Skeptic, Smartass, Professional Layman

Starting on a new story...

2013-04-27T02:47:00.003-07:00

...because what's the point of actually finishing one?

My Kuiper-Kuiper-Kuiper blaaaAAAAaaaades...

This is the rough-first draft of the opening for the story, which I hope to turn into something fairly lengthy, nerdy and full of something that may pass for the layman's version of accurate 'hard' science fiction.

__________________

Late in 2342, the Titan based astronomer Ruth Lawrence was nearing the end of her term-of-duty on the moon of Saturn. Soon she would be transferred to some other outpost in the Solar System after a short re-acclimation period on Earth. With just six-weeks of her eighteen-month assignment left, she had not yet received her next set of orders, which meant they were still evaluating her current performance.

Exhausted and bleary eyed, she poured over the holo-plates beamed from the mega-telescopes orbiting overhead. Titan’s thick, hazy atmosphere rendered ground based telescopes impractical very early in Titan’s colonial history. For nearly one and a half Earth-years, she had been analyzing the still-mysterious Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud for city-sized or larger objects, as well as potential Earth-threatening cometary bodies.

By her own clock, she had been at the desk for 16 hours and it was nearing midnight. She exhaled with an air of stale boredom and absently sipped at her coffee, trying to pull together her focus for these last few plates. As she glanced across the edges of each plate (she used the pattern she had learned during a childhood full of putting together complex puzzles by starting from the edges and working in) her eyes skipped quickly past a queer looking shape at the the far three o’clock side of the plate at the right of a line of six.

One thing she had never been told about the air of Titan, and this was true even in the airtight habitat modules, was that it smelled uncannily of pesto. It was typically easy to ignore, but Dr. Lawrence’s lab wasn’t completely airtight. Instead it used a simple airlock system more to compensate for the pressure differential than the contamination of the air, making the odor far more difficult to ignore. She sniffled suddenly fighting back the urge to sneeze (she had to get those filters cleaned). Confident she had held back the tickle in her nose she lost her self again looking over the final details of the last plate.

Without warning, Dr. Lawrence’s body seized abruptly as her sneeze forced its way through her nose and down her spine. She jostled her coffee, sloshing some over the lip of the non-lab-approved cup that dripped down the long, angular arm of her holo-plate lamp landing, by pure chance, on the object she had previously missed completely.

“Damnit,” she groaned reaching for her towel to dab up the small puddle that had formed on the plate. As she wiped up the mess and decided to going back to her quarters for the night, she took one last look at the area where the spill had been. Her eyes crossed awkwardly trying to focus on what may have been just more coffee. To prove to herself that it was actually there, she wiped the spot again more aggressively.

She pulled down her glasses and noted it’s location, then moved across the holo-plates, sequentially from right to left. “What is that?” she asked herself in the dead, spiced air of her lab. She immediately turned back to her console and began to overwrite the megascopes programing for the following cycle - she wanted the scope to stay trained on the same patch of sky to keep track of the anomaly.

Within two weeks of the end of her assignment, Dr. Ruth Lawrence had discovered the 32nd dwarf planet of the Sol System. She was granted extended Earth stay after her re-acclimation, as well as the honor of naming the body. Instead of naming after herself, or some obscure mythology of past centuries, she relied on her passion for collecting antiques from a particular electronics manufacturer of the 20th century. And while she would never know it, the dwarf planet Casio-Beta would one day prove to be one of the most important discoveries in the history of mankind.

The romance of Science and the material world

2013-03-07T22:52:00.000-08:00

Far too often, I hear and read folks complaining about science 'ruining' things. That science is dry and soulless - somehow without wisdom due to it not being from some place in deep antiquity. Because it gives us answers to ancient questions, often contradicting the "traditional" hand-waving explanation of men and women that roamed homeless in the wilderness, it is somehow less worthy? No.

Science is better.

Does this mean we hate things like magic?

I feel it's important to explain, being a stalwart lover of science and critical thinking, that it's inaccurate to say that we (we as in people that embrace science, the scientific method and critical thinking) don't like magic. Or magick. The fact is that we neither like or dislike magic, we simply have no use for it beyond the occasional illusionist act. It's wholly disinsteresting as a subject, so instead we focus on the things we love: observing nature, creating hypotheses, experimenting, replicating, retesting, confirming results, having others create more stringent experiments to make up for any weakness, blinding etc, until we, hopefully, FINALLY arrive at a theory.

Figure 1; Example of 'breathtaking'

And then we dare the rest of Science (or anyone else) to prove it wrong.

It CAN be pretty boring and droll. Sure, there isn't a lot of romance in data - but that doesn't mean we don't find the world at utterly wonderful, breathtaking (figure 1) or downright and truly AWESOME in ways that can't put to words. We just want to figure out WHY it is that way in a very material and objective way.

While I can understand why folks feel that conclusions arrived at through a careful and self-correcting (sometimes it takes time, the Universe doesn't move at our measly pace) method takes away the romance, or magic from just taking the world in, but that deeper understanding of how our world works and how wonderfully intricate and delicate the relationship is between life and non-life has INCREASED our absolute AWE of our amazing universe.

I mean... Science literally says that we are made from stars. Ancient MASSIVE stars had to live out their lives, then explode in a magnificent release of raw energy to create the particles that we are made of.

THIS is the true avatar for what created us.

What has magic(k) done lately?

And FAWM Begins!

2013-02-02T02:21:00.003-08:00

Every February for the past few years, I have joined a mass of insane and amazing people over at www.fawm.org. FAWM stands for February Album Writing Month whose challenge is simple: write an entire album's worth of songs during the shortest month of the year or, more directly, 14 songs in 28 days.

I will hopefully be posting updates throughout the month, starting with my first entry:

http://fawm.org/songs/473/

Let the FAWM begin!

An attempt to explain my 'cycle' of depression

2013-01-28T23:02:00.000-08:00

First and foremost – I am not posting these blogs and statuses for your sympathy. When I re-read this I tried to add some lighthearted jibs, so please keep that in mind if something comes across as shocking or offensive (unless you deserve to be offended, of course).

Big head+Tiny arms = Sad T-Rex

While I do appreciate the sentiment behind your support, and it does give me strength at times, these posts are an attempt to make myself communicate with the ‘outside’ in a way that I can set the pace, subject and tone without feeling guilty. Additionally, I see these posts as an opportunity to be held accountable and responsible – not for my emotions, but for the actions those emotions sometime aspire to inspire. When I have the breakdowns that have plagued me for the past few months (at least with such intensity) the last thing I typically want is to talk to anyone about it for any reason. But, again - accountability, responsibility and whatnot.

At my lowest points emotionally, the level of grief is just short of being at the funeral for one who (generically) is most dear to me. The pangs of sadness give way to unpredictable waves of anger (some of you might have seen the infamous ‘Garner Wrath’ from other members of the family), detachment and guilt. On a typical day, I probably don’t want to be wherever I am. My brain will race for alternatives – home, the lake, Dad’s, Mom’s, Wal-Mart, some Mall, the porn store – and every single one sounds as dreadfully gray as the last. The worst may be at work: being in a call center tied (almost literally) to a desk and having your every word and breath scrutinized is agitating to say the least. I hid my discomfort for a while, but you can only cry in the hidden corner so many times before people start to think something might be up.

All of that said, it isn’t always doom and gloom; I’m at my best when conversing, creating or consuming (reading and learning – appetite is another beast altogether). One of the biggest obstacles is that they almost all sound empty when I’m not engaged in them. To make things worse, when there are lovely people there, ready to converse and engage, I can sometimes shut down completely. There may be a trigger, but usually it’s a subtle shift in my internal perspective that sends me rolling back down the slope.

And that slope is steep.

Once I do slide back down, as seems inevitable, the small crest of the wave I had almost attained is even further than I had remembered it ever being. Expressions of concern, sympathy and especially empathy breed a deep resentment in me that is incredibly terrifying. In these times and situations, hearing laughter or seeing someone enjoying their day tosses me into some mini-rage in my head, where all I can think to say is “Shut-the-fuck-up.” Instead, I turn inward and try to keep a cool veneer that doesn’t hide the bristling anger and frustration very well.

Not even Sepia made me smile!

By this time, there is not a single person in all the world who can do right by me. My social interactions become forced and strained, even with those that mean the most to me. The mess of meat and chemicals in my head conspire to convince myself that people are simply incapable of leaving me alone. It’s like they are trying to put out a five-alarm fire by pissing on it. All of this time, the rational piece of me is there, telling me that the way I feel is truly ridiculous and the only repugnant thing about the situation is how much of an ass I can be to everyone I know and love.

And cue the guilt.

The final stage of these breakdowns is a mix of two very toxic emotions: guilt and worthlessness. To be absolutely clear, these two are inexorably intertwined and cocoon my mind nearly completely. Guilt for the way I’m treating everyone around me and worthlessness for not being able to make them feel better about me and the uncanny feeling that this thing in me is going to always keep me one step (or more) behind my peers in terms of social and occupational success on the level I was once (as my ego tells me) capable. The only thing I can bring myself to do at this point is to ball up in the fetal position and sob like Abraham might have, had Yaweh not interceded, probably with a slight chuckle.

When I review these things, my immediate impulse is to run away from my life. That is to say, get in my car and drive until the gas runs out, then just keep walking until I hopefully find whatever it is I’m looking for. I know, however, that all I need is here and now; but my brain doesn’t seem to want to create the right amount of the appropriate chemicals to make me realize that.

With all that said, I am seeking help. I have a therapist, psychiatrist and family doctor all working in some loose concert to try and give me the extra rope to climb out of this muddy, slippery and beckoning pit. At this very moment, I’m neither happy or sad – but I can imagine either. I can remember times when I couldn’t stop laughing for hours; I can’t remember the feeling of such joy (or even imagine it), but I know it can be there and has been there before.

I’m still climbing and will probably slide back a few more times – but if I do reach the top and plant my flag once again, I have so many of you to thank for your support. Please know that every comment left and message sent has been received with love, read and pondered upon (sans the superstitious propaganda).

Back to the trail for me, hope to see you along the way.

For now, shine on.

Pretty Pictures with Words: If (when) we create (and augment) life? Part 2

2013-01-06T13:30:00.001-08:00

In a previous post, I waxed romantic about the possibility of humans both creating life and having some limited control over our own evolutionary future. In the time since we have seen a double amputee, complete with state-of-the-art artificial limbs, compete as against more physically typical athletes in sport. While this was surely a triumph for Mr. Pistorius and the creators of his incredibly blade legs, it also signaled the first salvo in what will surely become a theme as we move forward as a species: automatic prejudice towards that which is different from our everyday experience.

A turning point in human history.

Human beings are simply afraid of what is different, of change and especially of something that could possibly change us on a fundamental evolutionary level. While Pistorius, the augmented man, was an amazing story of personal victories - his augmentations are purely physical - there is no direct connection or interaction with the brain. He isn't a robot or an android - that's not possible, right?

Well... it just might be. Seriously.

While giving the capability to those that are disabled (paralysis especially) to physically manipulate their world using their brains (as any human would) to move their new 'bodies' is an incredible discovery and finding of science (and a tribute to human ingenuity), the mind reels at the prospects of what this could mean in the future. What could these technologies do for humans with typical physical and mental states? Add to that the fact that we are closing in on fusing nerves with the robotic limbs, so you could feel the mechanical parts interacting with the world.

We are a paranoid bunch of primates

Some have suggested that brain plasticity may one day allow for humans (particularly children) to learn how to not only control augmentations to limbs they have - but to learn how use an manipulate more limbs that humans are naturally born with. This is is some Doc-Ock schtuff goin on here. What does it mean, assuming we are able to ever perfect the technologies/assumptions of:

Brain to mechanical interfaces
Fusing nerves to said interfaces
Neuroplasticity works how we understand?

It very well could mean that within a generation of said perfection, the human race (or at least significant segments of the race) will look and operate so differently from us, that to call them just 'human' may be a misnomer. The questions become (in a very real way), what is it to be human - and how will we, as a race and global society, cope with the idea of augmenting and changing the biology of the human body with technology?

This isn't likely to happen

Seeing how a man with carbon fiber legs that are not truly robotic stirred up a decent amount of controversy and our propensity to assume the worst outcome possible, I doubt it will be pretty, graceful or perfect. People will likely kill and maim to stop this - but in my opinion it is our destiny as a species to either take this path and continue down the evolutionary trail or to simply be completely forgotten by the cosmos for our own fear of progress and our devotion to dead ideas, gods and old men.

