Claribel swept into his life and for a time dominated it. He had encountered her while on an opera tour of Europe, in one of the great halls, in a very colorful, historical city. The exact location of their first meeting was a closely guarded secret. She was a mover and a shaker in the dangerous world of black market fashion. Her innovative ideas were years ahead of the Paris designers and so in a play for power they had chased her underground.

When with her, he was overwhelmed with beauty and elegance. Yet she was also a tough cookie. Easily managing the emotional upheavals that accompanied any affair with a mountie.

She loved to try out the effect of her new creations on him. He was open. Enthusiastic. When he liked what she designed she was treated oh so well.

Many had thought they would end up together. They seemed so natural together. Complementing each other so well. But alas, she too, was not the one.

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Ah yes, and then there was that sunny time in Spain. Where he had met his Islero. The dangerous Porscha. Sexy as sexy ever was. Wicked sense of humor. They met in the arena. Blood covered the sand. They struggled. Such passion. Spanish steel. Raging beast. Manulete had met his ultimate challenge.

Only after sand changed to glass were the head and tails his.

Imaginative, warm. Why had the gods confined her so far north? So far from the desperate masses?

But as unique, as wonderful, as precious as she is.... she is not the one.

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The mountie's time with Kalikatt was part business and part pleasure. The mysterious lady was his contact to the dark, seamy underworld of the Eastern Canadian Basin. Famous for her beauty, for her charm, and her poker face, she was often able to get the drop on more powerful crime figures by sheer element of surprise. Known to be one of the few green crime figures - her violent temper flaring out of control, becoming so white hot, if any of her gang was caught trading in fur or dumping chemicals. The stories were hushed up but showed a tough side of her that no doubt was what kept her able to stay on top of this dangerous world, and to have an affair with a mountie.

Yes Dudley was always on guard when he visited her den. But he found it, somewhat surprisingly, to be a kind of refuge from his normal world with all its hypocracies and contradictions.

She of course could not be the one. He was simply grateful to leave her in one piece each visit.




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The only way the mountie could think of Emelda was via the memory of a series of disjoint encounters. It was the lovemaking. The romance. The wonder of her. Experienced so intensely at such different times. Days so sunny, relaxed. Warmed by her words, her touch. Nights of flame.

She was a complete lover. Versatile. Loving. Each time was a work of art. They created each time they met.

She could be so wickedly dirty. Knew so many ways to please. But each time they met, they became closer. Nevertheless, she was not the one.

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And now...

The sounds of the Spanish trumpet wafted in on the evening air. Ride had ordered the song, Rio Bravo, that Santa Anna had played to the defenders of the Alamo, to be played by the corp. Dressed in his dress uniform, with a grim look on his face, he strummed his guitar in time with the music. Elaborating on the death march theme. It was the song designed to let the last defenders know that the moment of truth was near at hand. That their fate was now sealed. Surrounded. Beset. They could surrender. Or they could die.

The search was near done. It was time to set up the final scene.




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As the news leaked out of the Institute of the mountie's rapid progress through the dense thicket of models, surprise, shock, consternation grew.

It was already known that such obvious, talented, sweet, sexy long timers as Sheryl, Slutatris, Malori, Alessa, Annelle, Jame, Kasyopea - women who had certainly left their mark on the mountie were disqualified by the tough, tough rules that he had imposed.

But they would all be reminded during this time of the grim, ruthless, ambitious side of the mountie. Who would not allow failure in this quest , no matter the price, no matter the cost.

It was this side of course that was essential for getting his teeth into a villain and holding on while the villain did everything he could to escape his clutches. To say it was a surprise that he was this way was to be naive about his role in the world and the realities he had to face to be successful.

The list of women was so long. Ride's head buzzed with bittersweet memories, lives, dreams. Yet he heard the trumpet, playing the death march, he continued to strum his guitar in time.

(strum... strum strum strum... strum... strum strum strum)

There were snares that had picked up the underlying beat now. They rattled like the bones of so many skeletons. The whole Institute resonated with the march. As if it were some freakish Carnival time there.

