I am angry at someone.  I have not yet determined who.  No, it probably is not you, so you can relax.

I am angry because I was sent on a fool’s errand simply because someone was too inconsiderate to answer a phone message to let me know it was not necessary.  I am angry because this is the second time this person did this, in very much the same way, with slightly different circumstances, although the first time there was considerably less inconvenience to me.

It goes back to our friend who was in the car accident almost two weeks ago.  We responded to his rather desperate situation by lending him our truck, somewhat hampering our ability to accomplish some of our essential chores.  We left “care and feeding” instructions with it, including that the brake fluid and power steering fluid had to be checked regularly, as they both leak slowly.

On Saturday, we were going to need it; by the time we actually got around to getting over there it was too late, though, so we didn’t take it.  We did move it, though–not I, but someone else involved.  This led to a phone call from them asking where we put it, as they could not find it.

Now, I don’t know where you would go with that, but my thought was that we needed to confirm that it was indeed missing and then call the police.  They, however, found it, and went to the movies and shut off their phones so we could not contact them.  I would have thought they’d have had the sense to call and say, “Never mind, we found it.”  Instead, they left us wondering for several hours until one of them–actually one of the backup people we called, a mutual friend closer to them than to us–got the message and let us know what was happening.  They are fortunate that the police were not making inquiries by then; we were very close to driving over to find out what happened, and that would have given us no more information than we already had.

I have not mentioned that driving over is an hour if the traffic is light.  It was not light on Saturday night.

So here it is Monday, and we get a message–and I do not know how we got the message, but I think it was a voicemail on our phone called in while we were sleeping.  We knew that our friend was not particularly mechanically inclined, but he had assured us that he would keep up on the fluids.  The message said that they could not figure out how to open the hood, and the brakes were failing.

That sounds like a pretty serious situation to me; it sounded like an emergency to the person who actually got the message.  Of course, it is still Monday, and I still had to feed kids and get my mother-in-law to the store.  Plus, it happens to be Memorial Day, so the store was going to close three hours early, pinching my time frame significantly.  Yet I had to add a trip over to check the truck.

Did I mention that this trip is an hour out of the way?  It is also an hour to get to my mother-in-law.  This trip was not the opposite direction, but it was certainly the wrong direction, and when I finished it I would be no closer to my shopping trip than I had been when I started.  I took the precaution of calling to confirm that there was still a problem.  I got a voice mail box, but left a message that I should be called if my information was incorrect.  Then I headed out to solve the problem with the truck.  After all, if they had solved the problem after letting us know they needed help, they would have called us, right?

Apparently, wrong.  An hour later (a bit longer, as I grabbed supper for myself on the road so as not to have to delay long enough to eat when I fed the kids) I am opening the hood to the truck and finding that the reservoir for the brakes is overfilled, and there is a new can of brake fluid (not the one I’d left) in the bed.  Of course, they haven’t kept the power steering fluid full, and the coolant level is low, but I took care of those items and then jumped back in my car and made best possible speed to my final errand.

I saw no one.  It may be that they do not know I was there–although I moved the seat to start the car when I was checking the transmission fluid.  I could have saved an hour of driving, maybe ten dollars in gas, a three dollar bridge toll, and a fair amount of aggravation, had they simply let us know that indeed they had managed to solve the problem after alerting us.

It is not that I begrudge people my help when they need it.  I begrudge them my help when they don’t need it and forget to let me know that they have things under control.  I have enough to do without adding such things to my workload.  I do hope this does not happen again.

–M. J. Young

I managed to finish the set work yesterday before making the trip to take my mother-in-law shopping.  It was, however, rather late by the time I got home and got some dinner, and I accomplished nothing more.  This, though, is typical for the early part of the week, when I have the heavier burden of the week’s work and usually a few errands as well.  Today, for example, I had to take our youngest guest to the doctor and get prescriptions filled for him (they are fully covered, but it’s still inconvenient), as he seems to have a cold.

I also have to make dinner, but am hoping that at the moment someone is doing some of the dishes, because if I have to make dinner and wash dishes it’s going to take a substantial chunk from my work time.

A friend has been trying to call me.  I keep telling people that the most reliable–probably the only reliable–way to reach me is by e-mail, and he has my e-mail address.  I have seen his name on my caller ID, but always at times when it would not be practical to return his call.  Hopefully I’ll catch one of his calls soon.

I’ve also been informed that our least problematic houseguest will be leaving us.  He will be moving north to stay with two other men in a large house that screams bachelor pad and has no kids and fewer pets.  It seems to me that it will be farther from his kids and his doctors, but he’s probably considered that already.  He will be missed.

