I’ve been a bit fuzzy all day, to the point of being on the edge of a headache.  I think it’s because it was still on the early side last night when my wife suggested I put in something I would like to watch (she’s been watching ballet instructional videos of late, because she’s been offered an opportunity to teach a class in ballet as exercise at a local dance academy), so I put in the next of the Columbo episodes I bought some time back, and then stayed awake to watch it this time.  (I fell asleep last time, and am still wondering how that one went.)  So my sleep is more than usually disrupted.

We hit a setback on the publication of Game Ideas Unlimited:  Volume I.  It seems the print service we intend to use is forcing us to choose between keeping the 8.5×11 page size we wanted but using a spiral binding, or reformating everything for a 6.625×10.5 comic book size to have it perfect bound.  We’ve opted for the latter, so I have a lot of reworking to do to fix all the internal page references and make sure the fonts look good and are consistent throughout.

I was wrong about the directors meeting; it’s not until next weekend.  That gives me a bit more time to get the book together, but a bit less to get the printing and delivery done.

I think I was doing some work on the Gaming Outpost archives last night, but the days are starting to blur.  I’ve a son who needs to get back to his work address tonight, and a friend who needs to be delivered to Pennsylvania tomorrow night, and I’m not certain whether I’m going to be able to combine those trips, or whether someone else will manage one of them, or just how that’s going to work.

I’ve not heard back on the job application.  I’m guessing that means either they were so overwhelmed with applicants that they’ve let their response time slip, or they’ve filled the job.

So let’s wrap up the night and see what happens next.

–M. J. Young

I was actually so far along as to be backing out of the drive last night, on my way to bring home a son when my wife rushed outside and relieved me of that task.  Thus I was granted a bit of extra time, during which I put some into the proofreading of the new Game Ideas Unlimited:  Volume I and some into updating the Gaming Outpost archives, which I consider to be in part precursor to working on the next volume in the series, although I am admittedly doing much more than I need to do for that.  (After all, Aaron and company have always done much more than they needed to do for us, and it’s good to be able to return the favor, even though friendships are not about balance sheets.)

We are all working frantically toward the completion of this book.  I’ve asked four people for input on the cover design (quite apart from having asked everyone here), and three of them have answered, but I’m thinking that the fourth will help settle matters to a significant degree.  We have a directors meeting Sunday, and we hope to know what the cost per copy to us will be by that time, so that we can have copies in hand at Ubercon X at the end of the month–the last weekend of the month, for anyone who is in the area and hadn’t caught the dates.

Thus it is promising that I’ve gotten a bit of an early start, as I might just get a chunk of stuff completed before the day ends.

It comes to mind that last Thursday I delayed pointing to the next article in the old series because I’d promised to do that on Friday, and then everything fell apart bouncing it into a very tight Sunday.  To avoid such a complication this week, I’m going to point to the next article in the series now, Game Ideas Unlimited:  Transmats, and set up a thread in the forum for comments and thoughts on it.  I’ll see you there.

–M. J. Young

Yesterday’s Collision rehearsal could have gone better, but I am not complaining.

There were two big negatives. One was that Brittany is fighting off a cold and so struggling to hang onto her voice; she’s particularly concerned because she has a solo gig next Wednesday night and needs to be able to sing for it. I did take the opportunity to tease her that she needs to go easy at that concert so she doesn’t blow her voice before next week’s practice. The other negative is that Adam forgot that it was Thursday, and left while I was running some other errand to do homework with his girlfriend. I am not certain which class they share, or whether they were actually getting any work accomplished, but it meant he was not here. I’ve made him aware that he and I are going to have to grab some practice time before the next rehearsal, because the song we learned this week has a tough bass line, and the song slated for next week also has a tough baseline.

On the positive side, though, we picked the final song for our repertoire (now I have to find it and arrange it, and I know that there’s a copy in the praise music files at church but it wasn’t there tonight). Baxter had pretty much nailed the challenging guitar part for the song for this week, and Brittany managed to focus her attention on her rhythm guitar parts, so that’s all coming together nicely. Also, drummer John has been nagging me on several points, because he is eager to play, and I managed today to address one of them by asking at the music store about whether there are available practice halls anywhere around here. The answer apparently is at least one, and economically so, and I’ve got a phone number and a name.

I also looked at an amp that would probably be perfect to go between our mixer and our speakers for PA, but it’s not in my price range. Then again, I’m not at all sure what my price range really is, so there’s not much point haggling. I just know that this wasn’t within it.

I’ve also completed a couple more songs by putting my odd minutes into the midi program instead of solitaire. I’ve promised the drummer a CD of all the songs, and I’m pretty near the halfway point on fulfilling that promise.

I actually have been doing something Multiverser-related, but I’m supposed to keep that “on the QT”, as they say somewhere, at least until after our Sunday director’s meeting, so maybe I’ll have news then.

