Jeffrey A. Carver

1 Jul 2016

Crowned with a Porcelain Crown

posted in: dentistry, marvels, personal news, technology | 0

Yesterday I had a tooth crowned, and it was like stepping into the future. I have a bunch of gold crowns already, because in years past, gold crowns were cheaper and more durable than porcelain. Well, those days are gone. So is the month-long wait for the crown to be made, while you hope the temporary doesn’t come off—or if it does, that you don’t swallow it or choke on it.

Also gone are the rubbery molds used to take an impression for casting. This time, the good folks at Belmont Dental took a digital scan of my teeth, before and after grinding away the old tooth. Then, using a graphics program on the computer, they generated a 3D representation of the new crown over what was left of the old tooth. This picture shows the final image; the white “tooth” is the proposed crown.

And this is where things get cool. Once the image is finalized, we take a walk down the hall to where the milling machine sits on a counter. It’s about the size of a big printer. The technician inserts a small, oblong block of ceramic material. And then the milling machine goes to town. It takes twelve minutes and thirty seconds for the little grinders to carve a perfect new crown from the computer image. Here it is at work:

And here is the result, before trying it on for size. The material is purple before it’s fired.

Test, bake, and glue. And that’s pretty much it. I didn’t even have time to do much reading in the waiting room. Two and half hours after walking into the dentist’s office, I walked out with the finished crown in my mouth. I like the future!

28 Jun 2016

Dumb Animals? How about this Birdbrain Dancer?

posted in: animal friends, quirky | 0

Have you ever tried to teach a dog to dance? In rhythm? I’ve tried with all of our dogs. Never mind their grace in running, jumping, and snatching food from the air. Dogs are hopeless when it comes to rhythm. But watch this cockatoo, who could put many an inebriated undergraduate to shame. Now and then he even breaks into double-time. And catch his aplomb in response to the applause at the end.

;

20 Jun 2016

Best Father’s Day Ever!

posted in: airplanes, family, Flying, personal news | 0

How about a ride in a restored Stearman biplane for Father’s Day? Now, that’s what I’m talking about.

The Collings Foundation is a national organization that restores and maintains historic aircraft and automobiles. One of their locations is west of Boston in Stow, Massachusetts. They have a hangar full of gorgeously restored airplanes and race cars, including early biplanes, a World War II Avenger, a race car once owned by Paul Newman, a Rolls Royce Phantom, and lots more. They only open to the public a few weekends a year, and Father’s Day weekend is one of them.

They also offer rides in a pair of Stearman biplanes, and a T-6 trainer, taking off and landing from a lovely grass airstrip behind the hangar. We arrived late, but not too late for Allysen to hustle me over to the table where they sold the biplane rides. Yes, I could still get a ride.

I actually hold a private pilot’s license, but it’s been many years since I’ve flown, owing to a discrepancy between the cost of flying and the family exchequer. But really—a chance to fly in an open cockpit and feel the wind on my face? Not to be missed! (Alas, due to a nonfunctional intercom between passenger and pilot, I did not get a chance to take the stick and rudder. I would have liked that.)

Allysen took what video she could from the ground, and I took what I could from the cockpit, fiercely holding onto my cellphone, lest it go flying on its own. This is what I culled from our efforts. Let me just say, it was fantastic. I have the best family in the world.

10 Jun 2016

Too Many Good People Gone

posted in: deaths, personal news, teachers, teaching | 2

This week I learned of the passing of not just one, but three former teachers. That sort of takes my breath away, and not in a good way. None of these deaths was really recent, but even in the days of the internet, it can take time for word to travel.

First, I heard from my brother Chuck, who read it in our high school alumni newsletter, that our old wrestling coach, Chris Ford, had passed away in January of this year. Coach Ford was, for me, the very model of what a good coach should be: encouraging, demanding, scrupulously sportsmanlike, respectful to his own team and opposing teams alike, and a builder of relationships in the wrestling community. I had the benefit of his coaching for just two years, before he left Huron (Ohio) High School to build a wrestling program from the ground up at Ashland College (now Ashland University). After creating at Ashland a nationally noteworthy wrestling program, he went on to do the same thing at Ohio State University, from which he retired in the mid-1980s. I still think of him as the youthful coach who led the high school team on which I wrestled.

