The stuff on the ground still hasn't melted. We went sledding, the top of the hill behind the old library was mud, but we had fun. When I left to go order jerseys, the solid block of snow on my hood flipped up into the air and slammed into my windshield. Startled me more than anything else - but in any traffic that might have been a wreck. It is supposed to be 44 tommorrow, but I might not get the kids out in that weather. If the ground has any ice, well, there goes an ankle.

That would put me with one day of practice before the first game - with a brand new team. I'm out next week and they would get to practice with someone else, but I still won't have a clue about who goes where.

I actually remember some of the players from the new team - we played them twice last season. While the U9 kids play for trophies, the league gives you no clue as to your standings. The fall before last I only knew we came in second because we only lost to the undefeated team.

I went with purple jerseys - last season we had 4 teams, including the Phantoms, which had a red and black combo. I went with a package from TotallySoccer - the Ajax. I was disappointed that the black was also not on the back. And the numbers did not show up very well.

Service was good at first, but when we got a couple of new kids and had one transfer, the owner stopped replying to my email.

I decided to go with someone local. You can still have problems, but I like the fact that it is someone from my community.

It's better to burn out than to fade away

by
Tom Haynes

Copyright 1995,1999,2006 - All rights reserved by the author.

The time: Sometime in the Spring of 1995 + 3 days
The place: A damp and dark dungeon.

Time has lost almost all meaning for the group. Quinn still has the remote, but with his arms chained to the wall he can not get to it. They haven't been fed or allowed to drink since they were brought into their cell. For the guys, it is almost bearable, the cannibals had been fattening them up. For Wade, the hunger and thirst gnaws away at her stomach.

"Well, well, what do we have here?", asks The Kurgan. Somehow he managed to quietly sneak up on the group. "Perhaps I should shed some light on the subject?", he says as he looks at a torch. It bursts into flames. "A little trick a sparring partner picked up in the Orient."

The eyes of the sliders well shut, as tears flow, trying to block the painful light. "Water! Food!", gasps Wade.

"There'll be sometime for feeding later. Right now some questions: How do you travel across the dimensions? Can you control it?", asks the hulking giant.

"My good man, we'll tell you all you want to know. Just feed us and release us.", says the portly professor.

"Ah, Arturo, always plotting. I let you out, then you run away. Where's the fun in that? Do you know what time it is? Oh, I forgot, you can't see your watches, and the clock on the wall stopped months ago. It's near midnight. Another question: How long can a vampire go without feeding? The record has been one night, and you've been down here three days.", Kurgan says as he turns to look into the dark. He waves his arm, and some of his henchmen wheel in the coffin they had last seen several nights ago.

"You know, I do believe that both Quinn and Arturo both studied physics, therefore they are quite indispensable. As for Remmie, well an undead Immortal is something I don't want to face. That leaves the lady. Amazingly enough, your counterpart in this world sold computers. That is, she did. Until that nasty accident with the vampire boy wonder here. Now, do you believe in destiny Wade?", The Kurgan asked the groaning girl. She wasn't fully conscious, and he didn't wait for an answer.

"Well Quinn and Arturo, here's my proposition: you tell me everything you know or I feed her to the vampire.", said Kurgan.

"If half of what my double told me about you is true, you'll feed her to him anyway.", replied Quinn.

"Good point.", roars the Kurgan.

"Let me handle this Quinn.", interjected the professor. "Exactly why do you want to know how we travel?"

"I've spent three days, collecting data from all the scientific minds of my world, and we can't figure out what you've done. I wish that I had let the other Arturo live a day longer. The other Quinn has some inkling, but because of his nature, he is hard to read.", replied the Overlord of the world.

"So, your driven by the quest for knowledge? That doesn't sound like the Kurgan from the movie.", said the professor.

"Not quiet. To put it simply, I'm bored. I thought winning the prize would give me unlimited power, but all it did was rob me of the one thing I really loved: the Game!", answered The Kurgan.

"So you want to travel to a dimension where you can continue playing the game?", asked Quinn.

"In that case you might as well let us go, we can't control the damn thing. If we could, we would have gone home a long time ago!", said Rembrandt.

"Mr. Brown, I'll thank you to be quiet. Let me do all the talking.", said the professor, quite crossly.

"Reward him.", commanded the Kurgan. One of his men entered the cell, and poured water down Rembrandt's throat.

"Give her some.", pleaded Quinn.

"First give me something.", commanded The Kurgan.

