The Hobbit Hole VI - And Whither Then? I Cannot Say...

[ecurbh]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

And Whither Then? I Cannot Say...

• First thread: New Zealander builds Hobbit hole
• Second thread: The New Hobbit Hole
• Third thread: The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads! (Congratulations, we filled it up!)
• Fourth Thread: The Hobbit Hole IV - The Road Goes Ever On...
• Fifth Thread: The Hobbit Hole V - Where Many Paths and Errands Meet...

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

[JenB]

Our break is next week too. I'm going on a business trip to Detroit, but I've mentioned that. Ugh.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Sounds like I'm gonna have to catch up on my Babylon 5 references!

Oh, don't worry... I think I'm the only B5 fanatic here, so it probably won't come up that often. ;)

[ecurbh]

Oooooo, Colorado is one of my most favoritest places! Lots of lovely mountains to photograph.

[RosieCotton]

I know it doesn't look like that right this moment...

But WHY do I have to be stuck at work with places like that out there?

I'm always amazed at how dark the sky always looks in pictures of Montana and Colorado and some of the other Rocky Mountain states...but friends who have lived there say it really does have skies like that, or very close to it. Just incredible...

[Fedora]

Oh, don't worry... I think I'm the only B5 fanatic here, so it probably won't come up that often. ;)

I think a friend of mine once told me there were some LoTR/Silmarillion parallels in B5, sort of like the wars of the First Age in Silmarillion projected onto a cosmic backdrop. Had you noticed anything like that?

[HairOfTheDog]

Hullo from the beach house! Progress being made today!

The rest of the old bulkhead was taken out early this morning and this is the ramp going back in (sits on a new foundation rock).... Then a meeting as to how to create the top walkway from the boathouse to the dock ramp.... then the stair as it sat when they broke for lunch...

There are a scarce few sitty-places in the wall, he isn't stepping it back as much as I thought.... in order to end up with enough width at the top for a 3' walkway. He'll still be cutting back a bit into the grass from where it is now.

[ecurbh]

Part of it the polarizing filter I used on those pics, which removes excess reflections and clarifies the colors, but also intensifies the dark blue sky. And it is also the altitude... for that second pic, I was standing at the top of a pass at about 11,500 feet.

[Fedora]

After looking at those pictures the track of "Yoda" that was stuck in my head has been replaced by John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High" :)

[RosieCotton]

I figured you had used a filter (gorgeous pictures, by the way...forgot to say that), but I hadn't realized the altitude makes a difference...that must be it!

Mmmm...altitude. ;-)

I'd love to visit the Rockies and the Cascades, someday. We don't have mountains like that here.

[ecurbh]

Thank you! The clarity of the air up there is really something to behold.

I've never been to the northern Rockies yet, though. That is the next place I would like to visit - Glacier, Banff, Jasper, Yoho... ~sigh~

[ecurbh]

Great song. I love the part about coming home to a place you've never been before. Kinda reminds me of my first trip to Colorado back in HS, on a camping trip with my family.


He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Comin’ home to a place he’d never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door

When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hangin’ by a song
But the string’s already broken and he doesn’t really care
It keeps changin’ fast and it don’t last for long

But the colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullabye
Rocky mountain high (high colorado) rocky mountain high (high colorado)

He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below
He saw everything as far as you can see
And they say he got crazy once, and he tried to touch the sun
And he lost a friend but kept his memory

Now he walks in quiet solitude the forests and the streams
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake

And the colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply
Rocky mountain high (high colorado) rocky mountain high (high colorado)

Now his life is full of wonder but his heart still knows some fear
Of a simple thing he cannot comprehend
Why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more
More people, more scars upon the land

And the colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
I know he’d be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly
Rocky mountain high

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

there were some LoTR/Silmarillion parallels in B5

I can see that, but probably the only conscious nod to Tolkien was the name of a group that first appeared in Season 2 and played a major role in the series from then on: the Rangers. The backstory of the series really owes much more to the "Lensman" series written by E.E. "Doc" Smith in the 30s and 40s.

[Fedora]

Thanks for posting the lyrics--yeah, it is a great song :)

[2Jedismom]

I dunno, but it is REALLY WINDY out there! I was just now driving home from getting Joshua from school...driving south. The wind is out of the SW. A gust hit the side of my car like a blast and nearly flung me off the road, no kidding. (I drive a Ford Aerostar.) Then as I was struggling to stay on my side of the road a big tree branch broke loose and would've hit me but the wind caught it and threw it off to the side of the road. I felt that feeling you get when it feels like your blood turned to ice water, you know? Vey nerve-wracking...I'm glad to be home!

[Fedora]

> can see that, but probably the only conscious nod to Tolkien was the name of a group that first appeared in Season 2 and played a major role in the series from then on: the Rangers. The backstory of the series really owes much more to the "Lensman" series written by E.E. "Doc" Smith in the 30s and 40s.

