O-Dark-Thirty

Yesterday I logged on to Amazon and looked at my book, My Mother-in-law Misadventures . I don't look at the sales often, because, frankly, I gave the book away to pretty much everyone that asked for one. So sales are not really that good. There might be someone in Alaska who read it; I'm not sure I understand the metrics well enough to tell. What amazed me was that I had a review on Amazon! Woo-hoo! Except it was a single star. "Wow," I thought, "someone really hated my book. I wonder what they thought was so bad about it?" So here's the review, by Toots456: "This man disliked his mother-in-law. He constantly belittled her in life and is trying to make a buck off her death. Guess getting all her money wasn't enough for him. Don't waste your money on his version of reality especially when one considers this was his 3rd or 4th mother-in-law." That was a bit hurtful, but there are really only two people who might write that ...

As most of my readers know, Darling and I published our first book on Amazon last October. In Preparing for the Fiscal Cliff we outlined some of the issues facing our country at the beginning of 2013 and listed some ideas to protect yourself from the consequences of the government-induced Fiscal Cliff. As far as I know, we were the first book on Amazon to address the issue. Very few of those issues have been addressed by our representatives in Congress, so the book is still relevant. You can get a copy free from Smashwords, but it's still 99 cents on Amazon. I published my book, My Mother-in-law Misadventures , on Smashwords last May, following it up with a version on Amazon shortly after. Both books are available on Smashwords and Amazon now, and you can even get them in paperback. Indie publishing was quite a learning experience. Smashwords just published an author's interview on me on their site . If you have other questions for me, please feel free to post them or ...

The new TV series Agents of Shield starts next Tuesday on ABC. 'Nuff said. Technically Speaking ARS Technica did a thorough review of iOS 7 . It is certainly complete and worth a read. There are some excellent tips for using iOS 7 on CNN . A more complete guide to using the new iOS is here, from Wired's gadget lab . By far my favorite list of tricks was from Tech Crunch . Thanks guys. One of my favorite new features is the call-blocking . Finally. Upgrading to iOS 7 right away isn't my plan. I want to do it, but reports indicate it will slow down my iPhone 4S (a little bit, anyway). My reasoning for not doing an immediate upgrade is pretty simple, though. I'd like all the initial bugs shaken out before I bother with the upgrade process. In fact, there is a security bug that allows someone to bypass your lock screen - but, well, you'll have to see how it's done. I give the guy kudos for finding the flaw, that's for sure. If you...

Let me start by mentioning that Mike Rayburn is one of my favorite guitar players, right next to my buddy Andrew Bateman (Andrew went to Africa on the same mission trip I did). Mike's wife, Tara, has a book called 100 Easy Healthy Habits . Well, I like the title, but a lot of books are called "Easy." Now there are a lot of simple things in life, but not too many that are truly easy . What caught my eye was that she says the solution must be tailored to each family. I bought her book and I'll let you know in a future post. If you want to buy it, here's the link to her book on Amazon . A few months ago Rick Warren's son killed himself. (Rick Warren is Pastor of Saddleback Church in CA and author of The Purpose Driven Life .) He and his wife just had a heart-rending interview with Piers Morgan . When my wife and I wrote Preparing for the Fiscal Cliff we suspected the government would push off as many major decisions as they could. They did. Now th...

There was almost no news on Friday. Not surprisingly, there isn't much news for today, either. The best I could come up with are pretty mundane. (So, no Syria, no Apple™, and no Dennis Rodman in North Korea - isn't that wonderful! And what ever happened to Paris Hilton, anyway?) Isn't she pretty? The winner of the Miss America pageant is a young lady of Indian heritage . The cool thing is that this is what America is all about; we all came from somewhere (yes, even the Native Americans). There are a couple of sad things, most importantly that this is considered news. Now, it might be news if a man won the Miss America pageant, but why is ethnicity newsworthy? The saddest thing is the coverage of the racist tweets after she was crowned. People - really? Get over yourself and be happy that you get to look at pretty girls in color on television in your nice, safe homes. Oh, and news services? It's a fun event - publish the cool tweets and ignore the rest. Forei...

