DARKJESTER

Kari was my cousin, sort of. Her aunt and uncle were also my aunt and uncle. Truth be told, I barely remember ever meeting her, once or twice at extended family picnics. Plus, she was almost 13 years younger than me, just a kid. 14 years ago, Kari was 16, and a sophmore at a local Christian high school (the same one I graduated from). She and a girlfriend were driving home from the local YMCA in different cars when they were separated at a crossing by a train, a very common occurance in northern Indiana. Her friend, rather than wait for the train, drove 1/4 mile to an underpass, went under the train, and returned to the other side of the crossing. Kari wasn't there, so her friend just drove home, figuring that Kari had done the same. But Kari hadn't. Police found her car two days later, abandoned in an alley. They found her naked body, bound and strangled, a week after that in the woods in a county park. For weeks the rumors flew. Her boyfriend did it. She had witnessed a drug transaction, and had to be silenced. Gang members from Chicago had come down to have fun with a random victim. And so on. Questions were asked, but no arrests were made. Leads were few, police said, and as the months then years passed, we began to doubt there would ever be a resolution. Last week, out of the blue, the local press announced that police were finally ready to issue a warrant for the arrest of a suspect. And they'd have no trouble serving it, because they knew right where the suspect was. He's in California, serving consecutive life sentences (with no possibility of parole) for rape, murder and assault. He had been in our area at the time, on parole for one of three previous sexual assault convictions. The Indiana State Police cold case unit had been called in about a year ago, and they pieced together the evidence. Since she was abducted in-town, and her car was found in-town, the city police handled that angle as an abduction. Since her body was found in a county park, the county Sheriff's department handled the murder/rape aspect of her case. And the two did a lousy job of sharing evidence, apparently. But now what? Yes, her family finally has some measure of closure. And yes, we are relieved to know that this "person" (using the term lightly) is behind bars, and will be for the rest of his life, never able to harm another young woman. He will probably be brought here to stand trial for Kari's rape and murder, but it's not like we can add anything to his punishment. And if I know anything about my aunt and uncle, they are praying for their niece's killer, for his psychological healing, not for vengance. We Mennonites can be funny that way. So what is the point of this, my first blog anywhere? Her/my school has a garden named in her honor, and her parents set up a scholarship in her name. I guess this is my memorial to Kari.

HORSES4EVER

[b][i]Got one? tell me about it, if not, tell me about your Firefly obsession or somehting else lol.. just like to talk...[/b][/i] :smile:

