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Journal Entry: September 25, 2008

At this certain time in the future, I will go to such and such a place and do this or that….

Sorry, I’ve been working with my budget lately, and it always gets me thinking about that.

Umm…last night, we had K– and N– and D– over for dinner, which consisted of three giant Jersey Mike’s sandwiches, split five ways. It worked out pretty well. I had the Italian for the first time, and it was delicious.

Afterward, D– and I stayed home to rebuild my computer while the rest of them went to church. Actually, D– worked on my computer and I worked on submission packages for all three of my books. I came up with these:

  • Taming Fire, a fantasy adventure, tells the story of a penniless shepherd who becomes a master swordsman, a wizard, and a dragonrider on his way to defending civilization from the dragonswarm.
  • King Jason’s War, a fantasy novel, tells the story of a young, idealistic king forced to choose between his principles and his position when a greedy Council of Lords insists on going to war for profit.
  • Golden Age, a mainstream thriller, tells the story of five college friends who survive the collapse of American civilization and become legendary heroes in the aftermath.

Anyway. D– took my computer apart and put it back together, and for the first time in three or four weeks, I have a PC running in my office (and access to all the stuff on my file server). That will be nice. It took all night to get it up and running and work out all the driver issues, though. I didn’t get to bed until right at midnight.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: September 24, 2008

So, yeah, I think I mentioned it yesterday, but I’m going to Chicago next week. I’ll be leaving Sunday evening, around 6:00, and getting in the following Saturday at 11:00 am. T– will pick me up from the airport and we’ll drive straight up to Topeka for our friend Julie’s wedding (unless I can get my flight swapped out for one that takes me back to Wichita, anyway).

Yesterday I got home from work determined to really finish my painting project. I got the ladder out again, got out the white paint, and went up on the wall to paint over the blue from the trim that had dripped past my painter’s tape (there were three spots of that), and to paint over the spots where the ladder had damaged the initial coat of white when I leaned it up against the house.

And, of course, when I climbed back down to move the ladder, it tore the paint again. I’d have thought it would be fully dried by then. But at that point I was able to climb up on it as an A-frame and fix the new tears, and that sufficed for all the rest of the work that had to be done.

I also painted a few coats of white over the walkway post that I had test-sanded, so it looks nice again. It had been the one (out of about six or seven) in the worst shape, and sanding it had revealed the wood underneath in even more places, so it’s a major improvement to have a couple coats of white on top of that. From the curb, anyway, our facade looks really nice now.

After I put that away, T– went to pick up some pizzas and D– came over to eat them. We watched Monday’s How I Met Your Mother, and some King of the Hill, and then when AB went to bed, we pulled out Rock Band, and I got to drum for the first time in a week and a half. Needless to say, I overdid it, and by the end of the night I was late getting to bed and my shoulders were killing me. Fun, though. Lots of fun. I wasn’t too rusty. I can still sight-read just about anything they can throw at me on Medium, and I cleared a handful of (really easy) songs on Hard. I’m going to have to learn some really tough patterns that currently completely befuddle me, before I can fully make that transition.

This morning I went to the Physical Therapist for the last time. We agreed that all of the tension she found this morning came from the painting (and she did some really good work fixing it all), and I can address any further problems I have with just the home stretches and exercises she’s taught me, so that’s that. I feel so much better than I did six weeks ago. Or even two weeks ago. It’s been an amazing experience.

In general, things are good. I have two pretty significant items that probably need announced, but I’ve been waiting on both of them until I fully understand how they’ll impact my life. That, of course, could be decades in the discovering, but I’ll try to get the info to you before then.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: September 23, 2008

Yesterday after work, before I got settled in (which meant crashing on the couch and not moving), I decided with determination that I should get the tape down off the front of the house, so I could see how it really looked.

And the answer: pretty okay. Also, since the tape mostly held when I peeled it back, I only had to climb the ladder five or six times, instead of the eighteen I was expecting. So that’s positive! I’ll definitely need to get back up there with some white paint sometime this week for touch up, though. Ugh.

Oh! I also learned at work yesterday that I need to get some training in Adobe FrameMaker before the end of November, and that the only course (of those available to me) that really offers everything I need, in that time frame, is next week from Monday to Friday, in Chicago.

