Flat tires update

A quick follow-up to last night's car shenanigans.

The car is fixed. 443 dollars, two new tires and an alignment later, it's like the nothing never was. Funny thing is I just got a bonus at work and although it's not poetic and exactly 443 dollars, it does put a serious dent in it so it proves the adage "easy come easy go" quite nicely.

In any event, it's done. As my father says, "don't get money ahead, because a kid will get sick." Or you'll run your car into a median and trash two tires.

Long time gone

It's been a little bit quiet in these parts recently. It was not a deliberate decision but now, trying to get back into it seems hard without acknowledging the 10 days of silence that have elapsed. Truth be told, I haven't felt much like writing. It's kind of as simple as that - nothing dramatic. It really was a simple case of I wasn't in the mood to write. I don't know that I am in the mood now, but here I am anyway.

A quick update to those of you that kept stopping by and/or wondered why their RSS feed had not been bold for so long.

1) I've met twice with a personal trainer at the gym. She's very good and a good fit for me. She's given me three different cardio workouts to do and it's really important that I get in each one at least once a week. We've been doing a lot of work with strength training (which was what I really needed her help on) and today, she worked me hard. But I feel like I'm getting a good handle on what I need to do. It's interesting to match the exercise with the muscle group, even though I famously got a D on the muscle test in my college anatomy class so it's amazing I know anything at all about muscles. It feels good to be active again and to be doing something positive for my physical health. I spend a lot of time trying to be mentally healthy because my past struggles with anxiety and depression have always seemed to be more important. Taking time out to work on my physical health has been just as rewarding and also helps with the other stuff too. I'm not naive enough to think that I'll always love to go exercise or go to the gym, but hey, it's a start.

2) I'm up to 27 books so far in my 2011 book challenge. I am not trying to read a set number of books, although my current goal on Goodreads is 40. I upped it from 30 when it became quite clear that I was going to blow past 30 around midyear. That said, it's really important that the next book I read be a good one. I've read two dogs in a row now and reading bad books makes me feel like I'm back in high school trying to read The Grapes of Wrath in May. I'm currently beta-reading Heidi's latest book and it's definitely breaking the bad book run - I'm always amazed by the fact that the woman I married has such a way with the written word. I'm always kind of like "wow - you wrote this?" even though duh, yeah, she did. I'll be blogging about my latest disappointing book (Robopocalypse) probably sometime this week.

3) I got the yard mowed tonight but what made tonight extra special was I got out my brand new weed whacker that I got for my birthday this year. There are parts of the yard that I just can't reach with the mower and, finally tired of just ignoring it, I asked my dad if he would buy me one for my birthday. Never one to pass up an opportunity to bequeath home improvement items, he found one that he liked and sure enough, I got it for my birthday. So after a little bit of work tonight, the yard looks better than it has since last October when, oddly enough, my dad was here to help me with the yard. I've also found that since I've been exercising, mowing the yard isn't nearly as big of a deal as it used to be. Positive effects all around.

It's not a terribly exciting life I lead, but exciting is overrated. Thank you to those who stopped by looking for updates, only to find none. I will try not to repeat that, but I'm not promising anything.

For now, let's have some Dixie Chicks.

Smokey Row write-in

I spent a large chunk of today in Oskaloosa, IA. It was the site of the NaNoWriMo write-in that the Central Iowa Authors (CIA) was putting on today. It was kind of nice to get out of town for a bit and then there was the added bonus for Anna that she got to go see her grandma who took her to Jumpin' Jim's Jungle in Ottumwa for a pre-birthday celebration.

