Holidays

Christmas Story

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Below the jump. Notes:

  1. This is the free version, which I am posting, à la Sarah Hoyt, for feedback. It’s ≈6,100 words, so reading time is 15-30 minutes unless you divert to checking the math and science—which is probably something I would do if somebody else were dropping a reading assignment like this on me. If so, consider it extra entertainment value (but see #5, below). Still more entertainment value will accrue to those familiar with a certain educational establishment we should all know, if not necessarily love.
  2. The paid version will be one story in a collection that is well underway and which I hope to publish by about the end of 1Q23. I expect all the stories in that collection will be science fiction; all the ones I’ve worked on so far are. Most will (unlike this one) be alternate histories.
  3. The paid version will also have been revised and lightly edited for, among other things, internal consistency and a general … excess of Manifoldness in spots.
  4. I already have an editor. Publication will, at least initially, be for e-reader devices only.
  5. This is a work of fiction. It includes fictional devices, in the technological as well as literary sense. Attempts at explaining to me how nonexistent technologies really work may be met with “Sir, this is a Wendy’s.”
  6. Math corrections are OK, though.
  7. As no less a personage than David Goldman (“Spengler”) said about his The Quantum Supremacy: An Entertainment, if you have half as much fun reading this as I did writing it, I will have succeeded. (FWIW, I had fun reading TQS.)

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Quote of the Day: Veterans Day 2022

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J.E. Dyer:

Americans instinctively know that empires bring more wars, not fewer. Over the centuries, Europeans have had ample opportunity to learn the same lesson, and many still understand it. The surge of so-called “populism” in much of the world today, and not just the West, is largely about not being dragooned into empires, in which taxes and mandates on the people, and each generation’s fighting men, are devoted to the agendas of rulers at some level that can’t be held accountable.
 
[. . .]
 
We don’t fight for abstractions that may bring others unknown to us under the rule of emperors. We fight so that fighting will stop, and we will have homes to go home to when it does. We fight so that the vulnerable and beloved among us can live securely in peace. We fight so that empires cannot prey on us, whether attacking us in our cities and farms or denying us tradeways and travel and interaction with our fellow men. We fight so that self-organizing “tribes,” subject to ideological fits, cannot wage guerrilla war among us.

On the PBS News Hour today or yesterday two American think-tank people discussed the Biden administration’s new enthusiasm for promoting a negotiated settlement to the Ukraine war. (The Biden people now sound like Elon Musk, except that when Musk said it people who usually support Biden called Musk a Putin supporter. Perhaps Biden finds that he can be more flexible now that the elections are over.)

One of the think-tank people, agreeing with the Administration, said that an imperfect negotiated settlement in Ukraine is preferable to the risk of nuclear war. The other think tanker said that, on the contrary, the Ukrainians are winning, and since their cause is just we should help them to reclaim all of their land and win a complete victory. The obvious (unasked) question was, Why should we even consider taking such a risk? We may sympathize with Ukraine and supply them with weapons, but risk a major war? A possible perfect outcome isn’t worth additional fighting, death, unpredictability and geopolitical peril if a muddled-through deal that leaves everyone unhappy but puts a quick stop to the fighting is available.

The Biden people and too many members of Congress have been gratuitously bellicose towards Russia. And of course Biden pulled us out of Afghanistan in a way that could only have encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine. Our leaders have forgotten, or never knew, the first principles to which J.E. Dyer alludes.

Another Texas Road Trip

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We took Wee Jamie on another road trip, this last weekend. My daughter and I have decided that we should dedicate one day a week to “Not Doing Work Stuff” and have an outing of at least half a day, doing something … something diverting. This long weekend demanded a whole day of ‘Not Doing Work Stuff.’ My daughter suggested a road trip to Fredericksburg, and I thought that we should check out the Museum of the Pacific War, as it has been at least five years since I visited it. It was indisputably the last war which we won, after all. The first time I went to the War Museum was maybe in 1995 when it was all still contained in the old Nimitz Hotel on Main Street, and an annex down the road IIRC, a side-less pole barn. (And Fredericksburg was still a sleepy little town with an attractive Main Street, with local-oriented business situated in profitable commercial real estate, where they tended to close shop and roll up the sidewalks at about 5 PM. Well, that has come to a screeching halt, I assure you.)

We took the back way, to Fredericksburg, after stopping at a local restaurant for a breakfast which turned out to be more substantial than expected a local outlet for the Maple Biscuit Company. The fresh-squeeze orange juice was fantastic, and yes, I would know about all that, having grown up with orange trees in the back yard. The biscuits and sausage gravy were so generous and so good that we were resolved to split an order next time. (This was the last place I saw anyone wearing a mask, BTW. The staff were all masked-up.) The back way to Fredericksburg meant driving up 281 to Johnson City, passing memories all the way; Blanco, where we had done market events at the Old Courthouse, and where once we scored some amazing deals at an estate sale at an old house just off the highway. Johnson City, where we had a wonderfully fun three-day long market one year, for the lighting of the Courthouse, the weekend after Thanksgiving. (We had to stay two nights for that in a cabin at the Miller Creek RV resort, which meant that we barely broke even.)

Johnson City, when I first went through in the late 1990s, was sad and depressing in comparison to Fredericksburg. It seemed to be hanging on based on the relation to LBJ, the Johnson ranch and various residences where LBJ’s family had lived. Now it is the beginning of the Texas Wine Road and has a new lease on tourist life. Some years ago, I had suggested that the Hill Country had all the components save castles, villas, and quaint hilltop towns to become the New Provence, since they produce such Frenchified specialty items as lavender, wine, olive oil, goat milk cheeses … and wine. Oh my gosh, have they gone into producing wine. Someone has even built a castle! The usual maps of the Texas Wine Road usually include only the top twelve or fifteen of the biggest and most well-established of the wineries along 290 or at least, those with the flashiest central building. As we discovered, just about every commercial or retail business along that road was posted as a winery, and even a couple of places, like Wildseed Farms, which initially specialized in some other commodity like peaches or wildflower seeds had added on a wine tasting room. If you started at the two wineries just outside Johnson City to the south and stopped at every single winery or tasting room and had a single glass … your liver would be screaming for mercy when you got to Stonewall, and you’d be on the list for a liver transplant once you got beyond Fredericksburg itself.

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Where We Spent Today

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It was a lovely day – we got there early, so as to be assured of a place to set out the umbrella and the blanket. We expected to beat a large crowd, which never really materialized. There were mostly families, setting up on the beach, or on the levels above the little cove, children and their parents, splashing about in the shallow water. The day pass is only good up until 6 PM, which probably cuts down on the rowdiness. The Air Force and the Army recreation services have a slice of recreation area on Canyon Lake, which is a short drive from San Antonio. The recreation area encompasses a small beach with picnic grounds adjacent, a dock and anchorage for small boats, rental cabins and cottages and RV spaces. Next year, we are thinking of renting one of the cottages for the 4th. Depends on how everything goes. We hope that things will go on in the Shire, as they always have, from day to day.