Jay Lake: Writer

[food|travel] Open dinner in Columbus, OH today Friday, May 11th (repost)

Repost: I am in Columbus, OH today on Day Jobbe business. Due to my meeting schedule, I’ll be spending the night here before flying home tomorrow morning. I’m declaring an Open Dinner in Columbus, at 6:30 pm today, Friday, May 11th.

Per a suggestion from Scott, we’ll be meeting at Northstar Cafe at Easton, a short distance north of the airport. [ Google Maps ]

Please let me know in comments if you can attend. Doesn’t matter if we’re old friends, acquaintances, or we’ve never met. If you can read this and will be in the Columbus, OH area that day, you’re invited.

Tags: Food, Ohio, Repost, Travel

Posted: 3:51 am Fri May 11 2012 | Comments(2) |

[travel] Feeling daunted by time

Today is going to be a long day, work-wise. I’ll have to get up about 3:00 am Eastern tomorrow to make my flight home. (That would be, ahem, midnight where I live.) I won’t be back to my house for the evening until well after 9:00 pm tomorrow night, Pacific time. That’s at least a 21-hour day right there, following on today’s long day.

I’m feeling a bit daunted by this.

My current plan is to take a Lorazepam when I get on the plane here in Columbus tomorrow morning, and sleep as much as possible through both segments of my flight home. I’m not sure that’s the best idea I’ve ever had, but it sure beats staying up for nearly 24 hours, given my body’s current sleep needs.

I suspect there won’t be much if any writing today or tomorrow. Which is okay. I got the Asimov’s galley edits for my novella “The Stars Do Not Lie” done yesterday, and I have a couple of weeks on the Kalimpura copy edits.

But, yeah, tomorrow…

Tags: Books, health, Kalimpura, Ohio, stories, Travel, Writing

Posted: 3:50 am Fri May 11 2012 | Comments(0) |

[travel] Off to Columbus, yawn

I’m away, leaving Seattle shortly for Columbus, OH. Going to be a bit of a tough day, as I was unintentionally up late last night. Had a lovely dinner with scarlettina and we lost track of the time. Really hoping to knock out some good sleep on the plane, and I am so going to bed early tonight in Columbus. I have to protect my sleep.

See some, all or none of you tomorrow night there.

Tags: friends, health, Ohio, Seattle, Travel

Posted: 5:01 am Thu May 10 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad drives that hot rod Lincoln

The frequent fliers who flew too much — Many years after selling lifetime passes for unlimited first-class travel, American Airlines began scrutinizing the costs — and the customers.

Eating Well Without the Flavor of Shame — Diet and flavor. Interesting.

The Quantum Biology Conundrum — If quantum mechanics plays an important role in biology, we’ll want to copy it. If it doesn’t, we’ll want to know why not.

Jewel Caterpillar — Weirdly beautiful. (Via willyumtx.)

Light from Alien Super-Earth Seen for 1st Time — This is so damned cool.

Unmanned vessel could soon be working for Navy — What could possibly go wrong!? (Via David Goldman.)

Methane Leaking through the Cracks — The fragile and rapidly changing Arctic is home to large reservoirs of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As Earth’s climate warms, that methane is vulnerable to possible release into the atmosphere, where it can add to global warming. Once again, the natural world joins in the liberal conspiracy that is global warming.

Jon Stewart, Religion Teacher Extraordinaire — (Snurched from Scrivener’s Error.)

The Myth About Marriage — Those who do not want to let gay partners have the sacredness of sacramental marriage are relying on a Scholastic fiction of the thirteenth century to play with people’s lives. Walking through Seatac Airport this morning, I caught thirty seconds of some Christianist talking head desperately clinging to the notion that marriage was between one man and one woman, and had been so for five thousand years of human history. (My slight paraphrase.) Taking that statement in purely religious terms, I’m an atheist, and even I know King Solomon had more than a few wives, and that modern religious traditions from Islam to Mormonism support polygamy. In other words, his statement was blatant, knowing lie. What the Bible likes to call false witness, right there in the Ten Commandments. Why do the Liars for Jesus get to on television and spread this counterfactual crap in support of their personal bigotry?

