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Earth's Survivors Weekly Serial presentation - 3
Earth's Survivors is copyright © 2016 Dell Sweet. All rights foreign and domestic reserved in their entirety.
Cover Art © Copyright 2016 Wendell Sweet
Some text copyright 2010, 2014, 2015 Wendell Sweet
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your bookseller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons places, situations or events is purely coincidental.
This novel is Copyright © 2016 Wendell Sweet and his assignee Andrea Scroggs. Dell Sweet and Geo Dell are publishing constructs owned by Wendell Sweet. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, electronic, print, scanner or any other means and, or distributed without the author's permission.
Permission is granted to use short sections of text in reviews or critiques in standard or electronic print.
Public Square
Pearl (Pearly) Bloodworth
The streets were clogged with snow, but the sidewalks were impassable, so she had no choice but to walk in the street.
She made her way carefully, slipping and sliding as she went. It was just before 6:30 P.M. and she might make it to work on time if she could make the next two blocks without incident.
She had been working at the downtown mission for the last several months: The night shift for the last two months. The mission night shift was an easy shift. Everything was closed down. Those who had made the curfew were locked in for the night. Occasionally there would be a little trouble between residents, but that was rare. Watertown was small, as a consequence the homeless population was small. And trouble, when it came, was usually settled long before her shift. Her shift amounted to catching up on paperwork, dispensing an aspirin or two, and being there if there was an emergency of any kind. At 4:00 A.M. The kitchen staff would be there to start their day. Shortly after that the rest of the day-shift would be in. At 6:00 A.M. The mission doors would open and the homeless would take to the streets. She would have an hour of quiet at the end of her shift, sitting and listening to the bustle from the kitchen as they cleaned up after breakfast and began to prepare for lunch.
She heard the approaching vehicle as she was stepping around a mound of melting snow and ice. It was late and there had been no traffic on this side street when she had stepped into the street at the cross walk three blocks down. The alternative was the foot deep snow and ice thrown onto the sidewalk from the plows. She would never get through that and make it to the mission on time.
The Mission was on upper Franklin street, a short walk in a straight line, or even if you had to walk around the square and start up, as she usually did, but tonight the square was packed with traffic and so she had chosen the shortcut instead. Unfortunately it was not well lit: A four block wasteland of parking lots and alleyways.
She had almost turned completely around to make sure the car had seen her when the horn blared and startled her. A second later she finished the turn, hand clasped to her throat, and watched as the car skidded to a stop and three men piled out of the back seat slipping and sliding in the slush, laughing.
"What's up, bitch," one asked as he found his feet and stood staring her down. The laughter died away.
"Nice ass," another said as he moved toward her.
She turned to the second man, the one who had just spoken, as she shrugged her purse from her shoulder, caught the bottom of it in one hand, and slipped her other hand inside. The third man, really just a boy, looked frightened as his eyes slipped from his two companions and then flitted to her. The driver leaned out the window,
"What the fuck! Get the bitch!" He was looking over the roof-line, sitting on the windowsill of the driver's door, a smirk on his too-white face.
"Yeah… How about a ride, baby," the nearest one said. The other had finally found his feet, stopped slipping, and was skidding his feet across the slush heading in her direction. She pulled her hand from her pocket and aimed the mace canister at them. They both skidded to a stop.
The closer one, the one that had made the remark about her ass, cocked his head sideways, shrugged his shoulders and then pulled a gun from his waist band. "Yeah… Kind of changes the whole situation, don't it?" He asked.
"Roux! Don't shoot the bitch. She's no good to us dead!" This from the man-boy leaning out the window of the car.
The boy, Roux, turned to the driver and nodded. He looked back at Pearl. His gun was aimed at the ground, close to her feet. She had only a split second to decide. He was less than five feet away, the gun rising from the ground, when she pushed the trigger and watched the stream leap at him. His face went from a sarcastic smirk to alarm just before the stream of mace hit his nose and splattered across his face and into his eyes. A second later he was screaming. She had just turned to aim at the second guy when the world turned upside down.
She found herself tumbling sideways. Somewhere, close by, a roar began and rose in pitch as the ground below her feet began to jump and shake. She found her knees after she fell and skidded across the roadway as she tried to hold herself, but the shaking was just too hard. She collapsed back to the roadway and the relative softness of the slush and snow, her body jumping and shaking as she seemed almost to bounce across the short expanse and into the snowbank on the opposite side of the road.
The roar went on for what seemed like minutes as she tried to catch her breath and steady herself at the same time. Both seemed impossible to do, but almost as soon as she had the thought the trembling of the earth became less and a split second after that the roaring stopped. There was no silence. The sound of breaking glass, tumbling brick, blaring horns and screams in the dark night replaced the roar. Sounds that had probably been there, she decided, she had just been unable to hear them.
Pearl made her feet and stared back down the street where the car had been. The car was still there, the nose tilted upward, the back seemingly buried in the street itself. She blinked, but nothing changed. She noted the broken asphalt and churned up dirt, and realized the car had broken through the street. There was no sign of the men, including the driver that had been hanging halfway out of the window.
She drew a breath, another, and suddenly the noise and smells of the world rushed back in completely. The screams became louder. Horns blared. The ground trembled under her feet as if restless. She could smell sewage on the air. Broken lines below the pavement her mind reasoned. She swayed on her feet as the earth trembled once more, lurching as it did. She waited, but the tremble was not repeated. She sucked in another deep breath and then began to walk, slipping on the broken pavement and slush as she did.
Franklin street appeared untouched as she lurched from the side street, slipping over the broken pavement, and retching from the overpowering smell of sewer gas. She collapsed to the icy pavement, skidding on her knees and was surprise to hear herself crying as she struggled to get back on her feet.
She nearly made it to her feet before the next tremor hit, this one much harder than the last one. She bounced sideways, knees slamming into the ground, crying out as they did, but unaware of her own cries. Just as the trembling stopped she made her feet again and stood, hand clasped to her knees to steady herself, breathing hard, holding herself rigidly, wondering what was coming next. When the shaking stopped and silence flooded in she was shocked.
She finally opened her eyes, she had no idea when she had closed them, straightened from the bent posture she had found herself in, quieted her sobbing and looked around.
Forty feet away, the gray stone of the mission that had rose just past the sidewalk was no more: Churned earth had replaced it. The sidewalk was still intact, as though some weird sort of urban renewal had occurred in a matter of seconds. Her eyes swept the street and now they took in the sections where the sidewalk was missing. The entire side of the street was gone for blocks. What was in evidence was an old house several hundred feet away, perched on the edge of a ravine. Beyond that, houses and streets continued. She was on the opposite side of complete destruction, and there appeared no way to reach that side.
She turned and looked back at the side street she had come from. Churned earth, tilted pavement, the car was now gone. Farther down the short hillside that had appeared the public square seemed completely destroyed. Water had formed in the middle of the square and ran away to the north, probably toward the Black river, Pearl thought. To the west everything appeared to be intact, to the east, Franklin street stretched away untouched toward the park in the distance. Close by someone began to scream, calling for help. She took a few more calming breaths and then began to walk toward the screams: The west, angling toward the opposite end of the square.
The screams cut off all at once, and a second after that the sound of a motor straining came to her. Cycling up and then dropping. She paused in the middle of the road, listening, wondering where the sound came from. As she stood something ran into her eye, stinging, clouding her vision, she reached one hand up and swiped at it and the back of her hand came back stained with a smear of blood.
She stared at it for a second. The ground seemed to lurch, shift suddenly, and she reached her hands to her knees to brace herself once more, expecting the shaking to start again, but her hands slipped past her knees and she found herself falling, her legs buckling under her. The ground seemed to rise to meet her and she found herself staring down the length of the roadway, her face flush with the asphalt. The coldness of the ice and slush felt good against her skin: As if she were overheated; ice wrapped inside of a dishrag at the base of her neck on a hot day. She blinked, blinked again, and then her world went dark.
She floated, or seemed to, thinking of London. A hot day. She was a child again: Standing in the second floor window and looking down at the street far below. The dishrag dripped, but it felt so good against her skin. The memory seemed to float away. She was rushing headlong through a never ending stream of memories. All suddenly real again. Urgent, flying by so fast, but sharp in every detail.
Pearl had grown up on a council estate in London: When her mother had died she had come to the United States only to find herself in the Maywood projects on the north side of Watertown. From one pit to another. Just different names, she liked to tell herself. Up until a few weeks ago she had still made the trip back and forth every day, but she had found a place, a small walk-up, not far from the mission on the other side of the public square. It seemed extravagant to have her own space, but living in the downtown area suited her.
She seemed to be in both places at once. Back in her childhood, staring at the street below the window, yet hovering over her body, looking down at herself where she lay sprawled on the winter street. She wondered briefly which was real, but nearly as soon as she had the thought she found herself struggling to rise to her knees from the cold roadway, her eyes slitted, head throbbing.
In front of her a shadowed figure had appeared staggering through the ice and snow, angling toward her. She blinked, blinked again and her eyes found their focus. The man from the car, suddenly back from wherever he had been. One hand clutched his side where a bright red flood of blood seeped sluggishly over his clasping fingers. Her eyes swept down to his other hand which was rising to meet her. A gun was clasped there. Probably, her mind told her, the same gun he had been going to shoot her with before. The gun swept upward as if by magic. She blinked, and realized then that the sound of the motor straining was louder. Closer. Almost roaring in its intensity. The gun was rising, but her eyes swiveled away and watched as a truck from the nearby base skidded to a stop blocking the road from side to side no more than ten feet from her. She blinked, and the doors were opening, men yelling, rushing toward her.
Bright light flashed before her eyes, and a deafening roar accompanied it. An explosion, loud, everything in the world. A second explosion came, then a third, and she realized the explosions were gunshots. She felt herself falling even as she made the discovery. The pavement once again rising to meet her. Her eyes closed, she never felt the ground as she collapsed onto it, falling back into the dark.
She was back standing in the window, looking out over the street. The heat was oppressive, but the ice wrapped in the rag was mothers' wonderful cure. She tried to raise it to her neck once more, to feel the coldness of it, but her arm would not come. She tried harder and the window suddenly slipped away. A man was bent toward her face. A helmet strap buckled under his chin. Her hands were somehow held at her side. The motor screamed loudly as this world once more leapt into her head. She was on the floor of the truck, vibrations pulsing through her body as the truck sped along… In the back of the truck, her mind corrected as her eyes focused momentarily. Other men squatted nearby, including one who was partially over her holding her arms as the other man was tapping the bubbles from a syringe with one gloved finger. The mans face angled down toward her own and he aimed something in a silver canister into her face from his other hand. The hand opened and the canister fell to the ground.
"Itzawight," his voice said in a far away drone. "Awightzzz." She felt the prick of the needle, the light dimmed, his voice spat static: The light dimmed a little further, and then she found herself falling back into the darkness.
Watertown New York
Project Bluechip
The first quake had been minor, the last few had not. The big one was coming, and Major Richard Weston didn't need to have a satellite link up to know that. He touched one hand to his head. The fingertips came away bloody. He would have to get his head wound taken care of, but the big thing was that he had made it through the complex above and down into the facility before it had been locked down.
He laughed to himself, before it was supposed to have been locked down. It had not been locked down at all. He had, had to lock it down once he had made his way in or else it would still be open to the world.
He had spent the last several years here commanding the base. He had spent the last two weeks working up to this event from his subterranean command post several levels above. All wreckage now. He had sent operatives out from there to do what they could, but it had all been a stop gap operation. The United States, hell, every government in the known world was finished.
The public had known that there was a meteor on a near collision course with the Earth. The spin doctors had assured the public it would miss by several thousands of miles. Paid off the best scientists in some cases, but in other cases they had found that even the scientists were willing to look past facts if their own personal spin put a better story in the mix. A survivable story. They had spun their own stories without prodding.
The truth was that the meteor might miss, it might hit, it might come close, a near miss, but it wouldn't matter because a natural chain of events was taking place that would make a meteor impact look like small change.
The big deal, the bigger than a meteor deal, was the earthquakes that had already started and would probably continue until most of the civilized world was dead or dying. Crumbled into ruin from super earthquakes and volcanic activity that had never been seen by modern civilization. And it had been predicted several times over by more than one group and hushed up quickly when it was uncovered. The governments had known. The conspiracy theorists had known. The public should have known, but they were too caught up in world events that seemed to be dragging them ever closer to a third world war to pay attention to a few voices crying in the wilderness. The public was happier watching television series about conspiracies rather than looking at the day to day truths about real conspiracies. The fact was that this was a natural course of events. It had happened before and it would happen again in some distant future.
So, in the end it had not mattered. In the end the factual side of the event had begun to happen. The reality, Major Weston liked to think of it. And fact was fact. You couldn't dispute fact. You could spin it, and that was the way of the old world, spinning it, but the bare facts were just that: Bare facts.
The bare facts were that the Yellowstone Caldera had erupted just a few hours before. The bare facts were that the earth quakes had begun, and although they were not so bad here in northern New York, in other areas of the country, in foreign countries, third world countries, the bare facts of what was occurring were devastating: Millions dead, and millions more would die before it was over. And this was nothing new. The government had evidence that this same event had happened many times in Earth's history. This was nothing new at all, not even new to the human race. A similar event had killed off most of the human race some seventy-five thousand years before.
There was an answer, help, a solution, but Richard Weston was unsure how well their solution would work. He had put it in motion anyway. Teams were, even now, deploying the SS-V2765 compound. It was, like everything else, a stop gap measure, and probably too little too late. It was also flawed, but he pushed that knowledge away in his mind.
While most of America had tracked the meteorite that was supposed to miss earth from their living rooms, and had been side tracked by all the trouble with the former Soviet Union, he had kept track of the real event that had even then been building beneath the Yellowstone caldera. And the end had come quickly. Satellites off line. Phone networks down. Power grids failed. Governments incommunicado or just gone. The Internet down. The Meteorite had not missed Earth by much after all. And the gravitational pull from the large mass had simply accelerated an already bad situation.
Dams burst. River flows reversed. Waters rising or dropping in many places. Huge tidal waves. Fires out of control. Whole cities suddenly gone. A river of lava flowing from Yellowstone. Civilization was not dead; not wiped out, but her back was broken.
In the small city of Watertown, that had rested above Bluechip, near the shore of the former lake Ontario, the river waters had begun to rise: Bluechip, several levels below the city in the limestone cave structures that honeycombed the entire area, had survived mostly intact, but unless sealed, it would surely succumb to the rising river waters. By the time the last military groups had splashed through the tunnels and into the underground facility, they had been walking through better than two feet of cold and muddy river-water. The pressure from the water had begun to collapse small sections of caves and tunnels below the city, and that damage had been helped along by after-shocks.
When the last group of five men had reached the air shaft, carrying the inert form of a woman between them, they had immediately pitched in with a group Weston had sent to brick the passageway off. The remaining bricks and concrete blocks were stacked and cemented into place in the four foot thick wall they had started. The materials, along with sandbags initially used to hold back the rising waters, had been taken from huge stockpiles within the city, and from the stalled trucks within the wide tunnel that had once fed traffic into the base. There was no way in, and no way out of the city. With one small exception.
The exception was that air ducting. The ducts led away from the city towards a small mountain-peak about a mile from the city. There the ducts merged together, inside a huge natural rock tunnel that had been part of the original network of caves and passage ways. That tunnel culminated deep within the mountain at an air treatment facility. There were also several access points where the ducting came close to the surface via tunnels and passageways that ran though the huge complex of caves. And it would be possible to walk through one of the many air shafts to the tunnel, break through the ducting, follow it to the treatment facility or outside to the surface and freedom. It would be difficult, but it would be possible. The end of the trip would bring them to the surface, from there they could go anywhere.
Watertown New York
Project Bluechip
She came awake with a start. In her dreaming she had been leaning, leaning, holding the window sill and staring down at the street below. The heat, the cold dishrag freezing her tiny fingers. She had leaned back, shifted hands, placed the rag against the base of her neck once more, leaned forward and braced herself against the window frame and her fingers, slicked and unfeeling from the ice had slipped. She had plunged suddenly forward, falling, faster, panicked, and she had awakened as she had slammed into the surface of the bed, a scream right on the edge of her tongue waiting to leap.
"Here." A woman's voice. A soft hand at the base of her neck, holding her, easing her back down to the bed. "It's okay now." She held Pearl's head up and bought a water glass to her lips. Cold, ice clinked together in the glass, she took the straw between her lips and drank deeply. She collapsed back against the bed.
"Where?" She managed at last. "Where is this place?" The ceiling was florescent lights in a panel ceiling. Dropped ceiling, her mind supplied. An Americanism.
"Blue," the woman told her as Pearl's eyes focused on her. She was short, slim, dressed in fatigues, a pistol in a holster at her side.
"Blue?" Pearl sounded as doubtful as she felt. She must have misheard. "Drum?" She asked. It was the closest military base.
"Blue," the young woman shook her head. "The new base… Blue." She smiled, but it was a tired smile. "You remember anything at all?"
Pearl shook her head, but then spoke. "A car… A boy with a gun… An earthquake?"
"English?" The woman asked.
Pearl nodded. "Was it then? An earthquake?"
"More than one," The young woman sighed. "It's bad up there. You're lucky they found you, Jeffers and the others. Lucky."
Pearl nodded and then moved her legs and nearly fainted. She looked down, both were bandaged. She recalled the gun. "Shot?" She asked.
"No… No, just scraped up, banged up maybe" The woman told her.
"Badly scraped up?" Pearl asked.
"No… A few cuts, but they are swollen. A day or two and you'll be fine."
Pearl didn't hear the rest as she sagged back against the bed and fell away back into the dream once more…
Franklin Street
The roadway was tilted crazily, the snow was gone. Cold persisted, but it didn't bother him in the slightest. A small, silver canister lay just a few feet away. Inhaler, his mind supplied. Maybe his other self agreed, but something inside him didn't seem to want to agree. He ignored the canister and the line of thought for the briefest of seconds and it was gone completely. Slipped away from him to where ever thought ended up.
He had been lying half in, half out of the gutter for the last several hours that he knew of. He had no idea how long before that. Days? Weeks? Weeks seemed wrong. Days, he decided. He turned his attention back to the roadway before him. Was it a roadway? When he thought roadway, he thought highway, something like that. From what he could see this was more like a city street.
It had never occurred to him in the passing hours to move his head, but the thought of it being a street in a city had caused him to move his head slightly so he could look around to be sure. Slightly, but enough to know he could move it. And he had moved it enough to know it was a city street. And if he could move it that much…
His face came away from the asphalt with a wet sucking noise and he nearly stopped. Expecting pain to come. Expecting the sky to fall. Expecting something, but nothing happened. The sucking sound stopped when his face finally pulled free and he pushed off with his hands and found himself in a sitting position. He flexed his jaw, it worked, tended to click when he moved it quickly, but perhaps it was just residual of… Of?
He didn't know what it might be residual of. There was something he had had in mind when the thought had popped into his head but he couldn't get it back now. His mind seemed slow. Not slow as in stupid though. He considered. It was slow like a computer he had once owned. The damn thing took forever to boot. That was what this felt like. A slow boot. He laughed at the thought, but all that came from his throat was a low buzzing sound that frightened him back into silence. He nearly laid back down on the cold road right then, but caught himself. Whatever this was it seemed real. Not a dream and if he could just get his mind to work right he could probably roll with it. Roll right with it. Whatever that might mean. He lost himself for a time again. Sitting at the side of the road, starring into the dim, gray afternoon sunlight.
He heard the noise before he saw the little boy. The noise was more persistent: Crying, weeping, something like that. Something he understood, had known, did know… He wasn't sure. His head came around and he watched the little boy walking along the opposite side of the road, his face was dirty, tear streaked, one arm swollen, infection, he knew, he understood infection. He had sen it somewhere. Infection was… Bad, he decided.
The hand was mangled. It looked chewed, a finger missing, maybe an accident with a dog, his mind supplied. Accidents with dogs happened. He watched the little boy stumble along. The arm a grotesque parody of a real arm, swinging freely from its shoulder socket. Their eyes met a moment later, but it was already too late for the little boy. Roux had used his hands to prop his knees so he could stand. A second of standing had told him he could walk, and a single limping step had told him he could walk well enough. It had probably been the standing, his mind supplied now. His feet scraping on the loose gravel at the side of the street. His one ruined leg dragging slightly
He held the boys eyes with his own. Large, frightened, transfixed by the odd glow in his own eyes. He had closed the gap quickly, limp or no. Long before the boy had ever thought to call out. A second of standing and looking down into those, large, sad eyes and he had reached forward quickly and pulled the boy into the air with both hands wrapped around his neck, cutting off his startled squawk. A second later and he had dashed him onto the street surface and fallen once more to the asphalt himself. He pulled the still warm body to him.


