CarlHoliday

Hercules III Chapter 7 Bots, by nature and programming, were never inclined to pursue conflict resolution via weaponry or, worse, rogue coding via viruses written by nanotechnologists. In the beginning of their participation as independent bots, early programmers—whether they were human or otherwise—only altered a bot’s base programs to provide logistical and materiel support to humans in their prosecution of a conflict. As the centuries passed human warfare steadily declined—various human ori

Can you believe it? It’s been over a year since I posted Chapter 6 to Hercules III. Well, Chapter 7 is coming out soon. It’s out of the laptop and ready to stand on its own. Other than extreme bipolar type 1 issues, the drugs for that have pretty well shot the shit out of my creative being. So, it takes time, a lot of time, but one year is too much. I can’t make any promises for Chapter 8, except to say it will have a thorough going over before it’s sent out, much the same as Chapter 7. (Can you imagine the sound of something metallic falling onto red linoleum?)

As a fellow sufferer, I wish you many highs and tolerable lows in the months ahead.

It's nice when you're able to come out of it. Hope you and your son have happy futures.

Latest addition to the liquor cabinet: a Single Malt Welsh Whisky: Penderyn - Aur Cymru (Welsh Gold). Penderyn, the first single malt distillery in Wales since the 19th century, produces one cask a day (reputedly the smallest distillery in the world); then the balance of available alcohol is diverted to other products: Five Vodka, Brecon Gin, and Merlyn Welsh Cream Liqueur. Tuesday, next week, I will be 64 years old; I become Medicare eligible, unless the Republicans in Congress extend the date as part of some one-sided “bipartisan” deal Barack accedes to. Fortunately, I have a 100% Veterans disability rating that will take care of all my medical needs right up to where my son pulls the plug sometime in the future. He knows I prefer being toasted rather than taking up space on the ground, while being taking cubic space under the lawn. Currently reading Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield; next up, The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. (There is a sequential order I’m following. It starts at His Family by Ernest Poole. (A great book if you’re looking for some place to start a series of reading opportunities.))

Chapter 6 Trouble with Bots Senior bot, Saracen 00835PQ, stood outside the boys’ door. You might have supposed she was waiting for backup, only she didn’t think she needed extra bots to make this arrest. After all, she was a prosecution investigator, quite able to apprehend errant humans anywhere on Hercules III. These two greenies were definitely criminals for what they did during their visit to the Institute of Justice and she had been given the authority to arrest the greenies because of so

Ah, summer, to water the lawn and keep it green or let be brown like all the neighbors.

I have this thing with Pizazz Mini Fruit Slices from Cavalier Candies Ltd, Winnipeg, MB R3B 0R4 (Product of Canada, obviously). Yesterday I received a 24 oz. package of these delicious candies. I ate most of them yesterday and finished them off this morning (no, I did not eat them for breakfast, but it was close). Then this afternoon I put together a new playlist on iTunes containing some of the songs I like best. It a couple hours, but I’m fairly satisfied with the results. There is a lot of old (and not so old) stuff, like: Aker Bilk, The Beach Boys, The Beatles (of course), Billie Holiday (no relation), Dave Edmunds, Duke Ellington, Elvis Presley, Etta James, Lionel Hampton, Marty Robbins, Pete Seeger, Roy Orbison, The Sons of the Pioneers, and Vic Damone. There’s some new stuff, like: Scotty McCreery, Lyle Lovett (he’s a bit old to be new), James Blunt, and Diego Garcia. Then there’s the Spanish language stuff, like: Conjunto Primavera, El Tigrillo Palma, Gipsy Kings, and Mocedades. I am working on learning the language. Luckily, I found out I’m learning Castilian Spanish now, which will help with the last two. Once that’s out of the way, I’ll have to go back and learn Latin American Spanish, which will help with the last two and others. I am working on Hercules III, but it’s slow going. Some days, like today, I’ll do everything I can not to work on the latest chapter. It’s the everyday challenge of dealing with the depression. Oh, that I could have a sunny day more than once in a while. Oh, by the way, my son bought a puppy in January. Last Sunday was his 6 month birthday. He weighed in at 65 pounds. He’s a German Shepherd dog (for some reason you have to specify that it’s a dog and not just a shepherd). Interestingly, his mother was impregnated in Germany and flown here to give birth to four bundles of joy and weirdness. My son named him “Rambo”. Since he will be neutered we didn’t have to go through the AKC registry and name him Lorenz von Waldberg. If it had worked out, I chose the name Lorenz after Lorenz Hart (of Rogers and Hart fame). The kennel deals almost exclusively with Shützhund dogs, but Rambo won’t be doing that either. He’s a skittish with vehicles driving by and he doesn’t do well in crowds. Some days, he just doesn’t like women, period. I get to buy my dog sometime next year. She’ll end up being spayed (no puppies for us). We simply don’t have the room for two BIG dogs and a bunch of puppies.

