Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Connections

Today I created my author page on Facebook (It already has 74 likes in around 5 hours! Thanks), so I have most of the social media outlets covered in case anyone actually reads my book and decides to "follow" me.  Here's the list of ways to follow or connect with me so far.  Let me know if there's any other ones I've missed that are mainstream enough to be considered (i.e. not MySpace):

Connect with Me

Follow me on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/TAllanBishop
Follow me on Twitter:  @TAllanBishop
I’m also on Tumblr:  http://tallanbishop.tumblr.com/
Favorite me at Smashwords (This will be the publisher for all the sites other than Kindle):  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/TAllanBishop

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Putting more squiggly lines on the paper

Well, I worked Mid Shifts (overnights, 3rd shifts, etc. for those of you not familiar with the term) for two nights at the end of this week, and hoped that it would result in writing some of my story.  Instead what I found was that Mid Shifts are not at all conducive to writing.  They are not conducive to any creative thought, unless it's the ones that keep you awake when you're TRYING to go to sleep instead of trying to stay awake.  Well, aside from that, I did get a few hundred more words written towards Darkness.

I hope to write some more towards it later today or tonight.  Either way, I did at least make progress towards finishing it.

On the non-writing front, we got the curtain rod and curtains for Megi's room today when we went out for a flag pole.  I'll likely hang them this week some time, which will leave paint touch-up, painting doors (both closet and main bedroom door, carpet cleanup, and moving in the dressers which we will likely sand and re-stain after the weather turns warmer (April time frame).  I'm not sure what the next actual project is for getting the house the way we want it, but I suspect it'll become the master bedroom.

Anyway, that's all I have for this blog, thanks for reading.

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Christmas Day So Far In The Bishop Household 12/25/2013

The day started at three o'clock in the morning.  Gabe actually woke up around twelve thirty, but we managed to hold him off for another two and a half hours.  The morning proceeded for about a half hour for Donna and Gabe to see what Santa brought them (and for Mom and Dad, too).  We then convinced them to take some of their stuff upstairs to their room to play with while we tried to get just a tad bit more sleep.  We then got up at seven for Megi to see what she got and for the immediate family to open presents from each other (and from family that would not be in attendance later today).  She handled it much better than I expected.  I expected her to be so overwhelmed that she'd shut down, but instead, she, though overwhelmed, took it mostly in stride and really got into the unwrapping part.  She was not at all pleased with the "quality" job that toy manufacturers do at securing the toys in the packaging.  Neither am I.

Then mom made French toast for everyone for breakfast, which was quite good.  We finished watching A Christmas Carol that we tried to watch last night (until dinnertime interrupted the movie temporarily and then Grandma commandeered the television to watch ID).  Then the kids played for a while as Candice and I cleaned and made preparations for the meal later today when the extended family arrives.  And now Grandma is making more finger foods and nick-knack foods that no one wants just because.

Candice was totally in the Christmas mood this year (for the first time in a while) right up until Grandma started adding to the menu last minute and taking over the space in the kitchen we needed to prep for the meal (along with monopolizing her time that we needed, too, because her "it won't interfere" line was total crap.  It turned into "do all this for me.")  Now Candice is completely out of the mood and dreading the rest of the day.  Grandma is completely oblivious to this fact.  And now, instead of having too many leftovers for the fridge, we're almost certainly going to have too many leftovers for the fridge, plus a bunch of other stuff that no one wants to eat, and it'll sit around until we throw it away in a week and a half.

I was dumb yesterday.  I wrote over a thousand words towards my story Darkness, and then forgot to email a copy home.  It was mostly just rewriting myself back to the point where I was a few months ago, though it feels much better to me now.  There are two less characters and I have a better feel for how the story will progress.  The first death in the second party has occurred and they're trying to figure out the best approach for the immediate future.  Logically, they should turn back and take the body to town, but they're farther away from the town than they are to their destination, and with an unknown predator that they can't be sure where it is, they are essentially stuck until they can decide.  They find that the backpack with the satellite phone is also missing, so calling for help is out of the question.  They're going to decide that there is probably another satellite phone at the campsite they're heading towards, which will push them forward and into the climax of the story.

In a few minutes, I'm going to put the sweet potatoes in the oven, since we're planning on having everyone eat dinner around three in the afternoon.  After that, I guess we need to start boiling the mashed potatoes (I've already peeled and diced them) and make the stuffing.  Then it's get dressed for the big event and enjoy the afternoon.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Venialia

Today's obscure word of the day is venialia.  It means minor sins or offences.  I might need to find a way to work that word into a story, I find it to be a neat word.

So, as you may have noticed previously in my blogs, I prefer to write all my stories by hand first.  I have a logical reason for that.  If I'm typing on a computer, I tend to make immediate corrections, and edit, and edit, and edit as I go along.  This slows down the creative flow, and often causes me to lose focus on what I'm actually writing.  As a result, the first time I get my story typed up, it's actually my second draft.  I find that the edits and corrections are more suited to the story after the segment is already written, and therefore does not detract from it as much as not getting the segment properly written would do.  It also helps me attempt to keep up with my creative mind.  Granted, neither method of input comes close to keeping up with my mind.  Some stories I write the entire story before typing anything up, others I will write a few pages at a time before typing it up.  Either way, the only personal writing I do directly to computer are items like this (my blog posts, Facebook statuses, etc).  I've also tried to have a portable recorder of some type to dictate, but that doesn't work for anything except ideas.  I don't "see" what I've dictated, and have a tendency to lose focus if I'm trying to orally state a story.  Also, if I'm orally stating a story, I have to be in the mindset with a story in mind already to tell it, otherwise, my creativity completely drains out (often for days at a time).

My wife will hear me when I start typing something long, because I have a strong typing method when I type fast.  When I'm typing something short, the keystrokes tend to be softer.  When it's longer, though, my speed and intensity increases, which sounds harsher on the keystrokes.  It's especially noticeable with the space bar on most keyboards, probably a result of how the space bar takes input and is much larger with more hollow area underneath it for a sort of echo sound.  She often thinks I'm typing up a response to someone being an idiot online, because until recently, I haven't been doing much writing (also, as noted above, I tend to hand write most stories first).

