I often wonder why sixteen year-olds are permitted to drive cars. I remember my teenage years and the feelings of invulnerability. Couple that with the fact that safe driving skills are acquired only through years of experience, and you might as well place a loaded weapon in the hands of a child.

My mother lives next door to a family with a sixteen year-old daughter, Tara, whom we have met on several of our visits. This past Friday night, she was driving home on rain-slicked roads when she spun out of control and was broadsided by a truck. No one was drinking, and they all were wearing seatbelts which probably saved Tara's life. But her two friends in the car were killed instantly.

Our hearts go out to her and her family as they struggle to overcome this tragedy.

First, a happy Mothers' Day to all the women out there with that uncanny nurturing patience that I cannot begin to comprehend... most especially my lovely wife.

Second, Trevor's White Sox rolled onward yesterday with a 16-1 victory over the Rockies. Trevor once again came out onto the mound in a reliever role with one out in the fourth, and he struck out two of the four batters he faced, walked another, and the other one reached on an error when our first baseman dropped the ball. His ERA remains at zero. At the plate, he had a 2-RBI double, a 2-RBI single, and walked with the bases full for a fifth RBI. Our next game is Tuesday.

Today I had planned to do some outdoor work, including cleaning out our eaves, but it's been raining all day. When the rain does stop, I'll also need to check our rooftop antenna, which seems to have lost it's signal for some reason... in the meantime, no HDTV.

Yesterday, the Forrest Automotive Design White Sox began the regular season at the Cleveland Township Little League... and with great success!

Thanks to a truly amazing performance by our starting pitcher, Sam Fry, who threw a no-hitter until the "pitch-count" rules mandated his removal halfway through the fifth inning, we were able to cruise to an 11-2 victory over the Sheline Family Dentistry Cubs. Trevor was scheduled to be our reliever, but given our big lead the coaches decided to let a young (not quite nine years-old) kid have a shot with two outs in the fifth... but after he walked four straight batters, they sent Trevor in to clean up. And he did exactly that by throwing three straight strikes to end the inning.

Otherwise, Trevor had an uneventful day at first base. At the plate, he had a 2-RBI single and walked twice.

The only frustrating aspect of the game was the behavior of the youngest kids on our team. As I mentioned before, our league is trying this bizarre experiment where kids as young as seven are being drafted into the minors, which wouldn't be so bad if those kids displayed maturity and a genuine desire to hone their skills with the big boys. And suffice to say that a couple of our young kids have neither, preferring to spend their time laughing, screaming, and crawling the walls of the dugout like an ADHD Tasmanian devil on meth. I may soon find another use for the baseball bats...

Anyway, like a good little scorekeeper, I've been compiling the stats, and I've uploaded a copy here. I'll try to keep it up to date, beginning tomorrow when we take on the Rockies under skies predicted to be sunny and mild.

To follow up on my post where I stated my pleasant surprise at how Obama was able to win Elkhart County so handily, we have this little gem:

Elkhart cross burning investigated by FBI

Swell. Yes, folks, as I mentioned in a previous entry over a year ago, the KKK is still very much alive and well here in America's heartland. How is it possible, you may ask, that in this enlightened day and age such blatantly hateful organizations are still able to do their mischief with relative impunity?

I dunno. Maybe it's because law enforcement here doesn't really consider it a big priority. Behold the comments of Lt. Ed Windbigler, the Elkhart Police Public Information Officer, in the above linked article:

“If [the police] don’t know why [the cross] was burned, I guess it wouldn’t be a crime other than criminal mischief. It’s not even arson because it wasn’t anyone else’s property other than the person who left it there.”

Aaaaaauuuuuuugggggghhhhhh!!! ***headdesk!!!*** ***headdesk!!!*** ***headdesk!!!*** ***splat!!!*** ***bloodspatter!!!*** ***headdesk!!!***

Sure, Ed. No one has even the vaguest clue why a cross would be burning in the lawn of an interracial couple. It's just the damned oddest thing. Perhaps they were merely having a nice Christian barbecue, and they all joined hands and sang "Kumbaya" or some f*cking thing...

Good lord, are you truly this dense, or just too fundamentally racist to acknowledge that hate crimes even exist? How do you sleep at night?

Perhaps Zack de la Rocha has some wisdom to share with us about this.

Whereas my excitement concerning the below announcement cannot be overstated, and despite everyone on my f-list having already spread the word, I've been hopelessly distracted these past few days and only now am I getting around to making the obligatory blog post:

As seen yesterday on TrekMovie.com and TrekWeb.com, the official cover for Myriad Universes: Echoes and Refractions has been released!