Hercules III Chapter 5 The Cat “I wish he wouldn’t scream so much,” Carlos said as he opened the door to the apartment he shared with Stefan. “He’s giving me a headache.” “You know the bots enjoy doing it”, Stefan said, shutting the door and locking it. He thought for a moment until all of the privacy and security seals locked in place around the door, knowing that bots usually came in through an outside wall, which quite possibly the bots hadn’t noticed was also protected with an interlocki

Hercules III Chapter 4 Revolt After six years, Carlos and Stefan were not like normal young humans on Hercules III, mainly due to the green chloroplasts. Their light green faces were full of seriousness; yet the way they spoke belied years of searching across a multitude of frequency patterns for the unique array that only a dying bot could transmit. In the beginning it was very difficult to pick out a unique set of modulations that slowly painted a picture of one bot among many. By their fif

Hercules III Chapter 3 Special After being held in the hospital for nearly a week, two bots wearing outdoor coveralls came into the room. “We are directed to take you to the transport facility; please follow us,” the bot in red coveralls said. “Jorge 45356BC will facilitate your transfer to the new ship. Maybe we’ll be able to join you on Hercules III.” “What if we don’t want to go to the new ship now?” Carlos asked, not expecting an answer, but was surprised when the bot, wearing green cove

Hercules III Chapter 2 Green Three hours later a bot-mobile landed in the middle of the residence’s vehicle parking area; a moment later, a forward door opened, permitting three bots to walk out of the carrier. When Clara saw the bot-mobile, she went to the door, and opened it. The vehicle resembled an ambulance, only bigger at about double the width and four times as long, and with virtual power units fore and aft. The three bots were probably med techs; and, by the way they were walking, th

Twelve-year-old Carlos suspects today is not going to be good. A boy from the spokes is coming to live with his family and Carlos has to give up the bottom bunk. Stefan has read all about living rim-ward, so he knows a little about what will occur in the perpetual summer of living on a farm along the rim. He’d like to know more but the source of that information is napping next to him. Both boys do not know their lives are going to dramatically change within the hour.

Hercules III Prologue In earlier times, large populations of humans were decreased by epidemics, famine, war, drought, genocide, or whatever Terra devised. By the thirty-first century, in the second century of over populations across the planet, a congress of the planet’s major population groups met to decide on a solution proposed by society’s academic world. A timely solution would be to build a new class of enormous spaceships that would search the heavens for a new home. Each ship would b

Well, I guess the time has arrived. This morning, I worked with an enrollment advisor at a university that thinks I have what it takes to pursue a Bachelor's in English. At least I got the language right. So, at 62 years of age, I'm going back to 1968 when I dropped out of college the first time around.

When I moved in with my son, I broached the subject of getting a dog or atleast a big cat. Each and everytime I brought up the subject, N was adamant we weren't having a pet in his house. Well, last week he said "we need a dog." I've been hallucinating so much for the past couple weeks, I couldn't be certain if he said that or not. Afterall I'm the resident cracker box around here; and, having a dog just might get me moving, "Have you walked the dog?" Not only does he want a dog, he wants one in my height range, knee level. This cannot be happening. Trust me, I know crazy and N was definitely pushing all the nut basket buttons. And, yet, he's got the whole fence thing all figured out in his head. We'll put up a temporary fence first; then sometime in the future, we'll put up something a little more permanent. As far as the new long story goes, I'm finishing up Chapter 4. I can't be certain if I'll keep the end of 4 in Chapter 4 or move it to the beginning of Chapter 5; and the way my mind has been working (or not) it may take a few weeks to get it all sorted out.

