RonVitale

Working

It's now 10:30 p.m.  I just finished working on two query letters for two article ideas I have.  I also did a good bit of research tonight. Before going to bed, I'm going to read a bit of "Memoirs of a Geisha."  I'm nearly finished.  I'm trying to finish the book because the movie just came into the mail via Netflix.  Hopefully, my wife and I will have a chance to see it this weekend.

I'm a bit tired right now but I know that I won't have any time to write tomorrow morning so I thought I'd do it now.

I'm happy that I was able to get my queries out (well, one of them is out.  I have an e-mail out to the 2nd magazine to see if I could contact their support staff and obtain correct contact information).  What's so frustrating is how late I started working on all of this.  My son wasn't being very cooperative tonight in going to bed.  Though I do want to tell this funny story.

I took him out of the bath, wrapped some towels around him and I said, "Do you know what time it is?"

"No..." He looked up at me inquisitively.

"It's time to brush your teeth!"

He laughed, which I thought was at my delivery of the brushing your teeth comment, but instead he said, clear as a bell: "Or I can pick my nose!"

He didn't go to pick his nose but just said it so directly and matter of factly that I laughed.  I couldn't help it.  I had no idea where he had come up with that.  That was pure inspiration on his behalf and I have to say that it made my day.  It was a perfectly timed comedic comment to make.

After I struggled with him about going to bed (he's been fighting us putting him down to bed, trying to put it off as long as it can), I sat in the chair for the agreed upon "5 minutes" (in which I sit in his chair and just calm him down as he starts talking about the dark and being afraid.  Well, tonight I had become frustrated with him because he didn't want to go to bed so I got up, while he was still on his book reading seat and shut the light off in his room.  The night light was on, but he started crying because I was pushing him to bed.  I carried him to bed and I sat on the chair and he asked me in his toddler language to not turn the light off before he had left his reading seat.  I thought it was a fair request so I apologize to him and told him that next time I would wait to turn the light off after he had been tucked into his bed.

He started to cry but I managed to calm him down, saying that there were no monsters in his room and that I was only going to be across the hall anyway working on my computer.

At this point it was 8:30 p.m.  I did my research on the two markets that I had wanted to check out.  I wrote the query letters and sent the one out.  I also went to the store to get gas (heck, it's $2.93 a gallon here!) and to the store to get milk and some salad stuff.  While out, I listened to the latest issue of "I Should Be Writing" (Podcast) and was a bit sad.  An author talked about how he's teaching full time and he's had one novel published and another to come out soon (by Del Rey no less).  But he still works several jobs and that he finds that the summer time (when he's off from school) is his favorite time to write.

I don't have the ability to have 3 months off in which I can work on my writing.  I get frustrated with my lack of time, but I still do all of my work.  It's just extremely tiring at times.  Like now.  And with that said, I have a long day at work tomorrow so I need to go get some rest.  I just can't believe how fast today went and when I look back and see how much I accomplished, it just makes me want to scream in frustration. 

The longer I stay up, the more tired I'll be, and the less productive I'll be.  When I was younger, I used to fight my tiredness and keep working.  But then I realized that my writing suffered at times like this and that the best thing to do is to ease up on myself and relax.  Rome wasn't built in a day.  And with that, I'm off.  Nite.

Working

I've been busy with work these days and it's been taking a lot of my time up.  I do have some news concerning some article ideas that I've been working on.  Even in my state of business, I did dig through my brian and came up with three article ideas.  Technically, I have four, but I'm not sure if I can sell 2 of them.  I'm hoping that tonight I can do my research for the magazine that I want to write for and then write up the article and submit the piece.  For the other magazine, I'd like to pitch the idea to the editor and see how that goes.  I've pitched article ideas to that same magazine in the past and never heard anything back.  Because the fantasy article is a targeted piece, I'd not have many places where I could sell it, I don't want to do all the work and then have no place to sell it.  I'd rather just pitch the query and see if I can get a response.  However, for the other article, it's a mainstream piece that I believe I can sell somewhere else.  Again, we'll see.

The goal is to go to work today (it's 6am as I right this and I'm about to jump in the shower and then go to work), come home and eat dinner with my family, give my son a bath and then put him to bed, and then start writing.  It should be about 8:30 pm by the time I can get back to this desk and start working.  I'll probably be exhausted by the time I get to that point.  And today with work being so busy, I won't have a chance to come up for air until I leave work.

In other news: I intend to attend the Magic: The Gathering Dissension pre-release this weekend at the local convention center.  From the new cards that I've seen so far, I believe I can put together an interesting episode of The Magic Sock in the next few weeks.  I've made a decision to not rush the next episode.  I received a lot of flack from the mistakes that I made in my game play and I intend to work on projects that actually pay me something rather than a hobby that I'm just having fun with.  This will give me time to plan the next episode, ask for some help on it, and create a stronger episode.

