Peter Hodges

Vince O’Connor, a frequent commenter on my site, Amnesia, hosts a Minnesota radio show called “Off the Beaten Track.”

He approached me a few days back and asked if he could play a few of my original songs and I gladly and over-enthusiastically obliged!

If you are interested and don’t live in the land of lakes, you can click here and follow the instructions to listen live. You can also get to it from the just plain www.wely.com and click on the Listen Live image as well!

The show is TONIGHT (April 30th) at 8:00 PM EST.

*Goes off to do happily excited somersaults*

We’re entering a “cooling” phase in our global climate patterns.

Take that, Al Gore!

The article is obviously written with some bias, not the least of which is that statement that this phenomenon may “mask” greenhouse gas contributions to increasing temperature. I say bring the warmth! We’ll need it in the next ice age.

Pardon the video-game speak in the headline, but I thought it strangely appropriate.

Wikipedia has blocked a DOJ IP address from editing articles on Wikipedia, citing vandalism.

After the IP address belonging to the DOJ was blocked, Wikipedia editors informed the Wikimedia Foundation’s Communications committee about the incident. Both Wikinews and Wikipedia are projects of the Wikimedia Foundation. In addition to the DOJ IP address, several Wikipedia users determined to be cooperating with the CAMERA campaign to influence Wikipedia had also previously been blocked by Wikipedia administrators.

Our benevolent overlords believe they aren’t bound by truth. Funny, that.

Kate and I have undertaken a project whereby we take the first novel I’ve written (Loss of Innocence) and podcast it. To do that, I’ve had to go back and look at the text and basically do the third draft/revision of the work.

Oh.

My.

God.

I sucked when I wrote that piece. Granted, the piece was started in August of 2005, so that basically means three years ago. My craft has come a long way in that time–through blog entires, technical articles, commentary, and creative writing. I’ve learned the craft of story telling over this period by being professionally edited and attending several writing workshops. Looking at what I produce now versus what I produced then makes me realize in no small part why it is so difficult to be published.

Just as a glutton doesn’t always make a gourmet, likewise a voracious reader doesn’t always make a good writer. I’ve found out the hard way that simply having great ideas and being able to pitch story elements to friends is vastly different to sitting down and putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and making words come alive on every page.

I’ve also realized a painful truth. My verbal regurgitations are rarely perfect in their first iteration. I may astound myself with how brilliant I am as the words are flowing off my fingers at over one hundred words per minute, but on re-read, I realize that I am trite, cliché, and mediocre. It is only when I go back over those same words with a critical eye does the true form of the story begin to emerge. All writers say this (except John Scalzi, who has written for so long and in so many different markets that he nails drafts pretty well the first time), but to have the truth hit home in such a gory way is a different matter. It undermines one’s self-confidence when it is ego that is the sole thing that keeps a novelist writing that first novel.

So I’m stuck with Loss. I really want spend my time improving my pet project, Alchemist (which is going to have to be retitled), and I also want to get to work on a new project that I’ve been kicking around for a while. But a part of me desires a little bit of closure. I know the story for Loss is good; outside observers with no stake in my personal feelings have said that from the beginning. I just have to decide whether implementing the bloody, painful changes is something that is worth my time and effort at this point. Perhaps this is one of those first experiences that you hide in the closet. I learned my craft, cutting my teeth on that manuscript, and maybe it has served its purpose.

Perhaps it should remain hidden.

I’m back!

I’ve posted the pictures of the trip here.

Three items of note:

1. While going “number two” in the woods with a wonderful portable toilet seat, some baby wipes, and an entrenching tool, I had a visitor. It was shortly after sunset when I was greeted by a lone coyote in mid-push. I’m not sure if he was a voyeur or merely curious. I had taken off my belt prior to venturing into the woods to find an isolated spot, so I was without my trusty 1911. I shouted at the coyote to no avail. I threw branches at the coyote (none of them hitting him), before I finally yelled loudly enough that one of my compadres back at the camp could hear me. I asked for a rifle and described my situation. It was met with laughter. When they finally realized I was not kidding, the coyote decided he had had enough and turned back into the forest.
2. Racoons are bold. Two of them wandered into our camp as we sat around the campfire drinking GK’s rum. We illuminated them with our flashlights (a maglite, a surefire tactical light, and a Brinkman [three watts, one bulb!]), but they weren’t bothered by that. Will figured out that they were after the pancake syrup, so we rearranged the items to make it more secure. That didn’t really bother them. They explored our camp until they were convinced we had nothing interesting. At first, I had vowed to shoot one of them to keep them out of our plastic totes of food. After seeing them in action, I knew that I couldn’t do it. Will aptly summed it up: “Their defense is to look cute while they’re stealing your shit.” How right you are, Will.
3. I shot a water mocassin swimming in the water with my Berretta carbine (CX4 Storm, .40). The shot was about 80 yards with lateral motion from right to left. I may not be able to hit the broadside of a barn with my .45, but damned if I can’t drive tacks with that carbine. Blitzfike comfirmed the kill after the fact.

As a postscript, you’ll see a bottle of yellow malt liquor in the pictures. This was something of a joke drink purchased by one of the guys down there. I tried to get a picture of the label, but the auto-focus on the camera wasn’t behaving correctly. The label reads: “Kalima, Hard Creamer.” It was a mixture of cream, pineapple, orange, and banana juice. For a 6% girly drink, it was pretty good.

Here is a new song called “Everything”. I composed, wrote the lyrics and sang it in a period of about 3-4 hours, and I hope you enjoy it.

As an added bonus, I’ve also included an instrumental techno as well as the second song. I’d love to hear your opinions on both!

As always, thanks for cheering me on.

 

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 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

An Atlanta Man builds anti-homeless robot. That’s right…an ex-marine turned environmental engineer has built a robot that operates via remote control that patrols the grounds of his bar. Vagrants, drug users, and would-be thieves are chased off by the robot, who warns them with the owner’s voice that they are being videoed and that they’re trespassing.

A pizza guy in Des Moines Iowa was fired for protecting himself during a robbery. (See video here, full story here.) The pizza guy had a permit for his gun, but since it is against Pizza Hutt’s corporate policy to carry one, he was canned. Better a funeral than a PR disaster, right?

American gun shows and lenient gun laws are the primary source of weaponry for Mexican drug cartels, according to ABC News. Really? You don’t think drug cartels (which, you know, sell drugs) have the money or the contacts to buy guns from anywhere on the planet?

Mexico’s strict gun laws are being subverted by the easy availability of weapons in the U.S., the Mexican attorney general, Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, told ABC News. “The Second Amendment,” said the attorney general, “is certainly not designed to arm and give fire power to organized crime abroad.”

Since Mexico can’t police themselves, it’s suddenly our fault. Shoot fire, we’re already feeding, employing, and educating their citizens…let’s just go whole-hog and play policeman for them, too. (Someone needs to tell Mexican officials that mordidas are muy mal.)

We move ever closer to a totalitarian state with a recent 9th Circuit Court ruling that says laptops can be searched by customs agents without probable cause. Never mind that you are a U.S. Citizen; never mind that you may have no compelling reason to have your laptop searched. An inquisitive or industrious customs agent can pop the laptop open and look at your vacation pictures, your email, or anything else. In the particular case mentioned in the Ars Technica article above, the guy sounds like he was into child pr0n–this is inexcusable, but given the way it sounds, why were customs agents searching him to begin with? And why has this case been the one in which the precedent setting aside our Fourth Amendment has been established?