Ever have one of those days where you just know you’re walking a tightrope? You know… the kind where one itty bitty little thing, no matter how stupid, is going to just pitch you toppling through space. That was me. Today. And I know when it comes down to it I have much more to be grateful for than to whimper about, but today I whimpered. Ok, I bawled my head off. I was a lip-quivering sniffling mess — and not just in the privacy of my own home. Oh no. That would be too tidy. Nope, I crumbled to sand in our church nursery and there was nothing I could do about it.

Actually, sand is a bad analogy. Unless it was soggy sand. Silt maybe. Guess I didn’t really crumble either. I deliquesced. Deliquesced into silt. What? Don’t look at me like that… sounds better than ’shlumped into sludge’. Well, it does to me anyway. Eight years of extreme challenges in our life, and you would think I would have been able to hold it together until we got home, but no. Not today. Today I fell to pieces. In public. (more…)

Here it is, finally. The first post of the new year. No resolutions were made, per se. Goals set, but none that need mentioning. However, here are a few things that have happened so far.

I decided to run an experiment at work. Where I’m usually “business casual” every day, the experiment was to wear a button down shirt to work every day, and see how long it took before people stopped mentioning it. It took my boss a whole 5 seconds to say something about me being “dressed up” on January 2. This experiment failed on day two (January 3) when no one said a word. Perhaps I’m not giving these people enough credit. Time will tell. The button downs will continue for the time being. (more…)

And thankfully, in a few short hours, this catastrophe of a year will be over.

It’s all to do with work this last 6 months. And the car wreck.

There were good things, so let’s just focus on them as we move forward and put the other things behind us.

To you all, thanks for still coming by even though I’ve tapered off over this last while. I’m hopeful that 2014 will give me more to write about here. Or anywhere, really.

If you’re going out tonight, be safe. And if you’re staying home, I hope you’re doing something fun. Either way, so you on the flip side of the calendar.

Ready for today’s WTF moment?

A little background first…

Remember that song “Friday”? Well, it seems the creators of that…interesting (is that a good word to use in this case?)…video have a new song and a new kid.

“It’s Thanksgiving”

I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of this song. I don’t fault this Nicole Westbrook girl for it, though. Nor do I fault the parents; I’m assuming the girl showed interest, so they looked for a way to help. I’m sure the experience of making the song and video were a good lesson. (more…)

I’ve taken the last 7 weeks off from blogging. It wasn’t intentional to take that much time off, but I needed the break. A lot of things happening in this part of the world, mostly personal and boring and not necessary to bring up. Suffice it to say that I’m working on making parts of my life more balanced against each other, rather than one aspect dominating all of my time and attention. To that end, I’ll be popping in once and a while to see how everyone is doing, and while I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to read every blog post, nor will I be able to comment on them all, know that I have missed you all.

During this time, I’ve been doing a lot of revising. I’m about halfway through draft two, and a quarter way through draft three. The second draft is taking longer than I expected, only because I’ve made one or two substantial changes that have ramifications across the entirety of the story. (more…)

To say that time is a precious commodity in my little part of the world would be a drastic understatement of facts. Truth be told, I find myself quite a bit over-extended most days, and the scales of time are heavily in favor of those things that have to be done and need to be done. Unfortunately, this leaves little time for things that I’d rather be doing.

Tuesdays in particular are jam-packed from the moment I wake until exhaustion sets in. However, I did read two chapters from A Clash of Kings last night. At least, I think I did. I’m about 150 pages into the 950 page installment, and I’m loving every second. I wish I could world build half as well as Martin does. (more…)

Just a quick thought, and I don’t know why it popped into my head.

You know how Morgan Freeman seems to narrate everything? And there’s a picture that has been going around for a while of Morgan Freeman with the text that says something like, “You’re reading this in my voice.” It’s funny, and interesting, but it got me thinking about the voice inside your head. Anyway, it got me thinking about who has a great voiceover/internal monologue voice.

Now, I’m not listing these as potential candidates for my internal monologue, but Sam Elliott, Christopher Lee, and Ralph Fiennes have great voices for such a thing. My opinion anyway.

Who else would make a great internal monologue voice? Or is there someone specific you hear in your head when you read?

A few months ago, I came across a video of “Misheard Song Lyrics – 90’s Edition” which can be viewed by clicking here. As it said “90’s Edition,” it turns out there is an “Original Edition” that needed to be found. Here it is, right here.

This morning on the drive to work, I heard two songs that were obviously the wrong lyrics. So, I present to you the correct wording, followed by what I heard.

Can’t Hold Us by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Ray Dalton.

Original Lyrics: “Like the ceiling can’t hold us.”
What I Heard: “Like the ceiling fan told us.” (more…)

Considering it aired over a decade ago, some find it amazing that I have never seen Band of Brothers. That is, of course, until the last few weeks.

I won’t get into the specifics of the show; that’s what Wikipedia is for, after all. The long and short of it, it’s based on the book of the same name by Stephen Ambrose. 10 parts. 11 hours. It tells the fictionalized history of Easy Company from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division during World War II. The title (of the book and, therefore, the series) comes from the St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V. “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” (more…)

Rolling back the clocks an hour brings me two things I’ve been missing the last few months: driving into the rising sun in the morning and the setting sun at night.

On my drive, I pass over the Chattahoochee River. I know I’ve mentioned that fact before, and before you ask, it’s the same one that Alan Jackson sang about in 1993. Anyway, here are three shots from this morning’s drive.

I like how in the first one you can see the light from the rising sun above the fog, and how in the last one you can see the fog breaking. Just peeking through there.

This next one was on the drive home a few days ago, shortly before a storm rolled on in.

In other news, I made some progress yesterday for NaNo, and did just over 2K for the day. Still about 10K behind, but here I go.

Have a great weekend everyone. If you’re NaNoing, I hope you make great strides. If you’re not, get some fun in. Hell, even if you’re NaNoing, go have some fun.