Lately though, I've been using http://750words.com to try and keep momentum going.  It's a sort of challenge to use it for my intended purpose of story writing, but I use it as follows:  I type up my "second draft" of my stories there before cutting and pasting them into the Microsoft Word document the words will eventually call home while they wait to be published.  I also type up my blog posts there before copying them to my blog site.  I have noticed that I need to copy it on the same day I type it, because once it goes into the archive, if I "export it" it no longer has carriage returns, etc. to mark paragraphs, so I either need my hand written version to use as a guideline, or I need to figure out where they are on my own.  It's a real pain to do after the fact sometimes (unless there's lots of dialog, in which case it isn't quite so hard).

I've made some changes to my blog site recently.  I've put a picture behind the blog title.  Currently, it is Michael Konrad Hirt's A vanitas still life with a candle, an inkwell, a quill pen, a skull and books.  I might change it up from time to time.  Also on the side is recent books I've finished reading (which usually, though not always, means unabridged audiobook).  I also have struggled to figure out how to get my blog posts to automatically post to my other social media sites, then I found "If This Then That" (http://IFTTT.com) where you can set up a "recipe" that, in this case, says "Anytime there is a new blog posted, create a post on <Facebook> or <Twitter> or <Tumblr>" (I had to set up three recipes for it.  It seems to be working so far, so I no longer need to post a link, or copy the text and paste it anymore to accomplish the same task as I used to do.  In theory, every blog post I make will be linkd from each of those sites (and any others that I join in the future).

That's all I have for this blog post.  Thanks for reading.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

More purging of toys.

We've filled both garbage cans (the ones we put out for the trash trucks to dump out) with toys not good enough to donate.  We also have a huge stash of toys for ARC (thrift store that helps developmentally disabled people) and a toddler bed (since we converted Megi's crib into a daybed).  It probably amounts to multiple thousands of dollars of toys that we've removed (or are removing) from our house all at once.

We also managed to get two rooms vacuumed for the upcoming holiday visit.  The kids' rooms need to be swept or vacuumed and they'll be clean.

We still need to clean the office and kitchen before the big day.  We also still need to finish the loft (needs vacuumed still) and clean/vacuum our bedroom, and then the house will be mostly cleaned (spring cleaning style, even)!

I haven't gotten any writing done towards my book today, but feel much better about the progress towards the house cleaning project.

That's all for this blog entry, thanks for reading!

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Cleaning out the House from Toys

Today, we threw away half the kids' toys from the toy room.  OK, we threw away a quarter of them and have another quarter ready for donation.  We've reclaimed a large portion of the room for walking!

We also put away the boxes for Christmas decorations along with miscellaneous empty boxes.  We're almost ready to clean for company Christmas day.  Hooray!

I'm going to label the toy drawers for the next time they go to pick up various toys, they'll hopefully put things away in the right places.

We still have the loft to go through and throw away/donate, as well as a crap load of toys we "threw away" that are actually in bags in the basement.  Almost all of it will get thrown away or donated (the rest will be kept if it belongs with stuff that we've kept before like doll house furniture, toy cooking stuff, etc).

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Today's Writing Update 12/19

Yesterday, I re-started writing Darkness by throwing out 9/10 of it and starting over.  I think the new beginning is much better and flows smoother.  I saved some from the 'middle' just to see if it'll still fit.  It probably will, but will also probably be re-written, too.  Darkness is also the starting point for my zombie story too.  A few paragraphs in the second section will be the opening part of the zombie story.  I think it's a neat idea that the same scene starts two different horror genre stories.  Now, I just have to write them,  If I finish Darkness before I publish my still untitled compilation book, I think it'll be included and will also be the title of the compilation (though I still want something to do with Mary's Painting to be the book cover picture (darkness lays a role in it and most of the other stories as they're all related to dark topics).  If the book gets above 20,000 words, the book will be $2.99.  If it's less but still more than 15,000 I'll price it at $1.99, any less will be $0.99.  Those seem to be the accepted guidelines from what I can tell for self-publishing electronically.  I also think I need to edit Cat's Eye View and Un-Separation to refine them before publishing them in it.  They're still rough around the edges, and I'd hate to put out something I felt was not finished.  My goal is to get it published some time next calendar year.

Yesterday, I also discovered that I was grandfathered in to 750words.com with a free membership.  I had stopped using it because I joined less than a week after what was supposed to be the cutoff without knowing there was going to be a cutoff.  Before my 30 day trial was to be over, I stopped using it because I didn't think I could afford it (though it doesn't cost much of anything).  On a whim after Candice asked if the words I was typing for Darkness last night were for my "500 words", I went back to the website and found out that they'd moved the date to a week or so after I had joined.  So, I'll try using the site again to keep my writing momentum going.

I added a Goodreads widget to the side of my blog, but from what I can tell, I have to update the code myself to get the books in it to change.  I marked a couple more books as finished today and it still showed the old list until I copied and pasted the new code in.  If anyone knows how to modify it to be dynamically updated, let me know!

We're all ready for Christmas (though we still haven't mailed out stuff to my family back east - we'll do that tomorrow most likely).  The only shopping we still have left to do is to buy a few more groceries for the Christmas meal, and some boxes for the aforementioned stuff that needs shipped.

That's about all for this blog entry.  Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Getting on the Publishing Trail

When I originally started writing, I never intended to have it published.  I was writing for me, to release emotions, since I didn't (and if I'm honest with myself I still don't) know how to deal with most emotions.  Then, I felt brave enough to let a few friends read a couple of my stories.  That was a pretty big breakthrough for me.  But still, I never really had any desire to sell any of my stuff.

Then I married an artist.  And she started selling some of her stuff (Granted, she produces much more than she lists and the sales aren't burning any barns.  Yet.), and this crazy notion got into my head that maybe I should sell some of my art, too.  Then came the "now what" phase.  I didn't have enough for a full book, and wasn't producing anything except a multitude of ideas (many of which I forget by the time I can write them down - or I lose the slip of paper I write them on), so I kept pushing it off.