Obama says same-sex couples should be able to marry — This is what being a liberal-progressive means. Standing up for what is right regardless of the bigotry and intolerance of others. Conservatives were wrong about slavery. They were wrong about women’s suffrage. They were wrong about child labor. They were wrong about segregation. They were wrong about interracial marriage. They were wrong about birth control. And just as they’ve been on the wrong side of every major social issue of the past two centuries, conservatives are wrong, dead wrong, about gay marriage. I’m glad to see our leader leading from the front. Slacktivist Fred Clark with a good link roundup on this.

White House Tours Do Not Require Fetuses To Be Counted As Full Humans — The fact that this is even a story is further evidence that conservatives are basically nuts.

Bipartisanship Is a Lost Cause — I still remember Barney Frank’s comment about “unilateral bipartisanship“.

?otd: Gonna drive your daddy to drink in’?

5/10/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (brain break)
Body movement: n/a (airport walking to come)
Hours slept: 4.25 (fitful, and yes, that is not a typo)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Constantine Affliction by T. Aaron Payton

Tags: climate, Cool, Food, gay, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, Science, Tech, Travel, weird

Posted: 4:44 am Thu May 10 2012 | Comments(0) |

[food|travel] Open dinner in Columbus, OH Friday, May 11th (repost)

Repost: I’ll be in Columbus, OH, later this week on Day Jobbe business. Due to my meeting schedule, I’ll be spending Friday night there before flying home on Saturday morning. I’m declaring an Open Dinner in Columbus, at 6:30 pm on Friday, May 11th.

Per a suggestion from Scott, we’ll be meeting at Northstar Cafe at Easton, a short distance north of the airport. [ Google Maps ]

Please let me know in comments if you can attend. I’ll repost this a couple of times, along with restaurant info once I know what’s what. Doesn’t matter if we’re old friends, acquaintances, or we’ve never met. If you can read this and will be in the Columbus, OH area that day, you’re invited.

Tags: Food, Ohio, Repost, Travel

Posted: 5:37 am Tue May 08 2012 | Comments(0) |

[personal] Updatery of various kinds

In no particular order…

I’m off to Seattle shortly this morning for a Day Jobbe trade show. Somewhat unusually for me, I’ll be taking the train from Portland northward. Thursday I fly from SEA to Columbus, OH, for a day of meetings on Friday. Back home Saturday morning. So three travel days this week, and what look to be two twelve-hour work days as well as one more (hopefully) normal work day. Oh, the glamor. There is, however, the Open Dinner in Columbus, OH Friday night. [ LiveJournal ] Watch this space, though. If my meetings run short, I might try to catch a late flight home Friday and cancel dinner accordingly.

On the plus side, I’m (probably) one writing session away from finishing the first draft of Their Currents Turn Awry, Sunspin volume two. At that point, it will go into the drawer for a while, likely until the fall.

My next effort in sequence is to process agent feedback on the book proposal for Going to Extremes, though I’ll take a few days off for a brain break, not to mention dealing with the forthcoming crazy week, before picking that up. I’m ahead of schedule in terms of my production calendar. This is nice. June is set aside for short fiction and miscellaneous projects, so if you’re looking for something from me, now would be a nice time to remind me. I do track that stuff, but sometimes projects slip through the cracks.

Yesterday, the_child and I (and a friend of hers) went to see The Avengers [ imdb ]. As my (step)mother commented, “But no Emma Peel!”

For reals, it was an awesome movie. So awesome I don’t really have a review. The film bypassed my critical brain and inserted raw entertainment. Not a lot of books or movies can do that to me anymore. If you’re any kind of a fan of action movies, this one is a real winner.

I think I was most impressed by the dialog, which was often extremely apropos, rather witty and sometimes inducing of swoon in my otherwise silent-at-that-point writer brain. Which given this was co-written and directed by Joss Whedon should be unsurprising. I will also comment that you don’t have to be particularly familiar with Marvel comics or the recent spate of Marvel-based superhero movies that serve as prequels to this film, though it would help if you were. I’m sure I missed a bunch of in-jokes, but the ones I caught were enough.

