General Updates...

Been a while since I posted, so I thought I'd give a general update.

In positive news, I learned a few days ago that my last entry to Writers of the Future did actually get an Honorable Mention. Yay. But not good enough. I even know what I'm doing wrong: my stories aren't short, succinct, and sciency-enough.

I really just need to find a new market for my stories, but WotF is such a prestigious contest that it's hard to give it up. Either find a new market, or change my writing style. And I'm tempted to attempt to write a story that's more in line with the style they like publishing, just to see if I can do it. Not giving up my artistic integrity, of course...

Halloween is approaching fast. It's Child's favorite holiday, so I'll be dressing up. As something. Anyway, I can't remember if I mentioned that I already got an inmate-grown pumpkin (connections in low places), and just acquired a gourd with a painted face a couple days ago. (singing) "It's beginning to look a lot like Halloween!" (/singing)

The Quark writing group has been going well. The new leader (onelowerlight) is very dedicated, and a good writer to boot. As with the beginning of each semester, we have a lot of newcomers to the group, and they still have a lot to learn about being in a writing group. At the last meeting, I realized there were two big things that people in a writing group need to remember.

1. Don't defend your story. Don't explain your story. As a matter of fact, while your story is being critiqued, you shouldn't say anything at all except to ask for clarification of a critique or to say "thank you." The critiquer isn't interested in your explanation of why you wrote something the way you did, they just want to tell you what they had problems with. Later, on your own time, you can decide what critiques to accept and which to reject.

2. Stay on target. Keep your critique succinct and to the point. Don't feel you need to rationalize your critique by listing or describing other books you read; that just wastes valuable time and does little to increase the credibility of your critique. If the person is smart, they'll accept or at least consider your critique without a list of references. If they're dumb, they'll reject your critique regardless of your list of references. Even more important, don't stray into unrelated topics. "Your character's name is Julius? That reminds me of a totally unrelated book I read about Julius Caesar that yada yada yada..."

Thesis Proposal Scheduling

I finally finished my thesis proposal. After the seventh or so draft, my adviser finally approved, and I passed it on to my second committee member. Surprisingly enough, he didn't have any problems with it either. The next step: scheduling my thesis proposal defense.

"The real hard part of a thesis proposal defense isn't writing the proposal," said my adviser. "It's getting the three professorial members of your committee together in the same place at the same time so you can defend it."

I thought he was joking. He wasn't.


Round One

Dr. Goodrich suggests the second week of October, a nice two weeks away. Clever person that I am, instead of just sending a general email asking if Dr. Snell and Dr. Olsen are available that week, I pick four times on four different days, then send an email asking if they are available those times.

Dr. Goodrich: I'm free
Dr. Snell: I'm free two of those times
Dr. Olsen: That whole week is out.

Curses. On to...


Round Two

Will the third week in October work?

Day	Goodrich	Olsen	Snell
Oct. 15	Yes	No	No
Oct. 16	No	Yes	Yes
Oct. 17	No	Yes	No
Oct. 18	No	Yes	Yes
Oct. 19	Yes	Yes	No

Curses again! Are they deliberately arranging their schedules to make this impossible? Let's try...


Round Three

The last couple days of the first week in October? Any closer than that, and there won't be time to prepare, schedule, let Dr. Snell (the third committee member) read the proposal, etc.

Between Dr. Goodrich, Dr. Olsen, and Dr. Snell, the available times are:

Day	Goodrich	Olsen	Snell
Oct. 4	After 1 pm	Before 11 am	Before 3 pm
Oct. 5	Not 2 pm	Before 3 pm	Not 10 to 1

October 4 is obviously out. However, a flaw in their carefully designed scheduling algorithm reveals that they have nothing scheduled from 9 to 10 am, or 1 to 2 pm.

Or is it a flaw? Is an hour long enough...especially since they have to leave time to actually get to their "scheduled activities"? (I put that in quotes, because my theory is that they just randomly choose times to be unavailable, finding my struggle to coordinate their schedules amusing.)

I'm guessing they'll say an hour isn't long enough. But...the fourth week in October? That's a month away! I'll almost be ready to defend my thesis itself, along with the proposal!

Sigh. We'll see what happens. I guess there's nothing stopping me from starting on my thesis itself while I wait to defend my proposal. The problem is that as I've coded my simulator up, my direction has already changed from what's in the proposal. In another month, my thesis won't look anything like my proposal and I'll have to defend a document that has no basis in reality. :)

Possum Man!!! Dun dun dun!!!

Child and I were watching "Heroes" with a friend (Balgram), and started wondering how a guy (spoiler alert) came back to life. This guy could steal super-powers from other people, so we came to the conclusion that he must have stolen super-powers from Possum Man. Dun dun dun! (end spoiler alert).

Balgram drew a depiction of Possum Man (note the bottle of ketchup in his hand), while I came up with his theme song, sung to the tune of "Particle Man" by They Might Be Giants.

Possum Man, Possum Man!
Doing the things a 'possum can!
Is he alive? Or is he dead?
Did he really get shot in the head?
Or is it just ketchup instead?
Nobody knows. Possum man!

Powderpuff Police

Provo High and Mountain View unofficially got together tonight to play a game of Powderpuff football.

Apparently, the principal wasn't too happy with this, and even after officially distancing Provo High from the event, he followed the event to the new location (Westridge Elementary) to try to break things up.


People weren't too happy about that, or about the fact that he called the cops (below picture, see the badge on the guy in the blue checkered shirt?). Some guy made the point (anyone know who the guy was?) that like it or not, the event was not being held on Provo High grounds, so the principal couldn't really do anything about it.


I couldn't really understand the principal's reasoning. At first I thought he didn't want the game to happen because he was afraid the students would be injured, and that made sense to me, even if I didn't think it was an adequate reason to cancel the game. People die canyoneering, but do I stop doing it?

Then I found out that apparently there's an "official" game later on this year. Will less people get injured at that? Would the assembled parents be any less quick to get their children to the hospital at this "unofficial" game than at the "official" one? Anyway, the principal finally realized that as good as his intentions were, he didn't really have a leg to stand on. He made a final announcement to the crowd and left.


Let the games begin!

Stereotypes

A man came into the shelter yesterday. His dog had been hit by a car and crawled into a ditch, where it had been found by a policeman about midnight. The policeman brought the dog into the shelter and the shelter called the owner in the morning.

The owner was wearing a ratty Harley-Davidson tee-shirt, with chains hanging off him and a cigarette tucked behind each ear. The shelter employees told him about the fees (including $25 to license the dog, refundable if it died [it was in pretty bad shape]), then the police officer came in and gave the man a citation for letting his dog run at large. Meanwhile, the dog needed to get to a vet ASAP. All in all, the man had every right to be frustrated.

However, he stayed completely polite, "sir-ed" the policeman, "ma'am-ed" the shelter employee, and went over to the front door to hold it open when he saw a lady coming in carrying a heavy cat carrier. I've seen all sorts of people get angrier at far more trivial things than this guy did about his dying dog. If only more people could be like him.

Bad News in the Writing Dept....

So, no winning for my Q3 submission to Writers of the Future. The finalists were posted today, and my name wasn't among them.

Oh well, on to the next story!

Comcast Part II: Nearing of the Cancelation

So, you remember last month? Here, let me remind you:

Finally, FINALLY, she tells me that all the additional changes/credits, whatever, should appear on my next bill. "As a matter of fact, it should be negative," she says.

