Hmm. Haven't posted in four days. Better than four weeks though.

It would have been easier if I hadn't just completely erased my post, just because I can't remember that ctrl-c does nothing on a mac (or worse than nothing)

That and requiring a paperclip to do a restart are the worst design flaws of a mac.

So anyway, the story I typed out and then accidentally erased --

I discovered today why people get addicted to stress. Work has been extra-special-stressful lately. My budget has been on various levels of limbo for the last three months. Pretty hard to be planning for 2002 when you're in the middle of it. So anyway, it's been kind of like seeing a cliff up ahead and looking around saying "Hey - there's a cliff up there." I've been saying that for way over a year now. Anyway, nobody else seems to much care that we're marching toward a cliff. For the last couple of months people finally looked around and said, "Hey, our toes are hanging over the cliff!" -- yeah, no kidding, I'm windmilling my arms here.

So anyway, then they pushed me off the cliff (how nice) and I started falling. No idea how high the cliff was, when I'd hit bottom, or how pointy the rocks were at the bottom. So I throw out a grappling hook -- and my boss's boss kicks it off, and I keep falling. I'm yelling about the sharp pointy rocks down below. They let me fall for another few weeks. Finally one of them wakes up and goes "Hey! there's rocks down there!" and I get permission to throw out another grappling hook.

Well, today the hook finally caught and maybe - if I'm really lucky and play the right political games - we might even get to climb up the rope a little bit. But don't get your hopes up too high. It's a really thin rope.

The sharp, pointy rocks are right there, though.

Books: Oh yeah, I'm working on that, aren't I? I hate being a writer.

Ok, let's see if I can get back into the habit of regular blogging.

It's been a long day. Not a terrible day, but long. There were a lot of things to get done at my dayjob, and none of it was much fun. This is sort of our "down time" at work. We can catch a breath and regroup for the summer rush that looms ahead. We're picking up all the little pieces that got missed in the last rush. I found a broken link on our site that I thought I fixed four months ago. I guess it fell off the todo list at some point and it just didn't get done. That's depressing - what else has fallen between the cracks of my life? I guess I'll never know unless it's really important. Or I get some time to clean out all the figurative closets.

On the home front... I'm having trouble keeping an internet connection live for long. I hope I can smooth that out soon. Is it a mac thing? Or the wackiness of my house wiring? Who knows.

Books: I put a short story in the mail today. It's set in the same universe as the novels, and hopefully will start getting my name out there and building some interest. It could have used another rewrite or two or three, but at some point you just have to stop and let it go out into the world. So I'll have an answer one way or another on this one in about six weeks. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Hey! This is me, blogging from my very own apartment again.
Pretty cool, huh? I'm getting my Mac legs under me again. Mmmm... double click on the bar at the top of the window and it closes. Look, I'll do it again. See? Gone now. Hey, it's back. Up, down, up, down. Neato. They used to call it "window shades" that's why it makes that great snnnippp sound. Just like a window shade.

All you PC people have no idea what I'm talking about. I know. So sorry.

Books: Ok. It's been a lot of fun doing all that typing. I guess I don't have any more excuses not to do some real work on them again.

Yay! I am the proud owner of a new computer.
Yay! Now I can get back on track with my blog and my books.
Did I mention -- Yay!

I am a Thrust-ship. I am small and tricky - where you think I am, I probably am not. I can work very fast, but I tend to go about things in a round about way, which often leaves me effectively standing still. I hate rocks. Bloody rocks. What Video Game Character Are You?