Wait, what, focus on work over posting? Them's fightin' words, Daggs!
Talore, usually we ask you to stick around, post a bit so we can see how we mesh (+ if you want to tell us a bit about yourself, that's a good start, or if you have questions for us). Depending on how it goes, we'll vote on adding you, or we'll get the big guy who lives in the cave to toss you out unceremoniously. . . Usually we vote, though
Wait, when did we get rid of the tossing out ceremony?
Nick, I'm sorry things suck for you right now, but just remember that it could be worse. I'm wondering if I'll ever be able to find work, and am trying to figure out if it's better to put my stuff in storage and live out of my car, or if I should sell my car and continue to live out of my apartment. The job market is beyond impossible right now. I applied for a job that would be 90 minutes, once a week, for $30 each week, teaching a chess class. Pretty ☺☺☺☺ty and wouldn't begin to pay my bills. The job had 25 other applicants. You don't even want to know how many people I'm competing with on the 15-20 hour a week jobs.
Oz does have a National Sorry Day, but it's nothing like Thanksgiving. Basically they have nothing to prevent Christmas stuff from coming out in late September
If you're implying that Thanksgiving keeps that from happening in the US, then you've been off in another country too long.
Dude, Brian. Really small world. That link about being carfree and stuff? That dude's from Portland. An email list I'm on has been going crazy about his disappearance and suicide note over the last two days (they found him today, and he's getting help thankfully). I don't know the guy personally, but I know a lot of people who do know him.
What the hell are those odds?
EDIT: Well, you have some roots here, which is probably how you found it in the first place, but still, pretty crazy.
Holy crap life is so much more complicated now. So, last night, I got a call, it was a job offer for a tutoring job. Said job is 12 miles away, which is an hour whether I go by bus or bike. It's an hour and a half for four days a week. Factoring in transit time, I'm making less than minimum wage, but it's better than nothing, so I took it. Today I biked there and back, 65 minutes each way, as opposed to 70 minutes on the bus (and that's without any transfers either by some miracle), plus biking saved me $4 in bus fairs, and the exercise is good for me.
And I need the money, as horribly little as 6 hours a week actually pays. Last night the cap on my tooth chipped a LOT (before it had only chipped a little) so now I can't wait until January for the low cost clinic to fix it. I'm looking at about $1400 for that, about what I'll make in 3 months at my "job." Actually, I won't make that much even, as I only work on school days, and the kids have off tomorrow, plus the whole week of Thanksgiving, and Christmas break is in there somewhere.
I'm not sure what my point here is, but I'm sure it's in there somewhere.
I'm glad you found a way to be happier JJ. I used to get so frustrated with stupid drivers and traffic. I was lucky that I managed to magically outgrow it around when I was 20 (which has actually been a problem as I've had times when I've been in so much not a rush that I'd look at my spedometer and find I was only going 22 on a 35 mph road). I know I do a lot of pimping of bikes, but you should consider replacing that 1.4 mile drive with a 10 minute bike ride. If you think buses are relaxing, you should try the zen of commuting under your own power (assuming you don't have to risk your life dodging cars). Plus it's healthy for you. Just a thought.
BD....I heard that Costco is going to start accepting food stamps.
Where did you hear this? That would be fantastic, mostly. Costco has suddenly become a lot less inconvenient now that I'm without a car. But still, they have a lot of stuff that are a great deal and easy enough to bring home by bike. Until then it'll be a lot of Safeway (which, again, is literally 200 feet from my apartment, and open 24 hours, thus making it the single most convenient store I've ever known of) and Trader Joes (pretty much impossible to beat their price of $2.19 for a container of Tofutti) for me. Not all bad.
My progress on my novel is kinda stalled at about 9000 words. It's not a problem with not wanting to write, or not knowing what to write. I'm starting to love my story and my characters too much (especially Zoe and Lauren) and I'm becoming hesitant to write anything that's not good. I'll work my way through it though, I'm sure. Until then, yay for excessively long and rambling posts on the forums. If I'm typing, at least it feels like I'm working.
