Jon Say's Blog, page 3

Seeing A Best Selling Author Live Is Worth The Effort

Meeting Robert Crais at Mystery One Books in Milwaukee on January 23, 2011.

I've always enjoyed the opportunity to be around people who are among the best in the world at what they do.  Attending sporting events is a good chance to do this; what the athletes on the court/field/course/ice are able to do separates them from the masses and witnessing them perform in person is thrilling.  Another chance to see extremely talented people in person arises when a best-selling author makes an appearance at a book signing.  These events have the added bonus of getting to meet the author one-on-one and having a chance to ask them questions.

That being said, I don't attend very many of these events.  There are a couple of authors who I go out of my way to see, though, because I admire their work greatly.  One of these is Robert Crais, the world-best-selling author of suspense novels featuring Elvis Cole, Joe Pike, and others.  Mr. Crais did a signing at a local independent bookstore here yesterday to promote his newest novel, "The Sentry", and although I had seen him at his stop here last year to promote, "The First Rule", I made the trek out in the winter morning to see him again.

One reason I made the trip was because I had just finished reading "The First Rule", and I was very impressed with his depth of knowledge on the Eastern European gang sets that have set up in L.A.  Whether it's the Armenians, Serbians, or another group, Robert wrote about their structure, function, and code of behavior so convincingly I wanted to ask him how he acquired that knowledge.  A peek into the research secrets of someone who has sold as many books worldwide as Crais has is an opportunity that any not-yet-established author would be foolish to pass up.

Crais always has entertaining signings.  He's great with the crowd, always accommodating and friendly, answers questions candidly, and explains why he has chosen these particular passages to read aloud.  He also brings funny emails/comments that readers have left at his site or Facebook page, which unintentionally confirm the scope of his popularity.

When it was my turn to get my book signed, Crais shook my hand, smiled, and asked how I'd like it inscribed. While he was signing, I asked him about his knowledge of the gangs.  He replied that he talked to someone in LAPD who worked in the gang unit and they gave him everything he needed to write his book.  He said that everything he had written was real, in terms of how the gangs operate and the fact that they exist.  I believed it – they all sounded real when I was reading the book.

The takeaway for me was that if you are writing about something about which you don't have first-hand knowledge, get out of the box a bit on how you acquire the information you need to write a believable, compelling book.  The internet will provide a lot of info on a lot of subjects, but if you have the chance to talk to a live person who has the first-hand knowledge you seek, by all means do it.

I highly recommend Robert Crais' books, and wish him continued abundant success.  He's a great role model for all aspiring writers.

Have a great week!  My schedule is such that I'm not going to have as productive a writing week as the last two, but I should still be able to make progress on "Rubbed Out".  Read something today that inspires you!  Thanks for reading!  -Jon

But I've Never Been In A Massage Parlor…

Despite a morning temperature of -6 and a wind chill factor of -23, my daughter's school stayed open and I wound up not having to cancel a writing day.  We'd have kept her home anyway due to the weather except for the school's policy of not letting the kids have outdoor recess when the wind chill is below zero.  It's the Upper Midwest in January; this is going to happen again.  Might as well learn to cope rather than try to hide from the weather.  At least until we can live in a warm weather climate.

I had my second ultra-productive week in a row.  Five chapters written and 9,000+ words this week.  Manuscript is up to 22,171 and the first fifteen chapters are done.  I really like this story.

Something that inevitably happens when you write fiction is that you have to write about topics about which you do not have first-hand knowledge.  For example, Ae-Cha has crossed the border illegally and has gotten sucked into the world of human sex trafficking and prostitution in Koreatown.  I am 0-for-3 on personal experience with those things, and have never visited a massage parlor, either.  So how do I write about these things convincingly, considering most of my readers will not have experienced these things first hand, either?

The two tools I have at my disposal are imagination and research.  Not necessarily in that order.  The Internet has literally brought into everyone's home virtually anything you might want to learn more about.  It is an utterly indispensable resource.  Another priceless source of information is first-hand accounts from people who have experienced what it is you as a writer are trying to write about.  This is much harder information to come by but definitely worth the effort.  When at all possible, it helps to have actually visited the locations of places you are writing about.  If you can't, though, Google Maps and Google Earth have satellite photos that are the next best thing.  The amount and quality of information out there are utterly remarkable.

