hall, three or four pistol shots. They were way to high over my head, but if I'd been standing? That would have been game over.

"I hope you have a good reason for shooting at me?" I shouted out of the doorway.

"Sorry, I thought something had snuck up behind..." his conversation ended in a scream and more bullets went singing past. Apparently, whatever had snuck out of the room had snuck up in front of him. I rolled across the hallway and into the room across the way, I couldn't see anything in the hall, and started to think that a flashlight would be better than a shotgun. I looked around the room, it was some sort of small sitting room, I opened up the drawer of an end table next to the door.

There were some yellowed postcards from Iceland, the writing in a language I couldn't read, a book of matches with a picture of Iceland and the name of a hotel on the cover, a half dozen gas lamp mantles, and a roll of duct tape. The soft glow flickering from the gas lighting fixture may have caused the postcards to look yellow, they didn't feel old and brittle. I was amazed this house hadn't burned down ages ago. For a moment I contemplated replacing the damaged mantle in the lamp, but then realized I would have to do that in the dark.

"Are you okay down there?" I asked into the empty hallway.

There was no reply save a wet smacking sound and crunching, like when a dog is chewing on a large bone. I took that as warning not to go that way. Although, if it was chewing, the shotgun would probably work on it.

I looked across the room at the window, it was partly open, the curtains gently blowing, I finished opening it up with an effort, it felt like it had been painted in that partly open state. I climbed out the window and stepped over the dead holly bushes. The dried leaves were even spikier than if they'd been alive. I walked out into the street and took in a view of the house. It was three stories, and there were houses up and down the street as far as I could see that looked very much like it. All of them in the same state of decay, most all of them with at least a few windows glowing faintly from gas-lights within. The house across the street was completely black, a burned out shell, however.

The streetlamps were also gas lights, some of which had their mantles burned out, and just a flickering ball of burning gas at the end of their jets. Some were completely dark. I guessed they were a ball of flaming explosion waiting to happen. I couldn't tell if it was day or night. there was a thick layer of clouds that looked to be just above the height of the tallest building's roof lines. At one end of the street I could see tendrils of fog creeping in (at least I assumed they were fog.) At the other end of the street, was pitch blackness, none of the houses lights reached the road and there were no streetlamps alight. I was deciding whether I should re-enter through the window or try to find the front door when the window sash came crashing down. I saw a hunched figure at the window, and then the gas lamp in the room went out.

------

This morning's wake-up voice told the other voices to hush, "he's got the mad handset of vision."

I rolled over awake, thinking "interesting, what the heck is that?"

I swear I heard the the voice give out a disappointed "awww."

Survival Boat

In this morning's dream offering, I apparently joined the ranks of the Doom Prep'ers. I decided to build an apocalypse survival boat - in my back yard. There were some very nice features, a solar powered water desalinization and recycling plant, Solar heat exchanger, photo electric panels that provided about two hundred watts during the day, and then via another heat exchanger I could drive a little 5 watt turbine at night or I could open up the mast stacks and let the wind generate energy as well. There was also a fifty gallon methane digester on the poop deck.

The wind stacks were airfoil sails but with a yard and a fabric sail on both sides of each stack (so it looked like I could run with four sails and a spinnaker as well as the wind turbines. There was a small electric motor, but I can't imagine it would generate enough horsepower to make more than a couple of knots. (I believe this was salvaged from Little Red, my Honda Insight.)

Because my back yard is "L" shaped, the boat had a bendy section in the middle! The aft portion of the boat had the wheelhouse, kitchen and fold out solar arrays as well as a back deck with two feet of potting soil arranged around one of two water treatment features. The main cabin was just below this deck. and had a Jefferson bed/desk, a visitor's lounge, and diagonal pane windows looking out from under the poop deck. This deck was the black water treatment area, so was appropriately named, with water/waste entering a compost pile/ methane digester, and then flowing through the soil field below the planters. There was a way to rig plastic sheeting up over the entire deck to turn it into a greenhouse during the winter.

The forward section of the boat had the more complex water desalinization and grey water treatment plant, essentially long rows of rock and soil and sand filled tubes that the water flowed through until it flowed into the storage tanks below decks. This was also the section with the heat pumps. Every horizontal surface of the deck was home to planters or hydroponic runs, and I had in the cargo hold an inflatable raft which could hold even more hydroponic runs once I was out on the water. In addition to the ton of water storage, the ballast area was set up to hold many cans of food, spare parts for the boats critical electrical components, and some spare tires and axles, and the materials to turn the bendy section into a fixed section before being launched into the ocean.

