Busy, busy, busy...

I've been exceedingly remiss in posting to my blog. In fact, I've done lots of cool stuff since my last post, and haven't written about it. I don't know whether it's the feeling that maybe nobody gives a rip, so why bother, or what...

So September was Cycle Oregon, my fifth one. This year I had a new bike, lots of miles on the trainer, and very few actual asphalt miles. And we climbed the Siskiyou Mountains before lunch on the first day. Still, I survived that one, and went on to Yreka, California. I realize that Yreka, CA is not in Oregon, but we were, for the duration of the ride, suspending such trivialities as state lines and were traveling in the "Mythical State of Jefferson". What the heck is that? That is the state that was going to be formed by the secession of northern California and southwestern Oregon from their respective states to set up a state that would be more responsive to the wants, needs, fantasies, what have you, of the local populace. The provisional government was supposed to meet on December 7, 1941, but was interrupted by a small disturbance in Hawaii that took everyone's attention, so the State of Jefferson never came to be...

Day One of CO was also the occasion of Todd's 50th birthday. I discovered this way back in June, so I called Raley's Supermarket in Yreka and ordered a cake, complete with black icing balloons and black lettering. A nice CO staffer named Ingrid picked it up for me. When Todd got back to our table in the beer garden from a blue room break, and found the cake, he was totally stunned. That was the plan...

The rest of the week, the weather was great, except for the headwind we had on the super-rollers on the Rogue River Scenic Byway on the way to Happy Camp on Day Two. It really sucks when you have to pedal downhill...

Some kind of virus ran rampant through the camp at one point. Fortunately none of our crew caught it. It sounded like it was pretty nasty...

On Friday night, we were in Grant's Pass at the end of the layover day. James Taylor was in Central Point that night, so we all jumped in Betty's car (she was a volunteer, so she got powered wheels to travel in) and went to the concert. It was on the grass at the fair grounds, and was really super. Well worth stacking four of us in a seat meant for three to get there. Fortunately Mike doesn't weigh very much...

I'll try to get pictures posted here one day soon, although my pictures only last until the middle of the ride, at which point my camera decided to die a sudden death. Oh well, it relieved me of the responsibility of having to take pictures, I guess...

I'll also post about the PBR Finals and some other stuff as soon as I get my thoughts organized...

Idaho State SASS Championship

Once again, I seem to be having trouble keeping up on the goings-on, so to speak. Like it's been almost three weeks since the Idaho State SASS Championship, the Reckoning at Black's Creek. But here goes anyway...

Clint and I actually went over a day earlier this year than last year, because we wanted to take the RO I and RO II classes. RO stands for Range Officer, and in these classes you learn how to be a good range officer, and you also learn how to set stages up safely, that sort of thing. Very good classes, taught by Wogg and LTC Nathan. There were three of us for the RO I, and five or six for the RO II...

Thursday, warm-up match day, dawned dim and cloudy, and just got more fun from there. It started sprinkling before we even started shooting, which always makes life interesting. Add to that the fact that the extractor claw on the bottom of the bolt on my 66 broke off and went who knows where immediately after ejecting the first empty case of the day, and you have a just totally peachy outing starting up. I ended up shooting Clint's Marlin the rest of the day. The icing on the cake was when a guy who was shooting frontier cartridge duelist walked up to where I was loading a couple of stages later and said, "Your rifle rounds don't seem to be making much smoke."

Okay, brief interlude here: I shoot Frontier Cartridge category. What this means is that I shoot cartridges loaded with some sort of black powder (full-case .45 loads of APP, or American Pioneer Powder in my case), which makes a huge amount of smoke when you pull the trigger. This is especially evident during periods of high humidity (like when it's raining). Clint, on the other hand, shoots what used to be called Traditional, and is now Cowboy, and he was using .357 mag smokeless powder loads. Hence the lack of smoke from my rifle rounds after I started using his Marlin. So, instead of snidely congratulating the guy on making such an astute observation, I just very calmly explained to him that my 66 had broke first crack out of the bag and that I was using my son's rifle, knowing all the while that he was trying to catch me cheating on the SASS smoke standard. I was so proud of myself...

Clint's Marlin hung up on him on the next stage. Aside from that, and in spite of not being able to use my 66, the warm-up match was fun...

That afternoon I happened to run across my favorite one-armed gunsmith, and told him my tale of woe. The guy's a magician, because that evening he found and installed a bolt for my 66, the fore end screws we needed for Clint's 97, and he did enough tinkering on Clint's Marlin that it worked flawlessly the rest of the weekend...

I should mention one of the high points of the warm-up match: world 49er champ JT Wild was on our posse, and just as someone, I don't remember who, was about to shoot, JT suddenly calls a halt to the proceedings. Once it was safe to do so, he suddenly went running down range, and started heeyawing a rabbit that was sitting under one of the targets. Once the rabbit was safely gone from 0ur shooting bay, JT came strolling back, and away we went...

Day One of the main match was cloudy. And wet. The night before, we went to Wally World and got the biggest, heaviest garbage bags we could find, to put over the gun cart. Worked like a charm, and kept the guns relatively dry through a storm the likes of which hadn't been seen in Boise in August in over twenty years, and which lasted into the next day. Just our luck. Fortunately, GrubSlinger had loaned us a couple of slickers, so we could at least be somewhat dry between shooting sessions...

