rlfj: Blog

Interesting final comments on beer: "You're both right and wrong. Yes, beer at the time of Cyrus the Great would have been flat, and probably sour. And the brewery you worked in would have forced CO2 into the beer in an industrial process. However wooden casks will hold pressure and have been used for roughly 1,000 years. Carbonation would have been at lower, but still noticeable, levels. And while the CO2 is vented off during fermentation, it's a simple matter to add a small amount of sugar just before bottling/coopering to create the carbonation level desired." Thank you, GregB. The discussion is ended!

A curious question was recently raised. Am I in legal peril for using a television series and the names of the characters in an unauthorized story? I know that using real people, which I have done in several stories, is okay. A Fresh Start and The Grim Reaper, et al, used many famous politicians as characters, but Hustler Magazine v Falwell protects me as they were public figures. The television series involves copyright and trademark law, and I'm no lawyer. Now, I don't plan to take down the story, but I am curious. Any lawyers out there want to comment? Thanks.

In any case, this marks the end of the story. As I mentioned earlier, I can't remember why I let the story sit for ten years, but it was fun to finish. I hope everyone enjoyed it. I'm turning on voting. It will be quite a bit before I finish my next story. We'll just have to wait.

I had an interesting email from a reader: "Without a modern industrial base, how could a brewer capture and contain carbon dioxide. It's simple, fermentation produces CO2. Keep a stopper in the bottle and you have a carbonated alcoholic product. Even Americans know how champagne is made." At least one other response was in the same line, though not quite as condescending.

I guess this is supposed to show how little I know about beer, but as an ex-industrial chemist, I can guarantee it is more complicated. The issue is not the brewing of the beer. It is the storage! Cyrus the Great lived from about 600 BC to 530 BC. There were no beer bottles! Glass was very expensive and would have only been used for ornamental purposes, or for holding djinnis! Cork, which is what stoppers are usually made from, is not native to Persia; it would have to be imported from Southwest Europe or Africa. Rubber would not have been available, either, since it is from Southeast Asia. A different option, a wood dowel wrapped in leather, is not something that will hold pressure for any length of time. Next, during the production of beer, the carbon dioxide is allowed to bubble off; most (not all) modern beers have the carbonation added during the final stages of production. Making beer was a large-scale enterprise and it was stored in large clay pots, not something you could put a stopper in. Other containers included wooden casks, not a vessel capable of long-term high-pressure storage. Glass containers did not become common until glass-blowing machinery was invented in 1880. The same applied to metal kegs - the first large scale production of aluminum didn't occur until 1886. Industrial-scale production of carbon dioxide didn't occur until the mid-1800s. So, even though I'm an American, I think I know how beer is made, especially since I worked in a brewery one summer when I was in college.

One of the readers of the Epilogue of Reaper Security Consulting commented that the Coast Guard was not a member of the Department of Defense, and thus Riley could not become a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a case of art imitating life, the August 2020 issue of Proceedings, 'The Independent Forum of the Sea Services', had an article in it titled, "Time for the Coast Guard to Join the Joint Chiefs." Who knows what might happen in the future?

A couple of interesting comments on the story: 1) "Now you're showing your age." & 2) "I have heard about I Dream of Jeannie, but I don't know much about it." Damned if you do or damned if you don't. I'm 64; I figured I'd publish this before senility did me in.

A recent purchaser of the story on Bookapy discovered a problem with the published version. The Table of Contents was messed up, so the last story, I (Wet) Dream of Jeannie, was not shown. The story was present, just not listed properly. That's been fixed, but if you email me your bad copy, I will send you the good copy; my email address is [email protected]. The published version has been fixed.

I will finish uploading the story next Tuesday. At that time, I will turn voting on. By then the haters will have given up on it.

One of the interesting things about voting is how early votes influence later votes. This is seen in a wide variety of areas. Take the same story and give it to three groups of ten readers each. The first group is asked to grade the story and they rate the story an 8. The second group is given the same instructions but is told that the cumulative voting is already at 6.5; they vote that the same story is only worth 7.2. Something similar happens with the third group, who are told the story has already been rated at 9.1; they vote the story is actually worth 8.6. This sort of thing is studied all the time by grad students looking for their PhD. It affects fields such as political voting, economics, and television/movie rating.

And now for some good old-fashioned smut!

I was recently going through my computer files of all the stories I have written over the years and came across a story I had started but never finished. No matter how many stories a writer writes, there are always some that he never finished, for whatever reason. We call it writer's block, and it affects all of us. I have several unfinished stories still.

This one was an updated porn version of an old sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie. I thought I could do something quick and fun, have a few laughs and put it up quickly. Somehow, after the first couple of chapters, I hit the Save button and never went back. How long ago was that, you ask? Let's just say that when I first started writing this story, Tony Nelson and Roger Healey were flying the Space Shuttle! The Space Shuttle hasn't flown since 2011, so I started this story a decade ago! That's probably a record for me.

Anyway, I did a quick read and had a good laugh. Reaper Security Consulting was coming to an end and I needed a new project. Editing and finishing the story wasn't going to be difficult, and I could write it fast. It only took me a couple of weeks to finish. I still have plans for something a lot bigger, but only have a couple of chapters of that project written. That will be another big book, but I am not giving any hints other than that it will be a PG-13 project, like RSC.

For those who love my more 'serious' works, I know this is a disappointment. My advice to you? Get over it! We're on a porn site! That's why I first started reading here, and when I started writing, it was because I figured I could write better porn than some of the schlock I saw being posted. It was a harmless hobby that I could play with after my wife went to bed, and it warmed me up for some fun and games when I climbed into bed with her. I had no plans otherwise.

Special thanks to mustang69n8 and petdoc2be for some assistance with naval slang and terminology.

I plan to put this up in just a few installments, so nobody will have to wait a long time. I also included it in a new book on Bookapy and Lulu, Naughty Shorts, containing some of my remaining short stories. Anyway, enjoy!

No, I'm not leaving any time soon. This is more a parting thought to Grim and Company. A few people commented on the Epilogue and how the family ended up. A little over the top? No! A lot over the top! Then again, most of the family was more than a bit above average. I decided to go big and go home! As for continuing the story, or writing small interlude pieces, sorry, but I just don't see that happening. It's time to stop.

Many thanks to all the kind readers who enjoyed this series. Your thoughts (and dollars!) are much appreciated. My wife thanks you as well, since she spends it!

Quite a few noticed that there were some major formatting problems in the last chapter and epilogue. No idea what happened, but the SOL system added a bunch of random paragraph breaks that weren't in the original html files. I spent many a year coding in html so I could read the code and find things that weren't in what I had uploaded. I had to regenerate the files and reload them. They look okay now.

Again, I can't thank my editors enough. I'm nowhere near smart enough to do this stuff on my own, especially since I've never served or been a cop. RSC got a lot of assistance from grynslvr2, jjmcdonald7911, pdkrause, and Old Rotorhead. I could never have done this without their assistance.

Quite a few readers wanted to know what I was doing next. It's going to be tough to come up with somebody as interesting as either Carl Buckman or Graham Reaper. Not sure I'm even going to try. I've been going through my archives, reviewing some stories that I started but never got around to finishing. Some of them have some real possibilities. I finished one, a short story, and I'll be putting it up sometime in August. I have two other strong contenders that I am still giving some thought to; they are going to take longer to sort out. I don't imagine I will be publishing them this year.