Tag Archives: general

The Desire for Indenpence

We’re now approaching the two year anniversary for when California, in a fit of insanity, granting my license to drive. I have had multiple permits while owning motorcycles – and somehow an event would take the motorcycle away before I I could be fully licensed. The last two years have been good. I haven’t hit anything, and I have managed to avoid a couple of truly frightening collisions. (Nothing on the road with myself behind the wheel has dissuaded me on iota from that dream of fully automatic cars and no human drivers.) Continue reading

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The Dream

I dreamt I was back in the Navy. At the start of the dream I was aboard a Submarine with my friend Brad. There was a particular scene where we watched as a sailor went up a ladder and as the ship rolled the sailor smoothly went from one face of the ladder to the other face traversing a complete 180 degrees.  It would literally be like if the ship rolled upside down and you had to use the reverse side of the ladder. My dreams can often seem very real at the time but have the most unreal events in them. I showed Brad around the ship a bit, explaining how the layout worked; we even passed a rather large open elevated compartment with a placard indicating it was the “Imperious Flying Bridge.”

Soon it was morning and by this time the ship was no longer a submarine but a surface ship, a very large one like a battleship.  I started to be very concerned because I had no idea where to find my division, and I had to find them and stand with them at muster. At this point I awoke.

For those not in the know I was in the U.S. Navy from 1979 to 1982. I did not make a very good sailor; the military life was not for me, though I have a deep and sincere respect for those who do serve. It is part of why I write military SF.

It seems every four or five years I have a dream where I am back in military service, rarely does the discomfort in these dreams rise to a nightmare, but usually there is the element that I don’t belong. Like last night’s dream when I was lost at muster. There can be no doubt that the service left an enduring mark upon me.

I think this is the first time a friend of mine who had never served was somehow in the Navy with me.  I guess that’s an example of a phantom pressganging. Hmm is there a fantasy. horror, or an RPG adventure in that concept? I’ll have to think about it.

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A brief look down memory lane

The other day I had the urge to look upon my childhood home. Now, that home is in another state that happens to be located on the far side of the North American continent from where I currently reside. This being the 21st century those things were not insurmountable problems. What was more of a problem was that I had no idea of the address.

After consulting with my brothers and sisters, they were able to give me the data I needed in order to not only find it on google maps, but see it through the google map street view function.

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Goals for 2012

These are not resolutions in the New Year’s Eve ‘I’m going to promise to utterly change my life, eat right, exercise, and then feel awful when I fail’, but rather SMART goals that I want to achieve in the coming year. Continue reading

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Good and bad

The last week has been both good and bad. It was a good christmas with my sweetie-wife surprising me with a couple of gifts I did not expect her to pick-up for me. (HALO: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition & Ben-Hur 50th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray) I had good time with my sweetie-wife, friends and even squeezed in a decent movie on Christmas morning. (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. A good film but not a movie for you if you expect all your spy films to have lots of action, chases, and scantily clad babes.)

It’s been a bad week arthritis-wise. It started badly A week ago Monday and got progressively worse through the week. By the weekend my fingers hurt constantly and I could’t play the new video game I had received for Christmas. By Sunday night thanks to the weekly dosing of my meds, I was feeling better. However my fingers, stressed after a long hard day at work will not let me spend 90 minuets writing tonight. Which is a shame because I have finally figured out the plotting to my next short story, a story that is a commitment to my writer’s group project.

 

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