Wow… How time flies…
One of the folks on the mil-email chain posted a business card from back in the day for a Hong Kong tailor everybody used to use…
Granted this was ‘years’ ago…
But apparently as of the last Google street view, it still exists. I just don’t know if there is still any business buying from these folks.
And yes, they did ‘all of the above’… They also did what were called ‘party suits’ back in the day.
The picture above is from the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson in Dayton, OH.
So much for waiting to release the second Haunted Libraries Anthology…
‘Somebody’ hit publish, and now we’re live on both volumes!
Anyhoo, click on the cover for the second one!
The blurb-
This anthology is a benefit anthology for the Tom Burnett Memorial Library in Iowa Park, Texas.
Is your library haunted?
Are you sure?
Many readers wander the shelves, returning over and over to the place their spirit calls home. Some of them are still in circulation, even after their bodies have checked out. Others are part of the deep archives from before the books moved in…
Join 11 authors as they explore haunts from the past, the future, and the dead.
I’ve got a story in this one! 🙂
Yesterday was interesting, Kermit G and his wife Emily plus the kids came through Tiny Town, and we had them on the Blanket Fort livestream. Good folks, and Amie got to meet two more of her authors!
And if you haven’t bought the first one, you can get them both HERE!
Folks, just a reminder, none of the authors, editors, or cover artists get anything out of these, all the money goes to our little local library to support their programs. And hopefully, you’ll see an author you like and start following them!
Thank you in advance!
Laugh or cry…your choice!
Murphy’s First Law for Wives:
If you ask your husband to pick up five items at the store and then you add one more as an afterthought, he will forget two of the first five.
Kauffman’s Paradox of the Corporation:
The less important you are to the corporation, the more your absence is noticed.
The Salary Axiom:
The pay raise is just large enough to increase your taxes and just small enough to have no effect on your take-home pay.
Miller’s Law of Insurance:
Insurance covers everything except what happens.
First Law of Living:
As soon as you start doing what you always wanted to be doing, you’ll want to be doing something else.
Weiner’s Law of Libraries:
There are no answers, only cross-references.
Isaac’s Strange Rule of Staleness:
Any food that starts out hard will soften when stale. Any food that starts out soft will harden when stale.
The Grocery Bag Law:
The candy bar you planned to eat on the way home from the market is always hidden at the bottom of the grocery bag.
And Here goes the last one !!
Lampner’s Law of Employment:
When leaving work late, you will go unnoticed. When you leave work early, you will meet the boss in the parking lot !!!
The first Haunted Libraries Anthology is doing pretty well!
And we had an orange tag for a day, Friday!!!
The proofs for the paperback should be here this coming week, so that will go live as soon as the paperback is approved.
The blurb-
This anthology is a benefit anthology for the Tom Burnett Memorial Library in Iowa Park, TX,
Is your library haunted?
Are you sure?
Many book lovers find peace and solace in their local library, returning over and over to the place their spirit calls home. Some of them keep going even after their bodies have stopped working. To say nothing of the ones who were already there when their home became the library.
Join 10 authors as they explore haunts from the past, the future, and the dead.
The second volume is in final process now, and we were debating when to release it, whether to wait 30 days or release it before then.
Here’s the cover, donated by Tina Garceau!
So… The question is, do we wait, or go ahead and push it out?
This one came over the transom from the Mil e-mail string…
Hillbilly Wisdom.
Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.
Keep skunks, bankers, and politicians at a distance.
Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.
A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.
Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.
The best sermons are lived, not preached.
If you don’t take the time to do it right, you’ll find the time to do it twice.
Don’t corner something that is meaner than you.
Don’t pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he’ll just kill you.
It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge.
You cannot unsay a cruel word.
Every path has a few puddles.
When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.
Don’t be banging your shin on a stool that’s not in the way.
Borrowing trouble from the future doesn’t deplete the supply.
Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.
Don’t judge folks by their relatives.
Silence is sometimes the best answer.
Don‘t interfere with somethin’ that ain’t botherin’ you none.
Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.
If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.
Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.
The biggest troublemaker you’ll ever have to deal with watches you from the mirror every mornin’.
Always drink upstream from the herd.
Good judgment comes from experience, and most of that comes from bad judgment.
Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back in.
If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.
Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.
Most times, it just gets down to common sense.
Just because it’s old wisdom, doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply today…
Y’all have a great weekend!
First up is John Van Stry with his first book for Baen! Summer’s End
As always, click the cover for the Amazon link!
The blurb-
Sometimes a dark past can haunt you. Other times it just may be the only thing keeping you alive.
Fresh out of college with his Ship Engineer 3rd-Class certificate, Dave Walker’s only thought is to try to find a berth on a corporate ship plying the trade routes between the many habs, orbitals, and moons in the Solar System. The problem for Dave, however, isn’t his straight C average; it’s that his stepfather, a powerful Earth Senator he’s never met, now wants him dead.
Forced to take the first berth he can find, Dave ends up on the Iowa Hill, an old tramp freighter running with a minimal crew and nearing the end of its useful life, plying the routes that the corporations ignore and visiting the kinds of places that the folks on Earth pretend don’t exist.
Between the assassins, the criminals, and the pirates he needs to deal with, Dave is discovering that there are a lot of things out there that he still needs to learn.
But there’s one hard lesson he learned long ago that he’s being forced to remember: how to be ruthless.
I’m proud to say I was one of the beta readers for this! 🙂 It’s GOOD! And also available on Baen.com as an EArc.
And Amie Shultz just finished uploading The Haunted Libraries Anthology Volume 1!
This is the wrap for the paperback, which will be up as soon as proofs are received and approved. The Kindle copy will ‘hopefully’ be live today for $4.99. Remember, this is a BENEFIT for the Tom Burnett Memorial Library, so it’s for a GOOD cause!
And lastly, here’s the current iteration of the cover Tina is working on for Ranching in Colorado. It’s being looked at by the editor now and hope it will be live in a week or so.
It’s evocative of dealing with cattle in the snow, and makes me cold just looking at it!!!
Thoughts on Growing Older- By folks with a way with words…
“To get back to my youth I would do anything in the world, except exercise, get up early, or be respectable.” – Oscar Wilde
“The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.” – Will Rogers
“We must recognize that, as we grow older, we become like old cars – more and more repairs and replacements are necessary.” – C.S. Lewis
“Old age comes at a bad time.” – San Banducci “
“Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.” – Jennifer Yane
“Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you are aboard there is nothing you can do about it.” – Golda Meir
“I’m so old that my blood type is discontinued.” – Bill Dane
“The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened. – Mark Twain
“Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes, age just shows up all by itself.” – Tom Wilson
“Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your retirement home.”- Phyllis Diller
“I don’t plan to grow old gracefully. I plan to have face-lifts until my ears meet.” – Rita Rudner
“Don’t let aging get you down. It’s too hard to get back up.” – John Wagner
“First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up, then you forget to pull your zipper down.” – Leo Rosenberg
“Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.” – Kitty O’Neill Collins
“Old people shouldn’t eat health foods. They need all the preservatives they can get.” – Robert Orben
“Middle age is when you’re sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn’t for you.” – Ogden Nash
“It’s important to have a twinkle in your wrinkle.” – Unknown
“At my age, flowers scare me.” – George Burns
“I have successfully completed the thirty-year transition from wanting to stay up late to just wanting to go to bed.” – Unknown
“Nobody expects to trust his body much after the age of fifty.” – Alexander Hamilton
“The years between 50 and 70 are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.” – T.S. Elliot
“At fifty, everyone has the face he deserves.” – George Orwell
“When I was young, I was called a rugged individualist. When I was in my fifties, I was considered eccentric. Here I am doing and saying the same things I did then, and I’m labeled senile.” – George Burns
“I complain that the years fly past, but then I look in a mirror and see that very few of them actually got past.” – Robert Brault
“The important thing to remember is that I’m probably going to forget.” – Unknown
“As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two.” – Sir Norman Wisdom
