A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

This morning was not good, more like my stomach and intestines were on separate amusement park rides -- and I was not and am not amused. Nothing like trying to sleep while both exits are gurgling and jammed with impending spewage. I couldn't even drag myself out of bed long enough to answer the door for Kirk, the UPS hunk, and accept delivery. I was groggy and afraid he might be forced to accept a delivery he wouldn't want and might come to rue.

Just the thought of bitter rue sets my insides spinning on the Vomit Comet.

I did manage to get up and drink some cold chai. Probably not a great choice, but a choice that has stayed down so far. That's a good thing because I have been running on empty and nearly inside out and empty. Then I decided something filling and substantial would be a good choice, so steak, rare. It has so far remained inside and is not making that gurgling about to reappear noise at either end.

I tried doing a little stitching on an eyeglass case, but that didn't last long. Sitting up made me feel vertiginous and unsettled. Then I decided that sitting up would be essential to eating so here I am, ears at the ready for sounds of internal derangement, and typing up something (anything) to keep my mind off my gastrointestinal chaos.

Btw, the above photo is a dog worshiping at the porcelain Idol. I feel his distress.

On the plus side, or at least the side that is less health related, I have gone through almost all the boxes and cannot find my loaf pans. They were good quality metal loaf pans, but they are still AWOL. Since I was feeling nostalgic and remembering my Gram's flannel hash (the pot roast version of corned beef hash), I bought 2 new glass bread pans and a lovely pan just for making hash, which is basically leftover meat chopped fine and combined with diced potato (freshly made or leftover) and some gravy combined and put into the oven at 350 to bake.  The bottom, sides, and top should be crusty (without being burned) and the insides smooth and well melded. Now all I need to do is buy a pot roast, cook it for dinner, and put together my flannel hash. I might even do corned beef hash (with an egg on top) if I can find a suitable corned beef brisket.

Right now, I'm getting ready to bake some fruitcakes. Don't groan. They are delicious, especially when the fruit has marinated for 2 weeks in bourbon (or whiskey if you prefer), added to the batter, baked, and then wrapped in cheesecloth soaked in bourbon for a couple of months. I might even use rum if the bourbon goes well. A really good fruitcake needs to age and successive layers of liquor soaked cheesecloth to get the right flavor and moistness. That's what most people don't get about really good fruitcake, the mellowing, the liquor, and the deft hand with a good balance between cake and fruit. I do so love fruitcake.

I was tossing out some trash from my mail run yesterday when Kevin stopped me and told me, frozen fruit popsicle in a tube in hand, that he was off to Iowa to get his dog, Forrest, back. It seems the neighbors across the street from him left at the same time that Forrest disappeared. Their vacation was over and they were headed back to Iowa, quite possibly with his 7-month-old Newfoundland. I pity the people if they stole Forrest. Kevin is not a forgiving man when it comes to stealing his dog. You can have his fiancee or his son, but not his dog. I don't know if he made it home yet. I'll check later.

Well, this little update has burned through what ragged strength remains to me right now and I'm going to go try some more chai and possibly a few more bites of steak to keep the rest company -- and hopefully keep it tightly packed and digesting properly. I need to go out and get some yogurt to refresh the gut bugs to put the process back on track.

That is all. Disperse.

Is Any Man Truly Free?

Dostoevsky wrote about true freedom, the freedom to kill with impunity. Where Ivan's argument breaks down is in the commission of the murderer. When one is free and that freedom means killing without punishment or regret or fear, then there is no need for secrecy and no need to blame the murder on someone else.

Smerdyakov plans to murder his father and he tells Ivan what he will do. He fakes a seizure to set the stage for his own innocence after going to Gruschenka to deliver the message that the elder Karamazov will give her a gift if she comes to see him that night. Smerdyakov already knows that Dimitri attacked his father when he believed Gruschenka was visiting his father and promised to kill his father if he caught Gruschenka with him the next time.

The whole point is that if Smerdyakov were truly free to kill with impunity, he would not have stage managed such an elaborate frame for Dimitri to take the blame for killing their father. He would simply have killed the elder Karamazov and admitted the act to anyone and everyone because the law did not apply to him.

This same moral disconnect is present in Murder by Numbers when the two rich boys, Richard Haywood and Justin Pendleton, carefully choose their victim and set up their alibis for the time of the murder. The man who is truly free does not need to hide his deed because he fears no punishment. That man, or in this case those boys, would kill their victim in broad daylight in front of witnesses and walk away unscathed and unpunished. They killed with impunity.

Because neither Justin nor Richard was truly free, they must hide their crime and throw the police off the track.

I suppose Justin and Richard covered up their murder because the police would not see them as free men killing with impunity, but that moral hiccup proves that they are not free. They cannot kill with impunity because they are bound by the morals in which they were brought up and which they must follow or go to prison. They can claim from behind bars that they are free men, but they were never truly free nor could they ever be free, just as Smerdyakov and Ivan were bound by the morals and beliefs which inform their actions.

No man can truly be free to kill with impunity unless and until he kills without remorse in the clear light of day in front of witnesses and walks away without being punished. Saying a thing does not make it so. In other words, saying they are free to kill does not mean they are free to kill. It is this fact that nullifies the premise that killing with impunity makes a wo/man free.

When we seek to hide our actions we admit the immorality and crime of those same actions.

The Future of Books in a Green World

Did you know that 40% of all books printed in the United States are destroyed each year? That means of the 15,000,000 (15 million) books printed in 2012, 6,000,000 (6 million) books were destroyed. They are put into landfills and your new house in that new suburb may be sitting on top of all pulped books, books that were printed and sent to retailers who then sent the books back to the publishers' warehouse to be remainder for a short time and eventually destroyed, bulldozed into landfills among garbage and detritus. That is the past, present, and future of all the trees that were cut down and pulped to make the books that were not sold.

