New book coming soon!

 Here is an excerpt from my new book, Valentine's Revenge. It should be available in print, Kindle and NookBook formats some time in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

August 14, 1845
 

“Where were you?” the pain-wracked voice rang from the wainscoted walls of the high-ceilinged room. Randolph Martin stood his ground stoically in the face of his friend’s anguished words. Lying in the stark hospital bed, covered in multiple layers of bandages, Cyrus Valentine resembled nothing so much as an Egyptian mummy-- a mummy with raging eyes flaming behind the blood-spotted linen wrappings. He had been severely burned in the tragic fire that destroyed his house and killed his family. While attempting to force his way into the fully-engulfed wreckage of his home to save his wife and infant son from the conflagration, Valentine had been struck on the head by a falling beam, slamming him to the flagstone floor of the portico before he could force his way inside.

Randolph Martin was not only an attorney who had graduated near the top of his class from Yale Law School, as had Valentine; he was also the captain of the local fire brigade. He had been across town at a dinner party when the alarm had sounded; without his leadership, the relatively untrained men of the recently established brigade had been late leaving the firehouse, and their unorganized and disjointed efforts once they arrived at Valentine’s house had been in vain. By the time Randolph arrived to bring order to the chaos, the house was a total loss. Valentine’s family was dead, and Valentine himself was in an ambulance racing to the hospital.

“I’m so sorry, Cyrus; I was across town, ” Randolph tried to console his distraught friend. “I got there as quickly as I could.”

“You should have been…” Cyrus began.

“I’m not clairvoyant, Cyrus!” Randolph interrupted firmly. “How was I to know a fire would start in your house, or any other house for that matter? It’s summer, and you know that we rarely have such fires in this time of the year!”

“So because you didn’t think there was any danger, I have lost all that was most precious to me,” the seriously injured attorney accused, his voice bitter with loss and grief.

“But it is not my fault that the fire started!” his friend protested.

“No, but if you had trained your men appropriately, my family might still be alive!” Cyrus raged.

“The fire brigade is new, Cyrus, and the men are working hard to be prepared for any circumstance. What more would you have me do?” Randolph pleaded, his voice rising. “If I had it within my power, I would gladly undo what happened, but that is one thing I cannot do! I’m truly sorry!”

“Your apologies will not restore my body, or the lives of my wife and son!” Cyrus declared, his weak, smoke-roughened voice filled with menace. “But I will have a reckoning, Randolph. Mark my words!”

Randolph Martin turned away sadly, distraught that he was unable to comfort his friend, and discounting the chilling words as the product of Cyrus’ inconsolable grief. Randolph could not know then just how deeply those few, softly-spoken syllables would affect his life one day...

An Interview With Linn Keller

This is the first of what I have planned to be a series of interviews with some of the unsung authors of some of today's best novels...

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

An interview with Linn Keller

 

Today I have the pleasure of interviewing author Linn Keller of Lagrange, Ohio. Linn is the author of three novels: The Sheriff’s Legacy, The Sheriff’s Betrayal, and The Sheriff’s Journal. The first two are “westerns” set in modern-day Firelands County, Colorado and introduce tough-as-nails Willamina Keller, the first female sheriff of Firelands County. The Sheriff's Journal, which was just recently released through AuthorHouse, is meant as a prequel to the others in that it tells the story of Willamina's great-grandfather, who was himself the sheriff of Firelands. Please welcome Linn to our stage.

 

SCP: Good morning, Linn.

 

 Morning, Charlie!

 

              SCP: Please tell our audience a little about yourself. Your hobbies and interests, your writing background, that sort of thing. 

 Well ... there's not much to tell, really ... I grew up in Appalachian Ohio, worked in the family oilfield listening to tales told by masters of the art.

Granddad was a moonshiner and a moon runner, and he taught me all he knew.  -- hak-kaff!  I mean I listened politely to his tall tales!

(assumes innocent expression)

Most young fellows are out to whip the world.

I set out to save it.

I put 21 years of my life into being a firefighter- paramedic, with 18 of those 21 serving simultaneously as a deputy marshal in an Appalachian village. I worked water and wastewater and got my licenses, became a nurse, and my wife tells me I have no idea what I want to do when I grow up. 

 

 

         SCP: What made you decide to write your first novel, The Sheriff’s Legacy?

