Happy Blogiversary fellow bloggers and blog readers!

I woke up this morning to an NPR story about blogs, which reminded me that it was my day to post. According to a Wall Street Journal article"Happy Blogiversary" that was reported back in July, one of, if not the first blog was Robot Wisdom.

On Dec. 23, 1997, on his site, Robot Wisdom, Mr. Barger wrote: "I decided to start my own webpage logging the best stuff I find as I surf, on a daily basis," and the Oxford English Dictionary regards this as the primordial root of the word "weblog."

Other early blogs were CamWorld and Scripting News. It's incredible that these blogs are celebrating their 10-year anniversaries this year--I wonder who among us will still be blogging 5 or 10 years from now. Will I?

The NPR.com page also has a little chart about who blogs and why people blog. I'd say the reasons why I blog are pretty much in line with the reasons why most people blog.

******

The above is partially re-posted from the Blue Rose Girls blog. I asked over there, and I'll ask here. In the spirit of the long life of blogs, is there anything more/less/different you'd like to see with my blog?

******

A few other Random things for this blog on this Christmas Eve morning. The first is a game my brother Felix introduced us to last night. It seems simple, almost stupid, yet it's oddly mesmerizing and addictive. The game is here. The goal is the trap the kitty, keeping him from escaping off the board.

******

And then two videos. These have been around a while, but I just saw them around Thanksgiving and meant to share them earlier. First, Daft Bodies:




And then Daft Hands (this one came first):




Enjoy!

The Robert's Snow for Cancer's Cure End of Auction Party

December 7, 2007: An animoto video from the end-of-auction party a Grace's condo. Much laughter, food eating, and wii playing was had.

Travel Woes

A few weeks ago I attended the Big Sur Children's Writer's Workshop as faculty (read about my experience over at the Blue Rose Girls). Julie and I were on the faculty, and had reserved the same red eye flight to JFK from San Jose, CA. I had rented a car, and the drive back started out drizzly, resulting in a gorgeous rainbow over Highway One. We had all afternoon to relax before our 10:30 pm flight, and so stopped in Carmel for some shopping. While shopping, I missed a call from an area code I didn't recognize. A half hour later, the same number called: it was Jet Blue, informing me that our flight had been cancelled due to weather. Great. There were no other flights out of San Jose that night. Julie needed to get back to her son, so I asked about San Francisco or Oakland flights. All direct flights were sold out, but there was a flight from SFO to Boston to JFK available, so we booked it. As soon as I hung up I remembered that my rental car needed to be returned to San Jose. No problem, right? I called to change the drop-off location to SFO, but discovered that the change would have added more than $250 to the overall cost, more than twice the original cost, so I declined. I thought about what to do. Take a cab from San Jose to San Francisco?

I had a stroke of genius and called my brother, Felix, who lives in Sunnyvale, about 15-20 minutes from the airport. He came to our rescue and agreed to pick us up at the San Jose airport and drive us to SFO. Hurray! I guess that's what family is for.

The drive up only took a half hour. As we looked for the ticket counter in San Francisco, Julie commented that she felt like we were on Amazing Race. So true, so funny.

We had a two-and-a-half hour layover in Boston in the early morning. We got coffee and breakfast, I nodded off while Julie edited a super-exciting manuscript from a super-famous author. When we finally boarded the plane, Julie said, "I hope 2+ hours was enough time for our luggage to make it on board." I laughed at the time.

We waiting for our luggage in JFK, and Julie's came first. We said goodbye, as her car was waiting, as was her 2-year-old son. I waited for my bag to appear...and waited...and waited. Doom descended.

I finally went into the luggage office and they determined that my bag was still in Boston, but on its way. They gave me a travel voucher for my trouble, and said it would be delivered that afternoon or evening.

I realized that I had stupidly packed my apt keys in my luggage.

I called/texted my roommates, and luckily one of them answered and said I could swing by her office to borrow her keys.

Sitting in traffic on 6th Ave was the worst. So close, but yet so far.

My luggage didn't show up that evening. After calling 4 times, having messages gone unanswered, being told that I would get called back right away, being transferred to countless people, they finally located my bag in Pennsylvania. At 11 pm I got a call that it was finally in the office at JFK, and it's finally delivered the next morning.

