A Venetian Retrospective OR Freezing and Wading through Beauty!

Gonna throw in some variety with another retrospective this week! A couple months ago I wrote a post about visiting Paris with my then-fiancee. Spoiler Alert: Soon after that she became my wife.

From Paris we went to Rome (where we got married), then Florence, then finally: Venice.

I guess I could go in order. But that's just what they'd be expecting...

We got to Venice on January 3rd catching the tail-end of the Christmas/New Year's crowd but a month or so before the Carnivale crowd.

Which was, in my opinion, a very cold, very wonderful time to go. Most of the time when I see pictures of Venice it's on a bright sunny day in summer. The squares are packed, gondolas glide gracefully along the water, and the whole place is bursting with life.

Not so much when we were there.

Carting tourists around or staying at home with mulled wine...
...Guess which one the gondoliers chose.

Not to say the place was deserted. But you could wind your way through the alleys and side streets of Venice without running into people, quickly getting lost in the twists and turns that are navigating through Venice.

Someone's courtyard? Nope! Just another Venice street!

And there are a lot of twists and turns. Navigating in Venice is basically done by this method: 1)Look at a map to figure out the direction you want to go. 2)Wander in that general direction. 3)Eventually you might make it there. Maybe.

For longer distances, you could take the bus.

And yes, their bus is a boat.
How awesome is THAT?!?

But the alleys are where I really enjoyed Venice, and we spent most of a day just wandering around through alleys, getting lost, making random decisions by impulse.

We had to make tough decisions like: Do we go over the canal or into it?

The city would go through a series of tiny, winding alleys, then open on squares with long-disused wells and neat buildings, then plunge back into the alleys.

Neat buildings with odd decor, might I add...

That's a well.
...annnnnnd more alleys!

Random buildings would have random informative plaques detailing something significant that had happened in that building. This would have been completely fascinating, except we were in Italy, so they were, of course, in Italian. I meant to translate these later. Which I totally never did.

Informativo!

Occasionally random gems of shoppes would be hidden away in the alleys and wanderings. We found a random Irish pub filled with local Venetians. (Yes, Irish pub. They're actually a big thing in Italy.) We found an incredible leather and paper shop. I got a notebook from there that still, to this day, smells slightly fishy. Not to mention dozens of other random shoppes with glass, masks, and random Venetian things.

This shop was closed when we went by.
Which is good, because I was a little too creeped out to go in.

But because Venice ends in water on all sides, getting lost was much more fun than other locations, because sooner or later you'd know exactly where you were. (Hint: Next to the water.)

For example, the time we wandered vaguely in a general direction through a variety of sketchy alleys...

And though a couple buildings.

...And came out near the water, next to a chapel I didn't know was there!

Behold, the Chapel of St. Someone-Or Other

Sure, I could have found it by looking at a map, but it was much more fun to wander and stumble upon it. It was neat, with its own collection of art, and very different from the larger cathedral in Venice. Some of which I totally didn't get.

Ah yes, the parable where Cupid steals a staff
and becomes a bishop for a day...

Beyond random wandering, we also got to enjoy the various standard tourist-type activities of Venice, like taking pictures of canals.

Big ones...

Small ones...

Ones right outside our hotel room window...

And, of course, St. Mark's Square, the center of Venetian tourist activity. But with a winter twist:

Occasional flooding.

And little kids putting sissy adults in their PLACE, yo!

During certain times of year and certain times of the day, the water level of the lagoon will rise enough that lower parts of Venice get flooded. Sometimes this means finding another way or wading through the water. But in well-trafficked areas, it means very efficient workers break out the walkways.

BAM! Your flood self is neutralized!

And I mean efficient. I saw these guys do it only once in three days, and it was impressive. Burly Italian men in knee-high boots wading into the water, slapping down metal braces, then equally burly men coming after them with boards. A few seconds later and they'd be gone, off to save another person from getting soaked.

When the waters receded, they'd come back out and take the walkways away just as faster, if not faster. Someone had seriously thought this whole thing out.

Seriously.
Side spots for tourists to take pictures? Genius!

You may have noticed everyone being bundled up in all the pictures. You may have noticed snowflakes. That's because it was cold. And that water flooding the square? Also very cold.

But you know what? I'm glad we went then, and wouldn't have had it any other way. Like all parts of the world, certain part of Venice had left up the Christmas lights, so we got to experience empty alleys and squares still festively decorated.

This is a pretty main side street,
and during the summer would be packed.

A far corner of Venice. Almost completely deserted.
Also, that restaurant was a total locals-only place.

We wandered around enjoying the stillness and beauty that is the man-made island of Venice.

Not even that late at night, but still mostly to ourselves.

And as we went to view the famous Bridge of Sorrows, which was currently being restored, we were reminded that, like most great places of man-made beauty, sometimes bills must be paid.

If you look closely, you can see the shocked face on the bridge.

Finally, I'd like to offer this final picture as a palate cleanser, since it's kind of a bummer to end a post on commercialism.

