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Showing posts from June, 2019

4HU: Alpha Contracts by Chris Kennedy and Mark Wandrey

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Greetings, internet friends and neighbors! And thank you to my loyal family members who are striving to help me find fame, fortune, and a meaningful existence by reading this blog. Umm, let's just forget about the fame and fortune part, shall we? I wasn't planning on this being a blog post. But when I got to the bottom of the second page in the book review, I realized NOBODY was going to read that, not even the authors, so in order to preserve what I had taken so long to write, I dumped it here. Now I have to go back and slash what follows to make it fit. Here's the slashed Goodreads review ; I've submitted the Amazon review, but it hasn't posted yet. When it does, I'll post the link in the comments. Warning: the main text (which follows)  is 1247 words. That's only 1/10 of the words in"Nightfall," by Isaac Asimov, though, so I'm certain that a few of you loyalists will find your way clear to read it. Okay: if you are running an ad blocker, yo

The Little Old Man in Line

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Greetings and blessings to you, internet friends and neighbors! And for all my kin folk out here, I love you, and you know that. I wrote this six years ago this week.  At the time, my 30-year-old first-born son was in Afghanistan. He had already received the wound that would force a medical discharge and 100% disability two years later, but he had yet to tell me about it. He was still trying to find a way to stay with his boys over there. I wonder if that little old man is still with us? If he is, I'd like to assure him that we are still standing up for the same thing he did, now 75 years ago. We are keeping the faith, sir. The little old man in line He was a little old man, just like this one. The little old man in line in front of me at the grocery store was bent over, and it took him a while to unload his shopping cart onto the conveyor. He shuffled forward, and greeted the cashier with a clear, pleasant voice. It took him a while to scan his credit card to pay for his groceries

"In the Year King Uzziah Died..."

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Greetings, internet friends and neighbors, and a big hidey-ho to those family members left upright and on the right side of the daisies. And to everybody else: you start by banging the rocks together, then go from there. Isaiah 6:1 begins "In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord..." The verses continue with the details of his vision, and if you are at all familiar with contemporary Christian music, you'll recognize the verses as the inspiration for multiple songs and choruses. "The Prophet Isaiah," Marc Chagall I'm not gonna talk about that. Instead, I'm gonna talk, a bit, about how you go about seeing the Lord when you have had your guts kicked out. To do that, I've got to talk a bit about King Uzziah. He started out GREAT! And he was only 16 when he ascended to the throne. His name means "The LORD is my strength," and that's the way he ruled. At first. And for a long time: his rule totaled 52 years. And he really did great things