In the Lee of the Scale...

Parsec Dreaming

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:24:57 -0400

Giddy! I am giddy! Want to know why? I'll tell you why. This time last year, I was just a tech blogger with aspirations to be a podcaster.
This year, I'm a Parsec Award Nominated writer.
Let's say that again. Now, I have my own podcast, I'm a regular on the Galley Table Podcast, I'm a contributing writer to Flying Island Press' Flagship Magazine and the Every Photo Tells... podcast, and I am a Parsec Award Nominated writer!
Hee!
If you've not heard of the Parsec Awards, the Parsec is an award for excellence in Podcasting that is given out every year at Dragon*Con in Atlanta. The Parsecs are given out to shows that are deemed to embody the best of Speculative Fiction for each year. Speculative Fiction embodies Fantasy, Horror, and Sci-Fi elements in storytelling.
Mur Lafferty, Michael R. Mennenga & Tracy Hickman founded The Parsec Awards in 2006 to celebrate Speculative Fiction Podcasting, under the banner of Farpoint Media.
Podcast shows are nominated by fans, and finalists are chosen by a yearly steering committee. Those finalists are then voted on by an independent panel of judges from outside of podcasting. Awards are given in several categories ranging from content to audio quality.
So, the easiest part of the process is getting nominated. But it is still an honor because someone out there liked my work enough to nominate it. Or three someones. Because I didn't just get nominated for one story. I got nominated for all three stories I did for the Every Photo Tells... podcast. If you'd like to check them out, those stories are Episode 24 - The Gift, Episode 32 - Welcome to Paradox, and Episode 51 - The Price of Surrender. Nominations end June 1st. At that point, we'll have to wait and see if any of my stories move on to the Finalist stage.
If you'd like to see who else was nominated, you can check it out here.
Fingers crossed!
Doc

Where was I?

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:22:50 -0500

Goodness me. I haven’t posted since September? What the heck have I been doing?

Oh, yeah...

Renfaire kept me busy up through the end of October, then Kee and I spent a weekend at a B&B in Pennsylvania for our wedding anniversary. A beautiful Victorian mansion that is in the process of being restored to its original glory, with a few modern amenities. We had a great weekend.

In November we headed down to North Carolina on Veteran’s day to attend a friend’s wedding. We stayed the weekend so we could attend the Carolina Renaissance Festival. This was another fun weekend bracketed by a pair of long, long car rides. And I came back and went directly into a training class for the next week. Then of course, there was Thanksgiving.

December was awash with get-togethers and Christmas parties, and in the time between social engagements, I started up a new endeavor: a Podcast. Over the past year, I’ve had so many people inquire about my weight loss, and ask “What’s your secret?”. In the end I decided to create an audio journal of my journey, and share some of the observations I’ve made along the way. Thus The Shrinking Man Project was born. I launched the podcast on December 19th, the anniversary of when I started my weight loss program in 2009. Since then I’ve been releasing weekly episodes recording my progress and talking a bit about the mindset that has helped me be successful, and the pitfalls that most people fall into. I know it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but so far I’ve gotten some good feedback from my audience. We shall see how it grows.

Through all this I’ve been keeping The Nifty Tech Blog going. I was fortunate enough to bring Scott Roche onto staff as our resident Windows expert. Having someone to share the load with has made it easier to manage juggling the blog and the rest of life. Now the goal is to build up a buffer of content so I can manage the more active times in the coming year. February 1st will mark the first anniversary of The Nifty Tech Blog.

I’ve also become a semi-regular on Flying Island Press’ weekly podcast Galley Table. I started out just being a guest one week when they didn’t have anyone else. I had fun on that podcast, so I showed up the next week when they were getting ready to record, and they let me join in. Since then, I’ve come back every week when I didn’t have anything else going on, and they’ve pretty much adopted me. Galley Table focuses on writing and publishing and the influences that effect the industry. Especially from the viewpoint of the small press and the beginning writer. I’ve kind of positioned myself as the token rookie.

