somehow

we've made it through another year. I don't really Do resolutions but I am planning on learning more about making money online and increasing my extremely modest online living. I think I have finally figured out how to make some real money, but I am going to go slow and work at setting up some highly targeted very special interest weekly blogs that are geared to affiliate programs. I am doing a lot of research about affiliate programs and products and online marketing. Around September or October of last year I announced that I expected my site to have meaningful cash flow and I accomplished that. This coming year I am going to start actually making money. And I Promise NEVER to do a MMO blog.

Have you resolved anything to accomplish or avoid in 2009?

It feels rather as though

I am somehow still back in Boston. One of the major attractions of the Seattle area for me was the mild climate. While we are actually farther north than Massachusetts, and do have the storied endlessly gray winters, the climate is quite mild and most winters it snows at Most once or twice. No one in these parts knows how to drive in winter weather, but it's really not an issue since the metro area generally closes down at the first signs of snow, which usually melts down the drains the next day and we are back to our usual cool and gray.

This year however is one for the record books. As of this second day of winter (by the calendar anyway) we have had more than a solid week of continuing snow and Very cold temperatures. The roads are virtually impassable (snow plows are very hard to come by in these parts), the airport is jammed full of stranded passengers after our hometown airline, Alaska, went through their entire year's supply of de-icing fluid last week and canceled all service to SeaTac, all schools and government offices are closed through at least next week. Feh. This is Exactly the kind of weather I moved here from Boston to escape from. I'd love to invite the climate change deniers to come shovel out the parking lot of my apartment building, which is proving to be the most dangerous place to drive this week. I don't even own a snow shovel and don't even recall any being offered for sale around here. Yikes.

Merry Effing Christmas.

rambling thoughts

"You're going to shoot your eye out!"

An odd message to see tweeted on Twitter, but instantly recognizable to fans of the movie A Christmas Story, based on the book In God We Trust, All Other Pay Cash by Jean Sheperd. So some of my Twitter friends (egad I first typoed that as fiends) have been tweeting that line this morning, reminding me that Ron and I really want to stay home and watch that movie on TBS on Christmas day, rather than drive down to Portland to spend Christmas at my horrid cousin's house where my mother and my aunt and uncle will be visiting.

Ron initially flaly refused to go down there at all this year. I initially told my mother that we couldn't possibly come on Christmas day itself, because I have to be at work at 8am on the 26th and there is no way we would be home before midnight (my cousin's dinner is inevitably a fairly Late meal, as opposed to the early afternoon meal we always had when we were growing up). Ron eventually caved and agreed to go down with me, but I have yet to e-mail and co-ordinate a plan with Mom. (Ron says he actually Likes my mother okay, but finds my cousin as insufferable as I do, and not being related to her sees no reason to subject himself to her company.)

And the _reason_ we need to stay home and watch it when it is on is because the DVD of that movie is among the HUGE number of things that I either sold or just walked away from after Joel died, and my very old, still partially unpaid student loan prevented me from receiving any further tuition assistance to complete the one year certificate in Accounting that I was pursuing at my local community college, causing my unemployment benefits to suddenly stop, leaving me jobless, incomeless and on the verge of homelessness when, in a bit of good timing that makes me beleive in God, I met, fell in love with and moved in with Ron in a matter of days.

(If only I had been Sensible at age 19 and borrowed $2500 to blow on gambling and high living, a debt which would have long since been written off and forgotten, rather than borrowing this amount to pay for a year of college, which I never Did finish, and which, it appears will haunt me to my dying day. SIGH)

In other news here in Seattle we seem to be having very Boston type weather lately. Yesterday was our second big snow storm of the season and a third is due in a few more days. We have plenty of food and no plans to venture out in the snow and ice today. (Having lived in Boston, where weather is NEVER an excuse for being late or missing work, I do know how to drive in it but most folks in these parts have no clue, making it Much more dangerous.) It looks hellacious on tee vee.

I have also been trying for several hours, with zero success to write a post about Harry Turtledove's alternative history novel, The Gladiator, and have jumped at every possible distraction. Ah well. Here's hoping you are warm, dry and snow free today.

site is looking good

I have eliminated all of my long blogrolls, and every site that had been listed is now listed instead in one of the four RSS digests on my libdrone.com page. I just love being able to browse through everyone's headlines and read some really great blogs, and not worry about dropping all those cards. While I still have the EC widget up and will take what traffic they give me, I am going to be promoting the dotCOM page more and more going into 2009 and try to continue building a real audience. I will also be constantly on the look out for quality new blogs to add to my feed mixes and will also have to be diligent about removing the feeds of blogs that go dark or don't update.

I am thinking of this as my post Entercard (or at the very least post Turnip on Entercard) period. I am a bit scared about losing some of what was no doubt regular, consistent junk traffic, but very excited about future prospects. Now, I just have to promote libdrone.com.

chh chh chh changes

I have just about decided that when my price gets down to 2ec I will turn advertising back on, but will not make the huge effort of dropping to keep my site up in the top three anymore. I am also Finally moving forward on a long planned project to create a page that displays RSS headlines from lots and Lots and LOTS of the best book, writing, author and library blogs. I am trying something called feedinformer.com that seems to work great when I enter the feeds to be displayed and format the layout of the results, but when I put it on my site the layout looks great but it is pulling old posts from just one or two of the included blogs and I can't seem to get it to work right. Hoping I will either find someone who can show me how to get it to work or find another service for this.

UPDATE-- I think I did get it to work as intended and my feeds page is now up at http://libdrone.com

time to end Entrecard participation?

If you haven't already heard, Graham Langdon, entrecard.com's number one douchebag, banned leading blogger Turnip of Power from the Entrecard system after Turnip posted a mildly rude tweet on Twitter. The tweet intentionally Mentioned Entrecard, in order to show the apparently Clueless Langdon why it's Not such a Good Idea to post to your website Everything that Everybody tweets about you, particularly not when you have spent a lot of time pissing off a lot of people. And the reaction to that tweet, arbitrarily and immediately banning one of the site's Top Users over a silly and not very important tweet on another social network, is just so over the top arrogant that I am Utterly disgusted and find myself contemplating a departure from Entrecard.

On the one hand, I hesitate to give up the traffic. I'm certain if I stop dropping (even if I keep the widget) my traffic will drop and my Alexa will go back up and my Google page rank (4 last I checked) may go down. In terms of selling ads, I am getting decent but not spectacular results from Project Wonderful and CMF Ads. I'm not making a lot of money, but I am making money from my site and I have every hope it will grow. But after reading a couple of post (s) I forced myself to really think about whether the time I spend dropping cards (all too often on crappy blogs where my only reason for visiting is to get a drop credit and maybe inspire a return visit and drop might better be spent creating quality blog content and marketing that content through other avenues.

