#clark merrill blogs | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

benjaminschreave · 7 years ago

Text

the S e l e c t e d

The following girls have been selected, one from each province, to join Prince Benjamin Schreave at the palace to compete for his hand. Requirements will follow the announcement.

From Allens… … … … … Brianna Leia Fitzgerald @brifitzgerald || @anonimereader06

From Angeles… … … … . Gabriella Rose Patterson @gabriellapatterson

|| @the-selection-trash

From Atlin… … … … … . Azil Jet @azil-jet || @addie-duff

From Baffin… … … … … Hadley Henderson @hadley-henderson || @eadrik-maxerica

From Bankston… … … … Elle Williams @elle-wwilliams || @paulagrij

From Belcourt… … … … . Genevieve Alice Croft @genevievecroft

From Bonita… … … … . . Vivienne Loyola @ladyvivienneloyola || @thesparklingjewel

From Calgary… … … … . Amalia Lucille Lewis @amaliallewis || @vaticancameos333

From Carolina… … … … . Natalya (Natalie) Lori Bloom @natalyabloom || @lesbianladybrice

From Clermont… … … …. Stella Carrington @stella-carrington || @paulagrij

From Columbia… … … … Aria Hurst @ariahurst

From Dakota… … … … . . Julia Mae Wood @juliamaewood

From Denbeigh… … … … . Lana Barlow @lanahaileybarlow

From Dominica… … … … Fallon Merrill @lady-fallon

From Fennley… … … … . . Odette Siena St. Albans @odettestalbans || @thesparklingjewel

From Hansport… … … … . Tory Livingston @torylivingston || @selection-trash

From Honduragua… … … . Darcy Duncan @darcyduncan || @simesbooks

From Hudson… … … … . . Zara Noelle Flores @zara-flores || @everybookish

From Kent… … … … … . . Danielle LeBlanc @danielle-leblanc || @illeaslockedbluebox

From Labrador… … … … . Ahmara Esperanza Quill @ahmaraquill || @lesbianladybrice

From Lakedon… … … … . Cassandra Grace Oliver @cassandra-oliver

From Likely… … … … … . Natalie Larsen @natalie-larsen || @eadrik-maxerica

From Midston… … … … . Savannah Conley @savannah-conley

From Ottaro… … … … … Sadie Clark @sadieclark || @anonimereader06

From Paloma… … … … . Raven Dyer @raven-dyer || @keadlyn-forever

From Panama… … … … . . Felicity Abbott @felicity-abbott

From Sonage… … … … . . Ophelia Gardinier @opheliagardinier ||

From Sota… … … … … . Adeline Knox @adelineknox

From St. George… … … . . Andrea Rowan Barr @andrearowanbarr

From Sumner… … … … . Celaena Sage Abbot @celaena-abbot || @mswish-i-was-a-schreave

From Tammins… … … … Payton Monroe @payton-monroe

From Waverly… … … … . Farah Winters @farahwinters059 || @zarina059

From Whites… … … … . . Mikki Ella Myeong @mikkimyeong || @laszlo-kreizlers

From Yukon… … … … . . Glimmer Starr @glimmer-starr || @the-selection-trash

From Zuni… … … … … . Candy Rose Stevens @ladycandyrose || @laszlo-kreizlers

--First blog link is the OC’s, second is the personal blog behind the creator. Since this time around the fandom is smaller, we only reached 25 girls. the selected who only have a side blog are drop out oc’s we had to include to get this going!--

If Selected:

you can join the hangouts group chat by clicking on the link here.

you must join the Selection OC Net. To do that you will receive an email invitation. Check the email you included in your application to access it.

You have one week to join. This is important because after posting challenges on your blog, you will be required to reblog them to the net alongside everyone else. That way all fics can be in one place. If you do not get an email, please let us know!

follow all the other Selected

Also, follow Ben if you haven’t yet, and the other royal family if you want to keep up with their shenanigans~

If you have any questions let us know by DM or anon asks!

If you have any changes you would like to make to your selected during this first week let us know too. We have updated the about pages on Ben’s blog and now you can see information about each Selected there. If there’s any information that is no longer correct, please let us know.

benjamin schreave

#selectionoc #the selected #selection5thOC #excited to begin!!#will post practice challenge soon

18 notes · View notes

umbcshelikegirls · 6 years ago

Text

Chisa Hutchinson

"If I sit through two hours of a middle-aged white guy having an existential crisis or well-off white chicks debating the merits of marriage, then why not expose the white folks to the plight of poor Kia Clark, lesbian teenager fighting against the doubly oppressive forces of the inner-city?"

http://www.chisahutchinson.com/

http://sisterstalk.net/chisahutchinson.html

http://www.theintervalny.com/interviews/2015/02/an-interview-with-chisa-hutchinson/

African-American, bisexual playwright, author of She Like Girls

born in Queens, NY

At the age of four, she was unoficially adopted by a family in Newark, NJ

At fourteen, she moved from Newark to Short Hills to live with another host family to attend a school, which she describes as a “rough transition.”

Attended Vasaar College, gained a B.A. in Dramatic Arts. Earned an M.F.A. in Playwritnig from NYU.

Worked for the New York NeoFuturists, staff writer for the Blue Man Group

Teaches creative writing at the University of Delaware, currently working on several film projects, and continuing her sixth year of residency at New Dramatists.

In an interview with the “Sisters Talk” blog, she describes her interest in theatre. “For the most part, I grew up piss poor so I'm not one of those people who can say I've been into theatre since I was like, a fetus.” Her high school drama teacher, Mr. Pridham encouraged his students to get off campus to see theatre, and it was during this time she saw several musicals. Her interest ultimately spiked when she went with her teacher to see a debate between August Wilson and Robert Brustein about color-blind casting.

Prefers to write plays with “stories about people who mainstream America wouldn’t normally come into contact with.” Says that theatre can better address race by giving “room to everyone”

Awards: GLAAD Award, Lilly Award, New York Innovative Theatre Award, Paul Green Award, Helen Merrill Award, Lanford Wilson Award

#Chisa Hutchinson #context

1 note · View note

tvcord5-blog · 5 years ago

Text

The Militant's Epic Militant CicLAvia Tour XXI!!

Interactive map! Click and drag to navigate. To view larger version, click here.

The 21st iteration of CicLAvia (and the second one of 2017) brings us the first all-new alignment since the Southeast Cities route from May, 2016. Which means...it's time for another Militant Angeleno Epic CicLAvia Tour guide!

[cue fanfare music]

This time around, we're on the second route not served by Metro Rail (though it is Metrolink-accessible), and visit the Los Angeles community of Atwater Village and the Jewel City of Glendale. Even though this route is a mini-CicLAvia route of just a little over three miles, there's tons of historical and notable points of interest along this route, and in fact, The Militant had to pare down the list just so he doesn't stay up until 5 a.m. like he usually does when he does these posts (ya, really)! So, without any delay...let's get it started!

1. Glendale-Hyperion Viaduct 1928 Hyperion Avenue, Silver Lake/Atwater Village

This 400 foot-long concrete arch bridge links the community of Silver Lake in the south with Atwater Village in the north, traversing the Los Angeles River below. Designed by Merrill Butler, who also designed another iconic Los Angeles River bridge downstream, the Sixth Street Viaduct (R.I.P.), the bridge replaced an old 1910 wooden crossing that was severely damaged during a 1927 flood. The current bridge was built later that year and opened in September 1928, which was also dedicated to World War I veterans and honorarily dubbed "Victory Memorial." In 1988, the bridge appeared in the movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (and thus a smaller replica of the bridge was later built at Disney's California Adventure theme park in Anaheim, paying homage to the original Walt Disney Studios' neighborhood (located where the Gelson's supermarket stands today)). Recently, the bridge was Ground Zero in a 2013-2015 controversy over whether the eventual renovation of the bridge should be designed in a more bicycle/pedestrian-friendly manner vs. a more automobile-centric design.

The Militant visited this bridge in July of 2007 in a very early MA blog post.

2. Pacific Electric Bridge Abutments and Red Car Mural 1929 (dismantled 1955); 2004 Los Angeles River at Glendale Blvd, Atwater Village

If you follow The Militant, you should know by now that his legendary epic Pacific Electric Archaeology Map from 2015 features a set of seven concrete bridge abutments across the Los Angeles River as one of the remnant traces of Red Car infrastructure. A bridge once rested on these abutments from 1929 to 1955 that carried the beloved trolleys between Downtown Los Angeles to Burbank. In 2004, local Atwater Village muralist Rafael Escamilla painted a mural on one of the abutments, which faces Red Car River Park, which was part of the old trolley's right-of-way. The line continued up Glendale Blvd and on to Brand Blvd in Glendale, before veering west on Glenoaks Blvd to Burbank.

