Slowly Going Somewhere

News!

2010-03-17T22:17:00.002-04:00

It has been some time since i've updated this blog. And I will be getting back into it, and that being said, i've got some exciting news to tell. I have starting developing the first episode of my podcast! It is going to be called The FreeThinker's Forum, and will focus on science and philosophy. Co-hosting the podcast will be my good friend, Anthony Todd. Please follow the blog for the podcast, as I am frequently updating. Expected launch date of the first episode is late the first week of April. Go to http://thefreethinkersforum.blogspot.com to check it out.

For St. Patrick's Day, Shelli cooked a delicious vegan version of Irish Corned Beef and Cabbage. Obviously the "beef" wasn't beef, but it was pretty close considering the meat was basically vital wheat gluten, aka wheat meat.

Now I have to do some chemistry homework. Yay!

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Out of Focus

2009-10-12T20:33:00.003-04:00

Ever been out with your family/friends/significant other, and try to get a picture with them but every shot comes out blurry, "action", or off centered? That is how my weekend was. Except I was not on a fun outing with friends or family taking memorable pictures. I was home in my pants trying to do school work, and not succeeding. First I slept in way too late. Second, I kept taking cat naps. Third I played too much World of Warcraft. It was all I could do to make myself read two chapters in my communications book and take an online quiz. This happens often. I had ADHD as a child, and it still affects me as an adult. Some days I have such a hard time focusing on anything. Today, although I did procrastinate a little when I got home, I have been researching for two hours and found some good stuff. So tomorrow I will be able to finish my outline for the speech I have this weekend and begin my rough draft for my government paper. Hooray for getting work done!

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The Procrastination Bug Bites Hard

2009-10-06T17:00:00.002-04:00

Here is what I intended to do today: wake up and eat breakfast, go for a run, mow the lawn, head to the campus library around noon thirty and accomplish: research, math homework, study for government test.

Here is what I actually did today: slept in, got discouraged that World of Warcraft was under maintenance, laid in bed and fell back asleep, putz'd around on the internet and put off leaving until almost 2pm. I did get some significant research done and studied aplenty for my test. But I wasn't nearly as productive as I wanted to be. I didn't even do the dishes.

Maybe I should shake my procrastination is a virtue philosophy :p

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Contests... yyaaaay!

2009-10-05T18:50:00.002-04:00

I learned today that VCC offers a contest for writing and artwork, and anyone can submit in all or any of the categories: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art. For fiction, I am thinking of writing either a side story or an epilogue to my NaNoWriMo novel idea. Non-fiction I am going to submit an essay I started writing called "A Quark Among the Stars" which is a narrative about the beauty of the universe. Poetry, I have a couple of pieces intended to be song lyrics that I may submit. For artwork, I will submit several of my space paintings (you can submit up to 7 pieces). The winner in each category gets $100 and publication in VCC west campus' magazine on the arts. I don't really have any hopes of winning, but I think it would be fun to try. At the very least it will stimulate my creativity and get me writing again.

In other news, work was miserable today. I had a headache and from the moment I walked in the door I was agitated. Thankfully it was truck day and there were plenty of boxes for me to kick around. I hope to post some more story ideas soon. I got some things brewing in the 'ole brain.

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2009-10-01T12:59:00.002-04:00

It is October 1st. This day has a bit of significance. First, to me it means that fall has officially started (forget all that jive about the autumnal equinox). A cold front is currently passing through Florida, which means temps in the 70s instead of 90s. Hallelujah. Also, my birthday is 25 days away, which means this month starts the last year in my 20s. But I won't go there right now, we'll save the griping about getting old for next year :)

The real significance, though, is the reset of the NaNoWriMo forums. What does that mean? Well, it means that NaNo 2009 is officially here. People will start getting to know each other in the forums. Novel ideas will be bouncing around the boards. Pre-NaNo meet ups will commence. The massive clouds of brainstorm will be seen from all over the city. The excitement will build as November 1 approaches.

