November 2004 Archives

Last year, rain fell on the Run to the Far Side. This year was sunny and chilly. As I stood at the start line (or as close as I could to the line with a thousand other runners in front me), I had two options:

1. stand there and freeze, or
2. run five kilometers and warm up.

Since it made little sense to pay twenty some odd dollars to stand around and shiver, I ran. This year's loop started and finished at the site where they are rebuilding the California Academy of Sciences. The Academy celebrated its 150th anniversary last year and the new facility will open in 2008.

My goal for the race wasn't to run a personal best. I simply wanted to enjoy the City, the day and the costumes inspired by Gary Larson's comic strip. That's the wonderful thing about races. Your goal can be as stressful as wanting to finish first or as relaxing as wanting to cross the finish line with your running partner. I completed Sunday's run in a time of 29:10.

After the race, we had brunch at Cafe de Pera, saw the Christmas tree in Union Square and visited a couple of the stores around the square before leaving San Francisco.

On Saturday night, this year's novel crossed the invisible 50,000-word finish line. At the 50,000th word, which was and for the curious, my brain shut off, but my fingers continued typing another 151 words on their own.

My 30 Cafes in 30 Days went completely astray thanks to Thanksgiving. It turned out to be 25 Cafes in 27 Days. I'll write more about it in another post.

Otherwise, like the blue squirrel, I'm grinning from Viking helmet to furry tail. I reached the numerical goal, but not The End. There are a few thousand words and countless rewrites and edits separating me from completing the story, but as far as NaNoWriMo is concerned, I'm done.

For my inner statistician, here are some simply fascinating figures (previous year's tally is in parentheses):

Words written: 50,151 (50,140)
Highest one-day count: 4,560 (8,683)
Lowest one-day count: 280 (588)
Percent of novel written on my PDA: 96 (92)
Least productive day of the week: Friday (Sunday)
Number of writing days: 27 (18)
Number of zero-word days: 0 (12)
Cups of coffee consumed (above "normal"): 27 (18)
Pounds of Skittles eaten: 0.5 (2)

Thanksgiving began with the traditional trip to the movie theater. This year, we saw The Incredibles. For me, the second viewing was better than the first. The family gave it a collective thumbs up, including my mom, who claimed to like it despite falling asleep during part of it.

Mom, being mom, stayed up late the night before to clean the house in preparation for her holiday guests. This year was a big deal. It wasn't the small, quiet gathering of prior years. There would be ten people, including grandparents from both sides and neighbors from down the street.

Extra leaves for the dining table were dug from the closet. Table settings, unused for many years, found themselves arranged according to a diagram from a Miss Manners etiquette book. Fluffy, the family dog, found himself receiving more attention and treats in a matter of hours than he had received in his entire life.

Dad barbecued a delicious twenty-pound turkey. I don't know if my mom actually ate any while we were there. She and my grandmother were always up and serving people, as though resistant to the thought of relaxing to enjoy the meal.

Two days later, after leftovers were packed and turkey sandwiches were made, after table leaves and settings were put away, after Fluffy went for some extremely long walks, after all of the tireless running around, I spoke with my mom.

"This was one of the happiest Thanksgivings I've had in a long time," she told me.

I gave her a questioning look, wondering how anybody could say that after all of the stress and hard work.

She continued, "It reminded me of when I was younger and your great-grandmother was alive. She would have Thanksgiving in her tiny house and it would be full of people and talking and laughter. It was nice to have that again."

I have a vague recollection of Thanksgiving at my great-grandmother's house. I was too young to remember it in detail. It's more of a feeling these days, one of warmth, one of happiness.

This Thanksgiving gave me that same feeling. It was like reliving the past, just for a second, but this time knowing what was going on, knowing why it felt so special and hoping for many more like it in the years to come.

I know, so much for cheese-free thankfulness.

Outside has grown dark and cold. As the sun sets, trees of green begin to look black. Streetlights appear between branches. Red lights atop high rises begin to mark the nighttime horizon as planes carrying Thanksgiving travelers descend into Mineta International Airport.