3. Black Eyed Peas Recording Studio Opened 1996 3101 Glendale Blvd, Atwater Village

This nondescript brown two-story building on the corner of Glendale Blvd and Glenfeliz Ave features a recording studio (on the 2nd floor) owned by Los Angeles hip-hop/pop group Black Eyed Peas. Their first few albums were recorded here, including this '90s-era jam. Though the group uses more high-end recording facilities around the world, and will.i.am now has his own home studio in his Los Feliz residence, the facility is still used by members of the band and their extended musical family.

4. G-Son Studios/Beastie Boys Recording Studio Opened 1991 3208 1/2 Glendale Blvd, Atwater Village

The Peas aren't the only hip-hop influence on da AWV. Groundbreaking NY rap trio the Beastie Boys transplanted themselves to this part of Los Angeles during the 1990s (influenced by their producer and musical collaborator, the Los Angeles-raised Mario Caldato, Jr.) and recorded the albums, Check Your Head, Ill Communication and Hello Nasty here in this loft space, known as G-Son Studios, located above today's State Farm insurance office. The facility was also the headquarters of the Beasties' record label and magazine, Grand Royal. The studio was sold in 2006.

Oh yeah, R.I.P. MCA.

5. Atwater Village Redwood Tree 1964 Glendale Blvd median at Larga Ave., Atwater Village

You don't have to travel 203 miles to a national park in the Sierra Nevadas to see a redwood tree -- you can see one right here in Atwater Village during CicLAvia! This lone redwood was planted in the Glendale Blvd median by community members in 1964 and today stands at nearly 90 feet tall. Each December, the redwood is lighted by the Atwater Village Chamber of Commerce as a Christmas tree and the lighting ceremony has been an annual holiday community event for over 20 years.

6. Seeley's Furniture Building 1925/1946 1800 S. Brand Blvd, Glendale

Built in 1925 as a Spanish Baroque bank building by local architect Alfred Priest, the George Seeley Furniture Company took over the building in 1931, expanded it in 1939, and in 1946 got the Streamline Moderne make-over that remains today. The furniture store with the iconic large red neon sign was in operation until 1994, when the company closed for good. The building underwent an $8 million restoration and re-opened in 2012 as a collection of leased offices and artists' studios now known as Seeley Studios.

7. Forest Lawn Memorial Park Glendale 1906 1712 S. Glendale Ave, Glendale

Past the world's largest wrought iron gates at the entrance is the original location of the Southern California cemetery chain and the final resting place of over 250,000 people, including the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Walt Disney (no, he was not frozen), Michael Jackson and someone you know. Forest Lawn was founded in 1906 by businessman Hubert Eaton, who wanted to re-invent the cemetery by doing away with large tombstones and emphasizing landscaping and art. He also innovated the industry with an on-site mortuary. The large white building at the top of the hill with the cross on top of it (changed to a star during the Christmas holiday season) houses a free museum with rotating exhibitions, as well as the world's largest framed canvas painting, the 195-foot long The Crucifixion, completed in 1896 by Polish artist Jan Styka, who brought it to the U.S. to be displayed at the St. Louis 1904 World's Fair. Too large to be transported back to Poland, it remained in the U.S. and was lost for years until Eaton bought it in 1944 and constructed the building to display it. The Militant once rode his bike here to pay his respects to a departed operative, but was told by security that bikes weren't allowed. He asked the security where in the Forest Lawn's policies were bikes not allowed (it does not appear in any signs in the park) and the security staff couldn't find it. So there.

8. Glendale Train Station 1924 400 W. Cerritos Ave, Glendale

Originally known as the Tropico depot (more on this later), this Spanish Colonial Revival station, designed by MacDonald & Cuchot and opened in 1924, was built by the Southern Pacific Railroad, eventually serving Bay Area-bound trains such as the Daylight and the Lark. Amtrak took over train service in 1971. In 1982-1983, the Glendale station was a stop for the short-lived proto-commuter rail experiment known as CalTrain which ran from Los Angeles to Oxnard for all but 6 months. In 1989, the City of Glendale purchased the station from the Southern Pacific and in 1992, the station found real commuter service in the form of Metrolink, which serves Ventura County and the Antelope Valley. The station was renovated in 1999 and expanded to a multi-modal transportation center.

9. Tropico 1887 Glendale south of Chevy Chase Drive

The southwestern section of Glendale was once an independent town named Tropico. With fertile soil formed by the floodplains of the nearby Los Angeles River, the area was famous for its strawberry farms. It also grew a business district centered at San Fernando Road and Central Avenue (pictured left), and Forest Lawn Memorial Park was born as part of Tropico in 1906. The town became incorporated in 1911, but in 1917 its residents voted to be annexed to Glendale. Not much remains of any reference of Tropico, except for the Tropico Motel (401 W. Chevy Chase Dr) and the Tropico U.S. Post Office (120 E. Chevy Chase Dr).

10. Dinah's Fried Chicken 1967 4106 San Fernando Rd, Glendale

Just a couple blocks west of the CicLAvia route is Glendale's iconic Dinah's Fried Chicken, serving its popular boxes of fried chicken and gizzards since 1967. Established by a group of golfers, the Dinah's soft-of-chain operated a handful of restaurants around Southern California that were independently owned and operated but shared common recipes and branding (the Dinah's Family Restaurant in Culver City is the other remaining establishment). The 2006 motion picture, Little Miss Sunshine made Dinah's world-famous as their brightly-colored fried chicken buckets were featured in the film.

11. Chevy Chase Drive c. 1920s Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale

When The Militant was much younger (known as Lil'Mil), he used to wonder, when the family car drove through Glendale, why that guy from Saturday Night Live had a street named after him. It turns out the street was not named after the comedian born Cornelius Chase of Fletch and Clark Griswold fame (the name was apparently a nickname given to him by his grandmother), but after Scottish folklore, namely a story entitled The Ballad of Chevy Chase. The story refers to an apocryphal battle (the "chase") in the Cheviot Hills (no, not that Cheviot Hills) of Scotland (a.k.a. "Chevy") that thwarted off an invasion of the country. Why the Scottish reference? The Jewel City was developed in the 1880s by Leslie Coombs "L.C." Brand, a Scottish American businessman and real estate dude, whose name adorns the city's main street. And also, if it's noot Scottish, it's crap!

12. Riverdale Roundabout 2008 Riverdale Dr and Columbus Ave, Glendale

Since the last CicLAvia (Culver City meets Venice) in March featured a traffic circle, it's only fitting that you visit Glendale's only traffic circle, where Riverdale Drive intersects with Columbus Avenue, just a few short blocks west of the CicLAvia route. In 2008, Riverdale became Glendale's bike-friendly guinea pig, with the street re-configured with bike lanes to form an east-west corridor linking various parks within Glendale. So yes, you can visit this traffic circle via Glendale's existing bike infrastructure.

13. St. Mary's Armenian Apostolic Church 1926/1975 500 S. Central Ave, Glendale

Los Angeles might have Little Armenia, but Glendale has Big Armenia, with a population of 40% of all Glendalians being of Armenian descent. Though Glendale has had an Armenian community dating back to the 1920s, the majority of them arrived in the late 1970s, when the diasporic Armenian community in Lebanon fled that country during its civil war, and when Armenians in Iran likewise left when the Shah fell from power and the current Islamic fundamentalist regime took over. They settled in Glendale as it was close to the existing Armenian community in East Hollywood (now Little Armenia), yet more affordable to live. In the 1990s, another wave of Armenians arrived in Glendale, this time from the former Soviet republic of Armenia, after the dissolution of the USSR. The community established its first house of worship in a small building on Carlton Drive in 1975, and in 1988, the growing congregation took over the 1926 Colonial-style former First Church of Christ Scientist on Central Avenue. Although the St. Mary's wanted to build a dome on the structure in the 1990s to match the traditional church architecture of the motherland, the building's historic preservation status prevented them from doing it.

14. Glendale Galleria 1976 100 W. Broadway, Glendale

Built as a means to invigorate the Glendale economy and to fill a regional void for The Broadway department store between Panorama City and Pasadena (the local chain was one of the mall's development partners and the anchor tenant), the Glendale Galleria opened on October 14, 1976. And while its sister shopping center in Sherman Oaks laid claim as the, like, total epicenter of 1980s Valley Girl culture, the more alliterate Glendale Galleria went on to become the fourth largest shopping mall in Southern California and the first location for chains such as Panda Express, The Disney Store and The Apple Store. Designed by architect Jon Jerde, its layout and style became an archetype for indoor shopping malls across the country during the 1970s and 1980s. The mall was expanded with a new eastern wing across Central Ave in 1983 and underwent a 21st century facelift in 2012 in the wake of the opening of its next-door neighbor, The Americana at Brand.

