About this time 2010, I finished writing my very, very rough draft and set it aside for what I thought would be a few weeks. Ultimately, life got in the way and a few weeks turned into a solid year of me doing things completely unrelated to writing. As of yesterday, I’ve finally picked up the red pen and started a concerted effort to edit this 400 page novel into something I can be proud of…

Given how much red ink and thematic and plot related issues I have to tackle, I’m sure this is just edit one of three or four. Regardless, work has begun again and I’ve tweaked the progress meter on the right to reflect the difference in job.

The percentages are the same, though it’s now based on percentage of pages edited instead of words. The word count is still the same, mostly so I can see that OMGWTFBBQ icon a little more often now…

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

I’m not entirely sure what happened as of right now, but I can tell you that it most certainly was not the case.  As close as I can tell, it looks like one of two things happened:

1. Someone hacked my site so that I would request a removal of my “home” IP address from the AVH project; or
2. AVH flaked out on me in the middle of a blacklist.

From what I can see thus far, I’m leading toward ’2′.  I couldn’t find any indication that there had been any unauthorized access to the site and besides the unwelcome error, everything appeared to be in place.

Regardless, I wiped out the site and restored from a backup just to be safe.

And to be even safer, I deleted any unusual left-over accounts and changed passwords.

Oh, and I made sure I’m all patched back up.

I guess we’ll see what happens next.  Ta for now.

Mostly I just drive a whole heluva lot right now.  While I’m not currently commuting each and every day to Syracuse from Richfield Springs, I feel like I might as well be.  I’m never quite relaxed and I tend to sleep badly when I’m not in a static location…

The good news is that if the sellers of that house I mentioned agree to the terms we just sent back (post-inspection and appraisal), we should be moving in by mid-July.

I’m very much looking forward to that.  :)

Here is a quick summary of my life for those interested:

* We put an offer on a house, they countered, we accepted and we’re waiting on some repairs to be finished before we send in a home inspector. Fingers crossed on that.

* The job is going great… that’s about all to talk about there.

* I *still* don’t have new tires for my motorcycle…

Sadly, that’s all I have right now. I’m getting prepped to go out to Boston for the next few days again, so, barring any other drug deals, I will probably be off the grid until Thursday or Friday.

Bye!

Once again, I’ve been enraptured by the environment of my latest employer and I was finally able to flex my tech muscle a little bit–like, super tiny flexing… almost teasing–so that makes for a happier Mike… but Mike does not like teasing… :\

(Sorry Rochester, no more on this from me… )

Good news though: No Drug Deals on Way Home From Work.  That automatically puts a little smiley next to this specific Thursday after the events of yesterday.  At least this isn’t a goddamn drug dealing route.

Oh, but I still hate cities.  It has nothing to do with a supernatural ability to feel the presence of the thousands of people around me, but I still despise them.  The latest example that really solidifies this mentality happened not fifteen minutes ago… and thus begins another short story.

After work I headed over the a grocery store near my hotel.  I chilled out for awhile and ended up buying some nail clippers since, you know, you can’t bring them with you… without paying $25 for checked luggage.  Anyway, I paid the $1.50 and wrote it off as a loss.

Well, on my way out of the store and heading back, I overheard two homeless men speaking.  The one appeared to be blind (and banned from the store, apparently) and the other spoke like he may have some mental issues.  That said, the man I may have incorrectly interpreted as being blind pulled a $20 bill from somewhere and handed it to the other guy whose eyes were glued to the image of Thomas Jefferson.

“You can get it, right?”  Said the blind man.

A quick, fervent nod, eyes not deviating from the slightly shaking hand in front of him.  ”Oh yeah, I’ll get all of it.  Sure, right here.  Quick.”

The blind man nodded and handed over the twenty.  ”All right.”

And off bolted the other man, up the stairs and into what I firmly believe will be oblivion for the blind man since there are at least two other exits from the building.

