This amazed me.
It’s maded out of a couple of metro tickets. Click on the pic to learn how, then go make me one, please.
Thank you!
Category: Pointless Ramblings
NaNo 2006, Day 16
It’s been a hectic couple of days and I haven’t found the time to get to the Novel. And that’s my fault, but it took my dear friend J to point that out to me. I continue to treat the novel as something I do when I have nothing else to do. And yet, it’s important to me. Very important.
I need to make it a priority. To make time for it. We’re past the half-way point now. I’m running out of days for ‘making up lost time.’
The good news is, I finished the last article I have due last night (I hope, at least. The editor could always request rewrites). So for now I have no other writing committments.
Another bit of wisdom I heard was about when to write… and basically the answer was “Whenever you have a free moment.” This came in a round-about way from Cory Doctorow via Mur Lafferty, in a piece she did in a daily NaNoWriMo podcast where she shunned the idea of writing rituals. I’m a little guilty of being ritual bound. I have to have a block of time set aside to write in. I’m trying to break out of that mold and write a bit in the cracks and crevices of my day. A hundred words here, a hundred and fifty there…they add up, right?
A nice surprise
So this afternoon I’m actually on a mini-roll of writing when the door buzzer goes off. “Bloody hell” I mutter (ok, so maybe I said “huh?” but ‘bloody hell’ sounds more interesting). I’m not expecting anyone so it’s either someone at the wrong building or, y’know, some other irritant. How the hell am I supposed to earn my Recluse Merit Badge when people come buzzing the damned buzzer?
But it’s the UPS guy, which is weird because I haven’t ordered anything. And he’s got a big, heavy box.
Flashback to last December. I was so jazzed at the end of my first NaNo that I decided I was going to really work at this writing idea. And in that flush of enthusiasm I registered for the World Fantasy Convention 2006, which was held Nov. 2-6 in Austin, TX. I went to work and put in for the vacation time…11 months in advance. I was pumped!
I never anticipated being unemployed though. So I couldn’t go to the convention; between airfare and hotel accomodations, I just didn’t have the money. I didn’t bother asking for a refund of my fee or anything. I just…well, it was pretty depressing, the whole thing. (We won’t go into the fact that from Dec 2005-Oct. 31 2006 I didn’t write a word of fiction.)
So where was I? Yeah ok, so it’s the UPS guy with this big box. I sign for it and look at the label and it says “World Fantasy Convention 2006.”
“What the hell?” I say to the cat. She gives me ‘that look’ and goes back to licking her bottom.
So I open it and its full of goodies from the con! There’s a bookbag stuffed full of novels, plus a program and a few magazines. They even sent my badge. So now I have ten new novels to read, and not a single one is a duplicate of something I already had.
What a cool treat!!! It made my day. It made my day so much that I registered for World Fantasy Convention 2007, in fact. That one’s in Saratoga Springs, NY, so I can drive there… I know I can go if I can drive there.
NaNo 2006, Day 2
Bleah.
Day 2 and I’m already discouraged. Well, a little discouraged.
My NaNovel is dull so far. And… well, I’m not really sure where its going. So far my MC (Main Character) is more an observer than anything. I need to get him engaged somehow.
And life is being a pain. Suddenly I’m in demand at irregular times. I should’ve expected this since we just launched a new site but still its been frustrating. I had urgent emails asking for help at nearly midnight last night, and they kept coming in throughout the day.
Mind you, I’m not complaining, except in terms of the impact on my NaNovel. The impact on my wallet is very, very much appreciated. 🙂
The NaNo counter widgets are slowing down DC, too. Next year I’ll have to build something local. BTW those little lines above the logo aren’t errors. They’re a ‘sparkline’ that is suppose to show how far over or under my daily quota I am. As we get more days behind us hopefully the information will be more clear.
Things looking weird?
I’ve been messing with my style sheets in order to fix my NaNoWriMo meter in the right column. If things look wonky, try a Shift-Refresh to get the new style sheet.
Some days are better than others…
Truly pointless rambling of the day…
A warm and dry, October day, blue skies, just a hint of a breeze.
I’m sitting out on my balcony, listening to good music, working, getting paid a good wage to be out here writing code.
A guy could get used to this…
Quote of the day
And if you think about it, all the major life events happen to people between the ages of 18 and 34.
