Wrapping up

The reason I hesitated to tell this as a long, detailed story has arrived. At this point, my adventure is over; it's all chit-chatting, being surprised that the prices in the Pro Shop were reasonable, being warm, being tired, and eating from here. Nothing complicated and nothing really exciting.

All the adventure was now Moppy's job.

It seems awkward to tell Moppy's story at this point. I was only there for it and he had to live it. I don't think he'll mind but it's not the same as telling my story. So we'll just briefly cover it. Going into this, please note that we were all very sober, tired maybe, but very sober. All the 'Lucy Ricardo' that Moppy inherited from his late mother kicked in at this point.

The Pro Shop was warm. Moppy had spent the last three hours or so somewhat chilled. He quickly overheated and lost his balance once or twice.

While we jockeyed for position on the still-crowded highways, Moppy managed to lose his phone under the car seat before him. He couldn't find it, even with me calling it.

When we got out of the car to eat, he was able to retrieve his phone, but painfully caught the middle finger of his right hand in the door while closing it.

After eating, we all dozed off in the car to some degree, apart from the driver of course. Moppy woke up to the buffalo chicken wings he'd eaten disagreeing with him. We quickly pulled over so that he could have a 'food escape'.

Poor fella.

After that the drama was over. We all went to our seperate homes expecting to fall asleep immediately but were too wired to do so. Watched Jeff Dunham on Comedy Central instead, much like a good chunk of the populace. Quick review: Thumbs up!

On a totally unrelated note: I think I have part of a movie scene in my head. Must dash.

Game time!

The game started at noon. We arrived around 9. We were early.

The point of this was to get good parking and beat the rush. I'm used to tailgating before Brewer games at Miller Park. There's loads of parking at the stadium, it's not that expensive, and it's relaxing. At Lambeau, there isn't loads of parking at the stadium, you can't park at the stadium without a special pass, and parking near the stadium isn't cheap. We did it anyway. It was worth it to be close and grill in the shadow of the stadium.

It was cold getting out of the car. The wind was whistling through the area that we parked in. We started the grill and huddled around it to warm up. Eventually we did cook something. When Moppy went to toss out the hot coals, some knucklehead had used it as a rubbish bin, tossing a box in it. It burned nice. We used that for warmth as well.

Oddly enough, beer doesn't warm you up much when the chill is that strong. It's the only time I've tailgated when my beer got colder as I drank it.

We wandered off, heading for the stadium, pausing to run for batteries and the bathrooms on the way. Pictures were taken. Statues were gawked at. Finally we entered the stadium itself. The atrium was warm, so very warm.

Once we went into the stadium itself, I was no longer cold, despite the lack of heating. That helped. We wandered around a little, returned to the bathroom again (I wasn't THAT warm), and then it was time to enter the stands.

It's weird. I've seen it on tv so many times, heard about people entering the place and trying to explain the vibe, so I thought I was prepared for it. I don't know how to explain it. It was exciting and fascinating and ... something. There was a hint of the feeling of history that I've had at certain places, the feeling of a very old place that just exudes its age, but this was still so alive. It was unique.

The game itself seemed to race past. I wasn't cold. The people around us were nice. Everyone was behaved. There were kids in front of us, grandparents behind us, and Bears fans next to us. When the Packers scored, which happened a lot, we slapped five with everyone apart from the Bears fans. We were nice enough to not laugh at them. However, when Rex Grossman came in to quarterback for the Bears, we did laugh. I paused, heard that it wasn't just us laughing but the crowd as a whole, and laughed even harder.

The outcome of the game was never in doubt. For whatever reason, the Bears did not show up to play that day. The Packers never lost the lead. They won the game. We celebrated, took more pictures, and headed back into the atrium for warmth and the Pro Shop.

Ugh, it's been awhile

I arrive at the apartment complex at which we were to meet a few minutes early. I'd talked about stopping to get coffee at McD's or something along the way, and had the time to do so, but just wanted to meet up and get going. We could stop as a group. I texted Moppy to let him know I'd arrived before closing my eyes for a cat-nap.

When he called me a few minutes later, I snorted like I was dragged from a deep sleep. Probably needed that. I get up, help him collect stuff, the Harms' arrive so we pack stuff into the car, and off we go. Everything is cheery. We are excited. We chit-chat.

