Flicks

Couple quick reviews
DVDs
Fu** -- A documentary on my favorite cuss word. Very funny. Interesting interviews from supporters and detractors.
Superbad -- I loved this movie. So damn funny. This generation's Porky's.
Scoop -- Interesting Woody Allen movie. Ending I saw coming from a mile away but worth a rental.
Wild Hogs -- WAY better than I expected. Not brilliant, but has some funny parts.
The Hitcher -- Not as good as the original (no finger in the fries ... that ain't right) but it does show the gore of the ending that the first one pussed out on.
Balls of Fury -- Just for Christopher Walken and bad hair metal ... dumb fun
The Heartbreak Kid -- Surprised this

Theater
I Am Legend -- Very good. Great effects. Interesting ending.
National Treasure -- Eh.
Probably seeing Atonement or Cloverfield this weekend. Guess which one I want to see?

Shocker

So, this whole weight thing is kinda strange. I've been eating good and working out a little every day. Step on the scale this morning. I've lost 16 pounds since New Year's! Holy crap! I know these are the "easy" pounds but that is so awesome.

I actually had to go and add notches to my belt the other day.

Bizarre, but I'll take it.

Still not 100%

Got hit with a bad bug last week. Could barely move, breathe or anything else for several days.

It's still lingering but I'm back at work now.

The good news: I lost five pounds. So, I'm using this as my un-official kickoff to my annual feeble attempt at losing weight. They are doing a competition ("The Biggest Winner" ... gotta avoid getting sued by NBC) at work and I'm going to do it. It runs from February to May. I'm starting early (only because of the cold).

I'll be much better when I have enough energy to actually work out also.

Back

OK, so obviously I didn't get much blogging done over the break.

It was a nice vacation. Spent time with friends (poker) and family (eating ... first pic below is Tracy's Uncle George and her mom in the kitchen). Saw a couple movies on DVD and one in the theater (National Treasure ... eh.) Saw a dinner theater production in Boulder (2nd pic below is boys with their fav actor from the show) and had a great going-away party for my former editor Bill Spencer from the Fort Morgan Times.

Tracy and I actually got to spend the night away from the kiddos in FM and had a good time checking out the old haunts (our old house, the Times building, etc.). The last picture is Tracy at the gravesite of her grandma and grandpa. She tromped a cute heart in the snow.

Hope everyone has a great 2008.

All the world's a stage ...

And my boys are merely players ... This is from "The Best Christmas Pagent Ever." Alex is top left. Andy bottom left. Other kids are their friends Kevin, Geny and Nicholas.

And this is from Andy's Birthday party which Aunt Jannae was also able to attend this weekend...

A cold Coors

Through my job, I happened to meet the head of security for the Colorado Rockies. I told him that there was a large part of my book, Wrath, that takes place at Coors Field and I'd appreciate picking his brain about the security that's in place.

He said it would be better if I came down there so I could see it first-hand. So, I went yesterday.

This is the view from Dan O'Dowd's personal box!

(click on the pics and they'll be bigger)

It was pretty snow-covered, but it was so fun. Got to see the clubhouse ...

Including Matt Holliday's locker ...

And then, I heard many of the players were working out so I asked if we could see where that is. We went to the room and Garrett Atkins walked in as Jeff Francis was walking out. They yelled to Tulo who was on the treadmill and then the guy I was talking to says, "Hey, Walt." And Walt Weiss comes out.

I shook his hand and, despite the fact I promised myself I wouldn't geek out, I totally did. But Weiss was one of my favorite Oakland A's and I was so jazzed when he came to Colorado. He's now coaching for them. But he was totally in shape and looked like he could play tomorrow.

Here's the pic of us...

Remember when?

It was a great time. It was before Thanksgiving. Before NaNo. Even before Halloween.

It was a glorious time when the Colorado Rockies slid head-first into the playoffs and swept through the first round. Then they were to face the Arizona Diamondbacks (the alleged NLWest champs).

Well, back then, I made a bet with a long-time family friend, Joe Stone, who lives in Arizona. Since the Rockies swept the piddly D-backs, Joe had to pay up by wearing a Rockies hat for all 18 holes on his local golf course.

