DIY Satellite Platforms: Building a Space-Ready General Base PicoSatellite

It’s research for the novel, but if I had an extra $10k sitting around I would totally be building my own satellite.

Quote by Ping

Quote by Rumple_deWriter

Well, let me tell ya, it's like this, somehow managed to login and and am now trying to create a post -- only to face the reality that I have nothing to say. (sigh)

Bottom line is sometimes I can login to SS, but that's never, ever doable on Lush. I'm thinking about asking Nic if I can park what is now not working on SS and Lush and create new profiles even though the Lush/SS policy has always been one account only. That way, if the current snafu is cleared up, I can go back to my oldies but goodies.

If anybody has any thoughts about any of this, let me know like, anytime.

:glasses8:

You’ve earned the privilege to do whatever the heck you want. I suspect no one would accuse you of duplicitous behaviour had you openly created a double rump profile. Do what you’ve got to do. Your peeps miss you, but careful, their aim is improving. An oldie but a goodie, just like you.

Did anyone catch the amazing Aurora light show we northerners got via an explosive purge of solar nuclear matter? Two nights ago, Canada was mostly green skies. At night time, that’s good. If the sky is green during the day, that means Mister Tor Nado is considering an appearance. Been there four times. Unsettling.

Got snow the other morning. Melted fast. Been grumpy every since. Got to find a way to shuffle my three motorbikes; our four bicycles; tons o’ gardening, woodworking, & other tools, and two vehicles in our garage for the upcoming winter months. More grumpiness ensues.

I hope McDonald’s creates a McKraken meal for the newest NHL team in Seattle. And a mascot. Could call him, Phil McKraken. Just a thought.

Haven’t touched my demented entry for almost a week. Haven’t written anything more for the comp either. Whoa is me.

I’ve decided not to shave for a while. The kids are mocking me. I said good hygiene is for the unhygienic. They had to think about that one. So far, it’s a scattered and patchy mess. The longest whiskers are growing out my ears. I said I’ll let it all grow until my facial hair resembles something or I’ll shave it all off. To be continued…

Had my second facial surgery to remove what cancerous crap the derm missed the first time. Fingers crossed I don’t need to go again. If I do, he’s sending me to a surgeon who does the procedure with a microscope. Might be kind of cool to see, but I’d rather pass on that experience.

It’s October. Anyone seen Reggie Jackson?

Checking out the new Bond flick tomorrow. I’ll miss Daniel Craig. He was da Bond.

Dune looks awesome. I’ll take the boy. He’ll really enjoy it.

Oh. OH!!! The kids and I watched American Werewolf in London last night. My son couldn’t believe the lycanthropic transformation wasn’t CGI. I advised him we didn’t have personal computers, cell phones, or the internet then either. Well, very few did. The movie was campy goodness. Especially the Keystone Cop-type ‘disturbance near Piccadilly Circus’ at the end of the movie. Best five minutes of the show. We, wait for it, howled with laughter. I refuse to apologize for that there comedy gem.

Anyway, back to my Tim Bits and double double while I await my sons return. Currently, my daughter is at home practicing the flute. Good time to be out of the house.

House of Dragons can’t come soon enough. We need a GoT fix. 2022. Hurry now.

Take care everyone. Especially Verbs. Uncontrollably boisterous, balloon animal-filling flatulence is a tough sentence. Unless you can fart in shapes. People would pay to see that. However, that side hustle might be inappropriate for kids’ birthday parties. Or not. Give it a go. Some of those southern states would probably appreciate the show. Just don’t claim everything is a snake.

Later…

I love American Werewolf in London. When it became clear that last year would be my last one living with the girls, I took them through all my fave movies, and that was one of them (we did GoT in that time too).

Thoughts on the end of GoT? That last season is really rushed, and the battle is rushed as well. Up to that point, I thought it worked well, and even much of the battle worked too, but there are some holes in that last season.

Boring day today. Write and critique. I'm up to 20k words now, which feels good. A fifth of the way there.

Good game tonight: Giants vs Dodgers, winner take all.

Limitless coffee and cookies please!

