A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Guess you all know where I’ll be for the next 24 plus hours. Sitting in front of a computer screen pulling out hair I can’t afford to lose, wondering if that word should be hyphenated, why can’t people at least run the spellchecker (I mean if it pops up on my browser in red — that should be a hint right)?

Why oh why did I wait so long to get my stuff pressed and polished — I should have known that at least 10 more things would pop into my “need to check it now” stack at the last minute and they did…

Deep breath. I need a nap. It’s already been a long day. Tomorrow at midnight the zines go live. Beware the anticipation… Breathe.

I think after that nap, I’m making a pot of coffee with triple scoops of COFFEE…maybe with coffee syrup and coffee flavoring. I might even add chocolate. But first the nap…provided I can get to sleep.

Insomnia. I hate it. I deal with it a few times a month. I haven’t had coffee or caffeine in four days thinking that was it and I still haven’t slept more than 2-4 hours a night lately. I’ve decided to change my attitude. I’ll now be taking a nap tonight. Not sleeping mind you just napping for 2 or 4 hours. See. It’s not insomnia now, it’s planned. I’m not trying to sleep. (I’m using reverse psychology on my sleep engine — do you think it will work? ) Anyway, it’s not like I don’t have plenty to do in the next 24 hours anyway.

Got to the doctor’s office yesterday and saw the PA. Now I have an Rx for Prednisone. Today is day two. I forgot about the headaches I always get while on the stuff. So far no difference and a few new spots. The itching is driving me crazy even with the cream they gave me.

It seems that every year I go through a few bouts of poison ivy. This year I thought I had it covered. I bought some great gardening gloves that come up to the elbow (Foxgloves). Then over those a regular pair of heavy duty gloves for the hands. The poison ivy started just above the elbow — darned if I know how it got that high because there was barely a 1/2 before the sleeve of my shirt. This is so frustrating and there weren’t any 3-leaved anythings where we were weeding but there was some suspicious 5-leaved vines and bushy-stuff. I think it’s out to get me.

We’re also approaching the end of the month and gearing up to get SFRevu and Gumshoe Review online with their July issues on the first of the month. It’s shaping up to be two great issues — lots of reviews and a special teaser for next August.

Hyperion and I will be attending Readercon 20, July 9-12 and held in the Burlington Marriott, Burlington, Massachusetts. SFRevu will have a table in the dealers’ room. Ernest Lilley and I will be on programming while Hyperion manages the table. So, if by any chance you’re going to be there, drop by and say “Hello”. When I have more details about my schedule I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, I’ve got to go put something on these itchy spots before I dig some divots out of myself. Arrrghhh.

There’s still a couple of tiny things to do but basically the content is in and the magazines are live — and on our new host/servers. Hurrah for our side. Of course, teeny tiny hiccups in the code having been showing up since everything upgraded and some of the code was pretty old and not quite up to specs — but it looks like everything is fine now.

So, please take a look at:
Gumshoe Review
SFRevu
TechRevu

We’d really like to get some feedback on the zines to know if were providing the content that readers want. It’s been an exciting, frantic, and busy month but I think we’ve got some great June issues.

I haven’t posted for a few days and doubt I’ll get to anything before Monday, June 1st. I’m on deadline to get two of the magazines up and live by June 1st (SFRevu and Gumshoe Review). So things always get a bit hectic at this time of the month.

What’s making things even more chaotic than usual is that we moved the magazines from one host to another. That necessitated repointing the DNS (Domain Name Server) and that takes several hours to a day or two to percolate throughout the world’s internet system (very general and not completely accurate but you get the idea).

To make the switch we had to disable administrative functions. Basically, that means that while readers could go to the sites and read the May issue, I (and the other staff) couldn’t enter books, paste in reviews, edit/proof, write material…. In short about a week and a half of work has to be done in the six days before the end of the month. But wait there’s more … the usual six day’s of work also has to be done.

So now I’m down to two days left and about 5 days of work to do. I think I’m going to need a few gallons of caffeine to get me through the run up to our June issues.