The Militant may or many not have had his first date at this mall. In November 1992, during his first visit to California after winning the presidential election, then-president-elect Bill Clinton did some Holiday shopping at the Galleria with a crowd of over 30,000 to greet him (The Militant may or may not have been there, and may or may not have caught a glimpse of him in his limo as he left).

15. Max's Of Manila Restaurant/Cattleman's Ranch 1980 313 W. Broadway, Glendale

In addition to a large Armenian community, Glendale is also home to a notable Filipino immigrant population. This rustic-looking building is the first American location (opened 1980) of a major Philippine restaurant chain, specializing in Filipino-style fried chicken (sounds like a culinary theme for this CicLAvia...). If this building looks familiar, the facade is used as the setting for Louis Huang's Orlando restaurant Cattleman's Ranch in the hit ABC TV series, Fresh Off The Boat.

16. Security Trust and Savings Bank/Site of Glendale Pacific Electric Depot 1923 100 N. Brand Blvd, Glendale

The first "high-rise" (as in over two stories) building in Glendale was this Classical style six-story building on the northeast corner of Brand Blvd and Broadway, designed by Alfred Priest (who also designed the Seeley's Furniture building down the street). This was the home of the Security Trust and Savings Bank, which was a popular local bank chain in Southern California at the time. The bank took over the former First National Bank of Glendale (founded by L.C. Brand) in 1921 and eventually became Security Pacific Bank, and is now part of the Bank of America borg. Before the bank building was built, this was the site of the Glendale Pacific Electric depot, built in 1906 to serve the electric railway line that ran up and down Brand Boulevard. L.C. Brand sought the help of his friend and fellow real estate guy Henry Huntington to build his electric trolley line through Glendale to help sell property tracts and to spur development. The rest is history. You can say the place has Brand's brand all over it. This building has a historical marker placed by the city recognizing the bank building's history and the PE station that stood here prior to it.

17. The Alex Theatre 1925 216 N. Brand Blvd, Glendale

Designed by the architectural firm of Meyer & Holler (who also designed Grauman's Chinese and Egyptian theatres in Hollywood), The Alexander Theatre (named after Alexander Langley, of the Langley family that operated theatres around Southern California at the time) opened in 1925 as a venue for vaudeville entertainment, silent movies and staged plays. In 1939 the iconic facade and spire was built, designed by Lindley & Selkirk. The theatre also features a Wurlizer pipe organ, which was played by a live organist, which was the typical soundtrack for silent movies. The design of The Alex made it a popular location for world premieres of motion pictures, and from the 1940s to the 1980s, it existed as Glendale's premier movie palace. It was renovated in 1993 and is now owned by the City of Glendale for arts programming (The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra makes its seasonal home here) and special events.

18. Porto's Bakery 1982 315 N. Brand Blvd, Glendale Three things are absolutely guaranteed at Sunday's CicLAvia: 1) Sunny skies; 2) Smiling faces; and 3) A seriously long-ass line in front of Porto's. The legendary bakery was founded by the Porto family, who fled Fidel Castro's Cuba in the 1960s. The original location was actually in Silver Lake, on Sunset Boulevard and Silver Lake Drive (Los Angeles' Cuban community was once concentrated in the Echo Park-Silver Lake vicinity). In 1982, the family moved the bakery to Glendale where they actually did it and became legends. After over 45 years in business, Porto's sells 1.5 million cheese rolls and about 600,000 potato balls each month, and a little Yelp hype last year didn't hurt either. Porto's now boasts locations in Burbank, Downey, Buena Park and soon in West Covfeve Covina. Soon, places outside of Southern California will be clamoring to have a Porto's in their town, and numerous Porto's imitators will open up, each with lookalike beige, brown and yellow boxes, boasting that they're better than the original. It's good that this CicLAvia route is only three miles, so you can enjoy the route in its entirety while spending most of your day in the Porto's line.

19. Glendale Federal Savings Building 1959 401 N. Brand Blvd, Glendale

All you Mid-Century Modern fetishists, prepare to have an archigasm at CicLAvia! This quirky 10-story building, originally the home of Glendale Federal Savings, was designed by Peruvian-born architect W.A. Sarmiento, who made some bank out of drawing up bank buildings. But this was his most well-known structure, recognized by the Los Angeles Conservancy, which features an external elevator bank. Glendale Federal merged with California Federal in 1998, and today it's part of Citi Bank. The building is now home to the Hollywood Production Center (despite not actually being in Hollywood).

20. Vierendeel Truss Bridges 1937-1938 Verdugo Wash at Geneva Street, Glendale Verdugo Wash at Glenoaks Blvd, Glendale Verdugo Wash at Kenilworth Ave, Glendale

We began our Epic CicLAvia Tour with a bridge, so it's appropo that we end it with a bridge. Verdugo Wash, a 9 1/2-mile tributary of the Los Angeles River, runs south from La Crescenta paralleling the 2 Freeway, and west paralleling the 134 Freeway, where it flows in to the river near the Los Angeles Zoo area. As a part of President Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration program, the War Department's U.S. Engineers (the predecessor of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) built a series of eight steel bridges (using local steel manufactured by Consolidated Steel Corp. of Los Angeles) traversing Verdugo Wash, all in the Vierendeel Truss design, which was invented in 1896 by Belgian engineer Arthur Vierendeel. Unlike standard truss bridges, there are no diagonal members. Glendale is the home of the only Vierendeel Truss Bridges in the United States, the first of which was built at the Verdugo Wash's Central Avenue crossing. Brand Boulevard had a twin bridge, which had a separate girder bridge for the Pacific Electric in the middle. In the mid-1980s, all but three of the bridges (at Geneva Street, Glenoaks Avenue and Kenilworth Avenue) were torn down by the City of Glendale and replaced with boring concrete bridges (You can say that Glendale had some truss issues). Today you can admire the last remaining Vierendeel Truss bridges in America.

The Militant wants to raise a fist and give massive props to the Tropico Station Glendale blog, which provided an additional source of research info for this post! Happy CicLAvia on Sunday, and see you or not see you on the streets!

Source: http://militantangeleno.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-militants-epic-militant-ciclavia.html

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

0 notes

physticuffs · 7 years ago

Note

Hello! I have a question.... what are your favorite books, and why? (I love your blog!)

@smallricochet

Wow, thank you! Took me forever to reply because my first answer got erased when i was halfway through. Rawr. anyway, here’s the thing: i don’t have favorites. I just love books so much i can’t choose! And there are books for different moods, too, or books that i love for different reasons. There are those that i can read anytime because they’re friendly and easy to sink into, but aren’t necessarily the best of anything in a particular aspect. There are books that i have to be in a specific mood to read but that i love more than anything when i am in that mood. There are books that are outstanding in one thing and lacking in another…so i don’t have favorite books, and when i have to think of my favorites, they’re divided by genre. This is gonna be a long post, haha. Without my bookshelf in front of me, there may be some I’m forgetting, but those are the ones that stand out in immediate memory.

Fantasy: most of the books i’ve read would probably count as fantasy if you included YA, but i’m going to break out YA as its own thing because i look for different things now than i did when i was younger. For one thing, the writing style plays a much larger role now for me, which is one of the things that makes Neil Gaiman one of my favorite authors. American Gods is this gorgeous book examining the nature of belief, with such evocative language that i felt like i was taking the journey alongside the characters. The characters themselves are rather stock, but that’s okay–Gaiman has a true sense of the mythic and interweaves old stories with new in a way that captivated me. I also loved The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which just felt…almost more real than our own world. I read the book (it’s quite short) in one sitting, and when i finished i realized i’d teared up. There’s a scene where the main character is immersed in this experience of understanding everything and then is pulled out of that state, and i felt the same way upon closing the book. The sense of the world-beyond-our-world was intense–again, taking the journey with the characters. I adore Good Omens, which was co-written with Terry Pratchett, and i think combines the best of both authors: Gaiman’s sense of mythology, Pratchett’s humor, and their shared love for stories that examine the values individual people hold. Individual values are a theme often repeated in Pratchett’s books, of which my favorites are Hogfather and Thud! because of the beautiful, hopeful characterizations and complex conflicts. Pratchett’s books really carry this sense of optimism and hope for how much better we can be; his characters have this evolving humanity (lol some of them are dwarves and trolls and werewolves) that really strikes a chord with me. Also, those books are fucking hilarious.

