tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-175384032024-02-18T18:53:10.020-08:00The Elephant Vanishes - George V Tucker's BlogGeorge V Tucker's personal blog.Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.comBlogger99125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-58160552006510743622010-09-11T12:31:00.000-07:002010-09-11T12:40:57.568-07:00William Bernstein -- what an awesome guy!It's official: I have a man-crush on <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/williambernstein">William Bernstein</a>. It's not his fuzzy beard; it's not his astonishingly learned and well-written books; it's not even his great website <a href="http://efficientfrontier.com/">EfficientFrontier.com</a>.<div><br /></div><div>No -- it's his relentless campaign to help retail investors (that's small fry like you and me) get a fair deal. His books are mostly dedicated to educating investors about the hazards of Wall Street and how to use smart diversification to build wealth.</div><div><br /></div><div>William Bernstein's books are awesome. For a sample of his genius check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTUZXwQwUJM">this video</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>For more, check out his books. They're learned, witty, entertaining and necessary:</div><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071747052?ie=UTF8&tag=intelligen050-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0071747052">The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=intelligen050-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0071747052" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470505141?ie=UTF8&tag=intelligen050-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0470505141">The Investor's Manifesto: Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=intelligen050-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0470505141" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071747044?ie=UTF8&tag=intelligen050-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0071747044">The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=intelligen050-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0071747044" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-51991866030077064422010-09-11T08:34:00.001-07:002010-09-11T08:38:42.522-07:00Index Mutual Fund post on SquidooCheck out my lens on the subject of <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/indexmutualfund">index mutual fund</a>s on Squidoo.<div><br /></div><div>I was an early adopter of Squidoo and wanted to use that forum to highlight the personal finance and investing knowledge I've slowly and painfully gained over the past 10 years. One of the most important things I know about investing is this: over time, most investors make market returns less cost. Therefore cost is one of the most important aspects of your investing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Index mutual funds, especially those offered by Vanguard, have super-low costs.</div><div><br /></div><div>Furthermore, index funds are among the best ways to "buy the market." Stock picking doesn't work (or if it does, it doesn't work forever -- reversion to the mean is a law of nature as compelling as gravity). Instead of picking sectors or individual companies, diversify by owning bits and pieces of thousands of companies.</div><div><br /></div><div>I hope you find this information useful. </div>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-57459932908047515822009-07-31T05:43:00.001-07:002009-07-31T05:49:53.185-07:00I am The Man, part 2Yesterday, for the first time ever, I had to fire an employee.<div><br /></div><div>Here are the notes I took into the meeting:</div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><blockquote><div>Not going as we'd planned</div><div>Going to have to let you go</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's what's going to happen:</div><div><ul><li>Today will be your last day</li><li>Final check will be mailed to you</li><li>Info about COBRA will come by mail</li><li>My card/contact if you have any questions</li></ul><div>Now let's go gather your personal items.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is not a good match.</div><div>This is really better for all of us.</div><div><br /></div><div>Don't try to fill awkward silences</div><div><b>DIGNITY</b></div></div></blockquote><div><div><b></b></div><div>Like a good manager I Googled and researched before putting together my plan. The only helpful piece of advice I found came from, of all things, <i>HR for Dummies</i>. That book advised that you not try to fill awkward silences and you maintain the proceedings in a way that allow the employee to retain their dignity.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then I thought about what my own firing could be like. If I absolutely had to be fired, no alternative, then how would I want it to go? I strived for that.</div><div><br /></div><div>Having to tell someone they've lost their job is one of the single most emotionally draining experiences I've ever been through. I felt stressed before, went in with my heart pounding and my face flushed, and went home feeling as drained as if I'd been to a funeral. Hard, yes, it was hard. But I think I achieved my goal without any unnecessary loss of dignity.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-5275308725345504952009-07-26T17:23:00.001-07:002009-07-26T17:30:06.473-07:00Another awesome thing about EvernoteI forgot to mention this in my previous paean to Evernote. <div><br /></div><div>If you're like me, you have a love/hate relationship with PDF files. Yes, they're universal and nearly everyone, even my mom, knows how to use them. At the same time they're bulky and cumbersome. Still I have dozens of PDFs on my hard drive: ebooks I've downloaded, equipment manuals, instruction guides for computer games, electronic forms from two dozen vendors. </div><div><br /></div><div>How to get a handle on this mess? Up to now, I've been giving them very-descriptive-keyword-rich-filenames.pdf and counting on Google desktop to track them down. But Evernote makes it even easier. </div><div><br /></div><div>Check this out: </div><div><br /></div>It's easy (like drag and drop easy) to save PDF files to Evernote. <div><br /></div><div>Once you sync with the remote server and the PDF is uploaded, the text of the PDF is scanned and then becomes keyword-searchable. Evernote has a built-in PDF reader so you can read PDF files in your browser without waking up Adobe Acrobat reader.</div><div><br /></div><div>How awesome is that? Now all my PDFs are indexed and easy to find. I don't even avoid PDF files any more. If you haven't tried <a href="http://www.evernote.com">Evernote</a> yet, consider downloading their software. Even the free level of service is incredibly powerful. </div>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-6004424397253270002009-06-17T21:35:00.000-07:002009-07-26T18:27:26.980-07:00Evernote: an online service that helps you remember everythingEver since I got my first computer (a late 80s Radio Shack Tandy), I've been completely obsessed with archiving and search. I typed document after document and then lay in bed, eyes wide, terrified that my precious words would somehow vanish, zapped into the ether. I experimented with every archiving and search tool I found. They were primitive, promising very little functionality. Because they seemed so limited I held back from fully committing myself to any digital format. I slowly acquired a number of legal pads and binders stuffed with the products of my creativity.<br /><br />Eventually, after undergrad and during my graduate work, I transitioned to a primarily digital archive. However I didn't take the necessary precautions to secure my files (see <a href="http://georgevtucker.blogspot.com/2008/01/saga-of-crashed-flash-drive.html">The Saga of the Crashed Flash Drive</a> for more on this). The sheer volume of the losses I encountered led me to a place I'd never been before -- existential angst. A complete unwillingness to write anything anywhere -- even on paper. How can you keyword-search your hardcopy?