The Fantasy Adventure of Aaron Pogue
Author of the Dragonprince's Legacy, the Godlanders War, and the Ghost Targets mysteries
Because it’s only fair. After all, I did the same for AB:
v.1
A and L and E and X
Alex, Alexander
v.2
X and A-N-D-E-R
Xander, Alexander
v.3
L-E-W-I-S
Lewis, Alexander
v.4
P and O and G-U-E
Pogue, Alexander
refrain
A-L-E-X-A-N-D-E-R
Alexander
(We’ll usually just do verses one and two, but you’ve got to hit the refrain at the end.)
Yesterday I finally got a Google Profile built for Aaron Pogue. There’s a basketball player of the same name who was some sort of phenomenon in high school, so this is the first time typing my name into Google has ever revealed a single result related to me. (I’m right there at the very bottom of the first page, and it’s just my Google Profile).
I have grand plans for my personal website, but web design sounds too much like work to me, so I never really get around to it. Still, that’s the purpose here. If I ever do get a real website up, I’ll need some way to direct people to it rather than sports articles about some high school kid from five years ago.
My evening yesterday was pretty quiet. T– and AB were at the mall when I got home, so I went ahead and did my workout. By the time I was done, T– had soft tacos on the table. I mixed up some salsa, we all had a delicious dinner, and then we went for a quick walk through the neighborhood. After that AB went to bed, we watched Rules of Engagement and How I Met Your Mother, and then it was pretty much bed time.
Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.
Thursday
Last Thursday night I came home from work, played with AB a little bit, and then T– and I settled in to watch the rest of Lost as soon as possible. When that was done we still had The Office and Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock to watch, so it was a busy evening and swiftly done.
D– caught me on Google Chat around nine and suggested we go for a walk, so that kept me up even later. It was worth it, though. We figured out Lost.
Friday
Friday I got to leave work an hour early to pick up T– and AB for T–‘s ultrasound, which was the big one. You’ve all heard by now, but I learned then that we’re expecting a boy. Awesome. As T– mentioned on her blog, we went out for celebratory ice cream at Freddy’s.
Then we had dinner with D– and K– and N–, as well as her visiting dad and his wife and…mother-in-law? I think that’s right. Anyway, we went to Papa Dio’s, a fantastic Italian place right around the corner from our place. The food is incredible there. We all had a great time.
Saturday
Saturday I slept late, and didn’t really get cleaned up and going until after ten. Shortly after that Diana showed up to take AB to the zoo so T– and I could go watch a movie. We went with D– to see Angels and Demons. I’m not a Tom Hanks fan (unless he’s starring opposite a young Meg Ryan or two or three) and I’m not a Dan Brown fan, so my opinion on the movie is heavily biased. But the movie didn’t really do anything to change my bias. For what it’s worth.
Shortly after the movie B– and E– came over to drop off their little one with T– so the rest of us could go play laser tag. E–‘s…umm…sister-in-law’s brother (or some such) was in town visiting, and he wanted to get the true American experience. Or E– just didn’t want him to be bored the whole time. Whatever, she came up with plans, and we followed through.
K– met us there, too, so we had a whole crowd. It was only the second time I’d ever done laser tag (and I don’t remember the first time at all, except that it happened), and…not really what I expected. Way more fun. More exhausting, too. We only played one game, and we old men couldn’t have done more than that. Out of 34 people, K– came in second, and E– seventh. We were quite proud of them. The rest of us landed between 15 and 20.
After that everyone went there separate ways, although D– came back to our place and bought us pizza. We started Hellboy II (at long last) and got about 30 minutes into it before T– decided she was ready for bed. I stayed up a while later playing Fallout.
Sunday
Sunday morning I got up and mowed the lawn before church. I also got to deliver a copy of Ghost Targets: Expectation to our preacher, who read and loved Gods Tomorrow. I’m looking forward to some great feedback from him.
T– and I picked up some fajitas to go from On the Border, for lunch, and then afterward I ran up to the mall to grab some new shorts (and ended up with a full shopping list). When I got home, I helped T– rearrange some furniture (in preparation for setting up the new nursery), and we were about halfway through with that when B– showed up for another of E–‘s planned activities.