The sky is now dark purple and fluorescent lights from my cubicle reflect in the window, making the city difficult to see. It won't be long before I'm amongst the high-rises, having dinner and partaking in pre-Thanksgiving festivities.

This year, I'm thankful for many things and many people. While it's easy to become cheesy during these times, I'm thankful for the freedom to be cheese-free. If I were to list everything for which I'm thankful, I could cop out and say life, love, family, friends, health, blah blah blah, but I won't. Tomorrow, when sitting around the table with loved ones, feasting on a turkey, I'll be most thankful for them, but also thankful for the following:

• Boston winning the World Series
• another season of The Amazing Race
• Pixar
• Keane
• The Sims 2
• spam filters
• the snooze button
• Yosemite
• Salzburg
• penny machines (those machines where you pay fifty cents so it can have its way with your perfectly shiny penny and make it pretty, but worth less than a penny)

This list was assembled on the fly, but I'm satisfied with it. Happy Thanksgiving!

Song on my mind... "Pepper" by Butthole Surfers

I don't mind the sun sometimes
The images it shows
I can taste you on my lips and
Smell you in my clothes
Cinnamon and sugary
Like softly spoken lies
You never know just how you look
Through other people's eyes

The song has been on my mind since the beginning of November. Where did it come from? I don't know. Not from a CD. I don't own anything by Butthole Surfers. Not from the radio. I was hearing it in my head two weeks before I came across it on the dial. Maybe from the shower. That's where I first found myself humming it. Wherever it came from, I wish it would go back. I need to find a way to get rid of it.

I wonder if it's a mental itch. In this case, an itch caused by a song from the mid-90s about various people dying. I did a quick search for "why songs get stuck in our heads" and found a relevant article about it. The research identifies three "characteristics of music that make them memorable"...

1. repetition
2. musical simplicity
3. incongruity

From that short list, I would say the chorus of "Pepper" is memorable because of its incongruity. The melody uses only a few notes, but the timing of the notes is irregular, which is probably why it tickles my brain.

While that's all fine and interesting, the song is still on my mind and I'm not sure how to free myself of its melody. The article says "the only way to 'scratch' a cognitive itch is to rehearse the responsible tune mentally". That doesn't sound fun at all. Instead, I'm going to try a different two-pronged approach:

1. counter it with another memorable song (like "Jingle Bells")
2. write about it and hope the itch scratches itself away

They were all in love with dyin'
They were drinking from a fountain
That was pouring like an avalanche
coming down the mountain

I took this photo last Friday. I was lucky. The gardeners came through over the weekend and cleared the leaves away. Today, the sidewalk was bare of leaves, color and character.

I love when fallen leaves cover entire stretches of sidewalk. They crunch with every step and if I close my eyes, I can almost imagine myself walking in the woods. On most days, I wish the asphalt and concrete would melt away like snow and allow the earth underneath to feel the fresh air and warmth of the sun. That's the idealist in me thinking aloud. The realist in me knows I'd be wishing for surfacing to return once it rained and I found myself slipping and slogging through mud.

It's hard to believe that Christmas lights, wreaths and trees have been up for three weeks now. It seems like retailers and neighbors are suffering from a severe case of premature decoration. It threw my internal holiday clock off and I started listening to Christmas songs last week. I thought I was jumping the gun until I turned the radio on and discovered some stations were already playing continuous holiday music.

This must be the way it is every year, but this year, it seems like we're being told to hurry up, finish our Halloween candy, skip the turkey carving and rush to the nearest mall to get our shopping done. With everything starting so early, will people only be running on Christmas cheer fumes by the time the big day is here?

There was to be more than a photo entry on Friday, but I got into a creative funk and couldn't write anything that could escape the wrath of the evil backspace key. It was like a scene from Austin Powers...

