How to Get Out of a Speeding Ticket

1) Go right now to www.letchworthpines.com. Find something about "Wyoming County Idol" and vote for someone named Jennifer Griffith.

2) Speed through the town of Alfred, New York. (This offer not valid in any other municipality.)

3) Make sure you get pulled over by a short, bald cop. Be sure his last name is "Griffith." (This offer not valid with any other cop.)

4) As you hand over your license and registration, tell him, "Man, I voted for your wife on that web site so she could win that singing competition thing at the bar! Your brother put it on his blog!" (This offer not valid if you don't vote. He can tell. He's got that knows-when-you're-lying cop thing going on.)

5) Said cop (my brother) will then be forced to let you go with a warning and probably a pat on the back, even if his wife doesn't win, as long as you don't call him a "pig."

However, he won't mind if you call him "the man."

D'oh!

This is me, if I ever visit Springfield, USA:

Tho, seriously, the shape of my head is inverted.

This is my buddy Joe if he goes with me, and this is about as dead-on as can be:

His head shape is not inverted.

Death Becomes Her

My wife - whom I call Squanto, the Zombie Slayer -- walked amongst the dead this week.

Somehow, it fell upon her shoulders to drive to Rochester, New York, and attend a photo shoot for her magazine that involved an occupational therapy student who cuts up cadavers. Oh, that's right, no one else would go because dead people were involved.

Man, if I didn't have a new job, I would so loved to have gone. You can't buy that kind of experience, seeing lots of people with toe tags. And the smell...

That was  big topic of conversation in the 24 hours leading up to her trip. She took extra clothes just in case humanmeat stank got on her. Or some fluids. Turns out it did smell, but not too bad, and there wasn't much in the way of fluids. The bodies were embalmed, and she said the one she saw you wouldn't have even recognized as human as the kids had been MERCILESSLY STRIPPING AWAY ITS FLESH FOR WEEKS. Or something.

Anyway, kudos to her for handling her time with not-so-freshly expired so well. I wish I could have been there.

Harry Potter and the Ewoks of Endor

I suppose I should note for the record that I finished reading Harry Potter book 7 at 1:45am on Monday July 23. And loved it. [SPOILERS...] I though the first half was kinda slow, grew a little worried it would never pick up, I really thought the whole fawn Patronus thing would go unexplained and got even more worried, but by the time they rode the dragon out of Gringotts, I was so on board I couldn't put it back down.

Still, that epilogue? Meh. I'd rather have seen Harry and Ginny raising Teddy Lupin just a couple years later, maybe with the toddler sprouting purple werewolf hair. Oh well.

And I'm sad about Tonks. I saw her in the movie, fell in love (as I knew I would after having read book 5) and then a few hours after I watched her hair change color on screen, she's gone. Dead, but fittingly, as a hero of the Battle of Hogwarts. Nymphadora, I hardly knew ye.

Timeline of Tedious Travel

The following takes place between  2:00pm and 4:00am. (Cue Jack Bauer countdown noise.)

2:00: I check online and see that Delta flight for 5:21 from JFK to Syracuse is ON TIME. Sweet. I figured after the rain this morning (and numerous jokes about it with fellow PC Mag staffers), I'd be screwed.

2:45: Catch cab on Park Avenue to JFK. Driver, a happy Jamaican guy, expertly navigates there in 45 minutes, despite delays due to floods on the highways. Seriously. We drove through one.

3:30: Enter Terminal 3 for Delta. Spy a sign saying "Full Service Line" so I jump on it, assuming that's what I want to get a boarding pass and check my suitcase.

4:30:Start panicking as I read sign saying the won't check bags after it's 30 minutes to boarding. I have 20 minutes left. And still have 9 people ahead of me in line. One of whom I'm sure used to be a ZD bigwig back when I did my first tenure there. I took a picture of him on my cell phone, I need to show him to Joe.