Recyclers say they cannot recycle books because of the glue that binds books together along the spine. They have neither the technology nor the equipment to separate glue from paper so the paper can be recycled. I'm going to have to cry foul on that because it would take very little effort to slice off the spine and pulp the rest. I could do it with a paper cutter, but it would be a slow process, and yet I'm certain that a forward thinking recycler could invent or build a machine to slice off the glued spine to recycle the paper and make a whole lot of profit. It's common sense.

I worked in a company a long time ago where I stripped the covers from paperbacks which were then sent back to publishers for credit and the rest of the book was sent to be destroyed. At that time, the books were either fed into the furnace to keep us warm during the winter or later sent to landfills to be bulldozed into the trash that eventually became a new plot of land on which to build hospitals, houses, and businesses. It still seems wrong to me, but I grew up in a land just 10 years post World War II and book burning just did not settle well with me. Nor does building land on top of destroyed books. Don't believe that your green plans for recycling and repurposing books will end up in any other way but the landfill. Only the rare books end up in a dusty shop on the shelves of towering bookcases with little stick-on tags with expensive prices. Few books ever reach that level. Most end up on the dollar and 50-cent table outside some run down bookshop just before they too are sent to the landfill. This cannot be the future I envision and still hope to see. 

In this green conscious age in which we live, I see that as unconscionable, especially when there is an alternative that doesn't waste trees, paper, ink, and books. We all know what it is -- digital books, e-books, The Future.

I received this email this morning from Kindle because many of my books are on KDP. Take the time to read it and then ask yourself this question: When all is said and done, who cares about readers?

Dear KDP Author,

Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year.

With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.

Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.

The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books.

Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.

Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.

But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback books – he was wrong about that.

And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: “Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to this post are worth a read).  A petition started by another group of authors and aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered over 7,600 signatures.  And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another piece worth reading.

We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please email Hachette and copy us.

Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch: Michael.Pietsch@hbgusa.com

Copy us at: readers-united@amazon.com

Please consider including these points:

-          We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.

-          Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.

-          Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take them out of the middle.

-          Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue.

Thanks for your support.

The Amazon Books Team

P.S. You can also find this letter at www.readersunited.com

Rainy Days and Mondays

The Carpenters' song goes: Rainy days and Mondays always get me down. Not me. I love rainy days, even when they happen every single day. I don't even mind the cold that comes with the rain. That's why I have a jacket and sweaters to wear. I usually take them off when dancing in the rain.

I didn't get down to Divide today but I did gas up the car and discovered a new hamburger stand. The food was okay, not stellar, just okay, and it took forever to get. That is probably because there were 2 women working, one taking money and delivering food orders to people eating in the restaurant, and the other cooking the food. It was not a speedy operation, but the ladies were pleasant, amiable, and chatty. It's the main reason I didn't get to Divide today, but I did get home in time to work. Hooray -- sort of.

I finally unsnarled the chaos that comes with a move and dealing with the US Postal Service. I provided (finally) a document that showed my name and current address to their satisfaction. Now all I need to do is go back in 2 days and get the key to open the cluster mailbox that is about 5 miles down the road from my house. The carrier has 4000 people to deliver mail to and doesn't want to have to go to all the houses, so we must go to the mailbox, park, and get our mail from a locked box. At least now my mail won't be sent back to the place of origin and I will have to let everyone know (again) that I have moved and the address I gave them is actually valid. Yippee - sort of. I like the rain better.

As I ate my hamburger and cold sweet potato fries, which I didn't finish (too cold and too gross, but, yes, I could have used the microwave but it was too close to time to work), I heard a cacophony of cawing outside the windows. Once again (yes, this has happened before) a large murder of crows had descended upon my house (no, it had nothing to do with evil or witches) to stalk worms coming up out of the ground because of the rain and a little caramel colored bunny rabbit nibbling the greenery around the base of the steps to the laundry room. The bunny got away and the crows hopped and cawed all over the yard hunting earthworms for lunch. I've eaten earthworms (dried of course and ground up for chocolate chip cookies) and they're not half bad. They are also full of protein. I hesitate to eat them in any form since they break up the earth and aerate the soil, enriching it with their castings. They do the earth a good turn.

It has rained all but 1 days since I moved up here. I don't know what the other residents think about it, but I consider the rain good luck -- and good for the earth and trees in keeping the burn danger down. It's hard to catch a forest on fire if it is wet, and the trees around here are extremely wet. I am amazed how cold it is up here, but rain and wind have a tendency to do that. I'm tempted to close the window, but then I wouldn't get to smell wet pine trees and fresh air and rain-washed everything else. I rather enjoy those smells.

One thing I have noticed is that I will no longer be able to go 6 or 8 months without gassing up my car. Two weeks and I've already gassed up twice. Granted, I moved from Colorado Springs and that took quite a bit of gas, not to mention running around to get the right front tire valve stem fixed, but still. I did the unexpected and filled the car all the way up. I thought it best. Never know when I might have to trek down the mountain to get the mail.

Tomorrow I will try again for Divide to do the grocery shopping since there is nowhere closer to get it done. I might even try the BBQ place across the road from the market on my way home and then it's back to work and meet Kirk, the UPS guy. I haven't seen his eyes yet since he always wears sunglasses. He could possibly be bald, which I wouldn't mind, but can't tell since he always wears his hat. He dodged the question about his wife and I couldn't check his ring finger since he wears gloves all the time. I'll bet his hands are soft though and he has the cutest dimple.

Sorry, folks. No licentious behavior on the horizon. I'm just curious and I deserve to look at a handsome, rugged, tanned, and fit fella no matter his marital status because I like to look at good looking men. I guess I'll have to either ask him the color of his eyes and hair and be direct about asking about his marital status tomorrow if I'm to get any information. Or I could keep flirting and hope it pops up during the conversation after a few months. Anything is possible.

