Bryce Moore's Blog, page 45

How to Feel Like an Idiot in 5 Simple Steps

I realize not everyone out there has as much experience feeling like a doofus compared to me, and it occurred to me that perhaps that’s a skill set I should pass on to those in need of mastering the art. Of course, when you’ve been making an idiot of yourself for as long as I have, much of it comes naturally, so it’s hard to really refine the whole essence of the process into a simple checklist. However, nothing’s quite like learning by example, so I thought I might give you a step by step run down of a true story from yesterday that might serve as a good foundation for any future studies you might make.

Ready? Here we go.

STEP ONE: Get to know someone new at work. This might seem like a random place to start, but with some experience, you’ll discover it’s the little things that all come together to really make you feel dorky. In my case, I was at a gathering of new faculty. And I made the tactical error of getting to know some of them. Silly, Bryce.

STEP TWO: Decide to do something nice for your daughter. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. In my case, she’d gone over to a friend’s house and texted to see if she could get picked up early. I agreed, because nice.

STEP TWO SIDE NOTE: Do not, under any circumstances, pay any attention to anything else your daughter texts you. She asked to get picked up. You said you were on your way. Done. End of story. It doesn’t matter if she texts you anything else. You already know everything you need to know.

STEP THREE: This is key, and it features in most formulas that make you look like an idiot. Assume you already know something. In my case, I assumed I already knew where Daniela’s friend’s house was. Mind you, I also knew that her friend had moved, but I conveniently forgot that piece of information. Instead, I just drove to where her friend had lived before. I think you can see where this is going now.

STEP FOUR: Arrive at the old house and ring the doorbell. Wait patiently, because true idiocy only comes to those who wait.

STEP FIVE: Meet the same faculty member you just met the day before. She’s standing in the door, wondering why in the world the library director is making house calls, and also how in the world did the library director know where she lives, and what else might the library director know, and just how powerful are librarians, really?

It really doesn’t matter what the new faculty member is thinking, however, because you’ve already reached your goal. You feel like a real idiot, because you suddenly remember that yes, Daniela’s friend moved, and yes, you just went to the wrong house. It helps to seal the deal, though.

I stared at the faculty member. She stared at me, “Hi?” she said, a note of latent librarian-laced fear just tingeing her voice. Her partner has shown up in the background, wondering if he’ll have to intercede with this rando who just rang their doorbell.

“You just moved in here, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“My daughter’s friend used to live here, but I’m assuming Daniela didn’t come here instead of her friend’s house, did she?” (Note that I had already learned my lesson about assumptions, and I was no longer going to fall for that trick. That day, at least.)

“Nope.”

“Okaythanksthiswasjustyourfriendlylibrarydirectorswingingbytosayhithanksbye.”

With that clouded jumble of words still lingering in the air, I hurried back to my car and drove away. Where? Away. Anywhere. Someplace I could call Daniela and find out where exactly her friend lives now. It wasn’t far. I got out my phone and there was the follow up message from Daniela. Do you know where her house is now?

And there you have it. Feeling foolish really isn’t difficult, and if you use a few of those steps as your guide, you’ll be playing in the big leagues in no time. Who knows? Maybe some day soon you’ll be on my doorstep, feeling kind of stupid. You can always dream.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Robinhood: Fun with Stocks?

Last week I was talking with Tomas, and he was telling me all about the stocks he’d bought. I did a bit of a mental double take, because I hadn’t realized he’d been buying stocks. I asked him how he was doing it, and he told me all about Robinhood, the stock buying app that’s all the rage with the younger crowd. I had some downtime, and they offered $5 of free stock if I signed up with them, so I decided to give it a whirl.

My initial impressions were very favorable. It was super easy to open the account and connect it to my bank. Then I got to pick which free stock to get, and just like that, I’d gone from $0 to $5 of value. Can’t beat it! I added about $20 of other stocks, which shows that when I have too much time on my hands, I’m up for doing just about anything.

Over the next few days, I enjoyed opening the app and checking to see how my investments were doing. To make things interesting, I’d bought about 10 shares of a penny stock worth 40 cents or so. A few days later, it shot up to 60 cents. I happily cashed out, having increased my investments by 50% in a matter of days. Score.

Robinhood kept encouraging me to diversify my investments, so I put down another $40 into an ETF, because that seemed like the thing to do.

And then I stopped.

I realized I had done almost no research into the app as a platform. Sure, it was easy to use, but I have an honest to goodness account with Schwab. If I’m going to be dumping money somewhere, wouldn’t it make sense to use the real deal? Did it make a difference?

