I'm Not Boring You Am I?I'm Not Boring You Am I?Dr. Robert Runté on popular culture, education, and life. 
Articles
Oahu: Sharks
2007-12-10 23:56:00 Tigana has long been fascinated by sharks, buying and reading every book available on the topic. Her interest in shark conservation was greatly heightened by seeing Shark Water, a documentary she highly recommends to anyone who will listen. So when Mary realized that there was an opportunity to see sharks in Hawaii , she arranged for Tigana to go on a shark encounter. Tigana and mom took a boat out to a spot in international waters at 6AM (when waters are supposedly calmest and sightings the best, but a voyage Mary describes as rollercoaster-like) where the boat lowered a shark cage and everyone doned snorkels and climbed in. Then the guys on the boat throw out fish for bait, and approximately 60 sandbar and galapagos sharks showed up, swimming right up to and banging into the shark cage. Mary and Tigana going into shark cage somewhere off the northern coast of Oahu .Tigana in shark cage as shark swims by.A few of the 60 or so sharks that swarmed round the cage. More About: Tigana
Waikiki
2007-12-10 21:03:00 Transferred from Turtle Bay Resort to Waikiki. Repacking turned out to be problematic, as I tried to cram everything hurriedly back into our suitcases we had spent weeks scientifically packing before the trip, plus all the extra stuff we bought here (inexpensive beach towels, beach mats, etc., all of which seemed to be quite bulky). Ended up buying a cheap extra suitcase at WalMart, since we will have to check our baggage on the way back again anyway. Found our way to the Waikiki with only minor detours (suspected we might be off course when armed guards waved us down and asked us for ID before proceeding ? but they seemed familiar with the concept of idiot tourists, and got us headed in the right direction again without too much hassle.) Once settled in on the 34th floor of one of the towers of the Hilton Hawaii an village, we went down to the beach. I was greatly surprised that the beach wasn?t more crowded. I had always assumed that hotel beachfront at these resorts were a cheek...
Turtle Bay Resort, Oahu
2007-12-09 17:10:00 After a day at Polynesian Cultural Center, took the day off for just swimming on the beach. Here Kasia tries out swimming with Mom. Tigana also tried snorkeling for the first time, and using a boogie board.Tigana and I watched the sunset on the beach while a short distance away, a group of tourists were an annoying distraction with their flash cameras. At first I thought they were stupidly trying to use their flash to illuminate the entire beach as the sun set, but as we watched more closely we realized that they were in fact taking pictures of each other on sitting on a bench. Tigana and I were astounded that they shot picture after picture of each other against the blank wall of the hotel. The resulting pictures could have been from anywhere -- a bench and a blank white wall -- while facing the other direction was picture postcard Hawaii . What are we missing here? You travel halfway around the world to NOT take your picture on the beach? Very very odd. &nbs... More About: Turtle , Resort , Oahu
Polynesian Cultural Center, Oahu
2007-12-09 07:31:00 We arrived at the center shortly after it opened, found our way to the right line up for our pre-booked tour. We were expecting the tour guide to escort us around on a 45-minute or hour-long overview of the facility, and then let us take in particular exhibits at our leisure as our inclinations and the kid?s patience allowed. But it turned out our small tour group (less then ten people per group) stayed together for the next six hours! The guide made sure we reached each exhibit at the precise moment the demonstrations for that exhibit were scheduled, got us seated in the best seats, and on several occasions, got us involved up on stage. At the conclusion of the six-hour tour, we were deposited at an excellent dinning room for? supper and then a two-hour show. It was a pretty sweet deal. I was constantly impressed by the scale of the facility, it?s very high staffing ratios, and the overall quality. Every exhibit seemed to involve at least half a dozen dancers or warriors or drummer... More About: Hawaii , Center , Cultural , Oahu , Cultural Center
Oahu: Turtle Bay Resort