Me: I was drinking my coffee and...
Backspace Key: Sh!
Me: But this is a good sto...
BK: Sh!
Me: But I...
BK: Sh! Want to hear something funny?
Me: (sigh) Okay...
BK: Sh!

My NaNo writing has slowed to a crawl over the last three days. Instead of keeping a steady pace, I've managed only a memo a day. On a Palm V, a memo holds about seven hundred words.

Yesterday, I knew I hit a new low when I wrote at a Starbucks and counted it as one of my cafes. Spending a day with the family has a way of limiting how far I can venture for coffee and alone time.

The streak of independent cafes lasted twenty days. I was disappointed to see it end, but consoled myself with a venti peppermint mocha. Nothing soothes the soul like twenty ounces of peppermint goodness.

During lunch, I'm writing at Starmars Cafe in downtown San Jose. I would visit Los Gatos, but it isn't close enough to the office. I want to hit a few of those cafes before November ends.

Today's strategy is to write memos sporadically throughout the day. A memo in the morning, maybe two at lunch, one in the afternoon and then three or so tonight. The goal is to reach 44,000 before the clock strikes midnight, which isn't impossible if done with the proper dose of coffee and Skittles or the help of a superhero with the ability to stop time.

This week's Photo Friday challenge is Patterns. At my feet, a street in Salzburg.

Let's say a character in your novel needs chopsticks. Why? He or she might need to eat or build a fire or poke somebody asking why he or she needs chopsticks. Who knows? They're needed. What you should be asking is how to get them into your story. There's the easy way...

He grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the kitchen drawer.

That's succinct and plausible. A normal human being could very well keep a pair of chopsticks in the kitchen drawer. Readers expect this, which is exactly why it's wrong. Readers don't want the same old thing. They want original. They want unexpected. So, to improve your story, you might write instead...

He grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the bathroom hamper.

Now, that's original and unexpected. It also reveals something about your character to your readers. This is someone you don't borrow chopsticks from, but if you do, sterilize them.

While it's a good start, it really doesn't achieve the goal of this month, which is to maximize every opportunity to increase your word count. Forget succinct and plausible. Think verbose and convoluted.

He needed a pair of chopsticks. He rummaged through the bathroom hamper, but came up empty. He looked everywhere. It wasn't under his bed or in the DVD player like last time. He was losing hope. Out of desperation, he peeked in the kitchen drawer, but only found a phone, the garage remote and a pair of boxers.

There wasn't much time. The band would be practicing in ten minutes and it would be embarrassing to have to play the drums with his fingers. Again. A thought came to him. He opened the phone and hit the second button on speed dial.

"Splendid Dragon Gourmet Express? Yeah, I want an order of chicken chow fun for rush delivery. It's an emergency. And can you make sure the guy brings extra chopsticks? Preferably plastic. I got a splinter last time. Thanks."

See? Much better. Your character gets his chopsticks, your readers learn more about him and you have an astounding 140 words, instead of a measly 10. Everybody wins!

This was inspired by my own attempts to get a pair of chopsticks into my novel. I now have an ancient Chinese restaurant, a quirky owner with a mysterious past and a place where my characters can eat tasty dim sum. Oh, and chopsticks.

When it comes to water valves, I have a control issue. If I open the valve, I expect water to flow. If I close it, I expect the flow to stop. It isn't a difficult concept and one easily grasped by most of the valves I come in contact with on a daily basis, mostly of the sink and shower variety.

My place has three main valves by the garage in front. A white one controls water to the house, a black one controls the front sprinkler system and a red one controls the feeder line to the backyard. Before the weekend, I had never used any of them.

When the house was built, the contractor ran a one-inch PVC line under the front fence to the backyard. In May, we trenched up to the line, but never connected it.

On Saturday, my dad came over to help with the backyard irrigation system. He thought we should check the feeder line and see if water was flowing through it. I volunteered to turn off the valve to the backyard, figuring the pipe would be under pressure.

