CE Wills

    Hey, everyone. It's hot in the green retreat the last few days. It's about 90 degrees here and 95 in the valley.     Today I want to talk about 'the country', which is a term that Americans use to describe the areas remote from big towns. Country singer Travis Tritt is one of my favorites, because of that great sounding guitar he has and also because I love the words to his songs. One of his songs is called Country Ain't Country  No More . It deals with the changes that overtake the areas where we live. All over America, and probably most of the world, people are moving into the rural areas, cutting down forests, building homes. In the song Travis bemoans the fact that the areas to hunt are being turned into strip malls and the old Sunday drive has turned into a chore. Wow, how long ago was that, when the family would go out and cruise around, for fun, just to look at stuff? Do you remember when deals were sealed with a handshake? It was just as s...

    Hey, everyone. The e-book industry is in its infancy and we are all feeling our way along a dark hallway. Hoping, of course, that it's a hallway and not a ballroom. (Walls are harder to find in the latter.)      I have my books on a bunch of sites. Most of them travel through Smashwords to get where they are going, with the exception of Amazon. The other day I went on Smashwords to check my stuff and I had a message that one of my short stories had 'failed an e-pub check'. This was a freebie named Scary Beast . Apple doesn't keep stuff on their site if it fails e-pub check, I guess, so it would be good if this could be resolved. Not a big deal, really, because the book was free, anyway.   I clicked on a link provided to try to resolve the issue and uploaded a copy of the story to the folks that approve these things. (An independent group) Of course, it's automated. It will refuse your manuscript and not give you a reason. So, then you start ...

     Hey, everyone. Another day is drawing to a close. I've been working a lot today. Part of the day I was at this house we are renovating in the valley. We worked hard and I have a stiff neck. When we returned to the green retreat we ate massive quantities of food. I grilled cheeseburgers and we ate them with a bunch of stuff that was 0 calories. Let's see if I can remember it all. I thought as long as I have the grill fired up, I'll throw a few hot dogs on there. Then I decided to throw a few hot wings on which we had left over from carry-out. Carley made a salad and we even had a couple of boiled eggs. The salad was particularly good. She loaded it up with cranberries, onions, chopped boiled eggs and other things like pieces of marshmallow. There was even some lettuce and traditional salad things. We had a couple of beers with our dinner and listened to music.     The hot shower felt good after all the dirty work. We took a nap and then got up t...

    Hey, everyone. This is an old logging road that crosses my property. In my book entitled Karina's Journal , Miller gets attacked by a mountain lion at a place inspired by this locale. Just over that little crest there is where my wife and I had the showdown with a real mountain lion. Trust me, I'd rather write about them than face them. Every time I walk by the area, I think about the aggressive kitty. I find it interesting that I wrote the story before we knew there were any mountain lions within 1000 miles of here. Wild, huh?     I did almost nothing today. I had lots of stuff I needed to do. That's okay, I'll try to get a bunch done tomorrow.      We have a game on our I-Pads called Fragger and it's a good game. We bought the game and tonight my wife had just beat a level and got this commercial urging her to download a game. She's played Fragger for a year, I guess. How is it that greed talks people into this kind of thing? I...

    Hey, everyone. Glad to be back with you tonight and thanks for reading the blog.     The good news is this: Baggage starts their new season of TV shows on June 6th. I'll look forward to that.     The Memorial Day weekend is zooming in fast. I haven't checked the movies that are opening but I do know that The Hangover 2 premiers. The first one was really funny but a bit crude in places, even for me. I was hoping for a blockbuster film this weekend but usually there are two weeks, at least, between the big films. I know that X-Men, First Class comes out a week from today, Friday. I'm looking forward to that and to Green Lantern, which comes out a couple of weeks after X-Men. When we were kids, reading these comics, who among us would have believed they'd go mainstream and be the subject of flicks that cost 150 million dollars to make? It looks like the guy playing Hal Jordan, (Green Lantern) is going to do a great job and be funny. ...

