Just a brief reminder

or: here i go again.

We are 4 weeks away from the start of another SXSW. I won't be attending the conference this year. I probably won't be attending many of the parties. Part of me is sad about this, part of me is relieved. The stress of knowing which parties were the ones to be at or hoping you go to lunch with the group that has the conversation that everyone will be talking about later.
I'm not sure why I stress out about those things. But I do.

Hope to see you at BBWB.

Maybe.

It's not that I don't have time for this....

(or "Let's Face It, The Only Reason You're Here is Because You Clicked on My Twitter Profile Link")

Okay. It IS that I don't have time for this, but at times I really do forget about self publishing. Also, I just don't write like I used to. I never was much for linking to other things on the internet, hence why I've merely lurked at Metafilter for the past 7 years, asking and answering the odd question here and there. There are plenty, and I do mean plenty, of people linking to everything and by the time it gets to me, you've already heard of it too.

I used to do well with the non-fiction storytelling, but then I started to see that there was a lot of that out there that was better as well. It's a little bit different, because everybody's story is unique and worth telling. But that doesn't mean that everybody's story is interesting and worth reading.

At times, I used this tool as a cheese-sandwich announcement device, or C-SAD as I like to call it now. There's a lot of that out there as well. But, unless you are really into the variations of cheese and bread combinations, they aren't worth wasting your time on.

Here's the rub though: I'm employed by an employer again for the first time since moving back to the States last September. I feel that this is some Blog-Worthy C-SAD. (Or, as I like to call it, BW C-SAD) It was (not) a difficult decision to leave the world of freelance and once again have someone else take care of paying my taxes for me. Sure, the money's not as good but I can finally go to the doctor and find out that I'm not actually dying of anything horrible like I've suspected for the past 10 months. At least, that's the plan.

So, I'm happy to be working for someone else again. Might have been an easier transition had it not been a major corporate conglomerate, but you take what you can get.

Jeff once said to me, "I hardly ever understand the things you say." And when I say 'Jeff once said', I mean just two minutes ago on gChat. So I tell you the same thing I said to Jeff.

All part of my evil plan.

gimini!

Dammit!

I keep forgetting I have this damn thing. It's been another damn year without a post. No wonder you people don't like me anymore.

Quick update... we live in Austin now. Just got done with SXSW. working locally. Joel loves it here.

I need to remember this thing is working. I need to maybe actually design something for this thing so I'm not using this puke green template. Oh well.

We don't need no stinkin' badgers

I think I may have used that title in a post many years ago. Not sure.

Yesterday, while walking to work, I passed that old garage. You know, the one that looks like it's been standing there for the past 127 years and by damned it's not coming down now. I caught something out of the corner of my eye, a cat, lying in front of 'Ole Shakey'. Turning my head to look at this rather massive cat, I recognized it as a badger.

A badger made me jump. I've always heard that they are fierce creatures.

I don't think I've actually ever seen a live badger. Certainly never this close. Turns out, I still haven't. For this one was already several hours past its sell-by date. Still, I had never been this close to a recently alive badger. The stuffed ones at the museums had been pushing up the daisies for decades before I ever glanced their way.


All this to say... passing the badger immediately made me think of "We ain't got no... stinking badges", which, in turn, made me realize that I didn't have my security badge for work. Already halfway into my 20 minute walk into town, (and don't forget, very very sore) I continued in, facing the shame of asking for one of the "I forgot my badge" badges.

So this morning, upon passing "Ole Shakey" and the-spot-where-the-almost-live-badger-once-lay, I once again thought of stinking badges and once again discovered mine to not be in my possession. Not wishing to go through the process of badge surrogacy two days in a row, I turned back home.

That's it really. No punchline. Rather dry, I admit. But that badger was huge!

a shoulder to cry on

This morning, as I rolled out of bed at 7am, which was really 8am, I carried Joel into his nursery. I was going to take him downstairs, but my body felt as though I had been punched while sleeping. I returned to the bed to set Joel down and do some morning playing. As I turned, something moved the way it shouldn't have.

So there I was, laying on the bed trying to hold Joel up with one arm and clutching the other against my body whilst trying to catch my breath. Something in my shoulder/back was sending piercing pains through my chest cavity.

I've spent my morning laying on heating pads, trying not to move to much. Meanwhile, we are trying to get packed for our holiday in Ireland at the end of the week. I've managed to book us two nights at Lake Windermere for our return trip and now I'm looking for a nice place near Blackpool.

I feel very guilty for being on my back while Janet is ironing clothes, feeding Joel, entertaining Joel, and generally looking after Joel. I know her day would be pretty much the same had I gone to work, but it feels much worse being in the house while she takes care of all these things.

That's right... a cheese sandwich

Today, I had a cheese sandwich.

It wasn't very good. Kind of soggy. And too much cheese. Really. And what's with the butter in this country? Butter on every damn piece of bread that gets made into a sandwich. Butter on your tuna melt, butter on your blt, butter on your roast beef with mayo, and, yes, butter on your damn cheese sandwich.

Honestly, I haven't come back here to talk to you about cheese sandwiches. But if every now and again I do, don't get upset. okay?

No... Seriously

All too often, I've had a thought in my head and wished this thing was still alive so that I could jot down my ideas again.

So now it is.

See, I tried a couple (few) times before to get going again, but it never seemed to take off. That's a lot of water under the bridge. Since I was last regular with this beast, I've moved to the UK, gotten married, and had a son. I've been taking a lot of photos, and speaking a bit stranger of late.

I think I may win some award for the longest hiatus in blogger history. I have no way to confirm this, however.

The main reason... honestly... that I never got this thing going again was that I had intended to come out with this mindblowing new design and put the writing on hold until I got the design finished. That was more than four years ago. It's not done yet. Actually, to be fair, I've redesigned the damn thing 4 times since then. These designs never lived up to their potential however and all made it to the dustbin before any publishing was done on them. What you will see at the time this post is published is an old Zeldman template. No offense to Jeffrey, but I hope to be changing that soon. Not necessarily to my own design. Not yet. But I do need to have another look at the templates available at the moment on the new beast that is Blogger.

Oh yeah. That was another thing that helped me procrastinate. I had decided to move over to Movable Type for my publishing. I got pretty far with that actually. I was almost there. I just couldn't get my old blogger archives to move across and the whole thing started to grow mold.

So welcome back, if you're still here.

Breathe a New Life

Listen...

I think I'm going to tell some more stories.

did you miss me?