Nick’s Blog

Dodged A Bullet

 Posted by at 12:45 am  Nick's Blog
Mar 262023
 

Thank you to everyone who sent emails and messages asking if we were safe from the storms that tore through our part of the country Friday night. We dodged a bullet because they changed course and went north of us, so all we got was some wind and rain. Unfortunately, there was a lot of destruction in northern Alabama, and one life lost, and even more in Mississippi. Our hearts go out to all of those who lost their homes and their loved ones in the tornadoes.

Yesterday was another writing day for me and I got in another 3,100 words or so in my new book while Terry was catching up on our bookkeeping, doing laundry, and so many other things I couldn’t begin to list them all here. A while back the last section of the folding tonneau cover on our Ram pickup slipped out of my hand as I was closing it and got torqued, and then did not want to fold up properly. During the afternoon, Terry checked it out and figured out how to adjust it so that it works again. There’s absolutely nothing that woman can’t do.

Some of you may remember a blog post a few weeks ago titled I’m Living A Lie, in which I told you that according to UPS, our address does not exist, even though they deliver here several times a week. We eventually got that issue worked out on that particular delivery, but it turns out they’re not the only people who can’t seem to find us. A week ago Terry ordered some red wiggler worms to go in her new worm farm. They were shipped out on Monday by FedEx with a two-day delivery. We expected them Wednesday, or Thursday at the latest. When they did not come by Friday afternoon, Terry called FedEx with the tracking number to see what the problem was. Guess what? There’s no such address.

Try as she might in several telephone calls, she couldn’t convince them that we really do live at our address and that this house has been here for at least 40 years. Nope, just because we live here doesn’t mean we really live here as far as they are concerned. Finally, late on Friday afternoon, they said Terry needed to come to the FedEx location in Tuscaloosa, about a 45-minute drive from us, to pick the worms up because they would not attempt to deliver them again. Terry figured by now they are probably dead and called the supplier, who assured her that they would get hold of FedEx and take care of the problem or send out a replacement shipment. If they do, I hope it doesn’t come by FedEx!

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an autographed copy of Bad JuJu in Cleveland by the late Karl Bort, with Thelka Madsen. When Detective Nicholas Silvano is called to an abandoned house on Cleveland’s east side where four men have been brutally slain, he finds himself involved in a complicated case of drugs, murder, and voodoo! When FBI Agent James Reis begins creating roadblocks at every turn, Silvano teams up with DEA Agent Charley Goetz on a manhunt that takes them from Cleveland to Florida, in an investigation where the stakes become higher when the killer makes it personal, forcing Nick to face feelings he’d been denying for too long.

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 this evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

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 – I don’t eat organic food. At my age, I need all the preservatives I can get.

Water And Words

 Posted by at 12:05 am  Nick's Blog
Mar 252023
 

Even with the weatherman saying we were going to get some storms Friday night, Austin from ProScape recommended that we water the area where they installed hay and grass seed and sod. So much of yesterday was spent moving hoses and sprinklers around to make sure I got everything covered. I was pleased to see […]

Mar 242023
 

In yesterday’s blog, I wrote about having a tornado shelter installed at our son Travis and his wife Geli’s house. There’s a possibility the timing could not have been better, because the weatherman says that sometime after midnight tonight we are going to get hit with some strong storms and the possibility of isolated tornadoes. […]

Mar 222023
 

Note: Yesterday was spent working on my new book, so I don’t have much to tell you about that. Instead, here is my blog post from five years ago today, about an early-day Indiana serial killer. While touring the La Porte County Historical Society Museum in La Porte, Indiana, we came across a gruesome display […]

Tuesday Q&A

 Posted by at 12:37 am  Nick's Blog
Mar 212023
 

I’m back with more questions from blog readers about RVing, my writing activities, what’s happening in our lives since we hung up the keys, and all kinds of other things. While I try to answer all questions individually, I also share some here occasionally. Q. Now that you live in your “forever home” in the […]

It Was A Long Day

 Posted by at 12:35 am  Nick's Blog
Mar 202023
 

Yesterday started with a 7:30 AM phone call from our son Travis,saying that his wife, Geli, was broken down in Bessemer, up near Birmingham. Geli works nights as the clinical director at a hospital there, and she had just gotten off her shift, stopped for gas, and got on the highway when her car went […]

Mar 192023
 

Yesterday morning a crew from ProScape was back out here again, tackling another problem related to our drainage issues. Long before we bought the house the area around the culvert under the driveway had caved in on one side, completely blocking the opening. Obviously, if water can’t flow through the culvert, it’s going to back […]

All Done!