I’ve written about Guy Gavriel Kay recently; his novel Under Heaven is remarkable for its beautiful language, fascinating characters, and exciting political plot. I love that niche–historically-based political fantasy–and am really relieved to have found someone besides George R. R. Martin who does it, since Kay is much subtler and doesn’t have Martin’s penchant for shock and gore. I’m about to read every other political fantasy novel Kay has ever written. I used to think that if i could write like anyone i’d want to write like Gaiman, but now that i’ve read Kay’s work, i’d rather write like him, because that’s the genre i’d want to succeed in.

Then there’s Susanna Clarke’s exquisite Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I know this is very much a love-it-or-hate-it book, and i love it. Actually, i think it’s a perfect novel. I would change nothing about that book; there’s nothing that could make me like it better. The descriptive visual language is rich and flowing, the dry humor is just right, and the mythology she builds is original and forms a perfect pattern. One of the things that stood out to me the most in the book are the names. I’ve never seen an author choose names like her–they’re all lyrical and evocative without being literal. I don’t even want a sequel because the plot is wrapped up perfectly; i just want a whole series set in that world. (Clarke also wrote a short story collection in that setting, The Ladies of Grace Adieu, which is excellent, but does not fulfill my desire for a million more full-length novels.)

Historical fiction: The Lymond Chronicles. This is a masterwork, to the point that the author, Dorothy Dunnett, was knighted for her books being such a huge contribution to UK culture. They’re hard to read, no denying that, but they are unparalleled for incredible descriptive language, depth of emotion, dexterity with shifting viewpoint, epic scope, characters’ journeys and personalities interwoven in fascinating ways…they so far outshine every other work of historical fiction i’ve read that i think i can say that series is my favorite. HOWEVER, the irony of it is, i have never reread those books, except the first. I flick around occasionally to reread passages, but they’re simply too dense to make for good light reading in between all my new reading material. I love Les Miserables too, in the sense that i think it’s one of those almost accidental masterpieces that would never make it to market in full form today. Victor Hugo was a mystic grandpa whose interest in architecture/public infrastructure reeeeally got in the way of his own plot. I can’t HELP but love that book and i don’t even know why, except that Hugo captures the emotions and complexities of youthful rebellion so well, and is deeply respectful to the tragedy of it–not flippant, not over-aggrandizing, but accepting in just the right way. I also wanna give a shoutout/honorary mention to Romance of the Three Kingdoms. (It’s sort of unfair to put it with historical fiction, given the part where a guy’s ghost wanders around beating people up, but like. What else do i call this book.) I mean, it’s not my usual fare, but it well deserves its place as one of China’s four great classics. It’s so different from modern writing, which places a lot of emphasis on knowing individual characters. Three Kingdoms doesn’t give a shit about the inner lives of the characters. This is a story about how empires are formed and fall. it’s a true epic, and a fascinating look into one of China’s most tumultuous historical periods. (most tumultuous, except for all the others. You do you, China.)

Nonfiction: I’ve only rather recently become interested in nonfiction, and most of what i like is just a combination of good writing style and a topic i’m specifically interested in. How Not To Be Wrong, by Jordan Ellenberg–applied math and statistics, written in a very fun way. The Disappearing Spoon and The Violinist’s Thumb, by Sam Kean–a history of the periodic table and genetics respectively; Kean is such an engaging writer and really knows how to draw a common thread through anecdotes. Fermat’s Enigma, by Simon Singh–a history of the quest to solve Fermat’s Last Theorem. Weapons and Fighting Arts of Indonesia, by Donn Draeger–uh, what it says on the cover, but also a very interesting cultural text, although the info is a bit out of date. Walking the Bible, by Bruce Feiler–Feiler travels through the Middle East, examining the historical context of biblical stories; i’m reading his other works now. There also have been a couple books i’ve read for school that i loved–one was a cultural study of Hello Kitty, of all things, and one was about coffee farming in Honduras. Both were for a globalization course, but i can’t remember the titles offhand. I also read Walkable City by Jeff Speck for urban studies, about the importance of building walkability into your urban planning, which kicked off an interest in urban planning for me. I wound up getting three other urban planning books out of the interest generated by that one.

YA: Most of the books that have stuck with me after i read them as a teen had characters i wanted to be friends with or that i strongly related to–books with a lot of analytical, assertive girls, or girls who loved stories and were very imaginative. These include Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, the All-of-a-Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor (bonus points for multiple girls i related to and they were Jewish), The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall (again bonus points for multiple girls i related to), Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, and The Princess Academy and The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. These last three (modern takes on fairy tales) mattered so fucking much to me, and they seriously hold up on rereads. Hale and Levine don’t protect their readers from harsh events, but it’s still fantasy, still has the magic i love reading about. They show the young characters win magical battles and friendship through intelligence, creativity, and determination, instead of beauty like the original tales, so that was really inspiring for me, and i related really hard to the main characters personality-wise. All three main characters in these books do find relationships or even marry at the end, but it’s because they’ve already been best friends with their love interests for a while. There’s also The Hunger Games, which had fascinating characterization, and unusually subtle morality for a YA series, especially in the last book, and the similarly adventurous Icemark Chronicles series by Stuart Hill, which is historically-based fantasy–think Guy Gavriel Kay for younger readers–with a wonderful main character that i really looked up to. And then there’s The Pushcart War, by Jean Merrill. The Pushcart War is just completely charming. It’s a friendly, quick-read book about a group of pushcart vendors trying to make space for themselves in New York City, opposing the aggressive truckers, and it was just plain fun while also being…actually pretty educational about urban design.

So…i know that’s super long, but y’know, asking me about favorite books is a dangerous thing to do. And i can’t emphasize enough that this is only what i can think of off the top of my head, without my bookshelf in front of me. But thank you so much for the question!

#books #asks #tagging my asks hell yeah

5 notes · View notes

duaneodavila · 6 years ago

Text

New Judicial Analytics Platform Launches With $2M Funding

In a column here last December, I wrote about the growing market of legal technology tools devoted to litigation analytics, describing it as tech that can turn the tables in litigation. Making its formal launch today is a new entrant to that market, Trellis Research, a judicial analytics platform that claims to have the most-comprehensive database of California court records and that is launching with $2 million in seed funding.

Trellis describes itself as a “decision engine” for attorneys, enabling them to make strategic decisions about litigation matters backed by hard-and-fast data. It says it has over 5.3 million California superior court documents and dockets covering 39 of the state’s 58 counties, including all the major courts. It plans to add New York courts later this year and then expand to states such as Texas, Florida, Delaware, and Illinois.

In addition to enabling attorneys to search superior court records, Trellis provides judicial strategy reports that analyze a judge’s past rulings and report on how the judge has ruled on specific types of motions, how the judge compares to other judges, and the arguments a judge finds persuasive. Reports link to a judge’s full-text rulings.

Nicole Clark

Trellis was founded by Nicole Clark, a lawyer who initially began collecting data on judges for her own use while a litigation associate in Los Angeles. “Every time someone would go before a new judge, an email would go around the firm asking for information on the judge,” Clark told me.

As she began to collect this data and see how it helped in her own motion practice, she realized other lawyers could also benefit.

“I had a ridiculously successful motion practice during that time,” Clark said. “It became obvious what a massive competitive advantage it is to have access to this data. It’s like having the answers to the test before you go in.”

Clark applied to the Techstars LA accelerator program, which accepted Trellis as one of 10 startups in its 2018 program.

With today’s formal launch, Trellis announced that it has received $2 million in seed funding. Investors in the round include Okapi Venture Capital, Craft Ventures and Sequoia Scout, Revel Ventures, and Intrepid Ventures. Angel investors who participated include Earthlink founder and CEO Sky Dalton, former Federal Communications Commissioner Julius Genachowski, Clutter CEO Brian Thomas, and Wayne Cheng, who sold Crashalytics to Google.

I asked Clark about how Trellis compares to Gavelytics, another site that mines California dockets and provides analytics on judges. Trellis covers more counties than Gavelytics, she said, and provides full-text search of judicial rulings and records, which she says Gavelytics does not.

Gavelytics, however, does in fact provide full-text search of rulings. I checked that by email with Gavelytics founder Rick Merrill, who said Gavelytics makes its rulings fully searchable.

You can try Trellis free for seven days, after which the subscription price is $99 a month. If that sounds like a lot, Clark believes it is well worth it for the advantage it offers.

