We love getting off the interstate highways and taking the two-lane roads whenever we can. As I have said many times before, a Denny’s or a chain hotel at an interstate exit in Kansas is no different than one in Michigan or California. But the two-lane roads will take you to the real America. Small […]
Back during my newspaper days on the Pacific Northwest coast, my headquarters was in Aberdeen, Washington, in Grays Harbor, which is located at the bottom of the Olympic Peninsula. Aberdeen is an old seaport and lumber mill town, and Gray’s Harbor is the largest natural deep water port north of San Francisco, and there is […]
You might think that a small town newspaper publisher’s world pretty much ended at the city limits, or no further than the county. And for the most part, you would be right. And I was always content with that. As one of my mentors in the business told me when I was first starting out, […]
I thought it would take me several more days but I got at it hard yesterday and by dinnertime, exactly a month and a week after I started, the first book in my Tinder Street family saga series is finished. Before edits, it came in at 105K words. But as I said in yesterday’s blog, […]
Yesterday was another good writing day for me. I cranked out 6,300 words and finished my newest Big Lake book. It came in at 83,265 words and took me three weeks and three days from start to finish. And I wasn’t writing every day. I will spend today and maybe tomorrow reading through it and […]
Note: I have always been a bit of a prankster, and I do believe this one tops them all, spanning several years. There was a time when Arizona had cactus cops, whose duty was to enforce laws protecting native-plants, especially saguaro cacti, which could be worth thousands of dollars to landscapers. Cactus rustling was a […]
Terry’s mom, Bess, turned 88 on February 2nd and her dad, Pete, turned 90 on the 11th. When you live that long you accumulate a lot of relatives, so family from as far away as England, New York, Colorado, Nevada, and Florida (us) came to Arizona to help them celebrate the occasion. In the last […]
Several blog readers have asked questions about our trip across the border to purchase medicines in Mexico, so I thought I would answer their questions here. Q. The other day you talked about going to Mexico to buy medications. When you do that, do you drive across the border, and if so what kind of […]
Note: I have already shared some of our activities while we were in Ohio and the trip there from Florida in previous blog posts. Now I will do several posts telling you a bit about our trip home. We were glad we got out of the Midwest when we did because winter arrived about the […]
Note: Because we have been in Jacksonville for the last three days while Terry underwent a series of tests and procedures at the Mayo Clinic and did not get home until late last night, I don’t have the energy to post the next in my recent series about our trip home from Ohio. So I […]
Note: This is a repost of a story from the “Nick Happens” files that I thought might start your day with a smile. Okay, before I write another word, I have to warn you: Do not try this at home (or anywhere else, for that matter)! Unless, of course, you think you can get away […]
Well, I said I was going to do it and I did. I sat down at my computer yesterday and started working my way toward the end of my new book, Dead Romeos, and except for a few breaks to get up and move around a little bit, and go to the bathroom, I kept […]
I never trust anything the weatherman tells me because long experience has shown that they can point to their colorful maps and forecast anything they want and make all kinds of predictions, but in reality all they can really do is tell you what happened yesterday. For example, for the last few days they have […]
“Keep your head down or you’ll get it blown off!” I can’t tell you how many times I heard drill sergeants and platoon leaders scream that at young soldiers when I was in Basic and Advanced Infantry Training. It’s a lesson that served me well and that I never forgot. It kind of goes along […]
Thank you to everybody who made blog comments or sent me emails about finally breaking down and ordering my new office chair. I am really looking forward to it coming in so I can start enjoying the benefits. As I said in yesterday’s blog, when I saw the specialist on Wednesday, she immediately suspected my […]
Today we are celebrating Terry’s birthday, and though she modestly says it’s just another day, it’s a very special day. Who knew that that little baby born in Newton, Kansas would grow up to become the most beautiful woman in the world? And not just beautiful, but also strong, caring, intelligent, talented in so many […]
As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, we had planned to stay home on Friday so I could get some writing done and Miss Terry could get back to her latest long-delayed weaving project. But then we ran out to do a couple of errands and the day got away from us. So we didn’t accomplish […]
We spent several hours at the rehab facility with Beverly yesterday as they put her through her paces and showed us how much progress she has made since her major surgery last week, and explained what the follow-up plan is when she is released from the hospital next week. From everything I can see, she […]
With everything that has been going on in our lives lately there has not been a lot of time for writing or weaving, or much of anything else. But while Beverly has been in the hospital things are not quite as busy. We make the trip over to see her two or three times a […]
Most of us have experienced it a time or two in our lives, some of us more often than others. I call it the spidey sense. That feeling that something just isn’t right, though we can’t figure out what is wrong or why we are feeling that way. I’ve learned to be aware and heed […]