(strum... strum strum strum.... strum... strum strum strum)

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But do not think that the mountie's research into subjects dense, weighty, and obscure slowed during this time. Quite the contrary. The mountie created, discovered, achieved new insights even while the march droned on.

It was during this time for example that he formalized his Theory of the Complexity of Man, grounding it strongly in mathematics. Consider:

Let a man be expressed as z = real part of the man + j imaginary part of man.

Yes, actually express the man as an complex variable, with real and imaginary parts.

Then it is possible to determine his phase, why it is just :

phase of the man = atan ( I / R ) where I and R are shorthand for those parts of him.

Yes, yes, eureka!!!! Now a mother could express very succinctly to a teenager, who would not get a job but just play his guitar all day dreaming of being the next great rock star. "Young man! Your phase is near 90 degrees!!! You need to get more real! At least 40 degrees!!!"

It was possible to define the magnitude of the man. A measure of his power, his worth, his footprint. Namely as m = sqrt( R^2 + I^2 )

This quantity, interestingly enough was independent of phase. So a saavy teenager, well versed in the theory, could fling back at his mom that " My magnitude is immense, why do you care so much about my phase?"

I will call this his... manitude.

And so another way to express the man was z = m * exp( j * phase)

Not surprisingly, the math shows that it is possible to apply transformations to the man, multiplying by exp( j * phaseRotation), that would change his phase but leave his manitude unchanged. Another way of saying that man is changable becoming at times a realist or a dreamer even while his worth stays the same.

Insanity or mental disease could be modeled perhaps as exp( - k t ) / exp( j * original phase) * j A condition that slowly lowers his magnitude and makes his phase pure imaginary.

Ride noticed that the basic theory was very permissive. He saw no bounds on time for example. No rules to slow transformations or speed them. No ultimate bound on the manitude.

He was sure that this would be a rich field of research for those trying to understand the human condition or for those trying to motivate their loved ones to pitch in more around the home.





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Once developed, the basic theory permitted revelation after revelation.

Suppose you define instead a vector z(p dT) that represents the man at some discrete instant of his life. Where dT is the sampling period, a fixed interval of time, small compared to the man's life and p denotes the pth sample of it, so is just an integer.

Suppose you defined a vector function x(p) = z(p) + noise(p). Where noise represents all the distractions, meddling by well-meaning but clueless relatives, the need to earn a living, etc etc.

This vector would capture the evolution, if sampled finely enough, of the man over his lifetime.

Ah yes.

And if you then took the discrete fourier transform of this you would get his life spectrum. A man who very quickly rose up to achieve his value of max m and didn't degrade much at the end of his life, if his phase varied in a coherent way, not necessarily being constant, just coherent, then he would have a large peak, rising gloriously above the pretty constant noise created floor of the spectrum.

At last, an objective way to measure a lifetime of growth and achievement.

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Yes the powerful new theory could also deal with such things as the hazards of time travel. What, people always wanted to know, would happen if a man went back in time and ran into himself?

Well the mathematics was painfully clear on the point. Complex quantities obey complex laws of addition. So:

z_after_meeting_self = z_guy_from_z_past + z_guy_from_z_future

These things added like vectors in complex space. So is nice to take some special cases:

Say over the course of his recent life the guy had stayed pretty much the same but gotten out of phase with himself. Well then his magnitude would be the same but his phase would be 180 degrees off from what it was before. But if you work it out, this just means that:

z_guy_from_z_future = -z_guy_from_z_past

So when they meet, there is perfect cancellation.... not a good thing for the man. A simple phase difference resulted in a complete loss of the man! Not recoverable with any simple phase rotation! Damn!

This is also a kind of warning in general to be wary of complex additions. Such as a new wife. or a new kid. or an expensive new wing on an existing home.

Of course on the other hand, if the time traveler stayed perfectly in phase over the time difference he would sum perfectly with his old self and be twice the man afterwards.

It just goes to show ya... You gotta be master of your phase man.





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Now once people started getting the idea of a life spectrum they started to argue about the ultimate spectrum. Some were impressed by the beauty of a single, optimally narrow spike. They merely couldn't agree upon which exact frequency it should be centered upon. The 0 frequency had its appeal for some.

