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Every melon tells a story.

Was it plucked from the vine too soon? Or left to linger too long in the weeds? Does it carry the battle scars of youth into its plump old age or is its wizened skin pocked with fresh victories?

Our job, as those who carve the melon, is to slice away those scars. With each stroke of our knife we carve away another distortion, another half-truth, another falsehood from the melon’s purest essence, which awaits us at the fruit’s core. There, in fleshy pink, is the melon’s central core; the truth of its melonness.

It survives there not in defiance of its stories, but in celebration of them.

This is why we carve, my child. This is why we carve.

Perspective in blue jeans

It seems to me that the times when a man speaks out against injustice are the times that we should celebrate, not condemn that man.

A man picking at the scabs that have formed around the lesions left by an unjust attacker might not be pulling on the wound, he might just be healing it.

It would seem to me, that man, in any other time, and in any other context, might be called a hero.

He might be. If you’re brave enough to call him one.

Sports figures and supermen aren’t real. But warriors are.

May they always have the courage to soldier on.

April 27, 2012 \ Photo Attribution \ For Peter.

With Spoilers

Do: Create a fairly complex alternative or future earth society featuring amazing technology and an significant technology and wealth gap between those with the most and those with the least.

Do not: Fail to build a culture of the larger society that jibes with the smaller.

Do: Cast your entire story with entirely unlikeable flat characters, so long as there are one or two minor characters who are endearing, but equally as flat, to keep the reader interested.

Do not: Kill and or dismiss those characters early in the story.

Do not: Fail to really flesh those characters out beyond the most basic “good and pure” archetypes.

Do Not: Make hunting so easy! Even if you’re really really good at it, sometimes you can’t just go out and catch two rabbits and a fat squirrel just because you’re that awesome.

Do: Put your characters into grueling, fight-for-their-life situations where everything seems impossible and there seems to be no way out.

Do not: Bring that situation to an incredible climax with your heroes standing on top of a giant thanksgiving cornucopia surrounded by werewolf clones of their previously defeated enemies. I mean, really?

Do: End the story with a dramatic self-sacrifice on the part of one or both of the major characters.

Do not: Fail to pull the trigger on that self-sacrifice.

Do not: Suddenly turn your heroic bad-ass into a sniveling love-sick puppy dog.

Do: End on a cliffhanger so I have to read the next book, even though, really, who cares?

I have several reactions to the article entitled “Senate recall challenge by Compass is giving ‘Fitz’ fits” from the Sunday, May 13 Wisconsin State Journal.

While the authors try to present a balanced article, the fact is, this is an overt puff-piece for the status quo.

Why is a store owner or the operator of a local machine shop a “business owner” but an information worker and professional photographer like Lori Compass a “freelancer?” Running a photography business requires as much entrepreneurial effort as any other small business, and yet the local media and Fitzgerald consistently paints Compass’ business as a diminutive pastime cum amusement.

This is not the only example of the shameful the way the State Journal’s authors pander to Fitzgerald’s anti-woman agenda, taking every effort to point out “Big Ftiz’” continued misbelief that the Compass campaign could be headed by anything other than a female.

Compass herself put out a video response to the commentary, calling Fitzgerald’s comments “bizarre and a little-bit offensive.”

It is disappointing that the State Journal feels needs to dismiss the fact that Lori Compass is an intelligent, powerful and successful woman in order fit Fitzergalrd’s myopic and misogynistic world view.

Another disturbing tidbit revealed and left completely unquestioned by the State Journal is that fact that Fitzgerald seems to believe that the staccato honks of “This is what Democracy Looks Like” are somehow offering support to him.

Democracy looks like anything other than the government that the state of Wisconsin has seen under the terrible rule of Sen Fitzgerald. Would that I felt any compunction to spend my hard earned money on any Paleolithic publication made by staining the corpses of dead trees with toxic inks, you could consider my subscription canceled.

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In this photo from the National Library of Scotland, Soldiers in dungarees and helmets struggle to remove a fallen tree trunk from a river. The soldiers have little choice in the matter, but to do what soldiers do, and soldier. But the trees are kind of in the same situation of not having really any choice about what happens here. Although they are badly damaged, many of the tress in this photo are still alive, doing what trees do: treeing.

