Yes. The FUTURE. As in... not of this time.
I saw a vehicle, like a van, but not. I was young, pre-teen... perhaps 11 or 12 when I saw it. The family was driving on a lonely isolated road while vacationing. If I remember correctly it must've been in Colorado. Typical two lane mountain road, winding, up and down. Sunny, dried tall grass, stubby green pine trees. Snow capped mountains. The occasional semi truck. Mostly cars.
I was somewhat bored. This was before the advent of iPods, portable DVD players, PSP games, even CD players. If I was lucky I probably had a tape deck, the old school walkman. I was staring out of the window of the family sedan, a big brown cop-car-looking Chevy. Cars occasionally passing us from the other direction. We turned a corner and that's when I saw it.
It was big, beige and flat-ish. It looked like a squashed van. The windows were tiny slits, the wheels were covered and I remember seeing a stripe of color along it's side. Slightly underneath the stripe was a panel marked "Weapons." It wasn't a Ford. It wasn't a Chevy. It wasn't even an import. It wasn't military. It was something else... Suffice to say I had never before seen such a vehicle.
It passed us quickly, in almost a blink of an eye, making not one sound. I break the mundane silence by exclaiming, "Did you guys see that??!!" Of course no one else did. My mom was reading a magazine, I don't think she even looked up. My sister was asleep. Not even my dad, who was DRIVING for Pete's sake!!!
I turn to see where the Weapons Van (that's what I call it now) had gone, but by then the road had twisted and the strange vehicle was gone.
This wasn't imagined, it wasn't a hallucination. It wasn't from a movie, it wasn't some nerd's souped up Toyota Previa...
It was a vehicle... from the future.
-Jeff
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
I know I'm not here much lately...
Sporadic postings are annoying... but I've been pretty busy at work. I'm taking some supervisor skills training classes every Tuesday. I have 1 more SOP to write for the company. (And it just happens to be the hardest one. ) Why did I leave that one for last?
We've been redecorating the home. Buying furniture, tables, lamps, bookshelves and electronics. Most was from IKEA so you know how that goes... you gotta put it all together yourself. They actually went pretty easy this time... the bedroom furniture we bought last year was a pain and took forever to get built.
The lamps ROCK!!!!! I love them. (pics as soon as we're done and as soon as we find that blasted camera.)
Yesterday we bought a ficus tree, a nice floral arraignment and a really nice vase. Had a nice quiet dinner at Iggy's before the dinner crowd got in. Got a free cheesecake. Ran some errands, rented movies and did the weekly grocery shopping. When we got home we ran into my wife's sister and her husband. (They live like 3 doors down from us.)
They got fish and a small tank. We visited with them for a bit and went back home. It was almost 10 PM by the time we sat down to watch a movie. It was okay, my wife likes twisted drama movies with a twist ending. In fact the movie was called "Twisted." How's that for a name? It was okay. One down, four more to go!!! :D
Cloverfield... that was a great movie. Plus we are now caught back up with Battlestar Galactica. FINALLY back on the air!
Well, since I wasn't at work yesterday, the afore mentioned supervisor training class, I had a TON of work waiting for me today... been getting caught up with that.
I had a meeting planned for today at 3:30, planned it last week, but of course no one is showing up. Typical. So I canceled it and rescheduled for next Monday. It's going to be interesting to see how many show up next week.
My boss is on vacation for the next two weeks, YAY! I also have a couple of training classes next week. I love being the one to train on policy. That way everyone does it the right way... my way!
Peace!
-Jeff
We've been redecorating the home. Buying furniture, tables, lamps, bookshelves and electronics. Most was from IKEA so you know how that goes... you gotta put it all together yourself. They actually went pretty easy this time... the bedroom furniture we bought last year was a pain and took forever to get built.
The lamps ROCK!!!!! I love them. (pics as soon as we're done and as soon as we find that blasted camera.)
Yesterday we bought a ficus tree, a nice floral arraignment and a really nice vase. Had a nice quiet dinner at Iggy's before the dinner crowd got in. Got a free cheesecake. Ran some errands, rented movies and did the weekly grocery shopping. When we got home we ran into my wife's sister and her husband. (They live like 3 doors down from us.)