I hadn't heard of Smith or "Lensman" before--looking up some stuff on him now. I see Smith was friends with Heinlein--okay, since I'm a Heinlein fan, I've gotta read it! Thanks! :) Here, I'll post what I'm reading for other SF folks who might be interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Smith

E. E. Smith
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


E. E. Smith, also Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D., E.E. "Doc" Smith and Doc Smith (May 2, 1890 - August 31, 1965) was a science fiction author who wrote the Lensman series and the Skylark series, among others.

He was indeed a doctor, gaining his Ph. D. in Chemical Engineering at George Washington University in 1919. From 1936 onwards, he was employed as a food technologist (a "cereal" chemist) by the Dawn Doughnut Company before working for the US Army between 1941 and 1945. An extended segment in Triplanetary, one of his novels, suggests intimate familiarity with explosives and munitions manufacturing.

Robert Heinlein and Dr. Smith were personal friends. Heinlein reported that E.E. Smith perhaps took his unrealistic heroes from life. He reported that E.E. Smith was a large, blond, athletic, very intelligent, very gallant man, married to a remarkably beautiful, intelligent red-haired woman named MacDougal (thus perhaps the prototypes of 'Kimball Kinnison' and 'Clarissa MacDougal'). In one of Heinlein's books, he reports that he began to suspect E.E. Smith might be a sort of superman when he asked Dr. Smith for help in purchasing a car. E.E. Smith tested the car by driving it on a back road at illegally high speeds with their heads pressed tightly against the roof columns to listen for chassis squeaks by bone-conduction -- a process apparently improvised on the spot.

His novels are generally considered to be the original space operas and offer almost non-stop action. However they are, to a fair extent, still "true" science fiction, in that they use the extrapolation of known science and, often, the extrapolation of existing and historic social and political patterns of the early to mid-twentieth century. Smith himself expressed a preference for inventing fictional technologies that were not strictly impossible (so far as the science of the day was aware) but highly unlikely: "the more unlikely the better" was his phrase.

In recent years many critics have characterized his writings as cliche-ridden, or as using tired old themes. Dr. Smith, however, invented many of these themes. It is his imitators who made them tired old cliches. They were often totally new when he wrote them. With a little tolerance and imagination, a sense of wonder is easy to recapture, because Smith had it when he was writing his work. His excitement and enthusiasm shine through his writing and make his books well worth reading despite their age and their obvious literary flaws.

The Skylark series includes:

The Skylark of Space
Skylark Three
Skylark of Valeron
Skylark DuQuesne
The Lensman series includes:

Triplanetary
First Lensman
Galactic Patrol
Gray Lensman
Second-Stage Lensmen
Children of the Lens
Masters of the Vortex is set in the same universe as the Lensman novels, but is not part of the main storyline. Spacehounds of IPC is not a part of the series, despite occasional erroneous statements to the contrary.

Robert Heinlein reported that Doc had planned a seventh Lensman novel, set after the events described in Children of the Lens, which was unpublishable at that time (the early 1960s). Careful searches by people who knew Doc well (including Frederik Pohl, Doc's editor, and Verna Trestrail, Doc's daughter) have failed to locate any material related to such a story. Doc apparently never wrote any of it down. Doc told Heinlein that the new novel proceeded inexorably from unresolved matters in Children, a statement easily supported by a careful reading of Children.

On July 14, 1965, barely a month before his death, E. E. Smith gave written permission to William B. Ellern to continue the Lensman series, which led to the publishing of New Lensman in 1976.

The original video game Spacewar was inspired by the Lensman series.

The GURPS role-playing game includes a worldbook based on the Lensman series.

As well influencing the course of popular culture, Smith was also a huge influence on modern warfare. His books were widely read by scientists and engineers from the 30's until the 70's. Ideas that arguably entered the military-scientific complex from Smith's work included SDI (Triplanetary), stealth (Gray Lensman) and OODA-loops/C3 based warfare and the Awacs (Gray Lensman).

[Fedora]

Then as I was struggling to stay on my side of the road a big tree branch broke loose and would've hit me but the wind caught it and threw it off to the side of the road.

Yikes! Glad you made it home safe! You wouldn't have been driving through the Old Forest, would you?--My cousin Hal says there's some queer trees on the North Moors. . .

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Yep, that's the guy. He invented many of the space opera standards which later became cliche'. Keeping that in mind when reading his books helps to keep a proper perspective, I have found.

[Professional Engineer]

Glad to hear yer safe. When it gets windy, I slow down, my Explorer behaves like a weathervane. At the same time, I see other Explorer driving speeding up! I know their control is VEY tenuous. Scares me. I get the feeling, they're so unaware of thing, they have no idea how close to disaster they are.

[Corin Stormhands]

[RosieCotton]

Glad you're home safe! Scary stuff!