Thinking of Dad at Christmas....

Hi, Dad—

As you would have said, time flies like the wind…and fruit flies like bananas. It’s been a bit since I’ve written my thoughts down; it’s hard to believe you’ve been gone seven years. Still, I remember that Christmas was always one of those times that you seemed to enjoy…and it seems appropriate that I take a few moments and jot some thoughts down. This year’s a little more difficult; my thoughts are as scrambled this year as they were in high school.

Speaking of years…thanks for the backbone. Not the metaphorical one; the genetic one. I’ve discovered why you disliked cold and damp so much. (Given your current resting place, there’s a certain irony to that, you know.) I wake up in the morning and could sell Rice Krispies: Snap, Crackle, POP! and my spine aligns. Thanks loads! Yeah, I know living in Oregon isn’t helping. On the other hand, I’d rather be here than in the midwest-or the east. I can see why you didn’t want to live in New Jersey! You always said the meek would inherit the earth; with my luck I’ll end up with Bayonne. 

It’s been a busy year. I’m singing with the Salem SenateAires these days; no, I’m not directing-but I’m having a ball. Traci’s been a wonderful support; I doubt I could have done half of what I did without her help. I’ve also been learning a new career; I know you understand how that works, having gone from one to another more years back than I want to admit to. I also have family: Traci has two daughters-Adrianne and Jordyn-and third daughter, Tylar. Addy has a partner-Alex-who has a cute daughter of his own, Cammy, whom we call the Bug. I love them all like they were my kids; you’d have fun discussing many things with Jordyn-and the Bug would love on you like there’s no tomorrow. Traci and I share a relationship that’s much more than a marriage. You’d love her; heaven knows I do!

Speaking of the family…the rest of the family is doing well. Mom’s doing well enough, and Amy, Kim, Liz and Patti are okay. Mom isn’t getting around as well as she could…but frankly, non of us are. As you know, none of us are getting younger-and every time I see them it’s all good. We’re taking care of Mom as best we can, but sometimes it’s harder than others. 

Enough of that, though. Tomorrow is Christmas, and there will be gifts to open, pictures to take-no, I haven’t forgotten taking the pictures at the top of the staircase!-and food to enjoy. Know that you’re missed, and never far from our thoughts. Traci has a song playing called “Good to be Alive RIght About Now.” She’s right…it is, and while you’re missed, know that we’re all taking very good care of each other. I know you’d like to know that!  

Love you and miss you--

Matthew

On What's Eating My Hard Drive

Wow. I haven’t sat down to blog much in over a year. Part of that is due to my continued writing/editing of the The Cosantóirí Chronicles. Part of that is due to a rather large set of life changes; I won’t go into my divorce here as it’s not germane to what I’m thinking about and the job changes are, sadly, a part of that divorce. While my life is much better now, there’s still stuff I’m not going to discuss in such a public forum as yet. Suffice it to say I’m far happier, and to detail some of the stuff I went through and put up with isn’t where I’m at right now.

No, what’s on my mind is the aftereffects of some of all of the above and the effect its had on my trusty MacBook. I looked at the hard drive on said trusty MacBook not that long ago and discovered I had…oh, about 27 GB left. 27 gig of a 250 gig hard drive. I looked at that and what came out of my mouth is not something that a former pastor should be caught saying...ever. Where did it all vanish to?

Culprit number one: My Nikon. Shooting in RAW is wonderful stuff. But it eats memory like I munch on Reece’s Pieces (or any other form of chocolate). Pull 29 files of photos from 2014 off-plus some duplicates in iPhoto and a lot of shots from my old and new iPhones-and that gives me some space. A friendly reminder: always back up your work, kids. And yes, I have a nice new iPhone 6 that my partner Traci got from Verizon. She got her kids, herself and I new iPhone 6’s as part of Verizon’s Edge deal; we share a plan to save a few bucks.

Culprit number two: Those former ministries I held. I finally removed the last of the files from Master’s, the files from my pastoral work the last few years, and my dissertation files. Years of work logs (I logged every paper I graded, to account for my hours), classes I taught/took, sermons, powerpoint presentations, photos from various events…all neatly filed onto DVD’s. That gave me back even more space.

