Hodgepodge

Happy Birthday to my best friend, companion and life partner jgaleckas.

May it be joy filled!

As I promised after living in the Chicago metro area almost all of the fifty plus years of my life - I will miss some things and not miss others.

Things I Will Miss

Family - While I have no family in Chicago (only child, no children of my own and Mom is already down here) jgaleckas has two kids who both live in the Chicago area. The son and his family we see not so much but Tamara is like the daughter I never had. She is fun to be around and I love her a lot. We usually got together at least once a week and always have a good time. I will miss that a lot.

Urban Convenience - No doubt about it, it is nice to live within 30 minutes or less of Best Buy, Sam's Club, Menard's, Lowe's, Petsmart, and movie theaters. Here at the farm, it is 2 hours to St. Louis for most of these except Lowes and Movies which are an hour away. So no last minute running out for something. Trips into the 'big city' will have to be planned and shopping lists made. In between trips we will just have to get by.

Public Transportation - As a child growing up my Mom and I went everywhere on the bus. I even remember the old electric buses that ran got their power from overheard wires. (Yes I am that old). Later when I lived in the suburbs the Metra commuter trains were a great to avoid the parking hassle when going downtown for something. The last dozen years or so that I have lived with Janice in Cicero, we were tow blocks from the L and always used that for trips downtown and to ballgames. At least the traffic here is not so bad and parking rarely costs anything.

Culture and the Lake front - If you have never been to the Lake front it is really beautiful. The city has done a wonderful job with the beaches and landscaping along the Lake and I have never seen any city do it better. That along with Grant Park and Millennium Park add to the joy of just walking around downtown, admiring the architecture and the plantings. The there are the great museums and such. It will be fun to discover what St. Louis has in addition to the riverfront and the Arch but I will miss those walks around downtown Chicago.

Baseball - I have been a White Sox fan since I was three years old, I remember my father taking me to the games (he was a HUGE fan) and how the ballpark was like a whole new world filled with people, sounds, smells and excitement. At that time I didn't care who won but I knew some of the player's names and shouted them along with the rest of the fans. By the time the Sox were in the 1959 World Series I knew a lot about baseball. I was a little bummed I has to watch the the Sox win the 2005 Series form our resort room at Disney but talk about the best of both worlds! I may catch a Sox game occasionally if it works out on return trips to Chicago and I will always be a fan even if I don't see them play much. I also enjoyed going to a few Cubs games and some Kane County Cougars minor league games as well. I don't see myself becoming a big Cardinals fan although I do follow them more since we have been coming down here.

Broadband - As I write this I am connected a whopping 28K over dial-up. Because we are on a very small trunk we are not cost effective for DSL. There is no cable here and we are too far from a cell tower for wireless. The only way we can get broadband is to go with a satellite dish and that has the disadvantages of hundreds for upfront costs, high monthly rates and a dish on the roof. We may have to go that route if we finally pull enough hair out of our heads over the crawl of dial-up but I miss my 1 Meg DSL.

Things I Will NOT Miss

The Neighbors - While most of the folks on the block are good, the one house next door has a family with several youth who are borderline delinquent. They sit o the front stoop every day drinking alcohol, smoking dope talking loud and profanely and throwing their garbage in out yard. The people they hang out with probably are the ones who stole our orange trees earlier this year and try repeatedly and unsuccessfully to break into the garage. Yeah I won't miss them at all.

The Noise - We live one block off Cicero Avenue near two railroad yards between two of the busiest expressways in the metro area. Trucks pound the pavement all day and night bouncing over bumps, using engine breaks and blowing their air horns. Add to that motorcycles screaming down the road, airplanes from Midway flying overhead and loud car stereo's rattling the windows and it's a wonder I got to sleep at all. The only noise I will miss is the train whistles - I love that sound and unfortunately all the tracks in the vicinity of the farm are abandoned. Of course here at the farm we have crickets, peep frogs, birds chirping and the occasional hoot owl but who's complaining?

