Posts tagged as “We Call It Living”

Chuggin’ Chuggin’ Chuggin’

Published November 23, 2011 by centaur

Well, Instant Upload is weirdly busted so you get my smilin' mug instead of coffee. HEX CODE is now at 55,000 words:

I'm taking it a little easier now than I was before I hit 50,000 words ... taking more time to read and catch up on email, even taking time to review notes on STRANDED.

But I do want to dump the rest of my floating ideas for HEX CODE into the document while they're fresh, so I don't lose them. From tonight:

I saw this thing earlier, out of the corner of my eye. It easily kept up with me, lopin’ along, twice as fast now that I think about the angles, using its superior speed to keep good cover between it and my line of sight. My only hope is to sit tight and hope it leaves. Then the dragging noise I thought was a trashcan crackles right up behind me. I’m on quadruple frozen now, concentrating on not even moving my tail—harder than you might think if you’re not a cat and don’t got one. I gotta breathe now, but I’m taking it in slow-like, through the mouth, in and out, so that my gut hurts from clenching.

Onward! -the Centaur

Viiiiictory for the Paper Tiger

Published November 22, 2011 by centaur

Once again I've completed National Novel Writing Month. This year, I finished 8 days early. Or, put another way, THIS is what happens if you turn off the Internet during Nano:

I've had a number of interruptions in Nano in the past and this year was no exception. I know I can finish 38,000 words in 10 days and I was initially trying to push to finish at twice the rate, or perhaps finish two books. Well, that didn't happen because of the Galaxy Nexus launch and you can see that in my progress here:

That chasm was the Galaxy Nexus launch (and a few other things tossed in there). But I made it through that, and ultimately succeeded today, sitting in a Starbucks at Santana Row here in San Jose (actually pictured is Michael's Gelato in Palo Alto because the pic from Santana Row hasn't uploaded).

Normally I survive Nano by taking the whole of Thanksgiving week off for a nine day writing intensive. But this time, I've finished early. I still have more to write on HEX CODE, of course, but I now have the luxury of leaning back and thinking through a few twists to the plot, with 50,000 words under my belt making the story solid. So ... I can actually take this vacation ... as a vacation.

So without further ado I present a snippet of the story that was written today ... raw Nano, unfiltered except for a little reformatting and removing some author's notes.

When I found out that Ben was human, or more accurately that elf meant human with special sauce, blabbermouth old me just had to go tell Mom. Then blabbermouth old me had to make up a story of how I found out, which involved a clever lie about school. Not so clever. That just called Mom’s attention to the fact that she now had two underage wards in need of schooling. Getting me into the Clairmont Academy was a pain in the ass, but now they all love us, so getting Ben in was as simple as selecting a school uniform. And boy, does he look hot in it. Hot hot hot. The points to his ears and the green in his skin and the red in the sweater, it’s like Christmas, and that poofy green helmet makes him look like a school uniform tree—when girls aren’t comin up to tousle it. They’re all lookin’ at him. I was sure he had a glamour, but now I’m thinkin it made him look scary. Now he just looks like a boy, a hot boy with funky green hair the girls can’t resist. A passing one does it again and darts off, and I feels for him! He winces, but he clearly likes it. “So, Cinnamon,” Surrey says, setting her tray down, “will you—oh, hello.” “Hello,” Ben says, and there would be a dotted line in the air between their elfin eyes. Surrey’s too frozen to sit down, so Ben stands up, takes her hand, and kisses it with a flourish. “Greetings from the halls of Appalachia, oh princess of Scandinavia.” “Oh, siddown,” I says, and Ben sits down with a plop. He glares at me, but I ignores him. “Ben, this is Surrey Eddington, one of my best friends. Surrey Eddington, this is Benjamin Damon.” My smile grows mean. “He’s my house elf.” “I swear, Cinnamon Frost,” Ben growls, “by the gleaming halls of elfland—” “By the power of Greyskull,” Megan says, sitting down next to the still-smitten Surrey. “Oh, hey, what are you?” she says, and Ben near jumps out of his seat—then plops back down again as Megan scratches her head and says, “Wait … I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

Next up I plan on ... chilling out, having a nice dinner, and joining my writing group for the evening to review my outstanding projects. First up is probably finishing the edit of STRANDED for my beta readers ... and then finishing Dakota Frost 3, LIQUID FIRE. Or perhaps I'll just chill out and clean up my library for Thanksgiving, and thank God I have it. Good luck in Nano, all! -the Centaur