    I've often heard the old expression, "the school of hard knocks". In fact, I've been a student at that robust academy. What I didn't know until recently was that Louis Armstrong attended a franchise of that huge school, down in New Orleans.     Louis Armstrong's mother worked at a house of ill repute in New Orleans. In fact, Louis' first job was to use his bicycle to haul clean towels and linens to such establishments in that city.    Our tough early lives certainly have a part in forming our character, personality and traits both good and bad. It is easy to see how the entertainer coped well with playing to rowdy crowds.      One of my favorite songs to play on keyboard is What A Wonderful World.          I see trees of green          Red roses too          I see them bloom         For me and ...

    Hey, everyone. As you know, I'm an observer of animals and have always been fascinated by them. One thing that's neat about animals in general is their ability to surprise you.     A case in point is an old buddy of mine who has some baggage. He is a skunk, in the truest sense of the word. You know, with the white stripe down his back and the whole enchalada. Don't get me wrong, Bugs and I were never really close. In fact, I don't suppose you could call us friends. We just tolerated each other with a healthy respect for each others' capabilities. At the time I met Bugs, I was working a night-shift job at a plant that supplied river water to a power plant. The water was used to cool the steam which had just passed through the turbo-generator blades and turn it back into water for recycling.     Out at the river was a lonely place to work at night. On summer evenings I would sit out on the pump deck and enjoy the cool breeze and maybe wat...

    Hey, everyone. I've been putting off the uploading of several books to Amazon because they have changed the procedure somewhat. I had 3 novels over there and they were selling better there than some other places. Last night, late, I finally got to work on it and started uploading those bad boys. I actually submitted 5 new works. Three were novels, one was a novelette and one was a short story. I just went over to the site and noticed they had published them live, for which I am grateful.     I have been working on adding a feed for my blog so that every post I complete will automatically go to my Amazon Author Page. I'm not a really great computer person so it took me a little while to get it done, but now all the posts should appear both places. Unfortunately, all the cool posts of the past, such as Footsteps On The Roof , won't be printed over on Amazon unless I reissue them on The Author's Green Retreat . So I'd like to invite all the Amazon visitors to ...

    Hey, everyone. It's me again. This picture is of a huge tree stump in our woods. A really cute little chipmunk lives in the root system of it. I guess he thinks that it is a condo and no doubt paid a hefty price for such an ideal locale, close to water and all. Those short, green plants in front are ferns. They disappear in the winter, but in the summer we have thousands of them. They almost totally obscure our trail through the woods so that we cannot see the ground as we stroll along. This is not too great in a country where snakes are common, especially considering I have seen rattlesnakes, copperheads and other undesirable critters in the area. For this reason I usually use a swinging blade to clear the path once or twice a year.      I don't know why chipmunks like to live in rotten stumps and dead trees. I suppose they like that musty smell. This is odd but, hey, I like to smell of an old garage, where grease and oil have soaked into concret...

    Sassafras grows wild in the woods behind my house. I have mentioned before that the old-timers made tea from its roots. This tea is pretty tasty and I like it. You can see in the enclosed picture that sassafras has three types of leaves on every bush. It has a leaf with one lobe, others with two lobes and still others that have three lobes. Cool, huh?     The picture with the blooms is mountain laurel, which blooms in the spring. We have thickets of the stuff and deer like to lay up under it because it gives them good cover and no doubt a feeling of security; sort of like humans and their split level homes.     I'm pretty sore this morning. I spent yesterday up on a roof making repairs. In a brilliant maneuver, I drove a roofing nail into my finger, which I can't recommend for entertainment value.      So, you're going to see Johnny Depp get his pirate thing 'on' again this weekend? Guess I won't go to that one. In ...

