Start Now, Avoid the Rush

Word of advice to anyone thinking about going back to college: start immediately and maybe you'll be able to get your degree by 2020.

I swear the higher education system in the State of Washington has done everything they can to slow down the education process and make it impossible to get anything done. I started going through the hoops weeks ago, and only today have I managed to get some answers to questions I've been asking all along. And the answers aren't good.

I was hoping to get enrolled in the nursing program locally - a good one they tell me - but there's one lousy class holding me up. You're required to take BIOL 221 (Anatomy and Physiology 1) before you can enter the nursing program. (Don't even get me started on all the other prereqs; that's a rant unto itself).

Anyway, in order to take BIOL 221, you have to take it's prerequisite, BIOL 120 (Basic Human Biology). Well, BIOL 120 doesn't do squat for you in the nursing program - that is, it's not required by the program, doesn't count toward admission requirements, doesn't count toward the degree, or anything.

But you still have to take it in order to take BIOL 221 - the one you really need.

Unfortunately, BIOL 120 is now full (thanks to all the red tape and hoops I had to go through), and to top it off, BIOL 221 isn't offered in the Spring or Summer. Which means, I can only take BIOL 221 - if I'm lucky - in the Fall of 2004, making me eligible to apply to the nursing program in the Winter of 2005.

All because I don't have BIOL 120.

There are several accredited Anatomy and Physiology classes available online, all of which would fulfill the BIOL 221 requirement, except since they have no labs attached, the local college refuses to accept them as transfer credits.

Bottom line, I'm totally stuck doing just about nothing until I can get through BIOL 120 and eventually BIOL 221 and maybe - if I'm lucky - I'll get admitted to the nursing program in 2005. My solution? I'm applying at two other local colleges at the same time; they're a bit of a drive, but it's better than waiting until I'm old enough to qualify for Medicare.

On a related note, I talked to the local Fire and Rescue folks, and applied as a voluteer firefighter. I'm signed up for EMT training in the meantime, which will either start January or April, depending on if I can get in. That gives me something to keep busy at while I'm biding my time waiting for BIOL 221 to roll around. Oh sure, I'll pick up Psych and Microbiology and other bits to help graduate from the nursing program - if I ever get in - but otherwise, I suspect I'm going to be doing a lot of working out at the gym so I can pass the FD physical and academy tests.

So like I said, if you're wanting to go back to school, better get started now. It's apparently going to take about 4 years to get a 1-year nursing degree. I can't imagine how long a Bachelors would take...

Are They Gilded with Gold?

Looking at the online bookstore for upcoming college classes, and discovered something horrifying. I haven't bought college textbooks in 20 years, and apparently they're now made of vellum and inlaid with gold and precious stones. The books for NURS 101 alone add up to over $550. Of that, about $390 are required, and $160 are optional. Other book prices:

BIOL 221 (Anatomy and Physiology): $225.00
CHEM 111 (Intro to Chem): $155.00
PSYC 111 (Intro to Psychology): One book, $70.00

That's about $1,000.00 in textbooks, just for four classes. I'm gonna go broke just buying textbooks, never mind the tuition and lab fees. Time to hit the online college textbook sites and see if I can save about $500...

Coming Next Summer

Go look. Be happy. http://www.skycaptain.com/

GURPS SWAT Released

Got my comps and spare covers for GURPS SWAT today. Nice surprise from UPS.

I love the cover, and it'll make a nice giveaway at cons and the like. I'll need to get a light Sharpie to sign 'em (do they make white ones? silver? I have red and black only at the moment), but they look pretty cool. I'm not completely happy with some of the interior of the book, but this probably isn't the place to launch into a tirade. Suffice to say I have nothing to do with the choices of interior art.

That said, it's nice to see the book on the shelves. All the King's Men will be out next month; All Star Jam the month after that. What Went Down should be released sometime in the next couple months as well. Look for them at your Friendly Local Gaming Store.

Recovery

Well, the fever's gone at last. Now all I have to deal with is this nagging, wracking cough. I end up with bronchitis every winter since I moved back to this part of the country - allergies to molds, I'd guess - but this time around it's even worse. Been out of the house twice in the last week; need to get moving a little when I can and get my strength back. Man, I hate being sick.

I've got about 10 days to wrap up Ghost Ship, and I'm negotiating my portion of GURPS WWII: Banzai! this week. It'll be due Feb 1, looks like.

On the "going back to school" front, I went to the local college and took their lame placement tests and aced 'em. Also found out my old college credits still apply, except for hard science. That's too bad, since I took an awful lot of science back years ago. Still, at least they're not going to make me take English 101 again.

Sadly, it looks like the local nursing program is quite full and tough to get into. Over 100 applicants each term, and they only take 30 new students. We'll see if I can get in eventually, or maybe try for an alternate program. Keep ya posted.

Still Quarantined

Fever broke, now hovering around 100; wracking cough has set in. Have I mentioned how much I hate being sick?