Quote by JustAnotherSapphic

Head empty. No thoughts; only Matt.

There is no Matt. There is only Zuul.

Sorry E, couldn't resist (it's an old Ghostbuster reference you might be WAY too young for).

Congrats on your Braves, Sara. It's been a fun post-season so far. No baseball today, sadly.

No Talia Wednesday. I'm teaching the cats Mongolian throat singing. Or, you know, throat meowing.

Cool you got writing done on your time off Scott. I really am going to read all the entries, I just haven't found time. I think I am mostly done with the other site. I'll keep poking my head in, and maybe even writing occasionally. It just doesn't interest me as much anymore as a daily thing. And the irksome aspects over there remain irksome (grrr).

Same ol, same ol over here. Just finished therapy. Time to make the donuts (or in my case, the 1000 words).

Coffee and a cookie please!

Yay on your Braves, Sara! Going for the series win today! I'll have it on in the background, and be rooting for you. I'm predicting a Giants/Red Sox World Series.

Ping, where are you, you cantankerous old bastard? Winding your cycle through the Canadian hills?

I'm starting to get into the flow of the novel a little more, though I'm still reworking old material, so no open road yet. I get done with the old material I can really hit the throttle. Up to about 18k words right now. I'm thinking I'll have a first draft around June of next year.

Cool day, overcast, fall in the air. I think we'll see some snow on Pikes Peak by the end of the week. I love living here.

HOT coffee and an acorn cookie. And give that lil monkey a hug!      

Baseball ALL DAY today. This is why I paid $65 for a month of cable - four games today. I'll write while I watch, I won't waste the day, but I enjoy a game on in the background while I write. Your Braves are playing now, Sara, and I am rooting for them. I expect the Giants to take the NL and the whole enchilada. 

The play was good. We are seeing another this weekend.  Also finished Midnight Mass - GOOD SHOW. Strong recommend, and really subversive and creepy.

All for now. Time to write. I'm going to be pulling down the Chew stories soon, as they are the base for the novel, and it's probably best I don't have it out there. So, give it a read if you haven't. It's gonna define the next year of my life. 

I have been lax about reading stories here (or anywhere), but I should get some time to read this week.

Enjoy your day, everyone. A coffee and a turkey cookie please!

Finished Midnight Mass last night. REALLY liked it! I loved the slow burn to a truly terrifying moment (the Easter vigil), and I thought the whole thing was a really subversive read on religion. And a great performance by the guy playing Father Paul. Great performances all around. 

Rumors of my suckiness are greatly exaggerated.

Friday! Going to a play tonight! Yay! So nice to see normalcy returning. We'll probably go out for dinner beforehand. The return of date night!

Started the day talking down an old friend who is contemplating a divorce. It's sad and disquieting, and leaves me feeling off-balance. I like both of them a lot - we both do.  Damn.

Tomorrow is novel critique group - thank God I'm not going under the knife this month. But I've gotta read and make notes for a few hours today. 

SNICKERDOODLES!!! And a coffee please.

Good morning everyone!

Not much going on today. I'm tired, didn't sleep too well. On the plus side, all I'm looking at today (other than the daily walk) is my 1000 words. No other distractions, except baseball playoffs. Time to get crackin.

I'd love a coffee and another acorn cookie.

Ooh, an acorn cookie!

Well put, Verity. And I agree, you really can start messing up good work by refusing to stop picking at it. <gross simile imminent> Good stories are like scabs, you got to know when to quit picking at them! < gross simile concluded>

It’s No Talia Wednesday! The cats are hiding. When they emerge, I have the trapeze all set up.

I hope everyone has a lovely day.

Coffee and an acorn cookie would hit the spot.

Cool banner!!!

Quote by etairay

Salmon ..I'm still trying to decide what to do with it

We are going out to eat with my daughter tonight, and at her request, we are going to (arg!) Chili's. Parenting tip: if you never let your kids eat at fast food or chain restaurants, they will grow up to crave those places the rest of their lives.    

