My first novel, Closed Circuit, has been published in print and e-reader editions. 
You can get the details here.
August 13, 2010
by infmom
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August 12, 2010
by infmom
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Newtie Poo Redux
So Newt Gingrich thinks he’s relevant. Here’s what I thought about that, years ago, and it still rings true.
Hope you'll recommend my posts via your favorite social media. Just don't copy the material as your own.July 13, 2010
by infmom
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Illogically logical
Image by Marcin Wichary via Flickr
I have never been known for straightforward, logical thinking. Just ask my family. 🙂 I failed the only programming class I ever took (although to this day I can read programs written in some languages and figure out where the problems are) and my brothers would regularly whup my butt at any game requiring an advanced-thinking strategy. My mind doesn’t handle chess or checkers–heck, my son beat me at chess the first time we ever played. He was nine years old. I did not let him win.
However, I’m able to think in patterns and spatial relationships that my straightforward-thinking family members can’t handle. No brother of mine ever beat me at 3D tic-tac-toe, although when we played the paper version I only won if I got lucky. I’m very good at troubleshooting computer problems because I don’t expect them to behave logically and I understand when to search for less exact terms. My husband, who made it all the way through college calculus without trouble and went to grad school in a demanding scientific field, regularly fumes at his computer because he expects it to behave in certain ways and of course it won’t. I just wish he didn’t get so annoyed with me for coming up with the solutions. I know; logical people don’t think illogic solves problems. That does not make sense.
Why did I go off on this tangent today? Because I recently discovered to my absolute astonishment that I can solve Sudoku puzzles. The iTunes store was having a sale, and in browsing through what was available I found a free Sudoku app. At first I wasn’t going to get it, figuring it would be hopelessly beyond my powers of reason, but then I figured what the heck, I could always delete it if I couldn’t handle it.
I tried an easy puzzle and figured it out without much difficulty and with only one or two false moves. I did another one and another one and…. OMG I can do this!
I don’t do it logically. I do it by seeing patterns. I will never be a speed demon or a champ but I can do this. I am now doing the medium-diffuculty puzzles and my average solve time is just a little slower than on the beginner ones, although I’m making a few more false moves per puzzle, usually because I’m not paying close attention to where the numbers are. When I’m actually seeing what I’m looking at, I rarely make mistakes.
I mentioned this to my son last night and he said he wasn’t at all surprised. Because for years now I have been playing an old DOS based logic game called Sherlock. You’re presented with a grid and a series of graphical clues as to where various icons must go on the grid to solve the puzzle. My husband was the first one to get involved with that game and when I saw it I didn’t think I could handle it either, but here I am, probably 20 years later and still playing it. (If any of you might be interested in trying it, it’s still available from the programmer, Everettt Kaser, on his web site.) I think I’m using logic to solve those puzzles, but I might not even know what real logic is.
I think once I get done with the ten medium-hard puzzles on the free Sudoku app, I’ll buy the full version so I can have lots more challenges. Man, I feel so good about this!
Hope you'll recommend my posts via your favorite social media. Just don't copy the material as your own.July 7, 2010
by infmom
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scribble, scribble, scribble…
I have now finished the manuscript for my second novel. Who knows, at this rate I might just start thinking of myself as a writer.
Hope you'll recommend my posts via your favorite social media. Just don't copy the material as your own.July 4, 2010
by infmom
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Mom on the 4th of July
(crossposted to my LiveJournal)
In 1967 we lived in Beatrice, Nebraska (pronounced Bee-ATT-riss, if you can believe that). My parents had built a house on the block where a school had once stood–one of the first houses to be built there after the old school was demolished. By the summer of 1967 there were a few other houses, including one whose back yard abutted ours.
This house was inhabited by a family I will refer to as the Pretentious Losers. The parents were impossible, social-climbing snobs (yeah, hard to believe anyone could have such pretensions in a little armpit town in Nebraska, but they did) and the children were all incorrigible brats. Needless to say, the family quickly aroused the loathing of everyone in our household, not the least because the youngest child liked nothing better than to stand by our back fence and screech “GIT OFF OUR POPPITY!” any time any of us came near.
In those days, a certain amount of fireworks were legal. In the days leading up to the 4th, my brothers and I went and stocked up on firecrackers and bottle rockets. And as soon as it got dark on the night of the 4th, we turned off the lights in the back of the house and went outside with our arsenal. It took about five minutes to get the angle on the pop bottle just right so that a bottle rocket launched from it would explode right outside the Pretensious Losers’ back door. We then happily occupied our time with explosion after explosion till all of a sudden the light over the back door went on. We all scurried back into our house as fast as we could run. Moments after that, our phone rang.