“If opposing counsel has it and you don’t, then you’re at a serious disadvantage,” Clark said.

Robert Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and journalist who has been covering legal technology and the web for more than 20 years, primarily through his blog LawSites.com. Former editor-in-chief of several legal newspapers, he is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree. He can be reached by email at [email protected], and you can follow him on Twitter (@BobAmbrogi).

New Judicial Analytics Platform Launches With $2M Funding republished via Above the Law

0 notes

bmimergers · 4 years ago

Text

BMI Accelerates Growth with New York Office

Jane Marlowe Joins BMI Team to Advise Business Owners

NEW YORK, May 18, 2020: BMI Mergers & Acquisitions, a leading M&A firm, announces the addition of Jane Marlowe to its team and the opening of an office in New York to serve small to medium-sized companies. Jane brings extensive experience in both domestic and cross border mergers and acquisitions as well as expertise in advising entrepreneur-built and family-owned companies. Jane will focus on developing new client relationships in the tristate NYC region, as well as upstate New York and New England.

“We are excited to partner with Jane, as she is an excellent fit in terms of how we continually build our capabilities with talented and experienced people who can bring the best solutions to our clients’ needs.”, said Dave Clark, Managing Director of BMI.

According to Jane, “In today’s uncertain environment, it’s critical to take a patient approach and develop a long-term conversation with clients. I can help business owners prepare strategically for an ownership transition, understanding the value of their business under different scenarios, and help them sell for the best price when they are ready.”

Jane has many years of mergers and acquisition transaction experience, advising buyers and sellers in a broad range of industries such as machinery, construction, medical devices, security, instrumentation, distribution, business services, and automotive. Prior to joining BMI, Jane headed the transaction advisory practice at a Brooklyn based M&A advisory firm and was an independent strategy consultant serving both non-profit and corporate clients. Previously, Jane headed the North American Industrials Strategic Advisory sector team in the New York office of Dresdner Kleinwort, a European-based investment bank. There Jane was responsible for relationship management and leading domestic and international transactions for Fortune 500 corporations, as well as mid-cap companies and financial sponsors. Jane formerly was a member of the M&A group at Merrill Lynch, where she was part of the divestitures team, and in management consulting at Touche Ross (a predecessor to Deloitte).

Jane has a Master of Business Administration in Finance from the NYU Stern School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University. She resides in Manhattan and the North Fork of Long Island.

Jane is available for individual consultation as well as webinars to business groups. For more information about BMI or to speak with Jane, visit bmimergers.com or call (914) 768-9848.

The blog post BMI Accelerates Growth with New York Office is republished from Business Markets Inc.

0 notes

hermanwatts · 5 years ago

Text

Sensor Sweep: Michael Shea, Hugh Cave, Walking Dead

Comic Books (Paint Monk): If you think I worship at the proverbial altar of Roy Thomas when it comes to Conan comic books, you’re right. I do. But it’s not undeserved. Not only was Thomas the man who worked to bring Conan to Marvel, but he also took his time with character research, developing all the nuances of the Cimmerian and making sure the Hyborian Age was portrayed by the most capable artistic staff the House of Ideas could muster (within budget, of course)! He scripted the initial run of Conan for the first 115 issues.

Sales (Cirsova): I don’t know that I’ve mentioned it here, but we have made some of the Wild Stars backstock available via our Amazon store. We had several damaged copies when trying to fulfill our crowdfunds–these have been made available at 1/2 SRP. I’ll note that while a few of these were pretty mangled, most of them were dents, dings and corner creases. While these would’ve been unacceptable to send to backers or for retail shelves [especially for comic folks], these are perfectly good readable copies if you want Wild Stars at a lower buy-in.

Zombies (Everyday Should be Tuesday): I have long been a fan of the comics and watcher of the show, but I haven’t yet dived into any of The Walking Dead novels. But with an impending trip to China and a good experience with Chu’s Lives of Tao books, Typhoon was the perfect book to start with. Chu takes the action across the Pacific, telling a story set after the zombie apocalypse hit China. If you think walkers are bad, wait until there are 700 million of them.

Publishing (Kairos): If you travel in the circles where this blog is read, you already know that yesterday Amazon nuked preorders for Jon Del Arroz’s and Declan Finn’s latest books. Amazon shut down Jon Del Arroz’s Glorified novel along with Declan Finn’s Deus Vult novel from publisher Silver Empire. Publisher Russell Newquist was informed that both books, which were scheduled to be released on November 1st, were removed from Amazon and Kindle.

Fantasy (Misha Burnett): I have been thinking a lot about Fantasy, and specifically about fantastic settings–settings in which the fantastic elements are integral to the world. And frankly, I’m not interested in writing stories set in some vaguely Central European kingdom in the First Millenium AD. The Tolkien/D&D/Swords & Sorcery kind of setting is one that I don’t really relate to. I’ve never ridden a horse or herded a sheep. I’ve never been in an actual stone castle, never fought using a sword or a mace, never fired a bow, and sitting around a campfire is something I do before I go inside and sleep in a real damned bed.

Science Fiction (Futurism.com): In 1982, director Ridley Scott graced the world with “Blade Runner,” the cult-favorite sci-fi film noir that painted a stunning picture of a bleak, distant future: November 2019. Since that starts, well, today, let’s compare our current timeline to the one in “Blade Runner.” Just please don’t bring back those insufferable jokes about hoverboards that flooded the internet in 2015 when we hit the futuristic date that Marty McFly traveled to “Back To The Future Part II.”

Authors (DMR Books): Dr. Timothy Willocks was born in Cheshire, England, to a working-class family. He graduated from the University College Hospital Medical School, whereupon he began practicing medicine. He did some time as an intern in a trauma ward before specializing in the treatment of drug addiction. Tim eventually grew tired of the stress and hassles involved with practicing medicine and turned to writing. Willocks’ first published novel was the noir thriller, Bad City Blues. His next novel, Green River Rising, was optioned by Hollywood.

Warhammer (Track of Words): In this instalment I spoke to legendary Black Library author CL Werner about his new Warhammer Horror novel Castle of Blood, which is available to order now in hardback, ebook and audiobook formats. It’s the first full-on horror novel released for Age of Sigmar, and promises to be very interesting indeed! Let’s get straight to the questions and Clint’s answers, to find out more.

Gaming (Dungeon Fantastic): GURPS DF has copper pieces ($1), silver pieces ($4) and gold pieces ($80). DF Felltower has its own devalued set. AD&D has copper, silver, electrum, gold, platinum, Rolemaster has coins from bronze to gold going by tens, and Dragonlance even has steel pieces (Hah*). Generally, though, those coins are the same everywhere. It’s rare for places to have extra coins.

Fiction (Mystery File): THEODORE STURGEON “The Ultimate Egoist.” Short story. First published in Unknown, February 1941. Collected in Without Sorcery (Prime Press, hardcover, 1949) and The Golden Helix (Dell, paperback, 1980; Carroll & Graf, paperback, 1989), among others. Reprinted in Human?, edited by Judith Merrill (Lion #205, paperback, 1954). I suppose everyone, at one time or another, has had the following fantasy: that the world you see, and the objects in it, could disappear if you simply decided that they no longer existed. That the facade of life revolves around you and you only. You don’t even have to admit it. I know you have.

Halloween (Jon Mollison): Tomorrow night marks the one celebration that traditionally brings neighbors together to celebrate as a community. Yes, we all grumble about early Christmas decorations and wish each other Happy New Year at parties, but Halloween is the one where you go out and meet your neighbors and share in a communal love of the macabre and candy and making little kids smile.

Fiction (Adventures Fantastic): He That Hath Wings” is one of Hamilton’s best works, so I was surprised to find that it hasn’t been reprinted very often. Fortunately, The Best of Edmond Hamilton is in print, although the cover illustration of the current edition (see below) isn’t nearly as good. Just so you know, I’m going to discuss this story in detail, so expect spoilers. The story concerns a boy, David Rand, whose parents were caught in what is only described as an electrical explosion, but they were exposed to some unidentified form of radiation. David’s father dies before his is born, and his mother dies a few hours after his birth.

Men’s Adventure Magazines (Mens Pulp Mags): Bob Deis and Wyatt Doyle — the editors and publishers of THE MEN’S ADVENTURE LIBRARY series — will have their latest book, POLLEN’S ACTION, at this year’s PulpFest. It collects the cream of the Samson Pollen’s high-octane action paintings for the men’s adventure magazines. They’ll also have a limited number of copies of EVA: MEN’S ADVENTURE SUPERMODEL. These are being produced exclusively for members of PulpFest. This special edition — predating the title’s wide release by several months — will look at actress, pin-up model, and men’s adventure magazine artist’s model Eva Lynd.

