What a weekend !

Friday evening I was not looking forward to football over the weekend. The Braves beat the Cardinals, the best team in the Central division, but they had two more to play,  Saturday and Sunday, and you don’t beat the best two straight often. Saturday it looked like another loss when the Braves scored early but, the Cards started coming back. In the 8th inning our guys were ahead by one, and played like a little league loser, throwing the ball all over the park, making errors, allowing the bad guys two runs, and the lead. Top of the ninth, with two out, the Braves rallied for two runs, playing aggressive baseball, winning the game. I was exhausted.

Saturday, Georgia played South Carolina, the first SEC game of the year. It looked like a blow out with the Dawgs scoring touchdowns on long kick off returns, interceptions, they were moving the ball, and played good defense. That lasted for one quarter. The kicker, who only missed two field goals all of last year, missed two, and an extra point, in THIS game. Carolina kept coming back and the game went down to the last minute of the fourth quarter before I could breath again. Georgia wins with seconds to go on a tipped pass near the goal line.

Sunday, the Falcons take on Miami in the dome. I think we may have a contender this year, they played very well. The game was never in doubt and I could relax.

Sunday afternoon, the Braves stomped the Cardinals to finish the sweep. Three wins in three days against the best, amazing. They won five out the last six, and should have won the other one if not for a blown save by the “Closer”. The Braves are playing well now but I’m afraid it’s too late. I’ll stick with my prediction. No playoffs for Atlanta again this year.

Sports. Frustrating but never dull. 

I told you so….

Well, my bad karma did, in fact, keep our Little League team from the championship. I have been sneaking around town, hiding from people who know about hexes, spells, and things, trying to avoid confrontations from angry fans, and furious Mamas, until everything starts to return to normal. The team took the defeat in stride, as we knew they would. it hurts to lose but these youngsters have the character to congratulate the winner with a smile and a handshake. Class all the way.

The teams return home was great. The town came out to greet them at the little league ball field where it all began. They were treated like winners by everyone, and admired by the teenage girls, which the 12 year old boys had difficulty getting used to. They’ll learn. They are already looking forward to next year, when they really plan on winning it all. I wouldn’t bet against them.

Back to the book. Most of the summer diversions are over, the Atlanta Braves are falling apart, and the Georgia Bulldogs lost the opener of this season. I’m not a follower of a sport, I have to have a team to get me going. I need to be able to recognize a face, know all the names, have someone to pull for. Just to say I’m a Baseball fan won’t do. I am an Atlanta Baseball team fan. I live in Georgia so, of course, I am a Georgia Bulldog fan. I could follow Georgia Tech but, somehow, that doesn’t fit me. The “Dawgs” are down home, “Tech” is elite. That’s probably all wrong, but I go by how it feels. So that’s the way it is beginning the fall season. The weather will cool off, the humidity will generally be lower, The evenings will be free of baseball and the TV.

I will have no excuses now so I plan on finishing the book sometime in October,  get it to the Publisher, and printed before Christmas. The story line is keeping to what I planned at the beginning. For now I know were it’s going but that can change. It usually does.

Warner Robins, GA Who knew?

This will probably put the hex of the century on the kids but I can’t sit around without shouting about the unbelievable situation in the world of little league. Call it what you will, the local girls from Warner Robins, a small town in the middle of the South, ran roughshod over the competition and won the World title in softball.  They went undefeated in the playoffs at each level. Today the under 14 year old boys came from behind to win their third game, sending them to the next level at Williamsport. It was National headlines two years ago when the boys from this small town won the title. Can you believe the story if they win this year making it a dual victory for the boys and the girls. What are the odds. I don’t know how many teams are involved world wide but it’s in the thousands for the girls and the boys. To have our kids win it all is mind blowing.

Keep your fingers crossed. Miracles do happen and these youngsters deserve to be recognized win or lose.

Preview of coming attractions

My publisher has been bugging me for the past year to get involved with some of their marketing programs. They offer E-Mail blitzes, book fairs, and other stuff, all of them at a cost to me. The original E-Mail campaign was a bust, as I knew it would be. Most folks are like me and hit the delete button on all unsolicited offers from anyone. There are a few sales that show up in the charts monthly that are listed in a compiled gathering of commercial sales like Amazon, and other book sellers, but not in any useable detail.  Since the books are not selling well the low numbers forced me to pay a few bucks to keep them listed in the stores and on-line.