<br /><br />At long last, I've found a tool that seems to offer everything I need: <a href="http://www.evernote.com/">Evernote</a>.<br /><br />Evernote offers a fairly basic service: online storage of your rich text files. Evernote supports tagging and keyword search, and allows the user to set up separate notebooks or folders of notes for strategic organization.<br /><br />Now, you may think, "I can do this with Google Docs." Or even Google Desktop plus whatever <a href="http://openoffice.org/">Office-like software</a> you use. Or even your own personal Mediawiki install, or a hosted service like Jotspot. Evernote offers a few advantages.<br /><br />The key features that make Evernote awesome include:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Optical character recognition of images</span><br /><br />Upload an image to Evernote, and an automated OCR service inspects the image for text. Later on, the image's text becomes indexed along with whatever plain text you post. This is a fantastic feature for the graphically-oriented, or those too lazy to type the name of their favorite beer and prefer to snap a photo of the label. The OCR has been robust, in my experience.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dedicated email address for notes or images</span><br /><br />Out in the world? No access to a computer? No problem. Each Evernote account can generate a unique email address. Send a text email or an attached image to your Evernote email address and the text or image is added as a mailed-in note. Super-handy for when you're on the go.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Security and redundancy</span><br /><br />Evernote offers a desktop application that allows you to not only interface with your hosted account on your laptop but to export an XML file that includes your entire database of notes. Ideal for those who've been burned in the past!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">OCR of PDF documents</span><br /><br />I have a love/hate relationship with PDF documents. They're universal and relatively secure. On the other hand, their proprietary format means that they're difficult to export to any 3rd party reader. Keyword searches of PDF documents usually leave me frustrated.<br /><br />Evernote indexes the content of attached and/or uploaded PDF documents. The desktop app also includes an integrated PDF reader, so you can flip pages without even loading up an Adobe app. To me, this is awesome. I routinely email PDF documents to Evernote and then keyw0rd-search them -- just because I can.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dedicated apps for smart phone</span><br /><br />Yes, there's an app for that. Specifically a very nicely put-together iPhone app that allows graphic browsing of notes (similar to the browser-based interface).<br /><br />Because I have an old-school BlackBerry, my version of the Evernote app has all the personality of a MS-DOS 3.2 text-only interface. But the iPhone version is lovely. And even my rudimentary BlackBerry app is functional, if ugly, distasteful and cumbersome (everything my BlackBerry is).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Other cool stuff</span><br /><br />In addition the Evernote team has some more advanced tricks up their sleeves:<br /><br />EyeFi is an SD card that stores images but also uploads them to your Evernote account.<br /><br />Shoeboxed is a receipt-scanning service that scans and organizes your receipts before uploading them to Evernote.<br /><br />Pixily is a document-scanning service that will upload PDFs of any hardcopy docs to Evernote for you, enabling keyword-search (exciting!!).<br /><br />So far, the only downsides I've found to Evernote is the desktop interface. I find the PC desktop app to be a little bit clumsy and obnoxious. When I have trouble with it, I simply compose my document in Notepad or Word and paste the results into an Evernote note before titling and tagging it. You may not find this necessary, but sometimes it's easier for me.<br /><br />In short, I highly recommend Evernote for storage of any information you want to be able to find again. Evernote offers a free level of service. So far I have only used the free service and have found that it more than meets my needs. I plan to use Pixily as well in the near future.<br /><br />Perhaps soon I'll finally realize my dream of a fully-digitized, searchable archive of all my own work. Then what will my next excuse be?Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-89479164213415205122009-06-17T20:52:00.000-07:002009-06-17T21:29:01.958-07:00An overdue hiker in Lake Tahoe + thoughts on hiking and preparation<div>The day we left Lake Tahoe, my wife and I stopped at the Eagle Falls trailhead. On the way there we saw what looked like a police helicopter and two police 4x4 units parked on a turnout. Now, after living in South Florida for 10 years, I associate helicopters with bad traffic accidents, SWAT team deployments and Coast Guard rescue. I pointed out the chopper and made some comment about bad traffic ahead.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mer and I stopped at Eagle Falls and climbed on the rocks a little bit. Then we crossed Highway 89 to the Eagle Falls trailhead. In the parking lot there, we saw four more police vehicles (all 4x4s) along with two cafeteria tables set up on the asphalt. Two competent-looking middle-aged women, bad perms and paper cups of coffee and stacks of photocopies, sat behind cafeteria tables that had serious-looking communications equipment squawking and hissing on them. I half expected a major storm or some kind of foreign incursion. We walked up to the trailhead map and announcement board.</div><div><br /></div><div>Turns out, the helicopter and response units and competent-looking women were there because of an overdue hiker.</div><div><br /></div><div>A young man named Matthew was one day late. He'd filed a wilderness permit and then marched off into the wilderness west of the lake (which looks <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=lake+tahoe+eagle+falls&sll=37.439974,-95.712891&sspn=42.046075,86.044922&ie=UTF8&ll=38.952334,-120.110317&spn=0.005081,0.010504&t=h&z=17&iwloc=A">like this</a>) and was a single day late in returning. There were printouts with a mugshot-like photo along with a description of the missing hiker including the color and type of his gear (jacket, snowshoes).</div><div><br /></div><div>Later, my wife said, "At first I was really surprised by the magnitude of the response. Then I felt guilty because I was surprised."</div><div><br /></div><div>Frankly, I was just as surprised. Maybe because of my background in the Ozarks, I always have considered wilderness explanation to be at the risk of the explorer. Half a dozen officers, at minimum, searching the forest? A helicopter? Maybe if the vice president disappeared, but surely not for just anyone.</div><div><br /></div><div>That was on Thursday, June 11, 2009. Today I found this article:</div><div></div><blockquote><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 13px; ">SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — After being lost in Desolation Wilderness for three days, a 26-year-old Pollock Pines man was located by rescuers in good health on Tuesday.<br /><br />The El Dorado County Sheriff's department began the search for Matthew Kinney after they were notified he did not arrive at the Horsetail Falls parking lot as scheduled on Saturday morning, said El Dorado County Sheriff's Lt. Les Lovell. Kinney had left for a three day hike from Loon Lake to the waterfall on Thursday, but became lost, Lovell said.<br /><br />About 60 volunteers from more than a half dozen local and regional agencies assisted in the rescue, which included 15 ground teams searching the more than 63,000-acre wilderness area. The teams were inserted into the wilderness on Tuesday via a California Highway Patrol helicopter, Lovell said.<br /><br />Rescuers located Kinney, who was described by Lovell as an experienced hiker familiar with the area, disoriented but unharmed at about 3 p.m. near Lake Schmidell, Lovell said.<br /><br />The area where Kinney was found is near the area he was scheduled to spend his first night, Lovell said.