Culprit number three: Yours truly. Years of other files, scans, other photos that hadn’t been cataloged (and now have), other files that I need to keep for various reasons, and so forth had to come off. I mean, I use the MacBook for everything: work, music, photos, letters, my books, and so much more. And you don’t think about a few KB here, a few MB there. I mean, 250 GB was a lot of memory. A program here, a few dozen photos of the family there (shot in RAW, of course), an update over there, and suddenly the hard drive’s filling up like a teenager at a fast-food joint. The only difference is that the hard drive has a limit to how much it can hold. All that stuff has to come off and get filed. 

I still have a lot of stuff to go through and file or get rid of. Some programs have hidden files they keep; and I’m starting to consider trying to save or delete a number of apps for the iPhone I’m not using as there’s nearly a fifth of my hard drive getting eaten by the little buggers. But what I really need to find is what is eating nearly 100 gig; I don’t have that many programs for a reason and I’ve already discarded several-plus an older copy of Xcode-I’ve either not used or don’t remember where I got them.

But at the end of the day, I have a sneaking hunch that I’m going to have to remove a fair number of other photos and documents and file those as well. Still…I’ve managed to recover enough memory to account for almost 40% of the hard drive. That is a win in my book.

Enough for now.  

On My Newest Toy

Today is a little bittersweet for me. I finally get a chance to unpack my shiny new toy: A Nikon D5200. I’ve been saving for this camera for three years; I finally got a chance to really unpack it and see what a gem I’ve gotten. (Okay, I admit I was saving for the D5100, but they’re no longer available. I’ll just have to suffer through with the better unit. Darn.) It’s a beaut, and I can’t wait to go out and play with it. 

However, there’s a sad part to this. I have to put my trusty old Minolta dImage Z6 away, along with all the accessories. I’ve had to remove the really nice camera strap off of it-a Tamrac padded leather N45-pull all the accessories out of my old Velocity 7 bag, and put them away. This is harder than you think; there’s been a lot of happy miles and many great shots with my Z6. Bought the day before leaving on a five week trip back in 2005 for a road trip for work and pleasure in which we went (amongst other places) to the Grand Canyon for a day and I just knew the little Vivitar I had was not going to work like I wanted (with the Grand Canyon, few cameras do), it quickly felt at home in my hands. It’s been to Hawai’i three times, Canada three times, all over the west coast (I have no idea how many beach pictures the thing’s taken), and all over the United States. I’ve shot the Mexican border with it (then turned around and headed away from San Ysidro). I’ve gotten some wonderful shots: flowers, waterfalls, butterflies…sunsets. Family times: Christmases, Thanksgivings, anniversaries. I took a few shots before Dad’s memorial service with it. I took photos of Deena’s class reunion with it on my Slik U8000 tripod. It’s been crammed into backpacks; the whole kit’s been packed in my suitcase and survived. It’s been a good part of my life for the last nine years, dependable as the day is long-so long as I had batteries to feed it. 

But the reality is that time has gone by. Unlike an old 35mm film camera that you could use for years on end with proper care and maintenance, digital cameras have greatly improved. Case in point: Shots that Deena is catching with disgusting ease just aren’t possible with 6 megapixels. Consider this: my iPhone camera has 5 megapixels; great for candids and quick shots (Remember: the best camera you have is the one that’s with you) but not for the kind of stuff I really, really want to do. And since Minolta was bought by Sony, it’s not like I can move into another Minolta. Deena’s Canon suits her; she’s gotten some really great stuff. However, I knew this last trip to Hawai’i that the next time I go back I was going to have to have a better camera. Too many shots I should have gotten, too many shots my mind saw-but the poor thing was just never designed to get. So it’s all back in their boxes and bags, along with all my other older cameras, waiting for one more trip somewhere. It’ll probably make a few trips here and there, perhaps; like the little Vivitar it replaced, the Z6 will be something I might take to an amusement park or someplace I don’t want to run the risk of breaking the D5200-or having it stolen. 

And as time goes by, what is right now becoming a very light Velocity 7 slingpack will get heavier; a speedlight (flash) will likely be the next major purchase. There will need to be a few minor purchases: a second battery as even Lith-Ion runs down and needs a charge eventually; a few odds and ends including a lens protector ($30 beats replacing a $300 lens) and a polarizer; at least one more lens-and probably two will eventually get added. Why buy all this stuff? Because I’ve had to work at this the hard way. Dad taught me well, and a few classes growing up didn’t hurt-but the truth is that I want do better work than I’ve been able to. This should stay with me for quite a while; and even if I eventually need a new camera body I’ll still have the lenses and the flash to go with it. 

