NaNoWriMo

MANY years ago, when I was involved in the student ministry at my church, we would regularly make silly videos.  We spoofed Monty Python and the Matrix at the highlight of our film-making.  I then wrote a silly script based on Lord of the Rings that we were going to do.  But due to circumstances I won't go into here, it never happened.

Well, every year about this time--namely November--National Novel Writing Month occurs.  I've written about it before and have always wanted to participate but never have.  The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in November.  Well I took the script that has been gathering virtual dust and turned it into a book.  I'll be the first to say it really sucks.  Just looking over it...it's awful.  The characterizations are tripe and as superficial as can be.  And in some places, I felt like I got too preachy.  The "battles" are horribly written.  Enough criticism, though.  The point was to write 50,000 words, draft quality. I made it to 51,928. That's something like 95 pages in Word (although I'm using a Mac program called Scrivener.) You can check out how I did over the month.

To be honest, I don't think I'll go back and fix it up.  And I'm so unhappy with it, I don't even know that I'll finish it.  BUT...I did meet the goal and wanted to share that victory.  So yay me!  However awful it is, I wrote my first novel.

TSA: Privacy vs. Security

I'm not exactly what you would call an activist, but these past few weeks, we have been inundated by stories of the TSA's inhumane practices while completing searches to insure we can all travel safely.  I hope all the media attention causes some kind of action.  There's got to be a better way.  The people who work for TSA have got to be more caring.  They cannot have omnipotent powers.  Take these few examples from the last weeks alone:

1.  Full body scanners are becoming more regular as a screening process.  But how invasive are they when they come to your privacy, you know, down there?  Well hundreds of photos were leaked out recently in a completely embarrassing breach of security in the TSA's databases.  Story link

2.  A man who must wear a urine bag under his clothing was selected for pat-down.  He informed the agents about the bag, but they uncaringly patted him down anyway with no regard to his medical condition.  The sensitive equipment attached to his body was damaged and he was forced to board his plane soaked in his own urine.  Story link

3.  A personal friend said he eye-witnessed a veteran with a war injury set off the metal detectors.  He was "treated terribly" by the TSA agent.

4.  A woman who survived breast cancer was made to take off her prosthetic in view of the public.  Story link

5.  A young boy was strip searched in front of the public, even after not setting off the metal detectors.  An on-looker recorded the incident and was subsequently followed by TSA agents in the airport until he boarded his plane.  Story link

A week or so ago, new policies went into effect.  You either get a nude full body-xray scan or you get groped.  President Obama has told the public that these measures are necessary to ensure the public's safety.  Don't get me wrong, I want to travel safely!  But this is an abuse of federally mandated powers by the TSA.  The TSA Chief gave some PR nonsense this morning about their procedures.  I don't fly often and I honestly don't know why this has me so unsettled.  Things like this usually roll off my back.  Heck, I'm probably going to get black-listed for this post.  But it really is a frustrating thing to see such people as those who served our country and those who have battled cancer be treated in such a way by apathetic workers, who at the heart of their duty, are supposed to have the greatest concern for our well-being.

How Puzzling!

Back in January on my trip to Las Vegas, I visited the Coca-Cola store.  I could've bought almost everything there and wanted to, but I restrained myself and left with just a puzzle.  I say "just a puzzle" but it is a doozy.  It's 2000 pieces and measure about 3 feet by 4 feet.  And it is mostly red.  So I knew it was going to be a challenge.  The goal was to add it to my kitchen decor.

Didn't exactly have a big enough space to do it, so I cut up some cardboard pieces and tried on my guest bed.  I started out trying to put the edge together.  Took a good couple hours to systematically sort through 2000 pieces.  And let me tell you there are some funky shapes in this thing.

After 6 hours:

And a few more hours after that:

The bed ended up being too low and proved too painful on the back for long periods of time.  I was also frustrated by how slow it was going.  So it sat in that bedroom from January until August, untouched.  I finally decided to get it done and went to Home Depot and found the cheapest wooden panel I could find that would fit the whole thing.  Brought it to my kitchen table and there I worked on it.  But I was nervous...an edge piece was missing.  I decided to push forward and hope it either turned up in the box or in the room.  And I tore that room apart, believe you me.  For three solid days, I worked.  And I literally mean dawn to dusk.  (The edge piece ended up being in the box.)  These were the days my trees were getting cut down, so it gave me something to do since I wanted to be home while they worked.  I would sort through the box and pick out the pieces for 2-3 different sections of the puzzle at a time.  Put them together, sort again, and so on.