 

A friend of mine gave me a swift kick in the pants.

There is an ongoing story currently written on Belle Alley -- Firelands, four years old and not slowing down a bit! -- one of our correspondents, Bloomin' Yankee, was carefully engineering what she wanted to write into a scene -- but by the time she got hers crafted, polished and ready to cut and paste into the story, I had added about twelve installments in two days' time and the story was well past where she wanted to inject her character.

She sent me a private messsage and chastised me, which to be perfectly honest, I richly deserved! -- then she challenged me, and I bless her for it:

"If you're so good, start a solo thread.  Write one yourself, and show us what you've got!"

I have since thanked her for that boot in the backside.  Had she not been enough of a friend to speak very frankly, I would likely have never started the thread that became The Sheriff's Legacy.

 

           SCP: How did you arrive at the idea to write the main character as a woman?

 

 (chuckles) To be real honest, that was one of those idiot ideas that flies in from who-knows-where and lands on your shoulder.  By the time I realized how bad the idea was, the story was started and was taking on a life of its own!  I wrote this as a solo thread on Belle Alley and it wasn't until the tale got its legs under it and started to stride across the Colorado landscape that a little voice knocked on the inside of my skull and said, "Hello?  Einstein?  Say, Belle Alley celebrates THE VICTORIAN ERA YOU BLOODY IDIOT NOT THE HERE AND NOW!  WHAT IN THE COTTON PICKIN' ARE YOU DOING???

Right about then the Sheriff swivel hipped her way across the Council chamber floor, seduced the Mayor without saying a word, at least until she grabbed him by the neck tie and yanked him across the table.

Why a woman?

Belle Alley was started by the Carolina Belles, ladies of the first water -- Ladies most deserving of the term -- and I wanted to write one for them.  What better way than to bring in a female character?

Maybe the biggest reason for "Why a woman?" is because I was able to use that fact to yank the rug out from under the reader in the first chapter, and use that to keep the surprises coming.

 

          SCP: Did you model Willamina Keller after a specific person?

 

 Willamina is a complex and composite character who reminds me strongly of a number of women I've known.  I can't say she is any one individual person; she draws from so many.

One, of course, is my mother, a woman of wit and of wisdom; another is Sandy Baker, with whom I worked as a firefighter, a medic and a lawman:  Sondra Mae was fond of such things as picking up the portable generator and walking across the firehouse floor with it, casually, as if it were just a basket of clothes ... a generator that normally two men would pack.

Willamina's rotten sense of grinning, good-humored achievement, though, comes from my baby sis.

 

          SCP: Where exactly is Firelands County? Is there such a place?

 

Firelands County, Colorado, was invented by another of the ladies of Belle Alley: Duzy Wales heard the name somewhere, thought it was neat, and started the Firelands thread.  Regretfully, there is no Firelands County, Colorado.

The Fire Lands are actually in Northwest Ohio and refer to the Great Black Swamp, and was so named because it seemed to be perpetually afire or smoldering from lightning strikes, or being fired by the  natives to drive out game for harvest.

 

         SCP: The Sheriff’s Legacy and The Sheriff’s Betrayal have both been in print for some time, but The Sheriff’s Journal is hot off the press. Would you like to share a little background on the new book?

 

All things have a beginning; the tallest tree has roots hidden from the common eye, yet they are there and provide for its solid foundation.

The Sheriff's Journal was alluded to very strongly in The Sheriff's Legacy, and was an actual, hand written journal kept by a fellow with an iron-grey mustache, The Old Sheriff.

I did not realize how clear a picture I had painted of this old feller until my Mama, my beautiful bride and my baby sis stood shoulder to shoulder in Mama's kitchen, after they all finished reading The Sheriff's Legacy:  with one voice the sayd "We want to know more about that old fellow, the Old Sheriff, what about him?"

... and of course, when faced with the wishes of ladies of that quality, the only correct reply is, "Yes, ma'am!"

 

          SCP: Where are your books available for sale? I’m assuming that they are available online. Do you sell them yourself? 

 

I'm selling autographed copies, yes, but my books can also be had through the publisher, Author House; Amazon, Borders, and The Sheriff's Journal is now available electronically.

 

         SCP: What projects do you have planned for the future?

