Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

US Air Force Memorial

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Visited the Air Force Memorial yesterday, just before getting ready to attend a wedding in Springfield, VA. I remember when some of my office mates on the Air Staff were helping to plan the opening ceremonies for the memorial, and I remember seeing the spires under construction, so it was good to see it now that it’s done.

The three spires really draw the eye upward, which is the whole point, and even as a non-flyer I found it inspiring. The Medal of Honor wall was a good touch; I found the name of the recipient (William Lawley) who swore me in as a Regular officer back when I was at Squadron Officer School. And the view of the Pentagon and across the river into DC was also very nice.

In many ways it made me miss the service and regret that my attempts to go to Kuwait and Iraq never came to fruition. And in other, morbid ways I don’t fully understand it made me somewhat sad that I missed my opportunity to be memorialized — though if I had been, I wouldn’t be typing this. C’est la vie … literally.

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Happy Independence Day

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I hope you have a splendid 4th of July, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.

A special “thank you” to our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coastguardsmen who keep us safe, secure, and free every day. I salute you all.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident ….” Yes, we do.

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Forty Thousand

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Is it strange to count the progress on my novel in 5,000-word increments? Maybe, but I’m doing it anyway.

As of tonight, MARE NUBIUM is a little over 40,000 words long — which, as my writing friend Eric James Stone pointed out on his blog, is the length criterion for status as a “novel.” However, since there’s also the story criterion — i.e., a story that’s complete and hopefully coherent — I’m not there yet.

But it feels good to be making progress!

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Above the Event Horizon …

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If I’ve read the counter correctly, this will be my 100th blog post. And what better way to celebrate passing the century mark of this semi-sense (i.e., mostly nonsense) than to post a link to Tales of the Talisman, the current issue of which arrived in my mailbox this week and contains my flash fiction story, “Above the Event Horizon at the End of Time.”

I was pleased that one of my writing friends, Rick Novy, also has a story in this issue. His “The Great Basilisk Race” is good story that doesn’t follow the “everything works out fine” formula: the main character makes a difficult choice and then has to live with the consequences. I give him kudos for not giving in to the temptation to wrap things up too neatly — it made his story much more realistic than others I’ve seen.

As for my story, well … as flash fiction, at least it has the virtue of being short. 😉

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Guess It's All in My Head …

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The doctor called this afternoon, and the results of my MRI are in: as suspected, the problem in my head appears to be just in my head, not in my head.

Got all that? 😀

For those who want more detail: the MRI looked normal, meaning there’s no obvious physical reason why I have nearly continuous pressure on one side of my head. No tumors, no infections, no bats — although they sleep in the daytime, so they might not show up on the machine. That means we’ve ruled out the ear canal, the middle ear, and the inner ear, leaving only … we don’t know. So, it appears the problem may be all in my head.

Which is better, in many ways, than the problem being in my head. Wouldn’t want that.

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The Farmer in the (Martian) Dell

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I like green beans, so I was pleased to learn that the soil on Mars could be good for growing green beans. The Mars Phoenix Lander found that the soil’s a bit alkaline, which according to Spaceflight Now (your source for agricultural information, at least when it’s extraterrestrial) is good for green beans, asparagus, and turnips.

If only I liked asparagus and turnips. But y’all can eat those, and I’ll eat the green beans, and we’ll all have a splendid time on Mars.

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A Unique Idea that Wasn't

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Found out this week that the “direct deposit” tax idea that was the foundation of my March 2007 Ornery American essay was actually published in the Summer 1993 issue of The Whole Earth Review. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth?

It was a prediction made by Kevin Kelly as part of an “Unthinkable Futures” piece he wrote with Brian Eno:

Software gains allow a certain portion of taxes to fall to the discretion of the payer. John Public can assign X amount of his taxes toward one service, to the exclusion of another. It’s a second vote that politicians watch closely.

I saw it this past Thursday, quoted on Futurismic. The Futurismic story referenced a BoingBoing piece I’d seen earlier in the week, but the quote didn’t appear in the BB item.

An online version of the original item is found here. My essay is at this link.

I went back into my archives and found the original version of my essay: I wrote it in February 1996. So even though the essay was over a decade old before I polished it enough to be publishable, the central idea was older and put forward by someone not me. Which goes to show that many people can have the same idea at close to the same time, but not everyone will do the same thing with it.

Still, my teeth hurt a little.

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I Claim Success, Even If I Don't Deserve It

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With respect to NC bill S2079, which would require college students throughout the state to tutor elementary, middle, and high school students, I received this message late last night from the office of another state Senator:

I understand that Senator Rand will no longer be pushing this bill.

My editorial on the subject appeared in the CARY NEWS yesterday under the title “Good Intentions Run Amok,” but I’ve seen lots of similar editorials in print and on-line from around the state. And I know some of my friends wrote in to the legislature in opposition to the bill. So even though I don’t deserve all the credit, I claim success in sending this to an early legislative grave.

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My MRI

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Yesterday I had the protons in my brain aligned with an extremely strong magnetic field — alas, it did not make me smarter or give me super powers — while radio waves excited the protons and pushed them out of alignment. As they snapped back into alignment, they produced tiny magnetic fields of their own that the imager picked up. Today I await the results.

My friend Oliver could explain all this much better, but as with almost everything else there is a Wikipedia page about it.

I got a little anxious when the tray I was lying on slid into the machine: my arms touched the sides and reminded me how small the space was. And the thing kept moving! I told the technician that since they were looking inside my head I didn’t expect they’d push me so far into the beastly thing. (I don’t remember being so encapsulated when my shoulder was scanned, but that was many years ago.)

I almost fell asleep while they were scanning me. Had the vibrations and noise been a little more consistent, I probably would have — especially since some of the vibrations were quite rhythmic. But the part where the whole tray started shaking was a little unnerving.

I hope they got good pictures of the bats in my belfry. And I hope all that unaligning and realigning didn’t make me more stupider. :p

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