I asked her three different times, in three different ways, to confirm that my next bill will be negative (i.e. Comcast should have credited me) and each time she confirmed it.

We'll see. I have more faith in Osama bin Laden converting to Christianity than in Comcast getting something right.
--"Comcast...DE MUERTE", 8/17/07

Well, welcome to Comcast de Muerte, part II. I'll give you a spoiler: it's going to end in cancellation.

I received our bill. It was 28.14. It's missing just one little thing: a negative sign.

No problem! I was smart last month: after finally resolving the issue, I asked the lady if she could write a note in her computer system stating, explicitly, "This guy's bill will be negative." "Sure!" she says. "Done!"

"Great," I say. "Now give me a reference number, so next month, when my bill ISN'T negative, I can call up and say, "Here's a note that says my bill should be negative."

"Here you go," she says, and gives me a number.

This month, my bill isn't negative. Again, no problem. Instead of calling, there's apparently a new "Chat Online About Your Bill!" service. I decided to try it. I log on. "Jeff" comes online to help me. "Hello! What seems to be your problem?" I start writing back, but before I can finish, Jeff leaves, with the chat message, "This issue has been resolved" or something along those lines. What the...?!

I try again. This time I get "Amis." This guy sticks around long enough for me to explain the situation and give him the reference number to the note. "Let me read the note...sorry, there's nothing here about your bill being negative. If you need more help, call Comcast. Goodbye." He vanishes with the same, "This issue has been resolved" note before I can even respond. Wow. Remember that picture I posted about Comcast's customer service being as smart as a brick? That was extreme flattery.

I go back to the phone and get Chuck. Chuck is nice, but confirms that there's no note about my bill being negative. "I *can* give you $10 credit for the 11 days you were without service," he offers. Thanks, but that's not really what I was promised or expecting. And 11 days? Where'd THAT number come from?

"Alright, Chuck," I say. "Give me the $10 credit." And what I didn't add, because Chuck doesn't care and I don't like taking my frustration out on low-level phone-answerers, "And when your supervisor approves it in the two days or whatever you said, I'm paying my bill and canceling."

So there you go. Comcast is gone. Not because I had to call them so often with problems that they made it to my "Fave 5" callers on my cell phone plan (it's true), and not because the service is spotty (also true), but because I was lied to. It's a "principle of the thing" now. I'll make do without internet at home rather than deal with a company whose employees will out-and-out lie to me.

...oh, and before I forget, when I signed up, I didn't want to give them my Social Security Number. Identity theft reasons and all that. "No problem," they say, "Give us a refundable $70 deposit instead." No problem. I give it to them. Now, what are the odds that I'll get that back? I'm not too confident.

Evan Almighty

Spoiler Alert! Don't read this post unless you want to hear about Evan Almighty.

Child and I watched Evan Almighty last night. Overall, I thought it was a good show. Some humorous bits, a good message, the usual. I did manage to spot one glaring plot hole: after Senator Long leaves the ark, the flood comes and washes the ark down to the congress building, where Senator Long has mysteriously managed to negotiate D.C. traffic, get through a discussion of his bill, and initiate the final vote, just as the ark comes to a rest against the building.

Evan Almighty also reminded me of an issue I have with "movies these days." (Do I sound old?) Anyway, the issue is this: no matter what the subject matter is, or how young of an audience the movie is aimed at, there always has to be some "bathroom joke" thrown in. If there's a dog, it has to bite someone in the crotch or defecate on the lawn. Does there really have to be a joke about passing gas in every move from PG on up? Did it really add to the movie? Are more people going to go see it because it's in there, or are fewer people going to watch it if it isn't? Sigh.

Stealing Candy from Babies (new grad students)

This afternoon, I went to the "New Grad Student Fair" to help man the "Talk to a Current Grad Student" booth. One the table we had a bowl of candy, refilled occasionally by the people in charge of the fair.

Being grad students, we started figuring out ways to get more candy.

Noticing the refill-lady coming down the row of booths, I quickly emptied our bowl on the ground. We got a full refill, then I added the old candy back, filling our bowl to overflowing. Later, we noticed that occasionally some of the other booths would be left unguarded, yet their candy bowls were still being replenished. Their candy quickly migrated to our table, as well as a collection of unguarded pens. If we were Israelites, we would have found some way to double our manna supply and probably would have bummed a mug and tee-shirt off God to boot.

Of course, in an amusing act of cosmic retribution, a lady came by our booth and gave the three of us grad students a book of "Buy 1, Get 1 Free" type coupons. Moments later, someone came by the booth, chatted a couple minutes, then took a piece of candy, my coupon book, and walked off.

I started laughing, and the other two grad students quickly took their coupon books off the table and moved them to the floor. In the guy's defense, those coupon books were being handed out for free by one of the booths, so he probably thought we were just helping. Most of the booths had free pens, pamphlets, etc.

In the same vein, the Computer Science department held a social last night. At the end, I managed to make off with an entire "probably-would-have-ended-up-as-a-leftover" pizza, while Child nicked a half-jug of her favorite salad dressing. The trick is to look official and not stop walking if you hear someone yelling at you.

Balanced Breakfast

Giant éclairs. Part of a delicious, if not particularly nutritious breakfast. (I love Child's day off!)

Deadly Horse Ride

Whoo. Been a while since I last posted. When I get home this evening, I'll post some pictures from my canyoneering trip over the weekend.

For now, though, here's an unfortunate incident that also happened over the weekend. I found out about it when I asked about two horses we had at the animal shelter this morning. Apparently, two men were riding the horses when a fisherman's dogs and possibly some kids spooked the horses. One of the men was thrown off, but his foot caught in the stirrup and he was dragged 75 feet until his horse either fell into the reservoir or ran into it, drowning the man (who was probably unconscious, if not already dead, by then).

The police brought the horses to the the shelter yesterday, although two people (I think one was a family friend, and the other a relative) came to pick them up this morning. No charge by the shelter of course, it's the least you can do in a situation like that.


On an unrelated note, I was walking a dog around the inmate-run garden behind the shelter, and stopped to talk to one of the inmates while he petted the dog. A deputy who was out inspecting the tomatoes yelled at me to stop talking to them. What, the inmates aren't people now? I can't say hello? Maybe it's against the rules, I don't know, but either way, none of the other deputies have ever had a problem with me walking by.

I mentioned the incident to one of our inmates that works in the shelters, and he said the lady had a history of being a jerk to the inmates. It just seems bad form to me. Go ahead and be a jerk to people who can respond, otherwise you're just a bully.

Quandary Canyon

Over the weekend, a friend, his brother, and I went on a canyoneering trip. We chose Quandary Canyon in the San Rafael Swell of southern Utah as our destination, mostly because it was infamous for its "keeper potholes" and we wanted to try out some gear.

Keeper potholes are so called because once you're in them, it's very difficult to get out. In the picture below, my friend is spanning a pothole...not one we had to go down inside.

In the below picture, my friend is using a "Happy Hooker" to get out of a keeper pothole. This is a long pole with a hook on it. Attached to the hook is a set of "aiders," like a rope ladder with loops for your feet (but made out of the same material seat belts are made of). Using the pole, he set the hook on the lip of the pothole, then climbed up the aiders.


