I've done a fair bit of writing in my time. I had kept a bibliography on the web at one point, but that page needs serious updating to cover the recent things I've done. Most specifically, I haven't included the two books on Small Business Server that I wrote in 2005 and 2008 on that list. I also maintain three blogs (this one being my personal blog, my technical blog, and my MVP blog) , and contribute to my company's blog and the blog over at Third Tier.

I don't have a complete list, but I've also been writing music for nearly 25 years as well. The most notable compilation of those efforts is the album available over on iTunes (along with other digital distribution venues, but the iTunes link is the only one I have handy). One of my early blog efforts was a venue to share my musical creations and to try to get me in the habit of writing music on a regular basis (similar to what my brother has been doing of late).

I'm also in talks with my publisher about a couple of possible upcoming technical titles, even though I swore off major technical writing projects for a while after finishing the SBS 2008 Unleashed book. What can I say, I must just be a sucker for writing.

Which makes my announcement (well, more of a statement of fact, really) that I've been working on a series of mystery books for several year not really all that surprising. No, this isn't any sort of press release that I've inked a deal with anyone to release the first book in the series or anything like that. It is, in fact, an admission. Not an admission of guilt, but an admission that any other writer will understand, an admission that it's not just a passion I have for writing. It probably borders more on a sickness, but it is what it is. But the only cure I know of for this affliction is to succumb to the illness and write. In this case a blog post, but bigger things are afoot.

You see, earlier this morning, a little after 2am to be precise, I awoke from a dream with a major plot point for my mystery series firmly planted in my head. I often will drift off to sleep while running story details or character backgrounds in my mind while awaiting the sandman. Sometimes I dream about the stories, sometimes the dreams provide ideas that I can work into the stories. Tonight's dream was the latter.

I finally realized how serious I am about actually crafting these mental notions into an actual publication when I got out of bed, came upstairs, made notes about the elements of the dream that so nicely packaged up a critical point in the series (this particular item doesn't actually come to play until Book 3 in the series, but now knowing that it's coming in Book 3, I can fully develop the set of characters impacted in Books 1 and 2) and then spent the next 90 minutes freewriting about the angle that had come to mind. And saved those thoughts. To a file that is stored in multiple locations. Just in case.

You see, I've had previous "Eureka!" moments regarding these stories that I have failed to notate anywhere, and those ideas ended up leaving my little grey cells, apparently never to return again. But not this idea. No, this element wraps up so many relationships that I was honestly having trouble putting together, so I couldn't risk losing it. And in the act of digits pressing keys, my brain launched into a free association activity that gave me dozens of new elements to include in each of the 4 books that I've outlined thus far. Yes, it's not bad enough that I've got this idea for just one book - I had to go and actually not only want to do a series, but actually came up with enough reasonable scenarios to get my protagonist into that the first four books came pretty easily. Well, the overall story outlines anyway. And now that I have the arc that ties them all together, well, it's bringing me several steps closer to actually tackling this project seriously.

Although, since I've been working on this project in my head for at least six years, I guess it hasn't just been a passing fancy. While I've always enjoyed reading mysteries, I never really got the idea that I could actually write one until sometime in 2003. Back then, I was working with a group of people who had a fondness for a particular card game, and we would regularly meet at lunch and play. Sometimes we would order food for delivery so we'd have longer to play since we wouldn't have to wait for people to go get lunch before we could start playing. [And for those of you reading this who were in that group, it's been WAY too long since we've played, and we need to get the gang together again!] One afternoon, I posed the question about what would happen if someone died while we were playing (no, I don't have a morbid streak, and there wasn't anyone at the table I particularly wanted dead), which then turned into "what if someone were murdered while sitting at the game table?" The next natural progression was "and what if this all happened in outer space" and I was hooked. I started penning this missive at work (hey, I had received word that my team had been outsourced and since my position as manager wasn't needed at the outsourcing firm I was getting laid off, so my motivations may have been a little different) and while the story came out OK, I clearly needed to work on my writing skills. I fully intended to get back to that story, but my next position took all kinds of time, and then after I started my own business, well, you can imagine what happened to "spare time" after that.

