Daily Check-in 5/28/08 (or: Excuses, Excuses)

I knew 5/27/08 wasn't going to be a good for writing because it was our travel day home from Poplar Tree Bay. Instead, the day was spent getting ready to leave; driving first to Syracuse (to drop off Scott's sister, Kathy, at the Syracuse airport) and then to the Buffalo airport for our own flight; finally ending back at our house around 10:00 PM. There was time during which I should have been able to write—the almost four hours spent in the car; the hour or so in the airport before our flight; the almost 90 minutes of the flight itself—except I can neither read nor write in a moving car without getting motion sick, and I'm too self-conscious to write among so many people sitting so close in the airport and on the plane.

Even though we didn't get to bed until almost 1:00 AM, I set my alarm for 6:00 AM fully intending to get up and write before work today. But expecting to be creative and deal with vacation aftermath in the office on only five hours of sleep wasn't going to work, so when my alarm went off at 6:00 AM I reset it for 7:00 AM and went back to sleep.

Daily Check-in 5/22/08 (A Day Late)

Greetings from Poplar Tree Bay!

Despite hours spent traveling by both plane and car, I'm proud to
report I still found time to write last night before going to bed. I
continued working on an outline I'd started the day before, in which I
was aligning the events in my story with something called "The Hero's
Journey" by Joseph Campbell (as adapted for writers and screenwriters
by Chris Vogler). It was an incredibly useful exercise... even though
it made me realize I'm using the wrong character as my hero! And it's
better to discover that now rather than later.

BTW, I'm posting this via email from my Blackberry (our only form of
Internet access right now). Call it blogging-to-go! I can't tag my
post with categories this way, but it's just cool I can post at all.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Daily Check-in 5/21/08

Another really good hour of writing before work this morning. Once again, I want to skip work and just keep at it.

We're off to Poplar Tree Bay tomorrow morning for our first visit of the season. I plan on writing while we're there, and less than ideal vacation weather may mean there's time for it. No Internet access in the trailer though, so I don't know if I'll be able to keep you updated on the ol' blog here.

Happy Birthday, Jenni!

Sorry the photo is over two years old. I only had one photo of you from Christmas at Gammaw Yowell's, and there were too many other people in it.

Thanks for the birthday card and especially the old photos of us. I wish I knew how old we were in that birthday photo. And did you notice in the photo of the three of us that Stacey and I have the same haircut? We don't have a scanner at home anymore--not since we bought a digital camera. Maybe I can talk Scott into scanning them at his office one day soon, so everyone can see how adorable we were.

I can't believe I'm 45...that's half way to 50! At least you'll turn 40 before I turn 50. Oh well, better 40-something than teens or 20-something again. (Justin and Lauren may scoff at that remark, but life gets so much better after 30.)

Scott and I are sending all kinds of birthday love your way, Jenni. Hope you had a special one!

Love,
Your OLDER brother, Steven

P.S.: Scott and I were in Vancouver, BC part of last week and took photos of that beautiful city to share with everyone. I hope to get them posted online later this week. And I need to post a basement remodeling update, too.

Viva Las Vegas!

Scott and I are off to Las Vegas Friday morning for our annual pilgrimage to "Sin City." The forecast is for lower 100s and sunny almost every day we're there. But it's a dry heat. ;-)

We're back in Chicago Tuesday night...hopefully with some gambling winnings in our pockets. Wish us luck!

Poplar Tree Bay, June-July 2006

Poplar Tree Bay Jun-Jul 2006-21
Originally uploaded by steventhemusical.

Here at last...the long-awaited photos to our trip up to Poplar Tree Bay over the Independence Day pre-holiday weekend. Scott and I drove up and arrived Friday. Kathy flew up and joined us Saturday.

It was a great trip. We were able to golf twice...which was good even though my own golf game was awful. No bike rides though. The sporting goods store that we took the bikes to for a tune up and to fix a flat tire, and which told us they'd be done on Sunday, just called us today (yes, a week later!) to tell us the bikes are ready to be picked up.