I am pumped.

In the mean time, I have so much math homework to do today. I may have to get my shift covered at work tomorrow. I hate taking the cut in pay, but school is priority 1. And I have to get into the habit of always thinking about or doing school work. Speaking of school work, I have some to do now.

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Monday Funday

2009-09-28T18:29:00.003-04:00

oh yeah. Let's all wink together and exclaim how awesome Mondays are. But I am off work now, and for the first time in weeks I was not by myself on the big truck day. I am still chuckling at a few dumb things my boss said. Now I am at the practice space waiting for the rest of the band to arrive. Fighting off tiredness is making me tired. I cannot succumb to the sleep færie. I am too busy these days to worry about such frivolous things as sleep. pshaw. Instead, I am going to try and organize my computer. Of course I said that 30 minutes ago.

But let's talk about Nano. I'm getting more serious about my SciFi idea. Here is the basic premise. Around the turn of the 22nd century, scientists have established a colony on Mars. They are experimenting with the construction of, what they call, Terradomes which allow for a self sustaining micro-ecology inside the dome. These are the first steps towards the long term goal of terraforming the entire planet. The project however is facing serious cut backs and possibly termination because of rising costs. Transporting, supporting and compensating laborers, not to mention the cost of transporting raw materials, is costing world governments way too much money. Then one day, a prominent military general arrives with an elite team of engineers and a couple of soldiers with a highly classified project to assist in the effort; that project is to make human clones on Mars as laborers. This cuts back costs significantly. These clones are also intended to work on asteroids extracting the raw materials needed to build the domes. Things get out of hand, however, and an attempt to enslave the clones leads to rebellion and eventually war. When the clones discover that they can clone themselves, they head to Earth as the front for a bloody war to liberate themselves.

Developing ideas in the works.

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E.S.

2009-09-23T19:18:00.004-04:00

Economic Slavery.

Pretty much the situation that most working Americans, including myself, are experiencing now. Had a conversation with my boss the other day regarding work he wanted me to do that is no longer my responsibility. Went something like this:

boss: "I need you to work on project x today"
me: "Oh? What are you going to do when I am gone?" (implying my near resignation and suggesting that it is no longer my responsibility to take care of project x)
boss: "I'm paying you $9/hour, i'm gonna get my money's worth"
me: (exasperated at the fact that he suggested I am overpaid) "You're already getting your money's worth, bro"
boss: "Not by the company's standards"
me: "This country did away with slavery decades ago"
boss: "You can work for free if you want, go ahead an punch out"
me: incredulous laughter

I made the slavery joke to a coworker later, and he said "yeah it's economic slavery." That struck home with me. What is different between being underpaid, as many of us are, and slavery? I say almost nothing. Even slaves back in colonial America were provided for, in a manner of speaking. They were given housing, food, clothes, and anything else their masters wanted to provide. They were expected to work hard, do what they were told, even go above and beyond, for what they were given. We are, for all intents and purposes, forced into this economic slavery. I mean, we need to eat, be sheltered, and travel at least around the city in which we live. Many of our wages cover barely that. Those in more privileged positions feel justified in squashing the lower echelons and feel deserving of what they have. Of course, the higher up you go the fewer privileged positions there are, the greater the rewards and the greater the security. Of course they would argue that anyone can get to where they are. Yes, almost anyone has the potential but only a few actually can due to limitations on the number of positions available. For the rest of us, there is economic slavery, and we deserve it. Don't we?

Later that night, my boss calls me about a task a coworker and I took care of. It went something like this:

boss: "Why'd you do this task like you did?"
me: "Because you told me to do it one way, and you told coworker to do it another way."
boss: "Don't you remember me coming to you and telling you how to do it?"
me: wondering if he heard what i said, "Yes, I remember. But you told coworker to do it this way. I don't know when you told him this, maybe it was after you told me. And when him and I put our heads together, his way made more sense based on what corporate wants."
boss: "Yeah but I am going to try and do it the way I told you anyway..." he goes on the justify why he is going to do things outside of what management outlined and that i should have followed his directions.