End of Day 1.  What I called the "most obvious" sections were done.

End of Day 2.  The red sections that were different enough for me to pick out were done.

End of Day 3.  The final red sections and their logos came together.  The remaining holes were the solid red pieces.

The red color didn't end up being the biggest challenge.  Each sign was different enough, however subtle, to pick out.  What ended up being the headache was actually the words in the logos: the Coca-Cola.  Each piece had such a small portion of each letter, it was impossible to tell where it belonged at times.  I would stare at the pile and have to get up for a bit, frustrated.  Several times it came down to a matter of just seeing what fit, rather than trying to put it together by mentally seeing the image being pieced together.

Of course, Naomi was a big help during the whole process.  I had to keep the puzzle covered with the cardboard I originally was using underneath.  She also had a fondness for frolicking in the box of pieces.  At one point, she jumped in it and it scooted off the table, dumping the hundreds of pieces all over the floor.  I just knew I'd lose one, but I lucked out.

Got that puppy done and glued together.  Waited for a great framing deal--which was still hard to swallow--but it is done and I'm pretty proud of it.  Looks great on the wall and I was able to spread the rest of my trinkets out along the wall.

Finished!

So if you are one of those who occasionally or regularly comes to my house, be sure to step into the kitchen and see it in person!

Framed and hanging nicely on my wall.

What's It Take to Get a Friggin' Tree Cut Down?

Last spring, I had my fence repaired and the guys helping me out noticed that a couple of the tall pines in my backyard were growing into my shed.  We started looking around at them and noticed that another was rotting at the base, and yet another was growing into the fence.  (Click the pic above to see bigger panorama.)  Well great.  One of the guys knew a reputable tree cutting service, so I had them come out and give me a bid.  This was Quality Tree Service.  Quality told me for as much it would be to cut down the four, I should just do all eight, and quoted me $2,500.  Ouch.  He actually called back on his own accord and lowered the price to $2000.  I told him I'd have to save for a bit, but that it sounded like a good deal.  Considering that would be $250/tree when they are normally $400-600 each, it was a GREAT deal.  Just a lot to swallow at once.

I ended up with all those extra classes this fall so I knew I could get the job done.  Gave Quality a call and scheduled him to come on a Friday so that I could be home while they did it.  Enter the drama.  He called me that morning to say he was broke down on the highway and wouldn't be able to make it.  So we postponed to the following Friday.  I had already told my neighbors, so I stopped by the older couple (don't really care about the rednecks on the other side) to let them know.  She really didn't like the fact I am cutting them down, but I told her why I had to.  The night before that, I called him to make sure we were good to go, but he told me his wife went into labor so he had to subcontract the job to another company.  He asked me to make a check for $500 to him and $1500 for the company coming out.

The new guys, from Arbor Care, arrive.  They looked like they would do a good job and had quite a bit more equipment to boot.  Not to mention the owner is the four time state tree climbing champion.  Whaaaat?!?  Now it was my understanding at that point that a guy from Quality would be helping them and that's why he was getting $500.  No one showed until 2 pm and that was just to pick up the check.  Which I stupidly gave him.  I asked the Arbor Care guy why Quality gets $500 and he basically said he shouldn't have.  So now I've got a company doing a $2,500 job for $1,500.  That doesn't sound very fair to me.

They bring down 4 trees and start grinding the stumps.  He actually gets a few bids on jobs in my neighborhood while he works.  My neighbor lady came out at one point and was apparently pretty huffy about limbs falling in her yard.  They told her they'd clean it up, but she proceeded to inform them she didn't want them over there and started pitching the limbs over the fence.  she seems so sweet and meek before this!

