Tag: space travel

Twosdaz Theme Music

I heard something hit the house last night. ‘Bout midnight. Turned out to be Twosda, August 5, 2025, staggering into the siding. Cool night, and mostly clear, offering views of a waxing moon and a spill of stars. We’re relaxing in 76 F air with a cloud-stained coating of sun-filled blue sky. 86 F wil be the thermometer’s top mark for Ashlandia.

Democratic governors are pleasing me these days. First, a shut out to those Texan Dems who left the state to prevent the Trump-Abbott collusion to destroy democracy in Texas and the United States. Second, huzzah to the Dem governors who took them in, and the Dem govs standing up to the GOP bullshit. California Gov. Newsome and Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul are vowing to redistrict to counter Abbott’s moves in Texas. Frankly, I think such forceful action is needed. Meanwhile, Robert Hubbell published encouraging news in More signs of life among Senate Democrats.

Hearing of the Trump Regime’s eager use of space stuff to try to distract from the Epstein list, The Neurons loaded a song about the moon in the morning mental music stream. “Walking on the Moon” is a 1979 raggae rock offering by The Police. Sting wrote the song, mentioning being drunk as inspiration and also an early love. The Neurons entertained me with visuals of Trump waddling around the moon. The Neurons thought that Trump would trip and start uncontrollabling bouncing across the moon’s surface.

I’ve had a wink of coffee. Think I’ll have forty more. Hope grace and peace has its way with you today. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Weathwonderizing

Today is Thursday, October 24, 2024. This kicks off October’s final week. Just seven days remain until November is asserted. Once November kicks on, it’ll be a ride. Time change in America, election in America, Thanksgiving in America…then the December holidays in America. Sorry to give the rest of the world short attention. That’s not my intention. It’s only that I expect November to be intense in the U.S. for multiple reasons.

Peering out the window, fog twirled and swirled, stealing in and out of the scene. But brave sunshine soon burst onto the scene.

With the fog, we were creeping through the low thirties. Sunshine kicked in and managed to kick the fog out and prop up a vividly blue sky. Now we’re romping through the forties, racing toward a high in the low 60s. This is autumn for sure but winter is slanting in.

Eyeing the fog’s weave around the trees, houses, and accoutrements of modern urban life brought up Foghat. Just apparently how my brain works. Soon “Fool for the City” rose in the morning mental music stream.

But as I watched, I rejected the song. Just didn’t feel right for the moment. The fog keep shifting, slinking in and sneaking out, coiling around trees and releasing. I kept judging the visibility. Now I could see further away…ah, but it’s back in and I can only see the houses and trees directly across the street.

From that litany of thought arose “What A Wonderful World.” The 1967 recording released by Louis Armstrong was the first, and it’s hard to top. But a while back, I heard a version by Chris Botti with Mark Knopfler. It was used at the end of an episode of the television series, “Bosch.” It struck me and I went off to hear it again on the net.

Besides Armstrong and Botti’s version, Willy Nelson’s soulful rendition and Joey’s Ramone heartfelt fast paced rock version captivated me. It’s hard to go wrong with the song’s words and the sentiments, if you like that sort of thing.

It is a wonderful world. I worry about humans screwing it up. We adjust it to our needs. Sometimes we’re pretty damn cruel and arrogant. I always have mixed conclusions about us exploring other worlds for that reason. I want the technological achievement, and I want to satisfy the intellectual curiosity of what else exists beyond this planet. But I don’t want us to ruin the other places. It remains a conundrum.

Coffee has invaded my body in a benign takeover. Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue. Here’s the music, friends and neighbors. Cheers

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The Space Dream

I dreamed I was traveling through space. My house and its lot had been lifted away from the Earth, and there we went, soundlessly zooming through space. After thinking in the dream, is that what’s happening, I was given a distant perspective that confirmed, yep, there I go, with the house, wife, cats, and yard.

