Mark R. Hunter's Blog, page 39
September 22, 2019
Mark Hunter and the Albion Rovers
As all fourteen of my regular readers know, my name is Mark Hunter and I come from Albion, Indiana. What you might not know is that I have internet alerts set, so that if someone talks about my writing I know. It's like spying, only … well, it's just like spying.
Sadly, most of the hits are about one of the other 1,400,000 Mark Hunters on the internet, which explains why I usually stick in my middle initial. But as a result, I get fun things like this:
'Never say never': Albion Rovers chief admits Cliftonhill Stadium could be sold for the right price
Scottish Daily Record
Cliftonhill may have stood at the heart of Coatbridge for a century – but Albion Rovers financial director Mark Hunter refused to rule-out selling the …
So whenever I get too full of it, I can remind myself that not only am I not the only Mark Hunter from Albion, but I'm not even the financial director.
(The original story is here: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/l....)
No, no, not him! Although as the CEO of Molson Coors, he's the Mark R Hunter to go to if you want a beer.
(By the way, eight of my fourteen readers have not yet bought their copy of Coming Attractions. Remember, whenever someone doesn't buy a book, a bear loses all its hair and gets teased for being a bare hair bear. Who wants that?)
Find all of our books at:
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Sadly, most of the hits are about one of the other 1,400,000 Mark Hunters on the internet, which explains why I usually stick in my middle initial. But as a result, I get fun things like this:
'Never say never': Albion Rovers chief admits Cliftonhill Stadium could be sold for the right price
Scottish Daily Record
Cliftonhill may have stood at the heart of Coatbridge for a century – but Albion Rovers financial director Mark Hunter refused to rule-out selling the …
So whenever I get too full of it, I can remind myself that not only am I not the only Mark Hunter from Albion, but I'm not even the financial director.
(The original story is here: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/l....)
No, no, not him! Although as the CEO of Molson Coors, he's the Mark R Hunter to go to if you want a beer.
(By the way, eight of my fourteen readers have not yet bought their copy of Coming Attractions. Remember, whenever someone doesn't buy a book, a bear loses all its hair and gets teased for being a bare hair bear. Who wants that?)
Find all of our books at:
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
September 19, 2019
Always Be Closing
Don't forget my romantic comedy Coming Attractions, available wherever my novel named Coming Attractions is sold! Especially on our webpage, of course:
http://markrhunter.com/
Well, a guy's gotta blow his own horn now and then, otherwise the horn gets rusty, and so does his blowing ability. On a related note, you can find my and Emily's books on Amazon, too:
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Remember, if our books don't sell they could be eaten by zombies, and give them enough ink energy to go looking for more food. Don't start the zombie apocalypse.
http://markrhunter.com/
Well, a guy's gotta blow his own horn now and then, otherwise the horn gets rusty, and so does his blowing ability. On a related note, you can find my and Emily's books on Amazon, too:
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Remember, if our books don't sell they could be eaten by zombies, and give them enough ink energy to go looking for more food. Don't start the zombie apocalypse.
September 18, 2019
What I didn't do on my summer vacation
I'm back!
Not that we went far: we had a two week vacation that was almost all spent at home, largely because of my annual super sinus infection and some family responsibilities. I did catch up on sleep--this is something all third shifters appreciate. We also caught up on some reading and watched a season of Game of Thrones, which is not what I'd call "relaxing" TV.
More important, once I was feeling up to it I got some writing done, and I'm up to 24,500 words on my work in progress. No, not that work in progress, which is awaiting Emily's editing skills. No, not that other work in progress, which I'm holding for cooler weather and involves me going through a LOT of photographs.
The other other work in progress. The one about the two spouses and their dog, and horses, and maybe ghosts, and definitely a murder mystery, and mushrooms. It was supposed to come after the other two, but I started the first scene as a whim, couldn't stop, and just hit chapter fourteen.
I'm having loads of fun writing this story. I don't know if it'll be any good, but working on it sure helps my stress levels.
Sadly, vacation's over and it's time to put some work into promotion and marketing. Oh, and return to my full time job. *sigh*
Find all of our books at:
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
And most places where fine books with my name on them are sold.
Not that we went far: we had a two week vacation that was almost all spent at home, largely because of my annual super sinus infection and some family responsibilities. I did catch up on sleep--this is something all third shifters appreciate. We also caught up on some reading and watched a season of Game of Thrones, which is not what I'd call "relaxing" TV.
More important, once I was feeling up to it I got some writing done, and I'm up to 24,500 words on my work in progress. No, not that work in progress, which is awaiting Emily's editing skills. No, not that other work in progress, which I'm holding for cooler weather and involves me going through a LOT of photographs.
The other other work in progress. The one about the two spouses and their dog, and horses, and maybe ghosts, and definitely a murder mystery, and mushrooms. It was supposed to come after the other two, but I started the first scene as a whim, couldn't stop, and just hit chapter fourteen.
