CE Wills

    Hey, everyone. I have a few recommendations tonight. First, the song. Try Where The Boat Leaves From by the Zac Brown Band. Always loved the beach type music, probably because I love the beach. I also like Toes and Highway Twenty Drive by the same guys.     I wrote a blog about Keith Richards book the other day because it sounded very interesting to an old duffer like me. I bought it today and spent a lot of time reading it. After only a few chapters let me say it's really special. Four stars out of four, at least thus far. Let me say I'd recommend you get the free sample and read it from Amazon, Apple or whoever. If you've been born in the last forty years or so you may not relate as well to this book. Keith Richards has a gift of bluntness and honest memory that is endearing. Some of us engage in selective memory loss, chiefly about our own faults. Mr. Richards seems not to remotely consider being politically correct or concerned about sparing any...

    Hey everyone. One night many years ago I was working a job in Kansas. It was winter and the blizzard warnings were out. There was an awesome feeling in the air, kind of creepy, as though all of nature held it's breath.     I was at work and since I had a four-wheel drive car I was not as concerned as I should have been. I was one of the last people to leave the plant, even after the authorities had indicated everyone should go home.     We lived 60 miles from the plant. It was around midnight when I headed out. The first 30 miles were paved roads, about 20 of that was interstate. The ferocious winds were polishing the road to a sheet of ice in places. The top speed was probably 20 mph. The wind, which had recently swooped down the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, was now roaring like a drunken psychopath across the great plains. That, along with the heavy snow was causing a 'whiteout'. I could barely see past the front bumper of my ...

    As Halloween approaches I hope that you'll take the time to go to the list on the right and click June . Then click a post entitled The White Sign . It's pretty spooky for a true story. Also try August , then Campfire Song .     The subject of my post today is Love Letters. This term is out of date since letters are a thing of the past. Love, at least, seems to be doing rather well. Painful as it may seem at the time, our teenage years are thrilling in many ways. When you receive a love letter it is wonderful. You may find yourself reading it multiple times and you guard it zealously. For many of us it is the first time we express our feelings in print. Texting is a nice substitute, I suppose.     I was listening to an old song by Elvis last night. The title is Love Letters . It made me think about times my wife and I were apart and I would almost ache to see her or hear her voice on the phone. When I would be gone on military duty, not seei...

    Hey, everyone. We finally got a good rain early this morning. It was desperately needed. All the leaves are gone except for a few stubborn hickory trees that have some yellow leaves fluttering in the stiff breeze. Reminds me of the old song by the Mamas and the Papas, California Dreaming .     Just for fun, I thought I'd describe my study, where I typically sit and type these posts. There's a computer desk with printer and a big monitor that helps people like me that have bad eyes. There's three large sets of shelves for books, crammed full of hardcovers and paperbacks. On one wall are framed covers of the four novels I have e-published, beside a large print of Marilyn Monroe. You younger folks who don't know about Marilyn just think of any modern blond bombshell and magnify a lot. Also on that wall is a Baltimore Colts pennant and a jersey that says Maddux on the back. There is a rack with two guitars, one acoustic and one electric.( as though it matt...

    Every once in a while I'll take the notion to mark a goal off that list we all carry around in our head. You know, that list of things we always wanted to do but never got done. Not so long ago I followed one of these whims and traveled to Canton, Ohio, to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I had been a lifelong fan of Pro Football. The first NFL game I watched was in 1958. It was the championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants. It was the first pro football game ever on TV and a real thriller. It was the first 'sudden death' overtime game and a nation decided, " Yeah, we want to see some more of this". Johnny Unitas was the Colts quarterback and became my hero. The Colts won, by the way. At that time my family had recently bought a television, a device which at that time was just as 'magical' as an I-Pad. But I digress.     So from those years on my brother and I would toss a football around and pretend to be Johnny U. and Ray B...

    Hey, everyone. Yesterday, my wife and I spent much of the day dealing with fallen leaves. Raking them, mowing them and thinking about burning them. I couldn't burn them safely due to the extended dry weather. It was good to get outside and do some work, though. I had gotten in the habit of spending too much time on the computer.     We found a yellow jacket nest in the ground, just barely in the woods off the backyard. I poured a jar full of gas in the hole which is the most effective way to deal with them. Some folks then light the gas and set it on fire but that's not necessary. The fumes will kill them. I don't like to do this because a guy needs to be careful about his well water, but a couple of pints won't hurt anything.     By the way, I heard a good tip for handyman wisdom the other day. If you pour an open jar full of kerosene and set it in your garage, storage building or shed, wasps will just pack up and leave. Well, they don...