Below are the pictures he sent. He also sent me the hat which is so small it barely fits my kids. Guess that's what happens when you live in that much heat ... your head just shrivels up. That would explain how the D-backs played also.

The first picture is Joe. The other one, I'm assuming, is Joe after he's played 18 holes in the heat down there.

Either way, GO ROCKIES!!!

Grandma

This weekend my grandma, Sally Akkola, died.

It's teribly sad to think of the world without her in it, but she has been suffering for a long time now and everyone in our family knew she would not have wanted to live like that. We are very glad she isn't in any pain anymore.

When I think of Grandma Akkola, I think of the talks we used to have when I would visit ... usually over the summer. Most of the times these talks took place while she was "putting on her face" (her makeup). I would stretch out on her bed. She would look at me over the lighted mirror she used and we'd talk about our plans. Anyone who ever talked to my Grandma would know the one word you were guaranteed to hear when you asked a question was, "Well..." And she could stretch that word out to last until she figured out what she wanted to say. And then she would reply in a sing-song intonation that nobody will ever be able to get out of my head. Occasionally, I hear my mom talk like that and it makes me smile.

One of my fondest memories of Grandma was when we learned to swim together. I was probably 7 or 8. And neither of us knew how to swim. I was scared to death to learn. So was she. But we took lessons together. Grandma never really got the hang of it, but her courage to even attempt it helped me get over my fear.

Over the summers of my youth, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents when they were in Oklahoma City and then in El Paso. When Grandpa was still working, I spent most of my time with Grandma. She even got me to watch soap operas with her. No one (including my wife) has ever been able to do that.

I'm going to miss you, Grandma.

Now what?

I guess I kind of dropped the ball on posts (not that anyone cares).

Anyway, I finished NaNo but the book isn't done yet. My friend, Eric Anderson, and I have made a new pact. By Feb. 29, my book will be finished and I should have a rough edit of it done and printed out for serious editing. He is going to have a 75,000 word novel done by then, too.

Getting a novel every four years on Leap Day seems do-able, right?

45K

Every year during NaNo, I get a couple moments that I realize I would not be able to have writing a book any other way.

This morning, for instance, as I hit 3,000 words on a FLASHBACK, I realized I would never do this with a real novel, but for NaNo, 3,000 words kicks ass!

Anyway, the deadline is approaching. Is it fitting that Nov. 30 is the end of NaNo and also my dad's birthday?

I thought so, too.

Home stretch

I'm at 43,003 this morning. About 300 words short of pace, but I'm feeling good.

Here are the things that have failed to slow me down this month:
* Movies (saw Gone Baby Gone (awesome), Air Guitar Nation (rocks) and Helvetica (yes, the documentary on a font ... and it's great!), but the word count grew.
* New TV (yup, it rocks but I'm still going).
* Reading (still reading Team of Rivals ... a great book but very dense so it takes me awhile to get through it).
* Conspiracies (for some reason I've latelhy become obsessed with the Kennedy assasination. Saw a couple DVDs called "The Men who Killed Kennedy" about the conspiracies and then I saw a History Channel show called "The Kennedy Assasination ... Beyond the conspiracy." The first one showed a bunch of the same stuff I've seen as to how there was no way Oswald could have done it alone (or done it at all). The second debunked all of that stuff. I have absolutely no idea which side I'm on now. But it's interesting.
* Christmas lights ... got most of them up except the ones on the house because there's still a little snow up there.
* Kids ... I don't think I've ignored them too much.
* Wife ... OK, maybe.
* Work ... still going fine.
* Friends ... had one poker game a couple weeks ago and planning another.
* Health ... worked out a little bit and play racquetball at least once a week.

So, all in all, I'd say I'm doing pretty good.

No No NaNo

Realized that for folks who don't care about National Novel Writing Month, this blog just got incredibly boring, so here are some other updates:

1. Boys ... Fine, I think. I'll tell you after NaNo.
2. Tracy ... Same as #1.
3. Work ... huh?
4. Movies ... OK, I'll admit I've been watching ... Saw the Darjheeling Limited this weekend. I have decided that there are people who like Wes Anderson movies and then there are normal people. I laughed more at the preview for "Walk Hard" than I did the movie. Got a nice nap during the movie, though.

This has been your Non-NaNo update. We now return you to a novel-writing month already in progress...

