Good Food And Bad Guys

Neither one of us accomplished much yesterday, so instead, I will tell you about the delicious early dinner we had at Leanh’s Chinese Restaurant in Daytona Beach on Monday.

Located in a strip mall on Nova Road, the family who run Leanh’s has been serving the Daytona Beach area for more than 35 years. It is one of our favorite restaurants in the area because the food is always delicious, the staff goes out of their way to make sure you are taken care of from the moment you walk in the door until the moment you leave, and the prices are very reasonable. They offer authentic Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Korean dishes, and if you are like me and are allergic to something and don’t like veggies, no problem because everything is cooked to order. Terry ordered Binh Canh, also known as tapioca noodles, and the serving was so big that she had more than enough to bring home for another day.

I went with my standard shrimp fried rice, without veggies and onions, of course, and it was so good I didn’t leave a single grain of rice on the plate. We will definitely be going back there again many more times.

After we ate, we went to Port Orange Seafood to get some of their delicious smoked amberjack and some of their fish dip, which Terry likes very much. If you look close, you will see an egret standing on the air conditioning unit to the left of the door. The folks at the shop tell us it stays there all the time, and it seems to ignore customers as they come and go.

Unfortunately, it seemed like a customer who was leaving just as we got there bought everything we wanted, and they did not have any more to replenish it that day. Well, darn, I guess we’ll have to go back again the next time we’re in the area.

I mentioned a few days ago that we are going to be taking a road trip out west, and also stopping to see my son and his wife in Alabama, either going or coming back. While we are there, I’m looking forward to hooking up with TW Robinson, an author friend of mine. TW retired from the Tuscaloosa Police Department after over 23 years of service with three different agencies in Alabama. Then he made the transition from policeman to bestselling self-published author with the release of his excellent book The Retirement. I became a fan of his as soon as I started reading the book, and the end made me sit up in my chair and go, “Whoa, I didn’t see that coming!” Trust me, read this book, and you’ll say the same thing.

Being a decorated police officer, it doesn’t take TW long to spot a fraud and he quickly found out that there are legions of hucksters out there trying to rip off new authors. They will promise you the moon and deliver absolutely nothing except an empty bank account if they can get away with it. I know because I hear from them every week. One of them contacted me a while back and promised that if I would just hire him to market my books, he could guarantee me a $1,000 a week income. It sounded tempting, but I couldn’t take that much of a pay cut, so I decided to pass.

I guess being a cop means that you naturally want to help people, and TW has done that by releasing a new book called How To Self-Publish Your Book For Free And Not Get Conned. The book covers important things every new author needs to know, including how to get started in self-publishing, writing a book, how to edit for free or on a budget, book formatting, how to create free or cheap covers, copyrighting and ISBNs, the business side of being an author, taxes, etc., and most importantly, how to spot the cons out there that all too many new authors fall for. It only takes a couple of hours to read, but I guarantee that it will save any author a lot of time, trouble, and heartache. Not to mention a lot of money, too!

And the best part of TW’s new book is that you can read it for free! As I said, he wants to help people, so he didn’t put this out to make money from it. If you are on Facebook, you can read the entire book free at this link, or you can read it free if you’re an Amazon Kindle Unlimited member. If not, you can buy the e-book for just 99¢.  If you are even thinking about writing and self-publishing or know anyone who is, this is a must-read!

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. Thanks to my friend DC Stultz for this one.

Thought For The Day – The inventor of the doorbell did not own a dog.