I'm having loads of fun writing this story. I don't know if it'll be any good, but working on it sure helps my stress levels.
Sadly, vacation's over and it's time to put some work into promotion and marketing. Oh, and return to my full time job. *sigh*
Find all of our books at:
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
And most places where fine books with my name on them are sold.
September 6, 2019
I sold a short story!
I didn't cheer. I didn't run through the streets, kissing perfect strangers. I just kind of sat there slack-jawed, staring at the e-mail. My wife probably thought I'd gotten a death notification.
But no: I'd sold a short story. And yes, I was happy--just having trouble believing it.
To understand why one sale should shock me so, we have to go into history. Don't worry, it won't hurt.
Shortly after turning 18, I started submitting short stories. At first, they went one by one to Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, which these days is called Asimov's Science Fiction. There were and are plenty of other magazines that print (or post online, these days) short stories, but Asimov's was the first one I read, and I was stuck on appearing there first. Just so you know, that's a stupid way to do it, then and now.
I wrote dozens and dozens of short stories. I took a course on writing them; bought dozens of books about writing; and I read hundreds of the short stories of others. I also got smart enough to send each story to every market I could find.
By the way, thanks to Linda Nagata, my teacher in that correspondence course. It was in the snail mail days. The story she helped me improve was "Grocery Purgatory", a tale of disappearances set in a small town grocery store. Read all about her here: https://mythicisland.com/
None were ever published. I came close later on, with favorable and personal rejection letters. Eventually I discarded the ones clearly written in desperation--some of them were real stinkers--while revising and improving the ones that showed promise. But no final sale.
Here's the thing: short stories of mine have been published. Some were holiday themed tales, part of Christmas inserts in the three weekly papers that published my humor column. They were not in the habit of publishing fiction, and if I hadn't already been on the staff it wouldn't have happened ... so they didn't really count.
In 2011 my first novel, Storm Chaser, came out. I wrote several short stories featuring the characters from the book, intending to give them away to promote the book itself. But when I told my publisher about it, they suggested selling them together, as a collection. That's how Storm Chaser Shorts came about: They're published, and they're short stories, but it seemed to me again that I had a bit of an unfair advantage, compared to cold selling a single story to a publisher who didn't know me.
Three anthologies carry my stories, but they were by invite, and I think they also don't count.
The point is, it had become personal.
(Oh, and as usual, all those can be found on our website and here, on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/....) Always be closing.
As time went by, I boiled down the publishable stories to six, always waiting there in my master submission log. I had submitted my first short story in the summer of 1980.
So you see, when I received an e-mail from Alban Lake Publishing, telling me they were buying a story for one of their periodicals, I had been trying to sell to a magazine for thirty-nine years.
The story is "Coming Attractions", the bones of which I first wrote three decades ago. Revised many times and workshopped with Linda Nagata, it's hardly recognizable from the original (which was twice as long).
I'll give out more information when I get it, but my new publisher's website is here:
https://albanlakepublishing.com/
After almost four decades, I'll have a short story published in a magazine. Well, e-magazine. Let's just say periodical. After a summer of everything breaking and a long week of sinus infection, this small step is very good news, indeed.
Now: On to selling the rest of them!
http://markrhunter.com/
But no: I'd sold a short story. And yes, I was happy--just having trouble believing it.
To understand why one sale should shock me so, we have to go into history. Don't worry, it won't hurt.
Shortly after turning 18, I started submitting short stories. At first, they went one by one to Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, which these days is called Asimov's Science Fiction. There were and are plenty of other magazines that print (or post online, these days) short stories, but Asimov's was the first one I read, and I was stuck on appearing there first. Just so you know, that's a stupid way to do it, then and now.
I wrote dozens and dozens of short stories. I took a course on writing them; bought dozens of books about writing; and I read hundreds of the short stories of others. I also got smart enough to send each story to every market I could find.
By the way, thanks to Linda Nagata, my teacher in that correspondence course. It was in the snail mail days. The story she helped me improve was "Grocery Purgatory", a tale of disappearances set in a small town grocery store. Read all about her here: https://mythicisland.com/
None were ever published. I came close later on, with favorable and personal rejection letters. Eventually I discarded the ones clearly written in desperation--some of them were real stinkers--while revising and improving the ones that showed promise. But no final sale.
Here's the thing: short stories of mine have been published. Some were holiday themed tales, part of Christmas inserts in the three weekly papers that published my humor column. They were not in the habit of publishing fiction, and if I hadn't already been on the staff it wouldn't have happened ... so they didn't really count.
In 2011 my first novel, Storm Chaser, came out. I wrote several short stories featuring the characters from the book, intending to give them away to promote the book itself. But when I told my publisher about it, they suggested selling them together, as a collection. That's how Storm Chaser Shorts came about: They're published, and they're short stories, but it seemed to me again that I had a bit of an unfair advantage, compared to cold selling a single story to a publisher who didn't know me.