2007-12-08 06:07:00 4 AM and we get up and carefully examine Kasia. No new pox! We get to go!We then have a short flight to Vancouver, a not too awful rush to collect luggage, negotiate American immigration and customs, and catch our 8 AM flight to Honolulu. The scheduling was a bit tight, but Mary had researched the turn around extensively -- the percentage of on-time arrivals, the average time through customs, etc., and determined that rushing a bit here was the better option of that or waiting around the Vancouver airport for an additional four hours trying to entertain a four year old. The flight to Honolulu was uneventful, if long (longer for Mary who had to wrangle the kids -- I offered to switch off with her, but Kasia insists on being with Mom, and the seats are three and one, so, the best I can do is try to entertain Tigana from across the isle). The plane hit some air pockets which caused the adults to gasp a few times, but Kasia and Tigana are going, "whee!" and "Again! Do it again!" so not ... More About: Hawaii , Turtle , Resort , Oahu
Hawaii Conference and Vacation
2007-12-07 05:21:00 Having had a paper accepted at the Cross Cultural Research Conference in Hawaii , and it being our 10th anniversary December 16th, we decided to add a few extra days onto our business trip to enjoy a vacation. As Mary started planning, she suggested drawing a clear line between business and pleasure by moving to a second island for the vacation portion of our trip. Unfortunately, her original plan for us to take the Superferry to another island fell through because the Superferry was suspended pending environmental impact studies, so Mary started casting about for alternative transport. What she found in the end was a deal on a inter-island cruise, which offered the advantages of a single "hotel" while visiting all the islands rather than having to choose one. Mary then spent every free moment planning our trip down to the smallest detail. I was astounded at how much information was available online, including live blogs from passengers currently taking the same cruise, to an excelle... More About: Vacation
Handbook of Arts in Qualitative Research
2007-12-04 20:16:00 The Handbook of Arts in Qualitative Research : Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples and Issues (Sage Publications, 2007, $130, ISBN 971412905312) is out at long last. I contributed Chapter 26 on blogs. Nice to see it in print.
Day 30
2007-12-01 08:00:00 Well, I finished today at 56,501 words. Unfortunately, due to timezone error, the wordcounter stopped counting my words at 11PM instead of midnight, so my chart is a little under the actual total, though that's okay. The official number is still good!And I'm almost exactly half-way through the novel, the heroes have finally solved the first of three major mysteries, and I have stopped at a good point to pick the story up again when next I have time.A very positive experience. But now time for me to go to bed.
Day 29
2007-11-29 20:43:00 I won! Okay, along with thousands of others, so it is not a competitive win, but WooHoo!Now, I just have to keep plugging away until I finish the actual novel. I seem to be about half way through the outline, which sounds about right: first draft is likely 100,000, then up from there as I add bit more description etc, then down as I cut redundant scenes etc. -- first novels pretty much have to be under 100,000 to sell. I'll spend today and tomorrow still writing, having budgeted November to this task, but then I will have to go back to real life. Specifically I promised to spend the first couple of days of December cleaning house, then there is a long vacation with family, then the new year and a ton of research work waiting. But I will try to squeeze in some novelling time too. I do not wish to lose momentum on this novel, and I have at least 12 more in the files awaiting similar treatment. Well, time will tell.Big thank you to Line Noise for comments and encouragement throughout ...
Day 28
2007-11-29 07:08:00 At 49,742 when I called it quits tonight...just over 250 words to go and two days, so feeling pretty confident I'll make the minimum quota.Quit because it was bedtime, and one important lesson I have confirmed through this exercise is the importance of stopping mid-idea. In the past, I would make the mistake of working for as long as the words were pouring out, fearful that if I turned off the faucett when it was running, it might be a long time before I could get it turned back on. So I'd keep working as long as it kept coming. correspondingly, if I'd get to a tough patch, I would take a break, rather than continue to spin my wheels until despondancy set in. But the inevitable result of this combination would be that whenever I went to start on the next day's work, I come back to a problem area. I'd have finished up whatever was working for me, and had either to start the next section from scratch -- so I'd spend hours staring at the blank page wondering how to begin and wha...
