Yo, murff here
- Thread starter murff
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Yo, yo, welcome to WF, yo.
Louanne Learning
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Hello and welcome, murff. Looking forward to reading your poetry, and seeing you in the forums!
Please jump in and make yourself at home.
Please jump in and make yourself at home.
Greetings and salutations, murff! 
Hmm ... serious poetry, eh? *cracks knuckles* I just sent you a little "welcome" message with a slightly silly couplet, just for fun. I had no idea you preferred seriousness (sorry). 
I look forward to seeing some of your poetry. Welcome again.
Hmm ... serious poetry, eh? *cracks knuckles* I just sent you a little "welcome" message with a slightly silly couplet, just for fun. I had no idea you preferred seriousness (sorry). I look forward to seeing some of your poetry. Welcome again.
I take humour seriously.Greetings and salutations, murff!
I look forward to seeing some of your poetry. Welcome again.
We should get a full suite of Cuckoo character avatars. Ziggy had Danny Devito but don't know if he ever made it over.
I wonder if anyone would take Nurse Rachet?
Louanne Learning
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Winner: 4th Contest August
Winner: June Flash Fiction
Don't look at me.
Billy Bibbit is next level. Brad Douriff had an amazing career. So many rando character roles. Never mind what's-his-dick who played Dick Halloran in The Shining and other character roles. And Christopher Lloyd.
And William Sanderson in Deadwood and Blade Runner.
Alas, I only remember Brad Douriff from his role as Grima Wormtongue, but he made the most of it. Too bad that Peter had to dress him up as an obvious bad guy, though - in the LOTR books, Grima is not described at all except as a "man of Orthanc", which leaves the reader to use his imagination ... and makes Grima's eventual betrayal even more shocking. In the film, Douriff's costume and makeup screams "Look at me! I'm a bad guy!" Because we can't use our imaginations any more, apparently.
Imagination. What a concept.
Christopher Lloyd is also great. I loved him in the Clue movie and the Back to the Future films. Haven't seen him otherwise, though. But the Clue movie is so utterly bonkers-but-hilarious, and so full of great actors and actresses, it's impossible to hate it. (It helps that the screenwriters were at the top of their game, too. Jonathan Lynn was, and still is, a fantastic screenwriter. Nuns on the Run. My Cousin Vinny. Yes, Minister. The Whole Nine Yards. Jonathan co-wrote them all, and more).
Anyway, sorry to rant and rave and digress. *blush*
Imagination. What a concept.
Christopher Lloyd is also great. I loved him in the Clue movie and the Back to the Future films. Haven't seen him otherwise, though. But the Clue movie is so utterly bonkers-but-hilarious, and so full of great actors and actresses, it's impossible to hate it. (It helps that the screenwriters were at the top of their game, too. Jonathan Lynn was, and still is, a fantastic screenwriter. Nuns on the Run. My Cousin Vinny. Yes, Minister. The Whole Nine Yards. Jonathan co-wrote them all, and more).
Anyway, sorry to rant and rave and digress. *blush*
Welcome, murff,
To this, our turf.
Believe it or not, I am a serious poet, more or less. More, because I try to write the best verse I can; less, because I don't write it that often anymore.
I'm trying to pull together a chapbook of my own. Deciding how to arrange it is the hardest for me. It'd be interested to know how you did yours.
Hedy is so much nicer. And smarter.
Hi Catrin,
Maybe post some poems here so I can read them
I've publushed 5 chapbooks. The kast 4 through KDP (Kindle Desk Publishing). It's a branch of Amazon so you go through Amazon or go straight to KDP Publishing. It''s very user friendly once you get the hang of it. You can publish hardcover, paperback or kindle versions. All the templates are there and tutorials. There's a cover design section and marketing section. The will even give you a free ISBN, but it only wrks for Amazon. Or you can supply your own ISBN. That's not hard to get either.
I publish in a 6x9 format or 5.5 x 8.5. I make my own covers.
Check ot out. If you have questions I can probably help.
murff
Thanks! If I did, it'd have to be in a direct message. The way we roll here at WF.org, if we post work for comment and consideration, we keep it to Workshop. It keeps things a lot more organized and fair.
If you're okay with me DM-ing you, let me know!
That said, "How to compile, format, and publish short books of poetry" would be a great topic for the Self Publishing forum. Maybe I'll start the thread once I've come up for air from indie-publishing my second novel. Or you can.