Aside from the incessant rain, Day One went well. I missed one pistol target. Disgustingly enough it was the last target of the only stage that was exposed enough to get enough breeze across the targets to blow the smoke away and let me see all of them. On the other five stages we shot that day, after the first shot I was pretty much just shooting where I thought the targets should be, as opposed to where they actually were. I even got away with it for five out of the six stages. That's one of things that makes shooting Frontier Cartridge so much fun. That and the choking and gagging of the timers and spotters...

Day Two was even wetter than Day One. It would rain for a while, then it would sprinkle for a while, then it would RAIN for a while. Interesting weather pattern. As an aside here, our posse, to the best of my knowledge, which could admittedly be slightly faulty, was the only posse on our side of the range with enough intestinal fortitude to keep going through "wind and rain". The rest wussed and headed for the covered benches behind the shooting bays for a while. We were tough. Or crazy. Or stupid. Take your pick...

Day Two was going well until stage 12, which just happened to coincide with some of the heaviest rain. Up to that point, I had a total of two misses, both with pistol, and both because I tried to go faster than I should have. I know better than that, but occasionally the brain goes into speed racer mode, and there you have it. So anyway, my Remingtons have imitation ivory grips, which to that point I'd actually done a pretty good job of keeping under control in spite of being on the slippery side. Not so on stage 12. For some reason, at pistol time on that stage the brain went "shoot fast, shoot fast", the trigger finger said okay, and the rest of the fingers tried to follow suit, all the while juggling the damn things and trying not to drop them, which would have been an extremely bad thing to do. Consequently, instead of backing off and regrouping, I ended up with five misses for stage 12. Gag me with a field mouse...

All of the stages on both days had a line the shooter had to say to let the timer dude know you were ready to start shooting; while everybody else on our posse did their best to be serious about their lines, I tend to mutilate them in some way if at all possible. All of the lines were from the movie "Rustler's Rhapsody". I should watch that some day. So anyway, one of the lines on Day Two was "Bruce, how do you feel about that?" When it came my turn to shoot that stage, I stepped up to the line while being heckled, in advance mind you, by my (to my mind at least) unfeeling fellow posse members about all the smoke I was about to produce. Willie Killem was the timer guy, and he was trying to reassure me that I had an immense amount of support from the fine folks on our posse when I looked back over my shoulder at him and said, in my best "lie down on the couch, I'm your shrink" voice, "And just how do you feel about that, Bruce?" I thought he was gonna drop the timer. It was great! He almost forgot to beep the timer!

Finally, between the fifth and sixth stages, the rain quit, the sun came out, and it turned into a glorious day. When we were done shooting we spent the next half hour shooting the guns full of BreakFree and wiping them down...

High points of the weekend: the RO classes, being away from work, the people we shot with, being away from work, getting my rifle fixed, being away from work, burger lunches provided as part of our match fees on Friday and Saturday, Cowboy Church on Sunday with Trask River Trapper, and being away from work. Oh yeah, and the fact that with all the rain, my pistols and rifle hummed along with very little expenditure of Murphy's Mix to keep them slicked up...

Low point mainly was the rain, but we dealt with it, and everybody's spirits stayed up in spite of it all. Except maybe for Lone Wolf Larry, whose slicker I inadvertently walked off with when we made the move from stage 12 all the way to the other end of the range to stage 7. I don't think he was too impressed with that part of the proceedings. I don't know what his problem was; he had an umbrella on his gun cart. Sorry, Larry...

Saturday night was the awards banquet at the Red Lion Downtowner. Before you ask how the banquet was, let me ask you this: have you ever eaten a Red Lion banquet dinner? I've eaten a number of them over the years, and I have yet to be impressed. Their drinks are always over-priced, and the food's usually pretty ho-hum. This year was no exception, but we weren't there for the food, we were there to congratulate the folks who did good, and there were lots of those. The food is just one of the those things that fall under the heading of doodoo occurs...

I didn't get any awards this year, but that's not why I shoot anyway. I shoot because I like to shoot and because I like to hear the rest of the posse squawk about the smoke. Clint got his first clean match pin ever this year, so that was the high point of the banquet for me. The closer we got to the last stage of the match, the slower and more carefully he shot, because he could see that pin within reach...

The good folks of the Oregon Trail Rough Riders are to be commended for the great job they did of putting on this shoot in spite of the weather. This is always one of the most fun shoots a cowboy shooter can go to...

Fun, fun, fun...

Man, it's hard to believe that it's been almost a month since I've written anything here; it's equally as hard to believe that August is half over, and that Cycle Oregon is less than a month away. Incredible. In the interest of not putting anybody to sleep, I'll probably do my catching up in installments. So, what's been happening...

Oh yeah, I got a new bike. For free, as amazing as that may seem. Shortly after the book signing, I called Kim and Janey to see if they wanted to do a bike ride. We set a date and time, and the night before I decided it might be a good thing to get my Roubaix off of the trainer and give it a bath. In the process of bathing it, I found a tiny little hairline crack down near the bottom bracket shell. I couldn't decide whether it was in the paint or the tubing, so the next day when I got to Baker I took it to the local bike shop where I bought it to see if Mark the Bike Shop Guy could tell any more about it than I could. Nope...