Then your imagination and skill as a writer have to mold all of that information into a credible, compelling story.  Which in my opinion is the fun part.

Two writers whose work is rich with information are Michael Crichton and Robert Crais.  Michael Crichton has created a substantial collection of novels and television shows, including ER.  What I notice about him more than anyone else I've read, though, is how much I learn about certain topics while I'm reading his fiction.  Want to know about global warming?  Read "State of Fear".  Want to learn about Japanese culture?  Read "Rising Sun".  Want to learn about dinosaurs and DNA?  Read "Jurassic Park".  Want to learn about how jumbo jets work?  Read "Airframe".  The amount of research he did for his novels must have been staggering, and is matched by his ability to weave the information into compelling stories.

Robert Crais is one of the best selling suspense authors of the current day.  He has amassed so much knowledge of the structure and function of the different ethnic gangs in Los Angeles that one wonders how he learned all of it.  I am going to attend a signing of his on Sunday, and I intend to ask him about that.  It will be the second signing of his I've attended.  He is entertaining at his appearances and I always learn something.  And he was accommodating enough to move the time of his appearance two hours earlier than scheduled so it didn't conflict with the Packers game this Sunday.  Another enormous point in his favor. 

Have a terrific weekend!  Read something that teaches you something about a topic you've always been interested in but have never taken the time to research!  Thanks for reading.   -Jon

What Was The Middle Part Again?

I started Chapter 12 on Tuesday, and ran into a jam.  Some unexpected things came up in real life and my writing day had to be cut short.  No problem, I thought.  I figured I was maybe two-thirds done with the chapter, and I could transcribe into the computer what I'd written thus far, review it as I did so, and then pick it up this morning and finish the chapter.

Well, a funny thing happened after I typed up what I'd written on Tuesday.  The chapter seemed complete, and at a natural ending point, complete with raised stakes and a cliffhanger sort of line, except the main action that I'd intended to happen in that chapter hadn't occurred yet.

Ordinarily, I would just end the chapter, start the next one, and pick up the storyline from where I'd just left off.  I realized that the primary action I'd wanted in the first part of the chapter but hadn't got to yet would provide ample material for the new second part of the chapter, but because I was writing three separate story lines in support of two plots, I'd either have to write back-to-back chapters on the same story line (i.e., have two consecutive chapters in the book devoted to the same plot, which so far hadn't happened previously in the book), or write chapters out of sequence (i.e., write the second part of the chapter, which according to my Book Outline was Chapter 15, then go back and write Chapter 13, which picked up the original story line of Ae-Cha meeting her new boss in Koreatown).

This may not seem like a big deal, but it threw me a little.  If the book altered its structure so two chapters in a row were devoted to the same story line, it could throw the reader off as they were assimilating the plots.  If I wrote chapters out of sequence, it could mean awkward transitions between chapters as I jumped around on the Book Outline, and I'd risk screwing up the continuity of the story.

In the end, I decided to write the chapters out of sequence and leave the Book Outline as originally intended.  So I went from finishing Chapter 12 to writing Chapter 15, which I completed today.  I like how both of them turned out, which is good.  Tomorrow I'll start with Chapter 13 and see how it goes.

This is all part of the fun of writing a book.  It could easily turn out that Chapter 13 will actually need to be split into two chapters just like my original Chapter 12 did, and then I'd have to decide between writing Chapter 16 or setting aside that story line to write Chapter 14.  And Chapter 16 on the Book Outline would become Chapter 17, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (for everyone 50 and older, imagine your best Yul Brenner impression here).

This is why first drafts need to evolve into second drafts, third drafts, and so on until you can read your book start to finish and be happy with the roller coaster ride the multiple story lines provide.

The book is up to 19,107 words and 13 of 39 chapters have been written.  That's Chapters 1-12 and 15, for those of you scoring at home (or even if you're alone – thank you, Keith Olbermann).

The week is half over, can you believe it?  Enjoy your Thursday and read something today that is for nothing but pleasure!  Thanks for reading.  -Jon

Keep This On A Need To Know Basis, Please

Today's forecast in the morning newspaper read:  "Snow.  Several inches by Tuesday."  That was it.  That made me smile and I thought well, how much more information do I need, really?  That about covers it.  Did I need to know if that meant 3 or 6 inches?  If the temperature was going to be 22 or 28?  If the wind was going to be from the South/Southwest or the North/Northeast at 10-20 mph or 20-30 mph?  If there was going to be some emergency situation due to weather, I was trusting the paper would have devoted more than five words to the daily weather report.

