#IWSG – MARCH 2019 CHECK IN – FROM WHOSE PERSPECTIVE DO I PREFER TO WRITE? PROTAGONIST OR ANTAGONIST?

This is a real poser for me. I'm pretty much a rhetorical writer and the very small bits and pieces of fiction that I've dabbled in have been from a rather omniscient view and a not very well-organized one, at that. I tend to feel like I have the early days of the Bolshevik Revolution shouting out the beginnings of some kind of Constitution after the October Revolution in my head most of the time and I rest sublimely within my bubble of confusion, with Lenin, Bulganin, Trotsky, et al. , shouting at once and only coming out when necessary to deal with such things as rent, bills and such necessities. This is what solitary living has done to me. I'm comfortable in my bubble, but probably a bit too comfortable and need to get out more.

That being said, I'm not out of ideas of things to write about, nor opinions about daily life around me. The 'hood is still the 'hood and still full of the usual colorful people and antics. Our current mission in V. M. Ybor is to get Trinity Cafe shut down and moved out of here, as what we feared has come to pass. It has become a magnet for more ne'er do-wells and lay-abouts and way too many people with no fixed address who have driven up the already-alarming crime rates in this district.

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS 100% FACT-FREE!

I have no idea what this building was originally. I have to walk (at a dead run) past this on my way to the bus stop. You can't really see in the windows, 'cause it's all dark and shadowy, with dirty windows and shapes move soundlessly within. I suspect this may have indirectly caused me to break my left hip when I fell last October, although I wasn't near this building. This kinda Evil travels. It's a Proven Fact!

On a lighter note, the Checkers of the Damned is still in business across from the real Checkers on Floribraska Avenue and Nebraska Avenue, where all the cool guys and ghouls can drive their Christines thru the Drive-thru and get Maggot Burgers after 12 a. m. Free this week; a side-order of deep-fried fungus; only with coupon. Yum!

Anyway, not to meander, what was the question again? Oh! Pro or con? Not sure. If I ever think of writing an epic piece of fiction, I'll probably write from both views, cosmo-like. I like the idea of playing a chess game with myself! Happy #IWSG'ing!

#IWSG MAY 2018 CHECK-IN – ON WHY I WAS ABSENT IN APRIL, AND NEVER AGAIN

I realize that life is a river and a journey and all of those lovely things that people love to tell us when we're traversing this mortal coil, but these last several years have been very difficult for me, and I think it culminated in a horrendous break-up in late March, early April of this year. I was basically gas-lighted, made promises to and let up a primrose path for almost three years, by someone I put my trust in and I should have known better and passed on what I passed on approximately 20 years ago, but I am a trusting soul and that is hard to change.

Anyway, because I have essential tremor and because the stress takes such an enormous physical toll on people who have that disorder, I was pretty well out of it for a while and spent my time hiding and crying; basically mourning for someone who never existed in the first place. Silly me.

As you can tell by the tenor of this post, I've snapped back, and I actually feel better than I've felt in ages, at least since this person has been in my life and since the death of Jim. Rationality and my old logical sense have returned and I pity the next person, the individual about whom I am writing falls prey to his spell. I passed on the option to be “one of his two best friends”, since he had married his last “one of two best friends” and did nothing but bitch about her. He can now feel free to bitch about me and I'm fine with it. At least I don't have to hear it. There's something wrong with someone who does nothing but complain about EVERYONE in their lives and I suspect we're looking at a rampant case of narcissism. But that's not my concern.

It is starting to get hot here again in Tampa. It had been cool for sooo long and that was nice. I've been able to open up my house. A new cat has adopted me, and she's a riot. There's no petting allowed, but she's terribly happy to come in, eat my vittles and hang out. I, of course, forget she's here until she startles me and I either reach for a lamp (see “The Great House Invasion of 2016), or jump out of my skin. Either way, she'll get used to me. She stares at me like an owl, and I came up with an unusually shitty name for her: “Who”, until my friend, Jeremy pointed out, we could do the “Who's on First?” routine, and my other friend Josh, concocted this mental image of me out in my yard, yelling “Whoooo! Time to come in!” Gah. Just terrible. So, she's "no-name" for now. Anyway, happy IWSG'ing for everyone, and I wish you all well! I'm getting back into my writing routine as well, too and that feels wonderful!