Then I found that I can publish on my own through Amazon for the Kindle for free, so I started thinking of the basic concept I'd publish with.  Since the vast majority of my stories and story ideas are all short or ultra short, I should focus on short story compilation books.  I don't concentrate on any single genre, so maybe I should split the stories into categories and concentrate on a compilation story for each genre.  Horror, Science Fiction, Mystery, Drama (basic fiction that doesn't fit into the other three genres).  I then set about doling out stories to each book and had a pretty good idea of what goes where.

But still, I didn't do any work on anything new.

Then I found out about Smashwords, which will publish to just about every other electronic book medium except Amazon and also for free.  So, I could have my books for sale for the Kindle, and also for Nook, Apple Itunes, and a couple dozen other places.  Then I started reading in forums about pricing books and approximate number of words for each pricing scheme and I realized that I could put six of my stories that are already completed in the same short compilation novel and price it at about $0.99 or $1.99.  If I get good results, I'm pretty sure that will get me motivated to start putting my pencil to paper again (yes, I do all my first drafts the old fashioned way).

So, I'm putting the following stories in a short compilation book for less than a dollar:  Mary's Painting, Sins of the Father, The Fall, Cat's Eye View, The Viewing, and The Journey.  The only thing they have in common is that they're all darker stories.  I still need a title for the compilation, but as soon as I get that and artwork to design the cover with, I plan to publish straight away.  Who knows, if I get another story finished before then, I might include it also.

Better Late Than Never

Here's the promised pictures of the Halloween decorations.  I plan to have a writing related post soon.  Seems fitting, since that's supposed to be what this blog is for.






















Thanks for reading.

Monday, October 28, 2013

We need more RIP signs

We've put out the bulk of the Halloween decorations already (I'll put the pictures up on or after Halloween of the full look of the place with all the stuff out including what we haven't put out yet).  This year, we're adding a grave mourner, a remote controlled zombie crawler, a lined coffin, and the beginnings of a homemade zombie to the "production".  We've also added some red Christmas lights inside some of the coffins that have "risen" from the ground to give them an "inner glow."

I've made some more shelves.  Here's the ones I mentioned that I made for Donna's room, we hung them asymmetrically:



I also made some for Gabe's room.  We stained them since it went better with his room colors (and we hung them differently):


I just finished some for Megi's room.  We made one a rectangle instead of two squares, and we painted them diagonally (The two colors are dragon fruit and a sort of teal variation).  I haven't hung them yet, because we still need to finish painting her room:


Speaking of painting Megi's room, she gave us an "ultimatum" recently to get it done.  She, on the first attempt we know of, managed to climb out of her crib and fell to the floor, so we need to finish her room soon.  Here's the colors from the beginning of it, they're a plum color for most of the walls and a light blue for the accent color:


We like the dragon fruit color from the shelves I built so much, we plan to buy more and paint the closet doors that color.

I still haven't followed my own advice on writing, and as such, I haven't done any writing.  I'm taking the week off for Halloween, maybe I can at least get some progress made on something.

If you're wondering about the blog title, "RIP signs" is what Gabe called headstones the other day, and yes, we do need to make some more for our cemetery this next off season (just like I need to work on the hearse, etc)

Also on the list of projects we need to do is to go through the kids' toys and eliminate some that they never play with by either throwing them away or giving them to charity.  Gotta make room for the next cycle of toys and get rid of some of the clutter.

The furniture savings is coming along nicely, though we keep vacillating between which project to approach first:  a new desk for the office, a new bed/mattress for our bedroom, or hardwood floors for the whole house.  The first two cost about the same (about $2400 each), and the flooring will probably cost about ten times as much for as much space as we need done.

 That's all I have right now.  Thanks for reading.











And send happy thoughts to my wife.  Just because.  She's wonderful and all that, and I love her.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Weathering the Storms

Sorry I haven't posted a blog in a while, it's just not been in my "line of sight" to do so.  But gentle prodding by my #1 reader has gotten me to put out a new post.

We seem to have survived the Colorado flood storms relatively unscathed other than getting stir crazy.  But it will extend the timeline for moving the "travel missile" (our luggage holder) into the basement.  I had it in the back yard ready to move into the basement when the almost-tornado hit a month ago that destroyed part of the velodrome under development in Erie and had us sheltering in the basement for an hour or so.  It got blown into our "circle of doom" (where previous residents dug out a spot to put a trampoline and where we eventually hope to build a gazebo) that was filled with water at the time.  So, I waited to get it out rather than trek into the clay-mud to pull it out.  Then, out of sight, out of mind, I forgot about it until the other day and had planned to bring it in this past weekend.  Then the flood rains came mid-week and that didn't happen.  Now the circle of doom is a small pond, and I'll again be waiting for it to dry out enough to retrieve it (and likely rinse it out inside and out) and bring it inside.

Halloween season is upon us soon.  We didn't get the hearse built (again), but I hope to start making small bits of progress on it slowly over the next year.  It would be easier if there were a little more space for it and my car in the garage at the same time, but I have a few ideas about how to do work on it in the mean-time.  I'll probably put the cemetary fencing up about 2-3 weeks out, and the rest of it up the week of Halloween (which I'm taking off work).

We're starting the process of having our awful windows replaced.  We couldn't afford to do them all at once, so we chose the biggest needed ones first.  We're doing 8 windows.  3 are difficult to see through because of shoddy construction/installation, and the others are in our bedroom to hopefully keep the temperatures bearable in the summer months (it currently gets above 80 most days in our bedroom despite the A/C running non-stop).  The new windows are triple paned, and have technology built-in that is at an angle to reflect heat away when the sun is at a high angle (summer months) and allow it in when it is at a low angle (winter months and evenings), which should save tremendously on energy costs.  When the car is paid off, we'll get the rest of them done.  We are also waiting to finish painting Megi's room until they replace the big window in her room.

I haven't been doing very good about writing, and I think a big part of it is I'm not following the advice I give Candice all the time:  just make time everyday and do it.  So, I plan to try and write for a minimum of 30 minutes each day, even if it's crap.  Maybe she can take some of that same time to do some clay work, etc. and we can both be productive.  I've had plenty of ideas coming (many of which I've also not followed my own advice on and haven't written them down), but none of the "meat" of the ideas has been there yet.  Maybe if I start writing on the ideas, even if I know it's not what I intend, the "meat" will reveal itself to me and I can then write in earnest on each project.

