Tag: clarion west

How much work could a workshop shop if a workshop could shop work?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been putting this post off and now it’s almost too late.  The deadlines for applying for Clarion and Clarion West are both this coming Tuesday.  If you’re even slightly interested in attending either, go apply.  Yes, they both have application fees, but those are to keep out the riff-raff that aren’t serious.  It’s a lot more expensive to attend.  But it’s Clarion.  Stop dragging your feet and get those applications sent.

For those who don’t know, I was wait-listed for Clarion West two years ago and received a flat rejection last year.  Clarion-Clarion (aka Clarion East or Clarion San Diego…not very east) has done naught but reject me.  Mind you, I’ve only applied twice.  And that number will stay at twice.

That’s right, I’m not applying this year.  I’ve mentioned it around and I may have declared it here before, but it’s no longer economical to consider Clarion.  At least not now.  The price tag is only part of the issue.  It’s the six weeks away from wife and daughter I can’t handle.  I was prepared to sacrifice last year, as I was the year before, but my career is at a different level now.  Not that I’m soaring; I’m not.  I could still get a lot out of Clarion or CW or Odyssey (later deadline, more structure).  It’s just not worth the trade-off anymore.  I’ve placed in the Writers of the Future contest.  I’ve attended the WotF workshop.  I’ve met a gaggle of professional writers and made connections.  I have a network of writers I connect with (two between Codex and the WotF vol. 26 group).  Editors express personalized regret when they (still) reject my stories.  So I’m out.

As for those of you who have applied to Clarion West, I’m happy to see the forum there starting to pick up steam.  (I poke my head in periodically.  I’m nosy like that.)  I’ve made friends through that forum who I still keep in touch with.  Some of them are on my blogroll.  It’s a great place to network (not advance-my-career networking but more part-of-a-writing-community networking) and get intel on the acceptance/rejection process.  Plus it’s not a bad place to acquire blog traffic; I still get people linking-in to my old posts through that forum, mostly my application essays (2009 and 2010).  So go poke your nose in and say hi.

Oh, and check out my workshop page.  It’s a tad outdated, but there’s good stuff.

Good luck to all those applying!

Sleepless somewhere other than Seattle

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 10 Comments

As my long-time blog followers know, I just just barely missed Clarion West last year — I was an alternate but never called to replace anyone.  I followed the progress of the workshop and friends like Jordan Lapp and Rochita Loenen-Ruiz very closely, wishing I was there with them, writing my heart out.  Wishing, but not writing.  I didn’t produce any new writing last summer.  It hurt too much to even think about it, knowing how very close I came to CW and falling short.

This year, again as people know, I fell shorter, not even making the waiting list.  There are a variety of factors that could have led to this (including my inability to count), but I’m home again.  At least I’m writing this time.  While I didn’t get many bankable words typed during my camping trip, I got my novel back on the rails.  Once again I have a chance to finish a draft before school starts.

I am still bummed about not being at CW.  I do suspect I’d be miserable there by the second or third week, missing my daughter.  Six weeks is so long.  So maybe I’m better off here.  That helps.  It also helps knowing that the story that didn’t get me in to CW got me into the WotF workshop (and the anthology).  It helps a little more knowing the story that got me waitlisted last year may have finally found a home (shortlisted for an anthology).  Nothing helps with rejection like success.

I’m happy for Tracie and Sandra and the others at CW.  I hope they learn a ton.  Same goes for the folks at Clarion – San Diego.  I’m still pretty convinced I will not be applying to either workshop next year.  It’s been a real hardship on my family just speculating how we would handle my absence and it would be too much for next summer.  Besides, I hope to get my career on track by this time next year (with an agent for my first novel, a solid draft for my second, three or four more short story sales, stuff like that).  I’m not expecting to be too good for the Clarion workshops, just have enough momentum that I won’t need them as a launching pad.

I’ve said all this before.  This post is probably more for my own catharsis than anything else.  (Hey, I looked it up and used that word right!)  I know there are kindred spirits out there, wishing they were among peers under the tutelage of pros.  I say to those spirits, don’t waste this time.  Write.  Write crap if you have to (we all do sometimes), but write something.  You don’t have to do the Clarion model’s story a week — who has time for that in the real world? — but get words on paper.  It is my biggest regret from last year, that I had nothing to show for that time.