But Heidi and I spent all our time today at Smokey Row. Smokey Row is an Iowa based coffee shop that started out in Pleasantville, IA in 1998. Since then, it's opened three more locations, the most recent being in Des Moines. It is one of the more frequent locations for CIA write-ins during NaNo. It's also one of our favorite spots in all of Des Moines. What Smokey Row does right (in addition to coffee and food) is atmosphere. Everything feels so retro, right down to the metal signs advertising products like Hires Root Beer, Folger's Coffee (celebrating 100 years, 1850-1950) and Pepsi-Cola. It has high ceilings, wooden floors and copious amounts of seating. The Oskaloosa Smokey Row even has a stage for live entertainment. All in all, you really can't beat it as far as central Iowa coffee locations go.

Heidi wrote pretty much all day. She's writing not one but TWO 50,000+ word novels for NaNo this month. The woman is amazingly prolific. You can follow her progress on the official NaNo project here (the 3rd book in the Special Delivery series for those that love those characters) and the second one here. Me, I was mostly along for the ride. And the coffee.

You might think that I had a bit of a boring day at Smokey Row, surrounded by writers and me with nothing to write. I thought about blogging, but the wireless was so inconsistent and crappy that I quickly gave up on that idea. I suppose I could have used my phone, but the mere thought of typing a whole blog post on my phone sends me into apoplexy. Clearly, that wasn't going to happen.

I did get a lot of reading done. With a bit of discipline and stamina, I'll be able to get to 25 books by the end of the year without too much difficulty. There was also a nap involved. I put my iPod on and since Heidi was sitting on the floor with the laptop, I snuggled right up against her and fell into what I would consider a rather deep sleep for a public place. I told Heidi to jab me in the kidney if I snored. I must not have or else she had her headphones on and didn't hear me. I think that was probably my favorite part of the whole day, truth be told.

After the write-in, we met my mother-in-law and her husband who had brought Anna back up for a small birthday party, complete with a horsehead cake. Heidi's brother Hans and his wife Alicia were also there, as was our doctor friend from our Washington days, Lynette. It was good conversation and nice to see everyone again.

We probably spent a little too much money but you have to live. The folks in CIA are some of the nicest people I know and it's always fun to get together with them. Not many of them live in Ames so it's always a treat to see them.

We have a birthday party to attend to tomorrow with eight 3rd graders in attendance. The birthday girl doesn't officially turn 9 until Monday, but the weekend has been the chance to get the celebrating done. I still can hardly believe she's nine, but time continues to march on.

An aside: I'm extremely proud of the fact that we are on day 13 of NaBloPoMo and I haven't missed a day. Last year, I missed a couple days but they were offset by the fact that on two days, I posted twice. It's harder to blog every day than you might think! The last few days I have been getting the posts in just under the wire, reminding me of my graduate school days when the lab reports were due at midnight on Friday night each week. So far, I'm happy with the quality of the posts and while some are definitely more throwaway than others, it's been a fun exercise in daily writing. I could not do this every month, but it's a fun experiment to try.

What I've been up to

There are more blog posts in the offing - several, in fact - but I have found myself in a most unfortunate predicament. Through the fault of really nothing but the dirt, I am in the middle of a 12 day stretch at work. That's right, my next day off is NEXT Saturday. As in a week from two days from now. I've already managed my way through 33% of it. Only 66% left to go. By Saturday, I'll be 50% done!

There is a high likelihood that I will be a strung out mess by the end of this. When I think of that, I try to focus on the money. Two extra days of work will go a long way toward helping to fund Heidi & Marie's Excellent Manlove Adventure or, as I like to refer to it, Heidi's Thelma & Louise vacation. I'll just let you read her blog to find out the deets, but basically Heidi and fellow m/m author Marie Sexton are road-tripping to McAllen, TX the first week of October. Why McAllen? Well, because Heidi's sister Hillari lives there and because that's Mitch's hometown (from Special Delivery.) Yep, she's gonna get another book out of this. There are other stops along the way but I told her that the only stipulations were 1) find a way to pay for it and 2) don't drive the Mazda off a cliff.

Of course, there's also my upcoming solo trip to Kansas City to meet up with my friend Jason. We will be seeing Evil Dead: The Musical and generally hanging out and painting the town red. Please pray for no snow or ice the weekend of October 22nd. This is Iowa, after all.

