One More Good Adventure

As a blogger, one of the things I do is follow other people’s blogs. And I make comments on their posts as the spirit moves, as people do here. Naturally I have a morning routine with my coffee of reading the latest news and then checking out my favorite blogs. One of the more thought provoking, and well-written, blogs is: http://shoreacres.wordpress.com/. Each post is finely crafted and as the subtitle says, her work is “A Writer’s On-Going Search For Just The Right Word.” It’s obvious that she spends considerable time to achieve that goal. Which leaves me scratching my head as to why she follows my collection of, essentially, first drafts. But she does, and she’s left more comments than anyone else. Two hundred and eighty six of them to my 504 posts. Thanks, Linda. And while she obviously follows my trash I’ve never figured out why I’ve never made her “blog roll.”

Naturally there are a number of Panama blogs I compulsively follow. My friend Omar chronicles Panama City with his photographer’s eye….http://epiac1216.wordpress.com/. Omar is Panamanian but his use of the English language is practically flawless. If I were to spend the next 50 years here I’d never come close to matching his fluency with his language as he has done with mine. Omar logs in at #2 for leaving comments here though he lags Linda by some 216. But perhaps that’s because Omar and I frequently email each other.

To keep up with things going on here around David it’s essential to check out Don Ray’s http://www.chiriquichatter.net/blog/.

And then there’s Richard Detrich’s contribution…http://richarddetrich.com/. He lives up in the hills above Boquete where he has a coffee plantation he maintains when he’s not off traipsing around the world as a port lecturer on cruise ships. He’s written a couple of books, and one would be of special interest to anyone considering a move to Panama…https://www.createspace.com/3487817

Richard’s posts are often thought-provoking and inspire me to leave a comment now and then. Today, reading his latest contribution, I find that he’s incorporated one of my comments on a previous post to emphasize today’s subject. It’s nice being quoted.

As I’ve mentioned, I love my Kindle. Currently I have 120 “books” waiting to be read. Well, 119 because I’m reading one of them now. I can’t tell you how many I’ve already read but I go through two or three a week.

Almost all of the books I’ve downloaded have been free. If you go to the Kindle site you’ll find a list of the 100 Best Sellers on Kindle. The hundred best that can run from 99¢ to $12.99 for the latest Jonathan Kellerman and John Grisham offerings. Sorry, but I’m not going to pay $12.99 for any of their books even if they were in the dead tree format.

One of the big rips going around in the literary field is that with the advent of such services as Smashwords and Kindle Direct Publishing making it possible for anybody to “publish” is that the markets are being flooded with crap that’s not worth reading. Well, that’s certainly true to some extent, but there’s a lot of crap that’s being foisted upon the reading public by the established publishing houses, too. And most of it is horribly overpriced.

The majority of the free books on the Kindle Best Seller list come from independent and first-time authors, though I’ve found quite a few mid-list writers whose books are offered for free and have enjoyed them. I’m a sucker for mysteries and have enjoyed Paul Levine’s Jake Lassiter series having read four so far, as well as H. Terrel Griffin’s Matt Royal series. Both authors books are based in Florida where I lived for nearly half of my life. But I’ve also found some wonderful first-timers, too. Bubba and the Dead Woman by C.L. Blevill and Charlotte Figg Takes Over Paradise by Joyce Magnin were two of many.

I check out the Best Sellers list every morning since a lot of the books only stay there for a day or two and if you don’t download them when you see them they’ll be gone and if you weren’t fast enough downloading them you’d have to pay. That’s why there’s a 120 books in my active list. The one thing about these free books is that if they don’t capture me in the first couple of chapters I can toss them and I’ve lost nothing but an hour or two.

This morning, coming in at #23 is, Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out by Pandora Poikilos.

http://www.amazon.com/Excuse-Brains-Have-Stepped-ebook/dp/B006FOTWUO/ref=zg_bs_digital-text_23

The title intrigued me so I clicked on it to find out what it was about. This is the product description:

“Anya Michaels is having the time of her life. She has the man of her dreams by her side. She has graduated at the top of her class. She has the job others were lining up for. Between late night drinks at her favourite bar and fancy dinners at the most expensive restaurants, she has a string of adoring friends. Everything changes when she hears the dreaded words, “You are sick.”

“Being diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder, her world starts to fall apart, one piece at a time. Now dumped, her four year relationship is nothing but a memory filled with pictures, thoughts and a very broken heart. Her job becomes an even further challenge as she tries to hide her condition. Her friends suddenly have more important things to do, what is a party without a party girl? Perfect could not crumble any faster.

“Soon, caught between situations, people and pieces of life that she never dreamed of planning for herself, Anya begins to wonder if her brain condition is all that bad. As she absorbs the changes in her life and realization sets in, she begins to wonder if she is the only one saying: Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out.”

The book received 12 five-star reviews and 6 single-stars. Thirteen other readers gave it 2, 3 and 4 stars.

What I found really interesting was the last line of the product review: “20% of royalties will be donated to the National Organization of Rare Disorders.” Since it’s a FREE book, 20% of nothing is NOTHING!

