Category: photog’s Corner

Here you will find the stuff that shouldn’t be mixed in the other categories but interest me. caveat emptor.

Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

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The week between Christmas and New Years is a sort of no-man’s land.  Everyone is recovering from the holiday and using it as a chance to catch their breath and look ahead to the next year.  And that goes for me too.  January is the launch of my book and I will be very busy trying to perform the marketing functions that I’ve been told are important for the success of the book launch.  So, on Monday I’ll be reading all of the information I’ve been sent and trying to fulfill all of these tasks correctly.

Now honestly, I don’t know how much relevance they’ll have for the success of the book but I’m giving it a shot so off I go.  I’m both excited and skeptical about the prospects of this launch being successful.  I don’t have a large digital footprint and I don’t see how enough people will hear about this book to make it a big splash.  And so, if it is a dud and only sells a few copies, I’ll chalk it up to experience and move on to other ways to amuse myself.  But if it’s a huge success I’ll claim that I knew from the beginning that I was a literary giant just waiting for the world to beat a path to my door and that from now on I’ll wear designer clothes and expensive sunglasses wherever I go.  Hmmm.

I’ve been paying some attention to what the pundits are saying about how the political situation will play out in 2026.  The Left is talking trash about anything and everything they can.  A friend asked me about the brouhaha that went on at the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) gathering recently where Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin demanded that Tucker Carlson and some other pundits apologize for talking to Nick Fuentes.  For those who don’t know him, Nick Fuentes is a young dissident who is decidedly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.  Carlson interviewed him much as he interviews many controversial figures.

My take on all this is I don’t think we need any more gatekeepers demanding people get cancelled because they have unpopular opinions.  Nick Fuentes and Ben Shapiro will never be able to sit down and discuss their differences.  So what?  Even if Fuentes is the devil himself, Tucker Carlson should be able to interview him without having to apologize and take some kind of loyalty pledge.  And I think Shapiro and his colleagues at the Daily Wire provide lots of insightful and entertaining content that I consume.  But acting as censors for other people on the Right is not one of their appointed offices.  After all, watching the Left act as woke judges and juries over everyone’s behavior and cancelling those they didn’t “approve of” was one of the things that got Donald Trump re-elected.  Freedom of speech is only important when it’s speech that someone else is trying to censor.  So regardless of whatever stupid things Nick Fuentes believes or even says, I’m not demanding anyone be cast out of the vast right-wing conspiracy just for interviewing him.

Tenacity of Purpose

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, Movie Reviews, photog's Corner, Reclaiming the Family, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews ,

I had my oldest grandson over today.  I spent about three hours in the morning clearing snow from the driveways and the afternoon and evening watching a science fiction tv series that he liked.  It’s called “Murderbot” and it’s about a cyborg that figures out how to override the “governor” that forces him to obey and protect humans.  The series is based on books that my grandson read and liked.  It was somewhat a black comedy because the cyborg finds humans incredibly annoying and so he is sorely tempted to do them harm from time to time.  He is also disgusted by most human speech and emotional activities, finding affection and sexual behavior especially nauseating.

And so the plot puts him in contact with a group of humans that can only be described as woke hippies.  They’re constantly virtue signaling about their sexuality and politics and thereby annoying the “SecUnit” (security unit) almost constantly which triggers him to complain internally and that provides most of the monologue of the show.

And the SecUnit is further incensed when his actions to keep the hippies safe requires him to kill cyborgs and humans who are actively hunting.  The audience sees the absurdity of this squeamishness but the hippies are just too pacifistic to understand.  But by the end of the season, they learn the value of fighting back and SecUnit becomes a valued part of their group.  Well, I can’t say I didn’t despise the hippies but the cyborg was an amusing protagonist.

Afterwards we talked about fiction publishing and how short stories are currently shared on the internet (for free).  He mentioned a story he was reading that had a character that finds a sentient being that resembles a tin can but is possessed of tremendous cosmic powers.  I told him it reminded me of a short story called “The Sack” about an omniscient being found by humans on an asteroid that could answer almost any question and how that becomes the cause of an interplanetary battle.

