Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tornadoes!!!
Spring always brings a wild array of weather...and this year is no different! This past week, Tennessee, along with Alabama, Kentucky, and several other states, were hit hard by spring tornadoes. Spring Hill dodged most of the damage, but other areas were not near as lucky. One community, Murfreesboro, suffered major damage, including two fatalities and many serious injuries. The clean-up effort has been non-stop since the storms passed, and it is amazing to see the community come together to help each other in such a hard time. However, these efforts are not only local. Volunteer crews have come from all over the state of Tennessee, and some from out of state, to help with the clean up and to provide shelter for the many families who were effected by these storms. This a true sign of humbleness and caring during a time when our world is in much turmoil. There is always hope!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Hello From Eastern TN
It is now the middle of April and it seems that spring refuses to show itself in Eastern Tennessee, USA. We have had rainy cold days all during the month of March and now it continues into April. I just know soon the sun will come out and it will finally warm up.
The good news is the cool weather has allowed me to stay indoors and work on "The Book Project" along with all of the other authors from around the world. I have enjoyed this project more than anyone can imagine. I have met the most wonderful people that have such great talent, and it has been a pleasure to get to know these other writers.
As the work progress and "The Book" comes along chapter by chapter it is amazing to get to know others from around the world. I get a glimpse of how people live from different walks of life, something I would never get to see if I hadn't joined this most awesome venture.
Thanks Pete, for letting me be part of this group!
And a BIG thanks to everyone else for allowing me into your daily lives!
Carla
The good news is the cool weather has allowed me to stay indoors and work on "The Book Project" along with all of the other authors from around the world. I have enjoyed this project more than anyone can imagine. I have met the most wonderful people that have such great talent, and it has been a pleasure to get to know these other writers.
As the work progress and "The Book" comes along chapter by chapter it is amazing to get to know others from around the world. I get a glimpse of how people live from different walks of life, something I would never get to see if I hadn't joined this most awesome venture.
Thanks Pete, for letting me be part of this group!
And a BIG thanks to everyone else for allowing me into your daily lives!
Carla
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Readers Circle and some Departures
Across the world, reading groups or 'circles' regularly meet to discuss literature and agree upon a book to read and debate.
Well we decided our book would benefit from the critical reviews of such a group but unfortunately it's still very much 'under wraps'. So we have formed our own circle comprising members of our project team to critique The Book.
By adopting a 50,000 feet detachment from the story, our readers will act out the role of customers who've purchased The Book and meet up to discuss its merits.
This week has sadly seen a number of writers forced to leave due to overwhelming issues that have, or will, prevent them from contributing. We say goodbye to Tim, Roy, Danni and Guat Choo and offer our gratitude for all the effort they've put in.
Undeterred our work goes on with the same or more resolve to complete The Book on schedule.
Nobody said it would be easy!
Pete
Well we decided our book would benefit from the critical reviews of such a group but unfortunately it's still very much 'under wraps'. So we have formed our own circle comprising members of our project team to critique The Book.
By adopting a 50,000 feet detachment from the story, our readers will act out the role of customers who've purchased The Book and meet up to discuss its merits.
This week has sadly seen a number of writers forced to leave due to overwhelming issues that have, or will, prevent them from contributing. We say goodbye to Tim, Roy, Danni and Guat Choo and offer our gratitude for all the effort they've put in.
Undeterred our work goes on with the same or more resolve to complete The Book on schedule.
Nobody said it would be easy!
Pete
Friday, March 20, 2009
Some interesting stats from our project!
Would you believe that in the seven months (yes, just seven months!) since we first started this project a staggering 76,731 page views have taken place in the forum alone. Unlike open websites every one has been about our project!
There have been a total of 4,301 posts in 221 topics and, on average, 360 page views take place every day.
It might also surprise you to know that an average of 20 posts take place every day.
