StarFleet Carl: Blog

I've given my credit cards (which I pay off in full each month, so don't bother telling me how evil they are) a work-out this week. I've mentioned in the past that I do laser engraving as a side business / hobby. I've also mentioned that I have a bit of a home network - three towers, two laptops, and an Xbox. Well, the tower that I use to do all my graphics for the laser croaked this week. I've known it was coming - it was only 12 years old, after all - for a while as it was telling me the hard drive was failing.

The funny thing is, to use the graphics software I use, I effectively need a gaming computer. (Huh, amazing coincidence, that.) Fortunately, all the Black Friday sales have already started, so I picked up a new ASUS gaming desktop with an Intel i5 11400F processor (that's 6 cores, each running at 2.60 GHz), 16GB RAM, a 512 GB SSD and a GeForce GTX 1660 graphics card with 6GB of RAM for under $700. Great! Got it home, went to hook it up... and found out they don't put VGA on towers any more. Damn! Oh, look, the ASUS 27" monitor that's designed to run UNGODLY fast is on sale, too, so there's another $170. Of course, it's also running Displayport, too, so the colors and graphics are unreal. At least they have standard VESA connections on the back of the monitor, so it can go onto my racks.

Yank the old HDD out of the old computer and stick it in as a 'slave' - yay, PCI, for not needing to deal with jumpers! - and start copying everything. I have a LOT of images that I've created over the years. While that's copying, let's get Corel Draw over, too. What do you MEAN, it won't run? Well, damn - I didn't think about the SOFTWARE being out of date, since I used it every day. Time to order that new, too - which will show up Monday.

ETA: If anyone needs 4, 4GB RAM DDR3 RAM sticks, let me know. The new computer uses DDR4, which is not compatible (obviously).

Anyway, all that to see if you're still bothering to read this blog post. I'm sending Chapter 16 off for editing tonight (Friday). I have the first 15 chapters done and completely edited. I will begin posting NEXT Saturday, on a bi-weekly basis, until I get the book finished. Then it'll go up on Bookapy (that's another reason I needed the new computer - I use it to make my covers) and I'll change the posting frequency to weekly.

Would someone who has previously purchased Book Two on Bookapy do me a favor and download it again, since you should have access to it for free? All of the name errors should be corrected. I also blatantly borrowed the style sheets that Laz uses, since I have no idea how to create those in the first place, and redid things. It may not make any difference when you're reading it, but I noticed the PDF file is almost 2MB SMALLER, due to using style sheets.

Please check it out for me and let me know if it's screwed up. I did use Sigil to make the EPUB, and Calibre to convert the EPUB to MOBI and PDF. Obviously, they look fine to me on MY system, but... YMMV.

My intention for Book Five of A True History was to have the whole thing complete, done, and ready for Bookapy before I started posting it. That way those people who wanted it could get it immediately off of Bookapy, and those who were willing to wait would know it's totally finished.

Yeah, well, that ain't gonna happen.

What I HAVE decided to do is this. I've been posting an edited and updated version of 'Legacy of a Legend' on SciFiStories, the SOL sister site. When the final chapter for that story posts, I'll start posting Book Five on a bi-weekly schedule. That fits in with my 'sometime between Halloween and Christmas' plan. That'll also give me plenty of buffer (knock on wood, and famous last words) to actually finish writing it over the winter.

Keep in mind, I've actually got this figured out in my mind - finally - how things are going to go. It's simply making all of the puzzle pieces fit logically. That, and how many of you have actually sat down and calculated the blast radius and effects of multiple thermonuclear devices? (I used to have to do that in the military, but we had whiz wheels for use in the field to assist. Ah, the joys of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Warfare!)

Lastly - if anyone is thinking of relocating to Oklahoma, or already lives here and wants to move, send me a PM.

Nothing quite disrupts your life like having a baby. Having two of them is even more fun. They're both between four and five months old, and are quite the distraction. Oh, and they've both got the cutest bark.

In what turned out to be a weird and convoluted way, we now have a Schnorkie - half Schnauzer, half Yorkie and a Pomeranian. They're both the same length and size, but Choco (the Pom) is all fur, so he weighs maybe half what Chewie (Chewbacca - hey, our two Roombas are named C3-PO and R2D2) weighs.

I'm working on Chapter 14. My plan is to have 20 chapters fully complete and edited before I begin posting - so still sometime between Halloween and Christmas is reasonable. I'd wanted to have the whole book done by New Year's Day, but real life isn't cooperating very well.

I'm 'changing' brokers on Monday - same broker, just the National franchise he has instead of the local one. So I need new business cards and magnetic signs for my car. We had a big 'Moving In' garage sale, where we got rid of excess things. That took me two full weeks. I'm not retired, but I am self-employed, which means when my wife has these ideas, three guesses who gets to do most of the work.

Best wishes and prayers to everyone in South Florida. My ex and step-daughter live in Fort Myers. They're alive. I'm VERY familiar with that area - Fort Myers, Naples, Bonita Springs - and while there are a lot of wealthy people in Naples, there's also a lot who aren't. I'll take tornadoes any day. Oh, wait - I live in Oklahoma. And it's Saturday - that means noon time testing of the sirens. EVERY Saturday - because come Spring, they'll be sounding for real again.

Well, the first one is simple - I'm still planning on sometime between Halloween and Christmas for releasing ATH Book 5. I'm currently writing Chapter 12. As I've told my editors, I had a bit of a real life funk for a bit, plus just getting the plot points AND the math figured out correctly.

Why did I have to figure out math? Simple. Go watch 'Armageddon' or 'Deep Impact'. Then consider that they got SO much wrong in both of those movies that they really should qualify as fantasy and not science fiction. (That's the polite way of saying in 'Armageddon', the Earth would have actually been destroyed - as in turned into the newest asteroid belt orbiting the Sun - and in 'Deep Impact', it would've simply wiped 99+% of all life off the planet, sort of like Chicxulub.)

So, when the book does come out, the math and results will be as close and accurate as I can get it.

Second one is also simple, relatively speaking. I'm posting this on September 10, 2022. I still remember, and will never forget, September 11, 2001.