Archive for July, 2007
Final Countdown
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on July 30, 2007
We have hit the final countdown, Erin and me. This is it. This week. To see the countdown clock, which seemed really big when I started it, go to wedding.sw-c.com and you can see that the days are sub-3 with hours to go. As Erin’s mom likes to say (or has said, to me, once) it’s four sleeps and a wakeup. The ceremony is at 10 a.m. on Friday and by 10:20 a.m. we will be Mr. and Mrs. Hattaway rather than John and Erin. We will still be John and Erin, its just that we will be more tied together than the nearly 100% of our free time would currently suggest.
Anyway, several people pointed out that this past weekend was the last one where Erin and I would be single people. We were at church and were getting some encouragement and congratulations as we wandered from one room to the next for the various meetings. The outcome, as always, is that I have to weigh the amount of excitement and anxiety that comes with this information and encouragement with the amount I show in interest and, well, just in general.
I really do appreciate people and their encouraging words. One such, was talking with our bishop whom I felt needed to be invited to the ceremony whether they could come or not (I suspected they couldn’t). He asked, “Are you ready?”
I said, “No. Is anyone ever ready?”
Since there were three or four men standing around, they all chimed in, “Nope.”
I said, “Then I guess I am in the place I need to be,” thanked the bishop for his time and left to change clothes and acquire Erin a heating pad.
Anyway, this is the last week. We are getting married. It is getting close to being absolutely terminal. Exciting and scary all at the same time.
People are going to fly in to town this week. Erin’s dad is getting here Wednesday night, I think. Rebecca’s husband, Keith, flies in Thursday night and Jordan will pick him up and transport him down to Manti, that night. Rebecca made it to Cortez the other night. Most of the siblings have said they are coming to at least something; on top of which, it sounds like the majority of my mothers siblings are coming to the temple in the morning while the one that can’t is coming to the reception that evening. After meeting, and reacquainting myself with many of these people, I am excited to have gotten to know them, look forward to getting to know many of them better, and hope to see them on Friday.
The following Friday we will have a ring ceremony in Massachusetts near where Erin’s mom and dad live. We will have spent several days in Maine. And then we will return to Utah where we will start our lives, again, together.
For the most part, this week, for me, will consist of work, packing and moving things, making sure that the items that have to be picked up/coordinated are taken care of all so I can be in Manti Thursday evening to see both of our parents, spend time, one-on-one with them, and then wake up Friday morning (given that I sleep Thursday night) all to getting married in a very lovely building that, according to Erin, looks like a castle. Her castle.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows – postscript
Posted by smokingpen in book reviews on July 30, 2007
I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows last night. It’s taken me, what?, a week to read. Not too bad given that Erin and I have this impending wedding-thing happening on Friday (10 a.m.). And I work a full-time job, and I am writing the first draft of my Alicia Grey novel (a book that is book one of (at least) five). And I am trying to finish moving my stuff from my apartment to the married apartment.
However, at some point in between waking up and getting to the married apartment yesterday before church I decided it was time to sit down and finish the story which, though in excess of 700 pages, was not taking a long time to read.
As a result, I finished, last night, reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. The book was, at the same time, very good and very hard to read. It was good in the sense that J.K. Rowling is very good at story telling, and very hard because, in order to move the action forward, she uses a lot of expository story telling where she goes in to a lot of details, sometimes on the edge of being boring, to describe what is meant to be happening between periods of action. This is not bad, it is also something, in some cases, I thought could’ve been toned down a lot to do two things: 1) make the book shorter; and 2) move the story along a lot faster.
For example, I didn’t think we needed to spend a LOT of pages working through the trials and troubles that Harry, Hermione, and Ron experience while following Dumbledore’s last quest for Harry (from the previous book). Though, at the same time, as they are searching for the various Horcruxes (again, the accomplishment of the quests is pretty interesting/exciting).