Then we talked for a while about joining the work force because he graduates college in May.  I told him a story about some mistakes I made during a job interview and how maybe they worked to my advantage in the long run.  And we talked about crafting a resume.  I had a story about how maybe insanity may have played a hand in one of the first jobs I got.  A distant relative added some text to my resume using the phrase “tenacity of purpose.”  And this phrase was mentioned by my prospective boss’s boss as one of the things that attracted them to my application.  At a later date I could confirm that both the relative that came up with that phrase and the manager who liked it were both certifiably insane.  Maybe that was a good thing.  But it has to make you think about how bizarre circumstance plays a role in moving our lives in the directions they go.  I told my grandson to use that phrase “tenacity of purpose” with care since apparently it attracts the crazies.

An interesting day.

I Am Very Sorry, Sir, Said Bob.  I Am Behind My Time

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“But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart upon.  And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.  His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o’clock.

“Hallo!” growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. “What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?”  “I am very sorry, sir,” said Bob. “I am behind my time.”  “You are?” repeated Scrooge. “Yes. I think you are.  Step this way, sir, if you please.”  “It’s only once a year, sir,” pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. “It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.”  “Now, I’ll tell you what, my friend,” said Scrooge, “I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,” he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again; “and therefore I am about to raise your salary!”

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it,

holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.  “A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!””

Like poor Mr. Cratchit I was making rather merry last night at Christmas and just didn’t have the time or the mental clarity to write my post in time for the 5 a.m. deadline.  So with Bob as my exemplar I’ll plead, “I am very sorry.  I am behind my time.  It’s only once a year.  It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday.”

And I was.  Camera Girl outdid herself in providing enormous quantities of delicious food and ridiculously rich desserts.  I probably gained five pounds in a single day and will have to fast for a week to return my system to equilibrium.  But it was a gathering of my descendants and it was merry.  And in imitation of Dickens I’ll say,

“God bless Us, Every One!”

Merry Christmas Day 2025

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Well, here we are.  We made it to the end of the year and now we get to spend a few days reflecting on the year and looking forward to the next one.  Christmas Day will be a family gathering here at the Compound and we’ll be stuffing ourselves with rich foods and desserts and basically enjoying each other’s company for the day that the kids and those who are young at heart wait all year for.  It sounds like we’ll be lucky and have a day without snow.  The grass is still covered with the two inches that are left over from the last few days but the driveways are pretty clean for the cars to get in and out.

Camera Girl has worked mightily for the last few days shopping and cooking and baking up a storm and there will be a roast beast and lasagna and all the fixin’s.  My oldest grandson is graduating college and we’ve been talking about applying for jobs and also all of the latest technical innovations in the computer and information fields.  He told me about the computer that is now available that uses a chunk of brain cells to play pong.  That had me shaking my head.  But I’m sure crazier things are in the future.  Maybe someday they’ll grow an entire brain in a vat and then the Matrix will be for real.

Well, I’ll try to look in on the site sometime tomorrow.  But here’s hoping everyone has the best Christmas Day they can.

Merry Christmas to all of you and yours.

Maybe I’ll Swing Down to Mar-a-Lago

photog Life in Dunwich, My Fiction, photog's Corner, Reclaiming the Family, Science Fiction / Fantasy , ,

Today was an interesting day.  The younger grandkids came over with their mothers to make Christmas cookies with Camera Girl.  In addition to the real cookies, they also got to make “sugar cookies.”  This is some kind of sweeter cookie dough that they then adorn with multi-colored granulated sugar and other impossibly sweet ingredients like chocolate sprinkles.  And they didn’t just sprinkle it on.  They poured it on like cement coming out of a truck.  It was horrifying.  No one but a child could stand the saccharine sucrosity of that unholy concoction.  But of course, no one would force me to ingest that mess so I smiled indulgently and feasted on a few of the legitimate confections that were created in the kitchen.  And they were very, very good.  Sure, they’re not good for me but it’s Christmas and this is the time to overindulge.

And later on, my proof copies of “The Sniper” were delivered by the Amazon truck.  He brought them to the bottom driveway and then had to skate across the ice that had melted from the snow and then refrozen over-night.  I apologized to him for the hazard but he laughed it off and said he’d seen much worse today.

Now these “proof” copies have a watermark across the cover that says “not for resale” or something like that.  But seeing my work (or Jake Barter’s anyway) in the flesh, as it were, was kind of fun.  After all, what could be more official than finding your product inside of an Amazon box?  Why, that’s the very definition of American commerce in the twenty first century.  Thank you, Jeff Bezos!

