... leaving only 2083 messages in my "1. Active" pile and 460 in my "5. Blog It!" pile.
Sigh.
Expect a large number of stale, no-longer topical posts over the next six months as I reduce the above numbers to something manageable.
-the Centaur
Posts tagged as “We Call It Living”
...same bat domain, different bat fully qualified URL, different bat RSS feed. The Library of Dresan blog is now at http://www.dresan.com/index.php (actually, http://www.dresan.com/ should work). Please update your RSS feeds to: http://www.dresan.com/?feed=atom ...
-the Centaur
... in one of those instances which exposes really how shallow you are, I find myself gratified that it, indeed, has finally happened. What is it?
Professional recognition.
Since I was a child I always wanted to be a "real science fiction writer". For some reason, I got it in my head that this meant membership in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Not sure how that happened, but it did: the external approval of that group of strangers somehow came to matter to me. So I tried to join.
First I wrote a science fiction short story that got published in 1995 in The Leading Edge magazine, but when I checked I found that the Leading Edge was not eligible for SFWA.
Then I wrote an urban fantasy novel that got published in 2010 by Bell Bridge Books, but when I checked I found that Bell Bridge was not eligible for SFWA.
Then, I missed the deadline to register for Comic-Con this year, and decided, what the heck, I'll try to register as a professional. After all, I've written an urban fantasy novel, drawn its frontispiece, and even created a webcomic. And for years I've felt that comics are my future as a creator. So, what the heck, why not?
Ding:
Dear Comic-Con Creative Creative Professional Attendee,
Thank you for registering for Comic-Con International 2010: San Diego
Please take a few moments to review your registration information...
Well. Allrighty then.
Yes, it's shallow of me to base some part of my evaluation of my personal self worth on the approval of others. Yes, this shows a deep-seated insecurity that needs to be addressed by a deep increase in maturity. Yes, yes, yes, I'll work on that. But still ...
... it's finally happened.
Well, enough basking. Back to work on Blood Rock. But wait - it is indeed working.
Boo-yah.
-the Centaur
Today I'm playing "hooky" from GDC 2010. I look forward to GDC every year, where I see friends, catch glimpses of new games, and learn more and more about artificial intelligence and games. But for various reasons (cost, cats) I don't have a hotel this year, and have been driving up to San Francisco from my house in the South Bay.
It's fun seeing the gang, especially the always engaging Neil Kirby, and fun watching the speakers, especially the entertaining R.A. Salvatore. But yesterday I spent four hours in the car - two there, two back - a grueling experience in the morning in which I not only missed breakfast, missed the Starcraft talk but almost missed the NEXT talk, and an equally grueling experience in the evening racing home to the Saint Stephen's in-the-Field Vestry meeting.
I'd have lot more time in my life if I didn't work two jobs - one by day at the Search Engine That Starts With A G, and one by night as a science fiction author - and so things pile up. By the time GDC rolled around I was already worn thin working and prepping my novel, and then after the drive up and back each day I was totally exhausted, so at the end of each day I'd just feed the cats and crash.
So this morning, I got up, earlier this time, in more than enough time to make the first talk ... and said, "screw it."
What a relieved feeling! Felt like the best decision that I'd made in a long time. I cleaned house, did laundry, played with the cats ... and then popped open the work laptop around the time I'd normally LEAVE for work and worked for a few hours. Yes, that's right ... I took a break from my vacation to work. Not that I want to, but there are things that need to get done that take a lot of "wall clock" time but not lots of programming time, so I answered some email, submitted a changelist, fired off a Mapreduce ...
... and then took a two hour nap on the futon in the library with a cat on my chest.
It was a pretty good day ... so far. And it isn't over yet.
-the Centaur
Pictured: the two-laptop setup I use to keep my work and writing life distinct (just change the cables to give a different computer the main monitor) and Gabby, my very most computer literate cat.
Well, evening has come and the day has passed, and I have tossed as many Mapreduces into the Great Cloud as the Great Cloud will take - time to go to bed. I leave you with these thoughts, overheard in the wild today:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4]
I'll be buying a Spring Design Alex to help my favorite bookstore Borders and my favorite phone OS Android ... assuming that Steve Jobs doesn't crush his enemies, drive their tablets before them, and hear the lamentations of their programmers.
Good night.
-the Centaur
Woman #1: And did you hear about the iPad?For the record, I know a lot of people interested in an iPad, I'm very impressed by the drawing features ... and I'm not going to get one as I do not buy closed platforms. (My Mac has a UNIX command line, thank you very much, and no dang App Store is needed to put software on this thing).