Even with the slowdown of the story for the exposition, which is used to move the story forward, I thought the book was very good. It accomplished what Rowling set out to accomplish. The Harry Potter series is a semi-epic adventure that takes a boy wizard, the boy who lived, and moves him through education and experience until he, effectively, saves the world by destroying the wizarding world, and muggles, worst enemy, Voldemort – Tom Riddle – He Who Shall Not Be Named.
What I can say, because some people may not have read the book, is that all of my theories about where Rowling was going, with the series, turned out to be true. I didn’t know how she would get there, but I did know she would make it to the end and do what I thought she was going to do; save who I thought she would save; and ultimately, Harry would come off as victor with his friends as the ones who helped him, in many ways, accomplish the things that needed to be accomplished.
In doing that, he also made some characters who, until now, had seemed rather… flat, as heroes and (to rip off another movie) more than meets the eye. I never thought that some of these characters would be the way they ended up being, heroic; or, for that matter, that when the end came, you’d see the kinds of battles that took place. However, the story begins with and ends with Hogwarts and I think given Tom Riddles (Voldemorts) obsession with the school that it is appropriate that his fall comes there as well.
Moreover, I spent almost the entire book trying to discover whether or not my principle theory from the previous book (e-mail me to find out what it was) was actually the outcome or not. I thought it was, and was very pleasantly surprised not only that I was 100% correct in theory, but also in how Rowling chose to share with the reader the information. Basically, she makes a potentially evil and bad character in to a sympathetic character who turns from bad guy in to hero very quickly.
I guess rooting for the underdog (not Harry) proved to pan out.
Anyway, because people would complain, a lot, if I gave away a lot of the details of the book I will leave my review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows at this: I liked the book; I thought it was worth reading; I think that if J.K. Rowling had started her series with a book like this, she would NOT be a billionaire today and more than 95% of her readers would never have started the books; and I am glad she left the histories and the people open, that she didn’t describe every little detail of every person’s life… or, for that matter, allow the readers in to what careers, what trials and travails, they go through to get from where they started to where they ended up — 19 years later.
Read it. Enjoy it. Say, “Good-bye,” and be glad that someone out there created something like Harry Potter and Hogwarts and the wizarding world of England because, in the end, I think we’re better off with it than without.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Bond. James Bond
The Unfortunate Mr. McCain
Posted by smokingpen in Politics on July 27, 2007
John McCain went to war for the United States. Since that time he has used his experience being tortured in Viet Nam. He’s served in the Senate for a lot of years. And he’s run for president a couple of time. Well, he is the current Richard Nixon. Running again and again in the hopes he will beat his own Kennedy.
So, the other day I was sitting around at MSNBC.com which links, pretty directly, to Newsweek.com and one of the pundits, the virtual talking heads, on Newsweek.com was talking about how not wanting John McCain as president was a bad sign for this nation. The reason, McCain is a Vet and had served in active military service and his fall from grace (potentially because he’s actively supported G.W. in Iraq) is a bad sign for politics and the voting public in this country.
The main issue I have with this assertion is that McCain has only ever achieved popularity as a centrist-reformist candidate who aggressively (allegedly, hard pressed to prove it to me) pushes election reform. This, however, does not denote a candidate that is a presidential contender. The Unfortunate Mr. McCain has never been a presidential contender no matter how frequently he’s chosen to run for the position. He doesn’t have the chutzpa necessary to hold the office, nor does he have the presence of someone who is meant to lead the free world OR make the important, necessary, decisions.
McCain, more often than not, is someone who is not consistent on the little decisions. After his previous attempt at running for president and G.W. winning, word on the street (and internet) was that he was considering moving to the Democrat side of the isle. He’d renounce his political religion (republicanism) and move over to a new belief structure (democratism). The outcome, at the time, would’ve been an immediate shift in power in the Senate. For some reason, he chose not to do it. My theory, at the time, was that Dick Cheney was ready to leave office and the party had promised him the vice-presidency. I was wrong; but I do believe that the party promised or threatened him with something – so he stayed.