But while attending my 20-year reunion with my high school class, I had an encounter with a former classmate that planted the seed for a completely different kind of story, one that fit in with another idea that had been germinating in the back of my mind for a while. What if someone got murdered at a high school reunion? (really, I'm not that morbid, and again I have no death wish for anyone I attended classes with. seriously!) And what if the suspected killer was another attendee at the reunion? Yeah, I know the formula had been done before, but this chance encounter at my reunion gave me the twist that would keep a story based on that completely different from the others that have incorporated that setting. Only that couldn't be the first book featuring those characters, they'd actually have to be introduced in a previous book, so this notion immediately became the idea behind Book 2. And if I really wanted to make it happen, I'd have to come up with an idea for Book 1.

Eventually, the storyline for Book 1 did come around, but not without lots of effort. And while I was working out details for Book 1 (I ended up purchasing a software package to help keep track of storylines and characters and notes), the inspirations for Books 3 and 4 came along as well.

Have I penned a single word that will ultimately end up in one of these books I have envisioned? Sure, and you've seen most of them here. In this post. Common words. Like "and" and "or" and "the" and "a" and "them" and "here." Have I written the hook for the first book? Yep. Multiple times. Still trying to get it exactly like I want it. Part of that will be determined when I decide if this will be told in 1st person or 3rd person, but the jury is still out on that call. I have written the cliffhangers to end Books 1 and 2, but will probably revise those multiple times before I submit any kind of manuscript. I've also got a solid working outline for the first book, although I need to do some research to nail down a few plot elements in there. The second book outline is fairly complete, but still in its infancy. The overall story arc for the third book, and the first four in truth, is now much more clear, and Book 4 has finally come more into focus as well.

So now that I've decided that I'm really going to pursue this notion of converting at least one of these stories into a novel, I'm going to have to get serious about it. Which means doing actual research. Talking with actual people about these crazy notions in my head and seeing if I'm even close to on track with some of these ideas. Carving out time to enter all of this information into my software. Getting everything in order so that the only thing left to do is actually string together words in such a way that the reader gets from Point A to Point B along the line I've laid out for them, and enjoying the journey along the way.

Can't be that hard, can it?

This week, I saw two great examples of how NOT to do things and the consequences that came down as a result. Ironically, both came from the world of collegiate athletics. One example you may be familiar with as the story has made national attention in sports media, the other example was witnessed by only a few people and shared with only a few others. But both incidents are really, really good examples, and since I try to learn from the mistakes of others (and not just from the myriad of mistakes I make all on my own), I'm certainly going to take these to heart.

Example #1: Texas Tech vs. Mike Leach

Now, I'm not taking a particular side on this issue, simply because I do not have all the facts and thus cannot take all factors into consideration. I don't know exactly what transpired between coaching staff and player, nor was I a fly on the wall in the meeting where the decision to fire Leach was handed down. What I can say with almost absolute certainty is that the entire thing was handled poorly, and unfortunately Texas Tech has pretty much lost any credibility in the collegiate sports arena. There are so many ways this situation could have been handled, and I mean more than just the decision to place Leach on suspension or to fire him, that just about ANYTHING that the school had done differently would have been better than what has transpired. Sure, Tech may have been looking for an excuse, ANY excuse, to terminate the official relationship between school and coach, but is the damage that's been done to the football program at Tech worth it? How many recruits that had committed to Tech, or were considering Tech, because of Leach are going to keep that commitment? How many current players, especially players who, right or wrong, think that Leach was mistreated by the school are going to look at other options where they might not have before? And what quality coaching prospect is going to even consider filling the sudden vacancy left in the program?

Some would say that this should serve as a "wake up call" to collegiate football coaching staffs. I think this is a "wake up call" for anyone who thought about affiliating themselves with the Texas Tech athletic program. If there is indeed documented evidence that proves that Leach violated the terms of his contract in the spirit of the agreement, there are ways that the coach could have been dismissed that would have landed far less egg on the school's face. As long as Tech has been trying to gain respect in the Big 12, much less Division 1, any progress they've made over the past decade just got thrown out with the bath water.

