I’ve had a hell of a time sleeping the last couple of days. I was full-on awake at 4:30am yesterday. So I got up and started my routine a bit early. As I’m lucky enough to have some flexibility with my schedule, I was at my office working by 5:30am. The VOIP phones, which have been down for two days, even came up in time for my big multi-agency conference call at 10am.

The nice thing about starting work that early is that one wraps the workday pretty damned early. I was out of there by two, and riding the trail by 2:45. I pounded out a quick ten miles in the high humidity heat index over 100° weather, which I felt like I needed, because I’d been hitting a little bit of weight creep the last couple of days (not much, but it was screwing up my trend line), and the riding makes me feel better about myself (not that the nagging scale was being anything but polite – “your weight is stable” when I’ve picked up almost two pounds felt a bit generous).

After that, I came home, listening to the news about Donald Trump Jr.’s strange, seemingly incriminating disclosure-via-tweet, changed clothes, had something to eat, and headed off to the evening’s planned event – BOOK SIGNING!

My neat local indie establishment, Fountain Bookstore, has been really knocking things out of the park with interesting author appearances lately – in the last couple of months, I’ve seen John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow in an eclectic, intimate setting. Last night, Kelly (the owner, or “latest custodian” as she calls herself) booked the opening slot on Kevin Hearne‘s (he of the Iron Druid Chronicles series which you all really ought to read!) book tour supporting his latest, Beseiged, which just came out yesterday.

Normally, this place doesn’t get too crazy for book signings, but I kind of had a feeling about last night, so I reserved a copy of the book online earlier in the day, which was the right call, because the place was packed beyond capacity (I’m surprised the fire marshall wasn’t called). ‘Twas still a nice time, as Kevin’s a very pleasant, gregarious guy who made everybody feel welcome, and I got to see a couple of con buddies I don’t see too often (Hi, Chris, Melissa, and Whiskey Dave!). Somebody even brought an Irish Wolfhound (if you’ve read Kevin’s stuff, you know why).

Even leaving was an interesting experience, as somebody did a smoky burnout on the way out of the parking garage, which set the fire alarms off!

I closed out the evening by checking my messages and poking through the PrimeDay sales one last time, dropping sixteen bucks on a heavily discounted biking jersey, to go along with the mic stand and copy of Witcher III for the PS4 I ordered earlier. Total damage: about $65 bucks. Could’ve been worse.

Then I went to bed, reading a bit of the new Carrie Vaughn book, Bannerless, which also came out today, and I ordered back in January, because, let’s be honest, she’s kind of my author crush (which should make Marscon interesting in January, as she and I -via the Blibbering Humdingers-, are both Guests of Honor!). Anyway, the book’s really good thus far; different from her signature urban fantasy stuff, but it fits with some of the more varied stuff she’s been putting out lately.

And finally, in other news, I weighed in at 233.4 this morning. That’s slightly more than 50 pounds down. That’s kind of amazing.