Jamie Wakefield

So, it’s Friday. That means no intern today. This means we don’t have to drag ourselves out of bed at the unholy hour of nine a.m. and make ourselves presentable before she gets here at ten. We have blown off running this week because even at eight o’clock in Madrid it is still 86 degrees out and the sun is high in the sky. Today though, we are determined to go out in the morning and get a run in. We spend 45 minutes waking up, having coffee, re-hydrating and then head out at 11:00 a.m. We walk to our starting point and do some stretches. I point across the street to Wendy, “it must be really early the bar isn’t even packed yet.” Last time we were here it was also morning but an hour later. Every table had a beer on it and one guy was trying to sleep while his buddy kept pestering him to wake up by poking a pencil in his ear or kicking his chair. Today, no one. We start our run and it takes us between the palace and Plaza de Oriente . Between these two landmarks is tourist heaven so th...

1) Thank you Adam. 2) Links have been fixed. 3) I don’t know. Best guess is it doesn’t matter since I believe Lulu tracks everything. I think either way would help. 4) Counter fixed. 5) I hope you’re one of many. Chris – They look pretty sweet. I’ll post some photos when I have one in my hands. Garth – Thanks man, that was what I was looking to hear.

Have I finally got this thing fixed? As you may have noticed, I've moved again. Typepad was interesting and hosted on a friend's site (besos Lorelei! Okay that was effeminate... let’s just move along.) But it had some problems you might have missed me bitching about so let me count the ways... 1. No spellchecker. 2. Typing in Word and then pasting into Typepad made formatting errors. Paragraphs lost their forms and ran together. 3. Links didn't highlight. 4. Pictures weren't working and Dave couldn't figure out why. So I moved to a place that did all of the above (http://www.blogspot.com/) and set up a page. I liked it so much I moved everything here. Simple, effective, does what I need, no flashy trashy gizmos. Sure, I did some research into what site I should move to, but Google always does things well and I imagined they would do their blogging software correct as well. And I was right. In the reviews I read, one other site was mentioned called "Vox" wh...

Spent the day yesterday writing a query letter for Marilyn's Story. I think it turned out pretty well. Wendy looked it over and thought it looked good too. Then she asked me if that was for publishers or agents and I didn't really know. A quick look in my three "how to get published" bibles informs me that you approach both in the exact same way. With query letters and proposals. Wendy took a break very late afternoon and went to read "Time" in the bedroom while I tried to finish up the letter. I went in to see her a bit later and she showed me an article on self publishing I had read and meant to get back to but forgot. Self publishing is something I have investigated but decided was not for me. A couple of my friends have done it, and it never turns out profitable. Of course, one thing to realize is, the rules have changed in this wondrous age. In the past, you had one option - offset printing. You contract a house to print up 500-2000 books, they print t...

Ah, writing. Today I am moving notes 64-79 (so far) from my digital recorder into the written Word. One that I want to share with you is a conversation we had in Berlin with the Hotel desk clerk. I swear to you this is true and not embellished. May first is riot day in Berlin. We come back from a day of tourism and see Beya and her husband in the lobby. We ask them about their day and they ask about ours and we notice they have suitcases with them. "Oh, we're leaving the hotel. Each year on this date there are riots in this area so we're moving a safer distance away. Like, outside the city." How fascinating. Wendy goes up to the desk clerk and asks about the impending riots. “Breakfast? Oh yes, we will have breakfast right over here in the morning.” “No, no. Riots.” “Riots?” “Yes, because there are demonstrations near here. We heard they sometimes riot in this area." “Ohhh. No, no no, that’s just a street fair." Pauses. "But sometimes they get violent a...

In a good way. The owner of Star City Games (the web site I used to write for) recently emailed me and let me know that my readers weren't signing up for Premium. They were still there, but my style of writing and playing Magic was more suited to casual players and readers. Hence, he was hoping to move me to the non premium side of the site. Sadly, this would mean a significant cut in pay. One that I couldn't accept. One of the reasons I couldn't accept it was that I was ready to go anyway. Magic is a lifestyle. You can't really pick it up once in a while and know what's going on. It requires a large investment of time and money even to play casually. If you drop out for 3 years, it will take you over a month of study to understand what is going on again. And like poker or chess, you have to play all the time to hone your skills if you want to be the best. Something I'm not ever going to be by the way. With the news that I was no longer going to be writing for S...

Here’s some scary statistics for you. “Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of the gynecological cancers with 22,000 new cases and 15,000 deaths in the US expected this year. About 80 per cent of ovarian cancer cases are not detected early, resulting in a poor survival chance.” This comes from an article published today. “The National Ovarian Cancer Coalition (NOCC), the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation, the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists, and the American Cancer Society have announced the first national agreement on ovarian cancer symptoms.” Bloating.Pelvic or abdominal pain.Difficulty eating or feeling full quickly.Urinary symptoms (urgency or frequency). Read the full article here and get yourself to a doctor immediatly if you experience these symptoms. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=74133

Lena and Stefan came over on Sunday for a goodbye party. Lena is heading to Vermont to teach at Middlebury College for the summer. She works for them here in Madrid during the rest of the year. We don’t know how Stefan is going to survive without her for 5 weeks. Those two are so in love its amazing to just sit back and watch them be together. We had fine German sausage cooked on our barbeque, fine german beer, sat on the terrace until the heat drove us inside and then watched some bullfights we had taped. We have plans to travel with them many days in the future. Ireland and Scottland in particular since they love it there and are eager to show us around. One thing that was brought up this weekend was Steve Savage and Maria. They’ve moved to Australia and started up a business there that they need pimped. Check it out. “Cairns Unlimited www.cairnsunlimited.com “Everything you need to know about Cairns , the Great Barrier Reef, and Tropical North Queensland !” At the mention of their ...