Just This Once - A Glop Nearth Poogletorn Adventure

           Glop Nearth Poogletorn finished what was probably his millionth so-so meal.  He had already decided to give this restaurant a bad review before he even entered the establishment for dinner this evening, that was just how Nearth approached every restaurant he was about to review, ‘have them start and the bottom and work their way up,’ that was his motto.  A bad review was uncommon coming from Nearth, but  a horrible career ending, closed for business sign out the next day, was much more common.

            However; today Nearth had been in a good mood, he was somewhat looking forward to spending his evening at a restaurant, which was unusually because Nearth hated his job as restaurant critic, and hated going to restaurants even more.  Maybe it was the fact his fourth ex-wife, or maybe it was his fifth, but either way one of the money stealing leaches, had gone to the circus that day and been shot out of a cannon.  A smile creased his plump lips even now as he thought about it.  When his daughter called him, tears streaming down her face on the screen because mom had been shot out of a cannon, all she could say was they still hadn’t found all the pieces.  After Nearth stopped laughing he asked how it had happened, and she told him that the circus said it had been an unfortunate accident.  “When the ring master asked for a volunteer, he was unaware the plant who was supposed to be sitting in the audience had left to go to the bathroom,” sobbed his daughter Plop Plop Poogeltorn.  How; in all the planets of  the Sulorque federation could someone accidentally get shot out of a cannon, well if someone could do it, it was his fourth ex-wife or was it his twentieth wife that was more prone to that sort of thing, he could never remember he had so many money grubbing leaches.

            Nearth let out a pleased sigh as he waited for his transportation flyer to be brought.  The evening was pleasantly warm and quiet, of all the planets in the federation Shhhuuk was very agreeable to the three hundred plus pound Nearth. 

            “Mr. Poogletorn, Mr. Poogletorn,” said the restaurant owner as he came out of his place of business.

            Even after the admonishment from Nearth not to call him Mr. Poogletorn, the owner continued to do so.  At this pace his restaurant the Shhhuuk Shhhuuk Dim was about to get a horrible review, which meant it would have an out of business sign on the door tomorrow.

            “Please Mr. Poogletorn, could you be as kind as to tell me your thoughts of my place?” asked the owner in his hissing speech.

            “Don’t call me Mr. Poogletorn,” said Nearth as he turned away from the owner, far be it from him the most renowned restaurant  critic in the federation to let the owner of a restaurant influence his decision.  When it came to restaurants and food he was unbiased, he hated them all unless they proved otherwise.  And in the millions he had reviewed few have proven themselves.

            “But Mr. Poogletorn how was your day?” asked the owner with a sly smile.

            “My day?” said Nearth in a loud questioning voice. “My day was exceptional, one of the best days I’ve had in a long time, my ex-wife….” Nearth trailed off as he looked at the knowing smile the owner wore.  “Why do you want to know about my day?” asked Nearth with a questioning eye toward the owner.

            “All I would like to say Mr. Poogletorn is that the evening meal should be the culmination of the day,” hissed the owner slyly.  “One cannot have a good meal, if one does not have a good day.  I hope your day was pleasant,” the owner bowed slightly and walked away.

            Nearth stood outside the restaurant and thought to himself, “I think the owner is right, the evening meal is the culmination of the day, maybe I’ll overlook that he kept calling me Mr. Poogletorn.  Maybe he’ll get a good review, but just this once,” Nearth wore a big smile as his transportation flyer was brought up.  “Maybe I’ll even come back here, after all I still have another twenty - four money hungry ex-wives,” mumbled Nearth with a huge grin.  Today was a good day and the meal was even…good.

A fresh start

I haven't posted anything in a while, so I decided to jump back on the blog with something a little different, a little old, and a little new.

One of the things that comes from my writing, which is either a benefit or a distraction, is short stories.  I have a hard time keeping focused on a larger project without getting sidetracked with short stories.  Usually flash fiction type stories one that are between 500 and a 1000 words.  So what I've decided to do, is to put those little tidbits of flash out there for the world to see, or maybe just the few that happen by my blog.

Anyway those that happen by and take them in, I hope they are enjoyed.  If you do like them let me know.

The Sky is Falling!!! Literally the Sky is Falling

A few weeks ago, sky watchers eagerly awaited the close approach of asteroid 2012 DA14, a 150-foot-wide chunk of rock that was lined up and ready to skim the Earth’s atmosphere. By skimming I mean it was not going to be as low as the International Space Station, but it was going to be lower than some of the weather satellites we have orbiting the planet. It was going to be low enough for some backyard telescopes to see it. What I’m trying to empress is that the object was going to be close, and we (all the space agencies around the world) new where it was going to be, where best to view and most importantly that it wasn’t going to hit the Earth.

I feel so much better knowing that NASA and all the other space agencies in different countries are diligently watching space for any potential threat.

Now let’s jump to the day of the event. A large portion of the Earth’s scientist and backyard enthusiast are looking forward to following the event by watching the sky or computer screens for updates. How surprising when it was when they turned on their computers or TVs for updates and saw that another meteor had exploded over Russia, causing much damage and several injuries. How surprising it is that the space agencies around the world didn’t even know about this meteor.

