I've been thinking how nice it would be to own my own business, something Cindy and I could do together. She likes to sleep in and I like to be up and active early, so our shifts would occur naturally.

We love animals but aren't the sort who could be vets - I don't think we would deal well with sick little critters. So how about a pet hotel? About once a year, we put Lina the kitty up at a great local 'Pet Resort' called All About Cats and Dogs. They have a good facility and Lina always comes home in fine shape.

So I started imagining how I would design a pet resort of our own. I would have web cams in each enclosure, so the owners could log in and see stored and live footage of their little bundle of love while they are away.

And hey, how about phones built into each enclosure which would be set to 'auto answer', allowing the clients to call in and chat with the pet while watching them on the web cam? How sweet would that be? (Would the pets be soothed or frustrated by hearing their owner's voices?)

This line of thought led me to pranksters - some jerks who might log on to the site and call in with some harsh language: "Bad dog! Bad dog! VERY BAD DOG! Go lie down!!" and the poor dog is cringing and whimpering and spinning in circles, looking for somewhere to go.

Awful!

As a result of this mental exercise, I realize there will need to be some sort of phone password for clients to use, good only for the duration of their pet's stay.

I found this notice on my door on Friday night:

"Dear Residents:

Last night, the apartment complex experienced a break in and one of the items stolen was a set of master keys. We have already started the process of rekeying all the apartment units. The rekeying process requires that we enter each apartment unit. Each entry door lock will be reconfigured so that the stolen master key will no longer open the lock, but your individual entry lock key will still be operative. We hope the process completed by..."

A locksmith stopped by early on Sunday to change out the tumblers, the whole process took all of five minutes and indeed our existing keys still work - but it's still unsettling.

What would keep some random con man from posting such notices, and changing out a whole series of apartment's locks, only to allow himself access any time he likes? I didn't call the office to verify this notice, and I doubt most residents did.

Labels: apartments, con men, keys, locks

I can't get enough banana's and Quaker Oh's! Yummy deliciousness, I highly recommend this as a combo.

Labels: Banana, Food Obsession, Quaker Oh's

I'm going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel, currently titled 'Timeclock Adjustment' until it's done.

649 words written today.

Labels: Book Progress, Timeclock Adjustment

Who needs TWO chest freezers in a one-bedroom apartment? Only a serial killer, that's who.

He's quiet, polite, mysterious, keeps to himself - yep, all the symptoms of serial killing. If only if I knew whether or not he eats bread - that would be the clincher. I suppose I could go through his trash...

Should I call the authorities?

Labels: authorities, chest freezers, new neighbor, serial killers

I'm going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel, currently titled 'Timeclock Adjustment' until it's done.

644 words written today.

I have written 7,450 words since NaNoWriMo ended, which pleases me.

Labels: Book Progress, Timeclock Adjustment

Like many folks, I spend upwards of eighteen hours a month on the freeway heading to and from work.

I foolishly canceled XM a few months ago, but have been pleasantly surprised to notice I'm spending a lot less on music from iTunes lately. (I have a number of friends who are resolute converts to the religion of 'Only Dummies Pay for Files', and they may well have let out an excited gasp a moment ago.)

But no, I haven't started stealing songs - instead, a good six years behind everyone else with a PC and an MP3 player I've really been getting into podcasts lately.

I'd listened to snippets of a few podcasts here and there over the years, and I never enjoyed them. A full tortuous minute of listening would prove that the voices, personalities, and writing style all grated.

One exception was a really fun podcast - Earth Concepts For Aliens, which for some reason stopped after only seven podcastisodes. I'd recommend downloading all seven, and then peppering the writer/producer/performer Paulius with demands for a plethora of new podcastisodes.

But I can't credit ECFA for the surge in my podcast listening, since for some reason there are only seven podcastisodes of this Emmy Award Nominated podcast.

I finally came across the trifecta that had been lacking in the 'How Stuff Works' podcasts. I started out on 'Stuff You Should Know' with Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant, and have worked my way into 'Stuff Mom Never Told You' with Molly Edmunds and Cristen Conger.

(In the fantasy world that is my brain, Cristen records the audiobook version of 'Timeclock Adjustment', my novel-in-progress.)

I have only listened to SYSK and SMNTY so far, but if they're any indication of the quality, all the different podcasts on the site are worth checking out. Go! Do so!

Labels: Cristen Conger, How Stuff Works, Paulius, podcast, XM

I'm going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel, currently titled 'Timeclock Adjustment' until it's done.

1010 words written today. (WOOT!)

Labels: Book Progress, Timeclock Adjustment

Labels: freeway snaps

I'm going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel, currently titled 'Timeclock Adjustment' until it's done.

622 words written today.

