The attached photos are of the Samsung model we purchased. It has an 11″ matte display, USB, HDMI, and SD card ports, and a full-size keyboard that, so far, is comfortable to type on. For comparison purposes, here’s a photo of the Samsung Chromebook sitting beside a first-gen iPad.

Light and portable

So far I like it. From first boot and setup, I had it fully up and running in just over 90 seconds. This includes the few seconds I waited for the text code from Google for my two-factor authentication. All of my desktop/laptop Chrome extensions and bookmarks showed up within a minute or so. I played a YouTube video full screen, and it looked and sounded fine.

My editor has one, and my first impressions upon seeing his and upon starting this one up are the same: this is a nice little machine. I’ll be hammering on it for the next couple of weeks to get a better idea of what it can and can’t do. Because it has offline storage for Google Drive built in, Google Docs will be my default text editor when I’m writing.

I’ll let you know how it goes in a few weeks, either way.

I didn’t even know this was possible until we moved from the Chicago ‘burbs out to central Illinois. One of the few pizza joints in the area at the time was a Marchelloni’s, which later became Geo’s. They had a thick, buttery, doughy crust most Chicagoans would call pan pizza, and they pretty much sucked. However, their competition was worse, so we gave them another shot one night and ordered a couple of large pizzas.

“We’re out of large crusts,” she tells me.

“Okay, can’t you make more?”

“We don’t do that here,” she says, all snide like I’m the asshole. Turns out the crusts are made elsewhere and shipped in frozen to the actual store. No thanks.

Know who else does this? Pizza Hut. Our local PH had a night donating their proceeds to our elementary school, so we paid them a visit. They were jam crowded with townies and unprepared, so they ran out of everything but regular thin crust (and those were “going fast”).

This is why these pizza joints’ pizzas are nasty, greasy messes. Yeah, Pizza Hut may be edible when it’s hot and fresh, but suck it down fast because it becomes slop two minutes after it hits the table.

Now, I realize some of you are stuck in the wild pizza frontier outside of Chicago and New York City. I realize some of you think Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and the bland bullshit served up  at your local mom & pop dustbowl pizza place is pretty good. I pity you. I really do. When some friends of ours from L.A. first tried Domino’s out in Baltimore and were impressed, I wept for their souls.

See, when the dough is made fresh on the spot, it’s got your standard dough ingredients. If you can see the guy rolling out your dough, you’re in the right place. Frozen dough? Now you’re getting preservatives and shit in it. It’s been processed, just like the garbage pizza in the freezer aisle. Not to mention these big chains need to make sure the crap they’re serving has to taste the same at every location, which means the rest of their ingredients are equally processed and preserved and loaded with things like MSG. Domino’s and Papa John’s can claim “fresher ingredients” all they want, but remember, McDonald’s makes the same nonsense claim about their fries.

I’ve tried your revamped pizzas gentlemen. An improvement? Maybe. Good pizza? Sorry, no.

I’ll admit I’m a pizza snob. Am I a Chicago or New York pizza guy? Both. I love a good Chicago stuffed pizza, and I like the giant slices you gotta fold in half to eat, so long as they’re not hyper-processed chain food disguised as the real deal.

Growing up in the ‘burbs, we could get good pizza just about anywhere, and most everywhere had a signature flavor the chains couldn’t match. Friday nights were pizza night in my family. Even our dog responded to the word pizza with excitement. Most places we called were dedicated pizza joints, but there were a couple bars that had pizza ovens, too.

Unfortunately, the farther I move from Chicago, the harder it gets to find good pizza. Things were so bad my mom, who commuted to the suburbs, brought pizza home with her on Friday nights. One pizza joint gave her an insulated delivery bag when they found out what she was doing. An hour from the oven, their pizza tasted better than anything local.

Out here in Peoria, most of the bars serve frozen pizza. The locals think it’s great, but to be fair, they have nothing to compare it to. In fact, the pizza is so bad out here, people dip it in ranch or Catalina dressing. I was horrified the first time I saw that. If the pizza is so bland you have to jazz it up with a dip, why the hell are you eating it?

The biggest culprit is Butch’s. Peorians love Butch’s because they make their pizzas locally in Morton, and they sell their own hot sauce and seasonings. My theory is they make the hot sauce to disguise the flavor of the pizza: no matter the topping, a Butch’s pizza tastes like a salt lick. It’s good bar food because you’re drunk and hungry and won’t remember the flavor anyway.

Monical’s is the nasty local chain of choice. They’re all over the Peoria area, and if I drive east on Route 24 into Indiana, I’ll pass half a dozen or so of them, all right there on Route 24. Their pizza is a cracker with a little spaghetti sauce on it. Dry and bland. Kids go ape over it, but they’re too young to know better.

Understand, no pizza is going to be good for you. My point is if you’re going to eat something unhealthy, shouldn’t it at least taste good? Shouldn’t it be worth those extra calories? The extra laps around the track you’ll have to punish yourself with?

Choking down a Caesar’s hot & ready just isn’t going to cut it.

I don’t have a problem finding my groove. My fingers my stop for a few moments as I consider a word choice, examine how a scene should play out, or re-read a passage for rhythm and flow, but otherwise it’s all tap-tap-tappity-tap until I have to be somewhere or until I realize I’d best get some sleep so I’m not a zombie at the day job. (Or worse, I realize I need some sleep or I’ll be too tired to work again the next night.)