I stood befuddled before the three valves, not knowing which one controlled what. I finally came up with the brilliant idea to shut them all off. After testing the front hose bibb and the kitchen sink, I returned to the backyard, satisfied that everything had stopped working.

By the capped feeder line, which rose about four inches out of the rocks lining the fence, my dad stood with a saw in his hand and said, "Because the cap is glued on, we need to saw it off. If it's dry, then we have a problem. If it's working, then we may get wet."

He knelt by the pipe, put the blade to it, paused for a second and then handed me the saw. "Here. You cut it."

I gave him a look that asked, "Me?"

His look said, "Yes, you."

Mine retorted, "But it's your saw."

His replied, "It's your pipe."

Two seconds into sawing and the most obnoxious smelling water suddenly sprayed from the pipe, soaking my pants, socks and shoes. I froze for a few seconds, expecting the spray to weaken. It didn't.

"Saw the rest off," said my dad, who was amazingly dry.

It didn't seem to make much sense. I imagined sawing off the cap and getting drenched by a feisty geyser, but I shrugged and cut through the plastic anyway. All that resulted was a mild-mannered bubbler. One that wouldn't stop bubbling.

"You sure you turned off the right valve?" he asked.

"Uh-huh, but I'll double check," I said as I ran back to the valves, squishing with every step. I gave the red valve a twist, but it was as tight as could be. The water still flowed.

Over the fence, my dad yelled, "Well, at least you know you have water! Go ahead and cap the pipe. No use in watering the rocks." I think it's easy to be an optimist when your socks aren't wet.

When it comes to water valves, I have a control issue and presently, the red valve is in control. No worries, though. It will be replaced.

If one were to use this blog as a calendar, he or she would likely wonder why Thursday through Sunday were missing. I, on the other hand, would wonder why he or she was using my blog as a calendar.

Veterans' Day found me watching The Incredibles. Seeing an imaginative, intelligent and witty movie seemed like the patriotic thing to do. Pixar's latest creation is worth seeing again (and again).

(A quick aside: On Tuesday, which really doesn't fall between Thursday and Sunday, but again, this isn't a calendar, I saw The Polar Express at the IMAX theater. Two words describe the experience: too big. Nostrils and Steven Tyler were never meant to be seen on a screen that size.)

After the movie, we drove to Monterey, which was rainy and gray. We spent the afternoon in Plumes Coffee House, where I wrote and enjoyed a cup of slow drip coffee. Instead of pouring myself a cup from a carafe with coffee that could've been sitting there two days, they made my cup to order, on the spot. It was strong, superb and well worth the extra 45 cents.

Come Friday, the clouds fled and left Monterey sunny and blue. We spent most of the day relaxing around Cannery Row. We relaxed so long that we actually drained Monterey of its entire relaxation supply. With the day hardly done, we drove to Carmel and managed to reach the beach just as the sun set. Unfortunately, my camera was snoozing in the car, so I don't have a shot of the sunset, as the photo above shows.

Saturday involved working on the backyard irrigation system, spending time with the folks and having dinner with the grandparents in Santa Cruz at King Chwan Chinese Restaurant. My sister thought we should order the Bon Bon Chicken, Dan Dan Noodles and San San Seafood Noodle Soup because it would be fun to say. For some reason, nobody else found the idea very amusing (well, except me).

To retaliate, she took us to brunch at The Cheesecake Factory on Sunday. For those of you unfamiliar with the restaurant, it's where you can buy expensive cheesecake and wait thirty minutes for an order of scrambled eggs, sliced tomatoes, grilled ham and a burnt bagel. It's also where if you ask for jam, they won't bring you an assortment of flavors. They will give you one packet of strawberry jam because it's all they carry.

That wraps up my account of the missing days. By the way, I can deal with a restaurant making me wait for food, but one that doesn't carry grape jam or orange marmalade? That's simply unacceptable.

Hello and welcome to my world, where it's all NaNoWriMo, all the time. Okay, that isn't true, but my inner editor stepped away from the computer and I'm writing whatever comes to mind. It may be false, dumb or grammatically incorrect, but while he's away, the words are free to play.