The one interesting stat I don't have at hand is how many hours in total have been spent online working on The Book, but I can reveal that just under 1,000 hours (933) have been dedicated by the top ten contributors alone! That's the equivalent 25 full-time working weeks so far.
And this is just the Forum so work offline researching, writing, editing or in the Wikis isn't included in these numbers!
What a truly splendid effort and little wonder that such a brilliant manuscript is being created.
Just another 8 1/2 months to go!
Pete
There have been a total of 4,301 posts in 221 topics and, on average, 360 page views take place every day.
It might also surprise you to know that an average of 20 posts take place every day.
The one interesting stat I don't have at hand is how many hours in total have been spent online working on The Book, but I can reveal that just under 1,000 hours (933) have been dedicated by the top ten contributors alone! That's the equivalent 25 full-time working weeks so far.
And this is just the Forum so work offline researching, writing, editing or in the Wikis isn't included in these numbers!
What a truly splendid effort and little wonder that such a brilliant manuscript is being created.
Just another 8 1/2 months to go!
Pete
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Springtime in Alaska and its 40 below
For our followers enjoyment, I want to point out two yearly winter events in Alaska that test the mettle of man and machine and man and dog. Man is used here as a generic term for human. I’m not aware of any women winning the Iron Dog; but two women are famous, at least in Alaska, for their Iditarod Sled Dog race wins – Libby Riddles won in 1985 crossing the Bearing Straits into Nome in a blizzard other mushers chose to sit out and Susan Butcher followed Libby with four straight wins.
The first major winter event is the Tesoro Iron Dog, originally known as the Iron Dog Iditarod, an off-road snowmobile race across Alaska. It normally starts on a Sunday in mid-February and, at 1,971 miles (3,172 km), it is the longest snowmobile race in the world. The 2008 event featured a record forty teams competing for a $100,000 purse, with $25,000 awarded to the winners and attracted worldwide attention when 4-time winner Todd Palin's wife, Sarah, campaigned for vice presidency of the United States.
The race route now follows parts of the Iditarod Trail, the route of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. It starts at Big Lake and follows the main trail and its connecting trails until it hits the Yukon River at Ruby. It follows the river to Kaltag before it heads to the Norton Sound on the Bering Sea at Unalakleet, Alaska and it follows the coast until Nome. Then it returns back along the same path in the reverse order to Ruby, where it diverges off its original path by following the Yukon River and its tributary the Tanana River until the competitors finish in Fairbanks. The current course record of 37 hours, 19 minutes is held by the winners of the 2009 Tesoro Iron Dog; Todd Minnick and Nick Olstad.
Races are typically run in temperatures well below freezing, and -20°F (-30°C) to -50°F (-45°C) air temperatures are common without taking wind chill into effect. Some drivers apply duct tape to their faces to protect against frostbite. The machines are equipped with tall windshields for protection from the cold.
Drivers compete in two-driver, two-sled teams for their safety since they travel through remote areas of Alaska and teams are required to take three six-hour breaks between Nome and Tanana. They also take a 42-hour break in Nome to recuperate before they start making their return. Sleds are impounded during the break, ensuring that they rest since they are not able to work on their sleds. The race never had a fatality in its first 25 years, although there have been close calls.
In the 2009 race, Todd Palin, Alaska’s First Dude, sustained an accident that left his machine’s skis bent perpendicular to each other following impact with a barrel hidden under fresh snow. The snowmachine immediately stopped but Todd flew about 70 feet, probably saved from serious injury due to the race requirement for body armor to be worn.
As originally published in the Fairbanks News Miner on February 14, 2009, "Riding a pair of Polaris Dragons, Minnick, 29, and Nick Olstad, 23, held on to win the Iron Dog in record time, edging the Ski-Doo team of Aklestad and Tyson Johnson by just 3 minutes, 18 seconds.
Their time of 37 hours, 19 minutes and 8 seconds across the 1,971-mile trail shattered the previous course record of 38:07:57."
They also edged out Arctic Cat riders who had won the race since 2001.
