Many of my answers were, “well… it depends”
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You know those days where you feel like you’re busy all day long, but have very little to show for all your activity?

Today was one of those days for me.

The worst part was dealing with multiple, futile, network issues.

One of my laptops is missing the certificates needed to get onto the encrypted network. Apparently, there is no easy way to remedy this problem, although I did spend an affable 30 minutes at the Help Desk talking to Matt as he searched for drivers and certificates. Eventually I abandoned my laptop and headed back to my office. They were going to keep looking and see if anyone else knew a possible solution. (Let me make one thing clear, I love our Help Desk guys. They’re nice, funny, and will find an answer to your problem, even if it takes awhile. Compare that to other help desks (ahem) and I think you’ll agree with me. So I’m not saying this was a failure on their part. I’m jsut saying this is how my day went.)

The second network issue was trying to figure out how to get my PDA on the wireless network. A couple months ago I tried, and then gave up since what I really needed it for (a calendar program that could sync with GroupWise) was working perfectly. And I have a perfectly good laptop. So I just dropped it. Unfortunately, my boss has been getting a ton of PDA questions, and one recurring question is “why can’t I get wireless in HSC?” So I picked up that abandoned task and ran with it. And I learned several interesting things. Apparently, OIT policy for PDAs is they will not support them. If you can get your PDA on the wireless, that’s fine. But if you can’t, too bad for you. So I again sauntered back down to the Help Desk. After several guys going, “I can’t get it to work either, but if you figure it out, can you let me know?” I ended up talking to one of the guys in Networking, who apparently didn’t realize there was a problem, and told me he’d work on it and get back to me. So again, a solution is in the works (and this solution will be helpful to other people as well, which is good) but as a task, I’d have to say my success rate was pretty low.
But on the bright side, I was able to help several people, so that’s always a good feeling. So I suppose the day wasn’t a total loss.

If you sometimes read the book portion of my website, you may remember that in July I read and recommend Elizabeth Bear’s book New Amsterdam.

Did you go pick it up and read it then? No? Too bad. I just looked on Amazon, and copies are selling for $75.

After hearing this, Michael suggested that I sell my copy.

I may have to hide my copy from him, until he forgets this, because New Amsterdam was definitely a keeper. (And here I was waiting for a sequel. Lets hope that outrageous price means the book will go into reprint–and a new book about Abagail Irene is in the works.

I had two packages waiting for me when I got home. A mystery I’ve been waiting months for, and Alice Medrich’s newest book, Chocolate Holidays: Unforgettable Desserts for Every Season

After a few seconds of indecision, I grabbed Chocolate Holidays and curled up on the sofa.

Yum!

(via Neil Gaiman)

So today is stock making day. I bought all the veggies last week, but, what with Michael being busy all weekend, never got around to making it. So that was part of today’s plan (after going to the Mountaineer Week Craft Fair). As I was chopping things up and dumping them into the stock pot, I realized that this is about it for my herb garden. The basil is dead, and the oregano is down to the ground, where it will wait out the winter.

But there are some herbs that are still good.

So, if anyone is in town and interested, feel free to come decimate my herb garden. I’ve got multi-color sage, which will die back to the ground over the winter, and insane amount of parsley that won’t last much longer, a gorgeous rosemary plant (that almost certainly won’t last the winter) some thyme, chives (which will probably last the winter, but I do have plenty), and some marjoram, which was okay for stock, but I’m not sure how great it would be for anything else.

In a week or two I’m going to cover it with leaves (maybe that will let the rosemary survive, but I’m not counting on it) and that’ll be it for the year.

Let me know if you’d like to take some of these off my hands. I certainly can’t use them, and it’s a shame to waste them. So I’m begging you: if you’re in Morgantown, please get in touch with me and help clear out my herb garden before everything dies for the year.

The military is developing an invisible tank.

Okay, invisible I suppose I can accept, since I’ve seen science news for invisibility cloaks/clothing for years now.

