Bryce Moore's Blog, page 310

The Wonders of Tankless Water Heaters

Denisa and I met this morning with a guy from our heating oil company. Why would we do such a thing? Well, for the past three months, we paid about $100 each month for heating oil, despite the fact that we weren't heating our house. Our hot water runs off our oil furnace, and when it was serviced the last time, the man who serviced it mentioned we might want to check into a tankless water heater, because he thought it would save us quite a bit of moolah. (I know--a utilities person making a suggestion that would lose the utilities company money?!? What can I say--Maine is just cool like that.)



Anyway, today was the day when we went over what it would take to make the switch. The answer? Easy schmeasy. They could have it switched over in a day, before the end of the year. What does it look like it will do for us?

Bring our hot water bill down from $100/month to $20. For those of you who are mathematically challenged, that's a savings of $80. Each month. (Of course, I added family dental and vision insurance to my benefits package starting next year, which comes to about . . . $80/month. So I'll break even--still a plus.)
The unit can be put in our bathroom, close to where we actually use hot water, as opposed to where the furnace is, which is as far from our hot water as you could get and still be in our house. This means when we turn on the tap or the shower, it won't take 8 years for the hot water to actually reach the tap. Nice.
They're going to install a device that will make it so our furnace only turns on when we're using it for heat (rarely, due to our spiffy wood stove). This will save additional money.
They're going to install a water filter, which should help with all the little mineral bits we've been getting in our hot water, which should help the water pressure (or lack thereof).
It's way more efficient, so it's better for the environment, too. Always nice.
This installation qualifies for the 30% tax break from good ol' Uncle Sam (which expires at the end of December). So it'll be that much cheaper for us. We'll pay off the investment in under two years.
So it looks like we're going to go ahead and make it so. Of course, before I pull the trigger, I thought I'd give you, my faithful readers, the chance to chime in and tell me if I'm making the right choice or if you've had bad experiences with these things. So . . . anyone got any additional input they'd like me to know?

Where Does Compassion End?

So here's a question for you: when should you stop being compassionate? Maybe I should rephrase the question. I don't mean to say when should you stop being compassionate, but rather, when should you stop acting on that feeling. Maybe a hypothetical situation will help me clarify. (Please note that I'm making this hypothetical up 100%--it's not one of those "hypothetical" situations. It really is just to illustrate the point.)



Say you have a friend, and your friend is a complete bonehead. He does all sorts of stupid things, regularly. He makes poor financial decisions, poor career choices, poor everything. And he constantly comes to you for help bailing himself out. How many times do you bail him out before you tell him you're not going to bail him out anymore? Let's assume that each time he asks for help, he seems to be really sincere about it. He acknowledges he's screwed up in the past, but he swears those days are over, and this is the last time he'll need your help like this. Except that last time happens multiple times. It never seems to end, and there's no sign that your friend is really learning anything except that you'll be there to bail him out, no matter what.



When do you cut him off? What if he has children? What if they'll suffer for his stupid choices? Do you wait longer to cut him off in that case?



I don't really have an answer here--I'm more just writing this to see what some of you think. There are no doubt cases where situations like this go both ways--some where the friend really does turn his life around and improves, and others where he remains a leech on society and you. I personally think there comes a point where  you're no longer helping, you're enabling, and continued bailouts are actually causing problems, not solving them. But where is that line? When do you know you've reached it? And how do you handle the problem of breaking it to your friend that the lifeline is gone? Yes, you can say "this is it," but history has shown he'll still be back asking for help next time, and nothing you've done to that point has given him any reason to doubt he'll be able to weasel the help out of you.



So there you have it. My deep question for you today. Discuss amongst yourselves. Just keep it civil.

Update on Family Life in General

It's been a bit since I just generally blogged about what's going on in my life, so instead of giving you another book or movie review today, I thought I'd do that instead. Here's the (non-exhaustive) family update:



DC--Talking much more than she used to. Now she's a little chatterbox who likes to narrate what she's doing as she walks around the house. Her Slovak is better than her English, but she's usually pretty good switching between the two languages, depending on who she's talking to. She loves playing with dolls, doing whatever TRC is doing, and eating candy.