They got fish and a small tank. We visited with them for a bit and went back home. It was almost 10 PM by the time we sat down to watch a movie. It was okay, my wife likes twisted drama movies with a twist ending. In fact the movie was called "Twisted." How's that for a name? It was okay. One down, four more to go!!! :D
Cloverfield... that was a great movie. Plus we are now caught back up with Battlestar Galactica. FINALLY back on the air!
Well, since I wasn't at work yesterday, the afore mentioned supervisor training class, I had a TON of work waiting for me today... been getting caught up with that.
I had a meeting planned for today at 3:30, planned it last week, but of course no one is showing up. Typical. So I canceled it and rescheduled for next Monday. It's going to be interesting to see how many show up next week.
My boss is on vacation for the next two weeks, YAY! I also have a couple of training classes next week. I love being the one to train on policy. That way everyone does it the right way... my way!
Peace!
-Jeff
Thursday, April 3, 2008
TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes!!!! My wife found a GREAT deal on a flat screen, 40 inch HD LCD TV. A Samsung. Beautiful picture. Great shape. No scratches, no dings, virtually brand new! For a bargin.
$699!!!!!
That's the pic from the online classifieds website, KSL.com. Quite possibly the best local online classifieds place ever. Perfect for local deals.
We drove out to Centerville last night, took a look at it and realized it was pretty darn good. PLUS it came with a wall bracket! That's like $30 bucks extra that they threw in for free.
Stick it in the back seat and head home. Once home, I get busy hooking it up to the DVD player, just to see if it's all good.
Start the DVD and... it's black and white. WHA? Okay... fiddle with the color controls. Still black and white.
GREAT... that's why they sold it, the DVDs only play black and white. Wait, but the menu is in color. So something else is wrong. My wife gets online to see if she can find some info. I recheck the connections...
Whoops!!! The DVD cord isn't plugged into the DVD player all the way. I plug it in, retry the DVD and it's in COLOR!!!!
Haha, I'm an idiot! Phew!!!
Anyway I grab the recent Best Buy ad on the way to bed... find the current 40 inch Samsung HDTV LCD flat screen...
$1,699.99!!!!!
WHA??? We got $1000 off retail???!!?!?!?!?!?! Sweet deal!!!!!
Thanks so much, wife, you rock!!!!!!!!
-Jeff
$699!!!!!
That's the pic from the online classifieds website, KSL.com. Quite possibly the best local online classifieds place ever. Perfect for local deals.
We drove out to Centerville last night, took a look at it and realized it was pretty darn good. PLUS it came with a wall bracket! That's like $30 bucks extra that they threw in for free.
Stick it in the back seat and head home. Once home, I get busy hooking it up to the DVD player, just to see if it's all good.
Start the DVD and... it's black and white. WHA? Okay... fiddle with the color controls. Still black and white.
GREAT... that's why they sold it, the DVDs only play black and white. Wait, but the menu is in color. So something else is wrong. My wife gets online to see if she can find some info. I recheck the connections...
Whoops!!! The DVD cord isn't plugged into the DVD player all the way. I plug it in, retry the DVD and it's in COLOR!!!!
Haha, I'm an idiot! Phew!!!
Anyway I grab the recent Best Buy ad on the way to bed... find the current 40 inch Samsung HDTV LCD flat screen...
$1,699.99!!!!!
WHA??? We got $1000 off retail???!!?!?!?!?!?! Sweet deal!!!!!
Thanks so much, wife, you rock!!!!!!!!
-Jeff
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Persephone
I'm quite fond of the name. I would love if our (future) daughter could have that as her name. We could shorten it, as parents often do, to Percy. I think it's a cute name. My wife absolutely hates it and refuses to even consider it... so perhaps my dream will never come true... but here's a brief history of the name Persephone...
Here's a picture of her... Pretty huh?
She's holding a pomegranate.
In Greek mythology, Persephone was the embodiment of the Earth's fertility at the same time that she was the Queen of the Underworld.
