hurricane-2011: June 2009

Thank Yous

Image from Rachel Baker's Old Musty Books website.

Several "thank you"s are in order:

Rachel Baker posted a lovely review of Covenant and Appetite on her site, Old Musty Books. You can read it here.

Among other things, she writes, "If you are looking for something different with a great story line, I would suggest reading these books. They are very well written and draw the reader into the story, possibly against their will."

I am also thankful to those reviewers who have been willing to consider these books. Covenant began its public life as a small-press trade paperback, but Appetite is a self-published e-book. Thank you to everyone who has agreed to step outside the box with me.

Thanks also go to Mark Eller, host of Chronicles (Blog Talk Radio). My May 28 interview with him is now available as a podcast here and on other podcast sites.

And thanks to Cyrus A. Webb, host of the Blog Talk Radio show Conversations LIVE! and founder of The Write Stuff Literacy Campaign, for inviting me to be his guest on July 6 at 1 PM Eastern Time.

I have behind-the-scenes thanks to give as well, related to my caregiver role. They include but are not limited to doctors, social workers, various staff support members, longtime "friends only" bloggers, and my own personal support network of good and caring friends. Words alone cannot adequately express how much you all mean to me.

Last but by all means not least, hearty congratulations go to editors Vince Liaguno and Chad Helder, fellow contributors, and everyone involved with Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet (Dark Scribe Press), winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology. You can see the announcement here. Click here to order the collection.

Cover for Deviations: Covenant, Second Edition

Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.)
Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite
Free downloads of both volumes here.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant and Appetite in even more formats!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

[end of entry]

Postcards From Nuke Beach

Fort Island Gulf Beach in Crystal River, Florida. Its nickname is "Nuke Beach" due to the plant visible to the right of the sign: "Stay Safe and Have Fun!"

I find it a bit disconcerting to live about 15 miles from a coal and nuclear power plant, especially given some of the problems experienced at this particular one. During Three Mile Island's near-meltdown in 1979, I had lived in the wind path of any potential fallout, estimated to reach my then-neighborhood in Staten Island in three days. That incident had started my protest years in earnest.

Yet here I am, settled in a nuke's back yard, with another plant recently approved for Levy County just to the north of us. C'est la vie drôle.

In the shadow of those ominous cooling towers, Mary and I still had a lovely day... (continued)

Our expedition began with a bit of a challenge. Mary wanted to keep up the driving on her 1987 Ford Ranger, and we got a bit warm on the long approach road to the beach. A flick of the fan (no A/C) and the Ranger's engine sputtered to a halt.

All things considered, we couldn't have stalled out at a better place, given the number of blind curves on this road. After pondering a call to AAA, Mary noticed the temperature gauge, I remembered the fan, and we did the math. That gave me some photo ops while the truck cooled down. Here, some lush foliage frames the Crystal River power plant seen across the wetlands.

You wait by the road; I walk to get the car.
We have fished for trash by the estuary,
pulled a Diehard battery from the grassy shore.
Nuke plant cooling towers steam beyond.
Behind us, tropic-colored bikinis
cavort on a manmade beach by a placid gulf.
Above us, vermilion flycatchers
flit like tiny fires amidst the palms.

-- excerpt from "Mentor," which appeared in the 2005 We'Moon calendar. Reprinted that same year in Anthology 23 from the Florida State Poets Association.

I didn't have my camera with me during our previous visit, which had inspired "Mentor." Above is the estuary mentioned in the poem. The beach had been fairly crowded during that weekend visit years ago. In contrast, Wednesday's expedition occurred during regular work hours and traffic was light.

We spent some time sitting in the shade of a picnic table and doing people-, crow-, gull-, and grackle-watching. When we were ready to move on, I noticed this pair of child's sneakers left in the sand beside the table. I thought their reptilian design was pretty cool.

We set out for the pier and passed this waystation not far from the boardwalk. I don't know whose blanket and umbrella this was, but three birds decided it was theirs.

The crow (grackle?) at center has found a prize, which has garnered it some pretty fierce attention from its buddies. More visible in the large view.

