Great Landon's Ghost!

Still Working On This Thing

2009-08-20T23:41:45Z

It's a lot to absorb. It's funny going back and looking over this thing, seeing the various foibles and things that have been on my mind since college. A lot of them don't seem as important now. I don't agree with the argument that being a parent forces you to "grow up," someone who is a parent _should_ grow up as much as necessary, but just because you should do something emotionally doesn't mean it just up and happens.

But being a father doesn't mean I can't spend much of the day online reading Cracked or gaming, it'll just mean the whys and hows of doing those things changes. It's funny that the hobbies are the things I have to remind myself will be safe, but they've been important to me since I was a teenager.

I know my professional life is perfectly safe; I have colleagues who have had a baby while in graduate school, one of whom had the physical act of having the baby herself. And Cori's will be safe too; this doesn't do much to advance her career, but maybe this will gives time for the economy to recover before she's solidly in the market again. We'll have daycare lined up before either of us know it!

We got baby stuff the other day and that was nice, and then went shopping today for pre-natal vitamins. Our first parenting class was interesting. The fact that they're run by Focus on the Family doesn't thrill me at all, but fortunately you can pick and choose which instructions you're going to hear. I hope we're going to get that ultrasound done soon; getting a due date on this thing is really going to be crucial. We're already at that "quickening" stage.

We're working on converting the bird room into the baby room, the birds and their cages moving out here; everybody making sacrifices of space for this new thing happening. We won't be fostering cats for a while, but that's okay; Victoria is safe in her forever home with us and we'll foster cats again when we have more free time. After all, we'll be able to see how well the prospective cats get along with little kids!

Even if Cori and I aren't always on the same page about the various aspects of this thing, at least I know we're working together here. I couldn't do this without her, which is an admittedly silly thing to say given the respective genders involved, but the emotional weight of the moment is what I'm talking about. I've tried putting a couple of different emoticons in place here, but my little hamster down there usually makes a pretty strange face when I do that.

So I'll go with peaceful, the feeling I'm doing my best to live these days. It's a stressful time, but with love and togetherness, I know Cori and I will get through it. And after that we'll have a baby around, and a child after that, but a change in something isn't the same as the loss of something. It'll be the start of something new, an addition to life rather than a subtraction from it.

So...

2009-08-17T21:56:30Z

Anyone out there with any good tips for expectant parents? Turns out we're due sometime in early January.

Movies

2009-05-08T23:49:05Z

I just got back from the new Star Trek movie. You should go see it. Now! That is all.

The Car is Dead!

2009-04-11T21:34:08Z

Long live the car.

Oh boy!

2009-02-10T15:54:47Z

I'm going to be teaching a class this summer at 8 AM, MWF. Eep!

Discuss

2009-01-26T05:50:19Z

Things to say when your vampire PC is found standing at the site of a gruesome ritualistic serial murder with a bloody dagger in his hands.

Addendum: He is wearing a hockey mask with a ski mask underneath it.

Timeline-191

2009-01-23T06:16:11Z

My (very) alternate version of these events can be found by Google-Grouping "Japanese Sealion" on SHWI.

From Wikipedia:

2009-01-03T21:32:23Z

"...[Quayle] recruited former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, who would have been installed as chairman if Cerberus had successfully acquired Air Canada."

Happy New Yar!

2009-01-01T22:41:58Z

Matey!

Nerves a-jangling!

2008-12-26T06:00:39Z

We just seperated Wil and Victoria, Victoria to the bedroom where we're spending the next couple of days and Wil outside. Wil and Victoria aren't getting along at all; we botched their introduction, but even so the personality conflict is hard to ignore. Victoria is a gentle, peaceable ragdoll of a cat, while Wil is...really amazingly vital these days, and also malignantly aggressive towards other cats. I haven't seen him run and hiss and yowl like that in years.