I think I'll leave the window open and put on my jacket and maybe get a cup of hot tea while I type hospital reports and occasionally gaze out at the barely discernible tumbled rocks of the peak next door where a weather vane on a pole perches atop some very rounded and overdosed looking rock formations that just beg to be explored and climbed. After all, my neighbor's horses feel free to meander over to my place, avoiding the fence and coming in through the front gate, to crop my grass. I should be allowed a trip to look closer at his mountain peak. It's only neighborly after all.

That is all. Disperse.

A Day Full of Problems

I met Kevin last night. Kevin is the carpenter/handyman that helped build this house and he stopped by to introduce himself. He looks like a biker with a long ponytail rubber-banded at intervals down to the top of his belt loops. He wears a do-rag and is partially tattooed. He has a quick wit and a generous and friendly smile and he is a can-do kind of person as I found out this morning when we went over my very long list of unfinished work to be finished on my house, most of which he disposed of with ease.

The living room door to the back deck now closes and the key works without the lock cylinder coming off in my hand. That is a good thing since it has been unlocked and open for 12 days. Good thing there are no rapists or thieves up here. I don't think they've found us yet -- and I hope they never do. I like feeling safe enough, even with the creaks, moans, groans, and sounds of breathing the house makes as it settles.

This morning Kevin went to work on the deck door lock and eventually got it sorted out while his pup, a 7-month-old Newfoundland mixed with Akita pup he brought with him. The pup, which is nearly up to my ribs, is called Forest, and he is a curious fella nosing into everything and yet a friendly and gregarious almost-horse. Big as Forest is, he tried to climb into my lap so it's safe to say he likes me. I like him too. Since Kevin lives across the road, I'm sure Forest and I will get to see a lot of each other, especially if I get my wish and a ramp is installed on the back deck at the back bedroom side of the deck. It just makes sense really. Kevin even agrees that there should be a ramp there so the house is accessible to all of my friends and not just the ones wiling to climb to base camp one of the Himalayas to get into the house.

On the job list are a drain for the washer so I can actually use it without having to figure out a way not to flood the house, blinds for 2 windows, a screen for one of the office windows, a vent cover for the cold air vent that goes to the furnace, replacing bulbs in the ceiling and master bath, and a mirror and medicine cabinets for the bathroom between the Jack and Jill bedrooms.  I still need to get hooks for the bathroom and closet doors, hang the shower curtains and liners, and do a week's worth of laundry when the drain is installed and functional. Big on my to-do list was getting the router set up, and I needed Skybeam's tech support to get that done since they needed to get the wire on top of the house to recognize the router, and that has been accomplished.

Yesterday, Paul from Glazer Propane installed the new 500-gallon tank and lit my hot water heater again. I do need to ask Kevin about the furnace and adjusting the burners on the stove top, but those will be handled one way or another. Things are moving closer to near perfect, or as perfect as things will be when I get everything put away and the pictures and paintings hung. I think Kevin will help me by getting rid of all the boxes and that will be a big help.

One thing I found out is that the land line was hooked up to one of the sheds on the property, which made no sense to me until I asked Kevin. The previous owner of this land had an RV parked on the lot and the land line was installed on the shed so he would have a phone. Makes sense since this house did not exist then. Now that the house is here, the phone company needs to come out and bury the line.

Now some of the assortment of oddities on the property make sense, like the Dish TV satellite dish propped up against a fence that runs between two pine trees and the clothesline that runs between two pine trees next to the shed that has a weather vane on the roof. I'll add photos later. It could also explain why there is a fire extinguisher in a holder nailed to to yet another pair of pine trees near where there are a few piles of firewood and why there are benches next to the two sheds and a picnic table by the fence. Three acres of land and only an RV parked here seems a little sad and abandoned as if flash floods washed away whatever house once stood here but not the garage since it was built to withstand a nuclear explosion, except there was never a house here until my house was built.

I like being able to talk to someone who knows the area and can help me get up to date on the wherefores and whys and whodunits that come with a small community like this.

There are bound to be lots of stories and gossip floating around, not that I would listen to the gossip, but the stories have to be fascinating, like the man who lives next door with two native American or possibly Latino women and a fat black cat that stalks behind in their wake.

That's life in the country for now and I look forward to settling in for a very long and fruitful life. What began as a day full of problems has become a day full of solutions. I like when that happens.

That is all. Disperse.

Chasing the Truth

In yet another move to change her image, Hillary has reinvented history, or rather herstory. This time around Hillary wants to be seen as a woman of the people, an ordinary American you would meet at Target or Walmart, completely divorced from politics and remodeling/remaking and the scandals that have dogged her from the beginning. What it amounts to is a whole new batch of lies, misdirection, and lily gilding that she has undertaken since she first came to the public eye. Gone are the references to her involvement with the torture and murder of suspects during Black Panther trials when she was in college. Absent is her mishandling of health care reform during Bill Clinton's first term in the White House. Very present are her tales of woe and being stone broke when she and Bill left the White House while denuding their apartments and access areas of everything that wasn't nailed down. I'm sure she and Bill only meant to pawn what they could and decorate their new hovel in Washington, which is what they would have done if they had not been forced to give it all back. In Hillary's latest memoir, written by yet another ghost writer, Hillary marks her climb from the obscurity of her radical left days to her prominence as Bill's loving wife and Chelsea's mom who was more interested in domestic affairs than in her law career in Arkansas, her spearheading reform of the education system, and her stumping for Bill while he sank his first term as governor by raising car license plate taxes. She glosses over the all night strategy sessions and the way she handled Bill through the years before his re-election to the governor's mansion two years later and his subsequent terms in office. Gone are Bill's philandering and sexual redatory habits, and the demonizing and discrediting of the women he used, abused, andt tossed away and Hillary makes scant mention of Monica Lewinsky and what she knew and when she knew it, all in the name of political expedience. What this version of Hillary is supposed to do is make her look less like a rabid bull dog and more like a homebody who puts her family first and politics last, neither of which will wash as she collects $225,000 for speaking engagements where she gives her fees to charities, the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation charity. Hillary has one aim, to sit in the Oval Office as President, the first woman president of the USA, and she won't let a small thing like the truth get in her way. Expect to see more tales of landing in Bosnia under fire and running hunched over to waiting cars as welcoming ceremonies disappear --- at least in her mind. Her arrival can still be seen on YouTube any time you need to brush up on the facts, complete with welcoming ceremony. The truth in a Hillary presidency will always be the first victim of her agenda and play very little part in policy or reality. Keep that in mind while you contemplate voting for the Hillary the Chimera. In spite of her advocacy for women and children's rights, one thing remains obvious. For Hillary, it's about money, power, and celebrity and she will use whatever means necessary to make it happen as she has in the past and in the latest words out of both sides of her mouth at any given moment.