Enough for now. 

On Writing Far Too Much

Boy, I hate it when I discover something I should have known-or at least suspected. 

I’ve had to put a stop-well, sort of-to a lot of my writing, and instead have had to do a boatload of editing. (Dr. Frey, you were right. There is no such thing as good writing, but only good editing.) I’ve been writing the Cosantóirí Chronicles now for the last few years, and I’ve been writing them to average-before editing-roughly 300 pages of single-spaced, 12 point Helvetica font prose. Then I adjust the pitch and font-Georgia, 13 point, space and a half-and each completed book ended up over 400 pages plus. Add to that the glossary in the back, and I thought that was pretty reasonable for a self-published e-book. I mean, I can read about 300 pages in roughly an evening’s time.

Now, in talking with a fellow singer-who’s also writing-he mentioned that his editor wanted him to keep his book to about 100,000 words. So I did some research...and found the same approximate word count for the kind of books I write. On more than one website for writers, prospective writers, and those of us who write for fun. 100,000 words? Really? That didn’t seem like enough to me, but I decided to see what that looked like. 

Fionnachtain-my first book-ran 208,000-plus words. Ón Am Atá Thart-the second in the series-ran some 190,000-plus words. An Cailín Órga-the third book-ran 180,000-plus words. As George Takei would say...."Ohhh, Myyyyy.” 

I've been writing two books at a clip and didn’t even know it! That means, if these numbers hold up, that I don’t have seven books and an eighth almost completed. It means I have closer to fifteen books written, at that seemingly arbitrary word count, and a sixteenth nearly in the can. And the framework for the seventeenth and eighteenth started.

What writing I’m doing now is filling in some blank spots as I figure out how to split the existing works roughly in half. I’m still telling the story I’ve been given as a gift-it’s just that, now it’s going to be a lot more books than I first envisioned. 

The good news is that what is now the first four are once again available. Fionnachtain, Aibíocht, Scéalta Saol, and Ón Am Atá Thart are available. Aibíocht and Scéalta Saol are the volumes that came from what was the excess of the first two volumes. I’ll start editing An Cailín Órga this week in my free time.

Thanks for your patience and understanding!  

UPDATE: The first eight volumes are now available. In addition to the ones listed above, An Cailín Órga, Breithe Clan, Oíche Dáta Deasghnátha agus Cosantóirí Saol, and Scéalta na Breithlá Déag are now available. The Cosantóiri Chronicles website is currently being revised to reflect the changes. 

If you were on the Cosantóiri Chronicles website, you can return by clicking here.

On Moving to Two Places-and Why

I decided to take a short break from packing stuff to move, preparing a sermon, grading papers, and writing books (not all at once-I’m not that good at multitasking!) to catch up the blog.

For those who haven’t heard: I have returned to the denominational church of my youth: The United Methodist Church. After joining Ebbert Memorial UMC in Springfield, OR and completing my dissertation, I found I had too much spare time on my hands-and a need to do something with my calling. After a chat with my DS, I was sent as a lay person assigned (even though I hold ordination credentials) to Hope UMC in Drain/Yoncalla, OR as their pastor. Long story short, this past July first I have been sent instead to Pioneer UMC in Coquille, OR. This is a 1/2 time slot; I’m hoping to remain there while I undertake the things I need to do to become a full elder. That's a three year process, so I have some time.

The good news is, there’s a parsonage to live in. This means for the first time in over eight years, most of my books are on shelves-and have been thatched and duplicates pulled and donated to the church for their rummage sale next month. I have an actual office as well, and I have a church with good people who want to see things happen. (Not that the folks at Hope didn’t-they also want to see things grow and get bigger as well. Join me in praying for them and their new pastor, Jerry Steele.) The downside is that we’re in the middle of a move that is having to happen much faster than we’d planned...they want to rent the apartment we’ve been living for five years by the first of August. Geez, I hate moving. Nerves are frayed, money’s tighter as a result for a few weeks-but God is good. (There’s also the part about commuting 2 1/2 hours one way to get there, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.) 