It’s Newton’s First Law of Motion at the keyboard: an object in motion tends to remain in motion. Go go go until there’s some element of friction (i.e., children) or some obstacle (i.e., day gig) to slow or stop me. The momentum is greater on the creation side than on the editing side, too. I can build momentum while editing, but editing is the work sie. The creation side is the fun side, the greased, downward slope toward fame and fortune. (Okay, maybe not, but it can feel that way.) Even brainstorming has its own unstoppable and insatiable rhythm as one connection leads to the next two.

Still my go-to brainstorming tool

But as we all remember from science class, there’s a dark side to Newton’s Law of Motion: an object at rest tends to remain at rest. I apply the same to any keyboard time that doesn’t include the productivity. Monkeying with email, surfing the web, browsing all the crap I’ve saved to Instapaper, hitting a forum, social networking bullshit, et cetera, ad nauseum, all feel like movement, but they don’t get me anywhere. Sure, I might justify some of it as pimping a book or some other effort at marketing, but unless it leads to a signed contract or a negotiated sale, it doesn’t count.

I also find getting an object into motion requires more force than what’s required to cease its motion. This is the real problem. Closing browser tabs, shutting down Twitter, or taking a word processor to full screen all help, but I have yet to find a trigger.

My workout trigger, for example, is simple: I use the warmup routine from my karate dojo. Whether I’m going to practice some karate, hit the punching bag, go for a run, or lift weights, the warmup tells the body it’s time to move. Then I keep moving. The warmup isn’t difficult, it’s just some easy movements to bump the pulse rate up a couple beats and shake the rust out of the joints. Nothing intimidating enough to make it a dreaded part of the workout, or a workout in itself.

Back in the Dark Age of Dial-up, sitting at the keyboard was still trigger enough. Sure, I could start my email downloading, but depending upon mail volume, I could crank out a decent word count before I remember to return to the email window. These days, lighting up a cigar at the keyboard sometimes helps, but I don’t get to do that often in the Winter, and the pull of being always connected can still trump it.

That’s why I’m going to try the Pomodoro Technique. I’ve seen some comic artists recommend it, but it applies easily to any project. The concept is simple: set a timer for 25 minutes and work only on the project until the clock expires. Then take a break before starting over for as many cycles as wanted/needed.

There are timers for it all over the web. I’ve found a couple Chrome extensions that connect with them, too. My plan is to hit those 25 minutes, then use the break time to surf, email, and so on. Break time is reward time. Idle time. Then I get right back to work.

Knock out the nonsense work, but maintain that precious momentum.

I have that same discipline in the dojo, though it’s more habit than using a timer. My theory is it should apply the same to writing after a short while of using the timer. If anyone has tried it, or has any other suggestions, please hit the comments.

I’ll report back in a few weeks and let you know how it goes.

The Downing memorial statue outside the airport

Born in Peoria, Wayne A. Downing was a career Army officer who served in Vietnam and the Gulf War, and he held various roles in the modern war on terror prior to his death in 2007.

I’ve adopted Peoria as my home over the last few years, and I’ve come to enjoy learning more and more about its history and personalities. For example, Theodore Roosevelt once proclaimed Grandview Drive the most beautiful drive in the United States. Peoria also was once the whiskey capital of the US. Today, Peoria is the world headquarters for Caterpillar, even though the Illinois government is doing its best to screw that up.

How many of you live in a small town or city? Or have moved to a new home far from where you grew up? How much do you know about it? When you have a quiet day, get out there and learn something. Maybe your quiet, boring little town will surprise you.

I went to a Friar Tuck, a large liquor store which carries a wide variety of spirits and related offerings. They don’t have a proper walk-in humidor, but they do have a humidified display cabinet with a modest selection. The Peoria location usually has Punch, Macanudo, Romeo y Julieta, and a rotating selection of other brands, so in a pinch I’m happy to shop there.

This time I spotted the Revolution, a brand I hadn’t heard of before. I like trying new brands and the price was right, so when the cigar guy came over with his key, I asked him, “What can you tell me about the Revolution?”

The flattened face of the Revolution cigar

“It’s good!” he said.

I gave him a moment, he said nothing more. “Do you know what kind of tobacco it’s made with?”

“Uhhhh…”

Swell.

Then he says, “It’s got a medium body?”

Argh. The wrapper looked a bit dark for that, but he clearly had no idea.

There’s another chain liquor store in the Chicago area called Binny’s. They have full, walk-in humidors and they hire people who actually know cigars to manage them. If Friar Tuck can’t do all that, fine, but why not at least post similar display tags as Binny’s? Something with a description, the blend, maybe even cigar ratings from popular review sources like Cigar Aficionado?

So I bought four anyway. I’m an adventurous guy, and two of the three friends I was shopping for aren’t all that concerned about brand and blend.

How to make the magic happen

I’ve since learned the Revolution is part of the Altadis Te-Amo brand from Mexico, and it’s made with a blend of Nicaraguan and San Andres tobaccos, primarily Corojo. It’s box-pressed, but it’s more of an flattened oval than square, and is labeled “Ovalado.” It has a sturdy feel and a slight coarseness to the wrapper.

I smoked two before writing this review: one while hanging out with friends and one while doing some writing. I used a simple punch cutter on the first and had a difficult draw. With the second I did two overlapping punches to create a wider hole, and this worked much better. (I didn’t know if it would hold together after a scissor cut, and I don’t have a V cutter right now.) Both lost their oval shape as I smoked, which I thought was odd, but it didn’t affect the smoking experience.

