Long John Silver

Resolved, that this faux hiatus I was supposedly taking be summarily abandoned in light of recent events. I am returning to the blogsphere. I've decided to discontinue the tattered remains of this hiatus. I know, you're thrilled. So am I; it's good to be back (legitimately). First on the docket is a progress report. I went down to Riverside on Friday and passed the time trial for Lesson #6, coffee and wine drinks. That's four tests down, three to go. I have martinis, shots, and blended drinks left. Shots are supposedly the hardest, since there are so many ingredients. I think I'll do that one after martinis, which are also kind of tricky. Blended drinks should be fairly simple, so I'll save it for last. After that, I'll just have the über-mega-massive final exam left (a time trial with drinks from all the lessons) and some further training, and then I can start using the job placement services and find a bartender's job somewhere. Fancy that! I'll be working nights, serving up drinks, listening to people's problems, getting hit on by cougars, making loads of money in tips, and saving up dough for my summer trip to England. There's nothing new to report on the flying front. I haven't scheduled a test date yet. I'm still studying (or rather, trying to find time to study) for my exams. I'm really, really worried about this. There's a huge amount to remember, most of which I've forgotten and will have to mash back into my brain on short notice. I'm also rapidly running out of money for the $500 examiner's fee. My folks have promised to stump up, but I hate to mooch off them so badly... On the good news front, my folks and I took a trip down to Rancho Cucamonga today to hit up a rather killer retailer that I never knew about (but can't imagine why): BevMo! It's like Costco or Sam's Club, but for booze. You walk in and there's nothing but bottles. Bottles, bottles everywhere, and every drop to drink. I was intoxicated (heh heh) by the very sight. I went straight to the rum section and behold! I found my favorite: Mount Gay, from Barbados. When I think of the word "rum" I think of Mount Gay; that's how good it is. And who'd a thunk it? They had my favorite bourbon too, Old Crow. Mom is so glad to have me home that I don't even need to wheedle anymore. She saw me looking at the Old Crow and offered to buy it right off the bat. She's such a dear. We got the Old Crow, some Johnnie Walker's Black Label (for Dad), a couple bottles of Broker's London Dry Gin (my parents are fiends for that stuff, and I can see why; it's damn good), a six-pack of Anchor Brewery's Liberty Ale, and some Irish coffee glasses (again for me). Why did the world not inform me about BevMo!? Oh...and speaking of good news... There's one thing I simply must report to you. I was going to try to hold it in until I had something more concrete, but I can't stand it any longer. I have to tell you. You, my friends, were not the only people who read the tentative summary I wrote for my novel. Somebody else did. Somebody who happens to be a New York Times bestselling author and co-founder of a small publishing company in the American South. Yes indeed. She read it, and thought my novel premise sounded good. So she sent me a personal e-mail and asked if I'd like to send her a synopsis and the first few chapters. She said she'd give me a free critique. If she liked the manuscript, she said her small press might even publish it, if that was all right with me. Can you imagine how that made me feel? Me, so feverishly dreaming of publication? I was naturally suspicious, of course. I come from a family that locks up the cars even if they're parked in the driveway, and believes every friendly e-mail from a complete stranger is a scam. I took steps to make sure that the woman who e-mailed me was indeed the author and publisher she said she was. I assured myself that she was on the level; then, trusting to luck and hope and good fortune, I sent off the synopsis and the excerpt to her. I am now anxiously awaiting her reply. To say that I am excited by all this would be the understatement of the geological epoch. I'll keep you posted. Hang on a minute! We've done the bad news and the good news. But what about the weird news? Not long after I first opened a Site Meter account, I began to notice something odd. I had a slow, steady trickle of visitors, but one visitor kept coming back, multiple times a day, day in and day out. Stranger still, that person's browser was located in Leasburg, Missouri. This according to Site Meter, at least. I couldn't figure it out. Who did I know in Leasburg, Missouri? Who wanted to read my blog that badly? I figured, based on the number of times they came to visit, that they must be an acquaintance of mine. But I didn't know who it could be, not for the life of me. Then I finally figured it out. It was me. I didn't know about setting Site Meter to ignore visits from my own browser. So there I was, editing posts and previewing them on my blog, with Site Meter recording every click and page view. Oopsy-daisy! Why does Site Meter record my firmly California-based visits as originating from Missouri? Tough to tell. My computer's been behaving weirdly ever since I came back from the Orient. It still thinks I'm in Korea, for one thing. My Google, Blogger, and Facebook homepages are all in Korean. I have to log in before they switch back to English. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch for my computer to think it was in Leasburg rather than Apple Valley. Or perhaps it isn't my computer. Perhaps it's my Internet provider. It senses my foreign computer, shrugs its ethnocentric cyber-shoulders and interjects its own home base onto my browser. Bugger... One more thing. If you want to know why I named this post "Long John Silver," you can go whistle. I just felt like it.

castles in the air

I'm always fascinated by the Pollinatrix's discussion of synchronicity: the interlacing of strange serendipitous coincidences. Whether or not they were caused by some higher power, they always seem to carry some sort of deeper meaning, applicable to one's existence. (Read what she wrote about the color orange, it's brilliant.) What does my existence consist of right now? Castles in the air. There are some castles way off in the sunlit clouds which I'm trying to lease, but I'm still down here on the ground, building a ladder to reach them. Some days it feels like Jacob's ladder. No matter how long I work or how high I climb, I never seem to get anywhere. I'm in the vertical doldrums. And yet...inspiration is everywhere. If I needed a reason to keep up the fight, synchronicity might come to the rescue. Each way I turn I'm reminded in some way of my struggle to attain the clouds. I'm in the middle of reading Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Chapter 13 is named "Castles in the Air." In it, the girls and Laurie divulge their dreams to each other. Laurie would like to live in Germany and be a musician; Meg wants a lovely house with lots of luxurious accoutrements, and would rather live a charitable life as a well-loved woman (with, perhaps, a man); Jo needs a stable full of Arabian horses, a library full of books, and a magic inkstand; Beth simply wishes to stay at home and be of help to her father and mother; and Amy desires to be an artist, go to Rome, and paint fine pictures. It's a touching chapter, a delight to read. The girls and Laurie have each built a castle in the air and now plan to pursue it with every breath. As most of you know, I'm somewhat into Japanese comics, or manga. My favorite is called One Piece. It's a pirate-themed comic book wherein a 17-year-old boy, Monkey D. Luffy, sets out to sea to become the Pirate King. One of my favorite story arcs in this marvelous comic is when Luffy and his crew discover the existence of the sky island, Skypiea. It's an amazing voyage. Thought to exist only in legend, Skypiea is proven real when Luffy and his crew ride a monstrous ocean current up into the clouds and find the mystical land for themselves. But it's not a heavenly paradise. The sky islands are lorded over by a rather nasty villain, Enel, who has the powers of thunder and lightning. Luffy and his mates win the day through a series of hair-raising battles and close calls, all in the clouds and the islands floating on them. This is fascinating stuff, and partly what inspired me to try to write my own comic in the first place. But perhaps most tellingly of all, there's a quote by Henry David Thoreau. I put it on my Facebook page a while back, but neglected it. It's my favorite Thoreau quote, which is rather telling; that man was nothing if not quotable.

"Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

How does this relate to me? Well, I'll tell you. Laurie, Beth, Jo, Meg and Amy remind me that you have to start out big or you'll never go anywhere. You have to have grandiose schemes and great ambitions. You must shoot high, right from the very beginning. And you have to be prepared to do what it takes to get there. Otherwise you'll forever remain a nowhere man. Like Stephen King says, "If you don't start out too big for your britches, how are you going to fill 'em later on?" Luffy and his pirate crew never cared if they were laughed at for believing in the impossible. They kept going regardless. They believed. They tried. They strove. They braved the storm and the danger and the fear of the unknown. And in the end, they won through...and were privileged to see something few others ever had. They had themselves a real adventure, kept their eye on the ball, and enjoyed the journey. What more is there to do in life? And as for ol' Henry...well, his sentiments are self-explanatory. I've set my sights on something I want, and all I have to do now is get there. I have built my castles in the air. Now I must see to the foundations, even if it's just one brick at a time. So I have to remember to stick with it. I must keep up the work I've begun. Even if it seems like I study day after day and hardly ever go down to Riverside to take a test, I have to continue my bartender's training. Even if I've completed the requisite 40 hours of flight training for my private pilot's license, and can't take my exams because of time and financial constraints, I'm still cracking books. Even if I'm frightened of my novel, not confident in my writing ability, or disgusted with the premise (as I am sometimes), I'll keep revising. Because what lies at the end is everlasting glory. A bartender's certificate. A pilot's license. A published book. A high-paying job in a bar or casino. An international airline. A successful, well-liked novel series. A castle in the air.

cocktail review no. 29 - Whiskey Milk Punch

Originally, I'd planned to do a hot drink next. It's still technically the dead of winter, after all. But I saw this in The Bartender's Bible and couldn't resist trying it. And once I'd tasted it, I couldn't resist posting it here...just in case there were a few people in the audience who might like it.

• 2 ounces blended whiskey
• 1 ounce dark crème de cacao
• 2 ounces milk
• ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg

In a shaker half-filled with ice cubes, combine the whiskey, crème de cacao, and milk. Shake well, then strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with the nutmeg. Simply put, this drink tastes like chocolate milk (with whiskey and nutmeg). If you like chocolate milk (and whiskey and nutmeg) you'll probably like it. I know I did. I mean, come on. If it's one thing I've learned, it's that life's pleasures are best enjoyed when combined. Sex and fishing doesn't really work that well, I hear, but chocolate milk and whiskey? That's ideal. Go together swimmingly, they do. And guess what? I'll bet this would make a really good hot drink. Just pour everything into a coffee mug, pop it into the microwave, then sprinkle the nutmeg on top. There, I did a hot drink after all...

this damn novel

I don't know if I've mentioned this properly, but I'm an aspiring novelist. I've been writing ever since I was a pre-teen, mostly tongue-in-cheek poems and short stories about animals. Then, after I got to college, I realized two things: (a) I really couldn't stand advanced chemistry, and therefore probably couldn't be a zoologist; and (b) I actually really enjoyed writing. I began to wonder if I could do it for a living, in fact. I liked to write, and I liked animals, and science, and people, and culture...and I loved to travel, see new places and describe them floridly. Why not?

So I switched my major to journalism, got my degree, and set out on the road to become a travel writer. But even before that, the writer's madness began to take hold. My imagination has always been overactive. I read ravenously as a child and was instilled not only with the capacity to create fantasy-worlds from the whirling darkness of my mind, but also to put them on paper in an intriguing way. And so the short stories took shape. They were awful, undoubtedly. The writing may have been above average, but the plots were thin and the premises ludicrous. I wrote an entire novelette in high school about a family of nurse sharks who migrated across the perilous ocean floor to a new home in a secure reef. (Needless to say, it was inspired by Watership Down.)

When I was 19, something finally resembling an original idea began to coalesce in my head. An idealist. Yeah, there's this dissatisfied idealist. Unhappy with his lot, see? Working a dead-end job. Going nowhere, slowly. Him and his best buddy, both. And then what do they find out? They're reincarnated from history's heroes. The souls of humanity's most famous warriors, leaders and tricksters are bound up inside them. These two guys are privy to these famous men's powers, fighting prowess, intelligence, cleverness, and charisma.

The story underwent several permutations. At first, my two protagonists discovered a time-machine and became sort of like time-traveling private investigators. That didn't last too long. It's a rip-off, for one thing. There's half a dozen original Star Trek episodes just like that, not to mention that Sci-Fi Channel series TimeCop. I also wasn't happy with the realistic side of things, either. My idealist (let's call him Protagonist Number One, and his buddy Protagonist Number Two) was working in an antique clock shop in Los Angeles, inherited from his deceased parents. That coincidence seemed a little too corny. So I scrapped it.

I'm paranoid about plagiarism, so I won't say much about the plot of the story as it stands now. I will say that the theme is now post-apocalyptic. A global time disaster sucks these two guys in and spews them onto a new world, where (armed with their new-found metaphysical powers), they pursue their fortunes. The plot roughly parallels human history (beginning with ancient Sumer, hence all the stuff I've been reading about old Mesopotamia). I've got some rather weighty things to say about human civilization and social behavior along the way, too. Protagonists 1 and 2 will acquire a motley bunch of supporting characters over time, all of whom have something to contribute to the story (literally and allegorically). It's going to be a great adventure, a little bit preachy, grandiose, captivating, lucid, funny, rip-roaring, swashbuckling, touching, and all those other things that my favorite adventure novels and fantasy epics are.

Now, I've actually finished writing the damn thing. It's been sitting in my top desk drawer for months. Why could that be? I love writing. I love this story I've created with all my heart. I think other people are going to love it, too. So why am I hesitating yet again?

I'm scared. I'm scared of that manuscript. I know exactly how Victor felt when he looked down upon the monster he'd sewed together from corpses, and it opened its watery yellow eyes and grinned at him. I've created a monster. It's grown into something much larger than I thought it would. I think it could be great. But there's the terrifying thought that, after my editing is done, it might not be great. I want this to come out perfect, or as near to perfect as possible. And I'm not sure I can do it. And even if it gets to the point where I think it's good, and have grown as fond of it as a proud father of his child, and send it out into the world to seek its fortunes...where's the guarantee that other people will like it? What if they hate it? Or sweet mother of sassafras, what if they love it? What if it becomes the biggest thing since Harry Potter? What if this thing transcends genres, age groups, sexes, borders? What if the entire planet likes it? What if it becomes so popular that ravening fan groups on the Internet begin breathing down my neck for endless sequels?

All of these fears and apprehensions torment me daily—whenever I open that top drawer and see that manuscript sitting there, grinning at me with water yellow eyes. I'm afraid of imperfection, I'm afraid of failure, and I'm afraid of success.

But you know what? I've decided not to care anymore. I've waited long enough. I want to see people's eyes light up when they read this story, the way mine do. I want to get this thing revised, accepted, printed, published.

So I finally unleashed it from the desk drawer two weeks ago. It sat on my nightstand for two weeks, just sort of "airing out," as I told myself. But today, after a long bout of late-night soul searching the previous evening (during which tears were shed, Coldplay was listened to, mournful pamphlets written, and morose epigrams dispensed on Facebook)...

Today, after four years of daydreaming, writing, ripping, tearing, destroying, rewriting, rethinking, and reworking...

Today, after four months of equivocating, stalling, hiding, cowering, rationalizing, hemming and hawing...

Today I picked that manuscript up, sat down on my bed, and had a look at Chapter One.

And you know what? I reworked it. I rewrote some bits that other people had said weren't working. I switched some stuff around. I changed some information. I refined, expanded, revised, expounded, redid. My heart swelled with every word. And I got it done. The long-awaited second edit of the Postman's very first novel has commenced. It's not the last edit, certainly not. But it's a start. It's the first step down the long, leery, hardscrabble, soul-scouring road of revision. At the end lies the publication process, itself a trial, but the next link in the chain to everlasting glory.

I'm sitting here, typing this, that exhilarated feeling pounding through my torso, feeling like I've just run a marathon or survived the final round of a trivia contest. I'm on cloud nine. This feels good. I don't know why I waited this long. I ought to be ashamed of myself. Since when have I ever cared what other people think? Life's scary. So what? Overcoming uncertainties isn't easy. Who cares? That's how you're supposed to live life: conquering insecurity, dealing with uncertainty, and learning from your mistakes. I don't care if I get critiqued. I'll take whatever harsh edits my friends and editors throw at me, and use them to better the final product. The criticisms of the audience I'll use as ammunition against error in ensuing works.

I don't mean to be a name-dropper, but there are a few people who said what I want to say before I did, and I want to give them their due. It was Winston Churchill who gave us what is now my new favorite quote:

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things."

Henry Ford had something else pithy to contribute:

"Whether you think you can or think you can't—you are right."

And it was Eleanor Roosevelt, bless her, who stated:

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent."

