|
John Sundman
|
Vineyard Haven, MA
I'm the author of the novels Acts of the Apostles, Cheap Complex Devices, and The Pains, all of which can be downloaded for free from wetmachine.com. I've also written a bunch of award-winning essays for Salon.
I've done famine relief & agricultural development work in west Africa (5 years), have spent 22 of the last 30 years in high tech (Silicon Valley & Boston areas), the other 8 years as truck driver, construction laborer, and novelist. I volunteer at a food pantry that my wife founded & runs, and I'm a volunteer firefighter.
Projects by John Sundman (1)
John Sundman is Backing (0)
John Sundman is not backing any projects.
Recent Posts by John Sundman
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #15A report on work-in-progress
This post is exclusive to backers.
-
John Sundman
commented on a project updateAw gee, Michael, I was trying to act in "sane" mode. You mean it didn't work? Christian: well, if I could get my dog (still very much a puppy) to sit still, I would show her to you. But she won't sit still, which is why I have to walk her & let her run -- so she'll be tired and I can get some work done!
Video update: off to walk the dog
Trying to figure out how this video upload thing works. . . pardon me while I attempt to join the 21st century. . If you see a video here, that means I figured out how to post it. If you don't, t...
-
John Sundman
commented on a projectThanks, bro. Couldn't have done it without you. That is literally true. I mean "you", Mike Pence. Also for my birthday, and to my surprise, the voters of the town of Tisbury voted to build the new fire station. Lots of hard work by lots of hard-working people doing civic duty for no pay went into that. I had really hoped for 400 backers on this project, but getting 400 backers takes time! If I had set the clock at 2 months instead of 1 month, I probably could have hit that goal. But in terms of the $$ and the vote of confidence of my backers, I could not be more pleased & proud. So now it's time to write a book that matches your confidence in me. I think I can do that, but it will take serious effort & all my concentration. Thanks again, jrs
-
John Sundman
commented on a project updateROCK STAR!!! Thank you!!
Goal reached, now comes the hard part
First, a disturbing discovery. According to teh internets, that St. Jerome picture I wrote about the other day now reside...
-
John Sundman
commented on a project updateJohn, Wow, thanks! That's astonishing. I'm glad that I first saw the one in the Bush-Reisinger at Harvard. It's my favorite of the 3 I've seen (yours included), and it truly is an astounding painting, even if it did come out of a "St. Jerome in His Study" factory. Clearly, my ignorance of this subject is pretty deep. But that makes it fun, que non?
Flame Wear
This morning I have another practical exam in my effort to become certified "firefighter 1". Today's subject matter: hoses. I've taken three 1.5 hour classroom classes on hoses and water supply, ...
-
John Sundman
commented on a project updateGreg, I have submitted it to boing boing when the project was just getting going, but they didn't pick up on it. Perhaps if a few people who were not the writer himself (hint, hint) were to submit a note to boing boing, they might put up a mention. I'll do it again, but I hope some other people (hint hint) will do so also. It might be worthwhile to try the same gambit on Slashdot and Reddit and digg. All of those things will look better if they're coming from you guys, not me.
CALLING ALL ROCK STARS!
An old friend and new Creation Science backer writes, "Living in Boston. Actually working on a bioterrorism-related project: [redacted]. We use machine learning and text mining algorithms to detec...
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #14Some books sent today; more to be sent
tomorrow.
I mailed out books today to everybody who pledged for the "one-and-one" prize. Acts of the Apostles was the most requested book, followed by Cheap Complex Devices and The Pains. It was a pretty good pile of books. The clerk at the Post Office suggested I look into getting an account so I can print labels and stamps at home. Yes, I should do that. Somebody remind me, please.
Tomorrow, dog willing, I'll send out sets of books to those of you who ordered the complete "oeuvre" -- my three already-published books.
Stay tuned for an update on Creation Science. I'm working on it; I like how it's shaping up. I hope to have a reasonable update ready by the weekend, if not sooner.
Sorry for the light posting; it's that busy time of year. But I do assure you, I'm working on it.
