This week's Comic Shop News had a brief article stating that Ken Krueger, one of the founders of the San Diego comic-Con, died on November 21 of a heart attack. This comes just a few weeks after the death of one another founder, Shel Dorf.

Krueger was a longtime fan. He was involved in SF fandom from its earliest days, and attended the very first Worldcon in 1939.

From http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2009/12/10294.html:  From next year, drivers joining a team mid-season may be eligible for a day’s testing prior to racing.  ...  Now, if a team declares that one of their current race drivers is to be substituted by a driver who has not participated in an F1 race in the two previous calendar years, one day of track testing will be permitted, on an approved circuit not being used for a Grand Prix in the current season. 

This makes much more sense than what happened in 2009.  Hopefully this rule will not need to be invoked in 2010, especially not because a regular F1 driver was seriously injured and cannot complete the season, but at least this will prevent complete newbies to the current-season cars from "testing" during a grand prix weekend. 

shelly_rae takes the train home to Seattle this morning, and life officially goes back to more-or-less normal here at Nuevo Rancho Lake, at least until chemo starts on January 8th. Life being more-or-less normal, calendula_witch arrives later this morning by plane from San Francisco. We'll spend some time recentering, then at a family Christmas party tonight. Tomorrow we're off to Seattle for tbclone47's birthday party, where we will see markferrari and shelly_rae, along with many other dear friends.

calendula_witch flies home on Monday. I follow next Saturday, the day after Christmas, accompanied by the_child. We'll get to meet calendula_witch's mysterious aunt from foreign parts, which will be good fun, and bomb around San Francisco. the_child comes back home the 30th, I return on the 3rd, then we begin the slide home into chemo land.

It will be a good Christmas, and good end to the year. I'll be cherishing all that for the New Year, because kicking cancer's ass through chemo is going to take every ounce of good I've ever had in my life. May all of you have a holiday season as joyous and filled with love as mine.

tags: calendula, california, cancer, child, family, health, personal, seattle, travel

Wrote Dark Star (and starred in it), Alien and adapted Total Recall.

Here, courtesy of shelly_rae, are photos of the zombie hair incident.

( Under cut for potential ick )

tags: cancer, health, personal, photos

I am pleased to announce that my short story "Torquing Vacuum", from the Sunspin continuity, has been accepted for publication by Clarkesworld.

tags: fiction, sale, stories, sunspin

Your Friday moment of zen.



Ginormous pipe, Lime, OR © 2002, 2009 Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

tags: oregon, photos, zen

Table of Contents for The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2010 Edition, ed. Rich Horton, Prime Books — In which my story "On the Human Plan" is included.

Friday grammar quiz — Courtesy of The Grauniad.

Folland Midge — A curious photo from x-planes. (I blame @warrenellis for my current fixation with that site.)

Galactic Tide May Have Influenced Life on Earth — Would that be spooky action at a distance?

A Titanic wink confirms otherwordly lakes — How could I not post a headline like that? Plus cool moon news. Our solar system keeps getting more and more exciting.

?otD: What do you want for Christmas?

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12/18/2009
Body movement: n/a (will walk this afternoon)
Hours slept: 7.5
This morning's weigh-in: 225.0
Currently reading: Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

tags: language, links, personal, photos, publishing, science, stories

The voting deadline for TAFF is midnight Pacific time on the night of Dec. 22 (Tues. night)! You can see the ballot here: http://taff.org.uk/ballots/taff2010.html.

It's probably too late to cast your vote by snail mail, but you can vote electronically. Since voting requires a small donation ($3 or 2 euros), you can paypal the fee to garcia [at] computerhistory.org and include in the message all the info on the ballot, e.g., whom you're voting for, and your name and address.

Please vote!

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/medical/hadcock.asp

E-mailed plea requests Christmas cards for a four-year-old boy said to be dying from leukemia.

Today my friend H— brought by some Christmas cookies. One of the ones she made was just for me:



It's a little Jay cookie with long hair, and a surgery scar in his side... Heh. I have terrific friends.

Photo © 2009 Shelly Rae Clift, used with permission.

tags: cancer, food, funny, photos

I saw this mentioned on both filkertom's and hughcasey's sites. Roy Disney, nephew of Walt Disney and a longtime senior executive of The Walt Disney Company, died yesterday at the age of 79. His Wikipedia entry mentions that he had been battling stomach cancer for a year, and his death occurred 43 years and one day after his uncle's death.

I did this art for Anne Murphy, our TAFF Competition good friend. It's a werewolf gal in a roller derby outfit!



Don't forget there is still time to vote for TAFF! I'm not going to suggest who you should vote for, but I will say that Ronald Reagan, our greatest former president, told Frank on his deathbed to, "Win TAFF for the old Gipper!"

Bri

Ps - Did you know there's an iPhone app for worshiping Reagan? Scary.

I'm having another one of those days where if I woke up feeling this way, I'd go to the hospital. Ah, the joys of surgical recovery. At least it was day surgery, and I was fit to go home yesterday afternoon. For some value of "fit".

( Under cut for medical TMI and general grossness. )

Overnight I slept ok but not great — can't roll in either direction, so I'm stuck on my back like a turtle, which is decidedly not my natural sleeping position. Today I'm uncomfortable as all get-out but mentally alert, functional, and in the same low-grade surgical pain I've become accustomed to lately. No more Vicodin, no Dilaudid, so I get to keep my brain intact.

But wow, what an exhausting day. And such a fool I felt, for no good reason, when I was being cared for beyond reason.

I love my friends and family, but fuck cancer.

tags: calendula, cancer, family, funny, health, weird

Your Thursday moment of zen.



Flooded equipment room, Lime, OR © 2002, 2009 Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

tags: oregon, photos, zen

The found art sculpures of Michael Johansson

Shadowbeams — James Gurney on an atmospheric phenomenon I've seen a few times. First time I ever observed this I was startled as all get out.

Mayon Volcano Threatens Major Eruption — Orbital image of a Philippine volcano.

Sun-Assisted Desalination — Energy-saving process uses free heat to desalinate seawater. I love the fact that they built this in Vancouver, BC. Um...

A ‘Super-Earth’ with an Atmosphere — Centauri Dreams with more deep exoplanetary coolness.

?otD: What's the worst thing you ever got stuck in your hair?

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12/17/2009
Body movement: n/a (limited range of motion this morning)
Hours slept: 7.5
This morning's weigh-in: 226.2
Currently reading: Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

tags: art, cool, links, personal, science, tech

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/wreaths.asp

Photograph shows Christmas wreaths laid at headstones in Arlington National Cemetery.

Discuss?