Fun For All Ages

Some while back, K.W. Jeter and I did a signing at a local B.&N bookstore. Both of us had worked in George Lucas's universe, K.W. was living in Portland in those days, and we'd get together for the occasional beer or lunch; even did a spec script together that never went anywhere. (K.W. is a helluva good writer, and aside from a couple of classic works in the SF&F field, is the guy who came up with the term "steampunk ...")

As we were finishing up our session, K.W. asked the woman who had been our minder if we could have a couple of the posters they'd put up for our signing. We both thought that the line, "Fun for all Ages!" was just too good to pass up, not even to mention the "anticipatory festivities ..."

Fizzy Water

I used to be the Coca Cola Company's biggest fan and one of its faithful consumers. Grew up with the stuff in my baby bottle, drank it every day, and went from a six pack of little bottles to a liter or so a day, up until I was about forty-five. Then all that sugar and empty calories and dental caries started making me rethink my consumption. Hundred and fifty calories in a 12-ounce bottle of Coke, that starts to add up fast.

So I tried diet cola, and ick, that was awful for a guy who could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi in a blind taste test. So I started looking around for other things.

Tried tea, plain water, and eventually, came to the realization that I could get by with club soda or seltzer. Got the bubbles, but no calories, and it tasted better than diet cola -- I don't care what anybody says, that stuff is just awful, an abomination unto the senses.

(The Mexican Coca Cola you can get at Costco these days has sugar and not corn syrup in it, and is delicious. I have one now and again. Once or twice a week.)

But since I always have a glass of something on my desk and flow the fluids all day, even Safeway club soda can get spendy at $2.5o a six pack on sale. So I found one of those siphon thingees like they used in the old days to bubble their water. Or, if you were one of the Three Stooges, shoot it down each other's pants ...

The CO2 cartridges, if you buy them in bulk, allows you to fizz your own tap water, and for about half what you pay if you buy the bottled or canned stuff, and it will keep in the bottle in the fridge for weeks without going flat, if you get a good model.

So, if you are looking for fizz without guilt, consider making your own ...

More Black Steel

If you are a fan of black steel, you need to check out Alan's Maisey's latest keris catalogue.
It won't be up long, and the blades tend to sell out very quickly, because they are incredible bargains for what you get. (Look at the detail work on the sheath. All kerises are unique, some are most unusual, such as the pamor -- pattern in the steel -- of the ones pictured above.)

Alan is a qualified empu himself; he travels to the islands from Australia, speaks the language like a native, and goes all over to find these. He cleans and refurbishes the kerises he finds as necessary -- redressing and restoring kerises are considered proper actions -- so that what you see showcases the pamor properly.

Have a look.

Me 'n' Sir Paul - The Road Not Taken

I once had a buddy who decided one fine summer day that that we -- he and I -- should become rock stars. I'd always thought of myself as a folkie, had a classical guitar and my three chords -- but he was hot to do it.

He came into some money. Well, let's be truthful here -- he got a really good deal on some stuff that he picked up, what we used to call a five-finger discount. He sold that, and took the money to the local music store. Showed up at my house with a brand new Fender strat, a Hoffner bass, and a couple of amplifiers. I was passing surprised.

Here, he said, you get to be the bass player.

All we needed was a lead guitarist -- my buddy was gonna be the rhythm player and lead singer -- and a drummer, some groupies, and we'd be all set.

Well, that, and some talent and skill, neither of which we had.

I knew exactly zip about playing bass, but, hey, if Paul McCartney could learn, I could, too, right?

Unfortunately, two days -- two days -- after I came into possession of the same kind of bass guitar that Paul had used to conquer the world with a little help from his friends, my friend fought the law, and the law won. I came up with bail, but he needed money to pay his lawyer, and alas, the guitars got sold in a big hurry. (Pretty soon, he, uh, was not in a place where he and I could practice together anyhow, and that was the end of that venture. Easy come, easy go.)

I sometimes wonder if I had held onto that bass and learned how to play it what might have happened.

I Realize It's Not That Simple, But Sometimes ...

Quicksand and Thermodynamics

A couple weeks back, I did a post on cosmology in which I quoted Ben Bova's abbreviated Laws of Thermodynamics. After watching General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker give testimony to senate sub-committees yesterday, I am moved to repost those laws and observe that they certainly seem to apply to the war in Iraq:

1) You can't win.
2) You can't break even.
3) You can't get out of the game.

Or, as one of the guys over on the acoustic guitar board posts over his sig: "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam ..."

What Are You Looking for in a Martial Art?

A bit more on the martial arts comment, and my experience with the fake Sifu all those years ago. As Brad and I were kicking it back and forth, I made a comment that bears, I think, repeating here.

What is important to me in a martial art teacher, at the core, comes to two things: 1) Does the teacher have that for which I am looking? and 2) Can he teach it to me?

This does not speak to the effectiveness of the art, vis a vis winning a tournament, streetfighting, getting into shape, or spiritual development -- or any of a bunch of other reasons why you might want to train. Not everybody wants to step into the octagon. Some people are looking for a cultural experience, a place to hang out socially with other folks interested in a style, or a sense of empowerment, which may or may not have anything to do with the ability to kick ass and take names. That's not what we are talking about here.

I got into a dojo originally because I was a skinny little kid who was afraid of getting beaten up. Primarily for self-defense, or maybe for the sense that I had an option and could do something if push came to shove. False confidence might be worse than no confidence, and I won't argue that, but feeling as if I could take care of myself went a long way to smoothing my path. (The few times I needed it, it did work, so I might be excused for feeling as if I got my money's worth.)

The art I wound up in, and have stayed in, called to me. I fell in love with it when I saw it. I think it offers as much as any, more than some I have played with, and I was looking for depth, of which I had none. I wanted to train and -- if not master a style -- feel as if I had taken a shot at learning it to the point that it became part of who I was.
Pukulan Pentjak Silat Sera Plinck has what I want. I am in for the long haul, or until something breaks and I can't play any more.

I'm not going to be a bad-ass, hard-drinkin' streetfighter; never wanted that before, don't want it now. Nor am I going to slide into the ring on oily feet in my Speedos to roll with some guy who trains six hours a day and does a steroid-stack that will let him rage with WrestleMania players or shrunken-gonad pro bodybuilders. Not going to play in the tournaments to win trophies or cash prizes. No desire to walk into a room full of bad men and deck one and all if they get frisky. Not even particularly interested in teaching it, outside helping the newbies in my class along.

But the two questions I asked, those answers I believe I have found: I got a guy who has what I want, and I'm sure he can teach it to me.