Three anthologies carry my stories, but they were by invite, and I think they also don't count.
The point is, it had become personal.
(Oh, and as usual, all those can be found on our website and here, on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/....) Always be closing.
As time went by, I boiled down the publishable stories to six, always waiting there in my master submission log. I had submitted my first short story in the summer of 1980.
So you see, when I received an e-mail from Alban Lake Publishing, telling me they were buying a story for one of their periodicals, I had been trying to sell to a magazine for thirty-nine years.
The story is "Coming Attractions", the bones of which I first wrote three decades ago. Revised many times and workshopped with Linda Nagata, it's hardly recognizable from the original (which was twice as long).
I'll give out more information when I get it, but my new publisher's website is here:
https://albanlakepublishing.com/
After almost four decades, I'll have a short story published in a magazine. Well, e-magazine. Let's just say periodical. After a summer of everything breaking and a long week of sinus infection, this small step is very good news, indeed.
Now: On to selling the rest of them!
http://markrhunter.com/
August 30, 2019
Are Valentine's Day books lining Cheryl's she-shed?
I checked my Amazon author rankings the other day, and discovered that in August they sold a copy of an anthology I'm in, My Funny Valentine.
In August.
We sell some copies of that anthology every year--in late January and early February. I mean, it's a humor book about Valentine's Day, so that's when you'd expect to move a few.
But August?
Maybe it's like those TV channels that feature Christmas related movies in July. They're just trying to ... well, I don't know what they're trying to do. Remind true holiday fanatics of their favorite time of year, I suppose. I wonder why I don't watch summer movies in January? Maybe I'll give it a try next winter.
Meanwhile, why should I care about the reasons? I don't care of people buy my books to insulate their she sheds, as long as they buy them.
But it made me wonder about something. What do you, the reader, think of holiday themed fiction? Who'd be interested, for instance, in reading a Christmas themed novel written by someone, say me? Asking for a friend.
(This blog does not recommend or condone using books as insulation.)
(You can find both Mark's books, and material to replace Cheryl's she-shed, on the Amazon that's not burning.)
https://www.amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/...
In August.
We sell some copies of that anthology every year--in late January and early February. I mean, it's a humor book about Valentine's Day, so that's when you'd expect to move a few.
But August?
Maybe it's like those TV channels that feature Christmas related movies in July. They're just trying to ... well, I don't know what they're trying to do. Remind true holiday fanatics of their favorite time of year, I suppose. I wonder why I don't watch summer movies in January? Maybe I'll give it a try next winter.
Meanwhile, why should I care about the reasons? I don't care of people buy my books to insulate their she sheds, as long as they buy them.
But it made me wonder about something. What do you, the reader, think of holiday themed fiction? Who'd be interested, for instance, in reading a Christmas themed novel written by someone, say me? Asking for a friend.
(This blog does not recommend or condone using books as insulation.)
(You can find both Mark's books, and material to replace Cheryl's she-shed, on the Amazon that's not burning.)
https://www.amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/...
August 27, 2019
Happy birthday to Wizard of Oz -- the movie
I started scratching my head recently when I noticed buzz about this being the 80th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz.
Um ... no, it's not. It's the 119th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, as of this summer. What kind of over the rainbow scheme are they trying to pull off, here?
What the pundits are actually talking about, of course, is the MGM-made movie The Wizard of Oz. Not only does the book precede it by 39 years, but it isn't even the first movie version.
Just for the record, L. Frank Baum wrote fourteen Oz books, and some related short tales. After his death, other authors took over writing "official" Oz books. (Oz fanatics will mention the "Famous Forty", which sadly aren't so famous anymore.) With Baum's original books in the public domain there are now dozens of unofficial Oz books, not including the one I've been plotting out in my mind.
Baum produced a multimedia stage presentation about Oz in 1908, and the first actual film, partially based on a 1902 musical play, came out in 1910. There were several more related movies, including the 1925 movie called ... The Wizard of Oz.
I'm just sayin'.
Ah, but it's the 1939 movie everyone thinks of, these days. When I was a kid you could catch it on TV exactly once a year--no DVR, no reruns, no second chances. I cleared my schedule (which was easy, because I didn't have one) and caught it every year; yes, I love the movie and always will. I have no issue with the MGM movie beyond it leading people to believe Dorothy Gale is a brunette. (She's blonde, dammit! Depending on who you ask.) I love musicals anyway, and it remains a favorite of mine.
But the books are better.
Well, most of them. Baum had to rush his product to feed his family, from time to time.
My parents got me the collection of Baum's fourteen books, and as soon as I finished reading the last one, I'd go back and start the first one over again. Although I didn't know dozens of others even existed at the time, the first fourteen were enough to cement my love of reading, which in turn kick-started my love of writing.
