My latest flash story. http://www.dailycabal.com/2009/11/handbag/

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Aau-lWFdN9YoZGZnMjJ2emRfMGcyaGJkcGhx&hl=en

I do think it'll be fun, but I'm not sure what it'll be like

"Hotel Antarctica" is my new story about geology and microscopes. http://www.dailycabal.com/

Audio of "Good will from Cylinder 7" 9 min 20 sec into Beammeup podcast http://beameup.podomatic.com/entry/2009-11-07T17_34_58-08_00

Dial "R" for Robot http://www.dailycabal.com/

Home Instead, Kansas City area

 

I spent a week in a suburb of Kansas City in early October of 2009. I searched the listings of local suppliers of home health care and chose Home Instead. I made my initial choice because this company was willing to send an employee out for only 1.5 hours. Most competitors required a minimum of four hours. That was more than I needed; I only wanted someone to help me get up. The per hour rate was comparable across the board, with Home Instead being close to the low end of the range.

 

For those who don't know, I am a quadriplegic, and am incapable of getting up on my own. It takes an experienced helper about half an hour to get me up and up to an hour for a competent but inexperienced helper to do the same job. In addition to getting me out of bed and into my chair, I also needed help with simple exercises. The 1.5 hours I paid for (actually covered by insurance) provided enough time for all of this on the first day and more than enough time once my helpers got used to what they were doing.

 

Home Instead provided two different helpers for the period of seven days, which isn't bad. Both helpers are competent individuals and had no trouble learning everything I needed them to do. Neither had previously helped a quadriplegic to get ready for the day. I judged both to be as capable as the best of my local (Alabama) long-time caregivers. The company also sent a manager out to make sure they knew how to find the house and that everything was okay and another manager came the first day I was there to bring a logbook and doublecheck that there were no problems. They have a 24 hour seven day a week phone number, but I did not have to call.

 

I can unhesitatingly recommend this service. I have no complaints at all.

 

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

1300 Kicker Rd.

Tuscaloosa, AL 35404

jopnquog@Gmail.com

http://3dmuseum.org/

Slow to load, but so cool.

Charles Israel will be
speaking on "Evolution Proven: The Curious Development of American
Anti-Evolution" at 3:00 p.m. on November 18, in the Special
Collections Department of the Ralph Brown Draughon Library on the
campus of Auburn University.

The chair of Auburn University's Department of History, Israel is the
author of Before Scopes: Evangelicalism, Education, and Evolution in
Tennessee, 1870-1925 (University of Georgia Press, 2004).

For further information, visit:
http://media.cla.auburn.edu/cah/events.htm

I don't hear well & I'm busy, so for me, social media are like cocktail parties.

I can hear the people close to me. The rest, I'm sure their conversations are interesting, but I can't hear them. So if I am on three different social media & have a total of about 350 friends, and I spend less than an hour a day on the stuff then.... Well, it's like I stop by each party in turn on my way home from work, say hi to whoever I run into on my way to the table with food on it and on my way back, and that's it. I feel like I'm missing a lot. Then again, whenever I do stop by, certain friends are posting every 15 seconds [a slight exaggeration]. I would never have this much time. If I was bedridden I'd be reading at least 80% of the time, which would still not leave enough to keep up with these things. I guess there's still a little bit too much of the 20^th century in me.

mine are "Hazard pay" & "Doing double time"

http://cyberwizardproductions.com/AbandonedTowers/index.html

Two science fiction audio poems from me

http://www.dailycabal.com/2009/10/king-karl/

Mythos again. Good though.

http://palaeo-electronica.org/2009_2/commentary/darwin.htm

srsly!

Third Annual DN Charity Fundraiser

 

Subscribe to Dreams and Nightmares – donate to community soup bowl

 

 

Beginning now and continuing through December 23, 2009, when you buy a lifetime subscription to Dreams and Nightmares ($90) I will donate half ($45) to the East Tuscaloosa Community Soup Bowl, which is my local soup kitchen. I know there are many people in the world who have needs, but I choose to make much of my community outreach gastronomic. The soup bowl is run by a small and dedicated group. Their current goal is to be able to serve lunch every day. In a small way I'm helping them do that.

 

Believe this: $90 for a lifetime supply of an award-winning genre poetry magazine (Professional Book Center merit award; HWA Stoker nomination; YBF&H honorable mentions; SFPA Rhysling nominations & winners). A very very good deal!

 

But wait, there's more!

 

You also get copies of all available back issues when you sign up (9 are available right now, a $45 value). DN has been around for 23 years, and 84 issues have been published so far. Think of a name in genre poetry -- I have probably published something by that person. You can see the tables of contents of some back issues and the covers of more of them at the magazine's website (http://dreamsandnightmares.interstellardustmites.com/).

 

Now is a great time to subscribe.

 

Oh, check out my poetry blog at http://dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.blogspot.com.

 

 

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

1300 Kicker Rd

Tuscaloosa, AL 35404

jopnquog@Gmail.com (e-mail and PayPal)

Oo! Mythos flash! http://www.dailycabal.com/2009/10/if-ancient-texts-are-anything-to-go-by/

Temple stairs.  (OK, they're a bit small.) Our ancestors were shorter than we are, you know.

September 28, 2009

 

I have been a quadriplegic since May 14, 2003. This morning the alarm woke me at 4:50 as usual. Then I dozed off again. When I reawakened, it was from the only dream I ever remember having in which I was disabled. In this dream I awoke in my bed as usual, but then slid off onto the floor. I wasn't hurt. I got up and walked across the room, and suddenly noticed that this was something I had not done for almost 6 ½ years. My wife came out of the bathroom and I told her about it. She was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps her equanimity should have been a clue, but dreams are believed even when they are not believable. Then my caregiver walked in. It was my daughter's former guitar instructor. That didn't seem strange, but I was a little surprised he brought a clueless friend with him. Be that as it may, I didn't need any help. I went out in the backyard to discover that some romany had moved in next door. That was pretty cool. I had never met any before; most of them live in Europe. Anyway, I saw a cute little girl about five years old and a couple of adults. I went to the shed in the back of our backyard for some reason (I don't remember why). When I turned around the little girl was coming over with her beagle. It had unusual coloration, being mostly two different shades of brown, but was beagle-shaped. They were in my wife's garden, which was full of a grid of evenly spaced small hills of squash or something like that instead of the profusion of flowers that dominate the actual yard. Then I discovered that my house had a couple of dozen broad stone steps leading up to a huge set of columns. And that it was in fact a high-rise building, or in one. I went into the lobby, but before I could go to my apartment I met my wife and two friends (not people I really know) and we decided to eat breakfast in the restaurant off the lobby. That is about when I woke up.

 

After two seconds of bliss I felt a real letdown, when I realized it wasn't true: I couldn't really walk again. Then it occurred to me that if I got the use of my nerves back it would be months before I could walk. I would need to strengthen & retrain my muscles. Other discrepancies came to mind, such as the fact that we do not really live in a high-rise. About that point I came to understand that I felt good anyway. Dreaming about regaining the ability to walk was fun.

 

But I still don't know any Roma.

You want something with that fruit salad? My latest story http://www.dailycabal.com/2009/09/take_it_on_the_lime.html