This time it was just B– and the sister-in-law’s brother and D– and me, but we went to Bricktown to watch a Red Hawks game. That’s minor league baseball, in case you don’t regularly follow the team. The display of athleticism was pitiful and not worth the price of admission, but the weather was perfect, and it was a nice afternoon out with the guys. Not too shabby.
After that D– and I ran up to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner, since T– was at Small Groups at the church. When she got home I put AB down to sleep, and then we watched a little TV.
Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.
Tuesday night I got home late from work, but I still ended up doing thirty minutes on the elliptical before dinner. D– came over, and T– made this peppercorn turkey breast that was phenomenal.
After that we watched the Biggest Loser three-hour season finale (while D– read a novel and I played the original Fallout), and then it was time for bed.
Yesterday T– had to work, so AB went to the babysitter’s. We have a couple ladies at church who are great with AB and are willing to watch her for free, but the price we end up paying is her missed nap. They have too much fun with her to try to make her go to sleep, so she just spends all afternoon running around and rolling in the dirt.
T– picked her up and had her home by 5:00 and she put her down for a quick nap before church, but when she tried waking her up at 5:45 to get ready for dinner, the girl threw an almighty fit. It was crazy. She’s always cranky when she wakes up mid-nap, but this was nuts. T– ended up putting her back in bed, and I went to dinner without them.
I met D– and K– and N– at Qdoba, and D– and K– ended up spending most of the time talking about work stuff. That gave me a few minutes to get caught up with N–, which was nice.
While we were there, we started watching the severe weather coverage on the TVs, and by the time D– and I got back to the house it was pretty clearly Lost was gonna get preempted. We held out hope anyway.
With the same level of faith, K– and N– came by after church, and when we switched to the show (after AB went to bed a little early), it was actually on. They saved the weather reports for the commercial breaks, and opened them all with, “Don’t worry, you’re not missing any Lost.” It was a two-hour season finale, and we were an hour and twenty-eight minutes into it when I guess they found some rotation or maybe it was because the metro area was threatened, but they finally decided we could just miss Lost after all. So we saw a chunk of it, but didn’t actually get up to the Incident. Lame!
We watched the actual weather for another half hour or so, and saw the tornadic system split in two and neatly dodge Edmond and northwest OKC. Nice that. The winds we got yesterday were crazy anyway, though — there’s limbs and trees down all over our neighborhood, and one neighbor ended up with a whole tree toppled out of his front yard and right across the drive. Nasty stuff.
Anyway, no actual damage at our place, and apart from the disappointment of missing the end of the show, things are going pretty well.
Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.
Sunday morning, I woke up early enough to have a delicious breakfast and then write a rather extensive blog post before rushing off to church with T–‘s family.
Afterward we celebrated Mother’s Day with the whole clan by throwing a cookout at her parents’ place. The men provided and prepared the food. For me, that consisted of buying a couple bags of chips and some soda. To legitimize the process a bit, I let AB choose the chips.
Anyway, the party lasted a couple hours and then people started slipping away. Around 3:00, when the house was finally empty, we put AB down for a nap and then left her in her grandparents’ care while T– and I headed up to the mall.
I’d bought her some clothes for Mother’s Day and, of course, got the wrong size. Further, the place I got them from (Motherhood Maternity or something along those lines) has a demonically brutal return policy, so instead of a present I basically got her an errand. We turned it into a positive, though, by taking the afternoon for some shopping time together. We ended up a Town West mall which was a real blast from the past. (For me it was the first time since high school.)
Then we picked up a Papa Murphey’s pizza on the way home, had that for dinner, and headed back to OKC around seven. That put us in a little after nine, and by the time we got AB in bed and all our stuff in from the car, we basically had time to watch an episode of Scrubs before going to bed. We ended up watching three.
Monday morning I woke up sore again, and when I got home from work I decided to try a different tack. I spent forty minutes on the elliptical machine — no resistance, and at a relatively slow pace — and when I was done I felt better than I had in days. Then I spent several hours folded into the couch, working on my laptop while we watched Monday night television, so I did another ten minutes before I went to bed. Today I woke up feeling a lot better. So that’s promising.
Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.