I may not have time to write today (I have a lot of church obligations) but it is on my mind.  It will happen tomorrow and throughout the week.  And the next.  I haven’t updated my novel status bar in a while because I’m in an add-and-subtract place where any count would be false.  I hope to be past that and get it updated in a few days.  I bet the novel surpasses the 50,000 word mark.  That’s not bad as long as I don’t crest 80,000; that would likely be too much for a YA book.  I am excited about writing (not always the case, as you writers know).  It feels good.  The only way to get from those low points (like I was in last year at this time) to these excited points is to write your way there.  So get writing.  After all, that’s what makes you a writer.

It’s Official

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 7 Comments

I got the email today.  The story that placed second in Writers of the Future failed to warrant an invitation to Clarion West.  Or Clarion.  I did better last year with a story that still has not sold.  (I think I just sent the one to CW.)  No workshop for me.

I don’t get it.  I can accept it, but I don’t understand what more I can do (other than learn to count).  Was my story too commercial?  You hear that on America’s Next Top Model.  (I have a wife; don’t judge me!)  Or too safe?  They say that on Idol.  Or maybe my style is too unoriginal.  Or maybe…I could do this all year (and may).  Bottom line, I’m out.  Huge congratulations to those that got in.

It was a nice rejection.  You could tell Neile was aware of my very public obsession and/or my waitlisting last year:

Dear Scott:

Thank you for applying to the Clarion West Writers Workshop for 2010.

I am so sorry to let inform you [sic] that you were not selected for this
year's class. I know this is a disappointment. Your work ranked well
with our readers again, but it just wasn't to be.

Leslie and I both wish you the best with your writing and hope you
have a productive summer, and that you will apply again.

Thank you again for your interest in Clarion West.

With much regret,

Neile

So, will I apply again?  I’m not ruling it out, but I’m leaning toward no.  I’ve mentioned an intention to expand my family.  I wouldn’t want to leave my wife pregnant with a four-year-old.  That’s far from a guaranteed status, so stuff may change.  It would also be nice if, next summer, I was in a place where focusing on novels instead of short stories proved more productive.  So it may not happen.  It may.  Never say never.  It may come down to who’s teaching.

I still have WotF for a week in August.  That will be sweet.  I may target a con or two this summer.  I’ll keep writing, that’s for sure.  And all my fellow rejects should, too.  Or as Howard Waldrop says, if this can make you stop writing, maybe you should.

Wife, daughter, WotF, vacation, novel work.  Yeah, I’ll be okay.  Pissy, but okay.

CW Gossip!

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

Relax, if you’ve been prowling in the same circles I do, there’s nothing new.  The main excitement comes from a C-SD acceptee’s blog, specifically the postscript.  My nosing has proven incomplete as I don’t know whose it is, but congratulations to him (it is a him, isn’t it?).

As I gather it, the phone call in question was made after he (we’ll keep saying he because I think that’s been the consensus) withdrew from CW consideration.  I’d do the same if I was working with CW and someone on the list I’d been working on zipped me a got-a-better-offer email, mostly to make sure they knew what I was offering.  That does not mean the list is complete or that even one call had been previously placed.  It does tell me that the CW list of selectees exists.  It also tells me that ALL the calls had not yet been made.  Maybe none had, maybe seventeen, but not all.

Another CW applicant mentioned a friend (at least blogosphere acquaintance) made a vague comment about news about attending “a certain prestigious writing workshop”.  I was unable to track this comment down and am unsure how significant it is.  If selectees are being asked to keep quiet, that doesn’t seem to fit but clearly doesn’t blare any horns.  (If I suddenly mentioned an acceptance, that might be a different story.  No such mentionings today.)

I feel like the Perez Hilton of the Clarion world.  That is not a good thing.  Maybe I should stop reporting the gossip, otherwise an abrupt silence from this blog might be construed as meaningful.  Hmmm.  Why can’t I build this kind of tension into my stories?

Cutting Wires

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I’ve gotten a lot of email today.  Each time I loaded my hotmail there seemed to be another one.  Each time. that number next to the word Inbox made my heart race.  “This could be the Clarion West rejection email.” Or “Maybe CW is doing acceptances electronically this year.”  Or it could be any other sort of news.  Clicking the link to view the inbox was like clipping wires on a bomb.  Would this one release the tension?  Blow everything to kingdom come?  Do nothing?

