Monday, October 11, 2010

TST: The Moose

It's that time again!  Time to dust off the memory banks and put your favorite stories up for everyone to laugh at you like the freak you are enjoy.  So head on over to Rachel and Mr. Daddy's to link up and join in the fun.

I've grown up in Colorado.  Lived here my whole life.  Never seen a darn moose.  Tourists come here, they see moose.  I go to where the moose are supposed to be - no moose.  I have to see a real, live, honest-to-God moose before I die.  I simply must.

Several years ago, my friend Angelina and I went through Yellowstone on our way to go see her husband who was working in Washington.  I'm getting excited.  There are moose in Yellowstone.  The moose won't come to me in Colorado, so I'll go to them in Yellowstone.  It's a sound plan, no?

We only had a couple of hours in Yellowstone before we had to hit the road, so we stopped at Old Faithful to look around.  I had my camera out and was taking pictures.  Mostly of bison, because, well, let's face it, there are more bison than humans in Yellowstone.

I was squatted down, taking pictures, when all of a sudden I hear, "A Moose!"  Remember how I really, really wanted to see a moose?  And how I've never seen one?  Yeah, I was pretty excited.  I jumped up, camera ready, to snap a picture of the elusive moose.

I looked around frantically.  But I didn't see a moose.  Now, I've heard they're big critters.  Hard to miss when they're standing up.  But I didn't see one.  What I do see is Angelina barely able to hold her sh*t together.  She's laughing so hard that her face is red from trying to hold it in.  She gestures toward the tourist, who is pointing at the "moose"...


I looked at Angelina and said, "My public school education has failed me again!  I would have sworn that we were looking at bison."  (Okay, I had to add that last part just to tie in with Mr. Daddy's school theme, but I really did say that.  Really.)

Sunday, October 10, 2010

NaNo News

I tossed around the idea of starting a temporary blog for this year's NaNoWriMo and finally decided to do it.  I did it for a couple of reasons, but mostly because I don't want to bore my followers who may not be interested in NaNo with daily updates.  I'll cease posting NaNo related stuff here and will keep this blog for my randomness/daily life/BS.

If you are interested in following my NaNo progress (and getting a peek at the novel I'm working on this year), head on over to Hunted Lyon.  Posting will be sporadic from now until November 1st, but expect almost daily updates during the month of November.  If the writing goes well, I may keep the blog up as I continue to work on the book.  (Oh, hush Mom.  I know I never finished last year's NaNo.  They got their Happily Ever After - okay?)

Saturday, October 9, 2010

More Stuff I Wish I Didn't Know...



You'd think being married to a chef would be all amazing food and great kitchen gadgets wouldn't you?  But noooooo.  First, I learn about blue bandaids and now, this.

You know when you go to seafood places and they have live lobsters and crawfish?  You wanna know why they're live in those water tanks? 

I bet you don't, but I'm gonna tell you anyway.

They're in there to "purge".  Yep, that's exactly what it sounds like.  They put them in those tanks without food so that they can't make any poop and the poop that they might have in their system is "purged".  They do this so that they don't have to de-vein them.

And people wonder why I don't eat crustacean.

It's Almost That Time Again...

2010 NaNoWriMo is just around the corner! 

What is NaNoWriMo?  It's National Novel Writing Month and begins at 12:00:01 on November 1st and ends at 24:00:00 on November 30th.  In that thirty day period the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel.  It doesn't have to be a good novel; it doesn't have to be a complete novel; but it does have to reach 50k.  I "won" last year with over 60k.

I'm in a bit of a panic, because up until just a couple of days ago I had no idea what I was going to write, despite having just returned from the Writers' Police Academy.  I logged into the NaNo website and plugged in my synopsis of the book I had in mind and then had a change of heart last night.  Completely changed my mind on what I'm going to write.  I've started plotting in my little brain and couldn't sleep last night with all of the scenes running through my head, which means I've chosen the right book to write.  For a while, I had a blog called "Lyon's Roar Protection" (I took it down when I realized I was writing utter and complete trash).  The book I will be writing this year is the precursor to Lyon's Roar.  Maybe once I get the groundwork in place I can resume where I left off with the blog.

