Random videos:
Greetings from the cat Gracie’s “feed me” performance every morning about 0500. Nice legs.
Beirut Imagine listening to this all day, while you’re trying to write. Word is, we’re now getting a Dick’s Sporting Goods. So, whenever the urge for a camouflaged shirt strikes me, it’s just a stroll away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0Amt30_QVQ
Yeah, there is. Libraries.
Went to mine a couple of weeks ago and picked up these:
Already finished In the Light of What We Know, and I’m in the middle of The Eye of the World. So far, eh. It’s so obviously Tolkien that I just want to go, “Been there, done that,” and pitch it across the room, but, every few pages or so, an interesting situation shows up so I’m going to stay with it. The Stephen Hunter is a new Bob Lee Swagger novel, and I loves me some Bob Lee, so it’s next. And I have to read at least one non-fiction per library visit, so who can resist something called The Bohemians? Besides, it’s Mark Twain.
God, do I love libraries.
I had a rather crappy childhood, and libraries became my hideout; specifically, the ones located on Ft. Rucker, Alabama (when I was 10-14 years old), and then the one in Pemberton, NJ (from 14 to 18). After that, wherever I could find one.
I got to the Ft. Rucker library about once every two weeks, during Mom’s biweekly commissary trip. She’d drop me off, because that was one less whining kid to deal with, and pick me up on the way back to our in-the-middle-of-nowhere house some 25-30 miles south of Enterprise, AL. Those were the days when I was reading 600-700 wpm, so I loaded up: Heinlein, Bradbury, Asimov, L’Engle, Moon, anywhere from 10-20 books at a shot. I’d blast through them, and get another 10-20 on the next trip. We also had a bookmobile show up once a month at Goodman Elementary School, and I cleaned them out, too.
My first honest-to-God job was at the Pemberton Library. I got paid $2.00 an hour to shelve books, clean up, and check out patrons (their library books, not the chicks, although I did that, too). Imagine, working in a place you love. I got into a lot of trouble because I’d be back in the stacks and spot something interesting and, two hours later, the boss finds me curled up in a corner reading. Ah, indolence.
Since then, the reading speed has dropped precipitously (might have something to do with a rather misspent adolescence), and the opportunities to read, also (Assassin’s Creed is killing me, pun intended). But, I still go and browse through the shelves. Despite Goodreads and Kindle Boards and all the other thousands of reading sites out there, the New Books section, just past the circulation desk, is where I find my next read.
And sanctuary.
Whoa, been awhile, so guess I should put in my two claws worth but, really, ain’t much happening. I mean, it’s summer:
What, exactly, do you expect me to be doing?
It ain’t been all lazing around, though. I have been getting out:
Mostly to keep an eye on this clown:
The Wild’uns have been telling me that Russell is really making the rounds. He’s got six or seven families on the street feeding him at random times. Has six or seven different names, too. Why, the other day, one of the families came over to that D. Krauss guy and said that I–Gracie– had been over to their place and they hoped D. didn’t mind them feeding me. “Sure it was Gracie?” D. Krauss asked. “If the cat has yellow eyes and a girly voice, then it’s probably Russell.” So it turned out; the girly voice gave him away. Think of an obnoxious maiden aunt.
“They look alike,” D told them:
No, we don’t.
Then D told them that Russll is my drunk old dad who goes off on benders for weeks at a time then shows up to bum off his daughter:
Russell. Is not. My dad.
But he is a bum.
And needs watching:
Boy, if that title doesn’t get me more Google hits, then nothing will.
I set up a table in Middletown, VA, this past Saturday for the infamous Route 11 Yard Crawl:
Like the banners?
I got up at 0400 to drive down there and set up. I’d forgotten there was even an 0400, but, yeah, there is. It’s best to avoid it, in my opinion.
This is what it looked like at dawn:
An hour later:
The pictures don’t do it justice. The place was mobbed.
The delightful young couple next to me, Jason and Kalley, were doing gangbusters. No sooner would they sell out a table full of kids clothes then they would restock it with more kids clothes, which was all snapped right up. I asked them, “Where’d you get all those kids clothes?” They said they had a daughter. One.