Woman #2: Oh. My. God. That has to be the stupidest name.
Woman #1: I know. Don't they know what it sounds like?
Woman #2: I think their brains must have been off for the entire development process.
Woman #1: And what gets me, there was a Mad TV skit about the "iPad" like two years ago.
Woman #2: Don't they know people are making fun of it? Don't they care?
Woman #1: Maybe they think at least someone's talking about it.
Woman #2: I dunno. It seems so ... useless. Who's going to carry that?
Woman #1: It's like a giant iPod you can't talk on.
Woman #2: Might be good for some people. At $499, maybe for my nephew?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4]
I'll be buying a Spring Design Alex to help my favorite bookstore Borders and my favorite phone OS Android ... assuming that Steve Jobs doesn't crush his enemies, drive their tablets before them, and hear the lamentations of their programmers.
Good night.
-the Centaur
Oh ... oh my goodness. I'm working on a revised version of Dakota's face for the frontispiece of Frost Moon and ... and ... "working" is not just a metaphor. This is actual work. I'm sketching, and soon after that I will be writing again on Liquid Fire or Jeremiah Willstone. As part of real work, and not just some crazy hobby anymore.
Too cool.
-the Centaur
Pictured: the revised face of Dakota Frost for the frontispiece, pre-cleanup and compositing into the original drawing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU]
Yes, it's an ad. So sue me.
-the Centaur
Yes, it's an ad. So sue me.
-the Centaur
... otherwise known as an ID10t error in the operator component.
Trying to install a new device, wasn't working, and the reason was I never applied the firmware upgrade that the instructions clearly said had to be required. Anthony's nth (7th?) law:
-the Centaur
Trying to install a new device, wasn't working, and the reason was I never applied the firmware upgrade that the instructions clearly said had to be required. Anthony's nth (7th?) law:
If you don't follow all of the instructions, you won't finish in the goal state.(*)(*) Except through dumb luck, or just possibly deep knowledge. Did I have deep knowledge in this case? No. So if you're doing voodoo, try, perhaps, following the complete recipe before you complain your zombie isn't coming back to life as advertised.
-the Centaur
Mild shaking in the house, like it was shoved sideways half an inch and sprung back. Apparently that's this one:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/nc71336726.php
Only my second quake in my 4 years in California. SO far, SO good...
-the Centaur
UPDATE: Sandi felt a quake earlier last year while I was at work. I believe it was this one:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/30/san-jose-earthquake-43-ma_n_180814.html
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/nc71336726.php
Only my second quake in my 4 years in California. SO far, SO good...
-the Centaur
UPDATE: Sandi felt a quake earlier last year while I was at work. I believe it was this one:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/30/san-jose-earthquake-43-ma_n_180814.html
PS: For those not in the know, EOM stands for "End of Message" - generally used for a subject-only email without a body, like sending someone an url:
Here's the presentation: http://short/url EOMTechnically I guess that means the EOM in the header is not an EOM, and also by corollary the PS is not a PostScript since it introduces the body of the message.
Well, then, in that case: Hello, Internets!
So, last year I had an extraordinarily complicated series of New Year's Resolutions which almost completely failed. Looking back, I succeeded at my major goals for the year, but the complex plan of weekly / monthly things completely failed.
So, here's a simpler set of New Year's resolutions, goals, what have you:
In other news, Warren Ellis has already blogged 365 times since January 1st. Damn him.
-the Centaur
So, here's a simpler set of New Year's resolutions, goals, what have you:
- Establish a weekly pattern of exercise, including some karate
- Set aside some time each month to do art in addition to writing
- Post to this blog on the average once a day, measured each week
In other news, Warren Ellis has already blogged 365 times since January 1st. Damn him.
-the Centaur
From Wikipedia:
For more information:
Common symptoms are cough, sore throat, runny nose, nasal congestion, and sneezing; sometimes accompanied by 'pink eye', muscle aches, fatigue, malaise, headaches, muscle weakness, uncontrollable shivering, loss of appetite, and rarely extreme exhaustion. Fever is more commonly a symptom of influenza ... The symptoms of a cold usually resolve after about one week; however, it is not rare that symptoms last up to three weeks.Aw, $@%#!!!, I'm in the "not rare" it-sucks-for-a-long-time category.
For more information:
- Mayo Clinic's Flu Diagnoser (I have a cold, not the flu)
- Children's Hospital Flu vs Cold Chart (Again, looks like I have a cold)
- H1N1 vs Cold vs Flu (Again, looks like a cold).
