Just sent my story for Mad Science 2! 7063 words! It's got everything, Evil Monkeys, talking dogs, surgical peril, Axe murder, and explosions (well, one explosion, but it's a big one). And I don't care what spell check says, I prefer Axe to Ax, and it's a legit spelling.
Back in the BBS days (Mitch should remember them) I used "Deep Thought" on the Philadelphia area scene. Later, when I got my first Internet account (1991, my sister's unused student account at the University of Maryland) I needed 8 letters or less. I was torn between RussPost (from Those Annoying Post Brothers) or, my love for the Broomhandle Mauser, and Mauser it was. And for the longest time, I never ran into another Mauser on Usenet.
Eventually I did run into sites where it was taken, so I started using Mauser712 (DeviantArt is one of the few still using that) and after starting to write about a Mad Scientist, I started using Dr. Mauser (or Dr_Mauser) as necessary.
I've posted everywhere else, but in the unlikely event that anyone sees this here... I have good news! I sold my third story, this time to Raconteur Press for their "Mad Science" anthology. Editor Dave Freer liked it enough to make it the Anchor story (Last in the book, something to leave a good final impression on the reader).
My New Year's entry this year was pretty personal, so I made it friends only. If you're unable to see it, lemmie know and I'll make sure you're included. I know that friends can be asymmetrical on LJ.
So a co-worker convinced me to give quadcopters a try. If you mosey over to my Anime/Computer blog (mauser.mee.nu) you can read about the adventure so far, how I nearly got taken for $270 by a fake Chinese seller, and how I got a refund before waiting for it to not show on Christmas.
It was intended for one of Raconteur Press's Malta anthologies, but for various reasons, it didn't run there, so now it's freely available on my Substack. Nothing against the publisher.
Want to offend me with an ellipsis? Use the single glyph version. Seriously, that was only invented to make it easier for programmers to truncate file names, and should only be used for that purpose.
Also, it's four dots at the end of a sentence. An ellipsis for missing text, and the terminating period. (Which can also be a ? or !)
Well, that's the end of an era. I donated Le Red Jr. to the local Volunteers of America (which turns into a charitable donation credit I can't really use). They actually just farmed it out to the local Pick a Part. I coulda taken the $350 instead.
When hooked up to a jump pack, the old Loyale very nearly started after sitting for 3-4 years in the driveway - the necessary period needed to let the nostalgia wear off. Probably would have with fresh gas.
Even the tow truck driver was an aficionado of Subarus of that era. Le Red had pretty much lost all of its clear coat by that time, but the body was still solid and in good shape. I even threw in the shop manuals, since I would have no further use for them.
I bought the car brand new in 1992 and put over 322,000 miles on it. I crossed the country in it and had a number of adventures. It only broke down on me twice (both timing belt issues, and one of those allowed me to limp to safety on half an engine because of the two-belt boxer design). The thing was unstoppable in the snow, even more so with cable chains on all four wheels, and got better mileage than its replacement. I became an absolute Stick convert in that car. And even with only 90 horsepower, it was light and nimble to drive with great road feel that newer cars soften to imperceptibility.
No new guns, no more shooting. I think I did a little reloading work when I was finally able to get some primers, but I stalled out on that.
Got through some of the comics I mentioned. By the time I got through the stack of Saga, I was wishing I'd been reading them as they came out so I could have dropped the series earlier. God that turned into trash. Maybe I can sell them on eBay, cheap.
I can't believe I got the office chair last year... I swear my sense of time has compressed. But I did order the Bush desks in time for Christmas. They were supposed to arrive after Christmas, but they came the Wednesday before so I had to burn a vacation day waiting for Delivery. It took some major clean-up and rearranging to clear the spaces to set them up (I got THREE 30" x 60" desks). I still haven't forced myself to get off the computer and move it to its new home. I got three so that one can become the home of the 3D printers. I previously planned on move them to the den, but the Comic Book infestation hasn't been dealt with yet.
One desk top was damaged in shipping, but I ordered a replacement the same day. It will get here eventually, and when I swap it out, it will still make a good work table or something in the future.
If you call someone a Moron on Twitter, you get a warning when you try to post but you can post it anyway. If you call someone a Cretin on Twitter, you get no warning until they demand you delete it and go to Twitter Jail.
Nobody at My ISP can figure out why the emails aren't arriving. I finally had to use an old Yahoo email address to get access to my account again, because when you change your address your account gets invalidated completely.
Originally written for the series of Malta anthologies (All pretty good stuff), it was supposed to be in the upcoming 4th volume, but got bumped, and there won't be a fifth. So I'm free to give it away.
It was written to be both the latest in my Dr. Mauser stories that have been running on Deviant Art, but also an introduction, so it includes a lot of backstory. And of course it had to be related to Malta, so I did a lot of historical and geographic research (Which was really frustrating, I had to change major plot points several times, but I think it ended up a little better).
I think my favorite comment of all time was when I showed it to Martin Shoemaker (fantastic writer), and he said, "Your worldbuilding is twisted."
Huh, I thought I used to post annually about my taxes, but it's been a while. Not much point in continuing that. BUT, if you want to e-file for free, are smart enough (or your taxes are simple enough) that Turbotax is a waste, but you make too much to do the Free File program, there is still a way.
