Oh Hey, I'm Still Alive! Also, Have A Couple Book Reviews.

Not much blogworthy (and bloggable) has been happening here lately. Some frustrations, some good stuff, but none of it really pops out at me as something I really need to write about.

I will say that an event at work last week influenced me a bit on this post. I've been spending some time on the jail side of things down at the SO, and as you can imagine there are always those who don't like the fact that they're in jail. Can't really blame them there, though it does seem to be easier on everyone if all parties concerned can manage to be civil, if not pleasant. I haven't had any problems in that area myself, but I have had those situations where things are just a little bit strained. One gentleman had been something of a mystery to me, since he never really struck up a conversation or said much of anything to me at all, just stared at the TV and slept.

Until I saw him reading On A Pale Horse, by Piers Anthony. Now, I've read it and I liked it, but this tale isn't about that book so much as it's about the ability for books to forge a connection between people. Because of that book, I was able to make a small connection to someone who hadn't really had any way to connect to me before that. A stone faced yes or no answering man became a man who was capable of smiling. And he had something to smile about. It was, honestly, a very brief interaction, but it was important to me, and it reminded me of the impact the written word can have on us. And of the serious (and sad) decline in reading in our society.

So, I decided to do a couple of book reviews/promotions, to do my part to encourage literacy and connection. First up, in order of the beloved nature of the author:

The Grey Man

This is OldNFO's book, and if you read me and don't read him, you should fix that. I've always loved NFO's stories, and while usually I hear them over the phone or in person, I was delighted to get a fictional one in print. I've been privileged to read some of his writing before he got serious about this particular story, and despite some bumps in the road (once you get into a habit of writing in a certain style, it's really hard to break it even when you want to, I give him major kudos for the work he put in on this book) The Grey Man has finally arrived as a finished book.

I'm gonna confess right now that I haven't read the finished version yet. I did get to read earlier versions and provide my meager input, but I just haven't gotten to reading the finished one yet. Part of it is that things got a little hectic around here, and part of it is when I realized I could sit down and go through it again it was too late for me to be any help in the editing process, so I decided to set it aside for a while to come back at it with fresh reading-for-fun eyes instead of the same catch-all-the-typos eyes. I will be buying a paper copy, and probably a digital copy.

It's a wonderfully twisty tale with a little bit of everything: mystery, drama, humor, romance. I don't want to give away any spoilers so it's hard for me to talk about the book itself, but the story always had me coming back for more.

No matter what NFO might say about his alpha and beta readers being the ones to make the book any good, I maintain my stance that all we did was come along after and help polish it. Buy it, read it, review it yourself. I'm personally hoping that this is the beginning of a beautiful series. (And I will encourage and nag and poke and prod as necessary to make that happen.)

Next up is K.B. Spangler, and her two books Digital Divide and Maker Space.

Ms. Spangler (or Otter, which is name she started the comic under and how I still think of her) writes and draws the webcomic A Girl And Her Fed which I already adored. Almost from the start she realized that there were aspects of the story of this fantastic world she'd built that didn't quite fit into the comic, so she wrote a few short stories and sold them in her store. I haven't got them all, though I will eventually. What I do have are her two books that have spun off of the comic: Digital Divide and Maker Space (at the top of the comic page there's a link that says "Books!" and you should click it.)

Otter has some amazing fans, folks. Periodically someone will donate some money to her cause with the earmark of having it provide copies of the short stories or books to those who really want to read them but can't afford to buy them just now. She's run specials of her own for providing pdfs of her work to fans who are in a bad place financially, too.

Being in one of those hard financial spots myself, when I saw that someone had donated ten copies of Digital Divide two hours previous, I asked if there were any left. I was pretty sure the answer would be no, but miraculously I seem to have slipped in under the wire. Then I dove into the story and could barely come up for breath. When I finished it, I promptly went about (metaphorically) scouring couch cushions for loose change so that I could buy Maker Space.