I pointed it all to my wife, calling to her as she did something in another room. All I had no idea what our destination was and had questions — was I onboard a larger ship, and who launched us like this — I enjoyed being out there. I was exactly as I now am, as was my house and yard. I saw this from a temporary external position, as though I needed to see it, before returning into my body. Settling behind my desk in my home office, I resumed my typing.

I awoke abruptly. In panic, I thought, where are the cats? Where are Tucker and Papi? Did I put them out? OMG, did I put them out in space? But if I put them out into the yard, wouldn’t they be safe, because it’s — it’s — wait.

Confusion mounting and taking over, I stumbled away from bed, thinking, where am I now? What should I do? If I open the door, would it — what would happen? But —

I’d been in space. But wasn’t that a dream? Or was I now dreaming? Neurons regrouping, we agreed with a laugh, being in space was the dream. Reality was that I was home, securely part of the Earth. But I went out and found the cats, ensuring they were really okay, just in case, you know, and then gazed up at the stars and moon for a few seconds with recollection of the dream.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

No snow! Again. It’s like days in a row. The weather at last feels like an Ashlandia spring. We’ll pop up to 80 F today. Low in the bottom 40s. Sunrise quarter past six. Sunset after eight in the evening. This is what Daddy likes.

It’s April 26, 2023. Sad news that ispace lost contact with Hakuto-R. Latest theory they’ve put out is it unexpectedly accelerated and crashed on the moon while attempting its approach. Back to the drawing boards.

I’ve always been a proponent of exploring space and trying to reach other planets. Curiosity of what’s out there drives me. I know, many argue that we’re already screwing up Earth and have demonstrated ourselves to be poor caretakers of our home planet, so why should we ‘be allowed’ to go somewhere else. Also, space exploration is a little pricy. Cost more than my annual coffee budget. And we have so many problems in our society, unintended consequences of systems, practices, laws and technology. So much we have here we need to fix.

But I’m an optimist. I hope that going to space more will lift our spirits and encourage us to change. I know, I know but space travel and exploration opens possibilities, and fires hope and optimism. Of course my background is white male. American, sure of food and shelter. I know in an intellectual way that it’s way different for others in ways that I struggle to fully imagine and comprehend. I try. I try to empathize and sympathize and help. And I want for others to have at least the levels of comfort, security, access to equity, and opportunities that I’ve experienced.

Had a plethora of dreams again. Some involved Dad and painting. I’ll explore that more, I think.

Thoughts of space impelled Les Neurons to fire up “Rocket Man” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin 1972. Found a lovely video of John in concert with the song in 1972. Just fifty plus years ago, hey?

Stay pos and don’t let your fuse burn out. I’ve got some coffee if you need it. Maybe we can pass the cup.

Here’s the music. Enjoy. Cheers

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The Space Snake Dream

I was brought on to help create a new vehicle for people to travel. As I walked with the team, talking outside, I saw a small red and yellow snake. Ideas lit up my mind. I sketched out a plan for us to develop a design based on a snake. Objections quicky rose. Growing more excited, I explained how we would use small segments, giving the snake great flexibility. Each segment would be a living, working or storage compartment, etc. Our travel snake would be able to turn in multiple ways.

They told me it was supposed to be for space. I got more excited, telling them that we can develop multiple small segments, just like the other segments, which would be used for propulsion. They could be interspersed along the snake’s body.

While I was telling these things, the snake was being built. Without a short while, I saw it fly over some brown mountains and land nearby. I skipped through the sky to it. The snake’s segments were much larger than I’d suggested and its overall length blew away my expectations. Someone said, it’s getting ready to go.

By that point the sun was setting. The cloudless sky had grown deep indigo and purple. A few stars and satellites populated the zenith. Looking up, I watched the white snake, people visible in windows lit with a soft yellow-tinted light, climb into space on a blue flame.

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Adventure Dream

This dream, one of two remembered from last night, was wild.

I was part of an intergalactic crew. We were a small crew. I don’t know anyone’s names in the dream. My commander was a female and not anyone that I recognized.

