CE Wills

    Hey, everyone. I have had an interesting day, here at the author's green retreat. My heating and air unit was visited by a frog. I am not sure how long the little guy has been around, but he was inside the grill for the fan box. One day he would be on the left and the next day he would be on the right. My wife opined that he was one of those frogs who like to live on the edge. He thought that it would be cool to ride the air coming off the blades, like a skydiver floating in a wind-tunnel. This is certainly a worthy hypothesis but I had another thought about the long-legged rascal.       I decided to name him Thespian, King of Frogs. I figured that he was trying to find a better land for his people to live in. He saw that the moisture from the unit's condensate line would provide clean water. There would be a few bugs drawn to the water, which would provide some nutrition. There was the added plus in the fact that no cat could reach a frog that wa...

   Hey, everyone. I just watched the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony for Baseball in Cooperstown, N.Y. I made it a point to watch the festivities this year because of the inclusion of Bobby Cox, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddox.     As a longtime fan of the Atlanta Braves, I would have loved to have been in Cooperstown today for this event. That was not possible. I do want to congratulate these men and also the other inductees, Joe Torre, Frank Thomas and Tony LaRussa.     I enjoyed the speeches of the former Braves. These words exemplified the careers of the men. They were done with style, poise and class. Glavine talked about taking Smoltzie's money on the golf course and Maddox said he spent his career watching his kids grow up, winning division titles and watching John's hair fall out.      I followed the Braves from their time in Milwaukee, so of course I watched Glavine, Maddox, Smoltz and Avery during their entire caree...

        Hey, everyone. I was just thinking about phones. A useful tool with a long history of service. I can remember days when I actually dared to go somewhere without one.      When I was a kid, we didn't have a phone. Most people didn't. Maybe, there was a store nearby that one could go to, in an emergency, to use a phone. Then there were the days when there were"party lines". No, this did not indicate nights of wild revelry with nicely shaped phones. Rather, it meant that a certain number of households would have a common line and number, so that a call would ring perhaps 6 or 7 houses. Believe it or not, some people used this primitive tech to eavesdrop on their neighbors discussions. Today we do this and call it a conference call.      I remember the days when a phone was never carried on one's person. There was a line that attached them to the wall and they were massive and heavy. They were even used to ki...

    Hey, everyone. I stopped by Best Buy the other day and had a nice chat with a rep from Samsung. He was a pleasant bloke and he had his own display there at the store, devoted mostly to tablets. He had a thick piece of magic glass there on the counter and told me that if he hooked an I-Pad to it, that the device would sense the apps contained on the I-Pad and install the Android equivalent on a Samsung tablet, free of charge.     This is brilliant marketing by Samsung, because many people believe themselves locked into the Apple system once they have the gear and the attendant apps, music and games. Apple is King of tablets, but the competition grows more fierce as each day passes.     I walked down the tablet isle at Best Buy and marveled at the variety and prices. There were tablets as low as $47. I started to buy a new tablet myself, just for something new to mess with. My son has been showing me his new tablet ...

         Hey, everyone. This evening I am awaiting the arrival of Modern Combat's newest version to your friendly neighborhood app store. While I am sure it will be a great game, I have been playing another game today. It is entitled Western 1849 . I write some western stories and very much like gunmen of the old west. This is the story of a gunman who arrives in a town too tough to tame. Though a little green, the shootist takes over as the town's lawman and must rid the town of undesirables.     I started out with a 'Rubbish Gun'. No, I'm serious. That is what they called it. They are fair about the in-game gold coins, though, and even on my humble sheriff's salary, I was able to buy a secondary weapon called a common rifle. The rifle is important when the riff-raff you are fighting hides behind a cactus or on a rooftop that is a stretch for your Colt.       The gameplay is quite simple and quite fun, actu...

    Hey, everyone. I was just sitting on the porch, drinking my morning coffee. This is one of my favorite rituals. I noticed one of the local cardinals, a female, was alighting on one of the massive blooms of a Crepe Myrtle tree in my yard. When she did, blossoms went everywhere, cascading downward onto my lawn. Then she went to another bloom with a like result. Then another, and another. Soon it became apparent that she was purposely deflowering my tree on some sort of bird vendetta.     As you know, I recently had a cardinal family next to my chair, snug in their nest. They had the baby birds there and the whole domestic scene. Cool. They survived their infancy just fine and moved to other quarters recently. We got along great because I kept the cat away from them. During their residency, I did a blog about the rascals and mentioned that the lady cardinal was more drab in her mode of dress than the male.      It seems obvious to t...

   Game of Thrones Spoilers!    Hey, everyone. It is a rainy, cool July day here at the author's green retreat and I had a toothache.(No commercial intended.) So, I curled up in my recliner with some painkiller and began to work my way through the massive tome of A Storm of Swords . I must say that it is not as much fun, reading the books, once you have watched the shows. The HBO folks have done a fabulous job bringing these characters to life and I catch myself growing fond of certain characters, rogues though they may be.      I'll give you a 'for instance'. Jaime Lannister, for all his Kingslayer ways and devout kinkiness, has the rudiments of a good dude in there somewhere. The almost childlike naivete of the Knight girl (Knightess?) Brienne has restored in Jaime the desire to be a true knight. That is, to embrace those high ideals on which a knight hangs his hat. All that corny stuff like loyalty, chivalry to women, fierce devotion to h...