And--- don't quote me on this--- but I think it's okay to put a link to your Amazon author page under your WF signature so we can find your published books. It could be you have to post here a certain number of times to earn the privilege, but I've seen other members with blue links to their work. Check the rules.
No problem
Written on my phone yesterday, Sept. 20. I'm looking for an appropriate forum to post this silice-of-life piece. Any ideas?
Waiting for a Helicopter
I'm sitting at 7000 ft, treeline in the Canadian Rockies, waiting for a chopper to fly form Campbell Icefield Chalet, back to Golden, British Columbia. I've been here for a week with Glen, Chris, Ben, Darren, and Malcom. Malcom’s the cook. Glen and Chris are the owners of this backcountry ski lodge, 3 miles, as the eagle flies, from the Continental Divide and roughly 4000 ft beneath it. Access to this spot would be extremely difficult without a helicopter.
The Chalet has been here since 2003. I started coming up in 2005 as volunteer custodian in the winter. I always stay in the Custodian's Hut, which was the original lodge flown here, in sections, in the mid 90s. The first owners, Eric Lomas and Bernie Sheisser were both Canadian mountain guides. They built the hut for the ACC (Alpine Canada Club) in the 80s and it originally sat on the Freshfield Glacier, which is on the Alberta side of the Divide. It was decommissioned in the 90s and the ACC was going to burn it down, but Bernie and Eric had picked out this spot at the headwaters of the Bluewater River, just a short hop from the Freshfield. So they dismantled it and flew the panels here. The panels lay under a tarp for 2 years as Bernie and Eric went through the red tape of securing a tenure. Then they erected it here and starting guiding skiers around the area. I can tell you, as an avid skier, the skiing doesn’t get much better anywhere in the world. We're basically on the edge of a vast system of interconnected glaciers that form the hydrological apex of North America. Rivers from here flow to the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans.
Anyway, 30 years later, Eric has passed away. His share went to his 2 sons. Bernie is 89 years old and my friend, Glen, bought his share 2 years ago. Bernie still comes up to the lodge on these work parties and helps out. Glen has brought fresh inertia to the business. He secured a summer operation license, installed Starlink. And he now wants to add a second story to the custodian's hut so he can spend more time up here.
But first: the hut was just sitting on log posts, cut from standing timber nearby, and dug about a foot into the ground. Eventually, they rotted. The first thing you have to do if you want to make a building taller is make the foundation stronger. Thus, the work crew.
We flew in Monday morning and then had 4 more flights to sling in all the tools and building materials. In good weather, it's a 12 minute flight. In foggy weather it's about 18 minutes following the Bluewater Creek. At $80 a minute, and round trip, it pays to buy the best material, so that’s what we get.
We had three-and-a-half days to remove the perimeter walls (skirt), jack up the building, remove 16 rotten posts, dig deeper, bigger holes for proper footings, install the new footings and posts, rebuild the skirtwalls with new wood, insulate and apply screen to keep critters out and replace the exterior plywood. I knew by day 2 that we needed more time and more lumber. After dinner I broke it to Glen. He gulped. It's not like you can just run down to the local hardware store and buy a few 2x4s.
Glen had to bite the bullet. More flights, more food, more beer. We were also short of screws, bolts, caulking and wire screen. Still, there was plenty to do while we waited for the supplies to arrive. And it's dirty work. You have to crawl under the cabin floor to dig out post holes and trenches for bracing. In the middle there‘s only a couple of feet of clearance. It took every minute of 5 1/2 days and every scrap of wood. This morning (day 6) we replaced all the copper gas lines, external wires and lightning rods and raked out the dirt and boxed in the new water line to the hut. This lodge gas running water, gravity fed by a spring high above and piped to the lodge, cabin and sauna. There's also electricity generated by solar panels and a Pelton Wheel that spins in a creek about 800 feet belowthe lodge and sends current up by wire.
We stashed the shovels and rakes and prybars and wheelbarrows and whatever was left of the wood under the hut and screwed on the hatch. Packed all our tools out to the helipad, shut down the water and the power and cleaned the lodge. The chopper will be here in a few minutes and this place will be empty for 3 months until we come back mid-december to open it up for winter. By then there will be 4 or 5ft of snow on the ground and the skiing should be pretty darn good.
I will add some pictures later.