–M. J. Young

I did have some time to spare last night, but apart from taking a turn at the dishes and making sure everyone got supper, I put most of it into business matters: I attended to polishing the meeting minutes for the two recent directors meetings which the secretary missed. I also had to run an errand which had me sitting somewhere long enough to do a bit of editing on the Romans exegesis.

This morning I managed to complete the overly complicated registration process for IMDB board to post concerning The Sarah Conner Chronicles–a show I did not watch and have not decided to watch, but for which I’ve already been contacted and questioned. I posted there in response to a thread in which my Terminator temporal anomalies page was mentioned.

I’m hoping to get a bit of extra time today also, but we’ll see how that goes.

–M. J. Young

I will begin to apologize here; I will have more apologies to make on the forum. I had planned to take a son’s girlfriend home, and while that far from here visit an old friend to talk about Collision, music, and drummers, then return home to finish my work Friday night. Part of the derailment was due to the fact that wives always retain the prerogative to rewrite all plans to suit themselves; part of it was that it took longer to do some of the steps than anyone anticipated. Oh, and the part about making the wrong turn on Route 46 and going fifteen or twenty minutes in the wrong direction when we had been not more than a few blocks from our destination also helped. In any case, it was almost dawn by the time I got to bed, and I did not get my visit, although the girl was delivered to her abode sometime after one in the morning, and I do not wish even to consider how far after one that might have been.

I had intended then to go to church, take the trash to the dump, and do the grocery shopping, and including in the cracks the delivery and retrieval of our dialysis patient to the hospital. I did not make it to church, and each of those tasks ran either long or late, and there was a phone call interrupting the process at a point that did not need interrupting. By the time I sat down to do my Saturday morning study in Corinthians, I fell asleep in front of the computer; I gave up attempting even to make dinner, bought pizza, did some Romans editing while waiting, and attempted to get some sleep. Even this was derailed, as once I got to my bed I became absorbed in an episode of House I had never seen, followed by the Hitchhiker’s movie which despite being a disappointment to fans of the BBC miniseries was still worth watching, and then I was rousted a few times for various reasons ranging from being offered ice cream to needing to track down someone’s buzzing alarm clock.

There was a directors meeting today, so that again set me back; but business is part of the job, and it was a reasonably productive meeting.

Now I’ve got to go offer apologies to people on the forum, and try to finish my work at a decent hour. I’ve been warned that tomorrow is not going to run on schedule, so I’ll need to get some sleep tonight if I’m going to function through the day.

–M. J. Young

I had to do a bit of driving last night. Mostly it involved picking up people who needed or wanted to be here for Christmas who were unable to obtain their own transportation. However, in an odd turn that has me pondering, our art director asked me to autograph a photo for a friend, someone who started his role playing game experience in my living room about two decades ago. Thus at five this morning I was sitting in the restaurant where we usually hold our directors meetings discussing company plans when I should have been abed.

Before anyone asks for an autographed photo, I don’t actually have the photos–the art director made this one especially for his friend, one of the few people from that gaming group with whom he still has much contact. I was flattered to do it, as I am given to understand that my photo will appear on his study wall along with Neil Gaiman and Stan Lee and a few others, and while it’s a private wall, it’s still a surprising place for me to find my image. I apparently made someone’s shortlist of favorite authors, although whether it is because he likes my work or because I influenced his thought (he wants to write) or simply because he knows me I don’t care to speculate.

There is too much to do for me to be here, but there seems also to be some spanners in the works, so rather than waste time sitting on my hands waiting for others to be ready, I’m going to get as much done as I am able.

–M. J. Young

The scheduled directors meeting was both sparsely attended and brief, but the ground covered was solid. Our new Multiverser Triple Play series has everyone excited, and there was some discussion of directions for that. We also began discussing the idea of creating a Wiki, which we agreed we would consider and examine, and try to reach some decision by February.

I might have yet another new player coming, someone I know from church who took an interest in the game. His preference is for real-time MMORPG play, but this sounded interesting to him, so we’ll see whether he manages to find his way here following my somewhat lacking directions. He was attempting to find several different sites (the Christian Gamers Guild among them), and I was attempting to make it simple by sending him to one site–my own–from which the others would be linked.

I also put a bit of time into updating some of the music sheets for Collision, late on Friday, but I’ve still a lot to consider and a lot to accomplish.

–M. J. Young

We had an excellent, if abbreviated, session yesterday for Collision.

The slight delay in our start was my fault; I did not realize that Brittany would be driving, so I did not drop everything and run when Baxter said she was headed to meet us at the local pizza place. She was waiting when we arrived, but it probably only cost us about five minutes. She also had to exit early for an exam in a college math class; I hope she got there quickly enough.

We started by asking her to sing and play something for us, and we were quite impressed with her vocal abilities. She’s got a strong voice, a good range, and an ear for harmony, all of which are going to be very helpful; already I’m reconsidering how much I can rely on her voice in the songs we’ve chosen. Her guitar playing is probably better than adequate, a notch above Tyler of 7dB. Further, and unexpectedly, she owns an electric guitar, an amplifier, and an electrified acoustic–the instrument she prefers and the one I’d prefer to have her play. Also, she likes most of the songs we’ve chosen, and the rest she really likes, so this is promising.

We’ve agreed on Thursday afternoon rehearsals, as there is a window between when she gets off work and when Baxter goes to work when Adam and I are both available, and when term ends for her in a couple weeks that window gets larger, because she won’t have an evening class next term.

After she rushed off, Baxter and Adam and I worked on some of the instrumental parts, which seem to be coming together nicely at this point. I keep promising myself that I’m going to do more with Adam tonight, but I keep promising myself that I’m going to start dinner in a moment, too, and I’ve a lot to do. I’ve already done a bit of work on a world for use in the forum game, and I have to prepare for the upcoming directors meeting in addition to taking my son back to his brother’s house so he can get to work tomorrow. But all of us are excited about this at the moment, so it’s pretty high in my thoughts.

It was actually quarter after five this morning when I shut down the lights and went to sleep for forty-five minutes before rousting myself to launch the boy onto the bus–and he had more trouble awakening than I, I think. Of course, I went back to bed for a few periodically disrupted hours, and started my real day closer to two.

I would love to blabber some excuse about how I used all that time to catch up on the work I missed when the computer failed on Monday, but it’s a much more mundane explanation: I spent some of that time (not all of it–there still was work to finish) with my wife.

Today, however, has not been kind. It is a mercy that it is Thursday, a light day. However, Kyler needed a few things, and I had to buy some of them and bring all of them to his location; also, one of our houseguests had surgery yesterday and needed to be brought home today. In the midst of this, my poor mother-in-law called. She is worried that her social security check is not yet in the bank. I told her that there was no way I could get everywhere I needed to be and get her to the bank on time, and she was very upset; then I refigured everything, called her back and told her I could do it, but it would be tight; then I got held up with the part about buying things, and had to call her back to say no, I would have to attempt to do it tomorrow. I think that was more upsetting than just having said no the first time, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Thus I’m very near both the beginning and the end of my day–that is, I’m just getting started on today’s work, but I’ll be leaving to retrieve my wife from work before I’ve gotten much farther along. I’ve had to add things to tomorrow, and to Saturday, and am looking at quite a crunch, but at least I’m dealing with today today.

Also, I managed to pull together a draft of the notes for the directors meeting this Sunday. October is the month in which we normally elect officers and decide on our meeting schedule for the coming year, so it’s a big meeting; having that out of the way is good, particularly as there are so many things still in the way.

–M. J. Young

I am very happy with how much I accomplished on Saturday.

I set up enough of our new web site, Multiverser.org, that people will be able to find it and still find M. J. Young Net without too much inconvenience. There a few apologetic placeholder pages, a few dead links, and a few existing pages that need attention, but there is something there on which to build.

I also organized my notes for today’s directors meeting–a task which turned out to be of less importance than anticipated. One of our directors had informed me over a week ago that he was going to be out of town this weekend; one had a death in the family midweek and between the funeral and the visiting relatives anticipated being otherwise occupied; one did not make it for reasons that are as yet unclear to me. Two directors is not sufficient for a quorum, so our meeting notes were more a mental exercise for me to work through what I needed to remember.

I made an appearance at the funeral Saturday morning before church, and connected with the couple who were interested in the audiobook version of What Does God Expect? at the fellowship meal following Sabbath school to deliver the two-disk set for their perusal.

The meeting was not a loss, however, as the two directors present happened to be the vice president for development–me–responsible for product and product support, and the vice president for public relations–not me–responsible for publicity and promotions. As you probably can deduce, between us we split responsibility for website design and content, and this gave us an opportunity to talk about what steps to take next.

I also managed to pick up the 7dB equipment. I still have to decide where it will live for the present now that it’s here, but at least it’s not there anymore. Late in the evening I remembered to send the other four Quick Word radio show recordings, and even managed to listen this week, to hear the show myself.

Of course, not everyone was happy with what I accomplished on Saturday, and I got reprimanded for failing to do a few important errands, which I did this afternoon instead, so I’m not too terribly unhappy. I also remembered to update the autoresponder letter on the e-mail account for the radio show, so that people who write for information will get information immediately, and I can answer their letters leisurely.

So I’m headed into the week with a good feeling about the accomplishments of the weekend, despite the amount on my plate in the days ahead.

–M. J. Young