Movie Review: Moneyball

Denisa and I went out to the movies last night (belatedly for my birthday, since the theater had been closed on the actual date). Our choice of film was pretty much made for us: due to scheduling constraints, it was Moneyball or nothing. (Well, that's not entirely true. We could have watched a few others, but if I'm going to pay money to go to the movies, it had darn well better be a good movie. The Help was too late, as was Contagion, and those were the only two others I would have considered yesterday. Typically, I wouldn't go to a movie in the theater unless it was one that's likely to be significantly better on a big screen than it will be at home. But I make exceptions now and then for birthdays.)

Anyway. Moneyball. I was a bit worried about this one as a date movie, since my wife is not only not into baseball, but not even American to boot. This would sort of be like me agreeing to go watch a movie in Slovak with no subtitles. I'd be likely to understand about as much as Denisa would in the wrong sort of baseball movie.

Thankfully, this one wasn't the wrong sort.

For those of you who don't know, Moneyball depicts the real life endeavors of Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt), the general manager of the Oakland A's, who decided to try and put together an unorthodox group of players using the small budget he had available, in hopes that those unorthodox players would be able to take on the big guys like the Yankees or the Red Sox. (You know, like almost every other sports movie out there.) The difference in this one is the way Beane decided to assemble the team. He used statistics instead of scouts, choosing players for their numbers and not their overall feel. A pitcher's pitch looks really funky? So what, if it gets results. That sort of thing.

Denisa and I both really enjoyed the movie. It's got some genuinely funny scenes, it's well acted, and they're able to convey the basics of what's happening without requiring their audience to have an exhaustive knowledge of baseball. I think it succeeds in large part because it plays with the tropes of sports movies just about as much as it follows them. There are some scenes that are straight out of The Natural. Baseball certainly gets romanticized. But at the same time, Beane is essentially destroying some of the great traditions of baseball. Ignoring scouts to go with statistics, instead? Yikes!

It also helped that I think Bennett Miler (the director, nominated for an Oscar for his work on Capote) approached the movie not as a sports film, but as a film more along the line of Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network (Sorkin also contributed to the script of Moneyball). The movie is focused on Beane and his approach to baseball, not the team and their drive to win. It's an important distinction, and it affect the entire movie--most noticeably in the ending.

In any case, I heartily recommend the film. Good quality cinema, for baseball lovers and baseball neophytes alike.

Three and a half stars.

Yet Another Update in the Thrilling Saga of the Stairs

The stairs. The stairs! My life will be a better place once that staircase is finished, if for no other reason than the fact that I'll no longer need to remember that I really ought to be working on them right now. A fact that I'm reminded of every time I come home and see that big gaping hole.

What's happening with them? They're all stained, all sanded, all polyurethaned up. The walls up are. The electricity has been wired. All that's left is to

• Cut and nail up the ceiling
• Put in the risers
• Put in the treads
• Finish nailing the door frame
• Poly the door frame
• Put in the door
• Put in the railing
• Put in the light
• Put in the light switches

Once that's all done, we still need to finish last year's project: scrape, sand and stain the two small sides of our garage. It sounds like a lot of work, but the end really IS in sight. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

Has it been worth the time, trouble and expense? Well, hard to say at this point. I mean, the stairs aren't even finished yet. Even once they're done, they go . . . nowhere. The site of my future home office, my house's second bathroom, a walk-in closet, master bedroom, and loft. (Note: those are not all the same thing.) When I keep that goal in mind, then yes, it feels very good. Progress is being made.

Of course, that's like a 10 year goal. So . . . only nine years to go?

Here's some pictures to satisfy your curiosity in the mean time. First, what it looked like before we touched anything:

First hole sawed out:

Hole totally sawed out:

The risers:

The walls up, the treads in temporarily:

What's the Best TV Comedy?

Denisa and I recently decided to rewatch all of Arrested Development (well, I decided to do it. Denisa was kind enough to agree). And after the first five episodes, I'm reminded just why I loved this show so much.

