Rob has used some of his Christmas bonus to buy himself a larger fishtank (75 gallons), which he has spent today cleaning and setting up. No major fish will go in until we're back home to watch it, but it's pretty impressive just sitting there. Tomorrow he'll drop in a couple of guppies, who will get a week or so to make themselves at home (and possibly make more guppies), before he starts dropping his cichlids in - whereupon the guppy population will quickly plummet to nothing.
He's also gone back on his word to give me his 30-gallon tank when he moved up - but he promises that my anniversary gift will be a 30-gallon tank of my very own. This will leave us in the somewhat ridiculous position of having three 30-gallon tanks, one 75-gallon tank, and 4 fishbowls (bettas and feeder guppies). It's nice having all the fish though. Some of Rob's are quite lovely, even if they are a vicious lot. Aaron's are mostly not quite so pretty, but he does have some really nice long-finned Rosy Barbs that look like they might spawn soon. I'm still debating what kinds of fish I'd like to try in a tank of my own. Glofish are tempting - they're just so cool (transgenic fish, they're crossed with jellyfish genes), but they're also peaceable, and so small that even a mildly aggressive fish will make hash of them. I'll have to start looking around the local fish stores and see what I fall for.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Mashed Potatoes and Sore Ears
Well, I've been properly Snarked. My query hook to Miss Snark was deemed "Mashed Potatoes in the Sunday dinner". I had the form down, but apparently I'm a little to bland to catch an agent's attention right now. So off I go back to the drawing board to cook up a hook with more zest.
Aaron woke me up at 5am day before yesterday "Owwww. Mommy! Ooowwwww!!!" When your child goes straight through step throat (with double ear involvement), without a word of complaint, you pay attention when he says it hurts. So off we went to the doctor, where Aaron had the shortest ear exam on record. The doctor didn't even get the tip of the otoscope in Aaron's ear before backing off and announcing "That's an ear infection all right. I could almost see that from across the room!" Poor kid.
So we get to take antibiotics along for the ride to Grandma's house. At least Aaron is starting to feel better today. When asked, he says his ear feels funny, but refuses to discuss it further than that. I suspect that it's clogged and itchy, but not hurting anymore.
People are dropping like fall leaves around here. One of our kids left mid-class because he didn't feel well - and looked so bad that our resident doctor made him lie down while he waited for his mother to come pick him up. Another mother reported that her son's choir concert had three separate kids throw up on stage. Thus far, the ear infection is all we've had, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Two Christmases ago, we had the joy of Aaron starting to throw up early Christmas morning. Aaron doesn't do nauseous by half-measures. If he throws up once, you can pretty much guarantee repeats. On Christmas he was throwing up every 20-30 minutes from 6am until almost noon. He insisted on coming down to the living room, though, and at least trying to unwrap presents, though his enthusiasm was understandably muted.
I'm crossing my fingers for no repeats this year.
Aaron woke me up at 5am day before yesterday "Owwww. Mommy! Ooowwwww!!!" When your child goes straight through step throat (with double ear involvement), without a word of complaint, you pay attention when he says it hurts. So off we went to the doctor, where Aaron had the shortest ear exam on record. The doctor didn't even get the tip of the otoscope in Aaron's ear before backing off and announcing "That's an ear infection all right. I could almost see that from across the room!" Poor kid.
So we get to take antibiotics along for the ride to Grandma's house. At least Aaron is starting to feel better today. When asked, he says his ear feels funny, but refuses to discuss it further than that. I suspect that it's clogged and itchy, but not hurting anymore.
People are dropping like fall leaves around here. One of our kids left mid-class because he didn't feel well - and looked so bad that our resident doctor made him lie down while he waited for his mother to come pick him up. Another mother reported that her son's choir concert had three separate kids throw up on stage. Thus far, the ear infection is all we've had, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Two Christmases ago, we had the joy of Aaron starting to throw up early Christmas morning. Aaron doesn't do nauseous by half-measures. If he throws up once, you can pretty much guarantee repeats. On Christmas he was throwing up every 20-30 minutes from 6am until almost noon. He insisted on coming down to the living room, though, and at least trying to unwrap presents, though his enthusiasm was understandably muted.