 

 My baby sis is interested in the Sheriff's twin brother William, and my beautiful bride suggested a compliation of short stories about the Sheriff.  Beyond that I''m feeling the "Author's Sag," kind of a sagging of the spirits, the normal post-elation letdown that happens every time a book makes print. 

My fellow Medieval re-enactors have encouraged me to publish s book of my cartoons as well:  my character the Sneetch (no relation to the Dr. Seuss creation!) is a self portrait:  wild flyaway hair, er, feathers; big belly; perpetually wearing boots; capable of getting in trouble without getting out of the easy chair ... yes, very much a self portrait!

            SCP: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to visit with me, Linn. I’ve read The Sheriff’s Legacy, and it’s a great book with realistic action taken directly out of today’s headlines, and real human characters that a reader can get instantly involved with. I highly recommend it. Having co-written a long-running collaborative story with you on The Carolina Belles website, I am sure that The Sheriff’s Betrayal and The Sheriff’s Journal are both equally as readable and engrossing tales. I plan to buy them both soon. I hope those of you in the audience who enjoy losing yourself in a good book will do the same. I'm very sure you won’t regret it.

I appreciate your hospitality, and the kindness of your comments.

I can only think of one thing to add:

This has all been very much a surprise to me.

Our local library had me give a presentation on the writing of my first book.

When I finished I asked for questions or comments, and a woman in back spoke up and declared "I have a bone to pick with you!"

I spread my hands and said "Sling it right on me!" figuring she was going to chew the ears right off my head.

She shook her Mommy-finger at me and said, "I only have one complaint!  I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN!  I tried to read it in my fifteen minute breaks at work and I kept saying "Oh just one more page, one more page," and finally I stayed up until TWO IN THE MORNING READING IT!"

Matter of fact, "I Couldn't Put It Down" is the one most common comment I've gotten!

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

Linn Keller can be reached via e-mail at LinnKeller@yahoo.com 

Happy Reading! 

All e-readers are not created equal...

Or so I've discovered. In my last installment, I noted that I was working to get my first two novels converted for set up as e-books. Since that posting, I discovered that setting them up as KindleBooks, for the Amazon Kindle e-reader, is a whole lot simpler. I downloaded all of the necessary software from the 'Net, and now those two books are available in the Kindle Store...

As soon as I get some extra time, I'm hoping to get them converted for sale directly from here, which I think would be way cool. All anybody would need is a free download from Adobe called Digital Editions, then the reader who was in search of a western as a take-along could just buy it here, download it to ADE, then it's a matter of seconds to move it to the B&N Nook or any other of the multitude of e-readers on the market. Or just read it on your computer. I need to figure out how to do that...

Coming soon (I hope):

I hope to do some interviews, via e-mail, with some of the authors whose books I have listed on this site. Stay tuned...

A new publishing adventure awaits...

I recently bought a Barnes and Noble Nook e-reader. I wasn't going to, as I really like books. But this is a very cool device. You can cram a truckload of books, electronically speaking, into the thing's brain and still have room left over. I'm enjoying it immensely. Which brings me to my newest publishing adventure: ePublishing...

While we were at the B&N store where I bought the Nook, my lovely wife asked me if any of my books are available as e-books. Unfortunately, I had to tell her that they are not. But all that is going to change in the relatively near future. I'm currently in the process of formatting Complications: The Deputies Book 1 as an ebook. From there, I'm planning to set it up with Borders.com, then move on to the Amazon Kindle. Then, if I can get B&N to talk to me, I'll attempt to get it set up with them as well. Once that's done, I'll start on formatting for Book 2. I'm using the same Adobe Creative Suite software that I use to format my print book blocks, so there really wasn't any new software to learn, I just had to refresh my memory as to how CS4 does things...

The whole e-book thing is quite intriguing. One buys the book online, wirelessly downloads it to the reading device, of which there are numerous permutations, then read away. We have a wireless network set up in our living room so Internet and stuff are a relative snap. We even have a wireless printer. Since I bought the Nook I've already read Tom Clancy's new book, I'm currently in the middle of Stephen Hunter's I, Sniper, and I've read the book that started the whole Reacher phenomenon (for those of you who have never heard of Reacher, he's a former Military Police major who roams the country trying to be left alone and very rarely succeeding). Lee Child is the author of the Reacher books, and I haven't read one yet that I don't like...

e-Readers seem to be all the rage nowadays. I know when we were in the B&N in Boise Christmas shopping, they were sold out of everything except the super-expensive Nook Color...