In my dream last night, I was told by a being whose face I cannot remember, that things were as they are supposed to be and that the oppression that you’re feeling right now is a part of how charge is inspired amongst as many people as possible.

On a personal level, it may feel like it’s all about you, but the reality is we are all part of a larger movement that will take that pain and sadness and channel it toward the undoing of a great wrong.

The question is: do we have the strength to turn that struggle into wisdom?

The being was wrapped in a brilliant golden light and was wearing a red ring set in dark gold.

This morning I found myself thinking of “Keep Going.”; specifically about there being two of everything in life, and that the uncomfortable and sad things in life are not about knocking you down, but teaching you to be stronger.

I think we’ve all learned to be a little stronger in the past few months, and I am proud to learn alongside you all.

Prussia was a historical region of central Europe that was fought over repeatedly. Some believe Prussia was home of some of very ancient tribes of Vikings.

There were, naturally, repeated attempts to conquer and convert the Prussians into Christianity, particularly following the alleged murder St. Adalbert at the hands of a Prussian spiritual leader. The exact records on this, like most records from the 8th century, are spotty.

Prussia was eventually conquered by the Teutonic Knights during the Prussian Crusade in the 13th century. Fast forward through centuries of religious and economic upheaval, and eventually, the Prussian region is divvied up between Poland and the Soviet Union.

Today: There is no Prussia.

So, what was all the fighting about? Well, in the case of the Prussians, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t for the adoption protestantism as an official state religion for the very first time, but that’s what we ended up with.

If you can’t see how this is connected to what’s going on in Wisconsin, (and the rest of the United States), you’re not trying hard enough.

The Nintendo 3DS has this feature where it can merge the faces of two people who are standing in front of each other. It’s a little strange and finicky, but it works sometimes, and the end results are… weird.

Like this picture of Gaia and her cousin Kyra merged, that looks a good deal like Kyra at age three or four.

I think that there is something really space-age about a pocket computer with three cameras that can combine multiple images to make composite image of pair of faces. I have been really impressed with the 3DS, as a Nintendo game system and fun toy for a six year old, it’s a really great experience.

I spotted a flake of cedar bark on the ground with a perfect hole in the middle of it. “Do you know what this hole is for, Girls?” I asked.

“Is it for making a bead?” Gaia asked.

“Yeah. That’s a good guess. But not this time.”

“What is for?” Kyra asked.

“When you hold this flake of bark up, and you look through the hole, sometimes its easier to see the fairies.”

The girls giggled and laughed, and took turns looking through the hole for the fairies until I found a second flake with a hole. Then they finished out the nature walk peering through the holes in the bark.

"When I see the fairy what will it look like?’ Gaia asked.

“I see one,” Kyra said. “It flicked right by over there.”

“What will it look like?” Gaia said. “I think I’ve seen one, too.”

“It won’t look like Tinkerbelle,” Jeni said.

“Sometimes they have a golden or a white light” I said. “When they trust you, sometimes you can see green. When they want to talk to you, they’ll be blue.” I said.

“I think I’ve seen a golden one,” Gaia said.

“I believe you have,” I said.

Iit has come to my attention that Part Three: Chaoskampf is now published in full on indy publisher RedLemona.de.

Today’s publication includes chapters 3.7, 3.8 and 3.9. These chapters contain action, adventure, drama, and historical data dumping. You will enjoy them. We finally get to learn more about Quan, the boy solider and about his relationship with the other Sions of Sugar Island. We take a tour of the Honey Acres Compound. We make a thin reference to the famous Finch Brothers– a band of cowboys from Lake Mills Wisconsin.

By adopting the organic technology of psionic implants, the Scions of Sugar Island carried their fight throughout the biotronic age, using their implants to give them one last self-evident right. They’d lost free speech. They’d lost freedom of press, religion, and even the pursuit of happiness. But they had one thing. They had freedom of thought. The implants, carried and worn by all of the true scions of Sugar Island, afforded the founders of the scion’s society the privacy of their minds. That, Cailean said, was the one thing that they’d managed to salvage, and that, he insisted, was the one thing that kept them from succumbing to the mind-numbing epidemic that had taken the lives and freedom of the people of the New City.

