My new 28.8 modem works now, so downloads from home might be a bit more painless. I still need to mess with the dialup script a bit, because it isn’t perfect. I also have a 14.4 internal modem in /dev/modem and the 28.8 external in /dev/mouse. If I had two phone lines, I could run with both. I think I’m just going to wait until I get a house, and then I’m going to get a minidish with internet service on it.
Today I started writing a new outline for my first book, Summer Rain. It’s a frequently recurring project, but maybe something with come of it. I’m designing the book to be a series of short stories that are glued together by chapters that wouldn’t make sense out of place. So it will start with writing a short story, then another, then… In a worst case scenario, I will have a handful of bad short stories. Well, in a worst case scenario, I will have nothing done.
That book has been haunting me, and I’m stalled on Rumored to Exist, so I’ll toy with it a while. Some of it was being in Bloomington, and some of it is the need to write a solid novel of that size. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, but I just need to work out a cohesive piece of work that weaves together all of the feelings and surroundings from that part of my life. I don’t think my first pass did justice to that summer, and I need something with more depth to it. We’ll see.
I had lunch with Bill, Marc, Todd, and Chris Wilson – we went to Chang’s and I actually made Mongolian food with almost no meat in it. Todd and I got in a giant discussion about PC upgrades and what I should get for my ailing Linux box. I’ll eventually install a new monitor, video card, sound card, and CD-ROM. I need a power supply in there, too. All of this will be a slow process, though. I can’t afford to dump a grand into this thing just so I can play cool games or whatever.
It’s pitch black outside, which is my clue to leave…