Victoria's in no real danger from him unless he manages to corner her, but it's still really stressful for everyone. I think we're just going to keep Victoria in our bedroom for the rest of this fairly short visit. Old cat is old and mean! But also my buddy, my pet since I was a kid. These are the complicated moral dilemmas of visits to childhood homes.

OTOH, we got a Wii! Hurrah! And I got this sweet copy of War of the Worlds with a CD of the 10/31 Mercury Theatre broadcast. And my dad and I put together my mom's new exercise bike, which was fun. So...mostly good times.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T04:54:44Z

This space intentionally left blank. For the lulz!

Timeline-191: The Gilded Age

2008-12-16T22:49:29Z

European support for the Confederacy falls off sharply after 1871. Indeed, the Third Republic is consciously anti-Confederate. (A few Napoleonic refugees wind up in the CSA: Napoleon Eugene marries a Beauregard and settles in Texas, after making a name for himself as a Comanche and Apache fighter.) Benito Juarez becomes the first great American ally in North America.

In Britain, Benjamin Disraeli uses stories of Confederate brutality as a club for beating Gladstone over the head. (A realpolitik sort of guy, Disraeli actually gets along fine with Ambassador Benjamin.) Gladstone, in response, lends his support to efforts to boycott Confederate goods on moral grounds. Diplomatically isolated, the Confederacy is glad to hook up with a dawning authoritarian European power hemmed in on all sides by its enemies; the German Empire.

The Union goes through depression, political mobilization and counter-mobilization, and a few more civil disturbances. The Democrats fall into disarray and nearly break; there are nothing but Republican Presidents through the remainder of the 19th century. Constantly accusing the Democrats of being "soft on Richmond", the Republicans are free to actually enjoy kind-of warm relations with the Confederacy. Only Rutherford Hayes, as it happens, could go to Richmond.

The Confederates buy Cuba in the 1870s and soon learn why Spain was willing to sell for cheap. Have fun with the guerilla war, guys! There is a brief Confederate-backed attempt to occupy Mexico in the 1880s. It's a failure; the Union has guaranteed the security of President Juarez and dispatched military advisors to keep him propped up. Coming soon as it does after diplomatic recognition by the United States, the abortive filibustering expedition comes across as a sharp slap in the face to the government in Philadelphia.

The Union is industrializing fast, though a mite slower than OTL. The Confederacy is industrializing faster than the South of OTL...but is still way behind the North. By 1881, some Confederate politicians can talk seriously about an end to slavery in the same way American politicians of 2008 can discuss how the nation is officially a secular state. (Which is to say, they can do it without being shot.)

A Better Timeline-191: The Civil War

2008-12-16T20:43:34Z

Turtledove postulates a TL where a Confederate victory at Camp Hill (an alternate Antietam) leads to Anglo-French recognition of the Confederacy, which then somehow leads to London and Paris forcing an armistice on the Union.

This doesn't make any sense at all. So let's try and make things better.

Camp Hill: This part is mostly OK. Let's say there's a big battle on Northern soil and the Union forces (led by McClellan) really botch the hell out of it. McClellan dies in action, a junior officer like Edwin Sumner leads a morale-shot Union Army back towards Washington.

The Confederates suffer too, really quite badly, but Lee at least manages to keep the Army of Northern Virginia together as they make their way back to Virginia. Though they suffered huge casualties as well, at least they succeeded in holding the field and organizing an orderly withdrawal back to their home base.

Anglo-French recognition of the Confederacy:

This part is...more difficult. But let's say that Lincoln suffers a mild stroke at the news of Camp Hill, leading to seriously botching the diplomatic and internal response to what is billed as "the destruction of the Army of the Potomac." It's a bad fumble, one that gets worse after another major Union defeat leads to a general collapse of Northern morale. This leads, finally, to Britain and France acting together to get the Union to drop its blockade of the Confederacy.

