For some of my colleagues, spacecraft engine development is practically an obsession.
For others, bending of spacetime is the primary focus.
In either case, moving purpose-built beings from Earth to celestial bodies in this solar system holds their attention.
But then there are those whom we haven’t mentioned…
…the ones who pop up out of newly-discovered multidimensional spacetime travel methods.
But first, a Martian field trip’s in order.
From there, who knows?!
In war and peace, family stays together…
Some girlfriends are hard to forget. Or is it just that I can’t remember what I can’t forget?
My mysterious girlfriends appear out of the mist…
What would I trade for this?:
Guin twisted her head around.
Although 200 marsyears had passed since she had lived on Earth, Guin still remembered what it felt like to walk the surface of Earth without an environmental protection suit on.
She had briefly worked with HAZMAT teams one summer, helping to eradicate a deadly trend amongst Earthlings of starting their own home laboratories to cook addictive substances such as meth. An unhealthy obsession with a momentary high. A synonym maker’s dream:
20/20 (“Clear Vision” Hawaii)
222 (Chicago)
417 (SW Missouri because of meth capital)
Agua
Albino Poo
Alffy
All Tweakend Long
Anny
Anything Going On
the attenborough (London; 11/29/07)
Artie (as in i, Boise, ID 7/30/09)
Bache Knock
Bache Rock
Bag Chasers
Baggers
Barney Dope
Batak (Philippine Street Name)
Bato
Bato-(Philippine Street Name)
Batu Kilat (Malaysia, it means shining rocks)
Batu or Batunas (Hawaii)
Batuwhore
Beegokes
Bianca
Bikerdope
Billy, Or Whizz,
(Britain – cartoon character called Billy Whizz who seemed to be always on the stuff!)
Bitch
Biznack
Blanco
Bling (LA, CA 8/12/09)
Blizzard
Blue Acid
Blue Funk, (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Bomb
Booger
Boorit-Cebuano (Filipino Street Name)
Boo-Yah! (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Bottles (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Brian Ed
Buff Stick
Bugger Sugar
Buggs
Bumps
Buzzard Dust
Caca
Candy
Cankinstien
CC
Chach
ChaChaCha
Chalk
Chalk Dust
Chank
Cheebah
Cheese
Chicken Flippin
Chikin or Chicken
Chingadera
Chittle
Chizel
Chiznad
Choad
Chunkylove (Missouri)
Clavo
Clean out the chimney (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Coco
Coffee
Cookies
Cotton Candy (LA area)
CR (California Central Valley)
Crack Whore
Crank Is “Walk” & Coke Is “Talk.”
Crankster Gansters
Creek Rock (Sand Mountain, AL)
Cri,Cri (Mexican Border in Southwest Arizona)
Criddle
Cringe
Critty
Crizzy
Crothch Dope
Crow
Crunk
Crypto
Crysnax (LA area)
Crystal Meth
Crystalight
Cube
Debbie, Tina, And Crissy
Desoxyn (drug name for meth at the pharmacy)
Devil Dust
Devils Dandruff
Devils Drug
Dingles
Dirt
Dirty
Dizzy D
Dizzle (Missouri)
Dizzo (Missouri)
D-Monic Or D
Do Da
Doody
Doo-My-Lau (H.B.)
Dope
Drano
Dummy Dust
Dunk (LA, CA)
Dyno
Epimethrine
Epod
Eraser Dust
Ethyl-M
Evil Yellow
Fatch (Mexican Border In The Southwest Arizona Area)
Fedrin
Fil-Layed
Fire
Fizz Wizz
G (short for Glass or Go-fast)
G-unit (Los Angeles, CA 8/12/09)
Gab
Gackle-a Fackle-a
Gagger (So. Calif.)