Yay!

So I get to try to coordinate that, when our normal turnaround time for a travel and procurement request is about a week and a half. It’s a big hassle at work, and then I’m going to have to spend a week on the road.

Still, I should get some writing done. So that’s a good thing.

After I took the paint down last night, I crashed on the couch and did not move. My drum pedal came in, but I was way too sore to play. D– came over, and T– grilled some hotdogs and hamburgers (which were delicious) and then we watched the two hour premier of Heroes (which was pretty okay), and then I went to bed.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: September 22, 2008

I have this To Do list that I made in Google Documents, and I use it to keep track of little projects I can take care of when I have a spot of free time and am feeling productive (or stuff we need around the house that I can pick up if we have a spot of free money, but that never really happens).

Anyway, the purpose is just for me to jot stuff down as it occurs to me, and I can browse through it from time to time and try to find something that sounds worth doing.

Last week, the “Writing” section kept catching my eye, and you probably saw the results here. I completed a bunch of writing chores last week, and it felt pretty rewarding.

Well, about six months ago I noticed the severely peeling paint on the wood siding above our garage, and it really got to me. It’s been in terrible shape ever since we bought the house, but it’s a relatively small portion of our facade, and high enough up that no one ever really pays it any attention, so it’s gone ignored for two and a half years. When I made up my To Do list, though, I went ahead and put “Scrape and paint exterior woodwork” on there, and ever since it’s been annoying the everloving bawhango out of me. Every time I pulled into the driveway, it irritated me. Every time I glanced through my To Do list, I wanted to mark it off. But the height of that was not only in an incredibly hot (and then abnormally rainy) summer, but also while my body was broken with all that back pain.

So, yeah, last Thursday I found out we would actually be home this weekend, and I checked the weather and found out it would be sunny and windy and dry (and not uncomfortably hot). Then again, I also mentioned here on Thursday that I was feeling sick. I’m not quite sure what happened with that.

Anyway, I moved my Regular Day Off to last Friday, and figured I would either spend the day in bed convalescing, or on a ladder scraping. I ended up doing the ladder.

AH hahaha! That was so worth all the setup.

Bah. No, really. On Thursday night I was still feeling under the weather, so I just watched a movie with T–, and maybe we played some Rock Band. Then I got up relatively early on Friday, felt relatively well, so I went outside to see what I could do. I had gotten a drill bit a while back that said it was for “stripping paint” which, it turns out, is not the same thing as “scraping and prepping a surface for painting.” I seriously damaged some of our exterior woodwork before I came to that conclusion though.

That left me using an old-fashioned metal scraper, and a Mouse power sander. I didn’t get around to the Mouse until Saturday, though.

See, to use the drill, I bit the bullet and got out our Really Long Extension Cord, and completely unwound it. Turned out, that was unnecessary (I could reach the peak of our roof with about a third of it), but I didn’t know that to begin with. So I got out on the ladder, worked on the woodwork until I realized I was doing more harm than good (and would have to scrap, which I hate), and then climbed down and decided to take a little break.

Already having the Really Long Extension Cord unfurled, I decided on a whim to grab the weed eater and edge our lawn for only the second time since we moved in. I ended up doing a pretty thorough job of it (and our drive looks nice now), but there was a lot of newly cut undergrowth all over the driveway at that point. I thought about going to borrow K–‘s leafblower, said something about it to T–, and she pointed out that we had a shopvac we’d bought years ago for a single project, and never used since.

So I vaccuumed my drive. Shut up! It worked really well.

And then at that point I was out of excuses to delay, so I dug out our scraped, got back up on the ladder, and finished the bottom half of the west facing. Only the bottom half, though, because my ladder was too short to do more. It was 5:00 by then, though, and I was supposed to watch AB while T– went to a crop, so I put my stuff away, showered, and called it done for the day.

K– and N– came over to keep me company for the evening, and we went to Mazzio’s for dinner and then came back to the house and watched Baby Mama (which is worth seeing twice, I can attest). Then we played Rock Band until 11-ish, at which point they had to go home, and I ended up playing guitar for another hour and a half until T– got home. It was after 2:00 when we finally went to bed.

