The Show Went Well

I got up at 11AM yesterday (because I had been up until 4AM making preparations for the gig), made coffee, and started getting ready. We packed up and drove to Dover and got to the venue. We dragged all of our equipment up the stairs to a renovated hayloft in a barn. The floor was uneven, and all of our equipment was tippy. Oh, well.

We set up. I had major issues with the power source for my little 66-key keyboard. I have started using the little keyboard for the organ parts on the Bon Jovi songs we do, and I went and bought a second tier for my keyboard stand for that very purpose, so it looks like I have some real keyboard talent, what with the two keyboards stacked atop each other, the 88-key big one below and the little 66-key one above. LOL. Anyway, so once we got the power issues situated, we soundchecked.Soundcheck was a mess. We couldn't seem to get the levels right. We got them close, though, when we stole the drummer's vocal microphone and stuffed it in his kick drum. Once the kick drum was audible through the PA, things seemed a bit better, soundwise. Not perfect, but better.

After soundcheck, we went and got some hamburgers for lunch and then Kenny and I grabbed the big keyboard, my acoustic guitar, one half of Kenny's amp, and my little Abilene amp and we went to the wedding site. Once there, we found that the concrete pad we were to play on was in the full-on afternoon sun. And, we had only two outlets and we needed three. So, Kenny jetted back to the barn to go get a power strip. Once we were set up, to keep me from burning my hands on the keyboard (which was HOT thanks to being in the full-on rays of the sun), Kenny stood between me and the sun, shading my hands. He was dripping with sweat, and my legs, which were still in the sun and covered in black tights, felt like they might catch fire.

We did really well at the wedding, though the sun prevented me from doing as well as I wanted to while people were sitting down. The bride wanted us to play an instrumental acoustic version of the chorus from Tom Petty's "Here Comes My Girl." We did manage to pull that off without a hitch, so, that was good. After the wedding ceremony, I played Pachabel's "Canon in D" for the bride and groom to march back down the aisle, and then we packed up our shit and went back to the barn for the reception.

We got back to the reception and had some ice water, and then re-set up our stuff for the gig. The heat inside kept people outside; it was about 105 degrees inside that barn, and muggy as hell, but we persevered. We played really well, all in all. There weren't any glaring errors, and the band sounded awesome, and everyone was having a great time and dancing (outside where we couldn't see them, but Dad told me about it), and the bride and her mom told us repeatedly that we rocked and that they really enjoyed it.

We broke everything down and loaded it into the vehicles. We went to bed - with my cousin staying over (and I am really glad he came; we really needed his help and he was a HUGE help) - at about 2 AM, and I didn't get up until 1:30 this afternoon. So far, I haven't really done anything except make dinner for everyone. It's in the oven now.

So, all in all, it went well.

More Words

I managed to write just over 1,000 words yesterday, bringing my total for JulNoWriMo to 14,973. It seems so slow going, but once I made a change in Chapter One, the rest seems to be going smoother. I was going to skip a bunch of stuff that was supposed to happen in the book and just summarize those events, but, I realized that much of the characterization happens during those seemingly boring parts to write, so I am writing them. Not that I really want to. I'd rather get on with what happens.

I'm Procrastinating Again

I have been doing everything BUT writing in A Night Borrowed. I don't like how it is turning out, and I fear that I will have to start over. It needs desperate re-working.

Today is really my last day to write until Sunday, so I should get to it. Tomorrow, I have to practice with Kenny and then break down all the equipment and get it ready to move to the venue. Saturday, we have to leave here by 1PM to get to the venue for set-up by 2PM. Also, since Kenny and I are playing guitar and piano AT the wedding itself, we have to set up part of the stuff at a different place and then move it to the venue when the reception starts. And then there's breaking down again and re-loading it up in the vehicles... and did I mention that the reception is taking place on the second floor, which means hauling everything up a flight of stairs?

JulNoWriMo Word Count

So far, I have 7,218 words for JulNoWriMo. Once the synopsis was complete, things started to make more sense and writing was easier. I am going to have to go back and make some textual changes when I am finished with the first draft, but things should be good for A Night Borrowed to come out October 1st.

Other news: There is no one at the landscape yard today... except for customers, who seem to think that I - a mere neighbor of the place - know something about the operation of the landscape yard and equipment thereon. Case in point: a guy delivering slate to the yard today thought that I somehow knew how to operate the crane truck and/or get into the office so he could get the keys to run it. Wut?

Busy Day Ahead

Today, I have to go into Spokane to meet with a client. That meeting is at 3PM, and I hope to be done by 4PM so that I can go over to Uncle Rick's and look at my car.