Back on Track

Published November 19, 2011 by centaur

So, now that the Galaxy Nexus site with its snazzy 3D viewer has launched, now that I'm on my long lonely but highly productive 9-day Thanksgiving vacation, now ... I'm back on track. I hit 40,068 words in HEX CODE today, 38,524 added this month in Nano. So I've got 11,476 words left to go for HEX CODE. Since it's early in the day and I have two more writing sessions to go, I hope to actually finish that this weekend, or at least by Monday. Then, unless I'm going gangbusters on HEX CODE, I plan to go back to STRANDED to send to my beta readers, and after that try to finish LIQUID FIRE. Doubt all of that will happen in November, but I want to go from juggling 4 novels in my head to having 4 novels with beta readers! Oh, I almost forgot ... a snippet of HEX CODE:

The three will-o-the-wisps comes together, their colors merging as they swirls around each other into one big ball. The sphere brightens, shimmers, intensifies within its formless shield of mist—the light coming together with a ring and a dark spot, which whirls to face me. O.M.G. The three will-o-the-wisps have formed together into a giant eye. “Remember!” the Huntswoman cries. “You can hurt it with your sword, but not enough. It has a shield. You can defend yourself with your shield, but not enough. It has teeth. But it has one more thing, and that is the key. Find that, and you will find your victory.” “Oh, great,” I says, hefting my dumb little wooden plank blade. “Thanks. Even Yoda sent Luke after dreams before Vader.”

Actually make that 40,092 words ... I wrote some more when I went to grab the excerpt. Enjoy. -the Centaur

It’s ALIIIIIVE….

Published November 17, 2011 by centaur

I avoid talking about work on my blog as a matter of principle - even to the point of never directly referring to The Search Engine That Starts With A G by name, unless I'm talking about a product - but in this case I think I have to make an exception. The Galaxy Nexus phone from Samsung and Google has launched, and the marketing site contains a 3D model of the phone developed by my team (pictured above). Guys, great job. I'm proud to have worked on it with you.

I have a lot more I want to say about it, but at this point (2am) after an 14 hour day ironing out all the wrinkles in this launch I look about how I feel. Time to GO HOME and tackle this again tomorrow, make sure no fires are going ... and then, celebrate! Oh, and please enjoy the phone and all its Androidy goodness! -the Centaur P.S. My opinions are my own and are not that of my employer, even if I do think my employer is awesome. And I don't speak for my employer, though I did run this by them first to make sure they were cool with it. Some restrictions may apply to your limitations. Do not taunt happy fun ball.

Life Intervenes

Published November 12, 2011 by centaur

So I was going gangbusters on Nanowrimo ... until life intervened. I work at the Search Engine That Starts With A G. It's a fun but tough job that nonetheless leaves me with a great work life balance. I have time to work, time to write, and time to spend with my wife and cats (friends tend to get short shrift though :-P). But we have a software release coming up, and as usual for software development schedules (but unusual for The G) everything was under-resourced, the project was late, and no time was left for integration. This was a last minute project, a great opportunity for my team that came up at the last minute, so this is a bit understandable. But it's still been a bear. I was still writing though. Half my team's out sick, on trips, whatever, and I'm still writing. I'm doing the lion's share of the integration, the rest of the team doing the lion's share of the coding, and I'm still writing. Then we get down to the wire ... and still have showstopper bugs. At this point this week we were supposed to finish, attend a research symposium, and then join our research colleagues on an offsite. My boss was reluctant to bail on this, but I told him I was planning to skip the symposium and the offsite, to work on Saturday if I have to ... because there just wasn't enough time for me to finish my work otherwise. Not even if I temporarily dropped Nano.