I once wrote a science fiction short story about an intragalactic wrestling tournament, in which I depicted an annoying coach. Chris Ford was not the model for that coach, but he did set the standards against which that coach was contrasted. (The story was “Shapeshifter Finals,” and can be found in my story collection, Going Alien.)

Further down in that same alumni newsletter, I read that Coach Ford’s son, Brian, had died several months later. That just seems too cruel.

In the same damn newsletter, I learned that my high school Latin teacher, Marlene McKillip, had also passed away, at the age of 83. I did not have as close a relationship to her, but I do remember that she was stern, demanding, and fair. Veni, vidi, vici.

You’d think that would be enough for one newsletter. But no, down at the bottom, there’s an alumni membership signup form. And on the form are blanks where you can specify contributions to different scholarship funds. One of them is in the name of the teacher who probably influenced me more than any teacher in any school: Larry Zimmer. You don’t suppose, I thought. And I googled his name, to learn that he has been gone from this world for three years! I found this tribute, from another former student named Lesa, which says it as well as I could: “Larry Zimmer died on Thursday, and the world is a little less kind because of his loss.”

It was Larry Zimmer, Mr. Z, more than any other teacher, who encouraged me to write.

In my 1990 novel, Down the Stream of Stars, I had an AI holo-teacher for kids on a colony starship. The teacher was named Mr. Zizmer, or Mr. Z for short. I’m glad I was able to give him that tribute, but I wish I’d been home when he called to say how much he enjoyed it. He did not leave a return number. I was not very good at keeping up old connections in those days, and I never stayed in touch the way I wish I had. If wishes were horses…

1 Jun 2016

Seeing Backwards Better

posted in: family, fun with tech, Home repair, personal news | 0

My latest “spare time” project has been installing a rearview camera on my trusty Ford Ranger, a.k.a., the Landshark. When we were in Puerto Rico, our rental car had one, and we quickly came to wonder how we had gotten along without one all these years. The truck, especially with the cap over the back, has limited visibility when backing up, and I’m just grateful I’ve never backed over anyone, at least that I know of. On our return from PR, I did some research, and bought a kit with a camera for the back bumper, and a replacement rearview mirror that has an LCD screen hidden behind the mirror surface—a clever solution to the lack of any good place to put a screen on the dashboard.

The installation was, um, considerably more finicky than I had expected. And I’m used to doing things like patching new electronics into the fuse box, having already done that with a new stereo and subwoofer, a year or two ago. The lack of any instructions with the kit should have been a sign. But Crutchfield has a pretty good tech support department, and I muddled along, buying ancillary parts and tools along the way. I enlisted daughter Lexi to help with the splicing and soldering and wiring, and she got to crawl around under the truck, spitting out rust while stringing cable along the frame from the back of the truck to the cab. Hey, I’ve been there and done that stuff, and I didn’t need the experience! But that wasn’t the hardest part. No, the hardest part was aiming the little camera that came with no provision for adjusting the aim!

In the end, I got a camera that works, sort of, though not nearly as well as the factory-installed models. The little distance guidelines that you see in the view are weirdly and erratically inaccurate, for one thing. I called the manufacturer, and to their credit they are sending me a couple of alternate types of camera at no cost, so I can see if I can get better results from one of them. Stay tuned.

Here’s Lexi, helping me check the view in the camera. This is what you get when you hold a camera up to a rearview mirror, to take a picture of an LCD screen showing the image from a camera at the back of the truck, with the subject’s face about an inch from the camera lens. Don’t back up!

(Don’t worry; the engine wasn’t running.)

And here’s the idiot whose bright idea this was:

31 May 2016

Everything You Need to Know about My Dragon Rigger Sale

posted in: dragons, ebooks, specials, Star Rigger Universe, Uncategorized | 0

Really? Everything? Honestly, the answer is nothing. Nada. You don’t need to know that Dragon Rigger, one of my favorite books, which took me a couple of years to write, is just $.99 for a limited time only. You don’t need to know that it’s a sequel to Dragons in the Stars, and one of the most layered novels in my Star Rigger Universe. You don’t need to know that one reviewer on Amazon called it “The Best Book I’ve Ever Read!” and another reviewer called it “A masterfully written book,” and still another said, “I couldn’t put it down!” and indicated a desire to give it 7 stars on a 5-star scale.

