Some links may be affiliate links. I may earn money if you buy something or take an action after clicking one of these links on this site.
Rob Knowlan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Treading Water
Happy hot July Hump 🐫 Day! We’ve gotten to the time of the year when you just want to jump into the pool for some relief. Swimming is a great way to relax and get exercise at the same time…
🏊🏻 With The Current 🌊
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. ~Thomas Jefferson
We’re sneaking up on a rather significant anniversary this week. I remember the last one.
It was Conestoga wagons and Little House on the Prairie.
It was knickers (not the British definition), tricorner hats and Johnny Tremaine.
It was fife and drum parades and nonstop patriotic music.
We loved the country.
We were proud of two centuries of awesomeness.
Five more decades on and we’re seeing the side-effects of what this Soviet defector warned us about.
I remember that, too.
The quiet creep of insidious intellectualist undermining.
Even as we enjoyed Ronald Reagan, seemingly patriotic Hollywood producing timeless blockbusters like Top Gun and the visible crumbling of the USSR, the rot had already taken hold.
Hippies found a home in academia. Sagely questioning the cornerstones of our country’s foundation.
Thinly veiled Marxists found a home in politics and the judiciary. Skeevy little rats gnawing at the fabric of society while posturing as concerned for the underclasses.
These stealth actors blended in.
They looked normal at the grocery store or waiting at line in the DMV. At their cocktail parties? They seemed normal in their little conversational clusters. What they were actually saying to each other? Delusional at best. Traitorous at worst.
If it was a single deluded generation acting stupidly, oh well. We could work around them.
Unfortunately, they think they’re so enlightened that they felt the need to spread their BS to impressionable children.
Unfortunately, that indoctrination has largely taken hold.
People believe things that are not only easily disproven, but they don’t care that proof to the contrary exists.
Karl Marx is Santa Claus to large swaths of the population and only days from our 250th anniversary, people are voting for flat-out communists.
Unfortunately, you can’t fix stupid. The harm is done.
The important question is whether there are enough people who have a clue in life and don’t believe the government can give you everything for free in exchange for handing over your God-given rights.
Are there still enough Americans to keep America free until the 300th anniversary in 2076?
Good question. Guess we’ll see…
💦 Into The Pool 🏊🏻
POOL ANATOMY and PLUMBING For Beginners (Step-By-Step Walkthrough)
Okay, now that I’m all hot under the collar, let’s switch to swimming pools.
Everybody loves them.
Some people can even afford them.
Some people properly maintain them.
A well-kept pool is a treasure in the hotter months.
The small out-of-ground pools like the one we used to have out back are great for floating, splashing and hanging out with friends and family.
The big in-ground deals are even more fun and luxurious.
There’s the shallow end for wading or simply getting one’s feet wet.
There’s the gentle slope in the middle for playing games and bobbing up to your neck in water.
There’s the deep end where you can do a jolly good cannonball without disrupting the fun of the kids in the middle or smashing your tailbone in the shallow part.
Here’s a little tutorial on how to make a big splash with your cannonballs.
How to do a HUGE SPLASH | 2 ways to cannonball at the swimming pool
🏊🏻 Swimming Under Water 🐊
All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
That’s right in my lane.
Yes, I had swimming lessons.
Yes, I’ve been taught breathstroke and all that.
It took hold about as well as riding a bike, which is to say not at all.
The real swimming lessons for me were the Man from Atlantis and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
🎼Under da Sea!‼️!‼️!🎶
That’s how I swim. It’s not technically correct, but it gets me where I want to go.
I glide happily along the bottom like the ferocious gill-man.
In fairness, I do not do the full eel twist like Patrick Duffy.
I’m not sure if that would have ever worked for me, but at this point, I know my costochondritis would kick in and I’d get a full-body cramp on the bottom of the pool.
Perhaps that would feel different with the water pressing against me. Something to try in the not-so-deep section sometime.
And that’s how it is with writing.
You have to try things and see how much they hurt or how surprisingly effective they are.
You dive in and don’t come up until you absolutely need a breath of fresh air.
That sense of being in an alien environment.
The sound is different. The light refracts and wobbles so it looks like you have stubby, rubber legs.
You can tip off of the floor and fly around like Superman, or at least like a character balloon in a parade.
Everything is experimental and weird, but you figure out what works by doing it.
Putting myself into the Sentinelsverse and transcribing what’s happening in that strangely refracted environment is like swimming around at length underwater.
It’s quiet, comfy and wonderfully weird.
So, when I see these videos about people having blank page syndrome, I’m utterly baffled.
I’m closing in on a half-million words as I approach book 4 of the overall chronicle, and I’m not even halfway through 2005 yet.
My head-canon casting list of people who have or soon will have at least one spoken line or significant action is over 500 and I haven’t really even gotten going yet.
AuthorTube and BookTube warn us that this would be like swimming with a millstone around our necks, but not so.
The Sentinelsverse feels lived in because a one-liner guy in book 1 could easily be a serious supporting character in book 3.
Bit players get reused as much as is feasible, but Empire City is a big place with millions of residents.
You can only stretch any given beat cop, cabbie or waiter so far.
Irene Finkel may be a floating hostess for the IHOP, but she can’t be everywhere all the time.
That’s all for today. See you back on Saturday for USA250…