I never said…

Any of my kids had any sense… LOL

My grandson is in the process, at age 7, of building a racing go kart.

Granted, he’s being ‘directed’ by his daddy and uncle (both of who are excellent mechanics), and his uncle races karts and Legend cars. But his mother sent me a text yesterday grumbling about him coming home talking about steering boxes, axles, and working on brakes by himself.

I can see it now, in two years, my granddaughter is gonna want to build one, too… sigh…

I didn’t start working on cars until I was ten, with my grandfather. But that was on actual cars. We didn’t have racing go karts back then, probably much to my mother’s relief… LOL

Really???

Talk about out and out attacks on the Pubs…

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday defended President Joe Biden’s remarks comparing Republican ideology to “semi-fascism.”

Full article, HERE.

And Hochul in NY wants all Pubs to LEAVE NY!

There are 2,848,894 registered Republicans in New York state, and 3,251,997 New Yorkers voted for Donald Trump for president in 2020 — and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-Planned Parenthood) is not happy. What are all these dissidents from Acceptable Opinions doing in her state? She made it clear Monday that they’ve got to get out, and pronto.

Full article, HERE.

Desperation, frustration, I don’t know, but I can’t remember a time in my life when the attacks have been so blatant on a political group in the US, much less a major party. The partisanship is getting worse day by day.

I don’t know where this is going to end, especially with some of the things coming out in the media (sometimes) about other things that were done by DOJ, the FBI, etc. Like the FBI telling Zuckerberg to NOT allow coverage of the Hunter Biden story on FB…

The day after Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook limited a polarizing story ahead of the 2020 election because of an FBI warning, the federal agency said it can only alert a private entity of a potential threat, not require it to take action.

Full article, HERE, and of course the FBI is saying they didn’t mean it THAT way…

Sigh… Is it November the 8th yet???

A little humor…

Gotta love the Brits…

These are genuine clips from council complaint letters:

1. My bush is really overgrown round the front and my back passage has fungus growing in it.

2. He’s got this huge tool that vibrates the whole house and I just can’t take it anymore.

3. It’s the dog mess that I find hard to swallow.

4. I want some repairs done to my cooker as it has backfired and burnt my knob off.

5. I wish to complain that my father hurt his ankle very badly then he put his foot in the hole in his back passage.

6. And their 18 year old son is continually banging his balls against my fence.

7. I wish to report that tiles are missing from the outside toilet roof. I think it was bad wind the other night that blew them off.

8. My lavatory seat is cracked, where do I stand?

9. I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is coming away from the wall.

10. Will you please send someone to mend the garden path? My wife tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant.

11. I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen.

12. 50% of the walls are damp, 50% have crumbling plaster and 50% are plain filthy.

13. I am still having problems with smoke in my new drawers.

14. The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.

15. Will you please send a man to look at my water; it is a funny colour and not fit to drink.

16. Our lavatory seat is broken in half and is now in three pieces.

17. I want to complain about the farmer across the road; every morning at 6am his cock wakes me up and its now getting too much for me.

18. The man next door has as large erection in the back garden, which is unsightly and dangerous.

19. Our kitchen floor is damp. We have two children and would like a third, so please send someone round to do something about it.

20. I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please do something about the noise made by the man on top of me every night.

21. Please send a man with the right tool to finish the job and satisfy my wife.

22. I have had the clerk of works down on the floor six times but I still have no satisfaction.

23. This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broke and we can’t get BBC2.

I haz a new book!!!

My second novel in the Bell Chronicles series, Ranching in Colorado is up!

Click on the cover for the Amazon link!

The blurb-

Back in Texas he might be The Rio Kid, but at the other end of a long cattle drive in Fort Collins, Rio Bell is now struggling through his first year as a Colorado rancher. With his new wife, old hands, and a few mountain men, he’s learning fast as they deal with winter weather and stubborn cattle.

The killing cold and deep snows bring all new challenges to calving and just getting in supplies, but tempers can run hot as ever. Not everybody wants to see him succeed… or even survive.

They’re about to learn he’s no greenhorn when it comes to taking care of business, regardless of what that particular business may be.

The paperback dropped this morning, which is amazingly quick! Thanks to all the usual suspects for the alpha and beta reads, Tina for the cover, and Steph for the editing!

TBT…

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.

Well…

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!

LOL…

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 !!!

 

Thanks folks!!!

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?

Lots of truth here…

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!

Book promos…

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!!!