Trying to understand why I feel a little crazy sometimes

2012-11-26T22:46:00.000-08:00

Sup. Rough Day.

So, I’ve had a bit of a problem lately dealing with anxiety and depression. Some prettymajor ones: inability to work, random unexplained crying fits, no sleep for days on end, strep, the flu and other infections FAR more often than prior. While it’s true that all of this can probably be attributed to big life changes (getting married, moving, buying a house, changing jobs), I had only felt sad or maybe a little apprehension at times of big change in my younger years, and the feeling now is completely different. The hole that gets dug between my anxiety and depression (whichever is in charge that day) is so incredibly deep that to ‘think happy thoughts’ becomes a fool’s errand, as there is no such thing as ‘happy’ to begin with when I’m in these states.

So how did this start? How did I go from happy-go-lucky guy to the most depressed kid on your net-block?

If I’m feeling conspiratorial, I think it all started about a month before I was married (not what your chuckling about - go ahead and get it out, then continue when you're ready). As a bonding experience, my father-in-law and I went canoeing on the Duck River in Tennessee with a couple of folks more familiar with the waterway. Near the beginning of the trip, our canoe capsized (that seems to be my superpower) and my shin struck a log or rock under the water, causing a small (less than half an inch) cut, that was decently deep, but not a big bleeder. Unluckily for me, we had left the first aid kit in the truck, and had miles either way to get to it. So I dressed the wound as well as I could, using my shirt as a bandage and a wet wipe to ‘disinfect’ what I could. And so we finished the day without much hassle. When we reached the trucks, my leg felt fine and I dressed it with the first aid kit, being sure the alcohol hurt plenty good.

About a week later, my shin began to ache, and my knee would hurt whenever I bent it. That and the wound hadn’t completely healed and I had discovered a small amount of pus. Off to the local walk-in clinic to be prescribed a regimen of Bactrim. Awesome. That was easy, right?

Well, that weekend happened to be Labor Day weekend and my father wanted to take me to Gatlinburg for one last weekend together as bachelors. That weekend is when the problems started. I literally got no sleep the entire weekend. We were in a small, one room cabin and Dad’s oxygen machine would beep throughout the night, waking me. At least, that’s what I thought it was. During the day I was shakey, unsteady and the world seemed surreal. I figured with was a side effect of the Bactrim. Sh*t was I wrong.

When we got home, I went to work like usual on Tuesday morning. Very very quickly, my day started to fall apart. First my friend Hollee mentioned that was looking a little flushed and feverish. I could barely focus at this point. Making the decision to get back to the walk-in clinic at speed, I rocketed away and quickly realized that I was dying. Don’t ask me how, I just knew (or thought I knew) – this was my first true panic attack. So what was making feel so off? Anxiety? Well, not on it's own - and I wouldn’t know it for at least two more days.

The clinic asked me to calm down after they took my resting pulse as 140 bpm – but I couldn’t. There was something happening that I couldn’t control. The world ‘blood poisoning’ was tossed about between the nurses. “Get him an Ativan and call his emergency contact. He’s not going to be able to drive home.”

Shortly thereafter, my wife arrived, looking worried. They took some blood to culture and sent me home. The Ativan helped to sleep that night and feel almost normal as the evening progressed, but I was asked to take off the rest of the week, pending blood results. And so I slept. Wednesday, the panic returned in the early evening but the test results weren’t back yet. Off for my first trip to the ER with my amazing wife – I was x-rayed, peed, CT’d and listened to. After four hours, the ER doctor confidently told me that I had a viral infection mixed with stress. He gave me Cipro, Ativan, Meclizine and sent me home. I called my mom and dad to tell them the news – I finally had a diagnosis and was going to be getting better! Imagine how great I felt!

That night, as soon as we got home, I popped one of each of my new pills and went to blissful sleep… Only to awake the next day in the same panicked state with my phone ringing off the hook. I had multiple missed calls, and finally picked a call from my dad. “You need to get the Doctor’s – they called me and they have your blood work. You have blood poisoning.” Off, again, to the clinic (which was in the same building as the ER) with my wife to get a MASSIVE shot in my rear (I could literally TASTE the medicine within a minute) and a MONTH’S worth of antibiotic treatments – to be completed the day before my wedding.

The 'real' me, on the left.

And so, there it was. I had blood poisoning. But I survived. Then I got married. Honeymooned. Really, truly had an amazing remainder of 2010. When the clock struck midnight, something changed. Something in my head. Okay, it probably wasn’t at the stroke of midnight, but I distinctly remember descending into the deepest depression of my life in January 2011. I could cry all day about just feeling sad. There was no rhyme or reason. Only the absence of happiness, hope. My doctor saw me (after a breakdown in his office) and quickly put me on some samples of Lexapro, which seemed to really do the job at first. As he ran out of samples, we switched to Zoloft, 50mg as my problems seemed specific to anxiety instead of depression.

As the year dragged into the spring and summer, I had my ups and downs. By about July, things were becoming incredibly rough again. I was having panic attacks at night that lasted through the next day. I was put on Xanax and took a weeklong vacation to try and settle down a bit. By early September the anxiety had become such a front seat driver in my life, that I visited the ER three times within two weeks with symptoms of a heart attack. It was nothing but panic. Complete, total chaos in my head. The week of the 20^th, I saw Doc again and he upped my Zoloft dosage to 100mg and renewed my Xanax prescription. That week I had two very tough conversations with my direct supervisors about my anxiety and they assured me that of all of the people in the company, my job was the safest, and they were concerned about my well-being.

One week later, I was laid off due to ‘restructuring.’ So was one of the aforementioned supervisors, as I understand.

Me, two days post layoff. Literally.

For a few weeks, my anxiety got much, much better. By the time my one –month follow visit to Doc had come about, I was feeling great. My heart rate had lowered from 120 at rest to around 80. I was smiling, laughing. As 2011 became 2012, and the job prospects remained grim, my anxiety waxed and waned into deep bouts of depression and what one would probably label a ‘nervous breakdown’ a time or two. The worst of which came over my wife cleaning the toilet. Yeah, I wasn’t right in the head. At. All.

The problem became that I didn’t have insurance, and couldn’t afford the full dosage of my medication each month (100mg/day) so I started half-dosing (50mg/day). This wasn’t my best idea. While I never contemplated committing suicide, if the images washed through my head I just didn’t automatically reject them as I had my entire life. I allowed them to play out, but only to a point before I would break down in tears again at my ridiculous desperation. Then someone I greatly admired lost his long battle with depression and took the hard way out. That’s when I realized that no matter how often I allowed those images to grace my mind, that I could never let them win. There were too many people depending on me.

Around August, a breakthrough came about as I had discovered the Tennessee Democratic Party was hiring folks for what sounded like my dream job. Talking to fellow liberals about politics. Yes! I did this for free already! I can get paid? Well, the short story (as somewhat detailed here) is that I was never hired, as I had to work for a day knocking on doors and asking for money. If I didn’t raise $150 in 4 hours, I simply wasn’t hired. Well, I raised $110 and was informed that I was not going to be hired on. This meant my unemployment benefits were going to be sent into disarray, since the state felt I had been employed, then discharged. It took over six weeks to get this settled and to receive over $1400 in benefits I had the right too.

In the midst of this, I got a job! I had applied for a tech support position at a local company, which I am currently working for. After four weeks of training, I started on second shift and things fell apart quite quickly. No longer able to see my wife or father (or any family/friends) during the week, I had no one to vent to – no one that unload my day with, unpacking all of the victories and defeats. Just me. In the darkness of my house with my terror-filled thoughts. By the end of the week, I was sleeping 3-4 hours max a night and going to work in a panicked mess. By the time I woke up Friday, I couldn’t bring myself to even leave my bedroom, much less my house. The next week (last week) was Thanksgiving, which I again did not sleep the entire week until Friday night. I had strep throat, major depression and was prescribed a zpack, Pristiq instead of Zoloft and some Lunesta to help me sleep.

So now, I sit a complete depressed, anxious mess. The Pristiq hasn’t kicked in (and likely won’t for another week or two) and I’m off of Zoloft. I’m back at work, but concentrating is nearly impossible and since it’s an inbound call center, I can’t just work on a different project (something monotonous, for example) to bring me back to baseline. I just have to sit. Waiting. Then go home to a quiet, dark house and sit. With my thoughts.

All over again.

But then, I do get home, and I can tell her goodnight - and for a moment things are amazing. Things aren't always so dire, to be sure - and I know that things will get better. It's just tough to see it sometimes.

Here's to hoping Pristiq is awesome! :b

Good morning, Sunset

2012-10-10T01:02:00.001-07:00

As the Indiana Jones theme plays on...

Today, I share my second anniversary with my incredible wife, Michelle. Yes, we got married on the dorky date of 10/10/10 - and let me tell you it makes remembering the date pretty damn easy! The past two years have seen plenty of ups and downs already - and as I joked with her, we are clearly getting the 'for poorer' out of the way sooner rather than later.

When cast in the light of the past year, our wedding days seems like an eternity ago, when the biggest problem we seemed to have was not being able to buy EVERY video game that came out AND go out to dinner all the time. Life has become much more intense at times, and others intensely mundane - but I'm so glad I've had Michelle with me every step of the way. She's my wife, yes - but she's also my best friend and my biggest supporter.

Sure, it was the only day we were able to gather such a rag-tag bunch of extraordinary people together to celebrate, well, US and we got all kinds of awesome food and attention that day, but it was also the end of one journey and the start of something completely different. I'm beholden to her as she is to me and when one of us is down, the other always shares the burden as best we can - and she has out shined me in every way this past year. I'm pretty damn lucky in that regard. Not to mention that the very moment we kissed, the sun was in the the PERFECT spot to make our binding lip-lock seem downright explosive:

Yeah... it pretty much happens every time...

With all of that romantic stuff, you might thing the day was filled with nothing but kisses and flowers, candy, gifts and food - and you'd be mostly right. I did a pretty damn good job of picking out my half of the wedding party, if I do say so myself:

Dave, Billy, Seth and Chris all beneath my balls.

There was a point before the ceremony when I was with the gentlemen above when one of Michelle's male friends from her time at Nossi College of Art approached us to find out where the ceremony was (as we were on a fairly large Boy Scout Reservation), and I directed him and the small crowd with him (Gabe and Eric were both in that crowd, I do believe). As I walked back up to the chapel where the guys were waiting for me, they all wore slightly confused, amused and almost terrified looks across their over-dressed faces. My brother, always the tactful one, asked "Hey dude - was that a dude or a chick?" to the utter enjoyment of my personal peanut gallery.

Once the fine gentlemen escorted me back to the deck where the ceremony would be held, they led the parents and grandparents to their seats. A song that I had written for Michelle years before began to play, as a personal bridal march, from me to her - before we read the vows we had written for each other in front of our family and friends.

And at the end of the day, though, there was only my new wife and I driving home from a night I hope we never forget.

________________________________________________________________________________

Michelle,

We've had some adventures before and since we were married - and I hope we share a life full of adventures to come. I love you.

Episodic Music: The Great Red Eye Part IX

2012-09-23T23:31:00.000-07:00

"Clear platform one," Shem called into his radio, "we will be losing eye line contact in three minutes. All systems currently functioning appropriately." The platform called back, verifying both Shem's report and the current readings surrounding the module.

As the Great Pendulum plunged ever deeper towards the eye of the storm, the lone human on this great planet turned on his rear view monitors, and shuddered unconsciously as the center of all human civilization - and life! - faded away in the Jovian atmosphere.

Episodic Music: The Great Red Eye Part VIII

2012-09-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

Breaching the Jovian Atmosphere

The Great Pendulum gained velocity as it raced towards the giant planet below, the first rumblings of atmospheric friction dazzling the camera views on the exterior of the ship - that they could survive such punishment was amazing! Shem re-checked his exterior monitors in triplicate, ensuring that each was operating optimally with no sign of malfunction or damage.

So far, so good.

Years of space travel couldn't have prepared him for how quickly his field of vision would limit as the atmosphere began to thicken as they screamed towards the heart of the storm. He could no longer see the blackness of space behind the craft, instead he saw a faint blue sky quickly being obscured by ever-thickening wisps of brown and red.

Soon, Cosmonaut Aglig would venture where even the Sun had never been.

Civil War of the Shihmen Woods (or the war of teenage aggression)

2012-09-13T12:58:00.000-07:00

Our clubhouses were never this nice

Oh, the woods. If you never grew up near any type of wooded area, you honestly missed an urgent matter of your childhood and should put this down, move to a wooded area and build a clubhouse to defend before reading any further.

Across the street from my boyhood home, behind a row of houses and up a small hill existed a mythic place for boys aged 5-10, and a place to hang out and be delinquents for those 13 and over. For we younger lads, the woods were to be explored throughout, clubs to be established and treasure to be found. For the teenagers, the woods belonged to them, they were there first.

While the specifics of how the war between the kids and teenagers began have long been lost to ages, here’s what probably happened:

My brother and a few of his friends from the other side of the woods were running around being 9-10 boys. Playing ‘guns,’ ‘hide-n-seek and building indestructible ‘forts’ out of found barbed wire and branches occupied summer days endlessly.

This gallivanting was not looked upon approvingly by the leader of the teens, David (a kid that will always remain an intimidating giant in my mind). He, perhaps with a few others by his side, confronted my unfortunately intelligent and logical brother, Chris regarding the use of the woods. David likely claimed that these were ‘his woods’ and that Chris needs to leave before something ‘bad happens.’

Chris likely looked at the much larger form a said, plainly and calmly “I didn’t see your name written on it anywhere,” or “That’s not fair, it’s a free country, so I and my friends will not be leaving.” This, of course, go Chris beaten a bit (which is probably why he beat me up so much) and send each of the younger friends home in a deep-seated soul-fear of this bully.

Chris and Ray (the only other of the kids’ names I can remember) knew that war had been declared. We were out manned, and outsized – but we would take another route: we would out gun them. So began the recon missions into the woods and neighboring fields searching for useful weapon technologies to help us against this impending threat.

I'm off to war, Mom. Be back for dinner.

One of the more memorable was an item my brother took as his main weapon: it was an old sponge mop, with the sponge removed, so when you worked the handle forward to squeeze it just looked like some strange alien Muppet trying to gum the air to death. Well, that’s what it looks like in retrospect. At the time, it was the mythical Doberman Pincher-Pincher.

The teens’ primary mode of assault had been thwarted. With the dogs out of the picture, we moved forward, collecting items to make sling shots, spears, clubs, a ‘visor’ that helped me to ‘see’ the teens’ weaknesses and the like. We all knew this would probably be our first, and last war, the odds, despite our build of arms, were so heavy against our tiny shoulders.

That was all before the Electro-Thinko ™. A piece of a broken computer chip with a wire coming off of the end of it was known by Chris and Ray to be our secret weapon of last resort... if we could figure out how the damn thing worked.

Chris and Ray would each take the device home every other weekend to research its apparently alien design to try and decode how to get the working, and then unleashing its terrible fury against the teens.

In the mean time, I was running recon for the kids. Since I was so young (5) I wasn’t officially included in the ranks of the ‘kids,’ and I had a trusted babysitter (Wendy) that was a teen. Logically, if she was to be trusted to be near me while I slept (my most vulnerable time!) she must be on our side.
Imagine my surprise upon stumbling into a secret meeting of the teens; and being spotted eye to eye by my babysitter. “That lying cunt,” I would have thought to myself, had I the verbiage at the time. The reality was I ran as fast as I could home with this new morsel of dour information further throwing a pall over the proceedings towards war.

As I ran from their force en masse, I could hear the cries to ‘get him!’ and the rumblings behind me. Lucky for me, I was the fastest kid I knew. Also, it’s fair to posit that I peed/pood myself slightly as I ran away.

This was it, we all knew. We had to get the Electro-Thinko ™ working, and soon or it was game over. I’d seen plenty of hero movies and Michael Jackson music videos, and I knew that the quiet small kid had to save the day. Biding my time until Chris’s weekend with the electronic wonder device, I kept thinking about how the thing looked. What were we missing?

A modern approximation of the Electro-Thinko ™with the 'power' cable removed

....Eureka....!

There was a wire coming out of the chip to one side, and this wire was SPLIT at the end. So the damn thing had a wire that forked. Shit, I thought inside my already pretentious thoughts, we just need to plug the damn thing in.

Aside: What I did next should have killed me. It should have burned down our house, and probably killed my entire family. Instead, everyone uses it to explain my occasionally erratic behavior today. Balderdash, I say.

Sitting in the floor of our den/family room, next to a probably already unsafely overloaded power outlet, I devised my plan, and planned my glory. I didn’t count on having the hand size, coordination and manual dexterity of a 5 year old child. Holding both the Electro-Thinko ™ and guiding the split wire (the obvious plug portion of the device) proved to be much more difficult and time consuming that I had previously reckoned and was frustrating to say the least.

Seeking the help of more stable hands, I turned to by father, who was sitting on the couch watching TV about 3-4 feet from me. “Deddy,” I began in my atrocious southern accent, “can you hold on to this while I plug it in?” I asked plainly, almost matter-of-factly. His equally matter-of-fact response floored me; at least it would sometime long after the events of this day, “No, I’m don’t want to be shocked” after briefly glancing from the TV.

Renewing my determination, I held tightly to the Electro-Thinko ™ and its accompanying split wire plug and guided it into the outlet…

Before we move forward, let’s take a look back on something I brought up first: memory. If my memory of these Mostly True stories is to be somewhat suspect from time to time, the following should be appropriately understood: I had plugged a bare wire into a power outlet with my bare hands. What I remember is blurry to say the least.

As the snaked tongued wire crept closer to the gaping, thirsty outlets, my eyes grew wide, as this was the moment that I was finally going to shine. Insertion. The pain during the electrocution is lost in whatever part of my brain got the permanent imminent domain closure that day – but I do remember the lamp light behind me and the TV to my right dimming and going out completely (well, they did flicker, the going out may have been my consciousness).

My next memory is sitting on our kitchen counter, my hair sticking out in every direction and black burns on my palms and cheeks and a freakish amount of pain and panic. My parents, being from the Silent Generation (Dad) and the Baby Boom (Mom), wiped the carbon scores off of my twitching body, told me to calm down, and I was stupid to do that. Today’s parents would probably ensure a hospital overnight stay.

Chris’s sole recollection of the event goes something like this:

I had just gotten out of the bath and was walking out to the den (where the laundry room was located) to put my clothes in the hamper, when I saw you stuck to the wall with streams of blue electricity going up your arms. It looked pretty cool. You dumbass.

The Electro-Thinko ™ was destroyed and thrown away by our folks. Our one hope to win had been destroyed, and nearly took one of use with it. Let me put this in a modern context: I was almost martyred for the kids’ cause.

Still, the war had to come, and I was on the front lines. The final bits of this are fuzzy, but I remember seeing David leading the teenagers towards our very own ..Thermopylae.., a choking point to give us an advantage. As the enemy lines grew closer, I noticed Chris was no where to be seen. Had they captured him? We were doomed.

The gnarled faced warriors of the teenager army were merely a few yards away when Chris arrived, this time with the ace up his sleeve: our Dad. He gave those teenagers a VERY stern talking to, and talked to each of their parents.

While the woods would now be ours, we were careful not to violate the previously established borders, for fear of, well something, I’m sure.

The brave Garner Warriors Today-ish

Where was I on September 11, 2001?

2012-09-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

The following is my best possible solo recollection of the events of September 11, 2001. While my memories are incredibly vivid, this entry should most likely still be considered one of my 'mostly true' events, as human memory is deeply fallible and often flat out wrong (despite our certainty otherwise). This is the exact reason anecdotes (A short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person) are not reliable data points for things like ghost sightings, UFOs (and their alleged abductions), bigfoot sightings, cancer 'cures' etc. That said, here's what a remember:

It was the beginning of my sophomore year in college. The weather that day was incredible - blue skies with light fluffy clouds scattered about, and just enough of a hint of autumn to refresh the soul. I was driving from my home in Nashville to Murfreesboro (about a 30 minute drive) when I first heard the news.

The first report seemed rather bland and somewhat uneventful, since early reports were cautious. My favorite morning show at the time (John Boy & Billy) interrupted their usual banter to announce that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. My initial thought was that it was a small 2-5 seater, not an airliner. Remembering the first bombing of the WTC, I said aloud to myself "Can't the twin towers catch a break?"

When I arrived on campus, I made my way to the University Center where there were plenty of TVs. Nothing could have prepared me for the HUNDREDS of students huddled around the big screens in the student lounge. People I hadn't talked to in years were there, but the only words any of us had were a perfunctory "hey" with our eyes never leaving the events unfolding.

By this time, the second tower had been struck and was billowing that terrible smoke into the air. When the first tower fell, we couldn't tell what exactly had happened due to the obscured view of the smoke; our first reaction was summed up by a girl that breathlessly asked "Oh my god... did it explode again?" It was a few minutes later when we realized the tower was gone completely.

From there, I made my way to my first class - history. If there was any place I would get perspective on this event, history class would be it. Upon entering the classroom, the teacher announced that the second tower had just fallen and he then went into his normally scheduled lecture for the day. I looked around the classroom, shocked at the seeming disinterest in what was happening. I audibly scoffed and exited the room quickly to go back to the University Center.

A couple of my friends from High School were there, in a fairly empty room watching the unfolding events. We watched the footage in New York, DC and PA not really grasping what was happening. The malaise lasted for days. September 12 came, and it was another beautiful day for weather - but something was missing. We were all where we were supposed to be, but it was clear we were all going through the motions.

I lived (and still do) live close to the Nashville International Airport and planes overhead had been a daily routine my entire life. The silence of the next few days was deafening. Once air traffic resumed, the slight pang of terror would strike somewhere deep inside with each passing airliner.

My questioning of faith, politics and life in general started on that day in earnest - and it continues today and likely for the rest of my days.

Attack of the B-Boats!

2012-08-20T17:37:00.002-07:00

Let's see if I keep you on board for this one.

First, a little background:

As a child (we're talking 5 and under) I was afraid to death of floaties in the bathtub. These floaties could have been anything: but were usually bit of dirt, or a dead ant from my outside adventures (usually not feces, but how can you not just assume so when I say "bathtub floaties"). I think I was afraid that these UFO (unidentified floating objects) were going to sting or bite me, and cause me pain that I wanted to avoid at all costs. I would often make my dad or brother get a cup and scoop the offender out of the tub. The floaties became known as b-boats (beboats, bee-boats; I've never really had to spell it out).

So, a couple of years ago at work, my co-worker Julia was sitting in my cubicle (as we are all often want to do) chatting about her impending possession of the holy chalice of handheld devices when she got up to go back to her workspace. As she stood, I glanced at the desk space directly in front of the position in which she had been sitting.

That's when I saw it. She had left a b-boat on my desk. "Oh hell no," I start at her while looking at the offending object, "get your damn b-boat off of my desk!" The look on her face was equal parts confusion, amusement and surprise. "What the hell are you talking about?" she replied. "You left a damn floatie on my desk!"

It's important to remember that no one at my work place has ever heard of my b-boat tales; and that the cubicle area has many employees from two different departments, as well as the Executive Director of the school roaming about in the area.

"What the hell?" she retorted with a thick southern drawl, moving in for a closer look. "Gross!!" she replied upon closer inspection, determining that the small fleck of dark material must be of a fecal or similar substance. She then started to blow on the damned thing to try and blow it on me. "Don't try to blow your damned b-boat on me woman, get out of my cubicle!"

Incredibly tickled at my vocabulary and bluster, she raced out of my cubicle into Hollee's trying to keep her laughing at a reasonable level. After a few moments of relative peace, I hear the two of them erupt in a disgusted laughter right after I brushed the b-boat off of my desk and exclaimed "it smeared!" (it hadn't). Hollee then comes over to my cube to inform me of what she had told Julia "I told Julia that you were going to spread the b-boat on a cracker and give it to her."

From here, there are constant giggle from Hollee's and Julia's cubes, with no real words being said - I just drop stuff like "caviar" and the swell grows louder.

Finally, Hollee brings up the subject of spelling. "Jonathan, how do you spell b-boat?" We start going over various possibilities with Julia chiming in, when I finally say "It doesn't matter, as along as it means floaties in the bathtub" rather loudly across the cubicle maze.

This is when I realized one of the admissions reps had a prospective student and was doing an enrollment interview. The rep started laughing, saying how much fun the folks in Financial Aid got to have. "Was that too loud?" I ask across the room - the reply wasn't who I had expected. Adam, our Executive Director, was in the cube with the Rep. "YES" he replied equally as loud back.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with an understandably low profile on my behalf;)

Are you Metal: Part 2

2012-08-15T21:47:00.001-07:00

Me, being rather un-Metal

There's this genre of music that the youngsters seem to have embraced in the past couple of years called Dubstep. Yes, I'm keenly aware that you can trace the origins of this genre to the late 90s - but that doesn't make it any better. You may have guessed that I'm no fan of the genre as a whole, but that's how I treat most genres aside from the untouchable Jazz. What troubles me most is the somewhat understandable comparison some people make between Dubstep and Heavy Metal.

