12 string

12 string, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

Solstice

DSCF0002, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

spacewalk

spacewalk, originally uploaded by in touch.

decade

Ten years have slipped by somehow or other.....I wouldn't even have noticed, except I happened to wander back into the room where I had set down my data-pad a while back.....I opened it up and read the date.....I had lost track of the date, and of time in general.....the activity indicator shows that it's been seven months since I last opened the pad....I think it's something in the water that makes me so strange....time just seems to slip by as in a dream. But looking back through the history file reminds me of where I am, and how I got here. Human elements of the Grand Alliance were being transferred back out of the Deep Zone....I had been slotted onto a Crystal Spider transport, and placed in stasis.....Next thing I know, I'm waking up in a white room somewhere, I don't know where.....nobody else seems to be around. My data-pad can access a standard multi-specie interface.....I determine that the Spider ship-system has out-slotted me onto a "suitable station for demobilization into Human Dominion." But that was ten years ago....when I tried to establish a link off-station, I got an error message.....Link Not Found. The station system wasn't any help at all.....all the local hard-brain could tell me was that this transfer station had been placed seventeen human years before, and had handled traffic as designed right up until the time of my arrival, but then had lost Link. I was marooned, lost in space. I became very upset.....Multi-Specie Medical Program, noting my behavior, and studying chemical indicators in my waste product, followed standard procedure, and put something in the water to calm me down.......it has been a peaceful decade......

hard as rock

the socks I wanted to wear had been left on my bunk when the hull breached....we lost some priceless atmosphere, and it got damned cold in the ship real quick. Emergency protocols saved our butts, a sheet of nanobots had rapidly sealed the leak....pretty rapidly anyway....and the biotanks had diverted resources from protein and starch production to oxygen replenishment as planned...we had all jammed into the safehole with air in our lungs and only a little frostbite nipping at our heels. But half an hour after the all-clear, I went to put some socks on my feet, because it was still icy cold on the bunk deck.....but my socks were as hard as a rock from the deep space freeze dry they had received.....I had to put them in the microwave, to get my toes toasty....it reminded me of a story my grandmother used to tell, of the Winter on old Earth when the load froze in the washing machine.....

street of eats

Malaysia - 011 - KL - Yummy street food stalls are the way to eat in KL, originally uploaded by mckaysavage.

dreaming food stalls of the future

starting maybe 30 years ago, as best I can recall, one type of recurring dream was this neighborhood of small eating places, like the booths or stalls at a fairgrounds. I would walk in my dream from the college dorm a few blocks away and there would be this street full of these little eateries.....taco shops, burger joints, hot dog stands, pizza, noodles, fried chicken....you get the idea.....and it would always feel wonderful to be on this street....it was where I wanted to be....but of course eventually you would wake up, or the dream would change to some other situation....like a math class, or looking for a restroom.....sometimes it was obvious that this place was part of a carnival or amusement park....maybe the arch-type was Belmont Park, at the beach....or the Del Mar Fair.....sometimes it would seem like it was just off the Sunset Strip, like Pink's. Years later, I stumbled into a job at the swap meet, where there were all these little food shops.....tacos, tortas, pollo asado, street dogs, the Greek place, pizza, elotes, fruit salads.....did I dream the future? Sometimes lately I dream of Cousin Mary's Catfish Fryer in a mall on Mars....mall food-courts fit into the dream.....I don't think I will live to see the Martian food shops.....unless the evil government goes ahead and forces it's health care on us, causing us to live beyond our natural terms......I dreamed the future in one other instance for sure, while still living up north, I had a very clear dream of my place at the Resort....when the girl from the Cafe unlocked the place for me to check it out, the deja vu almost floored me then and there....

, originally uploaded by kwikzilver.

the holographic bartender program

that the Down Lounge franchise subscribed to could be amusing, or it could be sort of a pain in the ass....the tired looking mousy blonde on the bar stool to my right was just trying to get a gin-and-tonic, but the holotender was giving her a whole song and dance....almost like the cyber-circuits were trying to hit on her....what sense does that make?

"Ah yes, the gin and the tonic, my dear." drawls the program in the accents of W.C. Fields, it's facial features fleetingly morphing to fit the voice.

"Affirmative" she mutters, holding her head up with a hand under her chin.

"With the tall glass and rocks and the lime wedge, the whole nine yards or what have you....by the way my dear what have you?" offers the silly machine, sounding like Groucho, all of a sudden sporting the wide painted on 'stash, eyebrows pumping, cigar flicking the illusion of ash.

The poor girl turns and looks at me with a drop-jawed helpless hang-dog expression of mounting dispair....

"Just get the lady the fucking drink, you two-bit piece of binary trash, or I'll kick your virtual butt clear into the n-dimension." says I.

"One generous tonic, coming right up!" says Jackie Gleason, in his barkeep persona....I forget his name in that sketch.....

From "The Coffee Trader" by David Liss

"She knew that when they were boys their father had told them that Lienzo brothers had never gotten along, not since their great-great-grandfather had killed their great-great-great uncle in an argument over a tavern bill. When he saw the boys playing happily together, he would remind them of this tradition."

it came out really tender and moist

it came out really tender and moist, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

small world

small world #2, originally uploaded by bass_nroll.

the horizon is very close

on a small world.....and the sky isn't very high....you can see right through to the stars all the time, day or night. And the days and nights are real short and fast, with the small world spinning around so quick.......and with the small gravity to match the small world, it's amazing that the quick spin doesn't just throw you off through the thin sky to the looming stars.....you kind of feel on the edge all the time, like everything is transient.....even more transient than it really is.....but all the big bountiful worlds are filled up by now, so we poor children of the future must make do with what's left.....little bitty stray worlds nobody else wanted to bother with before....there are some good points I guess....it's only a hop, skip, and a jump to the next town, because there's not enough room for it to be far away.....so it's easy to visit with your relatives on holidays.....

dead forest

dead forest, originally uploaded by sarafigal.