After nosing around some, I discovered that yes, it did. Schwab has an app that’s much more robust than Robinhood. You can buy more things, and there’s a ton of research in there to tell you all about the things you’re buying. Yes, it means you have to read more stuff, which I suppose might seem difficult to some, but “read more stuff” was never something to cause me to turn away. Plus, the overall fees for Schwab are lower.

Naturally, I didn’t stop there. I called up my brother, who’s a financial planner, to ask him about everything. And as usual when I talk to an actual expert in something, I discovered he knew way more about this than my half hour of research had taught me. Some things I learned:

Yes, Robinhood is nice because it’s simple to use. But also yes, Schwab is a better platform.Buying stocks and watching them day by day can be entertaining, but it’s also very high risk, comparatively. You’re taking your money and essentially betting that a certain company will do well. If it does, huzzah! You feel like a pro. If it doesn’t? You’re kind of hosed, stuck into a pattern where you feel like you need to wait around to see if you can get your money back.Related to that, buying stocks involves keeping track of stocks. It’s One More Thing to Worry About. If it’s entertaining to you, great. Just don’t get carried away. Personally, I make more money being a librarian than I’m likely to as a Full Time Stock Checker. And I’m busy enough that adding Full Time Stock Checker to my responsibilities probably isn’t something I want to be doing.When you’re dealing with investing, the best thing to do is to think longterm. That means not randomly dumping money into a penny stock you read about ten minutes ago. There are several avenues to put money in first to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck.Roth IRAs are the bee’s knees. You can put up to $6,000 into one each year, and the money you take out when you retire is tax free. Compare that to the money you make selling stocks normally, where you have to pay capital gains taxes. If it’s stock you’ve held less than a year, it’s taxed just like any other earning. For me, that means I’d have to pay around 25% of whatever I earned. If I invested $100 and sold it for $140, it looks like I made $40. But then I have to pay 25% of that $50, so I really just made $30. If I’d put the money in a Roth IRA instead, I wouldn’t have to pay any taxes on it. (Though I’d have to wait to use it until I retire. No biggie. That’s the goal, anyway.)If you’ve already maxed out your Roth IRA, then you should look into putting as much money into your work’s retirement fund that you can (if they have one). Why? Because that money comes out before you get your paycheck, which means that the government pretends you never actually made it. (I’m oversimplifying here.) In other words, when it’s take to pay your taxes for the year, if your salary was $100,000, but you had $25,000 put into your retirement fund directly on your paycheck, then the government only sees you having made $75,000. The downside is you’ll have to pay taxes on that money when you take it out eventually (unlike a Roth IRA), but by then, you’re also probably making less money, because you’re retired. This means you’ll pay less taxes on it.In either of these accounts, you get to decide where your money goes. You can put it into stocks, if you like to live dangerously, I suppose, but you can also put it into ETFs, which are professional run accounts that invest in a wide range of stocks, making them more resistant to high fluctuations. You aren’t likely to double your money in a year or anything, but you’re not likely to lose it all, either. And there are different flavors of ETFs, each with their own speciality.

The net result was that I decided to stop worrying about Robinhood so much, and to pay more attention to the retirement accounts I’ve already got going for me. I’ve done some more research into ETFs today, and there’s plenty there to keep me busy.

True, this is all something you could have just googled on your own, but it’s something I hadn’t looked into, and with as much buzz as Robinhood had been getting, I thought perhaps some of you would be interested in hearing what I’d found out. I’d say I’d be happy to answer any questions if you have them, but I’m clearly not qualified to. I’d send you to my brother, but I think he’s full up on clients right now, and he’s a fancy pants, so his clients all have to have like a zillion dollars (or rather, way more money than I have), so I just fly under the radar with occasional naive questions like, “Is Robinhood a good thing to use for investing?” (Though they do keep a blog that writes on interesting topics.) So if you do have questions, I definitely recommend either getting a financial planner, or convincing one of your friends or family members to become one. They could also marry one. That could work too . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

The Constant Churn of Pop Culture

I’ve been away from being able to watch new shows for the past 2.5 months, give or take. First my family was in Slovakia, and I didn’t want to watch a new show without them. Then I was with them, and we had other things to do than watch shows. Then Tomas headed to Fiddle Camp for a week, so we couldn’t watch without him, and then I was away for 3.5 weeks, so we couldn’t watch shows either. And now Denisa and Daniela have both been away on trips, so . . . yeah.