"Mr. Mallory, I forbid you to tell him anything.", the professor sternly told his young companion.

"Why, so she can die?", asked Quinn. "We can't control where the slide is going to take us. We also can't control how long we stay in any place.", said Quinn.

"More.", commanded Kurgan.

"No, give her water. Now!", yelled Quinn.

The Kurgan looked at his man, and nodded. The lackey went over to the slumped Wade, and poured water down her throat.

"So, you've learned that kindness can get you more than terror, have you now?", asked Arturo. The Kurgan nodded at his man again, and the others were roughly watered as well.

"Continue.", commanded the Overlord as soon as Quinn stopped sputtering.

"We're lost. I know the theory, but our vehicle is damaged.", Quinn started to say.

"You don't have a vehicle.", interrupted Kurgan. "I may not be able to scan your minds, but one of my slaves saw you appear out of a glowing blue circle. If I catch you in another lie, well lets just say someone else is still thirsty.".

"Okay, okay. But I swear, if you harm her, I'll make sure you never leave this world.", replied Quinn.

"The apparatus is back on my world, and countless other worlds besides. We have a set period of time on each world, and after that time I can summon another tunnel to slide in. We don't know where we will end up.", said Quinn.

"How much time do you have here? What happens if you miss your window? Can you stay past your time? And most importantly, can someone else travel with you?", asked Kurgan. He also nodded to his second henchman, who brought some broth and bread into the cell. He started to feed the others in the group.

"We had a week. If we've been down here three days...", he looks straight at the last Immortal, who nods. "... then we still have four days. We can trigger a new slide, but every time we do, it weakens our chance of ever going home. We could stay on any world we liked, but the little differences annoy you more than the big ones. Finally, yes, you could travel with us."

"Yes. But I couldn't control where we go? I also couldn't control you once we left my world. How many slides would it take to get somewhere interesting?", asked the Kurgan as he stared off in wonder.

He turned back to the party. "Arturo, you mentioned that your world had a TV show and movie based on me?", he asked.

"No, No. There was a movie, in which you died and Connor MacLeod took the prize. There was also a TV series in which Connor hadn't really taken the prize, but he still had killed you. It followed Duncan MacLeod, his clansman.", replied the professor.

"I see. In this world, I killed MacLeod, both of them. I would prefer a world in which I was dead and the MacLeods were both alive. While stalking myself would be, shall we say interesting, I much more prefer hunting the MacLeods.", said Kurgan.

"Well, it isn't going to do you much good. Can't you understand, we never know where we are going to slide.", said Wade.

"The young woman awakes! Don't worry, I have access to all the minds in the world, plus every Immortal who ever lived, and died, is inside me. You can't even imagine the power I possess.", said The Kurgan.

"I thought you said all of your scientific minds couldn't help you understand how we traveled from world to world?", asked Quinn.

"I lied, just like I bluffed you with the vampire Quinn.", cackled The Kurgan.

"Release him.", he ordered his lackeys. They cart the coffin into the cell, and let this world's Quinn out of the coffin. He is quite pale and can hardly stand on his own. The guards shackle him next to Wade.

"One of the things I found out from a vampire, called Nick Knight, was a cure for vampirism. Seems he found it right before I killed him and his lady love. Since I couldn't control my Quinn, and I needed his mind, I decided to see if the cure worked. It did.", The Kurgan informed the party.

"That still doesn't let us guide the slide. Also, if you know how we slide, why don't you build your own machine?", asked Quinn.

"Ahh, but I don't know how to build your machine. I only know the principles behind your sliding. I suppose I could build a machine, but maybe I couldn't. Where would I be then?", said the Kurgan. "No, I simply must go on with you. I couldn't stand another dull decade."

"Yeah, and expose another world to your evil ways.", said Rembrandt. "We fought to stop one plague from spreading from world to world, and we'll fight again."

"And here I thought you were as much a coward as the Rembrandt Brown whose head I took. You can't kill me, these mortals can't kill me, the only hope you have is another Immortal. On this world, you are the only other potential Immortal. Shall I kill you, and then let you see if you can kill me? No, what a pity.", said The Kurgan.

"Here's my proposition: I let you live, and you take me to my brave new world. I have come up with a way to guide us in the slide. Garrick, a former Immortal, really understood the powers the Prize, and the Quickenings, gives to us Immortals. All I have to do is wait until we are sliding, and then I cause the Quickenings of the MacLeods to reach out to their bodies. Since their bodies were fish food in this world, I will be pulled towards a world in which they still live.", said The Kurgan.

