Monthly Archives: April 2017
Celebrating My 300th Post With Poetry
I’m celebrating my 300th post with poetry. Fred Proud does an excellent reading in this video. Kipling was an English Twain with his command of colloquialisms and rough hewn dialect, the plain talk of common people. But Kipling’s word play was … Continue reading
Update on My Book Proposals
My Stanton Delaplane (internal link) book proposal has now been turned down twice. I think that’s just getting started for most writers; two proposals barely a beginning. I do think, though, that I am going to reorient my proposal. Instead of a … Continue reading
Tracking Queries With Google’s Calendar
I’m now using Google’s Calendar feature (external link) to keep track of queries. I wish I used it before. It’s a free service with a Google account. You already have it if you use Gmail. The calendar is pretty straight … Continue reading
Finding Your Way With QR Codes
In my Rock&Gem Magazine articles I supply GPS coordinates for sites lacking a street address. Here’s a common example, this one leading to a noteworthy monument in Catheys Valley, California: N 37° 26.292 W 120°05.177 This approach is practical but not completely … Continue reading
Stop Government Overreach in The Auburn State Recreation Area
Could you please sign this petition? It protests the shutting down of the Auburn State Recreation Area to rockhounding and prospecting. The Auburn RSA is located about forty miles northeast of Sacramento. Over many years, I’ve found gold in quartz, … Continue reading
Posted in Magazine article, Uncategorized
Tagged crevice work, gold flakes, gold mining, Middle fork of the American River, North Fork of the American River, petition, Pioneer Mining Supply, Placer County, prospecting, Rock&Gem Magazine, the Auburn SRA, the Auburn State Recreation Area
Leave a comment
The Free Public Domain USGS Multimedia Gallery
The United States Geological Survey maintains a wonderful public domain library at this address: https://www.usgs.gov/products/multimedia-gallery/overview (external link). All will do for web work and many are printable quality. Nearly all 10,000 images are at no charge and copyright free but of … Continue reading
Working For a Content Creation Site
What’s it like to write for a content generation site? Or, as some people call it, a content mill? It reminds me a little of my past newspaper reporting. I get a topic I might know little about, I research it, and then … Continue reading
What if Gordon Gekko Was a Coffee Addicted Writer?
I’m just starting my first cup this early morning. What would Gordon Gekko say? “Coffee, for lack of a better word, is good. Coffee is right, coffee works. Coffee clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. … Continue reading
Posted in Thoughts on writing, Uncategorized
Tagged coffee, coffee addict, coffee works, Gordon Gekko, Wall Street
Leave a comment
San Francisco and The Summer of Love
The de Young Museum (external link), in association with other groups and venues, is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of San Francisco’s Summer of Love. Pardon me if I don’t join the festivities. As the promoters put it, “In the mid-1960s, artists, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged beatniks, Bissett, Bullitt, de Young Museum, hippies, McQueen, San Francisco, Summer of Love
Leave a comment
The iStory — A Way to Improve Your Writing?
NarrativeMagazine.com (external link) is promoting a new kind of writing for our too wandering thoughts, a 150-word prose form called an iStory. Here’s how they describe it: An iStory is a short, dramatic narrative, fiction or nonfiction, up to 150 … Continue reading