In that amount of time, I have racked up quite a list of shows that I’d really like to watch, but which I haven’t been able to watch yet:

We *almost* finished Stranger Things. We have the last episode to go. Maybe we can watch it . . . tomorrow night? I have no idea.I haven’t seen anything of the Obi Wan show, which I get some people didn’t love, but some people didn’t love Moon Knight, either. Some people are just wrong. (Or they might be right in this case. I don’t know.)Only Murders in the Building has a whole second season out that I really want to watch.I haven’t seen anything of The Sandman series.The third season of For All Mankind has been out for a while. Untouched by me.She-Hulk is out now, right? I can’t even remember.

And that’s not even touching new series that are almost coming out, like Lord of the Rings.

Which leads me to my topic today. There are so many shows coming out these days, it feels like we’re just being flooded. Mind you, this isn’t necessarily a terrible problem to have. I love watching things, and I love having lots of things to watch. But at the same time, it feels like there’s no time to catch your breath and actually enjoy the things that are already out there.

Growing up, there were far fewer franchises, and Big Movies only came out every so often, usually over the summer or at Christmas. And so you had a lot of time to rewatch the ones you loved, and to anticipate the next thing coming. We still have that to an extent, but think of Avatar. It was one of the biggest movies ever. It came out and made a ton of money. People all raved about how awesome it looked. And then . . . nothing. Yes, there are sequels coming at last, and yes, it’s got a park in Animal Kingdom, but much of that feels forced. There didn’t seem to be this pent up demand for more Avatar. We were just given it because money.

I don’t know. I guess I’m torn between enjoying all the shows that are there and being frustrated by how quickly pop culture seems to be moving from thing to thing to thing. If I can get this behind by just stepping away from the flood of shows for three months, that just feels extreme. And these are only the shows I actually want to see.

I suppose some of it is that watching these takes much more time than just watching a movie. The fourth season of Stranger Things is around 13 hours long. When you’ve got other things to do, finding that amount of time as a family can be tricky. Some of it is also that I’d like to watch these with Tomas before he leaves on his mission, but it’s looking more and more like that’s just not going to happen, so I’m going to have to be at peace with that.

There are so many different things to watch, and with that many, it feels like there have only been more people complaining about what’s out there in terms of subject and execution. I really enjoyed Wheel of Time and (as I said) Moon Knight, but you’ve got swarms of internet folks ready to say just how awful they all were. But even then, we’re not talking about any one of them for long at all, because a month from now, the discussion will have moved on to something completely new.

I don’t know. Maybe there’s not a complaint here at all. Maybe I’m just wishing I had more time. But I can’t help remembering how things were when the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies were coming out. The anticipation/dread of what they might be like. The excitement when they arrived and were just so amazing. The years of additional rewatches since then. It’s the sort of thing that really can bring people together, even years later, as we talk about favorite movies or shows. But with so many coming so often, it just feels different to me.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

It’s Diet Time (again)

I’m back in Maine at last, and I’m hoping I get to stay here for the next long while. Since I left for Europe at the end of June, I have been in Maine a total of 10 days. A 3 week vacation sounds dandy, and it was. But when it’s followed by 3.5 weeks of tending to your dying parent and then dealing with the funeral, it all is much less than dandy. While I was on vacation, I didn’t really worry about my weight, because who in their right mind worries about weight when they’re on vacation in Italy. I had decided to go back on my normal diet when I got home, and I did.

For 10 days.

Then I went down to Pennsylvania, and I didn’t think about anything at all for the next 3 weeks. I didn’t have much to do other than eat, and I was stressed. This is a bad combination, and it all culminated in me getting on the scale when I got home and discovering I was 200 pounds, the first time I’ve been over that mark since March 2016. While on the one hand, I guess it’s great that I’ve been able to keep my weight down that long, on the other, 200 pounds?!? Between Italy and stress, I’d gained about 14 pounds.

Denisa reminded me that I shouldn’t be hard on myself after all that’s happened, and I know that and try to keep it in mind, but at the same time, I am very not happy with this trend.

So I’m back on the sugar-free, calorie counting diet again, and I’m back to telling you all where I am with my weight. I’m going to check in once a week to keep you up to date, though really, it’s just keeping me accountable. It’s the formula that’s worked best for me over the years, and why mess with something that works well? I don’t know how long it’ll take me. I’m not trying to lose weight insanely fast. But the good news is that looking ahead, there aren’t too many trips in my future, and the ones that are there are only for a few days. I can weather those no problem, typically.

It’s the weeks and weeks of doing things differently that gets me in trouble.

