Tune in

I met Spicoli, his girlfriend, and some of his old buddies at Buffalo’s Brewpub at around 10pm tonight. When they kicked us out at midnight we went to The Bistro for more brews. Hayward still sucks ass. However, it was nice to hang with old friends again.

Drinking the “good stuff” is a lot different from drinking Silver Bullets. I can drink Coors Light (2.5% alcohol) all day and hardly feel any effects. But drinking a dark beer (6% alcohol or better) and I’m feeling it after the first pint. Tonight I had too many…

Spicoli’s new girlfriend is a hot little number with a thick Boston accent. She is an electrical engineer for Raytheon, and a bazillion times smarter than I am (and Tim too!). I spent a good amount of time picking her brain about the NASA and JPL projects she’s worked on. But I was drunk so I don’t remember what we talked about. At any rate, Tim has done well!

It’s almost 2am and I’m wide awake. Drunk, and yet wide awake. It’s times like this that I wish I was still in good ol’ Chico, where I could simply walk across the street and chat with some friends, stay up until dawn, tell stories, and drink beer.

On Writing

I’ve always liked to write. When I was in elementary school I loved making up stories and spending the whole afternoon putting my ideas down on paper. When I got to high school I found that I liked writing in a journal. In college I found that I really, really liked to write papers. And today, still, I write in many forms–email, blog, irc, and IM.

It’s something that just comes easy and naturally to me. In other subjects like math I have always struggled. Memorizing formulas and doing the same problems over and over again (and getting a different result every time) is pretty frustrating. And yet, I can pick a topic and write about it 10 different times and come up with 10 different essays–and not be bothered by it at all. Weird…

I’ve always been a person that spoke more softly than others and had trouble putting my thoughts into actual spoken words. When I write, I know that I can make as many modifications to my statements as I want. The final draft, the one I present to the world, is the written version of my thoughts modified to perfection. I could never say what I feel the first time. I have to write it down.

In my last semester of college I was asked to give a presentation on “writing with a strong voice”. I wasn’t exactly sure what my professor was asking me. I thought it might have something to do with some small part of the readings I was supposed to do but forgot or skipped. When I asked her to elaborate she simply said to do what I felt was best. This was in May of 2004.

Fast forward 10 months and I find this post by one of my favorite writers. In his brief essay he states everything that I’ve come to believe in over the last 30 years of writing. Interestingly enough, just about everything Mr. Graham writes in the above essay was everything that I mentioned in my final college presentation.

If you have any interest at all in writing well, I highly recommend that you read the entire essay (shouldn’t take you longer than 4 minutes).

Below are what I believe to be the most important ideas:

Write in a conversational tone
Don’t try to sound impressive
Use simple, germanic words

And finally,
Learn to recoginize the approach of an ending, and one appears, grab it.

Common Misconceptions About Night People

We’re insomniacs.
No way. We aren’t trying to get to sleep.

We’re unhappy.
Only when we’re not allowed to follow our natural schedule.

We have a medical problem.
We’re as healthy as most, and more than some. For instance, you won’t find us getting skin cancer from too much sunbathing.

We’re wierd.
Who’s calling who wierd?

The Bozo Boss Misconception: We’re lazy, dishonest, and trying to fool everyone because we want credit for working at night but we don’t actually do it.
This is an evil misconception. It doesn’t just show a lack of respect for our natural body rhythms, it says we’re liars, frauds… Employers always seem to feel this way, even when we’re doing the kind of work that can be measured somehow. All I can say to these people is: Have you ever observed a Night Person at work during his or her peak time? After you’ve sat up with one of us and seen how productive we are, say that again.

We think we’re vampires or have some other kind of odd self image.
Do you think you’re the sun god Amon-Ra just because you’re a Day Person?

We’re criminals who use the excuse of staying up late to cover our crimes.
Sure, and all the people who are up in the daytime are law-abiding citizens. Crimes are ONLY committed at night.

We’re hooked on caffeine.
It doesn’t take coffee and coke to keep US up!

The only reason we stay up late is to go to bars, cavort, and party.
Sure, we like it as much as the next guy, but don’t blame us just because we’re always the last to leave!

We’re delinquents and degenerates.
How do you know? Do you follow delinquents and degenerates around at night? If you do, what’s YOUR problem?

–from the Night People resource