Bum Scoop

Having returned from London on Friday, I figured I would try to make sense of some of the things I learned while there:

• The American Hot — Apparently, this is somewhat widely recognized style of pizza, featuring pepperoni and sliced mild peppers. I’ve seen it offered as an option in every pizza place I’ve been in so far (and I’ve sampled a few different brands of pizza), and I’m a bit boggled that that’s seen as a seemingly quintessential American pizza. In my days of working in pizza places in the Midwest, I can’t recall many times that that combination was ordered. Certainly not enough that it’s a standard.
• Paying for Food — All I can say is that ordering and paying for food here is a rigidly eccentric experience, and I’m not sure it’s been the same in any two different restaurants I’ve been to. Some you order at the counter and pay at the time, some you seat yourself and wait for the wait staff, some you wait to be seated, but still order and pay at the counter, and almost all of them seem kind of annoyed to have to take a credit card. Which leads me to…
• Cash Cards, Swipe Cards, Cash Machines — Apparently my boring, pedestrian American debit card lacks some kind of chip that allows it to be used in the debit card machines here. I discovered this after running out of cash and wanting to buy some food at McDonald’s. (I know, I know, but they had some choices here that we don’t and I was curious.) But McDonald’s in London won’t take a card that requires a signature. And my debit card won’t work in their machines because it lacks that smart chip. And then, even though it had the right symbols, the nearest cash machine refused to give me any money (even though it accurately reported my balance). I wonder if they’re still holding my order for me at that McDonald’s, five days later…
• Mind the Gap — Actually means “mind the two foot vertical difference between the train and the platform. Sorry about that old boy, don’t know how it happened, we’ll have it fixed straight off.” Where “straight off” means “sometime this millennium.”
• No. 10 Downing Street — Which is the official residence/office of the Prime Minister, appears to be situated down some kind of narrow alley.
• The Tube — It really is a great way to get around. Yet again, I’ve been to a modern, international city with a fantastic public transit system, and I want it for my own. Of the few things that really appeal to me about living in a no-shit megalopolis, effective and reasonably reliable public transportation is probably tops on the list.
• British Food — Not that bad, compared to the reputation. But then, I only had fish ‘n’ chips once in eleven days. And yeah, sorry, I skipped the mushy peas.

That’s the trip in a series of basic and less-than-comprehensive bullet points. Beyond that, it was good, it was fun, it was a lot more work than I wanted it to be and I did not get to see or experience nearly as much as I wanted to, but it was a work trip and not a holiday, so that’s to be expected. I can’t wait to go again, and I hope I can convince my employer to let me.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

So, here’s my little retrospective.

In February, I got a new job, replacing nearly four months of life on Unemployment. It’s a good job, one I’m pretty happy with, very challenging and so on. Not what I want to be doing forever, but it’s workable for the foreseeable future.

In May, I attended a novel workshop hosted by my friend Merrie Haskell out at her family’s cottage on Gun Lake, south of Grand Rapids. It was a good time, and I made a new friend in Kelly Swails. Oh, and I read two great novels (one by her and one by my friend Steve Buchheit), and got two great critiques (from Elizabeth Shack and Merrie) on my own novel. That novel, sadly, is still sitting in a state of semi-disrepair, but… I think it does need to sit a bit. I’ll get back to it, honest.

I also tried for the second time to start a novel that, while fantasy, drew heavily on my experience in Iraq, and for the second time I set it down. The second go at it identified and fixed a number of issues I had with the first try, but there were still more issues, I think, with the premise and opening, so I’ll have to go back and fix those.

In October, I made it to my first World Fantasy Convention, where I met a stunning array of awesome people, some for the first time ever, some just for the first time in person. I also met Darja Malcolm-Clarke who, as it happens, I have unknowingly been following around for most of my adult life. She didn’t know it either, so the first night of WFC turned into a recounting of amusing coincidences. I got to hang out with her again, just last night, as she was in town to visit family.

In fact, it felt like I met or hung out with everyone who was anyone at that con, but I also feel like I only scratched surface.

More tryingly, and personally, in the last third of the year, my wife and I discovered what we mostly already knew–that my oldest, my only son, is probably going to have a heck of a time with school. Not with learning, as it happens, he’s very good at that on his own, but just in the demands of a school day. This is not, incidentally, an invitation to tell me I should be homeschooling him, or seeking out alternative methods of education. We’re aware of the pros and cons, and this seems like the best course for him right now.

