Simplifying life, on-line and otherwise

I'm going to try and make things easier on myself on-line. I spend a lot of time just clicking about doing pointless things. I want to cut down on that. To that end I'm going to cut the number of games I play on Facebook down to just one (Lexulous) and reduce the number of blogs on my CSS feeds. Less distracting Facebookian clickage and less random blabber going into my eyeballs on Google Reader may make my life easier to navigate. Maybe at some point I will actually use the extra time to do the things I want to do in life: spend time with the family, work on my writing, get on the treadmill.

The treadmill is very near and dear to my heart these days. Darlene and I have joined Weight Watchers and I want to use the treadmill to help me get some exercise in addition to the point counting. I do some low/medium-impact walking at work, but if I can do more hardcore stuff on the treadmill at home that would help even more, especially on those days I have a little too much to eat.

I'll be posting updates on Facebook and here each week after my weigh-ins. My starting weight was 229.2. Last weekend I weighed in at 224.8, down 4.4 pounds in my first week. Go me! Wish me luck--support your local blogger, in the real world as well as on-line!

A renewal of purpose; a statement of intent

It's been a long time since I blogged here. One entry in April 2010 is all that I've published since October 2009. Here's how long it's really been: when last I published any real news we were moving from Sandy Springs to Dawsonville. Now we've been in Cumming for almost two years. That's a long time.

My on-line life has been pretty much exclusively lived on Facebook for the last three years. I stopped blogging a couple of years ago because...um...because...well, I don't really know why I stopped. I guess I just stopped taking the time to sit down and write things out.

My personal and family news gets shared on Facebook these days, but that's not really what I ever used this blog for anyway. The blog was more for telling stories, reliving memories, and getting things off my chest. I want to get back into that habit. I want to start blogging again. I want to do it as much for the chance to flex my writing muscles as anything else. About all that I've written in the last couple of years is fiction. I haven't done much epistolary writing and I really want to get back into that. I like this format and I want to do more of it. It's nice having a place to vent and just get random thoughts down on the page. Screen. Whatever.

I'm going to try to blog at least once a week. No idea what it'll be about. I'm sure the focus of the blog will change from post to post just as it always has. I'll write about whatever is in my head at the time. It might be a crazy story from high school or a rant about fantasy football or some other thing jammed in my head that is too long and clunky for a Facebook status.

Hopefully I can stick with this. I'm famous for setting writing goals that somehow never get met. I'll do my best to meet this one. Keep coming back to see how I do and, as you always have, support your local blogger.

I had a dream

Hello! I'm breaking a seven month silence to tell you about a dream I had last night. I want to get it down now before I forget about it and its too long for a Facebook status, so here I am.

To understand the dream you have to get some real world context. Two points:

1. We have been having computer problems. Our main household desktop got a virus on it a few weeks ago. I got it cleared off as far as I can tell, but it's still being hit with those fake antivirus ads and my antivirus won't update and Windows Update won't run either. I run antivirus and malware scans (of course, my definitions are a month out of date because I can't update them) but they don't find anything. Oh, and I'm getting these annoying fake captcha things too. Grr! Anyone have any ideas on that one?

2. I am immersed in audiobooks of The Wheel of Time during my commute. I'm currently halfway through The Great Hunt. Good stuff.


So, my dream. I was fighting with the computer, trying to get my antivirus updated. As usual I was getting the non-connect messages and everything else. Suddenly, it started updating out of nowhere! Cool!

I heard a noise outside the window and looked out the window and saw a man walking through the yard. He was tall, with red hair. I recognized him. It was Rand al'Thor! He's ta'veren! That has to be why the computer updated! I yelled for one of the kids to go ask him to stop and invite him in. I wanted to make sure he stuck around long enough for my updating to finish. I woke up. No idea if he came in or not.

For those of you who have never read The Wheel Of Time, ta'veren are people who can affect events in the world just by being there. Events tend to center on them and just being in the area would be enough to cause a computer to update despite hidden virus debris.

It was pretty cool.

What did you dream last night?

On the road

Have you ever been to Dawsonville, Georgia? It's about 40 miles north of our place, straight out Georgia 400. My Uncle Bubber and Aunt Pauline lived there a few years ago and we used to go see them.

There's some pretty cool stuff to do out that way. Bill Elliott Racing maintains a museum in Dawsonville. Supposedly it has all sorts of "Awesome Bill from Dawsonville" memorabilia and stuff. It's free, I think. There's also a nice outlet mall up that way that's not too bad. It's centrally located for Dahlonega and Lake Lanier and Amicalola Falls and some of the other North Georgia sites to see. It's a nice area.

You know why I'm telling you all this about Dawsonville? So when you come visit us up there you'll have an idea of what there is to do. That's right! The Brady Bunch is MOVING TO DAWSONVILLE!

