Doug Goodman's Blog, page 6

How Not to Start 2021: Sagas of Animal Butt Juice, Part II

Everyone wanted 2021 to be the game changer. It had to be better than 2020, right? For me, 2020 ended with Koda dropping some butt juice on my wife’s new book. Surely, 2021 would cross that low bar. Or not…

Every year we purchase a membership somewhere. Last year it was the museum, but this year my son wanted a zoo membership. I’m shocked that we haven’t taken him that often in since he was in first grade. I think this is one of those things that fell off the radar for our second child. Since the zoo is mainly outdoors, I thought, this is a pretty good idea. What could go wrong?

And it started on the right foot. We visited the sea lion, and my son was mesmerized. We saw lemurs and orangutans and poison dart tree frogs (some of my favorites – they look like little jewels on a leaf). The jaguar was pretty impressive, too. It was fun. We were talking, sometimes joking, and often just staring at exotic animals.

But what would a zoo be without a lion exhibit? This was the one exhibit my son had really been looking forward to. He wanted to see the lions. The Houston Zoo has a giant chunk of real estate dedicated to the big cats, which is good for them. It’s a major part of the zoo. People can line up along the walls and watch the lions run around. Before the pandemic, they used to do lion presentations, which always drew a large crowd.

The day we visited the zoo, though, the lions were sleeping and chilling. For the pride, it was a lazy day, a lounge on the couch and chill in my Snuggie while MTV teaches me how to Dougie kind of day. (Apologies to Bruno Mars.)

My son didn’t mind, though. He stood still and watched the lions do nothing. Being a Dad, I was already looking for the tunnel below the lion cage, where sometimes you can see more action (or at least get a close-eye view of the sleeping lions). The tunnel was open, so I suggested we go down there. “Sure” he said in that teenagerish way that implies he could or could not; he doesn’t really care.

Down below, the walls are lined with narrow windows at the top of the tunnel. There is a perch below so children can stand up and see the lions, too, but as adult-sized humans we could look out. Out of the corner of my eye I caught the lionesses running.

“Hey! Check this out!” It looked like it would interesting, if not a little exciting to see running lions.

We got closer.

The lionesses all stopped running. I remember one dropped to her belly. They were all staring up at something intently.

From the side of the enclosure walks this giant male lion with this beautiful mane. He looks so proud and impressive. I’m sure one day a baboon will be holding his babies over Pride Rock. I’m waiting for a James Earl Jones voice to bellow out of the lion’s mouth, or at least a robust roar.

No, the lion walks over toward us. It was so exciting! I cannot tell you how huge a male lion is. And with our worm’s-eye view of the lion, he looked even bigger.

Look at the size of that Mufasa!

With the lionesses watching, he gently rubbed an overhanging tree branch. It was poetic. Even better, I was catching it on film. It was that “dad’s intuition” that something interesting was about to happen. I don’t think dad’s intuition is given enough credit. Probably because it isn’t as useful or necessary as a mother’s intuition. If as a kid you’re going to skip dinner to go to a party with people you shouldn’t be partying with, mother’s intuition will say, hey, don’t let your child go there. Mother’s intuition says, today, wear your bike helmet. I don’t say it every day, but something about today makes me think you need to wear your helmet.

It’s not a worry stone of the mind if it’s right! And of course, it is. That day, the child falls off his bike and would have broken his skull open had his mother’s intuition not caught onto it. Or he would have gone to the bad party and gotten in with some really bad people. But he didn’t because of mother’s intuition.

Dads don’t have anything that cool or half as useful. We just have this intuition for when something cool or interesting is about to happen. So I said, son, watch.

And then the lion turned around to look at the lionesses. Okay, interesting, I thought. See, the dad’s intuition was really coming on strong.

He arched his back and stuck his butt up in the air. I think I zoomed in.

And then he sprayed us with his butt juice. Or maybe he urinated out of his bunghole. I’m honestly not sure about the biological process of male African lion scent marking, but it was definitely something!

The kids who were just entering the tunnel were oohing, aahing, and grossing out. It was incredible. I laughed. I had to. You don’t come to the zoo to watch lions lazing around all day. You want to see something interesting. Well, for my son and I and all the children who came to see the lion that day, Mufasa gave us something we’d never forget.

