Family2024-03-28T17:39:17Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/categories/family/D. MoonfireCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 InternationalThese Last Few Months2023-11-20T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2023/11/20/these-last-few-months/A lot has been going on in the last few months, much of which has been radio silence for me as I fixated on getting everything moving as smoothly as I can before things crumbled.
<p>In the last month, I have been in one of those periods of time when I'm not very communicative online or posting at all. Usually, this is because I shut down when I'm focusing on something that is driving my anxiety and the only way I know to handle it is to fixate until it gets resolved.</p>
<p>Overall, a lot has happened and this is a little retrospective of my last month.</p>
<h2>Disposition</h2>
<p>As I <a href="/blog/2023/08/21/kenneth-evans-jr/">posted in August</a>, my dad died of heart complications. As much as he and I <a href="/garden/exit-planning/">talked about the end</a>, there is a stark difference between preparing for ones death and being one of the people who has to pick up the pieces. My younger brother had to take on the majority of the burden, but I still have my share.</p>
<p>This last week, I was in Michigan to help take apart my dad's house. It was a daunting task, but I was able to help in something I'm good at: processing large amounts of data. In this case, it was going through forty years of accumulated notes, which I <a href="https://octodon.social/@dmoonfire/111411977974056290">posted about on Octodon</a> while I was going through it. There was a lot more than that, but it was a good slice of interesting things to find in his notes.</p>
<p>Along the way, I'm also getting a sizable hunk of furniture and the random debris that I could find useful along with a number of things that invoked an emotional response or memory (like his fusion reactor or the particle accelerator diagrams).</p>
<h2>Cleanup</h2>
<p>Which led to the two weeks before when I frantically cleaned up the flood damage and everything that happened in the <a href="/tags/entanglement-2021/">entanglement</a>, my three years of bad luck. Things like dragging the water-damaged bookcases up, throwing out ruined stuff, and cleaning out the accumulated things that were shoved into any available space just to get them out of the way of danger.</p>
<p>That was a lot of work and I think I pushed myself well past my limits since I hit a point in the middle of moving and my right shoulder just gave up with a sharp pain. I've been treating it gingerly for a few days now but it is going to take at least a few weeks before I can pick up anything heavy with my right arm.</p>
<p>Fortunately, we were able to rent a dumpster again this year and filled it with everything, so I had a lot less clutter. Plus, with some money from the estate, I was able to get some shelves and organize it.</p>
<p>I was also able to finally take out the last hunks of wood and find out the full scope of the mold growing on the drywall. It wasn't pretty, but it only bad on about a dozen 4x8 sheets instead of twenty.</p>
<h2>Laundry</h2>
<p>As my luck goes, the week I got the money was also the week that the clothes washer died completely. So, a portion of that went into replacing it, the dryer that was on its last legs, and the microwave that died in 2021. Two of them got installed last week and I'm <em>hoping</em> (but don't expect) that the washer will get in this week.</p>
<h2>Cracked Pipe</h2>
<p>Back in <a href="/blog/2021/12/18/basement-bathroom/">December 2021</a>, I found out I had a cracked pipe in the foundation. With funding (and things like someone stealing $12k from me), I couldn't do much because of everything else going on. But with the money I got, I was able to have the plumber jackhammer the floor, find the broken pipe, and repair it. And, in his words, “there were all types of things wrong with it” including the entire bottom half of the joint being broken off and it dumping a good portion of every dishwasher run into the the slab.</p>
<p>While the plumbers were cleaning up, the hydraulic that automatically closes the door between the garage and the house tore itself out of the side along with a large fist-size hunk of wood and pulled out of the steel door too. So, that is going to be something I'll have to replace at some point.</p>
<p>As things go, this was a major drain of my attention because it was always there underneath my feet, another flood waiting to happen without warning.</p>
<h2>Cleaning</h2>
<p>While I was gone, Partner went on a cleaning binge so I came home to a clean house. That was nice. And we finally figured out what to do with the closet doors that have been breaking since 2020 and we decided to take them out entirely and it looks much better now.</p>
<p>We're also going to put a rug on the ruined carpet until we can tear that out… later.</p>
<h2>The Pause</h2>
<p>Now I'm in a brief pause where I have immediate deadlines. My brother got me a Pod with my stuff from dad's house, so I have to finish repairing the basement by May when it shows up. I already have the bulk of the basement shuffled into one room, and I have a clear set of tasks that have to be done before that:</p>
<ul>
<li>Replace the bathroom that got demolished by repairing the cracked pipe.</li>
<li>Replace the rotted drywall (and maybe run some conduit to key rooms).</li>
<li>Replace the flooring with something other than naked concrete.</li>
</ul>
<p>Oh, and take it easy for a few days before something else time sensitive hits me. Maybe play a few videos games, watching some movies, and just… not do anything.</p>
<h2>Luck</h2>
<p>I'd like to say my entanglement is over, but it is still tracking at something relatively significant about every three weeks (maybe about once four weeks now). We are in year three right now, but this year, I've lost both parents, a dog, significantly damaged my leg and sciatic nerve, had to do a major repair to my car, and a whole slew of other things.</p>
<p>Using my dad's estate money helps with repairing and recovering from the last three years. I can't say how grateful I am that it came when it did, but I'm really hoping this is a sign that things are looking up (you know, except for losing my dad).</p>
<h2>Work</h2>
<p>Work has also been hitting me pretty hard. Not much to say about that, since I don't really give details about what I do, but we have quarterly releases and the end of February, May, August, and November are always rough times. Hopefully I'm near the end of that since we're past code cut-off and working toward QA cut-off.</p>
<h2>Moving Forward</h2>
<p>The thing is, I usually have good luck, so the only thing I can do is the same thing I always do when it comes to these things:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just keep swimming. - Dory, <em>Finding Nemo</em></p>
</blockquote>
The passing of Kenneth Evans Jr.2023-08-21T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2023/08/21/kenneth-evans-jr/On July 30, my dad died.
<p>On July 30, my dad died.</p>
<p>It wasn't exactly like I didn't know it was coming. He had been going downhill in the last year and COVID didn't do him any favors. He had a number of heart attacks over the decades including a quadruple bypass that he outlived the repair and had to have it done again.</p>
<p>But, knowing it was happening and having it happen are sometimes two different things. For some of us more than others.</p>
<p>I don't know if I have a lot to say about heading over to Michigan to help my brother with getting a memorial prepared, or going through his house realizing I won't see him again, or even seeing family I haven't seen since the last time someone died. It was just a sad conclusion to a novel that has lasted my entire life.</p>
<p>I wouldn't say unsatisfactory though. He was an amazing person. I know a lot of folks would say that about their parents, but a lot would also not. As a kid, I got to say my dad designed nuclear reactors or worked on particle accelerators. I got to see his pictures and photos win awards after seeing them being created before my eyes. He built the family cabin with his father and rode almost every trail in northern Wisconsin. He did so many things in so many fields.</p>
<p>And I'm a product of that. My variety of interests comes from him (and my mom, let's be honest). I'm a son of a scientist and of an artist. The differences were superficial in some regard and infinite large in others.</p>
<p>He is the man would gave me the first nod of approval when I picked up enough C and ANSI color codes in a single day to start coding on my own. I was six and I still can't forget that sound of wonder as I'm trying to get my name to line up in cyan on the page.</p>
<p>He gave me another nod of approval when I excitedly told him I was first published. He wouldn't review it, because no parent should review their children (I also suspect it was because of the content). But he encouraged me to keep writing, even when I “statistically should be selling more” and “I wasn't as bad as some of the other books in the story bundles.”</p>
<p>He didn't really know how to say “I love you” but he tried. It came in lectured and advice. When Partner got lost in the woods one time, he sent them maps the next day with suggestions. When I needed to figure out a math problem, he taught me basic trig even though I was in second grade. He never expected me to be anything other than the best I could.</p>
<p>I inherited that struggle to express emotions. I know how to fake them, but I don't really know how to experience them. His death hit me hard, but I didn't realize it until I was taking control of his <a href="https://github.com/KennethEvans">GitHub repositories</a>, <a href="https://kenevans.net/">website</a>, and his <a href="http://kennethevans.github.io/">software</a> and copying files off his drive. That was the point I started really crying, knowing that he wouldn't be calling me to ask for help with a merge conflict or showing off a new tool he wrote to help manage his heart.</p>
<p>In the end, he made sure we knew that he loved talking to my children and that he was proud of us. He was apologetic for dying in the same year as our mother and was struggling to make sure my brother knew the password to his BitWarden before he passed.</p>
<p>My dad is the inspiration for my <a href="/garden/exit-planning/">exit planning</a>. He was one of the most well-organized people I knew, even when it came to planning out his death. He had his paperwork gather together, his notes distributed and an archived drive with (almost) everything we needed.</p>
<p>He didn't leave many intentions behind. One of them is to publish his memoirs in print. Being that I own a publishing company, we always intended to clean it up and get it ready. I'm going to do that probably in the next few months, with a goal of having a print version by the end of the year.</p>
<p>I'm also going to go through his repositories and add a banner to the read me files to say they are no longer being maintained and making sure they have good licenses (if he didn't already).</p>
<p>At the moment, I'm not okay. I will be, but not right now.</p>
<p>One thing I'm so thankful for: he left the world on his own terms. He's told us everything he could and now it is up to us to do what we will with that.</p>
Things Moving Forward2023-05-01T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2023/05/01/status/The last two weeks have been a lot more relaxed than the previous ones. I got things done and life is settling down, which is nice. Plus I had a really good week with the family.
<p>I found that sometimes <a href="/blog/2023/04/15/obligations/">listing what is bothering me</a> lets me concentrate on easing those roadblocks. As such, my obligations post helped a lot with getting things done or at least letting me get a better handle on it.</p>
<ul>
<li>Work has eased up a little, but mostly I'm accepting what is changed (baring getting frustrated in an end-of-day Friday meeting). I also have a longer term plan to handle that, so I have plans which helps with my anxiety.</li>
<li>I went through two rounds of formatting Randy's book. Once I get the updated cover and make changes, I'll have the proof out by end of May.</li>
<li>I caught on my monthly writing obligations. Since May just started, that means another 10k words is thrown on the stack, but at least I'm not in arrears.</li>
<li>Rewrote a couple chapters of the commission to get over my roadblock. This was a case that my gut feeling said what I had was wrong, it just took me a while to figure out “what” was wrong so I could fix it.</li>
</ul>
<p>Related to that, I also set up a <a href="/now/">now</a> page on my site. It is hooked up to a different repository (no surprise there) which is easily editable on my phone using <a href="https://gitjournal.io/">Git Journal</a>. That way, I can add and remove things as I need and it gives me a little bit of self-accountability.</p>
<h2>Household</h2>
<p>On the household side, there were also a lot of ups and down.</p>
<p>I was missing a piece to put the trampoline up for Child.1. Sadly, Sports Power has terrible customer service and I couldn't find a replacement except on eBay. After a week of waiting for it to show up, I found that they sent me the wrong kit. So now I'm waiting for them to find out what happened and hopefully give me the correct pieces to fix the trampoline. Otherwise, I'm not sure how to fix it.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I finally got a set of grinding wheels to repair the damage from the tiling. But when I got it down on my in-laws, I couldn't find the Dremel to use said wheels. So now I'm looking for that with no idea where it is.</p>
<p>Going home, I decided to fix the kitchen light because the ballast went out. I got LED replacement bulbs, but then I needed just a little length of wire. But my tools were down at my in-laws so I got stymied. Fortunately, when the kids came home, they brought it back and I spent a half hour getting the lights working again. So at least one out of three isn't bad?</p>
<h2>Allegro</h2>
<p>Outside of that, sending <a href="https://fedran.com/allegro/">Allegro</a> through the writing group has been encouraging. It is nice when everyone says its fantastic, they read through it, or forgot to edit. At least for the ego. They also give feedback and requests. Some I can't really do but there are others that I follow my basic rule:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One person is an opinion. Two is a suggestion. Twelve means it's wrong.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Related to that, someone I didn't know (always important) started to read the novel after reading about it on Gemini and gave feedback. Much of it has been very useful plus I found a bug with Fedran's generation. More specifically, the Git repositories linked to the individual stories are not automatically made public. Once I get back to the maintenance CLI for Fedran, that will be the first thing I change.</p>
<p>I'm really hoping to work on my other obligations because I've been feeling the urge to write in <a href="https://fedran.com/">Fedran</a> again and that's a nice feeling.</p>
<h2>Git and Spam</h2>
<p>That does lead into what to do about my Git repositories. I have lot of them (couple hundred) because I do one Git repository per story. But my <a href="https://src.mfgames.com/">personal Gitea instance</a> hasn't had a lot of traction or feedback. 99% of the registrations are spam (innocent until proven guilty) and, so far, 100% of the comments and issues are spam. The temptation to just turn off public registration is fairly high, but I want to give the opportunity to post issues there instead of email if someone wants.</p>
<p>(That said, if you want to make any suggestion about anything I do, please don't hesitate. Feedback is feedback and it doesn't matter if you think you are “good enough”. You having trouble is enough for me to look at it and see if there is something that can changed. I also make a <em>ton</em> of trivial typos and can't see them until they are pointed out to me.)</p>
<p>Automated spam is also why I don't have comments on my site. For a long time, I was getting about one good comment every five years and a few a day that were spam. It was worse when this site was on WordPress, less so with Discuss. Even when I put in a bot filter, it wouldn't relent and I spent most of my time shoveling crap off my site than doing anything useful.</p>
<p>The other problem with the Gitea is the “Yet Another Account” that I understand. I don't have a good answer to that one either, but I hate the idea of needing to create an account just to report a typo. I would, but I can't expect others to do that for me.</p>
<p>There is something about the allure of <a href="https://sourcehut.org/">SourceHut's</a> focus on email patches that I really like. The email infrastructure is not a bad one. At least that wouldn't require “just another account” because it would be just sending emails to a mailing list. There are other things that could benefit, like “email to comment” that I've seen. SourceHut would have also been my first choice if it wasn't for some initial feedback that soured me on it (telling me that “http access to a Git repository is stupid” is not a good way to respond to feedback to anyone. I don't like being told I was stupid when, even after trying rather hard to be SSH-only, I still find I need the occasional HTTPS access).</p>
<p>I'm not sure of the answer, to be honest. Switching to SourceHut would be a major undertaking to say the least, mainly because I'm still in the middle of the GitLab/GitHub to Gitea migration. But it is food for thought as is considering an email-based way of allowing comments again, if that ends up being something of interest.</p>
<h2>Family</h2>
<p>This last week has been a relatively fun time with the family.</p>
<p>Child.0 and I finished working on a LEGO Technic kit, the Pangigale V4 R1 (#42107). That bugger has over two hundred steps. And, despite being a LEGO fan for decades, was my first real Technic kit ever. It took us about a month to build since we do a few steps, we talk about videos like <em>Murder Drones</em> or anime, and just be together.</p>
<p>In the other hours, Child.1 had their birthday and we went to see <em>The Super Mario Bros. Movie</em>. That was a very well paced and entertaining movie. While I'm biased toward any Mario movie, it was nice to see the continuation of the threesome relationship between Peach, Bowser, and Mario. For some reason, that has been my allure and the trailers for <em>Paper Mario</em> (Bowser wanted to make sure Peach had enough to read and was comfortable) and the end of one of the more recent games (after the interrupted wedding, Peach playfully left both Bowser and Mario behind to chase after her) really shifted my perceptions as them being in a fairly stable, though competitive, relationship. I don't care if that is true or not, it's just nice to enjoy the fantasy.</p>
<p>Speaking of romance, Partner and I ended up having another parent's night when the kids went to their grandparents. This time, instead of saying in and watching movies and having steak, we decided to see the <em>Dungeons and Dragons</em> movie and go to a sit down restaurant. It was a real date night and it was… very nice. It's been a long time since we tossed the phones aside and just held hands.</p>
<p>May is our anniversary month. On the 13th, we will have been married twenty-three years. We've been together about twenty-six or seven years, not entirely sure on that one.</p>
Obligations Hanging Over Me2023-04-15T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2023/04/15/obligations/It has been a busy month with many obligations intruding in my life.