One of the things that bugs me about this whole big rock gonna hit the Earth talk is statements like this: “The odds of a near-Earth object strike causing massive causalities and destruction of infrastructure are very small,” John Holdren, science advisor to Obama. Is just absolutely crazy, all anyone needs to do is look at the moon, it is pock marked with a history of impacts and it’s a smaller target than Earth.

When the space agency chief Charles Bolden was asked by Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) what NASA would do if a large asteroid headed on a collision course with Earth was discovered today with only three weeks before impact. The response was simple “if it’s coming in three weeks, pray.” That kind of makes me happy the Catholic Church just elected a new Pope, Prayer and a new Pope gotta be a good thing.

But all kidding aside, asteroids and meteors are out there and some of them are bound to hit the Earth, some large enough to do damage, a lot of damage. And the way I see it, we can take heed of the space agency chief’s suggestion and pray, we can call on our congressmen and senators to put an emphasis on the space program, or we can prepare for a disaster.

How do you prepare for a large chunk of rock or ice slamming into the Earth at supersonic speeds? That is easy, because there are only three possible outcomes. One – The object does none to minimal damage like the explosion over Russia. Two – The object does complete destruction and wipes out the current crop of life forms to wander aimlessly on the surface of the Earth. Three – The object causes enough damage to wipe out the infrastructure, which would put us back to either a hunter-gatherer or agrarian lifestyle. Scenario three is the only one that you can possible be prepared for and that’s easy, learn how to live without having to rely on stores. That means gardening, farming, and bartering for those things you can’t produce yourself with those things you have in abundance.

I realize that many people cannot buy or build a farm where they are, but some things can be done. Some of the best books on the subject I’ve put in the scrolling bar below.

Life Work Balance

A few years ago I was working at a company when the expression Work Life balance became popular, all the managers and supervisors were promoting a work life balance approach. It was one of those buzz phrases that come out from time to time, that capture the imagination of managers into believing that all the workers woes will be set at ease with a catchy phrase, that somehow says “we care”. Well to tell you the truth, I never like the phrase. In fact I hated it I thought it was a belittling pieces of double speak aimed at making us work more and be damn happy we had a job.

What set me off was not the phrase so much, but the fact that the emphasis was placed on Work, not on Life. I remember bringing this up in a meeting once, when the supervisor was touting the importance of Work Life balance. I said, why don’t we start by changing it to Life Work balance and put the emphasis on Life. The response was subdued to say the least, not hostile, and for most of the workers in the meeting it was met with “hmm, interesting”. But sadly my revolutionary idea never caught on.

Currently I rarely hear Work Life balance, but occasionally it pops up when a manager or supervisor wants to sound as if they care. But the catch phrase now is, I hope I have a job or I hope I don’t get a pay cut. Work Life balance, let alone Life Work balance is no longer popular, people see that having any sort or a life outside of work is much better than having no work at all.

However, I still say that Life Work balance is the phrase that must be at our core. Remember it is work that we do to live, we don’t live to work. Guess I should write the book "Life Work Balance" because in all my searching I'm unable to find one with that title, but a whole lot to choose from with the "Work Life Balance" title.

Vets Say Definition of Combat is Outdated

A few years ago I posted this on another blog after reading the article about changing the definition of Combat http://www.reporternews.com/news/2009/mar/25/vet-groups-definition-of-combat-is-outdated I am reposting it here on my blog. And have new comments following the post.

In an article veterans groups testified that the law is outdated, and veterans are not receiving the medical benefits that they should. Most of the cases that are rejected concern Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome or PTSD, and they are turned down because the veteran cannot prove they were involved in combat based on the classic definition.

Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs subcommittee is asking to change the definition of a combat veteran, as any veteran who served in a combat theater of operations or in combat against a hostile force.

Fist off let me state that I am a veteran of Iraq, and would easily fall under the proposed new definition of combat veteran. But, I do not agree with the change in definition for combat veteran. I do agree that you do not need to be a combat veteran to suffer from PTSD. But changing the definition of combat veteran will not magically allow everyone suffering from PTSD access to the care they need, in fact it will still exclude suffers, that never set foot in Iraq but may have been stationed in Qatar, or Kuwait. Both of those places were relatively safe, but if you think that serving in either one of those places inoculated you from PTSD, then you are very wrong.

Defining combat as serving in a combat theater of operations or in combat against a hostile force, would allow thousands more veterans the opportunity to seek disability compensation for PTSD, which could potentially costs hundreds of millions of dollars annually. I could care less about the millions of dollars the government has to spend on veterans to get them the care they need, what I do care about are the thousands of claims that are not truly combat related that would slip though under the change in the definition.

But what I am most worried about, with a change in definition is that the real combat veteran, the Soldier that was sleeping in old Iraqi bunkers, dealing with mortars dropping at their feet and not exploding, setting a charge on a door of a suspected terrorists house, etc. These are the Soldiers that deserve the term combat veteran, and changing the definition belittles what they did.