Sometimes adventures don’t have to be epic. Sometimes a silly adventure is good enough. And as long as I have my dad’s intuition, I should be able to find these kinds of moments for my son…

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Oblivion Dog Out Now

For readers of the Zombie Dog Series, I have a new short story out on my Patreon. In Oblivion Dog, Angie and Murder are hunting zombies at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, but what are zombies doing there, and why does NASA use them?

As a reminder, Patreon supporter receive early access to the Zombie Dog short stories. I don’t plan to send this story to my newsletter until mid-March at the earliest. I do this as a way of saying thanks to my Patreon supporters. If you want to read this fun new story about Murder, the only place to read it right now is in the Patreon.

Also, I wanted to give a quick thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of Terrible Lizard to support Mary Anning Rocks. I appreciate your support of building a statue for Mary Anning, a notable discoverer of dinosaurs from the 1800s who doesn’t get enough recognition. If you’d like to help, I am donating all proceeds from sales of Terrible Lizard and sign-ups to my Patreon (through February 8).

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Hunting With Dinosaurs Available Now!

New release day! Today is the debut of my brand new book, Hunting with Dinosaurs. It is available from Severed Press and out on Kindle. This standalone adventure deviates from the previous “with Dinosaurs” books in that it isn’t so dark. Don’t worry, though, the dinosaurs (Utahraptors in this case) are still horrific profanities of nature. But the focus is on a bowhunter being chased by the raptors and the wolf that is hunting them.

Let me make that clear: this story is about a wolf hunting dinosaurs. I cannot tell you how fun it is to write that scenario. So instead, I will include a sample. In this scene, the lone wolf has decided he needs a pack, and he is trying to recruit several Allosauruses into his pack by herding armored dinosaurs toward them.

+++++

The Nodosaurs were shorter and smaller than the Ankylosauruses he hunted yesterday. Much smaller nubs covered their reddish backs. Short horns adorned their heads, and their tails were not weaponized like a Stegosaurus or Ank. The tail simply tapered off.

Relative to the fully armored tank that he’d fought yesterday, Nodosaurs were vulnerable targets. But for what they lacked in plates, they made up in speed. Nodosaurs could easily outrun Anks.

For the Allosauruses, their speed was a very real problem, but for the wolf, their speed was a non-factor. All large dinosaurs were slow. What was fifteen or twenty miles an hour when you could run twenty miles an hour for hours, and you could sprint at thirty to thirty-five?

The wolf made his presence known, standing up tall and watching the herd. The shadow of his head slid across the backs of the Nodosaurs. Six adults and one calf lifted their heads in his direction. The other calves, unaware, munched on forest ferns.

The wolf pushed toward them. This herd had never encountered a wolf. They didn’t know what to do with him, but as herbivores, they understood claws and fangs. They didn’t like the idea of him hanging around. So the two males bellowed, and the herd ambled away.

They were walking up into the mountain forests. The wolf needed them down in the valley with the Allosaurus bachelors.

The lone wolf stole around to the far side of the herd, galloping low to the ground, then popping up on their right. He was closer than the first time he appeared.

A nearby female, not thirty yards from him, barked. The wolf barked back. The two male Nodosaurs stepped forward and flicked their ears at him and waved their tails.

Not far away, a boulder rested in the snow. The wolf scurried to the far side of the boulder. Several smaller rocks and a crisscrossed log lay against the far side of the boulder. The wolf climbed the log and rocks to the top of the boulder. He pushed his chest out. His hackles stood on end. He scanned the herd as he bared his shiny teeth. His tail flicked eagerly behind him. He was the predator. He was the killer. He allowed the wind to communicate the scent of meat and blood that emanated from his mouth, his fur, and his anus.  He was the one the shepherd feared, and they were the flock.

The two males did not trust this strange new predator in the forest. He was small, but fearsome and dangerous. The Nodosaurs turned and began trotting down to the valley.

The wolf waited until the right moment, then ran behind the herd, yipping excitedly. The Nodosaurs ran faster. Great billows of snow rose up behind them, and for a moment the wolf was lost in the kick-up. He used the cover to sprint to the side and appear parallel to them.

The Nodosaurs rumbled into the valley, a walking mountain of mass and noise. The wolf cried out happily. His plan was working. He remembered the location of the Allosaurus bachelors. He steered the Nodosaurs toward them, barking with all the happiness and joy of the hunt.

In the distance, Allosauruses crouched under the trees.

