More fun and excitement (not!!)

This past week has gotten off to a decent start.  I am making decent progress with the online EMT course, with my objective of doing at least 2-3 chapters a week holding true so far (I'm working on chapter 7 which deals with pathophysiology, the study of how disease and trauma affect the body), and I'm pretty confident that things will go well as I proceed with the course.  The fun part will be when I do my 12-hour clinical rotations at the local ER or on an ambulance crew.

My dad's place down in Arizona is getting close to livable, with the sink and water heater now installed, with only a few more items left to do to make it ready for him to get moved in.  Ideally in another month or so, he'll be off my couch and situated down there.

Financially I'm a little tight this month, but after the first of next month things should smooth out better.

More to come later, stay tuned...

Where I have been in my journeys

I came across this nifty tool that allows you to visually show where you have visited in the US.


Create Your Own Visited States Map

Most of the states I have visited when I made my journey to Vermont in 2003 and then moved back in 2004 after the relationship I was in blew up in my face.  Some states, such as North Carolina, Florida, and Minnesota I have flown directly to for work reasons (airline dangerous goods training in Minneapolis for Northwest Airlines and security training for US Airways in Charlotte, then field IT support in Jacksonville and Orlando when I was contracting for Eli Lilly & Co.), while others were for visiting friends in Illinois and Texas. 

Several bloggers including The Silicon Graybeard have used this map on their pages, so I decided to join in the fun.

Some more good reads are coming

The illustrious Peter Grant, aka the Bayou Renaissance Man, is getting a new volume of The Maxwell Saga ready to publish.  I know I had mentioned that I would review his previous works in the series, but for one reason or another I had not had a chance to do so.  Now I do and let me tell you, these books remind me a lot of the Heinlein juveniles such as Rocket Ship Galileo, The Rolling Stones, and Time for The Stars, but with a little more occasional coarse language and some titillating paragraphs which would have raised eyebrows and fists in the 1950's but not even bat an eyelash today.

The books tell the adventures of a young man from Earth, Steve Maxwell.  He is an orphan who desires very much to get away from the oppressive and regressive society of a future Earth and seek his fortunes among the stars to which the best and brightest of humanity have scattered.  Through a series of fortuitous events, he finds himself going from a spacer and shuttle pilot for a freighter, to joining the military of the Lancastran Commonwealth and moving through the ranks from enlisted to officer.  Along the way, he tangles with various villains from Chinese Tong to maniacal pirates to elements of fringe societies at the edge of explored space.

I found that there were very few slow points in any of the books, with enough background offered to help you fill in a very good picture of this future world, and enough action to whet the appetite and keeps you looking forward to what will happen next.  While this may not be totally appropriate for a pre-teen to read depending on your sensibilities, I think young people as well as older readers will enjoy this series.

The first four books of The Maxwell Saga, Take the Star Road, Ride the Rising Tide, Adapt and Overcome, and Stand Against the Storm, may be found here at Amazon, for a very good price for all four.  Please check them out for yourself, and I am sure you'll enjoy them as much as I have!

And it just keeps on coming

Now Powerball is at $1.5 billion, and fortunately yours truly has one more shot going into the drawing tonight.

First major thing to do should I win: change my F*ing phone numbers :-P

David Bowie – RIP

Now it's just getting insane

Amazingly, nobody got the winning numbers for Powerball last night, so the jackpot is now going to be $1,300,000,000 or about $800,000,000 lump-sum.

If things aren't crazy before, they are gonna get even more so now.

Some interesting blog stats

Just happened to glance at my stats for the blog, and it's an interesting breakdown:

For those in Europe and Malaysia, I bid you guten tag, bonjour, hari yang baik,

and of course

хорошего дня for our Russian readers and/or spambots ;-)