...which does wonders for Northern morale! The knowledge that the Confederates are backed up by the hated British and oily French serves to unite the North behind the war again! The conflict flares up in earnest under new generals, and for a little while, things are really good. Except that the Confederacy is buying all the guns and ammo and supplies that they want from Europe.

The war drags on indecisively through 1863 and 1864, until, in a shocking swerve, a Peace Democrat is elected in 1864! *Lincoln, having fired most of his Cabinet after the 1862 crisis and replaced them with bad choices, throws up his hands and gives up on prosecuting th war. President Woodward, despite protestations to the contrary, actually favors Southern independence and calls for peaceful negotiations upon entering the White House.

Even so, there never really is an armistice. Even after Woodward's defeat in 1868 by Oliver Howard (the "Great Emancipator", who sees slavery end in the United States in his term), no one wants to renew prosecution of the war again. With a dozen different simmering sources of tension, ranging from fugitive slaves to the Ohio border, to the Far West to the Near East, the US and the CS end the 1860s at peace.

Comments?

A Better Timeline-191: Prelude

2008-12-16T20:25:25Z

Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 chronicles a timeline where the American Civil War ends in Confederate victory, leading to a bitter rivalry on the North American continent that sees the US and CS pulled into war in 1914 and again in 1940. The series has huge ideas and proceeds to botch essentially each and every one of them.

So let's see if a better one can't be assembled, eh? To make things a little more challenging, I'm going to try and keep Turtledove's general historical framework (even though I don't think it's very likely) as I work to build a better version of his events.

So for the next little while, I'll be delving into the nitty-gritty of Turtledove and all the things that are wrong with his books.

More Update

2008-12-04T04:42:07Z

I am making a nuisance of myself by watching the 47 GB recording of me giving the lecture, but it's an interesting sight! I certainly do make a lot of gestures, but at least my voice is always audible and clear. The lecture went really well. The students seemed legitimately entertained, my professor was extremely complimentary of my work, and I had my favorite audience member of all in the audience. It was a happy thing, and a good sign for the future.

Update

2008-12-04T01:25:06Z

It was a triumph! Huge success.

Oh boy!

2008-12-03T18:07:48Z

I'm about to deliver a lecture for the very first time! I'm wearing a suit and tie and everything.

I'm a bad boy!

2008-12-02T07:42:28Z

I entered a student's grade wrong, yikes! But fortunately he was watchful and caught the error, and now it is fixed. Whew!

Belated Veterans' Day

2008-11-12T06:54:20Z

Consider this gentleman:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Patch

No, you tool

2008-11-09T17:50:44Z

An election where Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia went Blue
An election where the Republican candidate was brutally crushed
An election where the Democrats won big majorities in the House and Senate

is not one that I feel disappointed about as a Democrat, thanks.

(And no, black people didn't defeat Prop 8. White conservatives did.)

And I didn't even _like_ the show!

2008-11-07T15:50:23Z

Shorter Thundercats (the Wildstorm comics series):

"Remember your beloved childhood action heroes? Let's rape them! And by rape them, I mean sexually violate them, especially the strong female characters."

A better world

2008-11-05T04:31:24Z

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gYbBmMmElgU_AjfYlbWgYFe66cqAD948HQA80

Hey y'all

2008-09-21T10:13:31Z

Just wanted to report that things are good. I start my classes on Wednesday, and this week is all about seminars and learning how to be a TA and Ph.D student. It's very cool! I'm working on a PC for an online Technocracy game; a GURPS setting where the Technocracy has to deal with the events of the Left Behind novels. It should be pretty interesting.

(I'm playing a MiB who has recently developed self-awareness, much to his own alarm.)

mikedavsi @ 2008-06-04T10:33:00

2008-06-04T14:35:12Z

It's true! I am an officially ordained man of the cloth. Go read up on the Universal Life Church. I think you'll find the Church's doctrines, particularly their role as a gatekeeper of religious liberties, compelling.

Gainful Employment At Last!

2008-06-04T14:31:31Z

(And also at Clear Channel, doing surveys)