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #13Thanksgiving Update
Happy Thanksgiving & After
On one of the more obscure public diary sites where I hang out, I wrote, a little while ago, Some lessons & reflections on Kickstarter. It contains a little laundry list of things I think I did right and wrong during the fund-raising portion of this project. In the comment thread I had occasion to link to a little blog post I wrote some while ago, Through Keanu, Darkly, to which my friend Kellnerin replied, "You, know, that's the kind of thing you should have reposted to your Kickstarter diary." Great. Now she tells me. Also in that thread I described, to a fan of Acts of the Apostles, the kind of book I intend Creation Science to be:
I will try to make it a page-turning thriller of the "Hey, I can just imagine Keanu in the lead role!" variety. Or even, "Hey, I can imagine Matt Damon in Jason Bourne mode in the lead role" or whatever. So it will be pretty much straight-ahead.
I don't think I can totally turn off the moderny/post-moderny thing however; that's just part of who I am. But there was that kind of stuff in Acts too, and nobody even noticed it, much less complained about it.
For example, in there's a scene in Acts when Nick meets Monty & Monty tempts him which is patterned nearly line for line on the scene in Matthew where the devil tempts Jesus. I did a lot of that in Acts, but like I said, nobody even much noticed.
In my other two books, that kind of literary fancy stuff ran wild. So I'm definitely going to reign it in in Creation Science. But there will probably be some of it, somehow or other.
I'm a bit occupied with family stuff and house winterization activities at the moment, but within the next week I expect to be neck deep in writing Creation Science. I'll posting a weekly summary of activities here, and for those of you who opted for the "watch it grow" prize, please stay tuned. I'll figure out a way to make the sources secure and accessible soon & you can keep an eye the project from there. Meanwhile, here's the little story about Keanu, lifted from my blog.
Through Keanu, Darkly
I saw A Scanner Darkly the other night in a giant, un-airconditioned, run down, smelly theatre in Burlingame, California. It was affected, disaffecting, funny, intriguiing, and depressing. And that was just the theatre. Wait 'til you hear about the movie.Well I'm an ostensibly technoparanoid guy and my little corner of Wetmachine is an ostensibly technoparanoid site, and A Scanner Darkly is a Philip K. Dick story, right? And PKD is the patron saint of technoparanoaics, right? So, naturally. . . um. . . whatever. Or in other words, ergo. . . kumquats. Hey, are those aphids crawling out of you? What was I saying? I think I was going to say something about the movie, but, I mean, what do we really know about reality, anyway? (Other than that, y'know, giant, smelly run-down theatres smell a lot smellier when the air conditioning isn't working. (I mean, they do, don't they? Don't you agree? When it's all hot and you think you're going to suffocate in a nearly empty hall the size of a NASA hangar? (And will you kindly keep those aphids to yourself?))).
So at work the next day some guys were chatting across the bullpen. Now, I work at Laszlo Systems, creators of OpenLaszlo, and the guys & gals I work with are ubergeeks. They're the sharpest software developers I've ever worked with, and I've been in this biz since 1980. Which is to say, my fellows are part of the prime target audience for cyberpunk movies, which Scanner Darkly kinda is. Not as cyberpunky as The Matrix, mind you, but moreso than "Speed", with Sandra Bullock. So they want my verdict on the film.
"Well it's got Keanu in the lede role," I starts. . .
"Ugh," says Scott.
"Keanu!" says Adam, joining the conversation from about ten yards away.
"I can't believe you're such a Keanu fan," Scott says. "You're serious about that."
"I am"
"And you studied film at Harvard."
"I did." (Adam is one of those annoying universally brilliant people. He's a world class software designer who studied film in college. Taught himself programming on the side. . .) "I think Keanu is the best actor of his generation."
I observe that since Keanu stars in every cyberpunk movie ever made, maybe it's impossible to make one that does not star him. In other words, maybe it's not just an unwritten law of Hollywood that you cannot make a cyberpunk movie that does not star Keanu Reeves. Maybe it's a fundamental property of the universe, like the speed of light or Plank's Constant or something. Adam and Scott are too busy arguing about Keanu-as-actor to take any notice of my new (and I think quite insightful) hypothesis about this fundamental property of the universe.