#IWSG CHECK IN FEBRUARY 2018 - WHERE THE HELL HAVE I BEEN?

Good question. I've mostly been depressed and when I wasn't depressed, I was sick, or in the hospital. This finally culminated with what (I swear) is going to my last hospitalization for quite a while in early January, due to mis-calibrated medication, which resulted in pancreatitis, followed by a nasty case of this flu that has been going around in Florida, two days after my hospital discharge. I also had a flu shot, so the three weeks I spent in bed with the flu was a best-case outcome. People younger and healthier than me, are dying of this in Florida and in several other states and the flu has not peaked yet. It's pretty frightening really. It also helped me to appreciate that fact that I'm really in relatively good health and reminded me that I need to start being grateful for that and get my head out of my own ass. 

So, it's back to the orchestra and back to writing. This month's question is a good one, and when I write fiction, which I write very little of, but am trying to remedy THAT situation, I tend to write in a science fiction-fantasy type mode, as Alex J. Cavanaugh would say, and for many of the same reasons. 

I think, too, that writing speculatively also helps to relieve some of the stresses of the modern world's problems and that thinking in an alternate universe kind of way, is another way to approach solutions to things that may not seem so solvable. People seem to be so intransigent now, but I think they're just really scared over nothing. It would be so great if we could just all put our differences aside and think rationally about the really grave problems that we're all facing in this world. Writing speculatively is one way to get through that, I think. 

Anyway, that's my take. It's really good to be back on my feet after such a prolonged bunch of craziness and misery, but I'm here for the long haul. Thanks, everyone for a great #IWSG experience. 

HOMELESS CHRONICLES IN TAMPA - FUN WITH SETI@HOME, SUNDAY CHECK IN #ROW80 #NANOWRIMO 2 DAYS IN




SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is a scientific area whose goal is to detect intelligent life outside Earth. One approach, known as radio SETI, uses radio telescopes to listen for narrow-bandwidth radio signals from space. Such signals are not known to occur naturally, so a detection would provide evidence of extraterrestrial technology.

Radio telescope signals consist primarily of noise (from celestial sources and the receiver's electronics) and man-made signals such as TV stations, radar, and satellites. Modern radio SETI projects analyze the data digitally. More computing power enables searches to cover greater frequency ranges with more sensitivity. Radio SETI, therefore, has an insatiable appetite for computing power.

Previous radio SETI projects have used special-purpose supercomputers, located at the telescope, to do the bulk of the data analysis. In 1995, David Gedye proposed doing radio SETI using a virtual supercomputer composed of large numbers of Internet-connected computers, and he organized the SETI@home project to explore this idea. SETI@home was originally launched in May 1999.

FUN WITH SETI

I've been keeping abreast with my writing for NaNoWriMo. Which reminds me: Q: What is this? (besides a really bad joke, and an even worse drawing):

A: 2 Men Walking A Breast. I could riff on this, with "2 Men Walking a Brest," although how you'd walk a whole European city is beyond me, or "2 Men Walking a Beast," but living where I do I see this every day. "2 Men Walking a Beast," either of the 4-legged or the 2-legged variety a-lenty, so this is not a novel enough thing to disregard around here. This is Nebraska Ave., 33605, 33602, after all. So too are "2 Men Walking a Beat;" the law enforcement kind, or the hip-hop kind to be found here pretty regularly.

