by john | Apr 4, 2010 | Poker, Real Life, Travel, Writing
Not a ton of time before I’m off to Atlanta, but a whirlwind week here at Casa de Falstaff.
Hired a new sales guy at work. We didn’t really have a position open, but when a competitor closed their doors unexpectedly we hired their Sales Manager quick like bunny. He’s a sharp guy and I think he’ll add a lot to our team long-term, but now I have 13 people reporting to me when it was 5 a little more than a year ago. Still trying to strike the right balance between the Sales part of my job and the Manager part, but that’s going to be an eternal struggle I think. Currently leaning more on the manager bits with three new hires in the past few months, so my other salespeople are having to step up to carry the load. Good thing for me I’ve got good people. Still kinda shaking my head at the speed with which we created a position and got this guy hired – our company just doesn’t work that quickly. Ever. We tend to expand very slowly, so getting this deal done in eight days was huge.
Had a book signing at a bookstore in Salisbury yesterday, and sold two books. Pretty good for a glorious Easter weekend sunny day, where no one wanted to be indoors. I had forgotten about the signing until last week, so I didn’t do enough to promote it, but I’m still learning the ropes on this whole thing.
Got my first short story accepted into Connotation Press, which was exciting. It’s a story I wrote on a lark, but I think it’s pretty good. I’ll link it up here when it goes live. I also started another novel, which I mentioned here earlier in the week.
Booked my first winning session at poker of the year, and it only took me into the 2nd quarter to do it. Fortunately for me, it was a nice win and offset most, if not all of my year’s losses so far. And we all seemed to have a good time, too. It’s been nice the last couple of weeks to get the home game going again semi-regularly.
But there won’t be a game at my house this week, because my travel schedule is ridiculous (I know, what else is new?). I leave for Atlanta today, stay there ’til Wednesday. Head home on Wednesday, stopping in G-Vegas to meet with the new guy, who will be working from his home office there. Then Thursday morning I get up and head towards Manteo, in the Outer Banks, for a Friday morning meeting. North Carolina isn’t a very tall state, but going from Charlotte to the far northeastern tip is every bit of a seven-hour drive. Friday I have a meeting in Manteo that will likely take most of the day, so I figure I’ll only make it as far as Raleigh on my way home. Get up Saturday morning and drive home from Raleigh, collect the wife and head down to my parents’ place in SC for a belated Easter cookout in the afternoon. Bail on that around 7 and head back to Charlotte for a birthday party for two of our best friends. Really it’s just one buddy’s 30th, but his girlfriend’s Bday is a couple days before, and she’s a close friend too, so it’s like a twofer.
Then Sunday I’m sleeping for 17 hours.
I’ll try to catch up with y’all some time this week, and I’ll try to keep up with the Poem a Day thing for April. I wrote two yesterday while I was having the less-than-eventful signing, so that gives me a cushion for today, right? No. But it was a nice thought.
Happy Easter to those of you that celebrate such things, and Go Blue Devils!
by john | Mar 20, 2010 | Real Life
So I’ve gotten most of the stuff that was stolen when my car was broken into replaced. For those who missed the Facebook updates and would like the whole story, here it is.
On Tuesday night, March 9th, I had tickets to go see Reckless Kelly and Cross Canadian Ragweed with my friends Rob & Monique. We met for dinner in Little Five Points in Atlanta, because that’s where the concert was. Since that area was between our Atlanta office and my hotel, I didn’t go back to the hotel before the concert to drop off my laptop. This turned out to be a pretty tragic error. It was all in the name of NOT sitting in traffic for almost an hour, but nonetheless I won’t be making that mistake again. So I parked my car in a public lot along with a couple dozen other vehicles, and we went to dinner. After dinner, we all jumped in Rob’s car to go to the concert so as not to fight traffic in two vehicles. Obviously this was another error, because there was security in the lot at the concert and none at the lot where I left my car. When we got back to the lot a little after midnight, my back window was smashed, my rear passenger window was smashed, and a bunch of stuff was gone. According to the cops who were on the scene (since mine was the third of three cars to be broken into in the same lot that evening) the thieves were pros, who smashed and grabbed, and they got lucky enough to hit the motherlode when they grabbed my backpack.
