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   A'ight, so, I've been wicked busy. I just signed the contract for my third simultaneous job. It's not that I'm desperate for money so much as all three were too plum to pass up (Editor of the national beekeeping magazine, Senior [extension] Officer (entering public service two pay levels above normal entry!), and now I will teach at Melbourne ( Read more... )

   Once upon a time, there was a bloodthirsty reptile. He may have been a man once, but he rose to the top in a den of vipers by being the most cold blooded of them all. He swam through the darkness of a world where you never show weakness. Empathy was weakness, and the strong eat the weak, and the cunning backstab the trusting. The only thing ( Read more... )

The following is an adaptation of part of Chapter II of the book I've been vaguely working on (though stalled for the last few months busy with other things)

Day 3 - February 15th, 2012 - Ibadan, Nigeria - The shaman exhales a fireball into the air, which curls away into swirls of dark smoke amid appreciative oohs and ahs. More than a hundred of ( Read more... )

[About a week prior to last entry in this series]

Sunday, August 13th, 1214 BC - “I think we can hide the Argo in these reeds here” Argus whispered to Jason, indicating a thick reed-bed to their right. Jason judged the distance to the faint orange glow of the city up the river to be about a half hour's walk on land. He nodded to Ancaeus, the ( Read more... )

Wednesday, August 23rd, 1214 BC - "There it is!" cried Lynceus in the bow of the Argo. Jason eagerly made his way along the benches of the narrow rocking ship from where he had been standing near the stern. Amidships he ducked under the humming sail ( Read more... )

July 2nd, 2009 -- In the rolling golden hills of Riverside County, California, my boss parks the pick-up truck in the middle of a large square of which rows of beehives make three sides. Upon opening the door the oven-like heat of Riverside County immediately hits us. I stretch after the long car ride, but one doesn't want to look idle for more ( Read more... )

   Amarver grasped the glass bulb with the tongs and held it up to the light. The golden afternoon sunlight illuminated it like a lantern, shimmered with reds and blues. As he slowly turned it, the refracted colors swirled around the walls of the workshop. But, he narrowed his eyes, alas, it was unevenly shaped. He flung it out the window with ( Read more... )

   Once upon a time in a magical land far away, there was a village of cute little houses with thatched roofs, and a large windmill that slowly turned, picturesquely. Just a little bit out of the village, down a path of smooth flagstones, there lived a beekeeper named Knut in a quaint little cottage by his beehives. He had a pointy red beard, 1, ( Read more... )

   "But where's the chart of the area just east of here??" asked first mate John Blood gruffly, bracing himself against the chart table as the little brigantine the Streisand rolled in the large swells. The shadows of his face danced as the hanging lantern swung from its chain. The red tinted glass of the light cast everything in a surreal crimson ( Read more... )