I’ve been blogging for thirteen years! Cannot believe I started this little blog in 2007.
4700 posts, so I’m a piker compared to a lot of folks.
67000 VALID comments, something over 8 million views, still in the piker category, but I DO appreciate those of you who visited my humble little blog as long as you have.
I’m older, grumpier, and that’s about it…
For those that say there is only the good side or the bad side of the current argument, I would offer this…
This…
VERY thankful for the folks that put up HONEST reviews, getting my books over the 50 review hump. Thank you!!!
Went over 30K words on the first book in the Hackett Series, tentative title Showdown at Boulder. I’m thinking these will be a little shorter, probably around 80-90K words.
The sad part…
I pushed the button on Rimworld- The Rift on the 1st and it STILL hasn’t published… Grrr… I’m not getting any satisfaction as to what the hold up is either… HOPEFULLY, it will be up sometime!!!
Back to scribbling and research on the Western, since I ‘know’ some of my readers will check things… 🙂
You just CAN’T make stuff like this up…
We ARE truly living in the twilight zone…
This one came over the transom from the mil e-mail chain…
Imagine you were born in 1900. Many would think that that was a pretty simple time of life. Then on your 14th birthday, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday. 22 million people perish in that war, including many of your friends who volunteered to defend freedom in Europe.
Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until your 20th birthday. 50 million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million. On your 29th birthday, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, the World GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 38. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. If you were lucky, you had a job that paid $300 a year, a dollar a day.
When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet, but don’t try to catch your breath. If you lived in London, England or most of continental Europe, bombing of your neighborhood, or invasion of your country by foreign soldiers along with their tank and artillery was a daily event. Thousands of Canadian young men joined the army to defend liberty with their lives. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war.
At 50, the Korean War starts. 5 million perish. At 55 the Vietnam War begins and doesn’t end for 20 years. 4 million people perish in that conflict. On your 62nd birthday there is the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, could have ended. Sensible leaders prevented that from happening.
In 2020, we have the COVID-19 pandemic. Thousands have died; it feels pretty dangerous; and it is. Now think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you think they survived all of the above? When you were a kid in 1965, you didn’t think your 65-year-old grandparents understood how hard school was, and how mean that kid in your class was. Yet they survived through everything listed above. Perspective is an amazing art. Refined as time goes on, and very enlightening. So, let’s try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, we are all in this together. Let’s help each other out, and we will get through all of this.
My dad was born in 1896 and my mother in 1909, so both lived through this. I never saw them worried about much of anything… They shrugged and got on with life.
And… we have an official mascot for the WuFlu!!!
Meet Trash Panda!
THIS should make the Karens happy, but you know they’ll be reporting him for not wearing his mask correctly!!!
I hate to ask, but TGM- Sunset is stuck on 48 reviews and I need 50 to get over that first hump in the Amazon ad world. If you’ve read it and not given me a review, I’d appreciate an HONEST review.
Click on the cover to go to the book’s page.
The other one that is ‘stuck’ is Rimworld- Militia Up, and that one stalled at 42 reviews. If you’ve read it and not given me a review, I’d appreciate an HONEST review.
Lastly, I know I’ve sold a ‘few’ of the Burnt Ends anthology, but have yet to get a single review… So if you did read it, please let me know what you thought.
Thanks in advance. Also, hopefully Rimworld- The Rift will be live on Monday. Submitted it to KDP today!
And we haz a cover! Many thanks to Joe and Tina!
Hoping the Kindle version will be live next week! Print may take an extra week due to having to get a proof copy before it’s actually released.
Final readthrough of The Rift before pushing it out for publication, so you get memes…
Something tells me ‘somebody’ is gonna get bit…
Um… er…
And taking out frustrations… LOL
NYC anyone???
The flyover is part of President Donald Trump’s Operation America Strong salute, which he announced last Wednesday.
Full article, HERE from USA Today.
Frankly, I’m glad to see it and I hope they will do more flyovers in other parts of the country.
Following Tuesday’s flyovers, both the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels will perform over other cities, but neither flight team has released a full schedule. The Pentagon said several flyovers are planned “over the coming weeks,” with new demonstrations occurring every one to two days until mid-May.
It looks like the two teams will fly jointly over Baltimore, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Austin, Texas, but also split up for separate flyovers throughout the country with the Blues taking the eastern half and the Thunderbirds the western half of the country!
Working on the final cover, all alpha and beta reader inputs have been made (thank you to those patient folks, I TRULY appreciate it), and it’s off to the editor for her final passes.
This probably won’t be the final cover, but it’s close…
One of the ‘twists’ if you will, is a new set of characters and a different ship for this book.
Shooting for a release in the next two weeks, assuming everything comes together correctly!