Shaping up to be something of a stressful day. In addition to some reports from the wife of some annoying drama playing out on the homefront, I've also just gotten word from highers-up at work. It seems a project of mine is to be told it's being taken out to the park to play, but in reality will be taken over to a handy-dandy veterinarian to be neutered instead. This is all metaphore, mind you. I don't actually work with animals.
This development is particularly frustrating because the project is one I was specifically hired to do as a primary responsibility way back when. I was supposed to "think outside of the box" and all of that. Ultimately, the end result wasn't particularly cutting-edge or groundbreaking, but it did a damn good job of accomplishing everything I was charged with doing. The marketing gurus are in charge now, and certain features have come under the ax because they're not "on message."
sigh
This isn't a battle I care to fight. The plug is pulled, the directive enacted. I'm just very frustrated because I was proud of what I accomplished with this, and up until now, feedback had been overwhelmingly positive. Specifically, the evidence cited as proof of failure is one of the first things I'd cite as evidence of success. Ah well, no use crying any more than necessary. It's not like I don't have enough on my plate as it is...
Now Playing: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Live at the Fillmore
Monday, June 05, 2006
W.6K
The weekend was full, and I got almost no writing done. Finally managed to hammer out 600 or so words late last night. The prose doesn't exactly sing, but I did manage to accomplish a couple of nice touches here and there. The real question is whether or not I'll be able to boost my production up to a thousand words again tonight or if a mere 2-plus pages is going to be my high water mark from here on out.
Now Playing: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Live at the Fillmore
Now Playing: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Live at the Fillmore
Friday, June 02, 2006
Antarctica's really deep impact!
Very fascinating research, here. Chicxulub has been well-documented, but one question I've run across several time is "where are the other craters?" in relation to the other mass extinctions in Earth's history. Looks like there's some pretty convincing evidence that Ohio State Researchers have found one.
Ancient mega-catastrophe paved way for the dinosaurs, spawned Australian
continent
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Planetary scientists have found evidence of a meteor impact much larger and earlier than the one that killed the dinosaurs -- an impact that they believe caused the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history.
The 300-mile-wide crater lies hidden more than a mile beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. And the gravity measurements that reveal its existence suggest that it could date back about 250 million years -- the time of the Permian-Triassic extinction, when almost all animal life on Earth died out.
Its size and location -- in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, south of Australia -- also suggest that it could have begun the breakup of the Gondwana supercontinent by creating the tectonic rift that pushed Australia northward.
Scientists believe that the Permian-Triassic extinction paved the way for the dinosaurs to rise to prominence. The Wilkes Land crater is more than twice the size of the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula, which marks the impact that may have ultimately killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The Chicxulub meteor is thought to have been 6 miles wide, while the Wilkes Land meteor could have been up to 30 miles wide -- four or five times wider.
"This Wilkes Land impact is much bigger than the impact that killed the dinosaurs, and probably would have caused catastrophic damage at the time," said Ralph von Frese, a professor of geological sciences at Ohio State University.
He and Laramie Potts, a postdoctoral researcher in geological sciences, led the team that discovered the crater. They collaborated with other Ohio State and NASA scientists, as well as international partners from Russia and Korea. They reported their preliminary results in a recent poster session at the American Geophysical Union Joint Assembly meeting in Baltimore.
The scientists used gravity fluctuations measured by NASA's GRACE satellites to peer beneath Antarctica's icy surface, and found a 200-mile-wide plug of mantle material -- a mass concentration, or "mascon" in geological parlance -- that had risen up into the Earth's crust.
Mascons are the planetary equivalent of a bump on the head. They form where large objects slam into a planet's surface. Upon impact, the denser mantle layer bounces up into the overlying crust, which holds it in place beneath the crater.
When the scientists overlaid their gravity image with airborne radar images of the ground beneath the ice, they found the mascon perfectly centered inside a circular ridge some 300 miles wide -- a crater easily large enough to hold the state of Ohio.
Taken alone, the ridge structure wouldn't prove anything. But to von Frese, the addition of the mascon means "impact." Years of studying similar impacts on the moon have honed his ability to find them.
"If I saw this same mascon signal on the moon, I'd expect to see a crater around it," he said. "And when we looked at the ice-probing airborne radar, there it was."
"There are at least 20 impact craters this size or larger on the moon, so it is not surprising to find one here," he continued. "The active geology of the Earth likely scrubbed its surface clean of many more."
There's definitely a story in there somewhere. But what is that story? Other than the obvious sentient trilobites, time travellers, space aliens and Cthulhu, I mean.