   It was a warm night tonight, after several days of unseasonably cool weather. There were a few light showers in the area but it didn't rain anywhere that I happened to be.       I went night fishing and was trying to catch some catfish. I don't eat fish and I have almost totally quit fishing. There have been a few times when I caught  fish with a big growth on them. It makes you wonder about eating things from our rivers. I used to be an avid fisherman. As with most things I was totally into boating and fishing for several years and then cast the hobby aside like used Kleenex.      When I night fish, I like to use raw chicken livers and drop them down to the bottom of the river. It doesn't hurt if you let them sit in the hot sun a while so they stink. Catfish are not too particular about their cuisine.  It's sort of cool out on the river at night, all by yourself. It's quiet, for the most part. You have to be alert for bar...

    Hey, everyone. As you probably know, Angry Birds has netted untold millions of dollars as a game, clothing line, plush toys, etc. Well, I was reading an article the other day that seemed to be saying that Birds was a semi-knockoff of the game called Siege Hero , which is now available on IOS.(App Store)     So, I cruised over to the App Store and bought the game for the reasonable price of 99 cents. Guess what? I prefer it to Angry Birds and so does my wife. In fact, she rates it as 5 stars out of 5, while I would call it 4 stars out of 5.     Birds has infuriated their own fans by becoming ridiculously difficult, then trying to sell the ability to skip difficult levels. Siege Hero is fun, rather than frustrating. Here's the recipe.     You have 64 levels in which you face the chore of destroying the stronghold of enemy soldiers. You do this by using your catapult to launch boulders, fireballs and other missiles at t...

    Hey, everyone. It's no secret that I'm a fan of the terrific show on the Game Show Network called Baggage . Unfortunately, it's re-run season now. But fear not, I just found the show's web-site and it seems to be extremely cool. I'll put a link at the end of the post and to your right in the new section  entitled My Favorite Sites .     On this site you can watch full episodes of the popular dating show and enjoy many other exclusives that you won't see on TV. Click on Baggage Unpacked which is hosted by the delectable Bethany Dwyer. The segment called Baggage Top 5 is really cool, also. When you check it out you'll probably join the legion of people who really enjoy this somewhat bizarre but entertaining show. http://tv.gsn.com/shows/baggage     Well, there's the link. I hope you enjoy the show. I'm CE Wills.

    Hey, everyone. If you're like me, you're constantly on the lookout for good books, games and movies. I often ask people, "Have you read any good books lately?" Also, if someone tips you off to a bad book, it will save you some money.    Recently, someone mentioned the Fantasy novel called The Lost Gate , by Orson Scott Card. I went over to Amazon and bought it as an E-Book for a hefty $12.00 or so. I won't even begin to rant on the price of E-Books right now.      Fantasy is something I rarely read. Science Fiction is preferred to Fantasy but I don't even read much Sci-Fi any more. When I was a teen, I read the Rings Trilogy and I liked it okay, though I've never watched any of the movies. So when I say that I liked this book fairly well but I didn't love it, keep in mind that you may love it if you love the genre. Here's the recipe for the book.     Danny is a 12-year old boy who lives in a compound with the Northers,...

    Hey, everyone. This is a maple leaf. In the spring you see some tree's leaves get this odd coloration. I suppose it is merely a fungus or perhaps the reaction to some sort of insect chewing on the leaf. I've been meaning to go to Wikipedia and look it up. If the close-up was better, you could see there are 3 red balls on a white background. On the same tree was another leaf with a dozen similar spots. It appeared like a shotgun pattern. However, there was no 3 ball design on the leaf with the multiple design. Cool, huh?     Finally, we have a tree called Yellow Poplar or Tulip Poplar, here in the southeast U.S. In the spring they have these big blooms with a pretty orange cup. The trees themselves grow to a height of 50 or 60 feet. Excuse the dirt on this one but it rained overnight and I just picked this sample off the ground. Poplars grow fast but are rather brittle and won't take the beating an oak or hickory will. An oak or a hickory takes many yea...

