Author: kelson

Vacation: Week 1

Long story short, alenxa needed to use up some vacation time, fast, so we ended up taking two weeks at the end of March.  Unfortunately, we didn’t realize until later that our tickets for Wicked were smack in the middle (tonight, to be precise), which meant no two-week trip because I didn’t want to go through the hassle of trying to exchange the tickets.

We’ll be going to Las Vegas next week.  This week was mostly hanging around, not having to go to work.

Saturday: Helped andrea_wot move into her new apartment.  Later drank my annual Murphy’s Stout in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

Sunday: I went to Wizard World LA.  My con report got linked on The Beat.

Monday-Wednesday: Expeditions to Halloween Club (Katie’s planning a new costume for Comic-Con) and Fry’s (new video card).  Hooked up the spare monitor my brother gave us when he moved to Florida.  Discovered our current switch setup couldn’t handle more than 1024×768 without serious ghosting.  Back to Fry’s for a new switch. Watched several more episodes of Battlestar Galactica season one.  Invented a drink: 1 shot mango rum, splash of orange liqueur, fill the rest of the way with 1 part pineapple juice, 1 part cream soda, leaving room for a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

5 Minute Wait!Thursday: Disneyland — for the first time in maybe 5 years.  There are definite advantages to visiting in the off-season, during a weekday… like the 5-minute wait for Pirates of the Caribbean.  Thankfully, the changes to align it with the movies were minimally invasive, and the last view of Jack Sparrow demonstrates some seriously impressive motion capture.  Some other nice updates to Haunted Mansion and Jungle Cruise.  The new “wildest ride in the wilderness!” recording at Big Thunder Mountain, however, is a travesty.  Splash Mountain and the train were closed.  They seem to be piratifying Tom Sawyer’s island.  Pirates, Indy and Big Thunder kept breaking down, but we still managed to hit all three (some of them twice).  It was odd to see fruit carts all over the place.  It’s actually possible to eat mostly healthy food at Disneyland now.  Finished off the day with dinner at the Blue Bayou.

Friday: Took the car in in preparation for the road trip.  Then spent the rest of the day hanging out at home.  I mostly worked on my website, while Katie mostly tried out new games.

Now I’m looking at the pre-trip to-do list, trying to figure out how I’m going to get everything done in the next two days and go up to LA tonight and get together with friends tomorrow.  (And yes, “post to LiveJournal” is on the list.  One item to cross off!)

Leading up to Sunday

Spent Thursday and Friday at home, sick. What started as a “mild cold” ramped up to a more moderate cold-like thing, which refused to disappear after 2.5 weeks. So, stayed home, went to doctor, got prescribed stuff. Spent two days alternately sleeping and lying on the couch reading, chugging water and juice (I went through two bottles of Trader Joe’s pineapple juice in two days), checking my temperature and taking tons of medication. Since I gave up my lunch hour to resolve the near-disaster on Wednesday, that means I still haven’t taken care of the errands I was planning to do in the middle of the week.

Half the office has been out over the last week or so, probably with the same thing. When I emailed in sick on Friday, my boss wrote back a note along the lines of, “you should hear the people who *did* come in!”

Meanwhile, UCI Drama’s doing a production of Sunday in the Park With George, one of my favorite plays. Reprise Theater also did a production last month, and I considered going to both… until I found out the cheap seats at Reprise were $70, and I could get tickets to UCI’s production for $14. So back in January, I bought tickets for Saturday night.

Amazingly enough, I managed to keep the coughing under control until we walked out of the theater after the show. (Which was quite good, though they made some really odd choices for “Putting it Together.” Everyone was dressed in some costume from an iconic 80s movie, and instead of propping up cardboard stand-ups of himself in all the different conversations, George removes an article of clothing and leaves it with each one. And it was kind of unnerving that they managed to cast leads with similar vocal qualities to Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters. They had distinct voices, but especially in Act 2, as Marie, the actress could have been channeling her.)

OK, I’ve finished my tea. Time for bed.

Current Music: Putting It Together (in head)

Believing Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

…or at least two contradictory things.

This morning I kept reminding myself to make sure I had my key card so I could get into the building, since it was closed for President’s Day. (The biggest space in the building is used by a bank.)

I also decided I didn’t need to pack a lunch, since I had to go out anyway to pick up a roll of quarters at the bank.

I didn’t connect these two things until I walked into the building lobby.

