As fossil fuels continue to be depleted, renewable carbon-based fuels take their place, but these forms of energy still damage the environment.  The damage begins to overwhelm the world.  Technology steps in to control and manipulate the climate and to repair the damage.  Finally, genetics help by offering an energy source that is powerful and safe.

Medical advances include the near eradication of infectious diseases through genetic engineering and the production of artificial organs that can replace damaged ones.  These medical accomplishments manage to extend life expectancy, a direct cause of overpopulation.  Mankind seeks to colonize other planets to relieve the population concerns on Earth, and science achieves near light speed travel.

Near light speed not only makes stellar exploration and colonization possible, but also serves intra-Earth travel in the form of near light speed trains.  This form of travel is instrumental in saving millions when an asteroid collision threatens millions.  Lessons learned in repairing the environment after the mini-Ice Age teach engineers how to prepare planets for colonization and how to repair the planet after the asteroid strike.

The timeline is not only concerned with technological theories.  Previously considered third-world nations lead in the fight against random terrorism.  These nations organize the formation of the Coalition of Allied Nations (CAN).  When terrorism comes under greater control, CAN leads in scientific research to remedy other problems of the planet and directly competes with the other international world government, the United Nations.  For many years, a conflict develops between CAN, the government of the poor, and the UN, the government of the wealthy.  The merger of the governments does not coincide with a merger of the caste system.

CAN attempts to create one of the fairest political constructs ever conceived, but also demonstrates its darker side, prejudiced against wealth, a free-market society, individual ingenuity and ambition, as well as against electronic and artificial life forms.  CAN is neither a utopian or dystopian existence, but rather an advancement of ancient ideas, just as the capitalistic system that seeks control it is ancient.

This detail of the story is important to understand what follows.  Genetics already has shown that DNA represents all living organisms.  The DNA of an individual is unique to the species and even unique to the individual.  In a futuristic science, it might be possible to clone an individual from his or her DNA.  DNA does not store memory, but another futuristic discovery could be the ability to download an individual’s individuality—the memories and abilities.   Quantum physicists say time travel might someday be possible.  A long-standing opinion holds that changing events of the past could alter future outcomes.  My idea was this:  The futuristic society could travel into the past, could take sampled DNA and memory scans without changing the past, and replicate the individual into the future.  Stealing the DNA and scans and implanting them through replication could result in mini-civilizations.  Anyway, that was the nucleus.

Back to the birth of the idea for Antiquity, I envisioned the world where the teenager would reside.  I developed the characters and storyline.  Still, I found myself somewhat lost.  I could write an adventure for him, but to understand the story I wanted to tell, I needed a lot more information than I had.  If I had the character interact with the Roman mini-civilization, I only knew a broad stereotype of the society.  Only in a cursory way did I know about the Mesopotamians, the Greeks, the Chinese, any of the great civilizations.  If I kept the teen in the mini-US compound, I did not know enough about John Jay, or Amelia Earhart, or Jim Thorpe.  I needed to do research, and with the scope of the novel, it would be a lot.

For six months, I worked on a timeline history of mankind, from its roots to its broadcast across the continents, from the development of tools to the birth of nations and societies, from agriculture to industrialization, from turmoil in the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates river basins to turmoil in the Nileand the Tigris-Euphrates river basins.  The content of this story was fascinating to me.  I began to see the relationships, the causes and effects that made us who we became.  As I passed the fall of the empires in the beginning of the 20^th century and the Depression and World War 2, I became excited, not only with the story but that I was nearing its end.  Computers, transistors, the Walkman, all have a place in the development of us.  The deregulation of industries and banking in the late 1900s were a domino to the headlines in the Wall Street Journal.  1995, 1996, 1997 flipped like pages in the story.  Then, I had it.  At the turn of the millennium, I stopped my history book.

Slowly, I had worked on the novel through this time.  I knew the scientific constructs I wanted.  I knew the political stratum I wanted.  But, I realized my work was only half completed.  I needed the timeline to delve into the future.  So, for the next six months, I continued the story.  What would happen tomorrow, next year, 100 years from now?  I created a systematic story of events, without characters as you would expect in a piece of fiction and without a plotline other than the sequence of discoveries, inventions, political or economic movements.

All fiction needs to interest readers.  The manner the interest is drawn varies radically.  For traditional realistic fiction, two elements, plot and character, are key.  For speculative science fiction, as with fantasy, another element often overlooked in mainstream novels becomes almost as instrumental as the keys for realistic fiction—setting.  First, setting is always important in traditional works and never truly overlooked; however, if a story is set in current time period, only the details of setting unique to the story are drawn upon with common knowledge filling in the blanks.  A story told in a future time period (speculative) or a completely imagined universe (fantasy) requires the entire world or universe to be created.

