Words and Pictures

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Bryon Quertermous

I know the newest biggest things in social media are pictures, not text, but I don’t really get into photos that much. I like capturing an interesting moment as much as the next guy, but it seems to me because of the rise of social media and camera phones and digital cameras that everybody thinks they’re a photographer and so we get a blur of mediocre and crap photos.

I realized this as we were at Spenser’s Pre-K graduation last week. I wanted to get some pictures and video to share with friends and relatives, but I also realized I was missing part of the event while I fiddled with the camera and such. When it comes to the kids I like to look at photos after the fact and I’m glad I have them then, but in the moment I’d rather be watching the kids than taking pictures of them.

I still like taking pictures of my food though. This is one of those new social media-driven cliches but i love it. Especially when the photos are taken by someone witty or humorous who can add something interesting to the picture. And that’s something I don’t think we get enough of with Tumblr and Instagram and the like. Lots of pictures with a one sentence funny cut line but no context or insight or thoughts. Some pictures obviously don’t need that, but I like it when it’s there.

I say all of this, because I just uploaded a bunch of our photos to Flickr and I realized I have less that 1k photos for an entire life. Whatever. I like the ones I have and can’t think of any I don;t have that I wish I did. Check it out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13921018@N08/

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More Tales From Vomit City

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Bryon Quertermous

Spenser has been a vomity baby from the beginning. He was always phlegmy and spitting up when he was little and as he’s gotten older this has translated into quite a few episodes of yakking as a little boy. It doesn’t help that he’s such a HUGE drama queen with it all and makes himself sick sometimes just by worrying about it so much. I have to intentionally go out of my way to make sick days with him at home no fun so he doesn’t see getting sick as a way out of doing things he doesn’t want to do. Like go to school.

So anyway, he was up last night throwing up with a 102.1 fever. He wanted a bowl by his bed in case he couldn’t make it into the bathroom and he wanted medicine. He also a cold washcloth for his head.

(Seriously, if there is ever a gender reversed staging of A Streetcar Named Desire, Spenser is a lock for Blanche)

It didn’t help that our dog was howling at the thunder and random slamming doors all night. That was fixed easily enough with an old n-bark collar we had lying around. The batteries don’t work, but just putting it on him quieted him down. So essentially no sleep last night for mommy and daddy.

Has anyone out there experienced this with their kids? Is it a psychological thing we need to be worried about? He has a fever most of the time when he’s sick so I know he’s not faking, though he does tend to drag it out long past when we know he’s better. At least Holly is tough. She could eat rocks and salmonella-laced mold and get stronger. She’s like her mommy in that way.

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Why I Think Man of Steel is the Most Realistic Portrayal of Superman So Far

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Bryon Quertermous

I went to see Man of Steel Saturday night with Spenser and my father-in-law. We went to the 7:30 show and even though I knew it was late for Spenser he really wanted to see it so I took him. All he really wanted to see was Superman as a baby and to see him fly. Once he saw that, he fell asleep. I watched all of it and enjoyed it.

Now let’s get this caveat out of the way. I love movies and I’m VERY easy to entertain. All I ask is that I not be bored. And I don’t bore easily. Chuck Wendig and Michael Underwood have great reviews of the movie where they lay out some very real problems with the movies, but I did not have the same problems. I like Michael’s review because he addresses most of his issues around the choices the filmmakers made. I, on the other hand, liked the choices the filmmakers made. I liked that it was more of an alien invasion movie than a superhero movie. I liked all of the origin stuff because I never dug that deep into it previously. I liked that Clark was all good yet, that he was still learning how to handle being  so powerful.

I was never a big Superman fan, so I don’t have the same attachment to his ideal portrayal that others do. I liked his portrayal here, especially the action scenes at the end that were the focus of much of the critics derision. These battle scenes, though loud, and huge, and destructive, are exactly what I think would happen if two indestructible aliens went at it. Chuck’s review, I think, calls them consequence-less battles, and he may be right. I think the best test of the success of Man of Steel will be how the sequel handles the destruction leveled during the fighting. If they just gloss over it and go on with the next villain then I think MOS will have been a failure. But if the sequel addresses the fallout of that destruction and Superman’s role in it, then I will be very happy.

