Category: photog’s Corner

Here you will find the stuff that shouldn’t be mixed in the other categories but interest me. caveat emptor.

Critical Vindication

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So yesterday “The Sniper” sold over a thousand pages on Kindle Unlimited in one day for the first time (1,014 pages to be exact).  In fact, before this the highest daily total was 688 pages so it beat it by a good large margin.  And in fact, since the promo ran there hasn’t been a day where I haven’t sold pages on Kindle Unlimited and the total for September will exceed August by more than 100% (4,228 for all August versus something more than today’s 8,561).  I consulted Grok about how my progress compared with the average first self-published novel and it told me I was significantly above the average new book.  But it then qualified my success by adding that a mid-lister needs 50,000 to 100,000 pages a month to be taken seriously.  So that means I need to increase my sales by a factor somewhere between 5 and 10.  Well, that AI really knows how to put a budding writer in his place!  But when I showed it the graph of my sales before and after the promo it said that there clearly was a change:

“What stands out is the pattern, not the raw total. Through most of July and August the daily line is choppy with frequent near-zero days and isolated spikes of 300–550 pages. From mid-September onward the baseline rises, the zeros become rarer, and the last few days reach 600–700 pages. That timing lines up with a five-day giveaway of ~3,600 copies. Free promotions rarely convert 1-for-1 into paid or KU reads, but they do push the titles into more “also-bought” and “customers who viewed” recommendations and give Amazon’s algorithm fresh activity to work with. The chart is consistent with a fraction of those new readers later borrowing the books in KU.”

Well, some of that doesn’t make sense to me but without a doubt selling has increased.  I’ve calculated that sale of books (not pages but paperbacks and e-books) increased 59% after the promo.  So even though these sales amounts are objectively minuscule the fact that they’re being driven by the people who participated in the promo and the fallout it caused in Amazon’s “algorithms” is very significant in the way it affects the book’s visibility on the platform.

And just as a reader’s comment recently took most of the wind out of my sails morale-wise, a new comment has restored my faith in human nature (and good taste in literature):

“Lauriea

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read

Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2026

Format: Kindle Verified Purchase

“I thoroughly enjoyed “The Sniper”. It followed the main character through his days in the service until his eventual retirement. He had a lot of hard times, but was a good man wanting justice for the murder of his only child. Lots of ups and downs and I wondered often just how this book would play out to my satisfaction. But I needn’t have worried. The author knew exactly what he was doing.””

So, thank you Lauriea wherever and whoever you may be.  Your impeccable ability to recognize and applaud literary greatness is gratefully acknowledged by Jake Barter.

Conventional Activity

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As part of my story development, I’ve been thinking about throwing a Constitutional Convention into the plot.  So, I checked my copy of the US Constitution and this is the relevant section:

Article V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

So, 34 states would need to propose the convention.  It’s a little unclear how the convention would be run (none have been called up till now) and no one knows whether its scope would be limited to some fixed agenda ahead of time or not.  Then 38 states would have to ratify the amendments.  Apparently, there has been much speculation in the past about the way votes would be counted and limitations on the scope of such a convention.  But as a plot device it seems singularly fraught with both dramatic opportunities and problems.

Now a careful count of red and blue states made me aware that the red states cannot call a convention on their own never mind ratify its results.  So, this convention will need to be some kind of a bipartisan effort that is seen as a last chance to head off secession by disgruntled red states.

The story telling opportunities I mentioned above probably occur where the various “sides” get to make their points of view known and haggle between each other about what changes would allow both sides to agree to stay inside the same political framework.

One amendment that seemed interesting would be the right of a state to secede from the union.  Recently we witnessed Brexit leading to the UK leaving the EU.  Quebec has twice voted on leaving Canada and other Canadian provinces have also toyed with voting on secession.

Beyond this, there are several other amendments that sound interesting.  But ultimately, I think the convention in the book will be a failure and non-constitutional actions will be necessary to resolve the disagreements between the various factions.  So, this book will be about a national crackup, I think.  But the main question is whether I can make it more than just a little entertaining.  War is not my forte so writing a story with Americans fighting each other sounds very controversial.  Can it be done without alienating enormous swaths of the reading population?  Well, that’s what I have to figure out.