Specialized guarantees their frames for life. Whose life I'm not sure, but for life nonetheless. Mark called Specialized while I was there, but ended up on hold for a long time, and finally told me he'd call them the next day and let me know what he found out. He found out that they were going to replace my frame. Way cool. Now, instead of the price of a new bike, I'd only be out the price of the labor to swap all of my components onto the new frame...

The following Tuesday I called the bike shop. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "So have we heard anything from Specialized about my frame?"

Mark: "There's a box here with your name on it, but I've been so swamped I haven't had time to open it." Sounds of box being ripped open. "They didn't send you a new frame. They sent a whole new bike. It's a 2010 Roubaix triple!"

Me: "Cool! When can I pick it up?" Because my bike had a combination and aluminum frame, and the new Roubaix's don't have aluminum in the frame at all, only carbon, apparently they decided to just do away with the old, and in with the new. Sounds like pretty darn good customer service to me! Last Tuesday I rode it into town, managing to cut three minutes off of my all time best time riding from here to Baker. That is a sweet bike!

Successful book signings are made, not born...

Last Saturday was my book signing at Betty's Books in Baker City, featuring Tyler's Law, the new book. I also had a couple of boxes of the new version of the old book there, which was a good thing. We ended up selling 12 copies of Tyler's Law, plus I had two orders, and we sold 8 copies of the new Sisley Creek Press release of Complications. I was happy with how it went, and I think Carolyn was too...

Got some pretty good press off of this one. There was a very well-written review in the Record-Courier on Thursday, and a nice writeup about me and my books in the Baker City Herald and the La Grande Observer on Wednesday. Both were nice articles. In fact, a guy came in right after the signing started and had me sign both the page out of the Herald and the copy of the book that he bought. First time I've ever autographed a newspaper...

One of the highlights of the signing was a guy who came over from Cove just for the signing, and walked up to me and said, "I've never read a western novel before." Then he ended up buying a copy of both books before he left. I need more people like that to come in...

Overall, I consider this signing a success...

Summer

Once again, time has flown. I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post. Some pretty cool things have happened, and a lot of the usual same old stuff. We're haying feverishly, both ours and the neighbors, but one of the neighbors is about a month ahead of normal, so we may actually get kind of a break some time in August...

The biggest thing for me, I guess, is the Lasik surgery I had on June 25th. People keep asking me how my eyes are doing, and my most common comment is "It's HD TV!" Seriously, I had a one week check-up on July 2nd, and I was within a tiny bit of having 20/15 vision! The world is brand new to me now. Things are so crisp, and the colors are so amazing, compared to when I had glasses. Admittedly, I'm having a little trouble adjusting to having to keep reading glasses around all of the time, but the hassle is worth it! I'm lovin' it! It's great to be able to just put on a pair of sunglasses when it's bright out...

On the literary front, so to speak, I have a signing of my second book scheduled for July 25th at Betty's Books in Baker City. Carolyn has been extremely helpful since I started trying to be an author, and I haven't thanked her enough for all of her help, going out of her way to make sure she has my books on her shelves, and setting up signings and all. I hope this one goes as well as the signing we had for book 1...

I still haven't updated either my blog links or my website since Book 1 came out under my own imprint, but I plan to soon (yeah, right, when I get some spare time...) It seems like there's been something going on every weekend all summer. There's been everything from weddings to whatever. Last weekend was watching Brett rope in the Haines Rodeo and the Vale Rodeo (on separate days, of course). Next weekend is book sales at the Miner's Jubilee, and the annual family reunion on Cheryl's side of the family. Then comes the book signing and the annual cowboy night shoot in Baker...

Summer's flying by...

The baby is born!

So to speak. I've been working on setting up my own publishing company so I can do my own books, and eliminate the middle man, as the saying goes. Now it's finally a reality! Last Friday, the UPS man delivered the proof copy of Complications, the new (and so far only) book release from Sisley Creek Press...

Now I realize that I already have that one in print. But this is the "new and improved" version. This winter I did a complete and total rewrite of the book, based on suggestions from my recently-acquired editor, Beverly Coomer of Coomer Editorial Services. By combining bits and pieces and some other sleight-of-hand, I think I actually cut out about six or seven chapters, without diminishing the story in the least, and drastically improved the flow of the story. I also created a new cover for it...

Today I faxed the original publisher a termination notice, so from here on out Complications will be a wholly owned and produced product of Sisley Creek Press!

Now I just have to get a bunch of stuff rearranged on here and on my website...

Exciting weekend...

Busy, but exciting. On Friday, Cheryl and I drove up to Kennewick for a "Lasik Consultation". My peepers were declared to be perfect candidates for the procedure, so June 25th I will be having Lasik surgery in Kennewick! We will drive up there that day, I'll have the procedure done, then we'll spend the night and drive home the next day after they look deep into my eyes another time, to make sure everything's skookum. I have to go back a week later, then a month later, then three months later; at that point, if everything's going well, it's "Don't go away mad, just go away". If there's any change, or a tweak is necessary along the way, that's covered in the fees...

