Author Archives: Merlin Silk

Nine Month

Leave a reply

Thanks, Kathie, for this heart-wrenching story…

John decided to go skiing with his buddy, Keith. So they loaded up John’s minivan and headed north.

After driving for a few hours, they got caught in a terrible blizzard. So they pulled into a nearby farm and asked the attractive lady who answered the door if they could spend the night.

“I realize it’s terrible weather out there and I have this huge house all to myself, but I’m recently widowed,” she explained. “I’m afraid the neighbours will talk if I let you stay in my house.”

“Don’t worry,” John said. “We’ll be happy to sleep in the barn. And if the weather breaks, we’ll be gone at first light.” The lady agreed, and the two men found their way to the barn and settled in for the night.

Come morning, the weather had cleared, and they got on their way. They enjoyed a great weekend of skiing.

But about nine months later, John got an unexpected letter from an attorney. It took him a few minutes to figure it out, but he finally determined that it was from the attorney of that attractive widow he had met on the ski weekend.

He dropped in on his friend Keith and asked, “Keith, do you remember that good-looking widow from the farm we stayed at on our ski holiday up north about 9 months ago?”

“Yes, I do.” Said Keith.

“Did you, er, happen to get up in the middle of the night, go up to the house and pay her a visit?”

“Well, um, yes!,” Keith said, a little embarrassed about being found out, “I have to admit that I did.”

“And did you happen to give her my name instead of telling her your name?”

Keith’s face turned beet red and he said, “Yeah, look, I’m sorry, buddy. I’m afraid I did. Why do you ask?”

“She just died and left me everything.”

Breakfast at McDonald’s

Leave a reply

I just love stories!

When my son and I ran into a commercial advertising James Cameron’s new movie Sanctum he wondered why it was stressed that this movie was “inspired by true events.”

The only answer I could come up with was that people put more significance or importance on a story if it is ‘true’. But for the movie in question the choice of the phrase ‘inspired by’ could mean as little as “I saw a dog fall into a pond and had the idea to make a movie about cave scuba diving.” Surely, there is a true event – dog falling into pond – and that inspired the making of that movie.

I have learned a long time ago that ‘true’ is a very elastic term. When I had the experience that two people, with no agenda to sway me one way or the other, told me about the same event and I could not recognize the event as one and the same, I learned that ‘Truth’ is a relative term – a fact that detectives and investigators understand.

With this said, the following story had the label ‘true’ but I do not really care – it’s a good story with something to learn from. It came in a viral email with the typical ending, that I had to send it to at least three people to have my wishes come true at some point in time and to 126 people if I want them to come true right away. I leave this part of the email out and concentrate on the story itself.

Here we go…

I am a mother of three (ages 14, 12, 3) and have recently completed my college degree.

The last class I had to take was Sociology.

The teacher was absolutely inspiring with the qualities that I wish every human being had been graced with.

Her last project of the term was called, ‘Smile.’

The class was asked to go out and smile at three people and document their reactions.

I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone and say hello anyway. So, I thought this would be a piece of cake – literally.

Soon after we were assigned the project, my husband, youngest son, and I went out to McDonald’s one a crisp March morning.

It was just our way of sharing special playtime with our son.

We were standing in line, waiting to be served, when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away, and then even my husband did.

I did not move an inch – an overwhelming feeling of panic welled up inside of me as I turned to see why they had moved.

As I turned around I smelled a horrible ‘dirty body’ smell, and there, standing behind me, were two poor homeless men.

As I looked down at the short gentleman, close to me, he was ‘smiling.’ His beautiful sky blue eyes were full of God’s Light as he searched for acceptance.

He said, ‘Good day’ as he counted the few coins he had been clutching.

The second man fumbled with his hands as he stood behind his friend. I realized the second man was mentally challenged and the blue-eyed gentleman was his salvation.

I held my tears as I stood there with them.

The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted.

He said, ‘Coffee is all Miss’ because that was all they could afford. (If they wanted to sit in the restaurant and warm up, they had to buy something. He just wanted to be warm.)

Then I really felt it – the compulsion was so great I almost reached out and embraced the little man with the blue eyes. That is when I noticed all eyes in the Restaurant were set on me, judging my every action.

I smiled and asked the young lady behind the counter to give me two more breakfast meals on a separate tray. I then walked around the corner to the table that the men had chosen as a resting spot. I put the tray on the table and laid my hand on the blue-eyed gentleman’s cold hand. He looked up at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, ‘Thank you.’

I leaned over, began to pat his hand and said, ‘I did not do this for you.. God is here working through me to give you hope.’