Because I live about 16 miles from the ocean, the entire boat was built on a pair of lowboy trailer frames. I was actually living in the main cabin during the dream, it was a nice red patterned fabric and gold and cherry wood accents. My computer and monitor were set into the Jefferson desk, leaving room for several paper books, mostly the ones needed to maintain my shipboard systems, as I didn't want to rely on the computer if something went wrong with the power systems.

As the dream ended, I was sitting at the computer, adding the canned goods I'd just stowed to the inventory and recalculating my survival times. The boat would have been comfortable for two people for nearly a year, easily support four people with rationing and supplemental protein, by fishing, scrounging or hunting, and, if you slept in shifts, could probably accommodate six to eight people. The water and waste recycling systems would most certainly be over taxed, and there would be no way to feed that many people for more than a few months, not on the supplies from the gardens I had built in, even if you could grow food all year long by putting up the greenhouse covers. I turned off the computer and looked out the window over the yard, the grapes were coming along, the lemon tree had a dozen lemons, and the mulberry looked like it was healthy. I suddenly realized that I hadn't finished the rudders yet, and that might be pretty important some day.

Sailing Away

This morning's feature was a cruise on an inflatable sailing ship. I inflated the vessel with my shop vac, then launched it into the surf next to the pier where Ruby's is located. Once aboard, I was trying to get the mast and rigging set up right, while also getting my navigation software configured. I wondered why I hadn't done that before the launch.

The sea was fairly choppy, and the ship seemed to be just a little bit floppier than would strictly be desirable. I finally got the jib up and the boat headed out to sea, where it seemed to be smoother sailing. Once under way I went below to set up my cabin, essentially a camp stove, bed and cooler with power provided by some solar cells on Mylar atop the cabin. I didn't like the way the cabin was flexing, and started the process of adding more air to the ship.

Te further out to sea I got, the better the sailing became. Soon I was skipping along over the waves, and the ship bounced me along like a giant wind driven bounce house. I was glad I had a safety line.

River Jungle

I dreamed that N and I were traversing a jungle. We were following a wolf pack that had just lost its leader. We created an elevated blind so we could observe the pack, figuring this was the night they would choose a new leader. I had collected a number of ropes and metal poles from an abandoned river side dockyard.

I used the poles to make us an elevated platform to keep the predators at bay should they suddenly discover us. During the night, the wolves became agitated and started the process of fighting over the former leaders mate. Somehow a leopard got into the mix, and before the pack could recover its cohesion, it had killed seven or eight of them.

In the morning we went down to find out if there was something wrong with the leopard, other than being dead. It looked like it had been, up to the attack, a young healthy male. There was not even any significant tooth decay or damage.

We had lost the wolf pack, and as we made our way back to the dock I realized that I'd been hoping the leopard would get away, seeings how the wolf pack was quite unnatural this far down in the jungle. The docks were busy, two large freighters and a tug with several barges had tied up over night.

N stripped down to a bikini, intent on trading her favor for decent food. I was flabbergasted, but figured "what ever she wants, we're divorced now." I wasn't even sure how we had ended up on this trip up river together. I packed up the makeshift platform fixings and while she tried to impress the sailors, I lashed together a steel drum raft and headed down stream.

Adventure on Rails

Sometime, I shall have to look at how to consistently grab the tablet in the "right side up" position.

Sparky's Submarine

DROG20110725

I dreamed that I was playing  Axelpyre's youngest child, a somewhat incompetent chemist and engineer. He sat atop a ramshackle submarine, in the middle of an alley, brick building on one side and sandstone on the other. In that regard the game looked a little bit like Minecraft.  The submarine was setting atop a rectangular carriage that was little more than a frame for two electric motors and a slew of batteries. The controls for the cart were at the end of a long ribbon cable that reached up to the edge of the open cockpit.

You're way ahead of me. Yes, open cockpit. Did I mention that Sparky here was an incompetent engineer? Hush now and let me finish telling what little bit of action followed.

