Edged in Blue

There are lots of things I’m pissed off about.  Obama’s sell out on FISA.  Gas prices.  The continued popularity of Howard Stern.  Ann Coulter was not stillborn.  As you can see, I have a lot to get worked up about.

The sale of Budweiser to Belgium’s InBev is not one of them. Why?

I drink Killians, which is a lager brewed by Coors based on an Irish red ale.  When I’m not drinking that, I’m drinking Samuel Adams, some of which is brewed here in Cincinnati by the old Hudepohl brewery.  (”Would you like a Hudie?”  “I’d be delighted!”)  When I’m not drinking that, I’m drinking Bass Ale or its cross-England rival, Newcastle.  And when I’m not drinking those, I’m drinking Irish ale, usually Smithwick’s or Harp’s.  And when all else fails, I drink Warsteiner, which is a weak German beer.  Which means you have to drink the entire bottle before it knocks you on your ass.

In other words, I like beer-flavored beer.  I love the Great Lakes brews and good ol’ cheap Spotted Cow from Wisconsin and its more full-bodied counterpart, Capitol Ale.  I love Christian Morlein and the kick of the stuff they brew at Rock Bottom.  I’ve been to New York to have Brooklyn Beer and Philadelphia to have Yuengling and to San Francisco to have Anchor Steam.

I never bought into the myth that the working man must drink really bad beer, even though I did go through a Pabst phase in my early drinking days.  No, sir.  No Schlitz, Milwaukee’s Best, or Stoh’s for me.  (Sorry, Erin.  Can’t drink it.)

For me, mass-produced American beer like Budweiser is little more than alcoholic soda pop.  It’s good to quench your thirst, but there’s nothing to it.  It has no kick, no flavor.  Oh, if I’m forced to drink cheap beer, I’ll usually opt for Bud.  And I will admit it’s not as watery as Coors.  (Will someone please tell me why it was such a big deal to sell Coors east of the Mississippi in the 1980’s?  I can’t believe they made a Burt Reynolds movie about it!)

Yes, a foreign company has bought Anheuser-Busch.  So what?  If I still drank it regularly, I might get worked up about it.  But I’m not.  I say spend the extra bucks and get the microbrews.  In this economy, the little breweries need your support.

And in this economy, you need something stronger than Michelob Ultra to get you through it.

‘Scuse me.  I’m gonna run downstairs and fetch me a Killians.

My traveling this year is completely nil.  Gas prices haven’t helped, but haven’t exactly been a deterrent, either.  No, life changes have overwhelmed me to the point where the slush fund is gone.  I now have two house payments for the foreseeable future and a new car to deal with following the death of the Wintermobile.

It’s too bad, because I really wanted to go to Bouchercon this year.  With Ruth Jordan and Judy Bobalink in charge, it’s going to feel like it’s our con.  (Well, it always does, but this is the first year I know the organizers on a first-name basis.  And the Jordan clan throws great bashes at all this writerly stuff anyway.)

But most of all, I’m going to miss the mingling.  I spent almost all of the 2006 con in Madison in the bar.  Not drinking, though I did plenty of that.  I sat in there and did more networking and commiserating than I had in Toronto and Chicago.

And let’s be honest.  I love Baltimore.  But this year, my only conference was Love Is Murder in Chicago, and it was on the company dime.  I had to work for BigHugeCo at its Wacker Drive office that weekend, and shot up to O’Hare Saturday evening to hang out.  (Hi, Michelle Gagnon.  Remember me?  Remember that drink Jason Starr thought was a beer?)

But there’s something deeper going on here.  Conferences are where I meet my fellow writers in the flesh.  You can only convey so much in email and on MySpace and Facebook or whatever annoying social networking site is hip this week.  You can look that person in the eye over the rim of your beer glass, kvetch with each other with a mouthful of onion rings, or just chill in the hotel lounge.  Plus, I landed my first agent from an in-person meeting with one of her clients.  Who says nothing gets done at these conferences or at book signings.