He didn't even accept my apology, which I never should have given to begin with. It is this kind of idiocy in management that I can't stand. It used to stress me out, now I just laugh at the folly of corporations. Communication, please. Here is a tip, make sure that everyone knows what is going on and don't give two people on the same task two different directions for how to complete it. duh.

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Okay. Let's try this again.

2009-09-15T21:40:00.004-04:00

Well. As we can see I am about the laziest blogger ever. You are probably wondering if I ever finished NaNo. If you aren't, then you are now. I did finish. And I did win (yay me). It was intense, and i had to sprint on the last day to do it (to the song of about 6k words i believe). It felt goooood to print up that manuscript (for about $15 at kinkos) and actually touch it. For 4 weeks I intensley pursued this intangible thing staring back at me from my laptop screen. I had it in my hands finally, and I felt accomplished. Until, I started to read it. What can one expect from at 175 page book written in 30 days, though? It has some good ideas, and a solid basis for my New York Times Best Seller is now established. This year I am contemplating writing it again for NaNo. Stripping it down to it's exposed, naked parts and redressing it. Or perhaps I will vomit 50,000 words for one of my other "works-in-progresses." Or, perhaps, just perhaps, I will in true NaNo style start from November 1 with not a clue of what I am writing about and seeing what happens. One key deciding factor will be how I feel after I read my manuscript from last year.

Speaking of, I better get back to my algebra homework so I can make time to do just that.

\m/

NaNo log: Delta

2008-11-08T15:03:00.002-05:00

I have hit a roadblock at the write-in, so this is a good time to update my past NaNo logs. The last two days have been tragically slow. All the procrastination I have been diligently fighting off won last night and is proving to be a worthy opponent. So, without further ado...

NaNoLog 11/04
08:22 writing in the parking lot waiting for my late boss @6899
13:23 watching door for Lacey, broke 7k
13:35 off the door. @7126
//made it to the Barnies write-in just a few minutes late
19:00 first word war. -->804
20:00 second word war. -->908
22:30 writing in between election updates and ffxi
//Barack is the new president, woo! Thank you America
finished the night @9013
//I really wanted to hit 10k tonight. Bah.

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NaNo log: Gamma

2008-11-07T14:10:00.004-05:00

So I am way behind on my NaNo blog updates, but am *not* way behind on my NaNo word count. I am currently at 12,128 words! Woot! The standard model of 1,667 words a day would put me at 10,002 and 11,669 by the end of today. My goal, however, is 2k words a day. I have adhered to that thus far. Today, though, I have only written a little over 100 words. That means I have to write 1900 words tonight. Yeeeaaah. I may have to engage in some word wars with friends on AIM.

Anywho, here it is. NaNoLog from 11/03:

woke up. went to work.

14:06 lunch break. writing!
14:46 break over. --->500 words!
20:30 got a fire going and started writing.
20:50 break. -->150 words
20:58 few more words. now gonna stoke the fire and toke a fire.
21:08 added more WriMo's to twitter. resume writing
22:03 fire is dying and i am tired of fighting it. going inside. @6217
23:15 been writing in bed for a bit. @6522
23:21 calling it quits. @6603

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NaNo log beta

2008-11-02T21:51:00.002-05:00

09:50 out of shower and headed to Borders for an Oviedo NaNo meet
10:20 arrived at borders
11:20 started writing (i know, an hour of shootin' da shit instead of writing)
11:35 my first casualties. 57 words lost due to an unexpected error in Word when I tried to use the "find and replace" function. I finally had come up with a name for my main character. Now at -->3515
11:53 spent the last twenty minutes deleting doubles from iTunes. Now I am actually writing, I swear!
12:40 passed 4k words!
13:00 taking a break -->4,236 words
13:15 had found LOLcat collection. Didn't know they made those. Now resumed writing.
14:21 broke 5k by two words.
14:26 added 18 words. Left meeting that no one except Jen came to -->5,020!

