Book Of Norm

I knew the key was to not panic. To pick our route carefully. To stay away from the highways and main roads where traffic would be backed up. I'd had my truck for years, which meant I still had my old paper maps in it. I drove slowly though our neighborhood as I worked with Sarah on the route. I wanted to head North first, get away from people, get away from the highways. Find a path no one fleeing Boston would try and take. I turned on the radio but all that was on was the emergency broadcast system. It was telling us to evacuate the city in an "orderly manner." I almost ran over someone, something maybe, as I listened to that broadcast. I had to swerve as the person was crouching in the middle of the road. Only as we went past I saw they were crouching over another body. Sarah said "I think we can head on local roads around Marlborough and Hudson, so right past the Assabet park." Sarah was a realtor - she knew this area far better than I ever would. She ha...

Boston. Two passengers on stolen South Korean passports had come into Logan the day before. Police were searching for them. A husband and wife. They had checked into a hotel, but could not be found. Shit. Jesus. I kept packing. The radio went on. Reports of attacks in San Diego. No one was sure yet of anything. I tried to get through to Sarah. She texted me through Facebook, she had seen the news: nukes. She was worried, wanted to know if that meant anything dangerous for us. I told her not to worry - once she got home we would head out of the city, get somewhere safe. I grabbed everything I could find. Food. Water. Camping gear. All the dog food. A couple of folding solar panels with USB ports. Flashlights. A wind up radio. I didn't have a lot of weapons. I packed what I had. Hatchet. Couple of folding outdoor knives, my Leatherman. Once the Suburban was packed I went over to the gas station. The line was crazy, but I had to wait for Sarah anyway. It took an hour to ...

We sat there watching. No one wanted to go back to work. We ate lunch and speculated. "Do you think it's a virus?" "Maybe it's a bio-weapon the South tried to use?" "Some crazy chemical like Meth but stronger." We didn't know, but no one else did either. A few minutes later Obama came on and announced that the US would be moving 4 carrier groups into the East China Sea and Sea of Japan. Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister, came on also: Japan was mobilizing their entire Naval Defense Force. Combined, it was the largest naval deployment since WWII. Even Putin said they would move in the Admiral Kuznetsov to assist. What the hell were the Russians doing helping the South Koreans? A breaking news story came through soon after - the Chinese military was evacuating Shenyang. I had never heard of it before, but reports said it was a city of more than 8 million. 8 million. It's maybe 100 miles from the North Korean border. Sketchy reports were ...

April 7th 2016 When we woke up the urgency of the news stories had shifted. Outlets were now discussing a major crises in the Korean peninsula. China had not only closed the border, they had begun to evacuate the towns close-by “for the safety of the population.” The hell was going on. The situation on the border with S. Korea was worse. They had mobilized their military and were trying to stem a tidal wave of refuges from the North. The army of the DPRK (Democratic – that’s how you know it’s a dictatorship) had stopped firing and instead were joining the panicked civilians trying to cross the border. The South had set up official border crossings where refugees were being allowed through. There were photos of crowds of North Koreans pushing against chain link fences, narrow gaps where people were shoving through one by one. Aid stations where they were being checked. Quarantine pens where they were being held on the South Korean side... Western outlets were translating the sto...

April 6th 2016 - 9 Months Ago I took the train into Boston that day. As usual. Crowded. Caught up on the news. That morning there were some disturbing stories coming out of Korea. Starving emaciated North Koreans running directly at the DMZ. Triggering landmines. Getting shot down by their own army before they can get close. Fucked up. I had no idea what was going on there. The South was talking about mobilizing their forces - they had already taken out a couple of ships which headed into their waters. As usual I was in meetings all day. Barely saw daylight let alone check my phone. I sent a message to Sarah around lunch. "Love you babe - how's the day going? We still good for 6:00 for dinner?" My parents were staying in Boston for a work trip just for the one night, flying back to Denver the next morning. I've looked at my phone (yes - it's still with me) - I didn't really send much else that day. A joke with my guys. A couple more messages wi...

There have been a few articles going around about a star with a very odd signature. Like most things in space, it is likely some kind of phenomenon that we have just not figured out yet... but it could be an alien civilization which has grown to the point of actually obscuring some of the light of the sun around which it orbits. The original Atlantic article , like many Atlantic articles, is well worth the read. This is the teaser: “When [Boyajian] showed me the data, I was fascinated by how crazy it looked,” Wright told me. “Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build.” Here's why people are so interested. Unlike all of our Sci-Fi ideas about alien civilizations, they are more likely to stay in one close area than wander the stars. Wandering about is both extremely costly (in resources sense, whatever their "economy" looks like) and takes a really long time, splittin...