Tim Greaton's Blog, page 3

Scientist who cloned Dolly the Sheep may bring woolly mammoth back to life...

We have talked about the possibility and maybe even the likelihood of extinct species being brought back to life. Of course, many of you remember the famous T-rex and raptors from the Jurassic Park movies.

What many may not know is that there is a veritable race to clone exotic species underway. The real question is not will it be tried, because that is happening in many labs around the world even as we speak. The real question is 'Will it work?'

DNA degrades over time and after thousands of years has missing pieces. In the Jurassic Park movie they solved that problem by combining DNA with that of a frog (if I remember correctly). In real life they are trying all sorts of things, including using an elephant's DNA to bridge the gap for a woolly mammoth.

You can find out more about Sir Ian Wilmut's thoughts on his chances for success here
http://www.jurassicpark4-movie.com/ and information about the 2015 next installment in the amazing movie franchise can be found here http://www.jurassicpark4-movie.com/.

Remember when life was filled with endless possibilities...

There was a time that we all believed we would be famous sports players, movie stars, or leaders in other fields. If every child who ever had such a dream saw it to fruition, this world would be stuffed full of...

What?

What would have happened if we all achieved our wildest dreams?

There are some that would say mediocrity is necessary for achievement to shine by comparison, but maybe, just maybe, we could have pulled it off. Maybe there really could be a professional baseball team in every city. Maybe we could make ten movies a day, just to keep all the "famous" stars busy.

Imagine if everyone you knew were reaching their highest potentials. Regardless of what that future of "everyone succeeds" would look like, it would be a magnificent world.

We would likely already have settlements on every planet. We might be flying instead of driving to and from work.

Wars would be a thing of the past, and hunger would be nothing more than a distant memory studied by successful and productive historians.

So what do you say? Start right now and imagine yourself reaching that potential!

Take a few minutes and recollect those childhood dreams. Now breathe new life into them!

It's not too late to get that degree. It's not too late to open that business you always dreamt of owning.

All it takes is a decision.

Breathe deep...and live!

Make excitement part of your life...

Let's face it, we all get bogged down in life sometimes. What we don't realize, however, is that an existence of challenges and meeting challenges wears us down.

It peels away tiny bits of us, a layer at a time, until we are nothing but shells, shadows of our former selves. If you have ever wondered where your childhood wonder and fascination went, this is exactly what we're talking about.

That's not to say we're unhappy or maybe not even dissatisfied, it simply means that there is a sliver of this life (maybe much more) that we're missing. What would it be like if every Christmas was as magical as your best one during childhood?

What if every day was like your best birthday ever? It can be like that, but we have to remember to find the excitement that we lost.

Did you ever collect sports cards, dolls, plastic dinosaurs? If so, go get some right now and put them on a shelf at work, at home, wherever you will see them daily, preferably hourly.

Are you worried what people will think? Oh, contraire: every time someone asks about your collection, you'll smile with your response.

What about trips? Do you travel? 

What if that's not in the budget? Then take a walk, ride a bike, sit at the nearest beach or mountain ridge.

Go see a movie for no other reason than because you can. Have you ever seen an advertisement for play or comedy show that that piqued your interest...well, go!

Notice, we haven't referred to jumping out of planes for the first time or even surfing when you can't swim. Excitement simply means smiling.

Find a smile every day and hold it for as long as possible.

Your life is worth it!


 

You've got a lot of great days ahead of you. Make them count!

It's an overcast Monday here in Southern Maine. It seems that we've had a lot more rainy days this year, which of course doesn't upset the ducks too much.

Speaking of ducks, one of our domestic breeds disappeared for a few days two weeks ago, and when she came back it was with five little ducklings trailing behind. Over the next week, one disappeared.

Then last week, two more went missing...on the same day we saw two blue herons coming and going from our pond. A little quick internet research confirmed that ducklings were on the menu.

That day, I caught the remaining two babies and put them in a bird cage that used to house a parakeet. Each morning they sit near the water so their mother can see them.

Each night we bring them back on the porch or in the house. We hope they'll be large enough to let free in another couple of weeks.

Have a great Monday, everyone!

Her Yearning for Blood, TRIPLE-LENGTH, Episode Four available at Amazon & Barnes & Noble!

Available on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble! This 80+-page episode begins to illustrate how the vampire virus is responsible for not just zombies but also the feared werewolf species.

Evan and Kayla fight for their lives, while Thomas prepares the dangerous wolf-satiate ceremony to save his beloved queen, Belinda.

