Tag Archives: life

general posts about my life

New Beds

So Ikea, that bastion of clean elegant style, delivered our new beds today. It was a very orderly and well handled process. we were giving a time frame to expect the delivery and then 10 minutes or so before the actually arrival we got a complimentary call alerting us that the truck was on its way.
The delivery men were prompt and friendly, hauling away our old queen sized mattress and box spring, leaving the new material, packed and ready for assembly, in our living-room.
As is the case with nearly everything from Ikea, assembly was easy and quick. For the beds it really was nothing more than adding the legs to the support boxes and presto instant beds.
The mattresses were more intriguing to me. They came tightly rolled-up and sealed in plastic. (‘She’s dead, wrapped in plastic.‘) Once the plastic was sliced the mattresses unrolled and inflated. They are shipped vacuumed sealed, an aspect I particularly liked given the current fear of bedbugs out in the world, and the air rushes in, audibly, plumping up the mattresses to the full depth, a process neither fast nor dramatic, but one that fascinating to watch.

My sweetie-wife has gone out now for new linens, leaving me to a raining Saturday afternoon.  I think Call Of Duty calls.

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Writing Workshops

One thing I would really love to do is to attend a high-level writing workshop for SF and Fantasy Writers. (Thought I am more of an SF and Horror writer to be precise.)

The problem is that the workshops are intensive in money and time and it’s really hard to see how I can make one of them happen for me.

Clarion:

This is an old, well established and very well though of workshop. It used to be back east, but move to the campus of UCSD recently.

Tuition: $4957

Length: 6 weeks

Housing: Included with tuition, but mandatory that participants stay in the workshops housing.

Airfare: None for me I live in San Diego

There is simply no way I can swing $5000 for a workshop and 6 weeks away from my day job. Never going to happen

Viable Paradise:

Not as old as Clarion, but I hear good things about this workshop.

Tuition: $880

Length: 1 week

Housing: $155/night call it $1000 food not included

Airfare:  $700 (trans continental.)

The cost are much better this with one, I’m looking at $2500 for room, tuition and airfare, plus likely another $500 for food and rental car. so call it $3000

Taos Toolbox:

I don’t know as much about this one, but the instructors are both very talented writers. (One being a favorite of mine and one of the best in the field)

Tuition: $3200

Length: 2 weeks

Housing: Included, but not food.

Airfare: $304

Food/Rental car: $800

So total cost is $4300 but two weeks of vacation time required.

Man I would love to do one fo these, but I just don’t think I can.

le sigh

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Happy New Year

Well, 2010 has been officially put to bed and we have now started the road with Mr. 2011.

Personally I am optimistic about my life for 2011. I am working on a new and improved version of Cawdor which I hope to have completed by my birthday. (Mid-May and gifts are not expected.) I still have a story out that seem to be getting serious consideration from a professional pay (SWFA certified) market for publication, I am happily married and working at a job with good people doing good deeds for people desperately in need of good deeds. All in all, life is good and I am happy.

Oh and I have lost weight. (Well, it’s not really lost I know exactly what happened to it, i transformed it into waste heat and radiated it away.) I went from a high weight in 2010 of about 245 pounds to end the year at 215. I plan to continue to lose weight in 2011 until I am around 200 lbs.

To all my family and friends and causal readers, Happy New Year and may your year be a joyous and productive one.

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brief post

Had dinner tonight out with my sweetie-wife to celebrate her birthday and our anniversary. Sadly the gravy at the pub we went to was a mushroom gravy so I had to steer clear of the steak, but it was a good meal all the same.

We exchanged gifts, and then watched bonus material from Inception.

good night all

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Bad weather and bad head

Well, it has been raining for several days straight here in San Diego. This is not something that couthern Californioa drivers handle well. Not at all.

In addition to that my head has been pounding today. It did not progress to a  full migraine but man it threatened to do just that. However I still managed nearly a thousand words on Cawdor so I feel pretty good about that.

Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow as it is both my Sweetie-wife Birthday and our wedding anniversary.

Three happy years.

