How I Plan To Lose NaNoWriMo

After some thought, I've decided to compete in National Novel Writing Month this year, with the intention of losing.

I suppose in a way it's a throwback to my high school days in PE class. That's Physical Education, something I excelled in losing ... in. I did become adept, however, in finding hiding places around the gym. Under the bleachers was always popular with us nerd types.

National Novel Writing Month has been shortened to NaNoWriMo to save typing fingers, and it actually has its own official website. My account is here: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/mark-r-hunter.

The idea is to write an entire novel--or at least, 50,000 words of it--in one short month, which happens to be November. Why November?

Why not?

To me it's not the best month, having a major American holiday in it. I would have picked January. What else is there to do in January? Go outside? I jest.

A bigger question is, why do it at all?

There are writers who start that Great American Novel, but never finish it. Maybe they just peter out because they don't manage their time well, or get sidetracked by other things. Or, maybe they're the type who edit obsessively, so obsessively that they never actually finish that first chapter, page, or, in extreme cases, sentence. They go over and over it, again and again, and in the end ... don't end.

But it's the first draft. As Mur Lafferty of "I Should Be Writing" is fond of saying, the first draft is allowed to suck. Nobody else has to see it, ever. For the people mentioned above, NaNoWriMo is designed to be that butt kick that forces them to forge through and finish their first draft. They don't have time to edit: To make that fifty thousand words in thirty days they have to write, what, 1,700 words a day? Go to it, get that first draft done, and edit later.

But I'm not one of those writers.

Oh, I did win NaNoWriMo once, a few years ago. It was with a young adult mystery called Red Is For Ick, which I'm currently shopping around to agents after many, many hours of editing and polishing. I did about 51,000 words in thirty days, then dropped from exhaustion. It was a huge mess, exactly as it was supposed to be, and the mess intimidated me so much it was months before I went back and added another five thousand or so words to finish it.

It just wasn't my style: I'm one of those writers who can edit as he goes. Whenever I start a writing session I go back over what was written the day before and clean it up, and fix major plot problems as I encounter them. So my first drafts are typically pretty clean, although of course they'll still need more work and polishing later on. (Especially after my wife gets a hold of them.)

So, while I am indeed entering NaNoWriMo with the intention of writing every day, I've decided this time that I'm going to stick to the habits that have worked with me in the past. As a result, I'll consider myself lucky if I get 40,000 words done, but I know from experience that once I've gotten that far, I'll be able to power though and finish--maybe in January. And honestly, any writer who takes a good shot at it, works hard, and emerges with something to show for it, wins NaNoWriMo whether they get that 50,000 words in or not.

What's the book about? It's a romantic comedy about volunteer firefighters. Its title? Um ... Fire on Mist Creek.

No, I have no idea what the title will be. I just made that up on the spot.

Sometimes you have to write wherever you can.

Nice Fall, Have a Good Trip

It was a strange day, in that I did home maintenance work, but didn't get hurt.

Not exactly.

I closed all the storm windows, and replaced some screens. I still have creases in some of my finger bones from doing that in previous autumns.

I started up the furnace without so much as a single explosion. Our furnace uses hot water heat: Nice, even heating, without the pain and dust of blowers and ducts. However, it was constructed during the Nixon administration. Turning it off in the spring is kind of like a cliffhanger at the end of a TV season, when you're not sure if the show's going to be canceled.

I climbed on the roof to clean out a gutter, which drains water from the second floor, and eventually, onto my head. This requires me to stand on a rubber-coated flat portion of my roof. The last time I tried that when the roof was wet, I did an uncanny imitation of Charlie Brown trying to kick Lucy's football, complete with "Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh!"

All went boringly well, which I found very exciting.

To clean the other gutters I had to climb a ladder. As a firefighter of over three decades I have a great deal of experience climbing ladders. I've climbed ladders with fifty feet of fire hose draped over one shoulder, while carrying an ax in my other hand, with a forty pound air bank on my back, in zero visibility and zero degrees temperature. At no time on a fire scene have I ever had a mishap on a ladder. At home, while cleaning the gutters, I once had a twenty foot extension ladder fall on my ear.

The gutters are now clean. No life-threatening incidents ensued.

Honestly, I was beginning to despair of having anything to write about as I finished my fall prep work and went inside. There my wife asked me to get some frozen meat out of the garage freezer.

So I guess it's her fault.