Comic Books (John C. Wright): Feserm or, rather, the scoundrel JBS Haldane, defines the terms fantasy and imagination incorrectly, even misleadingly, but the point still stands. I propose a clearer definition: One is mere wish fulfillment that excludes consequences and context, and hence is outside the moral order. The suave British spy who nonchalantly seduces any gorgeous woman seen, yet without fathering any bastards or breaking any hearts, is an example.

Fiction (Paperback Warrior): The character of Modesty Blaise was conceived as a comic strip in 1963 by British writer Peter O’Donnell. The success of the strip landed O’Donnell a film deal, and he wrote an early draft of the screenplay starring his sexy, female spy for a movie that was eventually released in 1966. A year before the movie’s release, O’Donnell adapted his unproduced screenplay into the first of 11 Modesty Blaise paperback novels in this highly-regarded series.

Fiction (DMR Books): It is in Michael Shea’s Nifft the Lean where the author really shines in the way of crafting some amazing and unique dark fantasy. While using a familiar Dying Earth type of setting, and a style of prose that one might compare to Clark Ashton Smith or Fritz Leiber at times, it is the inventiveness of the plots that set the stories apart. Although Shea continued the Nifft series later in his career, the original saga published in the 1982 DAW collection consisted of four main tales.

Pulp (Mystery File): Private eyes in detective fiction are as often as not hard drinkers, and some of them are awfully good at it. But few of them are as good at it as was Peter Kane. There isn’t a single minute in “The Late Mr. Smythe” in which he isn’t totally sozzled. I can’t believe that anyone could go through life the same way he does, in three stages: drunk, drunker, and completely plastered.

Greyhawk (Boggswood): A few posts back, I posted an Apocalypse map of Blackmoor showing what Greyhawks’ Blackmoor should look like with the towns and rivers properly placed. The map you see here is the one I used to site those locations.

Fiction (Black Gate): Bad guy, villain, evildoer, crook, criminal, and gangster. Fiction has a love affair with these characters ranging from low-level sneak thieves to wizards intent on destroying all life on Earth. In many cases, the villain is the driving force behind the tale. Where would fiction be without Lady MacBeth, Grendel’s Mother, Long John Silver, or Count Dracula? Though the villain is often the impetus, they rarely hold the place of protagonist in novels until recent times. A few famous characters did achieve notoriety, influencing fiction to this day.

Sensor Sweep: Michael Shea, Hugh Cave, Walking Dead published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

0 notes

jacewilliams1 · 5 years ago

Text

White knuckle scud running

I know, I know – scud running is a no-no. Still, if you fly the Alaska bush, it sometimes seems as though it has become a way of life. During my time at it, we had precious few navigational aids, other than standard radio band broadcasting stations – Alaska’s many low-wattage village radios – and a limited number of LF radio ranges. We couldn’t file flight plans because there were no communication facilities of any kind at our destination points with which to close out the flight plans. Contact flying and ADF needles were our fare. So, please cut me just a little slack for admitting to the following experience.

It was a beautiful sunny Tuesday when we boarded my Cessna 180, N3140C, at South Lake Tahoe, California. Three of us were headed back to Alaska for a spring brown bear hunting trip. The date was May 4, 1965, now a long, long time ago. I had planned to follow the inside, overland route through Canada to Anchorage, where we’d license up, get the appropriate big game tags, and fill out our list of the necessary supplies and grub. I had chosen the inland route because following the offshore overwater route offers precious few beaches suitable for landings.

One hour and 17 minutes after takeoff from the airport at South Lake Tahoe, we slipped into Alturas, California, for coffee and pie; and then it was off for another one plus 37 to Redmond, Oregon, for a fuel stop and to check the weather ahead. From there, it was another one plus 27 to Troutdale, where we had to replace the cylinder head temperature thermocouple; and then another easy two hours into Port Angeles, Washington, where we would stay overnight with Al and Anne Goerg. Al was easily the world’s most famous and capable pioneer handgun hunter.

The Inside Passage is more forgiving than the coastal route, but it’s hardly flat terrain.

Al and I had hunted together back in 1961. It was then that I had guided him to both the world’s largest moose and the world’s largest caribou ever taken with handguns. For those interested in calibers, the former was taken with a .44 Magnum Super Blackhawk Ruger, while the caribou was taken with a Remington .221 Fireball. Those hunts were featured in Al’s book, Pioneering Handgun Hunting, as well as in several prominent hunting and firearms periodicals. Al and I had more recently scheduled a handgun brown bear trip for later in May of 1965.

The following morning, it was off to Vancouver, then the river trench to Williams Lake, and on to Prince George, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and thence to Northway, Alaska, where we would have to clear U.S. Customs. From there it was another short flight – only two hours – through Gulkana to Anchorage. The entire trip had taken 22.8 flying hours, all of it in bright sunshine. It had certainly been unusual weather for that route.

After a comfortable night in Anchorage, we found that the weather had gone south on us, and we did our shopping under a pretty scabby overcast which was loaded with the light rain and snow that is typical Anchorage weather for that time of year.

The following day, we made it on down the west side of Cook Inlet to Chinitna Bay, where we would stay in a friend’s fishing cabin, as it was still too early for the salmon seasons and the cabin wouldn’t be in use by the owner.

The weather was definitely unfriendly. The angry wind-driven bay waters were pounding the beach, our cabin, and our little airplane, at that time tied firmly to some large boulders and nearby spruce trees.

The lakes were still frozen solid. Al Goerg’s planned hunt, commissioned by a popular outdoor magazine, was to include the handgun taking of a brown bear on the fishing streams, complete with photos. That wasn’t in the cards, given the horrid weather and with the mantle of winter still shrouding the earth there. Besides, it was really much too early in the year for the salmon runs.

I made a flight back to Anchorage – picking up a little airframe rime ice on the way – to telephone Al and suggest a fall season trip, almost guaranteed to fill all his requirements. Al wouldn’t hear of it, and said he’d still make the spring trip. If need be, he would charter a Super Cub pilot from his home town in Port Angeles for the trip. I begged Al to not consider a trip into the Alaska bush with an out-of-state pilot, but he was adamant.

Well, Al did make that trip, and he flew with a stateside pilot named Pennington. It was the last flight for either of them. Outdoor Life magazine later published a very long article about that sad trip. It had been several years before the Super Cub’s wreckage had been spotted by a fishing boat far below the crash site. The plane had already been stripped by bush pirates. The accident site was just a mile over the ridge from our old hunting 1961 camp.

Our own 1965 hunt was an absolute failure, largely due to the weather, and on a scabby Monday morning, May 31st, we lit out from Chinitna Bay headed back to Anchorage. Two days later, we lifted off from Merrill Field, said goodbye to my hometown, and headed northeast for Northway – to pick up on some pie, coffee, and fuel of course – thence, to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, two hours ahead, for Canadian Customs clearance and additional fuel.

The weather had cleared somewhat between Northway and Whitehorse, and we departed Whitehorse under sunny skies. We were climbing through nine thousand looking for ten when the 230-hp Continental engine suddenly went deathly silent. The Cessna was fully loaded, of course, and we had left the comfortable Alcan Highway for a more direct route to Watson Lake, BC. Emergency landing spots were somewhere between zero and none at all as I quickly scanned the panel for a clue to the loud silence. In only two or three seconds, the engine came back to purring life. Perhaps only a bead of water in the latest fuel load? Who knew? Back to Whitehorse to have a look for the reason for the engine burble? Nope.

Watson Lake, a lonely outpost for fuel.

Two hours later, Watson Lake didn’t look very good, but we landed and refueled there, immediately departing, and now looking for Fort St. John, another two hours and forty-five minutes ahead.

The weather continued to deteriorate as the ceiling forced us out of ten for much lower altitudes, only a few hundred feet finally. Still, it was comfortably flyable, and we plunged ahead, fat, dumb, and as happy as clams before the clambake. By now, visibility had us relying for the most part on our ADF, still strong and steady, locked solidly on the St. John LF transmitter.

We had passed a small airstrip about halfway between Watson Lake and Fort St. John. I gave them a call asking for the weather ahead. It wasn’t encouraging. I told them that, if the weather worsened, we might be back for a precautionary landing there. I was told in no uncertain terms that the muddy little dirt field was closed to all traffic, and that we wouldn’t be welcome there. Running a bit short of patience by then, I reminded him that we were flying a very capable Cessna 180, that I was an Alaska bush pilot, and that if he heard our airplane returning, it would wise for him to not be standing in the middle of his muddy little runway.

