June Q&A

I’m back with more questions from blog readers. While I try to answer all questions individually, I also share some here occasionally.

Q. I am super impressed by your weight loss, Nick. I’m curious about one thing. What happens when you reach your target weight? Do you continue to take Mounjaro and hope the weight doesn’t come back, or do you go on a maintenance dose, or what?

A. I have talked to my primary care provider about this. There are different ways of handling the issue. I believe once I reach my target weight, I will continue with a smaller maintenance dose because it also keeps my diabetes in check.

Q. The feature you were running about different authors is very good and I’ve downloaded several of their books and enjoyed them, especially the mysteries by Bobbi Holmes and C.A. Newsome. My husband is also a self-published author, with four western books on Amazon. Would it be possible for you to do a feature on him, and if so, how much does it cost?

A. There is no charge to be featured in an Author Spotlight. It’s a fairly simple process. I send out a question and answer format interview, and the author replies with the answers, and a photograph of themselves. Though not required, if they would donate an autographed book(s) for our weekly blog drawing, it is very much appreciated. Not every author who wants to be in the Spotlight gets chosen, though most do. Books have to be of a good quality that I feel readers will have an interest in, and things like porn and eroticism are not accepted.

Q. You haven’t given us an update on the problems with your truck lately. Did you ever get that resolved?

A. It is still at the dealership. After quite a bit of trial and error, they finally diagnosed it as the hybrid battery pack, which several readers and my son-in-law, who is a master mechanic, told me before I even took it to them. But the people at the dealership had to convince themselves that any of us knew what we were talking about. Then they had to submit a request and wait for the extended warranty to approve the repair and ship the part. That’s been done and it was supposed to be here on Thursday. Now I’m waiting for them to get it installed.

Q. Your Taxicab Tales stories are hilarious, Nick. I think ride-share companies have about eliminated taxis these days, but when I was young I had an uncle who drove a taxi, and it was a very dangerous job. This was in Minneapolis, and he was robbed and assaulted twice. Did you ever have anything like that happen to you or any of the drivers you knew?

A. Oh, yes. I’ll tell you a story or two about things like that along the way. When you are letting a stranger get into the back seat of your vehicle, especially at night, you never know what’s going to happen.

Q. I love seeing the pictures of Terry’s greenhouse and the things she is growing in it. As someone who has loved to grow things since I was a little girl, it has always been one of my dreams to have a greenhouse someday, but I haven’t accomplished it yet. How big is hers?

A. Terry does love her greenhouse and gets a lot of pleasure from growing things in it. The interior dimensions of the greenhouse are 16 by 24 feet.

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an autographed copy of Muddy Mouth, the fifth book in my friend Carol Ann Newsome’s Lia Anderson Dog Park mystery series. A Fourth of July parade, 89 feral cats, and a missing author aren’t anything Lia and her schnauzer can’t handle. While the dog park gang trains their fur-babies to participate in Northside’s famously eccentric Fourth of July parade, starving artist Lia Anderson is building a float commissioned by Fiber and Snark, the cat-rescuing knitting club managing the career of local best-selling author Lucas Cross. Then Lucas disappears at a book convention, someone attacks Lucas’s accountant, and Lia is the only one the ladies of Fiber and Snark trust to discover the truth while protecting a secret no one suspects they have.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 30 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

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.

Thought For The Day – The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams. – Oprah Winfrey