Yet real life has intruded.  My book budget is pretty much gone while we sell Nita’s old place, and I have no writing/web design/standup comedy income coming in that will pay for traveling.  Yes, I’ve got to face reality.  I can’t traipse across the country like I did for a few years.  Does that mean I’m finished?

Hardly.  We live in the Internet age.  There are some who decry the intrusion of technology, complaining that email is impersonal and no one wants to meet in person anymore.  Ever notice those are usually the same people you probably would have ignored in back in the covered wagon days of the 1980’s and earlier?  The fact is the Internet has let me get more done and talk with more people than I could have when we were dependent on The Phone Company (TM) and the US Postal Service.  Some people complain that you can be deceived by someone on the Internet, and it’s true.  I’ll go as far as to say I was defrauded mostly on the Internet a couple of years back.  But you know what?  That’s always been around.  It just happens faster and electronically now.  Same with bad men stalking your kids and con men trying to trick you out of your money.  What’s changed besides the speed and gimmicks they use?  If anything, they’re just as prevalent as when we had only Ma Bell and the mail man.  Or were you not paying attention when your mommy told you not to talk to strangers?

I digress.  I communicate with my current agent via the Internet.  My gig at January came about because of the Internet.  I pay my bills on the Internet.  It’s here.  I use it.  And to stay connected as a writer, I have to keep using it.

Do I feel disconnected?

A lady I’ll refer to as my Big Sister got me through the early stages of my first marriage ending with frequent emails.  A pal in Seattle reminded me by instant message that I had proposed a debt management book (Who better to tell you how to get you out of horrendous debt than someone who narrowly avoid bankruptcy?).  Li’l Sis and I communicate almost exclusively by Internet, an extension of a relationship that started as a letter exchange and frequent long-distance calls.

John Scalzi uses the Internet extensively to promote and interact with his fans.  Lynn Viehl uses it pretty much exclusively.  And the Net fits prominently in MJ Rose’s bag of tricks, as well as JA Konrath’s.

The point is I don’t have to spend vast sums traveling when they’re not to be had for the time being.  I can stay put and interact.

But I do miss the road.

So how was your Fourth? (Or First for those of you a few hours north of me?) My weekend was…

Strenuous.

Nita, AJ, and I took over my condo this past weekend. I know I said it last time I moved in here, but I’m not moving again for five years, and next time I use movers.

Not only did we move furniture and boxes fifteen miles from Deer Park to Eastgate, but yours truly learned a few things about himself, mainly that I’m a lot handier than I thought. For example…

• The previous owners never showed the former Mrs. Winter or I where the furnance filter was.  Did you know if you leave a 30-day filter on your furnance for about 14 months, your air conditioner will quit unexpectedly on the hottest day of the year?  Nita figured it out.  We now use 90-day filters with a schedule to change them every 2 months.  (Just because they’re 90-day filters doesn’t mean you need to keep them 90 days.)
• It is possible to rip up the carpet to lay the coax cable you thought already ran through the walls and put it back with little or no evidence you did anything.  I’d have made the cable guy do it this afternoon, but after DirecTV strung a fat cable through my kitchen because “drilling through the foundation is hard!“, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
• And speaking of carpet, I finally found that cat smell the steamer wouldn’t get rid of.  All it took was a lot of sniffing, a strong stomach, and a utility knife.  Unfortunately, I now need a couple of throw rugs to replace that section.  At least now, though, the family can use the family room.

So now we’re moved in and cleaned up.  However, we also now have two house payments.  Guess what we’ll be doing the rest of the summer?

Thank God Nita works for a real estate company.

Yesterday was a major cleaning day at Rancho Winter.  The former Mrs. Winter had vacated the previous day.  It was my turn to come in and purge the place of kitty dander and kitty fur and kitty spit.  (Still working on it.)

Late last night, I decided to finish off the day by cleaning the kitchen.  The stove was filthy, but I was out of paper towels.  What to do?  What to do?

Oh, wait.  I left my #85 jersey here when I moved in with Nita.

Now Chad Johnson has found his purpose in life:  Cleaning crap off my stove.

He’s also found his place in life:

My garbage can.

Have a happy season on the bench, Ocho Stinko.