    Sometimes, after a bad day, you have a dream that tends to make up for your struggles just a bit. Last night, for unknown reasons, I had a really cool dream. You folks that are professional or amateur shrinks will enjoy this one.     My wife and I had just moved into a new home. There was almost no furniture in the place. My keyboard was there and a few other things. I remember the keyboard specifically because of the unique visitors that dropped by. John Lennon and Ringo Starr were the visitors. John was goofing around with the keyboard and he and I were having a bit of a problem getting the sound system the way we wanted it. I remember thinking, "Here I have Ringo at the house and I don't have any freaking drums for him to play. Two years ago I started to buy a set of electronic drums; I wish now that I had." The question begs to be asked, "Would Ringo even play a set of those?"      I was completely at ease in the dream and it d...

    Hey, everyone. Well, it was a rainy evening here at the green retreat. We had a couple of visitors drop by without calling first, but it didn't bug me. One of them was a skinny lady with long legs. The other lady was wearing a green cape, very fashionable. I suspect she wasn't from around here. The one with the skinny legs was peeking in the back door as I was playing a few Beatles tunes on keyboard. I figure that Ticket To Ride struck some memory deep within her.   The insects are incredible here at the green retreat. Ticks are particularly bad this spring. I pulled 3 of the little suckers off me after I returned from the woods the other day. This morning I took a big pair of hedge trimmers down our trail and cut back some tree limbs so that the hitch-hikers would have to be more athletic to get on us. Sometimes they will jump out of this hickory tree that hangs above the deck and get on you. I don't really think they jump, like a ninja tick or something. I gu...

    Hey, everyone. I was just sitting on the deck, listening to some good tunes and sipping on a Jamaican beer called Red Stripe. It's a heavy beer and I don't drink it very often. When it's right, it's really good. I had been mowing and doing some laborious things which is not my strong suite, but it's my experience that if you're down, start working and you'll come out of your funk.     The old Jimmy Buffett song came on and I know you'll remember it. Come Monday is a good one. As I sat there listening, I remembered a summer evening with my wife. We were in Illinois for a few months on a contract engineering job. So it was a good opportunity to catch a concert. We went to the north side of Chicago to an open air concert with the beach music king, Mr. Buffett. It was packed out and there were even folks sitting on the grass. They'd even brought their blankets and spread them out. A picnic or two was in progress. Couples were popping a bottle of win...

    One of the greatest movies of all time was Caddy Shack with a veritable who's who of comedy talent that included Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield. For the purposes of this blog, Bill Murray was the central character, or rather, he stole the entire movie by his brilliant portrayal of a grungy groundskeeper at a posh country club.     One of the most endearing moments of the movie came when Bill Murray was fantasizing about being a great golfer, playing and winning the Masters. He was whispering to himself. "It's the rookie sensation, came out of nowhere. He now stands over this final putt with the championship within his grasp. A hush falls over the crowd."     Last night I was playing my I-Pad game called Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12. Though initially very difficult, I am beginning to get the hang of it. Coincidentally, I am beginning to enjoy the game very much.     I'm learning the nuances of the game. For...

Hey, everyone. We have had a little Google Blogger outage and it's good to be back with you. May I start by saying how much I appreciate Google for providing this blog service free of charge. It's really a cool service when you think about it and I was raised not to gripe about free stuff. Dad called that 'Looking a gift horse in the mouth'. I also really enjoy their Google News and G-Mail, which is free. So there are no complaints from this quarter. Thunder is rumbling all around and it's sprinkling rain and overcast. That makes it nicer to sit indoors and 'get my geek on'. I've been outside all morning cleaning sidewalks and decks, messing with my car and all that stuff. Before I forget, I'd like to take time to thank Mark Stewart for his kind review of Shenandoah , over on Smashwords. Mark is an Australian author and has published many short stories and novels. I just finished reading Big Black Shiny Boots and loved the surprise ending. I have ...