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Announcing: Refuge of Dragons
March 20, 2017
FAQ: Will there ever be a sequel to Voices of Dragons?
Answer: Yes.
This was one of the results of the Year of Stalled Projects, and I'm happy to finally announce its launch into the world. It's hatched! It's a dragon! A couple of things to know:
- It's only e-book for now. If there's enough demand I might release it in print, but right now my choices were "release now as e-book only" or "put on back burner again," and I chose the former.
- It's a short novel, or a long novella. About 42,000 words for them what counts. So if it seems short…it is. Which makes publishing as an e-book an even better option. And I also think it tells a whole story. It's the length it needs to be.
I hope you like it. I hope this ties up some loose ends, and that your heart races just a little bit at some of the trouble Kay and Artegal get into. And I've already said too much…
Thank you for your patience.
Nook link (And the Nook link is finally live!)
working, working
June 19, 2013
So I'm reading this book,which is something of a prequel to another series by this same author. I know from having read the series that all these characters turn into gods and dragons by the later books. That's right, they all turn into dragons! But this prequel is just the first in a trilogy, and I'm close enough to the end that it's becoming clear that nobody's going to turn into dragons in this book. Which totally bums me out. I want dragons! Now!
Here's a sneak peek of the Kitty in the Underworld playlist:
Voices of Dragons theme songs
April 24, 2010
I think I've mentioned before that I pretty much always listen to music when I write. I need something in the background to distract my list-making brain, and help shut off my internal editor. But I don't make up playlists for all my books — just the Kitty books. Instead, for the other books I tend to pick out one or two songs that represent the mood or spirit of the book, and that becomes its "theme song."
Voices of Dragons has a couple of theme songs.
Loreena McKinnitt's "The Old Ways" is perfect in so many ways. It's about standing in between worlds, and the music makes me think of flying. It's powerful, full of drums, sadness, and the beating of wings.
And Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir," which also makes me think of flying, but also magic, battles, and danger.
Actually, that's a pretty cool pair of songs when you put them together. Those unexpected juxtapositions happen when I do the Kitty playlists, too. (Like discovering that Supertramp's "It's Raining Again" is really a variation of "Sheep May Safely Graze.")
FAQ: When will there be a sequel to Voices of Dragons?
March 31, 2010
UPDATE: BOOM! It's here. REFUGE OF DRAGONS is a book. Sorry it took so long!
It's awfully gratifying that I've already had a bunch of people ask me this. It means I must have done something right with the book. ("They like me, they really like me!")
The answer, as usual, is complicated. I have the sequel lodged firmly in mind. But it isn't written yet. (Because I wrote my YA pirate book, Steel, first. Because that's the one my brain wanted to write. So I did.) I have another Kitty book to write before I'll have a chance to get to the Voices of Dragons sequel. But I am thinking of it. I just don't know when I'll get to it.
It's kind of a nice problem, having too many books I want to write.
spring has sprung!
March 22, 2010
I can tell that spring has sprung, because we got a foot of snow on Friday. Fortunately, it all melted by Saturday afternoon, in time for my signing at Who Else Books, which went just fine. Thanks to everyone who came for that!
More Voices of Dragons promo stuff is happening over the next week or so. I'm doing an event at Bitten by Books later today. RSVP here. There will be a contest for a dragon-themed gift pack. Woot!
What I'm working on now: I'm actually making progress with my list of craft projects from last week. The tapestries are done, the banner is half done, and I'm getting started on the spinning. Pics later! I'm making progress on Kitty 9 and a short story starring Rick. I have the copyedits of Steel, my pirate YA book, to finish. And I'm revising After the Golden Age, my superhero novel that I wrote a few years ago, but is finally in the queue to get published next year. I'm very excited about the superhero novel. I'd been jokingly threatening to describe it as "the chick-lit Watchmen." Just because that description cracks me up. But really, after talking with a friend about it, we decided it's much more accurate to say that it's got the flavor of the golden age superhero comics but filtered through a Gen X sensibility. That is, earnest and snarky all at the same time.
Happy Book Day!
March 16, 2010
Today is the official release day for Voices of Dragons. Finally! This one's been in the hopper a long time (two years), and it's a relief to finally see it in the wild. It's also a big day because it's my first hardcover, and my first not-a-Kitty novel. Now, I just have to anxiously wait and see how it does. My fingernails are just fine, why do you ask?
I've got a few events planned over the next couple of weeks.
March 20, Saturday, at 3 pm: I'm signing at Who Else Books, at the Broadway Book Mall in Denver.
March 27, Saturday, at 1 pm: Signing at Beth Anne's Book Corner in Colorado Springs.
April 11, Sunday, 1-3 pm: Colorado Author Open House at the Englewood Public Library.
April 16-18: StarFest (and HorrorFest) in Denver.
After Saturday, Who Else Books should have plenty of books on hand. If you'd like to order a signed copy from them, they'll be happy to ship. (See link above for contact info.)
another interview
February 19, 2010
Whew, I seem to have a lot of these coming up: here's another interview with me.