My garage is presently junk central. I know what you're thinking, and no, yours isn't as bad as mine. It presently has in it three lawn mowers, due to past misadventures. There are also four giant cardboard boxes, the kind you put major kitchen appliances in, which we'd procured to build a fort for the grand-twins. There are several lawn-sized trash bags full of aluminum cans--we save them until we get over a hundred pounds, which gets us a better price at the recycling place. Out of room, I'd balanced one of them on my wheelbarrow. There are more tools than at Doc's Hardware, of the variety you'd usually find in a medieval torture chamber, and half of them are on the floor. There is 250 feet worth of extension cord and 50 feet of garden hose. For all that, I have never, ever fallen in my garage.

Until I had in my hand four packages of frozen meat, weighing perhaps fifteen pounds in all. For the record that included hamburger, sausage, chops, and steak.

I closed the freezer door, turned, and fell over.

It was pretty much as simple as that. Something got behind my feet, and that was that. On the way down my upper thighs hit a lawn mower, which made the rest of me go down that much harder. My head caved in a large wire animal cage which, I'm happy to point out, was unoccupied.

The good news is that the concrete floor broke the rest of my fall.

Then the huge cardboard box slowly tipped over directly toward me. It was full of bags of aluminum. Well, it was.

The whole thing was right out of a Home Alone movie.

So I lay there, taking inventory. Something (the mower's gas cap, I think) was jammed into my upper thigh. The bags had not broken open, so I hadn't suffocated in an avalanche of pop cans, and the bags were easily thrown aside. I was still holding three of the four frozen packages. The other problem was that, with my legs flung over the mower and my head jammed against the cage, I wasn't at all sure I would be able to get up.

I quickly formulated a plan. I would text to my wife: "Watson, come here; I want to see you". This was the first thing said by Bell on the first telephone call, and I figured she'd appreciate the humor. Too bad I'd left my phone inside.

So it took a little while to get off the floor, but eventually I did, and the rest is anticlimactic. Ibuprofen, muscle salve, literally rolling out of bed the next morning. If I had a buck for every time my back hurt, I'd buy a chiropracter. I still can't sit properly, as the gas cap seems to have actually bounced off my left upper femur.

 The irony there is that I was assaulted by the same mower I wrote about a few months ago, the one I had so many problems with. Revenge?

Or just one final indignity?

That one.

This home "improvement" sent me into physical therapy.

The heat is on

My furnace started again this year! Not only did it not explode, but I didn’t even have to order a part or call for help, The way this year has gone, nobody’s more surprised than I am.

Then there was what happened the next day, but, well ... we'll talk about that later. For now, let me bask.

Speak of the Devil: Staring Into The Eyes Of The Beast

The newest movie about firefighters ...



Speak of the Devil: Staring Into The Eyes Of The Beast: It’s a matter of strange timing for the release of a movie. With forest fires wrecking havoc in California, a new film about those who...

book review: The God Gene, by Jaymie Simmon

First, I need to apologize to the author, Jaymie Simmon: I read this book two years ago, and never got around to reviewing it. From that standpoint, there are several authors I need to apologize to. Not that Simmon needs my help: The God Gene, her first novel, was the winner of the 2013 National Indie Excellence Award for Literary Fiction.

Rosalind Evans is a cancer researcher, doing God's work, so to speak, as she tries to cure the disease. Then, while dissecting the genetic code at the center of the second chromosome, she discovers it spells out ... the Ten Commandments.

Evans is sure her top secret facility has been hacked, or it's the world's worst practical joke ... but others think she's responsible. While she investigates, a popular blogger learns the secret, which goes--again, so to speak--viral. Soon, despite Evans' own conviction that it's a hoax, the world is (naturally) arguing over whether there's a message from God in their DNA. To some it's a miracle; to others, a danger to their beliefs and their power.


One reader called this "religious fiction", which I didn't see at all; if anything, organized religion comes off looking pretty bad in this story, as does just about anyone in the establishment. Others seem to consider it satire and humor, which may be more accurate. Simmon takes the story itself very seriously, although some of the characters certainly had their moments. If anything, it's a political thriller with some science fiction thrown in, although it could also be thought of as a mash up of the movies Contact and Oh God!

In any case, Simmon does a great job with her characters, most of whom spend the book desperately trying to twist the discovery--or bury it--for their own gain.Very few people with any power come across looking remotely good, and overall you get the impression that this is just what would happen in real life. The public in general represents a character of a sort, and also become a threat to Evans, who's slow to pick up on just what a Pandora's Box she's opened.