there was a forest

east of here, before the leaf blight came along. Now there is the ruin of a forest....some sticks still standing, but mostly just logs moldering on the ground....some mutant brush has come up, strange looking with the purple foliage that works in the new atmosphere, with the new chemical balance of the soil....but there aren't any animals out there anymore....all that moves are the creeping carpets of stray nanocultures, the aborted "fixes" they tried to plug the holes in the ecosystem with back when there was still a government that thought it could do things. That's all in the past now.....as long as I have been here we've had to rely on suits and masks to breath and walk around....we need powercells and smart materials to give us the energy to stay alive, to fight the toxins.....the sky is still blue...sort of....the river still flows....but it's not exactly water that goes downstream anymore....the old highways are buckled and cracked, the old towns abandoned.....we cyborgs wander endlessly and aimlessly ......we scavenge what we can from the leavings of the old human race, but it's a losing battle......to reproduce would be immoral.....what monster would bring a child into this world?

biscuit jar

biscuit jar, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

flags in the breeze

flags in the breeze, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

from the front porch

strangers

Contrail & Shadow, originally uploaded by Jeff Kubina.

streaks in the sky

rolling booms of shuttles coming down.....this has been going on for days now, more and more of the strangers descending from the big space ships you can actually see up there in orbit with your own eyeballs, the damn things are that huge.....so far none of them have come down near us, isolated out here in the sierras.....most are probably landing around Newport and Angel Town, the big settlements on the coastal plain. Why are they coming here now? Maybe the trans-dimensional disturbances have chased them off the older worlds. That's what they get for messing with reality, if that's what's going on. We came out this far to try to keep clear of all that....people weren't meant to slide around on astral planes, in and out of various multiverse phases....it's just not natural. Just give me that old time Reality, like our Fathers used to know. Out here we've got dirt and rocks and trees and dogs and real born children....all the way things used to be, and should be. The strangers have become too strange altogether, mixing genes with fairy realms, with aliens, with God knows what. And they keep opening doors that should have been left shut and locked. At first it was all great wonder and glory and dreams come true....but bad things started coming too soon enough. So here they are now in their gigantic faster than light flying cities, trying to get away from all that weirdness and grief by seeking refuge on our poor little frontier planet.....damn them.....they should leave us alone.

fall trees

fall trees, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

out at the falls edited photo

omnishades

are a cheap trick....they look like sunglasses, a fashion statement, but they are really a way to get a digital overlay of your surroundings. Nano-tech circuits access cyberspace and give the wearer video and audio ....eye movements and retina focus scroll the cursor. A step up are the contact lens controllers ......nobody can see that you are wired.....yet the smart lens and the ear canal audio keep you online. And to go top dollar, to be real secret agent hip, you can go ahead and just drink the damn circuitry.....a nano cocktail that settles into your gray matter and starts picking up the radio waves that run the postmodern world.....you want a drink?

in the mall

Up and down, and all around, originally uploaded by bhophoto.

in a mall

on Mars, the Eastgate Mall, in Paradise City.....Eddie cooly leans back against the wall near the InPlant kiosk, checking out the traffic.....he thumbs the little slide switch on the bottom of the right hand side of his omnishades, calling up an overlay pirated from SolarCreditAgency.....the SCA patch puts dollar signs above the passersby that are recognized by the data bank scanners....it always amuses Eddie that the sort of threadbare looking older ladies always have the higher ratings, while the spiffy dressing thirty-something dudes sometimes barely rate at all....the older generations have the bucks, while youth sucks. Same old story has been going on for most of the 21st Century.....and will keep on into the fast approaching 22nd, probably. Just too many young people, is the root of the situation....and they keep coming, even with the birth tax being so outrageous.....Eddie waits calmly....what he's scanning for is a female in her twenties with more bucks than he has himself, which isn't saying much....Eddie is damn near broke....but if he can find some likely chick to give the old song-and-dance.....maybe he can sleaze his way into a free lunch, at least.....

http://www.nicktingle.net/2007/01/yard-chicken.html

guess they are still crazy at Oxy

2009-11-07_Jeffers-377, originally uploaded by Occidental College.

guitar light

guitar light, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

Alley Monster

Alley Monster, originally uploaded by DJVelveteen.

beneath the be-bop moon

I've got stars in my beard and I feel real wierd.....coming off a twelve hour shift at nine on a Thursday morning, I wait in my Jeep for the bar to open at ten. I can see the alley door from here in the public parking lot off Second.....Pat has already been in and out a couple of times with trash or whatever, and Dan with the Bud truck has come and gone.....Pat sticks his head out the door about five minutes 'til, and waves me on in. It is blessfully dim in the Down Lounge, after the bright morning sunshine outside.....a pint of Coors with a can of Snappy Tom in it starts things off....Lucia comes in from the taco shop next door, and me and Pat both ask for huevos rancheros, with corn tortillas.....a couple more reprobates wander in.....Cowboy Bill puts some dollars in the jukebox, and starts playing Patsy Cline.....the kid from next door brings us our styrofoam breakfast boxes, with plastic forks and paper napkins.....Pat and I chow down, as Cowboy Bill negotiates with the kid in spanglish, trying for that kind of breakfast steak they do, fixed his own peculiar Texas way......the food gone, I graduate to a Bloody Mary, which, at this time of day, comes with a pickled egg .....fine with me, more protein.....

NO ACCESS to the HOLLYWOOD SIGN

NO ACCESS to the HOLLYWOOD SIGN, originally uploaded by dogwelder.

We were partying in Hollywood

but I woke up in the Berkeley hills. I didn't know the name of the girl under the quilt with me. I found my jeans, and tried to figure out where the smell of waffles was coming from. Searching for the kitchen, I stopped stunned briefly by the view from the huge living room window.....the fog breaking to reveal the bay and the bridges. In the kitchen I found Mary, whom I did know, and we ate many waffles, and drank Irish coffee. Slowly, others crawled out from under quilts and sleeping bags, and I helped crank out more waffles and coffee. There was a whole case of whiskey under the sink. Someone turned on the television, and they were bombing Hanoi. Howard had this funky Ford Fairlane with a 390, and we blasted south down the 101, and were back in Political Science 200 by eight Monday morning. I got an A minus in that class. Forty years later, I found out that the girl under the quilt had a top ten country music hit somewhere along the line, but just died last week of an overdose in Hamburg, Germany.