Links to The Story of Us and the first chapters of the novel are scribd documents:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46786753/Time-Lines

http://www.scribd.com/doc/47232568/Antiquity-story-of-the-black-egg

Link to Antiquity, Book Zero:  the story of tomorrow, a Kindle book for 99 cents:

http://www.amazon.com/Antiquity-Book-Zero-tomorrow-ebook/dp/B005SMZLGS

Personally, I like rules.  Saying this doesn’t mean I always follow them, but I like them being there.  Of course, they keep us from being an absolutely chaotic breed.  They provide security.  They reduce the mind-less tasks we all perform into procedures and routines that we can do without thinking, saving that mind function for greater thoughts like what to eat for supper.  Rules give a base we can build upon, improving the rule and sometimes overhauling it.  Unfortunately, when we choose the wrong people to set the rules, we all suffer their stupidity.  Rules are a slippery rock, and we should never be unwilling to object to them.  Later in my tale, the above mentioned boss was fired.  The new supervisor became frustrated with me.  I openly disagreed with a stupid rule set by that job’s grand boss.  My new boss said, “Sometimes, you just have to do it and not argue.”  I said, “Never.”  Rules are good things when they work.

With these thoughts in mind, here are a few rules that I hold dear, beliefs that I try to follow (the list is alphabetized, a good rule that shows less partiality):

Eating everything our plate is a good thing.  My parents were produced by the Depression.  As many children, I was told to finish everything on my plate.  “Children are starving inChina.”  Of course, the logic was badly skewed.  Now, I watch my grandson leaving this thing or that untouched at dinner.  After all, his mom and dad scrape remains from their plates.  Later, my grandson asks for a treat, a fruit roll-up.  I’m afraid the Department of Human Services will camp on our doorstep if I deny him.  In my mind, he hasn’t earned the treat.  I have seen my step son and daughter-in-law scraping off the excess mashed potatoes and peas and take a piece of cake, which they also fail to finish.  The ten bites they are refusing to take represents a major flaw of our society.  We are taught it is ok to do things half-way.

Marriage is a good thing.  When I was growing up, marriage was important for all the wrong reasons.  Then, it made us moral and righteous.  There is nothing immoral about two people setting up a relationship without the artifice of marriage.  There is nothing righteous about having ourselves, our spouses and our families enduring a failed marriage.  Marriages do fail.  I like, however, how marriage involves a formal commitment and keeps us from throwing away something that we could fix (a theme seen elsewhere).  I feel divorce is way too easy, letting us pretend to be married when in fact we are just playing game.

Thriftiness is a good thing.  We all know that we live in a throw-away society.  That society was built by people who want to sell us things, over and over.  They got rich, and we became suffocated by an enormity of waste.  A few years ago, my printer needed a new ink cartridge.  The black ink cost $35; the color cartridge cost $40.  I went to WalMart, and a new printer cost $50, so I bought it—problem solved.  When its cartridges ran low, I found they cost $25 and $30, respectively, but a new printer cost $35.  Soon, our closet was full of printers.  Hewlett-Packard, Epson and Lexmark had found a resourceful sales and production practice, and they are not alone.  We live in a war zone between sales and common sense.  Many of us no longer strive for thriftiness.

Work ethic is a good thing.  We all need to avoid work sometimes, leave flat a part of our jobs.  By doing so, we make a statement within our minds that we have some control over our lives.  We should never leave work flat that will unfairly force work on our co-workers.  My lesser job, the one I work 20 hours-a-week at, is largely production work where we process mail for a corporation.  I work nights.  The day-shift is comprised of slugs.  They work on the easy mail, while spending their thought processes on  finding complaints about the night crew.  The classic complaint came when we got in trouble for doing too much of the work, not leaving them anything to do.  I work very hard and do far more than my share.  A year ago, management devised a system where the leading producers earned $5 Subway meal cards, based on monthly production.  For the four months of the system, I earned $10 a month by winning two of the six categories.  The night shift earned $25 a month.  Management ended the system when complaints rose that the same people keep winning, which cost morale for the losers.  By having a good work ethic, we instill self-pride and have an established work level that we can use to leave that flatness needed for personal statements.  I now remove rubber-bands from my desktop, forcing the next worker to retrieve them.  I dare not do more, else I might get fired.

When my wife and I married thirteen years ago, we bought a mostly new, less than 10,000 miles,Malibu.  We drove it to death and it was a good car.  When it was nearing 200,000 mile last year, it went to car heaven.  Repairs exceeded the value of the vehicle.  We miss Betsy.