I don't care if people say this is the single greatest flop in the history of literature. I'm going to fix it. I'm going to finish it. And I'm going to do my best with it. Then I'll sleep easy.

At least I'll have tried.

Dad's luck

People often tell me I'm a lucky man. And when I say "people," I'm obviously talking about my mother. She watches me as I bumble my way through life, dodging this, ducking that, running headlong into the other, always somehow finding my way out of a jam. (Or, as happens more often, having the way out dropped into my lap.) She always shakes her head and says, "Well, Andrew, you certainly inherited your father's luck." Apparently, Dad does the same thing. He and I just roll through life, sanguine as you please, and when disaster strikes, we have to scramble to rebuild the dike. But we manage it somehow, either by hook or by crook. Pop even jokes to Ma that his middle name is "Damage Control." Looking at some of the tight spots I've been in, I can't help but think Dad's passed something on to me resembling chronic good fortune. But there's no use denying it any longer. I'm broke. Not quite flat broke, to be sure; I have enough money for maybe two months' rent, if I was living in an apartment. Possibly three, if I was in a cardboard box by the reservoir. So when I finally decided two nights ago that, yes, my computer had picked up a virus, my motherly caring side naturally wasn't the first on the scene. Nice going, bozo, my inner accountant groused. How you gonna pay for this? You might have to hawk those Monty Python DVDs after all. And ya thought you were out of the woods... I gave it my best shot. I deleted all my temporary Internet files. I ran Ad-Aware and AVG, my anti-spyware and anti-virus programs respectively. Nothing doing. The virus was still in there somewhere. My folks happened to have a copy of Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 lying around, so I installed that and gave it a go. It detected the virus, but it couldn't delete it: it kept freezing up. Well, shoot. I heaved a sigh, got up the next morning, and took my poor abused Toshiba into town to be fixed. Repairs would have cost me $200, which, as I've already pointed out, I don't have. It was right about then that a small dose of my genetically-enhanced luck kicked in. As I am standing in front of the repair counter, filling out the paperwork to have my laptop diagnosed and cleaned, my brand-new cell phone starts ringing. I put down the pen and answer it. It's my best buddy John, whose house I am going to for a barbecue later in the evening. He actually works at the same computer repair shop where I've taken my laptop. He's not there, though; he's home. He has strep throat, but he hasn't called off the party. He just wants to remind me that I don't have to bring any side dishes; he's got it covered. Bring a bottle if I so desire; he's got Scotch and beer out the wazoo. I say okay, thank him, hang up, and keep filling out paperwork. I finish the forms and hand them to the repair person. Just as she's beginning to fill in fields on her computer screen, my cell phone rings again. It's Dad. He wants to know what's wrong with my computer. I tell him that I've only just finished the paperwork, and diagnostics haven't commenced yet. I'll call him back when I hear anything. Dad says okay, and we hang up. The repair woman is almost finished filling in those fields, and is about to lay hands on my laptop and start plugging in wires, when my phone rings again. It's John. It's loud in the store and I can barely make out what he's saying, but I do catch a few revolutionary words: "...bring your computer over to my house and I'll fix it." I don't remember exactly what I said in reply. My mind had gone somewhat blank. Accepting $200 of repair fees and then finding out you're reprieved five minutes later...that pulls the rug out from under your brain, so to speak. I stammered a thank you, thought up some feeble excuse for the repair lady ("Uh, can we hold on for a moment? I've just thought of something else I might try"), and boogied. The expression "weight lifted from one's shoulders" gets tossed around a tad excessively these days. It's lost its power as a result. As I stepped out of the shop into the bright winter sun, I realized how powerful it truly was. I felt, quite literally, as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. There was a little extra spring to my step, a noticeable lightness in my innards. I wouldn't have to spend $200. That wasn't as good as being in love, true. But whew anyway. Shopping for a bottle for John's party was all the sweeter. In the end, I settled on some tequila and margarita mix. Who says you can't have margaritas in January, anyway? I ask ya, who? I went home and dumped some stuff off (including that long sought-after library copy of The Epic of Gilgamesh). Then I drove back to John's house with my diseased computer. He popped in a repair CD, ran some programs, isolated the virus, and killed it. Then (over the course of the party) we ran some more scans and tests. Both of us pronounced the machine cured at a quarter to two, after a spotty all-night vigil. Maybe Dad's karma rubbed off on me when he called right before John did? Who knows? Thanks to the help of a friend, I was able to get the dang virus off the computer for free. John, you're a lifesaver. I take back what I said about you being a square because you won't go to Australia with me. And I got to party in between the scans we ran, too. Beat that for luck.

it's raining again

Any of my readers in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, or other points east—you know who you are—will probably identify with the weather report I'm about to give. It's been raining for three days straight. You've likely seen it on the news. SoCal is getting battered by a string of powerful storms. I'm lucky I don't live down the hill in the Los Angeles Basin; they're dealing with winds of 70-80 miles per hour, gusting to 90. The torrential rains have sparked concerns about flooding and mudslides. Several neighborhoods are under evacuation orders, including some that were evacuated in the Station Fire back in 2009. Up here in the High Desert, somewhat sheltered from the Pacific's fury by the San Bernardino Mountains, things have still been hectic. Back on Sunday I helped my elderly neighbors Donna and Joanie dig a trench across the road between our houses. The weather then was deceptively bright, sunny, and clement. We live in the foothills, and we're on a slope. Corto Road goes roughly north, down the hill, past my house on the corner, and bends west at a right angle to become Laramie Street, which runs in front of my house. Donna and Joanie's house is across from mine, on Laramie. When it rains, the sandy soil can't absorb even a slight amount, and Corto Road becomes a veritable river. The water typically rushes down Corto, straight across Laramie and onto Donna and Joanie's property. They were digging a trench to divert the flow across Corto into the natural drainage on the other side. Their fence was getting undercut by the rain. So they built a dam across the water's usual path, and, with my assistance, excavated a spillway. When the rains began coming on Monday, the trench I'd spent 45 minutes lovingly hacking didn't even get wet. Thanks to a natural dip in Corto Road, almost all of the water was diverted. I know this because I went outside (in howling 50 mile-per-hour winds, stinging rain, and 40-degree temperatures) to check it. I also spent a few minutes excavating more spillways to divert the remaining flow away from Donna and Joanie's property. Between that and the dam they'd built, their fence stayed dry. I didn't. I was soaked to the skin when I got back inside. But I didn't mind. The exercise had kept me warm, and it felt good to actually feel what the weather was like instead of look at it through a window. The rains slackened in the evening. Mom, Dad and I piled into the truck and went out to see the sights. Milpas Road, the main thoroughfare in or out of my neighborhood, had transformed into a torrent as it always did. We had a bumpy ride down the hill. Holes had been drilled into the soft sand, and entire banks cut and sculpted out of minor vagaries in the road's surface. Monday evening was beautiful. The first storm passed, the clouds broke up, the sun splashed a few rays over the valley just before it submerged, and a beautiful evening took shape. Tuesday's storm wasn't as fierce as Monday's, even despite some thunder and lightning that sent us scrambling to unplug modems and turn off computers. It was insidious nonetheless, though. It came with a thick fog that blanketed the entire valley, even obscuring the nearby mountaintops behind my house. The rain turned into freezing rain, and then into sloppy snow. When the fog finally rolled back a few hours later, there was a dusting of white on everything, and the mountains were adorned with a fresh coat. Today is Wednesday. It's been raining all day in Apple Valley. Up here in the foothills above town, it began about eleven or so. I ran outside to cleanse the backyard of dog droppings before water started coming down. The storm was preceded by the same ferocious winds, but unlike Monday, they died down before the rains. It's now been pouring for six hours straight. I can't tell you how odd this is. In this rain shadow desert, the mountains usually block the ocean's precipitation from getting up here. When the rain does come, it's usually a few turbulent sprinkles, no more. A sustained rain is something I haven't experienced since Korea or Tennessee. Both Corto and Laramie are impersonating the Mississippi River now. (I'm looking at Laramie now as I write this.) I can see halfway across the valley; the rest is obscured by fog. I can almost make out the silhouette of the Granite Mountains through the muted grayness. It's beginning to get dark; the sun is likely sinking below the horizon now. Still the rain falls, dripping noisily off the red tile roof onto the sidewalk outside my window. The only good part about this is that I get to experience this before any of you do. Ha-ha. Suckers.

progress, or lack thereof

In the days since I began this ersatz hiatus, I've applied for four jobs; taken about six practice tests for my final pilot's exam (five of which I've miserably flunked); and memorized coffee drinks for Lesson 6—now I just have to learn the wine drinks.