Do I believe it works? Given what I have learned over years looking in other places, yes. I do believe that if push comes to shove, I'll have an option or two. I enjoy going, learning, and practicing it, and in the end, that's all I need.

Not to gainsay anybody else's experience in what works or doesn't work for them. I believe what I'm learning works for me, and in the end, that's what matters.

Your mileage may vary.

Ducks

I know the difference between an oak tree and a fir, and I can tell a squirrel from a polar bear, but I'm not that much of a naturalist. Friday, I saw something about which I had read, but never seen.

Spring is here and the waterfowl are mostly paired. Down at the creek where the ducks and sometimes a few Canada Geese hang out, you see the males and the females sticking close together, two-by-two. In a few weeks, there will be ducklings and goslings following mama into the water, another turn on the Great Wheel of Birth.

This morning, a pair of male ducks. They were behaving just as the male/female couples, off looking for a nesting site. This is the third time I've seen them, and I'm inclined to believe that they aren't fishing buddies ...

Seems like pretty good evidence of biology over sociology vis a vis sexual orientation -- nature and not nurture ...

The Vampires are Coming!

So, we sucked it up and went to see our accountant today, to give him what he needs to do our taxes. Took both of us to carry all the paperwork in.

The advantage in being a writer is that you can deduct a lot of stuff as business expenses. The disadvantage in doing Schedule-C is that by the time we get done with that, plus our joint return, our tax form is as thick as an issue of Scientific American, and more complicated.

The Turbo-Tax software chokes and throws up, so we have to have somebody who knows numbers and the arcane ways of the IRS. (Every year, one of the local TV stations calls up the IRS to ask questions. Most of the time, the IRS agent offering advice gets it wrong. And if you take their advice and it is wrong, you are still liable. Is that a great system or what?)

I understand why George Harrison wrote that song, yessir.

The feds, state, and Tri-met all get a chunk, and with every legal deduction allowed, it still costs us a big chunk of our income to live here. Home of the brave, sure. Land of the free? Not so much ...

One in Every Crowd

My martial arts experience has been wide, but shallow. In forty-some years, I trained in Goju, Okinawa-te, Oppugnate, Chan Gen, Shin-Shin Aikido, Kendo, Kajukenbo, and finally, Pentjak Silat. Until silat, the time ranged from a year to three years in any one style, and while I managed to get a brown and black belt along the way, I had no depth in any of them.

Once upon a time, I thought a black belt meant something. The one I have, I use to tie the dog ramp to the bed's footboard to hold it steady, so it finally is useful.

For whatever they were, the places where I trained were mostly legit. My teachers were qualified to instruct in the art they were offering, save for one.

In the early 1970's, after we had moved back from L.A. to Baton Rouge, Kung Fu the TV series was on the air. There had been a made-for-TV-movie, I think, earlier, but the full impact was just hitting the martial arts community in '72 or '73. I was looking for a place to train, having split up with my former buddy and business partner, who had been teaching me Oppugnate, and who had known some kung fu, and had been showing me that, too.

I heard there was a kung-fu school just opened, and went to check it out. I figured it was all the same, and what I had learned would be what they were teaching. Hey, I was twenty-two, what did I know?

During this time, a whole bunch of karate schools suddenly discovered that they, in fact, had kung fu in their background, and signs that said "Karate School" were replaced with "Kung Fu School." There were yin-yang symbols out the, well, out the yin-yang.

The new place was in a big room in somebody's warehouse, way out Florida Blvd. There were a dozen students, and the teacher, Sifu Scheffler, maybe thirty , wore the black kung-fu suit with the white frog ties, and waved his arms in circles a lot. The class was a lot of warm-up, punching and kicking drills until we were exhausted, push-ups, crunches, and then Sifu would show us a move, generally pounding the crap out of the guy he chose to demonstrate upon. We'd practice that, and he'd walk around correcting our form.

He had a nice certificate in his office, little dragons on the parchment, and a couple of black belts from other styles, mostly TKD, would drop by and chat with him sometimes while we were busting our buns. "Northern Honan Style Kung Fu," it said. It had some Chinese writing on it, too. It looked legit, but of course, I knew zip about Chinese arts.

Sifu Scheffler was an out-and-out fraud. Why you don't see this in my training list.

It took me three or four classes to figure it out. He never did anything really martial. He would, as he lectured, run through a few moves now and then, lotta circular hands and chicken beak and tiger claws, and it looked pretty spiffy, but it didn't feel right.

He'd demo a defense, but never at full power, and they looked okay, but ... not okay.

I didn't say anything. I had a place to work out, some of the other students knew some things, and pretty quickly, I was given leave to lead the class in the warm-ups while Sifu sat in his office using the phone. I was young, in shape, I figured this was how it was done.

After a month or six weeks of this, Sifu would sometimes call me and tell me to cover the class, and he wouldn't even show up.

The guy who owned the warehouse was one of the students, as was a guy who was big into local real estate. After another month wherein I had become the de facto teacher, showing what little kung fu I knew, along with bits and pieces of the other stuff I had, the warehouse owner and the real estate guy hinted that maybe the students should be paying me to teach class instead of Sifu. I had a black belt didn't I?

Well, yes, but I wasn't hot to do that. But the next time Sifu showed up to collect the tuition, there was a moment ...

He asked one of the students, who had some training in judo, to come at him. I'm thinking the student's name was Barry, but I could be misremembering that. Barry charged in, grabbed Sifu and threw him onto the ground. As he fell, Sifu made a panicked wave at Barry's face. He got up.

"Did you see that?" he asked us.

Yeah, we did, Barry decked your worthless ass. But that's not what he meant. "Did you see that? I pretended to fall, and hooked him under the chin with my Eagle Claw!"

That was so lame a boxcar full of crutches couldn't help. We were all embarrassed. We looked at our feet. Yeah, Sifu, good job.

Two weeks later, the warehouse guy and the real estate guy found another empty space, rented it, and set me up as the instructor. All but one of Sifu's students moved over with me. Sifu never said a word to me, and I confess, I was not worried about him showing up to deliver his deadly Eagle Claw.

Later, the real estate guy did some background checking, and found out that Sifu's claims as to where he studied and with whom were completely bogus. (Sifu later claimed to be a New York writer who had written and sold a big movie, and after that somehow didn't make it to the big screen, faded away. I believe Sifu was a sociopath; or maybe he just enjoyed lying.)