A Roc of indeterminate origin croaked out it's hideous warning from high over the buildings of this rather crowded part of the city. For not non-obvious reasons, Gnomes are quite terrified of Rocs flying overhead and squaking  out their names. Now I knew that the Roc would never have fit in this narrow alley, but it seemed that the game would come to a standstill if Sparky didn't have some sort of action creating reaction to the sudden appearance this menace. 

He floored the vehicle, thrusting both control sticks forward. At this point in the dream I stopped playing and began living the part. The motors whined to life and the submarine launched itself out of the alley, in reverse. The motion was so unexpected that I fell forward and the controls slipped out of my hands and fell down onto the floor. The fall caused a bump that momentarily stopped one of the motors, causing the contraption to make a sharp right turn not going in the correct direction, of course, on a oneway street. Other cars honked and swerved to get out of the way. 

The road went down hill towards the shore of the local bay. I scrambled for the controller, but the bouncing caused me to miss it, knocking it, instead, off the ribbon cable! 

I managed to get myself upright and to get the pair of submarine propellors turning. I reversed thrust and that slowed the vehicle down, some. By varying the torque on the submarine's engines I was able to veer a little to the left or right while driving the wrong way though traffic and the signals. For good or I'll, the Roc had spotted me and was flying low over the buildings waiting for a clear shot at me. His presence had scared many of the drivers of open carriage autos off the road all ready, so my path was mostly clear to the bay. 

With a much smaller bump than I expected I drove off the road that ran along the shore and heard the rocky causeway grind away the electric carriage, flinging the sub into the shallow water. I was still driving backwards, with one eye out for the Roc.

The Roc was banking over the cities edge and coming around for another pass at me.

"All hands, dive! Dive! Dive! Dive!"

There was no one else aboard. And as I struggled to empty the buoyancy tanks, I realized that I hadn't installed the dome for the cockpit, yet.

"All hands, prepare for emergency surface!"

Frantic now, I looked at where I was headed, set the motors to full reverse and barely managed to roll the sub over just in time to avoid being plucked out of it by the Roc.

I slewed the craft around just in time to miss a bridge abutment. "All stop!" shouted to my non- existent crew. I put the engines in full forward and brought the craft to a stop under the brick and concrete supports that lifted it up away from the shore to arch gracefully to the far side of the bay. I could hear the Roc high over the bridge squaking out it's frustration. 

I also thought the moldy algae smell was a little overpowering for a game.

Leaf Flotilla, Saving Goblins

              I dreamed I was sitting along the edge of a small pond accompanied by some of my nieces and nephews. In the dream, they were all Gnomes. I had found a green leaf that was perfectly shaped for a hull. With a little tearing and bending, I was able to mount a sail in the middle of it and set it down on the surface of the pond. A few moments later, a gentle puff of wind filled the little sail and the boat headed out on its adventure across the pond.
              One of my nephews reached up to pull off a fresh leaf from a nearby tree. I stopped him. "You can only use the leaves that have fallen. It was a long winter, the trees need every leaf they can hold on to."
              "Sometimes you sound more like a druid than a wizard." One of my nieces complained.
              Soon a small two masted schooner and a lateen rigged sloop joined our little flotilla. I began to wonder what the smallest nephew was doing that was taking so long. I turned to make sure he wasn't in any sort of trouble and spotted a four masted ketch with a spinnaker and spanker. Soon it had caught up with our little flotilla and barged through the midst of them and headed rapidly for the far shore of the pond.
              "Pretty amazing for a guy who hates to take time to prepare for anything."
              "This is shipbuilding, you can't just slap anything together..."
              "Like I did?"
              "Uh, oh...." At least my nephew had the courtesy to blush.
             
              I later dreamed that I was flying on the back of a dragon, swooping through the air, enjoying the thermals and the conversation with the dragon when we heard shouts for help.
              My dragon tucked his wings in tight and we rolled over into a dive. There were four goblins in a dirigible being harassed by black-clad raiders mounted on griffin back. The dirigible was flying neutral colors, and I couldn't tell who the raiders were.
              "Protect the goblins, She requests it." The dragon roared over the wind.
              I popped a spell that yanked me out of my seat, and as I drifted on an interception course with the dirigible, I righted myself, and began to cast "living bomb" on each of the raiders as they flew into range.
              I missed the dirigible, but it was soon falling with me. I managed to hit a couple of the goblins with slow fall, one jumped ship in rocket boots and I fell next to a couple of others. Cancelling my own spell to catch up to them so I could cast slow fall on each of them. Unfortunately, that put me perilously close to the ground. I didn't have time to slow myself again, so felt the frozen depths of the nether and encased myself in a block of nether ice. I felt nothing when I slammed into the ground. I tilted a bit where the ground gave way beneath me. I saw the goblins drifting in closer, and a couple of the raiders diving after them. I felt the Living Bombs go off and felt the echo of their heat. I released the nether ice and used the heat to send blast after blast after each of the remaining raiders. At this point I could feel myself hitting the keys to play the game (World of Warcraft) and soon I was watching the action on a computer screen rather than living it. Kind of a let down that pulled me out of the dream pretty quickly.

