C James

16 Y/O's can have driver's licenses in the US. In many states the minimum age is 15, not 16. In some states it is 14.

Drat! I've been telling everyone that I'm a clone in order to keep off the dinner table.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!! Steve does have a little bit of an exhibitionist streak. All I'll say about the data on the drive is that it's... Data. I can't discuss much without giving spilers, but I can talk about Piedmont. I needed some fictional names. Both Lonesome Valley (where the William's house is) and Piedmont are based on small Arizona towns, but they are composites of several. For the names, I chose a former name of a real town that changed it's name back in the 70's (it's name before Lonesome Valley was Jackass flats. Serioulsy) and Piedmont, well, it reminded me of the Piedmont, Arizona in the movie "The Andromida Strain", so the name stuck. As for my picture without sunglasses, I wasn't clear there, sorry. What Dex spotted was data remaining in the unused clusters of the drive (clusters not occupied by the current data file). Much like deleting a file in windows; all windows does is blank out the first letter of the filename, thus rendering the clusters "available", but the data is still there, unless over-written. When faced with a mystery such as what is on a flash drive, it makes sense to look at every bit of data, including whatever can be recovered. Now, if the data that's important is encrypted, then the chances of decrypting it are pretty low without someone who understand cryptography. Public domain encryption algorithms are solid enough that you can't crack them. Since I've just had to learn a bit of cryptography for my job, I see the following options: Eric had Steve's PlayStation (video game console) and a lot of other things, but Eric has his own computer, as does Steve. I can't comment too much on the encryption stuff, for fear of spoilers (and thus, your spines). However, their are many methods other than password encryption, such as public and private keys, one-time-pads, logarithmic cyphers, stream cyphers, etc, etc, etc. Basically, you have two main types of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. Symetric is using the same password, phrase, or key to both encrypt and decrypt. Asymmetric uses multiple cryptovariables, and the program PGP, with its public/private key system, is a good example (though there are many more). ROFL!! Thanks Jack!!!! That Mel Gibson line just cracked me up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Awwww! Can't I comment, please? And since when do i ever respond to posts?

Wow, great chapter. I was thinking that things would not go well with either Lori or his sis, but they did!! He also gets to see Sky again soon! Now that is intreguing!!! So, there is the matter of Dex, but other than that things are going well for Jonah. I think the song was a great touch, too!

The legal drinking age in Arizona is 21. As for the homophobic cops, those are mainly the sherrifs department of the next town, Piedmont. I'd say it is quite possible that Chris and Steve have problems with that particular Sherif's department. ROFL! about the outfits! Thanks Bondwriter!!! ROFL! So, when the father stopped them on their way into the apartment with the line "boys, we have a problem" line, did anyone think he was interupting them again? LoL. My Beta reader, Shdowgod, was making comments as he read, and his comment after reading that line was "I HATE YOU!" We find out a lot more about that in Ch 9. I might be dodging spines from our spoiler-hating Echidna for this, but, I'll tell ya... The data consists of <OUCH!> Owww, that hurt! Well, Ok, I'll have to keep my mouth shut about it, sorry. Or Veronica's revenge, if Steve managed to kill her houseplant. Thanks Rick!!

Thanks Graeme! Well, now we know why Eric stopped on the mountain. A heck of a long gap, though, between that happening and this chapter. I think that might work better if being read all at once, but over the timeframe of a serial people tend to forget what happened that far back. BTW, I hope you won't mind, but I'm going to give out a spoiler: Dex was right about what is on that data stick (flash drive): It really is data.

Ouch!! I'll bet that results in some irate customers! I really cannot comprehend why all of a sudden I am hearing doubts when I say that I am a devout lurker. Not me, it's after midnight and I ate hours ago. The person below me is driving a long way to a new year's eve party.

Nick, I'm really sorry to hear this. NOBODY should be made to feel uncomfortable, and I'm sickened to hear that this has happened.

Hi Michael! I'm afraid I can't say much without giving away spoilers, but thanks to Emoe, I am able to post the following; Chapter 8, "Pool Party", is up. :snork: :snork: :snork: :snork: :snork: :snork: :snork: :snork: :snork: :snork: :snork: :snork:

Hmmm, a postaholic in denial! Certainly not! I'm glad I got to this post before Graeme! The person below me is wondering how many months it will take them to stop writing "06" when writing the date.