Much as I really have enjoyed getting to know so many great bloggers through Entrecard, I have to admit that my time would be better spent building a better blog and doing more to market it beyond a social networking web site that clearly seems to be on the wane and, much more importantly appears to be run by a meglomaniacal asshole who feels that the normal rules of courtesy and concern for ones customers somehow don't apply to him. And that is just Not the kind of company I really want to be associated with, let alone depend on for a large share of my traffic.

For now, I am leaving the widget up but am not accepting new advertisements at this time. I have nine or ten ads sold so it will be more than a week before I am in a position to pull the plug on Entrecard altogether, and I am not 100% sure if I will remove the widget or not. But my drop 300 per day days are Done and I suspect my time as an Entrecard member will soon be Done too. My sincerest thanks to all of my advertisers and visitors, many of whom I met through Entrecard. I will certainly continue to visit my blog friends and will be working on other ways of marketing the site and hope that I will continue to see you around the blogosphere and over at CMF Direct. If you haven't already go list your blog on CMF Direct. It's free and allows you to accept any kind of advertising and is a great place to find new blogs and connect with other bloggers. It may well be what comes along to Replace Entrecard once Graham drives it over the cliff, so be Sure you are listed.

this seems to be

my week for publishing about review copies. Yesterday I panned Thirteen Reasons Why, a book I wanted to like but just didn't. Tomorrow I will rave about In The Land Of Invisible Women, then on Friday I have to review Mark LaFlamme's Dirt, which I REALLY didn't like. Haven't yet decided just how negative I am going to be, but it will definitely be a Not Recommended.

Part of me worries that if I continue to pan books I've been sent free copies of the publicists will take me off their lists (which would be okay, I suppose) but it seems to me the only thing I really have to sell are my honest opinions and I am not about to recommend a book I don't actually like.

My vacation is passing all to quickly and I am painfully aware that come Friday morning it will be back to work for me. Thanksgiving was nice, though in the end we didn't prepare all of the side dishes. Then Sunday night Bob came over and spent the night and that was fun too. Now there is just Christmas to be dealt with.

vacation

was a long, super busy week at work, but I have made it through and am now off for a bit of vaca. I do not have to return to work until Friday December 5th. Ron and I had seriously considered driving over to Boise to spend Thanksgiving with Staci and Clint but at length our worries about our 10 year old car going through the passes in winter, combined with our own tight finances caused us to cancel. But I am taking my personal holiday the Sunday after Thanksgiving and a vacation day the Monday after. Since we are closed for paid holiday Thursday and Friday I have a full week of paid time off.

I am hoping to get some rest and to get caught up and posted ahead on the books blog. I have read three books that I need to blog about, including one from a publisher that I have to post about on December 5th as part of a publicity campaign. my blog earnings are still quite small but they are real and are growing. And now with a year and a half of book reviews published I am starting to be taken more seriously as a reviewer and receive free reading copies from publishers and their publicists. It's a nice perk, and I still enjoy publishing the site most of the time, though it is really hard on work days and particularly if work is really busy.

Our friend Bob is coming over for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. I got a 20lb turkey from Safeway, though we will need to make another grocery run tomorrow. Tonight I am just chilling and unwinding and will try to get into publisher and writer modes tomorrow.

the blog gods and godesses...

....seem to have it in for me this week. I did not manage to post on Monday because work was hellishly busy, then we had company all evening. Tuesday, I managed to write a clever book post, even working in a bookish meme I was tagged with. I put in lots of links, proof read and checked everything twice. I clicked publish and Shazaam-- an Earthlink configurator screen. moved back in my browser and found a completely blank Compose New Post form. Feh. Today I managed to get up a great post about an extraordinary new book, and the post looks great on the front page. But if you try to visit the full post page it somehow is Not There. No clue at all what's up with that or how to fix it. I suppose I'm going to have to ask for help but I sure don't Want to.

with being more or less offline and not dropping for several days, I am back down to number three in Books. I stayed up all night and dropped cards from the time Earthlink came back online around 2 am until nearly 7:30 am. My connection is sooooo sloow it took me that long to drop 300 cards. Yikes. I have read and am ready to post about Thursday's and Friday's books, but am almost afraid to try at this point.

I want a Peek!

I just saw something online that I REALLY want to get, just as soon as I can afford it. A million years ago when I had a Good Job at a big ISP, I used to carry a little pager size device with a full qwerty keyboard and tiny screen that allowed me to receive all of my regular e-mails by pager any time, any where. And I dearly loved it. But years later after my jobs were offshored and things were tight I had to drop the 25 dollar a month service.

But now there's Peek, which is said to be a stylishly thin, smart sized device that allows you to read your email any time/any where. And it only costs 80 bucks, then 20 a month service charge. I paid about 150 for that pager way back when. If anybody is wondering what to get me for Christmas....

I've rarely been

more happy to be wrong. I was absolutely shocked that McCain graciously conceded and the presidential election was firmly and clearly decided before midnight eastern time. When I went to bed last night, the word was that Arizona's same sex marriage ban had passed but California's had failed. It was a huge disappointment this morning to learn that California voters did in fact vote to deny a basic right to many of their fellow citizens. Closer to home, I was not surprised that the Washington governor's race was still up in the air. This morning's surprising news that Republican Dino Rossi has conceded was a relief.

Even more of a relief is that we have for now reached the end of the endless string of negative political commercials that have dominated tee vee for the past I don't know how long. I'm watching the noon local news and it is so nice to no longer be hearing all those horrible ads. Our long national nightmare will soon be over.

Be Sure To Vote Today

It's a bit after midnight on election eve. I have dropped my three hundred Entrecards, posted my election day post and have about 8 Entrecard ads running today. I don't really care if I get up to first place (and Puss Reboots sure is getting a lot of drops!) but staying in the top three is crucial.

Meanwhile despite being tired, having worked all day today, I find I am not sleepy and am guiltily watching a bit of CNN, where the ticker helpfully notes that the first polls will close in just over 14 hours from now. The best prediction I've heard so far comes from Nicole at Inspire Emotion who says to watch Virginia, where polls close at 7pm EST (4pm West Coast). If Obama wins in Virginia Nicole predicts he will win the election. If McCain takes Virginia we may be in for a long night.

My personal prediction, after chatting with some friends on Twitter last night is that we will not have a clear winner and resolution of the election on Tuesday night, but will have what it seems to me is now becoming the usual post-election theft of the prize, which will of course play out over Weeks of bickering news coverage.