Saturday, I had all day to work on the house so I had no intention of getting up early. I turned off the alarm clock before I went to bed, and just slept as long as I wanted to. When I got up, I threw on my work clothes and stumbled out into the living room and T– said, “Oh, I’m sorry! Did we wake you?” And I had no idea what she meant, so I assured her no, and went out to the garage to get started.

I started out mowing the lawn, because it needed it (and I had basically done everything I could on the woodwork without borrowing a taller ladder). Then when I got to the back yard, I couldn’t help noticing how terrible all the edges looked, so I dragged the Really Long Extension Cord back there, and spent a good hour really cleaning up the back yard (focusing mainly on the porch), including another half hour or so of vaccuuming the outdoors. Hey, I said to shut up about that!

Then I put my stuff away, and went inside to find out why T– hadn’t started pestering me about lunch plans yet, and learned that it was barely ten o’clock. I had gotten up at eight. I was horrified.

I showered, and then T– went to grab us some sandwiches and I watched AB. We played some, I made some phone calls to see if anybody wanted to help me work on the house (and learned that all my friends actually schedule productive activities for their weekends, too — who knew?), and made arrangements to swing by B– and E–‘s after lunch to grab a ladder.

When I got there, I kinda tarried. For one, it’s always fun to catch up. For another, I had a really miserable afternoon ahead of me. I did finally leave, though, and when I got home I set up the ladder, climbed up way too high, and finished the scraping. Then I got out the Mouse and sanded the whole surface, top to bottom, which took right around two hours. Meanwhile, T– ran up to Lowes for me and bought the paint — Killz as a primer, white for most of the siding, and a rich blue for the trim.

It was already dusk by the time I finished sanding, but I did a test coat of the primer in one of the lower areas, and it had me feeling pretty good about the project. I put my stuff away, went inside for dinner, and then played Rock Band with T– for a couple hours before watching SNL. It was nearly midnight before we went to bed.

Then I woke up at 7:30 Sunday morning so I could out and put up the primer before church. That was a miserable morning, I’ll tell you what. I was also sore all over from two full days of hard work, but I made myself climb the ladder again and again, and it took me just under two hours to get the entire area primed. Then I had to rush to get ready for church, and we went to worship while my base coat dried.

I kept falling asleep during church, and really dragging when we went to lunch at Subway with K– and N–, but I needed to get two coats of white on, then let it dry completely so I could tape it before I could do the coat of blue. So when I got home from church, instead of crawling into bed, I crawled back up the ladder and did a coat of white in about an hour and fifteen. I let it dry for half an hour, then went back up and did a second coat in just under an hour. At that point, the siding was looking pretty good.

Then I took my nap. I spent an hour and a half sprawled on the bed, then went back out and taped and painted — I didn’t have any room for a tray at the top of the ladder, so I would take the tape up, cover everything I could reach, then go back down for the tray and brush and go back up to paint. All this to do one six-inch-wide trim board, so I was only doing three or four feet in lenght from any given ladder position.

All told, taping and painting took about an hour and a half. Then D– showed up, newly back from Wichita, and asked if I wanted something for dinner. T– and AB were at Small Groups with K– and N– (and eating there), so I said, “Heck yes,” and he ran off to Taco Bell while I climbed back up and did the second coat. Since the tape was already up at that point, the second coat only took about half an hour, and that was significantly more time moving and reconfiguring the ladder than it was painting.

Once again, I finished my handiwork by the glow of our exterior lights, but I got it done and went in to enjoy my soft tacos (and a Diet Dr Pepper with more than a little bit of rum in it).

Before I finished eating T– and AB and K– and N– got back from Small Groups, and we started up the Cowboys / Packers game. It was another wild one, and after a slow start the Cowboys really tore up. That was a pretty pleasant way to end a pretty unpleasant weekend. I went to bed at eleven again, and was up by six this morning to get to work on time.

UGH!

I did finally count it up, and every step in the process of painting required me to climb the ladder eighteen times. That’s eighteen times to scrape the peeling paint, eighteen times to sand, eighteen to prime, thirty-six to paint two coats of white, eighteen for taping and painting blue, and eighteen more for the second coat of blue. My legs are dying.