McCain has actually acted, in public, more like the party opposition than like a party leader. He has dissented in a lot of areas. And only when it’s come to a war (that is not a declared war) that he and most of the Democratic and Republican leadership supported, has he found his voice as the chief supporter of the Iraq conflict. In short, he isn’t a party man; and he supports the Iraq conflict and troops there.
The voting public is not a bunch of idiots. They don’t look at the president and the party leadership and think, “I don’t care what he was like in the past, I like what he is showing us now,” and then vote for a man because he has a record for serving in war. A record for having been a soldier does not qualify a person to be president. We were told this, repeatedly, by the same press outlets that would suggest we are, somehow, less American or that the United States is somehow less because we refuse to vote for a man who, in many public decisions, can’t seem to make up his mind one way or the other, when Bill Clinton was running for president and his record of service (or significantly distinct lack of one) came in to question.
John McCain is a bad choice for president. The public knows, and understands, this. They know that if they vote for this man he is as likely to support the war effort as he is to pull the troops out. Under John McCain, I think the odds of our being pulled in to a much larger scale conflict increase dramatically. The American people don’t want this. They are tired of veiled information about possible threats and abrupt and uncomfortable changes to their travel schedules. They are tired of presidents who claim we need to support them, and then call the people unpatriotic for not supporting an effort that is, inherently, wrong.
Not voting for John McCain, not supporting his presidential bid, is a good thing. It is a way for the American people to strike back at the war machine that currently exists. This is the parties way of telling McCain he was last years news, and only then news when he is talking about reform. McCain’s war record should be lauded; however, that same war record should not be construed as a trump card or a prerequisite for being president. McCain, through his own actions, has proven himself a bad choice.
Friday after Thursday
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on July 27, 2007
I didn’t get around to doing ANY writing last night. That was frustrating (for me) since I did get around to unpacking and shelving books. What the great unpack and shelve process has taught me is that, independent of Erin, I have more books than I really have shelf space AND that together we definitely need another bookshelf. As we talked about it, we decided to rebox some of the books, put them out of sight, for the time being, and after the honeymoon go and buy another (at least) bookshelf for the office so I can move the writing books, the in queue reading books (and possibly the in queue DVD’s) out of where they are and in to where we will be working on school work, writing, and freelance stuff.
Erin’s brother decided on an apartment. It will be a little more money than he was telling me he wanted to spend, but, at the same time, the place appeared to be nice AND the room he will be in is private. His needs included high speed internet. So, I think that will work well for him. Any additional comments about roommates, place, etc., are meant to not be there.
I did buy two new shirts last night. Normally not an issue, but I’ve been wanting a black long sleeve dress shirt for a while (at least 15 years) and have never gone out and bought one. One of my problems is that, in the past, the people making them (e.g. manufacturer) have tendencies to put light grey or white buttons on a black shirt. It ruins the purpose of owning a black shirt – to look edgy. Not that I can pull of edgy or troubled artist, it’s just a look I continue to pursue.
Along with the black dress shirt I also bought (in part as a replacement) for a yellow dress shirt that got make-up on it, and then washed AND dried before I realized that I needed to treat the make-up on the shirt before washing it AND drying it. On the flip side of that, I think the shirt I bought to replace the one with make-up stains is actually a lot nicer than the one with the make-up stains; the sad part, to all of this, is that it has make-up stains to begin with and needed replacing.
The shirt was purchased for the whole wedding/marriage/leaving the reception thing we are doing on Friday the 3rd of August. I also get to wear jeans. I am excited. Let me tell you.
Let’s see… after the whole shopping thing and then stopping off at my apartment/house to pick up an outstanding bill, we started driving to the married apartment but became distracted by the prospect of bookstores, magazines, and hot chocolate (mine would’ve either been soy for milk or a spiced cider). However, when in the bookstore the lacked either of the primary magazines Erin likes to read (one of which she was introduced to by me) and I had already seen what I went to see. In the short of it, we decided hot coco was too hot and went back to the married apartment.