TRC--School's going really well for him. Did I mention we had a parent teacher conference with his teacher a few weeks ago? Advanced in pretty much everything. The only concern his teacher had was that TRC has a tendency to use a bit of potty humor. (*turn on sarcasm*) I was so surprised that a boy his age would be interested in potty humor. (/sarcasm) We said we'd talk to him about it. Some of being successful in school is knowing how to adapt to your teacher's style, so it's something to learn, if nothing else.



DKC--Baking up a storm. She regularly does about 20-25 loaves a week, plus some rolls. We had no idea it would be going this fast this soon. It was a bit daunting at first, but she's settling into the routine really well now, and she's really enjoying it. It actually earns her more than her TESOL rating job does. Who knew?



Me--Finished up two small writing projects the past bit, both of which are holiday related. One's a top secret for my holiday newsletter, and the other is a top top secret for this year's Groundhog Day. It will be Epic, and I'm really excited for it. Still haven't gotten the edits for Vodnik, so nothing new on that front for now. In a waiting game until they come, but I have other things to keep me busy, so that's okay.



And that winds up the stuff I have time to post about today. If there's anything else any of you are wondering, I'm happy to answer. Just ask me in the comments.

Book Review: Towers of Midnight

I just finished Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan's latest book: Towers of Midnight. I reviewed Brandon's first collaboration with Jordan (on The Gathering Storm) almost a year ago to the day. If you'll recall, I thoroughly enjoyed that one. It was so refreshing to get back to the Wheel of Time series, and very exciting that Sanderson was doing such a good job with it. My main critique was Mat's humor, but other than that, things felt spot on--and that was after I had just finished reading the entire series. Yes, there were differences, but none of them got in the way of the story and the world.



So what did I think about this latest 840 page endeavor?



Well, I read it in two days, if that tells you anything. I this one would be one of the harder ones to write and pull off well, as it's essentially the middle part of a trilogy (that is itself the final part of a huge series). Brandon would have to find a way to make a whole bunch of bridge material feel like it has a good climax. For the first bit in the book, I wondered if it was going to work. The chronology doesn't line up exactly with the Gathering Storm, and that's a tad confusing. Also, it seems to me like a lot of this material was designed to be blended in with the plot lines of Gathering Storm, as well. There are some really nice story lines that would have fit together very nicely with that book, and it's too bad they had to get split up.



Don't get me wrong--they had to get split up. Otherwise the TGS would have been nothing but prep work, with all the pay off in ToM, and that wouldn't work at all. Still, I can see how Jordan had them planned, and it would have been cool. The man just thought too Epic for our time. I wonder if it would be possible to blend TGS and ToM together into a mega e-book at some point in the future? Although even then, it would likely have to be rewritten for it to really work. So . . . it's not to be.



What did I love about the book? I loved the way the plot built and built and built to the beginning of the final book. Once this one's at an end, the pieces are set, the field is ready, and the Last Battle can begin. For all the fans who have been waiting, wondering if the series would ever end, now's the time to dip back in. Read TGS and ToM and get ready for the grand finale in about a year. I don't want to get into spoilers here, because if you've read something like 13,000 pages, it would be a real shame to get spoiled at this point. But for the most part, the characters were great--it was coming home to old friends. Even Mat felt seamless this time around--the differences blended away so they're no longer noticeable.



What didn't I like? Perrin's storyline felt a bit off to me. It took me some time to get back into it, and I felt like he backtracked some as a character for the first third or so. That said, all was forgiven by the end, and that's all I'm going to say about it.



Anyway--no more spoilers, no more discussion. If you liked any part of this series, you really need to come back to it now. If you've never read it and love epic fantasy, you're missing out. If you never liked it, nothing I say will convince you otherwise. :-)



All I can say is that I can't wait for next year.

Buffy Season Seven

Concluding my run of Buffy reviews, it's finally time to get around to season seven. Denisa and I finished this a few weeks ago, actually, but my comments on it had to go on the back burner as I had other things (book deals, agents, etc.) to blog about. We're in a lull in that news right now, so I can return to Ms. Summers and the series finale. What did I think?



