Soggy Bloggy

Not going to let a little much-needed California rain keep me off the patio. No sir! I got my hoodie on, got my table as far from the end of the patio as it can get to avoid any unwanted rain splashy on the laptop, got one of my final cigars going (can't really afford those anymore, which can't really be a bad thing), and I'm trying to keep up the pledge to keep myself blogging.

Man, got some depressing news regarding my now-former company. Got an email from Tim (who's still there) letting me know that they just let another guy go - Dan. That really sucks. Dan's a great guy. Dan was one of the very few people who, along with me, got their Wyoming licenses first. In insurance, certain states require you to get a license to handle claims there. Wyoming is one, and it's one of the states my (former) office handled. But getting that license is a PAIN, because you have to take this horrifying test that covers every area of insurance (even though most of it isn't the type of insurance you deal with). I still get the shivers thinking about that period when I took the test. I felt like I was trying to pass the bar exam or something. Hundreds of pages of RIVETING insurance knowledge to memorize. I hadn't realized how long it's been since I've been in college until I had to study again. Those last two weeks before the test were a nightmare. And then I finally headed down to the testing center and got it over with - and surprised the hell out of myself by nailing it! I say surprised because, as they told me when I was first informed I'd need to get the license (it wasn't optional for me, because I was the only total loss guy at the time, and they needed someone to handle totals in Wyoming who knew what they were doing), most people fail it the first time. You have to get 70% to pass. I worked with people who'd taken and failed it multiple times. So most people did everything they could to avoid getting theirs. It was sort of "requested" but not required back then. So Dan and I got ours, and we, and a couple other folks, handled all the Wyoming claims. Good news was that, back then, they offered a bonus for passing the test and getting your license. Dan and I got $500 for our troubles. Sweet! But, as time went on, management got tired of people NOT volunteering and made it mandatory that all claims people start getting their licenses. So with that many people having to do so, the bonus was taken away. This made me and Dan the smart ones. Lot of good that ended up doing us, huh? At the time I left, only one other guy in my unit had passed the test. Everyone else had failed. Some more than once.

So, anyway, that bummed me out. Dan's good people. I hope his skills and awesome customer service ethic get put to better use somewhere else real soon. Maybe Dan and I should move to Wyoming and start our own detective agency and solve moose-related crimes.

Speaking of my hoodie? I swear, I'm going to end up wearing holes in this thing. I'm wearing it all the time. This is my Kings hoodie that I bought at Sacramento airport a couple summers back. I was getting on a plane to San Diego, and realized I'd forgotten to pack a sweatshirt, and knew I'd be spending some late evenings kicking it on my buddy Tony's patio. It wouldn't be jacket cold, but the evenings can get a little cool in Diego. So I went into the sports shop at the terminal and picked this thing up. Initially I didn't use it all that much. But this winter? DAILY. I've been rocking this thing every evening when I get home, since I do like my patio time, and it also keeps me from having to use the heater inside if it's not too chill. I love it. The size is just perfect. The hood's not too tight and keeps my ears warm, and the sleeves are just long enough to pull down over my hands to keep my fingers warm when I'm typing. And now it's no longer just evening wear. It's an all-day thing. Going to miss it when the weather starts getting better, but hopefully that'll make it last for next winter.

Ah, I love moments like this one - when it's pouring down rain but the sun suddenly comes out. I'm a fan of meteorological irony.

Just contemplating the at-home lifestyle right now. We've all played the little fantasy in our heads of all the things we'd do if we had some time off work, right? The danger you get into when it becomes a reality is that time is really subjective, and it's easy to let days just disappear on you. The thing with me is that I've got SO many things to do, I'm feeling paralyzed making a decision on which ones to tackle and when. There have been some required things that have needed to be done to deal with the situation, and I'm still doing those. And I've been catching up on sleep, probably the best part about this. I've been getting about four or five hours of sleep a night for...man, long as I can remember. For health's sake, I'm making myself make up for that, and it's been good, but I still can't shake that "sleep is a waste of my time" feeling, knowing all the other stuff I should be doing. I've been making lots of lists this first week. I'm trying to capture everything in my life that I need and want to do, all the projects, writing and otherwise, that need my attention. It's a hell of a list. The problem is sifting through it all and figuring out where to start. Most important, I think, is that my fingers are hitting keys every day, no matter what it is I'm writing. I need to work into the discipline of regular writing. Hopefully with little steps each day, finished projects will start to appear from the ether of the effort. I've got a lot of reading to do, too. Not recreational reading (though there will be some of that, because the nice thing about being a writer is that reading that kind of stuff IS part of the writing process), but getting back to my screenwriting and general writing books, plus reading a lot of screenplays to get better with the form. What I really need to do, and haven't yet, is set myself on some kind of daily schedule instead of just frantically reaching for all the dozens of things crying out for my attention. I'd like to work in chunks of time each day for all the things I've gotten so behind at - email, education (I want to learn Photoshop, web design, Illustrator, Flash, Excell), writing, etc. I've always believed (from experience) that the less time you have, the more time you have, as we tend to be more focused when we have a finite amount of time to work with. The problem is that I now HAVE the time, and it's too easy to take that for granted. So my hope is to not.

Speaking of which, better get back to it. Got to start the search for an artist crazy enough to tackle a 128-page graphic novel and not get paid up front for it. I know he (or she) is out there somewhere. The search begins.

Thought for the day: Do whatever you can to find a way to see "Taking Chance", the HBO film starring Kevin Bacon. It will move you in ways you can't imagine. Powerful stuff.