JamesSavik

Candles, candles... how could I have forgotten. Get some! They may not cast much light but they will save you from many a stubbed toe. Go with the big, thick kind that will sit, be stable and last a while but be mindful of the wax. There is such a thing as a disaster candle. They are thick, slow burning and consume most of their own wax so they aren't so messy.

All that and the 49ers are doing well too.

OK. It caught you unprepared but there is still time to do stuff that will make the next few days go a lot easier. 1. Unless you are near a river or stream, you should be OK. Otherwise be prepared to bug out fast and think about an escape route- toward high ground. Flash floods are second only to storm surge as killers in hurricanes. 2. be prepared for the power to be out for a while. If you've got a fire place or wood stove, you're in good shape- as long as you've got firewood. If you don't go get some quick! 3. For cooking if you've got a gas grill, you are in good shape. If you need charcoal, places still have it and a lot of places have it on sale. Lighter fluid, matches? After Katrina, I grilled for a week as food in the freezer thawed out. 4. Water- this gets sketchy. Many water systems need electricity to stay pressurized. If you've got 2 liter bottles fill them with water and save it. Put some of them in the freezer. You might need ice later when the power is out. 5. Charge your cell phones. Then USE THEM SPARINGLY. Turn them off unless you are using them. You don't know when you'll get a chance to charge them again. 6. Have a radio + batteries. 7. Batteries! and flashlights. I suggest the Mag-lite/duracell combos at Walmart. 8. get some canned foods that you can easily heat & eat 9. Call people outside the area before storm hits. Give them your name & address. Then call after the storm. If they don't hear from you, have them call your local police/sheriff and tell them that you haven't checked in and you might be in trouble. 10. DON'T PANIC! Keep your wits about you and you can think yourself out of most trouble. 11. Get some gas in your car or truck. Gas pumps don't work when the power is out. _______________________________________________________ OK- I'm going to monitor this thread if you have questions, Now- good luck and GIT BUSY!

They are classics.

Bald for Beiber or too stupid to live? It's a close call.

when we look at the list we can clearly see the two faces of alcohol: as muse and destroyer.

The Cloud is now completely posted. It started as a writing prompt but quickly grew into a longish short story. I hope you enjoy my spooky little Halloween lark. The Cloud :>> https://www.gayauthors.org/story/jamessavik/thecloud

Epilogue Meridian, MS Office of Dr. Walt Haas, OBGYN 4 Months later Lillian Hollister sat in her doctor’s waiting room with a dozen other expectant mothers. Thumbing through the magazines, she came across one with a picture of a beautiful lasagna on the cover. As she read the recipe, a small voice in her mind said wow, that really looks good! She thought, Maybe I’ll go to Olive Garden when I’m done. Lasagna, lasagna, lasagna! Lillian though, whoa. So, this is w

Arrival The cloud arrived as expected at 1022 GMT on Monday and began engulfing the atmosphere immediately. It started with Antarctica and began moving north at a rapid pace. It took all the persuasive power that Dr. Turner of the Bio-Sciences Work Group could muster to convince President Harrison that it was not an attack. It took the cloud a little less than three hours to completely cover the Earth’s atmosphere. A boundary layer formed at the ionosphere at an altitude of 5

George Washington Battle Group East China Sea Lt. Hollister slept between flights. The 10,000 kilometer hops between Pearl Harbor and the giant battle group surrounding the George Washington was exhausting, but the Navy’s mail had to get through. Sunday morning before another grueling all-day trans-Pacific flight, he checked his email. After sifting through spam and work related stuff, he found a note from his wife. As usual, the subject line read Hi with a smiley face.

“Site K” Secret US Government Lab Nevada Desert Jerry Cassidy was impressed. It was almost as if the US Government welcomed aliens from deep space all the time. From the secret lab deep under the Nevada desert, he had a ring side seat for the organized chaos as it happened. The President’s speech had been brilliant: clear, calm and concise. We are acting. Don’t panic. The nations of the world are standing together. Most people took it rather well. Of course, some people

Meridian, MS Jefferson Elementary School Lillian Hollister was overseeing a test to her fourth grade math class when there was a knock on her door. She opened the door and the elderly Mrs. Barnett from across the hall whispered, “Come to the teacher’s lounge right away.” She turned to her class and said, “Keep working, guys. I’ll be right back.” She followed Mrs. Barnett, the fourth grade English teacher at Jefferson Elementary since Moses was a student, into the teacher

“Site K” Secret US Government Lab Nevada Desert “Dr. Cassidy, wake up!” The scientist woke up somewhat disoriented, “What? What’s the matter?” Cassidy made out Dr. Bernardi’s Italian features when he put on his glasses. “Somebody broke the story! Come down to the common room.” Cassidy threw on some clothes and joined the rest of the team in the common room. There was a good live image of the object and a pretty Australian reporter was interviewing an astronomer.

