C James

The 2008 Gay Authors Readers' Choice Awards First, I'd like to introduce two very special awards, for those who help make all this possible; the unsung heroes of GA, all of our Editors and Beta Readers! The Best Editors! The Best Beta Readers! Best Hosted Story How The Light Gets In by Duncan Ryder Best Shared/Promising Story Buy Me A Drink by A Friendly Face Best eFiction Story It Started With Brian by Dan Kincaid, Co-authored by Adam Phillips Best Anthology Story Street Life by Graeme Best Non-GA Story The Price of Friendship by Graeme

Cody, I'm afraid, is indeed out of the picture. He couldn't be in it for a lot of reasons, but one is that the timelines for the story have diverged. In DnCW, a week or so has passed. In Changing Lanes, we're now almost a year since the San Francisco kiss. Now, as for the volcanoe; why does it worry you so? It's not venting much. In fact, it says this; Deep beneath Cumbre Vieja, magma was on the move, forcing open fissures deep underground as it pried open its ancient rift system, which ran north to south along fracture zones. Along the way it encountered ground water, heating it to thousands of degrees, generating enormous pressures that could not yet find relief. It's not venting, the pressure is just building up instead. See? Nothing to worry about. I liked that too. Keith had the right idea IMHO. Thank you Tim!!! Definitely no cliffhangers in this chapter (like all my chapters, actually). Picking on poor, innocent me. Shame on you! The boat plan, a tender ride from the beach using a cruise ship's tenders (carried along with the lifeboats and hoisted in and out of the water on davits, like the lifeboats) isn't risky; I've done it quite a few times. For a beach landing, the tenders deploy powered Zodiacs to get through the surf. That can be interesting in high surf, but I've only been swamped once doing that. Hrmmm, make that twice, come to think of it... one capsized, and that got kind of exciting, due to being strapped in. Lol, okay so maybe its a little risky. The only problem with the C-130 idea is the ash that's closed the airport; it shuts down aircraft engines fast. Now a question for everyone: How old is the General, and how old is Felecia? From back in chapter four, when we first meet Felecia, Wilhelm, and Horst, we have the following;

Our favorite volcanic character in "Changing Lanes" has a special cameo appearance in a Popular Mechanics article today! (I've linked to the page, but it's a couple of paragraphs from the top, in the section about the 80 foot high tsunami heading for the East Coast) The article's name is "5 natural disasters heading for the United States". Read the bit about Cumbre Vieja, it's very informative. Edit to add: A note to MikeL: Your Amphibiousness, please note that if this did occur, a lot of land would get wet, and frogs like it wet, right? See? Nothing to worry about.

Hrmmm, EMoe.. what is this? Don't you want to take credit for your... ever-so-slightly tense chapter ending? Chapter 27, Drums out of Darkness, will be posted around noon my time on Tuesday.

You halo is broken.

But Dr. Strangelove, IMHO, is probably the best of a fantastic bunch. It's my favorite anyway... but maybe it's just becuase I'm soft-hearted and love a happy ending. :nuke:

I'll be leaving around March 9th. I'll be gone 6 weeks. I expect to be able to check in here from time to time, as I'll have a laptop with me, but there will be streaches when I won't have internet access. I was in Phoenix the other day, but up north, doing some electronics shopping. Phoenix is a four-hour drive each way for me, so I don't go in often. I hope you had fun at Sky Harbor. CJ

Dr. Strangelove, which was also called "How I learned to stop worrying and love The Bomb", is one of my all-time favorite movies. Perhaps my favorite movie ever. Thanks for posting this, Eric!! of that famous scene. It's perfect, right down to the names on the bombs... If anyone hasn't seen the movie, I HIGHLY recommend seeing it. It is, IMHO quite possibly the best movie ever made.

I can't comment on any of the above, but I do want to say, you pegged a subtle issue; Eric is indeed in a position of authority thanks to the business deal. Keith knows that, Jansen might, but Eric does not seem to realize it. Getting in was the easy part. Poor Brian, he wasn't sure it was real. GREAT point! I can't comment on the future, but I can post a quote from chapter 9.

Congratulations, Mark!!!

