Crazy Antics and Dreams

I'm Still here on Earth!

The rumor that I've been visiting the other planets in the universe is wrong. I'm still alive and living on Earth!

Life is what you get after you've made plans!

Happy Halloween Memories

The first Halloween night that I remember was spent at my Grandmother’s house. Both my brother and I helped her to hand out the treats to the kids who visited her front door. Some of the older kids wore very scary masks that scared me so badly that I still remember trying to sleep on the foldout couch in Grandma’s living room. To make it worse for a four or five year old girl, it was a full moon that year and the moonlight lit up the entire room and caused strange shadows in the windows.

Some years later, Halloween had become a fun excursion with the other kids in theneighborhood. The Halloween outings that I remember weren’t complicated. Few in our immediate neighborhood had elaborate costumes; indeed, most of us wore nothing more than a face mask. Our masks were carefully packed away and stored for the next October.

In those days, we knew all of the neighbors on our block and most of the neighbors for several blocks around. As we grew older, the more far ranging our Trick of Treating took us. During some forays when my brother and I were pre-teens, we would cover the better part of six or blocks. The only problem was that our Treat Bags would become so heavy, but we loved every minute of the sugar high that followed!

A couple of years later, my brother and his friends played tricks on the younger children, draped toilet paper on the trees in the yards of their friends, and generally scared some young kids so bad they would run crying to their parents.

While I was in high school, Mom would send me out with our Bassett Hound, Sadie, to escort my two younger sisters and our cousin who lived up the street from us. The girls loved going and Sadie was quite content to tag along. My favorite memory was that several of the widows who lived alone always made homemade goodies for the kids from the neighborhood who visited them. When I took the girls Trick or Treating, these wonderful women would send goodies out tome too. Trust me, one lady made the best homemade Divinity!

Since I was born in late October, I love the month and how the air seems to change as November approaches. I’m also a fan of costumes and being able to wear one on Halloween and not be thought to be weird. Well, weirder than I am at times!

Reception and Book Signing at Saturn San Antonio N.E.

The reception and book signing that Rick Cavender hosted at Saturn San Antonio N.E. was a grand event! Rick Cavender is a longtime friend and president of the Saturn San Antonio N.E. hosted the gala event and provided a variety of sandwiches and fresh fruit trays for our friends and family who joined us for the fun. A cake with the front of my novel, Long Journey to Rneadal, was served for dessert. While a boom-box played a CD of some of the Rick Cavender Band’s songs, friends and family gathered for great food, stories from the past, and quite a bit of laughter and hugs.

Kudos to my friend, Rick, for hosting my first reception and book signing! For information about the Rick Cavender Band check out his web site at: www.rickcavenderband.com.

Latest Review of Long Journey to Rneadal

Long Journey to Rneadal by Sharon E. Dreyer

Review by Wendy at Wendy's Minding Spot - Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Jake Granger is the handsome captain of the star cruiser, the RELENTLESS. When Dr. Jessica Hunter is assigned to his ship for six months to create new systems, he doesn't let time waste. He is deeply attracted to Jessi and pursues her with a passion. He allows her prefrence to be alone while she works, but he demands she spend more time with the crew, mainly wanting her company to himself.

Dr. Jessica Hunter is a wealthy and beautiful young scientist who is telepathic. She's a genius! She can perform magic tricks that shock her audience into speechlessness, and she has a special and gentle way with animals. However, the doctor prefers her solitude. She finds herself eventually succumbing to Jake's passions and they are soon married.

But, Jessie learns some new truths about her past and knows she must travel to the planet of Rneadal to save the Rtuii. After their honeymoon, they prepare for the trip, but with trepidation. Jessi is pregnant. But other forces are at work in the atmosphere, and they may not be able to return with their lives.