<br /><br />Lovell recommended that backcountry travelers hike with a friend if possible and stick to a detailed itinerary of travel plans they leave with a friend or relative. </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 13px; "></span>To me, this level of response is simply incredible. On the one hand, it implies an astonishing level of resources available to come to the aid of a potentially lost and desperate hiker. On the other hand, it represents a huge investment of resources with an extremely low return on investment. (Perhaps the ROI is tied to the reputation of the area -- that a location in which lost hikers are never heard from again gets a lot less tourist traffic?)<div><br /></div><div>Back at home in South Florida, I found <a href="http://woodsmonkey.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44:the-case-for-common-sense&catid=40:editorials&Itemid=62">this discussion</a> of the effort involved in rescuing two lost, unprepared, wilderness explorers. After some thought, I posted the following response:<br /><br /><blockquote>I was in Lake Tahoe recently, where I saw at least 5 search and rescue units, plus a helicopter, plus an HQ/basecamp consisting of 2 full-time people, all dedicated to tracking down a single overdue hiker (overdue for 24 hours).<br /><br />In one sense I agree with your thesis -- if one goes wandering in the wilderness, one must be prepared. But it seems to me that the folks responsible for actually enforcing this have made a decision. They have decided that it's easier, and perhaps more cost-effective, to engage in these big and risky search efforts for overdue hikers and lost city folk and the like THAN IT IS to enforce a minimum level of preparation among hikers.<br /><br />Think about it -- it cost $120k to save these lost souls. On the other hand, it might cost $750k per year to man the trailheads with trained rangers who will inspect the gear of potential hikers and approve or deny them access to the wilderness. Plus, access to the wilderness is fairly porous...<br /><br />Even though it's distasteful, it's very likely much less resource-intense to start a search for a lost hiker than it is to prevent unprepared and underequipped hikers from entering the wilderness.</blockquote>The short answer is this: although it is much higher-profile, and easier to object to, it might economically be more efficient to search for the lost hikers than to insure that all are prepared. Search and rescue is probably cheaper than running orientation and basic skills classes for hikers. </div><div><br /></div><div>The high-profile rescue appeals to our sense of romance and danger. At the same time it attracts budget hawks and those who say they know better. Without an actual study there's no way to know which side is right.</div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking as a social liberal, fiscal conservative and wilderness preparer, I think the proper tactic is a blend of the above. Officials should offer training courses (maybe even including the rental of Personal Locator Beacons?) and orientation. At the same time, officials should be prepared to rescue those who fail to return as planned. This seems to me the best of both worlds.<br /><br /><br /></div>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-70943507056206317182008-01-26T09:35:00.000-08:002008-01-26T10:24:17.790-08:00The Saga of the Crashed Flash DriveI should've known something was wrong the first time my flash drive didn't save a file properly. I'd been working all morning on my reworking of the Robert Howard story <span style="font-style: italic;">The Fire of Asshurbanipal</span> and when I hit CTRL + S, my laptop spat back an error: Drive not found.<br /><br />I shrugged and saved the draft to my desktop.<br /><br />The same thing happened intermittently for the next couple of weeks. I finished the story and felt really happy with it. A few days later, on a Wednesday after work, I plugged the flash drive in to print a copy of the story. Nothing. No flashing blue LED, no recognition on my computer, nothing.<br /><br />I thought it had to be the USB port so I tried another. Nothing. I rebooted because sometimes Windows can lose a data port (why? no idea). Nothing. I tried another computer, a USB 1.0 port, NOTHING. I took the flash drive to work and plugged it into three different computers. <span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTHING.</span><br /><br />I had to take a lot of deep, slow breaths. Here's what was on that flash drive:<br /><ul><li>The latest draft of my first novel</li><li>The <span style="font-weight: bold;">only</span> drafts of my second novel</li><li>The short story I'd just finished</li><li>At least eight other short stories I've written in the last two years</li><li>Freelance projects I've worked on</li></ul>I really didn't know what to do, so I Googled "flash drive failure" and a bunch of other related search terms. I found the same site over and over: <a href="http://www.eprovided.com">eProvided</a>. That site dominated the search rankings for a slew of search terms related to failed flash drives. But the site was so over-optimized I had a lot of trouble figuring out what to do and how to do it. Finally I found a printable form and overnighted it, along with the troubled drive, to eProvided.<br /><br />Four days passed.<br /><br />During these four days, I very conspicuously didn't drown my sorrows in booze, even though I really wanted to. I kept reassuring myself that I'd be able to recover all the data somehow. eProvided might come through. I looked through my backups and saw that I hadn't archived anything, <span style="font-weight: bold;">anything</span>, since March 2007. I thought about Hemingway and the lost briefcase full of stories (except I'm no Hemingway, and I didn't lose a briefcase, and in any event I couldn't lay the blame on someone else) and how that lost briefcase made him the writer we remember. Maybe everything on the flash drive I lost could be retroactively labeled juvenalia and safely consigned to the maw of digital entropy.<br /><br />On the fourth day I couldn't stand the wait and emailed eProvided -- "Did you get my drive? Can you save me, please?"<br /><br />I got back a note requesting $30 via Paypal as an analysis fee. I paid it.<br /><br />A week later -- seriously, a full week with not a single bender! How did I do it? Mostly, I distracted myself with the stock market. I wanted to follow the business news because it seemed as though something disastrous happened to some company or other, or some national economy, or some <span style="font-style: italic;">zaibatsu</span> or currency, every day. I had no interest beyond prurience and a vague desire to become a millionaire by looking at MarketWatch.com eight or ten times every day. Instead of thinking about writing, I thought about its antithesis: money. A week later, I got a phone call.<br /><br />My cell phone rang around noon. I was at work and went into the kitchen to take the call. Bruce, the owner of eProvided, introduced himself. He had a slow, calm voice suspiciously absent of accent that made me think he was either from a square state or maybe had been raised an Army brat.<br /><br />"Well, I've got some news for you," he said. I noticed right away he didn't label it good or bad.<br /><br />"What's the prognosis?"<br /><br />"Well, this drive is totally trashed. Most of the circuits are broken and I haven't even put it under the microscope yet but there's some kind of corrosion that's eaten away just about everything."<br /><br />There was a long pause. Finally, I asked, "Can you save it?"<br /><br />"Maybe. But it ain't gonna be easy, and it ain't gonna be cheap." (Maybe he didn't quote Quint from <span style="font-style: italic;">Jaws</span> but this is how I remember it.)<br /><br />"How much?"<br /><br />"Well, there's analysis, and I'm gonna have to see if I can rebuild this thing from scratch basically, you think you can get another one of the same lot? It'll take me a couple days at least. I'd say, hmm, $600."<br /><br />"Six <span style="font-style: italic;">hundred</span>?"<br /><br />"Plus parts."