Nick Sagan Online

Suddenly Speeding

Does a lead foot count as a bionic implant?  I've run into two speeding tickets this past month, which is atypical for me.  In my entire life, I've only received one other speeding ticket and that was years ago.  I'm not sure why I've recently decided to embody a Sammy Hagar song, but I've got to take it easy, as three speeding tickets in an eighteen month period is a big no-no and can zap your driver's license.

So now I'm driving in a slow, stressed, overly paranoid fashion.  Which is maybe how we're ideally supposed to drive.  In the past, I've just tried to be alert to my surroundings and to stay with the flow of traffic, but now if someone's five or ten miles over the limit I won't keep pace with them.

Star Trek style transporters are sounding pretty good these days.  In the meantime, it looks like traffic school for me.   

Ithaca On A Cold Night

Currently in Ithaca
14F (Feels like -3F)
Partly Cloudy
Wind: WNW20
Barometer: 30.10
Sunrise: 07:21
Sunset: 16:34
Humidity: 67%
Visibility: 10.0 m

You know that feeling where you walk through snow and the chill stays with you even when you're dry? That's where I am right now. Today was the first day that really felt like winter. It's beautiful here but cold, cold, cold. Hope you're warm wherever you are.

Saturday Update

Inspired by Matt Dinniman's decision to impose structure on his blog, I'm going to attempt to follow suit with weekly roundups. Odds and ends, basically, daily life.

Ithaca's been overcast and dreary, not what you'd want for a holiday weekend. The sun's supposed to come out eventually, but so far it's not exactly vacation weather. Not that I'm vacationing--work is slamming me right now, and I'm spending the next few days trying to get out from under it. If you've sent me email and are wondering why I haven't gotten back to you yet, this is why. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish up soon, get back to corresponding, and maybe even enjoy the weekend.

I'm currently missing Wiscon. That's supposed to be one of the best SF conventions around, and I've been meaning to make time for it. Justine Larbalestier calls it "smart camp for grownups," and apparently it's also quite the romantic getaway. Who knew?

And now, a flashback to the '80s...

My track coach: "You're fast, but your form is bad."
14 yr. old me: "What do you mean, bad?"
My track coach: "Bad."
14 yr. old me: "Bad, how?"
My track coach: "You run like a duck."
14 yr. old me: "Whatever. I hate track."

Turns out my coach was right; I've got a mild varus foot deformity that's been causing me to run a little differently from a normal person. I don't get the support I need from a regular stride, so I've been compensating. So says my podiatrist. Four to six weeks and orthotics come, which will hopefully prevent the oh-my-god-what-is-that-twinge-in-my-achilles-heels-yargh!-I-think-they're-about-to-pop sensation I've been having the morning after every long jog or run. Stretching should help, too.

About the jogging ("or yogging, it might be a soft j"), the recent purchase of a heart rate monitor watch has been dynamite for my workouts. Before I used to wonder if I was going too fast or too slow, but now I can just check my pulse and see if I'm in the ideal fat-burning zone. Turns out I'd been going too quick more often than not, burning myself out. Very freeing to take the pace down a peg and go for longer. Even with a messed-up stride, I've been racking up the miles.

Speaking of things that don't run right: the car is leaking coolant and may need a new water pump. Bit of a pain. This is one of those times I look back at my teens and wish I'd put some time into learning how to restore cars, instead of, say, all the time I put into nunchuckery.

Finally, a question for all you good people. I've been noticing certain bells and whistles on the sidebars of other blogs: feeds, stats, search engines, books and albums the blogger's enjoying, random quotes, etc. I can see a reason for all, but before I dust off my HTML book, let's prioritize. Which of these sorts of things do you find the most useful and fun?

Carrot Magic

One of the nice things about living in Ithaca is you see far more wildlife than you do in, say, Los Angeles or Manhattan (where the wildlife are all humans.)  Critterwise in L.A., you're lucky to see a coyote every blue moon, and in Manhattan you're pretty much stuck with rats and pigeons.  But here in my hometown, you've got deer, raccoons, foxes, bluejays, robins, hawks, the occasional wild turkey--and that's just for starters.  Somehow, this connection to nature helps with the writing.

So I'm looking out the window yesterday, and I see a woodchuck waddling through the backyard.  Close by, there's a wild rabbit.  They have something of a staredown, which the rabbit wins, because the woodchuck beats a retreat.  Then I notice another rabbit.  And then another.  There must be a warren nearby, because we're suddenly popular with a vast number of bunnies.  This is new to me--I've seen the occasional rabbit before but this is a virtual long-eared convention.

The adult, rational part of my brain says that spring has sprung and without the snow of course we've got a new batch of rabbits (who, er, breed like rabbits, after all) foraging for food.  But the child part of my brain is convinced that this is "sympathetic magic," because just minutes before the flood of rabbits showed up, I'd devoured a whole pack of baby-cut carrots.  The rabbits sensed this and "answered my call."

Total nonsense, but I like the world where that can happen.  I've got a bunch of bananas on the counter, and if you don't hear from me again, it may be because I've been kidnapped by silverback gorillas.

Post Serling Conference

I couldn't stay for it all, but I had a blast at the Rod Serling conference. Really good insights re: the man and his work, the majority of these provided by my friend Marc Scott Zicree, who (literally) wrote the book on The Twilight Zone. Now I've seen nearly every Zone episode and many Night Gallery episodes, but Marc brought out clips I'd never seen before--some from Serling's early television career, including one starring a young James Dean. Perhaps most interesting to me was a clip of Rod Serling pitching The Twilight Zone to sponsors, laying out what kinds of stories they could expect, whetting their appetites for what the show would become. Lots to learn there. I've pitched my fair share of stories, and I'm not half bad, but man oh man was Serling a master.

Marc makes an interesting case for Rod Serling being the man who best shifted the balance of power in television toward writers. That "showrunner" position--the writer/producer at the top of the writing staff--that's a position that Serling largely carved out. So despite how synonymous he is with genre fiction, even TV writers who don't write science fiction and fantasy may owe the man a great debt.

And I got to meet Carol Serling. We only talked briefly, but she remembered conversations between Rod and my dad. I also met one of Rod and Carol's daughters, who apparently taught my brother back when he went to nursery school. Small world, no?

Rod Serling Conference

Twilight Zone fan? Like conferences? Going to be in Ithaca this weekend?

Friday and Saturday, Ithaca College will be hosting the 2006 Rod Serling Conference, and if you're a fan of Rod Serling's writing, you might have a lot of fun. The keynote speaker is Marc Scott Zicree, whom you may know as the author of The Twilight Zone Companion, or from his dozens of television credits. He's also penned a trilogy of acclaimed fantasy novels about technology stopping and magic returning to the modern day world: Magic Time, Angelfire, Ghostlands.

Also, Carol Serling is going to be there. I'd like to meet her, and I wonder if she remembers any conversations between Rod and my father.