Government Plans Power Outage Drills

I have long expressed concerns over a potential power grid failure, as have many other individuals and organizations.  Finally, this issue is gaining much needed focus from government officials.  A joint drill is scheduled to take place in the US, Canada, and Mexico.  This drill will include many agencies - FBI, terrorism experts, government agencies, and utility workers.  This drill is set to take place November 13 and 14 and will focus on government reactions to such a crisis.

Power Outages

Blackout impacts millions in Canada and 7 U.S. states

It was ten years ago that the power outages struck Canada and several U.S. states.  This event impacted seven states and there were over 50 million people without power.  Although there have been some improvements made to our power systems since that time, we still suffer from frequent power surges and are at risk of solar flares impacting our grid system.  The flare that took down the Quebec grid cost 1.5 billion dollars in damages, with 250 million of that cost being from destroyed perishables.  The relatively 'small' occurrence that happened 10 years ago caused a relatively small blip in our world - what would happen if another Carrington Event occurred in today's world?  The impact on our society and economy would be incalculable.

Transportation comes to a halt

Gas stations unable to pump gasoline

Sun Awakening?

Looks like the sun finally might truly be awakening from its 11 year slumber.  I'm sure you've heard about the solar maximums and how the sun may be hurling strong solar flares, coronal mass ejections, or even causing geomagnetic storms on earth this year and into early 2014.  The latest flare that the sun unleashed was an X class flare and is reportedly the strongest one this year.  Experts report that there is no reason to believe that this wave of sun rumblings won't continue to increase with time.

4% of power disruptions related to CME activity

 Lockheed Martin has released new research which revealed about 4% of power disruptions from 1992 to 2010 were correlated with the heightened solar activity (CME activity).  This information is in contrast with government reports that reported zero disruptions were related to the solar activity during the same time frame.  

With the upcoming predictions of solar extremes later this year, I wonder what (if any) impact these disruptions may have on our power and electronic systems.

Massive Solar Flare Expectations

How can we prepare for solar flares?  How do we know what to expect if a massive flare is headed for our beautiful blue planet?  We can learn from the history of the Carrington Event.  A normal solar flare takes a few days to reach the earth, however, during the 1859 event it reached our planet in a mere 18 hours.  If a similar event were to occur today, the earths magnetic field would be unable to catch all the particles.  This would result in an aurora that would no longer just be isolated to the poles and there may be auroras over the United States and the Caribbean.  Most of us would probably just see this as a fascinating display of color and beauty, however, we would be directly impacted if our electronics were stopped by this event.  What do you think would happen if such a huge event would cause power grid outages that would last years?  Would we be able to survive or do you think that mass chaos would break out?  

Bring on 2022!

A Spacecraft is smashed into an enormous asteroid measuring 2,625 feet across.  (To put this in perspective,  a professional football field is 360 feet in length.)  Sounds like science fiction, right?  Well, guess again!  At a recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, the United States and the European Space Agency began planning to do just that.  They intend to send out a space probe to Asteroid Didymos and crash it into the oncoming rock.  Don't fear, however, the asteroid isn't on a trajectory towards our lovely planet - it will actually take three years for the probe to reach its target which will be 6.8 million miles from Earth.  They are hoping these impacts might break the asteroid apart and send it in alternate directions.  So bring on the year 2022 - I can't wait to see if this works!

Can a solar flare kill us?

Everyone likes a litte trivia, right?  I thought I'd share some trivia about solar flares with those of you in blogger land today.

 

 

Can a solar flare kill us?

 

 

In reality, only a small amount of the energy released from solar flares will actually reach the earth because we are protected by our planet's atmosphere. 

Calculate your life expectancy today

The Death Clock: Calculate your life expectancy today

Literary Yoga?

Literary Yoga?

One of the most difficult things for me is to decide how to find balance.  Do I work on writing my next novel?  Do I spend time with my family?  Do I work on social media?  Or videos, covers, agents, even strange new tan lines?  Since I still love my day job, I’ve got to find ways to successfully divide my time between the things I have to do and the things I’d like to do. 

In my humblish opinion, being successful in today’s publishing world is much different and more complex than any other time in history.  It isn’t necessarily more difficult, as there are so many more venues to showcase authors, but the sheer numbers of authors, publishers, and sites sometimes make it more difficult to be noticed or ‘found’.  While I’ve had decent success as an Indie writer, my goal has always been to become a well-recognized author around the world.  As the party planners for the ‘Historically Famous Author’ parties don’t necessarily care whether my wife and grandmother really love my work, it is important to have a successful platform to build upon. 

So, is it more important to work on my writing, my platform, my family, or my mastery of the Fallen Dog yoga positions?  I wish I could say that I use every moment in pursuit of either happiness or success, but the truth is that I probably waste just as much as I spend fruitfully. Since I have a dream, but live within the real world where I’m only given 24 hours a day and hopefully another 40 years of life, my belief is that I have to find a balance (and not the Sleeping Dog kind) that will help me find both happiness and success.

I try to give the taxpayers (who happen to still be willing to pay my monthly bills) an honest day’s work everyday.  I try to spend quality time with my wife and three daughters.  I try to get the proper amount of sleep, relaxation, and exercise (though I seem to fail on all three more than any other area in my life).  I try to keep up with platform building and social media.  AND, I try to make every minute of my writing time count. 

For those of you who want to succeed in today’s publishing world, my suggestion is to find a way to practice some form of Literary Yoga.  Spend time with your job, your family, your platform building, and your writing.  Don’t let any of them overwhelm the other, but never neglect any of them either.

Dystopian Trailer

Sharing a video to the trailer of Pyrolysis.  Enjoy!

Solar Flares Make Music

Science never ceases to amaze me.  Scientists are able to take the sounds from the sun and form a compilation that resembles the sound of music - not the Julie Andrews type though.  It's fascinating that they are able to take these sounds and understand the sun's own language.  

The Sky is Falling!

I am sure most of you have already seen or heard of the meteor that exploded over Russia yesterday, causing several injuries and a scare that won't soon be forgotten.  There are reports of another possible meteor (fireball) that blazed through the sky over California.  I hate to sound like Chicken Little, but the sky is falling! 

 

 

End of the World as We Know It

 

For those of you who are experience ‘doomsday phobia’, don’t feel as though you are alone.  There seem to be three categories of individuals when it comes to the end of the world as we know it – those who are cheering it on, those who fear it, and those who think it’s all a bunch of malarkey.  I personally fall into the first category and say ‘bring it on’!  I’ve got my bug-out-bag prepped and ready to go.  I want to challenge myself and see if I can live off the grid.  However, the Mayan’s predictions were slightly incorrect (or maybe those reading it didn’t understand the date), but there is hope for those who were cheering it on.  Museum of Discovery’s Science After Dark is bringing information on how the end could actually occur.  For those of you who are fearful of the end – ‘after dark’ has you covered!  There will be a cash bar available at this event so you are able to soothe your nerves with some ‘liquid calm’ of your choice!  Check it out if you can!

Geomagnetic storm expected in 1-3 days





NASA released a statement that the sun released a solar flare today.  This solar flare is expected to cause a geomagnetic storm on earth in the next 1-3 days due to its speed of 600 kilometers per hour.