Just a little note on this fine spring morning to all of the nattering-nitwits on the news: shut up.
Let’s start with all of you who were howling for Comey’s head last fall when he “stole the election from Hillary.” Yes, you know who you are. Okay, your wish finally came true. Happy now?
Chrissy Matthews and company are saying that Trump’s a fascist for firing Comey.
Seriously? In real totalitarian governments, when the head of the secret police (which is a role the F.B.I. fills, among others) gets fired, he usually gets a firing squad as well. Not a gig speaking on CNN. The whole thing is how a democracy works. Comey lost the respect/faith of his agents, his superiors, and most of the Congress if you look at the last 8 months. (Don’t let the memory hole get you: you all wanted his head in October…)
What do bosses do with employees like that? They fire them. Which is what happened.
Nobody was rounded up in the night. Nobody was beaten to death in a dank basement. Nobody shut down the media for 48 hours to let it get done.
Nope. None of that.
So all of you can now go back to your daily activities and quit acting like morons.
If you were not acting like a moron, don’t take this personally.
I have to go to work. You see, life goes on. For Comey as well.
Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!
When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.
Yes, at the heart of it all it begins with dirt. Lots and lots of dirt. This is half of what came to visit (and stay) a few weeks ago. I decided to get the new garden going early, so that the soil would settle in before planting. It has now rained, and snowed, on the evenly distributed dirt.
Obsessions sometimes manifest slowly. My obsession with gardening started with Tulips when we bought the house. Over the years I’ve planted about 1,000 bulbs. The squirrels have dug up almost 700. I’m way ahead. Great crop growing right now. The next step was corn. Just wanted to see if I could grow it in my yard. It is delicious.
In the last decade that madness has morphed into a “what can I grow that will be fun” kind of thing. Much of what I hope to grow this season will not be consumed in my house. My wife doesn’t even like a couple of my main items, but they are a challenge to grow and that’s all I need.
This year I may have hit the zenith: habaneros. There are approximately 30 spots where I’ve planted seeds. I have eight varieties, and planted about six seeds in each spot. I have no idea which ones will come up in which place. That’s half the fun. What, you might ask, will I do with approximately 6 bushels of habaneros? I will dehydrate a bunch and give them as gifts in decorative Mason jars. They are quite pretty. The dehydration will take place in my nifty Cabela’s unit on the back deck: if you do it inside it produces pepper fog and the dog dies. Seriously. The gas from last fall’s experiment would make your eyes water 50 feet away. It was not a good week to be downwind.
That dehydration bunch counts for a small fraction of the haul. I will use the red/yellow/orange ones to make hot pepper sauce. I am already eye-balling small glass bottles that can be sealed and labeled with custom labels. Yeah – that kind of obsession. I may even give some away on the blog. Something inside makes me happy when I can things and share them. Consequently the basement looks like a glass store, as I cornered the market on jam jars when the fall clearance season hit. I really need another $50 worth of glassware (that I’ll give away) to make it complete.
I have a hunch a bunch of the produce will be given to the homeless meal program I work with – fresh beets will be on the menu at some point. I grow a nice, sweet variety. Same with the corn. Get a ton of it, and there’s only so much salsa a guy can make. But I will.
There are a few lessons along the way, some of them good, some of them bad. Examples abound on the good side: it’s good exercise, I like cooking, I like the look of the garden when it’s weed-free, I love the bees taking care of the plants, and I love eating things I grow.
On the negative side, I hate hornets (they love corn and beets), some creatures eat faster than I can grow things (Edzell, my late Sheltie, loved corn and fed himself well on my stalks before I got wise to him – I’d been blaming the squirrels…), and planting for 1.5 hours is just like doing squats. That one I discovered two days later when I couldn’t walk without looking like I’d been riding a horse. Something about moving about the patch, digging with my fingers and dropping seeds, all from the squatting position. I only stood up to see how things were laid out overall. Yeah, need to do squats at the gym, it seems.
The season is young. But my mental health will improve on those very hot days when I stand next to the garden and water for a few hours. Something about working up a nice sweat, listening to Al Stewart, and watching God provide me, and others, with food is pretty good for the soul.
Happy gardening to the rest of you addicts.