I also really liked Lois Lane in this movie, though I agree with other reviewers that she seemed shoe-horned in to the last half. So all-in-all, sure there were flaws and plot holes, and Superman is still one of my least favorite heroes because he is so all powerful, but this movie took some chances and was more exciting that Superman Returns. Which I also liked, but didn’t LOVE.

I don’t suspect this will be the first big movie this summer that I love and most everyone else hates. I expect to love World War Z, The Lone Langer, and White House Down as well.  I think everyone will love The Wolverine.

Posted in Coping With Parenting | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

A Picture of My Father Dancing

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Bryon Quertermous

You’re welcome. Happy Father’s Day.

DSC07296

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Saturday Photo: Pre-K Graduation Edition

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Bryon Quertermous

Today I was made to feel very, very old as I gathered with other friends and family at our kids’ day care for Spenser’s Pre-K graduation ceremony. It was an enjoyable day and we got to watch Spenser and his friends sing enjoyable songs and then we all ate hamburgers that were well below the quality I would have expected considering how much we pay to the school. But still, fun. Here’s a picture of him getting his diploma.

2013-06-15 11.27.51

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An Update on the Update

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Bryon Quertermous

I’m sure most of you could care less about the futzing I’ve been doing with the site here, but I’ve appreciated all of your patience as the place has been a mess for the last few days. I went from a WordPress.com hosted site to an automatically installed WordPress.org self-hosted site to a manually installed WordPress site so I CAN HAVE ALL THE CONTROL I WANT. I think everything is done now and all of the pieces have settled into their new home so we can get back to the business of me talking about myself and my family and my other interests. Me. Me. Me. I know.

In non-computer news, I’ve been to quite a few movies lately (some even with my wife!) and have more in the pipeline. I love summer. I was able to catch the new Star Trek and Now You See Me, and Becky and I went to see The Hangover III and This Is The End. I enjoyed all of them, but my bar for success at the movies is incredibly low. I hope to see Man of Steel this weekend with either my son or father or both.

So more later, I’m sure. I have a big piece I’m working through on how welcoming and safe the mystery community is in response to the SFWA stuff, but that’s still marinating. I also want to write about how even though movies aren’t as good as TV these days, they fit my viewing habits better. So lots of stuff coming up.

Also, I think I will be going to an every day posting schedule for at least a month to get my new stats package acclimated and get people reacquainted with this place. I had some of my best stats during the last month I did that. So exciting times here. Enjoy.

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Nothing to See Here (Quite Possibly, Literally)

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Bryon Quertermous

The process of switching from WordPress.com to a self-hosted site here has begun. I apologize for how borked this site might look for the near future.

My god, it’s full of stars…

UPDATE: I couldn’t even get out of the FTP stage due to my new modem/router not playing nice. I don’t have the time or energy for this sort of crap right now so I think I’m keeping the site hosted at WP.com for the time being. Stupid technology…

SECOND UPDATE: Okay, I think I did it. I used the auto install of WordPress instead of manual to avoid some FTP issues I was having, and it has worked so much better than comments online led me to believe it would be. So have a look around and let me know what you think of the place.

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Get Offa My Cloud

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Bryon Quertermous

Working in the cloud has made my professional life so much easier but every once in a while you run into a few days like I’ve had recently where your entire cloud life evaporates into thin air and you’re left dangling, unable to work, and forced into spending an absurd amount of time messing with cable companies and modems and website servers and any other number of technological pieces that don’t work together in any sort of coherent way.

But I did, and now I think I’ve got everything back to normal, though I’m about a week behind on my work. Blech. As part of this revamping of my cloud life, I bought into a 3 year prepaid deal for web hosting through 1and1.com which is where I have my domain name registered. In the back of my mind I’ve been thinking about switching to a self-hosted blog through WordPress.org, but in the immediate term, the reason I signed up was because I was able to get 50gb of cloud storage and 250 email addresses with 2gb of storage each for $35 for three years. Even if I keep my website housed on WordPress.com, which at this point I’m more inclined to do due to lack of sufficient time on my part to handle the maintenance of a self-hosted site, the web storage and email addresses are worth the price alone.

