Ghost Town Sage

This all started out as Ghost Town Software back in Colorado Springs in the 1990's. Our first product was the Pikes Peak Trailguide & Topographic Map Software. This cutting edge software displayed multi-layered topographic maps with popup photos and trail reports for the local hikers and bikers. G.T.S. has since morfed into books and apps. These are chronicled below.

The Garage of Eden

Book 1, The Princess of Eden

Ten Million Years in the Future...
Planet Earth was destroyed an eon ago, jump starting a new round of evolution. And now the little mice of the old world have become the spirited rulers of this new world.
The climb of the mice was mirrored by the fall of the humans, flushed down the evolutionary gutter to become 3-inch pests infesting the mouse houses. But living quietly in the walls of the mouse house, tiny Jack and Jill frolic in their secret Garden of Eden on the roof of the garage.
Though only 19, Jack is the leader of his roof-top village. It's a peaceful slice of paradise until mouse mom catches little Jill foraging in the kitchen and throws her in the cage with the kid's collection of pet humans.
And then it's a race against time as Jack rallies his clan to bust out their princess before the other captives get their hands on her or the kid feeds her to the fish. And when the kid's girl friend shows up, things really get crazy.

Target Age = 16-26.
Illustrated with a dozen AI pictures. Garage of Eden Photo Gallery

Available in these formats:
Amazon: The Garage of Eden
$17.50 Paperback, $5 eBook - 200 pages, 5.5x8.5", 20 color pictures.

Hunting for an Engineer

This book is simply my observations and stories about businesses passing or failing on the three rules of execution that are listed in the book introduction. Plenty of other books talk about these same ideas, but life in the real world is never quite as rosy as most authors want you to believe.
And that is the difference here. These ideas are described with real-life anecdotes and examples that hopefully explain why these ideas don't always work the way people think they should.
The stories and solutions in this book mostly take place on the various production lines where I've worked on over the years. But the lessons don't just apply to the production line, these ideas of team management will work just as well in the office and at home.

Page 1:
A few years ago, during one of our quarterly all-hands meetings, the VP asked us: " We had a hundred thousand dollars in process improvements last year, why don't I see a hundred thousand dollars more profit this year? " This is an embarrassing question that gets asked by managers everywhere. Documented improvements don t turn into measured improvements. He wasn't asking anyone in particular, but as a manufacturing engineer he could have been asking me. I thought about that over the years because I had been suspicious too. Even though the math added up on these improvements, I didn't really believe they would have the impact that the documents claimed. It was just a gut feel and I couldn't really put my finger on it, but I knew something was fishy about their process improvement techniques and calculations of cost savings. Over the years I saw others making the same mistakes and listened to their horror stories, and I slowly realized what was going on.

Illustrated with two dozen charts and pictures. Hunting For Engineer Photo Gallery

Available in these formats:
Amazon: Hunting for an Engineer
$16.50 Paperback, $4 eBook - 200 pages, 6 x 9", 30 color charts & pictures.

Garage of Eden, Book 2

Book 2 - The Princess of Agate.

There's trouble afoot in the mouse village when two strangers from out of town suddenly appear.
And when the finger points a little too close, Karl & Angie are determined to straighten out the mess.
Meanwhile, Jack & Jill are concerned that the mouse problems will result in their expulsion from the Garage of Eden, and launch their own investigation.
Somehow, Jack needs to get word to Karl that he knows who the culprit is, but how can he do that without revealing that he's living in the house?

Available Soon - 200 Pages, 5.5 x 8.5

Lattice Station

The story follows Eli Jade, an Interpol investigator who covers the space station district, solving crimes and technology problems. He is also a professor on the university station, where his students help out in his research lab. His trusty side-kick is Maya Gray, a street smart thug from Cleveland who is working on her computer security PhD.

This is an upbeat vision of the future, with Eli's team solving the problems of the future using technology of the future. Technical drama in a near space setting, where not everyone in space is a good guy, with and a bit of action and violence.
Available Later - 200 Pages, 5.5 x 8.5

Thresholds of Global Warming

Available Later.
Dozens of books and hundreds of magazine articles have been printed and posted about global warming, but it seems very few people actually read them. This is because most of those articles are too technical, too dry, and too specialized for people who don't want to read in the first place. I enjoy reading these technical articles, but the average guy on the street doesn't. Even the enjoyable articles in popular magazines tend to be specialized enough that the reader doesn't get the big picture, leaving the impression that the problems described in the article don't affect the reader personally.

A few years ago, I was struggling to read the lengthy report on climate change from the United Nations. This huge document was so dry and poorly presented that it was essentially unreadable. As I read it I knew I could do better and started formulating my vision for this book.

And that was the plan for this book - to make the subject easy to understand and fun to read for those who don't like to read. Rather than long descriptions of geophysics and obtuse terminology, this book has been simplified to make the subject more approachable for the average reader.
This format breaks each topic into small pieces that are easy to digest, and allows the reader to open the book anywhere and read just a page at a time. Whereas, most books require the reader to read a lengthy chapter to understand a topic. Those long formats discourage a reader from even starting, or to give up before they finish.
200 Pages Color 6x9