Last night my son and I spent a few hours getting some good ol' quality time. I was drinking straight up doubles of Bowmare, which kept me behind the eight ball for most of the night. We started at our favorite Mexican-American restaurant having a nice meal of red meat. Mine was Tacos al Carbon, my son chose his favorite, Carne Asada. My stomach is getting used to that good ol' feeling fulness and I ate half of what was given to me. Also, it was there when the conversation began. My son has a lot of albums from the Sixties and early Seventies. This weekend I picked up a box set of eighty songs from ZZ Top. For the last couple years I've had "La Grange" and "Arrested for Driving While Blind." Luckily the 80 song box set had both of these. My son suggested a number of albums, but they were covered by the box set. And, then we came to Heavy Metal and Grateful Dead. I've been looking for some for some advise on what to get in these areas and he offered alot of good suggestions. In soberer times, I look forward to his advise in these and other areas outside of my previous studies of rock music.

Generally, I avoid poetry, though I do give each an chance to impress. This poem definitely impressed me, but the Wiki article help.

The fantastic gay writer Gore Vidal died yesterday at the age of 86. Today the national media is full of obits, in fact, too many to compete with. Wikipedia has a terrific article that I recommend reading. My introduction to Gore Vidal was his memoir Palimpsest. I honestly tried to read his historical novels, but we didn't click.

Ah ... the joys of koan carpentry.