I seemed to be in a television show. I was younger than I am, and appeared nothing like I ever had, except being white and male, with brown hair. I had the strange powers of being prescient and a great jumper. Both skills were nascent, and I spent large parts of the dream trying to improve both. At one point, I’d developed my jumping sufficiently that I could jump higher than a pub’s wood counter, and hang in the air several seconds, apparently suspending time and gravity. I was still learning about it.

Meanwhile, the series’ story line seemed to be that our little band was trying to help some small creature escape the powers that would capture and experiment on him, and return him to his home planet, across the galaxy. We were constantly being chased. People were trying to ambush and cheat us. We were in several fights.

In one episode memorable to me because my character played a greater role, I noticed that our vessel’s systems were alerting us to being followed. I notified the Captain. Meanwhile, we went planet-side, to a small bar. There, we met with someone to make a deal. I don’t know those details.

I remember that I knew from my prescience that someone was coming for us. So I announced, “I’ll take care of this.” Leaving the group, I went to a front foyer to await our attackers. Cold, heavy rain fell through the darkness outside. I wasn’t a big person. Other men were standing in the foyer. “Are you waiting for a fight, too?” I asked one. He looked down at me and nodded.

The attackers arrived and I gave them a thorough thumping via my special skills. Then, deal done in the bar, we departed the fix, heading for our space vessel and on to our next adventure.

Strange, but true. Well, in my dreams, hey?

1

Time Suck

What does space travel, laundry, and cats have in common?

Why, they’re all time sucks, of course.

My wife shared information from an article about time savings and modern American life. Most households, particularly women, have seen a dramatic decrease in how long it takes to prepare meals. It used to require about two hours per meal. Of course, breakfast was rarer in those days.

On the other hand, laundry is an area where people don’t save time. The reasons derive from our attitudes toward hygiene, washing clothes, the increasing specialization in clothing, and fashion. We have and wear more clothes, and change them for more uses, whereas we used to accept being a little dirtier. The increased quantity and specialization equals more time doing laundry.

My time sucks today were more prosaic and had less to do with modern living. One involved a clogged toilet in one bathroom, a clogged sink in another bathroom, and a vomiting cat.

I’d just finished bathing and dealing with the clogged sink when Quinn puked. I was whining to myself about the sink and my hairiness. I’m sure that’s what caused it. The master bath has two sinks, and it was my sink that was clogged. He bugged me for food. He’s a small critter with a high anxiety level that causes him to leap up and race out of a room, so I’m always trying to fatten him up and encourage him to eat more. I fed him, per his request.

Then it was time for some morning business. All was successful, until the flush. Water rose and nothing went down. As I swore about that, I heard puking in the other room. I raced out in time to witness Quinn heaved a hair ball and his meal.

His deed was done on the hardwood floor. That means clean it up ASAP. I grabbed toilet paper and did the task. It was still warm, of course. Some dribbled onto my hand. I gagged reflexively, not a lot, and not as much as I would have in the past. Still, I wonder what it is about warm puke that causes me to gag.

Then it was back to the toilet. I’m not usually religious but facing a clogged toilet usually coaxes a prayer out of me. “Come on, flush,” I said, flushing. Then I corrected myself, “Come on, go down.” My prayers were answered, restoring my uncertainty about God’s existence.

Back in the office, I encountered another time suck. The story in my novel in progress requires Handley to take a shuttle. She enters the airlock but then what does she do? What’s the Avalon‘s layout? To address that, I needed to make a cup of coffee. Coffee helps me think.

Then I sketched the shuttle’s layout with pencil and paper. I should have been satisfied, but my secret geek required me to go to the computer and Illustrator and do it properly. That led to demanding details about the shuttle’s space capabilities, intended purposes, crew requirements, cargo capability, blah, blah, blah….

Done at last, ninety minutes later. By now, I was staring at the rear end of ten thirty. Gadzooks, time had been sucked up.

Of course, I need to point out that space travel wasn’t really the time suck; it was the creative process of writing about it. Does that count as a time suck? Maybe not. I suppose that I didn’t need to go into such detail to create the shuttle, but that’s my nature.

I reckon that’s a confession. It’s really my nature that’s the time suck.

 

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“Here we go, beast.”

