Projects In Progress

Lately, I’ve been working on a couple of projects.

In the fall, I colorized a photograph of Swampoodle Grounds, Washington, DC’s baseball park of the 1880s. I liked working on that, and now I’m working on colorizing another old baseball photograph, this time of Babe Ruth and (future president) George H.W. Bush. The photograph was taken when Bush was a student at Yale (and captain of the baseball team) and, like the photograph of Swampoodle Ground with the Capitol dome looming beyond the outfield wall, I like the intersection of baseball and politics in a single image. I’ve been working on this off-and-on for about a week, in half-an-hour chunks at a time.

I’ve also been thinking about my website. I’ve wanted — and have worked on — on a magazine-style front-end, but I was stymied by a responsive slider that I just couldn’t make work. It’s been in a holding pattern for about nine months, and last weekend I decided to take another look at the code and the problem. I still haven’t solved it, but I’m thinking about it, the gears are turning, and I should have it worked out soon.

I’ve also been making plans for the spring and summer! Things I’m planning on doing:

  • March 17: Shamrock Fest, Washington, DC.
  • March 23: Carbon Leaf, Lynchburg, VA.
    It’s Carbon Leaf’s 25th-anniversary tour, I can take a vacation day, and I can visit my parents that weekend as well. It’s a win-win!
  • April 14: Cecil Con, North East, MD.
    I’ve been looking for an excuse to go to the North East/Elkton/Rising Sun area to do some cemetary explorations (my dad’s side of the family comes from that area), and a small convention in North East gives me an excuse.
  • June 2: Annapolis Irish Festival, Annapolis MD.
    I’m not certain of the date, as it hasn’t been announced yet, but this seems likely.
  • June 16: Mid-Maryland Celtic Festival.
    This has traditionally been earlier, in May, but it’s moving to June this year to see if they can avoid the annual deluges that seem to plague the festival. The 2014 deluge fried my mobile, and I was never able to wear the shoes I wore that day again.
  • June 23: Emmet Swimming, Washington, DC.
    They’re doing a 30th-anniversary show at the 9:30 Club in DC. The band was a favorite of a friend of mine who, sadly, passed away ten years ago, I’ve never seen them live, and it’s my birthday weekend, so why not?
  • July 6-8: Shore Leave 40, Hunt Valley, MD.

I still haven’t figured out baseball games as such, but when one builds a schedule, one has to start somewhere. 🙂

And I’ve been thinking about a book. A non-fiction book. I don’t want to say a lot about it — it was something I learned of about ten days ago, wanted to know more, and discovered that no one had written anything more than a magazine article on it — because it’s still percolating. I need to do more research to see if it’s something worth exploring further.

I was sure someone would have written a book about this. Someone. Anyone.

That’s what I’m working on right now.

Post header photo, Iona, by dtydontstop, licensed Creative Commons BY 2.0

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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