Next, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race had its ceremonial start this year on Saturday, March 7, 2009, in Anchorage, Alaska, with mushers and their dogs going on short runs through the city.
The grueling 1,150-mile trek to Nome begins in earnest on Sunday with 67 mushers and more than 1,000 dogs competing, but controversy is already mounting.
The recession has hit the famous race, with entrance fees rising as the purse declines to $610,000 from $935,000 last year. Fewer mushers are competing this year, with some saying the expense of training in tough economic times caused them to sit out.
Two-time champion Lance Mackey is vying to win his third consecutive race. Only two others have achieved such a feat. (Lance lives with "a dozen non-competing canines -- chihuahuas, Jack Russell terriers and pomeranians," according to an article in USA Today.)
Animal rights groups such as PETA protest the Iditarod, saying it's "marked by cruelty, injuries, and death." This year PETA is mounting a campaign to urge sponsors to withdraw support from the event. The Humane Society of the United States takes a different view. The group doesn't object to competitive mushing so long as the welfare of the dogs is not endangered but opposes the Iditarod in its current form. Three dogs died in the race last year.
What would the dogs say if they could talk? I think the Iditarod would be on the bucket list of any mushing husky. These dogs train year-round for the competition. They are athletes of the highest nature and they live and breathe to race. That is evident from the canine excitement of yipping and tugging at their harnesses as the teams move into the chute to start the race on 4th Avenue in downtown Anchorage. Many humans participate in team handling to keep the excited canines in check and I would venture to say these dogs are more pampered than my own German Shepherd house mates.
During the fall preparation for this race, dog booties, the tough cloth boots that protect the dogs' feet on long runs and in races, are either ordered from one of a handful of companies, or they are sewn. Dog coats and wrist wraps are also prepared.
Each musher also calculates his/her own dog food diet but most feed a premium power-packed dog food with added options of lamb trimmings, poultry skins, hamburger, moose or salmon steaks, occasionally corn oil, and for some, seal oil or mink mixture, in addition to vitamin, mineral, and probiotic supplements. The musher aims for a food that is about 2500 calories per pound. Water is important too, and although the food is usually fed frozen and raw, snow may be melted for making a stew.
High performance snacks for the dogs are carried on the sled, but it’s not possible to carry two weeks worth of food for 16 huskies. Mushers must prepare the food a couple of weeks ahead of time, in pre-measured bags, and send it out to the eighteen checkpoints set up along the Iditarod trail.
These wiry little canine athletes can work up enormous appetites while averaging more than a hundred miles a day in front of a sled, in subzero temperatures, but tasty nutrition will be waiting for them at each rest stop.
The beginning of this race, in 1967, was to highlight the courage and endurance of the dog mushers and their teams who raced against time to bring serum to Nome during catastrophic diphtheria outbreak in December 1924. The sickness was initially diagnosed as tonsillitis in a two-year-old Nome boy, with several deaths occurring prior to the diagnosis of diphtheria and the discovery that the serum in Nome was outdated. Nome was quarantined and U.S. Public Health Service started a search for the needed vaccine and a way to get it to Nome. The only planes available were open cockpit biplanes whose pilots were not in Alaska at the time and, with temperatures driven to -85 degrees F (-65 C), several dog teams and their drivers undertook the trip to Nome with the life saving serum. The musher who arrived in Nome, with exhaustion and frostbite himself, was Gunnar Kaasen with his lead dog, Balto (now of Disney fame), who led the team through blowing snow so bad Gunnar could barely see the wheel dogs closest to the sled.
There are web sites that follow this trek from checkpoint to checkpoint and the winners for this year's race should be in Nome about March 16.
Glenda
The first major winter event is the Tesoro Iron Dog, originally known as the Iron Dog Iditarod, an off-road snowmobile race across Alaska. It normally starts on a Sunday in mid-February and, at 1,971 miles (3,172 km), it is the longest snowmobile race in the world. The 2008 event featured a record forty teams competing for a $100,000 purse, with $25,000 awarded to the winners and attracted worldwide attention when 4-time winner Todd Palin's wife, Sarah, campaigned for vice presidency of the United States.