Back in February I weighed 285, which quite frankly is too much, even though my doctor said “You carry it so well, no one notices.” I weighed 14.25 percent of a ton, way too much as far as I wanted even if no one noticed. This morning I weighed 250. I figured I was due some sort of celebration. Which brings us to Laphroaig, a damn nice Islay Single Malt Whisky. Please notice I didn’t use whiskey (the American spelling). Our liquor cabinet is rather small and can only hold six or seven bottles. Unfortunately, I like every bottle in there; I’m an occasional alcoholic. Currently, our choices are: Two Tequilas, Cazadores Añejo and Hornitos Añejo Five Scotch Whiskies, the previously mentioned Laphroaig; The Glenlivit 18 year-old (Speyside); Oban 14 year-old (Highland); Talisker 10 year-old (the only whisky distilled on the Isle of Skye); and, Glenmorangie 10 year-old (Highland) One Canadian Whisky, MacNaughton And, one Irish Whisky, Bushmills The new story is coming along, slowly. I’m currently on Chapter 2. I’ve been on Chapter 2 for the past month or so. The block tires me. Here’s the start, just to get you salivating for more. As an introduction, the story starts somewhere around 800,000 to 900,000 years in the future. Things are different. Chapter 1 Farming “Damn!” twelve-year-old Carlos spat softly as he adjusted the coverlet mechanism for the lower bunk. He looked up at the unmade-up top bunk which was to be his bunk from now on. With a soft voice, he spat out another “damn.” The bed making mechanism buzzed, asking permission to make up the top bunk. “Whatever,” Carlos said. He was tall for his age, head taller than all the other boys in his class. He was skinnier, too. It was as if he was being stretched out from the top of his tousled orange-red hair down to his twelve toes. According to what he learned in his lessons, the persistent twelve toe mutation became the dominant trait one hundred thousand years after leaving orbit around Terra. Having bright red hair wasn’t noticed because everyone on Hercules had red hair. Today a new spoky was coming to live with them forcing Carlos to give up the bottom bunk. What bothered him most was the previous spoky, Stat, had just turned eighteen a month ago and he was gone within a week, leaving the lower bunk to Carlos, who relished the territory as his own. Unfortunately, that wasn’t how things went if you were renting the bunk to a spoky. There were families all around the rim with children from the spokes sleeping in the bottom bunk. Papa said we’re getting seventy-five credits a month to provide our new spoky room and board. They’d done it before and they would do it again. Papa said it was because of the physiology of those who lived in the spokes, whatever that meant. Papa said boys, and girls, had to come down to ensure they wouldn’t die earlier than normal due to unaltered genes. Most spokys had the wrong genome sequence for a long life and other normal extended aging issues. If the boys and girls had their genes altered by living through adolescence rim-ward, they would be eligible for a job on the new spokes, which were beginning to come online. Also, Papa didn’t call this spoky a spoky. Papa said the spoky’s name was Stefan. What kind of name was that? It certainly didn’t sound like a boy’s name, at least not a rim-ward boy. “Carlos? Is that you swearing, again?” Mama called out from the utility room. Today was laundry day for clothes; tomorrow she’d do the linens. After over several hundred thousand years in space someone still had to do the laundry. There were bots, but the household bots were too expensive for a farm family. Carlos looked around the room. There wasn’t anyone else, so it must be him. “No, Mama,” he lied. “You’re not too old for me to take you across my knee and give you a swat or three,” Mama said. She was middle-aged, about ninety, but didn’t look a day over twenty. Her light red hair was trimmed close to her scalp like nearly all farm females. She’d probably live another hundred years or so before having to choose electro-mechanical immortality (transferring her necessary body parts including the brain into a bot body), opting for molecular disintegration to supplement the ship’s fragile organic/inorganic molecular balance, or just letting the government decide what use she could provide. “Carlos, you should get up to the terminal to meet Stefan,” Mama said loudly from the utility room. “Carlos?” “Yes, Mama,” he whined, as he got up from the bunk that would never be his and walked out the door. It’d serve the spoky if he was late. Maybe he’d go back to his spoke where he lived, but, no, that wouldn’t be the case. Carlos knew the spoky had a map to their compound if Carlos wasn’t there to bring him home. Plus, the authorities would be very interested in a spoky standing outside the omnibus terminal as if he was waiting for someone to pick him up. “What’s gotten into you?” Mama asked as Carlos walked into the utility room. “I thought you wanted a new brother.” “He won’t be my brother,” Carlos spat. “The last one wasn’t and this one won’t be either. None of them will be my brother.” “He’ll be just like a brother, for the next seven or eight years, you’ll probably be leaving with him,” Mama said with her warm smile that always, always melted Carlos’s young heart. She pulled him into a hug and held him tight to her breast. “But, you’ll always be my favorite child. Now get out of here and up to the terminal.” “Yes, Mama,” Carlos said softly. * * * * * * * * Carlos climbed the ladder on the pilot’s side of the family cruiser (it was a standard model with two bucket seats up front and two rows of fold down bench seats in the back). When it was new it sported warm orange color with black accents and a slight rumble of its double exhaust pipes. Now, well, it was worn and gurgled, but the farm mechanical bots kept it in reliable condition. He took a deep breath and started entering his personal id code, trip authorization codes both standard and special for this trip, and moved the drive lever to auto. The cruiser hummed to life as its thrusters began to overcome the rim’s artificial gravity. After the cruiser deciphered their destination, the virtual landing gear dissolved into nothingness. Settling into the pilot’s seat Carlos tried to relax for the thirty-three kilometer ride to town. As there was so little traffic this early in the morning, the cruiser had no trouble hooking onto the county byway. The entertainment console offered light rock, but Carlos was in the mood for something else so he turned the dial all the way to heavy metal. Additionally, he turned the red switch implant in the back