Not in position to buy a new or ”pre-driven” car, we bought a 1994 Grand Prix with 160,000 miles, from a family member for $350.  Blue, which we called her, leaked things like radiator fluid and other vehicular mucus that we could not quite identify.  The passenger power window control died.  The driver’s door latch broke.  It made it through the fall and winter and kept us mobile.  Believe it or not, it decided not to start.  Blue was not a good car.

We bought Carrot Top from a friend of a family member for $500 and I cannot yet say if it is a good or bad car.  A noise or two bothers me.  We hope it will last until we can correct some credit issues and trade it in.  We’ll see.

Let’s start with a little about myself.  I am bright, with too full of an education.  I spent a lot of my early years trying to round myself, while many spent that time preparing themselves for later adulthood or enjoying their youth.  I discovered a round education in the arts (journalism and English) significantly failed to prepare me for six or seven digit incomes, or for jobs beyond teaching other lost souls how to round their education and lose millions.  I enjoyed my youth without making those serious mistakes many people make that lead them toward trouble–I’ve been drunk, never drugged, cited for speeding, never arrested, upset, but never truly angry.  I’ve taken the mid-road.

Now, I’m in my late fifties.  I feel I’ve failed when my paycheck-to-paycheck life sees middle-aged men capable of buying cars for their children.  I’ve just bought a $500 car for myself and had to press to get it.  I’ve never been rich, and never will be.  I feel I’ve failed when I recall my youth and the most exciting stories I can tell are about things I never did, rather than things I did.  The mid-life crisis is a bitch.  If you’re 20 and reading this, you’ll face it, too, no matter how you live.

I married late in life, and married well.  I love my wife.  It is for her and for both of us that I work two jobs and 60 hours a week for wages that are too low.  Above, I said, or implied, I am a teacher.  I taught English a long time, but life’s situations took me away from that.  Now, I work two third shift jobs, toiling away while most of you sleep.  I love my step-children and my grand kids.  I love my friends, but have never been the sort to have many friends.

Politically, I am Liberal.  By that, I mean that I feel a government I help pay for should help take care of me.  I think the health care system in theUSstinks, and that a mandatory obligation to pay into an already wealthy insurance system stinks as badly.  I think social programs are necessary, from education to welfare, and I think misusing the programs from either side, the wealthy administrators or the poor should be illegal.  I think it is ridiculous that 5% of Americans control 80% of the wealth.  Personally, I’d arrest that 5%, take their assets, and pay the national debt.  Maybe that is extreme, but I would tax them.  I think that tax money should be used for the health system I’ve mentioned, an education system that does more than babysits, and infra-structure.  Not a dime should go to save corporations in bailing them out of mistakes they’ve made.  Where I live, the government is thinking of using tax dollars to build a sports stadium.  I just bought a $500 car.  Somewhere, the government’s priorities got screwed up.

Religiously, I am secular–maybe.  I believe God is in us all, as is Satan.  I believe we should worship that God within us; that is, strive for the good.  I do not think the brand-name we worship matters nearly as much.

That “defined purpose,” mentioned above, is to market my new novel, Antiquity.  As the next few weeks and months unfold, I do hope to elicit interest in it, an interest I can report as I begin the troubled task of finding an agent.  I hope this work will pay off as tangible evidence of my interest in making the book a success.  At any rate that was and is my goal.  I will use a separate post later dedicated to that novel, Antiquity:  story of the black egg.

Please, look at the F-ing the Lie, The Autobiography of Jeremy Logan (“the Logan novel”) and Antiquity:  story of the black egg.  Links for both are in my blog roll.  As time permits, this blog will introduce a few non-Christmas stories, show a bit about my past, and theorize on writing in general.  Thanks, and good reading.

You will need a movable piece, like a checker, and a pair of dice.  (These will be included in later versions.)

Begin with your piece at the “Start Here” square, and receive your first score card.  (These cards consist of a stack of cards, with the number 1 to 10 on the down side.  A deck of playing cards will work, with the face cards removed and the aces equalling the number one.)

Roll the dice.

Move your piece that number of squares.

When you land on the letter, you need to come up with a word that starts with that letter.  For example, if you land on “G,” you can say “Green.”  The same word cannot be used again during the game.

When you choose a correct word, you get a score card.

Special squares:

• The start square and the marked corner square are free score spaces.  You can have a score card without saying any word.  You do have to land on the square.  Passing over the square does not give a score card.
• Red Letters are worth two score cards when you correctly give a word.
• Purple Letters are worth three score cards when you correctly give a word.

If you cannot come up with a word on any square, you have the choice of trying again on your next turn without moving or moving on your next turn without a score card.

Score card go from one to ten, and you should try to add them up each turn.

The winner is the first person to get to 100 points.

On the so-called “Black Friday” after Thanksgiving, I notice incredible sale prices for extraordinary big-ticket items, things like 80 inch televisions for $180, or something like that.  Then, I noticed the store had, maybe, five of the sale tvs.

