24 Jun 2014

Cirque du Soleil — A Wild Ride

posted in: performances, personal news | 0

I’d never been to Cirque du Soleil before. Now I have. Wow.

This year they’re doing a show called Amaluna, which from the press looked pretty fantastical. Our niece Lauren was visiting from California, and we decided it was time to go. What an amazing amalgam of showmanship, acrobatics, gymnastics, dance and flexibility, music and drum, fantasy and story, balance, strength, and a touch of humor. The cast is 70% female and the band 100%, which marks a major shift for Cirque.

http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/amaluna/default.aspx

Eye candy, too. I told Allysen if I were a woman, it would be enough to turn me gay. There’s a sort of story to it, loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. See it if you get a chance!

You can read a couple of good reviews at Huffington Post and The New York Daily News.

Here are Lexi and Julia in front of the big tent, as the crowd was leaving.

17 Apr 2014

The BookBub Promotion Went Great

posted in: ebooks, personal news, publishing, science fiction, specials, The Chaos Chronicles | 0

If you were reading here last week, you know I marked down my omnibus ebook of The Chaos Chronicles: Books 1-3 for a week, in conjunction with a promotion on Bookbub.com. The sale went amazingly, gratifyingly well. Better than I expected or dreamed. In fact, there are more than 2500 people out there with shiny new copies of my omnibus on their Kindles, Nooks, iPads, whatever. More than 1500 people grabbed it on the first day alone. We broke into the top 100 sellers of all books in the Kindle store, and briefly lingered at #65 among all Kindle ebooks. More importantly, I’ve already heard from one new reader who discovered my work through the sale and has already ripped through it happily and gone on to download Sunborn.

That’s the most gratifying thing about it, is the new readers. The extra income is nice, too, of course.

If you’re one of those readers, I hope you enjoy the book! And if you do, I’d be eternally grateful if you’d take a moment to post a review wherever you bought it, or at Goodreads, or anywhere, really. Word of mouth means everything. And thanks!

16 Apr 2014

An Electric Bill Even a Miser Would Like

posted in: personal news, solar power | 0

It finally happened. Our latest electric bill:

    $-35, due on or before April 28 

Yes! The electric company owes us money! This has been our best month so far, generating electricity from the solar panels on our roof. Here’s how it looks so far in April:

Typically I think we use ~22 kWh per day. There were some days this month we generated almost double that amount, and fed the extra to the grid, and only a few days where we fell short. Solar rocks.

28 Feb 2014

Happy Birthday, Bookbub!

posted in: ebooks, my books, personal news | 0

No, wait, I got that wrong. It’s Happy Birthday, Allysen! (It’s my loving wife’s forty-two-plus-somethingth birthday today. Yay!)

It’s also the day of my first Bookbub promotion! Eternity’s End is on sale for $.99, for one week only. At Kindle! At Nook! At Smashwords! This is the one that was a finalist for the Nebula Award: a big, sprawling star-rigger story, complete with space pirates, amphibious aliens, cyber-enhanced love, and cosmic wonders. Get it for less than a buck, for one week only. Heck, for that price, buy six and give it to your friends!

If you like the book, I sure would appreciate your posting a review to your favorite store or review site. Believe it or not, reviews matter!

After March 7, the price goes up.

And did I remember to say: Happy Birthday, Allysen!

17 Jan 2014

Interesting Times? Holy Sh%$.

posted in: personal news, public affairs | 0

Bank robbers were shot by police today about 150 feet from where I’m sitting in our dining room.  My daughter Julia and I heard bang bang bang bang, and thought it was construction or firecrackers. I briefly thought gunshots, and then thought nah. Captain Jack knew it was worth barking about, but he settled down quickly. When I went out twenty minutes later to go to an appointment, police were stringing up crime scene tape, and just getting ready to tape off our driveway. I drove away knowing only that there’d been a shooting.

When I got home, I learned that it was not a domestic incident or random murder, but police responding to armed suspects. The whole place is closed off; I had to park a block away and walk home. The news helicopters are still circling around. Here’s the story:

On Arlington Patch, and on Channel 5’s website.

Here’s what the scene looks like now.

