Tag Archives: life

general posts about my life

A General Update

 

So life has been – interesting of late and it has kept me away from my blog.

The principle issue is that ‘minor’ sprain I suffered at World Con in Kansas City. Well I had it x-rayed and while there are no broken bones the doctor pronounced it a serious sprain. I am wearing a brace on my dominant hand and that makes everything a challenge. I can type – poorly and slowly – so I am not out of work at my day job. I am working on my novel — nearly finished — but beyond those items I have little endurance at the keyboard.

However the convention was wonderful. There were events every hour and often more then one that I wanted to attend. I met old friends and new ones. I had a great time and came away from new idea and new energy.

Soon, next week, I will loose the brace and get back to my usual self.

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Paramount Studio Tour

Here is a brief and very top level account of my 4 1/2 hours tour of Paramount Studios this past Thursday.

First off I arrived at the studio a full 30 minutes before I had expected and spent a little time decompressing and drinking an English breakfast tea. Then it was off to the studio.


IMG_0988I checked in, got my badge, and was informed that in all likelihood I’d be hearing my name a lot during the day. (Robert Evans is a producer at Paramount and was involved in some of their most famous films.) People waited for the tour in a staging area with items from films and Oscars on displays. Soon my tour guide arrive, Aaron, collected the three other people in our group and we were off. (My V.I.P. tour was just 4 people which made for a vey nice and conversation experience.)IMG_0978

We drove around the lot and Aaron was very well informed and knew his job quite well. We IMG_0988visited the historic Bronson gate where people used to arrive in hope of scoring jobs as extra and bit players. Charles Bronson was discovered there and took his name from the street. (The street is no longer there as the Studio has expanded since then.)

We drove past active soundstages and though Aaron was not allowed to tell us what was shooting on the film stages I worked out from the clues that it was the up coming SF film, The God Particle. IMG_1116Another interesting location was the old production buildings where writers, directors, and star under IMG_0993contract worked. You can see the producers builders in the Star Trek Episode Patters of Force doubling as the NAZI headquarters.

Of course their backlot has a New York set, one locale is where the famous statue of Liberty head comes bouncing down the street in Cloverfield. There was another standing exterior set, The Alley, which is used as the dangerous street/alley in many television shows.IMG_1003

IMG_1109We also visited on of the four film vaults on the property. This was not a film vault per se as it was a vault of VHA, BETA, and all sorts of various storage media for the titles.IMG_1042IMG_1038

They provided a buffet lunch outdoors, picnic style. The weather, though warm, was pleasant and the others guests and the guides all made for a friendly setting.IMG_1082

We visited the archive, which is the closest thing Paramount has to a museum. IMG_1073I have the impression that unlike Warner Brothers Paramount only recently began a corporate culture of preservation of artifacts in the last few decades. However unlike WB they allowed photos in the archive while WB forbade them in their museum.IMG_1076

We ended the tour in the Prop Warehouse, a place where many oversized props are stored and displayed.IMG_1123

Over all I very much enjoyed the tour and would recommend it if you come to Los Angeles.

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I’m back

 

Well, the last couple of weeks were less than fun. A week ago Thursday my sweetie-wife dropped me off at the curb for my day-job. This is all very routine but what followed was not. I swung the car door closed with my left hand. My wife, thinking I had released the door, put the car into motion. The motion jerked my fingers, partially wrapped at the window frame of the passenger window. She stopped at once and I did not think that I had suffered any injury, waved her off and went to work.

Ahh, the lovely delayed action of soft tissue damage.

By the time I reached my desk pain, sharp and deep, pierced some of my finger joints. Within fifteen minutes the swelling grew prominent and it was clear that there had been some sort of injury. I soldiered on for a few more minutes but I was forced to admit I needed to seek medical help.

I logged out and caught on Uber to a nearby medical facility. A couple of hours and an X-ray later I was home with the 3rd and 4th fingers of my left hands strapped to splint, putting me out commission for typing.

The doctors diagnosed the injury as pulled tendons and predicted I would need to wear the splint for 1-2 weeks. Seeing as I type at the day-job for a living the doctors put me on limited duty and I was sent home. I watched a lot of videos, movies, and T.V. shows frustrated that I could not work at either job. My novel had reached 73,000 and my assessment of it was rosy.

Luckily I healed on the faster side of the range and a week later the medics cleared the removal of the splint.

I am back at work at the day-job and back on the novel. Where I had hoped to complete the first draft by this week it now looks like another two weeks before I’ll get there. (There was the one-week down and the book is running a bit long. I think it will land between 85,000 and 90,000 words instead of 80,000.)

Still, it is good to be back.

