Intellectus Ex Nihilo (Wal-Mart on Ice)

[RangerJoe]

Airlift out the Malaya HQ and he might come with it. Just airlift out less than half so the main HQ does not transfer. Once enough of the HQ is relocated, then Slim should relocate as well. I am able to airlift out the Malaya HQ to Sumatra but it may be able to go elsewhere. You can check now to see if it will airlift out. That also will save the HQ for command HQ purposes until it disbands.

[Canoerebel]

I won't have anywhere left to airlift, when the time comes. The Allies won't have any bases closer than Port Blair, at 26 hexes (assuming I still hold that at the time, which is doubtful).

[Canoerebel]

Now I can slow down the posts. I posted a day-by-day account for two reasons - one, the journey to level six began to take on an air of interesting inevitability; and, two, I've been pretty quiet in the AAR and hoped the sudden activity would give Dave the idea that something big might be up somewhere.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Now I can slow down the posts. I posted a day-by-day account for two reasons - one, the journey to level six began to take on an air of interesting inevitability; and, two, I've been pretty quiet in the AAR and hoped the sudden activity would give Dave the idea that something big might be up somewhere.

[:D] Tricky. tricky, Dan the Devious Deceiver!

[RangerJoe]

PBYs can airlift troops farther than 26 hexes, I think. I know that they can go a long way. It might even be able to go for the entire transfer distance. It might also depend upon if there is air support at each end of the transfer. You can also start now and if the Malaya HQ takes a lot of losses, then the HQ might transfer. It is up to you to try and see if Calcutta will work. My game is not open right now so I can't try it. Maybe even SSTs will be able to load some troops.

If you want to have a lot of posts for psy-ops purposes, just post a picture of a tree that you took on a walk and maybe there will be six pages of comments . . .

[erstad]

just post a picture of a tree that you took on a walk

I suppose CR could take a smallish ficus on a walk. (A bonsai would be even more practical, but could be interpreted as showing sympathy to the enemy.)

[Canoerebel]

A week ago I did a tough 10-mile loop hike to the crest of Tatum Lead, a long, narrow ridge about 50 miles from home. It was a cool morning under a flawless winter sky.

Afterwards, I quickly jotted down a little poem. The question is whether it's any good. To be honest, I think it's decent. Or, I should say, I think it fairly captures the experience that day. But ultimately I'm not the judge of the quality. I know whether or not I like something, and my opinion matters. But quality in writing is really judged by the reaction of the reader. So I keep toiling along, partly because I love writing and partly because I keep hoping that if I stick with it long enough, eventually chance (serendipity) will smile, so that the quality (that I hope is there) is recognized sufficiently that I can support myself by writing. That's a pretty tall dream!

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

A week ago I did a tough 10-mile loop hike to the crest of Tatum Lead, a long, narrow ridge about 50 miles from home. It was a cool morning under a flawless winter sky.

Afterwards, I quickly jotted down a little poem. The question is whether it's any good. To be honest, I think it's decent. Or, I should say, I think it fairly captures the experience that day. But ultimately I'm not the judge of the quality. I know whether or not I like something, and my opinion matters. But quality in writing is really judged by the reaction of the reader. So I keep toiling along, partly because I love writing and partly because I keep hoping that if I stick with it long enough, eventually chance (serendipity) will smile, so that the quality (that I hope is there) is recognized sufficiently that I can support myself by writing. That's a pretty tall dream!

More than just decent - it does communicate the experience in an almost surreal way, like a dream - too extraordinary to be real.
Just one comment - remove the ending "s" in coves and draws and it sounds more like classic poetry.

[Canoerebel]

Of course! Why didn't I think of that? And I wouldn't have. I could've stared at that for the next two years and overlooked it. Thanks, BBfanboy.

[CaptBeefheart]

Great words, sir! That and other pieces you've shared with us. Good luck in monetizing that. I'd like to be a novelist while my wife brings in the paycheck. Maybe in a few years.

I would probably exchange Slim when the end is looking close. He'd be worth the PP to keep safe.

Cheers,
CB

[RangerJoe]

Yes, that is nice. A picture or two might even draw more comments. Of course, if I would have been on that hike, you could have written about how a Life Flight helicopter rescued me. Although, in my heyday, I could out walk people who could outrun me. I even met a couple of hills called Agony and Misery but the gate to Heartbreak was locked. But then again, I did not know that I had asthma.

[ChuckBerger]

Only the path ahead
kept me grounded
so that I didn't walk
into the blue

//

Did I walk, grounded, the path ahead?
Or did I step blithely into the open blue?

[Canoerebel]

I think a lot about writing, since I sort of make my living doing it (I really make my living editing, but writing gives an assist).

According to novelist Terry Kay, there are about 300 people in America making their living as writers. I assume he was referring to novelists and not including journalists. His point was that it's a tiny industry and very hard to make a living doing it. The odds may be a bit better than making the NBA but not quite as good as MLB or NFL.