“While the New City of Sugar Island crumbles around us,” the wiry old man said with a spark in his eye, “The true Sugar Island has chance to rise again

I’m serializing my novel “Someone Liche You” on Red Lemonade over the course of the next few months. Most of it is available online right now. About half of it is yet to be uploaded. (I’m editing as fast as I can– and there’s a lot more to edit!) Eventually, the whole thing will be avaialble on demand and as a self-published kindle book.

After a few days in the Bahamas, I can tell you this: I would certainly consdier returning to Freeport, I would rather never set foot on Nassau again, and the Great Stirrup Cay is about as close to vacationing inside a snow-globe as you can get. In all, it was a great trip.

What worked:

An Introduction to cruising

Our original intention was to introduce Gaia to cruising with sort of a light-version of the longer cruises Jenifer and I have been on in the past. This worked fantastically. She had a taster cruise, and seems to, at least at this report, have a flavor for it. She even got to try Snorkeling for the first time and she had a great time of it in a nice, family friendly and relatively safe environment that wasn’t a totally artificial penned in reef. Last night, she wistfully said to me, “Oh, I wish I was snorkeling right now.” And I told her I agreed.

The Bahamas:

I don’t, in spite of the tone in most of my previous entries, especially loathe the Bahamas. And for the most part, I’d count the Bahamas in general as in the same vein as I counted the cruise in general: An introduction to the Caribbean. Certainly there are places that are nicer. Certainly there are places that are sketchier. As Jeni said in Nassau: “At least we didn’t see a bag of human heads floating anywhere.”

So there’s that. I’m looking at you, Belize.

Family Time. A family vacation.

It is a lot of work to take your family on vacation. A lot of work. Cruising stacks a lot of that work up on the front and back, allowing you to spend most of the time in-between together.

That’s how we approach it anyway. My family and I got to spend time together, doing things we love. Watching shows. Watching Gaia grow and learn. Showing her off to random strangers from all over the world. Defending our Sexy-legs titles.

Gaia has had special (although short) friendships with people from all over the world. Jenifer is amazing at getting to know and showing appreciation for the crusie workers who help us find that family time together. I carry heavy stuff around and freak out and wreck vacation like it was Christmas. This is what we do together. I think it works.

There is no better vacation for family togetherness. I would do it all again. Again. and Again. Maybe without the freak out part. I’m working on that, though.

What didn’t Work:

Miami International Airport:

The Free Wifi in Tapma was a blessing. So were the abundant charge stations and the friendly staff who helped us get good seats together so long as we were patient and kind with them. If your airport isn't making free wifi available, you're not really a public airport.

The Miami airport seems to be full of liars and shouters. And they took turns plying their respective trades, sometimes both at once. Also, I get that the airport is lit to make you feel like you’re in a Caribbean ocean. But the overall effect is to make me feel like I’m underwater and can’t breathe. Someone should have beta tested that.

Byword Dropbox Sync

For as fantastic as it is to have an iPad and the bluetooth keyboard to write on via my favorite software Byword, the Dropbox integration wasn’t so keen in a long-term disconnected environment.

I keep Byword for the iPad synched with Dropbox because I do not get nor do I like the iCloud syncing. The problem is, the way Byword handles new flies in offline mode. It won’t let you rename files when you don’t have a network connection. This makes for quite a bit of annoying file management when I get home. (Was the “Day 2” file named “Untitled One”, “Untiled Two”, “Untlitled One (1)” or "Untitled?)

I ended up writing in Byword, but keeping master copies of the documents in Nocs so I could give them proper filenames.

Not having a computer was freeing and nice. But the iPad doesn’t really meat my backup and redundancy data protection needs without packing a PC or having online access to some degree.

Traveling without Passports:

You don’t need a Passport to go to the Bahamas. But that’s about the only place you can go from the United States these days without one. But without them, you get a lot of hairy eyeballs from people who don’t want to recognize your shitty black and white unofficial looking birth certificate from asshole county Wisconsin.

Back on the Vacation Train.

I have to tell you, I was so happy to get home. And the great apple tree in our backyard was still flowering when we walked out of the garage. I was so happy I hugged it.

We’re already looking at the next adventure.