Finally, I made an appointment with the studio to pick up preliminary mixes of the drums, bass, and rhythm guitar tracks we did last week. That's at 6 or 6:30.

Not sure what's going on tonight, but I have almost finished the synopsis for A Night Borrowed, so I should be good to go on that and be able to write the darned book this month and next. Last year, when I did JulNoWriMo, I wrote the 50,000 words in the 31 days. The thing is, when I wrote Night Cries, it ended up being just over 135,000 words. I do hope that this book is shorter. With any luck, the book will end somewhere between 85,000 and 90,000 words.

Anyway, I need to get ready to go. More later.

New Show Reviews

I have four show reviews posted, here, here, here, and here.

So, today, I want to finish the articles for a client's site and send them to him. I need to do two more show reviews and send them. I need to go get involved in JulNoWriMo, and I need to practice the piano. But, as you can tell, I am not doing any of those things. I am procrastinating.

My Schedule.... Whoa.

Today, I plan to finish up the 8 remaining articles I owe a client (these are all personal injury articles). I finished the four show reviews I had due yesterday, but I already have another one pending.

Saturday, I will be in the studio. We're planning on completely finishing three or four songs at a time, so we're working on the songs we're recording without a metronome, first. Those are Moonshine Valentine, Honor Among Thieves, and If The Stars Align. If time permits, we're going to try to work on Rumors, too. We're only trying to capture drums and bass, and, hopefully, my rhythm guitar parts. Hopefully, we'll get all that done, and then I will go back in over the weekend of July 18th to do the lead vocal tracks, the piano parts, acoustic guitar parts, and any string/horn parts that need done for whatever songs we got finished. The following weekend, then, Kenny will go in and do his lead guitar parts. After that, I'll go in and do any backing vocals, and then we'll mix it down. So, we'll get about a third of the album done by the end of July, and then work on another three or four songs... probably Strings, The Night Let Me Down, and You're The Reason. Then repeat the above process, to have those songs finished by the second week of August. Then, we'll go in and do Dear Jane (the drummer's song), Even If It's Wrong, The Cover, and Relax (all easy songs). Repeat process again, to have those done by the end of August/early September. If time permits, I have two other songs we might do. One is with the whole band; the other is just me and a piano and MAYBE some backing vocals. Then, once it's all mixed and I have copies, I'll get it mastered, replicated, and packaged. This means that I have to nail down the packaging sometime within the next two months, including deciding on jewel cases or jackets and getting pictures and formatting those for the packaging specifications.

So, that's Saturday. Sunday, I have band practice for the wedding. This practice is important, because the wedding is July 11th, and my drummer will be gone the weekend of the 4th, so we will only have this one practice left. I want to start early and hit everything on the setlist.

In July, I intend to participate JulNoWriMo (July Novel Writing Month) again. Last year, I wrote more than 50,000 words in Devil's Handiwork. This year, I want to work on A Night Borrowed, and, hopefully, get it mostly finished before school starts in late August. A Night Borrowed I plan to self-publish, to get it out to those who want it right away. I am going to query Devil's Handiwork to agents and editors over the winter and see what happens.

Gaelic Tattoos

So, in checking my web stat trends for Gaelic Shadows, I noticed that about 20 people per day, for the last 6 months or so, are coming to my site searching for Gaelic-inspired tattoo art. So... I guess I will do up some celtic/Gaelic tattoo art, and post it here soon. Looks like something people are interested in.

If I give the tattoo art away for free, will people buy my book and/or CD? Who knows?

New Show Recap

I have a new show review posted here.

Cajun Is Home!

Thought I would update you and let you know that a white Jeep stopped out front at the end of my driveway this afternoon and let Cajun out, so he is home. I don't know why someone took him, and I know even less about why they brought him back, but I am really happy that they did. I missed him really bad.

Stuff happened today, but I will write later when I am not so wiped out.

My Kitty Is Missing

Friday night, I came home from singing karaoke at Stateline, and Cajun was in the house, sleeping on the couch. Before I went to bed, he wanted out, so I let him out. He is usually back in the morning. The kids says that they saw Cajun sleeping on the sidewalk out front Saturday morning, too. I never saw him. We went to my cousin's wedding and we were gone all afternoon and part of the evening before returning home to change clothes. Cajun was nowhere to be seen.

We went out to my aunt's house for a while Saturday night. We got home around 1 in the morning, and Cajun was nowhere to be seen. This morning, Cajun is still not around, and now, I am really concerned and upset. I keep thinking about all the horrible things that could happen to him, like those vicious dogs next door that the neighbors can't seem to keep penned up. Or the highway. Or the cars zooming in and out of the driveway. Maybe someone took him thinking he was a friendly stray. In any case, I miss my cat and I want him home.

