There is no light

and the bed is rocking back and forth.....there are creaks and crashes sounding through the darkness.....Mary says "What the fuck!" A burst of static comes from the overhead speaker....and shipvoice says "This is an emergency. Please remain calm....rrrreemain cccalmmm....AEE--ARGH" silence follows....."Damn" says Mary. She slaps at something on the wall, and a reddish emergency type light fills the bedroom....she jumps from the tangled sheets and zips an Orbital Authority jumpsuit over her skinny nakedness....the patch over her left breast says Major Tudor....I pull on my things that I find on the floor, while she buckles on a big black belt with a sidearm and other strange things hanging from it...."OK" she says "You're with me, let's go!" It takes us half a minute to remember how to open a door on manual, and we are out into the hall....we set off at a trot towards the lifts.....dull emergency lights are coming on now, some flickering, some steady.....confused voices behind doors we pass....the lifts are dead, but Major Mary calmly breaks the seal on the emergency phone thing and starts pressing buttons....the deck shifts violently again, and Mary says "Oh shit." Someone is talking from the other end now, from where ever Emergency Command is.....Mary listens for a moment, and then tells me "Well, sounds like we are up the frigging creek without a paddle or a spoon."

Miss Wen

is very happy! She loves the readings....they are about real things....important things.....and the Master is such a wonderful person, so calm, so understanding, so clever....she loves the Tuesday sessions, with others who are real....other young people who have questions.....and....and.....most of all....she thinks she loves Bobby! Of course her family or the Han Pure State would never approve....he is not Han at all. He is Mi-Wuk....a native american tribe....from California....but his eyes.....oh.....They walk through the mall holding hands....she doesn't care who sees them.....her heart is beating fast....she walks on air....he smiles at her, they turn aside into a small park pavilion, dimly lit this late in the evening...they sit on a bench....they lean close together....their lips almost meet.....and all the world shakes and shudders....a great groan moans through the whole hammership....all goes dark, they are thrown sideways as the ship-spin starts going haywire....somewhere there is an explosion....someone starts screaming.....a child cries "Mommy? MOMMY!"

meanwhile

in a Martian cliff dwelling.....the old man leans back in his recliner and calls up a news feed....the implants in his skull decode the message hidden inside the insipid chatter of the newsperson....he sighs once, and sets a grim expression on his face as he rises from the recliner, and crosses the room to an Andy Warhol print hanging above the sideboard.....the print swings aside, and the old man presses his palm onto the smartlock of the wall-safe......reaching in, he takes out a small rosewood box. He pulls a thin gold chain out from beneath his sweat-shirt collar, and opens the box with the tiny key hanging there.....he carefully takes out what looks like an old TV remote....with a number pad, and one big red button.....he considers for a moment, and starts to enter the sequence......

Trout Meuniere

Trout Meuniere, originally uploaded by cinnachick.

Mary asked me out to dinner

and of course I accepted. We go out from time to time.....we are both in O.U. Administration, so we compare notes about things....and we get along pretty well on a social plane.....she says she likes my company because I'm the only other person she knows who can quote lines from both The Importance of Being Earnest and A Day at the Races.....things that are, like scotch, tastes you have to acquire ......her name is actually, believe me on this, Mary Tudor.....a lot of times people in bars or whatever just won't buy that. She is tall, skinny, fine-boned....a couple of years older then me....and has a much higher security clearance that I do, because she "works with computers"....she "has codes"......In the Treaty Powers scheme of things, she ranks as a Major....you know, in a State of Emergency, she would be commanding people.....Anyway, we went to one of those Top Deck places with the velvet rope and the whole nine yards extra fancy wise trip....she had asked me out...she has the bucks, what the heck? She had the game hen, I had the trout, etc....By the time we got to the cherry cheesecake and port, the conversation had worked around to the thing about deeply embedded data bombs......Mary said that was something that was no joke.....some of the old farts who wrote a lot of the code that many current systems were based on had......vanished.....Treaty Power Security, Cybernetic Branch, had no idea where they were.....they would be way up there in years by now, who knew what they were thinking of? Were they OK with where the machines were going now, or.....or even one senile malcontent could possibly throw the ultimate monkey-wrench into the machine works.....She swirled her port, and drank it off....she looked pensive, with a crooked little smile....I asked her what could really happen if this geriatric radical thing actually came down? She said the shit would hit the fan big time.....the virus probably wouldn't just get the teaching machines.....a lot of systems could crash....like life-support, and navigation....whatever.....We went out and found a bar with a dance band.....

the teaching machines

can trace their software heritage back to the programming projects at the University of California in the 2020's.....in fact, when the Treaty Powers first started building and launching the hammership orbitals towards Mars, the educational system for the migrant ship population had been administered under a contract arrangement with U.C. San Diego. But once the whole rotation was up and running, things were formalized under Orbital Authority, and the present Orbital University system was established. So here at O.U. we have legacy systems with roots almost 70 years back in time to the original Intelligent Teaching Program, written by a team in Oakland. Somewhere in that time frame the machines started "self-writing".....which has led to philosophical and practical complications, as you might imagine....there are humans who do not really trust what the machines might be up to....what are they teaching the kids? I was reading a thing about deeply embedded data bombs.....apparantly some of the original Oakland programmers claim to have been associated with the Bay Area Neoradical movement....they say that if the machines get too uppity, they will broadcast codes that will blow their minds.....