And this month, just a couple of weeks ago, we were given a name for his difficulties: Autism Spectrum Disorder, on the “highly functioning” end of the spectrum. He’s also got a helping of anxiety disorder and ADHD, which should surprise no one who knows me. In fact, the past few weeks have been heavy with speculation as to what I might have been diagnosed with at his age, had Autism Spectrum Disorder been in vogue in the 80s (when I was diagnosed with ADHD). And, yes, I did think about making this its own post, but in a sense, I don’t want to draw more attention to it than it is due. Tony is an extremely intelligent boy. He has every chance, given the right environment, of learning how to do the things that come naturally to most other people, the tough social component to ASD. We think, at this point, we have the right tools in place to help him get there.

So, in all, it’s been a largely positive year for me, and us. The struggle of dealing with my son has been tempered by getting a handle on what’s going on and developing a plan for helping him out. I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like, but I made a lot more writing friends, which leads to more inspiration in the writing arena. And I’ve nailed down what project I’m going to be kicking off in the new year, hopefully as soon as tomorrow, assuming the wife gives me time with the kids, after she’s had them to herself the last couple of days.

I hope your own year has been as good, or at least as constructive, and if it hasn’t, then I hope for a much better year for you in 2011. Me, I’m looking to build on this one and make things just that much better.

Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

Hey look, it’s Friday! I love me some Friday.

The week has been a nice, if one that is slightly out of skew with my normal type weeks. Worked on a book production project, worked on revisions for a novel, and spent what seems to be an inordinate, but thoroughly enjoyable, amount of time hanging out with Mary Robinette Kowal. If you don’t know her (and I think there might be some who don’t), she’s a fabulous writer, currently the VP of SFWA, professional puppeteer, and delightful conversation partner. She also won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, so to say that she’s an awesome person for a fledgling writer to hang out with is a vast understatement.

But, it wasn’t all fun and games this week. I also tore what I think is my fourth pair of khakis since starting my current job in February, all due to the very non-desk-job nature of my supposed desk job. Since there’s a gazillion square feet of manufacturing plant and warehouse outside my office, I tend to have to squeeze into odd space and crawl around the occasional whirring, clanking machine, not to mention crawling under various and sundry office desks, and I realized that it’s just not a job for regular khakis. So I bought some Carhartt dungarees, which look surprisingly enough like ordinary khakis, just with much sturdier material/stitching and a few extra pockets.

Mmmmm, pockets.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the weekend, which hopefully will feature plenty more writing and a bit of hanging out at Gun Lake.

Anybody else with fun plans for the weekend?

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

Not much written. But that was because…

Much time spent with family. Especially extended family, where we discussed how nice it was that second cousins could hang out with one another and have a good time and keep a sense of family about us, even spread all over the place. Not everyone was able to come that we would have liked to see, but Sunday featured around 60 people.

One XBox 360 acquired. A friend made a rather misguided wager, and rather than wait until March for the bet to play out, he simply paid out this week, and handed off a bunch of loaner games for me to get acquainted with the system. (He, of course, bought the new slim version, so this one was surplus to needs.) I would not have lost the bet–but spiting him and getting an XBox in the bargain certainly made it sweeter. Let me know if you want my gamertag, and I’ll e-mail you.

Not-quite-dayjob project completed. I don’t talk much about work, or the paying stuff I do outside of work, but I finished up a rather annoying task this weekend, which I’m glad to be done with. Not that I don’t like the work or the money it brings, but it now occurs to me that I need some better hardware. Better hardware makes projects go better.

Too much food eaten. See point two.

Not-quite-dayjob new projects received. Time to look into better hardware!

House guest acquired. Periodically my littlest brother–working on his PhD at UChicago–will come and stay with us for a few days to a couple of weeks in between quarters. Such is the time we’re in and such is his newfound presence on my couch. We do like having him around, though it tends to mean our fridge empties a little more quickly. Then again, he also tends to consume that stuff at the back of the cupboard that isn’t quite expired, but that we probably won’t find an appetite for before it does.

Plenty of fun had. Nice weekend, good times, but glad to be back home and doing a lot of the other stuff that I enjoy.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

So, last week, through various means, my new employer authorized me for a work cell phone. I used to have one, for quite a while with the last job (or, a series of them), but lost it obviously when I got laid off. After that, I went out and got this rather nice, but ultimately ‘dumb’ flip phone and a new phone number. Now, I have a new phone, a Motorola Droid (running the Google Android OS), and a boss who is badgering me to transfer the phone number for my slightly dumb flip phone over to the Droid.

Yeaaaaaaaah. No. Call me skittish, but after relying on a work cell phone for years and having it yanked away rather unceremoniously and with zero warning, I’m not that interested in putting all my eggs in that basket again. Despite my boss’s assurances that I don’t have anything to worry about.

On the plus side, I get a ‘pre-owned’ XBox 360 if I hold onto my old phone for a year. Shouldn’t be too tough.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.