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a busy week

Well sorry I haven’t been around to blather at the internet but it has been a busy week here.

I have gotten the actual scripting started in the next version of Cawdor and the first draft if the first chapter is finished. Now only 29 or so more to go.

I had to deal with my xbox dying over the weekend, just two months after the warranty expired. It turns out that buying a refurbished xbox 360 is cheaper than repairing one. So, that is the route I took. In a strange way it worked out well because this Xbox, though refurbished, is newer and has a better graphic out than my older one.

Saw my rheumatologist and things seem to be going well on that front too.

It seems I am getting sucked back into the world of SFB gaming. For those who do not know SFB stands for Star Fleet Battles and in the 80’s it was a pretty fun game for starship combat in the Star Trek Universe. (Romulans, Klingons and the like.) Sadly the game kept expanding with new rules and new weapons which required new rules and rule for how the new rules worked with the old rules until the game collapsed under it own weight like a radiation enlarged ant. I gave up on the game because it turned into just who knew the rules better and it took fricking long to play.

Well, apparent retailer told the company that they would no longer carry the game because it was too complex. A game that can not attract new players is a dead game. So the game designer stripped the game down and made a new game out of it. I’ve read through the rule and it seems pretty playable again. I found a used set for more than half off the retaile price. (A used set that had never been played.) and I went ahead and ordered it.

Ahh the Gorns will fly again.

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A photo

So this afternoon on my second break of the day I walked outside and took in a bit of a constitutional. (I didn’t have enough battery power in my laptop to continue writing at work.)

I turned the corner looking north/west towards UCSD and La Jolla. Fog rolled over the hills and buildings in a thick blanket. I loved the site and tried to capture it with my cell phoner.

Here it is.

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Back From Convention

We got back last night from Loscon 37, the Los Angeles Area SF convention. This was a good Loscon and I had a great time. There were lots of interesting panels and presentations plus Saturday night I enjoyed the parties so much I stayed out past my knees’ endurance.

I would chat more about the convention, but I’ve been headachy today and am so now. This is going to be a brief post before bed.

It does, however, look like there is a road trip in the near future. The Mojave Air and Spaceport has an open house event every third Saturday they call Plane Crazy Saturdays, and on those Saturdays Xcor — a private enterprise rocket company — hosts open-houses. Xcor is a cool company staffed by cool people and if they stay on schedule they’ll be flying their sub-orbital spaceplane next year.

Not a dropship like Spaceship one and Two, but a craft that takes off like an airplane, scoots above the atmosphere into space — briefly — and then return to the spaceport to be readied for another flight.

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I’m back

with updates.

Turns out my lost post was made too quickly as Saturday was not super.

Oh most of the day went fairly well and I had a fun time at the San Diego Vintage SF screening of Them! However I learned just how modern I have truly become. During them film one of the characters, a female scientist named Pat, is looking at information on a clipboard. It was the style of clipboard with a flip-top cover, and she held the cover up while she read the sheets underneath. The camera’s POV was from the far side so all the audience could see was the cover upright and vertical, I saw it and the first thing my mind registered was a scientist working at her laptop. It took a moment for me to realize that I was NOT looking at a laptop fifty years early. I swear I had to make myself look and realize it was just a clipboard.

Anyway I Got home from the screening and with a couple of friends proceeded to play on the Xbox. I started feeling poorly, headache and upset GI tract. I had to suspend the xbox gaming and call it a night.

The next morning I was feeling a little better and I went and saw Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 with my sweetie-wife. (Good film I really liked it.) We had lunch and soon after I was feeling worse. We made it home but by that time I was weak and feeling like someone had overinflated my abdomen.

This is was state until yesterday. I made it back and forth to work, but beyond that I end no energy or inclination for anything more strenuous than watching videos, and not much of that.

(My Sunday Night Movie was going to be The Omega Man, but I couldn’t watch the entire film. I bailed early and went to bed.)

Tomorrow we’ll scoot for LosCon and luckily I seem to be recovered. I took a walk this morning, about an hour across uneven ground and I tolerated it well.

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