Well, I made it over a week and I’m still going! I’ve had soda twice over that span, but I was good and had sprite. I’ve still been tired at times, but it’s more like a natural tired, not a caffeine crash tired. I’ll definitely keep it up and see how I feel over the next couple weeks.

I’ve got the first paragraph of my next book, and no, it’s not a sequel to the first. I want to do something completely different and stretch myself. It’ll probably be a lot shorter than Terra Nova, so you might not have to wait as long. All I can tell you is that it’s about an old man.

We’ve only got four weeks of school left, and for this I am excited! The last week is mostly babysitting, and we have Monday off, so that’s really only 2 and 4/5 weeks.

In the mail the other week I got my invitation to my 10 year high school reunion, but I don’t want to go. Recently I’ve seen a few people that I graduated with, and I realized I have no desire to see or talk to those people. I still keep in touch with a number of friends I graduated with, so maybe I can convince them to do something, but the people I haven’t seen in 10 years? I could go another 10 probably. I don’t need to pay close to $100 to force myself to have conversations with people that I barely know anymore.

Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day!

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that my second proof copy of Terra Nova: The Search will be here on Monday. For the last month or so Stacie and I have both read it, and I’ve made a number of fixes that should only improve the book. Once it’s here I can approve it for sale if everything looks good.

Now the bad news. You’ll have to wait about another month to read it, because I’ve entered my book into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Basically it’s a contest for unpublished authors to try and win a publishing contract. If you’ve been keeping up with my book posts you’ll know I don’t care much about pursuing a real publishing deal (which is why I’m self-publishing), but this contest was too easy to pass up. I’ve already put in two years of work, so why not enter and see if I get lucky?

They’re accepting submissions through tomorrow (or up to the first 10,000). After that they read the pitch I wrote, and they’ll narrow the field down. Eventually around March 16th they’ll announce the 500 quarterfinalists and post an excerpt from their book (the first 3k-5k words). The reason you’ll have to wait until around that date is because you can’t submit a book that has been previously published, and if I approve my book for sale in the next week, then technically it will be self-published, and I will no longer be eligible for the contest. There’s a good chance I won’t even make it to the 500, and if I don’t, then I’ll hit the “publish” button and move on. But I figure it’s worth waiting another month to take part in this contest, and see what happens!

Stacie also entered Luke in a contest. It’s put on by Regis and Kelly, and while I typically would be against pimping out the baby in photo contests, there is a potential grand-prize of $125,000 in college scholarships, so I figure it’s worth it. Here’s the photo we submitted.

(Photo credits to my brother, geekyweekly)

Wish us luck!

…at least for today. Luke got a fever on Friday, and it didn’t start to go away until last night. He’s also got a throat infection, so he’s on antibiotics, and lucky dad gets to stay home with him today. I think he’ll be ready to go back to daycare tomorrow, and daddy back to work.

I’m about halfway done with my final read through of Terra Nova. I’m still finding little things to fix and change, but I’m confident when it’s done it will be the best it can be. After I’m done Stacie will read through it, and we’re good to go. I need to finish it, because we can’t both read it at the same time.

I finished Metal Gear Solid 4 on Friday. It was cool, but I don’t know if I’d ever want to play through it again. It’s certainly a pretty game, though the story is a little ridiculous. The story goes on and on and just gets more ludicrous. Unfortunately it doesn’t haven’t trophies, but Fallout 3 does!

Over the weekend we got satellite tv. I didn’t really WANT to…but I was tired of fixing the DVR I had built. I’m sure once the Dodgers start playing I will appreciate it, and even right now I can actually find something to watch besides news, judge shows, and soaps. We went with Dish, and the DVR we got can record up to 2 satellite channels, and 1 ota channel at a time. It’s even connected to the TV upstairs, so you can watch recorded shows and access the guide on a second TV, something we couldn’t do with the htpc. I’ve got an order placed for a Popcorn Hour A-110 to replace the media capabilities of the htpc.

We have the TurboHD Silver package…so what should we be watching?

Not a ton going on here, just getting ready to enjoy a three day weekend!

The hard drive in my HTPC died. Arg! I seriously considered getting satellite, but I didn’t. This is the second time the hard drive has died in the last year. I think the first time might have just been normal hard drive failure, but when Western Digital sent me a replacement it was a refurb, so that’s why I think this one didn’t last long. I ordered a NEW drive made specifically for DVRs, and at 1 terabyte it should hold close to 100 hours of HD video. As much as I hate opening it up and setting it up, when the thing works it does a darn good job. I just couldn’t justify spending $50-60 a month for a DVR with limited space, no ability to edit or save shows, and a channel I really want (Dodgers!) and a few channels we enjoy on vacation.

My proof copy of Terra Nova is still on its way. Should be here Monday along with the new hard drive. I think next time I might pay extra for faster shipping. Here’s what shows on my UPS tracking info so far:

SUMMERVILLE, SC
WEST COLUMBIA, SC
GREENSBORO, NC
COLUMBUS, OH
MAUMEE, OH
HODGKINS, IN

I’m guessing it was on a truck…a very slow one that liked to stop in every city it passed. It left that last stop 2 days ago, so I’m guessing it’s now on an airplane.

I’ve been playing Metal Gear Solid 4 the last few days. I really wish it had trophies, but I already had it, and it’s pretty fun. I have Fallout 3 coming to me from ebay for cheap. My new philosophy is to buy games used, play them, and then sell them and recoup some of the cost. Few games are worth having for a long time anyways.

Pictures of baby soon, I promise!

I post about blog trends, and then I go into hibernation.

I’d like to point out that Curt and John are back from the dead. Maybe I should start a “Blarg Zombies” section for the people that come back from the dead quite often. Curt has a different link, so update your bookmarks and RSS readers.

Sometimes when I leave for work the local school bus is picking up children, and sometimes they have the red lights flashing and the stop signs extended. Like a good citizen I approach said school bus, and when I near the yellow bus, I apply my brakes and wait. Usually this is uneventful, but today there was an idiot behind me. As I started to slow, the moron behind me started to peek around me to see what I was doing. I figured he would see the school bus, and realize why I was stopping.

Nope.

As I came to a full stop, he proceeded to go around me, and drive right by the big school bus with flashing lights and red stop sign. And on top of that, he looked at me like I was the idiot! Using my powers of generalization, the two men in the extremely beat up and old Nissan looked highly illegal, without a clue how American traffic laws work. Flippin’ idiots.

And I breathe deeply, and feel refreshed. Right now I mean, not then. I carried that around all day anxiously awaiting to dump it on the Blarg. Now I feel better.

I came up with a title for the book after almost 7 months of working on it. I can’t believe it has been that long. It will be called Terra Nova, or some variation of that if there is already a popular book with that title. I didn’t hit my daily word goal the night I came up with the title, but the satisfaction of knowing the title of my book was well worth it. The original project name had been “New Earth,” so Terra Nova is a much cooler translation of the boring English.

And my brain dump is now over.