Her story has great emotional power: an innocent maiden, a mother's grief at the abduction, and joy at the return of her daughter. It is also cited frequently as a paradigm of myths that explain natural processes, with the descent and return of the goddess bringing about the change of seasons.
The Homeric form of her name is Persephoneia. In other dialects she was known under various other names: Persephassa, Persephatta, or simply Kore. Plato calls her Pherepapha in his Cratylus, "because she is wise and touches that which is in motion."
The Romans first heard of her from the Aeolian and Dorian cities of Magna Graecia, who used the dialectal variant Proserpina. Hence, in Roman mythology she was called Proserpina, and as a revived Roman Proserpina, she became an emblematic figure of the Renaissance. At Locri, perhaps uniquely, Persephone was the protectress of marriage, a role usually assumed by Hera; in the iconography of votive plaques at Locri, her abduction and marriage by Hades serve as an emblem of the marital state; children at Locri were dedicated to Proserpina, and maidens about to be wed brought her their peplos (Greek garments of the time.) to be blessed.
Persephone lived a peaceful life before she became the goddess of the underworld, which, according to Olympian mythographers, did not occur until Hades abducted her and brought her into the underworld. She was innocently picking flowers with some nymphs, Athena, and Artemis, in a field in Enna when Hades came to abduct her, bursting up through a cleft in the earth. The nymphs were changed by Demeter into the Sirens for not having interfered. Life came to a standstill as the devastated Demeter, goddess of the Earth, searched everywhere for her lost daughter. Helios, the sun, who sees everything, eventually told her what had happened.
Finally, Zeus, pressured by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, could not put up with the dying earth and forced Hades to return Persephone. But before she was released to Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, Hades tricked her into eating three pomegranate seeds, which forced her to return to the underworld for a season each year. When Demeter and her daughter were united, the Earth flourished with vegetation and color, but for four months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm. This is an origin story to explain the seasons.
This myth also can be interpreted as an allegory of ancient Greek marriage rituals. The Classical Greeks felt that marriage was a sort of abduction of the bride by the groom from the bride's family, and this myth may have explained the origins of the marriage ritual. The more popular etiological explanation of the seasons may have been a later interpretation.
The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica account of the myth.
"As she was gathering flowers with her playmates in a meadow, the earth opened and Pluto, god of the dead, appeared and carried her off to be his queen in the world below. ... Torch in hand, her sorrowing mother sought her through the wide world, and finding her not she forbade the earth to put forth its increase. So all that year not a blade of corn grew on the earth, and men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not persuaded Pluto to let Persephone go. But before he let her go Pluto made her eat the seed of a pomegranate, and thus she could not stay away from him for ever. So it was arranged that she should spend two-thirds (according to later authors, one-half) of every year with her mother and the heavenly gods, and should pass the rest of the year with Pluto beneath the earth. ... As wife of Pluto, she sent spectres, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men."
More can be found here....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persephone
Perhaps my wife will change her mind. But not very likely... oh well... I can make a character in my novel and give her that name.
-Jeff
Here's a picture of her... Pretty huh?
She's holding a pomegranate.
In Greek mythology, Persephone was the embodiment of the Earth's fertility at the same time that she was the Queen of the Underworld.
Her story has great emotional power: an innocent maiden, a mother's grief at the abduction, and joy at the return of her daughter. It is also cited frequently as a paradigm of myths that explain natural processes, with the descent and return of the goddess bringing about the change of seasons.
The Homeric form of her name is Persephoneia. In other dialects she was known under various other names: Persephassa, Persephatta, or simply Kore. Plato calls her Pherepapha in his Cratylus, "because she is wise and touches that which is in motion."
The Romans first heard of her from the Aeolian and Dorian cities of Magna Graecia, who used the dialectal variant Proserpina. Hence, in Roman mythology she was called Proserpina, and as a revived Roman Proserpina, she became an emblematic figure of the Renaissance. At Locri, perhaps uniquely, Persephone was the protectress of marriage, a role usually assumed by Hera; in the iconography of votive plaques at Locri, her abduction and marriage by Hades serve as an emblem of the marital state; children at Locri were dedicated to Proserpina, and maidens about to be wed brought her their peplos (Greek garments of the time.) to be blessed.
