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I started this blog to get me writing more. I failed to make more than a single blog in November however. I blamed this on NaNoWriMo, and at first that was a good reason. As the month continued though, it was my lack of progress on my novel that kept me from writing even here. I did manage some spits and starts to get about 6 chapters written so far. That is something of an accomplishment, though far less than I had set out for.

For the New Year, I am going to make dual resolutions. If you know me, you know I take these seriously. I quit tobacco cold turkey on a resolution. I went on atkins and lost over 100 pounds on a resolution, so I know I can do things if I truly set myself to them. I will do the following: Stick to a workout regimen, Continue my writing.

Those are pretty nebulous. I am going to see the fitness folks at work and sign up for the new incentive plan. That will give me concrete criteria to meet. In my writing, I will get 3000 words a week. That sounds pretty paltry, but I am not a full time writer, I have 8 hours of work, my new workouts, kids, etc. I think that sounds like a reasonable weekly goal. Ideally this will allow me to finish my novel, but a short story or two a month is cool too.

Awesome day today at work. Major tipping on the craps table, not to mention I got to sit box all day. On the other hand, I have definitely gained weight. My uniforms are getting tight and not so comfortable. After dinner tomorrow night, back on the diet for real.

No quotable rogues over that last few days... ttfn

Merry F-ing Christmas

Okay it's freakin christmas... You know, the time when people freak out because there is no more time or those lucky few who could care less and freak out about everyone freaking out. I am in the second group. I am glad to be sitting in my cozy chair with my supper and a beer. Now to be fair, I did very little of the Christmas prep. That fell to my wife. That of course puts her in the first group, setting up the ideal dynamic for Christmas eve histrionics. So instead of fueling the fire, I decided to blog :)

I am frankly sick to death of how commercial Christmas is. All that gets thought of is presents. People ask me what I want for Christmas and I have no good answer. I don't really want any 'things'. I want situations. I want to spend time with my wife and kids, much more time with my wife later, ho ho ho. I want people to not worry about having to get me anything. I especially want people to not get me stupid ass stuff - ideas like sweaters come to mind for this. Mostly though, I want less stress and less bullshit. If its gonna be a pain in the ass, then skip it, Christ! - no pun intended.

It was actually a good day at work for being a holiday day. Not too many people were in the casino and the ones that were there were in a generally generous mood. One dealer in particular really made my day. I had been complaining about the fact that I had few dealers that I preferred in my section, just her and one other. Well she said would it make my day better if she kept blowing me kisses. I laughed and she kept it up all day. Well it really did make a difference, so I came home in a fairly good mood.

So to anyone who might actually be reading this, have a happy christmas and I hope you have someone to blow kisses to you too!

postscript - another quotable rogue -

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
- Honore de Balzac

Ho Hum

Posting this before I forget. Get this book for Ian!

Little Brother (Hardcover)
by Cory Doctorow (Author)

Not the king of my own domain

I did it. I changed my credit card during the year this year. It was a simple process, but one that had terrible repercussions. I use GoDaddy as the registrar for my multiple domains and GoDaddy apparently does not believe in emailing you when your billing fails. Thus my spiritlurkers.com domain slipped into redemption. I called the nice people at GoDaddy and explained the situation. A very polite representative explained that for the paltry sum of 80 dollars I could redeem my domain name. I decided to wait the remainder of the 30 day period and then just re-register because foolishly I have children and Christmas and eighty dollars was just too much for Nov-Dec for me.

I was so wrong yet again. Mr. Jason Falk of Salt Lake City, UT now has my domain name. I have not yet written him to see if I can buy it back. Hopefully after the holidays we can come to some arrangement.

On a better note. Tulip has survived the chocolate poisoning. It has been a learning experience all around.

ttfn

Hell-o

So last night I stood deathwatch over our family dog. It seems that an entire batch of chocolate cookie batter was thrown out in the trash. I had taken the full trash out of the closet we keep it in as I had been doing some cleanup. Meanwhile, the children had failed to feed the dog last night. The combined result was the dog ingesting about double the lethal dose of chocolate.

6 rounds of dog puking (about the entire batch came up) and nearly a dozen trips outside insued. About 5 this morning I passed out in the chair. This morning the dog is better and we have not had loss of motor control or convulsions, so the prognosis is guarded. It takes up to 24 hours for the full spectrum to present, but normally less. She has been very tired, but did try to chase down squirrels this morning, so I am taking that as a good sign.

Thanks to Digg I saw this on YouTube and just had to give the link for it here. Yngwie has not aged well but still blisters! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpDblDia5TE if the link won't work for you)

Oh, saw a great quotable rogue, so I am going to include it here so I don't lose it -

The big thieves hang the little ones.

Czech Proverb

ttfn

HOW THE FIGHT STARTED...

I rear-ended a car this morning.

So there we are alongside the road and slowly the driver gets
out of the car . . and you know how you just get sooooo stressed and
sometimes life-stuff seems to get funny?


Yeah, well, I could NOT believe it . . . but he was a dwarf.

He storms over to my car, looks up at me and says, 'I AM NOT
HAPPY!!!'


So, I look down at him and could not help myself. I say, 'Well,
which one are you then?'

And that's when the fight started . . .

NaNoWriMo and Bullies

November 1st is looming close now, and quite organically the seed of my novel idea is sprouting. I have 2 characters pretty well in mind. Unfortunately they are side characters. I have a hazy, incomplete idea for the plot and a couple of themes I want to present. I have differing ideas on setting, though I suspect Boston will win out. Most of this gelled over the last week. Some of this has been inspired by some conflicts going on with one of my wife's relatives.