Ten days off to write! No trips, no vacations, no distractions. Just me and writing ... but: The "Terminator" version of the common cold. Car repairing turned car totaling and car shopping during hard raining. Cat fights and cat urine. And a desperate scramble to catch up in National Novel Writing Month turning what I love ... writing ... into a chore.
And then my wife came back Saturday night.
That was great, but things didn't get better right away. See #3 above, cat urine: our incompletely housetrained Gabby the Cat decided to urinate on a big soft squishy pillow to either
Stepping through the door was ... an unpleasant moment.
But we persevered. We went out for a late dinner and talked about ... hell, everything. We crashed early, I got up at the ass-crack of dawn, fed the cats, went to church, put everything in the hands of God, and went back and slept till noon. By the time we awoke, it was clear that the pillow was the source of the smell and the tarps-plus-blankets wash-immediately-if-soiled solution was working to protect our home as we transition street cat to house-and-yard cat. We had a lovely lunch at our favorite restaurant (Aqui) and test-drove a hybrid (a Prius). Everything, once again, became OK, and it seemed like all the nastiness of that awful ten days rattling around the house mostly with myself, a virus and three irritated cats was at last over.
So: yesterday: 2094 words. Today: 2583 words. As of this moment, I am officially caught up on where I "should have been" for Nano, and I'm on track to finish by tomorrow. And we even have a plan to save our obstraperous little cat, who is mellowing out now that he has two people to entertain him (and to separate the cats from each other so they have time to mellow).
Best of all, my best friend is home.
-the Centaur
P.S. Thanks, God.
And then my wife came back Saturday night.
That was great, but things didn't get better right away. See #3 above, cat urine: our incompletely housetrained Gabby the Cat decided to urinate on a big soft squishy pillow to either
- (a) reduce his insecurity by marking his protector's stuff with his scent (the official story as told by everybody's favorite cat books)
- (b) show his irritation at his protector locking him in a room (what I strongly suspect based on my study of animal cognition, which might be summed up as saying "just because they can't talk doesn't mean they're completely unaware idiots")
Stepping through the door was ... an unpleasant moment.
But we persevered. We went out for a late dinner and talked about ... hell, everything. We crashed early, I got up at the ass-crack of dawn, fed the cats, went to church, put everything in the hands of God, and went back and slept till noon. By the time we awoke, it was clear that the pillow was the source of the smell and the tarps-plus-blankets wash-immediately-if-soiled solution was working to protect our home as we transition street cat to house-and-yard cat. We had a lovely lunch at our favorite restaurant (Aqui) and test-drove a hybrid (a Prius). Everything, once again, became OK, and it seemed like all the nastiness of that awful ten days rattling around the house mostly with myself, a virus and three irritated cats was at last over.
So: yesterday: 2094 words. Today: 2583 words. As of this moment, I am officially caught up on where I "should have been" for Nano, and I'm on track to finish by tomorrow. And we even have a plan to save our obstraperous little cat, who is mellowing out now that he has two people to entertain him (and to separate the cats from each other so they have time to mellow).
Best of all, my best friend is home.
-the Centaur
P.S. Thanks, God.
So I've been sick this week, last Friday evening up until now, with what appears to be a severe common cold. I was actually working from home, at 50% power, for Monday and Tuesday, and came in late Wednesday; so today I was actually glad to get in. But I was coughing so badly that my boss at the Search Engine that Starts With a G (who was suffering from a similar cold with a similar time course) recommended I go home early.
If only I'd taken him up on that, rather than waiting to come home in rush hour:
In case you're wondering, I'm fine, the lady who hit me and spun off 360 degrees is fine, and the guy in the other car she caromed off of is also fine. But, I feel like crap. I wonder why?
No, that's not a pillowcase stuffed into my "B" bar: that's a "Thank God for Side Impact" Airbag, post-deployment. And Thank God for SUV's: the Pathfinder took the brunt of the impact and didn't even get knocked out of its lane. I was rattled, my Bluetooth headpiece was knocked off and bounced off the other side of the car, and my Mom on the other end nearly had a heart attack as she heard a screech and then I got cut off ... but the Pathfinder didn't even get knocked out of its lane. Didn't swerve. Didn't stop. Didn't even slow down. Hell, it took me a half a mile before I could pull over.