Wait, he wanted to tell them. Not yet.

The Allosauruses did not move. Their muscles tensed, but they remained in their position, like arrows drawn across the bow waiting to be released.

The lone wolf pushed against the side of the herd wall. The Nodosaurs reacted in kind, veering toward the Allosauruses.

Now!

The wolf barked loudly at the two meat eaters. Attack!

Hunting With Dinosaurs is available on Kindle.

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Terrible Lizard Supports Mary Anning Rocks

Have you ever had one of those days where all your plans were destroyed only ten minutes into the day? That was my Monday morning. I was going to finish a chapter in Murder Dog when I saw something on Facebook that upended everything and refocused all my attention onto another favorite subject of mine, dinosaurs.

A friend was supporting Mary Anning Rocks, a crowdfund set up by an 11-year old girl and her mother. They are raising money to build a statue of Mary Anning in Lyme Regis, in England. I was real excited because I knew about Mary Anning and her legacy. For anybody who isn’t aware (and it makes complete sense if you haven’t heard of her), she is one of the most (un)celebrated paleontologists from the 1800s. Fossil hunter, desenter, and possible origin of the nursery rhyme “She sells seashells down by the seashore,” Mary helped point out that ichthyosaurs were dinsoaurs, not fish. She also discovered the first two nearly-complete skeletons of plesiosaurs and found the first pterosaur outside of Germany, but since she was a woman, she was never given credit for her discoveries. She is considered one of the greatest scientific pioneers from the UK, but very little is mentioned of her. That is why it is important to build a statue honoring her and why it is important to celebrate her contribution to science.

After last year’s successful pandemic fundraiser benefiting the Galveston County Food Bank, I wanted to create an opportunity for you to support the building of this statue while also getting freebies from me.

There are several ways to donate to the crowdfunder. First, you can donate directly to it. The crowdfunder has raised 82,000 pounds, but their goal is 100,000 pounds. Yesterday morning I donated 10 pounds. If you decide to donate directly, e-mail me a screenshot of the donation receipt and I will send you a free e-copy of Terrible Lizard (PDF or MOBI file). The crowdfunder  will continue for the next 16 days (through February 12).

To provide some additional incentive while  putting some of my own skin in the game, I’ve created three additional ways to contribute and get my books. When you sign up for my Patreon over the next two weeks (through February 8), I will donate all my proceeds to Mary Anning Rocks. Plus, I will e-mail you that free ecopy of Terrible Lizard. You can register for the Patreon for as little as $1 and get the ecopy, but the higher the tier, the more I can donate.

If you prefer to purchase the full-priced Kindle version via Amazon, I will donate all those proceeds as well. Basically, because I think this is such a great and cool thing they are doing, if I earn money from Terrible Lizard over the next two weeks, I’m funneling it to Mary Anning Rocks. I hope I get your support to do this.

I have a third option for people in the United States. Read about it below. I hope you donate or help me to donate by joining my Patreon or purchasing Terrible Lizard.

Terrible Lizard Variant Edition

I created a unique variant cover to the paperback version of Terrible Lizard. I love it! While there are no plesiosaurs in Terrible Lizard, the cover echoes Mary Anning’s work discovering  fossil marine life. She discovered both skeletons of plesiosaurs and ammonites on the Jurassic Coast. I only intend to make this cover available through February 8. I will order 5 copies, which you can get your hands on if you are located in the US. I am selling them for $20 each. Each one will be numbered and signed, as well as include on the back cover a painting of Mary Anning and a description of her life and significance.

There it is. Three different options for supporting Mary Anning Rocks: sign up on my Patreon ( I will have a new short story there in the next week or two), purchase an e-copy of Terrible Lizard, or purchase a paperback with the variant logo to support Mary Anning Rocks.(In order to purchase copies, I will make this book “live” on Amazon. Should I just leave it up for the next two weeks? Let me knwo what you think. Either way, the signed and numbered copies will be available by contacting me. You will pay for the book through Paypal, and once I have my copy, I will mail it to you.) If there are any questions, let me know. And thank you again for donating!