Wish me luck!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

In Memoriam: Stephen Coltrin

Hmm. This one’s going to be a hard one to write. I alluded to some tough times I was going through the last bit, and here’s the reason. My step-father, Steve Coltrin, passed away a few days ago. He’d been in and out of the hospital steadily for the past few months, and this past time (a few weeks ago) the decision was made to move him to hospice care. When that happened, I came down to Pennsylvania from Maine to see him and help take care of him as he passed. At the time, it seemed like it wouldn’t be long at all. In the end, I stayed for three weeks. Three very long weeks.

I’ve been in a house as a person lay dying before, but this time last much longer, and was very draining. A lot of that came from the uncertainty of just how the process would work and what sort of timetable we were on. There were many times I was just so frustrated that it couldn’t be over. But it wasn’t, and you have to deal with things as they are, not as you’d like them to be. And in any case, it’s over now.

My relationship to my step-father has always been a complicated one. My mom married him when I was . . . six? Seven? I can’t quite remember. In any case, I lived with him from then on, so he played a huge part of my upbringing. Losing him feels every bit like losing a “real” father, even though things weren’t always peachy keen for us growing up. As I’ve tended to do when loved ones pass, I wanted to jot down a few of the memories I had of him. Not sure how many I’m up to putting down right now, but here we go.

