[personal] It is to be tired
Worked all day. Omaha Beach Party this evening, with , , , Mrs. , M— and T—. That was very nice. By the time I got from the restaurant to the room I’d managed to lose one glove (in freezing weather, where you’d think I’d notice) and lock myself out of my room, twice (it’s more complicated than that, but I am too tired to explain and the net effect was the same).
The cold seems to be diminishing, so with luck I’ll sleep decently prior to cracking my happy self out of bed at a Very Ridiculous Hour to fly home. The weekend seems to be made for laying low and keeping warm, in the interests of not inducing a return of the cold, but of course the heat at Nuevo Rancho Lake is on the blink. Luckily I made a smart and have the heating guy coming at 2 tomorrow. Let’s hope my plane is not late.
Writing work for tomorrow: Potlatch workshop stories, Endurance synopsis, a blurb for ‘s excellent debut novel Passion Play, and answering some interview questions.
Writing work for tonight: to sleep, perchance to dream.
Play nice, do good, I’ll see some, all or none of you back in Portland.
Tags: Books, Conventions, Endurance, Omaha, Personal, Portland, Travel, Writing
Posted: 6:58 pm Thu February 19 2009 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad drives a hot rod Lincoln
The Ken Scholes Book Trailer — Starring Trailer Boy (oddly enough) and Yours Truly.
Sci-Fi Songs Podcast #3 — Including a rough cut demo of “The God Clown Is Near”, inspired by my own story of the same title. Fascinating to listen to.
Amazon’s Long Play — (Thanks to .)
Evil Clowns: 1925 — Mmm…clown sauce.
The replacement tongue — This has an out-of-this-world squick factor, but some cool biology. (Thanks to .)
Finding weird life on Earth — Centauri Dreams talks about a ‘shadow biosphere’.
on Young Earth Creationism — To me, it’s just anti-intellectual idiocy, pure and simple. He analyzes YEC within a religious framework.
?otD: Have you heard the story of the hot rod race?
2/19/2009
Body movement: 45 minute stationary bike ride
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville; Passion Play by Beth Bernobich
Tags: Links, music, Personal, Photos, Publishing, Religion, Science, Videos
Posted: 5:50 am Thu February 19 2009 | Comments(0) |
[sale] Polish rights to Trial of Flowers
I am pleased to announce that my agent, the mighty , has informed me that Polish publisher MAG Jacek Rodek has made an offer for the Polish rights to my 2006 novel Trial of Flowers [ Powell's | Amazon ].
Tags: Books, Sale, Trial
Posted: 6:10 pm Wed February 18 2009 | Comments(0) |
[personal] Siiiiiiiiiick
Last time I was in Omaha, I came down with an upper respiratory infection.
Guess what?
It’s actually a fairly trivial sniffle, but with just enough post-nasal drip to render sleep damned near impossible. I keep waking up choking, or feeling like I need to throw up. So the last two nights have not been made of win. I think I’m going to have to stand down when I get home and spend the weekend on the couch. Grr.
This is also interfering with writing and writing related program activities. Double grr.
Tags: health, Personal
Posted: 5:04 pm Wed February 18 2009 | Comments(2) |
[books] Green and Greener
The last few days I’ve been thinking about a sequel to Green. I believe I’ll make some story notes, and probably write a synopsis, before I get on to the revision Tourbillon at the beginning of March. I know the new title (for now): Endurance. I have the opening scene in my head, which means Fred is gnawing on it. Putting words to paper will let me get on to other things, while giving the ideas a chance to digest and be socialized among them what needs to know.
So properly, I suppose this post should be entitled Green and Endurance. More to come, and maybe even a WIP, if I wax sufficiently poetic.
Tags: Books, Endurance, Green, Process, Tourbillion, Writing
Posted: 4:46 am Wed February 18 2009 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad is a friend of Mr. Cairo
reacts to Escapement [ Powell's | Amazon
]
Undeliverable: 1925 — Shorpy with a photo which is strange and sad on many levels.
The South Pole Telescope — Which I learned about from Centauri Dreams in this article, with an intensely cool accompanying photo.
Reckless driving on the Internet — How someone broke the Internet. (Thanks to .)
French sub unaware it rammed Royal Navy vessel in mid-Atlantic nuclear crash — Now that’s what I call safety. (Snurched from Gizmodo.)
Obama’s Elf — Kill me now. (But wait til I’m done laughing.)
Cheney and the Goat Devil — Maureen Dowd on a falling out among thieves.
?otD: Did you see in the morning light?
2/18/2009
Body movement: 45 minute stationary bike ride
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville; Passion Play by Beth Bernobich
Tags: Escapement, Funny, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, reviews, Science, Tech
Posted: 4:43 am Wed February 18 2009 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad for an Omaha Tuesday
Subterranean Press announced a Jay Lake collection for 2010
likes “America, Such as She Is”
Harnessing Hamster Power with a Nanogenerator — Hahahah. :: checks date :: not April 1st ::
Secret of love boils down to chemistry in new study — I knew it was something in the smell. (Thanks to .)
?otD: I’m sorry, what was the question?
2/17/2009
Body movement: 40 minute stationary bike ride
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville; Passion Play by Beth Bernobich
Tags: Culture, Links, Personal, Publishing, reviews, Science
Posted: 5:43 am Tue February 17 2009 | Comments(0) |
[conventions] RadCon report, and travel
Had a brilliant weekend with at RadCon. Between the vagaries of Con schedule, driving time, and our respective travel schedules, I’m behind on posting.
arrived on Thursday morning. After a tour of the bachelor squalor of Nuevo Rancho Lake, we lit out for Pasco, WA for the convention. It was an ok drive, though the trip ran into the cold dark. Had a simple, quiet evening there, then Friday morning we got in some gym and writing time before heading out in a group for the tour of the Whole Body Count Facility, a/k/a In Vivo Radioassay.
