Filed Away

“Let’s eat, Grandma!”

That is all…

Methuselah’s Daughter, A Novel: a tale of immortality, madness, love and redemption. One of the very first stories to make the transition from blog to print, a 2007 Blooker Prize Finalist, is now available in paperback, iBook and Kindle formats!

Well, I’ve decided I ought to get more into the habit of blogging again and I’ve been handed a perfect opportunity in the form of the Windows 8 Developers’ Preview release. Now I’m not one of those who has to jump on every new thing that comes along, but since starting my current job I’ve been buried up to my eyeballs in all things Microsoft so it seems like a worthy endeavor.

I downloaded the x64 version, set it up in my Hyper-V lab… and was underwhelmed. The Metro interface is just invasive and counter-intuitive to my own sense of how I use my computer. I can see it being a big hit in the tab;let market (which it is clearly aimed at), but as a desktop UI it’s not-yet-ready-for-prime-time. Now let’s be fair: this isn’t even a Beta version, it’s a pre-beta at best, but I would have expected a way to get past the Touch-screen enabled interface.

I noticed a few people complaining about logging on with a Windows Live account. Get real, folks. It’s not required and this is a Developers’ Preview. Microsoft kind of expects folks will want to share their experiences.

I figured part of my problem was running this through hyper-V so I stuck an extra HDD in my spare workstation and installed to iron to see if that improved things. In this case an Intel Core 2 Duo E2200 with 2GB PC800 and a 1GB ATI Radeon HD4600.

Much better. The apps in Metro actually work (Only a few did in the Hyper-V install), but they are a cast iron bitch to actually close. Ctrl-Esc brings you back to Metro, but leaves the applications running. To actually kill them you have to go to task manager.

If you are a multiple monitor user you’ll be relieved/horrified to know you can have a crippled standard desktop (sans start men and other common items) on one monitor and Metro on the other.

This thing is a memory glutton in its current form- remember: PRE-BETA. So far the only way to shut down an app completely that I can find is to open task manager and kill it. Not a happy thing.

I’ll play with it more and see if there’s anything worth reporting later ;).

My grandson Noah makes his appearance

Father Michael, Grandmother Tina, and Noah

Father Michael and Noah

It was a three day wait, but he’s finally here!

After Action Reports are always deadly dull writing, but I had done so many I had it down to a science. The trick is to boil everything down to essentials and avoid editorializing except where individuals clearly performed in a manner above and beyond the call. I had mine completed in thirty minutes once we were back aboard the Borneo and turned it in to Lt. Atagi shortly after I was done. Rather than taking it and dismissing me, Atagi motioned me to sit.

“This report along with mine will raise some questions,” he told me, “so it would be best to answer them now. First, how did our scanner miss the artillery piece in the passageway? Second, how did you manage to slip your sidearm past the scanner on the Talis?”

“The artillery piece is simple- it was an Artan Armory Model 105-FAS, heavily shielded. Reading it through the deck would be problematic even with the very highest end scanner. That detail is in the footnotes of my report. As for my sidearm…”

I drew the weapon from its holster and released the magazine, then worked the slide to eject the cartridge in the chamber, catching it as it popped free. I set it on the desk in front of Atagi and he picked it up, turning it slowly as he examined it.

“That is a .45 caliber copper-jacketed hollow point. The slug itself is essentially lead with a bit of tungsten and traces of other materials. The brass contains a chemical propellant with a volatile primer inserted in the base. The weapon uses the mechanical action of the hammer and firing pin striking the primer to detonate the propellant. The violent reaction creates high pressure gas that propels the slug down the barrel and also operates the slide, ejecting the spent cartridge, cocking the hammer and allowing a new cartridge to enter the chamber. There’s no battery or pulse generator, so no energy signature for a scanner to detect.”

Atagi looked at me a moment then a small grin touched his face before he spoke. “This is hardly standard issue, Gunny.” He shook his head and the grin grew wider. “I always thought this thing was your only concession to vanity. I should have known better. Where did you get it?”

“I’ve had it for a very long time, sir. This weapon was manufactured on Earth in the year 1914, though of course none of the parts are original at this point.”