And after a cursory inspection it looks pretty good.  The cover art is clear, the text lines up well on the pages and the paper feels right.  I’ll page through it and make sure nothing is missing or marred.  But I think everything looks like it’s a go for next month.  I’ve applied for Author status on Goodreads and I’ve authorized my marketer to set up my ad campaign and choose the keywords or whatever they call the bait that’s meant to entice the algorithm to catapult me to viral ubiquity.  I wonder if this magic requires the sacrifice of a hecatomb or at least a black lamb.  All of it seems like black magic to me.  But I figure it’s definitely worth my while to give the whole thing the old college try.  After all. What has Brandon Sanderson got that I ain’t got?  I mean other than $41.7 million dollars of Kickstarter funding, that is.  By February I may be waist deep in royalty checks.  Movie studios may be fighting each other to get me to sell them the movie rights.  I’ll probably get a call from the White House begging me to use my vast clout and get involved in the negotiations to end the Ukraine War.  I’ll probably spend a few hours in Oval Office advising Donald about domestic and foreign affairs and signing autographs for Marco and J.D.  Who knows, maybe I’ll swing down to Mar-a-Lago and advise the President on how to lower his golf handicap.

Well, we’ll see.

We’ve Got to Have Priorities

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Christmas Cooking, Sony A7 III, Sony 90mm f\2.8 macro lens

Well, Christmas has arrived.  No not the Day or the Eve.  We’re still four or five days away but the reality has landed.  On Sunday, Camera Girl and her daughters and granddaughter will be making Christmas cookies all day.  Now this is a major event in the holiday.  When it happens, I can grab a cookie or two with every cup of coffee she serves between now and Christmas (and even a while after).  So, this ushers in the end of reasonable eating habits until the end of the holiday.  I approximate I’ll put on five pounds between now and then.  And at my age that’s a burden because losing five pounds is painful.  It’ll take three or four weeks to shed it.

But I have to admit it’s worth it.  Christmas dinner will include both roast beef and home-made lasagna.  And I have already seen the ingredients for ricotta cheese cake and several half gallons of very good ice cream.  I even complained bitterly until she stocked up on some Klondike Bars.  I know for a fact that several of the grandchildren love them and I refused to miss out on a chance to spoil the little guys.  As I’ve stated before, I believe my chance at immortality depends on their good opinion of me after I go to that big website in the sky.  So, I groused about the ice cream and voila!  I saw them in the groceries yesterday.

So yeah, I’ll eat too much rich food and will be pretty groggy by December 26th.

But it’s worth it.  After all, the next real holiday after this is Valentine’s Day and that’s a month and a half away.  Plus, that’s just one small meal.  The next respectable eating marathon is Easter.  And whether that’s the end of March or the beginning of April that’s an eternity away.  We’ll even be close to the end of winter and that’s an eternity away from right now.  So, I’ll begin enjoying myself with those cookies and I’ll continue with my holiday movie viewing ritual and that should insulate me from whatever insanity is breaking loose in the “so-called” real world.  And it’s working I’ve skipped right over the psychopaths shooting up innocent people at colleges and on beaches and wherever else they want to target humanity.  I’ll just let the other pundits address these depressing abominations.

I’ll concentrate on coming up with a decent line of conversation with my grandchildren and providing a chance for my children and their spouses to relax for a few hours while I distract their children with desserts and black and white movies.  That seems like a worthwhile endeavor in this crazy world we inhabit.  I won’t think about the plans at the state capitol to raise our taxes to make up for the Biden dollars that aren’t flowing in any more.  I won’t worry about the attempts to make homeless encampments permanent all over the state.  Instead, I’ll compare the relative merits of the various cinematic portrayals of Bob Cratchit over the years.  Yeah, Cratchit should be next.

Jake Barter – A Man for All Seasons – Well, Summer Anyway

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Jake Barter is a shadowy figure who inhabits the Compound somewhere in the semi-mythical town of Dunwich, New England (state unspecified).  He is the sole proprietor of the website Orion’s Cold Fire and splits his time between battling the eldritch horror and annoying bureaucracy of Dunwich’s First Selectman Cthulhu and pursuing his avocations (science fiction writing, macrophotography and right-wing politics).  His schooling was in math, chemistry, engineering and classical languages.  In a past life he designed biopharmaceutical processing plants.  Now he concentrates on getting a decently brewed cup of coffee every morning.  He is happily married to Camera Girl and enjoys the status of patriarch, surrounded by his descendants and their relations.

This is the Author’s Bio I put on Amazon today.  For a figment of my imagination, it comes reasonably close to being a facsimile of me.  If I had known what a pain in the neck it is selling a book I might have been dissuaded from doing it.  There’s an enormous amount of hand-waving and classifying and “key words” and other stuff that I thought I could slough off on other people entirely.  Then there’s Amazon Ads and Goodreads approval and before you know it I’ll have to be interviewed by Oprah and the View.