So that's what I'm doing. Working. Planning on being a single parent for a week or so. And then going out on my own to another city which I haven't done since October of 2006! Mostly, it's all good.

1st of June

Well, here we are folks. It's June 1st. Where in the world did the first 41.7% of the year go? It seems like just yesterday I was snow-blowing the driveway for the 400th time, and now I have a jungle growing up in my backyard that I can't seem to be home long enough to tame. Getting the yard to the point where I'm not embarrassed by it is the goal for Wednesday afternoon, but now it looks like it's supposed to rain, so who knows if that'll even happen now.

I'm getting ready to work another set of 5 overnight shifts starting the end of the week. I'm weary of working that shift, but in the final analysis it's not all that bad. It's actually harder on my family than it is on me. I'll work the last one on June 8th which means I'll be working for the first 8 hours of my birthday and will miss the season finale of Glee. Because I have awesome family and friends, a whole group of them are going to forgo watching on Tuesday night so that we can all watch together on the night of the 9th. Another unintended benefit of the night shift is that it works out that I have a four day weekend for Capital City Pride in Des Moines, where Heidi and I (along with other friends and family) will have a booth selling her books and promoting Dreamspinner. It'll be a busy weekend but it should be great fun. Anyone who is local (and hey, even those that aren't!) are more than welcome to stop by and say hi. Pride in Des Moines is pretty family friendly and there's a such an amazing mix of people there.

We hit the Furman Aquatic Center here in Ames yesterday for Memorial Day which was beyond fun. It was supposed to open mid-summer of last year, but it was behind schedule and didn't and frankly, I'm glad that they didn't rush it but instead took the time to get it right. It has a little something for everyone and it was just a blast - even though I did sunburn the tops of my feet (they feel better today.)

My goal for the remaining 58.3% of the year is, as trite as it sounds, to live now. I will admit to spending a lot of the first part of the year living in an alternate future with horrific imagined outcomes. That's under better control than it's been in a while, but still, I am me and that is just a part of me. I have learned to respect it and not talk badly to it, but I still fail daily so who knows.

That's it for my inaugural June post. It's not much, but it's what I have.

Easter updatey stuff

Clearly, I'm shooting for once weekly blogging. What can I say - life's been busy.

It's a beautiful Easter weekend here in central Iowa. Mostly, I dislike Easter. I don't like the candy and I color eggs with my own child rather begrudgingly. Thankfully, we had our friends Jan & Sarah and their 4 kids over last night to be Anna's surrogate cousins so that she doesn't have to color eggs with two adults who would really rather just skip the whole darn thing. Still, I was a Lutheran long enough to still feel a little bit like I should get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning to be at a sunrise service followed by breakfast of powdered eggs and orange juice.

The previously mentioned Leafguard gutters have been installed on the house. As I have been saying this week, they look like a million bucks and cost just slightly less than that (okay, significantly less than that, but it sure felt like it.) Every now and then I remember that I won't be getting back up on the roof to clean out gutters and I almost can't believe it. Ridding the gutters of dirt and fledgling plant life has become such a part of my life that I can't imagine not doing it again, but thanks to Leafguard, those days are over. The guys who did the install were pleasantly surprised at how level the house was considering how old it is. When they first pulled up, they thought they'd be here a full two days installing, but in the end, they spent two half-days. Not bad.

We're heading to Des Moines in a bit to go pick up our iPad. I've transferred a lot of my excitement and anticipation from my computer (put off indefinitely for the time being) to the iPad. I've read a lot of rave reviews but am trying to temper my expectations a little bit. A part of me thinks that it is folly to buy a piece of technology before they have any chance to improve it, but I'm willing to take the chance. Of course, the Apple naysayers are out in full force saying it doesn't play YouTube (it does) and it doesn't have Flash (it doesn't). I still can't believe it can't multi-task, but I'll get over it.

