Chris Struble Writes

I'm delighted to announce the release of my new author site:  https://www.chris-struble-writes.com I call the site  Ancient Roads . This is where I will be releasing my first  novel ,  Shield of the Goddess , as a web serial. A new first chapter and a song from the first chapter are already there. I will be adding more chapters and songs from the novel in the coming months.  If you were one of the early readers of SOTG, the new serial version of the novel will look quite different from the original. Each chapter will be small, and will be from the point of view of one character. I will post a  monthly newletter  there called  Wanderer's Tales  with a new  chapter  and  song  if any. I will also post other music and writings, along with musings about writing fiction, writing music, the crossroads where they meet. If you've followed or landed this site, please take a moment to check Ancient Roads and subscribe to get my upda...

Here is a link to my monthly blog on Ko-Fi. https://ko-fi.com/post/Walking-Away--January-2025-Update-R6R518XT4A I will be posting links to my posts on Ko-Fi at this blog starting with this one.

Last December I finished my first novel, Shield of the Goddess. I'm now in the process of pitching it to literary agents. I'm new to this stage of the publishing process and learning as I go, but I'm enjoying it. This might be my last post here for a while. I've been blogging at my Ko-fi page here on a monthly basis for the past year, and will be blogging there for the foreseeable future. https://ko-fi.com/chrisstrublewrites Thanks for stopping by.

It's been a year since my post about the heart attack I had last December. I am still writing, and still blogging, but not here. I set up a Ko-fi page where I blog monthly:  https://ko-fi.com/chrisstrublewrites . That seems to be about the right cadence given my busy work and home life. I expect I won't be updating this page very often. If you happen to stop by, thanks for visiting.

Last week, on December 2, at 8:10 AM, I had my first heart attack. I was at home, helping to get my nephew Luke get ready to leave for school, when out of nowhere I felt a powerful pain in my chest, like a fireball was burning me from the inside. I told my wife LeAnne I didn’t feel well and sat down. She called 911, and within five minutes of her call, the EMTs from the Renton Fire Department arrived and started talking to me. This was not the first time I felt something that I thought might be a heart attack. Almost a year before I had a numbness in one arm which quickly spread to my other arm and then to my chest. It was much less intense and faded after an hour. LeAnne drove me to the ER that day, and after many tests and scans they were unable to find a root cause. But this attack was very different. By the time the EMTs arrived, the attack had intensified to the worst pain I can remember feeling, and spread to my arms, hands, neck, and head. LeAnne noticed I was sweating and said ...

This morning I watched the launch of Blue Origin's first human space flight. The New Shepard spacecraft landed safely and as I write the post-flight news conference is happening live. I've been a fan of space exploration all of my life. So I follow events like this with interest whenever I can. We have friends who work at Blue Origin's headquarters in Kent, Washington, just a few miles from us. I know that many people have worked hard for years to make this moment possible. I want to congratulate the entire Blue Origin team on this achievement. I am delighted that Wally Funk was given the opportunity to ride in space. This was an opportunity she and the other woman (the now-famous Mercury 13) who trained as astronauts in the 1960s, was denied by multiple administrations including the Lyndon Johnson administration. I am grateful that Jeff Bezos gave Wally that opportunity, and in doing so, corrected a historical injustice. It's unfortunate that it took a random act of ki...

As the country starts to open up, my summer is getting busier. I am attending an two online conferences in the next month. The first is General Assembly, the annual meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Association, where I am a delegate for my congregation. My wife and I did a reading for the Summer Solstice Celebration video contributed by the Covenant of UU Pagans . The second conference is Eliot Institute,  a series of UU camps in Seabeck, Washington. I am on staff for the July camp.  I have lots of vacation time that went unused during the pandemic, so I am taking all the days off for both these conferences. I am looking forward to rest, learning, connection, and to hopefully to a much needed spiritual recharging. My novel is going well, at over 70,000 words now, it is about halfway done. I hit a slump back in April, but I've been getting feedback from several beta readers who kindly agreed to read it for me and give me their comments. I've been doing lots of editing the...

Today, May 25, 2021, marks one year since George Floyd was murdered while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers. My prayers go out today to Mr. Floyd's family and to all those who were affected by his murder. The conviction of the former officer who killed Mr. Floyd is a step forward. But it is only one of many steps that need to be taken. A year later, I am forced to admit that I can do more to demand justice. I watched the trial of Floyd's killer as much as I was able. But the violence continues. I cannot keep track of all the police killings. I try to remember all the names. But I notice them when they are reported, and I try to stop and take a moment to feel it, and to imagine what that family is going through. I do the same when police officers are killed doing their lawful duty the protect the public from violent citizens. My church had a guest minister this past Sunday, a black man who grew up in a poor Detroit neighborhood. An amazing poet, musician and activist...

Two days ago President Biden gave a speech marking one year since the Coronavirus national emergency was declared. I consider the national vaccination program to be a huge success so far, in that it has just delivered on its promise of administering "100 million doses in 100 days" far ahead of schedule. As of this morning, the CDC COVID data tracker website shows that 101 million doses have been administered. My wife just got her first vaccination shot yesterday, at a pharmacy about 30 minutes away from our home. She is feeling good. I have an appointment to get my first shot next week. I am excited.  Getting those appointments did have its minor frustrations. In Washington State, there is a state web site called Find Your Phase that poses a series of questions to determine if you are eligible for a vaccine. Here is one of them. "Are you over 50 years and living with and caring for someone who is not your child (i.e. a grandchild, niece or nephew)?" The web site o...

