So I spent some time whining about my situation last Thursday, and instead of complaining you all gave an outpouring of sympathy and encouragement. What can you say about such guys? You're all awesome.
I went home Thursday night and talked with T--, and got permission to really take it easy over the weekend (I had a Regular Day Off on Friday, so it was a long weekend), and over the upcoming holiday. Sort of a week and a half of Father's Days. Something along those lines.
Anyway, I did. I was up late Thursday night, but I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about it, because I didn't really have any demands Friday morning. I got up, played some WoW, maybe watched a movie with AB in the afternoon (while I was messing around on a laptop), then watched the new Muppet Christmas Special with T-- in the evening. We ordered some pizza, and I played some more WoW.
I called it quits at 11:00, and got a good night's sleep. T-- was surprised how early I got up on Saturday (although it wasn't until 8). I spent the morning same as Friday. Then around 11:00 we tried to get some Christmas pictures with AB that did not go well. After that, I took her with me to pick up some lunch and left T-- to sort through the wreckage of our photoshoot.
After lunch, T-- went out Christmas shopping and AB went down for a nap. I played some more WoW (big surprise), and then at 2:30, when T-- got home, I headed over to K--'s place. We went to the gym -- basically my first time back there in six months -- and did forty minutes of strength training and twenty of cardio. I'd intended to do the opposite, but that was mostly because I didn't expect to be able to handle much strength training. Instead, I did almost exactly the same workout I was doing back in June. That surprised me, and it's pretty encouraging. When I was in Chicago (back in October), I spent some time in the hotel gym and learned I wasn't too far behind on the cardio, too. So that's pretty much all my good excuses demolished. I need to get back, and regularly.
Anyway, N-- was working all day Saturday, so after the gym K-- and I played Gears of War through to the end of the second act. Then she got home, and we invited T-- and D-- to join us for Jason's Deli for dinner. That had to be at K-- and N--'s house, because the Cowboys game on Saturday evening was only showing on the NFL network, and among those three households, K-- and N-- are the only ones with access.
Dinner was awesome, the game was not.
Sunday morning we went to church, then came home and had leftover pizza for lunch. I played a little in the afternoon, then the Huddlestons came over a little bit before 5:00. Bill and D-- hung out at my place for an hour or so, and we turned on the Falcons/Vikings game because it had playoff implications for the Cowboys. And, y'know, because three dudes in a living room need to have a football game on, if they're not playing video games.
Meanwhile, the womenfolk went to North Pole Village or something of the sort to get pictures of AB playing with Christmas stuff. I guess it went better than our Saturday shoot. At 6:00 we met them at Irma's for dinner (awesome), and then they all came back to our place for desserts and drinks, and we exchanged gifts and watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Everybody left at 10:15, and I was in bed by 10:30. I was probably asleep by 11.
All told, I had a pretty relaxing weekend. I certainly feel more rested than I have in about a month. If I can keep the same sort of pace for the next week, I may just be back up to normal by the time the new year rolls around.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Journal Entry: December 18, 2008
I'm tired.
Last time I posted was December 5th. Back then, I was complaining about sleeping problems, and mentioned obliquely "drama with our Tulsa house."
This year, we've paid $8,400 in mortgage payments on the Tulsa house. We have also spent that much more money repairing the house (the bulk of that going into a new air conditioner and new carpet when we were trying to sell the house). So we're easily looking at more than $15,000 spent on that house in 2008 (although, to be fair, $5,000 of that is still sitting on a credit card, slowly piling up).
We spent a month working on the house, three months with it sitting on the market (and only 4 or 5 people ever looked at it), and then another couple months while we waited for an incompetent property manager to get it rented out. It's been occupied since September, but we've only seen $475. Word is there's another check in the mail, our portion of the November rent, but we're not holding our breath.
The weekend before Thanksgiving, T-- sent off an email to our incompetent property manager, asking why we hadn't yet received November rent, or any messages from him. Three days later, he wrote back to say that he'd been buried under a massive list of complaints from the tenants, and listed out enough problems that he'd clearly been collecting them for a while (without informing us or, apparently, doing anything to correct them). So we learned all at once that our tenants were being abused, that we weren't going to see any money for the month, and that once again our property manager was shirking his job and avoiding contacting us with crucial information.
T-- wrote back right away, expressing her displeasure that he'd waited so long to contact us (and that only in response to her emailing him), and, at the same time, giving him consent and encouragement to get those problems resolved. We have no interest in being slumlords.
So he wrote right back the next day and said, "This is too hard. I don't want to do it anymore." Although he did it with significantly less punctuation and poorer spelling. And that was that, he'd quit.
He claims, at this point, to have done about $950 worth of repairs (at the tenants' insistence, and with our approval), but we haven't seen any receipts yet. He also owes us at least $500 which, as I've said, is supposably in the mail.
And he quit. Sure, he was incompetent, but it's not exactly like we can take care of the property from OKC. T-- worked her ass off researching a new guy, finding someone with impeccable references and experience this time, and getting us a contract with him in no time. He waived the usual "first and last month's rent" fee, because that is generally used to defer the cost of advertising and running background checks on tenants, and we already have tenants -- tenants who have apparently regularly paid on time, even if we've barely seen any of the money.
So that's...not resolved, but probably better. Exhausting, though. That was the big stressor in my life last time I posted, and probably what was keeping me from getting enough sleep.
Then, four days later (on Tuesday the ninth), I was waiting in line to order my lunch at Taco Bueno when T-- called and said, "Aaron, we've been robbed. I am not joking. You need to get home now. I'm calling the police. Bye."
And that left me with a frantic thirty-minute drive home -- plenty of time to imagine all the horrible things that could have been implied by T--'s brief message (and unable to call for more information, because she'd said she was going to call the cops).
As it happened, none of the nightmare scenes in my head were necessary. The truth was exactly what I'd imagined in the first few seconds. T-- had taken AB out to do some Christmas shopping around 10:30, and by the time she got home at noon the house was cleaned out. XBoxes, the 360, the Wii, two laptops, my computer and monitor, digital camera, movies and games. All light, expensive, highly portable stuff. I got home around 12:30, and a cop showed up about 15 minutes later and took down our statements.
N-- was in the area, having lunch with K-- who works just up the street, so she came over when she heard the news. D-- showed up a little later and brought me a laptop so I could get back online and restore a little bit of my sanity. Mostly we just sat around dazed, after we'd gotten the better part of the mess cleaned up.
T-- has taken it really well. We have okay insurance, but we're probably not going to try to replace everything that was lost. Financially...I don't know. We've had a couple blessings, and that's helping with the sanity a little too, but we weren't looking rosy beforehand, and this certainly doesn't help.
The stuff isn't that big a deal. It was all toys. But we lost data that can't be recovered. I'd gone on a kick for the last year scanning in all our important family records, and throwing out the originals. I kept all of our financial accounts on spreadsheets on the laptop. T-- had all her pictures for the year, and all the videos of AB she'd recorded on her camcorder on her laptop. All of that is gone, now.
It's been a rough couple weeks. T-- has done a ton of work, getting a new bank account set up, filing our report with the insurance company, taking care of AB. She's always done most of that, but she's doing more than usual these days. I've been worthless.
I really have. I go to bed at midnight or one, and don't sleep. I wake up feeling miserable, always late, and rush to work where I spend most of the day staring dazedly at whatever project I'm working on. I've got a couple distractions that cheer me up some, but they're just distractions. As soon as I turn them off, I'm right back where I started.
So...bah. I haven't been blogging regularly this month, as I'd intended to, but it would have just been page after page of this complaining. In the end, this incident isn't that big a deal. If it's over, we got off easy. Still, I spend hours worrying about the possibilities for identity theft, the hassles that could come from losing our passports or tax records or titles. I think about the possibility of the bastards coming back. They say that happens sometimes -- the thieves will wait three to six months, give you time to replace everything with insurance money, and then come clean you out again. What if T-- is home next time?
If it's over, we got off easy, but it still weighs on me. I wrote a poem earlier in the year about being a kid pretending to be a grown-up, hoping no one notices. Everyone I showed it to agreed with the sentiment, maybe it's something about this generation, or just something everyone goes through during the transition from 20s to 30s. I don't know.
But for me it's not just that. For me, it's being a selfish, irresponsible, starving artist-type pretending to be a husband and father. That's not really who I am. I love T-- and AB absolutely -- I have no trouble doing that. But then, artist-types don't often have trouble finding genuine emotion. I don't come naturally to making wise investment choices, though. To balancing a budget and paying bills on time, and addressing problems early when they're cheaper to fix, and putting in a hard day's work. Those are things I can do, and things I work hard at doing, but it's just that. It's hard work.
I know people, like K--, who seem to come naturally by that. Being responsible, making good decisions, just makes sense to him. And then I know people like D-- who have paid the price for bad decisions often enough that it's just easier to make good decisions, so he does. For me, it's all playacting. My parents raised me to know what a decent man should do, so I try to do those things, but it's not anything inside me saying, "This is important." It's just a desire not to let down the people who depend on me.
It feels like treading water. Not the relaxing sort, where you don't feel like swimming so you just sort of lay back and float. No, I mean when you get to the point where you're far too tired to swim, too exhausted to even tread water, but you know that the only other option is to drown, so, weary as you are, you keep kicking. Every day when I go put in a day of work to pay the family's bills, it's a kick. It's not a bad job -- in fact, it's a great one -- but it's not what I want to be doing. Everytime I pay down the credit card instead of adding on to my computer or upgrading to HD cable, it's a kick to keep afloat. To keep seeming like a good guy.
It's exhausting. And then when I think I have it in place, when I look at my budget out to next June and see that we could get the credit card and the car loan paid off, then we get a deadbeat property manager and never see any rent money. Or somebody breaks into our house and steals the budget along with all our stuff.
I don't have the energy to deal with it. I'm tired, all the time. There is so much that needs to be done right now: paperwork for the insurance company, for the police report, paperwork for my work since I lost a government laptop, paperwork for the bank and all the credit cards that were taken. I need to rebuild our financial records, and figure out exactly where our money is going as we get these piddly checks from our property managers, and I have a little Christmas bonus check come in, but then we're also spending big chunks here and there, trying to put our house back together. I have projects at work that need to be cleared up before the end of the year, but I just sit at my desk, eyes glazed over, too tired to even think. I go home and sit on the couch and lose myself in WoW, a distraction for a few hours. I watch the calendar and wait for Christmas, and hope I can deal with anxiety of leaving the house empty for three or four days while we're in Wichita.
It's...we're not that bad off. We had some toys stolen. We're failing to turn a profit on our summer home in Tulsa. It's not like we're missing meals or anything. Most of this nightmare is all of my own making, but I can't shake it. And the people close to me are suffering because I'm no frame of mind to make good decisions, or be a decent person. That's the worst of it.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Last time I posted was December 5th. Back then, I was complaining about sleeping problems, and mentioned obliquely "drama with our Tulsa house."
This year, we've paid $8,400 in mortgage payments on the Tulsa house. We have also spent that much more money repairing the house (the bulk of that going into a new air conditioner and new carpet when we were trying to sell the house). So we're easily looking at more than $15,000 spent on that house in 2008 (although, to be fair, $5,000 of that is still sitting on a credit card, slowly piling up).
We spent a month working on the house, three months with it sitting on the market (and only 4 or 5 people ever looked at it), and then another couple months while we waited for an incompetent property manager to get it rented out. It's been occupied since September, but we've only seen $475. Word is there's another check in the mail, our portion of the November rent, but we're not holding our breath.
The weekend before Thanksgiving, T-- sent off an email to our incompetent property manager, asking why we hadn't yet received November rent, or any messages from him. Three days later, he wrote back to say that he'd been buried under a massive list of complaints from the tenants, and listed out enough problems that he'd clearly been collecting them for a while (without informing us or, apparently, doing anything to correct them). So we learned all at once that our tenants were being abused, that we weren't going to see any money for the month, and that once again our property manager was shirking his job and avoiding contacting us with crucial information.
T-- wrote back right away, expressing her displeasure that he'd waited so long to contact us (and that only in response to her emailing him), and, at the same time, giving him consent and encouragement to get those problems resolved. We have no interest in being slumlords.
So he wrote right back the next day and said, "This is too hard. I don't want to do it anymore." Although he did it with significantly less punctuation and poorer spelling. And that was that, he'd quit.
He claims, at this point, to have done about $950 worth of repairs (at the tenants' insistence, and with our approval), but we haven't seen any receipts yet. He also owes us at least $500 which, as I've said, is supposably in the mail.
And he quit. Sure, he was incompetent, but it's not exactly like we can take care of the property from OKC. T-- worked her ass off researching a new guy, finding someone with impeccable references and experience this time, and getting us a contract with him in no time. He waived the usual "first and last month's rent" fee, because that is generally used to defer the cost of advertising and running background checks on tenants, and we already have tenants -- tenants who have apparently regularly paid on time, even if we've barely seen any of the money.
So that's...not resolved, but probably better. Exhausting, though. That was the big stressor in my life last time I posted, and probably what was keeping me from getting enough sleep.
Then, four days later (on Tuesday the ninth), I was waiting in line to order my lunch at Taco Bueno when T-- called and said, "Aaron, we've been robbed. I am not joking. You need to get home now. I'm calling the police. Bye."
And that left me with a frantic thirty-minute drive home -- plenty of time to imagine all the horrible things that could have been implied by T--'s brief message (and unable to call for more information, because she'd said she was going to call the cops).
As it happened, none of the nightmare scenes in my head were necessary. The truth was exactly what I'd imagined in the first few seconds. T-- had taken AB out to do some Christmas shopping around 10:30, and by the time she got home at noon the house was cleaned out. XBoxes, the 360, the Wii, two laptops, my computer and monitor, digital camera, movies and games. All light, expensive, highly portable stuff. I got home around 12:30, and a cop showed up about 15 minutes later and took down our statements.
N-- was in the area, having lunch with K-- who works just up the street, so she came over when she heard the news. D-- showed up a little later and brought me a laptop so I could get back online and restore a little bit of my sanity. Mostly we just sat around dazed, after we'd gotten the better part of the mess cleaned up.
T-- has taken it really well. We have okay insurance, but we're probably not going to try to replace everything that was lost. Financially...I don't know. We've had a couple blessings, and that's helping with the sanity a little too, but we weren't looking rosy beforehand, and this certainly doesn't help.
The stuff isn't that big a deal. It was all toys. But we lost data that can't be recovered. I'd gone on a kick for the last year scanning in all our important family records, and throwing out the originals. I kept all of our financial accounts on spreadsheets on the laptop. T-- had all her pictures for the year, and all the videos of AB she'd recorded on her camcorder on her laptop. All of that is gone, now.
It's been a rough couple weeks. T-- has done a ton of work, getting a new bank account set up, filing our report with the insurance company, taking care of AB. She's always done most of that, but she's doing more than usual these days. I've been worthless.
I really have. I go to bed at midnight or one, and don't sleep. I wake up feeling miserable, always late, and rush to work where I spend most of the day staring dazedly at whatever project I'm working on. I've got a couple distractions that cheer me up some, but they're just distractions. As soon as I turn them off, I'm right back where I started.
So...bah. I haven't been blogging regularly this month, as I'd intended to, but it would have just been page after page of this complaining. In the end, this incident isn't that big a deal. If it's over, we got off easy. Still, I spend hours worrying about the possibilities for identity theft, the hassles that could come from losing our passports or tax records or titles. I think about the possibility of the bastards coming back. They say that happens sometimes -- the thieves will wait three to six months, give you time to replace everything with insurance money, and then come clean you out again. What if T-- is home next time?
If it's over, we got off easy, but it still weighs on me. I wrote a poem earlier in the year about being a kid pretending to be a grown-up, hoping no one notices. Everyone I showed it to agreed with the sentiment, maybe it's something about this generation, or just something everyone goes through during the transition from 20s to 30s. I don't know.
But for me it's not just that. For me, it's being a selfish, irresponsible, starving artist-type pretending to be a husband and father. That's not really who I am. I love T-- and AB absolutely -- I have no trouble doing that. But then, artist-types don't often have trouble finding genuine emotion. I don't come naturally to making wise investment choices, though. To balancing a budget and paying bills on time, and addressing problems early when they're cheaper to fix, and putting in a hard day's work. Those are things I can do, and things I work hard at doing, but it's just that. It's hard work.
I know people, like K--, who seem to come naturally by that. Being responsible, making good decisions, just makes sense to him. And then I know people like D-- who have paid the price for bad decisions often enough that it's just easier to make good decisions, so he does. For me, it's all playacting. My parents raised me to know what a decent man should do, so I try to do those things, but it's not anything inside me saying, "This is important." It's just a desire not to let down the people who depend on me.
It feels like treading water. Not the relaxing sort, where you don't feel like swimming so you just sort of lay back and float. No, I mean when you get to the point where you're far too tired to swim, too exhausted to even tread water, but you know that the only other option is to drown, so, weary as you are, you keep kicking. Every day when I go put in a day of work to pay the family's bills, it's a kick. It's not a bad job -- in fact, it's a great one -- but it's not what I want to be doing. Everytime I pay down the credit card instead of adding on to my computer or upgrading to HD cable, it's a kick to keep afloat. To keep seeming like a good guy.
It's exhausting. And then when I think I have it in place, when I look at my budget out to next June and see that we could get the credit card and the car loan paid off, then we get a deadbeat property manager and never see any rent money. Or somebody breaks into our house and steals the budget along with all our stuff.
