Wonders of the modern infrastructure:

I've had a nightmare with utilities lately. A couple of weeks ago, after a few of days of rain, a large tree fell off the side of a neighbors hill. It took out a power pole which pulled down the next power pole. I lost power and cable service. The power company worked through the night to get the power back on but in the process of putting in two new poles they cut the underground phone lines. I had power back but the internet was gone.

The phone company came the next day and ran a temporary phone line to get our sevice back on. I was back in business. Both of the power poles had transformers on them. One burst leaking oil all over the ground and into the creek. That required a major clean up operation that had heavy equiment working along the creek behind our house for days. It was a long week.

Cable had been knocked out too. Not a big concern, my internet is DSL through the phone company. They finally came around to fix the cable and cut my phone line in several places putting in their new underground line. So now i had cable, but no phones again. The phone company came out and laid a temporary line across my back yard to get me back up and running until they could free up a crew to bury a new service.

The crew finished their clean up around the creek, the utilities got their new mains buried again causing another day without service, and all that was left was my new phone service across the back yard. We had another rain, which wet the temporary line laying across my yard and made internet very sketchy. Then the phone company sent out a crew to bury the new service.

The crew came the day after the rain and it was too wet to dig. I told them to let it dry up over the weekend and come back monday. They showed back up the next day, Good Friday, and said they thought it was dry enough. They got their line in, across the underground power and cable, without messing anything up, so far so good, but then got their tractor stuck in my back yard. They brought in another, larger, tractor and drove all through my neighbors yard getting the first tractor pulled out of the mud. My neighbor wasn't happy.

Finally I had everything working again at the same time. The yard was cleaned up, I must say they did a good job, and the creek was cleaned up. Everything back to normal after several weeks of drama. Then i came home yesturday to equipment down by the creek again. The power company had installed two new poles. One had hit the phone line as I said. Apparantly the other hit the sewer main.

It had taken awhile for the sewer to stop up and when it did they discovered the line was broken. The utility department was digging it up to repair it. First they dug up the main phone line, there went my phones again, then the new cable line. Here we go again.

Over the past few weeks it seems that my internet connection has been down more than up. Of course I have the new book and website out so i have been trying to keep up with that. I am blogging right now from an unsecured wireless network I was able to piggyback on. I guess that is fitting with the ArchAngelxx storyline. I feel like CG hacking into a network to admin ArchAngel from the front seat of his car. I am sitting on a construction site, in my truck, typing away on my laptop.

Hopefully the phone and cable guys will get their lines fixed without tearing anything else up, but i doubt it. One will come run theirs then the other will come and tear it out. I don't know if it will ever all work at the same time. Until they get it fixed I will just be CG, blogging from my front seat at a construction site somewhere in Mooresville, North Carolina.

ArchAngelxx.net

If they control your computer, they control your mind.

"You have a virus on your computer. Its tracking everything you do. If you have a microphone it can hear you. If you have a web cam, they are even watching you. It can not be detected by any anti-virus scan, or blocked by any firewall, they make sure of that. It's not just watching you, it's communicating to you subliminally. Messages from them, flashing on your screen, just beyond your conscious perception. But your sub-conscious sees them: you are being brainwashed." CG

The online version of my novel "Archangel" is up and running. You can read the book, and join the ArchAngel network free. Just visit http://archangelxx.net/ and the complete unabridged text is available online. When you sign up (at a certain point in the story CG, the main character, will ask you to join ArchAngel) make sure you give your correct e-mail address because you can expect an email from CG.

I love the idea of writing a novel online. There is so much you can do that is not possible on paper. The website is written in asp.net so almost anything is possible. I have already thought of ways to make the story even more interactive than it is now, so there may still be some additions coming.

The Mobipocket version is still available for download, if you want to read on your mobile device and Amazon.com has it available on their new Kindle Reader. I can't wait to get hold of a Kindle. That is a revolutionary idea for reading/distributing electronic books.

It's an exciting time to be a writer. There are so many possibilities. I've already started my next novel. I hope you enjoy ArchAngelxx.net. You can give me feedback here.

thanks,

maxwell

ArchAngel released on Mobipocket

At last ArchAngel has been released on Mobipocket eBooks. The MaxwellCynn.com and ArchAngelxx.net websites should be coming online in the next couple of days. They are actually already up, but still under testing. They are presently being hosted on Neolythics.com but they will be moving to their own domains soon.

Go download the preview of the book and check it out, if you like it buy the complete book. The Mobipocket reader is a great little program and free to download and use. There are thousands of titles available for download and you can read them on anything from your computer to a cell phone.