Garden update

 Pepper seeds not doing so hot. Going on three weeks and I'm not happy with the germination. Maybe 30 percent when they should be at 70. I started them before we left for vacation, in the greenhouse but without the heat mats on. Turned those on when we got home. Thought it would be warm enough to get them going but maybe not.

Patience, maybe?

I started some purple coneflowers and black-eyed Susans a couple months ago for a new flower bed I built last fall. They are doing real well. Not sure when I want to plant them though. Winging it there. Will harden them off for a 10 days and maybe shoot for the 20th. We'll see.

The Easter table setting

Basil, orchid and tulip

The dogs annual trip to town

 Took the boys (aka Stanley and Huckleberry) for their annual trip to the veterinarian for their shots and check-up. It was particularly satisfying to take Stan, since three years ago this vet's prognosis for him was 2 weeks to 2 years to live with his cancer. She also recommended amputating his leg where the first cancer was found. But now he's going on 12 years old, a lot slower, a little grayer, and still has all four legs.

Though she might've called that one wrong (thankfully), I like our vet. She does a good job of explaining things and isn't in a rush to get out of the exam room.

However, things have changed there. They are still COVIDphobes at the clinic and have new procedures. Well, new since we were there last March.

You call from the parking lot when you arrive. A tech comes out and takes the dogs inside, one at a time. Then the doc calls you when both are done, explains stuff, answers questions, then transfers the call to the front desk which takes your credit card number over the phone.

It's actually pretty slick and quicker as they don't leave you sitting in the exam room with your dogs waiting for doctor. 

The boys are always very good. They know the routine. We walk in, sit and wait. Then they hop on the scale and we go to the exam room.

That's what Huck, the basset hound, thought was going to happen this time until he arrived at the door and noticed Stanley and I were still standing back beside the pickup. That's when the 65-pounds of muscle and torque decided he wasn't flying solo on this mission. It was funny. I thought he was going to pull the poor tech lady to New Underwood and there wasn't much she could do about it. So Stanley and I went to the door like we were going in too. Huck fell for it, as he's not the brightest bulb, and walked in while we turned around. What happened after that, I'm not sure, but he and they survived.

The doc called after both guys were done. Said Stanley had lost three pounds and Huck had gained them. Since they both get the same amount of exercise, I'm sure Stanley's loss is due to his cancer and Huck's gain is due to middle age.

But now everybody in the house is vaccinated and ready to party like it's 1999. 

Finished: McBain's 'The Gutter and the Grave'

 "The Gutter and the Grave" was originally published in 1958 and republished in 2011 by Hard Case Crime. It's a classic hard-boiled detective novel.

It has the drunken ex-cop, curvaceous women, guns, lots of booze and jazz bands. All the things that made life worth living in the 1950s.

Detective Matt Cordell was happily married once, and gainfully employed, and sober. But that was before he caught his wife cheating on him with one of his operatives and took it out on the man with the butt end of a .45.

Now Matt makes his home on the streets of New York and his only companions are the city’s bartenders. But trouble still knows how to find him, and when Johnny Bridges shows up from the old neighborhood, begging for Matt’s help, Cordell finds himself drawn into a case full of beautiful women and bloody murder. It’s just like the old days – only this time, when the beatings come, he may wind up on the receiving end...

I gave it a 7+ on the 10-point Haugenometer. Amazonians give it a stellar 4.3 of 5.

Finished: Block's "Tanner's Twelve Swingers"

Lawrence Block's Evan Tanner series is better than his Chip Harrison series. His Burglar series is better than both and his Matthew Scudder series is best of all.

"Tanner's Twelve Swingers" is obviously from the Evan Tanner series. The "swingers" are not what you'd expect them to be from Block's books of that era (1967), but actually are gymnasts. It was entertaining.

Lawrence Block's third book in his hilarious Tanner series is back...And this time the intrepid spy is up to his neck in a dozen leggy beauties and a life-and-death smuggling assignment out of the cold corners of Russia. 

A couple quotes I liked:

"Brains will get you guns, but guns will never get you brains."