<br /><br />He said something about Radio Shack and something about micro-soldering but I stopped listening. In my entire life, I have never spent $600 or more on any single purchase other than my 1996 Dodge Neon, Princess, who is now no longer with us. To put this in further perspective -- the last fiction sale I made paid me $450. <br /><br />Here's the time to wheel and deal, I thought. Maybe if I explain how I'm nothing but a lowly fiction writer he'll have mercy and cut me some slack. "Listen, Bruce, here's my situation. I'm a writer and everything I've ever written is on that drive. My first novel, my second novel, bunch of short stories... So I need those files. I really, really need them. If you can save them for me I'll be eternally grateful."<br /><br />"Well, I'll do my best to get everything for you but there's no guarantee. There's a $90 assessment fee and if I can't recover any files then that's all you have to pay, so at least you don't wind up paying for something for nothing."<br /><br />"Okay." I told him how much I appreciated his hard work and efforts and expertise, still hoping that my words could work a little magic on him and get me a deal.<br /><br />Instead, he told me, "Well, I work with a lot of people and I have to tell them stuff like this pretty regularly. I have to say you sure do take it better than most."<br /><br />I couldn't think of any good answer for that. He still didn't back down on the price.<br /><br />Ten minutes later I sat down and Paypalled him $90. I had to know if I could get my files back or not.<br /><br />The sun rose and set. Around the world, nine people died of H5N1. Presidential candidates spent hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning. I read MarketWatch.com some more. I spent about 15 straight days in a state of suspended animation -- going to work, coming home, waiting for Bruce to email me.<br /><br />One night I was speaking to my buddy Jeff when call waiting beeped. It was Bruce.<br /><br />"Good news," he told me, and started reading the names of directories. I just about wet myself. I went on and on about how great he was, how much he'd helped me, even made sure he read the directories containing my 2 novels. Huzzah! I buttered him up to the best of my abilities. Then gave him my credit card number so he could charge me another $690 for the recovery. It hurt -- it hurt real bad. <br /><br />I'd spent a total of $820 on eProvided.com's services. If I can sell two of the stories Bruce recovered for me, I'll at least break even. <br /><br />I offered to pay for overnight shipping so I could get a CD of the files right away, but Bruce told me he'd just send them the normal way. Which turned out to be first class mail.<br /><br />Yesterday, the envelope arrived. A single CD with an eProvided.com business card. I ran to the computer and popped the CD in the drive.<br /><br />Bruce managed to save the following:<br /><ul><li>My first novel</li><li>My second novel</li><li>The short story I had been working on when the drive started to fail</li><li>The previous 3 short stories I composed</li><li>Notes for my third novel</li><li>A copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.1</li><li>A bootleg of an Elliott Smith concert (zipped)</li><li>Two journal entries</li><li>My freelance work</li><li>A set of Dell printer drivers<br /></li></ul>Here's what got lost:<br /><ul><li>At least 10 completed but unpublished short story manuscripts</li><li>Approximately 50 journal entries</li><li>Drafts of 2 screenplays I've worked on</li></ul>The following short stories that have been published are now extant only in print: <span style="font-style: italic;">Dragon Drop, How I Learned To Fly, Crows, Myrtle Baggs's Boarding House for Young Gentlemen, Heat, Norman Oklahoma, Welcome to Justice 2.0</span>. There may be more but I think my point is clear. Those stories exist now only as print -- only as the finished product. All the scaffolding I used to build them is gone. <br /><br />I've gotten so used to infinite archiving, to having multiple early drafts of things to look at, that this is a personal disaster of a magnitude I can barely comprehend. Even though so much was saved, so much more is gone -- and not just misplaced, but <span style="font-style: italic;">gone</span>. Extinct.<br /><br />As much as I moaned about paying $820 for getting these files, I would've paid three times as much to get everything back.<br /><br />So, let my experience be a warning to you: <span style="font-weight: bold;">BACK UP YOUR FILES</span>. If you don't it will cost you a pile of money, emotional trauma, or both.Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-39691281503729911892007-12-27T16:27:00.000-08:002007-12-27T16:31:15.488-08:00MST3K is ALIVE!I've been a huge MST3K fan since the middle 90s. I've been debating whether or not to buy the <a href="http://www.imissmyshow.com">entire series here</a>, but $200 is still considered a major purchase in my household.<br /><br />Then I stumbled across <a href="http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=mst3k&sitesearch=">this</a>. So far I've only watched 2 full episodes and a couple of shorts, but it's much more satisfying than waiting for Netflix to deliver my DVDs. Enjoy!Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-38582104450075634022007-12-23T09:40:00.000-08:002007-12-27T16:40:31.996-08:00Books I read in 2007Books marked with an asterisk are books I reread this year.<br /><br />The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential*, by James Ellroy<br /><br />Sun of Suns, Permanence, by Karl Schroeder<br /><br />A Fire On The Deep*, A Deepness In The Sky*, Rainbow's End, by Vernon Vinge<br /><br />Shatterpoint, Revenge of the Sith, by Matthew Stover<br /><br />Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe's Triumph, Sharpe's Fortress, Sharpe's Trafalgar, by Bernard Cornwell<br /><br />The Good Soldier*, by Ford Maddox Ford<br /><br />Dead Man's Walk, Lonesome Dove*, by Larry McMurtry<br /><br />Dark Gods*, by T.E.D. Klein<br /><br />Hardboiled Cthulhu (anthology)<br /><br />The Imago Sequence, by Laird Barron<br /><br />First Man in Rome, The Grass Crown, by Colleen McCullough<br /><br />Your Movie Sucks, by Roger Ebert<br /><br />On Killing, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman<br /><br />Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, by Loren Coleman<br /><br />The Flanders Panel, by Arturo Perez-Reverte<br /><br />Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling<br /><br />Empire of Ivory, by Naomi Novik<br /><br />Wall Street Noir (anthology)<br /><br />Aggressor Six*, The Fall of Sirius, Bloom, by Wil McCarthy<br /><br />Ancient Shores, by Jack McDevitt<br /><br />The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vol. 1 and 2, by Alan Moore<br /><br />Valentine's Exile, by E.E. Knight<br /><br />Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming<br /><br />Spin Control, by Chris Moriarty<br /><br />Rifles for Watie, by Harold Keith<br /><br />Shadow of the Torturer, Claw of the Conciliator, The Knight, The Wizard, by Gene Wolfe<br /><br />Master and Commander*, Post Captain*, HMS Surprise*, The Mauritius Command*, Desolation Island*, Fortune of War*, The Surgeon's Mate*, The Ionian Mission*, by Patrick O'Brian<br /><br />Confederacy of Dunces*, by John Kennedy Toole<br /><br />King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard<br /><br />Neuromancer*, by William Gibson<br /><br />Silence of the Lambs*, by Thomas HarrisGeorgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-19679159265099346832007-12-10T06:40:00.000-08:002007-12-10T06:45:05.378-08:00IBM laptop survives car wreck!<span style="font-family: arial;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:85%;" >I received this email from an IBM staffer, forwarded from the CEO of Lenovo (see below). This is hard to believe. It seems likely the laptop case had a lot to do with this tale of survival -- my thesis adviser had a similar, slightly less horrific, accident and her Mac PowerBook was completely destroyed.