The boardwalk connects the beach and the pier. That's Mary up ahead.

Here's the view to the right:

We reached the pier about an hour past high tide.

From here we could look back toward the beach...

... or out toward the cooling towers:

Small fish seemed the preferred form of bait. Here's one that got away -- after a fashion.

Not far from the fishing pier, we came across the boat ramp.

We could see minnows from the pier if we tried hard enough. Conditions at the boat ramp were just right, revealing thousands of them by our unscientific estimate.

Large view

On our way back to the beach, we passed outcroppings of lantanas (see here for a shot of lantanas in our neighborhood). It made the flowers below stand out. Their trumpet shape suggests morning glories to me.

The mosquitos started nabbing us right about this time, so we started thinking about heading for dinner and home. These birds (grackles are my guess) were already out for a meal.

Large view

A final look at the estuary, before a sumptuous dinner of Chinese food in downtown Crystal River.

Large view

Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.)
Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite
Free downloads of both volumes here.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant and Appetite in even more formats!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Torrential Downpour - Torrential Downpour (2009)

Genre: From Minimalist/Ambient/Atmospheric to Death/Thrash/Experimental Metal/Hardcore
About: I'm sitting here thinking how to describe this music in words, and I just can't. It's so innovative and original. A lot of it is beautiful atmosphere but each song builds to a climax of heavy thrashing guitars and flying corpses (well maybe not but it sounds like it).

The first peak of the album is "Toile" which is almost 13 minutes, and it reminds me of atmospheric black metal in style, however I don't think it technically is... If you like Lunar Aurora, Trist, Drudkh, etc. this is for you.

Then the whole album builds to a climax which is "Three Twenty (The Hologram)". They might as well call it Four Twenty (The Orgasm) because it is a melodic death/thrash masterpiece. The last track is a perfect conclusion because it is a light flowing beautiful electric guitar melody.

The band members themselves seem cool, judging by that picture above and the fact that they signed my album when i asked. With very nice signatures I might add.

This band deserves so much more exposure than it has, so if you like it PLEASE purchase it and tell your friends! I'll tell you the album comes with a lot of extra goodies as well, but I won't ruin the surprise.

Buy this album (or their EP) on their Myspace!

Download

Lawn Centurion

Because lawn jockeys are such a cliche...

Monday's walk took Mary and me to one of our town's two water towers, for a round-trip of somewhere between five and six miles. It gave us a chance to walk down some streets we hadn't taken before, which led us to this lawn centurion.

The centurion's owner, Ron, told us that it is made of solid concrete, which presented a bit of a challenge to someone who'd tried to steal it. The would-be Visigoth had managed to topple the statue over, but could move it no farther.

Shortly thereafter, we reached our target:

We had dinner on the return leg. As we crossed the strip mall afterwards, I spotted the critter at lower left and exclaimed to Mary, "An albino lizard!" I thought I had found a rare anole with a mutation of some sort. Then I saw the other two and realized I was looking at a species I'd never seen before.

Large view

According to the Wild Florida ecotravel guide, these Mediterranean Geckos (Hemidactylus turcicus, Family Gekkonidae) "are native to Europe, but they are highly successful colonizers and well established in Florida. There are no native nocturnal lizards in Florida, and geckos seem to have filled the niche." They are grayish with light pink and dark brown spots during the day, but lighten up at night.

Back on Friday we took a jaunt through Whispering Pines Park, a 290-acre, multi-use facility in the Citrus County seat of Inverness.

Large view

This flower is probably in the aster/daisy family, but I haven't yet found an ID for a plant with this distinct type of tri-lobed (or is that four lobes?) petal. It grows outside the entrance to the park's outdoor pool, not far from these Gaillardia:

Large view

Large view

This is probably Gaillardia pulchella, also called blanket flower, firewheel, and Indian blanket. Asteraceae/Compositae (aster/daisy) Family. Source: www.floridata.com/ref/G/gaillad.cfm

Here's one with a visitor: