Wednesday, December 31, 2008

2009 On The Horizon: Welcome!

As my daughter said when she was two years old, running to me with her arms outstretched to be picked up, "Happy Near You!"

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Nuggets For Me To Remember


  1. An den Familienversammlungen ist politische Diskussion verboten.

  2. Exercising at the speed of masochism relieves a lot of stress

  3. Choice can be exercised against you.

  4. This is my blog; no one else is owed an explanation.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

A Christmas Classic

The Little Angel on the Top of the Christmas Tree

One particular Christmas season a long time ago, Santa was getting ready for his annual trip but there were problems everywhere. Four of his elves got sick, and the trainee elves did not produce the toys as fast as the regular ones so Santa was beginning to feel the pressure of being behind schedule. Then Mrs. Claus told Santa that her Mom was coming to visit; this stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two had jumped the fence and were out at heaven knows where. More stress.

Then when he began to load the sleigh one of the boards cracked and the toy bag fell to the ground and scattered the toys. So, frustrated, Santa went into the house for a cup of coffee and a shot of whiskey. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered that the elves had hid the liquor and there was nothing to drink.

In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the coffeepot and it broke into hundreds of little pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found that mice had eaten the straw it was made of. Just then the doorbell rang and Santa cussed on his way to the door. He opened the door and there was a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.

The angel said, very cheerfully, "Merry Christmas Santa. Isn't it just a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Isn't it just a lovely tree? Where would you like me to stick it?

Thus began the tradition of the little angel on top of the tree.

Author Unknown

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

December 23, 1982

I was first married 26 years ago today. I got three children out of that marriage. Each of them is part of my reach to immortality; each of them gives me more joy than I can adequately express.

I am now married for the third time, and this also is a source of more joy than I have the words for.

Gigi, Andy, David, and Lisa: I love you all and treasure every minute we have together in this life.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

War For The Oaks

Tor.com occasionally gives away ebooks. You have to be a registered member, but it is free to join. And there are times that these giveaways are treasures. Let's talk about one of them.

Have you ever read the real Grimm's Fairy Tales? Not the sanitized versions that so many Disney movies are based on, but the ones that are dark and violent. Where the magic is based on Fae, not the more familiar Fairy. Where the supernatural Folk never lie but are always deceitful, are unfathomably powerful, are deadly and inhuman and coldly seductive. And they're beautiful, rather beyond human ken.

There has been a trend in books, steadily growing in popularity, since the late 1980s to mix Faerie, or some like variant, and our everyday world. This collision of magic and mundane is usually marketed as "Urban Fantasy".

This is the milieu of War for the Oaks, by Emma Bull. It was published in 1987, and it is one of the earliest Urban Fantasies, almost a prototype of the genre.

It is set in the rock and roll scene of Minneapolis. Eddi McCandry has just broken up with her boyfriend and left his band. She's thinking of getting a 9-to-5 job, of growing up and making ends meet. Instead, she is chosen by a phouka, a Fae who can shift from human to dog at will, as the Mortal whose presence on the field of battle between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts of the Fae will allow immortal life to spill out with immortal blood. She can shift the balance of power and enable victory, rather than stalemate.

Simultaneously, Eddi starts her own rock band. The group that forms around her is uncannily good, there is power in their music, and Eddi herself is unknowingly a Power in her own right.

This is a story of deceit, of magic, of blood, of loss, and of love. It is a first novel that does not read like one, and it is a rich and rewarding tale that is to be savored, many times over.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Let's Skip These This Holiday Season, Shall We?


  • Grinch II - Cindy Lou, THAT'S Who.

  • Saving Christmas, A "Rainbow Six" Adventure

  • Winnie the Pooh and the Human Shield

  • The Dyslexic Who Sold His Soul to Santa

  • Jack Frost vs. Jack Reacher - This Time, It Counts!

  • Flat Rudolph: Grandma's Revenge

  • Snosty the Fro Man

  • Charlie Brown Gets a Pit Bull!

