Bad Ass-tronaut!

I've known about astronaut and electrical engineer Christina Koch for several months, but it's only very recently that I learned more details about her life. She's currently the record holder for the longest space flight by a woman, and you can read about her at space.com:   https://www.space.com/record-breaking-astronaut-christina-koch-female-space-records.html

There's a fun interview with her, during which she does a neat microgravity trick. Much more importantly is her perspective on long term spaceflight. And this isn't her first time in extended isolation. In 2004 through 2007 she traveled the arctic and Antarctic regions, and also spent a winter season at the South Pole, where she experienced -111 degree temperature.  She's been a member of firefighting and ocean glacier search and rescue teams. She helped invent an x-ray spectrometer for NASA, among other things.

A cool video of 5 things about her can be found here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5T37kIEXa8

Number 5 on that list is that she traveled and worked in Ghana – and so did my daughter Jamie! (I admit my wife Ellen and I were not happy about Jamie's original plans for that trip. Ebola was breaking out in nearby Nigeria and Cote d'Ivore at the time.)

Ms. Koch will be returning to Earth on 6 February, and I wish her a very safe flight home. I think I might have one of her descendants show up on Pearson Space Station or elsewhere in the solar system for my follow-up to my MG/SF novel The Other Side of Space. I already have Dr. Maggie Jemison in the first book – a fictional descendant of the real astronaut Dr. Mae C. Jemison. (Maggie saves Jason's life, by the way, and helps him to save... oops. You'll just have to read the book!)

Writer's...Flood?

I'm not a prolific writer. I have three completed novels, and many short stories, but it's taken me many years.

I know that's much more than a lot of folks who say, "I want to be a writer," but much less than others.

My day job is running my own small engineering company a) which I love, and b) at which I've been reasonably successful. That and raising a family takes time, so it's not surprising that I don't have more fiction accomplished.

But I also love writing. So much so that I currently find myself in kind of a strange position: I have too many projects that I'm interested in pursuing, and it's a bit paralyzing. What's the opposite of writer's block? Writer's flood?

The three completed novels are all meant to have at least sequels, if not be the first of series. Nevertheless, I've also started two new novels. The first is an adult mainstream story based on my time as a disc jockey in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The second is a ghost story based on Filipino mythology of Babaylans (sort of shamans) and some really fascinating evil spirits. As I've done more research, I'm getting interested in contacting and talking to whatever relatives I might have in the Philippines. My father was one of eight kids who came from the Ilocos Sur region. Perhaps my daughter Jamie will come through with the Fulbright she wants to pursue and work there for a year.

But what about the sequels to my first three novels?

I've always maintain that I won't work on those until I sell one of the first ones, but dammit, ideas for those are now starting to push for more room in my skull. I need a contract to just simplify things and help me choose a direction!

Any takers?

Ain't Too Old to Die

The summer wanes, which is another way of saying that it's dying. Wanes is a better word, but I needed a segue into my topic: Death. To be more accurate, my topic is the fear of death. To be exact, how good it is to share with my kids escaping falling to our deaths.

As a husband and father, I wisely seldom go out of my way to place my body and life in jeopardy. This summer has been an exception.

In Scotland, on the Isle of Skye, there's an area called The Quiraing, which should always be capitalized. According to IsleofSkye.com:

"As part of the Trotternish ridge it has been formed by a massive landslip which has created high cliffs, hidden plateaus and pinnacles of rock."

It's also one of the most beautiful natural areas I've ever seen. No matter what I wrote, I'd not do it justice. Neither do these reduced resolution pictures, but it's the best I've got.

The Quiraing

The Quiraing

The Quiraing is also considered one of the Great Walks of Scotland. My daughter Jamie, son Alex, and I took that walk this summer, while my wife wisely relaxed.

Stunning, breathtaking, and a dozen other words come to mind for The Quiraing. So does the word dangerous. We veered off the main trail a bit. Okay, we veered a lot and found ourselves climbing up the side of a large mass of crags that I've come to find is called The Prison.

