Harvey Manning, 1925-2006

Harvey Manning, 1925-2006: Author of hiking guides ‘was a force of nature’

Helen Cherullo, publisher of The Mountaineers Books, recalled getting an early e-mail from him. It started, in all caps, “WHY I AM PISSED OFF … .”

I’m not a hiker, although I do enjoy a bit of hiking on occasion.  One of Harvey Manning’s daughters is one of my Nano mentees.  From this article, he sounds like a cool guy.  One of the early environmentalists, he did a lot to protect the woods he loved to walk in.

Most of Manning’s writings were done on a typewriter, and always on recycled paper — usually with something else printed on the back, Cherullo said.

That’s great, the idea of sending a manuscript to your publisher, typed up on the back of your grocery list or a note to your family.  I imagine many publishers would flip out, but I guess his was a little more tolerant.

A Nano complaint

I’d never realized it before, but one of the great advantages of writing online is the ability to hyperlink.  If I have a word or concept that some people might not be familiar with, instead of explaining at length what I mean, I can just throw in a link to Wikipedia or something that explains the topic for me, and continue to write.

I’m finding that not being able to do that while I’m writing for Nano is becoming increasingly annoying.  For example, I’m writing about a software company.  There’s a good chance that someone might make a joke about l33+ speak, and I’m going to have to explain it.  Good for the word count, bad for the story flow.

Anyway, it’s a small complaint.  Someday, all our books will be interactive, and you’ll be able to add hyperlinks to your novel.  Until then, I remain slightly annoyed.

Good try, DC

D.C. Moves to Become Pioneer In Forcing ‘Green’ Construction – washingtonpost.com

The era of “green buildings” would include devices such as low-flow shower heads and recycled materials and would require designing passageways that encourage walking, choosing drought-tolerant plants and improving air quality by reducing the need for artificial heating and cooling.

I’m very much on board with getting companies to build greener.  And this not only promotes recycling, but health, too, with better air quality and getting people to walk.  My one problem here is that they’re forcing companies to do it.  I’d rather see them give incentives first, and if not enough companies do it, then think about legislating it.  For example, if you give tax breaks for meeting some or all of these standards, something to offset the increased cost, then you’ll likely get more support from the business community.

As it is, they’re kind of salty because they think it will raise costs by 11%, instead of the 2-4% that supporters claim.  But DC is pioneering this sort of program in a large city.  Maybe the next city to try it will go a different route.

Nano update

I should really be getting to bed, since I woke up at five this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep (Then made the mistake, without thinking, of complaining about not sleeping to the guy in the office with a two week old baby in the house).  But I just crossed the 30,000 word mark three days ahead of schedule, and I can’t quite bring myself to go to bed.  I don’t have much more time to write tonight, as anything after midnight counts as tomorrow, but I suppose that doesn’t really matter.  All the words count towards the total.

The story is going well.  I have a lot more characters in this novel than I have in previous novels, and I’m often surprised at which ones are taking central roles.  Some of the ones I thought would be important have stepped back so that others could get more time in front of the camera.  That’s one of the cool things about writing like this.  Stuff just happens.

Anyway, I have to get back to writing about the meeting between my disgruntled blogger and the wife of the executive.  He just broke the news to her this morning that her husband is cheating on her, and now they’re having dinner in the lobby of the hotel where she’s staying.

Election withdrawl

I got used to having political stuff to talk about all the time, and now there doesn’t seem to be much going on.  I’m sure there is, but it’s not plastered all over the front page anymore, and I haven’t taken the time to go find it.

It was as if everyone let out a collective sigh of relief – “Oh, the Democrats took both majorities, now they’ll fix everything.”  Sure, that would be cool.  But it’s not going to happen right away.  I think it’s important that we, the people, continue to pay attention and put pressure on our representatives to do what they’ve promised.  You want us out of Iraq?  Tell your representatives that we need plan, now, that gets Iraq stable and self-sufficient so we can get the heck out of there.  Is illegal immigration your issue?  Tell them that Bush’s big wall is a stupid idea, and we need to figure out a way to deal with this that doesn’t involve racist Texans shooting at Mexicans.  There’s a whole lot of compromising room between amnesty and deportation of all.