  • Pretty Paper: You've Been Served

  • The Story of O, Christmas Tree

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Compressed, Compared To My Intentions

When I was composing my post last week on the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Christmas Eve and Other Stories, my intention was to discuss the popularity of the CD versus critical incomprehension of that popularity, with a sidebar of what the CD means to me. It's not unusual for me to do a rough draft and several revisions; you know, like a real writer.

This time, I could not find the words to coherently express my ideas. It felt stifling, an aphasia of the page. It's usually enough to leave the draft for a couple of hours, maybe overnight, and the words I need will come to me. My subconscious mind seems to be a competent prosesmith, if no one's poet. That's fine with me, since I strive for clarity, not allusion.

This time, the clarity for the extended essay I had in mind never materialized. I was left with a quote and quip, grasping for an emotional shading. Did I succeed? I'm satisfied with the effort, but the success really depends on whether I intrigued anyone else into listening to the music.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Emissaries From The Dead


The Diplomatic Corps is part of the government of an interstellar Commonwealth. This is not your father's Star Trek future. Humanity is if anything more fractious than today, even in the face of meeting many other intelligent alien races as it moves out into the galaxy. One such race is the AISource, a collective of sentient software agents that gains new members as they outlive their programmers. They built One One One, a huge cylindrical habitat, and populated it with several engineered species. One of the species is the Brachiators, an intelligent sloth-like race that lives in the Uppergrowth, a forest at the central hub. A group of scientists from the Diplomatic Corps is onsite to do field studies of the Brachiators, and one of their number has been murdered. Enter Andrea Cort. She's a Dip Corps investigator, who considers herself a monster, as do many others, for a childhood atrocity.

This novel starts out very bleak. In fact, I almost quit reading it more than once during the first half of the story, because life is too short and there are too many books I really want to read to stick with something that's just depressing. I stayed with it, though, because Adam-Troy Castro's writing flows smoothly, and before I knew it, I was well and truly sucked into the story.

The murder mystery at the heart of the story is not really that surprising; I correctly anticipated several twists in the tale, and that's not usual for me. However, I got almost the feeling that I used to when I watched Columbo as a kid, where we the audience knew who committed the murder, but the pleasure was watching Peter Falk's Lt. Columbo figure it out. I say almost that feeling, because we don't know who the murderer is until Andrea Cort figures it out. And that feeling is pure pleasure.

It was also a particular pleasure to catch resonances to quite a few other science fiction novels I've read over the years: One One One is Arthur C. Clark's Rama writ large; the AISource is the very sort of pervasive artificial intelligence as the TechnoCore from Dan Simmon's Hyperion; the character of Andrea Cort strongly resembles Paula Myo from Peter F. Hamilton's continuing Intersolar Commonwealth series; and the way that Andrea Cort unravels and reveals not one but a half-dozen intertwined mysteries, so that we're forced to reconsider everything we thought we knew about the setting and characters again and again, is like the heart of Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead.

This is a heady brew of a book, with the richest portion being the positive growth that is imposed on Andrea Cort. Yes, imposed on her.

Outside of Doctorow's Little Brother, I consider this the finest science fiction novel of 2008, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Christmas Eve and Other Stories



And here was the danger
That even with strangers
Inside of this night
It's easier to believe.

If you've ever seen TSO in concert, you'll understand when I say, "Have yourself a metal little Christmas."

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Another Sign of the Times

My daughter Gigi called me yesterday afternoon. She's been working at an Office Depot since early this year, and the store is closing in a couple of weeks. She's out beating the bushes to find another job already, but she's worried about getting Christmas gifts and then about college expenses next semester.

I told her not to worry about presents for us. After all, we have more stuff than room.

There are always jobs out there, even in bad times, she has several years experience as a cashier, and, well, she's a lower priced alternative than a lot of other people.

As for college costs, she still has financial aid, she has help from me and her mom, and she has her savings. None of us want her to have to dip into the savings, but they're there at need.

To my daughter - Gigi, remember these things: 1) The greatest gifts you can give us are your own high achievements and your love, and I know we have those. 2) We're here when you need us. 3) This is only a stumbling block. Stay on your feet, keep focused on your goals, and keep moving. I love you, girl.