a week or so later

I ran into Kato in the mall outside of that shop that sells flavored teas and incense and stuff like that......he asked me if I remembered Miss Wen.....I asked him how she was getting along. He said he thought she was doing fine....a very intelligent and intense young lady who was just having a little trouble with our clean-cut and sterile society, with it's hard lines and standard definitions of everything. Her elders were taking her to Mars to become a member of the Han Pure State.....they were strict New Party loyalists, secular to the core. The ethnic and religious minorities that had torn China to pieces in the Thirties were very devils to them. A sensitive young person could feel that he or she were being pressed into a tight mold in the Pure State, where strict adherence to proper guidelines constituted the highest value.....Kato had given her a reading list, and obtained permission from her family for her to attend his Tuesday evening sessions, which was mostly people close to her age. He promised them no religion, only traditional philosophy. We stopped at a cafe and had some coffee, and talked for a while about the plight of space age humanity......

the lift drops me down

to the lowest deck of our spaceship, where gravity approaches unity.....the only thing lower than this low rent district is the bilge belt where all the used water ends up, to be processed by the nanoslurry and pumped back up again....I enter the comfortable dimness of the Lounge, and make my way towards the bar....Misty sees me coming in, and has my scotch and soda poured before I climb onto my usual stool. The regulars are here....Mrs. Corozon and J.P. are playing gin rummy at one of the tall small tables....the guy from accounting stares out through one of the little thick portholes at the endless parade of stars.....Bill and his latest girlfriend, the redhead, occupy one dark booth....a couple of guys in Orbital Authority jumpsuits are drinking beer and eating catfish nuggets, dipping them in ranch dressing. One of them starts to tell a joke, and Misty leans on her elbows listening with that expectant little smile you get on your face when you are being told a funny story.....the screens above the barback are showing a golf course, the weather for Europe, and some telenovella with the sound off....the only thing coming from the overhead speakers is something that sounds like Russian drinking music....the writing scrolling beneath the golf course is in Chinese characters.....I can't figure out where they are playing....... Thinking back through my work day, nothing had happened really.....only Miss Wen.....the machine that teaches Ontology had sent her to me....it said that she kept asking it why questions.....she wanted answers with meaning.....so it told her to go talk to a human.....I gave her an appointment time right after lunch.....she was a severe looking petite Han person with very short hair and pink lipstick, wearing a huge Lakers jersey that came down below her knees....she was barefoot, and her toenail polish matched her lipgloss. She told me that when she tried to talk to her parents about the deeper questions that were troubling her, they just looked at her with stupefied expressions on their faces.....I asked her if she would like an introduction to my friend Mr. Kato, the Zen Master on deck 11.....she scowled fiercely for a moment, but then said "Yes, please."

on campus

Musée des Beaux-Arts, originally uploaded by myrique baumier.

you would never know you are on a spaceship from this angle

orbital hammership

The great creaking mass of the aging hammership spins onwards through the void.....months from Earth orbit, months to go to Mars. The spinning keeps a semblance of gravity on the 14 inhabited decks....up the shaft of the hammer the gees fade away....at the bulb at the other end from the head, the almost obsolete mass of the fusion power source is the center around which the whole thing rotates. A hammer of the gods, hurled out between the planets, ever orbiting, never stopping. You couldn't stop the damn thing if you wanted to, short of blowing it up. But that's a problem for the powers that be. All I have to think about is doing my job, fulfilling my contract....which is to "administer the educational program subsection L4....liberal arts (other)" Not science, that's for sure...not language, or fine arts, or law or economics or diplomacy....just "other"....like philosophy and religion maybe? And I don't have to teach, just administer, machines do the teaching. Well, they like to be called "intelligent programs"....but they act like machines, as far as I can tell. From my office window I can see out over part of the campus....there are little bits of carefully placed flora, and lots of fake marble and pseudo-sandstone surface.....some kind of bastard beaux-arts architecture I've never been able to figure out or classify.....to me it all looks like a movie set from a 1930's flick about a robot future.....but it's here now, dammit. Well, my office hours are coming to an end for the day, and I can shortly begin to wend my way towards the Down Lounge, to trade the boredom of "work" for the boredom of "leisure"......At least down there I can get a drink.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8226563.stm

Pickled Pig Lips

Pickled Pig Lips, originally uploaded by RandomConnections.

this place is now The Hash Pot

Ora ARP graves

Ora ARP graves, originally uploaded by RandomConnections.

15 Birthday

Waverly, Aug 20, 2009

Waverly, Aug 20, 2009, originally uploaded by tinguru.

Colton camping

Obama as an Oxy freshman

Early Obama Portraits, originally uploaded by Chris Chaotic.

another famous Oxy dude

Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam, originally uploaded by The Kuhnster.

Oxy Children's Theater "1001 Arabian Nights of the Living Dead"?