The Blame Game

Political pundits and polarized U.S. citizenry cannot make heads or tails of President Obama's style of administration. I haven't been able to make sense of it either, but takin a step back and considering everything from a different perspective has finally given me the answer.

Since taking the oath of office in which he vowed to protect the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and upholding the Constitution of the United States of America, Obama has failed to keep those vows. He has engaged in an international apology tour asking forgiveness for all the wrongs committed to by the U.S. government in every country not an ally while snubbing our allies. He pointed to George W. Bush as the author of all the world's problems and blamed Bush for everything that has occurred since Obama took office.

That is where I began to see the light and uncover the strategy that has kept Obama's supporters loudly supporting him and pointing fingers at conservative Republicans and racists for not accepting Obama's explanations. It is the Blame Game. "S/he did it first" has become the first or second words out of Obama's and his apologist's mouths. It is the panacea for every wrong and every crime, every treason and every addition to the growing list of scandals and misuses of power. "Bush did it first."

I always thought, and, yes, it was naive of me, a person ran for office to show that s/he is a better person for the job than the person currently holding it. Obama promised he was going do to better than Bush, but at what I ask myself daily as we are 5 years down the path and I am often embattled by Obama's supporters. At this point, Obama's supporter will then browbeat me with, "Because the Republicans won't let him." That is the second part of the Blame Game, focusing attention on radical elements and claiming the Republicans are the authors of all the problems with their pesky demands for proof, followed quickly by, "What about Bush's excesses and crimes? How do you defend them?"

Obfuscation, conflation, and pointing the accusatory finger at everyone else is what 5-year-old children do when they are caught with their hand in the cookie jar or with a baseball bat standing in front of a broken window. The conversation goes something like this:

"Who broke the window/took all the cookies?"

"Not me."

"You have the bat/cookes still in your hands."

"I picked them up. Someone else left them here."

"Then why does the ball have your name on it/are there cookie crumbs all over your face?"

"Someone stole the ball/hit me with a cookie before s/he ran out."

"How can you play baseball if someone stole your ball/why are there no cookie crumbs on the floor just on your shirt and all over your face?"

"I saw someone running away and picked up the bat/cookies."

And so it goes as the 5-year-old digs a deeper grave.

Obama and his supporters then begin the chant of, "you're a racist," which is supposed to throw the opposition into defense mode so Obama can scramble for a new line of defense.

It would take too long to go through the myriad excuses Obama uses, but he seems to rely on these above all:

Bush did it first; the Republicans keep getting in the way; the President doesn't create the economy; Bush left this mess and I'm just trying to clean it up. 

None of this passes the initial smell test and yet no one has yet done more than complain and threaten impeachment. That is when the evidence can be tracked down before it is lost, recycled, and/or destroyed, none of which sticks since Obama hasn't a clue what is going on when he finds out about it on the news or in a newspaper. I don't think we've had a president this clueless since Hoover? But maybe I'm being ungenerous. That happens when I see nothing but lies, obfuscation, and arrogance.

Actions that forced President Nixon to resign rather than being impeached are ignored in the news, except for Fox News, and the Republicans grumble and threaten, but that is no more effective than screaming at a child s/he's going to get a whipping when the whipping never comes.

The hallmark of an adult is his/her willingness to accept responsibility for wrongdoings and punishment for his/her wrongdoing. Don't hold your breath. Obama has proven one thing without question. He will not accept responsibility.

a man purportedly as smart as Obama, his excuses have become rote, lame, and laughable. Maybe that is why he has not been impeached, jailed, tried, and thrown in jail before now. He has provided this country and the world with a laugh track worthy of Benny Hill. It's what I call, God's Idiot Factor, and the reason he doesn't obliterate the perpetrator with lightning bolts or fire and brimstone. Even an omnipotent being needs a good belly laugh at times.

Too bad this laugh is on the American people. Even with the bay window in the living room busted and glass all over the floor or a whole jar of cookies gone, the excuses would make you laugh if you weren't so angry. 

The Art of Credit

My world has turned into a search for credit, good credit, excellent credit, credit that will buy my house. I have lived off the grid on a generous budget for about 20 years, living within my means, and still living well (with a hiccup here and there when money was tight for a few days and food scarce), but that is not good in this credit obsessed world. I must have excellent credit and credit is a trap. At least as far as I see it.

I've been where my bank account emptied because of my ex-husband's inability/unwillingness to pay his debts. No matter what the divorce decree said about who paid for what, all the creditors cared about was money, specifically, my money. An attorney emptied out my checking and savings account without notifying me, which they can do once, and I didn't find out about it until the check for my rent bounced. Then checks for utilities, phone, groceries, and a loan to a family member also bounced. That's when I found out I had NO money and when I decided to go off the grid. That was about 20 years ago.

Now I'm being forced to deal with credit again and it's confusing and complicated and like looking down the basement to Hell and knowing the only way to get where I want to go through is down into the darkness and through Hell.