I don't have the energy to deal with it. I'm tired, all the time. There is so much that needs to be done right now: paperwork for the insurance company, for the police report, paperwork for my work since I lost a government laptop, paperwork for the bank and all the credit cards that were taken. I need to rebuild our financial records, and figure out exactly where our money is going as we get these piddly checks from our property managers, and I have a little Christmas bonus check come in, but then we're also spending big chunks here and there, trying to put our house back together. I have projects at work that need to be cleared up before the end of the year, but I just sit at my desk, eyes glazed over, too tired to even think. I go home and sit on the couch and lose myself in WoW, a distraction for a few hours. I watch the calendar and wait for Christmas, and hope I can deal with anxiety of leaving the house empty for three or four days while we're in Wichita.
It's...we're not that bad off. We had some toys stolen. We're failing to turn a profit on our summer home in Tulsa. It's not like we're missing meals or anything. Most of this nightmare is all of my own making, but I can't shake it. And the people close to me are suffering because I'm no frame of mind to make good decisions, or be a decent person. That's the worst of it.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Journal Entry: December 5, 2008
Last night, on the way home from work, I stopped by B-- and E--'s on an impulse. While in Little Rock I'd picked up a bottle of beauj nouveau for them, and it had been kicking around in my floorboard since we got back. The weather being what it is (and extreme temperatures being so bad for wine), I decided I needed to get it delivered sooner rather than later.
So I turned left at my exit instead of right, and got to see a couple of my best friends for a few minutes.
Then D-- brought over Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner, and T-- made up some delicious mac and cheese (not Kraft, this time). After that I played WoW while we watched Prince Caspian which was better than I expected it to be.
A pretty good night. I didn't get to sleep until midnight, but I was still up on time for work today, and then left work for an hour and a half to get a dental cleaning. Looks like I'm going to need some more work soon, most notably the removal of a couple wisdom teeth. Ugh.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
So I turned left at my exit instead of right, and got to see a couple of my best friends for a few minutes.
Then D-- brought over Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner, and T-- made up some delicious mac and cheese (not Kraft, this time). After that I played WoW while we watched Prince Caspian which was better than I expected it to be.
A pretty good night. I didn't get to sleep until midnight, but I was still up on time for work today, and then left work for an hour and a half to get a dental cleaning. Looks like I'm going to need some more work soon, most notably the removal of a couple wisdom teeth. Ugh.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
November 2008
Which is fundamentally different from NaNoWriMo 2008. Somehow.
November was a busy month for me, quite apart from my writing. Work was hectic, but nobody wants to hear about my work, so I'll let it slide.
I got back into WoW sometime in October, which was pretty foolish. The expansion called to me, though, and I started playing three or four weeks early so that I could be "ready" when the expansion finally came out.
T-- and AB went to Wichita for a special family thing on Thursday the sixth, leaving me here because I had to work. I was well taken care of, though. Thursday night I spent playing WoW, and then on Friday and Saturday I hung out with K-- and N--. My birthday was on Sunday, the ninth, and T-- came home late Saturday night so she could be there for my birthday.
We didn't do anything extravagant then -- had lunch with K-- and N-- and maybe D--. Then I spent most of the afternoon being lazy, which was awesome, but not much different for me than most Sundays.
The following Thursday was the release date for Wrath of the Lich King, the WoW expansion, and I took off work Thursday and Friday. In case that seems outrageous, bear in mind that one of those was my Regular Day Off, so it wasn't a full two days of vacation just for a silly game. One day, but not two.
Anyway, after spending all evening Wednesday playing WoW, D-- and I ran up to Wal-Mart at midnight to get in line for our copies. My sister's husband joined us there, too. The dork factor was through the roof, but we survived unscathed, and got out after about an hour's wait with fresh copies of the new game.
Then we went home and discovered that the installation process was going to take several hours, so I gave up and went to bed. I think D-- stayed up late, and played some during the night.
I spent some time Thursday morning with T-- and AB, but then spent pretty much all of the next 24 hours playing WoW. I must have slept, but I'm not sure how much.
Friday afternoon my parents arrived, visiting for my birthday, and we had a big party that Friday night (thus the low-key celebration on the preceding Sunday). We had barbecue from Steve's Rib (my current favorite), and everyone brought treats, and we played Rock Band for hours on end. It was awesome.
Oh! I didn't do any writing during all of that. I'd gotten a couple thousand words done Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday over lunch, but as of the time I got home on Wednesday afternoon, I was all about WoW. And then my family came in, and I was busy hanging out with them until late on Sunday, and Sunday evening I got back to WoW.
So Monday morning I was way behind on my writing, and I didn't do a lot to get caught up. Tuesday was a holiday, and also server maintenance for WoW, so I couldn't spend the whole day on the game, but I never get any serious writing done at home. After that, though, I really kicked into gear. Four thousand words a day, regularly, and I had eight thousand-word days on Thursday the twentieth and Wednesday the twenty-sixth -- that last being the day I finished the book. That was pretty exciting.
I know something important happened that weekend after my birthday party (the weekend of the twenty-first), but I can't remember what for the life of me. Sometime in there, probably on the nineteenth, I took T-- to an art opening at the OKC Museum of Art. That was a lot of fun. Pretty sure I'm forgetting something else, though....
Anyway, then Thanksgiving came the week that I finished my book. Actually, I wrote "The End" over lunch on Wednesday the twenty-sixth, then three hours later left work, picked up T-- and AB at home, then got on the highway Arkansas-bound. We got to my parents' place a little after 10 p.m., then sat up talking until midnight.
The plan for Thursday was a late Thanksgiving dinner -- not my favorite tactic, but it gave us leisure to sleep in, and Mom and Dad took us out to IHOP for a big hearty breakfast. Then we got back home and Dad said he needed to clean up the leaves in the yard, but after that he was hoping to get some writing done. He really wanted to hit the 50,000-word goal by the end of the month, but he was still in his low thirties, and he was going to have family to entertain starting that afternoon.
So, more because I'm a good writing coach than because I'm a good son, I offered to take care of the leaves for him if he would promise to spend the time writing. Turned out they have a high-power leafblower (new since the last time I offered to help them with their leaves). It was a major convenience, but they have a major lawn. I spent a couple hours on the project, on got about 2/3 of the leaves taken care of (if you don't count the back yard). I got the most important bit done, though, and around the time my back started killing me, family was showing up, too, so I called it quits and nobody complained.
My dad's brother Perry and his whole family came to visit, making this year by far the most time we've ever spent with them. My older sister and her family was in town, too. They came by for supper, hung around late, then went back to his parents' place for the night.
Friday Mom and T-- went out shopping some. I played WoW, and Dad worked on his book. We all went out to dinner Friday night, and then I watched AB until her bedtime so T-- could do some scrapbooking with Mom. After that, of course, I WoWed.
Saturday we headed home, right after a lunch at On the Border. It's a brutally long drive, and T-- spent a couple hours of it napping, but I passed the time working on a programming project in my head, and it went pretty well. When T-- was awake, we talked about my book, which she'd finished reading just a day after I finished writing it. Egotistically, my books are easily my favorite topic of conversation, so that was fun for me.
Then we got in late enough, exhausted enough, that we just went home, foregoing standing plans to watch the Beldam game with K-- and N--, and the rest of N--'s family who was visiting for the holidays. Turns out they had some drama of their own, but even without that we would have bailed. The game was amazing, though. Dallas won on Thursday, the Sooners won on Saturday, and they got their shot at the National Championship when the polls came out on Sunday. It was a good weekend, footballwise.
Well, all around, really. I played a lot of WoW, spent some fun time with family, and finished a novel all in that last week of November. I didn't have anything to complain about.
Oh! And then I was up Sunday night, playing WoW and trying to bully myself into going to bed because I had work tomorrow, late in the evening when I got a call from Dad to let me know he'd hit the mark. 50,000 words and then some. His book wasn't done, but that's not part of the rules. He made 52k within the 30-day span, and he's pretty confident that, just like last year, he'll have his book done sometime around mid-December.
Awesome. I'm so proud of him.
This week I've been back to work, and that's a drag. I'm also feeling some of the letdown of being done with the novel, and not in a good way. We did have some drama come up with our Tulsa house during that last week of November, and that's pretty stressful, and work remains demanding. So I'm not sleeping great, and I've been feeling pretty out-of-it, but I'm sure that's all swift-passing problems. Overall, life is good.
And, hey, tomorrow's Friday, with the promise of a whole weekend of WoWing afterward. How could I not be glad of that?
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
November was a busy month for me, quite apart from my writing. Work was hectic, but nobody wants to hear about my work, so I'll let it slide.
I got back into WoW sometime in October, which was pretty foolish. The expansion called to me, though, and I started playing three or four weeks early so that I could be "ready" when the expansion finally came out.
T-- and AB went to Wichita for a special family thing on Thursday the sixth, leaving me here because I had to work. I was well taken care of, though. Thursday night I spent playing WoW, and then on Friday and Saturday I hung out with K-- and N--. My birthday was on Sunday, the ninth, and T-- came home late Saturday night so she could be there for my birthday.
We didn't do anything extravagant then -- had lunch with K-- and N-- and maybe D--. Then I spent most of the afternoon being lazy, which was awesome, but not much different for me than most Sundays.
The following Thursday was the release date for Wrath of the Lich King, the WoW expansion, and I took off work Thursday and Friday. In case that seems outrageous, bear in mind that one of those was my Regular Day Off, so it wasn't a full two days of vacation just for a silly game. One day, but not two.
Anyway, after spending all evening Wednesday playing WoW, D-- and I ran up to Wal-Mart at midnight to get in line for our copies. My sister's husband joined us there, too. The dork factor was through the roof, but we survived unscathed, and got out after about an hour's wait with fresh copies of the new game.
Then we went home and discovered that the installation process was going to take several hours, so I gave up and went to bed. I think D-- stayed up late, and played some during the night.
I spent some time Thursday morning with T-- and AB, but then spent pretty much all of the next 24 hours playing WoW. I must have slept, but I'm not sure how much.
Friday afternoon my parents arrived, visiting for my birthday, and we had a big party that Friday night (thus the low-key celebration on the preceding Sunday). We had barbecue from Steve's Rib (my current favorite), and everyone brought treats, and we played Rock Band for hours on end. It was awesome.
Oh! I didn't do any writing during all of that. I'd gotten a couple thousand words done Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday over lunch, but as of the time I got home on Wednesday afternoon, I was all about WoW. And then my family came in, and I was busy hanging out with them until late on Sunday, and Sunday evening I got back to WoW.
So Monday morning I was way behind on my writing, and I didn't do a lot to get caught up. Tuesday was a holiday, and also server maintenance for WoW, so I couldn't spend the whole day on the game, but I never get any serious writing done at home. After that, though, I really kicked into gear. Four thousand words a day, regularly, and I had eight thousand-word days on Thursday the twentieth and Wednesday the twenty-sixth -- that last being the day I finished the book. That was pretty exciting.
I know something important happened that weekend after my birthday party (the weekend of the twenty-first), but I can't remember what for the life of me. Sometime in there, probably on the nineteenth, I took T-- to an art opening at the OKC Museum of Art. That was a lot of fun. Pretty sure I'm forgetting something else, though....
Anyway, then Thanksgiving came the week that I finished my book. Actually, I wrote "The End" over lunch on Wednesday the twenty-sixth, then three hours later left work, picked up T-- and AB at home, then got on the highway Arkansas-bound. We got to my parents' place a little after 10 p.m., then sat up talking until midnight.
The plan for Thursday was a late Thanksgiving dinner -- not my favorite tactic, but it gave us leisure to sleep in, and Mom and Dad took us out to IHOP for a big hearty breakfast. Then we got back home and Dad said he needed to clean up the leaves in the yard, but after that he was hoping to get some writing done. He really wanted to hit the 50,000-word goal by the end of the month, but he was still in his low thirties, and he was going to have family to entertain starting that afternoon.
So, more because I'm a good writing coach than because I'm a good son, I offered to take care of the leaves for him if he would promise to spend the time writing. Turned out they have a high-power leafblower (new since the last time I offered to help them with their leaves). It was a major convenience, but they have a major lawn. I spent a couple hours on the project, on got about 2/3 of the leaves taken care of (if you don't count the back yard). I got the most important bit done, though, and around the time my back started killing me, family was showing up, too, so I called it quits and nobody complained.
My dad's brother Perry and his whole family came to visit, making this year by far the most time we've ever spent with them. My older sister and her family was in town, too. They came by for supper, hung around late, then went back to his parents' place for the night.
Friday Mom and T-- went out shopping some. I played WoW, and Dad worked on his book. We all went out to dinner Friday night, and then I watched AB until her bedtime so T-- could do some scrapbooking with Mom. After that, of course, I WoWed.
Saturday we headed home, right after a lunch at On the Border. It's a brutally long drive, and T-- spent a couple hours of it napping, but I passed the time working on a programming project in my head, and it went pretty well. When T-- was awake, we talked about my book, which she'd finished reading just a day after I finished writing it. Egotistically, my books are easily my favorite topic of conversation, so that was fun for me.
Then we got in late enough, exhausted enough, that we just went home, foregoing standing plans to watch the Beldam game with K-- and N--, and the rest of N--'s family who was visiting for the holidays. Turns out they had some drama of their own, but even without that we would have bailed. The game was amazing, though. Dallas won on Thursday, the Sooners won on Saturday, and they got their shot at the National Championship when the polls came out on Sunday. It was a good weekend, footballwise.
Well, all around, really. I played a lot of WoW, spent some fun time with family, and finished a novel all in that last week of November. I didn't have anything to complain about.
Oh! And then I was up Sunday night, playing WoW and trying to bully myself into going to bed because I had work tomorrow, late in the evening when I got a call from Dad to let me know he'd hit the mark. 50,000 words and then some. His book wasn't done, but that's not part of the rules. He made 52k within the 30-day span, and he's pretty confident that, just like last year, he'll have his book done sometime around mid-December.
Awesome. I'm so proud of him.
This week I've been back to work, and that's a drag. I'm also feeling some of the letdown of being done with the novel, and not in a good way. We did have some drama come up with our Tulsa house during that last week of November, and that's pretty stressful, and work remains demanding. So I'm not sleeping great, and I've been feeling pretty out-of-it, but I'm sure that's all swift-passing problems. Overall, life is good.
And, hey, tomorrow's Friday, with the promise of a whole weekend of WoWing afterward. How could I not be glad of that?
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Monday, December 1, 2008
National Novel Writing Month 2008
I finished Gods Tomorrow last Wednesday afternoon. It came in at 60,080 words, or about 240 pages.I've done a read-through, and T-- and Toby have both read it as I was writing it, and it seems to be good. I've got some little changes to make in the first rewrite (and a couple big changes, in the last chapter), and I hope to get that done this week.
All in all, though, I'm excited about how it went. Early October, I wasn't at all sure I would even participate this year, and then this book just came together. It was a new idea for me, with a brand new setting and a mix of genres I'd never written for before. I'm amazed it came out as well as it did.
Thanks for all the support, from everyone, as I worked on it. Particularly, thanks for letting me talk about it all month.
If you're interested in reading it, drop me an email. I'll be glad to hook you up.
I also intend to resume regular journal entries as soon as possible.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Gods Tomorrow
Somebody made a news article about the backstory in my NaNoWriMo book:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117082425.htm
I'm at 45,000 words now, or about 180 pages. I'm aiming for 60,000, but the official NaNoWriMo goal is only 50,000. I should easily hit that before we head to Little Rock for Thanksgiving.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117082425.htm
I'm at 45,000 words now, or about 180 pages. I'm aiming for 60,000, but the official NaNoWriMo goal is only 50,000. I should easily hit that before we head to Little Rock for Thanksgiving.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Journal Entry: October 31, 2008
Happy Hallowe'en!
That's right, I used the apostrophe. Deal!
And, jeez, E-- sure got caught up on her blog, huh? Wow.
Yes, I'm putting off journaling. It's been a rough week. I'm still sick. Managed to have a decent evening last night, despite, by staying home and playing computer games all night. T-- made up some steaks before she took AB trick-or-treating at OC. D-- came over and we played WoW until 10:30. Any other details I could give, you don't want.
I did spend a lot of yesterday getting ready for National Novel Writing Month. I start writing tomorrow, and it's everything I can do to make myself wait until then. Don't expect journal entries next month (aside from the occasional gloat or lamentation over my word count). Like last year, I'm not even going to try to keep up daily posts.
I'm doing a Law and Order-style murder mystery set in a utopian future where ubiquitous databases are replacing human religion. Should be good.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
That's right, I used the apostrophe. Deal!
And, jeez, E-- sure got caught up on her blog, huh? Wow.
Yes, I'm putting off journaling. It's been a rough week. I'm still sick. Managed to have a decent evening last night, despite, by staying home and playing computer games all night. T-- made up some steaks before she took AB trick-or-treating at OC. D-- came over and we played WoW until 10:30. Any other details I could give, you don't want.
I did spend a lot of yesterday getting ready for National Novel Writing Month. I start writing tomorrow, and it's everything I can do to make myself wait until then. Don't expect journal entries next month (aside from the occasional gloat or lamentation over my word count). Like last year, I'm not even going to try to keep up daily posts.
I'm doing a Law and Order-style murder mystery set in a utopian future where ubiquitous databases are replacing human religion. Should be good.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Journal Entry: October 30, 2008
So, yeah, yesterday I ended up sick. Unpleasantly so.
Still, we had tickets to go see the Oklahoma City Thunder opener. B-- and D-- showed up at my place a little after 5:00, and then T-- (who had gone to Edmond to drop off AB at my sister's for babysitting) picked up N-- and the five of us drove downtown together. (K-- would join us later, but he had to work late.)