Today I created my first YouTube channel. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UComOCbEAJDTG6YjCeiRvFnw The first video I posted was my presentation from the PNSQC 2020 conference last year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94qac15kU7w In the future I hope to upload more videos about my music and fiction writing efforts. .

Today I took the big step today of creating a Patreon page to get support for writing my novel. Check it out. https://www.patreon.com/chrisstrublewrites I don't need financial support for my writing right now, but who knows what the future will bring. This is laying one brick in a foundation I may need if I become a full time writer. UPDATE: I am no longer using the Patreon platform. Please check out my Ko-fi page at: https://ko-fi.com/chrisstrublewrites

Yesterday I released Ruby Test Generator, a model-based testing (MBT) tool written in Ruby, to open source. It is available here: https://github.com/testdruid/ruby-test-generator This is the tool I mentioned in the  paper I presented at the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference last October. I am grateful my employer, Meteorcomm LLC, for giving me permission to release this tool to open source. I created this tool last year when I could not find another MBT tool for Ruby. So I wrote my own. It uses an open source MBT tool called GraphWalker  to generate tests, and can execute code in a Ruby class to drive test inputs to software.

The collapse of the 305-meter Arecibo radio telescope this week was a great loss to science and to the world. The telescope was built the year after I was born. I first learned about it when I was a boy.  The telescope made many great discoveries. One of its first was to prove that Mercury rotated one every 59 Earth days, when scientists at the time thought it rotated once every 88 days. It made the first maps of Venus, detected the first binary pulsar, and the first extrasolar planet. It was used multiple times in the ongoing  Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence . I remember reading that it could have detected a signal sent from a radio telescope of equal size and power to itself transmitting from clear across the galaxy. It sent the first powerful signal into deep space. I will never forget the scenes in the movie Contact that were filmed there.  The Arecibo telescope was a wonder of American science and an inspiration to millions. I sincerely hope that is re...

My paper and presentation from the PNSQC 2020 conference are now available for download from my author page at the conference web site. Links follow. Author Page Paper Presentation The video isn't posted yet. I will post a link to that when it is available.

I hope this Thanksgiving morning finds you well wherever you are. I will start by acknowledging that I am living on the unceded lands of the Duwamish people. For many native Americans, Thanksgiving is a day of remembrance. The UUA has shared a family story called The Story of Tisquantum  in that spirit. As I write I am watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with my wife and daughter. This is one of our family traditions, even though we have never been to New York City and don't usually shop at Macy's. I will spend a few moments reflecting on just a few of the things I am grateful for this year. I am grateful that the peaceful transition of power to the Biden-Harris administration has started, and that competent people are being named to deal with the challenges facing our country. I am grateful for all my family members at this time of family gatherings. I am grateful for doctors, nurses, and other health workers who continue to work hard to save lives during this pand...

I have started a new blog for an issue I have been thinking about for a long time: how to end Daylight Savings Time and what we should replace it with. Take a look:  https://permanentstandardtime.blogspot.com/

Today, news media all over the world called the presidential election for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I am grateful to all the voters who turned out to participate in this election, and to all the election workers who continued to count votes under enormous scrutiny, long hours, and in some cases, threats of physical violence against them. There were moments during this campaign when I sometimes wondered if our democracy would survive. It not only survived, it came back roaring. I am especially grateful to Black Americans who supported the Biden-Harris ticket in such huge numbers. Kamala Harris' election to Vice President is historic. She will be not only the first woman, but the first African-American and Asian-American to hold that office. I am proud of my country for supporting her. It is time to heal this country. It is time to do the hard work to repair the damage that the outgoing President has done to our country. It is time to tackle the challenges before us: coronavirus, ...

This week I got email invitations to several conferences that are being scheduled for next year. Each of the emails said that the decision has not been made whether to hold the conference in person or virtually. Seriously? I think that anyone planning a major gathering for 2021 should plan now to have it virtually. Switching to a virtual conference is not a turn that can be made on a dime. I just presented at a virtual technology conference that decided months in advance to go virtual. Overall it went very well. One reason for that is they had experts involved who have done virtual conferences before. If you have never run a virtual conference before, it is very difficult for everyone involved. I don't have confidence that America will be able to get COVID-19 sufficiently under control next year to make an in-person indoor conference safe. Even if Joe Biden wins the election and enacts more serious measures to control the virus, Donald Trump has done the damage to our country that ...

I want to thank all the volunteers who put together the PNSQC conference. This was my second time attending and presenting at PNSQC. It was great to be able to connect and share some of my ideas with people who work in my field. The videos and slide decks should be public in a few days. Once the links are available I will try to write about my impressions of the conference, and two of the keynotes that I thought were particularly good and insightful. Before the end of the year, I hope to release the Test Generator, a model-based testing tool I wrote in Ruby, which I demonstrated in my talk. When I do that I will post the links here.

I gave my talk at PNSQC 2020 today. Everything went well. Below is a live blog about my talk. The author is blogging about every talk at the conference so far. Here is a  link  to the blog article. I am really enjoying the conference. All the talks so far have been great and I am learning a lot. Meeting other people - many from the northwest, but not all - who practice in the same profession as I do, and face similar challenges, is deeply satisfying.