Welcome to Gordonia

Since many of my friends participate in what I call, "ohsh sports" (so called because, if there's a screwup, the particpants last words are, "Oh, Sh . . .") I came up with the brilliant idea of putting together an event where we all shared our sports in one day, seeing how many of these activities could be crammed into a 24 hour period.

On my 34th birthday, several of my friends conspired to put me through a "day of adventure" which consisted of rock climbing, shooting and paintball. It was an entertaining day of fun, witnessed (from afar) by Mike's wife Colleen.

"This is Colleen at work, throwing wads of paper at the wastebasket."

A few months later, Colleen emailed me and asked me to help her organize a day of adventure for her husband, Mike. Mike was turning 30 in March and he needed a rite of passage.

"Mike, looking grim."

We were inspired one evening after a viewing of "The Princess Bride" and we started planning. We would run Mike through a series of events which would follow (roughly) the plot of the movie. We were missing one element, however, we needed a villain.

"Jim Gordon, recruited to play Prince James the Libertarian"

Jim volunteered (or was volunteered, depending on who tells the story) to play the villain, Prince James.

One thing we learned during my "day of adventure" is that the adventurer needs almost constant guiding, lest they get sidetracked and sent off-course. Sean and I volunteered to switch off guide duties throughout the day. Sean is also an excellent photographer and got some good photos of the action.

"Sean

As we conspired in the weeks leading to Mike's birthday, we began to gather a fair amount of background material and a number of fake clues. We needed a way to introduce these clues to Mike and also to feed him some of the rich background that a half-dozen creative people can put together over a number of evenings of bouncing emails back and forth. We decided (since almost all the participants are in the computer field) that Gordonia needed a web site.

A few days later, Colleen sent Mike another email, complaining of "mash notes" from some whacko prince in Gordonia.

Interleaved between these were a series of emails from me (ostensibly planning events for his birthday party), asking Mike questions like, "Do you have a fear of heights? Have you ever taken Malaria medications and had any adverse reactions? What's your helmet size? Do you speak any foreign languages? What's your blood type? Do you have any allergies? What diseases are you immunized against?" In addition, several friends of Mike's (participants in the ohsh sports, emailed him questions pertaining to their own particular brand of sport (e.g. "What size wet suit do you take, Mike?")

Two weeks before Mike's birthday, I emailed him a list of equipment that would be recommended for his "day of adventure" that was two pages long and started with "Combat Boots" and ended with "Torches, 10."

A few days prior to Mike's birthday, we added the "Mad Mike's Mercenaries" section and also the map of Gordonia. We suggested that he review the site on Thursday night and be ready for action on Friday at lunchtime. Lunchtime Friday came and went, leaving Mike a bundle of nerves. Friday evening some friends from Portland "Stopped by" (it's a 3 hour drive away) and they sent out for pizza and watched a movie. Mike did not get a lot of sleep that night, expecting at any moment that commandos would sneak in and spirit him away.

After breakfast, the friends from Portland "went jogging." Given their Dilbert-like physiques, it was foreshadowing some peculiar goings-on. A few minutes later, the doorbell range, Colleen went to get it, leaving Mike to finish breakfast.

After a few minutes, the phone in the house rang and Mike answered it, "Hello?"

"Listen up, Hines. We've got your wife and you won't see her alive again until you deliver the DaVinci Codex. Once you steal the DaVinci Codex from the Gates mansion, we'll let you know where to deliver it."

A moment later, Mike's friends burst in the house and tell Mike that Colleen was kidnapped by a bunch of men in ill-fitting gray suits driving a van with Gordonian embassy plates.

The "team" decides to skip stealing the Codex from the Gates mansion and instead, rescue Colleen from Gordonia. They had a copy of the map and a clue: Vertical World.

Vertical World is an indoor climbing gym in Redmond, and Colleen had arranged for Mike to get a 1/2 hour rock climbing lesson. At the end of the lesson, at the top of one of the walls was the next clue, "The Gordonian Fencing Academy" and an address which led the team to the Pro Club, where Sean and Jim had set up a fencing area. The clue had been placed the evening before, at the top of the "easy" wall. Mike started his climbing lesson by climbing the "moderate" wall and, finding no clue there, climbed the "hard" wall. Nearing the end of his lesson (and his endurance) Mike felt around on the top of the wall pleading, "There has to be a clue here somewhere!" We lowered him down the "hard" wall and watched as he struggled to the top of the "easy" wall and found the next clue: "The Gordonian Fencing Academy" and an address. The address led the party to a rented gymnasium.

Mike and Jim had both fenced in college (though they had never fenced against each other.) Mike fought one 15 minute bout of epee with Jim, one 15 minute bout of foil with another fencer, then one 15 minute bout of saber with Jim. The 45 minutes of near continuous fencing left Mike bright pink and sweat soaked.