A year ago today, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled on Varnum vs. Brien and Iowa became the third state in the US to grant equal marriage rights to all its citizens. Despite the predictions of social conservatives, the sky has not fallen nor has heterosexual marriage been threatened or cheapened. The Democratic majority in both chambers of the Iowa Legislature effectively prevented a vote on a constitutional amendment overturning the decision, so the earliest a vote could come up is 2014. This will certainly be a campaign issue in both the gubernatorial and legislative races in November, but lest we forget, Iowans don't really care about this issue as much as the Iowa Family Policy Center thinks they do - not when there are other things they care about much more. The winds of change are blowing. My prediction is that by 2014, even if it did come up for a vote (which it shouldn't), a constitutional amendment would be soundly defeated.

I'm working on another co-blog post with P.Viktor. Hopefully it'll be posted this week. Watch this space.

Post-podcast update

Well, I made it through my first experience podcasting. I had a great time, the topic was one I could speak about half-way intelligently and I think I actually surprised both Matt and Lance with some of the things I mentioned. So that's a good thing. I'm worried that my relative lack of experience with recording and a microphone may have compromised the quality of the audio - specifically, I have this nagging feeling that I was either too loud or too soft, but I suppose there isn't much to be done about that now and we'll just await the final product which should be posted some time today.

I had fun and I would totally do it again, but it confirmed my suspicion that while podcasting was a thrilling chance at a performance, blogging really is my home and a natural outlet for my creative endeavors. I have a great deal of admiration for Matt and Lance who crank out an episode a week like clockwork. I don't know that I could keep that kind of schedule. Plus I really like the chance to go back and edit my words - a complete impossibility in the podcast format.

Watch this space for the link to the podcast when it is available for the download.

By the time I get to Phoenix

Much in the style of XO's mixtape posts, here's a bunch of random catch-up bits and pieces.

Heidi did a great wrap-up-so-far of the trip here. Much like Madonna, you know they try to imitate her, but they just can't duplicate her, so I'll just link to it. She has also uploaded all of the photos we have taken so far (minus the bad ones) to Picasa. Those pictures can be found here.

We have been in Chandler, AZ for the last couple days. We arrived Tuesday night and have spent two days mostly recharging and relaxing at the home of my brother and his wife. It's been a much-needed rest after 4 days of being on the road. Don't misinterpret that, however. For all the nervousness I had in the run-up to the trip that it would exhaust me and that I would need a vacation from vacation, the driving hasn't been so bad. I also added up my gas receipts, and counting the gas I bought today in anticipation of the drive to L.A. tomorrow, I have only spent 190 dollars! To put it in perspective, that is not even one airfare to and from Phoenix.

This afternoon, my brother Ryan put Heidi's crown on her implant. This has been two years in the making, with the implant being placed in October of 2007, the impression of her mouth to prep the crown done at my parents' house at Christmas last year, and now, the process is complete. I have the best brother ever because he refuses to take any of my money for this. Seriously, him doing this saved me probably a 800 bucks. As I said - best. brother. ever. He has a brand new practice that he just opened this year - check out his website here.

I finished The Mysteries of Pittsburgh last night. After finishing it, I read about the movie and can totally see why it was panned. I don't ever need to see it. Leaving out main characters is just never a good idea! Apparently, the screenwriter and director also de-gayed it significantly, which significantly alters the original story.

Consequently, I am on to Aliens: Nightmare Asylum. Total trash. I'm also 2/3rds of the way through it and I started today.

I drove my sister-in-law's Mazda Miata convertible the other day. I had never driven a convertible before and everything you assume about how fun it is to drive them is true. You just try not to think about the certain death that would befall you were there an accident.

