A is for Atlantis

This drabble started out as something I wrote in an email to Kass, in which Rodney gives Torren a children’s book. Kass thought it would be fun to actually make the book. The full version is posted over on her Art blog – click on the pic to see it.

 

 

http://goatfarmersart.blogspot.com/2009/10/is-for-atlantis.html

 

And the drabble is here (if anyone wants to turn this into a full length fic, just remember to credit us):

 

Teyla accepted the gift from Rodney and unwrapped the brightly colored paper.
Inside was a book made of stiff card, with pictures and large printed writing.

“Rodney, did you make this yourself?” asked Teyla.

“Um, yeah, I, well, its a children’s book, for teaching Torren, you know, to read?”

Rodney babbled, blushing from his neck to the roots of his hair.

“That’s so thoughtful of you,” Teyla thanked him, smiling.

She opened the book to the first page. There was a picture of the city, that must have been taken from a puddle jumper. Underneath was the writing “A is for Atlantis.”

“Hey, can I have a look?” asked John eagerly, reaching out his hand. Teyla passed him the book, grinning. John flipped through the pages, reading the writing under each new picture.

A is for Atlantis
B is for  Beckett
C is for Control Chair
D is for Drone
E is for Electron Microscope……………

“Hey Rodney, you can’t give Torren this,” he exclaimed.

“Why on earth not?” asked Rodney.

“Because he’s two.” replied John with an exasperated sigh.

“And your point is?”

 

Manic Sunday

We got up at 5.30 this morning, which is just plain crazy on a Sunday, because my son wanted to sell all his junk at the car boot fair. It was a dull, miserable day, but that worked in our favor because it was quiet, so we got a good pitch. By 10 am he had made enough cash, so we put the rest of the junk back in the car, just in time to avoid the rain.

After we unpacked the car,  we went into town to trade his old XBox for a Playstation3 and I bought new shoes. And all this by 2.00pm in the afternoon.  Right now I feel like I could just go back to sleep!

 

Sorry.

So I’ve been MIA again. I guess you’re all getting used to me doing that by now. I only meant to take a couple of weeks off in the run up to financial year end. It’s always a really busy time for me at work. I put in extra hours and afterwards I feel too tired to turn on my PC.

Easter was busy. Work didn’t let up much, but it was Adam’s school holidays, and he wanted me to do stuff with him at the weekends. We did some interesting walks, including one at the top of the Horse Shoe Pass.

The weather’s been particularly nice lately, so I’ve been trying to sort out the garden. Also we took some of Adam’s old stuff to the local car boot fair to sell. It turned out to be a lot of work so that Adam could turn some of his old junk into cash, but somehow his room still looks a mess.

I’ve started to do some writing again, plus Kass has reminded me that I have some stuff already in beta, so you may not have to wait to long for the next squirrel fic, or sga story.

Anyway, I’ve got to show my face on ADB at some point (assuming I can find my password, and the bouncer lets me in.)

Hope they’re not too mad at me.

 

Snow

So its my birthday today and guess what, it’s snowing and I’m stuck home with a chest infection. So much for bowling in the mall, chinese food and coffee in Starbucks? Maybe next weekend.

The schools were open today, but we’ve had a lot more snow overnight, so my son and his friends are hoping for the day off tomorrow.

All the squirrels have been great, sending me lots of messages to cheer me up, and my brother did do me a really cool home made birthday card :

 

 

I think I’ll celebrate my birthday properly when we all go to the chevron 7 con.

 

Reunions

Just a quick update – spent this weekend at my friend’s daughter’s christening. It was great because I got to see all my university friends again. I saw most of them at new year’s eve, but there was one guy there who I had lost touch with since I left university. I made sure to exchange email addresses so we don’t loose touch again.

It was too far to travel down in one day, so we spent Saturday night at a Premiere Inn. My son was impressed by the food.

Another reunion back at work on Monday. A couple of the guys have been stuck in one of our other offices for what seems like ages, so it was great to have them back again.

