Tomorrow I set sail for Big Nerd Ranch West, to have my head crammed full of all kinds of luscious knowledge in an idyllic location. Seven days of pretty intense instruction that I might possibly be able to get directly from my employer, but not without distractions and a thousand tiny demands for my time.

I’m downright tingling with excitement. I have been to Big Nerd Ranch before, back in 2003, and the result was Jer’s Novel Writer. This time, I don’t think the result will be as visible to y’all out there, since the people paying for my week expect me to use my newfound mojo on their projects, and those are projects you will not see.

But I’m not complaining, not at all. I’m getting paid to learn stuff that is very interesting to me, and that’s never a bad thing. I’ll take my camera and a lens or three (it occurs to me I don’t have a good walking-around wide-angle lens with auto-focus) and there’s even a chance I’ll have time for some writing. But maybe not. That’s the future. A good future.