I had just been at a trade show for work, so I had a bunch of demo equipment in the back of my car. The crooks left most of the gear, but took the one light that was still in the box, because they couldn’t see what it was. They would likely have left it alone otherwise, because while an LED cyc light is pricy, it’s also hard to fence. But anyway, they got an LED light that was worth about $2k, my backpack full of tools with a lighting controller, iPod, iPod dock and some cables in it that was probably worth about $1k, and then my backpack. My backpack of course had my new MacBook Pro, my 500GB backup drive, my Time Machine Drive since I was just in the process of transferring files, my Canon Digital SLR camera, my 70-300mm image stabilized lens, and a little bit of other junk. All told, the backpack was worth well over $4k. So I was pretty sick to my stomach that night. Even moreso when I realized the potential for identity theft that now existed. I had a bunch of passwords stored on the computer, and the computer itself was not password protected. I figured security wasn’t very necessary since I hardly ever let the machine out of my sight. Of course I spent half the night in the lobby of my hotel changing passwords to everything I could think of, and as soon as I got the new machine I password-protected the hell out of it.
So I’ve spent the better part of two weeks getting everything back together, and today finally replaced one backpack and the last external drive. I didn’t lose much music, since I’m pretty rabid about backing that stuff up, and I didn’t lose many photos for the same reason. But I did lose about the last 5 albums I bought, and all the photos I took at SETC, the conference I was at just before the robbery. Which is a real shame, because I got some great pics of the highest and mightiest theatre folk in the south dressed up in a Mexican wrestling mask. So looking back on it, there were a few behavioral things I would have done differently, beginning with going back to my hotel and dropping off my laptop bag. That wouldn’t have saved me from the breakin, or the loss of some of my stuff, but it would have saved me from the loss of my best and most valuable stuff. And the sense of my personal world being invaded wouldn’t exist, either. It’s gross to know that someone out there has a ton of my writing on a hard drive, although I’m sure they’ve erased the hard drive and sold the computer for a couple hundred bucks by now.
But I’m pretty close to past it, or at least I will be Monday when I can finally turn in the rental car and be done with everything. Nationwide has been great on the auto side of things, they’ve dealt with the repairs and the rental with no griping, and hopefully they’ll be sending me a big check in the next week or so to cover the replacement cost of the stuff that was stolen. Fortunately I did have the stolen property rider on my homeowner’s insurance, so they will pay for most of the replacement cost. I think I’ll only be out $750 worth of deductibles and whatever the difference is between the cost of my stolen light and what insurance will repay. I think that will only be about another $750, so I should get out of all this for about $1500. Not that I have a spare $1,500 floating around, but I’ll manage. Hopefully with the WSOP coming up someone will need my services for the summer and I can recoup without too much time elapsing. My boss is pretty cool, too, so he hasn’t said anything about me paying for the replacement light, but I will, because it’s just the right thing to do. They take good care of me, so it’s only fair that when a piece of equipment that I lobbied for us to buy gets stolen out of my car, that I pay for the replacement of it. It’s just a shame that they didn’t steal a cheaper light!
So I’ve been sicker than shit this week, I think the travel, and the stress, and the pollen all finally caught up with me and got me all sick and depressed, so I took Thursday and Friday off and didn’t do fuckall. It felt great. And I’m almost healthy, but the crud has lodged in my chest, so I gotta get that finished off before I tape another episode of the Gambling Tales Podcast this week. And there’s another Carolina Writers’ Night coming up next Saturday, so lemme know if you’re in the area and wanna come out. I still need another reader or two, so if anybody wanted to come up from G-Vegas, that would be cool.
Thanks for all the comments and emails off my last post. It means more than I can say. I love you crazy kids.
by john | Mar 18, 2010 | Real Life
Here’s my official warning – this post will be maudlin, boring and contain more information than you have any right to or interest in. If that bugs you, stop reading here and go play Farmville or something.
Still here? Well, you were warned.