<p>It's been a rather busy month since I last posted. Like most good plots, the plans I had for the month have not survived contact with the enemy. This will be the not entirely happy post for some of it, but there are good parts at the end.</p>
<h2>Work Obligations</h2>
<p>I took two weeks off from work to try to decompress but the massive project that was being rammed through meant I had to work way too hard before going on vacation. The end result was two weeks of burnout, sickness, and basically crashing harder than I have in a long time.</p>
<p>Coming back was just more of the same, just slightly less frantic. I've been calling them “meeting trains” where I end up getting pulled into two to six hours of back-to-back meetings with no break between each one. I've always struggled with carving out time for myself, which isn't helping but it starts at 08:30 CT and frequently goes until my lunch at noon.</p>
<p>I don't know what to do, because it isn't a simple “just assert yourself” type of answer. I'm working on it, thankfully I have a fairly good support network but it still feels like I'm “quietly quitting” (e.g., not having meetings for eight hours and trying to frantically work the other four to keep up with other obligations).</p>
<h2>Writing Obligations</h2>
<p>I have two current writing obligations: my monthly submission of 8-10k words that has to be done and a commission I took on so I could try getting a little more money. The commission is a 60k word novel, but like all commissions, I can't really share it with anyone which means I write it, and then it goes away forever.</p>
<p>My original plan was to blast through at least the monthly and get a sizable dent in the commission. That didn't happen and I had to end March with an apology that I wasn't even remotely close. Since then, I've managed to get the 10k words for March and about a quarter of the April obligation done.</p>
<p>The commission is at 10k words, but I ended up deviating from the plot because I couldn't get into it unless I rub some of my own favorite plots into it. So, even though I'm 10k words in, I honestly don't think I can say I can charge them for that; but even so, still have 50k words to the <em>minimum</em> of that commission. Thankfully, I have a few months for that, I just have to keep showing reasonable progress from month-to-month on that.</p>
<h2>Publishing Obligations</h2>
<p>I publish book for Typewriter Press. It isn't much, just me and some writing friends for the most part. In some regards, I'm just formatting ebooks and print while others I manage sales (but not marketing).</p>
<p><a href="https://randyroeder.com/">Randy Roeder</a> is in the process of publishing his third book and I've been working to make it as good as I can. For the most part, I have this down to a fairly simple pipeline but it still takes time.</p>
<h2>Service Obligations</h2>
<p>This is a harder one. Over the years, I stumble into helping people and I have a tendency to keep doing it because it is the right thing to do. Right now, there are two of them.</p>
<p>A local wine store that had their website infected with viruses and I rebuilt in WordPress right before Covid struck. I don't do much other than make sure their website has a backup, occasionally download it to give it a second location, and patch their custom WordPress plugins to do the fancy things they wanted. Despite the fact I really don't enjoy coding WordPress anymore, I still do it because the owner is also only person I've volunteered to help that actually pays me on occasion, which is nice.</p>
<p>The other is a forum that I helped saved twenty-something years ago. I've helped the owner save a couple thousand dollars a month and been doing maintenance every six months or two. Unfortunately, he died and left a mess. A large mess that his widow couldn't handle, so I ended up helping her by being the technical support for his end-of-life but also separating the forum from her so it could stand on her own.</p>
<p>That also meant that I went from only checking on the software every few months to the new owners needing constant attention. Partner says I should stop, so I'm working to walking away from that but… they need help and I struggle to say no.</p>
<h2>Personal Obligations</h2>
<p>Mentally and emotionally, I've been spiraling for months. I really need to do something about that, but it feels like I'm treading water at this point for so long that not much feels like “fun” anymore.</p>
<p>A bunch of that was my <a href="/tags/entanglement-2021/">entanglement</a> that has haunted me since October 2021. At the beginning of March, I thought we were over it, but then Partner comes in with an announcement that the bumper to the minivan fell off. Fortunately, I had a bonus which paid for that so it felt like things were getting better.</p>
<p>Then we had a short ice storm. I thought the driveway was ice free, but I missed a patch while I was taking garbage out. One nasty slip and I smashed my right knee hard into the concrete. I've been in pain ever since so I honestly can't say things are better but I'm trying really hard <em>not</em> to notice the every three week pattern in hopes that it will finally resolve itself.</p>
<p>It's hard to explain the drain of having things go wrong so consistently. Using the water analogy, it is like swimming on a windy day. Every few seconds, the chop shoved you away from your destination and you have to push yourself to keep your head above the wave to avoid it. On the shallows, it isn't so bad, but as you are swimming, that extra effort starts to pull down on you.</p>
<h2>Writing Obligations (Redux)</h2>
<p>Because of the spiraling, Partner insisted I go back to the writing group. Writing is what makes me feel good, ideally writing about my topics instead of others, so I need to focus on doing something that isn't an obligation.</p>
<p>So, I started submitting <a href="https://fedran.com/allegro/">Allegro</a> to the <a href="https://noblepencr.org/">Noble Pen Writing Group</a> in Cedar Rapids. Feedback has been nicely positive, but I kind of feel like that is normal. But it is nice to be able to just <em>talk</em> about my plans for <a href="https://fedran.com/">Fedran</a> and hear that the group is much more receptive of <em>Allegro</em> than the other books, mainly because it isn't centered on trauma and abuse like <a href="https://fedran.com/sand-and-blood/">Sand and Blood</a> and its sequels.</p>
<p>Then again, <em>Sand and Blood</em> was “only” going to be a twenty thousand word short story to help develop the world while <a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/">Flight of the Scions</a> was being considered for publication (it didn't get accepted and <em>Sand and Blood</em> turned into almost two hundred thousand words over three novels).</p>
<p>I'm proud of my writing and going back has helped me want to start writing again. So, that is a good thing.</p>
<h2>Family Obligations</h2>
<p>Finally, there is family obligations. I'm working on my mother-in-law's bathroom to tile it. This is not one of my better skills, but it has taken a while since I had to take the end of 2022 off to deal with my hospital visits and then it was freezing outside, which is hard to do tile work. This weekend, I resumed working on it in hopes of getting it done within a month or so.</p>
<p>But the shining part of the last month was the kids. They have helped with my sanity with a newfound love for video games. Child.1 has been frequently asking to play games and my priority system says their request takes priority over almost everything, simply because I want to <em>be</em> there for them as they grow up.</p>
<p>At the moment, Child.0 is really into <a href="https://fireshinegames.co.uk/games/core-keeper/">Core Keeper</a> and <a href="https://www.minetest.net/">Minetest</a>. I'll admit, I'm a little frustrated with Minetest's limitations (see <a href="/blog/2023/02/07/package-management-introduction/">the packages thread</a> for details), but there is something to be said about the joy of seeing the newest house or underground base being built.</p>
<p>Child.1 has different interests. Mostly we are playing <a href="https://www.humblegames.com/games/wildfire/">Wildfire</a> and they enjoy setting everyone on fire. It is a <em>hard</em> game though and we are coming up to the limits of our combined skill levels but we are still trying. It is also fun just to set everything on fire and let it burn.</p>
<p>They also just got into <a href="https://www.spiderheck.com/">Spiderheck</a> which is much in the vein of <a href="https://landfall.se/stickfightthegame">Stick Fight: The Game</a>, <a href="https://landfall.se/rounds">Rounds</a>, and <a href="https://www.boomerangfu.com/">Boomerang Fu</a>. There is something to be said about fighting spiders with light sabers and plasma cannons.</p>
<h2>Next Steps</h2>
<p>I try to avoid negative posts in my blog. In this case, I'm trying to bring my foes out into the open so I can address them. It also lets friends and family know what is going on, but to explain the silence but also because it is hard to ask for empathy.</p>
<p>In the end, like everything else, it will pass. In other words, my favorite motivational quotes that is also one of the inspirations for <em>Sand and Blood</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Just keep swimming.” — Dory, <em>Finding Nemo</em></p>
</blockquote>
Sixteenth Anniversary2016-05-13T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2016/05/13/anniversary/Sixteen years ago, I stood in the middle of our living room and completely botched my wedding vows.<p>Sixteen years ago, I stood in my living room thinking about the movie <em>Hackers</em>. I was supposed to be paying attention to the pastor but he had quoted Corinthians which is also in the movie.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When I finally realized I was supposed to be paying attention, I managed to choke out a “I-I do.”</p>
<p>I've never been really good at that type of thing. I wasn't too graceful with the proposal either. It was drawn out over a year of me telling her “I'm going to ask you to marry you, I'm just too scared to ask.” It also ended with “I think I just asked you to marry me. Did I?”</p>
<p>When it comes to people, there aren't a lot who understand me. I have certain quirks and obsessions that would drive most people bonkers. I'm picky about certain things and (as a coworker once said) I'm rather “self-described.” I like to think it means I know what works for me, but it also means that I get wound up when my keys aren't in the right place or I spent two hours trying to find something that is right on top. I'm broken and functional.</p>
<p>And somehow she's remained with me all this time. Through the fights and the laughter. We didn't have children until eleven years after we got married (my parents may have thought we were never going to get around to it) and they were wonderful years. The years with EDM and BAM in our lives were just as amazing, just different. Different fights, save love.</p>
<p>We always talk about our fifty-year marriage. Fifty years and then we'll decide if we want to stay married. It was a compromise between me wanting to renew every decade (and to give her a chance to walk away if I got too annoying) and her desire for “you are with me until the day we both die”.</p>
<p>For sixteen years, we've said “forty nine to go. Forty eight. Forty seven” and now “thirty four.” Hard to believe that I've been with someone for sixteen years (and over twenty that we've been “more than friends”).</p>
<p>I'm pretty happy and lucky.</p>
<p>Sixteen years down.</p>
<p>Thirty four to go.</p>
MfGames Culture work, Reviews, and other plans2015-11-15T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2015/11/15/culture-reviews-plans/Among many other things, I've been working on a Javascript version of MfGames Culture and got something to show off.<p>So, lately I've been feeling pretty bad about not blogging about anything besides my weekly fantasy serial, <a href="https://sand-and-ash.fedran.com/">Sand and Ash</a>. But, I'm hitting some interesting points on a side project and wanted to take a break to talk about it.</p>
<h1>Priorities</h1>
<p>There are two topics I don't post a lot about here: work and family.</p>
<p>Work is, well, it is easier to keep my personal life separate from my professional one (though having a last name of Moonfire makes that difficult in general), but I usually don't do anything besides mention how much I'm working. I love my job, even with the occasional long hours and challenges, but I don't think this is the right place to talk about it.</p>
<p>Family is in the same boat. I have a family, they are important, but I don't think this is the venue for speaking about things besides high-level items. In this case, we've had plague slowly working its way through the household which makes it hard to find time to do something secondary like writing a post.</p>
<p>Which makes it difficult when I have a conflict of priorities. A long time ago, I had been sitting in a doctors office while paging through a Reader's Digest when I came up to an inspirational quote that stuck with me: You have time in your life for only three things.</p>
<p>Well, I have those three things: Family, Work, and Writing. Almost every single side project I have is writing something or writing programs to support my writing. However, those takes a side burner when work is getting overwhelming or there is plague.</p>
<h1>Reviews</h1>
<p>Like many readers and writers, I have a large “to read” stack of books. I also have a large “to review” since writing a review, be it good or bad, is the best way to support authors (well, and game writers too). A few weeks ago, I thought I'd work on my to review pile by writing one review a day.</p>
<p>Well, that didn't work.</p>
<p>After three weeks of trying, I wrote ten reviews (two, four, and four). Any more than four and I get burned out. So, it looks like I have a cap there. I don't know how well I'm doing, or if they are good reviews, but at least I'm writing and posting them.</p>
<p>I'm probably going to aim for a review a week, though, given how much time it takes. I'm not a great review writer, mainly because I probably focus on things that I want to get out of reviewers. Plus, I'm occasionally critical of stuff, including my friend's writing.</p>
<h1>MfGames Culture</h1>
<p>The biggest project I've worked on the last month or so is <a href="https://mfgames.com/mfgames-culture/">MfGames Culture</a>*. I started this on a lark because I wanted something “easy” (hah!) to write and finish, something that would give me a feeling of success to handle a low-level depression that has been haunting me.</p>
<p>* <em>Most of my libraries are prefixed with “MfGames” (Moonfire Games) because I don't like naming collisions.</em></p>
<p>The problem with <em>Culture</em> is that I'm <em>terrible at estimates</em>. Seriously, I am such an optimist about it that I've gotten written up about it at work. The problem is that I <em>can</em> do it in the time I want, I'm just scattered with family, work, and interruptions that it takes twenty times as long as it would otherwise.</p>
<p>But, that's the nature of my life.</p>
<h2>Programming</h2>
<p>I previously spent a month working on a C# version of <em>MfGames Culture</em> but I stalled out. This time, I decided to write a Typescript (Javascript) version to support <a href="/tags/author-intrusion/">Author Intrusion</a> since I'm working on a Javascript version of that. <em>Culture</em> has also been something that I've been meaning to write for a while.</p>
<p>My primary goals for the library are:</p>
<ul>
<li>To create an API for handling my fantasy calendars (which are not based on Gregorian).</li>
<li>To have the ability to sort every chapter in every novel or story in chronological order.</li>
<li>To create a time line of events in my world. Ideally, this would be one of those fancy HTML5 scrolling one but I'd be happy with a vertical list of every event that happened in the world.</li>
</ul>
<p>The long term goal is being able to automatically create a video that shows the events of my world when and where they are happening. I think this would be pretty cool.</p>
<h2>Fiddle!</h2>
<p>Now, the whole reason I wanted to post this blog post. I have an example that someone can play with, a <a href="https://mfgames.com/mfgames-culture/fiddle/">fiddle</a> that allows you to see the library actually in action.</p>
<p>What the fiddle lets you do is change the calendar and see the results in real time. So, if you decide that January is only 25 days, then change it and see the results.</p>
<p>There isn't a lot of documentation on it (see below), but I'm hoping to work on that.</p>
<p>This actually is the first time I've written a Javascript library from end to end, but it uses my data files and library to populate a culture and a calendar. I think it is pretty cool.</p>
<h2>Remaining Tasks</h2>
<p>In the C# version, I had two calendars for the <code>en-US</code> culture: the Gregorian calendar and the duodecimal (base-12) for hours and minutes. I still need to convert and merge that into the new system.</p>
<p>Since I decided to switch over to JSON for the source file, I also need to update the C# library to also handle that. At the moment, that code is bit-rotted because I think JSON ended up being a more generic file format for supporting both desk and web clients.</p>
<p>I also need the ability to handle time spans, the time between two calendar instants.</p>
<p>Documentation. Oh, how I hate documenting, but I'm trying to get better at doing so.</p>
<h2>Justification</h2>
<p>The reason I'm working on this library still remains true. It is difficult to find any programming library that handles an arbitrary (one that isn't Gregorian) calendar system. If a fantasy or sci-fi author wants to have a base-10, base-13, or some other system, it is difficult to create something that can be easily parsed or formatted.</p>
<p>With Author Intrusion, I want to be able to have the date and time of a chapter written up in the metadata and have it automatically translate or format it. That way, I can say “sort chapters chronologically” or see how much time is between two chapters.</p>
<h1>Plans</h1>
<p>Finishing up anything is the hard. While I got the basics of the library done, there is still a <em>lot</em> to finish. So, my current plans is to spend the rest of November working on the library before doing a writing project in December.</p>
<p>Not to mention, December is <a href="http://www.frathwiki.com/Lexember">Lexember</a> so I'm doing to be working on building up more works for <a href="https://github.com/dmoonfire/miwafu/">Miwāfu</a>, the constructed language for <a href="https://fedran.com/">my fantasy world</a>.</p>
Family Trip and WisCon 392015-06-01T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2015/06/01/wiscon/A few weeks ago, I went on my big trip for the year which included four days at the family cabin and four days at WisCon, one of my two conventions of the year.<p>For the last five years, I've had a tradition of combining a family trip to the cabin with <a href="http://wiscon.info">WisCon</a>. This is the first year we did the cabin visit first, then went down to WisCon. It was also the first year that I took advantage of WisCon's excellent child care services to give SMWM a break from the boys and let her sleep in. Overall, it was a good trip.</p>
<h1>The Cabin</h1>
<p>I love the family cabin, mainly because of the memories but also because it is a second “home” for me. Having my brother and his family, my dad, and my entire family up there at the same time was just nice to let the four boys play with each other and to catch up on family events.</p>
<p>This year, it was <em>cold</em>. Apparently there was snow on the ground a week before and the nights got a bit chilly. I also got sick in the middle, but only for a day or so.</p>
<p>The first trip of the year is always filled with little things. It was a good winter, so we just spent part of a day blowing out all the leaves, a bit of cleaning, and generally settling in. The dock isn't going out this year, mainly because my father may not be coming up as often until he settles into his new house.</p>
<p>The highlight was the boys playing. This year, my brother's two sons and EDM were all in the playing range. And they turn into some sort of pack so they would spend hours in the “bear cave” (behind the couch), in the “boat” (the leather recliner), or on the back of some hapless parent on the ground.</p>
<p>BAM decided to start walking on the trip up to the cabin (six hours), so we set him down and he started trotting around. Ever since, he's happily giggling as he toddles around and enjoys his new found efficiency in movement.</p>
<h1>Commission</h1>
<p>Somewhere during the cabin, when I had almost no Internet access, I got a commission request. I haven't done them in over a year, but a little money wouldn't hurt to pay for the trip, so I managed to negotiate the deal at one email every hour.</p>
<h1>Traveling</h1>
<p>The decision to take the six hour drive first followed by two days of three hours each was a much nicer one. The boys got anxious first, then we relaxed. As opposed to shorter trips with a massive one at the end.</p>
<h1>WisCon</h1>
<p>This year at WisCon was pretty good. The one person I really knew at the convention didn't come, so I was adrift and lonely as usual. However, I put myself out a bit more and managed to at least interact with strangers.</p>
<h2>Opening Ceremonies</h2>
<p>I actually got to go to the ceremonies. It was pretty fun and I like the sense of humor. I knew some of the “trivia” answers, which is always cool, though I probably would have slammed the “list as many slash pairings as you can think of” and bombed the “list the previous guests of honor.”</p>
<h2>Princess Culture and Race</h2>
<p>This was a very good panel, though late. It mainly focused on Disney princesses in movies and how most of them were white and had long, blonde hair. Seeing someone break down the eras of Disney princesses was pretty cool. I managed to bring up the differences with the shows (<em>Sophia the First</em> comes to mind), but they also countered with tokenism (Sophia is white, her friends are People of Color (POC)). There are no Disney shows with POC princesses as the main character, which kind of sucks.</p>
<p>There was a nod to why Lilo wasn't ever listed as a main Disney female.</p>
<p>One of the common trends brought up is “having someone like me.” There is a lot of that, but I can see it. There isn't a lot of role models, one reason I'm so obsessed with showing girls into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) (and also why the main character in <a href="/tags/flight-of-the-scions/">Flight of the Scions</a> is into engineering).</p>
<h2>Old Heroes</h2>
<p>This is a panel that really interested me, mainly because I want to write a JRPG novel about the game hero's grandfather. The panelists talked about how the older hero frequently is used as a sacrifice for the younger one, but I got some really good notes on older characters as main characters.</p>
<h1>A bit of a break</h1>
<p>Saturday, we went out to visit my grandmother. I only see her (and my aunt and her family) once a year, but it is definitely the highlight. She got to see BAM and EDM, EDM and my aunt's son played games, and generally we talked. There are a lot wounds between the three of us (me, my grandmother, and my aunt), but I think they are healing. It just takes a while.</p>
<h1>Back to WisCon</h1>
<p>On Sunday, I went to two panels. Before them, I had some lovely conversations in the consuite, which really made my day.</p>
<h2>Utopia, Cyborgs, and Dialects</h2>
<p>I didn't realize this was the academic track until I got there. The details were more than I could handle, but it was fun to push my limits.</p>
<h2>Fandom and Creators</h2>