After dropping my daughter off at school and continuing on to my favorite coffeehouse to write, I sat looking out the large plate glass window at the snow swirling outside and started wondering about how much information one needed when they were reading a novel.  A lot of the rewriting I do of my first drafts includes cutting out details that I realize aren't relevant to the story.  Things like "Max swung his feet to the floor and shivered as he covered the short distance to the bathroom.  After brushing his teeth he went to the front door and stepped outside to pick up the morning paper, and found out what cold actually was."

Okay – Max woke up, brushed his teeth, hated how cold it was in the house, then got his newspaper in weather that was 60 degrees colder than his bedroom.  Who cares?

The answer is no one unless you're me, or unless that sequence of events is so critical to the story that the plot won't make any sense without it.  Maybe Max sees a dead body outside his door when he gets the paper.  Maybe someone takes a shot at him as a car screeches past while he gets the paper.  If those things don't happen, or something similarly dramatic, that sequence has to go.

I've come to recognize that the reason those things get put into the first draft (I'm oversimplifying a bit – things as obvious as the example above never make it to the page, but when I reread my first drafts, I'm constantly surprised at the mundane unnecessary details that do) is because of my writing process.  When I sit down to write a chapter, I know what action has to happen by the end of it to move the plot forward.  How the chapter unfolds is something I see in my mind as a movie, dialogue and action together as though I were watching something unfold that was already a finished scene.  I just write it down as I see it.

That process, inevitably, leads me to write down more than I need to.  If Max gets out of bed, shivers, brushes his teeth, then gets a blast of icy wind in his face when he goes outside to get his paper, those are all things I see that help set the atmosphere and his mood for what is going to happen next.  And while I am not quite as pessimistic as Ernest Hemingway, I recognize that maybe those details are things that only I need to know, not the reader.

As I get to be a better writer, I'll be able to differentiate the relevant from the irrelevant before writing it down.  Practice, practice, practice.  Until then, I'll have to keep that red editing pencil handy when I read my first drafts.

I finished Chapter 11 today, and now Max is in Los Angeles looking for Ae-Cha.  It feels good to be back there, even if only in my mind's eye.  Word count is up to 14,850.

I hope your Monday was as good as mine!  The newspaper was right, if conservative; it's not even Tuesday yet, and we have several inches of snow.  Read something today that tells you exactly what you need to know, and nothing that you don't!  Thanks for reading.  -Jon

The Pages Flew Past This Week; I've Found The Groove

What a week!  I finished Chapters 5-10 of Rubbed Out, writing around 7,000 words this week.  The manuscript is up to 13,000 words now.  Better yet, I've reached that feeling with this book where I lose myself in the story when I'm writing.  I look up from what I'm doing, and it feels weird to realize where I am – sitting in a coffee shop, at a library, or at home.  It's similar to waking up from an afternoon nap and realizing it is still the middle of the same day you fell asleep and not the next morning.

Another thing that is really working on this book is the parallel plot structure.  I feel I've got three main story lines going.  Ae-Cha, and her ordeal as a sex worker in the massage parlor circuit in LA and San Francisco; Max, who is searching for her; and Faye and her client who is seeking a near-death experience.  The reason I know this structure is working is that after I finish a chapter on one story line and turn to another, I feel the excitement of picking up where it left off.  I get that same feeling when I read books written this way.

The week flew, and I got a lot done!  In the evenings, I'm reading "The First Rule" by Robert Crais, another of my personal favorite authors.  This is a copy he signed for me when I attended a reading he gave shortly after it was published.  He's got his next one out now, "The Sentry", and I'll be checking his website to see if he's stopping by on another tour.  I can't wait to do book tours, I think they'd be an awfully lot of fun.  Hopefully I'll be doing one for "Rubbed Out"!

January is half over, which means that Spring is getting closer each day.  I feel I'm on track to complete "Rubbed Out" by March 31 as planned.  The outline stands at 38 chapters, total, and I'm over 1/4 of the way there.  I can't wait until Monday to pick things back up where I left off today!