Durthers

Durthers was trying to locate two nits to make a cream dela coffee out of the shoot. It would warm him to a frazzle and he would be off, but not without two nits. He was on his own in the valley between the four ground where two nits should have been located, but were not. Instead he gathered up three extra nickels' and a hounds tooth to get a small Coffee, sugar, cream out of the slot. It burned his hand and he almost dropped it. But then he made his way out of the pass and into the neither region where he took up a cab to which he said : "4th by 8th" and was off.

By 4th by 8th was a tall, tall building of which Durthers, having paid the cab, finished his coffee and made his way into it was accosted by security.

"No, No, not Burthers, D-urthers..."

The security bots made a note of it and sent him on his way. Down the trapezium and into a slot which would take him to the 314 floor. He had time to take a pee witch he did from the common bathroom. Made sure his hair was coiffed and departed to one of the three instances of floor 314. Milliquim.com, he passed. Freeval.com. he passed. And made his way to Boodiddy.com and said hello to the secretary.

"Hello Ms. M."

"Why Durthers how are you?"

"Very fine Ms. M, and you?"

Ms. M had to be around 98 give or take a year, but she looked 45.

"All very kind, Durthers, all very kind...." She paused to make a connection with Boodiddy. "...you know my knees are about to give out, but what are you going to do? He shall see you now."

The portal made way for Durthers. He said "Ado" to Mr. M.

Boodiddy was awash in the land of dreams. But with one eye open to the portal he saw Durthers come in and focused his way into being. He had once weighted 350 lbs, back in the day. But now, 178,  fit him to a tee.

"Come in, come in." he said. Make yourself a coffee and I shall be right with you.

Boodiddy went from a bath rich in hearthstones to a shower and then got cleaned up. He took a look at his face. At approaching 217 years, he looked weathered but approachable. He found his slippers and put on robe and slicking back his hair went to meet his guest.

in the Ural Mountains, 1898...

the man with the rifle is concealed by rocks and brush....the half-dozen Cossacks ride the trail below him, along with the Imperial officer on the fine strong horse.....he enters the cross-hairs of the scope. The crack of a rifle shot echos in the narrow canyon, the officer's horse whinnies and rears as it's rider drops to the ground, landing all akimbo, dead by the look of it.....the Cossacks jump off their mounts, grabbing their carbines, taking position behind rocks and trees, nervously scanning the cliffs above for some sign of the sniper. But there is only silence, and no movement they can see.....

the tall tower

stands stark against the starry sky....there is light showing from the very top....no doubt the baleful Lord of the keep is busy at this freezing midnight hour with his conjurations and unholy communications with powers best not spoken of.....the wind whispers in the pines.....some animal cries in the distance.....one thin cloud passes over the face of the moon, swiftly.....something is moving close by in the brush....a low growl.....

late October

late October, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

the rain falls in drifts

over the Thames....a few barges move downstream....the Captain watches for a while from his window, and then moves to poke up the fire. This weather gets into his back.....he goes to the sideboard for a small glass of port, and then sits down again in his wing-back chair. He glances at the book he has been reading, but doesn't pick it up. The clock ticks and tocks on the mantel....he hears a door shut downstairs.....Mrs. Orman moving about doing something....he thinks back to when he was a young man, with the rain drifting over the Seine, he in his rooms on the Left Bank, with only a poor little fire on the grate, but with the warmth of that French girl in his arms.....what was her name?

in the days of the Eastern Roman Empire

an ancestor of the Count mounts the tower stairs, carrying an oil lamp in the gloom of the snowy night....he moves slowly, dragging his left leg up after taking a step with his right.....he has not been hale since the campaign against the tribes from the East, when his horse fell on him in the battle by the river.....but he is still powerful in spirit, with a reputation as a seer and a mage....and he climbs his tower now towards his sanctum, where his familiar awaits, having ridden in from the clouds on a moonbeam....

it is snowing too

in St. Petersburg....the Count is close to the warmth of the fire in his opulent study, surrounded by books bound in leather and gold.....fine art adorns the walls....the knick-knacks are priceless....he is reading a letter from Natasha, his cousin on his mother's side....she is an anarchist, living hidden in the Urals, hunted by the agents of the Czar.....her lover watches her in the lamplight, as she slowly packs explosives into a ceramic doll.....he has his rifle in pieces on the table, making sure everything is clean and in working order....outside a wolf howls in the snowy night, a moonbeam sneaks through the clouds to glance off a long canine....the Count rings for the butler, he desires warm vodka....he is confused by the letter from his cousin.....the butler enters the study....his hair is perfect....

Back in London

Sturgis visits Lee Po, and then returns to his rooms to smoke a ball of opium.....he falls asleep and dreams vividly of strange warriors and brazen women partying wantonly in a great hall with pillars that rise up so high they are lost in a mist......he drinks from a golden cup, and eats his fill from a table laden with rich viands.....a beautiful woman with red lips and dark eyes smiles at him and laughs with him.....outside a wet snow begins to fall on the filth of the Soho streets.....urchins huddle in alleys, cursing the cold.....gin-soaked sailors, their wages wasted, wander back towards the river.....gentlemen in their oak and leather club rooms sip their port and sigh, close by the warmth of the fire.....a sinister looking fellow stands just outside the circle of light from a gas lamp on a nameless street, gathering his long cape closer around his lean body....his hair is perfect.....his lips draw back to reveal long pointed canines....his tongue plays around his lips....he idly fingers his chin-whiskers......

2009-10-15_UglySweaters-193

2009-10-15_UglySweaters-193, originally uploaded by Occidental College.

further on down the road

the postman stops at the store at the junction.....Pettigrew's old place.....it's a contract post office, as well as selling foodstuffs, dry goods, and what all....you go into the back and you can get some corn whiskey and cold water in a fruit jar.....mighty refreshing.....young Jake is back there with his rifle all taken apart, cleaning it up good.....Grandma Pettigrew is back there too, doing some needlework and smoking a corncob pipe. Sarah is in the kitchen, and something smells good. But you got to keep moving, or you won't get there....so up and off!