Quote by Ping

If you’re of a certain age that you remember before cell phones, before the internet, before HIV/AIDS, and even before computers, then you’ll get the melancholy message of this song. Give it a listen. You many have heard it before. It’s by a wonderfully fearless and creative Canadian band called Arcadia Fire.

I’ve got my comp idea. Started my notes. It’s going to be a twisted, introspective psychological thriller of a mess. Based on an almost true story. Just like my life. I’ve got a feeling and it’s really freakin’ me out. 😁

https://youtu.be/xQuUN1HGa0c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv9ZKp1vqt8

So I just shelled out $65 for a month of cable on Youtube so I can watch baseball playoffs. Haven't been able to watch the World Series since I cut the cable and it's pissing me off. MLB is just alienating its fan base with simple greed. Bastards.

Tired of writing the newsletter, but I'll stick with it. I have my title and my subject--Birds Aren't Real--but now I have to actually write it. Really wanted to spend quality time with Mr. Novel today. Sigh.

Anyone wanna subscribe to the newsletter, drop me a line.

Okay. No more grumpiness. Time to write. Coffee and a cookie please. 

Quote by gillianleeza

Quote by Molly

I just finished watching Midnight Mass on Netflix and I really enjoyed it.  It was dark and moved at a great pace. The characters were likable or extremely dislikable in some cases. Like, I wished for this person to meet a violent end from the moment we met them.

That is next on my list. It caught my eye because of the connection to two other series (The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor) featuring many of the same actors. I loved both of those. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I've been watching the last season of The Walking Dead. Not my favorite anymore, and ending it is probably a good thing. They are recycling too many of the same storylines. I hope they do an excellent job with the conclusion. It has been a great series, for the most part, that deserves a fitting ending.

TWD lost me around the time Negen showed up, though I'd been getting less and less engaged by it. They just seem to wander around making disastrous decisions for seasons at a time.  Them living in the little town was last time it made narrative sense.  And don't get me started about all the driving around - where do they get the gas!? It'd all go bad within a year.

The Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown episode on Detroit is sheer brilliance. 

Quote by Ping

So great to see a couple old friends put idea to electricity - Lilly and SweetSinner. Do read. Both women have a way to hold and enrapture the reader.

I’m home now. Long ride. The cremains now remain for eternity. The only casualty - a friendship. Don’t ever passive aggressively pressure me to make a choice. In so doing, it’ll never be you. 

Stay safe everyone. I’ve got a bad feeling and it’s kinda freakin’ me out.

Let the Halloween story contest begin…

Sorry about the friendship. If they were pressuring you it may have been for the best. Unless they were pressuring you to bathe. 

Good luck in the post-season, Sara. Mets stumbled to a losing 77-85 record. Insult to injury, I don't have cable so I can't watch the playoffs! Way to appeal to the fan base, MLB. I have to pay $65 to watch it on frikkin Hulu. There's not even a . Insane.  

The blank page is luring me closer. Probsbly time to sit down and write. Facebook is down worldwide, which is putting me in an apocalyptic state of mind.

Coffee and one of Sara's DELISH cookies. 

I love small town motels. Believe me, I have stayed in some crappy cheap motels, and I've loved them all. Seriously - they reach to something deeply embedded inside me. Probably an insect egg of some sort. They grant me joy and comfort. And bedbugs. Have fun, Ping - I love that stuff. 

First day of writing went well (not really the first day, we'll call it the first recent day).  It's a little like falling in love, all the ideas pouring out, all the possibilities spilling forward. The real love comes later, when you have to work and wrestle and rewrite to make the story move forward. So we'll call this first bit infatuation.

No Talia Friday. I'm going to dip the cats in paint and fling them against the wall to create an exciting mural for Talia's reuten home.

Coffee and a cookie please!   

I am in the zone.

Quote by Molly

Quote by verbal

No gratuitous gore or graphic violence!? I'M OUTTA HERE!!!

I won't enter--I'm not sure I'm allowed--but I look forward to reading the entries. Good comp theme! 

Why can't you enter? Because you won the last one? Don't worry, that's not a thing here. If you get an idea we definitely welcome it. 

Quote by Mendalla

12K words is a pretty good start given that the low end of novel is, IIRC, 50K. Is this going to be a reasonable length or a door-stopper?