Day27
2007-11-28 06:00:00 Another productive day as I sprint towards the finish line: 3,519 words today, total: 47,301 (94.6% to target).I've had to ignore the need for revisions: I notice, for example, that my characters only nod, shake their heads, or shrug while talking -- obviously some need for editing there! And my dialog is filled with "said bookism" -- the dreaded tendency for some writers to use descriptive words (shoulted, exclaimed, argued, agreed, snorted,cried, etc etc.) instead of just "said". Drives me crazy as a reader, and so bit shocked to find myself doing it -- but I'm letting it go in this draft because it's easy enough to fix later when I have time to reflect on which terms should go and which stay.Watched an episode of House tonight and wonder if my style in this novel has been influenced by it -- the fact that yet again today my heroes have come up with yet another completely wrong theory as to what is going on sort of parallel's the formula of the House series where the first 8 d...
Day 26
2007-11-27 06:30:00 Whoohoo! Very productive day, at 4094 words, bringing my total to 43,786. Two more like today, and I'll make my target. Oh wait, I only have a couple or three more days, so I have to be this productive again tommorow and Wednesday. Let's see, I'm at 87.6% of target, with 86.6% of the time elapsed...so for the first time I am actually 1% ahead of schedule!The last few chapters have been almost entirely dialog, however, I will clearly have much revision to undertake to introduce necessary description to bring this up to standard. But that is for later. I just have to keep pressing ahead, even knowing that some of this dialog will undoubtably have to be trimmed at a later date. And I like how the characters are developing, their interactions and how the plot is thickening, albeit not quite fast enough. (At current pace, novel is going to be 100,000 long since I'm only half way through the outline, and still have two more characters waiting in the wings...maybe 3). One aspect that ...
Day 25
2007-11-26 06:01:00 Only 570 words today...spent time writing other stuff (see review below) and working daughters second birthday party (for four friends from old school). But I've been told that writing even a few words each day keeps momentum up, whereas missing is a sure way to lose it. So, something better than nothing, but bit disappointed haven't broken 40,000 yet. But hope to catch up tomorrow and Tuesday. Just have 11,000 words to go, so 3,000 words a day is not impossible in the final sprint to the finish.
Alberta Dance Theater's Harry Potter
2007-11-25 20:58:00 November 24-26, 2007.Lethbridge; November 29- December 2, 2007 Calgary.The frustration of attending the opening night production of Alberta Dance Theater's production of Harry Potter was knowing that after five more performances in Alberta, this brilliant dance production would be history. It's one of those rare productions that one feels ought to be available to everyone; it ought to have gone on to tour through Canada for the next two years and then into the States and across Europe, because, by god, it was that good. Not feasible, of course, given that most of the performers are school age, but wow! Where's a CBC Arts film crew when you really need them?Artistic Director Emily Forrest's first smart move was, of course, to pick a story that everyone knows and loves. The problem with a lot of modern dance productions is that, with the possible exception of a few aficionados, no one can figure out what the hell is going on. I have seen my share of productions of, say, "Dance of ... More About: Popular Culture
Day 24
2007-11-25 07:01:00 A disappointing 1,023 words today, about half what I was aiming for. A combination of not getting as much time at the computer as I had hoped, a mini-writer's block as I found I had written myself into a corner, and not being very confident with how I wrote myself out of said corner. Lost some momentum because I'm less sure that the direction currently travelly in is going to work. I'm alergic to wasted effort, so hestitant to continue until I've thought through whether this is actually where I want to go, before going there. But hopefully back on track tomorrow. Odd how all my training and experience the last 20 years or so is how to CUT word count -- most academic journals have ridiculous word limits -- generally 6-8000 to describe your research, but in some cases, as little as 750 words (I've nver managed a submission to those journals) so I'm always trying to find ways to cut down on wordiness, Which, as I cut down a scene from yesterday by finding shorter ways of saying t...
Day 23
2007-11-24 07:26:00 2908 words today, total to 38,110 (76% of target; 76% of my time used, so finally caught up. Mary has promised to take the kids and give me some time tomorrow, so I should break 40,000 words. Still too much talking heads, but I went and got get my characters stuck on a long space voyage where pretty much all they can do is talk at each other until we make planet fall. Hopefully the pace will pick up a bit there(. I'm debating whether to blow up the planet they're about to land on, for example, but then they'd be stuck on the damn ship again....)But so far so good!
