Even if you’ve seen these photos before – they are always good for a laugh. I inherited my copies fourth hand; if you can help me assign photo credits, please do so!
I note there are no people around now. Except, um, the photographer.
(The WP Weekly Photo Challenge wants to see horizons.)
I’m a disaster junkie. Natural disasters amaze me. I hate it when people get hurt, but the forces of nature that create the disasters leave me awestruck.
A couple years ago, I learned about Lake Okeechobee, a sinkhole that is the seventh largest freshwater lake in the United States. That’s a big sinkhole!!
I also learned that tragically, in the 1920s, hurricane winds blew water over the tops of Okeechobee’s levees, which killed hundreds of people. Since that time, the levee tenders say they’ve rebuilt to withstand anything the Earth can send their way. (Hmm. Where have I heard that before?) There is apparently some controversy about whether this is true.
Knowing all this, I had to see Okeechobee for myself. A family reunion staged on both coasts of Florida gave me the opportunity I needed. As my son and I drove from the Atlantic to the Gulf, he agreed to a detour so that I could see my sinkhole.
I only got to make one stop at Okeechobee, and that briefly. (I hope to go back for a longer visit someday — probably alone.) Still, it did not disappoint.
Here is what I saw.
The “moat” around Lake Okeechobee.
That human speck at the top of the levee is my son.
Fishing boat heading for the lake.
In the background, the bunker. In the foreground, my son jumping from post to post.
Florida has a lot of sky.
Many of the levees are topped with biking and walking trails. It could be fun to circle the lake!… Maybe… The circuit would take more than one day….
That is indeed a large sinkhole.
(The WP Weekly Photo Challenge asked to see a horizon.)
On my occasional trips to Florida to see family, I have been repeatedly disappointed in efforts to spot alligators out in the open (not planted at a zoo or theme park).
Please understand, I don’t have a death wish. It’s not like I traipse through the Everglades calling here gator gator. I simply search for remnants of gator culture in Florida suburbs, under the assumption that surviving gators will shun humans rather than eat them.
They certainly shun this human!
An unfounded claim.
Horizon-tal symmetry.
We almost didn’t get the picture – took us many precious seconds to figure out that speeding up to see him before he got away made him run faster to get away.
Even if you’ve seen these photos before – they are always good for a laugh. I inherited my copies fourth hand; if you can help me assign photo credits, please do so!
On the plus side, use of existing materials to solve problems is a sign of creativity.
Even if you’ve seen these photos before – they are always good for a laugh. I inherited my copies fourth hand; if you can help me assign photo credits, please do so!
Are the guys on top waiting to come down?
Even if you’ve seen these photos before – they are always good for a laugh. I inherited my copies fourth hand; if you can help me assign photo credits, please do so!
Getting it down may be trickier.
The WordPress Daily Prompt asks: “6:00AM: the best hour of the day, or too close to your 3:00AM bedtime?”
Neither. Both. Sometimes.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
My answer has changed over the years. It used to be that I was only up at dawn if I was still up from the night before. If I could set my own schedule, that would probably still be true. Actually, what I would prefer is to sleep a few hours at night and the rest of my hours in the afternoon. Afternoons are useless. I like afternoons about as much as Camus’ Stranger likes Sundays. But I digress. Somebody told me that 4 hrs night/4 hrs afternoon is a paleo sleep schedule: it’s how our distant ancestors slept. Alas, not sure when or if I can give it a try. My sleep schedule has rarely been up to me. Jobs, schools, doctors, repair guys – they’re the ones in control.
Nowadays, half my body clock seems to be permanently broken. I can still stay up until all hours and most nights I must force myself to go to bed at a decent hour. But – after so many years as a night owl trapped in an early bird world – I cannot sleep in. Period. So I am now quite familiar with 6 am.
Fortunately, 6a is a marvelous time of day, when all is fresh and full of potential. In my household, I am the only dawn enthusiast, which makes 6a a “me” time of day. You will find me writing then. Or exercising at my outdoor bootcamp class. Or hiking. Hiking into a sunrise requires a bit of planning – it all changes so remarkably quickly. The photos below were taken scant minutes apart. Every single day, the world starts in this beautiful way, whether we are there to witness it or not.
A couple minutes before 6a. Goodbye to night.
Clock photo from fotosearch.com.
Cover art by Lars Huston.
Until the end of October, 2013, get a free e-copy of WAS IT A RAT I SAW, my psychological thriller involving split brain research, animal rights, and a love quadrangle.
I’ve recently distributed some copies for readers’ reviews and I am thrilled to report that so far the ratings have been great!
Here’s how to get your free copy:
* Go to RAT’s page on Smashwords,
* Click the blue “Add to Cart” button.
* Proceed to checkout, but instead of paying, use coupon code KX86E.
* Let me know (via a comment on this page) if you encounter problems.
After you read it, please write a review! (Readers’ reviews are incredibly important to indie authors.)
My To Read list is decades long, so I rarely stop to re-read a book, no matter how much I love it. Lately I’ve made exceptions, though, for books that mattered to me long ago. With some, I’ve been curious about whether they would hold up. With others, I’ve simply wanted to reunite with old friends.
Thus, over the last year, I have discovered that these books hold up well:
Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner, a 1960s skew on a dystopian future, many details of which are now Life As We Know It. Brunner writes this in a style that was unusual in the ’60s and remains distinctive today. Some people lose patience with it. Give it 50 pages to settle in.
In Deep by Patricia Cooper, a brooding character study of a smart, troubled woman with tangled, suspect relationships. Cooper’s writing is edgy yet smooth and insightful. I wish she had continued to write novels.
After Leaving Mr. MacKenzie and Good Morning Midnight by Jean Rhys, portraits of independent, sensual women, damaged by life in a society where women were supposed to be neither.
If chick lit had books like the above, I would seek it out.
Double Indemnity by James M. Cain, a perfect slice of noir. Here, every word counts, making it an excellent training for any aspiring writer. Reading it reminded me I need to watch the movie again, with a brilliant script by Raymond Chandler.
Which brings me to Chandler. I have been happy to (again) reconnect with all seven of Raymond Chandler’s novels. He remains my favorite author. If you have never read him, start with Farewell My Lovely.
As you may have guessed, I recommend all of these books.
I’m thinking you don’t need details to imagine how this lesson came to be.
I much prefer Apple’s word-processing software, Pages, to Microsoft Word. But then I hate Word and avoid it whenever I can. Thus it grieves me to report that Word could be superior to Pages in any way. But here is one way. A big way!
When I prepared my psychological thriller, WAS IT A RAT I SAW, for serialization on this blog, I did the typing in Pages. I did the spellchecking in Pages. I copied each serial chapter from Pages. However, to prepare the book for e-publication on Smashwords, I had to move the manuscript into Word. It was then that I discovered the typos. In well nigh every chapter.
Typos! Everywhere!
I so hate typos. I assume my readers do too. Fortunately, none of these typos changed meanings, but that is limited consolation.
For those of you who read RAT in serial, mea culpa and lo siento. I hope I can make it up to you. Come back tomorrow – the next post here will detail how to get a free e-copy of RAT with all those typos corrected.
Mind you I’m not saying it’s typo free. That’s a promise I can’t make and I’m not alone. I can’t remember the last time I read a book that had a zero typo count. In defense of current typo standards: I was stunned at how many typos I found in the old hardcover version of WAS IT A RAT I SAW, which I re-visited to serialize. As I recall, the Bantam-Doubleday-Dell copy editor and I spent 37 months in proof-reading before that edition was finalized. At the time, I thought no typos had escaped scrutiny. I was wrong.
Required Writing 