The Revolution is stronger than medium, but I wouldn’t call it a full-bodied smoke like a maduro. It had a bold, spicy flavor without being harsh or peppery. Both sticks burned clean and even despite the draw of the first cigar, producing plenty of rich smoke and leaving a fine, sturdy ash.

All in all a good smoke, and because my friends selected something else out of another humidor, I still have two more. They’ll pair nicely with the remaining Boulevard craft beers in my fridge as I write this weekend.

“Big Bad Wolves” Page 1. Henderson killed on this.

Not going to make it out to a comic shop for Free Comic Book Day? No problem! Click on over to check out my short comic Big Bad Wolves for free on Indie Pulp.

Featuring artwork by Mike Henderson, Big Bad Wolves introduces some of the characters from the first book in the Pack series, Winter Kill. In fact, it sets up the incident that kicks off the opening events of the novel.

If you’d prefer a shorter (and, let’s be honest, cheaper) introduction to The Pack, check out the short story “Bravo Four” for only 99 cents. Set in Vietnam, “Bravo Four” dips a little into the back story of the series, and it includes an extended preview of Winter Kill.

Enjoy!

Cassie demonstrates part of standing sword kata #1 at graduation

Iaijutsu is a sword art, specifically the art of drawing the sword. In simplest terms, it’s the samurai version of the quickdraw: draw the sword and eliminate the opponent swiftly, then return the sword to the scabbard. Four of the kata I’m familiar with so far include the movement pictured above.

Here, the fallen opponent is on the ground at the performer’s feet, having just been cut horizontally and then split in two vertically. Turning the sword over helps remove the blade from the opponent’s body, keeps the sword between the fallen opponent and the performer (should he still be alive), and allows blood to run down the blade and drip off the tip as the performer steps back (the next movement following the photo above).

The interesting part, though, is the hand cover: this is supposed to prevent the opponent’s spirit from traveling up the blade and into the performer.

I believe it comes from the Shinto beliefs of early samurai. I always thought it was a neat movement, both as a martial artist and as a writer and fan of horror and the supernatural. It’s idea fuel, too; there’s a project I’m cooking up which will draw upon a number of the things I’ve learned about samurai and Japanese sword styles.

May as well put all this new knowledge to use, right?

I’ve been told I’m pretty good at it. I’ve given readings large and small, and I’ve had folks listening close. I’ve also had one or two where I could tell I lost the crowd. Problem is, the work can’t carry it’s own; the writer has to carry the work. It’s as much performance as it is writing skill, which is why readings are a lot more difficult than most writers realize.

This morning, Anthony Neil Smith pointed out another complication:

Let’s face it. What is the writer’s #1 obstacle at a reading? Smart phone. Be interesting enough to make them ignore texts/games/browsing.

— Anthony Neil Smith (@Prof_Neil_Smith) May 2, 2013

A writer versus that reflex to check the phone every time it pings or vibrates? Competing with that urge to multitask and knock towers over onto cartoon pigs? Good luck.

It’s more than just that, though. To me, why should I listen to something the reader can read for himself? Why should I read something from the middle of a book, when the audience will have no clue what’s happening or who the characters are? Two more reasons for the audience to tune out.

For my money—as in, the money I’d spend to travel out to a bookstore, crash at a hotel, down a drink or two—the writer’s better off selling himself than selling books. Call it a talk, a Q&A, or a panel discussion, now the writer is directly engaging the audience. Even if he’s just giving a speech, he’s able to maintain eye contact and monitor the crowd, not just keep his nose in a book, and the performance pressure is off.

On the audience side, one of my more memorable readings was given by Andrew Vachss. First thing he did? He told us readings are boring and we’d be having a conversation instead. That hour went by in a flash because the whole room stayed focused. Then he signed a bunch of books for us and off we went. It’s gotta be eight years ago now, but it’s still the first one I think of.

Now, if you’re the type of writer who has that performance side nailed, by all means, keep it up. I have yet to see Brian Keene flub a reading, for example, but we’re not all former radio DJs. His readers expect it.

The rest of us? Sell what you’ve got, folks. Better sell yourself and all of your work than to read one chapter and hope the crowd buys one book.

If the photo shocked you, it was supposed to, just as it shocked the students in the background.

This is a mock accident staged as part of Operation P.R.O.M. (Please Return On Monday), a warning to students about drinking and driving on prom night. It was quite the production, including local police and emergency services, the Red Cross, a Lifeflight helicopter, our coroner and funeral home director, and a speaker who lost her son to a drug-related car crash.

I’ve seen a couple of these before, and it’s still tough to watch. I don’t work closely with the students in our district, but a few times I had to remind myself it was just a drill. Even stranger, half the emergency squad were students who graduated within the last couple of years. Watching them load their pretend-dead former classmate into a hearse was a bit surreal.

I think the students got the point. There were several kids in tears in the audience, and I didn’t see anyone joking or laughing. It rained for a few minutes, and I didn’t hear any complaints.

We held our prom four days later. All of our students were back in school on Monday. Did it change any of the students’ behavior that weekend? We may never know. I think it’s a good program, though, and if nothing else it’s a good lesson in what our police and emergency service crews have to deal with.

I get it, though. I’m a big fan of the occasional hot dog, sausage, or deli meat. Chorizo in a skillet? Hell yes. Brats and Italian sausage on the grill? All summer long. A good ham steak? Smoked sausage in a spicy jambalaya? A finger of mozzarella wrapped in fine prosciutto? Some of mankind’s finest culinary discoveries, if you ask me. They may not be good for me, per se, but they’re not going to do much damage in moderation.

