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Saturday, November 21st, 2009
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1:23 pm - November 20th: A day spent doing lots of things
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Okay so I've been reading a ton of journal comics lately and getting really envious of their ability to keep a daily account of their life. I would love to do a journal comic only that I'm the worst artist in the history of art. So then I thought, why not challenge yourself to blog for every day of 2010. Then I thought, forget 2010! So, let's see if I can't go from today until December 31 2010 with a blog post every single day! And since today hasn't fully happened yet, I'm starting with yesterday.
November 20th
I didn't wake up until almost 11 am. While I needed the sleep I had a lot to do so it immediately put me a bit behind. We had to get the newspaper done early so it could print early next week to avoid the holiday and I had a few last things to finish up. Then I had to go see Twilight: New Moon, then I had to do some birthday shopping, then I had to do some grocery shopping, then I had to go photograph Lake Worth High School basketball, then I had to review New Moon. So yeah, lots to get accomplished. So of course the work thing I had to write in the morning took me about three times longer than I had planned. Instead of getting to the 12:30 pm showing of New Moon my roommate and I didn't get to the theater until the 4:15 showing. But with a nice late lunch meal from Don Pablo's in my stomach I was excited to see if I would enjoy this second Twilight film as much as I liked the first.
Long story short, I thought the movie did a pretty poor job of bringing the book to life. I haven't actually read the book, but it was really obvious that the filmmakers didn't excel at bringing the whole story to life. You can read my whole review BY CLICKING HERE. But yeah, I thought there was a lot of great story there that was just really mispresented. It made me want to read the books.
We then ran to Best Buy where I could exchange the birthday gift I bought for my brother. Funny story there. I bought him the John Adams mini-series on blu-ray a week ago and then we went over to his house. Once there he announces that he ordered the John Adams mini-series on blu-ray off the internet. So yeah, returned that and then we bought a prize for our poker season (you get points depending on how well you finish each tournament and at the end of the year you get gift cards depending on how high up you finish in the point standings). I needed to get to wal-mart as I had no meals to eat at home and we needed to get drinks for the poker tourney the next day but I was out of time. So I headed home, grabbed my press credentials and my camera, and went to Lake Worth High School.
Despite having to park in the middle of nowhere and walk through the rain guestimating in the dark where the gym might be I had a good time. We've just expanded into Lake Worth and they have a sports writer there, so I just get to play photographer, which is nice. There's no pressure to write it, so I just took some pictures and such. I also ran into one of the senior football players from our local high school, Brewer High School, who was there watching the game. His name is Vernon Johnson and he's a great kid. It's funny, I cover these guys so much that sometimes I feel like I know them but I rarely actually interact with them. It was nice to get to chat and learn a bit more about him and find out that he's a really sweet guy. So photos and then I headed home.
Once back home I got to work downloading, editing, and then emailing photos to my boss. Then I wrote my New Moon review. Then we went to Wal-Mart. The trip was good up until the check out. After 10pm they cut it down to just one or two registers so we got stuck waiting and had some unruly teenagers make things all the more painful. After thankfully escaping we got home where I did even more work as I did a lot updating to the Grizzly Detail website that I've been having trouble finding the time to get to.
And that's about it. Watched an awful new poker tv show called "Poker 2Nite". It's like a poker news show and man was it bad. Then we... just watched some poker I think. I don't know. I had popcorn and a dr. pepper and then went to sleep and it was great. And that was November 20th. Oh, and I either need a hairstyle or a haircut. Agree or disagree? And is it just me or is my head unnaturally large?
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| Thursday, September 24th, 2009
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2:01 pm - On my way out
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I've got some things to share today and I think you just may enjoy the heck out of them. First up, I need to share with you this picture:
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Is it a trusty can of Frank's Kraut Juice? Why yes it is! My brother and I discovered it at the grocery store about a month ago and it had more dust on it than the moon, confirming our suspicion that the store has had this same can in stock since at least the first World War. But here's the best part. Want to know what you can use this miracle substance for? So did we, and thankfully the back of the can spells it out for you. The four uses, listed in this order, are:
miracle meat tenderizer - marinade
adds a zest to mixed drinks
natural laxative
known to heal canker sores
No joke, all on the back of the can. CLICK HERE to see the (slightly blurry) proof. Not sure that there's much more to be said about this.
Also, here is perhaps the greatest slideshow ever created. It stars my best friend in the world Chris, his big brother who is also a great friend of mine Johnny, and my beloved oldest nephew Jacob. Words can't describe how great it is, so just CLICK RIGHT HERE to see for yourself.