Have a terrific weekend!  The blog entries seem to be getting shorter here as the writing develops on Rubbed Out.  That's not a result of writing fatigue, it's more a sign of the single-minded focus that happens when I start really getting into the heart of a story.  It seems there is less to comment on in the rest of my life.  C'est la vie!  Thanks for reading.  -Jon

Three More Chapters of Rubbed Out Complete!

I had one of my best writing days of all time yesterday.  It snowed most of the day here, and in the morning I settled into a table at a favorite coffee shop, watched the snow, and picked up Chapter 5.  The revelation I'd experienced in the shower on Monday pumped new life and suspense into Chapter 5, which I finished quickly.

Then it was on to Chapter 6, which moved the near-death experience plotline begun in Chapter 5 forward.  Before I realized it, that chapter was also complete.

Next up was Chapter 7, which shifted the story back to the plotline of Max beginning his search for Ae-Cha in California.  I stopped and looked at the clock.  It was only 11:00; I'd been writing for a little more than two hours.  Things were just rolling!

I was writing long-hand, as I have yet to spring for a MacBook.  That is a gift I am going to buy myself sooner than later.  I still like to write away from home for now, and that means either going to a computer lab at a local university or library, or writing long-hand in a coffee shop.  Due to the snow yesterday, I chose the coffee shop.

I turned the page and began Chapter 7, and my pen promptly ran out of ink.  Surprising, considering I'd just started using it a few days ago, but I wasn't worried.  I had a spare.  I wrote three words with the spare, and it too ran dry.  So, what to do with this unexpected setback?  Stop for the day and leave?   Not a chance.  I went to the counter and asked the very friendly barista if she had an extra pen, and she said she had plenty of them.  I borrowed one, sat back down, and returned to Chapter 7.

It took about an hour to knock out Chapter 7, and I decided to return home and transcribe what I'd written onto my iMac.  After a hearty lunch I did just that, and it turns out that I'd written around 3,500 words.  The average hardcopy book that you pick up in your favorite bookstore holds between 325 and 350 words per page, so my production equated to 10 finished pages.  Such is my pace.  But I was thrilled with how the story was progressing, as well as its structure.

I gave the pages to my wife, my first and most trusted reader, who read them that night.  She made some great suggestions on chapter sequence, gave great feedback on what worked for her and what should be made more robust, then went to sleep.

This morning, I made those fixes, and in between appointments, wrote half of the next chapter.  Tomorrow and Friday are set aside strictly for writing, and I can't wait to get back at it.  I know what is going to happen in the next several chapters, so getting back into the flow of writing them should be easy.  The manuscript is sitting at around 9,400 words right now, or about 1/7th complete.

I hope your week is as productive as mine!  Enjoy your Wednesday and read something today that helps you escape to somewhere you'd really like to be!  Thanks for reading.  -Jon

Why Do Great Ideas Always Occur in the Shower?

I'm paraphrasing here, but Winston Churchill was once quoted as saying, "The mind is the only part of the body that, when exhausted, can be renewed by application to an alternate task, rather than having to be rested."

You'll recall that last Friday, I ran into problems with Chapter 5 of Rubbed Out.  I wrote half the chapter, and knew it wasn't working.  The scene wasn't going where I wanted, it was boring, and I was frustrated.  Basically, it was time to walk away from the manuscript and do something else, then come back later and pick it up again.

Luckily it was the weekend, and there were plenty of fun, diverting things to do.  Taking down our Christmas tree with the help of our 5 1/2 year old daughter (which makes it almost as much fun as putting it up), checking out the NFL playoffs, visiting the grandparents for dinner, etc.  Sunday evening was here and gone before I knew it, and this morning I sat down with Chapter 5 to assess the damage.

I read through what I'd written, correcting some obvious sentence structure, word selection, and grammar things, and eliminated some dialogue in favor of exposition.  (Not too much, though.)  I felt I was more on the right track, although I still wasn't certain which direction to take one of the characters.  At this point, I laid down my pencil to shower, shave, and make a fresh pot of coffee.