Here's hoping Wednesday morning will not feel like a time for angry blogging.

a

Entrecard Drop List

Just FYI, below is my own personal Entrecard drop list. This list is only one of a number of ways in which I drop my three hundred cards a day, which I am doing fairly regularly of late. In addition to dropping from this list I also use Turnip of Power's EC drop list as well as the exceptionally useful tool published by Mar Matthias Darin which shows you tiny screen shots of the last three hundred and twenty five or so blogs that dropped on his blog. What's really neat is that when you click on a thumbnail, the blog opens in a new tab and the button image disappears, so you literally can't accidentally click the same blog twice and don't need to keep track of your place. I also, once or twice a month drop on my inbox, several times a week I drop on the top 10 blogs in my category, Books, as well as the top ten in Writing & Literature (the EC toolbar makes all of this really easy). And I also try to spend some of my drops each day just clicking on ads that are unfamiliar and catch my eye.

The list is arranged roughly in the order of the number of drops each of these blogs made on me, though in the under 4 drops/month there is some up and down, which I don't plan to bother correcting. This list is updated as of November 1st and will be updated when it becomes less useful ;)

Want to be added? Just drop your card HERE then leave a comment on this post. And keep on dropping.


Technically Easy 29 drops
Long Tail Ends 26 drops
Green Pastures 25 drops
Thrift Mom 24 drops
Cromley's World 22 drops
Thailand 1,000 Smiles 22 drops
Feeling Flirty 22 drops
MTMD 20 dr0ps
KML Photo 20 drops
EZ DIY electric 20 drops
Reading Nook 19 drops
Geek Mom Mashup 17 drops

Admin Arts 17 drops
Lapband Progress 16 drops
Mortgage And Moren 16 drops
Rich Real Estate 16 drops
Travelin Show 16 drops
Writing To Survive 15 drops
iPemiento 15 drops
Inspire Emotion 15 drops
Path To Pegasus 15 drops
Majik's Thoughts 15 drops
Eye Spi 14 drops
Sweet and Spice 14 drops
Junkfood Journey 14 drops

Blog 2 Sides 14 drops
Sexy Ads 14 drops
Margie Edna 14 drops
Mrs McOmber 13 drops
Joan Joyce 13 drops
Matthias 13 drops
Monique Renae 13 drops
Money Love Change 13 drops

ebook techie 13 drops
Lucent Dusk 13 drops
DB Comix 13 drops
Politics 2000 12 drops
Random Thoughts 12 drops
Junk Drawer 12 drops
1st Door Left 12 drops
Chica Pum 12 drops
Michael Aulia 12 drops
Superficial Gallery 11 drops


LPLPX 11 drops
Fennster 11 drops
Copy Write Ink 11 drops
West Of Mars 11 drops
Random Thoughts 11 drops
Fil Am Journey 11 drops
Wildclips 11 drops
Red Pine Mountain 11 drops

Random Detox 10 drops
Rose By Name 10 drops
glitchline 10 drops
Ask Super Z 10 drops
Life With Kim 10 drops
DB Comix 10 drops
Reap Money 10 drops

Coffee 9 drops
Mama Bear 9 drops
Neon Bubble 9 drops
Crap World 9 drops
Celebrity Today 9 drops
Asian Economist 9 drops
World Word 9 drops

apexto 9 drops
Plot Dog Press 9 drops
Beaker's Dimensions 9 drops
Copious Dissent 9 drops


Maurica 8 drops
Jason Biz Journal 8 drops
efabric 8 drops
Ben Barden 8 drops
Unpredictable Life 8 drops
Amy Lilley Designs 8 drops
So What Now 8 drops

Modern Glam 7 drops
HRM Business 7 drops
Rich's Blog 7 drops

Celebrity Today 7 drops


Art Blog Wild 6 drops
Click D Talk 6 drops
Visit NYC 6 drops
Here And Now 6 drops
Daisy Cat 6 drops


Of Cats 5 drops
Beauty Denominator 5 drops
Comedy Plus 5 drops
Steven Humor 5 drops
Comics Legends 5 drops

Flying Beagle 5 drops
Roller Blog 5 drops
Atlanta 5 drops
Monkey Fables 5 drops
Couch Tater 5 drops
Atniz 5 drops

Random Ramblings 5 drops
The Leet Gallery 5 drops
Worldwide Travel 5 drops
Holy Cute 5 drops
Yummy Down 5 drops
Handy Tips 5 drops


Tinkerbell 4 drops
small dog stuff 4 drops
Urban Swirl 4 drops
Empty Cup 4 drops
Texas RV Travel 4 drops
Doug in Missoula 4 drops


Walls Soft 3 drops
On The Bricks 3 drops
Obscure History 3 drops
Girl4Status 3 drops
The Beacon 3 drops
Sense Sensibility 3 drops
MMusings 3 drops
Fong pc 3 drops
Bookworm 37



Nicktay 3 drops
Wanjiku 3 drops
Clint Richie 3 drops
PNut Butter Blog 3 drops
Winter's Tale 3 drops

enviornmentastic 2 drops
Dirty Shanks 2 drops
Reach For More 2 drops



Mums Gotta 2 drops
Hi Mi 4 2 drops
Techfun 2 drops
Sensory Overload 2 drops
Midnight Cocoa 2 drops
Disco Diva 1 drop
Cabbages and Kings new to list
Slap Tickle new on list
Art Journal Nicole excused til after election
The Thin Red Line own site







Steam Punk Rings 3 drops
Kustara 2 drops
Hows Bradley 2 drops
So Called Life 2 drops
After Midnight 2 drops
Crissy's Library 1 drop
Literary Jewels 1 drop
Playthere 1 drop
Life With Rog 1 drop

Tokyo Tom 1 drop
Nawlins Food new on list
Marketers Ramblings 1 drop


Epicurian Health 1 drop
Makea Pound 1 drop
Trip The Lady 1 drop
Creative Nerd 1 drop
J Donuts 1 drop
Farvel Cargo 1 drop
If You Write It 1 drop
Modern Historian 1 drop
Beautiful Places 1 drop
Molly Brogan 1 drop

I'm afraid I'm Still

ignoring this blog. Though I have buckled down with the other one and gotten it published Mon--Fri this week and have pushed it back to the top slot in Books on Entrecard. I also updated my Entrecard drop list to try to focus more on friends who drop regularly and eliminated a number of EC drop outs and moved some non-droppers way to the bottom. (And thanks to EC for providing the drops rankings again. Not having that info was Really annoying.) I have also been using Turnip's list and have done the full 300/day more often than not this week.