Day 22
2007-11-23 06:55:00 Wrote 2661 words today; at 35,202 or 70% of target, with 73% of my time gone. Closing the gap, but on the other hand, the weekend looms, the deadline approaches, and I'm not sure how much time I'll have next week to finish this.Still, I do have enough of the novel written that I'm positive I'll eventually finish it, win or lose NaNoWriMo. I'm still generally happy with the way novel is developing, though bits here and there need revision. Too much dialog, not enough action or description. but no angst about it being awful, yet.
Bad Christmas Gift Ideas
2007-11-22 07:44:00 Stolen from Derryl Murphy's blog: Star Trek Putter I'm not sure whether this shows that the ST generation is aging, or if it means golf has become too mass market to remain a sport of the elite...but either way, it can't be a good sign. More About: Christmas , Ideas , Gift Ideas , Gift , Popular Culture
Day 21
2007-11-22 06:49:00 Still moving forward. 3032 words today. Transitional scenes to get everyone in place for next bit of action, but again worried that they are too wordy, slowing the pacing. (And again, that sort of reflection is for later. Just need to get everything down on paper and keep moving forward.) Dr.s appointment does not bode well for tomorrow's productivity, but I need a couple more days like to day to catch up. I'm 65% to target, but have used 70% of my time. I need to average about 2000 words a day for next nine days to make target, but I know that Friday and the weekend are not looking promising for productivity. Still, might make it yet.
Day 20
2007-11-21 07:02:00 2013 words today, plus a fair amount of revision to previous section -- which doesn't push the word count forward but plugs some of the holes in the plot. Bit disappointed didn't hit thirty-thousand words today -- still 500 short.I keep having to remind myself to check what each of the characters is doing at any given moment...I get a couple of the leads in dialog and forget that there are a couple of others in the room who may have quite different priorities and motivations. What are they thinking, doing, have to say? Worst of all, I keep having the hero do this or that, and have to remember that I need to motivate him for these adventures -- why not just say, "On second thought, maybe I should just resign now and do something else," rather than continue to take these outrageous risks. Thankfully, once I thought to put the question to myself, I was able to come up with anwsers and hopefully write more interesting scenes as our hero finds himself constrained by this or that facto...
Day 19
2007-11-20 07:07:00 Another productive day: hit 27,500 words. (Couldn't believe that word count came out an even 500, but that's not an estimate or rounding thing, its the actual number.) Bit concerned the pacing is a bit slow, since its taken a lot of pages/time to set the situation up, but that is a matter for revisions after the first draft is complete. And I do kind of like how each step in itself is almost logical, though the end result is completely in(un?)credible. Picked a working title: The Flight of the Illynov. It's a bit of a pun since its about the voyage of the spaceship Illynov, but also it is fleeing the collapse of the frontlines. I don't know though, doesn't have the elegance of "Slow Fall to Dawn" or "We all Died at Breakaway Station", two of my favorite titles. Comments Floght of the Illynov its potential as a title gratefully accepted.
Day 18
2007-11-19 07:17:00 Smooth sailing today, with 2460 words and two complete scenes, in spite of only having a couple of hours to write. On the other hand, I have now reached the part of the outline where I introduce the fourth character. It was only as I was writing the scene and settling some of the details in my own mind for description, that I remembered that this aspect of the novel had occured to me as a result of listening to a talk by Sean Stewart on why nobody could write this type of character into an SF novel. So I had one of those, "Hey, I wonder if I could do that" reactions, and some elements of the story line did work better by adopting that motif. But, um, I may have overlooked the part where Sean listed the 27 reasons why almost no author could make it work. And now I'm into it, um, yikes! Talk about presumption! And I thought I'd chosen this novel, out of the dozen outlines I have lying about, because it was the most straight-forward action space opera narrative with no redeeming val...
Day 17
2007-11-18 08:05:00 Another tough day rewriting that one scene, but I think I finally got it all to click. Tension, humor, romance, potential violence. And cut down from its original bloated size, though that in no way helped my word count. But I needed the scene to work before the characters could go on to the rest of the book. I think the scene advanced the characterization a bit too. So, 21,687 and holding. Oh, and an email from Neil Gaiman today. How cool is that! Again, it of course went to everyone doing NaNoWriMo, but hey, I'll take the pep talk!