Increase PTSD benefits to all military personnel, but leave the definition of combat veteran to those that truly deserve it.

When I wrote this piece I was worried that the definition of a combat veteran would change and lead to a diluted definition of combat veteran. This is something I don’t want to see, the combat veterans that have earned that distinction are an honored group and must remain so. The problem is tying benefits to the definition of combat veteran. Benefits need to be available across the board to all of our Military Personnel for injuries incurred in the line of duty, whether that was in a combat action or during battle drills, and particularly medical benefits.
This issue came up recently because of the sequestration by the government. The effects are already trickling through the military. For myself in the Army Reserves I have seen an increase in soldiers being kicked out of the reserves because they don’t meet the standards. I’m not saying that is a bad thing, but it is the beginning stages of shrinking the force. First get rid of the low hanging fruit, and then work your way up, until your numbers are small enough and you are left with nothing but the best. All that may be well-good. But what worries me are what cuts will they make to the benefits?

Tips for choreographing a fight scene inside the ring or octagon

For those of you that might want to try your hand at writing a fight story that takes place in a boxing ring or an MMA octagon, here are some tips that I learned and the education I went through while going round after round through this pugilistic world of fight fiction.

When I first stepped in the field of modern pulp fiction, and took a shot at writing an MMA short story. I quickly got lost in what fighter was doing what to who, and at the end of the scene I was looking over my text and going, the wrong guy won! After I fixed that punch drunken mistake, my editor looked it over went “I know what an arm bar is, but most of the audience won’t have a clue, so take out the entire fancy lingo that goes along with MMA, and take out the fluff.”

I was crushed I liked putting my characters in “arm bars”, or “guillotine chokes”, and fluff what fluff was he talking about, this was fight story. The lingo sounded cool, and all my friends new what I was talking about. But in order to write a better story, I used his suggestion and eliminated all the fancy talk, examined the scenes in a different context and set out to write a better fight scene with more punch and less fluff.

Before I tell you how I went about this task, I need to tell a little history about myself as a writer. I started writing Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. In those stories a lot of the conflict was between large groups, and in the case when it was between two individuals, the fight scene ran along the theme of; wham…bam…pull out a ray gun and blow the looser away. I’m being a little bit glib, but for the most part so many other things are available to the combatants that it’s not like two individuals going at one another with just muscle, training, and guts to determine the outcome. Fights in other stories that take place outside the ring or octagon, are usually life and death situations, so you want to finish them fairly quickly. And to be honest most science fiction fight scenes are not going to have it end with one of the combatants in an arm bar.

What I needed to learn was the difference between writing fight scenes for an MMA or boxing story and writing a fight scene for almost any other genre. I needed to learn to stop writing like a Ramones song; fast, loud, and over in one and a half minutes, and start writing well-orchestrated symphonies full of subtle dynamics, fantastic changes and a complete resolutions stretching over fifteen minutes or more. But keeping the audience interested in a fight that goes on for two or three pages can be difficult. It can be made worse when the fight doesn’t follow any plan or in my case the wrong fighter wins.

For many of you, and maybe your different, that’s ok but for most of us we can see a fight scene fairly clearly and it lasts for about five to seven exchanges between the fighters, then one of them wins. Easy enough but add that when you first imagined that scene you already know who was going to win before you even put pen to paper. Now the other guy really has the cards stacked against him, you imagined this scene with him losing and everything you write will be towards that end. Ufortunately what you end up with is a fight that looks heavily favored towards one individual. How can you break out of this choke hold? Put the other guy at and advantage, well then you can run into two problems; once again the wrong fighter wins or the advantage is such that the victory is not believable.

Here is what I did.

Read - And I don’t mean reading other fight stories, I mean reading the play by play action of an MMA or boxing event. It’s dull and dry and it tells you what one opponent did to the other, how they countered and who won or what the decision was. I read a lot of them; I looked up classic fights and read them. In doing this you get a feel for how a fight goes, how one opponent can be winning, and then a slip on the canvas and the other opponent has the advantage and wins. How a lucky punch comes out of nowhere to knock someone out. After reading several of these, particular ones of fighters you have never heard of or fights you’ve never seen, you as a writer can identify and internalize the ebb and flow of a fight. These are real fights, but I must admit to read them is pretty boring you need something else, you need to punch them up, but before you can do that you have to write through the drudgery.

Write - The next thing I did was to write a fight as if it were an MMA bout. Making it as technically accurate as the numerous ones I’d read before. But I wanted it to be believable so I put some well-known names in as the fighters, I used match ups that never occurred, and I gave them to my MMA friends. I usually set it up; by saying did you ever see this fight between so and so. The reactions were everything from, I know that fight never occurred to I wish I would have seen that fight. After that I told them what was up and asked if they thought the fight was believable. Everyone agreed the fight sounded believable. But this only proved one thing that I could detail a fight over three paragraphs and make it believable, which is huge, but it didn’t breathe life into the fight or the characters.