I've progressed not one inch further with the second edit of the novel, let alone the furlong I was hoping for.

I haven't written anything else of substance: short stories, science fiction, even travel articles.

You'd think with a year-long sojourn in the Orient under my belt I would've come up with more than two articles. Maybe I'm lazier than I thought. Or just scared, I don't know. It's frustrating as hell either way. I keep promising to kick this hesitation and yet I haven't. I seem to be hesitant to stop hesitating.

I reckon I'll get my head on straight here soon. I'd better. My money's almost gone, my prospects are nonexistent, and there's a wedding in England I need to get to in June. I'll keep you posted... No, wait! I'm supposedly still on hiatus, blast it all! Bad Postman! Bad, bad Postman! No biscuit! Bad blogger! Sit...stay...staaaaaaaaay...

a windfall

Well, shoot. That hiatus didn't last too long, did it? Fuhgeddaboudit. I've got two good reasons for violating blogger parole. Number one, I'm trying this whole "post labels" thing. For some unexplained reason, it seems that they won't show up on my posts if I add them in retroactively. So I'm creating this post with labels, and adding it onto the blog to see if they'll show up then. If they don't, there's something rotten in Denmark, and I'll know about it. Second, I have a story to tell you. So there I am, sitting in my easy chair, trying to absorb certain key principles of aerodynamics. There's a baleful, blasting rainstorm pounding around outside. It's a nasty, wet, windy afternoon. Without warning, Dad comes into the room. He has a small cardboard box in his arms. He deposits it on the floor and says, "Hey, I found these books in the garage. Think you might have any use for 'em?" He has me at "books." I throw my flight school textbook aside and bend forward to examine the box. It's filled with ten faded, dog-eared, worn volumes. Here's the manifest:

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
• A Separate Peace by John Knowles
• Flying Saucers - Serious Business by Frank Edwards
• The People's Almanac #3 by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace
• The Reivers by William Faulkner
• The Boston Strangler by Gerold Frank
• Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
• On the Nature of the Universe by Lucretius
• Six Great Modern Short Novels

Pages are bent. Covers are stained, torn or missing. Dust blankets everything. The cardboard box once held twelve bottles of Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve. In other words, it's a veritable treasure trove, an unbelievable haul. Just when I was wondering what I was going to read after The Epic of Gilgamesh, Pop drops ten unexplored books on my rug. One of them has six novels in it. Another deals with UFOs. I love UFOs; don't believe in 'em, but I love 'em. A third is a reference book that was written to be read for pleasure. If you knew me as well as I do you'd realize just how appropriate that book is for me. Several of the books are classics. One is a scientific treatise written by a materialist poet nearly 2000 years ago. Another was authored by William Faulkner, a purportedly great author, whom I've never read before and have always meant to. Most of the books concern subjects which I know absolutely nothing about. And I have never read any of them. My excitement cannot be understated. Needless to say, there are going to be some jolly good book reviews on the way very soon. And as if that wasn't enough sympathetic magic for one day, I just recently learned that Hunter S. Thompson and I apparently have similar taste in bourbon. We are both fans (or perhaps I should say "I am and he was a fan") of Old Crow. Now, if it turns out that Wiley Post liked a whiskey sour, I might just die of empathy.

hiatus take

Say that three times fast and you'll get it. This post pertains mostly to the "hiatus" part, however. It is with mingled sorrow, chagrin, and determination that I must announce my temporary withdrawal from the blogsphere. It has recently come to my attention that I have other, much more pressing matters to attend to, and that the two hours daily I spend on Blogger would be better spent attending to them. So I'm afraid I shall be going off the air until further notice. I shall hate to miss all the lovely posts on people's blogs, and will endeavor to continue reading and commenting on other people's stuff. But I myself shall break with blogging altogether for the moment. I daresay I've become addicted to it, or at the very least, complacent enough to devote a large part of my energies to it. (I've done at least one post a day since January 5th; that should tell me something right there.) That's got to change. So until I learn to balance my other obligations with moderate blogging, I'm signing off. I crave your indulgence for this unexpected vacancy. Goodbye.

grammar time

Writing, they say, is more interesting when you shake up your sentence structure. You know, vary sentence length, and begin each sentence with a different type of word, if possible. You may not have noticed, but I've been attempting to do that for the past week. I've tried to commence every post with a different type of word. This post begins with the word "writing": a gerund, yes, but technically a noun. However, yesterday's last post (cocktail review no. 28) began with an article, "a." Before that, random travel destinations kicked off with a conjunction, and School of Hooch (the second round) commenced with a pronoun. Looks like I've avoided falling into a rut so far... Let's keep going back. The last installment of recommended reading starts with a verb, "hadn't." Cocktail review no. 27 starts out with a noun (a great favorite of mine, "humdinger"). Prior to that, in the Pima Air Museum begins with a noun, "I." The post before those (I sez "Chiricahua") starts with a verb, "can." S.A.S.S. and the city begins with a proper noun, "Dad." And the post before that one (across the river and into the cactus) begins with a contraction, "I'm"! Let's take a look at the post before that, champagne and cinnamon rolls. It begins with the word "like." Very versatile word, "like"; a word which can be used for all sorts of stuff. In this case, though, it's used as a preposition in a comparison (I think). Cocktail review no. 26 begins with an adverb! Huzzah! I was hoping one of those would make it in. It's pronounced "twenty-ten" begins with the word "so," which is another versatile word. Seeing as how it connects the title with the first sentence, however, thereby forming a compound sentence, the word "so" functions as a conjunction. Well, that's a bit of variety for you! So let's recap here: 1/5: conjunction 1/6: adverb 1/7 : preposition 1/8 : contraction 1/9 : proper noun 1/10: verb 1/11: noun 1/12: noun 1/13: verb 1/14 (1): pronoun 1/14 (2): conjunction 1/14 (3): article 1/17: gerund (okay, okay, noun; I just like the word "gerund") Except for that little slew of nouns and pronouns there, I'd say I'm doing pretty well. The reason I began keeping track of this, in fact, was because it seemed like most of my posts began with some form of the word "I." I didn't like that. I don't like it when every sentence starts out with the word "I." I think it makes it seem like it's all about me, doesn't it? I can't condone that. I think you might feel the same way. I feel that it might be pretty boring and tedious just sifting through a bunch of posts that start with the word "I," don't you? I wouldn't want to do that. I'd hate it. I'd hate every minute of it. I probably wouldn't ever come back to that blog again, ever. I wouldn't think the person in charge of writing that blog was a very good writer if he began every sentence with the word "I." I would tend to think he's a raging egomaniac. I would say he would've been better off being a modern artist or something fluffy like that. I'd tell him to go get his jollies out elsewhere and not bother the rest of us with his self-centered prattling. I would. I think you should be careful to avoid stumbling into that pitfall. I'd do that if I were you. Or would I?

cocktail review no. 28 - Scotch Mist

A word to the wise: Scotch needn't be diluted. It's good stuff. It can and should stand on its own. Tincture it with another flavor or two, but don't bury it under fruit juices and mixers. Let it shine. Consider this drink, for example.

