You may have noticed that the West Coast is on fire. I certainly have. My house has been blanketed by an apocalyptic miasma for days. At least the color has shifted, from a Martian orange, to powdered-urine yellow, to what it is now, a sort of dry white fog.
It is Father’s Day. I’m busy enjoying it, so this will be short. Let me just say that I can think of worse ways to burn a couple of hours than heading to woods with a minor arsenal and a hundred bucks or so worth of ammunition.
I hope your day is equally on target.
And now, time to start cleaning.
As with many of you, home improvement projects have played an unusually prominent role in recent weeks. Now, I’ve not had the excuse of being home with time on my hands. I’ve been going to the office every day. Nonetheless, at the behest of MBW, we’ve been buckling down, checking off items on our to-do list.
When you have more than one thing to write about but little to link the subjects, start with a bombastic title.
Don’t leave the best for last. Or do. I don’t know, it’s confusing.
How about this? Boss: Falchion’s Company Book One is now an audio book. That’s pretty good new, I think.
This web log post brought to by the letter “A” for annoyance. And anger. And abashment.
Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in the afternoon at McMenamins’s Hillsdale Brewpub for the annual Battle for the Belt, wherein the myriad McMenamin’s brewpubs compete for the popular vote of best beer. Each one enters a beer. Trays full of four ounce pours are provided. We drink, we fill out a top three ballot. We drop our ballots in the box. Simple enough.
I grew up in the Northwest. Rain is the norm. Wet weather can limit activities, hinder weekend recreation. I recall one of the go-to choices for a rainy Saturday was a trip to Bonneville Dam. Tour the museum, count the fish, visit the hatchery. Not a lot of pizzazz, perhaps, but it can occupy a kid for a few hours.
Some days you just need to punish innocent steel plates and sheets of paper. And as a writer, it is good to remind yourself of the sounds, smells, and feel of firearms. You think, “I really ought to go back and revise that scene, get in at least a mention of the noise.”
I hope to cram in a number of items in today’s post. A mishmash of topics. A salmagundi, if you will.
So, 2019 is pretty much a wrap. I have few complaints, it was a good year for YoursTruly, MBW, and the HA. I have another book out, and three in the can waiting to be unleashed in 2020. I traveled a bit, hit a few conventions to dispense what (if looked at cross-eyed, in a certain light) passes as wisdom, successfully achieved the half-century mark of my life (pro-tip: don’t die), completed my web log series on Appendix N, and brewed a few batches of beer.
Christmas is rushing towards us like an out of control sleigh, with a fat man in a red suit slumped in the driver’s seat, reins fallen from pudgy, cookie-stained hands, his eggnog soaked beard smelling strongly of rum. Have you finished your shopping yet? You obviously can’t rely on that jolly fellow; he’s a menace.