Re-Write History – This is where I had the most fun in learning how to write a fight scene. I started with a fight that occurred read the play by play account and then set out to write it as if for a book. This part was fun but it was harder than I thought. How do you take three paragraphs of technical and tactical text and turn them into prose that the girlfriend to the MMA fan would want to read? Get in the fighters heads, try to internalize what their game plan was, and what they were thinking when they were going toe to toe, or on the mat. Here is where you earn your marks as a writer. This is where we separate the technical pros of a journalist and the story telling of a writer. But before you can do that, you need to know how to choreograph a fight.

The piece below is taken from my novelette “Golden Gate Gloves,” written under the pen name Jack Tunney. In it the main character Conall O’Quinn is going against his hated enemy Barry, the son of a union boss, in the final fight scene. The history between Conall and Barry is developed over the course of the story, so some of the context doesn’t make sense.


The bell opened the ninth. Barry came in tentative with his glove out; the corner must have doused him again. I batted them away and wouldn't let him get inside. I went to work on his body, and he covered up. I drove a hard pile driver of a punch up town, and landed on the button. Blood sprayed, and the crunch of broken bone echoed well into the audience. Barry stumbled back and hunched over, blood pouring from his ruined schnozz. I came in fast to take advantage, when the punch landed in my crotch. White pain blinded me, and I went down in a heap on the canvas my stomach rolling, and threatening to puke up my guts. The ref admonished Barry, as I crawled to my knees amid a torrent of boos from the crowd....




In a future post I’ll talk more about adding flavor and color to your fight scenes, how to add that story telling flavor to your fights. But until then keep reading writing and laying out those fight scenes, one punch at a time.

How to develop connections on LinkedIn

How to develop connections on LinkedIn.

A few weeks ago I received an email from LinkedIn congratulating me on being in the top 5% of the most viewed profiles. I thought cool, and I tweeted my accomplishment. It didn’t make me want to start paying for a premium membership, but it did make me feel as if I’d accomplished something. But from what I read on the internet, the general consensus was, “so what” and many sounding like; “don’t people realize that means they are one out of ten million and even those that are in the top 1% are one out of two million.”

To answer the question, yes I do realize I’m one out of ten million – I ran the numbers – but I am still happy with my accomplishment, and for me it was an accomplishment.

I’m not a world famous author or screenwriter, nor am I a well-read blogger, I have never had a video go viral (possible because I’ve never put a video on the web), I have a few hundred twitter followers not a few thousand, and I have about 30 likes on my authors Facebook page. So being one of the top 5% of most viewed profiles on LinkedIn was an accomplishment.

How did I accomplish it? Well I’m glad I asked that question and if you keep reading I’ll tell you about it.

When I first began using LinkedIn, I would look for possible connections to people I knew in the writing industry, other authors, publishers, etc. But I quickly discovered that I was not reaching those in the industry I had hoped to, and how would I connect to the people I wanted to if I didn’t know them in the first place. So I branched out and started connecting with those who were connected to people I already had connections with, and this meant I was requesting connection to people I didn’t know. Regardless of whether I knew them or not, this doubled my few dozen connections, but once again it didn’t create the results I’d hoped for.

What I needed was a change in my way of thinking. First, instead of just building a number of connections with the hope that one of them might be interested in my work and want to know more, I decided to build real connections, friendships, or at least put out the offer. My second change in thinking was this, once I put the offer out I let it go as soon as the send button was hit.

So here is what I did. I requested maybe five connections a day, of people in my industry or a related industry, such as Film, Mixed Martial Arts, or Boxing. Out of ten requests I might get one confirmed connection. Great now what to do with the connection, just let it sit there in on my connections page as I’ve done or do something with it. How about a thank you? It sounded good to me, and it is based on old school networking, like sending a thank you card after meeting someone at a convention. So I started sending thank you notes to people that agreed to connect with me, and I said just that “Thanks for the connection.” I did a little research on the person whom I was addressing, mentioned their accomplishment, why I was happy they agreed to connect, or why I was impressed with their work. Then I gave a brief comment about myself, often saying “I write MMA and boxing fiction” and leaving it at that. Depending on the summary of the individual I was corresponding with, I might add more details to what I was writing, maybe my influences, or anything I could think of to make the note a personal correspondence between me and the individual I was connecting with.

After sending out thank you notes to those I connected with, I might receive a response from one out of ten. Still not huge numbers, but now the connection was personal and often this created a dialogue between me and the person on the other end. It hasn’t led to any screenwriting jobs or book offers, but that isn’t what I’m after. My Thank you notes are not “what can you do for me, or what can I do for you”, they are just I know a little about you and now you know a little about me, no pressure or pretense.

All this is why I consider being in the top 5% of most viewed profiles an accomplishment. Because I’ve worked at cultivating and developing just about every connection on my linked in account and right now I’m approaching 700 connections, and at least 90% of those I’ve sent a personal note to. So if you think being in the top 5% is just “so what” I don’t and I’m glad I’m there.