Waiting for a Helicopter
I'm sitting at 7000 ft, treeline in the Canadian Rockies, waiting for a chopper to fly form Campbell Icefield Chalet, back to Golden, British Columbia. I've been here for a week with Glen, Chris, Ben, Darren, and Malcom. Malcom’s the cook. Glen and Chris are the owners of this backcountry ski lodge, 3 miles, as the eagle flies, from the Continental Divide and roughly 4000 ft beneath it. Access to this spot would be extremely difficult without a helicopter.
The Chalet has been here since 2003. I started coming up in 2005 as volunteer custodian in the winter. I always stay in the Custodian's Hut, which was the original lodge flown here, in sections, in the mid 90s. The first owners, Eric Lomas and Bernie Sheisser were both Canadian mountain guides. They built the hut for the ACC (Alpine Canada Club) in the 80s and it originally sat on the Freshfield Glacier, which is on the Alberta side of the Divide. It was decommissioned in the 90s and the ACC was going to burn it down, but Bernie and Eric had picked out this spot at the headwaters of the Bluewater River, just a short hop from the Freshfield. So they dismantled it and flew the panels here. The panels lay under a tarp for 2 years as Bernie and Eric went through the red tape of securing a tenure. Then they erected it here and starting guiding skiers around the area. I can tell you, as an avid skier, the skiing doesn’t get much better anywhere in the world. We're basically on the edge of a vast system of interconnected glaciers that form the hydrological apex of North America. Rivers from here flow to the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans.
Anyway, 30 years later, Eric has passed away. His share went to his 2 sons. Bernie is 89 years old and my friend, Glen, bought his share 2 years ago. Bernie still comes up to the lodge on these work parties and helps out. Glen has brought fresh inertia to the business. He secured a summer operation license, installed Starlink. And he now wants to add a second story to the custodian's hut so he can spend more time up here.
But first: the hut was just sitting on log posts, cut from standing timber nearby, and dug about a foot into the ground. Eventually, they rotted. The first thing you have to do if you want to make a building taller is make the foundation stronger. Thus, the work crew.
We flew in Monday morning and then had 4 more flights to sling in all the tools and building materials. In good weather, it's a 12 minute flight. In foggy weather it's about 18 minutes following the Bluewater Creek. At $80 a minute, and round trip, it pays to buy the best material, so that’s what we get.
We had three-and-a-half days to remove the perimeter walls (skirt), jack up the building, remove 16 rotten posts, dig deeper, bigger holes for proper footings, install the new footings and posts, rebuild the skirtwalls with new wood, insulate and apply screen to keep critters out and replace the exterior plywood. I knew by day 2 that we needed more time and more lumber. After dinner I broke it to Glen. He gulped. It's not like you can just run down to the local hardware store and buy a few 2x4s.
Glen had to bite the bullet. More flights, more food, more beer. We were also short of screws, bolts, caulking and wire screen. Still, there was plenty to do while we waited for the supplies to arrive. And it's dirty work. You have to crawl under the cabin floor to dig out post holes and trenches for bracing. In the middle there‘s only a couple of feet of clearance. It took every minute of 5 1/2 days and every scrap of wood. This morning (day 6) we replaced all the copper gas lines, external wires and lightning rods and raked out the dirt and boxed in the new water line to the hut. This lodge gas running water, gravity fed by a spring high above and piped to the lodge, cabin and sauna. There's also electricity generated by solar panels and a Pelton Wheel that spins in a creek about 800 feet belowthe lodge and sends current up by wire.
We stashed the shovels and rakes and prybars and wheelbarrows and whatever was left of the wood under the hut and screwed on the hatch. Packed all our tools out to the helipad, shut down the water and the power and cleaned the lodge. The chopper will be here in a few minutes and this place will be empty for 3 months until we come back mid-december to open it up for winter. By then there will be 4 or 5ft of snow on the ground and the skiing should be pretty darn good.
I will add some pictures later.
Louanne Learning
Active Member
Member
New Member
Role Play Moderator
Winner: 4th Contest August
Winner: June Flash Fiction
I can think of two places this might fit. If you're looking for feedback, the Non-fiction workshop:
Or you might like to start your own journal for any personal writing:
There was talk of starting a Showcase - @Homer Potvin - is that still in the works?
BTW - Sounds like you had an incredible week! I can imagine how breathtaking the nature is there.