Friday
Last Friday (the first of the month), after work, T– went out shopping for the evening with Diana, leaving me to watch AB. I ended up taking her to the mall for dinner in the Food Court. N– met me there and helped me find a Mother’s Day present for T–. In the process, I got to see what it’s like to try to run errands with a child in tow. It wasn’t actually as bad as I would have guessed.
I got home from that eight-ish, and D– called to see if I was free to go out later. T– showed up right after that called and confirmed that I was, so around 9:30 D– swung by and picked me up. We checked on a couple coffee shops but they were closed, discussed a couple different bars, and ended up going to On the Border. We sat in the bar, finished a pitcher of sangria and two or three bowls of chips, and ended up taking home a bag full of leftovers somehow. Chips, salsa, queso, tortillas…. We think maybe the waitress had a crush on D–.
Saturday
Saturday morning T– got up early and took AB out garage saling, so I took the time to get some work done. I mowed the lawn and put down some weed killer, got a couple old Wal-Mart bags out of a tree in the front yard, cleaned up the house some, and even did a little writing. Then I got cleaned up in time to meet T– and AB at IHOP for lunch.
After lunch was my niece Lola’s birthday party — a tea party at my sister’s house — and I’d received conflicting reports concerning whether or not boys were supposed to be there, so I picked the most self-serving option and skipped it. D– and I went to see Wolverine instead, which turned out to be a chick flick, somehow. So there really were no winners.
My grandma and my aunt Darla’s family came up from Dallas for the party, so after the movie we all went out to dinner at Ole. It was excellent fun. Sometime in the afternoon T– had mentioned that we really needed to watch Quantum of Solace (she and I hadn’t seen it yet), and then when we mentioned that at dinner my brother-in-law said he hadn’t seen it, either. Or 300. Or Transformers. We were aghast, so I told my sister her husband was going to spend the evening at my place.
We watched the Bond flick, and then T– went to bed. Then we put in Transformers and I was yawning before the end of that one so I ended up going to bed, but D– and Jeff stayed up to watch 300. Good for them.
Sunday
Sunday morning we had church, and then headed up to Jason’s Deli to meet N– and K– for lunch. After that I took the girls home, then headed back to Edmond to play some Demigod with K–. Two hours disappeared like that, and then I headed back home in time to have dinner with T–. We had a pretty quiet evening, playing Hi-Ho Cherry-oh with AB and then watching TV after she went to bed.
Monday
N– went back to work on Monday, and T– got to watch Jason for the afternoon. She also made up a delicious pot roast and tempted N– and K– to come over for dinner. After they left we moved to the living room to watch our Monday night shows (only comedies left now, and it looks like tomorrow might be the finales of those). I brought my laptop out of the office to work while we watched, and finally got started recovering my documents folders.
Before the robbery I’d had all my active writing projects divided unevenly across two working directories — one on my computer at work (which I’d brought with me from Lowrance, where I did a lot of creative writing at the office), and the other on my computer at home. There was a lot of overlap between the two folders, but they were nowhere close to synced. On top of that, I’ve been doing more and more work on Google Docs lately, which is not reflected in either folder (but, also, was not lost in the robbery).
Anyway, my backups consisted of a three-month-old backup of my folder at work, and some CDs that contained 3-, 5-, and 6-year-old backups of my home folders. Again, there was some overlap but it wasn’t identical.
So I started the process of reducing this massive piles of documents down to only the most recent version of each document. I went through my novels first, gathering them into project folders by series and novel, but I haven’t even begun the process of comparing individual files there. Then I went through my academic papers (only about 30-40 of those), and got those cleaned up.
Then I started working on my poetry, and ended up spending all of last week on that project. I had 160-something poems, but they were scattered (and frequently duplicated) across nearly 200 files, many of which were collections of several poems at once. To clarify the collection at the expense of a little extra effort, I decided to break them all out into individual files, again saving only the best version of each. That meant a lot of comparing documents. I also decided to make the styles consistent across all the documents and label each one according to the oldest date I knew it had existed (which mostly meant going off the Last Modified date on the big collection files, so it looks like I wrote several dozen poems on 13 January 1998 and a couple dozen more on 1 August 2002, but whatever).