I have eighteen more, too. I’ve got to go up and take down the tape, when I get home from work today. I should probably go up with some white and do touch-up (where the blue dripped past the tape, or the ladder damaged the not-perfectly-dried white when I was moving it around), but I doubt I’ll have the energy. It’s so high up, and such a small area, I doubt anyone will care.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: September 18, 2008

Wasn’t I just sick? That’s totally unfair!

Well, okay, no. I scrolled back through my Blog posts, and it was at the beginning of August. Still, it sucks. We went to dinner with D– and K– and N–, it being Wednesday, then D– came over with Rock Band 2 and we made new characters and learned that, even without a bass drum, I can get through most of the starting songs with 3 or 4 stars just from hitting the pads. There’s a few that just can’t be beat, though.

Then D– went home, and I mentioned to T– that I might be a little feverish, but I wasn’t too sure. Took about 20 minutes before I realized that, yes, I was definitely sick. Then I had the long, terrible night.

Back in August I had this to say:
“I couldn’t sleep, though. I didn’t sleep. My fever raged all night. I was burning up — I felt like I was on fire — and that was just constant…. But, on top of that, I would go through cold spells where I shivered as though I were having seizures, and that was even worse. So, during the night, I went through cycles. I would feel so hot that I threw off the covers and the blankets, and it would take 10 minutes or so until I started shivering. Then I’d pile the blankets back on and spend 10 minutes or so regaining my core temperature, until the shivering stopped. At that point I had about 10 minutes of rest before I got so hot I had to throw the blankets off again.

“I got up every two hours, through the night. Each time, I took whatever medication I could (as doses were constantly expiring). Finally, after I got up at 5:10, my fever must have broken because I went back to bed, piled on the covers, and before I stopped shivering I fell asleep and didn’t get up until 1:00.”

So it was pretty much that last night, although the shivers weren’t quite as bad, and unlike last time, I wasn’t feeling queasy. That’s a big improvement right there, but still, I’m getting sick, and I don’t like it. Also, unlike last time, I went ahead and got up at 7:00 and came to work, instead of sleeping until 1:00. I can’t say with any confidence that I made the right choice.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: September 17, 2008

Yesterday, I made a To Do list, and crossed everything off it.

The most important items were synopses for each of three finished novels that I have ready to submit, and generic cover letters to go with those. I finished that over lunch yesterday, although the King Jason’s War synopsis still needs to be redone.

That’s a pretty big deal, though. I think the Taming Fire one turned out best, and that’s where I’m going to focus my main efforts to start off.

I got home and played with AB a bit, chatted with T–, and then sat down to work on the prologue to Sleeping Kings: Golden Age. Obviously, it’s going to be part of any submission package, and there was one thing I’d decided I really didn’t like about it. When the sleazy reporter goes to Chicago for the prankster’s funeral, he meets with the prankster’s stoner college friends, gets them all drunk, and then they take him to the prankster’s old apartment and he’s able to get the scoop he needs to write his bogus story that turns Hiz’ammat into a real thing.

Problem is, the book is all about a tight-knit group of college friends, and I never really intended to have that parallelism in there (and I didn’t much like it). I already had him meet with the prankster’s parents before the funeral, arrange an interview, and then go meet with them (off-camera) in the middle of his getting the college kids drunk. I think at the time I was working on it, I wasn’t prepared for the emotional aspect of that interview (between the reporter and the parents). I’ve had some time, though, and decided that was exactly what I wanted to do.

So I dismantled everything after the funeral, took out the college kids completely, and put the parents into that role (including the bit where they get manipulating into opening up their son’s sordid life to a reporter). I didn’t bother being maudlin with it, but if you take the time to think about what’s going on there, it’s much sadder this way. I think it works better, though.

I was working on that until 9-ish, then I spent a little time poking at Chapter 1, but without much enthusiasm. I need to get the first three chapters of all three books spic and span before I can start submitting them, so that’s my short-term goal. I also still have to get Golden Age down on paper, but the work on the synopsis will give me good direction, I think, and help make that happen.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: September 16, 2008

What a game….

