Month: July 2005

bookmark_borderWrite On

Posted on by PaulaO

pathway: went to Winston’s site and read a post of his that talked about Ambivablog

Okay, now that we all know how I got there, go there yourself.

But the reason I mention it is one post in particular.

Being (Far) Right Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

As I read the post, I kept nodding and saying ‘amen sister’. I like this woman, I really do.

Have you ever wondered why, in conservative eyes, Rush Limbaugh is not a junkie, and Bill Bennett doesn’t have a gambling problem, and Newt Gingrich’s marital betrayals bore not even the faintest resemblance to Bill Clinton’s?

It is true you know. I think the biggest difference between the alleged right and left is one is ‘save-able’ and one is not. I am going to hell for being a homosexual (condemned by the 7 verses in the entire Bible that mentions it) but Newt’s not going to hell for his adultery (there are many many many verses in the Bible that condemns it).

There are other correlations as well, such as Clinton was attacked for never joining the military yet GW Shrub’s military record is “misplaced”.

I could go on and on but let’s not. Don’t want to get my blood pressure up, ya know?

Another reason that I like this chickadee is that she knows about and praises Feldenkrais, a method of physical therapy currently being attempted on me.

Yet another reason I like her is that she is a writer too.

bookmark_borderRoman Road and Tiberias

Posted on by PaulaO

Got a story set in a medieval type world?

Want to know how many inns and waystations you’d need?

Want to know how ancient cities were structured?

Here ya go:

Excavations Reveal Secrets of Roman Road

KOMOTINI, Greece (AP) – Archaeologists excavating along the Via Egnatia are revealing the secrets of the ancient Romans’ equivalent of an interstate highway.

Stretching 535 miles across modern-day Albania, Macedonia and Greece, the stone-paved road made the going easy for charioteers, soldiers and other travelers. It was up to 30 feet wide in places and was dotted with safety features, inns and service stations.

…

She said drivers held the reins with their right hand and wielded their whip with the left, so the Romans made drivers stay on the left to avoid the lash of oncoming riders and keep road-rage incidents to a minimum.

There were inns every 30 to 40 miles, and post stations, the Roman equivalent of gas stations, every 7 to 14 miles. “These post stations had spare beasts, as well as … vets, grooms and shoesmiths,” Tsatsopoulou said.

Archaeologists also discovered ruins of military outposts, checkpoints and camps, with guard posts built near narrow passes to curb highway robbery.

(full story)

Another article with Science Daily tells of Tiberias, an ancient town along the Sea of Galilee.

Ancient Tiberias Reveals More Of Its Beauty

Further revelations of the beauty of the ancient city of Tiberias and of its uniqueness as a Jewish center were revealed in this season’s excavations there.

The excavations, funded by the Tiberias municipality, are turning the site into a significant archaeological park, according to dig director Prof. Yizhar Hirschfeld of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel Antiquities Authority, and Prof. Katharina Galor of Brown University, Providence, RI.

Ancient Tiberias’ location, just south of the modern city of Tiberias along route 90, was highly attractive in Roman times: on one side open to the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) and on the other bounded by Mount Berenice. Two main north-south streets dominated the city plan. One was the cardo, the main commercial thoroughfare of the town. The other was the promenade, which was open on one side to the lake and over which route 90 was built.

(full story)

bookmark_borderShuttle Space Walk

Posted on by PaulaO

NASA image of astronaut Steve Robinson maneuvering his way along the outside of the International Space Station. Below his feet you can see the earth.

Ain’t no way in heck. I’d love to go into space but there’s no way in heck I’d let my feet dangle like that. No freaking way.

Astronauts Test Repairs; Mission Extended

SPACE CENTER, Houston – (AP) – Two spacewalking astronauts armed with caulking guns, putty knives and foam brushes practiced fixing deliberately damaged shuttle heat shields Saturday, as NASA extended what could be its last trip to the space station for a long while.

With future shuttle flights grounded because of Discovery’s fuel-tank foam loss during liftoff, mission managers decided to keep the crew at the international space station an extra day to haul over surplus supplies and help with station maintenance.

(full story)

bookmark_borderMy Poor Keyboard

Posted on by PaulaO

…has taken a beating today. I think it kinda liked it though. Writing again feels so good, ya know?

I got 2575 new words in on the revised BG2. Wow. And I like it too! It is just flowing out of me, just like always. Nice to know I ain’t lost it!

Made a new page for the newest WIP, Butch Girls 3. Put two tiny little snippets in there. This early on in the process, there is no telling if those bits will stay the way they are written.

I didn’t work on anything else today. I took it easy due to some physical things (blah blah yada yada) but Lorna talked me into going out to dinner. Two old friends of ours was supposed to join us but they got their dates mixed up. I didn’t know all this since it was to be a surprise for me. ‘Tis my birthday soon.

bookmark_borderScouts Cursed??

Posted on by PaulaO

The deaths of the four men putting up the tent right under a powerline can be chalked up to sheer stupidity on someone’s part. The BSA has already backtracked on their earlier statements about ‘blaming’.