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Liberty Station

Today walk was out at LIberty Station in the Point Loma region of San Diego. For those who do not know San Diego used to be home to one of the navy’s three Naval Training Centers, the other two being in Orland (Where I did my basic Training) and up int he Great Lakes region. Several years ago the USN gave up NTC San Diego and it has since been trnasform into a bayside park,  business & Arts district.

Here is a panoramic shot I took today of Liberty Station. It didn;t turn out half bad.

 

Liberty Station

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Presido San Diego CA

For walk today, on the weekend my wife and I like to go out for walks as our exercise, my sweetie-wife selected Presido Park to avoid the crowds near downtown as Pride ramps up into full swing here in San Diego.

I was not aware that today is the anniversary of San Diego’s founding and as such the meusem at Presido Park was free. It’s not a big muesem but it was my first time there.

Here is a photo of the outside if the Presido, and one fo Mission Valley, the area of San Diego I call home, looking east from the mission’s tower.

Presido

Mission Valley

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A Man Should Know His Limitations

So, as regular readers here already know for the past several years I have maintained an annual pass to Universal Studios, Hollywood. (‘The entertainment capital of L.A.’ – sigh I remember when they were the entertainment capital of the world, not just one city.) Movies are one of my favorite things and going to the park by myself gave me a day to clear my head, have fun, and let ideas collide on their own while I was distracted. Many a trip ended with new concepts, plots, and characters for my writing.

Sadly, with the coming of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, otherwise known as Harry Potter and The Really big Check — sorry Cheque, they have substantially raised their prices and instituted black out dates – pretty much every weekend during the summer – on their annual pass holders. I made the call that the price was too much, the utilization too limited, and the crowds too large for my purposes.

Searching for a new theme park day trip destination for myself I took a trip Sunday to Knott’s berry Farm. I like roller coasters, it’s half an hour closer than the Universal, and I could get a day pass at nearly half off from my work benefits.

It was a pleasant trip and I had fun, but I have made a discovery that it will not be what I need for creativity. On one point multiple roller coasters are too stimulating and the back burners of my brain appear to switch off. Also I discovered while most roller coasters do not make me motion sick, spiraling ones most certainly do. I had fun, but came home early than normal and with only modest idea creation, most of which occured during the drive time.

I still need the moderate level distraction for hours at a time when I can let creativity occur in the background processes. The answer is going to be the world Famous San Diego Zoo. I can walk it grounds, take in shows, lectures, and tours. Partake in theme park food, see fascinating wild life and be home in time for serious quality time with my sweetie-wife. Plus with two annual passes we can return to our Sunday in the zoo walks.

 

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The Concert That Wasn’t

Yesterday I held a ticket for Olivia Newton-John in concert at a local casino, Pala. I hadn’t seen her in concert in more than thirty years and was looking forward to the evening. My sweetie-wife is not a fan and so this was to be a solo night out for myself.

The Casino/hotel complex is on a reservation and took about 45 minutes to drive to. I arrived early enough to had a quick meal, the largest chili dog I have ever seen at a very decent price, they certainly want your money at the gambling and not the cafe, and then went to the concert hall.

It was well attended, perhaps sold out I am not really sure. Only a few minutes late Olivia appeared on the stage and started singing Have You Ever Been Mellow. I can tell you definitively that she does not lip-synch her concerts. One, from my seat I could see the person operating the teleprompter with the lyrics, two, she was sick and is showed in her voice.

Before she completed the song she stopped, waved the band silent, and apologized to us that her voice was croak-y after catching something overseas and that she would do the best that she could. She launched into her next song, but the sore throat prevented her from getting to the high notes and she again stopped the show, this time letting us know she couldn’t perform. It was clear she was mortified and ashamed by her failure and I felt very bad for her. This is one of the real differences between a performance art and other arts. A writer can polished and edit and even not release a piece if they feel they are not hitting their marks, performance artists  do it live and their failures, even when it is not their fault, are live.

She didn’t send us away, she stayed on stage chatting with the audience, answering questions, and making arrangments with the hotel for photo opportunities. She also promised she would try to come back soon. I stayed for about half an hour of the chatting and questions, then left for home.

This morning the refund notice arrive in my email box, so I am happy the venue acted promptly, but I am sad I did not get to see her show.

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Thoughts on Death

Nothing terribly deep or novel here, just a few meanderings on me and my relationship with that terminal dirt nap.

All of my life thoughts of death and mortality occasionally surfaced into my forebrain. Of course, there are the usual childhood incidents, such as when your puppy dies, that can provoke contemplation, but there have also been other instigating factors. I am not talking about the passing of my father when I was a child; though that naturally impacted my thoughts and mental balance considerably.