There was a lot of fraud going on in kung-fu circles in those days -- there's always some of that, and the flavor-of-the-month art gets the most play from the instant masters. But, far as I know, that was the only time I got stung, and in the end, it worked out pretty well for me. I had a black belt, and an instant school. I didn't really know squat about fighting, and not much about kung fu, but eventually, there was a White Crane guy, a professor at Southern U who would come to my school and swap forms with me, so I did have exposure to real stuff. Later a tai chi guy showed me a Yang form, so I had a little of that, too.

It's an ill wind indeed that blows no good ...

Coincidence ...

Coincidence can be a funny thing. Yesterday, I went to see Mr. Audiologist to get a new "hearing instrument." This a term they use instead of "hearing aid," so as not to scare people who remember grandpa's model, which looked like a brick clipped to his shirt, with a coil of wire leading to an earplug the size of a sound-suppressor shooting headphone ...

EH? WHAT'S THAT? YOUR PIG IS A BIG ROCK?

No, Grampa, I said 'It's five o'clock ..."

I blew out an eardrum scuba diving as a boy, and have been mostly deaf on that side since. I broke down half a dozen years ago and got one of the little electronic miracles that fits all of a piece into your ear canal, and whoa! suddenly I heard things I hadn't heard in years ...

But they wear out, being fairly light and fragile and plastic, and six years is long in the tooth for one.

These days, the things are better still, digital, programmed by plugging it into a computer, and I got a new model that is spiffier than the old one. Can hear a mosquito fart across the street ...

So, today, I logged on to a music site to listen to a song, and when I listened, it sounded ... tinny. Playing the guitar yesterday and today sounded better than it did with the old hearing aid; I had to turn the TV volume down, and voices are clearer, but the computer speakers?

Enh.

Something in the electronics, I figured, the hearing aid is set to amplify certain frequencies, so you don't get that constant roaring, and okay, well, I can live with it.

Until I realized that maybe I should, you know, check the computer.

Sure enough, the speakers were unplugged, and I was hearing the song on the iMac's built-in speaker, which, not to put too fine a point on it, sucks. I plugged the external speakers in.

It's a miracle!

Me 'n' Homer Simpson: Doh!

An Autodidact in the Information Age

I consider myself an autodidact -- most of the people I know are. In fact, I agree with the saying, "Who learns, teaches himself." (Or herself). You can have a great teacher and not retain squat. You can have a lousy teacher -- or none at all -- and roll like like a juggernaut. Mostly, it's up to you.

Some things need hands-on. Hard to learn how to swim, do martial arts, or experimental high-energy particle physics without access to a pool, gym (garage, back yard), or accelerator, and somebody who knows how to show you when to duck, paddle, or which button not to push.

Formal education certainly has its pluses. These days, if you want to be a doctor or a lawyer, you have to spend years in school to be allowed to take a shot at it. Wasn't always that way -- there was a time when you could walk into the medical or legal boards tests, pay your money, and take your chance. If you passed, you were a doctor or lawyer. You had to know the material, but they didn't care how you'd learned it if you could demonstrate it properly. I believe Huey Long had three semesters of legal training when he conned the board into letting him take the exam, and he easily passed the bar to become a lawyer. Of course, they shot Huey later ...

Nowadays, you want to be an engineer and all they are hiring are folks with degrees in it, then you have to go that way. Name of the game.

I had to do a year of school to sit for the LPN exam; however, Physicians Assistant certification -- a class of medical practitioners developed largely to take advantage of medics coming home from Vietnam -- was less formal at its beginning. In the late 197o's, you could still challenge the exam, which is how I got to be a PA-C.

How I learned was to badger the doctors with whom I worked -- What's that? How do you do this? Show me ... and I read a shitload of medical books. I was shallow in some areas, but way deep in others, and I had hands-on practice. I wanted it. (Not to brag, but I passed square in the middle. Not too impressie, but there were guys with college degrees in pre-med and a year of internship in formal PA programs who flunked. The doctors I worked with expected that I wouldn't make it. I was happy to surprise them. In one case, actually astound one of 'em.)

I never graduated from college. I went to LSU for a couple years, spent most of my time at the student union or Free Speech Alley, was indifferent to grades, and probably would have flunked out if I hadn't quit first. Packed up my pregnant wife, everything we owned into three trunks, and we flew off to L.A. I wanted to train in karate, and the west coast was the best place for that. Didn't have a job, an apartment, a car. We stayed two weeks in a ratty downtown hotel, rented a VW, and went to Disneyland. And when our money ran out, I got a job. Stayed there three years, got to brown belt in Okinawa-te, and left to move back to Louisiana to start a detective agency with a buddy. I wanted a black belt, but he already had one, and offered to teach me. My own company and my own private teacher. What was not to like? (Well, the guy turned out to be crookeder than a dog leg and a back-stabbing sleazeball, but other than that, it was a good deal.)

Probably the best academic skills schools could instill into students today would be the ability to read well, and how to do research, and a desire to learn. The rest is not as important.

Formal education doesn't mean anything to a genre writer. You can be a high-school drop-out, I know a couple who make a pretty good living as writers who are. A Ph.D in English might not hurt you, but it's no guarantee. If you can tell a story, you don't need a degree. If you can't, the degree won't help. You can get more from one journalism class than you can from four years of English lit, if you want lessons in how to put it on a page.

You learn by doing. Getting it wrong, having it pointed out, fixing it, and moving on. Can you hiss the word "Damn?" No. I learned this by writing it thus: '"Damn," he hissed.' Having it get into print that way, and then getting my ass handed to me by writers who laughed their asses off at me.

When I was a beginning writer, I really wanted to go to Clarion. This is a science fiction writing conference, used to be held at a U in Michigan, I think, and was the place for budding skiffy writers. Intensive, six-weeks of live-in, write a bunch, workshopping stories, world-class teachers coming to lecture and show you how. I really wanted to go.

I couldn't afford it, neither in time nor money; I was working a 48-hour week, had a wife, two small children, a house and car note to support.

Later, when I could afford to take off because my writing was starting to earn some extra money, I didn't need to go, since I was doing better than most of the Clarion grads I knew ...

These days, you can learn worlds sitting in your chair at home. Want to know something? Google it -- a new verb, that. If you know what you are doing, research-wise, you can crosscheck it and likely come up with a valid set of facts.

That's both an advantage and a disadvantage, the search engines. If you can tap a few keys and read the result, that sometimes doesn't stick as well as if you had to catch a bus to the library, find the book, and make notes by hand. Me, I love the net, it's sooo much easier, but my research skills go back to the hoof-it-to-the-library days, and knowing how Mr. Dewey did decimals ...