Delay!!! The posting of Chapter 8 will take a little while. I was late sending it to EMoe for editing. Sorry! The chapter does exist though, and the chapter title is "Pool Party" and I'll even give a spoiler; The chapter has words. Lots of 'em. Actually, this is all EMoe's fault. Emoe has this silly rule about editing: He just will not send me an edited chapter until I send him the unedited draft of that chapter. I've tried, repeatedly, to explain to him that this whole writing thing would be soooo much easier if he would just go ahead and send me the chapters instead of waiting for me to write them, but, he won't. (he's stubborn, ya know).

From reading your blog, I know #2 is true. #3 or #1? hmmm. I am guessing that #1 is the lie.

British, absolutly! I think my favorite comedy of all time was "Yes, Minister", a British political satire. The Chicken or the Egg?

Nope... But happy movie-going! LoL! The person below me is (unlike me) a postaholic.

Given the speed of mail delivery in this area (I've seen a letter take a week to go five miles) they might not be THAT early for next Xmas. Nope, not here, though you have my commiserations! The person below me has already taken down their xmas decorations.

Here in Arizona, especially on smaller roads in rural areas, you very often have small bridges over small dry washes (dry creeks). On many of those washes, you will see a sign naming the wash. The problem is that many of the washes don't have names. So, what did the highway department do? Put up signs saying "Unnamed Wash". I've seen dozens of these. This is the same highway department that put up road signs pointing the way to nearby towns. Handy, unless the town they point to isn't there anymore. There are quite a few like that, where not even a ruin remains. One example is the town of Goodwin. There are highway signs pointing to it in several nearby towns that lead you down slowly-worsening dirt roads, but when you get to it, there isn't a sign to say you are there (nor any other indication, not even a foundation, as everything was demolished nearly a hundred years ago). However, what they usually Don't bother to do is signpost highway intersections on some roads, which often ends up with visitors lost and driving down ever-worsening old mining trails that fade out miles from anywhere. This has cost quite a few unwary drivers their lives (due to getting stuck miles from anywhere.)

Yep! It's been out for nearly 50 years! LoL! (a guide to Arizona Ghost Towns, and I like the older books on the subject). The person below me mailed the last of the Christmas cards today.

Well, yes, it would be mean, but that's the whole idea! Heck, I'm not above accusing Emoe of forgetting to dot an "i" Hmmm, that's either Editor-teasing materiel, or DK-teasing materiel. I, however, make it a point to never tease someone who can send Vampire Jarrod to make a house-call at my abode, so, I'll tease Emoe, much safer that way. Seriously, very true: Emoe is great, and I wouldn't tease him either if he wasn't so good. For those that don't know, Emoe also edits for me, which should give an idea about how I feel about him (he's the best, period). See? You might be needing the tanker-load of red ink after all! OK, Back on topic! Given the exceedingly fortuitous strategic location of Garret's bolt-hole, plus (more importantly IMHO) the ability to use that natural jump point to place forces in Sol's rear, unbeknownst to them, I'm guessing that it is a near certainty that this will actually need to be used. One possibility I see would be Sol moving against the Republic in concert with Leonev. From Sol's strategic perspective, the civil war is too good an opportunity to pass up. If the Republic couldn't defeat their combined forces, they could force Sol to back off by mounting a strategic threat to Earth itself. From Garret's bolt-hole, a Republic fleet might be able to reach Earth before Sol could recall its forces. They wouldn't need to invade: They could threaten Earth with destruction instead. Given the ability to accelerate ships to 1/2C, and given the tonnage that some of the larger ships must have, they would only need to get one past the planetary defences (on remote control or a kamikaze AI) and the resulting impact, at that velocity, would be significantly larger than the asteroid impact that wiped out the Dinosaurs, and left a 200 mile wide crater. In other words, a real planet-buster. Or, stand off and bombard with mass-drivers. OK, the above is just my wild guess. Anyone else have any guesses? GREAT story DK, no matter where it goes! Well, I'll do my bit: DK made an allusion to Frank Herbert's Dune, but, frankly, I much prefer DoH to Dune: DOH is far better. (and I'm not kidding about that).

Happy Birthday Jack!! Have a very special Birthday!!

