Kate McVaugh's Blog, page 9

New Book Launch

AVAILABLE NOW ON Amazon

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PEOPLE'S PARK, BERKELEY, CA 1969

People's Park 50th Anniversary & NEW BOOK LAUNCH

It has been nearly 50 years since the People's Park protests in Berkeley, California. The National Guard took over the streets, along with law enforcement from throughout the state, all stemming from a small patch of University owned land. Teenagers in Berkeley protested alongside university students and the city.

People's Park & 4 Teenagers
This article is included in the HeyDay Press upcoming book The Battle for People's Park, Berkeley, 1969
And then there's the fictional account of Letty White, who also took part in the protests while still a student at Berkeley High School. (before the CIA recruited her.)
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Book Launch

A NEAPOLITAN INTRIGUE

Ancient Roman streets, superb coffee, excellent clothes, and lush sea breezes; Napes, Italy has it all. Letty may just have found the perfect place to retire after a hectic life with the CIA and Interpol.
She’s enjoying her new life when, out of nowhere, a photo of her as a teenager in 1969 winds up on a dead body. How could the People’s Park protests of fifty years ago, in Berkeley, California have anything to do with her life now? And why are so many Russians after her?

It’s clear that the answers to her questions lie in the picture taken decades in the past. Her high school years of protests, sit-ins, and civil disobedience are so far from her life as a CIA agent, that she doesn’t know where to begin.

Luckily, former agents and friends, Taylor and Jim, step in to assess the situation and protect her from an ever-increasing number of bad guys that are bent on doing her harm.

Hoping to get back to a restful retirement, Letty must revisit that long-ago life to figure out what in the world is happening now, half a world away.

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
25 MARCH, 2019

Hallmark Addiction

CRISTMAS in GRACELAND photo credit: Crown Media - Katherine Bombay

I should be spending every spare minute finishing this darn book I've been working on for far too long. But it's dark and cold and winter simply does me in. Or that's my current excuse.

Lucky for me, Hallmark is running Christmas movies 24/7. You watch one....then another comes on...and then another. And there are two channels to choose from. They become rather addictive.

I honestly don't know how they come up with so many different movies every year. They have a roomful of writers and are always looking for more, according to their website. I wish I could come up with a pitch, but I know I don't have what it takes to write Hallmark movies.

One positive note: You watch a Hallmark movie and you sleep well with pleasant dreams. Even better than chamomile tea!

Tomorrow is another day and I will be up early to work on my book. I'll try to stay away from Hallmark movies until it gets dark outside.

Blue Angles in SF

October in San Francisco means clear skies and warm days. We generally get ripped off during the real summer months of June through August. This summer seemed even worse than most. I’m not sure I saw the sun more than a few hours a day – if at all – in August. But then came October, and with it the Blue Angles.
There is no more spectacular place to watch those aeronautical stuntmen than over the San Francisco Bay and in and out of the surrounding city and hills. When it is as hot and clear as it was this past weekend, all the better.
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if link does not work: katerambles.blogspot.com

National Railway Museum, York, UK

Trains are in my blood. My granddad and great granddad drove coal trains in Pennsylvania. My dad, for a summer or two, worked as a fireman shoveling coal into stem engines. There’s something about the all that gleaming metal and chugging and clacking that sets my mind to thinking about jumping on a freight train and leaving all my cares behind.

When I found out that York had one of the largest Railway Museums in the world, I penciled in a date on my calendar. Link: National Railway Museum

“Home to the iconic locomotives and as unrivaled collection of engineering firsts we celebrate the past, present, and future of innovation on the railways. We’re home to over 200 years of history and a million fascinating railway objects.”
Contine Reading Here

North York Moors & Whitby

I rarely take paid tours of anywhere. In fact I may never have taken one before my tour of the North York Moors, Whitby on the coast, and beautiful little villages in between. What a perfect day!

The North York Moors National Park encompasses over 500 square miles of rolling hills and dales. Created in 1952, it also contains all the small villages that have existed in its boundaries for centuries. How lovely it would be to say that you live inside a national park! Even better, there are rules set up to ensure whatever existed there prior to its inception, remains. There are no fast-food restaurants, or chain stores, or shopping malls; simply lovely countryside and quint villages that takes one’s breath away.
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Summer Solstice in York

The plan was to get out of the house at 4AM to document Summer Solstice 2018. Why? Because I can do it here. Never before have I been in a location where the first rays of sun are apparent at 3-something AM.
I am a morning person. I get up with the sun and the birds. Perfect mornings for me begin at 5:30 AM. That happens for a few months of the year in Northern California. And then it slowly descends into the hades of late fall and Daylight Savings Time. You can imagine how thrilled I was when the sun woke me up at 4AM. The problem is, I never get enough sleep.
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I Didn't Even Last 6 Weeks

I have just deactivated my Facebook account after less than 2 months. I only ever wanted an Author's Page, but could only do that if I first had a personal page.

It turned out to be as unpleasant an experience as I had anticipated. The voyeuristic aspect of Facebook is one of the main reasons I quit. I would find myself looking up people I hadn't been in contact with for years. I'd scroll through their life and pictures and then feel like taking a shower. I'd never make it as a stalker.

Then there are the privacy concerns. I have just handed over a slew of information to the folks at Facebook. Even though I deleted every Facebook search, and even though I clear and clean my laptop every single evening, Facebook keeps all that information. For example, ads kept popping up for an eyeglass company that I had contacted a month before. Names of people i might know continually showed up on the side of my Facebook page even though I had cleared them from my search box.

I will stick to Goodreads where it feels warm and caring. No doubt Goodreads has amassed a bunch of info about me, but at least they do not throw it in my face. Perhaps it is a false sense of privacy, but it sure beats Facebook's attempts to control what I do, as well as their preachy attitude.

Back to flogging my books on the street corners. I only ever did that once, but it seems like it might be something I should get back to.

I Didn't Win the PCH Sweepstakes

I did not win the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. I did not win the $5K a week for life. I am back to square one on my quest to become financially independent.

My mother used to enter the PCH sweepstakes back in the day when one submitted an entry by mail, not that she never won anything. When the contest comes up every year I always think about her, and so a few years ago I entered.
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