subset: commoncrawl


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The country ceiling and short-term foreign currency issuer default rating have been affirmed at BBB and B respectively.
"Romania's IMF-backed adjustment program supports its creditworthiness, but the authorities' ability to adhere to the tough policy strategy required under the program will be crucial. The outlook for the world economy has deteriorated significantly since the ratings were downgraded last November, adding to the risks facing Romania as its economy adjusts to weaker net private sector capital inflows," said Andrew Colquhoun, Director in Fitch's Sovereigns Group.
Romania's ratings remain supported by solid public finances, as well as strong social and business environment and governance indicators by BB standards, all of which are buttressed by the country's EU membership, but near-term economic and financial challenges remain.
Romania secured a 26.4 billion dollars international support package in May 2009, including a two-year 17.1 billion dollars IMF stand-by arrangement designed to fill an external gap estimated by Fitch at around 12 billion dollars for 2009.
European Union has contributed 6.6 billion dollars to the package available for the authorities struggling to contain a fiscal deficit that reached 4.9% of GDP in 2008. Other international financial institutions have contributed 2.6 billion dollars to the loan. Furthermore, foreign parent banks owning about 70% of Romania's banking system have committed to maintain overall exposures to Romania and to increase the capitalization of their subsidiaries.
Fitch projects Romania's economy will shrink 4.5% this year. Official reserves fell to 27.1 billion euros by end-April , 7.6% below the end-November peak.
A sustained drop in reserves, sufficient to undermine confidence in Romania's local currency would seriously affect financial stability and the real economy, (57% of bank loans were denominated in FX, mainly EUR, by end-March 2009), and would be negative for the ratings.
The IMF-backed adjustment program calls for a budget deficit of 5% in 2009. This will require a fiscal tightening of around 3% of GDP amid a steep recession, which could be a hard sell to voters ahead of presidential elections at the end of the year.
A breakdown of Romania's IMF program would be strongly negative for the ratings. Romania is one of the countries most exposed to external financing risk among 11 economies assessed by Fitch's "External Financing Risks in Central and Eastern Europe".
In May, NBR's deputy governor Eugen Dijmarescu said Romania could go back in the investment grade camp in spring next year, if rating agencies upgraded country ratings in fall.
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Second video of Alstom plant in Saint-Nazaire (France)
Saint-Nazaire: The first production plants offshore wind turbines in France.
Presentation of the nacelle assembly plants and generators: 19,000 m² building, 100 wind turbines per year, more than 300 employees, first HQE certification of industrial building in France. GH CRANES & COMPONENTS crane installation.


