It’s important to immerse yourself in serenity.
Question of the day: How do YOU find serenity?
Bullet Points:
** The Madison – I’m a fan of Taylor Sheridan’s filmmaking, and I enjoyed the first season. So my review is two thumbs up. Given that I left the big city for the forests and lakes of Northern Arizona, an hour’s drive from the nearest gas station, and built a house in the center of the Coconino and Apache Sitgraves National Forests eight years ago, you may not find my review surprising. I do not view the series as a “chick flick,” though it is an examination of grief and emotional challenges. It’s difficult for me to find something to watch on television that I enjoy.* I can relate to the storytelling, the characters, and the theme of change. The wildlife – eagles, mountain lions, elk, deer, bobcats, etc. is what sets this life apart much as it did in the TV show. It’s not for the faint of heart, but the payoff is significant. PS – I have a well 800′ deep and an alternative septic system, and don’t have to rely on an outhouse.
*Housekeeping – Until two weeks ago, I struggled with finding sufficient bandwidth to watch anything that streamed that wasn’t part of “Dish”. Connecting to Starlink required a view to the North (through a hundred 200’+ Ponderosa pines) that was problematic. Now, Verizon has its new Dragon router for business, which gives me unlimited high-speed Internet, and I can stream video to my heart’s content (which isn’t much). There is a tower near me, but its bandwidth is pitifully weak because it essentially serves a forest. No community. With the new router, I have priority service, and the presence of campers on Easter Break doesn’t shut me down the way that it used to. There was significant drama debugging the Verizon equipment, but all’s well that ends well.
Additionally, my phone no longer shifts to SOS on busy weekends with campers in the forest, and I don’t need to resort to the SatPhone to make a call. It’s called living high on the hog.
** (left) The truth is out there…somewhere. If you’re probed, spare us the details.
** “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” (Thomas Paine) — Carrola proposes an experiment. Take a really nice city in a great location and…
** Whether you jump with an Icarus or Performance Designs (PD) canopy, make that first skydiving experience memorable.
** Iranian nuclear weapons and missiles directly threaten Europe, not the US – not now anyway. Europe takes much of its petroleum from Iran and the Middle East. The US is petroleum independent. Given that, who does the heavy lifting when the threat exists? And in Ukraine, where Europe is threatened, who does the most to defend them (and Europe) from Russia? Who does the heavy lifting there? When the US suggests that help would be good from NATO, what does NATO do? What does the UK (our bestest buddies) do? SECSTATE weighs in.
** So much for Bangalore torpedoes.
** What was the primary cause of death on 17th-century sailing ships?
** I am not looking for a date, but I guess it’s rugged in 2026.
** President Trump really does suffer fools well. Yes, he mocks some of them. Pedo Joe’s picture in the White House is just an autopen because that’s how his staff ran the place while he napped, called a lid, and ate ice cream. But overall, he has to put up with a lot of crap. I’m happy he stepped up to take one for the team – because Kamala the whore or Big Mike Obama would have been disastrous options.
** It’s as dark in Cuba at night as it is in North Korea. Both are paradises for the workers in the People’s Communist Party.
** The Pontifical Swiss Guards (historical review). May 6th, 1527. Rome is burning. 20,000 imperial soldiers have breached the walls, routed the militia, and are killing everyone they find. At the Vatican, Pope Clement VII flees through a secret elevated corridor toward Castel Sant’Angelo. On the steps of Saint Peter’s, 147 Swiss Guards form a line and wait. They know they are not going to win. They hold anyway. This is the story of how a group of mountain soldiers from a small European confederation became the most famous bodyguard unit in history — and why the Swiss Guard still stands at the Vatican today, 500 years later.
** Look on the bright side for a change. You may get to die in a nursing homes shitting yourself to death with tubes running two and fro, but one thing — it is as certain as taxes.
** The U.S. Navy primarily uses two types of in-service mines: the Quickstrike family (Mk 62, 63, 65) for shallow-water, air-dropped, bottom-influence mining, and the Submarine Launched Mobile Mine (SLMM) (Mk 67) for covert, shallow-water deployment. These modern mines use magnetic, acoustic, or pressure sensors to destroy ships. A Mk 67 is pictured.
** Without freedom of speech, we wouldn’t know who the idiots are.
** A discussion of Krak des Chevaliers in Syria and the technology that underpinned its existence and its success.
** The city of Los Angeles has 1/3 of all the hospices in the entire country. Not California, literally in the entire country, 1/3 of our hospices are in Los Angeles. And if you say, “fraud,” I say, “RACIST!”
