Darn it.
History is being made--the Dragon capsule is 150 meters away from docking with the ISS, and I'm about to pass out.
Want to stay up for it, but dude, it's likely another hour or so before they connect.

Too early, too long a night.
Still, very, very awesome stuff happening this week, in regards to all things Space X.
(I've watched the launch video a dozen times or so)

I hope you'll indulge me for a moment, as I share with you three video clips.

First, my sock drawer.
Seriously.
Because, you know, sometimes you walk into the room, and reach for a clean pair of socks, and instead of what you EXPECT to find there, you find....



Awwwwwwwww!
This was yesterday.


And then, a random bit of scenery I recorded a few weeks ago, down at my Mother's house:




And finally, my mother's rose bushes, of which she is very proud.
She was sad because no one would see how lovely they are, since they're behind her already remote home, so here they are, for all to see.

I've been eyeing ebook readers for a while now.
Sure, I can (and do) use my minitablet to do my Ereading, but that's my all-purpose device. Because battery time is limited, there are many times when I either run it down, or I can't use it because it's on charge for use later in the day.
So, yeah, I need a second device.

Since all my ebooks are via Amazon, that pretty much locks me out of the Barnes and Noble Nook, or the Sony line of readers... too bad, since some of them look nice.
In the Kindle stable there are lots of choices, so I spent an hour or so reading up on the different options.

The 'Fire' was the most obvious way to go--it's bright and shiny and has a color screen and lots of memory--in form factor it's actually very similar to my tablet (A Samsung Galaxy Tab), and I'd be pretty happy with that, I think... except for one big issue: Battery Life.
The whole point is that I don't want to be locked out of part of my reading library because my device is dead, and the Fire has only 7 or 8 hours of runtime, best case scenario. I really want something with DAYS of reading time between charges, so I can work my way through a book without needing to keep one eye on the battery indicator.
That left the 'classic' Kindle variations, and they're very similar to each other in the basics, really, so it was tough to decide between them. I think, though, the Kindle Touch is the way to go. It's on the high end so far as battery life goes, even though there's less onboard memory than the other versions. Still, a few dozen novels in your pocket at any one time should be enough for most situations. ^_^
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Yeah, I know, I know--there aren't many things less interesting to hear/read about than someone else's weight issues. Here's a preemptive apology for bringing it up--Sorry!
And yet, I'm gonna tell you about it anyway.
:-P

So of course I've never been what you'd call 'thin'. In fact, I'm usually well into 'chunky' territory. However, a bit more than five weeks ago, I stepped on the scales and found that I'd edged up, little by little, to 238lbs, which is certifiably EXTRA-chunky, verging on bloated.
'Well, FUCK!' (said I,) 'This. Shall. Not. Stand.'

Now, five weeks (and a bit) further on, I've just reached milestone #1: Today's weigh-in was 218lbs. So, 20 lbs down, and a good ways yet to go.
But hey, that's a noteworthy achievement, isn't it?
::nodnod::

Already feeling better--238 was verging on seriously unhealthy territory for me, and my father did suffer a (nonfatal) heart attack a few years ago, so this is very much something I need to control.
Looking forward to reaching 200.
I'll let you know when I get there.
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So, there's this program called 'Scrivener'....
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

And, well... I just don't know.
I mean, sure, yeah, it's intended to be a toolbox to help writers organize everything and assist them in (apparently) basically every aspect of the writing itself.
But I still have this feeling that it's mostly an unneeded extra step in the process, you know?
Because basically, if you want to write something, the way to do that is to WRITE it, not sit and fill out dozens of color-coded fields in a program, then shuffle and collate and reshuffle and alphabetize said color-coded fields that may or may not HELP you write it.
o_O