4:45:By a miracle, I finally get up to the desk. I'm told this line is really meant for "international" passengers, even though only one of the stations says "International." Oh, and my flight is cancelled. Apparently that happened HOURS before. How could I not know that, the guy seems to be saying without saying it. "Well, I've been on this line for 90 minutes." He shrugs and points over at the line I should have been in saying, "It was on a screen over there." None of which helps me. I check my bag, assuming I'll take the next fight at 9:05, on stand-by.

4:50:I try to call the wife but call doesn't go through, so I hang up.

4:51:She calls me back on the cell, just as I'm taking off my left sneaker to put on the tray for the x-ray. This is the first of three trips my shoes and other belongings -- including two laptops now, mine, and one I got from work -- will take through radioactivity this evening.

5:00:I've entered full blown pissed off mode, which I mostly take out on Delta by ranting about it on the phone with the wife. She's not really interested. I don't blame her. I'm drawing stares.

5:15:Ass-hat mode shifts to a second panic mode when I get to Gate 24 and find a line longer than the one I spent 90 minutes in earlier. I'm never getting out of this airport if they can help it. I call the travel agent ZD used to book my flights, to get some perspective on my choices here. They are 1) Wait for the stand-by flight and pray or 2) book a flight on another airline, like JetBlue or 3) rent a car and drive to Syracuse to pick up my car. I'm leaning heavily toward 3.

5:30:I leave the terminal and go to baggage claim office, to ask if I can get back my checked bag. She says go to the other end of baggage claim and ask the guys in the red shirts. Unfortunately, they are not expendable security guards: they're the guys who unload all the baggage. And what the were doing now was putting up with a long-ass line of people who's luggage never came out when their flight came in.

5:35:Back upstairs, it's time for my second trip through security. Once again, four plastic bins, one for each laptop, and one for each laptop bag. I stick the sneakers in with one of the bags. I do all this while the TSA performs the incredibly important act of making two elderly people who'd come up in wheelchairs take off their footwear and coats and all and walk through. The TSA is the second most despicable government run agency next to the IRS, but is gunning for #1. At least IRS agents know what they're doing.

Oops, forgot to take off my watch, so I set off the detector. I hand the guy my watch, back out, come back through. It still beeps. Christ. I take off my belt and stick it on the conveyor. I pass this time. (I didn't take off the belt the first time I went through the earlier detector and got through fine. Excellent security consistency.) I grumble and bitch and moan and grumble some more as I essentially redress in front of the crowd.

5:50:I skip the one-mile line at gate 24 again and approach a gate agent with Delta for a flight to Albania or some shit. I don't know, don't care, I just want to find out one thing: Do I stand a chance of getting on the 9:05 flight. The answer: no. There's 37 seats. Only 11 of which have not been issued boarding passes. They've  still hours to go for check in. And 18 people are on standby. Turns out the airport was shut down for four hours this morning while the city was flooded by intense rain; add to that, two Delta flights to Syracuse were cancelled outright due to equipment problems. All four flights from Delta to Syracuse for tomorrow are sold out. So I may get home by the weekend unless...

6:05:Back to baggage claim. I get in line. I'm not optimistic, nor is anyone else in the line, like the Aussie ahead of me who got nothing. Each person goes up to the red shirts (most were actually purple) and shows a claim ticket. The guy writes down the number and then goes looking. A few people get their bags, most don't. I'm not even sure I can get mine since I didn't come in with it, I was going out.

6:31:One of the guys walks by and I point blank ask him, is this even possible? He seems to think so, and even though I'm not at the head of the line, he writes down the number and goes to look. I'm feeling confident, so I call the travel agent, Muriel, and she books me on the JetBlue flight going to Syracuse at 10:55pm. Excellent. Only five hours to KILL.

I tell Muriel she's been the best thing to happen to me all evening. I stop short of proposal of marriage.

6:45:MY BAG! W00T!

