Oh My, Your Car Doesn't Work? I Warned You!

This week we continue with what your world is going to be like if (or perhaps when) WWIV comes a callin'. Last week we hinted at life without electricity. This week, I take your vehicles away.

Here's your first hint. Jumping won't help. To be exact, it's not even possible. Unless you find someone with an older car (sans computer), and, they had it stored properly.

Whatever happened to cause The Darkness was bad

Real Bad, actually. It seems to have emulated an EMP (electromagnetic pulse). And those aren't good. Here's a link to what it would be like after one of those babies. Scroll down to the part covering "effects". And trust me, if you dig a little deeper, it gets a whole lot scarier.

Suffice it to say that if The Darkness hits the world with the same effects as an EMP, well - we are all in a lot of trouble.

Damn computers, the bane of our existence

It's bad enough your laptops, and desktops, and tablets won't work. But your 2103 Chevy Impala has a computer as well. Several computers actually.

And guess what? It's dead, now that The Darkness has come. Dead - never to work again, never to be fixed, never to be replaced. You see, radiation has come to rest on our world. And it has covered and destroyed EVERYTHING!

(I'll cover more about what happened later - as in it will all be revealed in Book Three of my Shorts Series The Truth)

So, I guess we'll be walking a lot more now

You know your daughter's cute bike out in the garage? The pink thing with the streamers on the handle bars? Yeah, get used to it.

Or get some good shoes.

Or find a sturdy horse.

'Cause there won't be any more planes, trains, nor automobiles. Not for a long, long time (most likely ever, but let's not perseverate on that right now). Just like last week - can you say welcome to the 1800s? That's what transportation is going to look like - for the rest of your life for sure!

It's sobering, isn't it?

Never again will you take a Sunday afternoon ride to Grandma's. Quick trips to the store some five miles away? Nah, I don't think so. Weekend jaunts to cities hundreds of miles away are now things of the past.

On any given weekend, I drive as much as 300 miles from my home. Perhaps I'm off to the cottage for a weekend of fishing and relaxation. Or maybe a fall dash to the farm to hunt deer. Ah, the good ole days.

After The Darkness comes, my range will be limited greatly. Maybe five miles, perhaps less. Without a vehicle to transport me here and there, I'll be doing plenty of walking. I've got a bike, something my daughter and her husband gave to me as a birthday gift a few years back. But, I don't bike much. Perhaps I'll have to dig it out of the corner of the garage and become more acquainted with that thing.

What will your life be like without gas-powered transportation? Tell me about it...if you dare.

Have a great week; enjoy Thanksgiving (my US readers). 

e a lake

(books below are interactive, so go ahead and click on any of them)

                       

So You think You Can Live Without This...

Here's one for you. Just how in the heck are you going to survive without Mr. Franklin's discovery - Electricity? Got that one figured out yet? Well, if WWIV ever comes a callin', you had better.

Life Without Power

Oh, this is going to suck, my friends. 

Let's take a peek at something most of us use every single day. A device that has made modern people's lives much simpler. The refrigerator.

If, like I write about in my WWIV series, one day our electricity disappears, your poor "ice box" ain't gonna work no more. Yikes; better open it sparingly, right? Ha! Better eat what's in there as fast as you can before it all spoils (and when your food does go bad - never open the door again).

What about air conditioning, heat, toasters, coffee makers? Nope, none will work any longer.

Hair dryers, televisions, radios, printers, garage door openers...will they survive? Absolutely not.

Please, you beg; please tell me my computer will work. Or at least my cell phone or my iPod? Sorry. All gone. Each and every one of them. Along with anything else powered (or charged) by electricity.

Can you say early 1800s?

And it continues to get worse.

All those fancy machines and gadgets in our hospitals will also be rendered useless. Further, without the power of electricity how are factories supposed to work? They can't, quite simply.

That means no more food production, medicine production, even toilet paper production.

Schools will close, people will die in nursing homes in rapid order. Gas can't be pumped any longer, so your car becomes worthless. And whatever's in the ground is all we are going to have for the rest of time. Because, and this is how bad The Darkness will be, none of it is ever coming back. Not for centuries to come.

So maybe we should look at the 1600s

I realize all of this is impossible to believe, improbable to comprehend, and unlikely to ever occur (at least you hope it doesn't), but what if it did. What if all the preppers and survivalists were right? 

What exactly are you going to do then? That's the ten-million dollar question.

No, I can't ever imagine the end of the world like portrayed in my novels - they're fiction after all.

Right?

Until next week, let me know what you'll miss most about electricity in the comment section below. I'll be waiting for your replies.

e a lake

(books below are interactive, so go ahead and click on any of them)

                       

This Must Change! It Absolutely Has To!

22 veterans a day take their own lives due to triggering points associated with combat stress. That's one veteran every 65 minutes.

That statistic is unacceptable - Period!

PTSD is real, and must be properly addressed. 

How can we let our sons and daughters - nieces and nephews, our grandchildren, our neighbor's kids, the nice boy from church, that sweet girl from the animal shelter - go off to war, return home in one piece, and then be ignored to take their own lives?

It stuns me that this isn't headline news in each and every newspaper - EVERY DAY! 

