From Virtual To Reality

Say what you want about Facebook, and there’s a lot of bad to be said about it, there’s also a considerable amount of good associated with the online community. It has allowed me to talk to my son and daughter and grandkids often even though we all live in different parts of the country, it has helped me reconnect with friends and family members I had lost touch with over the years, it has enabled me to reach so many readers and increase my book sales tremendously, and it has allowed me to meet some wonderful people both in and out of the writing world. I have virtual friends that I talk to on a regular basis, and belong to several online writing groups, where I have made friends with many authors and have met quite a few of them in person in our travels around the country.

One of those virtual friends is author Frank Butterfield, who belongs to the Cops And Writers Facebook group I help administer. Frank lives in nearby Daytona Beach, and I’ve been stalking him online for a while now, telling him that we needed to get together for a visit. I guess I finally wore the gentleman down and he figured he might as well get it over with because I got a message from him yesterday morning saying he was going to be down in Titusville doing some research and wondered if it would be possible to get together on his way home in the early afternoon. I told him he had to drive right by our place and to please stop in.

Frank arrived about 1:30, and he was one of those people that you just instantly feel a kinship with. I had picked up on it in our online conversations and interactions in the authors’ group, but from the minute he walked in the door Terry and I both felt like we had reconnected with an old friend.

Frank is very intelligent and a fascinating conversationalist and the three of us talked and talked and talked. So much so that by the time the poor man managed to escape, it was 6:30, and there had not been a lull in the conversation in all that time. Thanks for stopping by Frank. Terry and I really look forward to visiting with you again sometime soon.

After Frank left, we had a light dinner of cold sandwiches and watched some television, including the movie Angel Mountain on Amazon Prime. It’s an interesting coming-of-age story but very predictable, and while we weren’t as bored with it as we were with Savannah a few days ago, I don’t think we would be in a hurry to watch a sequel, either.

I would really like to get out of the house and run some errands, but I ordered some computer equipment that was supposed to be delivered by Amazon on Monday that never arrived. Then they said it would be here yesterday, and now they’re saying it might arrive today. We have never had an issue with porch pirates stealing deliveries around here, but I don’t like leaving expensive packages sitting on the carport because there’s a first time for everything. If it does arrive early enough in the day, we might sneak out and play hooky for the afternoon. If Terry plays her cards right, I might even let her buy me dinner. We’ll see how it goes.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. My friend Bob Martel took this one at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum east of the Phoenix area. That sign is all I need to tell me that I don’t plan to do any hiking around there! Musician Jim Stafford was echoing my own words when he sang, “I don’t do spiders and snakes.”

Thought For The Day – When one door closes, another one opens. Other than that, it’s a pretty good car.