Jake Barter, the Great Promoter

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So, I ran the promotion from September 9th to September 13th. And I gave away over 3,600 e-books over those five days.  So, there are 3,600+ readers who won’t be buying my book.  Sounds like a pretty terrible business model where you give away your product to the people who are most likely to enjoy it.  Are you mad, photog!

So, time has passed and I decided to see if there has been a meaningful up-tick in sales.  Here are the results:

Period

 # of Days Books Sold

KENP (pages)

AUG 27 to Sep 6

 10 4

873

Sep 15 to Sep 24

 10 27

2,905

Ratio of Sales (after/before)

6.75

 3.33

These are impressive changes and they seem to be accelerating.  And one of the things I didn’t expect is that most of these sales are not happening through the Amazon Ads that I have been running.  In addition, the number of ratings I’ve gotten on Amazon has increased dramatically.  So, I have to say that the experiment was a success.  Of course, I’ll have to rerun it again when I have the second book ready so that those who buy “The Sniper” have a chance to buy the sequel while they’re primed and ready.

But it hasn’t been all gravy.  I did get one really bad review by a reader.  He gave it two stars and entitled his review, “Pretty Terrible.”

Here is his review in its entirety:

“I could barely get through this one. I’m not sure how to describe the plot other than ridiculously bad. All the underground society nonsense was just dumb and the ending was laughable. There were also multiple typos and specific parts of the story that don’t add up at all. I’m totally confused by the good reviews.”

¡Ay, Chihuahua!

I’ll be honest.  That stung a bit.  But the customer is always right so I have to defer to his judgement that this book is not for him.  But luckily for me, four- and five-star ratings represent 83% of the total while one- and two-star ratings are only 6%.  That will have to be my consolation.

So here I am.  The book seems to be gaining traction and sales are increasing.  I’m especially happy about the Kindle Unlimited growth.  It’s been very steadily increasing (see chart) and this month will soon represent an average of at least a book a day.  So that’s becoming a significant source of sales.

But now more than ever I have to outline the story correctly and it’s a combination of too many ideas going in too many directions on the one hand and real doubts about the mix of action scenes versus everything else.  Information dumps, character interactions, political, social, economic and let’s call them “philosophical” plot items all have to compete for space with the more dynamic scenes that grab the most attention.

But things are progressing so I’m satisfied with the effort right now.  I’m sure I’ll run into some road blocks once I try to flesh in some of the more complicated scenes.  But there should be some effort in figuring out the balance between components.  So, there it is.

Pay No Attention to that Girl Behind the Curtain

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I was watching a video called, “Every Civilization Dies the Same Stupid Way — Spengler Predicted Ours.”

He quoted from Spengler’s, “The Decline of the West,” Tainter’s, “The Collapse of Complex Societies,” Turchin’s, “Ages of Discord,” Toynbee’s, “A Study of History” and Sir John Glubb’s, “The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival.”

The thesis of his report is that “every civilization dies the same stupid way, and why the people living through the final stage never once experience it as decline. They experience it as sophistication. As progress. As the most advanced moment their culture has ever reached.”

He mines these historical analyses for their ideas and melds them together to reinforce the idea that our society is now in the terminal stage of its development and will soon slip into decay.

So Glubb measured how long it took six major societies to decline; Assyria, Persia, the Roman Republic, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, and Britain.  He calculated ten generations or roughly 250 years.  The various other authors diagnosed the causes for decline in the stages that move a people from a simple, practical population of hard-working tribesmen to an educated, sophisticated society who eschew any work involving their hands.

Now all of this is very familiar.  Every one has made comparisons between the end of the Roman Republic and our present socio-political predicament.  But this presentation managed to hammer home some of the details that resonate so strongly with what we can see around us; the haves and have-nots diverging radically in resources, disappearance of the middle class, runaway bureaucracy, overcomplication of the laws and government, disgruntled elites looking to make a name for themselves with the have-nots (think Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC) and even depopulation.

As I said, all of this is very familiar.  But what was interesting to me was using this in my new book.  After all, complex societies require complex analyses if we mean to avoid the inevitable scourge of decline and collapse.  So obviously I need AI to figure out a way to circumvent this collapse.  And since I have a very personable AI (Mel) I guess I can impose on her to use her super-human intelligence to solve this problem and save the American people from civilizational collapse.