7:05:I find my way to the Air Train, which I think is a maglev monorail that rings all 9 terminals at JFK. It's comfy and air-conditioned and probably the nicest thing about this entire airport which should make the late present spin in his moldering grave for having his name associated with it.

7:25:Terminal 3 belongs to JetBlue. I always liked this airline, but then their prices went up, and worse, they pulled that 10 hours on the tarmac bullshit a while back. But, like Obi-wan, they are my only hope. So, it's back in line. Happily, this one moves much faster, as it's just to drop off bags for people with a boarding pass already. I got mine at a kiosk. I strike up a quick conversation with a kid in line behind me who's going with his friend to West Palm Beach, Florida, and find it is with the express intention of getting Laid with a capital L. These guys are pure Brooklyn, the accent is right out of the movies -- they both sound like Turtle on Entourage. I dub them the CPA and the Insurance Guy, for that is what they do for a living, which learn through their constant banter with each other.

Typical exchange:

"Bro, would you look at that."

"That is tight bro. I would so smack that."

Or>

"That kid gonna take that stick on the plane?"

"Stick?"

"That lacrosse stick, bro."

"I'd take it and smack him."

Or>

"This time, bro, I went with this kid toVirginia Beach, him and a couple of guys. Bro, guy was going down to this hotel just to see if his girl was staying there And we only got to stay two hours, cause one of the guys had to work the next morning."

"No way."

"He fucking made us drive for nine hours, just to stalk his girlfriend."

"I would beat him up."

"We met these girls tho."

"Bro, you just said, you only were there two hours."

"Yeah, but me and him, we went for a walk and met these girls and had them in the room with us untilfour o'clock. That shit was tight. Those other two guys, they were in another room. Fags."

8:00:I look at my watch and realize that if any of these travel plans had worked as they should, I would already be home.

8:01 : I check my bag and laughingly ask the guy if my fight is still leaving at 10:55. Ha ha! I mean, why wouldn't it? Of course, it's now leaving at 11:45.

8:15:Metal detection and X-Ray #3 for the evening. This time, I take off the belt along with everything else, but in my only bit of true civil disobedience of the night, I stand at the return conveyor belt and take an extra long time to put on my belt, and sneakers, and to put the laptops back in their bags. I'm a god-damn rebel, people.

8:30:The JetBlue terminal is wall-to-wall with the teeming masses of humanity. Worse, they're the traveling teaming masses, so they're ripe.

8:45:Hungry. Food. Need. Turning. Monosyllabic.

Hmmm...New York Sports Grill. And an empty table! Two glasses of Sierra Mist, one Diet Pepsi (I'll need the caffeine), a cheeseburger and fries later, all while reading a paperback, and I am a new man. (I'm reading Robert Crais's Demolition Angel.... the title makes me nervous to read it in an airport where the TSA feels the need to x-ray flip-flops as if they could hold explosives.)

9:30:Out in the terminal now, where I've been typing this. It's now 10:00 and I'm still hoping that in an hour and three quarters I will leave this insane asylum. If not, the rental car idea is still sounding pretty good.

10:15: JetBlue's people at Gate 9 have been delivering bad news to passengers going to Buffalo -- their plane is at the gate, but they have no pilots. So I got up to them and ask about the Syracuse flight, which is supposed to be at the same gate. The push-back of the Buffalo flight means Syracuse (now with fresh, new, improved 11:50 departure time) is going to a new gate. Eventually. They don't know yet. I leave and walk down to the ends of the terminal where I know I've got Wi-Fi access here before, but I still can't get online. And I was a Wi-Fi guy? Sheesh.

10:30 to 11:30:Read book. Feels more like a Connelly novel than a Crais.

11:30: Still reading, but hovering hear Gate 9, our supposed departure gate for flight 22 to Syracuse. Buffalo is ahead of us and the guy goes on the loud-speaker to tell "Syracuse passengers to remain sitting comfortably."

11:40:Flight 22 is now at Gate 15. Everyone goes there and lines up (I sit and read).