Rochester would say this is yet another thing that I should thrive on, but at heart I’m an idealist.  I love the idea that humans choose their own life and, given half a chance, will always choose the one that betters all…

I’m not sure what the right choice is here.  I don’t know what ‘it’ is and I’m not sure it will help anyone, but there is one thing I do know.

When it comes to human beings, I hate being shown I’m wrong all the time.

Now on to the weird part…

I left work and went to the food court in the mall across the street and ordered a GIGANTIC burrito.  Seriously, it’s huge:

The pencil is there to help with scale... :p

But that doesn’t have anything to do with the “weirdness”.

This brings us to weird event #1:

I was walking down Boylston St. toward Exeter St. and my hotel when I caught a bellhop counting everyone who walked in front of him.  Given that it was 6:30PM on a major shopping strip, he had to count quickly and with each number he was nodding his head.  I walked past him with a group of eight other people and watched him do a pretty good bobble-head impression.

That said, I’m not sure if he has OCD or this is a real job… if anyone knows, please leave a comment.

And now, weird item #2:

I remember being a little weirded out by the bobble-head bellhop and starting to run through worse-case scenarios following that event.  I was soon walking down Exeter St. toward my hotel and found myself walking behind two men who were speaking cordially.

It was an odd pairing.  The man on the left was a white man dressed up formally in a nice business suit and well groomed (at least as best as I could tell from behind) while the other was a large black man wearing a wife-beater, shorts and some of those blasphemously-outrageous hi-tops that seem to be cropping up.  You can probably all guess the first thought that jumped into my head, but I quickly shoved it away.  I’d spent the past ten years trying to push away those stereotypes and managed to do just that.  I mean, they were just chatting along…

And then came that weird bro-slap/handshake thing.  You know the one I’m talking about; it starts out like a high-five, then the two men grip hands and it usually ends in a shoulder bump.

Well, the handshake lasted too long.  It was too awkward.  And there was no shoulder bump.

So I’m walking about three feet behind them at this point–making to go around–and decide that I probably shouldn’t be there, so without increasing my pace, I avert my eyes and give them a slightly wider berth.  They are incredibly quiet after the awkward handshake, almost as if they have nothing to say to each other anymore, and I just take a breath and walk.  I can hear an audible sigh from the man in the suit as he realizes/believes that I am not a cop…

Then the bike cop rounds the corner, coming right toward us.

And he’s just pulling his hand away from his walkie.

Like, maybe, someone just told him that a drug deal just happened in front of them.

Someone…

I just keep walking, giving the officer room to pass without barely a glance back and a moment later I hear a deep exhale, followed by, “Jesus Christ, that scared the shit out of me…”

The large man in the wife-beater responds, “Just chill, man.  Relax and everything’s all right…”

I walk up to the side door of the hotel, taking care not to look at the two men–I didn’t get a look at anyone’s face–and went inside and up to my room.

So… I decided to write this.  I’m not so much freaked out (I don’t freak out for hours… I’m sure I’ll wake up tonight sweating) as astonished.

This hotel is $179/night at a discounted rate.  It has a wine hour every night as a free amenity and I was greeted at the cab as I arrived.

Oh, and I saw a drug deal fifteen feet from the door I come and go from.

Lovely.

I was way too driven to get here today. I walked into Starbucks and ordered my Grande, Peppermint White Mocha, took a seat and checked my email. Smiling through the sickly sweet peppermint tang, I looked at the clock.

8:39

I’m not supposed to be to work until 9:30, which wouldn’t be a problem elsewhere, but the store I’m working at is about three buildings down.

At first this was fine, but then I started running out of things to do… Very quickly.

Anyway, just thought I would share my timing misfortune with you so that we can commiserate on reflection o the solid hour of sleep I lost. I’m thankful for your thoughts… :p

Duh.

/me hangs head in shame…

But you know what? I guess that means I’m getting a pretty good vibe from all of this, right?