It shocks me that Charlie Rose isn't screaming about this on the morning news!

It saddens me that it's always "someone else's problem". 

It is our problem; each and every one of us

I'm sickened by the fact that the Sunday News Shows had a casualty report every week during combat times. Where is the recognition for these brave souls now?

Veteran's Days was last Wednesday. I waited a week to start this campaign. A simple writer's blog where I typically talk about anything but this. Until this week. I want the madness to stop. I want all of our children safe. It's time we put an end to issues like bullying and teen suicide. Time for an end to the "heads in the sand" attitude over PTSD!

It is time we quit ignoring the atrocities occurring right here; whether on American soil or any of our Allies.

Our children are dying, people! Dying at alarming rates! We need to do something...NOW!

PTSD is Real!

If you don't believe me, I feel sorry for you. I've seen it first-hand; felt the pain first-hand; laid awake at night - all night sometimes, worrying about it.

You don't have to agree with the war to love the warriors. I don't love war. More precisely, I wish all war would stop, now! Because our children are the fighters in these battles. Not the President, not Congress, or the Supreme Court. Not any State Legislator, or Governor. Our children; that resource we hold so dear!

Over the next few months, I'll continue posting on this subject. It's not going away - so neither will I! 

Share the post with everyone you know. Because everyone you know knows someone in the military. And chances are that military member might just have PTSD.

Let's start saving lives one at a time, or two at a time. Or how about 22 a day?

Yeah, I like that idea.

Until later, pray for peace!

e a lake

(BTW - 22 a day equals almost 8,000 a year. Do I have your attention now?)

When the Darkness Arrives

I write fiction. Post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction to be precise. And I created The Darkness just for you - my readers.

But just how fictional is The Darkness?

Some will tell you that it, The Darkness, could never happen. And these people will be intelligent people; people whose brains are much stronger than mine; people who know all (or so they claim). But consider this:

When my father was a young man back in the early 1940s, he would lay in the farmyard at night, staring at the moon and stars. To him, young Jim, man ever setting foot on the moon was impossible - as in never going to happen.

By 1969, we were there (unless you're a conspiracy theorist and believe it was faked)! The impossible achieved.

But wait, there's more

Consider, if you will, winged flight. Tell me, who in the late 1800s would have ever believed man would fly like the birds...higher than the birds...faster than the birds? In 1890 there was little rapid transportation. Trains moved quick, but not that quick. Cars were just coming out and might top out at 10 mph. Fly like the birds? Impossible!

These days a person can fly from London to New York City in mere hours. I wonder how fast the Titanic made that trip back in the 1910s? Wait, was supposed to make that trip... It never arrived in NYC, of course.

Oh, there's plenty more

We could play this game all day long. Cell phones, sterile surgery, someone breaking the 4:00 mile, and on, and on, and on.

So, tell me this: What is so impossible about the world, our world, one day being plunged into The Darkness? A world that resembles the early 1800s much more than the twenty-first century. A world where the are no cell phones, no landlines, few to no working cars (or other forms of transportation), no electricity, no running water...no hope.

That, my friends, is the world featured in my WWIV series. 

Not very bright and cheery, is it? Not something any of us would ever want live in.

But certainly not an impossibility.

Have a great week everyone. And don't worry, I don't think The Darkness is coming anytime soon. At least I hope it's not.

e a lake

(books below are interactive, so go ahead and click on any of them)

                       

Oh Google, I Saw This Coming

I received an email the other day; well, a gmail actually. At least it came to my gmail account.

"Watch videos ad-free & uninterrupted with YouTube Red"

Holy crap Batman. I love watching videos. And especially on You Tube. This is perfect for me. I mean absolutely, brilliantly perfect!

But, as always, there a catch...

Yeah; like most things in life, it ain't free. Surprise (and that's a faux surprise in case you didn't catch the sarcasm).

You Tube is owned by Google. They, Google, purchased the video sharing service back in about 2006 I believe (if my research is correct). And in case you have lived in a cave since Al Gore invented the internet, Google has become the internet.

I'm not saying Google is bad...Absolutely Not

No, they just know how to make money. And lots of money. They call it monetizing. And Google monetizes everything. And they are really good at it.

So, what's my point?

We (read that as I and you) understand that Google is in business to make money. We get it, we really do.

But I have the same goal in my writing career. I too want to make money. 

So please, don't ask me to give away all of my novels. Don't question why my latest book may be $3.99, while some of my others are $2.99. (Short answer, book three is a whole lot better than books one and two).

Google is giving us something of value, at a certain price. They are giving us the ability to enjoy uninterrupted videos and background music - for $9.99 per month. I have yet to decide if I'll nibble on this offer. I think I can flip through and end early a lot of commercials for $9.99 every thirty days. But that's not to say I'll feel that way forever.

Consider this the next time you pause before buying an e-book from an independent author that just seems "a little spendy" - it's only four or five dollars, people! Trust me, it won't be the worst "fiver" you've ever spent. And it's only half the cost of a month of You Tube Red.

Let me guess: You already signed up, didn't you?

e a lake

(books below are interactive, so go ahead and click on any of them)