Even more exciting than that, I finally got the book block and cover finished for my setup of my first book, Complications, under the Sisley Creek Press imprint! Saturday the weather was crap, so I stayed indoors and worked on finalizing it. I uploaded it to the printer's website this morning. I should have the proof in the relatively near future; then if it comes out the way it should, I'll order some and get back into the business of selling books! The learning curve on the formatting software has been pretty steep, but I think I've finally got it pretty well figured out. Next up: the rerelease of Book 2, Tyler's Law, under the Sisley Creek Press banner. Stay tuned, folks. Things are just getting going. I hope...

Saturday afternoon we went to the wedding of a kid I hauled to a lot of rodeos when he was in high school and the niece of a friend of ours. It was an outdoor wedding, and the weather looked like monsoon, but the sun actually came out during the ceremony, like the Good Lord was smiling on the whole thing. The reception was indoors, so it didn't matter if it rained then. The food was good, the beer was cold, and a lot of people were there, including a gal we hadn't seen in twenty-some years. Cheryl got to catch up on what Marcie and her family were doing...

Apparently I'm a lazy bugger...

As I haven't posted anything in over two weeks, not since church camp. I guess life gets in the way of leisure, sometimes, eh?

So anyway, there are a couple of blogs I sort of half-assed follow, both written by lady cyclists of my acquaintance. Lynne I can sometimes keep up with, if the hill isn't too steep. Cecil can pretty much blow my doors off any time she feels like it. Both of them posted links in their blogs to a bicycling blog called Bike Lemming, and a post about what we as cyclists need to do to improve our image. The writer makes some excellent points. Here's the link: Bike Lemming

So what have I done lately? Let me see. Oh yeah, I spent a whole bunch of bucks and time on rebuilding a sprayer that goes on the back of our tractor, so I can commit serious herbicide around the ranch. After a number of fits and starts, it's up and running, and the weeds are dying in droves...

I've taken up what is euphemistically called "DE (for double edge) wet shaving". I've been shaving with a Gillette Mach 3 cartridge razor for quite a while, ever since I decided that I was tired of the Norelco electric I bought "for convenience" pulling the hairs out of my tender little face instead of cutting them. I recently needed to buy some more shaving cream, and ran across an inexpensive "bowl, brush and soap" set at Wally World, so I started shaving with actual shaving soap and a brush, still using the Mach 3. Then I made the "mistake" of asking about shaving soaps, since I couldn't find any locally, on one of the cowboy websites I hang out on. I now have two double edge Gillette razors, both considerably older than I am, and a third headed my way. On top of that, my Dad said he has one I can have...

I've discovered that lathering my face with a brush, and shaving with a seriously dangerous instrument, is kind of my "me time" in the morning. I've got a blade sampler pack that I'm working through, testing to see what brand of blade I want to use for the long term, and I'm getting some of the best shaves I've ever had, although some of the blades I have are seriously not going to ever grace my medicine cabinet again in my lifetime. I shave every day anyway, and instead of hating shaving, I've grown to enjoy it. But a buddy of mine at work and I have been having some slightly weird conversations since I started doing this a few weeks ago...

I've even made my own brush! I bought what is called a "knot", made out of badger hair, and drilled a piece of deer horn out for the handle and epoxied the knot into it. Really, really luxurious brush, and I've got a grand total of somewhere in the vicinity of maybe, at the outside, $22.50 invested in a brush that would have cost me at the absolute least $50 to buy, if I could find one to buy anywhere. So now I've decided I need to build something smaller to use as a travel brush...

Church camp weekend...

Apparently, the March winds were running a little late, because instead of bringing April showers, we got May rain storms. At this juncture, rain storms are good, because we need something to make the grass grow so we can turn the cows out to eat it. Yesterday and today, we've had some good, warm soaking rains...

Friday and Saturday I went to a men's retreat at Camp Elkanah, sponsored by Calvary Baptist Church in Baker. Great camp! This is my second year going there, and this year was even better than last year. Camp Elkanah has cabins made of retreaded railroad cars, so we get to sleep indoors, and there's a big dining hall. The food was great again this year. Chapel is in a log building...

This year's music was performed by a local gospel quartet that calls themselves "Fisherman's Praise", and those guys can really sing. The wife of one of the tenors plays keyboard and she has written some of the songs that they do. She can sing very well herself, too...

The speaker was a guy named Luke Hendrix, who is a pastor, and fellow bicyclist, from Portland. He's a very engaging speaker, and talked a lot about our identity as Christians, and how the devil does his best to make us believe that our concept of ourselves has nothing to do with God. Au contraire! If we are to be the people that God wants us to be, we have to turn to God, and let Him be the guiding light in our lives! It's only through Him that we can truly weather the storms that life sends our way!

After Chapel on Saturday, I got to talking to a guy named Kurt, who lives in Pendleton. During the course of our conversation, I discovered that I'm not the lone ranger when it comes to my walk with God. Apparently other people stumble and fumble their way along, the same as me. Sometimes it's hard to believe that anybody else can feel the way you do. We both felt that Luke's words regarding our identity with God hit very close to home. I feel like I came away from the camp with a whole new outlook on life...