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The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 [JJ Act] is the primary law to deal with the children in need of care and protection as well as children in conflict with law. Section 34 (3) of the JJ Act provides for mandatory registration of all Child Care Institutions (CCIs) housing children in need of care and protection with the intent of enforcing minimum standards of care, under the Act and Rules there-under, for the services provided for children in these Homes. The JJ Act and Central Model Rules there-under provide for mechanisms for stringent monitoring of quality of services through Child Welfare Committees (CWCs) and Inspection Committees set up by the State Government at State, district and city levels. Further, the Rules provide for setting up of Children's Committees in every institution which are, inter-alia, also encouraged to report incidents of abuse and exploitation, if any. Besides, Rule 60 of the Model Rules framed under the JJ Act also prescribes comprehensive measures to respond in case any kind of abuse, including sexual abuse, neglect and maltreatment is noticed in the CCI.
To ensure that children in all the Homes receive the best of care, and are not subject to abuse and neglect, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has been strongly urging the State Governments/UT Administrations from time to time to identify and register all CCIs under the JJ Act and set up functional inspection committees, where not available.
Further, the recently notified 'The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012' provides for stringent punishment for persons who, being on the management or staff of a Home, commit sexual assault on such child.


text: Over the years I'm sure we've all heard some odd stories about how glasses have been mangled. The more typical answers involve falling asleep in, sitting on, driving over, or a pet getting a hold of their glasses. One story that always stands out in my mind is that a patient of mine had been sleepwalking and put his glasses in the microwave, causing the plastic temples to bubble up and reharden looking like tiny bubbles. On the other hand, sometimes I will take a mangled and unwarrantable frame and do some experimenting. The photo here is our local town's "mascot", Duvie the horse. Duvie needed glasses!


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Head Of Marketing Philippines (based In Pasay City)
at Bethe1 in Metro Manila
This job post has already expired...
Job Post
Our client is a leading international fast growing company specialized in the Wines & Spirits industry.
Today to support their fast expansion and the company's expectations for the Philippines Market, they are searching for a high caliber candidate who will lead the newly created function of Marketing Manager (based in Pasay City).
Reporting directly to the Managing Director based in Philippines, leading a team strong of 12 people including 5 direct reports in Brand Management,Trade Marketing, Digital and Creative Design.
You will be responsible for managing the whole marketing strategy and action plan for all the company brands portfolio for the entire Philippines market.
Your key duties will be:
-Developing, Implementing, Managing all the Marketing strategy in line with the company and brands objectives with your team.
-Adapting all Global Marketing and Brands strategies locally, improving visibility and credibility in the media and the entire market.
-Contributing to meet the business target, market shares, and profits.
-Working and building strong relationship with all business partners, internal (sales team,brands,...) and external (service providers,customers...).
- Organizing, controlling and measuring the marketing budget (digital agencies, promotions, campaigns,PR…) to optimize ROI, while ensuring timely execution of marketing calendar.
- Collaborating with media agencies to develop effective marketing and promotion programs, while maintaining a high level of service and cost efficiency.
-Leveraging all digital media activities to strengthen all brands activation.
Job Requirements:
-You have minimum 10 years of working experience in Marketing or related functions in Wines and Spirits, FMCG,premium or luxury goods( confectionery, tobacco), Beauty (perfumes and/or cosmetics), for multinational companies with Domestic distribution networks.
-You have a proven experience working for the Philippines market.
-You have a strong proven marketing skills including strategy, media planning, activation.
-You have the experience working with multiple parties (Global HQ, Brands, Regional Office and Multiple service partners)
- You have a proactive entrepreneurial mindset combined with an energetic and outgoing personality.
- Autonomous, flexible, you are used to working in a multi-tasking environment and under tight deadlines.
-You are excited to join a fast growing subsidiary.
- You are a team player with solid interpersonal and communication skills.
-You have experience in leading teams.
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You guys know that I love anything that is monogrammed and personalized. I had the best time looking around on The Stationery Studio website. I wanted to order everything. But I chose something for my husband. He works hard for us and doesn't get extra goodies very often. I was so excited when I came across the Tervis Tumblers. I have one that I really like and he takes it to work sometimes. Where he works you can only bring clear and empty cups, so he grabs my favorite Tervis. You know how guys are sometimes...I am worried he will break my cup. Not anymore!! He has his very own, personalized Firefighter Tervis. I was going to save it for Christmas but was so excited when I saw it I couldn't wait to give it to him. He loves it!!! I also got a very nice address stamper. I had one that we received as a wedding gift but we moved and I can't use it anymore. I love my address stamper but had just never replaced it. It was so fun to look through and find the perfect one for our family. I love to stamp our address on my mail. The Stationery Studio has so much, for everyone you could think of. I can't wait to do some Christmas shopping there.
Tervis Tumbler
So excited about this
Got an extra lid that matches the cup
Love the no leak lid
Chris absolutely loves this cup
Address stamper in beautiful packaging
Stamper and an extra ink pad
Look how nice our address will look
This is awesome
About Us
The Stationery Studio began as a passion project and work of
love for its entrepreneurial owner Renee Redman in 1994. At the
time, the Chicago public relations executive and mother of two
shifted gears to fulfill her dream of running her own in-home
invitation and personalized gift company.
In 1997, the company's client base was overflowing from coast-to-coast and Renee, along with her husband Marc, decided to address the needs of a national audience by developing a website, TheStationeryStudio.com, a one-stop shop for chic and unique personalized essentials.
A new era began for the brand. TheStationeryStudio.com soon became one of the first online personalized stationery businesses in the country. Each year, the website continued to grow to accommodate its busy daily traffic flow and to showcase thousands of customized stationery and gift items.
The website has evolved into a premier personalized stationery and gift business, currently offering more than 22,000 personalized products with more than 10,000 unique visitors per day.
"Our clientele, including many repeat customers, confirms that the shopping experience and product selection offers something for everyone," said Renee.
A highly-trained in-house customer service team of savvy professionals has grown to become the cornerstone of TheStationeryStudio.com. The staff is available to assist customers and provide individual attention to each order.
"We truly enjoy showcasing and promoting custom personalized stationery and gifts and believe in the business of gracious living. Sending beautiful invitations and thank you notes, giving thoughtful personalized presents, and entertaining in style shows an appreciation for all things lovely and is the basis for the success of our business."
TheStationeryStudio.com has won numerous distinguished honors, including the 2012 Trendy Online Stationer of the Year Award from Stationery Trends Magazine, the industry's highest honor. The company also takes pride in supporting and developing designer lines of personalized stationery, invitations, party accents and custom gifts for all occasions.
The company's social media sites have soared in popularity, reaching more than 20,000 followers on Facebook. The Studio Notes blog, Pinterest boards and Twitter pages are also followed by an ever-growing customer base and industry insiders. With its mass popularity and success, TheStationeryStudio.com has garnered a great deal of national media recognition, including frequent product mentions on the TODAY show, Martha Stewart weddings, HGTV magazine, "O" The Oprah Magazine, In Style, Real Simple, and other highly-acclaimed press outlets.
The entire team at TheStationeryStudio.com understands that the joy of giving is as much fun as the joy of receiving. It's all about celebrating life's best moments with personalized gifts for all occasions.
Want it? Buy it!
The Stationery Studio has so much to offer. Take some time and look around their website. Check out the Tervis Tumbler and address stamper that I received. You can also connect with them on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.
Special thanks to my friends at The Stationery Studio for allowing me to sample these awesome products and sharing with our readers.


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This page has work outside of the current categories, studio shots, and whatever else I feel like posting.
3/18/15--I've been playing with photoshop a lot lately after digitizing some sketches for a business logo. Here are some things that materialized...
Chemistry-related work (2014)--
Thought I should show some older wheel thrown work (2010-2012) --