They were pretty much all do-nothings.  The euphoria following a no-blow-up is sweet, but not so sweet as the rush I’d like to feel.

Most of those emails were comment announcements from wordpress.  They’ve been keeping me going today, despite the breath holding they inspire.  Thanks to everyone who chimed in.  I tell you now, I will cry if I get rejected.  It will happen.  I didn’t last year, I don’t think, but I’ve put an awful lot of hopes on going.  Don’t worry, I’ll be crying if I get in, too.  I’m just a crier.

The one tiny detonation I had was a (very fast) rejection from Parsec Ink’s Triangulation Anthology: End of the Rainbow.  They liked the story’s opening abd “were with me” through the middle, but my protag went a little too John McClane for their taste.  Seeing that she starts the story as a chick drying her hair in her apartment, I can see their point.

I should have workshopped the story before sending it.  I always workshop my stories before sending them out (a couple flash pieces and YA pieces excluded).  I knew there was something off about the story, something hokey, but I was having trouble putting my finger on it.  They put their finger on it.  Now I’ve tweaked it; she’s still a little yippee-ki-yay at the end, but at least she has a better transition and more help getting there.  The problem is, the story is now a blazing beacon that says “I was rejected by the anthology I was meant for, but my writer sent me to you hoping for a lucky break.”  I tried to make a sci-fi story out of “End of the Rainbow”.  It’s a little obvious.

Oh, I could strip the rainbow references out of it, but it would fall pretty flat.  The whole plot was concocted as a reason to use the word Rainbow.  No pro market is going to touch this one, which is too bad since the characters in the story are quite human.

I have a market or two in mind for it, ones that have helped me get this far and I feel like I owe them a favor or two in return.  The Sam’s Dot Publishing zines have bought half the stories I’ve sold to date.  If I can get them a tiny bit of press off my name with WotF (and hopefully CW), then I’ll be happy.  If you’re just starting to sub stories, keep them in mind.  They are great people to work with.  The pay for stories is token at best, but it’s not always about that.  Even if you don’t sub there, read they’re online stuff — it’s free.  Or buy something from them at a Con or through Genre Mall.  In other words, help keep my pals in business.

Well, another day, another no call.  They made some calls on Sundays last year, so the fretting isn’t over.  You know, if they’d just reject me, my wife and I could go get a new car with the money (as if the money I’ll use to go to CW actually exists somewhere).  Life will move on if I make it or if I don’t.  But until I know, things will keep standing still.

Story by Erosion

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I have been working to clean up my Space Operatic comedy piece for weeks, just barely able to get anything done in any single sitting.  I feel like a sculptor trying to work marble with nothing but a garden hose.  But today I really attacked the piece and have it about where I want it.  It’s a thousand words shorter than it was on OWW.  Shorter is alms always better.  I cut Kira out completely and I shaved the futuristic slang because there just wasn’t enough room to make it work.  Some of these may go back in if I ever build t back up to novel scale.

I’m not sure his is a story I would have been comfortable sending as part of my Clarion application.  It’s too much of a gamble.  But if I can find the right market, this gamble could pay off.  Humor is hard.  Sci-fi humor is really hard.  I see a lot more fantasy humor than sci-fi.  I may be able to carve myself out a niche on the same shelf with Douglas Adams.  The only way to get there is to practice writing humor.  Even if this story fails, I’ll have the experience under my belt for the next funny story.

Speaking of things that move at the speed of erosion, no news yet from any Clarions.  My phone rang today and I had a bit of a breathless moment before my caller ID registered that it was my mom.  (Sorry, Mom.)  No evidence anyone else has been called or emailed or faxed or anything.  I’m still confident I’ll get into at least one, but confidence doesn’t bank well.  I’ll feel a lot better when I get an official invitation.  I will be very bummed if I don’t en up going to a workshop, but that won’t stop me.  I have some good momentum coming off this WotF sale.  I can ride that favorable current a long way, but Clarion wind at my back would combine to make some strong sailing conditions.

It’s still very early in March, too early for my doomsaying.  I think I just feel the need to talk about it because wallowing in silence is too miserable.  There’s too much silence about it online this year.  My urge to bond with other writers is making me feel very alone right now.