That all said, why eat the bullshit meats? I’m talking the lowest of the low. The ones that lie to you when you’re browsing the shelves, hoping you won’t take a closer look at the ingredients list. The ones that should say “sausage*” on the front, complete with the asterisk.

Sadly, they’re the ones that fill the majority of the meat section at your local supermarket.

I’ve covered supermarket chorizo in the past, so I’m going to focus on hot dogs and smoked sausage instead. The running gag for these things is they’re all composed of snouts and lips, but let’s look past the rumors and check the ingredients.

Ever taken a bite of a hot dog and wonder what the hell you were eating? I did that with Bar S hot dogs.

“Made with chicken and pork.” Pass.

These were purchased because they were the cheapest on the rack. A relative grilled them. I took one bite and thought I was eating something that had spoiled, so I went and fished the label out of the garbage can. As the print gets smaller and smaller, it gets scarier and scarier. What’s a good hot dog made of? Beef. What’s this crap made of? Chicken and pork. No, correction, “mechanically separated chicken” is the first ingredient. Second? Water. Then pork. There is even more dextrose (sugar), corn starch, and salt than there is beef.

Now we know where the snouts and lips rumors come from.

I should note Bar S is not the only culprit, here. Oscar Mayer doesn’t get a free pass. Nor does Ball Park. They may have their high-end hot dogs that are mostly beef (sometimes with their new favorite beef marketing term, “Angus”), but they’re happy to sell you the bullshit at a far cheaper price because they know most of us just don’t care.

In contrast, let’s take a look at two of my favorites, Nathan’s and Hebrew National. The first ingredient on their labels? Beef. Even better? Hebrew National carries the kosher designation. The ingredients are pretty much beef, spices, and yes, a couple of those scary nitrates. But Jesus, at least you’re getting the real thing!

Even better, look for Vienna Beef. They’re hard to find at supermarkets, but a hot dog stand isn’t a hot dog stand without Vienna Beef signs hanging around the joint. Red Hot Chicago? Okay, fine. But if the place is buying no-name garbage to keep costs down and margins up, walk your ass out. All beef or nothing, people.

Yes, I can absolutely taste the difference, and so will you. Buy a package of Hebrew Nationals and a package of some cheap crap, grill ‘em side-by-side, refrain from smothering them in condiments, and take a bite. There’s no way you can tell me they taste the same.

On to sausage. The problem with sausages is they’re so loaded up with spices and other flavorings, they conceal whatever the meat filler is. This is how people learned to choke down things like haggis back in the dark ages where they had to eat every piece of the animal to survive. Got something that isn’t very appetizing? Smother it in potent herbs and spices. All the fat and protein the body needs with enough flavoring to help a medieval man keep it in his stomach.

And this, my friends, is how they get away with lying to you. Even the major labels. The consumer in me is comfortable buying Eckrich because I see the commercials and ads all the time. I’ve been throwing their smoked sausage in jambalaya for a while, but then I took a look at the label.

Et tu, Eckrich?

I’ve been seeing their ads since Saturday Morning Cartoons were a thing. Pork, turkey, and beef!? If I want turkey sausage, I’ll talk up some local hunters. But hey, let’s take a look at what didn’t make the picture, the actual ingredients:

Meat ingredients (pork, beef), mechanically separated turkey, water, corn syrup. Contains 2% or less of dextrose, flavorings, autolyzed yeast, modified food starch, mechanically separated chicken, monosodium glutamate, potassium and sodium lactate, salt, sodium diacetate, sodium nitrite, sodium phosphate, vitamin c (ascorbic acid).

You sons of bitches. Corn syrup? Dextrose? Chicken? Why? Why!?

They want it to be cheap, that’s why. They want it to survive on the shelf, and they don’t give a shit what we cram down our gullets because we don’t give a shit what we cram down our gullets. They have all those leftover bits of meat they can’t sell as steak or pork chops, so they grind it up, put it in sausage, and fill it with bullshit to make it palatable. It’s haggis by marketing rather than necessity.

As an alternative, I tried Aidells all natural sausage. I tasted samples at my local Kroger, thought it tasted great. The difference in flavor was not quite as obvious as in the different hot dog brands, and the Aidells had a texture I’ll describe as “dry.” Not bad, just different. Okay, fair enough, but let’s look at the label.

You had me at “cajun”

Most of us know “all natural” has been adopted as marketing speak, so let’s just ignore that for now and concentrate on the ingredients:

Pork, water, salt, garlic, spices (including white pepper, red pepper and black pepper), sugar, paprika, celery powder and dehydrated onion.

No corn syrup, no mechanically-separated anything, and no chemical additives my browser’s spellcheck insists isn’t a word. Hallelujah, bitches. Sold. They cost a little more (even after the sample lady handed me a coupon), but they tasted great in our jambalaya and I felt a lot better about inflicting them on my kids.

That’s the great thing about today’s supermarkets and corporate foods: they know some of us are getting educated. There’s a demand for the good stuff, so there’s an incentive for them to produce it. Does it cost a little more? Yes. Does it take a little more effort? Yes. For now. But isn’t it worth it? Between the better flavor (in most cases) and not turning my body into a food lab, I say it’s totally worth it.

