Monday, December 26, 2016

BABY NEW YEAR

Here is a re-post of one of my most popular blog entries from 2014. I wonder what 2017 will bring? Enjoy! 

BABY NEW YEAR - In the first few days of the New Year, I look back and I look forward. This year marks my second decade living in San Francisco. I remember crossing the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, traveling down Divisidero, where a profusion of electric Muni bus lines crossed overhead. Initially, I was struck by the grit of Ninth and Market. But, over time, I formed a big picture of distinct neighborhoods that are little cities in their own right. If I’ve done anything right, I’ve shown up and worked hard when I got here. If I’ve done anything wrong, I’ve acted hastily without thinking things through first. Here in The City, there is new and old everywhere, just look around as you walk down Market Street. Lots that stood vacant for over a decade, are suddenly springing forth luxury high rise condos, from freshly tilled ground. Or at the corner of 16th Street and Dolores, there sits the Mission, which was an outpost of colonial Spaniards in 1776. The baby New Year holds the promise of arriving as a newborn, in a big wide world to learn about all the wonderful possibilities, fresh and brand-new. I wonder, what new adventure will 2014 bring? I have no idea what the future holds.


Sunday, November 27, 2016

THE DAY AFTER ROSWELL

THE DAY AFTER ROSWELL - Colonel Philip J. Corso’s memoir is an account of the purported discovery and subsequent cover-up, detailing a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft in Roswell NM in 1947. He describes recovered items including alien bodies, UFO instruments, computer chips, metal cloth and fiber optics. According to him, these inventions were reverse engineered and resulted in the advancement of computer science, communications and modern video/ audio entertainment. Published a year before his death, he went on to appearances in the media including Dateline and radio interviews promoting his book. The book’s detractors are numerous including the media, government and scientists. There are claims that the assertions are over reaching and not supported by corroboration/ evidence. Interesting? Yes. Factual? I have no idea. 






Wednesday, November 23, 2016

THE LADY'S MAID'S BELL


The Lady's Maid's Bell - A new maid is employed by an invalid in a gloomy Hudson Valley mansion. As she gets to know the house staff, she is bothered by several odd circumstances. She is replacing the position of a former maid that was recently deceased. Several other attempted replacements didn’t stay in the gloomy mansion for longer than a few days. Further foreshadowing reveals an odd locked room and her employer’s insistence to refrain from ringing the maid’s bell.

http://chadschimke.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-ladys-maids-bell.html








Sunday, November 20, 2016

THE CLUTTER MURDERS

The Clutter murders - It was 1959, in the middle of the night, at an isolated Kansas farmhouse. Dick Hickock and Perry Smith had just driven four hundred miles across state and entered a darkened home. The cellmates planned to rob this unsuspecting family, leave no witnesses, and start a new life in Mexico. The Clutter family—Herb, Bonnie, their daughter Nancy, and son Kenyon—were roused from sleep. The cellmates insisted they give up the location of a hidden safe. There was a problem with the plan … since there was no safe … and, no cash. They bound the family, searched for money and briefly debated what to do. In a fit of rage, Smith slit the father’s throat and put a bullet in his head. They rest of them had to die too, in cold blood. Finding nothing of value, the killers left with a small radio, pair of binoculars and less than fifty dollars in cash. The Clutter murders would later be described in the vanguard nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood. Truman Capote, author of Other Voices, Other Rooms, left New York for Kansas after reading a 300 word newspaper article. His co-author and research assistant was Harper Lee, an author in her own right, of To Kill a Mockingbird. Capote and Lee grew up together and had been childhood friends. First published in The New Yorker, In Cold Blood was a sensation and the pioneer of the true crime genre. It has been adapted into film, television and a graphic novel.







 


















Sunday, November 13, 2016

NEW ROOM WINCHESTER MYSTERY HOUSE

NEW ROOM Winchester Mystery House – A “new” room has been discovered at the Winchester Mystery House, the former Victorian mansion of Sarah Winchester. Heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, a spiritualist told her to keep adding rooms. So the restless spirits of murdered gunshot victims wouldn’t haunt her. After the 1906 earthquake, she boarded up sections of her house, thinking evil spirits were responsible for her being trapped there. The new room, which is an attic space, had been boarded up since she died in 1922. The preservation team found a pump organ, Victorian couch, dress form, sewing machine and paintings.









Saturday, November 5, 2016

DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

Día de los Muertos - What is the Day of the Dead? It’s a Mexican holiday unifying indigenous traditions and All Hallows Eve. Including festivals, parades and gatherings at cemeteries, a day ending in prayer. Remember friends and family who have died, offer an altar to them, in order to bring yourself peace and to honor their memory.





 




 
 





Sunday, September 25, 2016

NOVEL AND SHORT STORY WRITER'S MARKET

Novel & Short Story Writer's Market: The Most Trusted Guide to Getting PublishedNovel & Short Story Writer's Market: The Most Trusted Guide to Getting Published by Rachel Randall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From student writer, to write-for-pleasure, to self-published writer, to traditionally published writer. If you want to write, sit down for a loooooooong time and after you have something, start sending out queries. You have to conquer the slush pile if you ever want to call yourself a published writer. A must have!

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Wednesday, September 21, 2016

PROXIMA B

PROXIMA B - The closest rocky planet outside our solar system orbits Proxima Centauri. The star is a red dwarf, gravitationally locked to Alpha Centauri, in the Centarus constellation. The planet, Proxima B, orbits within the habitable zone and is 1.3 times the size of Earth. What’s interesting about that, you might ask? Known science tells us liquid water is essential for life, to be just close enough to the sun to remain liquid and not freeze. More will be constantly revealed, so expect telescopes scouring the night sky, for evidence of the chemical signals of life on Proxima B. We are technologically closing in on the ability to send interstellar probes there. High tech devices, travelling a percentage of light speed could reach the planet within 2 decades. Every great story begins with this question – what if? Imagine streaming pictures sent back from this strange world--what plants, insects, animals--from a distance of 4 light years after a decade’s long flight. This is the next step for mankind’s evolution, to send probes and eventually humans, to our planet neighbor. Looking outward past the Milky Way and into the great beyond.