Now Playing: The Kinks Face to Face
Ancient mega-catastrophe paved way for the dinosaurs, spawned Australian
continent
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Planetary scientists have found evidence of a meteor impact much larger and earlier than the one that killed the dinosaurs -- an impact that they believe caused the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history.
The 300-mile-wide crater lies hidden more than a mile beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. And the gravity measurements that reveal its existence suggest that it could date back about 250 million years -- the time of the Permian-Triassic extinction, when almost all animal life on Earth died out.
Above, airborne radar image of land elevation in East Antarctica . Higher elevations appear red, purple, and white; the location of the Wilkes Land crater is circled (above center). Image courtesy of Ohio State University . An inset of the Chicxulub crater is included for comparison. Image courtesy of Ohio State University.
Its size and location -- in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, south of Australia -- also suggest that it could have begun the breakup of the Gondwana supercontinent by creating the tectonic rift that pushed Australia northward.
Scientists believe that the Permian-Triassic extinction paved the way for the dinosaurs to rise to prominence. The Wilkes Land crater is more than twice the size of the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula, which marks the impact that may have ultimately killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The Chicxulub meteor is thought to have been 6 miles wide, while the Wilkes Land meteor could have been up to 30 miles wide -- four or five times wider.
"This Wilkes Land impact is much bigger than the impact that killed the dinosaurs, and probably would have caused catastrophic damage at the time," said Ralph von Frese, a professor of geological sciences at Ohio State University.
He and Laramie Potts, a postdoctoral researcher in geological sciences, led the team that discovered the crater. They collaborated with other Ohio State and NASA scientists, as well as international partners from Russia and Korea. They reported their preliminary results in a recent poster session at the American Geophysical Union Joint Assembly meeting in Baltimore.
The scientists used gravity fluctuations measured by NASA's GRACE satellites to peer beneath Antarctica's icy surface, and found a 200-mile-wide plug of mantle material -- a mass concentration, or "mascon" in geological parlance -- that had risen up into the Earth's crust.
Mascons are the planetary equivalent of a bump on the head. They form where large objects slam into a planet's surface. Upon impact, the denser mantle layer bounces up into the overlying crust, which holds it in place beneath the crater.
When the scientists overlaid their gravity image with airborne radar images of the ground beneath the ice, they found the mascon perfectly centered inside a circular ridge some 300 miles wide -- a crater easily large enough to hold the state of Ohio.
Taken alone, the ridge structure wouldn't prove anything. But to von Frese, the addition of the mascon means "impact." Years of studying similar impacts on the moon have honed his ability to find them.
"If I saw this same mascon signal on the moon, I'd expect to see a crater around it," he said. "And when we looked at the ice-probing airborne radar, there it was."
"There are at least 20 impact craters this size or larger on the moon, so it is not surprising to find one here," he continued. "The active geology of the Earth likely scrubbed its surface clean of many more."
There's definitely a story in there somewhere. But what is that story? Other than the obvious sentient trilobites, time travellers, space aliens and Cthulhu, I mean.
Now Playing: The Kinks Face to Face
W1K
It's official--I've now officially overrun all previously existing materials on Wetsilver. I completed a thousand words last night, finishing the chapter, but again, that productivity was boosted somewhat by several unexpected passages I found in earlier drafts I was able to use with minimal changes.
I tried starting the next chapter, but sleep deprivation coupled with uncharted literary territory tripped me up just a few sentences in. I've had a very productive start--I've logged more than 14,000 good words in something like a week and a half, which is more than I had any reason to hope. But now the hard part starts, since I've reached the point in the narrative where my forward momentum has stalled out several times before. Hopefully this time around I've gotten it right, and we'll finally see what's in store for Jachym once he gets out of Neu Braclev.
Now Playing: Melissa Etheridge Never Enough
"Glorious Tvůrce, Creator of All, please accept this humble offering from your humble servants." The Knez cupped one hand gently against the underside of the goat's neck, the other over the back of its neck. The goat jerked sharply, but did not bleat. Blood began to ooze from between the Knez's fingers. First a few drops, then a trickle. The blood streaked the Knez's arm and goat's legs crimson, pooling in the altar's shallow stone basin. The goat wobbled slightly, then stooped down to its knees.
Jachym adjusted his grip, watching with interest. He'd never seen a blood sacrifice before. His Matka had taken him and his sisters to the Kostel before--several times in fact--but they'd never been on a feast day.