Season six was better.



But that's okay. This wasn't a bad season by any means. There were things I liked quite a bit--Spike's character arc, Buffy's progression. It was still fun stuff and interesting to see it all play out, but my biggest complaint is that it got a tad too soap opera-ish for me. (Some spoilers ahead)



There's only so long that a show like this can run before it starts reusing plot lines one time too many. All the Slayers showing up? Got kind of annoying. Mutiny against Buffy? Lameville. There were episodes where it felt like they were spinning their wheels again, drawing out the series to fill their quota of episodes, and that's never a good thing. Even worse, there were times when the characters seemed forced into actions that served the plot first, rather than their character. Xander and Willow turning on Buffy, for example. It makes 0 sense that after all those three have been through, they let the Slayerettes come between them. That was stupid and irritating. It was also irritating to see how arbitrary some of the damage was. Xander getting his eye gouged out? If the Big Bad had time to sit there and gouge out an eyeball at leisure, he had time to kill the kid. Why didn't he? It bugs me when one of the main reasons the bad guys don't kill everyone when they have a chance is that "they're just toying with them," and that was used too often in the Buffyverse. She'd killed how many ginormous evil things, and yet more evil things continued to decide to toy with her?



Talk about stupid evil things.



In any case, we still enjoyed it, and I'm very pleased I finally stuck with the show long enough to get hooked. It turns out that a slew of my friends, tons of fans and scholars were right, after all. Buffy's a good show.



Thanks for the recommendation, all. :-) And a very special thanks to Raisinfish, who gave me the final shove necessary to start watching. It was appreciated.

Book Review: Stephen King's On Writing

Stephen King On Writing by Stephen King



My rating: 5 of 5 stars





There are many books on writing published each year, and every author seems to have something to day about what to do or what not to do when writing, as well as offering what tips they can on how to get published. In the end, most of the books go over the same material, just with different words. How is Stephen King's book any different?



Well for one thing, he's Stephen King.



If Colonel Sanders tells people how to fry chicken, you listen. Love him or hate him, Stephen King has sold a whole heap load of books. He's written bucket loads. Why wouldn't you want to read what he has to say on the matter? I suppose if you're a "serious" author who doesn't care for all that "genre" garbage, then you might look down your nose at this book. However, the fact is that many of the authors we view today as literary greats were genre writers of their time. Dickens? Twain? Come on.



It really helps that in this book, King avoids trying to make ultimatums. There's no one way to writing, and he acknowledges that. But he also says that you can learn from other people's experiences, and that's true, too. So he discusses how he became a writer, and what sort of sacrifices he made for the trade. He talks about style and form, and he does it all in such a readable manner.



One thing leaps off the page: Stephen King is a master storyteller. Toward the beginning of the book, he tells a story of when he was little and suffered a series of ear infections. The details he includes make the story riveting and memorable, and I finished reading it amazed at how well he had pulled it off. I've talked to people who are convinced that nothing interesting ever happens to them. They read stories by others, and they wish they had those sort of stories to tell. I don't believe that for a minute. Everyone has interesting stories that happen to them every day. The trick is how those stories are told. King's childhood is just like anyone else's--he just knows how to present it so it's fascinating.



Don't believe me? Give the book a try, even if you're anti-King. Be aware that the book has its share of four letter words, but other than that, I can't recommend it enough.







View all my reviews

Holiday Gift Guide: Basic Board Games

It's November, folks. Do you realize what that means? It means you really ought to be doing your holiday shopping right now instead of reading my blog. Wait! Don't go just yet. Because as a gift to you, I'm going to let you do your holiday shopping from within my blog. Talk about multitasking! You can be entertained and shop all at the same time. Isn't I nice?



I is.