“It’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone.” – Andy Rooney
“Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.” – Larry Lorenzon
“The older I get, the better I used to be.” – Lee Trevino
“You know you’re getting old when you can pinch an inch on your forehead.” – John Mendoza
“I was thinking about how people seem to read the bible a lot more as they get older, and then it dawned on me—they’re cramming for their final exam.”- George Carlin
“I’m 59 and people call me middle-aged. How many 118-year-old men do you know?”- Barry Cryer
“All men are the same age.” – Dorothy Parker
“I don’t do alcohol anymore—I get the same effect just standing up fast.” – Anonymous
“By the time you’re 80 years old you’ve learned everything. You only have to remember it.” – George Burns
“Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.” – Maurice Chevalier
“Getting older. I used to be able to run a 4-minute mile, bench press 380 pounds, and tell the truth.” – Conan O’Brien
“I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to.” – Albert Einstein
“Grandchildren don’t make a man feel old, it’s the knowledge that he’s married to a grandmother that does.” – J. Norman Collie
“You know you are getting old when everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work.” – Hy Gardner
“When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.” – Mark Twain
“You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.” – Joel Plaskett
“There’s one advantage to being 102: there’s no peer pressure.” – Dennis Wolfberg
“I’ve never known a person who lives to be 110 who is remarkable for anything else.” —Josh Billings
“At my age ‘getting lucky’ means walking into a room and remembering what I came in for.” – Unknown
“Old age is when you resent the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated because there are fewer articles to read.” – George Burns
“The idea is to die young as late as possible.” – Ashley Montagu
“You know you’re getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.” – George Burns
“Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.” – Anonymous
One sentence and you got the ‘drift’, no paragraph or word salad needed!
The old western axiom, water is for fighting and whisky is for drinking is coming true…
The federal government announced Tuesday the Colorado River will operate in a Tier 2 shortage condition for the first time starting in January as the West’s historic drought has taken a severe toll on Lake Mead.
Full article, HERE from CNN. And another article, HERE from the WAPO.
The biggest hit will be the Lower Colorado Basin, Region 8, which includes Arizona, a snip of Nevada, Southern California, and Mexico.
Figure 1. Reclamation Regional Boundaries
Reclamation regions within the Department of the Interior’s Unified Regional Boundaries 
Source: Bureau of Reclamation, https://www.usbr.gov/main/offices.html.
Of note, this apparently ONLY applies to Region 8, but Region 7 is also negotiating on getting more water upstream via various means.
There are supposedly ongoing negotiations in Region 8, but according to the above articles, there’s not been ANY progress as nobody wants to give up any more water. Of note, California hasn’t had to give up a drop yet, and the maximum they lose looks like less than 10%, while Arizona will lose over 20%, Nevada will lose about 8%, and Mexico right at 20% (Mexico has been taking it in the shorts since this started).
And if it gets worse, there just won’t BE any water, much less hydro power, etc. As a point of interest, NOAA ‘thinks’ 2023 may be another La Nina year, which would mean the drought will continue…
So even MORE of the ‘breadbasket’ of California will be fallow… Like that is going to end well…
I really don’t want to do interesting times again…
Remember this???
These are the thirteen names of the dead, HERE along with short bios…
But the administration got what it wanted… A ‘win’, for versions of winning!
Article, HERE with some of the timeline…
Eleven Marines, one Sailor, and one Army. Eleven men and two women. May you rest in peace, knowing your brothers and sisters have stepped up to stand tall in your boots!
To start the week!
New Word Definitions:
Smile – A curve that can set a lot of things straight.
Dictionary – The only place where divorce comes before marriage.
College – A place where some pursue learning and others learn pursuing.
Office – A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.
Yawn – The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.
Committee – Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide that nothing can be done together.
Classic – A book which people praise, but do not read.
Marriage – It’s an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree and woman gains her master degree.
Experience – The name men give to their mistakes.
Tears – The hydraulic force by which masculine power is defeated by feminine power.
Atom Bomb – An invention to end all inventions.
Philosopher – A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead.