Journeyman

Chugging right along:
Did you know that May 10 is National Train Day? Is. See http://www.nationaltrainday.com/
News in Maine is that the Downeaster gets closer to Downeast! http://www.sunjournal.com/story/264124-3/MaineNews/Downeaster_may_expand_in_Maine/
... and so if the Downeaster comes to Brunswick, that'd make our trips south another 1/2 hour smoother.

Managed to get something up for Theo on Saltation yesterday, yay, team. At the time that was getting online I was making multiple trips to town, having gotten all the way to the driveway of the hospital for a bloodwork appointment before realizing I'd forgotten paperwork I needed to bring with. I was already feeling out of order because of the thick air, I guess. I have several routine doctor appointments this week, and .. .well see the end of the post.

Last night was chess night, which I went to despite still feeling under the weather, or under the pollen, at least. Arrived a little late, to find all available players in games. I waited, staring at other people's games, wondering why I was still there because my snuffle seemed suddenly well on way to sinus headache. Eventually a game ended, and it was my turn for some short games. In my first game...I let a won game wander away; changed my glasses from reading glasses to prescription glasses in middle of it but by then it was too late. Second game I won, almost accidentally, when my new opponent misread the motive for my early pawn spike and castled into my attack. Despite fierce resistance... and a blunder on my part ...I managed to pull that one out. My third game, I won on time. My opponent tried to show he had a won game (if the game had gone on) but... I don't trust instant at-board postmortems and besides that, I'd won, so I took the game and then went home very early, headache winning out over chess. Once home a quick snack and to bed fighting the headache, which mostly won. I did get a few hours sleep and slept right through breakfast as Rolanni got herself together and out to work.

Today is a high pollen count day, too, lucky me..and tomorrow looks to be as well. Wheee....

Meanwhile, we (as SRM) did manage to get in a few cases of books from the latest and last rescue of Meisha Merlin stuff. Some of the recent arrivals are not in as good shape as we'd like, looking like returns or warehouse age, since the warehouse was in some disarray there at the end, I gather -- watch for some specials!

And so it can be rumored...looks like our Credit Union mortgage specialist has managed to cut through some red tape we couldn't figure out and we'll be going to closing on our refi in near record time, all things considered. Given the labyrinthine path we've taken to get here --- I think we've worked through six government agencies and seven or eight or nine addresses as they merged, emerged, remerged, and renamed themselves since we first applied for the original mortgage ... so much for stable government, eh?

So, (thank you Walter) if all goes well, we'll be closing on the new, non-government mortgage on Thursday, at the credit union office. I am *so glad* we joined the credit union. And after it all, the difference on our monthly payment will be about enough for us to go out to breakfast once every other month. Well, that's useful. Hey, this'll happen in time for us to eat breakfast three times at WorldCon if we save up!

Follow on to recent topics:


1: About the Google thing I mentioned recently ... it does look like those numbers/locations are slowly rising. At the link below is posted a banner and HTML you can use to add a Saltation link directly to your own website ... do drop down and read the posts to find the correct one ...

http://community.livejournal.com/theo_waitley/45502.html?nc=6

There are some spoilers on the Theo Waitley pages there, so caution is advised if you've never visited that community before.


2: Liaden Universe Companion #1, the mass market edition, from SRM Publisher, Ltd...should be at Boskone. I've held an advance copy in my hands, hurrah! Within a few days of the end of Boskone will be in the bookstores and convention dealers SRM Publisher deals with directly. We ought also to have it online by then as well; but we're still working on that online catalog.

3: With the snowy conditions today I still need to get out to the PO and mail some stuff; I expect this'll add and extra hour or two to the getting around.

4: Last night was chess night in Waterville and company was thin, in part I expect due to the expected snow and ice. John an Mark got a few games in but then Mark challenged me to a club-rated game and I'm not sure about what else may have happened in other games as our game was pretty intense. I tried a variation on one of my favortie openings with white, one that invites an attack. Alas, I miscounted early and ended up a piece for a pawn down with bishops of opposite colors, and given the strange pawn structure and king placement by the middle game I traded my remaining rook to go black bishop against white bishop and rook... and offered a draw. Mark declined, and I connected the black bishop with the passed pawn on the king side, locking black out of my side and slowly advancing diagonally with the king despite being a piece down. Managed to queen a pawn, forcing Mark's rook off the board to take it... and then had a passed pawn on one side of the board and a potential passer on the other ... at which point I declined the draw offer and took the game on time, so I picked up a few points and moved up a position in the club ladder. Wheee....

5: Also about rankings... kind of scary to have the revisions on screen while the book is already on sale...Duainfey was running at Amazon.com Sales Rank: #105,863 for a book due in September...
http://www.amazon.com/Duainfey-Sharon-Lee/dp/1416555528 which I guess isn't too bad for our first dark fantasy novel, 7 months before publication.