Luke said it sort of like this: "God will always love you; it's up to you to make sure that you are someone that God will like..."

Day to day...

Boring is our friend. Trust me. I was a control room operator at the plant for 5 years, and I can guarantee that boring is indeed our friend. So that's why I don't complain when there's not much exciting stuff going on in life...

That having been said, last evening was kind of exciting. There's been a brush pile out beyond our storage shed for a couple of years, consisting mainly of parts and pieces of the locust trees at the edge of the yard that have succumbed to the lure of gravity and subsequently been dismembered by my trusty chainsaw. I was sure it would burn; I just wasn't aware of how hot it would burn. Wowsers!

I lit a ball of newspaper under the edge of the pile, and went to get the garden hose so I could kind of keep things damped down. When I turned around, I had flames shooting about 30 feet in the air! It was at that point that I suddenly realized that the electric service line from the transformer out on the pole beside the county road to our house was relatively close to the flames, which were shooting up at least as high as the wire! As much as it pained me to do it, because a good hot fire leaves very little ash, I damped the fire down with the hose to the point that we could keep the utilities flowing to the house...

All the while this was going on, rumbles and mumbles of thunder were echoing about. When the fire had finally burned down to a size that I felt comfortable with leaving to its own devices, I went in the house for a minute, and before I could get back outside, it was raining! We need the moisture. I thought it might kill my bonfire, but after the showers quit a couple of hours later, smoke was still rising...

On an entirely unrelated note, my book formatting software finally made its way to our local post office. I'm hoping to get started on formatting the book block for my totally rewritten first book so I can get it set up and release it under the Sisley Creek Press imprint. I'm so excited...

Nice weather at last...

and I got outside on one of my bikes for the first time today. My original plan was to take my mountain bike down to the valley and try to get a bunch of highway miles, but stuff got in the way, so by the time I had time to do any biking, I decided to just ride it up the county road. Which is a workout in itself. I ended up with just over 6 1/2 miles...

I've decided that the trainer is doing me good. I've lost 11 pounds so far, and I didn't have to turn around where I normally do when I ride up the creek. I made it up to our gate and back. And I was actually feeling pretty good the whole trip...

The last couple of days have been absolutely gorgeous...

Life in general...

So much has happened since the last time I posted that I'm not sure where to start. I started this post on March 25, as the date says, but I actually finished it April 3. So when I say "last Friday", that means the Friday before March 3...

The publishing gig is progressing slowly, but it is progressing. I've got the print account set up with LSI now, so that part is a reality. I finally got the layout software that I need purchased, and expect it in the mail shortly. I've been working on possible covers for re-releasing my first book, Complications, under the Sisley Creek Press imprint. Here's the one I like the best so far:



I guess I'll decide for sure once I get the ISBN numbers, and the cover template from LSI. I hope to have Complications in print somewhere in the vicinity of the first of June...

My Ag Issues team didn't make the finals at the state FFA convention, but there's always next year. I'll only be losing one senior, so I should have a team next year...

Spring is springing. Last Friday we took 160 cows and their calves to the homestead. Had a good time blitzing through the bushes on the four-wheeler to get to the lead several times. It was a pretty nice day weahter-wise, too. We've got gobs of calves on the ground, and Cheryl's down to just about 20 ewes that haven't lambed yet...

The next day, I went to Nampa and got my shotgun from Cheryl's cousin, who picked it up from the gunsmith who did the work on it to get it ready for this summer's cowboy shooting. Speaking of which, I started a one year cowboy action and other fun stuff calendar on my website. It probably would be a good idea to do some more work on it...

Sunday was really interesting. Interestingly pretty damn cold! The north wind was howling all day, and put the power out down in the valley several times in the afternoon. We finally cancelled church that night, because I was afraid that the building would be so cold nobody could stand it...

I got in three sessions on the trainer this week! I'm up to somewhere in the vicinity of 640 miles since January 1, and I've managed to lose TEN POUNDS!!! I hope to be in some semblance of decent condition when the weather finally settles down so I can get out and do some riding on the road...

I've sold a few of book 2 so far. I've even got a couple of brief reviews to quote from, too. And I may be able to get both of my books on the shelves in another bookstore. I'm waiting for the manager of the bookstore I discovered in La Grande to get back from wherever she's been and to e-mail me about the possibility...

Busy, busy, busy...

Wow, how time flies when you're having fun! The last week has been incredibly busy, what with FFA Ag Issues presentations, which went very well, and working on making Sisley Creek Press a reality, I have hardly had time to take a deep breath...

But now I can stop and review the time since I last posted. Hmm, where does one start? Let's give this a shot...

Monday was Ag Issues practice. Nothing major there, except for personnel shakeups, but we're working past those...

Then Tuesday, we entertained the Irrigation District monthly meeting with our grasshopper presentation. The folks there asked some good questions, and the kids even knew the answers to some of them...

Wednesday, we gave our skit for the local spray outfit. They had some good comments for us, and straightened out some of our information...

Thursday was great. I had signed up ahead of time for a writing workshop run by a lady from Portland named Molly Gloss. Great workshop. Her premise is that setting should be essentially an equal partner with plot in developing your characters. Setting has always been one of the weak points in my writing. I tend to race my characters through the landscape, instead of slowing down and using description of the place where the action is happening to help with plot and characterization...

