Macau at night

Just a sleepy little town, like Vegas.

Night shot of light show at ICC Building

This is the ICC Center on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong. I only caught the tail end of it. Seems the show goes on for a good 10 minutes. I've got another one to share, later, of the Hong Kong side's light show. BTW...that tower is around 1500 feet tall.

And some Macau...

 Macau's Convention Center!

 Fisherman's Wharf, right next to the convention center.

 Macau's Cultural Center and Museum of Art

 Main drag in Macau

More of Downtown Macau, by the waterfront...which is where most of the city is...and you can bungee jump off that tower in the background...

And FYI -- when you start seeing baby blue Rolls Royces being driven by 20 year old kids, you know communism is dead in this region.

A bit more Hong Kong

I saw my first protesters, today, while en route to the book fair to handle the load-out. All they were doing was sitting along one of the walkways, in makeshift squatting arrangements, some sitting on matts, others using cardboard boxes to build small fenced in spaces. All sitting and chatting like crazy. Went on for blocks. The rest of Hong Kong was happy to just keep going along...

This was the kind of weather we were having -- warm but breezy. The wavy building on the left edge is the convention center.

Most of the protests are happening in Kowloon, now, as I understand it. Both of these photos are the view from the Maritime Museum.

It's impressive how much is going on here in the way of building and expanding...

Hong Kong

Okay...I made it here after what was really a 44 hour trip -- 16 hours on the train, 16 hours on the plane, and about 12 hours between the two where I got 5 hours sleep. Got into Hong Kong at 8:45pm but not to my hotel till nearly midnight. Showered, shaved and crashed till 7am then got to the venue to handle the bookfair's load-in at 9am...but the shipment didn't show till 10:30. Then one crate was too large for the elevator so 3 guys who don't speak English and I snuck it up the escalator. I wasn't done till almost 3. Guess we'll take it down that way, tonight.

It's a nice venue if a bit dark, inside -- right by the ferries to everywhere (except Macau; that one has its own terminal) -- but it has spectacular views of the city, and they're almost done with improvements to the area. Soon you'll be able to get an even better look at Hong Kong by way of a ferris wheel. Not as grand as the London Eye, but still nice.

I returned to my hotel, sent off some e-mails and such, took a bus to Stanley to have fish and chips and a Guinness (not bad but not worth the extra trip) then jet lag slammed me and I fell asleep on the bus back. Fortunately, I had to get off at the last stop.

Yesterday, I hopped a ferry to Macau and walked around. More on that later.

I've gotten no writing done on Bugzters. Guess I know what I'm doing Thanksgiving weekend.

As usual.

Waitin' on a train...

I am currently stuck outside Syracuse, NY, trying to get to NYC so I can catch my flight to Hong Kong, tomorrow. Seems Buffalo had one of its epic snowstorms and the airport shut down, so I shifted to Amtrak. It's now after midnight and the train was supposed to have been into Penn Station by 9:40 pm. We've got another 2 ½ hours to go to get to NYC, so the hotel I booked will be damn near impossible to get to. It's by Newark Airport, and the last train leaves in an hour. Next one's not till nearly 5am.

Man, this is turning into one amazingly insane trip. Getting from my apartment to the train station took breaking the law and trusting my little Honda in the middle of a white out. Seriously, I was by the airport and going along fine, when within a block the snow began falling so hard, I couldn't see more than 20 feet in front of me. Apparently, I was driving through an area where driving had been prohibited.

I got to the station but a tow truck was blocking the driveway to the parking lot. He was preparing to pull a woman out of a snow bank she'd skidded into. And of course, that's when the train pulled in. The trunk got done and out of the way, and I drove my little Honda right up the slope and into the parking lot, found a space between two mounds of snow and parked, then hauled out my suitcase and bag and scrambled over to the train. I started to pull out just moments after I was aboard.