ADDED: I just saw that Clarkesworld has rejected the story I sent them.  On to the next market.

Hello, fellow Clarion aspirant

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I seem to be very nostalgic about the chats that went on last year with Jordan, Randy, Jamie and so many others.  Some of those chatters went to the workshop, others did not.  There was a whole thread about sharing the biographical essays we sent to CW.  My essay from last year is here.  My current essay is below.

This was a neat insight into some of last year’s applicants, so I thought maybe we’d do it again.  (See new thread at CW 2010 forum.)  Participation is strictly voluntary, but it helped get to know people and appreciate how different our styles were, just from an essay.  Besides, I can’t post my application story since it’s sold awaiting publication.  Even if it hadn’t sold, I couldn’t share it and still hope to sell it.  But no one’s likely to buy my bio, so here it is.

*******************************************************

Scott W. Baker’s Clarion West Essay

One day I decided to write a novel.  I had just read the first three Harry Potter books (as a grown man) and decided if J.K. Rowling could do it, so could Scott Baker.  (That’s me.)  As it turns out, I was wrong.  While I haven’t totally abandoned that novel project, I’ve learned enough to realize how weak that first attempt really was.

It was eleven years ago that I started that novel.  A third of my life.  Since then, I graduated college, got married, accumulated two cats and two dogs, became a math teacher, and had a daughter (well, my wife did most of the having) that I just watched turn three.  Life is pretty good.

The stories keep coming as I live my good life.  Sometimes they come fast and easy, leaping from fingers to keyboard at the speed of hunt-and-peck.  Other times are slow, painful, empty.  Those times pass and the writing resumes.  I feel incomplete when the words won’t flow.  My life has three big pieces: family, teaching, and writing.  Take away one and I’m incomplete.

That will be the hard part of going to Clarion West, separation from my family.  My daughter is my world, my wife is my stars.  Luckily they love me, too.  Besides, how do I tell little Abigail that she can grow up to be anything she wants to be if I won’t pursue my own dream?  For eleven years I’ve had the same dream and I’ve never been closer to it.  Sure, I’ve been selling stories through those years, mostly to tiny markets for tiny money and the big thrill of seeing my name in print.  But who dreams of tiny?

Last year I was on the Clarion West waiting list.  A short list, to be sure, but no one dropped out and I missed out.  It was still the biggest validation my writing career had received.  A few days ago I received a second big validation when one of my stories became a finalist in L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future contest (incidentally, my application story).  I will send this application before I know whether I place.  Place or not, this suggests I’m capable of writing a story at a professional level.  That’s just one story; I want all my work to be like that.  The time to make that transition has arrived.

I can do it alone, but it will take a long time.  Form rejections aren’t going to cut it.  I need high-value feedback now more than ever.  The more I can get, the more time I can focus on my writing, the faster I’m going to evolve.  I don’t want to wait another eleven years to achieve my dream.

The teacher in me wants to share all I have learned in my decade of writing.  No formal training outside of high school, but I’ve read umpteen writing books, participated in three different online workshops, and earned enough rejections to papier-mâché a large piñata full of chowder.  I want to lend my voice to others’ craft almost as much as I still need their voices to help shape mine.

What I may need most from the workshop is to escape the loneliness of being a writer.  I may well be the only speculative fiction writer for a fifty-mile radius.  I’ve never been to a convention (plans always fall through) and never been to a workshop.  I have writing friends online, but text and images aren’t quite people.  No man is an island; if I keep trying to be, I’ll drown.

I already know how I will celebrate my acceptance, should it happen.  I intend to go to Wal-Mart and purchase several Nerf dart guns.  I envision a dorm-wide dart war with assassinations and full-scale assaults…it will be glorious.  Hey, you can’t write all the time.  Of course I’ll have to buy replacement darts before June because my daughter and I will lose them all before then.  Losing things is one of my specialties.  Even as a child, my mother called me “The Absent Minded Professor”.  I’m still pursuing my personal flubber.

I’m a nice guy (unless I’m assassinating you with a piece of foam capped with a suction cup).  More importantly, I’m fun.  Not life-of-the-party fun, more math-teacher-imitating-an-applauding-tyrannosaurus fun, Hawaiian-shirt-to-work fun, laugh-at-my-own-flaws fun.  I get along with people and they tolerate the heck out of me.  Plus I’m housebroken.  Mostly.