This weekend finds me working overtime for BigHugeCo. I’ve been with less-than-reliable broadband for the past six weeks. Rather than drive the new car (Say, we need a name for this one. The Wintermobile doesn’t quite cut it.) all the way downtown and blow commute time along with 2-4 hours of my Saturday, I’ve hiked a few blocks up the street to Buffalo Mountain Coffee in scenic Deer Park, Ohio to use their WiFi.

That’s right. I’m doing ACTUAL work in a coffee shop. How about that? I’m getting paid to sip Sumatra, listen to music, and stuff my face with breakfast muffins.

I know telecommuting is old hat, but I kind of like sitting in a coffee bar banging away on my laptop. To get to do it on my company’s dime is even better. There’s something about sitting at a table with a cup of Sumatra and a bagel listening to whatever’s being piped over the sound system as opposed to sitting in a fabric-covered box listening to the guy in the next row explain to a vendor why his sales quotas do not constitute a mission critical problem for BigHugeCo.

There are drawbacks. Even though Blue Mountain has a cable hookup for its Internet, remoting into other people’s machines over it is still a bit wonky.

Still, a two-minute commute using virtually no gas to suck down coffee while you work is…

Well, I should probably write full time if I want this.

*Apologies to John Scalzi

It’s two more weeks before I and several other comics join Comics Care in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.  Not only are we performing, but we are walking.

Consider donating today.  It’s a good cause.

Thursday saw me drive from one end of the great State of Ohio to the other and back, all because the Attorney General’s office and the courts here don’t believe in fax machines. The end result of this road trip?

Less than two miles from Nita’s office, my car begins to lose power. Wet road? Had I doused a lead and shorted out the car in its 400+ mile run?

Blown motor.

Yes, my car made it to Columbus from Cincinnati, then to scenic Wooster, Ohio (for those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Ohio, never mind. There’s nothing in Wooster worth mentioning anyway.) and back to downtown Cincinnati only to die less than three miles from home and two miles from She Who Will Be The Next Mrs. J’s place of business.

The Wintermobile is no more.

Or is it?

I buzz Ziggins (who ironically lives near Wooster) to see what my options are. He recommended curling up in the fetal position and whining or the appropriate medication to relieve that. After that, he said, “Well, you could always replace the motor.”

A year or two ago, I’d have looked at him like he was insane. Actually, I still do. He’s my brother. I’m supposed to do that. But now?

Gas in Cincinnati is $3.79 a gallon. This apparently is the cheap stuff in the USA.

Food is… expensive.

I am taking over a house from the former Mrs. Winter while we try to offload one owned by the future Mrs. Winter.

I just bought a Hi-Def dish and box for my DirecTV, and dammit, I ain’t giving up HBO! I don’t care how long ago The Wire went off the air.

As you can see, I’m not going to be buying that Escalade as soon as I thought.*

So we found a motor - 84,000 with full drivetrain and flex-fuel capability. Same year as the Wintermobile.  This effectively knocks 66,000 miles off an 8-year-old car.

Motor’s in Toledo. The truck to haul it is in Akron. I’m in Cincinnati.

Someone’s in for a day trip, and I’m out at least two tanks of gas on a Ford Explorer.

Stay tuned for the inglorious results of this exciting drama.**

*Originally, I thought “Never.” Now it’s “Never ever!”

**Bet you wish that road trip novel would sell now, don’t you? Me, too.

As most readers here know, I am both a writer and a comedian.  In my role as comedian, I have joined several other local comics in Comics Care, a way for us to share our talents while helping worthy causes. Our first event will be the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life June 12-13 in Harrison, Ohio. I and several of the comics will not only be performing but walking the Relay as well.

How can you help?

Check out my personal web page for the event:

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeOhioDivision?px=6266226&pg=personal&fr_id=7150

There you can find details about my part, my team, and the Relay itself. You can also donate online if you like.

This event is a personal one for me as I’ve lost two grandparents to cancer, one at a very young age. My paternal grandmother was a cancer survivor. This is my way of remembering them. Please considering donating.

Thank you