Sure, they can both be pretty heavy at times and make nods to subjects on the fringe of society - but is that enough to make the comparison. To put it bluntly, no. To put it obscenely no fucking way in hell.

So what's the difference? I could make the argument that Heavy Metal requires sweat. You can't sit at a computer or turn table and churn out Metal. You don't need fancy effects for your music videos, or even actors. To make Metal, you have to have pressure, sweat, anger and conflict.

In other words, you need a measure of something completely, irrevocably badass.

These clouds are the like the Honey Badger, they don't give a sh*t.

As I previously referenced, volcanoes are pretty goddamn badass. Not only do they spew molten liquid rock up from the depths of the earth at enormous pressures, they spawn some of the most magnificent and terrifying scenes in all of Earthly nature.

But let's not forget how fucking metal clouds can be. What's that? You can see a bunny in that fluffy collection of water vapor? Maybe a hand? The 'face' of god? How about pure, unadulterated terror.

A single bolt of the lightning in this picture is about 50,000°F. To try and put that truly astronomical number in perspective, the surface of the Sun is about 10,000°F. So the surface of the life-giving center of our solar system is only 20% as hot as a bolt of lightning produced in a bunny shaped cloud. Apparently, bunnies are pretty Metal as well.

chug-chiggidy-chug-chiggidy-cha-CHA!

But the Sun, and more specifically stars more massive than our sun, have a one-up on clouds, lightning and even volcanoes. You see, without massive stars, there would literally be no heavy metals in existence. To simply create heavy metals just willy nilly wouldn't be nearly Heavy Metal enough - indeed such a process would be completely mundane and, well, dubsteppy. No, a massive star as to explode in a Supernova to create any elements heavier than iron.

To skimp on the nerdy details (a simplified version of those details can be found here) and get to the point here's what happens in my derpy layman's terms:

The burning inside a star is caused in the beginning by Hydrogen atoms under enormous pressure undergoing a process called nuclear fusion, which results in Helium atoms and an incredible amount of energy (remember E=MC²?), which is why stars are so damn hot. After awhile (in astronomical terms) the Hydrogen starts to run out, so Helium begins fusing into Carbon and Oxygen resulting in a comparable amount of energy (that is to say, a fuckton).

More massive stars keep the fusion chain going past Silicon, but hit a brick wall (see what I did there?) with Iron. Iron can't be fused, even at these high pressures. This means the star can't produce any more energy and the outward pressure created by the energy of nuclear fusion and the massive inward pressure of gravity fall out of balance leading a chain reaction and...

boom.

In the complete and total madness of a supernova a process called neutron capture occurs, where neutrons (being electrically neutral) collide with the nucleus of lighter elements in mad fury to create heavier and heavier elements, Heavy Metal style.

A call from the Nation (of Islam)

2012-08-14T11:39:00.000-07:00

How my wife and I actually looked in 2008

I just want to emphasize that I understand the following is the exception to the rule. This is an indictment of no one, except the parties directly involved.

In 2008, my wife Michelle and I had just celebrated our third dating anniversary. That very same night, I got a random phone call that was quite a treat. The following is my official account of that phone call; the names have been made-up to protect the derps.

________________________________

If I told you that my girlfriend was a defacto prostitute, you might become confused, and wonder why she's still with me if I were to refer to her in such a manner. This is a relatively new phenomenon in our relationship, because until just recently I was kept in the apparent dark regarding her shadowy nature.

We had just returned from a rather expensive and wonderful anniversary dinner at a rather posh steakhouse in Nashville when my phone rang, as I entered the bathroom to relieve my bladder. The caller ID read "Private Number," which didn't surprise me terribly, as my friend Gabe's number often comes up with such a moniker. The exchange that occurred when I answered was the stuff that literal dreams are made of. Not in the fanciful romantic sense, but in the very real way dreams often have an exceedingly random nature that somehow feels natural while we REM away the night.

"Hello?" I answer, expecting to jib briefly about Blindsided (our now dormant podcast), or the many blog assignments that still haven't been completed. "Why do men," started the overly pronounced African American woman on the opposite line, with an appropriately hilarious amount of ebonic inflection, "spend hundreds of dollas on a prostitute, but not spend three dollas on a decent woman?"

My mind raced: was this Karma catching up with for the many pranks of my younger days? Was this a co-worker that knew I was now broke jibbing me? Or could this be a glorious gift from the Almighty to give me a wonderful laugh? Surely not.

"I wasn't aware that this was the case," I responded evenly in my best radio voice, with an obvious smile plastering my face, despite my initial confusion. "Yes you do," she began again with the conviction of Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan rolled into an angry uneducated Oprah-monster. "All you men gladly spend all your damn money on a AIDS havin' HIV prostitute, but you won't buy your own decent woman McDonald's!"

Whore!

Wow, I thought to myself. We actually hadn't had McDonalds in awhile, so maybe she wasn't completely wrong. But wait, I had just had an expensive dinner with the prospective Mrs., so maybe I should let the kind young McDonald's rep (which is the best I could assume at this point) that I had indeed had taken my decent woman to dinner on this very night – to avoid her possible embarrassment.

"Well, I did just take my girl out for a $130 dinner tonight... Did that not count?" She stammered briefly and retorted strongly with "What? A hunnerd and tirty dollas? Mo like a dolla tirty!"

Oh my.

She continued amidst my wake of shock with, "You spent dat hunnerd and tirty dollas on a damn hooker. A dirty prostitute!" Admittedly, I have had slight drug and alcohol problems in the past – maybe I had relapsed in a black out of prostitute dinners over candle light I had indeed spent that money on some HIV-AIDS hooker. Dear God.

Or... Maybe... Was my girlfriend just a hooker I had failed to identify? The possible revelation nearly floored me. I stood in the bathroom as I continued to exchange our increasingly surreal dialog with my penis in my hand, failing to pee. Realizing that I wasn't going to be able to expel my urine under the current conditions, I packed him back up and headed back to Michelle's room (yeah, I'm switching to using her name, as calling her "girl," "Girlfriend" and "Potential Mrs." is starting to confuse me) to share this lovely experience with the one that I love. She looked at me quizzically, asking "Are you faking a conversation?" "I couldn't make this shit up," I responded to her while keeping the conversation going with my tele-host.

"Hang on, we're going on speaker," I inform the Demonoprahmon so she could be prepared. I then announce to Michelle that the lovely caller had insinuated that she (Michelle) must be a prostitute due to the amount of money I spent on our dinner. "Well damn. Sorry honey," Michelle responded with a confused laugh. Our guest, who I think should be named Shantiqua, or LaQuineesha, or maybe even Queen of the Shrouded Crazies, responded "Oh, hell no, don't bring her into this. She'll just defend your sorry ass!"

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that all people that wear shrouds are crazy – I am simply saying that of those that meet both requirements of shroud wearing, and crazy are ruled over by this woman.

Understanding QSC's trepidations at me bringing Michelle into the mix (it was rather impolite, QSC did call to talk to me, and I shouldn't double team on her) I returned the phone to its normal hold to ear operation. I did, however continue to talk to Michelle during the remainder of the conversation.

"Who is that?" Michelle understandably questioned. "I don't know, she called from a private number," to which QSC responded "Dat's right. Dis be a private residence!" "That's fine, I understand why you must feel that way," I began, "But how did you get this private number?"

As if to increase the surreal atmosphere of the phone call, she replied somewhat subdued, and conversationally "Oh. I used to work at T-Mobile and had access to the database."

Gabriel and his homey, Mohammed

While the ever lovely QSC continued spouting her interesting take on my relationship with Michelle, I raised my voice in anger at Michelle, telling her to shut up and put her veil back on. I then turned back on my caller, telling her the same. Informing her that the Apostle Paul, Mohammad the most Holy Prophet and (I could only assume) Allah all seemed to be in agreement on the subject. She seemed to start to refute the Paul part, but then turned into confusion regarding the bit regarding the Islamic prophet, "I never heard of Mohammad sayin dat," she retorted, apparently confused that a white-male infidel would even know the names.

As a brief caveat, I only have a cursory knowledge of Islam – I do have the Koran, but I haven't had the time yet to devote to reading it intently.

Mr. Farrakhan

She revealed herself as a member of the Nation of Islam (which is often known to be about as informed and racially tolerant as the KKK) and as a follower of the 'great' Louis Farrakhan.

Excellent, I thought to myself.

Tiring of the conversation, I started to wind down. "Darlin, I have enjoyed this immensely, but I do have to admit that I'm not a Christian or a Muslim, but a Buddhist... Sorry!" She got all riled up with this "YOU ARE AN IDOL WORSHIPPER!" Oh fun:) "You worship that pot-bellied statue!" Confused, I tried to inform her a bit by tell her "Oh, no. We don't worship the Buddha statues at all," I started calmly to which she replied "Yes you do! You worship that GODLESS IDOL."

"FUCK!" I responded with shock and frustration. Turning to Michelle, I announced "I've been doing it wrong this whole time! I'm supposed to WORSHIP the damn statue." QSC then quickly corrected me by telling me that I wasn't supposed to, which confused me further. "But you just told me that I do, but I hadn't been, and I wouldn't want you to be wrong... so which is it?" I asked, with a decent amount of sincerity in my voice, "You are supposed to worship ALLAH!" she proclaimed in victory.

Finally, I asked, "Are you wearing a veil?" I was getting really bored, because she kept repeating herself in the same delicious ebonic tone, which is only entertaining for so long. "I do when I am out in public," she said proudly. "Oh, but when you're home alone you call up and harass strangers?" I asked, to which she quickly replied "I only speak da truf!"

"Oh, you only speak da truf! Werd, my nigga! One-Love, Peace!" then I hung up.

Episodic Music: The Great Red Eye Part VII

2012-08-10T18:37:00.000-07:00

The Terrible Looming Procellea

Track Available for Purchase Here!

As the chatter from his post-release procedures faded into the background of his subconsciousness, Shem found stared unblinking at the sight that filled every millimeter of his field of view: Jupiter and the Great Red Eye. As he fell, irreversibly, towards the tempests' of a billion years his computer systems whirred away taking measurements, ensuring stability and monitoring Shem's own vital signs.

"Cosmonaut Aglig, everything okay? Your heart rate and blood pressure have raised steadily over the past several minutes," his radio called, bringing him out of his daze. "Everything is fine. Seeing the approach of storms that are bigger than entire planet is... unnerving to say the least," he replied while trying to distract himself from the scene playing out before his vessel. "Should you prefer, we can turn on the view dampeners, so you won't have to watch the entire - "

"No," Shem interrupted mission control without hesitation. "I want to see this. I need to see this," as he turned his eyes back outward, this time with steely determination. "The terrible looming procella of this magnificent titan will not deter me, we proceed as planned."

And so, for the next several hours, Shem Aglig watched as the gargantuan swirls of clouds and violent upheavals of colorful vapor beckoned him tauntingly. Shem Aglig was a tiny man, heading straight into the terrifying eye of the solar system.

Some confessions

2012-07-31T23:14:00.000-07:00

This past year or so, I have not been the best brother, son, friend or husband. I have become more and more withdrawn - and more and more reclusive. My anger is quicker than ever, my frustration at a fever pitch at times.

I'm sorry.

When I was laid off in September 2011, it was almost a breath of fresh air. All of the daily stress of my job, dwindling resources to that job and the ever present threat of layoff all dissipated into the ether and each morning seemed new. I was confident I would have a job in no time.

Fast forward to today and I feel about as hopeless, helpless and lost as I can ever remember feeling. Applying to jobs that will likely never respond, being passed on time and time again despite my absolute best efforts. It's so hard to even try anymore. I roll out of bed and the world is grayer and grayer and grayer.

Top that off with everyone and their mother either saying one of two things:
1) I'll be okay. I'm far to talented and likable to not be seen as an asset.
2) Giving me advice on all the things I might be doing wrong/could be doing better

My response?
1) That's a crock of shit.
2) Everyone thinks they know the answer, but no one seems to have the same one - it's like religion all over again.

I know I've been way to quick to anger with all of you, and I can't tell you how sorry I am. I'm simply terrified and convinced that I'm going to lose everything and I feel absolutely paralyzed and helpless about doing anything about it.

Good times, right?

