We sometimes forget that the road of life we travel is fraught with "bumps" and challenges. This young lady is fulfilling her dream of getting a PhD in Astronomy and raising a child as a single mother...
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Editor and author Cat Rambo is offering some online workshops and classes for speculative fiction if anyone is interested http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/2012/01/04/online-classes-and-workshops-for-2012/
I'm taking a class from her now and its been very informative. It's got me writing more and thinking about writing more.
"Know Your Bones" will be included in the next blog post entitled, "Follow The Dollar, Follow Where It Bleeds".
http://evilforalltime.blogspot.com/
"We Are The 99%" artwork listed on Socialpoliticalart.com:
http://www.socialpoliticalart.com/2011/12/kenneth-neal-modern-day-abolitionist.html
Enter Kenneth Neal (you can call me Ken):
A social journalist doing my part to promote social, cultural, and class destruction awareness with my blog.
Most importantly, analyzing the current outcry of the top 1%'s attack towards the vulnerability of middle class America.
I invite you to a challenging conversation detailing critical points within modern Capitalism & Christianity.
Thank you for your time.
If you have any questions after viewing my work, feel free to let me know.
-Kenneth Neal, A Modern Day Abolitionist
Facebook, "Ken E-FAT"
http://evilforalltime.blogspot.com
Contributor @ Political Fail Blog:
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/09/ken-neal-writer.html
Now available at Amazon, SHADOWS & DUST, a gothic horror story and an extended tale to the Dragon Queen Series.
What would you sacrifice to get rid of the creatures beyond the madness?
When darkness falls, Vampire Huntress Joan “Havoc” Dawson and her team gears up and steps out to meet the evil as it threatens to spill onto the streets of mankind.
On the second anniversary of her sister’s death, Havoc finds herself lured into a rundown neighborhood by an unknown entity. She stumbles upon a dark secret, one that’s guaranteed to claim many innocent lives.
But in order to destroy the creature behind the madness, Havoc may have to surrender her soul to the darkness.
I couldn’t let the first hump day of the year go by without writing something sexy for you. ;o) Swing by and check it out. http://yvonnenicolas.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/new-beginning/ Happy New Year!
Nobel From Space: apparently, the quazicrystal that garnered Daniel Shechtman of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa last year's Nobel prize in chemistry is of extraterrestrial origin. A meteor this time, and not little green men...:-)
E-Book Boom Boosts Self-Publishers: thought I'd share what's already known.
To see more of the story description, please visit the blog where it originated, happy new year to my BSFS fam! Love and light. Link: bit.ly/sVIArk
-Robert Trujillo
Some fun with Double Entendre. Enjoy the embed below:
Another Dilbert Post (video embed), and deep, DEEP geek...
Milton, thanks so much for agreeing to interview with me. I love your work with sword and soul.
To see the rest of the interview, visit: http://www.aliciamccalla.com/blog/69-author-milton-davis-discusses-upcoming-womens-sword-and-soul-anthology-
How did you celebrate bringing in the New Year? http://yvonnenicolas.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/what-did-you-do-for-new-years-eve/
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I received this link from a good friend of mine and believe it is worth sharing.
http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/11/30-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself/
30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself
"When you stop chasing the wrong things you give the right things a chance to catch you."
As Maria Robinson once said, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. But before you can begin this process of transformation you have to stop doing the things that have been holding you back. Here are some ideas to get you started:
1.Stop spending time with the wrong people. – Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.
2.Stop running from your problems. – Face them head on. No, it won’t be easy. There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them. We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems. That’s not how we’re made. In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall. Because that’s the whole purpose of living – to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time. This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.
3.Stop lying to yourself. – You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself. Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves. Read The Road Less Traveled.
4.Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. – The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Yes, help others; but help yourself too. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
5.Stop trying to be someone you’re not. – One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you like everyone else. Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you. Don’t change so people will like you. Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.
6.Stop trying to hold onto the past. – You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
7.Stop being scared to make a mistake. – Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing. Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success. You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
8.Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. – We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us. We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future. Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
9.Stop trying to buy happiness. – Many of the things we desire are expensive. But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions.
10.Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness. – If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either. You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else. Read Stumbling on Happiness.
11.Stop being idle. – Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place. Evaluate situations and take decisive action. You cannot change what you refuse to confront. Making progress involves risk. Period! You can’t make it to second base with your foot on first.
12.Stop thinking you’re not ready. – Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.
13.Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons. – Relationships must be chosen wisely. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company. There’s no need to rush. If something is meant to be, it will happen – in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.
14.Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn’t work. – In life you’ll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet. Some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you. But most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.