<p>This ended up being a panel focused on fandom in general, something I only brush against at the edge. But it was nice talking about writing, sharing with creators, “breaking the fourth wall,” and various high-profile creators who came from fandom and how they responded differently to fans than those who did not.</p>
<p>I learned a lot, but had nothing to contribute.</p>
<h2>Not Your Typical Cats</h2>
<p>And then we came to my first panel. The panel before with the guest of honor doing a reading. She packed the room and the stories were lovely. But watching the entire room empty out in two minutes for me… kind of disheartening.</p>
<p>In the end, there were three people for the panel, including the other panelist. Frank, the other reader, did a long story, and then I did one chapter of <em>Flight of the Scions</em> and two chapters from <a href="/tags/sand-and-blood/">Sand and Blood</a>. I think it went well, but… hard to tell with only three people.</p>
<p>I was frustrated by my lack of draw, so I just gave all three of them a signed copy of my book.</p>
<p>Throughout the entire reading, a group of college students sat in the corner and had a loud conversation interrupted by louder laughing. They didn't seem to care what we were doing, they looked but then resumed their laughter. It made it hard to hear myself, so there were a few times when I was talking in hopes that others could hear me.</p>
<p>I think I prefer working in the hotel rooms, at least there you don't get interrupted as much.</p>
<p>Intellectually, I knew that a lot of people wouldn't show up. Both <a href="http://weirdauthor.com/">Shannon Ryan</a> and <a href="http://adamjwhitlatch.com/">Adam J. Whitlatch</a> both talked about it, so I knew. My heart doesn't really listen well to my mind, so it was a trifle depressing but I got over it quickly.</p>
<h2>World-Building Through Food</h2>
<p>This was a fun panel. I originally planned on doing to it because <a href="http://www.rebeccagomezfarrell.com/">Rebecca Gomez Farrell</a> talked to me online, but really I like the idea of food as it related to world-building. There were a lot of good examples and it was a nice, solid panel. It also gave me some ideas for the dinner scenes in <em>Flight of the Scions</em>.</p>
<p>I had a chance to chat with Rebecca later, she is nice in person as she is online.</p>
<h2>The SignOut</h2>
<p>The final event for me was the SignOut. This was a nice ninety minutes to sit back and have some really good crackers. I talked to the two authors on either side of me (one I apparently met repeatedly but couldn't remember).</p>
<p>Not a single person looked at my book.</p>
<p>The only signatures I made were for the two people going around the room gathering signatures.</p>
<p>I'm mostly okay with it. I have a baseline. Next time, I'm hoping to have at least two people ask for my book. But, you have to start somewhere.</p>
<h1>A Room of Their Own</h1>
<p>I have to make a shout-out to <a href="http://www.roomofonesown.com/">A Room of One's Own</a>. This is a large independent bookstore a few blocks from the convention. In the few years I've deal with the staff, they have been nothing but friendly.</p>
<p>This year was the first year I came as an author. Fortunately, thanks to a push from <a href="http://www.kseniaanske.com/">Ksenia Anske</a> and others, I had just finished republishing <em>Sand and Blood</em> under Ingram to make it friendlier for stores like this. The first time they looked up <em>Blood</em>, they found the Lulu version with no returns at a 15% discount. I thought I did something wrong, but then they gave me a screenshot of their site and I noticed it had the wrong ISBN. Once I gave them the right one, it dropped down to 40% discount with returns and everything was happier.</p>
<p>Overall, it was fantastic seeing my book on someone's dealers table. I also spotted it in the background of a picture on Facebook made by someone else. Overall, it was great to see my book “in the wild” as it were.</p>
<h1>Conclusion</h1>
<p>Overall, it was a good, enjoyable trip filled with family and books. I was lonely for parts of it, but I still enjoyed myself.</p>
What Is Going On Now?2015-02-25T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2015/02/25/what-is-going-on/It's been a few weeks since I last posted. When I work on projects, I have a tendency to go silent because I could either post or I could work on it. But, here is what is going on.<p>As my lovely spouse as mentioned on more than one occasion, I always have a project going on. Usually two or three or even more. Lately, I feel that I'm starting a lot of projects and not actually finishing anything. With some of my recent projects, that may change since I actually see a finishing point on both <a href="/tags/mfgames-culture-cil/">MfGames Culture CIL</a> and <a href="/tags/sand-and-bone/">Sand and Bone</a>.</p>
<h1>MfGames Culture CIL</h1>
<p>On the programming side, I'm working on a C# library called MfGames Culture CIL (all of my .NET libraries end in “CIL”). This is the fantasy calendar system I've <a href="/blog/2015/02/13/mfgames-culture-api-introduction/">mentioned before</a>. The project is somewhat ambitious for me, which makes it scary, but also something I've been thinking about doing for a number of years. I also think it is something I can actually finish and make into a proper library.</p>
<p>I hit a pretty good point with the library. It now handles cultures, multiple calendars, translations, and a combination of a number of cool things. Everything is hard-coded in C# code, which I'm planning on solving with the next few steps. In the end, it should be completely driven off XML or JSON files.</p>
<p>I'm tracking my “to do” lists toward a 1.0.0 release over on <a href="https://github.com/dmoonfire/mfgames-culture-cil/issues">Github</a>.</p>
<h1>Sand and Bone</h1>
<p>After a number of deaths I've had to deal with in the last few months, I finally got a chance to go back to my writing group. When I had to take some time off at the end of last year, there was a huge group of submissions. Now, not so much. Which means I had a chance to get <em>Sand and Bone</em> finished.</p>
<p>The last fifteen chapters were still very rough since I wrote almost all of them in a single week. I took the last week to do another round of editing against it, cleaning it up and making it ready for the group.</p>
<p>After this week, I have five more submissions and then it should be done with that round of editing. After that, a pair of rounds of professional editors and it will be ready for being published.</p>
<h1>Sand and Ash</h1>
<p>If I mention <em>Sand and Bone</em>, I probably should talk about <a href="/tags/sand-and-ash/">Sand and Ash</a>. I've gotten a number of beta readers for the sequel to <a href="https://sand-and-blood.fedran.com/">Sand and Blood</a> and it has been pretty positive. I'm excited about getting it done, but…</p>
<h1>WisCon</h1>
<p>I had a choice between getting <em>Sand and Ash</em> out or going to <a href="http://wiscon.info/">WisCon</a>. I choose WisCon because it gives me a chance to visit my grandmother (she lives in town), reduces a long haul for a family trip, and gives me a chance to meet up with some friends.</p>
<p>This year I'm going to try doing a reading. We'll see if I get in, but it will be the first time I've read something I've written since I've done poetry readings in Illinois. I'm thinking about doing a chapter from <a href="/tags/flight-of-the-scions/">Flight of the Scions</a>, mainly because the entire world was inspired by panels from that convention.</p>
<p>I'll find out how to get <em>Sand and Ash</em> out this year, hopefully by <a href="http://iowa-icon.com/">ICON</a>. I'm going to sign up for doing a reading there too, probably because I'm hoping to be a lot more comfortable with reading my novel.</p>
<p>I'm also assuming I can <em>pronounce</em> my character names smoothly by then.</p>
<h1>Coming weeks</h1>
<p>I'm hoping to finish MfGames Culture CIL in a week or so. And then I'm sure I'll move on to another project.</p>
<p>There is always another project.</p>
Scheduling Delays2014-10-14T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2014/10/14/scheduling-delays/After a small set of setbacks, it has become obvious that Sand and Ash won't be coming out by the end of the year.<p>These last few months have been rather stressful, but not things I normally talk about while they are happening. Because of them, however, I have to push the publication of <span class="missing-link" data-path="/tags/sand-and-ash">Sand and Ash</span> back a few months since being a “responsible” adult is apparently important at this point in my life.</p>
<h1>The Priorities</h1>
<p>I have a priority system that I've written about since before EDM was born. I left only three things on it: family, work, and writing. The three things comes from a <em>Readers Digest</em> I read sitting in a doctor's waiting office, but generally it keeps me relatively focused.</p>
<h1>The First Child</h1>
<p>The longest running problem is that neither me nor SMWM had a will or trust fund. This is one of those things that was on the “we should really do this” list but it kept getting pushed back. Even when EDM (the oldest) was born, it was on the list. And now that BAM (the youngest) is here, it still wasn't done.</p>
<p>A few months ago, I decided that it was something we couldn't afford to let go, so I found a lawyer through a friend and went through the process of getting something drawn up.</p>
<p>It was also my first shell-shock when I found that I was billed in six-minute increments. But, now we have a signed will, a strange clause that I'll write about some day, and everything is squared away. Except for paying the bill.</p>
<h1>The Second Child</h1>
<p>There is something about us and names. When EDM was born, all but one of the forms had his middle name correct. Social Security, on the other hand, used <em>my</em> first name for his middle name (in all honesty, there is only one letter difference between the two). However, it required us to go back and forth a few times to get it straightened out.</p>
<p>So, when BAM's birth certificate came in, I saw a typo. Two, actually. They had my middle name wrong and my birth date. Now, these are things that I see no future need for BAM, but I have enough genealogist in my family to know that a few generations later, it would make things difficult to track us down. Also, there is a small chance that I will need it right for BAM. And it is something you can't do in the middle of a crisis.</p>
<p>It started with just a notary and a lot of photograph but quick escalated into threats from lawyers (at six minute billing intervals) and four rounds with the Iowa Department of Public Health. There was also some talking about needing to get a court order and public filings, but thankfully our lawyers managed to get around that. But even that came back with a typo that I had to call to get fixed.</p>
<p>Last week, we got it all squared away and his certificate is correct.</p>
<p>Except for the lawyers, but once we get over this, we won't need them for a while.</p>
<h1>The Other Business</h1>
<p>I won't go into details, but we also got hit by a large expense over on SMWM's side of things.</p>
<h1>The Accident</h1>
<p>Right on the tail end of that, we had a small accident with the car. And, like all car accidents, it pretty much nailed any chance of me using the money to get my book out. Hopefully that will be dealt with in the next week or so. It is a “preferred vendor” which means they are pushing to get it fixed now and we never see the insurance money since it will go directly to them; which is probably a good thing.</p>
<h1>The Holidays</h1>
<p>Looking at my income forecast, things will ease up right in time for the holidays. Which means I can't afford to get editing done on a book, nor are the people helping me available during those last sixty days of the year.</p>
<h1>The Last Book</h1>
<p><a href="https://sand-and-blood.fedran.com/">Sand and Blood</a> is going slow. I keep seeing people talking about “only” having fifty reviews I'm pretty happy at five but that doesn't mean I can't hope for more. I know the reason I don't have many sales, but they are slowly increasing.</p>
<p>Getting the next book would help the first one, but… I can't see how that is going to happen.</p>
<h1>The Next Book</h1>
<p>We have a small budget for business. SMWM has her <a href="https://photo.moonfire.us/">photography business</a> and I have my writing. The cost for editing and covers comes out of that budget, but priorities says it needs to go for the lawyers and insurance.</p>
<p>Priorities always win.</p>
<p>Because of that, I started getting beta readers to start reading the book and see if I can garner up some of the bigger details like sweeping plots. The feedback is positive, everyone has said that <em>Ash</em> is a far better story than <em>Blood</em>.</p>
<p>Most of the time, I'm very patient. In this case, I can feel myself chomping at the bit because I want it out. It is a fun story, I love reading it, and I can't wait to see it in my hand. But, I have to wait. It's the only thing I can do.</p>
<h1>The Third Book</h1>
<p><a href="/tags/sand-and-bone/">Sand and Bone</a> is about half done with the third draft. I'm submitting it to <a href="http://noblepencr.org/">writing group</a> over the next few months. I should have it done by the end of the year which means it will be ready for beta reading in January. If things ease up, I should have it for <a href="http://wiscon.info/">WisCon</a>. We'll see.</p>
<p>Regardless, I'm going to push for getting <em>Ash</em> done and printed by WisCon. It is a good deadline, though I probably wouldn't actually sell any copies there.</p>
<h1>The Conclusion</h1>
<p>Any two of those things I could have handled with our pad. But four? No, not going to happen.</p>
<p>Overall, I'm glad we did what we did. The legal things <em>needed</em> to be done just as getting the car repaired. It is disappointing, but I'd rather not break the bank in hopes of making it big.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just keep swimming. — Dori, <em>Finding Nemo</em></p>
</blockquote>
Red Lobster, just like every year2014-05-18T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2014/05/18/red-lobster-just-like-every-year/Both SMWM and I both consider our relationship to have started in a Red Lobster in Iowa City. Ever since, we've returned back to remember that date with a few quirky requests.<p>SMWM and I both considered are relationship to have really started at Red Lobster. It was one specific dinner in Iowa City where things finally just... clicked and we became something more than just friends.</p>
<p>Because of that, we celebrate our anniversary at Red Lobster. Usually it's within a week, but it has been a tradition for fourteen years and Saturday was no exception.</p>
<p>Now, things have changed. I can no longer eat an Admiral's Feast, three appetizers, and desert. I consider that a good thing, I need to lose weight and eat less as a general policy.</p>
<p>Actually, we can barely handle appetizers there.</p>
<p>Some years ago, we almost stopped going. It was just too much for us, in terms of eating. We came up with another approach which we have continued ever since: take it home. Now, when we sit down, we <em>only</em> eat appetizers and get the rest of the entrées and desert to go. Don't bother putting it on a plate, just throw it in a bag and let us take it out. At home, we enjoying it over the next one or two days. It's too much for a single meal, but not for a four.</p>
<p>I'm not big on traditions. I barely celebrate anything, but this is one of them. And something I've enjoyed greatly... which probably helps it become a fourteen year tradition.</p>
Fourteen years down, thirty-six to go2014-05-13T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2014/05/13/fourteen-years-down-thirty-six-to-go/I've been married fourteen years ago. A long time since I fumbled through my wedding vows.<p>Fourteen years ago, I was standing in my living room doing an amazing job of fumbling through my wedding vows. I couldn't help it, but the pastor was quoting from Cornithians 13:11 and I started thinking about the movie Hackers.</p>
<blockquote><p>
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Needless to say, I'm still acting like a child fourteen years later.</p>
<p>I never expected to be married, much less do so for over a decade. As the people who know me personally, I'm... quirky (strange but not rich enough to be eccentric). I talk a lot but I'm loyal, stubborn but playful, and a whole slew of other things that have put SMWM in a state of either wanting to strangle me or kiss me.</p>
<p>When we first got married, I wanted to renew our vows every ten years. She suggested never. We compromised on a fifty year marriage (hence the thirty-six years to ago). Of course, SMWM is starting the three decade process of subtle threats to get her "never", but I have a while to annoy her.</p>
<p>This year is also when the <a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/tag/master-plan/">Master Plan</a> has finally reached its peak. Ten years ago, we decided to move to Iowa, have children, and die (of old age). BAM is doing fantastically and that is probably the best gift we could ever give each other (though I still have to make a gift for her).</p>
<p>I've been very happy for fourteen years.</p>
<p>But I still think about Hackers every time this day comes around.</p>
Shifting changes2014-04-24T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2014/04/24/shifting-changes/<p>One of the things my coworkers like to tease me about was a statement I made three years ago. The problem is, exactly what I said was kind of lost by all of us.</p>
<blockquote><p>
My life isn't going to change because of [EDM].
</p></blockquote>
<p>In many ways, I still feel that is true. Yes, having a child is a change, and I accepted it gladly, but so is everything else. What I do is usually determined week to week, and that hasn't changed. I still write, I still obsess, and I still don't work out nearly as much. That part hasn't changed either.</p>
<p>That said, there is always something different in my life. Some weeks, I have the energy to write before work, other weeks, I'm scraping a few hours around midnight. Yep, that hasn't changed either.</p>
<p>Occasionally, I rant at work about things, but that hasn't been much different. Before EDM, it was about money, not having enough time to write, or the current fight of the week. After EDM, it's about money, not having enough time to write, the current fight of the week, or the stupid thing EDM did that no one else really cares about.</p>
<p>I've always accepted variations. Each day builds on the last and there is a slow progression to "something." Having EDM was just those slow progression. He didn't just magically be the little boy sitting at my feet screaming "Go Dino!" at the top of his lungs. It was little things: changing diapers, reading stories, and running around pretending to be shot <em>ten billion times</em> because he thinks it's funny.</p>
<p>I like to think that I wasn't overwhelmed by EDM because I paid attention. I got involved, took my share of the duties, and basically made sure there were no surprises.</p>
<p>And now I'm forty-eight hours from doing it again. The plan is to have SMWM induced on Friday night and have BAM on Sunday. No clue if that is actually going to happen or not, but that's the plan.</p>
<p>I'm hoping that the same thing will happen with BAM in our lives. As long as I pay attention, do my share, and basically be <em>there</em>, I don't think there will be any drastic changes. Just slow, continual changes from the life I had up to this point.</p>
<p>Won't stop my coworkers from mocking me though.</p>
In fear of jinxing things, but it's a boy2014-01-04T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2014/01/04/in-fear-of-jinxing-things-but-its-a-boy/<p>Life is about stress, and I wouldn't have it any other way. One of the biggest stresses of 2013 was the miscarriage we had in May. It was a setback to the master plan that was relatively devastating and pretty much cast the rest of the year in a pallor.</p>
<p>In July, we decided to try again. If you read the occasional post on my <a href="http://twitter.com/dmoonfire">Twitter</a> timeline, I made a few tweets that talked about the frustrations and doctor visits. We didn't start that well, she started bleeding within a few weeks and there were a number of emergency room and "we need an ultrasound tomorrow" moments. Because we were seeing shades of the miscarriage again, SMWM and I decided not to make any mention of it in case we lost another one. The odds were higher, we are both 38 and there was a good chance we were heading straight for going through it again.</p>
<p>Somewhere around week twenty, some of that fear had been dissipated when we were both sitting in the OB/GYN's office looking at the little boy on the screen. Her <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorionic_hematoma">chorionic hematoma</a> had taken about ten weeks of healing and we stopped seeing serious problems and going through those frantic hospital visits.</p>
<p>After that turning point, SMWM finally said I could talk about it. That was a few weeks ago (a lot had happened in the last month), so I finally get to write about it.</p>
<p>If you haven't figured out, we are going to have another baby. The estimated due date is around April 23rd, but it is highly likely they are going to induce earlier because they diagnosed her with gestational diabetes. The ultrasound technician said it's a boy, and it looked liked it had boy parts on the screen.</p>
<p>And even though she continues to lose weight during this pregnancy (just like the last one) and her blood sugars remain at a depressing 70-90s (mine averaged 106 for the last five years), failing that sugar test kicks in a whole panic engine that cannot be stopped.</p>
<p>The next four months are going to be an adventure. Because of fears of jinxing, SMWM doesn't want to name the little one or get too emotionally attached or go shopping until much later. I respect that, but it's just as hard not to get excited about it as I am about finishing books. (In other words, I <em>really</em> want to talk about it.)</p>
Well, that wasn't on the plan2013-12-22T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2013/12/22/well-that-wasnt-on-the-plan/<p>Sometimes, when I make a plan, it doesn't work. This week was one of those times. I planned on editing, but with... other influences, I wasn't able to focus on writing enough to get anything coherent. Now, the reasons are good but my usual writing time was pretty much sucked out by my loyalty and the realization that I need to sleep if I want to get over this cold.</p>
<h1>Updates</h1>
<p>Instead, I worked on some website stuff. It's been two years since I did <a href="http://photography.moonfire.us/">Moonfire Photography</a> and there were some nice changes to WordPress in the meantime. I would like to finish that up this week. I'm doing some other minor things.</p>
<p>Of course, that means I really need to finish these edits but I have a holiday week coming up and a fair amount of time to focus on those. EDM is going to their grandparents from Monday to Wednesday---that will help.</p>
<p>I have some other websites to work on, mainly to explore the differences between <a href="http://docpad.org/">DocPad</a> and <a href="http://jekyllrb.com/">Jekyll</a>. I've used DocPad on a number of sites, but as the pages get larger, my laptop begins to overhead. I'm hoping that Jekyll uses less CPU to generate the page. We'll see, it doesn't take that long to convert templates.</p>
<h1>In less cheerful observations</h1>
<p>I just hit 55<del datetime="2013-12-23T05:23:55+00:00">70</del> days since I last heard from my editor on <a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/tag/sand-and-blood">Sand and Blood</a>. The last time I talked to them (actually the last four times), they promised to be more responsive. In general, if they can't finish when they said, send an email to tell me. I've been doubling the time before I start to get anxious each time.</p>