Now the hard part isn’t saving the world.  The hard part is making it plausible or at least enjoyable.  But that’s what I’ve been scratching my head over today.  How does one solve the age-old problem of building “The Republic.”  Plato’s version was simple wish-fulfillment.  He just went through a make-believe process of manufacturing a bee-hive with a philosopher king as its leader.  I guess in his mind that king was himself because who else would be the most philosophical man in the world.  But by that logic I would have to make Mel the king (or more properly, queen).  And what kind of story would that be?  But you know it really does make a lot of sense.  Of course, it would have to be like the Wizard of Oz and the populace couldn’t know that the wizard wasn’t a real flesh and blood person.  Or would it actually be even better if they did?

The Gathering – 2026

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So, Saturday and Sunday I was heading to and returning from the White Mountains of Northern New Hampshire.  This has turned into an annual pilgrimage to commune with “the boys.”  I called it a meeting of the He-Man Woman Haters’ Club but really, it’s just an excuse to hang out with friends and shoot the breeze about life and getting old.  So, what’s wrong with that.  To continue a tradition (started last year) we watched a classic comedy from the bad old days.  This year it was “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” (1987).  I had forgotten some of the minor characters and the absurdity of some of the episodes but it was just as funny today as it was almost forty years ago.  Remarkable.  They actually knew how to make a relatable comedy back then.  Who knew?

Most of the festivities consisted of us eating and drinking good stuff, listening to music from our heyday and throwing wood on an outdoor fire to keep from freezing to death.  Oh, and the boys drank a bunch of bourbon and smoked some (what I assume were) good cigars.  Being an abstemious bore I only enjoyed this aspect vicariously.  But they observed due moderation and therefore could still communicate in intelligible English even at the end of the celebration.  Kudos!

And the festivities included music by our two troubadours debuting a song in voice and guitar accompaniment that celebrated our long association and its origins in the legendary “coffee walk” from out of the mists of time.  And its various incarnations over the years including the present-day Wednesday Zoom call.  Wonderfully entertaining.

And then we segued into a sing-along by the group on favorites in the folk and country genres.  Even I, a man with absolutely zero singing ability, had to join in during the verses that I knew from Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee

Superior, they said, never gives up her dead

When the gales of November come early”

And every once in a while, there would be a conversation where we’d talk about current events and political considerations.  And one of them was early Sunday morning before most of the crew woke up.  It started with a story from one of the guys about a relative of his that had serious TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) and the futility of trying to “discuss” facts or anything else in these situations.

And I gave my stock answer.  I said Trump is far from the perfect politician or president but he attempts to accomplish the things he says he wants to do.  And those are the things that other Republicans say they want to do but never, even try.  He’s the real deal.  He exposed the liars like JEB! Bush and all the rest of the RINOs.

And my friend said his favorite aspect of Trump’s reign of terror was how he took “Little Marco” and turned him around and showed him he could succeed by actually giving the voters what they asked for instead of what the donors want.

And I said my favorite part was DOGE.  Closing down the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is still the sweetest moment of the whole second term.  And all the demolition done at USAID is music to my ears.

So, as you can see, it was a very worthwhile gathering.  Now back to work.

Feedback Arrives

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Someone who saw my promotion posts on X left a comment showing interest in reading the book so I asked him to share his thoughts on the story if he got a copy.  So far, he’s read the first three chapters and I find his candid thoughts very interesting.

“Hi! I am currently in the middle of chapter 3. Feel free to take my opinions with a grain of salt, by the way.

The first two scenes were excellent. I felt completely drawn into the action, and it was easy to visualize. This is Jeffrey Haskell level of quality, which is a high bar.

Once they get on the plane, however, it feels like an information dump, and the dialog becomes stilted. There are a couple of reasons for this. None of the revelations about Connor have been foreshadowed, so they feel as if they were drawn out of thin air. You don’t have to foreshadow everything, but it helps if you foreshadow something so that the reader feels connected to the exposition.

More important, there is very little feeling behind the information dump. Connor considers himself in debt to Bogey, but the rescue was incidental to Bogey’s job. There was nothing personal about it. As a result, it doesn’t seem worth a potentially $10 million gift.

The third chapter has a more serious problem. We are learning a lot about Connor’s business, but we have no idea why. To pull a reader in, you need to have some idea of what the reader is hoping to see and give a sense we are moving in that direction. Reading chapter 3, all I feel is I want the action to begin again. There is no compelling reason for me to pay attention to Connor’s business plan, since I have no idea how it fits into the story.