"What about The Kurgan on this other world?", asked Arturo.

"I had to simplify my explanation for your feeble minds. We will go where I want to go, and then you can be off on your merry way.", said The Kurgan.

"See they are fed and exercised. You know your fate if they are harmed or die or escape!", said The Kurgan as he faded back into the gloom.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

Abduction, abduction, whaat's your function?

by
Tom Haynes

Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved by the author.

I drifted back into consciousness. The breeze tugged at the white lacy curtains, spilling sunlight onto me. Both my arms were strapped down; this was going to be bad. The nurse waltzed in, with a wistful smile. "Before you go, a Colonel Stram is going to make sure you are recovered." I swallowed my retort; freedom was not to be denied by my glib tongue.

The colonel walked in, alleviating somewhat my earlier fears about the nurse. Still, how long had it been since I had last seen another? He was somber, as was befitting his duty, which he wore as a cloak. He glanced at the nurse, "That will be all nurse." As she turned to walk away, I realized I still didn't know her name. Her smile turned friendly, in a beguiling sort of way. Waiting for her next expressive smile was what kept me going some days. Sometimes I dreamed of the two of us lounging about on some tropical beach. As she spun to go, I finally got a good look at her right hand and I saw the wedding band, plainly reflecting the light from outside. She always cupped the syringe in her left hand.

The colonel closed the door behind her, turned and ran a pen about the room. I watched with some interest, but the novelty quickly wore off. I started to ask him about, "Sshh" he softly interrupted, the finger of his other hand, the right one, across his lips. Finally the finger came down, "Never can be too sure."

I could have told him no one else had been in the room, but the pen waving seemed to make him happy. Curiously, he didn't try to stand over me, instead he sat down in the recliner to the left and pushed a button such that the back of my bed elevated until I seemed to also be sitting. I didn't know the bed was pneumatic.

"Bob, can I call you Bob, Captain Buchanan? Lets just dispense with rank for right now, son." The man spat the words out like a machine gun on a Spitfire. He'd get them out and let them strike where they might. "Bob, can I be frank with you?" I nodded, not that he was paying attention to me. "OK, well son, did you know that general who thought it would be a good idea for you to get some people time?" I recalled the grizzly face of General Ipoche, "Well, the man was an idiot exposing you like that."

The man had been the first to champion my design and encouraged me when others tried to trip me. "Bob, why do you think we fly the birds over Roswell?"

He paused, and I realized he actually expected me to start contributing, "Well, umh," he wanted me to be friendly, but he had never introduced himself with his given name, "colonel, because the flyboys are juveniles who think making those poor souls at Roswell believe in..." I couldn't say it, I just couldn't say it. I'd spouted off what I used to think, but now I couldn't finish it up, "Well, they are the idiots."

I hadn't expected it from this man, by his eyes radiated sympathy and his features softened. "No, the name's Henry by the way, no, we fly them out there on patrol. Son, you know you were abducted, right?" There it was out in the open, finally.

But what was I to do? Did I react and follow the script? Or by not reacting did I follow the role I was assigned?

The features hardened a little with a touch of resignation. "Bob, Bob, let me describe the typical abduction: time freezes, taken up a white light, some probing, memory loss, and a fixation on trying to recall what happened." His free hand, the right one, went up and rubbed a half thought back into his conscious, "Oh yeah, and they always have a feeling of inadequacy."

The eyes held me the whole time as the words cascaded over me. He sighed, just a little and held up his watch toward me, "What time is it Bob?"

10:31, I said it out loud then, "10:31."

"Son, if we wait 5 minutes, do you know what time it will be for you?" perhaps he still had young kids or even some grandchildren. He was using that voice, the patient one you employ when teaching.

I haphazard a guess, "10:31?"

He literally beamed at me, "Right, we don't know why, but when you people are returned to us, you fixate heavily on the time you were abducted. I could get a handful of you in the same room, and each of you would look at my watch and swear the hands never moved."

I puzzled out a question, "Would it be the same time for all of us?"

He laughed, a deep booming throbbing in my ears, "No. Now son, why did you ask that?" The chuckles died down.

I met his eyes and I gave him that look most brass gives me when I explain the details of my designs. "I don't know."