And I could swear that I posted about getting the coffee and tea going but it is not here. I think my browser locked up or something. Anyhow, I'll refresh the coffee pot for the afternoon and I'm boiling water for a pot of Scottish Breakfast.

Also, with Thanksgiving looming and the weather cooling off, I've laid in a stock of hot chocolate mix and mini marshmallows along with replenishing the coffee and tea.

No gratuitous gore or graphic violence!? I'M OUTTA HERE!!!

I won't enter--I'm not sure I'm allowed--but I look forward to reading the entries. Good comp theme! 

Quote by Rumple_deWriter

This may or may not be me -- waiting on blood tests and genetic screening to reveal all. I'm still bewitched bothered and bemildered by the new fangled stuff to the point where I'm not sure if it's the new 'skin' or my usual incompetence and computer cluelessness -- maybe a combination of ingrediants product.. (sigh)

Later Inspirators. :glasses8: 

The novel starts...today! I'm very psyched. I'm 12k words in, so I'm not really starting starting, but my plate is cleared and I plan to attack every day til I'm done. Next Spring, maybe? Early summer?

That comp looks fun, Molly! 

Coffee and a cookie could be the beginning of a wonderful journey. 

Quote by rolandlytle

Hi, my friends.

I was in the hospital for ten days and got home on Friday. Today is the first day I could get online.

I hope everyone is well. I wrote about my time in the hospital, and then today, I read it while having a semi-normal mind. Gosh, it was awful! I could not understand half of it myself. Maybe I should post it entitled 'The Ravings of Madness.'

Tomorrow, I am going to NC for my father's funeral. He was cremated, and they were waiting for everyone to get well and be able to show up. I am lucky I got out of the hospital in time.

I hope you all are doing well and have a wonderful weekend.

Congrats on winning the NE East Sara. Well, not you personally, but the Braves.

Stories are slippery little critters, Ape. Gotta show em who's boss. Good on you for rewriting til you get it right.  

No Talia Wednesday. Gonna build tiny little hand gliders and teach the cats to fly!

Drawing the novel out on big sheets of art paper today (again). I don't wanna f*ck this up, so I really wanna hammer out the plot before I begin. I have a habit of writing myself into a corner.

Enjoy your day, everyone. Coffee and cookies would be an awesome help to my planning of a fictional apocalypse. 

Good morning, ladies and germs (old Milton Berle joke).

I am knocking out errands right and left! About to stop for lunch, and do my editing for the day. It's boring a f to think about, but I want to get all the boring work behind me before attempting the exciting, sexy lure of the novel. It sounds so much cooler to say "I'm writing a book" than "I have to cut 500 words from this story about robot geese so I can maybe sell it to some weird little magazine somewhere."

Coffee and cookies would be a dream.  

Lamp Light has a call for new writers, and they are paying SIX CENTS A WORD. If you've never had a pro sale, this might be for you.

Here's the link: https://apokrupha.com/2021/08/30/lamplight-special-submission-call/

Here's the opening text:

We are going to take a new turn for the submissions. The criteria to submit will be as follows, the following statement must be true:

“If accepted, this would be my first pro-sale.”

And to make that true, we will be raising our pay scale to match:

6¢ (USD) per word (based on HWA guidelines)

5100 words MAX (firm)

Yes, this lowers the max word count, but that is to keep within budget. So this go-round, we will not take any stories over the word count. We’ve added a 100 word buffer, so target that 5,000 word mark as a max. (For this call, strong 1,500 – 3,000 word stories will fair best.)

One of the things we’ve loved over the years is finding new writers and showcasing them for the first time. These two issues are going highlight new writers and hopefully be just the first of many times you will read their work. 

Quote by rbo

Thank you for your reply.
Yes, its a bit of a whirlwind right now, juggling everything but my novel is out tomorrow.

Good morning all.

6500 is a good solid length for a short story. I agree the trend is toward micro and flash, but if anything that makes longer, old school short stories even more important. They all involve craft, but all different kinds of craft. 