Disneyland and "My" Future Themepark

I just spent a week with the family at Disneyland, and we had a great time.  The first day was a little rough and we spent a lot of time spinning our wheels trying to get to this ride, then over to that ride, and oops lets stop in to this store, because the kids want to buy something, and oh my its 3:00 in the afternoon and we haven't had lunch, let's find something to eat.

So as you can see we were unprepared and had done little planning as to what we wanted to do when we got there on that first day.   But we did get on some rides, we did get the kids fed, and we spent more money at the stores than we should have.

The next few days wen't much better, my wife and I gave a little thought to what we wanted to do, and what area of the park we would stay in (trying to get from Disneyland to California Adventures and back again is a recipe for disaster).

The rides were fun, and we did many of them.  The littlest one liked Dumbo the best, the oldest liked Space Mountain, at only six I have a budding roller coaster fan, and the faster the better.  Many of the rides had short lines (surprisingly) while some had the queue that wound around this way and that, before every catching site of the terminal for loading on ride.  The longest wait was the new Radiator Springs Cars Racers.  It was a fun ride, but I don't know if it was worth the time we spent in line.  In our first attempt we were in line for over an hour before someone came over the loudspeaker and said they were having mechanically problems and for people to keep their places in line, the ride would be opening again soon.  Well, after another half an hour, we jumped out of line.  We came back a few days later, and wouldn't you know it all the fast pass tickets were gone for the day, so we were once again sitting in line.  This time it didn't break down and after about an hour we got on the ride.




After this experience I started to think.  I wish I could sit in a car or a seat and travel around the park, going to the rides I wanted without every leaving my seat.

Imagine this: You and your family or fiends take a seat in a chair, and that chair travels on its own track in the park, which goes by (or can go by) every ride in the park.  Once your chair gets to the ride it locks into the compartment or the main carrier for the ride.  For instance if it were the cars ride, the chair you were riding in would lock into a car, or if it were splash mountain, it would lock into a boat.  I think this is an easy enough problem for a mechanical engineer to figure out.

But all that wouldn't stop the long lines, unless, and here is the key.  The chairs were all programmed with your destination.  So when you jump in your chair you push in the list of rides you want to go on.  The computer determines the fastest route possible and sends you on your way.

Anyway that is my thoughts.  I know it still has some bugs, but wouldn't it be nice to sit in a chair and be easily shuffled from one ride to the next with little or no wait.

I think so.

Doomsday Preppers - Are they planning enough?

I was just watching the show Doomsday Preppers.  You can say what you like about them, that they are nuts that they crazy, that they are the real threat, and on and on.  But what struck me about the show, and I've only watched a few of the shows, are two things:  One many of the preppers are living a lifestyle that will not change much after a doomsday event.  And the other is that many are preparing for about a two year survival mode.

My opinion is that living the lifestyle is a smart thing.  For instance if your planning on growing your own fruits and vegtables and hunting for your meat, and that is what you are doing presently to provide 90% of your food.  Well it stands to reason that in a doomsday event you will not have to make many changes and your all set.

Planning on a two year survival mode is more problematic.  For most of the preppers they are planning for 6 month to two year doomsday event.  Where in many cases society breaks down or the infrastructure (power grid, food supply, etc) break down.  Many of the preppers are still planning on everything coming back within two years or so.  My question is this:  Who is going to put it all back together.  If the power grid goes down for the whole U.S. hey say the whole world.  Most people are going to be concerned with feeding themselves and their families, not putting the power grid back together.  So my question is does the system come back, or should preppers start looking at preparing for a whole scale change that will encompass the rest of their lives?

Please leave a comment would love to hear what others think.

The Fiscal Cliff

The Fiscal Cliff has been in the news lately, you would think that America would be obsessed over it. But the power ball lotto reaching 550 million dollars tore the attention of the citizens from what will surely affect them, and focused it on a fantasy play to escape it.

Without getting to politically biased here, I want to say that both sides Republicans and Democrats are COWARDS. From the news articles I’ve read, it sounds as if both sides are working on coming to a resolution as slowly as possible. I’m sure that some individuals in Washington see the devastating implications that could occur, and are working as furiously as possible to come to an agreement and avoid falling off the cliff. However this will amount to little when the leaders - President, House Speaker, Senate Majority Leader and their representative flunkies - are playing lip service to the media and the American People. Each side has their own agenda, and their own philosophy on how best to govern the economic Leviathan of America. However, in situations like this it would seem that agendas and philosophies could be put aside and what’s best for America could easily rise to the surface and be agreed on.


COWARDS! They are all cowards and pitiful little parasites trying to eek out every last bit of political currency, or hold on to what shred of their ideology the can grasp as they fall off the cliff. Instead of throwing away their particular agendas, and fixing he problem they are hoping the situation will fix itself.


We all want a hero that will fight for what’s right come hell or high water. And it is this sort of character that drives people to search for them in the movies, in books and in sports. The hero always does what is right, he or she always fights with every ounce of their strength. These are the sort of individuals that need to step up to the plate now, and not fight for their party but for the country, because it is the country they swore an oath to, not a particular party.  