THIS IS THE CHECK IN PART. I WROTE ACTUAL WORDS AND SENTENCES, COHERENTLY, AND FORMED PARAGRAPHS, TOO! Anyway, I am 4,432 words into this year's NaNoWrimo for 2013, as of day 2 and today looms, No biggie. I have my outline, beat sheet, the next segment plotted in my head (sort of) and all of that happy-crappy. Once again, poor #ROW80 has taken a hit, once AGAIN (remember the A-to-Z blogging challenge last spring?) and I owe her so much. Without #ROW80, none of this would be happening. I'm going to be checking in for Alex J. Cavanaugh's #IWSG this Wednesday (why do we not pronounce that Wed-nes-day? Just askin') In spite of the fact that I have spent the week feeling great, I have the WORST ABSCESSED TOOTH EVER. My left front central incisor is so badly inflamed, the infection had pushed up into my nasal cavity and has warped the roof of my mouth. Penicillin has stopped that pain. No pain pills, 'cause I'm on so many other things, I'd probably go on some weird acid trip, and I have an exceedingly high threshold to pain. Now the pain is gone, so it won't ruin the fun of my eating everything in site, whilst I write. Yay! Thank you, rotten oranges or whatever you are, dear penicillin!

I go through all of my SETI stats about twice a year; once in late spring and once in the autumn. Usually, I just print out my certifications to see how I'm doing. I stay off of the forums, because there is an über-bitch, who in the disguise of a helpful admin, delivers scathing lectures to the innocent lambs who want to know why their uploads failed. I'm a fairly adept practitioner of the Dark Arts, so I don't need any help, but I sure feel sorry for the poor unweaned, who start their posts with, "I just received a message that said Upload Failed..." The few times I read these threads, UB blasted back with something related to the user's fallibility as a computer user, insulted the user's children and also mentioned that the user's pets were ugly. Yikes! No help to be had there.

Anyway, after I printed my stats, which show I've process astronomical amounts of data received from the Arecebo Telescope in an attempt to find E. T.s. . . wait, what? Never mind. Which would make sense in the astronomical department, because it is after all, the universe we're scoping out. What a hash of sentences there. So, I printed my stats and then for grins, I went to the website that shows where my team fits in with all of the other teams. 

This is my team, highlighted in green. There are 64 members of my team, but only 10 of us are active. I guess the rest are out on missions. The standing joke is that everyone was once CIA, or DOD; some kind of spook for some alphabet agency or another. They're probably doing piece-work for the NSA. NASA is only 5 slots ahead of us. I love the randomness of "Get off my lawn!" This whole project is full of stuff like this. 

Even with all of their brain power, we're still ahead of UC Berkely, UC Davis and BooYah! This Man's USMC! Our team consists of people with cats who puke on keyboards, but can do some mean hacking and cyber-spying, so I was a natural fit.

Number 69 is Marquette University, one of my mom's alma maters and I like that University of Florida is number 52. Keep it up! Go Florida. Maybe we'll win the Inter-species Regionals this year!

The number one spot is held by Team USA *yawns* but I was thrilled to see that the U. S. Air Force is number three, behind the U. S. Navy (boo.) GAY USA is number 5, which is great, because the universe is not only about radio frequencies, it is about transmitting in the Ultraviolet all the way to the Infrared. So, we've got rainbows covered. SQUEE!

An explanation of how radio frequencies and the color spectrum fit can be found here.

Team number 4's team name is some kind of random code. Way to go. My next team name is going to be "dice = std::bind ( dist]" and then everyone will think I'm some kind of either great genius, or crackpot. Except for "Get off my lawn." That team will totally get it. O How I Hate Ohio State is at the 21 spot. I don't really hate 'em. it's just what Michiganders say. It's a knee-jerk reaction. Oh, and "The Pirate Float" at number 16, is going great guns. I bet they say, "Aargh! I'm a pirate!" a lot at String Theory and GUT (Grand Unified Theory) conferences. 

Rounding out the top 100, of over 500 teams, are University of Michigan and Michigan State (not shown,) and EMU in Ypsilanti, Michigan. I love the "Master Strategy Group." This is vague and sinister, yet kinda creepy. More spooks? To be a good spook, you have to have a great cover, like the Villages. The crazy cat people get overlooked every damned time, but you never know what we're gonna do. Number 94 are the University of Florida GATORS. I can damn-guarantee you that if they were number 94 in FOOTBALL, they would be rioting up in Gainesville. At number 95, we have "ShallowThought." What a great name for a team.