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...

Actually, it's more me than the goose that's getting fat, but that's not the point of the above somewhat musically-based post title. Instead, it's the fact that it's now officially December, and there's snow on the ground (about a foot of it) and Christmas is just a skosh over three weeks away...

It seems like just yesterday that the ground was bare and it was relatively warm, then suddenly, BAM! Zero degree weather followed by snow...

Thanksgiving week was good, despite the fact that I had to work from the Sunday before Thanksgiving until yesterday. Long time without a change of pace, but on the other hand, the amount of OT I made should take a tiny bit of the sting out of it.

Last night we braved the storms and nasty roads to drive to Boise to see the Oak Ridge Boys Christmas concert. What a great show! Those guys have been around forever, but they can still put together some fantastic harmony, and they're still as good as ever. We saw them at the BSU Pavilion a zillion years ago. This show was at the Morrison Center, which is a much smaller venue than the Pavilion (or the Taco Bell Arena as it's called now), which is cool because it seems a lot more personal. They don't try to blast you out of our seat with decibels, and you can understand the words to the songs...

They did about 40 minutes of their regular stuff, had an intermission then came back for what was supposed to be another 40 minutes and ended up being about an hour and ten minutes. At one point the Joe guy announced that what we saw behind them were Christmas trees, they were singing Christmas songs, and that they were not on a Holiday Tour but a Christmas Tour. Lots of cheering for that one from the audience!

For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I spend entirely too much time on Facebook, I have let this journal of what I (other people don't always agree with me and have said so in almost those words) consider to be a spectacularly ordinary life fall by the wayside. To any loyal fans I may have out there in InterWeb land, I apologize. To the rest of you, who may have only stumbled on this blog purely by accident, what can I say? I'm a busy guy...

So what have I done lately (lately being, say, the last four months or whatever it's been since my last post) you ask? The list is long and tedious, so I'll just hit the high points:

Night shoot in Baker in July. This shoot is always fun, and shooting Goex (real black powder) in my shotgun is always good for some serious smoke and fire. I actually place halfway decent this time, for once.

Idaho State SASS (Single Action Shooting Society) Championship in August. Last year it was so rainy and wet (in Boise in August? Go figure) that every body wrinkled, and I often wonder if all contestants were accounted for when it was over, or if someone may have disappeared into the mire like quicksand in an old Tarzan movie. This year, it was somewhere in the vicinity of 100 degrees every day, which is much more normal for Ada County at that time of year. I ended up fourth place Classic Cowboy, and was probably the only one shooting black powder. I also took home a second place medal in the Long-Range Buffalo (black powder) Single Shot side match. That was fun. I need to do that again...

Cycle Oregon in September. This was my 6th CO, which actually became a Cycle Oregon/Washington, as we spent three days in Washington the middle part of the week. We had two layover days, a private wine tasting, a 64 ounce stainless steel flask filled with Pendleton Whiskey, and tickets to the Pendleton Roundup. Great trip! As usual, I sun- and wind-scorched my beak, but it was worth it, although I did get tired of wheat fields in relatively short order...

Fishtrap Writer's Retreat in October. I spent a week in a relatively isolated cabin on the banks of the Imnaha River with four other writers, all of whom were excellent housemates. My goal when I got there was to finish my third book, which had been on hiatus for about a year and a half due to motivational issues. Amazingly enough, I sat down in front of my computer on Monday morning and came up for air on Friday with a finished first draft of the book nestled snugly on the flash drive plugged into my laptop. Eureka! Now I'm waiting for my editor to finish tearing it apart so that I can put it back together again, hopefully in time to have it in print enough weeks before Christmas to be able to sell it for Christmas presents to my "fans", if such people should happen to exist. I'm now down to only two unfinished books instead of three...

PBR Finals in October. I was back from the Writer's Retreat for just about nine days before Cheryl and I left for Las Vegas to visit Clint and take in some bull riding. He had a five day hotel stay at the Silverton in his pocket, but since he lives there he didn't need it, so his momma and I took advantage of it. Nice place. It's also attached to a humongous Bass Pro Shops store, in which I spent entirely too much time, and a lot less money than I was tempted to spend...

