fleshyorgans

This month is national novel writing month, or nanowrimo. It’s a deal to get authors off their butts and over the initial hurdle of “I’m going to write that book, someday.” The premise is you have a goal of 50,000 words to write by the end of November. However you accomplish that goal is up [...]

A friend of mine sent me a link today, to a post from some guy who codes for a living in Munich. This fellow reached a point where he decided programming from a laptop was too fraught with peril (losing files, noise, etc) so he transitioned to an iPad + Bluetooth keyboard + remote unix [...]

I’ve a story I like to tell. It’s a band story, a bar story. Out of all the weird things that have happened to me, this one stands out for its Ozzy Osborne-like weirdness. I’ve been meaning to get it down in text for several years — for posterity if for no other reason.

Nicole and I have lived in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) now for about 3 months. One thing we’ve noticed about this area is that it is lousy with kids. You can’t swing a cat without hitting a toddler in a stroller. The area is so kid-friendly you see things like the brewpub down the street [...]

I feel as if my creative energy has been sapped. I sat here staring at the screen, knowing I have this task I’ve set for myself to write something every day — but it kind of feels as if I’m out of mana right now and cannot do it. Fortunately I know a few tricks. [...]

You know what book I used to love when I was little? Tootle. You probably know the story, Tootle is a young locomotive from the town of Lower Trainswitch, and he is going to school because he aspires to be a Flyer. It’s a heartwarming tale of working hard so that eventually your natural talent [...]

I think that’s the most grandiose title I’ve ever used. Have you watched Carl Sagan’s Cosmos? I highly recommend it for anyone. It’s a little dated, though the version I watched via Netflix had updates at the end of each episode. For a good overview of the universe as it is understood, and how science [...]

Tonight we celebrated Nicole’s birthday. We ate at P.F. Chang’s and then we wandered around the Bellevue mall. That place feels like Las Vegas minus the sleeze — just a lot of money floating around. There’s a Tesla dealership in the mall, if that gives you any indication. We also plunked down a not insignificant [...]

Do writers keep writing when they’re unwell? When Neil Gaiman has a cold, does he abandon his shack in the woods and just sit at home with a blanket and a cup of soup? I have a cold, and I found it difficult to think at work, so I retired early today. Working from home [...]

When I was in first grade, my little brother Daniel and I set our Radio Flyer wagon on fire. After all was said and done, I got a pony. It was the middle of summer. As I said, I was in first grade so my brother would have been maybe 5 years old. I had [...]

Discovered some grey hairs on my temples, today. I’m really interested to see how they come in. It’s kind of like a gradual hair dye job. Maybe I’ll get more respect now… probably not if I keep wearing Threadless shirts. I find it fascinating to observe the physical changes that life-changes bring about. I pretty [...]

Basically this is about thinking something is a good idea just because it’s clever

In the past 2 weeks this blog seems to have gotten really heavy. Well, except for the Emotron post, I suppose. I’m not sure if that’s a function of the shorter days, or the environment I have for writing. In the PNW at this time of year we seem to get darkness starting around 4 [...]

scha·den·freu·de/ˈSHädənˌfroidə/ Noun: Pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune. I’m glad the Germans have a word for that, and it is my gift to you. Three unfortunate things about my past that are kind of amusing if you think about it. The first thing is that I was a bad student. I was a [...]

When I was in 6th grade, all I really wanted for Christmas was a rock tumbler. But life is really like a box of chocolates, isn’t it? I saw an ad for it somewhere. Maybe in Boy’s Life magazine. It was probably near the ad for “Build Your Own Hovercar with Just a Vacuum Cleaner!” [...]

I’ve been thinking about parenting again, lately. Funny that, as I am a parent. What I mean is that as I interact with other parents of different backgrounds and children of various ages, I keep revisiting some ideas I’ve had about kids, learning, and people. I think mainly I’ve been channeling Radiolab episodes in my [...]

I went to the dentist, today. It was surprisingly pleasant! I’m in only a little pain right now. In the process of taking my mind off the actual activities, I got in touch with why I’ve been hesitant to go to the dentist over the years. This may or may not apply to you I’ve [...]

I upgraded my computer today. It was kind of a pain in the butt when it really shouldn’t have. I’m going to take this opportunity to vent a little about my Mac experience. This is basically going to chronicle a few impressions about the past several months as a Mac user. I’m a Linux guy. [...]

Just a quick set of ideas you can use for your own constructive self-delusion. Remember kids, we do this all the time already — might as well direct it yourself for your own happiness. This is the followup to yesterday’s post. So I have some issues with using my computer. It does some really irritating [...]

“I’ve now had this conversation about 100 times: Person who’s lived in Seattle longer than me: It RAINS here. You’re going to HATE it. Waaahhhh, RAIN! So much RAIN. It will eat your soul and dismember your family! *sobs* Why did you leave the paradise of northern Indiana to subject yourself to the horrible, life-destroying [...]

My wife complains to me that all my stories are sad. Honestly, I don’t set out for pathos when I tell them — I think my childhood was rather entertaining! Well, I guess it’s Schadenfreude Monday all over again. I’ll say it’s a common situation. I will recount some fond memory from my childhood. I [...]

I’m not going to apologize for the sadness of the previous post, but I understand if you have some trepidations about reading this one now, because of it. In order to assuage your fears and take the taste out of your mind, here are a few somewhat light-hearted things to ponder. Have you seen Nyan [...]

I really like music. I enjoy listening to it, and I enjoy making it. Over the years I have been involved in three bands, produced a double-handful of songs, and been on the radio twice. But I have a confession to make: I never learned to play guitar. If you’ve read here before you know [...]

My daughter is slowly climbing her way up the language hill. It’s really neat to see her acquire words. Each time she we recognize that she’s trying to say a particular term for something, such as “kitty” or “milk”, it’s kind of amazing. But she can’t say the words very well, so as we see [...]

Today I suffered the repercussions of too much food. I think Nicole and I are trying to recapitulate our childhoods, but +1. It’s a common malady, I think we need to decide enough is enough and just eat sandwiches. But since I didn’t do the obligatory Thanksgiving post and because I still feel a little [...]

I quit smoking 4 years ago next April. I was able to quit through the use and in spite of a drug called varenicline, also known as Chantix. I cannot recommend it to anyone. Let me tell you what it was like. P.s. This turned out highly personal, but I consider it a public service [...]

I’ve happened across handful of articles about introverts and extroverts lately. Not sure why they’ve cropped up. There seems to be some truth to the idea of “gestalt”; ideas will come and float around when they want. Whatever, the reason, the articles have me thinking about that personality dichotomy. I’m not sure where you fall [...]

In the past couple years I’ve developed more of an ability to read between the lines and a little more critically than I used to. But it’s weird, because it doesn’t always happen. At least, not automatically — sometimes I feel really on the ball and author biases seem obvious. Other times I revisit something [...]

This is penultimate post for nablomo. Actually, I discovered there’s a real thing people do called nablopomo which is basically a blog post a day. That seems to be a girl-blogger thing more than a boy-blogger thing though. Not sure. I wouldn’t want to crash someone else’s party. After tomorrow I’ll need something to do. [...]

So this is the end of my foray. It feels as if I’ve written a great journey, though it also feels as if I haven’t really written that much. I can look at the nano page and see all the posts, but I don’t have a tangible feeling of how many posts I’ve written. I’m [...]