Writing a novel is often an exploration for me, a visit to new, uncharted realms. Sometimes I get a little lost.

I completed three chapters yesterday. They’d been written in parallel. One of them was part of the five chapters being written in parallel.

That’s how it is. The novel in progress reminds me of math involving nonlinear equations that I once briefly encountered. They involved solving simultaneous equations and polynomials. I don’t remember much more except it struck me as a fascinating way to encounter and express relationships and awareness.

Besides being nonlinear, the novel is asynchronous, part of the idea of asynchronous epiphanies that evolve throughout the novel, something borrowed from asynchronous learning and asynchronous computer functions. This sometimes gives me a headache. The novel is and is not chronological, an apparent paradox that adds a challenge to writing it, because it may appear chronological, and I naturally revert to thinking about it in terms of a chronological approach. (I imagine readers reading it, and asking themselves, “What?” And I laugh….)

All of this was born out of the ideas that something is possible until it’s proven impossible, the alienation and isolation that develops with technology and how it affects our personalities and thinking, colonization of other planets, and how often our thinking mirrors computer operations (or is it the converse?) and work on asynchronous levels. That gave a rise to thinking about how reality works, and the creation of the chi-particles. Chi-particles have imaginary energy and mass and travel faster than light. I also throw in some soap opera, just to keep it interesting.

Along the way with all of this, I keep playing with the ideas behind reality, as to whether we create it, or it creates us, or if it’s a symbiotic process that depends upon one another. Symbiotic may not be the right term. That’s supposed to apply to biological entities, but then I think, can reality as we experience actually be a biological creature, but then that diverts me back into notions of God and creative intelligence.

Anyway, finishing those three chapters brought me back up to a specific intersection of storylines that required me to bring other chapters and storylines up to date so all may proceed. That necessitated delving back into what has been written to re-calibrate and orientate myself and my characters. I needed to read what had already been written in specific areas and review notes.

Reading what was written turned out to be a surprising and rewarding journey. My writing and its characters, setting, and stories surprised me. They distracted me from my main task of figuring out what happens next, yes, but it was enjoyable to read material written months ago and find out that it’s decent writing. Of course, it’s my child; what else would I think?

Here I am now, re-calibrated and re-oriented, quad shot mocha in hand. “Here we go, beast,” I tell my computer. “Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.”

Five hundred pages done; how many more remain?

3

My Problem

I’m naming names today: Jenn Moss and Alan Sorrentino.

Alan Sorrentino is in the news about his letter to the editor decrying women wearing yoga pants in public. I know what Alan is talking about. His yoga pants were my muffin tops.

A muffin top is the fleshy overspill above a waist band, developing and exposed when one is wearing a tight lower garment – pants, shorts, skirt – and a cropped top. They were most prevalent among girls and young women. Probably still are. I haven’t seen one for a while.

Muffin tops caused me problems. How could someone wear something so tight and not be appalled by the flesh spilling out? Do they know how they appear? That developed my second problem. I’ve always been irritated by America’s ideals of beauty and perfection, and how humans should look. And here I was, sucked right into it. Damn America.

So I wanted to praise these people for being indifferent about my problem and showing their body as it is, and without embarrassment. But, sigh, I was also disturbed, because these people looked obese and overweight. Shouldn’t they be taking better care of themselves? That led directly to self-confrontation: is that what you think about NFL players with their big bellies? 

No, Michael, it usually isn’t. I was all about the player and what they brought to the table.

Alan, of course, was writing about his problem in what the yoga pants revealed to him about his opinion of female curves. Just like me and my muffin tops, the yoga pants were not about the people wearing them: the problem is him and his perceptions.

Now let’s move on to Jenn Moss. She’s a writer who posts on roughandreadyfiction.com. On Meta Monday, she posted about seeing Richard III at STNJ. Dwelling on Derek Wilson and his awesome guns, she wrote about how this buff actor compared to people’s usual perception of Richard III. In her final paragraphs, she wrote:

Meanwhile, this whole muscle thing got me thinking: what kind of assumptions do we bring to a play or book that we know well? Have you ever rejected a portrayal of a beloved character because it just didn’t match the vision you had in your head? Did a remake or reboot ever leave you cold? I love the Star Trek reboot, for example. But the 2005 film version of Pride & Prejudice just doesn’t do it for me.

