News Flash!

My lovely and talented editor gave me a release date for my upcoming book, I Bid One American! I'm so pleased. The e-book version comes out on May 9, 2008 and the print version will be available on Nov 7, 2008. What a thrill!

Although, my joy is somewhat tempered by fear on a number of fronts. I have a couple of manuscripts that I'll be submitting shortly to several places, but it's always scary not to have another actual contract in my hot little hand. And I would really like to have more books coming out in 2008, but we will have to see what happens.

My more immediate and overwhelming terror has nothing to do with my writing career, except that it eats up time that would be better spent writing. I'm trying to prepare to take the two Microsoft exams (70-292 and 70-296) to upgrade my Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer certification from Windows 2000 to Windows 2003. I was going to let it lapse because I never seemed to need my MCSE for anything. And the two exams to upgrade are going to be retired March 31. And I started to think…oh, no. Maybe I should reconsider.

Of course, then we had a major reorganization. And now they are saying that people who are the senior Enterprise Admins (that would be me & two others) will need to be certified. Grrh. And the only smooth path to get certified for Windows 2008 and the new Enterprise Admin path is to first get your Windows 2003 certification. And for me, the easiest path to that is to upgrade my 2000 MCSE to 2003.

This will be the first time I've tried to take any of the Microsoft exams without first going to a class. I'm trying to do it on my own, since I work at this junk every single day and as an Enterprise Admin, I also get to work on all the problems in our enterprise. So you'd think it would be a piece of cake.

We've got ~600 domain controllers, 300 sites, 30 domains and close to 300,000 users. So I keep thinking all this experience has to be good for something.

But I'm pretty sure it isn't going to be easy and I'll probably fail the first time. But I can retake it, thankfully.

Unfortunately, all this studying and fretting is taking time away from writing…grrh again. But I do have a few queries out-and-about. After I finish the Microsoft exams, I intend to finish my "final touches" on a Regency mystery called: The Vital Principle and send that toddler out to walk or fall on its face. And I still have The Bricklayer's Helper staggering around the circuit to see if I can find a home for it.

And I'd really like to write a few more short stories. They're fun.

Anyway—those are my meandering thoughts and worries for the moment.

Wishing you a happy and healthy weekend!