Gak
Gas
Gear Or Get Geared Up
Gemini
George as in george glass from the Brady Bunch movie (CA 8/17/09)
Gina or “I want to talk to Gina tonight” (Calif; 11/18/07)
Glass
Go
Go Fast
Go-ey
Go-Go
Go-Go Juice
Gonzales (Like the cartoon “Speedy”)
Goop
Got Anything
Grit
Gumption
Gyp
Hawaiian Salt
Hank
High Speed Chicken Feed
High Riders (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Highthen
Hillbilly Crack
Hippy Crack
Holy Smoke (Hong Kong)
Homework (This is because homework is generally done on paper which had lines)
Honk the BoBo (Southern MD)
Hoo
Horse Mumpy (Tampa, Florida)
Hydro
Hypes
Ibski
Ice
Ice Cream
Icee
Ish
Izice
Jab
Jasmine
Jenny Crank Program, (jenny crank diet) (Seattle, WA 11/4/07)
Jetfuel
Jib
Jib Nugget
Jibb Tech Warrier
Jinga
Juddha
Juice
Junk (San Diego)
Kibble
Killer
KooLAID
Kryptonite
Lamer
Laundry Detergent
Lemon Drop
Life
Lily
Linda
Livin the Dream (Alberta Canada)
Lost Weekend (Bay Area SF)
Love
Low
Lucille
M Man
Magic
Meth
Meth Monsters
Methaine
Methandfriend
Methandfriendsofmine
Methanfelony
Methatrim
Methmood
Method
Moon Juice (Missouri)
Motivation in a bag (Cleveland or Columbus, Ohio; (11/19/07)
Nazi Dope
Ned
Newday
Night Train (11/7/07)
No Doze
Nose Candy
On A Good One
(New Zealand)’place where meth is made is a “P lab”
Patsie
Peaking
Peanut Butter
Peel Dope
Phazers
Phets
Philopon (East Asia)
Pieta
Pink
Poison
Pookie (LA area)
Poop
Poop’d Out
Poor Man’s Cocaine (Philippines)
Pootananny
Powder
Powder Monkeys
Powder Point
Project Propellant
Puddle
Pump (Bay Area SF)
Quarter Tee Bag
Quartz (8/4/09)
Q’d
Quick (Canada)
Quill
Rachet Jaw
Rails
Rails
Rank
Redneck Heroin (Atlanta)
Richie Rich
Rip
Rock
Rock
Rocket Fuel
Rocky Mountain High
Rosebud
Rudy’s
Rumdumb
Running Pizo
Sack
Sam’s Sniff
Sarahs
Satan Dust
Scante (Hispanic Population in Southern California)
Scap
Schlep Rock
Scooby Snax
Scud
Scwadge
Shab
Sha-Bang
Shabs (San Francisco)
Shabu
Shamers
Shards
Shit
Shia (Missouri)
Shiznack, Shiznac, Sciznac or Shiznastica
Shiznittlebang
Shiznit
Shiznitty
Shizzo
Shnizzie Snort
Shwack
Skeech
Sketch
Ski
Skitz
Sky Rocks
Sliggers
smack
Smiley Smile
Smurf Dope
Smzl
Snaps
Sniff
Snow, Motivation (Colorado Springs, CO)
Space Food
Spaceman
Spagack
Sparacked
Sparked
Sparkle
Speed Racer
Spin, Spin, Spin
Spinack
Spindarella
Spinney Boo
Spinning
Spishak
Spook
Sprack
Sprizzlefracked
Sprung (Mississippi)
Spun Ducky Woo
Squawk
Stallar
Sto-Pid
Styels
Sugar
Suger
Sweetness
Swerve
Syabu (pronounced “shabu” – SE Asia)
Ta’doww (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Talkie
Tasmanian Devil
Tenner
The New Prozac
The White House
Tical
TIK (1/27/08 – South Africa)
T. D. – for – Tink Dust (as in: ”Tinkerbell”, from Disney)
Talkie
Time (Atlanta, GA)
Tina Or Teena
Tish – Shit Backwards (C.V. Calif. area)
Tobats
Toots
Torqued
Trippin Trip
Truck Stop Special
Tubbytoast
Tutu (Hawaii)
Twack
Twacked Out
Tweak
Tweedle Doo
Tweek (A Methamphetamine-Like Substance)
Tweezwasabi
Twistaflexin
Twiz
Twizacked
Ugly Dust
Vanilla Pheromones
Wake
Way
We We We
Whacked
White Bitch
White Ink
White Junk
White Lady
White Pony (Ridin’ the White Pony)
White
Whip (Western Australia 2/3/09)
Who-Ha
Work: I think that came about from it being my dealers “work” (1/22/08 Arlington, TX)
Wigg
Xaing
Yaaba (Thailand)
Yammer Bammer
Yank
Yankee
Yay
Yead Out
Yellow Barn
Zingin
Zip
Zoiks
Zoom
Freedom to choose is not always about making choices to enhance one’s longevity.