Casey Stratton has an amazing new project out that has started to serve as the soundtrack for this trip. With Altered States: Remixes Vol. 1, Casey took some of his best known songs and remixed them himself. Mostly, these are trancy -club remixes, but a few are not, especially the ballads which seem to be "rearranged." In any event, the result is fantastic. I am hoping that the Vol. 1 moniker means that there are more to come. In an ideal world, what I would really like to see is him apply this arrangement to a whole album of new songs, aimed squarely at the dance floor. But I never tell a man how to run his business (and I can't for the life of me remember what movie that is from!). Anyway, pick it up because it is excellent, excellent, excellent. Now if only he'd do a bit more touring, then life would truly be good.

We are missing Capital City Pride next weekend. It is sad because it has the potential to be the best Pride ever because of the marriage equality decision rendered by the Iowa Supreme Court in April. While we will not be there in body, we will be there very much in spirit.

Finally, I am a bit nervous about L.A. traffic tomorrow. A guy I was talking to at my brother's office who had me seriously freaked out about rush hour traffic. The plan is to leave as close to 8AM tomorrow so that we can avoid the worst of it. We have to drive through 4-5 hours worth of desert, so I picked up an extra thing of coolant, which guarantees we won't need it. Minor aside: my Mazda 626 has performed beyond my wildest expectations on this trip.

Till next update. Next stop - California.

I find your lack of posts disturbing

But Lord Vader, there's a reason for the lack of posts. Actually several. But really, at this point I would have been strangled by the Jedi chokehold, right?

I have been sick for over a week now. Not knock-down, drag-out sick. Not sick enough to miss work. But sick enough to be so fucking annoyed by it I can't even begin to describe it. I wake up every morning feeling pretty good, but it's a downhill spiral from there. About midday, my legs and arms start hurting and by the evening, my eyes are hot as if I have a fever. But, as we all learned from House, tests don't lie and I am not feverish. Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. So I'm hoping that I have turned a corner. I mostly just want to feel better and, as Heidi pointed out this morning, my biggest problem is just that I am the most impatient sick person there is. We'll see how tonight goes.

We lost our internet service for approximately 30 hours this week. It was kind of like the night the lights went out in Georgia only without all the murder and lynching and whatnot. A bad modem was to blame - after 5 years, it decided to give up and went to modem heaven. We now have a brand spanking new DSL modem that Qwest expressed to us (for free, no less) and after some initial issues with getting it hooked up, we are all reconnected. Of course, the Macs found the network right away and had no problem. My PC, on the other hand, continued in its tradition of being a gigantic pain in the ass and refused to see the wireless network. I stood on my head and sprinkled pixie dust and moved the wireless antenna a fraction of an inch and suddenly, there it was. The night we were without internet gave us a close approximation of what it must have been like for Ma & Pa Ingalls on the prairie. (btw, if anyone can tell me WHY the lights went out in Georgia that night, I would be forever grateful. It has always been a mystery to me.)

Someone referred to the extension of the Sticky & Sweet Tour as Sticky & Sweet 2: Electric Boogaloo. I love it!

We are all shuffling off to see Coraline in 3D this weekend. I finished the book last night (I was the only one left in the family to read it) and it sounds like it will be worthy. It was scary in parts, but not too scary for Anna. She is over the top excited for the movie. Even though it will be expensive, what a fun family outing it will be.

I did that 25 Random Things meme on my Facebook page, and one of them detailed how I am still a little bit scared of The Exorcist, especially the scene toward the end of the movie during the exorcism when for a few seconds, there is an image of Father Karras' dead mother sitting on the bed bathed in white light. It is not scary (certainly not as scary as Regan turning her head all the way around and cussing at her mother) but it has ALWAYS creeped me out, such that I usually avert my eyes when the scene is coming up. Well, thanks to this isn't happiness, I saw the photo of that scene (see it here, I can't bring myself to put the picture on the blog) quite unprepared to see it. It's like someone sneaking up on you and punching you in the back of the neck. (Heidi, if you saw this picture, you saw the scariest part of the movie.)

And to wash that nasty picture out of my brain, here's a great photo of Madonna that I had forgotten about. How I loved the cowgirl phase.