Add to that I’m now the interim director for the Cascade Chorus, the Barbershop chorus I have been the assistant director of the last five or six years or so. Toss in doing things like attending Annual Conference and a Pastoral Transition conference...and you find that ol’ Doc Crandall’s been a busy cuss.

Little things one takes for granted-like working internet-are coming together. I spent most of my Monday getting that back up and running; my wireless HP printer was balky and the Airport Express needed to be "persuaded" to play nicely with the new wifi router. I can find things in the kitchen now, and many of the boxes and tubs we’ve hauled down there have either been sorted and their contents found homes...or will be in short order. (Have I mentioned how much I hate moving?) And the fun part is that it’s only half the stuff. 

See, Deena-who lost her full-time job the end of June-now has a part time job doing the same stuff with a different department, and some per diem hours as well. If she makes the CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) course she’s trying to get into, she’ll be busier than I am. As a result, she has to stay in the area to work. So we’re moving half our stuff into her folks place and will pay them some rent, and I get to commute that 2.5 hours one way I mentioned earlier. 

I want to make one thing profoundly clear: this commute is not a sign of trouble in our marriage. Just the opposite: we are having to work harder on our relationship as we won’t have the time together we’re used to spending. On the other hand, because we are both so busy, the time we do have together is made more special. 

So...to my students, I ask your indulgence for about another seven to ten working days; I’m starting to have enough time to grade like I’m used to-which means back papers will get caught up fairly quickly. To my parishioners, I ask your continued grace as I get settled into being your new pastor and find a routine that works. To my chorus, I ask you hang with me a little longer-and keep working on your music at home. And to everyone else...when you think about us, keep us in prayer. Now, more than ever, we need God’s grásta agus síocháin-His grace and peace-to help us through a tough period of time. 

More thoughts on St. Patrick's Day

This whole article started off with a simple thought. “St. Patrick’s day is coming, and wouldn’t it be fun to find an Irish flag to fly off the patio?” Now you have to understand a few things: One, I do have some Irish roots, and I have proven that to the Irish Government’s satisfaction. A Certificate of Irish Heritage hangs on my office wall to prove it. I’ve already mentioned my trip to Cill Airne agus Corcaigh (Killarney and Cork) in 1997, and the three things we learned about Lá Fhéile Pádraig-St. Patrick’s day-while there. (You can read about that here.) I’ve found that-besides all the obvious silly green paraphernalia-there’s not a small enough flag available locally to fly off our patio. The only one I could find was a 3’ x 5’ job, which might have doubled as a bedspread were I so inclined. The search for this has given me pause, however. (Hence this blog article.) 

One other thought comes to mind on how Americans celebrate St. Patrick’s day: it’s smack in the middle of Lent, which means consuming copious amounts of booze is generally frowned upon by the Church as there are some who gave up booze for Lent. I was pleased to find a sober St.Patrick’s Day party in New York; one could only hope that concept takes root elsewhere. (Check out the webpage for it here...after you’re done reading the rest of the blog, if you don’t mind.)

Back to my thought: If this one day is theoretically celebrating all things Irish, you’d think I’d find Irish flags all over the place. Granted, this year there’s a lot more push to market Easter-which is another blog for another time. This year, Easter is early. (Thought: is it proper to consume a chocolate cross at Easter? Should such things even be sold?) In North America, the day certainly doesn’t seem to be much about a sainted Christian, one who has been credited with bringing the Christian faith to Ireland. And after going back through my pictures and digitizing 42 of them to get a feel for that trip once again, I can’t say that I saw too many Irish Princess tiaras, shirts telling people about how much beer they planned to drink, or even men pinching women’s hindquarters if they weren’t wearing green. (And I pity the idiot who tried pinching a woman wearing orange, as there are a few Protestants living outside Northern Ireland. That chap would likely get slugged into the next county.) It’s no longer even a celebration of Irishness, it seems. It appears to be more and more focused on a stereotype the Irish are really starting to fight: the drunk. In fact, I suspect Patrick would be somewhat appalled at how Americans celebrate a day which was meant to honor him, his legacy-and his Christian faith.  

