Oct 13

This is going to be a short one. Not a whole lot has been going on. I’ve started going over Kidnapped. There haven’t been a lot of spelling or grammatical errors, but I found a few continuity problems. Mostly, they were in the seventh chapter. There was also something that I didn’t like, so I am going to cut it out today. Other than that, everything is going according to schedule.
At work, our company is losing its contract. But, the new company that is coming in is going to hire everyone and just convert us over. It looks like we’re going to get a raise out of it and some better benefits. I went through one of these before. I was working as a contractor for a big investment company. (I was working for Matlen Silver, but I was working at Merrill Lynch.) I was there for three years when it started. As the year progressed, before I was hired on permanently by the company, they had other companies come in and try taking over the systems department. At the end of that year, Merrill was paying my contract to At&t, they were paying it to Cyber, they were paying it to Matlen Silver, and they were paying me. It was very confusing, but at least I was getting paid.
The kids are all doing very well. Everyone is still in school. My oldest is having her birthday tomorrow. She will be eighteen. My son is moving out the day after. It’s going to be very quiet in the house without my granddaughter. We were playing today and she invented a new game where I turn her upside down and we make funny noises. It was very fun. My youngest daughter was sick today. She missed school and she still didn’t look too good before I left for work. We’ll see how she feels in the morning.
I’m putting Styx on in the background now, so it’s time to get to work.
-Thom

Oct 11

I had to work during the Columbus Day parade this weekend. It was only for a few hours, but I was able to see the parade. It was short, but at least it was pointless. Most of it was dedicated to the reelection of a senator or congressman or governor or one of those guys. It lasted about twenty minutes if you stretched it. There was a huge police presence in case the protestors acted up. I was on the main drag of the main street, and I didn’t see any protestors. In fact, there were only three couples on my side of the street. There were a few kids on the other side, but not that many. There were more people walking down the sidewalk asking what’s going on than there were people that actually showed up for the parade. If I didn’t have to work, I wouldn’t have been there.
We got a lot of stuff moved into the storage on Saturday, a lot of the big stuff anyway. The apartment is looking pretty empty. It will look even more empty once my son moves out on Friday. My granddaughter wanted to play with me today after I got home from visiting my mom. But, I had to go to sleep so that I could stay up all night tonight. She was crying and I felt soooo bad. My wife made it up to her by buying her some toys. She really likes the princess stuff, so she got her a puzzle box with three kid size puzzles and a pretend makeup kit with real body glitter that had princess stuff on it.
My girls had to go to school today. I thought it was going to be a holiday because of Columbus Day, but I guess it is just a bank holiday. My wife’s dad had surgery today, so she was at the hospital late and they all didn’t get home until about eight or so.
The Broncos lost their game on Sunday to the Ravens. They haven’t had a good running game so far this year and they didn’t get one yesterday. The defense also didn’t play up to their norm. We gave up 31 points and Kyle Orton only passed for three hundred yards. I really thought that we had a chance to win leading up to the game, but it just wasn’t in the cards. Hopefully we’ll have better luck against the Giants next week. If we can go into our divisional games at five hundred, I think we have a very good chance of getting into the post season. I know it is only week five, but football season goes very quickly.
I finished Kidnapped on Friday. I wanted to begin the reread to look for spelling and grammatical errors this weekend, but I didn’t get a chance. I’ll get them started today. Then, it’s off to the editor so it should be ready in a few weeks. I’ll start on the Great Detective as soon as I send it off to the editor. I like the way it turned out. It’s a long one, like the first one. But, I expected that. All nine of the books in this series are going to be long. But, the Great Detective is going to be normal sized. So it shouldn’t take me too long to finish it up. I am sure that it will be done in time for Christmas.
-Thom

