Snow Day!

For those of you who live in Canada, have an inch or two of snow on the ground is now reason to shut down the city. But here in the PNW, as soon as the white stuff hits town, everyone goes nuts. We've got about and inch on the ground here, and near my work is 6-7 inches. The biggest problem is actually ice. The roads are covered in black ice, and compact snow and ice in other spots. Highway 512 was completely closed down overnight because of ice on the road, and near Bellingham, I-5 has been closed for a couple of days due to 4 to 5 FOOT drifts of snow.

Hopefully things will thaw out in the next day or so, and life can get back to normal.

Of things gone past

My wife and I took a walk this morning, and I was thinking about those things that I grew up with that my kids will never know about, unless I go through the trouble of exposing them to it. Some things are better just forgotten about. Others, I think they might enjoy.

Things I won't let them miss out on
The Hardy Boys Books (If anyone has a collection of these they want to part with, I'm buying)
The Three Investigators Books (See above)
Star Wars (The first 3)

Things I think they'll probably miss out on
Happy Days
Gilligan's Island
Battle of the Planets
Dukes of Hazzard
The Commodore 64
The Flintstones
The Jetsons
The Electric Company
Star Trek - TNG
The Wonderful World of Disney (Sunday's at 6:00)
Wide World Of Sports
Straw forts in the barn


Things I think they can do without:
The Wango Tango & The Worm (If you don't know what this is, you weren't a boy in Grade School in the early 1980s)
8 Track tapes
Cassette Tapes
Records
5 1/4 Inch Floppy drives
The Love Boat
Mickey Mouse Disco

Interesting Article if True

This article was circulating around work yesterday. It's probably more interesting for me than others because of where I work. But for reasons which should be obvious after you read this, you'll know why I'm not saying anything about my employer at this time.

Casino Royal

Like my sister said, "See. This. Movie." It was definitely the best Bond movie in the last 20 years. It was a little long, and a little predictable at times, but some of the best Bond dialog I've heard in a while.

Heroes

Over the last couple of years, I've really cut my TV watching down. Most of that was due to the video game 'World of Warcraft' which I'll tell you about at some point, but also because there just wasn't much on. Lisa and I had a few favorite shows like "House", "The West Wing" and "Grey's Anatomy", and I would watch "Lost", but the last few years of reality TV really lost my attention.

Then came this year and the new show called "Heroes" on NBC on Monday night. It's creative, it's escapist. The bad guys are bad, but you don't know hwo they all are. The god guys are good, but flawed. The story is broken up among many characters, so that the story has many parts to it. My favorite character is Hiro (yes, the irony), a guy from Japan who can teleport himself and alter the 'Space-Time Continuum".

The only danger I see in it it that the story could end up moving too slow. That's what happened to Lost, and why Lisa doesn't really watch it anymore.

If you do get a chance to check it out (from the beginning), it's worth the time.

To Cage the Eagle

When I was in college, I wrote a novel I called "To Cage The Eagle". I was really into reading Tom Clancy, Larry Bond and Harry Coyle at the time, and I thought, "I can write this stuff'. So I did.

I tried a couple of times to get it published, but the market for that genre fluctuates wildly, and no one wanted to take on a new author at that time. I did a full edit of the book back in 1997 when I was stuck at home for months with mononucleosis, but I still wasn't able to find a buyer for it.

So I'm going to attach some of the chapters here, and add a few from time to time. If you want to read more, let me know. I've heard that more than one author has tried this from time to time and become successful. I'm getting back into writing these days, and I'm hoping that I can find a market, eventually.

The Chapters are on the Links section of this site.

An old story

One of the things's I'd like to do here is to publish some of my old stories (and new ones) for people to read. Trying to find a way to do this has been, well, trying. We'lll see if this works...

James and His Mission is a story I wrote in High School. A long time ago. A very long time ago.

Let me know if you have any issues reading it.

Why Johnny can't spell

I was doing a search on the Mark Twain book, The Prince and the Pauper, one of those classics I have never read, but might in the near future. I came across a site that discusses books in general, and allows people to put in their reviews. Now, I'm not the best typist in the world, so I understand a few typos, but the following review by an 8th grader just about made me weep.