Oh, drat, am I doing this out of order? I was southbound on the middle lane of California 85 in a clot of rush-hour traffic, talking to my mother with my Bluetooth headpiece, when I heard a screech then a bang and felt a jolt. I said, "hey, Mom, did you hear that?" and noticed that the Bluetooth headpiece was gone, my side was in pain, and a car was spinning off behind me in my left rearview mirror. I blinked, realized, "oh, shit, I'm in a vehicle that's just been hit" and quickly started to pull over in case there was a fuel leak or other catastrophic damage to the vehicle. But I was just past the join of 87 and 85, and none of the merging traffic would let me over for near half a mile. Finally, just as twilight turned to dark, I pulled over, scrambled out of the car, and waited for it not to catch on fire.
When I was sure it was safe, I called Mom back, then began the long trudge back to the accident site, where three cars were stuck in the middle lane. I called out to make sure everyone was OK, and they called back to verify I had been in the truck. After fifteen minutes, traffic finally thinned enough for me to cross, by which time the first car (the witness) had disappeared. We discussed what happened, and as best as the three of us could determine, the lady who struck me hit her brakes too hard as traffic was knotting up, lost control, then rammed me, spun off, then hit him.
Miraculously, none of us were hurt, even after her 360 degree spin, and all three cars were drivable. A DMV truck arrived, stopped traffic so we could move their cars off to the side and take stock; after the other two cars drove off, he took me to my car and made sure I could drive off as well. The Pathfinder rode a little rough ... but she rode.
However, at 185,000 miles and four (4!) someone-rammed-into-me-for-no-good-reason accidents, the heroically-protective Nissan Pathfinder is probably going to be counted as totaled by the insurance company (call scheduled for sometime around 8-10am tomorrow, hence the "coming in late or working from home entirely" email to my boss and team at work).
Ah, Pathfinder, you did a good job, my friend...
My next car? An SUV. A hybrid, of course...
-the Centaur
Yes, I'm trying to fill out those 1-blog-posts-a-day I promised at the beginning of the month. But there is a serious topic: I realized today, for reasons which will become clear shortly, that I'm just plain awful about blogging stuff that happens in my life. So that's going to change, shortly; however, it wasn't appropriate to put this message in that article. Go about your blogrolling business; nothing to see here.
... to have just one more thing off your todo list. Really, I have just about as much to do now as I did before I finished the edits of _Frost Moon_. It's just that I feel much better about what I have left.
Completion. A wonderful feeling.
-the Centaur
Completion. A wonderful feeling.
-the Centaur
...the idea you can make something happen if you "prioritize" it works only if you have enough time with which to make the time. Editing two novels and writing a third - all on deadlines, some of them tight - while working late many nights AND taking care of a new and extremely needy cat can lead to you crashing out repeatedly before blogging, and sometimes it's only after you've crashed early several nights but have been sniffling and coughing enough that only way you can sleep is on Nyquil that you realize, maybe, just maybe, you're fighting off a bug.
Meanwhile, Warren Ellis is fighting as many deadlines as I am while also writing a seven-volume epic mashup called War and Peace of the Worlds featuring the entire cast of Archie Comics turned gritty postmodern superheroes, is doing it all one handed on his Palm Pilot while using the other to lean on his cane as he climbs Mount Everest after having coughed up a lung ... and is still blogging three times a day.
@!$%##?!
-the Centaur
Meanwhile, Warren Ellis is fighting as many deadlines as I am while also writing a seven-volume epic mashup called War and Peace of the Worlds featuring the entire cast of Archie Comics turned gritty postmodern superheroes, is doing it all one handed on his Palm Pilot while using the other to lean on his cane as he climbs Mount Everest after having coughed up a lung ... and is still blogging three times a day.
@!$%##?!
-the Centaur
So I'm back in Atlanta for a few days to visit friends and go see my mother ... oh, come off it, I'm here for Dragon*Con. But before that started, I had a whole day to recharge my Atlanta batteries - yes, visiting with several friends and hitting old haunts, but also seeing places that appear in the Dakota Frost series like the Flying Biscuit:
But I had a few chunks of downtime and a lot of work to do, so I dropped by Georgia Tech, browsed the bookstore - I love visiting college bookstores and browsing the textbooks: I like to know what universities are recommending students should be learning - and then plopped myself down in the embedded Starbucks to answer some email and try to push things forward.
But I found myself facing an odd sense of familiarity on the Georgia Tech campus. Of course, I recognized the buildings I was seeing, and I didn't recognize anyone specific that I knew. But a lot of people looked very ... familiar. Not the students: the professors and researchers and general population of people milling around at Georgia Tech.