He stared at me, incredulous. “You’re telling me this weapon is more than 1300 years old?”

“That’s correct, sir. The design is simple, rugged and utterly reliable. I have the engineering specifications on file so I can have parts manufactured at need, but ammunition is a bit trickier to come by. Those three rounds I fired were half a week’s pay… well spent, in my opinion.”

“Hard to argue with that,” he replied, setting the cartridge down before me. I calmly reloaded the pistol and holstered it. “Another question,” he continued, “When I mentioned a ‘Political Officer’ aboard the Talis your response was a bit cryptic. I included it in my report and I’d like to add an explanation.”

“It refers to a practice of Marxist/Communist governments of the early 20^th and 21^st centuries. They did not completely trust their own military and placed politically reliable officers in a position of authority to monitor and enforce compliance with Communist Party ideology. As to the nature of Communism and Marxism, that’s a history lesson in itself.”

Atagi was staring at me as if he was seeing me for the very first time. When he realized I was finished he sat back a bit in his chair before speaking.

“Gunny, I’ve never seen you get so emotional.”

I realized my heart was pounding, my hands tightly gripping the arms of my chair. I forced myself to relax and looked him in the eyes.

“Lieutenant, this was an ideology so fundamentally evil in concept and execution… the only possible, sane reaction is to despise it to the very core of your being. And sir, if the Melbourne rebels are emulating Communism they are likely a much larger threat to the Empire than Sydney.”

“That may be true, Gunny, but our hands are tied by Sydney’s actions, assuming we can confirm it.” Again he paused and gave me a long, appraising look. “How old are you, Gunny?”

“Why do you ask?” I said it calmly, but an icy finger touched me inside.

“You act as if the depredations of a centuries-gone ideology were a personal matter, as if you witnessed them yourself. I know you’ve been in the Corps for a very long time…”

“I’ve spent long stretches in cold sleep on the old pre-Planck Drive vessels, traveling at pretty high percentages of light speed. I’ve skipped lots of centuries, sir. It’s why I’ve stayed with the Corps- I haven’t got anything else. And I’m pretty good at what I do.”

Atagi accepted it, but I knew there would come a time when that explanation would no longer be persuasive. For that matter I had to wonder when somebody would finally go rooting through my service record and connect the dots. I had accepted that reality when I chose to remain in the Corps rather than return to Earth and the McAllister Estate, but I did not look forward to that day at all.

When Atagi and I were finished I roamed the passageways of the Borneo, restless and uneasy. The action that day left a sour feeling in my belly that I could not easily wipe away. It was not the lives lost for I had lost comrades before, and it certainly was not the lives I had taken in combat for those people chose to fight and die… except for one. I was in the ship’s gymnasium running long laps around the inside of the cylindrical hull when it came to me that one death that day was not so easily dismissed.

It was Moore, the Political Officer. Almost instantly a long list of rationalizations ran through my mind, a liturgy of self-chastisement for even wasting time thinking about Moore’s death at my hands. There was no doubt it was justified and no one had even thought to question it, but nobody understood what I came to comprehend as I quietly disposed of all the easy reasons to be untroubled by his death: I knew I planned to kill him before I set foot in that engineering space. Moore was a dead man the moment I first heard his voice.

I picked up my pace as that realization finally took root, my feet smacking a hard rhythm against the track. Moore did not simply die, he was murdered. I had decided to kill him and deliberately set out to do it, and that was something I had not done in a very, very long time. Why now? Why him? People were still getting around on foot and horseback the last time I had done such a thing. It did not matter that he was a rebel against the Empire and appeared to be an adherent to as odious an ideology as Man had ever conceived, I had no right to decide he should die. It was the center of my understanding of who and what I was that no matter how many centuries I had witnessed and how well I thought I knew men and mankind it was simply not my place to judge people with such finality. Without that understanding I was more dangerous than Moore and his pathetic band of revolutionaries could ever be.

I did not realize I was running full tilt until my lungs began to burn and my vision blurred, but I could not stop and instead forced myself onward, needing the agony of the exertion to focus my mind on the unpardonable crime I had allowed myself to commit. There would never be any punishment for Moore was an insurrectionist and had publicly professed himself in rebellion against the Empire. Even were I to confess no officer or court would hold me to blame for my actions. Nobody would understand why the tears streaking my face had nothing to do with the pain wracking my body as I finally stumbled and fell.