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That One Time Inauguration Day Really Hit Me Hard

I often say that, good or bad, my life has rarely been directly affected by the actions of a President. So to me Inauguration Day has never been an important part of my calendar. It’s just another day. I go to work, I do my job, I come home to spend time with my wife and children. That’s never changed with any president. Except once…

January 20, 2009 was a historic day in American history because the first black leader was sworn into office as the President of the United States. This happened the day after MLK Day. I’d taken an additional day off to do build my fence. Hurricane Ike hit Houston September 13, and I still didn’t have a fence around my yard. Over the winter break I dug all the holes (thank you, auger) and put up the beams and crossbeams. Now I needed to add the planks. This was the last part, and I was excited. Once the planks and gate were up, my dogs could walk about freely in the backyard for the first time in almost four months.

I drove my beloved 4Runner to the Home Depot. It’s not far from me. Maybe a mile, tops. I was almost there when a kid blew threw a STOP sign and T-boned the 4Runner. Okay, that’s oversimplifying the physics involved. It’s more like, the car accelerated to beat me to his stop sign. The kid lost control of his car, and it swiped into the ditch. To escape the ditch, he gunned the accelerator on the already speeding car and rammed me. So even though he was coming from my right, the car struck me on the left. At least, that’s what I was told. I don’t remember those 2 or 3 seconds and I don’t remember the sporty little white beater car zooming across the street. The dent on the driver-side door says that’s where he struck me. Because of the height difference between his little car and mine with a modest lift kit, I think he’s lucky he didn’t kill himself.

The car struck mine with so much force that he spun the 4Runner catawampus (love that word) and pushed it part-way into the ditch. It was a big impact!

I was phased, and my glasses were thrown somewhere else in the car. When the police arrived, they helped me find my glasses. By then, the kid’s father had driven up. The kid finally came to a stop about fifty or so yards away. The father was consoling his son. I still wonder if they’d had a fight at the Target/Home Depot and the kid was driving mad. But I’ll never know.

Another man who’d happened to be driving the other direction opposite me was there. I remember him yelling at the kid that the kid couldn’t be patient enough and this was what happened when you weren’t patient. “I hope they arrest you and lock you up!”

Very quickly, a tow truck appeared out of nowhere, got the 4Runner, cleaned up all the broken debris splashed along the road, and then disappeared. I was in a blur, but this all seemed to happen very quickly. I feel like from the point where I left the house to when the police officer dropped me back home was less than ten minutes. In ten minutes my life went from “let’s go fix the fence” to “what do we do now?” We’re doing hurricane home repairs and now we have to buy a new car, too? Life was piling up, for sure. But I survived the wreck and we rebuilt our home, so that means all of this is an adventure. I began the short process of reporting the accident to my insurance company. While I reported, on the television Supreme Court Justice John Roberts was administering the oath to Obama.

So while the events aren’t causal, I still equate Obama’s inauguration as that time my car got totaled. The juxtaposition between a peaceful transition of power and a violent transition of cars will always remind me of that day. Hopefully nothing like that happens again, and I can go back to Presidents not impacting my day-to-day. I hope the same can be said for you.

Beautiful family, beautiful car

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Nerd Alert: Recapping Wanda and Vision

We sat down Friday afternoon and watched the two new WandaVision episodes. I felt a tinge of nostalgia for the old afterschool 1960s programming that I’d watch when I was little. Shows like Bewitched, Gilligan’s Island, etc. But the difference is WandaVIsion is wrapped up in the very modern Marvel Cinematic Universe. But watching the show got me wondering more about Wanda and Vision and their relationship. So I went back and re-watched Avengers: Age of Ultron, one of the least favorite of the MCU movies. And then I re-watched Infinity War. Well, I had to see Endgame, too! So this MLK weekend I ended up binging Avengers movies.

So, Spoiler post if you haven’t watched these, but that sounds silly to say because the movies have been out for years.

For a recap of Wanda and Vision, here is where the series left off at the end of the movies: Vision is one of the only true deaths in the movies. Gamora and Black Widow are taken for the Soul Stone, and Vision was killed twice: first by Wanda when she destroyed the Mind Stone, and a second time by Thanos, who uses the Time Stone to resurrect Vision so that he can claim the Infinity Stone.

At the end of Endgame, Wanda is recovering. Like many others, she was “dusted” at the end of Infinity War. She comes back to life when Hulk snaps everyone back, and she fights Thanos directly for killing everything she loved. She almost kills him, too. But then Thanos orders his ship to blast the entire area into nothing. That’s the only way he escapes her. It’s a pretty cool action beat that sets up Captain Marvel’s entrance when all the cannons suddenly shift up into the sky and unload into the clouds.

