Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

Sigh...okay, Nanowrimo is over. Thank God. This year I barely managed to get 8,000 words written (the target was 50,000). Sad. I had a variety of reasons why I didn't do better (grueling work schedule, I foolishly signed on to the Oratorio Choir this fall, I was sick over Thanksgiving) but these were all just excuses. I fell short because I didn't throw myself into the task at hand. I never developed any momentum. My bad. The novel is off to sort of half-assed begining, though it is developing some interesting elements. I may get back to it, or continue to divide time between it and the revision I'm working on with Eye Pee. Part of the problem is that I'm less familiar with the setting, so I struggled constantly with not knowing what I was talking about. Anyway, at least now I can get back to working on a less crazy pace. Back to Mike and Ike.

I've begun this year's Nanowrimo novel and am off to a slow start. Is this a surprise. Happened last year, too. So far, after a week, I'm hovering at just over 4,000 words. The target number to stay on track is 10,000 words right now. The upside is that after making some notes in church Sunday (instead of paying attention to the sermon) I've got the start of a roadmap, and some of my characters are starting to develop a bit of a life of their own. That's a good thing. Ed was good about egging me on to hit word count goals this weekend. Thanks, Ed. We are, by the way, re-watching season 3 of Alias as a prelude to getting the 4th season on DVD. The new novel's working title is "Purple Haze."

Saw Good Night, And Good Luck this weekend. Great film about the "Golden Days" of television and the rampant fear and paranoia of that time. The film is largely an indictment against the news media for refusing to take on controversial stories. Sound current? George Clooney, who directed, is turning into an outstanding character actor. More power to him. I've even forgiven him for the Batman film... Shot in exquisite black and white.

National Novel Writing Month has officially arrived: 50,000 words in 30 days. I got home from my Trinity Writers' Workshop meeting around 9:00 last night and did some fine-tuning to a short story I'd read, then started The Second Novel (working title: Purple Haze). I'm a little behind schedule already; to keep up I need to grind out about 1,600 words a day. Last night I managed a paltry 300. Ouch. When I mentioned last month that Nanowrimo took place in November, my loving, supportive, long-suffering wife gave me a pained look and said "You aren't going to do that again, are you?" Did I mention that Nanowrimo can be hard on families?

So now that "Scooter" or "Skippy" (or whatever Cheney's former chief of staff was called) Lewis has been indicted for lying, obstructing justice and whatever, he's saying "Golly, it's not that I lied. I just couldn't remember." Sounds like that may be what Karl "the turdblossom" Rove uses as his explanation as well. Sounds like we are about to have another serious outbreak of ARFS -- Acquired Republican Forgetful Syndrome. Last time we had an epidemic this big was during Iran-Contra, one of Mr. Reagan's less-mentioned legacies. Tom "the Hammer" Delay, Dr. Bill Frist--all have run afoul of the law. You can bet your bottom dollar we'll be hearing "I forgot" a lot in the months to come. Unfortunately, we seem to be adrift in a time when the voting public seems to suffer from a related problem: ACTSTC American Citizens Too Stupid To Care.

It is Saturday night at 7:30 and I'm sitting at my office, awaiting the evening's last software build. Last night, when I got home at 8:45, I'd already put in 65 hours for the week. I got here at 7:45 this morning, and I'm about to hit 12 more hours on my day off. I've been on this project for 2 and a half years. I'm on a Death March . The people I report to have either gone home or never were here today. Two of my peers are sitting in the surrounding cubes. We are, at this point, exhausted to the point of goofiness. Bad things happen at this point. I like the intellectual challenge of my job, but not the boneheadedness that seems to be driving it. Most of the people involved I have a lot of respect for, but there are a few I'd slap stupid. I'm tired and I want to go home. I think I know what my next novel is going to be about.

Went to the Arlington Guitar Show yesterday with Ed and old buddy Dennis. It was freaking amazing. More guitars that one ever thought possible. Two whole exhibit rooms (the photo barely shows a quarter of one of the rooms) with electric, acoustic, new, vintage--you name it. Ed and I got there around 11:15 and wandered for about half an hour until we ran into Dennis. This is arguably one of the three biggest guitar shows in the US. Sellers from Texas, Oklahoma, California, New York...you get the idea. Saw a vintage Stratocaster that someone had priced at a quarter of a million dollars. Wonder if he sold it. More typical were collectibles selling for $10,000 to $25,000. Still. Also some very pretty handmade and limited edition guitars (I picked up an acoustic and tried it, then noticed it was priced at $13,000). Despite my best intentions, I did end up buying a new electric guitar--an Epiphone Dot semi-hollow body with a natural finish. It's sweet! Bought it from a dealer from Lake...