The Foul Air - The same trains, semis, buses and airplanes spew huge amounts of soot into the air. When it lands it becomes a gray dust that gets on everything. In a week the fans on the computer are clogged with it and it coats everything. At the farm it takes weeks to build up dust and it is white. I breathe easier now.

The Traffic - Too many cars, not enough lanes. This applies to local streets as well as expressways. The Eisenhower is the worst culprit. That road can be backed up any time of day, any day of the week in either direction. Here at the farm if two cars go by an hour it is busy. The advantage to living on a road that turns into gravel less than a mile down the road. Yeah I like that.

Living on top of your neighbor - Lot size in Cicero 35' by 150'. Lot size at the farm 27 acres. Do I need to say more?

Too Many Rats In the Box - Cook County Population approx 6 million, Reynolds County Population approx 6 thousand. How's that for orders of magnitude?

I will miss Chicago for sure but I believe I will be happier here at the farm, surrounded by the person I love, four cats and the beauty of the forest. A new chapter begins.

A disappointing issue with two exceptions:

Broken Windchimes by Kristine Kathryn Rusch is a novella about a singer who leaves a life of perfection and discovers a whole new world of music. Touching, with a twist of irony. Rusch rarely writes a poor story and this is no exception.

Soulmates by Mike Resnick and Lezli Robyn is a tale of a human befriending a robot and both of them growing out of the experience. Mike writes these kinds of story with insight and feeling that is not often seen in short fiction. If you see his name on the cover of an anthology or magazine - buy it. His writing is always excellent.

Corrected to add Lezli's name to Soulmates. I overlooked her name in the credit. My deepest apologies to Lezli and thank to Mike Resnick for pointing it out.

A typical issue with only three stories worth mentioning:

Michael Flynn's novella Where the Winds Are All Asleep has a very Journey to the Center of the Earth feel to it and is exciting to the conclusion where it falls it a little flat.

The Autumn of the Empire by Jerry Oltion is a short that looks at what happens when the Emperor is always right on a planetary scale in a humorous way.

The real gem is Shallow Copy by Jesse L. Watson. It is a novelette that looks at what responsibility we have when creating an A.I. from both sides of the equation. IT is wonderfully written and conveys a great depth of emotion and is very thought provoking. Definitely going on the Hugo list.

The other highlight is Stan Schmidt's editorial on blindly following what today's technology tells us.

Today we take our four cats down to the house in Missouri. The oldest cat has been there once just to see how she traveled (8 hours in the van). It went well so we are optimistic.

We only have two cat carriers so the the twins will have to ride in a large cardboard box. Once we get on the road we will let them roam the van for self preservation – 8 hours of mewling tends to fray one’s nerves. That means of course making sure when we stop at rest areas we have to prevent an escape. I am thinking of Steve McQueen on a motorcycle…

It will be interesting to see who catches the first mouse at the farmhouse since we have recently seen signs of an incursion – my money is on the boy cat Sammy.

Moving the cats means we are for all intents moved to the farm even though we still will be coming back to Chicago to attend to the house until something is finalized but the trips up here will be shorter and less frequent.

In the next day or so I will share what I will miss and not miss about life in the big city.

On this last trip to the farm, we didn’t do a lot of physical work like clearing the foundation, but we did get more of the moving stuff done - I got my Missouri driver’s license, we got the house fully insured, and moved the van and truck insurance down there.

We also got the washer and dryer hooked and did our first load of laundry – woo hoo!

We will get the van plated in Missouri in a week or so and once Janice gets a few items up here cleared up she will get her Missouri driver’s license.

The exciting thing is that later this week we plan to take the cats down and then for all practical purposes we will be moved. There are still some things to bring down and we are still wrestling with the rent or sell issue on the house in Cicero which will require some return trips but not the every week like we have been doing.

I am happy - yes

TITLE Denver Is Missing
AUTHOR D. F. Jones
PUBLISHER Berkley –mass market paperback -256pp
COPYRIGHT 1971
PRINTING 1974

Written in the era of great disaster films such as The Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno and Earthquake, this book could have been made into such a film with one exception – it focuses more on the four main characters than the disaster.

