Back online

Well, well, well.  

Last weekend's travels for soccer are done. My daughter's team scored three wins!  But, boy was the weather lousy. We had pouring rain for both games on Saturday, and frigid temps on Sunday.  Looking back on it, it wasn't so bad, but during the tournament, we were hard-pressed not to talk about the weather.

Back in NJ on Monday, I kicked off another infrastructure week. I did not think I would spend all week, but one of the benefits of not having a full-time job is you can take your time to fix some things that you can't really do in the few hours (if you are lucky) you get on nights and weekends when working.  

I got to take my time, finally, to fix the network at the house.

The previous owners of the house had run cables to many rooms and terminated everything at a switch in the basement. The FIOS modem went to a wireless router, and the router had a cable to the above switch. I never took the time to understand how this all worked (there is a lot going on in the basement) and simply used the wifi network when we moved in.  It worked ok.  Then a year and half ago I decided we needed to improve the network, so I bought an Orbi mesh router and a few satellites. But I still did not sort everything out properly. I just turned off the old wireless network and daisy chained the Orbi router to the existing router keeping the same SSID/PWD as the old network.  This worked ok.  Then Verizon, around the same time, sent me a new Router. That new router sat in its box for over a year gathering dust. It's never a good time to monkey with the network, right?

I finally bit the bullet. I swapped out the routers. I replaced the old switch with a new gigabit switch and sorted out the hardwired topology. I then put each of the satellites onto the hardwired network.  This should dramatically improve the wifi performance on the upper floors of the house.

I also bought a UPS for the NAS (yes I should I have done that initially). 

I only had to go to the Apple Store, BestBuy and MicroCenter. :-) I also went to Staples (well actually two of them) in search of another small desk (which I found!).

So lots of driving, investigating, experimenting, and not much blogging. 

I did keep my daily VSS365s going. I tried to tie several together into a thread of action:

• rose
• force
• specter
• load
• mask
• scarlet
• iron
• light

My latest two are more standalone (not really related to the above thread)

• desert
• captain

So there we are.  Good Friday to you all.

(don't forget to check out my first short story Memory, loss, and let me know what you think)

peace,

Greg

Travel Weekend

 Hey Folks

I won't be doing much writing (or blogging) this weekend, as I am off with my family at a soccer tournament.  See you all next week.

vss365: specter & spectre

peace, greg

Here it is!

I am proud to offer up my first story.  Please send me your thoughts and comments- what you liked and what you didn't.  Don't hold back. :-)

Memory, loss

(and here is today's vss365 - force)

Pitch, Hit and Run

Just a quick update.

I did my Jamboree pitch session.  I think it went pretty well. I don't think I will share all the details, though, as I would like the producers to have whatever privacy they might want in selecting the theme.  Once they have made their choice I can give you the rundown.  I wrote a silly skit and curated a playlist.

I sent my short story out to the people who joined the mailing list. So far the responses have been positive.  As such, I'll likely post it here on the blog on Friday.  I still need to figure out the best way to do that.

And today's #vss365 - rose

Tomorrow's plan...more research on how best to host PDFs for public consumption. (I do welcome suggestions).  And take the car in for service. And talk to my long-lost colleague Matt R.

I'm pretty gassed.  Turns out sharing your work (the pitch and the story) takes a lot out of you emotionally. Even though all the feedback has been supportive, I'm wiped. Also still recovering from the weekend's cold.

(UPDATE: I have figured out how to host the story.  See there is a TAB at the top called "Stories", and I know how to host and link to a PDF.  Stay tuned folks! )

Still Alive

Hey folks, I have been under the weather these past few days so I apologize for the lack of updates. If you were worried I had died, I have not. However, I did manage to kill a whole box of tissues and several DayQuil. 

When I am stuck in bed (alternating between too hot and too cold) unable to actually fall asleep, even though I desperately want to, YouTube can be my only solace. Thankfully I found Hello Future Me. Some very engaging videos on writing, with solid examples, and ample Dr Who references.  Highly recommended! 