But there is some progress being made.  I got my e-book listed with a pre-order page and an Author’s Page for Jake Barter up on Amazon and on Sunday a proof copy of the paperback will be arriving.  Supposedly it has some kind of watermark on it to designate it as “not for sale.”  But I’ll be playing around with it like a dog with his favorite bone.

As I mentioned the other day, this week was the first time I started thinking about what might be in the next book taking place in that “world.”  This one will have Connors trying to deal with a fractured America.  President Chastain and the red and blue states will be brokering short term arrangements as the Constitutional Convention is set up.  There will be plenty to discuss while the red states stand by the exits in case “business as usual” is what ends up prevailing.

I’m thinking of inventing a character who demands a new Declaration of Independence that includes the statement, “All Men are Created Unequal and endowed by their Creator with unique characteristics that require free association to ensure nobody has to be forced to endure unbearable neighbors.”

Now, that might sound as if it’s clear enough to avoid the same problems we’re having now from happening again.  But I’m convinced that’s not true.  It’s not the words on the paper.  It’s not even the way the government is structured.  It’s inherent in human beings that they will twist whatever arrangements they live under to unfairly advantage themselves over their neighbors.  The Greeks and Romans went through these same things.  The rich and the powerful bend the government to their advantage and make their neighbors slaves.

Maybe the best way to deal with this is to tear the whole thing down to the ground every two hundred and fifty years.  Give everyone the same amount of stuff and start over.  It probably couldn’t be any worse than what happens if you don’t.  Well let’s see what George and Paul come up with.

So Now I’ve Got a Publication Date

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Update:

The Book Detail Page went live on Amazon:

Amazon book page

Wohoo!

I started loading the files for the e-book and paperback on Amazon.  The release date will be 21JAN2026.  I’m doing a last review of the text to find typos and “literary infelicities” before I hit the button and make the pre-release page live.

I’m setting up a page on the site (link directly below) for the marketer to direct traffic here.

Coming 21JAN2026 – The Sniper by Jake Barter

I have to admit I’m more excited about this than I thought I would be.  I’m especially looking forward to getting the paperback proof copy.  I’ll put it on the shelf of my bookcase in the living room between my copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey.  After all Homer has only produced two books in the last three thousand years and I wrote one in less than a decade!

I think today is the first time i started thinking about the next book in the series.  Bogey’s had his work.  I’ll let him off the hook and let Connors recruit some new folks to wrestle with the political chaos that has enveloped America after the events in “The Sniper.”  For this one i’ll have to map out a series of events.  I can’t just wing it.  Maybe I’ll do a “future history” timeline like Heinlein did for his alternate history stories.

I think in these later stories I might like to have a moon base.  It’s definitely not an unbelievable technological stretch and it would give the stories a less claustrophobic feel.  Mars just seems too difficult and with a fractured America I doubt the resources could be imagined available for something as challenging.

But that’s just a spit-balling thought.  I’m going to have to do some serious thinking before I just jump into it.  It’ll have to feel right.  And then I’ll have to come up some new characters.  I think I want some technical types in this story.  And I’ll have to think of what is going to happen to poor President George Chastain.  I’ll left him holding the bag with a bunch of states in basically open revolt.  He inherited this mess and he has my sympathy but I’m afraid it’s not going to get easier in the next book.

And in the next book I might try my hand at my first love story.  I’ve left Paul Connors and Grace Boghadair sort of up in the air.  With bogey out of the limelight maybe it’s time to see whether those two have a future.  Well, I’m no romance novelist but maybe I can come up with a believable plot to get those two together.  After all she is a widow looking for a husband and you can’t find a more eligible bachelor than the richest man in the world.

Well, I’ll attach the links to the Amazon pages for the books and the author (Jake Barter!) as soon as they’re live.  Meantime here are my cover shots.

It Doesn’t Compute

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Most of life is about paying the bills.  We work most of our days to pay for food, shelter and raising children.  And for the most part we don’t think too much about all this.  After all what we do is the human analog of what very living creature on Earth has to do to keep its species alive into the future.  And none of them question why exactly all this goes on.

But when you get to a certain point and the end of the race is in sight and maybe you have a little more time on your hands than you used to, you might start asking some questions about what all of this is.  This is called philosophy or religion or maybe just plain curiosity.  One day you look around and think, “How the hell did this whole thing get started and where the hell is it going to end up?”