Scott and Kathy's Uncle Jim and Aunt Bev had us over for their annual Clayton, NY fireworks party, with a fantastic view of the fireworks display over the St. Lawrence River from their own private dock.

Scott and Kathy's sister, Dawn, and her daughters, Erin, Jill and Lisa, arrived the Monday before the holiday to begin an extended vacation all their own. Unfortunately, Scott and I had to hit the road that same afternooon, so we didn't get to spend much time with them. We expect Erin, Jill and Lisa will be very popular with the teenage boys of the multiple families from Rochester that occupy the Poplar Tree Bay community.

Driving from Chicago to Cape Vincent is rough...but even staying overnight in a hotel along the way it's still cheaper than flying most of the time. And there's something especially relaxing about not stressing over airport checkin, security, flight delays and checked baggage. We'll be driving up again in August (when Mom will be joining us), but will probably fly if we squeeze in a long weekend in September.

Click on the photo of me, Scott and Kathy to jump to this new photo set on Flickr.

Where I've Been; Where We're Going

Hiya, Family!

Last weekend I was in New Orleans for work. The 2006 American Library Association Annual Conference, which is about this time every year, was New Orleans' first post-Katrina large scale convention...and it appears to have been a big success for the city. For an idea of what this event meant to New Orleans, here's an excerpt from a column that appeared in the city's newspaper, The Times-Picayune:

"A friend of mine passed on to me a story from the Windsor Court Hotel, where, one night, a group of drunken librarians raced up and down the hallways in a
juvenile thrall in the wee hours of the morning, raising a holy ruckus.

"I don't mean to read too much into this event, but it's a sign that New Orleans is ready to be, once again, New Orleans when drunken librarians in relax-fit jeans and plaid shirts cavort in the halls of fancy hotels.

"It's one small (wobbly) step for man, one giant step for New Orleans."

Of course, the whole drunken thing is one of the reasons I kind of hate New Orleans. But so it goes.

Anyway, hardly a chance to catch my breath before Scott and I hit the road to Poplar Tree Bay for the holiday weekend. We're leaving immediately after work this afternoon. Scott's car is packed full of stuff we're taking to leave up there, as well as my big ol' suitcase (because I always overpack). We'll drive as far as Port Huron, Ontario tonight; spend the night in a hotel; then continue on our way to Cape Vincent Friday morning. Can't wait!

We'll take more photos, which I'll upload to Flickr after we get back on July 4th. (Sorry, no Internet access in the trailer yet, so I won't be blogging in real-time.)

Have a Happy 4th of July, everyone!

UPDATE: More about the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans...

"'You are pioneers, and you are sending a signal to the world that says New Orleans is okay,' Mayor C. Ray Nagin told librarians at the opening session of the American Library Association’s June 22–28 Annual Conference in the Big Easy, the largest convention in the city since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the region in August and September 2005. With 16,582 attendees streaming into New Orleans, the conference was an economic shot in the arm estimated at about $20 million."

Mom is Coming to Poplar Tree Bay!

Poplar Tree Bay May 2006 098
Originally uploaded by steventhemusical.

Scott and I are both really excited that Mom will be joining us at the trailer when we're there in August. We're driving up, and Mom will fly in to join us for four nights. I can't wait for her to see in person how beautiful it is up there in person.

(Update: Just correcting some poor sentence construction.)

Poplar Tree Bay, May 2006

Poplar Tree Bay May 2006 141
Originally uploaded by steventhemusical.

Okay, better late than never. We've been back since Tuesday night, but I just now uploaded a bunch of photos of our vacation "home" (i.e. trailer) -- Poplar Tree Bay -- to a photo sharing site called Flickr. Click on this photo and you'll be taken to my Flickr photostream, where you can view all of the photos I uploaded. (Click a photo to view a larger version of it.)

We're planning on driving up to Poplar Tree Bay the weekend before July 4th and then again early/mid August. Anyone want to join us? Assuming we can replace the existing water heater (which is tiny) with something larger, the trailer should be able to sleep 4-5 of us in relative comfort.