tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-127736842012-02-16T17:50:18.235-05:00J. Sandstormer is a perfectly ordinary moisture farmer, just trying to earn a living on Tatooine.J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.comBlogger331100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-92212734969120519192011-01-28T13:32:00.002-05:002011-01-28T13:45:43.396-05:00

Yes, J. Sandstormer is still alive.I've been reading through the old stuff (slowly) to refresh my memory as to all the earlier adventures. It turns out that I've forgotten more things than I've remembered.Another challenge is that when I started the blog, Sandstormer's age worked out to be 55. I do not know what I was thinking. In order to continue the blog, to write the stories I want to write,

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-19270780790644589202010-08-15T18:06:00.000-04:002010-08-15T18:07:24.291-04:00

Time passes...

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1157059016532042742006-08-31T17:08:00.000-04:002006-08-31T17:23:30.863-04:00

Two bits of news:My weekly Gungan soap opera recapping job was getting out of hand, but fortunately, a nice person named Amanda is going to split the week with me, so I'll have more time to blog again.My bowling league has ended. Here are my scores. (Remember, this is CANDLEPIN bowling, not TENPIN.)

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1154840449843407452006-08-06T00:56:00.001-04:002008-12-15T13:58:46.912-05:00

Just a quick update to assure people I haven't fallen into a Sarlacc pit.I went to the big podrace with the Darklighters. This time there were no honored guests, and we had excellent seats.Kenobi's friend Fil is still missing, and Kenobi cheats at bowling.I've taken a part-time job with a magazine publisher in Mos Eisley -– one reason I haven't been so eager to sit down in front of a computer on

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1149205130208464142006-06-01T19:37:00.000-04:002006-06-05T13:53:53.293-04:00

Where to begin?I spent two months on Naboo. Not entirely by choice. I've lived on Tatooine for over 40 years, and this was my first time off the planet since then. Partly, the issue was money. It's very expensive to travel that far. It's also been an issue of leaving the farm for any amount of time. There are people who watch other people's businesses for a living, but I'd never been willing to

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1148498105263318882006-05-24T15:13:00.000-04:002006-05-24T15:15:05.450-04:00

I had to make an unexpected trip to Naboo. There were some good outcomes and some bad ones... but I don't have time to enumerate all of them just now. Updates will be forthcoming over the next few days.

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1140138540704845122006-02-16T19:54:00.000-05:002006-02-16T20:09:00.743-05:00

I may be surrounded by insanity, but I am not insane!(I hope.)I have this business customer who is driving me crazy. He has always been high-maintenance, but lately his behavior is off the scale. Every day (EVERY!!! DAY!!!) he comes up with some feeble excuse to interrupt me so that he can inspect my "progress." One day this week, he went so far as to badger me when I was sick in bed. He wanted

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1137263699994086652006-01-14T13:32:00.000-05:002006-01-14T13:34:59.996-05:00

I forgot to mention the best part. Yappy, being a "domestic" droid, has a Bocce interface. That means Beru can finally use Shmi's old appliances again. It's probably also the only reason Owen doesn't hate the dog!

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1137191097878606132006-01-13T15:51:00.000-05:002006-01-13T17:24:57.930-05:00

I asked myself, am I having a good time? Is this how I want to spend my entire day? And the answer was no. So I'm taking some time out for a long overdue blog post.First topic: The fish farm. Kane and Dofi were right about Sandpeople. They're capable of excellent work. The problem is, I when I look at Sandpeople, all I can think of is what happened to Shmi, and the neighbors and friends (

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1135914487406695792005-12-29T22:01:00.000-05:002005-12-29T22:48:07.666-05:00

I promise I'll get to the next post, titled "Of Dogs and Droids," soon. But first, a serious and annoyingly out-of-character pause.Upon diagnosis, the five year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is 4%. My coworker's son didn't last nearly that long (I think four months) and died a year ago at the age of 37. His by-all-accounts-excellent doctors were impressed by his "tenacity." This disease

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1132903118975821692005-11-25T02:08:00.000-05:002005-11-25T13:28:41.316-05:00

Some of my happiest childhood memories are of Life Days with my family, but my first Life Day on Tatooine was very lonely. I had just moved here recently, was not having much success as a moisture farmer, and didn't have any friends. I was eating a lot of womp rats in those days, and Life Day that year was no exception. (They're actually very tasty, but they take a long time to clean, especially

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1131396400260329912005-11-07T15:12:00.001-05:002008-12-15T13:51:24.198-05:00