And I am back to work and feeling bizzy. A happy weekend to all.

I survived

the work week, though I was very tired and draggy at work today. the new check in method really has eliminated our backlogged turn around time and hopefully the pressure is back to Off now. I am off tomorrow, Saturday, before heading back to finish my week Sunday and Monday. Other good work news is my supv Approved my vaca request for the Sunday and Monday after Thanksgiving so hopefully Ron and I will be driving over to Boise Tuesday--Tuesday to spend turkey day with Staci and Clint. I am REALLY hoping we get to go.

meanwhile I realize I am back to neglecting This blog and all five of the posts I wrote last week have published and five more are due RSN.

groggily,

a

dueling blogs?

I knew going in that I would not be blogging much during September, though I am a bit surprised (appalled even) at just how hard it has been to get back into the swing of all things blog. The good news is that I have re-arranged my layout over on the books blog and am now (finally) displaying the CMF ad box correctly and am now serving only two rather than four Project Wonderful spots. The three column layout looks good to me, and I hope it will to my visitors as well.

I am way down to number eight or nine in the Books category on Entrecard at the moment, but I did manage to drop my three hundred cards today and have received more drops so far today than on any day in the past week. Will have to try to do the full 300 again tomorrow and hope that some of my ads produce so that I can move back up in the rankings. Meanwhile, however, I am getting some decent traffic from search engines and other non-EC sources. I notice that I've recently passed 50,000 unique visitors and 100,000 page views.

And then I peek over here and realize I have been competely neglecting This blog. (sighs). I was sick and did not work Fri-Sat-Sun. Went to the clinic and the chest x-ray showed fluid in my lungs and my white cell count was way high. They put me on an anti-biotic and gave me an albuterol inhaler. (Oh man, does that damn thing taste gross. ICK!). By Monday I felt somewhat better and dragged myself into work. It was a fairly nice and easy shift since my boss was not working that day.

I was Really bad and I stayed up all night getting all 5 of this weeks book posts published, or more accurately pre-published-- The Thin Red Line will have a new post go live at one minute past midnight Eastern Time on Wed-Thu-Fri and this will be the first time I've done five posts in a week in Ages. I also dropped my cards overnight. Now I'm thinking what I _really_ need to do is to put the lappy down and work on reading/planning for next week's posts, as well as the three missing Banned Books Week posts I have Promised myself I will back fill.

Men and women toil from dusk to dawn, but the blogger's work is Never done.

Happy Tuesday

Thursday driving lessons

With thanks to Cromley who posted on his blog about taking this little quiz:

What Your Driving Says About You

You are a creative, resourceful person. You can easily entertain yourself, and you make the best of any situation. You are always increasing your awareness of the world around you. You are a life long learner. You are a very fair person. You treat everyone equally, even when it's difficult to do. You can be a rather tense, grouchy person - but you try to maintain your dignity. You dislike authority and authority figures. You hate being told what to do. You hate being punished even more. You are focused and alert. You make sure that you are doing the right thing at all times. You are a very responsible and conscientious person. You often consider the feelings and needs of others. Your ego is a healthy size. You don't think you're more important than anyone else.

What Does Your Driving Say About You?

It seems pretty accurate as far as these things go. I have not been feeling well and just haven't been up to doing any blog stuff lately. If this keeps up I suppose I will have to go to the doctor. Feh.

one mo time, I suppose

So Sam is in the air en route back to Baltimore and much as we love him, Ron and I are happy to have the house back to ourselves. And I am Determined to get both blogs going again. I am off work until Friday morning and that should be plenty of time. Now if I can just make myself Do it.

Sam has to get his health insurance stuff straightened out and then may (or may not) be coming back here to stay. (If he does come we will move to a three bedroom house) which will be more comfortable all around. In addition to finishing up last week's Banned Books Week I have read and have on hand a number of other great books and really hope I can get my nose to the grindstone and get the blog going again. Gorgeous, sunny and cool in the Northwest today.

done with the workweek

whew. So I made it through Monday, which on my library work schedule is my "Friday" and I am thrilled to be to my two day weekend. Just finishing publishing Tuesday's book post. And was really thrilled to see that over 350 people visited the Monday post, thanks to Stumble Upon. (On the down side, mostly ignoring the books blog for the month of September has me Way down on Entrecard, number 8 in Books I think and the traffic from there Really falls off if you are not in the top three. Will have to catch up on my dropping this weekend. Hope your week is off to a good start.

a

Sunday

night. I am determined to make this the week that I get back into blogging every day, on both blogs. It is Banned Books Week, which at least gives me a ready made theme for the books blog and I Have ordered from the library all of the ten most frequently challenged books of 2007 that I have not already read many times over. Planning to post about two each day for the Monday--Friday week. The first post is done and set up to go live at one minute past midnight (eastern time zone). Just have to see if I can keep it up.

Sam is still here until the seventh of October but Staci and Kathi drove back to Boise on Friday. She has invited us to come over there for Thanksgiving, but who knows if we will be able to go. I will hopefully be back tomorrow.

Happy Wednesday

Apparently I am _never_ actually get around to posting here every single day, though it is a small comfort that I am managing to post more here than I do in books. And speaking of the books blog, this Wednesday morning brought a very pleasant surprise. I have finally dropped down under 100,000 in my Alexa ranking. (99,985 to be exact). I had previously been right on the verge (100,xxx) when Alexa changed the way they calculate (whatever the heck it is they are calculating) and I shot up to 140,xxx.

Now, I just have to find a way to get back into the habit of posting a book review every day. It's not that I've stopped bringing books home and reading. Somehow lately it is like pulling teeth to string together any words about books. And WordPress isn't helping either. Lately it seems if I save an incomplete draft post, when I re-open it, the compose window is mysteriously AWOL and absolutely Nothing will bring it back. Very annoying. So I recently finished a great book about bananas, and have and have read books for a cookbook roundup and an Easy book roundup, but the posts just are not getting written. (Egad, I've become one of those writers who Only writes about his struggles with writers block. Feh.)

Meanwhile, I called in sick on Monday and had a "lost day" and caught up on some much needed sleep. Then Tuesday Ron and Sam slept in most of the day Tuesday. So now it's Wednesday morning, and I am hoping to see both Brett and Staci today. Here's hoping all of you Monday--Friday types are having a nice 'hump day' and hopefully I will be back tomorrow with more news from the wacky world of Alan.