I did manage to do my prep work for the Jamboree pitch meeting (tomorrow).  I'll share the skit I wrote after the meeting, as I surely don't want anyone who might be there to see it in advance.  If I am selected I might have to keep it a secret, now that I think about it.  Anyway. I'll give you all an update on how it went, on Thursday.

I also have a version of my first short story almost ready to send out. I want to give it one more quick edit and then I will e-mail it to those who joined the mailing list (hint hint), and then a few days later post it here. (though I think I need a better strategy for hosting the stories than a blog.  Suggestions??)

I have managed to re-start my #vss365 stories:

#vss365 - color

#vss365 - train

And last but not least, I have joined The Writers of The Weird, a writers group here in Northern New Jersey. They have several meetups a month so I am excited to get to know some other aspiring authors. I also expect the energy of the group will help keep me motivated. 

Worlds Collide

You all are going to think I am having you on, and honestly I am still a little gobsmacked myself.  If you have been reading this blog this past week you will know I have been watching videos (about writing SciFi/Fantasy fiction) from Brandon Sanderson. Keep in mind I have not read any of his books. I just stumbled across a video in my youtube stream and Voila there I was.  Then two days ago, I decided out of the blue to see what a long-ago friend Charlie Cleveland, who I know had started a games company (Unknown Worlds), was up to. I read a bunch of the articles on his blog, and posted a few thoughts about that.  He mentioned something about his latest game, Moonbreaker, but I did not click through to find anything more about the game itself.  And I surely have not played it. Anyway, today, I stumbled across this youtube video blindly in my stream, and to my utter amazement, Sanderson did a bunch of work on the game. From the home page of the game:

Moonbreaker is a turn-based strategy, tabletop tactics game developed by Unknown Worlds, the team behind the Subnautica series.  It is designed to be a true digital miniatures experience, set in an expansive sci-fi universe crafted by best-selling sci-fi and fantasy author, Brandon Sanderson.

Holy cow.  So surely I must now read one his books, or play the game, or both!

Otherwise today was a pretty good day on the creative front. I showed the first draft of my first short story to my children, and got some positive feedback. I then hunkered down and produced a decent second draft.  As I was trying to flesh out a few awkward sentences or confusing bits, I started adding in some more detail, and now I am wondering if some of that detail is really the Umbrella Plot idea? So perhaps the initial story is the Core Plot, but really the key idea is this other thing. I will definitely need to noodle this more. (sorry)

And then a huge rabbit hole. I came out from under my rock and discovered Jacob Collier. Clearly I don't watch The Grammys.  But wow, what an interesting guy. And he is touring.  I hope to get tickets to one of the local shows ASAP. (Anybody else already going or want to go?)

One of the great things he has done is an arrangement of Lionel Richie's song all night long. This is significant to me, because I was just in a musical in February where we did a big production of this song. Itt was so interesting to see what Collier did, and compare it to what we did.

And a bit more about that musical.  The high school in our town puts on a huge parent run broadway style production every year called Jamboree to raise money for a scholarship fund (we raised close to 250K this year). The was the first year I was part of it, and performed in seven or eight numbers (including All Night Long), and acted in a few skits. It was a lot of fun!  The recording of the show will be available in a month or two, and I will be sure to post a link when it is up. BUT - more importantly, March 20th is the pitch night for next year's show.  I will be working on my pitch over the next few days. 

And lastly, my daughter made me some amazing signs for my office:

peace, greg

Promises

While waiting for my daughter at soccer the other night I brought along a notebook (a gift of encouragement from my wonderful wife), and I started processing some of the material from the Brandon Sanderson class I have been watching. Namely, the notion of Promises, Progress and Payoff.  I started brainstorming what were some of the things I was promising the reader in the beginning of the story I have been noodling.  How would I show progress? What were the payoffs?

Sanderson also introduced me to the idea of Umbrella plots and Main plots.  E.g, you can have a journey plot (get from place A to place B -- the main plot), but really it is a romance between two of the people on the journey (The Umbrella plot). I might have those backwards, but the idea of those two concurrent plots resonated with me. As I am writing this post I am reminded of The Sure Thing which is exactly this structure.