Labels: Book Progress, Timeclock Adjustment

At a recent 'Friends of the Library' sale in Gainesville, these two notices caught my eye. I have to admit, it never occurred to me to wait a few years and reuse a calendar.

Labels: Friends of the Library, Gainesville Florida

I'm going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel, currently titled 'Timeclock Adjustment' until it's done.

671 words written today.

Labels: Book Progress, Timeclock Adjustment

Labels: birds, windows, Work

I'm going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel, currently titled 'Timeclock Adjustment' until it's done.

743 words written today.

Labels: Book Progress, Timeclock Adjustment

Thanks, ViewSonic!


Apparently adjusting this inert-gas pressurized pneumatic monitor from above can lead to a concussion, while adjusting from the front can lead to broken ribs and possibly a punctured lung.

It makes so much more sense to adjust from behind, where you will have no idea if the new adjustment is correct or not.

Labels: Instructions, ViewSonic

We went out to dinner (Panera Bread yum!) after work, we came home and went to bed. No writing today.

Labels: Book Progress, Panera Bread

For some reason it amused me greatly to make up these fake bumper stickers.

Labels: MS Paint, Stickers

I'm going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel, currently titled 'Timeclock Adjustment' until it's done.

730 words written today.

Labels: NaNoWriMo, Timeclock Adjustment

We're expected to be so very polite to one another all the time. I'm not a contrary person, but sometimes I wish there was a number I could call to have a good argument, similar to the Monty Python sketch.

I'll bet a real pay per minute argument line would make money. And hey, if I had such a job, I could telecommute!

Labels: Argument, Monty Python, telecommute

I'm going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel, currently titled 'Timeclock Adjustment' until it's done.

805 words written today.

Labels: Book Progress, Timeclock Adjustment

Christmas gift ideas are getting more difficult. Everyone tends to buy themselves anything they really want - which I do too, leaving little for us to gift when Christmas rolls around.

This leaves only things people won't buy themselves, which tend to be really pricey.

Labels: Christmas

I'm going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel, currently titled 'Timeclock Adjustment' until it's done.

672 words written today.

Labels: Book Progress, Timeclock Adjustment

I'm going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel, currently titled 'Timeclock Adjustment' until it's done.

809 words written today.

Labels: Book Progress, Timeclock Adjustment

Get a load of this article.

Unfortunately for me, I have approximately 2 moles on my body. Doe!

Another Wikipedia snippet:

Moles tend to appear during childhood and gradually disappear after middle age. People with white skin have an average of 30 moles, with some having up to 400 moles.

People who have moles on their skin may have a lower incidence of certain age-related diseases. The number of moles a person has correlates with telomere length, which may be of significance in the aging process. One study found that people with over 100 moles had longer telomeres than those with under 25 moles. Shorter telomeres are thought by some to be associated with a greater risk of age-related diseases.

Labels: aging, Moles, telomeres

I'm going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel, currently titled 'Timeclock Adjustment' until it's done.

744 words written today.

Labels: Book Progress, Timeclock Adjustment

I just read an article on Wikipedia (and confirmed at Chicago Tribune) that boggles my mind. The Swiss have banned minarets – that’s an architectural spire with an onion shaped crown, like so:

Why in the world would anyone believe that opposing a spire would change people’s minds for the better, or encourage positive social changes?

If an anti-Christian U.S. president took over and banned churches, would that do anything but encourage the people he’s trying to repress to fight back? I don’t see this ban will last very long - worldwide pressure will likely result in a quick retraction.

Why all the brouhaha? How did this start? According to Wikipedia:

The Swiss minaret controversy began in a small municipality in the northern part of Switzerland in 2005. The contention involved the Turkish cultural association in Wangen bei Olten, which applied for a construction permit to erect a 6-metre-high minaret on the roof of its Islamic community centre. The project faced opposition from surrounding residents, who had formed a group to prevent the tower's erection. The Turkish association claimed that the building authorities improperly and arbitrarily delayed its building application. They also believed that the members of the local opposition group were motivated by religious bias.

The Communal Building and Planning Commission rejected the association's application. The applicants appealed to the Building and Justice Department, which reverted the decision and remanded. As a consequence of that decision, local residents (who were members of the group mentioned) and the commune of Wangen brought the case before the Administrative Court of the Canton of Solothurn, but failed with their claims. On appeal the Federal Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the lower court. The 6-metre (20 ft)-high minaret was eventually erected in July 2009…

…The Egerkinger committee is made up of members of the Swiss People's Party and the Federal Democratic Union. The committee opines that the interests of residents, who are disturbed by specific kinds of religious land uses, are to be taken seriously. Moreover, it argues that Swiss residents should be able to block unwanted and unusual projects such as the erection of Islamic minarets. The committee alleges, inter alia, that "the construction of a minaret has no religious meaning. Neither in the Qur'an, nor in any other holy scripture of Islam is the minaret expressly mentioned at any rate.