If you're not familiar with the world, here's a quick overview: the back story occurs in the comic. A Girl And Her Fed is chock full of fantasy elements. The ghosts of dead Presidents, a genetically engineered smart ass evil thinking koala (god, I love Speedy) and a pair of protagonists that you can't help but root for. It's also chock full of social commentary, just heads up. The comic pretty well stands on a solid base of it though, and builds from that core premise, which makes the commentary far less of a metaphorical scream in your ear. I've plugged the comic here before, so I won't jabber on it any more than that.

The books expand the world that Otter built in the comic. She takes some of the side characters and builds their stories up, fills them out, and makes you adore them. The main protagonist of the book is Rachel Peng, who I was prepared to like from her brief appearances in the comic, but who swiftly became one of my favorite characters in that world once I got a chance to get inside her head a bit more.

The books are less fantasy focused than the comic. No ghosts, no Speedy, but you're still dealing with a world in which a few corrupt government officials have managed to come up with a chip that goes inside a human being's brain and connects them to every computer in the world, get it installed in a bunch of the best and brightest volunteers from across government service, and proceed to try to turn them into depressed, barely functional machines of human beings to control them.

The books tell the story of the Agents after they discover what was done to them and try to heal, and get on with doing the wonderful, awesome things they were told they'd be doing to serve their country when they volunteered. It's a tale of good trying, struggling, fighting to overcome the same kind of petty me-first evil that we see every day, on a grand scale.

You will find yourself rooting for the Agents, sometimes in spite of what they do, because they're wonderfully whole people, and they're functioning in basically the same kind of world that we are, where the right thing isn't always easy and we sometimes have to not do the right thing for one person because it would hurt a lot of others.

Highly recommended, both books. I gladly backed the Kickstarter that let Otter turn Maker Space into an audio book before I read either of them, and I'll gladly read anything else she puts out in the future.

Go forth, my minions, and read. Share a book with a friend, a family member, or a stranger. Make a connection, or just revel in the joy of a good story on a beautiful day. Or a nasty day, curled up with a hot drink and a warm blanket. Or a very late night when you didn't intend to stay up because you just have to know what happens next. Or... you get the picture.

Stuff and Things

Some interesting things have happened at work, but of course, I can't (or won't) talk about them here. Suffice to say that I feel like I'm getting along well at work and enjoying the company of my co-workers, while I have it. And that's not just the fact that I've spent most of my working time alone, thanks to being on the night shift.

Not much interesting has happened at home either, since I've been staying on night-shift sleeping schedule to try not to hate the entire world. Let me just say that four AM is a pretty lonely, empty time. I have gotten adjusted well enough that I'm getting a little more sunlight, and managed a walk the other day, so that helped. I'm deliberately not focusing on the fact that I got my walk because my car wouldn't start. I walked, I got fru-fru coffee from the new place in town, the weather was nice, it was good.

And I got a new battery for the car. That cost more than I wanted it to. But I don't have to worry about it not starting when I want to go home. So yay that.

Other than that it's just been occasional chuckles at the dogs, since FarmDog and Fuzzy Pup are convinced that I'm gone forever every time I go to work and were convinced for a while that I must have been sick since I was sleeping all day.

They weren't impressed the morning I came home smelling of one of our canine officers-in-training, either, but I was glad of the chance to officially meet the dog. You'd never think he was in bite training to meet him, since he's an eager-to-please attention hound, but I have no doubt that he's quite good at that part of his job, if only because he is so intense and eager-to-please. Maybe one of these days I'll get a chance to watch him work (in a practice situation, personally I'd be happy if he spent his entire career getting to be a floor-warmer.)

Otherwise, my life is really boring, because I'm asleep most of the day and finding ways not to lose my mind in the wee hours of the morning. Mostly ridiculously high drama long running tv shows and old favorite books. I went through all of Grey's Anatomy that's available on Netflix, if that tells you how deeply I'm dipping into the drama genre pool. So far it's been reasonably successful at keeping the drama on the screen instead of in my work, and I'm pretty ok with that.