Here's a small excerpt:

Screams emanated from one of the brick corridors leading to the right, the larder. Apparently, the cooks were playing with the food again.
Having no patience for minutiae, he ignored the shrieks of terror and descended another stairway that ended at a concrete hallway—Death Row as some members of the clan had come to call the burning chambers. An apt term.
He marched past several guards and stopped in front of Belinda’s steel door. The guard readily moved aside.
“How is she?”
“A lot of screaming, sir, but there are still words.”
Thomas pounded. “Belinda, can we talk?”
“Fuck you!” came her shrill voice. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” He opened the door and likened the odor to condensed sewer air pumped through a hose.
At least a dozen corpses were piled against one wall. Blood and gore covered the entire room. Limbs from at least three humans littered the furniture, floor and bed.
One head had been stripped and now, stark white, smiled at him from where she held it in her lap. She sat in a lotus position on the floor with her back against the farther concrete wall.
The skin on her face was black and cracked, and her arms had open wounds that were well beyond healing. At that moment, Thomas would gladly have cut his own arteries to feed and heal her if it would have helped.
I don’t know how you have managed to remain conscious, my love, but thank heaven you have!
Belinda placed the skull on the floor beside a clump of intestines and got to her feet. Her movements still retained a certain grace.
She stretched as if waking from a deep slumber. The movement caused skin to crack and slough off both her arms.
She wiped the bloody flakes away like dried residue from a mud bath. Her once crystal blue eyes were now speckled with red.
She stared at him.
Thomas bowed. “Your Highness, it is good to see you.”
“Much as it would be pleasant to look upon road kill,” she snapped.
“You will always be perfection to me,” he said with utter sincerity.
It gratified him to see a fleeting smile cross her cracked lips. 
“I don’t know how much longer I can fight, Thomas.”
“You have been so brave, Your Highness. Just a little—”
“Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!” she screamed. The cords of her neck rose as she struggled with emotions that he could not begin to imagine. “It’s time to light the fires. Burn me before I lose every shred of dignity!”
“Never!” Thomas stated.
She snarled and crouched, ready to leap at him. Though her chains were still intact, he almost didn’t care.
He had pledged his never-ending loyalty and love to this woman, and her valiant fight against the burning made him realize all the more why it was imperative that she live. She would be a magnificent queen when the vampires wrested power away from the humans.
“We found the rogues.”
A dozen expressions of anger crossed her face before she was able to regain control.
“I’m beyond fantasies, Thomas. My time has arrived.”
“Your Highness, we found several, maybe an entire clan of rogues in Groacherville, Maine. Carlson is with them now. I have dispatched other teams to join him.”
“Carlson needed others?” Her lips curled with revulsion.
“I believe he has and continues to perform his duties admirably.” He paused. Thomas hated to give her reason to doubt, but Belinda deserved the whole truth. “But the rogues have captured him. The other two members of his team were killed.”
Her eyes widened.
“They possess the secret?” she asked with an awed hiss.
“It appears so, Your Highness, which would explain how they defeated our soldiers. Longevity equals strength.”
A charred tongue swept across blackened lips. “So it’s true. All these years…”
“I am attempting to negotiate with the rogues now, but if that fails, by morning I plan to attack.”
Belinda raked a hand through snarls of dark hair. She pulled out a clump and flung it to the floor.
A piece of attached bloody scalp made a splattering sound. Thomas averted his gaze.
“My mind is like a mine field,” Belinda hissed. “No matter what I think about, focus on, it wants to explode.”
“I hope to have the rogues in custody by morning.”
“I’ll be a raging, mindless monster by morning!” Her shrill voice could have shattered glass. “Willpower is no longer enough!”
Thomas’s eyes shot up to stare into her bloodshot orbs. “You’re not suggesting…”
“Bring me a satiate, Thomas. And you better do it fast!”
“It’s forbidden. If the Council—”
“Whether you believe I am needed for our clan’s salvation or not, I am hours from the burning.”
“If it got out, the Council would destroy everyone in Boston. The whole clan—”
“Our clan, Thomas! Had you and I not held this group together after the uprising, there would be nothing. The Council owes me—owes us—this much!”
With that, Thomas’ beloved grabbed the chains that kept her at a secure distance from him and screamed. Her arms tightened with muscle she had acquired over the hundreds of hours they had sparred…and played…together.
The cords on her filthy, bruised neck sprang out like wings. Impossibly, the chains snapped and danger crouched like a demon between them.
He was only three steps from the door, but she could easily have reached him before—
“My mind,” she said, “all that I am, hangs from the tiniest scrap of flesh.” She grimaced. “Rage boils like an angry river in my mind, my love. I could kill you. I. Need. To. Kill. You.”
She dropped to a seated position and hugged her knees.
“But you have always been my salvation, Thomas, the only thing that has made this brutal life worth living. Leave now—and bring the wolf-satiate or not. Either way, know that—I. Love. You.”
“Your Highness.”
Her body shook violently.
“Belinda—”
“Go, fool,” she said through gritted teeth. “Go now!”
Thomas blinked away a tear and bolted for the exit. In movements too fast for a human to follow, he surged through and slammed the steel door behind him.
A body struck the other side. Belinda’s wails of fury accompanied sounds of pounding fists and claws scoring across steel.
Thomas turned to the startled light-haired vampire. Average height, maybe in his late-thirties, the guard had a boyish look to him.
“You have been with the clan for one month, two?” Thomas asked.
“I was turned seventy-three days ago, sir.”
“Good!” Thomas grabbed his chin and squeezed it painfully. He stared into dark amber eyes and pushed against the new vampire’s will. “You are going to do something for me and will say nothing to anyone in or outside of this clan. Do you understand?”
The guard’s eyes had glazed over. He nodded.
“You will drive to the forest…”


