Papa Pat Tiny Devotionals

Do they not hear and see, or just not talk? Would those of you who have lively blogs explain blogging success to me? This is almost a request I would feel comfortable posting at Mad Genius Club , except it's not concerning income-producing writing. I started blogging FIVE years ago, today. My first post had 18 hits. (They dropped off after that, but I was sporadic about posting for quite a while.) Some devoted friends have subscribed to my posts. I can usually count on at least 50 hits.  Usually, if my post is interesting or amusing or relevant, I'll get 100+ hits. Anything above that is rare; my top five, without any undue promotion, were in the 500+ hit range. I am utterly cool with this, although I do think my posts are mostly brilliant and more people would enjoy them if they read them. However: It is RARE that anybody ever comments on a blog post! This was brought home to me in startling fashion after the hits started coming in for my blog post about my workable solution ...

After it's over, massive services are available. Unless we were lucky, we went to bed on Valentine's Day 2018 with another mass shooting on our hearts, instead of  images of flowers and candy.  After I heard the news around 6 PM, I did enough research to get the basic facts straight, and then stopped reading and listening. The rumors and allegations were already starting to fly, and there wasn't going to be any more substantial and accurate information out there for some time. What I got was that a 19 year-old former student had killed 17 and wounded others; that he had been expelled from the school for disciplinary issues; that he had been banned from carrying a backpack on campus after making threats to other students; that he had numerous social media posts of himself with guns and knives, some of which included threatening language. Since then, the only relevant information that has come forth is that he and a younger brother were adopted by a couple from New York when ...

          Dearest internet friends: Despite giving you TWO clickable links, this blog post will contain no book reviews in the body of the post, although the review links are provided;  you may read (and vote for) my Amazon review of 'The Many Deaths of Joe Buckley' here , and read (and vote for) my Amazon review of 'One Jump Ahead' here. Instead of including sections of my book reviews, what follows is my entry in a some-time-ago Baen Contest, which they run on a regular basis because they are delightful people. The current one allows you to make your case before the Council of Aliens about why we should be allowed to the stars. Alas, I must give the BRIEFEST of background information, or this story will not amuse. First, the literary hobby called Killing Joe Buckley.  Joe Buckley is a real person with many skills and delightful characteristics. One of those skills was his ability to proof-read manuscripts for authors. The way I understand the story, then-unpublished a...

Dear friends, I had something else planned, but I ran into obstacles. Rather than not post at all today, I thought I would share this short bit. It's something I wrote a few years ago, when a friend and I both had pneumonia at the same time. These are games to be played in a group setting, where the actors are afflicted with more-or-less awful cases of upper respiratory infections. The contestants are friends and family members. And now, here are the games! "What's On My Mind." We start a sentence, and the audience has to guess what we are trying to say, based on the first few words we are able to utter. "Name that Praise Chorus." Same basic idea, but with music. We sing all we can of a chorus, and they have to guess what the chorus is. "The Rainbow Disconnection." Each of us is given the care of an active two or three year old, and the audience identifies the colors we turn as we chase them around the room. Extra points are awarded for guessing ...

First, the bit of a rant. And this has a high likelihood of aggravating some of those I admire and consider to be friends. Well, don't worry. I will continue to review your books based on their own merit. I just want to draw your attention to the topic of: Money. People who are barking about how the private sector always innovates, and about wicked and incompetent government agencies ( wink wink nudge nudge let's bash NASA some more ) are just frappen missing the point: no bucks, no Buck Rogers . SpaceX did wonderful things, because it had: money. NASA did wonderful things, too, when it had: money. Those who yarp and scrank about a supposed failure of NASA to innovate are essentially like the farmer who daily reduced the feed to his horse as an economy measure, and then complained that just as soon as he got his horse to get by on no feed at all, the horse died. Of COURSE NASA had limits shortly after The Eagle landed at Tranquility Base. Their FUNDING was cut. N...

    You can BUY this book from Amazon by clicking on the link above, or you can do what I did, and get  the Gutenberg Australia  version. My Amazon review of the book is found here . It has no significance whatever, except that Amazon didn't lose it for a week, as it did two of my last seven reviews. This time, they posted it up in a hurry. Good for them. My daily routine involves reading, and reviewing what I've read. The VAST majority of my reading is of novel-length works, and frequently those are installments in a series. To do them justice requires first wakefulness, and then concentration. Plot lines are often intricate; characters are well-developed. The authors pour a great deal of themselves into their work, and I owe it to them, and to the reading public, to reflect their professionalism in my reviews. I take my duty seriously; it's just the kind of job I hoped to get as a stripling youth. And then, I got the flu. I did not recognize it as such at first, so conce...

    My Amazon review, which needs votes, has yet to be released by the Amazon crew, after 22 hours. Coincidence, or conspiracy? You decide! The review is on Goodreads as well . Goodreads can, at least, reproduce a graphic on Facebook, which Amazon no longer seems able to do, but there is no discernable ranking system on Goodreads. (That's why I usually only provide the link to the Amazon review. But, they haven't released it yet, and I've GOT to get this post out!) I received a review copy of  the book in Kindle format. Anthologies are some of my favorite things to read, but gracious, they are hard to review! In the first place, if the anthology has a LOT of entries, as this one does, I essentially have to read the book twice; first pass through is for the joy of escapism, second pass through is to recall in each story what makes it unique, so I can mention that in the review. In the second place, some of the very best short stories often turn on a gimmick, a reveal, and th...

    This blog post describes the added value to ME of Henry Vogel's adventure story/exploding spaceships/ some smooching/ "The Recognition Run." It is NOT a review, however, but you will find the Amazon review by clicking HERE . Please remember to vote 'Helpful,' because I like that. ALSO, read this spoiler, because it's important: I am okay, at home, happily doing what I like to do, and have no expectation that bad health things are in store, any more than any reasonable for a drop-dead gorgeous 64 year old white male under the care of a gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA. But, it did get weird for a while. Friends are lovely things under any circumstances. I recently have had the delightful occasion to have friends Brother Fred McAdams and Uncle Mylon Gramling help me replace a leaking hot water tank. There are many other friends I have never met face to face; they write books...