BUT

Really. Come on. What is the point of making a TANK invisible, since it’s not like it’s STEALTHY or anything. “Oh my! There’s a tremendous noise coming from that direction but I don’t see anything! That must mean I should ignore the noise and go about my business!”

So I have achieved all my primary goals for my database.

There are plenty of other tweaks I’d like to make, but I wanted to take a moment to celebrate the fact that I did everything I initially set out to do.

YIPPEE!

(happy dance)

So the database is coming along nicely, though I don’t think writing code counts towards my November writing goals.

As of now, the database has all the administrative functions I wanted to add. Although it could use a few tweaks, it does everything I wanted: I can search by author, title, series, genre, or year. I can enter new books, edit existing books, and delete books.

Last function to be added is going to require a lot of grunt work, and that will be linking individual book reviews to the database.

I got up early this morning and wrote for about 20 minutes before work. Revised through chapter two one. I’m going to try and get out of bed a little earlier each morning, so I can write for a few minutes longer each morning. I figure this will be easier after daylight savings time ends.

Additionally, we had our traditional number of trick-or-treaters last night: 0. At least we save every year on candy.

ADDENDUM the First:
It’s interesting, the revisions I’m doing. Since I just wrote without thinking, coming back after more than a year, it’s pretty easy to see the problems in the text. So far, the biggest issue is that I had very few details: I hadn’t actually described any of the characters, so they were simply amorphous beings without height, weight, or (for the most part) style. Easy enough to fix though.

Just wandered over the Hillbilly Sophisticate, and saw that S is going to be participating in NaNo this year. So head on over and give her some support! Of course, if she’s going to write 50k words in November, she might not have much time to read or respond to comments and e-mails.
Me, I’m going to do what I tried a couple years ago: I am going to try again to write every day. I’m going to pick up the story I dropped when my last bout of depression started (that’d be ~Jan 2006 for those keeping track) look at what needs revised, and then take it from there. I’d like to finish the story by the end of the year, but that’s a moving target rather than a hard goal.

After I finish that, I have a possible idea basis for the start of another story, from a very strange dream involving Victorian morals and dress, and rock concerts with electric guitars. (Kind of a twist on steampunk I suppose. But who can tell what my brain comes up with.)

So I’ll give you occasional updates, just to keep me honest. And feel free to heckle me if I don’t post any updates, because that probably means I’m slacking off.

(FWIW, I did some revisions on my story on the way to Florida. Gutted about half of the prologue, and started rewriting things that didn’t make as much sense as the could, in retrospect. Once the characters start living in my head again, I think I’ll be okay.)

A man has been placed on the sex offenders’ register after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle.

The best part is there is a large full color picture of the man (NOT NEKKID) in the story, so it’s not just that his name is out there, now we know exactly what he looks like.

But really, I mean… HOW?!

Any Steven Brust fans out there will want to check out this rendition of The Cycle.

I think I’d be either a Tsalmoth or a Lyron. But I want to be an Issola. Too bad I can’t achieve the grace required for the courtliness.

Let’s see… here’s a tentative classification of people I know (I’m not going only by the chart, but also from characters in the books):

erin: Tiassa
My brother: Orca
S: Hawk
Michael: Vallista
C at War on Folly: Hawk or Chreotha
jedijawa: Iorich
Andy: Dzur or Dragon
Daniel: Yendi or Jhereg Lyorn (I think he has a good bit of Jhereg though)

Hmm… maybe I’ll play some more with this later….

According to this fun and exciting quiz, I don’t have asperger’s or autism. Yippee!

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I’ve raved about Jungle Jim’s before (though most of my raving occurs in person), and how when we’re in Cincinnati visiting friends we HAVE to go to Jungle Jim’s because it is THE most amazing store ever.

Well, you don’t have to take just my word for it, Neil Gaiman likes Jungle Jim’s too!

Whenever I drive across America — which isn’t often — I try and stop in at Jungle Jim’s on the way back. And not just for the UK food, but for the amazing variety of world food. It’s an amazing place. Would that all supermarkets could have that magic.

See! If Neil Gaiman thinks it’s cool, then it MUST be cool!