Depression is a motherfucker. It’s something I’ve fought on and off ever since I was a teenager with far to much angst-ridden music and sharp implements for my own good. I haven’t cut myself in years, that’s something I put by the wayside in college, and there were never any serious attempts at offing myself, I have always had too much ego to want to deprive the world of my coolness, but it still creeps into my life a couple of times a year and disrupts otherwise pretty good times.
Take this week for example – I got a couple of expense reimbursements at work that I put toward credit card debt, got an unexpected chunk of money that further reduced debt, got good news regarding insurance fights about Suzy’s surgery that even further improved my fiscal outlook, wrote a well-received review for money, and have been doing pretty good at the day job.
But I haven’t written hardly anything all March, I’ve gotten a bitch of a cold/flu/allergy thing, have been exhausted mentally and physically after the rigors of the last couple of weeks, had a minor run-in with a boss that I snowballed into a huge thing in my own head even though he completely let it go after a few minutes, and slept for 11 hours last night after taking a sick day today and still managed to be exhausted four hours after I woke up.
I blame it on Daylight Savings Time. I’m not even kidding – every year about this time I get sick and depressed and it always hits right around the time that my country decides to arbitrarily fuck with the natural rhythms of the world. So I have to burn sick days to get my head straight and then get back to work even more underwater because this time I really AM overwhelmed.
Yes, I know it’s all in my head. I know my life is pretty good, all things considered. And with depression, that doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. Oh yeah, and I’m completely self-diagnosed and unmedicated because I hate going to the doctor and I’m too fucking hardheaded to do anything other than deal with it for a couple weeks every year. I know, healthy, right?
At least I understand a little about what’s going on now and can try to mitigate the pain I inflict on others when I get this way. I try not to be too much of a dick to my wife or my employees, and try not to interact too much with other people until I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I’m self-aware enough to know that there will be light, and it will be soon, unless this becomes like the unfortunate period of Fall 2001/Winter 2002 where I was head-fucked for six months before I even realized it. But I don’t think it will be like that, because I can pretty much pinpoint the moment when the train went careening off the tracks, and I figured out that it was off the tracks a couple days ago, so that usually means I’ll be back to normal in a day or so.
And how’s your life been?
I don’t mean to make light. I know there are millions of people with depression, and most of them have it worse than me. And that it’s a constant struggle for a lot of people, and they can’t EVER get along without drugs, and I know what it’s like to sit in a dark room with REM playing in the background thinking that if everybody hurts, they can’t all hurt like this or they’d be FUCKING DEAD. But it’s not like that for me anymore. But it is still a real thing, so take a second and look a little harder at that guy or girl at work that’s been a little off his/her game this week. Maybe they just need somebody to say “hey! I give a shit.” Because they might not have Statcounter for their constant positive reinforcement, like I do.
Alright, oversharing mode is now set back to “off.” Feel free to return to your regularly scheduled program. I will work on returning to mine. Thanks.
by john | Mar 15, 2010 | Real Life, Travel
So there are a lot of things I did wring with my computer security that led to plenty of anxiety over the last week. I’ll out myself here with all the stupid things I did in hopes that some of you will realize that theft and burglary are real problems in a down economy, and that it can in fact happen to you.
1) I didn’t password-protect my laptop. It’s a simple thing, but I thought it would be too much of a pain in the ass to put a password lock on my machine. That left my computer hugely vulnerable to the folks that stole it. As far as I can tell, they made no effort to access any of my accounts, even though I had a ton of stored passwords on there. So I lucked out in having stupid crooks that didn’t realize the potential goldmine they had found, but it still left me standing in the hotel lobby using their internet terminal until 2:30 AM trying to remember all the places I had online accounts and changing those passwords.
2) I didn’t password-protect my browser. Now I use a master password on my Firefox (that is different from the password to the computer) so that even if someone gets into the machine, they have another roadblock to get into my stored passwords. I know none of this is foolproof, but it’s all about making things inconvenient for thieves. I made it too easy this time, so I’m determined not to make that same mistake again.