So, thanks for dropping in but there probably won’t be anything new here until Monday….

It’s been a heck of a month. It seems like all month, I’ve been running as fast as I can just to stay in place. There’s been so much going on. So, finally, here is the May Coffee Cup. It’s bright and cheery and I’ve been enjoying it all month. It’s just the right size to fill and sip on at the computer and the coffee stays relatively warm in it. Though I have to admit that I will drink my coffee hot, warm, tepid, and cold. Comes from years of work in IT where often you’d forget to go heat it up if you were deep in the code and on the right track.

We’ve been moving the zines from one host to another. That means transferring the DNS and that means a lot of backups and waits to see when the change would go through and the administrative functions were disabled and all I could do was let the work pile up. We’re nearing the end of the month and tonight the last magazine is being moved and the administrative functions restored. The email addresses are being reinstated on the new server and hopefully they’ll work okay. There’s a bit of a problem with sending email out and I’m hoping that gets resolved before I have to send out the notification to the publishers that a review is now up on our site. The monthly announcement can, if necessary, be sent from another server as a backup plan — hopefully we won’t need it.

So, I’ve been trying to get more books reviewed this month and have managed to do several graphic novels for the June issue of SFRevu, including Jim Butcher’s The Dresden FIles: Storm Front: Vol. 1, The Gathering Storm adaptation by Mark Powers and illustrated by Ardian Syaf (so check out our June issue for the review.

We’ve managed to keep the bird feeder going. We thought the little guys were going to eat us out of house and home but now that it’s getting into late Spring/Summer we’re finding that while they still cluster about the feeder, the birds aren’t eating as much. We do have a Tufted Titmouse that is coming about and fluttering at the windows by where we sit in the living room. Not the window closest to the feeder but the ones where we sit. He’s even been at the kitchen and the dinning room window when I’m there doing something. The hummingbirds are back in force and we’re making food regularly for them. We had to buy a new feeder since they didn’t like one of them and now they’re eating from both of them.

We’ve had some new birds show up also. We started getting Yellow Finches, Tufted Titmouse (Titmice?), Blue Jays, Brown Headed Cowbirds, and a strange looking black bird we haven’t gotten a good look at yet. I’m enjoying trying to identify the birds that stop by and I’m getting a better understanding of why people enjoy bird watching.

I’ve also been knitting. Trying out new techniques and more importantly trying to finish up some projects that have been sitting around for a while. First, I’m trying to keep socks on the go all the time for traveling and away from the house waiting times. I finally tried the magic caston. I watched the youtube video. Well, actually there are several just search on Magic Caston and a long list shows up. I tried several before I found one that worked for my brain. The others were well done but I just didn’t get it until I meshed with the right video.

I used an after-thought heel and did a very loose cast off for the cuff on these toe-up socks. That makes it easier to get them on if they shrink a bit in the wash. Here’s a photo of the needles in for the after-thought heel and another of the finished socks (well, one finished sock though I’ve got both done now).

So, in spite of the fact that I’m running as fast as I can to just stay in place, I might just have accomplished some stuff this month — or rather I hope I will. I don’t know how other people cope with unexpected or even expected inconveniences that through their schedules all out of whack. Luckily for me, I cope with these things by either knitting or reading — too things that I need to do anyway. How do you cope?

Right up front, I’ll admit that I’m a Jane Austen fan and I love searching for those books that continue the saga of the people from Austen’s novels.

The Darcys & the Bingleys continues the story begun in Pride and Prejudice. The book opens with the two couples engaged and deep in planning for their weddings, then we have the weddings, honeymoons, and the two couples settle into their married lives. Altman, knowing that this material would be a bit thin on the ground for a full novel, is actually telling us the tale of Caroline Bingley.

