MCS

Been completely tied up with managing my mom's care lately. After her seizure a few weeks ago, she has been going downhill, and been moved from the hospital to a rehab center. With her tumor working its way through her brain, we have engaged the local outreach hospice to make her more comfortable. These folks have been amazing, giving us staff insight into managing her through this difficult time. They are experienced with the end of life, and it is a relief to be working with people that know what to do. I can't say enough about them, they are that good. Giving individual attention to her alone is worthwhile.
It's interesting to observe that excepting sudden trauma, much of death now comes down to starvation. Most conditions can be managed for days, weeks, months and years, if not cured, and you can be kept alive with feeding tubes for a long time. My mom has a specific proxy stating she does not want that in case she is incompetent in caring for herself and the end is clear. For those who do not, the second-guessing and conflict between family members must be terrible. It is also interesting to note that the rehab center staff has been thrown into disarray regarding feeding of their clients due to the Schiavo case being so controversial. Now at least it seems clear that the courts will not force a tube upon the young woman. Starvation may not be the worst way to go, but it seems we can improve on our current state of affairs in this country. And sometimes it's too much to be hearing about Schiavo at every rest stop I need to pee at when shuttling back and forth to Jersey.
I am also following the Pope's condition, as he gets progressively weaker like my mom. Easter may be a watershed for both of them.

Working on Kat plotting.

This and That

Taking over things from my Mom who is recovering very slowly at a rehab center. The coming week will tell her future state. Running her household is taking a lot of my time.

Heard from EQMM by a very nice rejection letter about my Stalker submission. Will submit it elsewhere, probably Hitchcock, when I get the time. Need to start a spreadsheet to track submissions.

Polished Kat opening scene a bit and will continue to plot it when I get a chance.

ARE WE SICK OF SNOW YET?

Mom sick, Lobsters, Kat

Going to NJ this weekend as Mom is real sick in the hospital. Maybe some care changes in her future.

Loved The Secret Life of Lobsters (did I already say that?) and here is a link to Trevor's blog:



Haven't gotten past first scene of Kat's Creation, but I think it's going well. Will try to add to it and submit to WD contest.

Been so busy at work it's getting nasty...

Finally

Finally feeling better. Hope to write a scene from the Kat story tomorrow. Today will be cleaning Alice's house while she is recovering from hip replacement.

The winter blahs have taken hold. Going hand-to-hand with them, and soon hope to win. Gotta tell you work is not helping, as I had to bring some home to do again.

Starting to get interested in language topics again. Mänti, aka Manti with an umlaugh, is a tree structured relationship oriented language invented by the Tammet savant in England. Very interesting to me, and we'll see what comes of his presentation of it in Europe.

Finished The Secret Life of Lobsters. That was one of the best bio books I have read. At the end it even gives a recipe on how to best boil a lobster. Gotta recommend it to John.

Sick, Sick, Sick

Been offline almost 2 weeks now. Caught the flu and was sicker than I've been in a decade. Still haven't felt like writing, or posting, or much else in the creative area. The whole family got sick for our birthdays, like clockwork. Where is spring?

Family

Here is a shot of Wanda:


And here's me with Katie:

Buffett or Not

Probably won't attend the buffett concert at Gillette stadium this year. The tailgate would be awesome, but last year's concert at Fenway was sucky. Too big of a target so too much security. Since it's July 4 anyway, we'll be doing our best to be unfit for duty over the long weekend. And let's hope this year cousin Tim doesn't pull his disappearing act under the water which panicked everyone.

Going to go over all the writing notes I've made in the past few weeks and try to get started on a scene for Kat and a plotting for the kid's book.

Talked to JR today and he definitely got me enthused again on this writing life.

Found a post on boingboing to a wired article by someone who looks like might be an old classmate. Shot him an email to find out. I love his writing; the articles are on interesting subjects.

Old classmate Janet was in the building early this week at work. She's gonna try to shoot me an email next time so we can go out after work. Don't see enough of her.

Big bike doings tomorrow at the museum, so might want to attend for a little while. Wanda has had lots of action lately ;), so maybe the economy is picking up.

Forgot to post that Princeton was fun and rewarding. Great to get a chance to influence alpha software. And work has been much better with the mentoring of my new boss. We'll see where that goes.

UMM Binnacle wrote me a great email thanking me for my ultra-short entry. This format may hold promise for me, as I seem to be able to do a lot in a short space. Reminds me of being able to code something meaningful in 10 lines of C or assembly language, but that's just the geek in me :)

Here is a a great use of an iPod or 2.



Link to using them as stereo viewers:
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/stereographics/ipodphoto/index2.html

CAPA-U

Groundhog Day.

Nancy told me about CAPA-U today. Going to sign up, as it sounds like a great one-day writing conference with some great speakers. Also, some 15 or so agents will be there too. Pretty good place to get my feet wet.

Been busy last few days with work, so little writing. Entire family is born this month, so the birtdays are hectic.

Need to put some ideas together this weekend and finish a scene for the Kat piece. Enjoying a salty piece of land, and thought perhaps a tropical obit might be a nice practice piece.

Into the eye of the storm

Gotta leave for Jersey in the morning. Right into the snow. Supposed to be 10 to 15 inches. Yee hah!
Princeton should be fun. Will be nice to stay in a hotel, and pretend it's a winter vacation. Maybe I can work on Kat story some more.
Will try to post when I can.