I have so much to say, but thanks to the solar flares (very bad this time of year), have had trouble getting online. Forget the fish farm and the dog and Luke's birthday: this one has to come first. It's an emergency.Onegee has run away. I'm pretty sure of it. I can't afford to deal with this right now.I don't think he was stolen. He was working on a vaporator and I quickly went back to the house

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1128698423543100072005-10-07T10:32:00.000-04:002005-10-07T11:20:23.576-04:00

It's a cruel irony that as life gets more interesting, there's less time to blog. Here's what's been happening: A few days after our evening in Mos Eisley, Kenobi sheepishly inquired as to how much he'd told me. "Pretty much everything," I told him, but reassured him that since I couldn't remember any of it clearly, I'd be unable to blackmail him. For a while, I did entertain a suspicion that

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1127143869739479362005-09-19T10:35:00.000-04:002005-09-19T12:12:13.416-04:00

I try not to pay much attention to these things, but sometimes a news story catches my eye.Some time ago, both of the Emperor's daughters narrowly escaped arrest and received misdemeanor citations. The Emperor himself was arrested most recently for drunken piloting, long before he entered political life (he has a couple of disorderlies as well), and there is documented proof that his military

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1126883303804990582005-09-16T11:01:00.000-04:002005-09-16T21:18:13.570-04:00

Naturally, Kenobi was up for a night on the town. He doesn't have good transportation, so he is always happy for an excuse to bum a ride.I was supposed to report to the courthouse in Mos Eisley ("at my convenience") to renew my droid's registration. Most people never bother, but I got caught. It is usually just a matter of paying a fee. It kept slipping my mind (I should have done it when I was

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1126541311552146602005-09-12T12:04:00.000-04:002005-09-12T12:08:31.566-04:00

I had the weirdest experience last week. Recent political and other developments have made me a bit nervous about remaining on Tatooine as a moisture farmer. I can't go into depth about that right now, but the short version is that I have good reason to explore other possibilities, both on and off this planet. There's no emergency, but the situation is volatile and I need to be ready to do

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1124046795441707922005-08-18T12:36:00.000-04:002005-08-18T16:44:06.096-04:00

Sorry about that. Blogging is fun, but real life gets priority. I had a grateful visitor bearing a pot of pea soup. But back to my story. I had the entire Skywalker/Lars household, all three of them, in my kitchen very late at night (or in the morning), with Owen stomping around nervously, Luke squeaking excitedly, and Beru sitting quietly at my table with her head down, getting pale. I knew

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1124288420984824642005-08-17T10:15:00.000-04:002005-08-17T10:20:20.990-04:00

I was fast asleep. I sleep at night. It's this crazy thing I like to do. It's cool at night (sometimes downright cold) and it's not particularly safe to go outside, so it's better for sleeping than for working. That's my opinion. Some people disagree, especially those with indoor hobbies. Not that farming is a hobby; not for Beru. But she likes to tend her plants in the dead of night. Or "early

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1121711693940447582005-07-20T14:30:00.000-04:002005-07-20T10:30:00.626-04:00

When I went to pick up Kenobi yesterday, he said he wasn't feeling well, that he had started feeling ill the night before and couldn't go.I was not happy, but I decided I could try to sell my extra ticket at the Speedway. I tried to get there early. Everyone else got the same idea, unfortunately, including a large security delegation from the Empire. It took me some time to find a place to park

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1121700643391607222005-07-18T14:29:00.000-04:002005-07-19T13:15:53.896-04:00

I don't get out much. That's partly by choice, because I'm not a big traveler, but it's also because there's seldom much to get out to. In my book, anyway. One of the few exceptions for me has been the Boonta Eve Pod Race at Mos Espa.(Boonta Eve, incidentally, is not a Tatooine holiday. It's a Boonta holiday. I don't know what it commemorates. I assume it has something to do with the Hutts, since

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1119389773360444092005-06-21T16:57:00.000-04:002005-06-22T10:52:39.376-04:00

I won this farm as a booby prize on a game show when I was 15. Kids on Naboo are expected to start their careers at a ridiculously young age; they're allowed to change when they're older, of course, and often do, but they get an early start.This is because of a (wholly unproven) Naboo superstition that the Naboo are unusually susceptible to senility in their middle age. You must start working as

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1118768747926388402005-06-14T12:50:00.000-04:002005-06-14T14:06:41.006-04:00

I admit it. I do indulge in a deathstick from time to time.Also, I am a lousy horticulturist.So, when my attempt to grow Devaronian chives failed, I had this small pot filled with very nice soil, and no actual plant. I planned to reuse the soil, but hadn't gotten around to it yet, and there I was this morning with a smoldering deathstick, and instead of stubbing it out in the sand as I usually do