So, yeah, things go boom with witty banter. Though for my money the best line in the whole movie is Harry Dean Stanton’s cameo security guard talking to Incredible Hulk Bruce Banner. “You got a condition, son.”

Ok, maybe that was a review.

Off to be busy. Posting may be more irregular than usual for a travel week due to the odd schedule.

Tags: Books, Child, Currents, Movies, Ohio, reviews, Seattle, Sunspin, Travel, Writing

Posted: 5:18 am Mon May 07 2012 | Comments(2) |

[personal|photos] A wee bit of updatery

Last night I slept eight and half hours. Then I got up and went for a two-hour walk this morning, including the hidden canyon stretch of the Springwater Trail. I always feel good when I’m walking like that, which makes me wonder why I don’t do it more often.

While down in the greenery, I ran across these two gentlemen:

(Sorry for the blur, this is a tight crop of a phone cam shot taken from a distance.)

A bit later, walking past the police station, I saw another group of birds:

Clearly, there was a theme to the morning.

Laying low today, except for the_child‘s late afternoon lacrosse game, and a possible dinner with lizzyshannon this evening. (We’re still discussing logistics.) Likewise laying low tomorrow except for taking the_child to choir practice. The only other things I am doing are morning bloggery, writing time on Their Currents Turn Awry, and packing for this coming week’s travel.

The week itself is going to be a mother bear of a trip. Even so, I’m close on the book, and expect to be done within a few days despite travel silliness. I’ll take a couple of days’ brain break, then be back on Going to Extremes. But this weekend… low and slow.

Photos © 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Tags: Books, Child, Currents, Extremes, nature, Personal, Photos, Portland, Travel, Writing

Posted: 8:35 am Sat May 05 2012 | Comments(1) |

[travel] :: blur ::

I’m flying home from Omaha to Portland this morning. I’ll be sole parent on duty this weekend, as Mother of the Child is making a brief trip out of town. I’m off to Seattle early Monday, then off to Columbus, OH, later that week, not back til Saturday next. I’ll be making a couple of appearances at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival that day in Portland.

The week following I’m off to Austin and San Antonio for six days. (There may be another open dinner in Austin, I haven’t figured out yet if that fits my schedule.) I’m back briefly, then off to Detroit for five days as a headliner at World Steam Expo. Then I’m back, and, uh, May has run out.

It appears I’ll be out of town 22 days this month. This is a stretch even by my standards. Life, she is very inconvenient some times. On the other hand, I am having fun (as I do) and keeping busy with both Day Jobbery and the writing life. So, well, what more can I ask?

See some, all or none of you somewhere around the country.

Tags: Conventions, Ohio, Omaha, Personal, Portland, Seattle, Texas, Travel, work

Posted: 3:00 am Fri May 04 2012 | Comments(0) |

[travel] Off to Omaha again

I’m off to Omaha again. A bit short-slept, eager to be back on Their Currents Turn Awry after a weekend of cancer echoes and chest pain. We shall see. Blogging and email service may be irregular.

Whatever you’re doing this week, be well.

Tags: Books, Cancer, Currents, health, Omaha, Travel, Writing

Posted: 4:25 am Mon April 30 2012 | Comments(1) |

[cancer] Happy Cancerversary

Four years ago today I was admitted to the hospital with copious rectal bleeding, which turned into my cancer diagnosis.

Today I’m having family and a few friends over to celebrate the fact that I’ve survived four years with Stage Four colon cancer. As it happens, this past Friday my second chest port was removed, so we’ll be honoring that outbreak of optimism as well.

I got to keep this one:

So, yeah. My brain’s been kind of eaten these past few days, but the stress is basically good stress. Getting my life back, at least for a while.

Today: Happy Cancerversary. Tomorrow I’m off to Omaha, back on Their Currents Turn Awry, and back to real life

Photo © 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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Tags: Books, Cancer, Currents, health, Omaha, Personal, Photos, Travel, Writing

Posted: 7:01 am Sun April 29 2012 | Comments(4) |