And, yes, I’ve been writing. I’ve been working on a number of short stories, mostly for the Every Photo Tells... podcast, but I’ve also been working on some longer works that are still in progress. I didn’t participate in 2010’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but I have started some planning for 2011. I intend to do NaNoWriMo this year, but I hope that I can make enough headway in one of my other projects to complete a novel or a novelette before then. I would like to be able to get far enough ahead to be able to do a reading or a podcast premiere at this year’s Balticon, but that might be a little overly ambitious for this year. We shall see.

I am also doing some voice acting in upcoming projects from Pirates Cove (a division of Flying Island Press), and Scrivener’s Circle, which I can’t quite talk about yet. But soon...

We interrupt our previously scheduled program...

Mon, 6 Sep 2010 22:10:27 -0400

April, oh April, what have you wrought? I was doing pretty good there in catching up on months past, and then April hit... and there just wasn’t any time for keeping up with everything, and this blog was one of the first things to go. Not what I had planned.

But now it is September again, and the Maryland Renaissance Festival has started up. Once again, I am trying to chronicle the season in pictures, and trying to see how long I can keep putting pictures up before I fall hopelessly behind. Again.

So I’ve posted two sets of pictures tonight. One from Opening Day, and the other from Labor Day Saturday. I hope folks enjoy them. There were a lot of wonderful sights to see at the faire, but one can’t always capture all of them on film. You really have to be there.

In my last post, I mentioned that I was starting a weight loss program back in December. Well, i’ve been at it for over eight months now. And I’ve lost over 90 pounds. A number of people have been asking me for Before and After pictures, but I never really planned on taking any Before pictures. But since Faire happens every year, I can come fairly close. So you can compare the picture above of me this past weekend, with this picture, that was taken last year. Quite a difference, huh? Yes, the girl is pretty, but look at me. What do you mean you don’t see me. The red thing. Oh, nevermind...

Of course it didn’t hurt that the heat and humidity were much less oppressive this year. It is easier to look good when you’re not wilting.

A lot of things have kept me busy this year. First has been keeping up regular exercise as part of my weight loss program. And naturally work takes up its own share of time.

Back in February, I started publishing my own Tech Blog: The Nifty Tech Blog. The blog primarily focuses on reviews of products that make your life easier and more productive, but there are also editorials, polls, and other goodies. Even the odd guest review.

I’ve also started to branch out into fiction writing. I’ve had a short story accepted by the podcast Every Photo Tells... and included into their first anthology of speculative fiction. And I have a few other projects in the works. I hope to get some of them far enough along that I can talk about them, but for now I need to put some more work in.

I also made my first trip to a fan convention by attending Balticon 44 over Memorial Day weekend. This was a great experience for me, and I got a chance to meet a number of podcasters, authors, and other creative people. This was a big part of what lead me to start working with fiction. It also led to me to working with Tee Morris and doing a series of podcasts with him for his Bird House Rules podcast. The series is a cross over between Bird House Rules and The Nifty Tech Blog where we are looking at Twitter clients for the iPad. On the podcast we talk over the various clients, and on the same day I take an more in depth look at them in my blog.

We’ve also gotten active with LEGO conventions, attending Brick Magic in Raleigh, North Carolina in the spring, and just recently doing Brick Fest in Chantilly, Virginia back at the beginning of August. LEGO has come a long way since I was a kid. A generation that has grown up with these toys has refused to put them away and has unlocked their own creativity in the process. If you haven’t seen a LEGO display at one of thee conventions, you’ve got to go. Some of these builds are amazing, both in terms of re-creations of real world structures, and in terms of builds from the mind and imagination of the builder. Perhaps I should set up a LEGO gallery...

I will try to be back soon and cover some of the early part of this year in more detail. At the very least, I shall endeavor to keep more current. Wish me luck.

December 2009 - Rounding out the year...

