Brand Spanking New

Brand Spanking New

Last year I started this blog to talk about and discuss writing. Over time it has become more personal and I have left much of the original intent behind. I’m still writing as the list to the right can confirm and I hope that at least a few of you have taken a look at my endeavors. 

I intend to keep this place open for whatever moves me but I have come to realize that it isn’t doing what I had hoped it would when I started. My lack of understanding of modern technology is well known to all of my friends and I suspect any of you who have seen my ranting about computers and the devils who invented them. [Side Note: If the Pope is using tweeters and such, can I still claim that it was the devil who invented the internet. Apologies to Al Gore.] In truth it is my own ignorance that has so often lead me down the “ERROR” message path.

Despite the terror that modern computer/smart phone/tablet systems invoke in my soul I am trying a new thing to day. I have started a new page on the “Facebook” system that I hope will stay true to the idea of book promotion. If by some accident or favor from above it works you can go to 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tales-by-Tomaszewski/515599331814742

There I hope you will find information about tales that I have written and some of which are in book form at “Kindle.”

Watch This Space

The question for today is “Just how long will it take a man who qualifies for the senior discount at the movies to learn how to establish a ‘Facebook’ presence?” A partial answer is, “A lot longer than he first thought it would.” I got one of those books that they write for dummies but it turns out I’m dumber that the authors thought possible. I find that I’m stopping every five minutes to look up the meaning of a term that is used to simplify the process.

There’s information on topics I never thought I’d have to know about, like posting videos to your albums. I always thought I was pretty smart to remember to wait the required sixty seconds before peeling off the paper on a Polaroid picture. I wonder how many folks reading this remember that at one time the idea of having a picture that you could hand out right after you took it was considered the technological innovation of the decade.

I can still remember trying to explain to my kids, that when I was young television was in black-and-white. They couldn’t understand why someone would want to turn off the color. In fact todays TVs don’t even have that feature. Now the question is “Why wouldn’t you have the high definition service, or maybe 3D?” Sometimes I feel as if the reason newspapers are failing is because today’s reader doesn’t want to have the pictures in black and white.

“Old-fashion” is translated by today’s reader as “Not as Good.” Discussions about the Good-old-days means not a personal historical reference but rather a boring talk about how bad things were and why we don’t want them back again. It’s not that the younger generation has the wrong attitude. In fact those who are just starting to face life’s challenges have always looked for change to make their travails easier. Certainly no one wants to back to the days when the only way to dry your just-washed clothes was to hang them outside on a string. Today we have dryers which can do the job in no time at all. If you miss the smell of the clothes that were hung outside in the fresh air, you can throw in one of those wax impregnated sheets that will do the same thing, without having to actually go outside.

Of course I shouldn’t be complaining. After all, the books that I write are available electronically. You can just page over to the Kindle store and download any one of the beauties that are highlighted to the right. You don’t have to drive over to a brick-and-mortar building, look through the shelves, and then carry it over to the desk and exchange real money for the prize you want to read.

I’m even so old that I can remember actually walking over to the store. Yes that’s right getting up and moving your legs to accomplish the same thing as driving your car. In the relatively short span of my life, we’ve moved from asking for a ride to the store to buy a book, to turning on your computer and ordering the download of the book with your computer. Wow, I really am old. I’ve forgotten that today we don’t turn on the computer, we use our smart phone to download books, and then transfer the file to our tablet computers so that we don’t have to squint at the smaller screen.

Happiness

What is it that makes us happy?  For many of us it’s a good book. Finding that story that we just can’t put down, and then as we approach the back of the book seriously hope that it will never really end. Perhaps that’s one reason that electronic books are so popular. You can’t see the end of the book coming. Oh sure we suspect that the detective will eventually find out who killed the body that we found in the first five pages of the book, or discover who it was that stole the silly statue of the Falcon, but we’re having so much fun that we don’t want it to end. All right it’s possible that as someone who writes books I may be prejudice as to what can make someone happy.

It is interesting that what can make some of us happy can make some others miserable. For instance the laugh of a very young child. For some it is the epitome of unsuspected joy. That gurgling giggle that forces us to seek out the creator of that wonderful sound, and bask in the pure joy that it represents. To see that child find for the first time that holding out an ice cream cone to a dog will result in that slobbering lick that will take almost the entire cone from their hand. It may seem a tragic thing that the child has lost its treat, but to the young finding that it can cause a dog to do such an unsuspected thing is amazing. Or perhaps it is something as simple as watching a mother play peek-a-boo. Just holding her hands in front of her face and then opening them to reveal her smiling face to the bewildered child can cause minutes of laughter. It can make you stop whatever you were doing to share in such joy.