"One has to do idiot things from time to time, if only to assure oneself that one is a human being and not a robot."

From Nietzsche: "The true maturity of man is to recapture the seriousness one had as a child at play."

I gave the book a 6 on the 10-point Haugenometer. Goodreaders gave it a 3.7 of 5.

On to the next one in the series ...

The Josey Wales rabbit solution

This rabbit situation has gotten out of hand. I've written about how they ruined my garden last year. For that I take partial responsibility as my fence was getting raggedy. I pulled up all my old fencing (about 200 feet worth) and am installing new smaller-holed stuff. I have to fortify for this coming spring because they are multiplying! Who ever heard of such a thing? Rabbits breeding like ... well, rabbits.

At the back of our house we have a drain field for the septic tank. Sounds gross, but it's not. Actually the grass grows twice as fast there and stays green for most of the year. Deer love it, rabbits love it. A month ago I looked out at it and saw six rabbits grazing. That's not counting my two tame fertilizer-machine rabbits I keep in a hutch. That's not counting, Milo, a rather tame wild rabbit who lives under our front porch and stays on that side of the house.

My wife claims it's because I feed them. Technically, I only feed my pet rabbits, Hank and Waylon. But they spill food, so the wild ones have taken to eating that and sleeping under the hutch out of the way of the wily owl who has reduced my mouse population to zero. 

It's gotten so bad, I even spotted a rabbit sitting in my bird bath!

So I've sprung into action. I have several methods of rabbit control in my house that could take care of the situation but they all make rather loud "boom"s, and I have one neighbor who would likely call the sheriff. (He has in the past when he saw my kid walking in the field across the road with a paintball gun! And one other instance I'll write about another day.)

I looked into pellet guns. Quieter. But despite outward appearances I really am a softy, so I went with another plan. I dusted off my box trap and decided to try that first.

I set it by the rabbit hutch, sprinkled some food inside and I've caught SIX rabbits in two weeks. Then I drove them a couple miles away and released them. That's my catch and release plan. I don't know if they are smart enough, or dumb enough depending on how you look at it, to make their way back here; but they are getting a chance. I'm stopping at six, so if any more show up, they're getting Plan B. Boom!

As Josey Wales said to Ten Bears: "I ain't promising you nothing extra. I'm just giving you life and you're giving me life. And I'm saying that men (and rabbits) can live together without butchering one another."

And somewhere down by Hart Ranch (a housing development on a golf course down the road), some poor retiree is asking his wife: "Where the hell did all these rabbits come from?!"

Finished Block's 'Chip Harrison Scores Again'

 Lawrence Block has a four-book series with the character Chip Harrison. Chip is young rambling man, a scamp, who isn't a very good person but tries to tell himself he is by being all introspective. He's really not a good guy.

It's an okay read as LB really brings the characters to life. I'm not sure if I like the character but he's interesting and keeps me reading. 

When young, broke, and single Chip Harrison finds a bus ticket to Bordentown, South Carolina, he knows it was sent by the hand of fate. It’s his way out of wintry New York City, and a way into the warm welcome of Bordentown’s sheriff! But before long, Chip charms his way into the sheriff’s good graces and into the arms of Lucille, the preacher’s daughter. Even Chip should see he is headed for trouble with a capital T.

This is the second book of the series. It was written in 1971 and seems pretty explicit even for the '70s. It's a bit shocking to read today too, as Block uses all the words he'd be "cancelled" for using today; like slurs for various minorities and mentally-challenged people. All the big ones. Surprised he hasn't taken some flak for it. 

While I think Block was trying to be humorous, the book came off as dark and gloomy. It made me sad for Chip Harrison and bit sad for Block. I think it's interesting to remember where a particular writer was in their life when they wrote something. This was written 50 years ago. Block was no doubt a different person than he portrays himself today. I've always assumed he went through a dark period in his life and am just guessing that this was written during that time. 

Maybe I'm reading too much into it. But maybe not.

Gave it a 6 of 10. It didn't do well with Goodreaders either, a 3.4 of 5.

Finished: Ian McEwan's 'On Chesil Beach'

 It's amazing to me how the same author can write books I thoroughly enjoy and books I loathe.