I really need some ideas on how to make Gabe CARE about doing his schoolwork.  Even the promise of getting to go play, etc. doesn't entice him enough to want to do anything when he is at home towards doing a few minutes of homework (which as a result, turns into hours of homework).  So, if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

I have done some work on a few of my woodwork projects.  I've cut out the kid's names for door plates.  I need to decide how thick a back to put them on and how I want to mount them to the doors.  I also made some box shelves, which we hung in an asymmetrical manner in Donna's room for books, etc.  I'll probably build some more for Megi's room, too, and maybe a couple for Gabe's room (though figring out where to put them in his room might prove the only obstacle there...
That's all I have for this post (I probably had more, but had to completely re-type it from scratch when my browser crapped out on me), thanks for reading.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Irreversible Momentum

Even before you consciously ever find direction in your life, your life is following a path.  That path has irreversible momentum.  The path can alter a little to one side or the other based on how it deals with pits and bumps in its way.  Does it bounce over them, skew off to the right, or vault over to the left?

Before I met Candice, my life was shit.  Most people (probably) couldn't tell, but I felt it and hated every bit of it.  I drank heavily, not because of a compelling need to drink, but because I wanted to fog it out so I wouldn't experience it.  I stayed home for the majority of my non-work time.  I was lonely, but I feared rejection so bad that I was frozen with fear to try and overcome this phobia-like fear and find someone to help me along the path of life.  The few times I'd managed to crawl out from my phobia of rejection, I would slap me in the face with a two by four and I'd go running back into my wall of protection vowing never to try again.

But my life was firmly rolling down the hill of life and wasn't about to roll back up to find a different path I'd missed out on.  What I didn't realize was that my life was only temporarily shit, likely because that was the path I needed to take to get where I am today.

After going to a period of basic training at Parris Island (Marine Basic Training) while I was in ROTC at Parker High School, I swore I'd never join the military.

But apathy when I was going to Clemson led me to not go to classes as often as I should, so many semesters, I'd have practically no GPA to speak of to offset those semesters when I'd have close to a 4.0.  I realized that there was no way in hell I could maintain that rollercoaster ride, so I decided to drop out of college before they kicked me out.  (It would at least give me the option to return.)

But before I dropped out, I needed a plan for how to get my life straightened out.  My life bouned over to the side as I quickly realized what I needed was a life that forced me into structure.  So getting a typical job paying a high school graduate but not a college graduate in South Carolina was not a viable option.  Que up the job I swore I'd never do, the military.

Now, I wasn't naive enough to think that the Army or the Marines were going to be what was right for me.  I wanted to guide myself down a more technical path and give me some valuable experience towards getting a better life once I got out in four years.  That left the Navy and the Air Force.  The Navy had some highly publicized issues with people dying in several different incidents around that time, so I called the Air Force recruiter.  I took the ASVAB test and the results came back that virtually any career field was open to me.

I wanted to be a computer programmer, but they currently didn't have any openings in that career field, so I came in "open electronics" meaning I'd go into an electronics based career field (that includes computer programming, etc).

But when I graduated from basic training, there still wasn't any openings in that career field, so I chose and rank-ordered 10 career fields that did have openings from the available list.  I got the third (or really fourth since computer programming wasn't open) choice on my list and became a "Space Systems Operator."  (It sounds way cooler than it really is.)

That career field pretty much shielded me from anything even close to combat or danger related.  And it also "tethered" my career to Colorado.  But also, I was given an opportunity to do some computer programming, which ironically I later learned, I'd almost certainly have never done had I gotten into the actual computer programming career field.

When my four years were up and I could move on back to civilian life, I decided to stay in just a little longer, my life bumped over the next bump of life and kept rolling forward.

I was "rewarded" for that decision by getting an assignment 80 miles south of Fairbanks AK.  Look at your map of Alaska, and you'll find there isn't anything to speak of 80 miles south of Fairbanks.  When I got that assignement, I was quite upset, mostly because I had been working an assignment (that I was probably going to get) in southern California.

But it turned out to be a great assignment, and I had fun - yes fun - there.  My follow-on assignement listed three places I could go.  Buckley, Buckley, or Buckley.  So I chose the lesser of three evils and went to Buckley.  While there, I did more computer programming.  My enlistment time was coming to a close on this enlistment, so I had a serious decision to make.  I had a job opportunity in Colorado Springs making way more than I was currently making in the Air Force or I could stay in.  If I decided to stay in, I was staying until I retired.  After looking at it objectively from every angle I could think of, I decided to stay in and not get the job on the outside.  I viewed it as an 11 year investment in my life to never have to worry about job security for the rest of my life.

As it turns out, the job I was to be hired for never would have materialized as that company didn't get awarded the contract they were bidding to get. So yay for making decisions with my head instead of my wallet.

Then I got a new assignment to England that I had sought after.  I got to "see" the world, even if it was only a whirlwind one day one city type.  So, yeah, I've seen Paris, Brugge, Barcellona, etc, but I was rushing through them so fast with only a day to spend in each, that I didn't really get to experience them.  I plan to rectify that in the future if my irreversible momentum allows me to.

My follow-on assignment was suppossed to be in Colorado Springs, and it was, just not the same one I was promised.  The new job was overseeing configuration management of the Air Force's space-based missile warning systems.  That, in turn, led to my job being moved back to Denver when the Space Wing I was in split into two Wings and my part moved.

So I moved back to Denver.  My tether was keeping a firm grip on me.  Then in a forum I visited regularly, someone posted a link to a website in a thread about interesting things on the web.  It was Where's George and being a nerdy guy, I thought this was a cool little project.  So I started tracking where my money went.  Then I found that there were forums for that hobby and I started frequenting them.

I met someone who flirted with me online and once she realized we were basically in the same city, she demanded we meet.  So in mid-January we did.  I, of course, being naive, though it was just another "georgers meet."  But once we met, something else happened.  We didn't talk at all about the hobby until several hours into the meal, and then it was only an afterthought when we went to pay.