Another character is the city of Chicago, where Evans works and where most of the action takes place. I didn't have to look to tell Simmon lived there, and her description is lovingly detailed. In addition, her subject matter is carefully researched, the characters memorable and dialogue realistic, and she manages to make DNA research interesting. There are plenty of twists to go around as Evans and other characters try to figure out what's going on, each coming in with their own set world views and each finding them challenged.

The God Gene is one of those rare books that's both thought provoking and great entertainment, and as a fellow author ... I'm jealous.

Speak of the Devil: A Day In The Life Of A Cat

Speak of the Devil: A Day In The Life Of A Cat: As always, the cat has the last word, and so here she is. 7:06 AM. Waking up. Taking a big stretch. Slept well. Dreamed of frost a...

50 Authors from 50 States: Talk about Texas with Native James Callan

50 Authors from 50 States: Talk about Texas with Native James Callan: We're talking about Texas. We know how big Texas is and have heard too many stories about that.   Let's spend a minute talking ...

Speak of the Devil: A Day In The Life Of A Dog

Speak of the Devil: A Day In The Life Of A Dog: It is time once more for the point of view of the dog and the cat. As always, the dog has the first say. 7:09 AM. Waking up at hom...

Writing To Stress Writing For Stress

Now, I want to start by saying I am NOT having heart problems.

Originally I was going to start with, "So I went to the doctor to have my heart checked ..." Which would have been foolish, because people actually care about my health. The dog cares. My wife cares. The fire department would have to set up a funeral detail if I kicked the fire bucket, so they care. My insurance company? They totally care.

In fact, lots of people care more than I do. They would have dragged me to the doctor right away if they'd known that a while back, I started getting this fluttering feeling in my chest. It was as if my heart was trying to do a Mexican Hat Dance around my major aortas. It would come around long enough for me to get concerned, then go away, at which point I did what most men do: Ignored it.

See, this is why I never bought into this whole gender equality thing: Women are clearly superior to men. They have a problem, they go to the doctor. Men have a problem, they watch football.

Anyway, I got some testing, the electrodes were cold, ripped my hair out, yadayada, my heart is fine. The problem is stress. Those of you who follow my blog may have figured that out already--it's been a rough year. My stress levels are high. Also my pain levels are high, due to chronic back pain acting up a lot more than usual, which causes stress. The other day I missed a fire call because I was on the chiropractor's table. Welcome to my fifties.

There were several related health things that could, experts say, help reduce my stress:

Lose weight. (Which would also help the back pain.) Yeah, going into winter and the holidays ... even thinking about it increased my blood pressure ten points.

Exercise. This is an awesome idea at all times. Especially when my wife's seasonal job is shutting down for the winter, leaving me without the long hikes I was taking four or five days a week. Sheesh.

Cut down caffeine. No problem, I'll just quit my third shift job, and leave behind the stresses of paying for heat, electricity, food, housing ...

Looking back on that list, I realize I've got it pretty good. Lots of people in the world have no access to Mountain Dew. Can you imagine?

But at the moment it's all about getting stress out of my life, and I take 911 calls for a living, so it's not going to happen that way. So I've cut my Mountain Dew consumption down to exactly one can a day, about a 75% decrease; I've started using honey instead of sugar as a sweetener; and we're making some wintertime exercise plans. Small steps. Also, I'm skipping all holiday treats this year.

Kidding! Let's not get crazy. But okay, cutting down.

We live in stressful times, and there's only so much we can do. I suppose I should start some new-age type stuff--breath in the lotus position or something--because, apparently, the stress is going to kill me. But since I'm not a new-age type person, I've decided to spend as much time as possible this winter doing the one thing that relieves my stress the most.

No, not that. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Writing. Not selling, promoting, or submitting, all of which increase my stress levels. (Although I do have three completed but unpublished manuscripts, so those other things have to happen, too.) Writing and reading are two things that always make me feel better. In November, especially, I hope to do a lot of writing, which will reduce stress and give me something to show for it. And take my mind off the treats.

Or my head will explode, which is very stressful.

"Belly rubs reduce stress. So get over here!"

Reviews Are the LIfeblood of Vampire Books

I just added in the vampire part, but if you want me to write a book with vampires, hey -- I'm game. Not literally game. I suppose I should specify, with vampires.

