The Fun Guy's Journal: 191.4 Books, jobs and a two-headed monster

1. Got the hardcopy for one of my books. Rather, it's a book in which I have a chapter, but nomenclature aside, I'm not very happy with it.

Terrible index, ugly cover. Also, and more importantly, the preface, the conclusion and the back cover blurb all pretty much stick to the tired old conventional paradigm, the unworkable one, the very one that I've been trying to challenge. It's depressing to read a description of "a wiser course of action would be X", with X being the exact opposite of what I'm working on. The implication is that X! is unwise. 17 chapters restating "wise" conventional approaches (that don't work) and 1 chapter of "unwise" advanced approaches (that DO work).

Like I said, depressing.

I have another book which is being indexed at the Library of Congress at the moment, and should be out in August. There are a couple of others in the pipeline, too. I'm looking forward to a break from writing them.

2. I submitted an application for a temp detail. Not the speechwriting gig, but one that would be far more significant, the kind of thing that would represent a stepping stone to a pretty significant career shift. It would also come with a bigger pricetag, personally and professionally, so I'm not sure I'd be able to do it even if they offered it for me. Still, I threw my hat into the ring, if only to see how far my app would go.

3. Two monitors are DEFINITELY the way to go. E.mail typically stays open in one window. When I need all of the real estate for writing, it's a beautiful thing. The only downside is the fact that these are different monitors, so the screen resolution changes when you drag a window from one to the other. If I were doing this from scratch (instead of w/ whatever is on hand), I'd get two identical monitors. Each of them 26". ;-)

for i = HYPE! , print i, while panic = reason

[Shadow Wrought]

1) But don't you know how dangerous X is? I think i know what X is from your previous posts and its all in the marketing. Just call it a Frsh-Ray and you should be good. When people ask what that actually is, tell them you've isolated a specific wavelength of natural sunlight that is inherently anti-bacterial. It's completely natural so it's not some scary chemical!

2) I wish you the best of luck and hope the right thing for you happens. I've been thinking about different careers myself, but they are

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

The title was supposed to be, for i = HYPE! , print i, while panic >= reason

This is what I get for trying to be clever. And not hitting preview. *sigh*

Sancho

[The Fun Guy]

1) In this case, "X" is any kind of advanced decontamination technology, not just the two that are my particular specialties.

The plan for the book was originally presented to me as:
1. Here's the problem in general
2. Here's some specific examples of the problem
3. Here's what you can do about it

That's why I agreed to do it. In the end, my chapter in section 3 is presented as little more than a token nod, framed by dismissive suggestions that any solution of this kind is unworkable and therefore no one should