Footbreaker

So, what a ream and a half of paper looks like, which is how long the Eilandia ms is when printed out. Took a while with my s-l-o-w printer, too. Draft mode, Mr. Epson spews 'em out at 8 pp/min. To get clean and dark print, only 3 pp/min. Ate up a couple black ink cartridges and took most of the day whirring along ...

Off to our agents in the next day or two, though while the actual drafting process is mostly done, I do have to redo a bit of it, there's a couple misprinted pages that got fed in crookedly; plus an item or three that needs be added in before I pack it up, but it's mostly done.

Not talking George R.R. Martin length, but drop it on your foot, it will give you pause.

And soon, we cast our bread upon the waters and see what happens ...

Concrete House in the Good Old Days

Somewhere back around 1971, we lived for almost a year next to the Mississippi River levee, in Brusly, Louisiana. "We" in this case being a collection of folks, most of us related: Dianne and I and our two small children; Dianne's cousin, Uncle Jay and his bride, Aunt Cheryl. My sister-in-law, Judy, and a few others: Michael, Connie, Kid Ford. And whoever happened to be passing by and needed a place to crash.

There was another group of back-to-the-land hippies just up the road a piece: B.B. and Jan and Jim and Carolyn and a couple others, including Joe. Joe who, after explaining he had been a cowboy and bronco breaker, offered to gentle Judy's boneheaded stallion, Miso, and for his effort, was thrown and had his arm broken instead ...

You could, in the spring when the water was up, toss a rock from our front yard and hit the Mississippi River, albeit it was like a throw from the center field wall to home plate. Several acres of pasture behind the place, as I recall, twelve or seventeen, something like that. Where the horse and the goats hung out. The chickens didn't last a week.

This was the height of our hippie adventure: We had the Valhalla chickens, seven dogs, a duck (who terrified all the dogs and liked to chase my daughter around) a couple of goats, and that mean and stupid horse. We had a big organic garden, what the bugs didn't eat. Learned that you don't plant watermelon and gourds next to each other, because that can cross-pollinate, and you get watermelons that look and taste like wood pulp.

The other hippie farmers bought praying mantises to protect their truck garden. Mantises ate all the bugs, sure enough, then they ate each other, and everything above the ground was bug-infested. We had a lot of carrots and radishes with our brown rice. Apparently bugs don't much care for those, and after a while, neither did I.

We fit right in, the two houses full of hippies, being surrounded by decent country folks who all went to church on Sunday while we, ah, didn't. Eventually, the county Sheriff and BNDD (now the DEA) decided to bust us, but they picked B.B. and Jan's place first. We spotted them pretty quick -- no place to hide in the country -- and when the bust came, the house was clean, and the case was tossed out. But the writing was on the wall, and our number was in play, so we were scrupulous about Not Having Any Dope in the House. Before he found the Mahareshi, Cousin Jay sneaked some weed in, thinking obviously we had all lost our sense of smell. While he was out back working on his sailboat, I swiped it, took it into the patch of trees over the fence, and buried it and his hash pipe. I told him I did it, but he never did find the stuff. Probably some stoned squirrels somewhen later.

Our house was concrete; massive walls, and the story went, had been built by a Mr. Cooper, who, with one Negro helper and a couple of wheelbarrows, had mixed the cement himself, and slapped it onto steel poles and wire frame. There was a sun porch (called a Florida room), a big living room, three and a half bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom and a half. All in terrible shape when we moved in.

I regret that we didn't own a camera when we were there, so we don't have any pictures from that time.

Before the Corps of Engineers did major shoring on the levee, after the Great Flood of 1927, anybody who built a home within a couple-three miles of the river didn't put it on the ground, because it would get inundated come the next spring flood. The closer you were, the higher you perched your house, and six or eight feet up wasn't uncommon. (The one in the picture above is more than a mile away from the river.)

The Brusly house, built after the levee was useful, could be put on the ground, so Mr. Cooper's place, which had walls thick enough to turn siege engine missiles, was safe unless there was a break. It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and mold liked to grow on the concrete. But we had gone up the country, and it was, more or less, a fine experience.

We only got to live there because we were willing to work on the place, and over the course of that summer, we hung sheetrock, paneled,, re-roofed it, built a carport, and slab, and sort of tricked out the bathrooms. Toilet and tub in one, shower only in the other. I say "sorta," because while the toilet fed a septic tank, the drains for the tub and shower didn't go anywhere. We solved this by running pipes to a nearby ditch, where the graywater foamed merrily along to the larger ditch ...

Third-world plumbing, but nobody seemed to notice.

Soon as we got the work mostly done, the owner kicked us out -- bunch long-hairs were a blight on the neighborhood -- disturbed the cows at the dairy farm next door, I guess. Just as well, the cops would have come for us eventually.

Mr. Cooper, allegedly an architect who had worked on the Empire State Building, came to a sad end. His wife ran off with a traveling salesman while Mr. Cooper was away. He came home, and apparently became depressed. To the point where he hanged himself on the grape trellis out back.

Late at night, we could hear him thumping and bumping, Mr. Cooper, but none of us ever saw him.

The house is gone. Goggle Earth shows an empty lot where it used to be, and the encroaching subdivision is likely the reason why -- plenty of room to build nice houses there.

Ah, the good old days.

Que Sera, Sera ... ?

So, while doing research on the new novel, I came across an interesting little bit of information.

In Tibet, there used to be a somewhat pugnacious order of Buddhist monks who were apparently handy with fist or blade, and willing to use either or both without much provocation. Hundreds of them were apparently killed during a revolution in 1947.

Gone during the Chinese invasion in 1959, most of them, not a few of whom apparently went down swinging.

What is fascinating about this to me is that this fraternity of fellows, called the Dob-dob, operated out of a large monastery known as Sera.

Which name, if you've been paying attention, you know is also the core name of the Indonesian martial art I study: Pukulan Pentjak Silat Sera ...

Given my writer's mind, this opens up another whole train of thought.

As well as maybe another historical can of worms. I love it.

So much I don't know. So little time ...

Bambi vs. Godzilla

So, I'm reading Bambi vs. Godzilla by David Mamet. Subtitled, On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business.

Mamet writes books, plays, scripts, and has been an actor, director, and producer, too. He's done some terrific stuff. (You martial arts fans might know him from his TV series, The Unit. Or for the upcoming movie Redbelt, which he wrote and directed, about MMA, and which has a slew of well-known fighters and martial arts guys in it, including Danny Inosanto ...

The title of this recent book comes from the brief animated movie classic, Bambi Meets Godzilla, featured up top.

Mamet is a lyrical and accomplished author, and if you have any desire to hear about how Hollywood works from somebody who knows, this is a great read.