Without the Oz books, I maybe would have found a better paying part-time job. But, without the Oz books there would have been no twenty-five years worth of humor columns, no extra credit short stories in English class, no working on the school newspaper, no researching and writing about local history, and no ten published books. No love of reading--who knows what kind of trouble I would have gotten into, without books to keep me busy?
So thank you, Oz ... no matter what the media.
Um ... no, it's not. It's the 119th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, as of this summer. What kind of over the rainbow scheme are they trying to pull off, here?
What the pundits are actually talking about, of course, is the MGM-made movie The Wizard of Oz. Not only does the book precede it by 39 years, but it isn't even the first movie version.
Just for the record, L. Frank Baum wrote fourteen Oz books, and some related short tales. After his death, other authors took over writing "official" Oz books. (Oz fanatics will mention the "Famous Forty", which sadly aren't so famous anymore.) With Baum's original books in the public domain there are now dozens of unofficial Oz books, not including the one I've been plotting out in my mind.
Baum produced a multimedia stage presentation about Oz in 1908, and the first actual film, partially based on a 1902 musical play, came out in 1910. There were several more related movies, including the 1925 movie called ... The Wizard of Oz.
I'm just sayin'.
Ah, but it's the 1939 movie everyone thinks of, these days. When I was a kid you could catch it on TV exactly once a year--no DVR, no reruns, no second chances. I cleared my schedule (which was easy, because I didn't have one) and caught it every year; yes, I love the movie and always will. I have no issue with the MGM movie beyond it leading people to believe Dorothy Gale is a brunette. (She's blonde, dammit! Depending on who you ask.) I love musicals anyway, and it remains a favorite of mine.
But the books are better.
Well, most of them. Baum had to rush his product to feed his family, from time to time.
My parents got me the collection of Baum's fourteen books, and as soon as I finished reading the last one, I'd go back and start the first one over again. Although I didn't know dozens of others even existed at the time, the first fourteen were enough to cement my love of reading, which in turn kick-started my love of writing.
Without the Oz books, I maybe would have found a better paying part-time job. But, without the Oz books there would have been no twenty-five years worth of humor columns, no extra credit short stories in English class, no working on the school newspaper, no researching and writing about local history, and no ten published books. No love of reading--who knows what kind of trouble I would have gotten into, without books to keep me busy?
So thank you, Oz ... no matter what the media.
August 24, 2019
Creating Hopewell, and the Storm Chaser universe, or not
It's fun to create new worlds for your characters to inhabit, even if those worlds are just new communities. For my Storm Chaser series, I created a brand new place called Hurricane, a town of only a few hundred or so where some of my main characters live. In my unpublished Fire On Mist Creek I developed a town of a few thousand called--try to guess--Mist Creek, in northern Kentucky. Also unpublished is Red Is For Ick, and for that I spent some time developing a southern Indiana community of several thousand that features a theme park and a large lake.
(In Radio Red I set the story near the real-life town of Bellaire, Michigan, but never mind.)
In theory a great way to cheat and cut down on research is to set your story in a real place, but the problem with that is that you'd better get your details right. If your characters are running around New York City, you'd better know where Queens is in relation to the Bronx, and the best way to get from Long Island to Manhattan (I don't). If the tale is in your home town, you'll never hear the end from it if you have North Street on the south side. In The Notorious Ian Grant, I have some characters visit a real flower shop in my home town, Albion. The problem is, by the time the novel was published the shop had moved to a different location.
But the main character's never been to Albion, so I blame him.
So I often split the difference. My little town of Hurricane is totally made up, but it's in a real location: the intersection of county roads 150E and 600N in Noble County, a few miles from my home. When I've achieved Stephen King status, fans will flock to that location to see … four farm fields and a woods. And a hog farm in the distance.
I did the same thing with Coming Attractions. The story was inspired by a real-life drive-in movie theater, but I didn't want to use the real one. So I moved the location a few miles west, from Dekalb County into Noble County in northeast Indiana, so it would be closer to the story's home town, Hopewell.
Which was silly, because Hopewell doesn't exist. I could have just as easily put it all in Dekalb County.
The town was named after a Noble County road, which you might be surprised to learn is Hopewell Road--but I didn't end up putting it there, either. Instead I put it around halfway between two existing towns, Avilla and Kendallville, when I could have just used either of them, instead. Why did I not? Laziness. I didn't want to have to remember where everything was. The irony of that is that, in very general layout, Hopewell is just a copy of Kendallville, anyway, picked up and moved a few miles south. It's just smaller, and has a cool coffee shop on Main Street.
It could be any drive-in, it's just the one in a town that isn't there.
But see, that's the kind of adjustments you can make when you create your own community. You can move New York City a few miles down the coast and call it Gotham, or Metropolis, and suddenly it has Daily Planet buildings and stately Wayne Manors … and the Batmobile never seems to have trouble with crosstown traffic. You won't hear a thing about it in the story--it's all in the author's world building.