At this point, I continued to do stuff like shelving books (when I discovered a lack of space), listened to a TV show that is, at best, hit-or-miss with me – last night it was almost totally a miss. Anyway, once that was done, I looked around at the mess I made in clearing up the mess of moving stuff in to the married apartment and realized that I had to rethink some of my approach. Hopefully by Saturday I will have things ordered and put away.
Finally, sometime between when I got home and 4 a.m. the air mattress I am sleeping on decided it needed to start losing air. So, I woke up a couple different times sleeping in an air-hammock rather than on a semi-firm air-mattress bed. My plan is to take it back to the place I purchased it from and exchange the mattress. I do have to get the air pump Erin’s mom is using, though, as it came with the air pump, before I go and exchange it. Sleeping on an air-mattress is not fun; sleeping on a deflating air-mattress is pure hell.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Bond. James Bond
One Week and We’re Married
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on July 27, 2007
From this post, it will be one week from the point when Erin and I will be getting married.
Just thought you all should know that.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Bond. James Bond
Moving on Through Time
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on July 26, 2007
Last night Erin and I drove down to Price. We’ve actually just done this once before and got pulled over coming out of Helper on the way back toward Provo. The last time it was a need to drive somewhere and be away from our respective houses; last night it was because one of my older cousins (who has kids AND grandkids) has lived in Price for the last 30 years and I wanted to go and meet him, introduce him to Erin, and personally invite him to the wedding stuff. I have reasons for things like this.
Anyway, got off work, drove to the married apartment and then waited there for Erin and her brother to get back from checking out an apartment for her brother. He has, over the course of the summer, decided that it is in his best interests to stay in Provo, stay in Utah, and continue working the job he got earlier in the summer, out here, rather than heading back to Massachusetts and Wal-Mart. The outcome was going and seeing an apartment and meeting the owner. Erin went with him.
Apparently she’s a looker.
After that we got in Erin’s car (I drove) and headed over the mountain through Soldier’s Summit and down in to Price. The issue we encountered, on the way to the canyon, was that the weather had decided to turn very negative, clouds, wind, rain, bad drivers (bad drivers are indicative of Provo) which caused us to run a bit later than we were anticipating.
Then we got to Price and had a very pleasant conversation with a cousin I know I’ve met, but had no real recollection of for the years between then and now. He works for a mine and is not, exactly, happy about that career choice, even though he’s been following it for more than 30 years. We talked for about an hour, a little more I think, and then said, “Goodnight,” and drove off in to the night.
On the way home we stopped at Taco Bell, stopped at one of my Price stops (normally pee, buy a drink, get snacks, and walk around for a bit… sure, it’s the first hour of the five to six hour trip, but at this point it’s a matter of tradition and I like the stop) and then headed up the canyon without getting pulled over in Helper as we were entering said canyon. Because we’d picked up food I told Erin we would stop just up the canyon and watch the traffic pass us by as we ate our food. So, above one of the coal mines (right before the turn-off to head up to Duchene) we stopped the car near some road equipment, turned off the headlights, left on the parking lights, and watched as cars and semis flew past us while we ate.
The drive home was, mostly, uneventful. We talked about the pleasant times we had (minus one or two) and how nice it was to meet this cousin and then, on the downward, almost back in to Spanish Fork, part of the canyon traffic slowed down a lot, there were police cruisers (or highway patrol) flashing lights, a semi went crazy flashing me to slow down, and as we got close to the police cruiser, we saw what looked, to me, like a flipped car on the side of the road. The downhill side of the road as the other side has a river next to it.
Passing the object we saw that it was a rather massive boulder sitting on the side of the highway and an officer lighting flares and dropping them around it while they waited for the large piece of moving equipment to move the boulder and debris out of the way.
Anyway, got Erin home. We said, “Goodnight,” to each other. And then I went home and prepared for bed, ending up in bed.
As a result of all that, I didn’t do any writing, though, Erin started to hiccup and when I heard her complain about it I started to make fun of her (though she didn’t act like she heard my teasing) and then it occurred to me that it was something that I might decide to incorporate in to what I am working on, now. I could totally see someone, personally self-conscious, a simple hiccup being a major issue.