Once again, National Novel Writing Month draws near. Here's the deal: sign up and write 50,000 words during the month of November. How hard could that be? It's not about polished, perfect prose, ready for publication, it's about vomiting approximately 1,700 words a day for 30 days. 50,000 words. My current novel (ha! I like the sound of that--my current novel) got its start as a Nanowrimo effort. I managed to hit the magic number on target, then wrote another ~25,000 words before finishing. I'm now editing the rough (and it is rough) draft. I even joined a writing group, which is a big help. So I got the email notification that November was fast upon us, and I've started planning my next opus. You can, by the way, do all the planning, plotting, character outlines you want before November, but to abide by the spirit of the deal, no actual writing on the draft until November 1. Prizes, you ask? The best of all possible prizes: acknowledgement of your feat and the s...

Temperatures have now dropped into the 50's and 60's during the day. The cats sleep with us at night again. I woke this morning with Spike's tail in my face. By the way, today is my anniversary. I have been married for 22 years. Who would have thought it possible?

Went to the Symphony tonight (scored cheap season tickets) and sat in the fourth row. The thing that always strikes me about going to the symphony is really being able to hear everything, no matter how subtle, that is going on. Recorded music: everything comes from one speaker or the other, making it hard to hear the full range of what is happening musically. As is now becoming the common thing, the evening started with a drum roll. The orchestra then launches into The Star Spangled Banner, and everyone stands. First on the concert: the Sorcerer's Apprentice . Gee, what's not to like about that? I can't image anyone my age hearing that and NOT thinking of Mickey Mouse in Fantasia . An amusing moment: the visual of all the bows of the violins going frantically while the theme representing the reassembled and multiplied brooms is played. They looked just like those broomsticks carrying water en masse. Next was the Ravel Concerto for Left Hand. There is a small repertoire of m...

I talk about Google a lot but they are one of the more interesting Internet companies around. Today's topic: Google Ads. I use Google ads because they're easy--just sign up and stick some JavaScript in your page code. Okay, I've never made a dime out of them and doubt I ever will (since there are about 3 people besides myself who read this blog). What they are good for is the comic relief of occasionally odd connections you will see with the content on the page. For a long time, all I ever saw on Google Ads was ads for blogging software or services. What a sad comment on my blog. Today, I notice the ads are for a grave/monument page on Yahoo. WTF??? Then I realize I have a story about my aunt's funeral and about singing the Verdi Requiem.

Boss Number 1: People are complaining because you interrupt them. You are too pushy and aggressive. Boss Number 2: You are too nice and need to become more assertive. Be more engaged and speak up more often. Me: (Thinking) Where did I save the most recent revision to my resume?

I'm now working out of the Alliance Airport complex. It used to take me 25 minutes max to get to my old office. It was sort of ratty looking but there was a cafeteria on-site and places to eat near by. I could take the train and it dropped me a short walk from where I worked. Now I work at Alliance Airport, located in what was once grazing and farming land. Rather than face the paved deathtrap known as I-35W, I usually drive down Blue Mound Road, which takes one through once rural north Texas, now a holding tank for property owners waiting to cash in on increased property values. This includes a pass through Saginaw, the armpit of north Tarrant county. This morning I dutifully got up, made lunch, burned a CD of tunes to listen to on my 45 minute commute, and got in the car. When I turned the ignition, I got a whiff of toasting electrical insulation and saw a small wisp of smoke drift lazily from the vicinity of my steering column. So now I'm telecommuting. The service guy j...