<p>I sent <em>Sand and Blood</em> to the editor in the first week of June. From what I read, three months would have been a reasonable time to edit the novel, but six months is pretty much good for a 60k word piece. It doesn't help that I <em>know</em> they are taking on other jobs instead of finishing my own, because they told me they were in an email.</p>
<p>Normally, serendipity works for me. In this case, it obviously hasn't worked out very well at all. It also means that I'm stuck with trying to find a new editor.</p>
<h1>And even less cheerful observations</h1>
<p>More importantly, this weekend was anniversary of SMWM's father's death. It is also the estimated date of birth for the baby we lost earlier in the year. It has made the days a bit grayer. There was nothing we could do about either of these, but it still hurts.</p>
Last night2013-05-28T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2013/05/28/last-night/<p>Last night ended in tears. Effectively, it was the end of three months of pain and fear. And I don't really have the words to describe it. I was saddened but also relieved when the doctor said we lost the baby. Sad because we've been working years up to this point, but also relieved because the last six weeks have been hell on SMWM and I hate seeing her torn by fear and doubt.</p>
<p><!--more--></p>
<h1>Two children</h1>
<p>The plan was always to have two children. EDM was the first and he was a dream to raise up to this point: quiet, sedate, and healthy. It took us a long time to start on the second one, mainly because of details you probably don't care about, but mostly the repercussions of EDM's birth.</p>
<p>So, we were excited when the twelve pregnancy tests said she was pregnant. There is a doubt that one is accurate, so she tested again, and again. Lining each one up on the side of the bathroom sink with gradually darkening lines that showed she was definitely going to have a child. It was almost a graph chart in bright lines: plus, plus, double line, plus, double line, double line, "pregnant" (it was digital), plus, ....</p>
<h1>Emergency room</h1>
<p>And then came the bleeding. We rushed over to the emergency room and spent a few hours waiting for blood work and paperwork. There is very little comfort on a bed waiting for bad news or good news.</p>
<p>EDM was there, with the innocence of a two year old in a room filled with new toys. I usually encourage him to explore in these situations (and usually join in), so we poked every button we could, twisted every control on the adjustable bed, and even lifted and lowered the guard rail a hundred times. I avoided putting him on a wheelchair and running down the hall, but it was close (the two security guards walking past always gave me hard looks just in case). But, somewhere in the second hour, the enthusiasm for a new room faded and it just turns into this quiet waiting with a cold pit in my stomach.</p>
<p>It wasn't great news but it wasn't horrible, on that first visit. She was pregnant, but the various hormones weren't very strong. It was only 3-4 weeks into the process and they weren't sure of anything. So, they sent us home with a general feeling of dread and orders to talk to the OBY/GN in the morning.</p>
<h1>The next six weeks</h1>
<p>She never stopped spotting. The doctors told us to just relax, but it's hard when you see blood. Things didn't really get worse, but they also didn't get better.</p>
<p>I hated watching the fear in her eyes. Would we be having this for the entire pregnancy? Was it going to get better in the second trimester? Fear and doubt and hope all mixed together.</p>
<p>She told her mother who promised to keep it a secret (and failed). I didn't tell my parents. My brother, who has suffered far more with the entire procreation process, was just coming off a miserable pregnancy of his own (she was on bed rest for ten weeks), and is hopefully going to have a lovely new child of his own in the next few days. I told a few people at work, mostly to pave the way in case I had to leave in a hurry without explaining myself, and a few people guessed from things I said.</p>
<p><em>Minor note: It is really hard when I can't say something outright, but I have to talk. And it only takes one statement to give it all away. Plus, I work with some really intelligent people who are smarter than me.</em></p>
<p>Every time, it was something that came up. Not always in words, but in the way she held my hands or the look as she came out of the bedroom.</p>
<h1>The trip</h1>
<p>My biggest vacation of the year was going to <a href="http://wiscon.info">WisCon</a> and then up to the family cabin. In the middle, we spent some time reconnecting with my grandmother (who most of her family has apparent abandoned her).</p>
<p>The trip was misery for SMWM, mainly because of the pregnancy. Worrying about diet, unable to pick up EDM, and all the other fears. I didn't go to a number of events so I could spend time with her and also to help manage the little one, but there is only so much I could do and still go to the convention.</p>
<p>And then, while having lunch with my grandmother, she fell in the bathroom while holding EDM. It was a short fall and she landed on her knee, but it was enough that she asked to go home instead of continuing to the cabin. If something went wrong, she wanted to be at home instead of a strange town with no support and nowhere to stay.</p>
<p>We turned around. WisCon is actually quite close to home. At the time, nothing was seriously wrong, but better safe than sorry.</p>
<h1>Emergency room again</h1>
<p>About an hour after we got home, she started to bleed again. Coupled with the fall, we decided to go to the emergency room with EDM again. I had entertainment (I always bring stuff for a six hour visit now). EDM and I played with all the buttons and levers and gauges that we could. Because it was Memorial Day, the lines were a bit longer.</p>
<p>But, sooner or later, it comes down to that sitting on a chair, waiting for the bad news. You know its bad news because of they speak. When she first heard the baby's heartbeat, the nurses are almost giggling with joy and smiling. When that rapid-fire beat is missing, it's all "the doctor will give you a report" or "the doctor will see you."</p>
<h1>The results</h1>
<p>Using the hormone levels as a guide, we probably lost the little one about 1-2 weeks ago, but her body is still working on passing what's left. We probably have another few weeks of misery and tears, but then it will be over.</p>
<h1>Stress</h1>
<p>I like to talk about my problems, but this is one of the cases were I couldn't. We both decided that we don't make the news public until week twelve for exactly the reason we've just experienced. But, I need to talk a little, so I tried to couch it in general terms. I also couldn't really write about it, so I've just had to watch it tearing SMWM apart and suffer with this feeling of helplessness.</p>
<p>I could do the little things: more chores, cleaning up more, helping her with the beginnings of nesting, etc, but it was a situation that I was completely helpless to do anything significant.</p>
<p>While programming, we have the idea of "fail fast." I'd rather lose a child in week ten than week thirty-two (like my brother's last pregnancy). If it wasn't going to work, I'd rather find out now instead of much later. Every day and week that continues makes it harder to lose them.</p>
<p>In that aspect, I'm relieved that we found out. It still doesn't make it any easier to swallow.</p>
<h1>Future plans</h1>
<p>We're going to try again. Just need to let these things pass first.</p>
Thirteen years2013-05-14T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2013/05/14/thirteen-years/<p>Thirteen years ago last Monday, I was fumbling through my wedding vows with SMWM. I'll fully admit it wasn't the smoothest "I do" in the world, but I was distracted by the speech the pastor gave since it was from the movie <em>Hackers</em>.</p>
<p>One of, let's call it quirks, of our marriage is my broad range of creative skills. It's something that she loves, but I've never repeated a gift in thirteen years when it comes to our anniversary.</p>
<p>This year was probably one of the hardest to make. Years ago, I bought one of those "handmade" books of custom paper. It was a splurge purchase and it's moved a couple times with us.</p>
<p>The day after last anniversary, I was looking at it and got an idea. I would write little "inspirational" sayings, poems, essays, and (poorly drawn) illustrations over the year to show how much I love her. It took me quite a while and somehow I was still trying to get those last twenty in Sunday night before I went to bed.</p>
<p>It ended up being 162 pages from end to end and 162 little ways of showing how much I love her.</p>
<p>It was a good year.</p>
<p>She loved it, but it will be hard to beat it next year. :)</p>
Getting dumped2013-05-04T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2013/05/04/getting-dumped/<p>In the last two weeks, I pretty much got dumped twice. Once by the babysitter and another time by my last commissioner.</p>
<p>The babysitter one was actually the most frustrating one. Mainly because we've had three in almost three years. The first had a child, so it made sense why she stopped her home daycare. The second just flaked out but dragged it out for almost a month before SMWM finally "fired" her. This one... just stopped showing up. She didn't answer any of SMWM's phone calls, texts, or emails. No notice, no message, nothing. That is probably the most frustrating part of it is the completely stop.</p>
<p>I know that cutting off communication is easier for one person, but it is hard on the other. We spent weeks wondering what we did wrong? Did a check bounce (not likely)? Did they not like my books? My computer? The house? One of us? And, those questions will never be answered because they just... walked away.</p>
<p>The same thing happened to me in high school. A girl and her friends just stop talking to me. "You know why" was the only answer I got a year later. The problem is, I don't know why. I <em>still</em> don't know why over twenty years later. And, as much as I'm fairly good at letting things go, it bothers me that someone would just walk away without giving the courtesy of a reason or even to say they are going away.</p>
<p>The other dumping was my last commissioner. Since the economy tanked a few years ago, I lost most of the people who commissioned stories from me (well, ones that I felt comfortable writing). One was left and they gave me a new commission every 4-6 months which is nice.</p>
<p>I've been having some trouble with the last commission (not the commission, but everything going on in general), and I had to give them a second email saying I was going to be late (I <em>hate</em> being late). They told me that their life was changing and they probably won't make another commission again. And to cancel the one I've been working on for a month.</p>
<p>That one hurt, but it made sense. Dropping $200-300 for a story commission is a major thing. And, with the economy, it is a luxury not a essential. I know that being late didn't help, but it was also an excuse for them to change our relationship. It was painful, but they explained why and we talked. We ended on good terms and there was no screaming.</p>
<p>I don't get upset when people need to change their relationship with me. I don't scream or yell, but I know that other people do. The fear of rejection is a nasty one and some people stand up and explain why while others just slink away in the shadows. One reason I'm forward is because of that last one. Just walking away hurts people. It leaves them with doubt, confusion, and scrambling to recover. It does mean that occasionally, I'm rough or blunt, but I'd rather be forward and uncomfortable than hurt someone.</p>
Being supportative2013-02-13T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2013/02/13/being-supportative/<p>So, exactly a month ago, I went to my first convention as someone standing behind the table. It wasn't for writing or games, which I always dreamed it would be, but to help SMWM with her <a href="http://photography.moonfire.us/">photography</a> business (Creatively called Moonfire Photography).</p>
<p><a class="thumbnail" href="http://d.moonfire.us/files/2013/02/2013-01-13-12.05.43.jpg"><img src="/assets/2013-01-13-12.05.43-300x225.jpg" alt="Moonfire Photography Booth" width="300" height="225" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3004" /></a></p>
<p><!--more--></p>
<h1>Getting started</h1>
<p>Getting to the convention was fairly hard, mainly because neither of us have ever really done it and we didn't know what to expect. I knew there would be a back bar and a curtain and a table, but not much else.</p>
<p>We started with the banner. Most of the pictures were from her previous photography sessions. We went through a number of iterations until we found what you can see in the above picture. I also went through my good-sized font collection to find something somewhat distinctive and readable.</p>
<p>We also scavaged a lot from home. That monitor is my screen for my desktop computer. It rotates which works out well for displaying portraits. We had someone that said it was distinctive since everyone else had their widescreen set up properly. The portfolio book on the left has been following her for years. We just shuffled it so the wedding pictures were in the front and the other stuff in the back.</p>
<p>The white box on the right? The black frame hanging from the back? The easel for the cut metal picture? Last minute purchases on the way home from the day before. Once we got there, we realized we were missing way too much.</p>
<p>It was really cool to see lines of perfectly white booths become something more interesting. One of the vendors across from us just put up a few flowers and a bowl, but most brought the same hodgepodge collection of stuff and threw it up. They just knew what they were doing and it looked pretty good; but as I saw it go up, I noticed the same discord.</p>
<h1>The wedding expo</h1>
<p>We were "on duty" for three hours. SMWM was nervous as hell and I was probably just up there. Fortunately for me, I normally talk <em>a lot</em>, so I wasn't worried about speaking for three hours solid. If you ask my co-workers, you'll find out that speaking is my M.O. pretty much all the time (unrelated, it was suggested that EDM isn't speaking because I don't shut up).</p>
<p>The problem came in because I don't know her business. We keep our hobbies and side projects pretty separate except for the "look at this" moment. I prefer line drawings and watercolors, she likes photography. She likes poinet memoirs of romance and silly covers; I like my books bloody and high fantasy.</p>
<p>Easy enough to handle, though. I listened to her spiel a few times and threw myself in. Smile in all the right places, lure people in with discrete pointing to the free raffle, and generally ran through the list. The only thing I really had a trouble is that I point with my middle finger instead of my index. I was afraid I gave a few too man people the finger that day, but no one stormed off.</p>
<h1>Friendly competition</h1>
<p>There were actually a few photographers that came over and complimented her pictures. We were a bit worried because there was a photgrapher across from us, but they ended up being very friendly. (I suspect because they were based in Cedar Falls and we're in Cedar Rapids).</p>
<p>There was a pastor, though, who was kind of an ass. Very nice, but as he was introducing himself, he was tossing pencils with his name and phone number on your table. And then he would randomly show up during the convention and toss more pencils on <em>everyone's</em> table. I thought it was a bit rude, but... I just set the pencils aside (now, if they were Pentel A55s, that would be a different story).</p>
<h1>Retrospective</h1>
<p>Retrospectives are a wonderful thing. It is that point when you sit down and come up with "what we did wrong". We are starting them at work, but I've done them for home projects for quite a while. We did figure out a few things that we would change. You can see one of them in the above picture: the pictures on the backdrop aren't hung properly. That was an unfortunate problem of only having an hour to set up. Next time, I'll hang them via the corners.</p>
<p>We found a typo in the price list, after we spent a few hundred to print it. That was less than thrilling.</p>
<p>If we continue doing this, I'm sure we'll get more pictures and more variant in the weddings. I also want to switch to canvases in a Windows 8-style grid. Something fairly stable and classy. No idea if I can, but I have a half year or so to figure it out.</p>
<h1>Fair is fair</h1>
<p>Part of the current plan is for me to support her photography business as it gets off the ground. She's spent <em>years</em> supporting me with writing. The endless nights of "I suck as a writer!" and giving me weekends to finish some imaginary deadline. So, the end of last year and this year is basically for her. To give her a chance to shine.</p>
<h1>Always with the plans</h1>
<p>I plan ahead and I am <em>very</em> patient. When she got a job working as a church photographer, we knew the company was... let's say Not Good™. But, it taught her a lot of skills she needed to get where she was: how to photograph under stress, how to get people to relax, and the sheer technical skill that three years of doing it almost every week will give you.</p>
<p>Before then, it was sending her to graphic design college to find out she actually liked photography (and not sketching and line drawing which is what <em>I</em> hoped she would find interesting).</p>
Slight belated goals2013-02-02T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2013/02/02/slight-belated-goals/<p>I've been thinking about my goals for the year most of January, but due to the regularly scheduled pressure from work, SMWM getting sick and dealing with her father's death, and everything else, I really haven't done much with writing anything.</p>
<p>But, I'm a goal oriented person. I found that deadlines and projects work a lot better for me because I have a purpose. But, a generic goal is a terrible thing (for me), which I've repeatedly learned when I failed.</p>
<p><!--more--></p>
<h1>Accountability</h1>
<p>No one really keeps me accountable with my goals. But, I feel that if I write them down (and post them), it sets them in stone and reminds me that they have to be done. Plus, for a number of people, they see my every week or every day and occasionally point out where I'm gone. It helps, so that's why I'm posting.</p>
<h1>Limited Goals</h1>
<p>A long, long time ago, I was sitting in a doctor's office reading Readers Digest (the only place I ever read Readers Digest). There was a little quote that when something like this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You only have time in your life for three things. It can be family, work, or anything else. Any more and you stop dropping them. The key part is to figure out what are those three important things.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I happen to take that recursively. I try not to ever have more than three projects at any time. Likewise, I'm going to keep to a limited number of goals for the year.</p>
<h1>Writing</h1>
<p>I'm not going to make any goals about writing this year. For the most part, I've written (or rewritten) a novel every year since 2001. I'm not going to stop doing that, so it isn't really a goal. I plan on finishing FIL (sequel to <em>Becoming a Man</em>), but I'm going to do it anyways.</p>
<h1>Programming</h1>
<p>I have one programming goal I've been aiming towards for over a year now: Author Intrusion. I've written the basic framework three times, but each time it started to crumble under design flaws.</p>
<p>I want to get a basic version of Author Intrusion done by the end of the year. Since I like goals that lead to something more, I want Author Intrusion so I can finish FIL.</p>
<h1>Health</h1>
<p>The other major part of my life is my health. In specific, I need to lose more weight. I've lost weight for the last five years, but it was about a kilogram each year. Which, given that I'm 145 kg, that isn't exactly the best of things.</p>
<p>This <em>would</em> have been the first year I gained weight except for that short period in August where I was losing 4.5 kg a week for almost a month.</p>
<p>At work, there is a health initiative. They were asking for goals for the year, so I decided to commit to something a lot more publicly than my website.</p>
<p>Those two goals are to walk 200 km during my lunch breaks and get my weight under 135 kg. Both are doable, but I think I'm going to consider them my two goals for the year.</p>
<h1>Family</h1>
<p>You might notice I haven't mentioned family. Those are such a high priority that it isn't a goal. If I know I'm going to write a novel, I know I'm going to take care of EDM and SMWM. Just a fact of life.</p>
<h1>Three Things</h1>
<p>So, those are the three things I'm planning this year.</p>
<ul>
<li>Get Author Intrusion usable</li>
<li>Get my weight under 135 kg</li>
<li>Walk 200 km during my lunch breaks</li>
</ul>
Just one of those weekends2012-12-25T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/12/25/just-one-of-those-weekends/<p>The problem with there are two obsessed peole in the house is getting time to work on our various obsessions. SMWM's photography is doing pretty well, but editing photos takes a lot of time. I want to write. But, with only one laptop, it gets harder to find "alone" time. For me, writing needs to be maintained at a certain level or I spent a day or so trying to "remember how to write". Needless to say, it has been a very frustrating few months. Her laptop is still slowly chugging through the recovery process and she still has my laptop.</p>
<p>Last weekend was going to be my "alone" weekend to work on my writing projects. It didn't happen for a lot of reasons, mostly a very sick child and a death in the family.</p>
<p><!--more--></p>
<h1>Trading off gone wrong</h1>
<p>We trade off parental duties fairly often. An hour here for an hour there. A little over a month ago, she needed to spend some alone time working on editing pictures. We originally planned for her to go to the hotel for two days but I would pick up EDM on Saturday and give her the entire day. That way, we both got twenty-four hours to work on our respective projects.</p>
<p>Since she is still on Groupon, we still have a steady stream of customers. And it does bring in money, so we had a scheduling crisis where she couldn't give me time alone. Instead, she was doing a photo shoot on Friday and another on Sunday, which gave her Saturday to edit pictures and try to keep up with the steady stream of new pictures.</p>
<p>Not a major problem. At the moment, her photography has a higher priority and we decided to give me an equal amount of time later. Sadly, that equal time didn't happen because of some other things, so we rescheduled it for this weekend.</p>
<h1>On Thursday, my little one got a present</h1>
<p>Thursday, EDM got sick. It was just sniffles but it quick turned into wheezing for breath and a lot of crying. We did the usual (steam baths and child-grade drugs), but it got worse the next day. We called the nurse's line and, after listening to him, she mentioned he probably picked up croup again (the cough/cry is somewhat distinctive). Now, croup is a virus which means there is nothing they can really do about it. And he wasn't serious enough to merit steroids, but we were advised to watch over him.</p>