For a quarter of a second, I wondered what time the store opened and thought about trying to endure the crowds for the deal.  My armor suit wasn’t cleaned and I returned to my senses.

After all, I can’t even spare the $180 right now.  I’m collecting coins thrown in fountains to pay for gasoline.  I feel bad about that, since I have two jobs.  What is it now, 10% of America is unemployed?

I decided to write a practical Christmas list, and while this blog is not an advertisement for Craigslist, the items sort of come from the web site, in their “Free” section.

1. Free dirt.  Now, who couldn’t use a ton of turf?  It could be that perfect item for the person-who-has-everything.
2. Free furniture.  Your brother might be getting Mom that massaging blanket.  Why not give a love seat for her to use it on?  Your brother will be more jealous than you can imagine.  Get a lot of wrapping paper, though.
3. Thirty-six inch TV.  You thought the $180 was a good price for a big screen television, but what about free?  The picture might be a one-dimensional line down the center, but blame that on the change to digital.
4. Steel drum, 55 gallon.  I’m thinking hot tub here.  Put the drum over your barbeque pit and it’s party-time.
5. Rocking chair.  This would be for me Christmas stress is so overbearing, a good old rock is just the ticket.

 That’s enough for now.  Please visit my novel blog:

 http://logannovel.wordpress.com/

As gray hair continues its rampage on my dome and my grandson, now four, continues his rampage on my soul, I have been approached in my middle years by thoughts about this entity I am now becoming—Grandpa.  First, there are many serious issues concerning grand parenting nowadays:  Grand parent rights with their grand children while their own children enter the ranks of the divorced; Grand parent roles when they virtually become new parents due the young age of the real parents; Grand parent  identity when their fully adult children and their children must move home because of the economy.

This post is about none of that seriousness.

I believe in most homes and families the role of the grand parent is the same as it has been for thousands of years. This period is pay-back time for the pain, humiliation and fear your children gave you while growing up. Of course, the pay-back should never harm that precious grand child, so it takes a skilled hand to do-no-harm in your revenge. Particularly, this post is designed to give grand parents some ideas for Christmas gifts, but that depends upon the age of the grand child.

Age 0 and 1:

Truly, this is too young and impressionable age to do much that satisfies your grand parenting responsibility against the parent. Clothes, bedding, disposal diapers, and simple toys, like rattles top the list. Seriously consider music boxes in their many forms. Without harm to the infant, they can demand the repeated play and re-play of the tunes that the parents will hear in their dreams. Over and over, your offspring can hear, “Lullaby, and Good Night,” until the parent really thinks they live on a tree branch. Another good choice is the baby monitor, so the parent can hear every breath and cry the child makes.

Age 2 through 4:

I used to think the terrible twos lasted a year, but have now discovered in various forms it lasts until the mid-twenties. For the chronologically accurate toddler, perhaps the best Christmas gifts of all exist. Age 2 is a wonderful time for the development of creativity, especially musical aptitude. Drum sets, mini-electric guitars and keyboards are must haves for toddlers, as long as they stay in the parents’ home. Age 3 has given the toddler greater mobility, so electric motor mini-vehicles are perfect. The motors can quell the resonance of the best sound systems that parents can buy. Age 4 requires increased dexterity as the toddler prepares for schooling, and the newest versions of Play Stations, X-Boxes or Wii can help them immensely. If giving these gifts, be certain to tell the child on Christmas Day, ”call for Mommy or Daddy whenever you need help to get to the next level of the game,” and “Mommy and Daddy absolutely love watching you play, so call them in to watch you A LOT.”

Age 5 through 8:

By now, school will have become almost as big of a part of the child’s life as the parents at home. Your revenge can become two-prong for all of those times teachers had to call you for the misdemeanors of your offspring. Now, however, it is the child’s parent who will be called. Give ample supplies of party strings and florescent goo for your gand child to slip into their bookbags. For home use, you cannot go wrong with remote control cars and race tracks.

Age 9 through 14:

Adolescence, remember the wonderful pangs?  By far, the best toy for this age is the chemistry set, and it is a gift that keeps giving, as you can offer new chemicals to experiment with every few months. A single item on this list may seem disappointing, but trust that the adolescent, without any help from you, will be driving the parent insane.

Age 15 through 18:

If you can find them at garage sales, find a boom box, much more complete than I-Pods with their quiet headphones. The teenager probably already has a cell phone, but if not, it is a marvelous gift. Depending upon your financial situation an automobile is also a big hit.

I hope these ideas are helpful. Have a wonderful season.

We are coming up to the season during one of the worst economic crunches in years. Unemployment is high. Most of us are watching our purse-strings. I am currently working two jobs and wondering if I should be seeking a third.