Yikes!

So, I have completely blocked on JJATDE so for now this goes into the drawer. Dont fear though! Yet another idea has already been born and is currently growing strong (to the tune of 5400 words!) so stay loose! I will provide for you soon kids!

Thoughts Going Out To The Families Of Travis Barker And DJ AM

The Geek Dad is sending thoughts and prayers out to the families of DJ AM and Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker. The two are currently in critical condition in an Augusta Georgia burn center after a fiery plane crash in the Carolinas. The two were the only survivors after the Leer Jet in which they were traveling crashed shortly after take off. I am not much for religion but I am damn sure praying for you two and you families. Get well guys.

Dinner for 5

The best show you're not watching!

Elemental: A Cup Of Brown Joy

Do you love tea?

Legend Of The Seeker

This looks awesome!

Trailer...

Dragon Con 08

Dragon con was awesome and I was completely overwhelmed within the first 24 hours.
So, I went to Dragon Con (www.dragoncon.org) last weekend and it was amazing. For those of you who do not know, Dragon Con is the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the US. The rumor was that membership this year topped 40,000. Thats 40,000 geeks all descending on a 3 block area of downtown Atlanta for 4 days of bliss. It was crazy. As of right now there are just 362 day left till Dragon Con '09.
We (wife, daughter, mother-in-law) got to Atlanta Friday afternoon at around 4 pm. Got checked in to our hotel then went to The Varsity to get a bite to eat (Trader Vics, where I was supposed to be meeting the crew from the FarPointForums was going to be just too expensive for me to eat there). The family had their own plans so we parted company at just before 6 and from there the fun began.
I went off in search of registration on foot, I should say that we were staying at the Wyndham, one of the overflow hotels which was right behind the Sheraton and just a block away from the 3 main hotels. Because our hotel was so close, I spent the whole weekend on foot. A 4 minute walk or wait 30 minutes for the complimentary shuttle. A no brainer for me. The walk to registration was somewhere between interesting and amazing as people were already in costume and wandering around. I passed super heroes of every sort, beasts, monsters, SG-1 personnel, Starfleet Officers and about 100 fairies all in the first hour.
After wandering around for a bit taking in the sights I found registration pretty quickly. Registration was a huge room set up like a queue for a Disney ride with different sections roped to form fantastically long lines to all the different forms of registration. It was terribly well organized and very empty by the time I got there. I walked right up after about a 5 minute wait and got my badge spent a little time at the flyer table (which was about 20ft long) and then set off in search of Trader Vics.
It took a little wandering and some time but right at 7 I found Vic's. I wandered around a bit both inside and out looking for any familiar faces but I didnt see anybody I recognized so figured it was a wash.
Time for Plan B. But before Plan B let me say this: go with a friend(s). I say this because there were several times that I either got intensely lonely or felt I had to leave something or could not participate in something because I had no one there to share it with. I am not saying this for pity, I'm just saying that I had a great time but I would have had a MUCH better time if I had someone to share the experience with. So, on with Plan B