Anyway, I started that process Monday night.
Tuesday
Tuesday T– got to babysit baby Jason again, and I got to go to work again. Yay! But while I was at work I got an email from Dr. Agan, one of my professors at OC, saying that she had sent off my recommendation letter to OU and, oh, by the way, would I be willing to teach Technical Writing at OC in the fall.
That’s a big deal. T– was incredibly excited for me, as were most of the people I told about it. D– said it sounded like too big of a time commitment, especially with me going to school in the fall (and he’s not wrong), and B– said it sounded like a miserable experience for someone with social anxiety (and he’s not wrong), but I think in the end I’m going to do it. We need the money, it’ll look great on a resume, and I’ll have a lot of support from my old Tech Writing professor, who goes to church with us. She also mentioned that I can make it a half-classroom half-online course, so that cuts the time investment considerably. I’ll have a lot of work to do at home, but I can handle that. It was the extra hours out of my evenings I was really worried about.
Wednesday
Wednesday night we tried to go to KFC to get Oprah’s free chicken (or something), but everyone in the world did the same thing so we ended up going across the street and getting Popeye’s you-have-to-pay-for-it-but-at-least-you’ll-get-it-in-the-next-two-hours chicken. We met D– and N– and K– there, then I went to church (for a change) so I could meet with Gail Nash (my old Tech Writing prof) and learn what I told you in the last paragraph.
After that K– and N– came over to watch Lost which, for various reasons, took us almost three hours to accomplish. It was a good one, though.
Thursday
Thursday night, I think we watched some TV and I worked on my poetry. I don’t remember anything exciting.
Friday
Friday was my RDO, and I’d promised T– I would watch AB in the afternoon so T– could get a haircut. Once again she woke up early and took AB out garage saling so once again I got up and mowed the lawn. I also cleaned out the closet in my office because we’re going to be switching the office and baby’s room soon, and I did some work in the garage, too.
Then T– called to say she’d lost track of time and wouldn’t be home before her haircut. She was in Edmond so she dropped AB at my sister’s place, and I got an afternoon off. I spent it working on my poetry (and finished up that project), and doing a little writing.
Then T– got home and put AB down for a nap, and a few minutes later K– showed (that’d be around 3:00), to take me to the theater.
We had plans to go see Star Trek for K–‘s birthday, and it being opening day decided we needed to be there early. K– and I went to save spots in line (T– and N– and B– showed up in time for the movie), and we ended up getting there way too early. We’d brought our laptops with us, though, and we set up an ad-hoc network and spent the time playing Demigod. It was fun. There was a little initial concern about how much we’d look like dorks, but come on, we were waiting in line for the Star Trek movie. That ship had already sailed.
The movie was fantastic. Of Star Trek, I’ve only ever seen Generations and First Contact. Maybe (maybe) two or three episodes total of any of the series, ever. So, yeah, I came to it new. The movie was good enough that I’m thinking of finally watching some of the shows. We’ll see.
After the movie everybody headed home (it was already after nine, after all), but I stuck to my recent pattern of doing way too much on weekends and went over to B–‘s place. I caught up with B– and E–, telling them all about my teaching opportunity, and then we watched Comedy Central’s roast of William Shatner. That was some funny stuff.
Saturday
Saturday morning I had to wake up early so we could pack the car and head to Wichita. We’re there, now, to celebrate Mother’s Day. I spent most of Saturday laid-up with back pain, but John and I took AB out to dinner at Chili’s in the evening, then after we came back John ran out to rent one of the old Star Trek movies on essentially the same principle that led us to having Jeff over last weekend. Unfortunately they didn’t have Kahn or the one with the whales, so he grabbed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Ummm….
Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.
Tuesday T– made enchiladas, D– came over for dinner, and we watched TV while I played Demigod. The end.
Wednesday, D– came over right after work to babysit AB for the evening so T– and I could go out on a date. We’ve started something of a ritual of going out to dinner whenever I finish a novel (and she finishes reading it), so she can give me her full feedback and I can ask any pressing questions I have (such as, for instance, “Is it any good?”). That’s always a lot of fun, and this week’s was no exception. We went to Texas Roadhouse and talked about GT: Expectation.