Even before that, I can remember thinking about death and thinking specifically about my own demise. Strange and unusual thoughts for a child.

One example can be recounted in a simple prayer I was taught.

Now I lay be down to sleep

I pray the lord my soul to keep.

Should I die before I wake

I pray the lord my soul to take.

My parents raised me as a Southern Baptist. (Time has shown that it did not take and I am a religious non-believer now who thinks that all religions look equally silly from the outside.) Reciting that simple rhyme at night sometimes sparked my imagination.

Could I die before I wake? Did that sort of thing really happen? Where people just go to bed and for no reason never wake up? I can remember clearly have nights where I feared going to sleep because it was possible I would never wake up.

It had to be possible, it was right there in what I was saying.

Did the prayer start the thoughts or did I have an innate fascination with the end of life?

I can’t say. The details are lost to me in the far reaches of hazy and untrustworthy memory.  Nature or Nurture I will never know but still, to the day, I don’t react the same way as most people when I hear of a death.

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Post Convention Update

Well, Condor XXIII went very well. Despite a nasty and persistent cough I made it through all my panels. I am happy with how they all turned out and there were loads of good discussions.

Now a few days out the cough has nearly disappeared, just in time as yesterday I had a dentist’s appointment. Missing a few molars I need bridges and we have now started that work. I am currently wearing my first temp bridge and my mouth is getting used to the new architecture.

Work proceeds on the outline for my new novel. The outline alone is now more than 5600 words long. In addition to that I am thinking about trying to knock out a few short stories.

I went in my library of short I had written about 2002 and shocked myself with just how far my prose has come. Man, I was in love with the past progressive tense. Many critiques will call that passive voice, but technically it is not, though both weaken your prose and its impact.

 

Anyone know anything about StokerCon?

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My trip to Fire station 45

So for the past year my sweetie-wife and I have watched as the city built a new fire station near our home. Today, after several months of operation, Firestation 45 hosted an open house for the public, and while my sweetie-wife need to work I managed to attend. Here are just a few picture and thoughts from that visit.

Bunkhouse

This is the area called the bunkhouse. It is the ‘living room’ for the station for the people on duty. Off to the left is a big screen TV and a stack of DVDs. ( I was informed because that cable and internet access has yet to be connected.) Now you can see that those recliners look quite comfy, and they are, but they are not a product of your tax dollars. The city provides utilities and  toilet paper, everything else including the food, the personal pay for themselves. They work 24 hours on, then have 24 hours off, after 4 work periods they get 4 days off.  I learned that smaller stations the people on duty just brown bag it, but at larger ones like 45 they chip in each day for a grocery run and buy the food communally.

kitchen-2Here is the kitchen. It’s very nice and ultra modern, but then again this is a brand new station.

Here is a reverse angle of the rest of the kitchen.

Kitchen-1

 

 

 

 

I learned that station 45 is the Hazardous waste specialists for San Diego County and so they are on call for any Hazardous waste issues county wide. Fire department personnel also suffer cancers at a higher rate than the general population due to their continual exposure to burning chemical. Because of this the department goes to great lengths to reduce exposure whenever and as much as possible. Those bulky protective uniforms are washed after every use and each person has two sets of ‘turn outs’ so that one can be in the process of being cleaned while the other worn on a call.

Here is a [picture of a fire truck and a fire engine. The truck is one the left, the yellow hose is Truck and Engineconnected to the exhaust to reduce carcinogen exposure. The difference between a ‘truck’ and an ‘engine?’ A fire truck carries a tank of water, this one I think has 500 gallons, while an engine doesn’t carry water but carries ladders and equipment. Essentially a Fire Engine is a giant motorized tool box.

 

 

I mentioned that the people on duty are on duty for 24 hours at a stretch, so of course there has to be living spaces. They don;t live, at least not at this station, in a giant barracks style room, butquarters here you can see that they have private rooms. The one picture is unoccupied. There were two wings and the occupied wing was off limits to the public.

 

Now in case you were getting sentimental about Firepolethings and felt that traditions were dying out, here for your pleasure is the fireman’s pole. Yup, they actually use that pole for quick transits from the upper floor to the ground floor. One thing that did surprise me, though it makes sense from a middle of the night safety thing, is that the pole is actually inFirepole door an enclosed space behind a door. This is of course so that you don’t stumble and fall through it by accident. (And no they were not letting us use the pole.) The display above the door is a ticker tape sort of thing that during a call continuously flashes the call and which units are responding.

I’ll end this post with a panoramic view from the second floor balcony.

panorama 45

 

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