We were soon relying almost completely on the ADF, and were constantly skirting around the many hills that kept popping up just ahead of us. The tops of all these hills were concealed in the overcast.

We were now flying at about 30 feet above the tree-filled earth. I began hearing Fort St. John in my David Clarks. They were trying to raise us on their VHF frequency. I could receive but not transmit from our low altitude and with the many hills surrounding us. I knew from the broadcasts I was hearing that a pair of Okanagan helicopters were even then warming up for the anticipated search for our little airplane, now presumed down in the Canadian bush. Man, this was getting embarrassing. An Alaska bush pilot down in the bush? You gotta be kidding!

I’ve no idea how many hours I’d spent at this sort of flying, since it was sometimes a given when flying the Alaska back country. Still, this was not particularly familiar country, even though I’d made the same trip several times before. I was certainly red-faced at the thought of those huge helicopters warming up on the Fort St. John blacktop.

I was finally able to get a transmission through to Fort St. John at about the same time the airport came into view just ahead and slightly right of the nose of our Cessna. I called off the anticipated search, asked for and received the clearance to land, and overflew the airport. As I began the teardrop 180 degree turn to enter the left downwind traffic, I lost sight of the airport again in all that snow and low cloud cover. A few seconds later, I again found the airport and the rest is academic.

From Williams Lake to Penticton, we made an honest ground speed of 174 mph. That meant a tailwind of around 50 mph, an appreciated boost for us.

The only other concern we had on our return to Lake Tahoe was at Redmond, Oregon, where the crosswinds at their little airport were truly sobering. I had quite a conversation with the guy on the ground. I wanted to land almost anywhere except on the active runway. He wasn’t having any of that, so I gave up on my requests for a landing that made sense to me but clearly not to him. Redmond didn’t have a control tower, and I knew that the man behind the voice coming through my David Clarks couldn’t see us. I just picked out a convenient turnoff from the runway and landed on a taxiway turnoff and directly into the very strong wind. He never knew the difference. We topped the tanks and at last lit out on our last leg to South Lake Tahoe. All in all, the trip had been fun, even though our bear hunting had been a washout.

The post White knuckle scud running appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2019/06/white-knuckle-scud-running/

0 notes

swipestream · 6 years ago

Text

Sensor Sweep: David Lindsay, Robots, Hollow City, H. Beam Piper, Jonah Hex

Lit-Crit (Jewish Review of Books): It’s a bit surprising to come across Harold Bloom’s confession that the literary work that has been his greatest obsession is not, say, Hamlet or Henry IV, but a relatively little-known 1920 fantasy novel. After all, Bloom is our most famous bardolater. When I took an undergraduate class with him at Yale, he announced his trembling bafflement before Shakespeare’s greatness in almost every lecture. In the course of his career, Bloom has named a handful of other literary eminences who compel from him a similar obeisance—Emerson, Milton, Blake, Kafka, and Freud are members in this select club—but one does not find David Lindsay on this list.

Writing (McSweeneys): I had a whole gaggle of 100-point bucks in my sights, sleeping peacefully on their feet, like cows. The way they were lined up, I could take down the whole clan in a single shot of gun, clean through their magnificent oversized brains. That’d be enough (deer) meat to last Nora and the baby through the harsh Amarillo winter. I shifted my weight in my hidey spot, snapping a twig and pouring more pepper on the fire by muttering, “God dammit all to hell.”

Gaming (Modiphius): Conan the Brigand is the complete guide to the nomadic brigands of the Hyborian Age, providing the gamemaster and player characters with all the resources to run campaigns that embrace the path of the brigand, or are affected by it. Here within these pages are all the resources needed to bring to life this outlaw world!

New material to expand your Conan campaign, with brigand-themed castes, stories, backgrounds, and equipment, allowing you to create your own unique brigands, nomads, and raiders.

Science Fiction (Brian Niemeier): The Unz Review shows how the Right all too often rushes to enshrine earlier Leftist subversion simply because it precedes current Leftist subversion.

This time, the subject of misguided right wing hagiography is John W. Campbell, Jr.

Alec Nevala-Lee, an Asian-American science fiction writer, has here written something remarkable: an intentionally PC multi-biography that nevertheless manages to be well-informed and informative, well-written and compulsively readable.

Science Fiction (Unz.com): Alec Nevala-Lee, an Asian-American science fiction writer,[2] has here written something remarkable: an intentionally PC multi-biography that nevertheless manages to be well-informed and informative, well-written and compulsively readable. It’s the first substantive biography of John W. Campbell, Jr., the man – or, as we’ll see, some would insist on “the white male” – who basically invented modern science fiction; and that last point means that to do so properly, we have to take into account the three men – yes, again, white males – whose writing careers he promoted in order to do it.

Fiction (DMR Books): The Ivory Trail was Talbot Mundy’s fifth novel and his most widely reviewed book up until that time. It was serialized in Adventure magazine in early 1919 under the title On the Trail of Tipoo Tib and then published in book form by Bobbs-Merrill later that year. It received a largely positive reception but was quite different from his previous books in that it was set entirely in East Africa, amid Mundy’s old hunting grounds.

Tolkien (Pages Unbound): I first picked up Tolkien when I was very young (sometime in elementary school). Some fantasy had come into my hands—some book or another, or perhaps the original Final Fantasy game on the NES. My mom said, “You know, if you like that, there is a book you would like . . .” I’m not even sure if my mom has ever read The Hobbit, which is a testament to its cultural cache. I did not immediately acquiesce. I was a pretentious child—before I became a man and put away childish things like the fear of seeming childish—and I initially rebuffed my mom’s efforts. But a book is a book, and I didn’t have so many laying around in those days, so I didn’t wait long before reading it.

Science Fiction (G. Scott Huggins): Robots. I have never really understood why there is an obsession with stories about robots. As with fae, I understand the attraction of having robots exist in a story. What I don’t really get is stories about robots. Robots as the reason for the story. Yet many, many people love stories about robots. Isaac Asimov, arguably, built his career on an obsession with robots. I can’t think of any other piece of future technology — with the possible exception of spaceships — that has inspired such a wealth of stories about them. Can you imagine a whole subgenre of SF devoted to, say, laser guns?

Fiction (Wasteland and Sky): Super powered cop Adam Song has dedicated his life to the law. In the military and the police force, Adam ruthlessly protects the innocent.

But this time he’s killed the wrong bad guy. Now the local drug lord’s son is dead, and the boss is out for Adam’s blood. Even his secret identity won’t keep him safe. The police department hangs him out to dry, his years of exemplary service forgotten. Adam must take justice into his own hands to keep his family safe.

Fiction (Fiction Fan Blog): When a young lady comes to Sherlock Holmes for advice, what at first seems like an intriguing mystery soon turns into a tale of murderous revenge. Mary Morstan’s father disappeared some years ago, just after he had returned from colonial service. He had been in the Andaman Islands, one of the officers charged with guarding the prisoners held there. A few years after his disappearance, Miss Morstan received a large pearl in the mail, and every year for the six years since then, she has received another.

Gaming (Walker’s Retreat): Following the whinefest by Fake Game Journalists over Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Oliver Campbell of the Metro City Boys put together a supercut of how he prevailed over the game. As the saying goes, “The master failed more times than the amateur ever attempts.” That’s what it takes to beat this game: persistence.

Every game of this sort has similar requirements of persistence to succeed. Oliver here goes over how he did that. Skip to 14:10 for the lesson, taken from Rocky Balboa.

Acting (Chris Lansdown): Thanks to frequent commenter Mary, I recently learned about the existence of William Gillette, the first man to play Sherlock Holmes, mostly on the stage but also in a silent film.

Born in 1853, in Connecticut, William Gillette was a stage director, writer, and actor in America. In 1897, his play, Secret Service, was sufficiently successful in America that his producer took it to England.

Gaming (Rampant Games): I played over 70 hours of No Man’s Sky when it was originally released. Unlike others, I wasn’t disappointed. Yeah, it got repetitive and lonely at times. There was a starkness to it that no amount of lush procedural visuals could overcome. It’s changed a lot since then, graphically, in gameplay, and it has true multiplayer. Sadly, I haven’t had the time to devote to it. Yet.