So, howdy.  I’m pleased to make your acquaintance and I hope to see you this summer.  I hope Clarion West can be part of my writing journey.  I hope I can be a part of the legacy that is Clarion West.

Little Things

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

This is still the same blog it was last week.  My dashboard hasn’t changed, the domain name, title, and theme.  Old links still come to this site.  So why did I lose my existing OpenID information?  Grrr.

On the upside, I cleaned up the workshop page and I think it’s a lot cleaner looking than before, thanks in large part to the easy image saving my new PowerPoint provides.  Heck, the old PowerPoint might have done the same without me knowing.  But it made altering images a lot easier than what I was doing.  Of course my wife can do about anything I need done to a picture with all her photography software, but I like to do things myself.  You can see the difference between me doing things and her doing things by checking out her site. She’s so professional.

What else?  My bio is ready to be sent to WotF.  Maybe I’ll do that when I finish this post.  I also cleaned up the links, removing some blogs I no longer frequent from the blogroll and combining some categories.  I’d like to expand some sections, too, particularly Pros and Friends, but I haven’t gotten to it yet.

I regret that I removed the link to Jordan Lapp’s blog because he hasn’t updated it since November.  He still has a great page dedicated to WotF links.  But with the subtractions come additions, one anyway.  Welcome to the blogroll, Clint.  I’d tell everyone about Clint, but you could just read his blog instead.

As I was setting up my new domain, I realized it was last February when I started this blog.  Just a year, twelve and a half months ago I recorded my first blog post.  (Okay, I had done a couple at MySpace, but no one read them.)  It’s interesting to see how little has changed.  The two stories in the post are still making the rounds and I’m still waiting to hear about Clarion.

Soeaking of Clarion, the deadline for both Clarion-SD and Clarion West is tomorrow!  (March 1st, that is.)  Just a friendly heads up.  If you get started applying electronically before say 10PM tomorrow, you’ll probably still get the app in on time.  (Don’t miss the invitation code for Clarion-SD on the screen after you pay the application fee.  I did.)

So the true waiting begins.  You can tell the time is getting close because the CW forum has gotten busy again.  It’s my goal to get all three of my pending stories finished and mailed out before I get my Clarion news.  I won’t be heartbroken if I don’t, but it’s my little goal.  One to Triangulation, two others yet to be determined.  I also need to get my Q1 story mailed out elsewhere…haven’t done that yet.  So lots to do.  I think I’ll get started.

Snow waits for no man

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

Another couple days out of school (the today that is ending and the tomorrow about to begin, it being after 11PM and all).  How much writing have I clocked this week?  100 words?  Maybe 200?  Honestly the count may be negative since I’ve been removing cancerous cliches from my latest endeavor.

But I have some energy now and most of my best work comes in the wee hours (at least I believe that in those wee hours).  When I get done here, I intend to power through to the next good part and build some steam.  My afternoon/evening is still booked with some training tomorrow (free laptop, baby!) but morning and early afternoon are free enough to squeeze out some words whenever my daughter is reasonably distracted (which happened seldom today, so I have that much excuse).

I’ve been trolling Icerocket for other people’s comments on Clarion/Clarion West.  It’s interesting what I find.  Apparently Clarion is a computer language or something and I get mostly drivel about that, but what real hits I get run the gamut from “I’m pretty sure I’ll get in” to “is it even worth my effort”.  I fear I would likely fall on the arrogant side of this, though my close shave with CW last year is at least some sort of pedigree, as is my WotF finalist I used to apply (more on that below).  Still, I don’t feel confident at all.  I screwed up my application length — even the format — for CW.  I had to cut 500 words from my story to submit to Clarion, 500 words that were mostly character-building or fleshed out the milieu (a word I’m trying to use more often), so maybe I stripped the story of some of its strengths and/or charm…and it was still a nibble above the word count.  (As if that story could be called “charming” at all.)  And the second Clarion story was a bit experimental in form, only an HM from WotF, and really represented my abilities from years ago, when I wrote the first draft without the Multiple Sclerosis angle.