Another technique we used on a different pothole employs "pot-shots." These are simple canvas bags that you fill with sand (or in our case, mud), then throw them up and over the lip of the pothole. The weight of the sandbag offsets your weight as you climb up and out. Note how small the bag is. It doesn't really need to be much bigger; the friction of the rope over the lip of the pothole, added to the weight of the bag, really is enough to offset your weight.


The final technique for avoiding keeper potholes is to use a guided rappel. After one person is over the other side and wedged in a crack (me), the tension on the rope is used to let the person slide right over the top of the pothole. While my friend is posing for the camera in the picture below, I'm slowly being squeezed to death in the crack.


Quandary Canyon was one of the more "open" canyons I've traversed. It had a few sections of narrows, but unlike some slot canyons, it would be possible to climb out in several locations in case of a flash flood. Unfortunately, it didn't have a lot of the deep reds and yellows that places like Zion National Park has, but it was pretty in its own drab, gray sort of way.


Near the end of the canyon, a little growth had sprung up. Standing above the other two guys in the party as they pushed their way through it, I thought they looked like they were in an African safari with their white "pith helmets."


Stopping for lunch. Don't drop your food down the hole, it could be hundreds of feet to the bottom...


We climbed up a steep slope in what we thought was the right direction...only to find nothing but a cliff on the other side. Oh well, we'll take a picture, try to salvage at least something out of the climb.


And the worst part of the trip: going home.

Critiquing "writing"

So in the course of my life, I have the opportunity to critique other people's stories. Some are great, good characters, interesting plot, well-written dialog.

Then there are...the others.

Let me start off by clarifying that I don't claim to be an awesome writer (decent, maybe). However, if I write about a subject, I do at least basic research into the subject, and claim at least some proficiency. In other words, if you're going to write a science fiction story, know at least your basic science.

The following examples are all from one story sort of based around an artificial star that a ship is launching.

"[The artificial star] would heat up to more then ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit. It would then accelerate, moving away from the ship at ten kilometers a second."

1. That's the temperature of our sun (well, the sun's actually 11,000 degrees F, close enough). Wouldn't it be smart to move it away from your spaceship BEFORE it heated up?

2. You speak of acceleration, then give us a velocity. Minor detail, but again, it's a science fiction story. Your audience will expect accuracy.

"[The artificial star] pulled in mass from the area around it"

I'm guessing he wants to use "matter" instead of "mass." In other words, it would gain mass by collecting matter. Again, it's a science fiction story--keep your science-y words accurate. And where is this matter coming from? It's space...matter is in short supply. Fortunately, near the end of the story, he thinks to mention that there's a nearby asteroid belt. Oh, great, matter to collect! But...how is the star attracting this matter before it has mass? No mass, no gravitational pull. Sort of a chicken and egg dilemma.

"[The artificial star] pulled in mass from the area around it, becoming it's own gravitational singularity"

We'll ignore the "it's," since we're critiquing the science. In this case, I'm assuming he just heard the phrase "gravitational singularity," thought it sounded cool, didn't know exactly what it meant, and decided to put it in anyway. I won't claim any expert astrophysics knowledge...but I do know how to use Wikipedia. Among other definitions, a "gravitational singularity" is a black hole, or at least the center of one. Since the whole point of this star was to send light back to Earth to communicate a message, a black hole would kind of defeat the purpose. (Or maybe not, it would still send back "light," just not on any human-visible wavelengths, but I don't think that's what he had in mind.)

Later, an alien satellite cuts their ship in half with a laser beam! A few more issues crop up.

"Suddenly a beam of light cut through space, streaming past them. It began to sweep around, looking a bit like the beam of a flashlight searching through the darkness"

Think of a night, where there's no smog or dust in the air, but there's a low cloud cover. Now shine the light on the clouds. You can see the light on the clouds, if you look directly at the spotlight bulb you can see the light there as well...but you can't see the beam itself.

Why not? You need photons from the light hitting your eyes to see it. And if there's nothing in the air (or nothing in the deep of space) to scatter/reflect those photons, they aren't going to reach your eyes. I'm not positive, since a laser might carry particles of whatever created it along, but I don't think you can see a laser beam "sweeping" through space. That's why when you see them at laser shows, they put fog into the air first.

I could go on about what it takes for a laser to "instantaneously" cut through a spaceship, and how you wouldn't see tendrils of melted metal at the edges because they didn't have time to heat up and space is very cold anyway, and how you better have a heck of a good computer to calculate the trajectory to shoot an artificial star from your "tumbling" half-a-spaceship at a moving alien satellite, and how it wouldn't matter anyway because the alien satellite would just move...but it's late and Child's gone to bed.

Now, with all that said, I can take as well as give. If any notices mistakes in what I've said, or wishes to clarify or outright contradict what I've said, then go right ahead. Like I said, I'm not a physicist, astro or otherwise, so everything I said was simply "from my understanding" and a little from Wikipedia. I'd be more than happy to be clarified on any points.

Child's Ninja-Dive Roll Ultimate Frisbee Catch

So Child and I went to play Ultimate Frisbee with a large crowd of people at the Kiwanis Park. Someone on her team threw the Frisbee, but it missed its intended target! The Frisbee was headed for the ground! All seemed lost!

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Child races forward and dives for the Frisbee. She grabs it right before it hits the ground, rolls into this ninja move, karate chops three enemy players, pumps six 12 gauge rounds into more charging bad guys, finishes her roll, jumps to her feet, and throws the Frisbee for a goal.

The crowd went wild.

Disabilities

A lot of disabled people don't like being considered "disabled." They simply have different abilities. Child tells me that the deaf community, for example, are very quick to point out that they are just as capable as any hearing person. So when a disabled person tries to use their disability as a crutch, it's not only annoying, but offensive to others with the same disability.

A lady called the animal shelter yesterday, and I answered the phone. The lady had apparently found a cat a few months previous, it had kittens, and now she wanted to get rid of the kittens. "They're tearing up my house," she complained. From the way she was talking, I got the impression she was a lower-income person, so instead of simply telling her she could bring them in and pay a $15 fee per animal to release them, I said, "Well, you can try giving them away; I've frequently seen people sitting on the grass by Walmart with boxes of kittens. Or you can post them for free on ksl.com, and lots of people look there for animals."

I was going to finish with the option of bringing them in and paying the fee just to cover all the bases, but she interrupted me. "What if I just want you to take them?" she asked.

"Well, you can bring them in, and there's a $15 owner release fee for each animal," I said.

There was a short silence, then, "Even if I'm disabled?" she demanded.

There were so many things wrong with her reply that I wasn't sure how to answer. For starters, why would our fee depend on whether she was disabled or not? And plenty of other people seemed to get along just fine being "disabled."

"Um, yes." I said.

There was another silence. "Well, I'm disabled so I can't sit by Walmart with a box of kittens," she snapped.

"It sounds like ksl.com is your best option then," I said.

"I don't have the internet," she said.

"Do you have a a friend with the internet?"

"No."

"A friend who has a friend who has the internet?" I said. I was getting irritated by her complete lack of helpfulness, she obviously wanted us to personally drive over to her house and take the kittens off her hands for free.

Anyway, she finally hung up. Ten minutes later, an animal control officer from her town showed up with a cage full of kittens in tow, and he was furious. "This woman is terrible," he said. "She has 20 cats at home, lets them have kittens all the time, then calls us up and expects us to come just take them from her. I've already refused to come get them several times, but she just calls when I'm off duty and the other officers don't know not to go over. She just barely called us, and I finally gave up and decided that the city would just eat the cost (each city pays for each animal their ACOs bring to the shelter). I'm going to check into the law, though, and see if we can refuse to take anything else from her house."