• 2½ ounces Scotch
• crushed ice
• 1 lemon twist

Pour the Scotch into a shaker half-filled with crushed ice. Shake well. Pour, unstrained, into an old-fashioned glass. Garnish with the lemon twist. That's all there is to it. It's just Scotch and bit of lemon. And because the ice is crushed, it melts faster, meaning what you end up with is basically a Scotch and water, with lemon. Or, coming at it from another angle, it's like a Scotch sour, without the sugar. Either way, it's mighty fine. Just be sure that you have good Scotch, because that's what you'll be tasting mostly. I used Cutty Sark, which I'd never tried before. I'm happy to report that it's dynamite. I like it almost as much as J&B, and that's saying something. It's only a blended Scotch, sure, but those are better for mixing. Mixing a single malt Scotch whisky would be nothing short of blasphemy, sacrilege. And don't you forget it. Oh, and before you try this drink, you may want to make sure that you actually LIKE Scotch, period. Keep that in mind and enjoy. Oh, and one more thing. This is almost too freaky. First I write about a foggy, windswept Scottish island; and by some quirk of fate, my next cocktail review concerns a drink called "Scotch mist." Life is scary-cum-wonderful sometimes, isn't it?

random travel destinations - Scotland

If you've ever been tempted to go to the ends of the earth, here's your chance. I knew the name of the Hebrides, but never really attached any importance to it...not until the latest issue of National Geographic came out with some truly jaw-dropping photographs of the place, that is. The Hebrides are a cluster of roughly 500 islands off the coast of Scotland. They're a rough place to live. It's land's end, literally. Beyond them there's nothing but the wild, savage North Atlantic. Battered by storms and powerful winds, the Hebrides have an unsurprisingly low population. Indeed, villagers on the most remote archipelago, St. Kilda, were all evacuated in 1930...by their own request. Sheep and seagulls are the only living tenants on some islands. Even despite the hardships, the Hebrides have been inhabited since the Stone Age. Celts, Vikings, Scots and Englishmen have fought over the place for time out of mind. On the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, there lies a small village named Callanish. Not far from this village stands a mysterious cross-shaped monument of stone, the Callanish Stones, made up of a bunch of jagged pillars 11-15 feet tall. The Callanish Stones date back almost four thousand years. That's about the same time Stonehenge was put up, just a little ways south on the Salisbury Plain in England. The Stones could predate Egypt's Great Pyramid. The Bronze Age began in China around 2000 B.C., and the Minoans built a grand palace on the island of Crete at about the same time. They called it Knossos, and its basement would go on to fame and glory as the mythical lair of the terrible Minotaur. In other words, this was a long, long time ago. These are very old islands. Some of the rocks on the western shores of the Hebrides remember the days when North America and Greenland broke off from Europe and went floating away across a the newborn Atlantic Ocean, 60 million years ago. And the rocks that make up the Callanish Stones are estimated to be three billion years old. Those rocks have seen it all, make no mistake. If you're interested in a place that's wild, mist-cloaked, storm-drenched, rocky, hilly, cavernous, open, unforgiving, older than life itself, and so harsh that humans have been failing to inhabit it for 5,000 years...Scotland's Hebrides might be what you seek.

School of Hooch (the second round)

You might be wondering exactly how bartender's school is going. I haven't blogged about it in a while, because, frankly, I only go two days out of the week, and not much happens. I go, I listen to a lesson or two, I practice for a while, take the time-test that I've studied for, and then go home. If I'm lucky enough to get out by 3:30, I can beat the traffic home on the 15. (I run the gauntlet on my way back north: I have to pass the interchanges at the CA-60, Interstate 10, and the 210. Traffic never fails to stack up around these interchanges during rush hour; when it gets really bad, I can spend an extra 30-45 minutes getting home. If I get out before 3:30, though, traffic usually isn't heavy enough to cause problems.) I'd like to share some more details about this school, the people there, what my routine is, and what my progress has been. That is if you're interested. The first thing you see when you come inside the Riverside Bartender's School is the job placement center, which consists of a room with a table and a phone. You can see what's inside this room because there's a plate-glass window in the wall. To the right is the instructor's office. To the left is a big overstuffed couch, facing away from you. Looking further to the left, you see the schoolroom itself; stepping down from the entryway onto a red and black tile floor, you enter it. It's a long, semicircular bar, shaped like a backwards L with a serif at the tip. Ranged behind this bar, at intervals, are several intoxicating (pun intended) collections of bottles, all shapes and sizes, filled with colored water. Behind the bar is what you'd normally expect to find there: sinks, faucets, ice boxes (known as "jockey boxes"), wells with standard liquors, mixers next to the jockey boxes, drain boards, coffeepots, blenders, and a whole bunch of neat stuff. On top of the bar are the tools of the trade: shakers, jiggers, mixing spoons, mixing glasses, strainers, garnishes (plastic, of course, for teaching purposes), and other implements. All are arranged cleanly and neatly. There's even a computer with a POS program running, so you can practice with that. Students sign in when they walk in the door, to keep track of how many hours they've studied. Generally it takes about 100 hours to complete the course. I don't know how many it's taken me so far, but I'm probably in the 40-50 hour range, because I've done with 4 out of 10 time-tests. That is to say, I've sat for the lessons; made flashcards out of the drink recipes; practiced with these flashcards at home until I've memorized the drinks; come to school and practiced making the drinks in under six minutes; and then had one of the instructors time me and sign me off for the lesson. I was startled, thoroughly startled, by the variety of people who are interested in being bartenders. I've seen gray-haired ladies studying flashcards at the desks; tattooed fellows with untucked shirts beyond count; glamor girls with perfect hair, a surfeit of makeup, and nails that would frighten small children; clean-cut collegiate-looking young men; sweatshirt-clad girls in tennis shoes, looking for something exciting; and many others. I've talked with a few of these folks. Some of them were born as far away as South Dakota or Long Island. Lots of them had dreams that didn't quite work out the way they'd planned. So here they are, in Southern California, the glitz capital of America, learning the ways of hooch. Must be a world away from what they're familiar with. I only wish I had the time to sit down and interview them all. I'll bet there's a really good novel in it somewhere. I started out on Lesson 4, two-liquor drinks (rusty nails, godfathers, sombreros, and so forth). It was pretty easy. I actually was able to mix all twelve drinks on the time-test in under four minutes. Then I moved to Lesson 1, cream drinks. That was harder. You don't just pour cream drinks. You actually have to shake and strain them, and chill a stemmed glass while you do. It takes a bit of practice to get the motions right. But I passed that lesson with little trouble. The most recent tests I took (Monday) were from Lesson 2, highballs and mixed drinks. Yes, I said tests, plural. Lesson 2 is a big one. There are 39 drinks to memorize, so many that the time-test is actually split into two sets. You have to make one set of twelve drinks in under six minutes; and then mix the second set of twelve drinks in under six minutes, too. You don't have to do the tests back-to-back, but you must pass both to pass Lesson 2. That's why I went to school on Monday instead of my usual Friday or Saturday. Monday through Thursday the school is open from 10-10. I figured that would give me enough time to practice for and take both tests. I was right. After about three hours I took Set 1. I made sure the orange juice (a storm pourer filled with orange-tinted water) and my ice box were both filled up, and called an instructor over. She sat across the bar from me, looking amicable enough. She hit the "start" button on the timer and said, "Melon ball." I snatched the collins glass, bent down, and scooped a precise amount of ice cubes into it (as I'd practiced endlessly). Straightening in a flash, I grabbed the vodka bottle from the well, counting to four as I poured (thus adding a precise ounce of vodka to the drink). I deftly replaced the vodka, snatched the orange juice, and filled the glass almost to the top. I turned 'round, laid hold of the Midori, picked up the mixing spoon, and prepared to float a half-ounce of melon liqueur. Tanya gently lifted the spoon out of my hands. "Just pour in a circle," she reminded me. A little red-faced, I did as ordered. And there was the melon ball, orange and green, looking ready-to-imbibe. I saw Tanya make a little note on the test sheet in front of her: 28 seconds. I was two seconds ahead of schedule already. Yes! "Salty dog," Tanya said. Rocks glass, salt on the rim (pretend; we don't actually have salt at school), ice, an ounce of vodka, fill with grapefruit juice. Fifty seconds. "Bacardi Dark and Coke." Highball glass, ice, an ounce of rum, fill with Coke (again, pretend Coke; it's just dark-colored water that comes out of the speed gun). One minute nine seconds. "Old-fashioned." Ah, this one had been especially tricky to memorize. Old-fashioned glass, orange wedge, sugar cube, cherry (again, all plastic), splash of tonic, two dashes bitters, mash. Add ice, one ounce of bourbon, cherry on top. Minute thirty-nine. And so it went: a baybreeze, a slow comfortable screw, a tequila sunset, a Bloody Mary, an Absolut madras, a C.C. Presbyterian, a Freddy Fudpucker, and finally a Californian. Final time? Five minutes and two seconds. I'd beaten the time limit by nearly a minute, even with such nightmarishly complex drinks as old-fashioneds and Bloody Marys. I was euphoric, and glad I'd taken the time to hit the flashcards so hard, and practice for a few hours before taking the test. That allowed me to memorize not only the drink recipes but also the different glasses necessary for each. "Good job," Tanya said, signing me off. Okay, one down, one to go. I immediately got out the flashcards for the second set and began to practice it. I was relieved to discover that it was a lot easier than the first set. Mostly highballs. It took me barely half an hour to get to where I felt comfortable taking the test. Wade, the school's owner, came over to test me this time. One fuzzy navel, tequila sunrise, seven and seven, Harvey Wallbanger, Stoli screwdriver, Crown Royal and water, Beefeater and tonic, Cuba Libre, sex on the beach, Cutty Sark and soda, Cape Cod, and Gold Driver later, I had passed Lesson 2. Final time: four minutes and one second. Feel free to bask in my awesomeness. The only lesson I haven't sat for is Lesson 3 (the triumvirate of the martini, Manhattan, and Rob Roy). It's widely acknowledged as the hardest lesson, too, I hear. Lessons 5 and 7 are both two-parters like Lesson 2; I might leave them for now and let my brain recuperate. So I think I'll start memorizing Lesson 6, coffee and wine drinks. Then when I go in next on the 20th (to sit for Lesson 3) I can also get the time test for Lesson 6 knocked off, and be exactly halfway done with bartender's school. Wish me luck.