Ian McEwan's "On Chesil Beach" falls into the latter category. I barely made it through. It "tells the story of virgins, Florence and Edward, and their first disastrous attempt at having sex on their wedding night. The initial experience and their differing responses to the failure have lifelong consequences for both."

Unbelievably, it was selected for the 2007 Booker Prize shortlist. More unbelievably, they even made a movie out of it. 

Apparently this was a case of "it's not you, it's me." It was so dumb. It was't a romance, kind of the opposite. It wasn't a mystery. I don't know what it was except that it wasn't for me.

I gave it a 5 of 10 on the Haugenometer. Stupid Amazonians gave it a 4 of 5.

To make myself feel better about my opinion I read a few of the many 1-star reviews on Amazon. One said: "The worst book I ever read."

Another concluded: "I was as disappointed with the story as Edward was with his wedding night and as put off by Florence and her foolish, stilted behavior as she was with Edward. I would not recommend this book at all. Even a cereal box would be more appealing as reading material!"

Amen, brother! Pass the Cheerios.

The only endearing part of the entire fiasco was finding this tidbit on Wikipedia while researching for this lame post: In a BBC Radio 4 interview, McEwan admitted to taking a few pebbles from Chesil Beach and keeping them on his desk while he wrote the novel. Protests by conservationists and a threat by Weymouth and Portland borough council to fine him £2,000 led the author to return the pebbles. "I was not aware of having committed a crime," he said. "Chesil Beach is beautiful and I'm delighted to return the shingle to it."

Good, he should've been fined for writing this book. Pebbles be damned.

A fantasy league of their own

 Don't worry, this is not a post about fantasy baseball. That would bore you. This is a post about the goofy people enacting a reality show in my fantasy baseball league. Unlike my annual football league that is made up of relatives, this 12-team baseball league is a "public league" on Yahoo, meaning you're just dumped in with a bunch of strangers from around the country.

I've been in one every season for around 20 years. People give their team's goofy names and there's a message board to communicate. Typically, the board is seldom used except for the occasional "hey, anybody have shortstop they want to trade?" Last season, I don't think there was a single message posted.

But, oh, this season ...

We had our draft on Friday night. For those unfamiliar with the process, we used an auto-draft, where the computer picks for you based on how you ranked your players. The top player you have listed gets drafted if that player is available; if not it moves to the next one; and around and around it goes until about 20 players are drafted for each team. So it went off without a hitch, or so I thought, until Saturday morning. That's when one player took exception to the draft. 

Richard (aka Dick) posted a condescending message to the members: 

The draft that took place last night was the craziest draft that I have ever took part in, and I have been playing fantasy baseball for 20+, own and have a number of teams, and play in several high stake leagues with professionals (I don't mean for that to come off like a jerk, if it does I apologize). The draft last night was just insane. People were just picking random players out of the blue, sometimes 3-6 rounds higher than a player should have been drafted. I dont know how to explain it other than people weren't looking at ADP, or projections. I have nothing against getting the players you want, but just based on ADP, you could have gotten a better player in that spot and then still gotten your player 50 picks later. I went into the draft with a specific strategy for this league, so I couldn't take as much advantage as I would have liked. Anyway, its all in fun. I know baseball can be a long season, but for the other players in the league, but stay active, or at least check your team once a week, nothing worse than being in a league where 2 or 3 teams are just sitting there after the first month.

This was followed by a couple others telling him off. And then this one from 19-year-old team owner Marie:

I go to school in Texas and when draft time came I was blacked out and had no power. No live draft for me, so don't know what you are talking about. But I don't feel I have to apologies to you. I have enough problems not baseball draft related. If you can help me find a grocery store that has food on it's shelves, that will help me and I'll apologies if I ruined your draft.

Many followed with "thoughts and prayers" posts, and no I didn't mention she spelled "apologize" wrong. Richard apologized for offending her, but kind of double-down on his criticism of the rest of us and pointed out he was using some new draft strategy (he had a name for it but I forget). 

