Keith Grahams Wanderings

Pompton Lakes Town Wide Garage Sale

2008-07-19T18:14:00.001-04:00

It seems that I have been seeing a lot of New Jersey's Lakes lately. This is fine with me. I like lakes.

We went down to Pompton Lakes - about 30 miles down 287 from Nyack. There was no traffic today. The price of gas has hit $4 and like someone turned off a switch, the traffic stopped.

We went to at least 50 garage sales. It seemed that at least 25% of the homes were having a garage sale. There were lots of sales that we didn't even get to. Every block had two or three sales.

I bought some odd stuff like a USB hub and US government publication on ethanol from 1980. (I want to make a post just on this book).

Erica found a few frames and an antique black walnut mirror for $8.

Here are some pictures of Pompton Lake. It was hot and hazy.

Justine's Bird House

2008-07-19T18:02:00.001-04:00

Justine sent a birdhouse from Martha's Vineyard. It's a Claire Murray design - hoity-toity.

I screwed a 1/2 inch steel pipe flange on the bottom with an 8" nipple. I used a 10 foot 3/4 inch electrical conduit as a post. The conduit is galvanized and should last 20 years.

This is the view from the back deck.

Astound Me

2008-07-18T21:44:00.004-04:00

I complained to Amazon and worked out the glitch that had kept my CD in limbo. Here it is for sale. I received the sample by Fed Ex today. It is three stories that I recorded. I am afraid that my voice is a little flat and uninteresting. I have received a few nice reviews from listeners, though.

Save your money, unless you are very rich, then you can buy a dozen. I think I make about a buck on each one I sell. The CD probably costs Amazon about 50 cents. I am guessing that Amazon makes about 6$ on each sale after all the overheads are charged.

Astound Me

I just found the Astound Me MP3 Download on Amazon.

Jess Manafort and Stella Maeve Podcast

2008-07-18T20:23:00.002-04:00

Stella, the only Movie Star that I know, is in this podcast.

Jess Manafort & Stella Maeve Podcast

More Merged Movies

2008-07-18T19:57:00.002-04:00

Jed:

The Picture of Dorian Gray's Anatomy: a specific part of Dorian never ages....

Don Quixote Ugly: a knight walks into a bar...

The Executioner's Torch Song Trilogy: serial killer meets drag queen and has epiphany...ok, not really, he just kills him

The Sixth Sense and Sensibility: M. Night Shamalamadingdong's romantic comedy of a boy who sees dead people in 19th century England

Robert:

"Misery Love Company"
Bobby Baby meet his biggest date ever. Watch for Elaine Stritch in a cameo role. Scr: Stephen King Mus: Stephen Sondheim

"Das Glass Bottom Boot"
German submarine crew experience the tedium and terrors of boat touring in Florida. Feat. Doris Day, Arthur Godfrey. Dir: Wm. Peterson

"Little Big Man O' War"
Just after WWI, Jack Crabb finds himself riding a prize-winning race horse. Later he and the horse retire to a stud farm.

"The Road to Iraq"
Camels, oil, dictators, explosions. Featuring two songs by Dorothy Lamour.

"Annie Get Your Guns Of Navarone"
Annie Oakley takes down the fortress while firing behind her back using a mirror. Gregory Peck, David Niven, Ethel Merman.

"Harry Potter and The Magic Christian"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione search for Valdemort on a trans-Atlantic cruise ship. Peter Sellers, Ringo Starr, Daniel Radcliffe

"Five Easy Mystic Pizzas"
Robert returns home to Gloucester, MA from the oils fields of Texas upon hearing his father took ill while working a double at the shop. Hold the chicken salad calzone.

"Memoirs of a Geisha Boy" The life a Geisha presented in flashbacks as she waits to start the telethon. Miyoshi Umecki, Jerry Lewis

Twitter / kpgraham

2008-07-18T15:03:00.000-04:00

If you notice, there is a twitter this button now on each post. I am testing this. The bad thing is that it does a "tinyurl" on the url so it fits nice in a twitter line. Good for users, bad for SEO purposes.