Since then, it's mostly been a case of trying to catch up on all the stuff that we didn't have time to do this summer, what with haying and all. But things are sort of starting to wind down, now. The calves will be shipped this week, I've got five of the posts set for my new bull feeder, and the generally slightly easier pace of fall, due to the shorter days after the time change, is about to set in. Time to get back on my trainer; I'm getting fat. Gotta get ready for another Cycle Oregon...

Training, training...

In preparation for dragging my chubby behind from Elgin, to Enterprise, to Clarkston, etc. on this year's Cycle Oregon (which I was not going to sign up for. But that's another story that I won't go into at this particular point in time...) I've been riding my very cool, very chic 2010 all-carbon Specialized Roubaix. Indoors on the trainer, unfortunately. Because of weather, time constraints, etc. that's the most accessible place. It's not the most exciting riding, but it does keep me from turning into the Goodyear blimp. I go through a lot of DVD movies...

I'm up to pedaling an hour and forty minutes, and I try to vary the routine from session to session. For example, last night I did :05 warm-up, then :30 sitting spin on big ring cog 6 at 13+ mph, then went to timed intervals. The new resistance unit on my trainer is a lot more resistive than the old one that it replaced. So I did intervals for an hour, doing :01 standing on big ring cog 10 at 17+ mph, then :04 sitting big ring cog 6 at 13+ mph. By the end of the time, I looked like somebody had hit me with a bucket of water. I think my socks were even soaked through...

Then I moved on to my weight bench. I've been slowly increasing the weight I'm lifting without changing the number of reps. I've read where that's the way to build strength rather than mass. I'm bulky enough as it is. I'm up to 75 pounds on the bench press for 15 reps, followed by 25 crunches. Next is 25 butterfly curls at 38 pounds, then another 25 crunches. From there I move on to leg lifts, 25 lifts at 45 pounds, then I do 25 situps holding the leg lift weight up with my, of course, legs. Next is 25 bicep curls with the leg lift weights, first left arm, then right, then both. Last but not least is an exercise that I have no idea of the name for. I have a small dumbbell bar with 25 pounds on it that I hang behind my head with both hands and do 25 reps with. When I'm done with the bike and the weights, I cool off with a Cytomax and whey protein smoothie. It's supposed to be good for me and help with recovery. I don't know about that, but it tastes pretty good...

So anyway, as of last night I have just a skosh over 512 miles since January 1, including the 6.85 mountain bike miles from last Sunday, and I'm the same weight that I was when I finished Cycle Oregon last year, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. Last year I did Cycle Oregon on 1100 trainer miles and only about 200 road miles, which seems backwards but you do what you can, ya know?

On a side note, I'm extremely proud of my lovely wife. She's been working on exercising and watching what she eats all winter as part of the family Biggest Loser contest, and she told me the other day that she is now able to get into some clothes that she hasn't been able to wear in quite a while. YAY!!!! And even though the spring work is going on, she's still finding time to exercise!!!

In the words of Mark Twain...

or I think that's who it was anyway, "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated". Or something like that. No, I haven't dropped off the face of the planet, and no, I haven't been kidnapped by aliens or any such thing. It's just that posting on the blog has kind of fallen under the radar, as it were. 'Tis spring, and a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of, well, spring work, and a little bit of spring play-time. I've been cutting fence posts, breaking and repairing my chain saw, fixing fence, traveling to Las Vegas to go house shopping with Clint, that sort of thing...

So what has gone on in life? Lots of stuff. We did indeed go to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, looking for a house for Clint, who will be starting culinary school at the Art Institute in July. Since student housing is like $650 a month, and the housing market is extremely depressed in the Vegas area at the moment, we decided to see if we could find a house for him to buy, instead of renting, since he plans to stay down there for some five years or so. We figured that, what the hey, if he can sell the place in five years for what he paid for it now, he's lived there for free for five years, essentially...

So after looking at a bunch of places, we made an offer on his favorite one and turned the Smerf-mobile for home on that Friday, then found out the following Tuesday that he's about to become a homeowner. Even better, the deal should close in plenty of time to get the $8000 federal tax credit check as a first-time home buyer. That'll do some house fixer-uppering and make a few payments. It's about time some our tax dollars helped one of us instead of all the bums who... Never mind, I won't go there...