Then after that we went to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art to check out the openings of a couple exhibits. One featured Oklahoma modernist architecture, and the other was a collection of original prints (woodcuts, lithographs, that style of thing) from nineteenth-century France. That was pretty cool.
We also wandered upstairs after checking out the exhibits to stroll through the permanent collection again, and ended up spending some time on a couple medieval maps from France and the Netherlands. Cool stuff.
We got home in time to watch Lost with D–. It was awesome. And then it was bedtime.
Yesterday T– had to go work in Tulsa and I had to stay late at work, so we had a competition to see who could get home latest. I won. Or lost. Whatever. We had leftovers for dinner, watched some Thursday-night TV, and then I headed to the office to spend my writing time working on a programming project. It was fun.
Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.
Yesterday, I finished Ghost Targets: Expectation! Let there be fanfare and a parade in the streets. Or whatever.
And then, to be perfectly honest, I finished it again today. There were a couple scenes earlier in the book that became necessary by the end of the book, so I still have to go back and fill those in. But yesterday I finished chapter fifteen and got to write “The End.” So that’s what matters.
T– picked up some Mazzio’s for dinner, after going grocery shopping, and D– came over to watch Heroes and Chuck with us. Honestly, that’s the whole night. I finished a Hard difficulty Tournament in Demigod using an Assassin character for the first time, so that was fun.
Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.
Except for D–, we are all now married dudes and fathers — those of us that are dudes at all, anyway — and as a result we live kinda boring lives with little flexibility. Our wives, of course, have the same problem (with considerably more of their time tied up by the children, nonetheless), but they’re smart enough to schedule events from time to get them out of the house. T–, for instance, organizes a monthly scrapbooking party at the church that runs from six to midnight.
A couple weeks ago D– floated the idea that we should do something similar, for the dudes, since our old method was no longer really practicable (that is to say, one of us spontaneously deciding on a random Friday night to go to some bar and drink way too much, and then using coercion and peer pressure to get everyone else together). He proposed we do a poker night, of the cliche sort seen so often on TV and film. With fear and trembling we approached the various wives about the idea, and they all responded with enthusiastic support. Who knew?
So we did our first one Saturday night. My sister, easily the most enthusiastic of the wives, willingly offered up her house as a meeting place, and then she and her husband spent the afternoon at Wal-Mart (racking up quite a bill in the process) getting stuff together for our little party. Among other things, they bought a nice new poker table (felt top, raised border with inset cupholders). It’s got room for ten, but could probably comfortably seat about six.
Then they spent a while setting up. When D– and I showed up a little after six, my sister had all manner of snacks ready in the kitchen, including little smokies, some veggies and dip, chips and salsa, and brownies. I also brought over some Chex Mix, and some liquor to complement the soda they had chilling in the fridge.
My sister packed up her kids and took them over to my house for the evening, and K– showed up at 6:30. We chatted for a bit and watched some of the NFL draft while K– read up on the rules for Texas Hold’em that came with the poker set I’d brought over. My set only has 100 chips, which makes for a relatively small piles when it’s divided four ways, and K– predicted (quite accurately) that it would make for a pretty short game. We played through according to those rules, and it took about an hour and a half. Maybe a little less. I won, but that’s neither here nor there.
After that we ate some pizza and my brother-in-law went in search of more chips, which essentially tripled the number we had and let us play a more nuanced game. We started another round, but K– had to cash out at 10:00 because he had early-morning commitments on Sunday.
That left D– and my brother-in-law, and the three of us played for nearly two hours before D– lost out. Then Jeff and I spent another hour battling back and forth before the game finally ended. I won, but that’s neither here nor there.
I think we’d all seen some Texas Hold’em on TV — I know T– and I watched all the Celebrity Poker Showdowns back when that show was on — but none of us had really played and there were aspects of the game that didn’t make sense to me until we started working through it. By the end of the night, we all four had a pretty good grasp on it. K– and I were the only ones who really fully got the betting rules, but we were also the ones trying to figure it out. The other two just went with it and focused more on their hands.
We all agreed it was a great time. B– and Toby both expressed interest in future Poker Nights, but neither was able to make it to this one. To be fair, they only got one day’s warning, so that’s more my fault than theirs.
