Six Sentence Sunday

Another snipped from Rescue Operation, continuing from last week.

He blinked stupidly at his wrists, and then lifted his head and looked along the cable. It took him a moment to take in the scope of the disaster.  Callan lay beside him, and beyond him were several of the group that had been working on the dam.  That end of the cable was attached to the transport, which was parked on a high spot well back from the slide.  When he turned his head, he saw the rest of the dam crew, including Buck and Tod’s older brother.  Beyond them was Tammy, her cheek raw.

Be sure to visit the other Six Sentence Sunday writers.

500th Post and Drawing Results #IAN

This is my 500^th post, and I’m celebrating by announcing the results of my drawing and posting a few of my favorite pictures. Thanks, all, for making this blog as successful as it is.

Lately I’ve been trying a post a day, with different themes for different days of the week. Monday I talk about the local weather (which at the moment is unseasonably cold, even by Fairbanks standards — we set a new record low a couple of nights ago.)

Tuesday I review something – a book, a DVD, a tourist attraction, a class I’m taking – anything goes.

Wednesday I give the contexts for the quotes I’ve been tweeting the previous week from @sueannbowling. Can you guess the book and context from the tweet? Mostly I quote from fantasy and science fiction, since that’s what I write, but this week I’m quoting from a non-fiction book, one I’ll probably review next Tuesday.

Thursday is random. Could be a poem, a bit of fiction, a rant – whatever comes into my head.

Friday is the backstory for the world in which my science fiction is set. Right now I’m giving (actually writing as I go) entries from the fictional journal of an alien stranded on Earth about the time modern humans were evolving.

Saturday is something related to science or health, so since this is Saturday I figured at the very least I should explain how I’m doing the drawing..

Sunday I give a six-sentence snippet from something I’ve written. Right now it’s the first book of a trilogy I’m trying to polish.

Oh yes, the drawing. I’ll give the results later; I’m not closing the drawing until midnight November 18 my time, by which time I should be in bed. So the actual drawing will be about 9 am November 19. This post will go live at 8 am, so I’ll edit it to give the results as soon as I have them.

How am I doing it?

First, I’ve made a list of everyone who’s commented on any of my posts since I announced the drawing, and put them in an Excel table. As I said, up to five comments per person are allowed, though only one comment per post. There were 33 entries.

Second, I’ll have Stat Trek generate a random number table, using the number of final entrants with no duplicates allowed. These random numbers will be put in the next row of the excel table.

Third, the person who lines up with random number 1 is the winner. The people who line up with random numbers 2 through 5 are the runners-up. It is possible, of course, that a person with multiple entries will get more than one of the 3 winning numbers. In that case, the placing will go to whoever lines up with random number 6, or in the unlikely case that the same person gets several placings on this round it may be necessary to go as high as random number 10. (This didn’t happen.)

The results? (Drummroll.)

The Winner: Candace Coghill.

The Runners-up: Lee Shapiro, Christine Warner, Karysafaire and Krystal Wade.

I will post the results here and on Twitter, and will try to contact the winners by e-mail. I will need a physical mail address for the first place winner. Again, first prize is winner’s choice of a softcover version of Homecoming or its sequel Tourist Trap. Second through fifth places get the same choice, but in PDF, or an unpublished story in PDF.

 

Jarn’s Journal Day 595

Day 595

They have returned, and Songbird has rejoined them.

How am I going to survive with no one but Patches to talk to?

I have been spying on their camp, and they returned yesterday. It must have shown on my face when I teleported back to the shelter, because Songbird at once began saying, “Are they back?”

“Yes,” I said. “Do you want to go back to them?”

I was of two minds about this. Surely she was safer with me, and she was a child; it was my duty to guard her. Guard her, yes, my mind whispered, but she is not your property, and she has a mind and will of her own. Let the decision be hers.

And there was never any question of what her decision would be.

I teleported her back to the vicinity of the camp. “Go home,” I told her.

“Thank you,” she half sobbed, and then turned and ran toward the camp.

I did not leave at once. I did not know these people, and it was not out of the question that they would consider her a ghost or a sacrifice that had failed, and would try to kill her.

They were awed, yes – I could see that much. But the man and woman who gathered her to their arms had only joy on their faces, and the rest of the group, though obviously astonished to find her alive, appeared equally welcoming.

Which was the shaman? I wondered. Not there, or one of those welcoming Songbird back? I stayed long enough to be sure Songbird would be safe, but when two of the group started in the direction Songbird had come from, I teleported back to the shelter.

It is very lonely here without Songbird. There are so many reminders – the pallet I made her, which she promptly tore apart and remade to suit herself, the storage baskets and gourds, the tanned hides ….

The rain on the roof is maddening.

Tomorrow I will teleport back to the vicinity of the camp, and make sure she is still safe.

