JamesSavik

Ray Manzarek Dead: (one of) The Doors Founding Members Dies At 74 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/ray-manzarek-dead-the-doors_n_3308853.html Ray Manzarek, most known as a founding member of the '60s rock band The Doors, is dead. According to a message posted on the the bands facebook page, Manzarek died of bile duct cancer while in Rosenheim, Germany, on Monday, May 20. He was 74. Wife Dorothy Manzarek and brothers Rick and James were by his side. ___________________________________ Ray Manzarek was the highly influential and and innovative keyboardist for the Doors in the late sixties/early seventies. The following clips show Manzarek's use of the organ in "Light My Fire" and the electric piano in "Riders on the Storm". When so many bands were power trios, the Doors and others showed that if you were innovative in their use, keyboards could and did add serious depth and strength to any line up. RIP Ray. You will be missed. -JS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvVCCMG-JoQ

Earth would be as beaten up as the moon if it wasn't there. What doesn't hit our moon is often deflected by the geometry of the gravitational differential between the earth and the moon.

this is fun http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d63jKihoYRg

I couldn't have said it better myself. In fact I think that I have. I call the re-makes regurgitation- something the Hollyweird people barf out to cash in on someone else creativity. If you are going to re-imagine a movie, do what was done with Judge Dredd. Make it much, much better than the original.

I remember when the eye of Katrina moved over us. We thought it was all over. The skies cleared, rain stopped and the winds stopped howling. Electricity and comms were out so we didn't know that we were in the eye. We were in for another 16 hours of 100mph winds, storm, lightning and random tornadoes. The scary part of it is that you you can see the other side coming toward you at some point and it doesn't look at all friendly. Katrina wasn't the most powerful storm ever. What it lacked in wind velocity, it made up for in its slow speed of advance. Most hurricanes blow through relatively quickly. Because a front in Arkansas slowed Katrin's speed of advance, that bitch hung around for 36 hours.

I have been doing pretty much everything in word up to a short time ago. I am beginning to use Scrivener now. It'll take time to learn to make full use of it but so far, so good. The way it breaks chapters into scenes works really well with the way I write. Also- in the past I tended to write in a "linear" fashion. I would get hung on a scene and beat on it until I was done and moved on. Now I can bypass sticking points and move on to scenes that I'm more inspired to write and revisit the difficult ones later. It will take a while to learn all of the tricks of a new software package but I think it will be worth the effort.

I was worried about the cat scan until I saw this.

Lately there has been an emphasis on the field part of my job as a field engineer. I have been driving quite a lot. I've been listening to audio books. Some I've read, some I haven't. Dune, Frank Herbert Ender's Game- Card Foundation- Asimov Cryptonomicon- Stevenson Ubik- Dick Red Storm Rising- Clancy Out of the Dark- Weber There's something I really like about audio books. Hearing the spoken word does something for a novel. It's something as a writer that I've taken note of. Now as I've writing something, when I finish a section I read it aloud to hear how it sounds. I think that makes a GREAT difference. There are profound differences in how we write and how we speak. It's off topic but it is something that writers really should pay attention to if you want to find that elusive thing called your voice.

Orson Scott Card had to make a big concessions to make Ender's Game. Ender isn't the little kid that he was in the book. In the movie, he's more like ~16 and it's a hanging point that Card had twice shot down projects over. They have compressed the time that he's in battle school from years to months. It was just too hard to get a kid that age with the appropriate acting chops and they couldn't make a movie eight hours long.. I recently listened to the audio book version of EG while driving a LONG stretch on a recent job. As much as I detest Card, I hope the Hollyweird crowd (a bunch that I don't care for for their cynical disregard for making GOOD movies) doesn't whore out his classic.

Doh!!!

Hiss!

Neither were nice people. Both abused the power of their position.

OSS recruiting for operatives focused on Americans with European backgrounds- immigrants who spoke the language and were conversant enough with the culture to fit in. Many, many families got out in the late thirties when things were going bad in Germany. There was also a rush of people as the various European states fell- Poland, the Scandinavian states and France. There were also a number of Russians that bailed on Bolshevism and that started after the Russian Revolution (1917) and continued as a trickle on to the end of the Cold War. There was a legendary OSS agent that was born Russian, spoke English, Russian, German and French fluently. He was sort of a spymaster on the ground for the OSS and was inside occupied Europe for most of the war. OSS agents knew very little so if they were captured, they couldn't betray much. Their operations and missions were very specific in nature and relied heavily on the underground for support. They traveled on stolen or forged documents (expertly done). Ordinarily they carried nothing that would betray them like weapons, papers or exotic equipment. Things that they needed for missions were either air-dropped or provided by resistance contacts. OSS agents and their resistance counterparts were often given coded orders, requests or instructions by BBC broadcasts. For instance: John has a long mustache was the code phrase that the Normandy Invasions were on within 24 hours. Certain songs had significance. If the BBC played Tchaikovsky and then followed it up by Mahler, that might mean that the Allies needed information on which U-boats that were in port. All sorts of coded information was passed in this manner. Getting into occupied Europe was accomplished by numerous methods. It all depends on where they needed to go. The movies do air drops a disservice: they were exceptionally dangerous in daylight or dark. Even an expert might wait too long to pull the rip cord in the dark. They were used but not nearly as often as you might think. Many operatives were inserted by boat or submarine. Norway's coast made it exceptionally easy to get in. This was also the case in the Med where Italian and Greek fishermen were often helpful for bribes of gold or weapons. France was by far the easiest are to get on the continent because the Marquis (French resistance) was so pervasive and capable. Nazi Death/Concentration Camps were mostly located in Poland- deep inside of occupied Europe. Their real operations were kept a deep secret. There were inklings of what were going on but it wasn't until the the camps were actually liberated that the Allies knew the extent of the Holocaust. There were other types of camps- primarily labor camps where LGBT people were used for hard labor like construction, building defensive positions in France and repairing bomb damage to factories. Look up Organization Todt. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_Todt). Todt units were everywhere and were often given a great deal of freedom and treated far better compared to others because of their usefulness. A 17 year old in Hitler's Germany would have a very difficult time. If one was seen out just walking around with no good explanation for why they were there, it might be assumed that they were a deserter. Deserters were often shot on the spot. Even people with severe physical limitations were used somewhere in the Reich. No one was allowed to travel freely. It was very much a paranoid police state. For obvious reasons, OSS agents used indigenous weapons because by using a weapon like a .45, he might as well leave a note that says an American was here. Typical handguns in the Reich would be pistols by Walthers and the ubiquitous German Luger. Typically OSS agents were HIGHLY trained in the use of silent weapons like knives or garrote.

If they had just been willing to come off some money, they would still have Brett Farve.

The hazards of online dating.

Now that made my day Mike!

Here you go- In the Shadow of the Dragon == > https://www.gayauthors.org/story/jamessavik/intheshadowofthedragon

I knew the difference. It does make a difference where they are from. If it had been white supremacists from Louisiana, you KNOW it would have made a difference.

https://www.gayauthors.org/author/ghostryder15