We went out to walk around in downtown Denver for several hours, I wierded her out by offering to hold her coat that she wasn't wearing (I've always been a chivalric person), and she shoved me around.  When I mentioned it, she had to point out to me that she was flirting with me.  Yeah, I can be that oblivious to signs, especially when I'm not looking for them.

I started to get a new outlook on life.  My life actually garnered a hopeful attitude.  It had started to roll on out of the shit I saw it as being in.  By April, I knew we were soulmates.  Skeptics would say I was simply love struck and blinded by it, but I'd been there before and this was a different feeling.  The past few relationships where I'd been blinded hadn't left me seeing a hopeful future in my life like this one did. 

So, I bought a promise ring.  Often times, they're considered a way for the guy to "postpone" getting married for a while, by "committing to commit."  But since we hadn't ever discussed it at the time, it was more like the old-fashioned me coming through.  I got a card and had Gabe give the card and ring to her one day.  She was definitely surprised and cried tears of happiness.  That was the exact moment I knew she loved me as much as I loved her, especially given how much she'd shunned marriage in the past.

I then did another old-fashioned thing.  I asked her grandmother for permission to marry her.  Her grandmother (who was essentially her mom), loved it.  I'm pretty sure I was the only boyfriend of Candice's she ever liked, and she liked me from that first date when I insisted on coming inside and meeting her before the date rather than just picking up Candice and taking off.

I proposed and Candice said yes.  We got married a little over two months later, but didn't spend a lot of money or stress on a ceremony.  In some ways I regret that, but in others I don't.  Our finances weren't drained, and we'll always have the memory of the "crackhead county clerk" to laugh at.

Today is our fifth anniversary.  I've retuired from the military since then and gotten that nice paying job on the civilian side.  We have three wonderful kids together (I legally adopted Gabe).  And we have a nice house where we live (and where her grandma lives, too).

My life is not shit and never was, it was just going through a bumpy patch during my irreversible momentum of life.

Life is great, and always will be because I found my soul mate.  And I found my soul mate because I was destined to.  I couldn't have avoided it because of irreversible momentum.

That's all for this post.  Thanks for reading.

Monday, July 8, 2013

Preparations

We leave on Thursday for a much needed vacation.  We're going to South Carolina for two weeks, then driving north to Rochester, New York so Candice can attend a glass art convention.  I'll have the kids in a hotel by myself for several days.  Hopefully, in the week before, Gabe and/or Donna will learn to swim enough that we can go to the hotel pool one of those days for some fun.  We'll probably take Candice to her convention one day, too, so that I can take the kids out somewhere too (Yeah, I'm a glutton, etc)

But aside from the adventure upcoming, we have a list of more than 30 things we need to do before we leave, and we've only done about 5 of them.  Granted, some of them can easily wait until we get back as they aren't "vacation critical" and will probably join an ongiong To Do list for projects that Candice and I need to do.  I need to go back a few blog posts and pull out the project list and add that to the list too.

We started the savings account, and taking away the minimum amount needed to keep the account going, we're about 15% of the way towards the office desk, so Yay!  We also moved a temporary desk into the office (formerly our dining room) and I moved our computers in there.  Now Candice and I are forced to occasionally look at each other!  ;-)

We've also since the last posting discovered that it might have been Ginger bad dog, not Bailey bad dog (though it likely could be both) that has been digging up the sprinkler heads. Mark and Ginny have agreed to help us by watching the dogs while we're gone.  They're getting $100 and some homemade jelly for their kindness.  We're also taking all the dog food and treats the dogs should need while we're gone.  Thanks, Mark and Ginny!

I think we came to the conclusion that we're going to sell the Mercury and when we are ready to actually focus on the car restoration project, we'll but another classic car that is running but still fits the bill for fixing it up the way we want it.  It'll likely be a hearse we fix up, which will also serve double duty for our being Halloween House.

I've sprayed an entire huge pump sprayer cansiter of Round Up in the vegetable garden to kill the thistles, but they are still living.  Granted they are starting to show signs of dying, but most are still alive.  Is there anything stronger out there?

That's about all for this post.  Thanks for reading!  (I expect another one a week from today to get posted also.)

Monday, June 10, 2013

Mish-Mash

Ginger dog went in for tail removal surgery this past Thursday because she's so excitable that she bangs it against anything and everything and as a result, she damaged her tail.  So, now she has a bloody nub for a tail.  She's having to stay in her kennel except for a few daily walks we're taking her on to allow her bathroom breaks and a little exercise that isn't too strenuous. 

Bailey dog has really missed playing with Ginger dog, and vice versa.  And after seeing how much pain Ginger was in, I don't see how anyone can do that for purely asthetic purposes.

On an almost related note, we looked into the cost to kennel Bailey and Ginger while we're gone in July, and it is outrageously expensive (Like $60 a day for both, which would amount to over $1250), so that isn't an option.  We're hoping to get a neighbor (or combination of neighbors) to let the dogs out each morning, make sure they have food and water out there with them, and let them back in each night, since grandma won't be able to do it.  We probably only need them to do it on weekdays since Jeanette should be here on the weekends to help grandma out.

We cleaned the carpets in the toy room, and as a side result, decided to turn the formal dining room into an office since we've only used it twice since moving in nearly three years ago.  We're moving the formal dining stuff elsewhere in the house (and repurposing the table to be our puzzle table in our bedroom and saving up for a partners peninsula desk.

We are also kicking around the idea of selling the '53 Mercury and buying a working (or at least assembled) classic car for our car restoration project.  If we decide to stick with the '53 Mercury restoration project, it's likely to cost well over two to three times the high end book sale price for that car which is about $9400.  If we do decide to go with a different car, we'll likely try to sell the body and frame for the Mercury soon and put that money towards the new car and/or furniture we need/want.  The issue comes down to whether the emotional attachment to that specific car is high enough to stick with it, or if the spirit of the idea of hot rodding a car in Candice's dad's memory will work instead.  It's totally Candice's decision to make.

We also have prioritized the various furniture items we plan to buy over the next few years.  I think I'm going to start a savings account at our brick and mortar local bank and set up an allotment of pay to go there that we will not touch except for the items in the prioritized list (which may include the classic car mentioned above).