Persephone lived a peaceful life before she became the goddess of the underworld, which, according to Olympian mythographers, did not occur until Hades abducted her and brought her into the underworld. She was innocently picking flowers with some nymphs, Athena, and Artemis, in a field in Enna when Hades came to abduct her, bursting up through a cleft in the earth. The nymphs were changed by Demeter into the Sirens for not having interfered. Life came to a standstill as the devastated Demeter, goddess of the Earth, searched everywhere for her lost daughter. Helios, the sun, who sees everything, eventually told her what had happened.
Finally, Zeus, pressured by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, could not put up with the dying earth and forced Hades to return Persephone. But before she was released to Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, Hades tricked her into eating three pomegranate seeds, which forced her to return to the underworld for a season each year. When Demeter and her daughter were united, the Earth flourished with vegetation and color, but for four months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm. This is an origin story to explain the seasons.
This myth also can be interpreted as an allegory of ancient Greek marriage rituals. The Classical Greeks felt that marriage was a sort of abduction of the bride by the groom from the bride's family, and this myth may have explained the origins of the marriage ritual. The more popular etiological explanation of the seasons may have been a later interpretation.
The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica account of the myth.
"As she was gathering flowers with her playmates in a meadow, the earth opened and Pluto, god of the dead, appeared and carried her off to be his queen in the world below. ... Torch in hand, her sorrowing mother sought her through the wide world, and finding her not she forbade the earth to put forth its increase. So all that year not a blade of corn grew on the earth, and men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not persuaded Pluto to let Persephone go. But before he let her go Pluto made her eat the seed of a pomegranate, and thus she could not stay away from him for ever. So it was arranged that she should spend two-thirds (according to later authors, one-half) of every year with her mother and the heavenly gods, and should pass the rest of the year with Pluto beneath the earth. ... As wife of Pluto, she sent spectres, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men."
More can be found here....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persephone
Perhaps my wife will change her mind. But not very likely... oh well... I can make a character in my novel and give her that name.
-Jeff
Been busy
Haven't blogged is a bit. Never got around to posting pics of the Trilobites we found last weekend either, but they'll come soon enough.
I'm tired. Been staying up late at night, then rush to work the next day.
Woke up today to see a virtual white out of snow, a blizzard I never knew was coming. I guess I should've figured it was going to happen, it was pretty cold yesterday. Suffice to say, I was a little late to work today. My work allows for weather related tardy's, thankfully.
Someone brought in 4 boxes of My Sugar's Donut Shopp donuts. So I was able to aquire a very tasty apple fritter. They have THE BEST donuts I have ever tasted. I'm like Homer Simpson.
They're the best ever. I spit on Krispy Kreme. *pa-tooie*
Anyway, because it was slow, most of the employees were sent home. So those 4 boxes sit in the break room calling my name. I grabbed another one for lunch and one for tomorrow's breakfast. And that's it!
I'm trying to be good, eating my Lean Cuisine meals every day and lowering my soda intake. Today I'm drinking milk, also down from 3 gallons of 2% a week to one gallon of 1% a week. I'm trying my best baby. I'll be lookin sexy in no time flat!
Of course my wife says I'm already hot. I believe her too... just look at this picture...
More like this one from a few years ago....
Yes, it's old. That shirt got destroyed by a pitt bull, I no longer wear a watch and that's not where I live anymore. I might have that tiny dagger still. One thing remains, I still dance the robot.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Gosh I'm hot!
-Jeff
I'm tired. Been staying up late at night, then rush to work the next day.
Woke up today to see a virtual white out of snow, a blizzard I never knew was coming. I guess I should've figured it was going to happen, it was pretty cold yesterday. Suffice to say, I was a little late to work today. My work allows for weather related tardy's, thankfully.
Someone brought in 4 boxes of My Sugar's Donut Shopp donuts. So I was able to aquire a very tasty apple fritter. They have THE BEST donuts I have ever tasted. I'm like Homer Simpson.
