But for now I have a bit of a motivation problem. It’s starting to feel like one of those big papers I had to write in order to pass a class. I didn’t care about those. This I care about because it’s mine. It’s what I want to write. I have had these ideas ready to ink for ages and now I’ve actually begun.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not behind or anything. I’ve written just over 21,000 words, well over the minimum required for this time (16,000+ for the record). But most of it is what I considered the easy part. My initial idea for the book concerned essentially what I’ve now written. I always had the idea of how to start, but struggled with figuring out where and how to end it. I keep jumping from character to character, writing until I hit a block.

Now I’ve somewhat run out of the fun stuff to write and I’m delaying. I’ve written the bare minimum for the last four days, even though yesterday and today I’ve had plenty of time grind it out. I’ve even tried tricks to get myself going (like the wickedly wonderful Write or Die tool on kamikaze mode), but they’re temporary fixes at best.

So this is blog post is a catharsis of sorts. It’s admitting to myself (and the world) that I need to get going with this, fun or no.

I’m looking forward to the editing process. I’ve always been good at that. It’s this beginning part I suck at. Wish me luck! I mean it.

It’s not the typical “my life blows” rationale either, at least I don’t think I’m rationalizing that. Rather, I saw the list of attendees and there were only a couple people with whom I wished to reminisce. Those few I can do so on an individual basis.

But it has made me think of and encounter those awkward greetings after extended interims apart. You know the ones, those “how have things been since the time I saw you last” exchanges. They never much get any where. Plenty of “things are great”s and “I started a new job”s but never any meaty, meaningful admissions.

Anywho, that led me to a different sort of extended-separation correspondence. Without further ado, here is an Ian update, headline-style:

Kayak industry falters, makers peddle on

New couch decorates den

Girlfriend now wins bread, brings home bacon

Death creeps closer as birthday passes

With truck acquisition white trash ranks swell

Discovery Channel appearance explodes ego

And for those of you who are buy-curious, here is my (our, technically, but this blog is about me) new couch:

Note the awesomeness. Also, the sectional-ness. It looks smaller in the pictures, but it measures roughly eight feet on each side and almost 11 feet across the hypotenuse (suck it, Pythagoras!).

Also, I was able to construct a new wall gallery following the instructions on how to hang a string of pictures on a wall. Here are the results:

Next up, a new mattress. Likely from IKEA.

Nonetheless, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. Actually, November is NaNoWriMo, and this year, I’ve signed up!

That’s write (dur-hur), yours truly is planning to set out on the wonderful expedition of novel writing. Of course, it’s not really wonderful. It’s excrutiatingly tiring and I so dislike writing, but I feel the need to try it this year.

A few years back I was living with my cousin, Cameron, and he participated. He successfully completeted his required 50,000 words and finished with a nice, steaming pile of crap. And that’s what I want to do!

To be fair, I’m aiming for double that amount of words, and, ergo, I suppose, double that amount of crap.

I don’t want to get to heavily into plot ideas now, because I want to have the liberty to change it as I will. Writing the plot down now would leave me with some sense of responsibility of staying with my preconceptions even if I find out they’re not working too well.

But I will say these things: It is to be a fantasy novel set in the fantastical world I created when I was ten. I have six main characters in mind now. I plan on using a format similar to the frame story of Chaucer with the main main character’s story being primarily told through his interactions with the others and interludes.

That’s the plan, at least. I have good beginnings for each character in mind, but I haven’t the foggiest idea how I’ll get them all together and move them toward this vague climaxy thing I have in my head. We’ll see!

When I finish and edit, I plan on posting some of the excerpts here. I’m sure I’ll eventually self-publish it for my own enjoyment, but who knows. Maybe it’ll be good enough to submit to publishers. I’m not holding my breath, but it’s possible.

If you didn’t get a chance to see or hear about it, watch this (some foul language):

That video barely does the explosion justice. I prefer this picture:

I don’t have the credits for that photo, sorry. Also, don’t you think that it looks a bit like Lenin? Communism strikes again, eh?

Anywho, I was both working and outside when the explosions happened. Here’s my recap:

The first explosion was nothing special. I didn’t even think it was an explosion. There are some railroad tracks in the vicinity and when large trucks speed across them it can make an explosion-like sound. But I was outside with some customers helping them load their new kayaks when we noticed the plume of smoke coming over the building across from us.