He also talked about an "information" plot type.  A story could start out with a very confusing setting, and make a promise that by the end you will know what is going on, and the progress in the story is about incrementally revealing more and more details of the world. I recognize this idea in a some of the authors I really like, and totally get how the progressive disclosure keeps me reading (great example: The Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe). I don't want to spoil it if you have not read it, but Wolfe casually drops details about the world that make you go "what? what is really going on?".  The front-and-center plot is much less interesting than unravelling the mystery of the setting/world the story is set in. 

--

I did a little bit of thinking about the mobile game I am planning on writing.  And in so doing, re-stumbled across a long lost friend, Charlie Cleveland's amazing blog. He has so much good advice, backed up with real world examples. For one, get a low-fi prototype done very quickly. And don't put good graphics in it. You want to be able to pivot on the idea quickly. As soon as you start making it look nice you lock yourself in to the idea before you have tested it with users.  He also recommends a small team (1-2 people) should make the first prototype. Again don't kill velocity by needing to keep a larger team in synch. So I am going to hammer out a prototype... probably in April, once I have taken a few online classes to reacquaint myself with current game dev platform mechanics (e.g, Unity).  I have a subscription to gamedev.tv from a long time ago so will start there.... other suggestions for good classes and/or platforms welcome!).

--

Quick infrastructure update: I got the NAS up and running and TimeMachine has backed up the MBP. Although I don't want it to, the machine is free to fully die and I won't be completely despondent.

--

And now to bury the lead...

I wrote a short story! 

It's still very much a first draft, but maybe, just maybe, I will have a slightly better draft to share with people who have joined the mailing list next week.

peace, Greg

A tale of two selves

Today was all about infrastructure.

My current home computer is a:

Yep. I bought it 2017. It was a very nice machine in 2017. I had all these dreams of programming again. (see how I am still justifying the purchase, when I could have purchased a much smaller machine). For a writer of fiction today it is still very nice and probably overkill. But, alas, the keyboard has been acting funky for a few months. Every once in a while the spacebar doubles up (no it is not the "space after period" setting). I have fidgeted with every setting I can find, and have spent several sessions googling for answers. Nothing. I just go back and fix all the extra spaces in final edit. (I was going to say "in post" - like I am a creative or something).

My old self would see this as a sign that I need a new computer. 

But my new self said let's go the Genius Bar. So I actually made a reservation and went to the Apple Store. They took it in back and cleaned it and did whatever geniuses do, and then brought it back out. Problem  still persists. 

I could feel my old self getting excited. The new M3 pros look awfully nice.

Thankfully the configuration I would want was not available in the store. This forced my creativity to kick in. My new self said, you have an external monitor, just get a an external keyboard. Voila! No more  random extra  spaces. :-)

But I still was in the infrastructure mood. I started thinking that I was not happy with my current backup strategy. My wife's desktop has timemachine going to an external SSD. I have no idea if it still works. I set that up so long ago... and my laptop does not have timemachine going anywhere. Source code is in the cloud (github), photos in icloud, but really nothing for the laptop itself. Since you can not use timemachine with iCloud,  I clearly need a NAS. (Especially if I am going to be migrating laptops eventually).

I do a bunch of reading on the web, and come up with a potential Synology enclosure + WesternDigital drives set up. Being my new self, I decided to phone a genius to make sure I was not doing something completely stupid. Thank you Scott H!

So now I have the NAS on my local network and am waiting the 13+ hours for the RAID to configure. 

Plenty of time to spec out a new Macbook Pro.... (That dream of programming again might happen after all).

Broken Hanger

Walking with Dan these past two days (very much need a hat!) I came across a broken plastic coat hanger on the side of the street. Any story teller worth their salt should be able to turn that in to a story, right? Let's ask some questions:

• Who does/did the hanger belong to?
• Why did they drop it?
• Did they notice?
• If so, why didn't they pick it up? What kind of person would not pick it up?
• If they did not notice, why not? Were they distracted? Focused on something else?
• Was it already broken? Did the fall break it?