I know I’ve been slacking, but November is really busy.  I promise to write a letter to a representative (I’m thinking new VA Senator Jim Webb) the first week in December.  I don’t know what I’m going to write, but I’ll write something.

Halfway point

I just hit the 25,000 word mark in my novel.  It’s going well, although I’m currently suffering from a small case of writer’s block.  I ended a chapter without an idea for the next one, and I’m a little stuck.  But I should be okay.

In more exciting news, my mom is not only trying Nano this year, but is really enjoying it and looking forward to next year.  She doesn’t think she’ll hit 50,000 this year, which is fine, but it sounds like she’s all set to try again in 2007.

I’m not sure what it is about human beings that drives us to recruit friends and family to join us in the weird and sometimes crazy things we do, but it’s pretty universal, so it must have its root in some basic part of humanity.  “Misery loves company” doesn’t quite cover it all.  As much as Nano can be frustrating and take up all your time and make you want to scream, I find that the good far outweighs the bad.  So it’s not misery (Except when you get stuck).

I encourage you all to try Nano, too.  There was an article about it in the Washington Post this past Saturday, and the number of people trying it goes up every year.  You’re running out of time to join up before it hits the tipping point and EVERYONE is doing it.  You don’t want to get on the bandwagon late, do you?

Would this work at Seven Corners?

Techdirt: Getting Rid Of Traffic Lights And Traffic Signs To Make Everyone Safer

When you remove all of the guidance, it makes people (and that includes the bikers and pedestrians as well) much more cautious and careful — so they tend to make fewer dangerous moves. On top of that, it actually makes the traffic flow much more smoothly, allowing people to get where they’re going much faster, even if they drive slower.

I suspect that this works better in cities, and Seven Corners might be too complicated to remove the signs, but this is an interesting concept.  Basically, if you remove traffic signs and lights, everything moves more slowly and smoothly and people drive more safely.  I suspect that this would only be temporary, though.  People would drive more safely at first, but if you go through an intersection twice a day on your commute to and from work, many people will get used to the little quirks of the road (For example, at a particular intersection, the left lane always backs up trying to turn, so you get to the right before you get there) and take advantage.

Still, it is nice to see people examining things like this, which people take for granted, and wondering if there is really a better way, even if it sounds quite drastic.

Mommies have known this for years

Natural-born painkiller found in human saliva – health – 13 November 2006 – New Scientist Link via Kurzweil AI Saliva from humans has yielded a natural painkiller up to six times more powerful than morphine, researchers say.

See? And you thought that it was just a placebo and a mother’s love when she offered to kiss your boo-boos and make them better. She was actually just trying to apply a substance that “works in nerve cells of the spine by stopping the usual destruction of natural pain-killing opiates there” to make your pain go away.

Brickskeller now has Bells!

The Brickskeller & RFD Washington DC

Local (to me, at least) beer heaven The Brickskeller now has Bell’s Beer in a bottle. For those not familiar with Bell’s, don’t even finish reading this post. Get to The Brickskeller and have an Oberon. They have a KEG OF OBERON. Why are you still reading? Go, now! They might run out.

Thanks to guest-blogger Gayle for the head’s up.

What did I do before?

I just finished painting the second bedroom.  If someone even mentions something related to paint, I’m going to snap.  Now, at a very, very conservative estimate, my wife did 70% of the painting.  I did all the sanding, which was an awful, awful job.  But she did the vast majority of the painting.  And it’s times like these that I wonder what the heck I did before I met her.  She has a nearly unfathomable ability to just work on something until it’s finished, no matter how much it sucks, or how tired she is.  I can not imagine how long it would take me to get my condo ready to sell if she weren’t doing the bulk of the work, and gently nudging me to do the rest.

For example, last night, after moving stuff out of here to my grandmother’s so the place looks bigger, cooking dinner for some friends (Who were my friends first, by the way) who are moving to the West coast, and packing for her four day work retreat, she painted all the edges in the second bedroom so that I could just do the big wall sections today.  I fell asleep while she was still working.

And now I need to reheat the lasagna she made for dinner last night so I can get back to my novel, which I haven’t touched since Friday.  And wouldn’t be touching again at all if my wife hadn’t done so much work on the condo.

So, for all of you single people out there who have the means to obtain a significant other even half as great as mine, I highly recommend that you do so.  You won’t regret it.