Now I work about four block from where the propane tanks are — although I didn’t know it was the propane, just knew it was somewhere on the grounds of the huge foundry — which is about a tenth of a mile. That is two blocks closer than the fellers in the video.

We went around the building across the street so we could get a better view at the fire over the foundry. Grabbed the quality-challenged digital camera we keep at work and snapped a couple pictures. All done with that, turned the camera off.

Then, kablooey. The blast was huge. The heat was instantaneous and I could feel it on my face. For a brief moment, I didn’t think the explosion would stop growing and I was scared.

The axle from the propane truck fell on the highway viaduct you can see in the photo. It hit nothing. In fact, besides the truck driver himself, no one was seriously injured. That’s amazing.

So, last week I got a special phone call at work. It was a gal working for a production company in California who was calling businesses in the area looking for witnesses to the explosion. Turns out they’re producing a special for the Discovery Channel on explosions “gone wrong.” She was very excited when I told her I (and my dad) was an eye-witness and would be willing to interview for their program.

After making arrangements to meet this week, I didn’t expect anything more to come of it. Things like this always get you excited, and they rarely materialize. I didn’t want my hopes to spiral out of control only to be squashed on when the production company decides it doesn’t want to include the Tacoma explosion in their special or that they don’t need my interview.

Fortunately, my worries were without basis. Today three nice gentlemen from the production company visited me at work. After a little more than an hour’s work, I had recorded several minutes of an interview with them. It was rather cool!

They decided they wanted to shoot outside near the railroad tracks so that they could catch the foundry as a backdrop. It turned out I was too tall for where they wanted, so we had to bring out a chair and then have me act as if I were standing.

I got miked up with one of those cool, tiny wireless mikes and the director prompted and coached me through the interview. I kept screwing up the few things he told me. I caught myself glancing at the camera every once and again, I didn’t always rephrase his questions (the answer “blue” doesn’t make much sense without “my favorite color is…”), and I had a tendency to say “really” too often which was too conversational.

All in all it was fun. They said I did great and they definitely got what they were looking for. I hope to see myself on TV before long.

But I can say that I’m not happy with this site anymore. It’s not really what represents me anymore. I’ve been feeling a bit inspired of late. I plan on doing grandiose things, and mayhaps this time I’ll follow through.

Check back in the next few weeks, and I bet you might be surprised with what I’ve comprised.

So, since it’s been eons, I’ll post little factoids about what has been happening to me recently, or “latelies” :

• I graduated. Yay!
• For graduation, my father gave me a flat-screen 22″ LCD monitor. It’s a Samsung SyncMaster 226BW. In a apostrophically-abbreviated word, it’s: bitchin’.
• This also means that my Capstone© was finished. I ended up doing it on rituals of power and longevity of the Venetian doge from the 13th to 17th centuries or so. Riveting, I know. I’ll try and post it sometime and let everyone get bored by it.
• I am nearing completion on the new NC Kayaks web page. You can get a preview at http://www.nckayaks.com/new/
• I am currently drinking a margarita. I will presently finish it.
• Roxy and I went to a Mariners game on Wednesday. We groaned when we discovered Jeff Weaver would be the starter. Then he complete game shutout the Pirates. Who’d've thunk?
• My dad’s moving back to Auburn. What a turn of events ladies & gentlemen.
• Roxy left the Nisqually Valley News to work for the Puyallup Herald.
• Her new boss is marrying Mike Mearls of Dungeons and Dragons fame (?). That’s pretty neato.

I suppose that’s it for now. Perhaps another update soon.

Instead, the car decided to clear things up for us. We were about halfway to Seattle on I-5 near the Des Moines exit when the front right tire blew. Fortunately, I was in the HOV lane and there was a large shoulder to pull over in. It turned out to be not a big deal. Put the spare on, take the next exit (through some fortuitous lack of traffic I was able to get over five lanes in the twentieth of a mile to the exit), travel down Highway 99 to the nearest Les Schwab, and presto-chango we was coming back home.

That’s right. We drove up to Des Moines for the right to have the tire explode and then drive back. Fun!

The whole way there my brother, Ethan, and Jessica were joking about this and that, wondering what it would be like if the judge were a clown. Would he look for a pen and begin pulling a stringed handkerchiefs from his pocket? Would he honk his clown nose while they kiss? These and other less savory musings were flitted about the car on the way to the courthouse.