2009-07-31_OCT-L.Dead-388, originally uploaded by Occidental College.

les paul mary ford

les paul mary ford, originally uploaded by louisiv.geo.

bless you Les

Sorry!

This blog has been ordered to cease and desist by Authority.

Fried Grasshoppers

Fried Grasshoppers, originally uploaded by Grumbler %-|.

you could get these at the swapmeet

Herat in hog heaven

The five merchant ships had to angle South a bit to find and round the headland into Queens Bay, the chief harbor of the Kingdom of Garnash, the middle of the Three Kingdoms of the Western Shore.....Royal Garnash Castle rose high above the city, which was a proper walled stronghold of some good size....Captain DeKline, with his connections in this realm, was able to secure a mooring place alongside one of the principal mercantile docks, and the voyage was over.  While Ambrey organized the disembarking, and the Baron and the Captain settled their accounts, Herat was overwhelmed by a delicious aroma rising from the street vendors along the waterfront....he dropped over the side and made his way through the smoke and crowd to a stall where a jolly fat Westerner was sliding long red sausages into a pot of boiling oil, while his wife or whomever fried flat bread, and onions, and peppers on a sizzling iron griddle......A sausage on a roll was Herat's idea of singular bliss, so he quickly exchanged some few coppers for a steaming sausage curled up under a hot relish in warm flatbread.....he also obtained a pot of cider, and was transported to hog heaven!   The strange Mister Batt had followed along, but choose a different vendor, where they sold deep-fried grasshoppers, very well spiced....

1978 Subaru 1600 station wagon

1978 Subaru 1600 station wagon, originally uploaded by verner_oscar™.

remember this one?

WESTERN SHORES

WESTERN SHORES, originally uploaded by peke_cheeks.

were within reach

to sea eventually

Doctor Drew did bring a man with him....a Mister Batt, who Warrant Officer Frank quickly sized up as being "slicker than a greased weasel, and smells about the same."  So the Baron and Herat, and the Doctor and the weasel, and Chef Barrel and Jimmy, and Frank and the four stout lads and the quartermaster himself did make an even dozen as they boarded the Fortunate one warm Summer evening....they were shown their quarters, and their gear was stowed away in good fashion.....as the tide turned before dawn, and as a favorable wind came up, the little fleet of five merchantmen crossed the bar and cracked on canvas to head out into deep water, on a bearing for the Western channel.  The savvy merchant masters knew the proper time to sail from long experience.....the winds would be good in this season, and would act with the currents to carry them easily to the Three Kingdoms, the Gods willing.....and day followed night and week followed week, and they weathered some troublesome storms but suffered not much damage.....and they spied some sails which might be pirates, but were not approached after all, and the sailors showed the adventurers dolphin and albatross and mermaid and narwhal and flying fish and other wonders of the deep, and the leagues passed beneath the keels.  The Baron would spread his maps and scrolls in the great cabin, and the Doctor and Mister Batt and the good Herat would look on and listen as he explained his plans for after they had reached the far shores.....Captain DeKline contributed items of interest from his own knowledge of the customs of the Three Kingdoms.....and when Chef Barrel allowed as how he had spent some years in these lands as a youth, he also joined their consuls.   They all grew lean and tan, and soon appeared as very seamen themselves.....Jimmy quickly learned to dance through the rigging with the ship's boys, Chef Barrel was welcome in the galley, and the stout lads regaled the sailors with war stories, as they learned something of the sailor craft, hauling with a will on lines as needed, and such.  And one mid-morning, the look-out at the masthead cried the land....they were come to the Western shore.....

Hildegard and Mt. Shasta Property

Hildegard and Mt. Shasta Property, originally uploaded by aniika.

the Obombski property in California

then there's this....

"The way things are right now is just an accident."  Quantum Transmutation: A Primer....by Hildegard Obombski.....

Claymore

Claymore, originally uploaded by Mark Andrew Turner.

similar to Herat's own....

Things were falling into place....

The Baron was satisfied that Captain DeKline and his good ship Fortunate would suit his purpose well enough....the price had been negotiated, and a deposit paid.  So he and Herat would take the coach South in the morning, with a wagon following behind with various and sundry baggage....The Baron was not at all nonplussed by Brever's withdrawal from the expedition...he was a good and loyal servant, but a skinny and fussy fellow, probably not well suited to the rigors they might expect over the coming months.....Herat, on the other hand, was, in addition to being perfectly well mannered and well-spoken, a commanding looking presence....very tall and with broad shoulders, great masses of hair and beard, and a fearsome claymore always slung in the baldric on his back.....he was an enormous trencherman, to be sure, but the Baron wasn't too worried about the food budget at this point....he was itching to get going, to probe the secrets of the Western Lands.....

Sun Setting, Southport Harbor

Sun Setting, Southport Harbor, originally uploaded by brenna d.

is this the right Southport?

something completely different

     "Or perhaps he had snapped under the strain.  Professors go batty too, perhaps more often than other people, although owing to their profession their madness is less often remarked"....from The Book of Air and Shadows...by Michael Gruber....