3) I carried too much expensive shit in one bag. My backpack was worth nearly $4,500 by the time everything was tallied up, and that’s just nuts. It’s a great idea to carry your digital SLR in a bag with your laptop if you’re a pro photographer, but if you’re Joe Average like me, a separate bag might have saved my camera at least.
4) I was lazy. I sat at the office thinking about driving back to my hotel and dropping off my backpack, but I didn’t want to fight traffic for 30 minutes just to drop off my bag at the hotel and turn right around and go back to Little Five Points. You can bet that my bag won’t be sitting on the passenger seat in plain view ever again, and next time around I’ll certainly take the extra steps to secure my shit in my hotel room.
Through all of this, Nationwide has been great, they’ve responded to all my requests quickly and with no BS. I couldn’t be happier with the customer service I’ve received from them. I doubt I’ll replace my digital camera right away, but when I do it looks like the Nikon D90 is the way to go. It’s a significant jump in price from the Rebel XTi that I had, so I’ll have to save my pennies. But I think I’ll come out of this not hurting too badly. Thanks for all the concern, it was a huge nuisance and a feeling of violation, but now everything is getting back to normal.
by john | Mar 12, 2010 | Real Life
I’m back home, but not yet ready to be back completely online and back to normal. I’m putting my life back together after having my car broken into and computer stolen, losing all my passwords and tons of data in the process. So I think I’ll be able to resume normal life sometime next week. Fortunately I have a rider on my homeowner’s insurance that will cover things stolen from my car, so I’ll only be out a deductible instead of the $7-8K the gear was worth. I’ll tell y’all the whole sordid story later on.
by john | Feb 26, 2010 | Music, Real Life, Travel
Not really, although it kinda feels like I’m back from the dead. I realize that I’ve neglected this little piece of the interwebs for a while, but that’s what happens when real life gets in the way. And speaking of real life getting in the way, that’s what today’s whine is all about. You see, a whole bunch of my friends are getting together next weekend in Greenville to play cards, drink like college kids and generally behave very poorly in a celebration of Neanderthalism known as Mastodon Weekend. I was there for the events last year, and can honestly say that it was one of the best weekends of the year. Note that I said “my friends” will be there next weekend. I, unfortunately, will not.
Every year since 1994, I have been in attendance at the Southeastern Theatre Conference annual convention. Since 1996, this has been part of my job, to go to the show and drum up business. This year I’m teaching three workshops, hosting a reception and will generally behave only moderately badly while on the company’s nickel. Typically this is the trade show I get the most joy out of attending, as it’s more a gathering of several hundred old friends than a work outing. And we get a bunch of business out of the show, which doesn’t hurt my feelings. So this year my love for SETC will be tempered a little by the party I’m missing in Greenville. Both events have some similar appeal – these are groups of disparate individuals brought together by a love of either poker or theatre, and I only get to see the attendees once or twice a year. It just sucks that this year the two events that are the brightest parts of my spring overlap. Oh well, drink one for me in G-Vegas, and I’ll drink one for y’all in Lexington.
Anybody wanna join me & Suzy in New Orleans for Memorial Day Weekend? A friend of hers from high school will be down there at that time, and I’ve got a shitload of Marriott points burning a hole in my account, so I’m gonna eat up about a week of vacation time and travel to NOLA. Lemme know if you will or can be anywhere close and we’ll hang.
And in other upcoming ridiculous news – the week of March 9 may be the sickest concert lineup I’ve ever done that didn’t involve a festival. If you’ve got the chops, you oughta just hitch a ride with me for the week. Tuesday night in Atlanta I’m going to see Reckless Kelly and Cross Canadian Ragweed on a double bill at the Variety Playhouse. Then Wednesday I’m driving back to Charlotte to see They Might Be Giants at the Visulite (it’s the 20th anniversary of Flood). Then Thursday night I’m going to see Robert Earl Keen at the Neighborhood Theatre. I’ll probably take Friday night off, but if I can drag my ass out, Acoustic Syndicate is playing Friday at the Visulite. Then Saturday night is Southern Culture on the Skids.
Then Sunday I try to recover. Merlefest is around the corner, with a killer lineup, so get your ticekts or be a big fat loser!