Sunday

evening. just one more Long day of work and then my three day weekend. The meeting was endless and very dull, then Saturday was a 'lost' day. Slept late, went to bed early and didn't Do much of Anything. Today work was Really bizzy, though now that we have three pages on Sunday we Can handle it, which is good. Came home and Sam announced he is taking us to Chinese Buffet for dinner tonight. Mmmm, mmm, good.

Alan (is Hungry)

whew

Well I made it through my Thursday night shift and then tomorrow, Friday, I have to attend an all day All Staff meeting. Which based on previous years meetings I expect to be endlessly boring. And this year rather than having the meeting in the morning then returning to open the branches for the afternoon, this year the meeting is All Day. I Tried to take a vacation day but my supervisor wouldn't approve it. Feh. Last year after the meeting she and I comisserated about how hot and dull the meeting had been. Ah well.

I feel bad about not blogging all week, but it has been busy. More tomorrow evening after work.

4,096 EC/ day

Phew. I've made it through my work week and am to my Tuesday/Wednesday "weekend". I logged into Entrecard and was shocked to find my ad price for Thin Red Line up to 4,096 EC /day. I don't think anyone actually bought at 2,048 but apparently four people bought at 512 all at the same time. I am hanging onto the number 3 position in Books, but the top 5 are all within 20 points of each other so lots of ups and downs are possible, though today's incoming drops are down. /me shrugs

Sam and Rick went off to run an errand. I was supposed to go pick Staci up at 5 pm, but it's five now and they aren't back so Ron called to let Staci know I will be a bit late. (Staci was rushing to try to get ready since she was expecting me any minute. I have a whole Bunch of great books on the couch (and have even Read some of them) so I am really hoping to buckle down tonight and tomorrow and post a full week of book posts this week. Tomorrow, I do have an appointment to go pick up my repaired hearing aids and return the loaners, then Wednesday we are going to take Staci to the zoo. That should be fun.

Hope those of you with traditional work schedules are off to a good week.

a happy Saturday

and a happy Saturday to you. Work kind of sucked but after it was over, I went and picked up Staci and brought her home and made a wonderful shrimp etouffee. Ron isn't feeling well and didn't want any but Staci, Sam and I really enjoyed it. Then Staci and I took a ride to Fred Meyer and bought ice cream. The chocolate cherry nut was So good. Hope your day was good too and check out my new book post over on The Thin Red Line.

another Friday

means back to work for me. We had a staff meeting from ten to eleven. They seem to be Really concerned that materials get put out on the shelves within 24 hours from check in. I am Not altogether sure how realistic that goal is or what Exactly they intend to do about it.
Ah well.

Thursday was a great day. I took Ron and Sam down to Mount Rainer and it was a lovely drive. I had intended we would eat at the restaurant at Paradise lodge well up the mountain, but the service was so abysmal we finally gave up waiting for a table. I didn't mean to, but when we left Paradise I set off in the opposite direction than the way we came in and we ended up exiting the park down at the southern entrance and so had a bit farther to make our way back home. I am thinking of going back there next week with Staci if she is up for it. I did go by Kathi's after work and visited with Staci for an hour or so. Tomorrow night I am supposed to make shrimp etouffee and she is going to come over for dinner.

Meanwhile I just need to get to bed and get to sleep so I can get up at 6:30 am tomorrow and be back at work 8a--2p. feh

dunno if

I am ever going to get back into book blogging mode. I have a huge stack right here on the couch but can't seem to write about any of them. Ron had a doctor's appointment this morning and afterwards Sam wanted to go back to the barbecue place in South Hill. So we did and I had the most wonderful BBQ brisket special. It was like a half pound of really good meat with baked beans and potato salad.

When we got home from that Staci called. Things have been hectic in her world. Since her last visit one of her friend's husband died, then she got sun stroke, and then most seriously her father had a stroke. She has spent the past week arranging for him to have nurses and a home health aid and is really grateful to be over here on vacation for a week or so. (Kathi leaves for Florida on Friday for about a week, then Staci and Kathi will drive back to Boise sometime thereafter.)

Meanwhile, since Staci will be busy with Kathi tomorrow, Ron Sam and I are planning to drive up Mount Rainier and hopefully have lunch at Paradise lodge. Paradise just thie year re-opened after being closed for remodeling for several years and I am anxious to see how it came out. Whatever else, it will be real nice to get back to Rainier again.

so this evening,

Ron's friend Mike took Ron, Sam and I out to dinner. We went to a place called Jambalaya and it was Really good. I had the most delicious cup of corn chowder to start and it was So flavorful, there were even little crawfish tales cooked up in it. Then for the entree, fried catfish topped with crawfish etouffee over rice. The etouffee was only adequate, but the fish was Really, Really good and I ate every bite. I passed on ordering desert but Ron gave me several bites of his sumptious choclate ice cream pie. A wonderful meal.

So I am home and trying to get into book blogging mode but not having a whole lot of success at that. Oh well. And I am down to number three in Books so not stressing on it anyway. cest la vie.

work today

was thanfully not that bad. My immediate supervisor was Off today (as in at home, not there) and without w0rrying myself about managing Beckie's perceptions and just Do the job like I've done it all along and my three day weekend starts NOW. I am thinking of driving us up to Mount Rainier on Thursday this week (I really want to see the renovations at Paradise Lodge), but Staci will be here then (she is house-sitting at Kathi's for a couple of weeks) and my little Saturn might be a bit cramped with all four of us in the car.

I suppose I could dig out my calendar and make sure but I think that Staci gets here on Wed and that Kathi leaves for Florida on Friday (0r is Tuesday/Thursday??). Anywho I am looking forward to seeing more of Staci than we did last time, when she was Really bizzy doing Kathi's major cleaning and clearing out project. Here's hoping that Staci and Sam hit it off.

Sunday

was hellishly busy, per usual. The only Good thing about Sunday is that it is only a five hour shift and we are only Open for four hours so at least it goes by pretty quick. And now that we have three pages working on Sundays we can actually keep up with the returns and shelving instead of getting the work room all backed up. So I am home and relaxing while Rick has driven Ron and Sam to the outlet to buy "snacks and stuff". I'm amazed to still be at number one in Books with a score over a thousand, though I see my Sunday readers/droppers are down per usual. It is nice to be number one though.

The boys are back and it's time to see about something for dinner.

Alan (has just One more shift to work until his three day weekend)

time flies

when you're having fun. Sam has been with us since Tuesday afternoon and we have been treated to eating out and all sorts of other little goodies. I have been very bad and have only published a total of _one_ blog posts. Ironically, while I have not been publishing this week, the books blog went to number one in the Entrecard category, and thanks to some good ad buys, traffic is Way up. Meanwhile I have a full weeks worth of books arranged next to me on the sofa and am hoping to push myself to publish five posts dated this coming Monday through Friday.