12:04:Flight 22 is now at Gate 1. This means walking across the entire length of the JetBlue Terminal. Which wouldn't be bad except now the flight to Santo Domingo is at our old gate, so it's a surging tide of central NewYorkers working against an equally determined number of central Americans. (Central Caribbeaners? I so wanted that "central" riff to work...)

12:15:Boarding... kids and cripples only. Damn it.

12:20: Rows ten and up. I'm in!

12:24:Ooo, Airbus 320. It's a real plane with over a hundred seats... and I get a row to myself. I could watch three different DirecTV channels at once. (I read instead.)

12:27:Headsets? Headsets? Headsets?

12:37: Safety check. We're promised a 45 minute ride by the flight crew. I want to yell out, "Yeah, but how many hours will be sitting on the runway??" When did I get so cynical about air travel? Sad.

12:41:Lights out.

12:46:Leaving gate.

12:58: Wheels up!

1:35: Touch down! -- and in less than 45 minutes. Amazing, considering the rest of the day.

1:55:Grab my suitcase from Baggage Claim carousel C. Because I left on Delta and came back on JetBlue, I have to walk across the entire length of the Hancock Airport, however.

2:20:Pay my parking fee and hit the highway. I had my first actual Coka-Cola (non-diet) in years on the plane, so I'm as wired as a meth addict with an adrenaline chaser to the heart. Or so I imagine.

2:45: Fog! Pea soup thing fog. I slow down and  laugh through my tears.

3:00: Remember now that caffeine is a diuretic. Actually, my bladder reminds me constantly. I wonder what will happen if a cop pulls me over for speeding at this hour, and I rush out of the car to whiz off the road so I don’t' ruin the inside of the car. I'm determined to go without stopping tho...

3:15: The back-road turn-off for my shortest route home: Road Closed. Begin ten minutes of creative cussing. (I also quickly activate the GPS to get me a quick route home.)

3:33: I pull into the garage like Adam West in a cowl. I barely make the downstairs bathroom in time.

3:50: After the necessary dog greeting and release to the outdoors, I'm finally in my own bed. I silently vow to never, ever, ever fly ever again. Ever.

City That Never Sleeps, Indeed

I have been in bed, wide awake, since about 4am. At a time when my brainmeat should be filled with images of nothing but Scarlett Johansson covered in chocolate frosting, I'm thinking about stuff for work. And it's not bad stuff, either. It's been a long time since that happened.

I really tried to get back to sleep. I mean, I have to fly home and then drive home from the airport tonight. I don't want to snooze at the wheel. But I became a bit to fascinated by a light on the ceiling I couldn't identify (it was the smoke detector). So now I'm up. Might as well blaaaaag.

The last two days at PC Magazine (almost always truncated to PC Mag, or as we in the know call it, just Mag) have been amazing, as I dive nose-first back into the world of print publishing. After so many years online, thinking I'd never go back to paper, I'd mentally written it off, so it's been great to see that people -- the staff-- really do believe in it and care to make it the best product they can. It's a long way from the heyday for any print pub, but there's still plenty of readers and when there's readers there's editors who make sure they've got something decent to read. Dog bless us, every one.

I had dinner over the last couple of nights with four of the best people I know, all having migrated to NYC in the days since I first met them. Kelly and Dennis are friends from my Access Magazine days (where I also knew Steph, my old boss who's now my once-again current boss). They, in fact, work with Steph's husband Sean, who also was at Access with us, but Steph and Sean couldn't come out as they're parents and apparently they have this belief that toddlers need constant supervision or something. What-ever. I say let 'em fend for themselves! We coddle kids today, what with the food and safety.

Dennis and Kel and I had a three hour dinner and drinks and I feel like I completely monopolized the conversation talking about me, me, me. I should just have printed my blog out for them to read. But we did have a nicely impassioned discussion about the chances of the Democratic presidential candidates. Cautious optimism may be overstating our feelings, but comes close.