We had dinner at Sonic in Bricktown, then walked across to the Ford Center. The crowd was huge, the lines were long, and when we finally got inside the arena area, it was packed. The basketball court looked tiny in the center of the crowd.
It was a real party atmosphere. In case you don't know, the big deal is that the Thunder represent the first Big League sports franchise to come permanently to Oklahoma. We, as a city, have invested heavily in the team, and it's seen by many as an opportunity to dramatically improve Oklahoma City's standing on the national stage. Of course, if the team fails, it'll be a major PR setback. But we're not focusing on that.
Anyway, I've never been much of a basketball fan (it ranks somewhere between golf and baseball on my watchability scale), but I'm a big fan of my hometown and, hey, we got a good group of people to go see it. Worst-case, I was still spending an evening with most of my closest friends.
And that pretty much sums up the evening. Watching it in person was a lot more fun than watching the same game on TV, because of the atmosphere. Everyone was psyched. We lost. That was a disappointment. And I really recommend that you take every precaution to make sure you never get sick in a Ford Center men's room. But otherwise, the evening was pretty awesome.
We got home around 10:00, and T-- went back to Edmond to pick up AB. I took care of a couple things around the house, then I crashed.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Still, we had tickets to go see the Oklahoma City Thunder opener. B-- and D-- showed up at my place a little after 5:00, and then T-- (who had gone to Edmond to drop off AB at my sister's for babysitting) picked up N-- and the five of us drove downtown together. (K-- would join us later, but he had to work late.)
We had dinner at Sonic in Bricktown, then walked across to the Ford Center. The crowd was huge, the lines were long, and when we finally got inside the arena area, it was packed. The basketball court looked tiny in the center of the crowd.
It was a real party atmosphere. In case you don't know, the big deal is that the Thunder represent the first Big League sports franchise to come permanently to Oklahoma. We, as a city, have invested heavily in the team, and it's seen by many as an opportunity to dramatically improve Oklahoma City's standing on the national stage. Of course, if the team fails, it'll be a major PR setback. But we're not focusing on that.
Anyway, I've never been much of a basketball fan (it ranks somewhere between golf and baseball on my watchability scale), but I'm a big fan of my hometown and, hey, we got a good group of people to go see it. Worst-case, I was still spending an evening with most of my closest friends.
And that pretty much sums up the evening. Watching it in person was a lot more fun than watching the same game on TV, because of the atmosphere. Everyone was psyched. We lost. That was a disappointment. And I really recommend that you take every precaution to make sure you never get sick in a Ford Center men's room. But otherwise, the evening was pretty awesome.
We got home around 10:00, and T-- went back to Edmond to pick up AB. I took care of a couple things around the house, then I crashed.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Journal Entry: October 29, 2008
I guess I failed to post yesterday. No big deal.
Monday night, I came home from work and played some WoW. Then T-- made chicken and pasta for dinner, and we watched Heroes and Chuck (both of which were pretty good).
Before T-- fell asleep Monday night, she was complaining that her stomach hurt. By yesterday morning, she was good and sick. I called work and told them I'd be late coming in, and I took care of AB for the morning. We watched Sesame Street and read books and played with her Legos. I also got some chores taken care of.
Then T-- got up around 11:00 and I headed to work. It was a relatively quiet afternoon, although I finished up a project that had been nagging at me for a while, so that was a plus.
I got home and spent some time vegging on the couch and watching TV while T-- played with AB, then I finally went back to my office and played WoW for most of the evening. I finished getting caught up on Big Bang Theory, and have decided it would be a pretty awesome geek sitcom if they would just lay off the laugh track. Half of the jokes (as you would expect from any real nerd medium) are derisive snickers at best, and the canned explosive laughter messes that up altogether.
Before I fell asleep last night, I was complaining that my stomach hurt. By this morning, I still wasn't anything more definite than woozy. I've felt unpleasant all day, but nothing violent so far. Wish me luck.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Monday night, I came home from work and played some WoW. Then T-- made chicken and pasta for dinner, and we watched Heroes and Chuck (both of which were pretty good).
Before T-- fell asleep Monday night, she was complaining that her stomach hurt. By yesterday morning, she was good and sick. I called work and told them I'd be late coming in, and I took care of AB for the morning. We watched Sesame Street and read books and played with her Legos. I also got some chores taken care of.
Then T-- got up around 11:00 and I headed to work. It was a relatively quiet afternoon, although I finished up a project that had been nagging at me for a while, so that was a plus.
I got home and spent some time vegging on the couch and watching TV while T-- played with AB, then I finally went back to my office and played WoW for most of the evening. I finished getting caught up on Big Bang Theory, and have decided it would be a pretty awesome geek sitcom if they would just lay off the laugh track. Half of the jokes (as you would expect from any real nerd medium) are derisive snickers at best, and the canned explosive laughter messes that up altogether.
Before I fell asleep last night, I was complaining that my stomach hurt. By this morning, I still wasn't anything more definite than woozy. I've felt unpleasant all day, but nothing violent so far. Wish me luck.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Journal Entry: October 27, 2008
Thursday night, T-- invited D-- and K-- over for chilidogs for dinner, then we spent the evening playing Rock Band. Toby came over, and we introduced him to the game, then he showed me the game database module he'd developed (at my request) so that the games we work on in the future will have easy save and load support, and relatively easy multiplayer capability. Awesome!
He didn't leave until after eleven. It was a fun evening.
Friday I got off work an hour early, and got home to find Julie and Carlos there! We spent a couple hours talking about their honeymoon trip, then went out to Poblano's for dinner, then came back and watched SNL for a bit. Then, by request, we loaded up Rock Band which they had never played before. Carlos is a real musician, and both of them have been fascinated by everything they've heard about the game, but this was their first chance to check it out.
They loved it. They were excited about the song selection (usually about songs I'd never heard of before I played the game), and they did amazing. Mostly Julie sang, and Carlos was rocking on drums and guitar in no time. I think he did one song on Easy on the guitar, then switched straight to Hard and finished above 90% pretty much every track. He had a little more difficulty with the drums, but mainly because he was wanting to improv.
It was fun to watch them play. They left around 10:30 and I thought about playing some WoW, but decided I didn't want to be up that late, so I just went to bed.
Saturday morning T-- and I took AB to the Village Fun Fair at the park just across Hefner. My little sister brought her girls, too. There were giant inflateable rides -- mainly bouncey castles and slides -- and a petting zoo that was apparently pretty awesome. I slipped away while AB was still in the bouncey castle so I could pick up D-- and be at K-- and N--'s in time to watch the OU game.
We didn't even finish the game before I had to head home to watch AB so T-- could go to her crpo at the church. K-- and D-- came over to hang out for the evening. Mostly K-- played Rock Band and D-- played WoW while I tried to keep AB from bothering them. We read her books, played with the Legos, and discovered that she knows how to sneak into my office and close the door behind her, so no one knows where she is.
Once we tracked her down, I left the guys in charge of her and ran up to Falcone's for a pizza. We had two huge slices each, and AB finished off most of one. She loved it. After dinner, N-- came back from the crop to pick up K--, and while she was there AB was showing off for her, running short sprints and spinning as fast as she could.
K-- and N-- left right around AB's bedtime, so I changed her into her pajamas, put her in bed, and headed back out to the living room to watch a movie D-- had brought over. About ten miutes later, AB started screaming. Usually that means she's thrown her pacifier away and wants it back, so I didn't think much of it when I went to her room to check on her.
I found her standing up at the foot of her bed. I said, "And what's wrong with you?" I was already scanning the floor for her pacifier.
She pointed emphatically and said, "That!" And there was her pacifier, right in the middle of her bed, buried under a humongous pile of puke.
Yuck.
So I got her clothes off and bathed her while D-- heroically cleaned up her room. It took a little over an hour, but by the time I had her out of bed, AB was obviously feeling better. I put her in the tub and she immediately started playing with her toys, happy as could be. D-- and I took a little longer to get over the trauma of it.
Anyway, we got her to bed a little bit before 10:00, then D-- and I finished the movie before T-- got home. Played some WoW, went to bed.
Sunday morning was church, then we invited D-- and K-- and N-- to pick up lunches (D-- chose Wendy's and the rest of us McDonalds) and come watch the Cowboys game at our place. It was nothing like a trouncing, but the Cowboys eked out a win and there may be some hope for their season, still. Right now they're battling for a wild card, though, which no one would have guessed at the start of the season.
After the Cowboys game we watched some SNL, then T-- took AB to a Trunk or Treat at a church up in Edmond, and D-- and I played WoW. It was a fairly quiet Sunday, to end a pretty busy weekend.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
He didn't leave until after eleven. It was a fun evening.
Friday I got off work an hour early, and got home to find Julie and Carlos there! We spent a couple hours talking about their honeymoon trip, then went out to Poblano's for dinner, then came back and watched SNL for a bit. Then, by request, we loaded up Rock Band which they had never played before. Carlos is a real musician, and both of them have been fascinated by everything they've heard about the game, but this was their first chance to check it out.
They loved it. They were excited about the song selection (usually about songs I'd never heard of before I played the game), and they did amazing. Mostly Julie sang, and Carlos was rocking on drums and guitar in no time. I think he did one song on Easy on the guitar, then switched straight to Hard and finished above 90% pretty much every track. He had a little more difficulty with the drums, but mainly because he was wanting to improv.
It was fun to watch them play. They left around 10:30 and I thought about playing some WoW, but decided I didn't want to be up that late, so I just went to bed.
Saturday morning T-- and I took AB to the Village Fun Fair at the park just across Hefner. My little sister brought her girls, too. There were giant inflateable rides -- mainly bouncey castles and slides -- and a petting zoo that was apparently pretty awesome. I slipped away while AB was still in the bouncey castle so I could pick up D-- and be at K-- and N--'s in time to watch the OU game.
We didn't even finish the game before I had to head home to watch AB so T-- could go to her crpo at the church. K-- and D-- came over to hang out for the evening. Mostly K-- played Rock Band and D-- played WoW while I tried to keep AB from bothering them. We read her books, played with the Legos, and discovered that she knows how to sneak into my office and close the door behind her, so no one knows where she is.
Once we tracked her down, I left the guys in charge of her and ran up to Falcone's for a pizza. We had two huge slices each, and AB finished off most of one. She loved it. After dinner, N-- came back from the crop to pick up K--, and while she was there AB was showing off for her, running short sprints and spinning as fast as she could.
K-- and N-- left right around AB's bedtime, so I changed her into her pajamas, put her in bed, and headed back out to the living room to watch a movie D-- had brought over. About ten miutes later, AB started screaming. Usually that means she's thrown her pacifier away and wants it back, so I didn't think much of it when I went to her room to check on her.
I found her standing up at the foot of her bed. I said, "And what's wrong with you?" I was already scanning the floor for her pacifier.
She pointed emphatically and said, "That!" And there was her pacifier, right in the middle of her bed, buried under a humongous pile of puke.
Yuck.
So I got her clothes off and bathed her while D-- heroically cleaned up her room. It took a little over an hour, but by the time I had her out of bed, AB was obviously feeling better. I put her in the tub and she immediately started playing with her toys, happy as could be. D-- and I took a little longer to get over the trauma of it.
Anyway, we got her to bed a little bit before 10:00, then D-- and I finished the movie before T-- got home. Played some WoW, went to bed.
Sunday morning was church, then we invited D-- and K-- and N-- to pick up lunches (D-- chose Wendy's and the rest of us McDonalds) and come watch the Cowboys game at our place. It was nothing like a trouncing, but the Cowboys eked out a win and there may be some hope for their season, still. Right now they're battling for a wild card, though, which no one would have guessed at the start of the season.
After the Cowboys game we watched some SNL, then T-- took AB to a Trunk or Treat at a church up in Edmond, and D-- and I played WoW. It was a fairly quiet Sunday, to end a pretty busy weekend.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Journal Entry: October 23, 2008
Tuesday night I didn't do anything interesting. I signed some paperwork to get landlord's insurance on our house in Tulsa, I had dinner with T-- and AB, and I played some WoW. N-- headed to Tulsa for a medical conference, but that only impacted me obliquely (and not until last night).
Last night we met K-- and D-- for dinner at Jersey Mike's. Afterward, T-- took AB to church and the guys came over to play some Rock Band. We played until 9:45, when I finally had to call it quits. Then I logged into WoW to run a couple quests, and headed to bed shortly after 10.
I had some absolutely bizarre dreams last night, too, but nothing really worth retelling.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Last night we met K-- and D-- for dinner at Jersey Mike's. Afterward, T-- took AB to church and the guys came over to play some Rock Band. We played until 9:45, when I finally had to call it quits. Then I logged into WoW to run a couple quests, and headed to bed shortly after 10.
I had some absolutely bizarre dreams last night, too, but nothing really worth retelling.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Journal Entry: October 21, 2008
T-- made steaks for dinner last night. D-- came over in time to have one, then we played WoW for about an hour and a half. Afterward, he went home and T-- and I watched Heroes. My whole night.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Journal Entry: October 20, 2008
Well, the first Pogue Family Writer's Conference is come and gone.
My dad, my sisters and I were the participants (thus the name). A little over a month ago, we each submitted an original novel for everyone else to read. My task was made a little bit easier because, as I've chronicled here, I spent most of the last six months reading and reviewing their submissions. The versions they submitted in September were generally rewrites of the ones I marked up back in May, or whatever, but close enough that I'd already done all the heavy lifting.
I hadn't actually gotten much in return, though, so I picked my least-revised and least-reviewed novel, King Jason's War (which only T-- had read, to date), and sent that one off to finally get some feedback on it.
Friday morning I had to come in for work, but I had the afternoon of my RDO off. Before I left town, I met with T-- and her parents for lunch at Steve's Rib up by K-- and N--'s house. It was fantastic.
Then I picked my little sister up right around 1:00, and we headed to Branson. She actually drove for the first leg of the trip, and I took over when we stopped in Tulsa. I'd planned to get a lot of reading done on the way, but I managed to get most of it taken care of on Wednesday and Thursday, so we spent more of the trip talking than reading.
I'd also expected it to be a 6-hour drive, and it came in right at 5, so that was a pleasant surprise. We got to the cabin in Forsythe, just outside Branson, around 6:20 Friday evening. My older sister was already there waiting for us, and she informed us Mom and Dad were about an hour out.
That gave us time to bring in all our stuff, pick our rooms in the cabin, and not call our families to let them know we'd made it safe. That last because it turned out there was no cell phone reception for any of us, anywhere near the cabin. Joy. Also, contrary to our expectations, there was no internet connection. For three days. It was like a preview of hell (in that regard, anyway).
I mean, I'm just assuming there's no internet connection in hell. I can't actually quote scripture or verse in support of that, but it seems logical....
As soon as Mom and Dad were moved into the cabin, Mom started putting together a chips-and-dip spread for her hungry family, while the rest of us all started talking about the materials we'd brought for the weekend. Heather kept saying, "No, wait, we're not talking about that until tomorrow!" (she had a whole agenda scheduled for Saturday), but she needn't have bothered.
Saturday morning I woke up last, around 9:30, and Mom greeted me with a hot ham and swiss breakfast croissant, which was damn awesome. Then I sat down at the big conference table and joined in the conversation critiqueing Dad's book. We told him to turn it into two books (that was mostly my suggestion, but the girls got on board with it pretty much right away). Then we told him how, and I think by the end of the conversation he was actually okay with the idea. It took about an hour to get to that point, though, which had Heather pretty concerned, because her agenda only called for 90 minutes total to get through all of our books.
We segued to my little sister's book then, and spent an hour and a half on that. We only quit because we had made arrangements to meet Mom in town for lunch, so we had to break up the discussion. We took a moment partway through that critique, though, and all agreed that really this was the main thing we'd hoped to get out of the weekend, so we took all the other discussion topics for the weekend, labeled them "As Time Becomes Available" and made critiques the sole agenda for the rest of the day.
We had a fifteen minutes drive to lunch, and I spent it making everyone name favorite aspects of the others' books, because most of the two-and-a-half hours of critiques had been, "It's a good book, but here's the parts I didn't like, and how you can improve them." Generally the good stuff just works, and keeps you reading, so you don't make note of it. I asked everyone to name a favorite scene in Dad's book or a favorite character in Heather's, stuff like that. I think that helped get everyone into a little bit better frame of mind for the rest of the day.
Anyway, lunch was at a steak place, and we sort of took a break from the writing talk. The girls talked about Mom's morning shopping trip (and, I'm sure, other things, but I didn't really hear much of it), and Dad and I talked about the economic crisis in a historical context, and how best to profit off of it. Oh, and OU football.
Then we drove back to the house, and Heather and I discussed my book, but the other two hadn't really had a chance to read it all the way through. Dad spent the time writing and my little sister spent the time reading. Still, the feedback I got from Heather was amazing, and really encouraging.
We probably spent an hour on that, even though it was just the one reviewer, and then we turned to Heather's book and all of us had read that one, so it was another shouting match (in a good way, I mean). My little sister followed that up with a brief exercise she'd concocted, in which we explored the history and background of characters within our stories -- first a major one and then a minor one. While the former was probably the more useful, we all had a lot more fun with the latter.
Dinner finally interrupted us. Mom made some garlic chicken, with potatoes on the side and bruscetta as an appetizer -- it was all good. While we ate, we went through another of the postponed activities, with everyone discussing two of his or her favorite story ideas. We weighed in with our opinions of them, and I think with the feedback everyone was pretty much able to pick one of those stories to focus on for NaNoWriMo this year.