The Prison

While ascending, it occurred to all of us that going up was certainly going to be easier than going down, at least if we took the same steep, narrow, gravelly path. Nevertheless, we soldiered on. It was an adventure! Besides, there was bound to be a better way down on the other side, right?

About three fourths of the way to the top we noticed a second path heading down, but it looked "sketchy" to us. No, that wouldn't do. The path we were on had to go someplace better, so we followed it.

Many heaving breaths (mine) and a few bruises and scratches later, we arrived at the top. The view and the feeling was glorious.

View from the top of The Prison

We indulged ourselves for a good ten minutes, and then finally decided to find the "good" path down. My daughter noticed a gap between two rocks and crawled over to take a look. She poked her head into the gap, and then pulled back. "No way!"

It was a sheer drop of mebbe 50 to 70 feet.

We scrambled around and found another near drop. Not quite as sheer, but still un-traversable by non-goats.

That only left the "sketchy" path. And indeed it was, including a descent down a very steep rocky gully that we had to climb facing out, otherwise we couldn't see any foot or hand holds. The traverse wasn't long, just terrifying. My twenty-three year old daughter went first, then my seventeen-year old son, with me bringing up the cowardly rear.

Obviously we survived, and exuberantly congratulated ourselves. "Wait until Mom hears we almost died!"

But wait, there's more! On our way back, I made a tiny stumble along a narrow trail and fell. On a sidewalk, or woodlands trail, the consequences would at worst be a twisted ankle and scraped knee or hand. But this was The Quiraing, and by inches I missed tumbling down a hillside to die amongst the scattered Scottish sheep some 200 feet below. I felt great!

Flash forward several weeks when my kids and I celebrated Father's Day about a month late. And how did we do this? By once again subjecting ourselves to a possibly-not-death-defying fall.

The Toledo Zoo has a new and wonderful Aerial Adventure Course that includes options such as ziplining, an aerial ropes course, and a short (30 feet!) jump while you're connected to an arresting device that works kind of like a gigantic retracting tape measure. Another option is the Flight Line which is an 80 foot jump! We also voluntarily faced that bad boy. (No pictures follow because you're not allowed to carry cameras, phones, etc.)

Here's the set up for the 30 foot jump: The arresting mechanism (giant tape measure) is above your head at the edge of the platform. You look up and see the probably well-built device and obviously sturdy mounting brackets. The course attendant attaches the arresting cable to your harness. You see the cable leading up to the tape measure. Everything makes sense. Just step off the platform and fall – then immediately get slowed by the wonderful mechanical system and gently land below.

Here's the set up for the 80 foot drop of the Flight Line: Stand at the edge of the platform. The attendant connects the cable to your harness. The other end of the cable goes down, below the platform, out of sight. Even if you look down, you can't see where the cable goes. Is the cable actually connected to anything? Possibly not. In theory it is, with about 20 feet of slack. That's right, there's a 20 foot free fall to look forward to.

Once again, my daughter Jamie goes first. I think we should have given her the middle name of Intrepid. It takes her about a minute to work up to the jump, so I know that doing it isn't all beer and skittles.

My son Alex goes next. The bastard takes about five seconds on the platform before dropping out of sight. But that's good, right? It can't be that scary.

My turn arrives, and I stand at the edge, looking up at the sky and definitely not down. Dread diffuses through my body.

I imagine the hundreds of hours of engineering time that went into designing this system. Even though I'm an engineer myself, I have faith that the system was over-designed by at least a factor of four. Nobody would take a chance on the system being able to fail.

On the other hand, the engineers aren't the people who built or maintain or operate this horribly flimsy rig. Seriously, the other end of the cable might not even be attached to anything. I didn't hear Jamie or Alex after they went over. They could be dead already. My dread begins to coagulate into a solid, frozen mass.