This year I'm going to try something a little different.  I went into last year's NaNo without a plan whatsoever and did okay, but this year I think I'm going to storyboard it.  RCC and I gathered our materials for storyboarding and will be getting started probably this week.  I've never done it before, but was inspired by Terry Odell's non-plotting posts.  Rather than using a large poster board, we'll be using file folders and different colored sticky notes.  We figure the file folders are easier to pack up and move when we go to our nightly write-ins.

RCC will be putting his graphic design skills to work again this year designing cover art for the other writers (as well as for the two of us).  Once I've settled on a title and get my cover done, I'll post it up here.

Anyone else interested in joining up?  Just go to the website and sign up; if you want to add me as a writing buddy let me know and I'll be sure to add you.  It's a lot more fun with some healthy competition.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Did You Know?

That restaurants stock blue bandaids for their chefs/cooks so that if they fall off they are easily identified and removed from the food?  That's also why they prefer blue gloves to be used.

Had no idea. 

The things I learn being married to a chef.

More on WPA

I knew when I went to WPA that I wanted to meet Terry O'Dell, as I've followed her blog for a while now and knew she was going to be attending, so I set out to meet her (don't worry, Terry, I wasn't really stalking you).  I have to say, I laughed at Mr. Daddy, who called the lodge looking for Rachel, during the High Country Rendezvous and had to introduce himself by his blog name before Bill knew who he was.  Maybe I shouldn't have laughed, because when I finally got to meet Terry, I had to do the same thing.  It's one thing to be GunDiva in bloggyland, but quite another to refer to yourself by your blog name IRL.  Terry and her husband are wonderful people and I enjoyed spending time with them throughout the weekend.

Terry's got some great WPA posts over at her blog.  For her take on it, be sure to click here, here, and here.  Heck, while you're at it, why don't you just click her follow button so you don't miss anymore WPA posts?

I got the surprise of my life during Bill Lanning's presentation, which quickly outgrew his scheduled room and we had to change rooms.  I turned around and - Oh my God, it's Sophie Littlefield!  Really, that was my reaction.  I think I elbowed H in awe and nodded toward Sophie.  H looked at me like I'd lost my mind, because I was completely tongue-tied.  But this was a moment I could not pass up, I took a deep breath, marched over to Sophie and introduced myself.  Well, introduced myself as GunDiva and then my real name - still very weird to to that.  She was amazingly warm and genuine and immediately invited us to join her at lunch.  Sadly, that didn't happen because our schedules were a bit off and I missed her, though I did get to talk to her throughout the weekend and each time she was amazingly wonderful.

Sophie hasn't blogged about WPA yet, she's been a little busy with releasing her new YA books and getting put on covers of magazines and all that mundane daily stuff that we aspiring writers dream about, but you should head over to her blog and click follow, too.  Better yet, go buy her books, A BAD DAY FOR SORRY and A BAD DAY FOR PRETTY, because the next Stella book is fast approaching.

For more WPA - just in case you can't get enough - be sure to head over to Lee Lofland's blog to check out his behind-the-scenes take on it and his daily WPA Picture of the Day and to my post on Girls With Guns for my experience with FATS training.

I've heard from Lee that next year's going to be even bigger than this year's WPA, so if you're interested be sure to start saving your money now.  I've heard rumors of a "Microscopic Murder" lecture and a helicopter addition.  I can't wait to see what Lee comes up with for next year.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

WPA - Day Two

So, I know that the Day One post was really, really, really long, but I thought I'd give you a taste of what the day was like.  Now that you all get the idea of the craziness, I'll dial it down a lot.

Day Two started at 8:00 am with this...



And ended roughly around midnight with this...


There was a bunch of other stuff in between, too.

Then I went to bed.