//home. eat. smoke. nap. smoke. recording session.

21:35 sit down in bed with laptop and try to squeeze out a few more words.
21:49 exhaustion wins.

// total for the day -->1,500 words (exactly)

//cumulative total after two days -->5,072 words!

NaNo log alpha

2008-11-01T23:13:00.003-04:00

My journey began a little late, as I tend to wait till the last minute to prep for anything. By a little late I mean 2 minutes ;)

NaNoWriMo day 1 - saturday
00:02 opened word
00:03 began typing. its official!
00:28 first save! "Origins" -->347 words
00:33 first break. needed headphones and redbull.
00:35 resume.
01:35 reached 1000 words! need more redbull.
02:05 first character dies. -->1245 words
// i decided that the theme song for my book is: Surprise! You're Dead by FNM
02:17 done for the night. -->1328 words.

sleeeeeeep. Zzzzzzzzz.
wake up butt early and stand in line 4 hours to vote.

13:00 got to NaNo kick-off party
13:30 first 30 minute session -->675 words
14:45 second session -->748 words
15:30 free write -->few hundred more.
16:40 left the kick off party with 3,105 words!

home. nap. eat. smoke.

21:45 fireside writing session -->257 words
22:37 break
22:53 resume -->211 words
23:17 finished

// Cumulative total for the day -->3,572 words

Rock the Vote

2008-11-01T13:18:00.002-04:00

So I voted today, yay me. But I had to stand in line for 4 hours.

I can be very patient, but 4 hours is too much. I was prepared for 2 hours, maybe two-and-a-half. After three hours I felt it in my shoulders, legs, feet and stomach. At 3 1/2 hours my patience had run out. And I started losing my mind. Finally, after 4 hours my votes had been cast and I walked out of the library just a little toasty and made it to the NaNo kick-off party an hour late.

I am glad I voted, for the first time I might add, but for the rest of time I will do absentee ballot.

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twenty 8

2008-10-29T13:52:00.004-04:00

So, I turned 28 on Sunday. Happy belated birthday to me. I had quite an exciting day. I walked around the world, twice, took a boat to Morocco and had leg of lamb there, traveled back in time, crash landed on Mars, traveled to the future, recycled enough garbage to power a village, sampled foods and wine from around the world, took exciting boat rides in Mexico and Norway, and saw a spectacular fireworks show; all in the Experimental Prototype City Of Tomorrow. Thanks to Shelli for that awesome experience. :)

Actually, I must admit, I am feeling a bit melancholy about 28. I am on the precipice of my 30s, standing before the doorway of the rest of my life. Realizing that your youth is fading and now you must make real decisions about what you want to do with life is slightly depressing. They do say, though, that 30 is the new 20. Maybe this cloud does have a silver lining after all.

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One Week until Madness!

2008-10-23T23:23:00.002-04:00

That's write, NaNoWriMo begins in a week. This year is my first attempt at such literary insanity. For those who don't know, I am talking about National Novel Writing Month and it happens every November. 50,000 words in a month. Fifty-Thousand words in 30 days. That breaks down to 1700 words a day everyday. Nutso. Since March, I have written about 15k words on my current project. I need to more than triple that in one-tenth of the time. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to *finish* a book. A staggering percentage of people who want to write never do, or at least never take themselves seriously, because the idea of finishing a novel is preposterous to everyday life. Not to mention you aren't a literary genius so why try? Well, every literary genius out there has been quoted saying something like, "First drafts always suck." Well, Its true. So just frakkin write it. Get to The End. *Then* cut out half of it and rearrange the rest. Then you get to take the story where you really want it to go. At least that is what I am hoping.

