November 2003 Archives

It is 11:00am Wednesday November 26. The day before Thanksgiving. I should be looking forward to a nice long weekend and some good food, right?

Well... I will definitely be looking forward to being home for four days with my wife, whom I rarely ever see these days. But I'm not sure if I can call it a vacation. With all the traveling that I've been doing, many projects have been left unfinished, or even worse not started at all. I need to install a heater on the roof where we have horrible ice dams every year. I need to finish two pieces of unfinished furniture (which I built myself). I need to finish the marketing plan for my book. Oh... and cook for Thanksgiving, clean the house for the same reason, train a puppy, and try desperately during all of this to recover from a sinus infection. Vacation my ass.

The good news is that the leaves from two large maple trees behind my house don't really need to picked up anymore and shredded because they are all so frozen at this point that they will crumble to dust just from me walking back and forth across them while I do all my other projects.

The latest sales trip has taken me far away from Las Vegas and into the very cold and windy city of Winnipeg. Winnipeg isn't a bad city... I've been here once before and can honestly say that for a city tucked so far away into the cold farmlands of North America, it is clean and offers a wide variety of good cuisine and culture. Of course, it took a while to get here. My flight was delayed in Chicago for a few hours (imagine that).

I haven't had much time for business yet, but I did get to spend a few hours on the plane proofing the latest book block of my manuscript. Not too shabby, after all of the proofing, re-writes, and copy-editing, I've only found a handful of typos :-) Seriously, I will never ever again in my whole life see typos in the same light. We've all been there; you're reading a book, and you stumble across a typo and think "Wow, didn't anyone edit this thing?" I know I've thought that before. Now, with some experience under my belt, I think "Wow, only one typo out of 100,000 words... not bad at all!"

What does this have to do with Canada? Not much really. But then again, I have a sinus infection and just flew all the way to Winnipeg enduring the searing pain of cabin pressurization... so I don't need to make sense.

Thanks to a very clever web site I was able to get myself a fairly powerful enforsement for my new book :-)

That's referring to my book, which finally has a new title: Out of Place, Out of Time: The Testimony of Dr. Trenton Stowel. It goes on sale 12/15/2003 and has, so far, been well received by reviewers, my publisher, and a variety of deities and celestial beings.

It's our last night in Vegas... the good news is that they seem to have been able to remove the source of the sicky-sweet- smell from the lobby. The bad news is that it's our last night in Vegas. I used to hate this place, but after a while, it starts to grow on you.

Tonight, we will be dinning with some business partners at PF Chang's. Chang's is quite frankly one of my favorite restaurants ever. In fact, I helped YouWho? petition to have one located in the Portsmouth NH area. Tonight the goal will be to drink many martinis and eat as much Ma Po Tofu as is humanly possible.

Tomorrow, after what I hope will bea slow morning and a few more hours on a trade-show floor, my coworker and I will fly to South Carolina for a nother business meeting. Then, I will be going to one of the only places in the world that I would rather be than PF Chang's: Home.

I am in Las Vegas on business, and the first thing that we noticed upon checking in to our hotel is that the lobby/casino area smells very strongly of cheap perfume. At first we figured that it must have been the fallout from some overly-scented elderly woman, but after two days it still smells the same.

We walked the strip last night and had a wonderful dinner at Delmonico's Steak House. The dinner was fantastic, but I also couldn't help notice that the Venetian resort did not smell like perfume. Neither did the Riviera (which is where our tradeshow is) which surprised me because it is on the tacky end of the strip. We're in the good section, staying at the Monte Carlo. The hotel is nice overall... except for that inevitable walk through the lobby. Why is our lobby the only place in all of Vegas that suffers from olfactory overload? Should we alert hotel maintenance that there might be a stripper stuck in an air duct somewhere?

Like Clint Eastwood in his famed trilogy, my book has no name. It used to have a name, which was The Recurrence of Stowel...but after receiving a completed editorial review from the publisher, it is highly suggested that I change the name to something more compelling.

I'm open to suggestions.

The good news is that the review ranks my manuscript at 590 out of 595 points, which qualifies The Book With No Name as an "Editor's Choice" pick. More important to me, it validates my work as being somewhat better than tripe.

...and into a "pain in the ass!"