9-11 The big news of the day is that it is, once again, the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack on the US by Al Qaeda. Twelve years ago I watched in horror as the planes crashed into the Twin Towers. The USA was never more solidified than the months following 9-11. I loved that about our country. We swore we'd never forget. We didn't forget the incident, but we've certainly forgotten the binding influence. For many young people, 9-11 is simply an historical moment. For the rest of us it remains a painful scar on our hearts. God bless every person that died that day or was affected by the deaths that day, the victims in the towers, the brave first responders and all the victims who never saw a loved one again. God bless everyone affected by the deaths of our brave military men and women since then. God bless us all. Off the Cuff I started my day with a bowl of chicken soup. I don't know. I was just hungry for chicken soup, so I ate my lun...

There isn't much new today. I guess it was a slow weekend. It was slow for me. Darn that Terraria ! Ancestry.com is sending me a genetic testing kit this week. It was on sale and I've always wanted to give it a try. If I understand the tests, though, it won't give me much information on Mom's Dad, which is where the big gap in our knowledge is. I'm thinking of signing up and doing some genealogy again. Last time I did any work along those lines was in 2003. My last word on Syria (I hope) I hope this is the last thing I post on the potential of the US government bombing Syria. The American people don't want it to happen. No doubt the Syrian people don't want it to happen. So why the push? Just to show we're the biggest kid on the block? To display our outrage at the deaths of the Syrian people? I don't know. As the article states, however: "The White House has left open the possibility that Mr. Obama would proceed with military acti...

Syria is still the top topic in the news, and it probably should be. My mind is already made up on what we, the US, should do as a country, but you know what? Washington still hasn't called to ask me! Remember people, we are not a democracy, but a republic - and it looks more and more like a government-controlled nation state every year. CNN has a very good article about who the Syrian rebels are. I found it fascinating that "some" of them are al Qaeda and some are also suspected of using chemical weapons. These are poorly organized, non-interacting groups and they all have different agendas. Oh they all say they want to remove the al-Assad regime, but I guarantee every group has a different idea of what to replace the regime with. http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/06/world/meast/syria-rebels/index.html As I told a friend the other day, my brother can beat me up, and I might fight back, but when a stranger steps in to stop the fight, we'll both turn on him. W...

Dad's high school photo Today is my Dad's birthday. He died in February, but he would have been 78 today. This is the first birthday that I cannot call him and wish him Happy Birthday. I don't really know what to say about Dad. My brothers and I always laughed that you could introduce Dad to the President of the US and they'd be on a first name basis in ten minutes. Dad was easy-going and loved to laugh. He took many hardships without complaint, especially his failing health in the last months of his life. That was just the way he was. (A deep and heartfelt thanks to my brothers Barry and Tim for being there for Dad during the bad times. You were great sons to Dad and you are great brothers.) I'm grateful for the many good things that Dad did for me in life, and I smile at so many of the things he wanted to do for me. There are some stories there… Dad had his flaws. He and I didn't always see eye-to-eye, that's for certain, but the bottom li...

They say the hint is in the picture... So this is September 3, 2013 and that means that ONE WEEK FROM TODAY Apple™ has a new event . Speculation runs rampant concerning what they plan to introduce or expound upon. Just mark your calendar: September 10 th . Do we care? I don't know. I'll wait and see. http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/09/apple-confirms-september-10th-event-prepare-for-new-iphones-ios-7-and-more/ Lee Hutchinson and Day 4 of Soylent. He posted this one on August 30 th and nothing since. Perhaps it didn't go well… Only one more post to wrap this story up, and I'm waiting for it. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/ars-does-soylent-day-4-the-soylent-powered-man/ Diana Nyad swam from Cuba to Florida successfully completing the epic marathon Monday (September 2) on her fifth try since 1978. Nyad is now 64 years old. She swam about 103 miles. When I first saw the title of the article I thought the author misspelled naiad - which is the w...