Then Heather had an activity for us that turned out more like a game. We each wrote down a one-line story idea for each of the other three. The example she gave (and her story idea for Dad) was "A girl who sees doors where there are no doors." The one she gave me was, "Trees take over the world and solve global warming in their own way." Then we were each supposed to flesh out the three ideas we were given, building a one-paragraph synopsis of a book. Afterward we read them all out loud, with all the entertainment value of a game of Balderdash.
That was our last event for the weekend. Afterward we settled into separate conversations, many of them follow-ups on earlier critiques. Dad and I spent a while working out the plot arc of his upcoming novel, which had him stumped somewhere around the middle. It was that sort of thing.
Then around 11:00 everyone finally got to bed. I meant to get up early on Sunday, but didn't quite manage what I'd hoped for. Still, after all the goodbyes and the final conversations, and packing the car and all, we got out around 10:00. Once again we stopped in Tulsa, but that was only a brief stop, and I dropped my little sister off at her place right at 3:00. We spent the whole drive talking, mostly about Social Constructionism (so, yeah, I had a good time).
Then I got home and watched the Cowboys game on my TiVo, and spent the rest of the evening in a deep melancholy. Ugh.
D-- came over, and we had leftover pizza for dinner, and he and I spent most of the evening playing WoW. T-- eventually joined us in the office, and we watched some more Get Smart, and far too soon it was an hour past my bedtime. I sent D-- home, and went to bed around 11:00.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
My dad, my sisters and I were the participants (thus the name). A little over a month ago, we each submitted an original novel for everyone else to read. My task was made a little bit easier because, as I've chronicled here, I spent most of the last six months reading and reviewing their submissions. The versions they submitted in September were generally rewrites of the ones I marked up back in May, or whatever, but close enough that I'd already done all the heavy lifting.
I hadn't actually gotten much in return, though, so I picked my least-revised and least-reviewed novel, King Jason's War (which only T-- had read, to date), and sent that one off to finally get some feedback on it.
Friday morning I had to come in for work, but I had the afternoon of my RDO off. Before I left town, I met with T-- and her parents for lunch at Steve's Rib up by K-- and N--'s house. It was fantastic.
Then I picked my little sister up right around 1:00, and we headed to Branson. She actually drove for the first leg of the trip, and I took over when we stopped in Tulsa. I'd planned to get a lot of reading done on the way, but I managed to get most of it taken care of on Wednesday and Thursday, so we spent more of the trip talking than reading.
I'd also expected it to be a 6-hour drive, and it came in right at 5, so that was a pleasant surprise. We got to the cabin in Forsythe, just outside Branson, around 6:20 Friday evening. My older sister was already there waiting for us, and she informed us Mom and Dad were about an hour out.
That gave us time to bring in all our stuff, pick our rooms in the cabin, and not call our families to let them know we'd made it safe. That last because it turned out there was no cell phone reception for any of us, anywhere near the cabin. Joy. Also, contrary to our expectations, there was no internet connection. For three days. It was like a preview of hell (in that regard, anyway).
I mean, I'm just assuming there's no internet connection in hell. I can't actually quote scripture or verse in support of that, but it seems logical....
As soon as Mom and Dad were moved into the cabin, Mom started putting together a chips-and-dip spread for her hungry family, while the rest of us all started talking about the materials we'd brought for the weekend. Heather kept saying, "No, wait, we're not talking about that until tomorrow!" (she had a whole agenda scheduled for Saturday), but she needn't have bothered.
Saturday morning I woke up last, around 9:30, and Mom greeted me with a hot ham and swiss breakfast croissant, which was damn awesome. Then I sat down at the big conference table and joined in the conversation critiqueing Dad's book. We told him to turn it into two books (that was mostly my suggestion, but the girls got on board with it pretty much right away). Then we told him how, and I think by the end of the conversation he was actually okay with the idea. It took about an hour to get to that point, though, which had Heather pretty concerned, because her agenda only called for 90 minutes total to get through all of our books.
We segued to my little sister's book then, and spent an hour and a half on that. We only quit because we had made arrangements to meet Mom in town for lunch, so we had to break up the discussion. We took a moment partway through that critique, though, and all agreed that really this was the main thing we'd hoped to get out of the weekend, so we took all the other discussion topics for the weekend, labeled them "As Time Becomes Available" and made critiques the sole agenda for the rest of the day.
We had a fifteen minutes drive to lunch, and I spent it making everyone name favorite aspects of the others' books, because most of the two-and-a-half hours of critiques had been, "It's a good book, but here's the parts I didn't like, and how you can improve them." Generally the good stuff just works, and keeps you reading, so you don't make note of it. I asked everyone to name a favorite scene in Dad's book or a favorite character in Heather's, stuff like that. I think that helped get everyone into a little bit better frame of mind for the rest of the day.
Anyway, lunch was at a steak place, and we sort of took a break from the writing talk. The girls talked about Mom's morning shopping trip (and, I'm sure, other things, but I didn't really hear much of it), and Dad and I talked about the economic crisis in a historical context, and how best to profit off of it. Oh, and OU football.
Then we drove back to the house, and Heather and I discussed my book, but the other two hadn't really had a chance to read it all the way through. Dad spent the time writing and my little sister spent the time reading. Still, the feedback I got from Heather was amazing, and really encouraging.
We probably spent an hour on that, even though it was just the one reviewer, and then we turned to Heather's book and all of us had read that one, so it was another shouting match (in a good way, I mean). My little sister followed that up with a brief exercise she'd concocted, in which we explored the history and background of characters within our stories -- first a major one and then a minor one. While the former was probably the more useful, we all had a lot more fun with the latter.
Dinner finally interrupted us. Mom made some garlic chicken, with potatoes on the side and bruscetta as an appetizer -- it was all good. While we ate, we went through another of the postponed activities, with everyone discussing two of his or her favorite story ideas. We weighed in with our opinions of them, and I think with the feedback everyone was pretty much able to pick one of those stories to focus on for NaNoWriMo this year.
Then Heather had an activity for us that turned out more like a game. We each wrote down a one-line story idea for each of the other three. The example she gave (and her story idea for Dad) was "A girl who sees doors where there are no doors." The one she gave me was, "Trees take over the world and solve global warming in their own way." Then we were each supposed to flesh out the three ideas we were given, building a one-paragraph synopsis of a book. Afterward we read them all out loud, with all the entertainment value of a game of Balderdash.
That was our last event for the weekend. Afterward we settled into separate conversations, many of them follow-ups on earlier critiques. Dad and I spent a while working out the plot arc of his upcoming novel, which had him stumped somewhere around the middle. It was that sort of thing.
Then around 11:00 everyone finally got to bed. I meant to get up early on Sunday, but didn't quite manage what I'd hoped for. Still, after all the goodbyes and the final conversations, and packing the car and all, we got out around 10:00. Once again we stopped in Tulsa, but that was only a brief stop, and I dropped my little sister off at her place right at 3:00. We spent the whole drive talking, mostly about Social Constructionism (so, yeah, I had a good time).
Then I got home and watched the Cowboys game on my TiVo, and spent the rest of the evening in a deep melancholy. Ugh.
D-- came over, and we had leftover pizza for dinner, and he and I spent most of the evening playing WoW. T-- eventually joined us in the office, and we watched some more Get Smart, and far too soon it was an hour past my bedtime. I sent D-- home, and went to bed around 11:00.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Journal Entry: October 17, 2008
Last night we met K-- and N-- for dinner at Freddy's, then they came over and watched three episodes of How I Met Your Mother with us. It was a lot of fun, especially after skipping our regular Wednesday night dinner, this week.
They left around 9:00, and T-- and I went back to the office. I made a new character in WoW, and ran around doing not much of anything, and we watched Get Smart while T-- worked on scrapbooking.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
They left around 9:00, and T-- and I went back to the office. I made a new character in WoW, and ran around doing not much of anything, and we watched Get Smart while T-- worked on scrapbooking.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Journal Entry: October 16, 2008
I can only remember one book ever making me cry (err...with narrative emotion, that is, not terrible prose). The Stand has come really close twice now, though, and I haven't even gotten into the actual story yet.
Last night after work T-- made up some steak and pasta for dinner that was phenomenal. Then she took AB to church and I laid down for a nap that never happened, then finally gave up and went to the office to work on my reading list. I also started installing WoW, because frankly I need something to play and Spore didn't really stick (although, pending five or six expansions it might be pretty cool).
Anyway, Wrath of the Lich King, the second WoW expansion, rolls out November 13, so I'll probably go ahead and play a character up to 80, maybe try out the Death Knight. I don't think I'll ever get back into it seriously, but I'll probably play for a few months to check out all the new stuff. It's really not hard to get your money's worth out of an MMO.
I've also been in talks with Toby about doing some more game programming, and I'm secretly obsessing about a new story idea I've come up with, but I'm nowhere close to putting pen to paper on that one. I finished Dad's novel last night, for the thing this weekend, and I'll be able to finish Heather's today, because it's a much shorter one.
After church last night, T-- joined me in the office and we watched Get Smart while I typed up my reading notes and finished installing the game. Then somehow it was already 11:30 -- that one took me by surprise -- so I headed to bed, dreading the morning's alarm. And rightly so, but at least it was Thursday, so I got to do BWW for lunch today. I almost cried in the middle of a crowded restaurant.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Last night after work T-- made up some steak and pasta for dinner that was phenomenal. Then she took AB to church and I laid down for a nap that never happened, then finally gave up and went to the office to work on my reading list. I also started installing WoW, because frankly I need something to play and Spore didn't really stick (although, pending five or six expansions it might be pretty cool).
Anyway, Wrath of the Lich King, the second WoW expansion, rolls out November 13, so I'll probably go ahead and play a character up to 80, maybe try out the Death Knight. I don't think I'll ever get back into it seriously, but I'll probably play for a few months to check out all the new stuff. It's really not hard to get your money's worth out of an MMO.
I've also been in talks with Toby about doing some more game programming, and I'm secretly obsessing about a new story idea I've come up with, but I'm nowhere close to putting pen to paper on that one. I finished Dad's novel last night, for the thing this weekend, and I'll be able to finish Heather's today, because it's a much shorter one.
After church last night, T-- joined me in the office and we watched Get Smart while I typed up my reading notes and finished installing the game. Then somehow it was already 11:30 -- that one took me by surprise -- so I headed to bed, dreading the morning's alarm. And rightly so, but at least it was Thursday, so I got to do BWW for lunch today. I almost cried in the middle of a crowded restaurant.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Journal Entry: October 15, 2008
So, we have the Pogue Family Writer's Conference this weekend, and as part of the project, everyone submitted a manuscript that everyone else is supposed to read (before the conference) and critique on Saturday morning.
I think we all feel pretty far behind on the reading part. I read all three books earlier this year, as part of a markup, but I haven't read the rewrites, so I feel like I should go back through them. I also just realized last weekend that the book I submitted is one I haven't looked at in over a year, so it's one I really need to reread in order to get much value out of the feedback I'll be getting. So my week is pretty much booked solid, as far as personal time goes.
In spite of that, when I got home from work yesterday I took a nap. I haven't been feeling well lately. I don't know if it's something physical or psychological, but either way it's got me down. I woke up about 6:30, had dinner with T--, and then watched AB while T-- went to the grocery store. Afterward, we put AB to bed and then I locked myself in my office to spend the rest of the night reading Dad's book.
I didn't finish it, which puts me in a pretty tight spot for the rest of the night. Tonight T-- will be taking AB to church, and tomorrow night they're going to a church picnic, and I plan to skip both so that'll give me a little extra reading time. I'm not totally confident it'll be enough, though.
Anyway, that was my evening, and probably will be going forward.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
I think we all feel pretty far behind on the reading part. I read all three books earlier this year, as part of a markup, but I haven't read the rewrites, so I feel like I should go back through them. I also just realized last weekend that the book I submitted is one I haven't looked at in over a year, so it's one I really need to reread in order to get much value out of the feedback I'll be getting. So my week is pretty much booked solid, as far as personal time goes.
In spite of that, when I got home from work yesterday I took a nap. I haven't been feeling well lately. I don't know if it's something physical or psychological, but either way it's got me down. I woke up about 6:30, had dinner with T--, and then watched AB while T-- went to the grocery store. Afterward, we put AB to bed and then I locked myself in my office to spend the rest of the night reading Dad's book.
I didn't finish it, which puts me in a pretty tight spot for the rest of the night. Tonight T-- will be taking AB to church, and tomorrow night they're going to a church picnic, and I plan to skip both so that'll give me a little extra reading time. I'm not totally confident it'll be enough, though.
Anyway, that was my evening, and probably will be going forward.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Journal Entry: October 14, 2008
Friday was my Regular Day Off, and yesterday was Columbus Day (which, for some reason, Federal employees get as a holiday). I was home both days, and I was busy, so here's a long catch-up post for you.
Thursday night I went down to Norman to hang out with Toby and do some programming. He'd actually called me while I was driving up to Julie's wedding the weekend before to ask if I was free, and Thursday night was the earliest we could actually manage.
He's been working on a game all by his lonesome, and he took the opportunity to show me what he'd managed. I was impressed. I may join in, after the family writer's conference this weekend, if I can find a spare minute here or there. On the other hand, I might just renew my own solo programming project, because it's been nagging at me lately.
We wrapped up the programming talk around 9:30, and I realized with some surprise that even with the forty-five minute drive home, I was going to be getting in at a reasonable hour. So I suggested we watch an episode of a show he'd recently mentioned (Venture Brothers) and which I had checked out a year earlier but mostly skipped over. It was hilarious, so we watched three. Then we sat in the living room talking for another hour, and it was 11:40 when I finally left the house.
I was exhausted on the drive home, and dreading my early morning on Friday, and honestly not paying a ton of attention. I missed the exit that would have taken me west to Hefner Parkway, but I was able to just stick with Broadway Extension north to Hefner, and take that west to our house.
About a mile away from home, I drifted into the right lane anticipating my turn, then noticed as I did so that a cop had someone pulled over in that lane up ahead, so I drifted back into the left lane -- no hurry. A moment later, blue and red lights flashed in my rearview.
I pulled over, desperately hoping this guy wanted to go assist the stop up ahead, but no such luck. This eighteen-year-old walks up to my window and asks if I know why he pulled me over, and I perfectly honestly answered him, "No." He said I'd changed lanes without signaling (and at that late hour, I know that that had probably said to them, "drunk driver," especially since I immediately changed lanes back -- must have looked exactly like swerving).
So, okay, I caught a bad break. I wasn't driving drunk -- hadn't had a drink in a week -- so no big deal. Nobody's going to write me an actual ticket for failing to signal. Then I realize this fresh-faced kid has a superior riding along for training, and I realize it's probably going to happen after all. Second time in as many years I get pulled over by a cop in training. Last time I got stuck with a "10 miles or less over the speed limit" for driving 29 in a 25, and I have strictly observed the posted speed limit (no matter how stupid) ever since.
Anyway, by some strange turn of events I had an expired insurance card (another offense that caught me by surprise), and he generously wrote me a ticket on that instead of the lane change (which would have been a $172 fine). All I had to do for the insurance ticket was show proof of insurance at the court house and it would be dismissed.
So, after a thirty-minute stop, he finally let me go, and I drove extra-careful the half mile left to my house. I dropped my keys and citation on the kitchen table, stumbled to my room, and fell into bed with a mumbled account of the event to T-- (who was too asleep to care). It was after 1:30 by then.
Then, just as I was about to drift off to sleep, I hear a thunderous pounding on the front door, enough to send me sitting bolt upright. I said to T--, "Can you think of a single good reason for me to answer that?" I was thinking someone with a broken down car was looking for assistance, and I didn't want to open my house to a stranger at this time of night. I glanced out the window and saw a glowing tail light.
Then the doorbell rang, and I realized if I didn't answer the door, the bell would probably keep ringing until AB woke up screaming. Anyone who is willing to ring a doorbell at 1:30 in the morning is willing to do it repeatedly. About the same time, T-- was looking out the window and she said, "You know, I think that may be a cop car."
So I went to the front door, yanked it open, and found that same fresh-faced cop with an idiot grin on his face. He said, all embarrassed, "Y'know, I lied to you when I said your copy of the ticket was in the envelope. I forgot to give it to you." And he held it out to me, still grinning like this was the funniest thing in the world. At the end of the walk, by the corner of our garage, I saw his superior peeking around the corner, watching everything.
I took the slip, and closed the door. I turned the lock with a loud, "Thunk!" as my only sort of protest, and went back to bed. Ugh.
Then on Friday, even though it was my RDO, I went in for a few hours in the morning because of an irregularity with my timesheet (something to do with my travel hours the week before). Whatever. I got done around 11:00, but before that Toby called to tell me he had my laptop -- I had taken it in when I got to his house on Thursday, but never cracked the case, and forgot all about it.
So we met for lunch in Moore, at the Freddy's by the new Warren theater. We had a good lunch, then I headed home the same way I'd gone the night before, stopping this time at the Byron's to pick up some liquor for the evening's festivities.
Then I got home and spent a while negotiating with the State Farm website (and finally exchanging emails with my agent) to get a copy of my proof of insurance, so I could take care of the ticket. Even though it was a "Fix It" ticket, I had to take care of it within 48 hours or I'd have been stuck with $88 in court costs.
So I finally got the forms, printed them out, then drove downtown and found the courthouse, and by the time that was done it was 5-ish, so my day off was over and done. T-- was busy for the evening, taking AB to a pumpkin patch for pictures, so I had K-- and Jeff over for some Rock Band. We played with the music up loud until T-- got home around 9:00, then we turned it down to something reasonable and played on until after midnight.