Also, I've been coming across some amazing music lately that I wanted to share with you. First up is an amazing band called "Owl City". This one man band is just so uplifting and fun and light, I love it. Plus the guy puts together some great word play lyrics that are a lot of fun to put together. It's the kind of music perfect to drive around to and it puts a smile on your face. Great stuff.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THEM
Then there's also a rock band called "The Urgency". I picked this one up on a whim because I liked the band name but was pleased to find a great album. They're modern but add in some nice touches that set them apart.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THEM
Lastly is the new album from "Muse". This is a truly special band putting out some of the best music in many years. My friend Paul told me that they had a new album out and I'm so glad he did, it's so amazing.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THEM
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| Monday, September 7th, 2009
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9:58 pm - the return of the timer
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A few years ago when I had gotten into the horrible habit of not writing much fiction at all I got an electronic countdown timer. At the start of each day I'd set it to 2 hours. The only time I could run it is when I was sitting and writing, outlining, or researching fiction. It had to be at zero by the time I went to bed and I gave myself two days off a week. It sucked, and I hated it, but it worked. I got back into the habit of writing every day and after a month or so I had done away with the timer and was writing at least two hours a day if not more.
Today I brought the timer back. Work has really been eating up my time lately and I just haven't been feeling up to doing both journalism and fiction every single day. Well, now to that the timer says "TOUGH"! Two hours a day isn't quite enough time to spend writing but it's a place to start and certainly more than the usual zero hours a day I was hitting over the past few weeks. Like before, I hate it, but it's working. As a matter of fact, it currently sits at 16 minutes 49 seconds. I'm going to go remedy that by getting a bit further on this short story so I can go pop some popcorn and watch a movie. The short story I'm writing is called "Lakes of fire, Rivers of flame". I've had that title for years but the first story I came up with to fit it just didn't quite work. So now I'm reusing it and I love it. The main character is this real prophetic sort of dude but I'm not sure it'd be healthy to buy into the type of gospel that he puts forth. Great character though. I tend to love these types of damaged guys though, they're fun to write.
The twins birthday party was a blast. My brother and I had a wrestling match in the backyard to try and throw the other one into the swimming pool. I guess you'd have to say that I lost even though I never actually got thrown in the pool. I got thrown into the side of the pool, which caused the side to bend down which caused water to dump out over me while I laid on the ground and got soaked. It was pretty funny, all things considered.
Hope you all had a great holiday day! I've got to go eat up 16:49 so I can relax for the rest of the night! Talk to you all soon!
current music: Chevelle - This Circus
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12:36 am - Four years old
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It's been a month or so since I took the time to put my thoughts down in blogging form and tonight felt like a good night to remedy that. So what's going on in my life? Let's find out!
My two youngest nephews, twins Matthew and Joshua, turn four years old tomorrow (technically today, as its already Monday). I love those little guys so much that it's ridiculous. If you asked me to list the things I loved most in the world my nephews would be number one with the rest of my family coming in at a close second. I can't believe they're already four but I'm excited to celebrate the day with them tomorrow. They're awesome kids and by far my favorite thing currently in existence.
You know, I really don't have much else to talk about. Church was great this morning. Work has been really hard lately as we've really been expanding the scope of what we do. Five times the work, same number of staff members. It's not exactly a balanced equation right about now, but we'll survive and if early indications are to be believed we may just throw in a bit of "thrive" as well. So I'm excited to see where that goes. I love what I do and would feel incredibly depressed if my job as a journalist ever dropped out from under me. Newspapers all around the country are tanking in a big bad way but I keep hoping that because we're a community paper we'll stay clear of that. We're doing better than ever before right now, thanks in large part to the fact that we're doing about five times the work lately, but hey, W.I.T., whatever it takes.
The creative writing is going well. I've received some invaluable feedback on my long in progress second novel, "Moonbridge, CO". I had three trusted friends read it and they've each loved it, so that's awesome news. It really re-energizes me to dive back in and get the rest of it written so I can start the punishingly difficult task of sending it out to agents. Before all that I'll be finishing up my next short story collection. It's called "Eventually, We All Fight Monsters" and while I'm unsure of the comma placement I'm otherwise very thrilled about this. It's got a few old stories from my old achall.net days mixed in there but most of the book is new material. I've still got to finish a few things for it but it's shaping up to be my longest short story collection yet. The material in it is quite a bit different from my older stuff too, which is cool. I feel like I'm hitting some new areas and themes lately and while sometimes I miss being dark and "twisty" I know that some of these new stories are hitting with a lot more heart and emotion, so that's never a bad thing.
Probably the most excited news about the short story collection is that I won't be using Lulu.com to print it. My brother and I are actually starting a business together and while nothing is decided it'll likely be called something along the lines of "Hall Brothers Publishing". We'll be the worlds tiniest publishing company as we plan on taking on no more than four or five books per year with most of those coming from me in one way or another. We'll also open up submissions and try to find a few authors out there looking for a way to gain some attention and take another step towards realizing their dreams of being a professional writer. I love my brother dearly and I'm really excited to be going on this endeavor with him. I think we're going to be able to make a big thing out of this and heck, we'll be in it together so even if we fail miserably we'll be doing it side by side. I thought about that in church this morning, actually. It was just he and I as my sister-in-law was working the nursery. I just couldn't stop thinking, "my brother and I are sitting here together, praising our lord Jesus Christ". I won't lie, it took everything I had not to bust out in tears. So many people dislike their siblings, they fight with them, they move to opposite sides of the country and see each other once a year if not more infrequently. Some people have to live knowing that their sibling isn't saved and hasn't accepted Jesus into their hearts. I don't have to do any of that stuff. I don't ever have to wonder where my brother stands because he's always standing right beside me. And the fact that this morning that meant standing right in the middle of our awesome church singing our hearts out to God, well, I'm not sure I have the right to ask for anything more in this life than that.