I, of course, had to weigh in:

Making friends fast there, Richard. Personally, I use the Jose Cuervo draft strategy. One shot before the first round, two shots before the 2nd round, etc. By the 10th round I was pissed I didn't get Kate Upton as catcher.

A few more team managers weighed in with supportive thoughts, before Marie decided to let loose, with emotion and life history:

Thanks for the kind words all. I'm in Georgetown Tx and today it got up to 72. Power is back and water pressure while week, I do have water. Problem now is trucks couldn't get through so grocery shelves are bare. I'm small and skinny so don't have fat to sustain me.

I'm from Vermont and when we had weather like this we had power and water and headed to the mountains to go skiing. Texas couldn't handle this. This was scary to me. I come from a large close family. I decided to go to college out of state as I admired two older sisters who did the same. While I: love Texas, this has not worked out for me. First Covid and now this. I have to admit I was scarred sitting in the dark in a freezing condo was not in my plans. Boy did I miss my dad. He kept calling but I couldn't recharge my phone. I wasn't prepared for this. It's nice to see the sun, I sat on my balcony and enjoyed it. Still had bird seed so the birds were active and gave me pleasure. Ironic they have food and I'm on strict rationing. 

Again thanks for the kind words. I will survive, I just hope Roots Bistro gets a delivery so I can walk down and get a cheeseburger, or better yet I could probably eat a whole pizza. They might even serve me a beer.

More messages of support flowed in from old guys trying to make the young gal feel better. Kudos to them. At least she and the birds are safe.

Myself? I felt more like I've fallen into a Kardashian episode. And the season hasn't even started! This should be fun.

Finished: Ted Bell's 'Dragonfire'

 Ted Bell writes the Lord Alex Hawke spy novels. Kind of a James Bondish thing. His latest, Dragonfire, was very good in that realm.

December 8, 1941, Washington, D.C.

The new Chinese ambassador to the United States, Tiger Tang, meets with President Roosevelt one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. For the next four years, China and the U.S. will be wartime allies, but the charming, sophisticated ambassador may be playing his own treacherous game.

Today, The Bahamas

Alex Hawke is recovering from serious injuries incurred during a battle with a malevolent enemy. His recuperation is interrupted by a desperate call from the Queen. Her favorite grandson has disappeared in the Bahamas. Lord Hawke is the only man she trusts with a mission this sensitive. All she knows is that the young prince was last seen at the exclusive Dragonfire nightclub owned by the nefarious Tang brothers, grandsons of Ambassador Tiger Tang.

Bell referenced a Rudyard Kipling poem "If" that I'd forgotten about. It reminded me to reread it and sent it to my son:

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

I gave the book a 6 on the Haugenometer ... and the poem a 10.

Another late-night rant when I should have been reading a book instead

 Wifey and I just finished watching a short four-episode Netflix series called "Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel." It's a documentary produced by Ron Howard about a woman killed in a creepy hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

The coincidences and stories regarding the hotel and the victim are crazy. The craziness feeds into a fever among the amateur internet sleuths worldwide. That part is just a side note to the mystery, but I found it very illuminating of the internet and social media in general and the lack of perspective among many who use it. That lack of perspective and knowledge led all the sleuths and their followers on a frenzy and to the wrong conclusion.

It basically ruined this one man's life as they blamed him for the woman's murder. The guy, named Morbid, was an odd duck to begin with, lead singer in a death metal band, but it drove him to suicide, which he survived, but his life is a mess.

It's not an original notion of mine to say social media has gotten out of hand. But I'm not going to be consumed by it.

About a month ago, my phone pooped out on me and I had to get a new one. I didn't load the Facebook app on the new one, thus I rarely use FB anymore. It was annoying me anyway, had gotten a little tiresome, same old stuff all the time. I found myself muting or unfriending more and more people. I'm pretty much just on Twitter now and mostly limited to baseball and boxing athletes and news.

One thing I really noticed on Facebook in a couple groups I've lurked on is how uninformed they are. I remember reading a story once about a guy reading a newspaper. This person used to read every story as if it were 100 percent true. Then he read an article about a subject he was an expert on and found several inaccuracies, and it finally dawned on him that maybe many of those other stories perhaps were inaccurate too. Take that times a million on the internet.