The minaret is far more a symbol of religious-political power claim...The initiators justify their point of view by stating parts of later Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's 1997 speech, which holds: "Mosques are our barracks, domes our helmets, minarets our bayonets, believers our soldiers. This holy army guards my religion." Ulrich Schluer, who is one of the Egerkinger committee’s most prominent exponents, states in this respect: "A minaret has nothing to do with religion: It just symbolises a place where Islamic law is established."

The British newspaper The Times, cited support of the minaret ban by "radical feminists" who oppose the oppression of women in Islamic societies. The Times further reported that Swiss women supported the ban, in pre-election polling, by a greater percentage than did Swiss men.

Labels: Minarets, What the What? Swiss

NaNoWriMo this year went surprisingly well!

I picked up where I left off on last year's story, which I can only assume helped make the process easier. Last year was about introducing everything from setting to characters, tone and the beginnings of the plot.

When I picked up this year all I had to do was keep moving forward, and the fact that I was jumping around wildly from scene to scene at whim, depending on what mood I was in had to help make it less like work.

However, during my progress it became abundantly clear that not a lot happens in the book. It's really all about one man and his memory problems which worsen over time - this is a very internal thing and isn't a very dramatic.

Memory issues were probably done as interestingly and dramatically as is humanly possible in the film Memento - the fact that some very corrupt people were carefully manipulating the poor man to some twisted, evil results made the movie amazing.

My character is surrounded by people who care about him, and only want to help (for the most part) which makes it a lot more slow. I admit, there is a ton of exposition in the book which may well be due to the word count pressure of NaNoWriMo.

(Some would use this as an argument against NaNoWriMo, but they can fuck right off.) If I trimmed all but the most entertaining exposition, it would likely end up a third of the length and twice as good.

My favorite thing about the way the book is going is that all the characters are doing their damnedest to go about their lives as normal despite all the memory issues the main character is having. It's always odd to me in most stories when all the characters drop everything else to focus on what's happening to one person. In my book, this leads to some extraneous scenes, but I feel it makes the whole story more like something that is really happening.

This will likely produce a book that's somewhat ponderous - one of those slow reads that you probably wouldn't stick with to the finish unless you really enjoy the writer's style, or are one of those folks who simply 'have to know' the solution to the mystery. I introduce several possibilities and the characters pursue them as well as they can, being average laymen - if you think your corporation is out to get you, what can really be done unless you have proof or millions of dollars?

I'm taking today off, but I will be writing every day until the book is finished. I've been debating the number of words that can easily fit into my day - something I could accomplish in about an hour. I'm leaning towards 600-800 words for this daily progress - getting done quickly isn't a priority, but making constant progress is.

I'm going to continue to post short blurbs on the blog about my daily progress, which I recommend to my writing buddies as well!

Labels: NaNoWriMo

Way to go, Invisible Lizard and KCGator!

Both of you beat me to 50,000 words this year, well done! Only someone who's gone through NaNoWriMo really knows what a challenge it is to write on a daily/almost daily basis despite everything else going on in their lives.

Good luck, Logician! You can do it! You only need 9000 words by midnight!

(Update - Congrats on reaching 50,000 words Logician! Did you write 9000 words today, or have you been sneakily writing without updating the word count online?)

I have it lucky in that I have quite a bit of free time - which means I have no reason other than laziness not to keep writing until this novel is finished. At a guess, there are probably another 30,000 words to be written before it's finished.

Day 30 - Total Words Written: 50,036

Words Left To Be Written: 0!

Labels: NaNoWriMo

I crawled out of bed at 7:30, not long after Cindy left for work. I took my morning walk in the delicious 49 degrees outdoors, had breakfast, washed the sheets and pillowcases, sprayed and cleaned the oven with noxious oven cleaner, then unloaded, loaded, and started the dishwasher.

Now it's 9am, time for a little online play before getting to the work of word count. Only today and tomorrow left for NaNoWriMo? This month flew by. I pledge to keep writing beyond November until the book is done!!

Day 29 - Total Words Written: 48,400

Words Left To Be Written: 1,600

Labels: NaNoWriMo

It's now 10:30pm. I got home from a half day of work and the other half hanging out with friends about an hour ago, and I have yet to write a single word today.

The call of the warm and snuggly wife in the cozy and comfy bed is hard to resist.

Despite the temptation I need to get today's word count knocked out - the thought of having twice the writing to do tomorrow is not an appealing one, as it would take me a good four hours to accomplish. It would be four hours spread out throughout the day, which means it would take over my whole Sunday. No no no, so here I go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I finished literally at 11:58 with a surprising minimum of distraction. Not too shabby.

Day 28 - Total Words Written: 46,719

Words Left To Be Written: 3,281

Labels: NaNoWriMo