Somebody's Grandma

it comes standard in Cadillacs
grandmas automatically ride shotgun
right where I smashed
she could have stayed home
polishing all those smoke colored ashtrays
watching her old swing-set graze through the backyard
or grandpa might be smelling those M&M cookies
she is baking in the oven that's lasted years

goose feathers from my shredded jacket
and those whirling red and yellow lights here to fix me
the young lady praying over me
says I was lucky this time
and Grandpa's insurance will cover everything
suddenly the rough black earth hugs me cold
"is she hurt?"

once I was hitch-hiking through Haubstadt Indiana
and I stopped at my Grandma's for lunch
she served me about 12 main courses and
112 side dishes and my choice of wine or beer or milk
her vein-and-bone hands plopping pounds upon my plate
and then I sat in that kitchen
while her and Grandpa and Uncle Eddie
fell asleep.

cheers nca

Sharks Jumping Nigh

I love a good book. And I love a good book on tape on my drive to work. I've mentioned it before. My unscientific method is when I find a good author, I go back for more.

Double dipping is when my book on tape and the actual paper book I am reading are both by the same author. As I read at home, the same author is playing on my car stereo on my drives to and from work. I don't do that often, but on occasion. Really, it all depends on the library ...I'm at the mercy of what I find on the shelf at the time.

 But not all books and not all book on tapes are created equal. Case in point, my current literary pair.

Both 'Gideon's Corpse' (Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child) and 'The Monster of Florence' (Douglas Preston, Mario Spezi) share the same author. 'Gideon's Corpse' is a novel that I'm reading as a book on tape. Simultaneously I am reading 'The Monster of Florence' in hardback. It is non-fiction.

'The Monster of Florence' is not too bad. It documents the hunt for a mass murderer that tormented Florence Italy during the 70's and 80's. Mario Spezi is an Italian news reporter who covered the crimes for several decades. Douglas Preston was living in Florence and came across the story...and the book is a collaboration of the two that charts the crimes and attempts to uncover the true villain. The writing is pretty good actually. But there is something about the format that just sort of grinds on me. I think what it is is that Preston has inserted himself into the story uninvited. Spezi, as a reporter is already a second hand account for the of events in the story. And that makes Preston's personal accounts come across like here say. Though Preston and Spezi do interview witnesses, suspects, and police...their accounts just don't pull you into the story as deep as desired. You feel like a shadow watching a shadow as you read the book.

In 'The Monster of Florence', Preston does mention that his family is living in Florence at the time so that he can work on a novel set in Florence. It is almost a teaser, if this writer can make non-fiction come to life, he probably can really pump out good fiction, right?

Well, not exactly. Gideon's Corpse was for me a real disappointment. The main flaw seems to be a trend permeating in many contemporary American Thriller novels. This is the Clive Cussler style, throw us an infallible hero or heroine and inundate them in a book full of implausible shark jumping plot twists. The main character in Gideon's Corpse, Gideon Crew...is (in no certain order) handsome, intelligent (a nuclear physicist and spy), resourceful, fast, good with guns, able to do computer networking and security breaking, an excellent gourmet cook, good in hand to hand combat, quick on his toes, ethical to a fault, a jazz music connoisseur. Oh wait, there's more. His mission is to save an American city from a terrorist nuclear attach, single handed, with the evil folks against him...and oh yeah...all of the FBI and CIA and local crime enforcement on his trail.

Yes, so far (not yet finished), Gideon has crash landed in a plane (safely), fought off villains with a chain saw, escaped white water rapids, lived through a mine explosion, escaped an explosion on a movie set, made love to a beautiful and gifted stranger, hacked a computer, kidnapped a desperado, saved two children from a mad gunman, etc. etc. etc. And there are still chapters to go.

Please!

If I want to read about Super Humans, I can read a Marvel Comic or any book from the Twilight Series.

I want my characters human and flawed. I want my suspense intelligent and believable. I can handle tongue in cheek or sarcasm, but I can't handle these type of books where the main character makes Indiana Jones look like a slacker.

The writing is also pretty bad folks. I am not kidding when I tell you the author uses the actually phrase 'well nigh' in dialogue in the story. Who speaks like that???? One line has the main character 'reaching for the Python in my glove box, Fordyce tells me '...put away the 357 Magnum'). Do we really need the full name of the gun make and model in dialogue? Again, who speaks like that????

The reader 'David W. Collins' is actually pretty good. He will make you roll your eyes when he attempts a Liverpudlian accent' for one of his characters. Stick to this side of the pond Collins! The accent sounded a bit like the butler on Downton Abbey if an American CPA was trying to impersonate him. Think Sir John and Ringo, if you must Mr. Collins. The reader is important for book on tapes, and Collins does pretty good as long as he stays stateside with his dialogue.

One personal piece of advise I would have for the publisher is...if you have to have transition music on the recording, please limit it to at the beginning or end of each CD. If you put it in the middle of the CD, the reader (that's me!) may think it is time to flip to the next CD. Personally, I don't need music on my recordings., .if I want to listen to music, I can do that on my own.

So, in a word....One thumb up for 'The Monster of Florence', and two thumbs down for 'Gideon's Corpse'.

Cheers, NCA

Tar MacTartans

US Airways has a yearly Jet Pull competition in Philly, Charlotte, and Phoenix to benefit the United Way. Teams of 20 people compete to manually pull a jet down the runway.

This year, a few of us IT jobs joined a team from the Revenue Accounting division. I had a new employee on the team, a Scottish National, so when asked what our team should wear for the competition, I jokingly said a kilt. Mostly to tease the new employee. However, it caught on, and our team actually did wear kilts. See the video.

Our Scottish teammate, keeping in the spirit, actually brought his bagpipes and we marched out on to the tarmac with him playing. It was a grand time. Our team name was the Tar MacTartans ( a play on the word Tarmac).

Since our competition was in Phoenix, you see the Phoenix Cardinals theme jet, and one of the pictures shows the mascot for the Cardinals.

 Our team was under 8 seconds for the pull, but the really really good teams are sub 5 seconds. The best team each year is usually a Philly ground crew team.

Cheers, nca.