Oct 8

It is finished. I mistakenly said that I was working on chapter 43 the other day. It was really 44. I finished 46 just now and it looks good. I had originally planned on having a 47th chapter, but it didn’t work out like that. Now, I have to go back and reread the whole thing to make sure that there weren’t any spelling or grammatical mistakes. I might add a little here or there, or take out something depending on if it was necessary or not. But, that should take about a week or two. Then, it’s off to the editor. That will be another week. Then I’ll send it off for rejection to the agents. It’s a book number 2, so there is already a strike against it. Most agents will want the first book if anything. So, I’ll only send it out to a few of them. If they like it, I can send them ‘It Begins’ if they want. I will start reading on Monday. So, today and this weekend I will go over the Great Detective and see where I stand with it. I have been adding a little too it here and there. I think I’m on chapter 17 or 19.
My wife is going out to take her mom to visit her brother on Saturday. That’s the day I have to start moving things into storage. See how she skates out of work. It’s ok. I also volunteered to work a few hours in the morning. There is a Columbus Day parade that is going to pass right by the office building that morning, so I get to see a parade while I’m working.
Someone won the Powerball this last drawing. I haven’t checked my tickets yet, so I’m still imagining that I’m the winner. I’ve already spent it about a hundred times in my head. It would be much nicer to be able to spend it for real. Could you imagine what it would be like to not have to worry about spending nearly all of your paycheck paying bills? You could do whatever you wanted. I know the first thing I would do after paying off everything I owe would be to quit my job and buy me a couple houses. I would get one here in Denver and another in California and Arizona. Then, I would take a month or two off. Then have the best Christmas in the world. Then, I would take a trip to somewhere exotic. I would share the wealth and everything, but I would spend the next year traveling around just seeing stuff. Ok, as soon as I finish this, I’m going to check my tickets.
The family is doing ok. Nothing earth shattering has happened in the last few days. The girls are still in school and doing well. My son is still preparing to move out on the 15th. Our living room is full of packed boxes and it’s getting hard to move around. But, after the kids move out and we get our stuff in storage it will be back to normal for about two weeks. Then we move out.
-Thom

Oct 6

It’s amazing how a two and a half year old can spend hours digging mud up with a little stick and wiping it off on a tree. My granddaughter plays with all of the little kids in the apartment complex. I was watching her today and we were outside. The only little girl out there was a new one that I hadn’t seen before. She had a little stick and they just got to work. There are plenty of toys out there and even a small park just a little ways down. But, I guess the mud was much more interesting. When I asked them what they were doing, they said that they were looking for bugs. I thought that only little boys looked for bugs and frogs and snakes and stuff like that. But, apparently I’m already old fashioned. At least they were having fun. I should have brought a book to read. Actually, what I should have done was notice that she was wearing white clothes. I had to buy everyone dinner to get out of the dog house.
How about those Phillies? Yes, it was a no hitter. I know I’m a diehard Rockies fan, but I used to live next to the Phillies and they are my second team.
I finished chapter 43 yesterday and I am beginning 44 today. It is all coming together and it is almost finished. I can hardly wait.
-Thom

Oct 4

Well, we did it. I’m not a packrat, but I am a collector. Back when I was a kid, I collected comic books. When I was working on computers and making a bunch of money, I collected movies and DVDs. Throughout all of it I collected non-sports cards. Over the years, I’ve had to sell off some of my comics. I had nearly the entire series of X-men. I had #1, 94 and Giant Size #1. Those are the three biggies. I had a car wreck in New Jersey. It wasn’t my fault, but the insurance only paid off the car. I still needed a way to get back and forth to work. It was 55 miles each way. So, I sold off the entire X-men series to get a new car. Later on, I sold off almost all of my Spiderman comics for other things. I still have about ten thousand, but they’re in collector boxes and sitting in storage. Just the other day, my wife and I decided to downsize on space. We’re getting ready to buy a house, so we’re moving out of the apartment and into her mom’s upstairs. To make extra room, we figured we would throw out all of our DVD boxes and just keep the DVD disk. We have 1300 and we had them sitting out on bookshelves. But, those bookshelves take up a lot of space. Besides, if we kept them, I would have probably had to carry all of them upstairs and then move them again when we get our house. So, it’s finally done. I threw away all of the boxes and put all of the DVDs inside these really large CD notebooks. It only takes up one shelve of one bookcase. Much easier to manage. Even though they are very heavy and there are a lot of them, I’m not giving up my card collection. I’m going to put it in storage while we’re at her mom’s, but it is coming right back out when we get our house.
I finished chapter 43 yesterday. I’m going to start on 44 today. I put in a bunch of Pink Floyd on the playlist and it is time to get going.
-Thom