My inner editor is going to have a cow when he returns from his coffee break. The first phrase that'll get his goat is the phrase "have a cow". The next phrase will be "get his goat".

While not every waking hour is spent obsessing thinking obsessing about NaNo, I've been spending an hour or two a day on it. That isn't true. I only wrote for thirty minutes yesterday. At lunch, I escaped to Mission City Coffee for a double almond joy and some quiet time. The place must have a creative current running through it because 700 words flowed from my fingers while I was there.

Conventional wisdom says that people should've written 16,667 words by Day 10 to be on pace to finish by November 30th. Conventional wisdom, of course, conveniently forgets about the power of procrastination and cramming.

Last year, I was counting on that power to pull me through. In ten days, I had racked up six zero-word days and my progress meter was hovering around 8,000. By Thanksgiving, I was ready to call on the power like He-Man, "By the power of Grayskull (or in my case, turkey and mashed potatoes), I have the power!"

During my first year, write-ins rescued me from falling hopelessly behind. Evenings at Orchard Valley and Coffee Society were potent shots of motivation. I discovered that companionship in a common cause and constant coffee were critical to my creativity. My inner editor is going to loathe that sentence.

My second year has been different and, in many ways, better because of three other Cs beyond companionship and coffee.

Consistency. Writing every day, however little and however crappy, feels good. Blogging should've taught me that by now, but I'm a slow learner.

Competition. My daily goal is 2,000 words. It's nice to have somebody who's keeping a similar pace. We're nudging each other along, neither of us wanting to fall too far behind, both of us wanting the other to keep up.

Cafes. By tonight, I'll have written in ten different cafes. It may seem silly, but wondering where I'm going to write tomorrow adds a sense of adventure to the process. The adventure isn't necessary, but it's fun.

Oops, I hear footsteps. It must be my inner editor. Time to make like jelly and jam. He's going to loathe that sentence, too.

On Saturday, instead of writing 1,526 words of my novel, I was laughing my head off at a screening of The Polar Express, the new computer-animated Christmas movie with Tom Hanks.

I laughed at the animation because it was sheer eye candy. Thanks to motion capture, the humans looked more realistic in their subtle facial expressions and movements, like walking through the snow. Although they were incredible, Gollum is still my favorite character using that digital process.

I laughed joyfully at the journey of the train ticket, a wildly imaginative tale within a tale. With wolves, waterfalls and an eagle, it provided some of the most breathtaking animation.

I laughed hysterically at the random musical sequences. One involved acrobatic waiters singing and tumbling while pouring hot chocolate for children on a high-speed train. Thank goodness for suspended disbelief. The other involved two children singing "When Christmas Comes To Town", which I'm sure is a nice song, but the Scrooge in me thinks it tried too hard to be an endearing Christmas carol.

I laughed at the elves because they were scary. Some had Brooklyn accents, some sounded like munchkins and one was Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. Tyler as a human is freaky. Tyler as a scary elf screaming a Christmas song is just wrong.

I laughed at the end because I knew what was going to happen, yet I wanted it to happen anyway. As we grow up and learn the "truth" about the big guy in red, something magical is lost. It's nice to think that children, on the brink of not believing, will watch the movie and have their faith renewed, if only for another season.

Somewhere inside, I want to believe that I still believe in the man with all the toys. I want to believe that on Christmas Eve, he will land on my roof without leaving hoof prints or skid marks, bypass my home's security system, fit through the exhaust flue of my energy-efficient gas fireplace and place a present under my fake tree (an iPod or Powerbook, if you happen to be reading this, hint hint). Deep down, I want to believe that if I were to hold a sleigh bell up to my ear and shake it, I could hear it ring.

On Tuesday, I'll be skipping another chance to write 1,526 words to see the movie again, but this time in IMAX 3D. It should be great, except for the Steven Tyler scene.