I'm crossing my fingers for no repeats this year.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Because I haven't posted in too long.
Books read thus far in December:
Grasp the Stars: I wanted to like this one; I really did. The protagonist is interesting, and the other POV characters aren't bad either. It was the hodge-podge of a plot that made me put it down at the end and go "Meh." There are threads of what could be fascinating plots lying about all through the book. We have a 3000 year old, immortal (though killable) alien, with a secret that even she doesn't know half the time (intermittant drug-induced amnesia), a candidate for the Earth Council, who doesn't know it, with an existing councillor plotting against her (and she doesn't know that either), and a mysterious ancient artifact, with several possible translations, some quite provocative. Unfortunately, the author weaves all these in and out and around each other, without ever really getting ahold of one and pulling. Too bad.
Being a Green Mother - Piers Anthony: This is a middle book in his Incarnations of Immortality series. Some of them are very good, some are pretty bad, this one is okay. I've read it before. It's not a book that improves with repetition, though. The Piers Anthony tropes become more obvious when you reread it. If you read PA, and haven't figured out his tropes, I'm not going to give them away, because once you find them, you almost can't read him again. Even his good books are chock-full of all his favorite obsessions, and the bad ones have nothing but.
Outland - Tad Williams: I loved the Dragonbone Chair trilogy, so I thought I'd give this a try. Another meh, unfortunately. The plot is good, the characters are good, the only problem is that he writes so many damned words before you get to the payoff. Or to put it another way - I hit the end of nearly 800 pages, to discover that the plot was only just getting going. It's really more the first part of a reallly, really long book, than a stand-alone. And frankly, I'm just not sure my love of the characters and what plot I've seen is enough to sustain me through another 1600 pages or more.
The Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold: Another reread. This time though, it's a favorite book from a favorite author. Ista dy Chalion is definitely in my top ten favorite characters of all time, and this book never fails to delight. Following Ista as she frantically struggles to get her loving family to let her do something, when she's supposed to be living in genteel, quiet retirement as the dowager royina, is something that most people, locked into a role that doesn't quite suit them, would relish.
Blood & Iron - Elizabeth Bear: The second book I've read from this Bear. I like her writing, and I will continue to read her stuff, but this book somehow didn't quite connect with me. It may simply be that the protagonist is a little too much like my mother. My relationship with my mother is difficult in some weird ways, and I'm not sure I want to be reading about her in my spare time, even as an elven changeling.
All Dressed Down and Noplace to Go: What can I say? It's Dilbert.
Flinx in Flux - Alan Dean Foster: It's a Flinx and Pip adventure. This time Flinx stumbles upon a (lovely, female) gengineer who's been kidnapped, rescues her, and returns her from whence she came. As ever in Flinx's life, though, things aren't that simple. He rapidly finds himself holed up deep in the unexplored caves of a mostly uninhabited planet - and then things get weird. I like Clarity as a character, and in general like this the way I like most Alan Dean Foster books. They're not deep, but they make darned good reading. Plus, I have yet to figure out how he makes his books so darned cheerful. He's the only man I know who can write a cheerful, feel-good read that involves the bloody slaughter of three planets worth of people. (No, not this book)
There were a few other books in there as well - one on dog-training, two on writing, a few others, but none of them are springing to mind this moment, so I won't worry about them.
Grasp the Stars: I wanted to like this one; I really did. The protagonist is interesting, and the other POV characters aren't bad either. It was the hodge-podge of a plot that made me put it down at the end and go "Meh." There are threads of what could be fascinating plots lying about all through the book. We have a 3000 year old, immortal (though killable) alien, with a secret that even she doesn't know half the time (intermittant drug-induced amnesia), a candidate for the Earth Council, who doesn't know it, with an existing councillor plotting against her (and she doesn't know that either), and a mysterious ancient artifact, with several possible translations, some quite provocative. Unfortunately, the author weaves all these in and out and around each other, without ever really getting ahold of one and pulling. Too bad.