I am posting this background to my published novels on my author website as I get it written. Don’t forget this is the last day to enter the drawing!

Death of Blue Babe

(“Blue Babe” is a steppe bison that was killed by a lion, frozen and buried by silt some 36,000 years ago. He was found by a placer miner near Fairbanks, and rests today in the museum at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.)

The bison sniffed the frosty air, his head swinging back and forth as he scanned the snow-covered steppe. Vigilance was part of life, but within the herd it was a shared duty. Here, alone, he felt exposed and vulnerable. He lowered his head and pawed at the wind-crusted snow, uncovering a batch of browned grass, but he took only one bite before jerking his head up to look around.

The dead grass was harsh on his tongue, but it would be the only food available for months. And how could he feed, without others to keep watch? In the herd, at least one or two individuals at a time were always looking around, ready to sound a warning if danger approached. He swallowed the first bite, and lowered his head briefly to snatch more of the poor feed.

The wind tugged at his thick coat, but could not penetrate to his skin. He spread his nostrils and swiveled his ears, seeking warning of any predator, but the hiss of the blowing snow covered other sounds. Again he turned. Where was the rest of the herd? Sheltering from the wind? Perhaps in the valley to his left?

The narrow stream valley provided little shelter from the biting wind, and no other bison. Instinctively he knew the danger of being alone, but until he found the rest of the herd, he had little choice. Again he paced in a tight circle, seeking the source of every imagined sound.

What was that? One eye caught a blur of motion, and he bolted farther into the little valley. But the snow had drifted deeper here, and as he started to turn back, a sudden weight almost collapsed his hindquarters. Bellowing wildly he bucked and spun, the musk of lion rank in his nostrils. For an instant he was free, plunging though the snow for the mouth of the valley, but out of the thickening storm came another lion, leaping for his head.

His nose was pulled down, and again weight came on his hindquarters. He hardly felt the pain of claws and teeth. All his attention focused on the demands of his lungs for air. He tried to shake his head, to throw off the weight clamped to his muzzle, but his legs would no longer support even his own weight, and buckled under him. Redness fading to black washed across his world. He never knew when the lions began to feed.

Mercedes Lackey Quotes

All but the last of the quotes I tweeted this past week from @sueannbowling are from a single book, Storm Warning.

“If you want to make your enemy into something you can hate, you first remove his humanity.” Mercedes Lackey, Storm Warning. Karal can’t remember whether Ulrich or Solaris said that, but he’s having a hard time remembering Heralds aren’t really White Demons.

“You don’t go into a pairing intending to try and change someone to suit you.”  Mercedes Lackey, Storm Warning. Elspeth is trying to explain to An’desha that Firewind’s apparent attempt to seduce Darkwind was only teasing.

“Everything in this world is paid for, in the end.” Mercedes Lackey, Storm Warning. Karal’s thoughts, his first night at Haven.

“It is wise to be remote in the presence of one who conjures demons.” Mercedes Lackey, Storm Warning. A Shin’a’in proverb, quoted by Talia as she tries to explain to Karal that one of the reasons he finds trouble making friends is that people fear him.

“It’s a cliché precisely because it is so often true.” Mercedes Lackey, Storm Warning. Talia again, and this time the cliché is that “the only cure for anything is time.” She’s speaking to Karal about his homesickness.

“Anyone who is more intelligent than the people around him has troubles as a child.” Mercedes Lackey, Storm Warning. An’desha, Karal and Natoli are comparing childhoods.

“Does it matter who he is, then, if you trust him?” Sue Ann Bowling, Tourist Trap. Roi to Marna, on hearing her explanation of Win. Marna’s not sure whether Win is a ghost, her own subconscious, or a guardian angel. (Neither am I.)

Alaskan Mesozoic 3

One of the problems faced by teachers at any level is questions.

Very young children are full of questions – the problem is keeping a class from disintegrating into chaos. Somehow parents, school and adults in general manage to turn that questioning off, at least in the classroom. In teaching college courses, I found that it was very difficult to get students to ask any questions. And a good teacher relies on student questions, if only to provide feedback on whether he or she has gotten the point across.

I recall a math class at Harvard where the professor was totally stunned by the abysmal results of the first test. Most of us hadn’t had the least idea of what he was talking about, but were so confused we didn’t even know what to ask. If some of us had just spoken up and said “I don’t understand that,” he might have realized what we only understood in retrospect – he had not bothered to find out exactly what the preceding class had covered, and a large and essential chunk of the necessary background to what he was teaching had never been covered. In this case, I think we were all afraid of looking stupid in the eyes of the other students.

I’m not talking about huge lecture classes, of course. But in smaller groups, often with a graduate assistant, questions do need to be asked – and frequently are not. As a result, those who teach in college settings generally plan their lectures assuming there will not be many questions.

