Dang. Sometimes things happen and you have to deal with them when you don't want to. I have lived a good life and not had many hardships to deal with, so these little travesties are all I know. Today the truck, my beloved medium duty, workhorse has died. Not a 'Tow it home, fix 'er up, get 'er going' sort of death, more of a pay a mechanic $3 thousand dollars sort of death. Guess who doesn't have that kind of money laying about?

Lately I've been busy, spring is in the air, after all. I own an acre of land, or an acre of lawn might be more accurate, sure there is a shed on it and a couple incredibly minuscule garden beds, as well as the usual trimmings around any structures that need regular maintenance every year. This always makes for a couple busy weeks in the spring and for less free time over all when it is finally warm enough for things to grow in Central Iowa. I love getting outside and this year my exuberance for yard works seems to know few bounds, perhaps it’s my new lease on this life of mine?

This weekend has been wonderful. I have made the journey to my personal mecca (Lake Geneva, WI), spent a great deal of money, had a lot of laughs and enjoyed the company of old friends and new. This morning I was up to play a game of Artemis, a space ship simulator, and picked up a coffee and a bite to eat, which I brought up to the floor the game was on. It’s the weird little things that happen that make life worth living, isn’t it? As I was sitting at a free table to chow down, a gentleman came over and asked if he could use the other end of the table to sign some stuff for a fan.

Yeah, I know, it’s that boring time of year where you read about how I am off at game conventions geeking out. Gary Con is this weekend, a homage to a guy, like it or not, that had a huge impact on my life, probably more than any other man aside from my father and grandfather. The funny thing is his product and ideas were more like a ‘fire and forget’ missile than a mentoring, caring relationship, but sometimes the smallest things can have a great, unforeseen impact.

You know I love 'em! Game conventions, I mean. I'm talking board, role playing, miniatures and card game conventions, not gambling sort of games, which I would not have the fortitude for. 

The first con of the year is typically Gamicon in central/eastern Iowa. Usually I just bring a shit load of...shit and sell it at the auction and then pick up a few choice pieces of other people's shit to haul back home. Typically there would be little gaming. This year was different; no hauled shit, no bought shit, just gaming. 

Writing wise I figured out some of my problems lately; not making time for it, not having a decent laptop to work on. I have a variety of other time draining thing going on in my life (don't we all?) and eking out time to write has been challenging lately. Medical stuff, house stuff, car stuff, work stuff, all these have contributed to lower than desired word count. Truth be told I am not feeling much for the work on TZC6 that I have done, in fact I have resolved to salvage a few things from it and start it over.

TZC1 is fully posted now. 

I think I may either do a few of the short stories or get stubs for all the books built next. (For the Zombie Chronicles.) Hopefully over the next couple of days there will be enough content to launch this version of the website.

This is going to be a lot slower than I had hoped... I cannot import my old files into the new site, so I am manually recreating the 'books'. So far I have added each 'Universe' I work in (James Rover, The Zombie Chronicles and Shiners) and put a little data out in each of them. 

To that end I have posted through Chapter 30 of TZC1: Outbreak tonight.  Now only, er, 12 more books to go! At 20 chapters a night that will take me another month I am sure. Then I can start adding new content like I want to.