All-In

(heart pounding, sweat beading)

That's how it was on the felt at the Texas Hold 'Em table at AC. Really, it takes a couple of times playing there before you even begin to get comfortable at the table. My very first hand of the night I spilled chips everywhere. So nervous. But I began to settle down - this was my third time at AC - and ended up winning $156. No slots, no blackjack - just a good night at Hold 'Em. I am all about that.
But what made me happier was the way I won; not just one big hand, I won on bluffs, slow plays, some smart gambles and using my muscle when I had it. Two hours, insane fun, and some cash besides? Thank you Lady Luck. I kneel and kiss your feet.
The rest of the weekend was great too. Hanging out with the guys was an absolute blast, from Hershey to the hotel to AC to the trip back. I even made it back in time for my dodgeball game, which Team Hit The Deck won in a pounding, 9-2. With the two point match bonus, this puts Hit The Deck at 33 points out of a possible 39 for a .846 winning percentage. Team Heinz, hated archrival and in first place ahead of Team Hit The Deck at the beginning of the week, won as well, but only by the slimmest of margins, 6-5. This gave them 33-of-39 for an .846 winning percentage. That means for the first time in team history - which is impressive considering Hit The Deck was one of the inagural teams of the league three seasons ago - we are in at least a tie for first place.
And Heinz is up next Monday!
The anticipation is intense. Dodgeballs will fly. More details as events warrant.
After getting things in order Tuesday - including a heartbreaking last second loss in basketball - life is back in order and I am back on the blog. Tonight I'm headed off to Sesame Inn - greatest Chinese restaurant in the land - with Julie. I plan on enjoying heavily.
I need to write some more to my story, but I'm in a Warcraft kind of mood. That Undead Level 4 is a bitch!
Good weekend ahead - writing conference and bro day with Mike. I am pumped.

Luck Be A Lady Tonight

(I will treat you like the Goddess that you are)

I'm heading for the coast!
The East Coast, via Hershey, then AC. Nate's picking me up in about three hours and we'll be off. I'm majorly excited, and I'm taking off Monday, so Sunday is as completely worry-free as Monday is. The crew will be back and rocking this weekend!
I will specifically look forward to my time at the Hold 'Em tables. I feel much more in control of what I'm doing. If I can keep my nervousness down while I'm on the felt, I should do well. I think I'll make good decisions regardless - I'm not that kind of nervous - but in a game like Hold 'Em, the last thing you want is for your opponents to get a read on you. Very, very bad when that happens. But I will pull out all the skills to woo the Lady Luck. She is fickle and impulsive but always fair. I will not insult her. I will offer her my hand, flowers in the other, and take her on a long and gentle walk wherever she would like to go. I will not request anything from her. Whatever she would like to give me, I will graciously accept.
May she and I walk hand-in-hand, if only for a night!

I'll post on Monday at the latest if I can't find an internet connection over the weekend (which is fairly likely). I'll come back with some cash... if I'm lucky!

Indra's Theory of Existence

(a.k.a. Mat's Web)

Another enlightening and engrossing writing conference with Martin. If you've ever played a really good series of games of pickup basketball, or played a tough match in volleyball, or any of its equivalents in one hundred different sports, you know the rewarding feeling of physical exertion. A good workout cleanses the body, makes it work, and ultimately makes it stronger. The mind needs just as much exertion. It needs a workout too, particularly in today's day and age, where TV thinks for you. No imagination is required with TV, no thought or analysis in most shows; the brain has about as much activity to do as when it is asleep, or in a coma.
But a good writing conference - or philosophical conversation, or private mediation, or any other excellent exercise for the mind - is as rewarding as its physical equivalent. It really is great to get to expand your mind for a few hours and imagine, create, weigh, analyze, discuss, collaborate, interrogate, reject, and create again. I find myself looking forward to them, and wish I had more completed writing to bring to them on a regular basis - a wish that may well come to pass if Caissa can keep up the pressure she's built up over the last couple of months.
The quote from above is from the conference, in which Martin explained that a Buddhist/Eastern idea of reality - via Indra - consisted of a number of glass nodes on points where lines of reality crossed. Martin argued that this was exactly like my idea of the story web, my idea of how a story is created/held together/succeeds. Good to know that I was actually coming up with a theory of reality. That's especially cool when you think about it, as fantasy writing really is all about creating a reality - one the reader can visit and leave his or her own behind, if only the reality is real, believable, and engrossing.
That's some good mental exercise.

Friday night I am leaving for my Hershey-AC trip with Dave, Tom, Jeff, and Nate, and I am wildly pumped for it. It's our summer trip and we are going to rock. I also will have quite a bit on the line at AC, and need to determine a set limit before arriving - rule #1 of gambling being setting a limit and not deviating from said limit no matter what - but I imagine that it will be a ton of fun. This is going to be an absolute blast!

I have volleyball tonight and dodgeball on Monday, which I will be coming back specifically for. Good thing we have an 8:30 PM game.