But seriously, this is a call for all of you who've read our books to please, please, give us a review. Amazon, Goodreads, wherever--authors these days live and die by reviews, and hey--I don't want to die. Not without a review.

(I've heard Amazon is zapping reviews that aren't "verified"--in other words, from Amazon buyers. I guess that makes Goodreads a place to go for getting them counted.)

There are several websites I've checked out, with the idea of posting ads for our books on them; especially Radio Red, the newest, which has been getting little traction even though my publisher has it up on the Simon & Schuster website. (If you're not aware, they're a very big publishing house, which is distributing all my romantic comedies via e-books.)

The problem is, websites devoted to helping writers with publicity are being overwhelmed with requests right now. As a result, many of them won't take on your book unless it has a certain amount of--yep--reviews. In other areas *coughAmazoncough*, word is some websites use algorithms that keep your book from getting noticed until, well, it's noticed, and reviewed. Catch-22? Yep. I wonder how Catch-22 would have done in modern times?

I guess I could have just shortened this to: Please, send in some reviews of whichever of our books you've read, and make sure they're honest ones, no pulling punches. I have zero dollars in my bribery budget, so we might as well have the truth. If we get, say, ten new reviews overall, good or bad, I'll ... I'll ... hm ....

Oh, I know! I'll record a video of me reciting one of my own poems, and post it for all to see. Yep.

Guess I'd better go write a poem now, just in case.

Fundraiser for the Albion Volunteer Fire Department

Albion Fire Auxiliary Holds Fundraiser

The Albion Fire Auxiliary is having a Sportsman Raffle Fundraiser, to support the Albion Volunteer Fire Department's efforts to purchase fire equipment not available through their limited budget. Only 500 tickets are being sold by firefighters at $10 per ticket, or 3 tickets for $20. A Remington Model 770 .270 caliber Hunting Rifle with Scope is first prize, a Parker Bushwhacker Crossbow Hunting Package is second prize, and a Case Hunting Knife is third prize, with the drawing date of November 11th.

The Albion Fire Auxiliary has recently become incorporated as a Nonprofit 501 c 3 organization, so any donations are fully tax deductible. It's the mission of the Albion Fire Auxiliary to support the Albion Volunteer Firefighters' efforts to better serve their community and its emergency needs.

For more information, contact Project Chairperson, Bryan Peterson at 260-564-1995.




For those of you who aren't into raffles or perhaps don't live close by, don't forget that all the proceeds from our book, Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century or So With the Albion Fire Department also go to the AFD's operational fund. Like the raffle tickets, a copy is only $10, or less as an e-book.

50 Authors from 50 States: Hi Y’all from Middle Tennessee-Linda Thorne

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Blogging Fanfiction, or: Slaying a Slow News Day

A few years ago my Blogger posts averaged maybe fifty views. This year they've been averaging around 150, give or take. My most recent post, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction, is within two of hitting 700 views.

Unless I've missed one, it's a record for my blog views. What am I to make of this? That BtVS fandom isn't dying? That a lot of people haven't forgotten when I was active in the fanfiction community? That it was a slow news day?

It's been two years since I wrote a fanfic, having gotten busy with original fiction and the more un-fun aspects of life in general. This makes me wonder if I should go back to what I originally planned to do, when I first got published: Write a fanfiction to celebrate every milestone of my original fiction journey, like selling a story, completing a manuscript, or seeing something published. It might bring more attention to my original fiction, but--and we all need this--it would also be fun.

Or maybe it was just a slow news day.
Or ... jeez, I just now thought of this. The title of the blog was "Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fanfiction: A Very Bad Idea". Suppose people turned in to see why I thought fanfiction was a very bad idea? I've always been bad with titles, but was "A Very Bad Idea" a very bad idea?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction: "A Really Bad Idea"


A few months ago I offered to write a new fanfiction for my friend Tabz, and she requested Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then stuff happened and, well ... better late than never. It went up originally on my fanfiction.net account at https://www.fanfiction.net/~ozma914

This takes place in my post-series universe (which someone dubbed the OzmaVerse), but all you need to know is that Tara and the Buffybot were both brought back to life by highly questionable magical means, and the slayers are now headquartered in Chicago.


A Really Bad Idea

They took shelter wherever they could, but suddenly there seemed far too little shelter to go around. It was just a lounge area, after all. One could joke about Chicago all one wanted, but no, the furniture was not made bulletproof.