Early on, he talks about producers, and says, yes, there are good ones. He tells a story about Otto Preminger, and the making of Exodus. Preminger told Mamet he was shooting the movie in Israel, and he needed ten thousand extras for a crowd scene, but he didn't have the budget to hire them.

What did you do? Mamet asked.

I charged them. Put up posters all over town -- BE IN A MOVIE -- TEN SHEKELS!

No problem filling the square with warm bodies.

Mamet's comment? Now that's what he calls a producer ...

Knife Carrier

Came across this cleaning up. The construction is crude, but the idea is pretty good -- a paddle holster/sheath. This paddle came off an old snubbie holster, and I mounted a pair of kerambits on it. Weak-hand draw, and very comfortable.

The paddle works even if you don't have a belt on -- you just slip it into your waistband -- I put on a pair of pajama pants to demonstrate it.

Looks like one knife in the sheath, and also when you draw, but that's the surprise ...

Dreadnaught Report

Most of the readers have now weighed in, and there have been some good suggestions, some of which we are even going to use ...

First of these is to include a dramatis personae, up front, so people can keep track of who is whom.

We'll also include a glossary of terms, in the back, and the map, some version of which will probably be in the front.

Reaves and I have discussed some other changes, included among which is the death of a viewpoint character. Hate to do it, but it sets up something in the next book, and no, it's not Ven.

Here's the character list:

The Dreadnaught

Dramatis Personae


The Stahlrogians:

Borahl alb Kohn

Naval Officer, Under Commander (Yousee),
The Stahlrogian Dreadnaught Britta.

Villem nahl Tesar

Prime Prince, General in the Royal Army,
and Heir to the Stahlrogian Throne.

Tahk Berger

Ship’s Commander (Escee) the Britta.

Britta Farloon pul Tesar

Princess Consort, Wife of Villem,
daughter of the King of Dotterjord.

Hans nahl Tesar

Kaliser of Stahlrogia.

Berhard Tesar

The Kaliser’s brother.

Purgois

A spy and assassin.

Dovel

Natural Philosopher & Machinist

Sel Daveed

Natural Philosopher & Machinist

Girandhoff

Dovel’s Assistant


___________________________________________________

The Jalimatrans:

Djani Djalanji

Fifth son of the Rahjeem of Maluz.

Guru Bruj

Combat teacher and Chief of the Rajheem’s guard.

Tjela Pemaja

Mage.

Patro Kalam

Priest, Order of Aal’s Hand.

___________________________________________________


The Isbaani:

Hazin Hazin

Eunuch, Chief Guard, The Shamir’s Wifery.

Asfür

Hazin’s parrot

Sirsir ab Kaab

Grand Shamir of Isbaa.

Ahmar Liss

Savant Magician.

Sahzee

Ahmar’s apprentice.

Gamila Arous

The Shamir’s Third Wife.

Shamal

An Isbaani guard.

___________________________________________________

The Kallstranians:

Hus

King of Kallstrana

Skjegg (“Sky”)

Diplomat, younger brother to King Hus.

Telga dao Ven

Archer, King’s Guard.

Kanin Dor

Blood Mage

Surl

A lieutenant in the King’s Guard.

Frazetta

Connected directly to the previous post: For my money, Frank Frazetta was the cover artist of the heyday of paperbacks. Yeah, his characters were over-the-top, but they went right along with the pulp writing perfectly. Mostly-naked muscular men, big-breasted and wide-hipped women, way cool monsters, and a vivid and striking palette of colors that gave us Tarzan, John Carter, a host of barbarians, and jungles so verdant you could smell the fetid growth and feel the humidity.

Check out the image above -- how green is that valley?

Frazetta has done comics, book covers, movie posters, and sculptures, and his originals go for insane prices these day. When I hit the lottery, I'm going to get one of his oils for my office wall. Well, not the Lotto, which is only worth a few million, but the PowerBall ...

If you have money and want to pass some of it along to him, go to Frazetta's store, run by his son, and buy something.

If you just want to see some of the paintings, check out the unofficial art site. (It's not the same as seeing them in person -- I saw a few at a science fiction con years back, and was mightily impressed.)

The Unassembled Boy

Back when I was young and lusty, the Gold Medal paperbacks were hot fuel for a young man's imagination. The sexiest of these books would probably be rated PG-13, maybe shading into the occasional R-rating; tame by today's standards, but on the throbbing edge back then.

Gold Medal became Fawcett Gold Medal along the way. And along with a plethora of other trashy paperbacks, gave us Travis McGee, by John D. MacDonald, his best and most durable hero, and a writer about whom I cannot offer too much praise. A writer's writer.

One of these lurid Gold Medal tales was a science fiction novel by Herbert D. Kastle (1924-1987), entitled The Reassembled Man. (Gold Medal, 1964.) It had a terrific Frazetta cover that more than called to teenaged boys. Cost forty-five cents. (Interesting to note that while the publication date is listed as 1964, the Frazetta cover is dated '65. Can't tell that from the cover, but I have a copy of the illo that is larger and more legible.)

The plot, such that it was, was spun about the idea that power corrupts. The set-up was that a group of alien scientists, who looked much like large beetles, came to Earth to study it. They wanted a human observer who would become their recorder. They collected an average guy, one Edward Berner, and took him apart, down to the basic cellular level, and put him back together so he was faster, stronger, impervious to illness, and a sexual dynamo. The ostensible purpose of this rebuilding was to keep him from being damaged until they were ready to download his information. Then they turned him loose.

They didn't, alas, make him smarter or wiser, and so the story concerned his abilities to indulge his appetites -- he could eat, drink, and make merry -- along with her nine sisters -- and suffer almost no ill effects. He kicked ass, took names, and got laid like he was pumping pure Viagra instead of blood. Cut a swath across the country.

A sixteen-year-old boy's wet dream.

Ed essentially becomes a bully. He is unbeatable, and while not bulletproof, has no problem beating the crap out of anybody who gives him any trouble. A brother-in-law who used to give him a hard time gets pounded. Ed's wife, at first happy with his new sexual prowess, tires of him being in charge in a hurry. Ed is movin' and shakin' and he runs over everybody who gets in his way.

He wins, but in doing so, he loses.

So, it's an old story, but you speak to a passing parade. At sixteen, I hadn't seen much of the literary column marching down my street.

The crux of the tale is Ed coming to realize that power corrupts and that he has become corrupt, and how he needs to deal with it.

However, just as he is getting it sorted out, the beetles come back, collect their recording, and decide that humanity is rather boring, so they end the project. Which includes taking away the upgrades.