Saturday morning we headed over to K-- and N--'s place at 11:00 for the OU/Texas game, grabbing some Taco Bell on the way. The game was fantastic. We lost, but the game was an incredible one. If I'd been able to believe the polls would treat OU fairly (which they did, by some miracle), I would have had a great time just watching a fierce contest. As it was, though, I was in a pretty bad mood to see the loss.
Then we spent the afternoon helping K-- and N-- rearrange the furniture in a couple rooms so they could set up a nursery. We accomplished a lot in a short time, and then N-- served us all some delicious chili by way of thanks.
T-- and I left right after supper, because AB was ready for bed. I was also expected Toby to come up and try out Rock Band, as we had arranged over lunch on Friday, but he had to cancel. That worked out okay, though, because on the drive home from K-- and N--'s, B-- called to ask if I wanted to come over and watch the guys from MST3K riff on 300. I called D-- to join me, and we went over to do that.
And, as I so often do at B--'s place, I drank heavily. The movie was hilarious, and we stayed up way, way too late afterward talking and enjoying each other's company. Then D-- drove me home, and I fell into bed around 3 in the morning. I didn't make it to church on Sunday.
I slept until noon, then took care of some chores during the early afternoon, and dedicated my later afternoon to watching a heartbreaking Cowboys game with a much more terrible aftermath than the OU loss. Romo is out for four weeks with a broken finger, and we've lost our (phenomenal) punter for the rest of the season. Also, our team looked terrible, so even without the injuries, it was a bad day.
We watched some Get Smart to lighten the mood, and played some Rock Band, and it was an okay evening.
Then, as I said, Monday was a holiday, so I had it off. I spent most of the day working on clerical chores in my office. T-- and I watched some Get Smart, and I watched some Venture Brothers, and I played Rock Band with T-- and tried to teach AB how to drum, and it was a day that kind of just faded past, but pleasantly.
Then in the evening D-- brought us some Mazzios for dinner, and we watched Chuck and How I Met Your Mother and Heroes, and then I got to bed early, because I was exhausted.
That's my long weekend. Apart from the football, it was a good one.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Thursday night I went down to Norman to hang out with Toby and do some programming. He'd actually called me while I was driving up to Julie's wedding the weekend before to ask if I was free, and Thursday night was the earliest we could actually manage.
He's been working on a game all by his lonesome, and he took the opportunity to show me what he'd managed. I was impressed. I may join in, after the family writer's conference this weekend, if I can find a spare minute here or there. On the other hand, I might just renew my own solo programming project, because it's been nagging at me lately.
We wrapped up the programming talk around 9:30, and I realized with some surprise that even with the forty-five minute drive home, I was going to be getting in at a reasonable hour. So I suggested we watch an episode of a show he'd recently mentioned (Venture Brothers) and which I had checked out a year earlier but mostly skipped over. It was hilarious, so we watched three. Then we sat in the living room talking for another hour, and it was 11:40 when I finally left the house.
I was exhausted on the drive home, and dreading my early morning on Friday, and honestly not paying a ton of attention. I missed the exit that would have taken me west to Hefner Parkway, but I was able to just stick with Broadway Extension north to Hefner, and take that west to our house.
About a mile away from home, I drifted into the right lane anticipating my turn, then noticed as I did so that a cop had someone pulled over in that lane up ahead, so I drifted back into the left lane -- no hurry. A moment later, blue and red lights flashed in my rearview.
I pulled over, desperately hoping this guy wanted to go assist the stop up ahead, but no such luck. This eighteen-year-old walks up to my window and asks if I know why he pulled me over, and I perfectly honestly answered him, "No." He said I'd changed lanes without signaling (and at that late hour, I know that that had probably said to them, "drunk driver," especially since I immediately changed lanes back -- must have looked exactly like swerving).
So, okay, I caught a bad break. I wasn't driving drunk -- hadn't had a drink in a week -- so no big deal. Nobody's going to write me an actual ticket for failing to signal. Then I realize this fresh-faced kid has a superior riding along for training, and I realize it's probably going to happen after all. Second time in as many years I get pulled over by a cop in training. Last time I got stuck with a "10 miles or less over the speed limit" for driving 29 in a 25, and I have strictly observed the posted speed limit (no matter how stupid) ever since.
Anyway, by some strange turn of events I had an expired insurance card (another offense that caught me by surprise), and he generously wrote me a ticket on that instead of the lane change (which would have been a $172 fine). All I had to do for the insurance ticket was show proof of insurance at the court house and it would be dismissed.
So, after a thirty-minute stop, he finally let me go, and I drove extra-careful the half mile left to my house. I dropped my keys and citation on the kitchen table, stumbled to my room, and fell into bed with a mumbled account of the event to T-- (who was too asleep to care). It was after 1:30 by then.
Then, just as I was about to drift off to sleep, I hear a thunderous pounding on the front door, enough to send me sitting bolt upright. I said to T--, "Can you think of a single good reason for me to answer that?" I was thinking someone with a broken down car was looking for assistance, and I didn't want to open my house to a stranger at this time of night. I glanced out the window and saw a glowing tail light.
Then the doorbell rang, and I realized if I didn't answer the door, the bell would probably keep ringing until AB woke up screaming. Anyone who is willing to ring a doorbell at 1:30 in the morning is willing to do it repeatedly. About the same time, T-- was looking out the window and she said, "You know, I think that may be a cop car."
So I went to the front door, yanked it open, and found that same fresh-faced cop with an idiot grin on his face. He said, all embarrassed, "Y'know, I lied to you when I said your copy of the ticket was in the envelope. I forgot to give it to you." And he held it out to me, still grinning like this was the funniest thing in the world. At the end of the walk, by the corner of our garage, I saw his superior peeking around the corner, watching everything.
I took the slip, and closed the door. I turned the lock with a loud, "Thunk!" as my only sort of protest, and went back to bed. Ugh.
Then on Friday, even though it was my RDO, I went in for a few hours in the morning because of an irregularity with my timesheet (something to do with my travel hours the week before). Whatever. I got done around 11:00, but before that Toby called to tell me he had my laptop -- I had taken it in when I got to his house on Thursday, but never cracked the case, and forgot all about it.
So we met for lunch in Moore, at the Freddy's by the new Warren theater. We had a good lunch, then I headed home the same way I'd gone the night before, stopping this time at the Byron's to pick up some liquor for the evening's festivities.
Then I got home and spent a while negotiating with the State Farm website (and finally exchanging emails with my agent) to get a copy of my proof of insurance, so I could take care of the ticket. Even though it was a "Fix It" ticket, I had to take care of it within 48 hours or I'd have been stuck with $88 in court costs.
So I finally got the forms, printed them out, then drove downtown and found the courthouse, and by the time that was done it was 5-ish, so my day off was over and done. T-- was busy for the evening, taking AB to a pumpkin patch for pictures, so I had K-- and Jeff over for some Rock Band. We played with the music up loud until T-- got home around 9:00, then we turned it down to something reasonable and played on until after midnight.
Saturday morning we headed over to K-- and N--'s place at 11:00 for the OU/Texas game, grabbing some Taco Bell on the way. The game was fantastic. We lost, but the game was an incredible one. If I'd been able to believe the polls would treat OU fairly (which they did, by some miracle), I would have had a great time just watching a fierce contest. As it was, though, I was in a pretty bad mood to see the loss.
Then we spent the afternoon helping K-- and N-- rearrange the furniture in a couple rooms so they could set up a nursery. We accomplished a lot in a short time, and then N-- served us all some delicious chili by way of thanks.
T-- and I left right after supper, because AB was ready for bed. I was also expected Toby to come up and try out Rock Band, as we had arranged over lunch on Friday, but he had to cancel. That worked out okay, though, because on the drive home from K-- and N--'s, B-- called to ask if I wanted to come over and watch the guys from MST3K riff on 300. I called D-- to join me, and we went over to do that.
And, as I so often do at B--'s place, I drank heavily. The movie was hilarious, and we stayed up way, way too late afterward talking and enjoying each other's company. Then D-- drove me home, and I fell into bed around 3 in the morning. I didn't make it to church on Sunday.
I slept until noon, then took care of some chores during the early afternoon, and dedicated my later afternoon to watching a heartbreaking Cowboys game with a much more terrible aftermath than the OU loss. Romo is out for four weeks with a broken finger, and we've lost our (phenomenal) punter for the rest of the season. Also, our team looked terrible, so even without the injuries, it was a bad day.
We watched some Get Smart to lighten the mood, and played some Rock Band, and it was an okay evening.
Then, as I said, Monday was a holiday, so I had it off. I spent most of the day working on clerical chores in my office. T-- and I watched some Get Smart, and I watched some Venture Brothers, and I played Rock Band with T-- and tried to teach AB how to drum, and it was a day that kind of just faded past, but pleasantly.
Then in the evening D-- brought us some Mazzios for dinner, and we watched Chuck and How I Met Your Mother and Heroes, and then I got to bed early, because I was exhausted.
That's my long weekend. Apart from the football, it was a good one.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Journal Entry: October 9, 2008
Yesterday was Wednesday, so we met up with K-- and N-- and D-- for dinner, this time at Souper Salad!. I brought a burger from Freddy's.
It was a fun dinner, though, and afterward D-- and I went back to the house to play Rock Band while the rest went to church. They all came over afterward, too, and I showed off my changes to the office, then K-- joined us in some rocking. D-- went home around 9:30 and the other two went home around 10:00, I think, and then T-- wanted to watch something on TV so I put away the instruments.
Then I set to work ripping some old songs Brad and I had made off of an ancient cassette tape. The quality is terrible, but it's enough for D-- and me to remember how they went, because we sat through hours of playing and perfecting them.
I ripped the whole tape into a single WAV file, and now I've got the task of breaking it up into songs and doing what I can (with some relatively low-end software, and no technical expertise at all) to clean them up. The originals were never that strong, in terms of mixing, and the decade since has not been kind to my magnetic media.
Still, I spent some of this morning listening to the tracks I got, and the nostalgia aspect is near overwhelming. Those were some good times.
I also got to have lunch with K-- and N-- today. They met me at Buffalo Wild Wings for my regular Thursday lunch. It was awesome.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
It was a fun dinner, though, and afterward D-- and I went back to the house to play Rock Band while the rest went to church. They all came over afterward, too, and I showed off my changes to the office, then K-- joined us in some rocking. D-- went home around 9:30 and the other two went home around 10:00, I think, and then T-- wanted to watch something on TV so I put away the instruments.
Then I set to work ripping some old songs Brad and I had made off of an ancient cassette tape. The quality is terrible, but it's enough for D-- and me to remember how they went, because we sat through hours of playing and perfecting them.
I ripped the whole tape into a single WAV file, and now I've got the task of breaking it up into songs and doing what I can (with some relatively low-end software, and no technical expertise at all) to clean them up. The originals were never that strong, in terms of mixing, and the decade since has not been kind to my magnetic media.
Still, I spent some of this morning listening to the tracks I got, and the nostalgia aspect is near overwhelming. Those were some good times.
I also got to have lunch with K-- and N-- today. They met me at Buffalo Wild Wings for my regular Thursday lunch. It was awesome.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Journal Entry: October 8, 2008
Yesterday after work, T-- and I ran up to Wal-Mart to grab some stuff for the office. We got a small bookcase to go under the window, a new curtain (because I'd been using a bedsheet thrown over a curtain rod), and a power strip for her desk. Then I built the bookcase while T-- made dinner. After that, we just played with AB until her bedtime.
Then T-- and I went back to finish setting up the office. I got my old XBox hooked up so we could watch Get Smart while we worked. I scanned old documents and T-- set up her desk with all her crafting supplies. It was a pretty productive evening -- quiet, but pleasant.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Then T-- and I went back to finish setting up the office. I got my old XBox hooked up so we could watch Get Smart while we worked. I scanned old documents and T-- set up her desk with all her crafting supplies. It was a pretty productive evening -- quiet, but pleasant.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Journal Entry: October 7, 2008
Yesterday was wildly productive. I woke up early and painted (as I think I already mentioned), then went out to lunch with T-- and AB, and then when AB went down for a nap, instead of breaking out the game I went back to the office with T-- and started clearing books off shelves.
We're rearranging. Yesterday we moved two bookshelves into the bedroom, and threw away another one that had long been falling apart. Because of that, we also had to consolidate two bookshelves down into one, so the five remaining are all a lot more densely packed than they were before. The new setup leaves all the fiction in my office, basically, and everything else in our bedroom.
It also opened up room for T-- to move her crafting table back there, and for me to set up the Rock Band drums and hook them up to my computer with a drum kit program, so I can practice the drumming exercises in my book with realistic sound effects. Pretty cool.
Anyway, rearranging furniture took up most of the day. In the evening T-- picked up a pizza from Mazzio's and D-- came over to watch Heroes and How I Met Your Mother with us. Afterward he took the game home with him, because he's got plans with other friends tomorrow night. That's okay, I'll need another evening to finish setting up my office.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
We're rearranging. Yesterday we moved two bookshelves into the bedroom, and threw away another one that had long been falling apart. Because of that, we also had to consolidate two bookshelves down into one, so the five remaining are all a lot more densely packed than they were before. The new setup leaves all the fiction in my office, basically, and everything else in our bedroom.
It also opened up room for T-- to move her crafting table back there, and for me to set up the Rock Band drums and hook them up to my computer with a drum kit program, so I can practice the drumming exercises in my book with realistic sound effects. Pretty cool.
Anyway, rearranging furniture took up most of the day. In the evening T-- picked up a pizza from Mazzio's and D-- came over to watch Heroes and How I Met Your Mother with us. Afterward he took the game home with him, because he's got plans with other friends tomorrow night. That's okay, I'll need another evening to finish setting up my office.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Journal Entry: October 6, 2008
So, I normally don't post on my days off, but none of you knew today was going to be a day off for me, so I decided out of merciful kindheartedness to update after all.
Friday was my last day of classes in Chicago. There was one afternoon flight out of O'Hare to get me back to OKC on before Saturday, but it was so early in the day that class would have had to end ridiculously early for me to make the flight. I mean, hours and hours early. Classes usually end early on the last day, particularly when the last day is a Friday, but still -- it was extremely unlikely, so I booked my return flight for Saturday. Then I spent all day Friday hoping the class would end early enough for me to make it out, absurd or not.
Class ended exactly half an hour too late for me to make it out. Ugh.
While I was waiting to find that out, though, I checked out Digg at some point and found an article about the top 13 barbecue joints in the country. I clicked through them all, and one happened to be in Chicago. Not only that, but it happened to be within about ten miles of my hotel, so reasonable, even. I decided to check it out.
So about six o'clock I headed east. Went about a mile down, got on the interstate, and stopped. During rush hour, on a Friday, I was headed into Chicago proper. I hadn't really thought about it like that. So it took me a solid hour to go ten miles or so. Maybe fifteen. I also knew from the article about the place that it was takeout only, so I was pretty sure my food was going to be totally cold and inedible if I had to make an hour drive back to my hotel room to eat it.
Luckily that wasn't the case. I was able to find a parking spot not far from the restaurant, walked down to buy the food, walked back to my car and then made it back to my hotel room in less than fifteen minutes. Part of the difference was that rush hour had ended, but most of it was that I was heading out of town instead of into it.
Anyway, I spent most of the rest of the night eating the basket of ribs. It was phenomenal, and way too much food. Just damn delicious, though.
I chatted with D-- and Jeff, and watched most of Michael Clayton (which is basically this: imagine someone decided to do a remake of Pelican Brief except they wanted three incredibly awkward five-minute scenes, scattered throughout, where George Clooney drives around in a car making serious faces and not saying anything (or having anything said to him) -- that's Michael Clayton), and also got packed for my trip home.
Saturday morning I woke up at 6:00 so I could be at the car rental place two hours before my flight. That's what they requested, which seemed a little overboard to me, but I was at the mercy of their shuttle and I had no idea how often it ran, so I was there two hours early.
Turns out the shuttle runs every ten minutes, so I was at the airport an hour and forty-eight minutes early, which is a little more than the thirty minutes they recommend. So I got to spend some time reading. Between that time and the flight home I finally finished my French book (which I'll write more about in a separate post). The flight home was uneventful. Once again I got a row all to myself, so it was pretty comfortable, and I still adore direct flights.
D-- was waiting for me curbside, so I threw my bags in his trunk, and we headed straight to Wichita. We stopped at Pops for lunch, because D-- had never been and it was early enough in the day that we thought we could get seated quickly, so he thought it might be a good time to check it out. His analysis was the same as mine: not worth the hassle. I had a decent chili burger, he got an orange soda with a picture of an Indian chief on it, and then we headed north again.
I got to T--'s parents' place around 1:30, and selfishly roused AB from her nap because I'd missed her for a week, and then played with her and talked with the in-laws for a couple hours before we had to head to Topeka.
Julie's wedding was amazing. The setting was beautiful and elegantly decorated, the poetry reading in the middle of the ceremony was resplendent and transcendent at the same time, and two folks got hitched. Then the reception took place at an old train station that had been converted into a fancy hall for exactly that sort of purpose. They had a literary theme for everything (we were seated at the Neil Gaiman table, and went home with a couple books from the Topeka library as keepsakes). Instead of a groom's cake they had huge jars full of candy -- colorful and whimsical as decorations, but with little plastic baggies a la the candy story in the mall, for guests to take home. Awesome. Hot tamales and jelly bellies are so much better than cake (although apparently there was also a cake). Also: open bar. First wedding I've been to with one of those, and they were using Grey Goose for the vodka coctails. Hell yes.
So T-- drove us home.
We didn't get back to Wichita until after 1:00, and I absolutely crashed. Sunday morning I slept through church, then we had lunch at her parents house, and shortly after that we got our stuff packed up and headed home in time to catch the Cowboys game. We were about an hour late for kickoff, but thanks to the magic of TiVo, that wasn't a problem.
