writing updates, 12/24/2014

Baen Books has rejected my manuscript. 

...but also very gently.

I got back to my apartment after stepping out to see The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (overlong and excruciatingly over-acted) and I see this email in my inbox:

Dear Mr. Post,


Thank you for your patience as we considered your novel. While your narrative style was entertaining, unfortunately we will not be able to find a place for this story in our lineup.

Due to the volume of manuscripts we receive and the press of other business it is impossible for us to go into particulars. Please do not take this rejection as necessarily a reflection on your work; we can accept fewer than one percent of the manuscripts submitted to us.

Best of luck in another market. We hope you will consider submitting again, when you have another story you think will fit the Baen line.


Sincerely,

Gray Rinehart
Contributing Editor
Baen Books

While not as detailed as my rejection from Ace & Roc, this is still benign. Benignity is probably par for the course for these things, I realize. People are so hypersensitive these days that one whiff of brusqueness from an editor would invite an expletive-packed tirade from the irate, insecure author. Editors have probably learned to tiptoe quite carefully around a rejection email like this one, hand-picking the most vaguely encouraging euphemisms. 

Even so, Mr. Rinehart didn't have to say that my narrative style was entertaining. That was mighty big of him. I guess that earns me one point in the cosmic scheme of things. Huzzah!

That wasn't all, though. Today I received a rejection email from Daily Science Fiction, letting me know that they weren't interested in my 1500-word short story "Letter from the E.T. Killer."

My own stupid fault, really. Stories about serial killers are a dime a dozen. I should have realized that before I wrote it. Oh well. I can't help what my Muse tells me. 

[sigh]

So that's it. No more lines in the water. The manuscript of my first novel, my baby, my magnum opus, the reason God or Zeus or the Great Green Arkleseizure put me on this planet, the glorious creation I was brought into existence to bring into existence, has been rejected by two major publishers. Every story I've written and/or submitted this year has been hurled back in my face with an F.O. letter attached. 

Bummer, dude.  

But let's recap. Since I began keeping track of my submissions in late 2012, here's where things stand: 

1. Tues, 12/11/12 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Maze," 770 words) - REJECTED

 2. Sun, 12/23/12 - Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine ("Incommunicado," 3,440 words) - REJECTED

 3. Fri, 1/4/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - REJECTED

 4. Wed, 1/16/13 - Fantastic Frontiers ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - NEVER HEARD BACK

 5. Fri, 2/8/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 6. Fri, 4/19/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Time Gun," 2,830 words) - REJECTED

 7. Thurs, 6/03/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("The First Twenty-Five Years," 1,740 words) - MADE 2ND ROUND OF REVIEW - REJECTED 

 8. Fri, 6/26/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Only One Boot," 980 words) - REJECTED

 9. Wed, 8/14/13 - 3LBE ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - REJECTED

 10. Wed, 8/14/13 - Space Squid ("The Time Gun," 2,830 words) - REJECTED

 11. Thurs, 1/23/14 - Asimov's Science Fiction ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 12. Wed, 1/29/14 - Asimov's Science Fiction ("The First Twenty-Five Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 13. Wed, 1/29/14 - Ace and Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy ("Revival," 112,000 words) - REQUESTED MANUSCRIPT 8/27/14 - REJECTED

 14. Mon, 2/10/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("The First 25 Years," [R] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 15. Wed, 3/12/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Body Politic," 2,600 words) - REJECTED

 16. Tues, 3/18/14 - Analog Science Fiction & Fact ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - NEVER HEARD BACK

 17. Mon, 4/21/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("That's Gratitude For You," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 18. Fri, 5/2/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("Boxing Day," 1,080 words) - REJECTED

 19. Mon, 6/30/2014 - Baen Books ("Revival," 114,500 words) - ID No: 10240 - REJECTED

 20. Mon, 10/20/2014 - Daily Science Fiction ("Emeritus," 1,630 words) - REJECTED

 21. Thurs, 10/30/2014 - Fiction Vortex ("The First 25 Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 22. Mon, 11/17/2014 - Clarkesworld ("The First 25 Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 23. Mon, 12/8/2014 - Daily Science Fiction ("Letter from the E.T. Killer," 1,500 words) - REJECTED

Well, looky here. Two measly submissions in 2012. Eight in 2013. Twelve in 2014...getting better. And two (going on four) more novels written since then. 