I also found that she writes pretty much in the same fashion that I do: until the story, or the movie, or whatever you want to call it, starts up in my head, nothing much gets written. My editor went to the workshop with me, and we had a some pretty good one on one time with Molly Gloss afterward, and learned some things that nobody else there did, because they all left immediately...

Some part of every day, I've been feverishly building my new website. I keep remodeling, trying to make the best I can make it. Down the road, I'm supposed to help my editor set up her own site. That'll be fun, too. The bookstore part of my site now has separate pages for each of the authors that I have a connection with, as well as myself, with still more pages under each of their names for their books. There's an "About the author" section there for each of us, as well as book excerpts...

And the icing on the cake: my publisher account with Lightning Source is on the verge of coming to life! Shortly after that happens, I'll be starting to come up with all the paraphernalia necessary to publish one's own, and possibly someone else's, books. I've already been talking to a couple of people about possibly doing their books. This is turning out to be quite an adventure...

Sisley Creek Press now has a home

Sisley Creek Press now has its very own home on the WWW! I've got the site set up, now I just need to add some pages. I was gonna do book excerpts on here, but it's a royal pain to keep them where folks can find them easily, so I'm gonna do them on the site, and link from here to the excerpts. Much better idea!

There are currently only a few pages built; there's the front page for the site, and a page that introduces the bookstore part of this whole convoluted enterprise. I'll eventually have separate pages for each of the books that you can see over to the left here, along with author profiles, excerpts, etc.

This is getting to be exciting, at least to me. Anybody who has read very many of the posts on here is probably getting a little bored with it all, but to me it's a grand new adventure. I've never attempted anything like this before, and I'm looking forward to it...

My first box of books has finally arrived!

Finally, Tyler's Law has arrived! The proof copy came about ten days ago, and my first full box got here today. The UPS guy just dropped them off! Right at the moment I'm planning on using these for handout/review copies while I order some more to sell, but I might be enticed into selling a few of them...

Sisley Creek Press is another couple of steps closer...

to reality! I have the domain name officially registered with Google's registry source, and I've filed the business name with the state of Oregon. I'll post my progress toward becoming a full-fledged publisher type as I go along. I still have to jump through all the rest of the hoops necessary to start publishing my books myself...

Complications has been totally rewritten, so I need to get that one its own ISBN number, new cover graphic, etc., then I can re-release it. It'll be an exercise in how to produce my own books that won't have to start with actually writing the book, which will make it a little less time consuming...

To all my loyal readers out there, it hopefully won't be too long before you can read my books printed under my own imprint...

March 1st already...

Amazing, isn't it, how time flies whether you're having fun or not? It seems like Christmas was just last week, and now here it is March 1st already, as the title of this rambling dissertation says...

So, what's been happening in your world? It's pretty quiet here, actually. Got the last of the sheep feeders done and installed, so that's one thing there won't be any rush about as lambing approaches. There's been a minor shake-up on my Ag Issues team, but I think I've got that covered. The weather for my weekend was pretty good; a little windy, but relatively warm. I either sun- or wind-burned my beak yesterday, maybe both...

I'm getting the biking bug. I've been doing all of my riding indoors (which is incredibly boring but generally liveable with the TV and all), since late last fall, but with nicer weather, and things starting to dry up, I'm starting to think it's time to haul my fat, Spandex-clad hiney outside and put in some road miles of some sort. I think I'll start with my Diamondback mountain bike for the nonce, and leave my road bike installed on the trainer. With the Slime tubes and the kevlar tires, the Diamondback is heavy as hell, especially the rolling weight (ah, resistance training). On the other hand, the only flat I've had since I set it up that way 2 1/2 years ago was last summer when the valve stem sheared off of the back tire. I wrote one of these long-winded posts about that occurence here. I'm kind of thinking that if I start with the Diamondack, by the time I switch to the Roubaix, with its skinny tires, that bike will feel like a feather, and I'll be able to jet up the hills. Yeah, right. Don't kid yourself, Buster. You'll never jet up hills, unless you lose about 40 pounds. Ah well, a boy can dream...

So anyway, life is good, Praise the Lord, and the creek just keeps on rolling by...

Another day in the life...

I had an e-mail today from a fellow Writer's Guild of Eastern Oregon member, who recently registered on a site called OregonAuthors.org. Looks quite interesting. It gives Oregon authors a place to set up their works for people to notice, and might make for some good publicity. So I signed up. I should know shortly whether or not I've been accepted...

I'm still looking very hard at the idea of setting up my own publishing deal, and I've already had someone ask me if I'll be taking on clients. I think I know how to make that work...

Spent the day finally getting the sheep feeding panels that Cheryl wanted done, and turned into feeders...

Got a coyote this morning, but not on the dead sheep that I hauled out a couple of days ago. Hauled another dead sheep out today, maybe there'll be a coyote there tomorrow morning...

Welcome to my new home away from home...