Monday, December 8, 2008

I Love A Parade

We were in the Greensboro Christmas parade last Saturday, with the Relay For Life committee. It was really windy and we didn't want everything to blow off the float, so we didn't decorate it until we had checked in with parade officials and gotten into line. Four of us got the heavy lifting done in about 30 minutes, and the rest of our group put the finishing touches on in another 15. The parade theme was "Our Gift to Greensboro"; we had packages wrapped in purple (the Relay color) and emblazoned with Relay slogans, a purple tree, and a bunch of kids on the float.

Once the prep was done, we had an hour-and-a-half before the parade kicked off. One of the committee members brought doughnuts and hot chocolate. It was really cold, so the hot chocolate was appreciated. So was the sugar rush from the doughnuts.

Thank goodness there was a Duron paint store nearby with a public restroom.

We had candy and Relay literature to give out to the crowds. There were so many kids with their hands out that we were constantly behind our float, so it was pass out candy manically and then run to catch up with the float. I couldn't have run like that six months ago.

It was way more fun than I expected it to be. It also has already had a positive effect for the 2009 Relay, because we got a commitment from Starbucks.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

A Brief Saturday Morning Conversation

Enter two friendly souls, as the sun arises:

Wide awake me: Carp!
Sleepy Lisa: Carp?
Wide awake me: Yeah, it's what you say when your crap goes to crap.
Sleepy Lisa: Sounds like you have a sig line to me.

Exit Lisa, stage sleep.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Where Does It Stop?

I commented on the Wal-Mart worker who was trampled to death when the store opened the day after Thanksgiving. Yesterday, I heard on the news that Wal-Mart, by which I'm guessing employees of the store involved, could be indicted for the incident. The store management has said, and I believe local government officials have acknowledged, that they beefed up security and took precautions that were a bit beyond reasonable for Black Friday.

How's this for an idea? Find the people who followed a herd mentality looking for a bargain, knocked a temporary maintenance worker to the floor, and kept stepping on him and stepping on him, and stepping him on him, until he sustained injuries serious enough to kill him. Hold them responsible for the act. If you can't identify culpable individuals, then sad to say, no one gets prosecuted.

Common sense seems to have been sucked into an evil vortex of negative energy and spit back out as the justice system in New York state.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Planned Reading For 2009

I've read about half of the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, and now I'm feeling inspired by the new Legend of the Seeker syndicated series to finish it. Of course, I'm going to have to re-read the first five books...

I'd also like to catch up on some classic SF, particularly those novels that won both the Hugo and Nebula awards.

And, it's probably time to re-read Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels.

As always, Lisa and I will snap up anything new from Dean Koontz.

What's on your list?

Grumbles From The Job

I have an administrative user id that I use on several Windows servers at work. I needed it last Tuesday, to research some production results that a user felt were incorrect. When I went to login to the prod server, I couldn't remember the password.

This happens from time-to-time, and it's usually solved in 10 minutes with a call to the help desk, with a request to reset the password. This time, it took six days.

The contractors that man the help desk aren't allowed to reset admin accounts. Such security work is done by a subsidiary in Europe. There was a language gap, and the technician assigned to my case didn't understand the request. By the time on Wednesday that I realized my password hadn't been reset, the European office was closed for the day. Since Thursday was Thanksgiving and we were going to be closed Friday, I didn't complain very much on my second help desk call. Really, I expected that the work would be complete when I got to the office this morning.

Once I realized that it wasn't done, I made my third help desk call on this case. This time the help desk analyst was casual with me, almost slackerish, rather than professional. He made excuses for the work not being done in the previous five days, and that just pissed me off. I'm usually the most civil guy you could want on such a call, but this was just too easy a task to take almost a week to complete.

I had the case escalated to a much higher urgency than I normally would, and it was taken care of within a half hour.

Not long after this, I needed to use a test server for some enhancements on another application. I tried to map a network drive to the test server, and that failed. I tried to login remotely to the server, and that also failed. After another help desk call, I learned, to no surprise at all, that the server was shut down. A Windows support tech got the server restarted, and I was off to the races.

Between these two incidents, most of my workday was shot. I'm reminded of an Emo Philips quip: Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.