1/22/08: Cheese pancakes for dinner

[davidlevine]

Word count: 110007 | Since last entry: 1279

Neglected to mention in yesterday's blog entry that I also got our hotel for the Worldcon yesterday. Unlike many people, I got a room through the hotel's web page (we picked the Courtyard because it looks like it has a bit of character and is equidistant between the convention center and the party hotel) and didn't have a lick of trouble doing so -- we even got a rate that was lower than what the convention web page quoted. I did pounce as soon as reservations opened.

Today we watched half of the last Lord of the Rings movie, decluttered one shelf and one drawer (mostly videotapes -- we have 17 pounds of videotapes to go to GreenDisk now), and I shifted to the new wallet I just bought. This is my first new wallet in at least 15 years; it's noticeably smaller than the old one and has Velcro of Titanic strength by comparison. This is going to take some getting used to.

The 1279 words of writing above includes about 250 words of chapter-level outline. This is a tricky chapter and I felt I needed to outline it a bit before beginning. Those words of outline will gradually be replaced by actual text as the chapter grows towards its end -- and the end of the book. The end is in sight!

About 2/3rds of that was written at the coffee shop with jaylake, kenscholes, karindira, thirdworld, and agrathea. A good day's work and I'm getting to bed before 11pm, woo hoo!

Comments

[deedop.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity and in anticipation of my own tape culling, about how many tapes equals 17 pounds?

[davidlevine]

About 28.

[deedop.livejournal.com]

Huh. I was expecting many more. My internal weight perception meter must need recalibrating.

[davidlevine]

Well, they do weigh about half a pound each (about as much as one cup of water, or half a 1-pound bag of M&Ms). But I must confess I was surprised how few there were in the bag.

[kateyule.livejournal.com]

It's exactly one grocery-sack full. We looked at the bag and said "Must have gotten rid of the right ones, then!"

GreenDisk

[chiefwirehead.livejournal.com]

I just read about GreenDisk yesterday (in a post by Ulrika). I am still a bit confused as to how it works, and how much it costs. It sounds like you order a box from them, and then you fill it and ship it back. I assume you pay the shipping costs, but I'm not quite sure. How does it work?

Re: GreenDisk

[davidlevine]

GreenDisk offers several different services.

The one I've been using is the "Pack-It" service, for quantities up to 30 pounds. You order the service on-line: $7 for the first 20 pounds and 30 cents for each additional pound up to 30. You pay by credit card and they email you an address label (PDF) which you print out, stick on whatever box you have, and ship it to them by whatever means you wish. So you pay whatever the shipping is (I've been paying $6-15 for USPS media rate) plus $7-10 for the service. If you have more than 30 pounds of stuff you can send multiple boxes.

They also have a "Technotrash Can" plan where they send you a box, you fill it, and postage both ways is included. This costs $30 for a small box (max 35 pounds) and $50 for a large box (max 70 pounds).

They have other plans for computers and larger quantities, which I haven't looked into.