Yesterday afternoon I got home from work, took care of some chores around the house, and returned some borrowed lawncare items to the neighbor across the back fence. He, in turn, gave us a gift for AB that he and the wife had found while out shopping. It’s a pretty cool little alphabet toy. Noisy, but cool.

Then T– and I packed up the baby (with her new toy, to keep her happy) and headed to K– and N–‘s place for dinner. N– made Polish sausage and veggies, and T– brought pulled pork sandwiches, and it was a delicious meal. Then afterward we retired to the living room to watch the Cowboys/Eagles game.

It was spectacular. If you didn’t see it, you missed a good one.

I also got Julie’s wedding poem done yesterday, which is a pretty big deal. I’m closing out items on my To Do list, and hope to keep that up this week, by putting together submission packages for three of my novels and preparing some material for our writing convention next week.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: The Rest of September

I hate getting this far behind, because it means most days I don’t have time to write a catch-up post, but then that just means the next day I have even more stuff that needs to be caught up on.

Basically, I’ve got to cover the XBox party at church, and then last Saturday’s wedding in Wichita, but me being me, I’ll make twenty-five pages out of it. If you don’t want to read all that, then let me sum up: On Saturday the 6th, I went to an XBox party at church and played Halo and Rock Band with D–, K–, Jeff, and a bunch of church people. On Friday the 12th, K– and N– and D– came over to play Rock Band, and we broke the bass drum pedal, so I’m not drumming anymore. On Saturday the 13th, I drove up to Wichita and spent the evening at T–‘s oldest brother’s wedding, and then came home last night in time to have dinner with K– and N– and D– and watch Tron, bringing us within a Ladyhawke of finishing round two of our 80’s movies thing.

And…y’know what? Screw it. There’s my update. T–‘s dad came into town to watch AB on Thursday, and we learned that the Goldie’s in Edmond is just an empty lot now, and that’s really it. I actually would have made 25 pages out of it, but that’s everything that happened.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: September 5, 2008

Okay, imagine if the Trans Siberian Orchestra got a lead singer who was really angry.

That’s Coheed and Cambria, in case you’ve never listened to them. The drum part of “Welcome Home” is amazingly fun.

So, yeah, as you can see, more of the same. Wednesday night was a lot of fun. We got together with K– and N– and D– at Jersey Mike’s for dinner, then went back home because T– wasn’t feeling well. D– came over, too, and we played with AB for a while, then pulled out Rock Band. As soon as AB went to bed, T– joined us, and we tore up. D– and I stayed up until 11:30 playing.

Then yesterday D– got sick, so he couldn’t join us. T– and AB met me for lunch at BWW yesterday, for the first time, and that was cool. Kind of the high point of my day, because work got pretty frustrating yesterday afternoon. So by the time I got home, I was in no mood to go work out, and T– was still feeling pretty down with her allergy attack (or whatever it is), so we stayed home. I played with AB for a couple hours, trying to teach her how to drum on her little turtle drum. She just bangs. Whatever.

I also dug out the old “How to Drum” book that I’d gotten way back when I was taking lessons in college, but by the time I thought of that it was AB’s bedtime so I just played the game instead of reading.

As I said, T– wasn’t feeling too well last night, so I just played the Solo Tour. I kind of like doing that because if I have trouble with a song I can try it two or three times until I get it right. D– and T– are usually more in it for the entertainment value, and prefer to skip the brutal songs and go on to something we can handle.

Anyway, I’d cleared 10 songs on Solo sometime last week, and last night I did 19 more. Then the 20th kicked my butt. My goal for the Solo games is to get through them all with 4 stars on Medium (there’s 93 total), then go to Hard and do the same thing. I figure by Expert I’ll just be trying to complete them, but who knows. I’ve been making some impressive progress.

So, yeah, since they’re arranged in increasing difficulty (specifically for the drum part), and since patterns you learn in one song tend to show up in harder songs (only faster, or with minor variations, or whatever), I can generally just burn right through the Solo songs. Almost every one I get 4 stars on the first try. Out of those 19, I had to retry 2 of them, because I’d only gotten 3 stars on the first try (and I got 4 on the second). Then there were 4 or 5 that I got 5 stars right off the bat, so you can see how awesome I am.