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:09:38 -0400

After returning from our Hatteras trip, we discovered that our “home server”, a 1998 AGP Graphics Mac tower, was having issues while we were gone. I restarted it, but it froze up again overnight. It was becoming very obvious that it was trying very hard to release the magic smoke that makes it run.

So, I started off December by ordering a Mac Mini Server to replace it. After 11 years of use, my top of the line Pro Mac was replaced by the Server version of the bottom of the line Consumer Mac. And at that it was a huge step up in storage capacity, memory, and processor power. Now that is progress!

When the Mac Mini showed up and I pulled the old server out, I found that it was just filled with felted dust. So I set it aside to open up and clean out. It was possible that the box was still good, but had been overheating. And... I still haven’t gotten back to it. I really should look at that sometime soon.

The other aspect is having access to Snow Leopard Server for the first time. Having a proper server OS opens a number of new doors. Now it is possible for me to run my own e-mail server for my domain, or host my domain on my own server. So many possibilities... and so much homework to do to figure out how to do any of them! Maybe later...

I set the new server up, and got things working again with the file server, print server, and the iTunes library. Just enough to get us back into business. Along the way I discovered that Apple had replaced Firewire 400 with Firewire 800, and I needed to order an adapter to connect my Firewire 400 drives at all. An Amazon order and a few days later, everything is up and running.

And at the same time I’m finally getting to drive my new car and get used to all the little quirks of european design. For instance, the driver’s seat is manually adjusted back and forth, but the back of the seat is a power adjust. There is a light sensor on the dashboard that turns on the headlights when it gets dark... but you have to turn on the interior lights manually. The car has built-in bluetooth connectivity for the phone and allows audio to be streamed through the radio from a bluetooth source, but there are only two power ports in the car: one in the dash, and one in the trunk. And both ports go off when you turn off the ignition. Some odd design decisions.

But the Jetta is very fun to drive, and the seat heaters are WONDERFUL in cold weather. And it rides the road like it was on rails. Even in bad weather.

One other consequence of the Hatteras trip was Kee getting sick for several days. With everything else happening at the same time, I was pretty much treading water just keeping things going and taking care of Kee. No chance to pick up the house after Faire and the Hatteras trip. Or do any Christmas shopping except for online. Or decorate.

So... no tree for Christmas this year, and a lot of work to get things cleared up for the celebration... and cook a big meal? There just didn’t seem any way to do it. And just as we were looking at scaling down Christmas, some friends down in Virginia invited us to come to their place and share Christmas dinner with them. So, all we need to do is finish our shopping!

Also during December, I went to see the doctor about losing weight. She told me to follow the Weight Watchers food plan, and work my way up to exercising for 45 minutes a day, 5 days a week. She also gave me a prescription for an appetite suppressant to help me deal with the lower calorie intake. I filled my prescription on Friday...

And then the Snowpocalypse came.

Over two feet of snow overnight. Boom. So, I signed up for Weight Watcher’s online program, and for the first week I shoveled snow every day for exercise. The first week went pretty easily. Even Christmas dinner didn’t turn out to be a problem. Part of learning the program is learning what the point values and portion sizes for various foods are, and part is learning what foods I need to trade out for in order to eat better. More cucumbers and mushrooms, less cheese. Cutting down on the cheese is the hard part. And cutting down on refined carbs. Whole grains are pretty decent, but potatoes and white flour? Not so much...

And in the midst of the aftermath of Snowpocalypse, we managed to sneak out and see Straight No Chaser at the Birchmere! Straight No Chaser is an a cappella group from the University of Indiana. They formed as undergrads, and toured for a while bringing their unique interpretation of traditional tunes. Then they graduated and passed on their musical responsibilities to a new generation of undergrads. Ten years later, the original members of Straight No Chaser were brought back for a reunion concert... where they were seen by a highly placed record executive, who signed them for a recording contract and started them touring again. It was an amazing show, even from the cheap seats.

