Fact or Fiction

I finally finished Tom Clancy’s Teeth of the Tiger over Christmas.

I was reading it on the flight to Ohio when the guy sitting next to me on the plane asked me if I was a Clancy fan. I told him I was a fan of how technical and elaborate his novels were. Once bit of chit chat led to another and the guy, named Matt, told me that he worked for the space intelligence department of the Air Force.

Now, having forsaken all my reporting instincts and put a lid on my curiosity, I merely sat back and listened to all kinds of interesting facts about space intelligence.

Matt pretty much sits at a computer and keeps up with what’s going on around Earth’s space. And naturally, since Matt was part of the intelligence community, there was only so much he could tell me. Any reasonable person, though could guess what his work covers.

One could guess that since there are millionaires now paying to get shot into space, then there is much more space activity going on in the private sector than is publicized. So our government needs people to keep track of it so that they can keep up with it. One could also guess that there is also much more going on at the international space station than is publicized.

One thing that Matt didn’t keep a secret was that the space intelligence community regularly sends things into space with shuttle launches. Although the launches usually take place very early in the morning, they are not a secret. Only the specific equipment sent up in those launches are kept secret.

A humorous side to the launch site in California is that the beaches near the launch site have been closed off to the public because a rare species of bird lay their eggs in the sand. Foot traffic on the beaches would crush the eggs, so says PETA. Some of the more militant PETA members have swam up to the beach to “protect” or protest any use of the surrounding areas. They were promptly arrested and charged with endangering wildlife, as well as trespassing.

Perhaps one of the craziest factoids I learned was about ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles). The military test launches these missiles to remote islands in the Pacific. And, according to Matt, these missiles can reach anywhere in the world in about a half hour.

All this talk about intelligence made me wonder how much of Clancy’s novels were fiction. In Teeth Of The Tiger, a covert intelligence community is set up to accomplish what the CIA, FBI, NSA couldn’t. I wondered if Clancy’s novels became the what ifs that made the government think in a certain direction. An uncle of mine, who is a retired police officer and gun enthusiast, told me that Clancy spends so much time at the Library of Congress researching everything for his novels. Clancy has become so knowledgeable about the military, government and everything related to both that the U.S. hires him as a consultant.

And on a completely unrelated note, an older Clancy novel, Debt of Honor, published in the late 90s, seemed to eerily predict 9/11. At the end of the novel, a Japanese patriot flies a jet liner into Congress, killing most every elected official and leaving Clancy hero Jack Ryan to become president.

Creepy.

-------------------------------------

I posted an article on bi-polar disorder by Sarah that defines potent last week on The Brew. I also posted an article by Trent that tries to create a position on mental health and spirituality that is in the middle. It’s worth a few reads (because after the initial read, most will be too pissed off to see the wisdom in it).

-----------------------------

I also updated The Beach Picayune so that you can look up posts by topic, making it easy to find older Real Crime Stories, posts about Clark Stacy or posts about depression. Check it out.

A Quickie

A Quickie
I had some Costa Rican coffee this week that was smoov as butta. Tasted like bittersweet cocoa and was delicious.
Also got a free sample to brew of some Ethiopia from Dunn Brothers Coffee. I had to compare it to the Ethiopia at the Coffee-Chain-That-Shall-Remain-Nameless, which I'm used to. The sample, which was not roasted as dark, had smack-you-in-the-face grapefruit flavor; the stuff I'm used to has more of a lemony flavor and an herbal smell.
And yeah, you really can get all this just from drinking coffee. Kinda like getting an earthy flavor or roundmouth feel in wine. And, yeah, 'roundmouth' is truly a word.
--------------------
I posted the full version of my article, Re-Entering the Faith, which I previewed this past week, on The Brew. I also posted an article by Lonnie Smith (Mishraile) on figuring out the balance of focusing on God and yourself when trying to heal from a mental health issue. It's pretty solid.
------------
I'm working up another Real Crime Series installment about a drive-by in Chicago that I covered. I updated to the beta version of Blogspot and began categorizing the blogs so you can look up certain ones by theme. For a listing of all the Real Crime series, check out the "Coming Soon" post from Feb. 10, '06.

--------------------
Watched the first disc of 30 Days, a tv series by Morgan Spurlock of Supersize Me fame. Pretty well done. The episode on Muslims in America (Disc 1) is certainly worth a view.

Pho For All

Had some amazing pho (pronounced 'fa') today after church. It's about the third or fourth meal at a Vietnamese restaurant since I moved here. And there seems to be no shortage of Vietnamese restaurants around the NW Dallas area.

I found out that during the Vietnamese war, Dallas was one of the cities that they evacuated Vietnamese people to. Apparently they settled down in and around Richardson, TX (near NW suburb of Dallas) and there's plenty of restaurants.

My buddy and I were the only white people in there for a while (which means you're in the right place for real Vietnamese food). I had some great coffee, which they drip-brew in a small cup at the table. The coffee drips through a small filter onto a bunch of sweetened, condensed milk, which you mix together while it's warm and then pour over ice. Oooohhh, is it good.

-----------------

Got a little frazzled this weekend over Christmas plans. And then I realized that I write best while I'm frazzled, pissed off or depressed. Realized that I hadn't worked on my novel for a while, either; it's probably because I hadn't been frazzled, pissed off or depressed enough recently.

So I stopped by the DPL and picked up some music to help me write. I found Eminem's Curtain Call; Foo Fighter's There is Nothing Left To Loose; and Elliot Smith's From a Basement On The Hill. We'll see what happens. Maybe I'll finish the chapter I started six months ago.

Thanksgiving and The Brew

So I know it’s been a long time coming but I’m finally writing about my drive to Ohio and back for Thanksgiving. But, hey, you can’t rush perfection.

So here goes.

So there were three nuns in a van driving down I-40 in Tennessee.
No.
Really.

They were behind me in traffic for about a half hour while driving up on Nov. 22. That’s when I got out my digital tape recorder from my reporting days to entertain myself on the trip. “A van full of nuns is tailgaiting me…I just passed a brown pickup truck with a fish symbol on the back and…Oh crap! The nuns just ran him off the road. Well, not really. But that would be something to see.”

The nuns stayed behind me for a while but then passed me going about 90 m.p.h. “I’m sure they’re [passing me] ‘cause they know they can get away with it. They’ll get pulled over and say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. How fast were we going? My speedometer’s on kilometers because that’s how it is in Rome’ or something like that. I’m sure that’s how they get out of it. Or like, ‘Son, have you been going to church? Or blah, blah, blah.’”

Other religious experiences on the trip included passing a white church van emblazoned with the words, “Special Forces for Jesus Ministries.” It was as real as the nuns going 90.

Driving through Tennessee was the highlight and downside to the trip. On the drive up, I counted 17 Tennessee State Troopers between Memphis and Nashville.
17.

Traffic also sucked on the way up because I hit Nashville about 5 p.m. (this was after leaving Dallas at 6:30 a.m.). Yeah. I was about ready to call it quits then. But I plowed on, frazzled and cussing at rush-hour traffic for the next two hours. Some clips from the tape recorder would not be suitable for this blog.

But driving back through The Big T on the way home was great. I enjoyed the Smoky Mountains and the fall colors, all while listening to the O, Brother Were Art Thou soundtrack. That was ideal.

------------------------------
The Dec. issue of the Brew is up and running. I posted an editorial on Mental Health and Spirituality tonight, with an article by Lana Wood to come in a few days. You can still submit article for Dec. Go to www.thebrewmag.com and click on the ‘Contribute’ link at the bottom of the page.