Heather Foeh

A few months ago my friend Michelle and I submitted a proposal to speak at the Romance Writers of America National Conference which will be held July 30-August 2 in San Francisco. Well, I’m happy to announce that we just found out today that we were accepted! We’ll be presenting a class called “Creating a Web Presence” which we debuted in September at our local Austin RWA chapter. We then presented again in November at a Writers League of Texas class that our fellow ARWA member Kit Frazier was teaching (thanks, Kit!).

We’re excited and thrilled and “over the moon” may not be overstating it. Yippee!

This last week I was in Toronto for my work. It’s a lovely city, but I had to get there — and that meant stepping on to an airplane. Unfortunately, it was one of those little “regional” airplanes that have 13 rows, and yes, I was in row 13. I’m not superstitious, but my experiences on this trip could turn me that way.

First of all, a gentleman four rows away would NOT stop talking to his seatmate. He shared his entire life story, and not just with the poor schmuck next to him, but basically with all of us because he was a Loud Talker.

Then the real fun began as we descended into Toronto. Apparently, many planes had been delayed that morning because the winds were around 100 miles per hour that morning. For some reason, we were not delayed and boy do I wish we would have been. The final 20 minutes of the descent were the bumpiest I’ve ever been on. It wasn’t just the up and down bumpiness of turbulence. Think of a leaf floating down from a tree and tilting left and right, dropping down, floating back up a bit, tilting again, all the way until it reaches the ground. We were that leaf. I gave myself mental pep talks (after verifying that I did indeed have an airsick bag in the seat pocket in front of me) and consoled myself with the fact that I could visit the “washroom” (as the Canadians call it) as soon as I de-planed. But it was not to be.

We climbed down the little airplane steps and headed for a bus which would take us to the main terminal. Unfortunately, we had to wait for another plane to land and all of those people to get on our bus too — so it was about 20 minutes of standing on the bus waiting. Thank goodness I’d mentally gotten my nausea under control by then. What would I have done?! Here’s how hard the wind was blowing at this point… the ground crew had taken the gate check bags and placed them on a 3-tier trolley so people could grab them as they came off the plane. The suitcases on the top two tiers were blowing off onto the ground!

As a final little bit of icing on the cake, my taxi driver from the airport to my hotel (about 25 minutes) apparently did not believe in bathing regularly. It was extra special.

Last week I pooled together my Christmas money and it was just the right amount to buy a new iPod. I’ve been wanting a new one for a while — mine was 3 years old, black and white display, no videos, and has been randomly freezing up. So, I am now the proud owner of a beautiful 80 GB color/video iPod Classic.

While I was loading my old music to the new iPod, I also downloaded a couple of music videos and TV shows to watch on my flight to Toronto this past week (that flight is a whole other post…). In addition, I checked out the iTunes Best of 2007 Podcast list and found one to download: Grammar Girl.

I AM IMPRESSED! Grammar Girl is short and sweet - segments are between 5 and 7 minutes long and they focus on one point. Examples: affect vs. effect, commas in dates, sit vs. set, lay vs. lie, etc. The podcasts are very professionally produced and I like Grammar Girl’s voice, delivery and wry comments.

So I’m giving two thumbs up to Grammar Girl! Even if you don’t want to listen to a podcast, you can read the entire transcript on her site. Click the All Episodes link to see which topic interests you. My personal favorite so far: lay versus lie.