Even the best/most accomplished writers wrote with mixed success. I like a lot of Robert Frost's poetry but not all of it. Ditto the writing of Mark Twain and Jack London. I like some of the works of E. A. Poe and John Grisham but not a majority of it. I loved many of the early works of Kenneth Roberts, Alistair MacLean, Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy but not much of their later works (why they tailed off - writing under the pressure of big contracts, no doubt - makes a topic of its own).

The great writers of the 1920s struggled - Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemmingway, Stein, and on and on - while Zane Gray thrived. I've read most or all of Gray's nvoels. I enjoyed them as a youngster and thought their plots simplistic as an adult (but his descriptions of the western landscape are superb).

I think Bill Bryson may be America's finest living writer but I don't like alot of his books due to (by my way of reckoning) the abundant and unnecessary vulgarity. By any measure, he's been remarkably successful.

In my line of work, I meet alot of people who have aspirations to write. There's a common subconscious belief that if one can just get a book in print, fame and profit (not fortune) must necessarily follow (on the belief that America is so big that just a small percentage of the population buying will mean success). Just like there's a common assumption that writers only work when they have to and that not too often.

Most writers resort to self-publishing on learning (to their dismay, usually) that no publisher is interested in their book on local history. I've known dozens who have done this. Not one achieved any real measure of popular success, though self-satisfaction in getting it done was usually immense. Few of them turned a profit and none to any marked extent.

I've worked with a couple of authors whose talent is superior and who have broken into the mainstream with novels, non-fiction, or serialized writing....and not one of them has made a living doing it. They struggle like crazy and usually they made their livings otherwise (one as a physician, one in a major corporation, one as a teacher) and wrote later, during retirement years, and then to only minimal recognition and success. All of them continue to forge ahead, enjoying what they are doing and hoping that chance one day smiles on them.

And there's an element of chance to it all. The right writer in the right place with the right product at the right time. So that Harper Lee becomes an overnight sensation...or John Grisham hits it big with his first rousing novel....or Stephen Ambrose toils and toils until he builds his reputation and finds a topic with mass appeal (WWII) rather than non-mass-appeal heft.

This kind of stuff is as interesting to me as the weather and the maneuvings of baseball teams during the offseason (meaning, not many find it interesting!).

[RangerJoe]

If I remember correctly, Zane Gray was a New York City dentist, Louis L'Amour actually went over the ground. He also was from North Dakota and worked (among other things) as a cowboy.

John Grisham was a lawyer if I remember correctly and did actually practice in court. He may have even been in a jury. A lawyer in a jury deliberating I think is another attorney's nightmare.

Stephen Ambrose writes to a large target audience because all of the veterans and their families. Plus, a lot of that history is glossed over in school. A college history course textbook had four pages on WW I, four pages on WW II, barely mentioned the Korean War, and four pages on the Vietnam War. When one thinks of all of the social, economic, and technological changes because of those conflicts, it does not make sense to barely skim them.

[Canoerebel]

Yup, Zane Grey was a Big Apple dentist who grew up in Ohio. According to Bill Bryson, Gray had a massive collection of pornography. That didn't seep into his work, except he was fond of using the verb "ejaculated": "' Get away from my horse!' the cowboy ejaculated." He's also fond of the word supple.

Grisham was indeed a practicing lawyer in Mississippi. Most of his early books were really gripping.

Yeah, Ambrose was the right man at the right time to plug into the last decade of vigorous life of the aging WWII veterans, interviewing them, weaving their stories into compelling accounts.

Funny how authors have favorite words. Alistair MacLean: "eldrich" and "ululating." Kenneth Roberts: "toothsome."

[RangerJoe]

In fifth grade, I preferred to read Zane Gray than go to school. I also read about PT-109 then as well. As an older brother said, school was boring . . .

The first two books of Dune were good, the rest were a chore. I also noticed how the author went from "Drugs are great" to "No drugs is better!"

[Bif1961]

Canoerebel the WITPAE warrior-poet.

[RangerJoe]

Canoerebel the WITPAE warrior-poet.

That would make him a WITPAE Samurai - the only thing is, I don't think that he ever plays the Japanese side!

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

A week ago I did a tough 10-mile loop hike to the crest of Tatum Lead, a long, narrow ridge about 50 miles from home. It was a cool morning under a flawless winter sky.

Afterwards, I quickly jotted down a little poem. The question is whether it's any good. To be honest, I think it's decent. Or, I should say, I think it fairly captures the experience that day. But ultimately I'm not the judge of the quality. I know whether or not I like something, and my opinion matters. But quality in writing is really judged by the reaction of the reader. So I keep toiling along, partly because I love writing and partly because I keep hoping that if I stick with it long enough, eventually chance (serendipity) will smile, so that the quality (that I hope is there) is recognized sufficiently that I can support myself by writing. That's a pretty tall dream!

Good stuff, Dan!

[RangerJoe]

Think about driving on this road, where it looks like you just might drive into the blue:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056698/The-road-Norwegian-bridge-gives-motorists-fright-dont-worry-just-optical-illusion.html

For some reason, I could not upload the picture so I gave the link to an online article.