The Sequel to Broken Toys
Hungry Ghosts is available in paperback, will soon (as in maybe by the time you read this) be available in digital formats, and I’m going to try for Audible with an A. I. generated voice. That won’t be available within 72 hours or so. I’m still trying to work all that out. Please be patient. Many of you have asked for my books on Audible, and I’m working on it now that I can use AI instead of a human narrator (which is expensive and time-consuming). I appreciate your support and your reviews. Good reviews are critical to my continued efforts to produce interesting stories.
More detailed information will be forthcoming on some additional writing releases and efforts on tomorrow’s blog. For now, you have asked for Hungry Ghosts, and I delivered. I personally think it’s some of my best writing yet. If you like this sort of sci-fi, there will have to be a third book in the Broken Toys series. I haven’t even begun to do it and have barely thought about it – but when you read this story, you’ll see where it’s headed. Many twists and turns.
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Hungry Ghosts is the second book in the Broken Toys Series, and it picks up shortly after the point where the Broken Toys left off.
An extrasolar spacecraft, which called itself Navigator, devoid of organic life, crashed in the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan, specifically in the area now known as the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, on November 4, 1932. It had been pursued by an enemy craft intent on its capture. Though it had the capacity to defend itself effectively, the confrontation occurred within Earth’s atmosphere, and employing defensive weapons would have, for all intents and purposes, destroyed all life on the planet. It chose to eject the weapons system separately, then disintegrate itself, and waited in that place on the Roof of the World for its resurrection. And along came Frank Brandt.
The Hungry Ghosts is a Mainland Chinese criminal organization that traffics fentanyl through Mexican drug cartels that ends up in the United States and elsewhere. Though they started out as partners with the Chinese Communist Party, they’ve stretched beyond Chinese control, and it has created a problem in the Workers’ Paradise.
Vice President Laurel Vega-Mendoza has been elected to the US Presidency, and she is advised by Frank Brandt, who is no longer wholly human. He’s also been hard at work designing a few advanced weapons with his new capacity.
Claire Hoffman, a disabled veteran, is no longer disabled, and her mother wouldn’t recognize her with the new host living within her. She has changed her name and works as a US Senate Investigator focused on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.
As the newly minted president directs her most potent weapons toward eliminating Hungry Ghosts, the plot takes unpredictable twists.
The problem that many have with the arrival of an interstellar species is that it’s not wholly predictable because it’s not the least bit human. Can broken people be counted on to save things? They are usually willing to risk everything because they have nothing to lose…
Identify the Boat
1
I don’t know if it can be easier than this.
2
10 built
3
Parting Shot
End
Identify the Boat:
1. USS Cubera
2. USS Searaven
3. USS Toro
Outstanding
Serenity – is this about a mountain lake, or a scifi series?
Government note seen elsewhere – the collective ineptitude is coalescing into total anarchy.
Saw something about a lance cpl. creating a #D replacement for an MUOS antenna mast. MIC cost is $5,644 per unit, while the 3D printed version was around $10. Delivery time for MIC special about 7 months, 3D version was 10 hours created on site. If true, which alphabet soup agency will first put a halt to it?
The drone/UAV metric – Estes model rockets we used to fire when I was a kid were UAVs. The questions of range, payload, and accuracy —- and intentions are the variables. A plastic rocket body (printing) and rocket fuel, or a small prop engine, have always been easy. Guidance is more difficult (particularly in a crosswind) and payload (a function of range) has become something the Ukes have been dealing with. Do you control it with a radio signal that can be interrupted, or do you fire what is in effect a cruise missile? Lifting body increases crossection. The variables are not endless but there are a lot of them depending on your intentions.
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Beltway bandits have pushed the cost of everything through the roof – oh, you need a RIM-174 missile at $5 million per unit for the current Block IA. I’m not implying that the SM-6 doesn’t work, but against a hundred $2,000 UAV’s, it’s disproportional. CDRSAL discussed this on the radio show with EdB the other day. US Navy and others need to think about lower cost and lower tech solutions to lowere cost and tech weapons. Many of us. (“Us vs Them”) have avocated for that, but the Bandits then offer a billion dollar solution that Congress loves instead of a $5,000 solution.
“… but the Bandits then offer a billion dollar solution that Congress loves instead of a $5,000 solution.”
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And why might that be?
Just spit-balling but probably not K-Street (which I have long advocated should be turned into a park), or how certain Congresscritters become multi-millionaires on $174k salaries. Nah, couldn’t be any of those or a hundred other reasons.
Don’t get cynical on me PaulM. Congress loves the little people as do our coastal elite. They believe us to be good thralls.
They like us as ‘compliant Matrix batteries’, nothing more. Thinking that tide is changing some.