For the love of fractals

2012-06-25T16:03:00.000-07:00

Fractals are awesome. Fractals are EVERYWHERE in your life - but what the eff IS a fractal? I decided to consult the all-knowing Wikipedia and a fractal is defined as a

mathematical set that has a fractal dimension that usually exceeds its topological dimension[1] and may fall between the integers.[2] Fractals are typically self-similar patterns, where self-similar means they are "the same from near as from far"[3] Fractals may be exactly the same at every scale [or] they may be nearly the same at different scales.

That’s all fine and good, but what does that mean? What does a fractal look like? Why do fractals matter?

What does a fractal look like?

Imagine a tree. Starting with the base of the trunk you have a thick stick coming out of the ground. This ‘stick’ then splits into smaller branches -

branches that look very very similar to the original ‘stick.’ From there, each smaller branch splits into even smaller, very similar branches and so forth to form the complete tree. This is a ‘natural’ fractal - one that appears in nature EVERYWHERE on earth.

You also have the example of river deltas and other flowing bodies for liquid, where each new path the liquid takes creates an nearly identical and to scale replica of the larger formation itself:

There are also fractals that can be simulated using computers and mathematical formulas, of which I have no understanding in even the most basic aspect. The images they create, however are incredibly beautiful, with a strange almost ghostly implied symmetry as you change the scale (zoom in or out infinitely, theoretically). The most famous, and iconic of these simulated fractals is the Mandelbrot Set, discovered and described by French-American mathematician, Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010).

Starting at the x1 magnification and increasing up to x2000, the patterns are self similar, the patterns are the same near or far!

Why do fractals matter?

While fractals were first described as early of the 17th Century, the first real practical use and description was provided by the previously mentioned Mandelbrot. His usage? Measuring the length of Great Britain’s coastline! I know it seems like a piece of information we should have had for awhile, it was discussed in the 1967 paper by Mandelbrot titled “How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension.”

The main issue with measuring the coast line is what had been known as the coastline paradox. This paradox explains that as you measure a coastline, the total length of the coastline increases without limit as the too used to measure the distance get’s smaller. In English: if you measured a coastline with a yard stick and then a stand 12-inch ruler, the ruler would return a LARGER length of coastline than the yard stick.

By using smaller and smaller measuring devices, you are able to measure finer and finer number of natural curves in the coastline itself.

Using a yardstick may result in this type of measurement:

Using the ruler may (not to scale, of course) result in something more like this:

What the exploitation of fractals allowed was a calculation of the dimensionality of the curving coastline, to calculate the actual length. Again, much of this goes over my head, but from what I understand a coastline can be measured using any number between (or including) 1 or 2. The West Coast of Britain, as an example has a calculated dimension of 1.25 (and that's a jagged coast). While I couldn’t find if the measurement was ever made, the wonder of fractals made it a possibility.

Further reading and sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Long_Is_the_Coast_of_Britain%3F_Statistical_Self-Similarity_and_Fractional_Dimension

http://www.glyphs.com/art/fractals/what_is.html

Pretty Picture of fractals:
http://www.enchgallery.com/fractals/fracthumbs.htm

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/fractals.htm

Farewell, Lonesome George and the La Pinta giant tortoise subspecies

2012-06-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

Lonesome George, the last known survivor of the La Pinta giant tortoise subspecies, has died. His kind is no more. Extinct. We've lent hand to the annihilation of another type of living being - giant Galapagos tortoises were often used as a reliable food source on ships, due to their ability to live without food or water for up to a year.

First, we wiped out the females, because they were easier to catch due to the mating habits. Slowly but surely, we wiped them out by 1906.

Then, we got lucky - 66 years after the last giant tortoise was spotted, George was discovered (possibly again) by an invertebrate expert studying snails. He smartly snapped a photo, and shortly thereafter, Lonesome George became the most famous reptile in the world. The exhaustive search to find him a mate ensued and ultimately failed. We were unable to correct the mistakes of our forefathers.

Will we keep making those mistakes? Conservation isn't a fad, or political opinion: it's vital for the survival of the human species. This blue world is all we have.

Roger Waters presents The Wall, in Nashville - a Review

2012-06-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

My wife and I had to park about half a mile from the venue (Bridgestone Arena) itself, since all of these close parking was either sold out or over $10. The night was pleasant, in the high 80s (F) with low humidity (for Nashville) and a slight breeze from the Cumberland River. Entering the place was simple enough - they don’t give a sh*t about regular digital cameras anymore, so it was basically a look over to see if we had a bomb strapped on. I guess a rock show attended by a bunch of hippies - young and old - and performed by a pacifist wasn’t pegged as a ‘high security’ situation.

The obligatory flying pig

We decided to hit the merch table before finding our seats, and after about 20 minutes in line I was able to nab the last “Trust Us” camo tshirt in size large. The selection of merch was honestly disappointing. Roger’s ‘Dark Side’ tour had some fantastic and original shirts, like the one with Roger from the 70s, but The Wall merch mostly seemed rehashed shirt designs with the 2012 update and “Roger Waters” everywhere “Pink Floyd” had been. Let’s be honest - who goes to Roger Waters for the merch?

Finally winding our way upstairs and grabbing a soda, we started the sojourn around the outer track of the building to get to our seats in section 333 (top tier in the VERY back of the arena). As we rounded a ‘corner’ a well dressed gentleman stopped us and said he worked for the arena, and that they were trying to get rid of some lower-level tickets, much closer to the stage. He then handed us two tickets to section 107, stage left.

The mighty Wall!

The seats were ‘limited view,’ but we only missed the flower sex, and given the very nature of the live show The Wall, it wasn’t a big deal in the slightest. Free seat upgrade.

This is how close we were

Win.

The show did not start promptly at 8pm, despite the clear indication printed on the ticket - not that this was unexpected. There was no opening act, no encore. For nearly three hours, there was only The Wall.

As the lights dimmed the announcer warned us to turn the flash function in our cameras off - the flash of light would wash out the projections on the MASSIVE white ‘brick’ wall that served as both projector screen and visual centerpiece. A lone spotlight appears on the stage, and the ending to the movie “Spartacus” begins playing over the speakers, as two officials carry the ‘Pink’ puppet on on the stage to say “I am Spartacus” before being dropped to the ground.
A lone trumpet plays the lonely melody from “Outside the Wall” in the darkness before the audience is caught off-guard by the sudden first chords of “In the Flesh?” Balls of fire and spark shoot from the base of the The Wall portion of the stage followed by that old codger himself, strolling out all badass like.

We did our hammer salutes and mad screaming as he patrolled to each side of the stage, his enjoyment clear on his face. He might be getting older but compared to when he first performed these shows in the early 80s, he is at the top of his game and loving every second of it. All of the pyrotechnics were used in the first song of the evening, including an airplane that flew over our heads to crash behind the Wall in a fireball, and the rest of the show focussed on the gorgeous visuals Roger and Co. projected onto Mr. Screen and the Wall itself. If there wasn’t action being projected on the bricks, then a stone-brick texture was projected, making the otherwise whitewashed wall far more realistic and menacing.

“The Thin Ice” gave us our first taste of our ‘not David Gilmour’ of the evening, Mr. Robbie Wyckoff. While I was expecting the worst after enduring the awful job that Doyle Bramhall II did in the 2000 tour, “In the Flesh,” Wyckoff didn’t sound like a dying basset hound. He was competent, if a bit unassuming - but this IS Roger’s show. The ‘screen’ that as the Wall itself as well as Mr. Screen began to show us the name, birth and death of people killed in the name of some authority, starting with Roger’s father and including people like the Persian ‘angel,’ Neda Agha-Soltan.

The Schoolmaster

The trio of Another Brick 1, Happiest Days and Another Brick 2 were pretty damn true to the source material. Dave Kilminster’s performance of Gilmour’s ABITW2 solo was spot-on. Add in a little Snowy White goodness at the end and you have one worked up crowd. For the children’s chorus, a group of Nashville’s school-aged kids got on stage and performed a simple rhythmic dance while singing and gesturing to the Schoolmaster puppet that had descended on our side of the stage.

Between “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” and “Mother,” something of a new song was played. The best way I can describe it is to call it “Another Folk in the Wall.” It had the same hook as the other three “Brick” songs, but was acoustic and had a funkier rhythm. It broke up the proceedings nicely, and helped to keep the audience on its toes. From here, Roger broke with the 1980s script and talked with the audience a bit, mainly about Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes who was shot eight times by London authorities, because they erroneously ‘suspected’ him of terrorism.

While the show has always had some anti-authoritarian themes, they were nothing like what was on display tonight. Roger pulled no punches, and it felt damn good to see someone do this - be unapologetically bleeding heart. No excuses: every rocket launched is a theft from someone that is in need (to terribly paraphrase Ike).

“Mother” was straightforward with two notable exceptions; a black and white (not gray-scale, true black and white) projection of Roger performing the same song back in 1980 at Earls Court and after Roger sings “Mother should I trust the government?” three words appeared in bold red on the Wall in rhythm with the song: “NO FUCKING WAY.” The synch of the projection with the performance was remarkable. This is one polished show.

While one of my favorite songs on the album and sequences in the movie, “Goodbye Blue Skies” was a fantastic rendition - but something felt missing without the terror that the song invoked in the movie. That said, the harmonies were crisp and the visuals (bombers dropping symbols like the dollar sign, the star of David, the cross, the logo for Shell gasoline and many others).

By the time “Empty Spaces/What Shall We Do Now” started, we could no longer see Mr. Screen at all, as it had become completely obstructed by the continual construction of the Wall itself. We were treated, however, to the new ‘root’ animation to go with the flowers. The roots writhed and pulsed as the music and flowers danced until the climax which saw the portion from the movie being projected on the Wall. “What Shall We Do Now” was probably the second most ‘pumped’ song of the evening for me, since I hear it so rarely. The only song that ‘rocked’ harder for my money was “Run Like Hell,” but more on that later.

I tried to get a nipple shot, but this was the best I could do, bell button and camel toe;)

T&A was the order of the day for “Young Lust,” as it should and there were many a pair of young breasts and smooth bellies projected across the Wall as the band rocked out and the stage crew slowly enclosed the band in their stage-tomb. I can’t be sure, but I thought I may have caught Wyckoff doing some scat vocals ala’ Gilmour during the Young Lust solo (he was not playing guitar, however), but I can’t be certain.

For “One of my Turns” and “Don’t Leave Me Now,” Roger was in front of the Wall, while his band backed him up from behind the Wall. He roamed the stage while singing the former and sat dejected for the latter. As always, the projections on the Wall were incredible, but this is the slowest part of the show so nothing really stuck with me.

The beginning of Another Brick Part 3

“Another Brick in the Wall Part 3” took the projections to a level last seen on LOST when the ‘others’ are seen brainwashing people with a strange, jumbled movie. It’s something you really just have to see for yourself.

“Last Few Bricks” was fairly uneventful, as the extra medley through the set so far gave the stagehands time to finish constructing all but on brick of the Wall. Finally, we see Roger in a lone beam of light shining through the last crack in the Wall. “Goodbye Cruel World.” The last brick is placed and the Wall’s construction is complete.

The completed Wall during "Hey You"

After a pleasantly punctual intermission (25 minutes on the nose), the melancholy beauty of “Hey You” filled the arena. The songs presentation was plain. No fancy lights or fire and no projections aside from the static “stone-brick” texture. There is also no visible band. The entire band is performing, unseen, behind a thirty foot tall ‘brick’ wall. The concept is so simple when you read it, but ‘seeing’ it in action is absolutely surreal. No mistake about it, Roger’s “Wall” concert concept is completely brilliant. The man makes you cheer to what is, for all intents and purposes, as singing brick wall.

"Is There Anybody Out There"

Two bricks were then removed stage left for “Is There Anybody Out There” to reveal two guitarists (Dave and Snowy, I believe) on nylon-strung classical guitars for the gorgeous tune.

"One of my Turns"

As the song ended, a drawbridge type panel began to lower itself from a section of the Wall on stage right. The panel lowered until it was perpendicular to the Wall and had a tidy living room set-up - a chair, lamp and LCD TV. His performance from his ‘living room’ is projected on the stage left side of the wall, in crisp color and detail. The projection gave us an awesome look at just how animate Roger is these days - often miming lines like “all down the front of my favorite satin shirt. The Pink Floyd song written in a night during The Wall recording sections still sounds like an original, intended piece and is all the more gorgeous for it.