Going back to where he was before was a Flowers for Algernon moment. Ed would rather be dead than do that, so the aliens gift him with minor modifications, so he isn't what he was as the near-superman, but is more than he was when he started.

Lesson learned, better than he was, and fade to black ...

Of course, I was less interested in Ed's come-to-realize stuff back then than I was in his plowing the carnal fields; still, it was a good book, in that it kept you turning the pages, and did have a point to go along with the sex and violence.

Maybe I'll go see if I can find it in that box in the attic and see how well it held up.

My Next Dog Might be a Penguin ...

8:45 a.m. this morning, out my front door ...

Ice Age

Looking out my office window and a mix of rain and slushy snow is now falling. Thirty-eight degrees F., and it is almost April -- the plum tree flowers are in full pink bloom. There's a big branch lying on the ground where the wind blew it out of the tree during the hail yesterday ...

Skywalker was right -- I got a bad feeling about this ...

(Read Tiel's poem, "Local Conditions." on her blog -- it offers some vivid imagery about this.)

Four Thousand and Counting

A photo mosiac on Nico Pitney's blog at the Huffington Post. Click on the image and see what it means.

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid ...

In Hollyweird, what you see is seldom what you think it is. Movie-makers today could fool Houdini with their EFX tricks, but it's the off-camera stuff that's most interesting.

We are a youth culture, and actors and actors who want to avoid being put into the old-man or old-lady roles have all kinds of work done to hold off the ravages of time. William Shatner has been bald since his Star Trek days. There are no pictures of him thus.

So many young actresses today have dead-pans because of the wonderful side-effect of a potent poison to cause temporary muscle paralysis. They inport Botox by the trainload down in La-La-Land, and it's easy to tell. If your favorite hot young thing smiles onscreen and her forehead doesn't ever wrinkle? Same thing with the guys.

In their shoes, if my face was part of what got me work, I expect I'd have a couple plastic surgeons on retainer, too. Me, I got a face perfect for radio ...

First round surgery, under an expert with the knife, can be a big improvement: Have a look at Courtney Love, before and after, and after again. Even Cher looks pretty good for a woman a year and some older than I. There are cutters, and then there are cutters. Look uptop, and behold Mickey Rourke ...

And what happens when you can't quit while you are ahead: My. And, oh, my ...

And that's just the faces, we don't even want to go down the road to boob-jobs, lipo-suction, and calf-implants ...

Scary, when it goes bad. Curious about who has and hasn't? Michael Jackson is easy, Priscilla Presley, who looks tighter than her daughter? Sure. But how about some of your other "natural-looking" favorites?

Check out this one, a blog done by a board-certified plastic surgeon who knows how to look. Spooky stuff here.

Failure to Communicate, Part II

So, I had a visit with Rory, and in a matter of a couple minutes, we blew right past that stuff represented in the picture up top and got right down to the nitty-gritty. I have my glitch, which he and I both see; he has his, and I think maybe I see that a tad better than he does ...

But, the point is, of course, that sitting across the table and talking face-to-face gives you a raft of communications gear you don't get over the phone or in print. The gestures, the facial expressions, the tone, the body language, the pheromones, even these altogether aren't perfect, but they are worlds better than the words on the page alone.

And once again, we find we agree more than disagree. The points at which we butt heads concern control and chaos, and where we draw the lines. (Basically, if I had to parse it a few words, I'm uptight, and he's a loose cannon ...)

We may not ever see eye-to-eye, but understanding where the other guy is coming from makes it easier to maintain civil discourse. In the distance, you can see a bridge you might cross someday. At least it is possible.

Yes, of course, if he disagrees with me, why, he just hasn't seen the light, he'll come around, give him time.

I believe that statement might conceivably apply to both of us.

He's one of the good guys, part of the solution, and not the problem, and that always cuts a fellow some slack in my book. Plus he has dogs. Still, that doesn't mean I won't continue trying to show him the error of his ways.

Or, I suspect, vice-versa.

Dog Agility, Phase II

So Jude and Layla are done with the agility foundation class. Layla needs more basics, so she'll probably do an obedience class and then repeat the agility intro; Jude moves on to Agility I, soon as we can get a class scheduled.

The backyard equipment now has four barriers -- a bar jump, weave poles, open tunnel, and tire jump. Next will be a closed tunnel, (a chute,) which is a short tube open on one end, with a long cloth sleeve on the other.

After that, a teeter totter, and the last phase, an A-frame and a bridge.

On the teeter, one end is slightly heavier. The dog goes up the downed end, crosses the balance point, and causes the heavy end to drop, whereupon the dog walks down, and reaches a different color -- yellow -- whereupon he must put at least two paws before hopping off.

The A-frame is steep and has cross-strips. Dog goes up one side and down the other, same deal on the two-paw stuff.

The bridge about twenty feet long, angles up on both ends, with a long flat stretch in the center. About a foot wide, same two-paw and color stuff at the end of the run.

Those I can build, but they take a lot of space, so I will work the other stuff at home for a while, and practice at the barn for the big 'uns.

Excuse the mismatched image -- I didn't have the camera on a tripod, nor set in mosaic-mode, but you get the general idea.

The Ping Pong Test

Ping Pong, aka table tennis, is a game that my generation and the ones before us sometimes played, especially during the warm days of spring and summer. The name supposedly comes from the sound the early parchment paddles made when hitting the ball.

I was never very good at it. My mother, who used the Chinese-style grip before anybody in the U.S. knew to call it that, used to drub me regularly. Probably still can.

(In Spanglish, "los ping-pongs" refers to male, ah ... wedding tackle ...)

Um. Scoring and equipment have changed in the last few years, games are to 11 points, and sponge paddles put enough English on the balls they act like boomerangs. Good players stand fifteen or twenty feet back from the table to rally. When I played it, the game was to be the first to reach 21 points. You had to win by two points, so if you weren't two ahead at 21, you kept playing.

There were two other ways to win. You could skunk your opponent -- outplay him or her so that you got a certain number of points before he got any -- thus 7-0 was a win. We played it that 11-1 was also a skunk. After than, it was back to 21.

So here's the Ping-Pong Test, for those of you who know the game: Given a choice, and not just to entertain your bored child or grandchild whose computer has crashed, with whom would you rather play?

1) Somebody you can easily beat.
2) Somebody who can easily beat you.
3) Somebody equal to you.
4) Somebody you are slightly better than.
5) Somebody slightly better than you.

No pressure here. Except that your entire psychological makeup and outlook on life is revealed by your answer ...