The first step of my credit plan worked fine. And then things started happening. A bank credit card I had applied for sent me a letter asking why I had not sent the paperwork necessary to prove my identity. I already had, but they obviously had not received it yet. The next day as I was getting ready to call the bank and ask if they had the information yet, I received an email that congratulated me on my brand new credit card, listed the last 4 numbers of the card, and said the card would arrive in 7 business days. That will be the middle of next week. I have no idea what the limit is, but anything over $300 will be beneficial at this stage of the move. That cushion will put me over the hump so that even my most generous estimations will be secure. Better yet, I will soon be the accredited user of a bank credit card, not a debit card, and credit will be established and accruing points.

I already have a plan in place for that too. I will use that credit card instead of my debit card to pay for all purchases, like groceries, and set that amount aside on my debit card until the end of the month, at which time I will then pay off all but $10 or $15 of the balance. The mortgage broker, Ingrid, said I should keep a $10 to $15 balance on the card every month. I've always thought that paying off the whole balance every month was better, but evidently it is not. I prefer the pay the whole balance plan and thus save myself paying interest, but maybe the point is paying the interest. I don't know, but I have an alternate solution. I'll pay the balance off every other month and leave a $10 to $15 balance on the other months.

Now I find out that a bank credit card isn't enough. I should also have a store card, like J. C. Penney (they already turned me down because I don't have a credit rating) or Macy's or Sears (hard to get) or Neiman Marcus (high end, but would look good on the report). I'll just have to decide what store will look best on my credit report and buy myself something small every month or two. Probably every other month if I go with Neiman Marcus. Pay it off like the bank credit card and not leave a balance if it's Neiman Marcus, which will require me to save the money well in advance. I am moving into a brand new house and will need a lot of new things, like furniture, drapes, curtains, curtain rods, patio furniture, throw rugs for those awful commercial patterned rugs, etc. Talk about debt.

I don't want to get ahead of myself, especially not with credit. I'll plan what I need and buy it as I can afford it once the major expenses, like utilities, phone, WiFi, mortgage, and gas for the car, are paid off first. I can still live within my means by using credit as long as I keep my head. Too bad no one taught me that when I was a child.

That's the thing. Parents thrust their children out into the world without explaining how credit works and why it is important and how to write and live within a budget, etc. Children are unprepared for life as an adult, though kids yearn toward the time when they are no longer under their parents' thumbs and able to stay up late if they choose. When a child's dreams are set on drinking alcohol, deciding their own curfews, and choosing who they will and won't allow into their lives, something is definitely wrong. Parents should train their children how to be an adult the same way they taught their kids to ride a bike and swim and do the dishes.

I remember asking to take ballet lessons and to get a membership to the local swimming pool, which was $15 a summer, and being told no because my parents couldn't afford it. That baffled me for a long time. How could they not afford $15 when Mom wore tailor made clothes and formal dresses for Eastern Star every year that made my $15 membership to the pool look like  a tip? A closet full of shoes and blouses and suits, most of which still had the tags on, boxes of makeup, several jewelry boxes full of necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and diamonds, but a $15 pool membership was too much to ask. That doesn't even take into the account the first edition books that filled several bookcases, the brand new furniture and carpets every 4 or 5 years with drapes to match, the brand new televisions, and the expensive vacations, but $15 for the pool was too much.

I got a job and paid for my own pool membership, but I still didn't have a clue about credit or how it works or how to manage a budget. That knowledge came after years of debt and marriages to two men who didn't have a clue about the true meaning of joint account and balancing the checkbook.

When it all comes down to it, I still would not have bought a house until now, but I probably would have had a lot more money in the bank for a down payment and excellent credit by now if I had only been taught and had known how important it all is.  I have learned, but the fire walk has been painful and long and it could have been avoided if my parents had taught me how it all worked.

I have learned patience and that I don't have to have something immediately. I have time to buy bedroom and office furniture for my house, time to choose and save for area and throw rugs for the living room and bedrooms, time to buy matching plates and good silverware, time to do it all and time to save for it even with credit. I can wait. I have time.

And now I have credit, but I'm still going to live within the budget that has kept me safe and not in debt to anyone. It will be the best of both worlds and a lesson well learned. Credit is a necessity, but good credit, even excellent credit, is an art.

Fox Books and The Shop Around the Corner

The debate between independent and traditional publishing authors is heating up and now bookstores have been added to the discussion. If Hachette does not get its way with Amazon, then bookstores will suffer. Bookstores will become extinct and books will no longer be available through the friendly neighborhood bookstore. It's like the underlying theme of You've Got Mail with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.

The 3rd generation owner of Fox Books, Joe Fox, sells books, lots of books, at low, low prices, much like Amazon. The Shop Around the Corner, owned by Kathleen Kelly, the daughter of the original bookstore owner, sells children's books at a much higher price, buying them from publishers at about 50% wholesale, which means she must sell the books at a much higher price than Fox Books. It's all about volume sales.

Kathleen Kelly also hosts authors for signings and reads books to children. It is part of the service she provides as the bookstore owner. She decorates her windows with books and photos of children's book authors and sells rare and expensive hand tipped books, packing everything in canvas book bags for customers. The Shop Around the Corner is a boutique business in the old world tradition.

Joe Fox sells millions, perhaps billions of books, and sells all the books at deeply discounted prices. He can afford to sell books cheaper than Kathleen Kelly because he has the space to buy more books and get a better deal on price than The Shop Around the Corner. "It's business. It's not personal," as Joe tells Kathleen as they battle for supremacy.

The audience groans when Fox Books puts another bookstore out of business, a mystery bookstore, and they cheer when Kathleen appears on TV to fight the good fight to protect her little children's book shop. Meanwhile, Joe Fox touts his deep and comfortable chairs, food, and lattes and the way readers can come and sit for hours and just read and relax.