 

The event that underlies the story is the release of huge volumes of nitrogen when a expedition to penetrate the earth’s mantle succeeds. He release is not a onetime event, however, as the nitrogen continues to spew causing a great cloud to drift over the U.S. mainland. While the nitrogen is harmless, in the high concentrations, it actually thins the oxygen to a dangerous level, causing problems for people with breathing or heart problems and eventually worsens to affect any body.

 

The four main characters are:

                Mitch - a geologist who was a key member of the team that released the gas

                Bette – a doctor who is friends with Mitch who is deeply scarred by her experience in Denver

                Bill – The English captain of the sailing yacht Mayfly. He is a friend of Bette who is a very good sailor.

                Karen – the girl friend of Bill who has an interesting past.

 

As things gets bad in Northern California – a tidal wave among other things – Our impromptu band sails south on the Mayfly looking to escape and start over. Things are not good in San Diego so they end up sailing for Australia. The main story deals with this odyssey as well as the inevitable personal relationships that develop in such close quarters.

 

The pace of the novel is steady, and while not quite a page-turner, it kept my interest up. We don’t learn a lot about the characters past but we do get to know how they feel now in a close sense. The Sailing details are solid and exciting at times. What I liked about the novel was that while Jones focuses on the four main characters, he brings the pending disaster back into focus when needed and the description of the aftermath once the geological climax has occurred is well done and believable.

 

Not a must-read novel but if you run across it in a library or used book store it will be worth your time.

Rating       Three Rings of Saturn

TITLE The Stars My Destination

AUTHOR Alfred Bester

PUBLISHER Vintage -Trade paperback -258pp

COPYRIGHT 1956

PRINTING 1996

Considered by some to be Bester's best novel, it is the tale of Gully Foyle, a spacer of no renown who speaks gutter and gets only the lowest jobs on a ship. His life changes drastically when he is marooned for six months as the only survivor of the wreck of the Nomad. The Vorga passes by close enough to hail but it goes on leaving Foyle stranded. He gets so worked up over this he manages to find a way to leave the ship and lands in the asteroid belt where a group of people rescues him but disfigures his face.

The story from here is all about the grudge against the Vorga, and no one holds a grudge like Gully Foyle. He rapes, maims, and murders to find the crew of the ship that left him to die. He becomes the most wanted man in the solar system and poses as a circus master to cover his tracks. In the end, he finds out why he was passed by and even more shocking information.

This is a fantastic story, but it is quite dated, as are many classic science fictions stories of the 40 and 50. I also felt that the character of Gully Foyle is not very well developed and that many of his escapes from certain capture are too contrived to be believable.

There is a quote on the cover that states this is considered by many to be the greatest science fiction novel ever. I dispute that strongly. Several novels by Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov and others wrote much more interesting stories that stand up today. In fact, I would say this isn't near as good a novel as The Demolished Man. The novel is worth reading certainly and I enjoyed it, but it has its flaws.

Rating

TITLE Blood and Iron

AUTHOR Elizabeth Bear

PUBLISHER Roc - mass market paperback - 431pp

COPYRIGHT 2006

PRINTING 2008

This is first in the Promethean Age series. It is a story about the Prometheans - a group of mortal mages - and the fairies. These two forces are at an uneasy peace but that's about to change. The catalyst is the knowledge that a new Merlin is in the world. Merlins only appear every generation or two and they are special - they do not use magic they control it. That power makes them a valuable ally so as you can guess, both sides decide to woo the Merlin.

The story winds through a complex plot that involves werewolves, power struggles within the fae world, and even the minions of hell get involved. The climax takes place in Times Square in front of the mundane world and that will require some clean up.