Relampago

The query about what enlightenment meant to me needs perhaps a tad more:

Long ago and far away, I had a moment. A connection got made. It didn't put me on a par with Jesus or Buddha or Mohammad, but it was Relampago Santo -- the holy lightning. It burned a hole my my consciousness and let the cosmos in.

Like zen, it's impossible to explain to somebody who hasn't experienced it, but the essence was that, for a brief and blinding moment, I felt the flow of the universe. My part in it, and where all the other pieces were, and why. The good, the bad, and the ugly, and how they all meshed. The essential rightness of it, as if I somehow beheld it all.

Only a moment, then it was gone. I heard the echo for a long time, and I can remember what it felt like almost four decades later. It was in the most mundane place you can imagine: Standing in the checkout line at a supermarket on Winbourne Ave., just off the Airline Highway, in North Baton Rouge, about to buy a bottle of Boone's Farm Apple Wine.

I was not seeking it. Not expecting it. It hit me zap, just like that. Stone, cold sober.

The woman in front of me turned around, looked at my face, grinned, and said, "Oh, yeah!"

Was I touched by the finger of God? Or did I get a neuron zapped by a rare subatomic particle? Is it the same thing? Was it a total hallucination? I can't say -- but I know how it felt. I believed it was real. A door opened, a glimpse, but that was all I got.

What I think enlightenment is?

You get to live on the other side of that door.

Hallelujah

I'm a big fan of Leonard Cohen, though I came to him late -- one night I was watching Austin City Limits, this old guy in black came out and sang, in a voice to put Darth Vader's to shame, The Tower of Song, and I was riveted. I went out next day, bought CDs, and discovered after hearing them that there were all kinds of people who have covered his music.

Recently, Cohen was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and I watched that. After an acceptance speech that included reciting verses from The Tower of Song, which I found touching, Damien Rice came out, and with an acoustic guitar, played one of Cohen's most covered tunes: Hallelujah.

The song is about lost love. I don't get choked often listening to music, there are a few pieces, and this is one of them. I thought this version was especially evocative.

Science Fiction

If you have a chance to see the recent full-length movie version of Futurama, the animated series now being run on Comedy Channel, Bender's Big Score, by all means, do so. It has way too much fun, but the time-travel paradox stuff is as good as any I've seen, if somewhat more tongue-in-cheek. (And tattoo on cheek, too.)

Check it out.

Life, the Universe, and Um ... ?

After my short history of, and forecast for The Universe, an addendum: While science is wonderful as a tool, it is also limited. An acknowledgment of the limit here:

Posit the Big Bang (the Sudden Flash). Fine. Science takes us back to that.

What was there before that? In a universe where things have a cause-and-effect relationship, even though sometimes we haven't figured them out, you hit the wall. What caused the Big Bang? Science has no answer.

Religion says "God."

Or is our universe naught but a button on a giant's waistcoat?

Here, we are into the realm of magic --- or an infinite series, which is its own kind of magic, no matter that you call it mathematics. And yet, all things we know have beginnings and ends, including our universe, and if there was a beginning, how did it happen? If the buck stops at God, if God is eternal and has always been there, it's beyond my mind's grasp, but it is no more so than the infinite series. And a creator seems so much more ... elegant to me. So I'll go with that. No proof, but I don't expect any. If you have proof, it wouldn't be faith, it would be fact ...

I think whoever created the universe went off to conduct other business. I don't think God is a hands-on manager, certainly not given how screwed up this planet is; that we are instead left to our own devices. But that's just me, and I am not one to gainsay another's faith. You believe what you believe, not a problem for me, more power to you. As long as I am not required to walk your path when I am happy on my own.

Enlightenment

So, over on Rory's blog, a post on recognizing one's limits. The example he uses is of a certified enlightened zen master who leaves the monastery, but who, after a few days, returns, because the hustle of a city is harder to deal with than the calm of the monastery.

It's a good point, the stuff about limits -- but a poor example. Rory offers the caveat: "Maybe it seems that his enlightenment wasn't real if it wasn't universal. That call is up to you."

Okay, so I'm calling it -- his enlightenment wasn't real.

First, "certification of enlightenment" seems, on the face of it, unrealistic. Who certified it? Using what basis? How did they know? Since the states of moksa, nirvana, samadhi or nibbana are personal experiences, one might point at a holy woman and say, "She looks like she's there to me," but how could one certify such a thing?

(A man might have a certificate from a martial arts master that says he is an adept, but even in that case, the certificate doesn't make it so. Sometimes paper gets issued for reasons not connected to actual fighting ability, so that does not guarantee push --> shove performance.)

Second, is the definition: Enlightenment. As I understand it, once you get to be a fully-realized human being, you not only have your shit together, but you can also lift it and move it around, and it is universal. As I said in my note to Rory, if it doesn't work on the freeway, you don't have it. Once you achieve that place, to use the Hindu example, you know Maya when you see it, and it matters not where you drive your car -- no matter where you go, there you are ... (and thanks to Buckaroo Banzai ...)

If you can only be calm and collected in the monastery, then you aren't enlightened, you are only part-way there.

The number of people who achieve this plateau and who are walking around at any given time, is not large. Because you wear a robe and sit chanting for eight hours doesn't mean you have it. In fact, once you have gotten there, you can wear blue jeans and skip the chanting altogether. You don't need it any more. Once you win Powerball, you don't have to sweat trips to the grocery store.

Definitions and language -- they keep tripping us up ...

Here's Looking at You ...

Sergeant Pepper ... It's Really Deep, Man ...

At the end of the summer of 1967, just before Labor Day, the Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band hit the racks. I was working as a lifeguard at the ERA Country Club pool, and the other guards and I were Beatles fans, so we got it and brought it to work, to play on our record player. This was back in the 33-1/3 vinyl record days, you understand.

A concept album, which still a pretty new idea at the time, the record had a major impact on the burgeoning flower children. Grammy for best album, much debate about what the songs meant, and who all those people were on the cover. (For the record, the images were chosen by the fab four, and they couldn't get permission to use some they wanted. The list:

Aldous Huxley
Albert Einstein
Albert Stubbins
Alberto Vargas
Aleister Crowley
Aubrey Beardsley
Bob Dylan
Bobby Breen
Carl Gustav Jung
Diana Dors
Dion DiMucci
Dr. David Livingstone
Dylan Thomas
Edgar Allan Poe
Fred Astaire
George Bernard Shaw
George Harrison
Huntz Hall
H. G. Wells
H. C. Westermann
Issy Bonn
John Lennon
Johnny Weissmüller
Karl Marx
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Larry Bell
Lenny Bruce
Lewis Carroll
Mae West
Marilyn Monroe
Marlene Dietrich
Marlon Brando
Max Miller
Oliver Hardy
Oscar Wilde
Paul McCartney
Richard Lindner
Richard Merkin
Ringo Starr
Robert Peel
Shirley Temple
Simon Rodia
Sonny Liston
Sri Lahiri Mahasaya
Sri Mahavatar Babaji
Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
Sri Yukteswar Giri
Stan Laurel
Stephen Crane
Stuart Sutcliffe
Terry Southern
The Petty Girl of George Petty
Lawrence of Arabia
Tom Mix
Tommy Handley
Tony Curtis
Tyrone Power
Wallace Berman
William S. Burroughs
W. C. Fields

One of the Beatles biographies I read tells you which Beatle chose which image. Fascinating stuff.