Guin leaned her head against the back of her helmet.
The circulation fans in her suit, linked with sensors on the outside of the suit, simulated Martian winds blowing across her skin and through her hair.
She felt the dry, gritty Martian air on her neck and smiled.
Memories of an early summer day in north Alabama sprang to the forefront of her thoughts.
She had tagged along with a drug enforcement task group as an advisor, her expertise on that particular day a tangential twist on her knowledge of rocket propulsion.
A lab hidden on the local Army base, assigned to explore alternative uses of popular street drugs, wanted access to unusual combinations, hoping to find the one mix of ingredients that could be used on another planet without cause or concern for breaking social rules or violating local laws.
The lab scientists concluded long ago that illicit laboratories were often the most innovative, their access to raw materials limited not by annual government funding but by the implied value of their product, value derived by addicts who often died as willing guinea pigs, a feat no military, government or commercial lab was overtly willing to take.
Guin’s mission was to ascertain the controlled explosive capabilities of the booby traps set up around labs in the backwood lairs of Appalachian moonshiner descendants, trained in ancient techniques and modern warfare to protect their territory against invaders both foreign and domestic.
She, too, wanted to find the perfect propellant.
However, she did not know why.
The company she worked for had only recently hired her and, like all new employees, put her through a trial period to test her willingness to do whatever it took to get the job done and to keep her eyes and ears shut while on joint assignment with other companies and unnamed tactical government agencies.
The HAZMAT suit she wore that day was nowhere near as sophisticated as her current suit on Mars.
Yes, it had a communications system and a rudimentary heating/cooling unit but it easily ripped on sharp objects and did not keep track of her vital signs; its external sensors added up to the detection of a few hazardous chemicals and that was it. Otherwise, she and the team relied on portable gear to deal with expected hazardous situations, which often led to mistakes in the field such as when what they thought was a harmless 55-gallon drum of wax turned out to be a temperature-based state-change toxic fume bomb.
Guin wandered across the short Martian field, kicking up dust and sending small pebbles arching in a path in front of her.
She knew she was supposed to leave this area off-limits but had forgotten why, turning off her connection to the ISSA Net to let her thoughts meander without making meaningful connections for other Nodes on this planet and elsewhere in the Inner Solar System.
However, her telescopic vision locked on to one of the pebbles she’d kicked.
Its shape was unnatural.
This far out from the colony, the chance of a mechanical part falling off a lander and bouncing out here was next to zero.
But it was not zero.
Guin picked up the donut-shaped “pebble” and turned it over.
The visual chemical signature on the surface of the rock returned her to the memory of the HAZMAT team’s discovery.
“We are not alone.”
It wasn’t just that the meth lab cookery they found was way too complicated for the average unemployed lab tech to assemble from parts acquired on the old Internet.
None of the equipment had ever existed before.
All of this found in three mobile homes pushed together, a few rusted pieces of metal siding welded over the rooftops to give the appearance of a “triple wide,” ratty pink fiberglass insulation dangling between precariously-stacked cinder blocks in the crawlspace underneath, but the insides of the mobile homes were cleanly gutted and replaced with unearthly contraptions.
Guin squeezed the Martian donut in her hand. It did not crumble like the other pieces of sandstone under her boots.
Guin had wanted to take a few samples with her from the meth lab but was removed from the building along with everyone else but a few guards.
She was driven back to her office and debriefed about what she saw.
Instructed never to say anything or write a single word about that day, Guin had nearly forgotten about it. She wondered if she should reconnect to the ISSA Net and search for clues about that day but she chose not even to inform the secure Nodes on the ISSA Net what she was thinking about.
Guin had long ago accepted that she only knew what she knew and might never know everything she wanted to learn about.
But she was going to keep filling in the gaps.
That last shipment that was delivered to the colony was designated for this area.
Had she wandered here accidentally or on purpose?
Who had determined that the shipment should be set up here?
What was in the shipment?