But even if you don’t need to know that stuff, isn’t it kind of cool that you do? I admit it feels cool to me.

Speaking for my own feelings about the book, I really enjoyed delving into the dragons’ culture and their journeys through the “underrealm,” which is a layer of reality that underlies the already alternate reality of the Flux. I was emotionally exhausted by the time I finished writing it, which is good, because it meant I was emotionally invested in the dragons, Jael, and others. The ending was hard for me to write, because it hurt even though it was uplifting and redemptive at the same time. It’s a book I felt good about having written, like I’d done the universe a solid, creatively speaking. And it has a gorgeous map.

For the price of a candy bar, this tale of mythic adventure in a science fiction world can be yours. How far can you go wrong? But don’t wait too long!

Kindle | Nook | iBooks | Kobo | Google

20 May 2016

Plot Problem Solved!

posted in: animal friends, The Chaos Chronicles, The Reefs of Time, Uncategorized, writing | 5

Here used to be a picture of me after licking a thorny plot problem in the chapter tentatively titled “Chapter 29” in The Reefs of Time. This would be the chapter that, in the first draft, caused me to type, “I HAVE NO FRICKIN’ IDEA WHERE THIS IS GOING! FIX IT IN REWRITE!” and then move on. When the rewrite came around, the situation was not much improved. But this time, I didn’t think I could do the same thing, so I just kept pounding my head on it until it relented and gave up its secrets. So, this time I’ve solved it and moved on. Having solved it. I think. You never know about these things until you circle back on the next pass and see it all in the context of the whole story arc.

Have I mentioned that this is a long and complex book, with many threads, and it’s taking me a long time to (re)write it? Think Game of Thrones… but without the thrones, the kingdoms, the backstabbing murders, the dragons, the dark magic, etc. Actually, it’s nothing like The Game of Thrones, except for the length, complexity, and the time it’s taking me to finish it. But that’s not nothing.

15 May 2016

On Creativity

posted in: animal friends, creativity, writing | 3

I’ve been listening to a book on creativity and writing by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. The book is called Big Magic.

One line so delighted me that I had to stop the playback and transcribe it. Here it is:

“Possessing a creative mind… is something like having a border collie for a pet. It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do or else it will find a job to do—and you might not like the job it invents: eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc….

I firmly believe that we all need to find something to do in our lives that stops us from eating the couch.”

The book is a good listen, in the author’s own voice.

Here, you can listen to Ms. Gilbert talk about some of the same aspects of creativity in her TED Talk:

8 May 2016

Neptune Crossing to Be Narrated by Grammy Winner Stefan Rudnicki!

posted in: audiobook, audiobooks, awards, Book View Cafe, my books, The Chaos Chronicles | 2

Great news on the audiobook front! While many of my older books have been available in audiobook for some time, my most recent work has never been recorded in commercially available audio.

Well, we’re about to start changing that! Neptune Crossing is coming to audiobook, and with a vengeance. I’ve signed with Skyboat Media and Grammy Award-winner Stefan Rudnicki to both produce and narrate the book. In short, I’ve just signed with one of the premier audiobook producers in the business! I could not be happier.

I have long noted Stefan as one of the narrators I most enjoyed listening to as a consumer of audiobooks. (Audiobooks are how I get most of my reading done nowadays. Some people use them to while away long commutes. I use them to while away long dog walks. In fact, my most recent listen was to Zeroboxer, a wonderful young adult science fiction novel by Fonda Lee, narrated by Stefan.) I have long felt that if Audible or any other audiobook producer were to ask me who I would like to narrate any of my books—and no, they’ve never asked—Stefan’s name would have been right at the top.

My road to getting Neptune Crossing into audio has been a rocky one. Tor Books, the original print publisher, controlled the audio rights, but didn’t exercise them. A few years ago, I started trying to get just the audio rights back, but it was a slow slog; and when I finally got a complete rights reversion, it came just too late for a particular window of opportunity. That was pretty discouraging, and for a time, I didn’t do anything further. But when one door closes, another opens. When a colleague of mine at Book View Café mentioned that Stefan’s Skyboat Media was open to new material, I thought, “What have I got to lose?” I queried, and sent them an ebook to peruse. About a week later, Stefan made an offer for a production deal, with Blackstone Audio as partners—and because he liked the book so much, he wanted to narrate it himself!