After the morning's labors, it was time for lunch. Lunch featured a game of wits, as Mike labored over a chessboard in the vain hopes of freeing Colleen from an evil Gordonian (playedby Sean.) Three games of chess later (and a drink of a simulated iocaine powder dosed drink) Mike had not rescued Colleen and had to come up with another plan to free her.

The "plan" was to use his sniper rifle to clear the guards around the courtyard to the Gordonian castle and then his team would parachute into the courtyard. What we actually did was this:
We took Mike to Interlake, where we set up a 36 helium filled balloon course of fire where Mike had to shoot the balloons (which were whipping around in the wind at a fairly good clip) at ranges of 50 to 200 yards. Once he finished that, we packed up and went off to Bill and Jim's excellent adventure, an indoor paintball place which contains a two story castle inside the warehouse that they use for their arena.

Colleen showed up for the first game and was the "hostage." Mike had to lead his team into the castle to rescue Colleen from the "Evil Prince." It took two tries, but he was finally successful. Colleen departed after the second round, and the rest of the party played paintball for an hour and a half, until it was time to clean up and go home to the party at Mike's house.

We chose "GI Jane" as the movie on which to base the second "day of adventure." We added a lot more detail to the Mercenaries section (the uniforms page and the reserve recertification page.) A few weeks prior, we sent Mike a letter which informed him that he would be undergoing reserve training and recertification as a Gordonian Mercenary and to prepare for a 24 hour period (5PM Friday to 5PM Saturday) of activity.

We started with a formation and uniform inspection. His team (composed of friends and coworkers) were all late and in improper uniform, so much hilarity ensued as Jim and I explained (in exquisite detail, using words no longer than four letters - did I mention that I am a former Marine Sergeant and Jim is a former Army Ranger Sergeant?) their shortcomings as Gordonian mercenaries.

"Jim as the evil Inspector General"

As Mike fumbled with the straps, Jim (grinning maniacally) pulled out a can of police strength pepper spray (added incentive.) Mike finished clearing the mask with a second to spare, so Jim spared Mike a hosing down with pepper spray.

After the inspection, Mike and his team moved out to my house, where I had set up an obstabcle course. My house sits on 5 acres, two lawn, two hillside and one swamp. The obstacle course consisted of a sprint 200 yards uphill (interrupted by several low-crawl areas conveniently placed over the muddy stream that flow downhill) followed by negotiating a number of balance logs and over/under log obstacles. Once up the hill, they had to low crawl under the squirt/nerf gun fire area and then rappel down the hillside and make the final 150 yard dash through the knee-deep swamp.

"The team after their first attempt."

The next exercise, cigar cutting and enology, consisted of cigars and scotch at my house. The exercise lasted until just after midnight when we informed Mike that he would need to negotiate the land navigation coursei n order to find his tent (where he would be spending the night.)

Earlier that day we had placed a series of wooden stakes around the property, each labelled with a distance and direction to the next stake in the series. By starting at stake #1, and following the compass heading, Mike could find the next stake. Each stake had a cyalume stick attached to the back, to make it easy for Mike to find.

As the final touch (to make it easy for us to track his progress) we gave him a special "night-time land navigation hat" (dubbed the "Tinky Winky Hat.") We took a cyalume stick and glued it to his hat, sticking straight up. When he started the course, we turned off all the lights in the house and watched the hat wander around the yard.

It took Mike about 20 minutes to find each of the 4 stakes which led him to his tent. What he didn't realize was that his tent was occupied. We had, a few minutes prior to turning him loose on the course, put his wife Colleen in the tent.

Once Mike arrived at the tent, he noticed that there was a light inside and music playing. Suspecting trickery, he tossed a stick at the tent. Colleen was startled and screamed. Luckily, Mike recognized the sound as Colleen and was able to take control of the situation.

The next morning, we woke Mike up and gave him a Gordonian Mercenary breakfast ration (a box labelled, "Gordonian Mercenary Ration. THIS SIDE TOWARD ENEMY." which contained a Power Bar (in a flavor he hates) a can of SPAM and a can of "Reindeer Chunks In Gravy.") Mike, prepared for such an event, whipped a 30/40/30 bar out of his pocket and ignored the ration.

We took him rock climbing for an hour, then to REI to purchase a chalk bag. After REI, we went back to the house where we fed him a nice waffles and sausage brunch. After brunch he got a brief "power nap" and then off to the range. En-route, we stopped at the barber shop, where he got a serious (#1 on the sides, #2 on top) haircut.

At the range we had set up the Gordonian Mercenaries Weapons Qualification.

"Mike having fun."

"Mike having even more fun."

"You guys have been to county, you know the drill."

"Click here to explore Gordonia."