Big surprise: no answer.

Coolgardie, Western Australia Graves Estate Once again, Mr. Graves surprised Kelly and her cameraman. His lamb and rice stew was delicious. The three enjoyed dinner and a pint on the front porch as the shadows lengthened and the sun set. Kelly excused herself, tried her cell phone and got nothing. She went to the Range Rover and got the satellite phone and dialed her editor. True to form, he answered on the second ring: “Ian McAlister.” “Ian, its Kelly.” “Kelly! I

“Site K” Secret US Government Lab Nevada Desert Dr. Turner sat at the head of the conference table. The rest of the Bio-Sciences Team was all present and the odor of coffee was thick in the room. No one wanted to begin. The situation was just so bizarre. Turner began by saying, “We’re here to make a recommendation to the military in regard to how they should respond to the cloud. Does anyone else here feel like that’s the most ridiculous task they’ve ever been assigned?”

I miss programs like the Night Gallery and The Outer Limits. The format: an hour long play written by established or unknown authors. That would be bad assed but nobody is doing it anymore. It's cheaper and easier to shit those barf-worthy reality shows.

I drive a 2004 Toyota Tacoma x-tra cab. Car of my dreams: 1970 Mustang Fastback Boss 351 with the red & black trim package

There is such a thing as destructive criticism. Ummm... the story was about an addict living in a violent world. I don't do care-bears. Blow it off. Don't listen to it. Not all stories are for everybody. This kind of criticism is generated by pushing someones buttons- in this case drugs and violence set off the critic. Are drugs and violence any less socially relevant because the critic doesn't like it? Might it be useful to get some insight into how an addict might get entangled in drugs? Many readers get hung up. You hit their hot button and they get confused between a plot element and the writer's endorsement. Of course this is ridiculous but it has happened to me. I have never heard of someone writing a murder mystery accused of endorsing murder.

Coolgardie, Western Australia Graves Estate Kelly watched quietly as Graves worked. He might not be what was called a professional astronomer, but it was clear to her that he knew what he was doing. Graves had archived images of the sky for every night since the object had first appeared that he used to create a track as the object as it moved through the Southern Cross and into Centaurus. He did some calculations on a white board and ran a few programs in Mathmatica on one

Science Fiction is a lot more than aliens. Many people like to call it speculative fiction: what if? At its best it explores questions about man, technology and our place in the universe. At its worst... well there's Plan 9 from Outer Space and all of the bad sci-fi B movies made in the fifties. Sadly the SyFy network is simply making more of that trash with made for TV bullshit like Sharktopus (I shit you not) and Super-croc. How difficult would it be to buy a script from someone that wasn't a hack? How expensive would it be to do the same movie, same actors with a decent script? Writing makes all the difference in the world. As someone that has written a few things, it makes me sick to see the stupidity, laziness and cynicism that kind of work represents when we all know they could do so much better.

thank you for the feedback. My biology is quite dated and I was hitting wikipedia and biology sites hard as I was writing that. This will "get fixed" in the final version.

Meridian Naval Air Station Lt. Matt Hollister landed the C-2 Greyhound aircraft at the Meridian NAS field after a long flight home from the big carrier group that had assembled in the mid-Atlantic. He wished that he had been allowed to carry a camera. The assembly of hundreds of ships was really quite remarkable. They had reached across the horizon for a hundred miles in every direction. It wasn’t just the US Navy and its NATO allies. Russian and Ukrainian flagged ships were sailing si

Coolgardie, Western Australia The network affiliate in Coolgardie met Kelly Simmons at the airport. Her remote crew consisted of a tall, skinny young man named Jack in a shiny red Range Rover. At first, she was put off by Jack. He looked and dressed like a kid that should be surfing, but he was polite and accommodating. After programming the GPS, she was quite pleased to let him drive the hour and a half out to their destination. The Range Rover kicked up clouds of red dust as they dro