Lesson leaned: avoid handling internal personnel matters in the national media, especially when the national media is predisposed to think you're a few cards short of a full deck in the first place.

Example 2: Improper motivation

Earlier this week, two Division II women's college basketball teams met for what should have been a run-of-the-mill regular season game. The two teams weren't even from the same conference, so while no one likes to lose, the outcome of the game really had absolutely no significance for either team when it comes to conference post-season tournament seeding.

The coach of one of the teams decided his team needed a little extra motivation going into the game. So, while on the court with his team prior to the start of the game, he shared with his team his opinion of the expected performance from the other team. Unfortunately, he shared this opinion loudly enough that it was heard by at least the other team's coach, and probably by players on the other team, and his opinion just happened to include the word "suck."

His team promptly went out and got railroaded by 39 points. Not because they played poorly. In fact, given their score and shooting percentage, they had a decent game by all other counts. It's just that when the opposing coach (and perhaps players) heard his proclamations, the team was energized to show everyone what they thought about his opinions. And they did, scoring well into the triple digits for the game.

Lesson Learned: If your team is coming into a sporting contest with a 2-10 record on the season, you might want to avoid telling your team how much the other team sucks, especially when the other team (and just about everyone else in the venue) can hear you.

As 2009 draws to a close, I've been thinking about how to summarize the year and use that as a source for one last blog post here before getting into 2010 and the insanity next year promises to bring (along with lots of good stuff, don't get me wrong). So while I was sitting in the office waiting for the mail to get delivered so I could make one last run to the bank, I sat down to start collecting my thoughts for the end-of-year summary post.

Then I got distracted.

The kind of distracted you get when you're totally unfocussed and stream of consciousness takes over and you just let yourself wander. At one point in my mental walkabout, the term "patient zero" popped into mind (no, I don't recall the specific trigger for that though, it was just there). Curious about a number of possible meanings for the term "patient zero" I popped on over to Google to continue letting my mental fingers to the walking. From a Wikipedia page on "Index Case" I saw that there was a band named "Index Case" and wandered over to that link. That ultimately got me thinking that there might be a band named Patient Zero, and found that one, too. Then I decided to do the annual self-Google, only this time I Googled my old band name, not my own name.

For those who don't know, I had a band in college (let's not talk about how many years ago that was) called Green Chili Burp and the Aftertaste. The very brief history of the band (the full history in painful detail can be found on the "official" web site) is that we spent a lot of time practicing, developed a good bed of material, had one public performance, and then pretty much everyone involved in the band moved away. Before letting them escape for good, though, I managed to book time in a studio and the album Sacrificing Toasters to Alien Poets was born.

This was the first time in a long time I'd Googled "Green Chili Burp and the Aftertaste" and I was really surprised at the really large number of results I got back. Most were from music sites, as a few years ago I set up the album for digital distribution through iTunes and other online music resellers, and those links have really propagated. The one that really surprised me was the reference on Amazon.com.

I wasn't surprised that the album and the individual tracks were available for purchase at Amazon.com (OK, yeah, I was, but not terribly since I'd gone through page after page of seeing download links for the tracks on other music sites). But the link that really surprised me was when I searched on Green Chili Burp and the Aftertaste in the Amazon search field. Down at the bottom of the list was a link for the album, Sacrificing Toasters to Alien Poets.

Only the link was labeled:

Sacrificing Toasters to Alien Poets [Explicit]

That just struck me as really, really funny, since the album isn't "explicit" at all. In fact, the title track is instrumental, which got me wondering if you can label an all-instrumental album as "explicit" or not.

And that, dear readers, is when I decided to chuck the idea of a 2009 summary post and share the giggle I got out of finding the Green Chili album somehow got labeled as "explicit" by Amazon.com. So now you know. And I'm still chuckling about it.