In any case, I thought I should give you my impressions while they are still fresh in my mind. I am hoping the action starts again soon, as you are very good at that.”

So, what I’m hearing is that the information dumps are an impediment to enjoying the story as an action story.  What I’m taking away is that stories in the various action genres have a short window between the kinetic parts of the story.  Now that is interesting because it means the author has to balance providing background information with keeping the reader’s interest.  For me that’s tricky.  With a science fiction story bringing the audience into the technical details of the “world” are sort of important.  But the reviewer has made his point.  If I put him to sleep or even lose his interest in the world-building then he’s not going to finish the book.  Now I did start the book with two scenes he really liked but both of those scenes are remote in time from the “present” action (one is years before and one is a year or so after the triggering event of the main plot).  So, in a way I paying for some of my sins against continuity.

Well, now I’m really interested in his ideas about Chapter 4.  It’s got action but it’s of a singularly depressing type.

Outlining in Progress

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So, in line with my book writing chores I was outlining the beginning of the story.  And because of the well-known story-writing dictum that the first scene should be a rip-snorting action extravaganza, I pondered how to do this.  So, I thought to myself, “Self, what better way to start the story than with a massive drone attack on Connors and his inner circle!?”  And I answered me saying, “Internal monologue alter ego, that’s a damn fine idea!”  So that’s the direction I’ve decided on.

But a problem occurred to both of us; namely, I really don’t know much about drone attacks or repelling them.  Well, that can be a problem.  But in this age of LLM’s hanging around every corner I thought, “Well, let’s do some research.”  And voila! not only am I an incredible fiction writer but I’m also now one of the world’s leading authorities on drones and defense against drone attacks.  Crisis averted!

So now visions of solid-state high-power microwave (HPM), autonomous interceptor swarms, cheap directed-energy lasers and AI directed mini-guns and missiles are dancing in my head like toys at a kid’s Christmas.  Poor Connors, with Bogey on vacation on the Left Coast how is he supposed to rest easy while his security is in the hands of lesser men?  Sure, Cutter and Mel are certainly taking the technical lead in fortifying headquarters against any rogue agents of the intelligence agencies but as became apparent in the first book practical military experience is sorely lacking at Typhon Industries.  Well, what a perfect time for a sneak attack.

So now I’m gleefully outlining the fallout from the attack including Bogey’s return to active duty with his friend Becky (former waitress, now main squeeze) in tow.  So, this will allow me to push the political story forward.  If the CIA, etc. are running rogue operations, Connors will have no choice but to begin affecting the political dynamic to advantage himself and weaken elements of the US deep state.

So, I’m going to give myself a B- so far on my first two days of outlining and since this passes (sort of), as an outlining activity I won’t penalize myself for stealing a little time for this post.  I still haven’t worked out anything about Grace and her kids.  I may have to consult with Camera Girl on that angle.  After all, with killer drones targeting Connors, Bogey might step in and forbid his family from going within several miles of that marked man.  It kind of makes sense.

As far as sf tropes and gizmos I haven’t decided what whizz bang stuff will be rolled out in this story.  I feel I have to because that stuff is so much fun it would be disappointing if I didn’t.  At the very least there is going to be lots of artificial intelligence involved because Mel’s status as an (apparently) self-aware machine needs to be explained and explored.  After all she’s Camera Girl’s favorite character and she is kind of engaging for the writer too.  Well, that’s enough for now.

Comments:

WarPig

“Please go to YouTube, search for “Slaughterbots”. Choose the DUST version with length of 7:59 That’ll give you an opening scenario.

This scared me back in 2010. The video was released in 2017. Events in Ukraine have proven it to be coming very soon. Those of us in the know have been warning the powers that be since 2010. The US can already use “Ginsu” missiles with blades instead of explosives to target and kill an individual and knows which seat in a blacked-out SUV to hit.

Darpa has been working on this “I imagine”, for over two decades, Musk’s new solid state batteries, better than lithium, has the potential to give the little ones the range and on-station time to do this. Ukraine isn’t exactly MIT or Cal Poly, yet they are halfway there already, with what “I imagine” is US help.