 Hey, everyone. I forgot to mention something in the previous post. It scarcely matters because there's a lot of buzz and you've probably heard about it anyway. At any rate, those lovable birds are back in action. Just out today is Angry Birds Halloween . It's 99 cents at the app store. This version has 45 new levels with Halloween themes and spooky music. My wife is a Birds fanatic and has beaten every level. I scored major points with her by downloading this new game just after midnight. The game makers are great about giving free updates with new levels so no one minds buying this one, I'm sure.     I read on-line that Angry Birds is the #1 selling app all time on the app store. I also read that recently, when offered on line for android systems, that there were 90,000 requests in the first minute and the server crashed. By the way, you remember the other day I mentioned a game called Cut The Rope ? I saw where that game sold a million copies in the first ten da...

    Hey, everyone. I just wanted to talk about a new app or two for the I-Pad, I-Phone, or I-Pod Touch. I got a free app called Crazy Booth which is terrific. The developers have that gift of seeing the little kid hidden in all of us and giving us toys to play with. This app allows you to change your pictures in a lot of ways.     Crazy Booth has 25 cool effects and I'll list a few: 1. Heat Cam 2. Pop Art 3. Negative 4. Twirl 5. Mirror 6. Sketch 7. Night Vision 8. Puzzle (Makes a jigsaw) 9. Checkers 10. X-Ray     It's very cool, so get it while it's free, my friend. It's actually a little cooler than another app I bought for 99 cents called Photo Studio. Don't get me wrong, Photo Studio is totally worth the 99 cents and has no ads so you may prefer it. But hey, try Crazy Booth.     If you haven't used the I-Pad for photos you've missed one of the device's best features. It has great crispness and good cheap apps fo...

    Hey, everyone. I was just reading an article on Reuters.com about the great guitarist for the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards. He's recently written a book about his life, entitled Life , oddly enough. The article is excellent and I'm intending to buy the book when it comes out.     The guitarist talks about many famous friends, including Johnny Depp and Mick Jagger. He says of John Lennon that "He never left my home except horizontally; one night he was laying in the bathroom floor and told us not to move him because the tiles were beautiful."     Hey, I'm not saying pattern your life after these guys, I just liked their music. Isn't that the thing? Take the good from people and live the way you feel that you should.     Of Johnny Depp he says, "He was a friend of my son's for two years before I knew who he was. Then one day at dinner I said, 'You're Scissorhands."     Speaking of Johnny Depp, I was at t...

    Hey, everyone. Just got back from the movie. The Social Network is about the creation of Facebook. It is a show that is a bit different from the normal movie formula. I found it refreshingly different, well-acted and a terrific show. I'd give it 4 stars out of 4 and that's rare for me.     So, this movie answers the biting questions: 1. How can a couple of guys form a corporation worth 25 billion dollars?  and 2. Can a guy who is (like me), less than gifted socially, create a program that gives the gift of socializing to millions of people? I mean, he didn't grow a white beard and become a hermit.This guy had more juice than that. He had a brilliant mind and perhaps, at least according to this account, a tad of ruthlessness. By the way, Sean Parker, who developed Napster music service, is portrayed in this movie as well. He became a stockholder in Facebook also.     As an action movie fan, why am I amazed when a show about lawsuit...

    Hey, everyone. It was a windy day yesterday, here on the mountain. The sky was blue and the temperature got up to about 60 degrees. I took a long walk in the woods. I think I heard that crazy mockingbird again. Maybe it's my imagination but I think this bird is trying to imitate the siren on an ambulance. He then changes over to a chicken clucking over it's eggs. I can't see the bird from the ground but I walk by it's nest when I go down the trail.     This morning a whole lot of leaves are falling, which is a little sad. The hickories are about the last to turn. They are a nice yellow, despite the dry year, and in general seem to handle hard times a bit better than other trees in this area. It is my wish that I could be as resilient as these trees. Ever notice all the life lessons to be learned from nature?     The other day I was thinking about the animals that hang around here. The squirrels think they own the place. I think I own it...

    Hey, everyone. I've just published a new short story on Smashwords. It's a western, which is a departure from my normal genre. I believe you'll like it, however, even if you normally don't read westerns. It's free and I'll supply a link at the end of the post.     The book opens with a cowboy who is riding through southern Colorado on a dreary night. It's storming and raining. He comes across a lady who is digging a grave in the rain. When he stops to help the results are dynamic.     I actually wrote the bulk of this a few years ago and seemed to lack the inspiration to finish it. Then I decided to make a short story out of it. I added a few pages and an ending. After that I liked it well enough to publish it. If I can't enjoy reading a story, I won't publish it.     By the way, we just bought a new game from the app store. It's very popular right now. It's called Cut The Rope and it's by the folks who made Angry Birds...

    Hey, everyone. I think our squirrels are stressed because the oaks are not producing many acorns. The dry weather has caused this and it's the fewest acorns I've seen at the green retreat. Maybe that's why the little guy was trying to get in my bedroom window the other morning. He suspects I have an acorn stash under my bed.     There were a few years that we had a bird feeder here. The squirrels were a real nuisance as they would go to extraordinary lengths to get the food. We even bought a feeder that had an ingenious device which I'll try to describe. The area where a bird stood to eat was hinged so that a squirrel's weight would cause a plate to slide over the food. The squirrels figured a way around this. They put their feet against one of the side walls and their hands against the other and pushed to hold themselves up. Then they twisted their heads down to eat. I said they were 'Rambo' squirrels. My wife said that if she had a video of it, she c...

