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The TASTE of Montgomery County, a tasty fundraiser

Every year the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum hosts this fundraiser designed especially for people who like to eat. Like me. This was only my second year to attend, but wow, I wished I’d brought a couple of extra stomachs.

The TASTE features a lineup of nearly 20 local restaurants and caterers bringing their A-game to the study grounds. For very reasonable prices, you can buy little (and not so little) samples of fabulous foods. And by “reasonable,” I mean nothing costs more than $4, lots of items are $1, and many of those big-ticket items could be meals in themselves, if you didn’t need to save room to sample everything else.

The TASTE of Montgomery County, a tasty fundraiser
Treadmill desk, alpha version. Totally caught me checking Facebook.

I Walk a Lonely Road: my new treadmill desk

English: 2009 ESPN Zone Chicago Ultimate Couch...
2009 ESPN Zone Chicago Ultimate Couch Potato Contestant – Steve Janowski (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, it turns out that sitting on your butt for long periods of time, like writers do, is really bad for you.

This should be one of those no-brainer things — sedentary lifestyles are bad, this isn’t news — but it really came home to me when I realized that since I became a published author and started really taking my writing seriously, I’ve gained almost 20 pounds. Ouch.

Time to take back my life!

I Walk a Lonely Road: my new treadmill desk

Vintage Books Are Art

A page from the mysterious Voynich manuscript,...
A page from the mysterious Voynich manuscript, which is undeciphered to this day. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I respect books. I hate to see books damaged, even — especially — in the name of decor. At a decorators’ show house recently, my sister, mother, and I looked in horror at shelf art made of cut up books. “Oh, thank goodness,” my sister soon identified, “they’re just Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.”

Walking through a decorating fair using vintage books and paper as disposable materials makes my blood run dark. The current trend of tearing up old books to get aged or interesting paper is infuriating and wholly unnecessary. My mother has decorated her bathroom with delightful antique book illustrations, everything from Sinbad to Sherlock Holmes, all color-copied from the originals for a neat aesthetic with no damage.

Vintage Books Are Art

How I Survived the Arctic Blast and Beyond

“A well known American writer said once that, while everybody talked about the weather, nobody seemed to do anything about it.”
— Charles Dudley Warner, Hartford (Connecticut) Courant, August 27, 1897 (often attributed to Mark Twain but probably mistakenly)

English: "Besides disrupting transportati...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s said that there is no bad weather, only bad clothing. While I can’t agree wholly — I’m from the midwest, and no clothing in the world will save you from a tornado — I agree with the sentiment that a little preparation goes a long way toward making one safe and comfortable.

How I Survived the Arctic Blast and Beyond
the West Baden angels, restored

The Angels of West Baden

Inside the atrium at the West Baden Springs Hotel.
Inside the atrium at the West Baden Springs Hotel. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You may not have heard of the West Baden hotel, which is a shame. It was built in the town of West Baden Springs, near the better-known today French Lick, and was a luxury hotel to offer the wealthy leisure and access to the natural phenomena of the area — mineral springs considered medicinal.

Today’s travelogue is a bit different, since while I’ve visited West Baden, this isn’t that trip. It’s just the necessary backdrop.

The Angels of West Baden

Beware of Writers

English: Beware of Bull Beware of Bull on publ...
This photo is not directly relevant to being cautious of writers. It’s just great on its own. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve said that people just passing through a hotel hosting a writers’ convention must be frequently alarmed. For example, I was sitting in the hall at my last such conference and overheard someone pleading for ideas on how to dispose of a body. “I tried burying it, but that didn’t work,” he said, “and I’ve thought about acid in a tub but it didn’t seem likely to clean up well. Can you help?”
Beware of Writers

Burne-Jones-le-Vampire

I (Heart) Vampires

Illustration in Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le F...
Illustration in Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampire story. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I (blood-red heart) vampires. Not any particular incarnation of them (though there are some incarnations I do particularly dislike), but the mythos of them. Creeping, skulking, life-stealing, blood-drinking, vein-piercing, sexual-metaphor-but-not-sexy-themselves vampires.

How do I love vampires? Let me count the ways.

I (Heart) Vampires

Pirates! and a free sample

International Talk Like a Pirate DayAarrrgh! It’s offic’ly Talk Like a Pirate Day! And in honor, we’re goin’ t’ look at a burnin’ question: Why d’ our pirates talk like this?

Of course, thar aren’t a lot o’ recorded pirate speeches. Even court records o’ tried and convicted pirates don’t capture t’ dialect o’ t’ accused. What we think o’ as “pirate speak” developed rel’tively recently in modern media.

Pirates! and a free sample