The big corporate food conglomerates today are no different from RJ Reynolds back in the day. Sure, they know some of this shit is bad for us, but nobody’s stopping them yet. I wasn’t thrilled to see a ConAgra Foods logo at the bottom of the Hebrew National page, but that’s the way things are going; big corporations are buying out locals and organics in an effort to pad out their portfolios with the good stuff.

You can still do one better by hitting your local butcher. We’ve got an IGA store nearby with a butcher, and they make fresh-ground Italian sausage and chorizo. Both are terrific. I can also go to Peoria’s Alwan & Sons and get some killer cuts of beef, pork, and chicken. This costs more, too, so I can’t do it all the time, but the taste and quality are there.

I’m no health nut, I’m just a dad who spent too much time on the Internet and started reading the labels. I’m not necessarily anti-big corporation, and I’m not going to call you an idiot for not shopping exclusively at farmers markets. I buy the good—okay, better—stuff because it makes sense, and I’m willing to sweat a bump in the grocery bill.

If enough of us do the same, maybe those costs will come down.

Mill Street is still totally submerged. The American Legion Post on the right recorded 56″ of water inside. That wall, built after the last flood, is 42″ high.

I don’t think of flooding when I picture our town. Our elevation is right around 750′, and as you drive west toward Peoria, it drops significantly to a little over 300′ at the Illinois River. However, that water has to start somewhere, and it came rushing out of the fields and quickly drowned out the creeks that keep the town dry during an average rainfall. 5″ of water in one night doesn’t sound like much when you’re talking about a placid pool, but all that water is going to flow—and accumulate—somewhere.

I’m fortunate my house is on the north side of town, which is the higher side of town. We had some water come in through our back door, and at one point the drain quit for a short period of time when the surge overwhelmed the city sewer system. For us it was more mess than damage, though. Downstream, drains and sewer lines backed up into some homes.

We canceled school Thursday due to some flooding at our junior high. My office (and all of our servers) are below ground level, so I stopped in and checked them out, then took a quick ride around town. Several streets were still blocked. The water had receded, but not much.

Debris shows how the water rose over these mine carts overnight.

There’s more rain coming next week. It’s not supposed to be near as bad, but we’re hopeful most of this will be drained away by then.

Meanwhile, my old stomping grounds in the Chicago suburbs saw some flooding, too. Portions of I-55 (the Stevenson to Chicagoans) were closed, and I saw some photos of neighborhoods I recognized sitting underwater. When storms stretch from Oklahoma almost to Canada and the clouds reach 45,000 feet elevation, nowhere is safe.

Locally and nationally, it’s been a crazy week. It will be nice if things calm down a bit this weekend.

My publisher worked up a new ad, and it should be making the rounds soon:

She’s back, and she’s waiting for you

Check it out on Kindle, Nook, or Smashwords (with more to come, including trade paperback). I’ve been waiting a long time for this, and I hope the rest of you find it worth the wait, too.

Already have Deadliest? Great! Thank you very much. If you enjoyed it, be sure to read the extended preview for Winter Kill at the end, or peruse my other work in the side column on my home page. Some of it is even free!

I’d much rather be manning the keyboard

We’re used to getting some water when the rain is heaviest, but tonight we’ve already fought back two floods and the weather is threatening more. The good news for us is the damage is minimal, it’s just a huge mess and a pain in the ass.

Some of our neighbors are not so lucky. The south side of town sits lower, and we’re hearing word of flash floods and evacuations. It has flooded down there at least once before. We’re hoping nobody was injured.

More nasty weather is brewing up over Oklahoma, and it’s supposed to work its way through the Midwest tomorrow and Friday. Here’s hoping it calms down. Between Boston and Texas, there’s been more than enough disaster this week.

Wherever you may be, stay safe, everyone.

I could feel the same muscle aching during that second match. Once again, an hour later, it hurt like hell. Any pinching motion with my fingers felt like a hot poker to the forearm. It settled a little, going from burning to aching over the course of a few weeks, right up to and through my black belt test.

With the test coming, I couldn’t stop training altogether. Not a chance. So I trained around the injury. I had no trouble with kata. I had to be careful grabbing and pulling, and I put a pad on my forearm for partner work, but I could do just about anything else in class and practice.

Sophisticated medical equipment: a giant, snapped rubber band

Flash forward a few more weeks to today and I saw the athletic trainer at my day job. He diagnosed what I already suspected: tennis elbow. He told me keep doing the stretches I found, then suggested adding ice, massage, and some exercises with a giant chunk of rubber band. I asked him if I could keep training, and he told me to keep working around the injury until it heals up (which, unfortunately, could still be a while).

The key is finding out what you can do. Too many people have a small, nagging injury and declare it couch time. This doesn’t do any good. Can’t run? Do some upper body exercises. Hurt your arm? Run. Hangnail? Suck it up, buttercup.

A back injury may be an exception, but there’s generally a way to work around injury. One of our black belts screwed up her knee, so she did kata from a chair, just working the upper body movements. After her surgery, she did kata while staying in one stance to rehab the knee. It paid off: her doctor was shocked at how quickly she healed.

Succumbing to a small injury is just finding an excuse to skip workouts. Cultivate the opposite and find an excuse to work out, and you’ll be able to accomplish more than you think.

Just a short one to kick things off

It’s finally the season where I’ll be able to sit outside with a cigar and the laptop or iPad and get some real work done. I find it’s a lot less distracting that way, and I stay more focused. In my office, it’s far too easy to get distracted by web surfing and finding other things to read.

