In Which I Blog

The recent much ado in science fiction fandom known variously as Puppygate and/or Hugogate has inspired me to start blogging.  I'm on Facebook but it's not very good when it comes to long form writing.  So here I am trying my hand at writing my thoughts on a semi-regular basis.

First of all, if you don't know who I am, my name is Arthur Chenin,  I'm a 40-something divorced father of a 10 year old boy.  I work as an institutional research analyst in the planning & budget office of a major land grant, research university.  In short I do statistics for a living.

I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and although I now live in the wilds of northern Nevada I still consider Cleveland to be the cultural center of the universe.  I attended Miami University (the one in Ohio) where I studied political science and history.

I am a life-long geek with the standard interests in science fiction and fantasy as well history.  Which raises the question, just what is this blog about?

• Science fiction & fantasy in all its forms: books, film, television, et cetera.  My tastes are kind of all over the place.  I like a good space opera and epic fantasy as much as a serious exploration of the effects of technology on humanity.
• SF&F fandom as a subculture including conventions, people and events involving it.
• Gaming, primarily role-playing and board gaming.  Also I like doing historical miniatures gaming.  However don't expect much about video games, I don't own any consoles and they rarely capture my attention.
• History, especially the Napoleonic Wars and the Austro-Hungarian Empire but pretty much anything that catches my fancy.
• Also some alternate history both serious academic questions of  "What if" as well as my present obsession with steampunk.
• Occasionally I will indulge in political rants.  I am a registered Democrat though my actual beliefs are probably closer to a European-style social Democrat.  Politics will undoubtedly become the subject of more posts as we get closer to an election.

Like I said, I want to post semi-regularly.  Ideally that would be daily but I suspect knowing myself that many days can go between posts.

So that's it for now.  Thanks for reading.

PS And thanks to my dear friend Smooches for help with the name for the blog,