I installed a sprinkler system in Candice's main flower garden that will operate most nights.  In the next few weeks, I hope to also have the other flower garden on the sprinkler system.  On a related note, I now have to re-bury a portion of the sprinkler system in the back yard, since Bailey bad dog dug it up.  Grrrrrr.  >:-(
We've also decided it will be easier to spray weed killer over our vegetable garden to catch up with the massive numbers of thistles that have overtaken it.  We can't keep up right now, and if we can just kill it all off this year, maybe we can resume an actual garden next year.  We might plant some of the plants (like the watermellon, etc) elsewhere for this year (like possibly behind the pine tree) since we do have it anyway.

We still haven't made any more headway on Megi's room in the past few months, but maybe now that we have a plan for most of the rooms, we'll get going on that again soon, too.  We've changed the disign concept of several of our rooms.  the kitchen, which was going to have a Coca Cola motif, will now have a blue motif.  The formal dining room was originally going to have the blue motif, but will now be a Coca Cola designs office space.  The toy room will now be a southwestern decorated parlor/play room (until the kids get older when it'll become just a parlor/formal living room), and the foyer which was going to be southwestern, will house grandma's Chicken collection/designs.  We're still leaning towards the red and green colors of the living room/den, and the sports designs for the loft.
Anyway, that's all I have for this entry.  Thanks for reading!

Monday, May 13, 2013

Defiance

Gabe has been a beast of defiance lately.  He's determined to do what he wants to do, when he wants to do it, even if he's not suppossed to do it.  He's been grounded from video games and tv lately, so he keeps convincing Donna to hide with him and they'll play video games in secret.  He's driving me nuts!  He's such a sweet kid when he isn't trying to defy us.  Why?  I'm dreading his teenage years.

Also, I think we really need to get him officially tested for dyslexia and ADD this summer.  He can't focus on any one task for more than a couple of minutes (unless it's a bunch of short TV programs or video games, and I think he can focus on those because they are mostly changing and he doesn't need to follow the same idea/story for too long) and he has extreme difficulty in writing letters and numbers in order.  I think once we have an official diagnosis, we han better treat him, and maybe calming down the ADD will help his behavioral issues, too.

I fixed grandma's end table that broke a couple of weeks ago.  It wasn't on my list from the other day (though it should have been, but I never remembered to write it down, so it was forgotten until I walked into the toy room looking for something else.

We planted the strawberries and jalapenos in planters on the deck.  We still need to clean up dog crap and other stuff in the garden area before planting stuff there (I also need to do the sprinkler stuff soon for that task too).  I also have to add mowing the grass starting this coming weekend to my list of stuff I need to do.

I got a large board to put at the bottom of the stairs outside to keep the dogs out in the yard.  Hopefully it'll help them get accimated to the invisible fence, etc.

That's about all I have for public consumption this blog.  Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

One More Off the List, Three More Added

Not much more to report, except that I got the screen door repaired.  I also remembered several more things to add to the To Do List (buy and install new fans in Donna's bedroom and the Master bedroom).  Thanks to the dogs, I also get to do repair work on the deck to fix boards they broke, etc. because of their fear of the invisible fence.

That's all for this quick update.  Thanks for reading.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Backwards, You Say?

So, I finished the ventilation fan for Candice's glasswork studio.  Turns out the intake and outtake were reversed, so that the large hole I thought was outtake was in fact intake.  The intake is the most important part as it needs to take the toxic fumes away from the torch area and siphon them to the outtake.  So, having it wide open is in effect, bad, since it can pull air from basically all over.  So, I changed the design a little and it now is a better design overall because instead of taking it outside to use, it can be left in and has duct work to go through the doggy door and duct work that goes over to her workbench (though the latter needs to be trimmed down in length and fastened better to the fan.  We also used some spray foam

I used my router for the first time this weekend and used it successfully.  Now I feel confident for building the box shelves to hang in Donna's room, and for that matter, to build bookshelves and a better designed glass rod holder for Candice's art studio.  Once I figured out the direction to use the router and the speed control, the only thing I need to do better is to get a more low profile piece of wood to use as a guide, and to measure more precisely (though the latter was a given since I was only practicing and therefore wasn't concerned with precise measurements.

I set up the invisible dog fence this weekend, though I still have to bury the wire in places.  The dogs became terrified to go out in the back yard, so I lowered the intensity several notches and we put them outside agin.  Eventually they ventured out, and we discovered that the intensity was too low as they crossed over the boundary at some point, so we raised it again.  Now Bailey is terrified to go outside again, even when he really needs/wants to.  He'll be spending a good deal of time outside this week, so hopefully he learns where he can and can't go and becomes more comfortable with it.  One thing's for sure, though, they definietely won't be chewing the trampoline or jumping the fences anytime soon.

One side effect of the invisible fence was that they ran back up the stairs on the deck and forced their way through the gate that keeps them out in the yard and not chewing the deck furniture cushions as well as protecting Megi from falling down the stairs.  The gate had a latch on it that we use to lock it.  But because of the gap between the gate and where the latch was mounted, the latch only had two screws holding it in place so that the latch could connect with the side on the gate.  Their forcing their way through bent (yes bent) the slide latch because there were only two screws holding it.  So, I replaced the latch (and drilled two more holes through so it won't bend again) and also added a chain latch to the bottom part which is were they forced their way through, so the deck gate's functionality is restored again.

Candice and I got some exercise yesterday, only our second long walk of the year together.  Walks in warm weather are sort of a tradition for us, and a nice one.  It also has the added benefit of keeping us healthier than we would otherwise be.  She has a desire to runa 5K this summer, so we'll probably add some sprints into the walk soon.

We initially tried to take the dogs with us because we felt bad for them about the invisible fence thing, but they were absolutely AWFUL, so we turned around and took them home and went on a walk just the two of us.

