tephra | So NaNo is coming.... (Reply)

After due consideration, I think I need a name for a small starship. She will be crewed by people with too much wanderlust to stay dirtside, I'm thinking explorers/prospectors, but I am open to suggestions. I'm basically going "I really like Andre Norton's free traders, let's write something like that!"

I wouldn't mind suggestions about thinks like how many crew I would realistically need to run a small interstellar ship. I only have three of the crew at the moment, and only in the most sketchy of forms. They don't call come from the same planet, but they are all human (thus far) though tweaked to suit the planets they've been colonizing.

Crewmate #1 is comes from a planet with a bright sun, a lot of vegetation (but not a lot of trees) and not a lot of animal life. She (or he, I haven't decided) can photosynthesize and is therefore green from chloroplasts (or whatever equivalent I need to cook up). This is a supplementary thing, she isn't hanging out in hydroponics soaking up the full spectrum light rather than chowing down in the mess with the rest of the crew, but she does need more light than they do so she's the main caretaker.

Crewmates #2 and #3 are from the same solar system but different planets. The star is rather dim so both of them are adapted to lower light. The genetic engineers took divergent paths partway through the process so while both are sensitive to bright light only one of them can get around using filtering lenses (in Earth normal sunlight) due to a functional nictitating membrane. Other than this trait I haven't decided what else is different between the people of the two planets yet.

On other subjects, I survived the summer trip to see the family, though I had the lovely adventure of having the exhaust drop on the Jeep while traveling the NY Thruway. Thankfully my AAA membership was current and I was able to get a tow to a muffler shop in Canandaigua that was able to get me a new midpipe and catalytic converter (ouch!) and have me back on the road with only two and a half hours of delay.

There's not really a whole lot to say about the last few months.

I read a lot and despaired for the amount of romance crammed into otherwise interesting books. I read a very good original fiction novel by a fan author I enjoy and wished she had written more in that universe. Tanya Huff got me hooked into another series of hers.

I knitted some, but nothing that interesting since I focused on finishing a pair of socks identical to the last pair I knit except for being half an inch shorter in the foot. I'm currently juggling a few doll projects. One is finished and needs to be dyed and blocked, the others are all still in progress. Since one of those is destined to travel to Utah with the one that needs to be dyed I'm trying to focus on that one. Unfortunately the last couple days have been very, very bad with my hands so the 00 needles aren't fun.

I got an awesome haircut that I need to go have trimmed . I should have about two weeks ago actually. Wish me luck in getting it cut the same way again by a different stylist since the one that did the original is back in Massachusetts. There is one stylist I am pretty sure can do the cut, but I can't remember her name (I only had her cut my hair once before) so hopefully she'll be working and I can get her.

I lost a bit more weight, just enough that the awesome jeans I bought on clearance for $3.60 require a belt. I'm very glad I didn't spend more on them or I would be ticked.

And I think that gets everything caught up. Get ready for the NaNoWriMo spike in postings. :)