In the real world, Barnes & Noble is Fox Books and boutique neighborhood bookstores were put out of business by Barnes & Noble because B&N could afford to sell books cheaper and they offered scones and lattes and comfortable chairs where book buyers could sit and relax and read and write or do whatever. B&N also hosted authors for readings and signings and even sold records, cassettes, and games, as well as iPods and tape players. B&N was the future of bookstores while neighborhood book stores unable to get deeply discounted prices for published books fought for space and sales.

The thing is that no one seems to remember that the death of the neighborhood and privately owned bookstore was touted when Barnes & Noble and Borders and Books-a-Million and Half Price Books and other discount bookstores came onto the scene and drove independent bookstores out of business.

Then along comes Amazon and a brand new technology - eBooks and Kindle. B&N and Borders were no longer the flavor of the month. They had been replaced by a virtual store that sold books at deeper discounts than B&N offered and Amazon quickly took the book buying world by storm. B&N and Borders liked that they could keep a book for years and send it back to the publisher worn, torn, and shelf scarred and get a full refund. That was a deal born of the Great Depression when publishers were motivated to keep bookstores in business, a model that has not changed and one that nearly cost publishers -- and eventually authors who had to give back royalties -- a bundle in October 2008. It was a bad time and an even worse one for authors who were hard hit by returning their royalties and not getting royalty checks when bookstores, like B&N and Borders, returned all those books, books that went directly to the landfills.

Life is about change -- and so is business. Either move with the times and innovate or be buried in the dust. That is what bookstores and authors and publishers and readers need to keep uppermost in mind.

As much as we all rail about this changing world and so many of us comfortable with the past want it to stay unchanged, that is not the way the world works, especially not when it comes to retail. In order for business to be viable it must make money. That is the bottom line.

It is also a bottom line that Barnes & Noble, Borders, and numerous privately owned bookstores do not seem to grasp. Amazon is not the enemy any more than Joe Fox was. It's business. It's not personal.

Except that it is personal to Hachette. Hachette still allows bookstores to buy books and return them for full refund even though the books have been on the shelves unbought and pawed over by untold numbers of potential book buyers. Hachette doesn't mind when books are dumped by the millions into landfills. It's a tax write-off they are more than happy to take at the end of the year, and they don't have to pay authors anything because the books were never sold. The perk there for Hachette and the Big-5 publishers is that even though the books were never sold, the numbers remain so their big name authors remain on the best sellers lists. It's all about numbers, just not numbers that include Amazon being able to dictate terms to PUBLISHERS.

Amazon just will not accept its place in the scheme of things. Hachette has been doing business in publishing for decades and upstart Amazon refuses to grasp that they are supposed to be grateful for being allowed to put Hachette authors on their virtual bookshelves. The nerve!

If bookstores want to stay in business, it is time to change the way they do business the way they did in the 1800s or even the 1980s and get move with the times. Sell books. Sell expensive books to make your profit, but diversify and seize the moment to look at business -- and life -- in a different context.

Kathleen Kelly closed her bookstore because she couldn't compete with Fox Books, but she found other options. Publishers asked her to write her own children's books. Some offered her a great salary to work for them as an editor. Opportunities opened up that were never possible as long as she clung to the past and memories of working in the bookstore with her mother when she was a child, memories that included growing up and becoming the new owner of The Shop Around the Corner. It was difficult saying goodbye to the past, but Kathleen Kelly embraced her new future.

Privately owned bookstores and chain bookstores still stuck with their original innovations now dusty and dated refuse to embrace the future, to look at the world from a different perspective.

We all hold fond memories of the businesses and, for me, the bookstores that were a bright part of our lives, but it is nearly impossible to give up $60 for a couple of books, no matter how beautifully hand tipped and First Edition rare, when that same $60 will buy me 6 or 10 or even 20 books just waiting to be opened, read, and explored -- and loved. In the end, it is all about numbers. More is better, especially when it comes to books, be they print or eBooks, thousands of which I can archive or put on the Kindle I take with me wherever I go. I love the convenience and format all my books in eBook form first, and I never have to worry about them being returned and buried in a landfill.

I still go to bookstores that provide a calm and quiet place to relax and read (sometimes on my Kindle), write in my journal, sip lemonade or tea, and eat a cranberry orange muffin on a lazy Saturday or Sunday afternoon. It's the best of both worlds and I look forward to the next innovation in publishing, which I hope will put the Big-5 publishers in their places and open up a world of possibilities.

Waht Hachette is Up to.

I'll keep this short and simple.

In a blog post by Hugh Howey, the data is clear. Hachette is ripping off authors and is fighting Amazon to continue to do so. Read it and weep.

So, Hachette authors in the midlist, how do you feel about that?

Michael J. Sullivan breaks it down so everyone gets the point. 

 

A Little Help, Please?

I'm confused about Iraq. We got out of Iraq, finally, after Obama took office, though it took more than 18 months. The people wanted us gone. Americans wanted us gone. We got gone.

Now al Qaeda insurgents are taking back the country and the troops the U.S. trained and provided with weapons simply took off their uniforms to reveal their civilian clothes underneath, and fled. The ran away from a smaller, less well armed force, and claimed that the U.S. did not provide sufficient training for them to withstand 1000 armed insurgents against 10,000 armed, trained, and well equipped Iraqi soldiers. I smell a rat.

You don't stand your post with your civilian clothes underneath your uniform unless you know that you will need the civilian clothes quickly and you don't turn tail and run from weak opposition. I guess the al Qaeda insurgents were packing a whole lot of mean that swept government forces away like so much chaff before the Ark of the Covenant carried by the Hebrews when they went to war. The result is the fleeing Shia government forces under Maliki left behind U.S. equipment, vehicles, and materiel for the Sunni forces to pick up and continue hot on their heels

After complaining about the lack of U.S. support in their struggle with al Qaeda forces, I wonder why they want U.S. soldiers back to fight the insurgents. Didn't we go through this already? This is where I get confused.