Others quickly pointed out that the choice of the sampling period had an effect on the spectra, it limited how much unambiguous frequency could be covered. This resulted in arguments about aliasing, ie how did you know for sure, just looking at a spectrum, whether you were dealing with some frequency or an aliased version of a much higher frequency.

Then there were those who thought it was better to cover a larger bandwidth. These people tried to live their lives in perpetual chirp. Of course they had arguments too about where the center of their narrow band should fall.

Then some of the single peak crowd got into the notion of sidelobe reduction. They started to write books about how to slowly ramp up your manitude as a child and gracefully slide down in value as an old man. This notion of applying life tapers was based on the fact that you could lower peak sidelobes at the expense of a bit wider mainlobe.

The effect of a long life was to make your spectrum more finely sampled for a given sampling rate without padding the end of your life with zeros. (a bad move that some widows are known to do) Zero padding just interpolates the spectrum. A longer life actually narrows the underlying response peak and makes it easier to measure the frequency.

Those who really really wanted to know the frequency of some spectrum used a special estimator that got to the signal to noise limit imposed by the gods of math. They had to make assumptions usually about the coherence of the individual they were dealing with generally. A fundamental problem in this kind of estimation theory.

Yes, a lively field of research. But still in its infancy.

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The corps was really having a blast now. Word had gotten out that the mountie was riding out, riding into the sunset, to claim his woman. It was nearly that time now. So they had managed to swing their march into a climax. It was like the shootout at the end of a western but without two guys about to whip out their guns.

The press too had got wind of it. They always did it seems. Helicopters buzzed around. The grounds were crawling with camera crews.

Then the rumor ran through the crowd "He's gone." It was true. Nobody knew how. Nobody knew when. Ride's horse was still in stable. His dress uniform was folded up neatly and laid out on his bed. He had his guns. He had his guitar. That's all they knew.

Yeah that Poohawk incident had made the mountie extra cautious. He wasn't about to endanger the woman of his dreams now.

Oh they did know one more thing. The mountie left a short note. It said: "The search is done."

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It was the start of the opera season. The city... was Prague. Spring had come thankfully. A prerequisite for start of the season. The newspapers were finally done reporting on the latest unfortunate, little kid found frozen, who had gotten lost until Spring in the deep deep snows of this ancient city.

Ah but the papers had only the opera to report on now. Especially since that famous columnist who printed articles in the pet column had been prosecuted for making up names of species. The one that did him in was a bogus species of woodpecker that he dreamed up to caption a picture, the picture of a jay. But I digress. (I think he is now out of the pen and in the dog selling business)

The city is the focus of our immediate attention because it was the location of the premier of the mountie's masterwork, Don GioMountie. It was no accident of course that the mountie chose this city. Perhaps it was because of its long history with famous operas. Perhaps the mountie knew the columnist who had to start again with a new profession. Perhaps it was because of the atmosphere, so unique, a child of the history of the place.

The Royal Hall of Prima Donas, built very recently with superior acoustics in mind, had replaced the old famous hall. Ride would have preferred the old hall because he loved the history. But he was not feeling too bad that his creation would come alive in a modern, acoustically ideal setting.

The Overture had just passed. Giving the orchestra a chance to crack their knuckles. People weren't so crazy about this particular Overture, it had been done in one crazy night you see just before the show opened, but it did serve to introduce the famous, spooky, arpeggios that characterized the music of his finale.

Ride himself was present. But he wasn't conducting. Not this time. He had a lady on his arm. She was masked. He was masked. They scurried into the royal box. Nobody could see who she was. Nobody could tell what they were doing during the show. But it doesn't take too much imagination to make some pretty entertaining surmises.

How can we describe this magic night? The whole of Europe attending what was sure to be the talk of the season if not more. Ladies showing off their finery. Men showing off their sophistication. And of course the current superstars of song gracing the stage. I will apologize in advance for saying no more about these prima donas other than to note that Ride had to add a couple extra arias to get them to sing at all, the bass found one of the existing arias too challenging and the soprano simply wanted more time alone on stage.