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Garza traded to the Rangers
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Golden Sox
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Oswego, Illinois
Posts: 1,510
I don't see how anybody can pick Epstein over Hahn. This is Hahns first year and lets see how this plays out in another year or two. If I
was an owner
of a team and my GM signed Edwin Jackson and Castro to big long term contracts like Epstein did, I wouldn't be too happy about it. I still can't figure out why he gave Jackson a 4 year contract worth over $50 million dollars. No other team offered Jackson more than 2 years. Epstein didn't want to give Garza a long term contract but he gave Jackson one. I can't imagine too many people who would take Jackson over Garza. Another of his big contract players, Rizzo isn't exactly tearing up the league. Rizzo can't seem to hit lefties and it looks like he might be a utility player. I do wish that Hahn would do something to change the White Sox offense. The sooner, the better. It's been tough going to these games and seeing this team game after game not hit.
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Before you start, you'll need to do the following:
- Download the latest cPad firmware file;
- Have an appropriate level of administrator access to your PaperCut server;
- Notify your users that the devices should not be used nor switched off during the update period;
- Notify staff/users that may potentially be using the devices to discontinue use and not to switch off the devices;
- Ensure your cPads are not disconnected at any time during the update. Disconnecting or turning off your cPad can cause serious damage, which will require a non-warranty service call from Copy Monitoring.
On the PaperCut server, navigate to [app-path]server\custom\web\device\Cartadis-cpad. If the file path does not exist, create the folders using the exact spellings. If applicable, rename the existing "firmware.cpad" to "firmware_old.cpad". (It is always a good idea to keep the last version). Save your new firmware file to this folder. It is usually named [type]_[version].cpad. (For example, PaperCut firmware version 1.9.0 is pc-v1.9.0.cpad). Rename this file to firmware.cpad.
Depending on your settings, your cPad should poll the PaperCut server itself, and update within three minutes.
Alternatively, you can manually reboot the devices by powering off (at the wall) or, if you are not near the devices, you can connect through puTTY and type the command #reboot.
If both of the above processes fail to upgrade the cPad, please first check that the file path and spellings are correct, and the IP addresses are correct in PaperCut and on the cPad. If these are all correct, then please contact us about the Force Upgrade procedure. Subscribe to receive e-mail updates whenever the cPad firmware is updated, and for important notices regarding your cPad products.
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With the NHL changing the rules to cut down on head-shots and concussions, players who like to make big impact hits had to redefine their game or get left behind. Players like Matt Cooke, Dan Carcillo and Steve Downie have all had to change the way they play to stay on the right side of the law. But one player who hasn't been able to adjust his game successfully is Raffi Torres.
From his hit on Jordan Eberle in 2011 to his hit on Marian Hossa in last years playoffs, Raffi Torres just can't seem to figure out a way to play within the "rules". There is a fine line that a player like Torres must toe, but he continually crosses that line. Torres is the type of player who can't find a permanent home, he's bounced around between 6 different NHL teams. His job is to bring something to each team he plays for to convince them to keep him and thats usually physicality. But Torres keeps crossing the line and after his last hit on Tuesday night in the second round of the playoffs, it may be time for teams to start crossing him off their team.
We'll start with his latest hit of Jarret Stoll. Was it a dirty hit or a head hit? It was not a dirty hit but rather an illegal hit, the principal point of contact appears to be the head. The tough thing about this hit is that Stoll leaned forward to get the puck and by that point it was virtually to late for Torres to stop. Had this been a player not named Raffi Torres, they probably get a phone hearing and 1 or 2 games max. Since this hit involves the controversial Raffi Torres, an in-person hearing is called and there's a lengthy suspension.
What's really startling about Torres is his MO. He seems to be aiming to take star players out of the game and that's exactly what the NHL is trying to get rid of. He hits Jordan Eberle one of the Edmonton Oilers best young players, Marian Hossa a key member of the Chicago Blackhawks offence and Jarret Stoll another key player on a Stanley Cup contending team.
Big hit's with unfortunate outcomes happen in the NHL, look at the Eric Gryba hit, but continually going after key players is something the NHL can't continue to allow.
When you look at the Stoll hit it's a really grey area that the NHL needs to make clear. Torres doesn't extend his elbow or leave his feet, but he did finish his check on an angle that targeted Stoll's head on the play. Basically what the NHL is saying is Torres took a "bad route" to finish his check, as he skated east-west. Torres also hits upwards into Stoll's body forcing his head backwards instead of hitting through Stoll. Had this been anyone else, I think they get the benefit of the doubt with this hit, but it's not it's the infamous Raffi Torres.
The consensus online is that Torres shouldn't be suspended for this hit and that the only reason this is such a big deal is because of Torres' history. A team can no longer get the benefit of the doubt when Torres hits somebody, anytime anything is borderline with this guy you know Brendan Shanahan will be calling. Which is why teams are going to start to give up on him. No team wants a player that can't get away with anything, he's become a liability on the ice.
Whether people like it or not and despite his best efforts, Raffi Torres is a dirty hockey player. The book is out on him, he likes to take star or impact players out of the line-up. If a 25 game suspension in last years playoffs didn't deliver the message clear enough to Raffi Torres what's it going to take?
With the 6 game suspension, could this be the final hit of his career? Raffi Torres will be an un-restricted free agent this coming offseason and if the San Jose Sharks don't resign him, where does he go? While his hit on Stoll wasn't malicious, it was a dangerous play and it may cost him a lot more than 6 games.
Also be sure to check out my Gillette Drafted Audition
Friday, 17 May 2013
Has Raffi Torres Put the Final Nail in his NHL Career?
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Trust and Will Contest Lawyers
At the Law Office of Vikram Brar, our Trust and Will contest attorneys are recognized for excellence in this field of law, and have earned a reputation for honesty, integrity and the ability to get the job done right for the clients we represent throughout Southern California.Our office is located in Glendale and is easily accessible for individuals in Los Angeles County and surrounding areas. If you are concerned that a Trust or Estate is not being handled appropriately, we can give you the attention and care your case demands.
Effective Resolutions In Trust And Will Contests
Any Trust or Will can end up the subject of a dispute. This happens when a party with the right to contest the documents questions a Trust's or Will's validity. This individual could be:
- A beneficiary named in the Trust or Will
- An individual who would stand to inherit property from the Estate if a Trust or Will did not exist (i.e., a spouse, child or close family member)
Trusts and Wills may be disputed for a variety of reasons, such as ambiguous language, improper witnessing or signing, the existence of a more recent document, or the decedent's condition at the time the document was drafted. In these cases, Trust or Will validity may be questioned because of:
- Lack of capacity: The decedent may not have been mentally capable of making decisions about his or her Estate at the time the Trust or Will was drafted and signed.
- Undue influence: The decedent was improperly pressured into signing documents by someone who is seeking to benefit from the Estate.
Our experienced lawyers can walk you through the process for contesting a Trust or Will, filing Court petitions in a timely manner, accurately interpreting the language of Trusts and Wills, conducting thorough investigations of claims, and presenting clear, persuasive arguments for your case in Probate Court. It is important to note that there are strict time constraints for contesting Trusts and Wills after which contests may be barred. It is therefore imperative to obtain prompt legal advice so that contests can be timely filed.
Schedule a consultation to discuss your legal concerns and determine how our services can suit your needs. Our law firm can be reached online or by telephone at 818-242-9240.