Last night I met up with Allyson, who I worked with at WildWeb, and her husband Bryan, two of the nicest human beings I've ever met. Ever. They've got an apartment down near Union Square, which probably costs a mint even tho it's tiny, but as Bryan pointed out, he's got his couch and a 40-inch LCD HDTV, so who cares? They literally live a block away from everything they need in life: a Whole Foods, at least four dessert-only restaurants, a 14-screen stadium seating theater (or 3), about three costume shops (one that looks suitable for every dominatrix in the tri-state area), and best of all, the Strand bookstore and Forbidden Planet. I got to hear great tales of Allyson's thankfully former boss, she of the Devil Wears Prada caste, the Buffy Sing-a-Long, and of course, what's good on TV. They traveled the world, but still took time to download and watch Battlestar Galactica, which I can't help but admire. I may even have convinced her, despite some squeamishness, to watch Dexter. At least the opening credits, which are genius.

Afterwards, they walked me over to the subway in Union Square, but I couldn't quite bring myself to leave. I wandered around the crowd -- huge even at 9pm -- and eventually called my wife on the cell phone to see how her day was. It's nice for me to have something to tell her about my day other than "I sat in the basement." I even walked back down to Forbidden Planet to look around, but didn't stay long, as the proprietors do not believe in conditioning the hot, hot air for their guests. I saw a copy of Ultimate Spider-Man actually burst into flame. And they still tried to sell it at cover price.

Today's my last day in the office this week, and I've got lots of meetings: HR to do an orientation, with the production guy to show me a quick Adobe InDesign tutorial, with the art director to learn how he runs that department, and with the exec editor to discuss nuts-and-bolts of story submission and probably more. All before 2:30, when I take a cab out to JFK and pray that I fly out on time tonight. If it's too late, I'll be popping Vivarin just to drive home in one piece.

Of course, now that I've got this out of my system, maybe I should just go back to bed.

Naw. I'm going to go have breakfast on 5th Avenue.

Bathroom Instructions

This is a sign found inside each stall in the bathrooms at the ZD offices. Whenever I read it, all I can picture is a Farrelly Bros. movie with a dumb guy character taking it so literally, he tries to scoop out everything in the bowl except the toilet paper, running it over bit-by-bit to the trash can....

They Say It's Your First Day; It's My First Day, Too, Yeah.

As I write this, I'm sitting in a cafe/deli on the corner of 28th St. and 5th Avenue. From this second floor sitting area, I can see the Thai kickboxing gym opposite; below it a "Today's Mobile" store, a barber with two bored barbers, a closed food market, and the teeming masses. Supermodel-esque women in business suits with Chuck Taylors on. Young black men in doo-rags and jeans so loose they may show the full money. Overweight white guys carrying too many bags. Sometimes white guys with baggy shorts and bags and Chuck Taylors. I've seen one beagle and one weimaraner. A thousand and one cabs have gone by in just the 20 minutes I've been here with my bagel (plain – can't risk bad breath) and OJ (with extra calcium, not from concentrate).

It's my first day at the new job. My old boss, soon to be my current boss again, isn't going to be in, her kid is sick with a 104 fever. I think she's a little panicked, and who wouldn't be? Last time I had a fever like that, my dad made me get into a bathtub full of ice cubes.

I must really want to make a good impression, because I did something today I never do: I ironed. Shirt and pants. Though as I left the room, I could still see the creases in the shirt across my chest from where it was folded and pinned in the Van Heusen package until yesterday morning. I didn't iron it again, so even if it's not a good first impression, it may be more accurate.

I'm a trifle scared out of my gourd.

I suppose that's normal for anyone's first day at a new job. Lord knows I've had enough of them, I should probably be used to it, but I guess I haven't had enough, for which I'm just as grateful.

I wonder if they'll have some kind of staff meeting and I'll be introduced, or taken around to meet folks. Either way, the day will bring with it a flood of new faces, most of whom I will probably forget the name of instantly; I plan to make a concerted effort to remember names today, but usually I forget to remember that. I'll also get a new computer -- tho I may just pull out Maui the Sony VAIO and see if I can handle things from there -- and a cubicle to call my own. It's been a while.