Speaking of world building: Coming Attractions is in the Storm Chaser universe, with Hopewell and Hurricane about ten miles from each other. I did that just for the heck of it--you wouldn't know it by reading either book. One Storm Chaser character does appear, very briefly, in Coming Attractions, but doesn't get named. (In the same way, characters from Storm Chaser and the unpublished Red Is For Ick appear together in my young adult novel, The No-Campfire Girls.)
Are crossovers necessary? Nope … just fun.
Find all of our books at:
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
And wherever fine books with my name on them are sold.
(In Radio Red I set the story near the real-life town of Bellaire, Michigan, but never mind.)
In theory a great way to cheat and cut down on research is to set your story in a real place, but the problem with that is that you'd better get your details right. If your characters are running around New York City, you'd better know where Queens is in relation to the Bronx, and the best way to get from Long Island to Manhattan (I don't). If the tale is in your home town, you'll never hear the end from it if you have North Street on the south side. In The Notorious Ian Grant, I have some characters visit a real flower shop in my home town, Albion. The problem is, by the time the novel was published the shop had moved to a different location.
But the main character's never been to Albion, so I blame him.
So I often split the difference. My little town of Hurricane is totally made up, but it's in a real location: the intersection of county roads 150E and 600N in Noble County, a few miles from my home. When I've achieved Stephen King status, fans will flock to that location to see … four farm fields and a woods. And a hog farm in the distance.
I did the same thing with Coming Attractions. The story was inspired by a real-life drive-in movie theater, but I didn't want to use the real one. So I moved the location a few miles west, from Dekalb County into Noble County in northeast Indiana, so it would be closer to the story's home town, Hopewell.
Which was silly, because Hopewell doesn't exist. I could have just as easily put it all in Dekalb County.
The town was named after a Noble County road, which you might be surprised to learn is Hopewell Road--but I didn't end up putting it there, either. Instead I put it around halfway between two existing towns, Avilla and Kendallville, when I could have just used either of them, instead. Why did I not? Laziness. I didn't want to have to remember where everything was. The irony of that is that, in very general layout, Hopewell is just a copy of Kendallville, anyway, picked up and moved a few miles south. It's just smaller, and has a cool coffee shop on Main Street.
It could be any drive-in, it's just the one in a town that isn't there.
But see, that's the kind of adjustments you can make when you create your own community. You can move New York City a few miles down the coast and call it Gotham, or Metropolis, and suddenly it has Daily Planet buildings and stately Wayne Manors … and the Batmobile never seems to have trouble with crosstown traffic. You won't hear a thing about it in the story--it's all in the author's world building.
Speaking of world building: Coming Attractions is in the Storm Chaser universe, with Hopewell and Hurricane about ten miles from each other. I did that just for the heck of it--you wouldn't know it by reading either book. One Storm Chaser character does appear, very briefly, in Coming Attractions, but doesn't get named. (In the same way, characters from Storm Chaser and the unpublished Red Is For Ick appear together in my young adult novel, The No-Campfire Girls.)
Are crossovers necessary? Nope … just fun.
Find all of our books at:
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
And wherever fine books with my name on them are sold.
August 21, 2019
Don't Cry For My Air Conditioner
We had an unusually cool spring, so maybe the problem didn't start with the first heat wave of the year, but that's sure when we noticed it: Our big window air conditioner blew air just fine, but that air wasn't conditioned.
If these things don't happen at the worst possible time, they're at least discovered then.
I can't complain, because the air conditioner came with the house--which I bought thirty years ago. In fact, we did an internet search for the model, Sears Coldspot, and learned they stopped making it in the 70s. Our air conditioner had actually survived over forty Indiana summers, and that's remarkable.
I was still in my teens when that thing was made! I wish I'd held up nearly as well.
My house doesn't have central air, or central anything. I suppose we could pump cold water through the hot water radiators and cool the house that way, but ... say, maybe that's something to try. Although the furnace is also over forty years old, so best leave well enough alone.
The air conditioner was set into a window, at one corner of the house. But it was powerful enough to cool the entire downstairs, as long as you set up three fans to blow the air from room to room, in a windy circle that ended with the kitchen air being pumped right back to the conditioner. If you set it up just right, walking through a room can feel like being Jim Cantore reporting for The Weather Channel.
The upstairs is on its own. We bought a small unit for the bedroom, and left the smaller room upstairs to swelter in the summer. We use it as a backup fridge in the winter. Old house problems.
When the downstairs air conditioner, which had its own electrical shutoff and a special plug, stopped cooling the house, Emily went outside and laid her hand against the side of it. Then she came back inside and placed her hand in a stream of cold water until the burning stopped.
Yes, there was definitely something wrong, of the "play Taps at its grave" variety.
Anyone who knows my history will not be surprised to find I'd been saving up for the next big home repair job. After that, it was a simple process of taking the old air conditioner out and replacing it.
