I do not celebrate birthdays. Despite the convention, you have only one. All days after that are living days. The particular orbit of our planet around the sun has nothing to do with age. Age is biological. If our planet orbited at the distance of Uranus, most of us would never celebrate a birthday. Worse than the birthday celebration for the living is the need to celebrate a birthday for someone dead. As an orbital celebration shouldn’t it be their deathday we celebrate?

Social custom is social custom. For this April Fool’s day, I decided to play along and celebrate the -126-year birthday of Keith Hobson. You read that right, the minus 126-year birthday of Keith Hobson. To be born on April 1, 2145 Keith will witness humanities devastation and play an important role in its revival.

The first week of January, 2018 I sat down to write a short story about Ryan Jameson, the reporter from The Fundamentals. It quickly grew into a larger project than I expected. The result is Special Correspondents Lottery, a novella length tale of how Ryan Jameson found his way to the Santa Maria and in the center of the biggest event in human history. I have published it in five parts in the Short Story section of this website. Enjoy.

Including a glossary for a fantasy or science fiction epic is standard practice. Tucked away at the end of a book, they are useful references if you have set a book aside for a while and need to re-familiarize yourself with the language and culture of a story.

The first time I read the Lord of the Rings, it was a massive hard-bound copy I checked out from the Public Library. It included all three books, a biography of Tolkien and a glossary that rivaled the Silmarillion. I had a special bookmark for the glossary, and often lost myself tracing entries while assembling Middle Earth in my head.

Another epic that included a glossary at end of each book was The Wheel of Time. Here, though, the glossary tried to contain itself to the book at hand. Occasionally there was a term I was unfamiliar with, if it was not in the current book’s glossary, I would have to dig out an older book to find it, or read on, hoping the story would remind of the term's meaning.

The trend on Facebook this month is to post what you are “thankful for.” Most of my friends are pretty much where I am at. Catching up for the four or five days we have missed. While most have went for things like god and family, the same stuff they will say around the table on the 25th, I am taking a different approach.

Here is my catch up list:

Day 5: I am thankful that I won’t have to wait 6 hours to vote in the morning. Kansas has done a much better job of suppressing the vote than other states.

http://goo.gl/y6tdg

Day 4: I am thankful that billionaires and corporations can give an unlimited amount of money to political campaigns. Maybe now “trickle-down” will finally work.

http://goo.gl/ATfcM

Day 3: I am thankful that legislature in Ohio allowed fewer days to vote in the general election, than in the primary. Without it, these mimes would not have gotten any press.

http://goo.gl/BQGXr

Day 2: I am thankful that I do not have to read my D20 dice in Egyptian.

http://goo.gl/G7f2D

Day 1: I am thankful for Science Fiction.