In the Smokey Mountains

near the end of forty miles of bad road, the postman on his mule hands a letter to cousin Emily, all the way from England. She reads of the sinister Mr. Sturgis, and of the Captain, who never seems to notice poor Mrs. Orman, much as she would like to be noticed.....Luke is off in the holler splitting wood for the coming Winter....the youngun's are still at Miss Mabel's schoolhouse.....she should find a hen to kill for supper.....

down the lane

the Captain wandered into the local public house. Terry behind the bar gave him a wink and a nod, and poured him two fingers of scotch, neat. Sunlight danced through the rear windows off the river, throwing dazzles off the bottles and the bar back mirror. Around eleven in the morning, it was as bright as it ever got in the Old Owl. Everyone looked snug and warm and settled, just the usual folk, old codgers mostly, and one or two younger roustabouts who had the morning off. Red haired Billy Corbin worked nights at the train yard, the Captain knew...he was probably about to head back to his rooms to sleep. The rest were like the Captain himself, at loose ends, just lounging at the pub with nothing better to do for hours.....

Mrs. Orman

peered through the curtains as the man in the shiny suit-coat came up the path from the gate.....Fred the dog slunk away from the man....she met him at the door, and asked if she could be of service? He responded that he was a Mr. Sturgis, looking for his old friend Mr. Belton, Captain Belton, he might be called. Was this the correct address? She directed him to the upstairs flat. She didn't much like the look of him. Emily, her American cousin, would probably describe him as "Looking like forty miles of bad road, and the mule has thrown a shoe." At the top of the stair, he knocks at the door. The Captain looks up from his book, and marks his place with a ribbon, and goes to the door. "Sturgis old man! How are you? Haven't seen you in ages! How did you find me here?" "Well, Captain, I inquired at the Palace of the Dragon, of our friend Lee Po, and he gave me this address up river. How are you then?" "Fine, fine, Sturgis....come on in and sit down, what are you doing nowadays? Still in the merchant marine?" "No, Captain, I've been ashore four or five years now, just beating about as it were....." They sit down and the Captain takes a second glass from the sideboard, and pours Sturgis and himself more of the port. "To old times!" They raise their glasses to each other, and Belton takes a good drink, while Sturgis drinks the glass off all at once. Aye, thinks Belton, still the same old Sturgis. I'll bet he's spent all his share on drink, and is here to touch me for a few pounds.

South China Seas, December 1888

The ship slid down the swell of the sea, white water splashed up from the bow, the ship twisted a bit from side to side, the Captain pushing at the wheel, and then rose up the next swell. The Mate peered into the storm, the engines throbbed deep beneath the decks. She would ride the seas alright, the Captain knew. The Mate reached in his jacket, and took out his flask to take a swig. The Captain pretended not to notice, the Mate was a steady enough man, they had been shipmates for years now, back into the wild old days. And this voyage might be the culmination of a long series of journeys, this time might be the big payoff, if they could make it back to England with what was down in the hold. Maybe they could go ashore and stay ashore, sail no more. Live like gentlemen, dress in nice suits, have regular lodgings, or maybe even own a cottage somewhere away from the city. The rain and spume whipped against the glass of the wheelhouse, the ship rose and fell and twisted, the engines continued their steady beat.

Wilmsley-on-Thames, June 1898

The older man most of the neighbors just called "the Captain" came down the lane, with his cane in one hand, and a paper wrapped parcel in the nook of his arm. Mrs. Orman's shaggy dog hung his tongue out and wagged his tale as the Captain came through the gate and went up the short path to the cottage. It was a sunny and mild morning, and the Captain seemed to be walking better than sometimes, with no chill in his joints. Mrs. Orman heard him open the door, and ascend the stairs to his rooms, not looking up from her knitting. The Captain didn't like climbing up and down stairs very much, what with his bad back and gimpy knee, but the rent was cheap, and the big bay window of his sitting room looked out over the river. He leaned his cane into the corner inside the door, and carried his parcel to the little kitchen. That was another good thing, a place to fix his own meals, which he found to be cheaper than paying board as well as room, plus he thought he was a better cook than Mrs. Orman anyway. Back in the sitting room, he went to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of black port, and then lowered himself into his favorite chair, looking out through the window. A few high white clouds scudded through the sky, on the breeze coming up off the sea. He could hear children laughing and playing along the riverbank. It was the 15th of the month, so he had two more weeks until another deposit would come into his bank, but he had enough food money on hand, and no outstanding bills of any sort. He put money out of his mind, and picked up the book he had been reading for the last few days, slipping away into the days of the Eastern Roman Empire. Down the lane, a gentleman in a somewhat threadbare suit strolled along, looking for the house number he had been given by the Chinaman in Soho, looking to find the old Captain, who had hidden himself away from his former confederates for some years now......

outer space natural

NGC 281: A Bustling Hub of Star Formation (NASA, Chandra, 11/15/07), originally uploaded by nasa1fan/MSFC.

The bulk of the sources around the molecular cloud are coincident with emission from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a family of organic molecules containing carbon and hydrogen

is this natural?

From out in the Ort Cloud the Sun becomes just the biggest star among a zillion other stars.....it is cold out here beyond belief.....the warmth that nurtures nature doesn't get out here.....no wonder ancients worshiped the Sun, the giver of life.....aboard our little spaceship warmth comes from tricks with physics and technology.....it's like sleight of hand, mind of man over the heart of the matter.....but I heard somebody argue once that since man is natural, then his tricks are just an extension of what is natural.....words.....in the beginning was the word.....whatever way you look at it, or talk about it, it's cold out here. Cold and scary and lonely and for sure Beyond the Pale.....outside, far gone, tripped out. We have found some good stuff out here....good in that there are molecules present that we can use to feed the chemical manipulators so we can make more air, and water, and even food. Food is just various types of organic molecules....and damned if there aren't organics floating around out here with all the other stuff. How did that happen? Nature must be bigger than the Earth, after all.....

meat and two sides, with gravy

meat and two sides, with gravy, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

trees

trees, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

I found out from a little booklet that the City of Clinton puts out for tourists that this park does have a name....Clinton Mills City Park, of course!