–M. J. Young

The Saturn, the car with good gas mileage, has started losing coolant.  I’ve had to top it off a few times in recent weeks.  The problem is, I don’t know how fast it’s losing coolant–and this is complicated by the fact that the design of this vehicle does not include direct access to the radiator, but only to the overflow tank, which is under pressure when the vehicle is hot.  Thus I cannot easily determine whether there is air in the radiator trying to get out.

The problem was severe last night, as the car started overheating en route to the fulfillment of an interstate errand, and the one running the errand (not I) had to return to swap for the less-efficient truck.  This creates uncertainty, since on the one hand I had topped off the tank Saturday afternoon, but on the other hand I do not know that there was no air in the radiator and I do know that there was extensive driving done Saturday night and Sunday morning, which could have depleted the reserve.

Right now someone is driving the vehicle around locally to see whether the added coolant is sufficient; when the car returns, I will have to let it cool and then open up the overflow tank to check the level.

All of this is because it is Monday, and part of the Monday workload includes taking my mother-in-law shopping.

It has also been a strange Monday, as I was informed sometime late yesterday that one of my sons would need to be seen by a doctor today, so (after going back to bed after bus riders were organized) I forced myself out of bed once the office was open and made a call to get an appointment.  The first available appointment was at crack of dawn tomorrow–actually, eight in the morning, but that’s outrageously early by my standards–and so he did not go today.  However, I had by then forced myself into wakefulness, and so attempted to get started on my day–an effort which took longer than I would have preferred, and then was interrupted several times once the hurdles were crossed.

At the moment, then, I am trying to get as much of this work done as I am able while awaiting the return of the car so I can figure out what I’m doing for dinner and what I’m doing about the car.  Once those matters are settled, I will be dealing with my mother-in-law with whichever vehicle is guessed to be the better choice, and returning to finish whatever was left undone.

So maybe I do know what I’m doing; I just don’t know that I know.

–M. J. Young

I called my eldest son this afternoon, and congratulated him on being a quarter of a century old, to the nearest minute.  I am working frantically to be ready to visit him later tonight.

I called him from my mother-in-law’s house, after taking her banking and shopping.  I had only just determined that I was not to continue north to return someone’s girlfriend to her domicile, a trip that has been delayed to Wednesday night after dinner.

However, I’ve been scrambling to fit the pieces of today’s puzzle together, and not feeling like I’m really atop it all.  Tomorrow will be bad, too, but at least I know it in advance.

–M. J. Young

I would love to tell you that Ubercon X was great, but I would be lying, and although I will obfuscate and conceal, I do attempt not to lie.

It was not without its highlights.  I very much enjoyed meeting Timothy Zahn and his wife Anna, and hope they will find the time to drop me a note eventually.  He and I sat on one panel on early influences, along with Josepha Sherman, and the Zahns came to our otherwise sparsely attended Sunday morning Christian Gamers Guild-sponsored worship service.

That panel was recorded (were I to say “taped” I would be showing my age) by a group that produces a broad and podcast program under the name Non-productive, and it will be airing on the Rutgers radio station and another local station fairly soon.  They also tapped me to do a promo for the show, which they let me write:

This is Multiverser author M. J. Young encouraging you to listen to the most Non-productive broadcast in any universe.

The tech says I have no idea how accurate that is, and that it will go over well with their fanbase.  Now I wonder whether anyone in their fanbase would have any clue as to who I am.

I was on two other panels, one entitled How to Write a Game Anyone Can Play, but I’m not sure that the panelists all agreed that was a suitable goal.  Chris O’Neil, Peter Schweighofer, Tony DiGeralamo, Dave Simpson, and someone who did not make any of the program listings were part of that.  Much the same group also talked about how to attend cons and buy books without going broke, although we all joked that if anyone had any ideas on that we’d love to hear them.

However, it was a very slow con.  Tony DiGeralamo agreed with me that there were fewer people here than at previous cons, and most of them the same people.  Even so, many of the expected people were absent.  One fan purchased copies of the two new books, Faith and Gaming and Game Ideas Unlimited Volume 1, but when it comes to it my mother bought more books (one of each of those plus copies of About the Fruit and What Does God Expect–and yes, my mother bought those books, as gifts for her pastors, but I charged her the convention discounts for all books).  If my count is accurate, we had three new players at the table; no one had any money to spend on books, although several expressed sincere-sounding regret on that point.

Of course, conventions are always tiring for me.  I get booked rather solid, with just enough time to sleep overnight before returning in the morning.  I also lost most of an hour of time to a late Friday night phone call which burned up my cell minutes and my sleep.  I should have cut that shorter, but I do enjoy talking to friends even when I should know better.

Further complicating life, I realized sometime on Friday that my resistance was struggling against something, but I had forgotten to bring the Cold-Eze Tropical Fruit drops that are so good against this.  The next morning I found no drug store open, and the next morning although the drug store was open I was late for the first session (a meet and greet Kaffeeklatsch that was mostly guests and staff chatting about games and conventions).  I finally obtained this important medication on my way home after dinner with my parents, but it was too late as I was already plunging into a serious case of bronchitis.

Since I am already a respiratory patient (the asthma), it was insisted that I be seen by the doctor today, and that I obtain an antibiotic for the malady.  I must thank one of my sons for assisting me with the obligatory trip to take my mother-in-law shopping, especially as it seems to have gotten him in dutch with his girlfriend.

All of this means I am collapsing, with little to show for my efforts, and posting this only because I did not want phone calls or e-mails asking where I am.

Thanks for your understanding.  It is to be hoped that tomorrow I will be able to begin catching up on everything that has backed up since Friday.

–M. J. Young

The Collision concert went reasonably well last night.  Baxter brought his new amp, which looks really good, but because we’d not worked with it I suggested we use the old one for this concert.  Adam got crossed communication wires and went to the wrong coffeehouse location, and since Brittany had to be out early we got a short delay and then did the first song without him, tuned up the bass while Brittany introduced the second, and finished our two songs to audience approval.  I got some compliments on Adam’s playing, but he ducked out early.  Baxter and I did an encore near the end of the night, which also went well, although not as well as the opening songs.

Meanwhile, I’m starting to get nervous about the week ahead.  I’ve got Ubercon on Friday, and Kyler has indicated that he will not be going this time, and I’m not certain what John’s situation is.  I can probably handle it alone–but there are still many preparations to make, including getting my hotel reservation (I don’t know anyone close enough to Edison to stay with them, despite having attended elementary school within half an hour of there).  I have to do inventory of everything that has to go with me, probably printing copies of forms used, and make sure that I have everything packed.  Complicating this, my Monday Workload has been increased because when I take my mother-in-law shopping I will also have to go about ninety minutes further to return a certain young lady to her home.  Then my overbooked Tuesday has been further overbooked by the need to help an old friend move.  I’ve also realized that our youngest guest’s medicine will run out next weekend, and that his doctor cannot refill it without seeing him, so I’m going to have to twist arms to get him an appointment midweek on top of everything else.

It’s not looking good; and I have been alerted that there is a substantial amount of work awaiting me in the form of an analysis of The Last Mimzy that will add a significant chunk of time to Monday’s work.

Conventions always mean crazy weeks; unfortunately, crazy weeks don’t always wait until they are convenient.

–M. J. Young

At the end of last week I received word that someone about two hours away needed a ride here by midweek, and it was agreed that I would pick him up on Monday, that is, today, after taking care of my mother-in-law’s shopping trip.  To some degree I scrambled my day, so that I could make sure people were fed and get a fair amount of the work done before making what was to be a six hour errand.  It did not all work exactly according to plan, but I had finished the first half of it and was about to make the last jump when I got word that there had been a change at his end, that complications had arisen and he was not certain he could make it and would make other arrangements.

I’ll confess that I was disappointed but also relieved.  He is a big help when he is here, but I was already tired and knew I had much to do still–particularly since the final front cover for the Faith and Gaming book had arrived in the e-mail, and I was going to have to deal with formatting and uploading files to finish that book.

That book is now available.  It is in a sort of pre-release form–only because the next formal step is to set up a distribution package, which means adding an ISBN, which means editing that onto the title page of the book and uploading the edited text and losing a few days of availability while everything is put in place–a few days I cannot afford if I am to have copies for Ubercon.  So I am ordering my copies for that (not too many, but enough to have available), and when I get a chance to clear my head I’ll take the next step.

That means copies ordered now will be different from those ordered in a couple weeks, as they won’t have the International Standard Book Number or barcode on them.  I know some people like having those unusual copies.  Of course, it also means I’ve not seen them and don’t know how they actually look, but that’s part of the charm.

Much to do.  Let me get to it.

–M. J. Young

I’m still working on those two books, Faith and Gaming and Game Ideas Unlimited Volume 1.  The problem presently is that the new Adobe Acrobat program, while it probably works much better than the one I was using, does not work the same as the one I was using, and I’ve not been able to figure out how to make it do what I want it to do.

