So the whole time I was shopping this thing, one of the points I kept pounding was ‘We have to do this if for no other reason that it’s cheap and the companies who come second get no benefit’

Travelocity just did a version of it, and I still haven’t seen an Expedia press release.

Today, many of us recycle and walk, bike, or take public transportation when we can, but there’s still no way to get across the country or ocean in time for that important meeting or family event – or to reach that great vacation spot out of driving distance– unless we get on a plane. And while air travel is considered a contributor to the carbon dioxide emissions that lead to global warming, now there’s something you can do to offset the negative environmental impact of your travel: by contributing to The Conservation Fund’s Go Zero program, you can effectively offset the CO2 emissions of your entire trip.

So first-mover advantage is gone… hopefully they can still salvage some good from this.

I’ll have somthing more substantial to say later, but my first reaction is (as you’d expect) ‘If they’d listened to the good idea immediately and moved on it, they’d have deployed long ahead of the competition.’

It’s another point in favor of working somewhere really small or, barring that, really agile. I guess my former employer wasn’t it. This sucks.

I spent today wandering around the web, loading up a bunch of recommended software, and I’m really digging this thing. It’s fast, it’s elegant, it’s hackable.

My only complaint so far is that it runs way hot, to the point of being difficult to actually use on my lap comfortably.

It’s weird, I spent time using a PowerBook on and off at Expedia, but I never really got the hang of it. With a new one, I’m using some hotkeys, playing around, and it’s far more enjoyable. This thing rocks. I’m going to have a hard time giving it up, if that’s what it comes to.

Many of you are wondering what happens now that I’ve turned in RC1. Except that there aren’t many of you, and you weren’t wondering that.

So I talked to my editor today and here’s what it looks like:
– next couple of days-2 weeks: I get the next batch of edits back, which should, hopefully, be all minor polishes. I will be on vacation, working on my hot, hot, hot new MacBook Pro, which I totally don’t have the money for and am hoping to sell used if it comes to that on my return.
– hopefully this means I’m not in Toledo, sipping on red wine while I fix things. Plus my ability to do research without my books and boxes on boxes of notes and photocopies is going to be pretty limited.

Side note: holy mackeral is this MacBook beautiful. Apple, to make sure the MacBook meets Apple’s exacting standards for items I buy, took special care to make the keys at the top left look a little blistered. $3,000 laptop. One of the things Apple does really well is make opening the computer a pleasure – it’s all so easy and each step is obvious, like unwrapping a candy. Design makes a difference.

– then when we’ve agreed on a version that can go to press, it goes to the manuscript people, who give it a severe series of readings for typos, fragmented sentences, and so on. That should be about 6 weeks from now, which is a good argument for me not to hurry back to work

– I fix everything the manuscript people come up with. I don’t know how long that’ll take, but typos aren’t that tough to do edits on. So let’s say it’s… first week of October.

Then nothing happens for four months while it gets printed, and then bam! It comes out in February.

Now, whether I try and get another book project together or go back into IT is another thing entirely. We’ll see, I guess. If I don’t, it seems likely that I’d have to sell off this sweet-looking laptop with the slightly blistered keys.

This is a box of notes, photocopies, printouts, and revisions.

Yes, it’s *a* box. There’s more. Been a loooong haul.

(Released To Editor)

Version 3’s done and submitted.

I think I may get up and get on the bike tomorrow for the first time in ages. Hot cha cha.

Early days of gambling done. Turned out to be a really easy re-write after I spent some time on the larger issues. I did realize it needs some more Hal Chase, though.

So I’ve got two fairly easy chapters and a lot of tidying (like the Notes chapter, for instance), some additional tweaking, and it’ll be Release Candidate 1. That’ll be pretty sweet.

That dead bastard. ~23 pages. I submitted a draft w/o those touches (and a string of other errata) if my editor wants to look over the completed rewrites. I’d call this another beta version, but a much improved one. If I had those chapters done (maybe tomorrow) I’d call it a Release Candidate.

But they’re not, and I’m tired. What I wouldn’t do for Lexis-Nexis access. I can’t believe how much money they want for that thing. Dammit.

Groundskeeping done, 40 to go. Next up is John McGraw, the horrible, no-good, very bad chapter that needs a lot of work. That scanned page was a McGraw.

Heckling/fan participation/rioting is down. ~60 pages left? Next up, groundskeeping, which I loooove.

Also got a massive list of illustrations/photo requests in Friday.

Then I slept until 3pm today, which kinda messes up my schedule. It’s weird, I’m kind of vaguely aware of how stressed out and tired I am, but it doesn’t really become obvious until I do something like accidentally sleep for 15 hours.

June 4, 1974, was 10-cent beer night, one of the most notorious riots at a ballgame ever (along with Disco night).

Search Proquest Newspapers for any string, even as simple as “indians” between 6/4/197 and 6/6/1974

No documents found.

Search Proquest’s “Historical New York Times” for those specific dates, and you’ll turn up the NYT coverage.

The more I have to use search tools, the more I love Google. Type an operator, shit happens.