After the battle, at the funeral scene, Wanda and Hawkeye share a moment whether or not Black Widow and Vision know that the Avengers won. Wanda says “They both knew.” There is a little side-hug, and the clip leads us to believe that these characters are moving on. I think that’s important because it means that if Wanda has created this world where Vision is still alive just to be alive with him, it’s a bit problematic.

But that’s where it ended. Where it began was in Age of Ultron, when Wanda is presented as a powerful “enhanced” and an enemy of the Avengers. It isn’t until the end of the movie when she and her brother see the villainy in Ultron that they join the Avengers. Vision is created in Age of Ultron, and becomes the first character not named Thor to be able to wield Mjolnir. This is important to the story because it is the convincing argument in whether or not this new sentient AI is dangerous like Ultron or a friend.

As an aside, one of the reasons that Age of Ultron is given such a hard time is that it is trying to do too much. And re-watching, I tell you, it is. It sets up a lot of the things that happen for the rest of the Avengers movies, and I’m including Civil War in that statement. It creates Vision, introduces Wanda, explores the relationship between Hulk and Black Widow, escalates the tension between Captain America and Iron Man (which will lead into Civil War) and ends with the destruction of Sokovia, which directly impacts Civil War. It just does SO much. And so much of Endgame will echo back to this movie. So while it isn’t the fan favorite, Endgame doesn’t work as well without it.

The other thing to mention about Age of Ultron is that at the end, Wanda falls over, and Vision swoops in and carries her off. It is a nice little nod to the connection these two characters will have.

Infinity War begins for Wanda and Vision in Scotland. They have apparently been keeping out of the light and living together. Clearly, a deep connection has grown between the two of them since the end of Age of Ultron. I don’t have a lot to say about them in Infinity War because not a lot is said about them. Infinity War and Endgame have giant casts and lots of plot beats to hit, so while the things that happen to Wanda and Vision don’t feel rushed, they don’t say a whole hell of a lot, either. Wanda and Vision love each other. They haven’t been checking in with other Avengers like they are supposed to, and then the Children of Thanos show up to claim the Mind Stone. What I do like is that, after Civil War, a lot of the heroes have split up. Some are in hiding like Captain America and Falcon, and others are living their best lives in the US like Iron Man. Apparently Wanda and Vision decided screw it – they’d just head out together somewhere. I’d like to think that they traveled the globe, visiting random places, taking bad Instagram photos, and forgetting about the world.

That should catch you up on where the characters are. Wanda isn’t trapped by anyone. Where she goes after Endgame isn’t really said, but it hasn’t been said for many of the characters. The pandemic has been a big cause for that. This is the first thing (television or movie) that the MCU has put out in over a year. I still can’t believe it’s been that long. And while I’m not sold on WandaVision yet, I love that the MCU is back, and I love that we are getting the chance to explore some characters that haven’t really been explored in the main cinematic universe. Think about it: How are they bringing Vision back? Are they bringing him back? Who has trapped Wanda? Why have they trapped her? I have so many questions, and the nerd in me who loves watching these movies is really curious where we’re going with these characters. (Hopefully to episodes with better plots than talent shows and bosses coming home for dinner.)

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The Most Disgusting Way to End 2020, AKA: Sagas of Animal Butt Juice, Part I

How was your New Year’s Eve? Mine had a weird moment. But before I get into it, I need to warn you, this will be the strangest and most disgusting dog story you’ve read this year. I make this claim knowing full well we are only a few days into the new year.

It started with a squirrel. Ryder was just chilling in the backyard with me and Koda, and then a squirrel jumped into the maple tree, and Ryder’s radar ears went up as she zeroed in on the squirrel like a TIE-fighter pilot in Star Wars. Her back straightened like it was full of titanium rods. It was really tight! She approached the tree one foot at a time.

Stalking squirrels…

She decided she was close enough (and maybe she has fading vision because she was not near close enough – she was still ten feet from the tree). Ryder barked, the squirrel ran, and like some weird OCD guard, my German Shepherd immediately had to walk the perimeter. She marches off, head held high, and Koda notices all this for the first time. He comes to get petted by me, then goes to check on her like What’s all the ruckus? Is there a fire that needs to be put out? But he’s asking in that mild way because he knows there’s no fire to be put out; he’s just asking because he wants in on whatever’s going down.

