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

10 Cloverfield Lane!

My wife, my son and I just got back from seeing this movie and I had to tell someone. The centers of our theater seats are prolly still puckered from how much and how tightly we clenched. I won't give anything away except that I can't recall seeing a movie with more cold-sweat tension than this one. It beats out Alien by a considerable margin, with just three people in a bunker.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is brilliant, and her character Michelle might be my new hero since Ellen Ripley retired. John Goodman is the personification of the biggest roller coaster that you can just bear to ride.

The ending...will no doubt lead to much discussion. It's not a perfect movie, but certainly one of my new favorites. I highly recommend it, although see it with someone you can hold hands with.

Answered: Why do I have to learn this?

I just ran across an amazing essay by physicist Ethan Siegel titled, Why do I have to learn this? It's a wonderful piece of persuasive writing that must be shared.

Ethan has a very good blog called Starts with a Bang in which he answers mostly science questions in an informative and entertaining way. I like his breezy style, which usually never shorts the reader on facts, but still keeps the eyeballs moving quickly. With rare exceptions his posts are uniformly excellent.

As a parent, former student, and former physics instructor, I find his latest piece to be a true marvel. It's easily the best answer to the age-old student question that I've ever read, and I wish I'd written it. I think every 5th or 6th grader should read it, and then read it again in high school. No doubt some kids wouldn't be moved, but they should all be given the chance.

His full essay of the subject can be found here. Enjoy!

GenCon 2015

GenCon 2015 has come and gone, and I have a few observations or comments.

First of all, Marc Tassin did a truly amazing job organizing and running the Writers Symposium. It gets better every year, and I'm proud to call him my friend and fellow writing group member. Terry Brooks was the Big Kahuna Guest of Honor this year, but there were so many other talented and pleasant guests.

I didn't attend many panels this time (more on that below), but I do want to mention how much I enjoyed Geoffery Girard's presentation on "Query Letters, Pitches and Synopses." This was aimed at writers who have a novel ready or nearly ready to start pushing on an unsuspecting world of agents and editors. As Geoffery himself admits, the information and advice in his talk isn't new, and you can find it in many places. His presentation, however, was energetic, well-organized, joyful, and most importantly useful! The best part for me was the exercise of writing the infamous "elevator pitch", and then practicing it with all the other people in the room. We did this many, many times, including repetitions during which the listener purposefully interrupted your pitch with questions. Speaking for myself (and prolly most of the other students), it got easier every time. By the end of the pitch session I was very comfortable, and happy to field the interrupting questions. Great job, Geoffery! If he repeats this talk at GenCon or anywhere else, I highly recommend it.

I also attended the "What Editors Want" panel with Jim Minz of Baen Books, and Marco Palmieri of Tor, among others. I won't delve into the details, but I must repeat a quote that Jim read out loud near the end of the session. It's from Calvin Coolidge:

"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."

This is so flippin' true that it should always be included when printing The Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy. My life is a testimonial to this. Take it to heart!

One more little note about the Symposium. I got to meet Kameron Hurley again, and deliver my apology in person! (See my previous blog entry with her name in the title.)

Okay, the reason I didn't attend many panels was because I wanted to spend more time with Alex, and simply have fun together playing games and gawking. On that account, the trip was a complete success! I look forward to next year, but we gotta get a room closer to the con.

Toadless in Toledo

I like playing Scrabble. The intellectual challenge, while narrowly focused, is almost always enjoyable. Sure, there are times when you're staring itchy-eyed at a rack full of i's and u's, cursing the gods of distribution, and wondering what's new on Netflix. But mostly I look at such circumstances as an opportunity to be creative and clever. From such desperate times words like VUG and TUI are discovered.

I really like playing Scrabble with my friends George and Tom. The mental challenge remains strong, but the geeky fun of discussing words and etymologies, real and fanciful—especially fanciful!— can be as much fun as a drunken game of spoons.

And then there are the weird discoveries. According to The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (OSPD), Fifth Edition, there is a remarkably small number of objects or feelings you can be without. For example the word TOADLESS exists, meaning "Having no toads," but there is no entry for FROGLESS. Apparently one can never be without frogs. There is an entry for FISHLESS, but not FOWLESS. Nor can you be CATLESS, DOGLESS, COWLESS, PIGLESS, or CLAMLESS. Somehow each of us always possesses at least one of these animals, and myriad others.

You can also be LOVELESS, but not HATELESS. It seems we must retain at least a dab of hate at all times. That would explain a lot.

You can be SUCKLESS, although inexplicably that is defined as "Having no juice." Let your mind wander.

There are far too many other examples to count. (The OSPD usually doesn't have words longer than 8 letters, so we may never know if one can be GIRAFFELESS.

What's the point of all this? Not much except whiling away a few spare minutes. I do wonder about the circumstances that led to the need for creating the word TOADLESS. "Excuse me, but I'm lookin' for a load of toads? You got any?"

Maybe some things are meant to stay a mystery. I guess I'll turn my mind to other fascinations, like the word REBOZO. Yeah, that's real.