StarFleet Carl: Blog

Since last night's tornadoes made both national and international news... I survived. The closest any of the 8 or so tornadoes came to me was the one that was in the air and NOT on the ground that went over the Oklahoma Heart Hospital and then Tinker AFB - so about a mile away. The town that had people killed - Cole, Oklahoma - is 23 miles south of here, and then Shawnee, Oklahoma, is 28 miles east of me. They took a lot of damage at the airport and Oklahoma Baptist University.

A buddy of mine that I sold a house to that lives in Edmond (14 miles north) posted a picture on his Facebook page showing one of the hail stones that hit his house and cars - it's the size of a tennis ball. The biggest that hit my house was 3/4" in diameter. (That's 2 centimeters for you metric folks.)

Welcome to Spring in Oklahoma. This isn't global warming, global cooling, or climate change. Crap like this has been happening here since long before anyone ever thought of those terms.

I think it's amusing that I uploaded Chapter 13 on April 13th, especially this is a Thursday and not a Friday. Fortunately, I don't have triskaidekaphobia, so I'm good.

Now, depending upon what the specific situation is, I'll raise my hand on acrophobia. If I'm secured, or otherwise feel safe inside, all good. When we were doing rappelling off cliffs, dropping out of helicopters into a lake off a rope, or literally sitting in the open door with my feet on the side skid of the chopper doing radiation surveys, because there was a strap holding me in, I'm fine. Never been afraid of flying, either. Put me on the roof of a house and if I'm standing on the edge looking down, vertigo gets going and I have to sit down. Same way if I was looking over the edge of the cliff I'm going to rappel off of, before the rope is hooked up. I can look at a picture taken straight down from the top of a tower and feel things crawl up inside. Ten feet back from the edge and looking straight out at the horizon, all good, or if there is a sturdy railing, again, I'm fine.

There are a couple of things in this chapter that are very real. Jim7 put the note in about one of them. The other one, when you read about it - well, if you want to look it up, go ahead. It's heartbreaking, but I had to include it.

On a lighter note, I'm about done with Chapter 27, courtesy of how badly Real Life™ messed me up this past month. I should have it done by Tuesday - I have real estate appointments Friday and Saturday. (Yay!) Chapter 28 should flow quickly, as I've already got it figured out in my mind - if the pesky damned characters don't change the story on me like they did in Chapters 25 and 26. LOL!

Anyway, have as happy a Federal and State Income Tax creative math day as you can if you're in the US. If you're not - all good.

But my Bat'leth has finally tasted blood! Albeit, my own. My dog's ball went under my desk, I reached for it, and bumped my bat'leth because it was simply leaned up against the shelf next to my desk.

You know how the back of them are curved? (And if you don't, shame on you!) Damn thing slid on the curve, and poked itself right through my pants and a half-inch into the left side of my knee. Just think of stabbing yourself with a wide bladed, very sharp, stainless steel knife. Same thing.

Yes, I'm a dumbass. :)

The last couple of weeks have been incredibly busy in Real Life™, so I haven't gotten much writing done. That's just been the nature of the beast. After yesterday - which I fondly call hazmat day - I should be back to normal activities.

Hazmat day? It's a good thing I used to be an NBC guy in the army. Almost MOPP4, just not as hot, because I had full Tyvek suit, booties, triple layer of gloves, hood, respirator, and clear face shield on. I had to go dig out the paperwork in my wife's uncle that passed away (mentioned last week in my blog) place of residence. Let's just say that it was needed, and NOT an over-reaction, and leave it at that.

On the story side of things - I have made a decision and I am unanimous on it. You want to complain about the level of sex in my stories? Send me an email. You post a comment? It'll be deleted. You know who you are. If you're so desperate for sex instead of actual plot and story, go to Porn Hub or XHamster or XVideos. You'll get all the variations in sex there that you want. There's a discussion on the forum now about erotica versus porn. Erotica - kinky - is a feather duster. Porn is the whole chicken.

Okay, I'm posting this blog a day late, but amazingly enough, the Ides of March and Shiva's arrival date happen to coincide with St. Patrick's Day - at least in 1986. And it actually ended up being a coincidence, once I changed the orbit of the comet.

I was halfway finished writing Chapter 145 (aka Chapter 25 of this book) and the characters decided they wanted to go do something else. I have no real idea why - that's not what I'd been planning to do. I swear at times I'm not the one creating this story, I'm just transcribing things.

Also, keep in mind when reading this - this is both 1986 and Cal is involved. What we know NOW medically may not have been known THEN, as well as having Cal's genetics involved, courtesy of his children's cord blood and placentas being involved.

On a different and personal note:

My wife's youngest uncle was born in 1949. She said he was always the fun one to be around, because he'd play with his nieces and nephews - walk with them hanging on his legs and such. He was only 15 years old when she was born, after all. Then he went into the Air Force and went overseas, at least to Thailand (and this was during Vietnam, so maybe other places). He didn't come home the same man. His time since then was a hard life, but he was - finally - turning things around. He had a stroke this past weekend, followed by multiple heart attacks, and passed away yesterday at age 74. RIP and I hope you finally found peace in your soul, Bryan.