The collapse of 300+ Scouts a day or two later, waiting for no-show GW Shrub, can be chalked up to poor planning, lack of shade, and lack of cooling mist tents.

And while this all happened at the same Jamboree in VA, the west coast Scouts aren’t doing much better.

Lightning Strike Turns Scout Hike Tragic

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) – What was supposed to be a challenging 70-mile hike culminating in a midnight climb up Mt. Whitney to watch the sunrise turned to horror with a simple summer storm. When a group of Boy Scouts from St. Helena Troop 7001 took shelter from the rain, lightning struck, killing the troop leader and a teenage scout.

(full story)

bookmark_borderBrain Flash

Posted on by PaulaO

I had a sudden epiphany of what to do with BG2, aka UHauls. It will mean starting from scratch but I think I can handle that. I wanted to dive right into it tonight but realized it is after 2am.

I did take notes though. It is as if my brain resets the memory banks in the mornings and often it doesn’t recall them.

I made progress on The Graced today. Mostly edit-slash-rewrite-slash-reread. I am fixing stuff as I go, although I am not looking at every word and punctuation mark. Yuck. I have made some big changes there too but it feels much better.

bookmark_borderDoing Space Flips

Posted on by PaulaO

I am taking notes like mad! Since I am so locked into visual understanding, seeing the Space Shuttle doing stuff is like, awesome!

NASA has a video of the flip the Shuttle did today. Go to the video section of that page to find it. Or, you can view it directly (link opens into new window). It uses MS Media Player to view it.

Now I can let my imagination run with this to act as a starting place.

Jael shifted her case from one hand to the other and checked her visa yet again. With this being her first flight, she was understandably nervous.

“Don’t worry, little one, it’s just like a bumpy hover ride across a lake.” An old man patted her hand. “If you look there, you can see it docking.”

Jael turned toward the huge vid screen. Set up so it looked as if she were looking out a window, the screen’s current image was of the docking passenger shuttle, the Elisor. As she watched, the ship approached, its rear engines burping flame as it maneuvered into position. Then it began a slow twist and flip, its nose cone rising upward and to her right while the rear swung closer, exposing the underneath of the ship.

She’d once seen a beached sea creature, floating off a dock. Its white belly was a sharp contrast to the dark green water. That is what the underside of the ship reminded her of. Except the ship had burn marks and a moving iris, opening to connect to the boarding corridor.

See what I mean? I can see it now, see the white belly, the quite unpristine surface.

bookmark_borderDark and Stormy Night

Posted on by PaulaO

N.D. Man Wins Annual Bad-Writing Contest

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A man who compared a woman’s anatomy to a carburetor won an annual contest that celebrates the worst writing in the English language.

Dan McKay, a computer analyst at Microsoft Great Plains in Fargo, N.D., bested thousands of entrants from North Pole, Alaska to Manchester, England to triumph Wednesday in San Jose State University’s annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

“As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire,” he wrote, comparing a woman’s breasts to “small knurled caps of the oil dampeners.”

The competition highlights literary achievements of the most dubious sort – terrifyingly bad sentences that take their inspiration from minor writer Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel “Paul Clifford” began, “It was a dark and stormy night.”

(full story)

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

bookmark_borderBig Brother is Here

Posted on by PaulaO

I ain’t gonna comment lest I say some words and phrases that ought not appear due to their graphic nature.

Slashdot | RFID Tags To Track Foreigners, Identify Dead

Posted by Zonk on Thursday July 28, @11:46AM
from the many-purposes dept.

An anonymous reader writes “U.S. security officials say they will use RFID technology at border posts with Canada and Mexico to track foreigners driving in and out of the United States. A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said wireless chips for vehicles would become mandatory at designated border crossings in Canada and Mexico as of Aug. 4. At the same time, British officials are considering using RFID chips to identify the dead in the wake of a disaster.” From the British article: “…following the bomb blasts on the London Underground, the process of identifying some bodies – particularly on the deep-lying Piccadilly Line – became very difficult, with some families upset by the amount of time it took to confirm a relative had died. VeriChip advocates argue it could help in these circumstances. ”

bookmark_borderDiscovery Docks

Posted on by PaulaO

Shuttle Discovery Docks at Space Station

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) – Discovery docked at the international space station Thursday after performing an unprecedented back flip to allow those aboard the outpost to photograph the shuttle’s belly for signs of damage.

The digital camera images will be analyzed by NASA to spot any signs of trouble. It wasn’t immediately clear how long that analysis will take.

Discovery was just 600 feet beneath the station when Commander Eileen Collins manually steered the shuttle’s nose up and slowly flipped the spacecraft over.

(full story)

What is interesting, at least to me, is the view of the Earth. Look how close it is! We have it in our heads that their view would be this blue marble in the distance, as the Apollo crews did while on the moon. The International Space Station is much much closer. In some areas, where the artificial light is less, the light of the ISS can be seen.

photo of the Discovery shuttle during its backflip just below the International Space Station. The image shows the underneath of the shuttle and a good view of the Earth.