recommended reading

Hadn't realized it, but I've gotten into a pattern here with these literature posts. I talk about one book that I've finished, another book that I'm in the middle of, and a third that I'm just beginning. This strikes me as a brilliant way of doing things. Not only do I get to stick three book reviews in one post, but after three posts I'll have deftly reviewed a single book in its entirety. I am the man. I wish I could say I'd planned to do things that way. I am the (accidental) man. Anyway, straight into it: I finished The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov. You remember how I said this guy was supposedly a genius? Forget the "supposedly" part. I've never read a book like this. It was beyond excellent, beyond mind-blowing, a masterwork of social commentary, intricate plot-weaving, and jaw-dropping speculative science fiction. Gosh, where do I begin? I know, we'll start with the title. It's a quote from a dramatic play by German playwright and poet Friedrich Schiller, The Maid of Orleans: "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." One of the major themes of The Gods Themselves is stupidity, the selfish stubbornness of people who enjoy the status quo and would rather go on living their comfortable lives than face up to reality. What reality is that, you ask? A few years after our time, science made an accidental discovery. Some old cobalt shavings that had been left moldering in a test tube suddenly and mysteriously transformed themselves into tungsten. There was no logical reason why cobalt (in a sealed test tube) should transform into tungsten. Moreover, it was an isotope of tungsten that could not possibly exist in our universe: it had an unstable number of electrons that should have forced the tungsten atoms to explode in mere nanoseconds. But it didn't. This strange happenstance led humankind to a startling revelation: beings in a universe adjacent to our own, a para-universe, had somehow perfected a technique whereby the electrons from one universe could be transferred into another, and vice-versa. Not only that, but the scientific laws which govern the behavior of matter in the para-universe may also be transferred, and vice-versa. This not only allowed our cobalt to be turned into their (the para-men's) tungsten, but for that tungsten to remain viable in our universe instead of exploding. Thus the Electron Pump was born: a source of limitless free energy, whereby electrons were shuttled back and forth between universes, freeing humanity of fossil fuels and deprivation forever. The man on whose desk those old cobalt shavings had once sat (named Hallam) was elevated to godlike status, and the Pump enabled humans to drop their petty concerns about food and energy and instead focus on higher pursuits. But a dark shadow looms over this newborn utopia, a terrible truth: the strange natural laws seeping from the para-universe into our own will cause our sun to explode. What's worse, only three people have realized it: an outcast Earth scientist, an emotional alien on a dying planet, and a Moon-born intuitionist. And honestly, who is going to believe them? Who will be willing to set aside the benefits and bonuses of the Electron Pump and listen to their seemingly harebrained theorems? How will these three misfits ever overcome the complacent stupidity of the people around them? The trials, tribulations, and terrors of these three individuals as each tries to save Earth are worth reading about. This is an amazing book, as I've said before. Asimov was intimately familiar with the science of which he wrote, and he writes it with authority and straightforwardness, without over-simplification. What's more, he was a brilliant writer, able to interweave three delightfully unique and complex plots into one cohesive story. His writing is perhaps best, however, because it smacks so heavily of the truth: people really can be this stupid. People can and routinely do shut their eyes to unpleasant truths and insist on plowing straight ahead, even while the ship sinks beneath them. (There's a further bit of cleverness manifested in the way Asimov orders his book's chapters, but I won't mention that here. You'll just have to read and see.) The Gods Themselves has cemented my love of Isaac Asimov, and pushed me even further down the dark road to Golden Age science fiction. Even if you're not the biggest sci-fi fan, read this book. You won't soon regret it. It's a damn good read. Speaking of plowing straight ahead, I am continuing my slog through Little Women. I say "slog" not because it's an unpleasant read—far from it—but rather because the book itself is longer than any I've read in a while. It's taking me a long time to get through it, especially when I have things like The Gods Themselves lying around (sue me). I've progressed through four little vignettes, each concerning one of the March girls. I read with delight about Beth's battle with her fear of old Mr. Laurence, and her joy in playing the big piano in his conservatory, and the touching friendship that developed between the two. I read about poor little Amy's humiliating school day, regarding some contraband pickled limes and a stuffy schoolmaster. Heart pounding, I read about Jo's mean-spirited treatment of Amy, her immediate remorse when Amy fell through the ice (yikes!) and Mrs. March's tender and magnanimous bedtime advice. I read about Meg's trip to see friends, and the airs she put on, and the lessons she took from being a poor girl with a good family. I also read, chuckling, about the Pickwick Club and the joint March-Laurence post office. This book has ensnared me, mind and soul. It's enchanting, not only for the funny stories, the emotional warmth to the characters, their loving relationships with each other, and the age-old trials of adolescence...but also for its sheer simplicity. That's one of the greatest things about Alcott's writing, in fact. It's just so dang simple. She just tells the story. Her diction might be a bit erudite for children these days (which isn't a bad thing), but that's not important. The simple joke that Jo and Laurie play on the Pickwick Club (Laurie hiding in the closet, listening to the Club debate about his own membership); the description of the Moffets' dance (girls fluttering about like butterflies, boys making fools of themselves), the schoolmaster Mr. Davis "suppressing a private post-office" (stopping the students from passing notes)...all of it is so funny, so real, so true, so heartwarming, so familiar...and yet so simply described. It's a joy to read. I really can't wait to see where this goes. It's enrapturing already. And I imagine it's only going to get better. Just wait until that post office in between the Laurence and the March houses starts carrying love letters... So, we have science fiction, historical fiction...what's a good way to top that off? Well, how about some more historical fiction? I've begun reading The Epic of Gilgamesh. Not quite what you were expecting, right? I'm reading it for research purposes (my novel has a great deal to do with ancient Sumer and Akkad; it's historical science fiction, after all). But I'm also reading it for fun. I know next to nothing about Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Assyria, and the roots from which these first civilizations sprang. And I love mythology. So it seemed like the oldest mythological piece in recorded history (and one of the oldest surviving writings of any kind at 4,000 years old) seemed a good place to begin. First, some background. There's some debate about who this Gilgamesh dude really was. Some say he was a real historical figure, a Sumerian king. Others say he was a god. The Epic of Gilgamesh says (c) both. It claims Gilgamesh was two-thirds god, one third-man, and ruled over the Sumerian people with an almighty fist. But he wasn't an ideal king. In fact, he had some rather glaring personality flaws. He liked to sleep around, even with newlywed brides. He got so promiscuous that the Sumerians prayed to the gods for help. So the gods created a wild-man, Gilgamesh's equal in strength, named Enkidu. They set him to run with the wolves in the forests and share his life with beasts. One of Gilgamesh's distraught subjects, on advice from the gods, takes the prostitute Shamhat and brings her to Enkidu. She and Enkidu get it on, and then (lo and behold) Enkidu suddenly is civilized. He can talk, think, and reason. Shamhat brings him to a caravan and has the shepherds train him in the ways of men: how to wear clothes and work for a living. Then she, the townsman, and Enkidu travel back to Gilgamesh's capital, Uruk. I'm reading Andrew George's translation of the standard Akkadian version, which is made up of twelve tablets. The original Sumerian version and the later Akkadian version differ in few respects, one of which is the way they refer to Gilgamesh himself. The original begins with the words "Surpassing all other kings..." whereas later versions refer to Gilgamesh as "He who saw the deep." Now, isn't that something you'd like carved on your tombstone? I'm about one tablet in, just starting on the second. The book itself is in the library right now, because I had to return it, but I'll run down and get it later today. Later, Enkidu and Gilgamesh will have a big fight, and become friends, and go on all sorts of hair-raising quests and whatnot. Enkidu will teach Gilgamesh some worldly lessons, and both will become better men for it. Ultimately, Gilgamesh will stare death in the face, and the question of humans and immortality will be decided. I can't wait. I'm ever so glad I have the time now to read for pleasure. It's gotten me back in touch with my literary side, my wordsmith side, my inner bibliophile whose version of Heaven is a never-ending library. And it seems like everything I pick out to read these days is worth reading. I don't know if it's because I know what I like, or because I'm easy to please, or what. But whatever the reason, I'll take it. I'll read anything if I think I can learn from it. The Gods Themselves not only proposed that stupidly clinging to the status quo is bad, but it also imparted some good lessons about truth and reality in science fiction writing. It reassured me that, with the proper application of knowledge and literary skill, science fiction is a credible literary genre. Little Women has taught me so many good life-lessons that it'd be impossible to reprint them all here. On a larger scale, the work gently informed me that writing doesn't have to be grandiose, sublime, or complex in order to be good. And The Epic of Gilgamesh is teaching me that all fables are parables, and human myths tell us something about ourselves...even if we do not last forever, the wisdom we garner in a lifetime does. It also showed me that, right from the very start, people valued literary artistry and integrity (and sex). Judge for yourself whether that constitutes a "worthwhile" read.

