I am just too tired to think of a title. (Patreon)

I’ve added a 20$ tier. At that level and above, if I ever add them, I’ll do a drawing among those people and the winner will get a short story of his choice. He, or she (you never know, I might get women) will get to decide everything about that story, except the length. It’s going to be in the 3000 to 5000 words range.

Spread the word 

On the work side, this week has been good. I only really remember one day of it, and it’s because it perfectly illustrate the problem with delivering in the Delta British Columbia area. Which is what I did Thursday morning. It then took hours for my manager to find me something because he’s trying to get me back to Calgary, both because I need to get there to pick up a few things and take a few days off, and because he had freight to move. I don’t always trust that the people at the company do their best to get me back to Calgary, but in this case I’m confident he is since because he couldn’t route m there (I’m heading to Texas) he lost a contract he was trying to get from a new customer.

The pickup he found was in Surrey, and it was very, very, very interesting getting In there. I had to back in off a small street, with cars parked alongside and a couple of cement barriers. I did it, I did it without hitting anything, and I did it slowly. Even before I was In the dock, while I waited for them to finish with the other truck, I got the shipper to send the paperwork to the company, and then have the company fax the Ace manifest (the paper I need to cross the border) back. This came to me halfway to my truck being loaded.

And this is where things get amusing.

One thing to realize about Surrey, it’s that it’s about 15 miles from the US border. And while a lot of that is city roads, so not very fast, It’s never taken me more than an hour to reach the border. It normally takes the custom brokers 3 hours to process paperwork. Are you starting to see the problem? Here the other part to it. There are no truck stop anywhere on the way there. There used to be a holding lot at custom, but to streamline the process they removed it and replaced it with a multilane controlled access system. While I miss the holding lot, this system is far better. But it means there’s nowhere to wait for authorization.

That’s not entirely true, there’s a small pullout with a self-use scale just before the border. It’s usually full of trucks waiting for their authorizations. Still I couldn’t stay at the customer, so I went there and took a chance. I was lucky, there was space. Actually, custom was surprisingly quiet. I had to way two hours to get my authorization, then The border told me the broker screwed up the entry. So I had to park and go inside while they decided what to do. Fortunately, 30 minutes later they said I was good to go. Normally I like to ask what the problem was, but this time I was running out of time. I barely made it to the first rest area on time.

And that’s about all I remember of this week.

Before I get to today’s movie I need to talk about yesterday, when I stopped at Walmart for supplies.

I always go to the electronic section to see if there’s a movie I want, and yesterday as I get there I see the large Star Wars display and I think oh, cool, the movie’s finally out. I grab a DVD and put it in my cart. You might already have realized the problem.

I paid got all my purchases In the truck, mostly food for the week. And got back on the road. Once I parked I put everything away. So the DVD went in the bag where all the DVDs go, but I couldn’t remember if the new ones went in front or in the back. I pulled the on in front to check, and out came the Star Wars DVD, the same one I was holding in my hands. I was dumbfounded, why was there already a DVD there if this was the first time I’d bought it.

I swear, I had no memories of buying the DVD, watching it and writing a review of it. To be honest I looked to see I had written one, but I still don’t remember doing it.

I can’t return it because I don’t have the receipt any more. Don’t ask me what I did with it, I have no idea. No that isn’t uncommon, it’s actually the norm for me. You know the joke about losing my head if it wasn’t attached? It isn’t a joke with me. I can remember a great many thing, but there are things that just won’t stick, no matter how much glue, or duct tape I use.

Alright, enough about me, on to the more interesting things.

This morning I watched “Night at the Museum 2”. I did consider rewatching Star Wars, but then you wouldn’t have had a review. Night 2 starts off a few years after the end of the previous movie. Larry, the father no longer works there because he finally managed to create a company that worked. He’s actually quite a success, so much he can only drop by the museum once in a while.

When he gets to the museum for his latest visit he finds out the exhibits are being shipped to the Smithsonian to be put in permanent storage, being replaced with electronic, interactive displays. He tries to get that stopped, but he can’t. He spends the last night there with them and learns not all of them are going, and more importantly the magical tablet isn’t going. So those leaving the museum will never come to life again.

Obviously things don’t quite go as planned. If you want to know what else happens you’ll have to watch it, and I’ll say it’s worth watching. Unlike a lot of sequel, they don’t reset the story. This isn’t the story of a father making good, it’s the story of a man who thinks he has everything he ever wanted, and comes to realize he might not have it.

Like in any sequels the stakes go up, it turns out the tablet does more than just animate statues. And they pull of some very interesting gags with the Smithsonian museum. The enemy is also bigger, and I thought he was funny. There’s a hint of a romance in it and it works perfectly. I’d say I could have paid full price for this DVD and I wouldn’t have been disappointed.

On to the writing.

Book 2 of The Society got Chapters 10 to 13. Not as many as I was hoping for. I’ll explain why further down.

Part 3

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vQ-LxGi-e4eElvRG5iZnE2UnM

Following my father’s advice I worked on Crimson for 15 minutes every day, well, 5 out of 7, and managed to complete the first chapter. I am much happier with this version. This story will have violence, and may have implied sex, but there won’t be anything explicit in it. Let’s say a R rating?

Part 1

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vQ-LxGi-e4SURQZmc5b1BnNDg

And the reason as to why Book 2 didn’t get as many chapters. A couple of weeks ago I started playing a farming/RPG game called Stardew Valley. It’s amusing and I can play it for shirt 30 minute bursts, so it wasn’t impeding my writing. Then I started noticing how odd the behavior were for some of the NPCs and in my head I started building a narrative, basically I was having the character I was playing write a journal about his days. For a while that was enough but then it started taking over my mind to the point where I couldn’t work on Book 2. So I decided to do it. Play the game and write the journal as I did. I don’t know how far this will go, I’m just trying to get it out of my system, but I figure some of you might enjoy it. This is going to be completely G rated, actually, maybe PG something I think there will be cursing here and there.

Stardew Valley, part 1

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vQ-LxGi-e4Q2tPMGtpNGdLQW8

And with that, I’m done for the week. See you next Sunday.