It's one thing to have different opinions, but the one group in particular I was watching was embarrassing. They didn't have a ninth-grader's knowledge of the stuff they were talking about. Yet people fed off the misinformation, added to it, repeated it, often with several exclamation points to prove their point. I fear social media has jumped the shark, so to speak, and is more of a detriment to society than an asset. Again, not an original thought.

I haven't decided if social media brings out a part of people that never existed before or if it always existed and this is just an avenue now for their venom to be released. Before it had been kept inside and now it's getting out, or if it's a mob-mentality thing, a place they feel no consequences for their actions so they let it rip. I'm sure there are countless psychiatrist studying this.

I've just become very disillusioned by it. I suppose it's ironic or hypocritical that I'm using a form of social media, blogging, to complain about social media, but so be it. As far as Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, I'm ratcheting down, if not phasing out. In my circle of best friends, only one or two are on FB or Twitter anyway. We text a lot or, more amazingly, actually call each other and have conversations.

I'll still use Facebook to sell books and post some pictures of my dogs, but that's about it. (Here's a little secret: When I post a link to my blog on Facebook, my blog gets more hits, and I sell more books. There's a direct correlation. It's kind of disheartening actually.)

Here's just a small example of my social media disillusionment. A while back I wrote about the joy of having a short personal Twitter conversation with one of my favorite authors, Lawrence Block. I've followed him for some time now. His politics are different than mine but he wasn't obnoxious about it so no big deal. Until today.

Rush Limbaugh died. He was another case of somebody I listened to a lot in my 20s but that gradually reduced as his shtick wore thin and I also recognized he was just plain wrong on some of the facts he talked about. To the point where I haven't listened to him but for bits and pieces the last 15 years. 

So, Block retweeted a news story on Limbaugh's death with the comment "Good."

Really? A guy I respect and admired said that. I unfollowed him. I just don't need that kind of stuff. There are a lot of people I don't like who have died and I never felt good about it, with maybe the exception of Osama Bin Laden. Even when Jeffrey Epstein died, I didn't shed any tears, but was mostly mad that he took the easy way out. I wasn't glad he died. And certainly wouldn't take to social media to celebrate someone's death.

Maybe my disillusionment isn't so much with social media as it is with people in general. They've lost their manners, which is considered old-fashioned I guess. We've gotten to the point where profanity is a litmus test for manhood. "Locker room talk" is in vogue now. Keyboard warriors attacking people are supposedly tough. Just wait until that carries over into their daily life, which has begun, and a punch in the nose will cure them of that. But even those days are mostly gone as they're more likely to get shot instead.

It's a downhill slide we're on and I don't know how it'll stop. For me, it starts by lessening my social media use lest I get sucked down with it. I've vowed to myself not to let that happen. Maybe we can start a movement.

Hey, I know! Let's start a Facebook group and discuss it!

Or not.

Some whining

 I try not to whine. In fact, the most whining I do is about other people who whine. I try to be a stoic full-blooded Norwegian. A Viking! But ...

Have you ever had a root canal?

Uff da. Cracked my back molar last Monday eating a piece of steak, where I think I cut just a tiny bit of bone off and caught it just right while chewing. Went to dentist on Tuesday who looked at the x-ray and said "oh shoot." He referred me to an endodontist on Thursday for the root canal. Back to the dentist yesterday for a temporary crown. Will go back in two weeks for the permanent. Every day in between has had me whining. 

I assuage myself by saying Ragnar never had a root canal.

Not sure what is worse: back pain or tooth pain? With a sore back, you might not be able to sit or walk comfortably but you can still eat. With a sore mouth, you can't eat comfortably but you can walk.

My dentist, who used to coach my son's Teener baseball team, is a good guy. I like my dentist, but don't like going to him. At the appointment, before he stuck his fists in my mouth, he said to me: "I almost called you the other day. Do you know the worst part about dentistry?"

I said: "Hygeniests?" Because she was standing behind me.