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TODAY THE narrow clapboard house is painted pale gray trimmed with deep green. A small print shop is shoved into one side of it, and a big air-conditioner pokes incongruously from a parlor window. I know it is a parlor window because, like a lot of people who grew up near Fall River, Mass., I am conversant with the floor plan of this house.
It is a house with no corridors and rooms that open awkwardly off one another. Because its former residents were much given to locking their bedroom doors, half the rooms on the second floor were once accessible only by the front staircase. The other half were accessible only by the back staircase. The maid slept in the attic; there were no bathtubs, and the water closet in the basement was seldom visited. It was easier to empty the morning slop pails in the backyard.
It was also easier, if one felt one's stomach coming up in one's throat, to vomit in the backyard. There was a lot of vomiting preceding the day that made this house famous, presumably because of the heat (though one resident mentioned poison) and the menu. Truly, this house's backyard does not bear thinking about.
On Aug. 4, 1892, the younger daughter of this house discovered a body sprawled on a settee in the sitting room. A short time later the maid and a neighbor found a second body face down on the floor of the guest room. Death in both cases came at the hands of a person, still officially unknown, wielding a small, sharp hatchet. ANDREW JACKSON BORDEN, WHOSE HOME this was from 1874 to 1892, was a tall, thin 70-year-old with hooded dark eyes and a long mean mouth. His relatives had lived in what is now southeastern Massachusetts since 1638 -- in 1714 two Borden brothers literally owned Fall River -- but they were not born equal. By 1892, some Bordens were high on the social ladder, some were Swamp Yankees, which is New England's word for rednecks, and most were in the middle. Andrew Borden, who began as an undertaker and ended as a bank president, was rich enough for a high perch but too stingy to claim it.
Andrew Borden's second wife, Abby Durfee Gray Borden, was short, fat and 63. She, too, had relatives in high places -- several Durfees, like several Bordens, had reaped fortunes from Fall River's cotton mills -- but her father had peddled tin from a pushcart.Continue reading the main story
There were two Borden "girls," Andrew Borden's daughters by his first wife. The elder, Emma, 41 years old, lived a long life without so much as occasioning an adjective; and in the only certain depiction of her, a drawing, she has covered her face with her left hand. Her younger sister, Lizzie, 32, was of a far more public disposition: active in the Christian Endeavor Society and the Ladies Fruit and Flower Mission, a Sunday school teacher and member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Several photographs of her exist, and a novelist named Victoria Lincoln, who lived up the street from her in childhood, left a vivid description. Lizzie Borden, she wrote, was "tall, stocky, jowly, dressy and unremarkable." Except, perhaps, for her eyes. "Photographs assure me that her eyes were as I remember them . . . huge and protruding, their irises an almost colorless ice-blue. . . . I have heard many people speak of them as dead eyes, but the eyes of the dead are dull; Lizzie's had the shine of beach pebbles."
On the very hot morning of Aug. 4, the Bordens' maid, Bridget Sullivan, whom the family called Maggie, and who, feeling ill, had just vomited in the backyard, was told to wash the windows. She did, pausing only to chat over the fence with a neighbor's maid. Everyone in the house -- but for Emma, who was out of town -- had been retching for days. Only Mrs. Borden consulted a doctor. On Aug. 3 she told Dr. Seabury W. Bowen she suspected poison. He suspected warmed-over fish (meals often made repeat appearances at the Borden table) and offered to take a look at the rest of the family. Mr. Borden, angry because his wife had been wasting money on a doctor, ordered him away from his door.
When Bridget started on the windows, Mrs. Borden was dusting. Mr. Borden had gone to the business district, as had John Vinnicum Morse, the brother of his long-dead first wife, who was visiting. Lizzie, who'd been drinking coffee, had left the kitchen.
Once she had finished washing the windows from the outside, Bridget came indoors to a seemingly empty house. Still scrubbing, this time from the inside, she heard Andrew Borden struggling with the locked front door. Bridget went to open it and, also struggling, uttered an impatient "Pshaw!" As she did, she heard Lizzie, who was at the top of the front-hall stairs, laugh. Given the house's peculiar geography, she could have been coming only from the guest room or her own bedroom.
Andrew Borden went into the sitting room to nap. Lizzie went into the dining room to iron handkerchiefs. First, though, she told Bridget about a sale on yard goods, and added that Mrs. Borden, summoned by a note, was out on a sick call. Bridget said she'd go to the sale later, but for now she was taking a nap. Then she climbed the back stairs to the attic. About 10 minutes later, Lizzie called out.
"Maggie, come down!"
"What is the matter?"
"Come down quick! Father's dead! Somebody's come in and killed him."
Bridget ran to Dr. Bowen's house and told his wife the news. She was then dispatched to get Alice Russell, a friend of the "girls." Meanwhile, Mrs. Churchill, a neighbor, noticing the alarums and excursions, came over to see what had happened. On finding out, she sent her handyman for help.
By now, Bridget was back from fetching Miss Russell, along with Dr. Bowen. On the chance that Mrs. Borden was at her sister's house, she asked, should she go there and tell her Mr. Borden was very sick?
"Maggie, I am almost positive I heard her coming in," Lizzie replied. "Won't you go upstairs to see."
Mrs. Churchill went with her. Before they got to the landing, they could see Mrs. Borden, partly hidden by the bed, lying on the floor of the guest room.
Mrs. Churchill rounded the bed to get a better look, then raced downstairs. Alice Russell said, "Is there another?"
"Yes, she is up there," Mrs. Churchill replied.
On Aug. 11, 1892, Lizzie Borden was arrested for the murders of her father and stepmother. Ten months later, she went on trial in New Bedford. The jury waited for what they perceived to be a decent interval, just over an hour, before freeing her. "It will be with a certain relief to every right-minded man or woman who has followed the case," crowed the editorial page of The New York Times, "that the jury at New Bedford has not only acquitted Miss Lizzie Borden of the atrocious crime with which she was charged, but has done so with a promptness that was very significant."
Those are the facts. The rest -- a notorious jingle ("Lizzie Borden took an ax. . . ."), countless books and magazine articles, plays, a ballet, a television drama and, from Aug. 3 to 5 in Fall River, the first Lizzie Borden Conference -- constitute a century of suppositions. IN 1892, FALL RIVER WAS A MILL TOWN -- no, more than that, a textile colossus -- and the mills are still the first buildings one sees on crossing the bridge from Somerset. Most are dinosaurs. The Depression came to Fall River five years before it arrived in the rest of the United States and never really left. The unemployment rate -- officially 13 percent -- is the highest in Massachusetts. "Fall River is a city of hills," Bernie Sullivan, the editor of The Fall River Herald News, says, "and we always seem to be going up them."
In 1892, the rich lived on the Hill, actually a steep drop from highland to the waterfront, and the poor lived below them, near the mills. Downtown, where the Bordens lived, must have had an interior logic, but it is gone now, lost to demolition, fires and the intrusion of Interstate 195. Even so, the city has a curious charm. What's left of the old breaks the monotony of the new; and once out of the business district, the streets are bosky. Because the vast majority of its citizens are of Portuguese descent, there's no better Portuguese food outside Lisbon. The Cambodians, the newest, fastest-growing immigrant group, have yet to make a culinary dent.
When the mills failed, the textile millionaires took their money and ran. Even in the good days, they'd never given much of it back to the city in which it had been made. But Lizzie Borden, descendant of Fall River's founding family, has. Tote bags and calendars printed with that famous face are hot items at the Fall River Historical Society's gift counter. And the Lizzie Borden Conference will surely attract tourists as well as scholars eager to debate, among other theses, "The Gertrude Stein/Lizzie Borden Connection" and "Lizzie Borden, Victim of Incest?"
Jules R. Ryckebusch, the conference chairman and an English and communications professor at Bristol Community College, where the conference is to be held, came to Fall River in 1966. A writing instructor, he assigned a paper on the Borden murders to his freshman class. "It was amazing! There was Bordenalia all over the place. One kid was able to get Lizzie's high-school record because her mother worked in the school office. Did you know Lizzie never graduated? And a kid whose father was on the police force got him to run off a complete set of the autopsy photographs, the ones that have never been published because they're so grisly. God, I wish I'd done an oral history! Because in those days there was still someone who knew someone who knew someone who knew something."
Professor Ryckebusch has his theories. So have legions of others. The Borden murders have been ascribed to Bridget, to a presumed illegitimate son of Andrew's and to passers-by unknown. Some amateurs of crime have kept a keen eye on Emma, despite her absence, and John Vinnicum Morse is thought by many to have been a very odd lot indeed. Jules Ryckebusch is sticking to Lizzie:
"It was money. The motive was money. But this wasn't planned. And Lizzie did hate her stepmother. My guess is she saw Lizzie doing something in her bedroom -- masturbating for all I know -- and Lizzie was enraged. There's an almost erotic association with that kind of violence. Nineteen or 20 ax blows! She got a kick out of continuing to slaughter her.
"Lizzie knew her father would know what happened, so she had to kill him. The killing released something, something like an orgasm. By the time the police arrived, she was fairly relaxed.
"Just for the hell (Continued on page 42) of it, I sometimes mention Fall River -- and people say either 'Never heard of it' or 'Wasn't that where Lizzie Borden . . . ?' "
IF IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO divorce Lizzie Borden from this city, so it is impossible to separate this city from Lizzie Borden. "I'm just staying around long enough to tell people we had something in Fall River besides Lizzie Borden." The speaker is Florence Brigham, a former curator of the Fall River Historical Society, and she may as well forget about her mission in life. Not only do visitors make a beeline for the society's Borden memorabilia, but Mrs. Brigham is herself a splendid talker about these murders and their motive. The daughter-in-law of a character witness for Lizzie, she is, at 92, the last of the someones who knew someone who knew someone who knew something.
"I might have found out so much about this, and so could a lot of others, if only it hadn't been a closed subject," she says. "Why, Alice Russell was my sewing teacher at the Highland School! I could have asked her. When I think of it! I had so many ties to the story, and I never asked. Nobody did, out of respect to the name, out of respect to the other Bordens who still lived here. When my son was a little boy, he asked his grandmother if Lizzie did it. She said, 'Lizzie Borden was tried, and she was acquitted, and we don't talk about that anymore.' "
As she speaks, Mrs. Brigham, who is the size and speed of a cricket, is moving briskly about the kitchen of the Brayton mansion. The Brayton mansion houses the historical society, and its kitchen houses the contents of the hip bath.
The hip bath. Yes.
Once Lizzie's trial was ended, her lawyer, Andrew J. Jennings, dumped his notebooks, the minutes of Lizzie's inquest and assorted souvenirs into a hip bath, covered it with an awning and never spoke of the matter again. Seventy-five years later, his daughter gave the hip bath to the historical society. Barbara Ashton, then a reporter at The New Bedford Standard Times, was there when it arrived.
"I can remember sitting out in the office," she says, "opening the package and going 'Oooooooh.' "
Small wonder. The hip bath held not only the expected written material, but Abby Borden's dustcap and switch. The Marseilles spread and pillow shams with which she had been making up the guest room bed, each spotted with minute drops of blood. Locks of the victims' hair and two paper tags neatly labeled "Mr. Borden's stomach" and "Mrs. Borden's stomach." A handleless hatchet. The hatchet, probably, though yet another book is soon to proclaim its innocence.
Lizzie's lunch bucket, the bucket that was brought to her every day she was held in the Taunton jail, is on the side of the soapstone sink. The stool on which she sat to eat that lunch is near a window, and an ironing board, said to be hers, is beside it.
"Of course, it didn't have legs then, but don't you think that board is too heavy for a woman to lift?" Mrs. Brigham asks. "No," I answer, remembering the ease with which my short, stout grandmother, who was 15 years old in 1892, hefted her own legless ironing board. I am caught in the web. Two days in Fall River and I, too, am opining.
Leaving that ghastly kitchen (photographs of the Bordens' skulls hang above the sink), we speak of the dress Lizzie burned the morning after the murders, the dress some claim was bloodstained and that she claimed was soiled. "That family would never have burnt a dress just because it had paint on it," Mrs. Brigham says. "They would have torn it up for rags, or used it for quilt squares." And I, remembering my grandmother's ragbag, can only agree.
SOON AFTER HER acquittal Lizzie Borden and her sister, Andrew Borden's only heirs, left the purgatory that was that poky little house downtown and entered heaven. She bought a house on the Hill.
It was a big house with four bathrooms -- there would be no noisome backyard here -- and a world away from the spinning machines and the barefoot boys with old men's faces who worked them. This was the kind of house her friends at the Ladies Fruit and Flower Mission lived in. ("Why were there so many old maids among the group?" Mrs. Brigham asks rhetorically. "It was because they never married outside their own social set. The boys got out and fell in love with their college friends' sisters. But the girls were stuck here.")
They lived quietly, Lizzie and Emma, but not quietly enough for a society that would have liked Lizzie to perform some equivalent of suttee. A jewelry store in nearby Providence accused her of shoplifting; she had a crush on an actress named Nance O'Neil, and one night she gave a party for a theatrical troupe. Emma moved out soon after.
"My mother-in-law finally gave up on Lizzie," Mrs. Brigham says, "and I always thought it was those theater people. I can just imagine her and all those other Yankees saying: 'Now what does she want to do this for? Disgrace herself -- and us -- because we accepted her back.' "
Lizzie Borden died on June 1, 1927, and was buried after sunset in Oak Grove Cemetery. Only the undertaker's assistants were present for the interment.
"IF SHE'D BEEN CONVICTED, she'd have been hanged. And they didn't want to hang a woman." So says John C. Corrigan, Jr., a Fall River lawyer, who is in the Quequechan Club sipping a cold drink and munching hot peanuts. The Quequechan has a long porch and a dark mahogany bar and was established around 1894. Now it has both male and female members of varying professions and ethnicity, but then it was a hangout for well-off Yankee males.
John Corrigan says he thinks the jurors did the best they could with what they had. Lizzie's inquest testimony, which was a mass of contradictions, was excluded; so was the testimony of a pharmacist who swore that she had tried to buy prussic acid, a poison, from him the day before the murders, and the judge's charge to the jury was a virtual order to acquit. Even without all that, however, there would still have been that reluctance to execute a female.
Massachusetts hadn't executed a woman for centuries, Corrigan recalls, not since one Bathsheba Spooner was found after her death to be, as she'd protested, five months' pregnant. I recall a photograph of the hanging of Mary Surratt, who kept the boardinghouse in which Lincoln's assassination was planned. A guard's umbrella had shielded her from the summer sun, and before the trap was sprung someone had tied a rope around her skirts so no one could look up them as she dangled from the noose. Presumably Lizzie would have received similar courtesies.
Being chairman of the Legal and Forensics Panel at the Lizzie Borden Conference may well be fun for John Corrigan. He is, after all, a lawyer with an interest in the case. But he is ambivalent about the conference itself: "How the hell do you celebrate a gruesome ax murder?"
You don't, especially when you are standing in the Borden plot at Oak Grove Cemetery. A stele in the center is engraved: Andrew Jackson Borden His wife Sarah Anthony Borden His wife Abby Durfee Borden Children of Andrew J. and Sarah A. Borden Alice Esther 1856-1858 Lizbeth Andrews 1860-1927 Emma Lenora 1851-1927.
In truth, it isn't Lizbeth Andrews Borden who's buried here, because there never was such a person. Lizbeth Andrews was a figment of Lizzie Andrews's imagination: a woman with a lovely name and, if names confer magic upon their possessors, a lovely life.
A handful of friends, the books about Lizzie Borden say, attended a funeral service at the house on the Hill, during which a hymn was sung by the soloist from Central Congregational Church. Not exactly, Florence Brigham says.
"Mrs. Turner -- Vida Pearson to me -- was asked if she would sing 'My Ain Countree' at 306 French Street at a certain time. 'So I rang the bell,' she told me, 'and a gentleman said: "Follow me. You're to stand beside the fireplace." So I stood there and sang that song to an empty room. I never saw a soul but that one man.' "Continue reading the main story


