As our vacation time edges closer and closer, I find myself really looking forward to it; sure, I know that road trips are no way for me to lose weight fast, but once we’re up there I’ll have more time and freedom than I’ve had in a long, long time.

The best weight loss solution might just be me worrying over whether to take another crack at my Thirty Minutes Or Less mystery novel or move on to a fresher, less tainted project. It’s hard to say for sure which is the best decision, but I’m willing to be a lot of fishing, hiking, outdoor grilling and time to sleep will certainly aid in my bid to make a decision.

One thing distracting me from greater creativity is that I’ve been backsliding a bit on my weight loss goals ever since the weather warmed up. I’ve gained about five pounds back, and while that may not seem like much, that puts me in 234-235 territory, which is disheartening compared to the sub-230s I was flirting with only a month ago.

I really want to avoid having to go to big and tall clothing shops if I can avoid it, and I have been headed in the right direction since last fall; I need to take action so I don’t start bordering on that territory again.

If I want to have a long career as a writer, be it as a novelist, Bible teacher or whatever, I need to do better than stall at about twenty pounds lost. Even after trimming twenty pounds, I still have another fifty to go before I’m tipping the scale at below 180 pounds.

I lost that first twenty in relatively good time; counting my calories and cutting back on snacks and pop were enough to see my go from 252.4 to 231.2 in about six or seven weeks. Since then, though, it’s been a see-saw struggle. The diet I’m on worked well for that first twenty pounds, but is made to simply restrict caloric intake; no exercise is involved.

That appealed to me because it’s not like I have a load of refurbished fitness equipment; but my apartment complex does have a full workout room and two swimming pools (indoor and outdoor, though the outdoor one is seasonal). So I have resources.

Simply restricting my calories with no exercise isn’t working well anymore. I need more physical activity if I’m going to lose the next twenty points and get below 212.4. That’s the next benchmark for me, should bring be back into maybe a 40 waist, and now that it’s warm again, it’s time to stop just starving myself. It’s time to get the blood pumping, too. If that means I eat a little more, the physical activity should make up for it as long as I don’t go wild.

Once I come up with a new title for my lighthearted supernatural mystery, I intend to keep it quiet this time. Quiet in the same way a teenage cheerleader never lets on that she’s relying on fat burners to maintain her figure for her Cheerios uniform.

Sorry, had a Glee-k moment there.

Anyway, to avoid another perfect title being grabbed out of the ether, once I figure out a new title for my novel, I won’t be sharing it with my blog audience until the book is accepted for publication and on its way to print.

It’s not that I really think some Hollywood bigwig read my blog and stole the title. It’s too perfect a title not to have been used before now. That’s part of what I loved about it. So inspiration struck someone with quicker fingers than mine.

I’ll regroup as soon as I figure out another killer title for my novel. But just to be safe, I am serious when I say I will keep that title secret until it’s accepted somewhere. Just for my own peace of mind.

I have to admit, it was really demoralizing to find out a movie is being made with the same title as the working title on my lighthearted supernatural mystery novel, Thirty Minutes Or Less. Even if what they do with it is completely different from the direction I’m going, that title is now toxic and I have to come up with a new one, which is really a bummer considering it was so thematically tied to what I was doing with the novel.

Ugh.

So I’m at a standstill again with my novel. Not a data loss standstill, thank God, but any standstill produces the same result: the pages just aren’t flowing right now, and any time I think about sitting down to work on it, I want to do just about anything else, other than writing. Even if it involves researching a treatment for eczema on Google.

I’m accustomed to working on a desktop computer, but my PC still isn’t back from Best Buy… and may never be again since they’ve become real asses about welching on their no-lemon policy. I’m more committed than ever to building my next desktop system myself, from high-quality parts, not this bargain-basement crap Acer and Best Buy conspire on.

Anyway, I now have a current laptop, thanks to my Web page creation side-gig, and I love it; aside from the graphics, it matches the specs of my MIA desktop, or improves on them. However, it’s troublesome adjusting to the keyboard layout and the hinky touchpad mouse. I’ve pretty much disposed of the touchpad in favor of a USB mouse and am tempted to add in a USB keyboard as well. I will probably do that as soon as I get my desk put together, since I’ll then have room for the keyboard. At least I’m not laying on glass tile in the meantime; my floor at least has cozy carpet on it.