The Thursday close--Friday open work sequence was not as bad as usual this week, and I am thankful to be off today. It is cool, clear and very bright and sunny in the PNW today. Ron has a roast beast cooking for tonight's dinner and I am trying to get to work on the blog posts. Hope you're all having a happy weekend.

lost days

I _so_ did not get around to doing 5 posts for the books blog today. I spent lots and lots of time watching hurricane Gustav on tv, some time reading and too much time sleeping. It was a relief to see the hurricane give New Orleans a pass. I am annoyed with myself, however, for not getting any of the blog posts done.

Meanwhile Sam arrives tomorrow afternoon around 1:30pm. Ron talked to him on the phone tonight and he is really looking forward to being out here.

OGIF

oh gawd it's friday and work was hellacious. I was Hot and VERY sweaty all darned day, which seemed to go on forever and ever. Thrilled to be home and just surfing the web and catching up on this, that and the other. Ron is cooking beef stew for supper. It smells good and I am Hungry. I finally got around to going to the American Library Association site to confirm that this year Banned Books Week is September 27th-- October 4th. I found that I have never read six of the top ten most frequently banned books in 2007, so I have placed holds for all of them and will plan to write up the ALA list again this year.

The reason I got to thinking about this is because at work today I happened upon a copy of Something of Value by Robert Ruark, which I think is the book my friend Ron (as opposed to my partner Ron) recommended for Banned Books Week last year. I will have to go back to the old blog post to confirm that. I did bring home the book and will try to read and write about it. Back to work tomorrow and Sunday for two more no doubt equally stupefying days. For those of you who are off, hope it's a great weekend.

thursday afternoon feels

like Sunday night. Back to work at 8am tomorrow and I am So not looking forward to it. At least it will be a short week since we are closed Monday. Then Tuesday Sam arrives from Baltimore. I am thinking I will try to get a week's worth of posts up on TRL on my holiday Monday, since I probably will not have as much time with Sam being here. I finished a wonderful book last night, Dirty Martini by JA Konrath. I will probably blog that one for Monday's post and I am currently reading a few other books so hopefully by Monday I will have a week's worth ready to write about.

I was not able to get to sleep until around 5am, then slept til 1pm so I know it will be a bear getting to sleep tonight and getting up at 6am tomorrow for work. The only thing besides blog stuff I really did this weekend was to drive over to the South Hill library branch and browse and borrow from a different collection. On the way back from there we found a Really great barbecue place and had a wonderful late lunch. We will definitely want to go back there while Sam is here.

recovering

I have re-gained the number three spot in Books on entrecard and my traffic and drops from there are back up nicely, thankyewverymuch. Ron is channel surfing and landed on the DNC for a few minutes. Personally, I am very glad Not to be in that loud crowded hall. And politicsNPR is twittering the vote state by state so I am following it as I browse and compose. I find myself hoping that now having been able to go ahead and vote for her at the convention, Hillary's most die hard supporters will go on to support Obama. (Was appalled to read the other day that some of them are announcing they will support McLame rather than vote for Obama.) Mostly, though I am managing to just ignore politics these days.

I need to do another round of power dropping today and again tomorrow to firm up my hold on the number three spot. Then Friday-Saturday-Sunday I am back to work. We are blessedly closed so Monday is a paid day off, Yay! Bad news is after staying up all night Monday and then staying up all day yesterday I slept Forever and did not get up until one something this afternoon. I fear I will _never_ get myself back on a regular sleep schedule. Here's hoping your hump day Wednesday is going well and I will hopefully be back again tomorrow just to say hey.

been stumbled

Well, I finally got around to looking at my stats and figuring out why my traffic is Up Nicely even though my Entrecard visitors are way down. And the answer is, the Monday post about Edward Hasbrouck's The Practical Nomad has been Stumbled Upon. Barely more than twelve hours since publication and that full post page has already been viewed 262 times, hence the high traffic numbers. It's definitely not steady traffic and probably not very sticky traffic either, but Stumble Upon is great for getting a bunch of people to visit your post. Mystery Solved.

back on the chain gang

So after ignoring my books blog for almost a full week, I have published Monday and Tuesday posts, dropped about 500 entrecards (over two days) and am trying to get back into the swing of things. Bad news is I dropped down from third to sixth in the Books category, which will really hurt my organic clicks. The slightly better news is that I am less than 100 points behind the third place blog and I've a feeling I will get back up in the top three over my three day Tues-Wed-Thurs weekend. The even better news is that even though my EC traffic and drops are way down, my total visitors is actually up a bit, though I haven't dug into the stats to figure out just why. Meanwhile I have Wed-Thurs-Fri books picked out and mostly read so I will publish a full Monday--Friday week for the first time in ages.

I am contemplating formally declaring myself on vacation for all or part of next month and just letting the blog slide. (Though I shudder to think of how much work it will be to climb back up if I do.) OTOH, our friend Sam is coming out from Baltimore and will be staying with us Sept 2nd-- Oct 4th (and may decide to move in with us permanently -- YAY!!) and it would be nice to be free of the blog stuff so that I can have more time to visit. Have to contemplate that some more.

regarding blog ads

Yesterday's post drew a strong agreement from Cardiogirl in the comments. Having earned about forty dollars in the program, she feels compelled to stay until she gets the hundred, despite having learned that there are other, much more small publisher friendly advertising networks. On The Thin Red Line I am showing Project Wonderful ads at the top of the page, and while they are not making me rich, they do supply a steady cash flow that can be immediately used to purchase advertising or withdrawn in any amount above ten dollars. Many, many, many months ago I invested $15 and bought at ton of advertising with it. I've since taken out $10.01 and have a bit under 5 dollars on account.

When I remember to insert the ad code at the bottom of my posts, I have Adsense ads at the bottom of the full post page. I also have a small Adsense block in my sidebar, though you have to scroll down some before it becomes visible so it does not get the impressions the PW ads do up top. With only ten dollars earned I don't particularly feel compelled to stick around to get over 100 and get paid, though I can appreciate CG's point of view. I would definitely recommend to any new bloggers to Not get involved with Adsense.

TGIF

Thank God It's Friday and I am off tomorrow and have survived the first half of my work week. The three hours of meetings that started the day seemed to go on forever. (I was So tired when Ron woke me up this morning, I was just barely moving when I left for work at quarter to eight.) Blessedly, the remaining four hours of the work day went pretty quickly and I managed to perk up and get the books moving. In other news, after almost a year my Adsense earnings have reached ten bucks and Gooooogle has sent me a PIN number that I need to go to the website and enter. Whoop dee dee. Maybe if I publish for another ten years I'll actually reach the 100 dollar payout level. Feh.