LONG JOURNEY TO RNEADAL is an adventure out of this world. Sharon Dreyer does an excellent job of character building and describing the atmosphere, ships, and life forces. She makes it very easy to understand and follow the storyline. Jessie and Jake are wonderful characters full of life and depth. If you’re looking for something sci-fi, adventurous and romantic, LONG JOURNEY TO RNEADAL is a must read. A star-studded adventure of epic proportions!

http://mindingspot.blogspot.com/2009/09/long-journey-to-rneadal-by-sharon-e.html

Posted by Wendy at 6:44 PM

Book Review – Long Journey to Rneadal

July 30, 2009 at 7:00 am | as seen at http://axiomsedge.wordpress.com/

By Sam Christopher

 A little while ago a couple of authors came to this site and posted in our Comments section, taking the opportunity to also advertise their books. At first I thought it was cheesy but then I realized that it was pretty unobtrusive, and that this site is partially here for the purpose of adding to the interest in Science Fiction that all of our staffers and, presumably, our readers share. So I decided to go them a step further and offer them a review of their works, with the idea that (hopefully) more people would read a review than read the comments made in our blog entries. This is the first of those reviews looking at Long Journey to Rneadal by Sharon E. Dreyer. Now, I’ve decided to make these reviews without a rating because the authors are new and I’m assuming are working mostly alone without the benefit of an editor.

First, the positive. This book starts off pretty well. The opening is fairly straightforward and interesting, with an explanation of the Affiliation and Tricanorian Empire (the Tricks, as they are known in everyday Affiliation language) and their relationship and a good introduction to both the crew of the Star Cruiser RELENTLESS and Dr. J.L. Hunter. Some of the sections with the unidentified (at the time) woman having bad dreams are well done and build a sense of suspense that really has the reader wanting to know more. The first meeting between Captain Jake Granger of the RELENTLESS and Dr. Hunter is actually extremely well done and was fun to read as this mysterious woman just boards the ship, does whatever she feels like, and then leaves, all with ship’s security apparently hanging all over her. Sure, some of the dialogue was a little on the clunky side but I used to read critics saying the same thing about Babylon 5, and that was one of the two or three best running science fiction shows ever in my mind. And, speaking of dialogue, later in the book there is quite a bit of discussion between married couples and their close associates and some of that is positively Heinleinian as you read it, especially echoing some of his earlier novels. Also, the ostensible main story, that of Dr. Hunter having to travel to Rneadal (pronounced “Na-dal”, by the way), isn’t bad, either. It’s fairly classic sf, all about royal family obligations and the like, but it’s still not a bad idea if handled correctly.

Before we get to the negatives I’d like to take a brief intermission to say that I never really paid enough attention, I guess, to “Acknowledgements” in books. In there the authors almost invariably thank their editor. It really never occurred to me they were doing anything more than being nice. When it came to writing, I’ve read Isaac Asimov describe how he wrote, and Harlan Ellison write about how he writes all of the time. Asimov said once that he always thought he was the greatest thing ever because he wrote his stories out twice, the second time just to smooth out kinks he found in the first draft and correct spelling, until he boasted of that to Robert Heinlein, who, according to Asimov, wondered why Asimov couldn’t just get it right the first time. The point is, having never had anything published, it didn’t occur to me how valuable a good editor could be until I read this book.

So, now to the negatives. Whereas the aforementioned nightmare sequences are effective early on, there are entirely too many of them; they just wear the reader down after awhile. That, plus the fact there are no chapter breaks (plus something else we’ll get to in the next paragraph) just, as I said, wears the reader down over time. And then there’s the reason for the trip to Rneadal: it’s never really fleshed out why everyone around Dr. Hunter feels it’s so imperative she go. I understand why she thinks she needs to go, and I can make the leap as to why it’s so ingrained in her that she must, even though logically there is no reason she should feel so strongly about it. More, the action itself on Rneadal feels too short and vague and kind of lame for the amount of time it takes the reader to get there. It almost seems like the author spent so much energy on building up to the trip and its consequences that by the time the main event arrived she had nothing left to give.

