STATION IDENTIFICATION: Infinitefreetime.com

Luther M. Siler

Welcome to Infinitefreetime!  I’m Luther Siler.  I’m the author of Skylights, available for $4.95 from Amazon and most online book retailers, and The Benevolence Archives.  Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 is 99 cents from Amazon and FREE from any other online bookstore.  Volume 2, The Sanctum of the Sphere, is $4.95 everywhere.  All three books are available in print as well, and the print edition of Sanctum includes BA 1 as a bonus!   Autographed books can be ordered straight from me as well.

Here’s where to find Luther Siler on the interwebtron:

  • You can follow me on Twitter, @nfinitefreetime, here or just click the “follow” button on the right side of the page.  I am on Twitter pretty frequently; I use it for liveblogging TV, whining about anything that strikes me as whine-worthy, and for short, Facebook-style posts.  I generally follow back if I can tell you’re a human being.
  • Sign up for my mailing list here.
  • My author page on Goodreads is here. I accept any and all friend requests.
  • I have a Tumblr!  I don’t actually know what Tumblr is, because I’m old, but I’ve got one.
  • My official Author page on Amazon is located here.
  • Feel free to Like the (sadly underutilized) Luther Siler Facebook page here.  It’s mostly used as a reblogger for posts.
  • And, of course, you’re already at infinitefreetime.com, my blog.  You can click here to be taken to a random post.

Thanks for reading!

FEAR THE WALKING DEAD pilot recap is live!

Luther M. Siler1 Comment

Head over to Sourcerer, as custom dictates, to check it out.

#Weekendcoffeeshare: Orange juice edition

Luther M. Siler7 Comments

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If we were having coffee, I’d be chasing it with orange juice, and probably not enjoying the combination all that much.  My students went through half a fracking box of tissues in class yesterday, and one girl and one co-worker in particular may as well have had spigots attached to their noses for the majority of the day.  I got home yesterday and could physically feel the sick trying to take root in my body, so I’m ODing on vitamin C and trying to head off my traditional Third Week of School Illness.

Beyond that, I’d probably keep my mouth shut and see if I could get you to do most of the talking.  I would try not to let the conversation turn to things like convention plans for 2016 (man oh man do I have convention plans for 2016, after getting locked out of several opportunities in 2015) because I don’t want to count chickens before they’re hatched.  I’d also be trying to calculate just how much editing I could get done with the rest of my weekend when I wasn’t at work or grading things or trying not to bore my friends.  There’s a good chance of rain at OtherJob tonight, and I’m kinda crossing my fingers for it, because that way I can get some school work done.

I would try and not let the wave of despair that thought creates show on my face.  All in all, despite the whining I’ve been doing, this year is shaping up nicely.  I just need to beat my PM class into shape.

I would probably try and talk you into coming over and playing with the drone with me, because it’s still that much fun.

But yeah.  Mostly alternating genuine listening with glassy-eyed stares, and oh my god so much Vitamin C.

More stories from the second week of school

Luther M. Siler4 Comments

1c96f3844Today started and ended rather poorly, with some not-bad shoved in the middle.  I had a moment of pure assholery from one of my anger management cases when the simple act of saying “good morning” less than a minute after walking into the building earned me an eye-roll and preadolescent stomping away.  They try to train us to not take this personally when it happens, and I do my damnedest, but fuck it’s 7:30 in the Goddamn AM and I don’t need this shit this early in the morning.

I had a similar moment with another kid earlier this week when I was supposed to escort a line of them somewhere else in the building.  I didn’t know most of them, and I asked the first kid in the line what his name was, intending to segue directly into Okay, Jimmy, I need you to walk to this corner and stop, and the motherfucker told me he didn’t know his name.

I blinked at him a couple of times and repeated the question, trying to assume he hadn’t heard the question.

“I ain’t got one.”

Goddamnit I am neither in the mood nor do I have the time for this shit.  I asked you a simple and friendly question, you little fuck, and it’s a goddamn crime that I’m not allowed to resolve this situation by just punching you in your stupid throat and then asking the second kid what his name is, assuming that your crumpled, gasping body would give him some evidence as to whether he should answer the fucking question or not.

This; this is the shit that makes me not want anything to do with this job anymore.  I know intellectually that this kid’s life has got to be fucked in some way because no one is this goddamned noncompliant and aggressive over simple shit for no fucking reason.  My problem is that it’s not even September and I’m already not even close to the point where I can care any more.  I’ve been in the trenches for fourteen fucking years.  That’s enough.  I need one kid who has a shitty home life and awful parents and needs someone with some compassion around him and instead I have hundreds, and I just can’t fucking deal with it any longer.

Thank fuckin’ God my homeroom is so nice.  It ensures I still have some patience left when my much more problematic afternoon class comes along, because that’s the class with the special ed kids and the behavior problems.  I found out today that one of my afternoon girls is the second child of the lunatic at the end of this post, a fact that does not surprise me at all given her behavior, because Mom has absolutely no ability to deal with anything in any way other than swearing and cursing and screeching at the top of her lungs.  She’s been issued a restraining order by the school I worked at in that story, in fact.  The very first time she tries this shit with me will be the last, one way or another.

(I mean, Christ, does this shit actually ever work for you?  What the hell kind of life do you live when swearing and screaming like a lunatic at life’s every setback is your only way to cope?  Does getting arrested and kicked out of/banned from ever reentering places all the goddamn time appeal to you?  Because I know this nonsense isn’t getting you what you want.)

I’m glad it’s the weekend, is what I’m saying.

In which everything is awesome

Luther M. Siler15 Comments

Just spent about half an hour outside playing with one of these babies:

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That’s a Phantom 3 Professional quadcopter, with a 4K camera on a goddamn gimbal, meaning you can swoop past things at an angle and the image stays smooth and level.  The shots look outstanding; I haven’t pulled them from the SD card yet to check them out at full-res, though.  I did make a dumb mistake where every picture I took shows my address, so you don’t get to see any of my footage yet, but I’ll keep fiddling with it this weekend.

It’s not mine, sadly.  We bought it with the last of the grant money last year, and are going to use it for our media productions class– the camera is that good.  But someone had to learn to fly it first, so I demanded first right of geekdom and brought it home.  It costs roughly $usedcar, so I need to be damn careful I don’t screw it up.  But damn, was that fun.