I am not a big fan of twitter. I suspect that you already know enough about my life and would not want to know my thoughts and mood every few seconds. This microblog thing is not such a useful tool for me.

It would be, however, a good way to get traffic. I will make a page explaining how to add it to any web page next week. It will be more than one line long so I won't be using twitter.

Twitter / kpgraham

Twitter bookmarklet test

2008-07-18T14:20:00.001-04:00

Excuse me while I use the blog to test a twitter bookmarklet.

This might be a twitter this button

Writing for an Extraterrestrial Audience

2008-07-18T10:35:00.000-04:00

SPACE.com has a interesting article about writing for ET.

there is a critical difference from other creative writing classes. The intended audience for this class — if it exists at all — lives on a planet circling a distant star

SPACE.com -- Writing for an Extraterrestrial Audience

Jim C. Hines - I am the Very Model of a Modern SF Novelist

2008-07-18T09:34:00.000-04:00

Jim C. Hines has created some very clever words for this Gilbert and Sullivan ditty. (Here's just 4 lines).

In fact, when I know what is meant by "grok" and "droid" and "FTL",
When I can tell at sight the sword Excalibur from Anduril,
When twists in stories I perceive by reading just one paragraph,
And when I know precisely how to pen a clever epigraph,

I am the Very Model of a Modern SF Novelist

Nasa Jobs

2008-07-18T09:17:00.000-04:00

I still want to take some courses at the Swinburn Astronomy Online Masters Program. If I did, I might be able to get a NASA tech job like this one:

Space Scientist, AST, Planetary Studies
The Solar System Exploration Division is seeking an expert to study Icy Moons Tectonics and Evolution (including, but not limited to, orbital-rotational dynamics, stress histories, interior structure and evolution, surface processes, and thermal evolution).

I could do this - really!

I was on the www.usajobs.gov site and actually did apply for a few NASA jobs. I'd take a cut and pay to work for NASA. Wouldn't it be cool to say "I work for NASA" when some bozo asks you what you do for a living? Justine should apply for the This one.

Weebly

2008-07-17T16:21:00.000-04:00

If you are looking for a way to create a blog you might consider Weebly.com.

I got to this quite by accident. I had a test twitter account and someone "followed" me on twitter. After a couple of clicks I wound up the person's Blog at weebly. I signed up to test it out and I was impressed.

The site is very much on the theme of Office Live or Google Pages, but easier to use. It has a built in Blog that looks similar to Wordpress, but is also much easier to use than Blogger, Wordpress or Livejournal. It appears that it lets you add your own custom html, so you can add all your favorite widgets to it.

I'll try to cusomize the pages a little and if it is successful, I might even release the page, although I have too many blogs now.

One interesting thing about this person who twitted me, is that he is living in Rockland County. Unfortunately he goes to the Missionary College, so I expect he wouldn't want to play poker, not even our brand of play for a nickel games that have more in common with chess, or battleship, or chutes and ladders than high stakes gambling. Growing up, some of my best friends' parents were at the missionary college, but I suspect that I was always a bad influence on them.

Swing State - Ohio

2008-07-16T16:12:00.000-04:00

My Dad always said that 90% of the population votes pretty much at random and manages to cancel themselves out. This well done analysis points to partisan votes canceling each other out and the smaller number of swing votes making the actual decision.

It makes sense, since the Republicans that I know will not vote otherwise and the same for the Democrats. The vote will be determined by those who actually vote without the passion of a partisanship. This is a gentle shift with only a small number of people making the difference.

The red and blue graphs of Ohio show the subtlety of the vote. With a 1 or 2% shift, the whole election can change.

My Dad was right, though. Most votes cancel each other out.

It is encouraging that my Mom has become one of the swing voters. She and her friends, she told me, had never voted for a Democrat in their whole lives. My mother whispered to me, that in the last election she just could not vote for the A-S-S Bush who was killing all of those nice boys by sending them to Iraq. She had to spell it because my Mom hardly ever uses a bad word.