Damn, that's sweet.

Never before have I written a story whereafter a professional artist was contracted to produce a visual realization of the content. As such, this is a defining moment for me.

Granted, I didn't create the characters in question, and only two of the five on the cover are from my particular story. One is Thelin, the Andorian. (That's the bluish dude with the antennae.) The other is David Marcus. However, prior to this, Thelin has only appeared as a character in Star Trek: The Animated Series--he's never before been fully rendered in a realistic 3-D depiction. Kudos to John Picacio.

Not to mention that my name is first. Boo-yah! Yeah, well, that's only because of the sequence of the stories in the volume, but appearance is everything.

I hope my story is worthy of this cover.

I'm still recovering from my 13+ hour shift yesterday as a poll clerk at Indiana's Elkhart County Osolo Precinct #67. The bad part was the malfunctioning air conditioning and the uncomfortable chairs. But the good part was the friendly co-workers (yes, even the Republicans, who were mostly the same folks I had worked with when I did this back in 2006), the incredible abundance of food provided, and of course, the excitement of just being a part of an important civic institution.

The turnout was amazing for a primary election, with over 700 ballots cast in a precinct with only about 1700 voters (and that's about 100 more registered voters than we had in 2006). And the number of voters choosing the Democratic ballot outnumbered those voting Republican by about four-to-one. Now, that isn't necessarily surprising, given that we had two hotly contested races for both president and governor on the Democratic ballot, and neither on the Republican side; but it's also true that Indiana state law forbids you from voting in a given party's primary "if the voter, at the last general election, voted for a majority of the regular nominees of [another] political party..." And I absofrigginlutely guarantee that the voters in our precinct didn't come out four-to-one for the Democrats in the last general election. Which basically means that I enabled massive violations of Indiana state law, though I had absolutely no authority to challenge anyone on this point (nor would I, even if I had such authority).

But make no mistake. I heard things. Lots of things. And I can assure you that Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" is having a significant effect on the voting in areas dominated by dittoheads--more than enough to account for Hillary's 2% win in Indiana.

And that's the truly amazing thing. In a state like Indiana that should be right in HRC's wheelhouse, where she attacked Obama ruthlessly in her advertising and where the idiot media pundits still won't shut up about Rev. White and all his "scary" black parishioners, nonetheless she barely was able to squeak by with a win. She failed to win the precinct where I worked even though we had only a dozen or so black voters all day long. In fact, in Elkhart County, where the population is primarily white rednecks, Latinos and Amish/Mennonite, she was trounced by Obama, 59%-41%. Meanwhile, Obama handily won North Carolina, giving him a substantial net gain for the day in both pledged delegates as well as the popular vote, thus placing the race for the nomination even further out of reach for Hillary.

For the first time, mainstream journalists like Tim Russert are coming out and admitting that the nomination is effectively sealed for Obama. What does this mean for Hillary? Who knows. She canceled all of her scheduled talkshow appearances this morning, though I've heard conflicting reports as to the reason. Some claim she's going to Washington to try and strong-arm some more superdelegates before they start to defect en-masse. Others claim that she is meeting with her staff to genuinely question whether she should continue. I sincerely hope, for the sake of the party and the country, that it's the latter. And I never would have suggested this two months ago, but perhaps a joint ticket is precisely what is needed to heal the divisions within the party and move forward.

In another Indiana race, the Democratic nomination for governor went to former congresswoman Jill Long-Thompson by a razor-thin margin of less than 1%. Her opponent, Jim Schellinger, has yet to officially concede the race, so hopefully this won't get ugly.

UPDATE: So much for hopes of resolution. Now clearly in clinical denial, Hillary continues trying to resuscitate her campaign long after it has flatlined. Question: How the hell is it legal to loan six million dollars to one's own campaign? Exactly how does the campaign pay her back when it's effectively defunct?

With the primary election just a day away here in Indiana, I felt an urge to pointedly address a lot of the crap accusations that have been leveled against Senator Obama these past few months.

The motherload seems to be the "Obama Laundry List of Lies," widely circulating via email and blogs, and containing anywhere from about 58 to 70+ ridiculously wacky charges that, of course, people tend to believe because they're too damn lazy to learn the truth for themselves.

The vast majority of this garbage comes from the NewsMax "Internet journalist" Andy Martin, who is a hero of the Freepers for his attacks on Democrats but who never seems to have one iota of evidence for his batshit-insane made-up allegations.

