Without planning it this way I have begun writing exactly once per week. I actually intended several times a week. Ya, whatever. At least this time I really am up early in the morning writing.

This week went by incredibly quickly. The first part of the week I barely remember. Tuesday I was preparing for the trip to Reno. Yep, me back in Reno for work. How fun but not really. Course my employer forgot a few details as of Tuesday like I don't know a hotel room or the address of the building I'd be working at. Minor stuff like that. Actually some "real" IBM guy was up there with me who knew where all these buildings were. I still had to go through a lot to figure out the hotel. He ended up getting a room with two beds. I guess that's all I can ask for really. Seemed extremely unorganized to me.

So anyway I met the guy out in the middle of no where (getting from my house to Reno is a little awkward) at 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning and followed him all the way. We met the local contact and she showed us around. Then we went to lunch at a resturant I think was called "claim jumpers". Something like that. Point is they give you *really* big portion sizes. Also for reason I won't go into I recommend the salad! Then it was off to the building to start working. We imaged all the PCs while waiting for everyone to leave which seems like it should have been tedious but I didn't find it all that bad.

So we started process at 4:30. I like to transfer data via the network to USB drive. For some reason I'm convinced this is faster, though there's apparently little evidence to support this. Long story short my co-worker was done a lot faster and seemed annoyed waiting on me. We finally finished at 10:00 or so. So what we did was back up all the user's profiles and other data, remove the old PCs and associated CRT monitors (heavy bitches) and install the new PCs with dual flat screen displays. Then transfer all the data back to the new PCs. We weren't called in the morning for assistance helping everyone so I guess it went ok.

After work we went back to hotel. My co-worker wanted to get some dinner, I felt fine. But he really wanted to eat and also doesn't like going to resturants by himself. So we went to some 50's classic diner thing in one of the casinos. I don't think that was a good idea for me. Then he went back up to the room and I decided to waste money in the casino on the star wars machine. I spent about $30 and didn't even get to the stupid bonus round.

Thursday I drove home, left at 8:30 and got to work at 10:40 or so. Not that bad of a trip if only for the $30 wasted on star wars: the slot machine.

In other minor notes for all of California's faults at least it stays warm for a really long time. For instance it's late september now, it hasn't rained once and today it will be 92 degrees in Sacramento. Can ya beat that? I mean seriously. I suppose in normal places it would have started raining by now. We did have a really blustery day last week. Friday I think it was. So I guess it kind of looks like fall. but not the 92 degrees. I guess that's all I have for now.  ¶ 6:32 AM 0 Comments

  I'm getting into the writing habit slowly, but i'm getting there. It's like I do a lot or something. Program my home-brew PVR, ready my "the dark tower series" (finsihed book 6 of 7!) and tell me self I should be writing. I already did some reading so I am writing. Finally.

I do work also on occasion. For instance next week I'm going to spend a day or so in Reno for some reason. Apparently the "New at&t" can't afford to staff people in Reno. Or contract out locally. Ok what they want us (the two of us) to do is fairly shop-specific a contractor really couldn't do it. Still seems a little odd to me. But that's just me, I'm sure.

I am still in my writing class. And it's annoying me more and a more. For some reason last week one of the students wrote a poem about 9/11. And, as you can guess, this lead to a lengthy monologue about Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, and the cause of 9/11 of course the troops stationed over in Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the teacher gets a little impatient with the lack of participation coming from the twelve remain students in his class possibly without realizing it. He was walking around the class in circles as he was doing this monologue asking semi-retorical questions. Not recieving even the slightest hint of an answer to any of these he came to me and with a question something to the effect of "and what might be another reason some didn't want US troops in Saudi Arabia?".

Had I answered honestly I'd have said something to the effect of "I don't give a flying fuck what terrorists do or do not want, there is no excuse for blowing up civilians or a foreign power's troop dormitory without declaration or provocation". I could also have pointed out Saudia Arabia is a dictatorship and nothing happens that the government doesn't want to happen. Instead I just said something like "just because they were there, I guess".

In all likelyhood he lives in a such a universe asking me the question was as neutral as any other question he could think. I highly doubt this was in fact intended to offend me or make me want to drop the class. None-the-less I think I am considering it. Even though I just added this class for the stupid creative fiction section we have yet to come to. Perhaps I will just bare it until we get most of the way through that section then drop it. I hardly want to deal with this bullshit if this stupid class isn't even required.

But I shouldn't dwell I think. Lets move on to something else: I was a minor fender bend of a car incident on Friday. I was done with work by 4:00 ya see. And I kind of felt like going to home. Instead I went to my old weakness: Fry's Electrnics. I got to Fry's at 4:30. I stayed an hour so (didn't buy anything) and finally left. The traffic wasn't that bad. And in the city in question it's quite a ways from Fry's back to my condo. So I was almost home, a mere 15 miles or so, and the traffic started to slow greatly. It ALWAYS slows greatly at that point. And even worse on Fridays. I see stop lights, I start to slow down and

WAM!!