Planning to take it easy tonight and hopefully do a book post tomorrow. I am Still tired.

thursday

Back to work this afternoon--evening for my 2:45--9:15pm shift, then have to be back tomorrow morning at 8 for my 8--3:30. These Thur--Fri combos are a killer. And after being up most all day yesterday, Earthlink is off and on again this morning so who knows if I will even be able to post this. Managed to get some blogging done this two day weekend but not as much as I would have liked to. I will be back tomorrow afternoon-evening and Saturday after work.

6 Unspectacular Quirks About Me

I have been tagged by Book Calendar with the "6 Unspectacular Quirks About Me" meme. The rules are:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules.
3. Tell six unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag six bloggers by linking.
5. Leave a comment for each blogger.


1. I still don't really like memes. Even now that I have this personal blog where such things aren't off-topic, I still find the whole meme thing rather silly.

2. I have considered getting professional help for my Diet Pepsi addiction.

3. I Really like tea, but rarely drink any.

4. I often stay up quite late and Hate getting up early.

5. I hated the heat, so I left New Orleans for Boston, hated the cold and snow and so left Boston for Seattle, where it's usually "just right".

6. I do not like liver.

I know that I'm now supposed to tag six more lucky bloggers with this meme, but find that I just can't bring myself to do so. So if anyone wants to play along, consider yourself tagged.

Sometimes You Just Want to Scream

Ok, so I totally bungled the 'write everyday' thing. And many things in my life seem to have conspired to keep me from regular posting. Our uber sucky Eartnhlink DSL, which has been mostly down, but occasionally annoyingly up, just long enough to load a single web page and make you Think you are online only to go configurator on you the moment you click on anything. So I finally got off my lazy ass and sauntered down to the library with my laptop. (And now I am one of those bored, tired looking patrons who congregate at the back tables (which overlook the front gardens, go figure), typoing away on my puter and surrepetitously people watching.

At the moment I kind of envy Vienne, the Eavesdrop Blogger. She no doubt, would be listening to the conversation of the odd group at the next table and by this stage of her visit to the library would probably have written one of her great posts. But I have no clue what any of those people are saying and hope, mostly, just not to be noticed by any fellow staff members who want to Talk. Feh. If definitely feels like busman's holiday being back at the library on my day off. But it sure is nice to be online.

Yikes

So somehow I let a week slip away from me without posting anything at all. And now of course I am nervous about posting, since I haven't posted for so long. And I feel of course that I should have some sort of explanation. Though I don't in fact really have an explanation. That first day with no post just kind of slipped by and from there it sort of snow balled. I have actually read a couple of great books, and even have a books post in the editing screen (and yet have been unable to finish it up for days and Days now) though no clue when it will actually be ready to post.

So now at least I have restarted my daily posting, even though this post isn't really about anything at all. And yet it is a post. So that tomorrow when I go to post again, it will show that I did at least write a post here today. A post about not writing posts.

feels like Sunday night :(

So tomorrow it is back to work for me. My two too quick days off were not nearly as productive as I had hoped (I still haven't taken that damned hearing aid up to Federal Way), though I did have a very nice lunch with Staci, who is flying home to Boise tomorrow and leaving behind Kathi's house looking like one of those home staging companies has just left. It was a transformation worthy of HGTV. Staci will be returning at some undetermined time in September to house sit when Kathi goes down to Florida gto visit her mother and we will get to see a lot more of her on that visit.

Today was errands payday = errands day. Ron and I went to the bank and to the Right Aid and to Group Health and to Brett's on our medicine run. And then Ron and Rick when and did major grocery shopping. Still need to fill up the tank. Staci put $10 in gas in for me when we drove down to Dupont for lunch at our favorite Chinese buffet, and after today's trips it's back down under an eight. At least it has finally dropped back just under 4 dollars a gallon here. I did manage to do a blog post and drop some Entrecards but fortunatley my visitors on The Thin Red Line have been good and getting better all week so the blog is holding its own. I am looking forward to being off on Saturday. Hoping this finds you off to a great Thursday.

I suppose you're right, but....

First off a BIG Thank You to cardiogirl who commented on yesterday's post something to the effect of 'so take your darned meds and maybe you won't be tired all the time'. And of course she's probably right about that, at least partially. Though from my end it's never that simple. For one thing, at the moment, I am out of several of my meds and it won't be possible for me to go pick them up until payday on Wednesday morning. But even when I am not out, I am just terrible about forgetting to take my pills. Ron and I both have little plastic trays with little boxes for morning, afternoon, evening and bedtime x 7 days/week. And having the pills all laid out like that definitely helps, but even so sometimes I just don't think about it.

Work today was blessedly abbreviated since Ron had a doctor's appointment this afternoon and I left for the day at 1pm instead of my usual 3:30. The cardiac surgeon says Ron's recovery is going well, though he was pretty critical with Ron for having gained ten pounds. I fell so bad for my sweetie. He just really craves carbs, poor thing. We didn't get back from the doctor's office until around 4pm. Came home, cooked and made dinner and now we are sitting here in front of the tv, both of us looking like we are about to fall asleep any minute. (And the cruel irony of this is that when we go to bed in a couple of hours, chances are we will both be Fully Awake and not much in sleeping mode. Thankfully I do have some Trazadone left and that should put me out.)

Meanwhile I am looking forward to seeing Staci tomorrow, though being the day before payday we will be very limited in what we can do. Ah well. Hope this find your work week off to a good start. Happy Monday.

Yawn

I seem to be Really tired A Lot lately. It's not yet 8pm and I can only just barely keep my eyes open and type this little post. I would think that maybe my blood sugar was messed up or something (I haven't really been fully compliant on my meds for ages now) but when I checked my sugar was 96, which is to say normal. With seeing Staci on Tuesday and then maybe having a doctor's appointment to take Ron to on Wednesday, I fear I won't get much blogging or catch-up resting done.

So I was telling Ron that I was thinking of maybe taking some time off in September when Staci will be here and he reminded me that his (our) friend Sam will be here from Baltimore from Sept 2nd to October 4th. I am really looking forward to spending time with Sam, though I am still thinking that I will take some time off while Staci is here, though I'm not sure how much vaca I have coming since I took off a full week when Ron was in the hospital for his bypass.

And the really sad part about my anxious anticipation of taking vacation while these two dear friends are here to spend time with, is that fact that deep down I suspect what I am really looking forward to is merely the chance to sleep in.

