My Grandfather died yesterday morning at 10:30, surrounded by his family. My father, my two aunts, and my mother. It would have made him happy to know that mom and dad were there - no matter how he acted it was always fairly obvious to me that dad was his favorite. And mom? He loved her like a daughter. My sisters and I were in the XTerra driving up to the hospital when the calls came in from mom - the first call was that he was fading fast, and the second was that he was gone.

My grandfather is dying. His carotid arteries are blocked - 100% on one side and 90% on the other. He’s been experiencing TIA’s (micro-strokes) over the course of the last few months. He has had a stroke and is having problems moving the right side of his body. He has an inflammation of his bowel. There is really nothing that can be done - when you’re 90 years old you don’t have many options.

You know, there’s something to be said for someone who can take Charlie Brown and H.P. Lovecraft and weave them together. Take a look at John Aegard’s The Great Old Pumpkin over on Strange Horizons Fiction. I came across this earlier this morning when it popped up in my RSS aggregator over at bloglines in my BoingBoing feed. The tone, the use of adjectives, the descriptions (and yes, the very low amount of dialog) all make this work very….

Over the holiday weekend just passed, Beth and I were able to take Alex up to see the USS Cod. This is something I’ve been wanting to do since I first read a book about the submarine service back in 1982 when I was ten years old, so I was pretty excited about the whole visit. The first thing they tell you when you buy the tickets is “be careful”.

The quote below is from CS Lewis, author of the classic children’s series Chronicles of Narnia as well as such theological books as Mere Christianity and Screwtape Letters, and was delivered in 1939. The calamity referred to is the Nazi aggression that was then sweeping over Europe in general and the invasion of Poland in particular. “I think it important to try to see the present calamity in a true perspective.