Many of our local OLLI classes, for adults over 50, are taught by college professors, often retired. These lecturers plan their courses as if we were college students, with a typical student’s reluctance to ask meaningful questions. It doesn’t work, at least not in Fairbanks. We older students are full of questions, especially when our instructors are active researchers of what they are teaching.

The final lecture of “The Mesozoic of Alaska” was supposed to cover marine reptiles and pterosaurs. Well, the marine reptile – an ichthyosaur discovered on the North Slope – was indeed covered, in the last five minutes of the two-hour class. I had to ask about the pterosaurs after class.

I think that Pat (who is not retired) intended to give a brief overview of what kinds of dinosaur fossils have been found in Alaska, followed by the story of the excavation of the ichthyosaur (which turned out to have co-discovered by Carl Benson, one of my dissertation advisors) and the trace fossils of pterosaurs. He passed around casts of fossils of numerous types of dinosaurs found along the Colville River, told stories of floating the Colville hunting for dinosaur bones in the thawing banks, and showed artists’ conceptions of the living beasts. And he had to field tons of questions.

I won’t go into the classifications of Saurischia and Ornithischia, you can look at Wikipedia if you’re interested. Here in Alaska, we had Edmontosaurus (a duck-bill) chowing down on the vegetation, accompanied (not always on the Colville) by ankylosaurs,  Thescelosaurus, hadrosaurs and Pachyrhinosaurus. They were eaten by large and small two-legged predatory dinosaurs: big-eyed Troodons, the Tryannosaurid Albertosaurus, and another small, pack-hunting killer, Sauromitholestes.

The pterosaurs? They were here, as shown by a trace fossil of the “hand” of one. Their bones are so delicate that it is no surprise fossils have not been found yet in Alaska, but they were here. At least there is no problem with their possible migration, which is still hotly debated for the land-dwelling dinosaurs.

Don’t forget to comment for the drawing — I’m including all relevant posts.

Fairbanks Weather 14/11/11

The sun rose this morning at 9:19, and it will set this evening at 3:50 for a mere 6 hours 31 minutes of daylight. At its highest, it is 7° above the horizon. The snow depth was 10” at noon yesterday, the last time I was home and had daylight enough to see.

We’re not getting the blizzards that have been hitting the west coast of Alaska, but we are getting a very light, powdery snow with perhaps an inch a day accumulation. Winds are generally light, so the snow falls vertically. And it’s cold. It’s above zero right now, but not by much, and by midweek the daily highs are forecast to be well below 0°F.

Saturday the shortness of the days really came home to me. I left the house almost as soon as the sun was up for the “Mesozoic in Alaska” class. When the class was over, a little after noon, I had lunch at my favorite restaurant, and then did some essential shopping. By the time I arrived back home, it was almost too dark to drive. Granted it was a cloudy day, but clear days are even worse this time of year, as the low sun makes it almost impossible to see.

Luckily I am not subject to SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and I probably would have left Alaska long since if I were. I do have a problem with the short days since I cannot drive at night and public transport here, even for the handicapped, is extremely limited. I’d like to attend the Fairbanks Symphony concerts, for instance, but from late October through February they let out too late for me to drive home, even from a matinee. Taxi? Well over $100 round trip, and that’s a little out of my budget. I hope I can get a ride for the Christmas concert.

Six Sentence Sunday

This is a continuation from last week’s snippet, from a WIP tentatively called Rescue Operation.

“Volunteers to set that up?”

What they hadn’t counted on was the Confederation communications system and that the slavers had full access to satellite images.  Tod figured that out later.  At the time he knew only that he had been racing back to the dam with news that the slide had stopped the transport.  The next thing he remembered he was lying on the ground, wrists fastened together and to a cable.  His hip and shoulder ached–he must have fallen off his horse, something he rarely did.

Have a look at the others:

Measuring Blood Sugar

Back in the middle of the 20^th century, long before I had diabetes or even thought much about it, I saw a magazine ad that talked about diabetes. It might have been an insulin ad. What I do remember was that it featured a Russian troika – a three-horse hitch – and likened controlling diabetes to driving a troika. Three things have to be balanced: insulin, food and exercise, and misjudging any of the three can throw you to the wolves.

That balancing act is hard enough today, with all the tools we have to help. It was a lot harder 42 years ago, when I was diagnosed. And I hate to think of what it must have been like at the time of the ad.

The key is being able to keep track of your blood sugar. Really high, and you need insulin – exercise may actually push you higher. A little high, and aerobic exercise may bring you down. Too low, and you need food, preferably fast-acting carbohydrates. But at the time of the ad, measuring blood sugar meant several hours of lab work, and you might hear back from the doctor the next day. In order to utilize food, insulin and exercise optimally, you have to have some idea of what your blood sugar is right now, and whether it is rising or falling.