Being a Green Mother - Piers Anthony: This is a middle book in his Incarnations of Immortality series. Some of them are very good, some are pretty bad, this one is okay. I've read it before. It's not a book that improves with repetition, though. The Piers Anthony tropes become more obvious when you reread it. If you read PA, and haven't figured out his tropes, I'm not going to give them away, because once you find them, you almost can't read him again. Even his good books are chock-full of all his favorite obsessions, and the bad ones have nothing but.
Outland - Tad Williams: I loved the Dragonbone Chair trilogy, so I thought I'd give this a try. Another meh, unfortunately. The plot is good, the characters are good, the only problem is that he writes so many damned words before you get to the payoff. Or to put it another way - I hit the end of nearly 800 pages, to discover that the plot was only just getting going. It's really more the first part of a reallly, really long book, than a stand-alone. And frankly, I'm just not sure my love of the characters and what plot I've seen is enough to sustain me through another 1600 pages or more.
The Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold: Another reread. This time though, it's a favorite book from a favorite author. Ista dy Chalion is definitely in my top ten favorite characters of all time, and this book never fails to delight. Following Ista as she frantically struggles to get her loving family to let her do something, when she's supposed to be living in genteel, quiet retirement as the dowager royina, is something that most people, locked into a role that doesn't quite suit them, would relish.
Blood & Iron - Elizabeth Bear: The second book I've read from this Bear. I like her writing, and I will continue to read her stuff, but this book somehow didn't quite connect with me. It may simply be that the protagonist is a little too much like my mother. My relationship with my mother is difficult in some weird ways, and I'm not sure I want to be reading about her in my spare time, even as an elven changeling.
All Dressed Down and Noplace to Go: What can I say? It's Dilbert.
Flinx in Flux - Alan Dean Foster: It's a Flinx and Pip adventure. This time Flinx stumbles upon a (lovely, female) gengineer who's been kidnapped, rescues her, and returns her from whence she came. As ever in Flinx's life, though, things aren't that simple. He rapidly finds himself holed up deep in the unexplored caves of a mostly uninhabited planet - and then things get weird. I like Clarity as a character, and in general like this the way I like most Alan Dean Foster books. They're not deep, but they make darned good reading. Plus, I have yet to figure out how he makes his books so darned cheerful. He's the only man I know who can write a cheerful, feel-good read that involves the bloody slaughter of three planets worth of people. (No, not this book)
There were a few other books in there as well - one on dog-training, two on writing, a few others, but none of them are springing to mind this moment, so I won't worry about them.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Note to Self
Check the ingredients of new chai blends before having a big mug at bedtime. The old blend was spice-based and caffeine free. The new blend is black tea based and features an impressive caffeine blast.
Of course I didn't think to check this until it was 4am, and I was still wide awake. For that matter it's now 8:30am, and I still couldn't go to sleep if I wanted to. I'm not even a tiny bit sleepy. Tired, yes. Sleepy, no.
In other news: NaNo was succesfully completed. Official wordcount was 50,127 on Nov. 30, around 2pm.
Of course I didn't think to check this until it was 4am, and I was still wide awake. For that matter it's now 8:30am, and I still couldn't go to sleep if I wanted to. I'm not even a tiny bit sleepy. Tired, yes. Sleepy, no.
In other news: NaNo was succesfully completed. Official wordcount was 50,127 on Nov. 30, around 2pm.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
NaNo NaNo
At long last NaNo seems to be progressing apace. If this continues this may be the first Nano (National Novel Writing Month for those who haven't run into it before) where I'm not desperately behind in word count in the last few days. Fifty-thousand words in thirty days is a pretty doable amount if you write every day, but if you skip a few it turns into a monster pretty quickly. For last years Nano I was so far behind I had all but given up coming into the last three days. I had more than 12,000 words to go, and little time during the day to write.