of his head to the nap setting. He looked forward to a bit of quiet time before he had to be at the terminal. Plus, this trip wasn’t an emergency which meant not going over the speed limit. Carlos figured he would arrive about the same time as the omnibus from the sixth spoke. The family cruiser shook a little when it arrived at the terminal parking lot. Carlos looked out the cruiser’s side window and saw an older omnibus come to a stop in front of the terminal. Carlos saw an empty parking space and switched the controls to manual. Although he had been driving only a few months, Carlos thought he could maneuver into the parking spot. Unfortunately the cruiser knew this wasn’t a time or place for a driving lesson, so it switched itself back to auto and locked the pilot control switch. After the landing gear settled onto the pavement, Carlos nervously looked around to see if anyone had seen him, but there was nothing other than two cleanup bots perpetually sweeping windblown sand from the sidewalk. As Carlos climbed out of the cruiser he watched a tall, slender boy step down from the omnibus. The boy gave the driver his ticket and the driver pulled out the boy’s luggage from one of the storage bins. They said something Carlos couldn’t hear and then the boy looked around the terminal until his eyes met Carlos’s. Walking over to the sidewalk where the other boy waited and as the distance between them diminished, Carlos’s eye orbit implants clicked as points of recognition were cross-referenced against Stefan’s image planted Carlos’s brain. Once they were sufficiently in agreement, a faint tone was transmitted directly into the boy’s brain. “You must be Stefan,” Carlos said with a hint of disgust. “Hi, that makes you Carlos,” Stefan said with a faint smile. “Can you help me with my luggage? With the two of us, we should be able to get it done in one trip.” “Sure,” Carlos mumbled, not wanting their similarities to be noticed by anyone in town. So, it was true that he looked like a spoky. Stefan looked exactly like him down to the freckles on his cheeks. * * * * * * * * Carlos was not in the mood to talk on the return trip, he and Stefan had eight years to have a conversation. So he turned the red sleep switch to the nap position and tried to find a comfortable position in the pilot’s seat. Stefan was too busy checking out his new home to realize Carlos was getting comfortable to go to sleep. The first thing he noticed was there weren’t a lot of buildings near the omnibus terminal. He remembered reading in one of the brochures that Farm Support Village Six Up was small, but, in truth, there weren’t enough buildings to make up what he thought would be a small village. When they hooked onto the county byway there were a lot of housing habitats surrounded by high fences. In fact, the fencing walled the byway from all the habitats and the small farms with large dark brown animals feeding in some of the pastures. When he queried the onboard terminal it told him they were beefalos, something he had only seen on the menu planner at home; which made him weep a little at the thought of being back in the Spoke 6 eating a beefalo steak sandwich. The fields that didn’t have beefalos were planted with nearly every grain or vegetable known to man. About five kilometers out of the village orchards of fruit and nut trees came into view. He wondered what was being raised on the farm that was to be his home for the next eight years. After a while spent contemplating his future he was jostled out of his reverie by the cruiser disengaging from the county byway and turning into the driveway that led up to a cluster of buildings. “Are we there?” Carlos asked, sleepily. Stefan looked over at Carlos and said, “Don’t ask me. You’re the one who lives down here.” Stefan watched how Carlos took control of the cruiser. There were three gates to go through, but none of the gates opened before the previous one closed. After passing through the last gate, the cruiser turned toward a cluster of buildings. Carlos stopped in front of a structure that resembled the domed residential habitats Stefan had seen in his history lesson on the Home Solar System. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to Mama,” Carlos said before he climbed out of the cruiser. The cruiser lowered until it was only a few centimeters off the ground. “Then we’ll move your stuff inside.” “Are you sure there isn’t an easier way to get out,” Stefan as he hesitantly climbed over the passenger side railing and down the outside ladder. “You look like someone who’s never used a ladder,” Carlos said. “There weren’t that many in Spoke 6,” Stefan said as he followed Carlos up to the door. “Mostly, we had lifts.” * * * * * * * * “Your mom is nice,” Stefan said as he grabbed one of the heavier pieces of luggage from the cruiser. “You’re not the first spoky to stay with us,” Carlos said to let Stefan know he wasn’t special. He wondered what a mom was and if they had one in their habitat. “Do you have a problem with predators?” Stefan asked, wanting to get this small piece of data safely put away. Actually, he was more than happy to change the subject as he missed his mom a lot. “I read there are predators rim-ward.” “They stay outside the first fence. It’s electrified,” Carlos said, not to give an answer with too much information. Sure, they stayed outside the fences, but a leopard killed a little girl just about a month ago. The authorities arrested both parents for neglect. The girl should’ve been playing inside the second fence. Plus, the parents hadn’t run any updates for the protection software. The leopard climbed over the electric fence, which for some unknown reason was turned off, killed the little girl, and took her back the over the fences. A rescue team found the little girl’s disemboweled body hidden behind a boulder out past the furthest county predator fence. Papa said the parents were put into a portable molecular reduction unit in their front yard. Their molecules were dispersed right there, without a trial. Carlos tried to get his mind around all of that, but since he didn’t exactly know anything about molecular reduction units he couldn’t quite see how it all worked. “What about the blood?” Carlos asked. “All the molecules are reduced to their atomic components,” Papa answered. “I suppose the water was broken down to hydrogen and oxygen and dispersed in the wind. I have to admit it’s not a good way to go. Have you started studying chemistry or atomic theory yet?” “No sir,” Carlos answered. “After supper tonight, how about we take a little look at what’s on the data terminal. Okay?” Papa said. “I’d like that,” Carlos