fontosaurus

This exercise is to write a fragment of a story (500 words) written entirely in imperative commands. Source: 3 AM Epiphany

Here we go:

Originally published at DanBailey.net. Please leave any comments there.

Here’s the things I’m thankful for in 2009:

• Kate! A wonderful woman who I’m fortunate to have in my life.
• My job! Not only was 2009 crazy-busy and even intellectually stimulating, but I got a raise!
• The continued health of the four cats who did not die in 2009. One was hard enough.
• My friends — who always keep me on my toes and prevent me from doing stupid shit.
• My family — for not driving me crazy in 2009.
• My health. Had a few scares in 2009, but all is right with the world.
• Cheez-its.

Originally published at DanBailey.net. Please leave any comments there.

1. Bike stuff is going so-so. Framebuilding class is awesome. Pre-season training has been spotty. Going to get back at that tonight.

2. Writing exercises are going okay, I suppose. A few per week seems reasonable, and I’m still plugging away at #3, which has really weird POV issues.

3. I’ll be posting some more stuff re: my professional life here — specifically ideas and insights surrounding interactive marketing. My first piece is about email marketing, and has been in-progress for a few days now.

4. I’ve got a new geek project that has a very original temporary name — Project X. It’s a whole new way to socially network. I’m laying out the framework in Rails, and may have to find some people who understand the large-scale stuff better than I do to join me in this endeavor. I hope to have a basic, working site in a month or so.

5. Been thinking about the Fontosaurus site some more. New template? New payment processing engine? New business model? Yes to all.

Originally published at DanBailey.net. Please leave any comments there.

Mooch’s passing still hits me a little bit once in awhile. Not as hard as it used to, obviously. The Mooch-shaped hole in my life is healing over, I guess.

I did make the mistake of going in to PetSmart’s “Adoption Center” last night — always a mistake. No, I did not get another cat, but it was also very hard to get out of there without taking them all with me.

Kate and I have talked about cat population early on, and we agreed that we would let natural attrition get us down to a population of three, and not go beyond that ever again. Given that we have three cats who are all younger than five, it’s going to be a long time before that happens.

So we idly discuss such things. We’re both smitten by the Singapura breed (more) right now, but again, it’ll be a long time before we bring one into our home.

I’m very okay with that. The desire for another cat is transient, at best. Our armada of boys is fun to be around, get along pretty well, and have an interesting blend of quirks. I really don’t want to upset the applecart by bringing in an interloper.

Originally published at DanBailey.net. Please leave any comments there.

This exercise is to write a 600 word short story from the first person POV, using a personal pronoun only twice. Source: 3 AM Epiphany

Here’s my take:

Originally published at DanBailey.net. Please leave any comments there.

So I’m counting this as a writing exercise since I blew it out in about 10 minutes. BoingBoing is having a 100-word fiction contest. The theme is “Found in Space.” My first draft was 122 words. I really had to work to get it down to 100. Here’s my results:

Not brilliant, but okay.

Originally published at DanBailey.net. Please leave any comments there.

Class went well yesterday. I did dink around with more brazing, and I’m getting much more comfortable with it. I also got my first hands-on experience with TIG welding, which is pretty much the opposite of brazing in every way imaginable. It really bent my brain, but at the same time, it was good — it made me think about brazing differently. The result is that I feel much more comfortable with moving bronze/silver around the joints. Next weekend, I’ll be building a BMX frame — not for me, but for one of Paul’s kids. I’m actually pretty psyched about that. Clearly, I’m doing something right.

Training, well, I’m still sore from Friday’s foray into the weight room. It’s not painful-sore, more of a tight muscles condition, and it’s driving me batty. Especially since I have more weights on the agenda tonight, along with a 90-minute endurance ride (zones 1 and 2). This time of year, it’s supposed to be easy — getting my body slowly acclimated to the stresses I’m going to be throwing at it starting at the end of March. The problem for me now is one of mentality. I’m going bugshit when I’m at the gym, trying to avoid pushing myself beyond the training zones I’m supposed to be in. How to deal with the overwhelming urge to push myself harder? The best I can do is keep reminding myself that I’m just getting started and that the peak of my abilities is still six months away. The problem is getting myself to stick with that plan. Anyone else deal with this problem in the off-season?

All this bike stuff has caused me to miss almost every Vikings game this season. And it’s been a pretty solid season. I’m not really too upset by that, though, as much as I love the Vikes. I’ve got so much else going on in life right now that managing to catch the occasional game makes it all worthwhile.

Still working on that first writing exercise. That’ll be posted early this week.

Originally published at DanBailey.net. Please leave any comments there.

It’s 7 a.m. on a Sunday. I’ve been up for a little bit now, following up on email, and going to write a quick post.

Training went well yesterday — a 1-hour recovery ride in zone 1. My heart rate did slip upward a few times, but never for more than a few seconds. Really, how bad can one of those go? Not very. The upside was that I discovered that I can go out and ride when the temp is in the low 40s without freezing my balls off. That means I can stretch the outdoor riding season for another week or two. Good!

