I’ve just begun reading Ann Lamott Bird By Bird recently. I’ve been reading quite a few books on writing over the last year or so - this isn’t because that I feel like I am going to be the next John Steinbeck or Ernest Hemmingway. It’s more tied into the fact that the act of writing makes me slow down to something I would consider to be a normal pace - so much of my life is spent running at hypespeed as I try and get everything done for work and home that I spend very little time actually enjoying life.

Writing makes me stop and do that.

I have notecards that I write on, Moleskine notebooks that I write in, a Zodiac that I write in, and a half a dozen or more different programs on five different computers that a write on.

But, from everything I’ve read, including Ms. Lamott book, the key is to keep writing no matter where you write. Some of this writing is obviously throw-away - it’s the writing equivalent of playing scales on a guitar or cleaning off your brushes and sketching a quick painting to test your supplies if you are a painter. But from out of these pieces start to emerge themes that you can carry forward in your writing.

The other thing that I have learned (painfully and slowly - probably due to my stubborness) is that you have to just do it (now I’ll probably get sued by Nike for trademark infringement). Mucking about and trying to make everything perfect - the perfect writing setup, the perfect writing program, the perfect thing to write about, etc, etc - is just a neverending list of excuses to not get started writing.

The weblog has been alternatively a great thing and a pain in the ass. I do like being able to post to the internet so that my friends can see what I’m up to - but at the same time I do feel a certain degree of self-consciousness about what I write. It all surrounds the question of “who cares what I have to say”.

The good thing is that for the most part the answer is “nobody”.

Well, I’ve just come back from a few weeks in Dayton, Ohio. Most of you may have realized that something was up when I wasn’t returning your phone calls or emails. Some of you may have wondered why I fell off the planet, hell some of you may have been happy about that!

Anyways, to make a very, very, very long story short - the company has a new client in the greater Dayton metropolitan area. They’re actually one of the more fun groups of people that we have worked with in the past 6 years or so - and they’ve got major problems with their systems.

This all started back a few Thursdays ago (time has ceased to really mean anything to me at this point) when I received a call from Chip, who had just spoken with the IT Director at this client. We were needed down there, more or less right then. (Sounds kind of exciting, eh? Like MIS SWAT team or something?)

Picked Chip up at the airport in Columbus and drove to Dayton. Worked about 30 hours. Slept for 5. Repated. Went home for three days. Back to Dayton and to more of the 30 on 6 off bit (boy does this do wonders for your productivity!). This stretched out until the end of the first week in April. By then we had called in Peter Gale from the UK to spend time at this client as well. HIs extraction should be coming sometime today.

But….I will probably be going down there again next week. Although things have stabilized from where they were initially, they are still having problems. The vendor has had people onsite for the last few weeks, but they have not made much headway.

The rest of my life has been - more or less - on hold during this little episode. Alex has started baseball, so hopefully my next post can be on the troubles and travails of trying to teach 6, 7, and 8 year olds how to play the great american passtime.

Until then…..