RealClearPolitics Swing State Ohio Review

Craigslist Telecommute Writing Jobs

2008-07-16T14:43:00.000-04:00

J quit his job, Johnny B. is out of work and I am always looking for something to do that is not work related.

I made this new automatic page to capture all new the "Telecommute OK" writing jobs on Craigslist without having to search each of the separate cities.

As of this writing I am having a little trouble with the system (it keeps ignoring the emails from google), but I put the underlying link on the page. I think I know what the problem is, and I will have this fixed in another half hour or so. Then I will just have to wait for Google to send out its alerts. In the future the page will only show the fresh items.

I am going to make a programming one for me, and a guitar for sale one for Larry.

Craigslist Telecommute Writing Jobs

Merged Movies

2008-07-16T13:57:00.005-04:00

Polly sent me this with a demand that I get to work. It is basically creating a punny title by merging two movies together. The original was books, but movies are more fun.

Jim had the first one (Jim's favorite movie is The Third Man):

"The Third Manchurian Candidate" - A poor, drunken writer in post-war
Austria has been brainwashed to assassinate a noisy zither musician.

John came up with these:

"Woman in the Rear Window" -- A wheelchair-bound invalid in an apartment becomes obsessed with a wide-bottomed painter from across the courtyard.

"His Girl Friday the Thirteenth" - Pandemonium ensues when a serial killer begins slaughtering cub reporters in a city newsroom.

"A Porn Star is Born" -- The rags to riches tale of a man with a very large penis and a very small brain.

"A Room With a View to a Kill" -- James Bond hunts down a band of effete Edwardian Britishers hell-bent on picnics and lawn parties.

I came up with some Sci-Fi ones

"The Loneliness of a Long Distance Blade Runner" A rebellious youth, sentenced to a boy's reformatory for robbing a bakery, finds himself questioning who he is when evidence starts to indicate he could be a running replicant.

"A Star Wars is Born" A young Jedi Knight comes to Hollywood with dreams of the Dark Side, but achieves them only with the help of an alcoholic Yoda whose best days are behind him.

"2001, a Space Odyssey File" An freelance journalist Peter Miller finds a mysterious artifact buried on the moon and, with the intelligent computer HAL, finds himself involved with the powerful organization of former SS members, called ODYSSEY, as well as with the Israeli secret service.

While walking around at lunch I thought of:

"The Three Horse Feathers" A man is given feathers of cowardice by three brothers. Hijinx ensue.

OK readers, now yours!

Polly just sent me another one from John Prusinski:

How about "For Whom the Belle de Jour" - An American caught up in the Spanish Civil War falls for a kinky Catherine Deneuve. (and who wouldn't?)

and another one from her brother:

"For Whom the Bell Jar" where an American caught up in the Spanish Civil War falls for a manic-depressive.

Oh no! more from Anthony Corman

How Green Was My Valley of the Dolls: Huw Morgan leaves the Welsh mining village of his birth for a life of extramarital sex and barbiturate addiction in Hollywood.

My Naked Lunch with Murray: nuff said.

The Call of the Wild Bunch: Buck the dog joins a motorcycle gang.

Lord of the Ring Flies: Frodo takes a plane to Dallas-Fort Worth

Never Let Me Go Tell It on the Mountain: because once I get started...

The Native Son Also Rises: He has a glassel tea, maybe a bialy.

The Invisible Man Who Loved Children: Oy

Gulliver's Travels with Charlie: a naif and his dog RV their way through Lilliput, predictably crushing half its population.

On the Revolutionary Road: Hipster gets married and tries to settle in suburban Connecticut, only to get so drug that he flips his lid, daddy-o.

All the Pretty Horses' Mouths: [Oh the sick possibilities here. I'd best stop.]

and here's Jimmy!
Late but undaunted:

"The Sweet Smell of Sweetback's Badass" A New York press agent gets the scoop on a new black guy in town who's had enough of "the Man."