I guess I must be serious about becoming a writer, huh? 

Twenty-three submissions, twenty-three rejections. I'm going to try to triple that next year. My New Year's resolutions for 2015 are: write every day; submit at least two or three times a month; finish up Novel #4 and Novel #5, and finish Novel #6 (whatever that may be). Do another NaNoWriMo (Novel #7, I guess). And most importantly, find an agent. I've decided to start querying them anyway, even if I don't have a body of published work. I may be shouting into the void, but there may be a faint echo. Who knows? 

Wish me luck. 

writing updates, 10/27/2014

Ace & Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy has rejected my manuscript.

...but very gently. 

You remember how I interrupted the tale of my Southeast Asia tour to tell you that A&R liked my query and wanted to see the full manuscript of Revival? 

Well, they sent me this email on October 14:

Dear Mr. Post,


Thank you for submitting Revival to Ace / Roc. I apologize for the continued delayed response—but part of the delay was you were under consideration for longer! I appreciate the opportunity to read your submission, but I’m sorry to say that in the current crowded market, this does not sound to me like a book that we can make into a success.

Your novel shows potential in you; perhaps you should try to find an agent. A literary agent can be a great way to start on the road to publishing, as they can offer writing guidance and help you find the best publishing houses to submit your work to. THE WRITER’S MARKET (www.writersmarket.com) lists literary agents, as does PUBLISHERS MARKETPLACE at www.publishersmarketplace.com. SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) has information on finding reputable literary agents (and avoiding scams) at www.sfwa.opg/for-authors/writer-beware .

You can also look to find writer’s groups in your area, who can help you to develop your own writing.

We do wish you the best of luck with other publishers, and thank you again for thinking of us.



Regrets and best wishes,

The Editorial Staff

Ace/Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy 

A rejection, yes. But as kind and encouraging a rejection as any aspiring writer could hope to receive. 

It was also a wake-up call. I'd been mighty puffed up and hadn't realized it. I shouldn't have ignored Moonrat's advice to never submit without an agent. 

It was also a seminal moment. This is the first time that I've ever been rejected and still felt that the work in question was worthwhile—that it wasn't a steamy pile of crap and should be burned to a crisp and scattered to the four winds. I haven't had the urge to go back and gut the story, rewriting and editing for endless hours until it's fit again for human eyes. It seems Ace & Roc just didn't think it was a paying proposition, that's all. That doesn't mean the work itself was irredeemably awful. It has potential. 

Well, I guess you know what this means, folks. It's time for ol' Andy Post to square his shoulders, edit Novel #3, finish Novel #4, commence Novel #5...

...and wait to see what the editor at Baen Books says. 

They've got my manuscript now too, remember? I sent it off to them in late June, when I thought that Ace & Roc would never get back to me. Baen's reporting time is 9-12 months, so I've got to sit on my laurels for a while.

But I won't be idle. I'll be writing short stories (a 1,600-word piece entitled "Emeritus" was sent to Daily Science Fiction last week) and working on the aforementioned novels. I look at my first rejection by a major publisher as a blessing in disguise. Thin disguise, in fact. 

Oh, and in other news...it looks like Stephen King totally ripped off the title of my magnum opus for his next novel! Why, that ham. My idol has stabbed me in the back.

Postie out. 

Miss H's weaselly hagwon

I sure picked the wrong time to try and revamp my vlog. 

It seemed safe to expect things to calm down now that it's the end of the semester. They always do. Once the frenetic rush of grading and inputting is finished, events taper off. There's half a week where students are allowed to complain about their grades and plead on bended knee for clemency, and then the grades are finalized and printed and handed in. (I just did that today, as a matter of fact.) Then, after that...nothing. If you don't have summer classes, you're a free man for two whole months. From July 2 (the end of the finalization period) until the first Monday in September, it's vacation time. 

Customarily, things calm the heck down during that period. 

But not for us. Oh no. We lead a charmed life, Miss H and I. Just a scant two weeks before I leave for Vietnam, my fiancée's school decided to pull the rug out from under us. They asked us to move out of our apartment.

I know, right? 

We were shocked, of course. We've been here a scant four months. Moreover the whole reason Miss H signed a contract with this school is so we could have this huge apartment all to ourselves. That was the agreement. Now all of a sudden the school says "You have one month to move out"? Oh no they didn't!