Ahhh.... Much better.

Tracking Writing OR Graphs Are Fun!

My path to fiction writing has been a strange one. Sure I wrote short stories, papers, poems, and other such things as a kid, but thinking of writing as useful rather than fun took a bit. It started with writing my own monologues for auditions in high school. An acting teacher had mentioned the idea, and combing through plays to find an already written perfect match seemed so much harder than just making one up.

I probably should have taken the hint and focused on writing then and there, but we all have our own paths, jah?

From there it was playwriting in college, then years of pursuing screenwriting before ending up at fiction. My current project? Taking a story that I loved as a script and turning it into a novel. The good part? I get to include all of the juicy world bits that couldn't be crammed in the mere 112 pages of script. The bad part? Novels are frikkin' LONG.

"What?!?" says our friend Cynical Reader. "Are you saying novels are harder?!?!? Are you saying scripts are easier and thus less valid?!?!?!?"

First, you should really tone down the punctuation, CR. Second, let's just say that since a picture is worth a thousand words, when you go from movie to book someone has to write those thousand words.

Fortunately, my amazing wife (who is also a writer) pointed me in the direction of WriteTrack. (Website located here: http://nano.davidsgale.com)

**Ahem** Seems we need to register and login...
Hold on a second...

WriteTrack is free (awesome!), but generous souls can donate to keep the lights on. And it does exactly what the name implies:

It keeps track of what you write.

Namely your goal, how much you need to have done at this point, and how much you actually have done by this point.

Forget Science and Technology...
...THIS is what Progress looks like!

It works by setting up challenges. For example, I had 35,000 words of an estimated 100,000. I decided I wanted to finished my rough draft by May 1st, so I entered in 65,000 as my goal, and...

Voila! Numbers on a calendar!

Every day you simply enter in how many actual words you wrote, and it redistributes the remaining words across the given time period. Wrote more than you need? Great! That's less you'll have to write later. Wrote less? Then get to work, slacker!

Truth be told, I completely love this thing for the graphic elements that it does automatically. Sure, I could do all the math and keep track on a spread sheet. If I did it would look just like the raw data report you can access.

Hooray. A data table. It's so exciting...

I could even make simple line graphs normally associated with stock prices:

Sell, damn it, SELL!

However like a magpie I also enjoy shiny things, and the ease of entering in a single number every day to get neat looking graphs is a completely wonderful feeling.

Take, for example, the daily performance graph.

Orange is NormalVille.
My blue is in the land of Awesome.

But how does such exceptional performance (if I do say so myself) add up in the long run? Who knows?!?

Oh wait. The total progress graph knows.

The Total Progress Graph knows ALL.

As any writer can attest it is really easy to get a little lost in the middle mire when writing a book/script/poem. I've seen people get lost in the middle of haikus.

You start to feel like each day is disconnected from the next, and at night that little voice in your head starts saying, "What's it matter if you don't write today? It's just one day... You deserve to eat that ice cream. A little ice cream never hurt anyone. Also you shouldn't exercise. And should sleep for, like, 72 hours straight. And every meal should be pizza. Topped with chocolate."

Well I'm gonna lay it out right here, right now: That voice is a punk. And not the cool kind with dye in their hair and metal in their face. That voice is the kind who I can't describe without unintentionally pissing someone off. It's that offensive.

And call me weird, but something about being accountable to those little blue and orange lines makes me shove that punk away and get writing.

Because it's easy to feel down on yourself while writing. But it's a nice kick in the ego pants to produce graphs like this one:

Every day I have exceeded 100%.
That's right: I have defied the laws of math.

That being said, sometimes we can't write for very good, non-punk related reasons. Say we're going on a trip, or have to pull a really long day at work, or the kids are sick.

Fortunately, WriteTrack ALSO has you covered there by allowing you to adjust the weight of each day in percentages.

Having no kids, mine are all at 100%.
That sound you just heard is all of my friends who are parents slapping me.

Now this may not work for everyone. But for some awesome reason it motivated my wife, and it's motivated me.

You know how many words I wrote in February? Me neither. I didn't keep track that well, but I can tell you it wasn't much.

You know how many I've written in the last two weeks? 19,000.

I'm not bragging here (okay, maybe a little), but I've clearly shoved that punk voice away from center stage.

Seriously though, this isn't just about bragging. Not only do I find this tool and all the data fascinating, but I'm also fascinated about how well it works.

It's not like I have anyone to answer to but myself. I'm the only who sees this goal. I don't have an agent or publisher waiting on the deadline. Even the possibility of making money from the book is at best a dim hope in the future at the end of many obstacles, so the threat of not making money off it has no teeth in the slightest.

But the graph becomes tangible. It becomes a very real thing that I see at the end of every day, a moment when I can pause and say to myself, "Well, Self, it seems you have created something quantifiable today."

And I can look back and say, "Ummm... Okay, I really need to stop talking to myself so vividly. But that is an awesome graph."