Nano got dropped anyway. My bosses agreed with me, we mostly bailed on the symposium and almost all of us bailed on the offsite. For the time of this last push, my Nano tracking sheet lists zero, though I'm sure I got a couple of hundred words in that day (just didn't track them). We worked long into Friday night ... and nailed all our P0 bugs. But actually I didn't get any words done that day - I'd forgotten to charge my laptop. I do a lot of writing at breakfast, but without the laptop I had to break out my notebook and plan the story. It's become much more elaborate recently, and this gave me a chance to think. We came back and tackled the project again today Saturday, nailing all our P1 bugs and some of the P2s. I packed up my computer for the office move and prepared to leave, when my boss had a brainflash about fixing the first of our customer requests. He asked me for pointers on how to fix it ... but I knew how, my laptop was already open in my lap, and I could do it before I could explain it. So I did. My boss pushed the code to the site ... and lo and behold we'd nailed the first of the customer's requests, transitioning from bugfixes to pre-launch polishing in a 40-minute last-minute push that was faster than everything that came before it. Boo-yah. So when I went to dinner tonight, I gave myself permission to have a great meal, go get some great coffee, to chill out, and not to Nano. I'm ahead, and can get back to it tomorrow, which is completely free thanks to our hard work and my previous time getting ahead at Nano. But I'd forgotten to charge my laptop Friday. I'd written notes; I'd ruminated on them all night. Not even meaning to. And so, when I sat down for coffee ... the words, they just started spilling out. And I easily made today's word count. Double boo-yah. Here's a sample:

“Sinny and Tully, sittin’ in a tree,” Mom says. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” I finishes. I turns red as a beet, looking over at Tully and Ben. Tully’s just leaning against the rail, watching Ben fume as he scrubs the floor on his hands and knees. “But while we’re there in the orchard, this fae comes by, offers us some fruit—” “I swear,” Mom says, “I will slap you through this phone if you ate that fruit.” I holds the phone an arms length away again. I don’t know all of Mom’s powers. For a moment I’m scared she can do it.

Never eat the fruit of elfland ... unless you're a smart little spellpunk who specializes in tricky logic problems. So, back to HEX CODE, and here's hoping life continues to stop intervening. Onward! -the Centaur

20,039 Added Words (4,344 of Them Today)

Published November 6, 2011 by centaur

This post should be titled "wheew". I've now just reached the point where I've caught up with my crazy goal of writing at twice the normal rate. I've written just a notch over the required 3,333 words a day, churning out 20,000+ words in HEX CODE (and that's NOT counting the 1500 word seed I started with).

I had hoped to be this caught up last night, but I erred and went to one of my favorite coffee houses and found it closed an hour earlier than I thought, cutting in to my writing time. I could swear these hours are new, but maybe I'm just hallucinating.

And when I got home I had to play with the cats, such as the cute little monster above, a feral, stray or perhaps just terribly surly cat that just might be our orange cat's father (or mother - I didn't get close enough to enquire). Regrettably, since we already have too many cats, they mark, and feral cats have been trying to get into our home, I had to shoo Mister Orange Cat away, gently touching him with my flashlight, which freaked him out as he didn't know what it was - no matter how much he whapped at it, it didn't react. He actually looked OFFENDED as he scrabbled away atop the fence. I'm sad to have to do that, but his possible son below is more than enough trouble - we can't take in any more cats.

The point being, I was exhausted, but by the time I did all my cat triage, I just fricking collapsed into blissful unconsciousness. Today, however, I had no plans. While I overslept for church, as I irritatingly often do, I still got up reasonably early thanks to Daylight Saving's Time. So I had an extra hour to get out, get to a Panera ... and get caught up. I got my day's writing done pretty quickly, got a notch more ahead, and then went home, fed the cats, cleaned the pee left when the rains discouraged one of them from going outside :-P and resumed writing with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in the background. A friend called, I hopped in the car while talking with him, and by the time we were done I was standing outside Chipotle with only 250 words to go. Short story, by taking the laptop out first and turning the internet off, I made it to 20039 words.

Now I'm freezing my ass off in a surprisingly chilly Barnes and Noble, sipping on a Frappucino (yeah, I know, cold drinks on a cold day, shut up, there's a reason my Top Gun name is Iceman) and taking a short break. Soon I'm going to dive back to it and try to finish another thousand words or so to give me a comfortable buffer. If all goes well, if I can keep up a bit less than the pace I've done so far, I should be able to coast through the second half of November. Maybe, just maybe, if I get done early enough ... I can go see The Thing again. Onward! -the Centaur

efface[john-mccarthy;universe]