They're the best ever. I spit on Krispy Kreme. *pa-tooie*
Anyway, because it was slow, most of the employees were sent home. So those 4 boxes sit in the break room calling my name. I grabbed another one for lunch and one for tomorrow's breakfast. And that's it!
I'm trying to be good, eating my Lean Cuisine meals every day and lowering my soda intake. Today I'm drinking milk, also down from 3 gallons of 2% a week to one gallon of 1% a week. I'm trying my best baby. I'll be lookin sexy in no time flat!
Of course my wife says I'm already hot. I believe her too... just look at this picture...
Yep, that's me alright... (yeah right)
More like this one from a few years ago....
Yes, it's old. That shirt got destroyed by a pitt bull, I no longer wear a watch and that's not where I live anymore. I might have that tiny dagger still. One thing remains, I still dance the robot.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Gosh I'm hot!
-Jeff
Monday, March 24, 2008
Weekend update:
Got off work early on Thursday, much to the chagrin of my boss. Hey... we were told 3 PM by corporate. Everyone else left early... so what the heck, right?
Got pizza and movies, went to sleep. Friday was a big day. Drive 3 hours to a place just outside Delta Utah called U-dig fossils.
http://www.u-digfossils.com/
Trilobites, algae and Brachiopods galore. Of course we kept forgetting to bring our cameras. So I don't have any pics of Mrs. P hunting Trilobites, but her sore hands, cut thumb and $100 or so less dollars from our bank account proves she was there. Oh and she found quite a few Trilobites too. Nice ones. Right off the bat too. And that's a good thing.
I'd doubt she woulda had as much fun driving 3 hours to the middle of no where, then spending 4 hours digging in the cool air and cloudless sky on sharp and jagged rocks if she hadn't found fossils right off the bat.
She's a trooper.
I found a great one. "Cheeks" still intact. Plus a nice piece of fossil algae. Yes, algae... can you imagine how hard it would be to find 500 million year old algae? It's very rare.
So if you do not know what a Trilobite is, it's like a little bug. Only they lived on the sea floor way back when Utah was under water.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilobite
Brachiopods are like clams. Bivalves. The ones we found were tiny, like a small black pinkie toenail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brachiopod
Fossil algae... well that's pretty much the same as the stuff we have now... I've found it before, the guys at the quarry tell me I have a good eye, most everyone else never seems to find it. Perhaps they do, but overlook it for the more recognizable Trilobites.
http://images.google.com/images?q=fossil+algae&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7SUNA&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
(The first couple pics are what my stuff looks like.)
All in all we had fun. We were told to go in a place where everyone else was digging... I should've moved over to the area where no one was digging. Less kids. Less noise. Less picked through. But oh well... the wife says it's something we could definitely do again. Yay!
Yeah, yeah... pics!!! I'll get them. Tonight maybe.
The drive home was fun. A full moon rising above the mountains, no traffic, police roadblock! Ha! Yep, we got stopped out in the middle of no-where at a huge police roadblock. Lights, police armed to the teeth, cones, an RV. Turns out they were checking for ATV licenses, DUIs and the usual illegal stuff people like to do on holiday weekends.
All they asked us is if we had any alcohol in the car. "No sir." And we were on our way. Lot's of police out on the freeways. Thank the heavens for cruise control.
Saturday we spent the afternoon with my grandma. Took her to Chili's for a late lunch. Mini-hamburgers and chicken tacos a-plenty. Don't forget the chips and salsa. We went back to the parent's house to watch a little TV, let the lunch settle and have some banana-split cake. Yummy. Not sure about the pineapple.
Sunday we spent the day at my in-laws. I love them so much, they're great. Perfect in-laws. We sat around talking, then went outside to fly kites, blow bubbles and chase the mini-dog around. My wife flies a kite like no one's business. A wonderful dinner, Honey-Baked ham and turkey... only the best turkey EVER!!!! Finished the night with TV and home to bed.
Pretty good weekend, albeit a fast one.