Hey, everyone. Our friends at Tatum Games have released another good game for I-Pad. It's called Robo Sockets, Link Me Up . It has a free version and the paid version is 99 cents. If you're like me, you'll probably try the free version, then buy the full version. Here's the recipe. You have a vertical board onto which these robots are falling. They have faces and little socket arms sticking out. Sometimes they stick out on top of the robot. Sometimes they stick out on one, or both sides. Sometimes they protrude from the bottom or heck, all sides. Your mission is to link up these sockets until you get 5 robots hooked up which is when they hit critical mass and explode. This is good because it gets the little boogers out of your way. If they pile up too high and interfere with the new robots falling in, it's game over. One thing I like about this game is the fact that it changes as you go along. For instance, you begin to get things like a bomb that destroys a whole l...

Hey, everyone. So, you're bored with most of your games? Here's some new ones that you may like. We'll start with Frisbee Forever. It's free and it's fun, which is a lot to say about a game. This quirky little game has nice music and engaging game play. You'll like it. If this game wasn't designed by a dude from California, I would be surprised. Get it on the app store, if you want to. Here's the recipe. In this game you are a Frisbee thrower who takes on several courses, each with multiple levels. The object of the game is to throw your Frisbee through target rings. Sounds easy, sure, but noooooo. You have the choice of controlling the flight of your disc with your finger or by tilting the device. I opted for using my finger. As your Frisbee flies along, you have the chance to contact these stars. This is important because they give you added distance on the levels with several target rings. The screens are crisp and sharp, with nice colors. I like the ...

Hey, everyone. The buzz has become a bit more than buzz concerning the Amazon tablet. I saw several articles on Google news about Amazon ordering 800,000 touchscreen tablets from Taiwan. A few days ago I almost jokingly declared that this was "the tablet decade". It probably is just that. Would you rather sit in a desk chair and surf the web or pile up in your recliner? Duh. Another big attraction of the tablet is that it is truly a 'personal' computer. Your own stuff on it. Yours. Not shared. If you want a picture of a deer track for a screen saver that's your business. You can have your games, and not ones that you hate, on there. If you want 2000 romance novels on it, so what? Set up all the news sources you like, your music lists, email. By the way, I hope you don't think I have 2000 romance novels on my I-Pad. I was making a point. 3 out of the big 6 publishers are starting their own web site to sell e-books. Interesting. This e-book thing is taking on ...

Hey, everyone. Well, it's date night in America. If you are taking your lady out on the town, maybe you should take her to see Thor. My wife says that she rates it 3.5 stars out of 5 but I give it 4.5 stars out of 5. We went to see it today and really enjoyed it. More as a matter of timing than anything else, we saw the regular version and not the 3d. If 3d makes it any cooler, I may have to go back and watch it again. The computer animated scenes of Asgard, which is Thor's home turf, are both good and bad. The scenes of the buildings were not as good as I expected, but everything else was awesome. The Rainbow Bridge looked real and the battles were very cool. When Thor did that deal, like in the comics, where he spins that big hammer super fast and creates a vortex, well, I was into that stuff. The Aussie who plays Thor was born to play this role. To say that he nailed the role fails to do him justice. The dude is Thor. His name is Chris Hemsworth and doubtless, if we hired ...

Hey, everyone. I try to keep up with things in the ebook world. I see that Amazon has changed their policy concerning short stories and novelettes on Kindle publishing. They call the new segment Kindle Singles . This is a great option for the many people who prefer short stories and a great opportunity for authors to make some money. I understand that David Baldacci's short story sold 50,000 copies in the first week at the modest price of 99 cents. Previously, ebooks had to be novel length. I have three novels over there out of my 6 or 8 total. I forget how many I have written at the moment. I have been over there tonight, preparing to upload all the others, which are already at I-Books, Smashwords, Kobo, Sony, Diesel and a few other places. The problem is, I have forgotten all the details of uploading to Amazon and I will have to relearn it, which is a drag. I have to change the file format to DOC and to do that I have to go through some old stuff that instructed me how to do that...