As for the cigar, the Romeo y Julieta 1875 lonsdale is a decent little smoke. It’s a Sumatra wrapper, near as I can tell from a quick Google search, and I think the small size and tight draw made it burn a little hotter and harsher than I normally prefer. Its larger cousins from the Reserva Real line tend to be a lot smoother and more enjoyable, but I didn’t have an hour to kill smoking a toro or corona tonight.

That’s not unusual for a lonsdale, in my opinion. The size is designed for a quick smoke, something for when I’m in a hurry, or for when I’m working in the yard or washing the motorcycle. A good friend preferred them while on duty as an EMT because he had a much better chance of finishing between calls and didn’t feel bad if he had to chuck it when a call came in.

There are storms on the horizon for this week. After that, we have some nice weather again. Here’s looking forward to a productive Spring and Summer.

Peoria Chiefs on the way to a 7-2 win

There were a few strikeouts that day, and several home runs sealed the deal. The O’Brien Field fence goes from 310′ at the baselines to 400′ at center field, and a couple balls—fair and foul alike—bounced out onto Adams Street. All in all, it made for an exciting game.

I brought only the 55-250mm lens, and it did the job just fine. One of these days I’d like to get something a little faster, with a large enough aperture to hide that net altogether. Maybe if I sell just a few more copies of Winter Kill and Deadliest of the Species…

Across several social networks, I often see some skinny or muscular person make a crack about fat people needing to get in shape. Then someone—generally someone larger or who has difficulty cutting weight—takes them to task for their attitude. This is then followed by a swarm of posts offering support and encouragement to the larger person, telling them, “we love you for who you are.”

I can’t blame them. I hate seeing those arguments, too. The problem is the defense does not encourage a change in health.

Let me be clear: this does not mean said large person deserves scorn or derision. Fat people do not deserve to be belittled any more than anyone deserves to be teased for their race, sexuality, culture, or religion.

One of the saddest photo projects I’ve ever seen is Haley Morris-Cafiero’s Wait Watchers set. After a chance photo catching someone making fun of her weight behind her back, she set up situations to catch this happening over and over. Some of it is tough to look at because most of us have been guilty of this at one point or another.

Hell, I’m guilty. I’m down fifty pounds from my heaviest and I’m still a big guy. I shudder to think how large I could have gotten without a course correction. My friends tease me about my size or my eating, yet I’ll still make a fat crack now and again. Is it a defense mechanism? Is it just plain funny? Or am I just an asshole? (Probably the latter.)

This brings people down. We all know this. It makes fat people feel worthless, and if they’re already working on a fitness program, it makes them feel like they’ve failed. This is where the angels swoop in to tell them, “It’s okay, we love you for who you are.”

This is true. We do love you for who you are. We accept you. But we don’t have to accept your health situation. Overcompensating for the assholes pushes the problem of inaction to the opposite extreme. Instead of feeling like they’ve failed, the fat person feels like they don’t need to change their situation after all.

I think back to the number of people we’ve lost in the writing community. I think about dead friends and family members. About dead co-workers, both current and former. It’s not just fat people we’re talking about now, it’s a general lack of health. Heart disease. Diabetes. Cancer. Sometimes it’s drugs, alcohol, or depression, but for the most part, we’re talking preventable problems.

And I think about how those losses tear us up.

Would you ever tell someone, “I love you, and I can’t wait to see you in an early grave?” Hell no you wouldn’t. But that’s the behavior we encourage. I can’t count how many people I’ve seen show up on Fitocracy, bitch about how tough working out is, get an outpouring of empty support, and then disappear altogether.

There will always be assholes, and there will always be bleeding hearts. We need to do our best to find the balance between them. Here’s how:

1) Understand that the people who say shit like “fat people are fat because they’re lazy” aren’t being real or telling it like it is, they’re being tactless assholes.

2) Understand that general fitness is more important than size or weight. Seek good health, not a number on a scale. The latter tends to follow the former, but not always.

3) Understand fat jokes are funny. Yes, they hurt sometimes, but don’t read into them too far. Change the channel, browse to a different web page, ignore the trolls, and move on. If your friends are being intentionally hurtful, it’s time to find new friends.

4) Understand your friends and family absolutely do love you and accept you. Instead of seeking validation, ask them for help. A workout partner is by far better for you than an emotional crutch.

5) Understand that change is going to be difficult. There will be pain, sweat, and hunger. The payoff is worth it. Trust me.

6) Understand that you’re neither Jared Fogle nor a Biggest Loser contestant with monetary support and a trainer. You may not have a miracle transformation. Your change will take more time and effort than a thirty-second commercial or a one-hour special would have you believe. What works for them may not work for you.

7) Understand that your friends’ compliments and looks of surprise after your changes will be much more encouraging and affirming than false “it’s okay that you’re fat” sentiments.

In the end, we should all be encouraging good health in one another. We don’t need to beat one another over the head with it, but it should be made clear that we’re here for one another.

If you disagree with me, that’s fine. Please refer to #1 above. Otherwise let me know how I can help.

I’m having a similar problem with the project I’m writing right now. My first draft took the story one direction, and I felt pretty good about it. Then the rewrites came, and I had to do some extensive revision because my plot didn’t jive with the editor’s. I didn’t have a complete outline to work from, so I didn’t have a a solid idea of the project’s vision before plotting it all out.

You know what? I was okay with that.