The Wall projection for "One of my Turns"

"Comfortably Numb"

“Vera” and “Bring the Boys Back Home” were incredibly moving - the former featured video of families (especially children) welcoming home their parents from their tours of duty, often streaming tears. The latter of the two displayed the entire Dwight Eisenhower quote I referenced above, juxtaposed with video and pictures of children in poor conditions, tastefully.

I won’t be very surprised if “Comfortably Numb” was on top of the audiences list of best performances, and for once, Roger pulled it off without Gilmour. Dave’s solo was INCREDIBLY faithful and Wyckoff delivered quite well also, though nobody can sing the part quite like Gilmour does. Both were positioned at the TOP of the complete 30 foot wall, with spotlights shining from behind them, casting their shadows across the audience.

Wyckoff's shadow

Roger was fantastic as well - and nobody can sing his portion of that song as well as he does. A few bars into the second and final solo, Roger ‘pounds’ a spot on the Wall, which triggers a GORGEOUS shattering animation from the point of contact across the entire Wall. The gray mass of brick and gloom exploded temporarily into a bright cascade of primary colors mimicking a sunset.

The shattering

As the solo nears its end, several trap doors on the stage in front of the Wall open and elevators appear carrying guitars, a drum set and a keyboard set-up, all for the “surrogate band” to use for the remainder of the show. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any of the old-school masks.

A full, two verse version of “The Show Must Go On” brought us screaming back into the more militant “In the Flesh.” Roger marched to the mic with his black leather trench coat and aviators and began the reprise full of gusto. As a finale for the song, following “I’d have all of you shot,”

Roger, having all of us shot

Roger pulls a tommy-gun from his jacket and begins ‘shooting’ the audience. While the ‘gun’ he was ‘shooting’ only had a blue LED light in the tip, on the Wall projection, his exact image was doing the same thing, only this time bullets and shell casings were flying about madly. While the video of Roger was very well synched with the live act, it did appear to be pre-recorded and amazingly choreographed for the live experience.

“Are there any paranoids in the audience tonight?” Roger teases darkly from behind his sunglasses. That’s how faithful this show was to the original run, in terms of musical direction. Well done Mr. Gilmour. “Run Like Hell” was a very energetic performance for the crowd - there were hands rhythm clapping and fists pumping. As the song ends, Roger gets the crowd worked up by ‘thanking’ them quite loudly, sending us into another cheering frenzy. As “Waiting for the Worms” began, the tension in the air was growing thick - that Wall had to come down soon.

“Stop” sees the brief return of the ‘Pink’ puppet, as he is seen sitting atop the Wall before plummeting to the floor for climax of “The Trial.” As the first orchestra begins this next to last song, the ‘Surrogate Band’ set up sink beneath the front stage again, and the animations from the movie are projected to go along with Roger’s lone performance. After being sure to sing “go on judge, shit on him,” Roger soon disappears from the stage and the loud speakers and audience begin deafeningly chanting “TEAR DOWN THE WALL! TEAR DOWN THE WALL!”

Then, as if it were the Biblical Jerhico, the Wall began tumbling and crashing to the ground, falling just short of the front row (a yard from their feet, maybe).

As the ‘rubble’ cleared, the entire band (including Roger’s son, Harry and the incredible Jon Carin) appeared on stage, with Roger holding a trumpet and others holding various guitars, banjos and such. The delicate “Outside the Wall” finally swooned us away after an amazing night of music.

The band took its bows and Roger gave us his deepest thanks, and the night was over. As we left the arena, I saw people in tears. I understand that feeling: I was born WAY too late to have been able to see the original shows, so this was a big deal in terms of my musical consumption. Since 1996 (when i discovered Floyd in HS) I had been dying to see The Wall live - it was so worth the wait!

Episodic Music: The Great Red Eye Part VI

2012-06-17T00:56:00.000-07:00

The Great Pendulum

Track Available for Purchase Here!

The Great Pendulum was originally commissioned by the United Authority of the Earth, Luna and Europa in the year 2935 as a means to test 'scooping' gas out of the Terrible Titan Jupiter to fuel long term space voyages. Using the Jovian gravity to pull the pendulum down and out of it's grasp would save energy and ensure better monitoring capabilities from the Lagrangian pivot point set impossible far away - but physically tethered to the Pendulum itself.

By 2940, exploits in quantum gravity discoveries helped to lead, laterally, to the discovery of the dark energy drive - allowing enclosed vehicles to bypass the speed of light by riding the wave of expanding space, pulling and pushing them to their interstellar destinations at a mind bending pace. The Great Pendulum was now going to be a one-off, exploration mission. It didn't take long for the main Pendulum to be re-engineered from the 'ground' up to include one pilot. Man was going to visit Jupiter's Great Red Eye in person in 2953.

The main cockpit, officially called the Science Module, was set 100 meters from the front of the vessel, with layers of water shielding and a nuclear centrifuge (to power the G-Suppressor, which was designed to divert some of the g-forces away from the pilot) and 100 meters of precisely cut CarbonCompress to allow for clear, crisp view through the front and rear should any exterior cameras fail.

As the great lattice pressure cage encloses the Science Module, Cosmonaut Shem Aglig completes his third and final round of system checks before the countdown to release commences, and he becomes to second man to ever breach the Jovian atmosphere.

Episodic Music: The Great Red Eye Part V

2012-06-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

Earthshine

Track Available for Purchase Here!

December 15, 2950 was officially declared Interplanetary Earthshine Day in remembrance of the first sight to inspire man to reach for the stars: the ever changing face of the moon. Even when in it's finest crescent, the majestic surface cast in shadow is faintly set alight by the shine of the mother Earth herself. This image emblazoned every spacecraft mankind built, and finally was placed upon the flag of the Interplanetary Alliance as a symbol of mankind's roots - and an inspiration to keep growing.

Episodic Music: The Great Red Eye Part IV

2012-05-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

Retrospective

In the year 2900, mankind had reached the beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto on their slow march to the stars. The Second Great Space age of man was coming to a close and massive shipyards were being completed on the skirts of the planetary solar system preparing for man's imminent exit to the unknown. Finally, mankind was ready to set sail on the cosmic ocean.

Not a day passed, however, that didn't see every man, woman and child look towards the Sun, straining to catch a glimpse of a mote of dust, caught in some mighty beam of light. Hoping to see that pale blue dot, one more time.

Image is of Earth, from the Pluto orbit, called "the pale blue dot." Carl Sagan penned an essay by the same name, which is used in this piece of music. Please learn more about Mr. Sagan's work and make a donation to the Planetary Society today!

www.Planetary.org

Track is available for free download here!

Episodic Music: The Great Red Eye Part III

2012-05-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

Colonies

Track Available for Purchase Here!

Luna, our mistress

After the loss of Devin Langshire in 2653 the human race waited and tested for another ten years before trying to launch another man into orbit. This time, the entire event went off perfectly and Captain Bashir Alvarez became the first man in nearly half a millennia to successfully orbit the Earth, before splashing down safely in the Indian Ocean.

Alvarez and his development team based in Australia then proposed and began leading the effort to return man to the moon – and not just for a visit. Mankind knew, thanks to the vast amounts of history stored in the Vaults, that we had visited the moon several times in the past and had countless legends about our nighttime companion. Entire religious mythologies, pseudo-science arenas and even popular entertainment in the form of movies and rock music in the 20^th Century all dedicated themselves to Luna, our mistress.

The initial set of proposals were ambitious: establish a permanent, self sustaining base on the moon by 2690 with a rotating population. Each Vault agreed to take a set of problems from the goal and solve them independently, if possible. Food, fuel, water, radiation shielding, shelter, habitat design/construction, and the logistics of how to get it all to the moon in the first place. In 2672 the initial equipment launches began when the first non-test flight of the Roman I freight rocket. Transporting heavy digging equipment from the familiar-looking lunar backhoe to the exotic of the newly engineered Lunar Tunneling Drill.

The Tunneling Drill (often called Touchdown by the design engineers due to the abbreviation of “TD” used in shorthand notes) was half of the main habitat building module specifically designed to allow for quick excavation with minimal human input. Weighing in at 15 tons, the drill will sit face down on the surface of the moon and, after being secured with the scaffolding to be place by human hands, will begin it's journey below the ancient surface. Each turn of the drill itself brings the regolith and other debris up a corkscrew conveyor which leads to the top exterior of the alpha base tent, spraying it in a radial pattern around the tent to create a slight bunker around the base itself. Once the TD has reached a depth of 3 meters, the gyroscopes mechanically shift and the drill begins turning into it's horizontal position, using vacuum suction, air pressure and a series of track gears to push the drill forward.

If the Touchdown drill was to accomplish its mission, it relied on the much more complex and impressive Regolith Automatic Metallic Arranger, named in honor of the first Vault discovered in India. The RAMA machine was designed to follow directly behind TD, using scraps of metal from earth and the geology of the moon to seal the drilled tunnel using a plasma heat generator and the most powerful, perfectly balanced pressure pistons ever created by man. RAMA helped to ensure stronger radiation resistance, a seal from the toxic cosmic vacuum and a support structure for the habitation tunnels themselves.

2690 arrived just as the drill began it's horizontal journey, the last and longest of the drilling process. The human colony that had been living in temporary quarters in the Alpha Base tent (except in the case of emergency solar flares, at which point the tunnel was flooded with breathable air and the machines placed in standby mode) finally made the permanent move underground in 2694, as “Touchdown” and RAMA were finally powered down.

In 2760, the declining health of Sir Bashir Alvarez forced him to leave his home planet. The time he had spent in space and on the moon had done enough damage that his nearly 130 year old body could no longer thrive in the gravity of Earth. In 2783, at the age of 150, Bashir Alvarez became the first person entombed on the moon.

Before his death, Alvarez helped lay the groundwork for a grid of buried power cables linking the Earth side to the Far side of the moon, onto which kilometers of solar arrays were placed, allowing for use of non-essential energy consumption during the long lunar nights (including more aggressive farming), when all the colonists could see was the Earth. Construction on the grid was rumored to have inspired the anonymous Hymn, “Earthrise,” which quickly became the unofficial anthem of the lunar colony. The Translunar Power (or 'Bashir') grid was turned on with few hiccups in 2790, creating man's first permanent home in space.

Europa, icy tomb

While construction and scientific research continued and blossomed on the Moon at the beginning of the 28^th Century, the earth-based authorities began focussing on the question that started the entire space-race: are we alone? The Alvarez Foundation in Australia were given the resources and authority to continue the Luna project and the remaining resources trained their crosshairs onto Europa. In 2710, the Europan lander the Santa Maria landed and began it's melt through the icy surface.

The lander's main platform anchored itself to the thick ice surrounding it and dropped a pill shaped piece of metal the size of an industrial refrigerator, attached with an impossible thin cable to the lander itself. Glowing red, the metal pill slowly began its descent through the frozen surface of this alien world. All seven Houston Controls were inundated either gathering or analyzing new data being sent continuously via a complex relay of solar system satellite way stations. For nearly a week the hot pill slowly melted downwards, giving up no signs of life or ocean.

Shortly after one week had passed since the melting began, the data drastically shifted as the probe's external temperature dropped without warning. As the scientists back on Earth held their breath, the hot pill cracked open, and a tiny automated submarine (to which the thin cable was actually attached) emerged, slowly coming to life. Cheers of jubilation erupted in control rooms across the world as the predictions made centuries ago proved true – Europa was a water world.

Early picture transmissions from the Santa Maria were featureless black, leading engineers to fear that either the cameras or the lights had malfunctioned, even though the spec readings of the probe itself were all optimal. The tiny submarine robot began it's dive towards the bottom, dispensing more of the thin cable from inside its shell to maintain direct connection with the surface. Three hours after being born into the frigid Europan Ocean, the submarine component of the Santa Maria changed the human perspective forever – a wisp of debris rushed into the light of the camera which had been working the entire time. The realization that there was simply nothing to reflect the light initially gave way to relieved sighs, until the cause of the debris swam past the submarine, never taking notice.

Europa was a world of life.

Twenty four hours after man's first glimpse of alien life, the Santa Maria finally discovered the first volcanic vent - the hypothesized source of energy for all Europan lifeforms - and the view was both spectacular, and stunningly familiar. Worm-like plants heaved and gyrated in the volcanic heat, as tiny shrimp-like creatures flurried about eating something invisible to the eyes of the camera. As the view of the Euroshrimp became clearer, their physical appearance was disturbing: while their shell was transparent like many deep sea creatures on Earth, the top half of the crustacean was shaped like that of a man with no face: two arms on a rectangular torso, topped by a neck and 'head' which had no eyes, and only an mouth at it's top. The thing had 'hands' with four main fingers and two rows of thumbs on each hand.