remembered saying. He liked it when Papa, who was five years older than Mama, took the time to help him whether it had something to do with farming or schooling. Their farm stretched thirty kilometers turn-wise to the edge of the forested hills where weather was generated and wild animals lived. Crosswise, their land ran from Rim-Water to the outside wall. Their habitat compound took up nearly a hectare at the intersection of two secondary county byways. It was a standard model for nearly all farms around the first agriculture section on the bow wheel. From his schooling he knew there were other farm designs on two newer wheels of Hercules. Carlos wished he could live here forever, but that was impossible. When he achieved majority he had to report for governmental service. He looked at Stefan and wondered where he’d end up. “Well, that’s not completely true,” Carlos said. “If you don’t set the outer electric fence, leopards might be able to jump the second fence. Then it’s a matter of having your security system to identify the threat, initiating defense systems, and contacting the authorities. Luckily our house computer takes care of everything for us. I wouldn’t worry because you don’t have much meat on your bones.” “Well, if you hadn’t noticed you look a lot like me,” Stefan said. “Yeah, do all spokys look alike?” Carlos asked. “How does that work?” “No, there are some shorter, their hair color might be a shade lighter or darker, or maybe they don’t have twelve toes,” Stefan said. “There aren’t many like that. They’re kept up in the spokes so they don’t transition.” “I suppose looking like a spoky means my genome was altered before I was born. Maybe I’m destined for spoke work,” Carlos said as he picked up a duffel bag. “What’s it like living in a spoke.” “Well, first thing you might notice there aren’t any trees. There isn’t any living thing except for people, Stefan said. “Then there’s the overabundance of doors and passage ways. You can get lost if you don’t have a location implant. You do have one, right? Here look at the back of my head. It’s the blue knob.” “Oh, yeah, the blue knob,” said Carlos. Actually he couldn’t remember paying all that much attention to the switches, plug-ins, and knobs. There simply was too many to worry about. Papa or Mama usually hooked him up to the computer after dinner and told him to call one of them when the fuzzy feeling stopped. “Could you look?” “Bend down a little,” Stefan said. “Damn, you have a lot of plug-ins, but you also have the blue switch and a red one and a yellow one, too. How do you keep track of all of them?” “Better not say damn anymore,” Carlos said. “Mama doesn’t like people who swear. I know the blue is for locating my position on the ship. The red one is for sleep or keeping me awake. The yellow one is for entertainment.” “Is Mama what you call your mother?” Stefan asked. “I suppose mom is what you call yours. You can ask Mama how she wants to be called. I’m pretty sure the other one from the spokes decided to call her Mama. I know for certain they’ve raised more children than just me and they’ve all been boys. We don’t have a room for a female spoky.” “Like me? You can call me a spoky if you want. It’s what we call ourselves sometimes. What do you call yourselves?” “By our names, mostly,” Carlos answered. “Given the chance, a bully will call you something derogatory. You being new, you should expect something like “shit for brains” or if you’re lucky they’ll just call you “bean pole”. That’s what they call me sometimes or spoky.” “I used to be a bully,” Stefan whispered. “How’d you get here?” Carlos asked. “I thought spokys had to pass a bunch of tests to ensure they were safe to live on a farm.” “They altered my genome and modified my life-force software,” Stefan softly said. “Every time I think about doing something inappropriate, the programs stop me. It’s not a pretty sight.” “Oh,” Carlos said, unsure he’d said too much. “Is that why you’re whispering?” “Yeah,” Stefan said softly. “The calming program is doing that. I’ll need to lie down for a little bit. Could you show me to your room? I think I can carry this bag. Can you get the other one? Oh, damn! I’m going to drop out now.” Carlos watched Stefan slowly crumple to the ground and after a few seconds began to quiver all over. He knelt beside Stephan and placed a finger on Stefan’s forearm. The muscles quivered to an unknown rhythm. He stared at the boy’s face and saw a small trickle of saliva coming out of the corner of Stefan’s mouth. “What’s going on?” Carlos’s Papa asked. He came over and knelt beside Carlos. “Was he going to harm you?” “No, we were talking about which bag to carry inside. That’s all,” Carlos said. “Do you know about this?” “He should be back in a few minutes,” Papa said. “We were warned about this. I think we’ll need to hook him up to the systems module to adjust his response to stress. Why don’t you take his bags in to the laundry room? I’ll stay with him. Go on, I’ll watch him.” Carlos’s Papa watched Stefan’s body quiver as the seizure seemingly continued uncontrollably. There was little that could be done outside so he stood up and bent down to pick up the boy that looked so much like his own son. So, it was true. Other than the seizures and bullying, Stefan was truly Carlos’s twin. The boy definitely needed a reboot, which meant going online to file an incident report, then waiting for permission to do a remote hook up for a systematic lookup across all servers, which could take all night. * * * * * * * * Clara, Carlos’s mama, watched her husband, Jorge, carry Stefan into the sitting room and lay the boy on the sofa. She could of sworn the boy sighed as her husband attempted to give the Stefan some degree of comfort. “He’ll need a full hookup,” Jorge said. “Get on the terminal and start an incident report. They’ll want a report as soon as possible.” “He looks so much like Carlos,” Clara said as she sat in the side chair. “You know that’s what happens with twins,” Jorge said. “Damn! He doesn’t have enough jacks. You’ll need to append the incident report. He’s missing M1, all of the Ks, and D3. We won’t be able to do a reboot without those jacks. What were those people doing with him? Didn’t they know he needed to be hospitalized to get those plugs installed as he got older? Now, he’ll be lucky if a portable surgery team will be dispatched way out here. If they won’t come out, we’ll have to take him to the city for surgery. I’d better give him an injection. “You have the rice harvest coming up; I’ll have to take him,” Clara said. “It’d be best if I took Carlos with me, that is if they can’t, or won’t, come out here.”

