Cardboard Cut-Outs or the Real Thing?

My mother was in DC last week as part of the activities related to her winning the state of Oregon's teacher of the year award for 2006. One of those activities was having her photo taken with the President and Laura Bush.

Aquarium Setup - Steps One and Two

I'm putting together a 55 gallon freshwater tropical community aquarium.

Step One :

1. Assemble aquarium stand


2. Place aquarium


3. Wash 60 lbs. of gravel and put gravel in tank


4. Add water


5. Assemble and install filter


6. Assemble and install lights


7. Place aquarium decorations

Step Two :

1. Calculate tank's watts to gallon ratio for lighting. (1.45)


2. Generate a list of desired plants based on light ratio and placement in tank.


3. Generate sketch of plant placement and determine number of plants needed.


4. Order plants from online distributor of aquarium gear.


5. Have plants shipped overnight.


6. Add chlorine and chloramine removing chemical.


7. Put plants in tank.


8. Add water to the lip of the tank.


9. Add fertilizer to water.

Biodiesel Production Facility of the Future

I finished my research for the Biodiesel Production Facility Of The Future (BPFOTF) and was able to generate the attached map. I'll be using it to sketch out the bits of action that take place at this particular locale.

This chunk of research ended up being a very useful thought exercise for me as a whole. It serendipitously enabled me to sort out some related bits of setting material that I hadn't even thought to put effort into developing.

I'll definitely be applying this technique to other parts of the outline that are causing me trouble.

Syndicate

Since December of 2005 I've been working on a card game that I have high hopes of being able to sell as an actual product one day. The game started off as a business based RPG, but I quickly realized that an RPG rule-set that simulated running a business would be about as fun as doing your taxes. It then occured to me that a card game might be a lot more fun, and I began putting said game together.

I've gone through about five iterations so far and have actually gotten to the point where I have a prototype deck I'm in the middle of playtesting. Iteration six will probably get printed and cut sometime next month, but so far things are looking really good.

The picture I've attached to this post shows the current prototype deck on the left with the three prior iterations on the right. The 1st iteration consisted of about 1,000 index cards and sadly, I didn't keep them.

Making a game is a lot more work than I thought it was when I started out.

King Canola's Coming to Kill You

This post is part one in a series of posts that will fully cover my "down the rabbit hole experience" I had when I attempted to use the internet to do research for my sci-fi novel.

My daughter and her girls were telling jokes. Stephanie hit her mom's arm with the back of a butter knife in a gesture, "Oh mom", not hard enough to hurt. My daughters arm split open like it was rotten. She called me to ask what could have caused it. I said, "I'll bet anything that you are using Canola oil". Sure enough, there was a big gallon jug in the pantry.

Part One : A Writer's Toil

This whole thing started yesterday as I was toiling away on the outline for my sci-fi novel. I’m currently working on the part of the narrative that takes place in a bio-diesel facility south of Sacramento. Sketching out this particular set of scenes has been much more difficult than the rest of the outline so far.

After ruminating for a while on what the source of the problem might be, it occurred to me that I should engage in a creative exercise and see if that helped to knock some ideas loose. Sometimes, a bit of “world-building” helps me to really get into the center of what I’m trying to write about. So, I set out to do some research on the internets about how one goes about making bio-diesel.

This portion of the research went easily enough. Not surprisingly, most of the “civilian” websites on bio-diesel production weren’t very informative. What else would you expect from a bunch of hippies but poorly organized information? Eventually though, I ran across a number of academic sites that had plenty of relatively well-detailed information. From that information I was able to develope a generalized process schematic, and from that start generating an actual map of the facility.

In my head and on paper, the bio-diesel production facility of the future was taking shape.

***

In the next installment of the series, the author will blog about his efforts to select the ideal oil seed crop of the future.

Dungeon & Dragon Cancelled

Yes. The news went out today. Finally. September will be the last month that the magazines of Dungeon and Dragon will publish issues.

I can't say that I'm surprised. In fact I'm not. Those of you that know me should know why.

I can't really comment on Dragon, as I've never read it, but I can tell you that the quality of Dungeon's material has lagged pretty badly for quite a while. Paizo had the the rights to use WOTC's entire catalog of D&D IP and yet all they did was continue to publish adventures that were nothing more than a rehash of 1st edition adventures.

I can't imagine that WOTC was ever pleased that Paizo wasn't supporting the new products they were putting out by publishing material that completely ignored its existence. Hello, Eberon?

I can say that I'm glad I decided to cancel my year-goal of submitting ten articles to Dungeon. It was a smart move on my part.

I can say that I'm excited to find out how this new online thing is going to work. From what I can tell, WOTC is going to be looking for contributors, and I plan to contribute.

Transitional Terrarium

I originally put together my carnivorous terrarium in October of 2004. It's never done poorly, but when I finally managed to get rid of a scale infection it developed two years ago it really took off.

It looks quite cool now as the plants have grown around the objects I added to it early on and some unexpected specimens came in with the original sundews, venus fly-traps and pitcher plants.

I think I'm going to need to feed it again in the very near future. My hunch is I can buy fruit flys off the internet and just dump them in the tank.

Spring 2005










Summer 2005










March 2006










April 2007