More writing tonight. More news later. I think I’ve got a couple of things I want to write about, John McCain and his fall from presidential grace (read an article that claimed we should be worried); and then there is some new craziness I am going through.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Bond. James Bond
Alicia
Posted by smokingpen in On Writing on July 25, 2007
I did some writing last night. Twice as many words as the night before. What I’ve done is to back up and make the early part of the book congruent with where I want the book to head. There are some distinct places I want/need the story to head. The result of that need/want is structuring the beginning so that by the time you’ve gotten to the end you’ve been on, what I hope is, an exciting romp AND there are surprises but nothing surprising.
None of that need make sense.
However, what I did discover as I was re-reading and writing forward was that I came across a section of the book that, in hindsight, I realized had a massive hole in it. Literally. When I wrote it the first time, I left out a chunk of the story because I could tell something needed to be in that spot, but I didn’t know what it was. Then, the other night, I sat there on my bed trying to get ready for sleepy-time, and I had to write more (couple nights ago) which then led me to work forward section by (currently written) section.
When I hit that section I totally saw why it just ended. I remembered (again) thinking, “I need to put something else here, I just don’t know what. I can wait until a rewrite and maybe my first reader(s) responses.” And then I moved on. It was a load (or is that schload???) of fun.
I kept writing and I kept thinking, “I am missing something,” but I didn’t think, “I need to go back and start walking my way from the beginning through to where I am currently at (day one, hour three, yadda yadda <– and no, this is not true) until I realized that what I was writing about required a few things.
First, I needed to introduce a character that plays, in parts, the roles of mentor, antagonist, joker, etc.
Second, I needed to build a foundation of months, not weeks or days, for what my “A” story to follow. The first run through on this had things happening very quickly and I needed it to slow down.
Second-A, the reason is that I needed relationships to start building as the problems also started to occur.
Second-B, I needed to build a dynamic area that would allow the protagonist and her posse to discover the things they need to discover.
Second-C, I needed to establish a level of conflict between the central character, Alicia Grey, and the person who is meant to assist her.
Third, I needed to give Alicia the recurring problem she will deal with for the length and breadth of what I plan on writing.
As I write this, I know that on top of the above, you need peers for Alicia to deal with, the good, the bad, and the ugly (Eastwood movie references are intentional). Along with peers to deal with (both friends and enemies – everyone has at least one enemy, right???), there is a need to introduce future story lines that will run along with hers. On top of all this, I am somewhat anal about making sure that the story is told third person limited; which means, I am telling this from the third person with Alicia being the (effectively) only set of eyes we are going to see the action through. If she don’t know it, neither should the reader.
Anyway, last night I more than doubled the word count from the previous night and I think I’ve built an okay foundation to really start moving forward from. I do look forward to feedback from different people, though it will still be some months between the writing and my asking for readers (I have one, well, two currently), but, you know, I want to know what people think about my teenage protagonist and her first adventure.
I mean, when I can incorporate (in my head) magic and folklore, witches and fantasy creatures, caverns, canyons, and forests and then throw in a series of lives that need fixin’, I think I am mixing together a pretty nice recipe.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Bond. James Bond
Less than Eight Days – or so
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on July 25, 2007
Erin and I are down to less than eight days. Yup. We are screaming, SCREAMING, mind you, to the finish line. It seems, sometimes, that eight months (length of engagement) was going to last forever; and yet, here we are coming to the end of that journey. We are close enough that we can see the finish line.
We walked outside, late last night, well… not really late, I was just tired, and just talked. That was nice. Since Erin’s mom has come in to town it seems that all of our time is dedicated to other people and none to us. None to our relationship. And yet, we are getting married and this, allegedly, is supposed to bring families together.
The guys at work, the ones that know and deal with me, tell me that I am becoming more and more useless. I still take a minimum number of calls per day (which, interestingly, is more than most of the people) and yet, I am useless.
Go figure.