Ryder has no patience for this. She is walking the perimeter, and then over to me to be petted. An aloof dog, she rarely wants to be petted, but as a GSD, she has done her duty, and she wants it acknowledged. Sir, I have barked at the squirrel and I have walked the perimeter. I require two pats on the head as your acknowledgement that I have protected you.

I pet her on the head. Twice.

Now comes the disgusting part. There are two things going on here. One, Koda is a shit-eater. We’ve tried different strategies to work it out, but sometimes, that dog just has to eat a turd. Couple that with Ryder, who is losing control of her bowels. So she sometimes has a fresh one hanging under her tail where nobody can see, but Koda can smell. And I know she has a fresh one because he shoves his nose in it.

Ryder rarely seems to mind, but we find the whole thing utterly disgusting. See what I mean? You thought you had an odd New Year’s? This was New Year’s Eve morning.

I yell at Koda. Stop that!

Ryder moves on, having been petted/congratulated and now cleaned. Koda, being Koda, needs to be petted, too. I don’t want to pet him. Why would I want to pet his head when his muzzle’s been up her butt? You can’t get around the muzzle. Koda has a giant nose and a bigger mouth, so if I pet him, one way or another I’m getting dog crap on my arm.

While my mind is going through all the logical scenarios, Koda is still munching on whatever disgusting thing he pulled out of her. I’m ready to gag.

Again, Koda doesn’t care. He is a dog who loves my attention, and he wants to be petted. He has a one-track mind about this, a singular goal: to be petted. So he comes at me and (I say this only because it seems highly appropriate to this one instance) – SHIT YOU NOT – Koda drops a fat glob of drool on the Trevor Noah book I’m reading, my Christmas present to my wife, the book she has (thankfully) already read.

So now that the book is permanently stained, I shove Koda away, and I’m going inside because this is the most disgusting thing that can happen on a New Year’s Eve. But, being a person who loves his wife and appreciates paper, I don’t just toss the book aside. I’ve got to fix this! I’m now fanning the pages. Who wants to read that’s had butt juice absorbed through Chapter 10 and 11? Sacrilege!

This is the point when I realize how much I value the written word. As a writer, I know that a lot of effort went into this book. People took time to edit it, format it, line up the spaces and the page numbering. This is all important, but is it “clean off the dog butt juice” important? Apparently the answer is yes.

Thanks, Koda! (Sorry, Trevor!)

I can’t believe how yuck this got. If you have a more disgusting story, I dare you to share it here. keep it to yourself because I don’t want to know what is more disgusting than getting dog butt juice on a brand new book.

Thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying my silly little stories. I’m a writer from Texas who dreams of one day writing full-time. I write the Zombie Dog books, which you can find here both digitally and paperback. I also have a Patreon account here.

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My Straight-Forward 2020 Recap Without Any of the Hooray Because 2020 Doesn’t Deserve It

2020 was a tough year, worthy of all the bad things written about it. I thought about doing a big celebratory HOORAY, MADE IT THROUGH 2020! kind of post, but I don’t think 2020 deserves it. While it was a pretty good year for me filled with highs and lows, it’s still 2020 and can go to hell. So here is my straight-forward recap of the past year.