<p>And that comes to Friday and Saturday. One of us needed to be watching him because he would be fine for an hour and then start to panic. And when he panicked or got upset, he had trouble with wheezing and that would set him off even more. And it would turn into a viscous cycle until we hauled him into the icy porch or into a steam bath. He never turned blue or any of the warning signs, but it is <em>stressful</em>.</p>
<p>And heartbreaking to watch him wake up in a panic and trying to hold him until he calmed down enough to breathe. And listening to the wheeze as he didn't get the hint he should slow down and insisted on using the battle octopus all over the house.</p>
<h1>What-if scenarios</h1>
<p>I am not a cheerful person and I easily get in the gloom and doom. So, as I'm stuck on a bed with him napping between my legs (my thigh apparently make a <em>fantastic</em> pillow), I started running through all those what-if scenarios. What if he stopped breathing? What would I do? How would I reacts? Hours of watching over him with little paranoid fantasies running through my head.</p>
<p>I didn't get a lot of restful sleep.</p>
<p>Intellectually, I know he was safe. I knew what symptoms to look for and what to listen for, but that didn't stop me from wanting to poke him every few minutes to make sure he was breathing. Or that brief panic when he held his breath for <em>no reason whatsoever</em>.</p>
<h1>And then Saturday happened</h1>
<p>So, I have all these frightful little horrors running in my head. Which came to a crux when Susan suddendly started screaming for me to come upstairs. She was watching over him at the time, but I actually got very frightened for a moment as I'm stumbling toward the stairs.</p>
<p>However, it wasn't EDM. It was a phone call from a police officer. SWMW's father had died in his sleep and suddendly everything was on her shoulders.</p>
<p>That is something I can handle. So, I had my notebook and a pencil with me already, so I answered the phone and dealt with the initial panic between the officer and later with the medical examiner. I also made the initial phone calls to JW's (her father) brothers.</p>
<p>I have certain blindspots when it comes to my emotional tapestry, but I'm good at coordinating in moments of (relative) crisis. I managed to make the initial calls to the funeral home (the ME needed to deliver a body "soon") and got the ball running. By then, she had calmed down enough which was good because I couldn't do much more without being a direct relative.</p>
<p>The rest of Saturday was dealing with JW's passing. There was some power games between the brothers to figure out who is in charge. And a whole bevy of bad news. SWMW's mother came up from Iowa City and helped with the things I don't do well (compassion). Between the three of us, we got everything settled down.</p>
<p>Sunday was handling the funeral arrangement. JW was a vertern, so we are hoping that we can get some assistance with the funeral because... well, neither of us have enough for a funeral. I watched over EDM who was over the peak and getting better, but still needed to be watched. I got a bit of writing in, but not much since I had to pay attention.</p>
<p>On Christmas Eve (Monday), I borrowed a truck from a thankfully good friend and we pretty much spent the entire day emptying out his house. And arranging the paperwork so we can start dissassembling his life (getting rid of cellphones, credit cards, etc). We did have a lovely dinner with MC and BN (SWMW's other parents) and they watched over EDM while we were packing. I accidently left my cell phone in the truck, but since I'm not a teenage girl (silly story), I won't die and I decided to pick it up later.</p>
<h1>A breath</h1>
<p>Today, I think we just crashed. None of us are inclined to head out of the house (except maybe for some IHOP).</p>
<p>I have a garage full of "stuff" that needs to be dealt with and a car to unbury before work tomorrow. Most of it is stuff we just have to deal with, but at least the blind panic over. The only thing left is a lot of phone calls.</p>
<p>EDM is breathing pretty strongly until he gets upset. Fortunately, he's finally getting to the point he drags us to his crib when he's ready to sleep. And we both feel okay with him sleeping alone now, which is just less thing to worry about.</p>
A disconnected weekend2012-12-03T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/12/03/a-disconnected-weekend/<p>I'm a strong believer in mixing up life. Sometimes, it is intentional like my occasional trip up to the family cabin where I have no phone, no Internet, and no television. In other times, like last weekend, it is the result of circumstances not underneath my own control.</p>
<p><!--more--></p>
<h2>Technical support</h2>
<p>The complexity started with SMWM's machine running very slowly. It was taking 5-10 minutes to browse a file and Adobe Photoshop (can't get her to use Gimp yet) was taking an hour to start up.</p>
<p>When I started to look into it, I noticed that Backblaze was about a hundred gigabytes behind on backing up the machine. And a disk scan hung up three times on the same file node.</p>
<p>So, looked like a corrupted hard drive. I started recovering using an Ubuntu LiveCD, mounting the partitions, and them copying them to a portable drive. It stalls out on the bad sectors (5-10 minutes per bad file), but its grabbing everything else, so I'm inclined to let it sit.</p>
<p>That means, unfortunately, that SMWM can't use her laptop since last Monday. And she had a weekend of "alone time" to work on her photography stuff. So, I nobly decided to give her my laptop after installing Adobe Photoshop on it.</p>
<p>Which means until I don't have major computer access until I get her laptop back.</p>
<h2>Time to myself</h2>
<p>This weekend, I was a single parent for basically four days. That doesn't really cause a problem since EDM has higher priority than just about anything else. So, while he was awake, I was playing with him, watching cartoons (which I do even if he isn't there), running around the house with him on a rolling office chair, or trying to figure out how to teach him problem solving.</p>
<p>But, right before he wakes up, I got an hour to kill. And three for his nap. Unfortunately, we have yet to get him out of the 23:00 bed time, so I went to bed pretty much with him.</p>
<p>I get anxious when I can't get things done, so I had to cram in all my personal weekend activities during those (short) hours.</p>
<h2>Writing</h2>
<p>I didn't get much new writing done in general. I did edit six chapters and managed to get the first draft of one chapter. It gets me closer to to the end of the serial. I think I'm down to nine chapters from the end, but that just makes me want to work on it even more.</p>
<p>The really cool part is that the plots are beginning to tie off. So, each chapter is more exciting for me, mainly because I've been looking forward to some of them for over a year ago.</p>
<h2>Consolidating email accounts</h2>
<p>I have a number of email accounts on different domains. I decided that I wanted to reduce a few of them, if anything to have less IMAP accounts to log into. I previously broke it out since I was having trouble getting certain emails (mostly editor responses) and setting the "From:" properly.</p>
<p>I found out that you can have multiple domains using the same business account for my ISP. Previously, I had each domain set up independently, but then this weekend I realized I could have both mfgames.com and brokentypewriterpress.com under the same account with differing aliases for both. It isn't a very fast process, but I started it to reduce the information overload.</p>
<h2>Switching ebook readers</h2>
<p>Another big thing was switching from my Kindle Fire to an Android-based reader (FBReader is my current choice of reader). This was a relatively simple thing to start with, but took a while to get everything in place. Plus, the tablet I'm using doesn't have phone features and I accidentally turned them on, which meant I had to redo everything... twice.</p>
<p>I'll leave the reasons and opinions for a separate post, it seems significant, but it was nice to have a new UI to play with that I liked a lot more than the Fire.</p>
<h2>Random stuff</h2>
<p>Thankfully, EDM doesn't mind when I clean the house around him. He usually giggles and run aways from the vacuum cleaner (or I let him ride it), but it was fun to watch him using tools to get what he wanted. ("I want to play with the knife. First I get the LEGO box over to the counter for a stepping stool, then I can use the flag from my bike trailer to pull the plate closer, and then reached up to grab my precious. And then... I run around!")</p>
<h2>A breath</h2>
<p>Occasionally, it is good to get away from the computer. Yeah, I got an Android for the rest of the week, but I suspect I won't be doing any major writing or programming until after I finish the recovery tasks.</p>
A busy little weekend2012-10-11T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/10/11/a-busy-little-weekend/<p>So, this weekend I went to the cabin. During Labor Day, I wanted to take down the dock for winter, but we ended up not having enough time (SMWM and EDM wanted to go home) to plan anything, so it didn't happen then.</p>
<p>It was a fun trip, but very cold and exhausting.</p>
<p><!--more-->I don't like driving, but it was a six hour drive I had to do. I was also congested, which make it miserable. Fortunately, I had all these lovely plot ideas I needed to work out, so I planned out stories and made up novels I'll never have the bandwidth. There was music, but never anything high BPM to really enjoy it.</p>
<p>When I got up there, they had a cold snap. Weeks of 25+ C weather and then half that. When we finally did get the dock out, it was snowing that morning. We managed to get it through the worst of the hail, but I got smacked a few times as we took down the dock. It was also <em>cold</em> at night, cold enough I was shivering.</p>
<p>As usual, I did technical support and got lectures. Only four hours this time (of lectures), mostly on the usual topic of my weight. He also made me feel like I had to justify my writing, to explain why I was dropping commissions and if I was actually working toward a goal of being published. It takes a parent to make you feel like a stupid little kid. <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>The next day, I headed back home. Six more hours, two more novels. The three days of congestion and cold turned into a nasty cold. I got fairly sick and I ended up pretty much sleeping twenty-four hours straight.</p>
Obligations2012-09-13T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/09/13/obligations/<p>I've been thinking about obligations a lot recently, mainly the obligations that are currently in my life and priorities. Some of it is to deal with the feeling of being overwhelmed but also just the occasional time to sit back and figure out who I am and what I want to be.</p>
<p>The big obligations are pretty easy: I give about 45 hours a week to work, about 65ish to Fluffy (considering calling her SMM though) and EDM. I seem to get about 36 hours of sleep... but I'm pretty bad about that. That leaves about 22 hours a week (on average) to my life.</p>
<p>I have a lot of obligations for those twenty hours. Most of them are self-inflicted like my serial, writing, and programming. Right now, the serial takes about 5 hours a week to get done, though I'm pushing to put more into it so I can finish. The writing group is 3-4 hours. But, those are fun, those are exciting because I love my family, my job, and my writing.</p>
<p>There are other, slightly less exciting obligations like helping <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/173579377571/">Sam's Dot Publishing</a> convert their books to Kindle, maintaining my websites and forums, fixing bugs in my programs, and generally things related to writing but somewhat tedious.</p>
<p>And then there is everything else. I don't enjoy housework, but it is something that has to be done. I just spent three hours doing lawn work because SMM and EDM weren't home (hrm, still working on the SMM alias). I went up to the cabin last weekend to spend time with day and do work and I'm going up in October to do the same.</p>
<p>Previously, I usually ignored what didn't have to be done Right Now™. Now, I still don't want to do it, but I'm trying to make sure that the house gets cleaned, lawn gets trimmed, and the cars are maintained. Things outside of my comfortable computer.</p>
<p>Now, I believe this is called Growing Up.</p>
<p>Just not sure how I got here. I still think of myself as the obnoxious 15 year old brat who thought he was the greatest programmer in the world. Even more frustrating is that I remember being 45 kg when I was 15 instead of the 145 kg I am now. Though, SMM says that 45 kg is not a healthy weight for 1.91 m tall person. I know she's write, but I'd rather be 45 than 145, you know what I mean?</p>
<p>Oh yeah, an obligation I frequently ignore is my health. That is one of those painful and frustrating experiences that I have to force myself to do.</p>
I'm in deep cold water2012-07-14T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/07/14/im-in-deep-cold-water/<p>I'm actually not in trouble for once, but I'm still in cold water. This week, Fluffy's cousin had her baby... only ten or so weeks early. Obviously, this was not planned in the slightest bit so I've been juggling schedules and using vacation time to play single parent for the week while she visits her cousin.</p>
<p>Today, she started driving to visit her cousin. The only minor bump was the hot water heater pilot went out the night before, and she used up the last of the hot water to give EDM a bath. I figured it wasn't a problem: call the plumber in the morning and I'll be in for a easy<sup style="font-size: small;">†</sup> weekend with EDM.</p>
<p>The plumber couldn't show up until 13:00 and he spent an hour before telling me that my 21+ year old hot water heater was dead. And given its age, there were no replacement parts. This was not unexpected and we had a contigency plan. I didn't want to do the contingency plan, since we already had a lot of rather large expenses in the last month (major car repair/maintenance, annual vehicle registration, and a few other things).</p>
<p>An interesting problem is that hot water heaters don't magically show up to get installed. So, I'm hoping to have it on Monday. Which means, no hot water for the weekend. As things go, it is relatively minor (except for the sting of spending money). I'm adaptable and quite proud of it. In fact, tonight's bath water was supplied by a 10 L stock pot on the stove.</p>
<p><sup style="font-size: small;">†</sup> <em>"Easy" is a relative term but it really isn't that bad. Besides, I like watching EDM's shows (Curious George, Blues Clues) and playing with his LEGOs.</em></p>
An impersonal rejection2012-06-10T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/06/10/an-impersonal-rejection/<p>I've been sick the last three days. Fortunately, the fever broke around four in the morning on Friday, but it was too late to get to work (I feel uncomfortable being around people within 12 hours of a fever, just trying to be nice). My throat has been sore the entire time though, but I'm <em>hoping</em> I'll be better. I miss work.</p>
<p>But, this week has been a rather continous series of downward trends. It started with Sunday morning (01:30) with a phone call. The Caller ID said "University IA Hospital". This is never a good call this early in the morning.</p>
<p><!--more-->Fluffy's father had trouble breathing and called 911. I guess he wasn't conscious when they answered and he was on a ventilator when Fluffy could come in. He had a heart attack and/or pnemonia, but they weren't sure which one. Sadly, for what would follow, that would be the <em>best</em> news they had. I'm not going to go into details, but needless to say, Fluffy is a wreck and her father is... well, let's say he's not in a good place.</p>
<p>It pretty much came to a head on Friday and today Fluffy is dealing with the fallout. She's in a hotel right now, not willing to face anyone. I can understand it and I don't mind the single parent thing.</p>
<p>I've been taking care of EDM while I was sick. Not entirely the best of conditions, but as GS would say, "it's part of being a parent." He's a good kid for the most part but it is really hard to get anything done because I'm playing with him in various forms. And when he's taking a nap, so am I. :)</p>
<p>So, everyone is emotionally fragile and on the edge. You know what the best thing to do? If you said "check to see if I got a response for <em>Flight</em> in my mailbox?" you're right! And it was there, sitting next to a donation for my other byline.</p>
<p>It was a rejection. Impersonal except for a "re: Flight of the Scions" hand-written on it. I know I won't get a good response from anything resembling a Big 6 publisher, but I was surprised how non-upset I was. It just was.</p>
<p>I had a different problem. My plan was to try for a few years to get published, then go the self-published route. There were a few reasons for that, but the main one is: I suck at self-promotion. I think between the pieces I have out there, I have made a grand total of $12. If you count the last five years (and exclude commissions), I think I'm up to a whopping $75. I could give specifics, I have a spreadsheet, but you get the idea.</p>
<p>If I put Flight out, it probably won't sell. I have <em>never</em> had anything make more than $60 and that one thing was over eight years. If you exclude that, I haven't made over $15 in any story or novel ever.</p>
<p>I haven't figured out how I can get hundreds of compliments and comments on a story, reviews across multiple sites, fan art and fan fiction, all for stuff that I give away free, but somehow I can't write something sellable.</p>
<p>Commissions are decent for me, but that business model doesn't scale. I can only write so many 10k commissions through word of mouth and that's been steadily declining for a few years now.</p>
<p>So, I don't have enough to make <em>Flight</em> succeed. It probably isn't good enough for selling without editing. And I know that I need about $8-10k for a proper edit, which is something that isn't an option right now. I can keep on submitting, but am I wasting publisher's time? There is that doubt that <em>Flight</em> just flat out sucks and no one will tell me. I know people tell me its good, but I will always have that fear.</p>
<p>This isn't going to be answered in the next few days, but something I need to figure out.</p>
The hard way to do things2012-06-05T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/06/05/the-hard-way-to-do-things/<p>Fluffy surprised me yesterday. Instead of leaving EDM with me when she went to the hospital to visit her father, she dropped the little one off at her parents and gave me the night alone. I told her she didn't have to do that. She did anyways.</p>
<p>So, I had a night of alone time. I considered going to <a href="http://crineta.org/">CRineta</a> but I spent the entire weekend trying to get some time to Get Things Done™ that I decided to go home and get things done.</p>
<p><!--more-->I have way too many projects at the moment. I strive to get my weekly obligations done by Sunday so I can have fun, but it doesn't always happen. On Monday, the new obligations start up so I naturally had to do work instead of playing Final Fantasy XIII.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/the_general_problem.png" alt="XKCD comic" /></p>
<p>One of my many projects is helping <a href="http://www.samsdotpublishing.com/">Sam's Dot Publishing</a> get their books on Kindle. It gives me a lot of experience with making Kindle books and it is fun, but tedious work. It doesn't help that I work on systems, not a single document. This means I'm spending my energy trying to write a program that does all the work for me, so in the future, I won't have to work as hard.</p>
<p>Over the last six months, I've been working on a set of manipulation programs (in Perl) to convert the files they give me (a Word document without styles) into HTML and then to Kindle. At the same time, I have my own internal process of converting Creole to <a href="http://www.docbook.org/tdg5/en/html/docbook.html">Docbook 5</a> to Kindle (and ePUB, PDF, HTML, etc). I always intended for these two processes to converge to create my own personal form of Smashword's Meatgrinder.</p>
<p>Since I had time, I thought <em>it shouldn't be that hard, why don't I do it now?</em></p>
<p>Five hours later, I think I have an almost workable conversion from SDP's Word format to Docbook which then feeds into my Docbook pipeline. I had to expand my pipeline a fair amount to get it working, but that's also a good thing.</p>
<p>I can only hope that the work I'm today this week is going to help in the long run. If anything to speed up the process and reduce my load. Getting everything automated wouldn't be bad either, but I doubt that will happen since SDP's editors don't use Docbook already. Oh well, while I think it is a great format for what they are doing, I can understand why they don't.</p>
Just about the end of my vacation2012-05-31T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/05/31/just-about-the-end-of-my-vacation/<p>Today is the last day of my vacation. I've been off since last Friday and it has been an interesting vaction, with its series of ups and down.</p>
<p><!--more-->The day I took off, I got obsessed with my <a href="http://d.moonfire.us/">website</a>. I found a better way of organizing it and created a custom WordPress page type along with some taxonomies. This ended up changing the menus (and breaking some URLs). I like it so far. I also found out how to get excerpts in the stories, so I can write summaries for the taxonmy listings.</p>
<p>On Friday, we had a few problems. One of the biggest part of a trip is scheduling. It is more than just me, Fluffy, and EDM. We also had to coordinate with my brother and his, my father, my grandmother, and the talented <a href="http://www.talesofthepack.com/">Allison Moon</a> who I met last year at <a href="http://wiscon.info/">WisCon</a>. Now, that might be a strange combination, but there was a reason for it.</p>
<p>Last year after WisCon, we spent some time with my grandmother and she got to meet EDM for the first time. So, we figured to cut our travel time in half and spend the night in Madison and do it again.</p>
<p>WisCon happens to also be Memorial Day weekend and was a block away. It was a "cruel" thing for Fluffy, but the <a href="http://www.innonthepark.net/">Inn on the Park</a> is a wonderful hotel and we fell in love with it last WisCon. I also just finished Allison Moon's book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005RMTSI6/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=dmoo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005RMTSI6">Lunatic Fringe</a>, and she happened to be there. So, after a bit of schedule shuffling, I wandered on over to WisCon, chatted with her about writing and asked her to sign my book.</p>
<p><em>As a side note, I think Allison has that spark I've been looking for. It was a wonderful book and I couldn't put it down. I actually was jealous when I read it.</em></p>
<p>On Saturday, we had breakfast with my grandmother who thought EDM was the best behaved child she had ever seen (plug). She also insisted on telling everyone, including the waiters at the resturant.</p>
<p>After that, we headed up to the cabin and got to spend time with my brother (CME, if you are curious), his wife (D?E), and his little one (ADE). My dad was also there. Everyone was in good mood and EDM and ADE got a chance to play with each other. I got in trouble for showing ADE how to pull CDs out of a case, but that's okay. It was fun to watch.</p>
<p>I got The Lecture from my dad. Every time we got to the cabin, he points out that I'm still fat. Usually in various terms, but this year's lecture was rather... harsh. He's absolutely correct, I am still over 135 kg, but I wasn't expecting quite the third degree.</p>
