Sorry I’ve been out of touch. Computer adventures continued to intrude, although most of them have come to favorable resolutions (knock wood.) My square foot garden thrives. And I’ve been very productively busy on both Deathlands and The Dinosaur Lords this [...]]]> Started out a happy, productive day. Then it twisted bizarrely into one of those days.

Sorry I’ve been out of touch. Computer adventures continued to intrude, although most of them have come to favorable resolutions (knock wood.) My square foot garden thrives. And I’ve been very productively busy on both Deathlands and The Dinosaur Lords this week.

Thing started spinning out when I was at dinner with friends. We were gathering an hour earlier tongiht because we had an Albuquerque Science Fiction Society meeting at 7:30. Then we got a call from Craig, who often joins us, but never on ASFS nights because he runs the meetings.

It seemed the local artist who kindly allows us use of his space for meetings one Friday a month had locked his keys to the inside the building. His attempts to find the people with duplicates were going for naught.

I arrived at the usual meeting place to be met by the harried artist himself, who said he’d sent others to a park about four blocks away. So I went there.  And saw nobody from the club. I did, however, see a Cooper’s hawk fly into a tree nearby – oddly, the second I’d seen today.

Then Joe called on his cell phone. His dog George had died. He wasn’t sure why – he suspected heart attack or stroke, possibly brought on in part by the recent heat, which seemed to affect poor George adversely. It’s a great shame; George was a good dog, and I liked him, and Joe loved him a great deal.

I asked if there was anything I could do – in case he wanted me to come over to commiserate. But Joe is stoic, and very private about such things. I’d be crushed and want a shoulder to cry on if anything happened to one of my animals (which, of course, it will someday, as it does to us all.)

A few people eventually turned up at the park. Then our artist-host drove up, telling us Craig wanted everybody to gather back at the studio so we could pick a better venue.  The problem was, we had a guest speaker come to give a slide show on the Mars rovers, so unless we wanted to go about knocking on doors and asking if people had power outlets plus a long extension cord we could use, the park wasn’t going to serve too well. So after some grumbling we trooped back.

To find most of the club hanging out on the sidewalks spilling into the streets. Fortunately a haven had been found: India Palace restaurant, which is a favorite hangout of our Friday supper club. They have a big back room which they were willing to let us use.

So we all headed over there. And my car died flat dead on Lomas just shy of the intersection with Louisiana.  I mean it just stopped. I didn’t even have enough warning to ditch to the side, since I was in the leftmost of three lanes.

Fortunately I was just close enough to the intersection people could get into the left-turn lane. I turned on the emergency flashers and tried to push. No go: the car was on a slight up grade, and I couldn’t get it going and steer at the same time.

This was fortunately after rush hour, but cars arrived in fairly large packets. Most of them got the idea, but a few of them failed to notice my car was plainly stopped well short of the intersection with the flashers going – on a straightaway where it had to be clearly visible for at least a quarter mile.

I called my friend Kathy, of Steve and Kathy fame, one of our dinner bunch, whom I knew to be en route to India Palace. I was mostly calling to see if she knew how to get in touch with some of the other ASFS crew who might be able to help me push.

She pointed out it would be dangerous pushing the car on foot in that kind of traffic. But she said she could give me a push in her truck. Like Melinda Snodgrass, who was also there tonight with Ian Tregillis, Kathy’s a Tiny Woman With A Big Honkin’ Truck. If she was willing, I was definitely amenable.

So I sat and waited. Some of my ASFS peeps who happened by came through for me. First Becca Davis stopped to ask if I needed help, then Duke and Tanley McMullan. I waved them on with brief if heartfelt thanks.

Then Kathy came to the rescue. She pushed me into the turn lane and left onto Louisiana. I turned right onto a side street and parked.

And when I tried the engine again, it started.

Which, oddly, did not surprise me. By this time I had a strong suspicion what had befallen my poor car was the same problem that stalled me on the southbound freeway in rush hour traffic last year (that was just a barrel of fucking laughs, I promise you.) Heat had caused my fuel pump to vapor-lock. When it cooled off some the car would start again.

But I didn’t trust it not to crap out again. Last year after an hour or so (during which a handy Highway Helper truck had materialized to kindly give me a push off the damn highway and into the parking lot of a closed office complex)  the car had cooled off enough to start and stay running long enough to get me safely home. This time I left it to sit while I piled in with Kathy and Dawn Barela to ride to India Palace.