This pen is from the other wild olive blank I got from Zambezie Exotics that I turned with my barrel/band style. The black band in the middle of the pen, separating the two segments of the pen, is actually two pieces of thin laminate glued to the ends of the blanks prior to turning. With the lighter woods, it really stands out and ties in nicely with the black band on the pen clip (not visible in the pic). The pen was finished with shellawax.

I've been doing a lot more work with Black Walnut on the lathe (actually, I've been doing a lot of work on the lathe, and just not blogging about it), and I'm really liking working with that wood. I've been able to get a lot of the black walnut from Anna's grandfather from his stock on the farm in Kansas. Here are just a few of the projects I've been doing out of the black walnut.



These toothpick holder/keyring kits came from Craft Supplies USA and were my first real non-pen projects. I turned these about a month apart. Both were finished solely with walnut oil.



Yeah, I've still been doing pens with the black walnut, too. I've been incorporating some differences in the design. I'm still using the slimline pen kits, but I'm turning a wider barrel in the middle by leaving out the center band and using a larger bushing on the mandrel. I've also started adding some black wood laminate at the joint of the two pieces of the pen. Still have some tweaking to do with the process, but I'm pleased with how it's turning out. All of these were finished only with walnut oil.



This perfume pen was also from Craft Supplies USA and was intended to be a present (and may still be, but it's kinda out in the open now). I have one more of these kits and may do something a little different with it, but the look of the straight turn with the black walnut just looks really nice. Finished solely with walnut oil.

Well, the surgery I mentioned in my previous post is behind me, and I'm well along the road to recovery. I'm sharing my experiences here to try to be efficient in retelling the story as I'm still not quite back to 100% yet.

The surgery itself went swimmingly. We checked in a little before 7am at the surgery center (the Carrell Clinic is an Orthopedic Hospital, and the vast majority of its facility is dedicated to orthopedic procedures) and went back to pre-op around 8:30. The insertion of the IV commenced immediately (I really, really hate IVs and my arms aren't too happy about them, either) as well as the shaving of my shoulder, chest, and back. After a quick visit with the surgeon, I was wheeled into surgery, and remember leaving the pre-op ward and that's about it.

I don't remember the post-op ward at all, but I apparently asked several times if I still had my right arm. That and my O2 stats kept dropping, so they apparently had to keep putting me on oxygen. Like I said, I don't remember that at all.

We got to the room for the afternoon, and shortly after the procedure, I had "breakfast" which consisted of really bland broth (is there any other kind) and Jello. About an hour later, I could eat lunch, and got to choose from a rather large (for a hospital) menu. I selected the chicken salad sandwich, which I figured would be the safest since I do occasionally have issues with my stomach after procedures. I was surprised as I was brought a gourmet sandwich with quality sides. This was not like any hospital food I've ever seen!

They showed me how my pain pump would work, and fortunately I didn't need to activate the booster at any point during my stay in the room. I did nod off from time to time, but got clearer and clearer headed as the day wore on.

I got a visit from the surgical technician who explained what they did with the surgery. They didn't do any repair on my labrum and my rotator cuff looked perfect, so they didn't touch it, either. There was calcification buildup and bone spurs in my upper shoulder which was impinging on the nerve that runs through the AC joint, so they cleared that out (a "decompression" procedure) and told me that they fixed for good the problem that had been causing my pain. I confirmed my follow-up appointment for the following Tuesday, and that took care of the surgical business. The nurse then described how I'd remove the pressure bandage and pain pump later in the week.

We decided to stay for dinner (since lunch was so good) and I had a delightful cilantro-basil pork chop with a Waldorf salad side. They apparently have actual gourmet chefs running the "cafeteria" for the hospital. All of the nursing staff said that I made a good choice staying for dinner because the food is so good, and I have to agree. I thought about staying overnight just so I could have an outstanding breakfast, but I really, really wanted to get home.

The first night home wasn't that bad. I set up my sleeping area in the sectional sofa upstairs, right in front of the TV, and pretty much went to sleep after spending some time visiting with my family. Anna had a harder time with the start of her second summer class, so that reinforced the brilliance of the decision to have family come and help us around the house for the week.