<p>The rest of the trip was fairly good. EDM didn't sleep well, so I frequently got kicked out of the full-size bed (three don't fit well on there). We also put out the dock and I got to listen to my brother try to convince my dad to replace the dock with something easier. :) Engineering fun.</p>
<p>I got writing done on the trip, mainly working on my commission. It is due on Sunday and I was seriously behind on it. I only got 5k words during the trip, but on Tuesday, I managed to finish up the last 20k of the story. It is sitting on the laptop, waiting for time to pass so I can edit. I also managed to get the first draft of the serial chapter. This chapter was one of the hardest because it is a major event and something I've been planning for about six months. We'll find out Sunday if it works, it ended up being over 10k words.</p>
<p>When we got home, we did have a nasty surprise: water in the basement. The water meter started leaking again. I called a plumber, but they told me to call the city. A few hours later, the city maintenance guy came (and looked at me strangely when I asked for photo ID) and replaced the meter.</p>
<p>Finally, I did some home maintenance things. The guest bathroom shower needed sealing, the kitchen lights replaced, and the pond in front had to be releveled so it didn't leak. I got those done.</p>
<p>Needless to say... I'm ready to go back to work.</p>
A parental visit2012-04-17T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/04/17/a-parental-visit/<p>This weekend, my dad came to visit. It was a lot of fun to see him, but the Thursday before says a lot about our relationship. He called with an agenda of things he wanted me to teach him and fix on his computer. Of course, there was some "squid pro quid" in there too but we have a lot in common. Apparently, he does make my obsessive-compulsive issues with solving problems look mild.</p>
<p><!--more-->Mostly, we got a lot of things done. I was just planning on entertaining him and not much else. He, on the other hand, kept asking what I needed done around the house. I mean, I wasn't expecting him to visit and work. But, I made the mistake of saying that I was going to network my office (so I could finally get my computers up) and the main television so the Roku would work smoother. Next thing I know, we're at Lowes picking up networking supplies (ran out of faceplates and jacks). I did most of the wiring work, but he helped plan it out and fish the wires. And I have networking in the basement! I still have a bit of clean up left (stapling wires to the ceiling and the node-0 stuff), but otherwise it is a pretty solid job.</p>
<p>I usually get lectures from him. Remarkably, the "disadvantages of being overweight" one didn't show up. I usually get that one every visit. Instead, I got some concern that Author Intrusion is a waste of time. He seemed to be happy that I'm swamped with writing projects right now. Last Sunday, I had my weekly serial due and a submission for the writing group. The same for this Sunday. I also got a commission for 15k words while he was here.</p>
<p>I did get a lecture about how I really should get a Kindle book online. :) I'm working on that one, but it seems to be taking longer than I wanted, mostly because the commissions, serials, and writing group submissions take precedence to the side project of getting a longish (20-30k) story online. But, hopefully BAM will be a fun fantasy story. It has running!</p>
<p>The only other major thing was that he brought DVDs of his old Super-8 and 8-mm videos while I was growing up. So, Fluffy, he, and I threw it up on the home theater downstairs and we watched the first few years of my life on video. Lot of fun, but Fluffy just started laughing and laughing. Because I had ears. Huge ears.</p>
<p><a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/baby.jpg"><img src="/assets/baby.jpg" alt="" width="704" height="474" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2114" /></a></p>
Today was the perfect day to move2012-03-03T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/03/03/today-was-the-perfect-day-to-move/<p>Today was going to be the perfect day. The weather looked like it was going to be warm with a slight breeze. We had to get up early for the movers, something not entirely enjoyed by the household as a general. But, an hour's worth of breaking down the bed and it should be perfect.</p>
<p><!--more-->When the first snow flakes came down, Fluffy said that it wasn't anything to worry about. By the time the movers showed up, there was a quarter inch on the ground.</p>
<p>The movers took one look at the house and "suggested" we get a second crew and truck. We said yes, mainly because I knew it was going to happen (co-workers talking) but also because it was in budget.</p>
<p>By the time the second crew showed up, there was almost three inches on the drive and we shoveled twice. We also went through a fifty pound bag of salt.</p>
<p>I also slid down the hill trying to load up the car. Probably not the best for dignity, but I was more worried about the clean laundry that used to be in the bag.</p>
<p>In the time it took me to finish three loads of the trunk, there was a layer of snow in the trunk.</p>
<p>The new place also had a nice thick layer of wet, slippery snow on it. One of the movers fell though, but other than that, no injuries.</p>
<p>But, nine hours of moving later and we are now out of the old place and moved into the new place. We, on the other hand, are not in the house because we decided a hotel tonight was a much better idea.</p>
<p>Today was a good day.</p>
And a major milestone is finally passed2012-03-01T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/03/01/and-a-major-milestone-is-finally-passed/<p>This morning, all three of us were sitting in the board room of my local credit union, signing the paperwork to purchase a house. This was one of the major milestones of the Master Plan and one I'm happy to move past.</p>
<p>I love owning a house. And, the normal buyers reget that I got from the last three places wasn't there with this one. We've done two trips for little things, but the main moving won't happen until Friday (we got movers to come and do the heavy lifting).</p>
<p>Right now, our rental is pretty much just filled with boxes and I've been lviing out of a suitcase for a week. In the next few days, we'll transition over to the new place and I'll start to settle down into a new routine. Plus a new route to work.</p>
<p>So, I'm happy.</p>
And things move on...2012-02-21T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/02/21/and-things-move-on/<p>I'm almost a week away from closing on my house and I'm both terrified and excited at the same time. Just like when EDM was born, I can't picture what my life will be after that point. I suspect the part of me that isn't disappointed with life is also the same bit that doesn't let me think of what it *could* be like. Instead, I get the joy of finding out exactly what it will be like.</p>
<p>Though, I'm getting tired of packing. For the last two weeks, I've been focusing on my office which is the nastiest part of the house (and also the junk drawer of the house). It also houses the library, the DVDs, and all my computer stuff. Needless to say, it was also a pig sty which made it even harder to pack.</p>
<p>But, I'm near the end. Less than nine days until I close. And two days after that, movers come to haul up boxes from the basement and stick into a truck. I'm going to move in the preceding two days, but only a few car loads of the important stuff (computers and light things).</p>
<p>I would have thought that during this time, I wouldn't be working on other things. Apparently not. I managed to get out get out a few chapters of the serial (though I put it on hold for the next two weeks), a few stories for anthologies, and the first two chapters of a novella (BAM) I want to experiment with on Kindle.</p>
<p>And Fluffy made me a new profile picture. I'm going to keep the "Mf" moon for <a href="http://mfgames.com/">MfGames</a> and switch over to one of me. This means that you'll see my smiling mug... hope it doesn't scare you.</p>
House purchase: 21.2% completed2012-02-01T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/02/01/house-purchase-status/<p>Well, in the last 48 hours, a lot has happened and all of them pretty much lock me down to the inevitable path of owning a house. Fluffy did the first round of looking for houses and got it down to the six she liked the most. The one I originally wanted was sold before we got a chance to try it out again and we found another serendipity house that was fantastic. We had a lot of trouble deciding when we came into the second to last house. And it felt just... right.</p>
<p>So, on Sunday night, we made an offer.</p>
<p>Monday was an entire day of obsessively checking email to see if they accepted it. Almost an hour after the deadline, I decided to bug my realtor (I <em>refuse</em> to put in the registered mark here) and found out there were some mistakes in the offer. But, they were "seriously considering it" which just added another few ticks to the Stress Meter™. But, then things suddenly rushed forward and they accepted the offer as long as we finished the paperwork properly.</p>
<p>Tomorrow I'm going to the bank to get a mortgage (we were pre-approved). The guy doing our loan (who is used to neurotic people like me) doesn't think there will be any problems, which is a relief.</p>
<p>The plan is to close at the end of the month. Schedules are made, people are moving forward, so I have twenty-some days to sit there and stew. Because there is really nothing I can do at this point besides signing papers.</p>
<p>Now, while I'm not... prone to excitement, this is me excited. I'm planning out my buyer's regret for the first few days of March, but I'm excited about owning a house again.</p>
Juggling and waiting game2012-01-23T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/01/23/juggling-and-waiting-game/<p>We started the house search process. Actually, it started a few weeks ago, but today was really only the second day that I was involved with the process. Historically, I'm easy about where I live. As long as it has the basics, I'll live there: roof, walls, and Internet. Everything else is pretty much optional. I also work on rules, so when you exclude places without a fence for the dog, Internet access, and easy travel time to work, there isn't that much to consider.</p>
<p>Fluffy, on the other hand, is considerably pickier about houses. We found it easier for her to pick her top few houses and let me decide which one I like.</p>
<p>Today, we just looked at four houses. The first we found was just about perfect for me, the second was great, and the rest were... acceptable. I really like the first one, but we have a few more places to look at this week. Which means, five days of worrying if someone else is going to get the one I love (if that is the one we decide to get).</p>
<p>On the other hand, there is a good chance we'll make an offer on a house within a week. :)</p>
<p>We already had one place we were looking at sport a shiny new "sold" sign by the time we got there.</p>
Still not programming2012-01-18T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/01/18/still-not-programming/<p>Yep, still doing the writing things, but life is rushing toward a major change event. On the writing side, I just finished two commissions I've been working on for about nine months. I also got the commission for the Magic4Terri and that will start up soon. And I got a second commission but its has a deadline of next year (yeah, 2013) and probably will be a novella (50k words) fan-fiction.</p>
<p>I'm working on a couple short stories that are due at the end of the month. Neither pay very well (at all) so I'm not doing so great on making money off this talent of mine.</p>
<p>And money seems to be on my mind lately. We hit some magical point and looking into buying a house has now become an option. This is one of the most stressful things in my life (at least the last three times) but I'm tired of being a renter and paying for someone's mortgage. Not sure how it will turn out, but the unknown is scary and wonderful at the same time.</p>
And I went on vacation2011-12-15T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2011/12/15/and-i-went-on-vacation/<p>I went on a vacation. It was a little one, flying down to Florida to meet up with my brother, his wife, and his little boy. It was a cool trip and I got a chance to see another baby up close. His boy is adorable, but... different. Different ways of being raised, different focuses on growing up, and different milestones. I'm sure there are a few things that I could have done wrong and I might change because of visiting my brother. But, no matter what you do, there is always a bit of friction.</p>
<p>We got to check out a pretty cool zoo and I got to play in the ocean. Apparently, I am "childlike" when it comes to playing with EDM in the ocean. I just know that I spent almost an hour hauling EDM in the water, waiting for him to cry, then watching him laugh as he toddled back into the water.</p>
<p>Needless to say, it was warm down there, even in December. The weather was nice, about 21 C, so it was shorts weather.</p>
<p>My brother lectures, not unlike my father. Some of the topics were obvious and I knew they were coming up. Others... I just quietly just listened since he wasn't wrong.</p>
<p>We started working toward heading up to the family cabin more often. I was already planning on going up for Labor and Memorial days (around WisCon, if I can) but it looks like they might join me at least once a year. And that is very cool.</p>
<p>We got back on Saturday and spent two days relaxing before I got back to work. Overall, it was a fun time and it was nice to see my brother who I haven't seen in over a year and my nephew who I never met before.</p>
Weekend in summary2011-08-15T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2011/08/15/weekend-in-summary/<p>This was a very celebratory weekend. Last week was my birthday (I'm now past the 36th year mark) and today is EDM's first birthday. We had cake, smash cake (pictures maybe), and presents. I got some awesome new shirts, though I normally dislike getting clothes for presents. This Sunday is EDM's formal birthday party with 15-50 people showing up (no one is RSVP'ing).</p>
<p>I also started on a commission. That will be this week, along with some editing. Only 10% into the 10k commission, but I'm pretty happy with where it is going. Lots of character development and tragedy. And, if all goes well, I'll get at least two out of the three beta reader comments this week.</p>
<p>I'm not sure how sincere it is, but two of the editing quotes had a nice egoboo. I've posted an excerpt, hopefully that will be okay:</p>
<blockquote><p>First, I must say this manuscript is very well written. I found the story and characters compelling, the worldbuilding solid, and the multiple cultures springing to life. [...] Among the hundreds of manuscripts I have reviewed, yours stands out among the few truly gifted authors I’ve worked with. [...] I’m pleased to have the privilege of reading the first 27,000 words without charge from someone with real talent, and I would love to read the whole book.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>First let me say that it was a pleasure to read your work. There is an old-world, mysterious tone about your writing that I enjoyed very much and pulled me in. [...] The writing is solid and full of details, and the manuscript is in very good condition.</p></blockquote>
<p>So, <em>squee</em> is appropriate here. Even if it isn't real, I'm still very happy with that. And both editor gave less than posted amounts for the quotes, so <em>Flight</em> might actually be there. And, given that I'm always worried that this is going to be a horrible story, I think those two quotes will get me through the rest of the year.</p>
<p>I also got the house ready for an inspection, and helped the landlord do his bit. Yay for electrical wiring.<br />
<a href="http://themes.mfgames.com/"><br />
http://themes.mfgames.com/</a></p>
<p>I worked a lot on my Javascript theme framework. I still have a bit more to go, but someone finally commented on my posts, so hopefully I'll get a bit of testing and verification if it works. My goal for this is to get http://d.moonfire.us/ and http://mfgames.com/ both migrated over (assuming it works) and the system working with WordPress, Simple Machines Forum, and DokuWiki by the end of the month.</p>
As usual, a productive weekend2011-08-08T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2011/08/08/as-usual-a-productive-weekend/<p>Had a fairly productive weekend. EDM was with his grandparents from Friday to Sunday, so I didn't have the parenting distraction.</p>
<p>First thing I did was investigate why the OTA antenna wasn't working. Apparently it was one bad connector, which was the first one I took apart to binary identify the problem (cut a problem in half and test which side was wrong). A rotate of the antenna later and I got a great signal and about 6-10 channels. The MythTV is already recording <em>Lark Rises</em> for Fluffy and she says it was acceptable. We also tested the Roku box (who still hasn't responded to my help request). Saw two new movies Alien Tracker (lousy but it had Adrian Paul in underwear) and Evil Aliens (silly, violent, like Feast).</p>
<p>I got a bit of writing done, mostly removing words from <em>Flight</em>. Managed to lose 2.5k words so only about 46k from my goal. I also decided to look into an editor for <em>Flight</em> because I think the biweekly chapter approach isn't going to help me trim it down. The quote was a bit of a shocker ($10,000) but after some major help from <a href="http://www.dianapfrancis.com/">Diana P. Francis</a>, I realize that if I want to edit <em>Flight</em> this way, $6,000 is a reasonable amount to budget for. That will take a bit of time to fund, but at least I have a goal. And probably a post tomorrow to explain why I think I need an editor.</p>
<p>I also managed to get a bit of programming. Mostly on the <a href="https://github.com/dmoonfire/mfgames-theme-javascript">Javascript theme framework</a> to get the Summer Day theme to handle <a href="http://simplemachines.org/">Simple Machines Forum</a>. It isn't perfect and I had to redo it twice, but it should be "good enough" in a day or two for me to move to the next step.</p>
<p>I also got some quality time with Fluffy and EDM, when he got home. And random crises at work. So, productive weekend.</p>
Hey, a blip in my life2011-06-11T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2011/06/11/hey-a-blip-in-my-life-2/<p>The last few weeks have been interesting. I went to the family cabin and managed not to talk about computers the whole time. It was a little rough in places, EDM is rather... distracting when it comes to writing, but I still managed to edit a few chapters of FOTS (probably should stop referring to books by names, too late). I'm around the 18% done, from purely chapter counts.</p>
<p>This week, I've been working on a short story for the hell of it. I also submitted a chapter to the writing group. That involved a decent amount of work, mainly to clean up some stylesheets, fix a bit of code with MfGames Writing, and one last round of edits.</p>
<p>I also finished taking over the writing group's website from someone who left it. It actually went pretty smoothly, but I'll be glad to manage it until they find someone else to do it.</p>
<p>EDM is moving through the milestones right on target. I come into his room to find him standing in his crib and he started "cruising" (walking along furniture). I'm being bribed to join in the family photos in a few weeks, so naturally I'll go and get myself photographed. At the cabin, my dad took pictures of me and all I could see was how fat I was. *sigh* I need to buckle down on walking.</p>
<p>Interestingly, I'm actually doing about 4-5 km walks consistently for lunch. My feet hurt right now, but I think its getting a bit easier. I'm going to pick up some shirts for work so I can change though, the heat is a killer.</p>
#wiscon Day 2 and 32011-05-30T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2011/05/30/wiscon-day-2-and-3-2/<p>So, here I am on day 3 of <a href="http://wiscon.info/">WisCon</a>. Tomorrow is the last day, but I'm learning a bunch of new things during the panels. Plus, I got to see my grandmother who I haven't seen in over a decade.</p>
<p><!--more-->On the second day, I went to the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://wiscon.piglet.org/program/detail?idItems=1277">One Thousand Ways to Die</a> was a very cool panel about killing off characters and the drawbacks of knocking someone out or the recovery of a serious injury. I got an idea for <em>Flight of the Scions</em> out of it, mainly to remove a subplot I didn't want anymore, but also that I need to scale back a bit of the damage. Wonderful panel.</li>
<li><a href="http://wiscon.piglet.org/program/detail?idItems=1070">Princess Boys: Is Male Femininity the Last Wave of Feminism? </a> ended up being the second panel I went to. There were some pretty awesome panellists in this one and it got into really good discussions about allowing boys do what they want as they are growing up (re: the boy who wanted to dress as Daphne and painting boy's toenails). Overall, something that will probably color how I raise EDM.</li>
<li><a href="http://wiscon.piglet.org/program/detail?idItems=1160">Postcolonial Steampunk: A Global Perspective</a>: <em>Flight</em> is inspired by steampunk, but I still question if it really is steampunk. However, this panel gave me some ideas about the current society behind the steampunk movement, how the "feminists" (WisCon being a feminist sci-fi convention) view it, and also some of the things that peek up in the cultures. The information in the panel was pretty good, but I liked the meta conversations a bit more.</li>
<li><a href="http://wiscon.piglet.org/program/detail?idItems=1255">The Future's Here, It's Just Not Evenly Distributed</a> was not the panel I was planning on going. However, in the elevator, one of the panellists for the belief session was in there (which I planned on going) and some of the things she said made me uncomfortable, so I went there. This panel was actually pretty good, talking about phones in Africa but no power, and dystopia in general. I cut out five minutes early to get a signed book.</li>
<li><a href="http://wiscon.piglet.org/program/detail?idItems=1037">How To Describe Nonwhite Characters Sans Fail</a>: This was a panel I really wanted to go to because my main character in <em>Flight</em> is non-white. They talked about much of the same difficulties I had, including not wanting to describe skin color in terms of food/coffee/liquor. Though, the comment about cannibalism (food descriptions) with descriptions got a laugh. This panel was excellent, but also the panellists were amazing together.</li>
</ul>
<p>On Sunday, things were a bit more suppressed, mainly because I needed to spend time with Fluffy and EDM. I ended up skipping two sessions just to go swimming and have a nap with them. Time worth it.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://wiscon.piglet.org/program/detail?idItems=1223">World-Building as a Spectator Sport</a> was a cooperative world-building. There were some interesting techniques, but it quickly turned into strangeness with erotic-based astrophysics and lust-based quantum physics.</li>
<li><a href="http://wiscon.piglet.org/program/detail?idItems=1126">Night in a Lit-Up World</a>: This interested me because I have a world that is an always lit-city, though I don't write much in it. The start came off really well, but then it kind of petered out in the latter half. I heard an interesting thing though, since the moderator felt that "since this is WisCon, we have to talk about race and night". I... didn't care for it but I wasn't annoyed enough to leave. So I worked on some plot ideas and listed to the few things I did enjoy.</li>