From Vic's I went to the little bar inside the Hilton (really nice place the Hilton btw) grabbed a Sam Adams and an empty chair and began to plan.
The program took a bit to figure out. It had several breakdowns of the weekends events that were easy enough to figure out but coupled with the atmosphere, well, I struggled a bit with it. A word of warning here: after I arrived and started to get settled in I got a bit overwhelmed by everything that was going on around me and missed a lot. Were I to do it again... I should say WHEN I do it again I will have a much firmer grasp on what I want to do and see and I would also allow a bigger budget. It may be that first timers just get swamped and thats just it, which is fine because I still had a blast but I did miss quite a bit.
So from there I went to the elevators to check Trader Vic's one last time and ran into Ray Park (http://www.raypark.com/homepage.htm , http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0661917/ ). REALLY nice guy. He was very gracious and seemed to be having a nice time. In spite of what apparently happened to him later.
I spent most of the rest of the night (and the weekend really) being lost in the hotels. Just trying not to be overwhelmed, see somethings and figure out the lay of the land. Lots of booths set up throughout the hotels. The band booths were probably the best. The Brobdingnagian Bards (http://www.thebards.net/) Voltaire (http://www.voltaire.net/) and The Cruxshadows (http://www.cruxshadows.com/) had some of the best booths but the were probably 100 or more through out the Con. Didnt catch any of the concerts but I heard that they were all packed and great.
The next day, standing outside the Marriott looking at the batmobile I met famed comic book artist Mark Texeira. Really nice guy. The Marriott, by the way, was AMAZING! I have been a lot of different places but the inside of this place was SciFi all the way. Find pictures of it.
From here I had hit saturation and everything starts to blur together some I am going to hit the highlights and be done.
The Firefly (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/, http://www.fireflyfans.net/, http://www.scifi.com/firefly/, http://signal.serenityfirefly.com/, http://fireflytalk.libsyn.com/) shindig was awesome! The shindig, for those who dont know, is a big family party put on by Firefly fans. Music, singing, dancing, drinking and more! But, I was there by myself and as I am a complete introvert all I did was take a few shots, hang out for a bit and leave. It was still a great time though.
I sat in on the live WhatTheCast (http://www.whatthecast.com/) and it was hilarious and very informative.
I also sat in on the live I Should Be Writing and met Randy Chertkow of Beatnik Turtle. I asked a stupid question about personality in podcasting and he gave me some GREAT advice. I also got great advice from Rich Sigfrit (http://www.outcastmultimedia.com/) and Rick Stringer (http://www.variantfrequencies.com/) but Randy took some time to pull me aside and talk to me at length. And I cant thank him enough. He has some great advice and some just general "pick me up" things to say. Great guy.
After playing Twitter tag for the better part of the weekend I finally met up with Adam from the Back Seat Producers (http://www.backseatproducers.com/ , http://podgecast.com/ ). He was standing in the mile long line for the Firefly panel. We talked a bit but I didnt want to start a riot by breaking into line there. So I went to the front of the line and accidentally got right in.
I think thats it for now. Looking forward to next year!