It does the basic math. You have to decide which forms you need to fill out (but it has ALL of them, with instructions.) and punch in your own data (even copying it from the tax table - that really should be automatic, but no). But it's free for any income. You create a new account every year because the data gets purged every November. You can save as a PDF from the print button. And when you're done, free e-file.
Probably a bit late for most of you, but save this for next year.
The great thing about doing my resolutions on LiveJournal, I don't have to read too far back to find last year's.
2022 saw at least one more gun but still no range trips. (I got another Rossi R92, but in .357 magnum). Washington is planning some ridiculous new anti-gun laws, which is why the interest in lever guns and ridiculously large revolvers (Haven't been able to get the one I have my eye on yet though).
Not much progress on dealing with my comics, but I have been catching up on some series. (Got a stack of 60 issues of Saga that I'm finally getting to). But nothing about the den. Which I'd like to deal with and move the printers into so I can have a Dining Room table again.
Financially I have been God-like. Expenses to income is so low I have been banking about 32K a year. So I predict that by the end of 2023 I will be back at my pre-mortgage-payoff level. I will splurge a little on myself and get a couple of big Bush desks and set them up in the Living Room. I got a nice office chair and mat a few days ago, but working from a old school desktop perched on a TV tray table is kinda lame, and I've been doing that for years.
Weight. I have spent most of the year stuck in the low to mid 240's, but lately I've been able to get into the upper 230's. The low point over the Christmas break was 235.6, although the introduction of my birthday cake into the mix has me at 237.6 this New Year's morning.
On the down side, my BP has been soaring lately. And I'm not sure what the current state is, but my health insurance and the Everett Clinic have gone to war and they might be out of the network this year.
I also started Invisalign back in April, and the main series is already completed. Last month we did a re-scan and there will be a second set for final positioning. The process is pretty cool, since instead of taking impressions they use Photogrammetry. A tooth-brush like camera is run all over your teeth and the computer turns all of the images into a detailed 3D model.
I've been learning a lot with FreeCad, and the biggest (literally, it filled the print volume of the Ender 3) and latest project of mine was a whole-house humidifier that fits over a 5 gallon bucket. I put the final touches on the first version just before Christmas, and the sucker puts a good 3 gallons of water into the air a day. The house has gone from sub 20% humidity to 38-40% since I started running it (except the master bedroom for some reason.). It's not ready to release, but I wanna put some more run time on it before I tweak it too much more.
I wonder where all that water goes....
Writing: I haven't been overly productive, but I have sold a story to LawDog for the last volume of the Malta anthologies. (Well, Sold in that the contract should be forthcoming soon.) This would be the first Dr. Mauser story to see actual print rather than being on DeviantArt. I was toying around with a third CASPer History story for the 4HU but I've heard nothing about any additional anthologies coming out.
My Wordpress blog has been severely neglected. I need to address that.
Oh, and back in January of 2020, I wrote the PhotoBucket relented on their image hosting? They switched back to demanding that they be paid, AND reduced their free capacity to 250 images, I deleted a bunch of garden pictures from 2008 which nobody was looking at anyway, and then realized, why bother?
(Backdated for consistency) Going over the resolutions:
Write more: Sold another story to Chris Kennedy for "In the Wings", but I didn't get too far on my own projects. I made some more entries on my Wordpress blog, including a Euloge for my dad and a recent one about how even the dictionary is being corrupted for political purposes, and I noticed I failed to link them here on LJ.
Get my comic collection under control: Negative progress. I moved some stacks into the bedroom to make a point of reading them, and finished one title. Got a few issues through a couple more.
Shoot more: Didn't go shooting at all. One new gun, which is still a virgin.
My BP was doing okay until I got Covid at the end of August, and was forced to get a Vax in October (at which point they punted the deadline a couple of times and now it's in the air.). Now I almost never see a reading below 140, and have even hit 175 a couple of times (I immediately took extra meds). Should have a cardiologist appointment soon. Weight hasn't been very good either. I've been stuck in the low 240's for months, which is higher than last year. I was 241.4 on the morning of the 1st.
Financially: I killed my mortgage in September. A small settlement from a life insurance policy nobody knew my father had (~$11,000) put me over the top early. Single largest transaction in my life, just shy of 6 figures. I have no major debts now, so my savings are recovering faster than they did from the car. Between the house, the car, and the exterior work in 2016, it blows my mind how much money has gone out. But I'm still okay. Of course, with no debt, my credit rating has finally started moving off of 850.
Clean up the whole damned house: yeah, no major changes there. A smaller goal is to get the comics off the orange desk in the den and into boxes in the other storage room, and moves the 3D printers there to get them off the dining room table.
As for printing: I haven't done anything on the Marble pump, but I'm slowly learning the ins and outs of FreeCad, and have designed a number of my own prints, including a magnetic water bottle holder for my locker at work and a bracket that holds the heater in my car so I don't have to keep moving it off of my armrest. So the goal is to keep learning, and eventually take another crack at the marble pump, since my initial stab at it is now kinda sad.
You know how the left likes to redefine words. They've redefined "Democracy" to mean "Rule by Democrats". (Much like Kleptocracy means rule by thieves — same thing, really). Knowing this makes all their whining about something being "a threat to our Democracy" much more understandable.