That's right--we're leaving Sandy Springs behind. Some friends of ours rented a house up that way that has 3BR/2BA downstairs, and a completely separate upstairs wing that also has 3BR/2BA. There is a kitchen separating them and each wing has its own entrance and exit to the outside.. They invited us to move up and split the house with them, and we decided to take advantage of the offer.

They will live in the upstairs wing, and we will live downstairs. It will be like a duplex. We're calling it the "duplay" in an effort to sound all highfalutin'. We'll split the kitchen and all the bills, so we expect our expenditures to go way down. We're going to see if we can actually save some money now.

We're really looking forward to it. There's a park not far away that is part of the Lake Lanier system, so we might get the chance for some aquatic fun if things work out. The kids will be going to Dawson County schools, and we are hoping the change will work for them. The school they are in down here (as well as our neighborhood) has been going downhill the last couple of years. We don't feel it's as safe and neighborly as it used to be, so we are jumping at the chance to move into a better environment.

Hopefully it will be a good move for everyone. Darlene's and my commutes are going to be a lot longer but we feel it is worth it to be in a better place. We started the moving process yesterday with Darlene bringing some boxes home from work. We're hoping to be fully moved and have the kids starting school up there on October 19. Cross your fingers, say a prayer, whatever you do for luck and good fortune, do it for us as we move. I'll keep you up to date with what's going on as the next couple of weeks go by. We'll be going up there Saturday to take a load of stuff. We'll try to get some pictures and I'll post them as soon as I can.

in other news, for you Sandy Springs FFC fans, this past weekend marked the first win of the season, a 57-41 thrashing of Sea Stags, raising the record to 1-2. The 57 points is one of the highest in franchise history. Might be the actual highest, but I'm too lazy to check. "Mojo" Maurice Jones-Drew scored three TD's and Percy Harvin ran a kickoff back for a TD. Between them they scored 36 points and everyone else did what was needed. It was a good week. This week's opponent is 2-1 Hook-Ups. Should be a good one.

Take care for now, and support your local blogger.

Lordy, Lordy

I turned 40 on Tuesday. I'm not going to ponder on it because to me it's not a big deal. I had another birthday. We ate at Golden Corral. Whee! Happy Birthday, me!

Sandy Springs FFC fell to 0-2 on the season. Week 1 was a 31-25 loss to MacBain, and Week 3 was a sad 26-15 defeat at the hands of a previously toothless Lethal Weapon 4 squad. Tom Brady didn't do anything for me. Week 3 is next, with 2-0 Sea Stags on the schedule. Karl's guys are always tough. We'll see what happens.

Not much else going on, so I'm out. Peace. Support your local bloggers.

Catching up is hard to do

Ich bin ein Blogslacker. It's been a long time since I've updated here. I've done a bit of updating on my my writing blog from time to time over the summer, but not here. I've spent most of my free time on Facebook playing bloody Farmville. I haven't even played my Webkinz lately--only three times in the last two months or something. Poor Fletcher is probably sitting there all, "uh....".

So much has happened this summer. It's hard to figure out what exactly is the coolest thing to tell you. I suppose the coolest thing is that Lynn and Brad, our friends from church, adopted a lovely newborn baby boy named Bailey and asked Darlene and me to be his godparents. He's about two months old now. That was cool, and we've enjoyed getting to know him (and them) better over the last few weeks. We babysat today, in fact, and Darlene and me, and her parents, and Bailey all went to IHOP. Bailey had French toast. It was cool.



I'm still digging my job and the rest of the family is back in school. The twins are in the 6th grade and Steven is in the 8th. They're all at the same school and their school has made the big switch to wearing uniforms this year. That's been different. Sage is in the 3rd grade and is having a good time, and Darlene has started a new year with 2,000 clowns in the cafeteria. Gracie is just a clown in her own right, as usual.

I've been doing some writing on and off. I submitted a short story to an online SF/Fantasy magazine about a month ago and am anxiously awaiting a response. Nanowrimo is coming up in November and I'm going to be making a push on that again. Like I said above, I updated my writing blog a few times during the summer. I will be doing a restatement of purpose over there in the next few days--laying out what I hope to accomplish over the next few months. I do that from time to time so I can actually have a list of goals to look back on in February and say, "Man, I meant to do that." Keep an eye on the writing blog. Here's the link again. Set a bookmark. Hit the RSS feed, whatever. Check it out!

The other thing that's going to be trying to bring me back here over the next few months will be my fantasy football updates. My UFFL team is currently behind in Week 1, 31-19, with Cousin Tom Brady and Wes Welker playing tomorrow night. I have a couple of other teams on Facebook and Yahoo, but as usual I'll try to limit my fantasy sportswriting to the UFFL front, as that's my first love as far as fantasy football goes.

I think that's all I really have to say right now. With football starting up I should be a more frequent poster. Summer is always a slow time for the blog. Autumn should pick it back up nicely. Take care, and please support your local blogger. And add comments, darn it!