“Coltrins love to walk.” I heard that so so (so) many times growing up. To this day, Denisa is always frustrated with how fast I walk, but it’s something I have a very hard time changing. Dad was a fast walker, and he and Mom took us into New York many times, and we were expected to not just keep up, but to move out. My siblings and I walked out in front, and if we started walking slow, we’d hear “Move out.” And we had to walk faster. (NYC is already a city full of fast walkers. You have to go even faster when your legs are only so long.) If we ever complained about the walking, we’d be told “Coltrins love to walk.” It was just a fact of life. We’d go to Disneyworld and be at the park, walking the entire day. When it came time to go to our car, did we take the tram? No. Coltrins love to walk.Connected to this, he took the slogan to heart so much that in his later years, he would pretty much always be walking. We would get to a restaurant, and he’d walk the perimeter of the parking lot while we were waiting to be seated. He’d walk up and down hallways in hotels. He would count steps religiously, though I don’t remember him every using a pedometer.Up until the last year or so, the only time I could count on him reaching out to contact me was when he accidentally switched the menus on his television to Spanish. I was typically the resident tech help for the household, and so it fell to me to tackle the big problems of life. I have no idea how he managed to do it so often, and it would have made sense for me to make notes for how to switch it back to English, but I never did, so each time it usually ended up with me having to Facetime with him and then show me the screen and the remote. I’m proud to say I had a 100% track record of always getting it back to the right language.He liked to sing, but he wasn’t always the best at knowing the words to the songs he’d sing. (Or perhaps he knew the words, but just didn’t choose to sing them?) In any case, he’d just sort of make them up as he went along, and he would do this often.He liked war movies and westerns. The last few days as I was sitting next to him in hospice, we watched a number of both. No matter what movie he was watching, if there was a horse involved, he would always critique the horse for how good (or bad) it looked. Sometimes he would watch movies just to see the horses. Going to a restaurant with him was always a nerve wracking experience. I’m the sort of customer that won’t even complain if they bring the literal wrong dish. (Well, as long as it tastes fine.) I really (really) don’t like confrontation over silly things like that. A big reason for that is because I had to sit at a table many many times while Dad chewed out a server for getting something wrong, whether it was not filling his drink enough, cooking the food wrong, not being polite enough, or anything else. That has never been my style, but it very much was his.He was big on playing basketball. I was not. He and my brother would go outside and play basketball all the time, and they’d often try to rope me into playing with them. Every now and then I went along, but my typical approach to the situation was to pretend I was asleep until they gave up trying to wake me up and just went outside to play, at which point I could pick my book back up and resume reading. I assume they were on to me, looking back on it, but it seemed like a good life hack at the time.I wore a baseball cap a lot of the time growing up. For a while there, I wasn’t to be seen without it. It had never been an issue at all, until one day it suddenly was. Dad got angry I was wearing it indoors, something I’d done all the time for probably the last few years. But from that point on, I would get in a lot of hot water if I wore a hat indoors. You didn’t want to get in hot water with Dad. He’d be away on business trips a lot of the time growing up, and I often breathed a little easier when he was gone, because I didn’t have to worry about stepping out of line as much. (Such as leaving my shoes in the entryway. That was another potential time bomb if he found them.)He was a verified Diet Coke addict, if such a thing exists. He branched out a bit into Coke Zero toward the end, but he pretty much was never found without Diet Coke within arms reach. He preferred it in fountain drink form, with plenty of ice, and he would even drink it when it was completely flat. He also was known to mix in other things, like orange juice. This is not something that has transferred to me. Then again, he could go through an entire large bag of peanut M&Ms, and that’s something that I’d have to admit to having the same penchant for.He was a fantastic source for advice. If I ever needed someone to think through a problem from all angles and give a solid read on what I should do, Dad’s input was always fantastic. I remember calling him when I was thinking about marrying Denisa. At the time, I’d always sworn to myself I would wait to know someone for at least a year before I even though about marrying them, but Denisa and I clicked so easily, I was seriously reevaluating that decision. I called him thinking he would do a great job of reminding me why rushing into marriage was a bad idea. (He had always harped on that when I was growing up.) To my surprise, he said if I felt like I should marry Denisa, I should do it right away. “When you know, you know.” I’m still shocked that he gave that advice, but as it was so often, it was the right decision.We went to Disney World a lot when I was growing up. Sometimes multiple times a year. He loved going on the rides and buying the photos they would hawk to people at the end of the ride. We bought so many of those over the years that I imagine if you flip through the collection fast enough, you can see me age from 8 to 18 in stop motion.He owned a PR firm, and it was his pride and joy. He was totally devoted to it, often gone for long stretches of time as he worked around the globe. He started it from nothing and grew it until it had offices in New York, Houston, Salt Lake, San Francisco, Singapore, and London. He represented Burger King, the Salt Lake Olympics, Popeye’s, eHarmony, and more. He did a ton of work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well, helping line up the Larry King interview with President Hinckley and the Mike Wallace interview as well. Before my mission, I worked for him for about a half year. We’d commute into the city a lot of the time together, which involved a half hour drive to Trenton, an hour plus train ride to Penn Station, and then a fifteen minute walk to the office. Growing up with a PR executive has really helped me throughout my life, as I feel like I’m much better at knowing how to handle a crisis and how to respond to difficulties. I also got a ton of IT tech support experience there, which later helped get me my first job as an IT Librarian in Maine.Many of my views of how to live the Gospel stem from watching his pragmatic example. He always would emphasize the human nature of the whole endeavor, and I’ve never viewed church leadership through rose colored glasses. I know they’re human just like the rest of us, and it was interesting to talk to him and hear about some of the back room discussions that would sometimes go on at the top of the church. (President Faust was my grandfather’s mission companion, Elder Christofferson was a close friend of Dad’s, and Dad personally knew many of the Prophets and Apostles over the years.) Before I left on my mission, he gave me some of the best advice I got for the two years: “Remember that anything you can think of, a missionary has done, and he’s probably doing it right now.” It helps not to idolize anyone and to see things with a clear view.He was almost always on the phone. He had a cell phone before there were many cell phones (back when they were the size of a football), and he would be talking nonstop. Business, usually. On vacation. In restaurants. In church parking lots. In his office. Always talking.He was an ardent supporter of McDonald’s for the first long while I knew him. Not only did he use it as his primary Diet Coke source, but he loved their ice cream cones, as well. We’d go to McDonald’s pretty much anywhere, often multiple times in a day. (Probably a reason I ended up working at McD’s as my first job.) That said, when he added Burger King as a PR client, he made the switch to Burger King. (A switch he made multiple times thereafter. He did PR for Quizno’s for a while, and suddenly all the food we had for parties was catered by Quizno’s.)We were driving across the country once, and we passed some animals on the road. “I think those were beefalo,” he said. All of us thought he was making that animal up. Beefalo sounded like the sort of name a kindergartner would give their imaginary pet. He doubled down on the claim, though, coming up with this elaborate back story about how they were cattle crossed with bison. The more he talked the more skeptical we all became, but he also grew up on a farm, and so he’d have a much greater chance of knowing the truth of this than we did. We still didn’t really believe him. Of course, back then you couldn’t just google the answer. Today, I’d have known right away that he was right.“Plow the ground all the way to the fence.” Dad wasn’t always one to do the chores around the house. In fact, I can only remember a few times when he really worked with us to get something done. (He might have when I was younger; my memory doesn’t go that far. But by the time I was in prime Chore territory, he was a director, not a co-worker.) So when we had a job we’d been tasked doing, he would wait until we said we were done, and then he’d come give an inspection. Raking the yard? Every single leaf had to be off that yard. Shoveling the driveway? All snow had better be gone. Because if it wasn’t, we’d get the “plow the ground all the way to the fence” talk, referring to how good farmers wouldn’t cut corners, but get the most out of their field.

I could go on, but there’s only so much time, and everything has to come to a close eventually. I’m sure there are tons of things I’m forgetting, and it feels like I should just keep on adding memories, but I’m calling it quits for now. He definitely had a huge impact on me. As with most parent/child relationships, some of what I do is because he did it, and some of what I don’t do is because he did that too. I’ve had a lot of time to think over many things the past few weeks. They’ve been very hard in many ways, but I think I’m a better person because of them, just as I’m a better person because of the interactions I had with Dad over the years. He’ll definitely be very missed.