Saturday afternoon slowdown

Well, I am half way through my work week and enjoying my Saturday afternoon. Staci had been scheduled to fly home to Boise tomorrow but Ron called and it turns out she is staying on until Thursday because there is still so much cleaning to be done. (Rumor has it they have taken pickup truck fulls of stuff to the dump and three to charity; I'm told we will not recognize the house in its new cleaned up state.) So we now have plans to get together with Staci on Tuesday. Not sure what we'll do but even if we just hang out together it will be great to spend some time with Staci again. And she is coming back again next month to house-sit and dog-sit when Kathi is going to Florida to visit her mother. I am going to find out just when exactly this is to take place and request some vacation timeso we will be able to see her often then.

Apart from writing this little blog post and eating some chocolate chip cookies that Ron just baked I am kind of fading fast and expect I will be turning in fairly early this evening, even though I don't have to be to work until noon tomorrow. Goodnight.

Happy Friday

And a happy Friday to you. I have been busy since the 9pm (Pacific Time) Entrecard day change but am pleased to say I have managed to drop three hundred cards for one blog (none for the other alas) using an excellent drop list I stumbled on the other day at Windmill of My Mind. Most (though sadly not All of the listed sites included on this list have their widgets above the fold or at least just one or two clicks down the page, though occasionally I did run out of patience and give up on a site but even with having to add perhaps ten sites not on the list, I made my three hundred by midnight, freeing me to go to bed. This is critical since I start my Friday--Monday work week at 8am, and I definitely need to try real hard to get some sleep so that I can check in and scan all of tomorrow's books.

You may have noticed that I've been building my own EC drop list in a post below the fold, though I am only up to about 180 sites and dropping there is slower at least for now since i am continually clicking on ads in search of new sites to add to my list (and then adding them right away), which is why doing a similar number of drops early in the week took about four hours longer. I do intend to complete and maintain my own list, but this is very handy to have anohter's list to rely on when I'm buys and need to complete all dropping quickly.

Here's wishing you a great weekend.

a

Happy Wednesday

And a happy Wednesday to you! My days off from work always seem to go by much more quickly and much less productively than I intend. Apart from blogging and dropping cards, I accomplished absolutely nothing yesterday and today's start is not auspicious. I had a dentist appointment for 8:15 am, but overslept and missed it. Will have to try to get Ron to call them and reschedule. Meanwhile I am trying to get my blogging and dropping done for today so that I can take my broken hearing aid up to Virginia Mason in Federal Way and hopefully swing by Kathi's today to visit her and Staci. (Regular readers will note that I first blogged about that errand last week but never got around to it.)

I feel bad that I haven't seen much of Staci this trip. Since she is working for Kathi doing major housecleaning and organizing, she had to pass on our invitation to the Scottish Highlands festival last Saturday. (The fact that it would have been $15/each for admission plus $4 to park also weighed in strongly against going.) Ron seems extremely reluctant to call over there and talk to them (he and Kathi do Not care for each other At All). I messaged Kathi on Twitter yesterday but didn't hear back. I am thinking I will just stop by there en route to or from Virginia Mason and hope to catch them.

Here's wishing you a happy and productive Wednesday.

Phew!

It's 4:30am and my thought for the day is that I don't know how those folks with 5 blogs in the game survive all their dropping. After dropping 160-something credits Twice. Which has taken me from 9pm til 4:20 am (well, that and watching the first 12 episodes of Dallas in an odd DVD-induced flashback to 1978) I am suffering severe "click fatigue" combined with some vague voice of guilt (but did I Really drop Enough???) that I am telling firmly to shut up and get out of my haid.

A beginning, of sorts

Last June when I started my blog, which has come to be called The Thin Red Line, it was basically my personal diary or journal, and since I happen to work at a library and am literally immersed in books pretty much All the time, it also included the occasional book review. And then one day I stumbled into Blog Catalog, where I got and took some excellent advice from James Bashkin, who's Nearly Nothing But Novels blog was one of the first book-related blogs I found online, and in theory migrated my personal "journalling" over to this blog and focused the other site more tightly on book reviews.

Trouble is, in over a year of having this blog I have only written in it twice, and used it as a test site a couple of times and never actually got around to the journal. My friend Bev Sykes whose Funny The World has been showing the world what a great daily online journal looks like since long before anyone ever conceived of the term "blog". So it is with a tip of the hat to Bev that I nervously and cautiously begin this new experiment in writing daily about the wacky, wonderful world of Alan and Ron and life at the library. I'm a bit scared I won't know what to say some days, but I suppose I will just have to wing it. So welcome to my world and I hope you enjoy your visit.

Re-taking The Plunge

Welcome my friends and any odd strays who have wandered in here. I am preparing to actually launch this blog in the personal diary category and have pledged to myself to type Something in this space Every Day. Apart from the fact that I definitely will Not be doing any book reviews over here, pretty much anything is fair game, including whatever happened to happen to me today. (N0t to mention pissing and moaning about writing all those book reviews ;)

Sunday was as always a Hugely Bizzy day at work, and I am gearing up to one more day, Monday, before my three day weekend Tues-Wed-Thurs. I have an 8 ayem (youch!) dentist appointment Wednesday but hope to get plenty of rest and do plenty of reading and blogging this week.

So welcome again to my daily grind. I'll try to make it worth your time.

a

Some Weeks

Some weeks, it seems, I just can't write about books. I have finished two great books that need to get blogged and returned but I just can't seem to get to it this week. News here-- Staci is back in town, this time to clean Kathi's house. (and Kathi is paying her 15/hour so this time she is on a Paycation). It is great having Staci around again, though it has gotten me a bit riled up. (It turns out Staci was mad at us for not being in touch the last few days she was here last time. This is puzzling to me cuz I thought that Ron had told me he talked to her and she was busy her last few days in town last time, but maybe I was mistaken or misunderstood.

Yesterday, I was off and slept very late and really did not get much of anything at all accomplished during the day. Today I got up reasonably early and am going to try to get some stuff done today. For one thing I need to take one of my hearing aid's up to Virginia Mason in Federal Way to be sent back to the factory for repair. I also need to have a new earmold made and will need new tubing when it comes in.

Tomorrow afternoon it's back to work, but I will be off Saturday this week and we are going to see if maybe we can take Staci up to the Scottish Highlands Games which are being held this weekend in Enumclaw, just a bit up the road in King County. I have not been since a year or two before Joel died and find I am looking forward to a day at the fair with lots of guys in kilts. Here's hoping we get to go.