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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!
When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.
Boy, is this easy: want to win a copy of Attack of the Seawolf? Send an email to seawolfcontest at voxmasters.com (email address corrupted on purpose to keep the spambots from wrecking my day.)
I’ll be giving out 10 copies on Monday to Facebook/Blog followers. Just include your name, and why you like thrillers/should win a copy. I’ll email you a promotion code good for one free download. That’s $24 and change you save.
By far the best audio book I’ve done – you do learn as you go in any business – this is a classic of the genre.
Have an amazing day.
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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!
When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.
The other day I was doing the annual lawnmower/snowblower maintenance dance while listening to Elvis. I finished the oil changes and fired up the mower for the first time of the season.
At the end of the mowing (small yard, long playlist) came Elvis singing “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.”
I shut out the world for a few minutes and listened to the words. It’s one of my favorites.
As I listened, it dawned on me that most of you probably don’t like Christmas music as much as I do. I thrive on the stuff. You probably get sick of it every year. I, on the other hand, love listening and know all the words. You see, unlike the majority of you who despise the commercial nature of the season in the modern world, I get what it is all about for some. Besides, while I acknowledge that Easter is more in the spirit of the religion and why we are so blessed with grace, have you ever heard a decent Easter carol?
Hmmmm? Have you? Of course not. So put down your burden, open your ears, and worship the fact Jesus was born to save us all. I choose to do it with one of the greatest voices of all time. It will only take a few minutes of your time, and I pretty much promise that it will brighten up your Monday.
If not, double your money back on what you spent to read the blog today.
Have a great day, I’ll be back soon.
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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!
When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.
I’ve been working in the voice over field for about 15 years now, and today marks a very special moment: I’m the voice of Michael DiMercurio on Attack of the Seawolf.
While some might quail at being killed in a book, I knew from the dust jacket that he’d been an officer on the U.S.S. Hammerhead – one of the boats I rode. There was an officer on the boat who hated me, but I only ever saw him in the dark. Before you all get the wrong idea, we shared a berthing area on the submarine. I was in the 9-man compartment, and he had the rack below me. I snored. I had sleep apnea. He didn’t get much sleep. I only saw his shadow as he slammed the lid on his rack, cursed and stomped away in the middle of the night. I figured it was him, getting his revenge on me by killing my type.
Fast forward 20 years, and I meet Michael in a Facebook group for Cold War Submariners. (I have since been kicked out. When I joined, they were letting non-qualified spooks join for a time, but since changed the policy. If you were not qualified in submarines, you had to leave. This was due to a large number of idiots spouting bilge with no time under/on the waves in a submarine. Me? I have over 6 months under the surface.)
I sent him a message, we became friends, and I found out he was on the Hammerhead at a different time than I was. Nonetheless, we were peas-in-a-pod in some ways, and he very graciously listened to me whine about my book, Assault on Saint Agnes, while I was writing it. His help was invaluable.
A year goes by, and now he’s toying with putting his back list on Kindle. Once that was under way, I nagged him about doing an audio book version. He’s got a good voice, and would do a great job. But he’s got a real job in the real world, and didn’t have time to learn the trade and do the book. A month or two go by and he asks if I’d be interested in doing the book. I couldn’t say yes fast enough.
Over the next month I worked from 0300 to 0700 quite a few mornings on recording the book. My wife, bless her soul, let me record on weekends as well. I grew in my trade on this book, and it shows in the final product. The first two audio books I did for profit were good, but this one was the first with my new computer set up and all that experience. I had to run cables, punch holes in the house, and do some serious work to make it happen. But I also got a rhythm doing the reading. And, knowing the author, and knowing the subject matter intimately, didn’t hurt at all.
Consequently, I’m very proud of the book. I jumped a little when I got the notice that it was available on line Wednesday.
If you, or someone you know, likes techno-thrillers, this is a great book. It runs just a minute shy of 11 hours. Best of all, the next book in the series is under production right now. Yes, back to the 0300 wakey-wakey. Stormy isn’t fond of that scenario. But she’ll live: this is what buys her all those snacks she likes.
Done bragging for now. Hope you like listening as much as I did recording.
Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!
When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.