Yesterday morning, before reading blogs, I had written a blurb about coffee that I thought I posted. It turns out I never did. When I went to look for it, I couldn't find the blurb on my PDA, which disturbed me because my PDA really isn't that big. To lose something on it would require either the greatest mastermind who ever lived or, apparently, me.

I began worrying that I had only imagined writing something. To my relief, I stumbled across the snippet using the highly efficient search method of scanning through each and every memo, somehow missing the one I wanted and then scanning through everything again. Anyway, here it is:

In the town where I live, Y'a Bon Espresso recently converted the old train depot into a tiny cafe. Years ago, you could walk up to the window, hand the person some money and he or she would hand you a train ticket to, say, San Francisco. Now, you can walk up to that same window, hand the person some money and he or she will hand you a nonfat, no foam, no whip latte that costs the same as a train ticket to San Francisco. Snazzy, huh?

This morning, I got to the station late. Usually, if I didn't brew a cup at home, this means I'd miss out on my early morning coffee. Not so today. Although I was late, I was able to buy a delicious cup of Versailles blend (not Vaudoux) just two minutes before the train arrived. It's one of the perks of being less than fifteen feet from the platform.

On Tuesday, we had an election. On Wednesday, somebody was elected. That surprised me. I was fully anticipating having to wait until January to learn that the candidate I wanted in office had lost.

Yesterday, I read a number of blogs venting about the election, the reelected president and those who voted for him. People expressed many emotions: depression, disappointment, fear, frustration, hatred, hopelessness, pain, pessimism and, above all, the desire to move to Canada. It was all a bit overwhelming.

Last night, as I sat down to write the third installment of my NaNo-novel, all I could think about were their words. I wanted to put it out of my mind and continue with my story, but the ideas wouldn't flow. My muse was hiding, paralyzed by negative thoughts. With a little coffee and music, I finally convinced her to come out and play, but all she wanted to do was talk about the election.

Grateful she was even there, I allowed her to use my characters to express her opinions and fill the pages with her political rants. At one point, she strayed and went on a tangent about phlegm, but mostly, she stayed on topic and said what she wanted to say.

Today is Day 4 and my muse seems ready to return to the story of Johnny Beck and the Hike From Heck (the new working title, no more SMiRK). My word count is healthy and the goal for tonight is 2,100 words. It's ambitious, but my competitive spirit has kicked in and wants to keep up with those that have sprinted ahead. I'm looking forward to a productive Cupertino Write-In this evening.

My sister, who is also participating in NaNoWriMo, just emailed me a status report on her novel. She finally came up with a title: Nucular Families. Her muse must also have politics on the brain. So begins the 2004 edition of our sibling rivalry. If it's anything like last year, she'll let the title marinate for three weeks and bang out all 50,000 words during Thanksgiving, while the turkey is roasting, because it's just that easy for her. I think I need type faster.

Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.
- from Mort by Terry Pratchett

In the Bay Area, nine out of ten bumper stickers shout support for Kerry/Edwards. The tenth bumper sticker whispers support for W, as though displaying the incumbent's last name could lead to public humiliation. I wish there were more stickers out there showing support for third party candidates running for president. This opinion, of course, comes from somebody who wouldn't dare put a sticker, of any kind, anywhere near his car's bumper, or his own bumper for that matter, but I digress.

When I first opened my sample ballot, it was shocking to find names other than Kerry and W listed in the presidential category. From all of the commercials and debates I had been brainwashed by seen on television, I was certain those two were my only choices. The other names were surely typos.

It's like grocery shopping and being asked, "Would you prefer paper or plastic?" You interrupt to answer, but the clerk keeps going, "Or possibly hemp? Or our latest addition: edible bags in cherry or diet vanilla flavors?"

My point is that it's nice to know there are more options than paper or plastic, more colors in the political spectrum than blue and red, more animals in the zoo than donkeys and elephants (what type of crappy zoo would that be?).