Fiction (Razored Zen): This is a collection of stories selected by Joe Lansdale, and including in introduction by Lansdale. Before I talk about the individual stories, I’ll give my overall viewpoint. I’d generally say I enjoyed most of the tales but the title is very misleading. A better title might have been, “Tales of a New West,” or something along those lines. Most of these tales are nowhere near traditional westerns. Lansdale is clear in the introduction that that was what he was looking for but the title certainly would have led me to expect a different sort of collection.

Writing (Rawle Nyanzi): Larry Correia, the Mountain Who Writes, is a personal hero of mine. His advice to writers is to be prolific: write lots of stuff, then release that stuff, then write some more, release some more, and so on. I am often in awe of how much he writes and publishes, and I wish that I could reach even one-tenth of his yearly output. To him, “writer’s block” simply isn’t a thing — he presses on, no matter what.

Fiction (Adventures Fantastic): Henry Beam Piper was born on this day, March 23, in 1904. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1964.

Piper is not well known today, and that’s a shame. In his lifetime, he was best known for two series, The Paratime Police and the Terro-Human Future History, as well as the stand-alone short story “Omnilingual”. His best known novels include the Little Fuzzy subseries of his future series and Space Viking, which was a major influence on Jerry Pournelle.

Fiction (John C. Wright): Abraham Merrit is one of the foundational authors of speculative fiction, and it is a shame that he is not well remembered. I blame a deliberate effort of John W Cambell Jr and his protegees to undermine the fame of pulp authors in order to glolrify the more nuts-and-bolts fiction following the model of Jules Verne or Buck Rogers.

Now, I like Hard SF or Tech SF as much as the next fan of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Niven, Pournelle, Baxter, &c., but I also like the pulps and their freedom from strict genre restraints, and I hate snobbery in all its forms.

There is no wrong way to have fun.

Fiction (Rich Horton): Today would have been H. Beam Piper’s 115th birthday. His first novels were the two serials discussed below, published in books form as Crisis in 2140 and Uller Uprising. (A version of “Uller Uprising” had actually appeared as part of the Twayne Triplet The Petrified Planet a year earlier.) In addition to those novels, I append a short look at perhaps his most famous story, “Omnilingual”.

Comic Books (Broadswords and Blasters): In 1993, editor Karen Berger at DC Comics forged a new imprint that focused on stories geared at a more mature audience and creator owned works as well. The end result was the creation of Vertigo Comics. Such early titles included, naturally enough, a transfer of already established titles such as Shade the Changing Man, The Sandman,[1] Swamp Thing, Hellblazer,[2] Animal Man and Doom Patrol. Soon after, new titles, both ongoing and limited premiered under this imprint including Neil Gaiman’s Death: the High Cost of Living, the Matt Wagner-helmed Sandman: Mystery Theatre and Peter Milligan’s Enigma.

Sensor Sweep: David Lindsay, Robots, Hollow City, H. Beam Piper, Jonah Hex published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

0 notes

latashaglenelg3-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Shares, bonds rally as markets trust careful Fed

By Marc Jones n nLONDON, July 13 (Reuters) - Globe shares struck their 4th all-time high in much less compared to a month on Thursday and bond returns practically anywhere were lower, as capitalists bet that plan tightening in the United States would be antarctic at ideal. n nThe general mood was just one of alleviation that UNITED STATE Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen had actually not seemed extra hawkish in her appearance before Congress the previous day, a thumbs-up for risk-taking. n nWall Road was anticipated to sound in another document height for the Dow Jones Industrial Standard when it returns to as the dollar pries itself off a nine-month reduced just in time for day two of Yellen's semi-annual Washington grilling. n nThe star performer over night had been the Canadian buck, which soared to 11-month highs after the country's reserve bank hiked rates of interest for the very first time in 7 years and also left the door wide open to additional moves. n nSentiment obtained an additional increase when China reported upbeat data on exports and also imports for June, the most recent indication that international profession is finding some traction once more. n nIt had actually assisted press Eastern shares up greater than 1 percent as well as lift MSCI's 47-country world index to its most recent document high, as well as though it took a while, Europe's major bourses eventually muscled higher too. n nTraders there started hoovering up financial institutions stocks again after a 1.6 percent gain on Wednesday had provided the regional STOXX 600 its finest day considering that April's French political election triumph for Emmanuel Macron. n n" It mostly appears to be to Yellen," Rabobank quantitative analyst Bas Van Geffen claimed. "That it looks like the Fed is mosting likely to take it slowly is being viewed as an excellent indication by the equity markets and also by the currency markets." n nOne of the Fed principal's comments that markets locked on to was her view that the United States reserve bank would certainly not have to increase prices "all that a lot further" to get to existing reduced quotes of the "neutral" funds rate. n nEquities were also underpinned by a decline in bond returns as Yellen seemed mindful on rising cost of living. Financial obligation markets anxieties prompted last month by an outbreak of consistency among leading reserve banks concerning tightening up policy appear to have actually vaporized once more. n nIndeed, markets doubt even that modest Fed tightening will follow and indicate just a 50-50 possibility of a rates of interest surge by December. n nTreasuries rallied in reaction, with returns on two-year notes being up to three-week lows, as did bonds in Europe and also Asia. n nGermany's standard 10-year Bund yield was back below 0.5 percent, having actually now repaid a quarter of the surge triggered by last month's tip from Mario Draghi that the European Reserve bank was preparing to scale back stimulus. n nTreasuries meanwhile have actually clawed back a 3rd of their selloff. n n" The market did perceive a greater level of anxiousness over inflation-- at the margin," said Westpac's U.S. financial expert, Elliot Clarke. "To our mind, this is unlikely to obtain in the way of one more walk this year." n n" Two additional walks in 2018 will likely be justified by problems. The instance for added walkings thereafter is no place near being made." n nOH CANADA n nThe weird one out was Canada, where returns strike their highest possible because late 2013 after the Financial institution of Canada raised rates a quarter point saying the economy no longer needed as much stimulus. n nThe Canadian dollar notched its largest portion gain since March 2016 as well as was last trading near one-year heights at C$ 1.2726. The Aussie and also Kiwi bucks jetted higher also. n nThe major loser was the United States dollar which slipped as far as 112.86 on the yen, while the euro copulated as much as $1.1480 before dropping back in European trading to $1.14. n nAgainst a basket of moneys, the buck was within a whisker of nine-month lows at 95.75 although it was clawing back some of its lost ground ahead of UNITED STATE trading. n nThe decrease in U.S. returns profited gold, which pays no passion, and pushed the rare-earth element up 0.3 percent to $1,223.16 and also away from its current trough of $1,204.45. n nOil rates flatlined as manufacturer club OPEC claimed it expected need to decrease following year as rivals pump much more, though the Chinese profession information showed it stayed a heavy buyer. n nBrent crude futures were off 20 cents at $47.52 a barrel, while UNITED STATE crude alleviated 17 cents to $45.31. n nAsia's share market gains had actually also raised Indian supplies to an all-time high. South Korea as well as Australia's main indexes both climbed 1.1 percent also, the previous aided as its reserve bank maintained rate of interest at a record low. n nJapan's Nikkei had been restrained by a stronger yen and also ended level, though arising market stocks stood high as they reached a new 26-month high up on the Fed's calming signals. n n" Buck placing is short and also the other day's testament just confirmed exactly what the marketplace thought: that the Fed is not going to have the ability to be as hawkish as they are suggesting," said Athanasios Vamvakidis, head of G10 FX approach with Financial institution of The U.S.A. Merrill Lynch in London. n nFor Reuters Live Markets blog site on European as well as UK stock exchange see site n n( Additional reporting by Wayne Cole in Sydney and Patrick Graham in London; Modifying by Catherine Evans). n nWall Street was anticipated to ring in an additional document height for the Dow Jones Industrial Average when it resumes as the dollar tears itself off a nine-month reduced simply in time for day two of Yellen's semi-annual Washington grilling. n nTraders there began hoovering up banks supplies once more after a 1.6 percent gain on Wednesday had actually given the regional STOXX 600 its finest day because April's French political election triumph for Emmanuel Macron. n nOne of the Fed principal's comments that markets latched on to was her view that the UNITED STATE central financial institution would not require to elevate prices "all that much further" to get to current low estimates of the "neutral" funds rate. n n" The market did view a better degree of anxiousness over rising cost of living-- at the margin," stated Westpac's U.S. economist, Elliot Clarke. n nOH CANADA n nThe odd one out was Canada, where yields strike their highest because late 2013 after the Bank of Canada raised prices a quarter point saying the economy no much longer needed as much stimulus. If you adored this article so you would like to collect more info with regards to budgeting tips (www.debtsadvice.net) please visit the web site.

0 notes