"He was perfect as Neo", Adam says.
"Perfect as a two-by-four" Scott says. Scott is busy writing code as we're having this conversation. He's typing a mile a minute.
Adam meanwhile stands up and puts his hand out directly in front of him, like Neo stopping the bullets. Adam is wearing Neo-style shades, natch.
I say something about Keanu being like Bogart. Bogart acted like Bogart, not like a real person in the world. Yet he often was perfect in his roles. Meanwhile Adam and Scott have changed gears and are having a mini code review by proxy. Scott is verbally serializing some data structures across the room; Adam is catching and responding.
Anyway, I liked Scanner Darkly a lot, but cannot give it an unqualified recommendation. First of all, it's about drug addiction. It's also about technoparanoia and all that other patented Philip K. Dick stuff about the nature of reality and so forth, but fundamentally it's about drug addiction, and drug addiction in this movie is presented honestly. It can be interesting to watch people's minds and lives fall apart; it can have its funny moments too. But it's really, really depressing.
Two other comments: I think the rotogravure animation was a mistake. Not a bad mistake, but a mistake. And also, Robert Downey's performance was brilliant. I'm going to see the movie again just to watch it. Some snotty reviewers -- several that I've read, actually -- have tsk-tsk'd about how over-the-top his scenery-chewing performance is. (Note to self: what are these same critics saying about Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow?). I wonder if these people have never been around anybody who's really smart and also stoned and tripping? Well, anyway, I loved Downey in this movie. And I loved Keanu too. And Winona Ryder too. Well, everybody was good in this flick.
The theatre added to the verisimilitude, but you can get nearly the same effect without it, I expect, so you can skip that part.
-
John Sundman
commented on a project updateAw gee, Michael, I was trying to act in "sane" mode. You mean it didn't work? Christian: well, if I could get my dog (still very much a puppy) to sit still, I would show her to you. But she won't sit still, which is why I have to walk her & let her run -- so she'll be tired and I can get some work done!
Video update: off to walk the dog
Trying to figure out how this video upload thing works. . . pardon me while I attempt to join the 21st century. . If you see a video here, that means I figured out how to post it. If you don't, t...
-
John Sundman
commented on a projectThanks, bro. Couldn't have done it without you. That is literally true. I mean "you", Mike Pence. Also for my birthday, and to my surprise, the voters of the town of Tisbury voted to build the new fire station. Lots of hard work by lots of hard-working people doing civic duty for no pay went into that. I had really hoped for 400 backers on this project, but getting 400 backers takes time! If I had set the clock at 2 months instead of 1 month, I probably could have hit that goal. But in terms of the $$ and the vote of confidence of my backers, I could not be more pleased & proud. So now it's time to write a book that matches your confidence in me. I think I can do that, but it will take serious effort & all my concentration. Thanks again, jrs
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #12Video update: off to walk the dog
Trying to figure out how this video upload thing works. . . pardon me while I attempt to join the 21st century. . If you see a video here, that means I figured out how to post it. If you don't, then please ignore the interruption. . .
-
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #11Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday, me. For your present you get to contemplate how 115 people have pledged a total of more than $7,200 to support you in your novelistic endeavors. IF that doesn't make you feel pretty special, than you've got problems bigger than we suspected.
But no, wait! It does make me feel special! Hooray! Thank you, all Creation Science backers! What a wonderful gift you've given me. I feel so loved, aw, gee.
In looking back over the last month, I see that while I've been successful in reaching out to lots of people, there are still a dozen things left undone on my Kickstarter "to do" list. It's a lot of work to reach out personally to hundreds of people. Had I to do it over again, I would probably put a little more time into video updates about he book itself and a little less time into trying to get some "big name" people I know to support me with a tweet or a blog post. Jeffrey Zeldman is a pretty big name in the web-design world, an "influencer", as they say, and he has been an enthusiastic and generous promoter of this effort & has certainly brought me some readers & backers. But none of the 15 or so other similarly prominent people I know have even answered an email, and I really pretty much knew before hand that they wouldn't. So why did I pester them with follow-up messages? Making a few quick update videos would probably have been a better use of my time.
