06/30
- Observed this weekend: a white Toyota Prius with a “carrying handle” spoiler (much like the WRX STi, circa 2005), ground effects, expensive rims, and red-orange flames down the side. The lesson learned here is: if you’re going to go dorky, go big. Also learned: I need a quick-draw holster for my camera (and to carry it at all times).
- Got a good ride in last night after the bike shop. On the outbound leg, I kept noticing that I was slowing down and feeling shitty. This of course called my form into question — and rightfully so, as I haven’t been riding much. Well, turns out it wasn’t that so much as it was the loss of pressure in the rear tire — I hit a small bump and got a nice pinch flat out of it. Replaced the tube and turned for home. The inbound route was headwind the whole way. Go figure.
- Had a nice time hanging out with Kate, Matt, Jenni, Wendy, Cindi, Wendy’s girl, and others, on Friday night. Matt and Kate both sang at karaoke. I refused to humiliate myself. (I couldn’t hit one note in twenty, even if you held a gun to my head.) Kate and I bailed on going out to the 90’s on Saturday night because we were both exhausted and not in the mood for crowds. One of these years, maybe.
- Have discovered some issues with the Fontosaurus payment gateway and e-commerce engine not liking each other very much, so I will probably be making the switch to Paypal (*gag*) for the immediate future.
- Finished reading Mirrored Heavens this morning before work. Pretty enjoyable — it has a very cyberpunk feel to it, but it makes Gibson’s characters look like a bunch of pussies. I’ve got a whole stack of new books sitting on my desk that I’ve been dying to get at…the hard part is going to be choosing what to read next.
06/10
So this morning, before leaving for the office, an idea for a book popped into my head. And I had to start writing. About six words in, I discovered that this idea for a sci-fi novel with an huge scale in space and time, with political intrigue, war, aliens — all the things you’d associate with Dune, for example — was also a comedy. And that was triggered by the name of the main character, which I’m not repeating here, yet. Why ruin the first good joke of the book?
Yeah, it’s right up there with Stephenson’s “Hiro Protagonist”…but, y’know, more crass.
06/2
A short while ago, John Scalzi had a post in his blog about the book Mirrored Heavens, in which there was much bantering by readers about regarding the ability of Russia to regain “superpower” status. While that was all entertaining, I felt it missed the point, and asked about whether it made sense to militarize space in a case where we’ve moved on to Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW). The author of the book, David Williams, responded to that question (poorly worded as it was) in his blog. And now I feel the need to respond here. Read the rest of this entry »
05/23
Last night, as we were falling asleep, Kate admonished me for not updating here since last week. I retorted by rubbing my stubbly legs on her and then admitting that it had been awhile. So here’s what’s up:
Writing. Not much time for it these days. But I did have two cool ideas for books yesterday. The first is a non-fiction work, and the second is a sci-fi re-telling of a modern history story. Both would be a lot of fun to write.
Cycling. If I don’t have to work at the shop tomorrow, I’m going to get the Surly out for a shakedown cruise. Work the kinks out, so I can make with the commuting. Johnny Surprise and I are going to try to get out and hammer this weekend, too. Haven’t seen the dude in a dog’s age.
Fonts. Also stalled. Need to get re-focused on getting the e-commerce engine running, converting some of my old fonts to OpenType and getting them back online for sale. I can always use more money.
Social Life. Picking up a bit. Going to have Jenni and the Cashbox, and some other peeps over for poker night this coming Wednesday. Liz is back in town for, like, a week or something before she heads off to her medical residency in Buffalo, NY, so there’s some drinking, maybe some biking, and some Rock Band in the immediate future.
Moblog. I’m working on a version of this blog for the iPhone/iPod Touch — one that will fill the screen nicely so you don’t have to zoom around like mad to make things quasi-readable. I’ll probably release the Wordpress theme as a free download, too.
Videoblog. I’m working on the first videoblog, and it’s coming along. Hopefully finished this weekend. I need ideas from you guys for topics on upcoming blogs — what sorts of stuff do you want to see?