See, and now I'm almost crying again. Anyways, there's my life. Doing my best, being pleased with it half the time and thinking it's nowhere near good enough the other half. There's always something new to work on, some way in which I can improve, can do better, and while every once in a while that can feel overwhelming for the most part I enjoy it. Perfection would probably be a bore, after all, but seeing as it's an impossible goal anyways I'll just settle for trying to do my best to be a better person each day than I was the day before.
Oh, and the new Chevelle album is really awesome. So there's that, too. I hope you're all having a great start to your week. I have to admit ignorance and say I don't know why we celebrate Labor Day, but heck, if it gives people a chance to take off work and relax then I'm all for it. I hope life is treating each of you out there well and that you're finding joy in each and every day.
current music: Chevelle - Roswell's Spell
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| Thursday, August 6th, 2009
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10:02 pm - My job is awesome
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As if I needed more reasons to love my job, here's a new one. A few weeks ago I was reading one of my favorite blogs and an upcoming book was mentioned. It sounded really awesome so I decided to take a shot. I emailed the author and told her who I was and indicated that I'd love to read the book and review it for the newspaper. She was super cool about it and got my info and forwarded it to her publicist at the publishing company. About a week after that, what should show up but an advance reading copy of the book. Even though this thing doesn't release in stores until October I'm already about forty percent through it and LOVING every second. It's an amazing book so far. It's most definitely the best I've read in a long while. And thus, another reason why I love my job. I heard about a cool upcoming book, got in touch with the author, and got the book two months early... for free. That adds up to a pretty great job. If you want to learn more about the book CLICK HERE!
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| Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
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12:34 am - List/Quiz madness
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| Monday, July 27th, 2009
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12:42 am - Ready to fail
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This may be the stupidest thing I'll ever say but the past 10 or 11 days have been too productive. Finished an epicly long short story, did a bunch of administrative work for the short story project it'll be a part of, wrote last week's newspaper, worked my second job, embarked on a week long overhaul of the newspaper website, sunk countless hours into upping my skills in web development by at least a d8 +5 (how's that for geeky), spent more hours putting those new skills to use, did a bunch of research for a feature newspaper story, had a long work session with one of my bosses during which we finalized the website, debugged the new website, worked my second job, then wrote the newspaper for this week. Add in some online poker tournaments (one of which I did win, which was awesome) and you're all caught up. I don't even feel burnt out I think I just feel... I don't know, weird is the only word that seems to work. Life feels like it's in one of those odd shifting phases right now and while I can't quite pick out exactly what seems to be shifting it definitely seems to be happening. Writing is going well, the newspaper is going really well, family is going great, so I really don't know. Maybe I just need to disconnect and recharge or something. I think I'm going to duck off the radar for the better part of tomorrow. Grab a book and a notebook and head out and bounce around for the afternoon. I think it'll be good.
Anyways, I hope you're all doing really great and that your week's start well tomorrow. I'm heading into one of my coveted Monday's off and plan on making good use of it.
current music: TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me
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| Friday, July 24th, 2009
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1:03 am - Program the night away
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I've spent the majority of the past 24 hours working on some huge things for the newspaper website. How I became the webmaster for the site is a funny story. I had at one point in the past started a free yahoo geocities webpage and had gotten decent at moving the little boxes around in their dumbed down webpage editor. So when my boss at The Grizzly Detail mentioned the website and their frustration over never being able to update it (someone they knew got around to it whenever they had time) I made mention that I could probably do it. Well, that's probably a bit of an understatement. I tend to hugely overestimate my skills in situations like those not because I'm lying completely but because I know that if I in fact wanted to learn I could become as good as I say. Make sense? So it's like an overestimation based on my own confidence in the abilities I COULD acquire if I so chose. So what I likely said was "Oh yeah, I could definitely build us a new website that was way better than the current one." I hadn't worked for them long enough at that point (probably around four months) to know exactly how much follow through they had so I wasn't positive if I'd ever have to become as good of a webpage builder/manager as I had claimed to be. I knew I had time though, and planned on doing a bit of research on the matter in the near future.
So, as you can imagine, I was a bit surprised when, FOUR HOURS LATER, my boss calls me on my cell phone and says "Okay, we took the old website down and are ready for you to build the new one."
WHAT?!?!?! Not only was I going to have to figure things out much quicker than I had planned but now there was a clock. OUR SITE WAS DOWN UNTIL I BUILT A NEW ONE TO TAKE IT'S PLACE. And so I went home and fumbled and fumed my way through using a program I knew nothing about to build a website. And in the several years since I've slowly learned more and more about it. I've gotten better at my design and layout skills, and I've learned a few tricks. I'm comfortably adequate at building and maintaining an wholly passable and functional webpage.