Don't you hate it ... You're busily typing along, working on a key chapter and you finally have it, only it's at least 1,000 words too short.

I've ever had much contact with Linkin Park, but this was a good vid. I guess I should check them out.

I've been watching to see which country (Burma (Myanmar), Liberia, and the good ol' US) will join the Metric world. I don't place much hope on the U S because there's always some damned idiot out there who can find something wrong with Metrication. Living close to the border, what find it really infuriating is the radio and television stations reporting the weather across the border in metric. If they'd just decide what the temperature is in Vancouver, BC.

I wait for things to happen, like today when I broke the television not more than an hour after my son left for work. A number of weeks ago I bought him a 42 inch TV and thought now was a good time to get an HD box from infinity. The picture was good, I guess, but I’ve always had a problem with HD (if you look close enough the picture doesn’t seem to appear better). Whatever was on our television today certainly looked good. I guess it was inevitable that I was going to muck things up. Things had been going rather well since I arrived. No major blow up for me, though there have been a few instances where my actions were duly questionable. Obviously my son has a high tolerance for loopy behavior from the mentally impaired (mostly gained from caring for his grandmother as she slowly deteriorated into the mental haze of dementia). I hope so because I know he’s going to be pissed when comes home tonight. I keep looking for the signs. Is the fogginess if my mind due to the medicine I’m taking or is it a manifestation of pre-dementia? I do know I have to keep a record of what is happening because I’m not that old. Oops, forgot to mention Carl Holiday has his own email. You can reach him directly at: carlholiday49@gmail.com. Now, that's something I can take off my deteriorating life and put it where it belongs.