I'll definitely write another blog entry before I go. Can't slow down the momentum now that I'm freed of the dreaded project of doom.

The Pony Express

(your mail in three months, guaranteed)

There is something infinitely redeeming about a letter.
Every day I send upwards of twenty work e-mails, sometimes more. Sometimes many more. I send a lot of friends e-mails as well. Just type, click, and it's there. Instantaneous. And when I type as quickly as I do - almost as fast as I think - it's not hard for me to get all my thoughts down that I want immediately, fresh and hot off the synapses, still sparking with nanobits of literal mental electricity. And when e-mail became the preferred method of communication, both in the work and the social worlds, it was because of its immediacy, it's ease of creation and delivery, a process that required no pickup or dropoff times, no physical materials, and no horses. (Or the couriers on them.)
So getting a letter is a strange and rare event. Getting two in one day is unheard of. But upon opening my little mailbox in the lobby of my apartment complex last night, I found two letters from Margaret, sitting all nice and pretty.
One was dated June 20th; the other, June 26th. I got them both July 6th, a testament to Margaret being at an electricity-poor camp in Maine and the reliability of my apartment complex always adding 4-7 days onto the normal mailing process. I sometimes wonder if the building supervisors wait outside for the mailman, cheerfully saying "We'll sort them into each apartment box for you!" and the mailman leaving thinking, "That's really nice of them to do that", while the women carry the mail back to their offices and see how long they can hold it before their residents pitch a fit.
But I digress - I got two letters, both long and handwritten. That seems to go without saying but after the thousands of e-mails I've sent and received over the last year, there is something pure and simple about a handwritten letter. For one, it takes time. My handwriting is infinitely slower than my typing. It shows you that the person put a lot of time and effort into it, because it's not that easy to create a long letter, particularly compared to the ease of e-mail. For another, you get all the personality of the characters, the slant of the lines, the flowing strokes of curves and hard dashes. It brings to mind the scene in Hero of the battle at the calligraphy school, and how writing and swordplay are almost exactly the same thing. But the personality is the key - and it's something I never noticed before, or at least not this explicitly.
The cool thing was that Margaret was having a similar experience in Maine. Away from all the 'basics' of city/suburban life - like electricity - you get down to what the real 'basics' are - trees, fire, lakes, stars. It was really impressive to read about and the topic just seemed to fit the handwritten letter perfectly.
And the last cool thing about handwritten letters is that, unlike e-mail, one good letter deserves another.
A timely quote: "The harder you press on paper, the more intense of a personality you have."
Excellent...

Going to meet with Martin for a writer's conference tonight, and I'm excited about it. Caissa practically needs a new dress. W0w. I'm pretty sure she wrote that before my brain had actually comprehended it.

I set up the family fantasy football league today, and it looks like it's going to be awesome! So many good things ahead...

Life is getting better...

Freeeeeeeedom

(every man blogs... not every man really writes)

Oh, you know your muse is on when she comes up with a title and opening without so much as a hint of a thought.

My project is over.
OVER!
The long work hours, the early starts, the undetermined late finishes, the weekend work, the upgrades, the logging in from home, the general mental weight of how much had to be done - what can be summed up as 'June' - is done.
Officially, anyway. Unofficially, the system is still a bit slow and has some kinks. But it's still working, damn it, and that means that the dreaded sense of urgency - the now now NOW NEED IT DONE NOW - is finally dissapating. I have room to mentally breathe, which I wouldn't have understood until I actually got out of it. How can I tell that things are better? Well, for example, Caissa is running around like a virgin that just discovered the fun times being with the opposite sex can create. I've been writing TFOR like a fiend, and she's wanted to blog all weekend, though that would have been tough in internet-poor Chautauqua. But now that I'm back, work seems like it was before. Work hard, but you could take some time to rest, or take a breath, or get a drink... and after everyone's gone, it's not so hard to remember it in a blog entry.

Saw fireworks last night, which was nice, and am going to basketball tonight. Dodgeball Mondays, basketball Tuesdays, and volleyball Thursdays means I am at least staying in shape better than I would before. Julie's playing dodgeball and volleyball too, and I'm stunned at the way she's taking it - i.e., very well. She's open to learning and trying to have fun. Example 14,879,206 of how confusing the female gender is.

Seeing the family over the weekend, we now have our 10-team fantasy football family league lining up. I am absolutely pumped for it. Combine that with my friends' league and my work league, and I will be in fantasy heaven come September... as I expect to be in a heated race for the championship in fantasy baseball at the same time.

Trying to stay in touch with all my friends. I'm hoping to see Martin for a writing conference tomorrow night, hoping to get Stoph to come down to Pittsburgh on a weekend, and I haven't heard anything from Margaret but will send her something around July. She's probably collecting all kinds of bedtime stories... if you know what I mean.

A new month and some free(r) time. I am looking forward to it!