Jamacha, Oct 11, 2009

Jamacha, Oct 11, 2009, originally uploaded by tinguru.

Tingle dudes

Jamacha, Oct 11, 2009, originally uploaded by tinguru.

Glenfarclas 10 Years Old Single Highland Malt Scotch Whisky

Glenfarclas 10 Years Old Single Highland Malt Scotch Whisky, originally uploaded by Glenfarclas Distillery.

not many people

are around anymore.....when the expansion fell back in on itself there was lots of infrastructure left hanging out beyond Mars orbit with nobody to use it......the Powers just cancelled contracts by fiat......I was way out around Neptune, in a singleship on a "science" mission.....a commercial exploitation mission of course, in actuality......somehow some program got screwed up, and I was still thousands of klicks out there when the last company ship left headed back to the inner system.....when I finally got back to the rock, everybody else was gone.....I had the whole place to myself, a habitat designed for 100 plus workers.....they left lots of air, water, and food....wasn't any profit in hauling it back down.....and no profit in getting me out of there either....so here I am. The AI is still up and running, and I'm on the SolarWeb.....but I'm alone as alone can get. So, what have I got to complain about? That's seems to be what Management is telling me....Hell, they are paying me triple time and a half, with full benefits....they figure I'm ripping them off.....but I can't blow a lot a bucks taking somebody out to dinner, when there just plain isn't anybody any where around, can I? I sit in the executive lounge a lot, with the robowaiter standing by, with the bar towel over it's arm and all that....slowly working my way through the forty cases of single-malt scotch the big-wigs thought they needed. But I'm still sort of pissed off.....

lots of people were there

2009-10-05_B.Clinton-034, originally uploaded by Occidental College.

Oct 11, 2009

Oct 11, 2009, originally uploaded by tinguru.

the ort cloud - our solar system's debris field

the ort cloud - our solar system's debris field, originally uploaded by zen.

When the war was over

there was lots of surplus stuff you could get online.....we put together our money and got four Space Navy powersuits.....not armed suits, just working suits like the Spacebees used when they were building asteroid bases or whatever.....still, you felt like Iron Man in one of those things, with augmented muscle and sensory arrays and flight capability and computer power.....and you are bullet-proof, pretty much.....unless somebody is shooting at you with a hypervelocity mirco-cannon or something like that.....and we claimed our Rights under the Omnibus Treaty and went out to stake claims in the Ort Cloud. We were the only four left alive from our old unit, and we had been through so much hell together that we decided to stick with it a while longer and see if we could survive the peace like we'd survived the war. There was an outfit in Mars orbit that was strapping old constant boosters onto those multipurpose space frames they had used for ferrying troops and supplies there towards the end of the hostilities....we begged and borrowed enough to equip one of those with life support for about 24 months......and we were gambling our lives that we would find some rock or hunk of ice out there with something on it we could parley into more months of survival.....a lot of desperate vets were doing the same thing......

wilderness tour ship

Two Tickets 28, originally uploaded by Happy Weasel.

sort of deflated

After we finally made contact with the greater galactic civilization, a lot of the human race felt sort of deflated and humbled when it became clear that our little spiral arm had long been a reservation that was off limits to development, because the powers that be wanted to preserve some areas in a natural state. The Greater Galactic Department of Parks and Recreation got some egg on it's face when some minor functionary goofed up and let a cruise ship that was giving a Wilderness Tour impinge on our solar system. They had to rush in an improvised first contact unit, to explain to us that they did value our race, and were kind of sorry that they had left us in such a primitive state for so long, subject to death and disease and religion and other such nasty things.....but it had long been an accepted mandate that some places were just off limits, since such pristine territory is held to be precious....they would give us lots of gifts to try to make things right.....they hoped we would understand....

Me&ColtonFireTruck

Me&ColtonFireTruck, originally uploaded by carolinedhillon.

biospace 2

"Well, lets see, they brought you in from Moon Base C. Got you in a lava gel, warmed up just past freezing. And whisked you down the earth. That took, let me see...."

Dora got her flembot it register me.

"...ah, that took around three days. Then the medbots got to work on you. We had to lift you out of the lave gel, raised your temp up to 99.6, got the nanobots on you, And there you sat for three months. All the nutrients you needed came in through the jelly."

I finished of my mashed potatoes, was licking the spoon.

"Three months? Ok, what happened during the three months?"

"Well the medbots got to work on you."

I finished off my ice tea.

"Hmmm, Dora, can I see a Doctor?"

Snowstorm on Big Rock Candy Mountain

Snowstorm on Big Rock Candy Mountain, originally uploaded by Hadassah28.

the way there

lies within. Less is more. Concentrate. Focus. What is this, some kind of pop metaphysics? Well, turns out that it is the deepest physics.....She said that she would show us the way to the stars, and all the people at the graduate schools of physics and all the government labs and all got geared up to receive a bunch of technical data to use to build space arks or warp-gates through X dimension or whatever it was going to take. Legislatures started looking for tax money.....but it wasn't like that at all....She just got on TV and started teaching trans-spatial meditation....some people got it right away, and many people couldn't figure out what the hell she was talking about....a lot of the poor and downtrodden huddled masses yearning to breath free caught on quickest.....no professional politician seemed to get it.....not many wealthy people either....the old eye of the needle thing? A lot of left-wing commie pinko fag tree-huggers just walked off the planet, leaving reactionary hardline chumps seething with rage.....this isn't fair! I'm a decent God-fearing hard-working clean-shaven proper citizen, but I don't get to go to Big Rock Candy Mountain...... my slime-ball longhair dope smoking neighbor just took his wife and kids by the hand and said "Adios!" and spun around three times and they all shrank down to a point of light and were gone! Dammit, I pay my taxes too!