So we went in and talked to Miss H's immediate supervisors in person last week. They backpedaled and clarified, assuring us that they wouldn't revoke our housing completely; this was simply an expensive apartment, too expensive to have just one teacher and her pseudo-spouse living in it. They'd provide key money and rent for any other apartment, as long as said rent was ₩400,000 per month or less. According to the contract they'd signed with Miss H, they were legally obligated to do at least that much. 

There wasn't much more we could do but agree to that. I'm the moocher here. I don't work for Miss H's school, and was allowed to stay with her in this apartment for no extra money down. But it just wasn't fair of the school to kick our stilts out from under us out of the blue like this. 

Miss H and I quickly decided that there was no way we could find a new apartment, rent it, pack up this apartment, and move everything we owned in the scant ten days remaining before I departed for Vietnam. It just wasn't happening. So we went into meet her supervisors again just a couple of days later and asked them if we could stay in this apartment if I forked over my share of the rent. The supervisors told us that our place costs ₩800,000 per month for the school to rent, and I'd need to stump up half. After a little hemming and hawing and a halfhearted attempt at bargaining, I acquiesced.

But now I'm rethinking even that. If I shell out ₩400,000 per month (roughly $400), that's almost three thousand dollars I'll lose by March 2015—for no reason at all. It's money which should be used to make a security deposit on a stateside apartment, buy a car, and acquire miscellaneous housewares. Miss H and I got it in writing that no one else would be billeted with us in this place, but unfortunately we never secured the school's assurance that we'd never be charged extra rent or made to move out. The school's got us over a barrel. 

I wasn't finished yet, though. On Thursday I marched to the Itaewon Global Village Center, which is on the same floor in the same building as the international clinic where I got my travel vaccinations two weeks ago. The Global Village Center, according to its own website, "offers a variety of services to support foreigners living in the area, and we have classes and programs that help to facilitate cultural exchange and understanding between foreigners and Koreans residents." Among those services is free legal consultation. I made an appointment at 10:00 AM on Tuesday the 8th to see a lawyer. 

Here's what he said: there's nothing in the contract to prevent the school from charging us extra for this apartment. They only agreed to let this apartment to the two of us exclusively. As the lawyer put it, "It was a favor, not a promise." However, there was one spot of hope: if we had a witness to corroborate the school's agreement to let us live here at no extra charge, then we'd have a case. He advised us to get in touch with Miss H's recruiter and obtain her testimony, which I thought was a good idea. I'll keep you posted on what comes next, but...

All this would be hard enough to deal with if I wasn't leaving for Southeast Asia on July 12. That sure complicates things. It's really put the pressure on both of us. But Miss H and I really don't want to move. It's costly, it's a lot of effort, and frankly, we feel that we were promised this apartment and shouldn't have to abandon it because Miss H's school is worried about the bottom line. Moreover, after what we went through in Gwangnaru (living side-by-side in a studio apartment and sharing a twin bed and all that nonsense) we feel that we're owed a nice big apartment for our final year here in Korea. 

And now you've heard the whole story. The fight's not over yet. I'm not going to pay those crooks a single won if I can avoid it. Stay tuned. 

save me from the tonsillitis!

I suppose I should really thank Miss H's students, because when they're not driving her up the wall with their spoiled behavior (we live right next to Walkerhill, a rich, hoity-toity and upscale neighborhood of eastern Seoul, so all her seven-year-olds are complete brats), they're infecting her with a litany of diseases. One of these was tonsillitis. Miss H herself got over it easily enough, with antibiotics prescribed by a local ENT specialist, but then she passed it on to me. I started coming down with the symptoms on Sunday, September 1...the day before the fall semester began at Sejong University.

Well, crap.

I figured I'd ride it out. It was just a fever and a sore throat, nothing to worry about. I stuck it out for nearly a week, refusing treatment even when I had to cancel classes because I couldn't speak. Despite feeling like death warmed over, I kept at it, believing a turnaround was right around the corner.

Matters came to a head on the night of Thursday, September 5. I took my temperature and discovered that I had a whopping 103.3° F (39.6° C) fever. That tore it. Miss H and I climbed into a cab and rode to the emergency room at Asan Medical Center across the river in Songpa-gu. A quick examination by the attending physician revealed that I had a heck of a case of bacterial tonsillitis, which had turned my tonsils all splotchy-white and driven my temperature through the roof. Three IV drips put me to rights: a fever reducer, saline solution to rehydrate me while I sweated it out, and a hefty dose of penicillin. I went to the pharmacy the next day to pick up some antibiotics, and then visited the ENT specialist (the same one that Miss H had seen). This articulate woman sprayed and swabbed some vile-tasting concoctions on the back of my throat, prescribed me some more drugs, and called it even.