Xander chose a couch, because it allowed him head to toe protection; if not from bullets, at least from blasts of magic and all but the most robust edged weapons. The padding might even, with a little luck, stop a crossbow bolt. “This is a terrible idea.”

From under a gaming table, four of the youngest slayers turned to stare at him. Only now did they understand that the table would shield them only from falling objects, such as axes, or pool balls. A curtain had been laid across it and draped down to the floor on the side facing the door, but it wouldn’t shield them from a stiff breeze, let alone anything supernatural. Eyes wide, they cast around for a different spot. All spots were taken.

“It is not a terrible idea. Stop saying that.” Despite her assurances, Willow had crouched down between Xander and Kennedy. The latter seemed more bemused than threatened by the whole thing, which Xander chalked up to the slayer’s famous overconfidence.

“No, this is my first time saying that. Before I only thought it.”

“Well, somebody’s been saying that, and it’s making me mad.” Willow looked around. “Who was saying that?”

From their left, where she was barely visible with her back against a recliner, Dawn raised her hand. From the right, where he’d taken refuge behind a snack table, Giles did the same. Several other hands also went up around the room.

“Well … it’s making me mad.” Kennedy patted the witch’s shoulder.

Apparently not concerned with who he made mad, Giles pointed toward the door. It was one of two leading to the lounge in the former Watchers Council’s Chicago refuge, but it was the one nearest the skyscraper’s main elevator. “This is madness, Willow. We’re inviting this threat directly into our own headquarters, and you continually deny that it is a threat.”

“It’s totally a threat,” Dawn added.

“Well, if it is we’ll face it together.” Willow had that determined face that Xander liked so much, when he wasn’t hating it—like now. “There’s strength in numbers. After all, Buffybot is here.”

“No, she’s not,” Dawn said. “At midnight she told Tara she’s been programmed to go into hiding for the entire day. Then she went into hiding.”

Oh, that was interesting. “A robot bailed on us,” Xander told Willow. “I mean, even she knew better. Think about it.”

“Well, what made her think …” Willow shook her head. “Tara, did Botty say why she had that programming?”

Dawn poked her head up. “Tara left with Kara and Dana to check out that report of seismic activity in Boston.”

“I told them to hold off on that,” Giles protested. “We were all to gather here.”

Dawn threw her hands out. “Tara said—and she said this, not me—that she wouldn’t be caught dead in Chicago right now.”

Willow looked stricken. At first Xander thought it was the reminder of Tara’s death, until she gave a plaintive sigh. “I wanted everyone together.”

“I came,” Faith called, from somewhere across the room. “Xander made me.”

Willow looked to Xander, who shrugged. “I told her there’d be chocolate and booze, if we survived.”

“That’s—!”

Xander’s phone buzzed, and he only jumped a little. “It’s the signal.”

“Places, everyone!” At Giles’ words, everyone scrunched down a little lower, trying to be completely invisible. “Xander, is Jason ready in the armory? Andrew’s manning the communications center?”

Willow jerked around. “The armory?”

Heh. “That’s where the big weapons are, Wil. You wouldn’t let us bring them in here.”

“Oh, for—!”

The phone buzzed again. “Elevator’s reached the fourteenth,” Xander whispered.

Air seemed to be sucked from the room, as everyone held their collective breaths. Someone started praying. “Here we go again,” Dawn whispered.

The door opened.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer walked in.

Everyone knew what to do. They leaped up, as one, to scream, “Happy birthday!

And then they held their breath. Even Faith.

Buffy stood there, frozen, only her eyes moving as they surveyed the mass of friends and co-slayers. She, also, held her breath. Then she looked toward Willow. “Wil, I really appreciate this, but …”

“No, Buffy, look.” Willow hurried forward, then turned to take in all the naysayers. “I know you’ve had some bad birthdays.”

“You’re so good at understatement.”

“But I warded the entire building, and even sealed off the magic room. There’s no unusual reports of anything except that Boston deal, and that’s just some shaking ground halfway across the continent. No weather systems are moving in, and the eclipse was weeks ago. Seriously, nothing’s happening.”

Buffy looked around. “Well …”

“We’ve got cake, and snacks, and this punch stuff that Faith spiked, and another bowl of punch for the underage people.”

A chorus of dismayed “Ahhh’s” rolled past.

