So… Did I write much?

Not really. I got drunk a few times. 😛

Did I enjoy my vacation?

Overall, yes. Nothing in life is ever “perfect”.

Where did I go?

Maui, Kahana area.

What was your favorite part?

I went snorkeling in a sea turtle area and had four of the guys popping up at the same time so as to box me in. That was cool.

Am I ready to go back to work tomorrow?

F-No. I actually got back a few days ago and have been dealing with my kids again. Much of my vacation after-glow has already been burned away.

Guess that’s it for my self-imposed vacation Q&A.

I took most of the kids to go see the Pixar movie Buzz Lightyear. The kids liked it well enough to stay awake were as I fell asleep towards the end of it. I must be getting old. 😛

I also took my son to see Top Gun. He was lost through most of it as he hadn’t seen the first movie.

What else… I’m currently working on chunk 34 of “A New Day”

Overall I think I’m past my first draft’s word count and I’m guessing I’m sitting at roughly the 75% mark. Granted I never did finish my first draft as I quit that at around the 85% mark. Things came up, I lost my mojo for it, and found myself benching it for a while. You know the deal.

Semi-side rant: I truly hate how incompetent my family is. My wife has this habit of starting something, getting stuck, and then passing the responsibility to me. My kids have this habit of being complete idiots and can’t even start the washing machine or fill the soap dispenser, even after I’ve provided several walk-throughs, so everything that comes out isn’t really clean. On top of that, they leave said items in the friggin washer so they get foul all over again. Then when I go to use it, I have to let the thing run through a sanitation mode, then rewash their clothes, then finally wash what I wanted to wash in the first place.

Today is the birthday of one of my oldest friends. Happy birthday Kim. I honestly don’t see you enough.

My motivation is once again at an all-time low. The vacation did put some pep back in my step, only once I got back to the same sheet again, I soon felt it evaporating out of me.

I really want to call in sick tomorrow and hide away in my home office. Is that wrong of me? I haven’t even had my first day back and I’m already tired.

I finished watching the Ben-Kenobi series on DisneyPlus. It wasn’t movie quality but it was done well enough. They tied/merged it in between “Revenge of the Sith” and “A New Hope” rather well. It did a good job of bridging the gap of continuity while providing something fresh at the same time.

Once again, having ridden on an airplane to and from Maui, I’m reminded of the safety video where they tell passengers to adhere their own masks before attempting to assist their flailing idiot child’s. So… hide in my office tomorrow or suck it up?

Retirement can’t get here soon enough.

What? Am I wishing my life away? No Dave! No! Never wish your life away. Time is the one thing you can never get back. You have to enjoy every moment you have for it will never come again.

And what I’m reading out of that is… “You have to enjoy your hidden days of solitude for life giving you the chance to find your sanity again isn’t a guarantee.”

To mutilate a line from the Lightyear movie, “To insanity… and beyond…”

Even the wife’s and I’s private time in Maui got interrupted by the early arrival of her Aunt “F” showing up.

Yeah…

My family is PHYSICALLY healthy, I should count my blessings.

I still can’t but feel as if life needs more to it.

A person needs to feel like they serve a purpose. Mine, because of the life I both chose and found myself in, hasn’t been that for me. What gives me joy is my writing. Now, will any of it ever see the light of day? Who knows. I can only keep plugging along when the voices in my head are calm enough for me to focus.

*(I was interrupted 8 times by various family members during the blurting of this post.)

I’m thinking hiding is sounding really good right now.

Tootle all

😛

So I went upstairs and heard the sounds of commotion coming from our master bedroom. My wife is struggling with something behind a temporarily moved armour so I can’t actually see her. I ask, “Do you need some help?” as I’m moving around it to see the situation. I reach out and swing a chair, which has two grocery store brown paper bags on it, full of clothes for donation, as inadvertently cause one to tumble over. I stop beside the bag and bend down to pick it up.

While I’m already bent over (this is not that kind of story), my wife looks towards me and snaps out, “Could you at least pick that up?”

I, being the gentleman I am, snap back with, “Oh… so you can’t see me bent over already doing that? I could swear you’re looking at me right now? Have you lost your vision?”

Her reply. “Stop being a jerk!”

My reply. “I came up here because I thought you could use some help” while I finish lifting the bag and its contents back onto the chair. “Sorry for trying to see if you needed any help.”

Her reply. “Why are you being snippy with me?”

Me? Attacking her? My mind reels back to the conversation we had earlier in the day. It dawns on me that it’s that time of the month, all of her normal logic is out the window right now.

Me, being a tad bit butt hurt, move back towards the door and out into the hall. I utter not so much under my breath knowing how the next few days are going to be a different kind of story, “How about using less vinegar, honey.”

…

..

.

Yep… A different kind of story.

At least for the next week or so.