And it’s a good question.  The pessimist’s answer is the whole thing is just a complete accident.  Life itself is just a random occurrence that probably will just peter out and end when the sun dies in several billion years or maybe even sooner than that if some things go sideways for us here.  Who knows?  Maybe we ourselves will be responsible for the end of life.  Some madman may decide it would be fun to figure out a way to kill off every last bacterium and virus and make it so that none could ever reappear on Earth again.  It seems like a stupid idea but there are lots of crazy people and who’s to say that a really smart crazy man might not take it into his head to do something like that.

But there is definitely a sizable chunk of humanity that believe that we are here for a reason.  They believe in some kind of God.  Not necessarily the personal God of the Bible.  Some think there is some sort of universal spirit that is associated with all life or maybe just human life.  And it’s safe to say they have no way of ever proving what they believe in is real.  I’ve heard lots of people trying to prove God’s existence.  And I don’t think anyone has ever come up with anything that would convince an atheist that he is wrong.

No, the belief is not based on proof.  But at the same time, I don’t think for the most part it’s wish fulfillment.  I think it’s a form of intuition.  Some people look around and say I just don’t believe that all of this is the result of random chance working out over the course of several billion years.  It’s like that old idea that if a billion monkeys typed on a billion typewriters (word processors) for a billion years that they would come up with the Complete Works of William Shakespeare.  I think it’s a case of not letting large numbers intimidate you.  I can understand that over the course of geologic time mountains can turn into valleys and stars can explode.  But how does that create Mozart or Shakespeare or even you?  It doesn’t compute.

Musings in the Mother Ship

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In the alien spaceship approaching the mothership:

David:  Head straight for it.

Steve:  What the hell?

David:  Don’t touch them.  Don’t, don’t, don’t!  I was counting on this.  They are bringing us in.

Steve:  When the hell was you gonna tell me?

David:  Oops.

Steve:  We’ve got to work on our communication.

Seeing the troops inside the mother ship

David:  Oh, my God!  Look at that!  There must be thousands of them.

Steve:  Millions of them. What the hell are they doing?

David:  Looks like they’re preparing an invasion.

The ship docks with the alien command center and David attempts to upload his virus into the alien control system.

David:  (CLAPS)  We’re in.  (SIGHS)  Do it. Do it. Do it.

Back on Earth:

General:  Sir, he’s uploading the virus.  Eagle One, the package is being delivered.  Stand by!

In the Alien spaceship:

David:  Oh yeah, oh yeah! One more step.

Suddenly the screen flashes a message in the alien text.  David pushes several keys and the message resolves into English, “INPUT PASSWORD.”  David lets out a strangled scream and says:

David:  Steve we’re cooked.  I have no idea what to enter.

Steve:  Just write password in lower case.

David:  That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.  We know nothing of their language or software rules.

Steve:  Yeah, well then how the hell were you able to write a virus that would work in their system?

David:  Well, that’s a good point.  Let’s see, p a s s w o r d.  Good heavens it worked!

Steve:  Of course it worked.  There’s only twenty minutes left in the movie.  We have a few threats left like the ship docking lock that won’t release and then the pursuit by the three alien interceptor craft and finally the debris field created by the nuclear explosion in the mother ship and then we’ll be home free to the heroes’ welcome where the pretty girls jump into our arms and kiss us.

David:  Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.  Tell me does Randy Quaid manage to earn the respect of his stepson by saving the day during the fight against the alien ship back on Earth.

Steve:  Yes, but he dies sacrificing his life to destroy the ship by crashing into the alien ship’s primary weapon.

David:  Well, that’s probably for the better.  He was a very silly and annoying character.  After all, if he really had been abducted by the aliens why would he still be alive?

Steve:  Good point.  Do you think we’ll get to be in the sequel in twenty years?

David:  Well, I will be.  By then I’ll be looking for an easy paycheck to retire on but you’ll be a much bigger star and won’t want your name associated with the kind of cheesy project that a sequel to this goofy movie will likely be.

Steve:  Yeah, I think you’re right.  I’ll probably concentrate on high end projects directed by Steven Spielberg.  Of course, I’ll leave space for the occasional sequel to “Bad Boys.”  You shouldn’t forget what got you to the dance.

David:  Yeah, I’m hoping to make at least one more sequel to “The Fly” one of these days.

Steve:  Oy!