Eric P Nichols's Blog
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Aug.25.2012
Last night, after a grueling two-hour bluegrass session, I stopped in at our local Denny's (the one that used to have a sign by the counter tht said, "Smoking section: tobacco products only"). It was around 1 a.m.
For some reason, after the following exchange, I felt as though I was on...
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Jul.27.2012
It's good to be working in free enterprise again. After 7.75 years too long in a government contracting job that lasted 8 years, I'm finally able to see objectively how the process "works." I've set up a little textual flowchart to demonstrate this.
Step 1: Government...
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Jul.26.2012
As the editing process of my latest tome, Radio Science for the Radio Amateur, proceeds, it occurs to me that this is just about the coolest thing I've ever done...at least on the physical plane. I've had a rather interesting, sometimes even bizarre career path, in a relatively bizarre...
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Jul.13.2012
I just finished my semi-occasional file cabinet audit, wherein I evaluate all my unsorted literary fits and starts. Almost certainly, every writer has some such repository of wisdom, countless snippets of abortive anecdotes, prolapsed proposals, stillborn synopses, and victims of SIDS.......
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Jul.07.2012
Despite Alaska's reputation as being the exclusive domain of freewheeling, pioneering, "frontiering" and enterprising adventurers, the fact is that the majority of Alaskans are bureaucrats of some sort. Fully 60% of the workforce in Fairbanks works directly for the Federal Government,...
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Jul.05.2012
I finally quit my day job. I knew that pretty sson my job as a goernement contractor was coming to an end anyway, but I decided to quit on MY terms. And it's been fabulous and getting fabulouser
It's hard to explain to folks that I'm not unemployed....I'm finally doing what I've been...
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Apr.10.2012
There are two brands of Eskimo language one commonly hears around here. Inupiat is by for the most common, spoken all along the north coast of Alaska, down along the wetern shore, down to around Kotzebue. Far less common is Yupi'k, spoken mainily in Bethel and southward..You don't...
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Apr.07.2012
"Do you ever actually read anything you write?" Mikey asked accusingly. Mikey is usually right, so I asked him to elaborate.
"Everything you write is full of impossible tongue twisters!"
"I write technical literature," I countered. "Nobody ever reads my stuff out loud. If they DO...
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Apr.02.2012
I'm a bad bloggist...which seems to be a natural consequence of being a good person. Let me 'splain.
I've always understood that if one has nothing to say, one shouldn't say anything. I've dutifully submitted to King Solomon's exhortations to put a sock in it when there's nothing...
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Mar.30.2012
I'm getting in practice.
The handwriting is on the wall. I've been a government contractor for a while, making good money...enough to support my writing habit for over seven years. But all the subtle signs are now screaming sirens. The government is out of money...which...
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Mar.26.2012
For those who care, I've been remiss in my bloggification because I've been in a state of sequestration attempting to finish Radio Science for the Radio Amateur before my publisher's deadline. However, since I've created TWO entirely new words, at no cost whatsoever to the Red Room...
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Feb.01.2012
It was an unexpected surprise to learn that I had received the Bill Orr, W6SAI Technical Writing Award, for my December, 2010 QST article “Gimme and X, Gimme an O, What's that Spell? Radio.” Well, I suppose most surprises are unexpected, but considering the...
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Feb.01.2012
It was an unexpected surprise to learn that I had received the Bill Orr, W6SAI Technical Writing Award, for my December, 2010 QST article “Gimme and X, Gimme an O, What's that Spell? Radio.” Well, I suppose most surprises are unexpected, but considering the...
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Jan.15.2012
I recently signed a book contract for an "almost quit your day job" amount of compensation. Well, let's say if I could repeat this every year, it would be a quit-your-day-job gig.
But I still write lots of stuff for free. I'd still be writing stuff even if I couldn't make...
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Jan.12.2012
"You wouldn't want my life, but I wouldn't want yours either. My life has been very very hard, but it's more interesting than yours."
Thus begins Mountainflower, a gut-wrenching memoir I'm helping my dear friend Cynthia Mountainflower write. Cynthia is an Eskimo/Aleut woman who has been...
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About Eric
I was born and raised in Silicon Valley (back when it was Vacuum Tube Valley), practically "right down the barrel" of the Stanford Linear Accelerator. I have always been a science geek. In 1976, the call of the wild brought me to the wilds of Alaska...
Connections
Causes Eric Nichols Supports
Free Burma Rangers, Partners Ministries (Thailand), Literacy council of Alaska, Access Alaska.
Eric’s Favorite Books
Hunt for Red October, Fondling your Muse, The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Buy Jupiter, Letters from Earth, Joy Luck Club, 200 Meters and Down, Six Easy Pieces,...
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