It was always on. The jokes are all over the place, from sight gags to inside jokes to pop culture to self-referential to existential. Denisa and I debated for a while which recent show has been the best best comedy on TV. The candidates? 30 Rock, Modern Family, and Arrested Development. (Yes, you could make arguments for some others--particularly The Office, but realize at the same time that this was just a private conversation between Denisa and me, and neither of us are 100% behind The Office. I like the show, and I've binged watched it now and then, but in the end I never could stick with it. I just don't derive enough pleasure just from watching a man be a complete and utter idiot--probably because I relate to the character too much.)

Anyway, for me, Arrested Development still wins. 30 Rock has some hi-larious moments, as does Modern Family, but they both also have their share of so-so episodes that I could take or leave. Arrested Development is like a bullet train that never stops. Often I have to pause the show just so I can finish laughing and make sure I don't miss any more jokes.

It's extremely quotable, it has a good blend of characters without going overboard on them (allowing the writers to explore those characters more fully), the writing itself is rapid fire (something I've always preferred my comedy to be) . . .

It just wins.

But I got to thinking that maybe some of you would beg to differ. I love me my drama TV, but every now and then I want to just laugh and not be bogged down with Mad Men or 24 or Lost or whatever. So what are your all time favorite comedies and why? They can be from any time period--but they have to be as funny as possible. (Denisa and I keep going back to The Dick Van Dyke Show, which we also find highly entertaining.) Ideally, the show should be available to stream via Netflix, because I'd like some more Ol' Reliable shows to fall back on after I'm through with AD.

Thoughts?

My Vision of the Future and Facebook: A Ramble, not a Rant

REPOSTED FROM MY LIBRARY BLOG.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock (or you're not on Facebook, which some people think is tantamount to the same thing), you've noticed that Facebook has changed in the past week. It's made some fairly radical changes (and even more are in store), moving from a fairly static page that updated when you told it to into a free flowing page that seems to update at will (and randomly).

I personally love the new direction, but abhor the lack of organization. (Maybe that's the librarian in me coming out.) To me, it would be fairly straightforward to fix: let the users determine who they want to have the most updates from and how. And bring some method to the madness. Before, I could know with a fair amount of certainty that I was seeing all the updates from my friends that I wanted to see, since I could view all the updates in chronological order. But Facebook has now taken that chronological order and removed the "logical" part of it. Updates are scattered over the page in four different areas: recent stories, top stories, other recent stories, and the latest updates. To make things even more confusing, it's now showing me practically all the activities of all of my friends.

Now, I'm not one of the people heading for the pitchforks and torches. I'm willing to give Facebook some time to iron this out, and in their defense, it's gotten a bit better over the past few days. It's hard to get such a big change right all at once. (And since I don't pay anything for Facebook, I can't very well demand better service. What's the alternative? Google+? Please. That place is still snoresville every time I remember that I really ought to poke my nose in to see if anyone's actually using it yet.)

One of the reasons Twitter's interface works so well is that as a user I have control and knowledge over what exactly I'm looking at. I get a chronological feed of Tweets from the people I follow, and Twitter lets me know when I have new Tweets waiting. I click a button, and it's clear what's new and what's not. Easy. Simple. Nice. If I want to have smaller groups of friends I follow, I can easily set up lists to corral similar friends into categories of my choosing, and then the updates of those lists work the same way as the rest of the site. So it's really customizable, but also simple.

So why isn't Facebook like that?

Well, some of it might be due to the vision that Facebook has of the future. I think they've been doing a crappy job of explaining it, so allow me to give it a whirl. Picture a world where you can hang out with your friends regardless of where you live. If I want to sit in my living room in Maine and play board games with my buddies in Utah while listening to the same music or watching a TV show together, I can. I can go online and see someone's there waiting for me, and I can be chatting with them, and channel surfing at the same time, each of us making snarky remarks on what we're watching--together. At the same time.

I want that future.

Facebook wants it, too. Of course, I want it because it's cool, and Facebook wants it because it would  make a lot of money off the process. That's a key difference, and it has to be noted. But still, if I can get that future, and it comes via Facebook, I'm okay with that.

