Archive for November, 2009

A Thanksgiving Post

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a Happy Thanksgiving. As Tasha and I are leaving for Florida tomorrow we opted out of the trip to the other side of the state to have dinner with her family. Instead we had an intimate little dinner at Applebee’s. I had chicken fajitas, she had margarita chicken, and we split a desert. Not exactly the Thanksgiving that mom used to make, but it was all good.

Karin and Jan are going to take care of the house and the animals. We thank them both and wish them good luck.

We’re packed. Audio books have been chosen. The hotel is reserved. The car is gassed. And the parents have been notified of our imminent arrival. I think we’re good to go. We’ve got no real plan, other than to be home next Saturday, but I think we’ll both be glad to get away from our day-to-day for a week. And as a plus I get to spend some time in my new car.

NaNoWriMo is a bust this year. I blame it on a lack of commitment. I haven’t given up on the story, despite what you’re not seeing on the word count bar, but this month just hasn’t been a good one for my writing.

Enjoy your holiday. And if you venture out to the stores tomorrow, I hope you find what you’re looking for.

Today, A Very Big Day

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

Today hasn’t gone quite the way I imagined it going. I didn’t wake up and knock out a quick 1000 words, have some lunch, knock out another 1000 words, etc… Instead I got up, had 3 or 4 cups of coffee, played a game of Madden 10, walked the dog, and got ready for the rest of the day. Tasha and I went to Red Robin for lunch, decided that we really need to stop going to Red Robin and places like that, just too damn expensive. Afterward we stopped at the Chevrolet dealer before we headed to the nail salon and Target.

While we were at the dealer, we picked up a new car. Didn’t really think it would happen when we stopped, but the deal was good enough that I signed on the line. So there is no longer any question about which I should choose, Mustang, Camaro, Challenger, or Genesis Coupe. The decision has been made and Chevrolet Camaro is the winner. I present to you my brand new 2010 Victory Red Chevy Camaro. It’s got the 304hp V6 pushing out 273 ft/lbs. of torque and coupled to a 6-speed manual transmission and we rather like it alot. It’s not the fire breathing V8 SS, but then we can’t afford a 40,000 car, but it’ll still hit 60 in under 6 seconds and top out at 155 mph. It’s more car than we need and it’s in our budget.

2010 Chevrolet Camaro

Droid

Friday, November 6th, 2009

On this date in 1998 Tasha and I were married, we’re not married any longer but beings as we have no other date to celebrate as our own we’ve readopted this one as our continuing anniversary. So while not entirely true, it is mostly true that this is our 11th anniversary. Happy anniversary to us. It’s been a wild ride, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Ain’t love grand. We went out for Mexican, then we came home and she went to bed. I think she’s got the flu, she prefers to think not so much. Whatever it is the symptoms are different from what I have been suffering most of this past week, so I’ll probably get it next. Yeah me.

Did I mention that my iPod Nano got stolen out of my van? I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to look it up. Whatever the case, I’ve been looking for a replacement. I considered just getting another Nano, but that seemed lame. I toyed with the idea of getting a Archos 5 Internet Tablet, that would be sweet, but I’d want the big 500 gig one and the price is a bit more than I can swallow. Doug keeps praising his iPod Touch, but I can’t bring myself to get one. However, my Verizon plan has been up since September and I haven’t replaced my phone… Do you know where this is going? I decided to get a phone that would serve as a media player. I went and got myself a Motorola Droid.

motorola-droid-verizon-front

I don’t get excited about phones, cameras, GPS gadgets, or mp3 players, but I gotta say this thing is pretty sweet. It does all of those things. It says, “droid,” more than maybe you’d like, but I expect I can shut that off. It’s got a 16 GB microSD card in it, so it’ll hold as much stuff as my old Nano, but it does way more than my old phone and my iPod together. I think it’ll be a good deal despite the additional charges that Verizon get’s for signing me up for the email service. Oh well, what do you do. I already put a couple audio books on it. I’m as giddy as a school boy.

Not much writing last night, though I did do some editing and I’m feeling better about what I’ve gotten so far. No writing at all tonight, so I’m going to take the weekend to get myself up to where I need to be. I think that means something like 13,336 words by Sunday night. It’s alot, and it may be more than I can do to catch up all at once, but I think I can take a good-sized chunk out of my deficit and put myself back on track. Like I said, doing the little bit of editing last night made me realize some of the bits that I needed to flesh out a bit more. What I was writing read more like a verbose outline than a story. So we’ll fix that and get Joshua Hale back in the action and get this party started.

In other news, I got the approval for my vacation. We’re going to Florida at the end of this month.

Word Count, Less Than Impressive

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Didn’t write at all last night because I was feeling run down and didn’t want to get any worse so I slept.

Tonight, still not doing great. Didn’t want to stand at the desk. Was easily distracted. Managed only 637 words. Hoping that tomorrow will be better.

Some Good, Some Bad

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Managed to get 2,131 new words last night on novel.

Lost my fantasy football game by 4 points.

Not feeling all that great tonight, I’m a little worried that I might be having a set back on the road to recovery from this weekends cold. I’m going to try and get some sleep before this gets any worse.

NaNoWriMo, Green Light, Go!

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

CoverDesignToday, November 1st, the official start of National Novel Writing Month. The goal, to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. That’s 1,667 words a day.

Today I wrote 1,709, and I did it in under two and a half hours. I had a slow start,deleting each of my first four paragraphs to try again. I don’t believe the beginning I have will be the beginning I will end up with, but it’s a start. And I knew I needed to get the damn thing started. I can always rewrite a stronger beginning. Most important for me was to get the ball rolling and that I did. The first two scenes are written. Let the story roll on ahead of me.

I started getting nervous about this novel thing Friday night and it built in intensity right up until I fired up the laptop and started writing. I was very afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to do it. But I did. It’s rough. It shows that I haven’t written much of late. The flow isn’t there. But I sat down (stood-up actually) and wrote for close to three hours and it felt good.

In other news, the Detroit Lions lost to the Rams in what I figured was the only other game on their schedule that they really had a chance to win.

Last night Tasha and I went to see Zombieland. It was funny and I enjoyed it, but why do zombies have to have puke constantly streaming out of their pieholes? I tell you, it’s just gross. And we both broke our rule about getting the big beverage, so the end of the movie was an agony of bladder control followed by a mad dash to the restrooms. Good wholesome family fun. Hope you all had a very happy Halloween.