More Show Recaps

I am very nearly finished with the bankruptcy articles, but I also have show recaps up here, here, and here.

More Planet Stuff (Not That You're Interested)

I have gone from 1423 to 2112 looking at the Western sky as seen from Hudson Valley, New York. I found that the alignment appears to happen WAAAAY more often than the article I read would have people believe.

I'm going to post more pictures. Remember, you can click on these to make them bigger.

For these, I told the program to make the moon to scale, so we can see when it is a crescent moon and when it isn't. I cannot decide which ones of these to count and which to dismiss as another kind of alignment. So, look these over and let me know which you would count. For my purposes, the alignment of August 8, 1423 is what I consider the benchmark. Here is that alignment, with the moon to scale:



Though it is interesting, in this picture, how Mars and Mercury and Saturn are also in apparent alignment, what I am most interested in is how Venus, Jupiter, and the crescent moon interact. So, that's what I am comparing everything else to.

Now, here's another, similar alignment, a scant 59 years later on August 15, 1482:



I am not sure this is a match.

Next up is another alignment, this one from September 23, 1626:



Things are a little off, but they are pretty close, and, to the naked eye with Jupiter and Venus at the correct size (they aren't to scale in these), it would be pretty hard to tell, I think. Opinions?

Okay, next is October 15, 1757:



This looked pretty close.

Next is November 25, 1794:



It looks very close to me. Thoughts?

Next is September 6, 1815:



The moon looks completely off kilter, to me, in this one, though, while moving through the sky (which the program only kinda-sorta replicates), it might look closer to the benchmark at one point or another throughout the night in question.

Next is November 1, 1864:



Looks like a match.

Next is September 28, 1946.



Jupiter seems way out of alignment, but it is close. Still, I crossed it off my list after tonight's session of looking at them. I just don't think it is. Close, but no cigar.

Next is November 21, 1960:



Venus and Jupiter appear closer together in this, and the crescent of the moon appears like more of a frown than in the benchmark. Still, I think it might be close enough. Thoughts?

Next is September 1, 1981:



I think this might be a match.

Next is December 1, 2008:



While it's sort of cute and funny that the sky made a frowny emoticon, I don't think this is an alignment.

Next is September 15, 2053:


Help me decide.

Next is September 21, 2077:


Looks like the 2008 frown, huh? I think it is not the alignment I'm looking for. Thoughts?

Next is July 1, 2098:


I say no. What do you think?

Next is September 23, 2112:



I think this is an alignment. Thoughts?

Show Recaps

The two new show recaps are up, here and here.

Projects!

I have a new web site content/SEO commission to work on. Thirty articles by the end of June about California bankruptcy, civil litigation, and personal injury. Away we go....

I wrote two more show recaps this morning. They aren't up on the site, yet, butI will post links as soon as they are available. In the meantime, I've been meaning to get to work on the synopsis for A Night Borrowed, because it is so much easier for me to write if I have a roadmap... even if I tend to ignore it once I do it. A lot of the thematic elements that I'll use to put the book together will come out during the synopsis-writing process. So I need to get to work on that. I also need to spend a couple of days sweeping and mopping. I think I have put it off long enough. The whole house is starting to gross me right the hell out.

For The Last Couple of Days...

I have spent the vast majority of the last couple of days working with a program called Stellarium. It shows you star and planet positions throughout the ages, including into the future. Space movement is all math, so I assume that this is fairly accurate. You might ask why I am using an astronomy program to look at star and planet positioning. Good question. It's actually about the sequel to Night Cries.

You see, part of A Night Borrowed takes place in present day in upstate New York, among other locales, and the reason that part of it is set in New York has to do with an article I read in a FATE Magazine compilation of articles called Out of Time and Place: Amazing accounts that challenge our view of human history. I bought the book on a whim at Barnes&Noble during one of my forays there. It was on clearance.

Anyway, in this book is an article about Druids in New York. The whole of that article is basically re-published here, but the following was the part that made me go, "Hmmm....":

In Fahnstock Park located bear Putnam Valley, New York are two chambers very close together. One chamber, the smaller one is oval and because there is a slab of rock near the back wall large enough to place a human body we named it the tomb. Out side this chamber is a large flat rock placed in the earth with carvings that clearly show an astronomical conjunction involving the crescent moon, and the planets Jupiter and Venus. It is possible that someone tried to make a record on when the chamber was built or perhaps the time it was used to place the body of a very important person. Using a planetarium program at the observatory in which I was a staff member at the time, I went back in time to find out when this particular alignment of the two planets and the moon took place. The dates I got were 1423 A.D, 1500 B.C and 2772 B.C.