[B][COLOR="Sienna"][COLOR="Black"]Daggs -[/COLOR] I don’t see how that is possible to monitor his BAC w/o blood or a breathalyzer. A simple ankle bracelet wouldn’t do that. But I could be wrong. I had 3x DUI’s in under 7 years and got 45 days in jail + 3 yrs w/o a license and fines out the wazoo. But this is Tennesse. A friend’s 19 yr-old sister killed a man while driving drunk a few months ago and is now serving 9 years, that could have easily been me. DUI’s are nothing to take lightly, by any means. I hope dude learned his lesson. Though more times than not, it takes a serious incident to make people see it.
[color=navy][b]Probably the same way they measure O2 Sat without having to draw blood, namely it's probably something very similar to a pulse oximeter. Of course, even if they can't detect trace amounts, telling the convicted guy that they can is probably all that they really need to do anyway.[/b][/color]
Yes, that's exactly the point. You spend some time before November planning, creating characters, etc, and then you force yourself through that rough draft in a month. It gets done. It's been my experience that this is quite a good thing. When I recently forced myself to sit down and do the write up on my card suffling project, I learned more about it in four hours than I had in the 4 previous years that it had been just a side project.
In short, deadlines breed progress, and while that progress my not be perfect, it's still far superior than working on something endlessly in the attempt to have it perfected on the first go.
In related news, chapter 4 is finding itself to be real hell to write, and for completely different reasons than why chapter 2 was also so.
I've been dragging my feet on my speculative fiction novel for 10 years now (including taking up painting to do the illustrations. . .), why rush it?
I think that's the entire point. This novel will be done by the end of the month, instead of still being in preproduction for 10 years or more. If I like what I have after that, fixing it up to something publishable shouldn't take more than a year, and if not, then next year I'll have something else to try.
I was talking to Chris today (tonight?) and he had no idea about nanowrimo, so apparently I neglected to tell you all about it. In short, it's a yearly challenge to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. I've been been making great progress so far (7200 words after 52 hours). This might explain my being somewhat absent from the thread this month (it's not hard to find a few minutes to check the thread, it's hard to get myself to type anything but more story). If you guys want to keep up with my progress, I have a page set up on my website at http://mikefenwick.com/writing/nanowrimo2009.html. Be warned though that it's all likely riddled with spelling, grammatical, and typographical errors, as November is for writing, not editing. Also be warned that even I deem the entire first chapter to be complete crap, though I daresay it starts to become readable by chapter 2.
And now, back to writing (and wishing these 174 words could be added to my word count).
There's a Wal-Mart, but it's horribly ghetto when it comes to food. I looked for refried beans, and they only had a single brand (and it wasn't even Rosarita), and not the vegetarian kind. They didn't have iodized salt. They carry literally 10 different packages of tea, only 4 of which are aren't crap quality black tea. Really the only thing they have a decent assortment of is candy.
Thankfully, the food stamps are $200 a month, and I've been spending between that and $250 per month on food so far. Having to shift a lot of my spending away from Costco is going to raise it somewhat, but almost all my food costs should be covered.
There aren't any Fry's up here. There's a Safeway 300 feet from my apartment, an Albertson's about 10 miles out, and a Trader Joe's a half mile away. There are also a few Fred Meyer's around, but they are just far enough to not be convenient.
Man, I haven't posted in forever. Let's see here. Jeans, I never pay more than $14 for a pair. Woot Costco.
On the topic of universities, I recently learned that the U of A raised tuition 35% from $2500 a semester for in state students last year to $3500 a semester, along with hundreds of other "cost saving policies" that are complete crap. I'm glad I got out of that when I did.
On the topic of zombie comics....
This is hot linked, but it's from my own server, so there.
I'm officially now a government leech. Applied for food stamps the other day, and now I get $200 a month. Costco won't let me use them there though, which sucks because that's where they'd do the most good (you really can't beat a 50 pound bag of flour for $15, or $5 for a 2 pound package of bread yeast (128 packets worth). I suppose I'll be doing a lot more shopping at the Safeway now.
Oh, and I've spent the last week or so making my new website. You can find it at http://mikefenwick.com. I have a ton of really awesome photos on there, mathematical proofs, philosophical essays, and more!
