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I just attended my third Hypericon last weekend.  Hypericon is a local Speculative Fiction (i.e. geeky story) convention.  They have some gaming stuff as well, and they have podcasting panels.  The podcasting part is how I got there in the first place- my good friend from college, Mark Kinney, is host of the RPG podcast All Games Considered, one of the grand daddies of RPG podcasting, and winner of the Ennie award for podcasting last year.  He makes the journey down to the Con each year to be their guest and sit on panels, and I go to hang out with Mark, remember my gaming days of old, sit in on writing panels, and meet cool people.

It’s through this Con that I’ve had the pleasure each year of meeting, speaking to, and listening to Glen Cook (author of the Black Company series and a jillion other incredible books).  I doubt he remembers me from year to year at all; I’ll probably never forget him.  Each year, I get to listen to Glen talk about writing.  He gives a lot of advice, opinions, and has some wonderful stories about it, but he always opens with the exact same thing:  ”Get off your butt and write something!”

Every year, Glen bellows this out at the crowd, and it hangs there like a dare, like he’s calling to start a revolution.  Glen is a relatively calm-speaking guy at these things, but this one always comes out gruff and loud.  It’s definitely a call to action when Glen says it.

For the past two years, I’ve left that Con inspired.  The first year, I was writing about this time, and I got lots of new ideas.  Last year, my job was just too busy, took up too much of my time, and more importantly, far too much of my creative energy.  I just couldn’t find the time when I had the mental energy to write anything.  Or go back to school.  Or a lot of things I wanted to do.

This year, I hear the challenge, and I’m going to try a creating a little routine around it.  Maybe five words a day.  How hard can that be?  It’ll be something.  I met a guy there who’s a published author and really wants to get a writer’s workshop going; he was really enthusiastic about me joining.  I’m hoping he’ll contact me soon.  It’ll be one more thing to help.

Maybe next year, I’ll just tape Glen’s voice yelling his challenge at me, and play it every morning.

Category : Uncategorized

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I got back from DC Wednesday night.  It started out a rather amusing little trip, overall.  As an odd quirk of the trip planning we went up in two groups; one flew out on an earlier flight than the other.  I was in the later group; we arrived Tuesday night, took a long ride from the airport to the hotel, went our seperate ways and had a late dinner from room service.  Just before bed one of our earlier group came in (rooms were short in DC; so we were sharing a double).  We shared an amusing tale straight out of “Planes, trains and automobiles” about the first groups’ twisted path via Amtrak, subway, and taxi to make it here, then we hit the sack.  We had to be at the client site early in the morning.

 Things were more routine from there- breakfast, cab ride to the client site, start up the meeting.  For whatever reason it was decided to send a systems analyst (me) and a business analyst to collect requirements, but to the project managers were facilitating the meeting.  Since this was actually supposed to be a requirements gathering session, this seemed a bit backwards, but we were making it work.  I had a little impatience and had to work to inject at the right spots and get all the data I needed for requirements as we went.

Then it happened.  One of our team got a call, excused herself, left the room.  We kept going, no big deal, probably a bathroom break.  A minute later, she calls me out of the room.

Her mother has passed away.  We have to get her home somehow.

Reality of real life, important life, not the routine little world of our jobs that we worry so much about, slams me in the chest.  “Just a minute, I’ll get you a plane.”  Popping my head into the meeting, I make some quick excuses, arrange for internet access, hit the web, find a plane and car service to get her home, all the while doing my best to keep her together.  The meeting just doesn’t seem that important anymore.  In a few minutes, we have things pulled together; she has a flight and car, her family knows when to pick her up and where, and we have her on her way.

And then… then I had to return to the meeting and go on as if nothing happened.  This person, a friend of mine, was on her way home, alone, after her mother died, and nothing happened.   I led the meeting from there.

Five hours of requirements gathering later, we had the requirements we came to gather, and we managed to finish early.  The client was very satisfied and will probably sign the deal soon.  Mission accomplished.

Life has to go on when tragedies strike.  We did our jobs; we went on.  You never know what’s going to happen in life.

I think I will go visit my family very soon.  We all should.

Category : Life

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I established this blog months ago, but I haven’t really done anything with it.  Like many of my personal projects, it always seems that business picks up when things start to get off the ground.

Since I put this here, I’ve been to South Bend, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, DC, and s0me other places… they’re starting to run together.  I’ve also changed jobs at work, gotten a new office, had an office mate, lost an office mate, gained another, lost another, gained two more (!), changed departments/bosses, almost took up a new opportunity, and gained a new opportunity where I am now.  It’s been rather exciting.  And that’s just my job.

Did I mention I overhauled my other blog (Undocumented Features), got recruited to write a television pilot, and somehow volunteered myself to do an internet marketing campaign and a website for a band? 

Through all that though, I haven’t slacked on jotting down some personal thoughts.  I’ve been sticking them all in my “old-tech blog” (a stack of notepads and journals that I picked up along the way).  I think I’ll transcribe some of that here soon, post some pics from the trips, and see if I can’t get in the habit of this site.

Category : Life, Travel

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