Summer 2006: A post mortem

At left: While standing on this beach, I thought of the impending school year. Somehow, I managed not to throw myself in.

Well, it's over. The last official day of Summer Vacation has come and gone. I don't count the weekend, so ... that's it? When this Summer began a week ago, it seems like, I had some defenite goals for it. I was going to do a lot of writing. I was going to spend time with my family. I was going to get some books read. I was going to keep up on the house, and the home-repair stuff. I was going to blog more. So, how did I do? Well ... a little bit of good, a little bit of bad.

I did write. I wrote a lot, in fact. I wrote more in a two-month period than I ever did before. I wrote something like 30,000 words. This is not as much as I'd hoped to, but i'm giving myself the win here. I got a lot done, and I'm now within spitting distance of getting the book done by Christmas. (Or at least Dec. 31st. See, I'm already fudging, which is what I do.)

I did spend time with the family. We went on a couple of trips and for a weeka nd a half we had some other houseguests and there was a lot of togetherness, a veritable shitload of togetherness, so ... you know. But it was nice. We actually made it to the ocean, which is a goal of every summer, and brought back photographic proof. I wanted to take my daughter to climb Mt. Lassen, however, and this didn't happen. I actually had the day scheduled for it, but then realized that neither of us had the proper shoes, so I decided to put it off until we could get quality footwear. Yes, you read that correctly, I CANCELLED A MOUNTAIN CLIMB BECAUSE I DID NOT HAVE THE RIGHT SHOES! Yes, I feel properly ashamed. But I did not want a broken ankle.

Both my wife and I re-discovered out love of reading. She's zoomed through all the Patricia Cornwell books and I read a bunch of stuff I wanted to. Here is the list of what I read:

Perdido Street Station and The Scar by China Mieville

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

44 Scotland Street and Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith

Scattered Suns by Kevin J. Anderson. (ok, this one is still in progress, but I'm still claiming it.)

OK, the house stuff. HA! and ha-ha! ha-ha! ha-HA! The less said about this the better. It is still standing, is all I'm saying.

I did not blog enough. I blogged more than usual, but did not meet my goal of two entires a week, so ... I'm not sure I had much more to say, though, so maybe that's a good thing. And I never made it to see Superman Returns, so I have been told by the Geek Union that I must turn in my membership card! Never! I am obsessed with Who Wants to be a Superhero so I'm hoping they'll take that as transfer credit.

So, there it was, it was what it was, and was no more. And now is no more ... sniff ... Back to work ... what is this work you speak of?