So here's how these columns will work (yes, I'll be doing more than one in the days leading up to when the fat jolly elf arrives): I'm going to post a mess o' reviews for different items, all of them linked to Amazon. Should you click any of those links and happen to end up purchasing that item, then I get a cut for commission. Not interested in what I'm promoting? Don't forget that the Amazon search bar to the right of my page does the same thing for any Amazon product. If you're going to buy something from Amazon this holiday season, why not stop by my blog to search for it? It goes to a good cause. :-)  



Anyway, on with the guide. I'm starting off simple. Do you have someone you're buying for this year who likes board games, but they're ready for something a bit meatier than Monopoly or Scrabble? Nothing with a rule book heavy enough to break your arm, but something that incorporates more strategy than roll-die-move-token. There are some great games out there these days that are fun to play, and which I heartily endorse for just about any adult. I'll do a post for kids later, as well as one all about more advanced board games, but for now, here are the basics:



Settlers of Catan--3-4 players--This one's actually one of the most complex on the list, and I debated putting it on a different list, but it's also one of the better known "new" games, so I kept it on this one. You and your competitors are all exploring an island, trying to settle it the fastest. Whoever settles the most, wins. It's fantastic for its replay value--the board is a bunch of hexagonal tiles that are put down at random, so it's different each time you play. Can take some learning to get it down, but once you do, it's lots of fun. One game takes about 90 minutes to play.



Ticket to Ride--2-5 players--There are several different flavors of this one (Europe, USA, Switzerland, etc.) I like the European one, just because it happens to be the one I own. Your goal is to build railway lines between major cities, but you compete for the tracks with your opponents. Not as hard to learn as Settlers, and easier to just play it and relax. One game takes about 60 minutes to play.



Blokus--1-4 players--Talk about your easy to learn games. You get a set of tetris-like tiles, and your goal is to put as many of them on the board as you can. The tricks? Only the corners of your tiles can touch, and your opponents are trying to find space for theirs, too. A fun, fast paced game that even little kids can play. One game takes 20 minutes.



  Mr. Jack--2 players--One of you plays as a group of detectives trying to find a killer. The other? You're the killer, and you're disguised as one of the detectives. Not too hard to learn, and fun for two players. Each detective has different abilities for moving and snooping around. One game takes about 30 minutes.



  Sorry Sliders--1-4 players--Take sorry and add shuffle board and a bit of curling, and you've got this one. No smart thinking involved here--just eye-hand coordination. You slide your little rolling Sorry tokens down a path, trying to hit the bullseye and knock other people's tiles off their mark. Even little kids like this one. One game takes less than 30 minutes, depending on how long you want it to go.











Sequence--2-12 players--Connect Four + Playing Cards = Sequence. Your goal is to get five markers in a row, which you place depending on what cards you draw. A good game for groups, open to conversation and not too much thought. One game takes about 10 minutes, but you usually play lots of games in a row.







Lost Cities--2 players--You each are the leader of an archaeological team set on exploring ruins and making wonderful discoveries. The problem is there's only so many sites to go around, so you compete to see who finds what. Really a great game for 2 players. Good strategy, but not hard to master. Denisa likes to come back to this one quite a bit. One game takes about a half hour.







Carcassonne--2-5 players--You take turns flipping tiles and placing them on the board, creating a countryside and cities as you go. At the same time, you place people in those places, trying to control as much of it as you can. Not super complex, but a lot of fun, and there are plenty of expansions to buy to spice things up later, if the basic rules get too straightforward. One game takes about an hour.

Movie Review: I Have Never Forgotten You (and Thoughts on the Holocaust)

Denisa and I watched a really well done documentary last night: I Have Never Forgotten You. It's focuses on the life and efforts of Simon Wiesenthal, well known Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter (which sounds like it would be a really cool profession--sort of like Vampire Hunter--but turns out to be really hard and difficult, and without the cool stakes and holy water). Bottom line is that it was very good viewing, although also filled with a lot of brutal history. (It's the Holocaust--what else do you expect.) I came away from the film with a much better understanding of the efforts that went into punishing WWII war criminals. Three and a half stars.