-Jeff
Got pizza and movies, went to sleep. Friday was a big day. Drive 3 hours to a place just outside Delta Utah called U-dig fossils.
http://www.u-digfossils.com/
Trilobites, algae and Brachiopods galore. Of course we kept forgetting to bring our cameras. So I don't have any pics of Mrs. P hunting Trilobites, but her sore hands, cut thumb and $100 or so less dollars from our bank account proves she was there. Oh and she found quite a few Trilobites too. Nice ones. Right off the bat too. And that's a good thing.
I'd doubt she woulda had as much fun driving 3 hours to the middle of no where, then spending 4 hours digging in the cool air and cloudless sky on sharp and jagged rocks if she hadn't found fossils right off the bat.
She's a trooper.
I found a great one. "Cheeks" still intact. Plus a nice piece of fossil algae. Yes, algae... can you imagine how hard it would be to find 500 million year old algae? It's very rare.
So if you do not know what a Trilobite is, it's like a little bug. Only they lived on the sea floor way back when Utah was under water.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilobite
Brachiopods are like clams. Bivalves. The ones we found were tiny, like a small black pinkie toenail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brachiopod
Fossil algae... well that's pretty much the same as the stuff we have now... I've found it before, the guys at the quarry tell me I have a good eye, most everyone else never seems to find it. Perhaps they do, but overlook it for the more recognizable Trilobites.
http://images.google.com/images?q=fossil+algae&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7SUNA&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
(The first couple pics are what my stuff looks like.)
All in all we had fun. We were told to go in a place where everyone else was digging... I should've moved over to the area where no one was digging. Less kids. Less noise. Less picked through. But oh well... the wife says it's something we could definitely do again. Yay!
Yeah, yeah... pics!!! I'll get them. Tonight maybe.
The drive home was fun. A full moon rising above the mountains, no traffic, police roadblock! Ha! Yep, we got stopped out in the middle of no-where at a huge police roadblock. Lights, police armed to the teeth, cones, an RV. Turns out they were checking for ATV licenses, DUIs and the usual illegal stuff people like to do on holiday weekends.
All they asked us is if we had any alcohol in the car. "No sir." And we were on our way. Lot's of police out on the freeways. Thank the heavens for cruise control.
Saturday we spent the afternoon with my grandma. Took her to Chili's for a late lunch. Mini-hamburgers and chicken tacos a-plenty. Don't forget the chips and salsa. We went back to the parent's house to watch a little TV, let the lunch settle and have some banana-split cake. Yummy. Not sure about the pineapple.
Sunday we spent the day at my in-laws. I love them so much, they're great. Perfect in-laws. We sat around talking, then went outside to fly kites, blow bubbles and chase the mini-dog around. My wife flies a kite like no one's business. A wonderful dinner, Honey-Baked ham and turkey... only the best turkey EVER!!!! Finished the night with TV and home to bed.
Pretty good weekend, albeit a fast one.
-Jeff
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
My favorite author has passed away :(
Arthur C. Clarke. Age 90
Once called "the first dweller in the electronic cottage", his vision of the future, and its technology - popularised in films like 2001: A Space Odyssey - captured the popular imagination.
Sir Arthur's vivid - and detailed - descriptions of space shuttles, super-computers and rapid communications systems were enjoyed by millions of readers around the world.
His writings gave science fiction - a genre often accused of veering towards the fantastical - a refreshingly human and practical face.
His ideas and gadgets engaged his readers because of, not despite, their plausibility. Quite often, his fictional musings formed the basis of what we now see as science fact.
Passion for science
Arthur Charles Clarke was born in Minehead, a town in Somerset in the south-west of England, on 16 December 1917.
A farmer's son, he was educated at Huish's Grammar School in Taunton before joining the civil service.
A youthful interest in dinosaurs and Morse code blossomed into a fascination with all things scientific.
During World War II, Sir Arthur volunteered for the Royal Air Force, where he worked in the, then highly-secretive, development of radar.
He wrote story-lines for the comic-book hero, Dan Dare, inspired Gene Roddenberry to create Star Trek and posited Clarke's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Beyond this, during the war, he published a paper in which he predicted that, at 22,000 miles above the Earth's surface, communications satellites would sit in geo-stationary orbit, allowing electronic signals to be bounced off them around the globe.