Other-world Casino and Cardboard Boat

              I dreamed I came into possession of a large number of gambling chips for an off-world casino. I managed to trade some of them for a round-trip jump ticket and bundled myself into my star boat and let myself be flung a quarter of the way across the galaxy.
              I had intended to just cash out the chips, but there was some issue with the time that they had been out of the casino, so I had to play them into games and take out the current version before I could cash them out. I spent most of my time on the video poker sort of machines, as they advertised a ninety eight percent payout. Soon I had turned about half of the chips into twice as much money, so cashed them out.
              I decided to just blow the rest of the chips on something high-stakes and exotic. I joined up with a game that seemed to combine Blackjack (well, a Blackjack like game) and Chess in some way, ignoring the first rule of gambling, “Never play a game that you don't understand.” This, of course, led to trouble.
              I was playing very conservative, I thought, watching the other players, watching the dealer, a position that you had to buy into, it seems. I didn't understand enough to be the dealer, so passed on that opportunity. The game progressed and each play with the dealer involved betting for or against the dealers current contest with the other players. Robot croupiers kept the chips flying and my stack rapidly grew smaller and larger in fits and spurts. Violence broke out between two of the players, both of whom had gone broke betting on a third to lose to the dealer. It appears there was some sort of collusion and the dealer had, unexpectedly, gone bust on a half dozen hands of Blackjack. There was the smell of ozone and both players collapsed. Croupiers turned security dragged all three of the players away from the game pit.
              It took a couple of moments to get the fine covered chairs filled with new players and then the dealer turned to me. I chose the chess challenge, which seemed to be a set number of moves and then the croupiers would tote up what they felt was the advantages and disadvantages of each side and pay out wins and take losses. Again, I set out about a quarter of my “tainted” chips and reserved my good winnings to cash in later. I was about ten percent in the hole at that point. I figured I should lose quickly and get the heck out, it wasn't as much fun as I'd hoped. We started to play. It wasn't exactly earth chess, so I had to keep checking the rule sheet. Bets rapidly piled up against me, the dealer choosing to cover them double and most of the player accepting the raise. I covered the ones who bet against me, too, figuring I could unload the rest of the “tainted” chips and return home with a tidy nest egg.
              The game took a bad twist and several of my opponent's powerful pieces jumped over my shoddy defenses. Five moves had been played and the stakes at the table doubled. The dealer could tell I was a neophyte, and only raised his stakes a little, fully expecting me to bow out, I believe. I put all but about 5K of my “tainted” chips in to cover. We resumed play, and I promoted a piece that had been ignored because of my impending check.
              The pit erupted, no one had seen the move, as it involved invoking a somewhat obscure rule, one that had been in the rules I had just read. Security came over to verify that the rules were just print and nothing that analyzed the game. I noticed the red dots of security rifles trained at my chest. The move stood, and the targeting lasers vanished. The dealer looked nervous and several players started to argue and try to cover side bets on my winning to mitigate their possible losses, but since most had bet against me with the house, there were not really any takers. A crowd had gathered, and that made me nervous. I didn't like the extra scrutiny, as I wasn't sure I had come into possession of the chips in a completely up and up way. I really wanted to lose them and get out of here.
              I studied the board. Instead of putting up a defense, the dealer chose to press his advantage, after all, there were only three moves left in the session. I moved one of my few defenders out to place his tower in check (not kings in this version.) The crowd craned to see the board, so the casino brought it up on a holographic display above the pit. I glanced up to see the board, and both of us, five times larger than life. I gave my attention back to the board, certain that my next and probably last move could not be prevented. I wasn't positive, but I felt that using another obscure rule, one involving the swapping of a pair of pieces, that I would actually be in a position where I had as much threat on my opponent as he had on me. I figured it would come down to the calculations of the croupiers to determine the actual standing at the end of the round.
              My opponent made a move that seemed random to me.
              I blinked, shook my head. The crowd grew silent. I reached for a piece that seemed locked in place, and swapped it for a much less powerful piece, but one that directly threatened his tower.
              The dealer looked at the board in shock. Red analysis line were projected onto the board and the threatened tower was shown to have been actually mated, the random seeming move had discarded his only blocking move. Low expressions of awe flowed into the pit from the gathered crowd. I comforted the dealer, “New players sometimes play so oddly that random chance comes into the game. Thank you for the game.”
              The croupiers indicated that I had the option of buying into the dealer's seat, but I really didn't want it. I took my winnings, and tipped the dealer the standard percentage, and then tossed in the last few K of my “tainted” chips as a thank you. The player immediately bought his way back into the dealer's seat with the extra chips, his translation device telling me that he would forward a percentage of his winnings, or pay me back in full.
              “Thank you, that won't be necessary, I've learned a valuable lesson from you.” I grabbed a waiter and bought everyone in the pit a round. I climbed out of the jungle smelling pit, using a vine to haul myself up to the casino floor.
              I found that I suddenly had lots of new “friends” on my way to the cashier. All told I had quadrupled my stake.
              I grabbed one of the “escorts” for a dinner date, choosing one of the less high class looking ones so we wouldn't stand out too much and used her presence as an excuse to slip quietly out of the casino. She did accompany me to dinner, where I paid her full night rate, but explained that I just needed her company until I could get back to my boat. She had the grace to appear disappointed and was such an accomplished actress that I almost had to believe it.

