March 15, 2006  

    Old Colonel Rupert Faversham Berk IV beat me at racquetball today, two out of three games.  The bugger is three years older than me; cannot touch his toes, can't bend his knees, and doesn't have a kill shot, but he puts the ball in either front corner so skillfully that it dies quickly leaving me wondering why I started to run for it at all.
    When I remember how to play this game he's in for BIG trouble.  In the meantime, I'll simply have a wee dram of Scotch, 12 whole cashews, sit in the hot tub, and contemplate my last best shots and how I can outsmart, outplay, and outscore the bugger.

March 20, 2006

    Had a great visit with long time friends in Arizona City and Tucson last week.  What a joy it is to find them all above ground and enjoying life in their part of the desert.  In Arizona City, friends gathered for perhaps the last time to see their compatriot off to an assisted living home in Washington.  They came from Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, California, Montana, Nevada and Arizona.  I left a pile of my bookmarks there and noticed several orders through my web site.  Nice trick, Jim.
    The occasion gives one pause to think how we will find the last couple decades of our lives.  Will they be spent with vigor and participation in life, or pain, blindness, deafness, and racked with disease?  Fate deals some tough hands but everyone seems to adjust to it; to deal with it; to let their humor come through.  I am so happy the creator gave us humor.  It often times seems the only real difference between man and beast. 

March 16, 2006

    The Iditarod ended for the year with a familiar winner, Jeff King.   Over a thousand miles of racing a dog team and the winners come within minutes, even seconds of each other.  What athletes--both men and dogs. 

June 21, 2006 

     Long Haul Don and I hiked over Resurrection Pass Trail during the longest day of the year, as is our tradition.  We added a mile to it this year due to local flooding, so we marked it as 43 miles.  Suffice to say we waded a good deal, walked with wet socks and shoes, and finished in a little over 19 hours.  Some-where past the summit (2,600') Don declared that he would not do this again.  Somewhere around Juneau Lake I agreed with him.  A month later I allowed as how I might do it again--providing the weather is good.  Course--that was after the two blisters had healed and my little toe nail, which had turned black during the trek, didn't fall off as I thought it would.

June 24, 2006

    Book signing at Title Wave Books in Anchorage.  Great time.  Met some fine reader types and sold 18 books in an hour and a half.  When I ask someone at a bookstore to buy my book their first remark is, "What is it about?"  I need to figure out a short, simple, sweet answer for that.  Any ideas?

July 15, 2006

    Book signing at Girdwood Books and News.  Tried my new posters out, put signs up at the road intersection.  Zero.  Six people came through the store during our two hours.  One could only afford one book and she had it in her hand; the others were looking for books that weren't in inventory; and none were novel readers.  My Dad told me there would be days like this.

July 18, 2006

    My association with the Ord Public Library in Ord, Nebraska whence I was born and raised worked out well for all.  I contributed $1,000 to the library on a matching funds basis.  The Friends of the Library raised another $1,000 to go with mine, they bought furniture for the children's library and sold a case of my novels during the reunion weekend and library open house.

August 24, 2006

    Austin Helmer's, my 90 year old hiking partner and I hit the Pioneer Ridge Trail which was named after him last year. It was rainy, the bushes dumped their water load on us as we passed, and it was slick underfoot.  We both took a dive into the Devils Club on the way down.  Took me three days to get the last sticker out of my thumb.  I don't mind rain, snow, wind, when I'm hunting but to go for a pleasure hike and push through it is not that great anymore.  Don't know that it ever was come to think on it.

September 9, 2006

    Book signing at Fireside Books in Palmer, Alaska.  David and Mellisa are wonderful people and I met some other fine people putting up the posters advertising the signing.  Sold twenty books in two hours on a nice sunny day.  Don't let them scare you with that motto they have about "Good Books Bad Coffee."  Their coffee was tasty, hot, and free.  Now how can you beat that?