I started to cry as I walked away to join my husband and son. When I sat down my husband smiled at me and said, ‘That is why God gave you to me, Honey, to give me hope.’

We held hands for a moment and at that time, we knew that only because of the Grace that we had been given were we able to give.

We are not church goers, but we are believers. That day showed me the pure Light of God’s sweet love.

I returned to college, on the last evening of class, with this story in hand. I turned in ‘my project’ and the instructor read it. Then she looked up at me and said, ‘Can I share this?’ I slowly nodded as she got the attention of the class. She began to read and that is when I knew that we as human beings and being part of God share this need to heal people and to be healed.

In my own way I had touched the people at McDonald’s, my son, the instructor, and every soul that shared the classroom on the last night I spent as a college student.

I graduated with one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn:

UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE.

All About the AppleGirl

Leave a reply

I know, the title might be a little pretentious, maybe even a lot, but running into her on a Google Help page was a rather interesting experience – who would expect to find a music video on a Google Help page – and so I dug a bit deeper and by collecting my findings here I might save you your own digging.

First things first – here is the video that Google gave me as an example for what it was explaining on the help page…

I certainly liked the music and video, but why was she ‘AppleGirl’?

A bit digging let me find the likely answer that it was because the instruments she played in her first video on the internet were iPhones – yes, iPhones! Four iPhones running different music apps, attached to some kind of rack-contraption, were her instrument(s) of choice. And she became famous – the video and the follow up went viral. Here is that first one…

and the next one where she explains a bit more about here instruments.

Mysteries do get people hooked. So, the mystery of who that girl, only known as AppleGirl, was, might have helped the fast spreading of these videos. By now the mystery is solved and it’s all known that she is Kim Yeo Hee, and the latest video (the first on at the top) with it’s professional lighting, recording and editing is a strong indication that her careers is taking off.

So, what was the effect on me? I got some enjoyment out of watching these videos, and got the idea that if there is music apps for the iPhone, there must be some for Android as well. This assumption turned out to be true and I now have a virtual piano and guitar on my G1. I know, it’s ridiculous, I still have a G1 but at least I have it rooted and running Froyo (2.2) on it – even though a bit slow. By the way, even with that version of Android and an adapter directly from HTC my squareup.com card reader, “the cube,” still does not work.

Inner Versus Outer Motivation

Leave a reply

Many, many – – many – years ago I had a little friend, three actually. When I met the three nephews/nieces if my best buddy they were three/four/five years old. Harald, the middle one came out to the garden where my buddy and I were drinking beer to check out that new dude. One of the first test he conducted was “how does he react to pinching?” My reaction – “pinching back” – must have been the correct one because we became really good friends and grew up together until I finally had to leave the country (but that is a whole different story.)

One of the stories with Harald I remember was that he came up with the idea of washing my car. It was another beer-drinking session in the garden, a few grown-ups doing all the work and several kids playing in the garden as well – not drinking beer!

This is when Harald had the idea “Can I wash your car?” Generous as I was – and knowing that the car could really use that treatment – I said “Sure!” There was quite some commotion about finding a hose, sponges and other things that I did not know you needed to wash a car and an hour later my car was clean(er), and Harald was very proud about his job well done.

Several of the beer-drinking, session-attending adults now suggested that I should pay Harald something for his work. But even at that young age I was too smart for my own good and realized that this would not be a good thing. So, I politely declined to follow those recommendations and instead demonstrated Harald how much I appreciated his deed by becoming an even better friend.

Sometimes it takes the universe a long time to acknowledge the correctness of ones actions, and for this event I finally found the acknowledgment after so many years in form of a TED talk that I just have to share here.

Here we go – enjoy!

Hell – is it exothermic or endothermic?

Leave a reply

This is the story of a special bonus question during a college chemistry test which most of the students answered with a varying degree of humor and fantasy. The story is just that – a story. I have no means of deciding of it was an actual professor with a sense of humor or just a creative writer – but whatever it is, it’s a good story.

Here is the question and the answer of the student who got an A+.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Answer: First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, ‘It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,’ and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct…..

…leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my God.’

ISS – View out of the Cupola

Leave a reply

There are always two sides to a coin, and today I had to reflect on these two side in regards my my anarchistic conviction.

It is easy and righteous to be an anarchist, and to help as little as possible for all those things most of us abhor. War, extortion, corruption, etc. But there are a few things that I like that these guys are doing, like helping to get pictures like this…

Tracy's View out of the Cupola on the ISS

This is just one sample of the pictures taken by astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock during  his stay at the International Space Station just about 200 miles straight up. I can’t help considering other people who do not appreciate this venture out into space, just as I don’t appreciate beating up the Irakies or toppling a South American Dictator.

