The Return

Wow. Been quite a while since I've been here. Tried a couple of times but that's as far as it got. Now the new year is closing in on me and a few billion other folks and it's time to put up a final word or two before it arrives. Made it through Christmas, but only by the skin of my teeth. If the kids hadn't come down it'd been even closer than that. I'm hoping things will start looking brighter soon. I mentioned the new year. Do I want to make any resolutions? If there was the slightest chance even one of them might survive I'd do it. But... Yeah. All good intentions but no follow through marks the trail behind me. The only solace is that I'm not too different from most folks in that respect. Not that that makes failure any more palatable. Looks like a double edged sword here. If I don't make any resolutions then I'm a loser, but if I do and then don't follow them then I'm a loser that way as well. Hmm. I smell a rat som...

Ah. A new post at last. December has happened already. This year has glided right passed me. Swoosh. Now Christmas is just right there on the calendar. Only have one more idea to come up with and the gift thing will be done. Not necessarily purchased, but at least planned. Buying for adults is tough. Mostly because the ones on my list either have it, don't want it, or it costs too much. Leaves out a bunch of stuff the retailors would want to sell. Not sure, but something tells me the bulk of their sales go to the under, say, 18 crowd. Or to the adults that are still living in that mind set. Sad, sort of. Especially if a major section of the population is 60ish. Missed seeing Obama deliver his speech last night, but not the discussion afterwards. Turned it off after a few minutes. The question of can he sell it to the people seems silly. He just did what he's paid to do and that is make a decision. What's to sell? It's a done deal. Right, wrong or somew...

Haven't been here in a while. Just picked up my winner goodies from NaNoWriMo. Finished a bit earlier than I thought I would. That doesn't mean my novel is complete. Not by a long shot. Not even the first draft. That surprised me. Last year's was as done as I could get it at a little over 50K. This one may go to 70K or 80K. The genre was different and a whole lot more fun. The characters are fun to work with even the bad guys. Just thought I'd savor the moment a little longer. Winning feels good.

Time to put a few words on the old blog. Haven't done much for a while. Nano is getting all the attention right now. Just put 27K on the charts. Only how many more for a win? Don't go there. Just keep moving. I am passed the half way mark though and proud of that. Not too shabby from a dead start. Enjoying it more this year. Not so much pressure. Just sit back and ride with the characters as they discover their world. Let's see what else I can talk about beside nano. What about I signed up for Script Frenzy? That's not nano. OK, it's a definite cousin then. And that doesn't count as a new idea. But while I'm on it, it looks like fun. All that needs to happen between now and then is learn who to write a play. Couldn't write a 50K anything not long ago, so I believe that this too is possible. Given a little help. Any body besides me think that some of the stuff mentioned in conjunction with the four horsemen of the apocalypse is looking ...

Been a few days so I thought I'd stop by and check in with myself. Wonder how one does that? Seemed like a good idea a minute ago. Anyway, been burning up the keys doing the Nano writing. Managed to cross the 15K mark earlier today. A bit ahead of schedule but not too much so. Trying to build a little cushion just in case the muses go on break. This year has been more adventuresome than last. Exploring the world the characters live in with them. Worked pretty well so far. No Pulitzer or Nobel for it but that's not the point anyway. Nano does seem to eat your brain though. Find myself mulling over parts of it or thinking about inserting a scene here and there all the time now. If you haven't tried it you might want to. Thinking about the Script Frenzy event that happens in the spring sometime. No clue how to put together a script. Might should ought look that up later on. If it does what I think it does, it would be a good exercise for tightening up dialogue. ...

Made it back for a few minutes before I take off again for more fun stuff. Just got back from a trek to NaNoWriMo land. Spent the better part of the afternoon increasing the word count globally. And locally. This year is so different from last. Maybe because it's not the first year. To the point, I'm enjoying this year more. Part of it has to be the little talk I had with myself. "Self," I said, "this is for fun." There was lots more, but that's enough to get the gist of the conversation. So before I start I chant the mantra and then go at it. Haven't broken into the five digit count yet but that's OK. Fun. Not sure about this time change. Dark at five o'clock doesn't seem right somehow. Here's a useless fact I garnered today. The sun's arc where I live has shifted significantly. It used to cruise over my roof but now it just makes it above the tree line which is a lot lower on the horizon. Didn't realize I lived...