04/28
The novel is still in the outlining/gestating period of things. Last week, while driving to work in the rain, I wish some evil upon the more tentative (”wussy”) drivers out there. Those wishes were not fulfilled, but they did lead to the idea of an interesting environment. I filed it under “Neat Place to Set a Sci-Fi Novel”…and did nothing more with it until Sunday. I realized that it will work into the currently book quite nicely, and be even more useful if/when I write follow-up pieces.
On the bike side of the equation, I already went ahead and blew my entire next bike shop paycheck on parts for the commuter rig, which is getting close to done. Acquired: Shimano XT rear derailleur (the cool “Shadow” model), bottom bracket, crankset, chainring (42-tooth), fenders, and a few other minor items.
On order: handlebar, bashguard, and some other cheap part I can’t remember.
Still remaining: wheelset, STI 9-speed shifter, front brake cable hanger (using cantilevers), brake calipers (front and rear), and then I have a ridable bike. To make it commuter worthy, I’ll still need to get panniers,
Can’t wait to have this done and start commuting.
04/8
So I got asked the following questions by Christopher Hawley:
1) Your take on the Olympics, the venue, and whether bicycling is adequately represented in the official events
2) optimism/realism/cynicism/pessimism: where do you see yourself on this spectrum? Is there another position which you would prefer to find yourself?
3) perversity of the universe, and why it tends to a maximal value (possibly one of Niven’s Laws, but ICBA to check): any personal anecdotes or insights?
[Here’s a starting topic: Why are people who are most hard of hearing the most likely to unplug the phone ‘because its ringing would disturb my sleep’?]
Well, let’s go through these one at a time.
First, the Olympics and cycling’s place in it. The venue? I’m fine with the games being hosted in China. Sure, they’ve got some human rights issues that they need to work out, but as a whole, I’m fine with the games being hosted there. That said, however, I feel bad for any endurance athlete that has to compete in Beijing’s air pollution. Read the rest of this entry »
04/5
Photo courtesy of dunechaser. Licensed under the Creative Commons.
Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., and I wrote nothing in here about it. From that, you could infer that this factoid is meaningless to me. That inference would be wrong, despite my being born four years (and change) after his death.
I could go on and on about how the world is a much better place for his having been here, and how much poorer we are since his passing, but that would be just repeating the words of others. There’s not much I could say that would add value to the conversation.
Leaders like Dr. King are a rarity. Using only the power of rhetoric, they can make you sit up and take notice of a situation that’s wrong, despite hundreds of years as a practice. They can create change by the force of those words and their willpower. And they can make the world a better place, simply by manipulating the language that binds all of us together and forming it into a mirror that forces us to see ourselves and the world around us not only as we are, but as we should be.
And as a writer, that’s something that inspires the hell out of me.
03/28
sr d writes:
even though you are in a bit of a economic slump, you have continued to focus on buying a house, SOON. why is that? does owning your own home have some special significance? do you think that it is the best thing to protect your personal economy?thank you for your answer.
And it’s a great question, even if the “you” definition of economic slump could be applied to me as an individual, or the United States as a whole.
I’m not sure where sr d hails from, but here in the States, there are extremely good tax benefits for owning a home. Furthermore, I’m throwing away $600+ a month in rent for a one-bedroom apartment. Why not invest that money in a house and reap the tax benefits?
As for the economic slump part, I’m going to answer that in two parts: personally and nationally. Read the rest of this entry »
03/27
Every so often, I’m going to post “Circling Back” entries where I revisit things I previously posted about. This is the first in those entries, revisiting things both “cycling” and “writing”…
Earlier, I posted about Stephen King’s On Writing, which is a great piece. Over at Write to Done, they’ve got a great piece about King and the most important lesson he wants to convey to writers. It’s targeted at the younger writer, but the quote is just as relevant to anyone who’s putting ink to paper: Read the rest of this entry »
03/27
I’m stealing an idea from John Scalzi, one of my favorite writers/bloggers out there. That idea is the “user dictated writing”… You, my (few) readers, get to spew forth ideas for me to write about. Seriously, it doesn’t have to be about writing, and it doesn’t have to be about cycling. Anything. Any topic.
Challenge me, dammit.
Dan Bailey