Working nights makes me boring....

Yay Shift Work!

Got a new job that involves some swap around shift type stuff. Spent the last few days playing fun sleep schedule games.

B 12 is my friend.

Won't be talking much about the new job, since it's dispatching for the local Sheriff's Office and I can't talk about a good chunk of it, but if any entertaining bits that I can talk about come up I'll probably share.

Right now the funniest bit is that the deputy that responded to AD's great deer-killing accident at Blogorado 1 didn't realize until the fourth day of my training when he was told that that bunch of crazy people and the guy posing with the deer head was involved with me.

One of the other dispatchers got to remind him of it. She was the one who sent him on the call and remembered it when we were discussing the Elksplosion... because I showed her the pictures on the blog, she commented on the hat and cig, and I had to explain where that came from.

I think it's gonna be fun, based on the amount of laughter around the office during my training days.

Farewell, Freind

Tonight, the world lost a little of it's sunshine. A good friend of ours passed away after a long fight with liver failure.

I had known this man literally as long as I could remember. I went to school with his son, he was a friend of Farmdad's, and I can recall a lot of time spent hanging around looking for trouble to get into in his shop. He had a huge heart and a laugh so infectious the CDC really should have known about it. 

He never, ever gave up. I swear, he was a poster child for living life to the fullest, and for taking everything life could throw at you and tossing it back with a grin. If I know anything about laughing in the face of life, I learned at least a part of it from him.

Some of the Blogorado crew got to meet him, that first year. Those who didn't, missed out, I think. Though, I think anyone anywhere who didn't get the chance to know this man lost out, so take that for what it's worth. 

Rest easy, Jesse. I am proud to have known you, and I will never forget the lessons you taught me, intentional or not. 

Retail Pot

Well it's been available for two days now and nothing horrible has happened.

Perusing a list of licensed retailers, I see that there are a couple about three hours from me, but I'm not going to be running out to buy my legal ounce. It's not part of my lifestyle, and that's where the doom sayers fail to recognize human nature.

See, for those of us who haven't been smoking pot recreationally, this change pretty much means... nothing. Just because it's legal doesn't increase the desire for it. And, anyone who is a pothead today was a pothead last week. Maybe some people will try it because it's legal, but I foresee far more tourist dollars from experimenters than in-state.

On top of which, the current retailers were already medical marijuana dispensaries, since the licensing regulations gave them a head start (like, no straight retail licenses effective until next year) and they'll be desperately trying to make as much money as they can before it becomes more widely available. Unfortunately the only real advantage they have over the illegal market is the availability of the alternate delivery methods... tinctures, candies, sodas, and other sundry consumables.

The reason I say that is because with a 40% tax they can't match "black market" prices. See again, anyone who is a pothead today was a pothead last week, they're not going to have a problem with buying it illegally, since they've become quite accustomed to breaking that particular law already.

Meanwhile, the press is painting this as an amazing experiment in legal pot, watched worldwide. Holland, however, is sitting back munching brownies and saying "I told you so, man. Want some recipes?"

Seriously, this is only an experiment in public opinion, since the availability of marijuana, in large part the usage, and for sure the methodology is not actually going to change for those toking up.

There aren't many retail stores available either, but never fear, Colorado residents. If you want to exercise your new found freedom to spark up a doobie, you don't have to drive for hours to acquire your legal ounce... You can grow it!

Six plants per person, says the state law, grown in an enclosed and locked space, with three of them being allowed to be flowering at any one time. Harvest must be kept in the locked enclosed space as well, but you can give your friends up to an ounce at a time, if they're also Colorado residents.

Out of staters are only allowed to have a quarter of an ounce at a time, and are reminded that many ski areas are located on federal lands, where pot is still illegal.