So...celebrate as you will, but keep in mind some of what I’ve said. Yes, I’ll be wearing something green that day; what that is will be depending on the weather. As for the flag that I’ve been looking for, the item that inspired all this writing tonight...I found one online, and even with shipping it’s ten bucks. It’s a nice looking cotton job with brass grommets, 12” by 18”. I’ll probably order it before the first of the month. The saddest part is the pole and bracket I’m going to have to get to fly it properly-as well as an American flag when those days to fly Old Glory come-will cost more than the flag will. 

Now that’s wrong in and of itself. 

Enough for now.

On A Lesson in Self-Publishing

Happy New Year, culture lovers!

For a number of you, you may not know this: I’ve been writing in my spare time. What started off as a short story to get a dream out of my head has blown up into what is now a six book series called The Cosantóirí Chronicles. There are plans and outlines for at least one-and as many as three more-books in the series, guaranteeing I’ll be writing more for at least the next year. The “average” book when I get done is in excess of four hundred pages each, including a glossary; in nearly two years I’ve written six of these. That’s three a year, average.

So you know: These books are not Christian Fiction. These are more Sci-Fi/ Fantasy, where there are moral people. They tend to be the kind of books I like to read-but I’ve said before these aren’t for children or immature teens. I choose to be a Christian that writes-not a Christian Writer-because I truly feel that the storyline I’ve been given is a gift. 

Late last month, I quit writing (after completing book six in the series) and did some editing. My supervisor at Master’s-Dr. Dennis Frey-has told me for years on end that “There is no such thing as good writing. There’s only good editing” and he’s right. Boy, is he right. (He’s right a lot by the way, and I don’t say that just because he’s the president of the school I work for.) Part of that editing was to take the time to create both Kindle and iBook editions, instead of just ePub editions, so I could enter both the Kindle Publishing Direct and iBookstore markets. 

But after creating three iBooks I’ve chosen to not create any more for now, and to focus instead on Kindle versions. There are several reasons for this, which I’ll explain below. But you need to understand that up front, it wasn’t an easy decision to make. I like the fact that iBooks Author now has a prose-only template. The program itself is easy to use; I can take a completed document and turn it into am iBook in roughly two to three hours. That’s the only upside, however. The negatives are many, at least to me:

1. The interactive nature of an iBook is fantastic. You can click a link and it will take you to a glossary description of that term. That means I have to create and populate the glossary. It’s also what takes better than half the time to create an iBook from a finished document. That takes time away from editing and writing other books in the series. By going with Kindle, it creates a .mobi file in a matter of seconds-and the only downside to it is that the reader will have to turn to the glossary in the back, just like I do when I’m writing and editing.

2. iBooks Author requires you to use an iPad to check the formatting for your book. In addition, it seems that any book you create using the program is only readable on an iPad. That’s great for sales of Apple product...but lousy business for a self-publishing author who does not own an iPad. (Yet.) iBooks is Apple-specific, and while I don’t have an issue with that, there is a marketing issue. There are Kindle programs for iPhone, Mac, and Windows that allow you to read the books you download, which allows for a broader acceptance of the work to be read. 

3. The iBookstore requires that each iBook has its own International Standard Book Number-or ISBN-number. That’s not inexpensive; $250 for ten. As I see six completed books-and maybe one to three more-that’s $250 for a bulk assignment. Right now, that’s money I simply don’t have. Kindle Publishing Direct simply assigns an ASIN number (Amazon Standard Identification Number) and is done with it. Of course, if I just want to sell ePub editions on my own, I don’t need either one.

4. Finally, I have to look at what is an easier sale. Not everyone has an iPad, and so just doing a version for that as a self-publishing job is more time and effort than it’s worth. It’s not a matter of being lazy. If I had to start all over again, I’d probably write each volume as an iBook and then export it as an ePub as well. It does become an issue in that it takes away from the rest of my life and the rest of the work I do. 

If all I did was write for a living, I’d be all over iBooks Author. I like it; it’s an easy enough program to use. But for me the downside outweighs the positives right now. I may change my mind later on, though, and finish the set out in iBooks. (But only after I get an iPad to check the product out on.) 

A final note: another good e-book program is Calibre. It’s available for Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and as a portable system. They recommend a donation; I do as well. It’s a little clunky-but powerful, and will open all e-books except for iBooks.

Enough for now.