Thanks for reading the excerpt. Angelica and I are very proud of this series. You can get the first three episodes (it says only Episode One, but you'll find bonus Episodes Two and Three inside) right here at Amazon:
  And Episode Four--over 80 pages--is just 99 cents!  See it Here!  

Her Yearning for Blood, Triple-length (80-page) Episode Four coming within the week...

Hi, Everyone:
 As promised, Episode Four of "Her Yearning for Blood" is a whopping 80+ pages, and it hits bookstores within the next week. The first episode is FREE everywhere!   In Episode Four, not only is jealousy and rage flowing like beer in the little town of Groacherville, Maine, so too is danger. While Evan finds and battles the Dillon berserker, Kayla has her hands full with Carlson from Boston. In the midst of his life and death battle with the zombie, Evan encounters the vampire equivalent of kryptonite. Meanwhile, Paul falls prey to something even worse.
    Against her will, Kayla is forced to call the Boston clan of vampires and learns they are willing to dissect every "rogue" vampire in Maine if that's what it takes to uncover Evan's secret to longevity. As tensions in Boston continue to boil, the brutal vampire leader Thomas invokes a forbidden wolf ritual in a last ditch effort to save Belinda, his queen, from the final flames of death.



 
Episodes Two and Three are just $.99 each, or for $1.75 you can get all three!

 

"Red Gloves" just received its 10th FIVE-STAR review....

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, April 12, 2013
By Tahlia Newland - See all my reviews
This review is from: Red Gloves (The Samaritans Conspiracy - Book 2) (Kindle Edition) I purchased this book quite a long time ago and didn't get around to reading it until now because the books on my to-be-reviewed pile tend to take precedence over ones I buy simply because I know that the authors are waiting for the review to be posted. When I finally did read it, I remembered why I bought it and wondered why I waited so long.

I've read a couple of other Tim Greaton novels and apart from his obvious skill with words and story, I always loved the theme of the power of compassion that I saw in them. At first, I thought that this book didn't have that because it reads like a normal kind of mystery, and a very good one at that, but the end held the trump card. Sure enough, there was Mr Greaton's signature heart-warming story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things through their commitment to helping others in a very real, hands on way. There is so much in our world that is hard and uncaring, and so much of that is reflected in mainstream popular fiction that it is a real delight to read a novel that models the best of human behaviour.

I cannot fault this book. The characters are complex and very real, as are their challenges, motivations and reactions, and the plot drives along at the perfect pace. You're keen to keep reading, but it doesn't speed up your heart-rate so much that you can't sleep. I was totally invested in the happiness of the lead character shared her joys and fears as if they were my own.

The main character is a female cop and in the course of the story deals with drug addiction in her teenage son, the murder of his friends, a looming divorce and the mystery of the man in the red gloves. He first appears in the case she is working on, then again in other cases, but he doesn't appear to have done anything criminal, quite the opposite. Who is he is and what does he have to do with the events surrounding her son. The answer when it comes is as surprising to the reader as it is to her.

I believe that Mr Greaton has outdone himself here. This is a story to hold and entertain the fussiest of mystery readers and yet it still manages to leave us with, not only hope, but also a suggestion that might just change your life.

I highly recommend this.