But it also got me thinking. What is it that makes an entire people feel like it's justifiable to look at another race and view them as animals, not fellow humans? How is it that we can do that? It wasn't as if the Holocaust happened overnight. There were many steps taken that led to those gas chambers--steps that were very apparent. I remember when I lived in Weimar and talked with some of the people there--people who lived just down the hill from Buchenwald. They said that they knew what was going on at the concentration camp. When the wind blew just right, you could smell it in the air. Yes, they tried to pretend it wasn't happening, or justify it, but people were dying by the thousands not a mile from where German citizens lived and played with their children, and no one did anything to stop it.



Wouldn't you like to believe that humans as a whole would rise up and object to behavior like that? But I guess we just don't. It's still happening today in Africa and other countries, but we as a species go about our lives worrying about weight loss and LeBron James and who'll be voted off this week. Because no matter how enlightened we are or like to think we are, when it comes right down to it, other people's suffering isn't our suffering. We might feel guilty other people have it hard, and we might throw a bit of money at them to make ourselves feel better, but until it becomes our suffering, we do nothing.



I don't really have anything else to add to this right now. My brain's still working on it. I'm interested to see if any of you have any insights to offer. Please--the floor is yours.

Why Bryce Moore?

One of the questions that quite a few people have asked since my book deal became public is why I'm going with a pen name. Why not use my real name, and why Bryce Moore?



The answer isn't too terribly complicated. For one thing, Bryce Moore IS my real name--Moore is my middle name. So it's not really much of a pen name.



Here's the second thing: try googling my real name. My phone number at work comes up as the first Google result. The fact is, I do a lot of tech stuff at work, and I'm very actively involved online. In the end, I wanted some sort of barrier between my two "hats." Yes, if people try and find out my real name, they will. That's okay. It's not like it's top secret or anything. My agent argued against using a pen name, and I almost decided not to go with it. Then those Google searches came back, and it stopped really being a question anymore.



So Bryce Moore it is.

How I Got an Agent: The End

Okay, this ongoing saga has gone on long enough. Time to bring it to a stunning conclusion. Or at least an end. In our last episode, I had just revised my whole book in about two weeks, despite a busy September. Stacy had it, and it was out of my hands. The next waiting game wasn't as bad as before. I knew it wouldn't last forever, for one thing, and I hoped that even if it went poorly, I'd be able to revise once again. At the same time, Joshua happened to send me a shipment of German books. (I've been very happy to get one of these a few times a year from him. He gets book deals in German, they send him the books to show it really has been printed, he sends the books to me. It's a wonderfully parasitic relationship, and it keeps me stocked with all the German fantasy I could ever read.)



Anyway, I happened to get a shipment, and since I always would email to thank him, I emailed him and said thanks and "oh by the way" Vodnik was up at an acquisitions meeting and I'd hopefully be looking for representation soon. He emailed right back to ask to see the revision, and I emailed it off.



A few weeks later, I got the email from Stacy: they wanted to make an offer on Vodnik. I called Joshua to tell him, and he asked for an evening to read the revision and make up his mind. Now, some of you are no doubt thinking, "Duh. Of course he'd represent you once you already have a deal set to go through. Free money." But that's not really how it works with good agents. They don't just want to represent anybody--they want to represent people and books they really love. One of my friends was in this exact situation before with Joshua, and Joshua ended up turning him down. (He went on to make a killer deal on his series, so don't feel too bad for him.) So this was by no means a slam dunk yet.



But happily, I talked to Joshua the next day. It was a yes. Actually, Eddie Schneider is the agent in charge of YA at JABberwocky, so he's been handling the negotiations and such, but since Joshua and I have this five years of history at this point, Joshua's still staying in the loop to give me writing and career advice.



Now that it's all done, how does it feel? About like how all my author friends said it would feel. There was about a week or two of intense elation, and then that subsided into a "what do I do now" stage. For so long, I've been focused on writing a new book or sending out queries on existing books, trying to get to where I am now. Now that I'm here, I have a whole different set of things to focus on. Revising Vodnik again, for one thing--I'll start that soon. And after that, writing my next piece: either revising something I've written, or writing something new. We'll see what it is.



Whatever it is, I'm looking forward to the months and years ahead. It's been a long road to get to this point, and then you discover there's just more road in front of you. There's probably something deep to think about there, but it's Monday, and I'm not up for deep. If anyone has any questions, please ask.