Today, I am still sore from Friday night’s weights session. I hope to be fully recovered by tomorrow, as I have more weights and a 90-minute endurance ride on Monday’s schedule. Thinking about splitting those up into a morning session and an evening session. We’ll see. Today’s a rest day, so that helps.

“There is pain in discipline and there is pain in regret. Which pain will you choose?” – Mark Sartain

Class today should be a fun one. I’ll update later. For now, though, the preparation must commence.

Originally published at DanBailey.net. Please leave any comments there.

Stopped off at Discount Steel to buy some 3″ square tubing with which to build my own welding stand. It’ll be what I’m learning to TIG weld on, too, incidentally. Once it’s done, it gets powder-coated (red or black), and I’ll set it up down in the basement. It’ll be awhile before I’m building at home — probably not until after the wedding, I suspect — but over the next few months, I’ll be pulling in more and more bits of hardware. The building table is probably the next big item after that.

I started my off-season training program last night — after the steel place, I hit up the gym. And was quickly reminded of how much I despise training at this time of year because it feels like I’m not really accomplishing anything. Last night called for 45 minutes of “E2″ — endurance work in zones 1 and 2, for those of you not using Joe Friel’s system. I noodled along and for the first 15 minutes or so, I was really frustrated. So I put on some really angry music and visualized racing ‘cross and that mostly removed my thought process from the situation. Occasionally, I’d have a moment or two of wanting to let the frustration boil over into working harder than I should, but I opted to trust the training program and finished up.

Also had weights on the agenda last night, too. This was not as frustrating, and I did a balance of full-body work. It’s early in the season, so I’m in the “stability” phase of trying to build fine muscle structure and get the body used to shoving weights around again. Low weights, high reps. The only thing that really killed me was the lunges — the legs are pretty damn tired, and last night I was having a difficult time with the stairs. Clearly, I overdid it a bit.

Today’s a lot easier a day — an E1 recovery ride for an hour. High near 50° today, so I may bundle up and do it out on the pavement while Kate’s off shopping for wedding dresses with her mom.

Tomorrow’s a day off from training (I’m at 8.5 hours a week for the first 8 weeks of this) more framebuilding class with Paul, which should be a lot of fun. I get to talk over my blueprints with him, among other things, and explain why I put a 73.5° head tube angle on a ‘cross bike.

Originally published at DanBailey.net. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve been thinking about writing lately, and how my productivity has basically tanked since I departed college for the RealWorld™. There is a litany of contributing factors to that, and I think that with this post, I’ll be scratching the surface of that set.

First and foremost, it’s because I am not regularly in the habit of writing fiction. In college, I was forced to sit down and put electrons to storage medium on a regular basis. Whether that was straight-up writing of fiction, or doing any number of writing exercises, I was still hammering out words on a regular basis.

Secondly, my filter was more flimsy than it is now. As I write now, I second-guess everything I put to paper. I’m uncertain as to exactly why that is, but I suspect that a contributing factor is that I don’t have anyone else’s work to server as a benchmark for my own. In college, I would frequently look at the works of my peers and be absolutely aghast at the notion that some of these people thought that they were going to become writers. It was good for my ego. And as a result, I wrote more.

The trick now, of course, is going to be finding a way to replicate those conditions in such a way that I can maintain my relationship with my fianceé, my job, and my other time commitments without any sort of negative impact.

Right now there’s too much going on to expect to be able to crank out 2000 words or more per day, but I can commit to doing a writing exercise per day and 250-500 words before leaving for the office (or during lunch). I’ve got 3 AM Epiphany and The Write-Brain Workbook, both ready for use.

I’ve got to start somewhere. Eventually, I’ve got to find myself a writers’ group, too.

Originally published at DanBailey.net. Please leave any comments there.

Big ups to all who have served or are in the process of serving. Extra big ups to everyone I served with from 1991 to 1998. You guys are family, even if we didn’t always get along. Also, a big thanks to the people of the Minneapolis VA Hospital for their professionalism, their caring attitude, and the ability to get me through an entire battery of tests, physical therapy, and more tests in a manner that is both timely and thorough.

All that said, there are other things going on here in Dan Land that I should address.

SAD has hit me like a ton of bricks this year. My god, it’s tough to focus on anything. And I sleep constantly. This has got to stop. I need to get a sun lamp — and soon. Plus some Vitamin D supplements. And more exercise.

On the subject of more exercise, I’ve been hammering out the training program for the 2010 season. As of right now, my phases are all fixed in-place. I merely need to do my LTHR, Wingate, and CP60 tests to see where I’m at, and this week, I can start hitting it hard. That should alleviate some of this seasonal affective crap. So I should really take care of the testing tonight.

I haven’t really laid out any solid goals for the season, other than that I want to do really well. I’ve set my peaks around the state road race championship and the state cyclocross championship. Two three-week long race sessions. And between now and the week of Dec. 26, 2010, I have about 600 hours of training time. My hopes? Well, I’m not going to discuss those here. Let’s just use that cliché about my eyes being bigger than my stomach.

Originally published at DanBailey.net. Please leave any comments there.