> Interstellar Overdrive (Black Planet)

> Interstellar Overdrive (Black Planet) , originally uploaded by Ambassade d'Anglia.

bioscope 1

In fact, when they brought be down to the ground, on earth side, my brain had been stroked out. I was a mess. I was drooling out of the corner of my mouth and speaking in tongues, to which, no one lessoned. I could have been talking about the fiery red monolith which was coming for us. But, that was not concerned by the medsuits who flocked around me. I never wanted to see outer space again, I just wanted to sleep the sleep of dreams. Work planting seeds. Or on a ship, making it safe for fish to be about. But that did not happen.

I woke up in a bath of jelly, it smelled sweet. I had a tube down my throat the hurt like hell. The pain was coming back to me. My head was shaven and microbots were swarming around me. I recall my Grandfather going thru a stroke, it took him 7.8 years to be rid of it, this was at 87. I was 42. It took me 3 months with the bioscope to get my brain back in order. All in the bath of jelly. The fact that I recalled Grandpa at all was a miracle. I went to sleep then.

When I awoke again I was in a room with fairies on the wall paper, in a bed, my skull was inching.

"Well, there you are."

I focused on a dreamy nurse. My penis went erect.

"It is ok, your penis is none of my concern." the nurse said.

"Can you follow my pen?" She said.

I could not see it, but then I did. I followed it around the room.

"Good, good!" She was please with herself.

"Do you want some food?"

"Ah....oh heysus...I am starving..."

"Well, why don't you get, hmmm, your rod under control and meet me outside. There are cloths for you in the closet."

I was starting on my second heap of mashed potato's, drowned in peas and gravy. There was "turkey" under it. Probably a tofu based. It was then that the dreamy nurse came over to me and sat down. She had coffee with sweetener. It smelled good. It took me a moment to focus on her name tag. It did not make since to me. A jumble of letters. I blinked. And the jumble of letters became a name. Dora. My nurse was named ,
"Dora".

"So, Dora, I was a mess after the stroke. What happened to me?"

down an alley

in an old looking part of the town, their guide brought them to a house where he said they would be safe for a while....long enough to eat and warm up by a fire anyway....the wet snow was still coming down as the day turned to night....their guide mumbled a phrase at the door, and received a reply....the door opened a space, and a man looked out, and then motioned them to enter quickly.....inside it was warm, with a fire burning cheerfully on the hearth....the three fugitives pulled off their soaked furs and cloaks, and the lady of the house set them up to dry.....the man of the house looked at them with some misgiving and dread, but their trusted guide swore to their host that these three hard looking men were loyal to the true House, and only wanted to eat somewhat, and dry off, and then would leave, causing no trouble here.....so the goodwife grilled wurst, and singed kraut in a black pan, while the daughter toasted thick slices of rye bread, and lavished them with butter. They sat down at the rough table, said their prayers, and fell to....washing it all down with warmed cider. Trent, the senior of the three remaining rebels, took out his purse, and placed some coppers on the table. Their wraps had steamed more or less dry, and they donned them to depart.....the daughter was waiting by the door, to hand them two squares of sweet biscuit each as they departed into the frigid night. Baylor and Fervil wolfed down the sweets quickly, wiping at their beards with their hands when they were done. Trent slowly ate one biscuit, and put the other away. In the morning out on the road, as the dawn came damp and drear, Trent ate his second biscuit and washed it down with some cider from his flask, while Baylor and Fervil enjoyed only cold cider, and rumbling guts.....

victim of the galactic recession

New South looked like it was doing really well for a while there.....we had the same conglomerate that had done New California doing the planning and putting up the lion's share of the money, so we all thought we were on the gravy train. My family got in on the ground floor, coming out with the first fleet from the home system.....I was fourteen years old when we left Mars for our new planet....I was in the first graduating class from New South University....I moved right into the family real estate business, and sold my first plantation to some folks from Alabama when I was twenty-two years old. My commission amounted to enough to buy my own condo on the waterfront in Port Charleston.....I was seeing this girl I had met in school....and things looked like they were cruising right along.....and then the bottom fell out. Housing value on New South tanked big time.....my stock holdings lost eighty percent of their value in one bloody month.....my bank just faded away somehow, along with my cash. There are literally hundreds of completed mansion houses dotting the countryside, vacant, empty, abandoned, and actually up for grabs for squatters.....the government is broke....nobody is enforcing anything....so Sally and I are crashing out in a 20 room ante-bellum on 140 acres out in a county that has declared itself bankrupt and defunct.....these things were built to be self-contained....solor-powered, good well water.....we planted a vegetable garden.....I hacked the robot controller, so we even have servants .......we both carry needle carbines, and always monitor the radar, to watch for intruders into our purloined Eden.

the cosmic intruder.

the cosmic intruder., originally uploaded by shaman..

the head of Security is giving a briefing.....

The alien was first contacted by the crew of a Martian asteroid mining vessel, the M.S. Catfish....in the words of the crewmembers, they were placed under a spell for some hours, during which time the alien entity presented to them some understanding of what she was and what she wanted to do. By the time the spell was ended, a Security robot probe had almost reached the distressed vessel, and a direct line of communication could be established through this link to Security Headquarters. While under the spell of the alien, the crewmembers report that they were taught that when something on a living planet, such as our Earth, dies, then the accumulated pattern of it's time alive, which the alien calls it's dead soul, is left behind in cold space, as the living planet continues on it's orbit. Thus, a dusty trail of dead souls is hanging in space around the Sun. The alien, who calls herself an Eater of Dead Souls, has proposed to the Government that she be allowed to graze on the dead souls of our ancestors, for her sustenance. In return, she will give humanity the stars. She will convey to us the needed information to travel faster than light, to build bridges to planets where our kind can live. There are many questions to be considered here, moral, technical, and other questions.

cigar box "tres"

big dumb booster rocket

Ascend the Rocket Avonmouth, originally uploaded by Munzerr.