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ></span><blockquote style="font-family: arial;"><span style=";font-size:85%;" >Dear Manager:</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:85%;" >All of us passionately believe in the quality and durability of Lenovo products, and that is why we've been evangelists for our best-engineered PCs around the world. But more gratifying than spreading the word ourselves is hearing directly from users about how our products continue performing, even under extreme conditions. This is always a source of energy and excitement for me.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:85%;" >Recently, I received a particularly powerful customer letter telling one of these incredible stories -- that of a U.S. graduate student using a ThinkPad to write her thesis, who survived a horrific auto accident uninjured along with her PC. It's a story with a happy ending and one that provides real-world proof of Lenovo's leadership in product quality and durability.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:85%;" >An excerpted version of this customer letter is below for your reference. Each of us should be very proud of her positive experience. I encourage you to read the letter and share the story with your teams, as well as family, friends, customers and other business contacts.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:85%;" >Lenovo makes the world's best-engineered PCs -- there's no doubt about it!</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:85%;" >Regards,</span><br /><img src="http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=33f9f5c9fd&attid=0.9&disp=emb&view=att&th=116c468008654dd4" /><br /><span style=";font-size:85%;" >Bill Amelio</span><br /><span style=";font-size:85%;" >President and CEO</span><br /><span style=";font-size:85%;" >Lenovo</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:85%;" >______________________________<wbr>______________________________<wbr></span><br /><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Lenovo Corporation </span><br /><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Customer Satisfaction</span><br /><span style=";font-size:100%;" >ThinkPad Place</span><br /><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Morrisville. NC.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Dear Mr. Amelio.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:100%;" > I am a graduate student at Harvard University. A friend of mine let me borrow her IBM ThinkPad 600X, so that I could use it in order to write my Master’s Thesis. On September 13<sup>th</sup>, 2007, after visiting my mother in Maine, I zipped up the ThinkPad into its carrying case, loaded it into the back of my 1998 Subaru Legacy Outback, and headed for Harvard. While traveling southbound on Interstate 95 near Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, my car was struck by a man suffering a diabetic seizure. State Troopers estimate that this man’s car was traveling 85-90 miles per hour. I don’t remember the details of the crash, but the police later informed me that my car rolled front to rear several times, struck a tree fourteen feet in the air and then crashed back to the ground upside down.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:100%;" > At some point during the incident, the ThinkPad was ejected from the car. While at the crash site, but several minutes after the crash, I distinctly remember that the people in attendance asked me what things I wanted to take with me in the ambulance. I mentioned the PC and at least two people said that retrieving it would not be possible since the car “was on top of it”. However, one of these “angels” in attendance managed to dig it out and the PC, along with other belongings, traveled with me to the hospital. I miraculously survived the crash with only slight injuries. My car was completely destroyed. As for the ThinkPad, I was curious and concerned to discover what had happened to the PC on which my thesis was stored.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:100%;" > The friend who lent me the ThinkPad picked me up from the hospital and drove me to her home in Massachusetts. I took the ThinkPad out of its dirty carrying case. I plugged it into a kitchen wall socket, and pressed the power button. We heard the familiar whizzing and beeping as the POST ran, the hard drive engaged and the software loaded. The ThinkPad booted flawlessly, without a single error! In awe and near disbelief, I then ran Microsoft Word and opened my thesis document. My year-long efforts towards my thesis displayed intact and without any problems or data loss whatsoever.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:100%;" > Therefore, I am writing to express my deepest gratitude for building such a champion Personal Computer! When I travel. I treat my ThinkPad with gentle care. To have it tossed around in my car like a popcorn kernel in hot oil, and then to witness it boot without a single error really impressed me. Please accept my sincere congratulations and thanks for building such an outstandingly durable and carefully engineered product as the Lenovo ThinkPad 600X. </span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:100%;" > As I mentioned before, I do not remember many details of the accident. Should you wish to corroborate any of the details of the crash I can provide you with the names of the Hampshire State Trooper, the ambulance crew of the Exeter Fire Department or my friend who lent me her computer. They could all testify to the truth of this description.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-size:100%;" > Again, my gratitude goes to you for engineering such an excellent and outstanding PC! Based on my experience with the Lenovo ThinkPad, I would surely purchase another Lenovo Personal Computer, and I would recommend that others make the same investment. One cannot always foresee what will happen to ones laptop!</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ></span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ></span>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-23864285086918549082007-10-15T07:03:00.000-07:002007-10-15T07:05:25.608-07:00Another short story waiting to be writtenRead the <a href="http://outside.away.com/magazine/0597/0597grizzlies.html">story</a>.<br /><br />There are so many directions this could go. A criminal steals the anti-grizzly suit and uses it to rob banks. Or NASA buys it as a heavy-gravity exploration suit. Or...Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-68083892545839427812007-10-07T16:27:00.000-07:002007-12-27T16:37:39.806-08:00Trap shooting - second round<div>My second trap shooting trip, I shot an 18 and 19!</div><br /><div> </div><br /><div>Mer came with me this time. I gave her all the same pointers Bob gave me during our one-on-one session. One time, when she said "Pull," nothing happened. So she said, "Pull!" Still nothing. She looked over her shoulder with the loaded shotgun still pointed downrange. Bob looked up and started yelling, "Don't look at me, don't look at your husband, you look over there!" pointing at the lake. Mer loaded up with <a href="http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/45963-56427-2589.html">Winchester low noise low recoil target loads</a> that, with the earplugs in, isn't much worse than Black Cat firecrackers.<br /><br />Mer shot one round and scored a 5. That's lower than the average first shooter. But, as a side note, she called our favorite podcast, <a href="http://www.maximumfun.org/blog/labels/jjgo.html">Jordan Jesse Go!</a>, and they played her clip on the air. Way cool.<br /> </div>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-42426661027508286022007-10-05T11:17:00.000-07:002007-12-27T16:51:23.386-08:00Empire of Ivory - new Naomi Novik book<div>I'm signed up on exactly three writers' mailing lists. I was so excited when I got the email a couple weeks back announcing the new installment in the Tremeraire series by Naomi Novik that I told my co-workers and then spent an inordinate amount of time explaining what the Napoleonic Wars were and why dragons made an interesting addition.