negative ramblings

Snow lies heavy and long around here, big storm yesterday, highways and airports had big problems. March break, great timing.
Personally I worked yesterday 5am to 3pm, which came after working night shift 11pm to 7am for the past while. That leads to a definite fuzzy brain syndrome, never enough sleep.
Since the factory is going to close permanently this summer I have to grab money while its available, work any overtime offered.
Will get a pension as of May 31st, which will be my last day at Siemens. Not really enough to live on, but better than a slap with a wet fish.

Someone asked what i think of GM foods - well the idea in itself follows what nature does already (bacteria borrow genetic material, so do viruses). However scientists and marketers are not the best combination to ensure everything is properly safeguarded and thought out. Same pêople who insist nuclear power is both safe and pollution free, as well as cheap. Sure it is safe, statistically a low accident rate. Problem is accidents can be very very damaging and with widespread consequences. Pollution similarly is low when looked at through a very narrow time frame- say the 3 year contract or tenure time of a plant manager - but lasts for 10s of thousands of years. Costs, again, are low if looked at over a short term, and use creative accounting that ignores government subsidies and repair and scrap disposal costs. We here in Ontario pay a surcharge on every electric bill for "debt disposal" which is to pay off the large debt incurred by the nuclear plants here.

Sorry, back to GM foods, which is supposed to be the subject. Plants can get disease resistance or extra protein content or whatever by adding genes from elsewhere, but obviously this is only a good thing when using the good ol narrow lens view.
Their modified genes spread outside the field they are planted in, regardless of Monsantos insistence otherwise. Short term demand for profit means testing for negative consequences is limited in scope and duration. Again, like nuclear, these consequences extend well beyond the tenure of their initiators.
So then, like in the nuclear industry --
Accidents do happen, when they do they spread very widely.
Costs are to others, not the producing companies, so dont count.
Consequences are very long lasting.

Summer

Just because of nothing in particular, here goes another update.
Seems my life goes on. Remarkable, actually, because I only recently looked up the official statistics on survival rates for the type and stage of cancer I had - They say that the 5 year survival rate from diagnosis with Stage 4 Oro-Pharyngeal Sarcoma (Throat cancer) is 30%.
Since I was diagnosed officially 0n 29th January 2004, it seems very probable that I will reach that 5 year mark. No symptoms of recurrence, though of course I.m constantly checking myself.
Yesterday i hauled my old bike out of the rubble heap and oiled it, fixed a puncture and pumped up the tyres. Today it.s ready to ride. Leaning against a cedar in the back there. Later, later.

Ethanol and the Third World

Rising grain prices do not have to mean hunger in Africa. For years small farmers in Africa (and everywhere else) have been hobbled by the competition from subsidised 1st World grain farmers, and "Food Aid". Input costs in rural Africa ensured that maize could not be grown profitably as long as world market prices remained at $2something a bushel. Now perhaps there is actually incentive to grow food crops in countries like Zambia.
With the use of food grain as feedstock for Ethanol production, the demand for grain worldwide has jumped, and so have prices. Now people can potentially start out with very little, plant crops, and earn money.
Quite possibly the cycle of poverty and hunger can be broken, for many. For town dwellers of course, that will take longer. They will have to wait for the newly solvent farmers to need goods and services they can provide.
Perhaps this is the key to the different rates of development in Asian countries, as contrasted with Africa in general - rice has always been a profitable crop, while the crops usually planted in Africa have been subject to artificially low prices.