Okay, I admit I’m being sarcastic here. These free books only stay free for a couple of days, as I said, and it will soon cost $2.99 to buy it when it’s back on the regular lists. And yes, there IS a National Organization for rare diseases: http://www.rarediseases.org/

In Panama, unless you live in a highrise condominium, your house probably has one of these…

In the States we’d call it a “utility sink.” Here in Panama it’s called a “lavadero.” They’re as common as a plate of rice and beans at a fonda.

Yesterday afternoon while I was out trying to get a shot of the little bird who was the first to leave the nest I noticed something odd on the left-hand leg of the lavadero. At first I thought it was something that a large bird might have dropped by accident while trying to build a nest somewhere. A lot bigger bird than the ones I’ve already shown.

At first I didn’t pay it any attention. That is until I went to brush it away and it moved!

It was a stick creature. The name is absolutely accurate. Overall, from the tip of its antennae to the bottom of its abdomen it was at least 10″ long. (That’s 25.4 centimeters for you people who are challenged counting in units other than base 10.)

Totally cool once you get over the shock. I just left it alone. It wasn’t bothering anyone and it was way too big for momma bird to feed to her babies.

Rio de Janiero, Brazil

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New Orleans, Louisiana

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Las Tablas, Panama

The difference between day

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And Night

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And to the rest of you poor slobs in the world it’s just another Tuesday

Happy Mardi Gras/ Carnaval!

Last night the lights went out around 8 o’clock. That’s not a major news item. Happens around here quite often. People adjust. I have a battery-powered LED lantern, so I read for a bit and listened to one of my audio books on my iPod. Flashlight beams winked off and on around the neighborhood like fireflies in the darkness. Usually the electricity is off for just a short time but last night it stayed dark for several hours.

Without lights to cause pollution the starry canopy of the sky was in its glory. I took a chair out into the middle of the front lawn and just stared up at the wonder of it all as I did back as a youngster during the summers at Nickerson State Park in Brewster, Mass., on Cape Cod. Even then I could see the folly of believing that in the vastness of the universe it was the height of human conceit to believe that we were the only place where life existed.

Up there in the state park it was easy to pick out the Big and Little Dippers and Polaris, the North Star. And it doesn’t take a genius to recognize Orion. But down here in Boquerón, Panama, 8 degrees, 30 minutes north of the equator

Orion is still as easy to spot as ever. But so is the great constellation of the southern hemisphere, the Southern Cross.

It’s so distinctive that it adorns the flags of Australia and New Zealand.

And as I gazed up at it, not knowing at the time the names of the stars that make up the constellation, I wondered what was happening then the light left those distant stars.

Light travels at a speed of 186,372 miles per second (299,937 kilometers) or some 700 million (1126.54) miles per hour. (Steven Wright, the comedian asks “We know what the speed of light is, but what is the speed of dark?”)

My regular readers know my mind gets off on some weird tangents at times. For example a few months ago when disastrous rains caused raging torrents in rivers so strong it wiped out three bridges in the area I calculated that enough rain fell in that storm to fill 84,460 Olympic swimming pools. https://onemoregoodadventure.com/2011/10/06/east-west-traffic-on-interamerican-hwy-reopened/

So, naturally, staring at the stars in the Southern Cross, I got to wondering what was going on when the light from those stars first started their journey from their point of origin to my retinas last night.

Acrux, or Alpha Crucis, the bottom of the cross is 370 light years away. The light from that star started traveling in 1642. In that year King Charles I with 400 soldiers attacked the English parliament; Georgeana (York) Maine became the 1st incorporated American city; Abel Tasman became the 1st European to step foot in New Zealand; Montreal Canada was founded; the 1st compulsory education law in America passed by Massachusetts; and Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass, held its 1st commencement.

Beta Crucis (Mimosa), the brightest star of the group is 490 light years away and in 1522, Spanish navigator Juan de Elcano returns to Spain, completes the 1st circumnavigation of globe from the expedition begun under Ferdinand Magellan and Emperor Karel I named Hernan Cortes governor of Mexico.

Gamma Crucis (Gacrux), which forms the top of the cross is about 220 light years away. In 1792 the U. S. Postal Service was formed; oranges were introduced to Hawaii, the U.S. Congress established the Philadelphia mint; George Washington cast 1st presidential veto; Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed the French National Anthem “La Marseillaise,”  highwayman Nicolas J Pelletier became the first person executed by the Guillotine and the 1st French Republic was formed; Kentucky was admitted as the 15th State; mobs in Paris attack palace of Louis XVI;the  English warship Royal George capsized in Spithead killing 900; Farmer’s Almanac was first published and George Washington was re-elected US president.

Delta Crucis, the western arm of the cross, is some 570 light years away. 1442 was a pretty dull year, historically. Edward IV was twice king of England, winning the struggle against the Lancastrians to establish the House of York on the English throne was born Rouen, France, King Alfonso V of Aragon became king of Naples. Other than that people that year mainly sat around staring at each other and scratching their flea bites totally unaware of the light starting its journey from Delta Crucis to my eye in Boquerón.