While taking my own pictures, I got interviewed by both Channel 4 and Channel 5 news. They must really have been desperate for something to put on the air. (I doubt very much they’ll use it, but you never know.)

I guess I can’t complain about life being dull. This stuff is only supposed to happen on TV.

3 Jan 2014

Not So Much, Where We Are

posted in: personal news, weather | 0

Even though I heard reports of fifteen inches of snow in nearby places, I don’t think we got more than eight, or ten at the most, here in Arlington. By the time I got out to walk Captain Jack, my downstairs neighbor had already thoughtfully shoveled the walk, the back deck, and a bit of the driveway. By the time I got back from walking Jack, my next door neighbor had thoughtfully shoveled out the driveway apron! I still had work to do with the snow blower, but a lot less than I expected. Good thing, because even without much wind chill, the six-degree temperature got my hands pretty cold.

Here’s the final result in the late afternoon sun.

2 Jan 2014

Happy Start to the New Revolution!

posted in: personal news, year end wrap-up | 0

By which I mean, of course, around the sun. We made it the whole way ’round again! Happy New Year, everyone!

I never did get around to posting Christmas greetings, but I hope the end of December was a good one for you. I was busy with family, including my brother and his wife visiting from Florida. A fine time had by all.

As I think back on 2013, I’m amazed we had time to experience everything that happened. We moved Allysen’s mom Fay to our area from Puerto Rico, which was the longest and hardest logistical (and emotional) undertaking I’ve ever been involved in. (Including the saga of the seven puppies, three of which came north with us and found great homes.) Fay ‘s pretty well settled in now at her new place. But not without her dog Diego getting  heartworm, and she herself breaking an arm. Fortunately, as I’ve probably said before, we eat problems for breakfast here. Then, of course, there was Lexi getting hit by a car on her bike, which laid her up for months. But then she got a new job, and that’s been exciting. Allysen tried to outdo her by getting rear-ended in our Ford Fusion, because she emergency-stopped to keep an 18-wheeler from killing her. That led to the car being totaled, so we went car shopping last week. And, of course, I finished the first draft of The Reefs of Time, right before Christmas!

That’s the Reduced Shakespeare Company rendition of our 2013. How was yours?

Here is the car we’ve bought and hope to pick up, after the big winter Nor’easter that’s bearing down on us as we speak. It’s a 2014 Ford Fusion, in a beautiful ruby red finish. We’re thinking of calling it Katniss, after the girl of fire, from The Hunger Games.

Maybe later I’ll post my thoughts about books and movies from the last year.

26 Dec 2013

Half-Price Ebook Sale at Book View Café

posted in: ebooks, my books, personal news, specials | 0

My friends at Book View Café and I are having a big Boxing Day Week sale on a huge number of books. All of my books there are half-price for a limited time, and there are a ton of other great half-price books by my fellow BVC authors. The list includes many familiar names from the science fiction and fantasy world, including Ursula LeGuin, Vonda McIntyre, Pati Nagle, Linda Nagata, Judith Tarr, David Levine, Chris Dolley, and many others in a variety of genres. This is an excellent chance to stock up on some terrific books for half price, and maybe discover some new favorite authors along the way. Here’s where to look:

The books are all DRM-free in both Kindle and Epub format, so you can read them on pretty much any reading device you like. It doesn’t get much better than that, in the ebookosphere.
26 Dec 2013

Merry Christmas, All Twelve Days’ Worth!

posted in: personal news | 0

I hope you all had (or are still having) a wonderful Christmas, and for that matter Solstice and impending celebration of our circuit around the Sun! Here at the Starrigger Ranch, we had a terrific Christmas, including a turkey dinner, with my brother Chuck and his wife Youngmee visiting, and our friend Mary and Allysen’s mom here, as well. It was a fantastic celebration of family and friends.

My wife grew up largely in Latin America and has a strong sense of the full Christmas period, extending through New Year to Three Kings Day, on January 6. (This is also handy when gifts haven’t arrived in time for Christmas Day. They’re not really late; they’re just part of the whole extended experience.)

I hope all of you had family, or people you care about, near or in touch during these holidays. God bless you all, however you celebrate the season!

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