spring

Long time no post, so its use it or-- . Spring is busy all around here, sun is shining and birds busy. I felt really miserable the past two days, snivelling in bed mostly, really down, despite the weather. Took lots of aspirin (dont like all the substitute things, the simplest medication seems to work) and some of that symptom- relief lemon stuff(almost as many ingredients as potato chips). Today woke up feeling almost rested, and able to breathe through my nose.
Last several months I have been busy, trying to get my novel into some kind of publishable form. Most difficult has been, and is, trying to see it through a strangers perspective, to read it as something fresh. Still dont know if it might actually might appeal to readers, and if so, which readers.Then the other thing is getting that first chapter and vital first page into something that will catch editors or publishers attention.
Another project has been getting together images and anecdotes about white animals, spurred by my encounters with the white squirrels that live in this area(Exeter Ontario). White buffalo, cattle, elephants, and horses have all been regarded as sacred by different cultures. Also other white animals such as the squirrels and peacocks certainly are very visually striking.

newer photo

Since my photo in the profile is a fairly old one, it might be a good idea to post a newer image.

September

So now we are past summer. Leaves on the ground after heavy rain early this morning, many already yellow. Before winter comes I have to decide whether to keep Billy goat Bob, or sell him. Unless I go for it, buy a nanny or two, and start seriously into goats, he is too much of a chore. Looking around, goats seem to be on quite a few farms in the area, so they must be a money-maker nowadays. OK then, I shall look out for a mate for him. Two goats wont be twice the hassle, just sorta his normal hassle plus a bit extra, I hope. That way, if it is too much, they can be sold as a going little herd, a breeding unit, and he is less likely to end up as stew.
My daughter and grandson have gone to Barbados for 3 weeks, they should have good weather at first, sunnny today and tomorrow, then some showers in the coming week. Must be on a beach right now. No comment .

Buy book

You can follow this link to buy the book

Book now published

I have now become a published author, having self-published a book of short stories titled Heavy and Light Tales, available as of yesterday from Lulu.com.

More Bob, as a kid and this week, grown.

Bob and Eric

As you see eating is pretty high on the list of priorities.

Bob the Goat

Bob rules. He started out as a cute lil bottle-sucking kid. Now around 2 years later he is a Big Billy-goat. He definitely has some boer-goat in him, because he is way bigger than any goats Ive seen around here. Those are mostly about half his size. He is very friendly, but also very headstrong, determined to get whatever he is currently going for. Goal-oriented go-for-it goat. Fences? Climbs em. Walls? Puts his head down and bashes through. Low roofs the same, also chicken nest boxes, perches,everything he can get at that will break given enough attention.
Started tethering him on a chain, which slides along a strong wire strung between trees.In the last month he has broken the main wire once, got the snap fastener loose six or seven times, til I changed it for a really heavy security type,and broken two dog collars (the kind you would put on a big dog, like a German Shepherd).
When tethered he runs at the extreme reach of his tether, reaching for weeds and grass far to the sides, and leaving the easy stuff right under the running wire untouched.
He likes banana peels, will leave the insides for later, orange peels, cedar tree bark and twigs, deadly nightshade and apple trees. The apple trees and the nightshade are especially desirable because he knows i dont want him eating them, for different reasons. After a few mouthfuls of nightshade i have seen him get a little strange, even by his normal standards. I shall see if I can post some pics of Bob.

short stories

So yesterday I went ahead, signed up with Lulu online self-publishing service. Uploaded my 108 pages, all in proper format and so on. Soon, several weeks I expect, the book will be available, either as an e-book or in hard-copy. Short stories written over the past two years. Some are altered chapters, cut out for different reasons, from the novel I have sent to several mainstream publishers.
I dont expect to make waves with this, but its way better than having them (stories) sit on my computer, with sporadic submissions to swamped magazine editors.
There are a couple of them which have been submitted recently, so I will wait a bit to hear from those magazines before opening up for distribution.
Also there is work needed on the cover art, what I sent wasnt right, so the first copy will use Lulus stock covers. When I work something better up, the revised version will go out. Right now the title is Heavy & Light Tales. Perhaps something better is needed, after all, as a complete unknown, the title and cover are what might entice potential readers to actually look inside, and perhaps read.