The next few days were pretty much eat, drink, watch TV, and read. Although I did go with my mother-in-law to pick up my prescription for the pain pills on Tuesday morning. My parents left Tuesday as well. I started doing my "pendulum" exercises immediately and did them several times a day throughout the course of the week. Wednesday night, the pain pump reached the end of its contents, so we removed the pressure bandage. That was more exciting that I had wanted it to me, for sure. It took three of us an hour to take it off, because there was one area on my back that was really, really sensitive and hurt like the dickens as we removed the tape, but we eventually got it all off. Then we moved into the kitchen (linoleum flooring) to remove the tube from the pain pump, and ironically it was my mother-in-law who had the most adverse reaction to watching me pull the tube (a looooooooong length of tubing as it turned out) from the hole that went into my shoulder. Fortunately, no one fainted, and I was finally able to really start moving my arm around, not that I tested my full range of motion by any stretch of the imagination.

Thursday my shoulder ached a lot more than it had, so I know the pain pump had been doing its job well. Still, by Friday I started weaning myself off the pain pills and started taking just Advil. By Saturday I was off the pain meds altogether.

My first real test of the arm came on Sunday and Monday as I had a customer with a server that failed to boot, and it took us several hours to troubleshoot and resolve the issue. I didn't experience any real discomfort with doing several hours of keyboarding at the time, but the aching did increase a bit after the fact.

Tuesday morning, a week after the surgery, I went to see my primary doctor to clear up the sinus infection that had been developing the previous few days. I was able to drive myself to his office (only 7 miles from the house) and back without incident. I still had a friend take me down into Dallas for my surgical follow-up, however, instead of driving myself.

The follow-up was positive. The surgeon was pleased with the rate of recovery and how the shoulder was healing. He also went over (in detail) what they did, and used the pictures they took during the procedure to show me all inside the joint. I'll post the "well, there's your problem" pictures later.

Recovery was going so well, we decided to go ahead and take the trip to Kansas that we had not intended to take because of my surgery. After the fact, I'll admit I probably shouldn't have driven the entire 8 hour stretch myself on the way up. And while there on Saturday, I took a brief spill (slipped, actually) where I ended up trying to catch myself using my right arm. It didn't hurt immediately, but over the next 48 hours the pain got really intense, to the point that I went back on the pain meds. I had a followup with the surgeon on the second Tuesday after the surgery to make sure I didn't screw anything else up, and I did not.

So at this point I've been clear to start doing shoulder exercises and to start weaning myself off the sling. I'll be going back into the office at least part time this week, and hopefully full time in the next 5-7 days.

I am really grateful that they didn't have to do any soft tissue work on my shoulder, as that would only have made my recovery even longer. It's still going to take 6-8 weeks, but I'm really not wanting to push it, because I don't want to have to do this again. All in all, though, I apparently didn't know just how much the shoulder was hurting, because after the procedure, I couldn't feel the pain I didn't know I'd been feeling. I'd gotten so used to it, it's like it wasn't even there. Until it was gone, and now I'm really relieved that I had the procedure done.

More later, but that's where we stand for now!

While I haven't been a regular poster to this particular blog for a while, it's time for me to go on hiatus for a bit. I'm having arthroscopic shoulder surgery on June 22, and I'll be typing-challenged for a while after that. Currently, recovery time for the procedure could be from 3 weeks to 6 months, depending on what they actually do inside my shoulder. We know they're going to reshape my AC joint, remove some small bone spurs, and look at a small tear in the labrum. If that's all that's done, the recovery should be short. If they have to do more than that, then we'll be down a little longer.

At any rate, my online activities are going to be seriously limited for the next few weeks, so only the really easy or really important stuff will get done. I do plan to update status via Twitter which will also update my Facebook status as well, and the 140-character limits will probably be about all I can muster from my iPhone for the near future.

Thanks for all the well-wishes for surgery, I'm just ready to get it behind me!