The whole idea behind work for hire is it’s not my project to begin with. My job is to match the editor’s vision, or at least stay within the constraints he gives me. Period. I can offer advice and opinion, and they can take it or leave it, as fits the work. This applies whether we’re talking a small indie publisher or one of the Big Two. Even the popular guys who sell a ton of books for DC and Marvel can only go so far, and they know it. They may have earned a little more trust and leeway, but a Superman story still has to be a Superman story.

So I dove in and made the changes my editor asked for. It stung a little, but the paycheck soothed the pain.

What it comes down to is deciding whether the direction a project is headed should still have the writer’s name on it. If a writer can’t live with the changes he’s contracted to make, it’s not time to draw a line in the sand. If he’s made his case, he should either accept the editorial response or walk away. I’m fortunate I’m not in that situation, but I’ve seen others have to make the tough decision to break away from an editor (especially when that decision is complicated by the politics of getting more work or not). It’s part of the business.

This is why it’s not uncommon to see guys sticking with creator-owned work despite the costs and effort required to get a new project off the ground. Contracted work keeps the lights on and puts food on the table, but the ultimate goal for most creators is to set out on their own. This is where the potential for real money is, especially in the long term. More importantly, it’s also where we find creative satisfaction.

In the meantime, we put our heads down, do the work, and keep the lights on. It will pay off.

“Freeeedooooom!”

It’s about time, too. Most of the Spring Break weather sucked, and the rest was a matter of not having the time and running the Rugrats everywhere.

Today I rolled her out, fired her up, and checked the chains, cables, and lights & signals. I rode her down to the gas station to fill up her tank and check her tire pressure, and then I took the long way home all around town to get some wind and work the throttle a bit.

Even that short ride felt great. The little things came rushing back: the feel of looking through and leaning into turns, the tiny catch in her upshift from 1st gear to second, the sweet spot to throttle on between gears. Finding that sync with the machine? That’s Zen, my friends.

Here’s hoping I can stay out of the cage for a while.

Behind home plate at Peoria’s O’Brien Field

A friend and I took our sons to their first minor league baseball game as the Peoria Chiefs hosted the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. I’m not a big baseball fan, but kids under 12 get in free on Sundays and our seats behind home plate were only ten bucks, so it’s tough to complain. The boys were excited because they’ve decided they’re St Louis Cardinals fans, and the Cards are the new owners of the Chiefs. Two Chiefs home runs in the first inning ensured we’d have an exciting game, and in the end the Chiefs beat the Timber Rattlers 7-2. After the game, the boys all got to go out to the field and run the bases.

Every year I find a new reason to like Peoria. I grew up near Chicago, and while I do miss a lot about the Windy City, there’s plenty to do in Peoria and it usually costs less. Cheap sports, a couple museums, some sites to visit, a water park and sports complex the kids love, an annual beer fest… all the benefits of the big city without all the traffic.

If only we could just change the Illinois weather.

It was nice to relax and just hang out all day. It was a refreshing change from all the running around I’ve been doing. Even the zoo trip the other day was part of a specific errand, and we didn’t get to stay long. Too bad it’s the last day of Spring Break.

It’s back to the grind on the writing projects, too. On deck this week: final edits on a work-for-hire project; the edits on Lie with the Dead; revisiting a short story; revisiting the Exit Strategy.

I’ve just realized I haven’t been reading much fiction lately, either. Time to correct that with Chuck Palahniuk’s new Kindle Short, Phoenix. Start short, then dive back into novels. I’ve been drowning in non-fiction lately.

First week teaching and learning as a black belt

Sure, it’s a big accomplishment, and I’m honored to be wearing it. But am I a different person from a week ago? Am I suddenly enlightened, or has my technique suddenly improved since last week? No, not really.

The recognition in others is the biggest change. I’m Mr. Oliveri in the dojo now, rather than Senpai (senior student) or just Mike. Students bow to me when we meet, and their demeanor and etiquette has changed, particularly with those students I didn’t know very well to begin with.

To me, that’s what the black belt symbolizes: accomplishment. It’s almost like a diploma. I am now recognized as an authority on Okinawan Shuri-ryu Karate. Not the authority, and certainly not a master or an expert, but simply someone whom other students and martial artists should be able to ask questions of.

It’s toughest to explain this to someone not in the martial arts. The week before my test, I had my kids in the dentist’s office and he saw me reading The Pinnacle of Karate, the manual for Shuri-ryu. We chatted about my upcoming test for a bit, and he wished me luck. Flash forward to yesterday, and I had my own dental appointment. My dentist asked about my test, congratulated me, and he said it must be nice to have more confidence as I walk down the street.

He’s not incorrect. I do feel more confident in strange places, or if someone gets in my face, but I had that before my instructor wrapped the belt around my waist. Six years of training is not trivial. There’s a huge difference between my skill and technique now and when I received my yellow belt, of course, but again, the belt is more about recognition.

What’s more, it’s an indicator of what I have done so far, as there’s a lot more training to come. I’ll be learning three new kata before I’m eligible for nidan (2nd degree), for example, and I’m expected to continue practicing and refining my technique. The black belt is a milestone, not a destination.

There’s some responsibility that comes with the black belt, especially in the dojo, and I’m sure I’ll adjust to them. In the meantime, I’m still just another martial artist.

It’s got nothing to do with the zoo itself; the lions have a nice exhibit area, and I’m sure they’re well taken care of. No, it’s the proximity of their exhibit to their prey.

So close, yet so far away

The zoo has two lions, and they appear to spend most of their day staring at the handful of zebra in the next exhibit. Only a man-made ravine separates the two exhibits, and I have to wonder if the lions ever attempted the leap into the next pen.