As of this afternoon at about 1:30 PM, my old website is no more. I decided to terminate it in favor of something more compact and easier to manage. This will be my new home on the Web, so to speak, for the foreseeable future, or until I get evicted for not paying my rent or something disgusting like that... :>)

Speaking of the foreseeable future, in the movie Appaloosa, Everett Hitch, ably played by Viggo Mortensen, had this to say: "Life has a way of making the foreseeable that which never happens, and the unforeseeable that which your life becomes." Interesting philosophy for a guy who makes his living with a gun. The Scriptures tell us something similar in that we are to depend on God, and not our own plans, to carry us through. He will decide if we are to prosper or falter...

If you haven't seen Appaloosa, I highly recommend it, even though I'm not a movie critic, I don't play one on TV and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night; I just know what I like. There's not a lot of shoot-'em-up, though there is some, but there is a lot of character development, and it follows the book closer than most movies. If you're only sitting in the theater for the blood, gore and violence, you'll more than likely be disappointed. But if you like your movies with some depth alongside the blood, go see this one if it's still playing. If it's not in a theater near you, go buy the DVD; you won't regret it. I bought the DVD two weeks ago, and I've already seen it three times...

Complications Excerpt

As promised, here's a brief excerpt from Complications: The Deputies Book 1

The bad guy, Howdy Baxter, is holding Kitty Moynahan hostage, thinking that he can use her to make Harvey Palmer and Deputy Jesse Thompson drop their guns...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jesse saw Baxter’s dive into the tunnel and heard Lila’s agonized voice as she fought to save Kitty. He rose and started for the tunnel, but before he could move away from the ore cart Baxter appeared with his body pressed tightly against Kitty and his arm and hand holding her in front of himself as a shield. The Colt was pressed tightly against her jaw. Jesse took a step forward; the Remington in his right hand swung up as he turned sideways and stepped into a perfect target stance.

“Stop right there, Deputy Thompson!” Baxter snapped. “Or I will spread this young lady’s brains all over this canyon. And I don’t think you want that now, do you?”

Harvey appeared in the corner of Jesse’s narrowed vision, Winchester at the ready. “You stop right there too, Palmer!” Baxter snarled. “If I have to kill both of these lovely ladies to get your attention, I will. You have my word on that.”

“What have you done with Lila?” Harvey grated. “If you’ve touched one hair of her head…”

“Those are big words for someone who will be dead soon!” Baxter suddenly laughed, a high-pitched caw that brought the hair on the back of Jesse’s neck to attention. “Throw down your guns and I’ll only kill the two of you. The ladies can go free. And the same goes for whomever you have on top of the bluff.”

Jesse thumbed back the hammer of the Remington. The front sight was steady on the small sliver of Howdy Baxter’s head that he could see. At the same time, he saw that the hammer of Baxter’s Colt was back and the knuckles of his trigger finger were white. Baxter was on the edge of pulling the trigger and killing Kitty.

“Drop the gun, Baxter,” Jesse said evenly. “If you kill her, the whole territory will be hunting you and you know it. Even your own men will track you down and kill you.”

“But that won’t matter to you, will it?” Baxter crowed. “You’ll be dead.”

“So it looks like a standoff,” Jesse said. His gray eyes narrowed as he tried to figure the odds of shooting Baxter without Baxter killing Kitty.

“I think not. Drop the gun!” Baxter commanded. His voice was rising and he was getting further and further from sanity. Jesse’s finger tensed on the trigger. Then something caught Jesse’s eye that kept him from firing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's disclaimer: Before everyone starts thinking that my blog is degenerating into nothing more than a commercial for my books, let me say that, well, it is, but only temporarily. It'll get back to normal as soon as I manage to migrate everything from my old website. Until then, please bear with me...

Cowboy Ethics and Cowboy Values...

The following link will take you to a blog on Fox News that I think makes a whole lot of sense:

Cowboy Ethics and Cowboy Values

Check it out. You'll probably agree...

Major overhaul in progress...

For those of you who may accidentally trip across this rambling discourse on my life occasionally, things may look a bit different than what you've seen on past visits. That's because I've decided to set up housekeeping here, and do away with my other, much more costly, and hard to work with, website. I'll be adding features as I go along, so stay tuned...

So far, I've changed my profile picture, added some landscape fencing (barbwire), and stuck in some of my favorite links. I've also included an area for book advertising and sales. So far the only books there are mine, but I'll be adding some of the ones that belong to some of my cowboy buds as time goes by. And I'll be posting some book excerpts, that sort of thing...

So come on back, y'hear?

One down, who knows how many to go...

Well, it appears that the "traditional publisher" gig has fallen by the wayside. Due to some research by the nice lady who did the copyedit for the novel that was supposed to be going to the "traditional publisher", and also due to still another "your work's not good enough to publish so you have to spend a whole bunch of money on our editor" e-mail, I've decided to shelve that idea for the time being, unless they come up with a better offer. Funny how "it doesn't cost you a cent to publish with us" becomes the above-mentioned "hire our editor", isn't it? Doesn't that constitute me spending my money to have my book published? The book in question, Complications, is already a Print-On-Demand novel, so I see no point in doing the same thing all over again. Guess I'll look for another publisher. Or become a publisher myself. I can do that, ya know...