SOUPCATCHER

Sometime in early 2002, M31 retired and Haken was born. M31 was the screen name of the creator of andromedatvfans.com* – an online community for fans of the sci-fi TV show Andromeda. The end result of many hours of programming was impressive: a community of over 600 registered users, close to 200 threads, more than ten feature articles, episode guides, encyclopedia entries, and other assorted content. What was even more impressive was that, when he began the project, M31 could not even watch the show – Andromeda was not aired in his home state of Hawaii. M31’s passion for Andromeda waned and in early 2002 he decided to close down the site. Or, rather, he decided to take all his hard work and modify it to support a different science-fiction television show. This time, instead of investing a significant amount of time and resources towards a show he couldn’t watch, he chose a show no one else could watch either. A show that hadn’t even started filming. A series being developed by Joss Whedon called Firefly. The first Firefly related content was posted on 28 February 2002 and consisted of seven threads that recapped news releases from the previous three months. This content was: an empty thread [7,187]**; an announcement from zap2it.com that Gina Torres, Ron Glass, and Summer Glau were joining the cast [7,188]; a reprint of a 19 December 2001 article by Mark Armstrong titled, “Whedon Bites Off Another New Series” [7,189]; short descriptions of each of the main characters (excerpt: “River- Borderline psychic. She can read most minds and has a tendency to speak not only what is on her own mind, but others' as well.”) [7,190]; background information on the actors and additional character information from Trek Today [7,191]; a duplicate of the content in thread 188 with a different title [7.192]; and Marti Noxon’s description of the show that concludes with the classic line, “We're focusing on their struggles, not a guy with a gorgon on his templok or something.” [7,193]. During the month of March news was posted as it happened. On the 6th the announcement that Rebecca Gayheart would play the role of Inara was relayed [7,195] along with a picture of the actress [7,196]. Six days later Rebecca Gayheart was gone [7,200] and, after a little more than a week, Morena Baccarin became the last of the nine cast members to join [7,201]. The only other Firefly thread was related to the ongoing development of the site – a test of emoticons [2,204]. This month also saw the beginning of the phase out of the M31 persona and the creation of two new accounts: NewsAdmin and Haken. The site creator would use the NewsAdmin account to post information updates and the Haken (an abbreviation of the Street Fighter battle cry Ha Do Ken)*** account to discuss Firefly with other fans. Details continued to emerge throughout the next month. On April 1st, Cinescape reported that the special effects shop, Radium, would do most of the FX for Firefly [7,205]. The next day, Joss announced that Chris Buchanan would take over as President of Mutant Enemy Productions [7.206]. On the 6th, USA Today observed that the Firefly pilot, at a cost of 10 million dollars, would be the most expensive of the year [7,207]. Two and a half weeks later, FilmForce reported that a studio was searching for a writer and director to work on the movie adaptation of Iron Man, roles that Joss Whedon had previously held [7,208]. And on the 24th the first potential fandom conflict, in a reprint of a Firefly: Ultimate Resource article titled, “Firefly Contributing To The End Of Buffy?”, was presented [7,209]. Fireflyfans.net was shaping up as a nice online resource. But one thing was missing, people. At this point it was a community of one. Most of the user accounts for the old andromedatvfans site were deleted in March, along with a majority of the content [7,199]. (A few threads - [2,151], [2,182], [4,197], and [X,XXX] – are still available). Of the sixteen accounts created before 29 April 2002 that survive, nine users did not post in a thread,

MANWITHPEZ

Are all the husbands better than me? I mean, I'm not a bad guy, but I guess I'm that great of a husband. I think the exact term my wife used was "...lazy shit" Its hard to drive in flip-flops. I'm not a big fan of them coming back into style, but I guess it won't stop until there are a lot of traffic accidents. That, or my wife quits buying them. Damn cheap footwear! When the Tums don't work anymore, I suppose I should try something new. But, when your gut hurts, I've never been able to get to the store. Every friday...drunk night. I need a new hobby. I bathed semiregularly as a child. Now, everyday+, but my children seem to need it everyday as well. Was I a kool-aid stained filthy-faced dirty kid? I drank so much Livewire over the weekend that my tongue hurts. I sat around yesterday wondering why my tongue hurt until I drank some again today. Have I stopped? Nope. Etc, Etc, Etc. I'll write another flylog when I have something better to write, I suppose. I mean, I did loan out one of my discs for the first time. Hope it works!

CALLMEATH

My best friend from high school is in the Army and will be shipping out to Afghanistan this weekend. While he's not infantry, (he does satellite communications) he'll still be in a combat zone. In fact, the post were he'll be stationed was hit by artillery a while back. It was a dud, thank God, but I still could have done without him telling me that story. Especially since he'll be there until November. So, what I was hoping was if those of you with the inclination to do so could pray for him. He's already on the prayer list at my sister's church (she works there and beat me to the punch) and I was hoping he could get on a few more. His name is Staff Sergeant John Franklin. I know, a pretty common name, but God'll know how you're talking about. If your church, temple, etc., likes to have a picture let me know and I'll e-mail you one. Of course, John isn't the only one out there, so please be sure to pray for all the men and women risking their lives over there. Thank you.

ZOOT

The Zoo and its animals are taking a week off this week - We're all flying to New York. Big Foot got his pilot's licence last week, so we should be OK...(The hamster does the inflight entertainment)... I hope to find some rare and exotic species (preferably extinct - that'll show the Royal Society) I can entice to return back to Blighty with us, so watch this space on our return... "Angora Bunny, pack the very, VERY large butterfly net..."