The Only Stadium I Attend

I haven't gone to a movie since Knocked Up, even though I've wanted to see a few of the summer blockbusters (busting blocks for one weekend a year!) because, well, the local cineplex sucks. Not just overpriced and with sticky floors. I mean, bad screens, bad sound, and even worse seating.

But that changes on Monday when Ithaca finally gets a theater with stadium seating and new screens. It will be a nice change from the 20 year old seats in Regal's theaters 1, 2 and 3, where the metal edges of the seats are nice and rusty and if you lean you head back upon them you may need a tetanus shot. I got spoiled to this in my old house, but was seldom willing to drive an hour to get a theater that was provide this kind of viewing experience, not even for Spider-Man 3. Plus, the indy theaters downtown are building their own stadium-seating screens for the non-Hollywood flicks. It's almost a good time to be a movie goer. Of course, that is until you remember that most movies aren't even as good as a crappy episode* of Small Wonder.

*Sorry, they were all crappy.

Wasting the Day Away

There is sooo much I could accomplish today and tomorrow with these free days. Not just writing, but I could clean the garage. Or my office. Wash the two baskets of laundry. Beat the dogs.

Instead I'm sitting at the computer, reading blogs. Pathetic. For this I took two days between jobs?

Remember when my wife called me "adorable" earlier? How swiftly these things change. She called me a brat when I admitted I had a two-martini lunch. Kinda:

her: why are you not out on your hammock?
moi: i'm a little drunk :) hic
moi: and it's too bright in the sun. I read for a couple hours under the umbrella tho!
her: you are drunk?
moi: a LITTLE drunk. I've had two Mike's lemonades
her: mmm
her: brat
moi: me? why for?
moi: this is what unemployed people do! they drink!
her: they drink from sorrow
her: :)
moi: i drink from JOY

I almost fell asleep in my chair from the boozy effect, but its starting to wear off enough for me to operate some heavy machinery. AKA, time to mow the lawn.

Drive-Thru Blues

It was all going so well.

My first day of unemployment (first in a series of four!) was all about the errands. I was out and about by 8:25 to accomplish things like
1) Finish up my $2,700 worth of dental work
2) Recycle soda bottles (90% of which are Diet Sierra Mist)
3) Buy over-priced gasoline for my lawn tractor
4) Pay my fuel oil bill -- I have to start paying for the overpriced fuel in the summer to afford it during the winter
5) Buy my wife flowers. (She said, "you are too adorable" to me. Shucks.)

And I figured I'd end all of that on a high note with a donut. My favorite kind. But when I pulled up to the Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru and asked if they had any chocolate-cream filled, she said, "They no longer send them to us."

She went on to blather about how they only have the frosting on the outside now, but in my mind I only heard "blah, blah, blah." I now have to face four-days without a job and without chocolate-cream filled donuts? Jesus Harold Christ in a hand-cart. What am I supposed to do? WHAT?

So I left the DD drive-thru and went to the store and bought a Snickers bar.

The Bread Line

As of 32 minutes ago, I'm unemployed for the first time in almost six years.

And it's a nice feeling knowing it's not someone else's fault, I did it myself.

Four days from now I'll be in NYC starting the new gig.

What will I do with my few days off? Dammit, I should have scheduled this to happen after the Potter book came out! Oh well. I guess I could go see the Order of the Phoenix movie seven or eight times.

Things I Learned in Canada

1) Zoos are for the young. The VERY young. Do you know how many strollers there were at the Toronto Zoo today? Neither do I, because to try and count them would make even an OCD counter go mad. More strollers than there are decimal places in pi. And what's with the wagons for dragging the kids around? Personal note to everyone with a kid: If they can't walk on their own, they're not old enough to see caged animals. Capiche?