Is that a compliment bulge or are you happy to see me?

A long time ago…

In a lifetime far far away…

A young man went on vacation to Hawaii. While on that vacation, he carried with him his compact disk-man with two of his favorite albums. Nine Inch Nails – Pretty Hate Machine, and a Sammy Hagar compilation.

Guess what some old fat dude just bought off Amazon?

Nine Inches of Hagar.

Is somebody excited to go on vacation soon?

Schwing yes they are.

That is all.

Tootles

😛

I’m about to embark on a week-long vacation. I own a few laptops and part of my first-world problem is trying to determine which one to bring on my trip. Yes, I’m aware of my ridiculous situation. Kids are getting killed within their schools. Wars, diseases, and starvation are taking their toll upon the people of the world.

18 years is a long time. Too long? I think so. I mean that’s the age of two children who died in Texas last week put together.

Yes, that’s a cold and cruel statement. I’m a bastard.

I’m also so very tired.

Puritan thinking: “Being tired is something you ignore. You can rest when you leave this world for the next.”

Again dark.

I’m not a puritan. *Hell*, I’m not even vegan. In the near future, I’ll be on that plane having to watch one of those safety videos where oxygen masks drop from the ceiling. Those instruction videos say to put your own mask on before you attempt to help those around you.

18 years since my last vacation

I’ll be gone only a week.

Will I come back a changed person? Will I come back with a vigor for life that will enable me to change the world? (for the better?) One would only hope so. Did Hitler take vacations? I’m sure he did. Did he need a break from being evil? Remember in his own mind he wasn’t evil, only trying to right the world from the evils that already permeated it.

So… do I bring my expensive laptop, which I can do more on, or the cheap $200 one that I can afford to lose should it be randomly “adopted” pool-side?

Everyone has their quirks. Some worry about selfish things like loss prevention while others mow down children or entire countries full of detestables.

I’m really needing that week-long mask fitting right now.

Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to get back to killing fictional children with fictional pew-15’s on my fictional world of Puritopia. Yes, I’m going to hell, the same hell where the vegans end up.

I have a dark sense of humor

Can you read the text in the image under Steve?

Humor, the lifeline of sanity?

*Time out*

The above statement of humor being the lifeline of sanity just popped into my head. So… being the idiot I am, I googled it. Look what I found…

Read the text under the picture just as with the Steve Martin one above.

WTF?

How random is that?

Life, it’s not predictable, it isn’t even… fair. Children getting gunned down and here I am posting images of Dwight.

Backstory: Dwight is the code name for my own little *Adolf* I had as a boss a few years back. No, I didn’t lose my life but she treated us, the entire unit, like we were her red-headed step-children. Don’t you worry you female challenged catapillar-lipped bridge troll, I haven’t forgotten about you.

Humor, it’s what helps keep the (lotion on the skin – to prevent sunburn by the pool) sanity.

And with that, I’m out of here.

Tootles all

😛

Is that special?

Uhh… not really.

Am I just posting something because I need to get back into the practice of putting stuff on my blog?

Yeah… that’s the ticket.

Am I a sham for regurgitating material that isn’t my own?

At least that is what my book “Internet For Dummies” tells me to do.

😛

Tootles all.

*(Yes, that makes me a Homer)

So today I went to my daughter’s school, I picked her and her two friends up, and I drive them to their homes. It’s a carpool thing. We live the closest to the school so I drop my daughter off first and then continue to the other two girl’s places. I arrive at the second girl’s apartment complex and pull over to the side curb, which is where I typically drop her off. On this occasion, standing there was a teenage boy with a backpack slung and staring into his phone.

As the second girl gets out, I yell out my window to her one of my usual phrases like “Get the FUn out of my car!” or “I better not see you around here again!” or whatever seems funny.

Today… I took it a step further.

As my front passenger window was open, I yelled at the boy “Hey, I got free candy in here!”

He lowers his phone and adjusts his backpack and steps toward my car like this situation is supposed to happen like this. Both the girls, the one stepping out, and the other still in the backseat, started laughing and trying to tell the guy to stop advancing.

Something must have clicked for he takes a step back and then lifts his phone back up to his face as if nothing had ever happened.

Yeah…

So I drive off wondering what exactly was going through this kid’s head. I wonder if he was doing the same of me? Or if I really did have free candy?

*THE FOLLOWING WAS A TRUE STORY, AT LEAST AS TRUE AS IT WOULD BE TO MY VIEWPOINT*

Tootsie rolls y’all…

😛

I can’t believe I’m kinda doing that to my character right now.

It’s technically not a tree, it’s an elevator.

I’m not actually throwing rocks at her so much as I’m destroying parts of her life while she is stuck in there. (Doesn’t that kinda count?)

EVIL, FOR THE WIN!

I know what you’re thinking… Why so few?

On a good day, you can get away with that minimum, those days are rare.