I am trapped in my basement office with my HEPA air filter running full blast. Why? <a href=”http://www.wmur.com/video/23740979/”>I blame Canada</a>.

Seriously, we could smell it when we woke up, but it wasn’t until we went outside and saw the haze and the brown horizon that it hit home. A few minutes after that and my eyes were swelling, my chest was filling up and i had to use a rescue inhaler for the first time in years (I happen to be pretty badly allergic to most trees- usually wood smoke doesn’t bother me, but this is the worst part of the season for me and I think it was the proverbial straw).

Under the fold is an excerpt from the novel Methuselah’s Daughter: Warrior. Calling it an ‘excerpt’ is a little pretentious because while we have the plot lines and characters all figured out the actual writing action has been minimal to say the least. Dean and I are both pretty pumped about this sequel, but neither of us are really in a position to spend lots of time writing it, so instead we have some bits and pieces and some good outlines and ideas. So to hell with it. Whenever there’s something we like, it’s going up here.

For those few of you who were fans of the original blog and may have even read the first novel (bless you), the story has been moved more than a thousand years into the future and our girl is a Gunnery Sergeant in His Majesty’s Imperial Marine Corps, an organization she has belonged to for a very, very long time…

Continue Reading »

This is my last weekend of unemployment- the new job begins Monday, February 1st.

What does that mean? It means No cell phone, no Blackberry, no worries about being yanked out of bed at 3:00 AM because a customer  did something “that shouldn’t have affected anything!”

And believe me when I say that is the ONLY thing I’ll miss about being unemployed- quiet weekends. And I’ll deal with it. I did before and  I will again. At least at this job all the customers are local- no conference calls with Hong Kong, India, Singapore or Australia… not yet, anyhow ;).

There is an offer letter on the way and this 9 Month, 3 week long adventure in unemployment will be coming to a close. It’s an interesting company and a good group of people so I’m pretty psyched up about it. Of course I’m also apprehensive as hell- that’s just how I always am with big changes like this. It’ll pass by the end of the first day at the new job, and the relief I feel at just knowing I’ll soon be earning my pay instead of collecting unemployment far, far outweighs anything else.

Strangely enough it wasn’t like that when I was laid off. Instead there was a 5 second bout of “You said what?” followed by a sudden sensation of relief, mostly because I had seen it coming and was glad to get it over with. It wasn’t until October ended and I realized I’d probably be out of work at least the remainder of the year that I started stressing out over it in a big way. Until then I was a guy between jobs. After October I felt unemployed… but not anymore.

For no particular reason I found myself thinking about speeches delivered by fictional presidents in movies and I realized this was hands-down one of my favorites:

I address you tonight, not as the president of the United States, or as the leader of a country, but as a citizen of humanity.

We are faced with the very gravest of challenges. The Bible calls this day Armageddon, the end of all things. And yet, for the first time, in the history of the planet, a species has the technology to prevent its own extinction. All of you praying with us need to know that everything that can be done to prevent this disaster is being called in to service. The human thirst for excellence, knowledge, every step up the ladder of science, every adventurous reach into space, all of our combined modern technologies and imaginations, even the wars that we’ve fought have provided us with the tools to wage this terrible battle.

Through all the chaos that is our history, through all of the wrongs and the discord, through all of the pain and suffering, through all of our times, there is one thing that has nourished our souls and elevated our species above its origin. And that is our courage. The dreams of an entire planet are focused tonight on those fourteen brave souls traveling into the heavens. And may we all, citizens the world over, see these events through. God speed and good luck to you.

Video

It is from the movie Armageddon, an action movie of moderate entertainment value so long as one does not insist the science in it make any sense, but the thing I always remember about it is this speech. I’m sure there are others- I always thought the speech in Independence Day was a little forced, and the various speeches in Deep Impact were too numerous for one to really stand out. I also note my choices seem to focus on End of The World movies… probably just my frame of mind these days ;).

Anyone have other great fictional speeches that come to mind?