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 CD-ROM. 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
Available in these formats:
$19 - Soft Cover - 200 pages, 5.5x8.5", full color

Ten Million Years in the Future...
The planet was destroyed by humans an aeon ago, jump starting a new round of evolution that sweeps away the old world order and brings in a new one. And with the collapse of the human world order, an opening has been created for yet another enterprising creature to began the long climb up the evolutionary tree.
After a ten million year climb the little mice of the old world have become the tall handsome rulers of the new world, walking upright and living in houses like the humans of the distant past.
The climb of the mice was mirrored by the fall of the humans, sliding down the evolutionary ladder to become 3-inch pests infesting the mouse houses. While the humans struggle to survive, the giant mice struggle to rid their homes of the human pests.
Despite the dangers of their surroundings, the people in this village thrive in a garden of eden that they've created through hard work and cooperation, while the people outside of the village live short miserable lives of strife and violence.

Later:
Kindle eBook - 200 pages, full color
Hard Cover - 200 pages, 5.5x8.5", full color

Hunting for an Engineer

Available from Amazon:
$16.75 - Soft Cover - 175 pages, 5.5 x 8.5"
Amazon: 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.

Garage of Eden, Book 2

Available Soon.
Book 2 - The Mice of Eden.

There's trouble afoot in the mouse village, and the two mouse kids from the first book, 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 they 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?

200 Pages, Color 5.5 x 8.5

Lattice Station

Available Later.
The story follows Eli Jade, an Interpol investigator who travels between Space Stations solving crimes and technology problems. He is also a professor on the university station, where his students help out in his research lab.

This is an upbeat vision of the future, with Eli's team solving the problems of the future using technology of the future. The story is primarily technical drama in a near space setting, with and a bit of action and violence.
150 Pages Color 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