The Anti-Candidate didn’t make any speeches this week: not on foreign soil, nor in the U.S., not with foreign leaders, nor with regular folks here locally.
So remember when you’re thinking about voting: here at about 100 days before the election, the Anti-Candidate has not been monopolizing your news or making a spectacle of himself in any way. (Or at least in any way that you’ve seen.)
Happy Friday!
by 
I had such a good streak going of nearly 5,000 words a week, and then July hit and my writing time dropped to almost nil. First was the weekend in northern Virginia for the wedding, then a few nights of Vacation Bible School prep, then the weekend in Massanutten for the family reunion, and then this last week doing Vacation Bible School nearly every night and most of the day on Saturday.
At least I’m a few words closer to the goal for now. This being “vacation week” (so to speak, it’s a working vacation for me), it remains to be seen how much writing I’ll get done. But at least I’m still moving in the right direction.
by Saw this video this morning on Spaceflight Now, taken from 31 million miles away by the Deep Impact spacecraft, of the moon seen orbiting the earth. In the time-lapsed video, the earth rotates and the moon passes between the earth and the spacecraft.
Two versions are posted, a red-green-blue composite and a near-IR-green-blue composite — I think the near-IR version shows off the continents better. When we’re on our way to Mars, we can look back and see this and be amazed.
The Spaceflight Now story is here.
by Going out on a Sea Launch mission was one of the highlights of my Air Force career — my e-mail updates to folks at the time were entitled, “Join the Air Force, go to sea” — so when I saw on Spaceflight Now that Sea Launch put up a new satellite for DISH Network, I thought congratulations were in order.
If only I’d had the blog going then. Just goes to show, timing is everything.
by Spent the weekend in at the Massanutten resort in Virginia for a family reunion to celebrate my dad’s 80th birthday — hadn’t seen a lot of those folks since the 70th birthday bash or before. It was a nice, though tiring time, and I was glad to get back to good old Cary.
And apparently other people feel the same way, because I saw today that Cary was ranked #16 on the list of the 100 best places to live in the U.S. according to Money magazine’s list of America’s best small cities.
Yeah, we like it. We’ll probably stay for a little while. 😉
by All the boo-hooing over the FISA reauthorization bill, on the part of the Huffington Posters and the BoingBoingers and the “left-right coalition” that I blogged about a while ago, got me thinking about the Fourth Amendment. The amendment states,
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Somewhere along the line the courts decided the amendment applies to telephone conversations, but I’m not sure I agree with that. Phone conversations certainly aren’t persons, or houses. Might they be considered papers or effects? I don’t think so, because papers and effects have an element of permanence that conversations lack. Electronic files, stored on computers or other media, seem practically preserved in stone compared to the ephemeral nature of phone calls — they would certainly fall under the broad category of “papers and effects,” as intellectual property. But phone calls? Maybe if they were recorded calls 😉 .
When the civil libertarians wrap telephone conversations into the Fourth Amendment, it seems to me they’re establishing an unreasonable expectation of privacy. Personally, I don’t say anything over a telephone that I wouldn’t say across a table in a restaurant — my expectation of privacy is very low, whether I’m using a land-line or a cell phone. To me, because the phone signal traverses the boundary of my home, talking on the phone is about equivalent to opening the window and having a conversation where any passerby can hear it.
Then again, I’m biased in favor of the dedicated professionals who work every day to protect us. I was one of them (not on the Intel side and only in my own small way), and I believe in what they do and appreciate their devotion to their duty. This new version of FISA helps them to protect us from the bad guys, and that’s all I care about.
It helps that I’m not plotting to blow up buildings or assassinate leaders or overthrow the government; I like our government just fine, thank you. I’m not real thrilled about the candidates running to lead it, but that’s another subject — and why I developed the Anti-Campaign, in case anyone was wondering 😀 .
by If you ever wondered how close you can come without scoring in this game of darts called writing, the rejection e-mail I got yesterday should give you some idea. I’ve redacted the name of the editor and the magazine:
Dear Gray,
This is one of the moments in which I do not enjoy being an editor. After much consideration, _____ will not be using “She Walks Among Them at Night,” and you are free to submit it elsewhere.
As to why we did not accept “She Walks Among Them at Night,” I believe it just became a matter of preference with the limited spots we have. I normally give advice at this point concerning items that were issues for us during the consideration period, but I have nothing for this story. It is well written and engaging.
“She Walks Among Them at Night” was a fantastic read, and thank you for letting us spend so much time with it. I wish I had better news after the lengthy consideration, and I wish you the best of luck with this piece.
Sincerely,
_____
Submission Editor
_____
I think they felt bad for holding the story for over six months. Now, to find another venue where it might fit.
Who knew encouragement could be so frustrating?
___
UPDATE:
I was feeling pretty good until I popped in to the Codex Writers Group forum and saw that another member received the same rejection — with only the name of the story changed — a couple of days ago. Now it looks to me like a “standard” form rejection they crank out whenever they hold a story for a long time.
Frustrating, indeed.
by Today I kicked off the “NC State of Business” blog for North Carolina State University’s Industrial Extension Service; as a staff writer and one of a handful of IES members acquainted with blogdom, I now “own” the blog.*
Thankfully, I’m not responsible for developing all the content on the blog. The Executive Director and several of the other key folks will make most of the blog entries — I’ll just moderate the thing and post my own occasional screeds.
Check it out here: NC State of Business.
___
*The power’s not going to my head. Really. 😎
by 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.
by 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.
by 