Day 16
2007-11-17 07:01:00 Made my quota, 2,240 words, but tough tough day today. Mostly working on a single scene, a key one for this part of the book, that introduces two of the three key characters, has all three interacting for the first time, and with my having to achieve the right balance between romance, humour, and sudden, explosive violence. The scene is premised on a ticking timebomb type deadline, that only two of the characters know about, and a complete misunderstanding of what is going on by the third character, for whom the whole thing is alternately terrifying and infuriating. My problem as the author is that when I get the pacing right for the humour, the violence falls apart. When I work out the logic of the violence, the romance becomes kind of icky. If I beef up the romance, it becomes too explicit and flops. If I tone it down, it vanishes altogether, because, did I mention the implicit violence? It's one of those situations that has its own internal logic, but keeping track of what each ...
Day 15
2007-11-16 06:21:00 Good productivity today, 2406 words. I also spent (wasted?) a lot of the morning revising what I wrote yesterday. This appears to be a necessary step for me to get back into the story, but the end result is that I am fairly satisfied with what I have so far.I have taken Line Noise's advice, which was that whenever one runs into a block on one storyline, switch to another. I am now working on an SF novel I started outlining, according to my records, in 1975. But the last outline was 2000, with a scene written in 2002. I am not counting any of the existing scenes (not that there was much more than a couple of short fragments) for my NaNoWriMo word count. of course, but the existence of an outline seems to be helping my forward motion considerably. I probably should have started this novel at the outset to see if I could finish it, but I didn't learn of NaNoWriMo until too late to get organized, so had to start with the short story then at hand. So I have two and a half linked storie...
Day 14
2007-11-15 06:31:00 Back on track today. Running total hit 16,257 or 32.5% (1/3) of the way to the target. With 46% of the time gone. So still behind, but catching up. I have to make 2108 words a day on average from now.
Day 12
2007-11-13 05:28:00 No progress on Saturday or Sunday; today was also a holiday, but I was able to sneak in a few minutes, 631 words. That brings my total up to 13,431, so now quite behind.
Day 10
2007-11-11 16:39:00 No progress at all yesterday; family responsibilities on weekend pretty much preclude any chance of writing. What free time Mary and I were able to generate went to Mary's working on a tight publishers deadline -- a paying contract with a tight deadline has to take precedent over spec writing every time. Plus, I only have the next half scene worked out in my head -- not sure where the story goes after that. The trouble with writing mystery is that after working out the characters, setting, set up, on-going conflicts and snarky dialog, I still don't have an actual crime for my heroine to solve yet. Got an email from Sue Grafton this morning. Okay, probably all the NaNoWriMo writers who listed their genre as 'mystery' got the same email, but even so, Way COOL!But somebody explain to me how I, a guy who has been reading and writing nothing but SF for over 40 years, suddenly finds himself writing a mystery? And with a retired housecleaner as my heroine? Even stranger, this stuff is ...
Spanish Lessons
More articles from this author:2007-11-11 15:58:00 Last night Kasia was -- as very night -- resisting bedtime, and blurted, "I hate you!" I adopted a hurt expression and told her that 'hate' was a strong word, that it hurt my feelings, and it wasn't appropriate to say she hated me just because I was the bearer of the bad news that it was bed time. And proceded to put her to bed regardless.After the usual stalls ("I need a glass of water"; "I need my other pillow"; "I need my other blanket"; "I need more water"; Can I have a kleenex?"; "I need to go to the bathroom"; "I don't want a blanket, I'm too hot"; "Where did you put my blanket, I'm cold"; "Can I have more water?"; "Where is my good pillow, I don't want this pillow any more;" "I am sleeping Dad, *snore* *snore*) I kissed her a final goodnight and told her I loved her.There as a long pause and then, "I love you too, Dad.""Oh great, because you said earlier that you hated me."Kasia sits up in bed. "Dad! I think you completely misunderstood me. When I said I hated you, I w... More About: Spanish , Lessons , Nish 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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