    Hey, everyone. A squirrel woke me up this morning. He was clawing at the bedroom window in hopes of getting into a warmer place, I suppose.     Let's talk video games a little. I bought a word game yesterday on the app store. It's called Chicktionary and I recommend it for all ages. You are given a random list of letters, all jumbled up, and you make as many words out of them as possible in three minutes. The letters are on these chickens that cluck when you tap them to select a letter, very cute. If you make a mistake and decide to put a letter back the chicken squawks and feathers fly. It's fun and you can play it in a limited time, like three minutes. Ha, ha. There is a paid and a free version with the paid version being $1.99. I believe, in fact I know, that you can get this game for your PC as well. Not from the app store, but from somewhere on line. I'll get back to you on that.     I must say that I get less writing done since I ...

    Hey, everyone. Thought I'd tell you about some good eating I just did. My wife and I went to O'Charley's, which is a chain in the south. I got a California Chicken Salad which is maybe the best salad I've had. It had lettuce, grilled chicken, cranberries, strawberries, candied pecans, mandarin oranges, and blue cheese crumblies, if you are so inclined. I opted out on the blue cheese. I also chose ranch dressing over the balsamic vinaigrette. I topped this off with half an appetizer platter and four rolls. Hey, I see the smirk, but I hadn't had any breakfast.     I received an early birthday present. It's a new songbook which has some really good tunes in it. Trying to be good and spend the evening typing the new book but the temptation is to play the new songs instead. Just finished writing a short story about an earth dude who gets involved in a war between vampires and humans on another planet. It's about 150 pages long, less when it's typed. I wo...

    Hey, everyone. I've been thinking about trees a lot. It's hard not to think about them, here in the green retreat. When I was living in Kansas for a few years I really missed trees. There were almost none. In the summer they help cut the light bill with their shade. Then in the winter they lose their leaves so the sun can warm us and cut the light bill. Of course I cut the dead trees for firewood. There are enough trees that die every year so that I don't have to cut living ones. It makes me feel good to do this from a conservation standpoint.     How cool is it that trees take in bad air and put out good air? They give us really neat colors in the fall and give the poets something else to write about. They are pretty awesome when you cut one down and they crash like a bomb when they hit the ground. They have different smells when you burn them, too. You can burn a stick of mountain laurel and it's like perfume, it puts a sweet aroma in the house. Dog...

    This morning when I got up I did my usual vegetative state with my coffee. I was sitting in my recliner and I started meditating about the changes in my entertainment lifestyle. For instance, I used to get up and turn on the TV if my wife was at work. Well, commercials got so bad that I quit watching TV other than NFL football and the movie channels that are non-commercial. I had watched baseball for a lifetime, but I quit watching when they started putting up commercials during the game.     Long ago I deserted watching TV news and switched to reading Google News on-line. Sure, they have ads on the sides but they are not wasting huge amounts of your life like TV. The TV industry is doing what the record industry and the book industry has done. They have a gun in their mouth and are even now slowly squeezing the trigger as they happily listen to the wormy little marketers in their board rooms. Cool imagery, huh?     A lifetime sports fa...

    Sometimes I nap a little during the day and consequently lie awake at night. Tonight I was lying in bed, just listening. The leaves in a hardwood forest are great sound insulators, you know? When they start to fall you begin to hear more sounds. Tonight I could hear a lonesome train whistle, miles away, at the foot of the mountain. Later I could hear a dog barking, probably a mile away on another ridge. Was he one of those dogs that bark at nothing, or did he smell a cougar?     Beside me I could hear my wife's quiet breathing as she slept. She sounds like a puppy sleeping and snugs close to get warm. It makes even insomnia pretty cool. I lay and think about ideas for stories and ideas for blogs. If I don't consciously steer my thoughts elsewhere, I might think of worries. An acorn falls off one of the chestnut oaks that tower over our home. Falling from sixty feet up it makes quite a thunk when it hits the roof. You get so used to them that you don't ...

    Hey, everyone. I'm typing this weekend. Trying to get the sequel to KGB Retirement Program typed. The title is Karina's Journal and it wraps up Ben and Karina's saga. Typing is a slow process for me and it is actually less tough to make myself do than the writing. What I mean is, to write a book it takes a massive effort of discipline because it is work . When you do get started and things are flowing you actually enjoy it. These two characters are my favorites.     But I was talking about the typing. I have a massive respect for those who type for a living. A secretary should be one of the better-paid persons around. Right now I have several novels backed up in a stack for typing. Enough of that.     I was playing some songs on my keyboard this morning from the sixties. You may remember Brown-Eyed Girl, Sherry, Sloop John B., Traces and the like. No one was home but me so I sang a little bit along with them. Loads of fun and definitely...