Anyway, I decided to tackle the first twenty of these in time for tomorrow's election. Depending upon the response, I may press on to address the remainder... assuming that my heart can handle the stress.

This is crazy-long (natch), so behind the cut it shall hide.

( Click here! )

Comments are welcome.

Since we really should be focusing upon McCain right now instead of the circus antics of the Democratic primary...

Take the Bush-McCain Challenge!

An online quiz to see if you can tell the difference between George W. Bush and John McCain.

Finish the first quiz, and then you get the bonus questions to see if you can distinguish McCain from a carrot.

So I sit down to watch the 11:00 news, and come to find out that Barack Obama made an unannounced stop right here in Elkhart today!

WTF, man? C'mon Barack, let me know when you're coming to town! Our house is open. We'll get out the good dishes and everything!

Damn.

Another Little League season is underway! Yesterday the opening day festivities were held at the ballpark, with food sold by Nelson's BBQ, and brief exhibition matchups to get the kids prepared for their first real games of the year later this week. The weather yesterday was gloomy most of the day, but the sun peeked out in the morning just long enough to give us a pleasant hour or so on the diamond. I, of course, have resumed my scorekeeping duties.

We played two innings against the Mariners. Trevor didn't pitch because, frankly, other kids on the team needed more work; but those other kids actually did quite well, only giving up two runs, neither of which were "earned" due to some bad throws that allowed the batters to get on base. At the plate, Trevor struck out once, and then hit into a fielder's choice; but the other team really struggled with their pitching, walking in three or four runs in the second inning.

And there's the rub: Pitchers in Little League Minor Division tend to struggle anyway, and in our league the talent is very thinly spread across seven teams. I hadn't completely understood why so many 7-8 year-olds had been moved into our Minors division when in previous years those kids had been kept in the Coach-Pitch Division unless they were highly skilled. Then I discovered that our league, beginning this year, has basically eliminated the Coach-Pitch Division, opting instead to use a combined Tee-Ball/Coach-Pitch approach for the 5-6 year-olds.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I can see how it might be beneficial in the long run to get young kids some early experience in the player-pitch divisions. On the other hand, we're going to be at an extraordinary disadvantage when we go up against other Little League clubs in the regional tournament, because no other club is promoting 7-8 year-olds into the Minors on a regular basis. To put things in perspective, last year as a nine year-old Trevor was in just his first year with the Minors, and despite him having a decent season our squad was utterly destroyed in inter-league play. This year Trevor is clearly one of the most talented kids on the team, whereas some of our young kids barely even know how to play the game.

In any case, the games within our own league should be competitive, and we might well have the best pitchers bullpen in our league's Minor Division. We'll see, as the regular schedule gets underway this Thursday.

Last night, Kayla gave a vocal concert with her third grade class in a gymnasium that was quite literally packed in with parents and family. It seems that her class is one of the largest in the school's history. The show was pleasant enough, with the kids doing selections from The Lion King and other contemporary children's fare.

Afterward, we took the kids to Taco Bell. And you know what? They've really done some amazing things with the menu. They've added combo meals, kids' meals, adult platters, a low-calorie "fresco" menu, and later this month our store is adding a slushie machine. And yet, they still have a lot of low-cost items that can be quite satisfying for a customer on a tight budget. Trouble is, all the new choices compelled us to buy higher-priced items than what we'd usually settle for, and as a result we spent more than we ever had before at a Taco Bell.

Somewhere, Lou Dobbs is screaming... Not only are the Mexicans taking our jobs, they're taking our KIDS' MEALS too!!!

During my recent visit to my optometrist, I pointed out that for the past year or so I've had this odd little bump on the inside of my left eyelid. I figured it was just another one of those annoying (and somewhat repulsive) little growths that tend to pop up all over the human body when one's age approaches forty. But it had begun to cause some minor irritation when I wore my contact lenses, so they suggested that I see an ophthalmologist (definition: one who desires a profession that cannot be spelled correctly) to have it checked out.

So today on my lunch break I went to the Boling Vision Center for what I thought would be a simple routine exam. The doctor diagnosed it as a chalazion, and the next thing I knew, he was suggesting that we could immediately perform "surgery" on the thing, (!!!) whereby I was placed in a supine chair and given a local anesthetic in my left eye. Ten minutes later, he had finished "scooping it out" (his words, not mine) and I was given a tube of ophthalmic antibiotic ointment and sent back to work.

