On boots and bars and motorbikes...

I just wanted to update and say that the Geek Squad did me well. I got my laptop back a day early, and everything I thought I might've lost was right there waiting on me when I signed back on. What. A. Relief. In fact, it hasn't run this well since I first got it, and for all the pages it holds, that's quite astounding... I truly couldn't think of a better picure to go with that header. If that doesn't scream dorky geekdom right out loud, I'm pretty sure nothing will. From those stylin' Old Fart wingtips to the distressed university fleece that only nine people on the planet could possibly identity to that perfectly obnoxious Plumb Crazy Purple Willie Wonka Top Hat, it simply doesn't get any better. Of couse, to really sell that shit you've gotta throw in that smart little Hidey-Ho strut, the White Boy Shuffle, the schottische, something. This particular pose sort of reminds me of the Monopoly Man. you know, the fellow on the

Boy, do I ever hope those Geeks at the Squad are good at what they do. Something I discovered last night as I came to a stopping place in yesterday's additions was that I don't currently have access to more than 95 percent of the stories I've written so far. Sadly there's starts and notes to at least four or five good books in there, and at least a dozen or more mediocre ones. I don't even want to think about how many individual short stories, class notes, photos and poems that could potentially be lost. Turns my stomach to think I might well be starting completely from scratch at this point, thesis deadlines now looming. The lone plus side, as far as I can tell, is that at least I find out now, if that's truly the case, rather than a week or two--or even worse still, the day of--my actual due date.   What baffles me most is that the total absence of those stories I sought (I mean like several folders seem to have evaporated from where I believe they ought

Still battling computer problems so I hauled the big box in today. Gonna let the Geeks fight with it for a while. I've never been a real techno wizard. Not enough motor oil in it, I think. Not that I'm exactly a mechanical genius or anything, but I can usually get a motor to turn over, at very least. If not, I have a pretty damn good idea as to why. Computer goes wonky on me, and I turn into a monkey trying to fuck a football, for all intents and purposes. Using a tablet to type this up now, but despite it having an actual keyboard, I do believe it was designed with a kindergartener's hand in mind. It's about half the size of what I'm accustomed, and that's giving it credit. But at least I can keep writing this way. Not that I forgot how to use a pen, but it just takes longer: 1) I'd have to ultimately type it all again anyway at some point, and 2) I don't know where I left off on what I started already. I can access the cloud, where I saved it,

Of course, I'm sure you were all hunkered up to the screen waiting, breath baited, for the latest edition. Yeah right. Your ass hurts... Let's just put it this way: I been busy. Somewhere between a hurricane, a wedding and the semester from hell these last few months, I've barely had time to fart proper. Of course, I'm sure the Old Lady might beg to differ. I'm sure that's got more to do with flavor than the savor of true and proper execution, but that's another story for another time. Thank God, that's all behind me now. Well, sort of. Speaking of stories, I really should be getting on with my mine. Enough vacationing. I write my thesis this year, which if all goes to plan, should land someplace between an original short story collection or novel, whichever works out first, I suppose. Gotta have it done to graduate come December, and the first draft is due about mid-March. 'Nuff rest for the wicked, I suppose. Time to get 'er done, d

I mentioned this in my last submission: blank screens for three days, trying like hell to write just 500 words. We were asked to read a couple of poems from "WEE-satch" and form a story around them. It fought me like a pissed off cat, but here's the result: “You need to let yourself get hit a few times so you can see it’s not so bad or so you can see how bad it really is.”             Those words somehow seemed to make perfect sense as Jesse stood there holding his ratty old football on the edge of the practice field. After all, his big brother Jake had said them, and he knew what he was talking about. He was the starting quarterback on the varsity team, and Jesse was certain his big brother knew everything there was to know about football. Jake had been star athlete for as long as Jesse could remember. No matter what sport he played, he always rose to the top — baseball, basketball, soccer, wrestling — but where he truly shined was on the football field. Jak

It has been a while, I know. But I've never been far away from the written word. Not at all in fact. I was asked for my fiction writing class final to write a personal narrative on my experience through the class. It's a bit long for this format, I know, but I thought it worth the share: Call me arrogant, ignorant or perhaps even foolish — I’ve been called worse, today in fact — but I truly thought this whole writing journey would be a cinch. I’d turn in a few words and everyone would be so unimaginably impressed, publishers would beat a path to my door. The college would quilt me with degrees. I’d be the new voice of my generation, the Redneck Laureate. Everybody would want to say they once knew me… I’d earned my chops, I thought. I’d been writing professionally longer than most of my fellow classmates had been alive. Considering I can date that back to the late 1980s, it was hardly unimaginable, at least that’s how I pictured all those phantom writers in my online cl

Let me climb up on my soapbox here. Hang on, almost there. What the hell was that popping noise? A hip is not supposed to make that sound... OK. Now, let me catch my breath... So I've been reading lots of stories-in-progress in my creative writing class at grad school. Some are better than others; some I can't wait to see published. That's really not the point. We read our peer submitted works and then offer some commentaries on things we like, things we don't, things that need work, etc. Kind of interesting, actually, to me at least. Now I'll be the first to admit, I don't fit the mold of your typical college student. I've been out in the working world for a while. I could probably have fathered half the people in my class. But we're all English majors here, we all use words regularly. I would argue that these youngsters are probably a lot fresher on their grammar skills. The last real grammar schooling I got came before most of these cats were bo