They work until about 4 pm.  The pile of limbs is enormous out front.  I call the city to schedule a pick up.  They said they'd come Tuesday.  I told them to be sure to bring the dump truck and crane.  You can see why.  The Arbor Care guy said he'd be back on Monday--in fact he said it several times--so even though it was Labor Day, I was thusly expecting him.  Monday rolls around and no one shows.  I try to call both Quality and Arbor Care.  No one is answering.  By 11 am, it is clear no one is coming.  Mildly frustrating.

Tuesday arrives and it begins to rain.  But I'm actually not too sad about it because the city is coming and since there is no more room to put limbs, they can clear it out and make room for more.  Except they never came.  I called them up and asked what was up.  Turns out the crane/dump truck service take 2 weeks to come out!  Good-bye nice lawn.  Glad I wasted $200 on fertilizing service this year just to have you killed.  I seriously have no idea where more limbs will go.

The rain continues today.  So we can't get any work done because their tractor thingy would tear up my yard and my neighbor's side yard.  In the meantime, I still can't get ahold of Quality.  The phone is off...it goes straight to a "this number is not accepting calls" message.  So I had called my bank on Tuesday and had them issue a stop payment on the $500 check.  My intent was to make my message clear...I wanted him to call me.  I finally got through to at least leave a voicemail this morning.  Well lo and behold!  His phone was miraculously working again, because he had called back within 15 minutes.  I had just stepped out of my office so he left a voicemail.  In it, he threatened to take legal action against me which would result in me being evicted from my home.  He said he never intended to supply a worker and that the $500 was what the two companies had agreed to.

I immediately called him back but (surprise!) got a voicemail.  I told him that his threat was baseless and completely out of line.  My purpose in doing the stop payment proved to be very beneficial, because it had the effect I wanted--for him to call me back.  I told him I found his business practices highly questionable and unethical and would be informing the 3-4 people waiting to hear how this job went that his company could not be counted on.  The fact is Quality did not provide one minute of service to me!  I told him I would release the check and the two companies could argue it out; I just wanted the job done.

I feel bad for Arbor Care, but that's all I can do...feel bad.  I tried.  It's not my place to intervene anymore.  I filed a complaint the Better Business Bureau, but who knows what will come of that.  Arbor Care will hopefully be back Friday to finish up.  The yard is looking so much bigger already and I can't wait to have a nice grassy backyard!

Wanna see more pics of the process, including a short video clip of the four time state tree climbing champ doing his thing, go here.

Upgrading

I converted to the world of Macintosh back in 2006.  Then I was an aspiring home videographer, just getting into podcasting for my church and having been making some silly little clips for student ministry.  I wanted to up my game a little.  And besides, Windows Vista sucked.  I had also just quit World of Warcraft.  So it was a tumultuous time in my life to say the least.  LOL

All that to say I got my first hardware upgrade from Apple and went the desktop route this time.  The unfortunate need for me to teach 5 courses paved (and paid) the way for this upgrade and I certainly went all out.  I got a 27" iMac, with the 3.6 GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, 256 GB SSD, and 1 TB HD.  /evil grin

Here's a little photo journalism of the unboxing.  My mouth was hanging open at this thing and when I got it in place I was almost overcome with emotion.  Almost.  /wink

I spent about 6 hours working on it after unboxing.  I immediately wanted to move all my files, music, videos, etc to the secondary HD.  I found a tech article that explained how to do it but it ended up going very wrong.  I called AppleCare and the support guy sounded pretty pissed I would do such a thing.  He said I'd have to erase and install.  Oh well.  Nothing lost but time at that point.  I did want to try again though, so I started a clean install and set up the storage path again.  It worked this time, so there must have been some setting in the pre-installed OS. I proceeded downloading updates, installing software, etc.  At midnight, being a work night and all, I decided to stop for the night.  All that was left was to install Final Cut Studio, which I'm doing as I write this.  :)

Seriously though...this thing is BLAZING.  The SSD upgrade is epic.  Every program opens before an icon even has a chance to bounce in the dock!  LOL  Can't wait to produce some movies to see how that's going to go.