Has to be the best dressed little girl in America.
Me? I sold three books. 3.
Shoulda brought kids clothes.
Ah, the good things, they come to that proverbial end, and this past weekend we bid a fond adieu to Jason Smith’s Losing Cable series by having a back-to-back viewing of all the episodes. Because Jason is a Big Bang kind of guy (interpret that any way you want), we all met in Shepherdstown, WV to go out in that manner.
Shepherdstown is nice, in that Old Towns of the Shenandoah Valley way:
There’s a lot of towering structures in the town, like the Teacher’s College:
Pretty sure that’s the old clock tower, so be circumspect, or it’s 1.21 gigawatts for you.
The Trinity Church:
A plaque in the churchyard advised there was a brick from the original Jamestown Settlement set in the steeple, visible from a side street:
Good luck with that.
The send-off was in the Opera House:
People were thinner back then.
Jason, high on stress and coffee, welcomed us:
The place was packed…okay, there’s only 15 seats in the auditorium, but still. Some of the audience:
Dan Thunderstone and friend.
Moms and cousins and friends.
Grips and fx guys and curious onlookers.
Then the show started and, I gotta say, seen back-to-back,including the proto Losing Cable episodes, the series is a treat. Freakin’ hilarious, and I was giggling the whole time, even though I’d seen the individual episodes as they came on line. Something about continuity.
Then the last episode (not on line yet, so keep checking back), which, of course, had Odin…for about twenty seconds. So, all those grueling hours, dying of heat stroke in my undercloak and armour in the middle of a broiling, bug-infested field, Jason screaming at me until I cried (he’s a cruel and heartless director), having chickens and grapes mashed into my face and tanakrds of ale (CranGrape, whatever) poured over my head and down my pants, for twenty seconds of screen time?
I’m beginning to suspect Jason was messing with me.
Anyways, it was over, and we had the obligatory crazy cast picture, with some old guy hovering at the end hoping for residual glory:
the young’ins flocking to the after party and drunkeness and search warrants, and me, home to bed.
Jason is now on his way to NYC for bigger and better things. Perhaps a feature film or two, from original source material?
Hello? Anyone there?
Right smack dab in the middle of Winchester, VA is this lovely place:
The Kernstown Battlefield, where two, count ’em, two separate battles were fought during the Civil War. Can you blame ’em? It’s a lovely place to run around and shoot at each other:
I’m surprised it’s still there, given the penchant of the City Council to bulldoze tree lined properties. By the way, here’s how things look back at my house:
On the battlefield is the Pritchard House:
or, at least, what’s left of it:
The docents assured me it is haunted. I can understand why. The Pritchards were Quakers; Mrs. Pritchard was from New Jersey and a Union sympathizer, while Mr. Pritchard sided with the Confederacy. But, being Quakers, they did not participate in the fighting. They and their children lived on the farm during the war, hiding in the basement during the battles because there was some kind of rule that neither Army would commandeer your house if you stayed there while soldiers were busily running around your yard trying to kill each other (of course, there were exceptions made in other times and locales). Made for some interesting moments, I’m sure.
When the battles were over, the Pritchards brought wounded from both sides into their house and nursed them, including a very popular Union officer named Colonel Mulligan, who was shot at the stone wall right out front.
Despite the Pritchard’s care, Col Mulligan died in the parlor, one day before his wife could get there to take him home.
This is Mr. Pritchard’s office:
That’s original wallpaper still clinging here and there, and original stain on the floor.
The parlor:
That’s Col Mulligan on the left, Mrs. Pritchard on the right.
This sketch was made a couple of days before Col Mulligan died:
Ignore the idiot with the camera on the left. Look on the right: can you see Mrs. Pritchard? Take a good look, because that’s the last of her.