But, actually, the guy was wrong about the alignments. Even after searching the whole of the year 1500BC, I wasn't able to find it, but I did find it happening on August 8, 1423. I took a screenshot of the event, which was more than just Venus, Jupiter, and the moon:

You can see where Mars was right there, too, as was Mercury, and even Saturn was in the Western sky at dusk that night. In fact (though I couldn't get a good screenshot of it), Uranus, which isn't visble with the naked eye, was lined up. After finding this, I went and looked all over around the year 1500BC, and didn't find anything, and I was starting to think, after three hours of doing this, that the 1423 alignment was a "one-off" phenomenon. But, out of curiousity and sense of thoroughness, I went and checked 2772BC. It didn't take me long to find this:

It would have happened below the horizon from a vantage in upstate New York, and about 4 in the morning. It would have been visible from South America. Anyways, in that shot, you can see that it is exactly the same alignment, just not visible from the ground. It's EXACTLY like the one I found in 1423.

So, I went back to 1500BC, looked some more, and came up empty. I decided - since the whole point of this was to see what the alignment looked like - since I couldn't find a picture of the inscription on the stone - and to find when (for my book's purposes) the alignment happened again. I started at 1423, and started going through the years, month-by-month. I found something similar in 1482:

... but it is not EXACTLY the same. I kept looking. I found another alignment that is exactly the same in 1626:

I don't remember where Mars was in that shot, but I think it was there, like in the 1423 one, just way far away, so it is exactly the same. Well, based on this information - that there was 203 years between the 1423 alignment and the 1626 alignment - I skipped 203 years ahead from 1626 to 1829. Nothing. Looked all around there. Nothing. Finally, I went back to the month-by-month examination, and, three hours later, found the alignment again - more to the south, this time, though - in 1837:

But the moon isn't quite right. It's in waxing crescent phase, but it is not aligned to make a triangle with Venus and Jupiter. It's close, though.

So, I went back 1626, and started going month-by-month again. I found another similar alignment - two hours later - in 1757:

The alignment of the moon is much closer to what I saw in the 1423 alignment the author of the article described, so I am torn as to which date is the correct one. I know that it happened on August 8, 1423, and again on September 23, 1626. The time between those two occurences is 203 years. If the 1757 alignment is the correct one, then the time between alignments is 131 years. If the 1837 alignment is the correct one, then the time elapsed is 211 years, which seems closer to me than the other.

Of course, there is nothing saying that it couldn't be BOTH dates, meaning that if the alignment happened in 1626, and then in 1757, and then again in 1837, the time between the last two I found is only 80 years.

Now, I am pretty sure that no one who reads A Night Borrowed is going to be as anal as I have been in figuring this shit out, but I want it to be as accurate as possible; however, for the purposes of the story, I am thinking that saying it happens about every 200 years would be logical. What do you think?

Today, I am going to see about making karaoke CDs for the karaoke people at the Stateline; they said they'll pay me $1 per song. And I am going to see when other planetary alignments took place. I am actually enjoying that. :)

Memorial Day & Stuff

Yesterday morning, I wrote a recap of the show "The Tudors" for a new web site (you can read it here), and I wrote a parody song for the band's message board. I cleaned up the bathroom today, too. I suppose I should go practice the piano or write something, but so far, I don't feel like it.

Flawed Thinking

I recently read a blog post about the new movie in the Terminator franchise. The blog writer said that she didn't like the movie because she had a hard time suspending her disbelief because of continuity problems. Specifically, she mentioned that, in Terminator: Salvation, that the machines already knew John and Kyle Connor would be important to the resistance even though, at the time the movie takes place, they aren't important yet. I cannot speak to this, as I haven't seen the film, and, based on reviews, probably won't 'til it comes out on cable. However, I would speculate that the machines sent back messengers to that point in time to tell the other machines.

Now, don't get me wrong. I liked Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and I also like Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The other movie(s)? (Was there more than the abyssmal Terminator 3?) Not so much. The Mythology keeps changing. But there has always been one thing that bothered me about the whole concept of machines launching a nuclear attack that is at the foundation of all the films, and it is this:

It's hard to suspend disbelief when the catalyst is a premise that makes everything else that follows implausible. I mean, given that Skynet has become self-aware, it boggles the mind to think that ultra-intelligent machines would then decide that the best course of action for eradicating mankind is a nuclear bomb. Assuming that the machines know what we know or have put into their databases, then, certainly, Skynet must know that a nuclear blast would cut all electricity, among other, horrific side effects. Given that at the time of Skynet's supposed first attack, the Big Bad Machines were, basically, just a computer sitting in a room, who, exactly, would have had the knowledge, manpower, and wherewithal to restore the power grid?