Personally, I think Abbey Road is a much better album. The Pepper songs were not the best the band ever wrote, but had some memorable ones among them. One of which was Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, and despite what Lennon said at the time so it would get air play, was not about his son's friend in school, or a picture the lad drew, but about what everybody thought it was about, an LSD trip. McCartney finally admitted that, three decades later. The BBC refused back then to play "drug" or "sex" songs, if they could recognize them. They blew it on The Velvet Underground's Take a Walk on the Wild Side, having no idea what "giving head" meant.
Or cross-dressing prostitution, for that ...

At the time, in that halcyon summer before the Summer of Love, the other guards and I listened to it, mightily impressed. And one of them, Danny, said, "Wow, this is really deep, man."

I agreed, but I wondered what he meant by saying that, so I asked him, "How you figure?"

And he said, "Because I don't understand it."

I had one of those come-to-realize moments -- it struck me that a lot of people would apply that measure -- if I don't understand it, then it must be deep. That we tend to assume we are smart and clever folk, and that things beyond our ken -- if they have any intrinsic meaning -- must be beyond the understanding of most people. Which would explain things like critics who go on and on about an impressionistic painting, pointing out what the artist is trying to do, and his understanding of color and composition and light, not realizing that the artist was a chimp given a paint set and a blank canvas ...

Sometimes what you don't understand is deep. Sometimes, it's because it rhymed with "Queen." And sometimes, it has no meaning at all ...

Cold and Dark

A musing on chaos and entropy ...

The three rules of thermodynamics, simplified, by Ben Bova:

1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't get out of the game.

Okay, a short history of, and forecast for, The Universe. For the purposes of this exercise, I will leave out God(s) and religion. Yeah, I know, but that's the set-up.

First, we have the itty-bitty point. Not a Big Bang, because a) it was itty-bitty, and B) there wasn't any sound because there wasn't any medium to carry it. Call it the Sudden Quiet Flash.

Expanding, expanding, e-x-p-a-n-d-i-n-g ...

Into what? Never mind, that'll just boggle your brain. Expanding into something.

Energy and matter do their cosmic dance, switch places, woof and warp. Fourteen billion years, more or less; stars, planets, galaxies, dust, nebulae, dark this, visible that, and and and

You Are Here.

Fast forward. Nobody's quite sure of the time, but for the sake of argument, let's call it another trillion trillion years. (One theory says that by observing it, we hasten its death. Sucking up those photons, might cut it short a few minutes.) Stars use up their fuel, wink out. Not enough matter to stop the expansion, and anyway, all matter goes to energy. White dwarves collapse into black holes and eventually, even the black holes evaporate. Someone left the cake out in the rain ...

Everything gets really, really cold and really, really, dark, and the Universe sighs, entropy rules, and that's it. Not even a whimper -- no medium to carry the sound ...

Brrr.

Not a thing we can do about it. Cold, dark, nobody home, no home, either. Unless we find a hidden back door into a parallel place with similar physics -- and good luck with that -- or God decides to build a new watch and wind that one up, it's game over, oh, my. Sure, it might be a trillion trillion years and all, but it's all finite.

George Harrison's song was right: All things must pass.

Meanwhile, we live lives of chaos, because that's the state of the place. You can't control any of it, the center cannot hold, it whirls, it whirls, so why bother? Go with the flow ...

Of course, the entire length of human history has been mostly dedicated to trying to control things -- an attempt to lay bridges over the chasms of chaos. We sort, we lump, we calculate, and we strive to impose order. Always have, it's our nature. Some of us accept the chaos and shrug. Most of us fight the good fight.

I can't take the long view -- all those trillions of years. (Old joke: In astronomy class, the professor says, "So, the sun will go nova and destroy itself and our solar system in ten billion years -- "

A panicky student interrupts: "What!? What did you say!?"

"I said that Sol will go nova in ten billion years."

The student blows out a sigh of relief. "Oh. Ten billion. I thought for a second there you said 'ten million ...'")

I mean, if it all comes to nothing, then what's the point?

Well, for me, it's the little segment I get to live, and how I do it.

The concept of time might mean nothing, but if the grandkids need to be picked up at school at two p.m. and I am not a time-binder, they get to stand in the cold waiting. Of course, you might allow as how we all will be standing in the cold eventually, but I can't fix that. I can try to impose enough order on the chaos to be parked outside when the bell rings. Might not be able to, shit happens, but I will make the effort.

Saying "Shit happens." is not nearly as useful in my mind as trying to avoid letting shit happen, if't I can fix ...

Yep, we walk on shifting sands, all things must pass, and control is mostly beyond us. And sometimes, you gotta go with the flow and know that chaos will get you. But you can at least watch where you put your feet, and if you see the elephant charging, try to get out of its way.

Global Warming

So, first day of Spring was day before yesterday. Two days shy of Easter. And I got up this morning to let the dogs out and it was snowing ...

Just a dusting, and it didn't stick -- already up to 38 F. and the forecast is for mostly cloudy and rain showers today, but still. Third week in March, that's a bit off the norm.

Sauce for the Goose, Sauce for the Gander

So, Bobbe taught a seminar this past weekend, courtesy of Jay Carstensen, in Des Moines. That's Iowa. Sounds like they had a fine ole time, and more power to them.

But: pictures were taken, and this was one of them.

Guess what? You don't get to give me shit about ab-shots any more, Tinkerbelle ...

Bloggery

I don't get that many readers on my blog -- average is somewhere between eleven and twelve thousand a month. And my stat counter tracks the numbers and all, but only keeps a running log of the last hundred or so.

Most of the hits come from the U.S., but there are people from all over the world who drop round, some from countries of which I have never heard -- I have to google maps to figure out where they are.

The image above is a breakdown of the most recent hundred visitors by country.

Is it great living here in the future, or what?

Don't Look, Bobbe!