On the other hand, I keep seeing posts by writers who do use it, and are insane with praise for the thing, and stories of how it helped them.
(see here, for example: http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,112692.0.html )
Which leaves me wondering if it could possibly be that helpful. Because if it IS, then it would be foolish NOT to try it.
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So, last week, Easter sunday, I went geocaching again.
There was a small family get-together thing at my aunt and uncle's house, right down the street from me, and my mom was in town for it (Hi Mom!) so of course I attended.
After hanging out there for a while I asked my two cousins (actually I think they're technically my third cousins) if they wanted to go find some boxes. I'd described the concept of Geocaching to them last year, but this was the first time I'd had the opportunity to take them.
They were all over the idea, and we had some time before the food would be ready, so we headed to the park to find something.
Jeff was also there, it being his parent's house and all, and since he's my favorite non-mom relative, I checked to see if he wanted to come along too.
He did, and with his son bringing the size of the group up to 'smallish mob' size, we took his vehicle.

Once at the park, we fiddled around with my pad for a while before finally getting the geocaching app to work, but eventually we were wandering up and down the trails, and then picking our way carefully through the trees and briars.
This was NOT an easy one to find--it was a smallish box, very well-hidden, but after a few minutes of casting about the area the app was showing, the kids went NUTS.
They'd found it--hidden in a hole at the base of a tree, nearly arm's length deep in there, without any help from me or Jeff.
Being the sort of brothers they are, there was a LOT of argument about just who had seen it first, but they were incredibly pleased and excited all the same.
The only thing that bugged them was not being able to take any of the little goodies that were in the box--the rule is that in order to take something you have to leave something in trade, and they didn't have anything handy. They still got to sign the log book, of course, and by then it was time to go eat, so he went back to the house.

They very, very much wanted to go and find some more caches, and there are a dozen or more of them hidden in that park, so after the eating and such was done (and I got in some more time with Mom before she headed home), Jeff and I took them all out AGAIN.

The pad's GPS was working better this time around, and we spent an hour or so rambling around, and successfully located another three caches (and failed to find another one, sigh).
Despite the metric crapload of poison ivy and/or poison oak, none of us were zapped, and everyone had a good time (Damien and Sebastian were out and out ecstatic, to be honest).

I really enjoyed myself too--it's rare that I have a chance to do something like that... vanishingly rare, really.
Overall, quite a wonderful time.

Hey.
I'm working on a book here, and I wanted to check something I *Think* I recall reading in a Charles De Lint novel.
Does anyone know the name of the one with the girl who works in a music store, smokes too much, and plays an accordion?
I thought I had it on my shelf, but I can't seem to locate it, and the title escapes me.

Anyone?
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I ordered a stick of ram for my netbook, since it was bogging down a little and this was a fairly inexpensive way to fix that.
Got it in the mail yesterday, went to put it in... and it's wrong.
Blargh.
There might or might not be a return policy I could go through, but... blargh again.
The main thing is that I can't really throw more money at this right now, so, yeah, whatever, I'll just get by without having ten windows open at once.
Besides, it's just as likely that I'd get the wrong thing again, since I was sure I'd found the correct model number the first time.

::shakes fist at the sky::

Damn you, Technology! You win this time!
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Random Posting of Randomness:

Attempted to bathe cat.
Attempt failed.
However, no injuries were suffered by either party, so that's something.
Sigh.

Huh.
Okay, I'd submitted my first story ('Only Echoes Remain') to Amazon for review and, hopefully, inclusion in their program 'Kindle Singles'. This is a thing where I'd get a higher royalty (70%, instead of 35%) and possibly some minor form of promotion on their site. Unlike the usual epublishing thing at Amazon, you have to show them the story or book, and they take a couple of weeks to decide if they'll accept it in the program.
Annnnnnd.... not so much with mine.

I just got the reply email, a full three weeks after sending it in, and they said 'nope, no thank you'.
Of course my response was an instinctive 'well, why not?', but that doesn't seem to be part of the deal. It's a form letter rejection, no explanation given.
So... now what?
Since I don't know what criteria I failed to meet, I have no idea if either of the other two stories will meet that invisible bar they've set.

Frustrating.
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