              Later, I was back on earth, money safely invested and home and vehicles paid off. I was out on the ocean swimming when I heard a shout for help. I swam out to where SV was paddling around his overturned boat. He wanted help righting it, but even when we managed to get the thing righted, I pulled myself aboard and tried to bale out enough water to allow SV to get aboard. The back flaps kept opening up and letting water in. Even with the flaps closed, I realized there would never be room enough for two of us, the displacement was barely enough to float me. We righted it again and this time I did it without getting in. We still couldn't keep the back flaps closed and the cardboard boat was becoming water logged to the point that I was concerned that it wouldn't hold its shape. For some reason only the outside of the cardboard boat had a waterproof coating.
              “Look, I swam all the way out here, we can just swim back.”
              “I can't abandon the boat. I can't swim that far. There are probably sharks...” SV carried on while swimming along behind me. I had all ready slowly headed back to my beach, disguising my motion as righting the cardboard boat one more time. I tipped it up so the open end was out of the water.
              “Just hold on to the front here, the extra floatation should help us make it to shore, especially with both of us pulling.” I grabbed the bow line and began to swim in earnest for the shore, towing the boat with SV swimming right along side the boat, keeping the open end out of the water.

Fishy Ship

              I dreamed that I was working on a dock in a narrow bay. The dock was pretty much a cargo terminal. There was a cargo ship coming in, and I needed to get my tug out to it to help nudge it into its berth. I carried the tug down the dock (Yes, a whole tug boat, up on my shoulder.) MS was there with a similar tug, asking if I needed any help.
              “Nope, just make sure the slip is ready.”
              I walked to the end of the dock and put the tug in the water then jumped aboard. The huge motors rumbled to life and I headed out to the mouth of the bay to meet the container ship.
              Just as I was tying off to the larger ship, I got a call on the radio. It seems the slip wasn't empty, there was an unknown vessel taking on passengers there.
              I made my apologies to the cargo transport pilot and told him to idle there for a bit, we had another ship we had to move out of the way, first.
              I raced back to the docks.
              When I arrived, M was having a conversation with the owner of the ship at the wrong slip. I came aboard and tried to diffuse the argument before it could get to the point where nothing was moving.
              “Where is the captain?” I asked.
              No one seemed to know the answer. I made my way up to the pilot house, down from the main deck and sitting a little bit out over the water. There were a couple of women there in uniforms. “Is one of you the captain?”
              “No, we're just pilots.”
              M and the owner had followed me down into the pilot house, which was now very crowded. I looked back up onto the deck full of people, then out over the empty dock.
              “Do you have everyone aboard?”
              M and the owner looked at me, “What?” written all over their faces.
              “Is everyone you were expecting aboard?”
              “Well, yes, I believe so.”
              “But, they're not supposed to be here!”
              “And ten minutes from now they won't and we can forget all about them. Right?”
              The owner looked at me, confused but slowly understanding that I was letting them go on their way. “Oh! Sure, if it isn't too late all ready.” He looked nervously out at his passengers, who, despite the fact that there was little motion were starting to look wide eyed and a little green around the gills.
              Maybe it was the gills part that really threw me off. Even in this dream world, women with gills was not an every day occurrence.
              “Get us out into the channel. M bring the tug to take me off.”