So, I've knocked a few more items off my ToDo list.  The remaining list (minus those things I never wrote down, and thus promptly forgot) is as follows:

- Build, paint, and mount the box shelves for Donna's room.
- Fix the screen door
- Fix the trampoline screen
- Install sprinklers into the flower beds and make them more efficient in the garden.
- Turn on the sprinklers (once I get a good feel for when cold weather is over - we're forecasted for more snow Wednesday)
- Install bumpers on the walls where the closet doors bump into them so that they don't damage the walls
- Finish painting Megi's bedroom
- Level out the ground where we plan to put the pool
- Put up the pool after we get the ground leveled out
- Install security on our wireless router
- Sift through the sand under the deck to remove yet more goat head stickers
- Build Candice an actual workbench for her glasswork
- Build some bookshelves (because we need more)
- Design/build some corner shelves
- Get new curtain rods for our bedroom and for Megi's bedroom
- Get/install a new ceiling fan for Donna's room.  Hopefully, get it wired better than the old one where we can control the fan with one switch and the lights with another.
- Use the scrollsaw to make nameplates for the kids' bedroom doors.

That's all for this non-writing blog entry.  Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Enough Already

Just how many words are there in the Eskimo languages for snow?  Regardless of your definition of a "word", the answer is "too much for us in the foothills of Colorado!"  I have no problem with it falling high in the mountains.  In fact, I hope it does, that will help the runoff and consequently the drought conditions.  But enough here in the lower elevations.  Let it just be rain.  And warm.

So this past weekend I didn't play around with my router like I had planned so I can learn how to use it (this becomes important when I start building shelves, etc).  But I did knock off one of the tasks from two blogs ago (I posted one I didn't broadly advertise where I presented knowledge about the word "lalochezia" and talked about the development of my writing projects - spoiler alert if you go read them:  I'm still in the idea phases only)  I raised Gabe's curtain rod so that it isn't in danger of falling down.  I also hung a new medicine cabinet in Grandma's bathroom.  This wasn't on the original list of things to do, but she wanted to go buy a new one, so I also put it up, too.

Hopefully, this weekend will warm up and I can do some more projects, but if it keeps freaking snowing, that isn't very likely.

That's all for this blog, thanks for reading.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Lalochezia

Lalochezia is the use of vulgar or foul language to relieve stress or pain.  What do you utter when you stub your toe or smash a finger?  For me it's S.O.B.  (not just the letters, but the whole phrase).

There's your bit of knowledge for the day.

My vampire story is fleshing itself out in my head.  The protagonist will be Josef Mengele.  The challenge for me will be to make him sympathetic while still making him a deplorable human being.  I think I know how I plan to do it, but I've been playing out the different ideas in my head along with the basics of the plot before I write any more on the issue.  This is also the same story where I break most of the rules of vampire lore, but with a logical explanation as to why/how.

I'm also kicking around a zombie story where the protagonist is a zombie.  Still working through the concept of how that can happen in my mind.  I do know that it will start from the same beginning as the story Darkness that I'm writing where Itzpopalotl attacks a group of cmapers in the jungles of Mexico.  My zombie epidemic will stem from the dead of the attack that opens the other story.  Their bodies aren't found in the other story, and this gives the explanation as to why.  My zombie outbreak will not be a global one quite yet, at least I don't think so.

Anyway, I promised an update to my blog on what is happening in my writing world when I posted the link to my last blog post on Facebook, so here it is.  Thanks for reading.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

I bought the wood yesterday to complete Candice's ventilation fan and to build some square shelves to hang on the walls of Donna's bedroom.  Once I get the fan assembled, I then need to but the rest of the ducting to connect from her desk to where the fan will sit.  As for the shelves, I guess I'll be learning to use my router one of the next few weekends.

Also on my agenda is raising Gabe's curtain rod.  The current one was placed in-line with where the old one was shabbily put up and the compound to fill the spot didn't hold up too well and it wants to fall off.  So I need to move it higher.  And re-patch the holes.  And paint over the patching.

We also need to get off our arse and tape and paint Megi's room.  I finished the ceilings there over a month ago and taped around the trim, but we haven't done anything since.  We need to finish taping it and then paint the walls.  We've also decided to do the trim in green rather than white, so her room will be purple, teal, and green.

We bought an invisible fence with two collars for stubborn dogs.  I'm not sure if I need that much persuasion, but it's adjustable up to a higher level than most in case I need it.  Hopefully Bailey doesn't completely disregard it.  I plan to put it up on a nice weekend, but I also have to dig in the yard to bury part of it.  but once i get this done, I can start leveling the yard for the swimming pool and start clearing out the garden for this year's crops.

Also on the agenda is to connect some more hose to the sprinkler system to included the flower garden (and garden better than last year).

We bought some nylon screen to replace the metal one in the screen door that we replaced last year.  Not that we necessarily think it'll hold up better, but it'll be less dangerous for kids if it does get holes in it.  We also plan to "sew" some of it onto the trampoline netting where the dogs caused a large hole and we have to sit in front of it to ensure Megi doesn't fall out of it.  The other two are so far smart enough to not run up against it.

I'm sure there are about 6 or 7 other projects I have to do, but I haven't been my usual self and made out a list of them, so they're likely going to be forgotten for a long time.

Anyway, that's all for this week's blog.  Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Pareidolia

First, let’s learn something.  The word of the day is pareidolia.  That's the phenomenon of seeing an "image of significance" in another object.  Like seeing the image of Jesus in burnt toast, Lincoln's silhouette in a sock on the floor, a Dorito that looks like Xenu, the Virgin Mary’s image appearing in a piece of paper chewed by a dog, seeing “666” or the devil’s face in fire damage on the side of a building, or even seeing images such as bunnies in clouds.  It’s part of the human condition to try and find significance where there almost certainly is none, because if there isn’t more meaning to the world, then we’re doomed, I say!  Doomed!  Okay, enough hyperbole.  Let’s get on with the blog.

As you saw from the previous blog post, we finished Donna’s room enough to move her into it.  Well, now we’ve started on Megi’s room.  The ceiling is now painted and the trim is tapped off.  I just need to tape the accent wall away from the other three so we can get started on them.

Candice and I started a discussion the other day on whether we still want to restore the ’53 Mercury.  She noted that we’ll always have higher priority financial projects.  I’m good either way, but want her to be sure that she won’t have any regrets before we make the final decision if we don’t do it.  The plus side of doing it would be that we’d have one sweet ride.  The plus side of not doing it would be reclaiming garage space and having extra money (presumably) for Candice’s business and/or a snow blower (and a place to put it).

