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In my space opera, I blew up a 400-pound male Mob boss named Mama of Mama's Little Shipping, which has a galaxy-wide monopoly on shipping. Mama was poisoned with Daemon-07, a substance that causes your intestines to expand at nearly the speed of sound. It happened at his Le Chick Restaurant, famous for its succulent baby chicken dishes. A favorite hangout of Mob bosses from around the galaxy, as each person in the restaurant inhaled the resulting fumes, they too exploded. Mama's head landed in the lap of the ever-elegant Lady Kay, named for our very own Kdot (see above). The quick-thinking Kay escaped out an air conditioning vent. On the news, she is quoted as saying: "Heads were popping like champagne corks in there. I thought I had cannon fire chasing my [censored]." I kept laughing while writing the full news report. He was one of my favorite characters, but the news report was too good to pass up once it was written.

Some day I'll tell you about a crazed 41st century taxi driver named Leonardo, his ex-wife Donna Pelosa (which Google Translate seems to think means "hairy woman"), and the cab's long-suffering artificial intelligence unit, Stronza, which is Italian for bitch (it was the ex-wife's rusty old cab). You should see what Stronza can do when Leonardo engages Suicidio Mode! He doesn't actually die (yet), but he leaves quite a body count behind as he flies his cab through rush hour traffic.

Good grief. I just spent 10 minutes looking for a note I had made about the First Jewish Revolt. I have handwritten notes that I take while watching videos. I looked through them repeatedly but couldn't find the note. That's when I remembered I have virtually all of my notes in a Word document. I've only been using it non-stop for a year, including earlier today. I need a good daytime weed. Counting down to Oct. 17!

I decided to research Capernaum (Jesus's base) yesterday rather than work on the outline. Allowing time for errands, it may take me until the end of the week to finish with the town (the remains of a synagogue, two churches (one "hovering" atop St. Peter's home), the remains of numerous stone-walled homes, what appear to be restored stone piers, and a modern building whose purpose I'll simply have to guess at). Thank God for tourists with cameras. I also found an online tour/guide for several of the key Christian sites. I hope to finish his video of Capernaum tonight.

Funny thing. Most of the pictures show the surrounding landscape almost completely devoid of green. I figured it was barren like many other desert areas of Israel and didn't consider seasonality. During growing season, the whole landscape is transformed into countless shades of green. I forgot that Galilee is incredibly fertile. Mostly grasses near the town from what I can tell. Virtually no trees until you get to the low hills in the distance. Everything around the town was probably cut down over the 1300 years that the town existed.

Here's an example from a capitalization article about geographic naming: Everyone should visit the Indiana Dunes. The dunes offer hiking, swimming, and picnicking. If I follow my Guard rule, then dunes should be Dunes.

I just finished populating an events table with cross-references into my best pilgrimage book. Long sigh. There's some missing detail for locations the author didn't include, but I can get that from online resources and the other (alphabetized) travel guides later. I'm sick of research, so I guess this means I'm starting the outline. Woohoo!

Is it the multiplicity of selves that you wanted me to take note of (for Joseph and Apollo), the fact that you don't have perfect knowledge but need to make a decision (which route to take in Israel), or having a watcher/judge?

Google maps rock! Street view allows me to see the landscape for major routes through Israel. Indispensable given that the travel guides don't cover most of this in a way I can follow on a map. I'm 60% of the way through rereading the best of the travel guides for the sites Connor may visit. The author jumps around, though, both in time and place. The only reason I can follow most of the book is that I have a table of the major events in Jesus's ministry. I'm still pondering whether to follow a chronological path through Israel or a circular one. Since virtually nothing is known about Jesus as a child and young adult in Nazareth, it seems like overkill to drive all the way north after Bethlehem, only to come south again for the baptisms, then north again to Galilee. Unfortunately, there are quite a few sites for which I still don't have enough description. What I'd give for the health to see it all in person with a good tour guide.

He will indeed demonstrate that he can take care of himself before the tour is over. One of the reasons he's there is that he's being hunted in Rome, even inside the Vatican. They send him to the Holy Land not just to jog his memory, but also to keep him relatively safe while they hunt for a killer of cardinals and bishops in Rome. That killer is believed to be the Antichrist.

He's a target of the Antichrist, so he'll be traveling in a motorcade of three armored Mercedes SUVs loaded with heavily armed Swiss Guards. There's a Catholic expert on the Holy Land in the group. How's that for a tour? :-)