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...