But how do we get from here to there?

Facebook's approach right now is to jam it down our throats, whether we want it or not. It's the brute force method. It has almost a billion members, and Zuckerberg's decided to go all in on that vision, with Facebook leading the way on a road paved with the gold earned from data mining its user base. Listen to a song on Spotify? Your friends will know. Watch a movie on Netflix? Your friends will know. Check out a story on CNN? Your friends will know.

Um . . . can we say "creepy"? Maybe I don't want you all knowing that I watched 15 episodes of Strawberry Shortcake yesterday. Or that I have a penchant for listening to Eminem when I think no one's watching. Or that I habitually read ever news article about goat cheese. (Only one of those statements is true, by the way.) Why doesn't Facebook just let me post updates when I . . . you know . . . actually want people to read those updates? (You can stop Facebook from tracking your every internet step, BTW. Here's how.)

I think it's because Facebook's worried it'll be sort of like Google+  It's an excellent idea, but until people start actually using it, then what's the point? In my vision of the future, it all falls apart if every time I go to hang out with my friends, no one's there. Not because none of us are there, but because none of us are actively sharing and saying "I'm here!"

Catch-22. Chicken and the egg. Whatever you want to call it, it's a problem, but it's only a problem getting there. If we're in a spot where we all know that everyone can share whatever he or she wants whenever he or she wants, then we get to a point where enough people are using that service (online, ready to hang) that when YOU are ready to hang, you can go and find some of your friends who want to hang, too.

Make sense?

And this is ignoring other nasty little roadblocks between me and my vision of the future. Roadblocks like copyright law that's dated and a legal system that can't keep up with how it pays itself, let alone how to handle the ever shifting realm of technology.

And have you heard about Facebook's next step in its plan: the timeline? Picture a profile page that represents all your actions, from birth to death. Needless to say, there are some concerns about this change, too. I've already signed up for the beta. Hopefully my profile page gets it soon, and I can evaluate it.

Because like it or not, the future is here. The rate of change is increasing all the time. Gone are the days when you can lean back and feel comfortable that you're On Top of Things for the next decade or so. Life as we know it will be different a year from now, and drastically different in five years, and unimaginable in a decade. I really believe this, and I think history backs me up.

This makes me excited, even though I also understand why it scares some people (or even terrifies them). What do you think? Chime in!

The Copyedit: All Bark and No Bite

I've known the Vodnik copyedit would be showing up at my house (or email inbox, as the case may be) for quite some time. But since I'd never done a copyedit before, I had no idea what to expect. Unknown quantities are often the scariest for me. I had a ton of different things on my plate: from trips to Bangor to presenting at state-wide library conferences to organizing service projects to that lovely stairs project I'm (still) working on. The copyedit was the big unknown in all of that. I knew there'd be a hard deadline I'd have to meet--but I had no idea how much time it would take.

I was concerned.

I didn't need to be.

As things turned out, I should have been much more worried about the stomach flu that was going to hit me Thursday night into Friday. That ended up affecting my life much more than the copyedit, which came at the same time. My editor asked for the copyedit to be back to her by Tuesday. I got it back to her Saturday. It basically was just me going through the manuscript, looking at each correction and saying, "Okay." There weren't even that many "okays" I had to say.

Bonus.

So the copyedit is now done, and I'm over the vicious stomach flu to boot. (Though that did entail lying down most of Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday. Joy.)

Where does the book go from here?

I'm a bit fuzzy on the details. I know it needs to get typeset, designed, the cover has to get finished, cover flap text has to be written . . . As for the order of when all this happens, I don't really have a clue, mainly because a lot of it is Stuff I Don't Have to Worry About. :-)

Although of course I WILL worry about it, if asked to. Have no fear: I'll probably tell you way more about the process than you'd ever really want to know.

In any case, this frees me up to do other things, like rewrite Tarnhelm (starting a week from Wednesday). And in the meantime, I have a short story I want to write for my annual Christmas newsletter. I plotted it out the other day, and a week should be just enough time to get it done.