****

The weekend after, I was in Boston for the Robert's Snow for Cancer's Cure end-of-auction party, and then drove down to Providence for the RISD Holiday Sale. A bunch of us got dinner together, and we realized we were missing the 7:20 pm train to NY. The next train wasn't till 10:30. After checking out the bus schedule with no luck, we got to the train station around 8:30 and played the waiting game again.

****

My trip home to CA for the Christmas break wasn't quite as exciting as last year. In fact, it was almost the complete opposite. I was prepared. I took a bus from Grand Central. I wasn't checking any luggage. The airport wasn't crowded at all. Took my time, got something to eat, read and napped... and then heard an announcement. Something about a replacement plane...

My 6:45 flight was now an 11:15 pm flight.

Argh.

It could have been worse. It could have been cancelled completely. It could have been worse.

It's funny, because I'm always wishing for more time to read, but when it's forced upon me, I just don't feel like it.

I had two meals while sitting there in the terminal.

There were so many little kids running around, a sight which may have filled many people with dread (kids in terminal=crying kids on plane), but not me. They were adorable.

My poor parents had to pick me up at LAX at 3 in the morning. I went to bed at 4 am, knowing that it was 7 am in NY and most people were waking up and starting their days.

But the good in all of this is hey, I'm on vacation again! Am off till January 2nd. The offices are closed till then, too, so no worries about work and emails piling up. Blissful.

I partially moved into a new office yesterday--I was promoted to Senior Editor (mentioned this at the end of my Monday post on the BRG blog), and with the new title comes a new office. Hurray! Boxes await unpacking when I get back, but it will be nice to start the new year with a new office and more room to organize properly. Pictures to come as soon as I take them.


I'm hoping my travel woes won't continue when I head to Beijing and Shanghai in mid-January. I'm looking forward to that trip, but truthfully, I'm also tired of traveling. But that's nothing that a few weeks of staying home won't cure.

Merry Christmas to those that celebrate it, and Happy New Year!

One day more!

Today is the last day of the Robert's Snow for Cancer's Cure auction! Seriously, there are still some steals. I won a few snowflakes in the first two auctions (at quite a good price, which to be honest is a bit of a disappointment--I wanted the costs to be higher).

So, go bid now--the bids close at 5 pm EST. Don't miss your chance to get a piece of original art from a great children's book author! Plus, your bid is tax deductable.

I'm heading up to Boston this morning to celebrate the end of the auctions with Grace and Co. Have a good weekend, everyone!

I can't see how this is right

Get a Cash Advance

But cool.

Thanks to Fuse #8 and Brooklyn Arden for the link.


I'm on VACATION!!!! Wonderful, delicious, lounging about and reading and watching tv and surfing the internet to my heart's content VACATION.

Will it ever stop? and Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been wanting to try to simplify my life, but I guess it's not in my nature. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed again at work--all of the Fall 08 novels have safely made it into copyediting, more or less on time, but because I put everything else on hold during pretty much the entire month of October, I'm once again playing catchup, missing emails, buried in reading. If you sent me an email in October or late September and never received a response, please email me again, as most likely the email was deleted by the system before I could respond. I tried to catch them before that happened, but no doubt a few fell through the cracks.

I know I've been tired and hectic at work when I'm unable to muster going out on a Friday night. Lately, I'll I've had energy for is to maybe have a few drinks after work, and then I'm home by 9 or earlier, fast asleep by 10 pm.

I have managed to have some fun, though, of course. I went with some girl friends to see the Pan Asian Repertory Theater revival of The Joy Luck Club. Now, the movie adaptation is probably the movie that made me cry the hardest and the most. And so I braced myself during the play for tears, but they never came. There were some poignant moments, but not enough to make me cry. But I still enjoyed it overall. I think it's a tough book to adapt into a play, but they did a good job, and I thought overall it was very well-acted. It was nice to see older Asian actors up there. There was one white male cast member, and after the play we giggled about how he played both one character's father and husband.

Just a week earlier I saw Pygmalian on Broadway. My friend had scored us some free tickets, so I went, not knowing much about the play except that Claire Danes was in it (I love her from My So-Called Life). I skimmed the New York Times review beforehand, but didn't read it in detail because I don't like to be skewed by reviews, but I knew the review overall was mediocre. But personally, I thought the play was lovely. I knew that My Fair Lady had been adapted from it, but didn't realize how closely, down to the names of the characters. I was tempted several times to burst out in song. "I could have danced all night..." and wondered if the cast would have sung along with me. Some of the "speeches" and scenes went on for too long, but overall I found it to be humorous, well-acted, and wonderful to watch. The set was fantastic. I couldn't get over how it actually rained on stage at the beginning. How did they do that?