I have decided that I’m going to watch the Mets until they win a game, then stop for the season, to end on a high note. Assuming they win another game, which has not been the trend. Good luck in the post season Sara! Looks like the Braves will take the division! I’m also using your name again in the novel, Sara! (Unless you spell it with an h, and I think you might. Still, it’s based on you!)

Not much going on today. Germany sounds fun, Gill, though it’s got to be tough for him to settle there. Got to be exciting for him!

All for now. Lovely day here. The blank page awaits.

Coffee and one third of a cookie.

Thanks for the setup Ape.

Lovely day today.

So, apparently I was off by an entire MONTH about Dune coming out. The OLD Dune is now on HBO, and that is what was confusing me. I saw the old Dune drunk at a movie theater in Times Square: I'd been to an office party that ended in early evening, and my roomate had a date and didn't want me to come home til late, so I had hours to kill. So, a few more beers, then the movie. 

There is nothing like the feeling of walking out into the extreme weirdness of pre-Disneyfied Times Square after a David Lynch movie. I saw Blue Velvet in Times Square too. The perfect venue.

Time to edit. Coffee and five sugar cookies please. 

I am unable to wake fully up.

Good morning everyone!

This just in: the Mets lost AGAIN! 8 games out of first place, 10 games left to play. You do the math.

Boring editing day today. I'm wanting to start the novel, but I know I need to do all my dumb boring short story editing first, because I won't have the time or bandwidth or interest once I start.  

Hey, looks like the spacing issue got fixed! I'm so happy! That was driving me nuts.

Coffee and a small stack of cookies please. Hug that wacky monkey for me!

Quote by Ping

Ever wonder how social media algorithms work?

Falling Down and American Beauty clips have been popping up on YouTube for me as recommended viewing. An accurate reflection of my view of life or foreshadowing?

🤔

🤣 🤣 🤣

“May the force be with you,” the doctor said as he handed a stool softener prescription to the constipated woman.

😳 

😆

Yikes on the algorhythms. They know you better than your own dreams. I thought American Beauty was wildly overrated, but I really liked Falling Down. That scene with the little kid and the rocket launcher is lodged in my brain. 

No Talia Wednesday. Today I am going to coat the kitchen floor with oil and slide the cats across it. They love it! And clean-up should be a breeze!

I really did teach David Foster Wallace (the cat, not the dead writer) how to play fetch. About once a week, he'll bring one of his little cat toys to one of us, and set it down. Sometimes he'll shake it to get your attention. And then, if you throw it, he brings it back! He'll do it 5-6 times before he decides he has more important things to do, like lick his butt.

Off to write. Coffee and a maple crunch cookie please.  

Quote by Ping

Quote by WriterGirl

Hi all!

Mmmmm, may I have some maple crunch cookies, Sara? Yummy!

And Ping, would you mind getting my ball out of the sandtrap for me, please? It's by the gator. I'm sure he won't bite  

I once wrote a story about a croc attacking a guy on a golf course. Sigh. So many stories. All is a blur. I can’t even remember what the story is called or what it was about. But I recall the croc.

Gotta go back under the knife. Recently informed the scalpel didn’t carve out all of the cancer. Sheesh. The scar was just healing nicely too. Oh well.

Stupid federal election. Idiots. I hate them all. Well, hate’s too strong of a word and I don’t loathe all of them. There is potential for a surprise. People are pissed. Election was called too soon by a duplicitous and manipulative PM. If the vote splits between the liberals and conservatives, the NDP may capture a lot of the frustrated vote. It has happened before. Regardless, a minority government is most likely which means another ‘election-of-confidence’ will be called in eighteen to twenty-four months at another six or seven hundred million dollars. What a frickin’ farce.

Nothing for me, thanks. I’ll just lick the excess sanitizer off of my hands. A quick micro-buzz is all I need to get me through the night.

Our thoughts are with you. Life is a battle. It always wins.

Finished season one of Boudain's Parts Unknown, which ended with a Heart of Darkness riff in the Congo. Great show.  

Critique group went okay. Time to lick my wounds and face the blank page again.   

Coffee and a cookie would be swell.