I turn to the Death Guide, a cheerful looking young lady. "What's your name?"

"Caroline," she replies. "What's yours?"

"Spencer."

We chat some more. She makes assuring sounds. I stare at clouds. She reminds me that although I don't have to jump, my daughter and son are waiting for me at the bottom. Yeah, likely imitating very thin pancakes.

After what feels like mere seconds, and in reality must be more like five minutes, I step out, feel my dread focus and sharpen into a terror punch to the gut…and fall.

I honestly don't remember anything about the free fall itself, but I do remember the slowing down and tilting back at about a 45 degree angle. And then landing gently on my back and feeling relief burble up and tumble all over.

The best part was the aftermath, laughing and talking with my kids. "That was terrifying!" "Can you believe it?" "Oh my god, that drop was sooo much farther than I expected!" "I'm so glad we did it!"

It's marvelous knowing that I'm not yet too old to risk death, real and imagined, to experience an adventure with my children.

World Fantasy Convention 2016, Uber Corgi, and Serendipity

This is a partial report on my doings at WFC in Columbus. I only attended Friday and part of Saturday this year.  My original intent had been for longer. Unbeknownst to me, however, cosmic forces far beyond the understanding of mere mortals intervened.  My dear Chicago Cubs made it to the World Series! That forced an adjustment to my shedule, as the Brits say.

I had a nice time driving down from Toledo to Columbus with Marc Tassin. This was the longest conversation we ever had, and we both learned things about the other and laughed a bit. I caught up briefly with Beth Vaughan, who’d already been in Columbus for a couple of days. She’s writing her fingers to nubbins working on SOMETHING NEW.

Friday night I hung out at the bar. With my daughter Jamie. We watched the Cubs and Indians play game three. We had dinner elsewhere, and then settled in to watch baseball. Jamie doesn’t really care for baseball. She doesn’t drink alcohol, except for an occasional glass of wine. The evening’s result? It was great! I couldn’t have had a better time or company.

Saturday was kind of the usual con stuff, although World Fantasy is really more of a pro convention than many others. I met Maurice Broaddus, who has been a nice addition to Marc’s GenCon Writers’ Symposia. I got knocked out in the art room by a painting titled The Sanguinary Innocent by Jarrod Erik. I was tempted to make an offer, although with a minimum bid of $1,400.00 I would have been persona non grata upon arriving back home.

“But just look at this. What stark beauty. What power.”

“What the in the ever loving HELL were you thinking?”

What I DID buy turned out to be even better, and all it cost was $15.00. While perusing the dealer room, I noticed a cheerful fellow behind a table hawking his new collection of short stories with some illustrations. As part of his pitch he offered to do a custom pen and ink drawing of any beast you could name.

“Any beast?” sez me.

“Any beast. What do you have in mind?”sez cheerful writer/artist.

“Well, years ago my son came up with the concept of Der Uber Corgi. It’s a big Corgi wearing a World War I spiked German helmet.” (The helmet is called a pickelhaube, btw, and Der Uber Corgi’s nemesis is The Iron Ostrich. But that’s a story for another day.)

“Heh. Sounds cute. Big Corgi.”

“I mean BIG, like Godzilla-sized, laying waste to the city.”

So, I pay my $15.00 for his book, and then wander the room awhile as he works. (I never liked people looking over my shoulder when I was building cabinets.)

I do hear him giggle a couple of times. When I return, he’s finished the piece, and he seems very pleased. He tells me it was a lot of fun. I take a look, and I’m seriously stunned. It’s not what I was expecting, because it’s pretty much exactly what I was hoping for, only even more so. I find it hard to tell him how pleased I am, and I know my son Alex will love it.

The writer/artist is a fellow named Jerome Stueart. (Yes, that’s the correct spelling.) His book is titled The Angels of Our Better Beasts. And his stories are TERRIFIC! I won’t go into any review here, but I can say that if his drawing was the cake, his stories are the best butter crème coconut frosting I can imagine. Alex loves coconut frosting.