I also saw the movie Dan in Real Life on Halloween. Not a very Halloweeny thing to do, but fun nonetheless. I enjoyed the movie--I knew almost nothing about it going in, and so therefore had no expectations. It wasn't a true comedy--more of a family drama, similar to The Family Stone. But I found it well-acted and poignant. My friends and I especially liked the last line of the movie: expect to be surprised.


And now it's past Thanksgiving and I'm in CA at my parents' home. I had written most of the above about a month ago, but never posted it. I still hope to write about the NYC marathon, too (I didn't run it this year...well, not officially). I'm still trying to figure out how to simplify my life. I've been enjoying these past few days of vacation, the slow, fairly unplanned days, the time to go for a run, play tennis, play games, watch movies, get a facial, a haircut, visit with friends and family, and read. I'm actually reading an adult book for pleasure (I just realized that with the italics for emphasis, and if you didn't know I worked in children's books and assumed a different meaning for "adult," that sentence may be interpreted the wrong way). And sure, I'm reading a submission as well, but it's on my fancy new Sony Reader which is making it fun (my company is doing a trial for these Readers to see if they can help us save paper and money in the long-term, and I'm loving it so far. So many agents are submitting electronically now--it saves time, for sure, but on our end, we've been printing hard copies of the manuscript out, which is such a huge waste).

At any rate, I'm still on vacation next week and am going to ENJOY IT, dammit. And then on Friday I'm off to the Big Sur Children's Writing Workshop. Even though I've lived in the Bay Area before, I've never actually been to Big Sur, and am excited. Anyone else going?

I hope everyone is having a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday.

Robert's Snow for Cancer's Cure

It's been a while, sorry! So much going on, I hope I'll be able to post more when I'm in CA over Thanksgiving.

But for now, I wanted to make sure everyone was aware that the Robert's Snow for Cancer's Cure fundraiser has officially begun. Auction one of three began this morning, so go and BID! Even if you don't think you'll be able to win, please bid anyway, because of course the goal of all of this is to raise as much money as possible for cancer research.

Please spread the word! And thank you to everyone who helped spread the news about the auction far and wide, especially Eisha and Jules over at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. It has been truly amazing and heartwarming to see the kidlit community come together over this event.

Are you right brain or left brain?

You may have seen this before, but my friend Heather sent this along. Check out this link here and let me know if you see the girl rotating clockwise or counterclockwise.

At first all I could see was her turning clockwise, which I guess means I use more of my right brain. This was interesting for me to know, because I never thought of myself as particularly a right brain thinker. But I guess if some of the qualities of a right-brain thinker include "big picture oriented," "can 'get it' (i.e. meaning)," "presents possibilities," and "risk taking," then it makes sense. (Although of course I associate with many of the left-brain qualities, too! Like "words and language," "acknowledges," "forms strategies," and "practical.")

I wasn't able to get her to switch directions until Heather suggested looking unfocused at her feet, and then she switched. So weird! Some of my friends were convinced that it was some technical trick, but yet when we looked at the same screen at the same time, I would see her turning clockwise, while another person would see her continually switching. I'm baffled as to how it works.

So, which part of your brain do you use the most?

Okay, I just had to post it

The Red Sox are in the World Series!!

For a while, I thought that maybe I had jinxed them (typical sports fan reasoning), because I couldn't find another picture of me in my Red Sox hat. So I cheated--this one was taken yesterday as I walked all around Manhattan in my hat (I walked from the Upper East Side to the East Village--a good three miles--and then from there all the way west--11th Street--in Hell's Kitchen). It was such a gorgeous day.

I promise...I'll have a real post one of these days. In the meantime, check out my post over at the Blue Rose Girls on Peter Brown and his fabulously bouncy, exciting, pretty good week.

What I'm working on now--another sneak peak.

I just posted over at the Blue Rose Girls about what I'm working on now, plus I also highlighted a few of the books I've worked on that are available this fall. Check it out here.