Driveway chicken by J.C. Kavanagh

Darkness Descends, 

Book 2 of the award-winning Twisted Climb series

Driving can be fun. Not like 'Miss Daisy' fun. I mean, fun in a challenging and exhilarating way. Sometimes I drive as if my car is a go-cart. Sometimes I drive like it's a Formula 1 race car (not very often). Sometimes I soldier on like it's a tank. My partner Ian has the same vision for driving.  
When we drive home in two separate vehicles, we always play the who's-gonna-park-in-the-garage-first game. It's our little driving competition. Just recently, though, our driving competition took on a more comical approach. 
We now play a new game - the Driveway Chicken game.
The idea is still to be the first to park and the first to get out of the car. But now, in the Driveway Chicken game, it's also maneuvering your vehicle to prevent the other one from sliding past and hitting the park-first jackpot.
Picture this: our home is in the country and the driveway is single lane, about 35 metres (100 feet) long. Trees line both sides of the driveway and stone surrounds the front porch. On the north side close to the garage, one-foot wooden sidewalls define a turning cut-out and prevent vehicles from traversing over. The driveway base at the house widens near the turning/parking cut-out and of course there's additional parking in front of the garage.  

The other day, Ian was just ahead of me when we got to the driveway entrance. It's our habit to back-in so Ian drove a few metres past the driveway with the intention of launching into reverse before I arrived.
Before he could launch, I drove nose-first into the driveway, accelerated down to the turning cut-out, spun my truck into reverse and began my wheel rotation with my foot on the accelerator. 
But there was Ian, his car ramped up on an angle beside my truck. I was sufficiently angled so he couldn't slide past the walls of the cut-out and he couldn't slide over the rock walls near the porch. 
I drove forward a few inches, trying to adjust my angle so I would be the first to park. 
He drove backward a few inches, looking for a way past my truck. 
We continued this zig-zag approach five or six times, like pac-man in a driveway chicken game.
That's when the laughter began. 
The ridiculousness of the situation, the intensity of the new game and then the visual of our two vehicles at impossible angles on our driveway struck my funny bone in the most delightful way.   
I laughed and laughed and laughed until the tears streamed down my face.
Ian rolled his window down and he too, joined in the laughter. 
What a delightful time. 
Laughter is good medicine, even in the driveway.

Me at the top of the driveway - winter shovel, no chicken

HEADS UP!

Book 2 from The Twisted Climb action/adventure/fantasy series

has been released!

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends

is available online everywhere. Next month,

paperback copies will be available through Chapters/Indigo stores.

J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb, voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers' Poll

AND

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2)

Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart

Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh

www.amazon.com/author/jckavanagh

Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)

How hot is hot?

We complain about the cold in winter; we complain about the heat in summer. But how hot is hot? Like all good answers, “it depends.”

For example, hot in Vancouver is not hot in Texas. And hot in Texas is positively cool in comparison to Death Valley, California, where a world record temperature of 134 degrees was observed in 1913. (This temperature was matched on the 13^th of September 2012, in El Aziza, Libya.)

Surprisingly, humans can survive incredibly hot weather. It is noted that at 130 degrees F, survival time begins to decrease drastically, but it is estimated that people can survive temperatures of even 150 degrees, in dry conditions, for short periods of time, with adequate hydration. The Dallol Depression, also known as the Danakil Depression, a desert area in Ethiopia, is covered with sulphurous springs, lakes of boiling lava and an active volcano that spits out hot magma. The Afar people, who inhabit this place, eke out an existence herding camels and mining salt, in temperatures that regularly reach 122 degrees F.

The Earth itself is in a long cooling off period, known as the Quartenary Ice Age, which began 2.6 million years ago. Within it are periods of cooling temperatures lasting 100,000 years, interspersed with warmer cycles known as Interglacial periods. We live in once such Interglacial period, known as the Holocene, which began about 11,700 years ago.

Many scientists argue that the rapid industrialization of the past couple of hundred years has brought about an abnormal phenomenon known as global warming, caused by trapping man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

So how hot is hot? As far as I’m concerned, as a resident of Calgary, Canada, hot is never hot enough. We’ve had record heat this summer, but I’m not complaining—never-ending summer is what I dream of!

Mohan Ashtakala is the author of The Yoga Zapper (www.yogazapper.com) published by Books We Love (www.bookswelove.com)