In anticipation of the 30 some degree weather, I have layers of clothing on. I've a t-shirt, thin flannel, thick flannel with a hood, another thick flannel without a hood, and my blue 'Doc' jacket on. I'm wearing two pairs of socks. I'm wearing my flannel pajama pants on underneath my jeans. I'm ready to be in the cold. The car is not cold and I quickly start to overheat and not feel... right.

As a child I was prone to getting motion sickness on long trips. I'd sometimes get bus-sick on the school bus. The fumes can still turn my stomach. It's not something I've experienced in decades.

But lack of sleep + lack of food + beer foam still in stomach + overheated = car sick.

I was miserable but not horrible. I watched my lips grow pale in the rear view mirror. I removed most of my layers. I cracked the window for some fresh air. These helped but not that much. Once we hit Sheboygan (about an hour or so into the drive), I started burping. That helped. I've had occasional issues with gas that doesn't want to go anywhere but just inflates where it is, so I considered this could be part of that, especially when the burps helped a bit. One got a little acidy. Felt weird.

Then, it happened. It would have been a food escape but I had no food in me, so it was more of a foam and acid escape. I'm sure my expression was comical as it felt like my face expanded to its full capacity while containing the overflow. I soon controlled it and swallowed it back down.

Yuk.

A number of very reasonable questions followed. Yes I would be okay, no I haven't been like this in a while, stopping for a minute would probably be a good choice.

At the next exit, we pulled off and into a nearby Hardees. I miss Hardees. There aren't really any nearby me so I get to go to them rarely. This pleased me to begin with. I didn't readd the layers I'd removed and hurried into the restaurant, shivering a bit from the cold. After breathing deeply, warming up, and reassuring everyone I would be okay, I needed something to eat.

Now, it's obvious at this point that my brain and my stomach were not really communicating. My stomach said 'we are shaky and would feel better if we had some food in us' and evidently my brain only heard 'we need food'. It saw biscuits and gravy, which I enjoy, and figured this would make me happy. It's a nice, sturdy meal and would fill me up. As the coffee I sipped in the car had not made me feel better, the brain was smart enough to get orange juice, hoping it wouldn't be too acidic, and more like orange drink. Got a combo with hashbrowns (yay, hashbrowns!) and sat down to the excitement of eating. It smelled so good!

And then I opened the container of biscuits and gravy. I considered it for a moment and then closed it, to the amusement of those with me. When your stomach is jumpy, ordering something that looks like it may already have escaped you is not a good idea. Juice, no problem. Hashbrowns, no problem. Managed to nibble at the biscuits and that was all of that. Felt guilty throwing it out but it was the best choice.

Got back in the car feeling better, but not all better. Was much more relaxed and cat-napped the rest of the way to Green Bay, about another hour, hour and a half. That helped too.

I became alert when we spotted the stadium in the distance. We were here!

Lets start this trip

I had a really good, fun weekend which was capped by going to Lambeau Field for the first time for football. Reflecting on the build-up to the trip does explain a few things.

Friday night I went out with a group of Edge geeks for dinner and to see the new Bond film. (Really short review: more of the same if you enjoyed 'Casino Royale'. If you haven't seen 'Casino Royale' yet, this movie may not make much sense to you.) 'Star Trek' trailer left happy chills. Drank no alcohol but 'misbehaved' in other ways (such as drank soda, which I don't really do anymore). Good time.

Saturday afternoon I went to the Admirals hockey game. Made up for not drinking the night before by drinking now. Had Buffalo Chicken tenders (spicy!) for lunch.

Saturday evening the original plan was to go to the Compound, but Primary Compound Personage Amy sadly twisted her ankle so that didn't happen (they thought it might have been broken at first so it could have been much worse). Went with out with Chad for beers instead. Now, I hadn't had dinner Saturday in expectation of wings at the Compound. The switch to go out for a few drinks was late so I didn't eat at home. I could eat at the Club but, once I got some beer in me, I wasn't hungry any more. Stayed too late considering how early I had to get up the next day, drank more than I should have but was still all sorts of sober (honest!), got home, ate some chips and tried to go to sleep because I had to get up at 5am to start the process of going to Lambeau.

But I'm wired, hungry, and excited. Sleep does not come easy.