The snow receded enough for us to do Christmas dinner, but it clogged the roads in the area. We tried to go to see a movie at Tyson’s Corner on three different days before we could actually get close enough to get to the theatre. One time we got into the mall property, only to have cops detour us away from the parking. Madness.

New Year’s Eve had us heading down to Richmond to a New Year’s party thrown by some friends who lived down there. The drive was a bit monotonous, but we met a lot of new friends and had a good time while waiting up for the ball to drop.

And thus was 2009. A year of much change, achievement, and new beginnings. We shall see what 2010 brings.

November 2009 - Revisited

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:41:55 -0500

Another Wayback edition of Lee of the Scale... looking at November of 2009. What a month it was...

I started the month spending some time out of town with Kee and some friends. Came back from a very nice weekend and took Monday, the 2nd off to catch up on things at home. Tuesday, the 3rd, I got up and went into work. I never made it.

On the way in to work, I got rear-ended. I hadn't quite made it to where I370 splits off, when traffic in front of me stopped dead, with solid walls of vehicles on both sides. I came to a stop behind the last car, and glanced at my rear-view mirror to see a mini-van coming at me at speed. To give the driver credit, she tried to swerve into the next lane, she just didn’t make it fast enough. I had a split-second to hope that she would actually make it.

BLAM!

She hit my car in the passenger side tail-lights. The impact made my chair back release and lay back all the way, and my car was driven forward into the Prius in front of me. I was sent forward into the dash, bruising my knee and bouncing into the steering wheel. If the seat back hadn’t given way, I probably would have been hurt much worse. We managed to pull over to the side of the interstate, despite the scraping and grinding coming from my car. I didn’t seem to be hurt, so I got out and took stock of my car.

A police cruiser was just behind us. He stopped traffic and cleared some debris out of the road, then he pulled over to talk to us.

A young woman ran up to me and asked me if I was hurt. I told her that I didn't think so, just banged up a little. She told me that she saw the whole thing and that she pulled over as a witness. I thanked her. She went off to talk to one of the other drivers. I don’t think I ever got her info.

The police officer had been on his way to court, and he couldn't stay, but he had called another officer to take over. He took our licenses and insurance information and went back to his car.

I talked to the other two drivers. The woman in front of me had just bought her Prius two weeks ago. The other woman was handicapped. Apparently I was the only one who was hurt in the accident. Although the driver who hit me had her airbag deploy.

The original officer came back with a uniformed officer. He told us that he had to go to court, but the other officer would keep watch on us until a State Trooper arrived. Technically, the interstate was the State's jurisdiction.

As we waited, my knee started to swell and stiffen up. I called Kee and let her know what happened, and called work and let them know I wasn’t coming in. It didn’t seem serious enough for an ambulance, so we didn’t call one. But I added a visit to the hospital to my mental list of things to do once we got off the side of the road.

I ended up gathering my stuff from the car, then calling Kee back to come and get me. The car was going to have to be towed, and I was going to need her to take me to the hospital.

A few minutes after that, the uniformed officer gathered us up down near the mini-van. Apparently the state troopers were too busy and that he was going write up the police report. He gave each of us our credentials back and pulled out a copy of the accident report. The Prius was still drivable, so she left. The rest of us sat down and waited for our tow trucks.

Kee showed up and pulled over onto the shoulder. She walked up to me, laughing. She said that she thought the cop who was there was her prom date from high school. Sure enough, a couple minutes later he came up, called her by name and gave her a big hug. He said that when he saw my name he thought that I might be her husband. He had heard her married name from some mutual friends.

The tow trucks arrived and took our vehicles off to impound until the insurance companies could get them looked at. For us it was off to the emergency center and the beginning of a new chapter of medical neglect.

They took x-rays of my legs, looked me over, and kept me waiting in some form or another for over three hours. Then they gave us the bums rush to collect my billing information and kick us out on the street. I left with a prescription for pain killers and a doctor’s note to keep me out of work for the week.