DifferentWhen i was in year 5 (5th grade) we had to read this book, and i found it very very boring! The rest of my family however injoyed the book very much. I just coudent read it, i found it hard and boring. So i chetet by just watching the movie! Now i an in year 8 and resently i came acrosse the movie on tv, and i got verry in to it and now i am reading the book again and i absolutly love it. I think that it was a mistake of my teacher to make us read it so erly. Because now i see it as a grate book and i will read it again and again. To be honest i found Tom Sawyr much more boring! So maby if you dont like it now you should try to read it acouple years later and maby you will change your mind like i did!

Oh yeah... the babies...

I figure most people will be coming here to read stuff about the babies.

Everyone is doing very well. We just started week 25. Lisa is getting rather large, but that's a good thing. Everyone is happy and healthy. Lisa spends a lot of time rubbing her tummy and smiling, and I spend a lot of time with my ear to one side of the 'bump' or the other, listening for them, and talking to them. It's pretty cool. Actually, it's incredibly cool. I'll talk to them for a bit, and then take a little break, and they'll kick me, or start moving again. Then I'll talk some more and they'll kick me right in the ear. We think the boy was facing inwards until last Sunday night, because the girl was always so much more active, but I think the talking to him encouraged him to turn, and now he rivals his sister for activity.

What's really interesting, is that they seem to sense which one I am talking to, and that one tends to respond most. It might be the proximity of the sound, but I like to think they are just smart. We listen to more classical music than we ever did before. It's supposed to help with development.

We're kind of in a lull in terms of getting ready for the big day (like it'll last a day). The nursery just needs some organization, which we'll do after the baby shower Lisa's friend Stina is putting on this weekend. We've got a crib (one to start with), a dresser, 2 carseats, and a bunch of stuff people have already given us. Soon the house will be full o' baby, but for now, we're enjoying the
experience.

Day 2

Where to go from here? I've been trying to figure that out. I'll start simple.

Last book I read: Throne of Jade, by Naomi Novik. It's the second book in a trilogy about what life during the Napoleonic Wars would have been like had there been dragons. It's a fantasy novel, pretty light reading. It wasn't as good as the first one in the trilogy, but not bad.

I'm currently reading the ''Girlfriend's Guide to pregnancy", which is very chicky, but funny at times. My wife read it, and thought I might find it funny. I am a little embarrassed to break it open on the train on the way to work in the mornings, so I try to keep it hidden in my knapsack.

The last book I read before the Throne of Jade, was Red Phoenix by Larry Bond, a cold war, Tom Clancy type novel about a second Korean War. I read this book 15 years ago when I was in college, and it was interesting to see how the world had changed (or not changed) since it was written in 1989. There were no references to Stealth fighters or stealth bombers, no M1A1 tanks or Stryker APVs or Tomahawk missiles. It is amazing to see what the US was actually able to keep out of the public eye in the runup to first Gulf War.

I also recently read Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, given to me by my sister. Interesting, if not depressing, book about two Native Canadians serving on the front lines in France during WWI. A highly different view of how the native were treated by Canada and the Hudson's Bay Company. Different from what we had pounded into us repeatedly in history class in grade school. I guess the winners do write the text books.

The Bump: 11/11/2006

My wife Lisa, with the twins: girl on her right, boy on the left

Format, Check!

Okay, I'm done putzing around with the format. Content will soon follow. I did add a link to my sister's blog (Eclecta). She's my blog hero, and if I get addicted to this, or get into any trouble, it's all her fault.

A new beginning

So I had a blog for a while, and I quickly got tired of it, because I was just using it to vent, with the idea that no one would ever read it (I hoped). Lately, I've realized I actually want people to ready what I write, and more over, I want people I know to read what I write.

So I deleted my old blog, and started a new one. Why Cranium Outpost? Well I couldn't think of anything else. Cranium just popped into my head, and Outpost came from a book I have on my book shelf that is a reference guide to an old computer game name "Outpost" by Bruce Balfour. It's amazing that every other name I could think of was already taken by someone else, not that they all have content (I checked some of them), or that they have been updated since 2001, but they still own the blog.

They say thousands of blogs are created every day, but only a few are active. I'm hoping to keep it active, and to keep it updated. I think I'll have a lot of good material coming shortly. My wife is due to have twins in February, so in addition to my thoughts on life, sports, music and politics, I'm hoping to keep everyone up to date with family stuff.

Anyway, before I go too much farther, I must format. We all know a web site with a sucky format, well, sucks. Let me know what you think.