It has to do with font embedding and paper size, both of which have to be right, and different for each document.  There are two ways to move a Word document into Portable Document Format–one by opening Word and exporting it, the other by opening Acrobat and importing it.  These have different requirements, different controls, and different default settings.

The printer that will be handling Game Ideas Unlimited requires that the pages be an unusual size–what they call Comic Book Size–and that the files be kept small by embedding all the fonts needed but no others.  If I work from Acrobat, it will import the file exactly as it appears, automatically setting the page size to match the settings in Word–but I cannot get it to embed any fonts at all.  This is particularly frustrating, because it is evident that were I able to get it to embed all the fonts, I could then remove all the fonts I do not wish to have embedded; but with no fonts embedded, I cannot add them.

If, however, I work from Word, it asks me to select a paper size for the target document, from a list of paper sizes that have not dimensions but names–things like A2 and Legal.  I know what those are, but I do not know even a tenth of the document names, and I do not know which one would be right for the “comic book” dimensions I’m using.  Nor have I been able to find a listing anywhere of what size each of those names indicates.  I do have control over font embedding from that end, but I’ve not worked out how to get the right paper size.

So I’m racing against the clock, and the artist, who has already uploaded the cover images (and I’ve not had time to review them, but I trust him on this), needs the PDF completed and uploaded so he can get the spine dimensions and finish that; but the clock keeps me running in other directions, too.  My mother-in-law had to take her social security check to the bank today, which means I had to be there early enough to do that before taking her shopping; I also had to fix dinner, because the man who loves to cook for us is now cooking for someone else for the present.  I don’t mind doing it, but it is time consuming.

So here I am, the night slipping away and no extra time in it, trying to finish today’s work and be ready for tomorrow’s, letting you know that I am trying to have those books ready by the end of the month, but it’s going to be a challenge.

–M. J. Young

I’m very late today because of a cyberdetour of sorts.

In my ordinary travels, as I do my e-mail, I pick up a few articles here and there that I read.  As I mention in one of the old Game Ideas Unlimited articles which I will link in a few weeks, learning about everything is part of my job.  In this particular case, though, there was a note indicating that a column I sometimes read is seeking a new writer–a part time gig writing for an Internet publication.  It seems right up my alley, and I decided it was worth a bit of time to drop a note inquiring about whether I might be considered.

That bit of the note, though, turned into something of a major project.  The person handling the hiring wanted all applicants to include in their letter a list of ten topics related to recent or current news items.  That sent me pouring over recent and current news posts, looking for those which would make interesting topics for the rather eclectic column.  After several hours, I had written up and linked seven.  Then I did something stupid:  I attempted to print a page from a Microsoft site using a Netscape browser.

I am persuaded that Microsoft intentionally codes its pages to cause Netscape browers to freeze when certain ordinary actions are taken, most notably trying to print the page.  It does not matter whether you route it through your own browser printer button or click the “Print” link on the page, either way it will freeze the browser–and the associated e-mail program.  I lost all the work I had done, and there was no way to get it back.

Mercifully, after rebooting, I was able to track down the seven stories I had already linked, and reproduce the letter I had written.  I might wind up once more being paid to write articles for someone else’s web site.  That would be a good move for a part time job.

I can report a little more than that.  I did a bit more updating in the Gaming Outpost article archives, and made some progress on my readthrough edit of the Game Ideas Unlimited book.  I could wish I’d done a lot more, but I might have wound up doing a lot less.  I did have to take my mother-in-law to both the store and the bank today, after all, and that put a spanner in the works.

Before I fall asleep at the keys, let me get to the forums.  Tomorrow is looking worse than today, but maybe I can get something done.

–M. J. Young

If you were with me yesterday, you know that I was very concerned as to whether I was going to finish everything yesterday and still be able to deal with today.  It seems that the e-mail, while not exactly light, was not so heavy as I had anticipated, and I managed to get everything finished before I was completely exhausted.  I got the one kid who had school today awake in time to be there, and got a bit more sleep before dealing with my morning and my mother-in-law, and retrieving the son from his work address to return home for a few days.  It’s not even really all that late, but I’ve a fair amount still on my plate, including dinner (although my dinner plate seems to be in use somewhere, so I’m waiting for it to become available before I eat).  We’ll see how the day goes.

In addition to what I anticipated doing today, I got a bit of editing done on the Romans notes, which I am eager to finish but not quite three quarters through yet.

I also had a few people offer to help with cover art for the Faith and Gaming book, and so I’ve asked them to tell me their thoughts.

–M. J. Young