Well, tonight is the last night of summer.  Yeah, I know that officially summer doesn’t end until the equinox, which is still a few weeks away.  And in the US, Labor Day, which is a week from tomorrow as I write this, is traditionally considered the end of summer.  But classes start in the morning, and my days of at least theoretical flexibility are pretty much gone for the next three and a half months.  In reality, I’ve been back at work and hitting it pretty much full steam since early July with only a few moments here and there to slip away.

Back at the beginning of the summer, I wrote this post, in which I outlined some changes I was implementing over the summer, along with some plans I had.  How did I do on accomplishing the plans? Continue reading →

Yes, I am alive, at least for certain definitions of life.  I’ve just been swamped with ending a term, preparing for one that’s off to a bit of a rockier start than usual, and getting a child ready to start high school in a school that has over 2,000 students.  Among other things.

Most days, I only have a few minutes of stillness and quiet (internal and external) to focus on reading/writing/blogging.  I’m hoping that will change by Labor Day, when everything should fall into a routine.

To the two people to whom I promised reviews, I finished the books over a week ago.  I will write them as soon as I can do a professional job that isn’t rushed.  I’m hoping that will be this weekend.

So here in the US, this weekend is a long holiday weekend.  Monday is Memorial Day.  It’s pretty much what it sounds like, a holiday to buy furniture on sale and get sunburned remember fallen military personnel.  It’s considered the unofficial start of summer, and usually involves buying furniture and other items on sale cookouts, memorial services at military cemeteries, and hanging out with family and friends, usually near a grill and a lake if there’s one in the area. Continue reading →

There are two and a half weeks of class left in the semester followed by a week of finals.  (Yes, finals week starts in the middle of one week and ends in another rather than starting on Monday like most places I’m familiar with.  Don’t ask me why.)  Later in the week I’ll be giving my last regular exams.  I’m in the middle of trying to finish a story by the end of the week as well.

So my point is things are probably going to be quiet around here.  I’ve got a couple of reviews for this blog, plus a science fiction novel I’m hoping to finish later this evening or tomorrow.  After that, you may not hear much from me before the middle of May.

Just lettin’ ya know.

Things have been rather hectic in the last couple of weeks, which is why I’ve not posted anything.  I’ve got several reviews to write, and I’ll problably finish another book or two before I get them all done.  Real life things have taken priority more than I have liked.

We’re out on Spring Break, or at least the students are.  I’ve had to go in a couple of times this week.  I did make a quick trip down to Austin to see some museum exhibits.  I should get at least five posts on Dispatches From the Lone Star Front out of the trip.  Plus I need to write up the visit to the Fazetta exhibit here.

Right now my top priority is to finish a story that’s due in a couple of weeks.  I’ve not made as much progress on it as I would like.  I’m hoping to finish it this afternoon after I run a couple of errands.  We’re leaving when my wife gets off work to go pick up my son from his gradnparents, so if I’m not done, I’ll have to finish next week. I won’t be able to get much writing done there.  I should be able to finish.  I’m writing the last scene now.

Hopefully there will be a string of posts the rest of the month to make up for the lack for the last few weeks.

No, this post isn’t about mutated meat by-products I found in the back of the pantry.  I started getting comments on some of the posts last night.  The first was obviously spam.  The second seemed to somewhat fit the post it was associated with, although there were one or two odd things about it.  It was definitely about books, though, and not some random gibberish or the odd flattery that sometimes shows up.  I typed a brief reply and went to bed.  Both the comment and my reply have since been deleted.

When I got up this morning, there were more.  Five more have shown up today, for a total of seven.  Some appear to be in a foreign language.  The others seem to be lifted from someone else’s blog.  One of them was an author’s reply to a fan about a particular book he had written.  There was enough detail for me to identify the author and the book with just a few keystrokes.

All of the bogus comments link back to Facebook accounts which may or may not be real and all of which block my seeing any posts on their pages.

Anyway, I’ve marked the lot as spam and hope that I’ve seen the end of it.  First time commenters are sent to moderation.  Returning commenters are automatically approved.  There have been some new commenters this week that I’ve aproved.  On the off chance that someone who is a first-time commenter doesn’t see their comment within 24 hours, please drop me an email at the email address on the sidebar.  This email address doesn’t go to my phone, so if I’m out of pocket, it might be a day or two before I see it.

Last weekend my computer at home started to refuse to boot completely, and if it did, it ran incredibly slowly.  Frankly, I’m surprised it’s lasted as long as it has.  I’ve had it for at least 12 years, and the OP is so old that it won’t support the latest versions of some major software packages, such as JAVA.  I was hoping it would hold out until Christmas.  Ah, well.  It’s been one of those weeks.

Anyway, I’ll be getting a new computer sometime in the next week (I hope), but I’m not going to rush out and buy any old thing.  My wife and I will discuss what will best suit our needs and shop carefully.  In addition to the computer, I’m going to have to replace a window in my car, plus I’ve had AC work done in the last week, so cash flow isn’t exactly what I expected it would be.  I may wait a week or two and see if I can find a good back to school sale.

What this means is I won’t be blogging much until the new computer is in place.  It’s too tedious to try to type much in from my phone.  The summer term ends this week, with my final exam scheduled for Thursday, so having a few free minutes at work isn’t likely.  As a result, things might be a bit quite around here for a little while.