Oh, here are my pics from D*Con. Click!

Jesse James and the Dragons Egg Chapter 1 Part 1

Summer in North Florida. The air is thick and humid and hot and still. This particular morning the sun has yet to come up and the temperature is already in the 80s. Smoke from the distant forrest fires mixes with the fog and lays thick and low over the broad open field.
The boy and the dog make no sound as they emerge from the fog. The boy is long and lean and tan and no more than thirteen. His dirty blonde hair is smooth with sweat that runs in streams down the bridge of his nose and collects in droplets at its tip. His dark brown eyes peer with quiet intensity from under wiry brows made heavy with sweat. A thumb culls one wiry brow, harvesting sweat into rivers down his forearm.
The dog, a sturdy black Labrador Retriever, his once oily black muzzle now almost completely grey, pants lightly and follows his boy’s intense gaze to a ghostly line of trees almost hidden by the fog in the predawn twilight.
Standing some one hundred yards away, the trees are an imagined and impregnable fortress, its black walls protecting the thick underbrush which was the invading hordes, the innumerable enemy which would surely have them both. For a brief time the two friends stand there, side by side and unmoving, sweating, panting and waiting.
Suddenly, at some unseen signal the two friends bolt, running headlong and full sprint and straight for the great walled fortress. They plunge screaming and snarling into the trees, branches and briars of the fierce underbrush tearing at skin through shirt and fur. The brave friends fight, shoulder to shoulder, fist and claw, as the forrest closes in around them.
As the battle wages on the tide begins to turn and the two friends begin to lose ground as the ever encroaching underbrush begins to take its toll on their stamina. The boy lets loose a battle cry scraped from the very bottom of his lungs, a cry to which he expects, hopes, will be answered. But there is no reply.
Standing now back to hind quarter and completely surrounded by thistle and bramble, vine and limb, the two friends fight desperately for their lives, again unleashing their battle cries, the anguish in their voices reverberating off of the encroaching flora. This time though, this time, they are answered! Three battle hardened voices sing their songs of war. It is the army from the West! They have come at last! The boy and the dog had counted on this, planned for it and now, with certain death closing in all around, their comrades have come to save them!
With renewed vigor and new hope the two friends battle anew, tapped reserves replenished and refilled with passion and rage. Swinging and snarling wildly the two friends battle on, desperately holding the ground for their three friends from the West. The dog's bark alerts the boy to the proximity of their rescuers, barely visible through the clawing hands of branches and leaves. The three boys that were the army from the West battled headlong into the fight screaming at the top of their lungs, vine and thorn tearing shirt and pant from flesh. They come in a wedge, shoulder to shoulder, a tall thin blonde boy in the middle, a shorter dark haired boy to his left and a larger, heavier, dark haired boy to his right. They battle fiercely, their faces all grim sweat and boyhood determination. The boy and the dog hail to them and they hail back. The two groups fight their way through the dense forrest to one another, greeting each one and the other heartily as the forrest begins to recede from them. Drenched in sweat, covered in small scrapes and cuts the four boys laugh and joke as the dog dances and barks around them. The battle is won.
Done with the forrest the boys move as a loose group back through the open field, chasing sporadically after the black lab. Jesse James, the boy with the dog walked ahead of the rest, calling to the dog who had sprinted even farther out ahead.
"Bear! Come here!" The dog pauses for a moment, smiling broadly through his panting as he looks back at his friend. Then with a brief insistent bark he turns and sprints even farther ahead, going toward a fence line at the top of the hill.
"Bear! Come here now! Guys we gotta to catch him. We can't go any farther."
"Why?" John McCowan, tall thin and blonde, laughs and swings a stick randomly at the weeds as he walks up beside Jesse. "You afraid of King? That old dude’s probably dead anyway."
"I’m not worried about King,” Jesse says, pushing his shoulder into John as he comes beside him, “I’m worried about my Dad. Besides, King’s not dead and if he ever catches us he's gonna burn us alive."
"Guys, he wont burn us." Lamar Taylor, the largest and heaviest of the four boys grunts and slips into a heavily exaggerated southern accent as he pushes his head roughly between Jesse and John. "He likes his meat raw." he intones, making gnashing noises with his teeth as the boys laugh out loud.
"Seriously guys," Jesse casts a worried glance to the fence line, "if we get caught out here my Dad’s gonna to kill me."
"Don't worry man," John puts his hand on his friends shoulder, "we'll cover for you."
"Yeah, we'll tell him..." Lamar pauses for a moment, looking sideways at John, "Uh, what are we gonna tell him?"
"Crop circles."
"What?" the two boys sound in unison.