If you have a burning need to experience the mind altering joys of "puff puff pass" by all means come visit. Unfortunately since my county voted against allowing retailers, you won't be giving your tourist dollars to my area, but what the hell, rock the ganj anyway if you want.

New Year

If you're looking for some kind of uplifting, deep thinking, high hoping schmutz here, I ain't got it.

Other things I ain't got include resolutions, so you won't find that here either.

I've always been a sort of plan for the worst and hope for the best kind of person and I figure 2014 will continue to prove to me that that's probably the least stressful way to go about life without giving up on caring entirely.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being a Debbie Downer here... I just don't know what 2014 is going to bring yet. There are goals I want to accomplish and things I want to start doing more, and others I want to start doing less, but those decisions and the steps to start implementing them started months ago, for the most part, so making them resolutions doesn't make much sense.

What I do know about 2014 is that I'll take whatever it throws at me and come out still breathing, still kicking, and still able to find something (some days anything) to smile about. I'll keep loving those that I care about, and being the best person I can be. I'll cherish the friendships I have and the memories of those that I've lost over the years, just like before.

I'll be a shoulder for some friends, a vent for others, and they'll variously do the same for me.

And at the end of this year, as with the last, if I've been honest with myself and stuck by my own lights for what is right, I won't have anything to be ashamed of, and hopefully I'll have a few things to be proud of.

And that's really it. I hope for all of my readers a happy, healthy year, full of laughter instead of tears, but being a pragmatist, I advise you all to stock up on Kleenex anyway. It's not like it goes bad after all, and there's always flu season....

The Genes Will Out.... Brickscuit Edition

I grew up in a mixed family. I don't mean racially or even religiously, mind. No, the conflict was about biscuits.

See, Sugar had only one use for canned biscuits (she called 'em whop-biscuits for the sound the can made) and that was monkey bread, because it didn't matter what kind of dough you used. 

She was adamant, biscuits should be homemade. 

The problem was, Farmmom couldn't make biscuits. She was perfectly willing to learn to make biscuits it just never seemed to work. Sugar handed over her awesome biscuit mix (recipe here, seriously try it) over and over again but they just never came out right.

And by not coming out right I mean we used them for batting practice, and to play fetch with the dogs..

"You're kneading them too long, you want to knead them just long enough to get the dough to hold together." Sugar told Farmmom. Farmmom tried again, and again they came out hard. So Sugar, convinced that short of baker error her biscuits were no-fail, made up a batch and counted strokes with the spoon, as well as how many strokes to knead the dough, and wrote the recipe out for Farmmom that way.

And they still came out hard as rocks.

The next time Farmmom tried, Sugar was standing over her shoulder confirming that she was doing everything right, walking her through it step by step. They slid the biscuits into the oven and Sugar was sort of smug and triumphant, because she knew they'd come out this time.

Except they didn't. Brickscuits again.

Sugar finally gave up on teaching mom to make biscuits, and we became a whop-biscuit household. 

By the time I was big enough to make biscuits Sugar had pretty well stopped. Her arthritis made it hurt to knead the dough. Not that she used whop-biscuits, mind, she just didn't have biscuits at home anymore. So I had never tried to make biscuits until the other night.

See, Farmmom and I had been putting together some holiday goody boxes for our renters, and we were including some cactus jelly, so I thought some biscuit mix would be a nice addition, and whipped some up. Had some extra, so I figured I'd give it a shot, and finally find out whether mom's Brickscuit genes won or not.

The verdict is that Sugar's genes beat out Farmmom's, and I'm now on biscuit duty. 

(For the record, the difference in the biscuits pictured is actually two different ways to do em. The big ones are made according to sugar's instructions, buttering half the dough and folding the dough over creating a two layered biscuit. The smaller ones are single layer, which is how most people do biscuits. In the future I'll roll the dough out a little thinner for the two layer version. Nothing wrong with em, they're just big honkin biscuits that way.)