The United States armed, trained, and supported the sitting Iraqi government and left the country as ordered and now they want U.S. soldiers back. This is what happens when a power vacuum is created as the Iraqi situation demonstrates with the absence of Hussein and no tyrant/despot/powerful leader to take his place. Should we really go back in and take control of the situation again? Isn't this a civil war? Hasn't the U.S. been down this road before with disastrous implications? I'm confused.

Barry Eisler has likened the situation in Iraq to Vietnam and there are similarities, but we left Vietnam to its own devices and accepted the Vietnamese boat people as immigrants, taking them in and providing them with a home and a country. Do we do the same for Iraqi Sunnis fleeing the Sunni Muslim forces of al Qaeda? At what point does this whole circus end?

If I say we leave the Iraqis to fight it out among themselves, I'm being obtuse and elitist. If I say we go back to Iraq and restore order and throw al Qaeda out when the government forces ran from them then I'm an elitist neo-colonialist who supports war mongering. What is the right answer here?

Is there a right answer?

David Ignatius provides his take on the situation and offers a short video at the beginning of his column about the difference between Sunni and Shia. This is not Roman Catholic against Lutheran against Protestant conflict, which often flared into reprisals and armed conflicts, but something much more brutal. The result may well be Syria allied with the Sunni forces in an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) against Maliki, who has holed up in the south, and the intervening territory left to whoever is left in Iraq. Both Sunni and Shia forces are brutal in their actions and hatred for their polar opposite faction and it looks like Maliki will not be able to hold the government together. Maliki and his adherents are Shia and not considered to be true Muslims, not for the 1400 years since Mohammed's death when the ideologically opposite Sunni and Shia split over who would control the future of Islam.

What it boils down to is that I do not have the faintest clue about their religion or their politics, except that neither will rest until the other has been exterminated. When religion and politics are so tightly bound together, how can anyone from outside Islam truly understand what is going on and whose side the U.S. should back. This is no longer about democracy, as Maliki's bloody reprisals about Sunni Muslims has shown, nor is it about freedom for the Iraqi people involved in a death struggle for supremacy. The war between Sunni and Shia isn't even about taxes. It's about supremacy and destruction and a death grip on the lives and beliefs of entire nations.

It is clear that control of the oil fields will be at risk, but why should that be a factor since the United States has more oil than Iraq and Syria combined? The Saudis have complained that their way of life will collapse if the U.S. doesn't stop producing and exporting its own oil fields and reserves.

But, no, the struggle in Iraq is not about oil. That's just a bargaining chit to get the Western world involved, and I'm back to being confused. Should the U.S. stay out of this struggle or should we ride to the rescue?

I do not know. Do you?

One thing I do know is that we cannot play cop on the block on the international stage and that has won us no friends and gained us quite a lot of enemies, but we cannot play the isolationist card as we did at the beginning of World War I and World War II because eventually we will be forced to rethink that position as we did when Truman was voted in, Roosevelt and his isolationist tactics out, and the Japanese allied with Germany bombed Pearl Harbor. Damned if we do and damned if we don't.

Obama has supposed Maliki's government and Maliki has done nothing to build a bridge between Shiites and Sunnis. Instead the reprisals against Iraqi Sunnis have gone a long way to creating the current situation, over and above what 1400 years of strife have done. Maliki, a Shiite, has been as brutal as Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, and nothing was done by the U.S. or the U.N. or any of the western nations. Obama has sent more weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and materiel into this hot zone and the picture is no better.

And I'm back to being confused. What do we do now?

I don't know. Supporting either side may come down to the flip of a coin because both sides are brutal and blood-thirsty and the man in the street will always be a casualty.

I'm open to suggestions to learn more about the players and the game. How about a little help?

 

Navajo Mesa

Navajo Mesa is the community where I'm moving. It's rural. At the sign for Navajo Mesa the paved road becomes dirt, washboard dirt road. Those will be fun on the old suspension. I'm not too worried. I managed 2 years above Tabernash and there were more dirt roads and they were worse than the ones in Florissant. I know they periodically add dirt and grade them, so not a big problem, and certainly nothing to keep me from moving up there.

That is the side between the 2 decks and the doors that go down under the house into the crawl space, except you don't need to crawl. It's built like a bomb shelter and enough head room to stand up. No, that is not a real deer. It is plastic. Someone has a sense of humor. That is the place where I'll plant my herb garden though. It will be easy to get to and will look nice laid out there in a circular pattern.

One of the pluses of living up there is seclusion. Then there is peace and quiet and a small community of people my age, which means I will have to mingle from time to time. Another small price to pay. Neighbors can be helpful and even nice as long as they don't consider my doors (and there are 4) always open to them. I'll be the exotic for a while, but not too long a while.

I have plans, like planters full of growing food on the decks until I get the greenhouse built, up, and running. I did notice that one of the outbuildings is a lot larger than I thought. That has possibilities too. David suggested a chicken coop, but I don't plan on raising chickens. I'll figure out something.

There are the 2 outbuildings, and the one on the left is the larger of the two. It's a nice size for an office or gaol for miscreants or maybe a place to hide from irritating neighbors. It used to be the pump house. Or maybe that is the other shed on the right. I'll check it out again when I go up there.

That's a nicer close-up, but you can't see the picnic table on the other side. More pictures will be required. 


Right now, it's all organizing and planning and forcing myself to pack, knowing I will eventually have to unpack. I hate both jobs, but I will do them and I will get them done before the movers descend on the 3rd.

The hardest problem I've run into is setting up a change of address with the post office. Not only do they mess up my mail, but they charge for changing my address on line -- twice -- and claim that I'm doing it wrong and my debit card doesn't work, in spite of charging me twice for the service. Not only do the snails get stuck in their slime trails, but they evidently look upon me as one of the millions of people willing to give up their money to fund their business, which has been failing for years. After the experience of dealing with the mail carrier at this address for more than 5 years, I understand why.