Wonder how much time folks spend on their blogs. Some of them are fabulous. Pictures and links and all sorts of good stuff. Of course some of them are themed like cookie recipes or travel or art or cars or noodles. You name it, there's a blog for it. Guess one of these days I'll have to update mine. Not in the foreseeable future though. No time right now. Procrastination. That could my theme. It'd be a big blank screen. Or not. Saw a headline that the stimulus saved a bunch of teacher jobs in California. Good press right now, but what happens in the next fiscal cycle? California is still broke from what I hear, along with 49 other states and probably some territories too. I guess we can cut down a few more trees and print more money. The dollar is being challenged as the coin of the world now I hear and the USA may be fading as the world leader. Not sure that's a bad thing really. We've tried to supply aid and troops to just about everyone since I c...

Seems like I get here every couple of weeks. Had the grand idea of more often, but it hasn't worked out that way. Latest thing going here is the prep for NaNoWriMo. It starts Sunday. This Sunday. Like six days from now. Not ready at all. Ideas keep morphing toward the weird. Maybe I should let them morph. Yeah, right, and end up with a thousand words and no way to move forward. Not the best method for this sort of thing. I had a character all constructed and she was absolutely without heart or scruples. Make a great wicked step mother figure. She was supposed to reconsider her ways and do good stuff. Not a chance! There are more colorful ways of expressing that but not now or here. She's bad. Sounds awesome, doesn't she? See what I mean about the weirdness inside my head? Had another character that deals with terminal disease. Sounds like a tear jerker, right? Nope. Instead it becomes a treasure hunt for the heirs. A little less weird until they find ...

Wow. Two weeks since I posted here. Really committed to doing this? Well, yes and obviously no. Can't say the time away produced any amazing news. Nano has been on my mind a lot lately for sure. Had one in the outline stages and scrapped it. No, put on the back burner when I realized it needed more planning than I was ready to do right now. Currently, I have a totally different idea and direction that looks to be "the one ". Coming together better with fewer holes in the plot line so far. Yea! What's the big deal about this? It's just the challenge of giving it go again. Challenges. Must be the stuff of life. Definitely the reason some of us exist. Wonder what it is in our beings that makes that so? Not sure. There's a group of folks that want to explore and do and think. Then there's some that are just the opposite. Basic wiring? Acquired? Both probably. What I am sure of in my own existence is that the lack of new challenges, new ide...

October arrived today and for some reason that makes me happy. The leaves haven't turned, thick clouds obscured the sun, a damp northerly breeze added to the overall fallness of the day. Spellcheck says fallness isn't spelled correctly. Actually, it's probably not a word either but it works for me. Still October makes me happy today. The biggest event aside from October's arrival happened a couple of days ago. I have an idea for Nano! That's a really big deal. So is the idea. Pretty ambitious, if you ask me. I'd still like to try it just to see if I can come anywhere near pulling it off. It's going to be a scifi/political-ish idea. So far at least. Ideas morph as time goes along. See, I learned something from last years try at it. Now to get all pieces going for it so I can write when the contest starts. So why am I doing this instead of creating the perfect alien creature or his world? I am creating but it's running in the background at t...

Back from a brief trip to Florida. Drove. Bad mistake, but I survived and there's no carnage strewn along side the road so I guess everyone else did too. On the way dropped by Gettysburg, PA. Hadn't visited a site like that before. Had always thought a battle field would be nothing more than a big pasture and a few statues. Well, there's plenty of that there but there's also a lot more. I came away form there with a new sense of the history of my country. We had purchased a narrated driving tour booklet/CD that explained what I was looking at in a particular location. A battle, life and death, for hundreds and in some cases thousands happened here. The ground was soaked with the blood of young men fighting for a cause I knew nothing about. The Civil War. The War between the states. It has other names but I knew little except a bit I been told in school which I discovered had been woefully lacking in detail. I had never experienced such deep sorrow before i...

The latest from the return of my blog is here and now available. I keep putting this off and now it's been a while again. Just ran across someone else's site that lamented of ignoring his "duty" toward his blog for 10 days. Didn't check the date on my last entry, but I suppose it's been at least that long now. Been reading more of NT Wright again. Justification this time. It's worth the read, but I may have to read Piper too now just to see what all the fuss is about. I've read Surprised by Hope which apparently ignited this round of tree felling and ink spilling and don't remember anything so earth shattering that would require a whole book to rebut that and then a rebuttal to the rebut. Not sure how that goes in in scholarly terms. Still reading so the verdict isn't in on this for me. I will say that Wright has put some pieces together for me that just didn't seem to fit from what I had learned in my meeker bit of study. I starte...