To change the subject just a bit, as I was installing things, I was perusing my RSS feeds and ran across several stories about Apple possibly upgrading their AppleTV.  Rumor is it will run the iOS that is currently on the iPhone and iPad.  Okay wow!  I mean, this could change the face of TV and entertainment.  Think about it.  Here are two scenarios I immediately thought of.  1)  Why subscribe to expensive higher tier cable packages?  Want HBO?  They could just bypass cable providers and create an app for purchase and you've got it through the AppleTV.  2)  How fun would it be to buy, say, the Monopoly or Scrabble app and have the board on the TV screen, then everyone with an iPhone or iPad controls their pieces from their own device?  There's already a model for this...now it can be on the TV.  This is certainly very exciting and if it proves to be true, I hope that the older hardware will be able to support the new iOS.

Dilemma

June is a very peaceful month. July gets hectic. August is downright stressful. Then the school year comes and routine settles in. So here we are in August and the typical stress has set in. Until last week, I was pretty certain one of my evening instructors was going to be able to take an additional two sections of chemistry. That didn't work out in the end. I immediately called the Dean of Sciences and asked for a list of prospects. They just hired a full-time guy, but pretty much relayed that the ones they didn't hire were for a good reason and he didn't really have a pool to choose from. That's the short version to lead to this fact: I have to either take the sections on myself or somehow cancel the class.

The problem is, I am already committed to three classes. Five would be too much. I had to talk my boss into letting me keep the three. And being at night? That means work all day at my regular job, then stay and teach. That prospect leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I would have to do that for 16 weeks. Boo! On the other hand, it would be a really nice paycheck. I could get the trees in my yard cut down like I need to, buy the new iMac I want, have the root canal I'm going to eventually need, and have a little left over! But I just don't have a settled feeling in the bottom of my stomach. I can't positively say it would be worth it. With the commitment of my three and the two extra being on Monday/Wednesday night, I would be teaching from 9:30 am to 8:30 pm on Mondays, with only three 30 minute breaks. That's awful and it really concerns me to do that to Naomi, first and foremost. An option is to see if my other instructor can swap sections and then I could at least come home for a few hours on Tuesday/Thursday before heading back to teach. But still....

I said the other option is just to cancel it. Well that actually may not BE an option. As a part of nursing, many students HAVE to have chemistry this fall. There are a few seats in other sections available, but are there enough? Then if I tell the others that can wait to do so, will they fall below full-time hours needed for financial aid and such? There's just so many variables. It is my priority for work tomorrow to figure it out.

I'm praying for something to work out. I just wish the commitment wasn't so long. To think of having to do that for the rest of the year doesn't sit well with me. I ask for your prayers for discernment and, well practically, an instructor to fill the gap. But if not, then that it will work out for each and every student that will be affected.

How I Was Stalked By My Pastor

There are two things you need to know before I tell you about present-day events.

1. I watch too much "24" and other highly dramatized serial shows. I'm not apologizing for it. I love it! However, I am admitting that perhaps it has made me a bit paranoid in real life.

2. The subsequently described events have happened before, but for real. I described the event in a prior blog post, complete with also admitting to point #1 above. The point is, today was Grades Due day...so the fact that the following occurred put me on edge that maybe someone didn't like the grade they got.

Read on...

So I'm pulling off Kanis into my neighborhood and a grey trunk proceeds to turn right behind me. I don't know why (all I can do is refer you to point #1), but I immediately decided to roll through the stop sign and try to get up and around the corner. I turned off the loop into my part of the neighborhood, so did the follower. I turned right, again not stopping at the stop sign. So did he. At that point, I chose not to turn on my street and kept going around. The chances of being stalked would be 100% if the driver took all the same turns at that point. I turn left on to Timber Ridge and book it back to Atkins Dr. I then decide to go back toward Kanis Rd. Looking back in my mirror, the follower finally turned the opposite way, toward Markham Rd. I cleverly thought in my mind that the person knew at that point I was on to them following me.

Two seconds later, I get a phone call from Leslie, my worship pastor. "Hello?" I say. He replies, "You didn't stop at any of those stop signs." Wide-eyed and shocked, I yelled, "That was YOU?!?" I proceeded to tell him how I thought I was being followed and why (points #2). He said he figured that out at the point I turned back out of my neighborhood. We laughed and I returned home. The end.