July - December 2006

11/28/06 SF Car Show:
I took my annual trip to the care show and have posted pictures and commentary
11/21/06 Writing:
These are glorious days. I got a rejection letter for a story that I was sure was going to be accepted. Obvoiusly I was wrong, but after I got over the usual mini-depression rejection letters always bring, I reread the editors' notes and realized that they were wrong. This is the first time I felt that way. Before I've said, "oh well," and submitted the story somewhere else hoping to catch someone else's fancy. But this story is different, and their comments are just wrong. They had expectations of how my story should end, but the ending is the point of the story.

So why does this make me happy? Because I feel, know, that this is a good story. It says what I want it to say. I have an ego about this one. I am gaining confidence in my abilities. This is good.

There is a saying, "If you need a task done give it to a busy person to do." One of my problems with writing has always been that I was always struggling with multiple projects. Always prioritizing and letting the "lesser" projects languish. I've tried something this last week and it's working very well for me. I load ALL my projects in to my word processor and work on whatever strikes my mood. Then when the work on that project is done for the day I close the file and work on something else. This way instead of forcring myself to work on a certain project at a certain time, I work on bits and pieces. This has increased my enjoyment of the writing process, and it's getting a bunch of work done.

The downside is that I'm so absorbed in writing that I don't have time for watching TV or reading the newspaper or even, the horror, playing video games. Sell your EA and ID stock folks.

11/5/06 Updates:
Sorry I missed October. Bad depression mixed with tons of stuff going on kept me from keeping the site updated.

New New Dog: Rex the Wonderdog (AKA: Maximus Rex, T-Rex, Rex die Wunderhund, Zeke Thomas) Half poodle - half something else. He's two years old and spent most of his life in shelters. Has a few psychotic quirks, but nohting we can't handle.

RVing: Took a trip to Sacramento. It was fun. Got to race at the indoor kart track there. It made me appreciate just how good the track in Burlingame is.

Writing: Didn't get much actual writing done, but I've got a bunch of stuff in the works. I've gotten excited about the novel again, so I'll be working on that again.

45: Yes I turned 45 last month. I had a week or so where it bothered me, but that's all gone now. I have the feeling that this is going to be a good year. Actually I have the feeling the November is going to be a good month. My daughter's birthday is next week. The week after that I'm due to hear about a short story that I think has a good chace of being published. Also that week I will be beginning a project at work that I expect will be a fun challenge for the next year or so. The week after that is Thanksgiving. I'm taking that week off from work to get some work done around the house. That's also the week of the SF Auto Show which is always fun.
9/24/06 New Dog:
We picked up a new dog yesterday. We have to take him back today. He's 1 year old, mostly just a puppy. We can put up with most of the usual puppy annoyances, peeing and pooping on rugs, playing too rough, getting into mud and sticky stuff, but he keeps biting Emily's ears. She's misearable. He won't leave her alone. I feel like we failed somehow.
9/17/06 Vacation:
Just got back from a week in the RV. We wandered up into Oregeon and hung out with the crazies for a while. Saw some beautiful coastline, some elk and just about every "old town" in the state. Some days we had a rough time with Emily. She misses Alex and doesn't know what to do with herself much of the time. She's become obsessed with meeting other dogs and people.
9/9/06 Alex:
We had to put Alex down today. He had a bleeding tumor. He was 14 years old. We've had him 9 years. Sad.
9/3/06 Racing:
Great time at the go kart track today. I won my race, which I've done before, but this is the first time I've won such a close race. The guy who finished 2nd was actually faster than me on most laps, but he was terrible at passing so I managed to keep in front of him. When we got in to lapped traffic I got around the slower kart quicker, but he would catch up to me when we got clear again. Unfortunately for him he got frustrated and started trying to bump karts out of his way. One rather hard hit on me got him a stop-and-go penalty which put him too far back to catch me again.
8/28/06 Writing:
Well the ghost story wandered off into oblivion. After a couple weeks of trying to reel it back in I've given up, for now. It's a bit of a shame because the story started so well but got to a point where it needed more than a good premise to cary the story forward. Everything I tried seemed so contrived. Perhaps some time away from the story will help.

The good part is that as soon as I decided to shelve the ghost story I went on a writing spree. I wrote a thousand words of a short story. Then realized that it was a close variation of another story I wrote. So I wrote another story and it came out great. Then I outlined and rewrote chapter one of my novel. I like it.

7/23/06 Short Story: I Fought the Law, and the Cab Won
The hilarious true story of my brush with near death.
7/22/06 Happiness and Learning:
Today's goal was to be happy. I got up early and rode my bike for the first time in a long time. I finally got around to debugging the problem with our clothes dryer. Turns out to be a simple fix, but I had to order the parts. Still, it's a step in the right direction. Then we took the dogs to the dog park and I let Alex loose. Emily has no problems socializing. She just wanders a bit, sniffs an occasional dog, and goes on her way. But Alex is not very social. No, that's not true. Alex is very social, he just expresses it by barking and growling. If you know him you tell the difference between his play growl and his angry growl, but not all the dogs know him.

The trick is, Alex is much better behaved off the leash than on. It turns out that I'm the one that makes him nervous. It's hard as a guardian to realize that you are the cause, or at least the catalyst, for your ward's bad behaviour.

7/9/06 Writing:
This has been a good week for writing. I completed and submitted a short non-fiction story that was custom written for a publication. I feel real good about this one. At the same time I got some work done on my difficult story. It still needs piles of work, but I think it may soon be fit for human consumption. Then there is the ghost story which is developing better than I hoped. I just hope I casn keep up the momentum.
7/1/06 Racing:
Another trip to the kart track. Very strange. I ran the Yokohama track for the first time in a long time. My times were a little off me last run on the track back in October, when I weighed 35 pounds less, but my times, except for one lap with a red flag for a spun kart, were the most consistent ever. My fastest lap was 27.51. I had two other lap that were only .02 seconds slower.