This brings me to another point - bullies. I have always absolutely hated bullies. I see this as encompassing all those that subjugate through intimidation. So yes, the schoolyard bully earns my condemnation, but a special place in hell is reserved for wife beaters and rapists. I have always believed that it is the responsibility of the strong to protect the weak. Now I know we are all supposed to be enlightened these days and not think of women as the weaker sex, and in many ways I don't. Domestic violence is a very unfortunate fact of life however.

I have seen this relative become subject to threats and harassment on a continual basis. No one should have to live like this. It's not the first time I have seen this with someone close to me, and I fear one of these times I will lose control. (I am normally not a violent guy. I am far the opposite actually.)

Enough with such depressing subjects. Just suffice it to say that I have some dark inspiration for this upcoming project.

Hospitals

I absolutely loathe hospitals. It doesn't rise to the irrational abhorrence I have of nursing homes, but it's bad enough on it's own, trust me.

So my wife is sick. She is in a lot of pain that I cannot do anything about. So in turn, I was a raging asshole at times yesterday. This was mostly directed at medical professionals. (Not to the nurses though, God knows they get the worst from both ends.) So yeah, I am very happy to be home and away from that place, though I hate my wife being there alone. So in my frustration at this dichotomy, I am sitting here blogging.

Oh, and not only that, but my phone is out and mediacom is taking forever to fix it, so I can't call her. I am not a very fun individual right now. In fact I think I will wrap this up now.

A Warlock from Boston

According to various quizzes from the vastness on the internet, the Halloween monster I am is a warlock (the decidedly non-pagan/wiccan warlock that is) and the city that I am is Boston. Both sound fairly on the mark at least. A question did occur to me however. Have you ever noticed just how much time gets drained on tangential web bullshit?

My wife is out of town tonight, so I find myself with a good chunk of uncontested time to use the computer. I set out tonight to connect with a few folks that I haven't talked to in a few days, and the next thing I know, I hear the door closing sound from yahoo when they have signed off. I wasted the night with blogspot quizzes, forum threads that I'll never respond to and stupid videos! All this information at our fingertips and what do we do with it?

I did see a blog while aimlessly drifting today that put the rise of the internet in perspective:

When man invented fire, he didn't say, "Hey, let's cook." He said, "Great, now we can see naked bottoms in the dark." As soon as Caxton invented the printing press, we were using it to make pictures of, hey, naked bottoms! We have turned the Internet into an enormous international database of naked bottoms. So you see, the story of male achievement through the ages, feeble though it may have been, has been the story of our struggle to get a better look at your bottoms.

I can't see as I completely object to that characterization.

Last night I was much more productive. I wrote half to most of a short story, yay me! Then I tried installing Ubuntu Linux on the crappy laptop. After an hour or so I finally gave up on the install. I am just going to have to break down and take it in somewhere I think, or find a different solution for internet connection. It's still very useful for writing though I have no way to get my writing from there to my regular computer right now. I have the whole day off tomorrow, maybe I will get something done with it then.

Tattoos

So what is it about tattoos that does it for me?

It's a number of things. I like the feel of getting them. Even the ache for the next couple of days is fine by me. Yeah, I know I am somewhat of a freak in this regard, but you should keep in mind that I am also the kid that went out for goalie because he liked the sting of the ball as it hit his hands. I have come to terms with my oddities. If you can't, too bad.

I love coming up with the design. I will never understand the folks that go in and look at the flash and just pick something. To me that is as original as shopping at Walmart. I am overstating. It's not that you can't find anything worthwhile off the rack. Personally, I'm after original craftsmanship.

So I spend literally months or years thinking about, planning of and yearning for a new tattoo. The sacrifice of saving up for it is another factor. Consulting with the tattoo artist is a fun process too. You may have this picture in your head, but this guy (or gal) is a pro that knows what will work on your body. It is a fun talk with a kindred soul. After this, you eventually get the endorphin fueled release of getting the work done. The lasting image that you get to share with the world or cover up and show to a privileged few is the metaphoric afterglow. I enjoy the whole process, not just the end result.

Not everyone sees it this way, but that's my take.

Write it already

Okay, so I used to write all the time. I would spend hours and hours writing (when I wasn't doodling or making caricatures of my teachers) in High School. But then something happened. I won a couple writing contests. I then started to expect so much from my writing that my internal censor kicked into overdrive and shut down all output. I had a brief period after I met my wife when my endorphin levels were at obscene levels that I could write. I also had a good run of RP posting, but that was not me writing so much as the character coming to life. Anyways, I am not a big talk about myself kinda guy, but I figured I had to start somewhere.

I'm a mid thirties married guy. I met my wife on a blind date, no shit, and have never looked back. She is my better half. Many men say that as a hackneyed cliche, but I mean it. I was lost before I met her and haven't been since. I have two kids who are truly my life. My boy is so much like me that I feel bad for him sometimes. I know the mountains that I put in my own way and I hope he can avoid that habit. My girl hasn't had it easy either. She was born early and had a seizure disorder for her early years. Due to her early birth and the disorder, or perhaps the barbiturates she was on at such a young age, she has had a number of learning difficulties. One thing that girl has never done is make excuses. God bless her for that.

Anyways, I have decided to start writing again - as in creative writing. As a precursor to this, I figured I could start warming up with this blog. The emphasis is selfish, I admit it. However this is not to be a whine-fest and I will try hard to keep any rants to a low roar.