"We'll tell him we saw some crop circles."
"Wow. How bout we don't tell him that." Jesse says as he and Lamar exchange looks.
"It would be cool though."
"No," says a voice from behind them "what would be cool is like a crashed spaceship or something." Brad McCowan smallest and wiriest of the four boys and John's cousin sprints past. "And it would be like, just a little damaged so we could hop in it and fly it somewhere."
"Oo yeah! Like one of those old Fifties, Roswell kinds!" John closes one eye and thrusts his hand flat out in front of him, swooping it around through the air, banking it left and right and round and round himself. “All round and silvery and swoopy. That would be awesome." John follows his hand and sprints off after his cousin, the two of them laughing and closing fast on Bear who is now far ahead of them, laying in the deep grass, panting hard and waiting patiently on the boys.
"You know what would be cool?" Jesse swats at a mosquito as he and Lamar walk up on their friends.
"What?"
"Dragons."
"Ah, cool. Dragons would be sweet."
"And an Orc army!"
Bear lies in the tall grass, the still swirling mist settling in droplets on his nose and turning his hot breath smokey and winter-like in contrast to the growing heat. The boys sit around him, rubbing his hide and chattering about knights and dragons and spaceships as he lays with his head in Jesse’s lap, his gaze never leaving the hilltop and the waiting fence line at its peak.
A breeze floats over the still air and Bear raises his head to full attention, ears cocked forward and nose high, sampling the air in short strong puffs. He allows them a moment more to rub his hide then with a brief, insistent bark he is up and running again, full bore for the top of the hill, the four boys yelling after him in hot pursuit.
At the fence line Bear stops cold. In the field beyond, the smokey fog sits low. Burned by a recent fire, smoke still rises from clustered pores and the scene breathes a hot breath at the boys, whispering its warning. Through the low mists and in the middle of the charcoal waste sits the carcass of an old tobacco barn,INSERT INFO ABOUT BARN BEING MOSTLY BURIED IN THE MIST, ONLY TOP OF BARN CAN BE SEEN burned and blackened on one side, its ancient oak bones laid bare by the fire.
Jesse kneels beside bear as the boys gather round, putting his arm around his friend’s neck, mindful of the stiff bristles of the dogs raised hackles.
“What's wrong boy?” The dog growls low as he surveys the field and samples the air.
“He's just afraid of the fire. All animals are.” Brad kneels down next to Bear and puts his arm over his back. “Don't worry boy, it’s not going to get us.”
“Yeah, that fire’s been out for days.” Lamar rubs Bear’s head but the dog says nothing, steady searching the air with his nose, his eyes never leaving the barn.
“I don't know guys.” Jesse tries to ignore the increasing fluttering in his belly. “Somethings up.”
“You suppose somebody's down there?” John leans on the barbwire fence and cranes his neck for a better view of the barn.
“I don't know.”
“If they are, they're crispy.” Brad hops up and makes for the fence. “C'mon, lets go see!”
Suddenly, with a yelp, Bear pushes himself from under Jesse’s arm and, teeth bared, begins barking at the barn. Startled, Jesse trips over himself as he tries to scramble to his feet, bouncing off Lamar who nearly loses his balance completely.
“Bear, what’s up?” Jesse reaches for his friend but the dog pays him no mind, barking wildly and backing away from the fence.
“Jesse, what’s going on with Bear?” Lamar, John, and Brad stand and watch as Jesse tries to calm the dog, kneeling down in front of him and gently stroking his neck all the while Bear watches and growls over Jesse’s shoulder.
“Y’all I’m going, lets go.”
“Yeah, come on guys.” John and Brad turn toward the fence.
“No!” Jesse, still trying to calm his panicked friend turns to face them. “There’s something going on.”
“Yeah guys, I’m with Jess on this one. We should probably just hang out.”
“Oh come on. I want to go see what’s in that barn.”
“No, we are not going. If we get caught my dad will kill me. I mean the things on fire.”
“No its not. The fire’s been out for days. Might be a couple of little hot spots but thats it.”
“Cmon man, lets go. It’ll be fun.”
Brad says, Fine, stay here. I’m going.
With a last look at the two John follows his cousin.
As the two boys jump the fence Bear sprints from behind Jesse right up to the line, barking his protest like mad. Brad and John turn and call to the dog to no avail so the two make off down the hill toward the barn.
A moment Lamar sighs and looks over at Jesse. “Man, I can’t let them go without me.” A beat later Jesse is watching Lamar’s broad back as he walks toward the fence. As he climbs the fence he looks back at Jesse one last time, “Sorry dude.” is all he says.
Bear and Jesse stand and watch as their three friends walk into the mist. A moment passes and the three boys have disappeared all together. Whining, Bear looks up at Jesse who seems not to notice. Bear tries a moment longer to get his friends attention then, with a bark, he jumps up on Jesse, standing on his hind legs and putting his front paws hard into the boys side. Jesse catches himself from stumbling sideways.

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