He started a syllable and stopped, I've never seen anyone do it before. I could see the sound coming out of his mouth, but I couldn't hear it. He then did something that is rare in most people, he listened to what I had to say. I could hear the wheels in his head spinning round and he finally digested the conversation. How many times had he given a variation of that same paternal rah-rah speech? Gloss over the details and get them back to being productive members of society.

He didn't even glance at me as he pulled out a folder, it was labeled "Transcripts of Captain Robert J. Buchanan." The glasses came out and as he donned them, the soft fluorescent light bounced off of the line splitting the bifocals and a little rainbow effect pierced my eyes. All I could think of was his vanity, and something else, something I could not name, even in my innermost sanctuary.

I watched him, with a detachment which complimented the mood induced by the glare. It had stopped, but the chromatic aftereffect reverberated through my conscious. He read the file, taking notes with that pen he had waved about earlier. Had it really scanned for bugs? Or was it just another reassuring ploy?

Imagine being submersed in a bath tub and having someone with steel-tipped boots kicking the living daylights out of the sides. Try it sometime as someone discusses your fate. "Bob, you aren't like all the others."

• Start
• First Awakenings
• Second Awakenings
• Third Awakenings
• Prelude to a Discharge
• Discharged

The Nanovampire

by
Tom Haynes

Copyright 2004,2006 - All rights reserved by the author.

The Earth hung above us, I was looking out the porthole as the rest of the crew of the station was on an extended EVA, getting much needed supplies off of the shuttle whose docking computers refused to mate with those of the station. All part of the plan of course, just as the chest strain I was faking was in the script. The doctor had been sent up with me to administer the little bugs and observe the changes. The disease I had contracted in Morocco had shortened my lifespan considerably. I guess you could say I really did volunteer for this last assignment.

My reverie was interrupted, "So Logan, are you ready to inhale my little buddies?" He had started brewing them up yesterday, when the shuttle had launched. They have a shelf life of 48 hours if they aren't administered to a host.

I was already wired up like a Christmas tree, time to flip the switch and scare the neighbors. "Yeah, lets get the show on the road." I was going to lean back, but hey, in outer space, I was just as comfortable canted 53 degrees forward.

"Okay, now remember, as I start the flow of helium, I want you to breathe in deeply and start counting back from 100. When your voice is normal, we'll keep going to make sure you have swallowed all of the nanobots." he lectured on as he secured the mask over my face. It looked like one of those flimsy ones you see the stewardess wave about before takeoff, but if fit rather snugly over my mouth and nose. "Alright, you ready to try my diet?" he asked. I was pretty sure that Atkins had already released the little buggers and they were racing into my nervous system as he spoke. He was under the gun to produce and if I backed out at this late date, or died before he got the probes in, he was back to the academic paper chase and being badgered by students.

For an answer, I just started off, "100, 99, 98, diet? That's where they picked your name from?" His cover name was Bob Atkins and mine was Logan Fox. I'd figured mine out a while ago, Logan from the X-Men, they were going to make me a fast healer, and Fox Mulder from the X-Files, okay, I didn't get any connection other than the "X-". I knew the code name for the station was the X-Lab - someone had too much time on their hands.

He grinned at me, "Keep counting cowboy, stick to the plan." I was beginning to hate that grin. I also knew that attached to the green canister in his hands was a second button, one which would shotgun blast cyanide down my throat. I wasn't happy about that, but then again, in a couple of months I might welcome it.

"97, 96." my voice was already as back to normal as it was going to get in the station. His arms had been rock solid the whole time, he really didn't feel the burn just supporting the canister, but now that he knew the changes had begun, he was ready to try and kill me if needed. "Alright, final 10: 95, 94, 93, 92, 91, 90, 89, 88, 87, and 86." He didn't know that as far as I was concerned, once those beasts were in me, he was expendable. If I knew how to mix them myself, he might have had an accident the first day up here. I'd love for him to trigger the cyanide, I'd already rigged it to blow back along the switch; maybe it would get him, maybe not. But he would be distracted long enough for me to crush his throat.

Someone should have known better than to leave me alone with him during the critical growth period. But that someone was scared of being caught by the FDA testing nanotechnology on humans. It was okay to do to rats in hermetically sealed labs, which instead of halon systems had cyanide sprinklers, but putting down a test population of humans was frowned on. Hence, you get the terminally ill to volunteer and you find a loop hole which lets you try it in outer space. I wasn't too crazy on the odds by which someone who had the right background happened to catch the Aids-II virus - it felt like I had lost some lottery.