<li><a href="http://wiscon.piglet.org/program/detail?idItems=1113">I'd Object, If I Weren't Invisible</a> was probably one of the best panels I was to (tied with the erotica) for sheer energy of the people talking, the depth and breadth of knowledge, and also the understanding. It mostly talked about bisexuality in the various LGBT communities and touched on trans, two things I happen to have an interest in. I found out a lot about the communities and how people are "out" about those parts of their lives. It was cool thinking about an "outness" scale based on how out someone it.</li>
</ul>
<p>(If someone wants more details on a panel, or my opinion, please ask and I'll expand on them. I took copious notes on everything but the World-Building panel.)</p>
<p>After I got out, I had a call from my grandmother. I haven't seen her in years, over a decade actually, and she just got back from a trip to Alaska. When I suggested going over to her place (Madison, WI is <em>not</em> that big), she asked us to come over and we spent a good three hours chatting, talking. There were some curious points, as she circled around asking if I hated her (I don't) mainly because I don't try to keep in touch. I'm going to do better at that. Apparently, EDM is adorable and incredible, mainly because he handled new people and places so well and didn't cry once. However, as we were heading back to the hotel, he started bawling. I think he kept it bottled up to give the impression he's awesome. :) Of course, he is usually quiet so it probably was the incredible desire not to be in the car seat for another 3-4 hours.</p>
<p>I'm still pretty much alone at the convention, but not quite as uncomfortable about it. I had a lot of fun and did chat with a number of people, some of them I'll be adding to my RSS/Atom feed as soon as I get home.</p>
The "Lost Cousin"2009-10-18T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/10/18/the-lost-cousin/<p>Some years ago, I was dancing at my cousin Andy's wedding with a woman I didn't really know besides her near-obsession with cows and the fact she dances to "Earl Must Die" at her own wedding (best wedding song I've heard). It was one of those "pay to dance with the bride" things which I didn't really knew existed and didn't know what to do. Fortunately, I'm a fairly decent dancer (I used to love ballroom dancing).</p>
<p>But, we talked briefly about things, then something came up.</p>
<blockquote><p>When I saw your RSVP, I didn't know who it was at first. Then Andy remembered, you are the 'lost cousin'.</p></blockquote>
<p>Lost cousin. That hit me in a lot of ways. I don't call people often. I have trouble sending emails or letters. I don't give out Christmas cards or birthday cards. I've gotten a lot of flak over the years about that but it wasn't anything I really felt the need to change.</p>
<p><!--more-->One time, I called my grandmother and one of the first things she said was:</p>
<blockquote><p>Dylan, it's been ten years!</p></blockquote>
<p>Yeah... not my strong point. My brother called me once but never really called me again. It was at a rough time in his life, but... I honestly didn't know what to say. I drifted so apart from my family that there was this huge chasm between us. I didn't know what was happening with my brothers, my father, or anyone besides my mother (I worked for her, so I had to know).</p>
<p>In part of writing <em>My Father's Bike</em>, I started to look at that. The nature of reviewing parts of your life is that you have to, well, pull them apart. While writing it, I decided that I should try to stay at least a <em>little</em> more connected with the rest of my family.</p>
<p>Fortunately, I found out most of them are on Facebook. Which is great because I read the little posts. Though, I post every other day (almost daily with this Oile segment) and a lot more than others, it is a bit more connected.</p>
<p>So, that leads to yesterday. I <a href="twitter.com/dmoonfire">twittered</a> a short little line:</p>
<blockquote><p>I think I'm dying. I called a family member just to chat. What's wrong with me?</p></blockquote>
<p>One of my co-workers decided to call me because of a slight misunderstanding of what I wrote (and the lack of context). It was nice, mainly because he checked on me, but also because he cares. I know my family cares about me, I just couldn't see it for so many years.</p>
<p>I'm still a lost cousin. I don't call very often, but I'm slowly moving back to being part of that family. It is just... hard for me because it is like trying to make friends with complete strangers. They live in a much different world than me, one that I haven't been in for a very long time.</p>
And a lovely day to say the least2009-10-13T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/10/13/and-a-lovely-day-to-say-the-least/<p>Did a bit of tech support today for a family member. I tried to get their virus protection working, they fed me waffles. Very productive overall, but not nearly as much as I wanted it to be. I still need to work on a few websites, but I'm still exited that I got my <a href="http://d.moonfire.us/">main website</a> looking a bit niftier than before.</p>
<p>I'm enjoying the posting for Oile, but I have the usual doubts when writing in the dark. It doesn't quite have the feel I"m hoping to find and it is pointing out how much I need to work on world development for Fedran. Oh well, even if no one comments on it, I'm still going to enjoy the world-building.</p>
A short little trip2009-09-04T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/09/04/a-short-little-trip/<p>My planned vacation of heading up to the cabin for the weekend has taken a few hits over the last few weeks. Fluffy couldn't make it because of work, exhaustion, and other factors. I figured this was okay, my dad is up there and I'll just spend the weekend reading, writing, and walking.</p>
<p>Last night, found out my laptop won't boot. And I can't comfortably write by hand anymore, so if I can't recover it in the next hour or so, it's going to be a weekend of reading and walking. Which is a bummer, because I really was looking forward to writing.</p>
<p>But, I'm planning on having fun anyways. I'm sure I'm completely unprepared for this, it has been a few years since I went up to the cabin, but if I can't write, I do have a ton of books I can bring.</p>
<p>It will also be weird not having Fluffy along. I know she has to work, and she hurt herself today, but I also know that my dad is really looking forward to seeing me. I did consider buying a laptop, but I really shouldn't and I would spend more time here in Iowa trying to get it installed "properly" than actually driving.</p>
<p>Oh well, have a fun weekend!</p>
The good, the obsessed, and the wordy2009-07-07T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/07/07/the-good-the-obsessed-and-the-wordy/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (6.4 of 14.7 kg)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Commission (0 of 15,000 words)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Petition #3 Responses</div>
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<p>I'm excited and worried at the same time. My weigh-in for Weight Watchers was... good. Actually, a bit too good so I'm worried that I won't be able to lose weight tomorrow because of some quirk. Came out to almost 3 kg in a week. This reverses the weight gain in the two weeks before and then some, but I'll have to be extra focused on walking fast, getting some excercise, and eating healthy. I'm 0.45 kg from my next star and 0.91 kg from losing 5% of my initial weight at Weight Watchers.</p>
<p>Fluffy is out of town for a few days, so I get to enjoy obsessing at home. This week, I'm planning on working on my third college petition feedback and then the commission due in a week or so. The commissioner is anxious to get it and I really want to see how the story turns out. It is probably one of the largest ones I've done from someone else's idea, so this is going to be a challenge. While I can write fifteen thousand word stories, I do better with less than that.</p>
<p>My "sweet spot" for short stories is five to ten thousand words. That is where at least 90% of everything I write for myself falls into. Naturally, it is larger than most of the places looking for short stories which makes it harder to find places to submit.</p>
<p>Not that schedules impact writing at all *cough*, but the ten thousand mark is also the largest story I can reasonably write in a single evening. I have to be really into the story, dreaming and thinking about it constantly, but sitting down after work until bed time, I get just under four hours. Naturally, that times goes into Fluffy, animals, and housework also, but when she's out of town, I write more.</p>
<p>Imagine that.</p>
Mothers, writing, and documentation2009-06-18T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/06/18/mothers-writing-and-documentation/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (4.8 of 14.7 kg)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">College Petitions (2 of 4)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px"><a href="http://tracker.mfgames.com/roadmap_page.php">MfGames CIL</a> (9 of 22 tasks)</div>
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<p>(I know I said I'd talk about <a href="http://gs.mfgames.com/">Glorious Saber</a> and artwork, but I decided it sounded too whining so I just canned it.)</p>
<p>My mother came into town this weekend on her way up to teach a class. I was hoping it was for her other company, but... oh well, it is here life. Nice visit though, mainly talking about random things while plate after plate of sushi showed up at our table. She ordered about 30 pieces too many for the group of four, including Fluffy. I try not to over-order on sushi, mainly because the flavor changes so much overnight and my contribution to the order ended up being exactly what I could eat. Except there was only one sushi chef and they were swamped. So service took three hours for our food to show up. That gave us a chance to talk.</p>
<p>Nothing really meaningful, but she made a joke that actually got me worried. She's been falling a lot. She didn't come out and say it, but she jokes about a few nasty falls and Fluffy said that a friend of ours (who works for her) said that she is falling more often. It isn't normal of her to keep secrets like that but in other ways, I'm not sure how much I'm going to really worry about it. I'm trying to pull away from her to get a clear head, but it is something I'm going to keep an eye on. You never know if falling turns into something worse.</p>
<p>In more cheerful news, I got a 93% or A on my college course. Only two more to go, including the capstone project, and I should have my masters by the end of the year. I'm still hoping to get my petition out by the end of the weekend, but I suspect the <a href="http://mfgames.com/mfgames-cil">MfGames CIL</a> release won't be until next weekend. It is all those documentation steps I want to get done before I finish.</p>
<p>Technical writing is an interesting best. It is far different than writing fiction and very different from my non-fiction writing. I have a separate voice for all three types of writing, just as I have a fourth for academic writing. It is hard, actually, to write documentation for libraries like this. Mainly because it is done last, but also because it sometimes is really hard to explain <em>why</em> you did something that works well in code. "Just because" is a horrible thing to write in documentation. For some, I reverted to just explaining how to use it, but for others, I explained why I use it, so people understand the decisions behind what I wrote.</p>
<p>So, programming and writing and school this week.</p>
Come, weekend, throw me what you shall2009-05-22T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/05/22/come-weekend-throw-me-what-you-shall/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">College Petitions (1 of 5)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Commission (2,943 of 10k words)</div>
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<p>There are days when I hate to walk alone.</p>
<p>Yesterday became one of those days. I didn't bring Inigo out on a walk because of the temperature. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeshond">Keeshonds</a> are absolutely adorable dogs, but they also have huge furry coats and can suffer from heat exhaustion. The last time I walked Inigo, alone which means about half again faster than Fluffy, he got so hot that I saw drool pouring out of his mouth. When he got home, he pretty much collapsed. When it gets hotter, I can't walk with him, not and feel that he will be safe.</p>
<p>Fortunately, Fluffy walks him in the morning, where it is cooler.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Inigo doesn't understand the connection between so hot that he almost collapses and walking outside. So, five minutes after staggering home, he is ready to go again. Pretty, but not so bright.</p>
<p>That means I walked alone.</p>
<p>It gives me a chance let my mind wander. Which usually means thinking about some story I'd really like to write if I wasn't walking. Actually, it was nice, I got to work out the entire plot and realize that, somewhere around chapter 15, I simply couldn't get it to work. That is the nice part of walking, getting to work out those story ideas and filter out the ones that won't.</p>
<p>The hard part is when I get a story I want to write. Like <em>Flight of the Scions</em>, <em>Peg and Sue</em>, and everything else. Ideas get ironed out faster than I can write them. Then again, I always had that problem, so I can't honestly blame college, exercising, or anything else. In fact, it just seems to be who I am.</p>
<p>I have a busy weekend planned. I'm late on my major homework and I need to compress 38+ pages down to 20 or so, plus include my own work. I also need to do all that icky lawn stuff, get more boxes out of the garage, repair the electrical on two outlets, and finish my commission. It is also the weekend we are celebrating our anniversary.</p>
<p>I really, really need to finish that commission.</p>
<p>What else does a boy need?</p>
Progression! Progression...2009-05-17T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/05/17/progression-progression/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (2.6 of 14.7 kg)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">College Petitions (1 of 5)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Commission (589 of 10k words)</div>
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<p>Doesn't quite sound as good as "tradition", one of my favorite songs, but I had a very productive weekend so far. One of the main things is that I finally cut over the new theme to <a href="http://mfgames.com/">Moonfire Games</a>. The theme is growing on me, though I don't have the extra flair stuff, I do have all but one thing up and running. I still need to migrate the online Map of Creation but that is going to take a bit more than a few hours to get that running. Apparently, it broke badly in the last year and no one told me until recently.</p>
<p>I'm also changing my formula for petitions. I haven't sent out any, but if I count the answered questions and the ones I'm looking for supporting documentation, I'm much further than 20% done. So, I just came up with one point for answering the question, one point for evidence, and one point to submit to come up with the new formula. Sadly, at nearly 70%, I really, really need to get off my ass and finish them. I'm going to send one out tomorrow, at least that is the plan.</p>
<p>Mowed the lawn... sort of. It's a free lawn mower, so you can't expect much. If I keep up with it, I'll be able to do it on two charges, but right now it should take me a few more days to finish up. The charge on the mower only lasts about a half hour with the tall grass and an hour and some with the short grass. Obviously, it will inspire me to actually keep up with the lawn work.</p>
<p>Gave up on getting subtitles to work with the movies. Just too hard at this point, but I do have a nice copy of <em>While You Were Sleeping</em> for Fluffy sitting on the MythTV box. I'll rip a few more movies, like <em>Princess Bride</em> and <em>Juno</em>.</p>
<p>Except for a walk, which I haven't done in three days due to being sick, I'm pretty much just going to blow the rest of the day on Fluffy, writing, and maybe programming.</p>
Forty-one to go2009-05-13T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/05/13/forty-one-to-go/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (2.6 of 14.7 kg)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">College Petitions (1 of 5)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Commission (0 of 10,000 words)</div>
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<p>Nine years ago today, I stood in my living room and managed to fumble what should have been the most important sentence in my life. And, to be honest, I can't remember anything but the fact I fumbled and why. In this case, it was because the preacher started reading from <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13">Corinthians</a> and all I could think of was the scene from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/">Hackers</a> where Cereal Killer is trying to get everyone to play well together.</p>
<p><!--more-->Yep, nine years ago, I got married in my living room. It was the cumulation of a very rough year in our lives, but also the capstone to major life changing events like having my last name legally changed to Moonfire and getting eye surgery so I could be free of glasses for a few years (might need them soon, though).</p>
<p>Fluffy and I joke about our marriage. I've seen too much pain when people are shackled together "forever" so I wanted a decade-long marriage with renewals. She wanted it to last into the next lifetime. So, we compromised on fifty years with renewals. In forty-one more years, when I'm seventy-five, we'll decide if we want to stay together another fifty years. It think she's banking on me being lazy at that point; we'll see.</p>
<p>It was also a point of change in other places. It was the day where my mother said something that really started me on the path of getting away from here.</p>
<blockquote><p>"I'm so glad you married a woman."</p></blockquote>
<p>I'm not saying that I was unhappy there, but there was something about the tone of her voice that just bothered me, but it took me a few months to put a finger on it. That was one aspect of my life she never liked, though she claimed she was okay with it... just not with her children. Send her younger son, who was obviously obsessed with women, to spend the summer with a gay couple, no problem. The older one, who didn't show attraction to <em>anyone</em>, keep them away from those gays. Oh, and throw women at him.</p>
<p>I did marry a woman. Fluffy is a wonderful human being and she has the strength of character to handle my rather epic mood shifts, bouts of depression, and constant whining that I don't have enough time to do things. She also is my crowbar to get me off the computer at midnight and the person to kick me in the knee when I'm being an asshole.</p>
<p>In other words, a perfect mate.</p>
<p>But, her gender doesn't really matter to me. It was just how it came out in the end. Like many things in life, I have trust that what is provided to me is what I needed. You just have to not be picky about the form it comes in. And I'm not.</p>
<p>I'm happy. Marriage is probably one of the best things in the world that happened to me. I didn't do anything right. I didn't propose properly or plan it. I spent a year trying to get up to the courage and I came out as "um, I think I just proposed to you."</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>Okay, it really wasn't that special.</p>
<p>And I fumbled on my vows because I was thinking about a movie.</p>
<p>But, the last nine years have really been the greatest years of my life. I saw the world in a new light, and while it isn't perfect, it is exactly what I needed.</p>
A pound lighter...2009-05-05T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/05/05/a-pound-lighter/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (1.7 of 14.7 kg)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">College Petitions (1 of 5)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Commission (0 of 10,000 words)</div>
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<p>We changed our weigh-in day to Mondays and, I'm very happy to say, I managed to lose another 0.6 kg. That puts me at 16.3% of my goal of 14.7 kg, which is making me rather happy since I'm still heading in the right direction.</p>
<p>Today is also the first day that Fluffy won't be home when I get there. I have to actually go out on that walk with my own willpower instead of looking forward to spending an hour talking with her.</p>
<p>I'm hoping to get to programming or writing this week. I have been happily distracting myself with working on the <a href="http://test.mfgames.com/">new Moonfire Games</a> site and I'm planning on getting all the projects and everything mapped over. This uses <a href="http://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki">Doku Wiki</a> for the CMS and I'm enjoying it pretty well. Needs a bit of love on the fonts, but that is, relatively speaking, a minor thing.</p>
<p>Later this week, I'm going to start working on my commission and hopefully the petitions. And, mowing the lawn for the first time in ten years.</p>
<p>Joys!</p>
Small steps2009-04-29T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/04/29/small-steps/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (1.7 of 14.7 kg)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">College Petitions (1 of 5)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Commission (0 of 10,000 words)</div>
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<p>Got my official weigh-in yesterday and it wasn't the prettiest thing the world. Actually, it was barely a weight loss at 0.1 kg, which is the smallest amount they measure. Well, 0.2 pounds, but I don't like that system. There were a few things I did wrong. Fluffy seems to think that me not eating enough is contributing to the slow weight loss, and she might be right. I have been struggling all week to actually eat my full points. Normally, I'm shy 5-15 points a day out of my 44. I just get obsessed with work and, well, forget to eat. That and we took the new guy out for chicken wings about three hours before I weighed in.</p>
<p>So, this next week, I'm going to behave much better. I swear! We are also moving our weigh-in day to Mondays, not because of the chicken wings, but Fluffy's new job starts Tuesday nights. Actually, it looks like she's basically on second shift for the length of this job. We are both nervous about it, but I have faith that it will work out in the end. It also means that we are going to cram "together" time on Sunday and Monday nights.</p>
<p>I also stayed up late last night to reformat my laptop, which always takes twice as long as I think it would. But, it now has a brand new XFS file system and will let me write stories/novels upstairs with Fluffy instead of down in my "man cave". I need to rewrite at least three outlets to make this happen properly, a lot of two prog ones, but I'm getting nicely down the getting settled path. After that, I have a MythTV box to move up stairs, a remote to get working with videos, and moving the boxes out of the garage.</p>
<p>An exciting time, right now, filled with a great wide plain of opportunities. And doors. Hundreds upon thousands of doors spread out before us. I'm kind of cheerful about that.</p>
<p>As a side note, Fluffy reminded me to just "not be depressed".</p>
