Geeks pour one out for their homie

I saw on the news that Gary Gygax died yesterday. If you don't know who that is, it's probably because you were getting laid in high school. Gary Gygax is the guy who created Dungeons and Dragons. You see, before the internets were created, there was no such thing as World of Warcraft and movies like Harry Potter. Special effects were so rudimetary that film studios had to rely on cheap gimmicks

knitting disaster!

I finished my swap hat and for some reason it came out way too small! I'm not sure what happened, but there's no way I can give it to my swap partner. I sent a message to the leader of the swap telling her that I was going to be a bit late sending mine off because of the disaster and I started over. This time I did a gauge swatch and changed needle size. I think that's why it was wrong. So now I'm freaking out a little because the deadline is tomorrow and there's no way I'll get it finished by then! Yikes!

I do hope the swap master is understanding about it. I'd hate to be banned from the swap because I messed up my gift and wanted to start over.

No big news otherwise.

Almost famous

A nice article about the opening of Target tomorrow in my ghetto...errr, neighborhood. On saturday, I was interviewed by Channel 9 news about the development by the metro, and I was on TV at 6 and 11. I told a few people I know about it, but I didn't tape it with my old school TiVo (i.e. my VCR) because, honestly, I only have a couple of VCR tapes (I'm not a caveman, afterall), and I didn't want

outlining, outlining, outlining

I worked on the Draha outline over the weekend, but I don't have a word count. I'll update it later today or tomorrow. The framework of the story is really coming along. I'm glad I decided to start over and outline. It's really helping me organize my thoughts. I'm happy with the new direction and I think it'll make things so much easier when I'm finished with the outline and I actually start writing. My goal now is to finish outlining all five books by October and start over on the first one, probably for NaNo this year. The NaNo goal is only about half of the first novel, but it'll be a good start. Maybe I'll push myself and do NaNo pace through December too, that way I can finish the first book by the end of the year. It's so much easier with an outline, so I know I'll be able to do it. The first NaNo I won was actually easy for me because of the detailed outline I had already created for the story. There are a few other stories dancing around in my head right now, but this one takes priority.

swap hat

I did some knitting this weekend. I need to finish my swap hat. It's not a difficult pattern. I chose the only hat pattern I've done before because I know I can do it and it will look decent. I don't want to try a new pattern when I'm making it for someone else. It may turn out to be a disaster and then what? So I'm sticking with something I know I can do. I got to the point in the pattern where the knitting goes fairly quickly, so I should be able to finish by the deadline, which is this week sometime. I'll have to check to make sure of the date, but I know it's this week. I might sit out the next swap, just to give myself a break and work on some of my other projects. I still haven't finished the purse I've been working on forever. I really want that purse, so when I'm finished with the swap hat, I'm going to concentrate on it.

the kids

I got to spend some time with my sister's kids this weekend, so that was good. They were with their dad on Saturday, but yesterday, I picked them up and took them shopping. Noah's birthday is Friday, he'll be 12 years old, so I thought it was time for him to have a grown-up bicycle. He picked out a great one, and rode it around my front yard for about 30 minutes before I had to take him (and the bike) home. I think he's going to enjoy it. He has a lot of room to ride it at his house, and he has a friend who lives about half a mile away from him down a small gravel road that no traffic ever goes down, so he can ride it to his friend's house when they are going to hang out. He lives close enough to the high school that he could actually ride it to school when he goes to 9th grade, but that road has a lot more traffic, so I'm not sure if it's the best idea for him to do that. It's ultimately up to my sister, but if it were up to me, I would have to really think about it first. On Friday, we made a date to go see a movie. He's having a party Saturday, but I wanted to have him on his actual birthday. That will be fun, I'm sure. He's a great movie buddy!

here we go...

This week marks the beginning of the intense work on the upcoming work project. It's going to be great! I always love being busy at work. I can't stand having nothing to do. That's why I always hated all those retail jobs I had before finishing school. There were times every shift that would be so dead that all you could do was stare around the store looking for something to straighten or clean. But of course, there's only so much of that, so once you go over the entire store, if you still don't have any customers, you're back to staring around looking for something to do. Boring! Anyway, jobs like the one I have now are so much more interesting, because there's no such thing as being bored!