So far, today, it’s been only two.

Wait… What’s this about ‘three trips’?

Answer: I’ve only gotten to one item on my list. The other item will require at least one trip all of its own.

😛

Today it was my initial run to get what I thought I needed. The second run was to swap out the wrong PVC fitting that had been errantly placed in the correct bin. I could swear I looked at each part before heading for the register.

Tsk-tsk Dave.

It’s obvious when you look at them. Both of their lower ends are smooth, the same as the left image’s upper side. I don’t know how I missed that. Oh well…

*shakes fist at gods of commerce*

I guess you won this battle and wrangled another .28$ out of me.

Tootles all

😛

I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to pack this up and go home and do adult things, like replace two sprinkler heads. I want to stay here in my happy place plugging away at my story.

Today is my Saturday. I finished dropping the kids off at school and snuck off to a local Mcdonald’s where I get myself a tea and tuck myself into a booth where I plug away. It’s my escape place. It’s where I don’t get interrupted and my mojo flows.

I promised myself I would work until about 9:30 and then stop and do my adult things. Well as of this moment it’s now 9:45 and I’ve forced myself to stop plugging away at chunk 30. I’m still not giving in completely however as this is giving me a chance to blog a bit.

Go home and do my chores or continue having some “DAVE TIME”

Chores or Play

I don’t wanna go home.

Alright…  I’m packing this party up and heading home to do my stupid adult stuff…

Frak being an adult!

Tootles all

😛

First post of the month?

(looking back through blog post…)

Yep, my last post was in early April. Bad Dave, bad.

So… what’s new?

I’m so freaking tired.

(Start off your blog with whining, that’s an excellent way to spark people’s interest.)

😛

I snuck off to see Doctor Strange 2 last week. It was “okay”. Not great, not bad.

I’m currently working on chunk 29 of my “A New Day” story.

So a funny thing happened last night. Our group got together online via Zoom and went over our submitted works—actually a couple of funny things.

Funna Ting #1) One person, a retired military person, didn’t like the way I had my various characters interacting with one another, it was too informal or “unprofessional” to describe it better. The person just could not accept that an Admiral person would joke around with one of their subordinates. I asked them if they had ever seen the TV show MASH? They had but said that wasn’t a good example as they weren’t a real military portrayal. Uhhh… Okay? I tried humoring the person but thanks to my own personal experiences (82nd Airborne) my portrayal, while skewed for the author’s discretion and attempted humor, was closer to how I understood things played out. Yes, the TV show MASH isn’t a real thing, but it is an exaggeration of stuff that can/does happen everywhere. As they say, “life can be often stranger than fiction”, or, “you can’t make this stuff up.”

I’ve come to accept that he is not my target audience.

Later on in the evening, another person joined the group as they were stuck at work for longer than expected. They then went over some of the very same pieces that the first person went over. They stated they enjoyed the interactions or bickering between the characters.

Huh…

Four out of Five Dentists agree that using this product will blah blah blah…

My goal is not to write the book so it matches the first person’s expectations. I’m writing the book because it’s my story and I’ll tweak/bend it as needed while still trying to minimize the reader’s sense of disbelief over what might really happen. Is it plausible versus is it likely? Being honest with yourself is important for readers will know bullshit when they come across it.

Plausible vs Possible vs Probable. There is a difference and it should be sprinkled out accordingly.

Funna Ting #2) Speaking of bullshit. One of the other persons who submitted a story had a character thinking (I’m changing the actual details, author’s or plagiarist’s prerogative) think of something very specific. Half a page later, they had the second character think the very same thing for no logical reason.

For example, Dick, a middle-aged man, gets on the subway in New York. He finds himself a bench to sit on until the train gets to his stop. While seating, he finds a stain on the floor which reminds him of the stain on the back of his high school wall locker. The combination of that locker flashes through his mind. At the next stop, a woman named Lisa gets on, she boards the next car, so she never interacts with Dick. She gets a text from he mother reminding her that it’s her Aunt’s birthday and she needs to call her. They then both randomly get off at the same stop and both wander over to the newspaper stand and reach for the same magazine. As they lock eyes, she blurts out for no reason whatsoever, the combination to his locker. It’s not as if those numbers are the dates of her Aunt’s birthday either. She just blurts them out and they have a bonding moment over this shared experience.

EXCUSE ME…???

This is not a psychic story. There is no reason for the second character to have this specific information.

Where is the fireplace poker to harpoon my eyeballs out when I need it?

You need to set rules and have plausible precedence for events like this. If it’s an ESP thing, then set it up as being ESP. Otherwise, there is no logical reason for something like that to happen.

Yeah, I’m kinda cranky today.

(I don’t like the heat and its warm today, maybe that’s part of what’s bugging me)

Guess that’s it for today…

Tootles all.

😛