He belly-laughed and she said: "I'm not a hygienist!" Guess she's a dental technician.

Short story shorter, he answered his own question: "Insurance companies."

Anyway, I trudge on with a sore jaw and gums from being stretched beyond normalcy and injections. Hopefully there's a light at the end of the tunnel now and I can get back to whining about this weather and cars that don't start and my mailbox getting run over by dumb drivers.

Whassup?

 

I shouldn't have done it

 For the most part, it's my wife's fault. But, to be totally honest, I didn't HAVE to read the book.

In recent years I've taken to providing my wife and kids my Christmas list, which contains novels I'd like to read. It's very specific. And each one is given a different list so they don't all end up buying me the same book. It works out great. It makes gift-buying easy for the family; and it makes gift receiving enjoyable for me.

But then wifey had to go and improvise. She admitted it before hand too. "I bought you a book that wasn't on your list, because I really liked the cover." What!? That's violating the golden rule of book buying (my rule anyway). Don't go for the pretty cover because, as the ages-old adage says, words to live by are: "Don't judge a book by the cover!" Had she never heard that? I wondered as Christmas approached.

I told myself to be nice when I opened the book. To force myself to read it, no matter what. To say I liked it, no matter what.

And the deal wasn't all bad. She actually bought me two books, one from my list and then one from the bookshelf with the pretty covers. I joyfully knocked off the John Sandford book in no time, while the "other" book stared at me from the top of my desk.

"The Whisper Man" by Alex North, an author I never heard of. A Brit, non-the-less. Maybe I've never heard of him because he/she is writing under a pseudonym. 

I knew from reading the jacket flap, it wasn't a book I wanted to read. It was obviously a scary book and it involved kids. Two things I don't like in a book. One of the reviews on the back said: "First it's spooky. Then it's scary. Then it's terrifying." Great.

I can read murder-mysteries every day of the week. In fact I do. Blood and gore don't bother me. Dexter cutting up body parts, no problem. Hannibal eating his victims, give me seconds. But a little boy kidnapped by a psychopath who's been whispering to him through the mail slot in the door? Nuh uh. No way. I don't do Stephen King. Not since Pet Cemetery. I can't explain it. Those books just hit that spot in the back of my cerebral cortex, the same spot that won't allow me to eat green peas.

It's a weird thing about me, like scraping plates. I can pick up dog poop in the yard; I can pull half-eaten rabbits out of the mouth of my dog; I can castrate a pig; dehorn a steer; blood and gore can shoot and spill and I can wipe it off my face with my sleeve and keep on trucking. But I hate scraping dinner plates into the garbage. Ooh, I got gravy on my fingers, soy sauce on my arm, mashed potatoes under my fingernails. Ick! Go figure but don't ask me to explain why.

So, how was "The Whisper Man", you ask?

Well, first it was spooky, then it was scary, then it was terrifying. Then I had trouble sleeping. But I finished it. And it was good like a haunted house was good or running a marathon was good. It sucked while you were doing it, but felt good when you were done.

I gave it a 6 on the Haugenometer. Amazonian spooks liked it more and give it 4.4 of 5.

But what can you expect from a scaredy-cat like me? Please stick to my list next time, honey.

Who's your guy?

 Years back my daughter drove into my garage door and wrecked it along with a corner of the garage. I can build a rabbit cage but I can't rebuild a garage. So I called a buddy who could come take a look at it.

He came and helped me fix it. More like I handed him stuff while he fixed it. I thanked him and he said: "Hey, we've all gotta have our guy. For fixing things, I'm 'your guy.'"

So he's my fix-it guy. I also have a beef guy, who supplies me locally-grown meat. I've got a honey guy, who supplies me with, you guessed it, local honey. I've got a walleye guy too. Even a canned pickles guy.

In reverse, I'm the "tomato guy" for some people. I provide them seedlings early in the season or vine-ripened fruits in the summer. It's not much but you go with what the good Lord gave ya.

But what I've needed lately is an "ammo guy." In case you hadn't heard there's a shortage of ammunition out there as people are buying guns at a record pace. And if you have guns you need something to shoot out of them. Thus one of the reasons for the shortage. Among others, like COVID hitting the supply line workers. Here's a good story and video from a Remington guy explaining it.