The first scene set the tone for the entire production. It started quietly enough with a solo, an aria, from the sidekick to the don, that soon grew into a trio, two men and one woman as a fighting couple hove into view. That trio transitioned masterfully into a trio of men's voices in conflict as the woman ran off stage and her enraged father came on. Becoming more and more vigorous until one of the men was mortally wounded, and the scene ended with the trio winding down into a beautiful dirge.

Ah a libretto, a plot, that moved so fast. Mixing serious with comic. Light with dark. But the music, it was the music that was so incredible. The audience was literally frozen in their seats, trying their best to catch every trick that was being pulled so wonderfully upon their ears.

The characters came to life so well. They were complex. As real a set as had ever been created to strut around the stage. Many identified more with the villain and his sidekick than they did with the vengeful heros. That was part of its charm. Many felt that the climax was when the villain was taken off kicking to hell instead of the final piece in the opera where morals were made and threads neatly tied off. This too was part of its charm.

But all agreed that it had been a night of nights. That would require much discussion afterwards before people could rank it properly within their ordering of favorite operas.

They rose to give Ride an ovation. But the royal box was empty.

And these happy times, before the Poohawks made their play, were perhaps his golden age.










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My my, you are really drawing out the suspense, aren't you??? Quote

My my, you are really drawing out the suspense, aren't you???


The 30 foot tall model on the billboard was holding a copy of "The Journal of a Mountie" in one hand, touching her chin with one finger of the other hand. Her eyes were wide. Her mouth was an open "O". The thought bubble, common device of the cartoonist, was filled with those words:
"My, my, you are really drawing out the suspense, aren't you???"

Ride's publisher was betting the farm on this work. Buses, airplanes, city benches, tv commercials, were part of a blitz all trying to capitalize on the upsurge in popularity of the mountie that was likely the result of the dramatic events in his recent past.

If only they knew the woman, the model, that Ride had chosen. Then they could use that as part of the campaign. This was something that Chip Leggerton, his publisher continually nagged Ride about. "Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!"

Chip was not above hiring detectives, and in fact had. Those of us who have quiet, peaceful existences, with privacy easy to find, should once again feel very thankful. For the mountie, the last line of defense between us and destruction had to work hard to find little bits of each.

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The happy period had to be briefly interrupted so that Ride could defend himself in a duel to the death. Yes these things still take place. In this case it was Hulking Hawk, a Poohawk known for his great strength and skill with edged weapons. The Poohawks were governed by honor and tradition. Before they went to war on a large scale they felt it customary to engage in a series of challenges, duels, much like those of the Greeks.

Now Ride was bound by no such tradition and did not consider himself a warrior, yet he knew that he needed to accept the challenge. The reason is that as awful as the Poohawks were going to make things over the next few months they could and would make it a whole lot worse if they felt they were fighting an opponent who had offended their honor.

Hulking Hawk chose swords but allowed any other melee weapon. Ride said the duel must take place in a canoe at Lake LaBarge.

Hulking Hawk prepared himself very carefully. Ritual after ritual. He dressed in samurai armor and chose his sword with much trepidation.

Ride merely contacted the marina and made sure that they had just the canoe he wanted. He picked a heavy war hammer as his weapon and stripped himself to the waist. No armor at all.
But he put on a black eye patch and practiced walking with a limp.

Hulking Hawk spent the night before consecrating his sword to his god of war. Ride spent his doing some simple stretches, drinking some sake for atmosphere, and doing voice imitations of the Kansuke character from the great TV series. "Above all else young Lord... KNOW THE ENEMY"

At dawn they arrived as planned at Lake Labarge. After exchanging a ritual tea they moved out to the lake. Hulking Hawk was more impressive in person than even in legend. Very tall. Very broad. Very agile. Very serious. The seconds exchanged knowing glances, Clyde Cleeve had already ordered a Ride-sized coffin.

"You know the rules. You must both row the canoe out to the center of the lake. You must stand, wait for the sound of this pistol going off, and then go at it. " said the sober referee.

So they set out together in the canoe. Hulking Hawk was furious at the way that Ride was dressed and at his weapon. "Are you making fun of me?" he snarled.