About the Blog Hiatus

If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you’ll note that things have been a bit sparse on here the last week. I really had intended to be blogging regularly again when I was back from my vacation, and I started off well, but the past while, I’ve had some personal issues I’ve been dealing with that have been taking the bulk of my attention and will to blog. I’m fine, and Denisa and the kids are all fine, but I’m down in PA for the next while, and I don’t really feel comfortable saying why. Sorry to vaguepost, but there it is.

So I might be able to hop on here now and then to do a movie review, but I don’t have the mental bandwidth at the moment to tackle much more than that, or to commit to posting more regularly. Not that I haven’t been following along with what folks are doing online, or with the current events happening, but it’s one thing to lurk and follow, and another to create content.

Thanks for your understanding. Believe me: I’m looking forward to getting back to a routine again sometime. But for the moment, at least, it seems like there are a lot of things standing in the way of me and that. It feels like it’s been that way since March 2020, and looking into the future, I don’t see a high likelihood of it feeling any different for the next few months . . .

In any case, I’ll update you when I can. Have a great end of your summer, folks.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Movie Review: Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes

It’s not often that I come across a movie I have both never heard of before and which I end up absolutely loving. Last night, I was trying to find something to watch. I didn’t have a lot of time, but I didn’t really want to watch a TV show, so I was looking for a short movie. I came across one that was only 70 minutes long, and it was a time travel movie. Sold!

The premise of Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is pretty easy to explain. A man comes home from work to find his security feed for his business (which is downstairs) has him on it. Future him. And future him starts talking to present him. They can converse freely. Except future him isn’t from 2050 or something. He’s from two minutes in the future, and after they talk for about a minute and three quarters, he tells present-him to hurry downstairs to the security cam so that he can have this conversation and not create a paradox.

(Hmm. I thought it was easy to explain, but maybe it isn’t? It depends on if that made sense or not . . .)

The film is one continuous take. (Or at least, filmed to make it seem that way.) So when you see the character from the present talking to himself in the future, two minutes later you’ll see him now talking to himself in the past, having the exact same conversation. I was really impressed by just how much work went into pulling it all off and having it make sense. (It’ll make much more sense to you when you’re watching it. I swear.)

It sounds like a movie that would never work. How do you stretch even 70 minutes out of such a premise. Two minutes in the future? What a worthless ability, as far as time travel goes. But what would that really be like, and what could you do with it? The film does a fantastic job exploring that and keeping everything snappy for the whole length of the movie. I don’t really want to say more about it, because half the fun is seeing what happens.

Granted, I’m a sucker for time travel movies. But that also means I’ve seen quite a few of them, and I can spot a great one when I do. This movie was custom made to have me like it. Quirky premise, perfectly executed, and very obscure. It was a wonderful surprise, and I gave it a 10/10. It’s in Japanese, so be prepared for some subtitles, but it is 100% worth your time.

It’s on Amazon Prime, waiting for you to watch even as we speak.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Don’t Go to Sleep Publication Day!

It’s August 2nd, and that means my next book, Don’t Go to Sleep, is finally out in the wild and ready for purchase. It’s always a long process from first writing a book to finally seeing it in print, and it’s a great feeling to have it done at last.

Here’s the review from Kirkus:

After a yearslong reprieve, the Axeman who haunts survivor Gianna’s nightmares stalks New Orleans’ Italian grocers again.

In this true-crime reimagining of the infamous Axeman of New Orleans with a supernatural spin, the hunter becomes hunted by one of his surviving victims. Seven years ago, Gianna and Enzo were brought together through shared trauma—both of their families survived brutal attacks by an ax-wielding intruder. After 17-year-old Gianna’s reoccurring nightmare of the attack changes in a threatening way, the Axeman strikes again. Believing her dreams are connected to the killer, Gianna and Enzo scour her nightmarish visions for clues, and the grisly crime scenes pile up. Aside from the Axeman’s terrorizing of New Orleans’s maligned Italian community, the city also simmers with the tension of the Great War abroad and the 1918 influenza pandemic; readers will feel déjà vu as they learn about the historical reception of face masks and lockdowns. The supernatural elements—Gianna and the Axeman’s connection, an Italian fortuneteller—offer eerie plot tendrils to follow (though some of these are dropped) and come into play in ways that heighten the dangers during big scenes. The graphic violence grounds the story and stakes. Gianna’s parents emigrated from Italy as young adults; Enzo is third-generation Italian American. Their romantic storyline is perfunctory but does not distract from the story’s tension. A delightfully dark historical cat-and-mouse game blending the psychic and psychological. (author’s note) (Historical supernatural thriller. 14-adult)