Did those who packed the shipment know she was in the area and, if so, did they realize she had been in the party that came upon what first looked like a den of squalor on Brindlee Mountain only to discover the greatest mystery in the second decade of the 21st century?
She was going to find out!
Have you looked at the data lately? In the United States, the vehicle miles driven has decreased while the number of automobile insurance adverts seems to increase more and more every day.
Is insurance a good product to be propping up our mass media outlets instead of other consumables?
What about the change in vehicle sales and vehicle sales adverts?
What is the trend I’m missing here?
What are the opportunities I could be grabbing if I had better insight into what BDA (Big Data Analytics) should be showing me at a moment like this?
‘Tis sad to see that my wish — to have some dreadful disease that would end my life — has never been fulfilled.
Instead, my general practitioner tells me I am getting healthier as I get older because I have taken good care of my body.
What the hell?
You mean I won’t die of natural causes any time soon?
I wander the wilderness of this planet that we pretend is tamed with concrete sidewalks, asphalt driveways and paved parkways, never able to do more with the sets of states of energy than what they are, never able to get outside of this universe.
I shake my fist at the sky, shouting that my subculture is just not enough to make me happy — I have killed with my bare hands, I have tasted infinity, there is no love for the comfortable confines of a subculture which never truly contained me.
During the month or so of much-needed/wanted/desired self-reflection upon the threshold of self-actualisation, I assimilate my alliterative allegories and wander aimlessly.
Twixt which tweets, texts or twigs do I twist?
Having held death in my hands, there is little more to call my own.
Having stood on the edge of the abyss, there is little in the normal world that surprises me.
Yet, I want more.
I,I,I wantwantwant moremoremore.
I give the members of my childhood subculture their happy connections to our shared symbol sets, telling them I’ll perpetuate their beliefs for them and make them believe I believe them, too, if that makes them happy.
I have padded about in this comfort zone, lining the nest financially so much that I almost can’t get out of the nest or at least have raised the walls high enough to give me pause.
If only I had the impetus to generate enough income to construct a ladder or a means to helicopter myself out of this nest…
But for what purpose?
What is the core self, if there is one, the core burning desire to achieve something I am not achieving or do not see myself achieving, from this base of operations, this dilapidated modified ranch house with cathedral ceiling propped on a hillside over a crawlspace?
I am an amateur philosopher/maker/poet/writer who has been able to live below his means long enough and live in relative peace with a partner, his fellow 12-year old summer church camp attendee turned penpal turned wife of 27+ years, so that I’m closer to being stuck at home with both of us in our retirement years wondering what we’re going to do with the rest of our lives.
In other words, everything well within the normal range of people belonging to our subculture.
That, my fellow chickadees, is a revelation that hits me again and again about once a year, from when I was five, wondering how many more of the clueless adults around me I had to keep putting up with (and still wondering why!) to when I stood at the front of the church as my bride walked up the aisle to me and knowing that committing to marriage was the worst betrayal of myself that would ever happen (because I do not believe in marriage) and so on.
What I want out of life is to eliminate the self, not MYself, but the concept of the individual as more important than as just another set of states of energy generated by that burning ball of cosmic dust we call the Sun.
Then and only then will we see what the universe is, will we be able to move beyond our Earthcentric thoughts and onto the Next Great Thing that has nothing to do with the popular image of gadgets and gizmos to sell on the open market under protective cover of undercover government agents and privacy-intruding marketing departments.
Yet, how do we move a species to build spaceships for Martian settlement without peddling a lot of stuff on amazon.com and through paypal?
How do we promote the concept of conspicuous consumption in order to siphon off thousandths of a penny per sale for space exploration without overselling the concept of the individual?
Perhaps I shouldn’t care. Perhaps allowing the religious concept of the soul in society is equivalent to allowing the economic concept of the consumer in society?
What, then, of the rise of the atheist consumer? How do I address the issue of the atheist in the future where we need pooled resources to seed celestial bodies?
Euphemisms and symbology, that’s how!
I select hot button issue words with care because my happiness depends on living in the future that benefits me hundreds of years from now. Any words I choose had better be effective now as well as then.
While I weigh my options for the future, I ask what happens when we write articles about our species becoming a de facto fascist global unit, did we actually see the signs as we passed by them on the way to the dystopian technofuture of Fahrenheit 451?