I voted this morning, taking an early lunch to avoid the pre-work and lunchtime rush. My polling place, occupying an empty conference room in the back of a strip mall, had five electronic voting booths and seven volunteers. After a two minutes of searching for my name, they finally found it, checked me off as voter #127 and gave me a voting card.

I entered an unoccupied booth and performed my civic duty, which primarily involved poking a touchscreen with my index finger. I feared this modern voting method would be complicated, but it wasn't, as long as the choices were on the right-hand side of the screen. Trying to make a selection on the left-hand side was slightly more difficult. It went something like this:

Right-hand Side:
Me: Yes.
Screen: Yes selected.

Left-hand Side:
Me: Yes.
Screen: Please try again.
Me: Yes.
Screen: Sorry, I wasn't paying attention.
Me: Yes!
Screen: No selected!
Me: (sigh) Clear selection.
Screen: Selection cleared.
Me: Yes?
Screen: What was the question?
Me: (nearing tears) Yes.
Screen: Yes selected, crybaby.

Afterwards, I turned in the card, which was fed into a machine that counted my vote and then cleared the card for the next voter (in that sequence, so they said). Before I left, I grabbed an "I Voted!" sticker for my index finger, because after all that, it deserved it.

Yesterday, as I stood on the cliffs of Capitola, I saw a sword-wielding Viking catch a wave. Goblins, caped crusaders and other costumed surfers cheered her on as she rode it in, waved her sword wildly and wiped out. It was a Halloween party with a local twist. I wonder if I'll see Santa and his elves surfing in December.

Halloween, a.k.a. NaNoWriMo Eve, was a day of rest for my fingers. This evening, they will furiously bang out approximately 1,700 words to meet the daily quota. To keep them happy, there will be a constant supply of coffee and Skittles on hand. If I can distract them long enough with caffeine and sugar, they might inadvertently write a story containing characters and a plot. That's the plan.

Some NaNo folks like to warn their readers that there will be a noticeable drop in blogging during November. Thanks to the power of procrastination, this journal will not suffer such production problems. In fact, if anyone detects more blabber than normal going on here, it's probably best to tap me on the shoulder and say, "Hey! Shouldn't you be writing a novel?"

For South Bay NaNos, there will be three write-ins each week:

1. Sundays at Orchard Valley Coffee in Campbell
2. Tuesdays at Books Inc. in Mountain View
3. Thursdays at Coffee Society in Cupertino

While those cafes are great, I wanted to use this month to find other nice coffee spots in the Bay Area. I thought it would be cool to try something called, "30 Cafes in 30 Days". The idea being that I'd write a bit of my novel at a different cafe each day. Due to circumstances that are certain to arise, I'm not excluding any Starbucks locations as possibilities, although I'd prefer independent cafes. Here is my impromptu itinerary for the first five days:

Day 1: Books Inc. - Mountain View
Day 2: Barefoot Coffee Roasters - Santa Clara
Day 3: Caffee, Kaffee, Vin - Morgan Hill
Day 4: Coffee Society - Cupertino
Day 5: Lowry's Irish Coffee House, San Jose

Besides Orchard Valley, I also have Mission City Roasting Company in Santa Clara and Cafe Nono's in San Jose on my short list. If anyone has suggestions of cafes in the area with good coffee and cozy atmospheres, please let me know. I'll be keeping track of this side project in the side column.

Over the weekend, I saw Ray. I loved the music, Jamie Foxx's piano playing and his portrayal of Ray Charles. While the movie highlighted quite a few of his songs, my favorites included "What'd I Say", "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "Georgia On My Mind".

The film hardly showed Charles in a sympathetic light. Covering his life from 1948 (when he was 18) through 1965, with flashbacks to his early childhood, we see that in addition to being an extraordinarily talented musician, he was also a heroin addict and philanderer. While overcoming prejudice, breaking down musical boundaries and churning out hits, he was developing and nurturing a drug habit that would prove more crippling than his blindness. In the end, I think it was a well-told story of a gifted, but troubled artist.