Published October 24, 2011 by centaur

John McCarthy, creator of Lisp and one of the founders of the field of artificial intelligence, has died. He changed the world more than Steve Jobs ... but in a far subtler way, by laying the foundation for programs like Apple's Siri through his artificial intelligence work, or more broadly by laying the foundation for much of modern computing through innovations like the IF-THEN-ELSE formalism. It's important not to overstate the impact of great men like John and Steve; artificial intelligence pioneers like Marvin Minsky would have pushed us forward without John, and companies like Xerox and Microsoft would have pushed us forward without Steve. But we're certainly better off, and farther along, with their contributions. I have only three stories to tell about John McCarthy. The third story is that I last saw him at a conference at IBM, in a mobile scooter and not looking very well. Traveling backwards in time, the second story is that I spoke with one of his former graduate students, who saw a John McCarthy poster in my office, and told me John's illness had progressed to the point where he basically couldn't program any more and that he was feeling very sad about it. But what I want to remember is my first encounter with John ... it's been a decade and a half, so my memory's fuzzy, but I recall it was at AAAI-97 in Providence, Rhode Island. I'd arrived at the conference in a terrible snafu and had woken up a friend at 4 in the morning because I had no place to stay. I wandered the city looking for H.P. Lovecraft landmarks and had trouble finding them, though I did see a house some think inspired Dreams in the Witch House. But near the end, at a dinner for AI folks, I want to say at Waterplace Park but I could be misremembering, I bumped in to John McCarthy. He was holding court at the end of the table, and as the evening progressed I ended up following him and a few friends to a bar, where we hung out for an evening. And there, the grand old man of artificial intelligence, still at the height of his powers, regaled the wet-behind-the-ears graduate student from Atlanta with tales of his grand speculative ideas, beyond that of any science fiction writer, to accelerate galaxies to the speed of light to save shining stars from the heat death of the universe. We'll miss you, John. -Anthony Image stolen shamelessly from Zach Beane's blog. The title of this post is taken from the Lisp 1.5 Programmer's Manual, and is the original, pre-implementation Lisp M-expression notation for code to remove an item from a list.

The Centaur at Write to the End

Published October 19, 2011 by centaur

Over at the Write to the End site, I've written a brief trip report of my Georgia Tech talk on the Dakota Frost, Skindancer series . It was a lot of fun and I had a great time. It also includes a reading of the first twenty minutes or so of FROST MOON. Enjoy! -the Centaur

24 Hour Comics Day, Redux

Published October 2, 2011 by centaur

No, I'm not doing 24 Hour Comics Day 2 weekends in a row ... but my buddy Nathan Vargas is. He's the other half of Blitz Comics and through an odd set of circumstances involving the Alternative Press Expo we ended up signing up for a 24 Hour Comics event at Mission Comics 1 week before today, the official 24 Hour Comic Day. (And I completed mine!)

I owe too many people too many things (fixing my wife's computer, finishing edits of "Steampunk Fairy Chick", finishing a draft of STRANDED, doing an interview, scanning last week's comic, etc) to do 24HCD again, but after tonight's Doctor Who finale I did drop by around midnight tonight with donuts and good cheer.

We hung out, gave donuts to the security guards, and watched some Batman fan film. Then, while the toiling artists toiled, I spent some time cleaning up the images from last week's 24 Hour Comic Day (which I had scanned while watching Doctor Who). I just finished, it's only been two hours, but it already feels like another 24HCD!

However, I'm happy with the results, and will do 24HCD again next year. I particularly like the dual page spread from Stranded, but I'll hold it back until I get the whole comic uploaded to Dresan.com and will instead tease you with the first page of the novella:

The first page of the adapted STRANDED novella.

Onward! Upward! Homeward, for me! And best of luck to the toiling comickers here in Sunnyvale! -the Centaur

BLitz Comics 24 Hour Comic Boot Camp @ Kaleid

Published September 23, 2011 by centaur

blitz comics boot camp september 23 2011 at kaleid gallery in san jose

Nathan Vargas and myself are facilitating a 24 Hour Comic Boot Camp at Kaleid Gallery in downtown San Jose tomorrow, September 24 from 7pm to 11pm. For those that don't know, 24 Hour Comics Day is a challenge held each year to create a 24 page comic from scratch in 24 Hours. Nathan and I have tried this five times between the two of us, and we've been discussing techniques to succeed over the last year. Then a drunk guy manning a comics booth at the Sub Zero festival overheard us saying that and said we should put on a tutorial. And since we have a policy of always following the advice of random drunk guys when it sounds like they are serving as a hotline for God, we said OK!