The race route now follows parts of the Iditarod Trail, the route of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. It starts at Big Lake and follows the main trail and its connecting trails until it hits the Yukon River at Ruby. It follows the river to Kaltag before it heads to the Norton Sound on the Bering Sea at Unalakleet, Alaska and it follows the coast until Nome. Then it returns back along the same path in the reverse order to Ruby, where it diverges off its original path by following the Yukon River and its tributary the Tanana River until the competitors finish in Fairbanks. The current course record of 37 hours, 19 minutes is held by the winners of the 2009 Tesoro Iron Dog; Todd Minnick and Nick Olstad.
Races are typically run in temperatures well below freezing, and -20°F (-30°C) to -50°F (-45°C) air temperatures are common without taking wind chill into effect. Some drivers apply duct tape to their faces to protect against frostbite. The machines are equipped with tall windshields for protection from the cold.
Drivers compete in two-driver, two-sled teams for their safety since they travel through remote areas of Alaska and teams are required to take three six-hour breaks between Nome and Tanana. They also take a 42-hour break in Nome to recuperate before they start making their return. Sleds are impounded during the break, ensuring that they rest since they are not able to work on their sleds. The race never had a fatality in its first 25 years, although there have been close calls.
In the 2009 race, Todd Palin, Alaska’s First Dude, sustained an accident that left his machine’s skis bent perpendicular to each other following impact with a barrel hidden under fresh snow. The snowmachine immediately stopped but Todd flew about 70 feet, probably saved from serious injury due to the race requirement for body armor to be worn.
As originally published in the Fairbanks News Miner on February 14, 2009, "Riding a pair of Polaris Dragons, Minnick, 29, and Nick Olstad, 23, held on to win the Iron Dog in record time, edging the Ski-Doo team of Aklestad and Tyson Johnson by just 3 minutes, 18 seconds.
Their time of 37 hours, 19 minutes and 8 seconds across the 1,971-mile trail shattered the previous course record of 38:07:57."
They also edged out Arctic Cat riders who had won the race since 2001.
Next, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race had its ceremonial start this year on Saturday, March 7, 2009, in Anchorage, Alaska, with mushers and their dogs going on short runs through the city.
The grueling 1,150-mile trek to Nome begins in earnest on Sunday with 67 mushers and more than 1,000 dogs competing, but controversy is already mounting.
The recession has hit the famous race, with entrance fees rising as the purse declines to $610,000 from $935,000 last year. Fewer mushers are competing this year, with some saying the expense of training in tough economic times caused them to sit out.
Two-time champion Lance Mackey is vying to win his third consecutive race. Only two others have achieved such a feat. (Lance lives with "a dozen non-competing canines -- chihuahuas, Jack Russell terriers and pomeranians," according to an article in USA Today.)
Animal rights groups such as PETA protest the Iditarod, saying it's "marked by cruelty, injuries, and death." This year PETA is mounting a campaign to urge sponsors to withdraw support from the event. The Humane Society of the United States takes a different view. The group doesn't object to competitive mushing so long as the welfare of the dogs is not endangered but opposes the Iditarod in its current form. Three dogs died in the race last year.
What would the dogs say if they could talk? I think the Iditarod would be on the bucket list of any mushing husky. These dogs train year-round for the competition. They are athletes of the highest nature and they live and breathe to race. That is evident from the canine excitement of yipping and tugging at their harnesses as the teams move into the chute to start the race on 4th Avenue in downtown Anchorage. Many humans participate in team handling to keep the excited canines in check and I would venture to say these dogs are more pampered than my own German Shepherd house mates.