I didn’t have to think long about that. I brought my agent in to handle the contracts, and a few weeks later, we were signed. Stefan tells me we’re aiming for a release date of September 6, in both CD and MP3 download from all the major audiobook vendors.

This will be an important trial. If sales go well, the hope is to continue with the other Chaos titles, and maybe Eternity’s End. So everybody, Please pull with me on this one! Spread the word! Neptune Crossing hits the airwaves on September 6! If you don’t listen to audiobooks yourself, you probably know someone who does. What a great gift! Or get your local library to order it! That’s the ticket!

Thanks in advance!

6 May 2016

Revenge of the Ponce Chronicles

posted in: adventures, personal news, Ponce Chronicles | 7

A couple of months ago, I wrote of our two-week trip to Puerto Rico, where we labored like lunatic worker bees to complete extensive repairs and renovations to the home in Ponce that was built by Allysen’s parents back around the era that I was completing my undergraduate education. That was a productive but exhausting trip, and we got a huge amount done, but were left with a lot still to do before we could rent the place. Well, we’ve just finished trip two, which was exhausting on a scale that made our January efforts look like a milk run.

This time Allysen went for a full month, taking a leave of absence from her job. Her brother Andrew came for a while, our daughter Jayce came for a while, and I came for the final two weeks. I will say, as far as the physical surroundings go, it was a lot more pleasant (even in mosquito season) than it had been before. The pool was sparkling, Allysen and Andrew had already scored some nice secondhand furniture, and the work crews were starting to feel like old family friends. But the pace, especially in the last week, was punishing. On trip one, my main job was chronicling the work and making endless runs to Home Depot. This time, I was a lot more hands-on with smaller repairs, plus I kept on making endless runs to Home Depot.

On the flight home, we scribbled down a list of all of our deeds so that we wouldn’t forget. Here’s a small sampler of what we and our contractors accomplished:

Built a new concrete retaining wall to hold up the parking area
Widened the brick-lined parking pad, for easier parking
Repaired the main entry gate
Installed new keyless entry locks and deadbolts
Bought and transported nice, second-hand furniture for living and dining rooms
Had new table tops made by our wood guy for dining and coffee tables
Bought a modest smart-TV and tested streaming Netflix on it with our cellphone mobile wifi (it worked!)
Met with the family lawyer and learned how wills work in P.R. (differently from in the states)
Upgraded the alarm system (with many visits from the alarm company) and trouble-shot false alarms
Cleaned out gross cupboards in paneled bedroom
Built new cabinets and cabinet walls in area behind kitchen and closed up the ceiling in that area, to keep out leaves, bugs, rain, and wandering animals
Bought a modest selection of hand and power tools and used every one of them
Sanded and painted stairway rails leading down from parking pad to deck, to pool
Spent many hours repairing the dishwasher, only to determine that it really was dead, Jim; also, learned that dishwashers aren’t that common in PR, and you can’t go to Home Depot or Sears and just buy one to take home with you—so, no dishwasher
Began the job of replacing all the windows
Made a serious dent in the island’s supply of rum, lime, and assorted other drinkables
Semi-befriended two lovely, pregnant stray kitties
Checked out a few recommended restaurants
Got up every frickin’ morning at 6 or 7 to open the gate for workers
Swam in the pool (twice, anyway)!

That’s maybe a quarter of the list. Really. For the most part, we were so busy that we forgot to take pictures! Which is a bummer. But here, in a lighter moment, I did catch Allysen and Andrew:

And here are Estevan and Carlos getting started on the new wall:

The revenge? I arrived home exhausted—and instead of having a nice rest, promptly got sick. I’ve been sick for most of the last week, and am only slowly returning to normal. That just doesn’t seem fair. But I am now recovered enough that I can say this with greater confidence: Please pass me some frozen margarita.

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Author Archives: Jeffrey A. Carver