Cats going to the vet today

Two cats are going to the vet today. One is getting fixed, and both are being tested for FL (hopefully they do not have it---if they do: they will have to be put to sleep). Both are sweet boys that were abandoned.

Fall schedule

Well, after putting it off for a couple of weeks (or is it months at this point?), I finally registered for Fall 2009 classes (University of Colorado at Denver). I am taking:

Chemistry for the Consumer
Bible as Literature
Gothic Literature
Colorado History

I thought about taking basic biology instead. But I never did take high school chemistry, and I already own a biology textbook. And the Chemistry for the Consumer class is a in-home lab using household chemicals; ok, maybe that is not a good idea.

Both the chemistry and Bible class are lower division classes (I have to take another science if I want to graduate). The other two are upper division classes. I registered too late to take the Critical Essay class, but I just do not feel like doing it this semester. Especially considering I am going to have to read the Bible, or at least parts of it.

My exposure to the Bible was the Big Little Book of Bible Stories as a kid (my wiccan aunt gave me more religious training than my parents did), and the occasional bit that I have read as a Golden Dawn based kabbalist. I do not recognize Bible quotes when I run across them in literature. Hopefully, the class will help me as a writer, literature student, history student, and kabbalist.

I am taking the Gothic Literature because I want to; same with the Colorado History class (though that one may be research for a work of fiction that I have kicked around occasionally).

But part of all, I have no morning classes. This is really going to help me get some writing done this coming semester. Now all I have to do is decide who I want to annoy with my writing this fall; you know that I am going to annoy someone; after all, I am ME!

RIP Charlie

To add to the troubles of this week, on Thursday, we had to take one of the cats to the vet. Charlie had gotten injuried in a cat fight and the wound was not healing. Given the fact that she was eighteen years plus in age, we decided that putting her to sleep was more merciful than attempting mutliple operations and trying to keep the other cats away from her. I ended up crying a lot; after all, she was one of my cats and I had her for eighteen plus years. RIP Charlie.

Computer Crash of June 2009

Yesterday was the only day this month that I did not have my wife, or someone else, scheduled to interrupt my workday as a writer.

So what happens...

Yep, that is right. A computer crash. Some dll got corrupted and Windows would not start; I was forced to hit system recovery.

So an eight hour writing day, a bunch of free time, and I have finally got Windows back up to date; my anti-virus reinstalled; two of my web browsers back up and MSN messenger.

I have yet to get the printer driver installed. Nor have I set up a different user section for my wife (mainly because she needs different settings for her Spanish homework and iTunes). And I haven't even thought about trying to recover my own files.

So I am at least a couple of more days away from doing any more writing.

Something I have to learn

Something I have to learn to do is to quit reading the comments to the book reviews that I do, especially the esoteric book reviews. Either that or learn to ignore them. The comments just annoy the hades out of me. And that is not good for the writing. I wonder how other book reviewers deal with it. Or for that matter, how do the writers of books cope with reviews of their books.

Follow-up to Yesterday's post

Helium fixed the title sometime after I posted yesterday. It is still not in the channel that I think it should be, but I can see their thinking about it.

And as those of you who have read the previuos posting, Associated Content has bugged me; rather their readers have.

Thank god for video games to help calm me down. Now it is off to do a couple more book reviews.

Who are the readers of book reviews?

Today, I was reading a comment that someone made about my review of Magic Squares and the Tree of Life; it reminded me how hard it is to write book reviews and please everybody (the same holds for articles, lessons, and books).

Especially if you are trying to address the entire range of possible readers.

In the case of this book, the range was from true neophyte to advanced adept. Any review that excludes a section of the audience is incomplete, but any review that attempts to be complete is going to upset those who do not realize that you are trying to address the review towards the entire audience.

I will admit with this review I leaned towards the complete neophyte. Of course, part of the reason for that is it takes time to create a magic square of this size, and months (if not years) to properly evaluate whether it actually delivers.

And in the end, this is the review that I think needed to be written. It is not the adept that needs to be warned that this book is an instruction manual requiring a lot of work to be completed; it is the complete neophyte that needs to know that their money is better spent elsewhere.

Maybe I made the wrong call, but I stand behind the review I wrote.

Frustrations

I am a little frustrated today.

Had a survey freeze up on me (ten minutes into it).

I have two articles on Bukisa sitting in editorial.

The wife keeps asking me if I am coming out to help her work on the flower bed. I think she is trying to guilt me into it. This is why I am going to get a cubicle job after I graduate college. She does not understand that self-employment means putting your business in front of everything else.

And Helium not only put a title I suggested into the wrong channel (literature---international writer?!) for a book review on Magic Squares and the Tree of Life (new age maybe, literature not even close), but the title also has a spelling mistake in it. I know that they are going to blame the mistake on me, despite the fact that I copied it from my Word document and it appears correct on two other writing sites.

The only people/site who have not bugged me today is Associated Content. Give them time.

Joined Bukisa

Now that I am done with the Open Full Moon ritual, I finally had time to do a couple of things that I have been putting off.

I checked my grades: two As (Shakespeare; History: Theory and Practice), one A- (Literature: Cather Willa) and one B+ (Rome: City and Empire). I am going to have to go online later and see if I can figure out what is up with my aid for the fall semester.

On the writing end, I am working on three book reviews.

And I finally got around to joining Bukisa. An online writer friend told me about the site a couple of months ago, but I just did not have time to go look at it until today.

Bukisa is another site that you can post articles to and earn income from. It reminds me of Associated Content except that you can earn referral income from Bukisa, a whole three levels worth. There are no upfront payments, but the rate for thousand unique pageviews is higher than Associated Content. The payout threshold is ten dollars, payable though Paypal (net plus 30). The site is open to non-US residents.

Bukisa may be worth the time for an online writer to check out. One knows that those who are good at getting referrals are going to flock to it, simply because they will do better there than on Helium and Associated Content.