I'm finally feeling back to normal now. I have my last appointment with the ENT specialist tomorrow (Friday), and I expect her to give me a clean bill of health. That's good, because in the middle of next week I'm jetting off for China and would hate for an infection to muck up the trip.

Anyway, this little episode impressed upon me two salient facts: (a) that Miss H needs to find a new job away from those bratty petri dishes, and (b) the Korean healthcare system is well-oiled, efficient and cheap. The visit to the ER cost me around $84, and the drugs and ENT visits were almost negligible. We sat around in the ER waiting room for quite a while, but that had more to do with my slow IV drip than any sort of patient backlog.

I sure wish the insurance situation in the U.S. was such that our hospitals could offer this kind of cheap care without a boatload of illegal immigrants creating a logjam and the creeping cancer of Obamacare driving the costs up, but hey...at the end of the day, I'm just glad I have my health.

peninsular news

What I'm about to tell you is two weeks old already, because the newspapers I'm using were a week old when I picked them up, and it's been a week since I picked them up. So there. Yeah.

But anyway, the news was so interesting and so genuinely Korean that I had to share it with you. Y'might get a better idea of what goes on over here on this peninsula after reading these stories:

From an issue of the Joong-Ang Ilbo, dated May 3rd:

The rebuilding of Sungnyemun (also known as Namdaemun, literally "South Great Gate") has just been completed. This is what it looks like now:

                                                                                                        from Wikipedia Commons

Why was it rebuilt? Well, because in 2008, this happened:

                                                                                           also from Wikipedia Commons

Some ass-hat set fire to the darn thing and burnt it to a crisp.

That we may be clear, Sungnyemun is National Treasure No. 1 in South Korea. There used to be a huge retaining wall 20 feet high which encircled the citadel of Seoul, back in the Joseon Era (1392-1897). The gates were all built between 1396 and 1398, and they marked the cardinal directions. The northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest gates were the "Four Small Gates," and the north, south, east and west gates were the "Four Great Gates." Only six of 'em still exist today; I've been to four of them.

Sungnyemun (which literally translates to "Exalted Ceremonies Gate") is the best-preserved and most iconic. It shows up most frequently in travelogues and brochures about SoKo. It was nothing short of a tragedy when it was destroyed, and it was a long, torturous labor of love to set it to rights again. But now it's back, and reopened, and everyone can behold it in all its glory. The city government took pains to reconstruct the gate using materials and methods which were correct for the period, and they went slow and steady instead of rushing things (which has bitten them in the butt with previous restoration projects, I hear). I advise everybody to stop by the gate on their way through Seoul. It's worth your while.

Okay, onto the second news story:

The Korean SATs have been canceled.

No joke. It turns out that the office of the Korean Supreme Prosecutor (ain't that a badass title?) raided six college prep schools (hagwons) in Gangnam in February on suspicion that they were selling SAT questions which they sourced from Southeast Asia. In response to this information, the College Board canceled the test on the peninsula. Period.

This is unprecedented. The test has never been out-and-out canceled here before. A lot of Korean college students are going to be heavily disadvantaged by this. Just like in the U.S., SAT scores are an integral part of the university application process. Without 'em, students have little to no chance of getting into any sort of credible institution. It remains to be seen what the overreaching effects of this development will be.

And in the national news section of the Joong-Ang Ilbo, there was this little gem of a headline:

Filial attitudes get less respectful, says survey.

Here's the nut graph, just so you can get an idea of the article's message:

"As Korea's Confucian values continue to give way to modern or Western ways, a decreasing number of young people think they should be solely responsible for elderly parents."

Interesting, huh? I don't want to sound puffed-up, but this is something that I've been noticing myself in my discussions with students and young Korean people. The steady seep of Western films, music and philosophy into Korean culture has wrought its subtle magic, for good or ill. According to this study (conducted jointly by Statistics Korea and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which is apparently a thing), only 35.6 percent of Koreans between the ages of 15-24 said they intend to fully support their parents when they get old.