Mr. Pritchard had taken a loan against the house before the war started and, although a very successful wheelwright and distiller, all of his tools and equipment were “liberated” by Union forces, leaving the family destitute. Mr. Pritchard filed for compensation, and several Union officers, including General Crook of later Indian Wars fame, testified on his behalf. One week before the court made its decision, Mr. Pritchard died of a heart attack while walking along Hogue Creek, past the stone wall. He never found out his claim was denied and his entire property sold to a bidder. His two sons, 11 and 12, were apprenticed to teach the new owner how to distill whiskey (I hear social workers fainting all over America right now). Mrs. Pritchard was allowed to remove from the house only the things she brought into the marriage. She even had to buy her sons’ beds, so they’d have a place to sleep when done distilling.
And, then, she disappeared. She moved to either Kernstown or Stephens City, but no one knows where, and there is no record of her since. Just gone.
I find that heartbreaking.
“Them” being the city council which, in a frenzied effort to make this a “walkable” city, decided to eliminate a park next to me (that once housed a 19th Century brick farmhouse and 100-year-old pecan trees), for a “commercial development.”
Here’s what my street looked like on the 4th of July:
This is what it looked like yesterday:
The trees with the red strings get saved. The one’s without…
All for a new Roy Rogers, next to an existing Taco Bell, and a bank, and check cashing and auto title stores.
Progress.
Because central planners have decided that a proper Fourth of July celebration requires herding the peasants into some town square for face painting, 10ks, and cornhole tournaments (cornhole? Seriously?) while awaiting government-sanctioned firework displays, I decided to go do some real ‘Merican stuff.
First, I went fishing. Got up at 0600 and went to the lake:
It was an unbelieveably beautiful morning, cool and breezy, courtesy of some nearby hurricane. The wind was a bit annoying because I was using my fly rod and a popper, hoping to entice a smallmouth out of its hidey-hole, and my best, unwinding, thing-of-beauty casts ended up about three feet from the bank. The only creature that showed any interest was a sunfish smaller than the popper I was using. Since it couldn’t swallow the bait, it decided to beat it into submission, and, while that was amusing, there was no sport in it, so on to the range:
to shoot these:
M1, and M1 Carbine. War tested, mother approved.
(I’m not allowed to have a firecracker or a pop-bottle rocket, but no problem with these. Man, who let these people take over?)
The rifle target was 100 yards downrange:
which is unfortunate, because I can only see about 50 yards these days, so this was my first effort:
Shooting a little low, I think.
This was the final result, both 30.06 and 30-30:
Meh. I’ll get most of the zombies when they swarm my position, but not all of them.
Course, then I went to the 15-yard target and employed my .357 Mag Revolver, 2-shot drills:
Blow the smoke off the barrel, holster.
Later today, I’m going to a ball game and then fire up the grill and then sit on my deck with all the torches lit and listen to the far off thunder of EPA-approved fireworks entertaining the masses while I count myself most fortunate to be a naturalized citizen of the only country ever founded with the basic premise that the individual is more important than the group, the natural law trumps the statutory, and government, even at its most sincere and efficient, is, at best, an annoying, grubby, intrusion in our lives, and should be severely limited.
Hear that, central planners?
That Asgardian on yon hill is me. I was playing Odin for the last episode of Losing Cable2…
(moment of silence for the end of a great series…okay, back to it…)
and it was quite the hoot.
Here’s where we filmed:
a bug-ridden, hot and rutted field with a lovely view of the Blue Ridge.
The crew, Jason and Scott:
Say, did you know that if you operate a boom mike for an hour, you don’t have to go to the gym?
My mark:
My, what a big spear you have…we’ll just let that comment lie there for a bit.
The transformation begins. From this:
(that’s not my own, personal linen undercloak, but I kinda liked it). To this:
Movie magic.
Action shots:
How I suffer for art.
Chickens were flung, grapes mashed, ale (or Cran-Grape, something like that) quaffed, and weirdos zapped back to Earth.
The episode should be up and running in a few weeks; at least, that’s what Jason said and he’s a crazy worker editor madman so stay tuned. I’ll let you know, and you will watch it or frost giants
might show up at your next barbecue.
So sweareth Odin.
Now available:
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L4DXOXC
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/433588