Music for writing

Just found some great music to write by.

The soulful sounds of Barbara Lewis.  She started writing and performing her own material before she was out of high school.  Had some megahits and then faded away from the music industry.  Her influence on rhythm and blues is unquestionable and listening to these old songs - most were recorded between 1962 and 1966 - you can't help but fall for the music.

I encourage everyone to check it out, it's not just music for writing, you can go cruising on a hot summer day, or throw it on during a rainy day in the house.  

Crisis in Cairo - Arab Spring….Nuclear Winter

During much of 2010 and into 2011, the news media was a buzz with the Arab Spring. They reported how all the countries were finally revolting - against who - they never really said, but that was not important, what was important was that they were ushering in a new and better world for the Muslim people. For the most part American Media was a champion cheerleader of the wave of change that was sweeping the Middle East. However, a few people questioned what was happening, but for the most part those voices were silenced or the person demonized. As with most any type of change, particularly on this scale, conflict will erupt. The Arab Spring was no different. Protests turned violent, fighting erupted and people die.

Flash forward to present day Egypt and the current president Mohamed Morsi, announces that he is no longer subject to judicial review, and in addition he has granted himself near dictatorial powers. This man was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and supports their views and policies. Cairo is in a crisis people have filled the streets protesting what they view as an unconstitutional grab for power. And for the most part the American Media has done little to report on the situation nor to call Morsi out his grab for power, he is still considered the darling of the Arab Spring. Instead the media applauds Egypt for its role in stopping the Israel/Syria conflict that was about to grow out of control, and says little about the crisis that is near to tear apart Egypt.

At the heart of this is conflict. Conflict between two differing points of view, two underlying philosophies, a point of argument that turns people away from rational thought and into screaming zealots. I’m not an expert on the conflict in the middle east, I suppose its based on those who want a strict interpretation of Muslim law and those who want to live a less strict life. The conflict I’m more familiar with are those in the Mixed Martial Arts Octagon, or the boxing ring. Two competitors fighting in a test of skill or strength. These are the characters in my stories that are generally fighting to prove who is the best, and even when an individual in one of my stories is fighting for something bigger than themselves and their skills and strengths. The contest still comes down to skills and strength, sometime luck can play into it but luck is a fickle thing.

So what does the skills and strength of two individuals fighting it out in a ring or octagon have to do with the Crisis in Cairo? Not a whole lot, it just easier to break things down to their base level and at the base is a conflict between two individuals. They can either talk it out and come to an agreement, each on pleading their case. Or, they can take a different rout and fight each other, where their physical strength and fighting skill would deliver the victor. When the difference in ideals or philosophy must be resolved with violence, the ideal is lost and all remains is who is the stronger and better skilled. Or in the case of a large group of people with a nation behind them - Nuclear Winter.

The Expendables 2

If you liked the first Expendables you will really like Expendables 2. It takes off pretty much where the first one left off with Barry Ross (Sylvester Stallone) leading his band of miscreant mercenaries on another mission in a far off place. The movie is packed with action heroes from the past, and a few from the present. It cannot be overlooked that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis have much for face time and speaking parts in this one. The two actually play off one another very well, in kind of the “Odd Couple” sort of way. The one liners are classic, and are reminiscent of old movies the stars appeared in, during - shall I say - their younger years.

The biggest surprise of the whole movies is Jean-Claude Van Damme. In his early films I struggled with watching his acting, but usually put it aside because the fight scenes were worth it. But in this movie the perennial good guy, takes a turn for the better in becoming a bad guy worth his sinister snarl. Van Damme hit it out of the park, like a high school sized park, but a park nevertheless and did a great job as the bad guy in the movie. I’ve heard that an Expendables 3 is in the works, and he might reprise his roll, which will be a little hard to do, but I hope they do bring him back, because Van Damme as a bad guy makes the movie.

As I’ve said before I liked this movie, seeing the old stars and hearing the one liners, but Sly has to do something about his piece. In some scenes it looked like his hair was about ready to slide off, and in others it looked a little too dark for his age.



My recommendation is to buy it. It’s fun, and its one of those movies you can watch when you want to see a lot of action. Ohh I almost forgot, this movie has a lot of blood, not just a little but a lot. Like if they needed a teaspoon they used a gallon. Some slasher movie somewhere has no blood in it, because Expendables 2 took it all. So be warned a lot of blood. But other than that Buy it.

The Watch

The Watch



This film formerly known as Neighborhood Watch, is pretty much a run of the mill Ben Stiller comedy romp. He teamed up with Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade to form a neighborhood watch after a worker at the Costco Stiller manages is brutally murdered and skinned. What they don’t realize is that the murderer is an alien.


Nothing in the comedy is a rolling over gut buster, but it does have its moments, that give a laugh. I would say rent it, but wait until its been out for a few more weeks, so you don’t pay top price, but its worth a viewing. If nothing for the aliens and the over the top slow motion battle scene towards the end.