I'm not exactly sure what the point of this story is, except that there is nothing worse than a disabled person who tries to use her disability to take advantage. Grrr.

A Goofy Movie

Apparently I was fortunate to survive my childhood with my cultural identity intact, because I had never seen A Goofy Movie. Once Child discovered this, we immediately rushed out and got it from Blockbuster. It was good, with some funny parts to it, but I have to say it seems to teach some conflicting morals.

Goofy makes Max go back and tell Max's girlfriend, Roxanne, that he had lied to her...yet Goofy, a beloved American icon, had no problem sneaking into a concert without paying, eluding security guards, and destroying hundreds of dollars of stage equipment. And these are the characters our children are looking up to?!

Jake the Malamute

Child's parents recently inherited a dog, Jake. He's a (large) malamute.

Acouchi wasn't exactly thrilled to see Jake on our front lawn, and we (read: Child) decided against introducing them at closer proximity, despite the fact that I had the video mode on my camera ready to go.

Vegetarian Cookies, Anyway?

My wife first noticed this quite a while ago, and tried to point out to the clerk that while technically correct (since ALL cookies are vegetarian), the sign's intent was probably "vegan" cookies. The clerk was adamant that vegetarian was correct, and Child finally gave up.

So I finally decided to go down and take a picture of the sign. Afterwards, while walking back to my lab, I called up the store and asked for a manager. I finally got one, and was able to raise the question of why the sign said "vegetarian" instead of "vegan."

Apparently the lady thought I was some sort of PETA organizer standing poised outside the door with several hundred sign-carrying protesters ready to start marching if the sign wasn't resolved immediately, because she was extremely apologetic, and hastened to assure me she would leave a note for the "guy in charge" to get the sign changed post-haste. That wasn't really my intent, but I knew it would make Child happy, so I cheerfully thanked her and hung up.

Remind me, and I'll check back in a couple weeks to see if they really did fix it.

It is not meet that I should command in all things...

Last Sunday I developed a new appreciation for those people who can offer someone a drink/cigarette/card game, be turned down with a "No, thanks, I don't drink/smoke/gamble," and not let it bother them or be offended.

It's surprisingly hard! Granted, there's not usually any offense intended, but regardless, there's an implication of condemnation. Basically, you're calling them a sinner. I realized this when (long story short) some friends turned down board game playing on Sunday with the reason (in my understanding) that they didn't feel it was an appropriate Sabbath activity.

Of course they didn't intend to offend anyone, and I'm sure hinting that anyone who did was a sinner was the last thing on their minds. However, the implication was there, simply as an inherent factor of their statement of belief. I found it surprisingly hard not to grill them as to their rationale or basis for their belief, with of course the subconscious goal of proving that I was "right" in my beliefs and they were "wrong."

But the more I learn of how God really works, the more I start to realize that "right" and "wrong" really SHOULD be put in quotes. There's a reason Church leaders have avoided listing more than a general overview of "appropriate" Sabbath activities. There's a reason they don't define exactly what should be tithed. There's a reason Jesus didn't list off the exact nationalities that should be considered "neighbors" to the Jews in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

It all depends on your intent. If I think playing board games on Sunday harms the Spirit of the Sabbath (Monopoly, anyone?) but do it anyway, the Lord will judge it against me. If I think playing board games on Sunday builds stronger family relationships, then the Lord will judge in my favor. Exact same actions, but the intent was different.

...the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
1 Samuel 16:7

8 For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God.
9 And likewise also is it counted evil unto a man, if he shall pray and not with areal intent of heart; yea, and it profiteth him nothing, for God receiveth none such.
Moroni 7:8-9

Double standard? Maybe, but one we create ourselves. As a matter-of-fact, it's a multi-billion level standard, one for each person.

And that's why we're told to Judge Not. Only God knows everyone's real intent, and only He knows the proper standard to judge their actions by.

Team of Child Abductors Roaming Utah

According to the Daily Universe, "Utah Creates New Child Abduction Team."

No word yet on what age of children this government-sponsored abduction team will target, or what they'll do after they abduct the children.

On a related note, consumers are warned to avoid "Utah Soylent Green"-brand food.

True Computer Geek

Now this guy is really a computer geek. Arrested and convicted for uploading Star Wars III to the internet before it was released in theaters, he had to serve some jail time, and is now under probation. He also had to have monitoring software installed on his computer, which meant he needed to switch from Ubuntu Linux to Windows (since the government didn't have a Linux version of their monitoring software).

So what did he think about all this?

It isn’t the fact that I have to be monitored that bothers me, it is the fact that I have restructure my life (different OS, different software on that OS)

Wow. It wasn't the jail time that bothered him, or forced him to "restructure" his life. It wasn't the ankle bracelet he has to wear, the restricted hours he's allowed to leave his house (8:30 am to 5 pm on weekends), or even, as he says, that he's forced to have monitoring software installed on his computer. It's the fact that he had to change his operating system from Linux to Windows.

Why, if I had a nickle for every time I've been shot...

There's been a story in the local (and apparently not-so-local) news recently. A police officer showed up at a 70-year-old lady's house, and asked for her name so he could write her a ticket for not taking care of her lawn. Apparently they were talking near the street, and the lady refused to give her name, then tried to go back to her house. When the police officer tried to stop her (apparently afraid she might be going for a weapon or something), she started resisting, and he ended up arresting her.

I'm not going to discuss the story. Instead, I was having an amusing time reading the discussion thread that followed the argument. Some people made good points, both for and against the officer's actions. One guy on the anti-cop side, however, made me laugh,

See this is why Police enFORCEment is sad, it's all about Force, What happened to the good Peace officers, I have had more guns pointed at me by police Officers in Utah then by anyone else, and that's when I have called them...

Really? I have yet to have a single gun pointed at me by ANYONE, much less a police officer. Am I doing something wrong? Offending the wrong people? Hanging out with the wrong crowd? Antagonizing the wrong gun-wielding demographic? I would love to ask him exactly how many times he's had a gun pointed at him, and what he was doing at the time.

(BTW, a picture someone posted in that same discussion thread is the one I used to the "You're doin' it wrong" post I just made.)

You're doin' it wrong V

Murder by Deer

As a country vet I did a lot of traveling, but I had never actually been to Justin's house. He shared his lane with a single neighbor, Carl, who was also in his mid-80s and living by himself. As a matter of fact, Justin and Carl were a lot alike, except that Carl was a widower and Justin had never married.

As far as I knew, Justin only had two hobbies: hating Carl, and feeding deer. As a relative newcomer to the area (9 years this spring), I only knew about the first from small-town gossip. Something about Carl stealing Justin's beau while Justin was off in WWII. The second hobby, I had witnessed myself. On at least three of the handful of wintery occasions I had visited his neighbor's small farm, I had seen Justin with his pickup truck pulled off the road, tossing bales of hay to the ground. I couldn't guess why; most farmers, even retired ones like Justin, hated deer for the damage they did to their crops.

Two days ago, however, Carl passed away. I heard about it while I was in the hardware store, stomping snow off my boots and trying to warm my hands by rubbing them together. Nancy, her head deep in a circle of people clustered around the cashier's desk, glanced up at the jingle of the bell over the door. "Doc V, you hear the news?"

I didn't think it had to do with the new calf I had just delivered, so I shook my head.