Just to give you some perspective, that figure was 67.1 percent in 2002. 

Increasingly, it seems, young Koreans are expecting the government to take care of the elderly, leaving them free to pursue their own hopes and dreams free of the financial burden of dependent parents. This is quite a turnaround. They don't have a Parents' Day in this country for nothing, you know. Time was that Koreans would sacrifice everything for their parents and grandparents. Nothing was more important than caring for and obeying one's forbears. (Every single story I read in Professor Jeong's Folk Tales from Korea reflected this to a degree.) The unconditional care and support the elderly would receive from their children when they became too old to work was...a given. It was universal. It was the Confucian retirement plan. It was a reflection of Kongzi's emphasis on filial piety and respect for the elderly. These two ideas were ubiquitously practiced in the East for centuries, so much so that they were identified in the West as an integral part of the Oriental mindset.

But all that's changing now. The influx of Western ideas, particularly those which emphasize individualism, are well on their way to supplanting the old Confucian ways in Korea. (Potentially elsewhere, too: I'm curious to know if this same thing is happening in far-more-liberal Japan or far-more-conservative China.)

I know it'd be trite to say that Korea is a "nation of contrasts"; but hey, I'm a hack writer, so I can say it if I want to. That's precisely what this country is. They lovingly restore a 700-year-old gate, and yet their young 'uns don't want to take care of the old fogies anymore. They practically kill themselves working and studying, but some of them seem perfectly willing to cheat to get ahead. All I can say is that I'm glad I'm on the ground to formulate these opinions firsthand instead of trying to construct a picture from newspaper clippings and TV talk shows.

Postie out.

an escalating situation

I've never written much about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on this blog. This is the first time I've ever tagged a post with "North Korea," in fact. I'm reading Barbara Demick's book Nothing to Envy, which follows the lives of six North Korean citizens through the famine of the 1990s; I was probably going to scribble a bit about that at some point. But now that the rhetoric and posturing and threats are escalating, I feel like I should tell you what's on my mind. Just in case I get blown away in the next 48 hours.

As you may have heard, things are getting out of hand over here. The situation here is tenser than I've ever seen in my 26 months of living in South Korea. Kim Jong-un has torn up the armistice, effectively putting the Koreas back into a state of open warfare; disconnected the hotlines between the two nations; mobilized his military and beefed up artillery and infantry forces along the border; refused entry to South Korean workers at the jointly-run industrial complex inside the DMZ; and leveled a constant stream of invectives and hostilities against South Korea, the U.S.A. and their allies.

In its latest move, Pyongyang has gone so far as to threaten a nuclear strike against the United States. Stating that its military has been cleared to use "smaller, lighter, and more diversified" nuclear weapons, the rogue nation declared that war could break out "today or tomorrow."

Although Al Jazeera reports that Korea has threatened the U.S. specifically, by proxy those threats refer to South Korea as well. Expert analysts believe that, despite all the bluster, the D.P.R.K. does not have the capability to deliver a missile to an American territory in the Pacific, be it Guam or Hawaii. (The U.S. recently announced its intention to place a missile defense system on Guam, which might be what's got Pyongyang's panties in a twist.)

If that's true, then the only places that North Korea can hit are South Korea or Japan. Japan would be an unwise choice, as it's a key U.S. ally and bombing it would bring on the wrath of the sleeping giant. South Korea is no less an important friend of the United States, but as we've seen with the Cheonan disaster and the Yeonpyeong Island incident, South Korea's not shy about poking its neighbor with a big stick. The attack that North Korea has threatened may come "today or tomorrow" might be leveled at Seoul or somewhere close by.

I don't know about you, but this has got me rather worried. I'm not one to panic easily, but things are different now than they were when I lived in Korea before. This time I'm in Seoul, just in case you missed my last six posts. I'm at ground zero, so to speak. The front lines. I've read that an estimated one million missiles will fall upon this city if war ever breaks out. And it's not just me anymore, either: Miss H is here, and our black cat Charlie. Whatever befalls me befalls them as well, good or ill. That would wrack anybody's nerves. Mine are fraying a smidgen.

On the ground, the situation is calm. Everyone here is going about their lives as usual. Blah, blah, blah, we've seen it all before. And I have to admit, I'm pretty blasé about North Korea now, having lived on the peninsula for almost two and a half years without incident.

