Matthew Supert

Well, it has been a while since a book check in. Progress is still moving along slowly, but I think at this point I am getting to the conclusion point in this point of my story arc. I am working through the climax point in the book and I am approaching the final plot point. I really hope I can knock that out over the next week or two and then begin the process of my first round of edits. As I have mentioned before, the book at this point is little more than a collection of words. Most of the characters still do not have names, and I still need to do some major editing to reincorporate the religious aspect of the book that I haven't done thus far. 

I was struggling for a long while on how to incorporate some of the religious tones that I wanted to do, but I have found some great inspiration actually from a book I just recently read. Nightbringer from the Warhammer 40,000 universe has really laid out an interesting world where the religion in the universe is the guiding point around the social and military structure. There are some interesting points in that world that I think I will borrow upon to bring in to my book.  

So a few weeks ago, I posted about how i pulled out all of my old game systems and hooked them up to my TV. Since doing that I have done a little research on some of the great games that I missed from previous generations and also some of the really good Xbox Live Arcade games I missed from this past generation. I have to say that I am quite surprised at home many Gamecube games made it onto that list. I loved that system to death, but I sort of thought that I played most of the good games on it. 

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So Megan and I went to the motorcycle show again this Saturday. This has sort of become an annual thing for us each year. I have to say that there wasn't much that really caught my eye this year, with the exception of the new Yamah Bolt crusier. That bike looks really nice and has a great, gritty urban feel to it. I think it is positioned really well to give the HD 883 a run for its money. The specs as with most cruisers won't blow you out of the water. It only has a single disc for the front break and the engine is rather low for overall HP with only a 9-1 compression ratio for a V-Twin, but it makes up for it with some nice touches on the pipes and engine. It also has all LED lights that are positioned in a very modern looking setup. 

I am not normally into cruiser style bikes, but if I had to pick one, I would probably take the Bolt. Spec'ing the whole bike out with the "R-Spec" accessories and the brass finishes brings the base price to $8,999 up to just over $10,000, but overall it has a great look as you can see from the customization site. 

I also had a chance to check out the new BMW R Nine-T which everyone seems to be losing their minds over. I of course didn't have a chance to ride it, but my initial look was rather disappointing. For the price of the bike, there didn't seem to be much there and the comfort wasn't super apparent. The handlebars and seating position was leaning much more forward than I would have initially thought. the engine seems to be pretty much the same as the other oil/air cooled BMW twins, so I would expect there performance to be pretty well known. The lack of a a tele-lever though was obviously apparent and after having one of those for a few years now, I sort of find it hard to live without it. May be I will get to actually ride one later this year at a demo day or something.  

The other thing that I really noticed at the show this year was the amount of "booth babes". They seemed to be all over the place and they never seemed to be prevalent in years past. 

So last week I picked up and Xbox One in a whim. The console is pretty cool and honestly the Kinect works much better than I thought it would.

While plugging everything in I had to relocate my existing 360 to the other side of the entertainment center. My wife had the suggestion that I pull all of those consoles I had in a tub in the basement out and set them up as well.

It is awesome having a wife who is as nerdy as me.

So this past Friday I had my second role playing adventure with the Pathfinder Society. As with the first time, I had a blast and I am now starting to get a handle on how the game works a bit more. Our group was thrown for a bit of a loop at the beginning of the game as the GM who was hosting the game asked all of our characters to introduce themselves to their fellow companions and state why they decided to join the Pathfinder Society. I had to on the spot think up of a a background story for my character, but I think I did a pretty good job. 

I think I may start a little sort of side blog posts going forward that summarizes these adventures. Could be sort of fun. In the mean time, I will do a quick summary of the introduction I did that evening for my character. 

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So we are a couple of weeks into the new year and already I am beginning to just feel a bit worn down by everything. This often happens to me. I work in the basement of my building so we don't have any windows. This time of the year is actually a sort of slow time for me as well, which normally would be a good thing because it allows me to work on some of our longer term projects. These past couple of weeks have been a bit hectic thought with the weather and this week as followed up with people coming out of the woodwork with complaints. 

It is sort of exhausting to an extent and I feel like I am constantly putting out little fires, without getting any real work done. It is all really making me itch to get out of the house or something. Get on my motorcycle or go paint-balling or something. I was able to get out and go cross country skiing a couple of weeks ago, but unfortunately I haven't had an opportunity since the weather was too cold to go outside here. 

Let's hope things open up here a bit over the next week or two. 

So, Nanowrimo is long gone, but I am still slowly chipping away on my book. I have absolutely slowed down over the past month, a lot more than I had initially planned, but it was probably good to step back from everything for a bit of time to catch my breath. Nanowrimo was a mad sprint in November and nothing I have ever done before. It was exciting, but it wasn't really something I could keep on doing since I was basically neglecting other parts of my life. 

That being said I hope to get back into the writing part a bit more through the month of January. I am amazed at how much of this story I am discovering myself as I write this book. I am sort of just making things up as I go along and writing what feels like what would naturally happen in a scenario. I have found myself and my characters going to places I never imagined, wondering why we were all here and acting upon motives they never would have at the beginning of this adventure. 

I had to write my first love scene, which I admit was a bit awkward because all I could think about was if people reading this would just think it was my own sexual desires coming out. I had one of my characters commit a horrific crime out of pure impulse upon the moment. Everything is just sort of falling around me in this story, but I think I will get to where I need to be in the end. Ideas about solidifying the world seem to be coming together around me. I hope to keep plugging along with this. Eventually I may even allow people to read it. 

Well, it is that time again, when we look back upon the year we had and then think about what we want to do moving forward.  This past year went pretty fine for the most part, but for some reason I wouldn't really call it a satisfying year on the whole. I took two wonderful vacations this past summer to Yosemite and on a cruise. Apart from that though I didn't feel like I had much else from the summer that really stood out for me. 

My biggest personal accomplishment was probably my participation in Nanowrimo this past November. I found that I actually enjoyed writing quite a bit and I hope to continue going forward this year. My biggest disappointment was that I really did not get to ride my motorcycle as much as I wanted. I didn't participate in as many group rides as I would have liked and I did none of the weekend trips I wanted to. Somehow my weekends felt really full with other work. 

This year I think I want to keep my goals a bit simpler. 

1. Music Mondays - I should use Monday evenings to work on more music 
2. Continue to write at least once a week. Perhaps even get a book finished. 
3. Ride more Motorcycle.