I'd been a fighter pilot, hey, I'd even applied for the space program, before I got splashed down over the Indian Ocean. A week drifting combined with a five week trek avoiding the Ragheads had washed me out on my next psych evaluation. I'd spent the next 10 years as a freelancer for the various covert op branches of the government. The very thoughts which got me booted where the ones that triggered my induction into the wetter side of the action. But, it was always understood that I was expendable. I'd been left behind a couple of times, once in Columbia, I trekked out through paths which hadn't seen much traffic since the Spaniards hit the area.

All of my senses started firing at once, crossing over - I saw my suit rub against me, I heard the stale smell of the station, I tasted the words, "Are you alright?" I started to shake, which looked incredible, especially when I got a whiff of it as well.

Out of the blue, I remembered one of my last physicals, back before Morocco. I had suffered some complications on the mission before, hell a piece of a claymore had bounced off the wall next to me and ricocheted into my helmet. Before I could get out in the field again, I had to pass muster. Given that I'd flunked out of one career before this way, I wasn't exactly gung ho about the whole deal.

I saw myself get checked out and cleared. On the way out, I got sucker shot by an orderly and dragged into an examination room. I didn't recall that happening the first time, but I paid attention, perhaps my subconscious had been taking notes.

In walked Dr. Atkins, but his surgical floor ID read "Dr. Scully", great. Someone was with him, a nurse, I couldn't tell much about her, she was already wearing her mask. "Well, look what the cat drug in." I heard her, good, I'd be able to identify her now, as long as she spoke up at some point.

"Yes, our next subject. Too bad about the cat, we'll have to delete those records from the study." He leaned over and closed my eyes for me. I heard some puttering around and then the bandage at the base of my skull was pulled off. At least they were being gentle about it. It was weird to relive being unconscious; I was much more aware of the input from my other senses. How much of this was real, stored away in redundant cells?

I felt heat on the area around the wound and then I felt it being shaved. "Is this really necessary?" asked the nurse.

"What, the shaving?" was the reply from my doctor. I felt a prick as a local was applied to the are about to undergo surgery.

"No, silly, the unit." she said.

"Well, yes, we have to have a way to monitor his biologicals. We don't want to make the same mistake we made with that chimp. If we had caught the increased metabolism and the changes in the brain waves, we might have been able to save its keepers. More importantly, we could have tried to treat it instead of putting it down. I'm still hoping the purity yields from the microgravity growth will reduce the nano deteriation." As he lectured her, I could hear the scalpel snipping the stitches apart and then I imagined it probing my wound open. I recalled I would show up the next day, thinking I had opened it back up when I fell out of bed. I had been well on the road to recovery and the fall had set me back 3 weeks.

I heard a small whining and recalled my last visit to the dentist, they had been doing a root canal on the lady next to me. I felt my skull shake as the surgeon drilled two tunnels through it. I was going to have a migraine for days, I had been moody for longer than that, I don't like drugs and I tend to wait pain out. All of which makes me react badly to people who inflict it on me.

I had to admire the professionalism of the two, except for the light, but informative banter, they did their job as if they were on an assembly line. It made me wonder if they had tried the nanotechnology before and what other purpose the biochemical sensor might serve in my line of work.

Just as I was starting to like her, she said, "Okay, before we arm it, lets spray it with the cyanide gas." I heard a short hiss, "This puppy works." I heard a click and then she said, "I disinfected it, the arming mechanism is locked."

I could feel him lean a bit on me as he inserted the device. I could imagine him snaking the contacts through the tunnels. I hated him more than I hated the Flight Surgeons who had grounded me 10 years earlier. "Okay, I've got good connections, the unit is reading everything fine and drawing some residual power already. Arming the unit, now."

The vision shifted, it was hard to describe, but I got the impression I was looking at the device. My god, it was huge, but as I concentrated on the form and thought about how I hadn't detected it in the last year, I realized it had to be wafer thin and about the diameter of a dime. My focus was shifted to the two wires - I realized one would do for collecting the data. At first I thought the second was a backup, or the antenna, but then I realized they were there to form a circuit. The reason the labs used cyanide was to trigger the device and start the brain burning. A biopsy would stop once the expected traces of the poison were found in the system. Hmm, antennas can be used to receive as well as transmit, Houston, we have a problem.