After that, I must admit, things got Much Better. Dr. Larry Crumpler gave a most interesting presentation. To help justify our monopolizing the restaurant’s back room I had an ice tea and Kashmiri Naan, Indian flat bread filled with a paste of cashes, pistachios, cherries, and raisins. Which was tasty. And after the slidshow was done many of us adjourned across the parking lot to Berry Ocean, a gelato place that makes a lot of its own interesting flavors. Like rosemary. I didn’t have any because I was full.

Various people were kind enough to offer me rides. I stuck with Kathy, who delivered me to my car. She considerately waited to make sure it would both start and run, then followed me as far as the turn to her and Steve’s house – about halfway to my house, since I live 3-4 miles straight down Comanche, which for reasons unknown turns into Griegos in my neighborhood, from them.

Now the storm which was producing lightning away off over the Manzanos to the southeast is growing near. A cool wind blows, refreshing after the high-nineties days we’ve been, uh, enjoying. I dare hope that the promise of rain the National Weather Service has been teasing us with day after day may soon be fulfilled. Which my plants will love perhaps more than I.

There’s more to tell of recent events. Frankly I’m surprised I was able to get out this much. Now I am dog tired. Iditarod. Sled dog. Tired.

And so to bed, and so to bed. I’ll try to update more Saturday.

Japan welcomes its robot overlords

Hat tip to Katherine Mangu-Ward at reason.

What’s it got to do with the subject of this post? Well, accomplished rationalizer that I am (it’s a living), I could spin you [...]]]> But first, since we needs more graphics on this site, and also since I’ve been dying to post this:

Japan welcomes its robot overlords

Hat tip to Katherine Mangu-Ward at reason.

What’s it got to do with the subject of this post? Well, accomplished rationalizer that I am (it’s a living), I could spin you a mighty explanation about how it pertains to technology and globalization in our modern world. The truth: nothing!

And yes, I know we’re now supposed to call it Mumbai, not Bombay. Bear with me. And always remember: we do digression right! And by “right,” I mean “compulsively.”

What this is all really about is that my phone, hence Internet, service blinked out an hour or two ago. Yes, I suffer from the Heartbreak of Dial-Up. A connection I need to correct here, directly. *Sigh*: it still must wait its turn.

I had no dial tone, either inside the house or at the box in the back. To quote Mojo Jojo, “Curses.” So I called Qwest tech support.

Which connected me with a rather obviously Indian gentleman. That’s subcontinental, not American. After hearing my piteous plaint, he asked if I’d tried calling my landline from my cell phone.

“No,” I admitted. “There didn’t seem much point if I didn’t get a dial tone.”

So he bade me Hold while he called, and I Held, and lo! the phone did ring.

The first time I picked it up I got nothing – although I also didn’t get that utter leaden anechoic deadness when the line is just plain out. I hung up. The phone rang again, and this time I had a connection!

So we’re back in business for now. And I have to get broadband. Arrgh!

Anyway, the reason I named the post as I did is that the incident put me in mind of a classic rock song which you’ve never heard of, “Bombay Calling,” by the sadly overlooked late 1960s/early 1970s group It’s a Beautiful Day. It’s great in itself, a smokin’ four miunute instrumental. Moreover it provided the inspiration (by which I think they meant, “all of the notes”) for one of my all-time favorite songs: Deep Purple’s classic “Child in Time,” which I’m listening to as I type this.

Yes, kids, I know dinosaurs and humans didn’t walk the Earth at the same time. I’d remember.

So anyway – that’s what’s happening. Now to put on pants (“Welcome to TMI Theatre!”), grab Emma, and head out to the Nature Center for a walk while there’s still some daylight yet.

Occasionally at SF cons I get somebody, at a panel or something, tasking me with the genre’s various failed predictions. “Where’s my flying car?” they ask. And I tell them, “Hey, I’m still waiting too, y’know!”

Actually, I’m quite enamored of many of the [...]]]> And yes, in fact, I do still want my flying car:

Occasionally at SF cons I get somebody, at a panel or something, tasking me with the genre’s various failed predictions. “Where’s my flying car?” they ask. And I tell them, “Hey, I’m still waiting too, y’know!”