Except our TiVo apparently had reruns of Law and Order and King of the Hill set to higher priority than Cowboys games, so I did miss the first hour. Lame. Still, D-- got into town around 4:00 and he came over and we watched the last three quarters. It was an intense game, mostly in a bad way. Still, glad I got to see most of it. I've seen way too little football this year.
T-- grilled up some bacon-wrapped fillets for dinner, and after the game we played Rock Band until the wee hours (by which I mean 11-ish). I was exhausted, though, so I finally sent D-- home and went to bed.
Today I got to take off work on comp time for the hours I spent traveling to and fro. I slept in, then got up and finished the paint job on the garage. It looks good, but mostly it's just nice to have it done.
I don't have much planned for the rest of the day. Going to relax and enjoy being back with my family. Tomorrow, it's back to the old grind, but I'm really glad I got to take today off. I'm glad to be home, too. It's amazing how long one week can be.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Friday was my last day of classes in Chicago. There was one afternoon flight out of O'Hare to get me back to OKC on before Saturday, but it was so early in the day that class would have had to end ridiculously early for me to make the flight. I mean, hours and hours early. Classes usually end early on the last day, particularly when the last day is a Friday, but still -- it was extremely unlikely, so I booked my return flight for Saturday. Then I spent all day Friday hoping the class would end early enough for me to make it out, absurd or not.
Class ended exactly half an hour too late for me to make it out. Ugh.
While I was waiting to find that out, though, I checked out Digg at some point and found an article about the top 13 barbecue joints in the country. I clicked through them all, and one happened to be in Chicago. Not only that, but it happened to be within about ten miles of my hotel, so reasonable, even. I decided to check it out.
So about six o'clock I headed east. Went about a mile down, got on the interstate, and stopped. During rush hour, on a Friday, I was headed into Chicago proper. I hadn't really thought about it like that. So it took me a solid hour to go ten miles or so. Maybe fifteen. I also knew from the article about the place that it was takeout only, so I was pretty sure my food was going to be totally cold and inedible if I had to make an hour drive back to my hotel room to eat it.
Luckily that wasn't the case. I was able to find a parking spot not far from the restaurant, walked down to buy the food, walked back to my car and then made it back to my hotel room in less than fifteen minutes. Part of the difference was that rush hour had ended, but most of it was that I was heading out of town instead of into it.
Anyway, I spent most of the rest of the night eating the basket of ribs. It was phenomenal, and way too much food. Just damn delicious, though.
I chatted with D-- and Jeff, and watched most of Michael Clayton (which is basically this: imagine someone decided to do a remake of Pelican Brief except they wanted three incredibly awkward five-minute scenes, scattered throughout, where George Clooney drives around in a car making serious faces and not saying anything (or having anything said to him) -- that's Michael Clayton), and also got packed for my trip home.
Saturday morning I woke up at 6:00 so I could be at the car rental place two hours before my flight. That's what they requested, which seemed a little overboard to me, but I was at the mercy of their shuttle and I had no idea how often it ran, so I was there two hours early.
Turns out the shuttle runs every ten minutes, so I was at the airport an hour and forty-eight minutes early, which is a little more than the thirty minutes they recommend. So I got to spend some time reading. Between that time and the flight home I finally finished my French book (which I'll write more about in a separate post). The flight home was uneventful. Once again I got a row all to myself, so it was pretty comfortable, and I still adore direct flights.
D-- was waiting for me curbside, so I threw my bags in his trunk, and we headed straight to Wichita. We stopped at Pops for lunch, because D-- had never been and it was early enough in the day that we thought we could get seated quickly, so he thought it might be a good time to check it out. His analysis was the same as mine: not worth the hassle. I had a decent chili burger, he got an orange soda with a picture of an Indian chief on it, and then we headed north again.
I got to T--'s parents' place around 1:30, and selfishly roused AB from her nap because I'd missed her for a week, and then played with her and talked with the in-laws for a couple hours before we had to head to Topeka.
Julie's wedding was amazing. The setting was beautiful and elegantly decorated, the poetry reading in the middle of the ceremony was resplendent and transcendent at the same time, and two folks got hitched. Then the reception took place at an old train station that had been converted into a fancy hall for exactly that sort of purpose. They had a literary theme for everything (we were seated at the Neil Gaiman table, and went home with a couple books from the Topeka library as keepsakes). Instead of a groom's cake they had huge jars full of candy -- colorful and whimsical as decorations, but with little plastic baggies a la the candy story in the mall, for guests to take home. Awesome. Hot tamales and jelly bellies are so much better than cake (although apparently there was also a cake). Also: open bar. First wedding I've been to with one of those, and they were using Grey Goose for the vodka coctails. Hell yes.
So T-- drove us home.
We didn't get back to Wichita until after 1:00, and I absolutely crashed. Sunday morning I slept through church, then we had lunch at her parents house, and shortly after that we got our stuff packed up and headed home in time to catch the Cowboys game. We were about an hour late for kickoff, but thanks to the magic of TiVo, that wasn't a problem.
Except our TiVo apparently had reruns of Law and Order and King of the Hill set to higher priority than Cowboys games, so I did miss the first hour. Lame. Still, D-- got into town around 4:00 and he came over and we watched the last three quarters. It was an intense game, mostly in a bad way. Still, glad I got to see most of it. I've seen way too little football this year.
T-- grilled up some bacon-wrapped fillets for dinner, and after the game we played Rock Band until the wee hours (by which I mean 11-ish). I was exhausted, though, so I finally sent D-- home and went to bed.
Today I got to take off work on comp time for the hours I spent traveling to and fro. I slept in, then got up and finished the paint job on the garage. It looks good, but mostly it's just nice to have it done.
I don't have much planned for the rest of the day. Going to relax and enjoy being back with my family. Tomorrow, it's back to the old grind, but I'm really glad I got to take today off. I'm glad to be home, too. It's amazing how long one week can be.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Journal Entry: October 3, 2008
I tried to post this last night, because it was such a thing, but Blogger suddenly won't work on my laptop for some reason, so I'm just adding it to my journal entry, during class.
Anyway, Sunday when I first got in, as I mentioned, I drove up to a Target really close to my hotel, and found that it was closed. I didn't mention (because it didn't seem relevant, since I'm not a basketball fan) that right next to the Target was big-ass wedding cake-looking building that I first mistook for a huge mall, then for a double-huge movie theater (because it only had one entrance and no storefronts), and then finally discovered was the Chicago Allstate Arena.
It's about a five minute walk from my hotel, on my way to class, so I've passed it nearly every time I've left my hotel. Anyway, last night I ran out to grab some chicken for dinner, having decided not to do anything with my evening, and I got around the corner and ran into a huge traffic backup. I thought it must be an accident or something--
Okay, I'll cut to the chase because you guys are all too smart to sit through my narrative without guessing. It was the Weezer concert. The Weezer concert was a five minute walk from my hotel. DAMMIT! And I would have gone, then and there, to see if there were still tickets left (my guess is yes), but I'd just spent all my allowance money on a jacket that I'm only using for one more day.
So, yeah, took me forever to pick up my chicken.
I also skipped the gym last night, because my calves were really sore. I could have gone down just to do my shoulders, but I'll just do shoulders and biceps tonight before I run.
Anyway, journalwise, after class (which let out early, because we were way ahead of schedule), I ran up to the nearest Wal-Mart to grab a cheap jacket because it's been freezing up here (and, after all, I do need a new jacket). The nearest Wal-Mart is about a forty-minute drive from my hotel, but only about ten from my class, so I went straight there from class. I'd intended to do some comparative shopping, driving all the way back to the Target by my hotel and really hoping they had a better deal than I'd found at Wal-Mart, but I discovered a mall right by the Wal-Mart that consisted of Kohl's, Sears, and a Target (and one furniture store). That's pretty much my ideal setup for comparative shopping, so I looked around and picked up a $50 fleece jacket that ended up being $35. Coolio. I also got T-- a memento, because I hadn't yet.
I found a $12 hoodie that looked good enough, as soon as I walked into Target, but it was only midafternoon and my whole plan had been to kill some time, so I went ahead and did the shopping thing. Apart from blowing my Weezer money on a jacket I won't wear again between tomorrow and December, I'm happy with what I ended up getting.
Anyway. After that my little sister called and we talked for my whole drive back to the hotel (which probably wasn't wise, considering the near-miss with the train, but I made it back alive). Then I read for about an hour, ran out for the chicken, and came back to the hotel to watch School of Rock and play a video game. That was my whole night. Probably one of the best yet, mainly because School of Rock repeating is a lot better than Sex and the City coming on after Family Guy when you don't have the time to go searching for the remote.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Anyway, Sunday when I first got in, as I mentioned, I drove up to a Target really close to my hotel, and found that it was closed. I didn't mention (because it didn't seem relevant, since I'm not a basketball fan) that right next to the Target was big-ass wedding cake-looking building that I first mistook for a huge mall, then for a double-huge movie theater (because it only had one entrance and no storefronts), and then finally discovered was the Chicago Allstate Arena.
It's about a five minute walk from my hotel, on my way to class, so I've passed it nearly every time I've left my hotel. Anyway, last night I ran out to grab some chicken for dinner, having decided not to do anything with my evening, and I got around the corner and ran into a huge traffic backup. I thought it must be an accident or something--
Okay, I'll cut to the chase because you guys are all too smart to sit through my narrative without guessing. It was the Weezer concert. The Weezer concert was a five minute walk from my hotel. DAMMIT! And I would have gone, then and there, to see if there were still tickets left (my guess is yes), but I'd just spent all my allowance money on a jacket that I'm only using for one more day.
So, yeah, took me forever to pick up my chicken.
I also skipped the gym last night, because my calves were really sore. I could have gone down just to do my shoulders, but I'll just do shoulders and biceps tonight before I run.
Anyway, journalwise, after class (which let out early, because we were way ahead of schedule), I ran up to the nearest Wal-Mart to grab a cheap jacket because it's been freezing up here (and, after all, I do need a new jacket). The nearest Wal-Mart is about a forty-minute drive from my hotel, but only about ten from my class, so I went straight there from class. I'd intended to do some comparative shopping, driving all the way back to the Target by my hotel and really hoping they had a better deal than I'd found at Wal-Mart, but I discovered a mall right by the Wal-Mart that consisted of Kohl's, Sears, and a Target (and one furniture store). That's pretty much my ideal setup for comparative shopping, so I looked around and picked up a $50 fleece jacket that ended up being $35. Coolio. I also got T-- a memento, because I hadn't yet.
I found a $12 hoodie that looked good enough, as soon as I walked into Target, but it was only midafternoon and my whole plan had been to kill some time, so I went ahead and did the shopping thing. Apart from blowing my Weezer money on a jacket I won't wear again between tomorrow and December, I'm happy with what I ended up getting.
Anyway. After that my little sister called and we talked for my whole drive back to the hotel (which probably wasn't wise, considering the near-miss with the train, but I made it back alive). Then I read for about an hour, ran out for the chicken, and came back to the hotel to watch School of Rock and play a video game. That was my whole night. Probably one of the best yet, mainly because School of Rock repeating is a lot better than Sex and the City coming on after Family Guy when you don't have the time to go searching for the remote.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Journal Entry: October 2, 2008
Yesterday was the last day of our Intro class, so we got out a little early. I went back to the hotel, spent 40 minutes in the gym (where I worked biceps and added a minute to my running time), and then stayed in my hotel room for the whole night. I had leftover pizza for dinner (still not stunning, but already paid for), watched some King of the Hill and A Knight's Tale (twice in a row, because that's how TNT rolls), and tried to play some single player Civ.
It was supposed to be multiplayer, but D-- recently rebuilt his computer and forgot to reinstall, so it was just me. Not so much fun (and, by extension, it only killed an hour), so I switched back to Spore and, as I said, sat through two airings of the same movie.
I brought a lot of work to do while I'm here -- some business, some personal -- and I'm doing the business part as soon as I get done with class every day, incorporating what I learned into the project I'm doing on deadline. As soon as I finish that, though, I veg for the rest of the night. I have no motivation at all to do anything useful with my evenings (apart from the gym, and that's a horrific battle in my mind every time I make myself go). It's a shame, because I have more time available to be productive than I could normally find in a month, but I'm just not doing anything.
And that's that. I did talk with T-- and D-- last night, and on Tuesday I talked with B-- for ten minutes or so, too. Anyway, it's weird living alone out of a hotel room for a week at a time. I've tried my hardest to arrange a Friday flight out (and tried to get to Wichita, to save me a drive), but it's just not an option. Bah.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
It was supposed to be multiplayer, but D-- recently rebuilt his computer and forgot to reinstall, so it was just me. Not so much fun (and, by extension, it only killed an hour), so I switched back to Spore and, as I said, sat through two airings of the same movie.
I brought a lot of work to do while I'm here -- some business, some personal -- and I'm doing the business part as soon as I get done with class every day, incorporating what I learned into the project I'm doing on deadline. As soon as I finish that, though, I veg for the rest of the night. I have no motivation at all to do anything useful with my evenings (apart from the gym, and that's a horrific battle in my mind every time I make myself go). It's a shame, because I have more time available to be productive than I could normally find in a month, but I'm just not doing anything.
And that's that. I did talk with T-- and D-- last night, and on Tuesday I talked with B-- for ten minutes or so, too. Anyway, it's weird living alone out of a hotel room for a week at a time. I've tried my hardest to arrange a Friday flight out (and tried to get to Wichita, to save me a drive), but it's just not an option. Bah.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Events
So, every time I get in the car, I hear a DJ pointing out that there are still tickets available for the Weezer concert tomorrow night.....
Now that could be a way to kill a couple hours.
Now that could be a way to kill a couple hours.
Journal Entry: October 1, 2008
So, immediately after I posted yesterday, I made myself into a liar. I went out to the car for lunch, amazingly found myself with a solid GPS signal, so I checked on nearby restaurants and found a Buffalo Wild Wings about four miles away. The GPS said it would take about 8 minutes to get there. Between traffic issues and Lowrance just lying to me (and, yes, me missing one turn and having to double back), it took twenty minutes to get there.
That's okay. We have an hour for lunch, and I was pretty confident I could get back in about 15 minutes. That only left 25 minutes for lunch, but I go to BWW in OKC all the time, and I can usually place an order within 5 minutes, and get my food at the table 2 or 3 minutes later (yes, really -- it's just lunch).
Not so much in Chicago. I got in and was seated, and fifteen minutes later somebody came to take my order. I should have left, but I knew it wouldn't take any time at all for them to shake 8 boneless wings in Hot Barbecue sauce and bring the basket to my table. Again, not so much in Chicago. I waited 15 minutes before someone brought my wings. It took me 10 minutes or so to eat, and then 20 minutes to get back to class, so I was all kinds of late.
So, yeah, I should have stuck with Subway. I'll probably grab some more boneless wings for dinner Thursday night, and just take them back to the hotel, but I'm definitely not going back for lunch. I appreciate my OKC branch a lot more now, too.
After class, I went back to the gym again and added a minute of running to my workout. Then I cleaned up, and went down to the front desk to ask where I could find a good Chicago style pizza to try. They have a deal with a local pizzeria that delivers to the hotel, so I took advantage of that. It was pretty okay, but probably not worth the cost. I should have just gotten some Pizza Hut.
Oh! I'd been saying all last week that I would head into Chicago proper on Tuesday night, do the tourist thing, and if I had a good enough time, I could go back later in the week. I spent all day yesterday thinking about it, though, and just decided I wouldn't have any fun at all going into town all by myself. T-- and I are planning on coming here for a vacation next spring, and I know I would have a better time just waiting for that, so there you go.
So, instead of going into town, I spent another evening watching Psych and playing Spore. I did a better job getting to bed at a decent hour (11:00 instead of midnight), but I never fell asleep so I finally turned on the TV and found a new Chris Rock special on HBO, which was good enough that I stayed up until 1:30 watching it.
So, yeah, I'm dragging today. It's the last day of the Intro class, though, so we'll probably get out a little early, and maybe after all this I'll be tired enough to fall asleep tonight. We'll see.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
That's okay. We have an hour for lunch, and I was pretty confident I could get back in about 15 minutes. That only left 25 minutes for lunch, but I go to BWW in OKC all the time, and I can usually place an order within 5 minutes, and get my food at the table 2 or 3 minutes later (yes, really -- it's just lunch).
Not so much in Chicago. I got in and was seated, and fifteen minutes later somebody came to take my order. I should have left, but I knew it wouldn't take any time at all for them to shake 8 boneless wings in Hot Barbecue sauce and bring the basket to my table. Again, not so much in Chicago. I waited 15 minutes before someone brought my wings. It took me 10 minutes or so to eat, and then 20 minutes to get back to class, so I was all kinds of late.
So, yeah, I should have stuck with Subway. I'll probably grab some more boneless wings for dinner Thursday night, and just take them back to the hotel, but I'm definitely not going back for lunch. I appreciate my OKC branch a lot more now, too.
After class, I went back to the gym again and added a minute of running to my workout. Then I cleaned up, and went down to the front desk to ask where I could find a good Chicago style pizza to try. They have a deal with a local pizzeria that delivers to the hotel, so I took advantage of that. It was pretty okay, but probably not worth the cost. I should have just gotten some Pizza Hut.
Oh! I'd been saying all last week that I would head into Chicago proper on Tuesday night, do the tourist thing, and if I had a good enough time, I could go back later in the week. I spent all day yesterday thinking about it, though, and just decided I wouldn't have any fun at all going into town all by myself. T-- and I are planning on coming here for a vacation next spring, and I know I would have a better time just waiting for that, so there you go.