</div><div> </div><br /><div>Yesterday I went to my local B&N and snatched the last copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Ivory-Temeraire-Book-4/dp/0345496876/ref=nosim/intelligen050-20">Empire of Ivory</a> off the shelf. </div><div> </div><br /><div>This series combines the martial spirit and moral ambiguity of Patrick O'Brian with the workmanlike prose and the dragons of Anne McCaffrey, with an alternate-history Harry Turtledove twist. <br /><br />I read them mostly to enjoy the strange historical twist -- Napoleon trying to invade England with dragon-borne infantry? I also really enjoy the contrast (and the nod) to Patrick O'Brian. Here's the downside: because Novik isn't quite as dextrous a writer as O'Brian, her "nothing's happening" passages are much more tedious than his. Her action passages are less exciting. Finally, her evocation of the world of the dragons and dragonriders is not as detailed or self-referential as O'Brian's age-of-sail jargon.<br /><br />Ultimately, Novik's books are far easier reads. They're also less compulsively re-readable. I don't think they are bad, not by any stretch of the imagination. I recommend them -- and to those who thrill to Novik's adventures, I highly recommend Patrick O'Brian.<br /></div>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-88635478210113418132007-10-04T05:47:00.000-07:002007-10-04T06:06:30.780-07:00Escape Pod story: Save Me Plz by David Barr KirtleyPlease listen to the <a href="http://escapepod.org/2007/09/20/ep124-save-me-plz/">podcast</a> first, as this discussion contains spoilers.<br /><br />Lately I've been thinking a lot about worldbuilding and the importance of internal consistency in a story, especially in speculative fiction. Here's a story that does an exemplary job of playing by its own rules, and even better, does so in a surprising way.<br /><br />Meg is a regular college student who takes a sword with her whenever she goes outside, just in case she runs into a goblin or a giant spider. Her boyfriend Devon has vanished -- lately he's done nothing but play this new MMORPG, and now he hasn't spoken to her in four months.<br /><br />So Meg buys a copy of the game and logs in. She receives a mysterious message from Devon's character: "I've discovered something big in the game but I'm trapped. Help me, please."<br /><br />Meg begins a quest to save Devon and is assisted by a character that sounds like the Dungeon Master from that awful D&D cartoon you may remember from Saturday mornings many years ago. The DM gives Meg a unique and powerful artifact, the Wand of Reification, which is capable of altering reality to make the wielder's dream come true.<br /><br />Meg has an encounter with lascivious goblins in a black SUV (funny how these recently-fetishized symbols of conspicuous consumption are now used as an indication of selfishness and evil) and finds the castle where Devon is trapped. On her way in she finds another Wand of Reification resting on an altar. Then, an armory full of suits of armor and racks upon racks of wands similar to the two stuck in her belt.<br /><br />She finds Devon, and he explains to her the following:<br /><br />1. Their world is really just a sophisticated simulation (using Heisenberg's uncertainty principle / quantum mechanics to prove his point).<br />2. Their world has a bug in its programming, allowing Meg to receive 2 Wands of Reification rather than just one. (The DM appears and Devon hands him the extra wand.)<br /><br />Then the big reveal -- Devon has been using Meg to get these wands (over 1200 of them!) repeatedly, and using the wands to change the world to be more like -- you guessed it -- a fantasy MMORPG.<br /><br />There's one poignant moment. Meg asks, "Why can't I remember any of this?" Devon tells her, "Because if you restart a quest you lose all your progress." And she's set out to save him so many times.<br /><br />In the end she agrees to help him again and there's a wonderful Mandelbrot moment where he explains to her that the way she has to re-start the quest is to sit down at his computer and play the MMORPG.<br /><br />There's a flash-forward at the end of the story, wherein Devon and Meg (now Prince Devonair and the elf maid Lena) are globetrotting heroes who slay dragons by the truckload and commute to their adventures via dragon or unicorn. Devon's world is finally, fully in place, and the original world barely a shadow in Meg's mind. <br /><br />Here's what works about this story: the author gives us a fantasy world, somewhat consistent with the world we know of in WoW or EverQuest. Then he exploits the same sort of loopholes that are discovered and exploited in the game -- the programming bug in the quest system. Then he uses the rules of the game to affect the real world, which becomes more like the game.<br /><br />My exposition on the well-crafted nature of this story's plot is nowhere near as elegant as the construction of the story itself. It's definitely worth a listen if you're interested in plot. The writing is a little on the flat/uninspired side but if you can get past that you'll find a story that's highly virtuous in its construction.<br /><br />Download <a href="http://escapepod.org/2007/09/20/ep124-save-me-plz/">Save Me Plz </a>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-51756444294904303352007-09-30T22:36:00.000-07:002007-10-07T16:27:06.370-07:00Trap Shooting<div><div>A week ago I purchased a Stevens 311A double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun. It looks like this one: </div><br /><br /><div><a href="http://www.avidsportsonline.com/images/Stevens_311.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.avidsportsonline.com/images/Stevens_311.jpg" border="0" /></a> ... only mine's a lot more beat-up. Remember the gamekeeper from <em>Lady Chatterley's Lover</em>? Imagine the kind of shotgun he'd carry and you're pretty close. The stock on mine has some dings and grime is ground into the grain of the wood. The blueing is mostly gone from the barrel -- the remaining finish is a kind of smooth, even brown.<br /></div><div>Today I drove to Outdoor World and bought a few boxes of game shells (2 3/4", #8 shot). Fortunately one of the guys behind the counter was:</div><div>A) a grown-up</div><div>B) knowledgeable about guns -- <em>quelle surprise!</em></div><div></div><br /><div>Then I drove to the <a href="http://www.markhampark.com/">Markham Park</a> skeet and trap range. Now, I've never done this before in my life. Luckily the sky was rather overcast and the range was pretty much empty. I had an entire (field?) to myself. Next door, a 16-year-old girl with a semiautomatic shotgun was blasting clay pigeons with monotonous regularity. </div><br /><div></div><div>I put my ear protection on and Bob, the range officer, told me to go to the first post. This puzzled me as the field consisted of five narrow sidewalks in a fan formation, flaring out toward a lake. Bob watched me wander forward for a moment before shouting, "Where the hell are you going?" </div><div> </div><div>"Post 1. Is that it?" I pointed toward a yard of white PVC pipe sticking out of the ground. </div><div> </div><div>He shook his head in a way that I associate with my dad-- as if in expectation that certain information, mostly about cars and sports and firearms, is genetically encoded and passed down to all males. </div><div> </div><div>Eventually Bob showed me where post one was. I faced a lovely lake, perhaps 1000 yards across, behind which was a stand of trees oddly denuded of foliage. Bob retreated to a lawn chair under a sun umbrella well behind me. </div><div> </div><div>He offered to show me a clay pigeon before I shot -- he called it a "mercy bird." </div><div> </div><div>"Sure," I said.</div><div> </div><div>Something the size and shape of a china saucer, painted fluorescent orange, whizzed into the air like a frisbee, arced, and gracefully banked into the lake.</div><div> </div><div>I loaded a shell into my left barrel (the Stevens has two triggers, one corresponding to each barrel). "Okay, I'm ready," I said.</div><div> </div><div>Bob stared at me.</div><div> </div><div>"Pull!" I said. The clay pigeon flew. I lined up on it and pulled the trigger. Nothing. Not even a click.