"A Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead" Dead British rockers rise from the grave and send the girls screaming in the opposite direction.

"The Godzillafather" Radioactivity turns a mafia don into an indestructible force tamed only by turf wars and tiny singing girls.

"Goodfellas Will Hunting" Some New York mobsters take time out from their wacking to convince a troubled Boston student that "it's not his fault."

"Taxi Driving Miss Daisy" Travis Bickle leaves New York's mean streets for the more genteel horrors of the South and introduces Miss Daisy to her first porn movie.

"Apocalypse Never on Sunday" A big-hearted Greek hooker travels to Vietnam and tries to cure Colonel Kurtz of his "horror."

"Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice & Jules & Jim" A couple of french guys convince two American couples that they should add some jump cuts to their relationships.

and now Johnny B has a few more.

"The Omega Man of la Mancha" -- The sole surivivor of a nuclear holocaust keeps the mutant zombies at bay with amusing tales of a would-be knight errant.

"For Whom the Bell Jars" -- A disturbed young poetess is assailed with the delusion that the Spanish Civil War is taking place inside her head.

"The Good, the Bad, and the Coyote Ugly" -- Oh, enough of this already. . .

E85 Ethanol Conversion Digest

2008-07-16T11:45:00.000-04:00

I made another automatic digest page about e85 Ethanol Conversion. After reading about it, my truck might not be a good subject for conversion. I can make it work, but the engine might perform well and would get lower mileage, even with the conversion kit. It would also suffer from corrosion issues since the gas tank might not take to the ethanol.

I found that many, many cars can run just fine on E85. A good percentage of cars on the road are built to run ethanol with corrosion resistant tanks, larger fuel injector jets and a sensor that can tell the fuel type. Strangely enough, my brother has a Mercury Sable that can run E85 without a problem. I will check the VIN number. If it has the number 2 in the eighth position on a Sable or Taurus, it will work. My truck has a two, but that doesn't mean anything. It has to have a V for my truck. It should say on the door label that it can take E85.

The problem now is that E85 is not readily available. There are two stations nearby that have it. I will talk to Larry and maybe even take a video of the adventure.

Check out if you have a a Flex Fuel Vehicle.

I think you might be careful about the conversion kits. I keep reading that some of them are scams. It is better to get a newer car that is built to be E85 compatible.

E85 Ethanol Conversion Digest

E85 Ethanol in Rockland County

2008-07-15T14:08:00.001-04:00

I've been researching converting the truck to flex fuel. It turns out that the engine only needs a little computer programming to run gas or e85 Ethanol or any combination. The computer is capable of detecting the alcohol and adjusting the engine so it works. The engine computer plug-in costs around $400.

There is a station in Spring Valley, about 3 miles from my house, that sells E85. As far as I can tell it is about $1 or $2 cheaper than gas. If I use 10 gallons a week that's at least a $10 savings. So it pays for itself in less than a year.

I would like to try this, but $400 is too much for just an experiment. There is supposed to be an e85 pump in West Nyack and they are popping up all over the place, so availability is not the issue that it once was.

Here is the cheesy video that that Gas Station put on YouTube.

Christopher Morley - Human Being

2008-07-14T14:14:00.001-04:00

The stories on my iPod were all screwed up. I tried to put the last Honor Harrington book on it, but it was scrambled. Although the order of the chapters seemed to be totally random, I was enjoying the book. It turns out Honor is pregnant, has a kid goes into battle and then is pregnant again with the same child. Finally, I stopped listening as I did not want to ruin the book for when I finally figured out how to straighten it out. I used a program called Markable, which often gets confused when it merges all the MP3 files into 1 hour sections.

I had to resort to reading!

I snatched a book from the top of a pile as I left for work. It is Human Being by Christopher Marley. I picked it up at a flea market last year for a quarter. I have enjoyed rereading Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop many times. These books are available on Project Gutenberg and are in any good library. They are two of the best books that you can every read if you love books and reading. They were written for those of us who read for pleasure. Again, if you haven't read them, run to the library and get a copy of each. You will not regret it.

