Dan's Desk

I’m Dan Blanks, a retired software engineer living in Silicon Valley. I like to post blogs, stories, essays, photos, and commentary on topical issues.
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My latest story, Collateral, was inspired by a writing assignment. My fiction class professor gave five writing prompts with the instruction to pick one for our story. Being a bit crazy that day, I decided I wanted more of a challenge. Despite the fact that there was no apparent connecting theme between these prompts, I wrote a single story incorporationg all five prompts.

Unlike my previous posts, this one uses a plugin that displays the story in an EPUB format popularly used in applications like Kindle. I think it works pretty well, but if you see any problems with it, let me know.

DKB — 08/18/2026