I have been meaning to get a current picture of the progress on the fort. I got it to about 95% complete late last summer, and then somehow never got around to the rest. As soon as we get some sunny weather, I’m going to attach the rail around the front porch. Note the gable roof, rope ladder, mail box and street address. You can’t really see it, but there is a hatch on the far right of the porch, where the rope hangs.
The kids use my old wood ladder because the rope ladder is difficult to climb. Somehow they’ve managed to move chairs and a table up there. Holly doesn’t like the two-tone roof roll, but I think it gives the place a real down home feel. I still can’t believe I was able to pull this together. You never know what you can do until you try.
If you look close, you can see the neighbor’s tree fort down the block. Keeping up with the Jones ain’t easy.
Present Tense 
Lucky kids!
Cool beans. The boys (now 23 and 25) built a fort in the backyard when we lived in Aurora. It was not … quite as level.
The tattoo? My wife has a “life list,” and one of the things she had listed was a tattoo. She ended up with two (in places covered by clothing) — a dragonfly and a daisy. I told her I was going to get one too. She said, “Oh, yeah? What?”
I told her the little “access symbol” — the stick figure using the small wheelchair, white on a blue background. But … the stick figure would have an eye patch, a pirate grin, and the wheelchair would have its wheel represented by a yin-yang symbol, and there would be a single wing (like half of the wing representing a pilot’s badge) coming off the back of the wheelchair.
And the whole thing would be leaning forward as if in rapid motion.
She dared me. But I’ve not done it. Yet.
I told the UIPress editor I wanted that on the cover. She thought I already had the tattoo. I never dissuaded her. I crafting a new public image …
~ Gary