With that said, duty calls.  Take care.

Spring and Work

I just finished edits on an article that's to be published next month.  The editor had contacted me earlier today asking that I make the edits.  I also had the opportunity to update my bio and send him a newer picture of myself. 

And in other writing news, I also heard back from a magazine that I've been waiting to receive a reply from since last September.  My story is still in the running.  Several more stories have been rejected but mine is still hanging on.  At this point, I think it's just interesting to see how well the story does and how long it takes to receive an answer.  I'm in no rush.  In a few months, it'll be one year.  I wonder if that breaks any sort of record!

In other areas, my son and I played a card memory game this evening and he did fairly well for his first time playing the game.  Since he's not even 3 years old yet, I think he didn't do half bad.  Very interesting to see how his mind works.

And in some other funny son moments.  My wife told me that my son woke up this morning and whispered to her: "Do you think the Easter bunny came last night and brought more eggs?'  You have to laugh at that one.  I guess it couldn't hurt to ask!  On Easter, our son woke up at 6 a.m. because he was so excited and wanted to go downstairs and see if the Easter bunny had left him any eggs.  When we walked downstairs, my son saw that there were plastic eggs hidden all throughout the house.  He loved it.  Very, very cool to see him so excited about everything.

And with that said: I have to hit the road and get moving.  I have some more work to do before bed and it's getting late.  Take it easy.  Peace.

Episode 12: Building an Extended Deck

Background:

You won’t want to hear my sob story so I’ll keep it short. I’ve been away for work for over a week and came back to take care of my wife and son as she recovers from surgery she had the day after I came back from my business trip. Thankfully, she’s doing fine, but free moments to work on The Magic Sock have been few and far between.

With that said, episode 12 is a bit rough. I wanted to explain more of the background behind the episode to help you play along. The premise is straightforward: I have never been one to play Extended. I decided to look only at the Extended banned/restricted list and build a deck off of that. Let me clarify: I didn’t look at any of the Net decks out there. I sifted through the cards and built a deck. In episode 12, I take my Red/Green deck and play it against one of the top decks in the format: Tooth and Nail. What happens? You’ll have to watch the episode to find out.

If you’re not familiar with Extended, I encourage you to build a deck of your own. Do not look at the top decks. Use your creativity and build some decks. Why? Part of enjoying Magic is learning how to create decks of your own. Anyone (well, nearly anyone) can take a Net deck and play it. Sure, you might not have the intricacies of the deck down, but you’ll learn fairly quickly how to successfully win with the deck. But to build your own deck from scratch, that’s a whole other story.

Episode 12 is the end result of my journey. I built a deck and learned a lot about what to do better next time. Sometimes failure (or success) isn’t the main goal. Going on the journey of deck building, well, that’s a whole other story. Challenge yourself and build a deck from scratch. If you fail, build another one. No matter if your deck wins or loses against a top tier deck, give yourself credit for building the deck on your own and be sure to learn what you could do better.

I don’t want to spoil the fun in your watching my deck have it out against the Tooth and Nail deck. I would have liked to play more than one game, but at over 20 minutes this episode is long enough. Enjoy the game but pay attention to the mistakes I make and study my choices in card choice and in the choices of the Tooth and Nail deck.

If you do take up my advice and build your own Extended deck from scratch and play it against the top tier decks, learn from what your deck can and cannot handle. Understand what cards were most effective in the sideboard and what didn’t help you at all. And most of all: Keep at it. Build, build, and build some more decks. What that said, I hope you enjoy this latest episode. Thank you.

Download the Show:

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Decks:

2006 Red & Green Extended

Creatures
2 Basking Rootwalla
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Call of the Herd
2 Flametongue Kavu
4 Giant Solifuge
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Raging Kavu
2 Rathi Dragon

Spells
2 Carbonize
4 Fires of Yavimaya
4 Shock
2 Urza's Rage

Land
10 Forest
10 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard
2 Choke
2 Creeping Mold
2 Flashfires
3 Naturalize
4 Savage Twister
2 Wildfire

Extended Tooth and Nail

Artifacts
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Talisman Of Unity

Artifact Creatures
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion

Creatures
2 Eternal Witness
1 Mephidross Vampire
4 Sakura-tribe Elder

Instants
3 Moment's Peace

Legendary Artifacts
2 Mindslaver

Legendary Creatures
1 Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker

Sorceries
4 Reap And Sow
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Tooth And Nail

Basic Lands
5 Forest

Lands
1 Tranquil Thicket
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
4 Windswept Heath

Legendary Lands
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

Sideboard
1 Duplicant
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
1 Leonin Abunas
1 Moment's Peace
2 Naturalize
3 Orim's Chant
1 Mindslaver
3 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Plains

Total running time: 20 minutes and 49 seconds.

Creative Commons License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

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Closing:

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