But the thing is, you never know until you try. I've received generous backing from people upon whose s*** list I thought I was on. Other people who have been enthusiastic fans and supporters in the past, who've written glowing reviews, etc, have not (yet?) signed on.
And of course, there are among the 115 backers we have so far dozens of people whose names I don't recognize; new friends. Welcome!
Any help in rounding up any nearby strays and corralling them into the pen in the remaining 15 hours or so will be much appreciated.
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #10Twenty-twenty-twenty-nine hours to go
I wanna be sedated.
Well, not really. Contrariwise actually: I want to stay up all night and pimp this beast.
Hope you'll do likewise, and I THANK YOU ALL, Freddy Mercury style.
Remind me in the morning, tomorrow morning, to tell you about the Frank Zappa angle in Acts of the Apostles, and more importantly about his line about recording the song that's hard to play.
Peace out, friends. And pimp this dawg.
One love.
jrs
-
John Sundman
commented on a project updateROCK STAR!!! Thank you!!
Goal reached, now comes the hard part
First, a disturbing discovery. According to teh internets, that St. Jerome picture I wrote about the other day now reside...
-
John Sundman
commented on a project updateJohn, Wow, thanks! That's astonishing. I'm glad that I first saw the one in the Bush-Reisinger at Harvard. It's my favorite of the 3 I've seen (yours included), and it truly is an astounding painting, even if it did come out of a "St. Jerome in His Study" factory. Clearly, my ignorance of this subject is pretty deep. But that makes it fun, que non?
Flame Wear
This morning I have another practical exam in my effort to become certified "firefighter 1". Today's subject matter: hoses. I've taken three 1.5 hour classroom classes on hoses and water supply, ...
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #9Martha's Vineyard Retreat
Check out the newest addition to the rewards: a 3-day vacation as guest of me and my Dear Wife at our home on Martha's Vineyard.
Yes, I know I said I was trying to figure out a way to attract lots of donors at lower dollar amounts, and this prize is pricey.
However, for the money, it's quite a good deal! Please spread the word on this one.
-
John Sundman
commented on a project updateGreg, I have submitted it to boing boing when the project was just getting going, but they didn't pick up on it. Perhaps if a few people who were not the writer himself (hint, hint) were to submit a note to boing boing, they might put up a mention. I'll do it again, but I hope some other people (hint hint) will do so also. It might be worthwhile to try the same gambit on Slashdot and Reddit and digg. All of those things will look better if they're coming from you guys, not me.
CALLING ALL ROCK STARS!
An old friend and new Creation Science backer writes, "Living in Boston. Actually working on a bioterrorism-related project: [redacted]. We use machine learning and text mining algorithms to detec...
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #8CALLING ALL ROCK STARS!
An old friend and new Creation Science backer writes,
"Living in Boston. Actually working on a bioterrorism-related project:
[redacted]. We use machine learning and text mining algorithms to
detect disease outbreak signals on the internet. V. sci fi. Can we get
a fictionalized appearance in the book? That'd be sweet."My answer: FREEK YEAH, YOU CAN!
Anybody else out there who has potential material or ideas, please speak up: that's part of the whole kickstarter idea, init? (as we say in fake Cockney, because we've heard it on television).
Well, with five days or so left to go & with the balance standing at $6.3K or so, I'm afraid I'm not going to dally long to chat. Like the proverbial politician who has no time to legislate because she's so busy raising money so she can get re-elected to another term when she'll be too busy to legislate, I'm off to track down friends and media contacts and random passers-by to see if I can enlist their help in this project. THANK YOU MAJORLY to all who have backed the effort so far. I appreciate the money and I appreciate the vote of confidence. Thank you. The money raised so far is a great start, I'm very grateful, but it's not enough to see me through this project, to which I'm now morally committed. So, off I go to hustle, hustle, hustle. No time to say hello, goodbye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.
Special thanks to Jeffrey Zeldman, jabberwock, Sarah Allen and ptw for their blog love.
This is the way the world works: "matey learn matey." (That's old Hawaiian pidgeon for how Hawaians learned English: each crew mate on a ship taught his other mates what he knew of the language.)