2001
His vision, soon proved, revolutionised the communications and broadcasting industry.
No wonder, then, that Sir Arthur counted both Rupert Murdoch and CNN founder Ted Turner among his friends and acolytes.
But it was his creation, with the legendary film director Stanley Kubrick, of 2001: A Space Odyssey, that brought Sir Arthur world-wide fame.
Based in part on his short story, Sentinel, the film quickly established itself as a cult classic.
Its mysterious monoliths, the psychopathic Hal 9000 computer and a final sequence which baffled many cinema-goers have become frequently-referenced icons of cinema.
Marking his 90th birthday last year, he told fans: "I want to be remembered most as a writer. I want to entertain readers and hopefully stretch their imaginations as well."
I've always loved sci-fi. There were some authors, however, that were too "out there" for me. Other times they were too technical. Clarke was like the last bowl of the three bear's porridge from Goldilocks.
Just right.
He mixed technology with just enough humanity that it made his stories seem more realistic. His characters were the "every man" almost like I was sitting right next to them.
His most famous book, 2001: A Space Odyssey. My personal favorite: Rendezvous With Rama. I even have a quote from him in my novel, Xerofall.
“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.”
Here's a snip-it of his obituary...
"Visionary science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke, author of more than 100 books, has died at the age of 90 in Sri Lanka.
Once called "the first dweller in the electronic cottage", his vision of the future, and its technology - popularised in films like 2001: A Space Odyssey - captured the popular imagination.
Sir Arthur's vivid - and detailed - descriptions of space shuttles, super-computers and rapid communications systems were enjoyed by millions of readers around the world.
His writings gave science fiction - a genre often accused of veering towards the fantastical - a refreshingly human and practical face.
His ideas and gadgets engaged his readers because of, not despite, their plausibility. Quite often, his fictional musings formed the basis of what we now see as science fact.
Passion for science
Arthur Charles Clarke was born in Minehead, a town in Somerset in the south-west of England, on 16 December 1917.
A farmer's son, he was educated at Huish's Grammar School in Taunton before joining the civil service.
A youthful interest in dinosaurs and Morse code blossomed into a fascination with all things scientific.
During World War II, Sir Arthur volunteered for the Royal Air Force, where he worked in the, then highly-secretive, development of radar.
Sir Arthur predicted the advent of communications satellites.
Demobbed at the war's end, he went to King's College, London, where he took a First in maths and physics, before becoming a full-time writer in the late 1940s.
He wrote story-lines for the comic-book hero, Dan Dare, inspired Gene Roddenberry to create Star Trek and posited Clarke's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Beyond this, during the war, he published a paper in which he predicted that, at 22,000 miles above the Earth's surface, communications satellites would sit in geo-stationary orbit, allowing electronic signals to be bounced off them around the globe.
2001
His vision, soon proved, revolutionised the communications and broadcasting industry.
No wonder, then, that Sir Arthur counted both Rupert Murdoch and CNN founder Ted Turner among his friends and acolytes.
But it was his creation, with the legendary film director Stanley Kubrick, of 2001: A Space Odyssey, that brought Sir Arthur world-wide fame.
Based in part on his short story, Sentinel, the film quickly established itself as a cult classic.
Its mysterious monoliths, the psychopathic Hal 9000 computer and a final sequence which baffled many cinema-goers have become frequently-referenced icons of cinema.
He lectured, was feted by everyone from the astronaut Buzz Aldrin to R Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome, and appeared on television, most notably in Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World.
A seer of the modern age, Sir Arthur was an original thinker, a scientific expert whose tales combined technology and good old-fashioned storytelling and whose influence went far beyond the written page.
Marking his 90th birthday last year, he told fans: "I want to be remembered most as a writer. I want to entertain readers and hopefully stretch their imaginations as well."
God speed, Sir Arthur... I only hope to write a tenth as well as you did. You've been my sci-fi inspiration... you have entertained and stretched my imagination.
-Jeff
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