I have not read many books that deal with the world of the fae and so many of the in jokes and plot lines were not easy for me to get. That combined with the pace of the book in the beginning, made me almost put it down after the first few chapters. I persevered and enjoyed the book somewhat. I felt the book suffered from an identity crisis; it couldn't decide if it was action, fantasy, or romance. In the end it gets sorted out but not clearly.

If you are a fan of this type of fantasy, you will probably like it more than I did. Other wise - I would recommend you pass.

Rating

Congrats to Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle, who pitched a perfect game today against the reigning American League champion Tampa Bay Rays.

Buehrle retired all 27 batters he faced to achieve something only 17 other pitchers have done in the history of the game. The last was Randy Johnson in 2004.

This gem comes just two seasons after he pitched a no-hitter against the Texas Rangers.

As is often the case, a spectacular play saved saved the perfection. The first hitter in the ninth hit one to left-center field and Dwayne Wise (who was put in the game in the top of the ninth for defensive purposes) leaped and caught the ball before it went over the wall for a home run. He hit the wall so hard it jarred the ball loose but he caught it with his bare hand.

This is why the game of baseball is the most exciting for me.

Way to go Mark!

Unfortunately a very thin mix of stories. One of the two novelettes was interesting – California Burning  by Michael Blumlein – if it had had a stronger ending I would have added it to my Hugo list but a good read nonetheless.

Of the five short stories, only one was worthwhile. The Consciousness Problem by Mary Robinette Kowal is a wonderful tale about clones that examines the emotions in a powerful way. It is on my Hugo list and is worth buying the magazine for.

The other item of note in this issue is the results of the Reader’s Awards.

I have come to expect this kind of issue from Asimov’s. TO me they have fallen into the trap of publishing stories from authors that are known in the genre but the stories have no connection to the genre. A dangerous trend if you ask me. I for one will not renew if they continue down this path.

TITLE The Edge of the World

AUTHOR Kevin J. Anderson

PUBLISHER Orbit - trade paperback - 574 pp.

COPYRIGHT 2009

PRINTING 2009

COVER ART Lee Gibbons

After writing nearly a dozen novels in the "Dune" universe (with Brian Herbert) and the outstanding seven-volume space epic The Saga of the Seven Suns, Anderson has turned to fantasy in his latest series. This book is the first part in an expected trilogy call Terra Incognita.

The world he creates is two continents connected by an isthmus. There is just a hint of magic, sea creatures are large and scary but have no super powers, and much of the mystique is in the legends. The technology and knowledge level is comparable to 12^th or 13^th century Earth. The northern continent is called Tierra, and is populated by a culture that is Scandinavian-like. The southern continent is called Uraba and is very western Asian/Mid-Eastern.

The main story line revolves around a holy war that is ignited by accident when a fire breaks out in the Uraban section of Ishalem, a divided city on the isthmus much like Jerusalem. It occurs, ironically, when the two leaders are meeting there to celebrate a treaty that will assure peace and prosperity for the future. Tempers flare as both sides think the other started the fire and in the end the city is totally destroyed.

The secondary storyline is about discovery; the Tierrans send a ship to the unknown waters west which leads to disaster, and the Urabans send an expedition south across the vast desert to find another civilization and possibly a way to defeat the Tierrans.

As you would expect from Anderson, there are many characters whose stories are woven into the web of the story. I found two that were very interesting. Adrea, a young Tierran, sees her new husband off on the ship that sails to the unknown and then is captured when the Urabans raid her village. She finds favor with the young leader of Uraba and ends up bearing him children and in the end is forced to do something terrible. The second is Prester Hannes who is send to Uraba as a religious spy, almost burns to death in the fire, is nursed back to health by the daughter of the old Uraban ruler, and escapes to cause havoc for the Urabans. His descent into darkness is very well written.

Surprisingly, I was a little disappointed at the end of the book. Anderson wraps up a few of the main storylines, but too much was left for the next book making it somewhat unsatisfying. I know that in a series some things need to be left hanging, but the book also needs to be good as a stand-alone. This book reads much like Hidden Empire, the opening volume of Seven Suns, but it is not as exciting or compelling as that series was, not to mention it doesn't have the awesome ending of Hidden Empire.