Our work has produced a pretty nice 24 Hour Comics Day Survival Kit which is now getting distributed to a lot of 24 Hour Comics venues. And it's free under a Creative Commons license! So you can download it and use it on your own. But we're going one step further and providing a "Boot Camp" where we'll help participants create a 2 page comic, involving discussions of comic theory and 2 hours of drawing exercises. So please show up and enjoy ... or at least check out Blitz Comics and our survival kit if you want to survive 24 Hour Comics Day. -the Centaur

Back home again…

Published September 1, 2011 by centaur

Blogging from the convention floor at Dragon*Con right now ... 11:45pm, it's hopping, and it hasn't officially started yet! No pictures right now because of equipment failures, but since I've arrived I've hit registration, had a great dinner at Sear, hit the guest con suite and picked the brain of a ninja, hit a drum circle and speculated on anorexia, wandered through a concert room between bands tearing down and setting up, helped a Minecraft cube through a pair of double doors and crossing the street, and seen Mister T twice. I've seen about five TARDIS dresses, half a dozen half naked people, dozens of anime characters, an absolutely spectacular furry just walked by, seen several great Doctors including a superb 10th and a passable 8th, and run into several con friends. I've taken pictures in places I take them every year and taken pictures of things I've never seen before. Every year is slightly different, slightly better, as the facilities of the hotels (now five!) get better, skybridges are added, and people routing policies are improved. We'll see how all that holds out when the zoo starts tomorrow. First panel on my list is 10am, so I'd better crash soon if I want breakfast. Or, hey, I could stay up all night writing. The night is young, and you're always as young as you feel. -the Centaur UPDATE: You may not feel so young the night after you flew in on a redeye. :-)

IT’S HERE.

Published August 16, 2011 by centaur

IT'S HERE. BLOOD ROCK has arrived at my home. Order the latest installment in the tale of Dakota Frost at one of these fine booksellers:

and of course, on Kindle. Crossposted on the Dakota Frost blog. -the Centaur

Funky Fresh: the Street Mrkt Faire

Published August 5, 2011 by centaur

The Street Mrkt fair is an independent art festival held at First Fridays in downtown San Jose. There are dozens of small booths each with an indie artist's unique artworks, including my wife, Sandi Billingsley's work under the Studio Sandi banner.

There's also an ArtCar festival in a nearby parking lot, a spoken word artist as MC, and a sequence of live bands.

I really love the funky, eclectic flavor of the San Jose art community. It reminds me a lot of the Atlanta art scene, which was just exploding when I left. It's real, earnest, and odd, but not pretentious, and people have a lot of fun here creating and soaking up creation.

The Street Mrkt fair is going on right now, August 5th, until 11pm. I've heard rumors it will also be at the next First Friday, September 2nd. Check it out! -the Centaur

Back at Comic-Con

Published July 23, 2011 by centaur

I'm back at San Diego Comic-Con again ... my con home away from con home (my con home being Dragon*Con). Comic-Con is also where I get to visit with 125,000 of my closest friends.

Like Dragon*Con, San-Diego Comic-Con has grown far beyond its original roots. The con is about far more than just comics: it's now a full bore genre media event.

They've got sexy space girls ...

... sexy space guys ...

... and everything in between.

And lest there be any doubt about what I meant, here's what I took the closeup of in that last tableau ... I am a roboticist after all:

While I'm here, I'll not just be renewing my creative juices ... I'll be working on the final proofs for BLOOD ROCK, which is due the day after I get back.

If only I had a way to get more time...wait, maybe I do!

Wish me luck! -the Centaur

A Funny Thing Happened Before My Trip To Comic-Con

Published July 23, 2011 by centaur

Axually by the time you reads this am already atz the con now - but just befores I waz completely discombobulated from cats:

Anthony Last night our home was invaded by a quiet, timid but quite feral cat. 2 hours trying to locate the capture him - no dice, he was a wily fucker. Then 3 hours cleaning the pee he left behind when he bolted out the door. Emailed that I wouldn't be coming in and got to bed at 4:25am. Sheesh. Donna OK...while I am sure that REALLY sucked, I have to admit I also am still laughing. Sorry that happened...Febreeze works well. Anthony He's an adorable little cat. He's also a master of hiding (he tucked himself into the tiniest possible space in a bottom bookshelf) growls if approached closely and smells of pee. I think he's been causing my other cats to spray. I'd be laughing too if the situation wasn't so serious - just last night I lost two books, half a dozen magazines, some papers, and possibly an heirloom kitchen table I got from my grandmother to pee. The behavioral effects on our other cats are so severe one's on Diazepram, the other's on Prozac, and we're thinking of getting rid of them. I'm locked out of my own library most of the time because we can't let them get in there. I went out for coffee for an hour and a half and found the black cat on top of some clean laundry. Donna Oh no!! I take it all back... No longer funny :( I hope it gets better! Anthony There's some small amount of funny, I admit it. When not gnashing my teeth, I like to remember that it's better than a kick in the head with a golf shoe! William Good lord! I think you need the Cat Whisperer. Cortney Decoite O. My. That's almost as bad, if not equal to, a burglar. My deepest sympathies. John Have you ever tried a kick in the head with a golf shoe? It's not so bad. My eyes are still crossed and I'm falling down a lot, but I don't think it has anything to do with the kick to the head...