Anyway--that's all the time for updates I have for today. Good night all!

Discoveries at the 2011 Fair

I took the fam to the county fair on Monday, our fifth(!) one here in Maine. Denisa had gotten the kids all hyped for it--TRC and DC both entered paintings in the fair, and so they were excited to see how they fared in the competition. (Sorry for the pun.) Denisa had entered a slew of things, too. How did they do?

DC one first place for abstract art by a 3 year old, and TRC got second for his painting of a butterfly. (TRC was a tad disappointed DC beat him, but I reassured him that competition gets fiercer the older you get.) Denisa won best peppers, best onions, best jam, best recycled item (she turned a phone book into a basket), and various other second and third place ribbons. (I might have forgotten a first place in there, too--sorry, Denisa. You're just too talented for me to keep track of it all!)

In addition to that, I completely broke my diet, what with the fries, the donuts, the turkey sandwiches, the maple cotton candy, maple syrup testing, and other maple items. But I walked a bit. That has to count for something, right? We also practically had our ear drums blown out by the demolition derby. (Loud speakers were a tad . . . loud.)

And then there were the rides. We discovered that DC is a total daredevil. She had no fear of any ride, and thought they were all a blast. Because she's so tall (43" or so), she could go on almost any ride she pleased. A rare event for a three year old. She loved them all--here's photographic proof of all the fun that was had:

Thanks for the Birthday Wishes

While none of you arranged for Marilyn Monroe to sing Happy Birthday to me at a gala in my honor, I am nonetheless very grateful for all the well wishes and happy returns of the day that were sent in my direction yesterday.

What did I do on my Day of Fun and Celebration? I worked. I'd planned on going to the movies in the evening, but my local theater closed down for the day as they work on parking lot repair. Bummer. I had a nice family celebration, and I topped it all off with writing group in the evening.

I live an exciting life. What can I say?

Today I have a big presentation on how/if eReaders can be used in an academic library setting (exhilarating topic for most of you, I know). It's at a state-wide library conference. Fun times. Tomorrow I'm in Bangor at a cataloging standards committee meeting. I hope to be able to duck out for a bit to post an update at what my fam did at the fair this Monday--I've got some really good pictures I think you'll enjoy.

So, not much time for any specific postings. I'll just leave with an observation I've made before:

Cool People Who Happen to Share My Birthday

• HG Wells
• Gustav Holst
• Jerry Bruckheimer
• Stephen King
• Bill Murray
• Ethan Coen (of the Coen Bros)
• Luke Wilson

Which leads me to wonder if I'm not somehow predisposed to like people who were share my birthday. Then again, Nicole Richie's on the list, too. So maybe not . . . 

Also, Sir Walter Scott died on my birthday. My birthday is the International Day of Peace (due in large parts to the wonders my efforts have worked in this world). It's Independence day in Armenia, Belize, and Malta, a line from an Earth Wind & Fire song (Do you remember? The 21st night of September.) The same evening Joseph Smith had his first visit from the angel Moroni.

Clearly, September 21st is the most awesome day of the year, and only really cool people get to be born that day. In fact, I'm betting my birthday could beat up your birthday. 

Find this and so much more information over at the wonder that is Wikipedia. What does your birthday have?

Bryce, out.

To Everyone Freaking Out about the New Facebook

It's true, folks. Facebook updated their site. Big time. And that means that the old comfy feel of Facebook that you've known and loved for the past . . . few months, isn't old and comfy anymore. There are (gasp!) new features.

If you haven't gotten used to Facebook constantly changing by now, then you're probably never going to. And the "old" Facebook that you know and love and are now bemoaning the loss of? That's the same "new" Facebook you were hating and despising six months ago. Or whenever Facebook overhauled its site last.

Take a minute and check out this post that was written a few years ago. It shows the design changes of Facebook from 2005-2009. Or go here to see an interactive timeline of the way Facebook has changed.