So, instead of going into town, I spent another evening watching Psych and playing Spore. I did a better job getting to bed at a decent hour (11:00 instead of midnight), but I never fell asleep so I finally turned on the TV and found a new Chris Rock special on HBO, which was good enough that I stayed up until 1:30 watching it.
So, yeah, I'm dragging today. It's the last day of the Intro class, though, so we'll probably get out a little early, and maybe after all this I'll be tired enough to fall asleep tonight. We'll see.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Journal Entry: September 30, 2008
Last Friday night we had K-- and N-- and N--'s mom over for dinner (I made some of my incredibly awesome chili), and then Rock Band. We played until 11-ish, I think. It was a late night for Preggers McKnockedup, whatever time we finally quit. We all had a lot of fun, though.
Then on Saturday I watched AB while T-- went to get us some lunch (and not really much before that). We had Schlotzky's, which I'd been craving for most of the week. Then the afternoon sort of metled away. I think I took a nap and watched some football.
At 3:30, the babysitters showed up to watch AB for the night, so I ran up to the church with T-- to help her set up for her crop, then I went over to K--'s to play Rock Band and, later, watch OU trash Texas Christian. Both were a lot of fun. Around 10:00 N-- got home and reminded me I was supposed to send the babysitter home before her curfew, so I cleared out. I probably watched some TV or something until T-- got home -- I don't really remember what I did.
Sunday morning we went to church, then met all of the above plus D-- and his mom at Jason's Deli for lunch. After that, I went back to the house and finished packing for my trip (in a state of minor anxiety the whole time), and then at 3:00 the Cowboys / Redskins game came on, and I only got to watch the first (abysmal) half before I had to head to the airport.
T-- dropped me off. I got through security and then found an airport bar showing the game, so I watched another (abysmal) quarter before they announced boarding for my flight.
The flight to Chicago was surprisingly pleasant. It was a small plane with 2-seat rows on either side of the aisle. I had a window seat reserved, and the guy in the aisle seat had a 7-month old girl in his lap (who turned out to be a screamer). Just before we took off, though, a stewardess came by and said the row behind us was empty and we could feel free to move back there if we wanted. He did, so I was left with the row to myself (and room to stretch out). It was a direct flight, 2 hours, so I had no trouble keeping busy and in no time I was in Chicago.
The Chicago airport was huge, though, and -- contrary to K--'s advice -- I'd stuck with my carry-on only policy, so I had to lug a week's worth of clothes and my laptop bag across half a mile of airport. Then I had trouble figuring out where the rental car booths were, because there weren't any. I finall asked somebody, and he sent me out to stand on the passenger-pickup sidewalk and wait for a shuttle from Avis.
That took a while, and then I spent half an hour in line (most of it at the teller, waiting for someone to tell her that, yes, the car was waiting right outside the door. She finally got that confirmation, sent me out the door, and I drove half a mile (three right turns) to my hotel. That bit was nice. Still, it took me an hour and a half to get from the airplane to my hotel room, which is almost as long as it took me to get from OKC to Chicago....
The room is nice, though. It's a suite, so I'm treating one room as the living room (the desk is in there, so that's where I use the computer, but it's also where I watch TV, even though there's one in each room). That makes it a little easier to go to sleep when I finally go to the other room.
I hadn't eaten before leaving for the airport at 5:00, though, so after I dropped off my bags at 9:30, I was still starving. I ran up to a Target that my GPS told me about nearby, but they had closed at 9:00. Ugh. There was a Chili's in the same parking lot, so I broke down and bought a real meal. It was awesome.
I also asked the waiter for directions to a 24-hour grocery store nearby. He told me there wasn't a Wal-Mart within five miles (as T-- had already found out, when I was on the phone with her), but he pointed me to a chain called Dominick's, not far from the hotel. I grabbed some soda, some juice, breakfast bars, and string cheese for the week. I also sort of did my math wrong so I got way too much soda -- but I'm me, so it'll get drunk.
I got back to the hotel around 11:00, and went to bed around 11:30.
Monday morning I woke up at 7:15, learned that my hotel doesn't have a free breakfast (it must be the only one in the country...), and was very glad I'd picked up the breakfast bars. I grabbed one, and two cans of Coke, and headed out to my training.
My training...I'll talk about that later. It's 8:30 to 4:30, with an hour lunch and two fifteen minute breaks. It's about fifteen minutes from my hotel. On Monday, for lunch, I went to Subway. I might just go there for lunch every day this week, and save my diversity (and choice-making, and exploring) for the evenings.
I get a $64 per diem for meals and incidentals, that doesn't require receipts. No matter what, I get $64 for every full day that I'm on travel. That lets me eat out prett nice every day (the only real positive of the whole trip). On the other hand, since it doesn't require receipts, I can always eat ramen every meal and pocket three hundred bucks for my troubles (which would go toward our electric bill, or something lame like that). I'm trying to split the difference.
Anyway, after training yesterday I changed into some workout clothes and ran down to the gym in the hotel. It's pretty nice, and by some miracle was entirely empty, so I did shoulders and biceps on the free weights, then ran on the treadmill for half an hour. It's my goal to do that every day this week, but we'll see.
After that I called T--, grabbed a quick shower, and ran to Chipotle just down the road for a quick dinner. I hadn't been before, but it's basically just a slightly-more-expensive Moe's, with fewer toppings. For a dinner on the road, though, it was pretty good. I had three chicken soft tacos, and then went back to my hotel room. Then I watched Psych and played Spore until midnight.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Then on Saturday I watched AB while T-- went to get us some lunch (and not really much before that). We had Schlotzky's, which I'd been craving for most of the week. Then the afternoon sort of metled away. I think I took a nap and watched some football.
At 3:30, the babysitters showed up to watch AB for the night, so I ran up to the church with T-- to help her set up for her crop, then I went over to K--'s to play Rock Band and, later, watch OU trash Texas Christian. Both were a lot of fun. Around 10:00 N-- got home and reminded me I was supposed to send the babysitter home before her curfew, so I cleared out. I probably watched some TV or something until T-- got home -- I don't really remember what I did.
Sunday morning we went to church, then met all of the above plus D-- and his mom at Jason's Deli for lunch. After that, I went back to the house and finished packing for my trip (in a state of minor anxiety the whole time), and then at 3:00 the Cowboys / Redskins game came on, and I only got to watch the first (abysmal) half before I had to head to the airport.
T-- dropped me off. I got through security and then found an airport bar showing the game, so I watched another (abysmal) quarter before they announced boarding for my flight.
The flight to Chicago was surprisingly pleasant. It was a small plane with 2-seat rows on either side of the aisle. I had a window seat reserved, and the guy in the aisle seat had a 7-month old girl in his lap (who turned out to be a screamer). Just before we took off, though, a stewardess came by and said the row behind us was empty and we could feel free to move back there if we wanted. He did, so I was left with the row to myself (and room to stretch out). It was a direct flight, 2 hours, so I had no trouble keeping busy and in no time I was in Chicago.
The Chicago airport was huge, though, and -- contrary to K--'s advice -- I'd stuck with my carry-on only policy, so I had to lug a week's worth of clothes and my laptop bag across half a mile of airport. Then I had trouble figuring out where the rental car booths were, because there weren't any. I finall asked somebody, and he sent me out to stand on the passenger-pickup sidewalk and wait for a shuttle from Avis.
That took a while, and then I spent half an hour in line (most of it at the teller, waiting for someone to tell her that, yes, the car was waiting right outside the door. She finally got that confirmation, sent me out the door, and I drove half a mile (three right turns) to my hotel. That bit was nice. Still, it took me an hour and a half to get from the airplane to my hotel room, which is almost as long as it took me to get from OKC to Chicago....
The room is nice, though. It's a suite, so I'm treating one room as the living room (the desk is in there, so that's where I use the computer, but it's also where I watch TV, even though there's one in each room). That makes it a little easier to go to sleep when I finally go to the other room.
I hadn't eaten before leaving for the airport at 5:00, though, so after I dropped off my bags at 9:30, I was still starving. I ran up to a Target that my GPS told me about nearby, but they had closed at 9:00. Ugh. There was a Chili's in the same parking lot, so I broke down and bought a real meal. It was awesome.
I also asked the waiter for directions to a 24-hour grocery store nearby. He told me there wasn't a Wal-Mart within five miles (as T-- had already found out, when I was on the phone with her), but he pointed me to a chain called Dominick's, not far from the hotel. I grabbed some soda, some juice, breakfast bars, and string cheese for the week. I also sort of did my math wrong so I got way too much soda -- but I'm me, so it'll get drunk.
I got back to the hotel around 11:00, and went to bed around 11:30.
Monday morning I woke up at 7:15, learned that my hotel doesn't have a free breakfast (it must be the only one in the country...), and was very glad I'd picked up the breakfast bars. I grabbed one, and two cans of Coke, and headed out to my training.
My training...I'll talk about that later. It's 8:30 to 4:30, with an hour lunch and two fifteen minute breaks. It's about fifteen minutes from my hotel. On Monday, for lunch, I went to Subway. I might just go there for lunch every day this week, and save my diversity (and choice-making, and exploring) for the evenings.
I get a $64 per diem for meals and incidentals, that doesn't require receipts. No matter what, I get $64 for every full day that I'm on travel. That lets me eat out prett nice every day (the only real positive of the whole trip). On the other hand, since it doesn't require receipts, I can always eat ramen every meal and pocket three hundred bucks for my troubles (which would go toward our electric bill, or something lame like that). I'm trying to split the difference.
Anyway, after training yesterday I changed into some workout clothes and ran down to the gym in the hotel. It's pretty nice, and by some miracle was entirely empty, so I did shoulders and biceps on the free weights, then ran on the treadmill for half an hour. It's my goal to do that every day this week, but we'll see.
After that I called T--, grabbed a quick shower, and ran to Chipotle just down the road for a quick dinner. I hadn't been before, but it's basically just a slightly-more-expensive Moe's, with fewer toppings. For a dinner on the road, though, it was pretty good. I had three chicken soft tacos, and then went back to my hotel room. Then I watched Psych and played Spore until midnight.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Journal Entry: September 26, 2008
I don't know how we even got a loan on our house. I'm pretty sure it's FHA, but there were all kinds of things wrong with it.
One specific problem is exposed, unpainted wood around the frame of the garage door. That's bugged me ever since we moved in, but I never did anything about it. Now that the facing above the garage is all fresh-painted, though, it stands out even more.
So when I got home from work yesterday I took down the weather-stripping, scraped loose the old, gloppy, tearing caulk along the edges, and scraped and sanded all the old paint job to prep it for new paint.
I didn't actually do any painting, though, because I had to get cleaned up for dinner. D--'s mom came into town (they're heading to Texas for a family reunion over the weekend), so we all went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse.
Afterward, they came back to the house and she played with AB. I spent most of the evening running back and forth to the office, still setting up my newly rebuilt computer. Our guests left around 9:45, and T-- pointed out that we had a new My Name is Earl and a new Office to watch. I pointed out that, now that file server was back up, we had a lot of stuff to watch, but she wanted to watch the new stuff. We finished the Office opener, and then headed to bed around 10:30.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
One specific problem is exposed, unpainted wood around the frame of the garage door. That's bugged me ever since we moved in, but I never did anything about it. Now that the facing above the garage is all fresh-painted, though, it stands out even more.
So when I got home from work yesterday I took down the weather-stripping, scraped loose the old, gloppy, tearing caulk along the edges, and scraped and sanded all the old paint job to prep it for new paint.
I didn't actually do any painting, though, because I had to get cleaned up for dinner. D--'s mom came into town (they're heading to Texas for a family reunion over the weekend), so we all went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse.
Afterward, they came back to the house and she played with AB. I spent most of the evening running back and forth to the office, still setting up my newly rebuilt computer. Our guests left around 9:45, and T-- pointed out that we had a new My Name is Earl and a new Office to watch. I pointed out that, now that file server was back up, we had a lot of stuff to watch, but she wanted to watch the new stuff. We finished the Office opener, and then headed to bed around 10:30.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Journal Entry: September 25, 2008
At this certain time in the future, I will go to such and such a place and do this or that....
Sorry, I've been working with my budget lately, and it always gets me thinking about that.
Umm...last night, we had K-- and N-- and D-- over for dinner, which consisted of three giant Jersey Mike's sandwiches, split five ways. It worked out pretty well. I had the Italian for the first time, and it was delicious.
Afterward, D-- and I stayed home to rebuild my computer while the rest of them went to church. Actually, D-- worked on my computer and I worked on submission packages for all three of my books. I came up with these:
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Sorry, I've been working with my budget lately, and it always gets me thinking about that.
Umm...last night, we had K-- and N-- and D-- over for dinner, which consisted of three giant Jersey Mike's sandwiches, split five ways. It worked out pretty well. I had the Italian for the first time, and it was delicious.
Afterward, D-- and I stayed home to rebuild my computer while the rest of them went to church. Actually, D-- worked on my computer and I worked on submission packages for all three of my books. I came up with these:
- Taming Fire, a fantasy adventure, tells the story of a penniless shepherd who becomes a master swordsman, a wizard, and a dragonrider on his way to defending civilization from the dragonswarm.
- King Jason's War, a fantasy novel, tells the story of a young, idealistic king forced to choose between his principles and his position when a greedy Council of Lords insists on going to war for profit.
- Golden Age, a mainstream thriller, tells the story of five college friends who survive the collapse of American civilization and become legendary heroes in the aftermath.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Journal Entry: September 24, 2008
So, yeah, I think I mentioned it yesterday, but I'm going to Chicago next week. I'll be leaving Sunday evening, around 6:00, and getting in the following Saturday at 11:00 am. T-- will pick me up from the airport and we'll drive straight up to Topeka for our friend Julie's wedding (unless I can get my flight swapped out for one that takes me back to Wichita, anyway).
Yesterday I got home from work determined to really finish my painting project. I got the ladder out again, got out the white paint, and went up on the wall to paint over the blue from the trim that had dripped past my painter's tape (there were three spots of that), and to paint over the spots where the ladder had damaged the initial coat of white when I leaned it up against the house.
And, of course, when I climbed back down to move the ladder, it tore the paint again. I'd have thought it would be fully dried by then. But at that point I was able to climb up on it as an A-frame and fix the new tears, and that sufficed for all the rest of the work that had to be done.
I also painted a few coats of white over the walkway post that I had test-sanded, so it looks nice again. It had been the one (out of about six or seven) in the worst shape, and sanding it had revealed the wood underneath in even more places, so it's a major improvement to have a couple coats of white on top of that. From the curb, anyway, our facade looks really nice now.
After I put that away, T-- went to pick up some pizzas and D-- came over to eat them. We watched Monday's How I Met Your Mother, and some King of the Hill, and then when AB went to bed, we pulled out Rock Band, and I got to drum for the first time in a week and a half. Needless to say, I overdid it, and by the end of the night I was late getting to bed and my shoulders were killing me. Fun, though. Lots of fun. I wasn't too rusty. I can still sight-read just about anything they can throw at me on Medium, and I cleared a handful of (really easy) songs on Hard. I'm going to have to learn some really tough patterns that currently completely befuddle me, before I can fully make that transition.
This morning I went to the Physical Therapist for the last time. We agreed that all of the tension she found this morning came from the painting (and she did some really good work fixing it all), and I can address any further problems I have with just the home stretches and exercises she's taught me, so that's that. I feel so much better than I did six weeks ago. Or even two weeks ago. It's been an amazing experience.
In general, things are good. I have two pretty significant items that probably need announced, but I've been waiting on both of them until I fully understand how they'll impact my life. That, of course, could be decades in the discovering, but I'll try to get the info to you before then.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Yesterday I got home from work determined to really finish my painting project. I got the ladder out again, got out the white paint, and went up on the wall to paint over the blue from the trim that had dripped past my painter's tape (there were three spots of that), and to paint over the spots where the ladder had damaged the initial coat of white when I leaned it up against the house.
And, of course, when I climbed back down to move the ladder, it tore the paint again. I'd have thought it would be fully dried by then. But at that point I was able to climb up on it as an A-frame and fix the new tears, and that sufficed for all the rest of the work that had to be done.
I also painted a few coats of white over the walkway post that I had test-sanded, so it looks nice again. It had been the one (out of about six or seven) in the worst shape, and sanding it had revealed the wood underneath in even more places, so it's a major improvement to have a couple coats of white on top of that. From the curb, anyway, our facade looks really nice now.
After I put that away, T-- went to pick up some pizzas and D-- came over to eat them. We watched Monday's How I Met Your Mother, and some King of the Hill, and then when AB went to bed, we pulled out Rock Band, and I got to drum for the first time in a week and a half. Needless to say, I overdid it, and by the end of the night I was late getting to bed and my shoulders were killing me. Fun, though. Lots of fun. I wasn't too rusty. I can still sight-read just about anything they can throw at me on Medium, and I cleared a handful of (really easy) songs on Hard. I'm going to have to learn some really tough patterns that currently completely befuddle me, before I can fully make that transition.
This morning I went to the Physical Therapist for the last time. We agreed that all of the tension she found this morning came from the painting (and she did some really good work fixing it all), and I can address any further problems I have with just the home stretches and exercises she's taught me, so that's that. I feel so much better than I did six weeks ago. Or even two weeks ago. It's been an amazing experience.
In general, things are good. I have two pretty significant items that probably need announced, but I've been waiting on both of them until I fully understand how they'll impact my life. That, of course, could be decades in the discovering, but I'll try to get the info to you before then.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Journal Entry: September 23, 2008
Yesterday after work, before I got settled in (which meant crashing on the couch and not moving), I decided with determination that I should get the tape down off the front of the house, so I could see how it really looked.