I lived in Atlanta for 18 years; fourteen of those were spent on the Georgia Tech campus and since then I've visited the campus regularly to see friends or browse the bookstore. So it's possible that many of those familiar people are people I've seen, but don't remember.
Or it's possible that the culture of Georgia Tech - the clothes, the styles, the mannerisms - is something that newcomers pick up by osmosis, so even if I hadn't seen them before they've become like the people who I was formerly familiar with. And that's what made the sense of familiarity so odd: it was sufficiently vague I couldn't really tell the cause.
Interesting ... I wonder what I would look like if I had spent 18 years somewhere else.
-the Centaur
Recently I got nailed with the following note on Facebook or Myspace or some other damn thing:
"Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Copy the instructions into your own note, and be sure to tag the person who tagged you."Well, neo-Luddite that I am, I don't want to encourage this whole walled-garden social networking thing, so I'm not going to post a note there until I can effortlessly crosspost with my blog and everywhere else. But I can come up with 15 books:
- Godel, Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
Convinced me to get into Artificial Intelligence. I've probably read it half a dozen times. Has a fantastic layered structure that Hofstadter uses to great effect. - The Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky
Opened my mind to new ways of thinking about thinking and AI. Also read it several times. Has a fantastic one-chapter-per-page format that really works well to communicate complicated ideas very simply. - The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Feynman, Leighton and Sands
Taught me more about physics than the half-dozen classes I took at Georgia Tech. I've read it now about four times, once on paper (trying to work out as many derivations as I could as I went) and three times on audiobook. - Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley
Opened my mind to new ways about both thinking and programming. The chapter on estimation blew my mind. - Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
A true epic, though it's probably better to start with the Virtue of Selfishness if you want to understand her philosophy. Every time I think some of Atlas Shrugged's characters are ridiculous parodies, I meet someone like them in real life. - Decision at Doona by Anne McCaffrey
I must have read this a dozen times as a child. I still remember two characters: a child who was so enamored of the catlike aliens he started wearing a tail, and a hard-nosed military type who refused to eat local food so he could not develop cravings for the foods of (or attachments to the cultures of) the worlds he visited. - The Belgariad by David Eddings
A great fantasy epic, with all of the scale but none of the bad writing and pointless digressions of The Lord of the Rings. I've heard someone dismiss Eddings as "third carbon Tolkien" but, you know what? Get over yourselves. Tolkien wasn't the first person to write in the genre, and he won't be the last. - The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
All of the adventure of the Lord of the Rings, but none of its flaws. The long journey through the great dark forest and the Battle of Five Armies still stick in my mind. I like this the best out of what Tolkien I've read (which includes The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion, and some other darn thing I can't remember). - The Dragon Circle by Stephen Krensky
Loved it as a child. Still have a stuffed dragon named "Shortflight" after this book. - Elfquest by Wendy and Richard Pini
Another true epic, this time a graphic novel. Resonates with me in a way that few other fantasy epics do. I have the first 20-issue series in a massive hardbound volume which is now apparently worth a shitload of money. Out of my cold dead fingers, pry it will you. - Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp by Peter Norvig
Yes, your programming can kick ass. Let Peter show you how. - Reason in Human Affairs by Herbert Simon
Helped me understand the powers and the limits of human reason, and why we need emotion to survive in this complicated world. - The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
More than anything, I appreciate this book for a few key vignettes that made me realize how important it was to understand other people and where they are coming from, and not to impose my own preconceptions upon them. - The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers by Ayn Rand
Straight talk about fiction from one of its most effective writers. You don't have to agree with Ayn Rand's personal philosophy or even like her fiction books to learn from this book; half her examples are drawn from authors she personally doesn't agree with. - In the Arena by Richard Nixon
Straight talk about surviving in politics from one of its most flawed yet effective masters. A glimpse into the workings of a brilliant mind, broken down into different sections on different aspects of life. Don't bother reading this if you feel you owe a debt to your personal political leanings to say something nasty about Richard Nixon in every sentence in which you mention him simply because Nixon did some bad things. (Note: I think that Nixon's alleged crimes are the worst of any President, because they attacked his political opponents, undermining our democracy. However, his political philosophy, once divorced from his personal paranoia, is something very important people need to understand).
Blogosphere, consider yourselves tagged - your turn.
-the Centaur
Cost of a taxi from SFO to MTV: ~$90. Cost of BART+Caltrain: $5.75. Hm ... this green thing has more advantages than just feeling good about "saving the environment". Of course, it takes way the heck longer and many of the trains aren't full, so I need to add public transit to my things to study.