This little terror is now distracting us from the tragic loss of Koji. His name is Pav (short for Pavlov). He is (at the time this picture was taken) a 10-week old Blue Tick Coonhound. His markings are a bit dark for his breed, but I like the fact that he looks different from Koji. He is almost house-trained already, thanks to my wife, and already exhibits the classic coonhound bray that will keep the house safe from burglars, door-to-door salesmen, and (if one happens to get close enough) raccoons.

Our wonderful and lovable dog Koji was hit yesterday, and is gone. Koji joined us just a few short years ago. He was rescued from an abusive home by Maine Coonhound Rescue, and later adopted by us. He was a sweet wonderful dog, and we will miss him.

In Memory of Koji, (1998-2003)

YouWho? pointed me towards Litte Yellow Different, where I found a link to the best 404 Error in the world. For those who have been living under a rock for the past decade, are extremely unobservant or maybe just plain stupid, a 404 Error is the "File Not Found" error that you find at the far end of a broken link. You may have seen less humorous versions that bash microsoft, or bash microsoft again, but this one wins the "Best Adult 404" ever for the X-rated animated GIF at the bottom of the page.

This 404 wins the runner up prize because of the wonderful insight we gain into what a web server is feeling.

[EDIT: For a host of 404's (pun intended), check out Area 404

I mentioned that there was some huge astrological event, so I thought I'd post the link here if any are interested. I don't necessarily believe in this stuff per se, but I do believe that human physiology is affected by chemical, electrical and magnetic forces, so if all of these planets are lined up it could affect the way we feel, right?

Anyway, it's also interesting to note that this event corresponds nicely with "A MASSIVE flare disgorged by the sun ...the biggest ever recorded, although the earth will luckily escape most of its blast of radiation". I was told by an uber-geek coworker of mine that an even bigger one is expected today or tomorrow, but I can't find any mention of it online anywhere, so we'll pass that off as a rumor and sit in the relative discomfort of the already freakish astrology/solar-flare/caffeine-epiphany coincidence.

While I have been told that today is a huge astrological event that will cause epiphanies to sprout from our souls like mold on wet cheese, I awoke early this morning to the hard knocks of reality. The whimsical fantasy of yesterday's post is gone and replaced with a much more natural (and somewhat stronger) urge to find a large hot cup of coffee. Yes, I know, it's not exactly a soulful purpose; I am what I am.

I know it's not realistic... I mean, most of the hits I get on this web site are from friends and/or people looking for dirty pictures. But I've decided to take a moment and allow myself to forget the frosted and biting truth of the real world, and let myself slip into fantasy-land. There I will (momentarily) pretend that my book will become a best-seller. Oprah will turn her book club into a dedicated sci-fi venue due to the overwhelming popular demand for my book. I know it's hard to represent the true glory of my own imagination on a web site, but this picture comes close.

I'm waiting for the completion of my book's editorial review. I am not, typically, a patient man. Atypically, I am not stewing in anticipation—probably because there is just too much to do in preparation for the launch. There are a few things in particular that are taking up a lot of my time.

1. Book Promotions. I'll be getting a "marketing toolkit" upon completion of the publication, but anyone who knows marketing knows that the best time to promote something is before it's ready. So I'm doing my best to get word of mouth out to certain media outlets, in hopes of a few big reviews. I've already got one... and hoping for at least one more.

2. Mailling Lists. I don't know why I'm spending so much time compiling these great long lists of reviewers, because I don't have the money to send them all review materials. Oh well.

3. Being a Book Reviewer. The reviews, as I just mentioned, are hard to get and expensive. So... I've decided to take the matter into my own hand, and am trying to pull together an independent review site. I've got some design experience (and an excellent web-mentor who hasn't grown impatient with me yet), so the web design part is easy. But the content is a different matter...

4. Real Life. As frequent readers know, I'm going through some medical issues. I've just recently gotten back into karate and am suffering greatly for it. So sad... what heals my mind destroys my body... :-(

5. My Job. I have to go to work every day. Yuck.

In the tradition of the Inspirational Haiku for a Recessed Economy I offer this latest tidbit.

With the market depressed

the boss no longer worries

if I am happy

That's right, it's been a rough week at work. Or should I say:

In only four days

I've drank liters of coffee,

But I'm still tired