              M jumped over to the dock as the ships engines rumbled to life.
              “Thank you,” chorused from the passengers and pilots.
              “Lets see you safely out to sea.”
              “That won't be needed, deep water is enough.” The owner turned to me, now also sporting gills, large wide set eyes and an unpleasant greenish tint. One of the pilots had also joined in this not entirely pleasant fashion trend.
              “No!” The blond pilot looked at me, obvious terror in her eyes. I followed as she ran out of the pilothouse and climbed the ladder to get above decks. Several exlposions shook the ship from below and I could feel the surge of ocean into the ruptured hull beneath my feet. Water splashed up into the passenger deck and the passengers began to rip out of their clothing, arms now ending in webbed and clawed hands.
              I climed to the ship's rail, hailing M to start for us now. The pilot just about vanished in a dozen clutching arms before I grabbed her and pulled her up to the rail with me. “If you want to leave this dock in peace, you will let us go.” I pointed my emergency flare pistol at the owner.
              He growled something in no language I'd ever heard, nor would care to hear again. The passengers stopped clutching at us and backed away. While I could hear other voices now, from the waves below us. As M brought the tug alongside we were suddenly pulled down by dozens of grasping claws, the pistol knocked from my hands.
              “Jump!” I shouted to the pilot and we blindly pushed off the rail with all our might, hoping to land on the tug, rather than amongst the voices amongst the waves.
              M had deployed the airbags and cargo nets, he gunned the engines and we were pulling away even before we'd completed our first bounce.
              “Are you all right.”
              “Yes, thank you,” the pilot replied, still shaken. Her pale skin was so white it reflected the green of the ocean. I noticed she had the most enchanting and unusually wide gray eyes above her wide toothy smile.

Cruise Interrupted

       I dreamed I was on a cruise ship. The cruise had been at sea for several days, having been unable to pull into the port at our destination (islands, the Galapagos ) due to weather and eventually time. We were pulling back into San Diego, and the cruise line was giving us half off vouchers on our next cruises. Personally I thought they should either refund the whole cruise or make good on the tour in another fashion. I know we'd been wined and dined for ten days, but we'd only been to one port, and that not the main stop of the cruise.
       I walked through one of the grand salons, and noticed that the fabric panels in the ceiling were made of the same pattern material as the bedspread in my cabin. I mentioned that to someone and she joked that was so if the ship "went all Poseiden on us," we'd have a soft landing.
       As I went by one of the outer windows I could see into the Convention Center, and I could see that they were preparing the CC for The San Diego Comic Convention. The whole Toucan mascot was back, as well as the eye logo. I mentioned that to one of the people who was in the hallway. He indicated that he would be there next week.

Little Red Sailboat on the Lake

       I dreamed I was swimming on the lake below my home (obviously a dream home, no lakes near my tract home IRL). The odd thing was that I was towing a little red sailboat around behind me rather than sailing it. The sails were down and I don't know if anyone was in it. I was sailing out where the water was very deep, sparklingly clear, but so deep all you could see was the occasional fish and the darkest green that could be without actually being considered black. The lake was only warm in the topmost meter, when my fingertips or legs would drop below that level I could feel the chill in the water, the remains of winter sitting just below the surface. I believe I was towing the boat in case I swam too far. I would climb in and set sail for home.
       I've tagged this for car because, although it was a little red sailboat, my mind knew it was Little Red, my Honda Insight.

        Happy Birthday EC!