Then I got to that 20th song (30th overall), and it was 10:15, and I told myself, “I’ll complete this one, see what the next 5 songs are [because it reveals them 5 at a time], and then go to bed.” I knew that to be a lie, but that was my plan.

Then I started the song, and the intro was a nightmare. 30 seconds into the song, I almost got booed off the stage, but it transitioned into the verse and then I was fine. Then about six minutes into the song (SIX minutes into ONE song), it goes back to the fast drum solo, and it lasts for two solid minutes, and I just didn’t stand a chance. I got booed off the stage. First time that’s happened to me on the solo.

So, ugh, I started it over (because that’s what I do), and I did the first fast solo pretty well, but I got to the second one and it trashed me again. But, as I said, I had just played over six minutes of perfect drums before suddenly getting booed off the stage.

Then, on the “You Failed” screen, I noticed that it also showed the amount of the song that I’d completed before failing — 65%! The song is damn nine minutes long! And I have to beat it to go on with the game.

So I switched to practice mode and spent a while just practicing those two solos, trying to get the rhythm down, and I could do the first one but the second one is tough, and it goes on forever. I tried and tried and tried, and figured I had it down well enough to at least finish the song (even if it wasn’t graceful), so I tried again. Seven minutes later, I failed. Then I tried again, and by that time it was 11:30. I spent over an hour trying to just complete this song, and never did. Never even got close. I could have played an entire “Blitzkrieg Bop” in the time left between the farthest I got and the end of the song.

Bah! And I didn’t want to end on that note, so I switched to the “Bonus Set” and unlocked four songs before I went to bed. Two of them were 4-stars and the other two 5-stars on my first attempts, so that gave me some of my confidence back.

Yeah, yeah, that’s a lot of drum talk, but it’s what’s been going on. In spite of the frustration, I’m having a good time, and I now have all of the songs from the game on my mp3 player, so I can practice even when I’m not home. Awesome.

I’m listening to that song right now, by the way. “Green Grass and High Tides” by the Outlaws. I like the lyrics, but I kinda hate the song, in case you were curious.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: September 3, 2008

I had been planning to write up a post about how I first got started writing for today’s journal entry, just to preserve it for posterity (by which I mean my own, given my flaky memory), but I don’t feel up to it. Remind me to get to that sometime, though.

T– and I are sick. I would not be at all surprised if AB is too, because she’s been wicked cranky for three or four days now. We had just put that down to the 18 hours in the car, though.

Anyway, it’s mostly just stuffy nose and scratchy throat, but it’s enough to wear a person down. Sometimes I feel feverish, but that could just be the hypochondria talking. It has never been bad enough for me to check a thermometer on it.

Lame, though. I was just sick! Ugh. Anyway, T– and I are both on zinc, and with any luck it will pass quickly.

Last night on the drive home T– asked me to pick up some stuff for dinner, so I ran to Crest and got some soda, potato soup (and some new potatoes because the potato soup is always too thin), and some bananas for AB. D– called after work and asked if I wanted him to bring over a snowcone or grab something for us for dinner, but I missed the call. Alas.

Soup was good, though, and afterward we went ahead and bought a bunch of the songs we’d picked for Rock Band (and by “we” I mean D–), and then a little bit before AB’s bedtime (which was probably a mistake) we broke out the instruments and started rocking. I’m definitely seeing major progress, but I have a hell of a time with off-beat bass drum. One of the songs we were doing last night had tons. That, and bass drum/snare, snare, bass drum, rest, all at a rapid tempo. Every time I try I just make a big noisy mess. T– and D– managed to save my performance most of the time, though, and I’d get into the chorus and then I’d be back up to a full Crowd Meter.

I bet nobody will understand all of that last paragraph, but that’s okay. The short of it is: drumming is hard. For me, anyway.

I got to talk with B– last night, and that was fun, and then (as I said) we rocked out starting around 8:00 and, in spite of our best intentions, we didn’t get done until 11:30. Fun, though. Quite fun.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.