The rain has gone, the sun is shining and I'm very pleased with the way things are now. Well, mostly pleased anyway. There's something about sitting in the sun... Now what to blog about? Apparently Congress is still out of session. And the President is still on vacation? He deserves time off like anyone else. Noticed the glee the pollsters have displayed in reporting his sinking numbers. Well, the new has worn off now. What else did anyone expect? Did anyone actually believe one man could move the mountains and Congress that quickly? Did anyone truly believe the special interests would step aside? And who believed that politicians didn't want to be re-elected? Time for a reality check. This is politics, politics 101 as a matter of fact. Not sure if there's a 201 level or not. Campaigns start the moment the polls close from the last election cycle. Can living that life be that good? Apparently it is. Been reading some short stuff from a guy named Gunter ...

Rainy day today. Feels like the beginning of autumn. Almost is too. September's peaking over the horizon now. Frost instead of dew in the morning arrives shortly afterward up here. That means the bugs don't wake up as early though; so sitting on the deck with the morning coffee will be more enjoyable. Won't miss the little buggers either. But before all that happens there's generally one last warm up. So the melancholy can wait for a while. Not much newsworthy conversation again. There's a rumor of a short "vacation" in the mill, but no reservations anywhere. It'll be a flyby of a couple of history type spots and a few days with relatives. That doesn't qualify as vacation in my book, but it's priced right. Having to buy a new car has really cramped the style around here IMHO. Ah, well. A dead vehicle in the driveway is worse yet, assuming you want to go somewhere that is. If you need a place to store stuff or plant petunias, then...

The latest from blogworld here. Yawn. Yeah, not much going on where I live. That's a good thing looking at some of the alternatives out there. Getting blown to bits or away topped the headlines today. That and a senator wanting to change the law in his state so they will have some one to vote on healthcare should it come to that. A vote, I mean. Time will tell. Had to do an intervention of sorts in my garden today. To save the young tomato offspring from their parent plants. The disease or whatever it is has gotten worse and worse threatening any hopes of ripe fruit. So we picked everything that wasn't rotting. They'll taste like store bought now, but maybe a few of them will ripen enough to use. That is a really let down for my taste buds who were eagerly anticipating a real BLT. Had a whole paragraph written and decided to keep my political opinions to myself for a while longer. A mission trip I took a month or so ago has me wondering about some things I saw....

Why does the title bar give me reason to not post? Title? Who needs one for this sort of thing? Not me. But if I don't give the post a name, the posting mechanism grabs the first few words and uses them I've discovered. So OK, I'll think up something for that void that must be filled. Still toying with making this a themed place versus just ramblings. There's a part of me that has to be ordered wants a theme. The rest of me asks why, shrugs and walks off. Same idea as the title bar I suppose. Is the universe ordered or is it chaos? is chaos a kind of order? Can it be predicted or does it just sort of happen? If it's predictable then is it still chaos? Help! That argument is for for all those super scholars to decide. Just thought I'd throw that out for grins. On a more mundane level, why do my tomato plants and their fruit have some plant disease yet again this year? They get it if it's hot and dry. They get it if it's cool and wet. I...

Remember how I was looking for something new to do with a butternut squash? Well, tried a recipe and discovered it was good. Really good. Found it on the web. No, I didn't think to save the link. But, trust me, those squash don't have to have sugar and cinnamon to taste yummy. This recipe basically boiled it, added a few other ingredients, and then pureed it. Pretty color and then it was served with red cabbage that had just a dash of soy sauce. That, too, was a very pleasant surprise. So to whoever posted that recipe many thanks. Now I've found to courage to try a few of the other ideas I've seen. Looked up the nutritional info on it and that's even more good news. Eat, and eat some more, if you like because it's nearly free calorie wise, and has lots of good- for-you vitamins and stuff. Summer has arrived in my part of the world finally. Nice to see all the sun and for all those that like the heat---Enjoy. Maybe the pool will finally heat up enough...

After a long hiatus I've decided to return to blogging. Whether anyone reads this or not isn't the issue for me any longer. I'm doing this for myself. Why? Why not?! I have opinions and ideas. Like what is the deal with a freighter that goes missing with a load of lumber on board. Lumber? You really believe that? I'm not sure that do. Or am I the only one on the planet that doesn't care who the judges are on AI? Seems like there ought to be more pressing issues to occupy my mind with lately. But what could possibly supplant AI? Typhoons? The price of gas? Healthcare run by the government? Can I "win" NaNoWriMo again this year? What's for dinner? Speaking of dinner...been looking at recipes that use a bunch of squash. Butternut squash. In August. Why are they called winter squash? The AC is running as I type this. It ain't winter, yet. Anyway I have found a couple that sound interesting so far and will give them a go after a tr...