Iz funny in a lolcats trainrecks kind of way. Don't worries, will not get rid of teh cats. But just catching the ups now. Response will be the slow, please be the patients. -the Centaur

Independence Day Menu

Published July 5, 2011 by centaur

Tabbouleh and butter lettuce, veggie burgers in wraps with smoked Tabasco and coleslaw, sweet potatoes with honey, my loving spouse, and a couple of episodes of Black Lagoon: the Second Barrage.

Tabbouleh:

2 heads parsley†
3 bunches scallions†
5 heirloom tomatoes†
1 cup bulgur†
the juice of 1.5 lemons†
olive oil
salt
pepper
cumin‡
cinnamon‡
oregano‡
allspice‡

† you may increase or decrease the amount of these ingredients ... a lot
‡ these spices are optional

Rinse the bulgur in water and leave soaking in 1.5x cups of water for 30 or so minutes in the fridge; optionally add the juice of a lemon to the water. Wash the parsley and chop as fine as possible (tip: separate into small, manageable bunches, roll the bunch tightly and hold it, cut with a knife to discard the stems, turn the bunch a quarter turn, and cut again as finely as possible; continue turning and cutting until the bunch is consumed and then chop any stragglers). Wash the green onions, cut off the roots and the frayed ends of the greens, and chop as fine as possible. Wash the tomatoes and dice them as fine as possible. Remove the bulgur and drain in a fine collander.

Combine the parsley and green onions in a large mixing bowl. Add the bulgur to the mixing bowl by taking a handful at a time, squeezing out any remaining moisture before tossing in; you may add more or less bulgur at this stage to your preferred texture. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Add the spices to taste. Add the tomatoes and stir until thoroughly mixed; you may add more or less tomatoes at this stage to your preferred texture. There should be a reasonable amount of juice at the bottom of the mix at this stage. Add lemon juice and olive oil to taste, alternating one to two large tablespoons of juice with oil so the mix never gets overwhelmed. Add any remaining spices to taste.

Serve in a bowl on top of leaves of lettuce, or however you want.

-The Centaur

P.S. For the recipes for the burgers, coleslaw and potatoes, you'll need to ask my wife. :-)

Pictured: the tabbouleh, just after tomatoes are added but before mixing.

Caffe Romanza @ Books Inc.

Published July 1, 2011 by centaur

pound cake and mocha frappe at caffe romanza

One of my favorite bookstore / cafe combinations in the whole world is Books Inc. I used to come here back when I only visited the Bay Area; I'd drive down from wherever I was staying, hang out next door for an hour in the fantastic used bookstore Bookbuyers, then wander over to inspect the new offerings at Books Inc before finishing off in the cafe upstairs.

It didn't just have good, sweet, frozen coffee-flavored beverages, it had a great upper seating area which was conducive to kicking back and working on a problem. I've written a lot of words and drawn a lot of drawings in this cafe.

There's also an art gallery lining these walls, which my wife has shown in a few times. It really makes this a fun, exciting place to hang out and eat, drink, read, and write.

But as always, the ultimate test of a coffeehouse is the ample selection of power strips in which you can plug your laptops ... wait, what? Seriously, the ultimate test of a coffeehouse is the coffee ... and I think Caffe Romanza passes with flying colors:

Did I mention the Mocha Frappe? Get yourself here. -the Centaur

So you’re going to be a stem cell donor …

Published June 30, 2011 by centaur

anthony at mervyn's after receiving unrelated good news

... or, actually, I'm going to be a stem cell donor. Only 1 in 20,000 actually match, so this is pretty lucky. If all goes well with the physical and blood tests, I'll be helping out someone who's got few remaining options. Good things do happen. -the Centaur P.S. No grief, only 1 in 20,000 match. So check out Be The Match dot org and consider getting your cheek swabbed. Somewhere out there someone may be depending on you - so no pressure.