Its fun, its light hearted, and don’t take it too serious. After all when you mix SciFi and comedy it cannot be serious.

Busy Busy Busy

I haven't posted in over a week, and I'm very sorry for that.

Here is what I've been up to. 

Since my book "Golden Gate Gloves" will be coming out in the early part of October 2012.  I have been working the social networks.  I've come to the conclusion that if you want to write, that's great, but if you want to be a writer that sells enough to take your wife out to a nice dinner, you need to have a robust online social network.

So what does it take to have a robust online social network you ask?  Well about ten hours a day and another three hours at night.  Over the course of a week or two you might have the beginnings of a good social network, not robust yet but good.

But the realization I've come to while venturing down the social media highway, is that the number of facebook friends is one thing but an actually connection, an email between you and another person is very much more.  When I develop a contact, it's not someone I hope will just buy my book, but someone that I can develop a business relationship with.  Someone who I can help out just as they can help out me.  

So for the past few weeks instead of just beefing up my social media, I've been developing business partners.  Once the book comes out I hope to start developing fans.

So when am I ever going to write again?  I don't know buy my sleeping hours between 10:00pm and 4:00am are free.

Golden Gate Gloves - Cover

Here is the cover of my book "Golden Gate Gloves"  coming out early October.  The cover was created by the amazing Keith Birdsong.

I will keep you posted as to when and where you can pick it up .

The day after 9-11 and what did we get?

Well today is the day after the eleventh anniversary of 9-11 and the world is still in turmoil. Today or maybe it occurred yesterday because of the time change, the U.S. Embassy in Libya was over run by rioting Islamic fundamentalists who killed a few U.S. citizens and a U.S. Ambassador.

Although these sort of things don’t occur very often, and attacking a U.S. embassy is the same as an attack on U.S. soil, the response has been very mellow. Along the lines of we are sorry for the loss of life, and sorry the rioters were rioting in the first place, but now is not a time for rash decisions bur for reflection. I for one am not happy with the response, but I hate to say I can’t get overly excited about retribution revenge or the old battle cry of “nuke ‘em till they glow”. The whole affair has an unreal feeling to it.

Today I worked on some writing I had to do, worked on increasing my followers on twitter, linkedin, and facebook. I read a few news articles and all but one got me angry. I was angry about the photos posted of the Ambassador, and angry that the captions ready “Ambassador being rescued”, where he looked like his dead body was being dragged around town.

The song “We need a Hero,” keeps playing through my brain. Someone out of the 1950’s with an iron jaw, a sharp wit, and strong morals. I write about a character like that. His name is Conall O’Quinn and he is the main character in a book that will be coming out next month. “Golden Gate Gloves.” Keep watching the blog and I’ll let you know when and where to get it.

911 Memories

          Since today is 911 I decided to write about my memories of 911. As with most of us, the events of that day had a profound impact on our lives, whether it was a fundamental change that will last a lifetime or not, the result is the same, the world we knew on September 10^th was and will be forever different from the world after September 11th.  But for me I felt the change beginning on September 10^th something made me feel creepy and it was confirmed on September 11^th.

At the time I was working full time for the California Army National Guard, and on September 10^th I would be flying from California to South Carolina, in order to work with recruits at Fort Jackson. Up until 911, the Army and particularly the National Guard was having a difficult time of keeping recruits motivated during the time between arriving at basic and actually beginning basic training. For some recruits this time period could be a matter of days or several months. And believe me few things are worse when you’re eighteen than being on an active duty post waiting to start training, and doing “busy work”. You aren’t a solider yet, you don’t know when to salute or not, or even how to talk to other people in the military, and if you do open your mouth its usually the wrong thing to do. As you can imagine this is a time when young soldiers go “I’ve been her two months, this isn’t what I signed up for, I want out.” And at that time, soldiers could get out fairly easy. So the numbers in the National Guard were falling, they couldn’t keep recruits in long enough to get them through basic training, and something needed to be done. So they reached out to the different States and their National Guard soldiers, and asked them to send Non-commissioned Officers (NCO) to Fort Jackson for the express purpose of keeping the recruits motivated until they would actually start basic training.

September 10th I sat in the Sacramento airport waiting on another soldier, I’ll call her Sergeant Cammo, who would be traveling with me to Fort Jackson for the same reason. When she arrived she was in the old green camouflage uniforms we wore before the desert cammies and the new digital uniforms. Wearing these uniforms, at that time, was unacceptable for traveling you could travel in dress uniforms but wearing cammies to travel in was frowned upon. So me being the senior NCO, I frowned at her. She had a reason, her life had just turned upside down, when someone had broken into her apartment stolen a lot of stuff, and the only thing she had clean was in her car, which was her cammies. I didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much we could do because the flight was boarding.

