on the docket for 2011

TRAVEL

Miss H and I have decided to go back to South Korea. The money's better there than anywhere else overseas (outside of Oman or Saudi Arabia). We'll go, live for a few years, have ourselves a ball, save up a bundle, and then come back here and start our lives.

MISS H

I love her to death. This is wonderful. I never expected to feel this way about another human being, not so soon in my life. I can't even imagine what I did, how I lived, how I existed before we got together. It's difficult to be separated from her for more than 24 hours. This sounds like sappy nonsense, and yours truly would've labeled it sappy nonsense eight months ago, but it's honestly how I feel. This is paradise. I can't wait to start my life with this gal. The fact that I've found someone who not only tolerates my existence, but actually enjoys doing so to an appreciable degree, is the grandest and most marvelous thing in this world or any other. Just thought you should know.

WEDDINGS

There was a streak there a few years ago where it seemed everybody I knew in college or high school was getting married. A month would hardly go by when I wouldn't receive an invitation in the mail, or see someone's glowing wedding pictures posted up on Facebook. I got quite disgusted, really. Didn't these people have anything better to do than get married? Wasn't there anything else they wanted to do first, like living? Getting drunk? Traveling? Philandering? Law-breaking? High-rolling? I was disappointed in the extreme. I'm starting to come around, though, now that I've met somebody whom I adore the living daylights out of. I don't hear any wedding bells myself yet, but I'm looking with a more equable eye upon marriage in general. I've received several invites in the mail over the past 18 months and have chosen to accept one of them: my friend B, a female acquaintance from high school. She lives near Phoenix, Arizona,  but she's getting married on the California coast this summer, and it's bound to be a showy and many-splendored affair. Plus there's a beach afterward. So I think Miss H and I will go and have some high times. Don't expect me to blog about it, though. That ain't my line.

FLYING

Would you believe that I only have 30 hours to go before I rack up the requisite 250 to become a commercial pilot? I wouldn't, but it's true. I just need thirty more hours. That's a month's worth of flying at most, weather permitting. Then I have to jump through a few hoops: long cross-country flights, some more night work, practice maneuvers. But after that I'll be ready to take my practical exam, which the old salts at the airport dismiss as a "glorified private-pilot checkride." I'm tremendously excited. Being a commercial pilot is something I've been working toward for years, and hoping and wishing and praying for, but it never seemed like it would happen this soon. I've got so much time in complex airplanes now and I'm learning from some of the best pilots in the United States, former squadron commanders in the Navy and versatile men with thousands of hours in different airframes. This is the place to be if I want to become a proficient pilot. Wish me luck.

WRITING AND PUBLISHING

Okay, that settles it. I've been complacent for too long. I've been lazy for too long. I've been scared for too long. It's time to crack that novel out of mothballs and show it who's boss. I'm going to start the second edit this month, and damn the torpedoes. I won't stop until I've whipped the thing into shape, and made it into the dynamite debut I've always wanted it to be. While I'm at it I'll finish tweaking the novella and send it off (probably to Fantasy & Science Fiction) and take another glance over those other, shorter stories on file and see what I can do with them. But either way, I'm getting something published before summer. You can quote me on that.

TENDING BAR

On hold for the nonce. I'm going to see if we can get to South Korea by August 2011, and that's only a few months away; it wouldn't be very remunerative nor rewarding to hold a job for that short span of time. If I'm going to tend bar I'd want to make a proper go of it, you know? Build relationships with employers and customers, get familiar and comfortable behind the bar, and stick it out for a while. That'll have to wait until I get back from Korea. The job market's just as bad for drink-slingers as it is for everything else right now. Twice I've been over this town with a fine-tooth comb and nothing's turned up. So I'll wait it out in a foreign land and focus on my travel writing.

And finally...

READING LIST

Damn, did I ever bite off more than I could chew. Have you taken a look at the list I posted at the bottom right of this blog page? Look at all that stuff. You're looking a first-class champeen reader right here. As you can see, there are some new acquisitions. I picked up Ice Station Zebra at the grocery store the other day, as part of a charity book drive. For two bucks I could own a classic Cold War thriller and simultaneously help out some children with disabilities. I bought I, Robot just to make sure I could get free shipping on an order from Amazon.com (and sock it to Will Smith). I've wanted to read the book for a while now, and I thought, "I'm really behind on my Asimov anyway...why not? Besides, the title of the last book I bought begins with an 'I' so I might as well keep the streak going."

My main goal is just to get freakin' done with Herman Melville, so I can move onto greener pastures (like Edgar Rice Burroughs). Not that I'm not enjoying Moby-Dick, mind you. I just trapped myself is all. By vowing to read only one chapter a day I doomed myself to four-and-a-half months of whaling ships and crazy captains. Now that I've said I'm going to do it, I feel like I ought to see the thing through, and not cheat by reading multiple chapters per day. And it doesn't seem like I'd be paying proper respects to Melville and his doughty work if I picked up something else in the meantime. So here I sit, plugging away. Don't you wish you were as cool as I am?