Arcadia

Got my copy of my brothers book today. Wrote a quick review of it-- only 61 pages in all --

In this Clifton Power expresses his views on the meanings to be found in the work of Poussin, in the Shepherds Monument itself, and it’s enigmatic inscription. He gives a brief exposition on the possible roots of the inherent beliefs of the builders, their philosophical outlook, and his own discoveries.
As an artist, the author brings an understanding of visual symbology and aesthetics to bear on understanding the minds and philosophy of others through their physical works.
The reader may be able to find the Templar Treasure for themselves, after reading this.

Arcadia

I shall soon write a review, or perhaps just a synopsis, of my brothers new book. Arcadia,The Templar Code. I have ordered a copy from Amazon, but wont get it for at least a month. Luckily he sent me his text by e-mail, so I can use that.Watch this space.

circus

Went to the circus yesterday, with my 4 year old grandson. His expectations were opposed to the ideas of the animal rights activists demonstrating outside, posters declaring animal performers are "slaves". Sorry, to me that energy could be better deployed dealing with somewhat more extreme instances of actual human slavery, as well as outright cruelty to, and neglect of, animals and other people. Since the animals at a circus are, in simplest terms, the livelihood of their trainers, it seems to me unlikely that they would be suffering any degree of neglect or mistreatment. Animals. like people, live longer and stay healthier when their living conditions are better. That is a very simple correlation.
Regardless of why, in any case, this circus had very few animals, 8 horses, 3 elephants and a dog are all I saw. Quite a change from those of fifty years ago, when you could expect many more horses, lions, tigers, sea-lions, elephants, several different dog performers, perhaps a goat or a bear. Predators like lions and tigers are never actually domesticated,and probably the same applies to sea mammals, and to bears, so there is a strong case for taking them out of cicuses, I agree. Why so few domestic animals though? Regulations regarding the movement of farm animals, perhaps?
In any case, at 4 years old, he wanted to see live animals, rather than acrobats. To my mind a very reasonable desire.

Brothers book

My brother has done it, become a Published Author. His book "Arcadia : The Solution to the Templar Code" has just been listed on Amazon. I am inspired with competitive spirit and envy. In fact last night I started assembling all the short stories i have written, some of which aint so great, to get enough material for a self-published book. I intend to try Lulu, publish through them and learn all the ins and outs, what to do and how, with a book that doesnt matter that much. Then if no publisher buys that novel, it will be relatively easy to self-publish.

novel publishing

Finally sent my stuff to some publishers, just the first two chapters to two of them and the whole thing to another. Now theres gonna be a three to six month wait, before they decide yes or no. In the meantime Lulu self-publishing is beginning to look quite attractive.

Here is the Official Synopsis if anyone is interested.


