The Things That Creep In

So I had sat down a couple of weeks ago to plot out the long term plan for my new world (tentatively named Zaria) and how I would bring along the first of the two major arcs that I have laid the very basic ground work for.

I had decided to take one of the major arcs and model it after a major historical scenario. The pieces fit in a generic form, and it should be easy enough to follow a generic form while still injecting my own creative twists and turns.

While I was thinking about this, however, I started to think about how I was going to plot out the other major arc. I put all of the peices on teh table and realized that I already had a good historical scenario to which I could mold this 2nd arc.

So it's just interesting to me that despite the fact that I hadn't really thought about it but I had subliminally molded one of my arcs onto a historical scenario.

The Worlds In My Head

So, I don't remember when I started writing, or really why. I think it was a way to kill time when my family moved over an hour away from where we did everything.

I do remember that the first books that I wrote were terrible. The ideas in them were taken from movies, tv shows, books and games and adapted to the worlds that I created almost literally on the fly. No preparation, no thought.

Slowly, my work began to improve.

As I worked and grew, my worlds started to take their own shapes, developing from a small idea here or there. And as I started to grow as an author, I realized that my stories had to have a strong base before they could be really good. So now, my world's may start from a short blurb that floats through my mind (and trust me I have many of them), I have gotten into the habit of taking that small blurb and building a world for it before I start doing most of the work. Not only does a strong base help keep the world on track, it keeps me from

Once in a great while, I'll get a spark from an outside source and try to develop that into a working world. My most recent experience with this was an idea my younger brother had. He gave me a very rough skeleton and a built a working blurb for it. It still needs heavy work, but he was amazed at what I had done with just a little thought. One thing that continues to surprise me, is the way that some world's will take what I give them and run with it. I have a world I'm developing now that started out pretty tame but has morphed into an elf-having, Griffin riding fantasy. On the other hand, some world's will take my skeleton form and build on it exactly as I had intended/expected. Hopefully one day I'll get published and other people will enjoy my worlds. But until then, I'll continue working on them. If only to keep them from crowding my brain...

The Mobile Lifestyle

I made the realization the other day that my age-group and my next younger brother's age-group are the last generation to grow up without mobile technology being a permeating reality of life.

I was 17 when my family picked up our first real mobile phone. We'd had a pre-paid phone about 2 years earlier but we hadn't really used it much. Even that first cell-phone wasn't very useful. We bought it from a kiosk vendor who swore that our area would have service inside of 6months and that we'd be able to use it whenever we wanted (funny enough, over 10 years later and they still don't have service where my parents still live).

We went ahead and got the phone because I was started college shortly and the town that the college was in had enough signal for their company that I could use it about half way through the 30 mile drive.

I didn't really use the phone that much except to ask my parents if they needed anything while I was in town, or let them know when my shift at work got extended.

About 6 months into my first year at the community college, I wanted a phone that actually worked wherever I went, so I picked up a phone from another carrier (one of the 2 that had signal out in our area) and let my parents use the old one whenever they went into town.

I've pretty much had a cell-phone ever since and as the usefulness of them became apparent, all of my family members followed suit in getting their own cellphones.

Now we all have smartphones, even my 12 year old sister. We use them to varying degrees, myself probably the most, my dad definitely the least. But there are functions of them that we all use quite regularly.

I've noticed that I spend a significantly lower amount of time at a real computer than I used to. Before I got a smartphone, all of my computing needs were handled with a desktop or a laptop. Now, there's very little that I can't do on my phone or tablet. Really the only thing that is left to use my desktop for is gaming and writing a lot (I just like the feel of a full sized keyboard when I'm writing a long story or post).

There's a joke around my family that my son's first word is going to be cellphone related. I don't think so, but it does highlight the fact that my son is probably going to have a cellphone at a very early age and is probably going to know how to use it to its fullest extent. How soon, and how smart the phone is, will be a topic of discussion between my wife and I, but I know that by his teenage years, he's going to be just like daddy and want the best.

I wonder sometimes if he'll ever even use a computer outside of school. Or even there, if the tablet scene continues to explode like it seems to be doing.

Another facet of the Mobile Lifestyle is that nearly everyone has a phone and a large, and growing, majority have smartphones. I've turned it into a sort of a game when I'm out and about and see someone on their phone. Which carrier, which manufacturer, which model. Some phones are easier to spot than others. The iPhone is very recognizable and easy to spot. Android phones are a little harder, especially non-Verizon Android phones. I was sitting in the movie theater the other day, getting ready to watch a movie, when someone in the row ahead pulled out a phone and started playing on it. It took me about two glances to pick out what kind of phone it was, only because it was a Droid X and I just got a new phone like 2 months ago switching from the X.

The increasing number of options for people to get into the smartphone market is just going to further the situation.

So what effect has our increasing mobile lifestyle had on you?

We've Moved!