But the real problem with the novel, to my mind, is that the author fell in love with the character of Dr. Jessica Layne Hunter. Jessi can simply do no wrong, other than push herself to work too hard. She’s telepathic, telekinetic, can tame any animal on sight, can tame any child on sight (a much harder feat from what I’ve seen). At the age of eight (or thereabouts) she was foiling Trick plans in the war between the Tricanorians and the Affiliation. She’s the greatest negotiator and gambler who’s ever lived, has several identities under which she works, is the most brilliant scientist in the Affiliation, and its richest person. There are just way too many times when everyone around her is “amazed” or “astounded by” or “marveled at” something she’s done or is doing. Basically, she’s Guinan from Star Trek: The Next Generation; with her along, why should anyone else be there and why should they do anything. Too many vignettes about how wonderful Jessi is drag out the novel way beyond where it should have ended, and this is where I believe a good editor would have come in most handy. A good editor could have curbed the author’s excesses here and made this a better story all the way around, giving the author more energy and space at the end to give the reader a more satisfying conclusion to what was supposed to be the main story.

When I asked for these works I braced for the worst. They were from unknowns, they were published by a so-called “vanity press”, but I found that, while this book had its problems, it was better than the TNG novel Grounded. Much better, in fact. It says on the back of this book that Ms. Dreyer has begun another novel, and I can honestly say I would give it a try.

Long Journey to Rneadal is available at: www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, www.borders.com

Commercial Ads Between and During Shows

There are so many commercial ads between cable shows nowadays. Doesn’t it distract and annoy you when you watch cable television shows? Specifically, I’m speaking about the little ads for other cable shows on the same channel. You know, the little characters that smile and stand next to the title of their show. So now the viewer is subjected to five or more minutes of commercial ads between the show segments and the little ads at the bottom of the screen. In addition, these ads during the shows have become more common and some are larger and more distracting.

Originally, cable channels charged in order to provide more show time and fewer advertisements. What happened to that concept? Just another example of consumers being  ripped off by a service we pay for at a premium price!

Consider this to be my annoying little advertisement. lol! ====>>>

 

Too HOT to Leave Home!

Okay, so here’s how it’s been lately. The late afternoon temperatures have been at least 100º and has gotten as high as 105º or more! You really can cook an egg on the sidewalk with these temperatures! Since the summer heat and I do not get along well, I try to do errands in the early mornings so I’m not in and out of a car that has been sitting in the sun for any length of time. Unfortunately for me, I was out and about to doctors’ appointments the other day. These little trips in the south Texas heat gave me a massive case of heat rash! How bad is it? I’m covered in this itching burning red rash over most of my body and this includes the palms of my hands! I never knew you could have a rash on your palms. Needless to say, I AM staying in the air conditioning for the next several days.

Spin the Wheel . . . You’re a Winner!

Step right up and spin the wheel! At the BookExpo America on opening day, May 28, 2009, I stopped at the Authors and Experts booth to speak with their representatives. Authors and Experts had a wheel with different prizes for the winning. Feeling lucky, I took my turn at the wheel. Fortunately for me, I won a featured ad on the Authors and Experts web site. Check out their web site and my ad at: www.authorsandexperts.com. Whoop!

 

New York City – Book Expo America – May 29-31, 2009

Okay, so this San Antonio native traveled to the big city of New York for the BookExpo America! While this was my first visit to the Big Apple, San Antonio, Texas is still my home! Now I’ve traveled to Europe and Rome, Italy was, up until now, the largest city I’ve ever visited. Simply put, there is way too much to see in New York City that five days cannot allow for a thorough tour. My daughter and I did manage to cram as much sightseeing in as possible.

Day 1 - Thursday: We spent an extra two hours at the Houston airport waiting for approval for  our flight to leave for New York City. The entire NYC area was socked-in with rain and low cloud coverage. After arriving at our hotel, we took a walk-about in Times Square. Very interesting and VERY crowded!