Our Unicorn Doesn't Eat Geraniums




Peter Fitt is in his final year of school in England, in the late Sixties. His stepfather gets him a job organising a fish transplant into a border lake in Zambia. His landlady, an active Communist, gives him a Russian contact, who offers help with this development project. Pete dreams of being a one horned eland, a unicorn, fighting a lion. Soon dream and reality merge when he rescues his girlfriend from a lion attack, a zoo escapee. They are riding with a Hunt, and Peter follows the lion with some of the foxhounds.
Pete is taken hostage in a plane hijack enroute to Africa. He extricates himself with help from some mercenaries, in the Congo. His abductor, improbably, survives because of Pete’s actions, and later becomes a dictator.
In Lusaka, Zambia, he recalls a childhood adventure, when he had rescued a baby eland from a mountain fire. The baby eland was hidden by his mother in a clump of wild geraniums, and both Peters, man and beast, react similarly to the scent of geraniums. Early memories are roused in both, in the man usually when he dreams. He identifies himself as a Unicorn, opposed to the Lions, the predators of the world.
Pete takes up the offer of a Russian plane to transport the fish, and thereby is involved in an arms deal. The Russians are supplying both sides in a brewing civil war, stirring up trouble. Pete is involved in skirmishes between the Rhodesians and the Freedom Fighters as he tries to keep the war from spilling across the border into Zambia. He shoots a man in self defence, who turns out to be the brother of his girlfriend, Marjorie.
Marjorie is on her parents’ farm in Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe, recovering from the lion attack. Pete receives no letters from her, until his English landlady writes to tell him that his buddy, her son Bill, has been hiding them out of jealousy. Bill has attempted suicide, is brain-damaged. Pete is racked by guilt. Not only has he killed a man directly, he now feels responsible for Bill’s action also. He has helped a brutal dictator survive to seize power, and he has helped escalate the war, by involving the Russians in the fish project. All differing degrees of responsibility for deaths. He has also has been unfaithful to his love, Marjorie, when he had thought she no longer felt as he did.
Pete meets her mother and tells her what happened, how he shot her son, tries to apologise.
He is forced to face the realities of war, of death and love, as he tries to follow his own convictions in a dangerous and sometimes chaotic enviroment.
After he begins University in Capetown he takes an opportunity to repatriate a valuable heritage artefact to Zimbabwe, to the Freedom Fighters. During this journey he encounters a mercenary he had previously met in the Congo. This man is now working to organise an amnesty/armistice with some of the Fighters
In Zambia Pete tells of the Russians’ duplicity, and finds a receptive audience among the Freedom Fighters. He is told to go to a farm in Rhodesia and meet some interested parties there. This is Marjorie's family farm, where her father has now become less of a hawk since his son’s death. Unknown to the protagonist, his ‘alter ego’, the one-horned eland, lives on this farm, brought there by Marjorie’s grandfather as a baby.
A hard line guerrilla leader attempts to stop the amnesty/surrender, and is defeated by both Peters together. Marjorie and he are reunited. The amnesty is a success, the destiny of the country is changed to a less polarised, destructive path.
I feel this will appeal to a general audience, though the age of the protagonist may also strike a chord with young adults.

May

That book Ive been busy with is getting close to finished; there are now 52000 words, about 180 to 200 pages, after many revisions and bits taken out, others put in. Now checking out publishers, firstly in Canada. Thats because Canadian written stuff gets to the front of the line, so a better percentage chance of being read by editors. Thats the first hurdle, they get thousands of submissions and queries for every one they actually put in print.
Dont really know just how good or bad it is, cant get objective enough, after all Ive read it so many times now. Have some people from my creative writing class looking at it, they have given some suggestions and so on.
Tried doing what They say is best, putting a chapter with lots of action at the beginning, but the one guy who read that version said it seemed to be just a collection of short stories to him, and individually and collectively lacking plot. So put everything in chronological sequence, but otherwise unchanged, and seemingly the invisible plot became obvious. Dont get that,the same elements, same words, just with a different order of presentation, and one single flashback, and the whole plot disappears.
Perhaps its a case of an individual fixating on a minor flaw and not seeing anything else. Like one person who downloaded several chapters into a word processor (microsoft) which had single spacing as its default setting, and proceeded to criticise the work based on the illegibility of her own printed version, not the actual words, but how they came out of her printer, in a tiny close spaced font.
Will definitely bear that in mind, better to send a hard copy to publishers than risk losing their attention by reason of their faulty word processor, or whatever.

Hello again

Hi avid readers , time I got back into pôsting those highly readable updates about Moi.
So the Great Work progresses, have written and rewritten that damn book several times, and have it to the point where I can look for a publisher. Not so simple, cause there are fewer publishers than you think, and a lot of aspirant Authors.
Just a Hello. Im back for today, but watch this space for more fun and information filled postings (promise)

oops

just found out that by having posted stuff on swazz , my other blog , I was effectively publishing it , and giving up rights any publisher willing to pay , would want .So since I would like to get paid for my writing , I have deleted the entire blog , Had about 50,000 words ,but to make a novel it will need lots of rewriting , perhaps double or more the word -count , etc etc , so hope it'll be ok .