I started my big gun sprinkler on our field last week, just in time for the first big thunder-boomer of the year to come blitzing through, depositing a phenomenal amount of rain in a very short time and washing a ton of dirt and other assorted junk over the head box for the main line and actually plugging a 3/4" nozzle. I was truly amazed...

Branding is pretty much done. There are a few more calves from some late-calving cows yet to brand, but not many. Brett's been helping people all over the place brand calves, along with building a few leather goods...

Clint's giving up his apartment at school this coming weekend and moving home. He's going to commute to classes the rest of the school year, and save the rent money...

I think that spring may finally be sneaking up on us. I've been doing all of my biking indoors on the trainer because the weather's been so crappy, but yesterday afternoon I finally got out and did a 7 mile ride on my mountain bike, up the creek to our lower gate and back. Great day for a ride. Coming back down the road I decided that there's really very little chance of me becoming a hard-core mountain biker. I'm too chicken to really bomb the downhills, and too wimpy to hammer the climbs. And the bashing around on the downhills is hell on my wrists, so I guess I'll mainly stick to road riding, with the occasional gravel road foray on my mountain bike for leavening...

Saturday I spent adding to my collection of juniper fence posts. The cool thing about juniper is that you don't have to treat it, and it still lasts for years in the ground. Our neighbor has been doing a juniper eradication project, so all I have to do is knock off the limbs, buck the trunk to the right length, and presto! Instant post! I got nine of them in one really small area. Partway through the first pickup load, the roller in the nose of my chainsaw bar went on strike. Fortunately Cheryl was still in town, and was able to get me a new bar. I ended up with almost twenty posts for the day, and the pile behind the shop is getting pretty big. I'm thinking I may attack the homestead next. There are some cut trees over there that look about right, and some more I can knock down myself. Might as well keep going while I'm on a roll...

Skunk Wars...

So this past November, an apparently huge population of war-like skunks decided to attack our house. The war began with an extreme hosing of the utility room area, which drifted to the rest of the house, the night before we were to leave for the PBR finals. As such, pretty much all of our clothes, our shoes, my computer case, the whole enchilada smelled strongly, and I do mean strongly, of skunk. Once we got to Vegas, we went through approximately a gallon of Extra-Strength Febreeze in a mostly vain attempt to battle the stench...

Fast forward a few days. We got home, only to discover that the house had been hosed again. Speaking of reeking! This second, totally unprovoked barrage elicited what some people might think is an extreme reaction, but I don't think so: I went on the offensive...

Out in my shop are an assortment of various sizes of traps. After a scouting expedition around the perimeter of the house, I discovered that the varmint's main means of ingress and egress to the underside of the house were two tunnels, one behind and one befront. It wasn't long before each of the two tunnels was ringed with traps, nor was it long before the first of the ninjas was captured and executed...

I'm getting ahead of myself here, just a skosh. I set the traps on a Thursday afternoon. Friday morning when I got up, there was a skunk in one of the traps behind the house. Boom. No more skunk. I went back into the house to have breakfast and my morning coffee, then ventured out to take the now defunct polecat from the trap and reset it. What to my wondering eyes should appear but another of those striped menaces, caught alongside the dead one in a trap that hadn't been tripped. Boom. Two dead varmints to get rid of. Peeww!

Over the course of the next few weeks, leading up to the end of the year, I caught a total of fourteen of the stinking beasts. Then came the big snows of January, and the threat abated. We were sure that the war was over, and that we had won, but it was not to be. I stuffed rocks in the tunnels, and proceeded to get back to some semblance of a normal life...

Then, one night in mid-February, the beasts returned, this time beginning some sort of territorial battle under the utility room, and stinking the place up a tiny bit in the process. A fresh tunnel had been dug in that area, which I promptly ringed with traps, along with setting the traps back at the tunnel in front of the house...

Like ninjas in a B-rated action movie, the smelly varmints apparently only attack one at a time, which is fortunate. Since this latest onslaught began, I've trapped eight more skunks, all at the front of the house, and two pack rats, which could actually probably be considered collateral casualties, both at the back of the house. We've now been two days skunk-less. Hopefully this is a trend that will continue...

Trapping twenty two skunks at the same house is probably some sort of record, but that's okay, I'm happy without the fame and fortune...

Building websites, part deux...