A weekend in review2009-04-27T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/04/27/a-weekend-in-review/<div style="float: right;margin: 0 0 0 5px;padding: 0px">
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (1.6 of 14.7 kg)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">College Petitions (1 of 5)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Commission (0 of 10,000 words)</div>
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<p>Another weekend has passed through my fingers. slipping away like sand and water and me without my panning bowl. It was a good weekend, filled with many good little things, but it still felt like a wash for me.</p>
<p><!--more-->I finished the first draft of the Unit Timing (today's name for UnitT on Friday). I got it up and running using <tt>MethodInfo.Invoke</tt>, but it was running so slowly that I switched over to using dynamic methods. Then... realized it ran slow because my test case had a <tt>Thread.Sleep(250)</tt> or a quarter second. When you run 64 of those, it takes--amazingly enough--16 seconds to complete. But, now I have a nice version with dynamic methods and caching, written entirely with the System.Reflection.Emit classes. I even put in a pretty robust little notification system for getting status. It is usable for the command line, XML output, and even a GUI front end.</p>
<p>Sadly, the precision on the timer isn't that great. There will be cases when I'll have to do a ten thousand or a million runs to get any reasonable number. But, the entire point is to test this for things that may be that efficient.</p>
<p>I also started working on the <a href="http://test.mfgames.com/">new theme</a> for <a href="http://mfgames.com/">Moonfire Games</a>. It still looks a bit plain, but I'm going to add more graphics on the page so start filling it out. I think I'll continue the angled theme for the various artwork too. The entire site is built using the <a href="http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Theme_Guidelines">Tango palette</a> but probably not all the guidelines. I'm planning on using the diagonal lines as the general theme.</p>
<p>I had to go to server-side processing though. While client-side XSLT is a great idea, and works beautifully in Firefox, it crashes all the other browsers on my machine. Great idea, just have to wait for it to be implemented properly. Until then, I'll just implement the various theme engines for the tools I want.</p>
<p>On the writing side of things, I got another commission two days ago. From one of my prior commissioners and it is a half-off price offer, but a ten thousand word story is still a story. I like this person's commissions. They come up with good ideas, try to supply as much information as possible including pictures of who they want it to look like, and a fairly detailed setting while leaving most of it for me to fill in the gaps.</p>
<p>I also got a request for my MediaWiki theme for my old <a href="http://brokentypewriterpress.com/">Moonfire</a> site. I'll have to package that up properly and send it over in the next day or so.</p>
<p>Other than that, not much else. Slept in, read <a href="http://jlevitt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=40">New Tricks by John Levitt</a> (I'll review it this week), walked a few miles, got depressed on perceptions of food, homework, and generally cleaned up a bit. It seems remarkable, but I still came out of it feeling half done this weekend. </p>
Moving month2009-04-22T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/04/22/moving-month/<div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss: 14.7 kg (32.4 lbs)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">College Petitions (1 of 5)</div>
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<p>It's amazing. We packed and moved the entire house in Illinois in a matter of a weekend, but to move from a small apartment takes four weeks of effort. Today, I finally handed over the keys to the apartment after Fluffy and I got through our final cleaning last night.</p>
<p>Now, Fluffy did break her back to pack the house six months ago, but the loading of the truck, moving, and unloading still eclipsed the sheer amount of effort and took less time.</p>
<p>Oh well, I'm down to two residential addresses again. And this is a good thing.</p>
<p>I haven't found my rut yet, but remarkably, I'm still happy. I did decide to hold off on finding a gaming group though. Unless I fall into one, I need to focus on everything else going on and it is something that I miss but can set aside for a few months or years. I'll get my fix at GenCon this year and maybe actually be a bit less pathetic about enjoying writers.</p>
<p>If I can remember to pre-register for stuff.</p>
<p>And to finish the reviews I promised.</p>
Commissions, BooGame, hardware, and creativity2009-04-20T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/04/20/commissions-boogame-hardware-and-creativity/<div>
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<p>Got an email out of the blue last night about <a href="http://boogame.sourceforge.net/">BooGame</a>. It was a simple question of "can I do this", but it also got me excited about working on the project again. Like writing, I always work better when someone is going "ooh, how pretty!" Call it vanity, but I write for audiences. It doesn't matter if it is programming, literary, or research reports.</p>
<p><em>(Side note, I'm going to use the official Weight Watchers weigh-in on Tuesdays to update the progress bar on the top. It is there to annoy me and remind me that I have something hanging over my head.)</em></p>
<p><!--more-->I got distracted in the last few months from BooGame and the rest of my projects. Plus, just a general <em>blah</em> when it came to writing which I highly suspect was writer's block. I did write stuff, mostly commissions, but there is a strange thing in that I can write on demand very well, but I can't always come up with my own ideas. With commissions, I get the idea in paragraph form, so the "hard" part is already done. All I have to do is make beautiful words.</p>
<p>Though, while I'm experiencing writer's block, I have to schedule my writing instead of relying on the obsessive need to pound words into the keyboard all hours of the day. I miss that, when it happens, but I have 12d6 worth of Obsessive powers.</p>
<p>Speaking of commissions, I got a really nice compliment from my latest commission. You know, the usual "you do fantastic work" and "I don't think other authors could treat this topic so well". Yes, it isn't entirely true I'm that awesome, but still. It helps my ego swell by three sizes for reading them. It is like not getting a rejection letter from a publisher. True, only one person is probably going to read it. Well, the hordes of anonymous people once I sanitize the names, but it was written for a single person who loved it because they got exactly what they wanted. Knowing that I'm writing what they want, even though the topic is not my own, makes me feel proud. I can write well without having a strong emotional attachment to it.</p>
<p>That's passing now. My commission "season" is pretty much over at this point and my creativity is coming back because my life isn't as chaotic. Given that, I think I'm going to focus on BooGame for a little bit. Knowing someone is interested will drive me to finish and maybe I can get another chunk done before life hits me in the head again.</p>
<p>I've had a very busy weekend. I got my new drives (two 1.5 TB), cables, and memory sticks. I upgraded a bunch of machines, got my MythTV back-end working, but not the front-end. I also split out my Windows and my Linux machines into two separate machines which involved reading a 54 digit number over the phone three times to get it reactivated. But, it should make life a bit more stable when it comes to do school and business work. Not to mention it gave me room on the Linux machine to put in the second 1.5 TB drive as my new /home partition. Mmm, space.</p>
<p>I also worked on the <a href="http://d.moonfire.us/themes/summer/index.xml">new theme</a> for <a href="http://mfgames.com/">Moonfire Games</a> website. It is bright and cheerful, with more white than the old one, but I think it is also easier on the eyes to read. Well, except the font which needs to be seriously looked at again. This is also a pure XML/XSL stylesheet. If it works out, then I can make a generic "theme" for the site and use client-side XSL to format it; might make life easier.</p>
<p>Remarkably, I also manage to exercise every day except for Saturday. MiL took us on a "short" walk of 30 minutes. Damn that lady walks fast, but it also means I have a lot to go before I can catch up. I'm trying to get at least 4 activity points (another Weight Watchers thing) a day and then move it to 5 and maybe 6 at some point. We'll see if I'm making a small step toward weight loss tomorrow. Here's hoping.</p>
Diabetes, MythTV, and world-building2009-04-16T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/04/16/diabetes-mythtv-and-world-building/<div style="border: 1px solid #CCCCCC;width: 250px;margin: 2px 5px 2px 0;padding: 1px;float: left;background: white">
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<p>Rough night, mainly because I kept thinking too much. Stupid little things that keep you up. I call it my monkey, a little chattering thing that won't shut up so I can go to sleep. Fortunately, not everything was negative, just... loud.</p>
<p><!--more-->Obviously, the main thing was the whole weight and diabetes thing. My doctor is test-happy, so I limit any blood work to every few months unless it is an emergency. So, I have two months or so to get glucose and weight down. No problem, in Weight Watchers, my first goal is 10% anyways. It was also my goal at the beginning of the year, but I didn't have a good idea of my weight then. Three months ago, the doctor's office said I weighed about 151 kg. According to WW, the scale said 147 kg. So, I already lost about 4 kg, if all those scales are right. I'm going to use the 147 kg point and say I need to lose 14.7 kg in the next few months. I won't get upset if I don't make the 14.7, but I will if I don't make at least half that (5% goal) of 7.4 kg.</p>
<p>It's a plan. I managed to get used to eating half a gallon of vegetables every day for lunch, I can get used to 30-60 minutes of exercise a day.</p>
<p>I was also thinking about the MythTV box. I decided to migrate the hardware to a slightly slower machine (Pentium D 2.8 GHz to a AMD x64 3800+ at 2.0 GHz). It allows for more RAM (4 instead of 1 GB) and it's 64-bit which should help with encoding. That and it's rated higher than the Pentium. I ordered a new 1.5 TB drive for the file storage (and another 1.5 TB for my "personal" computer). I'm enjoying getting it working, but with everything else, it just takes time to get it done and I'm impatient.</p>
<p>I also got a new mailbox yesterday. Forgot the address already, but I really like having a postal box for my writing. With commissions and everything, I've always been uncomfortable with people knowing my home address. I also post my address on-line, for that strange day when someone might want to send me fan mail. Yes, the mailbox place (also a UPS Store like last time) knows it, but it offers a bit of veil for my on-line presence. I'll start changing my various on-line addresses, like domain records and such, over the next few weeks. It may only be temporary, since I don't know where we'll get the non-rental house, but it at least gives me <em>something</em>.</p>
<p>Finally, Fedran and religions. This is actually the fun topic, since I'm trying to show historical progression and change of various religions as they mix, fold, and separate over the centuries. I wanted to have denominations, not unlike this country, where every church has a <em>slightly</em> different view on things. Fortunately for me, a co-workers wife is going to seminary so I got a really good view of what she is going through to become a preacher, including the different types of relationships between a pastor and a church. Coupled with years of listening to my Roman Catholic friends, my experiences in random religions, and everything else, I think I finally have a good handle on how I want religions to work in this fantasy world.</p>
<p>It also lead into how I want to show history in the world. On my wiki site, I'm building up the various countries and everything as my working notes. If I ever get a book published, that is the point where I'll worry about backward consistency so everything is still mud-like right now. But, I could create a little SVG file of the continent and use that to show snapshot influences of a religion over time. So, I can show where Tirmol started and how to expanded over the years until the wars with Devmas which eventually lead to the religious truce of that became the Divine Marriage. And the fracturing later which will give me the God-King split and all those other denominations.</p>
<p>In my head, it's all pretty. Now, to see if I can make the website match and actually be informative.</p>
<p>I wish I had more discipline for updating the wiki and keeping the continual world-building going. I might now that things are settling, but I honestly feel that the reason my other world works is because I spent years building up the world. I wrote stories, ran games, and even made up little comics in that world. Not all at once, but layering idea after idea on top of it until I had such a wonderful place to write in. And, like wine, it had the influences of my ideas at the times, which changes constantly.</p>
<p>Well, I'm excited and creating today, despite everything.</p>
Diabetes2009-04-16T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/04/16/diabetes/<p>According to my latest tests, I'm one test way from officially having diabetes. This... well, this scares the hell out of me because I feel like I'm in a blind panic to prevent something that I should have seen coming for close to five years.</p>
<p><!--more-->The frustrating part is, I thought I was doing so well. I got my glucose levels to 117, but this last one they shot right up to 137. According to the nurse, 126 is the magic point that I should worry.</p>
<p>I've already started working toward getting healthier, but I'm now worried it was a too little too late. I started Weight Watchers yesterday, it is maybe 100 meters from my front office door. Now, I found that I need to <em>seriously</em> work on this if I don't want that official branding of diabetes.</p>
<p>I've been working on getting new habits this year. Eating lunch every week (except for last) since nearly the beginning of the year, getting a normal breakfast and lunch under control. Weight Watchers will help with that last meal of the day, plus encourage me to actually focus on losing weight.</p>
<p>I'm scared, I'll be honest. I know that I still have a chance, though slim, to step away from this cliff and I'm going to seriously try to do it. Even if it means not writing a little bit more and taking that time to move.</p>
<p>We are also settling down into a schedule for the new semester. Looks like Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be excercise days, planned before this blow to the liver, including joining martial arts in a week or two.</p>
<p>Still... we'll see what the next two months turns out to be like.</p>
I pushed it2009-04-10T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/04/10/i-pushed-it/<p>I pushed it a bit too hard in this last week. Everything was going perfectly fine, loading the truck up on Saturday, unloading on Sunday. Then, Monday came. A peaceful day of relaxing, unpacking, and getting the DirecTV working. It would be perfect for heading back into work on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Fluffy even drove me in. Yeah, it was only for a day, which is all I can ask for her. If there is one thing she isn't, it's a morning person. I mean, she hisses at me if I wake her up too early. It's cute and adorable, but hissing?</p>
<p>So, Thursday is here. I only have a half-working DirecTV system, an Internet that occasionally drops out, and a cold that makes me wonder if I found a variant of some new plague. We'll call it Dylan's Torments. It shall be a terrible disease and people will curse my name until the end of time.</p>
<p>Or, just a simple head cold.</p>
<p>And yet, I'm miserable and happy at the same time.</p>
<p>What is wrong with me?</p>
Moved in2009-04-08T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/04/08/moved-in/<p>Wow, new house, new patterns. Commute is almost exactly double the length and if I catch all greens (like this morning), it takes 18 minutes to work. That means the bad days should be about 22-27 minutes.</p>
<p>We finally got physically moved into the place on Sunday night, except for the apartment which is going to take a few more trips to properly clean up. Somehow, a tiny little apartment takes more effort simply because we didn't get a big truck and move it.</p>
<p>Moving day was hard. Fluffy had a good-bye party, which meant me and my brother packed the truck while they partied. Got a little bitter about it while doing it, but I've managed to let it (mostly) go by now. I also learned that while I'm good at packing trucks and cars, my brother is just that much better than me. We had almost no empty space in that thing. Note to others, when they say a 5.1 meters (17 foot) truck is for a 150 square meters (1,600 square foot) house... they lie. We left a few things behind for the next round of things (plus, we still technically live there also).</p>
<p>Unpacking was fun: snow and hail. We gave up taking things into the basement and just loaded up the garage. Over the next month or so, we'll get the garage cleared out and usable by the cars.</p>
<p>I got hurt pretty much every day of the move. From the three scratches that look like a cat, but really was a file cabinet, to the bruised foot from where I feel at the gas station (dignity survived simply because no one could see on the other side of the truck). I'm walking with a limp, but that should be fine by the end of the week.</p>
<p>I also realized I'm stronger than I thought. I know that I packed some of the boxes heavily, at least when Fluffy called me some months ago complaining that she put one of my "heavy" boxes on the scale and it came out over 30 kg (70 pounds). And I only had eight of those (RPG books, mostly hardcovers). Last night, even with a limp, I could easily pick up the 35 kg (76 pound) shelving unit box to toss it in the cart. We always joke that I'm stronger with an audience (cute girls or guys are worth +10 STR). But, still strange since I see myself as a wimp in general.</p>
<p>It's exciting right now. Settling down, getting things working, and basically streaming right into a hopefully relaxing weekend of unpacking and being married once again.</p>
Hindsight2009-04-01T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/04/01/hindsight/<p>When we scheduled the repairs to the Saturn a few weeks ago, I didn't really think this week would be so complicated. In hindsight, I probably should have waited another week before getting the car repaired, but I don't like driving with a caved in corner of the car. Actually, I don't like driving the Saturn because it is short, but that isn't it.</p>
<p>As such, the current move is going a bit rough. Too many things to do in Illinois and Iowa and our only car is trying to wind its way through Illinois' construction season to get to Iowa in time to pick up the key to the house, talk to the utilities, and start the moving process.</p>
<p><!--more-->Originally, we thought she would have some energy to maybe move some of the boxes while I was at work, but at this point, I'm going to say... no. A couple frantic hours tonight of moving and I may be located in a brand new location; without Internet, phone, or any form of entertainment besides my wits.</p>
<p>So, probably just moving stuff until I pass out.</p>
<p>Whee!</p>
<p>Tomorrow, we head back to Illinois for that part of the move. I already have a guilt trip with my mother planned on Friday and an emergency tree surgery for a fence later in the day. Oh, and a haircut that I desperately need. Then, a party where today's count of the guest list is nineteen. Fluffy is popular and going way is hard. She claims she doesn't make friends, but there is still going to be almost two dozen people at this party (I'm including myself and 21 is close to 24). It will be hard for me too, because I'll be saying "goodbye" to friends twice, once last year, once this year.</p>
<p>In other news, I finished the second draft of my commission last night. Sending it out, I hope they like it and there won't be a third. If there is, it will have to wait until after this move is over. Then, new plans!</p>
Whine, whine!2009-03-31T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/03/31/whine-whine/<p>Fluffy left for Illinois today. She's coming back in 48 hours, but somehow I'm going through the same thing I go through when she leaves for a week or a month. Completely and utter burnout. Two hours to get on the computer and just drooling on the computer for better part of an hour watching meaningless television.</p>
<p>Pathetic, really.</p>
<p>I'm hoping to move in the same 48 hours. At least my apartment into the new house. 24 hours after that, I'm going to Illinois myself to pack up the packed boxes that have been sitting in a garage for almost half a year. And then, back to Iowa. Hopefully for good.</p>
<p>I'm excited about it, but I'm also desperately wishing I could fast-forward through the next 5 days. I can't though, nor is my request for a montage been approved.</p>
<p>I even made the request in triplicate.</p>
Low-grade OCD2009-03-27T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/03/27/low-grade-ocd/<p>Worked on my commission last night and managed to get through the rewrite of one of the scenes. Just one more, which is much harder since it is going to end up a two page mental battle of a man tied up in a basement. I'm not so great with inner monologues; regular dialogs yes, even trilogues I'm good at, but not monologues. I probably would be terrible at pentalogues though, just because it gets confusing at that point.</p>
<p>I'll probably get that Sunday and Monday night and send it out right before we move. Or, at least that is the plan as of now.</p>
<p>EDIT: I also got 4 GiB RAM that I ordered last weekend. With that, I upgraded my machine from 1 GiB to 4 GiB and suddenly things are working a lot smoother again. Apparently KDE 4 is a bit too much of a memory hog for just 1 GiB. Not to mention, I can open up an extra 60 windows, just like I like to. And no swapping! Well, at least until I get used to it. RAM with computers is like a bed with cats, sooner or later, it always gets filled.</p>
<p>Fluffy is in town again, just not here. She originally had a photo shoot today, but it got rescheduled for Monday morning. So, she spent the night in the hotel as originally planned and I'm going to visit her tonight for two days of hotel goodness and destressing of the wife.</p>
<p>In anticipation of her playing Scrabble on her phone, something we both like to participate, I got my n810 up and running with some games. So pretty. The problem is, I got it <em>almost</em> working somewhere around 21:30 and messed around with a half hour before I realized I had the "chinook" distribution and not the "diablo" one that most games used.</p>
<p>In frustration, I gave up and took my shower. As I was getting out, I realized I wasn't letting it go and decided to upgrade and install all the games I wanted and could find.</p>
<p>Somewhere around 00:50, I realized I <em>really, really</em> had to get to bed. I'm tired and exhausted, but I have a bag full of clean clothes, a swimsuit, a n810 to play with, and a stack of book as tall as my hand. And I got paid today.</p>
<p>I'm good.</p>
<p>Yep... I'm good.</p>