As those who are familiar with Pride and Prejudice are aware, Caroline Bingley has been pursuing Mr. Darcy in the hope of being Mrs. Darcy. She hoped that with her brother being Darcy’s close friend and that her being with them would make his heart grow fonder of her and offer marriage. That didn’t happen, instead Charles Bingley married Jane Bennett and Darcy married Elizabeth Bennett. Now Caroline is nearing thirty, which at that time meant she was unlikely to get a good offer of marriage, and her age was against her. She was desperate and, returning to London after the weddings, she threw herself into the social scene hoping to find a good match.

Luckily for Caroline, she does find someone who offers for her hand. Charles is called to London to meet her suitor and to give his consent. It’s at this point that the book really takes off (not that the preceding scenes of the happy couples settling into their new lives wasn’t interesting). Needless to say, Bingley and Darcy find it necessary to vet Caroline’s suitor. In the process they learn more information about the suitor, about Caroline’s life, and the Bingley children’s childhood.

Altman writes with true sensitivity to the characters as developed by Jane Austen. Never does she violate the moral code or core characterizations of any of the characters. However, Altman does allow them to grow and change with the changing relationships that result as daughters marry, women become mothers, and men become husbands and fathers, and as the new relationships by marriage settle in place. I never felt that she twisted the characters core values and attributes, but she did give them strength and growth. Jane gains a spine. Darcy and Bingley become more like brothers than close friends. Jane and Elizabeth gain confidence and find that their sisterhood becomes even more precious to them. Many things change, but at heart it all grows out of Austen’s original story.

I must mention that Altman manages to tell a taut tale while following the template laid down in the original story, being true to the times while striking out into her own territory. That she manages to do this while also injecting a bit of humor, lively wit, crisp dialogue, and outstanding adventure with a few twists and turns makes the book even more exciting.

I’ve read a number of continuation tales where the authors chose to make the plot move by having the main characters complete change their character, morals, and values. So authors who manage to continue the story while maintaining what we readers loved so much about the original characters, while telling new stories, are to be commended and recommended. Give Altman’s The Darcys and the Bingleys a try, especially if you’ve been disappointed by other continuations — I believe you’ll agree this is an excellent addition to the continuation tales.

The crunch of getting the ezines up and live on the 1st of the February is over. It’s now time to relax and try to figure out what went wrong with my schedule so that I ended up working until 3 a.m. to make that February 1st deadline. I finally realized it was because I lost a day.

Now, I don’t mean someone just waltzed in and took a day from me but they might as well have. After careful thinking between bouts of shiny thingying like crazy, I figured it out.

First, I have to remind you that there are two kinds of calendars. One type shows the month with weeks running from Sunday on the left to Saturdays ending the week on the right. The other one goes from Monday at the left to Sunday ending the week on the right. Well, in my office I have a Monday to Sunday calendar. But, and this is critical, in the kitchen I have a Sunday to Saturday calendar.

Well, when I was planning my time frame while making coffee (so I was in the kitchen) I glanced at the calendar and noticed that the 31st of January was the last day of the month. Great. Then I moved into my office, coffee in hand and started plotting my schedule thinking because the 31st was the last day of the month, it must be Sunday. Hence my surprise when I found out on Saturday that it was the 31st.

“Yikes,” says I. “But I still have too much to do. What happened to my extra day?”

Needless to say. I now know to beware the calendar differential setups and examine all plans carefully for the whole Mon-Sun and Sun-Sat issue. So, I lost a day but only on paper and in my mind. If you haven’t already checked them out check out SFRevu.com (interview with Lois McMaster Bujold and another with Anton Strout) and GumshoeReview.com (interview with Sarah Graves).

Every month, I think I’ll have enough time to get everything done without a huge crunch as we approach the deadline to get things up and live. But, somehow there’s my plan and the world’s plan or the universe’s plan — and I missed posting for several days due to extreme lack of time.

So, in order that I don’t feel like I’m up to 3 am on the last day of the month for nothing, please, check out the zines and let me know what you think.

SFRevu.com for science fiction, fantasy, and related coverage, book reviews, etc.

Gumshoe Review similar coverage but of the mystery genre.

Also, check out TechRevu which gives you news and reviews of technology, gadgets, and related material.