Museum, Binnacle

Entered the UMM Binnacle ultra short contest with 150 words about the Gettysburg address. At the very least, felt a sense of accomplishment when finished.

This is a photo of one of the aisles of the New England Muscle Bike museum, near Hartford, CT.

Choppers, Kat

Updating some pics on the chopper rides. Posting one here of Daren riding the wind.

Come visit the New England muscle bike site at http://www.angelfire.com/wa3/nemusclebikeevent/2004htfdswap.html for some updated photos of our rides.

Here's a great link of the guys hangin' in Hartford. Thanks to Wanda for the pics.

Am submitting this to http://www.boingboing.net to see if they link to it.
THINK SPRING!

Thought some more about the Kat story and hope to write some up tomorrow. Also saw the UMM short story competition due Feb 15 and plan to enter with something.

webMethods, Kat, longtail

Having oodles of trouble trying to get canonicals straightened out for one of the apps accessing the bus today. I think we finally agreed that the apps can use their own doc types as desired within their own app, and I will define a canonical for outsiders to use. Whew! Even the terms and syntax are tough with this stuff.

Not much time to think about the Kat story. There is an important underlying issue here which I need to define in my head and then it should all fall into place (ha ha!). Reading Katicus' blog today, she is brought low by the challenge of learning other languages, in spite of picking up calculus in a week, orgo chem for fun, well, you get the picture. I think the challenges of a Stanford student can be applied to my character, I just need to figure out how to do it.

The longtail had a blog ref that spoke well to my idea of the long tail providing quality products even if they are not huge market successes. Here is the link: http://www.mcgeesmusings.net/2004/10/07.html#a4396
The marketers are missing the creativity blast in their zeal to reap from the long tail.

Weather (CT, USA) is totally a bummer, but I guess that it beats mudslides and Tsunami's.

Need to speak to the lawyers about my Mom and her inability to manage $$$ anymore. Been taking this transition hard.

New photo;Circadiana

Got a new photo up on aol hometown to reference here.
This is one Wanda caught of me in Boston right after they won the pennant. You won't see me with a Bosox hat on again!

Brainstorming a new name for this blog.

Started work on first scene of Kat story.

Disappointed in Closer movie. I couldn't relate to the cold characters.

From BoingBoing, this sleep blog is right on the money. Here is the link: http://circadiana.blogspot.com/
Our culture in the US is totally whacked out on the topics of sleep (and sex).

Here is a trackback for thelongtail.com: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/1608095
Folks are reporting trouble getting trackback working.

Turning on some more blog settings

Turning on some recommended settings to get more traffic.
Also spent some time with Wanda working on upgrading her site: http://www.mostlymusclebikes.com

Committed now

Just finished polishing my Stalker story and sent out to EQ Mystery Mag. I am certain there are flaws in it, but this story is ready for some feedback (well, at least some educated rejection). As reporter friend Mr. Powell said, it's time to start submitting! At the least it produces some very strong feelings of accomplishment.

Now I can get back to Kat story. What I could get away with in Stalker, meaning lack of character development and objectives, I need to clearly define in Kat. Great feeling to carry creation of building a story around in my head.

Sad news that my Mom is having trouble again, and is having trouble managing her affairs. I'll be gettting more involved in the near future. Gotta respect her great fight to come this far (80's) with the body she was blessed with.

Received email from WritersDigest asking for blog listing nominations, for blogs with a writing slant. Nominated this here blog (aw, shucks).

Rose Wilder Lane

Have you ever heard of this lady? She wrote The Discovery of Freedom,
among other things. She is the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, from
Little House on the Prairie fame. I guess there is a lot of buzz about
this Freedom book, and I am trying to find a copy still in print. Before her
death, she admitted there were a few factual errors in it and tried to
suppress further copies going into print. She was an original Libertarian,
which most of us Northeast liberals don't care for, but the purity of her position sounds worthy of respect. She has been linked to Ayn Rand as one of the original freedom thinkers, but Rand's works are didactic and, in today's terms, neocon.

Skipped night out to see Chillum (local cover band) and will go to see Closer (movie) instead. Sideways sounds interesting because of the wine subject, but skimming thru the book at Border's turned me off.

Still working on object and obstacles for Stalker protagonist.

Working on blog promotion

Starting to look into what it takes to get this site a little better known.

Also working on next draft of Stalker story. Will keep you posted.

Here's a plug for Wanda's bike sales site: http://www.mostlymusclebikes.com. Lots of stuff to buy plus some info about recent bike rides.

New piece

Outlined and wrote first draft of Stalker, a short murder mystery story. Wanda liked it, but said the protagonist was too nice to be a killer.
Lots of short story contests out there, so there is lots of motivation for me. We'll see where that goes. Still working on the Kat story.
New year with new boss at work. Off to a good start, let's hope that holds.
Starting to plan for England trip.

Happy New Year!

Fun night last night at a house party.
Today is warm sunny day so we took the bikes out. Wanda has an antique bike ride in Hartford tomorrow.

Started Stalker story yesterday. Did the character analysis and started the first scene.

Getting a photo

Here is my daughter's photo mash-up she published on her site. I love it.