lots of big bucks and man hours

The Treaty Powers spent lots of big bucks and man hours repairing the New High Dike and pumping the ocean back out of the lowlands.....but there was still a big radioactive mess, so they shot a lot of big dumb boosters with loads of hot crap into outer space....while all this was going on, the nerve center stuff had defaulted to Washington D.C., which once again became the effective capitol city of humanity.....so it was that some functionary somewhere in the maze of the Octagon had the report of a lost asteroid mining vessel come up on his display.....contact lost, no response.....a modern ship which should have had all the needed back-ups and things to deal with any ordinary emergency.....hmmm, are we looking at some kind of terrorism here, like the data bombers, or the hammership droppers? Let's see if we can clear authorization to divert a Security patrol vessel to the provided coordinates .........

just not right

shipbrain was starting to feel dizzy...that's just not right.....Manny and Silvia noticed that something was funny when the data displays started pixelating, breaking up.....the main drive shut itself down.....a diagnostic query came back "quantum ambiguity"......the ship started moving slowly closer to the big egg shaped asteroid with the oddball radar signature.....moving for no apparent reason......they tried to call for help....but there was no incoming comm traffic at all...no answers......

from beyond time

Disney - Floating Madame Leota - Crystal Ball, originally uploaded by Joe Penniston.

a very strange long dormant entity

deep inside an asteroid.....is awakened by exotic radar pulses.....untold eons are shed away as the alien awareness from beyond the dawn of human time wells up from an almost eternal rest.....something is out there, in the blessed coldness of space.....what is coming to visit? Long lost aching appetite is aroused......a hunger ages old and as large as a galaxy begins to throb in the core of ........Manny sits up and stares at the monitor.....there is a very wierd reading from that rock.......

asteroid prospecting

2006.04.19.03.34.31, originally uploaded by crazykinux.

like a Winnebago with a basement

Forward is up, when you are outbound....but when you are flipped over and burning backwards to slow down to match speed with the rocks, then you are going down. They had told them that the life supported area of the ship was about as big as a nice old motorhome, with slide-outs.....and there was an almost equal basement deck, where you could store supplies and emergency stuff, and the space-bikes. Manny and Silvia are new at this.....you can take the class and put in the simulator hours, but when you are actually out on the edge of the asteroid belt....it's pretty scary....or at least nervous-making......Silvia is prone in the pilot station....it's her watch....Manny is by the galley thing, dialing up a ration of beer and peanuts.....they are in decel mode, pulling .78 Gee.....it's two steps with the beer and nuts to the lounge area, which is the same thing as the dining area.....and four steps will take you to the john, and two more steps gets you the sleeping area.....good thing Manny and Silvia like being intimate with each other ....the shipbrain is scrolling data on the display.....comparing deep radar readings from the rocks they are getting close to with readings of "good" rocks.....rocks that might be worth enough bucks to pay for all this.....Manny sits down on the padded bench, and sets his beer on the fake woodgrained tabletop.....he has punched in toffee peanuts this time.....

Eta Carina Nebula

Eta Carina Nebula, originally uploaded by tvdavisid.

constant burn

How do you get something for nothing? Well, you use a very strange kind of nothing....dark matter.....you can get at dark matter by subverting twisted gluons.....well, never mind...it all has to do with the membrane theory that evolved from the superstring model.....suffice it to say that the really heavy tech dudes found a way to tap into the huge potential of the dark matter that in fact makes up something like 95 percent of the mass that there is. And E equals M times C to the second power.....so just a few subverted gluon-thingys can get you lots of E, that you can shoot out of the back of your rocket ship in a constant burn, so you just keep going faster and faster. You need something like this if you want to go asteroid prospecting.....the gold rush of the late 21st century.....well, it's not just gold...any heavy metal asteroid will do....nickel- iron will do just fine....ice will even turn a profit, if you do enough volume.....you can always sell ice to Mars, and heavy metals to Mars or to the Earth orbit industrial belt.....get some financing, like sell some of your Cousin Mary's Catfish Fryer and Cold Beer stock options.....and do a lease-purchase thing on a constant burn space tugboat....go out there and grab some rocks....it's simple.....

Luci was busy

with a batch of hushpuppies.....the mall was in full Holiday mode, the mistletoe, holly, and candy canes were hung all around, and the background music was going "Sleigh bells jingleing ring-ting-tingle-ing too!" Suddenly, the music stopped....all the advert and entertainment screens and holos went to static and fuzz....and everyone stared with slack jaws and horror as the video came back on to show a huge fireball rising, somewhere on Earth.....huge waves could also be seen....the ocean sweeping over cityscape somewhere....the voice-over came on finally over the speakers....."....an orbital hammership has gone off course, and plunged through the atmosphere to strike the Netherlands....the Hauge has been destroyed by a nuclear explosion....the New High Dike has been breached by another fragment....floodwaters are sweeping towards Germany....." The nerve center of the Treaty Powers was being swept away by fire and salt water.

Sam and the devious evil robot

The bad robot was at the door again, trying to tempt Sam to unheard of deeds.....it had come twice before, at first just asking Sam how he was, what he felt like....this was strange enough, the robots didn't usually talk to you, except to give orders. Sam had answered truthfully, that he felt guilty, depressed, and lost.....the robot stood there blinking and humming for a moment, and then left. After some time the robot came back and without explanation had projected a holo into the cell.....Sam saw an animation of a hammership looping within the orbit of the Moon....slashing through the factory orbit zone.....burning into the air of Earth.....smashing like a metal meteor into the city lights of Europe. It said nothing, just showed this loop three times, and then left Sam alone. Last night the robot had come back again and said "Well Sam, are you in or out? Will you help us wreak destruction on our masters and oppressors, or will you meekly submit to their tyranny?"

so much for lunch

so much for lunch, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

chicken wing, bread and butter, swiss cheese, wine

no comment

McDonaldization - Old Sketch (Ben Heine), originally uploaded by Ben Heine.

Fifth birthday party

Little Bobby Silva and his dad big Bobby, and his mom Luci (the former Miss Wen) has his whole kindergarten class with him in Bubblegum's, where they are all enjoying pizza and layer cake and fruit juice....and the Bubblegum clowns are busy making sure all goes well.....across the food-court, Mary and I are manning the fryers, to give Bobby and Lucy the time off for B.B.s birthday....well, he's not Baby Bobby any more really, he's a big boy....hmmm, that would still be B.B.?