By the way, this is funny ...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EodzF_orJQY

30K

Actually got past 31K as of this morning. Only a couple hundred words behind pace.
Usually turkey time messes up my writing time, but other than visiting relatives on Thursday, the rest of our time is relatively free. So, I'm confident right now.

Story's going well. Developing a lot of backstory I wasn't planning on doing and the main story has taken some interesting turns as well.

Having fun with it now, too!

Downhill

So, I eked past 25K today. Going slow right now, but Tracy is taking the boys to a show tonight so I'll have plenty of time to catch up (of course with Turkey Day coming up, it gets tougher ... tiptaphan and NaNo don't mix well!).

Thanks to Dan for a rather disturbing suggestion for a murder. Didn't quite go down that badly but if some of my other characters start pissing me off, at least I'll know how to handle them.

Should be a good weekend. Not a lot scheduled, so hopefully that means plenty of writing time.

On the downhill side now, so hopefully I'll start picking up speed.

Halfway

OK, so the month is half over ... and my book? Well it's almost there. Was at 24,100 this morning. Hope to get some more done this evening. We'll see.

I just created a whole back-story for my bad guy and the death of his father. That was fun. And he's stuck under the bed with the new Dad staying in the room. Should be fun.

Nearing halfway

Only about 600 words below pace right now.
Story's going well. It's fun because the story really is just going where the characters take it. I truly hope they know how to end this thing because I have no clue.

Lagging, but not by much

I'm at 19,003 words this morning. Slightly behind pace. The story just got good again and I'm pretty excited because I think it may actually be setting up for some sort of conclusion. Still not sure what.

The other fun thing I did this weekend is saw two movies. One on NetFlix and One in the theater.

In the theater, we saw Dan in Real Life. Not a bad piece of fluff, but nothing too great either. Steve Carrell always cracks me up, but he wasn't as great here with lesser material.

The best movie was "Air Guitar Nation" that I rented on NetFlix. What a fun movie. It's about the 2004 International Air Guitar Championships. And, yes, it's exactly what it sounds like: a competition where contestants pretend to play guitar on stage. It was funny and oddly exciting to see the competition. At some points it actually felt like a parody of documentaries which made it even funnier.

hurts so good

I have to admit that when I started Nano this year (hoping for my fifth year of success!), I wasn't too excited. It almost seemed more of an obligation.

But numerous times over the last year, the story for this novel snuck up on me and invaded my thoughts. (Sadly, an ending hasn't created itself yet). And so, I knew I had to finish this novel this year.

The good part is that I'm scaring myself already. I turned a simple task of my bad guy stealing some dinner from a fridge into a race and a hunt. It's been really fun. The plot is driving the story right now. I occasionally make myself make note of the characters, descriptions, place, smells, etc. But I just want to get back to the story. And since that's the kind of story I like to read (see James Patterson), I think that's what I should focus on.

The hard part is having no idea where my plot is going and relying my whole story on it.

We got a note the other day from NaNo about characters and how, if they feel like they aren't fleshed out, you should cast them. So here goes:

Anthony Speck (my bad guy) ... A genetic mutation of Kevin Spacey and Vince Vaughn
Dean Wilson (Dad) ... My neighbor in San Diego Donnie Crabtree
Elizabeth Wilson (Mom) ... Kate Hudson and Teresa Myers (who I worked with at the Trib)
Peter Wilson (4-year-old son) ... Alex (smart kid with a big imagination)
Olivia Wilson (2-year-old daughter) ... Andy (not the gender but the attitude)

Oh, and as of this morning, I'm at 14,800 words which is slightly behind pace but the weekends tend to be tough for writing so I hope I can keep up. Plus I have poker tonight.

Cheating

I’m at 13,531 words now, but I cheated a little ... I think. What do you think? Is this cheating?

Since I had to write my column for the paper anyway, I put it in my book as I had my character read a newspaper and read my column so I could get credit for those words.

I figured I did write them!

So, I may have cheated a bit, but at least I'm on pace.

Double-digit K

Got to 11K (and change) this morning. Story is stalling a bit (I did a 400-600 word side thing on eating at McDonalds ... I don't know why).
But I'm still enjoying it and I found a new way to torture the family in my story. MICE! Should be fun.