Ride said only: "This is a sign of great respect. You are so skilled with the sword that I know I cannot beat you on land. My costume pays homage to a great military mind who I hope to honor this day."

Hulking Hawk shoveled large divots of lake in his haste to get Ride to lake center. Ride paddled slowly and daintily as if he were unwilling to get any water on his shorts.

"You think you can beat a samurai with a war hammer?" growled Hulking Hawk

"My ancestors gave this weapon a special place in the land of the gods." said Ride serenely.

They arrived at lake center. They stood. Hulking Hawk with sword raised in samurai pose. Nostrils flaring. Ride with his war hammer balanced on one shoulder. The breeze toyed with their hair.

"Bang" popped the gun.

"Yarrrrrrrrrr" screamed Hulking Hawk and whickered his sword through the air where Ride's head had just been. The effort caused a lot of weight to move around and the canoe rocked unsteadily making the warrior have to catch his balance.

Ride simply yelled "Next stop Ichigo" and then crashed his hammer down hard on the bottom of the canoe. The bottom went out in one shot. Spilling both men into the water.

Ride did a leisurely backstroke to shore. Hulking Hawk however was weighted by armor and not really a swimmer and so sank like a very large, very angry rock.

"Time to head back to Kai" chirped the mountie to the amazed seconds. Another dangerous pass passed our mountie could look forward to a quiet week.








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When Ride returned from the Lake, he had a chance to relax for a while. His woman was away for a few days taking care of some of her personal business. The Poohawk main offensive was still days away. So Ride made some lazy plans involving sunshine, beaches, rum and some great reading material.

He was just settling into his beach chair, in the middle of a popular state beach, enjoying the start of his commune with his fellow beachaholics and about to let Nature ravish him, when the MountieCell began making some, in this context, very irritating noises.

"Mario's Pizza" he tried.

"Shut up and listen very closely..." hissed a voice that was vaguely familiar yet which he couldn't quite place.

The voice went on to explain in that remarkably concise way that kidnappers manage to state things, that Ride's girl was now in their custody. If he wanted to ever see her again etc etc He should: yada yada yada.

Ride listened while the voice hissed in his ear. Then calmly put away the phone when the voice was done. He picked up his drink. Stirred it. Laid back and let the sun warm him. Then he allowed his mind to start to work on this new problem.

His first reaction was pure disbelief. The kidnappers had not offered to let him hear her voice. They had just made their claim, specified what he should do, gave him some free advice about how he should react to this situation, and then quickly hung up.

So he did not know they actually had her. They must have someone. He could tell that from how they acted and who he thought they were, the Poohawks of course. Probably Lotsa Luck's boys. He had been so careful. He simply couldn't believe they even knew who she is.

Then it hit him. They probably had Adeline. Ah yes, Adeline. It made sense that they thought it was her. After all he often visited her dark abode. They were known to have a very unusual, very steamy affair going on at this time. It was the time of the year when he traditionally brought her close and spent the most time with her. In fact she had probably gone to their traditional meeting ground, a cottage on the coast, and was preparing for him when she was taken.

He laughed. Those Poohawks had really screwed up. She would give them more trouble than they could possibly imagine. He knew they wouldn't hurt her. He knew their ways too well. But they were blind to the fact that he knew this and thought they could scare him, make him do what they wanted him to do.

He spread his toes in the sand, now really enjoying himself. Ah Adeline, what a bewitching beauty. Her eyes so lively. Her mind so sharp and so well attuned to pleasing him in her special way. They had made love so many times that he had names for all the freckle constellations that he had charted on her lovely form. He used them to navigate to all her favorite destinations. She was so responsive to his touch, sailing to unheard of heights of pleasure.

"Hmmm this may set back their invasion by a few days" he thought. The idea pleased him because he was so comfortable. He worked lotion into his skin, which had a good base tan already present from months of buildup sunning. Yeah he could win some kind of contest now - he had the mind set and the sun working for him. A very relaxed smile. A mind soaring through space without any cares. A cold drink of just the right composition, years spent in determining, slowly diluting by ice melt from sun and lazy hand warming the cold glass.

