Posted 5:43 PM by Tim
Right. Got to review the wedding video today. It's not terrible. Covers the main points. The wedding, the recieving line, the reception toasts, and parts of the party. The good stuff. Take a full day and condense it down into 80 minutes of poorly shot, shaky, amateur video. That's how you mint a memory.

Anyway, it was a good evening. Very nice time had by all. I am sort of wishing that I had asked one of the two (or both) lovely ladies at my table to dance with me, but I'm shy like that. We did have a nice conversation though.

I mentioned in the previous post about essays. Here's what I'm thinking about. All kinds of famous writers have been known to write essays. Look at Sartre, Kant, Orwell, and a whole host of others. Now, I'm not talking about the essays that people write for school. I'm talking about short diatribes about whatever caught the fancy of these people in their regular lives. They didn't do this because it was required, they did it becuase they felt that their viewpoint needed to be expressed. I've felt that way now and then, and I've always let it slide. Just never got around to doing it in writing. I ususally bother Wayne or someone about it in conversation, and drive them crazy with my insane ramblings.

However, lately, I've been feeling like it might be a good idea to actually get some of them on paper (or the electronic equivalent) for posterity. Of course, I've thought of lots of things like this before. There's a lot that I'd love to do "for posterity" but I rarely get to do them. Mostly becuase I'm too busy doing something else. So, I wouldn't expect there to be any great relevations in essay form coming from me anytime soon. Besides, I'm working on my novel still.

Posted 12:20 AM by Tim
I've just gotten back from the wedding. It was very nice. I videotaped as much of it as I could, so I'll have to send them a copy after it's all said and done. I felt a little like the official videographer. After all, if I wasn't videoing, I was shooting pics with the digital that Wayne loaned me. NiMH batteries last way longer than Alkalines.

I've already mentioned that I've been in a little bit of a depressed funk lately. Situations have just been building on each other. Today was pretty good, but I started to get a little introspective on myself towards the end of the party. A friend of mine and her female companion showed up at the reception and we had a nice chat. I'm not the best with social situations, and I don't know if I was interesting enough for them. Hope so.

I did finally get dragged out onto the dance floor, but only for one dance. New shoes aren't the best for dancing in - especially not if you've been standing all day.

I may head out again tomorrow (if I can get the car - not likely), and see the gift opening. I'm figuring that's not going to be much of a possibility though, given that tomorrow is Sunday. That's church for mom and dad. They'll need the car, of course.

I'm 11,000 words behind now. I don't like having that number over the 10K mark, so I'm going to have to snip it down tomorrow if I can. I'd love to be able to put up about 5 to 7 thousand words if I can... bring the backlog down to only 6 to 8K. We'll see though. Getting the story out of this novel has been much harder than the last one.

I've been mulling a few random ideas in my head. Talking to everyone who's just finishing school, or starting school again, or heading into a graduate program has me wondering about what I should be doing with my life and my education. I've been running the idea of graduate school in my mind for about a month or two now, and I'm no closer to figuring out what I'd be studying. I've got a definate lean towards machine intelligence though. Maybe I'll take a deeper look at that.

In other news, I'm really kinda tired. I'm gonna go sleep now. Maybe talk about the whole "write essays" thing tomorrow. Or Monday, or sometime later. Night!

Posted 3:18 PM by Tim
I'm in Nova Scotia! I arrived fine, so that's always good. Had a bit of an interesting run in with the friendly people at the Airport Security desk. Apparently, my laptop has traces of NitroGlycerin. So I had to answer a few questions before being allowed to proceed.

While at the airport, I borrowed some of the airport power to do a little bit of novelling. I didn't manage to do any on the plane though. First, there's not enough space, and second, I was pretty tired.

I did get 3,000 words in, leaving me with only 9,000 in the deficit. I should be able to make some of those up tonight, if I don't galavant my whole evening away. I don't really expect that to happen, but it might.

A thought for today, things that should have annoyed me but didn't: Christmas Music... sorry Muzak. In the mall. In every store. It's still November. I suppose it's time for it.

Also, Bren said "Take the snow with you." I did.