As I was in the middle of reading, laughing at and complaining about the publisher's last e-mail, which, by the way, completely ignored my copyeditor's, and my, comments on their review, which was done by someone who apparently had no clue whatsoever regarding the westen genre, Cheryl suddenly asked, "Why don't you set up your own publishing company and publish it yourself?" That was an idea that I kicked around when my second book, Tyler's Law, was ready to go to print, but I decided that I didn't have enough time to mess with it. But now I'm thinking about it again...

Using the crash course in copyediting that I got during the rewrite of Complications, I've been doing an extensive rewrite of Book 3, Valentine's Revenge, for the last several weeks, and I do believe that it is decidedly improved over what I originally wrote. Once I get through the rewrite of the rough draft of the original, I just need to finish the danged thing...

My first YouTube video!

Here it is, folks: my first YouTube video! I'm celebrating the release of my new novel, Tyler's Law, which has been quite some time in the making...

Monday, February 2, 2009

Hm, not much is new, really. We won some money in the Durkee Valley Football Pool. We had the Ravens...

Book 2, Tyler's Law, has gone to the printer, so I should have the first copy in my hot little hand in a few more days...

Saturday, I took a snowshoe trip to the top of the ridge across the creek from the house. There's a gate up there that was left open last fall and needed to be closed; I was pretty sure from looking at the ridge from the other side of the canyon that there was no way to get the four-wheeler up there, so I decided to walk. I've been getting entirely too fat anyway, and it would be good exercise...

Once I got to the gate, it was of course under the snow; I found out that a snowshoe makes a fair to middling snow shovel. The gate is now closed. On the way up, I saw one coyote, way too far away to try to shoot, and on the way back down I saw a bunch of deer. It was a very pleasant day, and a very pleasant walk, about three miles round trip...

Regarding hiking up the ridge on snowshoes: this winter, at D&B's "customer appreciation sale", I bought a set, top and bottom, of DuoFold polypro active base layer. It's supposed to wick moisture, and I'm here to tell you, it works! I did quite a bit of sweating, but when I got home, my outer layer was damp, but the base layer was dry! I was impressed...

The creek keeps on running by...

It's been a busy month, actually, what with Christmas, and moving Brett to Corvalis, that sort of thing. At least one exciting thing has happened, though. I have a shot at having my first novel, Complications, which was printed by AuthorHouse in 2006, placed with a tradtional-type publisher! It all started back in December (I may have written some of the before; if I have, please bear with me). Early in 2008, I place Complications with an agency that claims that they will push POD books (print-on-demand, like mine) to traditional publishers, the kind who will pay the author to print the book, instead of the other way around...

So anyway, I got an e-mail in early December from the agent who was handling my book, telling me that a new publisher had contacted them, looking for authors, but the publisher wanted the author to fill out a questionnaire about him- or herself, and the book in question. So I went to the publisher's website and filled out the form, which had spaces for title, author, a synopsis, etc. The page said that I would be contacted in a week or ten days...

Imagine my surprise when, three days later, I got an e-mail requesting the whole manuscript! I nearly fell out of my chair! This e-mail stated that I would be contacted in a week or ten days, as the review process took that long...

Once again, imagine my surprise when I got another e-mail, again only three days later, saying that they like the manuscript, but it needed some work. Having read back through some of it while waiting for them to contact me, I had to agree. It was kind of on the crude side, stylistically. So I contacted the lady who helped me work on Book 2, and she was more than happy to help me out; I printed out the manuscript and took it to her...

January 10, 2009, dawned cold, and if I recall correctly, snowy. That was the day I started rewriting, based on her copyedit. I took Monday the 12th off from work, figuring, no prob, have the rewrite done by then. Yeah, right! The manuscript really needed work...

I worked on it all day Saturday, spending roughly eight hours in front of my computer. On Sunday, I figured on getting in a whole bunch of hours, but it was not to be. About 9 AM, my lovely wife called to tell me that she'd had an accident, and needed to go to the emergency room. X-rays revealed a broken ankle...

Long story short, I ended up taking the rest of the week off, hoping to have the manuscript done by the self-imposed deadline of January 15th, and I almost made it: I got it e-mailed off late in the day on January 16th, immediately after a celebratory drink of some pretty Kentucky bourbon. So now we wait. It's supposed to take about three to four weeks for the reviewer to decide whether or not my manuscript is up to "contemporary professional standards", to quote Harry Chapin in his song, "Mister Tanner"...





We did run away from home the weekend before this last one for a couple of days. We spent Friday night at Wildhorse Casino in Pendleton, and managed to come out a few bucks ahead playing penny slots. From there we went up to the Tri-Cities, and spent money and Saturday night there. Dinner at Red Lobster was great; I had something called "Island Citrus-Rum Shrimp and Scallops". It's part of their new Fire-Grilled Menu, and all I can say is, WOW! Then Sunday I spent several hours and probably too much money in Barnes & Noble, which is one of my favorite stores on the planet, before we headed for home...

On the way home, the closer we got to Pendleton, the nastier the weather got. It was snowing hard and the freeway was slick coming up the hill out of the town, and the Toyota 4-Runner in front of Jennifer and its U-Haul trailer did a three-sixty in the middle of a bridge and came to a stop jackknifed in the right lane. After those of us who were following him the closest got by, he straightened it out and sat there for who knows how long. Probably had to clean out his pants once he got his blood pressure back down...