So last Friday I went to the library and used their high speed internet to upload a bunch of chap pictures. There are now something like seven pages of chinks and two pages of rodeo chaps, and a page of miscellaneous stuff that doesn't have much on it. I'm hoping to get some pics of the latest bible covers along with some other pics that I just found on my camera and get them loaded on the website. It's looking good so far, and he seems to be happy with it. It even loads relatively quickly on my dial-up connection, which is sloooooowwwww....

Once again, the new location for Empire Leather on the web is here...

Building websites...

Lately I've been working on a new website and blog for Brett. I'm planning on having pictures of a bunch of the chinks, chaps and other stuff he's made on the website, and a shopping cart on the blog page for purchases. So far it's coming together pretty well. His website is at www.empireleatherco.com and his blog is at empireleather.blogspot.com...

There's not much on either place yet, but it's slowly coming together...

...the goose is getting fat...

The Christmas goose, that is. Or was. Considering that this is now the second full week in January, and consequently Christmas was roughly three weeks ago, the goose, or turkey as it were, has long since been devoured and a new one will eventually be selected for Christmas 2010...

This was an interesting Christmas. The annual community Christmas program slash potluck was on the 19th, with our annual Christmas church service on the 20th. Cheryl and I went shopping, just the two of us (how weird is that?), instead of going to the program. Then Sunday night I did the Christmas service at the little church. Audience was actually pretty good sized, and Vicky finally got there to do the reading she's been wanting to do for the last two Christmases, but which she didn't get done because she kept getting snowed in. Then I started on two months of graveyard shift on the 21st...

A little note regarding graveyard shift: I worked off shifts for actually quite a few years, then I've been on days since I went in the lab, except for a month when I first came in from the yard. But this particular graveyard stint coincides with a combination shutdown and layoff (damn slow economy), so it's really quiet around here at night...

So anyway, we normally have Christmas dinner, with family, extended family, friends, whoever, on Christmas Eve, somewhere in the vicinity of 6 PMish. I start work at 7 PM. Consequently, I got to hear about how everything went after the fact rather than being in the thick of the festivities. Worked out okay, though. We opened presents the next day, and I got lots of goodies in addition to the gun safe I bought in November and which just got moved into the house and stocked from the existing non-fire safe cabinets last Friday. I even got a bunch of stuff I asked for, like a dandy pair of warm slippers, a new zip-up sweatshirt, and a DVD copy of El Dorado, starring John Wayne, James Caan and Robert Mitchum. What more could a boy ask for?

On the whole, in spite of having to miss the celebration in town, Christmas was pretty good...

PBR Finals

Hm, what have I done since Cycle Oregon? Oh yeah, the PBR (Professional Bull Riders) World Finals in Las Vegas in November. We took Brett to the NFR for his 21st birthday, which is in December, so Clint decided that we should take him to the PBR finals for his 21st. Being the understanding parents that we are, we did just exactly that. I got online early on and got us tickets for the second weekend, including the final final, made us reservations at the Jockey Club to use one of our timeshare weeks, and away we went...

The Jockey Club is an old property, but has been remodeled a bunch, so the rooms are pretty nice. The only problem with the Jockey Club is that it's being overbuilt by one of those megahotel/casino places. By that I mean that the new place is for all practical purposes engulfing the JC, which makes access somewhat interesting, and totally ruins the view on the south side of the building. Our apartment had a fantastic view of a concrete wall ten feet away. On the other hand, the Jockey Club is pretty much centrally located on the Las Vegas strip, between Bellagio and Monte Carlo and directly across the street from Planet Hollywood, so you can pretty much walk to most anywhere on the strip...

Brett and his buddy Cliff drove down on Monday, and we flew in on Wednesday. We got to the hotel about 10 PM and, being hungry, Cheryl, Mema and I went across the street to PH to get something to eat while Clint went to find Brett and Cliff. After we ate we took a walk up the Strip, spent some quality casino time and had a few "free" drinks then headed back toward our digs. We were almost back to JC when Cheryl's phone rang, and a voice said, "Where are you guys? It's after two, and we're home, and you're not! Where have you been?" We got quite a kick out of the kids calling to check on the old folks. After that we rarely saw them alive...

The bull riding was great. The weather was wonderful, we had good seats, and we had an all together fun time. We've had people tell us that "we've been to Vegas, we don't need to go back." But Cheryl and I both think we could go back a bunch of times, because you never get to see everything...

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...