Make no mistake, this is an excellent novel and I recommend it. I am confident the next two volumes will pull it all together and make the trilogy a satisfying read but my expectations are high when reading Kevin Anderson and this one misses just a little.

Rating

Over the holiday weekend jgaleckas and I took another load of stuff down to the farm. We are about two or three more trips from being their permanently. We will still have to come back here for a day or two do take care of selling the house and some issues that may pop up but we are very close.

The bulk of the move this time was the entertainment electronics - Xbox 360 plus widescreen TV at farm - life is good.

The garden is looking fab - cabbage starting to form heads, lots of flowers on the tomatoes and the potatoes are really growing. I see some good eating later this summer. The garden is a real source of joy for Janice. She was out every morning weeding and nurturing. This is the first time we have been down often enough to properly care for the garden and it is showing.

Still having troubles with the telephone. A few weeks ago there was a couple of sever thunderstorms that rocked the farm while we were up here in Chi town. The last time down it took two service calls to get a new network interface box which helped the buzz in the line and we were finally able to get on the internet but at a slower connection than we normally get which is crappy.

This time down there is still a lot of static in the line and a hum from time to time. We have checked the internal wiring and are good there so the problem is somewhere in the line to the house. With the last weekend being the holiday we chose not to call CenturyTel but next time down we will have to start bugging them. The cable that serve our area is probably 20 or thirty years old and everyone on our circuit has slow dial-up and other issues. Maybe with enough complaints they will have to replace it and we can finally get some decent dial-up. DSL is not in the cards due to so few people served by the access point, but if we could get 40k+ dial-up we could manage.

Looking forward to the next load this weekend.

As most of you know, we are in the midst of the world’s longest move. As we are down to our last few loads, we decided to take the oldest cat down this time to see how she traveled and how she reacts to the new house.

We set her carrier just behind the front seats in the van so she could see us and once we got on the interstate, I took her out of the carrier and put her on my lap. (Janice was driving)

This helped calm her down a bit but after a while she wanted back in the carrier. She continued to meow more than usual – I don’t think she liked the constant movement of the van – but after a few hours she quieted down and we were able to let her out of the carrier and she would go from a lap, to sitting on top of the cooler in between the front seats to curling up on the back seat.

Considering the longest trip we ever took her on was 2 miles to the vet’s office, Flicker did well.

Oh and she really has enjoyed the farm. A new place to explore and with no other cats around she is getting more attention and she really likes that.

When I first saw the original (released in 1974 and starring Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw and Martin Balsam) on late night TV (yes they actually showed movies at 10:30 in those days) in the late 70's, I was blown away by the taught acting, gritty sets, excellent plot and poignant ending. I haven't seen the original for at least ten years so with the anticipation of two quality actors - Denzel Washington and John Travolta - I figured it would be worth seeing this remake.

I loved it!

Washington plays a high ranking MTA official who is under investigation for bribery who happens to get the dispatch console that includes the Pelham train on the day when baddie Travolta executes a well thought out plan to hijack the train for ransom. The main story revolves around the odd relationship the two form during this ordeal.

This remake is every bit as well-acted as the original - I especially like James Gandolfini's performance as the lame duck mayor of New York who can't wait to finish his term and get out, but John Turturro's performance as the NYPD negotiator was forced and lackluster. The action is much more intense in this version, (what else would you expect form Tony Scott) especially the scenes involving the police getting the ransom to the subway station and the motivation for the hijacking is different than the original and the ending is similar but not the same.
 
The strength of the film is Washington/Travolta chemistry. They both play their roles extremely well and I doubt any other two actors would have worked this well. I highly recommend this film is you like action and fine acting.

I love classic science fiction from the forties and fifties. The two things I find most interesting about reading novels from that era are future technology and how wrong or right they got it; and the less formulaic storytelling style. This book is no exception.