I’ve been interested in getting into some cloud storage that isn’t sponsored by one of the major email companies. Right now my stuff is spread across Google Drive, Skydrive, and Dropbox. Skydrive is where I have pictures and video stored, Googe Drive is where I have my writing stuff stored, and Dropbox is where I keep my editing stuff because they work better with my iPad and Microsoft Word. I’d love to get all of my pictures and videos into storage with my web host so I’m better protected if Microsoft folds or randomly decides to get out of the cloud business.

So that’s where I am with the cloud these days. Is your head in the cloud at all?

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How Lack of Non-Family Babysitters Led to An Impromptu Vacation with Huey Lewis and the News

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Bryon Quertermous

Here’s a little insight insight into how my mind works.

Saturday morning Becky was at work and I was cleaning the house with the kids. I got an email from her saying she wanted to do something fun that night. So did I, but there’s kind of a problem. We’ve been awful at cultivating babysitters outside of our immediate family. So when the last-minute urge for dinner and a movie hits, and all of the relatives are booked up, we don’t have any options.

Well, we don’t have any sane options. Here’s what we did.

Because of this lack of outside babysitters, and our kids being at an age where it’s frequently required for us to get away from them RIGHT NOW on occasion to save everyone’s sanity, we’ve become pretty good at finding non-traditional ways to unload the little monsters, er, lovely darlings. Two of our favorites are IKEA and the Soaring Eagle Casino. Yes, I know it’s shameful to bring kids into a casino, but they love it.

So Saturday afternoon when we realized we couldn’t find a babysitter, my brain starting looking for other options. Then I thought, “Hey, didn’t Soaring Eagle just open a water park?”

Indeed they had. So I made a reservation, packed up the kids, and when Becky got home from work we left. And we all had a great night. The kids were excited to stay in a hotel and go to the Kids Room with video games and a playscape and any number of ways to distract and entertain them, while mommy and daddy had a nice dinner, played some cards, eavesdropped on the Huey Lewis concert, and had some reasonably priced drinks in the sports bar. We all fell asleep that night watching Saturday Night Live and it was grand. The next day we all went to the water park where Becky and I both felt better about our bodies and our parenting skills, and then we came home.

So instead of dropping $150 on a babysitter and dinner and a movie, we dropped $200 or so to go away for the night. It’s probably not the best plan, but it worked.

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A Follow-Up to My Smelly House and a Note on Failure

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Bryon Quertermous

So the smell I discussed previously that had been camped out in my house has been gone now for more than four days. I think it’s safe to assume I removed everything rotting and festering for now.

In other related news, the rotting scent of failure has been surrounding me in an aspect of my real life. Yesterday I was finally able to crack open a window and let the smell dissipate. And let me tell you, I know as Americans we have a history of embracing failure and learning from it and all of that crap, but we don’t talk enough about how much it sucks to fail at something.

And it does. It’s embarrassing and depressing and, depending on the timing, can ruin your life. So far the timing on my particular failure has been okay and there does’t seem to be any long-term harm on the horizon except to my ego. But man, I’m shell shocked and kind of nervous about trying again.

I’m still wondering what to do about June here at the site. I initially thought about doing a post every day, but I’m not sure that’s the best thing. I’m still way behind on the amount of writing I need/want to do on my new novel and any words I write here are words that aren’t going in the novel. That’s not to say I won’t post here at all, because this site does feed a part of me that I need and I hope you all out there find it entertaining enough to pop by when I have something to say. I just suspect I will keep the same random schedule I always have. But maybe I’ll make sure no more than two or three days go by without me posting something here, even if it’s just a picture. How’s that? Would that work?

And on a final note, I’ve lowered the prices on my editing services for the summer, so go check them out and tell all of your friends. My kids have a very expensive toy habit.

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