So why am I so worried? Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, North Korea usually doesn't close the jointly-run Gaeseong Industrial Region. It's a source of hard currency for the regime and closing it hampers its floundering economy. Even when Seoul and Pyongyang are trading rhetorical blows, the complex stays open. The fact that it's closed to South Koreans now is...disturbing, to say the least.

Second, while I've seen heated exchanges between the two nations before, this most recent one is quite a bit more vitriolic than usual. The barrage of threats from the North has lasted longer and been more vehement than any I've previously witnessed (well, since the death of Kim Jong-il, anyway).

And that brings me to my final point: there's been a recent regime change. Kim Jong-un is running the country now, and he may feel that he's got something to prove. His grandfather and his dad kept the United Nations and the U.S. on their toes for 60 years; now it's Kim the Third's turn. He may have a chip on his shoulder. Perhaps he's looking for ways to make his mark, and has decided that a smoking crater in the center of downtown Seoul is just the way to do it. He may even be foolish or naïve enough to assume that he'll get away with it.

So here I am—with my loved ones—at the epicenter of six decades of stewing resentment and barely-controlled aggression.

What's new with you lately?

disheartening dispatches, #1

Seems like I've got nothing to relate but bad news or maudlin musings these days, don't it?

I'm dreadfully sorry. This is supposed to be the Sententious Vaunter, not the Lugubrious Downer. I tell you what I'll do: from now on, whenever I'm posting bad news up on this blog, I'll label it with the above title. "Disheartening dispatches" should inform you that the following content is morose and sorrowful and downhearted, and, thus forewarned, you may skip it if you want. That way I won't ruin your day.

We got some more bad news about Korea.

"What else could possibly go wrong?" I hear you ask. I know, right? Don't seem possible.

Remember that lovely position in Cheonan I told you about? The one that started in December? The one I was absolutely jazzed about? The one that would royally save our necks (and wallets, and sanity)?

We're not getting it.

They gave it to somebody else.

We're back to Square One.

I knew it was a good idea to remain "cautiously optimistic."

Apparently the English academies in Korea are serviced by multiple recruiters, and even though I contacted our recruiter and volunteered us for the position, it had already gone to some other couple through some other recruiter. We waited several days for a phone interview from the school, but nothing materialized. So I finally called our recruiter to ask what happened, and it was only then that they gave us the bad news.

Marvy.

So this is pretty much how Miss H and I are feeling right now:

To say that this back-and-forth, up-and-down roller-coaster ride has inflicted a heavy toll on the two of us would be a gross understatement.

But we do have a few other prospects. We're slowly pushing through an application/interview process with Aclipse, but the soonest we can now get to Korea will be 2012 (most likely February).

And yet, hope springs eternal. Determined not to remain discouraged for long, we came up with Plan B. It's wise in this economic climate to cultivate multiple options, so instead of putting all of our hopes on Korea, we're going to hedge our bets.

We're planning a two- to three-day trip to Las Vegas late this week. Vegas, baby. That's the nearest place we decided we'd be okay with living. Others more far-flung (Chicago, Seattle, Anchorage) will have to wait. We're only 200 miles or so away from the Nevada border, here in our little corner of the desert; easy driving distance. So we plan to head up there this weekend and pound the pavement. We'll scour the classifieds, hit the streets, and shotgun applications all over the place.

I'm fairly hopeful about this endeavor. Job-hunting websites are all well and good, but nothing beats actually going to the city of your choice and having a look in person. And it sure would be a kick to live in Vegas. Despite Nevada's high unemployment, I'm confident I can find a bartending position there: they have more bars per capita in Vegas than...than...well, heck, think about it. Pick a casino, any casino. There's a bar every six feet. The hotels all have bars. And there are regular ol' free-standing bars not attached to any particular edifice. There's gotta be a job for me in one of 'em. Las Vegas is awash with airports and airlines, too, so I imagine it won't be difficult to get the rest of my commercial requirements (and perhaps even my instrument rating) done. Then I could start flying for one of those Grand Canyon tour companies, perhaps...!

Well, that's all pie in the sky right now. Again, I must remain cautiously optimistic. But I'll keep you posted on all this. Miss H and I aren't giving up no matter what the world throws at us. We're far stronger than that hard, cold, cruel place. This is just the bumpy road we have to get over before we turn left on Easy Street.

Stay tuned. And sorry for the bad news.