That has been exactly my problem. I have never finished a book or a short story (unless it was due for class) because I let my self-critic talk my way out of it. Forget all that. Just keep pumping out words. Breakthroughs will happen. The point of NaNo is to get over that internal criticism stigma. Quantity over quality.

So, the next month will be spent primarily in coffee shops drawn into my laptop. It will be fun, like running 15 miles is fun. Painful and liberating all at once.

http://www.nanowrimo.org

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Now Hiring

2008-10-19T21:53:00.003-04:00

Due to overwhelming request from my burgeoning fanbase, I promise to update more! And check it, I am looking for an Assistant! With the overwhelming amount of mail I get daily I need a super organized-multitasking-coffee drinking-calendar brained-administrative cyborg by my side. Please reply with resumes.

My dog, Oscar, has the worst breath ever. Death Breath. Boy, I love it when he decides to plop down next to me and start panting. I think I'm going start hiding Altoids in his treats. Anyway, I am procrastinating right now. I should be brainstorming and preparing for NaNoWriMo. But I am not. My fans are more important.

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Big Mac

2008-10-09T22:42:00.002-04:00

actually, its a small one. I inherited Shelli's iBook g4 when she got her pimp new 20" iMac last week. It needed a new battery and a RAM upgrade. I found this guy on craigslist who was selling a factory sealed battery for $50, a nice savings from the Mac price of $130. Turns out, this dude refurbishes and resells used Macs. He happened to have a gig of RAM lyin around for my iBook. So he sold it to me and installed it for $20. Killer.

I have come to the light! Oh lord, I have come to the light!

Now I have a notebook to take around and type up my book during NaNoWriMo! I will be spending much of November hunched over this thing in coffee shops.

In other news, I got a new network card for my PC and can finally play FFXI again! After months of not playing I will be returning to my virtual gaming mmorpg world. Oh yeah.

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I Finally Saw Saw

2008-10-06T23:11:00.007-04:00

Great movie. I thought it was a creative spin on the typical serial-killer-cop-investigation movie. I was expecting it to be a bit gorier, which I am generally glad it wasn't. Excessive gore really only works in cheesy horror flicks like Evil Dead, Society, and Dead Alive, etc. The movie was intense though, mostly taking place in a nasty cell where the master mind serial killer has the victims, usually two, pit against each other where one must kill the other to survive, or both die, in some sick game. For those who haven't seen it, no spoilers here. I will say, that the twist at the end is ridiculous. Absolutely unexpected and, in my opinion, made the movie. I will be renting the next three to watch before Saw V comes out in theaters on the 24th.

On a totally different direction, I had another first in the last 24 hours. I did yoga. Holy shit it is hard. Shelli has this yoga dvd, and she convinced me to try it. It is good for the mind, body and soul no doubt, but I am about as flexible as a cinder block. I had to stick to the easiest modifications of the positions, and even then had trouble with some of them. But, it was a good work out and surprisingly relaxing. All the movements are deliberate, so it forces focus, but slow enough not to be strenuous. And breathing. Lots of breathing. I think I am gonna keep it up a couple times a week. It will no doubt help me with my discipline and stamina in playing the drums, and help boost my energy all around. I have one word of advice for those wanting to try yoga: do not attempt after eating until you are completely digested. It makes you gassy.

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Intro

2008-10-05T08:39:00.005-04:00

Here it is, the weblog of none other than me. Right next to yours in the massive, expanding sphere of complex connections we call the web. In a world populated with millions of blogs, mine is but one. "So why read it?" you may ask. Because it's one-in-a-million. Because here you will find daily rants and ravings, insights, tips, tricks, advice, stories, experiences, art, music, reviews, previews, scenic views, abstractions, distractions, attractions, contradictions, predictions, humor, rumor, emotion, commotion, introspect, retrospect, monologues, dialogues, prologues, epilogues, captain's logs, and whatever else spews from my mind and shoots out my finger tips like volts of lightning. I meant bolts of lightning.

Who would not want to read that? Stay tuned.