Then again, there are two rhinos in that pen with the zebra, so maybe that gives the lions pause?

No matter. I’d hate to be sitting in the living room with a hot, fresh pizza in the kitchen, separated only by a ravine I couldn’t cross. I’m sure I’d spend most of my time figuring out how to get into that kitchen.

And with that, Photo Friday returns. Can I rebuild the momentum? Guess we’ll find out next week.

Sure, advertising and marketing help, but they can only go so far. How many over-hyped blockbuster flops have we seen the past several years? Once word gets out the plot sucks, the acting is terrible, and the flick is just plain boring, it doesn’t matter how much money the studio threw at the advertising department.

What needs to happen is those first three people need to tell everyone they know how incredible the creation they just experienced is. Sure, I’ll settle for them telling three more people each, but if you finish the last track on an album and say, “Wow, that was awesome,” then you need to tell everyone. Remember the true meaning of awesome? Something that fills you with awe. Something awe-inspiring, not just, “Yeah, that was pretty good.”

Which brings me to Clutch. They’re not exactly a small band, but it surprises me how few people have heard of them. They have their own label, they tour like crazy, and they get some play on satellite radio, but I have yet to hear them on any terrestrial radio stations. They first came close to mainstream with their “Electric Worry” playing in the background of commercials for the Left 4 Dead game series.

They deserve more exposure. Their songwriting and studio work is damn good, but the awesome part comes during their live shows. These guys kill it on stage. No spectacle or flashy lights and pyro, just some damn fine playing, and most of the time in small, intimate clubs where you can get up close, like so:

Suddenly I feel like a stalker

I first discovered them when they opened for Pantera fifteen or so years back at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom. They performed most of their first full-length album, and I distinctly remember “Rock & Roll Outlaw”. Even today it’s one of my favorite tracks, and it’s not unusual to catch my kids singing it. (For a while it was my middle son’s most-requested song in the car.)

I mention Clutch now because they just released a new album, Earth Rocker, last month. You need it. Their work is primarily rock, with their earlier work leaning toward hard rock, but they also have a strong blues influence that comes to the surface from time to time. Take, for example, “Gone Cold” off Earth Rocker:

Love it. Yet you still get their songs influenced by cars and science fiction, like “Crucial Velocity”:

I’m looking forward to hearing these tracks live. They’re going to be playing the House of Blues in Chicago on Friday, April 12th, but it’s not looking like I’ll be able to make it. Fortunately I caught them at a small club in Joliet back in November, so I at least got my fix.

Even if these particular tracks don’t catch your ear, check out some of their other albums. They have a real range to their music, and there’s sure to be something for everyone. In fact, I’ll leave you with another of my favorites, “The Regulator” off of Blast Tyrant.

That may actually sound familiar to some of you. Remember when I said their first flirting with the mainstream was “Electric Worry”? Well, “The Regulator” saw airtime during an episode of The Walking Dead.

Boom. Now it’s clicking.

This time we’d just finished a veterinary visit for our cat and needed to grab something quick on the way home. McD’s was handy and convenient. As I ate my fries, I recalled a claim that, “McDonald’s fries haven’t been within two miles of a real potato.” I was never sure that was accurate, but the fries certainly don’t look or taste like fresh-cut fries I get at some restaurants, or like fried potatoes made at home.

I know someone who worked for McDonald’s briefly in the ’60s, and she said potatoes used to be delivered directly to the restaurants. Today, a manager I know says the fries are delivered pre-cut and ready for the frier. So what’s really in them?

To the Internet! Here’s a video of how McDonald’s fries are made, courtesy McD’s Canada:

At first, it seems all is well. Lots of potatoes, peeled and sliced and sent off to the restaurants where they’re fried in canola oil. Okay, fair enough. But let’s listen a little closer, shall we?

At the 2:10 mark, Mario says:

Once the potatoes are cut, we push the strips through a blancher to remove the natural sugars from the strips. This will prevent some variation in our color once we re-cook the product.

So McD’s fries are blanched to remove natural flavoring? WTF?

So following the blanching process, we add a dextrose solution to add that nice even coat we see at the restaurants.

They “remove the natural sugars” but then turn around and add dextrose, a sugar. And then it gets a little scarier:

We also add an ingredient to our strips to make sure we prevent the graying of our product throughout the process.

Note he doesn’t tell us what this ingredient is. I’d have to guess it’s some kind of preservative, or something like a bleaching agent. I’m no organic nut, but it seems to me we just don’t need that crap. McD’s, if you’re going to go through the trouble to tell us how you’re doctoring up our food, at least have the balls to fess up on the mystery ingredient.

Keep watching and we learn after the fries are sprayed with the mystery ingredient, they’re dried, fried, and frozen. In other words, they’re cooked twice before they leave the factory, then they’re re-fried (read: re-heated) at the restaurant.

I don’t get it.

Their point to this video seems to be, “Hey, look, we use real potatoes!” My takeaway is more like, “We care more about how the food looks than what’s in it.” Most of the flavor in these things is the salt. Hold the salt and a McD’s french fry doesn’t necessarily taste bad, but it sure doesn’t taste like a regular potato. Most of their flavor is marketing.

There’s a bar not far from here that slices their potatoes in-house. Order them loaded and you get real shredded cheese and chopped bacon, not cheese sludge and bacon bits. They cost a little more, but I’ll take their fries over McD’s any time.