You make a good battery, PaulM – keep working, paying taxes and consuming products created by your betters and the Red Chinese.
Taxes…you HAD to bring that up…despite working to protect ourselves we got fleeced anyway by those who believe we work for them, those sam scumbags who created confiscatory tax “laws” designed to lighten our bank accounts because somehow they believe they are entitled to my hard work and cap-gains from maintaining our prior property that someone thought was worth asking price after 25 years of working the place. Should have lied…but won’t. This year we go full Galt, keep the ‘thieves in Armani’ at bay. Bottom line: NO retiree living off savings and retirement funds should be paying taxes on anything over and above solid investment gains (at a seriously reduced rate, like 0.1%), or be required to pay property taxes (aka. rent from government on privately owned residential real estate), or a host of other IRS & Statehouse sanctioned “tax situations”. Incidentally, Montana tax liability = 0…the way it should be. (micro-rant over)
Ps. I am NOT ‘enthralled’…in fact, I am figuring a way to become ‘de-thralled’, assuming that’s possible with these (considering this week) “Brood of Vipers”…while the ‘Give us Barabbas’ crowd demands even more ‘pounds of flesh’. Gettin’ old.
Sorry. It had to be done…. https://youtu.be/zDlrGFfBHCA?si=YzI-pc7PAGj8zlSJ
I think that the writers have a thing about that – recurring topic.
Logan’s Run: “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” (really dating myself)
Quasimoto: “Sanctuary! Sanctuary”
The original.
I liked the reference to The Conversation which I just watched again for the first time in 40 years I think.
Many think Gene Hackman’s character in that movie was the same character as in Enemy of the People.
“All because you made a phone call!”
Nice pick up Ed…and Hackman looks similar in EotS with the glasses.
Both good movies, and we never did find out what happened to Harry Caul, did we?
RE: the parting shot. No disrespect meant to them of you what follows it, but there’s an old joke about a bunch of Mafia bosses sitting around whining about birth control being prohibited by the Pope and finally one laughs and says, “He don’t play-a the game, he don’t make-a the rules.”
Serenety: The farther I get away from people these days, the more serene I feel. Very much ties into the Carola piece.
Steve McQueen liked the middle of nowhere too.
“Hungry Ghosts” ordered, looking forward to the read. Sci Fi, cartels, politics, is an interesting mix. Thanks for pushing it out. Can’t wait to get at it.
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Swiss guards… they look old fashioned at the Vatican. The weapons are real. They know to use them. Plus, out of your vision but available, modern weapons. I’d suggest messing with the horse guard in England would be a safer person to play jokes on.
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“The Madison”, ok, I’ll give it a try. But only because you mentioned bobcats are in the story.
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Side question. So what’s the plan when the current ships on incoming missile drone interceptor picket duty in the Mid East need to reload? How far do they have to travel and how deep is the spares magazine in theater. Or will they rotate in different ships? Guess I’m asking a general logistics question as lots of shooting has been going on.
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Pope Leo. Well. Someone told him he had say something. So there is his shared wisdom for Holy Week. Maybe next year.
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Top art work. Really good mix of Chinese jade art along with Japanese Samurai mixed in. It generates more self reflection than Poe Leo’s recent helpful comments.
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Submarines are hard to identify. So much to learn about.
Side question. So what’s the plan when the current ships on incoming missile drone interceptor picket duty in the Middle East need to reload? How far do they have to travel, and how deep is the spare magazine in the theater? Or will they rotate in different ships? Guess I’m asking a general logistics question, since there’s been a lot of shooting going on.
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I don’t have access to restricted information, but I think that I know the answer to that. I won’t trumpet it on the blog, but that was worked out LONG before the present conflict. I think that it’s sufficient. And as to the PRC – there are always designer viruses that only kill the Han for them to worry about if they get into the “Kill the West” stuff. They wanted Taiwan without a fight, but it would mean the end of Middle East oil for them and when it comes down to it, who is the bigger enemy of Russia than Red China? It’s true that the Chinese are investing heavily in nuclear power plant, but they’re all pinned and vulnerable. The loss of Iran was a heavy blow for them.
Writing Science Fiction is difficult because the topic is so heavily plumbed. I think that I have a few topics such as Broken Toys that have not been completely wrung out. Read, enjoy, and wait for the twists at the end.
Right after I interviewed Larry and CDR Sal, I interviewed Paul Kengor about his recent book on Pope Leo.
I liked the book a lot.
And there’s a lot of good stuff on Francis, his predecessor.
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I started The Madison last night. So far so good.