And the answer: pretty okay. Also, since the tape mostly held when I peeled it back, I only had to climb the ladder five or six times, instead of the eighteen I was expecting. So that's positive! I'll definitely need to get back up there with some white paint sometime this week for touch up, though. Ugh.
Oh! I also learned at work yesterday that I need to get some training in Adobe FrameMaker before the end of November, and that the only course (of those available to me) that really offers everything I need, in that time frame, is next week from Monday to Friday, in Chicago.
Yay!
So I get to try to coordinate that, when our normal turnaround time for a travel and procurement request is about a week and a half. It's a big hassle at work, and then I'm going to have to spend a week on the road.
Still, I should get some writing done. So that's a good thing.
After I took the paint down last night, I crashed on the couch and did not move. My drum pedal came in, but I was way too sore to play. D-- came over, and T-- grilled some hotdogs and hamburgers (which were delicious) and then we watched the two hour premier of Heroes (which was pretty okay), and then I went to bed.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
And the answer: pretty okay. Also, since the tape mostly held when I peeled it back, I only had to climb the ladder five or six times, instead of the eighteen I was expecting. So that's positive! I'll definitely need to get back up there with some white paint sometime this week for touch up, though. Ugh.
Oh! I also learned at work yesterday that I need to get some training in Adobe FrameMaker before the end of November, and that the only course (of those available to me) that really offers everything I need, in that time frame, is next week from Monday to Friday, in Chicago.
Yay!
So I get to try to coordinate that, when our normal turnaround time for a travel and procurement request is about a week and a half. It's a big hassle at work, and then I'm going to have to spend a week on the road.
Still, I should get some writing done. So that's a good thing.
After I took the paint down last night, I crashed on the couch and did not move. My drum pedal came in, but I was way too sore to play. D-- came over, and T-- grilled some hotdogs and hamburgers (which were delicious) and then we watched the two hour premier of Heroes (which was pretty okay), and then I went to bed.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Journal Entry: September 22, 2008
I have this To Do list that I made in Google Documents, and I use it to keep track of little projects I can take care of when I have a spot of free time and am feeling productive (or stuff we need around the house that I can pick up if we have a spot of free money, but that never really happens).
Anyway, the purpose is just for me to jot stuff down as it occurs to me, and I can browse through it from time to time and try to find something that sounds worth doing.
Last week, the "Writing" section kept catching my eye, and you probably saw the results here. I completed a bunch of writing chores last week, and it felt pretty rewarding.
Well, about six months ago I noticed the severely peeling paint on the wood siding above our garage, and it really got to me. It's been in terrible shape ever since we bought the house, but it's a relatively small portion of our facade, and high enough up that no one ever really pays it any attention, so it's gone ignored for two and a half years. When I made up my To Do list, though, I went ahead and put "Scrape and paint exterior woodwork" on there, and ever since it's been annoying the everloving bawhango out of me. Every time I pulled into the driveway, it irritated me. Every time I glanced through my To Do list, I wanted to mark it off. But the height of that was not only in an incredibly hot (and then abnormally rainy) summer, but also while my body was broken with all that back pain.
So, yeah, last Thursday I found out we would actually be home this weekend, and I checked the weather and found out it would be sunny and windy and dry (and not uncomfortably hot). Then again, I also mentioned here on Thursday that I was feeling sick. I'm not quite sure what happened with that.
Anyway, I moved my Regular Day Off to last Friday, and figured I would either spend the day in bed convalescing, or on a ladder scraping. I ended up doing the ladder.
AH hahaha! That was so worth all the setup.
Bah. No, really. On Thursday night I was still feeling under the weather, so I just watched a movie with T--, and maybe we played some Rock Band. Then I got up relatively early on Friday, felt relatively well, so I went outside to see what I could do. I had gotten a drill bit a while back that said it was for "stripping paint" which, it turns out, is not the same thing as "scraping and prepping a surface for painting." I seriously damaged some of our exterior woodwork before I came to that conclusion though.
That left me using an old-fashioned metal scraper, and a Mouse power sander. I didn't get around to the Mouse until Saturday, though.
See, to use the drill, I bit the bullet and got out our Really Long Extension Cord, and completely unwound it. Turned out, that was unnecessary (I could reach the peak of our roof with about a third of it), but I didn't know that to begin with. So I got out on the ladder, worked on the woodwork until I realized I was doing more harm than good (and would have to scrap, which I hate), and then climbed down and decided to take a little break.
Already having the Really Long Extension Cord unfurled, I decided on a whim to grab the weed eater and edge our lawn for only the second time since we moved in. I ended up doing a pretty thorough job of it (and our drive looks nice now), but there was a lot of newly cut undergrowth all over the driveway at that point. I thought about going to borrow K--'s leafblower, said something about it to T--, and she pointed out that we had a shopvac we'd bought years ago for a single project, and never used since.
So I vaccuumed my drive. Shut up! It worked really well.
And then at that point I was out of excuses to delay, so I dug out our scraped, got back up on the ladder, and finished the bottom half of the west facing. Only the bottom half, though, because my ladder was too short to do more. It was 5:00 by then, though, and I was supposed to watch AB while T-- went to a crop, so I put my stuff away, showered, and called it done for the day.
K-- and N-- came over to keep me company for the evening, and we went to Mazzio's for dinner and then came back to the house and watched Baby Mama (which is worth seeing twice, I can attest). Then we played Rock Band until 11-ish, at which point they had to go home, and I ended up playing guitar for another hour and a half until T-- got home. It was after 2:00 when we finally went to bed.
Saturday, I had all day to work on the house so I had no intention of getting up early. I turned off the alarm clock before I went to bed, and just slept as long as I wanted to. When I got up, I threw on my work clothes and stumbled out into the living room and T-- said, "Oh, I'm sorry! Did we wake you?" And I had no idea what she meant, so I assured her no, and went out to the garage to get started.
I started out mowing the lawn, because it needed it (and I had basically done everything I could on the woodwork without borrowing a taller ladder). Then when I got to the back yard, I couldn't help noticing how terrible all the edges looked, so I dragged the Really Long Extension Cord back there, and spent a good hour really cleaning up the back yard (focusing mainly on the porch), including another half hour or so of vaccuuming the outdoors. Hey, I said to shut up about that!
Then I put my stuff away, and went inside to find out why T-- hadn't started pestering me about lunch plans yet, and learned that it was barely ten o'clock. I had gotten up at eight. I was horrified.
I showered, and then T-- went to grab us some sandwiches and I watched AB. We played some, I made some phone calls to see if anybody wanted to help me work on the house (and learned that all my friends actually schedule productive activities for their weekends, too -- who knew?), and made arrangements to swing by B-- and E--'s after lunch to grab a ladder.
When I got there, I kinda tarried. For one, it's always fun to catch up. For another, I had a really miserable afternoon ahead of me. I did finally leave, though, and when I got home I set up the ladder, climbed up way too high, and finished the scraping. Then I got out the Mouse and sanded the whole surface, top to bottom, which took right around two hours. Meanwhile, T-- ran up to Lowes for me and bought the paint -- Killz as a primer, white for most of the siding, and a rich blue for the trim.
It was already dusk by the time I finished sanding, but I did a test coat of the primer in one of the lower areas, and it had me feeling pretty good about the project. I put my stuff away, went inside for dinner, and then played Rock Band with T-- for a couple hours before watching SNL. It was nearly midnight before we went to bed.
Then I woke up at 7:30 Sunday morning so I could out and put up the primer before church. That was a miserable morning, I'll tell you what. I was also sore all over from two full days of hard work, but I made myself climb the ladder again and again, and it took me just under two hours to get the entire area primed. Then I had to rush to get ready for church, and we went to worship while my base coat dried.
I kept falling asleep during church, and really dragging when we went to lunch at Subway with K-- and N--, but I needed to get two coats of white on, then let it dry completely so I could tape it before I could do the coat of blue. So when I got home from church, instead of crawling into bed, I crawled back up the ladder and did a coat of white in about an hour and fifteen. I let it dry for half an hour, then went back up and did a second coat in just under an hour. At that point, the siding was looking pretty good.
Then I took my nap. I spent an hour and a half sprawled on the bed, then went back out and taped and painted -- I didn't have any room for a tray at the top of the ladder, so I would take the tape up, cover everything I could reach, then go back down for the tray and brush and go back up to paint. All this to do one six-inch-wide trim board, so I was only doing three or four feet in lenght from any given ladder position.
All told, taping and painting took about an hour and a half. Then D-- showed up, newly back from Wichita, and asked if I wanted something for dinner. T-- and AB were at Small Groups with K-- and N-- (and eating there), so I said, "Heck yes," and he ran off to Taco Bell while I climbed back up and did the second coat. Since the tape was already up at that point, the second coat only took about half an hour, and that was significantly more time moving and reconfiguring the ladder than it was painting.
Once again, I finished my handiwork by the glow of our exterior lights, but I got it done and went in to enjoy my soft tacos (and a Diet Dr Pepper with more than a little bit of rum in it).
Before I finished eating T-- and AB and K-- and N-- got back from Small Groups, and we started up the Cowboys / Packers game. It was another wild one, and after a slow start the Cowboys really tore up. That was a pretty pleasant way to end a pretty unpleasant weekend. I went to bed at eleven again, and was up by six this morning to get to work on time.
UGH!
I did finally count it up, and every step in the process of painting required me to climb the ladder eighteen times. That's eighteen times to scrape the peeling paint, eighteen times to sand, eighteen to prime, thirty-six to paint two coats of white, eighteen for taping and painting blue, and eighteen more for the second coat of blue. My legs are dying.
I have eighteen more, too. I've got to go up and take down the tape, when I get home from work today. I should probably go up with some white and do touch-up (where the blue dripped past the tape, or the ladder damaged the not-perfectly-dried white when I was moving it around), but I doubt I'll have the energy. It's so high up, and such a small area, I doubt anyone will care.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Anyway, the purpose is just for me to jot stuff down as it occurs to me, and I can browse through it from time to time and try to find something that sounds worth doing.
Last week, the "Writing" section kept catching my eye, and you probably saw the results here. I completed a bunch of writing chores last week, and it felt pretty rewarding.
Well, about six months ago I noticed the severely peeling paint on the wood siding above our garage, and it really got to me. It's been in terrible shape ever since we bought the house, but it's a relatively small portion of our facade, and high enough up that no one ever really pays it any attention, so it's gone ignored for two and a half years. When I made up my To Do list, though, I went ahead and put "Scrape and paint exterior woodwork" on there, and ever since it's been annoying the everloving bawhango out of me. Every time I pulled into the driveway, it irritated me. Every time I glanced through my To Do list, I wanted to mark it off. But the height of that was not only in an incredibly hot (and then abnormally rainy) summer, but also while my body was broken with all that back pain.
So, yeah, last Thursday I found out we would actually be home this weekend, and I checked the weather and found out it would be sunny and windy and dry (and not uncomfortably hot). Then again, I also mentioned here on Thursday that I was feeling sick. I'm not quite sure what happened with that.
Anyway, I moved my Regular Day Off to last Friday, and figured I would either spend the day in bed convalescing, or on a ladder scraping. I ended up doing the ladder.
AH hahaha! That was so worth all the setup.
Bah. No, really. On Thursday night I was still feeling under the weather, so I just watched a movie with T--, and maybe we played some Rock Band. Then I got up relatively early on Friday, felt relatively well, so I went outside to see what I could do. I had gotten a drill bit a while back that said it was for "stripping paint" which, it turns out, is not the same thing as "scraping and prepping a surface for painting." I seriously damaged some of our exterior woodwork before I came to that conclusion though.
That left me using an old-fashioned metal scraper, and a Mouse power sander. I didn't get around to the Mouse until Saturday, though.
See, to use the drill, I bit the bullet and got out our Really Long Extension Cord, and completely unwound it. Turned out, that was unnecessary (I could reach the peak of our roof with about a third of it), but I didn't know that to begin with. So I got out on the ladder, worked on the woodwork until I realized I was doing more harm than good (and would have to scrap, which I hate), and then climbed down and decided to take a little break.
Already having the Really Long Extension Cord unfurled, I decided on a whim to grab the weed eater and edge our lawn for only the second time since we moved in. I ended up doing a pretty thorough job of it (and our drive looks nice now), but there was a lot of newly cut undergrowth all over the driveway at that point. I thought about going to borrow K--'s leafblower, said something about it to T--, and she pointed out that we had a shopvac we'd bought years ago for a single project, and never used since.
So I vaccuumed my drive. Shut up! It worked really well.
And then at that point I was out of excuses to delay, so I dug out our scraped, got back up on the ladder, and finished the bottom half of the west facing. Only the bottom half, though, because my ladder was too short to do more. It was 5:00 by then, though, and I was supposed to watch AB while T-- went to a crop, so I put my stuff away, showered, and called it done for the day.
K-- and N-- came over to keep me company for the evening, and we went to Mazzio's for dinner and then came back to the house and watched Baby Mama (which is worth seeing twice, I can attest). Then we played Rock Band until 11-ish, at which point they had to go home, and I ended up playing guitar for another hour and a half until T-- got home. It was after 2:00 when we finally went to bed.
Saturday, I had all day to work on the house so I had no intention of getting up early. I turned off the alarm clock before I went to bed, and just slept as long as I wanted to. When I got up, I threw on my work clothes and stumbled out into the living room and T-- said, "Oh, I'm sorry! Did we wake you?" And I had no idea what she meant, so I assured her no, and went out to the garage to get started.
I started out mowing the lawn, because it needed it (and I had basically done everything I could on the woodwork without borrowing a taller ladder). Then when I got to the back yard, I couldn't help noticing how terrible all the edges looked, so I dragged the Really Long Extension Cord back there, and spent a good hour really cleaning up the back yard (focusing mainly on the porch), including another half hour or so of vaccuuming the outdoors. Hey, I said to shut up about that!
Then I put my stuff away, and went inside to find out why T-- hadn't started pestering me about lunch plans yet, and learned that it was barely ten o'clock. I had gotten up at eight. I was horrified.
I showered, and then T-- went to grab us some sandwiches and I watched AB. We played some, I made some phone calls to see if anybody wanted to help me work on the house (and learned that all my friends actually schedule productive activities for their weekends, too -- who knew?), and made arrangements to swing by B-- and E--'s after lunch to grab a ladder.
When I got there, I kinda tarried. For one, it's always fun to catch up. For another, I had a really miserable afternoon ahead of me. I did finally leave, though, and when I got home I set up the ladder, climbed up way too high, and finished the scraping. Then I got out the Mouse and sanded the whole surface, top to bottom, which took right around two hours. Meanwhile, T-- ran up to Lowes for me and bought the paint -- Killz as a primer, white for most of the siding, and a rich blue for the trim.
It was already dusk by the time I finished sanding, but I did a test coat of the primer in one of the lower areas, and it had me feeling pretty good about the project. I put my stuff away, went inside for dinner, and then played Rock Band with T-- for a couple hours before watching SNL. It was nearly midnight before we went to bed.
Then I woke up at 7:30 Sunday morning so I could out and put up the primer before church. That was a miserable morning, I'll tell you what. I was also sore all over from two full days of hard work, but I made myself climb the ladder again and again, and it took me just under two hours to get the entire area primed. Then I had to rush to get ready for church, and we went to worship while my base coat dried.
I kept falling asleep during church, and really dragging when we went to lunch at Subway with K-- and N--, but I needed to get two coats of white on, then let it dry completely so I could tape it before I could do the coat of blue. So when I got home from church, instead of crawling into bed, I crawled back up the ladder and did a coat of white in about an hour and fifteen. I let it dry for half an hour, then went back up and did a second coat in just under an hour. At that point, the siding was looking pretty good.
Then I took my nap. I spent an hour and a half sprawled on the bed, then went back out and taped and painted -- I didn't have any room for a tray at the top of the ladder, so I would take the tape up, cover everything I could reach, then go back down for the tray and brush and go back up to paint. All this to do one six-inch-wide trim board, so I was only doing three or four feet in lenght from any given ladder position.
All told, taping and painting took about an hour and a half. Then D-- showed up, newly back from Wichita, and asked if I wanted something for dinner. T-- and AB were at Small Groups with K-- and N-- (and eating there), so I said, "Heck yes," and he ran off to Taco Bell while I climbed back up and did the second coat. Since the tape was already up at that point, the second coat only took about half an hour, and that was significantly more time moving and reconfiguring the ladder than it was painting.
Once again, I finished my handiwork by the glow of our exterior lights, but I got it done and went in to enjoy my soft tacos (and a Diet Dr Pepper with more than a little bit of rum in it).
Before I finished eating T-- and AB and K-- and N-- got back from Small Groups, and we started up the Cowboys / Packers game. It was another wild one, and after a slow start the Cowboys really tore up. That was a pretty pleasant way to end a pretty unpleasant weekend. I went to bed at eleven again, and was up by six this morning to get to work on time.
UGH!
I did finally count it up, and every step in the process of painting required me to climb the ladder eighteen times. That's eighteen times to scrape the peeling paint, eighteen times to sand, eighteen to prime, thirty-six to paint two coats of white, eighteen for taping and painting blue, and eighteen more for the second coat of blue. My legs are dying.
I have eighteen more, too. I've got to go up and take down the tape, when I get home from work today. I should probably go up with some white and do touch-up (where the blue dripped past the tape, or the ladder damaged the not-perfectly-dried white when I was moving it around), but I doubt I'll have the energy. It's so high up, and such a small area, I doubt anyone will care.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
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