Freezing Dive, Diablo III Again

       I was on a ship in the arctic. The seas were washing up over the aft of the ship as it was extremely over loaded. I had some sort of thermal dive suit, but the water was still extremely cold. I dove down about 30 feet, the pressure was terrible in my ears, but the earplugs were working to keep the water out. I turned on the lamp over the facemask and went to work, picking up a combination of Canadian and US coins from the bottom of the bay. The coins were mostly pennies, but every so often I came across a nickel, or a dime, and even a couple of quarters before I had to kick my way back to the surface.
       No mystery now as to why the boat was riding so low in the water. I suggested that we put some of the coins in the air boat and tow them behind, just to make things a little bit safer. The captain decided to put all of us divers in the boat instead. I didn't like the sound of that. So on my next trip down I rigged a couple of spare tow ropes to the bottom of the main boat. Then on the next dive I connected them to our new boat. It got foggy and dark. The captain, at least, allowed us to change into dry warm clothing before putting all of us divers off in the boat. He started the motors and pulled away from us. He towed us for about 15 minutes, further out to sea rather than closer to shore. Then he cut the main tow line. Some of the divers tried to start the outboard engine, but it was dry.
       I'd already had the spare towline up in the boat, so we payed it out, only slowly putting pressure on it so we'd be far behind, and hopefully out of site. There was no sudden pull on his engines to give away that we were still there. He headed even further north, then opened up the throttles and turned inland again. Where ever we were going, I don't imagine that anyone was going to be happy to see us. There was one thermal dive suit in the boat, I changed into it (brrr) and when I could hear surf I pulled my way along the tow line and cut us loose. I pulled the boat through the surf and use a tree to tie off the tow rope. The rest of the divers pulled the boat ashore. Fortunately the inlet we found had little tiny waves only, I was the only one wet. We found a couple of empty shacks, they had firewood and some canned goods. One had a radio. I was more worried about freezing to death, personally, as I was still wet, than I was about not being rescued. I know we would be able to call for rescue. The Coast Guard emergency frequency was labled on the radio. I just wanted to survive long enough for our murderous former employer to get away from us.

       The next dream found me playing Diablo III, and the characters jumped off the screen and extended the map onto the living room floor, and then into the kitchen. There was a blue demon of The Smith's stature that I couldn't seem to run down. No matter what the attacks were, he jumped and regenerated his entire health bar.
       "We need magical attacks that he can't regenerate," said one of my networked players.
       "But all of our attacks are magical!" piped in another. "We just need to hit him all at the same time so he can't regenerate it all."
       "I don't think we can do enough damage, even if we each could hit him with our maximum attacks all at once," I added.
       "Well, we could all switch to poisen, at least that attack would keep knocking him down some."
       "How about if we just lure him away and take what we need from his room?" I asked.
       "No, we need to kill him, he's carrying the item we need."
       "Can he regenerate if he injures himself?" someone asked.
       "I don't know." I said. I summoned up several bone golems and moved in close to him to put a curse on him. He smashed the golems with a single blow each. He teleported, right next to me. I noticed that his bar didn't fill up all the way.He struck me, almost completely emptying my life orb, then he teleported away. I drank a full rejuvenation potion. Sweating from the near death experience. I summoned up another golem, this time one that naturally returned damage. "It's too bad you can't repair these without going back to town." I said out loud.
       Five town portals popped into existence around me.
       "OK, I'm going to make an army now, back in a bit, keep him hopping." I jumped out and ran out to make some more bone golems. They weren't as tough as the first set, but they would be a distraction, I hoped. I jumped back and we began the process of hitting the baddie all at once, and allowing him to smack my summoned critters. I would then jump back for repairs while the group kept hitting the bad guy, when I returned I found a couple of magic items on the round, both of them had stats that prevented monster heal. I used them to make a couple of more golems.
       I thought to myself how nice it was to not be limited to one golem. Apparently the new limit was 5 summoned critters, of any sort. So I couldn't really have an army of undead like in the previous version, but the five were pretty powerful, so it more or less balanced out.
       "That was tough. Next time, can't you go into GM mode and make it more reasonable?"
       "Hey, we survived, didn't we? No one killed, I was the only one who even came close." I was a little upset that the smith had targeted me and my summoned critters almost exclusively. I'd run through over a dozen full rejuvenation potions. The rest of the team each tossed out two potions, as though reading my thoughts.
       "Thanks, folks. I needed that."
       "You owe me 200 Gold pieces," M said.
       "Sheesh!" I picked up the gadget the smith had dropped. Apparently only the player who'd killed the smith could use it. It was huge, three by three. I had to go to town and drop off some charms to make room for it. I was glad I still had most of my powers from my skills rather than the charms (mostly extra speed.)
       Our group made its way through the living room back up onto the computer screen and into the final chamber. The final chamber was guarded by 5 tendril sprouting angels. We couldn't hit them at all until I held them in the beam of the artifact. The team offered to carry some of my stuff so I could go get my speed charms. The angels seemed to focus on the player with the artifact. I did a lot of summoning on the run. My weakness curse seemed to work on the angels that weren't in the beam, at least reducing the damage they could do, even though we couldn't damage them in return. Like the Smith earlier, they could damage themselves, so the Palidin and anyone with a damage returned shield was at least hurting them when the angels attacked. As I ran from the angels, I dropped potions for my companions to pick up. The dream ended after we killed the second angel. I was thinking this was really tough, and we'd be in a world of hurt if I got killed, I wasn't sure anyone else would be able to use the artifact.

