So…that happened…

Last Thursday I had plans to have dinner with my good friend Darne when I saw that one John Scalzi was coming to Mountain View. As I know she is a fan of his, or at least her husband is a fan of his, I suggested we go see Scalzi, get his new book The Human Division signed, and then grab a bite. She was game so we went up to Book Buyers, purchased our copies, and waited.

Scalzi was pretty much as he was a few months ago on the Nerd Boat and he read the newest chapter of The Human Division, the one that did not appear in eformat with the rest of the book, as well as a selection from his upcoming book The Mallet of Loving Correction. We listened, waited in line, and when it was my turn to have him sign my book he asked if I wanted it personalized.

“No, thank you, just signed please,” I said. I love having signed books but I like it a little less when the autograph is personalized. “To Bob, best wishes” takes a bit out of it when I get a used, autographed book since I’m not Bob and the author didn’t offer me best wishes. I figure whoever gets my books next, whether that’s Connor or some stranger via a used bookstore, might feel the same way.

“Are you sure?” Scalzi asked, lifting one eyebrow at me.

“Er, well…”

And then this happened.

For those of you who can’t make it out, the inscription is “Matt! Against your will, I have personalized this book. SUCK IT. John Scalzi.”

Photobombed by Wheaton, trolled in my own book by Scalzi.

My life is weird. Awesome. But weird. Thanks, Scalzi.

Wednesday Progress Report

Progress has been made!

Goodly
By the Pen

Ok, ok, a little progress has been made.

But still, progress!

Difficulties have proven to be, well, time and discipline. Blah blah new job, blah blah long commute (almost two hours on the way home today, for what would be a 30-40 min drive without traffic, woo!) but that’s what it boils down to. I just need to be better about doing it, maybe write some in the morning before Connor wakes up since I’m still getting up no later than 6:30 and I usually have about fifteen minutes to kill between when I’m finished getting ready for the day and when I get him up.

Still, I will finish this in June. Damn it.

The Great (Cold) Outdoors

Things I Learned While Camping With a Two Year-Old

1. All it takes for my normally neat and fastidious son to play in the dirt is a shovel and someone to play with.
2. My son’s ability to ask “What’s that?”, if harnessed to some kind of generator, could power every nation on the Earth.
3. Air mattresses are highly, highly over-rated. Furthermore, the danger to mankind due to air mattresses isn’t. The valley of death caused by a half-inflated air mattress, having a very slow leak while nothing is on it but a very fast one with two, fully-grown adults trying to sleep on it, is not to be underestimated. This is not, in any way, made any easier by a two year-old who insists he sleep with mommy and daddy (or, in the case of Friday night, on mommy).
4. Connor likes movies. Or at least he sat very still and was very quiet for the entire duration of The Croods, which was a cute movie.
5. Forty degrees is a lot colder than you think it will be, especially when you don’t have proper gear to sleep in. However, Marovich children, at least according to my wife, function as miniature space heaters.
6. Anything can have a dragon in it. Anything. This isn’t a bad thing.
7. It is entirely fascinating to watch my son be fascinated by everything. I have no concept of what it’s like to be consciously aware and making so many discoveries so quickly, experiencing so many new things all at once. It’s really awesome to see.
8. My son could, if allowed, eat his entire body weight in soft-serve ice cream.
9. “Come on, daddy!” is one of my new, favorite three-word phrases.
10. My son’s ability to hear, and repeat, any curse word or swear I mutter is profoundly scary.

Belated Monday Morning Crazy

Sorry for the lateness of this post, I was camping this weekend and the sleeping conditions were less than optimal so when I got home Sunday all I wanted to do was just goof off and relax and even coming up with a ridiculous post felt like too much work. So to make it up to all of you I bring you an extra helping of crazy for your morning.

In the category of “that probably seemed like a better idea in theory than in practice”, when is a banana not a banana? when your teacher is talking about ‘long, cylindrical objects, phalluses and/or sex symbols’ and running a banana over your head and neck. No details if he was also giving the student what he thought were “Come hither” looks. Yikes.

From South Florida, a place that common sense forgot, we have this random story of a man who needed a beer, so he broke into someone’s house through the second story, smashed all the televisions in the house, splattered mustard on the walls, left unintelligible messages for the home owners (I’d like to think he meant to tell them they were out of beer), wore his shirt over his head like the Great Cornholio, fled that house from the cops arrived, briefly eluded police in order to break into another house to steal two bottles of Heineken (Really, Heineken? Really?), didn’t even get to drink said beer as he punched a police K-9 officer in the face, and was eventually taken down.

Unsurprisingly, he’s done prison time for drug-related offenses.

Finally, a story “close-ish” to home, be careful who you mess with as two men learned when they tried to rob another man and ended up getting attacked with a “samurai sword”. Actually, the article first says “the samurai-wielding homeowner” which is a much funnier mental image. Hey, that lacquer armor had some pointy bits and I bet if someone is strong enough to wield a samurai in battle they could put some force behind their swings. Though that begs the question: is the samurai being used like a big, armored mace or is the samurai, in turn, wielding his sword in some form of meta-weapon?

Anyway, good morning!

Wednesday (It’s Still Wednesday When I Wrote This!) Progress Report

Jumping right into it, there hasn’t been that much more progress on the stories since last “Wednesday”.

Goodly
By the Pen

Why?

Well, I got a job.

Tuesday last week I went in for an interview for a contract HR gig and was told there was one other candidate they were meeting with on Friday, so I would hear either Friday or Monday about the role.

Thursday rolls around and I get a call from the recruiter; the other candidate, for whatever reason, is no longer available and would I like the job?

*looks at credit card bills, looks at bank account*

Yes, please.

And so I started on Monday. Unlike my previous job whose commute lasted all of ten minutes tops (and that was if there were truly horrible drivers on the road who couldn’t manage the simple concepts of green means go, red means stop), my new job is about an hour and fifteen minutes away in traffic (and that’s if I *coughcough* totally avoid the carpool lane *coughcoughcouh*), which isn’t a bad commute as far as the Bay Area is concerned. I haven’t had any kind of serious commute in almost six years and, for as not fast as it is, I’m finding that traffic takes it out of me (not to mention the stress of starting a new job and with all the things I need to learn). So, I’m giving myself a pass this week and, starting Sunday, will be picking the writing back up again. I want to finish this book in June. It’ll be hard with my job, essentially, taking up eleven hours of my day, but I should be able to do it.

Other than that I’m going camping this weekend for the first time in three or four years and the first time with Connor. Hopefully…it will be a good experience.

Morning Monday Crazy just says, “This will haunt my dreams for weeks to come.”

I understand that when it comes to picking a mascot people want to make a statement.

And when that mascot is around a topic as serious as cancer you want to make a very large statement.

I’m not really certain what kind of statement Senhor Testiculo is trying to make.

No matter where you look, his eyes will find you.

Sleep well.

Monday Morning Crazy says to not feed the wild life.

You know, in the list of “things that suck”, being attacked by an alligator is pretty high on the list.

Especially if you’re on the run from the police at the time.

I think this guy is definitely a contender for “My day is worse than yours, always”.