During the fall preparation for this race, dog booties, the tough cloth boots that protect the dogs' feet on long runs and in races, are either ordered from one of a handful of companies, or they are sewn. Dog coats and wrist wraps are also prepared.
Each musher also calculates his/her own dog food diet but most feed a premium power-packed dog food with added options of lamb trimmings, poultry skins, hamburger, moose or salmon steaks, occasionally corn oil, and for some, seal oil or mink mixture, in addition to vitamin, mineral, and probiotic supplements. The musher aims for a food that is about 2500 calories per pound. Water is important too, and although the food is usually fed frozen and raw, snow may be melted for making a stew.
High performance snacks for the dogs are carried on the sled, but it’s not possible to carry two weeks worth of food for 16 huskies. Mushers must prepare the food a couple of weeks ahead of time, in pre-measured bags, and send it out to the eighteen checkpoints set up along the Iditarod trail.
These wiry little canine athletes can work up enormous appetites while averaging more than a hundred miles a day in front of a sled, in subzero temperatures, but tasty nutrition will be waiting for them at each rest stop.
The beginning of this race, in 1967, was to highlight the courage and endurance of the dog mushers and their teams who raced against time to bring serum to Nome during catastrophic diphtheria outbreak in December 1924. The sickness was initially diagnosed as tonsillitis in a two-year-old Nome boy, with several deaths occurring prior to the diagnosis of diphtheria and the discovery that the serum in Nome was outdated. Nome was quarantined and U.S. Public Health Service started a search for the needed vaccine and a way to get it to Nome. The only planes available were open cockpit biplanes whose pilots were not in Alaska at the time and, with temperatures driven to -85 degrees F (-65 C), several dog teams and their drivers undertook the trip to Nome with the life saving serum. The musher who arrived in Nome, with exhaustion and frostbite himself, was Gunnar Kaasen with his lead dog, Balto (now of Disney fame), who led the team through blowing snow so bad Gunnar could barely see the wheel dogs closest to the sled.
There are web sites that follow this trek from checkpoint to checkpoint and the winners for this year's race should be in Nome about March 16.
Glenda
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Spring in Guernsey
In the tiny corner of this wonderful planet where I live, Spring is just around the corner and with it comes renewed optimism. The season when things really start to grow and our book is no exception.
February saw the most significant progress yet on our novel as all the writing team are gelling and working around the clock. The chapters are coming together and during March a lot more than green shoots will be sprouting in our literary garden.
The past weeks have not been without challenges however and it would be wrong to gloss over some of the huge personal issues our writing team have also had to deal with. One of our writers from Penang in Malaysia lost her father only weeks after her son passed away and another writer from Canada is bravely fighting cancer. In Colorado, a writer's mum has also been diagnosed with cancer. We were relieved to learn that Australia's bush fires kept clear of our writers 'down under' and so far no eruption of Mount Redoubt in Alaska, although it still threatens our writer there and the repeated earthquakes must be a constant source of anxiety.
This is a team of strong as well as talented individuals who are putting extraordinary energy into this book. It will be a classic novel!
Pete
February saw the most significant progress yet on our novel as all the writing team are gelling and working around the clock. The chapters are coming together and during March a lot more than green shoots will be sprouting in our literary garden.
The past weeks have not been without challenges however and it would be wrong to gloss over some of the huge personal issues our writing team have also had to deal with. One of our writers from Penang in Malaysia lost her father only weeks after her son passed away and another writer from Canada is bravely fighting cancer. In Colorado, a writer's mum has also been diagnosed with cancer. We were relieved to learn that Australia's bush fires kept clear of our writers 'down under' and so far no eruption of Mount Redoubt in Alaska, although it still threatens our writer there and the repeated earthquakes must be a constant source of anxiety.
This is a team of strong as well as talented individuals who are putting extraordinary energy into this book. It will be a classic novel!