Zooey is way up there indeed. And as a fellow vegan, that makes her only more attractive.
Ideally though, I think we'd all like to be part of a Zooey Deschanel / Felicia Day sandwich.
True, but it's not doing me any good if I can't afford insurance so I can drive it anywhere.
It's freakishly cold up here. Might get snow soon (it's definitely cold enough for it, but hasn't precipitated in a week or so).
What's this, talk about Magic? Since when do we do that anymore?
Wait, when did we get rid of the tossing out ceremony?
Nick, I'm sorry things suck for you right now, but just remember that it could be worse. I'm wondering if I'll ever be able to find work, and am trying to figure out if it's better to put my stuff in storage and live out of my car, or if I should sell my car and continue to live out of my apartment. The job market is beyond impossible right now. I applied for a job that would be 90 minutes, once a week, for $30 each week, teaching a chess class. Pretty ☺☺☺☺ty and wouldn't begin to pay my bills. The job had 25 other applicants. You don't even want to know how many people I'm competing with on the 15-20 hour a week jobs.
If you're implying that Thanksgiving keeps that from happening in the US, then you've been off in another country too long.
What the hell are those odds?
EDIT: Well, you have some roots here, which is probably how you found it in the first place, but still, pretty crazy.
And I need the money, as horribly little as 6 hours a week actually pays. Last night the cap on my tooth chipped a LOT (before it had only chipped a little) so now I can't wait until January for the low cost clinic to fix it. I'm looking at about $1400 for that, about what I'll make in 3 months at my "job." Actually, I won't make that much even, as I only work on school days, and the kids have off tomorrow, plus the whole week of Thanksgiving, and Christmas break is in there somewhere.
I'm not sure what my point here is, but I'm sure it's in there somewhere.
There isn't a tree or light post you can lock to? I'd check city ordinance first, but those are generally ok.
Where did you hear this? That would be fantastic, mostly. Costco has suddenly become a lot less inconvenient now that I'm without a car. But still, they have a lot of stuff that are a great deal and easy enough to bring home by bike. Until then it'll be a lot of Safeway (which, again, is literally 200 feet from my apartment, and open 24 hours, thus making it the single most convenient store I've ever known of) and Trader Joes (pretty much impossible to beat their price of $2.19 for a container of Tofutti) for me. Not all bad.
My progress on my novel is kinda stalled at about 9000 words. It's not a problem with not wanting to write, or not knowing what to write. I'm starting to love my story and my characters too much (especially Zoe and Lauren) and I'm becoming hesitant to write anything that's not good. I'll work my way through it though, I'm sure. Until then, yay for excessively long and rambling posts on the forums. If I'm typing, at least it feels like I'm working.
In short, deadlines breed progress, and while that progress my not be perfect, it's still far superior than working on something endlessly in the attempt to have it perfected on the first go.
In related news, chapter 4 is finding itself to be real hell to write, and for completely different reasons than why chapter 2 was also so.
And now, back to writing (and wishing these 174 words could be added to my word count).
Thankfully, the food stamps are $200 a month, and I've been spending between that and $250 per month on food so far. Having to shift a lot of my spending away from Costco is going to raise it somewhat, but almost all my food costs should be covered.
On the topic of universities, I recently learned that the U of A raised tuition 35% from $2500 a semester for in state students last year to $3500 a semester, along with hundreds of other "cost saving policies" that are complete crap. I'm glad I got out of that when I did.
On the topic of zombie comics....
This is hot linked, but it's from my own server, so there.
I'm officially now a government leech. Applied for food stamps the other day, and now I get $200 a month. Costco won't let me use them there though, which sucks because that's where they'd do the most good (you really can't beat a 50 pound bag of flour for $15, or $5 for a 2 pound package of bread yeast (128 packets worth). I suppose I'll be doing a lot more shopping at the Safeway now.
Oh, and I've spent the last week or so making my new website. You can find it at http://mikefenwick.com. I have a ton of really awesome photos on there, mathematical proofs, philosophical essays, and more!