Mike Jandreau

Writer.Musician. MovieSnob. Web Guy.

Well, not entirely. But the first draft is done.

I’ve got a handful of people reading it now to give me their feedback on what they think of it. Then I’ll do a couple of revisions and send it off to an editor. That’s the part that’ll take a while to get done. I’m pretty excited about the feedback so far, which is more than I can say for my first book.

It seems weird to sit here and write about books I’ve written or am writing. I’ve started so many things in my lifetime and given up on them, it feels really good to accomplish something in its entirety and put it out there for the world to see.

The new book will be called My Last Days. It’s the story of a guy who’s been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and is attempting to get through all of the things he wants to do and say all of his goodbyes before it’s too late.

We follow him on his journey through the last remaining months of his life, go on trips with him, and experience everything that he does on his bucket list.

I’m really excited with how it turned out, especially after the feedback I’ve gotten about it. I’ll update more as I get closer to having it released. But if you’re curious, you can follow along on the progress on my author site here: mjandreau.com

Every so often I remember to come back here and blog about something.

Then I stare at the screen for what seems like an eternity and realize I have nothing exciting to say. The track changes in iTunes over and over, and I’m stumped on what to talk about.

I really don’t think you’re here to hear about what I’ve been up to. I don’t think you’re concerned that I haven’t blogged in a month, I just feel like I need to write something here, otherwise the internet Gods will come and take my blog away. Or something less crazy.

Since my last update, I’ve done a few things:

I’m extremely close to finishing the first draft of my second novel. It’s called My Last Days and is the tale of someone who’s given a short time left to live. We follow him on his journey to complete a bucket list and try to make the world a better place before he leaves it.

I also published another short story about my wacky life on These Are My Stories just yesterday, and have another queued up for a couple of weeks from now.

I bought a new primary monitor — a new super wide screen monitor — to replace the 30″ Apple Display I’ve had for almost 5 years. I’ll blog more about that once I’ve had time to fully evaluate it.

That’s pretty much it for what’s happened in the last month. Did you think I was going to be interesting?

I just looked at the list of posts on my site and wow it’s been over 6 weeks since I’ve blogged. I know you were waiting on baited breath, so I apologize for that.

Lots have happened in the past month and a half, mostly good things, too!

Let’s see:

I finally finished my book! Victory is mine! It’s available here if you’re interested: http://www.mjandreau.com/books/a-sour-chord/ Here’s a summary to help entice you to grab a copy:

Sal Maggione has been struggling to write the perfect song. A song that will help bring his band, So Say The King, to stardom. He’s crumpled up more pieces of paper than he’d ever admit to.

In the midst of his mundane job making coffee and fighting with himself over the song, he meets Samantha. His world is immediately turned on its side and he questions everything that he knows, wants and needs.

Join Sal on his quest to complete the perfect the song, his band’s rise to fame, and his immediate and intense infatuation with Samantha.

A Sour Chord takes you into the mind of a musician trying to live up to the potential that everyone tells him he has.

What else? I had my 5th tattoo removal treatment and that’s going quite well. Rob is confident that they’ll be completely gone after the 10th treatment. And since I’ve helped him so much with his website, anything beyond the 10th treatment will be on him. He’s a great dude. If you need tattoos removed (and really, who doesn’t have at least one embarrassing one?), go see Rob at Disappearing Inc

I had my second to last oral surgery on Friday. One more surgery in about 10 weeks and I’ll be fully on my way to having a working jaw again that won’t fall off my face, so that’s a definite plus. I won’t even add up all of the out-of-pocket expenses I’ve paid there, I’m pretty sure it’ll make me cry.

I’m actively (finally!) working on the rebranding and site rebuilding for MJJ Designs. We picked a new name almost two years ago and am just now getting around to actually doing the work. I think I’ve subconsciously put it off because it’s so daunting and such a pain in the ass. But it’ll get done. I’ll make it happen, it’s long overdue.

I think that’s it, that’s the gigundous update on what I’ve been up to over the last month and a half. Time certain does fly by as I go through the day to day of my life. I’m just glad to be happy, healthy, and able to stand on my own two feet when I need to.

Last night while watching the Bruins’ double overtime loss to Montreal, I noticed something I’ve only casually noticed before.

The time keepers suck.

Think of how many times you’ve been watching a hockey game and the referee has blown the whistle.  If you watch the clock, there’s between half a second and a couple of seconds that tick by before the time keeper stops the clock.

Not a big deal, right?

Now imagine that happens close to a hundred times — that’s roughly how many face offs there were in last night’s game.

That’s nearly two full minutes of hockey that are lost due to the delay between the whistle and the clock stop.

Sometimes they’ll go back and reset the clock if it’s close to the end of the game, but most times they just ignore that time.  Imagine what a team trying to come back from behind and win could do with two extra minutes of a hockey game.  That’s an extra 3% of playtime.

Now, imagine that the time keeper didn’t have to stop the clock. Imagine if (in my imaginary world where I could make things instead of just think them up), the whistle stopped the clock.

The whistle hasn’t been improved upon since it was invented (that’s a complete guess, I have no idea and no inclination to do the research), but imagine a bluetooth or wifi whistle that connected to the time system. When the ref blows the whistle, the clock stops immediately.

Wouldn’t you want your team to get those few precious seconds back every time the whistle blows?

I had meant to get better about blogging, but apparently I let a month go by without blogging here. I guess I have too much going on.  Let’s see what I’ve got going on:

• A Sour Chord — the book’s finally completely and 100% done.  The graphic designer sent me the contract this morning and I’ve signed it and sent it back to him.  I should have a fully designed cover in a few weeks, so I can publish the book and sell handfuls of copies!
• These Are My Stories — while waiting for the book to be finished, I set up a creative outlet for myself to keep writing.  It’s not live yet, but I’m writing short stories that are true about my life.  I realized while on a business trip recently that a lot of the stories I tell — that are completely true — sound like they’re made up.  So I figured why not put them on a site somewhere.  So I’m doing that.  I’ve written two so far, and have recorded spoken word versions of them, so you can hear me tell the story, which I thought was a nice touch.  Once I write a few more, I’ll publish that site.
• Taxes — I finally did my taxes and owe the IRS a whole bunch of money.  I need to get better about paying quarterly taxes this year.  I owe more in taxes than some people made last year. I guess I really can’t complain, I’ve been very lucky that this whole “website” ordeal’s worked out so well for me.
• Exercising — I’ve been on the bike for 45 minutes every day for the past 3 weeks.  I haven’t lost a lot of weight yet (5 pounds, give or take), but I have lost 1.5% of my body fat according to my fancy scale.  I’m happier with losing the body fat than the weight, so I’ll take it.  I’ve decided I’m taking today off, though. My knees have been bothering me lately.  I think the combination of standing at my desk all day and then doing the bike is a bit much.  So I’m sitting down today and not doing the bike.

I think that’s all that’s been going on in the life of me.  I’m a pretty boring person, as you know, so I’m sorry if you’re unexcited about this.