Been a busy day.

Stomach has been less than cooperative.

Stayed up way too late last few nights (damn insomnia).

So, tonight, I went to DuClaw's and picked up a growler of my favorite of their seasonal beers (Sawtooth - a Belgian wheat), watched the Chiefs pre-season game from my couch and read a story bible for a shared-world series. I think there's a number of things to hang a hook or two from in this bible and I have until 07 Sept. to get my pitches pulled together and polished up.

So, while I wasn't typing, I was plotting. *cues evil music*

Sent some questions to the publisher and am waiting for clarification on a few points and then I'll be hitting the butcher paper to get the brainstorming session together.

Tomorrow night, I need to put serious thought to Shattered Mirror since April is coming up for a writing session on Saturday.

Came down early to help Tee Morris with a visit to a local High School. We're doing two panels at the HS, one at 8:30 and the other at 10:20, so we have to be down in the lobby at 7am to get everyone loaded up and transported. Tomorrow morning is going to come WAY too soon.

The drive down to Richmond wasn't bad outside of a little traffic on 95 just south of DC. The beltway was a piece of cake, but for some reason, traffic was backed up for about 12 miles and then like magic it cleared up and I was able to make good time the rest of the way. Met some of the guests who're here early and had a great time visiting with them. I think this is going to be a fun convention as far as meeting new pros (some new to the game like me, some old hands).

Realizing that this is the first year for Ravencon, I'm going to try and keep a very understanding attitude this weekend. Having worked on a convention staff once before back in 1980 (Concentric 9.5 - long story), I know what looks good on paper somehow never quite seems to work out the way it should. Like when the Holiday Inn we were holding the convention at wanted us to set up the art show next to the pool.

Yeah. Does anyone ELSE see the inherent dangers there?

I'm a lot more understanding about a convention having growing pains. What I'm a lot more concerned about is Balticon. It's coming up next month and there's still no word about panels. A few of the people here are debating whether or not to cancel their hotel reservations because they haven't heard anything about whether they're going to be on panels or not, and they're not flying to Baltimore just to attend the show. With Balticon bringing in Neil Gaiman as their GoH, and with all the fans he's bringing along, this is not the time to be having a "headspace and timing" situation. I'm hoping they get this together and soon, because, with all the extra attention they're getting with Neil's visit, it's not the time to put less than their best foot forward running this con.

Also, I have two growlers of Celtic Fury, the Irish Stout I talked about last month, cooling here in the room. With a little luck, we'll be toasting a successful first day of the show tomorrow evening.

(Oh, did I mention to get to the first panel at the HS, we're meeting in the lobby at 7am? So, I have a 6am wake-up call? Damn, I feel like I'm back in uniform again. Sigh)

. . . oh yeah, and some writing also.

Work has been interesting the past couple of weeks. We're getting ready to release a new version of a project I'm on, so I'm furiously updating the documentation. Well, not as furiously as I'd like. I need some of the other people on the project to review a couple of the documents and get back with me. One guy's had his assignment for over two weeks now and he still hasn't started it yet. O.K., he is the S.A. for this and another project and yes, he has been somewhat busy keeping the computers up and running, but I'm starting to get into crunch time. (sigh)

I did finish my BIG project though. I had a document that just needed to be updated. No big deal, right? Heh. Well, let's just say, someone uploaded a MSWord doc as a web page and that's what I had to download to update. Lost ALL the formatting. No bold, no italics, no bullets, no tables, no pics, nothing. Zilch, nada, pfifft. So, before I could update, I had to regenerate the entire document. (insert banging head smiley here) BUT, it's done, it's off to be QC'd and I have multiple back-ups just in case.

Took my daughter out for her Fidos for Freedom session tonight. I was too slow with the phone camera, but we have these two adorable dachshunds that are therapy dogs. Well, they were in the lobby waiting to go to class when Max (the Old English Mastiff) comes in. He leaned forward and put his head right next to the two wiener dogs. Holy cow, his head was bigger than the two of them put together and some. It would have been a great picture if I had thought about my camera right then, but by the time I remembered my new cell phone had a camera, it was too late. Bah and humbug.

After Fidos, the family let me run up to the local DuClaws for their monthly seasonal beer release. March is Celtic Fury, a nice stout with a hint of coffee in it. Very tasty. If I had known I was going to enjoy it that much, I would have arranged a party up at Lunacon and picked up a couple of growlers to take along. I'm not usually a big fan of stouts, but I enjoyed this one.

I used the time at Fidos wisely (for once) and got some writing in. Added another 1024 words to Shattered Mirror. I need to add in one last small section and I'll be done with the chapter. Not moving quite as quickly as I'd hoped, but I think what April and I have is pretty good so far.

Rich's progress on Shattered Mirror.

3,718 / 45,000 (8.3%)

Rich and April's progress on Shattered Mirror.

8,174 / 90,000 (9.1%)