If you’d like to support the book (or me), here are some things you can do:

Buy the book. This kind of goes without saying, I’d guess, but buying the book is really important, especially in the first week of release. I’ve got a third book in with my publisher right now, and I’m hoping they agree to publish it. I expect they’ll be looking at the sales figures for this current book when they’re making that decision. Here’s a handy link to the book on Amazon.Review the book. Whether it’s on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, or just on Facebook or Twitter, reviews really do help. (Good reviews help more, of course . . .) I think the first reviews can make a bigger impact than later reviews. They influence people when they’re thinking about buying the book.Spread the word about the book. You don’t have to review it; you can just share this post and raise visibility.Request the book from your library. I’m all for libraries (clearly). Checking the book out from your public library, or asking that they buy it so you can, is also wonderful, and free for you.

At any rate, thanks so much to all of you for your support. It’s really appreciated. Happy reading!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Italian Vacation: Rome

Our final city of the trip was Rome, and it’s the city where we spent the most time. It’s a large city with such a deep history, how could we do anything else? Because it’s so large, getting around it was more difficult than the other places we’d gone. Everywhere else, once we were in the city, we could mostly walk everywhere we needed to go. You can’t do that in Rome. (Also, you don’t want to do that, because it’s sweltering outside.) On the plus side, Rome has a fairly large public transportation network. On the minus, most of that depends on buses, and those are . . . not very on time. We were never quite sure if the bus was just seriously late or very early, and we made many mistakes about which stop to wait at. It was just plain confusing, though it also might be due to being very tired by this point.

Still, Rome didn’t disappoint. Here’s a rundown of the highlights:

St. Peter’s Basilica: Talk about ginormous. It’s the large (large) cathedral built over St. Peter’s grave. We first tried to hustle there right before it closed, but all that hustling was for naught. Instead, we went back on Sunday, which worked out very well. The place is very large, with lots to see, and we got to see mass and hear the organ music, which is always a plus. There’s Michelangelo’s Pieta, the tombs of so many popes, monuments to different popes of note, St. Peter’s grave, and a hike up to the dome which we didn’t do. (Though I’ve heard very good things about it.)Vatican Museum: This is also where you go to see the Sistine Chapel. I was amazed by just how much is on display here. Artwork for so many different masters. Treasures from throughout history. By the time you get to see the Sistine Chapel, you’re almost in sensory overload. I had always assumed the Chapel would be like so many of the other painted ceilings I’ve seen in palaces over the years, with Adam reaching out to God being the large centerpiece. Instead, it’s essentially one large painting. Adam and God is in the middle, but it’s no larger than any of the other scenes depicted. It really was incredible.The Colosseum was much bigger than I expected. It was also absolutely mobbed. Like with many places, however, there was a glut of people taking pictures at the literal first chance they could, but if you got away from there, things opened up and it wasn’t as packed. (And you could take better pictures.) That said, it didn’t take too long to actually see the place. It’s largely in ruins, after all, and without an organized tour, you’re really just checking out the massive scope of the place. I really liked it.The Roman Forum: A series of monuments built by Important Romans over the years, all kind of scattered around in the same area of the city. Daniela was a big fan, and she now wants to know more about archaeology. (A heads up: we bought the two day ticket for the Colosseum and the Forum. The first day, we went to both, but we were short on time, so we decided to come back and see more of the Forum the next day. When we came back, we discovered that “two day ticket” actually means “you can use the ticket either the first or the second day, but once you use it, you can’t use it again.” It does not mean “come both days.” So that was a bummer.)Circus Maximus: I thought this would be awesome. The site of chariot races? How could you go wrong? Instead, it’s basically a big open field with a lot of construction work in it, often used as a concert venue. There’s like one small ruin on one end, and that’s it. Underwhelming.The Stone of Truth: Famous from Roman Holiday, it’s the stone Audrey Hepburn visits that is supposed to bite your hand if you’re a liar. It’s also right next to the Circus Maximus, which helped make that trip feel more worthwhile. Yes, you essentially just wait in line to take a picture in front of the stone, but the kids really liked it. (Daniela liked recreating shots from the movie.)Catacombs of St. Callixus: The burial site of the popes before things in St. Peter’s really took off. This is where Christians were buried back in the early days, when they were still being fed to the lions on a regular basis. Seeing this firsthand made the persecution early Christians experienced much more real to me. These catacombs are enormous, and they estimate about 500,000 people were buried there over the years. Very much worth the bus ride. Trevi Fountain: The most famous fountain in the city. It’s generally mobbed unless you go early. It was pretty, but I had somehow expected more . . . fountains. Like, actual streams of water going every which way. Instead, it’s mainly just a regular fountain, but with great statues. Not a big fan of the crowds, though.Spanish Steps: The site of my biggest mistake of the trip. We went early to the steps and got there well before the crowds (which meant we could actually take some pictures with almost no one else in them.) However, it also meant we had enough space to race up the steps. First the kids gave it a shot, and then I decided I wanted to try as well. People, there are a lot of steps. A lot of steps. I bolted up them as fast as I could, thinking there were only as many as you can see from the bottom. But then they turn, and there are more steps. I made it to the top, but I felt awful for the next half hour. That wasn’t that smart. Don’t pull a Bryce, folks. Just walk up the steps.The Pantheon: Originally a Roman temple and now a Christian church, this was super interesting to see. We went early and were some of the first into the building that day, which was (again) a good call. Great to see the place without a big crowd. It still has the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, 2000 years after it was built. Borghese Gallery: This was the one art museum we decided to visit in Rome. (Any more, and some of the kids would have started a revolution.) It was very nice, and quite compact. We saw the whole thing in under two hours, and it had some fantastic sculptures and paintings. Very worthwhile.Gelato della Palma: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this gelato place. It has 150 flavors of gelato to choose from, which was really incredible. We went twice, and we could easily have gone many more times. So much gelato, so little time.