"Carl died," Nancy said. "Got in a car wreck up by his house. The sheriff just got back a few minutes ago."

I stared at her. Carl, dead? As old as he was, I had expected him to die in his sleep, not to go like this. "What happened?" I asked.

"He went off the road up by his house and hit a tree," said Nancy, shaking her head. The cluster of people around her repeated the gesture, and I noticed Justin's face among them. He looked slightly less dismayed by the tragedy than the others, and a sudden thought struck me.

"Any idea why he went off the road?" I asked, and Nancy shook her head again.

"Sheriff says maybe he swerved to miss a deer," she said. "Then with the roads all slick, he couldn't get control back."

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, and there's nothing I could go to the sheriff with. But for the first time since I had met him, I saw Justin smile.

Utah Community Credit Union and Customer Service

Even more important than the number of problems a particular company gives you is the speed and convenience with which they solve those problems. Think about it--if you had a company that you only had one problem with, but it took two months, a dozen phone calls, and the sacrifice of a goat to fix the problem, how would that compare with a company that gave you five problems but solved each one with a two-minute phone call?

Let's consider three companies:

Comcast, T-Mobile, and Utah Community Credit Union (UCCU)

Comcast: caused me lots of problems trying to get installed (do they want my money or not?!). Each time, I had to call and spend 15 minutes on the phone trying to explain the problem, then having to hear that the earliest they can schedule help is a week away. Three weeks later, the problem is fixed, but I have to make another serious of incredibly frustrating phone calls to get the billing fixed now. Customer satisfaction: non-existent.

T-Mobile: charged me a $30 fee, apparently a legitimate fee that the service rep forget to tell me about. Took one phone call, required a transfer to a supervisor, who then promised to call the service rep to double-check I was telling the truth. Supervisor couldn't contact the service rep, so went ahead and refunded the money. Great, but had the potential to turn nasty if the supervisor had actually contacted the service rep, and the service rep got scared he'd get in trouble and claimed he had told me about it. Anyway, problem solved. Customer satisfaction: good.

UCCU: charged us a late fee on a car-loan payment because the teller deposited the money in our checking account instead of loan account. Required a couple phone calls, and we had to do some digging in our transactions to find the day and error, but there was no need to transfer us to a supervisor, the first guy on the phone we talked to accepted our explanation and refunded the service food. Customer satisfaction: very good.

Gimp and the Libgimpui DLL

Note to self, since I know this is going to come up again and I won't remember the solution: after installing Gimp, while starting the program, if lots of "missing entry points in the libgimpui dll" errors start popping up, then uninstall, erase the old folders in Program Files, make sure the dll is gone from windows/system32, then reinstall Gimp but using a different folder name than the default given.

You're doin' it wrong IV

Thanks to my beautiful wife, Child, for this one!

Wives and toilet seats

I think I'm the only person whose wife reminds him to leave the toilet lid up. (Not the seat, just the lid.)

Why? Because Child's cat is too finicky to drink from her water dish, choosing instead the "giant water bowl."

Comcast...DE MUERTE!!!

So if I attempted to chronicle all my dealings with Comcast in the last month, attempting to set up internet at Child's and I's new home, this blog post would be several pages long. Instead, let me just comment on the latest call.

Background: due to circumstances, for the first three weeks of our "service," the internet didn't work. Each time I called and talked with a Comcast representative, I was given a "confirmation code" that they said I could use after the service finally worked to make sure I wasn't billed for downtime. In addition, one of the techs that came out to the house gave me a $20 discount for the trouble we've been going through.

So I finally received the first bill: $8.14.

$27.95 for the bill, minus the $20 credit the technician gave me, plus $0.19 tax. Makes sense. But no credits for the three weeks I was without internet--fair enough, I'm supposed to call up and cite my "confirmation codes."

I call Comcast and try to talk to billing. I run through the automated message and get to a prompt that asks for the last four digits of my account number, which I don't have handy.

I hang up and call back, this time aiming for an operator. I find one and he checks my name and phone number, then asks for my account number as well. I tell him I don't have it handy, so he asks for the exact amount of my last payment. Well, for starters, I haven't made ANY payments yet (except for whatever they charged when I signed up over the phone a month ago), and I wouldn't remember the amount off the top of my head anyway. I verbally spar with him for a few moments, asking if there's any other way to verify myself, but he remains adamant. No account number, no help. I hang up.

I call back again. Instead of asking the new operator for help with my bill, I ask her for my account number. She gives it to me. Ah, the joys of large corporations. Since this lady was helpful in giving me my account number, I decide to stick with her. So, over the next 19 minutes, I try time and time again to explain my situation, everything that's happened, everything that SHOULD happen. Finally, FINALLY, she tells me that all the additional changes/credits, whatever, should appear on my next bill. "As a matter of fact, it should be negative," she says.

I asked her three different times, in three different ways, to confirm that my next bill will be negative (i.e. Comcast should have credited me) and each time she confirmed it.

We'll see. I have more faith in Osama bin Laden converting to Christianity than in Comcast getting something right.

Letters to the Editor: Dead Birds

I forgot to post this "letter to the editor" earlier, but it's pretty self-explanatory. I submitted it about two weeks ago, and it was published on August 9th.

Might I also point out that while I am known to misspell words on occasion, the only misspelling in the letter below is in the title (where casualities should be casualties), and that was put in by the newspaper. ;)

The reason I remembered it today was because the officer I wrote it for came to the shelter today where I had clipped a copy of it.

Bird casualities

This letter to the editor is actually on behalf of a friend of mine, a Provo police officer. He told me they frequently get calls from people on BYU campus asking them to take care of a dead bird. For starters, as my friend pointed out, BYU not only has its own police, but it also has a maintenance crew for each building. Not only that, but he assured me there was no law against people picking up the bird themselves (using gloves, a trash bag or something similar) and simply throwing it away.

I understand "911" has fewer numbers than "422-2222" (BYU Police) or "422-INFO" (BYU Info for maintenance phone numbers), but as college-educated people I'm sure we can handle the extra digits.

Not only that, but since we're at a school run by a religion that emphasizes self-reliance, I am confident we can even learn to handle a dead bird ourselves (I suggest "Handling Dead Birds 101," "Coping with Death 230" and the whole "Turning Wal-Mart Bags Into Makeshift Shrouds" course series).

Call Provo police for emergencies such as your roommate's meth lab, but BYU police or maintenance should be able to handle a dead bird.

You're doin' it wrong III

Thanks to Alan Atherton for the inspiration for this one.

Oh, the usual...I got peed on...

It's been a long day: a praying mantis tried to assault a shelter employee, a policeman beat it back with his baton, and a dog peed on my leg.

Alright, it's not really as exciting as it sounds. I was in the kitchen eating some inmate-grown corn when there was a sudden burst of shrieking from the hallway. I went to investigate and found two of the girls that work at the shelter trying to alternately catch a praying mantis and fleeing in terror when it would fly at them. Once it landed in one of the girl's hair and the girl ran shrieking down the hall.

At the same time, an ACO came in bringing a squirrel. He heard the noise and came to investigate, then caught the mantis himself once he realized what they were doing. The girls were trying to catch it to feed our chameleon, so the officer tossed it in the cage, but it landed out of sight of the chameleon. Next thing I know, the ACO whips out his beat-stick (billy club? baton?) and starts poking the mantis, trying to get it to move. It doesn't work, so the ACO sticks a piece of tape on the end of his baton and picks the mantis up with it.