I sang the Verdi Requiem this last weekend. Well, me and about 2oo other people. In addition to my church choir, I also occasionally sing with the choir that sings with our local symphony (as usual, details will be left by the wayside). It's all my wife's fault (as are most other worthwhile things I do). If you've never heard it, it's a great piece of music--very dramatic. The choir is made up of members of the community as well as students from the seminary under whose wing the choir is organized. The students tend to come and go but among the community people there are folks who have been members for dozens of years. Dan is one such member. It is the consensus among the basses who sit around Dan that he needs to retire. He's in his eighties, can't hear, is unsteady on his feet. But he's sort of a gruff old knothead, and no one is about to say to him, "Ever think about enjoying the concert from the other side of the stage?" Least of all our direct...

My grandmother's twin sister died earlier this summer. Most of her offspring were spread on opposite ends of the country, so to make a long story short, the memorial service/burial (she was cremated) took place last weekend. The funeral was in Rose Hill Cemetery, on East Lancaster, on the east side of Fort Worth. For those of you insufficiently immersed in trivia, this is Lee Harvey Oswald's burial place. I recalled this obscure fact when I heard where my aunt was to be buried. The group I rode over with elected to skip everything but the graveside service. As we were filing to our cars, I ran into one of my cousins, who was the sole representative of the Houston branch of the family tree. He said, "I got here early and found Oswald's grave. You can find instructions on the Internet." Which is good, since the employees at Rose Hill will not, citing the family's wish for privacy, tell you where it is. I said, "Gee, I thought about seeing if I could find it...

I am constantly amazed and impressed with the people behind Google. A friend send me an email asking what the name of the site was that had the maps that let you see satellite images, because a friend was forced to evacuate and wanted to see how much damage they had sustained. I started to respond that it was Google Maps (with the URL) but cautioned the images were typically a couple of years old. I was about to hit the send button when I decided to make sure. I entered "New Orleans, LA" on the location. In addition to the Map, Satellite, and Hybrid views was a button with a new view: Katrina, in bright red: satellite views of New Orlean AFTER the hurricane. What's available is currently pretty limited, but the fact that it's there at all is amazing. Most chilling: flipping between pre- and post-Katrina views of the Superdome. In the post-Katrina view the ripped up roof is clearly visible. On a couple of side notes, I went with my youngest and a couple of his buddie...

Google is (supposedly) about to launch a new IM service. It looks like it will be using the Jabber protocol, which is an open protocol and way cool. It ties to your Gmail account, so if you don't have one, start pestering your geekie friends, who no doubt have scads of invitations to join Gmail. You can use any Jabber compatible client, of which there are many. I just set up with GAIM using the following instructions . Have fun!

Got back from Long Island last Friday after spending the week tucked inside a tiny training room surrounded by a dozen aging computers. My one fellow classmate was a young (to my aging eyes, anyway) woman about to start working for the NY Times who would be using the same software system I'm overseeing. Boy, was she smart. Don't believe all that crap you hear about boys being the UberGeeks of the world. I allowed myself to get pleasantly lost a couple of times in the evening so I did a little sight-seeing. Not the touristy stuff like Oyster Bay, Teddy Roosevelt's old digs and the like, but neighborhoods. Interestingly enough, Long Island is much more wooded than I would have guessed. I wandered in a shopping mall build on the site of Roosevelt Field, where Charles Lindbergh set off for Paris and history. While there I made reasonably good progress on The Novel; I don't think I turned on the TV once during the six days I was there. I did watch a movie on my laptop, but I...

Google shares the 600 ways you can spell Britney Spears . Google...gotta love those folks. First Google Maps , then Google Earth , then Google Moon , and now this! Good Lord! I've gotten email from some of these names! They said that I...well, never mind.

The latest Google Job Opportunities have been posted. Watch your career soar to new heights! See the world in a new light! Relocation will be required. Benefits will no doubt include a rapid weight loss program.

Saw War of the Worlds this afternoon with Ed. A pretty amazing film. It has been called by many the first truly post-9/11 movie . An interesting point made in the article above is that every production of this story seems to make concrete the paranoia of the age when it was produced. Orson Welles's 1938 radio adaptation, for example, fed off fears about Hitler and what was at the time the "European War." The George Pal (of Puppetoon fame) version done in the 1950's was about Cold War paranoia. And in this version, after the first attack, the character of Tom Cruise's terrified daughter wants to know "was it terrorists?" Rod Dreher (who I'm no fan of), writing in the Dallas Morning news, said "From now on, when people ask me what it was like to be in New York on Sept. 11, I'll tell them, 'Like the first hour of War of the Worlds.'" The scenes of destruction of the cities were amazing, thought Spielberg resisted the temptation t...