CONFIRMED: The President's National Security Advisor stole, and then destroyed, an unknown number of classified documents destined for the 9/11 commission BEFORE the commission had a chance to examine them in it's 9/11 investigation. Shocked? You should be. But, hold off on the Bush Bashing for a minute, becuase the aforementioned President is Former President Clinton. The National Security Advisor is Sandy Berger. Berger was given sole access for "vetting" top secret Clinton-era documents at the specific formal request of former president Clinton. Berger repeatedly stole and destroyed documents. Berger's excuse? It was an accident! An oversight! He said he didn't understand the Security Procedures! That is utter garbage: Berger was Clinton's National Security Advisor: . If anyone should understand security, I'd think it would be the National Security Advisor. Berger has plead guilty, not just to taking the documents, but to destroying quite a few. Berger, at the time of his crimes, was part of John Kerry's campaign, and was Kerry's probable choice for Secretary of State. Much has been made of "media Bias", but this is clearly a case of it: Consider, for a minute, if a Bush official had been caught red-handed stealing and destroying documents that the 9/11 commission needed for its investigation. All hell would have broken loose, and rightfully so. Where is the outrage over this crime? Was Clinton involved, or was Berger just acting on his own hook? There is no hard evidence that I am aware of. Yet, given the fact that Clinton, AFTER Berger was caught, tried to defend his motives (the ridiculous "accident" excuse) there is plenty of room for suspicion. The most bizarre thing here is the sentence Berger received; a $10,000 fine and a three year suspension of his security clearance. Could someone PLEASE explain to me why this sentence fits the crime? Under no circumstances whatsoever should Berger be allowed access, ever, to classified documents. As for the fine, given the number of classified documents he stole and destroyed, he'd have received a bigger fine if he had, instead of destroying them, tossed them from his car window separately and received fines for littering. There is one possible ray of hope here; part of his plea deal was to fully co-operate with investigators. I have a feeling that they plan on having the Rat finger bigger rats. However, I can't see any excuse whatsoever for allowing this thief to ever have a security clearance again. Remember, this was the investigation into 9/11 that he tampered with. The biggest question (of many) is just what, exactly, he was trying (and has apparently succeeded in doing) to cover up. Take a look for yourself: The PDF file of the OIG CRIMINAL report. Read the whole thing. It seems Berger had a particular interest in documents from the Millennium after-action review (referring to the Millennium plot, the failed Al Qaeda attack on the US in Dec 1999). It gets REALLY interesting around page seven, when describing Berger's antics during the thefts. I especially loved this little gem "Mr. Berger said he did not want to take the risk of bringing the documents back into the building and the possibility that <redacted> might notice something unusual. Mr. Berger said he placed the (Classified) documents under a trailer in an acceptable construction area outside of the Archives." The above, incidentally, is a classic espionage technique called a "dead drop". There are glaring holes in this investigation. For one thing, there is no indication that Berger's cell records were checked to verify that, indeed, he made the phone calls that were so often an excuse to be left alone with the documents. The entire tone of the investigation is reminiscent of the Keystone Cops. I hope this is not the last we hear of this case. It deserves far more coverage and investigation.

Uhoh. I take it that I should have made some money by investing in red ink comodity futures prior to sending you the my chapter? Hmmmm.. I used to only have to supply EMoe with red ink by the barrel ful, but I guess now I'll have to send it by tanker trucks? I'm VERY interested to see what kind of weaponry Ada will have. I'll bet her comments are priceless. She's certainly not going to be favorably disposed to the people who blew up her old hull and crew! I'm even more interested in seeing what use Garret makes of the strategic position of his bolt-hole! Just a hunch, but I think things are heating up fast.

Thank you for the xmas gift!!! Very unexpected, and very welcome! I was wondering what would happen to Adamant when I read about the Adamant type ship, but larger and more heavily armed, but needing an AI core! So, ADA gets a new body, and more firepower! This does sound promising!! (and I think she will be pleased). I absolutely LOVED the 05, Niel, latching onto Garret at the end. That was hilarious, and should prove exceedingly interesting! And as I mentioned before, the strategic location of the bolt-hole, smack dab in Earth's rear AND unknown, PLUS providing a way to jump a republic fleet to Earth's rear, looks promising indeed! The "Dune" allusion was funny! Ohhhh!!! I didn't think of that! Aaron will NOT be pleased. EDITOR TEASING TIME! HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Egads, it is! It's a misplaced letter! Oh, the Humanity! Let the Editor Teasing commence!!! I'd best be careful here, otherwise Emoe will take revenge by having me misspelling my own name (or just leaving some of my more-embarasing goofs intact) the next time I post a chapter!

Hi Colin! I loved this too, and was also intreguied by the problem Jonah now has with Lori. That can get SOOOO complicated. Rick, Great chapter, and I think my favorite line was this one:

Merry Christmas, Everyone! And to Myr: Thank you for all that you do, all year long! The Christmas Skin looks GREAT! This was quite a surprise to me, as this is my first Christmas at GA.

Thanks Camy!! I have it on fairly good authority that what goes on on the tour bus post gig is that they all sit around and play backgammon, but I might possibly be wrong.