Other than that, however, everything about this laptop is awesome. And it’s not an Acer, thank God! It’s an Asus T60!

But I still miss my desktop.

With spring teasing that it might stick around after a somewhat early appearance this year, many folks are thinking about fun stuff like outdoor furniture. As for me, I’m excited that I finally have a new laptop!

Sure, my desktop can’t seem to stay fixed and out of Geek Squad customer service for more than a few hours at a time over the last couple months. And granted, I’ve been on an old laptop since then.

How old? Well, try Windows XP, 512MB of RAM, a single-core processor and an 80GB hard drive on for size. Heck, it only sports USB 1.0! Like an old workhorse, it still works, but it ain’t running the Kentucky Derby anymore either. Still, it’s hard to hate a durable Toshiba.

And my new laptop? Built for speed! Try Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, 4GB of RAM, a dual-core processor and a 500GB hard drive with USB 2.0! (Sure, USB 3.0 would have been nice, but virtually no one’s adopted that yet…)

Anyway, once I get the thing loaded up with the proper tools and humming, I’ll be golden! Gotta love my new Asus laptop!

I’ve been thinking a bit about print solutions for my workstation. My wife and I bought a printer with bluetooth wireless about six months ago, but unfortunately we don’t have all the extras that are needed to make such a set-up work, and the cost of the accessories is actually less than just getting a second printer.

So I’ve been thinking that maybe, if I get get a computer desk, maybe I’ll also just pop for a second printer, too. Wireless sharing of one printer seems like a good idea, but is it? I’m no longer convinced it’s worth it. So whether it’s an Epson tm-t88iv, a Kodak, a laser or an ink-jet, I am thinking that a two-printer solution might be the way to go… again.

My wife and I for years have been talking about wanting to move out to the West Coast someday. While that might seem like purely a writer’s paradise, with every passing winter it seems desirable for more reasons than milder winters alone.

Sure, winter seems all cozy and romantic with visions of cuddling before a wood fire together dancing in one’s head; but the reality is that winter’s a lot of colds, congestion, sleepless nights, annoying weather and discomfort. Who needs it?

People have always told me, “If you don’t like winter, why are you living in Minnesota?” My response has always been that everyone who means something to me is here.

However, much as I care about my friends, it may not take too many more long, cold winters to make me start reconsidering how those scales balance out. Something like Seattle, Portland or even San Diego rentals sounds increasingly more attractive.

No, I don’t mean a dance. But I do want to rave about my new mp3 player, since it is no longer and off-brand but one of Apple’s iPods: namely, a fifth-generation 16GB nano!

Sure, there’s not a lot that an iPod can do to improve my writing directly, but I can listen to audio books on it, not just music, and they’ve never sounded better. I used to think there wasn’t much difference among MP3 players, but now that I have a real iPod with iTunes, I can’t imagine how I ever got along with that Insignia for so long…

Time is the enemy of us all, but lately it’s been the enemy of my novel-writing.

Five weeks and counting, and my desktop PC still isn’t back from Best Buy because they keep not fixing it completely. If one more thing goes wrong, I actually qualify for their “no lemon” policy and get a new computer out of the deal, although I’d be just as happy if they could fix the one I have so it works right and stops breaking down.

Of course, getting a new PC out of it would be OK, too, since it’d have Windows 7 on it and that would maybe fix some of the problems, though I wouldn’t bet my car insurance on that.

So, I’m still on my sloggy old laptop for now… which means it takes longer to do everything and I run out of time…

It’s good to know details about anything; one thing few young writers consider are the details of aging. At what age, for example, is it a good idea and a customary practice for a person to take chondroitin glucosamine? At what age does prune juice become essential to maintaining digestive health?

And does anyone really like prune juice, even when they need it?

For me, a lot of my questions on aging have been answered by caring for my father, who lives with my wife and I. It’s something few people do anymore, but it’s especially useful to a writer.