My dragons are doing really well for themselves. All three of my original eggs are now adults.

 

Baby Dragons !

I found out about these from emerald over on dgeek. They start out as eggs, but if enough people view them they turn into baby dragons, then adults. You can also breed your own.

If you want one of your own, you have to go to the dragon cave site http://dragcave.net. You have to register first, then you can click on eggs to pick them up. There is also a forum where you can find out about how to care for your egg.

 

 

Happy New Year Everyone

First of all, apologies to everyone who’s wondering where I’ve been over Christmas, although by now you’re probably all used to me going MIA and didn’t even notice!

The holidays were the usual, last minute present shopping, Christmas eve and Christmas day spent with my family, Dr Who special on the telly. My son got lots of money this year, and spent most of it in the Boxing day sales. We are finally the owners of our own copy of Guitar Hero. Much more fun than shooting stuff.

New year’s eve is always a big deal for me, because it’s when I catch up with all my old friends from University. This year the party was being hosted by a friend in South Wales and we ended up spending new year’s day on the beach. It was really cold.

I managed to get some writing done over Christmas. I have mostly finished Solaris, although the chapters still have corrections to do. There’s also a couple of new projects that might actually get finished. (Even my beta hasn’t seen everything yet)

Last week I got hit by a really nasty cold bug thing. I’m back at work now, but it’s all a bit nuts there at the moment. Still, it pays the bills.

Anyway, need to try and get my fanfic head back on over the weekend, as I’ve got too many unfinished projects lying around.

 

Networking

I think my brain has melted and poured out of my ears. This week my boss sent me to an event hosted by IBM for a software product we use at work. There were presentations about new software products and tutorials for existing ones, and a chance to network with other programmers and IBM partners.

I’m really glad I went, because I have found out a lot of interesting stuff about new products, training courses, and tips and tricks that could help me at work. I have also made some useful contacts. Another cool thing about these events is that they give you lots of free stuff like bags, pens, notepads, mouse mats and flash drives.

It was rather a long week though, because the presentations were running from 8am till 7pm, and I had to drive down from where I love. I was a bit late back on Tuesday, and missed Stargate, which means I will have to wait for the rerun tomorrow to find out what happened to Rodney and Daniel.  Unless I cave and look it up on gate world. (please don’t post me spoilers in the comments).

There has been snow all week, but it’s melted now. It wasn’t too bad driving down to the conference, at least I didn’t have to drive over the mountains into work. Adam was staying with my parents for half term, and he built a snowman, and had a snowball fight with the kids next door.

Fortunately, I realised I would be tired today, so I booked a day off, so that I could have a lie in.  I am hoping I can get some writing done today, as I have not done anything much for a couple of weeks. Kass and I have been working on a project, which you will all find out about soon. I will have to catch up with my chores first though.

 

Day out:

As it’s a bank holiday weekend, and the weather was nice, I decided we should go out somewhere for the day. We ended up in Llangollen, and went for a walk.

Here are a couple of pictures that I took:

 

Save Our Stargate Atlantis !

It seems to be a week for bad news. First of all I found out that my favorite site dGeek had been hacked, and then I heard that Stargate Atlantis was going to be canceled at the end of season 5.

http://www.gateworld.net/news/2008/08/sci_fi_confirms_iatlantisi_cance.shtml

Apparently the ratings are still good, but the studio want to go out while they are still on top so they can switch to making movies.

Now the squirrels are not at all happy of the idea that there will be no more SGA, and especially Rodney McKay on our TV screens, so they are getting together and coming up with ideas to try and get the network to change their minds.

A new site has been launched, along the same lines as the Save Carson Beckett campaign:

http://www.sosga.net/ 

(video from fraggledragon’s channel on youtube)

So please check it out, and if there are a few bugs then please be patient, as the site is still being added to.

The squirrels behind the site are:

• Little McKay – Web designer and primary Code Monkey
• Fraggle Dragon – Web Design
• NZ Jackie – Forum creator and assistant designer
• JBpiggy – Web Design and Code Monkey.