I thought it was amazing Amtrak was able to run, even in weather like this. Turned out, the train I boarded was supposed to have left Buffalo at 7:50 am. It was more than 5 hours late.

And got later...and later...until the crew had to go off the clock and we got shifted to a train that was behind us. It's insane.

But the crews were nice and did their best, and most of the passengers were cool about it. And I got some writing done on Bugzters.

But I have to wonder what's next...

I wonder if half the trouble I had getting into working on Bugzters is that I'm doing it in third person omniscient. All my other books have been in first person. To me, that was more immediate and real...but this story wants to be able to shift between characters and delve a bit into their psyches, and you can't do that very easily using my normal style.

But this evening I finally caught Alex's 11 year-old turmoil and dug into it a bit. And it worked...at least, I think so. But then again, David Martin is in third person and seems removed. It comes across as very sedate, apparently. No exciting inciting incident to get a reader hooked. I checked a stat on Smashreads that lets you know how may people have downloaded some of the book to read, and it's like 85 to1 in sales,

Oh, well...live and learn...

29,000 Plus...

Only 21,000 words left to do to make it. I've hit what is probably the mid-point of the story...maybe a little after...where Alex learns his father is the one pushing the moves, not his brother's asthma. It's all quite by accident, and he also learns his mother is just as pissed off about it as he is. I didn't expect that to pop up, but that's one of the fun aspects of writing.

The main thing is, if that is the mid-point, I've really got more like 25-28,000 words to go. Which is good...except I can't see the rest of the story taking that many. I mean, I still need to work in Drew and have some more moments with him. He wound up with one of the Bagh-star, not knowing it, which should add a nice complication.

And the Chesters have become interesting complications, unto themselves. They're interacting with Mrs. Rutledge, Ms. Chris, the police, and Alex, all without saying a word. I also need to expand on the idea that C-1, their leader, realizes they should not all look like the same guy, but it's too late to reclone into anybody else. Or they can't do that. Or their ship is too weak or underpowered. I dunno, yet.

Guess I won't know the length of the story or what it's all about till it's done.

Got cat lovin'...and that is all...

We have 2 office cats where I work -- one doesn't like being brushed but loves to ride on your shoulders and flick her tail in your face; the other hates being held in any way, but loves to be brushed long and hard. Makes the job easier, at times. Especially when I have no earthly clue as to what I'm doing. I'd have a cat, but I travel so much, I don't even have plants.

Nothing more, today; last night, I wound up working on Underground Guy for about an hour instead of meeting my goal for NaNoWriMo...so I'm marathoning Bugzters to see how far I can get...and doubt I will still be intelligible enough to post, in a few hours.

If I ever am...

To hell with "young adult"

Screw it -- I'm letting Bugzters be whatever the hell it wants to be, and if some of that is dark and some is funky and some is filled with sexual innuendo, so be it. The story's gonna run wild, for now, and then I'll see what needs to be done.

I feel this way because the whole deal with the Beige Pair from MESCIS is they're like clones of each other, one male and one female, but with her doing the male-style sexual harassment of a Chief Petty Officer who's been assigned to them, and him focused on the minutia of what's going on, even as they keep telling each other they know everything they need to know and what they don't know doesn't need knowing.

As for Mrs. Rutledge...she's become like a commando out to protect her kids from what she thinks is one creepy Chester clone, not realizing there are four of them...each with his own bit of Chester's personality. One's the observer, one's adventurer, one's the happy-critter no matter what, and one's got sense enough to just get it done. It's going to be fun having them interact with Mrs. Rutledge.

Dunno if this will be funny, yet; I thought The Lyons' Den counted as farce, but I've heard otherwise from a few readers, so...my streak of lacking humor continues.  Of course, considering the world is more interested in Kim Kardashian's ass than the fact that humans have landed a rover on an asteroid, being out of step with that may not be a bad thing.

Hmm...wasn't the first set of Dark Ages preceded by this sort of stupidity?