My clever wife had reserved a copy of the new Harry Potter months ago. So when we heard the Barnes and Noble where we reserved it would be open at midnight to sell it, we think: "Oh what fun! Let's go pick up our copy!" So at 11:30 we gather ourselves up and drive over. While we were doing this, John, my oldest calls and says he and his buddy are going to go over and try and buy a copy. I say, "Great. Look for us; we'll be there." The first clue that our plan was, shall we say, ill-conceived, comes as I make my way down University Drive towards the B & N entrance. University is normally not that busy at midnight, and there was fair amount of traffic--most of it turning into the University Park Shopping Center. I turn in and see the parking lot is really full. We are talking 3 days before Christmas full. Outside the store are stray people milling around. I can through the store windows to see the lines at the cash registers stretch back as far as the ey...

I've been following, despite my personal news strike, the Valerie Plame story and I'm puzzled. So far, we've got NY Times reporter Judith Miller in jail, Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper reluctantly agreeing to reveal sources, White House Prince of Darkness Karl Rove decrying he did anything wrong, all because Robert Novak , citing two Bush administration officials, revealed the identity of a CIA agent in his column. Okay, here's what I don't get: Robert Novak, who wrote the column, appears to have remained above the fray. Why the hell doesn't the Justice Department subpoena his ass? Have I missed something here? It makes a body wonder. Meanwhile, Karl Rove is getting ever closer to that dangerous state of being so great a political liability that even a half-wit like his boss can sense it's time to jettison the bastard. Sweet.

At my writers group last night I read the 2nd chapter of The Novel again. This made the third time my fellow writers have had to endure my creativity. Last time they were politely encouraging but I knew the truth: it still sucked. Nothing like reading your own stuff out loud to really appreciate its shortcomings. Alas, my sins as a writer are many, but the worst of them are: too many "information dumps," not enough characterization, and my constant slipping into the passive voice. I've been laboring over rewrites on this chapter for about 2 months...part of the delay can be attributed to the summer doldrums, part of it being that the chapter needed a whole lot of work. Third time is the charm though; good feedback on this version. Some minor stuff (including hand-edits I made before reading) to be added back, but nothing substantial. So now I move on. Thank god!

Dot picked up a book for me at the library I've been thinking of reading: The Plot Against America , by Philip Roth. She's read it through her reading group and it passes her test. Story Synopsis: Lindbergh beats Roosevelt in 1940 election and his lack of concern against Hitler becomes US policy, with the expected awful results. Sounds right up my alley. Updates as I read.

Was going to work on The Novel over the weekend and could not find the flash drive where I've taking to storing it. Looked in all the usual places at home (dresser, bedside table, by the bathroom sink) but to no avail. Finally decided I must have left it at work. Nope. Now I was getting concerned. I usually save a new revision number every few days, but this time it had been several weeks. Plus I, er, hadn't made a backup. So I had this nagging fear I'd lost a couple of weeks of revisions--fairly good revisions too. Got home tonight, looked some more and finally asked Ed, who was lounging around watching TV in the back room, if he'd seen the flash drive. "Oh yeah," he mumbled, pulling it out from under the couch. "I think it went through the washing machine." My mouth is hanging open at this point, and he adds, "It went through the dryer, too." Thinking, oh well, if I wrote this once I can write it again, I put the clean flashdrive into t...

Kansas continues to favor intelligent design over evolution . No doubt because there is a deficit of intelligence there. (Sorry, all my Wichita friends.) My pal Matt pointed me to this Open Letter to Kansas School Board : "I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution...Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Read it and laugh. Or weep. As an interesting side note, see the Wikipedia entry on John Scopes , famous as the defendent in the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Geez...it's been, what, 2 months since I've done anything in this blog? Shame on me. In my defense, I've been extremely involved in the Project From Hell at work (it's killed at least three management careers I can think of, with more on the horizon) which tends to sap all creative energy from me. But that's only an excuse, of course. The Novel has bogged down slightly; I did a read of an early chapter and got the gentle advice that my characterization was...lacking. So I sat down and did a bunch of character profiles of the major characters (something I'd been highly resistant to doing) and found...it helped a lot. Damn, I hate it when that happens. I'm in the midst of a major rewrite of the chapter I'd read and boy, did it help. The chapter is still crap, but a better quality of crap. And I'll take that. Since this is all extremely random, I'll throw this in: my oldest is now a high school graduate. I got him oriented and registered last week f...