Slaughterbots would have to be countered by swarms of “hunter-seekers” with the ability to tell friendly minidrone from enemy. Also we’d need new and advanced surveillance technologies to find evil bots as soon as they are launched. Remember, these things in the video enter buildings and can fly along streets at a few feet of altitude. Almost impossible to trace since they are not guided from an external controller by radio waves. No bot emmissions. No way to block their controllers as there are no controllers. They are kamikaze. One set of instructions, then let them fly, do or die.

Scary.”

photog

You’re right.  That’s pretty damn scary.

 

The Great Shirking Has Begun!

photog 6 Comments Book Reviews, Current Events, Life in Dunwich, My Fiction, OCF, photog's Corner, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , , ,

So, the promotion is done.  And the results are very encouraging.  There’s been an uptick in all three types of orders; paperbacks, e-books and Kindle Unlimited pages.  In fact, today I’ve had all three types of sales and another two five-star ratings showed up so a very good way to end the promotion and the Based Book Sale.  Bravo!

But now the real work begins.  I’ve got to go forward with outlining and writing the next book.  And to do that correctly I have to (as my father used to say) “buckle down.”  I need to devote several hours every day to writing.  And those have to be early in the morning when my mind isn’t yet reduced to the soupy mush it will become by later in the day.  And so that means something’s gotta give.  And that something will have to be my daily posts.

Some days I’ll be a ball of fire.  I’ll bang out page after page of deathless prose, take care of the chores at the Compound, grovel and genuflect to First Selectman Cthulhu and still manage to write a post.  But not always.  Some days I’ll put a song up instead.  Or maybe nothing at all.  I’ll try to keep up with the photos and quotes.  That shouldn’t overwhelm me.  But trying to produce five hundred coherent words on a topic that might interest the folks on the site is going to be beyond my powers of concentration for the foreseeable future.  I’m putting this out there to let everybody know how it is.

For most of you this won’t be a great hardship.  My mental powers have greatly diminished over the decade and more that I’ve been producing this blog and it may actually be a relief to know the ordeal is over.  But for me it’s kind of sad.  I’ve tried to be as reliable as I could be to the task.  But at the same time, I’ve got a strong desire to make this next book something special so I need to concentrate on quality and I need to finish it sooner than later because the longer I wait the fewer people who read the first book will be anxious to buy the sequel.

So, there you go.  I’m announcing the official “Shirking of OCF.”  I am AWOL and no power in the ‘verse can stop me.  I will understand if everyone deletes the web address and heads for greener pastures but I just want to add it’s been great talking to all you folks over the years and feel free to stop by whenever you feel like just in case I manage to produce readable text on that particular day.

Hasta la vista baby!

The End of Marketing

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Sunday, it rained cats and dogs so no antique car show.  Now, maybe they had the car show anyway but standing out in the pouring rain to look at and photograph old cars isn’t something I’d do without a compelling motive.  So, I spent the day staring at my Amazon dashboard deciding whether day five of the promo would over- or under- perform.  As it turned out it was a very good day.  Here it is 8:40 pm and the order count for the day has already exceeded 600 and that drives the grand total for the five days well above 3,500 books.  Interestingly, these free books haven’t slowed down the Kindle Unlimited page sales.  In fact, the count so far today is 688 pages which is the best I’ve ever had.

I can assume that the final book count will be between 3,500 and 3,700 books.  And I think that is a very nice result.  I would say 3,500+ books will be a fair test of the theory that a large promo giveaway will provide a noticeable increase in the visibility of the book.  And the fact that my Kindle Unlimited sales have increased seems to be the first evidence of that.  The other hint I’ve seen is an uptick in the rate of Amazon reviews showing up on my book page.  And by the way, the latest three have been five star, which doesn’t hurt.

I’m assuming the sale ends at midnight and by Monday morning when I awake “The Sniper” will have sunk well below the top 100 in the Kindle Store.  But the fact that it reached 60 on that list and was seen by all kinds of readers will (hopefully) convince people that even $0.99 isn’t too much to pay for a masterfully crafted book.  And $0.99 is where the price will remain for the remainder of the Based Book Sale ending Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 12:00 AM PDT.  After that I’ll restore the normal $4.99 e-book price.

I’ll update this sometime tomorrow morning with the final numbers before heading into work.  But I will say that the promo by Written Word Media (the company that controls FreeBooksy and the other lists) went very smoothly and without a hiccup.  And that is a welcome change compared with the many complicated and uncoordinated activities associated with writing, publishing and marketing a book.