I’m going to keep asking myself this question whenever I see a revival or any other remake: How open am I to a different look or fresh interpretation of a favorite character?

Why yes, Jenn, I have thought about these questions. I mutter and rant quite often about what so many – like you, Guy Ritchie – do to Sherlock Holmes. I grimaced at the treatment endured when the television show, ‘Wild, Wild West’ was made into a movie. And then someone did it – gasp – to the ‘Man From U.N.C.L.E.’. Look what’s going on in the Marvels Universe movies. And ‘Star Trek’…grrr…. “What is the world coming to?” I bitterly huffed in best BitterBen fashion.

Of course, I was always talking about my problem. I didn’t realize it until I grasped that I do the same thing to the fiction I write. I take original ideas and torture them into something else. In my science fiction, I discard the intelligent scientific foundations from the likes of Asimov and Clarke. The science and technology just are, a big leap from here and now. Sure, internal logic to the novels is solid, but I make no effort to explain how we made advances in space travel, FTL, teleporters, compilers, terraforming, and colonizing other planets: they just are as part of the setting, much like televisions, cars, cell phones, malls and aircraft travel just are as part of a modern setting.

Reluctantly I concluded, it’s a good thing when a television show, movie, novel, song or idea is re-interpreted and presented in a new light. It is how art, science technology, and government in all their forms have worked since just about the first time a story was done, a ruler proclaimed, a tool was created, or a drawing was made on a wall. Someone saw it and thought, “Wouldn’t it be better this way?” Then they offered their interpretation – thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

We’re always doing this, imagining, re-imagining and re-interpreting all the art, technology, history and events of time.

Now leave me alone. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. After all, that’s what all this is really about.

And that’s my problem.

 

4

Twelfth Night

A friend gave us tickets to Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s ‘Twelfth Night’ as a thank you gift.

We attended the play last Sunday night. It was updated to take place in 1930s Hollywood. That premise seemed a little thin at times, as characters were still called the count and the jester, and the studio was referred to as a land. Overall, it was well acted and enjoyable…for as much as I paid attention. For as the lights dimmed and the play began, I thought, “What does Handley’s imagination look like?”

Almost everyone (future studies estimate over ninety percent of people) in the future have an augmented memory. The augmented memory has a variety of options available. One of them includes creating an avatar of your external memory. This presents you with the opportunity to talk to your memory about your memories and life. Your memory can also be a memorable companion, so you’re never alone. You always have your memory, which is useful in space.

Madison Handley, however, went a little further than the norm. Although she embodied her memory as an avatar, she also embodied her imagination as an avatar. Thus, she and her memory played with her imagination as well as her friends when she was young. But, as her mother warned, “Someday your imagination is going to get you into trouble,” her imagination caused trouble and Handley took the fall. (It is her imagination.) After that day arrived, Handley banished it. Now her memory is requesting an audience for her imagination on its behalf because her imagination has some suggestions to help Handley out of her current situation.

All of this led to the standard use questions about the character. As I developed the background to this while at the play, I thought of other imaginary characters and the troubles they caused. A movie was semi-recalled. It seemed like it was in the 80s or 90s. The imaginary character was green and male. They had disappeared, but now they were back.

That’s all I could remember. I thought I would google it sometime but didn’t get around to it. Then, today, while thinking about the imagination and shaving, I remembered, ‘Drop Dead, Fred’, Phoebe Cates, Tim Matheson, Marsha Mason, 1991. Then, remembering those sudden details, I searched for confirmation on the net. Yea, verily, I was correct. The movie only received 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, so I wondered, why do I remember it so well?

All of this cogitation, delays and results – the process – amused me. Took a while of circling but the memory finally landed.

Now back to my novel. I still don’t know her imagination’s appearance but I believe that will come. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

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