Mark W. Tiedemann's Blog, page 98

Christmas Card (more or less)

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I don't care for snow.  It looks great when it's fresh and thick, makes the trees all pretty, and does wonderful things for mountains, but on city streets, in traffic, or even in front of my house on the sidewalk, requiring shoveling, forget it.  Before getting my driving license I liked it.  Went to Art Hill, played, as a little kid looked forward to building castles, all that good ol' fashion cool stuff.  I have learned to dislike it.  Especially i...

Secular Charity

On the chance that you're like me and don't really want to hand your money over to a religious organization and trust that the charity work you think you're paying for won't be redirected into missionary work, here is a link to a list of secular and atheist charities.

I'm not at all sure if anyone assumes atheists are the functional equivalent of Scrooge at this time of year—assuming anyone thinks about it at all—but it's nice to be able to point out that, in fact, we're not.  If you think...

I Have Words

This week is all about the new novel, which I began cutting on Monday.  I'm almost through chapter five now and it feels…good.

I don't know how else to put it, but it flows well.  Yes, there's fixing needs doing and I'm rewriting swaths of it, but basically it looks okay.  As I hoped when I finished the first draft a week and a half ago, I mainly have to add detail.

So I've been working at it most of today.  By hand.  I'm going out tonight, despite the awful wind and cold, to see a friend of...

A Walk Along the Highway of Life: Morning, 12-5-09

Some people have traditions a bit different.  Today, Saturday, December 5th, 2009, Donna indulged one of hers' along with me and Coffey.  Highway 40 has been in the process of being rebuilt between Kingshighway and 270 for the last few years.  Fears and fretting about much disruption this was likely to cause proved exaggerated, though it has made for a lot of grumbling.  But the highway department has come in pretty on or before schedule and within budget and Monday, the 7th, it the whole...

How Do I Bio, Let Me Count The Ways…

I have to write a new bio.  I've been needing to do this for some time.  I had a few prepared bios for conventions and such, tailored depending on who I sent them to.  Magazine bios, con bios, conference bios…they all required a bit of tweaking.  But they're all pretty much out of date.

I'm going to do this during the coming week.  Cull through all the details that would seem to make me an important person, someone people might wish to come listen to or see.  I have a difficult time with...

Misty Mountains

One of the trips we don't make anymore is south to Atlanta.  When our good friends Kelley and Nicola lived there, we went down a few times, most notably for their wedding.  That trip was an adventure.  We often make long drives at night.  Donna is good at the wheel in the dark (I fall asleep, no matter how much caffeine or hours of napping beforehand) and it chews up mileage during a period when not much else is happening.  It also afford us sunrises on the road, which can often be...

A Little Bragging

It's my blog, I get to be self-indulgent.  I want to brag a little.  I don't know how long I'll be able to keep this up, but for now it feels good to be able to make these claims.

I'm 55.  I am amazed at that fact when I stop to think about it.  I don't feel 55.  But having never been it before, I'm not exactly sure how it's supposed to feel.  In any event, I am, as I say, 55.

This morning I went to the gym.

I went to the gym after walking the dog—about a mile, that's what we usually do—during w...

Prophets, Providence, and Problems: An Observation

This is one of those notions I stumble on from time to time while daydreaming or free associating.  I've been doing a lot of thinking about religion of late—as how could many people not be, what with the state of the world (he says with tongue in his other cheek, being both ironic and absurd)?—and trying to come up with some theory of it that might bleed off the poisons that seem to bubble up from it from time to time.

Someone said something to me that triggered this idea and it's probably...

The Paradox of Popularity

Over on her blog, Kelley Eskridge has a video of a "Bono Moment" in which you see two distinct types of fans interacting with U2's lead singer.  Check it out and come back here.

Okay, the guy in the t-shirt obviously is carrying on a conversation.  he may be being a fan, but he hasn't lost his mind.  The female is being…a groupie, I guess.  Though the groupies I've met in my time have been a bit more specific about what they wanted and had a better plan on how to get it.  In any event, the...

Remembering the Future: Why Science Fiction Matters

Recently, I was asked to write a short piece about what science fiction means to me for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  I did and they published it the weekend of Archon 33, October 4th.  Not that anything was wrong with what I wrote, but as this is a topic I think about on and off all the time, I came up with a somewhat different version and, in some respects, a better version, which I couldn't get in on time.  So here it is.