For others that laughter is a disturbance to whatever they were doing. This can be especially true for those who were speaking and find their audience turning away from their pearls of wisdom to listen to the child.  “Why is it,” they ask themselves that people want to spend their attention with that annoying sound rather than find enlightenment from their words.  I have seen an entire airplane’s passenger compartment smile at just such a sound, and then notice the one or two special people frowning at what has caused their movie watching experience to turn into a jumble of non-associated sounds.

We are different. Why is it that some of us will look down as we walk along and see a small daisy and smile at the unexpected bit of beauty, while others are disturbed at the intrusion of that floral invasion of an otherwise smooth lawn?  Does the spring rain bring the water that those thirsting forsythia need to break into bursts of yellow beauty, or will it just make the path too slippery to walk on.  Does the sun that surprises us on a March morning bring the promise of warm summer days after the cold of winter, or is it just an annoyance that we have dressed to warmly for the walk to the store?

Does driving past a church as the bridal party departs in a cacophony of horns and confetti cause you to smile and share a small slice of their joy, or bemoan the intrusion into your drive to work and the traffic jam that may result.  Is a star lite night something that causes you to pause and look up at the grandeur of the universe, or does it bring to mind the dangers of the darkened way home?

Happiness is simply what we make of it. Take joy in being alive, don’t fear the end that must someday come.

AND THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH

No I’m not going biblical, although I do find it an interesting book to read. I saw this headline the other day and thought that we might be at the time the meek were making their claim for dominance.

 Bunnies attack at Denver Airport

In turns out that the little fellows were hiding under the cars in the parking lots at the Denver airport to keep warm. Since there weren’t a lot of gardens out there they were dinning on the insulation wrappings of the wires of the car engines. A: Not safe or nutritious for the bunnies, and B: Not good for the cars which were shorting out. It seemed from the story that he bunnies were not as welcome as they would have been for presents on Easter morning.

The authorities are trying a number of ways to discourage the little fellows. They are installing better fences and building perches for predator hawks and eagles. I’m sure we can all see the headlines this summer. 

Airplanes Crashing in Record Numbers from Hawks Sucked into Engines at Denver Airport

Some enterprising souls got the bright idea of coating the wires with fox or coyote urine. It’s supposed to make the bunnies lose their appetite for wire insulation. Of course that brings to mind the next set of headlines.

Hundreds Injured in the Hills Around Denver Trying to Catch Foxes Urinating

Still it all makes for better reading than “Drive by shootings” or “Drone attacks on Speeders.”

Miss Me ?

Not that we’ve missed you, but what have you been doing these past few weeks?

The answer is written on the wind. No never mind that was from a song. The answer really is that I’ve been finishing up the next book with the kind assistance of M. K. Sala. This one has nothing to do with angels or young men who can stop time. Rather it follows the exploits of group of totally human writers who turn to crime solving to supplement their income from non-published books.

Personally I’ve always wanted to have an exploit. I mean I’ve had expletives that were deleted. I managed to miss being shredded by explosions that came near to me. I’ve even tried to explore the hidden mysteries of the Orient, or at least the back roads of Viet Nam, but I don’t think that I’ve ever really had an exploit.

The dictionary says that an exploit is an interesting or daring action or achievement. Well I’ve had what I thought were interesting moments, but I doubt that others would think of them as interesting. As for daring, I’ve tried all of my life to avoid being daring. Heck, I even cringed when in “A Christmas Story” the one boy accepts a “double dog dare” to stick his tongue onto a freezing metal pole. Although, I will admit to laughing at his predicament when he later appeared with a bandage on the tip of his tongue. That’s what doing daring things can get you.

The folks in this book perform daring deeds almost by accident. They solve crimes of monstrous proportions and discover solutions to problems that are so small as to slip under the radar of the most diligent police force. 

Personally I found it to be a very readable book, and I hope that all of you will as well. Take a look and feel free to tell me what you think. The title is “The SPEW House Mysteries” and if you go over to Kindle you can find it   here or you can click on the picture to the right.