Crowd levels were quite busy. I went out one evening to see things at night, and it was elbow to elbow walking down streets in popular areas. If you know me, you know how little I enjoyed that.

One thing I would do differently if I were to do it again would be to actually pay for some tours of the different places we went to. We sort of cobbled together the history with the small posted signs and some Wikipedia searches, but it would have been much more impactful to listen to someone who actually knew what they were talking about. (Of course, you’re never sure if you’re going to get a good tour guide or a bad tour guide, and with kids, “no tour guide” is definitely preferable to a bad tour guide.

Anyway, that wraps up my report on Italy for now. It was a great trip, and I’ve got lots of good memories from it now.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Italian Vacation: Pisa

The way I figure, if you’re going to Italy, and you don’t take a stupid looking picture in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, have you really been to Italy? It’s only an hour train ride from Florence, and so we decided to do it as an afternoon trip on one of our days there. It took a bit to decide just how long to stay. You can get tickets to go up the tower, and to visit the church and baptistry there. In the end, we decided to just stick with seeing the outside.

The plan, when we left, was to head out of Florence at 4:30, get to Pisa at 5:30, walk to the tower, check it out, grab a bite to eat, and then come back on the 8:00 train, which should have theoretically given us plenty of time at the tower and to eat.

In practice, it ended up taking more time at the tower than we had anticipated. For one thing, you just underestimate how much time it takes to get a really good goofy tower pic. Everyone wanted their own, and when there are 11 of you, it doesn’t matter if you have multiple cameras. It’s going to take some time, especially because everyone wants to make one with their own style. It’s kind of like carving a pumpkin in that respect. You don’t all want to be identical.

So there were pics of people hugging the tower, leaning on the tower, stealing the tower, eating the tower, jumping in front of the tower, running from the tower. You get the idea. Meanwhile, there are hordes of other people doing the same thing, so you have to make sure to time your pics to have as few in them as possible.

Of course, there’s a ton (ton) of people taking pictures right where the main path leads out to the tower. It seemed like the perfect angle for it. We took a bunch there, but then we walked to the other side of the tower, and you could actually walk on the grass there, it was in the shade, and there weren’t nearly as many people. So if you go, remember that there are more angles to take a good picture from than just one.

Just as we were finishing pics, some of the group decided to see inside the church and baptistry, which took additional time. Long story short, we were too low on time to grab food in Pisa and make our train. This meant we were forced to just buy gelato, instead. I know. The sacrifices we make sometimes. I will say that there are much worse things than gelato for dinner . . .

Honestly, there isn’t much else to do in Pisa than what we did. Yes, we could have walked up the tower, but then you’re just looking out on Pisa, and it’s not like the town itself is famous. There were a few restaurants there, but there are many more in Florence. I think we timed things just about right, all things considered. Very glad we didn’t take more time in the city.

Of course, this begs the question, “Was it worth the trip?” I would say yes. The tower is world famous, and it’s not that much time to go see it. Would I go again? No. But once was far from a waste of time. Your mileage may vary.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.