</div><div> </div><div>Now, let me say at this point that this shotgun was old (circa 1953) and had been hanging on a pawn shop wall for probably 10 years. I paid less than $200 for it. I hadn't dry fired it and didn't know enough about it to really detail strip it and insure function. For these reasons, I always half-expect any of my new firearms acquisitions to explode when I pull the trigger and am at least mildly relieved when they don't. </div><div> </div><div>I looked down and realized that the safety had been on. Ah! I thumbed the safety off and nodded. "Pull!"</div><div> </div><div>The clay pigeon flew. I knew the safety was off, so it was make or break, explode or survive time. I pulled the trigger. I heard a click. The pigeon peaked, seemed to hover for a moment, then slowly tilted to the left and joined its brother at the bottom of the lake. I scratched my head.</div><div> </div><div>There are several reasons for a gun to go <em>click</em> when you're expecting a <em>bang</em>. Usually, it's the safety. But I knew the safety was off. Sometimes the ammo doesn't fire properly. I broke open the gun and peered at the shotshell within. Not even a tiny little nick on the primer -- which means the firing pin hadn't hit it. I closed the shotgun again. WTF?</div><div> </div><div>"Are you pulling the right trigger?" Bob yelled at me.</div><div> </div><div>Of course. Two barrels, two triggers. I gave him a confident nod and shouldered the gun. "Pull!" </div><div> </div><div>The clay pigeon flew. I lined up and pulled the back trigger. The gun roared and bucked. The clay pigeon peaked, hung tauntingly in the air for a long moment, and gradually settled into the water. </div><div> </div><div>Fortunately, I thought, there was no one else there to see my shame. I looked at Bob. He looked at me. I could kill him if I had to. I cursed myself for not giving an alias.</div><div> </div><div>I missed the next 12 shots. Then I got smart and asked Bob what I was doing wrong. Turns out I was aiming the shotgun like it was a rifle -- that is, putting the front sight on the target and pulling the trigger. With a shotgun you need to actually cover the target with the barrels, to shoot as if it was slightly higher. After this and another couple of criticisms, Bob sat back down in his lawn chair.</div><div> </div><div>I went on to break 10 clay pigeons in my first round. Not too bad considering that I had no idea what I was doing. I opted for a second round.</div><div> </div><div>Now, I've fired shotguns before. I have fired 12 gauge buckshot which kicks like Jackie Chan. I know the best way to control recoil is to keep your cheek welded to the stock, so instead of a sharp whack you get a shove. Well, about halfway through the second flight, I forgot this important lesson. The butt of my shotgun reached over and cracked me right on the cheekbone. It didn't hurt too badly but the problem was that I wanted to keep my cheekbone off the stock on the next shot, which resulted in another whack. The more tender that spot became, the further I held my face away from the shotgun, which resulted in increasingly vicious smacks.</div><div> </div><div>By the time I finished the second flight my right cheek had swelled noticeably. I looked like I had half a case of mumps. </div><div> </div><div>I scored 11 on the second flight.</div><div> </div><div>And here's the thing: I had a psychotically good time. I loved it even though I missed more than twice as often as I hit. The moving targets make the game much, much more challenging. I can't wait to go back.</div><div> </div><div>By the time the flight was over, I felt like I'd been </div></div>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-65977542781046299392007-09-14T07:41:00.000-07:002007-09-14T07:41:50.952-07:00Why every writer needs a blog<blockquote>George,<br /><br />Sorry to resort to drastic measures such as commenting on your blog, but<br />I'm trying to follow up on a permissions request to reprint your piece "How I<br />Learned to Fly" in a coming-of-age anthology for The New Press. Both email<br />addresses I have for you were no good! Would you drop me a note and let me know<br />if you received my request letter, originally mailed to you July 20th?<br /><br />Fred Courtright<br />aka "Perm Dude"<br />Freelance Permissions Editor<br /></blockquote><br />The <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/13094022242602632010">Perm Dude</a> never would've tracked me down -- because I'm so rootless -- except by Googling my name and tracking down my blog. Thanks, Google and Blogger!Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-64673522186596884172007-09-14T05:54:00.000-07:002009-07-26T17:40:56.031-07:00A 9/11 memorial<div>How did you commemorate the terrorist attacks on the US? Here's what Greg Perry did:<br /></div><blockquote><br /><p>Tuesday, September 11, 2007, I celebrated freedom in the best way possible.<br />I bought a gun. </p></blockquote><br /><p></p><br /><div>But he didn't just buy any gun, no sir!<br /><br /></div><br /><blockquote>It’s not just any gun. It is <em>the</em> gun. I bought an M1A. A Springfield Armory<br />M1A, a .308 caliber rifle. A rifle that shoots a bullet that has more energy<br />after the bullet flies 300 yards than an M16/AR-15 has at its muzzle.<br /><br />In other words, my real rifle’s bullet is still more powerful after<br />it’s traveled 300 yards than the U.N.’s bullet the moment it leaves the gun. My M1A has far more than twice the distance of those little 22-caliber peashooters that the jackbooted thugs carry with them when they descend upon a nation to squelch the life from it. My rifle can really reach out and touch someone.<br /></blockquote><br /><p>Now, there are several interesting things going on in these two paragraphs. The author's assurance that his purchase is a "real rifle," "<i>the</i> gun," strikes one as, well, protesting too much. Sometimes a cigar is so much more. Sometimes your phallic substitute is .08 inches larger (in diameter, of course) than the other guy's. </p>And, I'm sorry, but what in the world is going on with the "jackbooted thugs"? I wasn't aware that jackbooted UN troops descend upon nations and use their "peashooters" to "squelch the life from" them. Maybe they don't show it on CNN?<br /><p></p><div>We also must assume that the author is prepared to drop the UN's jackbooted thugs at range. Or, as he so eloquently puts it, his "rifle can really reach out and touch someone." Here's where the Freudians start giggling. Stay away, "little .22-caliber peashooters" because my bullet is more powerful at 300 yards than yours is at the muzzle. <i>Nyaaaah</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Guys who buy guns, and let's be honest, guys who conspicuously consume any durable good, love to talk about how much better theirs is than everyone else's. Although normally it's the neighbors who provide the yardstick rather than an international peacekeeping organization -- excuse me, I meant "jackbooted thugs." </div><div><br /></div><div>I enjoyed reading this post so much I just had to share. Prepare yourself to be reached out to and touched!</div><div><br />The full, original post is here: <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/perry/perry36.html">What I Did on 9/11 by Greg Perry</a> </div><div>Stay safe, Greg.</div>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-11676979871361739322007-09-13T17:44:00.000-07:002007-09-13T17:44:44.034-07:00PayPerPost.com offers to sell your soul<a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/06/30/payperpostcom-offers-to-buy-your-soul/">PayPerPost.com offers to sell your soul</a><br /><br />And no one's willing to buy my soul.<br /><br />When you work in online marketing you see things like this all the time. It's rather unfortunate that online media work so hard to blend "editorial" with "advertisement." Even more unfortunate that, unlike <em>The New Yorker</em> and other magazines, advertorial content doesn't come on a completely different paper weight (easily identified and ripped out) with a honking big ADVERTISING disclaimer.<br /><br />There's a lot of money in blurring the line between advertising and, for lack of a better word, truth.