Indy Children's Museum Part IV OR Toys R Awesome

In part four of our look at the Indianapolis Children's Museum, we're gonna round everything up with exhibits that aren't only for kids, but really bring out the inner kid in all of us. This is the last in this initial series, so I thought we'd go out on a bang.

A Hot Wheels, hydraulics, and toys filled bang!

So crazy it'll knock you head right off your shoulders! Vintage style!

Remember when you were a kid and you had your collection of toy cars? They could have been models, Hot Wheels, Micro-Machines, or Happy Meal toys, but regardless of the type their designs very quickly left the real world and headed off into "You will never see an actual car like this in a million years."

Well it turns out a million years went by pretty damn quickly.

I can hear you saying, "Hot Wheels? For Real?"
My response: "For real, dude. For real."

This exhibit turned the tables on the idea of designing toys from full size cars, instead designing full size cars from the tiny toy ones. It's undoubtedly a very scientific process involving lots of math and artistic ability to get all of the details just right.

And the conclusion of this experimental design method? Awesome.

Why would you need two smaller engines instead of one big one?
Because AWESOME, that's why.

There was some blurring of lines. For example if a Hot Wheels design took an existing car and modified it for the toy car, then the people would take the existing car and give it the same modifications as the toy car. I realize that sentence is a little syntactically confusing, so allow me to illustrate with pretty pictures.

A friend in high school drove a bus like this. It was not nearly as cool.
...Or as pink.

This one is really just a hood modification and a paint job.
Oddly enough, also pink.

What really impressed me, though, was the car that as far as I knew never actually existed on any production line. I could be wrong, but dang...

This could be rolling out of the Alpha Centauri Motors factory as we speak.
Evidently they'd got some killer waves there, bro.

But say your child isn't a budding auto-enthusaist. Say they hate all things shiny and have a fear of flames being painted on the side of things. Say they love complicated machines that have no purpose other than to be awesome.

No worries! We got you covered.

A local museum where I grew up had one of these.
I spent literally HOURS as one of those kids.

"Great job, Willikins! Now what does it do?"
"Beats me, sir!"

And this was just in one corner of a huge room with tons of things to keep hyperactive kids occupied while they burn off all of the sugar they consumed from tasty treats downstairs in the cafeteria.

Kid 1: "This is how we get all of our drinking water."
Kid 2: "Yes yes, but how do we make a huge mess with those blocks?"

This model river features various systems of locks that teach kids how to
block canals and cause incredible economic havoc. Fun!

Kids: "Whhheeee!!!"
Parents: "Whoever planned this exhibit is a GENIUS."

But by far the single exhibit that made me giggle the most was located on the top floor, just past the carousel.

You heard me.

To get to this exhibit there were two routes: The one past the line of people to get on the carousel (the boring path) and the one through the hallways of wacky mirrors (the awesome path.)

One guess which one I took.

The mirrors were, of course, awesome, and neat. But to keep this post from getting too long, I'm making the artistic decision to cut it short and move on.

You see? I'm artistic!!!

What was this awesome exhibit? Toys and video games from the last few decades. Behold:

Other things may have also happened in the late '70s.
But only Pong counts.

Yes, that is a father thoroughly beating his son at Pong.
I'd feel bad, but the son probably killed him 300 times last night in Halo 4.

Kids, that thing in the center is a Walkman.
Like an MP3 player but with only album at a time.

"Hey! They made an arcade version of that game from my iPhone!"

This exhibit had two additional key features:
1)Parents telling kids what it was like when they were young.
2)Kids without any parents around enjoying the same games I did at their age.

Oddly enough, I gained a certain degree of pride in my childhood. Sure, we had to get our cheat codes from Nintendo Power or our friends, our portable music players skipped, and our handheld video games gave you carpel tunnel...

"See that book? You had to find a guy named Waldo."
"Couldn't you check the internet for his location?"

...But there was a line of kids waiting to play Super Mario Bros. The first one.

Also a group of parents forcing themselves not to say,
"No, jump on TOP of the sewer and you can find a Warp Zone!"

Overall, it was an incredible day, and an absolutely incredible museum.

When I was a child we lived about an hour and a half from Monterey Bay Aquarium. My parents bought us memberships, and a few times a year we'd head down to the aquarium. I have many fond memories of wandering around that aquarium as a kid. It was an awesome kids place that was close enough to be a regular thing, but far enough away to be special.

I went back with my wife a few years ago for the first time in over a decade. It was just as incredible as I remembered, and I spent the day with a ridiculous grin on my face.

As I wandered around the Indianapolis Children's Museum, I kept getting visions of that museum being a similar place for my children, even though they don't exist yet. And I was truly glad to have my own Awesome Kids Place About an Hour Away. (An AKPAHA.) My kids had better like it as much as I do, because I will drag them around it anyway.

But honestly? I think they'll love it.

And now, to avoid ending on a sappy note: All of the Lego Harry Potter sets in one place.

Wizards made of small plastic blocks? Madness!
...Awesome, awesome madness.

Thanks for reading the Indy Children Museum posts!