, and at lunch on the way to the Whole Body Count Facility.
Atomic pretzel at lunch
That was a fascinatingly weird piece of technology which combined a certain roughcut steampunk elegance with WWII components, the Big Science air of the 1950s, lead bricks, dentist chairs piped for liquid nitrogen, and radioactive human remains stored onsite for baselining purposes. I’ll post a photoessay with some more explanations later, but touched on it here.
at the Whole Body Count Facility
Friday evening the convention swung into gear, with my usual toastmasterly duties in play. In this case, that mostly amounts to being RadCon Bob’s shill for the annual Prank, though there were some other highly entertaining (to me, at least) moments. That was followed by a rough and tumble forty minutes of improv comedy with I won’t even try to describe, except to note that it was stunningly exhausting. And is brilliant at improv. And kissed me on stage. We had an otherwise pretty light schedule that night, so we were off to the Shimmerzine party, then wound up having a quiet evening with and in our room.
and , with twins on board
Saturday boxed up a lot harder, but we still made it to the gym and got her word count in, while I chased stuff for my reading later. We had an editorial luncheon with , and , which was delightful company with decent Mexican food, though some serious fails on getting the kind of restaurant we wanted, as well the transportation we needed. I bowled through my reading, through a dead panel on SF as a tool for social change, and through a hilarious panel with , , , and Eve Gordon on the hazards of being a beautiful woman at an SF convention. (I was Exhibit A under “Hazards”.) brought a tiara for me to wear, and filled in for me at the end when I needed to exit early to prep for my role as MC of the masquerade.
Me, being a hazard to beautiful women.
Beautiful women and .
Post-masquerade we wound up at the small press party, where poor behavior on all our parts was heavily documented on film and video. Somehow, yet again, and were involved with me and , along with , , and a rotating cast of others. Eventually we peeled out and went down to the dance, where I think I sprained my entire body.
Con Chair Laura
Bruce Taylor, Mr. Magic Realism
with Marta and the killer rabbit
Andrea of Blue Falcon Editing
Crawling from the wreckage Sunday morning, I pinch-hit for both and on the GoH interview, as they had to leave for the funeral of ‘ dad. I sat with GoHs and while they essentially interviewed themselves about how they got into (respectively) editing and writing, their backgrounds growing up, and so forth. was back in the room writing (she’s mid-novel, I’m between novels), so she missed a few bons mots.
Our departure after the interview was significantly hampered by the fact that the Genre car’s battery had died whilst it sat in the parking lot over the weekend. , who already had my undying friendship, came out in the wet, fast snowfall and jumped us. I think he earned ‘s undying friendship as well for that.
Hero of the Revolution
Despite the rough start, we had a nice drive back to Portland, during which we saw a bald eagle up very close sitting on a rock by the highway. We went to ‘s house for a family dinner, with , , her boyfriend, the Niece and mom and dad in attendance. After that back to Nuevo Rancho Lake to discover the heat had quit working sometime over the previous few days, which made Sunday night and Monday morning kind of a challenge.
Fail number three happened this morning at the airport, where ‘s plane was several hours delayed, and mine delayed about half an hour. Our scheduled departures were staggered, so I was able to keep her company almost the whole time. We saw a couple dancing very beautifully in an empty gate area, each sharing one earbud of a digital music player as they swept each other around.
Dancing couple
Somehow that silent, private footwork right in the midst of a busy airport seems an apropos metaphor for life these days — on stage with a live mic at RadCon, blogging my adventures and misadventures here, putting my words out on printed pages and glowing screens to be enjoyed and reviled.
Anyway, is back to the Bay Area, I’m on my way to Omaha, and it was one of the more delightful weekends of my life. Next Con appearance: we’ll both be at Potlatch come the end of the month. See some, all or none of you there.
Tags: Calendula, Conventions, Omaha, Portland, Travel
Posted: 5:21 pm Mon February 16 2009 | Comments(0) |
[links|conventions] Link salad takes a Con break
The Internet connection here at the Red Lion in Pasco is so slow that I can’t seem to load my usual daily browse lists. (This wasn’t true the night we checked in, but has been true all day today — I suspect some of my neighbors are hitting BitTorrent or something.) So, no more link salad til Monday. Con is going well so far, and I just had a lovely lunch with , and . I’ve got a reading coming up, then programming from 4 pm to 7 pm. See some, all or none you around there!
Tags: Calendula, Conventions, Links
Posted: 1:55 pm Sat February 14 2009 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad is same as it ever was
Don’t forget to vote in the latest contest for an ARC of Green [ Amazon
]
An audio version of my short story “Jesus and the Cowboys” is up at Starship Sofa
Neanderthal Genome Unraveled — But the researchers confirmed that the ancient hominid did share with us the only gene known to be implicated in speech and language, FoxP2… Wow.
Periodic Table of the Elephants — (Thanks to .)
PHOTO IN THE NEWS: Koala Rescued From Australia Fires — (Thanks to .)
The Pink Gorilla Suit — Or, why being a cop can suck. (Thanks to .)
From the 2009-02-12 Senate calendar — At 11:30am there will be a ceremony honoring the 200th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln in the Capitol rotunda. Really? He was born there?
Obama’s Legislative Victory Comes at High Cost — Karl Rove on Obama’s governing style: House Republicans had the wisdom to continue to talk to the Obama White House. This made them look gracious, even as the president edged toward a “my way or the highway” attitude. Um… um… um… um… um…
?otD: My God…what have I done?
2/13/2009
Body movement: 50 minute stationary bike ride
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: audio, Contests, Culture, Funny, Green, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Polls, Science, stories
Posted: 9:03 am Fri February 13 2009 | Comments(0) |
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