 Posted by at 12:45 am  Nick's Blog
Mar 182023
 

When we first talked to Austin Marcum from ProScape about our drainage issues, he said it would probably take his crew a week to ten days to get the job done. It actually took them four days from when they started ripping out the top layer of dirt and grass in our backyard on Monday […]

Mar 172023
 

Terry has gardening fever, and I blame it on our son Travis. I’ve told you before that Travis is an avid and successful gardener, and ever since we first looked at our property here in Alabama he’s been telling us about all the options we have for growing vegetables. That’s something Terry has always wanted […]

Not A Nice Dad

 Posted by at 12:30 am  Nick's Blog
Mar 162023
 

Okay, I admit it. While I may come across as a charming little cherub to many of you out there in blogland, that’s really not the truth. Ask my son Travis and he will tell you that I’m not a nice dad. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been an abusive father, although there […]

I Got Stoned

 Posted by at 12:40 am  Nick's Blog
Mar 152023
 

There’s always something going on around our place lately, and yesterday I got stoned. A big dump truck showed up in the early afternoon to drop off 26 tons of large gravel. A lot of it will be used by the crew from ProScape who are installing our French drains, and I will use the […]

Mar 142023
 

Boy, you can’t trust anybody these days, even in small towns. You go to sleep one night and everything’s okay, and you wake up the next morning and somebody stole your yard! Not really. I’ve mentioned before that we were amazed that companies here actually show up on time and do the jobs they say […]

Rude Awakenings

 Posted by at 12:59 am  Nick's Blog
Mar 132023
 

When you live in tornado country like we do, having a weather radio just makes sense. Except when it wakes you up twice in the middle of the night with a siren and alerts to let you know about bad weather two states away. That’s what our Raynic radio did twice early Saturday morning, once […]

Mar 122023
 

Terry and I both love the sound of wind chimes and she has a small set of bamboo chimes that hang here in the house. Every once in a while a breeze from one of our ceiling fans or somebody passing by will move them just enough to give us a gentle little sound. But […]

Sammy Has A Home

 Posted by at 12:25 am  Nick's Blog
Mar 112023
 

We met Bob and Lynn Throckmorton from Hemet, California during our first month on the road as fulltime RVers, when we were all students at Life on Wheels in Moscow, Idaho. They were the very first subscribers to our Gypsy Journal RV Travel Newspaper, and we struck up a friendship that has stood the test […]

Mar 102023
 

After reading about us using my Kubota tractor so much earlier in the week, reader Henry Bowman wrote to ask me if it and the Kawasaki Mule are parked outside since we don’t have the huge garage we did at our Florida house. No, they are not quite outside, they are kind of under cover, […]

Mar 092023
 

I spent part of the day yesterday helping Travis and Geli get the last load of manure from our barn over to their place, then stopped at the post office in Gordo to mail out a book order. From there, it was back home and back to the computer, working on my new Tinder Street […]

My Kid Is Weird

 Posted by at 12:35 am  Nick's Blog
Mar 082023
 

I love my son but that doesn’t change the fact that he is weird. Very weird. Who else do you know that would actually get excited about a day spent shoveling horse manure? Well, my kid did and he was happy as a pig in, well, manure. As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, the folks […]

Horse Pucky

 Posted by at 12:25 am  Nick's Blog
Mar 072023
 

Yesterday was a good day for writing, even if it was frustrating. I had narrated a full chapter in my new Tinder Street book, using Microsoft Word’s narration feature, and I thought I was saving all along. But for some reason, all of a sudden the entire chapter, over 2,300 words, disappeared. It was just […]