On an unrelated note, a dog peed on my leg. Oh well, part of the job.


A less fun side of the job is the disease we get occasionally. Right now the shelter is abnormally empty, we have pans of bleach everywhere to sanitize our shoe-soles, and there's practically armed guards patrolling the halls to make sure no one touches any of the animals. It started when a dog became sick, but it was an internal disease and we couldn't tell until it died suddenly. Since visitors (and even a couple shelter workers--we won't name names) can't seem to get the concept of "germs" through their head, the dog had been petted, then the people went on to pet half the other dogs in the place without sanitizing their hands between dogs.

The first dog died, as did a couple others that were adopted out. The decision was made to clean house, so we euthanized anything that looked in the least bit sick, or who's time was up. So the shelter is spookily quiet, no one is allowed to adopt a dog for a while until we're sure everything is safe, and we're keeping a close eye out for any more sick dogs.

The happy (sad?) thing is that in a week, we'll be back to full capacity. So many dogs...

You're doin' it wrong II

You're doin' it wrong.

This is the first post in my upcoming "You're doin' it wrong" series of pictures. I'd welcome other suggestions.

Raptors!!!

Today we got a Cooper's hawk at the animal shelter. The man from the raptor rescue who came and got it said it was actually still young, as large as it was. He said it probably had just left its nest.



Also, if your dog gets loose, make sure it's friendly, especially towards any cop that might pick it up. Today wasn't the first time a cop brought in a dog and told me he was going to give the owner a ticket because the dog played hard to get. Technically they can give a ticket to every single owner whose dog is loose, since there's a leash law, but they normally don't bother, unless, as I said, the dog causes them problems.

Your babies are ugly! All of them! ...except two.

Today was the third week Child and I attended our "married student" church, where 70% of the people have a baby under a year old and 60% of them are expecting in the next two months. 1% (Child and I) have neither a baby nor are expecting.

As you might guess, this has caused some problems, mostly for Child, who feels (fairly enough) that she is somewhat of an outsider and that nothing relates to her. Our sacrament meeting was composed of ten or so short talks, assigned by the bishop and given by the church members, illustrating faith. Most of them had something to do with childbirth.

"My wife was in labor for thirty pain-filled hours but we had faith..."
"I had these various complications with the pregnancy but thanks to faith..."
"My wife had horrible nausea and cramps for the last eight months of her pregnancy but with faith..."

I'm setting next to Child cringing. At the end, Child leans over to me and says scowls, "We're never having children."

Curses! I'm having a hard enough time convincing her she wants a baby.

Then we split up for our guy/girl classes. Afterwards, I reported that us guys learned about reverence. Child grumpily said she had learned about how to teach your children to be reverent.

She also handed me a schedule of activities for the women she had gotten. I was pleased, because the previous week she had complained that the only activities were for women with babies. "Hey, you like swimming, you can go to the swimming group!" I suggested.

She pointed to the description. "Come enjoy the shade and company while you watch your children swim..."

"How about the walking group?" I suggested.

"Join us as we push strollers around the neighborhood..."

"The cooking group?"

"Want to make your own baby food? Come learn how..."

Poor Child. I feel for her, I really do.

There was one bright note: our meeting time will be moved from 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM in two weeks. It won't solve any of the underlying problems, but at least Child won't have to face them on too-little sleep. :)

Starting a new short story

Alright, I've had three short story ideas bouncing around in my head, but all of them seem to have difficulties. In addition, I'm starting to get motivated to return to my novel and start over with it.

However, I've finally decided to give short stories one more shot. I've picked the least-problematic one of the three, and here I go. We'll see how it turns out...

The Mac-Cat

Child and I watched a movie last night. We left briefly to find some food, and came back to find Acouchi apparently intrigued by the rolling credits. Perhaps she had a friend playing an extra in the movie, and was looking for the name.

A seven-woman show

At the animal shelter, there are eight employees. One is the director. He's a guy. The other seven are women.

I feel sorry for him sometimes. Usually everyone gets along well, but when differences arise, as they are bound to with that skewed of an employee gender-makeup, then he's the one who has to solve the problems. He spent all this morning (seriously, like two hours!) talking with two of the women about some issue, which started with a misplaced soda can, I believe.

Oh well, that's part of being the director.

On an unrelated note, here's a picture of the fawn we got in at the shelter a little while ago.

Crazy-psycho religious nut

Crazy psycho religious nuts and normal jailed citizens. Something interesting seems to happen every day at the animal shelter.

First, religious nuts. When someone wants to adopt a young kitten, we have them foster it for a couple weeks first, to make sure it's not going to die on them. If it's healthy after two weeks, they bring it back to us, we finalize the adoption, then they can take the cat home.

So this guy brought in his kitten to finalize the adoption. He was a pudgy, middle-age guy with a butch haircut and worst of all, a truculent expression on his face. The first words out of his mouth after the poor girl (we'll call her Amber) at the front desk said hello was, "I ain't getting the cat microchipped."

That was somewhat of a non sequitur, but Amber said, "Excuse me?"

The man snapped again, "I ain't getting the cat microchipped, and I don't care what you say."

Amber was somewhat at a loss, but hesitantly pulled out the fostering agreement and pointed to a line in it. "But you agreed to get it microchipped, and you even signed right here that you would."

The man was adamant. "You can take the cat back, but you ain't putting a microchip in it."

Amber didn't know what to do next, since our director wasn't in (it was Saturday), and the man was very confrontational. I stepped in, "Why don't you want to get it microchipped?"

"Religious reasons," he said.

"Oh. What religion are you?" I asked.

"Mormon," he said. That happened to be my religion also, but I couldn't remember hearing any sermons about the evils of microchipping, or reading any scriptural verse warning against it.

"Exactly what religious tenet warns against microchipping?" I inquired.

For the first time he hesitated. "Well...I just have my own ideas about where microchips are heading."

I got the impression he thought we were going to tattoo a "666" on the cat's forehead, then have a dozen spy satellites tracking its every movement. How do you argue with religious belief, though, especially when it's a "personal" one and not even in line with the man's religion? "Um, I'm sorry, your religion doesn't actually believe that. Now, do you want a matching microchip in you, so our agents can know where to find you at all times?"

Amber and I huddled, and I suggested that she go ahead and do everything else, let the guy take the cat, then we could discuss what to do on Monday, when our director would be in. We had the guy's address and phone, so we could get the cat back if necessary. She agreed, and the guy left, happy in the knowledge that he had saved one more poor cat from the belly of the Beast.

Later than afternoon, I was sitting with our three inmates in the break room, eating lunch with them. I was telling them about the psycho guy, and bemoaned the fact that there were so few normal people around.

"Hey, I'm normal," one of them protested, hesitated, then added, "Well, except for being in jail," and he grinned.

Shelter events

Microchip your pets, people! Yesterday, we had a couple pugs brought into the animal shelter by the Animal Control Officers. We scanned them for microchips and found that they were chipped. We called the owner, who was shocked to hear from us. "They've been missing for six months!" she said.

Shortly after, another lady called. "I just lost my two pugs, have they been picked up?" The story wasn't too hard to figure out. The original owner had lost the pugs six months earlier. The second lady found them, and rather than bringing them to the shelter, had kept them. Only when they had escaped and been brought to us and scanned had we found the original owner.