One of the most heard arguments against anarchy (in the sense of a society without a ruling government – not the definition of ‘chaos in the streets’) is “but somebody will have to build and maintain the roads!” On first glance that seems to be a valid argument, but thinking a bit further there are possibilities that don’t make it look so good. For one, a private builder who builds an area with houses he wants to sell, will make sure that there is a road that lets people get to these houses. Would make the houses probably a bit more expensive but considering that the buyer does not pay any taxes to a usually very inefficient government, the house with the street factored in would probably come cheaper than the house plus the taxes.

But what about highways and freeways? In part of the US we already have toll roads and they seem to be working just fine, and again the saving in taxes factored in, traveling might actually become cheaper. But lets assume that it would actually be more expensive to travel longer distances along toll roads – maybe other means of transportation would have been invented if they would be now more competitive without any government strong-arming the use of the road and car system. Maybe there would be already flying cars that don’t require expensive road building – or we would actually have the rolling roads of the early Heinlein – would THAT be cool!

Back to the space pictures. It might have take us a bit longer to reach the moon, but there is a good chance that we would have a flourishing space industry if there would have been no monopolistic government involved. A good chance that I might be able to afford a trip to Bigelow’s Space Hotel in one of Burt Rutan’s SpaceShip 4’s.

There would have been less people contributing to the cost of developing these space technologies, because right now each and every tax-paying citizen is a contributor. But if only the people who wanted it would be contributing, which is far less, it still could be more, as – first – an inefficient middle man is cut out of the loop, and – second – the people who do contribute really want it, and how much energy does does real intention add to the equation?

But despite all these ifs and whens I can still enjoy the great images from the ISS that were created with all our contributions – willing and unwilling – even forced. Here again the link to astronaut Wheelock’s images.

On the Trails of JD Flora – Revisited

Leave a reply

Last year I took my son out to Death Valley for a day – and night – he loves to be in hotels! We stopped in Stovepipe Wells for the night and continued on to Furnace Creek the next day. This trip was done on the ground but it still reminded me immensely of a research mission the custodian of the Logs of JD Flora and I conducted many years ago. I reported about that mission on the web in something that today would be called a blog. The pages are still there but hidden in the deep crevices of the internet, so that I though I dig this all out and present it here again – on a real blog.

Here we go…

What!? You don’t know who J.D. Flora is? I would say that you better find out. Otherwise this story will not make very much sense. I will wait here until you are back …….
……
……

So, now you know our hero. You also know or will find out that Dr. Joachim Steingrubner, the lucky person who found the logs of J.D. Flora and I went onto a mission to follow the tracks of our hero.

From the logs we learned about J.D.’s one flight to Tehachapi, Mountain Valley. There, on his heading of 10 degrees at a distance of 12 miles he encountered the unexplainable – at least for us. Will we ever find out what happened?

On another flight J.D. Flora, or Jetty, how he is now sometimes called by his fans, made a flight to Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek, again with unexplainable but steamy events happening.

Dr. Steingrubner as the historian and chronist as well as the researcher of the J.D. Flora logs decided that a mission was in order to follow the trails of the subject of his research. I was to participate in this project as the pilot in command. The interested reader can follow the trail on a World Aeronautical Chart.

World Aeronautical Chart

On a fine sunny morning we met at the Pilot’s Co-Op at Burbank airport, ready to follow the trails of J.D. Flora.

Dr. Steingrubner had the appropriate excerpts from The Logs so that we could review it for our first leg. From the IRC communication between SFYNX Remate Agent 3 and J.D. we learned:

SFYNX-RA3> From your recent e-mail I conclude that you want to
SFYNX-RA3> go flying today or tomorrow morning.  How about going to
SFYNX-RA3> Tehachapi for a snack ?

JDF> It's quite a humble, but healthy cuisine they got there, but I'll
JDF> consider this.  Any reason for this ?

SFYNX-RA3> Of course.
SFYNX-RA3> From Tehachapi, if you fly heading zero-one-zero
SFYNX-RA3> degrees for 12.5 nautical miles, you'll see a small
SFYNX-RA3> landing strip in the desert between two small hills.
SFYNX-RA3> Cross the runway East to West abeam and fly
SFYNX-RA3> an approach of one-seven-zero degrees, land and
SFYNX-RA3> taste the space over there for some time....

JDF> Will see... so, but what's the purpose ??

That should be not a big problem. The only unusual aspect is that the charts really do not show any landing strip in the area in question. We know that J.D. in fact found and landed on the indicated airstrip, but unfortunately no progress has been done in decoding the time lock so that we still don’t know what really happened and how J.D. returned. We only know that he survived, so we were in good spirits.

