E Is for Environment Minister

Silly days of the week. They go sequentially don’t they? I missed a day yesterday, and posted The Doctor just before this post. But this one is on time!

For the A to Z Challenge, we move on to the letter E, and while there is an engineer in this story, it focuses more on the Environment Minister. But the engineer is a recurring character while the Environment Minister is not. And this is where things start to heat up! So, let’s find out what happened and you can also see what was going on in my head when I wrote this part:

If you want to keep up with the story on my YouTube channel, then please consider subscribing! And let me know what you thought about this part of the story.

D Is for Doctor

The alphabet is easy. The fourth letter is D. And it’s pretty easy to figure out a job that starts with D.

Last time, our carpenter had a mishap, and so he had to have someone check over his injury. Here is the Doctor! No, not from Doctor Who, but an actual medical doctor.

So, we continue the A to Z Challenge with the letter D and The Doctor. Check out the video of me reading my story, and then I talk a bit about some of the background.

If you’re interested in keeping up with the story as I release it, then please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel! I talk a lot about books, reading, writing, and even some science fiction. And let me know what you think in the comments below.

C Is for Carpenter

Part 3 is here for my reading of Ariadne! The letter C stands for Carpenter.

If you remember from my previous posts, I participated in the A to Z Challenge three years ago, and I wrote a flash fiction series based on the letters of the alphabet, each part representing a different profession. For the letter C, I chose carpenter.

On my YouTube channel, I decided to read the stories out and then discuss various aspects on what was going through my mind while I was writing. Who are the characters? What’s revealed about the world and my inspiration? Well, find out in the video!

If you have any comments, then please let me know down below.

B Is for Botanist

Oops! I missed a day. But here it is, this is part 2 of the Ariadne flash fiction series I did three years ago for the A to Z Challenge! You can see the full list of stories here.

In this part, I read the story, “The Botanist.” I also discuss the main character, Malika Said, and a bit more about the tree. Find out what I have to say about my writing thought process in the video:

If you’d like to keep up with the videos on my YouTube channel, then please consider subscribing.

And let me know what you thought about this part!

A Is for Artist

No April Fools today. I actually am going to do a blog post every day this month. Sounds like the old days!

Starting today, I’m sort of doing the A to Z Challenge, but in video form. The first part of the flash fiction series I did three years ago is up! It’s called “The Artist.” Enjoy!

I’ll be posting a new video every day, and if you’d like to keep up to date on YouTube, you can subscribe to my channel.

A to Z Challenge Again?

Three years ago, I participated in the A to Z Challenge. This year, I’m sort of participating, but not really. First of all, I’m not signed up for it. But secondly, this is a blogging challenge, and what I’m doing isn’t blogging. But I am informing you of it on my blog. Instead, I am doing VEDA, Vlog Every Day in April. And it is very much related to the A to Z Challenge I did three years ago.

You see, three years ago, I wrote a 26 part series of flash fiction stories based on my world of Ariadne. This year, I’m reading them out and talking about the inspirations, backgrounds, and characters involved in each part. I’m doing this all on video. Below is my announcement video.

Every day, I will be posting each video on here, and you can leave your comments on this blog or on the video itself, if you want. And I consider this my return to blogging!

So, hi!

Week in Review – April 30, 2017

Week in review? More like four weeks in review. What a month it’s been. I didn’t expect to catch a very strong cold that sapped my energy, then have to work for 10 straight days, most of which was very physical. That’s done for a while now, though. So, here’s what’s happened!

Reading

I got up to 79% in Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan. I didn’t read nearly as much as I should have. I was tired. A lot.

Writing

Very tired. I couldn’t do any.

Videos

I didn’t have time or the energy to do much in the way of videos. I made no videos for my main channel. However, there were 5 new videos on my science channel. I was going to do the A to Z Challenge, but that obviously got interrupted.

Patreon

Nothing yet, but with the way the past month went, I didn’t expect anything.

Languages

I studied a little French, but not much.

The Blog

I’m very interested in seeing the stats for the Month in Review post coming soon. Lots of comments and views on a couple of my more controversial posts, one about Justin Trudeau, and one about the Mt. Etna meme that likes about the amount of CO2 the volcano releases in relation to the world’s CO2 production. I’ve been insulted. I have yet to respond.

