eird thing happened to me in the shower this morning (not for the first time): I got hit by a plotbunny meant for someone else. Even if I were going to write a fiction book, this wouldn’t be a book I’d want to write and it probably wouldn’t be a book I’d read - but I think lots of other people would like it.

It would be called “The Younger Sons”, ( Read more... )

Sorted into what they used to call “heads” in old sermons (gratuitous L.M. Montgomery reference there) so I don’t just meander confusingly.

I. Rowing and such
My shoulder has been bothering me this week, to the point where I didn’t erg Wednesday or yesterday. Nothing really wrong, I don’t think, just a strain that hurts enough that it seemed smart ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago I reluctantly decided not to get a stand mixer. For the amount of baking I did, I just couldn’t justify spending $300 for one, vs $40 or so for a hand mixer. (I’ve only ever used a hand mixer, anyway: it’s harder to miss what you haven’t had.) So of course since then I’ve been baking up a storm, mostly things like banana bread that ( Read more... )

If I’ve been quiet around here lately, it’s been partly because I was sitting on a big announcement until I was able to make it public.

My book, to be called Fundamentals of Business Process Management, has been accepted by AMACOM, publishing arm of the American Management Association) and will be published in Spring of 2014. And yes, that means ( Read more... )

I just deleted a few vague sentences on topics that might be good but probably shouldn’t be talked about in public yet. This even vaguer vagueness is as close as I am comfortable coming to squeeing in public at this point.

It’s like “Squee” “(shush!)” “But squeeeee!” “No, no, no, mustn’t jinx anything!” It’s very confusing, and makes it hard to ( Read more... )

Yes, really.

The subtitle is “Creating the Best Life for Animals”. The early chapters, on dogs and cats and horses, will teach you how to handle your pets, though you’ll also learn a bit about motivating your kids and yourself on the way. When she gets to the later chapters on cows and pigs, though, she’s talking about large stock farms, and ( Read more... )

Well. Time for another new thing.

Last Wednesday, I more or less finished my first draft; there are a few small sections I need to flesh out (brief explanations of Six Sigma, Lean, and CMMI) but otherwise I think I’ve said most of the things I wanted to say. Thursday through yesterday, we spent moving boxes, taking things out of boxes, or putting ( Read more... )

our counteroffer was accepted yesterday, so I guess we have a house! We won’t close on it until next month, though. We’re still keeping the lake house, Rowell, and plan to go there on weekends, so we wanted something nice but small here. This one is a new townhouse; two bedrooms and a den.

So now we have shopping to do! Our furniture is in the ( Read more... )

So far, I’m really loving the writer’s life, or at least the parts of it I’ve experienced. I love working alone, getting to write about what I think is important, deciding for myself what things are important to do, which ones constitute goofing off, and how much goofing off I actually need to stay happy and productive. I love working at home, not ( Read more... )

Guess what? I’m about to be a pain in the ass.

Not a major one: after all, you’re under no compulsion at all to read anything I write here, much less to answer my questions. Also, Google is my friend and I promise to JFGI before asking the easy questions. Still, there are a lot of cases where opinions from those of you who write would be awfully ( Read more... )