And so, mateys, please continue to learn your mateys about this project. Spread the word in person, in tweets & blogs and facebook and whatever.
I'll do my best to write a story worthy of your efforts.
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #7Flame Wear
This morning I have another practical exam in my effort to become certified "firefighter 1". Today's subject matter: hoses. I've taken three 1.5 hour classroom classes on hoses and water supply, and one 2.5 hour practicum (dressed in full firefighter gear, doing stuff with hoses at the station). It's interesting. Who would have dreamed there would be that much to learn about hoses (and couplings and nozzles and pressure and flow)? Not me.
So today I have to go to the Tisbury School, get dressed in my full PPE (personal protective equipment) and demonstrate that I know how to hook up hoses, advance attack lines up a ladder, etc, etc.
What makes the subject complicated is friction loss. Because of the friction encountered by water as it moves through the hose, you can get a lot less pressure at the nozzle than you pumped into it at the engine. Is the solution then to just increase pressure at the pump? Maybe yes, maybe no. You have to be careful not to burst your hose by overpressuring it, or to blow up your pump! Because friction loss is proportionately so much greater in an attack line (1.75 inch diameter, for example) than in a supply line (3 inch, for example), you want to bring the supply as close to the scene as you can.
Even if I don't miss a single class, getting certified will take 1.5 years (I have .75 year to to). I can still do lots of useful stuff at a fire scene without certification (I already have)-- but I won't be allowed within the collapse radius of a house on fire. I'm determined to get that certification.
What does any of this have to do with Creation Science? Nothing at all. I just think it's interesting & thought you might.
Ten days to go! Please, please continue to ask your friends to consider pledging a buck or two to keep momentum going.
And finally: the St. Jerome mystery deepens (see my earlier posts on this). I looked closely at the Poughkeepsie St. Jerome by Van Cleese and compared it with my post card of the Harvard painting, and while they're clearly painted from the same plan, they're not the same painting. The easiest way to see the difference is to look at what's out the back window. In one, it's a tree, in the other it's a field. I much prefer the Harvard instantiation; it's got a much more bewildered-looking saint.
I promise to update you more on the actual novel I'm writing Real Soon Now.
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #6Goal reached, now comes the hard part
First, a disturbing discovery. According to teh internets, that St. Jerome picture I wrote about the other day now resides at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie! The Horror! I was just planning a trip to Cambridge to see it again. When the hell am I ever going to get to Poughkeepsie??
But on to happier news. Creation Science has just passed the $5k goal, and unless there's some "backslidin'" among my backers, I'm home free & will collect your pledges on November 17, my birthday. Hooray!
So a great big THANK YOU! to all who have pledged so far. Thank you very much.
It would be nice to have a little cushion, however.
The hard part now will be reaching out to get more backers now that the goal has been reached. People will have a natural tendency to say "oh he's OK; he's hit his mark; no need for me to chip in just yet." Not to mention, I've already reached out to a good portion of my friends and family; the challenge now will be to reach out to people I've never met.
My next update will be a little bit more about the book Creation Science itself, which I trust will be more generally interesting than talk about my fundraising efforts. But I couldn't very well let this milestone go unremarked. So thank you to everybody, and a particular shout-out to my friend & high school classmate Peter Reilly, who reached deep into his wallet for a generous pledge to put e over the top.
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #5Saint Jerome in his Study
The image of the bearded old dude with his hand on a skull on the Creation Science project page is from a post card depicting the painting Saint Jerome in his Study, ca. 1521, attributed to Joos Van Cleve the Elder. The painting is in the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University, and the post card is in my private collection.
As the internet tells us, Saint Jerome
Jerome spent the last half of his life rendering the Scriptures into the contemporary Latin of his day. Since Latin was at that time, the common or “vulgar” tongue, his translation was called the “Latin Vulgate.” [. . .] Because Jerome was able to work from Greek texts that were already considered ancient in his own day — and that have since been lost — his Latin translation remains of inestimable value to biblical scholars. He also translated the Old Testament from the Greek Septuagint into Latin, as well as making another translation of the Old Testament directly from Hebrew and Aramaic.