No matter what happens here, the bills keep coming and I still have to pay for them. Luckily, I planned that into my budget and I should be all right. Better than all right since the mover will charge me less than I expected and I'm keeping my money unspent. I'll save a lot over the next 12 months while building my nonexistent crediting rating into an actual credit rating. No more living off the grid if I expect to buy this house.

And so it goes.

On my down from the house on Saturday last, I took a few pictures.  These pictures are of the cabin and outbuilding that are going back to the earth. They look much older than what has popped up over recent years and may even date back to the 19th century. I'll have to do some research and find out.

The outbuilding but not a great view. I'll have to get out of the car next time.

The cabin. I'm torn between wanting to salvage the wood and rebuilding it. Since I don't own the land, that isn't possible. I'll check into it. It's far enough away from my house to be a great guest house and could be a great vacation property if it can be restored.

Don't forget to click on the photos to see them better. 

That is all. Disperse.

The Good Men

Three weeks ago when I was told by the bank that I would have to leave my home of 6 years, I was thrown back into a place where I did not want and had not expected to be - back to apartment hunting. I found a place I liked and contacted the owner who was enthusiastic (at first) to rent her house to me. Three bedrooms and 2 baths and a kitchen to die for. I wanted the house the moment I saw the photos. That was not to be. After that initial burst of communications and promises, and asking her to send the application, I heard nothing more.

Did I offend her? Did I not praise the place too much? Did I not move quickly enough? What had I done wrong? These are all default positions for me.

I found her Yahoo! email and forwarded my messages to her there and waited, but did not sit idle. I kept looking and found a 1-bedroom house 2 blocks away. It was spacious and had a bay window with a tiled window seat. I had visions of sitting in the window seat reading or just watching the seasons change and people go by. Against my better judgment, I paid the $30 fee and put in my application. I also had to forward copies of 3 pay stubs and provide a phone number for the previous landlord, the one who lost $2 million in properties, my house and the one next door included, to foreclosure. That was Tuesday. That day everything changed.

I called about another apartment in Divide, Colorado west of Colorado Springs and up Hwy 24. As I spoke with the landlord I found he and I had similar feelings about application fees. His father owned a property in Florissant he was getting ready to sell. Would I like to speak with his father about buying the house and 3 acres? Of course, especially since his father owned the house free and clear and would be willing to hold the mortgage note and take my payments directly. Then everything hit the fast track.

The next day after running the numbers and my meager resources, I decided I had to tell David I couldn't afford to accept his offer. It was outside my budget.  He said, "We'll make it work. I want you to have the house. Whatever it takes we will do. I don't need the money; I have more than I can spend now."

We agreed on a monthly rate I could afford and then I called the realtor about the house 2 blocks away. I listened as she told me they had not received a call back from my previous landlord. No surprise there. I explained she probably wouldn't any time soon. Then she told me my employer had not called back so they couldn't verify my income.

Uh, excuse me, but they had 3 pay stubs and my 2013 tax return and a bank statement proving my deposits. The pay stubs had the name of the company on them and waiting for a call from my employer was no longer necessary, but I didn't tell her that. Instead, I told her to cancel my application. I was buying a house in Florissant. She sounded a bit deflated, but I felt powerful and good. I was no longer at her mercy, or the mercy of any realtor any more. I was buying my own home.

Things have progressed since last week and I have been up to the house. I hate the pattern on the commercial carpets, but they are durable and thick and I know how to use area and throw rugs to best effect. Not a problem. A few minor things still need to be done, e.g.; rods for the closets, shower rods for the 2 bathrooms, phone jacks throughout the house, and a few other little details, like tightening up the hand rails all the stairs and both decks. David agreed to all of it quickly, and he agreed to remove the trash from the build before I move in next month.

But there must be a fly in this ointment. A sick feeling came over me that somehow, some way I was about to be screwed. Talking to David again last night and this morning have removed that doubt. His son Mike, the man I originally called about the apartment in Divide, will move all my things from this poky little cottage to the most beautiful home I have ever lived in -- and the first I've ever owned. He will also hook up my washer and dryer and help set up everything. This is real. I am moving. But there is more.

I found out through the realtor that David had been held in a concentration camp, specifically Auschwitz. He was taken there with his family in 1940 when he was 13 years old and was liberated by the Americans under General Patton in 1945 when he was 18 years old. That is one hell of an 18th birthday present. David was liberated without his family, all of whom died in Auschwitz. I knew he had come from Poland to the United States, but I did not know he had been imprisoned for 5 years.

Susan, the realtor, suggested I offer to write David's memoirs. I am a writer after all. I spoke with David and he agreed, so what was initially a casual acquaintance willing to sell me his house and hold the mortgage for me has become much more. He put me in touch with Susan, the realtor, to handle the paperwork, and Susan put me in touch with Ingrid who is a mortgage broker and will help me establish credit.

This man who knows nothing about me other than that I was looking for a house, has become a part of my life, and not just because of the house but because of his generosity and his indomitable spirit.

David and my father were both born in 1927. Their lives were so very different. Dad began his military career in about 1949 and David began his life as a free man, a citizen of the United States in 1949. The link they share is me. My father was a good man and that is the highest compliment any man can get. David is also a good man, not just because of what he has done for me, but because he is a good man. I have been privileged to know them both.

Just when I thought I had no options, I found options and the realization of a long held dream to own a cabin in the mountains here in Colorado. I don't have to wait 2 or 3 years; it is happening now and I am grateful.

If you like to read a little more about David, follow the link. The only thing that surprises me is that his own daughter, a newspaper reporter, never wrote about her father. Then again, maybe not so surprising, I never wrote about my father either, at least not in a memoir. Maybe now that will change as well. Two such good men should be celebrated and cherished.