Ironically, the ownership of the dogs is still not clearcut. Apparently, as long as the finder makes a "good effort" to find the original owner, they can keep the animals. Since the original owner put up flyers all over town looking for their dog, and the finder had never brought the animals to us (or even taken them to a vet's office to be scanned for microchips), I would personally say that the finder didn't make a good effort, but I'm not the judge.

Adding an additional problem to the mix, the original owner had already gotten another dog (dogs?) to replace the pugs, and now if she takes the pugs back, she'll have more dogs than her city allows her to have. I'm going to keep informed on what happens, and I'll post here if I find out.

(Later: we gave the pugs back to the original owner, and promised the newer owner we'd give her first dibs on the next small dog [pug, chihuahua, dachshund] we got in.)

As interesting as that situation is, it isn't the only one of its kind when it comes to microchips and pet ownership. We got another microchipped dog in, and the owner said something similar about it being missing for several months. While we were waiting for the owner to come in, another guy came in looking for the same dog. We told him it had a microchip that said the owner was someone else, and asked him how he had gotten the dog. He gave a name (we'll say it was "Mary") and said that Mary had given it to him. We told him we couldn't release the dog to him until we got the situation worked out, and he beat a suspiciously hasty retreat.

When the original owners came in, we told them that a "Mary" had apparently given the dog to the latest owner, and the original owners looked shocked. "Mary is our relative! We gave her the dog to babysit while we were on vacation, and she said it had ran off!"

Apparently Mary had some sort of grudge against the owners (or perhaps dog). And apparently the guy she had given the dog to was at least somewhat aware that all was not kosher in the way he received the dog. Last I heard, I think we just left the original owners to deal with Mary how they would.

Remember: collars can be lost...or deliberately removed! Microchips are like diamonds: forever. (Or if not forever, at least a step more permanent than collars.)

Only last small incident, not concerning microchips this time. We had an old lady come in yesterday, accompanied by her younger neighbor and her neighbor's daughter. They were looking for a dog for the old lady, who's old dog had died a week previous. (Interestingly, three separate neighbors had called asking about getting a dog for the old lady.) Anyway, they wanted to look at a chihuahua, and I was taking them to the "Get Acquainted" room so they could let it run around. As they went in, the old lady leaned toward me and said solemnly, "I'm a child."

I stared at her, not sure I had heard correctly, and if I had, wondering if it was some manifestation of the slight dementia that her neighbor had whispered to us the old lady had. I said, "Excuse me?" and the lady repeated, "I'm a child."

I still had a puzzled look on my face, and the old lady finally clarified by saying, "Before I married, my name was 'Child.'"

Oh! That's...nice. I gave a polite nod of still-puzzled understanding. The lady followed her neighbor into the room, and I shut the door behind them. I went to the front desk where I repeated the incident to our shelter mom, who laughed. "'Child' is the big name in her [small] town," she said. "If you're a Child, you're really someone. You were supposed to be impressed."

Oops. Oh well. I guess I've been working with animals too long, because as a general rule, I'm as impressed by names as a dog is.

Rather sleepness night

Last night was one of those restless nights where you seem to wake up every couple hours for no particular reason. Warning: studies have shown that hearing other people describe their dreams is the most boring thing in existence, so if you don't want to read a couple (very brief) descriptions, skip this post. I'll blog about some amusing animal shelter events next as an apology.

I remember having two dreams. The first, I was at someones house with a lot of relatives, it seemed to be a family reunion of some sort, when I noticed in passing that my Grandpa on my mom's side was there. That wouldn't be too remarkable, other than the fact that he passed away a few years ago. I seemed to be the first to realize that he was there, so I called out and went up to talk to him. I wish I could remember exactly his words, but they were simply along the lines of, "I hope *you* aren't doing anything to make me disappointed," then I woke up.

Now I do believe in "religious" dreams, but actually, I don't think this was one. Whether or not it was, though, it was a good question for me to ponder as I lay awake in bed.

Falling back asleep, I had a totally unrelated dream, and one with no real point to it at all, but an intriguing twist that I haven't seen in any of my dreams before. Child and I were in a big ol' house, where there seemed to be some sort of party going on. Suddenly, a couple guys charged in and started shooting all over the place with automatic weapons. Child and I raced upstairs to hide, and watched out the window as the Bad Guys loaded all sorts of boxes into some trucks. I got the impression this was a rival gang's headquarters, and they were robbing it.

They left, and all sorts of people showed up, including the police (and oddly enough, one of my ex-girlfriends). Still upstairs, I leaned out the window and called out that I could help the police since I was a witness, and that I had actually been in the same house a year earlier when the exact same event had happened then. I woke up about there, and realized that I had actually had the same dream a year earlier, and understood that that was what my dream-self had been referring to. Intriguing, no?

Anyway, enough dreams. On to a new post and some shelter news.

Entry Recieved...

Well, got an email from the WotF contest to say my entry has been received. Now, I just have to "allow 10 weeks after the close of the Contest quarter for judging to finalize." That means I should get the results by mid-September.

Honeymoon Events

On our honeymoon in Mexico, we stayed at a resort named "Canto del Sol." They had a great buffet that we hit up three or four times a day, a beach, swimming pool, and tennis courts. It was apparently in the "old" section of town, meaning that it was a little more authentic, and a little more difficult to find someone who spoke or understood English very well. Most of our taxi drivers spoke only Spanish, but all you needed there was the name of your destination.

We had a lot of adventures on our honeymoon: horseback riding, swimming with dolphins, ocean kayaking, sand castles on the beach...Mexican taxi rides. Child was an expert cowgirl. Our guide for the horseback ride spoke only Spanish so there wasn't a whole lot of talking going on, but most of the ride was just through rivers and jungle anyway, so there wasn't a whole lot of commentary he could have given. "On your left, you'll notice another tree."

It contrasted sharply with the horseback riding Child and I did for our one year dating anniversary: there were no safety forms to sign here, no instructions, and since he couldn't really ask us whether we wanted to do it, our guide's technique to seeing if we wanted to gallop was to start doing it, of course causing our horses to follow suit, then look over his shoulder to see if we were enjoying it. (For the record, we did.) All in all, it was a ton of fun, and I got to practice my Clint Eastwood squint. Next time, I'm going to work on the "spitting-between-the-teeth."


The kayaking was also fun, and I got to brave the jellyfish we saw in the water to get the picture below.


We also got offered weed on the beach by some old guy with missing teeth but respectfully declined, despite his insistence that it would be good for us.

Oh, and the swimming with dolphins was a lot of fun too. We got to dance with them, get kissed by them, and ride them by holding on to their fins as they swam (all under careful supervision of their trainers, of course). Unfortunately we weren't allowed to bring our cameras, and because of my refusal to give in to what I consider scams (read: paying $17 for a single picture), we don't have a picture of it. :)

Writing Tips

And another thing: I wanted to start collecting writing tips (general ones, and those applicable to just the sci-fi/fantasy genre), and thought I might as well make it public.

This first set of tips is from K. D. Wentworth, coordinating judge for the Writers of the Future contest. They are the top five reasons she immediately rejects entries. (http://wotfblog.galaxypress.com/2007/07/ top-five-disqualification-points-during.html)

1. Poor spelling and copious grammatical errors

2. No sign that this is a science fiction or fantasy story by the end of the first page

3. Inability to tell what's going on by the end of the first page because the writer is withholding critical information from the reader in order to create suspense.