So I was a “witness” along with Jessica’s sister. We went to the Pierce County Courthouse in south Hilltop Tacoma. Lovely area. If you’re local, you know what I mean. We stood out in the literally freezing wind for about five minutes because the building had yet to open. They were scheduled at 7:45am and the building did not officially open until eight. The judge was supposed to let us in, which, to his credit, he did, but not until after we froze.

We went into the courtroom, my first time ever. We sat on the benches while the judge got into the official raiment and handled the paperwork. Then he came out and announced that a critical piece of paperwork was missing from the envelope Ethan had handed him. Then he shuffled some papers and said, “Whoops! There it is.” He truthfully didn’t notice it, but it still seemed like our clown-judge moment.

The ceremony itself was short and sweet. The standard mumbo-jumbo was said, they aped like monkeys, they smooched and voila they were wed. We then exited to the foyer and took some pictures. All the combinations you could really think of with just four people. Meanwhile people are filing in because the courthouse finally opened, and the beautiful populace of Tacoma were out in force (at least the type that’d visit a courthouse at 8am).

We also noticed a judge list and there was one named Kitty-Ann van Doorninck. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s one funky name. I’d have a hard time calling her “Your Honor.”

Anywho, the real reason behind this post was to ruminate on my youngest brother’s marriage. He’s the first of my parent’s brood to get married even though he’s the youngest. Plus, it kind of came out of nowhere. He called me up three days ago asking me to come, and he’s not even told anyone else in the family. I feel honored, yes, and I love my brother so very much. I also feel empathy for my dad, who I think will be kind of hurt that he didn’t get to see his baby’s wedding, even if it was such a simple affair.

Now it’s got me thinking about life stages too. Not only did Ethan get married, but my other brother, Aaron, is having a baby with his girlfriend. She’s nearly in her second trimester and it won’t be long before I not only have a sister-in-law, but also a nephew or niece. It just seems weird. It seems like everyone is growing up, but I don’t necessarily want it to be that way. It’s just got me thinking, that’s all. More on this later, I’m sure.

Going on near a month ago now, my girlfriend took off for Australia. As a part of our shared university, she garnered the opportunity to take a January-Term (JTerm for short) trip and seized it. I, on the other hand, have been wallowing in lonesomeness and misery. I’ve been up to my ears in abject anguish that I’ve been unable to do all the regular household tasks to which I’ve grown accustomed. For example, the dishes have piled up to the point where I’m afraid to remove one of them in the fear that I would remove an essential support for the ceiling. Instead, I’ve been too upset to do anything but sit around and play assorted video games and watch bad commercials and football games on the television. It’s for my own good, really.

It’s not all bad though. I’ve been receiving regular e-lectronic mails from her and she calls me every other day or so. But I have been having strange dreams and I’ve woken up with my pillow in some … ahem, awkward positions, shall we say.

School is going relatively well here. It too is JTerm for me, and I’m taking my first ever anthropology class. It’s on the Aztecs and is either riveting or skull-numbingly dull depending on the day. As a nice point, instead of a final research paper, we’re doing a final research web page. Now I know what you’re all thinking, “Ian, there’s no way you can make a web page, you’re nothing but a computer dolt.” And you’re right. Nonetheless, I’ve scraped something together and have posted the preliminary page up at: www.plu.edu/~swensoin [ed. no longer operational]. Oh, and beware, it only works in Firefox at the moment (I haven’t checked it in Safari or Opera, it might work in those). Feel free to leave a comment here and mock me.

I’m also participating in a racquetball class. Now, I’ve never truly played racquetball before. Yes, I went with my folks to the gym when I was seven or so while they played racquetball. And whenever there was an open court my brothers and I would climb in and listen to our curt echoes saying, “Boogers!” and whatnot. But that doesn’t really count as playing. I’m pleased with my progress in the class all things considering. I’m certainly not the best in the class, but I’d like to think I’m not the worst either. And the people are courteous, fun to play with, and try hard. That’s all I can ask.

I’ll leave this at that now. I have to save up some material for future posts so people don’t start bombarding me again with e-lectronic mails asking me when I shall return. Okay, so I made up the “again” part there, but it’s still a valid concern. I hope.

“Axe Rosky”