And then came one of my mother’s finest hours. She answered, knowing full well what we’d been up to and having had a good laugh herself, and proceeded to put on a fine old display of righteous indignation. Absolutely not, her children weren’t even home. Nobody in our house had any kind of fireworks, and how dare Mrs. Pretentious Loser make such accusations. No doubt she’d been setting off the fireworks herself. Mrs. Pretentious Loser had better find other ways to occupy her time besides annoying the neighbors with prank calls, and GOODBYE.
Meanwhile my brothers and I and a couple of my brothers’ friends were in the darkened living room literally rolling around on the floor laughing and trying desperately not to be heard. After Mom hung up, she came in and joined the laughter–but told us we’d better quit while we were ahead.
Someone suggested waiting till midnight and lobbing a whole string of firecrackers into the neighbors’ yard, but in the end we decided not to put Mom through the ordeal of having to do a repeat performance for the cops.
That remains one of my brothers’ and my fondest childhood memories.
photo credit: StayRAW
June 26, 2010
by infmom
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Not really missing in action
I’ve been really behind on my posts here, lately, but for once I actually have a good reason for that.
More than 20 years ago, I started writing a novel. I got the basic structure of it worked out, and wrote a few chapters, and then set it aside for a while. I came back to it now and again over the years, and at some point decided it needed at least one more character and a different plot, so I started adding all that in, and then I got busy, or lazy, or something, and set it aside again. And there it sat, complete with its own floppy disk. That’ll give you an idea of how long ago it was that I set it aside.
Last year, I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo for the first time. Lacking an original idea for a novel, I decided to write a sequel to that first, long-unfinished book. And I managed to complete over 50,000 words in the allotted 30 days. I was very proud of myself. But then I realized I was really being an idiot, because if I could finish a complete story in what turned out to be less than a month, then I had no excuse for not finishing that book that had been gathering cobwebs for decades.
So I set my mind to it, and I finished it. The story was so old that it contained lots of references to ancient electronic gadgets like VCRs and portable cassette players, all of which were hot stuff when I first started writing. And I could see right away where I’d quit adding in the new character and plot line, because the quality of the novel went back to beginner level from one page to the next. So I fixed all that and had what I considered the full first draft.
Now, that book is in the process of being revised and edited. And the second one needed to be expanded to a better book length. That’s what’s been occupying my writing time the past few months, so I’ve let my blog postings slide. It’s not that I’m not still vitally interested in Multi.Colored or multicolored people! It’s just that I can only do so much writing in a day before I start sounding like a gibbering idiot. 🙂
The first book goes to the printers and e-publishers in August. I’ll post a note here and on my other blogs when I have more news. Bear with me.
Hope you'll recommend my posts via your favorite social media. Just don't copy the material as your own.April 27, 2010
by infmom
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Rachel Maddow and I are on the same mailing list!
Well, lucky me. I got that infamous Republican “census” today. Would you guys like to see the carefully worded, totally impartial questions on it? Here ya go. I reduced the image size a bit so the pictures would load faster, but the text would still be readable. Don’t you just love neutrality?
April 22, 2010
by infmom
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Medical jewelry, plain & fancy, part 4
Table of contents for Making medical jewelry fancy
- Medical jewelry, plain & fancy, part 4
Today’s project is the most elaborate, and the one on which I can provide the least in the way of exact instructions. Strange but true. 🙂 This is because I took a plain bracelet emblem and wire-wrapped it, and explaining how to do wire wrapping is best left to someone who knows a lot more about it than I do. Fortunately, there are plenty of books that can teach you the technique, and any good public library should have at least a few (or they can get one for you 
through interlibrary loan). I used Wire Wrapping: The Basics And Beyond which provides clear tutorials for almost anything you’d want to try with a pendant.
For this project you will need a bracelet emblem of your choice (I used the gold titanium sleek stretch bracelet emblem), wire of your choice, a small bead or crystal, pliers, small screwdriver, and a jump ring. Remove the bracelet as detailed in the previous posts, and if you’re using a bracelet with a chain, remove both of the rings. Wire wrap the pendant in whatever style looks good to you, but be sure the wire does not obscure the MedicAlert graphics on the front or the essential information on the back.
Cut a piece of thin wire about 1-1/2 times as long as you want the drop on the bottom of the pendant to be. Make a loop in one end, thread on your bead or crystal, and make a loop in the other end but don’t close the loop. Hook this through the opening at the bottom of the emblem and then close the loop. For the dangle on the bottom (which is optional) I took a piece of the twisted-square wire I’d used for the wrapping and wound it into a small, tight spiral with my pliers. The end of the spiral was angled up and around to make another loop, which I slipped through the loop on the bottom of the crystal bead and then crimped closed.
Attach a sturdy jump ring to the top of the pendant, add a decorative chain of your choice (make sure it is sturdy and not delicate), and you’re set to go. This is a MedicAlert emblem you can wear just as you would any fancy pendant.
