We had a special homeowners association meeting this evening, because $2419.35 was budgeted for snow removal for January-March, and the actual expenses were a little higher. 1339.5% higher, to be precise.  $32,407.15 over budget. Since those bills were paid, the HOA is now desperately short on funds to pay our other bills, and tonight's meeting was supposedly for the purpose... read more »

I have been very remiss in my book reviewing duties. Summer of the Apocalypse, by my friend James Van Pelt, came out in 2006.  I got a copy at MileHiCon that year, and read it that night. There were two reasons why I was anxious to read the novel.  First, I've been a fan of Jim's writing since I first... read more »

I just watched a very interesting video from 60 Minutes about the Active Denial System, a non-lethal weapon being developed by our military. Basically, it's a system that shoots microwaves at people up to half a mile away, causing them pain as long as they remain in the beam, but doing no lasting harm. Such a non-lethal weapon seems like... read more »

You know how some CDs have secret bonus tracks that aren't listed? The May issue of Analog has a secret bonus story that's not listed in the table of contents.  If you turn to page 60, however, you'll find "The Ashes of His Fathers," by yours truly.

Obviously I didn't because I don't live in a state that was voting today. If I did, though, I would have been tempted to vote for her, and not because I'm a Republican mischief-maker. I'm definitely Republican, and I'll be voting for Senator McCain in November.  But I would rather have Senator Clinton as the Democratic nominee than Senator Obama. ... read more »

Here's a list of the most common fonts installed on Windows computers.  The first surprise for me was that 4.49% don't have Arial, and an even bigger surprise was that 16.8% don't have Times New Roman.  I thought those two were pretty much universal.

Warning: extreme science nerdiness follows. One of the proofs of relativity is what happens to a particle called a muon.  Muons are created in our atmosphere by cosmic rays.  The half-life of a muon is only 2.2 1.56 microseconds (which means if you have a certain number of muons, every 2.2 1.56 microseconds you will have only half as many.) ... read more »

On Monday, I wrote a 1200-word outline of a space opera novel, working title Spoils of War.  Today, based on feedback from my Monday writer's group, I expanded the outline to 2000 words.  It now goes to my Tuesday writer's group.  After that, I hope to write a chapter-by-chapter outline similar to the one I wrote for Heir of the... read more »

One of the things that annoyed me about the Republican primary this year was that McCain racked up a lot of delegates in winner-takes-all states that will not be voting Republican in the general election (New York and New Jersey, for example).  Why should states that will not contribute to a general election victory be allowed to exercise such a... read more »

I never met William F. Buckley, but he's probably more responsible for shaping my political views than anyone except my dad. It was my dad who introduced me to Buckley's magazine, National Review, when I was a teenager.  At first I was mainly interested in the political cartoons and the always funny "The Week" (a collection of short comments on... read more »