Well, my boss and I watched a webinar (hate that word with a passion) at the office about improving your website for small newspapers. And I get ideas. Oh the ideas I get! And so I sketch out a plan. One that includes a layout overhaul, twitter alerts, up to the minute news delivered via an email accessible blog feeding to the home page via an rss feed (by far the most difficult thing I did), comments for news stories, embeddable customized story specific maps! And so, I fumbled and fumed my way through and I'm about 94 percent done. So, head over to www.grizzlydetail.com and check out some of the new things I did with the stories there. I'm pretty proud of them. I'll be finalizing things tomorrow, but for now I think it's a big jump from where it was.
Oh, and if you're quick you can read some truly hilarious stuff where I'm testing out the rss feed. Go to www.grizzlydetail.com/cont8.html and check out the feed. I've got it hidden there since that page isn't linked to the main site currently and if you read the psychotic news stories I wrote in the tests you'll know why I've hidden it. Just don't share that link too much, as I don't want our readers to get a hold of it until I've got it cleaned out, hahaha. And if you want to experience it do it soon, I'll probably wipe it sometime tomorrow evening.
And so there you go, a weird update about web design and stuff.
current music: Silversun Pickups - Surrounded (or Spiraling)
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| Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
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10:42 pm - i remain tired
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I've been tired since around 4 pm today. Still, had a very productive day and that's always nice. Spent time with my sister in law and my three crazy nephews. Cleaned the heck outta my living room and kitchen. Did two (that's right, TWO) arts and crafts projects. Won a game of poker against my roommate, did some work stuff, sent some emails, answered some emails and that's about it.
Other than all that there's really not much going on with me right now. I finally finished that short story I was working on. It was a massive story when I was done but I'm really happy with how it came together. It's the first story in a big new project I've got going that will see six writers teaming up to put together a rather awesome short story collection with a neat twist. The entire team isn't assembled yet but it's close and I'm excited about the people that I'll be working with on it.
Did I mention I'm tired?
I guess that about does it for me. I feel woefully uninteresting lately when I blog. I am going back to college, that's good news. As if my life isn't already crazy busy enough, but you know, whatever. I blew off school far too many times and I'm excited to go back now as a much more mature person and just buckle down and learn and get a degree. My first semester will be a bit weird because most of the core classes I need are already filled up but that's alright, there are still plenty of required courses I can get out of the way. So yeah, that's exciting news.
What else? Nothing else I suppose. Gonna go get in bed and turn on a movie that I rented from Netflix that is so uncool and unmanly that I dare not admit to anyone (other than my roommate, who I already confided it to) what it is. Let's just say that if I ever had a "man card" (a guy that's watched Felicity at least five times never got issued a man card) they'd take it away over this one. Then again, I do own a copy of "The Devil Wears Prada" on DVD so I suppose they would've taken my man card away for that already. Oh well. I suppose I can live without it (the man card that is, not my copy of "The Devil Wears Prada"! ZING!).
Oh wow, I'm so shutting up now. I hope you're all doing positively wonderful these days. I certainly am. Got an amazing family and a great job and a world of opportunities and interests laid out in front of me. Not sure how much more I could ask for.
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| Friday, July 17th, 2009
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1:46 am - I am tired
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It's been a while since I worked this hard on a story and I'm having a blast doing it. Still, I hit a wall about a half hour ago and the words just stopped coming. Luckily the second half of tomorrow has unexpectedly opened up so I'll be able to finish it then.
Hmmm, so in other news, life has been going great. Feeling strong and happy and focused and motivated and loved. All good things for sure. Had a really busy week but that's okay I suppose. One Tuesday every month I have a day that is dominated by two big meetings and having to get coverages of both written up by the end of the night for deadline and that happened this week. Chamber of commerce happens through lunch time and into the early afternoon and I came home and wrote that up and then had a few hours to kill. Then the evening brought on the city council meeting and the rest of the night afterward was spent writing that up.
Wednesday I went and picked up the newspaper from the printing press and then ended up having a nice afternoon lunch with a friend I haven't seen in too long. Got way too hot out running a few errands so when I came home I holed up in my room and cranked the air conditioner down and entered into a 7500 person poker tournament on pokerstars. I ended up finishing many hours later in 225th place which was awesome. Would've loved to have gotten a little deeper but I played exceptionally well and had a blast so that was all good. My oldest nephew came over and we hung out for a while as I bagged up newspapers to throw to some local businesses. Then we, along with my roommate, headed over to Half Price Bookstore where I bought two books (one of which by J. Michael Straczynski that I've been searching for over the last many years). Then it was to Target to buy my nephew a toy. I have just about zero willpower when it comes to showing restraint on buying things for my nephews. I'm stupidly easy to convince and when he said "My new guy needs a bad guy to fight" earlier in the day my mind was already made up that Uncle would be purchasing him that bad guy this very evening. So yeah, did that and then we went and he helped us throw newspapers, which was fun. I almost thought we were going to get pulled over again as we had a cop watching us a bit but thankfully he must've realized what we were up to and left us alone. Dropped my nephew off and spent a bit of time hanging out with my family. I'm so ridiculously blessed to have them as my family members and I love them all so much. We talked, joked around, and ended the evening with a true, long, infectious round of laughter. It was wonderful.