Human Being was published in 1932 as opposed to Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop, which were published in 1917 and 1919. Wikipedia does not know about Human Being at all and I can't find any discussion of it on the web.

The book is about a man who undergoes a kind of midlife crisis and decides to write the biography of a man who he had met just once and then died. This is not only the biography of Richard Roe but a biography of the Biographer, writes Morley.

Morley is a remarkably easy to read writer. The words flow in a kind, pleasant and thoroughly enjoyable stream. Every sentence is designed to make you smile. It is probably too light weight for these heavy times, but I think down deep there is some good solid bedrock.

Some random quotes:

Lucille Roe and her sister Hazel (Mrs. Herman Schmaltz) were agreed that is was inconsiderate of Richard to die on a ferryboat; and going towards Hoboken, too, from which she and Hazel had escaped many years ago.

Once he heard a speech in Congress, from the Visitors' Gallery - some deplorable rhodomontade with a ludicrous Star-Spangled peroration. He was moved; he tingled and applauded. But what else would you have him do?

A Pekinese is only a very small micturating mandarin on four legs, subject to numerous snobbish fallacies.

Lucile did not like Richard to stay out alone very long because in some obscure way she feared he might be thinking. This was wise of her, for she observed as he grew older that thinking was his chief danger.

So you get the idea. It is clever and witty and there is some nice truth to be had from each sentence. If you miss a sentence now and then because the bus lurches, you can pick it up the next time you read, but you don't have to worry about missing a key point in the plot.

Giving up on CreateSpace

2008-07-14T12:03:00.000-04:00

I blogged about createspace.com last month. It is Amazon's POD house. Using CreateSpace gets you on Amazon with an ISBN and it is supposed to be free.

I tried creating a title and it just stopped at one of the steps and didn't go any further. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. There also seems to be no way to delete a project with them.

I'll may come back to this, but for now, I am frustrated and have given up.

Has anyone else tried createspace? Did you go all the way through and get listed on Amazon? Did you have to buy a proof copy?

Jim Baens Universe

2008-07-14T10:34:00.003-04:00

Jim Baen's Universe is closing to subs August 1.

The reason that I mention this is that it would be a good idea to submit a story to them now.

They will take any story that has not been published in a SFWA "Pro" zine:

We do not care if your story has been "published" somewhere else -- fanzine, personal web site, whatever -- unless you turned over the rights to it. So long as you retain the rights and it's an original piece of writing, you can submit it unless it's been previously published in one of SFWA's established professional publications.

I am going through my stories and I want to pick a good one, previously published, that might get serious consideration. 25¢ a word can not be sneezed at. I know a few writers read this blog. Get your best story out to them, even if it has been published before in a non-pro zine.

Submit your story via the slush topic in Baen's Bar. This is more complicated than it seems, so read the instructions carefully.

But wait there's more!

The Baen's Bar Universe Slush will remain open after August 1, so it means that they will look in the slush and buy from time to time, possibly less often, though.

You can submit as often as you like, so get all of your old stories in there. I would suggest that you stagger them a week or so, to avoid anyone saying "Oh no! Not another story from that joker!"

I had a story bumped up to Flint, the editor, the one and only time that I submitted to Baen. It is tough to get asked for a rewrite from one of the highest paying SF editors, and then still get a reject. They are looking for Hard SF, Military SF, and Action SF. E. Jim, who reads this blog, writes the type of stuff Baen seems to publish, as far as I can tell from the story he once sent me.

Jim Baen's Universe

Vistas and Ice Cream

2008-07-13T19:17:00.001-04:00

Erica and I set off from rte. 15 to rte. 94, which took us north and then east on our way home.

On the way home I took some pictures of a view of the Wawayonda (neat name) valley.