-Dawn Ostroff, CW’s president of entertainment. (Wired magazine, Oct 2006, page 54)
So all the major life events are behind me! I’m apparently never going to die. Nor will I retire. And being born, first day of school, graduating high school… none of that was major. Of course she did lump graduating from high school in that age bracket. I guess she had trouble and had to repeat a year at some point, poor thing.
What a ditz.
[CW is the new network resulting from the merger between UPN and The WB.]
Anatomy of a Layoff: Wrap-up
So, I went away for a month, didn’t I? Time flies… spent a few weeks just totally *lost* in World of Warcraft, living crazy hours at the computer. Coping mechanism? Absolutely.
My first unemployment checks are starting to roll in and I’ve got a decent ‘nest egg’ so as long as I remain anal about not spending money I’m still good for a time.
The layoff is behind me now. I can’t deny I’m anxious about the future, in a big way, but escaping for a couple weeks allowed me to let go of most of the baggage. And I’m thinking in all kinds of crazy ways… another job web developing? Maybe. But what about tending bar for a while? I’ve done that in the past and made good money. What about getting a job in a bookstore…pay will be crap but it’ll give me time and energy for outside of work opportunities. Essentially I’m thinking of jobs that aren’t going to take a lot of ‘white collar’ energy so when I get home at night, sitting down at the computer to write won’t feel like an extension of work.
Anyway, now that I’m dusting off the blog again I figured I should wrap-up this layoff series of posts.
Comments are still broken.. one of the things on my to-do list is fixing that… sorry for the inconvenience.
Anatomy of a Layoff: Day 8
So the long weekend came and went and, as hoped, I didn’t really feel jobless since no one else was working, either. But today, everyone went back to work…except me.
I spent the day rummaging through stacks and stacks of CD’s finding one with a copy of my resume on it. Hopelessly out of date, but tomorrow is an all-day class/seminar/thing about getting a new job, and part of that is about polishing up your resume. Supposed to bring a copy of what you have, no matter what shape its in.
I’ve been thinking about finances a lot, preparing for the worst. I think if I roll my credit cards into one account, pay off my car insurance for the year now while I have cash, and live very carefully…I think I’d be able to get by on unemployment, if it came to that. I won’t know for sure until I find out how much my payments would be, and since technically I’m still on the payroll I can’t apply yet. I am confident I can live on my severance, of course. It’s almost full pay, the only difference being that its taxed like bonus pay, so my ‘take home’ will be smaller.
So my officially sanctioned moping week is over. Now I need to start being productive in some way, shape or form. Obviously part of that will be looking for a job, but I need to look at this break as an opportunity as well. All the things I never had time to do…well, I have nothing but time now. And yet today I found myself napping twice. Depression, perhaps? Well I’ll need to fight that, and fight it intensely.
The thing that has my most frightened right now is quantifying my skill set. I started updating my resume and couldn’t think of a single thing that I did that seemed ‘significant’ enough to list. And yet, I was always busy! Part of this problem was that, in the closing months of my employment, I was learning a lot of new technologies. So yeah, I was tweaking Java but I’m not experienced enough to call myself a Java programmer. I was working on fixing the mangled mess that the contractors made of our new search engine, but I didn’t get far enough into it to claim expertise with that search engine. Ditto the content management system that had just been installed. I could still list being a Tcl coder, sure, but somehow I don’t think that’s a skill that’s in high demand.
Well, hopefully this thing tomorrow will help on just this kind of problem.
Anatomy of a Layoff: Day 4
Spent a pretty quiet day today.
One highlight, so to speak: the GM who I’ve been griping about sent me an email, thanking me for my dedication and so on. Said she had to be at another meeting right after the layoffs (without going into details, this makes sense) and by the time she got back, I was gone. She also offered a reference.
So my biggest issue with the whole layoff thing has been soothed quite a bit. Maybe someone prompted her to email me, maybe not. It doesn’t really matter. The fact is she made the effort.
As of right now, I’m not carrying a lot of anger about the whole situation. Anxiety, yes. Every time I buy something I get freaked out: “Should I be buying this or should I be saving that $2.50 for something else.”
Now we head into what is a 4-day weekend for most people. Hopefully I can treat it that way too. This’ll probably be my last ‘daily’ report about the layoff. Honestly I expected a lot more, ah, drama, in these posts, but I’m just not feeling the strong emotions that I thought I’d be feeling.
Mind you, I’m not complaining!