#365Gratitude Day 207: Wrap Party

Sunday afternoon, I went back through one of our podcast episodes we have "in the can", listening to update the show notes on it before Brother could release it.  (Which by the way, he did.  It's this one.) 

I texted him, to let him know I'd finished, and we edited the "blurb" the show description for the episode together, in text.

He took what I had to say, mixed it with what he had to say, and came up with a really great description for the show.  I said as much, and that we were done, and it turned into the silly pun you see above.  (For my VI readers, I said "That's a wrap people!" and he responded with a picture of an actual chicken wrap.  Delicious and funny!)

I love my brother.  He's frivolous and serious with me, about all the stuff I care about.  Getting to do creative stuff with him is one of the best parts of my life.

#365Gratitude Day 206: Aunt Missy and the Captain

I've written before about how I adore our girl Kate's son, who for comic reasons past, I call Captain-Man.  Kate and the good Captain came down for a visit this past weekend.  One thing I really love about when they visit is getting to be his Uncle Mako, and seeing him spend time with his Aunt Missy.

Missy adores him, as I do.  She gets to flex her nurturing muscles in a way that is fulfilling and altogether different.  Sure, she enjoys her time with Little Mako and the rest of our "grownup kids" - but it's a pale substitute for the real deal.

I spent the day watching the two of them just bask in one another's company.  Cap, he likes to talk to Missy about anything and everything.

Missy is pretty patient about it.  A 5 year old has as many things to talk about as there are clouds in the sky.  Really, she sort of revels in it.  We took a ride on the metro, to try to go see a very busy and cool exhibit at the Building Museum.  

This wasn't the Captain's first time on the metro - but it had been long enough that he couldn't remember it.  Missy held his hand, and they sort of ooh'ed and aah'ed together at all the little everyday details about riding a train that I take for granted.

It was a long day, filled with a lot of walking, some really good pizza, and a whole lot of xbox minecraft, followed by a bubble bath for the Captain.

He conked out pretty hard.  

I think he had a lot of fun, and I know Missy did.

My family is unique, and has its own special shape.  I'm happy I have it.

#365Gratitude Day 205: Patient Triage

A lot of my day job as a developer is troubleshooting.​  A missing semi-colon, an unbalanced parenthesis, or an outdated reference to a wrong identifier, and WHAM, you get a bug. 

Not this kind of patients. Not this kind of triage either.  

But the good news is, all bugs are ultimately fixable. Technical know-how is important, but just as important is the ability to patiently triage the problem in the first place.   

This morning I've stumbled across the value of patient triage three times. First, I figured out that a feature we thought was broken was in fact working, it just didn't look that way. Then I realized a JavaScript validation wasn't firing because it was pointed to an outdated ID.  Lastly after we fixed all that I realized that the .war file we deployed didn't have the most recent version of the JavaScript file. 

I COULD tear my hair out over this stuff. But instead I'm grateful that simple patience helped me find the problems.  

#365Gratitude Day 204: Stroke, stroke!

I'm not above enjoying a little ego stroking. Two days ago I posted a new Concerning Littleton story and proceeded to enjoy the spike in my page views. 

I post stuff to my blog for a number of reasons, one of which is getting folks to know my writing and want to buy my books. 

It's super nice when it happens.  This morning I saw a bunch of nice comments over on /r/ABDL on Reddit including this lovely one:

"So I decided to treat myself last night and buy Concerning Littleton u/makoAllen, and it was absolutely AMAZING!!! Ahh, not only as erotica, but the story itself was heartwarming, and I love all of the characters! I just finished, but I think I have to go back and read it all again right now because it was so good!!! Thank you! :)"

No, thank you! I live for stuff like this. 

#365Gratitude Day 203: Worth exploring

The thing about being an author is that it's kind of like having another job that doesn't pay anything.  

Except that's a lie. I do make royalties. And I get praise from readers. Who knows, one day my work may have that watershed moment and catapult me to another place.  There are other compensations too.  

This great Zen Pencils comic speaks to that.  

Here's just a bit of it. Go check it out.  

Writing is its own reward.