Missive #386

George MacDonald Fraser was famed for his legendary Flashman series, featuring the incorrigible knave Harry Flashman. In the colorful standalone novel Captain in Calico Fraser introduces another real-life Captain John Rackham, called “Calico Jack,” an illustrious eighteenth-century pirate who marauded the Caribbean seas. This book was not published until after Fraser’s death although it had been written before the Flashman series. He could not get any publishers to buy it and tucked it away and started the Flashman series. It is a good historical novel but not in the ‘picaresque’ Flashman style as the book promo claims.

On a tranquil evening in the Bahamas, Calico Jack, long wanted on counts of piracy, makes a surprise appearance at the Governor’s residence and asks for a pardon. A deal is brokered after Jack reveals the motive for turning himself love. When he last set sail from the Bahamas two years ago, Jack left behind a beautiful fiancée, and he hopes to win her back. But while Jack was off pirating, his beloved has become betrothed to a new man—the governor himself. It doesn’t take long for this truth to come to light, and after embarking on a new romance with famous Irish pirate Anne Bonney, Jack is quickly transformed back into a thieving captain in calico.

With his trademark picaresque style, Fraser draws readers into the wild west of the British empire, where black sails prowl the waters and redemption can be found in the most unexpected places. — Book promo @ goodreads.com

I have had my basement heater plugged in for the past few days but it only came on the first night, that was last Friday when it went down to 27°F. Although the forecasts have been for below freezing through the weekend it didn’t happen. The forecast for this next week is for lows above freezing and the highs to be in the 70s, then back to winter temperatures.

I received the Starlink Mini Mobile Mount on Saturday so all I need to do now is get the antenna removed, roof patched and the Mini installed. So far it has been working great while just on the ground, it should work even better when mounted above the current obstructions. I’m getting upload speeds in a range of 60mbps to over 100, uploads in the 5-15mbps range and latency in the 30s. This is so much better than Verizon there is no comparison.

Data usage for the 9 days that I have been using it has averaged a little over 1GB per day so with 50GB in the Roam Plan that I have I’ll not be close to the point where I’ll have any added charges. The monthly charge is $50 with an added $1/GB over the 50GB base. This does compare to Verizon which was costing me $77.92 with unlimited data [unlimited being ‘throttled’ when over 15 GB]. So far I’m very pleased!