Thankfully, of all people, my wife has an "ammo guy." Usually I would not want my wife to have "a guy" of any sort. But he has access to 9mm ammo and I don't so I look the other way.

Seems we're almost getting back to the barter system in some ways. That's a good thing. You know where your food comes. You develop relationships and friendships. You rely on each other. It's all good. And if one of them annoys you too much, it's always good to have that ammo guy!

Finished: John Sandford's 'Masked Prey'

 Masked Prey is the 30th book in John Sandford's "Prey" series. Amazingly, he's still keeping them pretty fresh.

This novel is set in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., northern Virginia, right about where my son lives. I prefer his novels set in Minnesota because I'm more familiar with the area. But this one also seemed topical in that I have been in or around much of that area, which always makes for fun reading. Sure it's interesting to have novels in more exotic locations like Rome or Paris, but it works better for my mind's eye when I can more easily visual the cities and terrain having witnessed them myself. Make sense?

The daughter of a U.S. Senator is monitoring her social media presence when she finds a picture of herself on a strange blog. And there are other pictures . . . of the children of other influential Washington politicians, walking or standing outside their schools, each identified by name. Surrounding the photos are texts of vicious political rants from a motley variety of radical groups.

It's obviously alarming--is there an unstable extremist tracking the loved ones of powerful politicians with deadly intent? But when the FBI is called in, there isn't much the feds can do. The anonymous photographer can't be pinned down to one location or IP address, and more importantly, at least to the paper-processing bureaucrats, no crime has actually been committed. With nowhere else to turn, influential Senators decide to call in someone who can operate outside the FBI's constraints: Lucas Davenport.

I gave it a solid 7 of 10 on the Haugenometer. Amazonians a 4.5 of 5. 

Finished: Westlake's 'Help I Am Being Held Prisoner'

 Pretty ominous title in this novel by Donald Westlake. A scary thriller of kidnapping, rape, torture? Naaa.

It's Westlake. He doesn't roll that way. Even his prison novels are funny.

In this one, the main characters name is even funny and a rolling joke throughout. I'd type it but can't find the umlaut key. The guy with the funny name is a prankster. And he goes to prison for a prank gone wrong on the wrong people (a couple congressmen). He keeps up his jokes while in prison, while falling in with a gang who has a tunnel out of prison, where he spends most of his days in an apartment with his girlfriend, while unwantingly being forced to plan a bank robbery.

Westlake is so clever he makes me mad, because I can't come up with a plot half as clever as his. In all his books. The man was a genius and I don't use that term lightly.

I gave it a solid 7 on the Haugenometer. Amazonians were even higher at 4.5 of 5 and Goodreaders a 4 of 5.

Notes

**  I was happy to see 80 of my books downloaded during the smashwords.com end-of-year sale. "Bags of Bodies" and "Bags of Rock" were the top two books selected, as I'd hoped. "Joshua's Ladder" continues to attract readers too, so that is good. 

** The last couple years I've caught 20-30 field mice in my garage throughout the winter. Kind of gross but we are surrounded by thousands of acres of prairie and foothills and they look for a warmer place. This year, however, I caught three early on and none in the last couple months. That perfectly coincides with an owl who lives in a tree in the gully behind our house. Thank you, Mr. Owl. Now if he'd just take care of the plethora of rabbits who are organizing for a summer assault on my garden.

** This column by Jonah Goldberg does a better job of explaining some of the thoughts I expressed in my earlier post on news. It has bigger words and stuff.

When we get fed only what we want to hear, it becomes a contest for who can sell the purest junk.

** You should know by now what I think of censorship, but nobody has a right to get published. Hey, Josh, you can always try smashwords.com.

Here's a WSJ story on the subject.

The intelligence of your group is usually defined by the dumbest member

 Through the course of my day job I often get asked what news I watch. Usually it's meant as a sarcastic jab: from the far left that I must only watch FOX News or from the far right that I must only watch CNN. But some genuinely seem to want to know where to get unbiased news.