So, Jerome was responsible for much of Western Civilization. I think that's cool. Also, he pondered deeply the perplexities of translation. That's cool too.
Those two facts probably explain why the subject "Saint Jerome in his Study" was such a popular subject for painters during the Renaissance.
Those facts don't explain, however, the composition of this magical painting, a painting before which I have personally stood transfixed for long periods. (I once stared at it for nearly an hour). To me, the painting perfectly captures the essence of deep contemplation about What the Heck Is Going On???. He's got one hand on some dead dude's temple, his other hand is touching the matching place on his own skull, he's got the assembled wisdom of the known world surrounding him, and on the wall behind him a little scroll that says "Final Rest." And he's thinking, "Hunh? What? What the. . . what the heck. . . what the. . . I don't. . . I don't *get* it."
He's my hero.
I first became acquainted with this painting when an old girlfriend of mine, a fiancee, in fact, someone I dearly loved who has since faded out of my life, sent me a post card of it with the unsigned inscription in her unmistakable and elegant hand
Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey
the source of which quotation is left as an exercise for the reader.If you ever find yourself in Cambridge, Massachusetts, do yourself a favor and go see this painting.
Meanwhile, as we close in our initial goal of $5k for this project, I thank all my backers for your support, and I ask all readers, whether you've financially backed me or not, to continue to spread the word on this project. I obviously will need more than $5k to live on during the time it will take me to finish writing this novel, and it will cost $$ to print it too.
We have, last I looked, 67 backers.
If we had, for example, 6700 backers, with 6,633 of them at the $1 level, not only would I have a much nicer cushion, but I could probably parlay that number into a book deal with a "real" publisher. I thank you in advance for your continued help in spreading the word.
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #4Travels with Trippy
There's a guy who lives on Martha's Vineyard and owns a moving & storage company. His given name is Clarence A. Barnes III (as all his trucks yell at you), but he goes by "Trip", short for "triplicate", as in "the third". Trip is a legendary bullshit artist, and just about everybody who has ever worked for him has quit eventually -- including me. But the thing about Trip is, even though he thinks he's a larger-than-life colorful personality that people can't stop talking about ("everybody has a story about me"), in fact he *is* a larger than life personality that people can't stop talking about. Trip likes to boast "I wrote the BOOK on gypsy trucking" -- he never met a Department of Transportation rule he felt worthy of him -- and so when I say that Creation Science will be about, among other things, gypsy trucking, now you know where at least some of my information will come from. From Martha's Vineyard, I drove trucks & moved furniture & artwork for Trippy as far north as Bangor and as far south as Key West, and as for how closely I followed DOT rules, well. . . no comment.
I still pass on to my friends and children words of advice that Trip often gave me when I was working for him.
"Listen," Trip would say. "I want to give you some advice."
"Yes?"
"Don't be a fuckin' asshole."It's actually very good advice, and I've tried to follow it-- although doing so is not always easy.
SO today marks our entry into the second week of Creation Science funding, and thanks to 35 very supportive people, we're well on our way, 3/5 of the way, to the stated goal of $5,000, with three weeks to go until this fundraiser ends on November 17th, my birthday. (Although, as I've said, the unstated goal is higher than that -- I can't live very long on $5k. That mortgage don't pay itself.) We have yet to secure a single $1 backer or a single $5 backer. So here's an observation: if each of the Creation Science backers already on board could persuade, today, one friend to sign up for $5, that would not only bring us $175 closer to the goal, but bring the roster of backers to 70, thereby making Creation Science look less like a vanity project, and more like a movement. And as Arlo said, friends, that's what this is, a movement!
More anon,
yr frn,
jrs
P.S. After I published my last update, friend Rob Burnett wrote to tell me, " For the record, I think it's: 'the information's unavailable to he *mortal *man.' "
D'oh!
But I also kind of like my variation on Paul Simon's lyric, so I'm not going to change it right yet.
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #3Didn't it rain?