The warm blood filled the basin, finding its way to the drain spout. A tiny rivulet flowed through it to fall, drop by drop, into the wetsilver font below. Each bloody droplet flared and sparked as it struck the wetsilver, and an ethereal flame crept over the surface of the font.
I tried starting the next chapter, but sleep deprivation coupled with uncharted literary territory tripped me up just a few sentences in. I've had a very productive start--I've logged more than 14,000 good words in something like a week and a half, which is more than I had any reason to hope. But now the hard part starts, since I've reached the point in the narrative where my forward momentum has stalled out several times before. Hopefully this time around I've gotten it right, and we'll finally see what's in store for Jachym once he gets out of Neu Braclev.
Now Playing: Melissa Etheridge Never Enough
Thursday, June 01, 2006
A not-so-subtle message
It comes as a bruise to my delicate writerly ego to discover the World Fantasy Convention has dropped my name from the membership rolls printed in both Progress Report no. 3 and the website. Maybe that was a condition of Robin Hobb accepting the GoH gig?
Now Playing: Pink Floyd Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Now Playing: Pink Floyd Piper at the Gates of Dawn
W2K
Completed just over 2,000 words last night on Wetsilver. I'm pretty impressed with that number, but it's another deceptive one. I unexpectedly found several significant passages from an early draft of the material that was not only salvageable, but was pretty darn good at that. The kicker is that I never reached this section of the storyline in my last attempted rewrite from a year ago, so it dated to some time before that. I could tell because certain name and place names hadn't been changed to their current incarnations. But it also shows that my thinking on the story structure today dovetails nicely with what I was thinking then. And I'd completely forgotten about writing any of this. Isn't that bizarre?
Because of the integration of the new material, the chapter's running too long right now. I'll try my hand at editing out a page or so of content tonight, but then... then the fun really begins. I'll have exhausted all my pre-exisiting copy (even though maybe 75 percent of the story this time has been all-new) and anything that comes after is uncharted territory. And that, my friends, is when I fear these 2,000-word nights will become a thing of the past, and I'll have to settle for a mere 150 words or so at a go.
Now Playing: Electric Light Orchestra Balance of Power
"Who," whispered Jachym, "is that?"
Gauthier glanced over, and gave a snort. "Huh. Remember how I said I'd been up all night because of visitors? She's one of them. The important one."
"She's so... so..." Jachym managed.
"Hah. Like she'd beard someone as rat-nasty as you. Take a closer look at what you'd be getting yourself mixed up with, and tell me if you don't have second thoughts."
Jachym started to ask for an explanation, but the woman turned then, glancing back the way she'd come. On her left cheek, a stylized znak dazzled in the sunlight. A wetsilver tattoo.
"Oh. Oh!"
"Damn right. You could probably be killed for what you were thinking just a moment ago," Gauthier said.
Because of the integration of the new material, the chapter's running too long right now. I'll try my hand at editing out a page or so of content tonight, but then... then the fun really begins. I'll have exhausted all my pre-exisiting copy (even though maybe 75 percent of the story this time has been all-new) and anything that comes after is uncharted territory. And that, my friends, is when I fear these 2,000-word nights will become a thing of the past, and I'll have to settle for a mere 150 words or so at a go.
Now Playing: Electric Light Orchestra Balance of Power
A milestone of some significance
On this day in 1996, Lisa and I got married in St. Mary's Catholic Church in Temple, Texas. That's 10 years. I mean, 10 years isn't anything like a Golden Anniversary, but it's still a long time. That's a wee bit intimidating when I think about it. Makes me almost feel like a (shudder) grown-up.
A couple we know also got married on this same day back in '96. They told us they'd been planning their celebrations for six months. Gee, no pressure there, huh? With the girls and the baby, Lisa and I can't swing any major getaway trips, but I think we'll do OK. Tonight we're taking the kids out for dinner, and this weekend grandparents are coming into town to watch the little ones. Lisa and I plan to spend Saturday tubing the Comal River, then head into San Antonio for an evening on the River Walk. Nothing elaborate, but we'll enjoy it.
Now Playing: Electric Light Orchestra Afterglow
A couple we know also got married on this same day back in '96. They told us they'd been planning their celebrations for six months. Gee, no pressure there, huh? With the girls and the baby, Lisa and I can't swing any major getaway trips, but I think we'll do OK. Tonight we're taking the kids out for dinner, and this weekend grandparents are coming into town to watch the little ones. Lisa and I plan to spend Saturday tubing the Comal River, then head into San Antonio for an evening on the River Walk. Nothing elaborate, but we'll enjoy it.
Now Playing: Electric Light Orchestra Afterglow
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