Current Mood: 😴sleepy

The old year passes

Friday, Dec. 22. Finishing key stuff at work before leaving on vacation. alenxa  had the day off, but was sick. Dinner with maldis , andrea-wot , and zehntaur at Koji’s (shabu-shabu). Service was surprisingly terrible, but the company was great.

Saturday, Dec. 23. Shopping, by myself. Hit the Block, Main Place, and (briefly) the Borders at South Coast. Much weirdness.

Sunday, Dec. 24. Katie was well enough that we both went shopping. Finished up at South Coast. Which actually wasn’t bad for the first few hours. We got their around 11:00-11:30, parked less than 100 feet from a mall entrance, and the crowds were light. We ran into some former classmates at Williams Sonoma (well, Katie did — I was dealing with the cashier), then went across to the former Crystal Court to hit a couple of stores. Had lunch, hits a few more stores, came back to the main section of the mall…which had gone insane in the two hours we’d been gone. Left around 4:00 and spent the evening wrapping presents while Katie baked.

Monday, Dec. 25. Christmas. Went to my parents first for lunch, then we all drove down to visit my grandparents in Temecula. Ended up getting lots of pictures of my aunt’s dogs as they explored the back yard. Dinner was late due to an inaccurate or simply misprinted recipe that indicated a cooking time for the roast about two hours shorter than necessary, but on the plus side, leaving late meant there was practically no traffic except for the mile or two leading up to the 15/91 interchange in Corona.

Tuesday, Dec. 26. Dropped Katie off at work, then spent the day on a mix of Internet, running errands, and doing laundry. After work, went down to Laguna Hills Mall so I could pick up my tux and Katie could look for some of the last-minute checklist items for maldis  and kayshabeast ‘s wedding. Had dinner at an Italian restaurant in the area called Scarantino’s.

Wednesday, Dec. 27. Drove into LA for the wedding. I’ve done this trip in ~40 minutes in good traffic, but allowed 2 hours because traffic is rarely good. Remembered a time in high school when the Literary Club went to see a matinée of Les Miserables at the Pantages. In the middle of the week. Leaving at lunchtime. On the Wednesday after Christmas. And despite allowing 2 hours, ended up at our seats literally as the opening fanfare began. Realized this didn’t bode well. As it turned out, everything was clear and fast up until we hit the 91, at which point it dropped down to stop-n-go. Arrived at the Bonaventure at 3:00, just in time for check-in, and managed to drop stuff in our room, then get back down to the lobby.  Wandered around trying to figure out which part of the lobby we were supposed to wait in, briefly met Sean, Nicola, Chris and H’Sien, ended up waiting for the second round of the “shuttle” and made it to the rehearsal around 4.  The rehearsal, dinner, and after-dinner get-together could probably fill its own post (and besides, 2/3 of the people reading this were there).

Thursday, Dec. 28.  Breakfast downstairs in the hotel.  Katie went off for the bridesmaids/groomsmaids hair+make-up session.  I hopped on the Internet to check some work-related stuff, then walked around downtown LA sightseeing.  I’ve never just spent time in the area.  It’s always been a place to go for events.  Drive in to see a play, drive out.  Drive in to visit a museum, drive out.  Got a little nervous when I realized I was walking around a major US city taking photos of buildings, but no security guards with too much time on their hands told me to stop.  Grabbed lunch at a deli, sat down and was asked for change as I was unwrapping my sandwich.  Decided to take it back to my hotel and eat it there.  Went over to the groomsmen call, and we’re again into wedding territory.  The wedding went very well, and again, I’ll jot stuff down in its own post.  Too tired to go to the post-reception party at the hotel, though.

This way to weird LA photos…

Friday, Dec. 29.  Slept in a bit.  Packed.  Went downstairs for a light breakfast, then went back to grab luggage and check out.  Stopped on the way back to have lunch with alenxa’s parents.  Got home earlier than expected, so we stopped at home to unload the car.  Katie took a nap (she’d started coming down with a cold the night before).  Went out to return the tux, then went to Katie’s cousin’s for a semi-Christmas dinner.

Saturday, Dec. 30.  Mostly errands and stuff.  Finally put away the sea of wrapping paper and ribbons left over from Sunday and Tuesday.