A few years ago Dear Wife Betty & I were ushers at the Vineyard Playhouse's production of the musical review "Mahalia", which was about, coincidentally enough, the life & music of Mahalia Jackson, the great Gospel singer. The woman who played Mahalia was superb (sorry, can't find her name in quick googling-- will update later), and whenever I wake up to rain like I did last night, rain coming down like it means business, I hear Mahalia singing her song "Didn't it rain?" about Noah the righteous man and all the sinners left in the flood. They're knocking on Noah's door, and Noah's telling them, "You're drowning in sin. God's got the key and you can't come in."
Which to me sounds a little harsh, frankly. But hey, as Paul Simon said, "God only knows, and God only plans. The information's unavailable to the moral man."
But Didn't it Rain is a great rockin' song, and y'all should go find it on Pandora or whatever and give it a listen, and then not only will you feel uplifted, but your brain will be in sync with mine, and how cool is that?
Backers keep raining down on this Creation Science project, hallelujah, "I thank you all", as Freddy Mercury sang. But it's still no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise, and if we are truly going to become champions of the world, my friends, I think we're going to need a pantload of $2, $5, and $15 backers. (Where did all you $250 backers come from. I love you! Mwah, I give you big kiss!). So please, please, please work your networks to spread the word.
Friend Mike Pence suggested that I put up some video updates, perhaps including me reading from my earlier works. An intriguing idea. But for now, today, anyway, I'm going to stay focused on combing my own network, sending out personal notes. Please consider taking a few minutes do do the same. I really want to finish this book!
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #2Moving along & some mysteries
Firstly, a great big happy thank you to all my generous backers. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
A bit of a mystery -- when I got up this morning I found that I could not view videos on this site -- get the message that I need to have Javascript & Flash 9 enabled, which I do. And other sites seem to work. . . a mystery. . .
Another thing I'm wondering about is why there have been no $1 or $5 backers so far. I was kinda hoping, and still am hoping, that some kind of minor groundswell of donors of small amounts will appear on the scene. As I said in my little video (in which I channel Ben Stein as the world's most boring man), somewhere in the vicinity of 20k people have downloaded my books for free. And probably 100k people have read my Salon essays. If I could get a few hundred of them to chip in a few bucks, that take me a long way towards my goal. Or even if I could get Joe or Jane random person who's never heard of me at all but felt like chipping in a dollar to be a nice person. . . But I really have no idea how to get the word out to anybody who's downloaded my books or read the articles. . . other than to keep doing what I'm doing, and to ask you, my dear friends, to continue to spread the word. It would be super-duper awesome if you could put up a link to this project page on your facebook or blog, or send a long the link to your nearest & dearest.
Until the fund raising goal is safely within reach, I'm going to be concentrating on rounding up more support. Soon, I hope, I'll be able to start blogging on the more interesting topic of Creation Science itself.
Regards, & I'll talk to yz all soon.
jrs
-
John Sundman
Posted project update #1Great timing!
Hello everybody,
So, I kicked off the project this morning, sent out 1 tweet about Creation Science, then went down to the Baptist parish house out of which our food pantry operates to see what the food delivery fairies from the Boston Food Bank had dropped off. (We have a food distribution tomorrow; we get a resupply from the food bank once a month but never know what we're going to get until it shows up. Workers from my town's Department of Public Works go over to Hyannis in America on the first ferry off-island and return with the food around 9:30. I try to meet them there, but today I was late and the food was waiting for me.) Among lots of other things, they had dropped off about 120 frozen chickens.
Only problem is, our pantry's freezer only had room for about 90 frozen chickens. So I got creative & borrowed some space from the church's freezer, and gave away a bunch of chickens to some young mothers who were in an adjoining room, and then I stacked all the other food that had been dropped off so that my wife & other volunteers can fill grocery bags for a distribution tomorrow. That took about 1.5 hours. Then I took doggie to the doggie park so she could run around; dog must be exercised or she drives me nuts here & I cannot get work done.
So then I came home to check to see if anybody had backed me yet (Thanks, Christian!) only to find out that my website wetmachine had been maliciously hacked. So the site is now up and running, but I have no idea how I got hacked & will have to deal with my ISP to reset passwords and see what we can to to keep the jerks out.
So, as much as I would like to give a nicer kickoff notice to my kickstarter project, I think I had better attend to my site's security issues and so forth.
Talk to yz soon.