Today was supposed to be a day off that I was going to use solely to complete my long in progress short story titled "Beneath Our Very Feet". I had a bit of trouble updating the newspaper website and then had to head out to a meeting with my bosses. That turned into a three hour plus meeting that was completely awesome. We're all so busy that we rarely get to spend that much time together talking about our newspaper and I very much loved getting to sit there with them and talk and strategize and socialize. After that I got back home and finished fixing the website with just enough time to spare to allow myself to hit the grocery store and get some needed groceries for dinner. Got home and furiously prepared dinner as my brother and his wife and three sons showed up. We cooked tacos and it was super good and we all had a blast just hanging out and again I was reminded just how much I love my family. It's so amazing to be lucky enough to have them in my life. They had to jet to take care of something so I cleaned up the kitchen and then headed to the park to exercise. After getting killed by the humidity during my walk I got home, took out all the trash, finished the dishes (I had left some soaking) AND THEN was ready to get to work on my short story. And that's what I did until right now, when I finally had to accept the fact that I was going to have to finish it tomorrow.
And now you've got a super long update on the last three days of my life. I'm going to go watch an episode of "Felicity" (yes, I love that show, own all the DVD's, and am watching through it again for probably the eighth or ninth time, so sue me) and go to sleep. Tomorrow holds a meeting with my boss to work on some website redesign stuff, an afternoon showing of the new Harry Potter, and an evening/night of doing whatever it takes to finish my short story. Saturday is lots of work and also our bi-weekly poker tournament. I can't wait!
Okay, that's all. I sincerely hope you're all having an amazing week and that you're finding plenty of peace and joy in your daily life. If not then feel free to send me an email and I'll do my best to impart some of mine over to you.
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| Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
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12:19 pm - wired jacks
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Every once in a while I get freaked out by how fast time seems to pass. I knew it was about time for a new blog entry but had no clue it had been so long since my last entry. So, let's catch up shall we?
Fourth of July has always been a favorite holiday of mine and this year was no different. On Friday the 3rd we headed out to a great event held at a swanky private golf course called Canyon West. They play great music, have tons of food stands, and you just hang out on this incredibly scenic and beautiful piece of land waiting for it to get dark. Once that happens we were treated to the most awe inspiring fireworks display I'll probably ever see. First of all, you're about 200 yards away from where they're launching. So instead of seeing it from miles and miles away you're right there at the source of the fireworks. Secondly, this was by far the longest, biggest, and best coordinated fireworks display I've ever seen. The whole thing was just so great. My entire family was out there and my roommate and his family were out there and the day couldn't really have been much better than it was. Here's a picture of where we were:
So that was Friday. On Saturday my roommate and I had our families over for a pre-poker tournament cookout. Things went mostly really well. About halfway through the grilling a really strong smell showed up in the kitchen. I think it was my dishwasher burning up but I got pretty freaked out about it since all of my nephews were in the house. Eventually that faded once we aired the house out and I went on with grilling burgers and hot dogs. They all ended up really tasty (I don't have the greatest track record on a charcoal grill so it was nice to have them come out well) and it was fun to have a great meal with the whole family. A few hours later our regular group of poker bums joined back up for our bi-weekly poker tournament and that went really well. I got some really good hands early that ended up being beaten by the time all the cards were on the table and ended up shutting down my game and just nursing a short stack for a LONG time. I spent about 70% of the game just sitting around with my small stack of chips but when things went down to four players I had a really good turn of luck when the other players all clashed big and hurt one another. I won a nice coin flip (this is probably making no sense to non poker players) to put out a player and once three handed played really strong. Got heads up against my brother but just couldn't catch anything and ended up losing. He's now our first two time champion and while I'm extremely proud of how awesome he played I can't wait for my chance at some revenge at the next game. Still, second place after sitting as the small stack through the majority of the game was a good accomplishment and I was pleased with how I played for sure.
What else have I been up to? Did a lot of chores last night. Did my yard, cleaned the heck outta my room (it needed it bad). Spent the early part of the day with my nephew. We ate at Jack in the Box and then I took him to see Ice Age. Sitting through kids movies is like pulling teeth for me and it was made worse by the fact that he seemed to really not enjoy it either. I sort of wanted to suggest we leave after about a half hour but felt it would be mean to do so. Afterwards we hung out at my house for a while and watched some "iCarly" on Nickolodeon. Then took him back home and spent a few more hours there hanging out with my other nephews and the rest of the family. It was time extremely well spent, as per usual.