Also, the A to Z Challenge was interrupted, as I mentioned before.

Studying

Nothing.

The Next Week’s Goals

Make sure my science blog is updated. Also, get to work on a lot of videos, catch up on comments, and actually work toward completing the A to Z Challenge. I should mention that we’re going to Japan in a month, so I need to work on getting my daughter’s passport done, but we need a document for that. Just waiting for it now.

How was your week?

Everything Derailed! The Jay Dee Show 27

Things were going so well. The A to Z Challenge had begun, I was getting videos out on time, and then it happened. Derailment. I caught a cold so strong that I had very little energy. And just as I’d recovered, I started working 10 straight days on something that was physically demanding. Again, energy sapped. But I should be getting things back on track now!

First of all, my main channel has had no new videos. I have a couple coming up, though. Already recorded!

Moving on to my science channel, there are 3 videos to report to you!

First is the letter B. It’s 10 Facts about Bees!

Moving on the letter C, it’s 10 Facts about the Canada Goose.

And then for the letter D, it’s 10 Fact about DNA.

They’re all about biology, surprisingly. I already have the E video ready to edit and upload, which I’ll do tomorrow.

What do we have in store for the next week? Videos! I plan on continuing the A to Z Challenge, even though it’s finishing. I’m not quitting. For my main channel, it looks like I may have a tag video to do, as well as some vlogs. I’ll be working on the regular weekly videos, and maybe more! I should get back to doing Japan videos, too.

So, which video did you enjoy the most?

D Is for DNA

This post is coming a day late. I hope that’s not a problem with the rules of the A to Z Challenge! You see, I have some foreign DNA in my body. The common cold. I was too tired to get the video and post up last night. But here it is now! For the letter D, I’m talking about DNA. How many of these facts did you know?

And here are the facts:

1. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid.
2. A DNA molecule is made up of two bipolymer strands wrapped around each other to form a double helix.
3. There are four nucleobases represented by the letters C, G, A, and T. They are cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine.
4. Nucleobases pair up, A with T and C with G to connect the two DNA strands to form the double helix.
5. Only 2% of human DNA codes protein sequences. The remaining 98% have other various functions, which would require another full video to talk about.
6. The species with the largest number of chromosomes is the ciliated protozoa with 29,640,000.
7. The species with the fewest number of chromosomes is the jack jumper ant with only 2. But that’s for the females. Males are haploid and have only 1, the smallest number possible.
8. Humans have 46 chromosomes, but other great apes, including chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, have 48.
9. More than 8% of the human genome is made up of retrovirus sequences.
10. There is a 4% difference in the genomes of humans and our closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos.

Let me know in the comments section below what you knew.

E Is for Europa

Even though the A to Z Challenge is over, and I took a huge break, I’m going to finish it. A lot has happened over the last couple months, but it’s back! Today is the letter E, and I’m talking about Jupiter’s moon Europa! Did you learn anything new?

1. Europa is the fourth largest natural satellite of Jupiter.
2. It was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei, along with the other three Galilean satellites.
3. The surface of Europa is the smoothest surface of any world in the Solar System, consisting of water ice.
4. Europa orbits Jupiter in just 3.55 days, with one side always facing Jupiter, as it’s tidally locked.
5. Beneath the ice crust is an estimated 100 km deep ocean of salt water. But it isn’t clear if the ice is thick or thin. However, the amount of water on Europa is about two to three times the volume of Earth’s oceans.
6. Europa has a weak magnetic field, best explained by Europa’s salt water ocean.
7. Tidal heating from the interactions of Europa with Jupiter and the other Galilean satellites warms the interior of the moon, possibly resulting in hydrothermal vents at the floor of the ocean. This has led scientists to suggest that life may exist in Europa’s ocean.
8. Europa most likely has an iron core and a rocky mantle.
9. Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope provide further evidence of subsurface oceans, as plumes of water have been seen erupting to 200 km above the surface.
10. Europa has an oxygen atmosphere. But it’s very thin, providing a surface pressure of only 0.1 micropascals.

Let me know what you learned in the comments section below!