“No disasters, no attacks, no apocalypses. We’ve got it handled, I promise.”

“Well.” Finally, Buffy relaxed—a little. “Thanks, Wil. Thanks, everyone, I really appreciate it. Now, show me to that punch!”

There was a general surge toward the snack table, just as Xander’s phone buzzed. He glanced down at it, and felt the blood drain from his face. No way. No frakking way.

He was still trying to figure out how to break it to them when Andrew entered on a dead run, so fast he had to grab the door jamb to keep from rocketing into the nearest furniture. No one noticed at first, except for a few nearest him and another few, including Dawn and Giles, who simply braced themselves.

Andrew gathered a lungful of air.

Godzilla’s attacking Boston!

Silence followed. Then Willow said, “That’s not funny, Andrew.”

Apparently having anticipated this reaction, Andrew aimed a remote at the big TV on one end of the room, then tuned to the news.

Godzilla was attacking Boston.

Xander held up his phone. “Um, Tara just texted … she says they’ll need some backup. He headed toward the door. “I’ll help Jason get the weapons around.”

Dawn was right behind him. “I’ll wake up Botty.”

“But …” Shaking her head, Willow turned away. “I’ll unseal the magic room.”

“Wil?”

At Buffy’s voice, Xander looked back. The Slayer had rested her hand on Willow’s shoulder. “It really was a nice thought.”

Willow gave a weak smile.

“But next time … let’s just make it a regular work day, okay? That way there’ll be less work.”


Speak of the Devil: The Murder Of A Law Abiding Witch

Speak of the Devil: The Murder Of A Law Abiding Witch: I have an image blog today. Enjoy!

Great Fires Aren't Good

The actual theme of Fire Prevention Week for 2017 is Every Second Counts, Plan Two Ways Out. This is excellent advice, and you can find out more about it here:  http://www.nfpa.org/public-education/campaigns/fire-prevention-week-2

However, I didn't plan two ways out, or even one way in, so I had nothing for Fire Prevention Week this year. Instead this is from the "Best of Slightly Off the Mark", which is a little silly because no newspaper is running Slightly Off the Mark at the moment. What isn't silly is fire prevention, which, you might be surprised to learn, is what Fire Prevention Week is about.




SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
            The National Fire Prevention Association would like to point out that, if your smoke detector is not working, it won’t work.
            Sure, it seems obvious. But it’s also obvious that if sprinkler systems aren’t installed they don’t put out fires, safety belts that don’t get used aren’t safe, and people who stay in Washington, D.C. turn into blithering idiots. And yet we defeat sprinkler laws, don’t belt up, and reelect blithering idiots, so sometimes the obvious needs saying.
            This is why we have Fire Prevention Week, which is a week during which we try to stress preventing fires. Fire Prevention Week is always nearest October 9th. That’s the historical date of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which took place in 1871, was indeed in Chicago, but really wasn’t all that great.
            “Great” is a term used for fires that get so out of control that they get weeks named after them. The NFPA has devoted itself to keeping fires from turning great, and the best way to do that is to keep them from getting out of control. It’s counterintuitive, but they would not then be called “good”.
            More important is to keep people from getting killed in a fire, which is the job of smoke alarms, which are just like smoke detectors except with fewer syllables. A working smoke alarm cuts the risk of dying in a fire in half. You don’t have to be Captain Obvious to see the value of that.
            Here’s the fun part, though, and by “fun” I mean “tragic”: When talking smoke alarms, you always have to stick in the word “working”. In 23% of home fire deaths, there were smoke alarms—but they didn’t work. Why? Sometimes they were old or damaged, but usually the batteries were dead or missing.
            “Honey, the batteries in the camera are dead.”
            “I’ll just take some out of the smoke detector. Don’t worry, I’ll remember to put them back.”
            Sure you will. Stop at the dollar store and get more for the camera, you schmuck.
            But even if the batteries stay in, there’s no guarantee they’re working. Batteries go dead from time to time, and dead batteries lead to dead people.
            Thus the idea of changing them twice a year, when Daylight Savings Time comes and goes. Whine all you want about springing forward and falling back (and you will … you will), but it’s a great reminder to put in a good set of working batteries. If the old ones are still good and you’re particularly cheap, put those in your digital camera. Sure, there’s a chance they’ll go dead and you’ll miss catching that UFO hovering over your house ... but the little green men are going to steal your camera and make all the photos blurry anyway, so why bother?
            In between changes, you should test your smoke alarm batteries every month. This is about the same rate at which a major celebrity gets arrested. If you’re really paranoid you can check them every few days, at the rate a minor celebrity gets arrested.
            If the smoke alarm is more than ten years old, replace it. If you can’t remember how old it is, replace it. If you can’t remember how old you are, have someone else replace it. And yes, if it doesn’t work when you test it, replace it. Thank you, Captain Obvious.
            There was a time when experts recommended installing a smoke alarm on each level of the home and outside each sleeping area. They now say to install one inside each bedroom, in addition to the others. By my estimation that would mean five smoke alarms in my house. If you count every room my dog sleeps in, that would mean nine smoke alarms, or more if you count each spot as a separate bedroom.
            That may seem like a lot, but I’ve long had a suspicion that my dog smokes when we’re asleep. Have you ever seen hairballs burn? Not pretty.
            Can’t afford a smoke alarm? Yes you can. You, put down that beer. You, put down that cigarette. You, put down that game controller. And you, put down that—oh, man. Dude, close your curtains! I can’t unsee that.
            Yes, you can scrape up the money to save your life. I did a quick internet search, and found smoke alarms for sale ranging from twenty to less than five dollars. I wouldn’t necessarily go for the cheapest ones, but you can cover your entire home for less than the cost of that 32 inch flat screen TV you want to mount in your bathroom.
            On a related note, you do not need a flat screen TV in your bathroom. We’ll talk electrical safety in a future column.
           