Megi’s at that awkward size where size 18 month clothes make her look like a superhero wearing tights and 24 month clothes make her look like she was shrunk by a “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” ray, but her clothes didn’t shrink.

We just replenished Gabe’s pants wardrobe again for the fourth time in a little over 12 months.  He now wears size 14 pants.  He turns 8 in a few weeks, ughh.  Fortunately, his upper body growth isn’t as pronounced and he can usually wear shirts slightly longer, but he’ll need the next size shirts within the next few weeks, too (size 12s I think).

Donna doesn’t have much going on.  Amazingly, since she moved into her new room, she’s been pretty good about putting her dirty clothes away in the hamper.

Candice broke a finger on her right hand, and has been out of commission for her business and will be for a few more weeks.  Also, her oxygen concentrator has started to malfunction, which is fortunate timing that they are at the same time and not consecutive (though she needs to get back in touch with the company to make sure it’s still under warranty and get it fixed soon to keep them from being consecutively timed events).

My sister-in-law Jan came out to Denver for a work related conference and got to come visit with us one evening.  It’s too bad she didn’t have more time to visit.  We’re also sending out a couple of books to her that she informed us that hadn’t read (Pillars of the Earth and World Without End).  Hopefully, she can make some time to read them as both are excellent books by Ken Follett.

That’s all for this post.  Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Two out of three ain't bad...

So, we finally finished Donna's room (at least enough to move her in so we can start on Megi's room and reclaim our space).  In the process, she moved up from a toddler bed to a full size bed.  We still need to paint the dressers and add some shelves,  but she's officially moved into her new room.  That means two out of three kids have successfully been moved to their new rooms.













Thursday, February 21, 2013

Frequently Infrequent

So, in holding with my mantra of "whenever I get around to it," I haven't updated my blog in a while.  I frequently update it infrequently.

So, What has happened since the last post?

Well, it turns out that though my platelet count is in the normal range, it's too low for donations outside of emergencies and holidays, so I only gave blood and will continue to do so.

We still haven't done much more on painting in Donna's room-to-be yet.  We've still got one coat on the bedroom door, both coats on the the trim, and touch-up on the walls and ceilings.  Then I can move furniture in there and we can get started on Megi's room.

I still need to finish Candice's ventilation system.  Hopefully I can do that this weekend.  I have to make a trip to Home Depot to see about ducting and connectors (specifically one that I can bolt to the fan and connect the other duct work to it) before final assembly, since that will drive how big of a hole to cut into the board on the receiving side of the fan.  I also don't relish working in the garage when it's sub-freezing outside...

Gabe has lost two coats at school this year and was lucky to not have lost a third one.  He's currently grounded because he doesn't think the rules we impose on him actually apply to him and he does whatever he wants to do (like taking off and not wearing his coat on the school playground when it's 30 degrees outside and leaving it out there).  Hopefully his inability to play over the next couple of weeks will have somewhat of an impact on his ability to follow our rules.

It looks like we might be getting a visit from my sister-in-law next week all the way from South Caroilina.  I'm looking forward to it!

The fish are surviving well, though we did lose a couple due to the stress of changing environments.

Megi has claimed "No!" as her current favorite word, and she says it in a sing-songish manor where her inflections rise as she says it.  It's cute.  For now.  She's still a beast when she doesn't get her way and has been since 4 months old.  I'm not looking forward to her terrible twos.

Donna is starting to learn that she's not the princess she believes herself to be and that she has to do what mommy and daddy say.  Hopefully we get this streak of "entitlement" kicked soon, then we have to work on the crying about everything with both her and Gabe.

We haven't heard anything back from the IRS on grandma's taxes.  I have no idea how long it should take before we hear anything, but I said in our response that if we didn't hear anything back, we'd assume it was over.

On that same note, we filed our taxes this morning after they were "rejected" last night.  It seems we never changed Gabe's last name with the Social Security Administration after I adopted him and when I put his name in "correctly" it was "incorrect."  Add that to the list of things I need to do with the government about my kids (Gabe shows up wrong for my medical insurance, the paperwork with the VA to have Meg listed as a dependant on their system STILL hasn't finished processing.  I could care less about the extra $30 per month that isn't taxable - it won't affect my bottom line practically at all - I want her to be listed on my survival benefit plan in case the unthinkable happens.  Damn beaurocracy.

I still haven't gotten around to cleaning out the garage after the mice incident, either.  I doubt I will until it gets into the 60s or warmer either...

Many of the old members of Wordtrip are making a semi-honest effort at getting the site active again.  For those that don't know, it's a forum for writers once listed many years in a row as one of the top websites for writers.  Hopefully, it'll add to my motivation to get these short story compilations written and published.  (Shouldn't this paragraph be near the top of this blog since the intent of this blog is my life as an author?  Oh, well...)  I'm not able to be on it nearly as often as I used to be, but I'm trying to access it a few times each day to post and read.

Candice's business is going well, but she's thinking about moving it to another website instead of Etsy.  It's a dicey move since Etsy has a huge customer base, but the fees would be less per year, and it also adds the listing into Google shopping, which could increase the customer base (assuming the customer base isn't going directly to Etsy or eBay to do their searches.  If that's the case, it could prove harder to get it going good.  I think that's a better plan for leaving Etsy than starting her own website at this jucture because it's less work and she doesn't have to recruit her entire customer base.  One she's well established with a large customer base, then her own website is probably the way to go.  We'll see...

I did get the other hotels booked for the vacation this July, so it is all planned out and essentially finalized.

That's all I have for this entry, thanks for reading!

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Updated list of searches leading to my page...

Here’s an updated list of the top search terms that led people to my blog all-time:

aelbert cuyp paintings (2)
rowboat the painting louvre (2)
anamorphosis birthday (1)
anamorphosis blog (1)
anamorphosis brake (1)
anamorphosis nature (1)
anamorphosisblog spot (1)
cost of anamorphosis on floor (1)
cuyp boats on the estuary (1)
on my ipod people write with squiggly lines (1)
paper template squiggly lines (1)
pencil anamorphosis on paper (1)
squiggly story paper (1)

Quill Writing

Quill Writing