We arrived at Chicago and were waiting for our connecting flight, when I noticed an older gentleman dressed in a business suit reading a paper and staring at my traveling mate Sergeant Cammo. I’m not very adept at reading individuals and for the most part people don’t stare, its just impolite, but this guy had the creepy kinda stare going, not like he was a pervert, but like a killer. He looked at Sereant Cammo with a deep hatred or disgust. At one point Sergeant Cammo got up to get something at shop and this guy, got up and followed her. I watched and waited. Sergeant Cammo came back, and we waited to board, Creepy dude sat a little away from us watching her the whole time. I’m not one to jump up at tell a guy to stop looking at a girl, but this guy creeped me out. I stood up to approach him just when they called for us to board the plane, I used the opportunity to hustle us both on board and watched creepy dude walk away from the boarding area back into the terminal. Why was he so interested in Sergeant Cammo?  The only reason I could think of is that she was in uniform. At the time I suspected he might have been former military and was upset to see a young soldier flying in her cammies, and wanted to read her the riot act about doing so. Years later I still think the reason he was watching her was because she was in uniform, but I don’t think it was because he was former military and wanted to chew her out, I think it was because she stood out like a sore thumb.

After arriving at Fort Jackson and getting settled in, I still had another soldier, call him Sergeant Black Hat coming from California. He would be arriving later, and I would need to use a van to pick him from the airport around eight in the evening.

I arrived a little before eight and sat in the terminal to await the flight. The flight never showed, and shortly after it was supposed to, I was called over the intercom to pick up a courtesy phone. Sergeant Black Hat called me to let me know that his flight had been re-routed in Chicago and he was in

Massachusetts, his next flight would put him in around midnight.

I went back to base caught a cat nap and headed back to the airport. Flight shows up, but no Sergeant Black Hat. Once again a call for me to pick up the courtesy phone comes out over the intercom. Sergeant Black hat is on the other line. He’s complaining that all the flights are messed up, they couldn’t get him on, but his luggage is, can you pick it up at the carousel, I’m renting a car and driving down. All pretty strange but at this point, I’m just tired, so I get his luggage and take it to the base. Sometime in the early morning Sergeant Black Hat arrives after driving through the night and early morning to get there.

The morning of September 11th myself and four others, Sergeant Black Hat, Sergeant Cammo and another Sergeant were running around base in-processing, since we would be there for a month. Somewhere between the pay department and medical we heard news that a plane hit one of the towers. My first thought was some stupid student pilot, flew his little Cesna into the building. A short time later we heard the second plane hit the other tower, and we made it to an office where they had the television on. Then we new it wasn’t just some student, it was planned.

Immediately the base closed down, and guards were put on the incoming checkpoints. For years this base had been an open base, because it was mainly a training post, many families would come to see their friends and loved ones graduate basic and advanced training, the guard shacks were normally empty and the gates permanently open. That all changed. The gates were closed and the guard shacks were manned. Something that hadn’t occurred in over twenty years became the norm, the base became a closed base. As a side note I always thought it was funny that just a week before 911 the base had conducted a test during the morning rush. The test they conducted was this. They closed all the entrances to the base put guards in the shacks and checked everyone’s I.D. They had done this just to check how much disruption it would cause, in the event they needed to close the base. Only a week before 911, curious?

As I stated early on the world changed that day and for me it started on September 10^th. A few years later I was deployed to Iraq with the 2668 Transportation Unit, a California Army National Guard unit from Sacramento. My unit made it through the entire deployment without loosing a single soldier, which in the end is the single most important aspect of any deployment, not what you do while your there but who you come home with.

Conspiracy Theory or just Crazy

I don't know whether to put this under the conspiracy theory umbrella (which is a big umbrella) or just post it as a crazy fiction piece ripe for a Flash Fiction spin on my blog.  But where ever it ends up the case of the semi-unknown actress Nazanin Boniadi and Tom Cruise's Scientology approved dating, is something I couldn't even have come up with.

Check it out if you haven't already.

Nazanin Boniadi

Bourne Legacy -Movie- Just a comment

Over the weekend I watched the movie "Bourne Legacy" and I liked it.  Which seems to be surprising given the mixed bag of reviews the movie has been receiving, but all in all I like the movie, and my wife did as well.

I thought Jeremy Renner did a great job in the lead role as Aaron Cross, a member of the black ops program ran by Treadstone, who discovers that the other "numbers" in the project are being eliminated, and he will be eliminated as well unless he can solve they mystery of - why are they being eliminated, and how does he get more "Meds"?  In short the movie gives much more detail on Treadstone and its relation with the CIA and the Department of Defense, neatly tucked into an adventure story with  Aaron Cross trying to keep himself and that of Dr. Marta Shearing played by Rachel Weisz alive.

The action was great and the acting was top notch.  The plot was easy enough to follow, and gave a lot of detail.  I think the motorcycle chase at the end of the movie went on longer than it needed to but I liked it none the less.

My comment.  Why was president Bush and VP Chenney's pictures in the Turso's office.  From what I can tell the events in this movie are taking place currently so Obama and Biden should be pictured in the Turso's office.  It's a small thing, but it has me asking the question.  Why did they do this? Is it political, and if so, to what end?