Small samples of the surrounding water were tested and confirmed that these life forms were carbon based. Within 36 hours, the first strand of DNA of isolated and the world was turned on it's head: this life may have been from a similar 'seed' as life on earth. That, or life simply has fewer paths than had previously been assumed.

In 2770, the first of the modified and updated TD and RAMA equipment landed on Europa, near the Santa Maria, and began the slow work on creating a livable environment for mankind to lay down roots outside of the Earth system for the first time. Additional probes were sent (after the Santa Maria discovered life) to analyze the natural resources and found trenches of metal from impacts that had yet to be swallowed by the icy world. A predictable amount of trace metal in the ice itself was also discovered, becoming more concentrated in deeper cuts of ice. Using the lessons learned from the moon and the more abundant resources on Europa first human settlement on the moon of Jupiter was officially founded in 2800.

The first humans to settle began immediately studying the biological aspects of this new world. After the first 90 days of scientific preparation, an average of 300 alien species a day were being cataloged. The amount of data gained was going to take the greatest minds on Earth decades to digest and analyze – and the scientists making the discoveries were beyond celebrity – they were the paragons of the age.

When lead biologist Shari Cho took ill six months after arriving, no one gave it a second thought. Per protocol, she was quarantined to her personal quarters and lab, where she continued her work seamlessly. Her symptoms grew progressively worse over the next week by which time half a dozen other members of the colony had been quarantined for wildly different symptoms.

As the illness spread quickly through the settlement, the scientists on Europa, Earth and Luna all worked feverishly on the data to discover what was causing all of these varied sicknesses. In all of their hubris and joy over finding life on the hostile Europa, mankind had overlooked the most important lesson: life was opportunistic.

Shorty after mankind arrived, an otherwise benign alien bacteria found its way into the living and work areas of the colony. After infecting its first human, the bacteria quickly began multiplying in the new, much friendlier environment. Each new generation grew more aggressive, slowly destroying its host – but each time the infection spread, it destroyed its host differently, but always at the same pace. Fifteen days after her first symptoms appeared, Shari Cho died in a fit of screaming psychosis, exclaiming that she was burning away.

Once the video images of her gruesome death leaked to the settlement at large, and then to Earth, panic ensued. Demands were made to send emergency help from Luna to Europa with medical aid. Each day brought more death to the settlement. Petty Officer Daniel Rogby was elected to represent the ailing and dying Europan population, as he had yet to develop any symptoms and was thought to have some natural immunity. The devastation was that much more complete when Rogby died mid-sentence while trying to finalize a deal with the command on Luna to send emergency aid.

On February 9, 2801 the Earth and Luna command issued their final stance on the issue: no aid would be sent to Europa. By the summer of 2801, Europa was nothing more to humanity than icy tomb.

Titan, methane seas

Odyssey I, II and III science probes were launched in three successive months in the year 2775 bound for Ganymede, Iapetus and Titan, respectively. With the massive success of the Luna colony and the promise of the colony on Europa the exploration of the other massive satellites began in earnest with the Odyssey program. Each probe was outfitted with complete science laboratory, as well as deployable all terrain automated vehicles to explore more than the immediate landing zone. Soil and rock sampling kits and hardware like drill bits helped to ascertain the composition of the moons.

The first mining operations were set up on Ganymede and Iapetus to gather a ranger of silicate rock and minerals in 2780. Often, the materials were launched off planet to orbital processing facilities designed to refine and ship the materials to the rotating lagrangian space station near Titan, established during the initial stages of the resource gathering.

Odyssey III's mission to Titan had hoped to find life, but was met with the chemical precursors of life seemingly stuck due to the inability of the chemicals to dissolve into liquid methane. There was, however, more slow burning fuel than another other visited body in the solar system – and an atmosphere thicker than the Earth's. Plan to colonize the bizarre world began in 2795 with plans to launch the first TD and RAMA machines at the end of 2801. Full human occupation of the icy world was set to begin in 2807, but was postponed indefinitely after the world witnessed the slow demise of every member of the Europan colony early in the year.

Finally, in the year 2812 the new Automatic Tunneling Metallic Arranger, which was more a compact, faster and more powerful tool that acted as a combination of both the TD and RAMA devices used on the Moon and Europa, was launched towards the distant world of Titan. Exactly three months after the launch of ATMA, the Abraham science lab was launched from the the new Houston base on the moon. The Abraham itself was designed to gather samples of local minerals, gasses and quasi-organic material and expose it to several types of human biological material, cataloging all responses.

~----~

By the middle of 2816, the first human crew to travel to Europa was being assembled despite some pleas from the public to abandon the project. Replaying the footage from the Europan catastrophe and audio of Devin Langshire's fateful mission next to images of the Titan Cruiser waiting in orbit around the moon. The public outcry was outstanding, despite the many assurances from the Houston collective that there were absolutely zero potential infectious agents that have been detected in the Titan atmosphere or soil.

The date set for departure of the Titan Cruiser (itself a fully operative living module that will land permanently on the surface of the moon) approached with the public outrage building to a fever pitch. Leaders were pictured as sadistic and the cosmonaut crew were framed as ignorant lambs being lead to slaughter. Worse, the idea that the cosmonauts could bring back some mankind ending disease spread through society like a spark to a dry tender box. When June 15, 2817 finally arrived after months of sometimes violent, the crew boarded the craft and awaited command from Earth to ignite their engines and set sail.

For six hours, the crew of thirty men and thirty women, sat restlessly listening to the authorities bicker back and forth about public opinion and budget wastage. Finally, three hours before the launch window was to close, the call came to the Titan Cruiser's crew, “Titan Cruiser 00-1A-38, this is mission control, Luna,” the voice crackled through the cabin of the bridge. “Commence vehicle shutdown and depressurization – you're not going anywhere.” For a full minute, all sixty men and women that had trained and prepared for years for this moment sat in stunned silence. They would likely never see Titan.

“Titan Cruiser 00-1A-38, please confirm orders and comply,” the growingly impatient voice on the other end of the radio tether called out again. Bridge Commander Daphne Colbert stood from her seat at the helm of the ship and turned to the crew without word. She scanned the faces she had trained with in complete isolation for over a year – these were her family and she was their leader. “We have been ordered to abandon our mission. To not explore. To not push forward,” she started brokenly to her crew. She breathed deep and steadied herself as the crew looked to her for direction.

“As I see it,” Commander Colbert said with a steely gaze coming over her eyes, “we have been ordered to disobey.” The crew erupted in a jubilant cheers as the radio buzzed back to life - “Commander Colbert – why have you not responded? We are sending a boarding party in case your communications system isn't working properly, even though all systems read normal. I don't know wh-” the voice stopped suddenly. “COMMANDER COLBERT, I ORDER YOU TO CEASE YOUR ACTION IMMEDIATELY!” a stronger voice barked across the radio as the ship began it's launch maneuvers. “This will be seen as treason, Daphne!” the voice continued.

“Commander?” first engineer nervously asked the expressionless woman, trying to read her thoughts. “Set course for Titan,” she responded evenly.

~----~

In the year 2825, relations between the rogue colony of Titan and the Earth system had resumed and started to level off. The Titanians had technically stolen the Titan Cruiser against orders and had landed on the surface of the Saturnian moon without the support from Luna or Earth – but they had thrived.

The thick atmosphere of Titan enabled humans to walk outside without the need for pressure suits. Combined with the low gravity, the colonist quickly realized with 'wings' strapped to their arms (and a fair amount of practice) the thick air allowed them to 'swim' into the air and fly without the aid of engines or additional aircraft. When regular trade and relations resumed in 2830, the Titanians had already developed a series of basic human flight equipment, self sustaining subterranean hydroponic farming and flight bikes used for traveling long distances at altitude with minimal energy input.

Incoming engineering students from the Earth system streamed in with ideas and designs for structures impossible on Earth. Floating platforms, giant steps, precariously positioned pillars and other mind bending structures quickly covered the 100 square miles the colony had come to cover by 2840 after the surge of immigration. The New Olympic games officially opened in 2844 and saw human from the Earth, Luna, Titan and the Iapetus and Ganymede mining operations come together in the name of sport for the first time in over five hundred years.

Episodic Music: The Great Red Eye Part II

2012-05-03T01:02:00.000-07:00

Maiden Voyage and the first man to Jupiter

Track Available for Purchase Here!

After the discovery of the first Vault in India, the information quickly disseminated into the local communities - where the first reforms of technology where instituted to help with farming and living conditions. Water sanitation was the most urgent need, followed by mechanical processes to ease farming and basic electricity enabling easier travel at night as well as more expansive subterranean exploration.

Each community volunteered their brightest children to be immersed in the new information at the pre-designed learning modules included in each of the vaults. There were detailed instructions (in each of the three most prevalent local languages) on how to power these modules with the remaining batteries, or by using methods such as solar and wind supplies. Diplomatic exploratory teams were sent around the continent to the other Vault locations as mapped out in the Vault named for the Indian Epic hero, Rama.

By the year 2480 all but the Vaults of the America's had been discovered and preliminary long distance voice communications had been established in each of the seven major population centers, now located near each Vault (or its reported location). The Vault of the Central South America was discovered in 2483 which had recorded unusual tectonic disturbances near Central America. After nearly a decade of searching, the final Vault was discovered in 2492, nearly a mile further underground than previously thought, as a massive cavern had opened during the quake recorded in 2350.

The 26^th Century saw unprecedented technological growth and advancement. Each step forward, each new breakthrough, aided by the fountains of knowledge that were the Vaults, brought mankind closer to the heavens – and their eyes were universally cast upward.

They had finally accepted their destiny.

In 2620, the first unmanned science satellite was launched into low earth orbit. The M-0 series rocket had been designed to allow small observational payloads to be thrown into space for fairly cheap. It had taken the engineering teams at each of the seven Houston bases (the name “Houston” was decided upon as the name for all Earth-Based space command centers in homage to the pioneers of extra-planetary exploration) nearly a decade to complete the first acceptable design of the M-0 series rocket.

Naming the craft was a much easier task. In following suit with the First Age of space exploration, they decided to dig into mythology and choose a figure that would best symbolize the splitting of the gulf between near extinction and our return to the infinite; the Moses Class 0 rocket returned the first view of a distant hurricane from space that any living human had ever seen on July 15, 2621.

By 2653, the yearn to reestablish man's physical presence had become to much. The M-1 rocket, originally designed for larger scientific loads, had be refitted for the first human orbit of the Earth in over three hundred and fifty years.

The airlock sealed shut and the quick hiss of the last bits of air escaping the pod echoed in Captain Devin Langshire’s ears for far longer than he had expected. His last moments on the planet Earth were fast approaching, not that he knew.

He checked and rechecked his ship’s systems and fail safes. “Triplet. Check everything in triplets,” he whispered to himself as he went over his pre-launch checklist. His entire life had built to this moment: mans’ return to space. The Great War that dominated the latter half of the 21^st century had set back progress into the cosmos almost to the point of starting over from scratch. Entire populations were wiped out between the constant fighting and the coast lines across the globe slowly pulling back as the oceans reclaimed land that had been dry for millennia.

The warm hum of Devin’s radio fizzed to life before the even voice on the other end reiterated the launch angle, mission time and estimate time the pod would crash back into the Indian Ocean after a quick orbit of the Earth. In his mind, Devin went through the checklist of preparation that had been rehearsed to the point of each movement being as natural as breathing.

“Launch angle verified, Houston. Pre-atmospheric ejection process complete – commence countdown,” the Captain called back to the disembodied voice. Time to re-make history, he thought quietly to himself has his heart rate quickened slightly. The cosmos was still patiently waiting, even more than 500 years after man had first tasted her sweet and terrifying glory directly. This time, he continued to himself, this time, we’ll do it right.

A jolt shook him from his musings as the mechanical claws clamping his enclosed reality, his eternal tomb, pulled back to expose the entirety of his craft - poised to slingshot its way through the thin veil of Earth’s atmosphere. “Ten.”

The countdown was thunderous. “Nine.” Each number ticked by like an eternity unwinding slowly before the dawning of everything. “Eight.” Each number thrusting Langshire irreversibly towards his fantastically terrible fate. “Seven.” Each number echoing through time in what would be the last real human language the Captain would ever hear while on Earth. “Six.” History would be made – not only would Devin be the first man to space in several centuries, he would be the first human in history to visit another planet. “Five.”

