Writing on Monday Nov 26, but this actually happened last week on Wednesday Nov 21. Meeting this morning, and I was a little late due to picking up Bruce at the car place. Bruce and I talked about the latency problem and how strange it is that he and I seem to be the hardest-working guys in Netops aside from Shawn, and how our production network kind of sucks. I spent the day catching up on email and tickets, and creating a vacation-responder for my email. We successfully arranged for someone to come look after Sophie’s medication while we were gone. I also arranged a van service to pick us up at 1 pm thursday for the ride to the airport. ...

Writing on Monday Nov 26, but this actually happened a week ago on Tuesday Nov 20. Many things happened at work today, but the most remarkable was probably the fact that we had a “bad response time” event (which had actually started on Saturday night). Many people looked at it and fussed over it; Bruce’s observation was that it was between the front end and the outside world, since Gladiator showed no change in back-end or total round-trip time. This was confirmed by Queryint logs which showed backend performance much better, not worse, starting Friday afternoon. My only guess is that it was a problem with one of our ISPs and could we try switing to the other ISP, at least in New York. This was not done, and no real progress was made until after 5PM when Bills called an emergency meeting with me and Brett. ...

Writing on Monday Nov 26, but this actually happened a week ago on Sunday Nov 18. Secret entry. Argument started off with me complaining to Michelle because I feel like I do more than my fair share of chores around the house and that I am not appreciated for it. I said that I wished she would make dinner once in a while. I said that I felt like the chores were broken into two groups, the “things Greg does” and the “things Michelle and Greg do together”. I expressed that I didn’t like coming home from work, after 8 hours of me working and her sleeping, and getting “drawn in” to the things she felt “needed to be done now” because she has just got up and is feeling energetic and wants to include me in something. I said that I understand why she doesn’t want to carry laundry up and down the stairs (because of her knees) but that probably means she could be helping more with other stuff like dishes. I also said that I think she leaves messes and trash around the house and that I usually end up cleaning up after her, and that I felt that asking me to do little things that I don’t usually ask her to do (like, can I get her a coke or water while we’re both sitting there at the computer) is unfair to me, because I very rarely say no (which would be rude), and yet I don’t ever ask those things of her (probably because I feel it would be a bit rude). ...

Writing on Monday Nov 26, but this actually happened a week ago on Sunday Nov 18. I had a big argument with M today. I’m not going to write the specifics here, since it’s kind of personal and not really resolved. We got invited to dinner with Christine in Berkeley. I was sort of navigating by memory, which didn’t work well, since I had only been there twice by two different routes, and neither matched what Chris was telling me on the phone. Then as Chris was trying to guide me through the streets by speakerphone, I decided to back up and try to turn a different way, and backed right into someone else’s car! It was a very light tap and I was pulling over to the right to talk to the guy, but he just honked at me like he wanted me to keep going. I turned right and stopped and it didn’t look like he was following me, so oh well. We eventually made it to Chris’ house. ...

Spent most of my day today reading Elf Life (a comic strip). It’s pretty fun. We went to dinner and tried to see a movie, but it was sold out until 2 hrs later and we didn’t want to see it with a huge crowd. So, we’re back home. I’m still not sure what to do about the writing, maybe while my outline is in flux I can make up by writing something else, but I have been tired all week and haven’t been motivated enough to do anything besides work. Luckily next week at work should be a lot better.

I’m a bit disappointed that I trashed my own outline yesterday by coming up with another reasonably OK idea. So, I will back up a day and see if there is another way to interpret the original events by changing the milleu. OK, what if the setting is not contemporary at all, but fantasy? I had tried to steer away from either historical or fantasy worlds on the assumption that it would either require lots of research or lots of other preparation to make the world believeable. However, if I don’t do *something* I will fail to start at all. At least fantasy can be generated by imagination rather than depending on research.

Lost a lot of time this weekend dealing with international nameserver issues. At least they didn’t call me this morning at 2AM like they did Saturday morning. Michelle called me from Texas on Friday and I couldn’t talk, as I was in a meeting (about international nameserver, woo). Anyway, Saturday morning I reset my cell phone and it forgot her number, so now I can’t call her back. I’m sad. ...

At first this was shaping up to be a Character story, tracking A’s development and secret and life changes. However, in writing this scenario, it becomes clear that the story here is really about C. Since we dropped A’s special ability or whatever, and thus his reason for unrest, it’s not about A any more. In other words, I went from not really knowing how C fits in the picture, to having way too much info on C and not enough on A. Going further down this rabbit hole… Okay, now that I have gutted my previous outline, and made my already-written 234 words useless, time to go to bed!

I am adding: A noble death I am numbering the events to try and decide how far apart the related events are

Some things I want in my story love, perhaps between apparent rivals, a and b a game, with high stakes, possibly illegal or secret psychic powers, or a gift, (martial arts? mysticism? mutation?) OR perhaps a magic item that slowly takes over the user An unlikely hero A, placed in a difficult situation and acting well Someone who falls from grace, or betrays himself, but hides his flaw: C Some events: First introduction of hero A When the audience discovers the game First experience of the rival B and possibly C ??When one person discovers his/her gift (or finds the magic item) When one person C starts down the wrong path When two lovers part ways (B and C) or perhaps they are friends or siblings and they just have an argument When two rivals discover they are in love (A and B) ??When someone else discovers the gift or item (possibly a lover) When two lovers are forced to compete (A and B) When one person (A) has to choose between the right deed and his career or station Fight between the hero and the betrayer (B and C)