Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - Foscue Creek Park, Demopolis AL
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Fallen, Foscue Creek Park, Demopolis AL, December 18, 2007
My internet connection is giving me fits this morning. The connection keeps dropping out. Guess I have some diagnostic work to do today.
Later in the morning: I spent some time fiddling with the connections to the Kyocera KR1 router, Verizon USB720 modem and Wilson Electronics amplifier I use and couldn't find anything amiss so I guess I must have had a particularly weak cell signal here this morning. My connection seems to be holding fine now. I use a Verison BroadbandAccess Data Plan and this isn't Verison country here at Foscue Creek Park, even though Verizon's Coverage Locator claims otherwise. The signal here is weak and the web access speed is barely above dial-up but I can live with that for such a fine place to hang out.
Night camp
Site 42 - Foscue Creek Campground, Demopolis AL
- This is a well maintained US Army Corps of Engineers campground with level paved sites, most with full hookups
- Many sites overlook the water of the inlets off Demopolis Lake on the Tombigbee River
- There is good biking on the park roads
- The campground is pretty full Thanksgiving week and is generally booked solid the weekend of the Demopolis Christmas on the River festival in early December.
- Poor Verizon cell phone service - access is via Extended Network, roaming
- No Verizon EVDO service - access is via the Extended Network and service varies is slow but reliable
- Only 3 miles to Wal-Mart and other services in Demopolis AL
- Find other references to Foscue Creek
- List the nights I've camped here
- Check the weather
- Reserve a site
- Get a map
Writing From the Inside Out
A young writer, if he is unknown, can be at a party and watch what everyone is doing. If he has a marveluos ear for dialog, he can wake up the next morning and remember all that was said and how it was said. He is a bird on a branch. Sees like a bird and writes books that are extraordinarily well observed. But once he is successful, especially if that happens quickly, it's as if the bird were now an emu. It cannot fly. It grows haunches and foreshoulders and a mane: lo and behold, it is a lion. And everyone is looking at the lion, including the birds. But it is a lion with the heart of a bird and the mind of a bird. So there is a terrible period when the transmogrified emu is trying to live like a lion and has little talent for it. Then the beast begins to experiment. When it runs, it now sees other animals scamper. It takes a while - often years - for the writer to get to appreaciate his effect on others, and even longer to begin to understand human beings again. In the old days, he could write about friends, enemies, and strangers by intuition, by induction; now he puts it together by deduction. Of course, he does have more material on which to work his deductions.