Preflight, engine start, clearance (Golden State Departure like usual), and off we were into the blue yonder. Climbing up to 4000 first to get over the mountains just East of the Newhall pass. Getting the nose up some more lining up for Agua Dulce, giving a mental wave to one of my very first ‘other’ airports during primary training.

East of Newhall Pass

Climbing out more towards the north east to clear those peaks and catch a nice glance at the San Gabriel Mountains to our right. After we clear those mountains we see the huge Palmdale Airport off to our right.

San Gabriel Mountains

Palmdale Airport

Big, but mostly useless for me because it’s an Airforce installation. But only ‘mostly’ useless because during my instrument training that was a good place to practice approaches.

I guess these guys in the tower and on approach were pretty bored and probably glad for any Angelino pilot who came by and needed their help. My instructor at this time, Wyn Selwyn – wonder what he is doing now – answered my question of what would happen if I would actually touch down there with: They would nicely invite you in, offer you a cup of coffee and then give you this half foot stack of forms to fill out. He should know – he was a pilot in the army.

Then turning north getting into the real desert that can be really green if it gets some water as for example from the California Aquaeduct. After that a straight loran course to Tehachapi, Mountain Valley.

Real Desert

California Aquaeduct

Our plan was leave out the landing in Mountain Valley and to cross it and head straight to the mystery target 12.5 miles zero-one-zero. But it was late enough to justify an early lunch so we dropped down and had some chili and banana bread watching some gliders being helped up into the sky by these sky tractors – boy, do they really look like tough tractors.

Mountain Valley

Then looking north into the area where there should be this mysterious air strip.

Looking North

Taxi down to the end of the runway, full power and a practice for soft field takeoff. It’s not really soft, but more oiled gravel – still, you don’t really like to do this for long if you are the one who has to pay for the maintenance. Liftoff, and a quick rocking of the wings abeam the glider flight school to say thanks.

We set the loran to all zero on leaving the airport and head zero-one-zero. When the readout shown 12.5 miles the view confirms what the maps had told us. Still, we circled in bigger and bigger circles but could not make out anything that is or might have been an air strip.

Somebody really has to decode this googledigoog in the logs one of these days.

So it was off then to our second target. Stovepipe Wells. We passed California City and did not have to maneuver too hard through this narrow corridor because we got a clearance to enter the MOA and could fly straight towards our goal. Closing in on Death Valley we passed something that surely looked like salt lakes but we were not sure if they really were and we also did not want to stop there to taste.

Salt Lakes

Soon we enter Death Valley, fly up the western valley north hound and then around the bend crossing Stovepipe Wells to take a look at the place of JD’s steamy adventure. Nothing really to see down there except a few parked planes. And as it’s better to get some fuel for the flight back we turn south heading for Furnace Creek.

Soon we make out the Death Valley airport and soon are on base turning final.

Base Turning Final

Shortly after that we turn final and ten minutes later trusty 08L is tied down in the strong wind and we are picked up by a courtesy van and taken to the resort where we hope to find a trace of JD Flora.

Final Furnace Creek

Tied Down at Furnace Creek

In the lobby we talk to an old woman who remembers this nice man who gave her such a generous tip and she also recalls the cabin where he stayed and she kept particularly neat for him. She wants to know what happened to this real gentleman, but we have to tell her that we actually are the ones looking for information.

Furnace Creek Lobby

Cabin where JD stayed at Furnace Creek

She asks us to say hi to him when we find him and keep his promise to stay longer the next day and she wonders if the nice lady, who had missed him by just one hour, ever managed to meet him. There! Now we know something that JD did not – hmm…

It was time for us to head back, pre-flight and ready to take the desert once more.

Getting ready to take the desert again

08L has the biggest trouble climbing in this hot weather even though – and this was a first – her altimeter was well below zero before takeoff. But we manage to get over these ranges south of Death Valley and as soon as we can reach what’s now Joshua Approach we ask for and get a clearance through the MOA and head straight back towards Burbank. We cross Rosamont Airport and shortly thereafter admire the big runways and markings at Edwards Air Force Base – the alternate for the space shuttles to land when the weather is not good enough for them in Florida.

Rosamont Airport

Markings at Edwards Air Force Base

Things start to look very familiar again now and soon we start to let down and are in our close home territory.

    “Burbank Approach, Cherokee 08L, over Agua Dulce, eight thousand five hundred, landing Burbank with Information Zulu.”

What does ‘cosplay’ mean?

Leave a reply

I ran into an articles about Disney Princesses cosplay. The pictures were very appealing, but what the heck is ‘cosplay’?