Hmmm... anything else? Nothing really. Work's going really well. My bosses are on vacation this week and I'm pretty happy about it. Most of the time when they are on vacation I get overwhelmingly slammed with work but this week is so slow. It's been nice so far. Still working on my short story that will kick off a new project with some fellow writers. I'm excited about it and really want to summon up the motivation to finish it today.
There's some other stuff I'd like to share about but at this point the entry is long enough and I'm wanting to go hang out with my nephews for a while so I'll save it for later. I really hope you're all having a great week so far!
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| Thursday, June 18th, 2009
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3:11 am - hair enough for now
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I am so tired right now but unfortunately I'm not done with work for the night. Been wanting to blog today and while I wait on a few hundred pictures to upload to our newspaper photo website I figured I'd do just that. Really don't have a whole lot to talk about tonight. Feeling good about a decision I made yesterday that has really helped me take away a big distraction that was hampering my creative writing. So that's really nice. Hrmmm, what else? Got stopped by the cops tonight, that was interesting. Wednesday is the day our new issue comes out and while we place plenty of papers in most big businesses around the west fort worth area when it comes to the smaller places it doesn't make sense to spend too much time going in and out of all of them just to drop off a few papers. So late on Wednesday evenings I head out with some bagged up papers and throw a few to each of these businesses. Well, I live in a pretty small town and at night this place is empty and quiet, so I've always thought that I probably look suspicious going in and out of business parking lots. Well tonight it finally happened. Had two cops basically following me and surveilling me and I just knew it was about to happen. I was surprised by how long it took them to finally pull me over. When one cop finally did stop me he recognized me as soon as he got up to my vehicle. The good side of being a bit known around town is stuff like that, hahaha, because I'm sure I looked very suspicious slowly cruising through parking lots of all the closed businesses. The whole thing was over quick. Honestly I'm surprised this is the first time I've ever been stopped. It's definitely a fishy looking thing to be going in and out of these parking lots constantly and driving so slow. Anyways, no harm done, so it was all good.
I threw my car keys into a gas station trash can this afternoon. I tossed some trash, an empty drink, an empty water bottle, and then I just toss my keys in after them. And to make it way worse when I tried to fish them out I barely bumped them and they sank all the way to the bottom of the nasty trash can. Let's just say that I've since scrubbed my arm rather thoroughly. Also, while I'm admitting to weird bonehead things I did today, I was leaving the house to swing a birthday present by a friends place on the way to going to work and I gather my things and head out. I got to the car and start putting stuff in. Birthday gift? Check. Media badge? Check. Camera? Check. Notebook? Check. Alarm clock? Check.
Then I sort of stopped and looked down at the seat of my car to discover that I had in fact picked up my alarm clock from my room and then carried it out to the car and loaded it up. I have no clue where my head was at on that one but it obviously wasn't focused on what I was taking to the car, that's for sure.
In other news I went ahead and got my hair cut today. For the last four or five years I've only gotten one haircut per calendar year, usually about every ten or eleven months, and it was definitely time. The lady who cut my hair was incredible at her job but made me truly uncomfortable at one point. She's doing my sideburns and around my ears and then she just shifts down and starts grooming, trimming, and cutting my beard. MY BEARD! I didn't ask nor pay for any such service and I was pretty uneasy about the whole thing. I don't know if it's just me or all men but shaving is a bit of a private thing. That's done alone in the bathroom by me and me alone, you know? So having a complete and total stranger take it upon herself to get all up in there was a bit janky. Then again, the woman did a great job all around and even used some sort of bubble gum scented conditioner on my hair, so hey, she's alright in my book.
Well, pictures are finally uploaded. I'm going to finish up work and catch some sleep. I shall, however, leave you with a pic of the new do. Doe? do? Du? Dew? Whatever, the new haircut. Sheesh.
The lady cutting it said "I cut away hair enough for five regular people" when she was done. I think it may've been an insult.
Anyhow, I hope you are all awesome and amazing and that your weeks are going great. I'M GOING TO BED NOW!
current music: Muse
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| Saturday, June 13th, 2009
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11:44 am - back with a vengeance
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So yeah, it's been a long while since I blogged. Why is that? One day I just quit doing it and for a while I didn't even miss it. Then I started missing some of my online friends, a few of which I consider to be as good as if not better than some of my real life friends. I still read their blogs and updates across myriad social sites but it felt like a one sided conversation. Seeing as I care about some of these people, that sort of sucked, as I tend to enjoy conversing with those I care about and when it comes to online friendships this is sort of the way to do that. So that's one reason. The other is that I just wasn't writing. I mean, obviously I was writing, I'm a reporter and I write a novella's worth of words each and every week. But I wasn't creative writing. And when I'm not creative writing I feel like something is just slightly wrong with my soul. And thusly I rarely feel like doing much of anything. But things are good right now in most realms of life and in those realms that things aren't so good I'm working hard on getting them there, and that's about as good as I think anyone can be expected to do during their time on this planet.