I wake up a few minutes in advance of my alarm and just get going. I take a quick shower, eat a couple pieces of bread (no time to toast them!), drink more water than I think is really safe for my overactive filration system, and get going.

I maybe got four hours of sleep. I'm tired. In the past 24 hours I've had more beer than food. I'm nervously excited.

To quote a local radio team: 'Sounds like a recipe for disaster Fireman Jim.'

And they would be right.

Now what?

The problem with having a specific topic like that for a week is that now I'm at a bit of a loose end mentally.

It's not like I talked about everything from those periods of time. Digging through my head like that made me bounce into other stuff I'd not thought of right away, or had simply forgotten about, like the story I wrote for 'Enlightment'. I wrote another story for 'Enlightment', one I like much better, but it was rejected for not having a strong enough role for the Doctor to play. Fair enough and probably quite true. It featured the main character from that still unfinished first novel meeting up with the Troughton Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria, probably near 'The Two Doctors'. The story's got more of my kind of weird in it.

I also didn't talk about my time on the radio, a creative endeavour but not a written one. That's discussed on my website when I was blogging before I was blogging.

There's also the short film we did *snaps fingers* just like that the first time I went to visit the Point crew. The 'Season' Doctor! On video! That should be very important but it has to be 'good for being developed in a half-hour' as opposed to 'good'. Planning can be very helpful.

We haven't had any fiction here in awhile. Maybe I should clean up an old short story. And there's an old review or two left. I think.

I know I'm going to talk about the professional football endeavour I attended this past Sunday, the first such endeavour I've attended. I'm just not sure if I want to mention it or tell it as an adventure.

I'll figure that out for tomorrow.

My Writing 'Career' - Recent fun - 2007 until nowish

Despite the fact that I believe a figurative no one read the wrap-up to the 'Notes' series, it helped move me forward. It was fun to do, it showed me where I'd been and what I'd been up to, and, most importantly, some places where I could go. I'd learned things during the Wilderness period and was showing that I could use it. I also felt that, if I was trying something new, it wasn't a bad thing to 'go back' a bit. For instance, I'd used 'Dr. What', the 'Teen' Doctor, and the 'Season' Doctor in the 'Notes' wrap-up story but, due to the way I handled the characters, it didn't feel like I'd fallen into the trap of 'just' writing fan fiction again.

It did make me want to write more 'Doctor Who', if only because I'd left the 'Season' Doctor in such a weird place emotionally. Again, in order to try something new, I crossed him over with the current tv Doctor, as played by David Tennant. I'd never done that before, not for a full story anyway. 'Time for a Change' was previewed here, in this very blog, as 'Fresh Fiction for Friday' over a year ago and was finally finished and released about a month ago. Once again I had some new people in the audience and early response to it has been positive. I've got some plans for uploading it to a Who fan fiction site but want to polish up the earlier 'Season' stories for that site first.

'Time for a Change' was also heavily edited by me as I wrote, the most I've ever edited anything I've done. If nothing else, it was worth it for helping me upgrade that skill.

There's another story sitting, half done, while I work on other stuff and ponder the level of detail needed for the ending. It's a tale of El Hombre de Silla and a looooonnnnngggg description of a wrestling match could get tedious so I'm not sure how that's going to end up yet.

There's another novel being worked on, a few pages here and a few pages there. It's based on a 'What If?' to a never written story from decades ago and could well be structured right to be publishable. We shall see. I'm feeling good about it at the moment.

Just finished a draft to a movie script, when was that, last week? Week before? It's a comedy meant to star myself and my buddy George. Early days on that project, definitely one of those 'hope we get to do this but wouldn't be surprised if we don't' sort of things. That helped me learn the basic script structures and how quick I might be able to do one of those again. 'Time for a Change' took over a year, with editing. This script has yet to be edited but only took about four months to write. Not bad for a story that took me five minutes to generate. I had another script idea about a year or two ago. I've been pondering that idea again to see if I can crank it out as well.

After the lull of the Wilderness years, I feel that I'm getting to a place where I can generate fiction that I enjoy and might be enjoyable to others. I feel that I might be getting to a place where I don't feel the need to write 'career' with the quotes around it. I still feel the need to generate words on a more consistant basis but a lot of the writing process involves working things out. It can be difficult to see that it's happening when it's happening. Writing here, on this blog, even if it's to a virtual 'no one', does help.

I'm just keen to see what's next.