cocktail review no. 27 - Candle in the Window

Humdinger. That's the first word that came to mind when I began composing this entry in my head, like I usually do. I've picked a humdinger this time, folks. If you like coffee and booze, you're in for a real treat. Caffeine and alcohol in the same drink...the most natural thing in the world, I reckon. Why limit yourself to only one high?

• 2 ounces light rum
• 2 ounces bourbon
• 1 teaspoon crème de cacao
• 1 teaspoon cherry brandy
• 4 ounces hot coffee
• 2 ounces heavy cream

Pour the rum, bourbon, crème de cacao, cherry brandy, and coffee into an Irish coffee glass. Pour the cream carefully over the back of a spoon so that it floats on top of the drink. (Just as a side note, I now know exactly how to pour stuff over the back of a spoon and make it float on top of a drink. Dan taught us how to do it in bartender's school when he showed us how to make a B-52.) I have to say, this drink reminds of the Tom and Jerry, only without the spices and the smoothness afforded by whisked egg whites. Instead, there's the naked heat (ooh, sultry) and the tacit backing of the coffee. All this is overlaid by the surprisingly harmonious union of rum and bourbon, with just a hint of chocolate and cherry. (I couldn't hardly detect the latter two flavors, but I'm not exactly a cocktail connoisseur.) This thing will warm you up, regardless of what you think of the taste. Hot coffee and four ounces of hard liquor (plus two teaspoons of liqueur) will do that to you. Be warned, this thing packs a wallop. In short, I might consider having this drink again. I'm not the biggest fan of coffee, so I'm not the biggest fan of this drink (there's some litotes for you; I actually hate coffee). The CITW doesn't quite come up to the Tom and Jerry or even the mudslide (a cold drink) but it's good in its own right.

in the Pima Air Museum

...I found my destiny.

Well, nothing that corny, really. But I did get to fondle some of my favorite airplanes.

This is the entry I've been waiting for. Cowboy shooting, Apache hideouts, and coatimundis are all well and good, but in my book, vintage warbirds take the cake. Writing about this also gives me the chance to unload a great many gorgeous pictures on you poor suckers my lovely readers, too. So here we go.

After rising early yet again, and packing up the Hummer, and returning the bedding to Uncle Bob and Aunt Barb's trailer, and bidding them a warm goodbye, we got back on I-10 and headed back west. Forty miles later we were rolling into Tuscon. Neither Dad nor I forgot that we were going to the Pima Air Museum; we just neglected to keep a sharp eye out for the sign. So we missed the exit. A long detour and quite a few expletives later, we were pulling into the museum parking lot. Though the day was warm by my standards (probably in the high 60s), a vicious wind had leaped up. Fortunately I had my brand-new Tombstone hoodie on.
Admission was steep—$15.50 per person—but as soon as we'd stepped through the next set of doors and onto the gallery floor, I knew it was worth it. You should've seen the double-take I did when I saw this baby.
Waitaminnit, by brain said, tripping over itself, yanking open file cabinets and rifling through desk drawers. A Curtiss O-52 Owl? How long have those been around? I haven't got any documentation on 'em! This is the first I've heard of it!

It was a scout plane, one of the largest reconnaissance designs ever accepted by the Army Air Corps, developed in 1939. It had a .50-caliber machine gun in the back to help ward off fighters, but that was the last resort. This thing was no dogfighter. The Owl was mainly good for droning around all innocent-like and sneaking peeks at the enemy. I knew I was in for some good stuff now. I hadn't taken ten steps into this museum and already I'd bumped into a plane whose mere existence I hadn't even begun to suspect when I woke up that morning. Bubbling with anticipation, I pushed on. Say hello to my little friend! This is the Starr Bumble Bee, the absolute ding-dang smallest airplane ever thunk up. Its wingspan is a meager six feet six inches, and its range is just 20 miles. But it did what it was intended to do: break records. This thing is down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the smallest biplane ever built. (A year or so after Mr. Starr built it, somebody went and built a monoplane that was even smaller. I'd love to know how that thing stayed up.)

We saw Learjets...
...and autogyros...
...even a Hoppicopter (behind the autogryo in the previous photo)!
Now yer talkin'. Flying boats!
I love these things. Airplanes that can land on water. How cool is that?

This one here is a Grumman Widgeon. Grumman had a thing for naming its products after animals. Its line of propeller-driven fighter planes were all named after cats: Wildcat, Hellcat, Tigercat, Bearcat, etc. Its seaplanes were all named after (what else?) waterfowl. There's the Widgeon, the Mallard, the Goose, and finally, the coolest one of them all, the almighty, one-and-only, never-to-be-outdone Albatross.

Widgeons were widely used. One of them scored the very first Coast Guard submarine kill of World War II. Another was employed by an Arab king as his personal transport. Not a bad reference list for a little plane like this, eh? (Can you read the name on the side? Petulant Porpoise? Ha!)

Or how about this big boy, a Martin Mariner?
Not as handsome as the Consolidated Catalina, and not as sleek as the Dornier 111, but this mother got the job done: submarine hunting, reconnaissance, search-and-rescue, even nocturnal ship-sinking.
I want one of these. Badly. Oh, the things I could do with it. Imagine sitting up there in the cockpit, glass panels all around, high above the water, coasting along at a ridiculous speed, the hold full of something exotic and exciting, the gigantic bulk just lifting clear of the water, sun sparkling on the spray, those huge piston engines roaring, me in my leather jacket and aviator sunglasses, with a three-day beard and a fiendish grin, happy as a pig in you-know-what.