Hey, everyone. I have had a tough week with lots going on. Pressing business matters, among other things. This has prevented me from seeing Thor , which is a major drag. I hate it when life and responsibilities interfere with fun and recreation. I have been having problems with the Blogger service. I couldn't post because I kept getting this spinner, like it was loading the page. Fortunately, a nice lady on the blogger help page posted a comment that helped me. If you use blogger to post your own blog, do the following until Google fixes the issue. 1. Sign in. 2. Go to settings. 3. Go to basic. 4. Go to the place where you select "old editor" or "new editor". 5. Select "old editor" until they fix the problem. Speaking of Thor , I read on the web that a lot of people are opting to view it without the 3d feature. That saves you a few bucks and the 3d thing seems to bother me just a bit. Of course there are twice as many show-times for 3d. Make y...

    When it comes to gaming on IOS (Apple), or any other system, really, there are two distinct types of gamers. I'm not speaking here of the Casual Gamer Syndrome or the Hardcore Gamer like I have mentioned in a previous post called CGS. That was about the intensity, or passion for gaming that might or might not grip a player.      No, I'm talking about the games people play. (Sounds like an old tune by Joe South). My wife, for example, is the Puzzler supremo. Sometimes when she is playing Scrabble or The Treasures of Montezuma , or a dozen other games, I feel like saying "earth calling".       Then I try her Cover Orange or whatever and I say: 1. "You actually enjoy this?" 2. "Why do you enjoy difficulty?" 3. "Games are supposed to be fun. I.E. you blow stuff up, right?"     Then when she tries to play Rage or Carnivores , she says: 1. "Killing things is fun? Is that sick?" 2. "How does one relax while pla...

    I was reading a very interesting article about Paul Simon. Yes, the guy from the former singing duo of Simon and Garfunkel. This was in the current issue of Rolling Stone and I gathered no moss in reading it because I have long been a fan of that pair. Nicholas Dawidoff wrote the story and did a good job. Here's a few things from the article that might interest you or surprise you. 1. Paul Simon has been married three times and has several children. 2. Paul was married to Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame. 3.The line, "Sail on silver girl" from Bridge Over Troubled Water refers to his first wife's discovery of her first gray hairs. 4. "Hello darkness, my old friend" from Sound Of Silence came about because Paul liked to turn off the lights in his bathroom and sing, since the tiles gave forth good acoustics. This was in his teens while he was living with his folks. 5. Garfunkel used to hitchhike from one gig to another.        My ma...

    Hey, everyone. I hung around the house today. Among other things I played some songs on the keyboard. I played from a book of American folk songs and it was a lot of fun. There were songs like Old Susanna and Red River Valley. I noticed one that I didn't know called Shenandoah . I played it and found it to be one of the most beautiful, haunting melodies I've ever heard. Some songs just touch a cord in certain people as I am sure you know.     I played it 5 or 6 times and decided to go and hear it on I-Tunes. I listened to several versions and bought one by Haley Westenra which is terrific.     I began to play the song again (on my keyboard ) and meditate on what the writer had been going through when he wrote it and I came up with my own story for the guy. Then I decided to write it out for a short story. Before I did that I went to Wikipedia and did a search on the song.    No one knows who wrote it, though there are plenty...

    Hey, everyone. I was thinking about the I-Pad 2 today and wondered whether or not those that have an I-Pad 1 should upgrade. My original I-Pad did most things the Deuce will do and I don't see why most folks couldn't just use their 'old one' for a while. Unless you have to have the latest of everything, of course. The I-Pad 2 does have the face time feature for video calling and a pretty decent camera. It surfs the web faster and has the potential for much better gaming. The thickness and weight is immaterial to me as long as the build quality and durability is not hindered. So, my advice is to watch for I-Pad 3 and save your dough. Of course, if you sell your old Padster there won't be that bad of a cash outlay, anyway.     As I drive through the mountains up here I have been seeing mysterious purple boxes. They are hanging in trees and I thought they might have been intended to attract a certain kind of bird in hopes that they would build a nest ther...