Weekly Wrap-Up: June 28

What Is This?

Every Monday, I document the happenings of the past week. The original (and still primary) intent is to track my progress in meeting my writing goals. Increasingly, I’ve been discussing more than just writing. For example, I’m a sports nut, so occasionally I’ll throw in a sports tidbit. I may talk about World of Warcraft, do-it-yourself projects, travel, food, or beer and wine. I think potpourri fits very well. *grins*

Writing

Weekly Word Count

My weekly goal is 2,000 words. I use an Excel spreadsheet to track all my work by category (blog post, copyediting work, creative writing) and item. So all I need to do is add up the “words” column and I’m good to go. Blog posts and creative writing count full credit. Copyediting for other writers is counted at ten percent of the starting word count for the document; style sheets for that copyediting will count twenty-five percent. Editing my own work, if and when I get to that point, will count fifty percent of the starting word count. This week’s word count: 3,337.

• Blog Post: “Weekly Wrap-Up: June 21,” 788 words
• “Flamingo,” short story, 402 words
• “Street of Hope,” short story, 1246 words
• “Anticipation,” short story, 941 words

So yeah…a good week, lots of creativity. Lots of encouragement and support from my writer’s group as well!

I intend to keep publishing stories here, but I may not always put them on the front page. However, I always appreciate feedback and suggestions on what to present, and how to present it. (And if anyone would like to comment on the fiction, by all means do!)

Potpourri

2010 FIFA World Cup™

The United States made a good run, winning our group without a loss, and coming back once again after surrendering an early goal in our second-round match against Ghana. But the African team looked more fit, overall, through the entire 120 minutes of the match. Unfortunately, the officiating throughout the competition, while generally good, has been horrible when it’s been bad. As my youngest son quipped on Twitter, we had to score three goals to get one that actually counted.

While I believe Germany thoroughly outplayed England on Saturday, the apparent goal by England, which would have leveled the score at two goals each, was not seen by the assistant referee (although television cameras showed it clearly), and therefore not allowed. It would have been the second English score within less than half a minute, and unquestionably would have changed the entire flavor of the match, including strategy on both sides. Who can say what the result might have been?¹

Yet FIFA still resists the use of goal-line technology in its most important tournaments. All other major (and many minor) sports in the world use technological means to back up human officials. Why not the most popular sport in the world?² I don’t want to see more officials on the pitch. I suppose there would have to be one in the press box to alert the field referee to check a replay. And I’m not advocating extensive use of replay; for example, I can’t see using it on offside calls (although perhaps to determine whether an offside attacker scored). But a ball that drops more than the diameter of the ball behind the goal line, and is not called a goal? That needs to be fixed.

Back to the World Cup itself, Netherlands beat Slovakia today to advance. The Dutch are my sleeper pick to win the Cup, but Argentina looked strong in beating Mexico last night, and the Germans clearly looked overpowering in their victory over England. Brazil plays later tonight against Chile. I truly believe the champion will come from among Argentina, Brazil, Germany, or Netherlands. Obviously, Spain is also a contender, but they really haven’t shown me anything yet. Perhaps they’re saving it for the later rounds. There are still two exciting weeks left in the competition, and I can’t wait to see how matters develop.

College World Series

UCLA and USC to play for National Championship! Well, maybe not the USC that is UCLA’s crosstown rival. In this case, it’s the University of South Carolina Gamecocks who will battle the Bruins of UCLA in a best-of-three series that begins tonight in Omaha’s famed Rosenblatt Stadium. UCLA has 106 NCAA championships—more than any other university or college. Yet not one of those is in baseball. Here’s hoping we get our first this week!

Not About Sports

The power went out this morning about 8:30 or so…just as I hit the power switch on the iMac to boot it up. Well, crap. But, since I’d decided to go for a walk at some point today, decided earlier in the morning, before it got above 80F, would be a good time. So I invited Mrs. Kestrel to join me, and we stepped out into full sunshine and about 75 degrees. We took our (well, my) normal path (the path she takes with a neighbor and neighbor’s dog is different from mine), but as we got to the bottom of the hill, Mrs. K suggested we take the newly-constructed walking path that circles down through some oaks and along a bit of Rapid Creek. Neither of us had taken that path before (it’s only been completed a few weeks), and we really enjoyed it.

The path is crushed rock, well-compacted, and the grove of oaks provides lots of shade. The creek is up quite a bit, and flowing well—not something you want to send the dog off into, that’s for sure! It added maybe ten minutes to the walk, and will probably become a permanent part of my forays.

Earlier this morning, my wife surprised me with freshly made cinnamon rolls! YUM! (Another reason why the walk needed to happen. *grin*) A former coworker had given her some sourdough starter (which isn’t especially sour, but makes great bread!) after her return from Italy, so we’ve been enjoying the bread made from that. Last week saw a combination of wheat and white flours, which made a delicious wheat bread, and this morning brought out the cinnamon rolls. The dough is not quite as sweet, perhaps, as the dough we usually use for the rolls, but one of my observations on the bread is that it’s a lot more sweet than sour. So I, at least, proclaimed the rolls a hit!

Since we had no power when I ate breakfast, I missed my coffee. However, on the return from our walk, I had a second roll, accompanied this time by herbal iced tea (raspberry zinger, I believe). Power had returned, but I was a bit too warm to want to brew coffee. Instead, we closed up the house and turned on the air conditioner in anticipation of highs in the mid- to upper-90s from Tuesday through Saturday, at least. And while it is only supposed to reach mid-80s today, we reasoned that it would be easier to keep the house cool by starting the A/C now, rather than trying to cool it off later (and believe me, our upper floor gets a lot hotter in the late afternoon and evening).

And now, it’s just about time for Brazil–Chile to kick off, so I think I’ll grab a bit of lunch (crab and pasta salad) and settle in for the game. Have a great week, everyone!