At PDX, loitering for the flight to Omaha. No blizzards forecast this week, thank Ghu. I shall be home Friday afternoon. As usual, expect continued light blogging with intermittent wit and erudition.
Y’all play nice while I’m gone.
Posted: 4:57 am Mon January 19 2009 | Comments(0) |
Don’t forget the Caption Contest Voting Poll — An ARC of Green is at stake, people!
Photos of your humble proprietor as an even humbler lad [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]
This one’s for
New Law Could Keep Books Out Reach For Children — Weird stuff, and a bit sad. (Thanks to
Genes remember sugar hit — Weird intersection of genetics and nutrition. Some cool SFnal stuff here. (Thanks to
NASA & Its Discontents: Frustrated Engineers Battle with NASA over the Future of Spaceflight — Rebellion in the ranks. (Thanks to
Wall Street Voodoo — Paul Krugman on the current state of the economy. Money shot: Old-fashioned voodoo economics — the belief in tax-cut magic — has been banished from civilized discourse. The supply-side cult has shrunk to the point that it contains only cranks, charlatans, and Republicans. But methinks he doth repeat himself.
?otD: What did Idaho, boys, what did Idaho?
1/19/2009
Body movement: airport walking
This morning’s weigh-in: 222.4
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville; Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
Posted: 4:53 am Mon January 19 2009 | Comments(0) |
Today Mother of the Child turned up my old diplomatic passports from boyhood whilst searching for something else amid her copious archives. Being possessed of a scanner and a bit of time, I thought you might enjoy seeing the Ascent of Jay, from Infancy to Young Adulthood, as documented by the federal government.
July, 1964, at one month of age
May, 1967, just before I turned three
June, 1971, right around my seventh birthday
March, 1982, sexy and seventeen
Come on, people. Post ‘em if you got ‘em.
Posted: 7:09 pm Sun January 18 2009 | Comments(0) |
3,500 words today on the sample chapter of the diplomatic thriller, to 3,800 words.
Yevgeny Kharkov
His morning was heralded by the jangling of a telephone. Unimpeded by drunkenness, the Russian agent slid a slender female arm off his chest and reached for the interruption. Pleasantly exhausted and fully alert, he tugged the handset off the cradle. “Da?”
“Yevgeny.” It was Nelson Yuan, his controller. Slippery American-born bastard. You never knew whose side Nelson was on, even when he was holding a briefcase of your money. Especially not then.
“I’m busy, Nelson,” Kharkov said, slipping over to English. Yuan refused to speak Russian as a matter of principle, and Kharkov’s Chinese was much better than he wanted any putative NSB listeners-in to have confirmation of. “Importance conference.”
Pai-mei murmured something indistinct and licked his ear.
Posted: 1:19 pm Sun January 18 2009 | Comments(0) |
Yesterday was a pretty good day. I started a short story at home, “On the Human Plan,” then skived out for a bit of shopping before hitting
I bugged out of there about 4:30, headed over to the
Today I am futzing with continued technical problems with podcasting (please ignore any magically disappearing posts), working further on the diplomatic thriller, and digging into yet another collaborative project. The Tourbillon rewrite looms soon, and beyond it, Sunspin.
And of course, off to Omaha tomorrow, with all that entails.
Posted: 7:06 am Sun January 18 2009 | Comments(0) |
“Astronautical”, a painting inspired in part by Mainspring — (Thanks to the artist.)
Fictional antedating of the marthambles — Language Log takes on Patrick O’Brian.
APOD with a photo of Hyperion, one of the moons of Saturn — It looks like a giant piece of coral to me. Very cool stuff.
Bendy gadget future for graphene — Mmm. Materials science. (Thanks to
Pro-abortion donuts — Nice to see that the quality of thinking on the American Right continues to be absymally ludicrous.
?otD: What did Delaware?
1/18/2009
Body movement: n/a – will be exercising later today
This morning’s weigh-in: 226.0 (! Which is just weird)
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville; Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
Posted: 5:37 am Sun January 18 2009 | Comments(0) |
Just finished the first draft of short story, “On the Human Plan”, which I started this morning per the wip here [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]. 3,700 words, and definitely on the drafty side. I’m going to try to have it revised by Monday, due to a hot deadline.
Posted: 1:33 pm Sat January 17 2009 | Comments(0) |
Working on a short story this morning. Not titled yet, but here’s the opening lines. Raw feed, as usual with WIPs.
I am called Dog the Digger. I am not mighty, neither am I fearsome. Should you require bravos, there are muscle-boys aplenty among the rat-bars of any lowtown on this raddled world. If it is a wizard you want, follow the powder-trails of crushed silicon and wolf’s blood to their dark and winking lairs. Scholars can be found in their libraries, taikonauts in their launch bunkers and ship foundries, priests amid the tallow-gleaming depths of their bone-ribbed cathedrals.
What I do is dig. For bodies, for treasure, for the rust-pocked hulks of history, for the sheer pleasure of moving what cannot be moved and finding what rots beneath. You may hire me for an afternoon or a month or the entire turning of the year. It makes me no mind whatsoever.
As for you, I know what you want. You want a story.
Posted: 7:47 am Sat January 17 2009 | Comments(1) |
Blue Tyson reviews Escapement [ Powell's | Amazon
The saros cycle — Fascinating unit of time. The things you learn reading Gene Wolfe.
Earth, observed — Some truly astonishing orbital photography. (Thanks to S—.)
Centauri Dreams on interstellar missions from the living room — Remote sensing versus human travel.
A manmade satellite with an 8.4 million year orbital life — Per the recent discussion about how long satellites stay up. That’s either very, very “wow” or a Wiki editorial prank. Having trouble evaluating which right now. (Thanks to
Explaining the curse of work — The real story behind Parkinson’s law, and more. (Thanks to
Japan’s Outsiders Waiting to Break In — A news report on the buraku, Japan’s untouchables.
The United Statements of America — Strange Maps with state mottoes.
Disconnected From Obama’s America — Yes, Arkansas, America is nothing without your guns. I am not terribly sympathetic to the angst of conservative know-nothingism. We tried it that way for the last eight years, and look at the mess we’ve made.
Rep. King (R-Nuthouse): Obama ‘bizarre’ to use ‘Hussein’ — Another one from the ‘conservatives are crazy’ file.
?otD: Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?
1/17/2009
Body movement: 40 minute ride on the stationary bike
This morning’s weigh-in: 223.8
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville; Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
Posted: 6:43 am Sat January 17 2009 | Comments(0) |
Had a nice lunch with the delightful
Going to read tonight. Haven’t given up on Melville, but he’s tough sledding and I can’t read him recreationally. Certain Persons have started a Gene Wolfe reading group online, so I’m going to begin re-reading Shadow of the Torturer [ Amazon
I’d planned to walk tomorrow, but it looks like more freezing fog, or at least more freezing, so I’m going to stay indoors on the bike. Then some housecleaning, then a day of writing. I owe a short story Real Soon Now, have to do some more work on Footprints editing, would like to cut a sample chapter for a proposed collaborative diplomatic thriller co-written with my dad (the retired U.S. ambassador), then evaluate another collaborate project for which I have been sent copious notes.
Then it’s the birthday dinner for the mighty
Sunday? More writing!
Posted: 7:43 pm Fri January 16 2009 | Comments(0) |