Victorian Drag; Refolding A's Boat

     I dreamed I was in a corset and lilac colored victorian dress, complete with bustle and bonnet. The reason was I was working with Scotland yard to catch a serial rapist. I had some cool hidden weapons both in the bustle and the sides of the corset as well as in the linings of the sleeves.
      While we were preparing for the sting, the queen came through on an inspection tour. She pointed out to me that I'd better learn to curtsey rather than bowing, or I'd give myself away. She then assigned one of her ladies in waiting to help me learn how to move more like a woman. As quickly as she'd entered the ward, she left. I thought I heard her asking the inspector general if we couldn't have found someone without a full beard. I'd sort of wondered that myself.
      Forward in time, I was at a play and then left with the crowd, walking "home" on a carefully laid out route in hopes of catching the rapist. I don't think I've ever been bumped and squeezed in a crowd like I was bumped and squeezed that night. I was angry enough to take the rapist out completely by the time I got out of the crowd. I was jumped from behind about six blocks from the theater.
      The rapist had pinned my arms and used the base of the skirt to try to tie me up. We knew that from previous witnesses, so the dress was break away. I broke free, pulled a couple of guns from the lining of the sleeves and the bounder gave up. "The beard should have been a clue."

      In another dream I found myself with N, A and C walking through a dense forest. Also in Victorian clothing. (Seems to be a run on that theme lately.) We were moving along the shore of a stream when we came to some severely over-grown docks. A insisted that the boat had to have been stolen as he couldn't find it anywhere.
      "When was the last time you actually saw it?" I asked.
      "Before all this undergrowth, and these huge cactus like things weren't here."
      "They look like triffids, almost." I poked one, but it didn't move. I remembered that there had been some heavy rains not too long ago, and that is what folks were saying caused the jungle to grow up around the place. I waded out into the watery plants and made my way over to the other shore, sure enough, the boat was there, underwater.
      The rain had filled the boat and it had sunk. I pulled it up out of the water. Plants had started to root on it, so I managed to pull them out. A explained that the boat could fold flat for storage. N said I could figure it out, as I was good at origami.
      "I'm just a beginner, N," but the boat was easy to figure out. I pulled it out of the water and re-folded it on the surface. It had a strange multi-fold closure at the bow, and in the stern two closures with snap like plastic hooks to keep it all together. There was a thin plastic strap that fit around a groove on the outside of the boat to hold it all together and a couple of seats to keep the side walls from collapsing. When I was done it floated with only an inch of draft or so. I figured it might hold two of us, but certainly not all four of us. I pushed the boat back to the group and climbed out of the water.
      We started discussing going up river to find the source of all the jungle growth. There did seem to be a tunnel of jungle over the river that would allow for us to pass. I wasn't too keen on the idea of towing the ladies in the boat while wading. I hadn't seen any jungle animals, yet, but something told me they were out there. I really didn't want to be crocodile food if there were crocodiles.
      "Even if there are crocodiles, they couldn't be very big, yet." A reasoned.
      I pointed to the 20 foot high triffid looking plant that grew out of the dock. "Are you sure about that?"
      "Good point," C piped in, "Maybe we should find another boat and ask if we can borrow it?"
      N agreed and they set off through the jungle growth to the boathouse to ask about borrowing someone else's boat. I didn't really think they would find anyone at the boathouse as the whole lake seemed pretty much abandoned.