Extinction on Earth

Ahoy Earthlings!

We stand on the doorstep of December. It's been weirdly cold and dry here south of Seattle. And weirdly high in AQI (which means bad air quality) according to the purple sensor Batgirl gave me as a gift the holiday before this one. I'm sure it's all fine (/sarcasm). And reminds me that last night we finished watching a show on Netflix called Life on Earth.

Life on Earth is an interesting name for the show because a title that would more accurately reflect the content would be "Extinction on Earth." The show steps us through Earth's various epochs and how most life in each subsequent period was almost entirely wiped out. This has happened five times! I knew that, but the documentary "David Attenborough" style (voiced by Morgan Freeman) really brought it, you know... to life.

But you know what? Batgirl and I agreed that watching this repeated cycle of mass extinctions followed by life returning was weirdly calming. It made us less worried about humans "destroying the planet." I mean, yeah, humans could kill themselves off, but not all life. And there's some peace to be had in that. Right?

Objects vs. Sentiment

Storage unit treasure?

How was your Labor Day, if you celebrated it? 

Here, the extra day off gave Batgirl and me enough mental headspace to decide it was the weekend to finally deal with our storage unit. We've maintained it for the last decade. Along with the crawl space under the house, we call it "where sentiment goes to die." It's out of sight, out of mind, which allows the sentiment to drain out of otherwise inanimate objects. Plus, hey, we've been paying rent on all that slowly draining sentiment!

So we grabbed the few things that still tugged at the heartstrings despite where we stored them, and are making plans for how we can get rid of everything else. Lots of completely useful stuff in there, so we hope we can ask the storage facility to help us auction it off like they would for a tenant that simply abandoned their unit. 

Hopefully, the specimens we collected from those alternate dimensions that one time won't escape and ruin the sale.

Unmei

Hey everyone,

I must admit that I've done precious little writing over the last week on my Patreon novel. That's because our kitty Unmei's situation reached a critical point in the middle of last week, culminating in a stressful weekend and a tearful goodbye to Unmei on Monday.

I only knew Unmei for the last 11 of her 18 years, but in that time she became as dear to me as any pet can. 

One of my favorite stories about her is the "Song of the Sock" (as Batgirl named it). A few times a week, we would hear Unmei meowing with some fervor upstairs, until we came up to see what it was. Unmei would be found innocently standing about three feet away from a lone sock (as pictured here). In all the years she did this, never once did we see Unmei actually carrying a sock. Or even near it. A few times I'd try to sneak up, and still failed to catch her in the act.

It doesn't take a genius to realize what was actually happening: Sock gremlins. And Unmei was keeping them at bay. 

For this, and for all the other reasons, we're going to miss this little cat.

Genghis Redemption

In just two days, I'll be heading to Genghis Con in Denver, CO, USA. I'm excited to attend the very first gaming convention I ever attended for a second time. The first time was about 30 years ago, before I was part of the gaming industry. (Well, I may have had a couple of Iron Crown freelancer publications to my credit, actually.) So if you're in the Denver area, I hope you'll come by and say Hi. 

As it happens, I went to college in Colorado and then lived and worked there for several more years in the biopharmaceutical company (NeXagen, which became NeXstar, finally purchased by Gilead) before I left for a job at TSR. Many of my college friends still live in the area, and I'm looking forward to catching up with them once the convention is concluded. Should be interesting!

Until I leave (and when I get back), I'll continue working on the post-apocalyptic title Rust and Redemption, one of the new genre books MCG is crowdfunding. The campaign is active as I write this, but it'll wrap up in a couple of days as well. If you're looking for some post-apocalyptic inspiration, check it out!

[ART: Photo by Ramez E. Nassif on Unsplash]