Some Days You Just Wanna Curl Up In A Ball

Published March 30, 2011 by centaur

This isn't a Woe Is Me post about all the crap that's been happening to me recently. That's so last week, literally. This is about depression. I have sporadic bouts of depression, probably just like most other people, nothing serious enough to call clinical. What really strikes me about it is how disconnected mood is from reality. In a large number of ways, things are Much Better Now than they were Just A While Ago. I've delivered my work to my old team (closure), I've moved to a new team doing something fun (robotics), I'm healing up from my illness (wellness), my wife's returned from her trip (companionship), and I have a book coming out (success). But nothing is perfect, and there are little setbacks that happen all the time. Sporadic depression, I find, isn't brought on by nothing, the way clinical depression extends over long periods for no good reason; it gets triggered by one of those little setbacks. When I was down with tonsillitis right before several major deadlines, things like a smashed toe made me upset and angry, and things like work challenges made me frustrated and worn out. Now that things are evened out, you'd think I'd have more resilience. Instead, I found myself having a Surprisingly Shitty Day. Even though I felt better, I was making progress on all my work tasks, at least partially resolved my setbacks, and even made progress on writing and drawing, the depression never let up. Now, I had a setback, as I said, and there are things that would make this situation better. But what interests me is that some of these feelings I felt today - "I wish I was doing something else" and "I'm so tired" and "I can't take it anymore" - I thought were attributable to my previous less-than-ideal situation: working on what I didn't want to work on, under deadline pressure, while sick. I know that's not the case now. I'm working on what I do want to work on. The next deadlines are weeks away and I have no competing pressures. And I'm feeling physically better. Even the setback passed out of my mind. So why am I feeling the same way? I suspect because those feelings are a habit of mind. A response to a challenging situation I've picked up that has become free floating. There are challenges inherent in everything you do, no matter how fun it is - and any bad habits of mind don't care how closely aligned your current work is with your goals, your desires, your attitudes. Your bad attitudes and thoughts are just sitting there, waiting to spring, starting the tapeloop spiral into depression. So what am I gonna do about it? Recognize it, blog it, and move on. I've had many, many cycles of mild maniac / depression in my life, and I didn't start to get better until I recognized it, stopped wallowing it, and moved on. My formerly quick temper had the same solution: notice it's happening, turn the alarm off, and deal with the situation, sometimes cathartically, usually not. That worked so well my wife hasn't ever seen me really lose my temper in eight years of our relationship. If the solution to dealing with anger is not to get angry, is the solution to dealing with depression just not to let yourself get down? To pull out of the situation, relax, do something fun, and tackle it again with your energies renewed? Let's see. Time to kick back, throw on some Who, and chill. -the Centaur

lenora sitting as if she's gonna watch some of the teevee

Jeremiah Willstone Is On The Air

Published March 23, 2011 by centaur

Somehow, after only 4 hours of sleep (AGAIN after trying hard to crash early and failing to take care of myself) and heavy rains on the way to Foothills College, I managed to stumble in to Ann Arbor's studio at KFJC at seven after ten and still made my reading time ten minutes later. I come on the air at about 25 minutes in to the audio archive, reading from JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE:

http://www.kfjc.org/broadcast_archives/archives/1103230653h_ann_arbor.mp3 Lightning gouged a chunk of the wainscoting an inch from Jeremiah Willstone’s head and she hurled herself back, bumping down the stairs on her tailcoat, firing both Kathodenstrahls again and again until the doorpanels were blasted into sparks and splinters. Her shoulders hit the landing hard enough to rattle her teeth, but Jeremiah didn’t lose her grip: she just kept both guns trained on the cracked door, watching foxfire shimmer off its hinges and knobs. The crackling green tracers crept around the frame, and with horror she realized the door was reinforced with iron bands. She’d intended to blast the thing apart and deny her enemy cover, but had just created more arrowholes for him-or-her to shoot from. As the foxfire dissipated, the crackling continued, and her eyes flicked aside to see sparks escaping the broken glass of her left Kathodenstrahl’s vacuum tubes. Its thermionics were shot, and she tossed it aside with a curse and checked the charge canister on her remaining gun. The little brass bead was hovering between three and four notches. Briefly she thought of swapping canisters, but a slight creak upstairs refocused her attention. No. You only need three shots. Keep them pinned, wait for reinforcements.

Get it now, before it disappears from the archive a couple of weeks from now. -the Centaur