I don't mean to dismiss your knee-jerk panic that things are different on the site you use every day to connect to all of your friends (who also use it) for free, but in the end, wailing about how awful the new Facebook newsfeed is is like wailing how terrible George Lucas is for dinking around with Star Wars. Again. Lucas is gonna dink, Facebook's gonna tweak, and haters gonna hate.

The problem is that Facebook has changed its mind in the past and restored some features from older flavors of its site. Having set that precedent, people feel like if they just moan and complain enough, then everything will go back to the way it was.

Having looked at some of the old layouts, I can honestly say that there isn't one out there that I light a candle to every evening in its memory. (Some of that is due no doubt to the fact that Facebook changes things so frequently.)

What do I think of the design change? Mixed emotions. Things are in different places, and it took me a bit to find where everything is. But I use Facebook quite a bit, and as I'm using it today, I'm liking some things. I like the latest updates feature in the upper right. I like how easy it is to now tweak how frequently I'm updated on certain people. I think the changes have some merit, and I want to use them some more to see how much I can get out of them.

I'm hopeful, even if there's a new learning curve. Because if this update lets me customize my news feed more, then that's a good thing. Not that I ever hide any of my friends. Particularly not you. I check your FB status multiple times an hour, just to make sure I haven't missed anything. But those posts from everybody else? They distract me too much from your updates, and it would be nice to be able to trim them down some.

So to sum up: everybody calm down. It's not like Facebook is suddenly charging us to use it, or splitting up its services onto two wholly separate sites or anything. Unlike, you know, *some websites.*

Dear Netflix--Trying to Make Sense of Some Nonsensical Moves

Netflix. That wonderful little service with the red envelopes and the online streaming. That poster child of pop culture distribution goodness.

My how you've fallen.

Back in July, you were riding high. Your stocks were selling for $300/share. You were the shining beacon of how a company should operate. You kept coming up with new ways to please your customers and keep them happy. You had a tremendous reputation for Bang for Your Buck quality. Streaming. DVDs. Blurays. All in one. And for a while, you could do no wrong.

Then you decided to double your rates, offering nothing more for that price increase than a generalized "there'll be more good offerings coming later." Customers were furious, and rightfully so. (Granted, I understand why you hiked the prices, and I understand why it was necessary. But as far as a price increase goes, you're now the poster child for how *not* to roll one out--especially how not to roll such a large one out.) There were threats of canceled subscriptions. You said it would all be okay. You'd taken that into account.

Then 1 million more people canceled than you were anticipating.

Clearly the writing was on the wall. People were unhappy, and you'd do something to fix that. You did something all right. You went and split up DVD by mail and streaming offerings. And you said that you were doing that in order to rectify the previous mistake? How does this help? Your stocks are down to $130/share as of this instant. You've sunk 57% in two months. Way to go.

So . . . where do you go from here?

First, some background for your (former) customers. Streaming is the future. I get that. More and more people are going to be moving away from DVDs as their delivery choice for media. I know I stream much more than I watch on DVD or Bluray. It's more convenient. And as more people stream, the cost for those precious streaming licenses goes up. So you need to get money to get those licenses. It's a Catch-22. I'm sympathetic.

But remember this: your competitors (Apple, Google, etc.) have wallets. Deep wallets. Wallets so big, they boggle the mind. You can't compete with those wallets. If streaming rights go to the highest bidder, and those companies feel like bidding, you lose. The end.

But what am I saying? You have to be aware of this. Maybe that's why you're doing what you're doing. The best scenario I can see for consumers right now is that you're prettying yourself for an acquisition by Google or Apple. They swoop in and get your great (or formerly great) brand, and you get their big wallets. We the movie watchers get better streaming deals, and everyone is happy. Those are the rumors, at least.

I hope they're right. I really want to like you, Netflix. You've been good to me in the past. Help me help you. :-)

About that BYU/Utah Game--Mormonism and Sports

First off, yes: we were crushed. Utah played really well the second half, and BYU continued to play really poorly. At the same time, the rhetoric between Ute and Cougar fans continues to disappoint me much more than the loss did. It's always so black and white with these two teams. To have anyone try and say that BYU didn't shoot itself in the foot (or blow both its feet right off) in that game--that BYU's ineptitude didn't contribute to the lopsided score--is just silly. Yes, some of those turnovers were due to Utah. But a good portion were 100% us. At least let BYU take credit for its own stupidity and butterfingers, folks.