In other news, I heard from James Lowder, editor of the upcoming Path of the Bold anthology. I submitted a short story to them in August; he said today that I had "easily made the first cut" but that the stories all must go to Guardians of Order for continuity checking with their universe. Here's hoping.

Biohazard Hot Zone

Temp climbed to 103; sleep is impossible and plagued with pain. I don't think this is just a cold.

Quick Update

Two things:

My email is back up and running for now.

Second, although I'm still recovering from a cold and haven't shaken the bronchitis that's been plaguing me, I'm apparently now infected with something new. Thought it was another cold - flooding sinuses, headache - but my temp's been climbing steadily and just hit 100.9. I'm shutting off my cell, taking some aspirin, loading up on fluids, and going to bed.

My ISP - A Bad Review

If anyone if trying to reach me via email this last couple days, I probably have not recieved it, and I'm not certain I will. My ISP (formerly Cyberworldhost, now owned by E-insites) is having yet again another problem with their email server (yes, singular; they're finally talking about putting in a backup SQL server, since this one has gone down so many times). So my email is not coming through, and I honestly don't know if it's stacking up somewhere or just getting lost in the ether. So if you've emailed me in the last 48 hours, and I don't respond, you may want to try again in a week or so.

E-insites has this to say on their support website, for anyone interested in the dirty details:

It seems like we are having the worse luck imaginable with email over the last two months. We have done everything any host would do under this situation. We took steps to make the email wore reliable, by spreading the load to three servers. Then we had a CPU failure on one server, and the next day the Mail SQL server had a hard drive failure. We then replaced all the hardware in that server, and put two drives in, one for the OS, and one for the SQL databases hoping that this would never happen again, and we promised our customers it would not, but unfortunately, the second drive on the Mail SQL server has failed today. This is a brand new drive that is less than 1 month old, and it has failed. We do not know or can explain why we are having such problems with this server, even though we have replaced everything in the server before. The primary drive is ok, but the drive that contains all the SQL Databases is making the dreaded clicking noise.

We are working on trying to fix this problem as we speak, and we sincerely apologize for any inconveniences caused. We know that this has become a nightmare for most people, and we know we assured everyone the problems were fixed, and they were. But, who could predict one server having Hard Drive failures on more than one occasion so closely together even though the equipment was all new equipment. We have our techs working on this problem as we speak, and hope to have the server back on shortly. We really do want to express how sorry we are that this has happened again, and we are going to take a step further in making this mail situation more reliable, by making a second Mail SQL server and load balancing the SQL server so if one were to fail again, the second server would just take the whole load.

This is about the tenth time this year my email has been down, and honestly - despite the vaguely whiney explanation they posted - I'm getting very tired of it. I pay them for a service, and they're not holding up their end of the deal. Suppose my payment was late, or partial, or I accidentally sent them Euros instead of dollars. Think they'd have any sympathy or give me a break? Yeah, right.

Suffice to say I'm about fed up with E-insites, and I officially do not recommend them to anyone as a web hosting company. Back when it was still Cyberworldhost, a locally owned and operated Spokane company, I liked them. In fact, I chose them because they were small and local to the Pacific Northwest. But honestly, ever since they were bought out by E-insites, it's been one headache after another. My current lease expires in April 2004; look for some changes then.

In the meantime, if anyone really needs to reach me, try my cell phone if you have it (Mermy, Gene, I'll call you guys back today) or just be patient and re-email me in a few days.

Being All Introspective (a/k/a More Game Design Woes)

Been doing a lot of soul-searching the last few weeks since I've had some time to actually do so. Prior to November, it seems my schedule was nothing but zipping from one project to another, or doing multiple projects at once, all of which seemed to have the same deadlines. But of late, I had some time to sit down and look back at the last couple years of writing and figure out the bottom line of things.

By bottom line, I mean it in the literal sense this time around: financial. For those who don't know, I worked as a computer network engineer for many years prior to moving into full-time writing and game design. The problem was that I could make really good money, but there were several restrictions. I had to live in a town large enough to support a Novell trained engineer; had to work insane hours; had to be on-call and even carry a pager or cell phone and respond when a school district or county offices' servers were down; and worst of all, I had to constantly be learning the next new software systerm, platform OS, networking protocol, hardware configuration, and more.

So to avoid the high blood pressure that came with the job, I phased it out slowly - cutting back from full-time to self-employed, then cutting back on accounts as I got rid of my credit card bills and could afford to do so. For the last couple years I've been writing full-time, and scraping by on the measly income that such a career generates. My blood pressure is about normal and I don't bite off my friend's heads (often), but unfortunately it continues to be a struggle to keep the coffers full.

I had really hoped that the glut of work I did in 2003 would pay off handsomely in the end, but thanks to the vagaries of the gaming/publishing industry, I have at least two projects I wrote and completed on time (Godlike's Operation Torch and SJ Games GURPS WWII: Blitzkrieg) that may or may not ever see print due to publisher financial difficulties, predicted lack of sales, etc. That's several weeks or months of work - for which I have contracts - that have been essentially wasted and will probably produce no income. As of this writing I'm currently owed about $5,000 in back pay (not just from these books, but from various publishers), which means for 2003 I'm $5,000 more broke than I had intended.