I had to ask Wikipedia for help and found out:

Cosplay, short for “costume play”, is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan, but recent trends have included American cartoons and Sci-Fi as well as other pop-culture. Favorite sources include manga, anime, tokusatsu, comic books, graphic novels, video games, hentai and fantasy movies. Any entity from the real or virtual world that lends itself to dramatic interpretation may be taken up as a subject. Inanimate objects are given anthropomorphic forms and it is not unusual to see genders switched, with women playing male roles and vice versa.

Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture centered around role play. A broader use of the term cosplay applies it to any costumed role play in venues apart from the stage, regardless of the cultural context.

All right, that makes a lot of sense, and now we can enjoy the pictures of a group of  pretty girls cosplaying (can you use that as a verb? – maybe I just created that now.) roles from all our favorite Disney princesses and the like. There is actually something I had admired about these princesses, or better about their creators. They had been created to appeal to the whole family. The little ones liked their cartooniness, but they also were pretty so that the older female viewers could use them as models to strive after. And for the older males the characters were just a bit of sexy with nice appealing curves. I was always amazed by this delicate balance.

Now, these cosplaying women have definitely lost the cartoon character and I don’t know if they still want to appeal to the female population, but they certainly do to the male customers.

So, here for the enjoyment of whoever wants to…

JD Flora will be all done soon – or not?

Leave a reply

Work is currently being done finalizing the third volume of the JD Flora trilogy. In working my way through the third volume I just enjoyed the logs where JD in his different manifestation on various time lines actually meets the author (the real on – even though ‘real’ might be a bit far-fetched) remarking on his even worse bad breath.

Should you have no clue what I am talking about then it’s about time that you remedy the situation. Volume I and II are available on Amazon and the ‘Look inside’ feature there will jump start your appetite.

The Logs of JD Flora: Daughter of Time

The Logs of JD Flora: Within the Sphinx

In order to make things a bit more real you can get a glimpse of some real footage of the author, Joachim Steingrubner, on the trails of JD in Cambodia, more particularly at Angkor Wat…

[slidepress gallery=’angkorwat’]

Maybe yes – maybe no

Leave a reply

Countless times retold, but every time worth listening to and contemplating about is …

The story of  of the farmer whose only horse ran away.  On that evening the neighbours gathered to sympathize with him, for surely this was such bad luck.  Now your farm will suffer and you will not be able to plow, the neighbours warned the farmer.  Such a terrible thing to have happened to you, they said.

The farmer said, “maybe yes, maybe no.”

The next day the horse returned and brought him six wild horses, and the neighbours came to congratulate him and celebrate his good fortune.  Now you are richer than before, they said.  Surely now this has turned out to be such a very good thing, for you, after all.

The farmer said, “maybe yes, maybe no.”

The following day, the son saddled and rode one of the wild horses.  He was thrown off the horse and broke his leg.  Now the son could not work on the farm.  Again the neighbours came to offer their sympathy for such an inconvenient truth.  They noted that there was more work than the farmer could handle and surely now he would become poor.  Such bad luck, indeed.

The farmer said, “maybe yes, maybe no.”

The day after that, conscription officers came to the village to take all the young men for the army, but because of his broken leg, the farmer’s son was disallowed.  When the neigbours arrived again, they said how very fortunate the farmer was, as things had worked out after all.  Knowing well that most young men never return from the war alive, this was the best fortune yet.

And the old farmer said, “maybe yes, maybe no.”

the story of the farmer whose only horse ran away.  On that evening the neighbours gathered to sympathize with him, for surely this was such bad luck.  Now your farm will suffer and you will not be able to plow, the neighbours warned the farmer.  Such a terrible thing to have happened to you, they said.

The farmer said, “maybe yes, maybe no.”

The next day the horse returned and brought him six wild horses, and the neighbours came to congratulate him and celebrate his good fortune.  Now you are richer than before, they said.  Surely now this has turned out to be such a very good thing, for you, after all.

The farmer said, “maybe yes, maybe no.”

The following day, the son saddled and rode one of the wild horses.  He was thrown off the horse and broke his leg.  Now the son could not work on the farm.  Again the neighbours came to offer their sympathy for such an inconvenient truth.  They noted that there was more work than the farmer could handle and surely now he would become poor.  Such bad luck, indeed.

The farmer said, “maybe yes, maybe no.”

The day after that, conscription officers came to the village to take all the young men for the army, but because of his broken leg, the farmer’s son was disallowed.  When the neigbours arrived again, they said how very fortunate the farmer was, as things had worked out after all.  Knowing well that most young men never return from the war alive, this was the best fortune yet.

And the old farmer said, “maybe yes, maybe no.”