It's usually when the word "simple" appears that we run into trouble.
The old unit had been permanently installed in that #@%& window. It had been screwed, hammered, molded, glued, foam-sprayed, and caulked into place. It was as if in addition to stopping air leaks, they wanted to stop burglaries, alien invasions, and Godzilla.
Eventually we freed it, using two screwdrivers, a hammer, chisel, crowbar, power saw, and two sticks of dynamite. (Luckily it was close enough to Independence Day that nobody noticed the noise.) Preparing to install the new air conditioner, I tried to raise the window further.
The window wouldn't raise. It wouldn't raise because it had been installed at the same time as the air conditioner, and was fitted to its exact specifications.
The new unit did not, of course, meet those specifications. But you knew that.
Keep in mind that Emily and I were doing this work on a day when the temperature was 88 degrees (at 6 p.m.) and the humidity was 107%. How this is possible I don't know, but after an hour we looked like we'd stepped into a shower fully clothed. Oddly enough, the dog didn't seem at all bothered by this--if anything, he seemed happy to have a new window to look out of.
When we finished, I left the pried out metal, the hunks of insulation and piles of screws, the broken drill bits, right where they fell, and simply taped over the areas the new unit didn't cover. Then I tried to plug it in.
Which wouldn't work. The new unit didn't have a special plug.
Some things you should check first. Luckily, there was a more normal plug a few feet on the other side; we turned the new unit on and went out to get a pizza while it was working.
No way were we cooking inside that house. I mean, any more than we already had.
If these things don't happen at the worst possible time, they're at least discovered then.
I can't complain, because the air conditioner came with the house--which I bought thirty years ago. In fact, we did an internet search for the model, Sears Coldspot, and learned they stopped making it in the 70s. Our air conditioner had actually survived over forty Indiana summers, and that's remarkable.
I was still in my teens when that thing was made! I wish I'd held up nearly as well.
My house doesn't have central air, or central anything. I suppose we could pump cold water through the hot water radiators and cool the house that way, but ... say, maybe that's something to try. Although the furnace is also over forty years old, so best leave well enough alone.
The air conditioner was set into a window, at one corner of the house. But it was powerful enough to cool the entire downstairs, as long as you set up three fans to blow the air from room to room, in a windy circle that ended with the kitchen air being pumped right back to the conditioner. If you set it up just right, walking through a room can feel like being Jim Cantore reporting for The Weather Channel.
The upstairs is on its own. We bought a small unit for the bedroom, and left the smaller room upstairs to swelter in the summer. We use it as a backup fridge in the winter. Old house problems.
When the downstairs air conditioner, which had its own electrical shutoff and a special plug, stopped cooling the house, Emily went outside and laid her hand against the side of it. Then she came back inside and placed her hand in a stream of cold water until the burning stopped.
Yes, there was definitely something wrong, of the "play Taps at its grave" variety.
Anyone who knows my history will not be surprised to find I'd been saving up for the next big home repair job. After that, it was a simple process of taking the old air conditioner out and replacing it.
It's usually when the word "simple" appears that we run into trouble.
The old unit had been permanently installed in that #@%& window. It had been screwed, hammered, molded, glued, foam-sprayed, and caulked into place. It was as if in addition to stopping air leaks, they wanted to stop burglaries, alien invasions, and Godzilla.
Eventually we freed it, using two screwdrivers, a hammer, chisel, crowbar, power saw, and two sticks of dynamite. (Luckily it was close enough to Independence Day that nobody noticed the noise.) Preparing to install the new air conditioner, I tried to raise the window further.
The window wouldn't raise. It wouldn't raise because it had been installed at the same time as the air conditioner, and was fitted to its exact specifications.
The new unit did not, of course, meet those specifications. But you knew that.
Keep in mind that Emily and I were doing this work on a day when the temperature was 88 degrees (at 6 p.m.) and the humidity was 107%. How this is possible I don't know, but after an hour we looked like we'd stepped into a shower fully clothed. Oddly enough, the dog didn't seem at all bothered by this--if anything, he seemed happy to have a new window to look out of.
When we finished, I left the pried out metal, the hunks of insulation and piles of screws, the broken drill bits, right where they fell, and simply taped over the areas the new unit didn't cover. Then I tried to plug it in.
Which wouldn't work. The new unit didn't have a special plug.
Some things you should check first. Luckily, there was a more normal plug a few feet on the other side; we turned the new unit on and went out to get a pizza while it was working.
No way were we cooking inside that house. I mean, any more than we already had.
August 18, 2019
Book Review: Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
"God is dead. Meet the kids."
Fat Charlie Nancy is just a normal guy with a normal job and a normal girlfriend, which tells you, considering this is a Neil Gaiman book, that things are about to go very, very sideways for him. Sure enough, he soon learns that his father has dropped dead while singing karaoke in a Florida bar.