So now I'm back to wearing glasses again for a few days, but I'm not in any significant pain, and it should heal up relatively quickly. So it's really no big deal. It's probably not even worth blogging about. But I just couldn't pass up such a golden opportunity to gross everyone the hell out.

I've commented before on the spineless inefficacy of Elkhart County Prosecutor Curtis Hill. Suffice to say that the man believes only in expediency, not justice. Well, he's at it again.

Last Friday in Goshen, a twelve year-old boy was accidentally shot in the shoulder while on his school playground at recess. The boy is recovering, an in fact was back in school today, albeit with the bullet still lodged in his lung. And better yet, the police found the freak that's responsible! It seems that some moron was simply shooting at sparrows and got careless. And today, Curtis Hill announced that since the shooting was an accident, no charges will be filed.

Uh, WTF???

Let me get this straight: Some mouth-breathing neanderthal recklessly fires a weapon into a SCHOOLYARD, striking a 12 year-old kid who easily could have been killed, and this is perfectly okay because it was an ACCIDENT? Are you kidding me??? Have our values become so insanely twisted that one's so-called right to indiscriminately fire a deadly weapon wherever they like is more important than the lives of our children?

If Curtis Hill is unwilling to fulfill his responsibility and prosecute those who carelessly put others' lives in danger, he should step down and make way for someone who isn't in the back pocket of the NRA.

This past weekend marked two full years on LiveJournal!

Unfortunately, the blog was neglected, as we spent the weekend visiting my mother in Cincinnati. She's doing well, and she's doing a heroic job of caring for my stepfather, who is the advanced stages of Alzheimer-related dementia. She fixed us a terrific dinner, and she and Kayla baked a cake in belated celebration of my birthday.

While we were there, we visited a bookstore or two to talk to the ownership about the possibility of perhaps doing a book signing later this fall. Not only would such an event be kinda cool, but such conversations also have the added benefit of making the mileage for the entire trip tax deductible. *Wheeeeee!!!* More details will be hammered out as the release of Echoes and Refractions draws nigh, but it would be really cool if we could get all of the Trek writers in the Cincinnati area together... so, Christopher Bennett and steve_mollmann, consider yourselves ON NOTICE!!!

I also followed the NFL Draft, and despite the wretched season, Notre Dame was still well-represented, with John Carlson and Trevor Laws going in the second round (to Seattle and Philly, respectively), Zbikowski to the Ravens in the third, and Sullivan to the Vikings in the sixth. Note that all of these guys had been fifth-year seniors at ND. Not one single player from Willingham's disastrous 2004 recruiting class was called up on draft day. Go figure.

Oh, and best of all... while we were gone, Buttercup was boarded and groomed, and so for at least a little while she won't be shedding all over the house and smelling like... well, like a dog.

UPDATE 4/28: Three more ND players have signed free-agent contracts: Travis Thomas with Cleveland, Joe Brockington with Buffalo, and J.J. Jansen with Green Bay. Here's hoping they all will make the grade.

I have a great new outlook on things... which is to say, I finally got a new set of contact lenses! I had stopped wearing my old pair a couple of months ago when they began to irritate my eyes and thus opted to stick with my glasses for awhile. But now I'm happy once again to have the increased field of vision, not to mention the freedom from having to fart around with headgear all day. And I can wear sunglasses again while driving, which is a major plus for both comfort and safety.

And so far the best thing my eyes have beheld is this article at TrekWeb which reveals the back cover copy from the Myriad Universes novels--which of course includes my own story in Echoes and Refractions:

THE CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT by Geoff Trowbridge: In a continuum where Spock died during childhood, an Andorian named Thelin became Captain Kirk's stalwart friend and first officer. But at the moment of Khan's final defeat, history takes an even stranger turn, and the emerging potential of Project Genesis is revealed as the galaxy's greatest hope . . . and its most ominous threat.

Unfortunately, they're still using that promo cover art which screams, "Hey, look! I just learned how to use Photoshop an hour ago!" But I've been assured that the final design (by the brilliant artist John Picacio) should be ready very soon.

I voted today.

No, I didn't suddenly move to Pennsylvania. Since I'm going to be working as a poll clerk on Indiana's election day in two weeks, I had to vote absentee at the County Courts Building (conveniently located right across the street from the library).

If you've been following my blog as of late, you can probably guess that I voted for Senator Obama. The other significant race was the Democratic nominee for governor, which featured former U.S. Congresswoman Jill Long Thompson versus businessman Jim Schellinger. I voted for Thompson, partly because of her experience, but mostly to assuage my guilt for not having supported the female candidate for president.

