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Update on things.
11 years ago
General
So, I've not been terribly active as of late, it would seem; why is this? What is going on in Baphi-land?
Long story short, work. Long story slightly longer, burning out.
Back in late October, my car broke down in El Paso on the way to the airport. Threw a rod and the engine blew up; this put my vehicular traversing abilities out of commission for over a month while I searched for an engine that would match a 1991 Daihatsu Rocky, of which only a little over 200 were ever sold, both 1991 and 1992, in the US. I did luck out, finding a working engine in a junkyard in Roswell, and after quite a bit of finagling with it, I think it's actually to the point of reliability now.
About two weeks after the car initially broke down, my co-worker and superior was hospitalized with cancer; they removed a tumor from his brain the size of a small lemon, and he's been half-paralyzed ever since. As a result, for about six weeks, I was the only employee at the observatory (naturally, my bosses were still here, but really we need a total of three nighttime people for successful operation); during that time, because there was no one else to take over, I stepped up to become the nighttime observatory supervisor and could not take a single night off. There wasn't any leeway to allow for such. (My boss had been working continuously without a day off even after we hired someone new, so he was in a worse situation.) This was during one of our largest growth periods since I was hired on, so we were busy pretty much non-stop; we installed a total of... I think it was four or five new telescope systems within a month, which is freaking massive.
Finally, about mid-December, we did hire someone else. I've been training him mostly, but he catches on quickly and clearly knows his way around a telescope. (He used to work for the Soviet satellite-watching military operations, so I'd hope he does!) At any rate, things have finally started to calm down around here as a result. We're still getting new clients left and right, but with another set of hands, it's much easier.
In addition to all of this, I've started taking classes again. Not with New Mexico Tech anymore; as much as I want to return to astrophysics, it likely won't be through them, at least not any time soon. No, I'm taking classes online; at present, I am enrolled and actively participating in a Cisco certification course, a class on teaching English as a second language (TESOL, or Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), and App design. It's a lot, but it's stuff I'm interested in, and furthermore every ounce of it will help in the event I find myself out on my ass like I did in Socorro. (I don't anticipate that happening, but anymore I can't be too careful.)
Finally, I actually have been writing; just, for the most part, it's not been smut. :P I've been working on a number of novels; Fall, the sequel to Journey to Fire's Keep, is certainly top of my current priority list, but I've also been working on Next of Kin (a semi-modern contemporary fantasy adventure involving a dragon, an alien, a cyborg, and the CIA), A Chronicle of the Mysterious Events Surrounding the Third Holy War and the End of the World (a fully-modern contemporary fantasy story about... well, the Third Holy War and the End of the World, that will likely end up being my The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), and Beat Down, Derelict, and Left for Dead (a collection of three novellas illustrating the difficulties often hidden in living in America, especially by those who turn a blind eye to such things). Oh yes, and then there's the unnamed horror epic I'm also working on here and there, about a young man who starts to uncover the dark secrets behind a disavowed video game; in addition, there's the non-fiction piece I'm writing on how to properly take pictures of astronomical objects. So, yeah, writing plate is pretty full! But I do have *several* smut pieces in the works as well, including the next installments to Soiled, The Mushroomed Kingdom, Messy Boys, and even ScreenPets, as well as other completely new pieces. Oh yes, and I've been working on another new project y'all might be interested in: A kink-centric SCP-style thing; if you're curious, I can post a link. I've been mostly keeping this muscle flexed through Twitter, where I've been writing microstories and little lewd poems here and there. Username's BaphiBot there, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
So, yes, I'm still alive and working on things! Hopefully, I'll have some more genuine material to post here soon.
Long story short, work. Long story slightly longer, burning out.
Back in late October, my car broke down in El Paso on the way to the airport. Threw a rod and the engine blew up; this put my vehicular traversing abilities out of commission for over a month while I searched for an engine that would match a 1991 Daihatsu Rocky, of which only a little over 200 were ever sold, both 1991 and 1992, in the US. I did luck out, finding a working engine in a junkyard in Roswell, and after quite a bit of finagling with it, I think it's actually to the point of reliability now.
About two weeks after the car initially broke down, my co-worker and superior was hospitalized with cancer; they removed a tumor from his brain the size of a small lemon, and he's been half-paralyzed ever since. As a result, for about six weeks, I was the only employee at the observatory (naturally, my bosses were still here, but really we need a total of three nighttime people for successful operation); during that time, because there was no one else to take over, I stepped up to become the nighttime observatory supervisor and could not take a single night off. There wasn't any leeway to allow for such. (My boss had been working continuously without a day off even after we hired someone new, so he was in a worse situation.) This was during one of our largest growth periods since I was hired on, so we were busy pretty much non-stop; we installed a total of... I think it was four or five new telescope systems within a month, which is freaking massive.
Finally, about mid-December, we did hire someone else. I've been training him mostly, but he catches on quickly and clearly knows his way around a telescope. (He used to work for the Soviet satellite-watching military operations, so I'd hope he does!) At any rate, things have finally started to calm down around here as a result. We're still getting new clients left and right, but with another set of hands, it's much easier.
In addition to all of this, I've started taking classes again. Not with New Mexico Tech anymore; as much as I want to return to astrophysics, it likely won't be through them, at least not any time soon. No, I'm taking classes online; at present, I am enrolled and actively participating in a Cisco certification course, a class on teaching English as a second language (TESOL, or Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), and App design. It's a lot, but it's stuff I'm interested in, and furthermore every ounce of it will help in the event I find myself out on my ass like I did in Socorro. (I don't anticipate that happening, but anymore I can't be too careful.)
Finally, I actually have been writing; just, for the most part, it's not been smut. :P I've been working on a number of novels; Fall, the sequel to Journey to Fire's Keep, is certainly top of my current priority list, but I've also been working on Next of Kin (a semi-modern contemporary fantasy adventure involving a dragon, an alien, a cyborg, and the CIA), A Chronicle of the Mysterious Events Surrounding the Third Holy War and the End of the World (a fully-modern contemporary fantasy story about... well, the Third Holy War and the End of the World, that will likely end up being my The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), and Beat Down, Derelict, and Left for Dead (a collection of three novellas illustrating the difficulties often hidden in living in America, especially by those who turn a blind eye to such things). Oh yes, and then there's the unnamed horror epic I'm also working on here and there, about a young man who starts to uncover the dark secrets behind a disavowed video game; in addition, there's the non-fiction piece I'm writing on how to properly take pictures of astronomical objects. So, yeah, writing plate is pretty full! But I do have *several* smut pieces in the works as well, including the next installments to Soiled, The Mushroomed Kingdom, Messy Boys, and even ScreenPets, as well as other completely new pieces. Oh yes, and I've been working on another new project y'all might be interested in: A kink-centric SCP-style thing; if you're curious, I can post a link. I've been mostly keeping this muscle flexed through Twitter, where I've been writing microstories and little lewd poems here and there. Username's BaphiBot there, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
So, yes, I'm still alive and working on things! Hopefully, I'll have some more genuine material to post here soon.
fyi_dragon
As for the SCP thing, there's not a lot to it just yet (I spent FOREVER formatting it), but it's here: http://gradyowens.us/scp/bin/view/Main/ScpSSeriesI