4. Overused tropes such as vampires, elves, witches, ghosts, trolls, dwarves and dragons, without an original take on the subject.

5. Massive information dumps at the very beginning of the story where the writer is telling the reader background information instead of working it into the story.

Looking through my old email for another list of tips a friend (Eric James Stone) sent me, I found that they were actually given by K. D. Wentworth as well, at a Writers of the Future workshop. Some are specific to WofF, others are very good tips no matter what you write. I was going to go through and highlight my favorites, but reading through the list, they are all just great tips, pet peeves, or problems I have myself. So I'll just mention one that made me laugh, and is really true: "Don't start with a character waking up. Or with amnesia. Or naked. Or being tortured. Or waking up naked with amnesia while being tortured."

1. Don't send inappropriate submissions. It's a contest for science fiction or fantasy, so don't send children's stories or poetry or murder mysteries. Sometimes up to 50% of WOTF slush is inappropriate.
2. Don't play games with the reader. Eight deadly words: “I can’t figure out what is going on.” If the reader can't tell what's going on, it's hard for the reader to get interested. This means (a) write clearly, and (b) don't withhold from the reader information that is apparent to the POV character.
3. Put a speculative fiction element on the first page. Something that makes it clear this is science fiction or fantasy.
4. Avoid overwritten beginnings. ("Frank's dual orbs of sight...," five adjectives in a row, etc.)
5. Avoid word pictures that force the reader to see everything.
6. Avoid characters in high school. (They can be high-school age, but don't have them actually in the school.)
7. Don't count on the title to get noticed (or as the only indication of speculative fiction element).
8. Don't start with a chunk of exposition. Prologues or things like fake newspaper stories can be a bad way to start.
9. Characterization is not what someone looks like. Do not have a character notice his or her appearance in a mirror.
10. Don't start with a character waking up. Or with amnesia. Or naked. Or being tortured. Or waking up naked with amnesia while being tortured. Such beginnings are done so often they are clichéd.
11. Avoid overworked themes such as the characters being Adam and Eve, or with a character floating in space being born at the end, or Noah's ark.
12. Don't use an unusual or weird POV character, such as the knife that will be a murder weapon. (She got a story in which the POV character was a dust bunny.)
13. Don't submit a story that exists just for a joke.
14. Avoid bad, over-the-top metaphors. "Words fell from his mouth like rancid spinach."
15. Avoid trite conventions of the genre: elves, vampires, werewolves. (Can be done later in career, but hard when starting out.) Originality is valued in the genre. An original idea can beat a better-written old idea.
16. Don't submit anything that has its origin in other media, or even hints at it. (No Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.)
17. Don't submit with bad formatting.
18. Don’t use overused words: “orbs,” “impossibly,” “smirked.” Don’t misuse words. (This is very subjective, of course, but she mentioned "impossibly" and "smirk" as ones she saw too much of.)
19. Don't have a story in which nothing happens in the first two pages.
20. Don't misspell, and if you do, not more than once per page.
21. Don't make your hero a nasty, obnoxious jerk. Villains as heroes/unlikable main characters/irredeemable jerks as protagonists fail to gain sympathy from the reader.
22. Eight more deadly words: “I don’t care what happens to these characters.”
23. No serial killers.
24. Don't fail to "land" the ending. (If a story is like a plane flight, the story doesn't end with the plane stopping in midair.)
25. Don't have a passive main character.
26. Don't use the wrong main character. Write from the POV of the character with the most to lose.
27. Don’t start with poetry you’ve written yourself. (It's OK to begin with a short quote from someone famous, maybe.)
28. Don’t use made-up words with extra apostrophes.
29. Don’t use made-up words that are unpronounceable or have no vowels.
30. Make sure the ending is prepared for in advance.
31. Don’t include a map or illustrations.
32. Don’t base it on a D&D campaign.
33. Don’t write in second person.
34. Don’t say “this is part 1″ or “continued” or “excerpt.” Don’t ever make the editor think the whole thing isn’t there.
35. Don’t put copyright notice on the manuscript.
36. Don’t go overboard on first sentence. We are supposed to believe it. ("After I fished Albert Einstein’s eyeball out of my martini...”) Sometimes the key is not to hook the reader, but to keep from pushing the reader out.

Writing Progress

I just remembered something that I wanted to start doing on my blog: posting occasional progress updates on my writing. More for myself than anything; no one else cares, but it's a good way for me to sort of mentally track how I'm doing.

So, currently:

One story submitted to the Writers of the Future contest (June 30, 2007). I think that's actually their "third quarter," and since the second quarter (Jan - Mar) finalists were posted on June 11, I guess I can expect to find out the results about mid-September.

I've submitted a couple stories in the past. One was an unpublished finalist and the other didn't do anything. The first I really liked, and the second I knew was a novel trying to be a short story, so it seems my instincts are fairly good. Unfortunately, they're telling me that my currently submitted story is also a longer story trying to be a short one, but we'll see. I tell myself not to expect anything, but I always hope. :)

I still have a novel on the back burner that I've set aside while I focus on trying to win this WotF contest, but maybe I should start diversifying a little and return to it. I also have several other short stories I need to get around to finishing. There's just so many projects I want to work on...

Back from the honeymoon...

I'm married to pretty much the best person in the whole world! Not only is she absolutely beautiful and brilliantly smart, but she is great to travel with. We entertained ourselves during the interminable airport waits and flights with some pirate dice and a deck o' cards, which was a lot of fun. The kid in the seat in front of me on the last flight home was also entertained, craning his head back to watch us play cards.

The trip to Puerto Vallarta was absolutely great, and Child and I came back still liking each other! We did everything from ocean kayaking to horseback riding to swimming with the dolphins, and we were offered weed on the beach but decided to pass on that. I'll try to post overviews of the various activities over the next couple days--we're finally getting Comcast installed at the new house (another story of itself) so I can finally blog when I spontanously think about it, instead of trying to remember to do it from work.

Whoo. It's been a while since I posted. Without having constant Internet at my new apartment, I can't casually post a blog entry when it flits across my mind. Then again, some might say that's a good thing...

First, because it sticks in my mind the most...

I have to say that Kayla planned the best one-year-dating anniversary ever. We went horseback riding up in the Stewart Falls area, and it was loads of fun. I got to imagine myself as Clint Eastwood, and I think my squinty eyes were superb, if I say so myself.

Also, my younger sister is finally married. I have to say I think she's nuts: he's working at an internship while she's in school at the moment, so she'll only see him half the week. I can't imagine not seeing Child for three or four days straight.

But speaking of marriages, mine is coming up as well. This Saturday. 4 1/2 days (I'm sure Child could give you the hours). I've already been living in our new apartment, and Child's been slowly moving her stuff in as well. Curiously, one of the more difficult things to become accustomed to at the moment is sharing stuff. I've spent so many years carefully keeping my stuff separate from roommates' stuff that I have to catch myself just before asking Child if a particular game is "mine" or "hers". Oh, right. They're both of ours now.

It'll be interesting being married. I'll have to make a lot of changes, especially since I'm used to doing things by myself (programming, writing, and reading aren't by nature "group" activities). Fortunately, I also enjoy doing things that are much more fun with two (hiking, camping, Frisbee), and even the former activities are more fun if Child is sitting somewhere nearby.

Hmm. Now that I actually got around to blogging, I forgot half the things I wanted to talk about. Oh well, if they're important, I'll remember them...