Books – Page 18 – Into the West

A new series in the Honorverse, slated to be released next week. We find ourselves back before Manticore knew it had a major wormhole, back before it had any spaceship building industry and soon after a Plague that wiped out much of its nascent population. One of our protagonists is Travis Long, who enlists in the RMN (Royal Manticore Navy) while his supposed friends rob a neighboring jewelry store. Travis acquires a couple of monikers during basic training that reflect upon his always by the book philosophy with respect to rules and regulations. The political climate on Manticore has a faction of the civilian government clambering to dismantle the Navy and/or replace it with a Coast Guard like service that patrols the local system and protects merchants and miners from pirates. The action ramps up when Manticore sends representatives to a Haven sponsored military surplus spaceship sale. Pirates (or what we are led to believe are pirates initially) masquerading as legitimate buyers attempt a heist of their own on a much grander scale than Travis’ juvenile delinquent buddies.

Continue reading “Book Review: A Call to Duty by Weber and Zahn (4 Stars)”

18.263k days or .5c yrs

Good morning!

And Happy Birthday to myself. I’ve crossed over. I’ve reached another dreaded milestone. Today is the first day of my fifth decade.

To make myself feel better about this dubious event, I’ve reverted to two of my favorite past times: math and astronomy.

I decided to calculate how many days I’ve been breathing air on Earth. For that I had to find a date calculator. Plugging in the relevant date (today in 1964 and 2014), the following results popped up:

From and including: Friday, October 2, 1964
To and including: Thursday, October 2, 2014
Result: 18,263 days

It is 18,263 days from the start date to the end date, end date included

Or 50 years, 1 day including the end date

Alternative time units 18,263 days can be converted to one of these units:

1,577,923,200 seconds
26,298,720 minutes
438,312 hours
18,263 days
2609 weeks

In addition, the Earth is travelling through space, via the Milky Way, at the incredible speed of 3,728.23 mps. Roughly, the Earth has moved 5.88286061194e+12 miles since I was born, give or take a few. That equates to approximately 63,256.57 astronomical units. A rolling stone gathers no moss . . .

And the .5c I included in the title of this post? No, I’m not travelling at half the speed of light (except in my dreams). I’m merely reflecting upon reaching my half century mark.

I decided to make a four day weekend out of this auspicious occasion so I’m relaxing at home, reading and doing other none stressful activities. No parties (that I know of) and no surprises. Just Terry, me and the dogs hanging out.

Just another day in the neighborhood. Eighteen thousand two hundred sixty-three and counting.