Fat Charlie hates his father, who seems to have made it his mission to humiliate his son, including giving him his nickname. Finding out that Dad was a god named Anansi doesn't change Fat Charlie's opinion a bit. But that little revelation is only the beginning, as Fat Charlie's brother, Spider, shows up and turns Fat Charlie's tiny spare bedroom into a huge pleasure palace.
Then things get weird.
Nobody's better at taking regular people and dropping them down a rabbit hole than Neil Gaiman. He did it brilliantly in American Gods, and here he brings back one of those gods, Anansi, to torture his unsuspecting offspring. Fat Charlie, once settled into his London life, now finds himself ping-ponging across the Atlantic Ocean, with his job, relationship, and life in jeopardy as he desperately struggles to figure out what's going on.
It's a comedy.
After all, there are also few authors better at drawing humor out of their character's misery, either.
Although not as complicated as American Gods--there's only one god involved here, mostly, and way fewer characters--Gaiman weaves a great tale of rich and eclectic people, in a (shall I say it?) web that gradually draws their stories together. It's delightful, chaotic, and great fun, written in a free flowing way less experienced writers just couldn't get away with. I have a feeling Gaiman works hard to make his writing look like it's not hard work.
Fat Charlie Nancy is just a normal guy with a normal job and a normal girlfriend, which tells you, considering this is a Neil Gaiman book, that things are about to go very, very sideways for him. Sure enough, he soon learns that his father has dropped dead while singing karaoke in a Florida bar.
Fat Charlie hates his father, who seems to have made it his mission to humiliate his son, including giving him his nickname. Finding out that Dad was a god named Anansi doesn't change Fat Charlie's opinion a bit. But that little revelation is only the beginning, as Fat Charlie's brother, Spider, shows up and turns Fat Charlie's tiny spare bedroom into a huge pleasure palace.
Then things get weird.
Nobody's better at taking regular people and dropping them down a rabbit hole than Neil Gaiman. He did it brilliantly in American Gods, and here he brings back one of those gods, Anansi, to torture his unsuspecting offspring. Fat Charlie, once settled into his London life, now finds himself ping-ponging across the Atlantic Ocean, with his job, relationship, and life in jeopardy as he desperately struggles to figure out what's going on.
It's a comedy.
After all, there are also few authors better at drawing humor out of their character's misery, either.
Although not as complicated as American Gods--there's only one god involved here, mostly, and way fewer characters--Gaiman weaves a great tale of rich and eclectic people, in a (shall I say it?) web that gradually draws their stories together. It's delightful, chaotic, and great fun, written in a free flowing way less experienced writers just couldn't get away with. I have a feeling Gaiman works hard to make his writing look like it's not hard work.
August 14, 2019
Animal stories
TURTLE, TURTLE
Earlier this summer, as I entered Pokagon State Park, I spotted a turtle making it's slow way across the road.
There was a car coming the other way, but the turtle was about to the center line and looked safe from it. I shifted into park, got out, and ran up to the turtle since, as you know, it takes them about ten days to cross two lanes.
When I reached down, the turtle scampered away like a rabbit with its tail on fire.
I had no idea they could move that fast. All I had to do was keep stepping behind it, and it made its way to the far side in a matter of seconds. On the way back to the car, I noticed the guy driving the other way looked just as surprised as I was.
A few days later Emily encountered a snapping turtle, and had a similar experience in that it whirled around so fast she couldn't get it off the highway, for fear of losing fingers. Some neighbors who apparently had been there before brought down a broom and trash can, and successfully moved it out of harm's way.
DON'T BE CATTY
We have a compost pile in our back yard, held together by some old wooden pallets. It's a good way to take scraps of food and other suitable garbage, mix it with grass clipping and leaves, and end up with some nice, usable soil. Granted that I haven't had time to plant a garden in some years, but if nothing else maybe I can use it as a base to try and grow some grass in the front yard, assuming I trim those thick shade trees first.
There's always something.
Cats, on the other hand, know how to relax. In fact, when I went out back to mow the lawn I saw a small black bundle on top of the compost, which I at first took to be a dead cat. I got within a few feet of it before realizing it was just sleeping.
It was a cool morning, and the decomposing products in compost, along with a layer of leaves over top, apparently gave the little feline a warm and comfy place for a nap. I was trying to quietly turn on my camera's phone when it stretched, turned its sleepy face around, and splotted me.
The only thing I saw after that was a black streak, for the space of maybe half a second, before it disappeared around the corner.
It's probably for the best that I saw it, instead of it being discovered by our dog, who has a faster reaction time and doesn't bother taking pictures.
FLYING HIGH--I MEAN, LOW--AND PROUD
A few weeks ago Emily and I drove down to Missouri. Part of that trip is down the length of southern Illinois, on the four lane interstate 57. Toward the south it gets hilly and picturesque, just as Indiana does, but closer to the center of the state it can be a bit of a bland drive. Picture I-70 west of Indianapolis, only with less corn.