“Four.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

His heart stopped the moment before launch was declared. His brain screamed “ONE! ONE! ONE! ONE!” over and over at his reality, standing still in the shadow of years of training and preparation for this last inevitable event, yearning for the resolution.

“One,” the deadpan announcer erupted from the mounted speaker in Devin’s helmet, shaking him to his core and catching him at his most unaware in years. He stiffened his body by instinct before he was pushed violently into his seat. The rush of air outside his enclosure roared as the rumbling jets shook his body wildly. With his eyes fixed on the bright blue sky, he found himself fast becoming nauseated from his violently shaking field of view. Pulling himself further into his seat with his arm bars to lessen the vibrating, he forced his eyes closed for the first sixty seconds of thrust to allow his body to adjust to the sudden change in conditions.

He couldn’t move his head to watch the Earth sink below, but the slow purposeful tumble of the ship turned him upside down as he exited the hold of his home’s gravity. The oceans, glistening in the light of the sun, swept together with the massive white clouds that smeared themselves across the surface. Cities and countries faded into a mass of land as the sun was approaching the opposite horizon, preparing to set as he settled into orbit.

His chest heaved as his eyes widened and sweat poured from his brow. The burnt remnants of Sri Lanka struck him from this height, as the scorched black islands made themselves abundantly clear against the deep blue of the Indian Ocean and sweeping greens and browns of India into the white of the Himalayas.

Devin absorbed all he could – the sensations of lift off, the color of the burning plasma, the blue sky fading into the black of space and the great monster of the moon swinging slowly overhead. Briefly, he tore himself from the splendor which no human had seen for almost half a millennium to radio his current position and speed back to Houston. His descent would begin shortly, he reassured himself, time to enjoy the view while I can.

“Houston to Captain Langshire, Houston to Captain Langshire,” the sudden and slightly frantic call rang across the air in the pod. “This is Captain Langshire,” he responded automatically, never dreaming that something could go wrong. “Captain – can you confirm your trajectory?” Devin sighed to himself and checked rechecked his diagnostics to confirm. “Houston, I repeat, we are currently settling in at -17.0 MJ/kg….” He stopped abruptly as the number jumped to -17.1 Mj/kg, then -17.5, eventually to -25.0 Mj/kg. The trajectory of -25.0 Mj/kg seemed to hold steady. “-25.0 Mj/kg,” he announced finally, with an air of absentminded confidence. “Captain…” the voice on the other end start, gravely before trailing off.

The weight of the situation finally dawned on the Captain. I must be wrong, he thought checking again and again. What am I missing? Langshire checked his maps and calculations, he pushed the panic down as he began re-estimating and confirming that his trajectory couldn’t be right – he should be in low earth orbit now, starting his descent – but as it stands he’s going to skip right off the atmosphere and simply drift away.

“Captain,” the trembling voice on the other end of that awful squawking box cut into the deafening ringing in Langshire’s ears bringing him back to his training – to his purpose.

“Houston,” he began somewhat unsteadily before strongly reasserting himself, “my calculations tell me that my orbit will continually widen until I reach the moon. Could I use the reserve landing thruster to go into lunar orbit? My pod's first aid kit contains an emergency biostablizer which should incapacitate my metabolism for up to four days. If we fire the thrusters at the right time, I could slingshot back into Earth orbit and possible re-enter.” The silence in the pod was deafening as the moments seemed to stretch into nothingness as Devin's eye's drifted back longingly towards his home; Earth.

“Captain Langshire,” came a strong voice over the radio minutes later. “Captain Langshire – this is Lead Engineer Gupta of Houston Command.” A surprisingly warm smile forced itself onto Devin's face at the sound of his dear friend Amit Gupta. They had been working together since early in their adolescence when they began their cosmonaut training as one of the thirty match pairs of theoretical and practical learners. “Captain, your calculations are sound. If we time the blast of the emergency reserve engine, you can enter a return course...” his voice trailed off in an unfamiliar fashion.

Something was wrong.

“Devin,” Amit dropped all pretense of professionalism, “We just detected a massive ejection from the Sun. The particles will reach the Earth in a little less than 36 hours. It will reach your craft before you reach the Moon... Your pod has essentially no shielding... Our estimations show that you will die immediately once it reaches you... I'm... I'm so sorry, Devin... we failed...”

The radio transmissions fell silent for many minutes. The fate of the first man to reach space since the Great War sank in across the world. Inside his private pod, his coffin, his tomb, Devin Langshire steadied his nerves and and breathed. “Houston,” he began after more than 15 minutes of almost complete silence. “What went wrong?” He felt oddly calm and detached has his old friend came back with his astonished explanation, “Devin, it seems there was a miscalculation. The M-1 series rocket's science module was replaced with the habitation module as planned.”

Langshire interrupted by habit, “and the mass of each module was calculated to be exactly equal per pound of thrust – how could have there been a mistake?” “Right,” Amit came back with his usual cadence, pretending not to notice the incursion, “but the thrusters calibration didn't account for the extra thrust per pound of fuel – the new, more stable, fuel was too light... We made a mistake. Someone made a mistake...” he continued, his composure again deteriorating into frustration.

“If only -”

“Don't.” Captain Langshire stopped his friend and colleague firmly. “If I use 24 hours of my biostablizer, will you be able to calculate my extended trajectory by the time I revive?”

“I think, Devin, but that would leave you little time, we must try to -”

“Amit,” the previously stoic Captain interrupted once more, finally allowing his affection to show through, “my fate is written. Gupta, you have been my partner for as long as I care to remember, and we have done exactly as we trained for years to do. I hate that I won't see your face again, but this is it. Earth won't be my tomb. But I would like to know where I may be headed...

“I am not the first to die for the noble cause of human exploration. Not the first, and we all know damn well that I won't be the last. My life now belongs to the cosmos – and it's the responsibility of you – of all mankind to ensure none of this was in vain! These stars – they call to us! We must, in the words left to us by the Saganites of Hypatia, not only dip our toes into this cosmic ocean, but navigate it's currents and deserts! Chart its depths! Never stop - never give up in our quest to uncover all of this Universe's secrets! Our survival depends on it!”

Before Lead Engineer Gupta or Earth could respond, Captain Langshire activated exactly 24 hours of biostablizer slipping into a metabolically stable coma.

He awoke, groggily 24 hours later as if no time had passed. He balked at himself for thinking it had really been 24 hours – it was never easy to accept, even after years of training. Three minutes after awaking, the hailing beacon on his radio came suddenly to life, jolting him harshly back into his bizarre reality. He activated the communication module and began transmitting his computer's log back to Earth. The computers had been collecting data dispassionately throughout the crisis.

At least they didn't forget the mission, Devin thought to himself as the data streamed back to Earth, blocking active communication with Houston for at least another seven to eight hours. Despite his bravado in his previous interactions, he was not looking forward to the next conversation. The fact was that it would be the last human voice he would ever hear – the last interaction with his home. He wasn't ready.

After the final bit of data had left his pod, Devin steeled himself. There was no more turning back or delay. This was it.

“Good morning, Captain,” began a strangely familiar voice from the other side of his invisible radio tether with Houston. “This is Prime Minister Talbot III, how are you son?” “Sir!” Captain Langshire responded immediately, saluting and doing is best to sit at 'attention.' “No need for formalities, Devin,” the Prime Minister continued “I wanted to thank you for your sacrifice... and to give you the news.”

Captain Langshire thought he was going to vomit. He looked out towards the Earth – that beautiful blue marble in the black sky. He knew every living person on that planet was looking skyward, towards him. He knew he was, somehow, humanities first emissary to the beyond. With this he breathed in deeply, strongly and rallied his spirits. “Yes, sir, Rufus,” calling the Prime Minister by his rarely used first name. With a smirk he added “What's my heading?”

He could hear the conflicted smile in the Prime Minister's reply: “Congratulations, Captain Devin Langshire. You will be the first human being to ever breach the atmosphere of the gas giant, Jupiter. We have also recalculated the arrival of the radiation... It will arrive at your location in roughly one hour.”

The final words seemed to echo through his pod endlessly. There was no parade, no news interviews, no celebrity, no pomp. His name would be spoken for ages beyond - as the first man to give his life in the second age of man for the sake of reaching the stars. The first man 'entombed' on an alien world. Not that any of that mattered. Soon after he received the news, his radio transmitter failed as the first wave of cosmic rays and magnetic interference destroyed the electronics of is pod.

He looked intently towards the Earth. As every inch of his being stretched for that distant world the light in the cabin brightened blindingly as his consciousness slowly darkened.

Captain Devin Langshire, World Medal of Honor recipient then knew no more.

Episodic Music: The Great Red Eye Part I

2012-04-29T23:52:00.000-07:00

The Saganites of Hypatia and the Second Renaissance

Track Available for Purchase Here!

One hundred and fifty years after the collapse of civilization following the cataclysmic conclusion of the Great War, humanity was slowly regaining it's footing, establishing simple agricultural villages across the scarred globe. Some set up in the ruins left by those that had nearly annihilated themselves over invisible beings that never came to intervene. Others took back to the caves and tree-house dwellings of ancient descendants, with no knowledge that they had, as a species, come full circle.

In the final years of the first global society, a small sect of scientists, historians and philosophers realized that the writing was on the wall - if any of humanity survived the coming storm, there would be little left of all of the scientific, philosophic, artistic and historical progress laid down by millenia of men and woman that gave their entire lives to expose the elegant reality of nature and existence. The loss of knowledge would loom larger than any previous purge in the history of mankind - even the destruction of the great Library of Alexandria and the savage murder of Hypatia.

The only remaining mote of past human knowledge would have been the plaques and discs included on the Pioneer and Voyager probes sent to the stars some three hundred years prior - an insightful move made by the 20th Century Astronomer Carl Sagan. That hardly helped at all, as that information was now irretrievable by the whole of humanity. Taking note from these examples of past blunders and foresight, the network of those concerned dubbed themselves the Saganites of Hypatia and set about a stunning and ambitious plan to save the knowledge and history of mankind from the impending implosion of what was left of society.

With groups working feverishly and in secret across the world, databases of knowledge, power supplies, simple pictograph instructions, books, hard drives, rod upon rod of quantum encoded diamond substrate were disseminated to the seven major world areas thought to be the places from which mankind would re-root itself should it survive: Central America, Persia, Central Africa, Southern Europe, Central South America, Mid-Southern China and India. Using shadow corporations, bogus scientific research, stolen government grants for war research and unheard of embezzlement, the Saganites of Hypatia quickly and quietly built massive vaults in all seven locations, each containing the same information, in three of the most commonly spoken tongues of each region.

Fifty portable nuclear power supplies were included in each vault, maintaining the data, the vacuum seal on the vault and powering the minimal monitoring systems on the interior and exteriors of each vault. The leading engineers of the time calibrated the systems of the vault so precisely that one of the portable power supplies would last up to one hundred years before exhausting its supply, automatically turning on the next generator in the sequence, to give the vault the best chance of being discovered by intelligence.

Also included were supplies and instructions for quickly constructing efficient solar cells, wind and water turbines for generating small amounts of sustainable energy - along with detail pictograph, written and video instructions on how to manufacture each component of the electricity producing machines.

Pressure, light and sound sensors were placed all around the exteriors of each vault, tuned to as many of the specific frequencies associate with human mining activity. Shift in light, sound and movement associated with tectonic and gravitational shifts were programed to be completely ignored by the vaults' security systems. Once enough frequencies are gathered from local activity identified as human, the vaults' doors will activate special pressure sensors to determine when enough external debris and pressure has been removed for the vaults' automatic hydraulic doors, triggering a specific series of events:

First the doors' outer size panels (one on each side) exposing speakers designed to be heard clearly by the human ear through several meters of tightly packed earth. The vaults' then play a prerecorded message in each of the three common languages three separate times - the message attempted to warn those approaching that the hydraulic doors would soon open on their own and that any human activity should be halted until the opening sequence was complete. Once this message's third circuit was completed and the door started to slowly, silently creep open, another message played on a loop in each language, describing the purpose of the vaults:

In the year 2285, mankind sits on the brink of self imposed annihilation. Ten thousand years of progress - art, history, literature, science, knowledge is on the brink of being lost forever. Knowing this, The Saganites of Hypatia placed seven of these vaults across the surface of the Earth in hopes that they would be found by some distant survivors of humanity. Myou use this knowledge better than we. May you learn from our fatal mistakes.

And so, in the year 2440, a young Indian man digging a well in his modest village saw the dirt shift around him and then heard the strange disembodied voice from another time, from another world and the Second Renaissance had begun.