There's only one problem with that delicious daydream. This is the only surviving Mariner. The only one. The rest of them have all been destroyed, or scrapped, or have pieces missing. There is one other complete Mariner, but it's currently upside-down at the bottom of Lake Washington. It crashed there 50 years ago and, after several unsuccessful salvage attempts, it is now used as a training site for divers. (Thanks, Wikipedia.)

I was learning fast that the Pima Air & Space Museum is a veritable treasure trove of aviation history. Some of the rarest planes were there. A lot of them can't be found anywhere else in the entire world. It was easily the largest air museum I'd ever been in. Suddenly I understood why. I mean, what other air museum has both a B-18 and an SR-71, huh? I ask you, what other museum?
And if I thought the inside was sick, I was whistlin' Dixie. The outside was even better.
Recognize this plane? If you don't, don't worry. I didn't either. Most people who aren't retired Air Force probably wouldn't. This is a Boeing YC-14. It was conceived and constructed during the 1970s, and was intended to replace the C-130 Hercules. But it never caught on. It wasn't even mass-produced. The project got shut down. Weird plane, isn't it? You can see one of the two huge engine nacelles in the photo. Instead of four ordinary-size jet engines, the YC-14 apparently had two humongous big ones. Wikipedia says they were General Electric CF6-50D turbofans, each of which developed 51,000 pounds of thrust each. Whew, that's a quite a bit of thrust. (That's what she said.)
Those big engines make sense, though. The YC-14 was developed as an STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) aircraft. Big engines meant it could take off and land in tight quarters. Helpful thing for a cargo plane that needs to deliver its goodies and get out in a hurry. Only two of these things now remain. And I got a shot of one of them. Go me.

I didn't notice the YC-14 at first, though. The real reason I turned in its direction was that this little honey was parked across from it.
This is a Fairchild C-119 Boxcar. The paint job's a bit faded and the plane's a bit beat-up, but you still might recognize it. One of these was used in the recent remake of the Jimmy Stewart film, Flight of the Phoenix. (The only reason I went to see that movie—and later bought it—was because it had a C-119 in it. The movie turned out to be marginally good, though.)

I like these things even more than Mariners, if possible. There are still lots of 'em around, for one thing. Many are doing duty for small airlines and businesses, I hear. They're even (now imagine how this excites my fancy) being used to ship goods into the Alaskan bush, according to rumor. Long story short, my fantasy of owning one (and using it to pursue my international cargo business idea) isn't a pipe dream. Wouldn't say no to a C-123 Provider, either. One of these was used in the film Con Air.
Now, this next one really threw me for a loop. I hadn't realized, as I stood in the museum, that I was looking at the last intact Martin Mariner on the planet. The placard in front of the YC-14 told me that there were only two left. But I didn't need any help to know that to actually see an Avro Shackleton in the flesh was a very rare thing indeed.
 A postwar British maritime patrol bomber, the Shackleton was unique in having engines with two propellers each. (You can sort of see that in the photo I took, above, or in this next photo, borrowed from Wikimedia Commons. Those are two 20-millimeter cannons poking out of the nose, by the way.)
Each engine's propellers rotated in different directions, which helped to eliminate torque, but put aircrews at risk for high-tone deafness, or so I've read. 'Twas a rather awesome airplane to see in person or in photographs, I thought. Recognize this picture?
It's just like the one I used to have up at the top of this blog. It's a different airplane, but the same make and model, and taken from the same angle. Those are the engines of a Lockheed Constellation. And here's the Connie itself.
Beautiful plane, isn't it? With that graceful convex fuselage, it reminds me of a great silver swan. These Constellations (under the designation C-69) were used in World War II as heavy transports. General MacArthur used a C-121, named Bataan, as his personal aerial command vehicle during the Korean War...check it out.
After the war many found service in airlines, like this one, formerly of TWA. By the bye, these Constellations are a lot bigger than they look. They're so slender that they belie their true size. My head didn't even come up to the belly of the plane, and wouldn't have even if I had stood on tip-toe beneath it.

We wandered on, past the delightfully evil-looking WWII-Vietnam attack plane, the Douglas B-26 Invader... ...the surprisingly skinny Grumman F7F Tigercat...
...and the perfectly wacky heavy lifter, the Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane.
If you haven't guessed by now, the outdoor portion of this museum was massive. Acre after acre we traversed, never seeming to find the end of the maze. Entire squadrons of airplanes were parked in the dust, reflecting the sun in their faded glory. If I'd had some mechanics and a few good pirates with me, I could've started a war. I was wandering down one wide lane, idly snapping some pictures of a C-82 Packet, when on a whim I glanced right.

And then I saw it. My guts promptly evaporated. My eyeballs froze. My heart stumbled like a man treading on marbles. It was an Albatross. A Grumman Albatross. My very favorite airplane of any kind, ever. Right there. Parked not 100 yards from me. Before my very eyes.
As though in a trance, I waded over to the big silver bird. Lord, it was beautiful.
I'd never seen one in person, let alone this close. I didn't even touch it at first, but simply devoured it with my eyes. It was better than I could've ever dreamed: big, but not awkwardly so; chunky, but not fat or ungainly-looking; out of commission, but still proud. Oh, how I wanted one. With that plane alone, I thought, I could do great things. Hell, I could die a happy man only having had the satisfaction of flying it, even just once. If I ever actually acquired one, and rigged it out with a cargo hold, and weather radar, and secret smuggling compartments, and gun cabinets, and a wet bar, and a concealed missile launcher in the tail...well, I think I might die of happiness.
Needless to say, this was one of the very few aircraft I chose to get a picture with. I didn't want to bother Dad too much. He'd had a bad toothache all day. He was even quieter than normal, but heroically trooped about the dusty grounds with me, observing machines and making pertinent commentary.

And so we meandered on, past a menagerie of ever-increasing wonderfulness and rarity. A B-50 Superfortress, modified for air tanker duty...
...a Guppy heavy-lifter, formerly in the employ of NASA...
...and even this, the jewel of the museum's collection, a Convair B-36 Peacemaker!

It was the largest bomber of any type or nationality ever built. The thing was ginormous.

Everything about it was awe-inspiring, even the power plant. Here, take a look at the wing:

You're seeing that correctly: six rearward-facing propeller engines and two jet engines. And that's just one wing. That's enough to make my little 150-horsepower Cessna froth at the mouth with engine envy.
The Peacemaker was 162 feet long, with a 230-foot wingspan. Designed specifically to carry nukes, they were part of America's insurance plan against Russian aggression. They sent a subtle message to the Reds, something to the tune of "Hey man, don't you mess with us, or we'll send a gigantic-ass airplane with six propellers and four jet engines over there and nuke your shit." And the Peacemaker worked darn well in that capacity. We haven't had a nuclear war yet, have we?

One quick stroll down a long aisle of fighter jets, back through the museum doors, and we'd met Mom and Harlan in the gift shop. (They weren't interested in standing outside in the wind and dust looking at derelict air superiority, unfortunately for them.) We pored over the whimsical gewgaws and knick-knacks, everything from airplane models to museum T-shirts to toddlers' bomber jackets to space food. Harlan got a freeze-dried ice cream sandwich and crunched noisily on it as we left the museum. I cradled my deck of warbird playing cards to my chest and thanked Mom heartily for stumping up.

Back into the Hummer we went, and spent the next six hours on the road for home, being treated to sights like these:
We passed acre after acre loaded with the infamous "jumping cholla" cacti. Dad just shook his head as we drove by. Dad loves cacti, but hates jumping chollas. In his own words, "they're the only cacti who actually come after you instead of staying put." And they do, too. A cholla's limbs can snap off very easily, leaving the ground near them littered with spiky booby-traps. And no matter how wide a berth you give a jumping cholla, it always seems to reach out and grab you nonetheless. The spines are hooked, making them difficult and painful to remove. They're just an all-around nasty specimen.

We pulled into the Coachella Valley just as the last blue-green glow drained from the evening sky. The lights of Indio, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, and La Quinta (plus the outlying districts, which Dad lumped together under the name of "East Jesus") were all on and glowing.

We got home about an hour and a half later, unloaded the car, had a snack, and went to bed, our minds whirling and our hearts content.