Posted 8:43 AM by Tim
First real snowfall today. Not that there's a huge amount of it, but it's sticking around for now. I figure it'll mess up traffic and probably power distribution too. Makes me wish we had a few more candles about the house.

Correction and Update: It's a lot snowier than I thought out there. Bleh.

Posted 3:07 PM by Tim
Feeling a little better today. Of course, clinincal depression only calls for an extended period (2 weeks) of feeling bad. You can have perfectly happy days in between the bad ones.

Posted 9:03 AM by Tim
I've been depressed lately. Wasn't really expecting it though, so it's thrown me off a little. Haven't been up to my normal self.

What depressed me was my age, of all things. I'm almost never bothered by my age. Not even birthdays manage to cause me much concern. The trouble is, I'm nearing a significant number. 28. What? I hear you ask. Why is 28 worrysome, while 30 isn't a hassle? Well, I won't know if 30 bothers me for sure, but it likely won't. 28, however, means that 10 years have passed since I was 18. You know, that whole, "legal adult" thing. 10 years since I left home to make my own way in the world. 10 years since High School, that institution of learning and embarassment. And that's the significant bit. It's been 10 years.

I've always liked nice round numbers, like 2, 10, and 5. At least for marking anniversaries of stuff. They carry some significance for me. Like, 2 years after leaving home, I got married. 5 years after, I finished University. What have I done at 10 years after? Nothing. I wrote a novel last year, but I'm jammed on the one for this year. I spent all this last year unemployed (more or less). And I'm well behind the curve of most of my friends.

I don't own a home. I'm not a doctor or lawyer or anything. I'm not even really working in my profession (much less in my field of study). I'm constantly broke, I've got a job that sucks, and I never see my wife or family. It's like I'm living on my own here, but I don't have any of the benefits.

All of this (plus a little more I won't gripe about here) has got me down. I've been looking for a way up, but I think I've just found a way sideways. What's sideways from depression? Cynicism. I've been cynical before, and there's no reason not to be cynical again. Especially in a job that can effectively limit my interaction with people to a few "hi's" called out now and then.

I suppose that part of all this has been the overcommitment I've put myself in this month. I've got to keep on the housework (and step it up a notch to get the house clean!). I've got my novelling. I've got something going on each weekend. I could really use some overtime at work, but they're in a slowdown period right now. Christmas is coming, and I'm sure that nobody's mentioned in around here on purpose. Then there's the family stress. That's a lot of pressure for me.

I keep feeling like I should say, "I'm sure it'll sort itself out." And in a way, I am sure that it will. Everything does, given enough time. I would like to put a little bit of rush on some of the sorting though. We'll have to see what I can do.

Posted 12:54 PM by Tim
Bah. It's been a few days since anything's gone up here. Looks like I'm down to one post a week - if I remember. No worries, I'll just have to pack everything into this post, right?

There's about 8 days until my friend's wedding. No, not the one in Mass. I attended that one already. And not the one in Nova Scotia. That was September. This is a totally different wedding in Nova Scotia. Someone I've been friends with for a long, long time. I can remember him in grade school, so it's been a while. He always said that he wouldn't get married. I guess he just hadn't met the right person yet.

In a way, I'm looking forward to attending his wedding, and I'm also dreading it. I'm looking forward to it, because I'll get to see him and his lovely bride on their happy day. I'll get to chat with his parents, and probably other friends I haven't seen in a while. I'm kind of dreading it because of the remaining time on the trip. I've got nothing else planned for the 4 days I'll be away. Almost all of my friends have moved away from town (good for them!) or are people I don't know. I've told people here that, 'I'll just sit in the shop my mom works and write.' That's probably a fair assessment, but I'll probably be home instead of at my mom's work. I do expect to get a lot of writing done that weekend.

There's not much else in the news department. Lately, I've been thinking about how nice it would be to have a complete Daria collection. It's not available anywhere (legally, anyway). Wishes and pennies, I suppose.

I swear that if you combined the speed and climbing power of a chipmunk (all vertical acceleration, baby!), with the cunning and dexterity of a squirrel, you'd end up with something like a raccoon - but lots smaller. I figure that if you want to do a really good combat movie, imagine what squirrels and chipmunks would do if you could attach little guns to their hands. Yeah.