Day 2 - Friday: The first day of the BEA was Friday, May 29, 2009, and was said to be the least crowded day (HA!), we took a taxi and spent most of the day visiting the tables and  booths of the publishers, book buyers, sellers, marketers that were showing off their wares. In addition, there were numerous authors signing and promoting their books. For the first time, I was able to meet the people representing the AEG Publishing Group. Eloquent Books, my publisher, is a subsidiary of the AEG Publishing Group. I can’t express how nice it was to finally put a face to the people I’ve worked with via the internet. By the way, we picked up a dozen or so goodie bags, ballpoint pens, book marks, key rings, brochures, and advance copy books. By the time we ran out of energy, we were each carrying about twenty pounds of books! (My shoulder is still sore!) Our day ended with the Broadway musical, The Lion King. We’ve seen several plays and musicals, and this is one that should be seen again!

Day 3 - Saturday: While I was sore from all of the walking and carrying heavy loads, we took a three-hour harbor tour on the Circle-Line Sightseeing Cruise Boat at 42^nd Street. The weather was glorious and the best part was that we were able sit for most of the tour! As we waited to board the boat, I kept hearing the theme song from Gilligan’s Island in the back of my brain. Another great aspect of the cruise was that we were able to take great photos of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and about twenty bridges including the Brooklyn Bridge. After the cruise, we walked to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center to visit the BEA one more time. After lunch, we took a three-hour bus tour of Manhattan Island followed by a nighttime three-hour bus tour of Manhattan Island.

Day 4 - Sunday: The day began with Mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. What a beautiful Cathedral! Saint Patrick’s is more beautiful than some of the glorious basilicas in Europe. We walked, and walked, and walked before taking a carriage tour of Central Park. Then we walked some more! Although it was exhausting, it was well worth the effort!

Day 5 - Monday: We arrived early at the airport and were fortunate not to have any delays during our return to Texas. There’s no place like home!

And the file cabinet came falling down!

Long ago in an office that I once entered from time to time, this painful antic occurred. The offices of the asset managers contained solid oak furniture including several four drawer lateral file cabinets. The cabinets were very heavy oak and were able to handle the heavy files that were used on a daily basis.

One of our young asset managers was the guardian of real estate files that I used every day. The first time that I opened the top drawer of one of the cabinets in her office, I noticed that the cabinet rocked forward when the drawer was open. Since the cabinet was supposed to be stable and balanced, I closed the drawer and investigated the problem by opening the bottom drawer. To my dismay, the bottom two drawers were empty. The first thing I did was to inform the asset manager that she needed to rearrange her files. As incredible as it may sound, she informed me that it was easier to get the files out of the upper drawers than the bottom drawers. Apparently, she didn’t want to bend down every time she needed a file. Did I mention that she was a blonde? Also, she had all of her large black binders on top of the cabinet. After her explanation, I returned to my office to continue working.

Not more than a day later, I returned to her office to put some documents on her desk. Before I could turn to leave, the top-heavy cabinet fell forward and pinned me to the front of the desk. As if that wasn’t a bad enough situation, all of the black binders battered my head and shoulders. Being alone in the office and too stunned to shout for help, I was happy to see our mail clerk passing by the office. She sprang into action and went for assistance because she was too petite to lift the cabinet herself. The president of our company was the closest man in our offices so she ran to his door and ordered him to help. He was so stunned to be ordered by the clerk that he just sat at his desk looking at her in disbelief. When he didn’t jump up right away, she ordered him again in a slightly higher voice. Fortunately for me, he left his office and ran after the clerk. By this time our IT manager was walking into our offices and helped the president raise the cabinet off of me and back into place.

Once I was freed from my predicament, I could barely stand so I sat in the nearest chair and cried from the pain and the embarrassment. By that time the entire staff came to the office to find out what the excitement was all about. While they removed all of the files from the cabinet, I tried to compose myself. The funny thing is that my boss, a very nice man indeed, was on the telephone in the adjacent office. He told me that he heard a loud thump, but since he didn’t hear anyone scream he wasn’t concerned.

All in all, I survived this catastrophe; let’s just say that I was badly bruised over eighty-percent of my body. The only good thing that came out of this incident is that all of the cabinets in our offices were inspected for stability.