my kid brother has an new TV series

Andrew has a new film in the works, based on his comic Damn Nation, recently released by Dark Horse Comics.

He's a busy guy. He only just wrapped up the pilot for a new TV series called Eureka! that has been picked up by the SciFi channel. They start filming the first season in January. And it looks like one of my favorite actors Joe Morton (Brother From Another Planet) is in the cast!

Can you tell I'm proud? Hell, yes! He's rolling with some really cool stuff, and I can't wait to see it.

But there's some strange synchronicity going on here that makes me wonder if there is a higher power somewhere out there trying to tell me something.

Only last month General Electric announced that their healthcare division was merging with the company I work for, IDX Systems, in a $1.3 billion deal. Well, GE also owns NBC, who in turn owns the Sci-Fi channel. So indirectly, Andy and I may end up working for the same company. Only he gets to do the really fun, imaginative stuff.

Yes, there is a smidge of jealousy here, a green-eyed gargoyle lurking in my mid-brain, as you see, growing up, I was the biggest sci-fi geek in the family. There are still boxes of old paperbacks in my mom's attic that can attest to a large chunk of my misspent youth and failing eyesight. Andy was more into the D&D stuff with which I had a short-lived romance due to the Tolkien influence, but then high school, sports, and girls came into the picture for me, and well... my hormones and ADD kicked into high gear and I found other romances with which to 'mis-spend' my youth.

Of course, we kids were all into comics in a big way. Like it was only yesterday, I can recall those countless trips to Dr. No's where we spent hours digging through the comic racks and stacks of sci-fi and fantasy books. (Andy, can you believe they're still in business!?) I was hip on Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four, X-men, Green Lantern, Thor, Iron Man, to name just a few. Who'd ever thought it would ever be useful to one of us?

From junior high through college, I found time to write stories, mostly scifi and fantasy, but after graduation making a living wage got in the way of pursuing it further. I spent a few years working at a bookstore in Atlanta - probably mostly from a desire to be close to my heroes - then I left for Seattle, where I studied film and video production at the University of Washington. But I had trouble finding work in film, got sidetracked into programming - something I had a knack for back in college - and the money was just too tempting. Not so much for what it could buy me, as I've never been a big consumer of anything except maybe books, but the lure was more for not having to worry about how I was going to pay the rent that month. Then the next thing you know, I have a wife, mortgage, kids, and life insurance.

I often find myself looking back, wondering what I might be doing now if I'd stuck it out a bit longer or moved back to L.A. to find work.

So I'm doing a lot of self-questioning these days, having strange dreams and seeing messages in things, books, and movies that seem directed toward me personally. Is this a mid-life crisis, or the early onset of schizophrenia? Or is the 'Verse trying to tell me it's time to dust off the old dreams and try something new (and old)?