Then a rather nasty miracle happened. My kids got sick sequentially. I spent three nights running, up all night, but mostly unoccupied. I was hanging out in the guest bedroom (also my office) with whichever kid was sick. They would sack out on the bed, and I would type while waiting for the next round of vomiting. Three days later, I was absolutely staggering, but I had also managed to stagger over my 50,000 word mark. Of course many of those 12,000+ words had to be discarded for complete incoherency, but for Nano purposes, they counted!
This year it's looking completely different. I'm not only on my count, I'm actually ahead. I'm over 35,000 words - so only 15,000 words to go, and more than a week left in the month! I should pass 40,000 words by the time we get to my in-laws on Wednesday, and if I can't hack out 10,000 words in four days of hanging around in my Mother-in-laws living room, I should give up on this writing idea. Which would (gasp!) finish my word count three days early. I'm even happy with how the story is developing. It's been interesting attempting to draw a character with aphasia. So much of character in stories is done with dialogue that it's a challenge to have to work entirely in other ways, but I think I've made a good start of it.
My next challenge is to try to fit an exposition on the Lundehund (the Norwegian puffin-hunting dog) into the story somewhere. Nano challenges are traditional, and mine this year, courtesy of L, is to fit all the articles I write for Damn Interesting! into the text somewhere. This prevents me from losing possible word count to the need to create articles instead of novel, but also makes necessary some very strange plot twists. Such as when a minor character got turned into an antipope and then murdered. They seem to be working out though. In my experience from two previous Nanos, the weird plot things you do for challenges often end up being the best, most distinctive parts of the book. Like the 500 year old lawyer in Ghost Dancer that resulted from L's challenge to include a character from her book (set in the modern day) in my book (set in the twenty-eigth century).
Of course, L makes me look like a complete slacker. She passed 50,000 words on day 13. Stinker.
Then a rather nasty miracle happened. My kids got sick sequentially. I spent three nights running, up all night, but mostly unoccupied. I was hanging out in the guest bedroom (also my office) with whichever kid was sick. They would sack out on the bed, and I would type while waiting for the next round of vomiting. Three days later, I was absolutely staggering, but I had also managed to stagger over my 50,000 word mark. Of course many of those 12,000+ words had to be discarded for complete incoherency, but for Nano purposes, they counted!
This year it's looking completely different. I'm not only on my count, I'm actually ahead. I'm over 35,000 words - so only 15,000 words to go, and more than a week left in the month! I should pass 40,000 words by the time we get to my in-laws on Wednesday, and if I can't hack out 10,000 words in four days of hanging around in my Mother-in-laws living room, I should give up on this writing idea. Which would (gasp!) finish my word count three days early. I'm even happy with how the story is developing. It's been interesting attempting to draw a character with aphasia. So much of character in stories is done with dialogue that it's a challenge to have to work entirely in other ways, but I think I've made a good start of it.
My next challenge is to try to fit an exposition on the Lundehund (the Norwegian puffin-hunting dog) into the story somewhere. Nano challenges are traditional, and mine this year, courtesy of L, is to fit all the articles I write for Damn Interesting! into the text somewhere. This prevents me from losing possible word count to the need to create articles instead of novel, but also makes necessary some very strange plot twists. Such as when a minor character got turned into an antipope and then murdered. They seem to be working out though. In my experience from two previous Nanos, the weird plot things you do for challenges often end up being the best, most distinctive parts of the book. Like the 500 year old lawyer in Ghost Dancer that resulted from L's challenge to include a character from her book (set in the modern day) in my book (set in the twenty-eigth century).
Of course, L makes me look like a complete slacker. She passed 50,000 words on day 13. Stinker.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
More Teaching
Sensei is out of town for the rest of this week, so K - the other senior adult - and I will be covering the classes. I only found this out Tuesday - so I haven't had a chance to prepare, but I also haven't had a chance to get nervous.
