A long weekend in Sun Valley

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Sorry about not updating this blog for almost a week. The week was absolutely full: first, getting ready for a really great City Club dinner about Hide/Seek, the upcoming exhibition at TAM. It was a really great program, and I think Tacoma should be proud that TAM is bringing this exhibition. And then yesterday, Mary and I drove 12 hours in the car to get to Sun Valley to see my sister’s family. So we’re here for a few days of hanging out, outdoor adventure, and checking out pictures of Ernest Hemingway, such as this great one in the meeting Read more…

“The Saints Go Dying” is free through Monday night!

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I'm once again trying out marketing by giving away a book. Here's The Saints Go Dying on Kindle. It's free for the next 18 hours or so (it goes back to being $2.99 at midnight Monday night). So far, January has been a better month than December, and December a better month than November, and November better than October … But a lot of those sales were driven by The Little Book of Gold, which basically spent all of January in the Top 100 Kindle Books for Nonprofits list. Sales of the mysteries dropped a bit, though, so I wanted Read more…

Clean-up at Northwest Trek

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When I called the Park District on Monday to find out about tree damage, I called the Natural Resources Manager. I did not call out to Trek, but it turns out I should have, because that we had some significant damage out there, including damage to exhibit as well as many other animal areas, viewing pavilions, fencing and pathways that were severely damaged. The director reported to the board that in 30 years, he'd never seen so much damage out there. We expect that Trek will be closed through February 17. Above is the beaver, who was cleaning up her own Read more…

The only copy in existence

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I will soon have more physical books of The Marinara Murders, and hopefully of The Saints Go Dying shortly after that. This was a proof that I autographed and labeled #001. It was a prize at last night’s Social Media Club. Who knows, if I write enough of these books, maybe it will be worth something some day? But for now, it’s the only physical copy in existence. That’s kind of awesome to think about. It cost me $15 to create, and more than half of that was expedited shipping, to get it in time for the Social Media Club. Read more…

Rick Steves and public spaces

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This morning as part of a park conference, Rick Steves was the keynote speaker. It was a really interesting looking at public spaces and parks. Mary was excited to join me for it, and she took away this nice souvenir. We both enjoyed the book, so it was great to get it signed!

Tree update–how did Metro Parks do through the ice storm?

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Flipping through Facebook last Thursday and Friday, it felt like a series of pictures of downed trees and branches. I talked to Joe Brady, Metro Parks' Natural Resource Manager, about how Metro Parks did since we, you know … have a lot of trees. Our developed parks came through it pretty well. Some downed branches, of course, but no major issues that we've discovered so far (and assessments are still ongoing). Metro Parks regularly prunes its trees in the developed parks–and by developed I mostly mean the parks with a lot of grass, playfields, Wapato Lake, Wright Park, etc.–so many Read more…

Tech thought for the day

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I have a general interest in the–dare I say the word–philosophy of technology. Maybe trends is a better word than philosophy. Or just effects. Either way, I try to read a lot about what it all means and where it's going. Part of it is in relation to my work on a sci-fi novel 90 years in the future. Bu again, part of it is that I'm just interested. Previously I posted about Moore's Law, and the fact that if it holds, we can expect computers to be millions and billions of times faster than they are now. ("The Back Read more…

SOPA and PIPA

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I didn't black out this blog today, but I think SOPA and PIPA and bad solutions to a trumped up problem. The SOPA and PIPA laws attempt to correct piracy in a really counterproductive way. Here's a good run-down on why that is: [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/31100268 w=500&h=283] For me personally, when I think about my books, there are worse things than having my books pirated. Like, obscurity. I have not enabled digital rights management on my books (when given the choice). I freely enabled it for as many sharing options as possible. I have willingly emailed the ebook file to book Read more…