<br /><br />The next step in the evolution of the Internet: some brilliant (anti-NetZero) ISP will offer a totally commercial-free experience. They'll block not only pop-ups but Adsense ads, banners, affiliate links, junk websites, even those obnoxious double-underlined commercial links -- all that. And they'll charge... well, how much are you willing to pay?<br /><br />A lot, I'll bet.Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-29152358233952503892007-09-13T06:31:00.000-07:002007-09-13T06:31:42.977-07:00Short story waiting to be written<a href="http://news.google.com/nwshp?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8">Google News</a>: <strong>Two War Critic Soldiers Killed in Iraq</strong> - ABC News<br />Two of seven soldiers who wrote a controversial New York Times editorial about their war experiences in Iraq were killed Sept. 10 in Baghdad."<br /><br />In my mental universe, this story would be about the black ops assassin who was setting up these critic soldiers and, perhaps, the embedded journalist (or blogger?) who discovers the truth behind the operation.Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-40653401947976545782007-09-11T07:09:00.000-07:002007-09-11T07:14:45.717-07:00Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips for Writing WellI've been thinking more and more about the intersection of creative writing and marketing -- which is as good a definition of <strong>copywriting</strong> as I've ever heard. <br /><br />I like to think I'm adding value to my skills as a fiction writer by working on marketing writing. Sure, it's overkill to compare marketing writing to Hemingway, but it makes us hacks feel a lot better about ourselves. Minus the Nobel Prize, the house in the Keys, and the bestselling novels, of course...<br /><br />My favorite part of this post: Hemingway was challenged to tell a story in only 6 words. The result? is a suitably melancholy sentence it seems only Hemingway could write.<br /><br /><blockquote><em>For sale: baby shoes, never used.<br /></em></blockquote><br />Full post <a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/ernest-hemingway-top-5-tips-for-writing-well/">here</a>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-71567113244539025572007-08-10T18:15:00.000-07:002007-09-13T18:21:22.807-07:00"Circle" accepted by F&SF!Yesterday I found out that Gordon Van Gelder at <a href="http://www.fsfmag.com/">F&SF</a> accepted my story <em>Circle</em>!<br /><br />This is pretty big news for me -- it's only my second (third?) pro publication in a periodical. The first, "DragonDrop," appeared in Writer's Digest <em>The Year's Best Writing</em> a long time ago. The second, <em>Welcome to Justice 2.0</em>, was also in F&SF. But <em>Justice</em> was a flash piece -- only a couple of hundred words long. <br /><br />When I mentioned it to <a href="http://www.benjamindesign.com/lairdbarron/index.html">Laird Barron</a>, he told me that the second pro sale was way more important than the first -- that a second sale put a writer way, way ahead of the one-hit wonders who appeared in the magazine. I'm not sure if this is true or false but it made me feel even better.<br /><br />I don't yet have a date for publication -- I know Gordon buys stories way in advance sometimes. It'll feel so great to add another journal, especially one that I admire so much, to my shelf of contributor's copies!Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-11750716147966278902007-04-17T04:53:00.000-07:002007-04-17T04:54:43.926-07:00Vacant neighborsThe vacant house nextdoor has displayed two different realtors' signs since we moved in. It's vacant. I imagine the owners are sweating somewhere, arguing about whether they should lower the price, sweating every mortgage payment, the wife crying herself to sleep at night, the kids unable to eat breakfast because the tension twisting their stomachs precludes feeding. Seduced by the up-up-up real estate market and now one of the many families left holding the bag, as it were. It's all very told-you-so in the abstract but in the concrete, much more brutal. I keep thinking of that Carver story where the wife yells at the husband, "Bankrupt!" The ultimate declaration of worthlessness in a capitalist society.<br /> Maybe they were even convinced to invest more money in having the house kitted out with a limestone kitchen and marble bathrooms? There will be, if there isn't already, an entire industry designed to prey on the bag-holders to help them liquidate their vacant properties at bargain-basement prices. The people who can't afford to ride out the downturn will be crying.<br /><br /> It's interesting to see evidence of abstract economics right next door to my house. It's less fun to read the Times article called something like, "Keep Renting For Another Year," but even that is somehow okay. I guess what I'm really after is confirmation that we made a smart choice, that we won't be among those who have to go begging to make the next mortgage payment. As long as I'm on the right side of that line then I can observe the phenomenon.<br /><br /> It's not romantic, though – I couldn't turn it into a good story. I couldn't write dramatically about people who can't make their mortgage payments. About people living in a haunted house, yes. If their 5-year-old son is communing with flying demons at night, yes. If the husband finds mason jars full of preserved ears in the walled-in closet, yes. But finances? No thank you, John.Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-10900499488969280402007-04-15T08:00:00.000-07:002007-04-15T08:06:23.551-07:00GardensMy grandpa's skin was the same color as the earth he tilled and planted every summer. His straw hat and forehead, glistening. The black crescents under his fingernails packed with good honest dirt. The green sharp smell of the sun-hot tomato vines. Pale football-sized watermelons heavy on the side of the low earth mounds. Papa's waistband five shades sweat-darkened. Handle of the hoe and shovel long rubbed paint-free. The dirt so brown, powdery and silt-fine between your fingers and underneath the secret chocolate-brown rich earth that feeds the secret white hair-fine rootlets of the carrots, the cucumbers, the yellow-blooming cantaloupe vines, the spidery tall tomatoes, the bell peppers small and glossy, the sprawling cabbages lacy with caterpillar-bites, the short jalapenos and the tiny radishes.<br /><br />My dad's garden: flat, sun-blasted and populated with straggling weeds and knee-high cornstalks that bowed under the heat. A relic, really, the tree-lined acre edged with ancient oaks and honeysuckle and a patch of blooming iris. But not even the weeds sprouted green from the poisoned earth. Every August, Dad sprayed the garden hose through the garden as if hoping a sprinkling of well-cold water could revive the crop. Every year we harvested nothing we could eat.Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-56753330101734520002007-04-14T11:06:00.000-07:002007-04-17T05:10:51.489-07:00Finally rejected by AHMMTook them long enough... what, six months? I'd like to think my story made it to round 2, at least, but there's nothing about the form rejection slip to indicate that my story did anything but begin to compost in the slush pile.<br /><br />I don't feel too bad about it, though, because it's a good story. I used to submit stories I knew were unfinished and kind of skulk around and cross my fingers and hope that they fooled the editors (don't laugh -- it's worked a time or two) and end up in the pages of a journal, adding no credit either to myself or the publisher. But <em>The Black Temple</em> is a good story. It will find a home.<em> </em>Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17538403.post-68544265355834140012007-03-15T07:59:00.000-07:002007-03-15T08:06:59.740-07:00Story idea<a href="www.johndufresne.com/Dufresne%20Blog.htm">John Dufresne</a> is always posting story ideas on his blog.<br /><br />Here's my next story idea:<br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/25/AR2006122500192.html">www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/25/AR2006122500192.html</a><br />British troops Raid, Raze Station House In Southern IraqGeorgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18269913375393024863noreply@blogger.com0