Notes from (after) the road

[chipotle]

This afternoon I was having a lunch of fish and chips on the outside deck of Quinn’s Lighthouse Pub overlooking the Oakland Marina, on a sunny day with temperatures in the mid-70s, and it occurred to me that any complaints about my life being tough wouldn’t be that credible.

After lunch, I did a little exploration around the Oakland Embarcadero area, which is oddly pretty in an industrial way. The sort of place you’d imagine you’d find a lot of warehouses that had been converted to lofts — and in fact, you’d be right. Most of them are condos rather than rentals, though, and I’m not sure whether I’d wanna pay a half-million for a thousand-square-foot one-bedroom place. I’m not sure I’d want to move to Jack London Square, either, regardless.

The afternoon was spent at the Nomad Café in Berkeley, a coffee shop with free wifi and a very, well, Berkeley vibe: earnestly liberal politics, organic everything (their vegan peanut butter cookies are pretty good, I gotta say), and a charmingly funky residential area around the corner. The coffee was good, although like most coffee shops, they really don’t know how to make a cappuccino. From there I ended up cruising up San Pablo Avenue, eventually stopping for a walk around Point Pinole Regional Park. It ended with a somewhat late dinner at On the Border with dracomistle.

I haven’t gotten much comment back on the free release of “Why Coyotes Howl,” which mildly surprises me, but there you go. I’m still trying to work on other stories, although I’m still trying to work on time management, too — which is mostly just getting more free time accumulated. I have ideas for that, which in turn mostly revolve around telecommuting a few days a week if I can. I know you’re still doing the same amount of work, but you don’t lose the time involved in, well, actually commuting. I’ve noticed the times I’ve done that, I’m often more productive than when I’m in the office — yet I feel almost like I’m on vacation. That’s a pretty cool combination.

Comments

[vulpesrex.livejournal.com]

Loft Conversion has hit downtown Los Angeles, too. Old office buildings, which where once in the business core, like, 40 or 50 years ago, but now sit vacant, on the edge of Skid Row, have been converted to "loft Living". There is now a new type of Urban Yuppie living thereabouts, able to walk to the current Financial District, the Staples Sports Center, and a new supermarket.

But the developers have gotten greedy - and last year, just before the Real Estate market peaked, suddenly the Old Switcheroo was invoked, as Loft managers tried to convert their leased properties to Condos, so as to get their money out in one gigantic sum - and the sudden land rush for Downtown or "Arts District" loft living has stalled, and may plummet. Peole may like living downtown, they have a sense of being Pioneers in an experiment to make LA into a new version of New York, but they ain't gonna sink three quarters of a mil into property that still has a Homeless and Derelict population within a block or two, and may be subject to the next Rodney King Incident and resulting race riot.

Living at Jack London Square? If the Hayward Fault lets go, watch how much of that property becomes like the harbor district of Kobe, Japan, and liquifies.

"Why Coyotes Howl" - I read the web entry, and it somehow seems a little more - vivid - than when I first read it in the collection. Perhaps I just got a better visualisation of the inter-mountain region of New Mexico after the re-read. But what sort of response were you expecting? Other than the current readers of this Live Journal, how many outsiders know that you have posted the story online, and how many know where to find it? How have you publicised it? I think that is the biggest hurdle for posting any fiction to the web - somehow getting the word out to the potential audience.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

In much of California, there's probably limited value in worrying about how close you are to a fault line; if you're anywhere near a metro area, the answer is probably "too close." I've been kicking around the question of whether I want to be more urban or more rural for years now and still have no definitive answer other than "I should really try urban sometime." (I have non-zero but still limited experience with living in rural areas, but absolutely none living in a major city, or even in a place I could get to a major city without driving.)

I don't know what response I might have been expecting to the story, honestly; I'm just mildly surprised that I got so few comments back. It's been linked from the original International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day linkfest, and also on Flayrah, the furry news web site. I really didn't put any effort into advertisement beyond that.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

Telecommuting sounds like a really good plan for you, and I'm glad you had such an awesome day. :-)

I would have commented on the free release, but since I have the book, it seemed superfluous. I'm not sure if I ever did give you feedback on it, though, but I think you know I'm a fan. ;-)

[kynn.livejournal.com]

I haven’t gotten much comment back on the free release of “Why Coyotes Howl,” which mildly surprises me, but there you go.

It could be worse. You could have been accused of cultural appropriation!