I almost didn’t go to World Fantasy this year at all because of the Cubbies. Alex and I had watched every game of their playoff run together, and the World Series, of course, is the epitome. How could I miss one of those games with him? Now I’m so glad I did. Even with no other consideration, spending the evening with Jamie, and then discovering Jerome Stueart and bringing Uber Corgi home was so, so worth it!

Saving the World

My daughter Jamie graduated from The Ohio State University this month with her degree in Public Health. Yep, she’s a Buckeye! While she loves the school, in truth I honestly think it wouldn’t have made a large difference where she attended. Jamie would have taken what she needed and wanted from any institution.

Don’t get the wrong idea. She’s not demanding or pushy; far from it. Her faults might include not being sufficiently assertive sometimes. It’s a minor issue that many people have. Some don’t think it’s a fault. They’re probably right.

My point, however, is that while she’s not demanding or pushy, she is determined and persistent.  As Calvin Coolidge said, “Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”*

She usually won’t go through an obstacle, but she will arrive at her destination, however long the road.  In almost every case that place is where she intended, but if not, she’ll still find good things about it. Next highway? Graduate school for Epidemiology.

One of her goals is to save the world. She never stated this to me, but it’s quite evident. It’s also naïve in the way that young twenty-somethings often are. Still, she has a very good head, and she continues to better understand the reality about a lot of the world’s problems.  During a recent trip to Ghana, she learned a lesson in helping people in a way that’s sustainable. Teaching fishing versus giving fish.

She and I disagree politically on many things. Yet at our hearts, we both know how important it is to help others, keep a clean sandbox, and build for the future.

Jamie will help save the world. We all can.


*"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." -- Calvin Coolidge

Not complete failures as parents

I've been meaning to write this for quite awhile. My daughter Jamie is one of the brightest people I know. Parental bias abounds, but being valedictorian of her high school and earning scholarships to cover a large majority of her university tuition are pretty good pieces of objective evidence.

What most recently impressed me about her, however, is her in-her-bones understanding of how life most often works. Here's the story:

Several months ago she told us about a conversation with one of her friends. They were discussing college and what "everyone" was doing to prepare for the BIG CHANGE. My daughter asked her friend what scholarships she'd applied for so far. (Jamie has probably written three dozen essays for different applications.) The answer was along the lines of, "Not much. Something good will come along."

Jamie was aghast. In the retelling she said to us, "Doesn't she know that good things don't just land on you? You have to make good things happen!"

I've rarely been more proud of her, nor more pleased with Mom and Dad.

Scrabble Poetry

I'd not blogged for more than a handful of months in part because of so much going on -- "The vicissitudes of life" as my old friend Victor Lyons used to say.

I was prompted to get back to it recently because of something my daughter Jamie said. Yet when I did, I started (yesterday) with a note about my new novel Knights of the Full Moon.

So I decided to try again, but realized I wanted to take more time than I really have at the moment to write about Jamie. That's when I noticed how I mention Scrabble at the top of this blog, and yet I haven't said anything about it yet.

So, without (much) further ado, here's a Scrabble poem that I wrote some time ago during a fierce war with my friend George. It was the opening volley in a horrible conflict.

How do I spell thee?  Let me count the ways.

I spell thee OBI, OBE, and OBEAH, all are right,

We know even when the book is out of sight,

But FATTEND upon all seeing made me lose face

I spell thee XI and CHI and KI, with definitions not the same,

I spell thee freely, what 'ere it takes to win the game

I spell thee with passion that all can feel,

And thus bluff the phony, so you will think it real,

In thinking of GRIEFS, is it I before E?

Do ADZ and ADZE both correctly use my Z?

With my lost challenge, I'll spell thee again, but not the same,

But now the spot is gone.  Damn!

I shall spell thee better next game.


With lazy apologies to Elizabeth Barret Browning. More later!