If you’ve done “remodeling” work on your own jewelry, I would love to hear about it!
Next up: Attaching a Medic Alert emblem to a large thrift-store bracelet.
Hope you'll recommend my posts via your favorite social media. Just don't copy the material as your own.
April 16, 2010
by infmom
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Medical jewelry, plain & fancy, part 3
Table of contents for Making medical jewelry fancy
In the last post I showed how just replacing the original chain with a nicer one can make your bracelet look a lot better (well, if you don’t use cheap chain like I did, that is). Today, I’ll talk about making a really dressy chain bracelet.
I started out with a plain stainless steel bracelet, Item #A492, for this project. There doesn’t seem to be a way to link directly to this on the MedicAlert web site. If you want a gold bracelet, I’d recommend the Gold Titanium Sleek Stretchband, item #A706.
For this one, you will need your wire cutters and pliers for the chain bracelet, or your small screwdriver for the stretch band bracelet. You will also need a length of figaro chain (or other small 
decorative chain of your choice) that is about three times the length of the existing chain, and a fancy clasp that accommodates multiple chains and hooks together. You will also need small jump rings to attach the chain to the clasp. I apologize for the somewhat blurry photo that accompnies this. I wasn’t able to get reasonable pictures with my somewhat ancient point-and-shoot digital camera, so I laid the bracelet on my scanner instead.
Begin by removing the existing chain, as I explained in the last post, or by turning over your stretch-band bracelet and prying loose the ends of the bracelet with your screwdriver. You will also remove the ring to which the current clasp attaches on the chain bracelet (leave the other ring opened but still attached). Lay the original chain out on the table, and measure three lengths of new chain. The best way to get the measurement is to place the halves of the clasp at each end of the existing chain, and stretch the new chain out beside it. The clasp I used for this bracelet has its center chain attachment a bit farther from the hook than the side chains. I forgot to accommodate this when I cut the chain, so the center chain ended up being a tad too long. This doesn’t cause serious problems so I left it as it was.
Carefully string your chain from one part of the clasp to the other, making sure you don’t get the lengths of chain crossed up on the way (and why do you think I mention this). 🙂 Wrap the bracelet around your arm and check to make sure the length of the chain is correct, and adjust it if necessary. Again, you want to make sure the bracelet is loose enough that it can be easily turned over to see the information on the back. With this clasp, you also want to leave enough space that the hook on the loose end can be fastened through the open end of the bracelet from underneath. If you have started with a stretch bracelet, you will need to put a sturdy jump ring or split ring on the left side of the emblem, to secure the permanently-attached end of the clasp.
Once you’re happy with the length of the bracelet, make sure all your jump rings are securely fastened and your chains aren’t twisted, and there you go! Dressy enough to wear on special occasions, if you like.
Next up: How to turn a plain bracelet into a fancy necklace.
Hope you'll recommend my posts via your favorite social media. Just don't copy the material as your own.April 15, 2010
by infmom
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Medical jewelry, plain and fancy, part 2
Table of contents for Making medical jewelry fancy
The easiest thing you can do to make a plain bracelet fancier is to change the chain the emblem is attached to.
For this project you’ll need a small but sturdy wire cutter, two small pliers, a chain of your choice, a clasp, and, optionally, a fairly large and sturdy jump ring to fasten the clasp to.
MedicAlert chains are firmly attached, so getting the original chain off takes a bit of muscle. Begin by cutting the jump ring that fastens the bracelet to the emblem (not the chain itself, just that one ring). Twist the cut ends in opposite directions with your pliers (don’t pull the ends of the ring apart to open it up or you’ll never get it back together again). As soon as the ring is open enough to slip the chain through it, do that. You don’t need to open the link wide enough to get it off the emblem.
Once that’s done, lay the chain on a table and measure the new chain, with its clasp attached, to match the length of the
old one. If you want to make the bracelet tighter or looser at this time, you can, but if you shorten the chain make sure it’s still long enough that the emblem can still be flipped over on your wrist easily.
If your clasp is large enough, you can just hook it through the opening in the emblem. Otherwise you will want to add a good solid jump ring to clasp to (nothing flimsy here, you want the bracelet to stay on). Take this into consideration when you’re figuring out the length of your chain.
Once that’s done, slip the new chain into the opened jump ring on the emblem and twist the ends of the ring together again. Twist them just a little past being even with each other and then pull them back into alignment. That’s the easiest way to make it straight.
And there you have it. As you can see in the picture, I used inexpensive chain for this modification and that turned out to be a bad idea, because the thin gold plating wore off quickly to reveal the dull brass underneath. I’ve reworked this bracelet into something a lot more attractive and I’ll show you that in a later post. The illustration is just to show you how a simple chain change can look.
Hope you'll recommend my posts via your favorite social media. Just don't copy the material as your own.