Of course the local media is prattling on about how excited the Hoosier voters are to finally be voting in a primary election that "matters." I'm not excited in the slightest. I'm so damn sick of this primary season that I could puke. Not only are the candidates themselves getting nastier with each passing day, so are the voters. Democrats have completely lost sight of what is at stake in the general election, choosing instead to embrace the more superficial ambition of backing "the woman" or "the black dude" and demonizing the other side, going so far as to threaten to support McCain in the general if they don't get their way. All this "record turnout" in the primary won't mean squat if half of them get completely disillusioned when their preferred candidate doesn't get the nod.

Hillary Clinton clearly is going to win Pennsylvania today, just like everyone knew she would. In fact, with 78% of the precincts reporting, she's ahead by about eight points, which is more-or-less exactly what the polls predicted. Based upon the exit polling, the difference was that white men in Pennsylvania are a little less misogynistic than they are racist. The same will probably hold true in Indiana. But Obama will get a huge win in North Carolina by virtue of the fact that there are no white Democrats there. Thus, given the proportional allocation of delegates, neither candidate will have a net gain, and we'll be exactly where we were two months ago--with Obama still having a mathematically insurmountable lead in delegates.

So while the idiotic media prattles on about how Hillary is still viable (because it's in their best interest to do so), the Democrats will continue to tear each other apart, the party will continue to hemorrhage money when they should be saving up for the general election, and HRC will continue her scorched-earth strategy of trying to get the superdelegates to overturn the results of both the popular vote and the pledged delegates.

I just can't bring myself to care anymore. One way or another, Americans will get precisely the government they deserve... no more, no less.

I've spoken before about our friends, the Kilmers. Their ten year-old son, Alex, has already begun to make his name known in the area as a master thespian, doing shows with the Elkhart Civic Theatre, as well as the Round Barn Theatre in Nappanee.

Now it seems that a scout has made him an offer to attend an invitation-only theatre camp in New York this summer. Purportedly this is the same talent scout who initially discovered Reese Witherspoon in Nashville. The family would like very much to make the trip, but as with everyone these days, finances are a bit tight.

As a fundraiser, Alex's mom recently had a house party with a consultant for The Pampered Chef. If you haven't heard of them, they're the makers and distributors of high-quality and often quite unique and useful cooking products. Heidi absolutely loves the stuff. If you like to cook, you owe it to yourself to check out the line.

And here's the best part: If you browse the site using this link, and get your orders in by this Friday (4/25/08), the Kilmers will get credit for the sale.

Bon appétit!

It's true... A month late, but I believe spring has finally arrived.

On Saturday morning the obligatory April showers were in evidence as we made our way down the streets of Wakarusa (which in the language of the Potawatomi Indians means "knee-deep in mud") in our attempts to enjoy the annual Maple Syrup Festival. Later, Heidi and I had an evening out in belated celebration of my birthday.

Today was a beautiful sunny day in the 70s. This morning, Hannah gave a vocal performance with her preschool at New Salem UM Church. Then Trevor had a Little League practice at 3 o'clock, after which he and I met up with the rest of the family at a birthday party for one of our grand-nephews.

And now I am BEAT. I think my body has yet to adjust to the warmer weather, 'cause I feel like I've run a marathon. And the schedule doesn't get any lighter. *sigh!*

♫♪ Happy birthday to me... ♫♪♫

(and to kradical and brocha too!)

I tell ya, this day is so exciting, you can feel the earth move.

And regarding presents, not only did I get a few nice things from Heidi, but my galley proofs for Echoes and Refractions: The Chimes at Midnight arrived today! If the page numbers are accurate, it looks like my novel will be the first of the three stories within the whole volume. I still haven't seen the cover art, but the editor assures me that it's nearing completion. (The cover seen on the Amazon listing is not the final cover in any way, shape or form.) And hopefully, despite the August release date, they will have advance copies available at Shore Leave. *fingers crossed!*

Oh, and as a gift to myself, I used an online hack to upgrade the OS on my iPAQ to Windows Mobile 6.1. *happygeek!*

I've been contemplating whether or not to blog about the journalistic travesty that ABC decided to market under the guise of a "debate" last night, but every time I think about what I'd like to say, I throw up in my mouth a little.

So I'll just link to this opinion instead, which pretty much covers it.

Good night, and good luck. You're gonna need it.


UPDATE: Here's an even better one.