Luncheon

I had a bit of an adventure yesterday. I occasionally post to a writer's message board called Absolute Write. Mostly, I just post to cheer people on in their efforts to get their own writing done as they cheer me on to as I do my own work. On there, one of the other regulars mentioned that she and her husband were coming to Vegas on account of her husband attending a work related function. We exchanged a couple personal messages on the board and set up a lunch meeting which we had at the South Point Hotel. I had never been to this casino as it is about 4 miles off the southern end of the strip.

She obviously saw how pathetic I am at first glance and insisted on paying for lunch. Why is it none of my friends ever let me buy? Even strangers I've never met can see it. I didn't even tell her my birthday was impending. Surely, the word "loser" is tattooed on my forehead in ink invisible to my own eyes. Fortunately, some of my guilt was abated due to the fact that the buffet at South Point is quite cheap. I was really impressed with it's quality for less than $10.

Anyway, we discussed our writing projects and other various forms of small talk. Mostly, I am impressed she can accomplish so much while taking care of two young children. I have grown too old and lazy to even contemplate having to deal with children while writing. So good one for her!

It is actually the second time I met with an online acquaintance. A few years ago, when I was in Ireland, I made a quick detour to Scotland to visit a friend that I had done a few online projects with. I got to meet his whole family and even stayed with them for a couple of days. It was a great experience. Both events reaffirm my belief that 99% of the people out there are really kind and generous when they can be.

There was a small downside to the day. Having to use the public transportation was crazy! The buses were not difficult to navigate, but I was traveling under 9 miles. I still had to walk about a mile of that and (including the walk time) it took me over 2 hours to get to the South Point Hotel. Coming back was just under 3 hours and again, I had to walk about a half mile. Paradise road, my road, is a major road, but I couldn't find any routes on it that took me where I needed to go. The result was a lunch that had about 2 hours and 15 minutes of face time taking 7 hours for the round trip. I'm glad the public transportation is not so bad in Albany.

I did get plenty of time to listen to another audio book, Stephen King's, "Cell". Many of his stories are usually simple homages to the 1950's scientific ignorance horrors and this book is no exception. But even though his stories are simple, he does have a knack for creating very well crafted and easily identifiable characters. And readers will forgive a lot of things if the characters are well done. I'm kind of hoping that this is what will sell my story since the over arcing plot moves so slowly due to the political structure that I've built up. We'll see.

Anyway, yesterday was a good day. I was able to meet an interesting person, listen to Stephen King build up some good characters for my own personal critique, and I was able to determine that I can still deal with humans face to face.