Given that we are all of us gamers, it’s unlikely we’ll ultimately limit ourselves to just poker, but Poker Night sounds a lot more impressive than Tabletop Gaming Night, so we’re going to stick with the little white lie. We’ve discussed playing Magic (D– and my brother-in-law both have as much experience with that as I do, and the other three are all interested in it), Risk, and a…umm…strategic terrain-based combat simulation D– owns called HeroScape. But we’re calling it Poker Night.
I’m already really looking forward to the next one.
Last Thursday I got chapter thirteen finished over lunch, then went home and typed it up. I skipped my workout (haven’t done anything since last Tuesday) because I’m having trouble with my knee. I took those four days off to rest it, and I’m going to start back with leisurely walks for a week before I get back to my high-intensity workout. Hopefully that’ll be enough.
Anyway, I came back out of the office around six and T– ran up to McDonalds to grab us some dinner. We spent the evening watching TV, and went to bed relatively early. Nothing really noteworthy.
Friday was my RDO, but I woke up early anyway. I’ve been working on that, trying to establish a real six o’clock habit. This time my goal was to get up before the rest of the family, lock myself in the office, and finish up my novel before I came out.
Unfortunately AB heard me getting ready, so I ended up on babysitting duty before I ever made it to the office. We played a little bit, and then I took her to the living room and started an episode of Word World for her. She sat on the couch next to me, in rapt attention, and I did half of chapter fourteen in my scribblebook.
T– got up a bit before nine and we all had some breakfast, then she started getting AB ready for a trip to Guthrie and I finally headed to the office. At that point I was able to type up what I had and finish off chapter fourteen in about an hour and a half. It’s the climax of the book, which is always the easiest chapter to write. After that comes the denouement, which is almost always the hardest, because by that point, as a writer, you’ve really already moved on.
Anyway, I finished my writing for the morning, emailed K– to ask if he wanted to meet for lunch, and then I changed into some work clothes and went out to do some work in the yard. I put down some Turf Builder (weed killer plus grass seed) front and back, and then mowed the back yard before I heard back from K– saying he was available but we’d have to make it quick.
So I ran up to Jersey Mike’s and had a turkey club, spent some time chatting with K– about Demigod, mostly, and then ran back home and mowed the front yard. Then I grabbed a shower, and by the time I was done T– was back from Guthrie with AB.
I went ahead and played Demigod for a couple hours while AB slept, then came out spent some time with the family. At 6:00 T– headed up to church for a Game Night with our small group, but I wasn’t up to that. I watched AB instead. I’d planned to go to IHOP for dinner, but at the last minute I decided to just stay home. We had chili and crackers and watched VeggieTales, which AB really seemed to enjoy.
Saturday morning I woke up early again and watched AB again, this time while T– went shopping garage sales with my little sister. She got home around 9:30 bearing breakfast, and after we’d eaten she took AB out to play in the back yard, so I went back to my office for some more Demigod. Around noon we headed to Taco Bell for lunch, then went to Homeland for some grocery shopping, then went home and put AB down for a nap.
While she was sleeping, T– and I curled up on the couch and watched Twilight, which was precisely what I expected it to be.
Then I divided much of the rest of the afternoon between playing Demigod and coordinating plans for the evening by phone. Then around 5:30 D– showed up and entertained AB for a bit before we headed over to my sister’s place for Poker Night.
At which point we had Poker Night. I didn’t get home until nearly 2:00 in the morning, and I promptly crashed.
Sunday morning I got up late and joined T– at church about five minutes into the service. I got a couple pages written on chapter fifteen, and then we went to Carl’s Jr. with K– and N– for lunch. That was fun, but AB is a real handful when we go out to eat. Still, we don’t get to see enough of those guys these days, so it was well worth it.
Afterward AB went down for a nap and T– went to the mall to do some shopping with N–. I played my game some, then emerged again when AB woke up and we played some games until T– got home.
D– came over around 5:30 and we drove up to Freddy’s to grab some dinner for us all, then brought it back to the house to eat. After that we watched some TV while I played my game and D– read some novel, and then somehow the day was done.
Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.