THE BEST: Because of the pandemic, I got closer to my family. (More on this below.) I think I communicate better with my wife, and our love for each other has grown through the pandemic. I can’t pinpoint any one technique or rule we followed to improve communication and grow our love. We were isolated for seven months. Either your relationship improves through something like that, or it doesn’t. NOT SO HARD: Not traveling. For the past five years or so, I’ve spent 5-6 weeks on the road. The last one was to Puerto Rico, and after my work was done, my wife booked a hotel and she and my son met me in PR. After a trip to Puerto Rico, I could use a break. And yet, we were visiting my in-laws in early March when the world started to shut down. And then in June we helped my parents move out of their house and move across the country, so we did some travel, but it was a very different kind of travel experience. So not traveling on long vacations this year was not missed so much, at least for me. VERY TOUGH: My daughter not walking for her graduation. She worked really hard and deserved it. She has been staying with us since mid-March, which I think is better for us than for her. She is 22 and ready to move on with her life, which is very relatable and we absolutely support her in this. I wish her the best. Due to the pandemic, she just hasn’t been able to get to grad school physically. She’s been accepted and will be attending, but pandemic rules means she’s at home for now. I am sure she will move to grad school at some point in 2021. In the meantime, I have treasured this extra time with her.AWESOMENESS: Dropped 30 pounds. I’ve never dropped so much weight before in my life, and I now weigh what I weighed when I first came to Houston 20 years ago. I did it on Slimfast, mostly, but I’ve also started jogging and cycling.COOL: Read 35 books this year, and usually I read about 20. Some of these books, like Into the Wild, I don’t think I would have read, but when you remove commute times from your life and remove extracurriculars from your family’s world (no more soccer schedules), you have a bit of free time, which I filled with books. If you want to keep up with my reading habits, here is my Goodreads link.VERY TOUGH: Online schooling. It was the worst. I’d give it a one star review. October and November were very, very tough. It didn’t help that my workload was soaring. Online schooling is a big part of why Murder Dog will be releasing later than planned. One day I may write about it, but I think anything I said today would be more emotional and less constructive. THE HARDEST: One side of my family pretty much all got COVID-19 at the same time. It’s a multi-generational house. Everybody recovered, but that was a scary couple of weeks. Lots of hugs and tears then. BOOK AWESOMENESS: I published two books this year, Mountain Climbing with Dinosaurs and Ghost Dog. I also wrote Hunting with Dinosaurs, which should come out in early 2021. I am half-way finished with the rough draft of Murder Dog, which I project will release summer 2021. DOUBLE BOOK AWESOMENESS!: Two books on Bookbub?!? Wow. Wendigo Road and Dominion. Both exceeded way beyond my expectations. Wendigo Road was advertised on Bookbub in May 2020. It’s gone from 13 reviews to 150+ reviews. Dominion had its sale in early December, and it made number one for post-apocalyptic fiction in several countries. TWO MOMENTS OF PRIDE: My daughter receiving her college diploma. She is going to change the world, y’all. I just know it. The other is donating almost $300 to charities (based on book profits). I was blown away that you, dear reader (if I may steal from Mr. Stephen King for a moment), through your purchases and reads, allowed me to donate so much to charity. Thank you!WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT MYSELF: So, yeah – I’m definitely an introvert. It’s weird how much better I felt working from home. There was less stress overall this year for that reason alone. I just felt more comfortable. APOCALYPTIC SKILLS I MASTERED: Gardening and cooking. I am not a chef, but I am a much better cook than I was before, and I have many more recipes in my arsenal. I maintained a pandemic garden with peppers, okra, herbs, and now brocolli. Also, I learned how not to strip a bench and make ketchup water balloons. MOMENTS I WILL REMEMBER: Cycling with my son, taking excursions to state parks with my wife, and sitting on the back patio with my daughter, having late-night talks. Watching scary movies with my family at Halloween. Chilling in the backyard while my heathens be heathens. Ryder knocked the poop out of Koda is a standout moment for my dogs and their relationship.

With all the unexpected that 2020 heaved up, I can’t imagine what adventures and dog shenanigans 2021 has to offer. What I do know is I can’t wait to have them.

Hey, thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying my posts. I’m a writer from Texas who dreams of one day writing full-time. I write the Zombie Dog books, which you can find here both digitally and paperback. I also have a Patreon account here.

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This Isn’t Really a Blog Post: Charity Donations Update

The Christmas season is a great time to give an update on donations. Twenty percent of my book profits I send back to nonprofits and charities. I’ve been doing this for a year and a half now, and I’m really glad I started. Sure, I don’t see quite the profit margin I would have, but I like being able to donate to these groups.

I choose the group based on book sales. Most of my self-published book sales are for the Zombie Dog series, so I like to donate those profits to a local no-kill shelter. When Terrible Lizard or one of the New Profanity books does well, I provide to Dinosaur Ridge. I have also donated to the Native American Heritage Association and the Galveston County Food Bank. This year I donated almost $300 to various charities.

The Galveston County Food Bank is new this year, and a direct reflection of the times. I’d heard how the food banks are struggling, so back in March and April, I did book sales for all the Zombie Dog books. Then again this month when I was looking at the donations that I usually send to Bay Area Pet Adoptions, I decided I’d rather send the autumn donations back to the food bank. They are doing wonderful things helping out the people in our country who are out of work and hungry.