Sunday, Dec. 31.  More random stuff.  Watched the Claymation Christmas Special from the 1980s, which I had tracked down on DVD earlier in the year mainly to show Katie the “We Three Kings” sequence.  (The three kings are camped in the desert, singing each verse solemnly, and then the camels jump in with an upbeat version of the chorus.  After a while, the kings start glancing warily at the camels as they near the end of a verse.  The whole show has a sort of off-beat humorous tone to it.)  Picked up work on my website after several weeks’ break.  Katie baked brownies, and we went over to my parents’ annual New Year’s Eve party.  At one point, someone dragged out a tape of Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind, a 1980 parody of Close Encounters done in the form of an extended trailer.  It still holds up, and is funny enough on its own terms, even if (like me) you don’t remember much about the original film.

Monday, Jan. 1.   Lunch & coffee with wayens.  (Though, come to think of it, I’m not sure any of us had actual coffee.)  More errands (mostly stuff I forgot to get the day before). Watched a pair of Justice League episodes. Really got back to the Flash site.  Intended to go to bed early, but ended up staying up late again.

Weirdness of Xmas Shopping

Heh, forgot I’d started this post over a week ago…

Shopping, two days before Christmas.

Heard a dance mix of “The Christmas Song” (yes, the one about chestnuts roasting on an open fire).

Saw a “Sci-Fi” display in Borders that consisted entirely of incarnations of Firefly – the TV show DVDs, the Serenity DVD, and the graphic novel.

Saw a kid wearing a T-shirt proclaiming, “I’m allergic to my brother.”

Heard (on Indie 103.1, not in the mall) songs proclaiming “*bleep* no, there’s no Santa Claus!” and “Father Christmas, give us some money.”

Asked about a book at Borders. The clerk looked it up, they were out of stock, but he offered to call another store and have them hold the book for me. Five hours later, when I got to the front of the line at the other Borders, the clerk I ended up with (one of four on duty at the time) said she had been the one on the other end of the phone.

Weekend movies

Friday at my parents to celebrate my brother’s birthday.

Saturday mostly shopping. Saw The Fountain. Very good. Be warned: you have to think.

Sunday, wanted to relax & catch up on stuff like my website (neglected this last month due to Nanowrimo). Ended up not wanting to do much of anything. Watched a couple episodes of Justice League. Read the second volume of the Read or Die manga (so far I prefer the anime version, which is a bit ironic considering that it’s all about books). When I thought about picking up The Bard’s Tale again, I realized my problem was that I did not want to sit in front of the computer! Watched The Ghost of Frankenstein. Campy. Brain transplants! Finished up the weekend with House of Sand and Fog. Very good. Also very depressing.

Finished!

Official NaNoWriMo 2006 WinnerAbout 15 minutes before Veronica Mars, I finished a scene and checked my word count. It was 50,145. A few days ago, when I checked the offset between OpenOffice’s word counter and NaNoWriMo’s word counter, I calculated that it would be about 144 words off at 50K. I figured, what the heck. I saved it to a text file, scrambled the letters as directed, and uploaded it.

50,000 exactly. I have officially completed National Novel Writing Month.

I have no illusions as to the quality of those 50,000 words. But it’s only a first draft. I’ve never written a first draft of a novel before, so that’s pretty cool!

The main things I’ve learned are:

  1. I actually can sit down with no idea of what I’m going to write and come up with characters and a story.
  2. Discussing writing issues with another writer (i.e. alenxa), even in vague terms, can help solve problems and crystallize ideas.
  3. When I really get going, I can write about 800 words an hour (at least on the computer)
  4. I can actually sustain a story over ~110 pages.
  5. I need to do a lot more research on medieval Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and snow.
  6. Writing follows a bell curve: it’s hard to come up with ideas when you’re starting out, gets easier in the middle as you start running with things, and when you get near the end, it’s hard to pull everything together and wrap it up. (added)

Next step: sleep. After that, start revising, and figure out how soon I’m willing to let beta readers see it.

Current Mood: 😴tired

Quote of the Day

Me: Oh, that’s too many syllables for this character!
Katie: What are you trying to replace?
Me: Sanctimonious.

By writing like a madman over the Thanksgiving weekend, I’ve managed to get ahead of the goal, and complete a 47,000-word novel. Unfortunately I need a 50,000-word novel, so I’m going back and looking for things that I glossed over the first time through. There are a couple of spots where I knew I needed more scenes to show character changes, so that’s where I’m going to be focusing.

Still, I’ve got three evenings to write 3,000 words and be done by the 28th, with Thursday as a safety valve. But given the occasional outages at the Nanowrimo website this weekend, I don’t want to take any chances.

Word Count: 47037

Current Mood: accomplished