So no, I’m not certain I’ll make it.  If people have more reason to expect to make it than I have (they may have pro sales or better semi-pros, for instance), then more power to them and I hope I see you out west.  If they have less reason to think they’ll make it (I have no formal training, no pro sales or even especially braggable semi-pro sales, I type slow and read slower, and I went five pages over for my CW application, for goodness sake!), then there’s still reason to apply.  For instance, I know Clarion (SD) has a tiered rejection system.  (If it says you were close, you were.)  And you might just get in anyway!  It’s not a magazine, it’s a workshop.  They are looking as much at potential as they are skill.  A clever writer with an obvious flaw might be a better candidate than a pretty-good-all-around writer that doesn’t stand out anywhere.  What will that person do, increase his/her mediocrity?

This isn’t to say everyone should apply.  It’s not worth it to every Joe/Jane that wants to write.  Six weeks away from work often means quitting a job.  Six weeks away from a spouse/fiancee/boyfriend/girlfriend may mean coming home single.  Six weeks away from my daughter is going to be devastating.  If it happens, I’ll have at least one major breakdown.  It will happen.  Not to mention I’ll also be away from my wife.  And the financial cost…  How many Clarion writers actually recoup that money with writing sales?

But face it, Clarion is my American Idol.  If I can make it as a writer, this will help (not make, but help) it happen.  It will open doors whose keys I might never reach by other avenues.  So for me, it’s worth it…perhaps for the last time. Let’s just say that after 2010, I intend to have too much to leave behind for six weeks to be reasonable.  So this is my Clarion shot.  The darts are away.  I should find out where they land in the next four to six weeks.  (If anyone thinks six weeks isn’t long, send off the application and wait those six weeks to hear back.  It’s a freaking eternity!)

And I know Clarion is not the only path to Publishing Parnassus.  Writers of the Future seems to be a good train, and more evidence that four to six weeks can be interminible.  (Come on, judges, declare my victory/defeat and get on with it!)  Lots of people just keep submitting until that one sale happens.  Then it’s off to the snail races.  And if it’s not what but who, networking can be done at conventions, via blogs, through mutual friends (found at cons or blogs), or any other number of ways.  Success is out there, waiting for me.  Waiting for you.  Many roads lead ther; they all have their own toll booths.  Get your exact change ready and get driving.

Ouch…the agony of that last cliche metaphor is killing me.  Avenge me!

What The Font?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 5 Comments

I recently posted that changing from Courier New to just plain Courier saved me five pages of manuscript for my CW application.  Apparently I was wrong about that.

I just got my CW confirmation stating I had sent them a 36-page short story (title withheld because it’s still in WotF judging).  That’s right, 36!  According to them, I gained a page.  And it was a PDF so it shouldn’t be a formatting issue.  Was the page counter on my Word having an off night?  Or had the French Onion Dip gotten to my head so I couldn’t tell the difference between a 6 and a 0?

I’m pretty mad about it.  At who?  I don’t know, but I’m mad.  The email says that screeners ill only read through page 30 (like they can stop, right?…yeah baby…er…hmmm).

OH SNAP!  I sent the wrong !@#&**! file!  Shiznit!  I literally JUST figured that out.

Now what?  Well for starters, I finish this blog post in stream-of-consciousness mode.  Do I contact them like the pansy amateur I am and plea to my own ignorance?  Or do I suck it up and bite the bullet?  Aggghh!  Am I sabotaging myself on purpose?  What kind of idiot sends an important file without reading over it to make sure it was the right version?

Oso is a dumbass.

I’m going to see whatthe dumbass can get done.  If nothing, so be it.

************************

UPDATE: I just finished writing my pitiful, beggy email asking that they replace my story with the 30-pager.  Then I started to really reearch why my page count was so different.  The answer: different computers.  I could send the other file and still have it come out 35 or more pages.  Why?  No clue.  Version of Word?  Mac vs. PC?  IIt doesn’t matter that much in the long run, I guess.  I accept my fate.  Hey, if the story has a weak part, it’s the ending.  So maybe this is good.

Or maybe I’ll go crawl into a bottle of rum for the night.

Bottom line, no beggy email is going out…I bet the first page is a stupid coversheet.  Damn, the formatting is wrong.  I am an idiot.  Oh well, there’s always San Diego…