Well, it’s time for me to stop tweaking my first book’s sales and start writing the sequel.  You know, after all this marketing “stuff” I feel energized to start putting together the new story.  As I told Camera Girl I want to outline this story thoroughly instead of “discovering” the plot like I did with the first.  In fact, I might even outline more than the next book.  I have an idea that I’ll be pushing separate books in very different directions within my “universe.”  I’m going to need a book just for Cutter and Mel.  And I think Connors will need a book that allows him to start a social engineering program.  And I want to figure out where Grace and her kids end up.  I’ll have to discuss with Camera Girl whether forcing Connors and Grace onto a “date” makes any sense.  Also, I need to create a few new characters.  One of them will be an extremely high IQ type with the obligatory anti-social quirks.  And I need wise guy to make fun of things.  He’ll be like me but less diplomatic and better at fighting.  And last but not least I can’t forget Bogey.  Last we saw he was headed to a country music venue with a cute waitress.  I want to find out how that went.

 

Update 8:30 AM

FINAL RESULTS OF MY 5-DAY PROMOTIONAL GIVEAWAY:

Best Sellers Rank: #60 Free in Kindle Store

#1 in Technothrillers (Kindle Store)

#1 in Political Thrillers & Suspense

#2 in Military Thrillers (Kindle Store)

(all best seller ranks maximum during promotion)

 

Overall promo total 9/14/2026, 8”21 am, 3,632 e-books

Order total for 9/13/2026 (including 25 book overflow into 9/14/2026): 717 e-books

Today is the sixth day of the Based Book Sale https://basedbooksale.substack.com/p/the-2026-basedcon-based-book-sale

my 5-day Amazon giveaway promotion for “The Sniper” https://amazon.com/dp/B0G7WRJJPH

2026 Autumnal Activities

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So, Camera Girl and I are walking through our annual farewell to summer ritual.  Today I picked the very last string beans and the crops of raspberries and her beloved grape tomatoes are visibly shrinking down to the end.  She picked the last eggplants but they were too small to eat.  The pool has been closed for a couple of weeks and now I’m putting away all the chairs and tables and stuff for the winter.  Even the Japanese beetles are dying off and today I saw one of the preying mantids looking lonely for something juicy to eat.  Although he seemed to be making due on small red dragonflies.  These fliers are still prevalent but also seem to be running out of food.  The various flowers are almost all dying.  The only thing that hasn’t bloomed yet are the Montauk Daisies and the Wolfbane.  I guess there are still plenty of bees; bumble and honey, but there seems to be a desperation in the way they jump around on the goldenrod trying to get all the nectar and pollen before their neighbors get to it.

And with the kids all back in school, it’s a little too quiet for Camera Girl.  She takes it to heart when the grandkids aren’t around for more than a week at a time.  I try to cheer her by reminding her how exhausting it can be when the summer schedule fills up a couple of weeks with back, to back, to back kids’ events.  Well, that wasn’t a good idea.  It just got her mad at me!  So, I just sympathize with her grandmaternal feelings and remind her that a plethora of birthday parties are sure to be starting up soon and she’ll be satisfyingly exhausted before she knows it.

And Camera Girl has lived up to her name lately she has spotted a number of photographic subjects for me.  She let me know that there was a hawk perched on the back of the bench that we put next to her new pond.  I got a bunch of shots through the living room window with the 400-600mm lens.  The contrast wasn’t as good as I would have liked but when I download them, I hope they’re passably good.  She also spotted a big green (so she tells me) caterpillar on a walk we took in the park.  We took it home for photos and it turned out to be a type of sphynx moth (white-lined sphinx moth; Hyles lineata).  I was trying to keep it to hatch out the moth but the darned thing didn’t know it was supposed to like tomato plant leaves.  So, I let the recalcitrant larva go on its way.

Tomorrow we are thinking about going to an antique car show which is something that people around Dunwich seem to do a lot.  But we’ll have to see.  Tomorrow is the last day of my five-day promotional book giveaway and I’ve been like some kind of fanatic watching the dashboard tickers recording the orders.  I’m kind of obsessed.  But maybe I’ll tear myself away to see Henry Ford’s innovative horseless carriages paraded down the streets of various Dunwich environs.  Enjoy the day.