Thursday Blurbs

Score One for The Guys!

I achieved the Glowing GasPump Dashboard Icon award recently, traveling on mere vapors while on the remote and gasless Blue Ridge Parkway. I was traveling alone of course, as my copilot begins to panic when the tank falls below 3/4 full. I’m serious.

Pain Vs Pleasure

I suppose after last week’s party the new room (the ANNex) does have some usefulness and can provide us with some pleasures. But every morning since then, I’d have much preferred (and this was roundly voted down) for our construction dollars a garage so that I don’t have to scrap ice every morning , twice on the days I also leave the valley before first light for work. Grrrr!

Dr. Pain

I am about to celebrate my first anniversary of my return to physical therapy. There have been more good days than bad, more patients I look forward to working with than dread, and enough income to make me feel less guilty about indulging in the much less financially-rewarding enterprise of the book-related events of the past year. I think I am only recently regaining my sense of “best care” and the results of treatment have been more and more rewarding. I doubt I will return to teaching anytime soon, as it takes far too much time for the dollars, and takes too much out of me. My PT license is good for two more years, and we’ll re-evaluate at the end of 2008 what happens after that. To some extent, it will depend on how able the hands are to go on in this work. The trend in that regard is somewhat bleak.

Bloggers Blogging

Fragments friend D writing under the pseudonym Metropolitan has “penned” a nice study (Fountainpens: a Place to Start) of the joys of and varieties of fountain pens over at DIY Planner. I confess to a pen fettish myself, though too cheap to spring for a real ink-powered pen. My favorite (especially for book signing) is a nice Cross Pen given to me by a patient some years ago. And David Sobotta, Roanoke blogger / beach blogger rallies to the defense of blogging and bloggers against the foppish rantings of a “real” journalist who suggests blogs are “written by fools to be read by imbeciles.” Hmmm.

Proof in the Pudding

Actually, no pudding. Maybe no proof. But possibly. I got word yesterday (after spending literally ALL day Monday reading the fine print, making the slight but tedious revisions to make the cover comply with a new template, yadayada) that I may have in my hands by tomorrow the complete book (version two, digitally printed) from Lightningsource. Then, I’ll have to decide if that is the way I will go for future book printing and distribution. I’m prepared to be somewhat (or significantly) disappointed with the interior graphics, possibly the cover (gloss laminate is the only choice.) I also will need to get my head around how much less per book this option will offer me, while holding the potential for many times the distribution. More on that soon, I’m sure, for the two of you who have been following this little continuing story of the climb up the learning curve of publishing.)

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. congrats on the glowing dashboard…i have let my gas get to that level numerous times, sad to say. luckily not on the parkway, though. and i look forward to hearing how this next chapter(no pun intended) of your book goes….

  2. I am more like your car-mate. My dad always told me not to let my tank get below half full, because the tank will sweat and mix water into the fuel. I don’t know if he was right or not – but it sounded good to me. I have never run out of gas….LOL

  3. So many correspondences to my life. I, too, am nearly out of gas in my truck and will have to get some on the way to work this a.m. I, too, am contemplating how much longer I need to stay with my current employment. I, too, have a slight pen fetish and made a feeble effort at collecting them once. And I, too, was once involved in the book publishing world, though on the other side of the fence at the time.