He heard the voices of women on the breeze. His grin widened. He heard light footsteps in the sand. Playing. Coming closer in a curious, meandering sort of way.

Yes, a man is a deceptive creature. He can go from 0 to 200 in a few seconds. His senses are so sharp even when he appears to be slumbering. Ride enjoyed letting his senses work out what was happening near him. Even with eyes closed, eyelids feeling the warmth of the sun, he could see in his mind the women so near him.

He could smell them. Telling each one apart by the differences in scent. He knew exactly which direction they were. He knew their approximate ages. His ears fed him all kinds of information from the way one of them talked, the pauses in her speech, the tremor of nervousness underlying her voice. They were giving countless signs that they were aware of him and curious about him.

His mouth was wet. His tongue bathed happily in juices expecting to do what it was designed to do very soon.

Oh we should leave the mountie now and give him some range to roam and some precious privacy. It is enough we know he was on the beach and feeling so fine.

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But of course like all older men, Ride was troubled by flashbacks of horrific events that might have been avoided if only ...

One terrible day, forever imprinted on his memory, was the day that Lotsa Luck did in the Kolodny sisters, Jame and Kasyopea. Or did he? That was the thing about Lotsa Luck, he was the master assassin. You were never quite sure he did the thing or how.

But Ride had a theory. Jame was driving her fiat on the incredibly windy, so so famous road from Monte Carlo. Kasyopea was in the passenger seat. They were in excellent spirits as they had been partying it up together as usual. Going through so much money and so many men.

What a picture they made that day. Hair flying out long behind them. Laughing. Looking confidently at the world through dark sunglasses. Not a care in the world. Full of ambitious plans and wonderful dreams.

But then... Tragedy. Jame was momentarily distracted by a handsome hitchhiker, lost control of the car, and suddenly the car was sailing through empty space with nothing to brake its long descent down. Kasyopea could only maintain her calm and sense of style as she rode down to her doom with her sis.

That was the story. But Ride had checked out the car. Nothing seemed so terribly wrong with it. But one of the tires was too low on air, not blown out, just too low. This tire had a white chalk mark on it, that looked to Ride's eyes like a signal marker in some unknown code.

Lotsa Luck, he was sure. But could never prove. As if it mattered. There were plenty of other crimes, reasons, that this menace should be stopped for good. However none of course so personal to Ride because he adored those sisters.

Of all the caricatures Lotsa Luck's was most flattering. The CIA had respected his wealth even as they had some fun with its origin. They made some jokes about the nature of his assets, tieing them to some jabs at his short stature. It was a myth that he owned an escargo ranch for example but one of the better yarns the CIA pulled. They exaggerated his ego and the jealousy others of his tribe had of him. They even gave him a famous man's voice box after tiring of making him a mute, scribbling short arrogant notes to those he deemed his inferior (everybody).

He was talented. He was subtle. He was powerful. Not likely to be detected let alone defeated. But he had made his fatal error. He had grabbed Adeline. So out of character for him to make such a mistake. But every Poohawk would have his day...

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Dudley honey,nice words you wrote here for everybody.You are a sweetheart

Happy Easter to you hun Quote

Dudley honey,nice words you wrote here for everybody.You are a sweetheart

Happy Easter to you hun



Dudley set down the Easter card and picked up his drink. A grin on his face. "Sheryl has surfaced again. No more hiding from the ' Flea." he said aloud with a merry voice.

Yeah Sheryl had had to disappear for a while because she had got onto Screaming Flea's list of loose ends to tie off. Ride didn't know how. Maybe it was for money, for honor smirched, or just because he was feeling ornery on some fateful day. But now the ' Flea was part of the grand Poohawk invasion and could not afford to settle old scores.

The upcoming battle it seems had ruined some people's Easter plans but liberated others to enjoy life once again, free from some Poohawk's tyranny.

Ride looked forward to continuing his long affair with the lady. Each year she grew more and more the fine woman. Mellowing. Growing. Maturing. Taking more and more responsibility without losing her love of life.

"Happy Easter my child" he whispered to himself and then continued with his battle plans.



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Ok, I'm posting mainly because I want to be included in the next segment of the story! LOL

Happy Easter Dudley... Quote