So then home. Food finally. And another hour and a half on the phone with my insurance company giving them all the info. And then having to deal with the insane impound lot. To get my car released to the insurance appraiser, I had to FAX a signed piece of paper to the impound lot. Just fax. I could fax it, or I could come down in person. No other options. And when I told the guy that I didn’t have a fax machine, he hung up on me. Took me another two hours to print up a sheet, sign it, scan it, put it online, and then e-mail the insurance company with the URL of the scan so THEY could fax it for me. They only use their own internal e-mail and I couldn’t send an attachment via that.

The next day, I got a rental car from Enterprise, and went on home. Then had the other driver’s insurance call me up and grill me. And try to trick me into letting them off the hook for a measly $500. Um, no. Not when I haven’t even healed yet.

My car didn’t get released from impound until the following day. No idea why. Impound guy just kept saying I needed to fax him a release. Asshole.

My injuries seemed to be confined to having a massive bruise on my knee. It was swollen and stiff for several days. I ended up getting some compression socks to reduce the swelling. And then I started shopping for cars. It took forever for a final word on my car, but everything made it look likely that it was going to be totaled, so I started looking for a new vehicle. Unfortunately, most vehicles don’t really make any accommodations for large persons in the driver’s seat.

About this time, I finally got my BiPAP machine. This is a device to control my Sleep Apnea. It keeps me breathing by forcing air into my nose. It varies the pressure on inhale and exhale to maintain the rhythm of my breathing. It took several days to get used to, and the mask I originally started with tended to leak, but I did get used to it. After dealing with some issues due to setting the humidifier too high and having a face full of water.

Finally my car was officially declared totaled. And I was informed that because it was totaled, I would only have another week of rental coverage. So I had to do everything to arrange for a new car in a week. And I still had no idea what car I wanted (and could fit in). And since I was back at work, I had very little time to shop. Lovely.

After lots of late night scrambling about and visits to dealerships right before they closed, I finally ended up deciding a VW Jetta. And the whole thing almost fell through because of the time to arrange financing for the car. But King VW did some things that really surprised me. First, while I was still trying to figure out where I was going to be able to find financing, King VW offered to let me take the car as a loaner so I could return my rental car before my insurance benefits expired. They had an Enterprise office onsite and I could return the rental there and drive the Jetta home right away. Until I could figure out the finances and come to buy the car. I’ve never heard of a car dealership doing anything like this. They put a dealer plate on the car and sent me home.

The next day, I got a call from King VW and was told that they found a bank that would match my credit union’s advertised rate, and if I wanted to do that, we could finish up the paperwork that night. I was working on filling out the loan application for the credit union at the time. And it would have taken at least two days to get the loan approved. So I went back to King VW and finished the paperwork to buy the car.

I drove my new car home, parked it in front of the house. And then Kee and I loaded up her truck with our luggage. The next morning, we got on the road and drove down to Cape Hatteras for a week’s vacation over Thanksgiving. Hatteras wasn’t perfect, but it was a blast. There are a ton of pictures to be published and I’m still working on them. I will report on that later in the Vacations area of the site once I’ve got the pictures organized.

The auction to raise funds for Tee Morris’ daughter’s Trust Fund is coming together. There are over 60 wonderful items coming up for auction. Please support Sonic Boom if you can. The online auction for her Trust Fund will be on February 27th. See http://www.theBoomEffect.com for more details!

And please check out The Nifty Tech Blog! I’ve put a lot of work into the site and We’ve got a couple of good reviews up. I’ll be posting new reviews of tech every two weeks at first, but I hope to pick up some momentum and update the schedule. And keep watching, as new features are in the works, and we’ve got a couple of guest reviews coming up in the next couple of months.

Lastly, tune in next time, when I’ll round off 2009. Until then, I’ll be in the Lee of the Scale.