Serenity: Excellent question. For me it has been a long pursuit with mode changes over time as my attitude about certain things adjust according to what age I find myself…the main thread is still to do life as elegantly as possible. New chapters give the opportunity, assuming one needs or desires to do so. One of the main themes in The Madison goes something like this: ‘Do you even try something new and unexpected or do you fight circumstances that come your way because they are unfamiliar?’ For me (us) (once the new ‘simple but nice’ hovel is completed – relearning fly fishing as a serene pursuit as the mood arises is one way to achieve the serenity goal….one cannot be thinking about building details or business or political goofballs while standing in the river and expect to be ‘in the moment’. Kurt Russell’s character is not thinking about his (obviously large) NYC holdings while sitting on the cabin porch sipping a nice bourbon listening to the elk bugle, or casting a fly onto a promising eddy. Serenity is ours to decide how that comes…could be a good LL book while sitting in a favorite chair. (yup, a shameless brown-noser plug)
I do so love to fly fish.
Poetry in motion.
Note: I think Russell is better than he shows but is effecting a somewhat novice form to contrast his brother’s more elegant practiced style, and as he stays longer he gets ‘better’. Knowing Sheridan’s attention to detail I suspect this is purposeful…lose the stiff Manhattan embodiment for the flow of the land and river. (Now I sound like I’m in AP English.)
Another thought on serenity – I like the secret of being content whatever the circumstances. Getting there is a journey in itself.
X2
Serenity. Some where far off the pavement. Turn off the noise. Something on the order of a babbling brook helps a lot. For me, a particular mark of the changing seasons, left over from my childhood–the first high, reedy, call of the migrating Sandhill cranes.
Spot on…and the cranes just showed up here last week…noisy buggers, but wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Serenity – behind the wheel, most often. Long distance is best, away from people even better.
Also solitude (ish) w/ books and music.
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17th century causes of sailor death – leaving port, mostly.
Also, to a somewhat lesser magnitude, remaining in port.
– Kle.
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar.
Wifey and I binged watched The Madison last Sunday and————-it reinforces my idea that if something ever were to happen in this country like what is happening in Iran right now, 40% of the US would die within 60 days. If 20 and 30 year old girls don’t know how to squat in the woods, They can’t survive the first wave.
And they don’t know to check the ground for rattlesnakes before squatting…
Or the one holer for wasps.
X2
opening portrait?
have pity on the poor soul; that all-rice diet will get you terribly constipated.
“Question of the day:”
just roaming around in my own head; not looking for anything in particular
Skydivers. People who pay good money to willingly jump out of a perfectly good airplane are not to be trusted. Especially, should you be the pilot of the perfectly good airplane, you should expect the last asshole out the door will suddenly turn off your mags and take the key with him/her. Always have a spare key in your pocket.
My dad, an ex-F-84G pilot, had nothing nice to say to people who willingly jump out of planes without an emergency happening. He also had the remarkably macabre statement of “Elbows In!” whenever an ejection seat scene popped up on any movie or tv show. (Old school ejection seats tended to knock the ejector’s elbows against the cockpit coaming, thus, elbows in!)
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I have never ever wanted to jump out of an airplane. I barely want to jump off the tailgate of a pickup truck backed up to a dock, let alone from the tailgate to the ground.
Snort… Mining… we used to spend literally a week getting through the mining quals. And the MK-60 series is nothing more than MK-82 iron bombs with ‘stuff’ added to make them work as mines. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll finally get rid of all those Vietnam era bombs! Re Hungry Ghosts, it IS up in Kindle! Halfway through and loving it!
Half way though? Pace yourself.
These things must be savored…
That first sub. Looks like the post-war GUPPY modifications to the WWII fleet boats. Removing deck guns and railing to increase underwater speed and reduce radar signatures. Though I like the look of a sub with a deck gun.
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Read somewhere or heard somewhere, can’t remember, slept since, that Iran basically had their versions of NORK missiles and they had a 1st stage booster they could add to their normal supposedly 2k km range missile that actually turned out to be roughly a 4k km range missile. Said 1st stage would give an additional 2k-4k km range. Considering how well they’ve been able to target our bases around the region, having that level of range and rough accuracy would make all of Europe within range of IRBMs launched from Iran. And, of course, how many ship-board launchers on Iran flagged or owned ships that could sail within range of the US?
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As to the Swiss Guard, there was another unit that was protecting Louis XVI that got massacred during the French Revolution. Though they also put up a rather stiff resistance, they died, though they impressed their attackers.
Serenity: being in my boat, salmon fishing, 10 miles out in lake Michigan. Far enough that you can’t see the shore or another boat.