Interview with talented Marla Blowers, author of the Young and Naive series....

        
Today, in the forum, I’m pleased to have my friend Marla Blowers.  She’s here to talk about her writing journey, the Young and Naïve series, and a little about her upcoming project.  

Tim Greaton: It’s great to finally have you here in the forum, Marla. As writers, we’re used to putting characters in difficult circumstances, but you lived through a period that not even our characters have endured. Could you tell us about it?

Marla Blowers: I was raised in the Midwest, Nebraska to be exact. I wasn’t an only child but I came along so late that I am actually closer in age to my nieces and nephews. I will share one very memorable time in my childhood, and one that I am sure most children have not experienced. Thank God! At a very young age I ran onto a highway and was hit by a truck. I spent a month in traction and then wore a body cast. I basically had to learn to walk all over again. I can remember the ride to the hospital and throwing up in the emergency room. I celebrated a birthday in the hospital, one young boy messed with the levers on my bed and my legs dropped down. My sister also snuck a puppy into the hospital as a gift, of course it didn’t get to stay there but I had it to look forward to when I got home.

 Tim Greaton: Since you can’t write one hundred percent of the time, what hobbies keep you busy in your off hours? 

Marla Blowers: I love to sew! Not mending but actually designing a garment or item. I have sewn since I was in Junior High. I still even have some of those patterns I used way back when and they were only .65 now you can pay $18.00 or more for a pattern. You name it I have probably sewn it. I also have an embroidery machine and if I could I would embroider on anything. Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately for some relatives and friends, not everything will fit into the hoop. I have read you can embroider on toilet paper but that just seems like a waste. (She grins)

Tim Greaton: I often get emails asking me when the next book in one or another series is coming out. Apparently, I need to take some lessons from you. It seems like you went from one book to three in now time. Do you have other works stashed away in a closet waiting for release?

Marla Blowers: Funny you should ask. I just pulled 3 manuscripts out of cobwebs just a little over two years ago. I was saddened every time I came across them and a few times almost tossed them out. But finally I decided I needed to do this for me. So in March of 2011, I began working on them, and in August of 2011 my first book was published. Eight months later the 3rd one was on the market. So to answer your question currently nothing but clothes are in my closet. 


Tim Greaton: I love how imaginative writers can be, but you’ve taken it to a whole new level. Could you share how your creativity occasionally spills over into the non-writing world? 

Marla Blowers: For a few years, whenever my husband or I were supposed to pick up someone at the airport (including each other) we always dressed up in silly costumes. For example, he picked me up at the airport and he was dressed up like a devil with a pitchfork holding a sign that read ‘Whenever you go, everything goes to hell’. And once I dressed up almost like a hooker to pick him up. It really wasn’t that bad but for me it felt pretty daring. The funniest one however was a time before 9-11 when you could go all the way to the gate to meet the arrivals. My husband and I were there to pick up my sister and her husband and we cross dressed. I was dressed like a real nerd in yellow pants and glasses with tape holding them together. My husband wore a bright orange mumu, bright red lipstick, swinging a purse on one elbow. He also had a 5 o’clock shadow. The best part was watching people’s reaction to us. They truly didn’t know if we were for real or not. They kind of looked at us out of the corner of their eyes. My sister however was appalled and tried to pretend she didn’t know us. She didn’t even want to walk out to the car with us.


 


Tim Greaton: (Takes a minute to stop laughing.) I’m glad I wasn’t in the middle of a drink, Marla. Is there a book or a story that impacted your life?  Be sure to see the rest of Marla's fascinating interview at the Tim Greaton Forum

Tom Hanks, Ashton Kutcher, Katy Perry, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie take a step closer to space....

We've talked about it on numerous occasions, but it warrants a brief recap: humans are progressing to space one step at a time. You'll also notice that many of those steps are taking place weekly and sometimes even daily. A humans-in-space future with robots of all types, holographic technologies and mind-blowing medical advances is rushing at us quite quickly, and if it makes you smile even a little, it's worth noting the steady progress.

(photo: compliments of Virgin Galactic) Today, we're talking about a subsidiary of adventurer Richard Branson's famous Virgin conglomerate. Virgin Galactic has taken a page straight out of NASA's shuttle program. Their WhiteKnightTwo (you have to love their ship names) is a large launch vehicle designed and built specifically to boost a smaller "space delivery" vehicle to 10 miles above Earth. When fully operational, the smaller ship will then break free and travel an additional 58 miles up to the edge of space.