So, it's my birthday on Monday and I kind of have mixed feelings about it. 28 years old. I'm fine with the number but I won't be in two years. I don't want to be 30, not in the slightest, but I suppose I have two years to find some sort of peace in the matter. My best friend got me an Iphone as an early present and I can't believe how much I love it. It's a bit of a mixed feeling however as some of my family have made me realize that it probably wasn't the fairest thing I could've done to take on a high monthly bill when in the past they've helped me out financially in times of need. It's not that I don't get by but it's the fact that when something happens, like your car breaks down or the IRS hits you with a 1300 dollar bill just because your employer classifies you a certain way (true story, it sucked majorly), my family are the ones that step in with the big sums of money to help float me past these major problems. And I guess the argument they had was that instead of paying this much higher than my current cell bill I could've been saving that much money so that the next time I have car trouble or the next time the IRS screws me for being the "little guy" I'd have my own funds to take care of it. Of course I learned they felt this way a day after getting the phone and signing a two year contract which leaves you little outlets other than feeling like garbage. Puts a bit of a weird haze over my birthday on Monday too because the last thing I want is for any of them to spend any money on me after all of that and yet I've always spent my birthdays hanging with my family. I tend to be a birthday fanatic so it really pains me to admit that I'd rather just skip this one and give the whole thing a few weeks to settle and then get back to normal with my family whom I adore and hate to see upset with me.
I'm finally going back to church and am so very happy about that. I love a good church and yet I can find a billion excuses why "this Sunday isn't going to work for me". But, for two weeks in a row now I've been getting up and heading out and each time it's been such a true blessing. It's a smart, excited, growing, young church and I really feel energized there. I feel excited as Sunday looms in the week and I feel energized and inspired when I leave that place. I feel a desire to be a better person and I feel I have the power to make it happen. Religious or not I think you'd have respect for the fact that something can have that effect on a person. I can't wait to be there in the morning.
So, while I have a few trusted test readers read over the first half of my long in development novel Moonbridge, CO I am prepping a new short story collection to publish. It will be called A Case of the Mondays and will include some of the stories from the long defunct achall.net as well as several new ones I'm writing and several others that were never published anywhere. I'm really pleased with the quality of stuff that'll be in there so far and the new things I'm getting together for it like "The Daily Market" and "The Crushing Inevitability of Death" are some of the best stories I've written in years. I'm excited to get something new done and out there for you all to read.
( And now, on to some mundane stuff to close out this already too long post. )
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| Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
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11:11 pm - the end of the vacation
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I just sent off my final piece of writing for the week to the newspaper and man, I'm wiped. My bosses were on vacation this week and it turned into one of the busiest weeks in recent memory. Over the past two days I sent them enough material to fill the next two papers. I'm looking forward to getting things slowed back down this week and am even thinking it may be time for a vacation of my own. Hope you all had a great weekend! I'm heading into my one and only day off each week (Monday) and am excited about it. The only thing on the agenda is "walk to office" and I'm just doing that for exercise, not because I have anything to do at the office. Oh and also on the agenda is "take table to my mom's house". I'm glad I remembered that.
Alright, I'm gonna go read or write or watch tv or play a videogame or talk to my housemate. The sky's the limit at casa de aaron tonight!
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| Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
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12:14 am - Didn't anybody ever tell you how to gracefully disappear in a room?
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Home alone and working on my novel. Ugh. Writing novels is hard. I've developed a new system to keep myself accountable and on track to get this dang thing done. Currently I'm behind in a pretty sizable way. Wednesday is one of my two allocated days off from the novel. In order to catch up I'm going to have to spend a few hours working on it anyways when I get free from newspaper duties sometime in the afternoon. It occurs to me that these are all dandy problems to have in life and I'm glad to call them mine.
Anyways, just wanted to share. I always feel weird when I'm home alone. My housemate is gone to see Watchmen. I saw it last week and while I thought it was brutally brilliant I can say with absolute certainty that I hope to never ever see it again. Also I'm sunburned and that always makes me really miserable. We're building a fort/play set thingy for my nephews and this just happens to be the week that Texas decided to get sunny and warm. It didn't help that I walked to work today and the sun continued to stab it's fiery rays into my neck and face. The exercise was nice though. I heard if I get enough of it I might actually lose some weight. I think I'm going to see if that's a myth or not.
Anyhow, need to get back to it. I declared to myself that I'm going to work on the novel until Chris gets home which will probably be in about fifty minutes. At that point I'm either going to go to sleep or maybe go play poker on the Xbox. That's right, party central over here!
I hope you're all having a great week so far. I had a blast conversing with the high school Athletic Director and his wife while covering the softball game tonight. It made me realize that conversing is quite possibly my favorite thing. Or at least one of my favorite things. Writing is up there too, even though this sophomore novel of mine is proving to be a mighty challenge indeed. But it's never going to get done if I don't stop blogging, hahaha, so I guess I'm shutting up for real. Talk to you all soon!
current music: The National - Lit Up
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| Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
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2:18 pm - Boxer
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I just discovered this band yesterday and immediately fell in love with them. They're called The National and I think you'll love them as well.