Suffice to say, as much as I love to write and love my job, I'm getting kind of tired of working full time for no pay, especially when working under a contract and still getting no pay. Nothing like working 30 hours a week for a year, only to have less money in December than you had in January. Don't misunderstand; this isn't a gripe about any particular publisher. I understand the industry; I'm just not sure I can continue to put up with it for much longer without going flat broke.

There's an old joke that goes:

Q: What's the difference between a large pepperoni pizza and a game designer?

A: A pepperoni pizza can feed a family of four.

So What's This All Mean?
Basically, I'm trying to decide how best to refill my bank account and pay off bills I've accrued in the last few years (bought a car, for one). I don't plan on getting out of writing - I love it too much. But I'm beginning to really cringe at the thought of spending 2004 writing 500,000 words for publication, only to have 20% never see the light of day, and the other 80% generate an insufficient (and often late) income.

As most of you know, my main interest has been in writing fiction anyway. Problem is, that pays absolutely zero until you have a contract, which is infinitely harder to get than a gaming contract (for me, anyway, having a rep in the gaming industry already). So if I choose to devote my writing energies to a novel or two, I'll be even more broke and starving than normal, which would, obviously not solve my problem (at least in the short run).

I could go back to working in computers, but now my skills are about four years behind the times - which in the computer industry makes me a dinosaur. I'd have to go back to school, retrain for the latest technology, learn the newest incarnation of Windows NT (or whatever they're calling it these days), Novell 5 (at least), and learn all the peculiarities of the new Windows platforms like 2000 and XP. Not to mention returning to the 80-hour work week and the 160/120 blood pressure days. Not exactly my idea of a good time.

So... I've been looking through the online want-ads, local job openings, and even looking nationally at the workforce predictions and wage comparisons. I need to find something that pays well enough to make it worth training for, and that promises a reasonable chance of getting work that doesn't eat up my entire week nor require constant training to stay employable.

All said and done, it seems the medical field is seriously in need of help these days. Everywhere I turn there's a job opening for an LPN, RN, radiology technician, or some other medical staffer. There's a huge need for trauma nurses locally, and I see EMT/Paramedic openings all the time (though that training seems a bit spendy, relatively speaking). The baby boomer generation is getting old (and unhealthy), and I really doubt we're going to see a sudden drop-off in need in this field. For me, that means I could work most anywhere I chose to live, and it shouldn't be too hard to find part-time work, or at least 40-hour work since it's a buyers market, so to speak.

Don't misunderstand. I'm too old to become - and have no interest in becoming - a doctor, but there's a radiology tech program at a college about an hour from here, and locally there's a very good nursing school. I'm not even that far from University of Washington, which has one of the highest rated medical and nursing programs in the U.S.

So I'm headed to the local college this afternoon to ask questions. My college credits from Portland State are very old, and may or may not transfer. I'm not even sure I want to go back to school. Me, in a class full of 18-year-olds. Not my idea of a good time. Sounds more like the plot for a mid-season replacement sitcom on the WB. Still, most of these programs are only a year (or maybe two) and a lot of people seem to be changing careers mid-stream.

Can I go back to school for a year and still write? Yeah. Can I write 500,000 words? Doubtful. But then, on the flip side, writing a half million words hasn't done much for my bank account in the last year or two, so what have I got to lose? Heck, I might actually be able to get a novel finished in the interim.

So how do I pay for all this? I've got about $30k in credit available, so I could theoretically live on credit and student loans for a year, then pay it off later. I hate the thoughts of going back into debt very far, but desperate times, desperate measures and all that.

All said and done, I don't know for sure what I'm going to do. Working in the game industry is enjoyable and low-stress, but it's also very low income, and I think it's time I find some "real" work to replace the dwindling domars. I'll still be writing, but it's doubtful I'll take on six projects that all end during the same month.

Currently I'm slated for one or two more d20 supplements for Hogshead, another GURPS book or two, and have tentative offers from several other companies. But the good thing about being busy elsewhere - at college or at a "real" job - is that I'll be able to be more selective about what I write, and can avoid taking on hack projects just because I need the money. And I'd be inordinately happy if I could actually get a novel published, no matter how much (or how little) money it made me.

I'll keep y'all posted as things move along. If you're a fan of the stuff I've written, don't panic. I'm not going to stop. I just need to get back to making a decent living for a while so I can actually afford to do all the cool stuff in life, like write, travel, and buy food.

Me, back to school. Hmph. We'll see.

I Knew Someone Important Was Listening!

Just heard from a friend that WB has decided to cancel Tarzan. Guess the WB execs have been reading my reviews lately. Too bad I didn't mention some of their other crappy shows; maybe they'd actually get some television worth watching...