15.Stop trying to compete against everyone else. – Don’t worry about what others doing better than you. Concentrate on beating your own records every day. Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.
16.Stop being jealous of others. – Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own. Ask yourself this: “What’s something I have that everyone wants?”
17.Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself. – Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason – to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you. You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough. But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past. You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation. So smile! Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.
18.Stop holding grudges. – Don’t live your life with hate in your heart. You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate. Forgiveness is not saying, “What you did to me is okay.” It is saying, “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.” Forgiveness is the answer… let go, find peace, liberate yourself! And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too. If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.
19.Stop letting others bring you down to their level. – Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.
20.Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others. – Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway. Just do what you know in your heart is right.
21.Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break. – The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
22.Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments. – Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.
23.Stop trying to make things perfect. – The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done. Read Getting Things Done.
24.Stop following the path of least resistance. – Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile. Don’t take the easy way out. Do something extraordinary.
25.Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t. – It’s okay to fall apart for a little while. You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well. You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either – cry if you need to – it’s healthy to shed your tears. The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.
26.Stop blaming others for your troubles. – The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life. When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility – you give others power over that part of your life.
27.Stop trying to be everything to everyone. – Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out. But making one person smile CAN change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So narrow your focus.
28.Stop worrying so much. – Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy. One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: “Will this matter in one year’s time? Three years? Five years?” If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.
29.Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. – Focus on what you do want to happen. Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.
30.Stop being ungrateful. – No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life. Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs. Instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.
20 Years Post the Fall of Babel: I grew up with "duck-and-cover" and Dr. Strangelove scenarios running through my young head. "The Day After" wasn't just a Sci-Fi movie based on a nuclear attack in Kansas. It was a very real, thought out M.A.D. scenario that still exists today. Now, those former enemies are our only means of getting astronauts to the International Space Station, and that ability is threatened by their technical failures and our retirement of the Space Shuttle Program.
The original description of the Drake Equation, a calculation for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence was that the species survive long enough to communicate, and everyone then knew what "survival" meant.
Hither this cauldron, came Star Trek, and Gene Roddenberry with enough hutspah to put the first interracial (and as I've pointed out - interspecies) kisses on television, "Plato's Stepchildren" was summarily banned in some southern markets.
And, let's not forget: "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield" where two alien species annihilated each other for which side the other was black (or white) on. The irony: they were mirror images of the other, but that did not matter.
We could survive our madmen, our Hitler, our Khan Noonien Singh, and ride triumphantly into a tomorrow of our own making.
Our myths, ancient or modern, give us a reason to go on, press forward, hope for a future that is better than the present.
This is the time of the day when I flash you. Enjoy! http://yvonnenicolas.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/flash-fiction-friday-8-the-bet/
CERN is where the excitement is in particle physics, looking for the so-called God Particle. Now, I see there's a conspiracy theory on the God Particle and the Illuminati. Really? Don't we have Ron Paul/Alex Jones for that?
Really, this is a neat perspective on the LHC and its research. The rush to say something reminds me of the hulabaloo over "cold fusion," which if you just think about it, is in itself a contradiction of terms.
Scientists compete for funding, and in the Internet age, that funding is directly proportional to relevancy. Everyone that reads a story about the CERN collider will ask two important questions:
W-I-I-T-F-M: "what's in it for me?"
W-I-I-U-C-M: "what is it ultimately costing me?"
Those two questions, along with our current intractable political climate, is the reason scientific advancement in non-consumer areas has slowed to a snail's pace.
I actually gave Scott Adams a story back-in-the day that he replied to, and used within 24 hours. Pure humor post.
Hello friends! I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday. Once again, I’d like to share my Hump Day special with you. Enjoy! http://yvonnenicolas.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/blinded-pleasure/
Beauty, Anti-Beauty and the LHC: my goal of blogging about physics is twofold - one, to have a "water cooler" conversation, albeit monologue about the physics around everywhere - your mobile phone, climate change, the Internet; to make it less exotic and more ordinary. Two, to expose people of color to physics, particularly young people, and the possibility of pursuing careers in the sciences. Par for the online interview I listened to on Blog Talk Radio (this site), our youth don't see themselves in such careers, just what is "programmed" for them to accept about themselves. That, is true "brainwashing."
Science Fiction has played a role in the world we currently live in, the link is a small list, as sliding doors in department stores were inspired by two guys following the cues of Gene Roddenberry.
Earth's resources are finite, and like Wall-E, we'll eventually have to become a space-faring species. Such a human adventure, need not be "whitewashed."
Alluding to Star Wars, and fathoming the sheer distance 12.9 billion light years is.