Now that that's out of the way, I wanted to get some other thoughts down on "paper." If you're not a football fan who happens to be Mormon, feel free to ignore this next bit.

Would a Ute fan be kind enough to explain to me (in polite, respectful terms) just why you're so 100% opposed to BYU sports at this point? I'm not looking for some long diatribe about how prideful BYU is, or how we're the holier than thou school. I've heard those arguments, and I don't feel like they hold water for me. I don't see BYU as being any more or less prideful than any sports team. When we were in the same conference, I could see how BYU would be really irritating. Much of the time, we were your biggest obstacle to conference success, just like you were our biggest obstacle.

We're not in the same conference anymore. Except when we play you, your sports world isn't affected one little bit by BYU's success or failure. I'd love to see Utah succeed in the Pac-Whatever-Number-It-Ends-Up-Being. Why? For the same reason I like seeing the Phillies win games, even though I'm a Yankees fan: I have a lot of friends who are Phillies fans. (Of course, I can't say the same for the Red Sox. Their success comes at expense of my team's potential. That's what division rivalries are all about. But if the Sox and Yankees were to no longer be in the same division? Sure. Go ahead and win. Whatever makes my friends happy. But maybe I'm strange like that.)

What it boils down to for me is one question:

If you're an active Latter-day Saint, how else would you prefer your church run school to behave in sports?

Bronco talks about how much he emphasizes that players should put other things in front of football on their priority list. When asked at the press conference this morning if he thought coaches came in earlier on Sunday to get a bigger start on prepping for the next game, he right off said he hoped none of his coaches were prepping for anything on Sunday--that that wasn't the right thing to be doing on Sunday.

That's the sort of thing that makes me really happy to be a BYU fan. Ideally, I'd like BYU to succeed because of the restrictions it places on itself as a church-run school--not in spite of them. Much like I try to succeed in life because of the choices I make as a Mormon, not in spite of those choices.

When BYU gets creamed in a game against its former arch rivals, am I happy? Not a whit. I was really bummed out. But it's a new week now, and I'm back to rooting for BYU just as much as I was rooting for BYU before that atrocity that called itself a game.*

Is there a large contingent of active Catholics who hate the living daylights out of Notre Dame? Maybe there is, and I just don't follow Notre Dame closely enough to care. But if you're an active Mormon, why the hate for BYU? You're paying the tuition with your tithing. That practically makes you a BYU booster at this point. Do you feel like a church run school should have a sports program at all? You do realize how every single BYU game, the church is mentioned--almost always in a positive light. What I mean, is I can certainly see how the church can view BYU sports as being an effective missionary tool.

Loathing of BYU fans--that I can understand. There are some who are really jerks, and who view BYU sports as God's team, and that's just ridiculous. They can be loud and boorish and ill-informed. Since I don't live in Utah, I don't have to put up with those fans anymore (unless I'm stupid enough to poke my nose into the cesspool that is cougarboard).

But there are idiotic fans of every persuasion--including Ute fans (a point which you'll concede . . . unless you're one of them).

So for me, it boils down to a simple question: should a church run school have a sports program? If that's okay, then (to me) that sports program should embody the principles of the church that sponsors it. In this case, no Sunday play. Encouraging players to go on church missions. Recruiting clean cut players who are willing and ready to follow the Honor Code.

I've heard some people say our players were playing really dirty on Saturday. I didn't see that. The commentators certainly didn't see that. If our players play dirty, I'd like to think that they'd be punished--just like any dirty players should be. I saw our defense play really strongly in the first half. Those were some hard hits, but no hits that looked intentionally vindictive.

Oh well. I'll let it drop now. I'd really be interested to see some well thought out essays by people I know and trust about the topic, from a Ute perspective. Ted? Care to comment?