The other thing that cropped up as a possibility (after the new year), is that Sensei may not be able to make some of the scheduled class times on a regular basis, and would need me and/or Karen to simply take over teaching those classes most weeks.
I told him I was willing, and I am, but the idea of being responsible for a regular class is a bit intimidating yet. So I am at one and the same time both scared and extremely flattered. That Sensei trusts me sufficiently to be willing to turn over a weekly class if necessary is a good feeling. (Though is it horrible that I also thought, somewhat gleefully, that teaching the class would also likely lead to testing for purple soon? I feel ready for the test, so I'm mostly waiting on Sensei to decide to let me take it.)
On the other hand, I'm really hoping that whatever the conflict is doesn't turn out to be something negative for Sensei. He didn't say anything definite, but his very reticence is a little alarming.
It's a good thing all this is happening in Nano month (26,000 words and counting!). I'm too damn busy to stew over it the way I would normally. I'm eating up all my time trying to figure out how the antipope gets killed!
The other thing that cropped up as a possibility (after the new year), is that Sensei may not be able to make some of the scheduled class times on a regular basis, and would need me and/or Karen to simply take over teaching those classes most weeks.
I told him I was willing, and I am, but the idea of being responsible for a regular class is a bit intimidating yet. So I am at one and the same time both scared and extremely flattered. That Sensei trusts me sufficiently to be willing to turn over a weekly class if necessary is a good feeling. (Though is it horrible that I also thought, somewhat gleefully, that teaching the class would also likely lead to testing for purple soon? I feel ready for the test, so I'm mostly waiting on Sensei to decide to let me take it.)
On the other hand, I'm really hoping that whatever the conflict is doesn't turn out to be something negative for Sensei. He didn't say anything definite, but his very reticence is a little alarming.
It's a good thing all this is happening in Nano month (26,000 words and counting!). I'm too damn busy to stew over it the way I would normally. I'm eating up all my time trying to figure out how the antipope gets killed!
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Lennox Legacy
Well, I'm back from Ohio and the Lennox Legacy Tournament. We had six people in all show up from our dojo, which is the most I've seen even in local tournaments. That we got that many to a tournament six hours away seems quite miraculous.
The tournament was a lot bigger this year than last. Last year there were five contenders in adult intermediate kata (men & women combined). This year we had almost a dozen. Last year there were two of us in women's adult intermediate kumite. This year there were eight of us.
I'm satisfied, though not thrilled with results. Personally I took a third in weapons (which I am thrilled about), was middle of the pack in kata (which is fine considering how new I am to this kata), and nowhere in kumite. Both of us adults from my dojo finished nowhere in kumite, probably due to the lack of practice lately, plus the small number of adult students in the dojo to practice on. We felt reasonably encouraged though, as none of the fighters in our division seemed out of reach to us. They weren't faster, or more skilled particularly, they just adjusted for our fighting style faster than we did for theirs.
There was one guy in the intermediate adult ring who was majorly impressive though. He took gold in kata, in weapons, and in the mens kumite. Nice guy too - so if anyone knows Taz, tell him congratulations!
The kids had a mixed day - we had two beginner little girls, and two pre-teen boys - one intermediate, one advanced. There was a mix-up in the beginners 8-11 ring, and several competitors were allowed in who belonged in the intermediate or advanced rings. Seriously, there was a brown belt in the beginner's ring. As a result one of our girls took 4th. Had the more advanced people been removed, she would definitely have medalled. Our intermediate guy took a medal in kata, as did the advanced guy. One took 2nd and one took 3rd, but I'm not sure which was which.
The only disaster of the day was with advanced 8-11 fighting. The coordinators moved which ring the kumite was in, after the kata had finished, and they failed to announce it over the loudspeakers. Since our advanced boy had wandered over to the ring next door to watch the intermediate boy fight, he missed the switch, and was not allowed to fight, which upset him terribly. He would likely have done well, too. We have a plethora of intermediate-to-advanced preteens in our dojo, so they get the kind of varied fighting practice the adults don't, and generally do quite well in tournaments. I do wish they would be more careful about that sort of thing in the kids' rings. If there's a screw-up with the adults, that's one thing, we can deal. For the kids it can feel like the end of the world.
