vituperation

July 1, 2003

It is official. After countless hours of work — including reading and re-reading to the point of nausea — and emails with numerous people, this stage is over. Today, packages from Canada, Illinois, and Alabama all converged in Nashville at a printer’s office. In four or five weeks, all the pieces will be shipped to me in the form of a book.

Thank God, I’m ready for a break.

Here’s what the package from me looks like:

I was providing the print copy for the printer to compare their digital layout to. Now, all I have to do is wait, and be a spaz.

Which I’m good at. Except for the waiting part.

I won’t be updating for several days; we’re going to Gatlinburg. Originally, we were going to go to Florida, but ended up changing our plans due to some unforeseen circumstances. It looks like we actually made a good decision, given the whole tropical storm thing.

Time for a contest. The following is from Robyn’s entry for yesterday:

I spent a good part of the weekend carefully reading the pre-print copy of Fred’s book, and when the final changes had been made, I needed to print out a copy to send the printer (he’s getting a copy burned to cd, but needs the printed-out copy to compare to). Before dinner last night I decided to get the printing started, and asked Fred “How many pages do you print at a time?” The printer attached to my computer is the “good” one.

“Sixty-four,” he said, as if it were the obvious answer.

I looked at him, eyebrows raised, thinking “I’m a good printer. Definitely a good printer”, but said nothing.

He sighed. “Because everybody knows that 256 (the total number of pages in the book) is 2 to the 8th, which is 2 to the 6th times two squared, which is 64 times 4, so you should print four blocks of 64 pages.”

Of course.

I really did have a reason for thinking about the printing the way I did, and if you know anything at all about me, you’ll know what that reason is. All you have to do is tell me (via email) why I thought the solution out that way. Make sure the subject of your email is "PRINTER" or it will be discarded. One entry per person, please.

The prize:

A copy of Thirteen Stories containing
the story "Sweet Dreams," written by moi,
and a bumper sticker.

Contest is open until we get home from Gatlinburg on Sunday afternoon. Good luck.

Oh, and if you happen to be in Gatlinburg for the 4th, look us up.

Have a great week.