I suppose in the end, I fail to understand the rhetoric because I'm just a strange sports fan. Such is life. Go cougars!

*(And Ute fans, your persistence in rubbing BYU's nose into that game baffles me. If we really don't matter to you anymore--as so many of you seem to like to claim--then don't revel in your victory to that degree. It's unbecoming. Sort of like if you spent all week talking about how you smeared Powderpuff U across the field. If we do matter, then . . . congrats. We took a lead pipe to both our knee caps, and you took a sledgehammer to what was left over. Now go beat some Pac-12/14/16 teams and establish Utah dominance.)

Book Review: The Postmortal

I'm off in Bangor today, so I'm not really in blogging territory. However, I did want to mention that I have another official book review out today for The Postmortal. It's over at Elitist Book Reviews. Check it out! http://elitistbookreviews.blogspot.com/2011/09/postmortal.html Happy weekend, all! See you Monday!

Reflections on Writing: Looking Back at Work from Days of Yore

As I said a week or two ago, I'm in the process of rereading one of my earliest books: Weaver of Dreams. This was the third novel I'd written, and I've always had very fond memories of it. In my head, it's a great book, and all it needs is a bit of dusting up, tightening of a few hinges, and it'll be ready for publication.

Or so I thought.

The first chapter was good. Solid as I remembered it. The second one had a few bumps. I kept reading. And reading.

And . . . what in the name of all that's good in this world was I thinking? This book isn't ready for publication *at all*. I mean, sure--there are some highlights here and there. The voice of the main character is good, and some of the conflicts in it are salvageable, but so much of it is just . . . not that great.

What, specifically?

• There are whole chapters where nothing happens but two characters talking to each other. And they're not even talking to each other in person. They're using telepathy. This brings the phrase "talking heads" to a whole new level. 
• The main plot doesn't really sort itself out until at least 2/3 of the way through the book
• The villain doesn't show up until 1/2 way through
• The writing is just terribly uneven. The mood fluctuates all over the place.
• The pacing stinks. I'll have a scene where some tension is ratcheting up, and then I'll have characters start discussing the basics of grammar for two pages. (I'm not exaggerating here.)

I could go on, but I really ought to be nicer to myself. I bring all this up because I wanted to discuss a few thoughts I'd been having while reflecting on this process:

• Weaver of Dreams was written about eight years ago. I really hope I don't look at Vodnik eight years from now with the same emotions I have reading Weaver.
• Then again, I'm happy to see that my skill has grown so much (or rather, that I feel it has). Eight years ago, I thought Weaver of Dreams was awesome. So much so that I still thought of it that way all this time later. So if I read it now and don't like so much of it, that must mean I'm *beyond awesome* now. Right? Right?
• Even with all its troubles, the book has some underpinnings that really intrigue me and make me want to revisit the world and its characters. I still have to finish reading it, but I have some good ideas about directions I want the novel to take. In other words, it's not a lost cause, and I'm happy about that.

How about you? Ever revisit something you were really proud of years ago, only to be surprised by its quality (or lack thereof) today? Do share.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation: July 24 (Last One--with Pics!)

And so we come to the end of my summer vacation series for this year. It's taken me long enough, I know. Sorry about the pauses in between posts. There's just been too much else that I wanted to blog about.

On our final day in London, we binged on museums: the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, to be specific. Free and fantastic. TRC in particular really liked the Natural History Museum. It's a gorgeous old building, and they've done a great job converting it into a modern museum space. (Except for the dinosaur wing, which was way. too. crowded.) Here are some parting pics:

The Natural History Museum has this cool program, where you can go to the front desk and check out Explorer Kits for the kids. They come with backpacks loaded with activities, a helmet, and binoculars, and they were quite the hit with the kidlets.

Don't be a dodo.

The room's even more impressive in person.

One last explorer action shot.

The outside of the Natural History Museum

Space explorers

Last bus ride

Quite possibly TRC's favorite part of the trip. Riding a double decker bus was WAY high on his priority list.