Who is coining the currency that pulls us away from the monopoly of a society we facetiously call the Singularity?
Are we too afraid to call out the emperour’s new clothes? If not, and we are calling them out, is anyone paying attention?
If we are throwing out magician’s misdirection tricks at each other in such rapid succession that we can’t see what we’re doing, what matters?
I accept the fact we are changing the pace of biological change to our planet like a mass of comet strikes sweeping across the globe. We are definitely taking a risk with the eggs in our virtual basket of Earth, which drives me to push us, convince us that extraplanetary exploration is not enough, that we must and we shall establish viable colonies off-Earth.
In the meantime, I live the life I live, accumulating a house full of items that may or may not be useful anymore, at least to me, but has a value, if only as items of nostalgia, filling a rubbish bin once a week with more wasteful packaging than food waste.
Today is the last day of rest, the last day of the end of 2013/start of 2014 holiday, the fifth sol of Marsyear One.
Tomorrow, there are no more days, only sols. All sols.
Tomorrow, my thoughts live on Mars.
Tonight, I rest.
Sleep well, my friends. We have 13270 sols to go.
In the subculture I was raised, children were expected to behave and think like ladies and gentlemen — be kind to others, do not curse/swear or act vulgar, treat elders with respect by listening to their advice, stand/sit up straight, get good grades in school and be mindful of your neighbours’ expectations of you and yours of them — for any vice you choose to exhibit, do so in moderation and you will be forgiven for minor character flaws.
Parents were expected to instill a sense of social allegiance in their kids, smoothing the rough edges, redirecting psychological anomalies toward the greater good of the subculture — those who rejected the subculture were welcome to leave and visit for the holidays or other brief encounters.
By having the pressure relief valve of a clear exit plan for those who rejected or were rejected by the subculture, internalised anger issues were kept to a minimum.
Even within the subculture, tolerance was a variable that allowed for acceptance of some whose initially rejected character flaws were deemed redeemable.
For years, I’ve lived in a kind of purgatory, wanting to make people in that subculture feel as if I, too, desire nothing more than to perpetuate the unwritten rules and relationships of the subculture, while at the same time holding beliefs that run counter to the subculture or don’t bother to recognise human culture as more significant than the role of any Earth-based lifeforms in the universe.
Simply by reading the posts in social media of the friends/acquaintances from my childhood can I quickly ascertain how well I have maintained my pushme-pullya life in purgatorial self-exile.
There is something to be said about the happiness I feel when I hear that people still consider me loving, compassionate and a ham (having a sense of humour).
In no way do I want to deter that feeling in myself or the thoughts of others in that regard.
At the same time, I want more than what that subculture has provided me in the general sense of the WASP life.
Because I want nothing more or less than to ensure we devote sufficient resources to [re]establish Earth-based lifeforms on other celestial bodies, I know what I want does not directly conflict with what my childhood subculture desired for me.
A strong pull within me aches for the safe, secure life of a parent with happy children whose spouse also wanted offspring and looks forward to [great[great]]grandchildren, if we should live so long to see them.
Statistically, safety and security is not guaranteed but can be financially prepared for if less than safe, secure conditions interfere with planned happiness.
What if my dreams and aspirations interfere with the safe, secure life I have right now?
How important is an imaginary comfort zone compared to that last sentence?
Tomorrow is one more day of rest before, on the sixth sol of this marsyear, I prepare plans for my next creations, whatever they may be, to put life on Mars, on the Moon and elsewhere in the inner solar system.
Of course, we have a simple question to answer once again: what is life?
I think it’s time we unplug the oil/petrol companies from the monopoly of market price fixing but I don’t know if I have all the facts.
In other words, if I have an oil well in Texas and supply petrol to gas stations in Tennessee, then I set my own prices at the pump, regardless of some arbitrary barrel price for crude oil that doesn’t reflect my economies of scale, right?
Same for corn, soybean, and other imaginary future prices…
It’s my supply-and-demand that puts food on the table because of my smart business practices, not at the whim of market speculators/manipulators who may not have me and my family/community’s best interest in their interest.
Sometimes, the simplistic viewpoint helps me make better decisions.
Hmm…
treetrunkdings 