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|A foam core and Photoshop mock up of the small freight house.
Lots going on at the PoNY, and not enough extra time to talk about it as of late. We've hosted another op session and progress is being made on lighting, scenery, structures, photography, and operations fronts.
The highlights include Op Session No.8 that is in the books. Our regular crew from David Barrow's slipped in a session on the PoNY during the regular op night. I managed to take no pictures, which could mean things were so bad I was scrambling putting out fires, or that it was so enjoyable it didn't occur to me to snap any pics. I'm happy to report it was the latter. A crack yard crew proved that a full work shift is possible, and job balancing seems to be consistent across the board which makes tweaking possible now.
|track tools employed at 14th St
Before the session, I realigned the 14th St track towards the front of the layout to make reaching it easier while making it possible to get in the track to the engine house and US Testing. The great thing about gluing down track is that it is easy to move.
I also started testing LED strips for layout lighting on the 27th Sta. module. This one that I had on hand from another project is not bright enough. The challenge here is that there is a 19 story building that is going to be on top of it. That mean some hidden lighting to operate in the buildings as well as the general lighting. Interesting problems.
|Behind the scenes
While I've been at all this, I'm also getting familiar with my camera and lights for shooting photos for articles. LEDs are a game changer here as well, as they are getting cheaper, produce daylight color temperatures, and don't get so hot like the old photo floods did.
|Assembling the mock up small freight house
|Workers don't seem to mind that it is only a mock up. They are already hard at the business of the railroad - moving stuff.
The small freight house mock up only took a couple of hours to put together. I found some corrugated metal textures at Textures.com, arranged them in Photoshop,printed and pasted for a satisfying stand in/test fit. I'm not going to tell anyone that I accidentally made it too big. That's what happens when working while under the influence of allergies late at night. I can fix it easily enough, though.
|Don't these guys ever take a break?


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It's difficult to plan a journey without an agreed upon destination. Lets therefore try to outline how your digital workplace may look like in 2020.Read More
It's difficult to plan a journey without an agreed upon destination. Lets therefore try to outline how your digital workplace may look like in 2020.Read More
Topics: information governance, mobile, big data, future workplace
There is a lot of hype around Big Data analytics, but I still think this will be game changing for how we manage information. ¨Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine," said Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President, Gartner.
Analytics allows you to predict the future by looking at historic and real-time information. You can use this to add value to customers and staff, reduce costs, and better manage risks. As Geoffrey Moore put it: "Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway."Read More
Topics: content analytics, strategy, big data
Happy 4th of July and welcome to my new blog. I have decided to start blogging again to better share some of the discussions I have with AIIM members, industry analysts and thought-leaders. Please subscribe to be notified about new blog posts.Read More
Topics: big data, Digital business, internet of things
Welcome to my blog. My name is Atle Skjekkeland, Chief Evangelist at AIIM – the Association for Information and Image Management.
I am a modern day Norwegian viking fighting for how to best use technology to transform businesses. Join me explore how technology and information can be used to create a new reality, add value, reduce costs, or manage risk.
I have for the last 9 years lived with my family in "Vinland" - this is what the vikings used to call America when they discovered this continent hundreds of years before Columbus. But even vikings get homesick, and our new home is now in Kristiansand, Norway.
Join me to explore how to best transform businesses to become digital businesses. If I can help, contact me at email@example.com.


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"Give Thanks to the Lord; his faithful love endures forever!"
2 Chron. 20:21
We have had a huge disappointment a few days ago, but I have remembered, today, that my future is in the hands of a God who loves me! The joy of life is returning!
Hugs to you Linda.
Hoping for better days for you and yours! :-)
Blessings and a giant sized hug...


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I got this darling image from the Best of Snow set! I think that it would make a cute Valentine's Day card, as well as a seasonal holiday card.
The larger white layer was embossed using the SAB Decorative Dots folder. I watercolored a touch of Bashful Blue at the bottom of each "snowflake" and put a bit of Dazzling Diamonds glitter on the tops.
All products are SU!, unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Best of Snow
Paper: White, Gumball Green, Cherry Cobbler, Watercolor Wonder dsp
Ink: Black, Bashful Blue, Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, Lucky Limade, Always Artichoke, Cherry Cobbler, Calypso Coral, Tangerine Tango
Accessories: Big Shot, Deco Labels framelits, Decorative Dots folder, Ticket-Corner punch, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Aquapainter, Dimensionals, Cherry Cobbler seam binding, Gold sequin trim, brads


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At Chiropractor Edmonton South, we believe that health is the most valuable possession to a person. Our goal is not only to ensure people are pain-free, but to also improve their lives by improving their overall health. We do this through chiropractic adjustments, and also giving advice and easy to follow plans on exercise and nutrition so everyone can live their best life.
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'Health is a journey, not a destination'. With ongoing chiropractic care, not only can we drastically improve your current health problems, but we can also stop future pains from occurring. By seeing a chiropractor, you are taking the proper steps to living your life to the fullest, and pain-free!


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Nest-A-Palooza - Unpacking (my long missed) Antique Dishes
I love pretty much all things vintage (from the last 20 years) or antique (from the last 100 years), especially delicate and dainty dishes. As is typical of my wonderful MIL, if I mention something to her, even in passing, she stores it away to later make my dreams come true. So, I shouldn't have been so surprised when I walked into my wedding shower, hosted by my great and talented Mother-In-Law (who is a party planning extraordinaire) and saw every table setting totally and completely vintage...O...M...G!
|Look at those gorgeous stacks at the dessert bar!
|This was just one small part of all the dishes..WOW!
I knew this was just too nice to be setting out at my house in the middle of nowhere and I also knew we weren't staying there forever. So, I asked her to please pack it up for me to keep it safe on my journey and put into storage. Lucky for me, she must have been a packer in her past life. At the end of the weekend, when I went to pick them up, all those small little boxes were perfectly stacked in a row. Love that!
Finally, three years after that fateful shower when my dish dreams came true, I was able to unpack and really take in each perfect pattern. I pulled those boxes from the depths of my storage area, dusted them off, and told them we had such fun ahead of us!
|Best treasure hunt ever!
|Boxes upon boxes had to be unpacked into neat vintage stacks
Since I had purchased the most perfect, original wood, vintage hutch at my favorite middle of nowhere store, all these dishes had a predestined home. The hutch too had been in storage since my move to Orange County waiting patiently for me to buy a home so it could be shown in all it's glory. I couldn't believe the time had finally come!!
After hours (and I mean hours) of unpacking my MIL's elf-like packed boxes, I was finally able to see my bounty in all it's glory. It was absolutely stunning!
|My wonderful hutch that had been waiting so long to come out of storage...
|My new glass collection to go with my plates...
|The real deal! Are you seeing this table service for 30?!
|At home and complete at last.....ahhhhhh-mazing.
Do you love vintage dishes? Have a collection of your own? Show us!