It's the unfortunately reality today that many people live in an echo chamber and only want to hear news they agree with, so they gravitate to MSNBC on one side or Newsmax/OAN on the other. The cry of "fake news" is often heard, but using that vague allegation I'd proffer that if there's fake news on the left there's also fake news on the right. So the conundrum is finding something in the middle, if that beast lives.

I "watch" very little news. My television at work is set to Fox Business and on mute so I can see how the markets are doing. When it leaves that channel it goes to CSPAN2, which focuses its lens on the floor of the U.S. Senate. There you can hear straight from the senators without fear of a filter or things being taken out of context. At home I seldom watch local news unless it's to get the latest on an impending weather event. I never watch national network news. 

I get my news online. I also follow a handful of news accounts on Twitter, from local journalists, newspapers and television stations to a couple national writers. 

I used to be a faithful reader of the Drudge Report, but haven't for a couple years. If you want to get depressed, read Drudge. The sky is falling and the world is going to hell there. I don't need that and I don't believe that. My first stop instead is usually Hotair.com. It's right leaning but not crazy. It offers headlines from various left and right national news outlets, with two or three paragraph excerpts of their stories. You can then click to the entire story if you wish. It also offers analysis and opinions from an array or writers.

I also read TheHill.com. It gives a pretty straight forward account of what's occurring on Capitol Hill. 

Beyond that I stick to sports and book websites.

I don't avoid what many consider the "mainstream" news, like the NY Times or Washington Post, that gets vilified from the right. But I do think there are things to consider when reading any news.

If they quote unnamed sources and use unattributed or anonymous quotes, ignore them. "Sources say" are the worst two words in journalism. Maybe file them away in the back of your brain or research the allegations more through other media, but don't take them as Gospel. Then, as you see those stories play out and become true or false, file that reporter's name away as legitimate and respected or not. Don't be reactionary and jump to conclusions. Have patience for a story to play out - like shootings or bombings and who is responsible or to blame.

If nothing else it is important to know what the other "side" is saying. Because sometimes "everybody I know says ..." is more a reflection of the small circle you run in. It may prove to be a smart circle or an uninformed circle. Personally, I know the bunch of goofballs I run with, and if they are all saying the same thing, I'm immediately cautious. 

As I used to tell my son, the intelligence of your group is usually defined by the dumbest member of that group. If you don't recognize who is the dumbest, it probably means it is you. Group-think is dumb. Be an individualistic thinker. 

And for goodness sake, don't get your news from Facebook friends and memes. They're the least informed and often loudest. Just because something is in all-caps, DOESN'T MAKE IT CORRECT.

Mostly, just read a lot, from various news outlets, left, center and right. You'll be smarter, more well-rounded, maybe more respectful of other opinions, more empathetic, and probably less stressed about the world around you.

Finished: Daniel Silva's "The Order" - it was fantastic

 I started Daniel Silva's "The Order" in late December. It's a pretty thick novel by my standards, (464 pages) so I planned to finish it the first week of January. Thus it would get a jump on my book total for 2021, but it was so good, I finished it in a couple of days, still in 2020. But, I'd already written my 2020 books in review post so I'm still counting it among my 2021 total. Sue me.

The trouble is, it was so good, it's going to be tough to beat the rest of the year.

It is the 20th book in the Gabriel Allon series. It's a real "thinker" and delves into issues between Jews and Christians, The Vatican's role in anti-Semitism, history of the Gospels and the history of religion in general. I thought it was great and gave it to a coworker interested in those kind of things with orders to drop what she was reading (a history of Abraham) and read it. For a change, she listened to me and I think she agreed that it was very interesting.

I gave it 9- on the Haugenometer. Amazonians at 4.3 of 5 and Goodreaders 4.2 of 5. So I was a little higher on it than them, but what do they know? The negative nabobs said it was too political and not the spy thriller they were used to from the series. Some people just want their fiction and don't want to think. I pick up books for that purpose too, just to enjoy, but occasionally it's good to test the noggin' too.

It had a nice surprise ending, a bit unbelievable, but hey. It's fiction!