What happened next happens frequently to me, and I'm at a loss to explain it.  I jumped in the shower and was lathering my face to shave (shaving in the shower may use more water but the comfort of it is a fair trade-off for having to shave several times each week, particularly in winter), and from out of nowhere, entirely unbidden, a line of dialogue popped into my head as though my "problem" character were speaking to me.  I didn't hear it with my ears, didn't hear a voice speaking or anything, but inside my head I actually saw and heard him saying the line.  And the words he spoke took the story in a different direction than I had ever imagined it going, and like a missing section of pipe in an elaborate plumbing system, it diverted the flow of the story and connected it to everything else.

I loved the idea.  Chapter 5 is now much better than I had imagined it to be, and this particular plot line is stronger, too.

This is one of the reasons I love writing.  Unexplainable things like this happen, although I suspect Sir Winston may be on to the root cause with his idea.  Regardless, events like this make one want to run up to everyone, tug on their sleeve, and say, "Hey, you have to read this!"

Tomorrow I will finish Chapter 5, and get going on Chapter 6.  Things are rolling.  I'd love to stay up and write all night but I also want to spend some time with my wife and daughter.  And that may be just what my mind needs to renew itself for the next writing session.

Hope your Monday was outstanding!  Read something today that makes you so excited you want to show it to someone else!  Thanks for reading.  -Jon

The First 4 Chapters of Rubbed Out – Done!

Finally, after going through research, plotting, scene sequencing, and the Christmas season, I was able to get started on writing Rubbed Out this week!  The first four chapters are done, and I'm halfway through the fifth.

The first four chapters introduce the primary plotline and the secondary plotline, both of which are related.  Ae-Cha Kam is a South Korean woman of 22, who has agreed to take a job in California in an effort to earn a great deal of money quickly.  She has been assured by her "boss" back in South Korea that the job merely consists of serving drinks in a club in Koreatown.  Having very limited knowledge of anything outside of her home country, Ae-Cha thinks that this is a great opportunity and takes the job.  In Chapter 1, she finds herself being smuggled across the border from Tijuana to the United States, which was not part of the original bargain.

Here is the opening paragraph from "Rubbed Out":

"Ae-Cha was awake before she heard the knock on the motel room door.  Still, when it came her heart jumped.  The bedside clock glowed 12:04 AM.  She rolled over and looked at the twin bed next to hers.  Her roommate was asleep.  She envied her briefly, then remembered this was the third time she'd said she'd done this.  Maybe it got easier.  Ae-Cha didn't think it would ever get easier for her." – Rubbed Out, by Jon Say ©2011

The writing process has gone quickly for the first four chapters.  I know what I want to say and the research is paying off.  Chapter Five is tripping me up a bit right now.  I know what has to happen in terms of action, i.e., what has to get done in the chapter, but I'm not feeling I know one of the characters well enough.  I'm going to spend this weekend thinking about that and making notes, and pick up Chapter Five on Monday and start over.

Next week I want to finish Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8.  If I can figure out the character I'm struggling with in Chapter 5, I'll be able to finish another four chapters.

In the meantime, this weekend will be spent taking down our Christmas decorations and watching the NFL playoffs.  My favorite team, Green Bay, plays on Sunday and that will top off what promises to be an excellent weekend!  Take some time for yourself this winter weekend and do something that renews you, so you can wake up Monday refreshed and ready to go!  Thanks for reading.  -Jon

Strike Out On Your Own or Stay With The Known?

Life is full of big decisions.  What makes them difficult is that when you're making them, you're never sure how they are going to turn out.  This lack of certainty can be daunting to the point where the least risky path is the one chosen, even if it doesn't provide the most fulfillment or reward.

Back when I was working in the banking industry, it was almost universally true that if you asked anyone you worked with, "So if you won the lottery, would you still work here?", the answer would be an emphatic, "No!".  Which suggests, of course, that people had made the decision to stay with a stable paycheck at the cost of pursuing an interest that inspired them.  (Note: The paycheck turned out to be less than stable for me and plenty of other people who became casualties of the economic crisis, but for the majority of employees, it has remained so.  Also, I can think of one notable exception who would have answered, "Yes!" as emphatically as others answered "No!", and he was running the most successful credit union in Southern California.  He is one of the people for whom his inspiration resulted in the stable paycheck, and working for and with him was a daily example of the positive impact one can have on others when they pursue what inspires them.)

So this is a classic Catch-22, right?  Stay with the company and sacrifice your dreams while collecting a paycheck and (hopefully) building your 401(k) to the point where you can pursue your interests in retirement (assuming your health holds up), or risk the stable paycheck to pursue your dreams now and hope you are able to support yourself in the process.  Both paths have benefits; both have costs.