As an aside note, I purchased some Scouting popcorn from a scout in Amarillo, Texas earlier this year. The boy had a bad encounter while selling popcorn, and the person answering the door was very unkind and using negative language. (I think they were taking out their frustrations and anger with the organization out on the young scout, which is the wrong thing to do.) So I said screw them, I’m buying some popcorn. I sent my purchases to the Galveston County Food Bank. Hopefully they were able to use it, but honestly, if they have stipulations that don’t allow them to accept food donations through the mail, and they had to toss it, that’s fine, too. The point was to support the young scout.

I also want to highlight Dinosaur Ridge. Unlike the other nonprofits, I have an account with them. The cool thing about the account is that I can see how much I’ve donated in the last 18 months. I was shocked to see I’d donated $163 to them. I have to admit, this was to the benefit of my own ego. As a writer, you always assume the worst. I won’t be successful, nobody will buy my book, etc., etc. So seeing that $163 gives validation to my sales. I mean, that’s only 20% of the sales, so the rough math says I sold a lot of those books!

Donating is important. I don’t look at these books as being my main source of income (though I would very much like them to be). So instead, I want to do good with them. I want to have fun and be creative, laugh and cry, and maybe help somebody out with them. Which is why I want to say thank you. Sincerely, it means a lot to me that you’ve purchased my books. If you didn’t buy them, I couldn’t donate this money. So, thank you. I hope you have a happy holiday! Being able to give back to others has increased my Merry Christmas.

Hey, thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying my posts. I’m a writer from Texas who dreams of one day writing full-time. I write the Zombie Dog books, which you can find here both digitally and paperback. I also have a Patreon account here.

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UPS Doesn’t Share My Sense of Humor

Like everybody else, I’m trying to send presents to relatives. My brother and his family live in Washington, so I need to get running to the UPS store to make sure my presents arrive before Christmas (the gift cards to their kids, Andrea already mailed out).

I have my two little presents that I carefully wrapped in Santa Claus wrapping paper and put little name stickers on for them. When it’s my turn, I hand over the presents, the guy behind the counter puts them in a box that he’s taped up. He then asks me what’s in them. Not in a casual “so, what are you sending your brother” way, but in an official capacity. I’ve just heard somebody else being ordered to present their contents. This doesn’t jive with me.

“Does it matter what I say? They’re presents.”

“Right. But what kind of presents. We have to include this information now.”

Fine. The writer in me spins through a couple of ideas. One pound of uncut cocaine, a la Jenny Lawson? Copycat, you can do better. Explosives? Bazooka? That might get him in trouble with Homeland or ATF or somebody. My mind spins. What is something that is probably legal but also embarrassing to receive? You probably know exactly where I’m going with this.

“Well, it’s for my brother, so put down ‘sex toys.'”

The people on my side of the counter think I’m genius. And to his credit, the guy putting together my box of Texas memorabilia sex toys, he’s laughing, too. He starts entering the information.

Unfortunately, the other women behind the counter did not share our sense of humor. They get really mad. Angry eyes, which is important in the pandemic when everybody’s wearing a mask. “Sir, U.S. Customs goes through every one of these boxes, and if they are not an EXACT MATCH, you can get into trouble. At the very least, your items will be returned.”

I can see I have royally ticked this employee off, and I know the workers at UPS are under a lot of stress, so I don’t want to upset her any more. I say, “Okay, it’s really BLANK and BLANK.” (BLANK cause I don’t want to ruin my brother’s presents.)

The kicker is, after the order is put into the system, he can’t ring it up, and the woman who was not impressed with my humor, she tells him my package can’t be done on her register because it doesn’t do international.

Last time I checked, Washington was still in the union.

The guy helping me explains it isn’t international, and she says “Oh, that’s why I brought up Customs. For domestic, the item list is only needed for insurance purposes.” But she also has that same smug look on her face, like she was really happy that she was wrong about that because she did not want pretend sex toys being mailed from her office.

You may be thinking I’ve lost and she got her way, and you’d be right. But I’m a writer, and I will get my revenge my own way. Since I only need this for insurance purposes, I’m going to get real creative in my distribution. Sex toys and headless corpses seem to barely breach my capability.

Hey, thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying my posts. I’m a writer from Texas who dreams of one day writing full-time. I write the Zombie Dog books, which you can find here both digitally and paperback. I also have a Patreon account here.

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