So when a large bird flew down low over the highway, it caught my attention. It was being chased by a much smaller bird, something I've seen often that's (I assume) related to nest stealing. Usually the larger bird is a hawk, or buzzard.
In this case it came down extra low, and took a turn just over the highway, in the same direction we were traveling. For just a moment, it was almost still in relation to our car, just thirty feet or so away.
It was a bald eagle.
This is what Ben Franklin wanted as our national symbol. Thanksgiving wouldn't be the same, fighting over an eagle leg.
They're more common now than they used to be, but still not very common; when I was a kid they were practically unheard of. But there it was, right in front of us (no, I didn't take a picture--I was driving). Emily and I squeed and maybe I peed a little, and had something to talk about until we got further down and started seeing the Mississippi River area flooding.
It was a bald eagle, people. Right in front of us. And I don't want to make it sound like I'm just a fanboy, and maybe it was a small thing, but it was really neat.
I think sometimes we don't take the time to realize just how neat the little things can be. We get to thinking something's not worth seeing unless its had a few million dollars worth of CGI work put into it. We don't even bother looking up from our phones anymore. We're bringing up a whole generation of people who don't get how truly cool it is to see those first blooming flowers of spring, bringing color back to the world.
Check out those rainbows, people. Study the stars. Our universe is a miracle.
Earlier this summer, as I entered Pokagon State Park, I spotted a turtle making it's slow way across the road.
There was a car coming the other way, but the turtle was about to the center line and looked safe from it. I shifted into park, got out, and ran up to the turtle since, as you know, it takes them about ten days to cross two lanes.
When I reached down, the turtle scampered away like a rabbit with its tail on fire.
I had no idea they could move that fast. All I had to do was keep stepping behind it, and it made its way to the far side in a matter of seconds. On the way back to the car, I noticed the guy driving the other way looked just as surprised as I was.
A few days later Emily encountered a snapping turtle, and had a similar experience in that it whirled around so fast she couldn't get it off the highway, for fear of losing fingers. Some neighbors who apparently had been there before brought down a broom and trash can, and successfully moved it out of harm's way.
DON'T BE CATTY
We have a compost pile in our back yard, held together by some old wooden pallets. It's a good way to take scraps of food and other suitable garbage, mix it with grass clipping and leaves, and end up with some nice, usable soil. Granted that I haven't had time to plant a garden in some years, but if nothing else maybe I can use it as a base to try and grow some grass in the front yard, assuming I trim those thick shade trees first.
There's always something.
Cats, on the other hand, know how to relax. In fact, when I went out back to mow the lawn I saw a small black bundle on top of the compost, which I at first took to be a dead cat. I got within a few feet of it before realizing it was just sleeping.
It was a cool morning, and the decomposing products in compost, along with a layer of leaves over top, apparently gave the little feline a warm and comfy place for a nap. I was trying to quietly turn on my camera's phone when it stretched, turned its sleepy face around, and splotted me.
The only thing I saw after that was a black streak, for the space of maybe half a second, before it disappeared around the corner.
It's probably for the best that I saw it, instead of it being discovered by our dog, who has a faster reaction time and doesn't bother taking pictures.
FLYING HIGH--I MEAN, LOW--AND PROUD
A few weeks ago Emily and I drove down to Missouri. Part of that trip is down the length of southern Illinois, on the four lane interstate 57. Toward the south it gets hilly and picturesque, just as Indiana does, but closer to the center of the state it can be a bit of a bland drive. Picture I-70 west of Indianapolis, only with less corn.
So when a large bird flew down low over the highway, it caught my attention. It was being chased by a much smaller bird, something I've seen often that's (I assume) related to nest stealing. Usually the larger bird is a hawk, or buzzard.
In this case it came down extra low, and took a turn just over the highway, in the same direction we were traveling. For just a moment, it was almost still in relation to our car, just thirty feet or so away.
It was a bald eagle.
This is what Ben Franklin wanted as our national symbol. Thanksgiving wouldn't be the same, fighting over an eagle leg.
They're more common now than they used to be, but still not very common; when I was a kid they were practically unheard of. But there it was, right in front of us (no, I didn't take a picture--I was driving). Emily and I squeed and maybe I peed a little, and had something to talk about until we got further down and started seeing the Mississippi River area flooding.
It was a bald eagle, people. Right in front of us. And I don't want to make it sound like I'm just a fanboy, and maybe it was a small thing, but it was really neat.
I think sometimes we don't take the time to realize just how neat the little things can be. We get to thinking something's not worth seeing unless its had a few million dollars worth of CGI work put into it. We don't even bother looking up from our phones anymore. We're bringing up a whole generation of people who don't get how truly cool it is to see those first blooming flowers of spring, bringing color back to the world.
Check out those rainbows, people. Study the stars. Our universe is a miracle.