My senses were my own again. I realized the PDA the good doctor wore as a watch was actually linked to the device in my neck. Since he hadn't tried to douse me with cyanide, everything must be to plan. He pulled the mask away and I suddenly had the canister to worry about. If he triggered the cyanide, it didn't matter now which way it was pointing - even a non-lethal dose could kill me if it got to the trigger.

"Logan, time to get out there and earn your pay." he said as he lowered the tank.

"What, I don't get to rest?" I really wasn't looking forward to 10 hours out in the suit. It sounds really exciting when you are a kid, but believe me, after an hour all you can smell is yourself and since your other senses are cut off, all you can do is smell yourself.

"No, the activity well help you integrate the nano and disperse it. Let me know if you get hungry, you might experience some dips in blood sugar until you get acclimatized and that's about all we really need to watch. As a matter of fact, eat a couple of protein bars before you go out there."

I stalled, "How long until they repair the damage and my immune system is back to normal?"

He laughed and then sobered up as he caught that look in my eyes, the one that telegraphs the prey that they are just that and it is time to pay the piper. "Your immune system will never be normal again. We've cured rats with this treatment, you've seen that yourself. But what I never stressed is that the nanobots are there to stay and they mean to work the whole time. We expect your lifespan to triple based on our initial results. Logan, plan on watching your great grandchildren grow up."

Instead of reassuring me, all I could think of was it now possible for me to reproduce? I'd tried before and my little troops had failed me, it had cost me a marriage. But even if I could, would I want to pass my payload on now? I hadn't been careful before Morocco, what with no fear of knocking a partner up and Aids-II, well that happened to homosexuals and addicts. It also happened to me. I didn't need a vision to know the man in front of me had arranged for it, one of those needle pricks in the flashback might have even been ground zero.

I didn't always think things out, which was deadly in my profession, but so was knowing the ramifications of exactly who was going to die when you poured smallpox into a city's water purification center. Sometimes the only way to sleep at night was to not think your actions out. But now, now I had to face up with could I inject these nanobots into a woman I loved? I was beginning to suspect they might not be as beneficial as the doctor had been promoting.

I laughed back with him, except I was imagining his death, I knew I would be the agent of it. I went out on my little EVA.

We unloaded the cargo and then the software problem was fixed. Everyone thought it was Murphy's Law at work and were just relieved we didn't have to load it with our trash. Some of the crew cycled out, I could see Atkins flipping to different sensors on his miniature PDA. Evidently that was how they determined if the nanotechnology was spreading. I wondered if he had an installation under his head and whether it was armed and dangerous. Since the shuttle left and the crew eventually cleared quarantine down below, I guess the stuff didn't spread in humans, just like it didn't spread in any of the mammals in the labs Earth-side.

• The Nanovampire
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
• Part 8

I don't know why I blog. I mean, I know I like to write Science Fiction stories and I think I have a lot of interesting things to share. But, I'm normally very reserved and quiet shy. I'm insecure about my writing - I had no problem in publishing technical papers or making technical presentations. But then again, they aren't a window into myself.

I've never had a diary or a journal - I don't even like keeping one at work.

Why then do I blog? I don't know. I try to tell myself no one is reading it - but people at work send me email about my entries. I also get very competitive with the Daily Hits rate. The internal mailing list talks about how inaccurate the counter is - it goes on page loads. They all mention statcounter.com, which counts hits based on javascript code running. It paints a different picture of how busy my site is each day.

I like looking at the pretty map on clustrmaps.com. Ignore for a moment the information you deliever whenever you querey any web page. This app is really quite powerful in letting you see which locations are accessing your product.

And finally, I tag all of my article in the hope that technorati.com will start giving me a higher ranking.

Why do I care who visits my site? The numbers really don't mean much. I could write a robot to drive my page count high. I could add keywords or pictures to make Google searches hit my page. As a matter of fact, we don't have a metric to tell us how the big hitters in our ballpark compare to other blog sites.

One thing I did find, the more content you put on your blog, the more hits you get. That actually makes me feel better. When you first get a Sun blog account, you get instructions telling you to write about what you know. I decided to do technical accounts of getting gear to work or debugging NFS problems. I also decided to write about company culture. I think I've done okay on both fronts.

But I also like to write Science Fiction. I've decided to not just share my stories, but to also start sharing the mechanics behind writing the stories. I don't know if I do it like other writers.

I also want to start recording when I change my blog appearance. I flipped through several styles early on. I eventually picked one and started heavily modifying it. I wish I had recorded what drove me to add each little bit. I've tried to add some of that flavor here for the counter information.