After a block or two of dead ends, I arrived at: 

a person was cleaning out a basement and put a large pile of items on the side of the street-- an old tv, a broken book case, a hand full of broken hangers... When the trash was collected, the sorry old hanger was accidentally left behind. The trash truck was long down the street before anybody noticed...  

Not a very exciting story... so let's expand:

• could the hanger be evidence of something else? 
• Were they discarding things from some crime, and that this innocuous little item carried a sliver of proof? 
• Was there a thread still attached? 
• DNA? 
• But would you really discard evidence on the side of the street?  Probably not.
• Maybe it was a landlord cleaning out after a rental?
• What was the crime? Had a kidnapped person's clothes been on that hanger, and they were now long gone, but this proved they were there...

Anyway I'm not so sure this story has legs, but it was interesting to spend a few blocks of my walk asking questions and seeing where they would take me.

--

Also, I have been watching lectures from Brandon Sanderson about writing SciFi/Fantasy novels. Very interesting stuff!

Senses working overtime

The last two walks with Dan (my dog) have me thinking about prioritization of senses-- which sense holds your attention, and which live in the background, and what drives that decision?  Dan is prone to barking at other dogs, and sometimes snapping at people if he gets startled, so I am always using my eyes and ears to look for other dogs and people. I may cross the street or turn around or speed up or slow down based on what I see, and perhaps what I hear.  Dan, at least these last two days, has been entirely driven by his nose.  This morning the birds were out in force, and at least one squirrel darted across our path, but Dan kept is nose firmly to the ground seeking out the next tree or fence post to conduct his p-mail. I would have thought the squirrel smelled appetizing and might have jolted him towards hunting with his eyes? (it would have when he was a puppy).  

I also would have thought a dog raised on the streets would be less singularly focused - that using all of your senses would have been a necessary survival skill? Maybe Dan is getting soft. He does have a comfortable safe place to sleep and is without a doubt well fed.

I explored this topic a little in one of my #vss365 stories from October 2023:

ARC9 blindfolded the street dog and muffed his ears. Then with a tap, sent Sandy’s nose off to #wander the burgled shop, searching for a misplaced scent. Before the small hand traced 45 degrees, Sandy returned with a purple azalea petal. So she had been there after all!

I wonder how else I could explore this idea?  Might you actively use scent to distract a guard dog so as to slip by visually undetected?  Might a cross examination insinuate someone did not see something because they were listening so intently? 

Anyone have examples where one sense dominated your attention so intently that you missed something else completely? What was the situation? 

(other topic on my mind:  my seven year old macbook pro is acting up.  Should I get one of the new M3 Airs? Should I get a new pro? Opinions?)

Pure gold

Devoured and bookmarked this fabulous video on show don’t tell

Mobile?

Yuck, this blog looks bad on mobile.  I found a way for blogspot to use a different theme for mobile devices, but I can't seem to figure out how to change the layout of the mobile theme. And I don't like the layout... 

Maybe I should use a different blog platform.  Any suggestions?  (fortunately I am managing the domain externally so could easily point someplace else). 

Well let me correct myself.  I don't like the mobile layout for first time readers. If you already know the gist of the blog and just want to read new posts, I guess it's fine. 

So I guess the real question is -- how much should I care about the first time mobile experience? (given I have no readers yet, I think answer is a lot). 

Thoughts anyone? 

Blog tweaking

Today I monkeyed with the layout of the site, added a photo of one of my happy places, and added links to some of my prior work.  I welcome any and all feedback about the way the blog looks.  This is not my area of expertise.  

I'll be pretty busy for the next week or so but hope soon to launch back in to more #vss365s about the life and times of Sandy the street dog and his robot companion ARC9.  And where that takes me...

Take off!

This past weekend was a fabulous time to walk with my dog, and to launch a new blog- cold enough to warrant a hat, but no gloves required.  

Stay tuned for updates on various projects soon!