There are some symptoms. Sweating, shaking, blurred vision, and tingling lips can all be symptoms of low blood sugar. They can also be due to other things. (I was put on hormones at menopause primarily because I could not tell the difference between a hot flash and low blood sugar.) But those symptoms tend to decrease with years of living with diabetes.

Symptoms of high blood sugar are even subtler. I may start feeling a little odd when my blood sugar is three or four times normal, but my feelings were certainly not enough to tell me when I was high. Anyway, in those days doctors normally prescribed a fixed amount of insulin and a fairly rigid diet, and pretty much ignored exercise.

My current glucose monitor

What was desperately needed was a way for diabetics to find out what their blood sugar was, preferably without slashing their fingers with a modified razor blade. (That’s how they used to get blood samples.) Eventually, and over the initial objections of some physicians and regulatory agencies who were afraid that patients would self-treat, glucose monitors were developed. From the point of view of most diabetics, the objections were just plain silly. We have to treat ourselves. We give ourselves shots of insulin (which cannot be taken by mouth because it would simply be digested.) We exercise. We eat. Doesn’t it make sense that the more we know about which of the three we need, the better?

The first monitors were reportedly large, clunky and slow. They improved rapidly, and by the time I got my first one, in the late ’80s, they were pocket sized (if you had large pockets.) My testing kit today fits easily into the belt pouch I use as a purse. I still have to poke my fingers many times a day, but I get results in five seconds. One important thing is not covered, though – I can’t tell whether I’m going up or down from an instantaneous reading.

There is also a problem of expense. Tight control means testing before each meal, at bedtime, before you drive, regularly during driving, and every 20 to 30 minutes when exercising. Test strips are not cheap, and there is a real problem getting insurance companies to cover enough strips.

I’m not the only person with diabetes to feel this way, and there’s been a good deal of research on continuous glucose monitors. The first one I tried was the glucowatch. This used a patch sensor on the arm or wrist, and gave the blood sugar on the “face’ of the watch. It could also be read by a computer. Drawbacks? Many. First, it would only operate for 12 hours, and took a while without readings to initialize. Second, the patch was very irritating to my skin. I invariably had a major welt that lasted a week or more when I removed the watch and patch. Third, any sweat made the readings unreliable – and sweating is a symptom of low blood sugar. The watch did confirm that I was having low blood sugars at night and that I responded by “bouncing” high – a fairly common reaction, and much better than staying low with possibly fatal results. But the combination of problems led me to stop using it.

Modern continuous glucose monitors are much better, though by no means perfect, and I’ll talk about them, and the problems with getting insurance companies to cover them, in the future.

Jarn’s Journal, Day 575

Jarn is a human-like alien, stranded in Africa some 125,000 years ago during the next to last interglacial. He has adopted a wild dog, Patches, and rescued an early human child, Songbird. This is the distant back story for my science fiction novels, Homecoming and Tourist Trap. The entire Journal to date is on my author website.

Day 575

The rain has reached my shelter.

Songbird has been saying for several days that she can smell rain and wet ash, and yesterday even I thought I could catch the scent of storm clouds, as well as see the lighting and hear the thunder. But last night we heard a great pounding on the roof, and when I opened the door the light from inside the shelter showed ice falling from the sky and bouncing on the ground around us.

“Hail,” Songbird said with satisfaction. “This rain is strong. Soon the grass will grow through the ash, and the game will return. And the People will follow them.”

She returned to her sleep, apparently lulled by the drumming on the roof. I found myself wondering what I would do without her.

It is not just that she as a far better cook than I am, or that she knows much more about this world than I do. I’ve grown used to having someone I can not only talk to, but hold a conversation with.

At first she was a burden, and a moral quandary. Do not interfere. But I did, and I doubt that either of us would have survived if I had not. Certainly I would have had a far poorer diet.

And because I let my heart overrule my training before, I am now faced with an even deeper quandary.

I can tell myself that we are both better off if she stays with me, but I know all too well that is sophistry. She has the right to make her own choices, and what I heard in her voice, when she said that her people would follow the game….

Part of me says that she is a child, that as an adult it is my duty to overrule her when she wants something that will injure her. And surely she is safer here than back with her people.

She is better suited to this planet than I am.

And I can take her back. I know now that I can teleport her, so what would have been an impossible journey to the place where she was abandoned is no more that a short jump.

And if I take her back, I will be interfering not only with her, but with her whole people.

I will have a chance to see and speak with this shaman who has intrigued me so.

I cannot interfere.

The only thing I have decided by morning is that I should probably teleport once a fiveday to my hiding place in the vicinity of the camp and see if Songbird’s people have returned.