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1118429860980153052005-06-10T13:23:00.000-04:002005-06-10T15:26:47.853-04:00

I went to Kenobi's for tea. I was a little early, but I didn't think he would mind. As I approached, I noticed an unfamiliar speeder bike outside his house. I wondered if this visitor was someone Kenobi wanted me to meet, or if it was someone who was supposed to leave soon.Etiquette on Tatooine being what it is, I wouldn't have worried about showing up on his doorstep while he had another guest;

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1118338365504931772005-06-09T13:30:00.000-04:002005-06-09T13:32:45.506-04:00

One nice thing about the storm - it blew a lot of unexpected moisture our way. I'd be happier about that if all my vaporators were up to spec, of course, but until the storm there was so little moisture I could hardly tell if they were working at all.

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1118278332595636982005-06-08T20:10:00.000-04:002005-06-08T20:52:12.616-04:00

I still haven't really gotten the hang of this blogging thing. I need to post more regularly, because if I don't, stuff piles up. I didn't mean to be offline for so long, but it has been a BUSY week. Here's my executive summary: 1. My visit at the Darklighters' was lengthened by what the weather people are now describing as the worst sandstorm in ten years. I've been on this planet for 40

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1117660530948980262005-06-01T15:39:00.000-04:002005-06-02T17:27:37.260-04:00

The point - which I forgot to make - of all that previous ranting was that I need parts. I am reaching a crisis point with some of my vaporators. Everything seems to be breaking at once and no one has what I need. And of course it's the kind of situation where even buying a whole new vaporator wouldn't really solve the problem, because the same parts keep breaking in all of them. What I need is

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1117646616043459522005-06-01T12:16:00.000-04:002005-06-01T13:24:48.473-04:00

Sometimes I feel like this whole place is falling in around my ears. Fixing vaporators, or anything else on this planet for that matter, has become increasingly difficult over the years. It's not because the technology has been advancing too fast: on the contrary, most technologies have pretty much stagnated in the last ten years or so, which means your mechanical skills never get outdated. The

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1116985954163171522005-05-24T21:47:00.000-04:002005-05-24T21:52:47.853-04:00

Wow! Great movie! Unfortunately I don't think it will be doing much for the planet's commercial development. It was mostly historical and dealt mainly with people of various cultures who had populated Tatooine throughout the millenia. And the footage of my farm didn't make it in. But I'll give the filmmaker credit for not messing with our shadow(s).The movie did bring back a flood of old memories

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1116444992529491292005-05-18T15:21:00.000-04:002005-05-18T15:36:32.533-04:00

Lots of excitement around here about tonight's midnight release of The Suns of Tatooine documentary.I couldn't get tickets for tonight. Neither could anyone else I know. Well, maybe Kenobi - I haven't asked him. He has his ways of getting things he wants. But I am on fire about this thing.Partly, of course, because they shot some footage near my farm... no idea if it was used or not but I will

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1115933017208809882005-05-12T16:42:00.000-04:002005-05-12T17:23:37.213-04:00

True story. New neighbors, having an open house. They were from one of the many drippy green planets where people eat all vegetables and no meat. I don't remember what they planned to do on Tatooine, but whatever it was, it didn't work out and they were gone in less than a year. They greeted us at the door with "pea cake in the galley, help yourselves." I was picturing something like carrot

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1115837309933590882005-05-11T14:46:00.000-04:002005-05-11T14:48:29.940-04:00

I went out this morning to do my rounds and nearly stepped in a very large mound of poodoo. Bantha poodoo, from the size of it.My first thought was that the Sandpeople had come to visit. But it's really not their style to leave a pile of bantha crap at your doorstep and then slink off. Their style is to steal your food and other valuables, crush your skull while you sleep, and burn your house

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1115754488117769842005-05-10T15:39:00.000-04:002005-05-11T13:58:11.503-04:00

I'll tell you why I started this blog: I need to get a few things off my chest. It's not easy living out in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes the people around you are precisely the ones you want to complain about. Or they don't want to talk about the same things you do. Or they're just crazy.For example, just the other day I asked my neighbor what he thought of Emperor Dumbass's proposal to

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12773684.post-1115675052313018852005-05-09T17:42:00.000-04:002006-06-27T14:02:34.663-04:00

I'm J. Sandstormer, a moisture farmer on Tatooine. Watch this space!

J. Sandstormerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11307519045281587292noreply@blogger.com