I was reading an Elmore Leonard novel sometime ago when I ran across the concept of the Nut. I think it's a gambling term, and the meaning shifts with the folks who invoke it, but I interpret it as the core of money you make on a big score that will set you up for life. In other words, if you are lucky enough to get your Nut, and you don't touch it, you are set for life living off the interest.

I'm feeling a nut in my future. I can feel it out there. I'm 47 years old, and I can feel it coming soon. and when I get it, i will be the foundation that will allow me to build and take chances. With a nut, you can jump, you can sprint, you can aim higher. Watch for me, muthafuckas. It's coming.

I read. Probably too much, but it makes me happy. The thing is, whenever i read something good, it makes me brain fire in ways that makes me want to become a better writer. Come on, admit it. You are in the same boat. Whenever you read lush description, or incisive characterization, or totally balls-out extrapolation, you want to write. If not, what are you doing here in Blog land?

Scientific and Technical communication, and although I don't write many tech manuals these days, it helps me. I know how to communicate technical things in short, easy to understand terms. I have an unshakable faith that is nothing in this world that is too complex to understand. That is the essence of writing, and in science fiction, which I love, it focuses me on the RULES, in a geeky, nerd loving way that lets me put big ideas into play.

I write well, but that doesn't make me a writer. You see, a writer writes every day about something, and emails don't count. Do I want to be a writer? Yes. Do I have the tools to be a writer? Yes. So what makes me think I am not a writer? All of my best stuff, all of my greatest ideas I produce because I want to feel good about myself. I have only tried to sell a few things, and they sold.

But I don't submit my babies, you know, the ones that I think are the best of what I have. Why don't I submit those? Ya got me.

I'm working for a new place now. I'm not sure what to make of this one. I'm intrigued. It is at backup power systems. (www.backuppowersource.com)

I really wanted to like this movie.  I loved the book.  It kind of changed my perception of the South, even though I had struggled through "Absolam, Absolam" in high school.  Luckily, James Lee Burke was more in the "Rose for  Miss Emily" and Flannery O'Connor school than the rest of the tiresome crawl through the decaying Southern Aristocracy.

The problem with the film, though, was that it filmed like "Good Night and Good Luck" for the first half.  It was so deadpan, so "Cinema Verite" in the beginning that it turned off most people and other beings like theatre critics before they could even figure out what the story was about.

Dave Robicheaux is a man with problems,  foremost among them is that he is a force for chaotic good in a world where that doesn't matter.  His drinking and his need for violence (which we all slaver for) is what brings him down to the real world.  We wish he could be a force that destroys the things so obviously evil and present in his day to day existence, yet he has to be polite and civil to monsters.

I don't think that using a french director was a mistake, but whoever edited the beginning of the film had no connection into the balls and womb of this country and the deep Louisiana story this is born from , and they needed it, because that is where the book came from.

Finding Oz--Creative biography of Lyman Frank Baum, the true wizard.

The Host, by Stephanie Meyer (yes, the Twilight author.  Shut up.)

The Affinity Bridge by some George Mann.  Steampunk is back.

WWW: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer

The best time is around 3pm, when they've spent all day soaking in the sun.  Their delicate, reverse scalloping shining a shade deeper than golden in the sun, swelling daily.  There are ten of them.  All from just one plant, and there they lay, waiting for their ending.  Soon their warm, oozing depths will be opened.  They smell of earth and vegetable flesh, their scent begging for a candle to complete them.

When I was younger, I always slept easier when I was set against someone, rather than setting against them myself.  I could be ruthless, bloody minded. The guilt was not mine.

Now, of course, I do not set myself against any soul.  If they are worth setting against, there are plenty of fools lining up to set things right.

You know, I haven't posted for quite a while, and I don't know why, other than the fact that I need to write about my stepbrother's funeral, and was daunted by the task.  I still am, but I'm just going to gut it out and post it here, no matter how shitty and substandard it may be.  Life goes on.