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I have no idea if this is a thing or not, but I started to crochet a sort of memory blanket using leftover yarn and newly spun yarn.
At Edinburgh yarn festival I took a drop spindle class and I have been making a tiny bit of yarn here and there practising and trying to get better. I then really wanted to use the yarn in something but as it is just small bits here and there I wasn't sure what to do. So I picked up my Lykke crochet set and started to crochet random bits together.
I guess this is sort of using a log cabin approach but using crochet rather than knitting. This gave me a great excuse to finally use my Lykke crochet set.
The Lykke crochet set
The set comes with 10 crochet hooks in various sizes. The sizes are conveniently edged into the bottom of the hooks, where there is some metal wrapped around the driftwood.
Similarly to the interchangeable needle set, the wood is smooth and soft to the touch with no scratchy parts. The top of the hook is slightly pointed making it really easy to use, in my opinion. I have only ever crochet with metal sets and this pointy tip really made a difference to me. It was a lot less fiddly to get into different sized loops. My crochet skills are a bit rusty and I am using all sorts of weights of yarn so I really could feel the benefit of this top.
Otherwise they handle as you may imagine a stick might. They are stick shaped after all. I have only used them for about 30 mins to an hour at a time and got a little bit of a mark on my fingers, like a pressure mark but I think due to the smoothness of the wood I had no blisters.
The bag they come in as a metal latch and a small zip pocket for bits and bobs as well as another pocket on the inside. So plenty of room to store notions in.
The other nifty thing, is that you can stand the hooks up. I am not sure why you need to but if you were to change crochet hook a lot this may be useful. Although thinking about it, the sizes are etched into the bottom so maybe what I am saying makes no sense and you would never stand them up? 🙂
All in all I am enjoying using these and the sharp tip at the tip is great and they grab the yarn well, but I am not sure if they are the most comfortable to use for longer sessions. A handle of sorts shaped a bit more ergonomically may have been nice.
The blanket
The blanket itself is going well. I had to re-remember how to crochet but otherwise I am just making it up as I go, holding some yarns double or triple and joining them in random ways with the aim of a blanket shape. 🙂
You can see some of the evolution below. I started with just handspun yarn and then found my leftover stash and started to experiment. It can be so freeing to just create from your mind without a set plan and I like that I can point at the sections and tell you which completed project the yarn came from.
P.S: I bought these hooks myself and was not endorsed in any way to do a review.


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'Devious Maids' review: Help is on the way
Devious Maids: dramatic series, 10 p.m. Sunday, Lifetime channel.
If you're among the millions of fans who still miss "Desperate Housewives," or even if - like me - you're not, creator Marc Cherry is back and he's got help.
More to the point, he's writing about the help in "Devious Maids," a new Lifetime series about smart, capable Latina maids. The show, premiering Sunday night, is inspired by the telenovela "Elios Son ... la Alegria del Hogar," and Cherry sprinkles elements of that singular television format throughout "Devious Maids."
But above all, "Devious Maids" follows the format and sensibilities of "Desperate Housewives." Instead of spoiled, oversexed suburban housewives, though, we get a core group of the women who work in lavish Beverly Hills homes a lot like those the "Housewives" ruled for seven seasons on ABC.
Zoila Dias (Judy Reyes) and her daughter, Valentina (Edurne "Edy" Ganem), work for the outrageous, over-the-top Genevieve Delatour (Susan Lucci), who has a succession of much-younger lovers and an obsession with plastic surgery but a good heart. She also has a hot son in college named Remi (Drew Van Acker), and Valentina is feeling the heat, much to her mother's displeasure.
Carmen Luna (Roselyn Sánchez) is hoping her job as a maid for pop star Alejandro Rubio (Matt Cedeño) will give her a chance to get him to listen to her demo tape, but first she has to get past his formidable one-legged housekeeper, Odessa Burakov (Melinda Page Hamilton). Rosie Falta (Dania Ramírez) works for actors Peri (Mariana Klaveno) and Spence (Grant Show) Westmore. He's a decent guy, but she's too ambitious, and finds new motherhood useful only for photo ops and TV interviews.
Flora (Paula Garcés) works for the couple from hell, Adrian Powell (Tom Irwin) and his monstrously self-absorbed wife Evelyn (Rebecca Wisocky). He can't keep his hands off the maid, and she is hysterically mean.
Soon after Flora is brutally murdered in the midst of a huge society bash, Marisol Duarte (Ana Ortiz) is hired to work for Michael Stappord (Brett Cullen) and his younger second wife, Taylor (Brianna Brown). There's something different about Marisol, and it becomes a central plot line uniting all the individual stories of the maids and their bosses.
When firing on all cylinders, the show is a giddy mix of soap opera, serious drama and pointed humor. With Eva Longoria among the executive producers, and a richly populous Latin cast, "Devious Maids" skewers assumptions too often made about Latinos in contemporary America. At one point, for example, Marisol uses the word "inquisitive" and is asked by an Anglo character where she learned a word like that. The answer? "I read."
The show also looks at generational differences in the Latino population. Zoila believes it is wrong for Valentina to flirt with Remi, that she needs to know her place. To reinforce that idea, she buys her daughter a proper maid's uniform, which Valentina immediately alters to resemble something you'd see in a '60s stag film.
The pilot episode may not break any new ground, but it's energetic and funny. By the second episode, though, you begin to wonder if Cherry can avoid allowing the "Maids" to fall into the same rut that "Housewives" occupied after a few seasons. It's a hoot the first time we see the maids get the better of their shallow, self-absorbed bosses, but after a while, the show begins to want a seriously compelling story line. Instead, we get the mystery of who really murdered Flora.
Fortunately, "Devious Maids" is blessed with a talented cast. Ortiz, Reyes, Sánchez, Ramírez and Ganem are spot-on at every turn. Lucci does a wonderfully sly send-up of her Erica Kane character, but then makes her actually nice. She merits much more screen time than she gets in the first two episodes.
"Devious Maids" has the potential to be better than "Desperate Housewives," but it can realize that potential only if it finds its own substantive identity instead of being just a recycling of the "Housewives" template.
David Wiegand is The San Francisco Chronicle's executive features editor and TV critic. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Twitter: @WaitWhat_TV


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Visit these AFP chapters in our area, for other enriching, educational programs.
AFP Brandywine Chapter – Coming soon to Wilmington, DE is the AFP Donor Retention: A Self-Assessment Workshop. Complete this one day program and earn 8.0 credits towards CFRE certification / re-certification. Our very own Michael Baker, CFRE is co-teaching with Stephanie Cory, CAP, CFRE. Don't wait until AFP's 2018 International Conference on Fundraising – register today!
AFP Fairfield County, Connecticut Chapter
AFP Greater Philadelphia Chapter
AFP Southern New Jersey Chapter


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We found out some time ago that the house next door was going to be demolished. It's a common thing in this suburb: free standing houses are demolished & then four-storey apartments go up.
We thought it might be another year before the construction started bur no.....they demolished the house on Tuesday:
Stand by for more photos over the coming year as the apartment goes up (esp. relating the Indian concept of OH&S)


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|Item Description
|Temporary Thermostats


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Small business owners, get a monthly box of customized products handpicked and designed just for your business for a crazy low price. I just had to share this awesome deal!
Watch as I unbox my first Vistaprint, #PromoBox! You can sign up for yours here: www.vistaprint.com/beta/promobox/about.
As a disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Vistaprint or paid for this product review. I am sharing this review because I thought the promo box idea is a great inexpensive way for a start-up or small business to get promo items for a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time it would take to design them or hire a designer.


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Senior Kameron Guess tees off
April 2, 2018
Filed under Profiles
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Personal Sports Profile #12
This senior has been playing golf since he was six or seven years old. Transitioning between a new roster of players, this senior has done it all.
Senior Kameron Guess has been playing golf for the Bulldogs since his freshman year.
"I've always liked golf," Guess said. "I watched my dad growing up play golf; that's what really got me into playing golf. Tiger Woods was also an inspiration for me, I wanted to be like him. We would watch him on TV every Sunday winning tournaments."
Even though he says he enjoys the sport, he considers conditioning to be one of the most difficult aspects of the sport and more specifically, the terrain.
"The toughest part about golf conditioning would be walking up and down the courses that are real hilly," Guess said. "I mean, stamina can sometimes be an issue."
His main goal this year is to be a better leader on the team.
"This year I want to be a better leader on the team and help my teammates," Guess said. "I want to go as far in the tournament as possible and I just want to go out, and play the best that I possibly can every time. I aim keep a positive attitude as well."
When reflecting on the personal goals that have been accomplished, Guess could only think of one.
"Of course there are times when I go out and I don't play necessarily the best that I can," Guess said. "Yet, I mean I would say I succeed, because I learn from my mistakes."
Guess considers golf to be an underappreciated sport because of the lack of attention golf receives.
"I think a lot of people don't know about it, per say, because golf isn't a very big sport," Guess said. "You know, we're a very basketball-football oriented school but I mean, we'll get there one day – to where golf will be a bigger name sport."
In order to expose the sport a little bit more, Guess thinks that recruiting more players is the way to do it.
"I just try to get as many people involved in the sport as possible, just try to get them to see if they even want to go out, and play," Guess said. "Not necessarily telling them to play for the team, but just go, and see if they like playing it. Golf for fun."
Playing golf in high school has provided opportunities for him, he's certain he'll play golf in college.
"If I could since I love golf, and I do plan on playing it for the rest of my life," Guess said. "Playing it in college, traveling, and seeing some of the courses they play at would be an awesome experience."
His advice for incoming freshmen: "Don't worry about your past shot, worry about the shot you got in front of you, and don't let it mess with you too much mentally. Just keep a positive frame of mind and you'll do a lot better."