The Ice Dragon and the Blue Rose, Second Edition is now available!

At long last, the Second Edition of my book, The Ice Dragon and the Blue Rose is now available.  The book has been refreshed to use current common practices for ebook organization; and, well, spelling and grammar fixes.  

This is a "Decide My Quest" story that allows you to choose how you wish to experience your quest.  This is an awesome reimaging of 2nd person and interactive storying telling.  Your choices allow you to see the same story from multiple (and sometimes opposing) perspectives.  I loved making this story and even rereading it!  The story contains multiple dead-ends and multiple success endings.  Check it out!

I hope to make more of these types of stories in the future, as time allows.  It's a fairly complex process to write these, but the results are great!

[My] First E.V.A. in Elite: Dangerous Odyssey with True Space Legs at last!

 

Trail 10 - Shady on a hot day

This past weekend, Allie and I drove a bit.  The destination was Meyer Ranch Park (backup link)  From the book, 60 Hikes within 60 Miles for Denver and Boulder, this is entry #10. Though the book lists this trail as being in the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains, for all intents and purposes, this is in the Rocky Mountains.  The entire park is west of the Legault Mountain Peak (9045ft).  The drive here is a bit longer than places I would call "Foothills".

Meyer Ranch Park is worth the longer drive.  This is a great place for a hot day.  Most of the Lodge Loop Trail (that forms a full circuit at this park) is shaded under tall trees.  The trail itself is very well maintained.  The uphill portions aren't steep.  Overall, Allie and I really enjoyed this location and will definitely consider coming back.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CQWgk9kl4fd/

Though Allie and I originally intended to visit this park earlier in the year, we were unable to get out to this beautiful location until the very last day of Spring (or the first day of Summer by a certain reckoning).  However, this was the perfect day.  With temperatures in the 80's and 90's in Denver, a shady hike in a wind cooled valley exceeded our expectations.  

By my information, a visit to this park comes with a likelihood to see wildlife.  Unfortunately, on this day, we did not catch any glimpses of mountain critters.  

As an unexpected coincidence, we finished our hike at nearly noon.  After our hike, we headed back into Denver Metro for lunch.  We decided on a famous restaurant that we haven't tried yet, Cherry Cricket.  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CQWqbafl3KK/

The burgers at Cherry Cricket were good.  I did something that is surely a sin somewhere to someone; I tried the Impossible Burger (veggie) with bacon strips!  Yummy.  Also, while we dined, this sucker visited us in the adjacent fish tank:

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CQWp-yulTLn/

#LeftoversLaws #14: Don't take home uneaten #FrenchFries. They never turn out right when you reheat them on a following day.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/wDEILEhRyH/

#LeftoversLaws #21 - Cold pizza for breakfast: Yum! #leftovers

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/vmH7wnBR8A/

Glowing with the brightness of the 🌞

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPmY53oFQlz/

Found in the wild at the mall (slice of life)

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPgXO7SlYbD/

Slice of Life movie: http://sliceoflifefilm.com/

J.R.R. Tolkien's books never describe any Elves with pointed ears!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPoRY3QFKjb/

Fun and Important Words: Highfalutin

Highfalutin is a word with mysterious origins.  Typically, the word means pompous, arrogant, haughty, pretentious or excessively ornate or bombastic, often in reference to a manner of speech.[1](1)  However, how such a word came to mean such things is not known definitively.  The alternative spelling of "hifalutin" doesn't offer any clues, either. It's common for dictionaries to claim it highfalutin is derived from the words "high" and "fluting".  Although this may make sense, it is actually not likely according to other sources.  Long before highfalutin was first recorded, another term meaning something similar already existed, "high flown".  It seems more likely that highfalutin is a corruption of high flown. I've used highfalutin from time to time.  However, my use of the work tends to carry an ironic tone.   Between the spellings, ngram shows that highfalutin is a lot more common than hifalutin, these days. The rise in use of highfalutin also seems to roughly coincide with the reduction of usage for the term high flown.

Boondocks Fussbudget Gobbledygook Highfalutin Malarkey Newfangled Roust Twitterpated Whatchamacallit Whopperjawed

Elite Dangerous Odyssey: Trying to start a bar fight, and figuring out free camera

CMDR FCSUPER and DE CYPHER try to start a bar fight, and then figure out how to use free camera while walking around on the concourse. 

Intro/outro music Orbit Dance is original music, © 2021 by Matthew Lorono, All rights reserved.

The Balance Pin Incident: First CMDR in Elite Dangerous to Destroy His Own Ship from Another commander's Ship

This is the story of how the CMDR FCSUPER became the first CMDR in Elite history to target, attack and destroy his own ship by firing upon it from another CMDR's ship.  Special thanks to CMDR DE CYPHER and CMDR FOLEY10 for their help!  

On May 23, 3307 (2021), while on board CMDR DE CYPHER's Imperial Cutter named Big Bad Wolf, CMDR FCSUPER targeted, attacked and destroyed his Sidewinder, called Balance Pin.  This is the first time in Elite that a CMDR fired upon and destroyed his own ship from another commander's ship.  That part didn't actually take that long.  Once he successfully destroyed the Balance Pin, the journey really started as they all try to figure out what's supposed to happen next to recover from the self-inflicted loss.

Intro/outro music Orbit Dance is original music, © 2020 by Matthew Lorono, All rights reserved.

I just stopped for a moment for a vista photo while farming materials at one of the Crystal Forests (Elite Dangerous)

 I just stopped for a moment for a vista photo while farming materials at one of the Crystal Forests (Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CO_1Kmyly5g/)

Leftovers Law #34 ~ Everything is better with little bits of crispy pig sprinkled on top!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CO-36AblWLz/

Crystal Forests have became Crystal Barrens in Elite Dangerous Odyssey

Crystal Forests have became Crystal Barrens in Elite Dangerous Odyssey!  You can still start up and play in Horizons to get your G5 materials for now, but even that source might be going later this year!  Load up now (in Horizons) before they're gone completely!

Hip 36601 C1A site 5 Polonium

Hip 36601 C1D site 3 Ruthenium

Hip 36601 C3B site 5 Tellurium

Hip 36601 C5A site 4 Technetium

Outotz LS-K D8-3 B5A Site 15 Yttrium

Outotz LS-K D8-3 B5C Site 3 Antimony

(1) 📌 Song info:

Title: Escape

Artist: Sappheiros

Genre: Melodic Chillstep

 

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You’re free to use this song in any of your videos, but you must include the following credits in your video's description (Copy & Paste):

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"Escape by Sappheiros" is under a Creative Commons license (CC BY 3.0)

Music promoted by BreakingCopyright: https://bit.ly/b-escape

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Suburban bird of prey tries out a new hunting style - Hide-and-seek

This suburban predator is trying out a new hunting technique called Hide-and-seek!  However, the tasty bunnies that are hiding from him don't seem to want him seeking them.  This was recorded a couple of days ago in Colorado, of course.