Marathon Training Day 47

Ok...have to admit. Today's training should've been 3 miles. But I skipped it...I also skipped yesterdays training (a 5 miler).

So my total mileage should be 115, but really i'm at 107. I'm making up one of the missed runs later today (a 5 miler). And then hopefully doing a twelve miler either saturday around richmond, or sunday once i get back into town.

Anyways, I'm down in Richmond, Indiana staying with my friends Justine and Nate. I road tripped down here with James to see Dave Matthews for two nights at Verizon Center just north of Indianapolis in a place called Noblesville. It's about an hour and a half from here. Usually James and I see Dave in Wisconsin at the Alpine Valley shows, but that show fell on the same weekend as the wedding of the Wisconsin people we stay with (ironic).

Justine and Nate are great people. She was originally supposed to be flying out to San Francisco tonight, but weather delayed and then cancelled a flight, and Nate ended up having to head back out to pick her up from the airport moments before we arrived at their house. They're pet people, and if my numbers are correct they have 12 pets in the house. 4 dogs, and 8 cats (that seems pretty close, but the litter of kittens with the flu was rather squirmy and hard to headcount). We played Stratego waiting for them to get back, and then went out and grabbed some Steak and Shake (the five miler is definitely important to do now). Now I've climbed into bed, and am having to duke it out with a not declawed cat for bedspace. James is down in their living room sleeping on their couch, not something I envy him of (not so much the couch, but their main floor smells rather of the 12 pets they have in the house.

The upstairs room puts me in the mind of the time when Shadow stayed with Jacquel and Ibis in Cairo. The vintage room. The smell of old house, and the furniture and light fixtures that make it all feel just timeless. It also reminds me that I need to soon continue my run on the American Gods roadtrip entries I've been doing.

Anyways, more tomorrow I'm sure. I've got an idea for a post after reading Gaiman's essay about gender and stories about how I perceive my stories (I see less gender because I have a hard time writing females, and more seasons). Now to fend off the cat with four wheel drive and go to bed.

Marathon Training Day 44

Today's Training: 3 Miles

Total Mileage: 104 Miles (Not counting the 3 tonight)

Pleasant surprise this morning: Got in to work and checked my work email only to discover that we have our first submission for the Teen Literary Magazine. A couple of poems. This is great, but with the deadline looming (Aug 5) only a week away, I'm concerned about having enough stuff to publish. To help fight against it the marketing department has been extremely supportive and giving in their time and energy to help get the word out. From whipping together fliers to getting an article in the Lansing State Journal, as well as on their website, myspace, and twitter, they've done everything in their power to get the word out to area teens, and now it just falls on the very talented youth to show us what they've got.

When I say talented, it's not an exaggeration. So far I've had two of the writers workshops (July 3, and July 22) 6 were at the first, and 4 at the second (3 returners). All of the participants were girls (of the middle school variety) and there was not a single rehashing of the Twilight plot. As far as that goes, I consider it a win. That is to say, I have nothing wrong with Twilight. I think Kevin Smith in his comments at Comic Con this year nailed the sentiment we should be feeling:

It's definitely something that I've found myself doing in the past (back during Harry Potter I was guilty for it until I read it, and loved it). But beyond that, as far as the writers workshop goes, it pleases me to see people being original with their fiction, and I've been finding that the more original the teens are being with their writing, the better it tends to be.

I've not been doing much on the writerly front as I should be lately. A few measely story starts, reading about 200 pages of the Rider (it's around 520 typed pages). I've been talking a lot about it with friends (writing, and the rider), but it's been one of those dead sort of things of late. Last I checked my spreadsheet (the one tracking all of my short story submissions) everything I've sent out has been rejected. There were a couple close calls, and one story is sitting in the hands (or slush pile) of an editor somewhere, but for the most part I'm being lazy with no excuse.

It's this point in the blog where I should be making platitudinal oaths to write a thousand words a day, or edit my novel by some insanely close date, or submit things, but I wont. Suffice it to say those things I should be doing, and if this writing career is something I want to be doing, I'll start thinking seriously about actually doing it. Really what I should do is just try finishing a brand new short story. Maybe I'll hop on that this afternoon after work and a run.

Marathon Training Day 30

Today's Training: 3 Miles

Total Mileage : 62Miles (Not counting the 3 tonight)



This post is actually far less about the marathon training and more about an interesting development happening over at the Library of Michigan just a little west of my internship at the Capital Area District Library. It appears that as of October 1st, 2009 the MHAL (Michigan Department of History Arts and Libraries) will no longer be its own entity.



Yesterday (7/13/09) at 3:42 PM Jennifer Granholm signed Executive Order 2009-36. This abolishes MHAL and disperses the library collection and staff. It appears that the majority of the staff will be put under the Michigan Department of Education. Others will find themselves elsewhere (Dept. of Information Technology, Services for the Blind will go to the the Dept. of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth's Commission for the Blind). More details will become available as the budget for Fiscal Year 2010 gets hammered out. The rumor floating around right now is that much of the collection maintenance will be handled by Michigan State University.



Along with the abolishment of MHAL as a department, EO 2009-36 establishes the Michigan Center for Innovation and Reinvention Board. From the sounds of things they'll be occupying the Library of Michigan building as they figure out what to do with much of the remaining library resources, buildings and personnel.

One thing that remains unaddressed that was raised by one of my coworkers is how this will affect the Michigan Electronic Library (MEL).

And on that note it's back to work. Creating instructional handouts for the Microsoft Access Database I made for the business librarian. Writing post to come soon.