Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Back in the White Mountains

It was really nice to be back in the White Mountains even if it was only for a long weekend backpacking and snowshoeing trip. This trip was the last trip of the winter season in our search for snow. We finally found some, which was great if a little on the wet side, but at least I was able to play with the snowshoes I was testing. A small group of us left out of Lafayette campgrounds and hiked up to the hut at Lonesome Lake. The views were amazing and we had a great time. Once we arrived, we had more fun running and making tracks around the lake, and soaking up some sun with the great views. We were scheduled to stay that night in the hut before moving on to another shelter for the following night. The hut was great and we had fun playing some games and relaxing. The next day we hiked out to Kinsman Pond shelter and soaked up a lot more sun as well as played on the frozen pond, took some macro shots of lichen and mosses. We eventually all made it up to the top of North Kinsman mountain and the views were even more amazing. I had a chance to do some glissade back down to the campsite and had a great time doing it. The last day saw an overcast day with the threat of rain. We actually got the rain just before we hit the hut again. We ducked in for some warmth and to eat a quick snack. The stop over turned into about a 2 hours stop with us helping to eat some of the deer with bacon wraps that were left over from the party that had occurred the night before. Too bad we couldn't have joined in the party as it sounded like it was a blast. The hut was too full for us to spend another night as they had booked well in advance of us and filled the bunks.

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Monday, March 23, 2009

Edits are back

I just got the edits back from my last helper and there are quite a few. Mostly I think some of them are that I didn't capitalize King and Prince when using them. Otherwise it wasn't too bad. I now have the file in Word and am trying to go through all the edits as well as fixing up the formating as I noticed I had used the wrong page sizing. I have decided that I am going to post the novel to the CreateSpace site to get the free printing for the challenge award but that I like the fact that LuLu has the smaller pocket version available so I will go ahead and set up another book there too. The pocket size is actually what I associate with a paperback novel so it will be nice to have something that will fit on my book shelf in with the other books on the shelf.

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Friday, March 20, 2009

My guest is back

I am happy that my guest arrived back in town late last night. It was rather quiet here but I did manage to get some things done like work on the editing to my novel as well as move my beer from primary to secondary and get another batch going. I really didn't manage to get much more then that done as the editing has been using up a lot of my time, in a good way. I do have more and more of my calendar filling in with stuff as things start to swing into gear again with the warming weather. Although I hardly consider that the weather is that warm yet.

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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Write in's

I have been pretty good the last few times and actually made it to the last three write in's. While I was more productive at the first and last one, at least I have been making a consistent effort to get back into the writing swing of things. The first of the write in's say me revising the personal conflict scenes of my two major characters. I felt this was needed as there was no really reason why they suddenly decided to change. So I had to delve further into their character and the things that were going on around them to make them see what had to change and give them a reason to change. I feel the story works better now because of that. The last write in saw me starting to work on a new project. I really wanted to start on something and tried to start work on something I had been playing with previously but for some reason the story wasn't coming together in my head so I didn't get anything done the last session. This session, I picked up another pre-existing idea and for some reason I was able to go somewhere with it and have been getting good ideas of where to take the story. I have been continuing to work on that story idea trying to flesh out characters and the major story points. Hopefully I can keep the ideas flowing and get more words out onto the page. I think for simplicity, it will take place in the same world as the last story so I don't really have to redefine the rules of the world. I will likely have it taking place in a different location but same world.

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Editing work

I have been trying to slog through all the editing work that is needed on the novel I wrote during the National Novel writing month challenges from 2006 and 2007. I have actually been working on the edits for about a month now and feel I am almost done. As I received an email detailing how I could get a proof copy of my novel if I upload it to one of the printing sites, I am trying to hurry against that deadline to get the novel edited, uploaded and ready to go. I have finished most of the editing and have had a few readers also help with the editing. I have realized that there are a few words I should read up on how to use correctly as I seem to use them incorrectly with extreme frequency. My biggest ones are 'then' and than'. I seem to get dinged on that almost every single time I use the word, that now I am unsure how to use them. I might be able to simply avoid using them but not sure I want to have to be that extreme. I am still waiting for some final edits back from my father.

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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Quiet here

Things are quiet here, I just sent my house guest home on Sunday. I was busy on the Monday with a very long work day, which included a dinner event at a small local French bistro. I managed to get some sleep that night but not much. After that I have been at a little bit of a loss as to what to do. I didn't realize how much I came to enjoy having someone around that the apartment is now almost too quiet. It has only been a few days and I already miss him. I have been trying to catch up on a few things but when I get home, I really don't feel like doing anything. I am sorry to say that I haven't really accomplished much from my list of things to do.

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Saturday, March 07, 2009

The beer is on again

I put a couple of batches in the last couple of months, but nothing serious. I was mostly just using up the ingredients I had bought a long time ago and that I knew to still be good. I went out to the beer store the other day and picked up the ingredients to make 3 Belgian style beers and I started one of the batches today. This beer is a clone brew from the book "beers cloned". I chose the Vlaskop because the description sounded good. I am hoping this beer and the other two I chose will turn out good. I opted to make three beers that are similar in style so I could reuse the yeast cake from each batch into the next batch. Saves money and the yeast is better able to make the bigger beers when primed on a smaller beer. I just don't quite have enough space to ferment three beers in secondary. Belgian style beers seems to require a longer time in secondary to really age the beer well. I might have to syphon out the third beer off the yeast, wash the bottle then but the beer back in the same bottle. Oh well.

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Sunday, March 01, 2009

Planning session

A group of backpackers in the area who have been active over the winter have decided to run a last ditch to winter backpacking trip up to the White Mountains at the end of March. As such we decided to get together for a planning session to figure out what trail we wanted to follow and what hut and shelters we wanted to stay at. The planning session didn't have nearly as much planning as was hoped for but we did have lots of fun staying up late and drinking then crashing. We did get some tentative plans in place to go with which is good. I am really psyched up for this trip. I hope there will still be lots of snow so I can get in one last good usage of the snowshoes I have been playing with. I feel bad that the winter here really isn't cooperating at all. I have travels out to West Virginia, and Pennsylvania in search of snow and been disappointed.

Too bad the weather didn't cooperate this weekend. I was hoping it would be halfway nice as I was hoping to bring my kayak down to the lake and get some water time. Alas the weather was simply too cold and the threat of rain was heavy in the air. So I opted to leave the boats at home which was a good thing as it starting raining shortly after we arrived. Looked like it froze overnight too. The nice thing about this lake is that part of it is used to cool the reactor across the lake and so the water is generally warmer then other bodies of water. Fun to play in but the weather simply hasn't been that cooperative lately.

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