Xlibris has a program called “Book Trailer” where a professional media team takes the book and puts together a “Teaser”, like movie trailers, or previews, that run for one to two minutes in a loop. I assume the loop is added to other trailers for other books and becomes part of a set.

Quote: Book trailers present a quick, compact synopsis of the book in flash format that makes for one entertaining view. Since these trailers are placed in sites like YouTube, MySpace, MetaCafe, Blip.tv and dailymotion, they can be accessed by a massive number of people online.

Since I have no other plans I have signed up for this Trailer program. With luck it will be out and viewable by November, listing both books, and the third book will be added after the first of the year. I am not a “Marketeer”. I can’t sell anything to anyone. If anyone actually sees these “Commercials” and buys a book or two I will be both surprised and grateful.  We shall see…

Let’s raise the bar some.

The past few entries here read like a soap opera. All is well, the semi-annual check up with the medics this week shows I am disgustingly healthy so we’ll forget the tick attack and other pleas for sympathy, I guess, and talk about the book.

The title will be Powers Trace III, a foregone conclusion,  but I haven’t decided on the subtitle. As with the last book, I’ll probably wait to see what the major theme is before picking something to hint at the story line. Decisions, decisions. The title is a big deal. Kinda like naming your first born. Cute doesn’t impress people forty years down the road, it has to be right forever.

The writing is slow now. It seems to flow with the weather. The heat is one reason but that is to be expected here in the South. We had a very unusual week as July moved in. The temperature and the humidity dropped significantly, and it felt like September. Low 80’s during the day dropping into the 50’s at night. Sleeping with the windows open and no hum from the air conditioner was great. It wont last, the temps are rising again, the humidity is on the upswing and weather from the gulf is bringing rain, which we need.

Keep signing on here for general updates and check twitter for daily nonsense.

Tough little bugger!

We have two dogs who own the backyard. Luey is a 14 year old Schnauzer and Cookie is a Jack Russell terrier, 8 years old (as far as we know). Both spend hours everyday roaming around their turf, Luey putting his nose to ever leaf in the yard, and Cookie chasing squirrels back up into their trees. For daily diversions they have toys. Three Frisbees, two soccer balls, and an undersized basketball, half flat, leaking air. The back part of the yard is a jungle with a lot of underbrush. The growth is controlled by weed-whacker once a year which was accomplished less that a month ago so the growth was minimal and revealed another ball that had been missing for some time. This is all background for the real story.

Luey was the first to spot the long-lost ball and was about to descend to inspect it. There is a pronounced slope, a drop-off maybe ten feet before you reach the fence, and I knew he had no way to retrieve his ball and carry it back up the hill. To the rescue. I slipped and slid to the ball, picked it up and tossed it back up into the yard. I was now Luey’s best friend again. While I scuffled through the weeds I apparently picked up a tick. At least that’s what I assumed it was later that night, in bed, when my arm brushed across it. I felt it, turned on the light and looked at it, then, not thinking, picked at it with a finger nail. I placed in on the night stand and saw the wiggling legs.

Back up a couple of hours. While watching TV I was feeling a bit off. Joints ached, stomach not feeling well. These are not unusual for us old folks but, now as I watched this small many-legged thing under the light, I knew something was amiss. I now had a fever, my head ached, and my hands were cold. I looked at them and could see swelling, enough that I could not make a fist. The stomach was getting “that feeling” and I headed for the bathroom. I waited, the tension was building, and I sat on the floor awaiting the inevitable. I sat. After about a half hour the body started to feel better. I waited another half hour before I got up and went back to bed. The headache had subsided some and the fever was going away. The hands were still puffy but not as swollen as before. As I lay there going over the symptoms it didn’t make much sense. It came on in a hurry but now seemed to be going away just as fast. The white blood cells must be beating back the attack. It was five o’clock in the morning when I finally ventured back for a couple of aspirins before finally falling a sleep.

When I awoke at 11:30 I felt fine. I wondered if it was all just a bad dream but I knew it really happened. I still had the bug on the night stand, still wiggling it’s legs, still alive I guess.  I had tried to smash it after I found it but it was hard shelled so it did not squash. Suffer whatever you are. I’ll place it in a small, airless tube, and let it die a slow, agonizing death.

Moral of all this: Let the dogs retrieve their own toys.