On April 5th, 2013, the company successfully "drop tested" the smaller ship and allowed it to return on its own to the California's Mojave Air and Space Port. During the test, the company says SpaceShipTwo was able to rotate its tail up to 65-degrees from the ship's space-age composite body, increasing the drag force and helping to slow the vehicle during its return. Various components of the rocket motor system were also tested successfully.

"The flight went great," said George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic's CEO. "The team executed very well throughout and brought us another important step closer to first powered flight."


For those who aren't aware, the Virgin Galactic's business model currently includes plans for sub-orbital tourist spaceflights, suborbital space science missions and full orbital launches of small satellites. The SpaceShipTwo tourist program will allow for six passengers and two crew members to fly to the uppermost reaches of our atmosphere (68 miles above Earth).

The total time from the White Knight booster's desert take off and SpaceShipTwo's landing after the sub-orbital flight will be about 2 1/2 hours. Passengers will experience weightlessness and be able to float around the cabin for 6 minutes during the apex of the trip when the view will be black space around them and blue Earth below. As of May 2012[update], there were around 550 ticket-holders who had paid $200,000 each. Some of the more famous people on that list include Stephen Hawking, Tom Hanks, Ashton Kutcher, Katy Perry, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie.

It's worth noting that California's Mojave Air and Space Port and industrial park is currently home to dozens of companies, many of which are engaged in flight development, advanced aerospace design and flight test and research. When we consider that there are now similar private space launching facilities in Texas, Alaska, New Mexico, Florida, Virginia and Oklahoma (which doesn't even include the various private & government facilities located in many military bases across the country) it starts to become clear that the effort to reach space has grown into a full-fledged commercial race.

Make no mistake about it, mankind is about ready to burst onto the interplanetary stage.

Will you leave Earth for even 6 minutes when the time comes? 


 

NASA plans to drag a second Moon from space...

Okay, to be more correct, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) on April 5th said that the president's 2014 federal budget request will likely include one hundred million dollars as a down payment for a special NASA project. Specifically, the space agency will be tasked with capturing and dragging a 500-ton asteroid and parking it in a stable orbit around the Moon, effectively giving our Moon it's own mini-moon. There it will become a mining resource and a scientific study location. It might also serve as a base for other moon and mars colony ventures. Robotic spacecraft are expected to do all the heavy lifting, and then sometime in 2021 Astronauts would walk on the asteroid's surface. The total project cost is expected to run about 2.5 billion dollars.

Why would we do this when we have so many pressing needs right here on Earth?

Probably the strongest argument would be that on February 15th, 2013, at about 9:20 am local time, a 10-ton meteor about 49 feet wide streaked into our atmosphere at 33,000 miles per hour and exploded 18-32 miles in the sky above Russia's Ural Mountains. The blast shattered windows for miles and injured upwards of 1,100 people. On the same day, a massive 150-foot asteroid, weighing 143,000 tons, just missed Earth by a little over 17,000 miles. That means it came closer than many of our current orbiting satellites.


We are literally sitting ducks in a galactic shooting gallery. In 1908, an asteroid exploded a short distance above the ground over Tunguska, Siberia. The blast was more than 1,000 times stronger than the Hiroshima atom bomb. 830 square miles of dense forest was flattened as if stomped on by a giant foot. Since the comet or asteroid (there is some debate about the specifics) that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, our Earth has seen similar, smaller-scale impacts hundreds, maybe even thousands of times. If we don't learn how to stop, or at the very least deflect, an incoming asteroid, our species is doomed to relive the dinosaurs' rather unpleasant demise.

There are other less calamitous but equally viable reasons for undertaking this mission, not the least of which is that every time humankind makes a major technological push, there are thousands of smaller but valuable discoveries along the way. Did you know that NASA has already given us memory foam (originally named temper foam), freeze-dried food, firefighting equipment, emergency "space blankets", Dustbusters, cochlear implants, and now Speedo's LZR Racer swimsuits? In all, the space program is credited with more than 1600 technological advances that are used everyday in computers, medicine and advanced engineering around the world.

However, maybe the most convincing argument, aside from protecting our planet, is that we need an infrastructure for the human race to move out into the solar system and beyond. There are a dozen companies currently amassing funding and technologies to make commercial space ventures possible, but ultimately it is going to require many missions and as well as multiple fueling, mining, and station facilities to allow humans to become truly multi-planetary and thereby safe from a possible, and some say inevitable, Earth extinction event.

In short, NASA's asteroid retrieval project will be another rung in that important ladder to our future.

What do you think?