I believe that the writers of The Sarah Connor Chronicles attempted to address this paradox (machines blow up mankind, blow up themselves and their power sources in the process, hence, no man-like machines could ever be built), by spending at least one episode in a power plant in southern California (see Season 2, Episode 2 of TSCC, entitled "Automatic for the People").

I suppose that one could theorize that Skynet was smart enough to know that it would need power, and avoided precisely destroying certain, pivotal power plants so that it could build more machines (using other machines, I would guess, but who would program those machines? Skynet?), and that might also explain how anybody managed to live through the nuclear blasts (world wide, I further assume) and the radioactive fallout.

But this actually brings me to another point: if it was Skynet that programmed the other machines to build human-like androids, how did it do so? Because most computers used to tool machine parts are not connected to databases, but are instead programmed locally to a dedicated hard drive... at least, in my experience with them. There may be some computers for this purpose that are connected to networks, but that actually seems a bit counter-productive to keeping one's designs from being hijacked, so, even if those computers were networked, it would probably only be within the company where those computers were housed and not connected to a wider, world-wide network like the Internet. Machining designs are quite proprietary. Therefore, one would have to assume that Skynet would be able to access those computers another way, perhaps through electrical outlets that the machining computers are plugged into, but that brings up two problems: the first is what I started writing this post about (the power problem, post-nuke, not to mention the physical damage that the machines would have to avoid with their nuclear blasts, thus sparing more people in order to spare facilities); the second would bring us in to Tesla territory, which I am neither qualified nor inclined to talk about, except to say that it's pretty scary to think that someone out there might be able to figure out what you're up to, what you're using, or even what's on your hard drive due to the nature of the electrical ground plug.

Then again, perhaps I am wrong altogether about this. After all, I am not a nuclear scientist, and don't really know that much about it. Maybe power grids and machines could continue to work through massive electro-magnetic blasts and the force created by a nuclear explosion.

But I don't think I am wrong.

Okay, Break's Over!

I have a list of things to do:

• Write a synopsis for A Night Borrowed and write that in June instead of July
• Put together a disc of songs for Dad for his birthday
• Mop these disgusting floors
• Clean out the porch (will need help with this)
• Find someone to mow my fields and lawn
• Put together sheet music for the new covers
• Finish the record by August
• Finish writing Devil's Handiwork by the end of July
• Finish writing A Night Borrowed by the end of June
• Edit both books in August
• Get A Night Borrowed to the printer by September
• Start querying Devil's Handiwork in August
• Move my office to the porch by the end of September
• Finish the record cover and printed material

I Think I May Be Getting Sick Again

Why do I always start to come down with some God forsaken cold whenever I am about to record? I started feeling sick again today, with a little bit of congestion, sore throat, painful tonsils, fever... the works. I feel better now, but I sure didn't this morning, so I stayed in bed much of the day.

I had e-mailed the gal about the wedding to set up a time to get her set list requests and sign the contract and look at the venue, but she never called. Got an e-mail tonight saying that she had been in Montana Tuesday for work (and is every Tuesday). At any rate, my next availability, I think, is Sunday.

I wish I had my car back. I have so much shit to do and so little time to do it in and no way to get there, either. I need to start with the cleaning of the house soon, but, in doing the mental inventory of what needs to be done, I realize that it is not as big of a job as I had first anticipated. Most of the work is in sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming floors. Dusting is a huge job, as well. And the kids' rooms? I don't even want to think about it. But, I figure, I can get the house kicked into shape within four days or so, so, why not put it off a while and relax? So, that's what I am doing.

I finally got an idea for A Night Borrowed that might sustain the storyline for 300 pages or so, which is a Very Good Thing, considering that I don't like filler material. Plan to get started on that soon, and write the manuscript in July. Book should be ready by September-ish, which is about the same time as Moonshine Valentine will be done. In the meantime, I plan to finish up the rough draft of Devil's Handiwork and then do re-writes through June. Somewhere amidst all of this, I will be cleaning the porch and converting it into my office. For this, I will need some money, because I plan to put up blinds, and those cost money.

So, I am working on a project for my cousin tonight and tomorrow, might go out Thursday - not sure yet - or will work on piano parts if not. Friday, I am in the studio, Saturday is band practice (now with new songs!), and Sunday is food shopping and the wedding meeting, if the bride is agreeable to such things.That's all I got for now. I hope all of you are doing well.