Erica pointed out that the barn I was standing next to had lightening rods on the roof, right out of Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Then, on the way towards Warwick and rte. 17a, we stopped for Ice cream. This part of north Jersey is very rural and there are lots of Dairies. Sometimes you can smell a dairy a half a mile away.

The Ice Cream store shop was out in the middle of nowhere and was still crowded. I am used to the thin anemic ice cream that you get at grocery stores. This was incredibly rich and made from local fresh cream.

This was the view of the Warwick valley from the back yard of the ice cream store.

Lakes

2008-07-13T18:44:00.001-04:00

After the Flea Market, I went north on route 15 to Mohawk Lake, Highland Lake and then Greenwood Lake. I've blogged some nice pictures at Mohawk Lake in older posts. Here are the pics from Highland Lake.

Highland lake is controlled by a corporation and you have to join the owner's society and pay for the maintenance of the lake.

This new Nikon camera often does not take a picture, even though you think it is working.

Erica and I stopped by an Open House for a small house on the water. These are the pictures from the back yard, but the interior pictures did not come out. I got no pictures of the house at all except for a weird one of the foundation.

Dover Flea Market

2008-07-13T18:37:00.001-04:00

We drove down about 50 miles to Dover, NJ because they were having a town wide garage sale at their flea market. It was not that good. I guess most people at Dover had a lot of junk, but nothing exciting for me.

There was a cool chewing tobacco ad painted on one of the Dover buildings. I wonder how this survived the ban on tobacco advertising.

We had coffee from a little luncheonette that had cinnamon and chicory in it. Very good. I bought gas for $3.89 a gallon, probably the last gas under $4 that I will buy for a while.

Cleaning out the Camera

2008-07-13T18:29:00.002-04:00

I've got about 5 blog posts worth of stuff here so let's start with a picture of a very hot Max on the glider on the deck.

I took some pictures of the Blueberry Bushes. These will mostly be eaten by birds before I can get at them, though.

Last weekend we went up to Haverstraw for the Farmer's market. It was disappointing as there were only three stands. I bought some Blue Potatoes, which I love.

I took some pictures from the Ferry dock. $10 to go to wall street from Haverstraw (30 miles). This is the way to go if I get another job in the big city.

The hill there is Hi Tor, famous from a play by Maxwell Anderson. I worked at Hogan's Diner one summer with Maxwell Anderson's grandson. He was amazed that I had actually read some of his grandfather's plays.

The mountains on the Hudson river have cool names, although they are hardly mountains, just hills. The names, starting at Nyack going north are Hook, Tor, Bear and The Storm King.

I wanted to show how hard it is to type on the Bus. No room for my knees and no room to put my elbows when I type. Last week I finished my second week of bussing. On Thursday the bus driver got lost on the way home and it took an hour and a half. On Tuesday I got involved with a program, missed my bus and didn't get home until 6:30pm.

Here are some bus pictures of the TZ bridge.

Southern Fried Weirdness

2008-07-13T08:07:00.000-04:00

My story, Crayfish, I hate Crayfish! is online at Southern Fried Weirdness | Southern Speculations.

Please click, read, and enjoy.

John W. Campbell, Jr.

2008-07-11T18:36:00.001-04:00

JWC died on this day 37 years ago. He was only 63. He was an intelligent man. He graduated from Duke, my Dad's Alma Mata. Unfortunately, 37 years ago, intelligent men were heavy smokers, lived sedentary lives, ate lot's of red meat and drank their whiskey neat, so they died relatively young of heart attacks.

I think JWC's influence in SF was pretty much over by the time he died. Heinlein wouldn't submit to Analog Magazine and the better writers had moved to Galaxy, IF, and F&SF. Campbell had rejected two of Heinlein's Hugo award winning stories (with long letters explaining what was wrong with them).

I wonder how SF would be different today if John had quite smoking, taken to long walks and started eating more fish?

In spite of all of the man's personal failings, he is still a shining figure in the history of Science Fiction. He will always be a personal hero of mine.