To put it mildly I was a little surprised. I think I snapped out of it relatively quickly and managed to get the couple lanes over to the shoulder. As did the car that ran into me. Some ditzy teenager-looking girl in a black VW something-or-other. The front of the car was pretty smash and some kind of fluid leaking out the bottom. But on my car pretty much just a scratched looking bumper. That's about it.

I've never actually been in an accident of any kind from minor to anything else. I ddidn't actaully know what to do. Would the CHP show up? Could I find my registration and all that crap? I didn't know. The girl of the other car did say she was sorry several times. Even had about four friends there in minutes. And her mom. Then this "freeway safety patrol" showed up. Was asking for information and something other things. Eventually I decided I wasn't going to file a report or anything else. And as he said I could have simply exchanged info with the other driver and left. As I said my car really wasn't that damaged. I was a little shaken though. And I kept getting that sensation/smell that I recognized from getting punched or banging my nose really hard. I hadn't actually hit my nose on anything I should mention. I actually did try calling both parents during my what-do-i-do time. Nobody answered. Boy-o-boy. Don't let anything happen to you on a friday night. Good luck getting a hold of anybody.

So after giving the girl's mother my contact info and taking hers I finally left. I went and go some gas. and finally went home. It was quite an experience. One I always assumed I would never go through as I am always really careful. My friends/family make fun me for it as a matter of fact. But since the freeway safety patrol or whatever they're called decided it wasn't that big a deal and it didn't have to go on anybody's driving record I guess technically it didn't happen. Sure, whatever. I hope this thing that didn't actually happen doesn't happen ever again. Also I don't want to go Fry's on Friday night no more. Straight home for me (or wait until after 7:30 when the traffic starts to die down).

So since I'm apparently keeping up appearances for this writing class I suppose I should start practicing for the three peoms I'll need to write. One  ¶ 3:56 PM 0 Comments

  Alright so the get up every morning thing hasn't quite happened (yet). That's ok I'm still writing some now and that's what matters. Writing something more often than every four weeks I mean.

Have I mentioned I'm taking a creative writing course at a local community college? I think I mentioned I was thinking about it. Well at the last possible second I did it. I signed up for it.

Unfortunately it wasn't quite what I was expecting in a writing course. There was a different one I could have signed up for but I didn't. It was about looking at manuscripts or something anyway so I don't think it was right.

What I did go with, "English - Creative Writing" is three units (4 units is a lot, 5 is preposterious) and is split into three sections: peoetry, creative fiction and creative non-fiction. So write now I'm still in poetry...and I hate every moment of it. Though I do keep coming up with funny peoms (even if they do end in a line about get snakes of a motherfucking plane).

On that brilliant transition I might mention I saw the infamous Snakes on a Plane the first friday it was out. I think I was expecting something more along the lines of Eight Legged Freaks to tell ya the truth. You know, REALLY over the top. That's what the title and crazy grass roots hype implied anyway. It's like one of those stupid SciFi channel movies given lots of money and an actual REAL writer. Also lots of language. And (I think I've said this before) "good thing I'm not into fruedian psychology". Cuz, you know "they had to do it" in some of those cases. Scenes-wise I mean. Like when the snakes get out and they show a guy standing up peeing. What? They're not going to do it? You didn't think they'd do it? I mean it's not like the guy got out of the bathroom and ran down the isle with the snake still there or something. I mean that would have been awesome, sure. But no, just the guy in the bathroom. Fill in blanks!

In any case I'm so glad to be back writing. Since this is only practice I won't bother spell checking (sticks out tongue).  ¶ 5:08 PM 0 Comments

  I'm starting to realize for some planning on doing so much writing in November I don't do a lot of for-fun-writing. I have reasons though, really. Mostly I realized writers can't be writers without a lot of reading. Of which I was doing little. So, and I know I have mentioned this before, I started reading the seven-book-long "The Dark Tower" series. I am now (finally) on book six. This book was relatively recently released so it's not a "trade paperback" like the first five and a bit larger dimension wise. In this it's only about 380 pages. Now after the ~920 pages of book five this seems rather minute to me. Book seven on the other hand will a lot longer. I'm looking at it on my shelf right now: it looks extremely thick. Maybe I'll finish book six early and I'll have more than a month to finish book seven. That's how I cacluated it, ya see. The last few books I had a month to each. To finish before November first that is.

And these are pretty good books, keep in mind. Book is my least favorite and I didn't like five that much either (too predictable). I am still enjoying them despite all this.

Wow, I realize now I should probably have been practicing writing all this time. That's ok though. I'm to starting practicing a lot more. That's the goal anyway: getting up early every morning and just writing until it's time to go to work. I'll be doing that in November so I figure I should get started now. I do have to go to bed early for that to happen. Earlier. It's not earlier no more. It's 9:20pm. Ya, ya whatever. Ok since I'm writing tomorrow I can stop now, right?  ¶ 8:18 PM 0 Comments