I’ve been hammering away at various and sundry writing projects, with plenty of irons in the fire for a change. While chatting with Deb on the phone earlier, she heard what I had going and asked about fiction.The answer caught me by surprise.While I have some fiction irons in the theoretical fire, I have nothing […]
It was the lull before the storm.Last night the RTM meet and the meeting was over in fifteen minutes. It’ll make up for the marathon nights to come as the budget progresses.First, in lieu of the normal political caucuses, three sub-committees met in joint session for a presentation regarding the one and only item on […]
Busy, full and tiring weekend. But fun.On Saturday, Robbie and I took the ferry to I-Con. While I read, Robbie and his girl friend Stephanie played cards. This was going to be Stephanie’s first show but she loves playing a lot of the themed card games such as Munchkin so was looking forward to the […]
Productive week despite constant interruptions. I set Monday aside to take care of every household, personal and related project that needed time and attention. Thought I’d blow through it all and have the afternoon to write.Tuesday morning, I finished the list. Admittedly, phone calls take time and you don’t want to do a lot of […]
Minutes ago, I-Con finally posted their schedule. I’m not on every panel that would be fun to do and I’m opposite people I want to see or hear but I’ll live. At least I’m not booked opposite myself as in past years.If you haven’t been, come, it’s fun. If you’re attending, make sure you say […]
Pocket Book’s Marco Palmieri has announced the plans for celebrating Star Trek‘s 40th anniversary. Included is this project, which finds me in very good (and very familiar) company.
Lunacon was a lot of fun, possibly our best family experience there yet.We arrived on Saturday in plenty of time to get oriented to the new hotel before my 10 a.m. panel. The Hilton is about a month behind on its renovations so it had a spiffy if unfinished look and feel. Changing many of […]
Last night was our second session in the Mystery book club. Unlike the first, we didn’t really talk to the topic, the eternal triangle between the writer, the characters and the reader. We did, though, get a lot of interesting information about Raymond Chandler and the writing of The Big Sleep.Our leader comes very well […]
Writing can be a fluid process and at times a mysterious one.Today I was reviewing all my research to date on the Artificial Intelligence book and then found myself starting to cut and paste information into the skeleton I created for the book. Before I knew it, I had pretty much drafted the introduction, chapter […]
Everyone knows about the Democratic and Republican parties on the national level. But, I suspect most of you don’t realize there are local versions of the same in every town across America. These Town Committees follow the by-laws as passed by their State Central committees which in turn subscribes to the rules of the national […]
This weekend, the family will be at Lunacon. We get there Saturday morning since Kate insists on spending Friday night with her “twin” Nicole as they celebrate their 20th birthday (which is really Saturday). My goodness, I will only have one teenager left to contend with.Anyway, Kate will miss out on Friday night’s Boogie Knights […]
Several of the people who organize Shore Leave are teachers and have therefore spoken well of Towson University. When Robbie started talking about becoming a teacher, they advised him to check it out.Last August, we did. It was a week or two before classes began and the Admissions people were unavailable. In fact, no one […]
Last night I attended another book discussion at the Library. Unlike the previous two, which focused on baseball, this will be regarding mysteries. Our speaker, a dean at Yale, decided our four books and discussion would involve the eternal triangle of the reader, the book and the author.There are times, he argues, where we challenge […]
Where does the time go?It’s been an extremely quiet week, so there hasn’t been much to write about.Much of the week has been nose to the grindstone work as I put the finishing touches to the Suicide Bomber book, began researching the Artificial Intelligence book, polished and sent off the Corps of Engineers story and […]
Eight weeks feels like a long time and in the world of job hunting it’s not long at all. Not these days. I figured it’s time to take stock for a moment and see where I am.Every day I continue to check the internet job sites and follow the guidelines from one agency that if […]
At our last Finance Committee meeting we were handed a 300+ page document, containing the town-side budget. A week later, at the RTM meeting, we got its companion volume, the similarly-sized Board of Ed budget, which came with its very own multi-page supplement. The supplement answers questions raised by the Board of Selectmen and the […]