I confess...now that I am a sedentary old fart, I don't much like going to outdoor Rock music events. I've been to enough to know how miserable they can be. Case in point: last year I blew off going to the Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas, since I had no desire to suffer in the heat all day only to sit in my car for hours longer, waiting to escape the crappy parking. I still think I made the right choice on that one. To slightly make up for it, I took my guitar-playing youngest son to hear Buddy Guy tonight at the Main Street Arts Festival. Damn, can that man play guitar. Knowing parking would be a bitch, I parked and we walked for 15 minutes to get to the stage area. This turned out to be a Good Plan. We got there about 9 and heard the last 30 minute of Johnnie Red and the Roosters. They were hot: old men, but old men who knew how to boogie. They left the stage and we waited for Buddy Guy. He came on around 10:10 and immediately jumped into it, playing Down, Down, Down. Hi...

I stayed late at work and ran across this David vs. Goliath Microsoft Story . Those wacky college kids...you got to love 'em. Occasionally I think there may be hope for the future after all.

I've been in Boston (or Bahston, as the natives pronounce it) since Monday evening, attending a training class at the elegant Wyndham Hotel, in what I'm told is the Financial district. One never knows about some of these classes, but this has turned out to be very good. The class has covered Information Architecture and Taxonomy (but why are they teaching you to stuff dead animals, as someone joked this morning). I may cover the topic on a separate blog; this one is just about my trip. The weather in Boston is brisk; just above freezing. Tonight/tomorrow morning we are supposed to get 2 to 4 inches of snow. Whoopee. But it hasn't been awful. I've gone on several walking trips since arriving; the wind is bracing, not freezing. I get back to the hotel rosy-cheeked. Yesterday went to Faneuil Hall, wandered about and bought t-shirts for the boy-os. This evening I hiked over to Boston Commons and went for a walk until just after dark. Being in a really old city (well compare...

Okay, finally finished Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson (great book, by the way) and am now, how shall I put this, between reads. I've got a couple of things sitting on the bedside, but haven't launched into anything yet. Actually that's not completely accurate: I've got several new Mangas that I'm reading. I also read one of the Hellboy comics I'd picked up at the library. Somehow those don't seem to count. I've got several books of short stories I'm going to start, just for grins, including an anthology edited by Nick Hornby and a couple of John Updike collections. Second draft continues to be slogged through...egad, what agony. Next week I'm in Boston (in my guise as corporate simulacra ) and hoping I'll have a chance to get another dozen pages of the second draft beat into shape.

Found yet another interesting site for Intellectual Property / Copyright issues at Copyfight . It's the end of civilization as we know it. Well, as someone knows it, anyway.

Right now I'm about 2/3rds of the way through Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash , an absolutely fascinating book. What can I say? I love this guy's stuff. Before starting it, I read about 5 pages of Michael Crichton's Disclosure . The two were written about a year apart (Snow Crash: 1992, Disclosure: 1993). But there is no comparison. Don't get me wrong - I've read a number of Crichton books and found them thoroughly enjoyable (read Jurassic Park the summer I was layed up in bed with a herniated disk). Both ostensibly had computers as part of their plot stuff. The Crichton book sounded like your average business intrigue techno-thriller. Stephenson's starts out with virtual reality universes, then moves on to funky Scientology-esque religion (founded by, get this: L. Bob Rife) and ancient Sumerian cult religions using lingustic viruses that leave the afflicted speaking in tongues. How cool is that? Snow Crash is full of what the writer's group I (now) belo...

I'm putting together some appropriate quotes for the prologue of my novel. Here are two of my favorites, from both sides of the issue. First, from Jack Valenti, past president of the MPAA, during testimony in 1982 about the Sony Betamax video recorder: I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone. And from the admirable Lawrence Lessig, from his book Freedom Culture (available as hardcopy or free electronic file ). For the single point that is lost in this war on pirates is a point that we see only after surveying the range of these changes. When you add together the effect of changing law, concentrated markets, and changing technology, together they produce an astonishing conclusion: Never in our history have fewer had a legal right to control more of the development of our culture than now .

