Fixing Rural Internet: Received OTR Mobile Hardware

 I received my Netgear hotspot device from OTR Mobile earlier today. My CenturyLink service is still running at 843Kbps, about half of what I’m supposed to get (paying for 1.5Mbps, or 1500Kbps.) I opened the box for the Netgear Nighthawk LTE device and it already had the SIM card installed. Even though it was a […]

Solving Poor Internet Access for Rural Areas

 Like many folks who live in the middle of nowhere, I was stuck with limited options for broadband Internet access. In this case, “limited” meant none at all based on the FTC’s definition of 25Mbps. I could go with satellite access, which was expensive, exceptionally buggy, and has customer service ratings that rival Comcast in […]

Guy Goes to the Races

Thanks to the Skip Barber Racing School and VetTix, I had the chance to ride along with a race car driver around Gateway Motorsports Park in St. Louis, Missouri. It was a combination of tight turns similar to Formula 1 events plus the long straightaways and high-banked turns of a NASCAR race. I recorded the […]

World Building Tools for Authors and Game Masters

 Science fiction and fantasy rely heavily on placing the reader in a world that envelopes them like a warm blanket. That blanket might be a comforting hug from Hermione or the backblast of covering fire from a Gauss gun. It’s the responsibility of the author to craft a world that follows its own rules and […]

Master of Fine Arts

 This Saturday, December 15, 2018, I get to walk across the stage to receive my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. It’s been an interesting journey, and not where I thought I’d be after a 35 year career in the technology, avionics, and IT fields. Just goes to show that you’re never too old […]

About the Fictorians

 The Fictorians, a writer-centric blog that was publishing material of interest to authors every weekday, has been in a bit of a holding pattern until January 2019. They’re looking for established authors who have attended Superstars Writing Seminars to join and participate with a blog post every four to six weeks. There are only a […]

2018 Scribe Awards Results

 On Friday, July 20, 2018, the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers (iamtw.org) announced the winners of the Scribe Awards, the professional organization’s annual “best of” list at San Diego Comic-Con. A novel I co-wrote with Peter Wacks and Josh Vogt, Solar Singularity, was a finalist in the Original Speculative Fiction category. Alas, we didn’t win […]

Angels & Heroes Comicon

 The inaugural Angels & Heroes Comicon took place on April 28, 2018 in Greenbrier, Arkansas. I was their Author Guest and Tonya was a featured cosplayer and author. They have one of the best taglines for a charity-based con: I fight cancer. What’s your superpower? The charity had many events lined up during Cosplay Con […]

Review: Fullmetal Alchemist (Live-Action Movie)

 Fullmetal Alchemist, the Netflix flick. Quick reaction and some minorish spoilerish items ahoy:   Nowhere near as good as the original or Brotherhood, but that’s to be expected when squishing an anime from 50+ episodes down to a ~2hr movie. Folks who are not familiar with the anime will probably think it’s fine, but there’s […]

WhimsyCon 2018

 Updated schedule for WhimsyCon on March 2-4. Should be a lot of fun and I hope to see you there in Denver, Colorado! Creativity Roundtable Fri Mar 2 8:00:pm – 8:50:pm What drives creative people, inspires us, keeps us going when the muse has gone out for pizza and left us sitting at our desks…alone…in […]