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1:12 am - paragraph fiction 3
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Felix turned onto his back and floated. The full moon hung large in the night sky casting a bright illumination across the ocean below. In the distance Felix could make out the restaurant and the anger came rushing up again. He started swimming further out, letting his rage fuel him. He focused on it, making it the only thing in his mind.
“Now she says it’s too well done!”
The voice echoed loud in Felix’s mind. What had seemed like a dream job, getting to be a chef at a restaurant on a popular beach, had quickly turned into a nightmare.
“And table nine said cancel the shrimp, he wants steak.”
Three weeks Felix had worked at the restaurant, hating it more with each passing day. But this night had been the worst ever. The words of his head waiter kept coming back to him, fueling Felix’s angry swim.
“Table six left without paying their tab.”
He had always dreamed of being a chef but on this night he felt the dream slipping away.
“Now that jerk at table nine says he wants a shark filet.”
That one had gotten Felix’s attention.
“We don’t sell shark.”
“He said he’s a reporter and he’s going to trash the restaurant in a review unless he gets a shark filet.”
Despite the cold ocean water around him Felix could feel himself getting hot. It occurred to him that what he was doing was crazy but he didn’t care. The bright rays of the moon gave him just enough of a view underwater that when a large shape passed beneath him he saw it. Felix steeled himself and then dove down into the cold, dark ocean.
The man had wanted a shark filet and that was just what he was going to get.
current music: The National - About Today
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| Sunday, March 8th, 2009
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5:43 pm - gasoline is in my head
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Going ever so slightly stir crazy today as I'm chained to the computer trying to get all of my work done. First, I just wanted to ask if I'm the only one who finds the milk chocolate crosses being sold at Wal-Mart to be slightly offensive? Seriously, as a Christian I'm not sure I'm all that comfortable with the cross becoming a tasty treat. Anyways, I also just wanted to share a few songs from a canadian band that features one of my all time favorite rock singers. This guy's voice is dynomyte. The videos are a bit strange but I guess when you live in Canada you've got nothing better to do than try and put oddities into your videos. Silly Canada. Hope you're all having a great Sunday!
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| Saturday, March 7th, 2009
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11:55 pm - my newsmind meltdown
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I spent a good seven and a half hours judging a UIL journalism contest today. It was awesome and I had a blast but by the 35th news story about the same exact thing I was feeling a bit fried. That, of course, was followed by two more events to judge that were full of story after story covering the same exact things. As soon as I got done I came home where I now am spending hours upon hours working on stuff for the paper since we've got to get a lot of extra stuff done due to my boss's upcoming vacation. And I have to say, as awesome as it was to be asked to come and judge that competition, I am as newsed out as I've ever been. This doesn't gel with the fact that I've got about twelve more hours worth of news writing I need to finish by Sunday night.
Yes, I'm complaining. Honestly though, the competition really was a lot of fun. Believe it or not I think I learned a lot today. Getting that many examples in front of you that clearly illustrate really good and really bad news writing, it sort of seared itself onto my brain. Since I got home every story I start working on I keep seeing the judging worksheet in my mind. "Did lead contain the needed information?" "Does the writer properly use quotes?" And so on and so forth. I'm just going to say for the record that if I dream about UIL journalism worksheets tonight then I likely won't be returning to judge this competition next year, hahaha. Hopefully it won't come to that though.
I honestly had like four other things I wanted to talk about but that's the only one I can remember. I suppose that means they weren't all that important. I hope you're all having a great weekend. I'm going to get a bit more work done, watch an episode of Kyle XY, and then get some much needed rest.
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| Friday, March 6th, 2009
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1:48 pm - The Completist
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Just a quick one here as I'm running out the door to take some baseball pictures and then off to see Watchmen. This week has been the perfect storm of entertainment for me. First, on Monday, I finished the novel I was reading. This is noteworthy because I'm a relatively slow reader, finishing one book every two or three months. This one was my advance copy of Starfinder by my friend and acclaimed author John Marco. The book doesn't release until May, so it's pretty cool to be done with it months before it'll even be on store shelves. Then, on Monday night I finished watching Las Vegas. I grabbed the first season last November on a whim, having never really watched much of the show. I fell madly in love with it and since have bought all five seasons. Monday night I watched the final one and now I'll be forced to move on to another show. It was an amazing run though and is now entrenched as an alltime favorite show. Okay, then finally, last night I finished the videogame I was playing. Called Valkyria Chronicles, this Playstation 3 game is by far the best game I've ever touched. It usurped Final Fantasy X on my all time list. The ending almost made me cry it was so good.
And that is all I have to share with you. I'm probably going to start in on the anime series Death Note now (picked up the whole series at Best Buy where all their anime is 50% off at most stores this month), I'm reading a short story collection called "The Drowned Life" and as for games I'm going to finish out the last part of Metal Gear Solid 4 in the next few days.
Okay, so now that we're all caught up on the uber important status of my entertainment life, I need to run. Hope you're all having an awesome day! I am, even though I ate some nasty food for lunch.
current music: Megadeth - I Thought I Knew it All
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