Category: travel

Update: Life keeps happening

Just random stuff that has, is, and will be happening.  Let’s see.  I now have health care.  I have surgery scheduled for August 22nd to install a defibrillator in my chest which ought to help keep me alive and will make me a Cyborg.  I now have a “partial denture,” which means that I can bite into things again, and great is my glee.  I’m still working on Hawk, albeit slowly.  I’m also working on an Incrementalist short story that my critique group savaged.  (Well, that’s not fair.  They didn’t savage it; they just said it didn’t work as is, and pointed to some ways to make it work.  That sort of thing would annoy me if they weren’t right).

Yesterday, helped give my friend John Sjogren the best. birthday. present. ever.

I have a full physical–the first one in years–scheduled for July 23rd.  I’ll be heading to Armadillocon at the end of the month.  Then back for August and some of September, then I’m planning an East Coast road trip culminating in Viable Paradise in early October.  Then I’ll be heading to MileHighCon in Denver.

I would love to have a first draft of Hawk finished by the time I leave for the East Coast, but it seems doubtful with how slow the damn thing feels like going.  On the other hand, that’s because the plot insisted on getting all twisty on me.  I kind of like it when a book does that–I think the last one that turned on me like that was Orca, and I was pleased with how it came out.

Icon in Tel Aviv

First of all, all thanks and blessings on Tim and Serina Powers, who talked me into putting up with hours on a non-smoking flight to attend.  They said it was worth it, and they were right.  I have never been treated better at a convention, and rarely as well.

It was a blast.  Lots of smart people, lots of interesting discussion.  I also like Tel Aviv a great deal–which is something coming from a virulent anti-Zionist.  I’ll probably drop a few more thoughts now and then as I think of them, but for now, I just want to say hello to all the wonderful people I met and hung out with there, and to thank them for a truly wonderful experience.

Back Home

It was wonderful seeing my kids, grandkids, sister, and friends.  Needed more time with my sister, though, and with various friends I never got to see.  But it was good, and I was able to enjoy what did happen, rather than letting myself be upset about what didn’t.  If I’d learned that skill thirty years ago…oh, never mind.

I heard a bit of the debate, and some of the discussion afterwards.  What I’d love to hear, is someone saying, “Well, I support candidate X, and intend to vote for him, but he lost the debate.”  I’ve never heard that.  From anyone.