One thing to keep in mind about Eric... He's never dated. He's had loads of one-night-stands, but he's never dated anyone. Wildone pegged a few things. (Way to go Wildone!) The Scar mentioned in a previous chapter, that he loved the irony of the General unwittingly being the insturment of restoring what the general had taken from him. There was also the fact that The Scar was supplying Iran with magnetic bearings. Those have one principal use; in high-speed centerfuges, and Iran's nuclear program is centerfuge-based (much akin to gasseous diffusion, it takes advantage of the slight weight differential between differing isotopes of uranium, while in a gassious form (Uranium hexaflouride). Changing Lanes is set in the very near future, and the Iranian nuclear program is, according the International Institute for Strategic Studies, expected to have sufficient enriched U-235 to make a bomb, this year. Oh, and I should mention, I've made no secret of the nuclear plotline in Changing Lanes; Every single chapter announcement has had the :nuke: emote in it. I can't comment on most of what has been asked in this thread (It is in coming chapters) but I can say this, Wildone was quite wrong on one thing: when he said there were cliffhangers in this chapter! However, if Jansen's words to Eric, at the very end of the chapter, count as a cliffhanger.. I can only give credit where credit is due, and give full credit to Emoe for that. It was his idea to move that scene to the end of the chapter.

I try to avoid doing this, but I've had to cmake a change to Chapter 20 of Changing lanes. Previously, the number of cut-and-cover bunkers at the Iranian target the General mentions is 47. It has now been changed to 50. The reason for the change? The author can't count! While reviewing satellite photos of the secret Iranian base, I counted again, and discovered that I'd miscounted the first time. Oops! I could dismiss this as one of the pitfalls in using real locations, but in reality it's just my inability to count. Here's the authir's note from the end of chapter 26, if you want to see the bunkers. They are along the winding dirt road to the left, that runs north to south. The bunkers are to the west of the road, sunk into the mountainside.

I just updated the posted chapter to add the bit below at the end: CJ

Hrmmm, the nature of Spam.... It's kind of a canned processed ham, right? Does this mean that you're saying that Echidnas are hams? I thought that was only true of actors, but, you may have a point...

Why, away from the cliff, of course! Frog hunting... Hrmm, this seems like a good idea for a new forum passtime! :ranger: That poor goat does look a little.. uneasy. Hrmmm, maybe the goat in the pic has dined on too many Echidnas? ROFL!! Here's the pic. Canned Echidna, Australia's newest gourmet export.

Just a note on story posting: Assuming I don't have an internet outage or something, "The Scorpion and The Frog" will be posted in about eighteen hours (Aiming for 11am, my time, Tuesday).

Awww, Benji... surely you know that I'd never go anywhere near a cliff of any sort?

Ahhh, but I think the "fix" Benji is suggestion would involve editing out the cliff. After all, the presence of a cliff of any sort proves conclusively that it is not me.

Bondwriter!!! Surely the fact that the pictured goat is on a cliff proves that it is not me??

That's not me!! I'd never go near a cliff of any sort! And we all know that is a skill that I do not posses. Ummm, well, okay, but that's a mountain goat... They live in the mountains... Errr, well, okay, some goats, I suppose, do, unwisly, venture near cliffs, but not I!

Ahh, good point! But, at least this jar is probably safe. (I haven't gotten sick yet). Goats can eat most anything. As cor, um, croaking... Errrr, I see you have a new avatar, of you in military gear... Frogbo? And, un, nefarious goats? Surely you don't mean me??? After all, what have I ever done to you? (Okay, there might be the littler matter of getting you put on the menu and also exposing you as a minion of Satan, but that's what friends are for, right?)

A couple of the posts here were drifting into the political realm, so I moved them to the Soapbox. The thread is here. I hope you get some rain soon, Graeme.

Take care and stay safe, Graeme. All my best to you and your family.

I wonder if this would make a tasty snack?

I'll bring back a lot of pictures. Any requests? Shadowgod, of course, is in need of pictures of cliffs. I'll do what I can regarding La Palma and Cumbre Vieja. I'll stop by the resort, and the wedding beach too. The timeframe will be very narrow though; I'll only have about six hours on La Palma itself, and all this is dependent upon me being able to confirm an inter-island flight and also a car rental. I'll only be in the Canary islands for a short while, as part of a six-week journey. I'll be in Madeira too; there's a volcano there in need of climbing, as well. Gibraltar and Morocco are some other stops (no volcanoes, though) and then I'll be in Europe for a while. It's sort of a business trip, though I'll have lots of free time. I will, of course (as always) stay well away from any and all cliffs, and only take photos of them from a safe distance (must keep Shadowgod happy, after all). CJ