I'm not sure I entirely understand this strange fascination with people rooting around their family tree. Is it that they want to find out if they are FamousPerson's 10th cousin twice removed? Or if FamousDeadPerson was their great, great, great, etc., aunt or uncle? Dot's late uncle Tom and a cousin whose name I can't remember both got completely into the geneology thing, each producing these massive documents of excruitatingly detailed relationships. Her cousin, who lives in New England, is one of those Mayflower wannabees, which is not to suggest that she's not a nice person. Her uncle: I can't explain. It all seems slightly weird, albeit in a harmlessly amusing sort of way. Family history is all well and good (I enjoy a good anecdote endlessly recounted over the dinner table as much as the next person), but this takes it a little beyond that point. Now my father, in his old fart years, has taken up this slightly loopy and obsessive pastime. His side of th...

Quick update on the writing thing. I continue to wade through the first revision/second draft. What a humbling experience that is. The first chapter thoroughly sucked. We are talking Shop Vac sucked. I held my nose and performed major surgery. I'm not convinced it's wonderful yet, but it is light-years from where it was. Moved a big chunk from a chapter deep within the middle section to a new second chapter; I felt the need to introduce one of the characters much earlier. That was a good plan, since the chapter where this section had formerly lived was way too long. Over the weekend, I went into the Big Filing Cabinet o' Stuff that lives out in the studio and rummaged around until I found some old short stories I'd written about (let's see) 15 years ago. As a commitment to my new writer's status, I joined the Trinity Writer's Workshop last night. They seem to be a good bunch of people. My old friend the Kippster and his wife the Kitty Chick are members (he...

Sat down the other day and reformatted the rough draft to (what I am told is) the generally accepted form for submissions: double spaced, 12 pt Courier. This was made much easier by using a MS Word template called Script Smart I found after much searching on the Internet. It has a number of built-in macros that handle much of the mundane aspects of producing a manuscript, including tracking total wordcount, generating headers, and managing chapter numbering. In addition to novels, it will also handle short stories, poetry, synopses, and other. The only downside I can see is that it does, er, force you to use Microsoft Word. A version that would work seamlessly with OpenOffice.Org would be great. So anyway, after formatting, I had a 345 page document to print out. I tried to do this with an old junk toner cartridge in my LaserJet, but ended up tossing about 100 pages because they looked so god-awful. Ended up going to Fry's for a recycled cartridge ($45). Once printed, my fam...

...Finally! Finished the first draft of the Novel today at 8:22 am: 71,609 words. The next step is to reformat it (doublespace, 12 pt. Courier), print it out (around 350 pages) and start editing. Once I've got a second draft, I'll start harassing all my friends to read it critically and give me feedback. Oh, just in case you were wondering, as much as I'd like to, I'm not planning on quitting my day job anytime soon.

Drove the Saturn Vue into work today while the Saturn wagon was being worked on (owning a Saturn is a little like joining a cult religion). Grabbed my copy of Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing at Baxter's -- their third album. It starts with this long, sustained feedback guitar note. Sounded so good, I restarted it and cranked the volume up another few notches. You've got to love late '60's music. Up until recently, the big attraction of the Vue was that it had a CD player while the wagon only had a radio, one that some jackleg had semi-broken while trying to remove it. For Christmas this year, D gave me a CD player for the wagon. Way Cool!!! Not only does it play regular CDs, but it will also play MP3 CDs, which means you can get 10 hours of music without fumbling around on the freeway, trying to change disks. Driving around in the wagon, which is a much smaller (I would never say cramped ) vehicle and listening to tunes is a little like being in a headphone...

Interesting weekend...A mix of productiveness and wasted time. Friday I couldn't tell you what I did. Watched a movie or something on TV, made dinner, threw away some miscellaneous junk ... It all fades into a blur. I recollect it was vaguely wife-pleasing. Ed had a buddy sleep over. Saturday, while D was off watching films at a church sponsored film festival, I did a little on the book (VERY little), read some of the semi-crappy Bruce Sterling novel I'm plowing through, read the paper. BTW, D and I are both on something of a news strike. This began when Bush won the election. In the interest of keeping my sense of free-floating rage down, I've given up listening to news on the radio or watching it on TV. Stupid, but it works. I still read the paper every morning but I can scan/skip the most outrageous stuff if I need/want to. After Ed's buddy left, he continued to rag at me to upgrade his memory from 384 meg to 512 meg. This was because Worlds of Warcraft r...