Oct 4

Can I hold a grudge or what? I was watching football all day Sunday. The Broncos played the first game. They beat the Titans and put them at 2-2. It was a really good game. I think the Broncos are going to be much better than everyone is giving them credit for. They came very close to beating the Colts last week. Our defense has been great and no one gives him much credit, but Kyle Orton has been doing great. Our running game hasn’t been very good lately, so he’s made up for it by passing for over 800 yards in the last two games. Anyway, I watched the Redskins take on the Eagles. Since I used to live out in New Jersey, (five minutes from the Eagles stadium) I’m partial to the Eagles. I wasn’t voting for them yesterday, because I wanted to see how Shannahan’s team (The old Broncos coach) was going to do. He picked up McNabb as quarterback and they were playing back in Philly. They won, so I was having a really good day. Then, the Bears game came on. I have made it a habit to vote against them after Jay Cutler threw a fit and forced a trade. So, he got sacked nine times and couldn’t move the ball at all. By then, I was having a great football day. Cutler didn’t come back in the second half. They said that he got hurt. Since I got the chance to see him embarrassed and because I like football and don’t want to see anyone get hurt. I’ve decided to give up on my grudge. (It has been two years now.)
The Rockies didn’t finish well. They lost thirteen of their last fourteen games. I was really disappointed. We had that winning streak right before the losing streak that put us within spitting distance of both the division championship and the wild card. Before the losing streak, I was all set to buy tickets to the post season games and hopefully the World Series. It would have been nice. Now, I have to wait until next year. Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki were both in the top four for batting title. Carlos was number one. He had a .336 batting average and hit 34 homers. He stole 26 bases and had 117 RBIS. Next year, as long as they both stay healthy, we’re going to have a better season.
While I was watching sports all day, the wife took the kids and my granddaughter out to Chuck E. Cheese. They had a lot of fun and I had the whole house to myself. They won enough tickets to get the baby a new Barbie. They are moving out on the 15th of this month. It is going to be hard not having her (and them) around all the time. But, I’m going to volunteer to be their full time babysitter. And, it’s not like they’re moving to the moon or anything. They’ll just be ten minutes away.
My youngest made cookies today. That’s one of my weaknesses. They’re going to have to hide them from me, or I’m going to eat the whole batch. I already snuck some to bring to work. They never should have left me alone in the kitchen.
I’ve finished chapter 42 on Saturday. I’m starting 43 today. It’s almost done. I’m hoping to finish by the middle of next week. Then, I have to hurry up and finish the Great Detective. I want to have it done before Christmas because I’m sending everyone a full set as presents. So, I better get started. I just found a friend from the Marine Corps on Facebook today. Way back in the mid 80’s we went to a Bon Jovi and Cinderella concert. So, I’m putting them in the playlist to listen to in the background.
Thom

Oct 1

Happy October 1st. October is one of my favorite months. Not only is it my birthday, and a bunch of my family’s birthdays, but it has Halloween in it. I can’t wait to start looking at the costumes.
There are only three games left. Do you think the Rockies will win at least one? They have dropped 10 of their last eleven games. It was as if their September winning streak never happened. They came within spitting distance of the playoffs and then nothing. I think they were just teasing us. So, everyone, I predicted that the Rockies were going to go to the World Series. It looks like I was wrong.
I missed yesterday because I was just killer busy. Some of my urgent tasks were retyping my daughter’s book report and fixing some of the sentences. I was helping one of the guys buy plane tickets on line. That took a while, because we had to look at a bunch of airlines and compare flights for different days with each. My youngest daughter also sent me an email that was nearly as long as one of my books. It took a while to go through that.
Speaking of emails, I have been getting quite a few emails asking me why I’m emailing them ads for Viagra and things like that. I haven’t been. But, I even got one from me in one of my other email accounts. It looks like someone, (probably from work. Those people are almost all computer illiterate) downloaded a virus that stole my contact list and is sending out emails in my name. I remember at school, there was a program that was going around where you could email someone using someone else’s name and address. We had some fun with that for about ten minutes. Now, I wish I still had it. I might try downloading it again. I won’t do what this guy did to me. But, it would be kind of funny to reply to everyone’s email using their own name. Yeah, I need a life.
I finished chapter 41 and I’m working on 42. It’s going to busy, so I might not be able to get to it until Monday.
-Thom