So its been a while since I've posted, I would in fact have to go back and read previous posts to even know where I left off. So, instead, I'll just recap the last couple of months before I continue with my post.

In my new position at work (OneStop), Inventory and Purchasing Manager, I've been busy working with Vendors on getting new accessories into our stores and working with the store managers on getting all of our store inventories fixed.

At UPS, I'm going through the process to get promoted to Full-Time. Right now, I'm waiting for the results of my last test, the Inbox, and then for my panel interview in Chicago.

Personal life stuff, our son Jay is doing well, over ten pounds and growing like a weed.

So now, the point of my post:

Both at home and at work, I've moved.

We looked for a couple of weeks for a house and had a short list of houses that looked acceptable (most of the houses that were in our price range were in terrible shape) and went back through for a second looks.

There ended up being two houses that we were really interested in, but one of them was on the high end of our price range with an unfinished basement. The other was in the right price range and nearly move in ready.

After we were unable to get the first house price lowered down, we put in an offer to the second house.

After some back and forth, we finally got the price we wanted and started on the closing paperwork.

Despite the fact that the closing ended up costing almost $1500 more than we had expected, we closed on the house on Apr 5th. We started moving in immediately, moving our tv and router in on Thursday, the washer, dryer and refridgerator were delivered and Comcast was turned on Friday.
Friday evening, we started moving in boxes using the In-Laws' Jeep. Then we moved in Saturday with the furniture and cleaned up the rest of the boxes.

At work, we moved one of our Rockford locations to a much larger facility, one with more room in the back. So over the course of the last two weeks I've been packing up our inventory and then moving it to the new warehouse.

I had to buy and assemble new shelving units and change the locks on the doors.

So, We've Moved!

Wierd Week

So this week started off simply enough.

I received a promotion to Inventory and Purchasing Manager at the Verizon Wireless Indirect Agent that I work for, including a pay raise, as part of a company-wide restructuring. Basically, I'll be responsible for ordering, receiving and distributing product and office supplies to the stores as well as coaching sales reps on selling accessories.

On Tuesday, we had what everyone is calling Snowmaggedon 2011, or the Snowpocalypse. 14"+ of snow fell on the Northern Illinois area. Our VZW stores closed down at 5, and UPS actually called us and told us to stay home. That's only the second time that has happened.

On Wednesday, almost everything was still buried in snow and most of our stores stayed closed once more. I received another text message from my boss at UPS telling us that the Night Sort had been canceled, the first time I've ever seen it closed back to back days due to weather.

I was just about to go to bed, at around 1030, when I received another text message from my UPS boss: we had to go in at 430 to run a bunch of Illinois volume through the hub. So I went to bed and got up at 3am, went to work and suffered through a terribly unorganized sort.

I went straight to VZW from UPS and got the store opened and started finally working on my new job, getting some product together for one of our busier stores and a new location that they are opening nearby.

In the early afternoon, she called the bank and found out that my credit had finally been dragged up enough that we were preapproved for a home loan. She has had her eye on a house near our apartment that started at over 120K but has slowly been sinking since then. She said that as soon as we got the pre-approval letter from the bank that we could get with our realtor and start looking at houses in our price range.

At around 3pm my phone started ringing as my wife called me. I was with a customer so I ignored it for the time being but she called several times and texted a couple of times as well. When I had the chance I took a look at the text message and saw that she needed me to call her right away because the Doctor's office had called.

I stepped away and called her and she informed me that because of certain high risk factors, the doctor's wanted to induce labor and we needed to be at the hospital by 5pm! I made sure everything was in line and rushed home to help pack a suitcase and get the wife to the hospital.

I sent out a mass text to the whole family to let them know what was going on and of course hit up Facebook.

I called my boss at UPS to tell him that I wasn't going to be at work and he informed me that one of the other supervisors in my area was also having a baby at the same hospital, funny how things work out that way.

We got to the hospital around 5 and found that we weren't the only ones that were going to have a baby. All of the hospital's labor and delivery rooms were occupied with mothers getting ready to have kids so we had to wait in the waiting room for about half an hour before we finally got into a "Stage 1" room, where the early stages of the process would be handled.

We were there for around 3 hours before we were moved to a "Final Stage" room where they would administer the medicine to induce labor and where the baby would be born. At around 1030 they started the medicine and it became a waiting game.

I caught some nap time for the next few hours waiting for the real fun to begin. At around 6am, my wife was finally at around 4cm dialated and her water broke, a sure sign that our son would be around shortly. In less than an hour she dialated another 6 cm to "Full" and was ready to push, all we were waiting on was the doctor.

Once the doctor got to the hospital and got scrubbed in, it only took less than half an hour for Jaydran Alexander to be born at 726am, 6.6 lbs and 19".

The hospital staff got him all cleaned up and let me be the first family member to hold the newest Johnson.

In short order everyone else that was at the hospital was allowed to hold the baby. Both Grandmas, my dad, my sister and my sister-in-law all got their chance to hold Baby Jaydran.