Actually, I’m quite enamored of many of the shirts at this site. Wish they sold ‘em at cons. A tad pricy at $27 a pop, but they’re definitely nifty designs.

In entirely unrelated news, I note that my birthday’s coming right up here directly. August 3rd. Yes, indeed.

Actually, what I really, really want is one of these:

Almost full size!

They’re even hatched here in Albuquerque!

And, all right, I don’t really expect an Eclipse Concept Jet. For one thing, they won’t be available until 2011. And they cost $1.35M.

I’m saving up.

Update: Recently I blogged about some curious events: shotgun blasts in the night and mysterious smoke pouring into the sky from what I took to be the direction of the RR tracks and Griegos. I said I’d likely never find out the story on either one.

Well, the shots remain mysterious, although a neighbor in the next block up emailed me back that he’d heard them too. But thanks to a tip from that neighbor and local TV station KRQE, I found out the scoop on the fire.

Turns out it took place on the 100 block of Griegos NW, which is about as close as you can get to the tracks without getting whammed by a passing train. Fortunately no one was hurt and relatively little damage was done; I couldn’t see any damage when, curious monkey that I am, I drove by on the way home from my friend Joe’s house a few hours ago. It also turns out that the reason I saw no smoke when I looked out the window again, while I was still writing the post, was that the fire was put out quite quickly, within about 15 minutes according to the article. Which might not be completely unrelated to the fact there’s a fire station on Griegos just the other side of Fourth.

Interestingly, the article mentions – indeed, in the piece’s headline – that neighbors reported hearing “popping noises.” Indeed. (Yes, I like the word. Deal.)

What I heard emphatically wasn’t “popping”; it was two gunshots, heavy duty. The fire took place maybe 1000 feet away, straight-line. Could those shots have been what sounded like popping to people near the fire?

A long shot, I admit. But I still find the coincidence – I start blogging about gunshots that happen right nearby; as I’m writing, a fire breaks out right nearby – peculiar at least.

It’s now 2:01 AM here in the Mountain West. I was up already, way too late – the All-Star Game went on forever (and the National League lost again, darn it!)

A bit over ten minutes ago I heard a serious gunshot. Sounded like a 12-gauge, and as if it came from, like, a block to [...]]]> Whoa!

It’s now 2:01 AM here in the Mountain West. I was up already, way too late – the All-Star Game went on forever (and the National League lost again, darn it!)

A bit over ten minutes ago I heard a serious gunshot. Sounded like a 12-gauge, and as if it came from, like, a block to the northwest. Loud and authoritative.

Emma was in the backyard. As I went to let her in – this time around I wanted her in as badly as I knew she wanted in – I heard a second shot. Sounded like the same weapon, from about the same location. Sometimes loud noises trick me as to their direction because of what open windows or doors I happen to be nearest. This one I’m fairly confident about because the back door was open and I’m not sitting too far away.

So that was alarming. Sirens started to go off within a minute or two of the second shot. I thought they were coming in response to the shots (surprising that they responded at all, let alone that quickly), and indeed it sounded as if a siren did stop on Fourth Street, a block west of where I thought the shots came from.

Then I saw red flashers go past the front window. Not as if they were on my street – that tends to light the whole place up and startle the crap out of me. Anyway, they went south to north, which is the opposite direction from how they’d usually come down this street. I can often see traffic on Second Street, another major north-south thoroughfare, past my across-the-street neighbor’s driveway. Behind their back wall runs a ditch and then an undeveloped strip, and then Second. So I peered tentatively out the front window.

Only to see white smoke billowing out from what appeared to be the vicinity of where the railroad tracks cross Griegos, several blocks to the northeast. It was billowing pretty fiercely and gave me the impression it had begun rather recently. The smoke was lit up yellow; I didn’t think anything in particular about it at the time, but when I just went and looked again there was no sign of smoke or yellow illumination in that direction. Either that was fire lighting the clouds, or maybe fire trucks lighting the scene.

That’s a pretty quick resolution.

I thought a few minutes ago I could smell burned plastic, and now I just smelled something like damp ash. Both might’ve been my hyperactive imagination.

I’m not sure there could be any sensible connection between the gunshots and the fire. Still, it seems highly coincidental for two such unusual events to break out so close together in such a short period of time. Doubt I’ll ever find out what actually happened.

And now I’m jagged on adrenaline, and I’m never gonna get to sleep…