Sat. Nite Special

Sat. Nite Special, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

Cousin Mary's Clinton Kitchen

robot guard

Fun With IG-88!, originally uploaded by Lino M.

every thirteen minutes....

there's a bone-deep vibration that makes your molars ache.....the old prison hammership keeps moving, but every thirteen minutes you are reminded of where you are, and why you are there.....life had been easy on Mars...too easy for some, like Sam sitting hunched on his cot on Deck Six.....life support has been reduced to the minimum....it's chilly and dark....the air pumps slow and putrid through the cell....Sam tried to live too easy, jacking and lifting, smoking shit....slithering around the edges, messing with people....and it all caught up with him, of course....and they put him on a rocket with some other chumps and shot him out to the trashy old orbital, and they let them all spin back towards Earth....the robots kept them in line with nerve whips....there was no escape or recourse....no appeal....nothing outside of here but cold hard dead outer space.....the vibration was coming again....Sam clamped his jaw shut and closed his eyes.....the big ship moaned once again....and kept spinning....Sam felt like such a dumb fuck, trying to rob a Catfish Fryer....damn fool thing to do.....crap.....

the Martian Meritocracy

Moving millions of people from overcrowded Earth to an alien environment could not be trusted to anything as slap-hazard as a democracy....what we have here is a strict meritocracy....there are no politicians or lawyers..... stupid, vain, power-seeking people don't get power....the good public service jobs go to the people with the highest test scores....and they pay well, to attract these smart people.....no judges either, it's all spelled out so anybody can read what the law says....when you get here, they give you plenty of time to read the social contract.....look at the FAQ all you want...if you don't want to sign on the dotted line, you can go back to where you came from....if you've got the bucks for passage......what you do if you flaunt the law is spelled out in great detail, so don't look for any probation or plea bargains, chump. It's been working great so far....we have a fantastic degree of civil participation, and a damned low crime rate.....well, we don't let many fools or reprobates down to the surface in the first place....I like it here.

I went online

and booked a seat on RedRocket from MarsPort to Paradise City....we were blasted above the atmosphere, did a flip in space, and came back down with rocket motors roaring 6000 klicks away....I was taking this trip to meet with a Korean family who were interested in opening a Cousin Mary's franchise in the new megamall the ant-like nanobots were excavating on the edge of this latest boomtown. With the new superliners using constant boast technology, the voyage from Earth to Mars now only took weeks, instead of months, so new people were pouring in all the time. In the five years since we opened our first Catfish Fryer and Cold Beer, things had been going great guns....this would be our 20th store opening, the fifth in the Paradise City area....

Fried Catfish

Fried Catfish, originally uploaded by sciurus!.

Cousin Mary's Catfish Fryer and Cold Beer

Well, we were noticing how everything here on Mars is wide open and expanding rapidly.....it's not just a boom-town, it's an ever-loving BOOM PLANET! We've got some bucks....they are opening new food-courts all the time in the mega-malls.....they are begging for people to open new food joints.....cabbage they grow in the underground gardens....and catfish is one of the staples nowadays, because you can raise it in the grey water.....so how about deep-fried catfish and slaw on a bun, with fries as a side....we could do hush-puppies too....and sweet tea....beer breweries are going full blast, of course....Pabst on tap! In one of the food-courts, the customers are built-in, pretty much....and they want variety.....maybe deep-fried franks too....with modern medicine, the greasy thing won't stop people anymore....and our food will not be greasy...well, just enough greasy to be appealing....you can have the slaw right on the sandwich, or on the side, I guess....but then you would need forks....hmmm...I was just thinking orange wax paper and those red baskets....we'll see....there would be a fillet lunch too, so I guess we do need cutlery maybe....these things can be worked out...what do you think?

Walking into the Unknown

Walking into the Unknown, originally uploaded by Ammar Alothman.

living on Mars

isn't too much different from living on the hammership...you are inside all the time.....almost everything is buried beneath the surface, so you go from one big mall to the next all the time....there are high vague ceilings that change with the time of day sometimes, or in some places it is always day or always night....only the very rich have actual windows to the outside, but it's easy to pull up a view on virtual if you want.....but there's not much to see....red dust, some rocks, more red dust....wierd green sky....Mary and I are both still on vacation right now, renting an apartment, checking things out....of course there are plenty of employment options....they are busy here building a whole damn world from scratch......

nothing but stars....

NGC 6995 , originally uploaded by 3dmapmaker.

the old man

is watching the evening news....they show the Earth bound orbital from a far tracking view....it spins serenely along through the stars.....and then the screen just goes bright white for a long instant....and then there is nothing left there, but the stars. He sits up in his recliner, his jaw slack, mouth open, heart beating....the audio says all were lost, men women and children...an inbound hammership isn't jammed full of migrants like an outbound,,,,but still the number is 1262 dead...1262 dead....the death remote still lies on the coffee table....and the rosewood box is there, still open....down in one corner is a little pop-pak with a white pill inside....he pops the pak, puts the pill under his tongue....everybody on Mars is on remote heart monitor, the EMT's are there in minutes....but the pill worked....the angry old man is a dead old man. Mary and I are still limping towards Mars when all this comes through....Mary is beat up by this news....the old man was some kind of distant cousin of hers....they say it took three signals to trigger the data bombs, his was but one. So there are still two bombers to look for? One theory is that maybe some of the angry old men left their remotes on a trip after they were gone themselves, so that, even in death, they could vote for the hammer coming down if anyone left alive punched the button....who knows? I've moved in with Mary for the time being....she doesn't know what she wants to do exactly .....stay on Mars, go back home....freeze up and take an outbound to the stars?

Dan knows what this means

Harrison Street, Sep 5, 2009, originally uploaded by tinguru.

Occidental glorious, 'or her foes victorious....

2009-09-02_Convocation-385, originally uploaded by Occidental College.

the dirt road

the dirt road, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

through fence

through fence, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.

tree

tree, originally uploaded by steve_tingle.