The View from Buzby Beach

    With the possible demise of Twitter in the near future, I began to explore other social media options and discovered several. On one of them specifically designed for writers, Medium , I read a blog post about Kindle Short Books - eBooks of between 10,000 and 30,000 words. In the print world, these might be called novellas or novelettes. This post got me thinking about the serialized stories I have published on Kindle Vella and HubPages . Several of these stories would be good candidates for publication as Kindle Short Books. Thus, I got to work on a KV story titled "A Seven-Year Ache" that is set in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. I have other stories set in New Hampshire and some that could be rewritten into this setting. This gave me the ingredients for a series of Kindle Short Books. I have christened the series, "Lakes Region Love Stories." The first book in this series, uploaded on December 28, currently available for pre-order, and scheduled to be rel...

  The photo is of the first Christmas gift I received from my students this year. This young man is a legacy of sorts as I taught his sister the year the pandemic closed the school and sent us all home for the fourth quarter.  The boy and I share a love of camping and the outdoors. He told me when he gave me the gift that the moment he saw it, he'd known it would be perfect for me. I must say that I agree.  The little camper now has pride of place under our small tree. We still have 2 and 1/2 days of school before Christmas Break.  Monday will be as normal a day as we can manage.  Tuesday, our priest is having a retreat for the students from 3rd through 8th grade in the sanctuary, followed by Reconciliation (what used to be called Confession) for the Catholic students. This will take up most of the morning.  Wednesday is a half day. We will begin with Mass in the morning and our class parties following after. Then, the kids go home, and the sta...

  One of my students has, at age 9, already decided to pursue a future in marketing and advertising.  As a way of wetting his feet in the business, he has offered to market and promote my books for me for free.   The young entrepreneur's inspiration was an ad I put together for our school bulletin board offering to provide signed copies of my books for the staff to give as gifts. (3 sales so far.)  I made an amended copy of the ad for him to use in his campaign. Wouldn't it be amazing if this future King of Madison Avenue turned out to bring me the fame and fortune I so richly deserve?

We began our last day here in Southern California with breakfast at Tom's Burgers Number 30, which is only a 5- to 6-minute drive from Son1's house. The portions were enormous, and the food was as good a breakfast offering as I'd had anywhere. The servings were so generous; we ate 1/2 and brought 1/2 back to the house to eat tomorrow morning before we head to the airport. This four-foot-tall robot brought us our meal this morning after we'd ordered at the front counter. With the shortage of entry-level labor, I suspect more and more of these robots to show up in restaurants like Tom's. All-in-all, we have had quite a busy week here in Southern California, visiting our oldest son. We've driven through the Tehachapi Mountains, seen snow-capped peaks in the Sierra Nevada, the missus flew in a sailplane, and we have enjoyed a feast of delicious meals at the restaurants in Lancaster, Palmdale, Quartz Hill, and Tehachapi. My favorite was Redhouse Barbeque in Tehachapi...

  Yesterday, IP Bob, my missus, and I set out on our journey to visit Son1 in California. Above, you can see IP Bob offering to carry the backpack with all my tech inside. He is a helpful little guy. We left the house in eastern NC just after noon and, after a little confusion because of renumbered parking areas at the airport, got checked in and boarded our flight. This is IP Bob chatting with me on the way from Long-Term Parking to the terminal. While waiting to board our first flight from Raleigh to Charlotte (I know, right?), the three of us had time to share a cheesy pretzel and a bottle of water. This snack only set us back $12. Airport prices are larcenous. Bob was too small for his own seat, so he rode with the airline literature on the back of the seat in front of me. On this first flight, we had seats by the Emergency Exit. I chose those seats because they gave me plenty of legroom. After landing in Charlotte, we didn't have much time before boarding our second flight, th...

  This little guy is Interplanetary Bob. He's gone with me from classroom to classroom for a good number of years. This year he will be joining the missus and me on our trip to California to see our son graduate from Test Pilot School and be awarded his second master's degree. Interplanetary Bob usually hangs out in my classroom at the base of the state flag holder on the wall behind my desk. I told my students I would be taking him with me on the trip and posting photos to our Google Classroom Stream of him at the different places we visit while we're out there. I don't know if Bob's flown since his mission from his home planet, which must be kept secret for interplanetary treaty reasons. It will be my first time flying in several years. I hope everything goes well on the way there and on the way back. I wouldn't want to have to sic Bob on any idiot passengers. My next post will be from sunny (I hope) and warm (I really hope) California.