The answer to this dilemma is highly personal, and dependent on your belief system.  While researching near-death experiences for Rubbed Out, I ran across a quote from Aeschylus, the Greek playwright who specialized in tragedies along with Sophocles and Euripides.  This quote provides a lot of comfort to anyone who has struggled with the question posed above.  Here it is:

"…neither does anyone, however many wounds he may have received, die, unless he has run his allotted term of life: nor does any man, though he sits quietly by the fireside under his own roof, escape the more his fated doom."

My interpretation?  Play it as safe or as risky as you'd like.  You will achieve the purpose you came into this world to fulfill regardless of the path you choose.  It is why you are here.  You cannot dodge it, or fail to accomplish it by the choices you make.

Seem like predestination to you?  Seem like you don't have to think about any decisions at all, just do what you want because it doesn't matter?  I disagree.  People make decisions based on what they interpret to be their own best interests.  That is all anyone needs to do.  What you consider to be your best self-interest is based on your beliefs and will guide you to accomplish your purpose.  So choose the option that feels best to you, and then stop worrying about it and do the absolute best you can at whatever task your chosen path has placed in front of you.  Everything else will work out.

Speaking of near-death experiences, the research I am doing for Rubbed Out is sensational.  I've reviewed dozens of first hand accounts of people who have clinically died and returned (heart stopped anywhere from 3 to 57 minutes), and reported on what they experienced while dead.  One quote from a man who had died from the bends after a diving accident resonated so much with the Aeschylus quote that it stopped me in my tracks.  He said, "By the time we got to the hospital I didn't want to fight anymore.  I thought that what is going to happen is going to happen, and I'm not going to be able to change it."  I can't wait to write this book.  The writing starts on Friday.

Have a terrific day!  Read something that makes you question what you believe!  It's the best way to know that you believe in your beliefs!   Thanks for reading.  -Jon

Counting Sheep In Hotel Rooms Doesn't Really Work

I have trouble sleeping in hotel rooms.  Always have.  It's not just that the beds are consistently too short for someone 6'5", or that someone will inevitably stumble past the door at bartime talking to their friend as though they were still in the bar rather than in a dead quiet hotel hallway.  It has to do with the wacky energy that hotels have, the impermanence fostered by the carousel of residents sleeping in one room night after night after night.

My family took an overnight mini-vacation to an indoor waterpark over the weekend, just a one-night stay at the type of resort that flourishes in winter climates.  Being warm enough to wear less than three layers of clothing, much less actually swimming, is enough of a novelty to pack these places to the gills over the five winter months Wisconsinites endure annually.

So I wasn't that surprised when my wife and daughter were sleeping and I was staring at the ceiling at Midnight, after 4 1/2 hours of swimming and water slides.  I had come prepared for this possibility, and got out of bed, found the notebook and pen stashed in my overnight bag, and sat on the floor in a shaft of light thrown by the bathroom light, left on so that our daughter wouldn't be too disoriented should she wake up in the middle of the night.

There is one big upside to being awake when the rest of the world isn't.  There is no disruption, it is essentially quiet, and I have found that ideas flow very easily then.  Okay, make that three upsides.  But I was able to sit there for a few hours and plot out the majority of the backstory and scene sequences for one of the plot lines in Rubbed Out.  I felt great about getting that done!  It was a much better option than laying in bed, trying to fall asleep and getting progressively more irritated at the failure to do so.  When I put the notebook and pen in my bag that morning, I wasn't certain I would use them.  But I was prepared for the possibility.  Always be looking for hidden windows of time to work on the things that inspire you!

I eventually crawled into bed at 5 AM and slept for about three hours, then got up and swam for another 2 1/2 before staying up until Midnight to ring in the New Year.  I believe that the renewal I felt from being able to work on my book gave me some benefit akin to sleep as far as renewing my brain and body for the next day.

I had a great inspiration today regarding handling anxiety about achieving what you set out to do, and I'm going to blog about that on Wednesday.  The rest of today and tomorrow are going to be spent knee deep in research for Rubbed Out.  I'm learning about near-death experiences from first hand accounts, and it is utterly fascinating.

Until then, read something that teaches you something you didn't already know!  Thanks for reading.  -Jon