Van Vogt writes about Gilbert Gosseyn, a member of the null-A society who is hoping to improve himself in the competition held by the Games Machine in the year 2560. What is null-A? It is a way of thinking that casts-off the dogma of the last two millennia and raises the consciousness to a higher level. The machine typically rewards those with high marks in null-A thinking.

Unfortunately Gosseyn is eliminated from the competition because he is not who he thinks he is – at least to the Machine and the others in his immediate group. This starts him out on a quest to find out what is going on. He gets involved in a major plan to conquest the out solar system, is killed but comes back to life, and eventually becomes something more than he could imagine.

This well written story will keep you guessing throughout. There is a lot of philosophy in the book because it is important to fully appreciate the novel. As with many novels of that period, it is somewhat moralistic but that is not a bad thing. Having read other Van Vogt novels like Slan and The Weapon Shops of Isher I was not surprised by the quality of this book.

A great look at the era.

I give it 4 rings of Saturn

Every month jgaleckas and I go downtown to meet some of here ex-coworkers (she is retired) for lunch. We go to different places near her old workplace on Wabash and Jackson. Afterward we usually stroll around Millennium Park looking at the gardens. During our walk today we went by Buckingham Fountain and whoa! - the pink gravel is gone. It was replaced by pink concrete pavers.

In fact there are 235,000 square feet of pavers around the fountain making it the largest decorative permeable installation in the U.S.
I think it looks nice and it certainly will be easier for wheelchairs, scooters and power chairs to get around the area.

For more technical details see this.

For a picture and some pro and con about it see this.

The second surprise was at the Harold Washington Library stop on the CTA Pink Line. As we reached the top of the stairs and looked toward the lake to see if the train was coming, I spied a couple of flat screen digital displays cycling through advertisements and public service info hanging from the roof of the platform.

It appears it is a way for the CTA to raise money in these tough times for city finances - to the tune of $100 million over the next ten years. My question is how long will the displays stay there before some delinquent figures it will look better on their wall than the CTA's.

More info here.

Several interesting panels - the one on plagues quite fascinating.
Two great filk concerts by filkertom and seanan_mcguire 
A prime rib dinner and then Trivia for Chocolate.
On the way to car to head home a few minutes of the Tesla Coils and we were well and truly "conned"
Wrap up today a few panels, maybe a filk concert and closing ceremonies where we get to hear the best songs made from some really words from opening ceremonies.

I love scifi cons.

Opening ceremonies were great - especially the talking skull Bob form the Dresden books - Jim Butcher is the Author GOH.

The improv "Who's Line Is It" - was a hoot. Tom Smith, Seanen McGuire, Gretchen Roper, a guy I don;t know and a friend of Seanen from the audience who was hilarious, made for a fun time.

The highlight was the singing Tesla Coils. If you have never seen these and get a chance DO NOT PASS IT UP! They actually make these two 7 foot tall coils make music and it is impressive. Even cooler is what they do to a CD (the current destroy the substrate so they are clear afterward)

We then went to a presentation that showed the results of what goes wrong when handling huge magnet from MRI machines and particles accelerators among others.

Fun stuff and now to breakfast and day 2!

When it comes to excessive executive pay I am as disgusted as the next person, but for the government to set the rules is too invasive in my opinion. The problem as I see it is that like so many of these types of government interference is where do you draw the line? In a free market society the government should not tell private companies how to run themselves. That is the job of the management, the board of directors and the stockholders (if the company is publicly traded).

Granted the system has problems, but in the end companies that pay executives insane amounts of money usually end up bankrupt or finally end up changing the pay anyway. If you think about it, many of the financial institutions that were paying execs dump trucks full of money went belly-up. The government just happened to say "that's OK here's some bailout money for you." If we had let them fail, it would have sent a stronger message that if you want to stay in business, run a tight ship. The automotive industry is another example. I doubt they will be paying their CEO's anywhere near the money they were before the fall.

As an owner of companies we give bailout money too we should have a say in executive pay as well as other key areas, but only because we the taxpayers are major stockholders.

This article outlines the debate.