Pete
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Novel Writing Via The Scientific Method
In the past, I've often considered that I would enjoy writing. However, I've been encouraged to write about what I know well and thought to myself that what I know well would probably not make it past an agent to a publisher. The Book Project, so far, has required me to get outside the metaphorical box I've become quite comfortable in over the last few years.
It was mentioned during our planning that we could have different official aspects to our writing group, particularly if we felt more comfortable or productive that way. As each group needed to plan, research, write, and edit -- we could segregate that draft work but finish with a collaborative writing. First, I thought about research as a considerable amount of my day is spent doing just that and I'm good at research. Interestingly, my group took a little different slant and we are all participating, collaborating, writing, and critiquing contributions to our final collaboration.
In performing this collaborative exercise in writing, I'm learning that my B.S. (um, that's Bachelor of Science -- not the other B.S.) provides a good background for this work. I'm actually utilizing what I learned in the labs and I take an idea, form the hypothesis, perform the research, analyze those results, put it into a written form, and post it on the The Book forum for peer review. So far, I think I'm doing okay writing in venues I only "know" through research; although, for me, this requires many more hours devoted to the research than to the writing.
At present, we are barely toddlers in this collaborative novel and my gypsy soul is rekindled. The plan, 10 years ago, was to retire in 2011 and let the travel begin. In 2005, that plan was altered by the universe and ambiguity became my control for life's experiment. After researching two fascinating places extensively, in order to write about them in a manner I intend will pass peer review and critique, as well as intrigue our first readers in 2010, I have learned my desire to visit other parts of the world is still alive and well. That gypsy desire has simply been out of sight and out of mind, banished to my own Pandora's box of things I refuse to think about and the lid tightly in place.
I think I will purchase a new science journal to record the hypothesis, research, trials, and results as I explore and blog through The Book journey in 2009. When our collaborative novel is complete, my written journal might then serve the purpose any good experiment journal does and allow the same method to be repeated. Usually the science journal allows others to replicate the experiment and return the same results. Feeling confident The Book will be extraordinary, self-replication through articles or blogging by actually traveling to these fascinating sites could be a great way to support the hypothesis an author is capable of fascinating writing on topics she does not know well.
It was mentioned during our planning that we could have different official aspects to our writing group, particularly if we felt more comfortable or productive that way. As each group needed to plan, research, write, and edit -- we could segregate that draft work but finish with a collaborative writing. First, I thought about research as a considerable amount of my day is spent doing just that and I'm good at research. Interestingly, my group took a little different slant and we are all participating, collaborating, writing, and critiquing contributions to our final collaboration.
In performing this collaborative exercise in writing, I'm learning that my B.S. (um, that's Bachelor of Science -- not the other B.S.) provides a good background for this work. I'm actually utilizing what I learned in the labs and I take an idea, form the hypothesis, perform the research, analyze those results, put it into a written form, and post it on the The Book forum for peer review. So far, I think I'm doing okay writing in venues I only "know" through research; although, for me, this requires many more hours devoted to the research than to the writing.
At present, we are barely toddlers in this collaborative novel and my gypsy soul is rekindled. The plan, 10 years ago, was to retire in 2011 and let the travel begin. In 2005, that plan was altered by the universe and ambiguity became my control for life's experiment. After researching two fascinating places extensively, in order to write about them in a manner I intend will pass peer review and critique, as well as intrigue our first readers in 2010, I have learned my desire to visit other parts of the world is still alive and well. That gypsy desire has simply been out of sight and out of mind, banished to my own Pandora's box of things I refuse to think about and the lid tightly in place.
I think I will purchase a new science journal to record the hypothesis, research, trials, and results as I explore and blog through The Book journey in 2009. When our collaborative novel is complete, my written journal might then serve the purpose any good experiment journal does and allow the same method to be repeated. Usually the science journal allows others to replicate the experiment and return the same results. Feeling confident The Book will be extraordinary, self-replication through articles or blogging by actually traveling to these fascinating sites could be a great way to support the hypothesis an author is capable of fascinating writing on topics she does not know well.
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