 (Oh, and remember that sales of our book, Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century or So With the Albion Fire Department, go to the fire department's operational fund.)

Columbus, the Gilligan of Explorers



Today is Columbus Day, when we celebrate the first European explorers to discover the Americas, which they weren’t, when Christopher Columbus landed on our continent, which he didn’t.

Still, Columbus thought October 12, 1492, was worth celebrating. After all, he’d badly miscalculated the size of the word, figuring he’d have to sail about 2,300 miles to reach the East Indies. It was actually 12,200 miles from the Canary Islands to Japan. I’m not sure anyone even consulted the Japanese on the idea, let along the Canaries.

Luckily for Columbus’ dwindling food supply, he bumped into a continent that nobody even knew was there. He spent his whole time there assuming he was in Asia after being the first to sight land—which he didn’t. A guy named Rodrigo de Triana was the first to actually see some little palm tree in the Bahamas.

After one of his ships ran aground he established the first Age of Discovery colony in the New World, but the men he left behind argued over gold and internet usage, and the town failed. Meanwhile Columbus headed back with some kidnapped locals, and introduced Europe to tobacco.

If you think about it, he was kind of a lousy explorer. If he'd made it to the Pacific, he'd have ended up stranded on Gilligan's Island.

I mean, Cuba looks nothing like China. Come on.

But at least that got Columbus the job of Governor of the Indies, where he gained the nickname “The Tyrant of the Caribbean”, soon to be a major motion picture from Disney.

All of this led to the Aztecs and Incas being wiped out, pandemics in both the Americas, yadayada, Pilgrims, American Revolution, treaties broken, Trail of Tears, casinos.

I’m summarizing a bit.

Now, my wife is not a fan of Christopher Columbus. I suspect she thinks Columbus’ direct descendent was Andrew Jackson—see above about the Trail of Tears. Emily’s a descendent of the AniyvwiyaÊ”i, which is what we’d call the Cherokee Indians if we weren’t too lazy to spell it.

My Cherokee ancestors lived up in the Appalachian Mountains and got something of a pass, pardon the pun, from forced relocation. Emily’s ancestors walked hundreds of miles, and those who survived ended up in snowstorm earthquake territory, instead of the much more pleasant southeastern hurricane zone they’d enjoyed before.

All because of Christopher Columbus.

You can see why some areas now celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day on this day, which is actually that day, because getting a Monday off is way more important than marking an actual date. Personally I’m in favor of renaming it Explorer’s Day, or Discoverer’s Day, or some such. Columbus did make important voyages, after all, even if he was a dick; and it would be a way to learn about all the explorers from all over. Remembering the past, instead of hiding it.

We are a race of explorers, after all, and as a people we tend to crave discovery. To the bottom of the ocean to the ends of space, we need to keep exploring.

For the sake of little green men, hopefully in the future we’ll be nicer about it.