I've discovered I am often at my most creative when my life is hell. My job has been hell of late: like driving ten-penny nails in my forehead. The good news is that I am highly motivated to finish my novel. I've been at around 63,000 words for the last month and a half...just dithering around. This week I sat down one night and worked until way past midnight whipping up an outline of exactly what is going on behind the scenes in my plot. Just so I would know. Woo! I now have an ending (well, more or less). All I have to do is write it. With any luck I will be done with the first draft by Valentine's Day. Then comes the real work: rewriting.

I haven't updated this in a while. Not that I have a vast audience or anything but there is the discipline of writing it to consider. Finally finished reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon . A very good book. I liked it so well I picked up copies of Zodiac and Snow Crash from Half Price Books. In between, I started reading Bruce Sterling's Distraction , which despite the great reviews I'm finding, is not near as good a book. My wife asked me why I was continuing to read it, and I said that I wanted to understand WHY it was not as good a book. Speaking of Sterling, who hails from Austin, Texas, I have also read his Hacker Crackdown , which was a much more interesting book. Go fig. I'm also reading a couple of new Manga books I picked up over the weekend, and in an attempt to better myself, bought a Barnes & Noble edition of Pride and Prejudice. The Novel is continuing slowly. I came up with a plot idea which (I think/I hope) will make things more i...

Still in Wichita on this incredibly snake-bit business trip. Flew in yesterday, everyone bailed out of here because of the freezing rain after lunch, telecommuted the rest of the afternoon from Residence Inn (Free High Speed Wireless! Yes!). The kind folks at the Residence Inn put me on a ground floor so I wouldn't have to go up ice-coated steps. Mid-evening a herd of elephants moved in above me. They must have been Oklahoma Sooners...The OU - USC game was on and everytime OU screwed up they would stomp the floor. With the humiliating defeat OU suffered last night, the elephants had much to stomp about. About midnight, as I sat in bed working on the novel, I learned the elephants were in heat, and noisily amorous. I got up around 6:30, showered and dressed, then grabbed breakfast at the RI Hospitality area. By the time I finished eating it was around 7:30. Since all of my Wichita cohorts live on the westside of town, and the office we work out of is on the southeast corner of town,...

Once again I find myself in Wichita, Kansas, in the service of my employer. One of my co-workers is taking a different position. Since I am taking on a number of his responsibilities the plan since mid-December has been for me to travel here and meet with him. Yesterday it was 75 degrees in Texas (where I live). Current temperature in Wichita is 32 degrees, with freezing rain. I arrived here around 10:30 and at 2:30 was sent "home," which in my case means the Residence Inn, by my Wichita boss. My planned 2 1/2 meeting ended up being around half an hour. So now I'm on a conference call with all my cohorts -- those from Wichita all now at home -- calling from Residence Inn. Halfway through the call, they all lose power (ice on the power lines, no doubt). Inspiring. The high tomorrow is forecast to be 28 degrees, and the low is 8 degrees. Yahoo describes the predicted weather as "winter mix," which means rain, snow and ice. Have I ever mentioned how much I hat...

Well, here it is, the 3rd of January and I am back in my office, once again a prisoner of my desire to eat regularly. Tomorrow I fly to Wichita to freeze my ass off for a few days for the benefit of my employer. Sigh. Here's how well I succeeded in accomplishing the several things I wanted to accomplish: Finish reading Cryptonomicon: Made minor headway; managed to read another 150 (out of 1200) pages. I'll read more on the plane tomorrow Finish writing The Novel: Managed to bump the word count up to 60,000 words and think I know how I'll wrap it up. Mostly I didn't do squat on it. I'll write at the Residence Inn at night while in Wichita. Finish watching the first three seasons of Alias: Er, no. Managed to get to Episode 7 of the Second season. There are 22 episodes a season. Season 4's opener is Wednesday night. Update/redesign my website: Yeah, right. Also, didn't manage to get any Christmas cards mailed. Maybe I'll just call them Martin Lut...