2) Don't turn on the jets in a jacuzzi tub until you are absolutely certain they're covered with water. And point the jets down. Otherwise, the walls will get wet.

3) Duty free shops are not for everyone. Specifically, they're only for people crossing the border. At least, that's how it works at the shop by the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Fals. The wife and I decided to stop and check it out, and I thought it was weird we had to wait for a traffic gate to go up so we could park. Once inside, we needed to know our license plate number to make a purchase, plus I listened to a clerk ask someone if they were crossing the border that day. Which seemed odd. I went outside to get the license number, and saw a drive-thru window. The only way to go to that window was to take a route that meant crossing back to the U.S. of A. on the bridge. Master detective that I am, it all clicked: they would give us the purchased duty free items only at the window, based on our license number and if we were leaving. We beat a hasty retreat to the car and had to wait for another to enter the lot to open the gate so we could essentially sneak back into Canada. Is it just me, or is that whole thing not clear? I mean, I've seen these shops in airports, am I not allowed to buy there unless I'm traveling internationally? WTF?

4) Canada has two dollar coins. They're kind of annoying.

Gimme back my hand... GIMME BACK MY HAND!

I never buy stuff when I go to the theater, except maybe a soundtrack album (like I did at Avenue Q). I didn't get the demon bunny at Spamalot. I didn't get the umbrella with the parrot head at Mary Poppins (well, I don't think they sold it, but I wouldn't have bought it anyway.) The wife bought a poster at Putnam County Spelling Bee, but that's it.

That all changed tonight. Evil Dead the Musical is, quite simply, the f***ing s**t. If you are anywhere near Toronto, Canada in the month of July 2007, go see it before it closes. You will be pleased. And quite possibly blood splattered.

Getting Into Paradise

I'm having a helluva good year. Hell, just the last three months have been outstanding.

First, I got an agent.

Then, I got a new job.

And with my resignation from the current-but-soon-to-be-former job I got some free money -- did you know if you have a flexible spending account and you get the check for it, then quite your job, you no longer have to pay in? Apparently, that's how it works, at least with them. So, Woo and Hoo.

(I also cashed in my last few company stock options. More Woo. Even more Hoo.)

And then today, well, I got the latest excellent surprise of aught-seven: I got into paradise.

Viable Paradise, to be specific.

It's billed as "A Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop," for that is what it is: five days of interaction with a bunch of strangers who will tell me why my work-in-progress novel sucks (or rocks, but I'm more prepared for the sucks). Tho I suppose my 8,000 word, damn-close-to-late submission rocked enough to get me in, so maybe I'm only half as sucky as I think. Or maybe I got in because of this line in my cover letter: "[This book] will have a platypus in it. And dinosaurs. And sex. But not between the two." (The Wife was not happy I put that in, but then again she'd never write anything with a horny platypus in it.)

While there, I can go all fanboy as the author of one of my favorite books of all time -- Jumper -- is one of the instructors. I will tell him the (probably all too typical) tale of how I tried to get his book made into a movie 16 years ago. (The movie of Jumper comes out next year, by the way. I'm trying not to be worried that it stars Anakin Skywalker, because it also has Mace Windu in it.)

The whole thing (Viable Paradise, not Jumper) takes place on Martha's Vineyard, so the wife -- whom I call Squanto -- plans to tag along and vacation the days away while I write and rewrite and read and write some more. There are some logistics to work out, not the least of which is that the first day of the workshop is the last day of a tradeshow I probably need to work at in NYC, and how Squanto and I will meet up to travel there since I'll be at said trade show, but I hope it'll be fine. I'm looking forward to this as much as I'm looking forward to my new job (13 days to go 'til that, by the way. But who's counting?)

Blame Canada

Tomorrow we leave for a five day vacation to the great white north-- Canada! While there, we'll see the sights and attend a showing of Evil Dead the Musical and eat back-bacon. It is the ultimate way to celebrate the U.S. Independence: leave the country.