After the tournament there was a bo seminar by Hanchi-dan Duessel. It was fascinating, and I learned a lot, though I came away feeling like my head was just stuffed. There were some distinctly odd moments though, as the bulk of the participants were black belts, some quite advanced, and Sensei Duessel spent a good deal of the seminar instructing them (quite severely) on how to properly go about teaching bo. He appears to take quite personally the general failure of Isshin-ryu dojos to properly teach weapons' basics before starting the students in on kata. We did cover a lot of the basics in the process of showing how to teach, though, so there was plenty there at my level for me to bring away and work with.
All-in-all I had a great time. The more people I meet in the larger Isshin-ryu community, the more comfortable I get at these events, and the more I enjoy them. Of course it would be nice to start walking off with more medals, but in the meanwhile I'm enjoying myself anyway.
The tournament was a lot bigger this year than last. Last year there were five contenders in adult intermediate kata (men & women combined). This year we had almost a dozen. Last year there were two of us in women's adult intermediate kumite. This year there were eight of us.
I'm satisfied, though not thrilled with results. Personally I took a third in weapons (which I am thrilled about), was middle of the pack in kata (which is fine considering how new I am to this kata), and nowhere in kumite. Both of us adults from my dojo finished nowhere in kumite, probably due to the lack of practice lately, plus the small number of adult students in the dojo to practice on. We felt reasonably encouraged though, as none of the fighters in our division seemed out of reach to us. They weren't faster, or more skilled particularly, they just adjusted for our fighting style faster than we did for theirs.
There was one guy in the intermediate adult ring who was majorly impressive though. He took gold in kata, in weapons, and in the mens kumite. Nice guy too - so if anyone knows Taz, tell him congratulations!
The kids had a mixed day - we had two beginner little girls, and two pre-teen boys - one intermediate, one advanced. There was a mix-up in the beginners 8-11 ring, and several competitors were allowed in who belonged in the intermediate or advanced rings. Seriously, there was a brown belt in the beginner's ring. As a result one of our girls took 4th. Had the more advanced people been removed, she would definitely have medalled. Our intermediate guy took a medal in kata, as did the advanced guy. One took 2nd and one took 3rd, but I'm not sure which was which.
The only disaster of the day was with advanced 8-11 fighting. The coordinators moved which ring the kumite was in, after the kata had finished, and they failed to announce it over the loudspeakers. Since our advanced boy had wandered over to the ring next door to watch the intermediate boy fight, he missed the switch, and was not allowed to fight, which upset him terribly. He would likely have done well, too. We have a plethora of intermediate-to-advanced preteens in our dojo, so they get the kind of varied fighting practice the adults don't, and generally do quite well in tournaments. I do wish they would be more careful about that sort of thing in the kids' rings. If there's a screw-up with the adults, that's one thing, we can deal. For the kids it can feel like the end of the world.
After the tournament there was a bo seminar by Hanchi-dan Duessel. It was fascinating, and I learned a lot, though I came away feeling like my head was just stuffed. There were some distinctly odd moments though, as the bulk of the participants were black belts, some quite advanced, and Sensei Duessel spent a good deal of the seminar instructing them (quite severely) on how to properly go about teaching bo. He appears to take quite personally the general failure of Isshin-ryu dojos to properly teach weapons' basics before starting the students in on kata. We did cover a lot of the basics in the process of showing how to teach, though, so there was plenty there at my level for me to bring away and work with.
All-in-all I had a great time. The more people I meet in the larger Isshin-ryu community, the more comfortable I get at these events, and the more I enjoy them. Of course it would be nice to start walking off with more medals, but in the meanwhile I'm enjoying myself anyway.
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